At my old job, we used to always joke that it wasn't news unless the Washington Post, New York Times or AP reported it -- even if we'd done the story a month earlier.
Well, here's another case of the "it ain't news" phenomenon. We've been covering the heck out of this issue for more than a year, but when the chief says something about it and the AP hears it, well, then, Stop the Presses!
The military is reviewing Soldiers' complaints that their standard ammunition isn't powerful enough for the type of fighting required in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army's highest-ranking officer said Thursday. But Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said it was too soon to say whether the Pentagon will switch.
Current and former Soldiers interviewed by The Associated Press said the military's M855 rifle rounds are not powerful enough for close-in fighting in cities and towns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaking with reporters at a conference in Huntsville, Casey said leaders are constantly soliciting feedback from Soldiers in the field and were aware of complaints about the M855 ammunition.
"To effectively prepare them we have to adapt as the enemy adapts, and that is some of the feedback we have gotten," Casey said. "We'll evaluate it quickly and then we'll decide how we want to proceed."
But Casey said it would be premature to say if the Pentagon will consider a different type of ammunition.
"I can't tell you exactly what we're going to do," he said.
How much do you want to bet the answer to that question is "nothing"...? Kinda like the M-4 debate, huh?
-- Christian
Hover and Stare: FCS Testing UAVs
This article first appeared in Aviation Week's Ares Weblog.
Given Defense Secretary Robert Gates' order to the service branches to hurry up and get more unmanned aerial vehicles out to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s a scramble afoot to develop and deploy next-generation UAV’s as quickly as possible.
And the $160 billion Future Combat Systems program is right in the middle of that scramble. The Honeywell Defense and Space Electronic Systems' Class 1 block 0 UAV is currently being evaluated by the Army Evaluation Task Force at Ft. Bliss, Texas, and has been going through an accelerated testing program to try and get it out in the field as soon as possible. While not slated for FCS Spinout 1 in 2011, the UAV is being pushed though as quickly as possible. FCS spokesman Paul Mehney says that based on feedback that they've been getting from the field during testing there is a need for some of the capabilities that the Class 1 UAV block 0 will provide, such as the "hover and stare," which uses gimbaled adjustable sensors that allow soldiers to keep the vehicle in stationary hover, as well as incorporating early versions of the Joint Tactical Radio System.
But that's not the only system being tested. The Class IV UAV (Northrop Grumman's MQ-8B Fire Scout) is also on schedule, and is expected to be fielded in the 2014 time frame. The Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment (JEFX) that took place back in April proved out some sensor technology for Class IV UAV's according to FCS' Mehney.
According to specifications provided by Northrop Grumman, the Fire Scout, as currently stands, comes equipped with:
Northrop Grumman's Airborne Surveillance and Target Acquisition Minefield Detection System (ASTAMIDS) sensor. Additional sensors include a Tactical Synthetic Aperture Radar (TSAR/MTI), a communications relay package, a training sensor, Mine, Chemical and Radiological detection and a RF emissions locator. The highly reliable air vehicle is based on a COTS airframe and propulsion system.
The Army, unhappy that the House Armed Services Committee plans to cut $200 million from its top modernization program, plans a June 11 assault on the House side of the Capitol using elements of its Future Combat System. Relax! It’s a joke.
But the Army really does want to show the Hill just how effective FCS can be and how much it is beginning to produce capabilities soldiers use in Iraq now or in the near future. And it does plan a June 11 demonstration on the Hill.
Lt. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for programs, spoke Thursday afternoon with reporters and one of his first points was that the Army does have a “vision” when it comes to FCS. I asked Gen. Speakes how the Army is answering the HASC, which made a fairly compelling argument. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), chairman of the House Armed Service airland subcommittee, said he cut 5.5 percent of program funding “to reduce concurrency of network and manned ground vehicle development and reduce program management costs.” On top of that, the subcommittee shifted $33 million from “long-term portions of the program to near-term elements that have a chance of being fielded by 2011.” Abercrombie made it clear that technical reasons weren’t the only justification for the reduction. FCS, he said, “continues to operate in violation of many major Department of Defense acquisition policies, including the basic and long-standing policy requiring full and adequate testing of equipment before production begins.” If that sounds to you like the Democratic complaints about the Missile Defense Agency’s approach to acquisition, you win a Kewpie doll.
Gen. Speakes very respectfully offered this justification when I asked him how the Army is answering the House criticisms: “This is an integrated program. You can’t break it apart and still deliver the capabilities.” Also, Speakes said the service plans to show lawmakers just how much FCS is influencing the fight, citing the FRAG kit 5 armor used on Humvees, which he said is the “precursor” for FCS armor. The first version of the crucial FCS network, progress on which has been criticized by the Government Accountability Office in recent reports, is being tested at Fort Bliss. Most of all, Speakes said, “the pressure in on us to deliver and to make the capabilities we are talking about and make them real. We think we are answering that test.”
Speakes’ approach on all this may have been influenced by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ), ranking member of the airland subcommittee. In a recent blog about FCS, Saxton said the Army “needs to spend less time trying to save the FCS program; and more time explaining how soldiers want and need the capabilities that FCS brings to the fight.”
Speakes also addressed the challenge in Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s May 13 speech in Colorado, when he said the military must beware of planning to fight the next war and find itself unready for the current one.
He said that FCS, which he saw in action at Fort Bliss, “must continue to demonstrate its value for the types of irregular challenges we will face, as well as for full-spectrum warfare.” Speakes said FCS will be able to go anywhere and handle any fight. It is, for example, being modified to better cope with the threat from IEDs, he said.
We’ll see whether the House Democrats and Gates buy in. Reminder – the Senate Armed Services Committee fully funded the administration’s $3.6 billion request for FCS.
The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA], industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency achieved another significant milestone for the Airborne Laser (ABL) missile defense program this month by completing the first laser activation testing on the ground at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
The final plumbing and wiring installations will be completed in the coming weeks. All major components of the weapon system, including the battle management system, laser components, and beam control/fire control system, were installed earlier.
Laser activation testing is a methodical process to ensure ABL's high-energy chemical laser has been properly integrated aboard the aircraft and is ready to produce enough power to destroy a ballistic missile. The tests first flow water or other inert substances through the laser to verify its integrity. Next, the laser's chemicals flow through the laser to confirm sequencing and control.
When the activation tests are complete, ground firings of the laser will occur, followed by flight tests of the entire ABL weapon system. The test phase will culminate in an airborne intercept test against a ballistic missile in 2009.
The ABL aircraft consists of a modified Boeing 747-400F whose back half holds the high-energy laser, designed and built by Northrop Grumman. The aircraft's front half contains the beam control/fire control system, developed by Lockheed Martin, and the battle management system, provided by Boeing.
I sincerely wish Boeing luck on this one. It seems incredibly complicated and sort of a niche capability that in an era of tightening Pentagon budgets might be seen as overkill. But to the extent the program enhances US knowledge of high-end lasers, it's a good program to have around.
-- Christian
New Allies from Old Enemies
The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China were unforgiving "enemies" from the mid-1950s through the end of the Cold War. True, the two communist giants did - with great caution - collaborate to arm and train the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. But politically and even ideologically they were enemies.
Indeed, after President Richard M. Nixon's visit to China in 1972 the United States and China entered a period of limited cooperation aimed against the Soviet Union. Over the past 35 years this relationship has had up and downs - in the 1980s the Reagan administration began a military relationship, which included the establishment of a U.S. "listening post" in China to intercept Soviet communications; during the Clinton administration there was considerable technology transfer to China, while U.S.-China economic ties grew precipitously.
Following the demise of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 Russia and China entered a new relationship, which soon included massive sales of Russian military equipment to China including high-performance aircraft, destroyers, submarines, and other advanced weapons. Now Russia and China have reached a new level of cooperation - some might label it collaboration.
Russia's new president, Dmitri Medvedev, has just completed a visit to Beijing. With China's President Hu Jintao, Medvedev has signed a joint statement declaring that Russia and China are ready to push forward a new level of economic cooperation between their nations. Medvedev said that his country's relationship with China is now a driving force on the world stage and can no longer be ignored - that the international community can no longer make major decisions without the participation of the two countries. He added that Russia will continue to pursue close ties with China, even if it makes other countries uneasy. "Our activity is not directed against any other country but serves to maintain an international balance," Medvedev said of Russia's new level of cooperation with China.
Among the other declarations of the two leaders during the May visit by Medvedev, they joined in criticizing plans of the United States to build a missile defense system in central Europe. From the start of that effort the Russian government believed that its purpose was to neutralize Russia's IBCM force.
Both China and Russia are veto-wielding permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, where they have coordinated positions on controversial issues such as independence for Kosovo, which both countries oppose, as well as the Iranian nuclear issue. And, unlike most Western nations, Russia has not voiced concerns about China's human rights record or its assault on the protest movement that erupted against Chinese rule in Tibet last March.
This was Medvedev's first official foreign trip since becoming Russia's president earlier in May. That action in itself is of major international significance. During their May meeting President Hu accepted an invitation from Medvedev to visit Russia in 2009.
The two leaders also signed a $1 billion agreement for Russia to build a uranium enrichment facility in China. Not publicized, their staffs also discussed an increase in military cooperation between the two countries.
Meanwhile, Russian air and ground forces are dispatching planeloads of humanitarian aid to China to help with earthquake relief efforts.
Not yet clear are the long-term implications for the United States and other Western states of the new Russia-China relationship. Prior to the recent meeting in Beijing, alarmists in the United States called attention to Russian military sales to China. These are expected to increase. Less attention has been given to the more important implications of Chinese efforts to increase influence and to obtain critical resources in Africa and the Middle East. Russian-Chinese collaboration could certainly exacerbate this situation.
Our boy Steve Trimble posted a piece this morning on a series of hover pit tests conducted by Lockheed Martin with it's F-35B prototype -- they're calling it the BF-1.
Hover pit tests completed two days ago moved the first short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) variant of the Lockheed Martin F-35 within days or weeks of its first flight.
A Lockheed spokesman confirms the propulsion system for the STOVL demonstrator – named BF-1 – completed a series of conversions from conventional mode to vertical landing mode.
The tests were conducted at Lockheed’s hover pit, where the aircraft is tethered to the ground on top of a steel grate. The pit allows Lockheed’s engineers to measure vertical thrust generated by the engine.
The hover pit is the last major stop before the first flight event for BF-1, which has been scheduled for late May or early June.
Despite the need to complete hover pit tests before first flight, the lift-fan that helps power the aircraft during STOVL mode will not be engaged in a flight test for several more months. BF-1 will fly in conventional mode throughout the first flight.
This is pretty exciting because to most observers, this is the most endangered model of the F-35 (though some could argue each has its own equal level of program risk based largely on available funds in each of the services).
But in terms of technical risk, the STOVL JSF clearly has a lot to prove. The lift fan concept is an intriguing one, and if it works, could prove far less risky for the kinds of expeditionary operations its "B" model customers intend for it.
Getting the aircraft airborne has wider implications for Lockheed. The US Department of Defense has linked the release of production funding for the first batch of six F-35B low rate initial production (LRIP) aircraft to completing the first flight event.
In addition, BF-1 is the first “weight-optimized” airframe produced after Lockheed re-designed all three variants in 2005 to reduce or offset weight by as much as 2,268kg (5,000lbs).
The F-35B, on order by the US Marine Corps, the UK Royal Air Force and UK Royal Navy, is the first western aircraft to combine supersonic speed with the STOVL capability.
I've had the good fortune to have observed this program from its initial stages back when it was Boeing vs Lockheed in the concept demonstrator phase. I saw the LM version in the hover pits at its Skunkworks facility out in Cali back then and have been eagerly awaiting the real thing for a long time.
The Marines are gonna be psyched when this thing gets into production since clearly the AV-8B is more than ready for retirement.
(Gouge: NC)
-- Christian
'Pixie Dust' May Regrow Fingers
Interesting medical item running over at Military.com:
(UPI) Doctors at Brook Army Medical Center are testing a regeneration powder that could help injured soldiers regrow fingers and other body parts lost in battle.
The powder, nicknamed 'Pixie Dust' after the fairy dust that enabled children to fly in Disney's Peter Pan, is made from tissue extracted from pigs. It attracts stem cells and convinces them to grow into the tissue that used to be there, CNN reported May 27. Doctors at BAMC used the powder last week on a wounded Soldier to encourage the regeneration of a finger in lost in Iraq.
"If it is next to the skin, it will start making skin. If it's next to a tendon, it will start making a tendon, and so that's the hope, at least in this particular project, that we can grow a finger," Dr. Steven Wolf told CNN.
Doctors said they are watching patients for unexpected side effects, such as cancer.
(Tinker Bell image courtesy of the Walt Disney Company.)
This article first appeared in Aviation Week's Ares Weblog.
DTI reports this month that Northrop Grumman has won a classified Air Force contract to develop a secret bomber prototype. Naturally, nobody's confirming this on the record, but we present strong evidence that such a project is under way.
Ares has reported on this development before. I summarized the evidence pointing to a black-project bomber in October, tracing both the evolution of requirements and the money trail from the demise of the Joint Unmanned Combat Aircraft System in 2006 to the USAF's bomber project.
Later in the month, I reported on Northrop Grumman CEO Ron Sugar's public enthusiasm for classified programs, including the fact that he directly tied the company's acquisition of Scaled Composites to advanced aircraft programs. In February I pointed out the lack of visible funding for the Next Generation Bomber in 2008-2010.
More specifically, too, Sugar identified restricted programs as the company's top new business opportunity for 2008. That comment alone indicated the size of the business that the company was looking at, because - in the white world - the company was competing for BAMS, itself a billion-dollar contract.
As a consequence, those of us who look at these things carefully had our ears pricked up for any indications of progress on this front, and were rewarded on April 26 when Northrop Grumman issued its first-quarter financial results. Discreetly hidden on Schedule 5: "The company was awarded approximately $2.6 billion for restricted programs during this period." The results also showed that the only Northrop Grumman sector showing an increase in backlog on that scale, from March 31 2007 to March 31 2008, was Integrated Systems, the aircraft segment. So it is there in black and white that Northrop Grumman got more than $2 billion for a secret aircraft program or programs in the first quarter.
Now, consider the late-January announcement from Boeing and Lockheed Martin that they were teaming on NGB. I pointed out on Ares at the time that (contrary to what some analysts said) this looked like a defensive move. I'd say that we now have a pretty good idea about what triggered it.
Covering black programs is a combination of reporting and intelligence, and the "mosaic" is a vital concept: like an archaeologist rebuilding a mosaic, you put the pieces together in a pattern that makes sense. In this case, all the indicators (funds, programs, hints dropped by Pentagon officials) point to the NGB having evolved from J-UCAS, which fragmented in late 2005 because the USAF saw it as a bigger aircraft than the Navy.
If that's the case, there are many reasons (read the DTI story) to expect that the airplane's going to look something like a big X-47B.
One of the least understood “reforms” by the House of Representatives’ Democratic leadership was its creation last year of a Select Intelligence Oversight Panel within the House Appropriations Committee.
In these days when the intelligence budget is one of the few still growing, this new panel is especially important. On top of that, it is considering one of the few big new classified satellite programs, known as BASIC, being considered by the Pentagon and the Director of National Intelligence.
So I wanted to make sure we all knew just what this panel actually does. We asked someone who works with the panel. First – and most important to those who know about the tremendous battles over money and power between the military and IC -- the panel oversees all intelligence activities and it does not matter whether the funding comes from the Military Intelligence Program budget or the National Intelligence Program budget. This makes the House panel, led by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) (that's him in the photo), the only single body in the House and Senate responsible for overseeing all intelligence funding. The Senate Select Intelligence Committee only oversees the National Intelligence Program, which mostly covers so-called strategic systems, such as the NRO’s radar satellites.
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee oversees both defense and intelligence spending. Traditionally, defense spending has trumped intelligence spending when it comes to the number of subcommittee staff involved and in terms of who gets what. In other words, if the Pentagon wants funding for an intelligence function and it’s a question of whether the military gets it or the CIA or DNI want it, the military is likely to get what it wants.
On top of being the only panel exclusively responsible for overseeing all intelligence spending, the panel makes annual recommendations to the House Appropriations defense subcommittee about classified defense appropriations. On top of that, the panel works with the senior leaders of the overall appropriations committee on all intelligence matters. So members and their staff can try to modify legislation at any point in the House’s lawmaking process, through to and including floor action.
Footnote – for those who grew up with the old triptych of national intelligence, the Joint Military Intelligence Program and the Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities (known as TIARA), things have changed. Now there’s just national or military intelligence money. And that is being set in legislative stone in the pending intelligence authorization and spending bills.
-- Colin Clark
Russia's Cyber Forces
Russia is well known for its military mentality. Remember the cold war? It has taken nearly a decade for the world to realize the true threat of cyber war. Today, the world is dependent on computers and networks much more than we were eight years ago when we experienced the NATO-Serbia cyber war. Russia opened the eyes of the world to the looming threat of cyber warfare after the Estonia incident. Just last week Russia's State Sponsored cyber forces opened up a new front in cyber war.
Reports indicate that Russian Cyber Forces unleashed a large scale cyber attack on Radio Free Europe. In addition, there is some evidence of the use of BotNets in politically motivated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. With all this demonstrated ability, should we be concerned? What are Russia's true cyber warfare ambitions? Russia's Cyber Warfare Doctrine is designed to be a force multiplier along with more traditionary military actions including WMD attacks. A “force multiplier” is a military term that describes a weapon or tactic that, when added to and employed along with other combat forces, significantly increases the combat potential of that force.
Like all offensive cyber strategies it includes the capability to disruption the information infrastructure of their enemies. This doctrine includes strategies that would disrupt financial markets, military and civilian communications capabilities as well as other parts of the enemy's critical infrastructure prior to the initiation of traditional military operations. They also address weaken the economy of their adversary to further decrease their ability to respond to the combined threat. Offensive cyber weapons receive great attention in the Russian Cyber Warfare Doctrine. This coupled with advanced R&D puts them on the leader board in cyber warfare.
Cyber attacks and cyber weapons are strategic arms and in effect are real offensive weapons. Cyber-attacks can harm or even paralyze a country and therefore have equivalent implications as that of physical military attacks. Most cyber attacks leave behind forensic evidence that can be used to assess the capabilities of the attacker. With all the attacks attributed to Russia, there has to be significant intelligence out there about techniques, cyber weapons, and strategies that have been used in these cyber assaults. An interesting point is that NATO's Defensive Treaty drawn up in 1949 does not deal with cyber weapons as the Internet did not yet exist and there were very few computers at the time.
Once again, warfare capabilities have outpaced our legal and political systems. Former Russian President Vladimir Putin has blasted the US for its militaristic approach to foreign policy, saying its actions were "nourishing an arms race." Need some more evidence? In 1998, Russia's defense budget was less than $3 billion. Since that time, the Russian defense budget has been soaring, funded by substantial increases in their petroleum income, the budget jumped 23 percent in 2007 to $32.4 billion.
An interesting point to keep in mind is that Moscow does the arms business with over 70 countries, including China, Iran, and Venezuela, and in 2006 exported $6 billion worth of arms. Russian intelligence services have a history of employing hackers against the United States. In 1985 the KGB hired Markus Hess, an East German hacker, to attack U.S. defense agencies in the infamous case of the “Cuckoo's Egg”.
The following is an estimate of Russia's cyber capabilities.
Russia's 5th-Dimension Cyber Army:
Military Budget: $40 Billion USD
Global Rating in Cyber Capabilities: Tied at Number 4
Cyber Warfare Budget: $127 Million USD Offensive Cyber Capabilities: 4.1 (1 = Low, 3 = Moderate and 5 = Significant)
Cyber Weapons Arsenal in Order of Threat:
Large, advanced BotNet for DDoS and espionage
Electromagnetic pulse weapons (non-nuclear)
Compromised counterfeit computer software
Advanced dynamic exploitation capabilities
Wireless data communications jammers
Cyber Logic Bombs Computer viruses and worms
Cyber data collection exploits Computer and networks reconnaissance tools
Embedded Trojan time bombs (suspected)
Cyber Weapons Capabilities Rating: Advanced
Cyber force Size: 7,300 +
Reserves and Militia: None
Broadband Connections: 23.8 Million +
Close ties with Russian Business Network (RBN), who is thought to own and operate the second largest BotNet in the world. Intelligence suggests there are organized groups of hackers tied to the Federal Security Bureau (FSB).
The FSB is the internal counter intelligence agency of the Russian Federation and successor to the Soviet KGB. Russia is often overlooked as a significant player in the global software industry. Russia produces 200,000 scientific and technology graduates each year. This is as many as India, which has five times the population. This is hard to believe since their software industry can be traced back to the 1950s.
A study by the World Bank stated that more than one million people are involved in software research and development. Russia has the potential to become one of the largest IT markets in Europe. The Russian hacker attack on Estonia in 2007 rang the alarm bell. Nations around the world can no longer ignore the advanced threat that Russia's cyber warfare capabilities have today and the ones they aspire to have in the near future.
From this information, one can only conclude that Russia has advanced capabilities and the intent and technological capabilities necessary to carry out a cyber attack anywhere in the world at any time.
I got a nice note today from a reader who asked whether exoskeleton armor was discussed at the armor conference I attended this week. It was, but it was during a session that was restricted from media.
So, in honor of the Friday before memorial day, I found an interesting video you can kill some time with before the whistle sounds. It's an inside look at the Raytheon/Sarcos prototype.
But, the thing is, I've got a little problem. See, I have a thing for my boy Troy Hurtubise...you know, that innovative body armor designer who's built the IED-survivable Ursus suit. Well, I also ran across another demo video of his new Trojan II armor and I thought I'd post it here as well for you to compare (you might remember I posted Troy's last video on this site the Friday before Memorial Day 2007).
My vote's for Troy!
Have a great memorial day folks...
-- Christian
Stryker update, straight from Iraq
At the end of January, Christian posted some trenchant criticisms from troops in Iraq about the Stryker system, focusing on the 105 mm Mobile Gun System built by General Dynamics Corp. He cited a litany of problems, with probably the biggest being the tropical heat generated by the system.
I got an update from Col. Jon S. Lehr, commander of 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry. Lehr told reporters today that he has signed a two-page memo to the Army leadership saying the Stryker has some “warts but it is clearly a piece of equipment we need to keep.” He admitted the heat problem, noting that the temperature climbs to 130 degrees in the crew compartment. In addition, the coaxial machine gun has some “feeding problems.” But overall, the troops told him the system works, and, with improvements, should do a decent job.
Another system that Lehr’s units used was the ever-evolving Land Warrior. This one earned much higher marks from Lehr: “I think it’s a great piece of gear.” And he’s sent another memo to the Army leadership recommending that it be deployed throughout the Army. There are a “few warts, in particular the day optic system, which Lehr said actually made things worse for soldiers. They “got rid of that” and lightened the system’s weight – always a key factor in winning praise from always over-burdened troopers.
Perhaps most importantly for the system in the long run, Lehr said Land Warrior “integrates nicely to the mobile” data systems carried by things like tanks and Strykers.
As to how Kehr’s unit has fared during its deployment in Diyala Province, get a load of these stats:
220 high value targets captured
1,700 insurgents captured
500 insurgents killed
25,000 miles of roads cleared
2,100 IEDs cleared
Lehr's bottom line: “Overall, Diyala has seen a 70 percent reduction in violence over the last year.”
-- Colin Clark
Hummingbird Hovers Into Record Books
This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
SEATTLE -- Boeing's A160T Hummingbird unmanned rotorcraft flew for 18.7 hours on an overnight flight May 14-15, setting what the company believes is a world endurance record for a UAV in its weight class.
The flight, which was accomplished at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, was one of two key performance tests set by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to mark the completion of the initial development phase. The other major test, a series of hover-out-of-ground-effect (HOGE) demonstrations at altitudes between 15,000-20,000 feet, was successfully completed on May 9, Boeing says.
The HOGE flight lasted 2.9 hours, including hovering for more than seven minutes, while the more recent endurance flight involved carrying an internally mounted 300-pound payload to altitudes up to 15,000 feet. Boeing originally planned to attempt both milestone flights late last year, but was thwarted when a test aircraft crashed on Dec. 10 near the company's Victorville, Calif., test site.
Boeing subsequently modified software and diagnostics in the flight control system after its accident investigation board (AIB) determined that sensor data in the flight computer stopped being updated in midflight. Since resuming flight-tests the A160T has reached a speed of 142 knots, marked an eight-hour flight carrying more than 1,000 pounds of payload and flown a 12-hour flight carrying more than 500 pounds. All flights were accomplished using “a fraction of its maximum fuel capacity,” the company adds.
The recent flurry of articles and revelations about the submarine-hiding tunnels on Hainan Island in the South China Sea has again raised questions about China’s aircraft carrier program. Indeed, some articles have suggested that the tunnels may be large enough to "hide" an aircraft carrier -- a clear impossibility.
Articles regularly cite Chinese plans to rehabilitate the ex-Soviet carrier Varyag, now moored at the port of Dalian, or even the carrier Minsk, moored as a "theme park" at Shenzhen. Other articles cite alleged Chinese plans to build up to six aircraft carriers in the near term. A South Korean newspaper has stated that "A source close to Chinese military affairs said . . . that China has been promoting the construction of a 93,000-ton atomic-powered carrier under a plan titled 085 Project. The nation also has a plan to build a 48,000-ton non-nuclear-powered carrier under the so-called 089 Project."
The Chinese Navy is certainly interested in aircraft carriers. At the end of the Cold War a Chinese naval delegation visited the Black Sea shipyard at Nikolayev in the newly established Ukraine nation to examine the unfinished Soviet carrier Varyag. Subsequently, shortly before his retirement in 1997, Admiral Liu Huaqing wrote that it was "extremely necessary" for China to possess aircraft carriers. Liu was Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese Navy from 1982 to 1988, and the vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission from 1989 to 1997.
According to Liu, aircraft carriers are needed to protect China’s sovereignty and maritime resources, especially with regard to Taiwan and the South China Sea; guard China’s sea lines of communications as the country industrializes and becomes a major trading power; enable China to keep up with regional powers such as India and Japan; and give China’s Navy a decisive edge in future naval warfare.
In the early 1990s the Chinese Navy began a large-scale modernization program, acquiring advanced submarines, destroyers, anti-ship missiles, and aircraft, primarily from Russia. Rumors surrounded those acquisitions that a carrier program was begun when China acquired the unfinished Russian Varyag and the retired carrier Minsk in the late 1990s. But both ships had been stripped of all useful aviation and electronic equipment, and their propulsion plants are inert; at best they could provide Chinese naval architects with hands-on design information.
Upon arrival in China the Minsk spent 18 months at the Guangzhou Wenchong Shipyard for repairs and rehabilitation. She was then towed to Shenzen, arriving on 9 May 2000, configured as the center piece for a military a museum-theme park. She is certainly not capable of being returned to service as an operational carrier.
The Varyag is equally problematical. Since being towed to Dalian she has been painted but no other work has been observed, with the ship being readily visible from public locations.
Returning the Varyag -- designed in the 1960s -- to operational service would require new propulsion and auxiliary machinery, new electronics with the attendant wiring of the ship, structural repairs, and other work. Looking at the continued delays and increasing costs of a Russian shipyard rehabilitating and upgrading the Soviet-built carrier Admiral Gorshkov for the Indian Navy, objective analyses shows that the Varyag is highly unlikely to be returned to service. She has lain idle with no work on the ship having been observed since her arrival at Dalian on 3 March 2002.
Rather, it can be expected that in the next few years the Chinese Navy will initiate the construction of small carriers -- possibly modeled on the recent Japanese-built dock landing ships and aegis destroyers that have large flight decks. Such ships would be a reasonable step toward the eventual construction of large carriers -- to be started a decade or more from now.
All right folks, so you're probably going to need to help set me straight on this, but there were a couple of interesting presentations at the armor conference regarding nano-fibers -- particularly the construction of carbon fiber nano-tubes in a lab environment.
The impact on the body armor industry if this technology could be produced on a large scale is huge. One of my body armor buds told me if fully realized, "a big football player could flip a tank over" that's made out of the stuff.
Whoa!
The long and the short of it is that several researchers (particularly university labs) have been able to construct microscopic tubular structures out of carbon fiber and extrude them into long weaves of nanites. The stuff is incredibly lightweight, but stronger than steel. According to experts, if this stuff is wrapped around strands of aramid fibers like Kevlar, Dyneema or Spectra Shield, the ballistic resistance yield would be huge -- as would the weight reduction.
For example: I used two Level III plates during my last trip to Iraq that weighed about four pounds and were made of aramid materials like Dyneema [thank you to my bros atProtective Productswho hooked me with the totally sweet set of11014 plates. They saved my back and would have definately saved my butt if I'd needed them to]. There was no boron carbide (ceramic) plating in them at all. They could withstand a standard AK round, but not an armor piercing one.
With the nano-fibers, my understanding is that you could realize Level IV or even Level V ballistic protection with the same or less weight. If/when this technology is fully realized, imagine the applications for not just body armor, but armor for vehicles as well.
The researchers also mentioned the increased conductive properties of carbon nano-fibers, which could lead to armor and clothing with embedded telemetry, heating and cooling capability and even innovative Predator-like camouflaging.
But there's a down-side my armor expert warns. When the material is impacted, it results in emissions of carbon monoxide gas and microscopic particulates that could prove toxic if inhaled. One of the researchers presenting her work at the conference admitted this was a concern, but that research into the environmental effects of such a breakdown was so-far minimal. The Washington Post had a story on this phenomenon on Wednesday, citing a study that showed much higher cancer risk in mice injected with nano fibers.
Now this doesn't seem like much when applied to a body armor plate impact. But my buddy countered that if these things were part of vehicle armor, imagine the potentially toxic effluent if its struck by a massive IED or anti-armor round...
It's an amazing development that could revolutionize how we think about ballistic protection. But there's clearly still a long way to go before we can built that featherweight tank.
-- Christian
And Now, Part II of the Armor Forecast
Earlier I gave you some notes I took on the forecasted expenditures of the services for armor products. The analyst from Vector Strategy also went into the forecasted expenditures of armored materials, including steel, ceramics and aramid fiber armors. But I thought that stuff was a bit speculative, so I won't pass it along unless any of you email me for it.
What she did talk about, however, were some "issues" that could affect her assumptions on materials and expenditures -- things that could raise or lower the amounts or contribute to the creation of a whole new category of material demands and dollars spent.
Some of those issues include:
The Army's "grow the force" initiative: will the Army's expansion from 70 to 76 Brigade Combat Teams include Stryker-equipped ones or will they be infantry combat teams with less armor-intensive equipment? The service has not yet decided.
Similar to the grow the force issues are the services efforts to transform its current forces into BCTs -- the so-called "modularization" initiative: Again, how many and how heavy vehicles will each of the BCTs and their support and coordinated units need?
There are two ongoing studies being hammered out by the services on the future of their tactical wheeled vehicle plan -- one at the behest of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, the other at the insistence of DepSecDef Gordon England: What will these two studies say for future armored vehicle acquisition plans? How many JLTVs vs uparmored Humvees vs Strykers vs other new manned armored ground vehicles will the Army and Marine Corps buy?
EFP-resistant upgrades: The services are still determining how many Humvees will require the Frag Kit #6 upgrades for greater EFP protection and how many of the Army's M113 ASVs will get the new Frag Kit #3 for the same resistance. Of course, the number and mix of MRAPs plays into this fudge factor.
Marine Corps tactical vehicles: How many JLTVs, MRAPs and Humvee ECVs (expanded capacity vehicle) will the Corps buy? This will surely affect the quantity and types of armor needed from the market.
The big question mark is the future of the Future Combat Systems: What mix of Bradley, Abrams other upgrades or new buys will the Army include in its overall manned ground vehicle future plans for FCS? There's a lot of question surrounding the future of the FCS plan and what will survive in this seemingly unwieldy program. We know NLOS is protected (thanks to Sen. Inhofe of Oklahoma where Fort Sill is located) but what of the troubled FCS ground vehicles will make it through technical and budget chops?
Lastly, the Army's plan to replace the M113 ASV: It's in the 2010-2015 POM, but it's anyone's guess what will be the final choice.
Up next: Carbon nanotubes and their influence on the armor market.
-- Christian
Stalled Defense Bill Could Delay Predators
This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
If Congress fails to pass a fiscal 2009 defense appropriations bill -- leaving military spending at 2008 levels for the near term -- it would cause numerous planning and contracting problems, the Pentagon's top civilian and uniformed officials said May 20.
For example, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the department would not have 14 Predator unmanned aerial vehicles it was counting on for fiscal 2009. Also, nearly $9 billion targeted to increase the size of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps would be lost, as well as $1 billion for search and rescue and $246 million to stand up Africa Command, Gates told the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee.
A continuing resolution (CR) to keep funding the Defense Department without an appropriations bill -- but at the previous fiscal year's levels -- could have a "devastating impact" on both ongoing operations and acquisition programs, said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"It brings the organization almost to a halt, and then when you get to execute, you execute very inefficient, very late contracts, which is a significant waste of money," Mullen added.
Gates said any incremental increase in funding from FY '08 to FY '09 would be lost under a CR.
The issue of a delay in FY '09 funding was raised by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), senior Republican on the full Appropriations Committee. He noted that without an appropriations measure, the Army would run out of operations and maintenance money by early July and all of the services would be out of money to pay personnel by late July.
Neither the House nor Senate appropriations committees have cleared their defense spending bills yet while both bodies grapple with the war supplemental spending bill for the rest of FY '08 and part of FY '09.
Tanker
On another topic, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) tried to get Gates to concede that there were questionable aspects to the KC-45 Air Force refueling tanker contract award that Boeing lost to a Northrop Grumman-EADS team.
"It seems to me that from the beginning the Air Force and DOD are part of the problem," said Murray, citing two Government Accountability Office (GAO) studies that found the Air Force did not conduct sufficient analysis in developing its tanker requirements. Boeing, which would have done much of the tanker assembly in Washington state if it had won the $35 billion contract, has protested the award selection process and the GAO is in the middle of determining the merits of the complaint.
Gates deflected Murray's criticisms of the Air Force's decision, noting that he was not an expert on the subject. Gates said he is awaiting completion of the GAO response to the protest.
Another presenter here at the armor conference was a woman who runs a business consulting company called Vector Strategy Inc. She gave a lightening fast briefing on trends in the armor business, including vehicle armor orders, body armor procurement, vehicle upgrades, new vehicle orders, etc. through like 2015.
It was a fascinating presentation if not delivered at too blistering a pace to really keep up with it, but here are some numbers she came up with:
The DoD will spend $5.8 billion on armor of all types in 2008
Fiscal 2007 armor spending was $3.8 billion
Fiscal 2009 spending is estimated to be around $4.5 billion
The supplemental accounts for 86% of this year's spending
Fiscal 2010 will be a "transition year" with as little as $3 billion spent on armoring or as much as $7 billion depending on how the Army decided to configure its new Brigade Combat Teams (infantry or mechanized)
Fiscal 2011-2013 could see between $2.4 and $2.7 billion spent on armor
About 1/3 of armor procurement will come from the Pentagon's base budget
In 2008 15% of the armor funds goes to medium and heavy armored vehicles such as LMTVs and Abrams tanks; 27% goes to MRAPs and 25% goes to combat vehicles such as Strykers and M113 APCs
In 2008 there will be 43,744 new armored vehicle purchases (including uparmored Humvees) and 12,098 vehicles recapitalized
Next year will see 29,029 new vehicles with 1,920 recaps
Up next: Key issues facing the future of armor procurement...
-- Christian
Canada Lowers Number Of Planned Fighters
This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
Canada has reduced the number of new fighters it plans to purchase to 65 from 80, and stresses that it has not formally selected the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) despite having participated in its development.
The reduced requirement for new combat aircraft was revealed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper when he unveiled the Conservative government's new 'Canada First' defense strategy in Halifax last week.
The Department of National Defense (DND) says 65 aircraft is an initial planning figure, and that "the final figure will be based on the operational requirements of the Canadian Forces." The requirements are being drawn up by the DND's Next Generation Fighter Capability office.
Canada's participation in the F-35 program has been based on the planned procurement of 80 aircraft, the number of upgraded Boeing CF-18s the Canadian Forces will operate until they replaced by new fighters in 2017-20. Harper said fewer aircraft are required because the new fighter will have significantly greater capability than the CF-18s.
Despite the widespread and understandable assumption that Harper was referring to the F-35, Canada has not yet selected its next fighter, the DND emphasizes. Like several of the international participants in the JSF program, Ottawa plans to evaluate other candidate combat aircraft before making a decision, which is required by 2012.
Greetings folks. Just an FYI -- I've been at a military armor protection conference today getting the latest insight on body and vehicle armor, active protection systems, advanced materials and other protective equipment.
First bit of news comes from an official with the Army's combat developments directorate at Fort Benning who described some upcoming "soldier protection demonstrations" that will take a look at various new technology solutions to common problems on the battlefield. This is the same way the Army came up with its vastly-improved body armor, or IOTV.
The first initiative is a combat vehicle crewman armor suite that recognizes the tight confines of a vehicle and its various entry ports and takes advantage of the vehicles inherent armor protection. But the official, John Yancey, recognized that Humvee gunners and other vehicle gunners might need more armor for blast mitigation in an IED scenario.
It all needs to fit into a new philosophy the Army wants vendors to adhere to in armor design that calls for modularization in armor components. In other words, Yancey wants to give commanders the leeway to add or subtract armor components based on mission and threat. A door kicker only needs a plate carrier, a vehicle gunner needs arm, shoulder, face and neck protection, he said.
Another SPD going on right now at Benning is looking into hearing protection and enhancement. Kinda like "hunters ear" already on the market.
Yancey also talked about an upcoming SPD on lower extremity protection, including six vendors who've submitted products such as ballistic shorts, pants and chaps. Yancey admitted no Soldier was going to have to wear Kevlar pants on patrol, but a vehicle gunner might really appreciate them. He also mentioned that the Army was taking another look at whether the current padding system in the advanced combat helmet is making the grade.
Stay tuned for more from the Military Armor Protection conference taking place in Alexandria, Va., today and tomorrow.
-- Christian
House Jams Alt Engine Down Pentagon's Throat
The House Armed Services Committee has forcefully reminded the Pentagon that it has been ordered several times by law to build and fund a competing engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. To make sure the Pentagon gets the message, the House has added language authorizing an additional $526 million for 2009 to the program to pay for the second engine.
Taking aim at the heart of the Pentagon’s resistance, the House committee report accompanying the defense authorization bill, mentions the August 2007 and February 2008 test failures of Pratt and Whitney’s F-135, the main engine.
"These test failure events… cause the committee to remain steadfast in its belief that the non-financial factors of a two-engine competitive program such as better engine performance, improved contractor responsiveness, a more robust industrial base, increased engine reliability and improved operational readiness strongly favor continuing the competitive propulsion system program," the committee report says.
It adds a nice bit of tough love, saying that "the committee strongly urges the Department of Defense to comply with the spirit and intent of section 213 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Public Law 110-181) by including the funds necessary for continued development and procurement of a competitive JSF propulsion system in its fiscal year 2010 budget request." For those who may not remember, the administration did not request any money for a second engine program in its 2009 request.
In addition to its forceful language, the House upped the ante over the Senate’s version of the bill. The Senate only boosted the spending by $35.0 million for long lead items for the F-136, being built by a team of General Electric and Rolls Royce. Let’s see what position the appropriators take on this one.
Well, it looks like Boeing has taken a step closer to making its air-to-ground laser blaster a reality with a recent test shoot from a specially-constructed C-130 sitting on the ground.
Boeing has fired a high-energy chemical laser aboard a C-130H aircraft in ground tests for the first time, achieving a key milestone for the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program.
The successful laser firing occurred May 13 at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.
"First firing of the high-energy laser aboard the ATL aircraft shows that the program continues to make good progress toward giving the warfighter an ultra-precision engagement capability that will dramatically reduce collateral damage," said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems.
After conducting a series of additional laser tests on the ground and in the air, the program will fire the chemical laser in-flight at mission-representative ground targets. The test team will fire the laser through a rotating turret that extends through the aircraft's belly.
We wrote about this a while back after an interview with program officials during a conference call on the airborne laser program -- a 747 equipped with a laser designed to shoot down ballistic missiles. Well, looks like Boeing made good on their prediction and the program remains on track to create a laser gunship.
"Later this year, we will fire the laser in-flight at ground targets, demonstrating the military utility of this transformational directed energy weapon," Fancher said.
Last year, the high-energy laser concluded laboratory testing at Kirtland, demonstrating reliable operations in more than 50 firings.
ATL, which Boeing is developing for the U.S. Department of Defense, will destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations.
Boeing's ATL industry team includes L-3 Communications/Brashear, which made the laser turret, and HYTEC Inc., which made various structural elements of the weapon system.
-- Christian
Legislative Sausage in the Works
[EDITOR: Good morning folks. I want to introduce to you a new guest blogger we're going to feature here occasionally. He's a defense insider and that's about all I can say here, but you'll recognize his post from last week on the HK416.
It's probably the jading effect of being so close to the biz that's made our new team mate boil over, so for now, we'll just call him "military curmudgeon" as he tells us how it really is.]
Earmarks are earmarks. I don't care what is being done with those earmarks right now.
That is not the case, from the perspective of American warfighting capability.
It is the DoD's responsibility to tell the President/Congress what they need, not for an individual politician to decide for himself what the military needs.
You assume that the people running the DoD actually have the best interests of the fighting man and woman at heart.
They don't. Not when it comes to funding unsexy things like trucks, amphibious ships and cargo planes over their favored toys.
The various services -- who write the requirements that DoD sends to Congress -- game the system to get the favored toys paid for, while ignoring the unglamorous and non-career enhancing.
The USAF's fascination with the F22 over everything has been much commented on here.
How the USAF shorts cargo plane and ground support plane production has been a US Army complaint for as long as there has been a separate air force. The A-10 would not exist at all were it not for legislative log rolling that over ruled the "Fighter pilot generals."
The Marines are in the same position versus the US Navy when it comes to amphibious transports with carriers, fighter planes and subs playing the "F22 role."
The US Army Generals from the "Treadhead," "Grunt," and "Gunbunnie" unions (aka Armor, Infantry and Artillery branches) always short the Army supply of trucks during peace time. (The USMC does not do separate unions, but they short trucks as well, since, hey! That is what the Army is for.)
All of the above play budget games shorting unsexy but mission critical trucks, cargo planes and troop transports for their favored projects.
There are no "white hats" in all of this.
This is the normal "clash of competing interests legislative sausage making that our founding fathers anticipated in the Constitution. It is not efficient or pretty, but it works.
The usual results when legislative reformers try and 'reduce the corruption' of normal legislative sausage making is that it empowers the permanent bureaucracy at the expense of both the troops and the general public.
Legislative sausage making has the ultimate accountability of elections.
The Permanent Bureaucracy is accountable only to itself.
-- Military Curmudgeon
Top Congressional Money Man Dismisses Gates Heritage Speech
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on Congress and the Pentagon to keep their eyes on the ball, namely the war we are fighting now, instead of the war we might face later, maybe.
It sounded rational and, perhaps, even seemed a sound reminder that the nation can't spend everything it might want to spend on the military.
Gates' message was heard loud and clear on the Hill. Today, the top defense appropriator -- read money man -- in the House of Representatives boldly stepped in front of the nation (also known as the floor of the House) and said Gates' speech was "simply a rationalization of short-term budget decisions made in the waning months of this Administration. Now when Rep. John Murtha, (D-Penn.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, says something like this, you can bet he has a larger point to deliver. And he did. Murtha said the administration is effectively waging a war without a strategy to guide it.
"We need a National Security Strategy to identify both the near-term and long-term threats to this country. We need a vigorous debate to achieve this strategy -- this hasn't happened since the Cold War," Murtha said. Then he sent a zinger that must have sent some shock waves through intelligence community budgeters: "This country spends more money on intelligence than all the nations of the world combined, and as I've observed our intelligence is about as accurate as Punxsutawney Phil -- 50 percent. 50 percent is unacceptable." Perhaps Murtha has his eyes set on at least one major cut to an IC program.
But in the longer term, Murtha said, "It is time to look beyond Iraq and focus on future threats." To that end, he claimed the emergency supplemental spending bill being introduced on the House floor "provides our military with equipment that will prepare them to face future threats under any scenario; not only to fight a war, but to prevent a war." Then he listed some of the bigger ticket items in the supplemental, including:
$3.6 billion to procure 15 C-17 aircraft
$2.5 billion to procure 34 C-130 aircraft
$750 million for National Guard and Reserve equipment
$1.5 billion for Humvees
$3 billion for Medium and Heavy Tactical Trucks
$500 million for Army and Marine Corps Facility Maintenance and Repairs (including the barracks that need repairs)
$300 million for facility maintenance and repairs at military medical facilities
$570 million for treatment and research activities within the Defense Health Program.
This article first appeared at Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
Boeing plans to cautiously restart the CH-47 Chinook helicopter production line May 15, after shutting it down May 13 following the discovery of what the company is calling irregularities in two aircraft.
Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), whose district includes the Chinook plant, said he learned of severed wires on one of the CH-47s and a suspicious washer in a subsystem of the second aircraft. "After having several briefings [on the matter], I think there's a low probability this wasn't deliberate," Sestak said. "But it's not out of the question that it's the result of an accident."
Operations were suspended on the primary and final assembly segments of the line, and the investigation is focusing on subassemblies and structure modifications, according to Boeing officials (Aerospace DAILY, May 14). Second- and third-shift workers discovered the problems May 13 and helped inspect the additional helicopters on the line to determine if the irregularities were more widespread. The other six helicopters did not appear to have any problems.
Company procedure requires any issues to be reported to the Defense Contract Management Agency, which has numerous representatives placed on-site. The agency then passes its findings on to the Defense Criminal Investigation Service, which, despite its name, does not imply criminal activity, a Boeing official said. "But that has yet to be determined," the official said.
"They found it like they should have found it," Sestak told Aerospace DAILY. "The system worked. Now we have to figure out how and why it happened."
Nothing is official yet but Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), may throw his hat in the ring to become ranking member of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, responsible for overseeing space, missile defense and nuclear weapons programs.
Two senior Pentagon officials have asked Franks to make the try.
After all, the Arizona conservative may be the GOP’s most outspoken missile defense advocate remaining in the House after the election. Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), former presidential candidate and the departing ranking member of the whole committee, Jim Saxton (R-NJ), current ranking member of the powerful airland subcommittee, and Terry Everett (R-Ala.), current ranking member of the strategic forces subcommittee, all plan to leave the House at the end of the year.
The ranks of missile defense advocates will be further reduced by the departure of Democrat Bud Cramer of Alabama, who is one of the few Democrats on the committee who has consistently fought for missile defense funding.
Franks told me yesterday morning at a breakfast sponsored by the National Defense University that he hasn’t made up his mind about running for the subcommittee spot. He conceded that he might be interested.
[EDITOR: From a DT friend (who prefers to remain anonymous) on his chop of the AWG's fight for their HK-416s]
The AWG folks are a special US Army task force to deal with IED threats that has turned into a semi-covert group of trigger pulling "trouble shooters." They got the HK416 because of their semi-official/semi-covert status and then got them taken away when Sen. Coburn both noticed this and embarrassed the Army small arms procurement brass by pointing it out.
To be fair to the Brass, they are in a no-win situation because small arms are a religious faith where true believers will not be swayed by real data.
In the realm of hard "non-religious data," there seem to be two major knocks against the M4: fouling after lots of firing, and excessive jamming in sandy conditions. Controlled tests in sandstorm-of-the-century conditions indicate the M4 is worse than the HK416 and FN SCAR, but all are in the 99-percentile reliability range.
To quote something a friend of mine sent on the issue:
"Excessive fouling depends on how many major firefights you get into before you can pull maintenance. All three systems use some sort of cylinder-and-piston arrangement to manage the gases. In the M16-type system, it's in the bolt carrier itself, while the other two restrict it to a small area near the gas port. They all have to be cleaned, eventually. The competition community has developed some M16 gas system tweaks that might interest serious trigger-pullers.
As a professional, your weapon's health comes first, just like your horse would if you were cavalry. If someone gave me one of each of these weapons, and several thousand rounds of ammo, I might develop a clear favorite. I doubt highly that I would find one totally unfit for my uses."
I have also been told that a number of M-16 jam problems would disappear if the H&K M16 magazine were adopted as standard issue. It is "...the absolute best out there. Built, and priced, like a BMW.
In the particular case of the HK416 and the AWG, Sen. Coburn would have done better by the troops by earmarking money for HK416.
Since Coburn is a Republican "Small Federal Government"/anti-earmark true believer, this was the result.
From the military procurement point of view, earmarks actually play a very important role in defense readiness in non-glamorous things like transport ships, trucks, and planes.
Rep Les Aspin’s 1980’s earmarks of extra 10-ton HEMET trucks gave the US Army the truck transport to pull off the famous left hook in the 1991 Gulf War.
Sen Trent Lott’s earmarks of amphibious ships have given the USMC 20% of its current amphibious fleet.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s earmarks of extra C-130’s and Rep Dana Rohrabacher’s earmarks of extra C-17’s are the wings resupplying troops in Afghanistan.
Outside of those non-glamorous areas, DoD earmarks are rightly seen as pernicious.
-- [Anonymous]
Progress for Future Combat Systems?
This article first appeared in Aviation Week's Ares weblog.
At the Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment (JEFX) in Nevada this past April, run by the Air Force Global Cyberspace Integration Center, some critical technologies for the Army's Future Combat Systems program were put to the test. According to Army FCS spokesman Paul Mehney, the initial tests -- which sought to put FCS's networking technologies through their paces, proved successful overall.
"Our role was to provide the ground maneuver network portion," Mehney says, noting that the Army was able to take its "Build 1" software -- which is part of the communications software that will allow FCS to communicate across the network -- and use it to move images and data from sensors, whether they were unmanned aerial vehicles or ground sensors, to Air Force assets, which then allowed the Air Force to conduct fire missions based on near real-time intelligence from Unattended Ground Sensors operated by the Army.
(The Build 1 software is scheduled to go live during FCS's Spinout 1 in the 2011 time frame.)
While the Army and Air Force can obviously already communicate with one another, historically there has been no real way to move images over networks between the two services, or if it is done in special circumstances it is not necessarily in real time. But the tests in April allowed the Army's network and combat developers to take a look at how the FCS network can be used in future applications where there's a call for a joint fire mission. According to Mehney, "it also allowed our combat developers and engineers to take a look at that Build 1 network and limited Build 2 which is ongoing right now, to take lessons learned at JEFX to say "OK, how can we better manipulate development of the network for joint missions?"
Crucially, not only was the Army a participant in the JEFX tests, but the Marine Corps and the British were there as well, acting as ground observers. Plus, Marines manned a networked Humvee so they could see the network in action.
The U.S. Air Force announced it plans to construct a large botnet. The term Botnet is jargon for a collection of software robots, referred to as bots, that take over and run autonomously or by remote control on infected computers. These bots present a serious security threat to the computer owner. Cyber militaries and hackers leverage the combined power of hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of millions of computers that have been compromised to pump out spam e-mail or disable targeted servers by overwhelming them with Internet traffic.
There are over 100 million computers that have been compromised and are now part of botnets. The largest botnet is thought to owned and operated by the RBN -- Russian Business Network. They lease capacity of their botnet for spamming and other more sinister purposes. The second largest botnet is owned and operated by the Chinese military. The estimated size of their botnet is put at 85 million and growing fast.
Military Applications
Espionage - collecting information from the network of computers that have been infected with the malicious code. Collecting keystroke information that contains log-ins, IDs and sensitive information or actually capturing screen shots of what the user is doing.
DDoS - the network of computers can be remotely commanded to start flooding a target system with transaction, overwhelming it until it shuts down
A bit late to the game, the U.S. Air Force has to rapidly construct their botnet. In the May edition of the Armed Forces Journal, Col. Charles Williamson III outlined the cyber warfare strategy being hashed out by the U.S. military. There are reports that the plan calls for using the publics’ computers to create this offensive cyber weapon. There is no question in the minds of many who are working in the cyber warfare field that the U.S. must create cyber weapons and that a botnet is just one of the many that need to be in our arsenal. But the devil is in the details!
Even the once-vaunted National Reconnaissance Office, builder of America’s spy satellites, is having serious trouble managing the enormously complex and expensive satellite programs under its wing.
I’ve confirmed that, for the second time since early March, the NRO has been stripped of Milestone Decision Authority on a program -- the power to decide whether a program can progress from one stage of a program to the next stage. The program is so highly classified that we can’t discuss its name or what it does. The confirmation came from a former senior intelligence official.
In early March I broke the story that the NRO had had decision authority withheld by senior intelligence and defense officials about a new program called BASIC, or Broad Area Satellite Imagery Collection. Questions were raised in the Pentagon, by industry and Congress about whether BASIC would violate the Bush Administration’s national space policy directing the military and intelligence community to rely on commercial satellites for general mapping purposes. There were also serious concerns raised about whether the NRO could, on a broader basis, successfully execute the program.
At the time, DNI and NRO officials were careful to note that milestone decision authorities are reviewed every year for all intelligence agencies. But sources in the intelligence community made it clear to me then that the NRO has stumbled badly in recent years and needed the sort of close program supervision that the NSA and Air Force have been subject to for the last few years.
The Pentagon stripped the Air Force of decision authority for space and several other programs in March 2005 by Michael Wynne, who was then the Pentagon's acting acquisition czar. That authority was restored for several non-space programs in January 2006 but the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technloogy and logistics, John Young, still retains that authority for unclassfied space programs.
Army criminal investigators are looking into problems found in two military helicopters on a production line at a Boeing Co. plant in suburban Philadelphia, prompting the company to shut down the line.
A Boeing spokesman said Wednesday that aircraft at the plant were being inspected. The company didn't disclose specifics about why it shut down the H-47 Chinook line at Boeing Rotorcraft Systems plant in Ridley Township, Pa., on Tuesday. Employees reported to work Wednesday morning, but the line had yet to fully resume operations.
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat whose district includes the plant, said he was told during a briefing that wires that appeared to be broken or severed were found in one helicopter and a suspicious washer was found in a second.
Sestak said the assessment was preliminary and he expected the findings of a more thorough review would be available later Wednesday. He praised Boeing's handling of the situation, and said it was too early to speculate on what happened.
Dave Foster, an Army spokesman, said in an e-mail that normal production was expected to resume shortly.
"At present, this is thought to be an isolated incident, confined to these two aircraft," Foster said.
Foster said the Defense Contract Management Agency was overseeing the situation.
All aircraft on the premises were being inspected, said Jack Satterfield, a company spokesman. But he said the shutdown was isolated to one line at the plant and did not affect helicopters already in use by the military.
The Defense Criminal Investigative Service had agents on the premises conducting interviews, said Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the agency. Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman Christopher Grey confirmed the agency was also involved in the investigation, but said he could not comment on it.
The Chinook is known as the Army's workhorse aircraft. It is used to transport troops and supplies.
Boeing is currently producing new Chinooks for the Army, as well as updating older models.
Now, I'm sure these are isolated incidents. But still, with a tough protest fight going on in the CSAR-X program, this certianly can't help matters in that arena at all.
Boeing's sure taking some licks these days, huh?
-- Christian
Do we have a strong case of next-war-itis?
All right, so does Gates have a point? As you'll remember, yesterday DefSec Gates said the services are stuck in a rut...they can't pull their gaze away from high-tech programs that have nothing to do with today's bloody fight but rely on assumptions forged into the plan back in the '90s.
COLUMBUS, Miss. -- It's an old adage that the Guard and Reserve are the red-headed step children of "Big Army." It's the guys on active duty that get the newest, shiniest, priciest piece of gear while the part-timers get the cast offs -- last year's equipment on its last legs.
Well, that's about to change in a few weeks when the Army National Guard receives its first of 200 UH-72A Lakota helicopters to replace its inventory of Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey and OH-58 Kiowa utility helos and some UH-60 Blackhawks.
Yes, the Big Army's already gotten about 20 of the new Lakotas to free up some of its Blackhawks for duty in Iraq, but the so-called "light utility helicopter" is purpose built for the Guard to use for domestic medivac situations and other state-assigned "general support" missions.
"For a lot of missions in the U.S. we don't need a Blackhawk," said Col. Neil Thurgood, director of the Army's utility helicopters project office, during a visit to the manufacturer's Columbus assembly plant May 9. "So, we're going to save the taxpayers some money."
Based on the Eurocopter EC-145 -- a commercial bantam-weight helo used commonly for hospital "life-flight" missions -- the UH-72 takes advantage of all the modern amenities typical of its class. With two engines, advanced rotors and a glass cockpit, pilots say the Lakota is easy -- and safer -- to fly than its predecessors, particularly the venerable Huey.
"I've been flying Hueys for years and you've got to be on the controls all the time," Thurgood said. But with the Lakota's advanced flight controls and auto pilot, "squeezing the stick the entire time" isn't in the cards anymore.
"I was coming into the airfield and all I had to do was turn some knobs and dials until I was in a hover, the auto pilot did it all," Thurgood added.
For Guard pilots who already have some stick time, it'll be an easy transition to the UH-72, Army officials here said. Pilots will have to attend a 10-day course on the Lakota at a Eurocopter facility in Grand Prairie, Texas, before they fly their home-station birds, and maintainers will have to do roughly the same thing to get up to speed on the LUH's modern systems.
New Guard pilots will simply leave initial flight training and attend the same 10-day course as their more experienced brethren.
"The transition won't be a problem at all," said Lt. Col. Jim Brashear, LUH product manager.
But a helicopter that program officials claim is one of the few Army aviation contracts that's adhering to projected cost and schedule timelines does have some limitations. For one, the LUH isn't built for a combat environment, so Guard units who deploy to a war zone won't get to take their shiny new helos with them.
"They'll still be able to fly their Blackhawks when they deploy," said Keith Roberson, deputy director of the Army's utility helicopters project office.
While officials here cite the LUH as an example of what can go right with an aviation program, the helo has seen its share of controversy. In July 2006, after the Army awarded the $3 billion contract to American Eurocopter -- a subsidiary of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company -- competitor McDonnell Douglas Helicopters protested the decision, throwing the program's future into doubt.
The UH-72 emerged from the fight unscathed, but critics later charged the aircraft was ill suited to some environments, including so-called "high-hot" conditions like mountaintop wildfires and the deserts of California.
"There are no areas in the United States that we think we can't take this aircraft," Roberson countered.
The Lakota is being manufactured partly in Germany; with final assembly here at this newly-built plant in rural Mississippi. Through the rest of this year, more of the aircraft will be assembled at the Columbus plant, with the entire end-to-end production of Lakotas coming from domestic manufacturers by mid-2009, officials say.
The Lakota's foreign designers "are fulfilling their promise to shift production from Germany to the U.S.," Thurgood said. "That's contributing to our industrial base and our economy."
-- Christian
'Next-War-itis' Rampant in US Military
Oh guys, you're gonna love this one.
From today's front page of Military.com:
Gates Cautions Against 'Next-war-itis'
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The Pentagon must focus on current war demands, even if it means straining the U.S. armed forces and devoting less time and money on future threats, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.
Meeting the war-fighting needs of the troops now and taking care of them properly when they get home must be the priority, Gates said in a speech to a journalists at a seminar here sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
"I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called Next-War-itis - the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict," Gates said.
But in a world of limited resources, he said, the Pentagon must concentrate on building a military that can defeat the current enemies: smaller, terrorist groups and militias waging irregular warfare.
If it means putting off more expensive weapons for the future or adding to the stress on the Army - that is a risk worth taking, he said.
All this coming during 09 budget markup season, supplemental funding fights and the Air Force UAV smackdown. Now I'm beginning to thing Gates really has some Rumsfeldian guts to challenge convention and service momentum...
He also issued a warning to the military services, which have long set their sights on pricey, sophisticated weapons systems that take decades to develop and get onto the battlefield.
The Army has its $200 billion Future Combat System, the Air Force has its F-22 jet fighter. Both programs have been plagued by delays and escalating costs, as well as criticism from Congress.
Going forward, such weapons programs will have show they can be useful now against terror groups and insurgents, he said.
In a recent visit to Red River Army Depot in Texas, Gates saw some pieces of the FCS that can be sent to the war front now - and he said that must continue in order for the program to continue to be viable. Gates, however, will be leaving office long before the FCS or F-22 programs are fully fielded. In his speech Monday night at the 50th anniversary of the launch of NORAD - the North American Aerospace Defense Command - Gates reminded the crowd that his stint as Pentagon chief will end in exactly 254 days.
...and I'm sure there aren't too many Air Force and Army PMs that are crying about that...
-- Christian
A Super Secret Sub Base?
Has China "secretly built a major underground nuclear submarine base that could threaten Asian countries and challenge American power in the region"? Thomas Harding, writing in the London Daily Telegraph early this month, has declared that it is.
According to Hardy, "Satellite imagery, passed to The Daily Telegraph, shows that a substantial harbour has been built which could house a score of nuclear ballistic missile submarines and a host of aircraft carriers."
The threat from Chinese submarines, long touted by "hard liners" in the West, now includes the ballistic missile submarine base and protective tunnels for the craft being constructed at Sanya on the southern tip of Hainan Island in the South China Sea.
The report comes almost simultaneously with word that a Chinese Type 094 (NATO Jin-class) ballistic missile submarine was sighted at the base in satellite images. Also visible was a newly constructed pier that appears to be a demagnetization facility for submarines. Demagnetization is conducted before a submarine deploys to remove residual magnetic fields to reduce the craft's vulnerability to magnetic mines.
The satellite image was taken by the QuickBird commercial satellite on 27 February 2008, and purchased by the Federation of American Scientists from DigitalGlobe.
China is believed to have completed two Jin-class SSBNs with at least one more unit under construction. (An older SSBN is also in service; see below.) The U.S. Intelligence Community estimates that China would probably build five SSBNs if it wants to have a near-continuous deterrent at sea. Each Jin-class SSSBN will carry 12 JL-2 nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. A "score" of such submarines -- as reported in some newspaper accounts -- seems highly unlikely.
While some Western defense analysts as well as journalists are touting this new Chinese capability, it should be noted that there have been submarine tunnels in southern Hainan for probably two decades or more and that similar (albeit smaller) tunnels are also found at the Northern Fleet's Jianggezhuang naval base. Indeed, China has long constructed tunnels for military (and civilian) purposes in the even of a nuclear conflict. This writer visited some of those near the base complex of Dairen, near the Soviet-Russian border.
Further, while submarines could be "hidden" in the tunnels, they could be observed by U.S. reconnaissance satellites as they enter and leave the tunnels. This possibility, coupled with the likely noise level of the Jin-class SSBNs would increase their vulnerability to U.S. detection and surveillance methods.
Also, in wartime, any submarines in the tunnels at the outbreak of hostilities would be vulnerable to the tunnels being easily blocked by U.S. conventional or nuclear weapons.
Certainly the Chinese Navy is being modernized, although it is significantly smaller than it was during the Cold War era. The slow development pace of China's SSBN force, the failure of the first Chinese SSBN, the Type 092 (NATO Xia) completed in 1988, to have ever made a deployment, and persistent reports that a ballistic missile for the SSBNs is not yet available, raise major questions about this aspect of the "Chinese threat."
What's the real reason Boeing filed a GAO protest over the tanker award to Northrop Grumman? After all, the GAO rarely overturns such awards and the Air Force appears to have acted about as transparently as anyone could hope for.
Of course, it's extremely difficult to get a good grip on just how strong -- or weak -- Boeing's case might be since most of the information that would really make that clear is considered extremely sensitive proprietary data.
It looks as if Boeing has two main goals. The first and most easily understood is that Boeing wants to get paid back for the costs it incurred preparing its bid. The second goal is to give the company the 100 days to trumpet its various claims, spread money around Capitol Hill and advertise, advertise, advertise.
I spoke about all this with a lobbyist and a defense finance expert, both of whom have to remain very anonymous. Both have a tight grasp on defense acquisition battles and their dynamics. We concluded that Boeing doesn't really care about the GAO protest, though the finance expert said Boeing may have a stronger case than first appears obvious. They both agreed that the company's main object was to carve out a window to give it time to hammer lawmakers, their staff and the public about just fabulous their plane really is and to create so much white noise that Northrop Grumman/EADS is forced to either share the deal or, best of all, get Congress to award the contract to Boeing.
The lobbyist said he had used a similar strategy on a smaller program several years before and it worked like a charm.
The finance person said there are two financial reasons Boeing filed the protest. First, it stands a decent chance of getting back the cost of preparing its bid, which he estimated at around $20 million. But the biggest reason for Boeing's actions may have little to do with its defense business, although $32 billion is not chump change even for one of the big three defense contractors. And the enormously cyclical nature of the civil aviation business may pose enormous long-term risks for the Chicago-based company.
So Boeing would like to guarantee revenue from its reliable government customer. Should the 787 Dreamliner face longer delays than it has already wracked up, our finance expert said the company faces penalties that reach as high as $20 billion.
When the words foreign object debris (FOD) come to mind the last thing someone thinks about is an owl. On the morning of March 17 on board USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), an owl is exactly what was found. What might have been a mishap, ended on a happier note thanks to a few Sailors' attention to detail.
"I was the safety behind the 300 jet. That's why I probably ended up there first," said Aviation Structural Mechanic (Equipment) 3rd class Jeremy Smith, a Sailor attached to the "Ragin' Bulls" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 37.
He was called over by Aviation Electronics Technician Airman Apprentice Tony McJohnston, also part of VFA 37. What they found was a screech owl.
Aviation Structural Mechanic 2nd class Zachary Gorman who is attached to Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron (HS) 7, the "Dusty Dogs," is a licensed falconer in the U.S. He was called to the scene to check the status of the bird.
"When I got there, I checked him over to make sure he didn't have any broken wings and if he was dehydrated or malnourished," said Gorman.
Gorman and the flight deck medical team nursed the owl, or "Fod" as Flight Deck Control liked to call him, back to health by giving him a shot of sugar water to help rehydrate him.
Gorman said after treating the bird they found no life-threatening problems.
"For the most part the bird was healthy, just a little tired," said Gorman. He also made sure "Fod" was okay in a box the crew dubbed his makeshift "stateroom." Gorman has been working with birds of prey since the age of 12 and said he was more than happy to help the animal.
"I've worked with a lot of owls throughout the years, but I never thought I'd have to deal with one on a carrier in the middle of the Gulf" said Gorman.
The owl could not reside on board indefinitely so they came up with another plan.
(Gouge NC and Aero-News)
-- Christian
Extensive Camouflage Dupes Experts
I thought this was an interesting story in today's Washington Post. It speaks to the extreme skepticism early on with reports that the Syrians were building an illicit nuke plant that the Israelis blew up a few months ago.
I remember attending a roundtable lunch a few days after the attack where nuclear "experts" cast serious doubt on the contention that the Syrian facility that was bombed actually was used for nuke fuel processing or anything else weapons related.
But the Washington Post story today speaks to the camouflaging capabilities governments are now employing to conceal their intentions. It's an interesting look at the lengths to which governments will and can conceal their secret efforts from overhead surveillance and also it shows some of the laborious techniques they'll employ to send out red herrings.
Experience With Syria Exemplifies Challenge That Detection Presents
Syria went to extraordinary lengths to conceal its undeclared construction of a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor from spies in the sky and on the ground in recent years, according to a draft report by independent nuclear experts briefed by Bush administration officials.
The effectiveness of the camouflage effort raises new doubts about the prospects for certain detection of future clandestine nuclear weapons-related activities, the Institute for Science and International Security concluded in its report on the Syrian facility. "This case serves as a sobering reminder of the difficulty of identifying secret nuclear activities," the report said.
According to the ISIS report to be released this week, the fake roof was just the start. Syrian engineers went to "astonishing lengths" to hide cooling and ventilation systems, power lines and other features that normally are telltale signs of a nuclear reactor, authors David Albright and Paul Brannan wrote.
For example, the main building appears small and shallow from the air, but it was evidently built over large underground chambers -- tens of meters in depth -- that were large enough to house the nuclear reactor, as well as a reserve water-storage tank and pools for spent fuel rods, the report said.
An extensive network of electrical lines appears to have been buried in trenches. Traditional water-cooling towers were replaced with an elaborate underground system that discharged into the Euphrates River. And, instead of using smokestack-like ventilation towers prominent at many reactor sites, the ventilation system appears to have been built along the walls of the building, with louver openings not visible from the air, the authors contended.
The ISIS report noted that early skepticism that Syria was building a reactor there was based partly on the observable absence of revealing features. "The current domestic and international capabilities to detect nuclear facilities and activities are not adequate to prevent more surprises in the future," the report warned.
And here's the ISIS report to pick over for yourself...
-- Christian
MRAP Armor Update:
This was passed along to me from a source on the EFP retro-armoring for MRAPs currently in Iraq. Looks as if we have some fidelity on the numbers (and this is also posted in the comments section of the previous post, but for the benefit of those that don't readily dive into pots of boiling oil, I cross-post it here).
From MSNBC:
Meanwhile, at Camp Arifjahn in Kuwait, the military is reinforcing some of the blast-resistant vehicles with additional side armor — and it shipped as many as 20 of the newly upgraded vehicles to the battlefront in April. An additional 30 are to go into Iraq beginning this month.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. James Hadley, who is overseeing the upgrades in Kuwait, said not every MRAP is getting the additional armor, which increases the vehicle's weight by as much as 5,000 pounds. The extra protection, he said, is being added to vehicles destined for hot battleground areas.
The additional armor is shipped in kits to Kuwait and installed on the MRAPs, which only recently arrived at a facility dedicated to outfitting the vehicles with antennas and equipment before being sent to troops.
An extra 5,000 pounds added to a vehicle that already weighs in at 19 tons in some cases? Ouch.
An our source tells me...
EFP protection is included as standard equipment on all improved MRAP I vehicles built as a result of the MRAP awards announced 18 Dec 2007.
Additional improved MRAP I production contracts issued after that date include the same EFP protection requirement. For example, the BAE-TVS Caiman had a further award of 1024 trucks added after that Dec 16, 2007 award.
Delivery requirements for additional armor kits for earlier fielded MRAP vehicles were added at roughly the same time.
The Army and USMC are both getting deliveries of improved MRAP I vehicles between May 2008 and Dec 2008 per the contracts I mentioned. The same applies to EFP protection upgrades for fielded MRAP vehicles.
Now we're all spooled up. Thanks to readers and other sources for the gouge.
-- Christian
Roles and Missions Review Underway
It was 1994 when the Pentagon last engaged in a seminal examination of what it does, how it does it and why. In Pentagon-speak these issues are known in a neat shorthand as "roles and missions."
At a Pentagon briefing today, two senior defense officials discussed how they will approach the new roles and missions work, outlining the seven main areas of focus. The one issue Congress told the Pentagon to study is whether there are unnecessary duplications of capabilities among and between the four services and other arms of the Pentagon. In addition, the officials told reporters that unmanned aircraft systems, intra-theater lift, cyber war, irregular warfare, Pentagon governance issues, and DoD’s roles and missions in the interagency world.
Note that a senior defense official said that the analysis will be done within existing budget constraints. A senior military officer said that the combatant commanders will have a great deal of input during this effort because the department is looking at how the services and other agencies can “work better together” rather than as a food fight between services for resources and responsibilities. For example, Strategic Command will be a key player in the analysis done about cyber warfare and Special Operations Command will play a major role in the look at irregular warfare.
One of the sleeper areas may turn out to be the look at interagency roles. The senior defense official said the military has learned a great deal about how effectively it works with the other parts of the government since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, noting that the current structure was developed during the Cold War and may need changing.
Congress ordered the Pentagon to do this roles and missions analysis in its 2008 Defense Authorization Act. In addition to the long-standing Quadrennial Defense Review, Congress said that the military should analyze its roles and missions in time for the 2010 budget submission. That would bring it in about a year before the next QDR. Henceforth, the military will perform a roles and missions analysis before each QDR.
The last stab at this sort of thing was the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces. The commission took a year to deliver its final report, “Directions for Defense,” to the nation, issuing it in May 1995.
-- Colin Clark
Paint Makes Things Invisible to Radar
Gizmodo has an item about a new miracle paint that makes whatever it coats invisible to radar:
A German inventor has developed a paint called AR 1 that can hide a vehicle from radar, and most importantly, "all militarily relevant frequencies." How it works is unclear, though one test researcher proposes it's either by reflecting radar waves in a pattern so they cancel one another out, or by utilizing microscopic magnets to absorb radar radiation. And no, it won't get you out of speeding tickets.
The inventor's story is an interesting one, involving thousands of hours of lab trial and error, as well as international military interest in his product ... that far outshined the response from his own country's military.
But apparently the most promising and equitable use for such a paint could be civilian. Airport towers and buildings have a long history of interfering with flight control radars. And to simply make them disappear would be quite useful—as opposed to calling hangar 12 in for a landing or something.
(Gouge: CM)
-- Ward
EFP Armor on the Way
A source with inside knowledge of the issue sent me this today and I thought I'd share it with you:
Armor kits to deal with the EFP threat to MRAPs is already in production and some kits are in the shipment/installation pipeline to units in Iraq.
The problem with high tempo military operations is that those on the cutting edge will not turn in their current equipment for upgrade when the alternative is using armored Humvees while the existing MRAP vehicles are being upgraded.
Now, we're still working on finding out what this armor could be -- or do -- and how many are being shipped. But this is truly an important, and intriguing, development.
-- Christian
The F-117 Nighthawk is Gone. . . We Think!
The F-117 Nighthawk -- the U.S. Air Force's greatly touted stealth attack aircraft -- is gone. At least, we think it's gone -- can one really be certain with a stealth airplane? The aircraft, which won combat honors during operations over Panama, Serbia, and Iraq, was officially retired in late April after a 27-year service life.
"It was a mistake to retire them," said Dr. Richard Hallion, former historian of the Air Force and special assistant to that service's secretary. Hallion explained to this writer that the large number of F-16 and F-15 fighter-type aircraft flown by the Air Force are not stealthy and the number of F-22 Raptors, which do have stealth characteristics, are too few in number to meet the U.S. need for low-observable strike aircraft.
Cited by the Air Force as the world's first operational aircraft designed to exploit low observable -- stealth -- technology, the F-117A entered service in 1982. Through 1990 Lockheed built 59 aircraft at a Burbank facility.
The F-117 first flew in combat during the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 that led to the capture of dictator Manuel Noriega. F-117s were also flown in the air campaign over Serbia in 1999, and were among the first aircraft to strike targets in the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
One F-117 was shot down by Serbian anti-aircraft fire on 27 March 1999. Serbian forces launched Soviet-provided "Neva-M" missiles (NATO designation SA-3 Goa) to down the F-117A serial number 82-806. The pilot ejected after the aircraft was struck and was subsequently rescued by Allied forces.
According to then-NATO commander General Wesley Clark and other NATO officials, Serbian air defenses found that they could detect F-117s with their radars operating on unusually long wavelengths. This made the aircraft visible by radars for short times.
The wreckage of the F-117 was not immediately bombed due to possible media fallout from news footage showing civilians around the wreckage. The Serbs were believed to have invited Russian personnel to inspect the remains, inevitably compromising the U.S. stealth technology.
Some of the wreckage is reportedly on display at the Museum of Yugoslav Aviation close to Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport.
During the 1991 air campaign against Iraq, the F-117 was the only coalition aircraft to fly over Baghdad. (The Navy's ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles also "flew" over Saddam's capital city.)
F-117s flew combat missions only at night, hence their name Nighthawk.
The F-117 was born at the Lockheed "Skunk Works" in Burbank, California, the same design facility that produced the ultra-secret U-2 and SR-71 spyplanes. A production decision was made in 1978 and the first flight was made on 18 June 1981. The single-seat F-117's low-observable characteristics were derived from both its bat-like shape, with twin turbofan engines "buried" in the "boxy" fuselage. Capable of in-flight refueling, in 1992 F-117s flew non-stop from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, to Kuwait, a flight of approximately 18-1/2 hours -- a record for single-seat fighters that still stands.
Although designated as a "fighter," the F-117 had no air-to-air capabilities. It was an attack aircraft that could carry some 4,000 pounds of bombs or missiles in an internal weapons bay.
The first F-117s were retired in December 2006. The surviving aircraft will be stored in hangars at a secret location in Nevada. Their special storage is based on retaining the secrecy of their special features rather than any consideration of someday reactivating the planes.
China is well known for its global cyber espionage efforts. And while the United States has received most of the media attention given to cyber attacks, we are not the only ones dealing with this issue. India is now pointing the finger at China, claiming they have systematically launched a series of attacks on sensitive information systems and networks of Indian agencies. India rapidly responded and now has cyber-security forces down to the division-level to guard against cyber wars. But is that really enough given China's stated ambitions?
China's Cyber Warfare Doctrine is designed to achieve global "electronic dominance" by 2050 which would include the capability of disruption of the information infrastructure of their enemies. This doctrine includes strategies that would disrupt financial markets, military and civilian communications capabilities as well as other parts of the enemy's critical infrastructure prior to the initiation of traditional military operations. With all the attacks that have been attributed to China, there has to be significant intelligence out there about techniques, cyber weapons and strategies that have been used in these cyber assaults. The proliferation of China's cyber capabilities will be the topic of a Congressional hearing in DC on May 20th. This hearing will examine "China's Proliferation Practices and the Development of its Cyber and Space Warfare Capabilities."
Military and intelligence sources have known that Chinese cyber forces have developed these detailed plans for cyber attacks against the United States and others. It is believed that the plans for such an attack were drawn under the direction of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
China has a significant cyber weapons and intelligence infrastructure in place today. What is alarming is not only do they have the intent, but they have the money. Beijing has the world's second or third largest defense budget depending on where you look for the numbers. Their military budget has been on the rise at 10 percent or more a year for over a decade. This, as well as the attacks, are evidenced by their cyber operational ability to scan, acquire nodes for their growing botnet as well as the continued sophisticated assaults on defense information systems in the US, Germany, UK and India. In addition, in April 2007, Sami Saydjari, who has worked on cyber defense systems for the Pentagon since the 1980s, told Congress: "The situation is grave, with nation-states such as China developing serious offensive capabilities."
Recent attacks on the United States and India have brought this threat to the forefront. While diplomatic efforts to address these attacks have been initiated, virtually no progress has been made, according to individuals close to the issue. The following information has been provided by Spy-Ops and represents their assessment of China's current cyber capabilities.
China People's Liberation Army (PLA)
Military Budget: $62 Billion USD
Global Rating in Cyber Capabilities: Number Two
Cyber Warfare Budget: $55 Million USD
Offensive Cyber Capabilities: 4.2 (1 = Low, 3 = Moderate and 5 = Significant) Cyber Weapons Arsenal:
In Order of Threat -- Large, advanced BotNet for DDos and espionage
Electromagnetic pulse weapons (non-nuclear)
Compromised counterfeit computer hardware
Compromised computer peripheral devices
Compromised counterfeit computer software
Zero-day exploitation development framework
Advanced dynamic exploitation capabilities
Wireless data communications jammers
Computer viruses and worms
Cyber data collection exploits
Computer and networks reconnaissance tools
Embedded Trojan time bombs (suspected)
Compromised microprocessors & other chips (suspected)
Cyber Weapons Capabilities Rating: Advanced
Cyber force Size: 10,000 +
Broadband Connections: More than 55 million
China's Hacker Community: Honker Union, Red Hackers Alliance (The 5th largest hacking organization in the world.)
China's Software Industry: In Q1 2007, the software industry RMB 96.7 billion with a year-on-year increase of 26.9%.
In Q1 2008, China recorded RMB 144.36 billion in software industry sales revenue, up sharply year-on-year.
From all this information one can only conclude that China has the intent and technological capabilities necessary to carry out a cyber attack anywhere in the world at any time. Nations around the world can no longer ignore the advanced threat that China's cyber warfare capabilities may have today and the ones they aspire to have in the near future. Just recently Belgian justice minister, Jo Vandeurzen, claimed that attacks against the Belgian Federal Government originated from China and are most likely sanctioned by Beijing. The Belgian minister of foreign affairs, Karel De Gucht, told their parliament that his ministry is the subject of cyber-espionage by Chinese cyber agents. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Spy-Ops believes that an estimated 140 countries will be working on their cyber weapons by the end of 2008 and that in the next five years we will see countries and extremist groups jockeying for cyber supremacy.
The deaths of two U.S. Soldiers in western Baghdad last week have sparked concerns that Iraqi insurgents have developed a new weapon capable of striking what the U.S. military considers its most explosive-resistant vehicle.
The Soldiers were riding in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protective vehicle, known as an MRAP, when an explosion sent a blast of super-heated metal through the MRAP's armor and into the vehicle, killing them both.
Their deaths brought to eight the number of American troops killed while riding in an MRAP, which was developed and deployed to Iraq last year after years of acrimony over light armor on the Army's workhorse vehicle, the Humvee.
The military has praised the vehicles for saving hundreds of lives, saying they could withstand the IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, which have been the biggest killers of Americans in Iraq. The Pentagon has set aside $5.4 billion to acquire 4,000 MRAPs at more than $1 million each, making the MRAP the Defense Department's third largest acquisition program, behind missile defense and the Joint Strike Fighter.
But last Wednesday's attack has shown that the MRAPs are vulnerable to an especially potent form of IED known as an EFP, for explosively formed penetrator, which fires a superheated cone of metal through the vehicle's armor.
Military officials are still trying to determine whether last week's attack is a sign of "new vulnerabilities (in the vehicle) or new (weapons) capabilities" on the part of insurgents, said Navy Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
And I know one other weapon that will slice through an MRAP "like a hot knife through butter" according to a Navy EOD tech I rode with in a JERV in Iraq, but I won't say it here (anyone who knows MRAPs well enough will know what I'm talking about).
I guess it didn't take long for the IED arms race to catch up with the MRAP.
-- Christian
It Takes More than Photos to get a 'Smoking Gun'
If you're old enough, the pictures of Soviet ICBM missiles presented to the United Nations during the Cuban missile crisis left an indelible mark in your cortex.
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, placed a series of photos on an easel to answer Soviet charges that the US had no proof that the Soviets had placed missiles in the island state and that the Soviets were just helping Cuba develop.
Stevenson told the Soviets that, "we do have the evidence. We have it, and it is clear and it is incontrovertible." And it was. The first pictures were of an area north of the village of Candelaria, southwest of Havana. The first photograph was taken in late August 1962 and it simply showed undeveloped countryside. The next picture showed a few tents and vehicles and several new roads. The next picture, taken 24 hours later, revealed tents for up to 500 men and seven ICBM missile trailers. But the jackpot wasn't hit until mid-October when a U-2 aircraft photographed the area of San Cristobal.
"In only six minutes, US Air Force Maj. Richard Heyser snapped 928 photographs that yielded the first confirmation of offensive missiles in Cuba," according to "Soviet Deception in the Cuban Missile Crisis," an April 2007 article by James Hansen, who served in both CIA and DIA.
The Soviets had lied about the presence of missiles just 90 miles from the US mainland and they had been caught at it. This was probably the first time that Americans were exposed publicly to the art and science of what intelligence types call change detection. But it turns out that what has become one of the touchstones of the fabulous capabilities of spies in the skies -- also known as high-flying planes such as the U-2 and satellites -- was not quite as seminal as it seemed at the time.
Many argued that the pictures were proof of the superiority of what became known during the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) as "national technical means."
But, at an April 28 conference held at Georgetown University to celebrate the donation to the university of a lot of personal papers and recently declassified files from former CIA Director Richard Helms, that conventional wisdom was dealt a death blow.
Bud Wheelon, the CIA's first deputy director for science and technology, said that the agency knew about the missiles from other, more prosaic sources beforehand. In fact, human sources in Cuba had obtained detailed information about the Cuban bombers and missiles, Wheelon told me this week.
The first solid information was obtained Sept. 17, he said, from agents on the ground. Using that and other information, the US flew the U-2 and other planes over Cuba to get confirmation and to provide the world with undeniable proof that did not compromise intelligence sources and methods. After all, the Cubans and Soviets knew about the U-2s and other planes because they shot at them. We understand that at least one senior intelligence official -- long since retired -- was secretly awarded one of the CIA's highest honors for the spying done on the ground in Cuba. Senior intelligence officials, including Wheelon and CIA Director John McCone, knew about the intelligence from the agent and believed it. But the intelligence community did not.
A National Intelligence Estimate dated Sept. 19, 1962 concluded the Soviets were unlikely to try and install missiles in Cuba.
"The USSR could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba, or from the establishment of a Soviet submarine base there. As between these two, the establishment of a submarine base would be the more likely. Either development, however, would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it," the estimate concluded.
Not the first time they goofed. And it won't be the last. But that is the nature of intelligence. It is the analysis of uncertain information and yields insights that are often wrong. But remember that the U-2 was built. Remember that agent working in Cuba.
And remember those 928 photographs. The process wasn't perfect. But war was averted.
-- Colin Clark
More Guns Good
Sorry folks, been on vacation with my family for a few days, but back up now...
On Friday I attended a press conference at the Pentagon -- I called it an end zone dance -- where the Marine Corps talked about its successful deployment to Iraq with its first Osprey squadron.
They've already replaced the VMM-263 with another squadron and the press conference -- which surprisingly lasted about an hour -- was pretty standard stuff.
One thing that the Corps' chief of aviation Lt. Gen. George Trautman said was that the service "had an all-aspect, all-quadrant weapon system" on the Osprey "since the very beginning."
"The reason we don't have an all-aspect gun on this platform is because it's hard to do. Okay? So it's more than just weight with regard to the chin gun.
"I've got a lot of time flying Cobras, and the Cobra is the only helicopter in the Marine Corps that has a forward-firing gun. It is not an easy proposition, even in the Cobra.
Well, SOCOM said the same thing, and it looks like they're getting what they want. BAE Systems has developed an underbelly gun for the spec ops version of the Osprey. And though some claim the mechanism makes the V-22s cargo cabin tighter, Trautman had positive things to say about the design and its ability to track the entire circumference of flight.
"The system that we're looking at now, with the Special Operations Command, is an all-aspect weapon that would be mounted in the belly of the aircraft.
"I actually have a better degree of confidence about this than I've had about any other approach that we've taken. And if it comes out the way that we hope that it will come out -- and I actually have some degree of confidence that it will -- Special Operations Command will have this all-aspect weapon mounted, and they intend to deploy with it early in the fall.
And that brings up another interesting point...So is AFSoc going to deploy with the Osprey in the Fall of '08? There's some rumor that SOCOM wants to deploy with the bird early, so was Trautman showing SOCOM's hand?
We can rehash the whole argument over why the Corps left an all-aspect gun out of their current design, but in the end, it sure goes against the Marines' culture to leave one off. As VMM-263 CO Lt. Col. Paul Rock said:
"Well, I mean, never ask a Marine if you wouldn't want more guns on his airplane. I mean, you know, that's kind of, I mean, more guns is good."
-- Christian
US Electronic Fingerprints in Syria?
This article first appeared in Aviation Week's Ares Weblog.
President Bush publicly acknowledged that Syria has been doing something suspicious involving nuclear development and North Korea. Following his lead, other officials are quietly dropping clues about how Syria’s suspicious facility was attacked.
The Israel Air Force's stunning, undetected flight through Syria's air defenses late last year -- as part of a raid on a suspected nuclear facility -- bears electronic fingerprints similar to those left in Baghdad by the U.S. in 1991 and 2003, say U.S. military and IT industry specialists.
The raid on Syria was winked at by the U.S. which also supplied some non-participatory support, they say.
The answer to the question of why the U.S. was involved is that "The Israelis can do things [within the region and Israel's political structure that] we sometimes can't do," says a senior U.S. Air Force official with long background in black operations. Syria's construction of the facility and North Korea's participation "was an area of concern for us as well, so there was some help provided in discussing vulnerabilities and providing other knowledge [of Syria's integrated air defenses and electrical grid]. What occurred, isn't inconsistent with what happened in Iraq twice before."
So what did the U.S. forces do in Iraq in 1991 and 2003 to confound air defenses, communications and the ability to command forces in the field?
The second hull-form of the Littoral Combat Ship class was launched a few days ago in the Austal Shipyard in Mobile, Alabama (Mobile is turning into quite the military manufacturing base when you think about these ships and these ships, existing shipbuilding capabilities and the new Air Force tanker).
Looking unlike anything that had graced the seven seas, at least with the US Navy, the three-hulled trimaran floated off its blocks in its drydock on 29 April. Further work and outfitting needs to be completed, but from the looks of it, its will be one wild looking ship as it bears down on a pirate dhow off the horn of Africa.
Why do we need these new littoral-capable ships? From the Program Executive Office for Ships:
In developing capability to overcome access denial threats from surface and subsurface threats in the littoral, the Navy sought improved mine warfare capability, an effective counter to small, fast, highly-armed boats, and a ship better suited against quiet diesel submarines. These capabilities highlighted the need for a high-speed, shallow-draft vessel with endurance. The littoral combat ships are designed to meet that need.
Any way you cut it, having this improved and increased capability in the littoral regions close to shore will expand the toolkit available to the Joint Force Commander regarding available military options. I'm looking forward to seeing this new ship at work.
If you remember from our stories a couple months ago on the MQ-8B Fire Scout helo-drone, the Navy was in the middle of deciding what ship the UAV would be flown on as the service waits for the LCS to come into service. Since development of the Fire Scout has outpaced the troubled LCS, it made sense to put the drone to use now.
MQ-8B manufacturer Northrop Grumman has announced that the Navy decided to fly the drone aboard an FFG-7 Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate and integrate it into the entire class while LCS progresses.
According to the current schedule, the Navy will conduct Technical Evaluation on the Fire Scout on FFG-7 in the fall 2008 and OpEval in the summer 2009. The Fire Scout will reach Initial Operating Capability soon after OpEval in 2009. The Navy will continue to support LCS Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) efforts in fiscal year 2011.
...a NorGrum release said...
Again, this marks a significant milestone for a program that was literally on life support a few years ago and proves that when you can get it right, things work out. We'll see how it works on the frigate, but clearly the move shows the Navy's got a lot of confidence in the platform.
Continues Northrop Grumman:
Fire Scout VTUAV restructuring is in the best interests of the Fleet and the U.S. Navy Fire Scout VTUAV program because it enables the Navy to continue supporting LCS integration and will provide a more mature system for LCS deployments.
Fire Scout is capable of landing on all aircapable ships, so integration efforts will focus on dynamic interface testing, supportability assessments and data management. The Navy and Northrop Grumman are working together to define and develop a roll-on/roll-off Fire Scout ship deployment package that will facilitate this effort.
Fire Scout is currently conducting envelope expansion, software validation, payload integration and data link testing at the Webster Field annex of Naval Station Patuxent River, Md.
-- Christian
BAE Writes Back...
We're running a story in our headlines at Military.com this morning on alleged security breaches with BAE Systems (a major subcontractor to Lockheed Martin...) on the JSF program.
I received a full rebuttal today from a contact over at BAE and I wanted to share it with you in full:
The DoD IG explicitly found no instances of unauthorized access to classified or export control information on the JSF program. We strongly disagree with the IG's suggestion that nonetheless,such information may have been compromised in some unidentified way by unauthorized access at BAE Systems. There is no basis whatsoever for that conclusion.
BAE Systems takes very seriously their obligation to protect classified and export controlled information and has a compliance program that reflects the highest of standards. BAE Systems has a long and proven track record of safeguarding sensitive information entrusted to it.
BAE Systems also strongly disagrees with the suggestion that we did not perform required audits and fully comply with our Special Security Agreement. That suggestion is simply false.
BAE Systems previously requested a meeting with the DoD IG to resolve what appears to us to be a misunderstanding of the underlying facts.
Another promising weapon. Another worrying gaggle of mixed directions, uncertain focus and a lack of strategy.
That's the story of Prompt Global Strike, touted as the answer to one of the country's most vexing problems -- how to take out high-value targets far behind the lines and way beyond line of sight with accuracy and great speed. The Government Accountability Office looked at the Pentagon's stop-and-go efforts on this critical capability in a report released yesterday. The report was requested by three stalwart supporters of PGS, Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) , chairwoman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, Terry Everett (R-Ala.), ranking member of the subcommittee, and Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), formerly a senior member of the subcommittee and now chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The GAO told them there is no official DoD definition of global strike. The different combatant commanders support different approaches. Global strike does not figure in "any existing or proposed joint doctrine publications." Regional commanders and service officials believe that the Strategic Command -- lead proponent for the capabality -- needs to work with them more "to mitigate any misconceptions commands may have about global strike, particularly in light of frequent staff turnover." Those who would use the capability "have not widely participated in joint exercises and other training, which can increase their understanding of global strike." Correcting these would help the Pentagon better plan and develop a system and how to use it, the report says.
Plus the Pentagon needs to conduct a comprehensive assessment of possible systems because it "has not yet begun to develop a prioritized investment strategy," so it doesn't know what choices to make. From past conversations with staff and with intelligence officials it's clear that one of the biggest hurdles for Prompt Global Strike isn't the weapon itself -- though that ain't simple -- it's having the intelligence and a way to link the intelligence with the weapon system. After all, this approach is meant to come up with something that can kill someone or take out a WMD facility pretty much anywhere in the world within half an hour. Perhaps DoD could use that definition and get started?
UPDATE: One congressional aide told me: "Global strike, particularly long-range conventional prompt global strike, hasn’t come very far since its inception in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review. One of the reasons is that the Administration’s preferred approach –- Conventional Trident Modification -- was a non-starter with a majority of congress. It took DoD a number of years before this fact set in. There now appears to be consensus in Congress for this type of capability; it will be up to the next administration to put forth a technically and operationally viable concept that is also politically acceptable."
-- Colin Clark
Army 1 and 1 with Senate Authorization Bill
Here are a couple other things I picked up from the SASC Authorization markup.
So it looks like senators included the $102 million the Army wanted for another Land Warrior deployment.
This time it's for an entire brigade, rather than a single Stryker battalion. Lt. Col. Ken Sweat, who's been working on the Land Warrior system for longer than it was even called "Land Warrior," told me in Iraq last winter that if they got the money, the 5th Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division would get the next Land Warrior suite. This is huge news for a program literally on life support and a big win for LW backers who helped folks like me get over to Iraq to cover the system in combat.
Sweat told me 5/2 would be equipped with Land Warrior Next-Gen -- which will include a Blackberry-like soldier control unit instead of the ruggedized mouse device they have now. They'll also move the helmet electronics assembly off the helmet and place the unit on the soldier's chest, they'll shave weight by combining the navigation box and the computer and they'll ditch the GPS unit for Joes and use instead a radio location device so they can be tracked by unit leaders.
Of course, the money still has to make it through the House, then a joint committee markup, but it's a positive first step.
Also, the Senate put its foot down on the Stryker Mobile Gun System. You'll remember my story about the MGS from some interviews I did in Iraq. Now, I know there are some strong fans of the vehicle, but the Joes I talked to hated it.
The SASC lawmakers included language in their version of the bill to require "the Secretary of Defense to ensure that the Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS) is subject to testing to confirm the effectiveness of actions taken to mitigate the deficiencies identified in Initial Operational Test and Evaluation and Live Fire Test and Evaluation..."
That's a blow to GDLS and the Army, who both think the MGS is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm agnostic on the whole thing and can only go with what the Joes told me. And it looks like the Senate is going to also.
-- Christian
First Chop on DoD Authorization Markup
The Senate's draft version of the 2009 defense authorization bill creates new steering boards to review requirements for major weapons systems, targeting one of the main causes of cost growth in weapons systems.
We're still trying to get some details on exactly what the Senate Armed Services Committee means by this, but it sounds as if Congress has finally - after years and years of grumbling from experts and from congressional staff about this - gotten the message that requirements really do matter a great deal and that the Joint Requirements Oversight Council and its attendant parts really don't work very well.
There are two big increases approved for weapons systems: $430 million in research and development and $35 million in advance procurement for the Joint Strike Fighter program to support the GE/Rolls Royce F136 engine program.; and $350 million for the Transformational Satellite Communications systems known as T-Sat.
Neither add is a shocker. After all, Congress told the Air Force in 1996 to create an alternative engine program for the JSF. Of course, DoD has tried to whack the funding for three years in a row, eager to move the money to other programs, and the Hill has not so gently reminded the military of the benefits of engine competitions.
We understand that, while the Senate authorizers approved this money, their colleagues who appropriate the funds have not yet looked at the T-Sat issue in detail, busy as they are with the looming supplemental spending bill.
The T-Sat increase isn't a great surprise since the key congressional staff dealing with space issues were extremely unhappy with the Air Force for cutting the size of the program's request last year and then virtually gutting the effort in this year's budget request - slicing $4 billion from it over the six years of the 2009 budget request. Those cuts came just when congressional watching this had decided the high-speed communications system was on the right track after years of pushing for more funding than its immature technologies could really sustain.
Lockheed Martin and Boeing are competing for the prime contract on this system.
Two snarky observations on the Senate markup. First, the Senate rarely moves first on a bill but the House Armed Services Committee won't get to its markup til next Wednesday. Second, we applaud the generous but futile effort of Sen. Claire McCaskill to open the Senate committee's work to public purview.
"It is my firm and simple belief that we make better laws when we do our work fully open and transparent to the public. The public deserves to know what our views and our actions are and to be able to freely scrutinize, support or oppose them," McCaskill said Tuesday.
When you talk to Senate aides they usually tell you that their bosses don't want to have to deal with a lot of lobbyists hassling them about details in the draft bill if it were open to the public. Of course, many of those lobbyists have already had their chop, since they get better access than most members of the public. (Sure, we're jealous…) The official reason offered by the committee is that closed session allows them to discuss classified issues at any time.
"It doesn't make sense to close the hearing when we are working on a section of the defense bill that doesn't contain any classified information," McCaskill said. "There's no reason why the committee can't just close the parts of the meetings that do contain sensitive information and open the rest."
More on the Senate markup as we get details from staff through the week.
-- Colin Clark
Aussie KC-30 (EADS) Needs Mods
This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
The Australian Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT), the first developmental Airbus A330-based tanker, has been grounded since March while receiving new parts for its refueling boom system.
The MRTT also is receiving some production configuration equipment, such as the remote air refueling station and other mission systems, during this time on the ground. This follows what Northrop Grumman officials say was the first phase of MRTT flight-test last year and this year.
The MRTT is expected to return to flight by September, according to Tim Paynter, a Northrop Grumman spokesman. He declined to provide dates for when the A330-based boom is expected to transfer fuel in flight to a receiver.
What is actually being done to the boom during this period is a bit murky. The boom will receive some additional parts and modifications while the aircraft is on the ground. The actual structure of the boom on the MRTT will remain on the aircraft. But, EADS is switching out some parts and bringing it up to a “full production configuration,” Paynter said.
This is the same boom that was showcased by EADS during last year’s Paris Air Show. EADS has developed this boom specifically to compete with Boeing in the international tanker market. The boom on the A330 has not yet been extended during flight.
The boom system has been flying on an A310 test bed conducting various risk reduction activities. It first passed fuel to a receiver, an F-16, on Feb. 29 (Aerospace DAILY, April 4).
William Welser, Northrop Grumman Air Mobility Systems vice president, discussed the plans for MRTT during a luncheon April 29 in Arlington, Va., hosted by the National Aeronautical Association. Until this briefing, Northrop Grumman and EADS North America, its U.S. tanker partner, had been tight-lipped about the system’s status.
The Australian tanker program was previously restructured to allow more time for development, though a slide in Welser’s briefing says the program is now “on schedule, on performance [and] on cost.” It is slated for delivery to Australia in March 2009.
The Northrop Grumman/EADS North America team won the U.S. Air Force’s contract for development of a future tanker in February, but work has been stopped on the program since last month when Boeing, its rival, filed a protest of the award with the Government Accountability Office. GAO is expected to rule on the matter June 19.
This article first appeared in Aviation Week's 
This article first appeared in Aviation Week's Ares Weblog.
This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
This article first appeared at 
This article first appeared in Aviation Week's Ares weblog.
This article first appeared in Aviation Week's Ares Weblog.
Looking unlike anything that had graced the seven seas, at least with the US Navy, the 
This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
