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.
publisher Gregory D. Hamilton [email protected] sales directors Andrea Prudente--International [email protected] Katie Taplett--Americas [email protected] director of finance John B. Connolly information marketing services Francoise Williams-Robin communications, custom media and on-line marketing Joseph D'Andrea
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.
German defense contractor Rheinmetall AG of Dusseldorf has received a €48-million ($65-million) contract to develop an air-defense system for the country’s forward operating bases, particularly in Afghanistan. The short-range NBS (Nachstbereichs-Schutzsystem, or short-range air-defense system) will intercept rockets, artillery and mortar rounds. The first fully functional unit is expected to be ready for deployment in the third quarter of 2009. NBS will upgrade the company’s existing Skyshield 35 system, which includes a command post, two 35-mm.
As the U.S. Air Force waits for the AMP/RERP program to deliver results, Air Mobility Command is depending on Russian Antonov An-124 transports. USAF averaged almost three An-124 charters per week in Fiscal Year 2006 and will equal or exceed that in FY '07. Until USAF sorts out its long-term requirements, that effort is likely to continue.
EDO Corp. is on a tear. The contractor, in business since 1925, has been expanding operations and growing revenue with 11 acquisitions. The activity began in 2000 with the purchase of electronics specialist AIL Technologies, and went right through 2006 with CAS Inc., which provides engineering services and weapon-system analysis to the Defense Dept., notably the Army, and Impact Science & Technology, a systems engineering and integration firm. EDO wants to be large and diverse enough to win major contracts in multiple areas.
The French navy is undertaking sea trials of Tonnerre, its second Mistral-class landing helicopter dock (LHD), before declaring it operational this summer. The first-in-class Mistral saw action last summer before being officially operational, when it evacuated nearly 1,000 civilians from Lebanon. Mistral's builder, DCNS, is pitching a slightly longer, less luxurious version of the LHDs to Australia, which wants to commission two amphibious ships by 2012.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush proposed to "surge" an extra 20,000 troops into Iraq in an effort to win back Baghdad from insurgents and militias. But he wasn't asking for anybody's approval. The first 5,000 troops were, in fact, already at the Kuwait-Iraq border with engines idling, waiting for the word "go."
Israel is building a facility to train troops to deal with a biological attack by terrorists. The Unconventional Terror Center, effectively a biological warfare simulation site, will open in April 2008. The 10-million-shekel ($2.5-million) facility will include a mock shopping center with movie theater and parking garage where troops can train for an attack in a public place. The design is similar to an urban combat-training facility. It will be part of the Israel Defense Force's Homefront Command headquarters in Ramia.
publisher Gregory D. Hamilton [email protected] sales directors Andrea Prudente--International [email protected] Katie Taplett--Americas [email protected] director of finance John B. Connolly information marketing services Francoise Williams-Robin communications, custom media and on-line marketing Joseph D'Andrea
A generational shift is underway in the undersea battlefield, led by conventional submarines that are anything but. These advanced submarines, able to stay submerged for the better part of a month—nearly silent, fully networked—are built in Kiel, Germany; Cherbourg, France; Cartagena, Spain; and Skaramanga, Greece. They’re putting German and French conglomerates on the world export map in a big way, riding a wave of radical improvements in the use of conventional air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems.
Lost in Translation Alan Shaffer, director of plans and programs in the Office of the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Science and Technology, says translation technology employed in Iraq and Afghanistan is not “good enough.” A big problem is getting accurate translations in noisy environments with multiple voices and ambient sounds, Shaffer told DTI during the ComDef West conference in San Diego in March. Technology that scans foreign language print materials is quite effective, said Shaffer, but it would be great to have translators that scan everything.
