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Anniversary, Sorta
A year ago yesterday, Defense Tech officially sold out the Man began its fruitful partnership with Military.com. Since then, the site's been visited more than six million times. Thanks, everyone, for stopping by. And extra-special thanks to Chris Michel and everyone at Military.com, for putting up with my B.S.
THERE'S MORE: I always forget to mention this, but Defense Tech comes in a weekly-ish e-mail form, too. This won't be of much use to daily site visitors. But you once-in-a-while people may want to sign up for the mailing list here.
Rapid Fire 11/11/05
* Infrared IEDs - details emerge
* "Better rad detectors, but do we need 'em?"
* India gets Israeli drones
* China, Russia space programs firm up
* Patent for anti-gravity tech
* Artificial flocks = terror foes
* Do tin foil hats work, really?
(Big ups: RC, AS, JQP)
Veterans' Day
Today is Veterans' Day. And I can't think of a better way to honor the people who have served than by donating a few dollars to Project Valour-IT. It's a fund-raising effort, to provide "voice-controlled software and laptop computers to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand and arm injuries or amputations at major military medical centers."
Once you're done giving, check out Military.com has set up a special site dedicated to America's 26 million living veterans. On it, folks who've served can find old buddies, get career help, and read war letters from every conflict in U.S. history.
Army Wants Synthetic Gills
I was worried there for a minute. Sure, the U.S. military was figuring out ways to give its troops sharks’ electric sensors. But would they remember to outfit the fighters with artificial gills?
 I should have a little more faith. Of course they would. The Army recently handed Case Western Reserve University and Waltham, MA’s Infoscitex Corp. a joint contract to start investigating a “Microfabricated Biomimetic Artificial Gill System… based on the subdividing regions of clef, filament, and lamellae found in natural fish gills.” In the first phase of the program, “gas exchange units will be designed and demonstrated for rapid, efficient extract of oxygen from surrounding water.”
“An advanced breathing apparatus that mimics the efficiency, simplicity, and durability of the gill-swim bladder found in fish could greatly improve human maneuverability and sustainability in both aquatic and high altitude settings,” the contract announcement reminds us. Sure could.
But the synthetic gills aren’t the only useful item the military is funding in this years’ crop of Small Business Technology Transfer awards. Others include spray-on thermal coatings for "hypersonic projectiles," "hybrid propulsion system for undersea weapons," and, naturally, "Electromagnetic and Laser Launch Systems for Affordable, Rapid Access to Space." (Here's a bit of background.)
THERE'S MORE: Over in the comments, Willy Volk tells us that an Israeli inventor "has already developed a new 'tankless' scuba system" that's been patented in Europe and in the U.S. IsraCast has an interview with the fellow.
More Kidding Around
It ain't easy being an admiral ... especially when you're overseeing the most controversial naval deal in years.
Rear Adm. Mark Milliken is director of the U.S. Navy's International Programs Office. When the Navy donates or sells retired ships to allied navies, Milliken's the guy who manages the transaction. This means handling some diplomatic hot potatoes -- none hotter than the ongoing transfer of Kidd-class detroyers to the Taiwanese navy.
Two of the four Kidds sailed for Taiwan in October. The other pair is getting a facelift at Detyens shipyard in Charleston, S.C, before its 2007 handover. The Kidds will replace Taiwan's 60-year-old Gearing-class destroyers. Combined with recent procurement of Perry- and Knox-class frigates and French-built Lafayette frigates, the $415-million Kidd deal significantly improves Taiwan's ability to oppose a Chinese amphibious assault on the island.
Which is why many Chinese -- including (full disclosure here) my girlfriend -- oppose the transfer.
That much we all know. But getting Adm. Milliken to say it was next to impossible. In a recent interview, Milliken touted the Kidds' commonality with U.S. systems and their utility in the War on Terror(?). But even when I directly asked, he refused to even acknowledge that the Kidds might one day fight for control of the Taiwan Strait.
Milliken isn't the only one treading lightly when it comes to the Kidds. This weekend, I called on Detyens to photograph the Kidds under renovation. At first, shipyard officials were happy to host me. Then someone from higher phoned down to have me kindly turned away.
 One manager told me that even the official launch ceremony for the first pair of destroyers was a deliberately low-key affair, with Taiwanese naval officers attending in civilian clothes. Desperate for material, I had to make do shooting pictures through Detyens' chain-link fence.
The way Milliken describes them, ship transfers are a key facet of U.S. diplomacy. More than hardware changes hands. As part of the Kidd deal, as many as 1,200 Taiwanese sailors and officers all will have spent more than two years in Charleston learning English, training on the destroyers and adopting American ways of doing things. For friendly navies, accepting old American warships and other technology means becoming a virtual adjunct of the U.S. Navy. In this way, American naval power is far greater than our 280 hulls imply.
Consider that just two classes of American warships provide the operational backbones of six important allied navies. Perry-class frigates equip the Taiwanese, Spanish, Polish and Australian navies. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are the basis for the most capable ships in the Japanese, Korean and (soon) Australian navies. And Spain's F100 frigates are built around the Burke's combat systems. So close are our naval ties to Spain that Alvaro de Bazan (F101) joined the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group for its May 2005 deployment.
Look for ship-transfer diplomacy to become only more important in coming years as Milliken and his successors dispose of the many young hulls being retired by the shrinking U.S. Navy.
-- David Axe
Iraq Airwaves: Traffic Jam
Every once in a while around Baghdad, American bomb squads stop what they're doing, and retire to their bunks. The reason why: "Compass Call," a modified C-130 turboprop plane which serves as the "only US wide-area offensive information warfare platform," according to GlobalSecurity.org. The Compass Call and the Navy's EA-6B Prowler can jam radio and cell phone traffic for miles around, disrupting insurgent communications. But the aircraft also can disrupt the jammers that bomb squads use to stop improvised explosives, Aviation Week notes. There's even a fear that all those crossed signals could accidentally detonate guerilla bombs.
"We have a smart system that jams IEDs [improvised explosive devices] in Iraq, that found itself fighting with another smart electronic system," Lt. Gen. Walter Buchanan, chief of the 9th Air Force and Central Command Air Forces, says. "They got locked on [to each other] because of the lack of coordination..."
Another concern is accidentally triggering IEDs with jamming signals. "We deconflict our jamming activities when we know we have people near IEDs... so that we don't unintentionally set them off," he says.
The problems also extend to surveillance and communications systems. "When you take a look at data links and the number of jammers in place and all the radios we have out there, [deconflicting] becomes a very difficult problem," Buchanan says.
Because all of the communication systems are in similar bands and create interference, a Predator UAV at Balad, the main U.S. air base in Iraq, is in danger of losing its ground control link once it is 35 mi. from base, he says. In the less congested airways of Afghanistan, that range is 120 mi.
"The problem is bad enough that Central Command is putting more urgency into developing an EW [Electronic Warfare] Coordination Cell," the magazine observes. "The task is critical because new users of the electromagnetic spectrum come into theater almost daily."
Like the next wave of Prowler planes, for example. They'll come equipped with an ALQ-218 electronic attack system designed to "turn those enemy wireless communications into a weapon against the insurgents who use them," Aviation Week says.
Before the end of the decade, information warfare specialists are expected to use these and other electronic warfare aircraft, both manned and unmanned, to find enemy communications networks and plot with precision their location on the ground. Those networks would then be seeded with false information as well as viruses, worms, zombies, Trojan Horses and other computer attack tools that would leave them communicating with U.S. analysts as often as they do with other insurgents.
Curtains for "Jitters"?
The idea was simple: take the military's tangled mess of radios, any replace 'em all with a single, software-based model.
But executing the idea has been anything but easy. And now, generals are talking about dropping the notion of a universal radio altogether, Defense News' Greg Grant reports -- right when Pentagon chiefs are trying to decide what to do with about the troubled, $6.8 billion Joint Tactical Radio System.
 Essentially, the JTRS program [known as "Jitters"] is aiming for something that’s almost physically impossible, or at least extremely expensive, experts say... The desire to use a single antenna for many different wavelengths bumps up against laws of physics, which make it difficult to pull in strong signals across the spectrum. An amplifier that works across the whole spectrum will use much more electrical power than one tuned for a specific frequency band. Waveforms and transmissions that are speedily handled by analog systems, such as the widely used Link-16, are much tougher to achieve with digital computation...
A better solution... is using such software-defined radios only when absolutely needed. More and more communication of data and even voice can be routed via the Pentagon’s burgeoning digital network. Such relays could allow the new radios to coexist with older ones...
Initially, every JTRS box has to host all the waveforms and all the software for the network. To do so requires high-performance computer processors, which translates into more heat and power.
But for the JTRS radio to be carried on missiles to provide guidance and on other platforms such as unattended ground sensors, there is no requirement for all that processing power.
“So maybe one size does not fit all,” [Maj. Gen. Michael Mazzucchi, who commands the Army’s Communications-Electronics Lifecycle Management Command] said. “Maybe we can have it run just one wave form, then you wouldn’t have the same battery, heat and processing speed challenges.”
Mazzucchi said JTRS also ran into the reality of an ongoing war when the Army realized it needed a lot more tactical network radios and so ordered another 100,000 radios. “Those radios are going to last a long time, we’re not going to now go out and replace those radios in three years with JTRS.”
The Army is no longer looking at JTRS as a radio replacement program. Instead, it’s being viewed as a gateway into the network.
The article is "absolutely right," one Air Force radio specialist tells Defense Tech.
Yes, we'd all love a one-size-fits-all radio -- especially one which can tie into larger networks without a lot of mucking around with settings for an hour beforehand. But there are huge technical obstacles to be overcome in the meantime, and the Pentagon is being unrealistic about the timeline for deploying the system. (2 MHz to 2GHz? They're not kidding about laws of physics needing to be overcome.)
In the meantime, they could save a lot of trouble by procuring more of the newer do-it-all radios like the PSC-5D, PRC-117F, or the PRC-148. These radios already have impressive do-it-all capabilities and save a lot of hassle when it comes to interoperability.
Simply, the miltary has finally started using radios that can talk to different services, in different transmission modes, with different encryption, in addition to their normal mission. Our ETACS [Enlisted Terminal Attack Controllers, the guys who help bring in air support] used to need one radio to talk to the Army, a completely different one to talk to the planes, and yet another (different) radio to talk to the next echelon via SATCOM or HF. Each of these needs an encryption device (external, and bulky of course) plus associated power supply, audio cabling, and antennas…
Anyway, since the late 90's companies like Racal and Harris have been making radios which have multi-algorithm encryption built right into the radio, can handle lots of transmission modes (aside from the one or two a given service needs), and cover very broad frequency ranges. As an example, an old PRC-77 (the Army radio operators hauled around on their backs) covered 30-78MHz in FM voice mode only, with no internal encryption. (Mind you, that's just the Army; there's the USMC, USAF, USN, etc. to worry about, plus third parties.) A newer "do-it-all" radio like the PRC-148 MBITR covers 30 to 512 MHZ in AM, FM, SINCGARS (Army frequency hopping), HAVEQUICK II (Air Force frequency hopping) for both voice and data, with internal software that can simulate all sorts of external encryption devices.
AND the damn thing can talk through satellites.
This is typical of what similar radios like the PSC-5D and PRC-117 can do. The only real difference is form factor; the PRC-148 is the size of a largish walkie-talkie (slightly larger if you include the amplifier which makes SATCOM possible), the -5D and -117F are backpack-sized.
So now your ETAC doesn't need a Humvee full of radios and encryption devices; he can carry one radio to talk to anyone he wants. Or maybe two if he needs to talk to two people simultaneously.
...and don't forget that the software-based nature of these new radios means they can learn all sorts of unheard of tricks. For instance, the PSC-5 series of radios can pair up to make a repeater, or retransmit a SATCOM channel over an Army SINCGARS net (for instance) AND vice versa.
Well, to a radio guy, that's pure dynamite.
JTRS wants to take it further, but in my opinion they're trying to turn over two pages at once. There's simply no precedent for tactical radios which self-program to switch nets (the way that cellphones do when changing service areas) and it could take a decade - easily - to get this off the ground.
Rapid Fire 11/08/05
* Whoops! Intel budget revealed
* Los Alamos race: Final lap
* Laser jet makes progress
* U.S. drones crash in Iran?
* Did the Stasi save the world?
(Big ups: Eric, Steven)
Humvees on Crack
 That's the only way I can describe the two armored vehicles that were hogging the right lane of I-26 outside Charleston, S.C. this weekend. They were early examples of the ULTRA AP -- "AP" for "Armored Patrol" -- a Humvee replacement being developed by Georgia Tech for the U.S. Marine Corps. The ones I saw were presumably on their way to the Navy lab in Charleston.
"The ULTRA AP will emphasize high-output diesel power combined with revolutionary armor and a fully modern chassis," according to Georgia Tech Research News. But never mind all that. The key difference between the ULTRA AP and the Humvee, and the reason the ULTRA needs a new engine and chassis at all, is that the new vehicle is wrapped in enough steel and ceramic to withstand all but the biggest IEDs. Experience in Iraq, where IEDs are the major killer, has proved that the battlefield of the future is no place for thin-skinned vehicles. In fact, the two newest additions to the Army's vehicle fleet, the Meerkat and the Buffalo (pictured below), are both designed for maximum protection against IEDs.
 The Army's flagship program, Future Combat Systems, once hinged on air-transportable vehicles that were lighter than the current fleet. The Army was counting on advanced networks and long-range fires to make FCS surviveable.
Now FCS has been redesigned to cope with dense urban environments and sophisticated IEDs. ULTRA AP, Meerkat and Buffalo have given us a glimpse of the future, where ground combat vehicles are as heavy as ever, if not heavier.
The big question? How do we get these big, heavy vehicles into the fight quicker?
--David Axe
Sonic Booms Redux
Well, whadya know. No sooner do we start blabbing about sonic booms as less-lethal weapons than we find two related stories in the hubbub of the headlines.
 First, there's this Times of London article about "a luxury cruise ship" which was "attack[ed] by Somali pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades yesterday as it rounded the Horn of Africa." Luckily, no one was hurt. The reason why:
The liner used a sonic blaster to foil the pirates. Developed by American forces to deter small boats from attacking warships, the non-lethal weapon sends out high-powered air vibrations that blow assailants off their feet. The equipment, about the size of a satellite dish, is rigged to the side of the ship.
Yarrr! Next, Aviation Week tells us that two teams are about to present their designs for supersonic aircraft that don't boom quite as bad.
The main focus of boom reduction efforts is to shape the pressure wave along the length of the aircraft so it won't coalesce into the standard sharp N-wave by the time it hits the ground. Spreading pressure over the signature's length reduces the abrupt changes at the beginning and end of the signature, which are what humans hear...
[But] recent changes in NASA's priorities have set back [the sonic boom work]. The agency's plan was to build a second manned low-boom demonstrator aircraft, and it wanted to issue a request for proposals as early as last September. It would have been a follow-on to the successful Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration aircraft that flew about two years ago.
But barely two months into the July-awarded concept exploration contracts, Lisa Porter, NASA's new associate administrator for aeronautics, told the teams on Aug. 30 that there no longer was funding for a demonstrator. Team members are trying to devise cheaper alternatives for the next phase of research, but turmoil continues in the agency's aeronautics plans.
THERE'S MORE: The AP now has a story out on the sonic pirate-stopper. The author: a reporter out of Miami named John Pain.
(Big ups: Xeni, who's got more on sonic booms, too)
Rapid Fire 11/07/05
* "Silly String" vs. IEDs
* Coke-runners' hi-tech boats
* Army band FAQ
* Joint fighter project: Israel back
* Nuke bunker-buster's next step?
* Marines heart mini-drones (background here)
The Army's Venture Captialists
Okay. Raise your hand if you knew the Army had a venture capital group. I sure as hell didn't.
 OnPoint Technologies was founded in 2002, mostly to kick-start the mobile power sector. Fully-loaded soldiers today are often forced to carry tens of pounds of batteries in their ruck sacks. And the situation is only set to get worse, as more electronics are added to the individual G.I.'s arsenal. So OnPoint has sunk cash into stuff like rechargable batteries and next-gen solar cells.
But don't get too attached to OnPoint, now that you've found out about it. To help pay for Katrina aid, the President wants Congress to take $2.3 billion out of "Download lower-priority federal programs and excess funds." That includes "$14 million in unobligated balances" from OnPoint.
"As of the end of FY 2005, OnPoint had more than $30 million in unused balances," the President's report notes. "The allocation of additional funds to OnPoint is not a high priority and rescinding these funds will have minimal impact on the program."
THERE'S MORE: File this under "Left Hand, Right Hand." OnPoint's "unobligated" $14 million? The Army gave it to the fund at the end of July, Inside Defense notes. Here's what OnPoint expects to see from its investments:
By January, for example, OnPoint expects a “state of charge” capability, now unavailable to the Army, to make it to the field, allowing soldiers to know how much power is left in a battery. Eighteen months after that, Rottenberg expects better, higher-energy batteries to be available, allowing soldiers to carry fewer batteries -- two instead of four for example -- that might weigh a kilogram each. And longer term, he said, the service could see the introduction of fuel cells, allowing soldiers to rely on small cartridges instead of bulky batteries.
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