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Look Out Below!
Sikorsky cuts quality control inspectors from 70 to 8. Chopper rotor blades start "depart[ing] the aircraft." The POGO Blog has details.
Rapid Fire 11/30/06
* 9/11 caused cancer?
* PS3 super-computer
* Nike + iPod = surveillance
* Army's golf ball scam
* $77.5 M more for aerostats
* Atomic license plate
* "Democratic Bomb," blown
* Sailors win right to hook-up online
* Chertoff admits screwing NYC
* Only one terror suspect caught by US-VISIT
* Dems break key 9/11 pledge
* Ex-NSA chief: Iraq war supporters "traitors," "full of shit"
(Big ups: VR, RC, EM)
Spy Poison Everywhere! (But Don't Sweat it)
Fears about spy-slaying polonium-210 are reaching fever pitch, with traces of the radioactive poison discovered at 12 different locations. But, as MSNBC's ace science reporter Alan Boyle informs us, the stuff is "actually not so rare to find it in everyday life."
In minute quantities, polonium-210 has been used over the years to spark up spark plugs and banish static cling. Polonium is one of the carcinogens in tobacco smoke, and you can buy a smidgen of it over the Internet at $69 a pop... Heck, there's even radioactive polonium in plain old dirt.
"It's present in all of us, in trace amounts - say, in nanocuries," said Keith Eckerman, a senior research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The amount is key. We might notice no ill results from billionths of a curie (which serves as a measure of radioactive intensity). In contrast, Litvinenko is thought to have been exposed to something around 5 millicuries (thousandths of a curie)...
That's a minute amount - a speck of polonium that active would weigh less than a millionth of a gram, according to the Health Physics Society's information sheet on polonium. But getting that much polonium together would probably require going to the source, which usually involves a nuclear reactor. This is why investigators are thinking the hit on Litvinenko was a high-level spy-vs.-spy job.
The amounts used in industrial applications - yes, including those $69 polonium samples, which are typically used to calibrate radiation detection devices - are far more minute: a speck of a speck of a speck.
Baker Group Wants Troop Pullback (Updated)
Wow. Big news from the Baker commission:
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel’s deliberations.
The report, unanimously approved by the 10-member panel, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, is to be delivered to President Bush next week. It is a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March, avoiding a specific timetable, which has been opposed by Mr. Bush, but making it clear that the American troop commitment should not be open-ended. The recommendations of the group, formed at the request of members of Congress, are nonbinding.
A person who participated in the commission’s debate said that unless the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki believed that Mr. Bush was under pressure to pull back troops in the near future, “there will be zero sense of urgency to reach the political settlement that needs to be reached.”
The report recommends that Mr. Bush make it clear that he intends to start the withdrawal relatively soon, and people familiar with the debate over the final language said the implicit message was that the process should begin sometime next year.
The report leaves unstated whether the 15 combat brigades that are the bulk of American fighting forces in Iraq would be brought home, or simply pulled back to bases in Iraq or in neighboring countries. (A brigade typically consists of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.) From those bases, they would still be responsible for protecting a substantial number of American troops who would remain in Iraq, including 70,000 or more American trainers, logistics experts and members of a rapid reaction force.
So how will the President react?
"I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq," the president said during a joint news conference with Mr. Maliki, referring to the panel's reports that are expected next week. "We're going to stay in Iraq to get the job done so long as the government wants us there."
So what's the right move? Speak up!
UPDATE 4:29 PM: Feeling in the slightest bit upbeat? Like there's a shred of hope for good in the world? John Robb should take care of that. His forecast for Iraq:
The US will find itself forced to remain in Iraq indefinitely, despite an inability to achieve any meaningful victory conditions. The reason for this is simple. Iraq is a core producer of oil for global markets. Control of this oil cannot be ceded to either the guerrillas or Iran under any meaningful interpretation of US policy. Further, a full US withdrawal would put Saudi Arabia at risk -- the collapse of both of these oil producers in tandem would plunge the global economy into a depression. As a result, the US will stay. The most likely result is that the US will reconfigure its remaining forces to play the role of the "strongest faction" in Iraq.
This new role is the inevitable result of the US withdrawal from pacification operations (particularly in Anbar), the evaporation of funding for reconstruction (Bechtel's departure from Iraq marked the end of the effort), and the failure of the effort to rebuild the Iraqi military (due to a deficit of loyalty to the government). As the strongest faction in Iraq, the US will adopt the strategy of a spoiler. This means that we will remain in Iraq to prevent (through the decisive application of force) any Iraqi faction (that is antagonistic to the US) or Iran from gaining control of Iraq and its oil. The US presence will also attempt to prevent the spread of the conflict to Saudi Arabia. It will be interesting to see how this role evolves over the next few decades, particularly as the conflict (despite US efforts, or worse, due to the inadvertent consequences of US efforts) spreads to Saudi Arabia. At that point, the entire strategy deck will be reshuffled (almost certainly for the worse, from the US perspective).
UPDATE 5:42 PM: Check out Fred Kaplan's take, too.
It's hard to justify keeping even 50,000 American troops in Iraq—even if they're just sitting there—unless they have a mission. The mission might serve as an adjunct to a broader political initiative.
If Iraq falls apart, the bordering states will be tempted to rush into the vacuum, partly for their own security, partly for aggrandizement. If they do, their forces may brush up against one another (Iraq's internal sectarian borders are far from distinct). The United States could serve as a mediator to keep this from happening. To play this role, it helps to have troops on the ground and planes in the air.
This may be the only real purpose of a U.S. military presence in Iraq at this point—to keep the country and the region from erupting into flames.
Bots, Grunts, Choppers Team up for Air Assaults
The Army's 25th Infantry Division's Combat Aviation Brigade has put together a pretty unusual cast to hunt Iraqi insurgents: chopper pilots, sensor analysts, foot soldiers, Navy bomb techs... and three-foot tall robots.
The forms a kind of rapid reaction force in the sky, Stars & Stripes reports. They call the missions "Lightning Strikes."
Commanders and ground troops have long complained that efforts to capture insurgents on the ground are often stymied by the noise and visibility of their vehicles. Helicopter pilots have also complained that they have observed suspicious activities from the air, but have been unable to summon ground troops quickly enough to investigate.
The Lightning Strike missions are aimed at solving both those problems. The 25th Infantry Division’s Combat Aviation Brigade staged its first such mission in Iraq this week when it launched a team of Kiowa and Black Hawk helicopters containing a number of foot soldiers, ordnance technicians and a bomb disposal robot...
The missions differ from traditional air assaults or raids in that they are not flying to a specific target. Instead, the aircraft go out in search of suspicious activity in an area that hasn’t seen a heavy coalition presence.
At the same time, the team is essentially on call to respond to situations observed by other units in other areas. Commanders give the example of tracking down and stopping a vehicle that was seen fleeing a bombing or an attack...
The mission was part of a larger, ongoing operation in northern Iraq dubbed Snake Hunter. The operation involves the creative use of military aircraft in the fight against roadside bombs, and is aimed at intercepting insurgents before they fully arm and conceal the explosives.
“If an [improvised explosive device] has already blown up, then the initiative is already with the enemy,” Tate said. “We’re trying to work ‘left of the boom.’ We want to interdict before the [bomb] blows up.”
Army units have been dropping from the sky with 100-pound, three-feet-high, bomb-fighting Talon 'bots for more than a year. But only on select missions. During attack raids, similar to these "Lightning Strikes," "we left the robots in the garage," one air assault veteran tells Defense Tech. But that was then.
Rapid Fire 11/29/06
* Three words: rocket launcher bong
* "Kimstock 2007"
* No iPods for Norks
* IEDs' secret sauce
* Los Alamos flops another security test
* Bush-Maliki confab cancelled
* War chewing up $2B worth of gear, every month
* Ancient computer, super-smart
* Chem-bio bowling
* How our foes get our tech
* Secrecy News vs. NBC
* Carter's 10 Iraq commandments
* Tons of armor pics
* UK grand challenge online...
* ...Brits' helmet-cam footage, too
(Big ups: GK, RC, ACE)
Recon Planes vs. I.E.D.s
Since the Iraq insurgency began, the U.S. Air Force has been looking for ways to use its planes to fight roadside bombs. Electronic warriors like the EC-130H Compass Call jam frequencies used to set off explosives. Drones patrol highways, looking for new, suspicious mounds along the road. Sometimes they even take out the bomb-planters.
Inside Defense reveals another Air Force tactic: Using ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) aircraft "to help coalition units round up insurgent cells believed to manufacture lethal improvised explosive devices."
Military officials -- working backward using surveillance video -- were able to successfully trace IED placers’ moves using targeting pods and ISR aircraft like the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), Lt. Col. Clint Hinote said during a Nov. 21 telephone interview...
[T]he Air Force has used its surveillance assets to find insurgent IED makers, as opposed to solely working to find or disarm the deadly devices, Hinote said...
“You can have a security camera in the sky,” he said. “We actually have aircraft that have that capability of just taking shots of what’s going on.”
After IEDs detonate in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, Air Force ISR officials begin marking tapes of radar sweeps in an attempt to pinpoint the explosion, he said. They then essentially rewind the tapes, trying to discover any movements in the specific area prior to the blast.
“Maybe you can find the car that was involved and backtrack it to a certain house,” Hinote said. “We’ve got several ISR assets that right now are working on this backtracking plan.
“That’s actually led to a couple of good successes where we’ve rounded up some IED cells,” he added.
The ultimate goal is to track the IED maker to a bomb-making equipment storage location -- “and then even further back,” Hinote said.
Net Smuggling Ring Exposed
Over the last few weeks, the Philadelphia Inquirer has been slowly spooling out one of the most interesting, most ambitious journalistic undertakings of the year: an 8-part series -- complete with a ton of online extras -- on an Internet drug-smuggling ring, importing illegal pharmaceuticals into this country from India. Here's a snippet from the first installment. But, when you've got some time, do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.
Whenever DEA supervisor Jeff Breeden grew nervous, he would rub his forehead with his left hand. Now, as the arrest briefing began, Breeden dug deep into his brow.
Tomorrow's worldwide takedown of the Bansal network was to be monitored from this drab conference room overlooking Independence Mall.
The network supplied a rainbow of pills - painkillers, sleep aids, sedatives, stimulants, steroids, psychotropics, erectile-dysfunction medication. Thousands of orders a day.
Who knew who made this stuff, where it came from, what was in it? The public health risk that Internet drugs posed, Breeden thought, was incalculable.
Yet no one in DEA had ever worked a major global online pharmacy investigation. He knew it was a career case, one colleagues would always link to his name. Breeden? Yeah, he's the guy who supervised the Internet pill case out of Philly.
To take down the network, agents were using a number of weapons - surveillance, undercover buys, cell-tower pings, trash pulls, e-mail wiretaps, bank subpoenas, immigration reports, even provisions of the Patriot Act. Agents here had flown to Australia, Costa Rica and India.
As Breeden listened to the arrest briefing, he thought about everything that could go wrong.
Would foreign banks and governments cooperate? Or would they protect the targets, allowing Akhil and others to flee with millions? Would magistrates in several states authorize search warrants in time? Would the bad guys be there when agents raided their homes at dawn? Had any of them gotten wind of the premature arrest in New York? Did Akhil, as he implied in e-mails, really have a mole inside U.S. Customs?
Had they overlooked anything?
UFO Nut Sells Spy Poison Online (Updated)
"The radioactive material that killed a former Russian spy in Britain can be bought on the Internet for $69," Information Week is reporting.
Polonium-210, which experts say is many times more deadly than cyanide, can be bought legally through United Nuclear Scientific Supplies, a mail-order company that sells through the Web, based in Sandia Park, N.M. Chemcial companies sell the Polonium-210 legally for industrial use, such as removing static electricity from machinery. United Nuclear claims that it's "currently the only legal Alpha source available without a license."
The type of Polonium-210 sold emits alpha radiation, which can't penetrate the skin, but is deadly if swallowed, depending on the amount ingested. The Polonium available on United Nuclear's site can be purchased without a license because the level of radioactivity, 0.1 microcurie, does not pose a danger, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
"At that level, it's exempt from licenses," NRC spokesman David McIntyre said. "At any exempt quantity, it's not considered a health hazard."
Such small amounts of Polonium could be used to calibrate devices used to detect radiation, McIntyre said. If used for that purpose, the material would remain in its sealed container, and never actually handled.
United Nuclear is run by Bob Lazar, who, some 20 years ago, claimed to have worked on alien spaceships on a secret military base in Nevada... [That'd be Area 51 --ed.]
In April, United Nuclear was ordered by the Department of Justice to stop selling chemicals that it claimed could be used to make explosives, the Albuquerque Journal reported. At the time, Lazar said he was fighting the legal challenge.
On the site, United Nuclear says it will not sell anything illegal, including explosives or the materials to make explosives. "Because our products can be potentially hazardous in the wrong hands, we will occasionally terminate and refund orders, if we feel you are a juvenile posing as an adult, inexperienced with the materials ordered, or using our products to make any sort of explosive device," the company says.
Wired ran a story about Lazar and other science salesmen a few months back. Somehow, the Area 51 stuff never made it into the piece.
(Big ups: RC)
UPDATE 11:50 AM: Be sure to check out Arms Control Wonk's take on the polonium poison mystery.
UPDATE 1:55 PM: "Authorities grounded three British Airways jetliners in London and Moscow on Wednesday and drew up plans to contact thousands of airplane passengers as they broadened their investigation into the radiation poisoning death of a former Russian spy," the AP says. "Two planes at London's Heathrow Airport tested positive for traces of radiation, a third plane has been taken out of service in Moscow awaiting examination."
Rapid Fire 11/28/06 (Updated)
* Troops out of Anbar?
* Itty-bitty machine gun
* Unmanned jetliner
* Cyberspace Navy?
* Boarding pass hacker off the hook
* Nukes in the classroom
* Martian space mirrors
* Lasers paint it black
* Swarmanoids assemble
* Iraq's $20M "optical backbone"
* DOD spooked by foreign coders
* Dick Destiny vs. bomb-sniffing bees
* "Groom for the march up"
(Big ups: RC, EH, Drudge)
The MySpace Murders
Over the summer, I spent months investigating a triple-homicide in Tacoma, Washington. The results are in this month's Wired magazine; it's my first article as a contributing editor there.
The story centers around Daniel Varo, one of three friends shot in the head by a buddy from the MySpace online social network. When Varo died, his far-flung collection of relatives and friends gathered on MySpace, to console each other, to plan his memorial, and to vent their rage over his murder. People who had never met face-to-face suddenly became the most trusted of confidants. Along the way, they discovered that Varo didn't completely disappear when he died. Varo had had spent so much time online that scraps of his life lingered on the Web -- a ghost in the networked machines.
I'm really proud of the piece. I hope you'll give it a read.
And if you want to dive further into Varo's story, you can check out court documents, the killer's now-deleted MySpace pages, and a reporter's notebook.
Lastly, think about giving some money to Varo's memorial fund. You can make donations through PayPal to danielvaromemorialaccount@yahoo.com. Finish the story, and you'll see why this matters.
Hooray for Hambling!
I'm not sure exactly what the blog equivalent of a standing ovation might be. But whatever it is, let's give it to Defense Tech's London bureau chief, David Hambling.
David did an absolutely amazing job with the site, while us Yanks were busy stuffing our faces. If you haven't gone back and checked out his posts on items like man-made earthquakes, pimped-out gunships, military holograms, and atomic automobiles, click on over, now. They'll make you want to stand up and cheer for our man in London.
The "Deadlies": Fatal Firearms
There have been a number of nominations for firearms in the “Deadlies,” our poll to find the worst gadgets ever devised. Anyone who has ever heard gun buffs arguing the merits of different weapons will know what a fertile ground this is for prejudice, questionable anecdote and reams of competing statistics without any agreement ever being reached. So if you disagree with any of what follows, you're probably right.
Some have nominated the Chauchat, long hated as the worst weapon ever issued to US forces. It was French WWI light machine-gun which was notorious for jamming. The US tried a version chambered for 30-06 which was produced with the wrong sized chamber due to a manufacturing error. Only short bursts could be fired before it over-heated, leading to claims that you could get a better rate of fire with a bolt-action rifle.
Early models of the M-16 used in Vietnam have also been nominated on the basis of the weapon's tendency to jam at every opportunity. The bore and chamber were prone to corrode, and the low-quality ammunition worsened problems.
But for weapons which were likely to be the death of their user, I would have to nominate the FP-45 Liberator pistol. This was mass produced in large numbers in WWII and intended to be dropped into occupied Europe for Resistance fighters. It fired a single .45 round from an unrifled barrel, giving very short effective range (10 feet or so). Reloading involved poking out the used cartridge with a stick.
Any use of the Liberator would be near-suicidal: you leap out, shouting "Eat lead, Nazi scum!" and pull the trigger, and unless you manage to kill your target with a single shot, you are now unarmed and facing an armed enemy at close range. ((Maybe it was US revenge for the Chauchat?))
The Liberator was not dropped in Europe as planned, but small numbers were apparently distibuted in China and the Phillipines.
Got a nomination for the 'Deadlies? Send us your idea by E-mail or post it here.
-- David Hambling
Ice And Lemon With That?
You may talk of gin and beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere
An' you're sent to penny fights and Aldershot it
But when it comes to slaughter
You'll do your work on water
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it
Some things have not changed since Kipling wrote Gunga Din about a heroic Indian water-carrier with the British Army; the Tommies are still fighting Afghans beyond the Northwest Frontier, and water supply is still a vital element in the logistics chain. But back then the water came from a goatskin bag, "was crawlin' and it stunk" -- these days quality control has improved somewhat.
According to one US Army estimate, up to 65% of military road traffic in Iraq is taken up with transporting water to the troops. Cutting the number of trucks used for water will reduce the number of convoys that need protecting, and Allied Command Transformation Headquarters aims to do that by generating drinking water in the field. They recently demonstrated a mobile bottling plant that fits into a C-130 which can generate, purify and bottle 700 liters of water an hour.
Further down the line, DARPA are pursuing a project called 'Water From Air', looking at ways of extracting potable water from the atmosphere or from vehicle exhaust (water is one of the by-products when any hydrocarbon fuel is burned). Water generation was also one of the many features included in the original plans for Future Combat System, all part of the goal of traveling light and reducing the logistics tail.
But there is one big, rather simple problem, as explained in this piece on logistics in Iraq:
Dependence on bottled water in Iraq turned out to be a major sustainment and quality of life issue, Chambers said. Bottled water made up 30 percent of the distribution requirement even though bulk water was available, he said.
Because the bottom line is:
"Soldiers do not like to drink purified water."
Which is why the idea of recycling urine into drinking water is even less likely to catch on, something that the Army has looked at on the grounds that "The technology is there. NASA is doing it.” However, Thomas Bagwell, acting executive director for research at TARDEC, admitted that the last time he put this idea to soldiers, “they chased me out of the room.”
Water may be technically safe and potable, but it can still taste terrible and troops are understandably not going to want to drink it. If you can solve that problem, you can take out a huge amount of the logistics overhead. Maybe they should look at additives (flavoring? caffeine?), or maybe it needs some branding and an advertising push ("Real Water For Real Men"). But I suspect it will take a lot more to persuade people to give up bottled water for purified. And if you can work out how to do that one, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.
-- David Hambling
UPDATE: The Water Generation requirement was dropped from the FCS program during the last ORD review - thanks to Douglas Weber for the update.
Rapid Fire 11/27/06 (Updated)
From London, the home of Polonium Sushi
* Was former Russian spy poisoned over false flag terrorism?
* ...did poisoners use nuclear nanotechnology?
*...and how dangerous is Polonium anyway?
* Unforeseen UAV problem: crows attack Raven, with video
* Space Drive Shanked
* Why the US loses small wars
* UK pulling troops out of Iraq?
* RAND say ferries and cruise ships are terrorist targets
* Video of land-based Phalanx in action
* Game 'proves' Army can't lose
(Big ups: Ron, Larry Kahaner, George)
Herd of Buffaloes
What started as a humble little Mom and Pop operation hand-building Cougar and Buffalo armored vehicles for the Army's Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams has expanded into a massive production push involving some of the biggest companies in the armor industry, all intended to meet skyrocketing demand for protected trucks. I go into detail over at Military.com:
Just two years ago, Force Protection had a staff of 12 hand-building one Buffalo per month, according to spokesman Wayne Phillips. Now the company employs 400 and churns out more than a vehicle per day. Force Protection is slated to build 300 Buffalos through 2010 and several hundred more Cougars. This year, Force Protection partnered with BAE Systems to build as many as 1,000 Cougar derivatives for the Iraqi Army under the U.S.-managed Iraqi Light Armored Vehicle program. In recent weeks, the company has signed a similar agreement with General Dynamics Land Systems to jointly manufacture the standard Cougar in order to meet rising demand, including 85 for the British Army.
Check out my Flickr stream for pics!
--David Axe
Pimp My Gunship 2: Directed Energy
The AC-130U Spectre is a byword for high-precision fire support. But equipping it with directed energy weapons (DE) will take close air support to an entirely new level. The technological breakthrough needed to get there is a radical $22m superconducting generator which the Air Force will demonstrate by 2009 and which is specifically indended to fit on a C-130.
Instead of conventional copper wiring, the generator uses metal foil coated with superconducting material. This can carry very high currents with no loss, making it suitable for high-power uses. Maintaining superconductivity means staying at low temperature, requiring a liquid nitrogen cooling system.
Driven by a turbine, the new generator is about the size of a small beer keg, and is designed to generate five megawatts. Power sytems based on existing generators weigh over 20,000 lbs, the new system should cut that in half. It will also pave the way for further improvements and even smaller and more powerful generators.
The suggestion of a laser-armed F-35 has also been floated, but this is much less practical for attacking ground targets. A laser or other DE weapon can take several seconds of 'dwell time' to be effective, so what is needed is an aircraft which can keep a weapon aimed at the same point for an extended period -- exactly what AC-130s do best.
DE weapons have a deep magazine, as they can keep firing for as long as the fuel supply lasts. Ivan Oelrich, director of strategic security programs for the Federation of American Scientists, estimates here that "To operate a thing like that requires a few tons of fuel per hour."
To get the benefit of this sort of firepower you need an aircraft which is going to stay around over the battlefield rather than disappearing after a few passes. Again, the job is tailor-made for the AC-130, and there have been several proposals for weapons that the generator could drive:
- Electric lasers are already looking likely to supercede the primitive and toxic chemical oxygen iodine lasers like the one developed for the Airborne Laser and Avanced Tactical Laser. Last month Northrop Grumman unveiled Vesta, a 15 kW electric laser which can run for twenty minutes at a time. This is a major step towards achieving the Joint High Power Solid State Laser Program's goal of a 100 kW solid state laser weapon in FY 2007. Such a weapon would have sniper-like accuracy, being able to pick out one person from a crowd or destroy pinpoint tagets like aerials or radar without collateral damage. The weapon could fire continuously extended periods, creating a significant morale effect, and the 5-Megawatt generator could power several beams at the same time.
- The Active Denial System, the Air Force's non-lethal beam weapon which hurts without harming. A high-power version mounted in an AC-130 would have a variety of uses, providing for the first time a non-lethal means of dealing with distubances on the ground. I'll be looking more closely at this one later in the week. More advanced non-lethal RF weapons may also be in the pipeline.
- A High Power Microwave Weapon (HPM), a directed-energy beam weapon equivalent of the "e-bomb" which destroys electronics at a distance. It would also be useful for knocking out command centres, air defense sites and other targets which depend on electronics -- like television stations -- without harming anyone. It would also be a formidable tool for interdictiction: an HPM-armed Spectre could flying down a hundred miles of road and knock out every single vehicle on it.
However, with this sort of weapon there is a big risk of 'friendly fire' accidents and this is likely to be a major issue.
The civilian suprconducting generator program ground to a halt earlier this year when GE dropped its $27 million generator program, a move which "leaves the superconducting generator concept squarely in the hands of the military," according to Mark Bitterman, Executive Editor of Superconductor Week. This means Air Force's superconducting generator program will take on new significance as the sole source of this technology. There is a growing demand for small, powerful and efficient generators and electric motors -- and yet again the military are pioneering technology which will have much wider use.
-- David Hambling
US Bioelectromagnetic Weapons Research
Could new weapons stun or paralyze with a beam of radio energy? I have discussed proposals for ‘bioelectromagnetic wepaonry’ in DefenceTech before, here and here, but for the first time details are emerging of Air Force-sponsored work in this field.
I have a piece in ther TechWatch section of this month’s Popular Mechanics magazine exploring a new nonlethal program. In addition to the well-known Active Denial System (ADS) -- which amounts to a mobile microwave oven -- basic research has started on something potentially far more effective and with much wider implications.
This report, entitled "Interdisciplinary research project to explore the potential for developing non- lethal weapons based on radiofrequency/microwave bioeffects" -- states their goal:
Our research is to lay the foundation for developing non-lethal stunning/immobilizing weaponry based on radiofrequency (RF)/
microwave(MW) radiation by identifying RF/MW parameters potentially capable of selectively altering exocytosis, the process underlying neurotransmitter release and hence nervous system functioning.
The ADS works purely by heating skin – a simple thermal effect. According to the Air Force, in health terms it's exactly the same effect you'd get from heating with radiator or hot water or standing by a fire, and it is this heating that produces the 'repel' effect on its targets. As far as we know, the ADS does not have any physical effects other than straightforward thermal ones. But the new project is concentrating on the ‘non-thermal’ effects created by longer-wavelength radiation, looking at how microwaves can affect the nerous system.
This area has already seen a lot of debate. Mobile phones and their transmitter towers use microwaves, and it is hotly contested whether the microwave radiation has any effect on the human body other than simple heating.
The researchers at the University of Nevada have concluded that non-thermal effects of RF do exist and may be harnessed. In an abstract here (on page 317)
– a study of Non-Thermal effects of RF Radiation on Exocytosis - states “The effects of RF exposure on catecholamine release that have been observed to date cannot be explained by an increase in temperature.”
And there’s more. Other work by the same team, is described here
It will also support a DEPSCoR- funded program that extends those studies to include microwave frequencies and to explore the effect of pulsed and CW RE/microwave exposure on skeletal muscle contractility
The suggestion is that a correctly tuned beam of microwaves (possibly pulsed or modulated) would be able to interefere with skeletal muscles. This might ultimately give a means of producing the same sort of non-lethal effects as a Taser -– but potentially from much greater range and over a wide area.
So far, the work has been entirely on ‘in vitro’ cell samples in the laboratory, and only modest alterations in cell function have been produced. This is a very long way from being able to actually influence a living creature. Any suggestion that this sort of weapon has already been fielded by the US should be treated with skepticism.
The researchers are keen to point out that there could be a variety of non-military applications too, such as new types of therapeutic tool for non-invasively treating conditions like chronic pain.
Everything is in very early stages in the US program. But, as I mentioned a while back, the Russians have been looking at this technology for years. Dr. Vitaly N. Makukhin of the Trymas Center in Moscow has published papers on "Electronic equipment for complex influence on biological objects" which he claims can produce effects including “disorder of the autonomic nervous system.” Few people have taken him seriously in the West before. Now that the same sort of effects are being confirmed in US labs, perhaps we will start taking more of an interest in what this type of weapon may be able to do.
Neil Davison of the Center for Conflict Resolution has already questioned "whether it is in any way acceptable to develop bioelectromagnetic weapons that could have an incapacitating and suppressing effect on people by manipulating their nervous system or their muscles"
As with Tasers and the ADS, the ethical issues around this one are liable to become the focus for some very lively debate.
-- David Hambling
The "Deadlies": Atomic Automobile
In our competition to find "Deadlies" -- technology which may be feasible but still looks like a really bad idea -- there have been plenty of atomic nominations. In the 50's and 60's there were plans for nuclear powered ships, trains, aircraft, missiles and spaceships which have attracted nominations for the "Deadlies." But nobody has mentioned the Atomic Automobile yet.
These days we're a bit wary about nuclear power, but back in it's heyday it was selling like (radioactive) hot cakes. Nuclear power was the future, it was cleaner than fossil fuels, endlessly abundant and so inexpensive that Lewis Strauss, Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, forecast that: "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter."
Perhaps the original source of atomic bad ideas was the Atoms For Peace initiative, a deliberate attempt to turn nuclear power away from military uses and harness it in constructive ways. The intentions may have been good -- or not. In Britain the public were persuaded that the Calder Hall atomic power plant would provide them with cheap energy, and it was not until 1961 that the government admitted that its main purpose was to manufacture plutonium for nuclear weapons. In the US, the government tried hard to convince people that atomic was good. (The full story is told in the chapter on Ultimate Power in my book Weapons Grade).
So the idea spread that everything which used power would be atomic in the future. The obvious end point of this is domestic atomic power for everyone. In 1940 Dr RM Langer, a physicist at Cal. Tech, predicted that home nuclear power plants for heating, lighting and electricity would arrive "in our own time," and that a nuclear plant "the size of a typewriter" would power cars.
So when the Atomic Age really got under way in 1958 it was no surprise when the Ford Nucleon concept car was rolled out. This had the pasenger compartment placed well forward to keep away from the nuclear plant at the back. The company suggested that the Nucleon would travel 5,000 miles before needing to have the atomic core replaced at a charging station, the future equivalent of a gas station. Unsurprisingly enough, the car never went beyond concept stage.
Atomic car? You'll be wanting the additional "radiation leak and massive area contamination" insurance cover for that, and maybe some lead-lined underwear. No, I think we should leave atomic-powered cars to Batman.
Got a nomination for the 'Deadlies? Send us your idea by E-mail or post it here.
-- David Hambling
Pimp My Gunship - 1: Get Smart
Does a slow, Vietnam-era gunship have a place on the modern battlefield? Can you upgrade the old warhorse into a 21st century charger?
The fixed-wing gunship idea goes back to barnstorming flyers who invented to the ‘pylon turn,’ pointing one wing at an object such as a pylon on the ground as they turned around it (...there is quite a story behind this one). By extension, if you have weapons firing out of one side of the plane they can maintain accurate fire on a fixed point even though the plane is moving at relatively high speed. The idea worked well in Vietnam, and now the latest version of the gunship is the AC-130U Spectre, packing a 105-mm howitzer, a 25mm 1,800-round-a-minute Gatling gun and a 40mm Bofors gun. It can provide impressively accurate fire support; this video from Iraq apparently shows one destroying moving vehices outside a mosque without hitting the building.
To F-22 Raptor enthusiasts who think air power should be supersonic and stealthy, the Spectre might look like a dinosaur. It’s slow and noisy and has to come in close to the target, making it vulnerable to portable SAMs. But the old-style Spectre could be the basis for an ultra-modern gunship, according to Bill Elliot of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. His Future AC-130 Gunship Integrated Weapons Systems Concept is the cutting edge of close air support.
The basic idea is to upgrade from dumb, short-range munitions to smart long-range ones. Out goes the 105-mm howitzer in favor of a 120mm smoothbore – you’d call it a mortar, except that a downward-firing mortar is weird. Add to it racks of smart Viper Strike glide bombs. And instead of relying on onboard sensors, the Spectre will be able to launch its own fleet of drones to locate and designate targets. This increases the range at which targets can be engaged from 3 miles to 15 miles or more, so opponents will no longer be able to hear the Spectre coming before it strikes.
Pallet-loaded Dominator UCAV/munitions might also be a useful addition to the mix; in fact, the Future Spectre could be a veritable Arsenal Aircraft carrying a range of weapons and drones depending on the mission.
Instead of short-range, high-volume firepower, it will be delivering long-range precision strikes. Both Viper Strike and the XM395 120mm smoothbore rounds can be laser guided, with designation can come from the aircraft itself, from accompanying drones or from ground troops. Targets under hard cover can be destroyed rather than just suppressed, with "top floor, third window from the left" precision.
There are plenty of other ammunition options for the 120mm smoothbore - it can fire a full range of mortar rounds. This includes developments like the M971 cargo round, which can saturate an area the size of a football pitch with bomblets, a gun-launched UAV, and even non-lethal rounds delivering CS gas and flash-bangs for crowd control. New monopack containers reduce the packaging weight by 60% and significantly increase the amount which can be carried. This should greatly increase the versatility of the Spectre. But it is the precision strike which will make the biggest difference, greatly increasing the chances of single-shot kills and so extending the number of targets that can be engaged.
Instead of orbiting around a fixed point and firing at a sngle target, the upgraded Spectre will be able to tackle multiple targets at dispersed locations simultaneously. And the accuracy of that fire will be enough to destroy targets under cover rather than suppressing them, as well as preventing 'friendly fire' accidents and collateral damage. In effect, Bill Eliot is bringing 'smart bombs' to the gunship, which could increase its effectiveness as much as precision-guided bombs have for strike aircraft.
Eliot quotes a memo from the Secretary of Defense:
"We need more weapon systems like the AC-130, where the ordnance can be directed in a more precise way”
What better solution than an upgraded AC-130? The Future Spectre is still doing the same job as before, providing close air support to those who need it most, but doing it better. But it would be the heart of a network which includes drones, munitions and ground troops. It will continue to provide the persistence, firepower and high precision that has earned the Spectre its reputation. And it will be able to do it all from a range that greatly reduces risk to the aircraft.
It may not be the vision of those who want to conduct airstrikes from mach 1 and 50,000 feet, but when things get messy on the ground, then a gunship with smart weapons looks like a very good investment.
-- David Hambling
Fighting Shadows: Military Holograms
In science fiction, holograms are realistic, moving three-dimensional images. (Remember Arnie being spooked by his mirror self in Total Recall, and the priceless line “Watch out, he’s got a hologram!”). In the movies, if they flicker a bit ("Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi..."), it’s just so the audience realises it’s a hologram and doesn’t get confused. Real life holograms are a lot more limited, so I was interested to see this study carried by Dr David Watt on Holograms As Nonlethal Weapons for NTIC, the Nonlethal Technology Innovations Center in New Hampshire.
This is a serious look at the technical possibilities for holograms. It’s a far cry from blue sky fantasies like the Air Force 2025 Airborne Holographic Projector which ”displays a three-dimensional visual image in a desired location, removed from the display generator” or the even more wildly optimistic “Hologram, Death: Hologram used to scare a target individual to death.”
Real holograms will not fool people at short range and they do not move, nor can they be ‘projected’ into a remote location. But they might still have their uses.
One of Watt's suggested applications is 'deception in an urban environment'. Take a shop window and replace it with a hologram of a window display, and you have an apparently innocuous space where troops can be stationed without any hint of their presence. A vehicle (a car or bus) could use similar trompe l’oeil effect.
There is the possibility of using holograms to create ‘virtual forces’ or ‘virtual obstacles’, but the problems are all too apparent. The situation is much better indoors where the optical environment can be controlled. Dr Watt suggests installations could have virtual doors, walls and windows as ways of confusing or misleading intruders.
A more unusual approach is using a speckle hologram as ‘virtual smoke’. This type of hologram produces an image that appears to be in front of its real surface, and this could ‘project’ a confusing image of three-dimensional spots before their eyes, making it impossible for viewers to judge what is in front of them and how far away it is.
The human eye is difficult to fool, notes Dr Watt, but infra-red sensors are much less sophisticated – there is no need for the same level of colour fidelity. An infra-red hologram of a vehicle could make a very convincing decoy. Automated systems (such as missile guidance) with no humans to spot the flaws should be particularly easy to fool. However, as Watt points out the technology does not yet exist to create infra-red holograms.
It is the third dimension that makes holograms uniquely different to other means of camouflage and potentially valuable. During WWII, circles of black cloth were used to give the impression of bomb craters on runways after air raids, but these would not stand up to close inspection. Holograms would allow you to put realistic-looking ‘holes’ or craters on any surface and confuse any possible damage assessment.
Watt’s conclusion is “Fascinating, but…” –- there are just too many limitations at present. Size limits and material restrictions are a real problem, and
“Most NLT [non lethal technology] applications rely on psychological predisposition of belligerents.”
In other words it will take a certain amount showmanship to set the illusion up in the first place; this may be feasible in Las Vegas, but not on the battlefield.
But perhaps the biggest stumbling block at present is the cost of holograms large enough for practical applications. Watt quotes $10,000 for a one metre by two hologram, or a hefty $200k for one metre by six metres, which is a lot of money – especially if the bad guys decide to test whether one is real by putting a bullet through it.
-- David Hambling
The "Deadlies": Killer Rocket Plane (Updated)
Readers of my book, Weapons Grade will have seen the chapter on technologies which looked promising at the time but which failed to deliver. Perhaps the most lethal example is the German WWII Me163 Komet, a rocket-powered interceptor which is surely a hot contender for The Deadlies.
On paper it looked great; the first plane to break the 1,000 kph (625 mph) barrier, it seemed like the ideal weapon to take on Allied bomber formations. It would be much too fast for the fighter escorts to stop.
In practice it was the deadliest plane ever built.
At the heart of the Komet was a rocket motor which mixed oxidising agent (a hydrogen peroxide mixture known as T-stoff) and a fuel (hydrazine hydrate, methyl alcohol, and water, called C-stoff). These were combined explosively. The small motor generated 1,500kg of thrust for an aircraft that only weighed 1,900 Kg, twice the thrust-to-weight ratio of the Me262 jet fighter which was itself considered awesome for the time.
But it was the sheer variety of ways that it could kill you that made the Komet unique.
- The controls tended to lock up, leaving the plane going in a straight line. If this happened during the attack dive, the Komet could accelerate to high speed and broke apart. Otherwise, it just ploughed into the ground like a thunderbolt.
- The exhaust plumbing could crack on take off. A leak into the cockpit would fill the cockpit with steam making vision impossible.
- T-stoff, concentrated hydrogen peroxide, is a powerful corrosive and the pilot pilot sat between two tanks of it.
"One pilot did get dissolved by T stoff flowing into the cockpit after the aircraft crashed on take-off and inverted," says DefenseTech reader Pat Flannery.
- The commonest and cruellest problem was the controlled explosion which drove it. The Komet had a skid rather than wheels, so landings were hard (many pilots suffered back injuries). If there was any fuel left in the tanks, the shock of landing could mix it suddenly, and the returning hero would go up in a fireball.
Three hundred and seventy Komets were built; they shot down nine Allied bombers between them. About five per cent of the Komets were lost to Allied fire in the air; fifteen per cent were lost due to problems with the controls and hydraulics. The other eighty per cent were victims of explosions.
No wonder pilot’s nicknamed it “The Devil’s Sled" - a fast ride straight to hell.
Can anything beat the Komet for the "Deadlies?" If you've got any ideas E-mail or post it here.
-- David Hambling
Thanks to Pat Flannery for the corrections
DefenseTech From London
David Hambling here - I’m looking after DefenseTech for a few days from London, a city known for its iconic Tower Bridge. The bridge is not named for its own towers, but for the nearby Tower of London . 
Now a big tourist attraction, the Tower was started in 1078 by William the Conqueror, the Norman warlord who had invaded and siezed the throne 12 years before. (The legal basis for William’s actions is still a matter of debate). Unlike most such castles, the Tower was not entirely for the defense of the city – it was as much to give the invaders a fortified base to protect them from the locals. William faced a major insurgency, and reacted with massive force, especially in the North where he left “not a blade of grass between the Rivers Trent and Tweed.”
The ringleaders of the insurgency were outlaws like Hereward the Wake, a survivor from the previous regime who was eventually persuaded to switch sides. Some of Hereward’s Norman-fighting exploits were later attributed to Robin Hood (who, if he ever existed, was at around least a century later), now reincarnated yet again in a swashbuckling new BBC TV series
Maybe in 900 years the Green Zone will be a must-see for coachloads of visitors - fleeced and thoroughly misinformed by their guides about the history of the place - while popular entertainment will feature bands of colorful Iraqi outlaws outwitting a dastardly Sherif of Baghdad. History may be written by the winners, but it soon gets a makeover from the scriptwriters.
Earthquake Array Hits Deeper Than Nukes
Attacking hardened and deeply buried target is one of the Air Force’s biggest challenges. They are meeting this challenge with a devastating new approach: a focused underground shockwave that amounts to an artificial earthquake.
At present the kinetic approach – a.k.a. ‘brute force’ – is favored; the most powerful weapon in the inventory is the BLU-113, a 4,600 lb weapon with a thick steel casing capable of piercing 22 feet of concrete -- or 100 feet of dirt -- before exploding. There are plans to go even bigger, with a monster 30,000 lb ‘Massive Ordnance Penetrator’ which would take the maximum depth to 60 feet. That’s about as big as you can carry on a plane.
I’ve described Deep Digger here previously. Unlike earlier weapons this is an active penetrator, a bomb that actually burrows into the ground by drilling a shaft with volleys from seven cannon. In a demonstration last year a Deep Digger prototype penetrated more than 30 feet of limestone. The makers were tight-lipped about how much further it could go.
This presentation from David Burns of the Medium Caliber Weapons Systems Branch of ARDEC reveals much more about the weapon than previously released. In particular, it is described as being able to dig down to 150 feet. That’s impressive on its own, but the ‘Concept Of Operations’ in Slide 4 is staggering: an array of 20 Deep Diggers would be detonated together to produce a shockwave which will collapse all underground structures to a depth of 300 feet over a 200-yard square area.
Compare this to this description of the B61-11, the only bunker-busting nuclear bomb in the arsenal:
For a penetration depth of three meters and a yield of 0.3 kilotons, the B61-11 could destroy a target buried under roughly 15 meters [= 50 feet] of hard rock or concrete. For the same penetration depth and the maximum yield of 340 kilotons, the destruction depth would be roughly 70 meters [ =210 feet ] for a hardened target.
In other words, the Deep Digger array is more effective than a 340-kiloton nuclear weapon optimised to attack underground targets.
The secret is in effectively combining 20 separate explosions into a coherent pulse. This area has been researched for many years, in particular in the 90’s under the name of ACE, for Array of Conventional Explosives. It takes a phenomenal amount of computing power to calculate the non-linear effects of multiple explosions combining in a three-dimensional volume (which may not be homogenous), and new software tools were developed for the job. In addition, real-world testing is needed to validate these models – hence exercises like the notorious Divine Strake which involves a underground explosion of 700 tons of explosives.
The last I heard the Array Of Conventional Explosives had been axed, in favor of simpler and more straightforward approaches, but Deep Digger has some key advantages over earlier weapons that make it more suitable:
- Deep penetration means that all of the blast goes into creating an underground shockwave, not just digging a crater. For blasting rock, it’s basic that the charge need to be drilled to a depth to be effective.
- Deep Digger parachutes down to a soft landing before digging in. Other bunker busters hit the ground very hard and experience a deceleration tens of thousands of g's. This affects their reliability, and the loss of a few warheads may make the whole array ineffective.
- Deep Digger may be able to maneuver underground, correcting the configuration of the array after it is in place.
And Deep Digger is only a first-generation active penetrator. Devices like General Dynamics Worm which Noah described last week may burrow much more effectively.
Or course, bunkers can always be dug deeper. One British Cold War plan involved relocating government centres to coal mines 5,000 feet underground. However, given that the Deep Digger array can collapse the entrance tunnels to a depth of 300 feet, any such deep bunker may become a tomb from which the occupants will never escape.
More importantly, such an array would make the vast majority of existing bunkers obsolete, or at any rate insecure. This would include nuclear facilities such as missile siloes.
((Of course the idea is not new. In WWII Barnes-Wallis used the shockwaves from Grand Slam bombs to bring down German railway viaducts when standard bombs proved ineffective. A Deep Digger array might also be used to cause the simultaneous collapse of blocks of skyscrapers, or dams or other large structures.))
I’ve been advised that the Deep Digger program is undergoing a ‘security review’. If past experience is anything to go by, this means you won’t be hearing any more news updates on the program.
Meanwhile, DARPA have started their Strategically Hardened Facility Defeat (SHFD) program which :
...seeks to leverage recent advances in non-nuclear earth-penetrating technologies for the defeat of strategically hardened targets. System and technology areas to be developed in this program include: new penetration technologies, robust self-contained aerial deploymen
