Once touted as a key program in the Pentagon’s efforts to transform the military, the Joint Tactical Radio System fell on hard times around two years ago. Cost overruns and production problems caused Congress to mandate a pause in the development of the software-defined radios while telling the Pentagon to re-examine the program’s direction.
Software that uses virtual reality to train maintenance crews in servicing weapons systems was unveiled by Nexter Systems of France at the Paris air show. GVT (generic virtual training) software is based on technology developed by Nexter for use in training programs with the Leclerc main battle tank and Caesar self-propelled 155-mm. howitzer.
In 1987, the U.S. military didn’t have the worldwide reputation for tactical prowess that it does now. The disastrous hostage rescue attempt in Iran in 1980 still hung like a pall over the four services. So the Pentagon had a lot to prove when a joint task force assembled to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers that were placed in harm’s way by the Iran-Iraq war. In Wise’s compelling book, the tense escorts, daring special forces raids, and intelligence operations represent the tentative first steps of the reborn post-Vietnam U.S.
Features fight or flight 26 Dutch peacekeepers rout the Taliban, but the real battle they face is with politicians at home. cut loose 30 French researchers push autonomous capabilities in upgrading unmanned underwater vehicles. loud and clear 34 Software-defined radios are the future of battlefield communication despite program static. drone on 37 Vertical-takeoff UAVs find a high-profile niche as reliable workhorses for specialized operations.
An old cliché has it that you can't tell the players without a program, a way of saying that some material is must reading for people who want to be well informed, whether sitting in a ballpark, running a business, or in government service or the military.
Defense Technology International's staff has been on the move. While David Axe took a relaxing break in the unspoiled surroundings of Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan, Joris Janssen Lok and I toughed it out at the Paris air show. Is a severely ripe Camembert any less dangerous than an EFP? When you bring those perspectives together and add some of the other topics we're covering in this magazine, though, the contrasts can induce enough cognitive dissonance to knock you out of your chair.
The Active Denial System, a nonlethal directed-energy weapon that conjures science fiction visions of warfare, is almost ready for deployment. Or maybe not. The weapon offers impressive new capabilities for crowd control and perimeter security, but despite the Pentagon’s best efforts, a deployment date keeps slipping farther into the future.
A new glass-ceramic monolithic ballistic armor plate designed to withstand multiple hits is at the core of the latest body armor supplied to the Israel Defense Forces by Plasan Sasa and Rabintex. The plates reportedly provide increased protection at low weight and for less cost. A vest with the plates weighs about 8 kg. (17.6 lb.). The glass-ceramic plates are said to cost 25% that of plates made with materials like alumina or ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene fibers. The insert, made by GlassCeraX Ltd.
Britannia rules the waves, the old standard declares, but now it looks like it’s going to share them with France—at least when it comes to launching the next generation of aircraft carriers. Britain and France are on the verge of signing an agreement calling for three carriers to be designed and built in an Anglo-French partnership. The deal would be a milestone in cooperation between two countries with major differences in naval strategies and operational needs.
The U.S. Army is adding technology to reduce the time it takes to spot enemies from the air, verify their identity, and kill them with a helicopter or drone.
Features Power couple 28 Anglo-French partnership is developing a new generation of aircraft carriers. flexible defense 32 Ground-based air- and missile-defense systems protect land targets from multiple airborne threats. keeping calm 37 Australian and New Zealand troops maintain a low-key but watchful presence in East Timor. closing the gap 42 Airbus is poised to give U.S. aircraft makers a run for their money in the strategic airlift market. Global Dispatches
The U.S. Navy is preparing to improve airborne surveillance with the rollout of two test aircraft under a $2-billion system demonstration and development contract with Northrop Grumman. The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye looks like the E-2C Hawkeye, but it’s been redesigned with entirely new sensors. This includes an APY-9 radar from Lockheed Martin that detects small targets such as smugglers and terrorists in boats. The radar features a new rotodome antenna from L-3 Communications that provides 360-deg.
The military and the media are losing control over how conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas are reported. This is significant because the central battlefield for many military operations is now public opinion. The outcome of this struggle, which is increasingly waged on Internet web sites, chat rooms and satellite television by extremists, insurgents and terror groups, will determine who the public perceives to be winning and losing a war.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is investing in a hydrogen battery developed by Millennium Cell Inc., of Eatontown, N.J., that will enable warfighters to refuel batteries with any water-based liquid, including brackish water and urine. Conventional batteries are sealed, so when their fuel is spent, they must be replaced or recharged. Hydrogen batteries, by comparison, can be refueled on the spot, which also means they don’t have to be as big as conventional batteries.
Russia's armed forces will receive the first new-generation, Almaz-Antey S-400 Triumf air-defense systems later this year. Col.-Gen. Yuri Soloviev, head of the air force special command, says units that protect Moscow will be the first to get the long-range system. Plans call for acquisition of 23 Triumf battalions through 2015, at a rate of two regiments per year. The S-400 is a joint system that replaces the S-300V (known by NATO as the SA-12 Gladiator) in the army and the S-300PMU (SA-10 Grumble) in the air-defense force.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is preparing to launch a program to demonstrate “free-flying fractionated spacecraft,” which means a large or small satellite could be decomposed into a set of smaller spacecraft and launched separately into orbit, with each mini-satellite carrying out a specific task such as solar power, computing and data or telemetry and communications. The concept of launching satellite components separately and assembling them in a cluster in space isn’t new, but Darpa departs from convention with the idea of free flying.
A convoy manned by members of a combined U.S. Air Force and army reconstruction team, with an Afghan army security detail, was trundling toward the town of Zabul in southeast Afghanistan last fall when Taliban fighters opened fire, killing one Afghan.
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On the mean streets of Baghdad, death can be as close as the next block and totally unexpected--as much the result of miscommunication as of sectarian violence.
Snipers are an ongoing problem in Iraq and Afghanistan, one that has prompted a surge in research to pinpoint their locations using acoustic sensors to track muzzle blasts (April DTI, p. 11). Now the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants to catch snipers before they even fire their weapons. Darpa held a closed-door industry day in May to gather input on a new anti-sniper program called C-Sniper.
Armored vehicles, observation posts and buildings may soon be equipped with low-cost, lightweight netting that protects them against shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades such as the RPG-7. The netting, developed by research lab TNO Defense, Security and Safety, part of the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research in Delft, is claimed to provide better protection than the heavy and cumbersome metal slats installed on U.S. Army Stryker vehicles in Iraq.
