REVIEWED BY SEAN MEADE HALSEY’S TYPHOON: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue BY BOB DRURY AND TOM CLAVIN Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007 322 pp., $25.00 When Jack Ryan and Captain Marko Ramius first meet in The Hunt for Red October, they stumble into a discussion about Ryan’s books. Ramius says, “You were wrong, Ryan. Halsey acted stupidly.”
India’s vibrant economy, growing wealth and reliance on the sea for trade is forcing the country’s navy to reassess operational needs and invest in technology and capital equipment. With 95% of the value of India’s trade moving by sea, the navy and coast guard must increasingly conduct low-intensity maritime operations and project adequate force over a considerable range of territory: 7,516 km. (4,670 mi.) of coastline, 1,197 islands and more than 2 million sq. km. of an economic exclusion zone.
The need to destroy hardened targets deep beneath rock or concrete is launching an arms race of sorts in bomb design. The U.S. Air Force’s current deep penetrator is the 4,600-lb. BLU-113, which can break through 8 meters (26 ft.) of rock or concrete. Larger weapons, such as the 30,000-lb. Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) from Boeing, will reportedly go through 40 meters of moderately hard rock and up to 61 meters of earth or soft rock.
One of the best parts of online journalism is the ability to link to pertinent material, including multimedia. This is a good format for news stories, often better than print, with its space and presentation limitations. We can tell our stories more richly online, and update them in minutes with all types of content—from Government Accountability Office reports to South Park video clips.
The littoral waters of the Adriatic witnessed a major naval confrontation in October. For several days, two forces maneuvered at close quarters in the narrow sea, assessing each other’s intentions, ready to open fire on command. The conflict ended peacefully; neither side, in fact, was ever in danger. The confrontation, called Noble Midas 07, was not between enemies, but a test of NATO’s efforts to transform its armed forces into a combined/joint crisis-response team that can deploy anywhere in the world.
The Royal Danish Navy successfully test fired its new Rheinmetall-supplied Oerlikon Millennium 35-mm. naval gun systems, installed on the flexible combat support ship HDMS Absalon, the supplier reports. Surface and air targets were engaged during the firings, which occurred in November. The firings were part of acceptance tests off the Danish coast. Both practice and war stock Ahead ammunition, each made by subsidiary Oerlikon Contraves in Switzerland, were used. Absalon is equipped with two Millennium guns, one forward and one aft.
The Royal Air Force is buying 10 more MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., adding to the three aircraft ordered in late 2006. The first of the initial batch became operational in Afghanistan last October, and the RAF expects to have all three aircraft, 10 crews and a ground-control system in use by April. Total value of the new contract—including nine APY-8 Lynx radars and nine DAS-1 Multi-Spectral Targeting Systems and spares—is $1.07 billion.
Developments in sea-based missile defense and coastal surveillance were among features at the Maritime Systems and Technology (MAST) exhibition in Genoa last November. Missile manufacturer MBDA discussed its strategy to upgrade Paams, the principal anti-air missile system, on the latest British, French and Italian destroyers, with a theater ballistic missile defense capability.
Singapore’s position at the southern tip of the Malaysian peninsula, astride some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, means that extended-range air and sea surveillance and control are required to ensure the unimpeded flow of trade and capital that make it the economic hub of Southeast Asia. Its military readiness is reflected in major procurement programs that are expanding the tiny nation’s capabilities for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and long-range precision strike.
In October and November, 35 teams comprising hundreds of engineers, computer programmers and roboticists gathered in Victorville, Calif., for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s $3.5-million Urban Challenge robot race, whose goal was advancing the technology that might one day remove human drivers from military convoys in war zones. The event, which saw robotic trucks and SUVs dodge human-driven cars and each other on a 60-mi. course, drew thousands of spectators and hundreds of reporters (DTI December 2007, p. 32).
The prospect of war in space drives strategic thinking at the Pentagon about ways to defend U.S. satellites. The galvanizing incident came on Jan. 11, 2007, when China destroyed one of its weather satellites with a ground-based ballistic missile. U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, speaking at a conference last fall, termed the shoot-down an “egregious act,” and claimed that the Chinese were sending a message to the U.S. military that China views space as a battlefield.
Some big defense competitions end up giving the customer a choice of similar solutions, with the result determined by price. The U.S. Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) program is not one of them.
Got Exoskeleton? Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a prototype exoskeleton that relieves 80% of the burden of an 80-lb. pack. This makes it handy for dismounted soldiers, but there is a tradeoff: It impedes a walker’s gait and requires a user to consume 10% more oxygen than normal. The spring-based device, however, only requires a 1-watt power source. Solve the problem with the gait, and it could be viable.
Hide in Plain Sight Invisibility cloaks have been making news this year, with university researchers around the world demonstrating the usefulness of metamaterials, small coils and wires that bend light waves around an object to make it seem invisible. But the U.K. Ministry of Defense confirms that its Royal Engineers and scientists from research agency Qinetiq are testing technology that makes tanks and troops invisible by simpler means: cameras and projectors.
A U.S. biotech firm is the latest company to develop a compound aimed at stanching a common and deadly battlefield injury—arteries ripped open by bullets and shrapnel.
Programmable Matter The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is launching a program that will enable mesoscale building blocks to reversibly assemble into 3D objects. The capability could be used by soldiers to create an “instant toolkit” in which an amorphous material is programmed to turn into a wrench, screw driver or hammer on demand and then revert to its original form for reuse. Mesoparticle-based construction is the key because mesoparticles, which are up to 1 cm., can have a variety of shapes, sizes and compositions, Darpa says.
Sniper Boost Much has been written about the Pentagon’s rising R&D budget for technologies that counter snipers, but less is known about how well U.S. snipers perform in Iraq and Afghanistan. It turns out that heavy crosswinds are, not surprisingly, a problem. A sniper can miss a target just 400 meters (1,312 ft.) away in winds of only 5-10 mph.
Improvised explosive devices (IED) cause more casualties among U.S. forces than any other weapons in Iraq. But even though there’s been a six-fold increase in IEDs, bomb handlers are clearing half of them, with the casualty rate holding steady over the past two years.
Laser Avenger The U.S. Army and Boeing Corp. demonstrated a new vehicle-mounted laser that can defeat roadside bombs and unexploded ordnance. The Laser Avenger was successfully tested in September at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., where it destroyed five targets and two small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) on the ground. Laser Avenger, with a 1-kw. solid-state laser, proves that directed-energy weapons are ready to deploy, according to Boeing, which developed the system in less than eight months.
Commanders directing stability and counterinsurgency operations in hostile territory sometimes face a difficult choice: Should they take more troops and more money to parcel out to locals for reconstruction, or take fewer troops and less cash, but a vastly superior communications network, giving platoon- and company-level units better real-time intelligence and the ability to change plans on-the-fly?
The Pentagon in a surprise move added 2,380 orders to the first round of Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicle purchases: 1,000 from Navistar/International Trucks, 780 from Force Protection and 600 from BAE. The orders solidify the dominant positions these companies have among the roughly dozen MRAP manufacturers (DTI October, p. 46). Foreign armies are taking notice of the 15-25-ton armored trucks. In November Spain announced a two-phase competition to buy as many as 575 MRAP-style vehicles through 2013. Some of the successful U.S.
“Half of today’s warfighters grew up with a game controller in their hands,” says Drew Lytle, group manager for Microsoft’s new ESP platform. “They’re ready to learn in this manner. Textbooks don’t cut it.” But traditional simulations don’t meet the need either. At this summer’s DarpaTech convention in Anaheim, Calif., the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency outlined a project called RealWorld to develop “simulation without software.”
Convoys are prime targets for insurgents who can inflict heavy losses on a force with a simple combination of roadside bombs followed by attacks on disabled vehicles. Protection can be improved, however, through the coordinated use of ground and air technologies that include armored vehicles, robots, sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Northrop Grumman and its partners are building two X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) prototypes for the U.S. Navy. The challenge is to accomplish by 2011 a trifecta of firsts: the first tailless aircraft, the first stealth-configured aircraft and the first unmanned aircraft to land on a carrier. Along with that comes the challenge of managing an unmanned aircraft on the carrier deck, a tight and unforgiving environment where, until now, every vehicle has been controlled by human hand signals.
