Tip for Defense Tech?

SEND IT!

(Guaranteed Confidential)       

Subscribe via RSS

Archives by Date
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009

See all Archives
Archives by Category
'Canes
Afghan Update
Ammo and Munitions
Armor
Around the Globe
Av Week Extra
Axe in Iraq (and Elsewhere)
Bizarro
Blimps
Blog Bidness
Body Armor Blues
Bomb Squad
Brownshoes in Action
Bubbleheads, etc.
Cammo Green
Catch the "Buzz"
Chem-Bio
Civilian Apps
Cloak and Dagger
Commandos
Comms
Contingency Ops
Cops and Robbers
Cyber-warfare
Data Diving
Defense Tech Poll
Defense Tech Radio
Dissent Tech
Door Kickers
Drones
DT Administrivia
Eat DT's Dust
Extra! Extra!
Eye on China
Fast Movers
FCS Watch
Fire for Effect
FOS Files
Friday Funnies
Gadgets and Gear
Going Green
Grand Ole Osprey
Ground Vehicles
Guns
Homeland Security
In the Weeds with Eric
Info War
Iraq Diary
Jarhead Jazz
JSF Watch
Just War Theories
Lasers and Ray Guns
Less-lethal
Logistics
Los Alamos and Labs
M4 Monopoly
Medic!
Mercs
Missiles
Money Money Money
Most Wanted
MRAP Edge
Net-Centric
Nukes
Old Skool
Our Shrinking Planet
Planes, Copters, Blimps
Podcast
Politricks
Polmar's Perspective
Popular Mechanics
Rapid Fire
Raptor Watch
Red Team
Retro-Futuro
Robots
Roll Your Own
Sabra Tech
Ships and Subs
Snipertech
Soldier Systems
Space
Special Ops
Star Wars
Strategery
Stray Trons
Tactical Development
Terror Tech
The Deadlies
The Defense Biz
The Peoples' Site
The Sunday Paper
The Tanker Tango
The View from Av Week
Those Nutty Norks
Training and Sims
Trimble on the Case
Video Lounge
War Update
Ward'z Wonderz
You can run...

See all Archives
Related Links
News and Intel
DoD Buzz
Military.com News
Defense News at Aviation Week
Natl Defense Mag
Strategy Page
Global Security Newswire
Soldiers for the Truth
Security News
Defense Review
Fed Comp Week

Security Sources
GlobalSecurity.Org
Fed Am Sci
CSIS
Ctr for Defense Info
Defense & Natl Interest
Instit for Sci & Intl Secy
Secrecy News
POGO
Cryptome
The Memory Hole
Natl Security Archive

Geeks and Mad Scientists
Slashdot
Wired News
Security Focus
The Register
Gizmodo
Geek Press
Robots.Net
Cosmic Log
Space Daily
New Scientist
TechCentralStation
Engadget
Space.Com
Technology Review
Gyre
Near Near Future
Fed Dev Blog

Bloggers and Buddies
Phil Carter
Global Guerillas
Jeffrey Lewis
Milblogging
OPFOR
Laura Rozen
Larisa Alexandrovna
Juan Cole
Ryan Singel
Josh Marshall
Cursor
Boing Boing
InstaPundit
Winds of Change
Tapped
TalkLeft
Brad DeLong
Mountain Runner
Gene Healy
Clive Thompson
Greg Djerejian
Jeff Quinton
Workbench
Electrolite
Jim Henley
War in Context
Kathryn Cramer
Wash Park Prophet
Blogs of War
Tom Shachtman
PoliceLink.com
NursingLink.com
Breach-Bang-Clear

Official Dispatches
DARPA
AF Research Lab
Marine War Lab
Soldier Systems Ctr
Naval Research
Army Research Lab
UK Def Sci Lab
NASA News
DoJ Cybercrime

Military Network
Military Benefits
Veteran Employment
GI Bill Express
Personnel Locator
Free ASVAB
The Few
Fred's Place
Army Insider
Navy Insider
Air Force Insider
Marine Corps Insider
Coast Guard Insider



Edited by Christian Lowe | Contact

Osprey to Deploy With New Firepower

osprey-gunSMALL.jpg

The Marine Corps is taking the Osprey to its fight in Afghanistan – and it’s a more lethal version than the MV-22 the Corps’ top aviation officer credited with helping tame Iraq’s Anbar province.

Pending successful testing, the Corps plans to deploy a contingent of recently developed weapons system kits that will provide the MV-22 Osprey with 360-degree firepower, according to Lt. Gen. George J. Trautman III, deputy commandant for aviation.

But Trautman confessed the Corps won’t rack up body counts with the new weapon, which is defensive in nature, designed for fire suppression during high-speed infil and exfil missions.

“I wouldn’t expect to kill a lot of people with this system,” Trautman said. “It’s a very difficult challenge without sophisticated fire control technology to be precise in your targeting.”

The Corps has ordered nine of the so-called Remote Guardian System kits, but hopes to buy scores more to outfit the entire fleet of MV-22 aircraft. The 7.62mm rotary cannon in the RGS is mounted in the belly of an Osprey and is controlled by a crewman with a video game-like joystick and video monitor.

The service is also working to upgrade the Osprey’s ramp-mounted machine gun to a .50 caliber version from its current M240 7.62mm machine gun.

The Osprey, Trautman boasts, will redefine the Afghan battle space where Leathernecks tangle with insurgent and Taliban forces in small units separated by 8,000-foot snow-capped mountains and vast rocky badlands.

“We’re incredibly confident [that] having the Osprey in that environment is going to pay dividends for our forces, and that’s why we are intently focused on getting the aircraft into that theater,” he said during an interview with military bloggers.

Trautman said the Corps’ aim is to deploy a handful of RGS detachable mission kits armed with surveillance capabilities on an MV-22 squadron bound for Afghanistan’s harsh environment this fall.

Thousands of Marines are expected to join in the increased American troop presence in Afghanistan following President Barack Obama’s call for 10,000 more boots and rifles to wrest control from a resurgent Taliban.

Continue reading "Osprey to Deploy With New Firepower"

Meet the Neptune

It’s six feet long, has seven foot wings, comes in its own launching case and weighs 135 pounds. Commanders will be able to fly eyes well over the horizon — at sea or land — without a pilot or even a runway with a new, portable unmanned aerial vehicle called the Neptune under development by DRS Technologies. The battleship gray bird with collapsible wings for easy storage can be set up for pneumatic launched within minutes, says Jeff Singleton, business development communications manager for Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.-based DRS.

In the air, it’s powered by a two-stroke, 15 horsepower engine and can stay up for about three-and-a-half hours before it drops to the surface via parachute for recovery. Singleton says it has an operational range of about 50 nautical miles, with an ISR platform that is able to note distinguish vehicle or ship details from about five kilometers away.

“At about 1 1/2 kilometers it can recognize people, and can tell from about 600 meters what they’re doing,” he says.
While the UAV is capable of being flown remotely and even landed on skids, typical missions would include a programmed flight and recovery after parachute drop, Singleton said.

-- Bryant Jordan


Helos, Drones Up, FCS Down for Army

army-cammie.jpg

The Army’s 2010 budget request reflects the service’s shift of focus from the battlefields of Iraq to those of Afghanistan, with a heavy emphasis on delivering more rotary wing aviation, aerial drones and from fielding FCS equipped armored brigades to beefing up the combat power of its light infantry.

The Army requested $142 billion in the base budget for 2010 and an additional $83 billion to fund ongoing combat operations in the 2010 Overseas Contingency Operations request, previously known as emergency supplementals. The budget request fully funded the Army’s expansion to 547,400 active duty soldiers.

The massive FCS program is, of course, the hot budget issue when it comes to the Army and with Gates’ declaration that he would cancel the bulk of the program last month, the Army’s modernization strategy will shift from fielding 15 FCS equipped BCTs to building “a versatile mix of networked BCTs that leverage mobility, protection, precision, information and fires in order to be effective across the full spectrum of combat operations,” said Lt, Gen. Edgar Stanton, the services’ budget chief, in a briefing to Pentagon reporters.

The 2010 budget accelerates “spin-outs,” new technologies such as small ground robots and sensors, to all of the Army’s 72 BCTs, active and reserve, an effort that will probably take until 2025. Gates directed the Army to stop its expansion of BCTs at 45 instead of the originally planned 48. Stanton said the QDR will determine exactly what type of BCT mix the Army needs, as far as heavy, light infantry or Stryker, and he hinted it might include a requirement for more Stryker equipped brigades. I would expect the QDR to call for more Stryker brigades as they proved their versatility in irregular warfare during fighting in Iraq.

He said the service has already begun to “relook” the requirements for new armored vehicles to eventually replace the Abrams, Bradley, M-113 legacy fleet, and as per Gates’ guidance, will incorporate lessons from the ongoing wars in the vehicle’s design, specifically in providing greater protection against IEDs. Stanton made it clear that he didn’t much like Gates’ characterization of FCS as a Cold War relic. The Army expects to deliver a “concept proposal” for new vehicles by late summer. Given such an abbreviated timeline for rolling out a new plan, it’s difficult to imagine that the service will do much more than tweak the existing FCS vehicle design.

I pressed Stanton on that issue and he claimed the Army will “start with a blank sheet of paper,” but he also said it would be “prudent” to take into account the vehicle development work that’s already been done. The Army could even revisit the whole wheels versus tracks debate, he said, although that doesn’t seem very likely. Whatever the final design it would incorporate some form of the V-shaped blast deflecting hull design characteristic of the MRAP series of IED protected vehicles. He said the Army expects to come up with more details of where it goes in terms of new armored vehicles during the QDR strategic review.

The Army had originally planned to replace its Kiowa Warrior scout helicopter with the new Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, but the ARH program was recently cancelled so $235 million was included in the budget request to upgrade the Kiowa fleet. The Army is also spending around $500 million to train 150 new helicopter crews, and buy new Apaches and Chinooks for flight training, in an effort to bolster Army aviation in Afghanistan. Stanton said the mountainous terrain and lack of roads in Afghanistan puts a premium on helicopter transport.

The Army said its 2010 development and procurement budget is driven primarily by armor and sensor upgrades to the legacy armored fleet, newer helicopters and buying more aerial drones that will “advance the Army’s adaptation to combat environments where remote weapons platforms and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities play an increasingly prominent role.”

Additional 2010 development and procurement highlights include:

• $2.9 billion for further development of the FCS small unmanned ground vehicles, robots, small aerial drones, the information network and the non-line of sight missile system, the FCS spin-outs.

• $738 million for development of the WIN-T information network.

• $1.2 billion for 79 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters.

• $1.06 billion for 36 CH-47F Chinook helicopters, of which 25 will be new builds and 14 remanufactured aircraft.

• $736 million for 36 Sky Warrior drones, the Army variant of the Predator family armed drone.

• $370 million for remanufacture of 8 AH-64 Apaches to the Longbow Block 3 configuration.

• $326 million for Lakota Light Utility Helicopters.

Continue reading "Helos, Drones Up, FCS Down for Army"

Navy Fares OK in Slimmed Down Budget

dd-1000.jpg

It's a downsized Navy that, save for pirate sniping, is having a hard time grabbing the limelight in a ground-intensive war (sorry, contingency operation) against Islamic extremists.

So, you've just got to be ready for the knife when the bean counters try to find money for jeeps and cannons and wonder why you're spending $2 billion on subs, right?

Well, when the budget finally shook out for 2010, the Navy didn't stand in terrible shape. A few airplanes cut here, a ship or two there, but in the end, the sea service's top line increased by about $10 billion over 2009 to more than $156 billion, with another kicker of $15.3 billion for "overseas contingency operations" as the new GWOT is called (and most of that money is for Marine Corps vehicles, ammo and personnel).

Navy procurement jumped $5.7 billion to $44.8 billion, while research and development funding slumped $400 after the VH-71 presidential helo was axed.

Winners: DDG-51 with a one ship build in 2010 that restarts the line; one SSN-774 and some advanced money kicked in to build 12 Virginia class subs; two TAKE transport ships and another Joint High Speed Vessel; two more STOVL JSFs for a total of 16 funded in '10; one more C-40A (the admirals will love that); and six P-8A multi-mission aircraft beginning the Lot 1 LRIP buy and 325 new Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System missles designed to compliment the Hellfire rotor wing missiles.

Losers: DDG1000 one ship killed; LPD-17 no ships in 2010; one Maritime Prepositioning Force (Aviation) ship cancelled for a zero buy in 2010; and one MPF Mobile Landing Platform ship deep sixed for a zero buy; cut in half the number of Super Hornets from 18 to nine purchased in 2010, three MH-60Rs cut to 24, one E-2D cut for two; two KC-130Js cut for a zero buy and four T-6A trainers cut for a 38 aircraft buy and one MQ-8B drone cut for a five Fire Scout buy to match LCS needs.

The Navy is devoting $495 million to a ballistic missile sub replacement program for the 2030 timeframe -- the money will be used for propulsion and missile compartment research, LCS gets $361 million, $572 million for the CH-53K and $1.7 billion in R&D funds for the JSF program.

The Corps is finally going to get more of its Growler Internally Transportable Vehicles with 48 purchased in 2010 and 52 new Humvees. The Corps gets the lion's share of OCO funding, buying 18 LW155s, 933 Humvees and -- drumroll please -- ZERO MRAPs.

Navy officials said a lot of this will of course be dependent on Congresses concerns and also the mulling over the next Quadrennial Defense Review.

We'll have a lot more detail in the coming days as we analyze deep into the numbers, but that's a quick wrap up of what's going to the Blue-Green team.

-- Christian

2010 Budget Detail Rollout LIVE

We're going to host a live blog event today at 12:30pm EDT with Military.com Editor Ward Carroll who will discuss with Defense Tech and DoD Buzz readers the detailed 2010 Pentagon Budget rollout.

Make sure to watch the budget overview press conference on the Pentagon Channel at 12:30pm and come back here to chat with Ward as defense officials get into the weeds on what programs will survive the budget ax or fall victim to DoD belt tightening.

The gumshoes from Military.com, Defense Tech and DoD Buzz will be covering the individual service budget rollouts after the press conference, so stay tuned for further details as they emerge.

-- Christian

Corps Pushing Reborn EFV

EFV-disembark.jpg

After chronic problems with technology and cost overruns, the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle may actually have been steered onto the right path.

Existing prototypes suffered significant hydraulic and electrical problems, and there were issues with the feed and eject systems of the main gun, EFV Program Manager Col. Keith Moore told a group today at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space symposium.

For all intents and purposes, however, the EFV was bascially put back on the drawing board as designers sought to tackle issues that put its costs up and its schedule behind.

“It’s a complicated vehicle, with a lot of high-pressure hydraulics,” Moore said. “We had a lot of problems with leaks and contamination … and so there was early failure of hydraulic parts.” The electrical system being developed for the problem prototypes was too much of a reach, he said: “some cutting edge technology that … just wasn’t ready for prime time.”

The prototype now under development will rely on some earlier, reliable technology aided by software modifications. The hull to the prototype being built to the new design will begin detailed integration and assembly at the end of this month, he said.

Highly accelerated vibration and heat testing has been performed on the new systems, he said, and thus far they show great promise, lasting two or three times longer than reliability predictions indicated they would.

The problem-plagued EFV was supposed to reach its demonstration phase by 2001. It finally went to operational assessment in 2006, but suffered a number of failures and breakdowns. Moore said the EFV now will go into Initial Operational Testing and Evaluation sometime in 2015.

Marine Commandant James Conway made a strong pitch for the EFV on the first day of the Navy League, arguing that the service needs the speed and range of the system to ensure the Marines can still kick down doors — their primary mission.

-- Bryant Jordan

Minority Report Meets the Bridge

minority-report.jpg

My colleague Colin Clark and I stumbled across a cool technology — Global Situational Awareness — at the Navy League conference. Offered by DRS Technologies, it’s a geospatial information system that also allows sharing of data from almost any source — UAV videos, schematics, photos, SAR, IR etc. — on a pretty simple touchscreen. The imported data can be overlaid on the geospatial data and used for mission planning and a host of other applications.

As software engineer Michael Bridges shows, you can call up a region and slap on it overlay after overlay, showing you topography, elevation, streets and highways. If you don’t like a bird’s eye view, he’ll flip the image on its side, any side.

Want to see what a Predator is watching, or perhaps cameras mounted on a guard post or tower? A tap of the menu along the side of the screen and the streaming video appears on the map screen. Another menu tap and Bridges can use a finger to plot a pathway reflecting the movements of opposing forces. A commander using the Integrated Tactical Command and Control Console could send all, or just part, of the images before him to the computer screens of other commanders.

The console’s hardware has been under development for about three years, the software about one, Hodges said. Currently, the system can handle about 10 applications at the same time, but the company already is working on an even more muscular system that could handle an infinite number of applications.

The base is comprised of U.S. Geological Survey maps, he said, but a commander with his own data, collected by his own people and sources, would be able to load it into the system and work with it on the oversized map.

Bridges said the console may get a tryout at this year’s Trident Warrior exercise, which the Naval Network Warfare Command conducts to test the Navy’s newest communication technologies.

The touch screen allows fast and simple manipulation of the data. For the rest, the video demonstrates it better than we can describe it. Anderson Cooper and CNN – eat your hearts out.

-- Bryant Jordan

What? No Navy Fighter Gap?

f18c.jpg

The Pentagon’s top weapons analysts are reportedly arguing that the Navy does not face a fighter gap, something Boeing and various lawmakers have argued is a pressing problem the country must fix.

A congressional source tells us that “apparently PA&E is convinced that there isn’t actually a strike fighter shortfall, while the Navy is convinced they’ll be 240-plus planes short of Naval strike fighters… We’re trying to figure out how PA&E can possibly come to this conclusion, but we’re not getting many answers.”

Several senior OSD sources told me that PA&E is making this argument, based on a range of capabilities offered by the Air Force.

“PA&E’s contention is that we have excess Air Force strike fighter capacity, so the Navy shortfall doesn’t affect us strategically… But I don’t think the Air Force can land their fighters on a carrier,” our congressional source said wryly.

The fighter numbers were summarized recently in a study by the Congressional Research Service’s naval analyst, Ron O’Rourke. “The Navy projects that a current strike-fighter shortfall of about 15 aircraft will grow to about 30 aircraft in FY2009, to more than 50 aircraft in FY2016, and to more than 90 aircraft in FY2017-FY2020, before declining to more than 50 aircraft in FY2021 and to roughly zero aircraft by FY2025. At its peak in FY2017, the Navy states, the Dept. of Navy projected strike-fighter shortfall will be 125 aircraft, of which 69 will be Navy strike-fighters,” O’Rourke wrote.

[Since writing the above, I received the newest CRS analysis. It doubles the estimated shortfall. This is what the report, by Christopher Bolckum, says: "The Navy projects that if no additional action is taken, a DON strike-fighter shortfall of about 15 aircraft in FY2009, to 50 aircraft in FY2010, and to a peak of 243 aircraft in FY2018. The projected strike-fighter shortfall is hoped to decrease after FY2018, but the DON will still have a gap of over 50 strike fighters in 2025. At its peak in FY2018, the projected DON strike-fighter shortfall will be 129 Navy strike-fighters and 114 Marine Corps strike-fighters.

"This projected strike-fighter shortfall is twice as big as the Navy’s earlier projected shortfall of 125 aircraft. 9 (See Figure 1, below) The earlier estimate was the Navy’s, “most optimistic” projection because it assumed, among other things, that the service lives of Hornets could be extended from the current planning figure of 8,000 flight hours to 10,000 flight hours." You can read it here.]

We’re trying to get more information from Boeing here at the Navy League conference.

Boeing has been making a valiant effort to convince the Pentagon and the public that the Navy’s fighter gap should be closed using F-18 E/Fs. These planes are cheaper than F-35s, are already available in production models and they meet the service’s current operational requirements, the company has argued.

-- Colin Clark

Moray Eel Hunter

A determined enemy approaching alone from the sea may soon find himself intercepted and tracked by a torpedo-shaped drone that will sound an alarm, flash lights and spot his exact location in the water.

The model now on display at the Navy League's Sea Air Space symposium in Maryland, submerged in a water tank and bearing a slithery Moray Eel along its sides, is being developed by SAIC as a non-lethal warning system.

What they're developing is a candidate technology for a solution to deterring swimmers, said Jim Pollock, mission capability manager for the War on Terror, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and project manager for the Integrated Swimmer Defense Program. "It's not necessarily a solution that the Navy has picked at this point."

The roughly 5-foot long Reusable Unambiguous Swimmer Warning Vehicle can do up to 8 knots. Once launched, it heads directly for its target, slowing down when near it and rising to the surface where it continues to circle the suspect swimmer's position and relaying it to handlers aboard ship or in port.

The system is equipped with GPS for surface tracking and a three-axis digital compass for underwater work.

For now, the system is being developed purely as a defense, warning tool, which is how it was packaged when it was submitted for budget approval.

But the mission of the Integrated Swimmer Defense System is to develop a means of thwarting combat divers and swimmers, so it's likely whatever interceptor drone eventually is built and fielded will also come with a lethal option.

The Predator, after all, began as a surveillance drone only, but now carries out combat attacks armed with two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.

-- Bryant Jordan

AgustaWestland Pitches VH-71 Compromise

This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.

Stung by criticism in Washington over the VH-71 presidential helicopter program that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to scrap and reassess, AgustaWestland is firing back and arguing, essentially, that there is no reason to start all over.

Rather than junking the Increment 1 helos, which the Pentagon says only have 5-10 years of useful life and are therefore not worth fielding, AgustaWestland argues that the rotorcraft, with some certification activities, can be validated for at least 10,000 hours of useful life, not the 1,500 specified by the Navy. The baseline AW101 aircraft is already certified for that flight time.

Moreover, with about $3.3 billion already sunk into the program, AgustaWestland argues it can deliver 19 more Increment 1 variants for another $3.5 billion.

The total would roughly equal the original VH-71 program budget before costs more than doubled as requirements grew and the program raced ahead.

The helo maker further is floating the idea of building an upgraded version, a so-called Increment 1.5, which would be close to meeting the full program requirements but below the $13 billion price tag the program has now reached.

Meanwhile, AgustaWestland has delivered the fifth pilot-production VH-71 from its Yeovil, U.K., production facility.

Chief Executive Officer Giuseppe Orsi says that while program costs have doubled, the helicopter's portion is only a comparatively modest 8 percent over plan and six months behind schedule, which he attributes to 50 major and 800 other design changes.

AgustaWestland on April 28 finished delivery of Increment 1, with the last of nine VH-71s now bound for completion with integrator Lockheed Martin.

Read the rest of this story, give a listen to the latest Check Six podcast, get smart on the tanker tango and check out UK Globemaster IIIs from out friends at Aviation Week, exclusively on Military.com.

-- Christian