Okay folks, I know you miss this so much (trying a little irony here), but I feel like I have to turn your attention to the latest update of Iranian activity in Iraq.
Just three days after the “groundbreaking” talks between Iranian officials and U.S. diplomats on Iraqi security, “coalition forces” (which is code for TF 145) and Iraqi troops nabbed a few more bad guys tied to the Iranian support network for the insurgency…and al Qaeda.
I know there are a lot of readers here who strongly dispute the Iranian connection with Iraq and see it as impossible for a Shiite government to collaborate with the Sunni AQ movement. But at the very least, when more “smoking gun” evidence does present itself, the U.S. can’t be accused of ignoring the threat.
Iraqi and Coalition Forces detained two individuals in Sadr City during the first raid. They are believed to be members of the secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training.
Intelligence reports indicate one of the targeted individuals detained during the operation is suspected of providing facilitation and logistic support for trafficking weapons used in operations against Coalition Forces.
In a separate raid in Khanaqin, Coalition Forces captured a suspected liaison to al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leaders, who assists in the movement of information and documents from al-Qaeda in Iraq leadership in Baghdad to al-Qaeda senior leaders in Iran.
And at today’s briefing with coalition commander, Gen. Ray Odierno, there was no flexibility on the claim of Iranian support of the violence:
“We still see interference by Iran here in Iraq…they are shipping weapons, money and supplying training” for insurgents in Iran.
But he did seem conciliatory toward Syria. While not denying the continuing flow of insurgents through Syria, Odierno is open to dialogue. Does he see an opening that the rest of us (skeptics) might be missing?
”I think we need to reach out to them and to talk to them…”
Part of America’s counterinsurgency strategy is the wholesale rebuilding of native armed forces. Some have argued that supplying the new armies with antiquated weapons such as the AK-47 demeans them – that instead they should be supplied with modern weaponry, such as the M4, to take advantage of both its increased accuracy and its “western” appearance.
Better to make them feel like a modern military in hopes that they’ll act like one.
But a new contract solicitation takes this philosophy a step further. According to FedBizOps, the Pentagon is seeking vendors to satisfy a requirement to supply the Afghan army “commando” force with night vision equipment.
The solicitation calls for “Generation II” goggles. Most US special operators and pilots wear the most advanced GenIV and even some combined IR/I2 NODs.
While it seems like a good idea to equip America’s new allies with the most modern equipment available – to make them more effective in our absence and to help forge a Western esprit – doling out NVGs to Afghan soldiers, no matter how down-market they are, risks some blowback.
How much blood and treasure have been spent to locate all the old Stinger missiles supplied by the CIA to the Soviet-fighting Mujahaddin in the 1980s? And what will happen when a take-down raid on Taliban or AQ holdouts nets some of those NODs we just supplied to the Afghan “special” forces?
One of the American military’s strongest advantages in ground combat is its ownership of the night. IR markers, glint tape and IR illuminators are key to nighttime fighting for US forces. If the NVG technology intended for our Afghan allies falls into the wrong hands, that advantage will quickly turn into a major vulnerability.
Heating up the UAV debate again, a mid-April experiment demonstrated that a battle-damaged combat drone could deal with the simulated hit and land autonomously – within a few feet of its intended touch-down point.
Defense Tech readers will remember the argument made by retired Air Force colonel Tom Ehrhard a couple weeks ago that the Navy should be concentrating more on developing combat UAVs in order to maintain the “persistence” over the battlefield that every ground commander is asking for.
Ironically, the flight test – sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Agency and conducted at Aberdeen proving ground on April 19 – used a scaled down version of an F/A-18. Engineers created the in-flight damage by ejecting an aileron from the drone’s wing. The navigation systems and in-flight controls adjusted, bringing the pilotless plane safely back to Earth.
Damage tolerance is an enabling capability for increasing the mission reliability of UAVs and Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) operating in hazardous and high-threat environments. The technology provides for real-time autonomous accommodation of damage, followed by an adaptation process that alters the flight control system to compensate for the effects of the damage.
Watch the in-flight videos of the experiment HERE and HERE.
Admittedly, this is a small step with a limited impact on just one area of concern over the UCAV concept. But it’s steps like these that could bring aerial robot wars to our enemy’s skies sooner than one might imagine.
Inside Defense reported the shot yesterday, though it occurred earlier in the month against an al Qaeda safe house.
The WWS quotes a few defense experts critiquing the operational test, some calling it a stunt and saying the precision-guided artillery round isn’t much use when the U.S. has total air superiority.
This morning I spoke with Stuart Koehl, a military analyst at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Transatlantic Relations, who called the strike "a stunt, because they didn't have to use an artillery round, they could have used an airplane--it would have been a lot cheaper. …
“In counterinsurgency this kind of thing is mainly irrelevant. If I really need the long-range indirect fires, I've got total air supremacy, I've got all-weather capability, I really don't need an artillery round when I could drop it from an airplane. It just makes a lot more sense to have something right there on the scene shooting from a much shorter range...a JDAM dropped from overhead is going to go right down the pipe, no matter what."
Except that’s not exactly true. Aircraft are not always on station and sometimes if there are planes aloft, there aren’t enough of them or they’re tasked out to do other things, like search for IEDs.
But every forward operating base has an artillery battery and that battery has guys ready to pull the firing cord at a moment’s notice. The artillery fires are much more responsive and a precision-guided 155 round packs just enough punch to knock out what you need, leaving the rest largely undamaged.
"If all I want to do is blow up one building, JDAM's just too much of a good thing."
Critics say the Army should be spending more time looking into a precision-guided mortar. But, thing is, they already are.
Infantry mortars are good for suppression and fixing the enemy. The 120mm mortar fits the bill for an infantry vehicle-portable precision fire platform for medium distances. If a soldier or Marine needs to knock out a specific room in the short range, he can use an AT4 or LAW.
Programs like Excalibur, however, could suffer from the time worn Pentagon practice of adding capabilities that boost the cost and make the thing more complicated and expensive that it needs to be. Army, Marine – and Navy, for that matter – cannon cockers need precision rounds just as much as the jet jocks do. And in a counterinsurgency, precision is everything.
-- Christian
Walling Out the Bad Guys
Walling off vulnerable Baghdad neighborhoods is critical to breaking the cycle of revenge killings in Iraq, according to U.S. Army General David Petraeus' counter-insurgency advisor.
Portable barriers installed between neighborhoods enable U.S. and Iraqi forces to limit the nighttime movements of death squads and insurgents, says Dr. David Kilcullen, a lieutenant colonel in the Australian army reserve who has spent years studying terror groups and methods for defeating them.
"What we've tried to do is put in a series of blocks to stop that cycle [of violence] from running, and if it does run, to reduce the number of people killed in attacks" by limiting the scale and frequency of attacks, Kilcullen explains.
He uses the term "gated community" to describe the walled-off neighborhoods. The first to be enclosed was Sunni community of Adhamiyah in April. The decision to wall of a particular area is made by the U.S. battalions on the ground.
Not everyone was thrilled by the Adhamiyah barrier. "This will deepen the sectarian strife and only serve to abort efforts aimed at reconciliation," a Sunni shop owner told The New York Times.
Noting such objections, Kilcullen stresses that the walls are temporary. He compares them to tourniquets. "It's something you do when patient is bleeding to death. But you don't leave it there forever or it causes damage."
"We had 130 bodies turning up per day in Baghdad due to sectarian violence last year. Now it's around 20," he says, adding that the negative psychological effects of the barriers are outweighed by "the negative effects of people getting killed."
Barriers are only one tactic of the new U.S. approach in Iraq, Kilcullen says. He also cites smaller, dispersed patrol bases, a renewed reconstruction effort and stepped-up air patrols, all intended to "reduce feelings of intimidation" among everyday Iraqis and therefore "create more space for compromise and political reconciliation."
"It's a multi-year activity that we're talking about," he cautions. "We are going to get there, but it's not going to look like the United States."
One of the major remaining obstacles is creating a "single narrative" for Iraq that is embraced by the Iraqi government and its international partners. "We are still in the process of changing form one way of doing business to another. The single narrative the Americans used to pursue was 'they stand up as we stand down.' That was not terribly comforting to Iraqis."
Now the message is that the coalition is focused on creating security, according to Kilcullen. And sometimes, he says, that means building a wall.
-- David Axe
Bashar Bashes the Competition
Defense Tech would like to be the first in the blogosphere to congratulate Syrian “president” Bashar Assad on his stunning landslide victory for another seven years as ruler of Syria.
How he eeked out a 97 percent victory in an electoral field devoid of competition is the biggest mystery. Maybe it was his four-point healthcare plan or the Baath party's “green” energy agenda?
Nearly 12 million Syrians voted in the “referendum” – a whopping 19,000 voted against Assad. What were they thinking?
As AFP points out: "With parliament having unanimously approved Assad's candidature and with vocal opponents of the regime locked up, the result was never in doubt."
...Kinda takes all the fun out of the whole election thing, though, doesn't it.
Just in case you didn’t see it already, the Pentagon released its annual Chinese Military Power report Friday.
One of the best China reporters in the country, Bill Gertz, wrote in the Washington Times that the report shows a robust effort by the PRC to develop anti-satellite weapons that can “deliver a knockout blow to many U.S. military satellites.”
Gertz writes:
According to defense officials familiar with the report, it also highlights new strategic missile developments, including China's five new Jin-class submarines, and states that Beijing continues to hide the true level of its military spending.
The officials also said that the report will detail how China is developing two new types of strategic forces that go beyond what nations have done traditionally using air, sea and land forces by aiming to knock out modern communications methods on which the U.S. military relies for advanced warfighting techniques.
China also is training large numbers of military computer hackers to deliver crippling electronic attacks on U.S. military and civilian computer networks.
First of all, I want to thank all you DT readers for your incredibly insightful discussions regarding the latest spat over Dragon Skin. It’s such a pleasure to edit a site that draws such informed conversations that actually help drive the story forward.
So a big pat on the back to our readers, we appreciate it.
In fact, one of our savvy readers helped push the debate even further by tipping DT off on a whole new class of body armor that simply puts Dragon Skin – and, frankly, all others to shame.
“Foreign.Boy” wondered why in the heck DT readers weren’t discussing the “Trojan Armor” system, invented by armor expert extraordinaire Troy Hurtubise. With all this hoopla about how Dragon Skin is the new wonder armor, how could such well-informed readers ignore the cutting-edge performance of this as yet unnoticed system?
After viewing the scientifically-precise laboratory field tests for myself, I cannot help but agree whole heartedly with (may I go so far as to call him my “colleague?”) – “Foreign.Boy.”
Watch a report on the new suit below (and don’t mind the weird cover shot on the video screen).
(Be sure to read the continued entry, you won't be disappointed.)
So I’ve dug and zorched around the net based on FB’s suggestion. And here DT readers can view for themselves in wonderment at this new armor. I’m sure you’ll all agree that the folks over a PEO Soldier would be smart to drop everything they’re doing and launch a “Manhattan Project”-style rapid fielding initiative to get the Trojan Armor on our boys in the Box.
And, oh, from all of us at Defense Tech - have a great Memorial Day weekend, folks. I’ll leave you with this added video we dug up showing Hurtubise testing early prototypes of the suit. Thank goodness he made such life-saving improvements!
Soldiers Want a Bigger Bang
Nearly 80 percent of Soldiers said in a recent survey they are satisfied with their weapons, though almost half recommended a replacement for the standard-issued M9 pistol or ammunition with more stopping power.
Additionally, nearly 30 percent of Soldiers in the December 2006 survey, conducted on behalf of the Army by the Center for Naval Analyses, said the M4 carbine should be replaced or more deadly ammunition fielded.
"Across weapons, Soldiers have requested weapons and ammunition with more stopping power/lethality," the report said.
The study was commissioned by the Army's Project Manager for Soldier Weapons to address concerns raised by Soldiers returning from combat about the dependability and effectiveness of their small arms.
"This study assessed Soldier perspectives on the reliability and durability of their weapons systems in combat to aid in decisions regarding current and future small arms needs of the Army," said the study, which was obtained by Military.com.
CNA surveyors conducted over 2,600 interviews with Soldiers returning from combat duty, asking them a variety of questions about accessories, weapons training, maintenance and recommended changes to their small arms.
"The U.S. Army Infantry Center is conducting a study to refine the Army's Small Arms Strategy, which focuses on the employment of rifles, carbines, ammunition caliber, and future technologies," said Army spokesman, Lt. Col. William Wiggins, in a statement. "All Services are participating in this study, which is expected in the July/August 2007 timeframe."
The survey lends weight to Army claims that current-issued weapons are effective despite growing criticism from Soldiers and lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the service should re-assess the standard M4 - as well as the M9 pistol.
In April, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) sent a letter to acting Army secretary Pete Geren taking issue with the service's sole-source contract to buy about 500,000 M4 carbines despite evidence that new rifle technologies could provide more reliable weapons.
The study found the most stoppage problems with the M249 machine gun and M9 pistol, with an average of about 30 percent of respondents saying they experienced stoppages with each weapon in firefights. About four in ten Soldiers who said they experienced jams during combat with their pistols or machine guns claimed it took them out of the fight.
Though vocal critics of the M4 say it's prone to jamming in the talcum-like sand environments of Iraq and Afghanistan, only 19 percent of M4 users said they experienced stoppages in combat.
But of those with malfunctioning M4s, nearly 20 percent said they were "unable to engage the target with that weapon during a significant portion of or the entire firefight after performing immediate or remedial action to clear the stoppage," the report said.
Soldiers who attach accessories to their weapons experienced a disproportionate number of malfunctions, with M249 users nine times more likely to experience a stoppage "if accessories were attached via zip cord, four times more likely if attached with duct tape and three times more likely if attached with dummy cords or rails."
"Accessory attachments had a significant impact on reported stoppages," the report said. "Those who attached accessories to their weapon were more likely to experience stoppages, regardless of how the accessories were attached."
The CNA surveyors also asked Soldiers for their opinions on possible improvements to their small arms. The top request from Soldiers was for more knock-down power, reigniting the debate over America's small arms caliber choices.
"When speaking to experts and Soldiers on site, many commented on the limited ability to effectively stop targets, saying that those personnel targets who were shot multiple times were still able to continue pursuit," the report said.
A full 20 percent of M9 users said they wanted a new weapon, and "some were more specific and requested a return to the Colt .45 for standard issue pistols," including others who asked for hollow-point ammo.
Hollow point rounds have been deemed illegal for military use.
Additionally, M16 users were "consistent and adamant" in asking to be re-issued the more compact M4.
Is the Fire Scout really going anywhere programmatically?... Really?
It seems like a classic case of a Pentagon project on life support, bouncing from the Navy to the Marine Corps and now as part of the Army's (potentially doomed) FCS program.
Despite the upbeat press release, will be ever see these whirlybird drones in combat?
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has successfully performed an engine run of the first U.S. Army MQ-8B Fire Scout Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), the Class IV Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) in the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS), at the company's Unmanned Systems Center in Moss Point, Miss.
"The engine run is a significant milestone for the FCS program. It marks completion of final assembly of the initial manufacturing phase of the first Army Fire Scout," said Joe Emerson, Northrop Grumman's FCS Fire Scout program manager. "We've been diligent in tracking our costs and meeting milestones such as this, which validates our commitment to quality, technical excellence, cost and delivery. We're definitely looking forward to fielding this aircraft."
The FCS Fire Scout has now completed the initial assembly process and will await delivery of mission avionics and sensors.
The MQ-8B Fire Scout has been flying under a Navy contract since December 2006, but this marked the first time aircraft operations were conducted at the Moss Point site...
...In August 2003, the Fire Scout was selected as the Class IV UAS for the Army's Future Combat Systems. The Fire Scout will be a key element of the Army's tactical intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting architecture, providing real-time imagery, data collection and dissemination at the brigade level.
Northrop Grumman is under a 10-year contract from The Boeing Company and Science Applications International Corporation, the Army's FCS lead systems integrators to develop the system architecture, produce MQ-8B Fire Scout air vehicles, perform system tests and evaluations, and help develop long-lead future requirements.
Back in the day (the late 80’s for me) the only thing available was the LBE (Y-harness) and pistol belt. While the LBE itself wasn’t good for much, it did help take the weight of the loaded pistol belt off your hips, and my pistol belt was loaded. I carried 5 three-mag pouches, 2 canteens, and a butt pack (in addition to the regulation bent neck flashlight, compass, NOD bag and first aid pouch.) In the pack went an MRE, socks, NBF powder and small toilet kit, alcohol pens and tape for maps and such, and trioxane tabs for cooking water.
For years this arrangement worked because all of the dismounted stuff I did was truly dismounted. We might get delivered somewhere in a deuce and a half or hummer, but we didn’t patrol in one; all that we did on the ground.
Then came “modern” times, where everything you do is “mounted”, even getting to the point that you can’t go 50 feet without having to get back into the truck. That, coupled with the fact that “uniformity” was now our primary focus (meaning you had to have your kit on when ever you got more than 5 feet from your vehicle) meant that a change in how I carried my equipment was in order. As much as I liked the canteens (with their attendant cooking stand and cup) and the butt pack, they both had to go.
There was simply no way I could ride in a Humvee wearing my LBE with those canteens sticking out of my back like 2 cancerous tumors, and going through the chore of donning, removing, and stowing the LBE every time I got in and out of the vehicle was not only a waste of time and a big pain in the ass, but it was tactically unsound; you ought to dismount the vehicle in a fighting condition.
So I started looking for an LBE replacement. The one I settled on was the RACK (Ranger Assault Carrying Kit.) Developed by Specialty Defense, I’m told that it was developed specifically to meet the Ranger’s requirements for “assault” oriented gear. The RACK, in effect, is a MOLLE apron. All it is is a wrap around vest with MOLLE loops on it for you to attach bags and pouches too.
What you attach, where you attach, and how much you attach is completely up to you. In addition, everything on the RACK is in your front plane, meaning you can see it and get to it without having to grope behind you, and with nothing behind you, you can wear it while in a vehicle without any discomfort or loss of mobility.
As great as I think the RACK is, it isn’t without limitations. While the RACK is easy to wear in a vehicle because there’s nothing behind you, that does limit the amount of stuff you can carry. I could carry more with my old LBE-pistol belt rig than I can with the RACK, but I couldn’t carry it all the time, so the trade off is now, if I go on walkabout, I need a bail-out bag as well (Camelbak in my case) to carry a few additional essentials.
The RACK, by today’s standards, is also relatively old technology – there are systems out there that are much more advanced than my lash up, made of more exotic materials and what not, but mine’s bought and paid for, and I’m disinclined to spend modern money to upgrade something that currently still meets my mission requirements.
In the continuing debate over whether the current version of the M4 carbine should be replaced, some lawmakers are keeping pressure on the Army to take another look at their standard-issued rifle.
In a series of letters to top Army officials, Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma who has no small arms makers in his state, asked a simple question to the new, acting Army secretary Pete Geren: “Is the M4 the best rifle in the world?”
The letter, written May 16, is the latest attempt by the first-term Senator to force the Army to look at new rifle technologies that could make life a lot easier for Soldiers and other troops who use the compact M4 as their primary weapon. Coburn does not sit on any armed service-related committees.
As most DT readers already know, the M4 in its current state uses a gas-operated system to eject a spent round and load another. That system – without going into the minute details – is said to be prone to malfunctions unless it is meticulously cleaned. That’s hard to do in harsh, talcum-sand environments like Iraq and Afghanistan and can be extremely time consuming.
New (at least in infantry weapons) gas-piston operating system designs are much less prone to fouling, operators say, and can be retrofitted to current weapons at relatively low cost.
The congressional pressure is mounting, a Senate source tells Defense Tech, to withhold funds in the 2008 Defense Authorization bill to buy $375 million in M4s for new Army Brigade Combat Teams from Colt Defense until the Army holds an evaluation of these new rifle systems. Candidate weapons include the FN-made SOCOM Combat Assault Rifle, the HK 416 (which is popular with special operations forces) and Colt’s gas-piston version of the M4, appropriately dubbed the “M5.”
Competition-backers in the Senate aren’t optimistic that they can insert language into the budget markup, but are planning to take their argument to the floor of the Senate when the final bill comes up for a vote. The senate source said Air/Land forces subcommittee chairman, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), is resisting the competition bill language.
Colt Defense is based in West Hartford, Conn.
The Army has also resisted changing course on the M4, saying back in late March that the carbine has “been improved numerous times and employs the most current technology available on any rifle/carbine in general use today.”
That seems to be at odds with what the Army’s most elite soldiers (and other special ops forces, for that matter) really want. But as the body armor debate heats back up again and lawmakers show a greater willingness to have the services explore – and pay for – new approaches to everyday equipment, we’ll see if the Army takes another look at the Soldier’s most important piece of equipment.
The Army has opened a $1-million engine test facility for its $200-billion Future Combat Systems program amid Congressional concerns that the ambitious modernization program costs too much and fails to improve upon existing weapons.
The test facility at the Tank-Automotive Research and Development Center (TARDEC) in Warren, Michigan, includes several bays where engineers from the Army and from General Dynamics -- one of several major defense firms associated with FCS -- can install prototype hybrid-electric engines and their associated generators and put them through power loads simulating use in combat. Hybrid engines are slated for installation in the FCS manned vehicles, the first of which would enter service around 2014.
Major Scott Tufts from the FCS mobility program office says an engine currently getting a workout at TARDEC will be fitted to a test model of the BAE Systems Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon, the FCS howitzer, in August. A partial howitzer prototype mounted on an improvised, old-fashioned chassis is already undergoing firing tests at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.
Before the 5.5-liter, five-cylinder engine can be installed on the howitzer prototype, engineers at TARDEC must map its performance across a wide range of power loads and in extreme environmental conditions. “We can take the engine anywhere on the power map. We can do starting and backing up,” says John Srodawa, a General Dynamics engineer. Plus TARDEC’s test bays can be heated to 160 degrees Fahrenheit in order to simulate high noon in the world’s hottest deserts.
The first engine to undergo testing has so far logged around 110 hours in the bay, in bursts no longer than three hours, according to Srodawa. But he says that testing will soon ramp up to full power for up to 10 hours at a time. “The goal is to acquire enough data to map the engine’s efficiency.” That, he adds, will help engineers answer the question, “How do we optimize the engine and generator so that they give us the best fuel consumption?”
Despite testing progress, Congress has questioned FCS’ schedule and goals. This month the House Armed Services Committee voted to cut $900 million from the program’s 2008 budget, saying that war expenses and an Army-wide maintenance backlog were more urgent -- and that FCS duplicates some existing Army capabilities. The proposed cut comes on the heels of the Army’s decision last year to defer four of the 18 vehicles and robots planned for FCS in order to save money.
But even if the House cut sticks, FCS would still get nearly $3 billion next year. And Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) from the House committee says that’s plenty for FCS to meet its 2008 goals, including full installation of the first hybrid engine.
-- David Axe
DS Multi-media Update
Defense Tech received a video clip released by the Army showing part of its May 2006 test shoot on Dragon Skin. The video is purported to be from the vest “M-01-Front” shot (if you’re following along in the Army briefing document, it’s on page 12 and shows an x-ray of the back panel penetration with the front, back and side shot profiles) in which the second shot had a complete penetration.
You’ll see the HP White staffers mounting the vest on the bracket, then Pinnacle President Murray Neal inspecting the mounting. Two shots are fired, and then the vest is removed to inspect the shot in the clay backing.
After the vest is removed, the curved clay backing representing the exact area of ESAPI coverage can be seen, and photos are taken by another ballistics expert hired by the Army for the test, Jim Zheng. This belies Neal’s contention that the Dragon Skin was tested on “non-rifle defeating areas.”
Notice the first shot is on the edge, as the ESAPI FAT test protocols call for, and shows a deep indentation – though it is unclear whether that back face deformation is within ESAPI specs. The second shot, just up and to the right of the first, is the complete penetration. You can see Neal come in and inspect the hole and the HP White engineers dig the round out.
This is not on the high-heat tested vest Neal claims had an “adhesive anomaly.”
The debate over Dragon Skin went political with the late-in-the-day release of a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates from top Senate Armed Services Committee lawmakers.
The letter asks Gates to take the Dragon Skin testing up a notch, requesting that his research and engineering guru, John Young, hold his own tests to determine the “facts regarding the protective qualities of the body armor we are currently providing our troops and that of any other commercially available comparable and competing system.”
This is an interesting turn of events because the letter also calls into question the Army’s testing methodology for body armor effectiveness.
Recent press reports raise questions about the fairness and reliability of Army tests of a commercially available body armor and whether it fails, meets, or exceeds the military's ballistic protection requirements.
The Pentagon and the individual services began a total overhaul of their test methodology in late 2005 after stories emerged that failed lots of Point Blank-made Interceptor body armor were shipped to troops despite failed quality assurance tests.
Whether or not McCain and Levin’s letter prompts a more favorable view of Dragon Skin in the DoD is perhaps a more minor point to the chances their efforts might put to rest once and for all the debate over exactly how to test and evaluate body armor.
For years, the Army tested it armor at HP White and US Labs – two civilian owned and run ballistics test facilities. Their motive was to banish any idea that they somehow swayed the results. I don’t know a whole lot about US Labs, but I’ve spoken with the owner of HP White and he calls the tests as he sees them.
On the other hand, the Marine Corps for years tested its armor at Aberdeen Proving Ground - an Army facility. When lots of vests were failed at Aberdeen, the Corps took those vests to HP White and they passed. Then the service shipped them to troops despite the original adverse results. So, which test facility is better?
And, oh, who tested the purported CIA Dragon Skin vests? What model were they? It’s my understanding the SOV3000 (Level IV) is a relatively new design. The National Institute of Justice do not test to the level the Army does on armor-piercing resistant plates. So, there’s a third variance in the whole equation.
Hopefully this controversy can force the services to come up with a universal testing regimen with credibility that can also be used by other government agencies so at least some of the doubt over who’s got the best armor can be erased.
The Army plans to brief Congress about test failures of Dragon Skin body armor after recent news reports touting the vest's capabilities prompted calls from lawmakers for an official explanation.
The service's top soldier equipment buyer, Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, said he plans to meet with lawmakers and staff this week after NBC News broadcast an investigative report Sunday claiming Dragon Skin - which uses a series of interlocking ceramic disks to stop armor-piercing bullets - outperformed armor currently issued by the Army.
"Since the report, we have gotten a flurry of interest" from Capitol Hill, Brown said at a May 21 Pentagon briefing. "We're planning on going over to the Hill ... for discussions with key members."
Brown declined to specify which lawmakers contacted his office, explaining he's still working out the final details on this week's congressional visit.
The Monday briefing was the first public accounting after a year of silence on the Dragon Skin issue. Army officials are fighting back with an aggressive campaign to undercut NBC's claims, which based much of its report on ballistic tests the network conducted in Germany and on the claims of Dragon Skin manufacturer Pinnacle Armor.
The Army laid out its case with x-ray photos showing complete penetrations of the armor during a standardized test in mid-May of last year. Brown appeared at the Pentagon briefing with the actual test articles that had failed to stop armor-piercing rounds, which Army officials claim its current enhanced small arms protective insert plate can withstand.
"'Zero failures' is the correct answer," Brown said. "One failure is sudden death, and you lose the game."
The Dragon Skin vests tested by the Army in May suffered 13 penetrations in 48 shots, service officials said.
The Army initially held off countering Pinnacle president Murray Neal's claims that his armor was superior, despite the adverse test results, in hopes of keeping the dispute from going nuclear. But after nearly a week of NBC News reports claiming Dragon Skin is stronger, the Army decided to lay out its case.
"The intent was not to blow bridges between the Army and some very credible contractor," said Brig. Gen. Tony Cucolo, the Army's top spokesman. "It's just that with this most recent news report and its potential impact on Mr. and Mrs. America ... that's why we went with this" detailed defense.
Army officials say they want to field a system similar to Dragon Skin, whose interlocking ceramic disks provide more protective coverage and more flexibility than currently-issued armor. But at nearly 20-pounds heavier than the Army's vest, Dragon Skin technology isn't there yet.
"We're very interested in this type of armor - in this concept," Brown explained. "It has great promise. But it is not meeting our requirements as we speak today."
Brown hopes his public case against Dragon Skin will keep Soldiers and their families from doubting the strength of their Army-issued vests.
"This is not just some number on a wall, this is personal to us," Brown said. "It's very near and dear to us which is why we take it deadly seriously."
David Galula wrote the bible on counter-insurgency warfare. Trained at the French military academy at Saint Cyr, Galula saw conventional warfare action in World War II, then spent the remainder of his career fighting guerrillas and insurgents from Africa to Indochina. In 1961, he published "Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice". The book is 99.98% about tactics, and 0.02% about equipment, which tells you something about the nature of counter-insurgency.
He lived to see his careful instructions ignored by US military planners in Southeast Asia. This was a pattern tragically repeated by US military planners in Southwest Asia.
Galula limits his guidance on equipment mostly to three main paragraphs, with a heading entitled: "Adaptation of the Armed Forces to Counter-Insurgency Warfare".
Defense Tech recently has discussed whether the US military needs its own counter-insurgency aircraft fleet, provoking quite a bit of informed discussion. To keep the conversation going, it's probably a good idea to read what the master says. To wit:
"As long as the insurgent has failed to build a powerful regular army, the counterinsurgent has little use for heavy, sophisticated forces designed for conventional warfare. For his ground forces, he needs infantry and more infantry, highly mobile and lightly armed; some field artillery for occasional support; armored cavalry, and if terrain conditions are favorable, horse cavalry for road surveillance and patrolling. For his air force, he wants ground support and observation planes of slow speed, high endurance, great firepower, protected against small-arms ground fire; plus short takeoff transport planes and helicopters, which play a vital role in counterinsurgency operations. The navy's mission, if any, is to enforce a blockade, a conventional type of operation that does not require elaboration here. In addition, the counterinsurgent needs an extremely dense signal network.
"The counterinsurgent, therefore, has to proceed to a first transformation of his existing forces along these lines, notably to convert into infantry units as many unneeded specialized units as possible.
"The adaptation, however, must go deeper than that. At some point in the counterinsurgency process, the static units that took part initially in large scale military operations in their area will find themselves confronted with a huge variety of nonmilitary tasks which have to be performed in order to get the support of the population, and which can be performed only by military personnel, because of the shortage of reliable civilian political and administrative personnel. Making a thorough census, enforcing new regulations on movements of persons and goods, informing the population, conducting person-to-person propaganda, gathering intelligence on the insurgent's political agents, implementing the various economic and social reforms, etc. -- all these will become their primary activity. They have to be organized, trained and supported accordingly. Thus, a mimeograph machine may turn out to be more useful than a machine gun, a soldier trained as a pediatrician more important than a mortar expert, cement more wanted than barbed wire, clerks more in demand than rifleman."
-- Stephen Trimble
The Dragon Skin Show
All right, so the NBC piece on Dragon Skin aired last night. Based on the contentious discussion on this board, I figured most DT readers have seen it.
So what do you think?
I caught a few things that concerned me. First of all, the Dragon Skin was clearly tested on a flat clay backing rather than a curved one – while the ESAPI was tested on a curved backing. PEO Soldier officials were adamant that the Dragon Skin be tested on a curved backing, and noted that Murray Neal objected.
The reason, they said, is that when flat, DS provides maximum overlap of the disks. When the armor is placed over a curved surface – like a soldier’s chest – the disks separate more. That creates some gaps (see page 10, “before testing” shot just below neck line).
Second of all, I covered Phil Coyle when he was Director of the Operational Test and Evaluation office at the Pentagon back in the late 1990s. He has been very critical of programs in the past for any hint of lapses in “operational effectiveness” or “operational suitability.” The DS, at this point, clearly fails in the “suitability” category because of its weight. There seems to have been no mention whatsoever of the Dragon Skin’s crushing weight in the NBC piece.
I picked up one of the SOV3000 vests in XL at PEO Soldier and another one at MarCorpsSysCom a couple weeks ago (it clearly appeared that would be the size that fit me best, though I wear a Large Interceptor) and it was staggering how heavy it was. I was blown away.
Why did NBC – and even more important, Phil Coyle, not pick up on this obvious problem? During the show, all we see are technicians handling pieces of the armor, not the whole vest. If they had been, viewers would see that most people can’t pick the vest up by the haul loop with one hand.
Lastly in my “major critique” category is that NBC producers totally ignored the data from the thorough brief they were given by PEO Soldier. They relied on a sit-down interview with BGEN. Mark Brown and one “gotcha” moment when Brown admitted he didn’t know the basis for the SOUM banning DS back in April 2006.
Fact is – and I saw the results only a few weeks after the SOUM was released (ironically, my source was a Marine) – a DS panel was tested in May 2004, before the ESAPI requirement, and failed because earlier iterations used wire to secure the disks rather than adhesive. After the first shot the wire failed and the disks slipped.
So why did NBC ignore the x-ray data from the PEO soldier brief? What would the public’s reaction have been if they’d seen the interviews and tests – then the x-ray photos showing the disks bunched together like a roll of nickels? A few scratched heads, I’m sure.
This story is not going away. We’ll keep on top of it as it develops, so please stay engaged.
Another really good write up on the issue can be found HERE.
I thought we'd use this edition of "The Sunday Paper" to provide an inside look at how defense procurement really works. For all the paperwork and talk of "requirements," most billion dollar programs start with a general musing, "Gee, I wish we had one of those (your weapon here)." To wit:
Now you know.
-- Ward
Dragon Skin vs. Army
The war between Pinnacle Armor and the Army went nuclear this week as NBC News claimed that Pinnacle's innovative "Dragon Skin" armor is far superior to the vest the Army currently issues to soldiers.
The report shows test conducted by NBC that seem to prove the vest - as its proponents have claimed over the last several years - can take many more rifle shots than the Army's Enhanced Small Arms Protective Inserts.
But Army officials disclosed to Military.com that in a series of tests conducted by the service in May of last year, the Dragon Skin vest failed to stop bullets as well as the current Army armor. In fact, test results showed that bullets slipped through the vest as early as the second shot.
"The bottom line is that Dragon Skin by Pinnacle catastrophically failed to meet the requirement," said Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, the head of the Fort Belvoir, Va.-based Program Executive Office Soldier, in a May 17 interview.
Pinnacle's president Murray Neal told Military.com the tests were flawed and that Army testers were unsure how to adequately evaluate his technology - which uses a series of small ceramic disk "scales" to cover the entire torso.
He called Army claims that his vests failed "a bold-faced lie" and said the service is embarrassed to admit its current armor isn't the best out there.
The Army's ESAPI is a rigid ceramic plate about 12-inches high and six inches wide. Soldiers wear front and back plates and two smaller side plates, all of which are designed to stop armor piercing AK-47 rounds found in the war zone.
The controversy went public last March when the Army issued a so-called "Safety of Use Message" that banned all store-bought armor, and specifically stated that Dragon Skin did not meet the service's requirement for ballistic protection.
At the urging of Capitol Hill, the Army bought 30 Dragon Skin vests in May of 2006 and put them through a standard "first article" test to see if the armor could hold up to the same ballistic conditions its current-issued ESAPIs must endure during certification.
According to Karl Masters, one of the Army's top ballistics experts, the Dragon Skin failed to stop a 7.62 x 63mm APM2 round on the second shot of the test.
"We ran this vest through the exact same test protocol that every ESAPI supplier goes through," Masters said. "Can you meet the ESAPI requirement or not? That's the question."
Neal argued in a release after last year's tests that Masters and another Army ballistics expert were dumbfounded by the "flexible armor system" and weren't sure where to place the shots for the test.
"Deviation from the ESAPI test protocols and procedures tool place by the selection of shot placements of APM2 rounds around the ceramics in non-rifle defeating areas," Neal said in a written statement.
But Army officials said the shots were aimed at the same areas for ESPI testing and that the first penetration would typically have been the end of the "sudden death" test.
Engineers agreed to continue with the evaluation, however, subjecting separate Dragon Skin vests to submersion in oil, salt water, extreme cold and extreme heat.
Army data shows 13 complete penetrations or unacceptable back-face deformations - where the bullet doesn't go all the way through but causes enough of a dent that it would result in serious trauma - on four failed vests.
The tests were held in mid-May at H.P. White labs, a respected ballistics testing facility in Street, Md. H.P. White is the same test lab where the Army evaluates all its armor components, preferring not to use the Army-run Aberdeen Proving Ground ranges to fend off accusations of bias.
More troubling to Army testers was the near complete delamination of the disks from the Kevlar backing within the Dragon Skin on several of the environmental tests.
After being subjected to 160-degree heat for six hours, the Dragon Skin vest failed on the first shot. X-ray photos of the vest show the disks slipped off their backing, exposing portions of the chest area without any ceramic protection.
"Certain areas of the adhesive hardened and become brittle and when that happened, they all dropped down," Brown said.
Further tests in minus-60-degree cold, immersion in oil and diesel fuel showed similar delaminations and shot failures.
Neal said the Army manipulated the x-ray photos, but admitted one vest had an adhesive "anomaly."
Perhaps the biggest Army concern is Dragon Skin's weight. An extra large vest is nearly 20 pounds heavier than the Army's current armor, though Masters admitted it did have more rifle protective coverage than issued vests.
"The Army continues to look at these types of armor," Masters admitted. "If we can ever eliminate this weight penalty, we may have an opportunity to go to gapless coverage."
The Army declined to provide details of the test failures when the controversy erupted last year, claiming operational security concerns.
But the NBC News investigation prompted officials to rethink their strategy in an effort to keep Army families from purchasing Dragon Skin vests for their loved ones in the combat zone.
"Soldiers must have confidence in their equipment when they go down range," Brown said. "They've got to know that they're wearing the best and their families have got to know that they're wearing the best."
Many of you may have heard or seen the recent stories coming out of NBC’s investigative unit on Dragon Skin body armor.
Soldiers for the Truth and other Dragon Skin advocates have already begun dancing in the end-zone on this. But as many DT readers already know, the field of ballistic protection is not a simple one. There’s a lot more to this story than meets the eye.
Fortunately, we’ve got it. But under ground rules, we have been “embargoed” from publishing information that would – and in some cases already has – force Dragon Skin’s vocal backers to scratch their heads and wonder whether the miracle armor is all it’s cracked up to be.
We’re working hard to lift the embargo so DT can get the facts from all sides of this debate in front of our informed readers. As soon as we can, you’ll see it.
I have been in the Army 17 years now and twice deployed to a combat zone and I have yet to be issued a bayonet. The reasons for this generally fall into two categories.
First, commanders consider the bayonet too dangerous to use (soldiers might hurt themselves), and second, the bayonet is accountable property and you’ll be paying for it if you break (read use) it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not all fired up to go out and stab someone with a bayonet, but there are times when you need a potentially sacrificial instrument to chop, hack, dig, probe, or test the proverbial waters with, and the last thing I want to do is get slapped with a $120 statement of charges because I used my shiny new M9 bayonet to probe a recently plastered section of brick wall looking for contraband and the tip broke.
Say hello to the kukri.
The kukri is the fighting knife of the Nepalese Gurkhas. A traditional kukri is hand-made in Nepal out of leaf spring steel (I’m told that Mercedes-Benz springs are the best) and is a combination hatchet, short sword, and fighting knife.
While mine is by no means "traditional" (mine was made in India I believe) what it is, however, is a most excellent piece of kit, which I have used time and time again for all those jobs for which an issue bayonet would have been the ticket, were such a bayonet available. Moreover at $40 a shot (a traditional kukri will run you $150 or more)
I'm not losing any sleep if I chip the blade on my kukri (which I have done, trying to hack through a undiscovered piece of rebar.)
This vid is a blast from the past, a Desert Storm-era classic that captures a flight of four F-16s targeted by a salvo of Iraqi SAMs. According to one of the seemingly erudite comment-adders the strike happened on January 19, 1991. The F-16s' targets were nuclear research facilities around Baghdad. Two of the F-16s were shot down. (You can hear Stroke 4 get hit.) Both pilots ejected and became POWs.
The HUD footage is grainy, but if you look closely you can make out the airspeed aligned vertically on the left and the altitude on the right. Heading is horizontally oriented along the top. The F-16 is headed south-ish most of the time, but as the pilot continues to "defend" he also remains over the SAM envelope longer - sort of a "rock and a hard place" situation.
Also, if you look closely you can see the contrails the SAMs leave as they fly toward the American jets. These guys got ambushed, big time.
The UHF comms between the airplanes in this video are intense (they get my heart racing, anyway). Adding to the confusion is the sound of the ALR-67 radar warning receiver. All of this should serve as a reminder to tactical jet aviators (and the procurement machine designed to support them) that while our enemy may not have an integrated air defense at the moment, future foes probably will.
During a Pentagon briefing yesterday, the Joint Chiefs’ head of regional operations, BGEN Perry Wiggins, deconstructed a recent operation to take out Taliban fighters hiding among children.
The explanation comes as the military takes fire from the Afghan government on civilians killed in the crossfire between coalition troops and Talib holdouts.
And it’s also interesting to note, the detailed description of the Special Forces troops’ avoidance of friendly fire comes in sharp contrast to the Army’s condemnation of the Marine Corps’ commandos who were booted from Afghanistan after their response to a roadside ambush killed civilians in the crossfire in March.
BGEN Wiggins:
I'm sure all you know, there's been a lot of recent coverage about civilian casualties associated with the counterinsurgency operations against the Taliban. Here's an illustration of how we actually operate against the barbaric enemy that we face in the Afghanistan theater, and shows the restraint and precision exercised by our forces with respect to the civilian populace.
On May 8th and into May 9th, a combined patrol of U.S. Special Forces and Afghan national army forces killed over 150 Taliban fighters in an engagement north of Sangin, in Helmand province of Afghan's southern province. This enemy contact was in support of NATO's international security force, Operations Achilles. During the fight, U.S. forces initially encountered high-capable Taliban in the Sangin valley, who pursued our units in an effort to seize an offensive advantage. Our forces repelled the initial Taliban assault and, using terrain and close air support, engaged the enemy with devastating effect.
During this engagement in Sangin, intelligence indicated there was a major or a senior Taliban commander for Helmand province at a particular target compound.
What you see here is an actual snapshot from the full-motion video asset, which was able to confirm the presence of 10 to 20 Taliban, circled in green, at this target compound.
Through the same -- through the use of the same full-motion video asset, children, circled in red on the slide, were identified near the objective. Consequently, U.S. Special Forces did not engage the target compound, due to the risk of harm to civilians. This is an example of the care taken to prevent civilian casualties and mitigate risk to them amid a long and intense battle with the enemy.
It was learned after this engagement that the Taliban fighters were taking refuge among local villagers, using them as human shields. This angered the Sangin tribal leaders, who blamed the Taliban for deliberately involving civilians and bringing the fight to the area. In response, the local elders mobilized an anti-Taliban militia that reportedly killed three Taliban leaders and captured 15 Taliban fighters.
Market Watch is reporting the following: "The Justice Department and the U.S. Navy have reached a settlement agreement with approximately 3,400 property owners in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, Va., regarding litigation relating to jet noise at a naval air base. Under the terms of the agreement, the participating plaintiffs agree to dismiss their claims and acknowledge that the settlement does not constitute an admission of liability by the United States.
"'We are pleased that the federal government and residents near the Naval Air Station Oceana and Naval Auxiliary Landing Field, Fentress have been able to reach an amicable resolution in this matter and avoid further litigation,' said Matthew J. McKeown, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. 'This resolution signals an end to six years of litigation and provides positive results for the citizens as well as the government.'
"The class-action lawsuit stems from the relocation of 156 Navy F/A-18 C/D Hornet fighter jets from Cecil Field, Fla., to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va., between December 1998 and July 1999. Plaintiffs own approximately 2,100 properties and alleged in a group of nine lawsuits filed between April 2001 and June 2005 that the introduction of the Hornets resulted in a substantial increase in overflights and jet noise. Under the settlement, the federal government will pay the plaintiffs an amount not to exceed $34.4 million."
As one who flew out of NAS Oceana for more than 15 years (and who also owned property under the landing pattern) all I can say is "are you kidding me?" The base has been in place since 1943. This is nothing but an elaborate drug deal, the result of home builders in collusion with the Virginia Beach city council wantonly ignoring the existence of a "master jet base" in their midst. This is the same sort of activity that landed NAS Oceana back on the BRAC list for the next go 'round -- a wreckless disregard for existing jet traffic (and known future requirements) in the face of money-making opportunities.
In the meantime pilot training has been affected by "noise abatement" rules that grow more restrictive with each rewrite until fighter pilots might as well be driving Boeing 777s. And now the tax payer takes it on the chin on the order of $34 million because of underhanded civic dealings and stupid homebuyers?
Provincial Reconstruction Teams tasked with rebuilding ruined infrastructure and institutions are trying to take the lead in the U.S. strategy to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan. But the PRTs' seemingly peaceful missions belie the extreme dangers they face every day, with security concerns often hobbling their efforts to make a significant impact.
Small, lightly equipped and often working far from the protective umbrella of U.S. and coalition troops, more than one PRT has had a close call.
Just ask Air Force Capt. Rockie Wilson. From August to December last year, Wilson led a combined Army-Air Force PRT trying to rebuild roads and train local government officials in Qalat province, northwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan. The 70-mile road network the PRT was working on featured deep dips that Wilson says were perfect spots to hide Improvised Explosive Devices.
But the first Taliban attack on his team involved small arms rather than roadside bombs.
"My life flashed before my eyes," Wilson says, smiling shyly as he recalls his stereotypical response to getting shot at for the first time.
But the six-months of pre-deployment Army training kicked in, and he maneuvered his Humvees to cover while his machine gunners and an attached Afghan Army unit opened fire. They were able to keep the Taliban's heads down long enough for Wilson to call in a pair of A-10 Warthog attack jets, killing many of the attackers and scattering the rest.
But the engagement did not come without cost. One Afghan army soldier in the patrol died and two were wounded.
First established in Afghanistan in 2002, PRTs were initially Army-led and included mostly Soldiers. But with the number and size of PRTs expanding throughout Central Command's area of responsibility and constant deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan for combat operations, the Navy and Air Force have stepped in to relieve some Army's manpower pressure, taking over leadership of 12 of the 24 American PRTs in Afghanistan.
Half of the 20 American PRTs in Iraq are led by the Army as well, with the other half led by State Department staffers - though, the department is having a tough time finding the personnel to assume the risky duty. There are as many as 100 people working in each PRT.
Division commanders are given a lot of leeway on how to use a PRT based in his combat zone. In Iraq, Army Brig. Gen. Edward Cardon embeds his teams - which are based south of Baghdad - alongside his combat brigades. Cardon told his PRTs to help local Iraqi government officials develop the skills to identify reconstruction projects and issue contracts on their own - a philosophy shared by teams in Afghanistan.
"I'm a believer in PRTs," he says, adding that he makes sure they have priority for helicopter support and escorts for their ground convoys. But even with escorts, the threat level often restricts their movement.
"The problem is they don't have the security to get around they way they should," Cardon said.
Still, Cardon's and Wilson's teams managed. One of the Iraq teams' biggest successes was coordinating pest mitigation for the large date palm industry in Karbala, a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad.
"There are these insects that come out and have to be sprayed within a six-week period. The Iraqis were having problems doing this for some time," Cardon explained. So one of his PRTs stepped in, arranging for helicopters to do the spraying - a move that "should mean dramatic improvement in the date harvest."
Next up: adding more State Department personnel to his PRTs and tasking them to train the Iraqi government in basic budgeting so ministries and local institutions can execute projects like the date palm spraying themselves.
"I'm trying to get the PRTs to focus more on building government capacity," Cardon says.
Provincial Reconstruction Teams tasked with rebuilding ruined infrastructure and institutions are trying to take the lead in the U.S. strategy to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan. But the PRTs' seemingly peaceful missions belie the extreme dangers they face every day, with security concerns often hobbling their efforts to make a significant impact.