About Defense Tech

Defense Tech exam­ines the inter­sec­tion of tech­nol­ogy and defense from every angle and pro­vides analy­sis on what’s ahead.

Tip Us Off

Tip for Defense Tech?

SEND IT!

It’s Confidential!

Archive for December, 2004

TSUNAMI

Friday, December 31st, 2004

We all know what hap­pened in South Asia over the week­end. The Times has a list of ways you can help. So does the Post. And this Amazon Honor System page for the Red Cross has already raised more than a mil­lion four mil­lion seven and a half mil­lion thir­teen mil­lion bucks. Let’s all add to it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

PAIN RAYS, LASER JETS, AND STUN GUN SHOCKERS

Friday, December 31st, 2004

From pain beams to stun guns to laser jets, real-​​life ray guns seemed to blast­ing their way from the world of sci-​​fi into the realm of real­ity in 2004. There were set­backs, to be sure — missed dead­lines, bloated bud­gets, and a sense that sup­pos­edly “non-​​lethal” energy weapons might not be so safe, after all. But, by the end of the year, the dream of a blaster in hand seemed a whole lot nearer than it did in 2003.
abl_small.JPGLASER JET: GOOD NEWS
After decades of bloated promises, busted bud­gets, and missed dead­lines, the trou­bled Airborne Laser project finally got a bit of good news yes­ter­day.
The program’s goal is to mount a high-​​energy, chem­i­cal laser onto a 747 jet, so it can shoot down incom­ing mis­siles. But whether such a laser would ever work remained very much an open ques­tion. On Thursday, some answers emerged, when Northrop engi­neers suc­cess­fully tested the laser.
ANTI-​​LASER CONTACT LENSES
I think we all winced when we read, back in September, about the Delta pilot who was hit in the eye by a laser while fly­ing a 737. Or about the 20 year-​​old Los Alamos intern who was zapped dur­ing a July exper­i­ment.
Air Force researchers must not have liked what they read, either. That’s pre­sum­ably why they’re look­ing to develop a con­tact lens that can pro­tect against laser blasts.
LASERS 1, MORTARS 0
Lasers have been get­ting pretty good at knock­ing down rock­ets, as we’ve seen in tests over the last few years. Now, the ray guns are start­ing to prove that they can zap one of the most com­mon bat­tle­field threats mor­tars as well.
ARMY FOCUSING ON “EASY” LASER WEAPONS
In the world of laser guns and death rays, there’s hard to pull off. And then’s really, really hard to do. The Army has decided to con­cen­trate on devel­op­ing some of the eas­ier “directed energy” weapons. The idea is to prove to a skep­ti­cal mil­i­tary com­mu­nity that lasers can, in fact, be used to blow stuff up — and not just on Babylon 5.
RAY GUN RESEARCH POWERS UP
The most pow­er­ful lasers today prob­a­bly wouldn’t work that well as weapons. They have the energy needed to zap oncom­ing mis­siles. But, pow­ered by enor­mous vats of chem­i­cals, they’re really too cum­ber­some to work in the bat­tle­field.
Solid state lasers don’t have those logis­ti­cal prob­lems. Until recently, though, the energy they’ve gen­er­ated has been pretty puny just 10 kilo­watts or so, instead of the 100 kilo­watts that most think are needed to make a work­able weapon. Now, Aviation Week reports, the Defense Department is on track to demon­strate three, solid state laser designs that can hit the 25 kw mark.
taser_side_mirror_small.JPGDEATHS DOG STUN GUN MAKER
For exec­u­tives as Taser International, this should be the best day, ever. The com­pany just signed a $1.8 mil­lion deal with the Pentagon the largest in Taser’s his­tory. But the stun-​​gun maker can’t shake alle­ga­tions that their sup­pos­edly “non-​​lethal” weapons have killed more than a few of their tar­gets.
CORONER: TASERS DIDN’T KILL
They’re still not sure why 31 year-​​old Frederick Jerome Williams died in police cus­tody. But it wasn’t the five shocks to the chest from a Taser stun gun, the Gwinnett, Georgia County med­ical examiner’s office has con­cluded.
TASERS IN THE SKIES
Firing bul­lets in an enclosed space is rarely a good idea. So I guess it was only a mat­ter of time before some­one decided to arm air­line secu­rity guards with tasers instead.
NEXT-​​GEN STUN GUNS TARGET CROWDS
The prob­lem with today’s stun guns is that you can unload a can of elec­tri­cal whoop-​​ass only on one per­son at a time. But that may be start­ing to change.
SONIC WEAPON IN IRAQ
U.S. sol­diers in Iraq have new gear for dis­pers­ing hos­tile crowds and ward­ing off poten­tial enemy com­bat­ants. It blasts ear­split­ting noise in a directed beam. “
“E-​​BOMB,” FOR REAL?
On the eve of the Iraq inva­sion, it was being hailed as America’s next “won­der weapon.” The “e-​​bomb” — a muni­tion using high-​​powered microwaves to fry cir­cuits and com­put­ers — was about to be dropped on Baghdad, we were told. Now, Aviation Week reports, there are a pair of efforts under­way at the Pentagon to use high-​​powered microwaves — the core of the e-​​bomb — for real.
v-ads.jpgBRING THE PAIN
When U.S. sol­diers are faced with a hos­tile crowd, they only have, broadly speak­ing, two options for break­ing it up: the bull­horn or the machine gun. Words or bul­lets. Deadly force, or no force at all. What’s need instead is a weapon that falls some­where in between. That shoots to hurt, not to kill. That dri­ves away loot­ers, with­out dri­ving up casu­alty counts. A microwave-​​like pain ray, let’s say.
SOUPED-​​UP ARMORED CARS PREPPED FOR IRAQ
Soldiers in Iraq might soon get armored vehi­cles equipped with pain rays, sonic weapons, or guns that autom­i­cally return fire if a Pentagon project works out as planned.
PAIN RAY GOING AIRBORNE
It was only a mat­ter of time, I guess. First, the Air Force builds a real-​​life, microwave-​​like pain ray. Then, it gets a com­pany to strap that real-​​life, microwave-​​like pain ray to the back of a jet.
NO SCI-​​FI TECH FOR “FUTURE COMBAT“
Back in 1999, when the Army launched Future Combat Systems, its $117 bil­lion mod­ern­iza­tion pro­gram, “dis­cus­sions were dom­i­nated by visions of an all-​​electric, laser-​​firing fleet of fast-​​moving tank-​​like vehi­cles unbur­dened by the weight of con­ven­tional armor,” notes National Defense. “Five years later, real­ity has set in.”

Posted in Lasers and Ray Guns | Comments Off

NUKES SPREAD, LABS CLAMP DOWN

Thursday, December 30th, 2004

Both Bush and Kerry said it: the spread of nuclear weapons is the biggest secu­rity prob­lem the coun­try faces. And 2004 saw that sit­u­a­tion get a whole lot worse, with both Iran and North Korea mov­ing fur­ther down the atomic path.
Here at home, the nuclear news was a bit bet­ter. Plans for new atomic weapons were scrapped by Congress. And the Energy Department finally got seri­ous about secu­rity at its nuclear labs — after a slew of lost clas­si­fied disks and laser in the eye shamed the bureacracy into act­ing.
m_cloud.jpgPAK NUKE SALES OVERT, GOV’T APPROVED
Pakistan’s gov­ern­ment is try­ing to por­tray the sale of nuclear tech­nol­ogy to Iran, Libya, and North Korea as the cloak-​​and-​​dagger work of a few, iso­lated rogues. But that’s a lie, says Jane’s Defense Weekly. Nuclear sales were so out in the open that under­lings of Abdul Qadeer Khan — the father of the Pakistani Bomb — were hand­ing out glossy brochures adver­tis­ing their ser­vices at a 2000 arms con­fer­ence.
IRAQI URANIUM NOW IN U.S. LABS
The good news: U.S. troops and sci­en­tists have taken a heap of radioac­tive mate­r­ial out of inse­cure loca­tions in Iraq. The bad news: they may have brought the stuff to one of the most inse­cure loca­tions here in America.
1 YEAR UNTIL IRAN NUKES
“Some American ana­lysts warn that there is only a year or so left to stop Iran from achiev­ing nuclear self-​​sufficiency. After that, they say, the coun­try will have the means to cre­ate a nuclear arse­nal with­out out­side help, for­ever alter­ing the Middle East bal­ance of power.“
NUKE STOCKPILES ON THE RISE
No mat­ter what Iran decides to do about its nuclear pro­gram, the chances of radioac­tive mate­r­ial get­ting into dan­ger­ous hands con­tinue to grow.
IRAN’S NUKE PAUSE — BAD NEWS?
So Iran has appar­ently stopped enrich­ing ura­nium for the moment, press­ing pause on its nuclear pro­gram. Great news, right? Actually, it could hardly be worse, argues Michael Levi, the Brookings Institution’s res­i­dent atomic author­ity.
NEW NUKE RESEARCH BLOWN UP
It ain’t dead, yet. But the Bush administration’s push to research and develop new nuclear weapons could be on the verge of flat-​​lining, after a key Congressional leader moved on Wednesday to elim­i­nate fund­ing for the atomic arms projects.
WHAT’S A “BUNKER BUSTER” NUKE?
In the debate tonight, Sen. Kerry made an aside about cut­ting the money to develop a new, “bunker-​​busting” nuclear weapon. What’s he talk­ing about?
GUARDS CHEATED NUKE SECURITY DRILLS
Security guards at the country’s lead­ing nuclear store­house have been cheat­ing dur­ing antiter­ror­ism drills — per­haps for as long as 20 years.
NOT AGAIN! LOS ALAMOS LOSES SECRET DISK
It’s become a recur­ring night­mare for man­agers at the nation’s most impor­tant nuclear weapons lab: a hard drive or disk, filled with clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion, goes miss­ing. And sud­denly, Los Alamos offi­cials, try­ing to remerge from years of scan­dal, have a whole lot of explain­ing to do.
SANDIA HAS BUTTER FINGERS, TOO
Los Alamos isn’t the only weapons lab that can’t seem to keep track of its clas­si­fied disks. Sandia National Laboratories just announced that they, too, are “search­ing for a miss­ing floppy disk that was marked clas­si­fied.“
“AT A MINIMUM, ELECTROCUTION“
The heart-​​warming sto­ries of safety vio­la­tions from the country’s top nuclear weapons lab con­tinue to pile up, like presents under the ol’ yule­tide tree.
LOS ALAMOS SHUT DOWN
Los Alamos National Laboratory direc­tor Pete Nanos shut down the country’s lead­ing nuclear weapons lab on Friday, after a set of clas­si­fied com­puter disks dis­ap­peared, and a stu­dent was hit in the eye with a pow­er­ful laser beam — all in the space of a week.
ABRAHAM TO LOS ALAMOS: GET A CLUE
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has heard from his top deputies about the secu­rity sit­u­a­tion at Los Alamos. And he is pissed.
LOS ALAMOS SCIENTISTS SPOOKED
There’s some­thing miss­ing from all the hub­bub about secu­rity breaches and safety vio­la­tions and polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ings over at Los Alamos: a sense of how the lab’s 12,000 employ­ees feel about hav­ing their work­place shut down. The answer, in a word, is spooked.
NO SECRET DISKS FOR NUKE LABS
Stop using clas­si­fied disks — every­where. That’s the order Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham handed down today, telling the country’s entire nuclear weapons com­plex to lay off the use of clas­si­fied CDs, Zip disks, flop­pies and portable hard dri­ves until new train­ing and pro­ce­dures are put in place.
NUKE LAB FRAUDSTERS COP A PLEA
The men who helped start the cur­rent wave of scan­dals at Los Alamos have pled guilty to charges of con­spir­acy and mail fraud,
LOS ALAMOS CAVEMAN CAUGHT
Authorities have evicted a man from a cave on Los Alamos National Laboratory land where they say he appar­ently lived for years with the com­forts of home a wood-​​burning stove, solar pan­els con­nected to car bat­ter­ies for elec­tric­ity and a satel­lite radio.
NUKE LAB CONTRACT: AMNESIA ATTACK
Imagine, for a moment, that you had held your job for the last sixty years. And then the boss wanted you to re-​​apply for your job, all over again. But your past per­for­mance over the decades that would barely count, when you filled out the appli­ca­tion.
You’d call that kind of a mixed, mes­sage, right? But it’s exactly what the Energy Department did, when it began to put the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s con­tract up for bid, for the first time ever.

Posted in Nukes | Comments Off

SPACE WAR, MOON BASES, AND SPYSAT MYSTERIES

Wednesday, December 29th, 2004

Guiding bombs, relay­ing orders, find­ing a safe way through hos­tile ter­ri­tory — just about every­thing a mod­ern mil­i­tary does on the ground depends on a satel­lite in space. So it’s no won­der that the Pentagon spent a nice-​​sized chunk of 2004 get­ting ready for an even­tual show­down in orbit.
This was also the year that NASA was sent back to its mis­sion of manned explo­ration — and astro­naut entre­pre­neurs reached the edge of space. Can trips to Alpha Centauri be far behind?
anti-sat weapon.JPGPENTAGON PREPS FOR WAR IN SPACE
An Air Force report is giv­ing what ana­lysts call the most detailed pic­ture since the end of the Cold War of the Pentagon’s efforts to turn outer space into a bat­tle­field.
For years, the American mil­i­tary has spo­ken in hints and whis­pers, if at all, about its plans to develop weapons in space. But the U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan changes all that. Released in November, the report makes U.S. dom­i­nance of the heav­ens a top Pentagon pri­or­ity in the new cen­tury. And it runs through dozens of research pro­grams designed to ensure that America can never be chal­lenged in orbit — from anti-​​satellite lasers to weapons that “would pro­vide the capa­bil­ity to strike ground tar­gets any­where in the world from space.“
SPACE WAR BUDGET UNVEILED
$75.9 mil­lion to shut down enemy satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions. $84.6 mil­lion for projects like relay mir­rors that would re-​​target laser beams in space. $15 mil­lion for weapons that ram into satel­lites and other “space con­trol” efforts. That’s just a small sam­ple of what the Pentagon plans to spend on space war research next year, accord­ing to a study from the Center for Defense Information.
AIR FORCE: ALL’S FAIR IN SPACE WAR
The American mil­i­tary has begun plan­ning for com­bat in space. And com­mer­cial space­craft, neu­tral coun­tries’ launch­ing pads even weather satel­lites are all on the poten­tial tar­get list.
PENTAGON WANTS MINI-​​KILLERS IN SPACE
“Arms Control Wonk” Jeffrey Lewis has uncov­ered what looks like a Pentagon wish list for orbital com­bat. At the top of the list: a slew of itty-​​bitty satel­lites. Their mis­sion: “Destruction of Enemy Spacecraft.“
AIR FORCE: SATELLITE JAMMER READY
The U.S. Air Force is ready to start jam­ming enemy satel­lites. So says ISR Journal, which reports that the Counter Communications System (CounterCom), a radio frequency-​​based sys­tem to dis­rupt com­mu­ni­ca­tions satel­lites, has been declared oper­a­tional by the American mil­i­tary.
USAF WANTS SELF-​​AWARE SATELLITES
One of the things that makes Rummy & Co. the most ner­vous is that nobody has a clue what’s up there in orbit. Imagine how vast and opaque the seas must have seen to World War I-​​era com­man­ders, and you’ll get the idea. The Air Force may have a fix: turn satel­lites’ inter­nal mon­i­tors out­ward, to keep tabs on space.
TETHERS: SATELLITES’ SAVIOR?
How could satel­lites be saved from nuclear attack? Simple, the Pentagon says: with giant, elec­tri­cally charged space-​​ropes.
IRAN’S “TROJAN HORSE” IN SPACE
Iran is plan­ning on launch­ing its first satel­lite early next year. And it’s not so the mul­lahs can catch the Knicks game or HBO Latino.
MOON BASE: RECURRING DREAM
Moon Base? Old news. In his hotly antic­i­pated announce­ment Wednesday, President Bush ordered NASA sci­en­tists to plan for a manned “foothold on the moon.” They might look through their old fil­ing cab­i­nets to start. Because the U.S. gov­ern­ment and its con­trac­tors have been plan­ning lunar colonies since long before Neil Armstrong took his one giant leap for mankind in 1969.
NO IDEA TOO WILD FOR NASA’S SCI-​​FI ARM
Shape-​​shifting space suits? Step right up. Antimatter-​​powered probes to Alpha Centauri? No prob­lem. Robotic armada to destroy incom­ing aster­oids? Pal, just sign on the dot­ted line. At the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, the wildest of ideas are not only tol­er­ated. They’re wel­come.
PSA_small.jpgRED, ROUND “TRICORDER” PREPPED FOR SPACE
It’s shaped like a bas­ket­ball. It was inspired by Spock’s tri­corder. And, if NASA researchers have their way, it could be help­ing out astro­nauts aboard the International Space Station in as lit­tle as three years.
NASA NUKE MISSION BEGINS
NASA’s nuclear-​​powered mis­sion to Jupiter’s moons is on.
SATELLITES SPEED DARFUR AID
Satellites can be used for peace­ful pur­poses, too. A European-​​led coali­tion is using the orbiters to boost human­i­tar­ian efforts in the conflict-​​torn Darfur region of Sudan.
SPYSAT MYSTERY SOLVED
A clas­si­fied spy pro­gram that had worked Sen. Jay Rockefeller — and a nice-​​sized chunk of Washington — into a jit­ter­ing froth has been unveiled.
CONGRESS POKES ALL-​​SEEING EYE IN SKY
It’s a spook fan­tasy: an all-​​seeing, always-​​on, rain-​​or-​​shine con­stel­la­tion of satel­lites, able to keep track of every plane, truck, and per­son below. Now, Congress is telling the Pentagon to go back to the draw­ing board.
EURO-​​GPS: READY FOR ORBIT?
It’s a fair bet that satel­lite nav­i­ga­tion won’t be at the top of the agenda when President Bush meets with European lead­ers in Ireland next week for the annual sum­mit between the United States and the European Union. But, in the long run, a little-​​known agree­ment to allow New World and Old World satel­lites to play nice with each other could prove to be the sum­mit item that has the great­est impact on aver­age peo­ple worldwide.

Posted in Space | Comments Off

EXPLOSIVE, STICKY, AD-​​HOC ARMOR

Tuesday, December 28th, 2004

reactive_montage.JPGIn 2004, there was no mil­i­tary tech­nol­ogy issue as impor­tant as armor. How the Pentagon pro­tected American troops and American vehi­cles became, for many, the lit­mus test for Defense Department lead­er­ship — or lack thereof.
Here are some of the year’s wildest schemes, biggest steps, and most intense polit­i­cal bat­tles over armor.
PEEL-​​AND-​​STICK ARMOR IN IRAQ
Usually, adding to an armor to a Humvee means weld­ing on giant steel plates. Now, U.S. forces in Iraq are start­ing to stick their armor on, like bumper stick­ers.
ARMY SAYS NO TO AD-​​HOC ARMOR
U.S. sol­diers have been adding jury-​​rigged armor to their Humvees, to toughen the vehi­cles up against RPGs and road­side explo­sives. The Army is telling its troops to cut it out.
ARMORED POOCHES ON IRAQ PATROL
G.I.s in Iraq may not be able to get armor for their Humvees. Their dogs, on the other hand, are well pro­tected.
ARMY REBOOTS G.I.S’ TIRED FATIGUES
Ever since they tan­gled with the Red Coats, American gen­er­als have been giv­ing their grunts more and more and more gear to lug — from rations to radios, body armor to bat­ter­ies. Now, for the first time, the Army has decided to junk the old uni­forms and start from scratch.
G.I.S GET ARMOR ADD-​​ONS
A G.I.‘s body armor is designed, mostly, to stop head-​​on attacks, or to keep a sol­dier from get­ting shot in the back. But in Iraq, insur­gents aren’t com­ing straight at the sol­diers. That’s why the Army and Sandia National Laboratories are rolling out new body armor add-​​ons, designed to shield troops’ flanks and arms.
SOLDIER ARMOR: STEP INTO LIQUID
Army researchers are work­ing on liq­uid body armor, to add to sol­diers’ bul­let­proof vests.
interceptor_small.jpgPAYBACK, FINALLY, FOR ARMOR BUYS
It’s become a dis­gust­ingly famil­iar scene: American troops, cor­nered into to pay­ing for their own pro­tec­tion. Now thank God they’ll finally start to get reim­bursed for what they’ve spent.
U.S. GETS EXPLOSIVE ARMOR FROM ISRAEL
The U.S. Army wants to pro­tect its Bradley fight­ing vehi­cles — by strap­ping dozens of Israeli explo­sives to their skins.
SHOOT TO PROTECT
For many sol­diers in Humvees, the best defense against an RPG is to shoot the guy hold­ing the RPG before he can let one off. But another layer of defense may be com­ing — a way to blast the RPG in midair.
ARMORED HUMMERS UNDERCUT
Without some extra armor, American Humvees can’t stand up to the Iraqi insur­gents’ onslaught of rocket-​​propelled grenades and road­side bombs. “So how is the White House propos­ing to deal with this?” asks Slate’s Eric Umanky. “By under­fund­ing the pro­gram to armor Humvees.“
ARMOR LACK LEADS TO HEAVY ATTACKS
Raining hell on Falluja is a tac­tic burst­ing with polit­i­cal dan­ger. So why do it? The answer, accord­ing to Newhouse’s David Wood, is because thin-​​skinned American Humvees can’t han­dle an up-​​close fight.
RUMMY’S SLICK SUPPLEMENTAL MOVE
You’d think it’d be a top pri­or­ity for the Army, out­fit­ting troops with new body armor, hel­mets, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions gear. But the Pentagon can’t seem to find the cash in its $420 bil­lion bud­get to pay for the equip­ment.
ARMOR LACK: WHO’S TO BLAME?
So who’s respon­si­ble for American troops still oper­at­ing in Iraq with­out proper pro­tec­tion?
TRUCKS STILL THIN-​​SKINNED
The Hummers are pro­tected, mostly. It’s the trucks that are in trou­ble.
G.I.S’ PAYCHECKS FUND TRUCK ARMOR
So the Pentagon lead­er­ship has finally rec­og­nized that they need to armor up their trucks. But they’ve set­tled on a damn pecu­liar way of pay­ing for the work. They’re dip­ping into sol­diers’ pay­checks to do it.

Posted in Armor | Comments Off

THE YEAR IN DEFENSE TECH

Monday, December 27th, 2004

Re-​​runs: not just for tele­vi­sion any more! Defense Tech is proud to bring to blog­dom the time-​​honored tra­di­tion of recy­cling fare from the past year, to fill up an oth­er­wise fal­low 52nd week.
We’ll tackle a dif­fer­ent topic each day, star­ing this morn­ing with drones. Check back in every day for more Defense Techlicious good­ness. And don’t for­get to visit the forum here, where (orig­i­nal, non-​​recycled) debates are rag­ing on every­thing from Iraq strat­egy to ray guns to real-​​life exoskeletons.

Posted in Blog Bidness | Comments Off

DRONE DOGGIES, ROBO-​​COPTERS, AND MORE

Monday, December 27th, 2004

In robot world, 2004 was a time to get ready. To test out new drone designs. To give the bots a bit of auton­omy, and see if they could drive across the desert on their own. To have the machines try on rocket-​​launchers and smart bombs.
All of which sets the stage of a mighty big 2005. That’s when gun-​​toting drones will be head­ing to Iraq. New con­trol schemes will be unveiled. And robo-​​racers might even make it more than a few miles into the Mojave.
BigDog_pr_small.jpgDRONE DOGGIE BUILT FOR WAR
A robot dog could one day become a soldier’s best friend — if an Army pro­gram works out as planned.
WHIRL-​​A-​​DRONE BEGINS TO SPIN
“Right now, it looks a lot like a Frisbee with four wings,” the Wall Street Journal says. But, one day, this early pro­to­type could become “an unmanned air­craft capa­ble of hov­er­ing in the same spot for days at a time.“
KILLER DRONE PLANS REVEALED
They’ve served, mostly, as spies. Once in a great while, they’ve moon­lighted as assas­sins. But now, unmanned air­craft are slowly start­ing to become full-​​fledged killing machines — armed to the teeth, and designed for the dead­liest parts of war.
ROBO-​​COPTER: TALK TO ME
“See that build­ing over there? Bomb the hell out of it.” That’s how easy the Pentagon wants com­mand­ing its Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft to be.
REMOTE CONTROL FOR KILLER DRONES
If you’re going to have a bunch of killer drones roam­ing the skies, you bet­ter make damn sure you can con­trol ‘em. Pilotless plane pro­mot­ers have long promised this would be doable. And now, after a series of test flights ear­lier this month, there’s rea­son to think they’re right.
TERROR DRONE: NO SWEAT?
If you were wor­ried about the drone that Hezbollah flew over Israel the other day, Stratfor has a word for you: chill.
ARMED DRONES ROLLING TO IRAQ
Hunting for gueril­las, han­dling road­side bombs, crawl­ing across the caves and crum­bling towns of Afghanistan and Iraq — all of that was just a start. Now, the U.S. Army’s squad of robotic vehi­cles is being prepped for a new set of assign­ments. And this time, they’ll be car­ry­ing guns.
ARMED ROBOTS, GOOEY SNACKS MADE BY SAME FIRM
Foster-​​Miller, the com­pany behind the armed robots that are about to be shipped off to Iraq, may win the award for the odd­est array of exper­tise, ever. When they’re not build­ing gun-​​toting, death-​​dealing machines, Foster-​​Miller sci­en­tists are help­ing make chewy, gooey fruit snacks; train­ing rail­way work­ers in stay­ing safe; build­ing bone-​​growth devices; and test­ing out new vend­ing machines for Pepsi.
SWINGING 60’S DRONE OVER IRAQ
Sure, the Pentagon’s lat­est and great­est drones were there. But Gulf War II also saw the remer­gence of an unmanned plane that got its start nearly four decades ago.
CHALLENGE 1, ROBO-​​RACERS 0
A mil­lion dol­lars waits the win­ner of the Darpa Grand Challenge, the all-​​robot, off-​​road rally across the Mojave Desert, slated for this week­end. But at the rate the race’s prepa­ra­tions are going, there may not be a win­ner at all.
ROBOT RACERS CATCH A BREAK
The rules were simple: if drone mak­ers wanted to com­pete in the Pentagon’s million-​​dollar, robotic, off-​​road rally, they had to make sure their cre­ations could nav­i­gate a mile-​​long obsta­cle course first. But when the qual­i­fy­ing rounds began Monday for this “Grand Challenge,” run by the Pentagon research arm Darpa, it quickly became clear that only a hand­ful of the bots could pass the exam on the open­ing day. Now, it looks like just about any robot car will be on the start­ing line in the desert town of Barstow, California.
GRAND CHALLENGE BREAKS DOWN
It looks like all of the robot rac­ers in Darpa’s Grand Challenge have bro­ken down in the Mojave Desert.
DARPA’S ROBO-​​RACE FIX: CARS THAT THINK
After months of hype and twitch­ing buildup, the Defense Department’s drone-​​only rally across the Mojave Desert fiz­zled. So offi­cials at Darpa, the Pentagon’s way-​​out research arm, are try­ing to get rolling after the stall out. They way they pro­pose to do it: build cars that can think for them­selves.
DRONE LOST AT SEA
Fisherman and divers of Norway: If you see a ten-​​foot long, robotic mini-​​submarine swim­ming off of your shores, please call the U.S. Navy.
DUDE, THERE’S MY DRONE!
Joy in sub­ville: the U.S. Navy has found its mine-​​sweeping, torpedo-​​shaped drone.

Posted in Drones | Comments Off

TERROR GROUP TESTS IRAN’S TECH

Thursday, December 23rd, 2004

This Israeli press flipped its col­lec­tive lid in November, when the Hezbollah ter­ror­ist group flew an Iranian drone over the Galilee. But it’s not the only time Tehran-​​backed fun­da­men­tal­ists have used sur­pris­ingly sophis­ti­cated means to tus­sle with Israel, accord­ing to Defense News. In fact, “Several Israeli offi­cials and ana­lysts sug­gested Tehran is using the group to test and pro­mote the prod­ucts of Iran’s defense indus­try, which has been built from scratch over the past quarter-​​century to get around inter­na­tional arms embargoes.”

In January, an anti-​​tank mis­sile pro­vided by Iran struck an Israeli D-​​9 bull­dozer in the dis­puted Shebaa Farms area, killing the Israeli sol­dier.
They also cited thou­sands of Katyusha rock­ets upgraded to 30-​​kilometer ranges; the Al-​​Fajr 3 surface-​​to-​​surface mis­sile; and the Al-​​Fajr 5, which can deliver a 200-​​kilogram pay­load up to 75 kilo­me­ters.
Awar said the most com­mon Iranian weapon in Hizbollah’s arse­nal is the single-​​tube 122mm rocket launcher.
“It is light, easy to move around, easy to hide and can be put into action fairly quickly and uses a vari­ety of Iranian ARASH mis­siles with ranges that vary from 21 to 29 kilo­me­ters,” he said.
Tehran has con­sis­tently denied arm­ing the group. 

Posted in Drones | Comments Off

MOSUL: MORE THAN TRAGEDY

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2004

The awful events yes­ter­day in Mosul meant more than just tragedy for 14 American sol­diers’ fam­i­lies and friends. The attack on Forward Operating Base Marez is a har­bin­ger of even worse things to come in Iraq, Tom Ricks argues in a must-​​read story in today’s Washington Post:

The major dif­fer­ence between the lat­est attack and the ear­lier inci­dents is that it was an attack on a U.S. base, rather than on troops in tran­sit in vul­ner­a­ble air­craft. That dif­fer­ence appears to reflect both the per­sis­tence of the insur­gency and its grow­ing sophis­ti­ca­tion, as experts noted that it seemed to be based on pre­cise intel­li­gence. Most dis­turbingly, some offi­cers who have served in Iraq wor­ried that the Mosul attack could mark the begin­ning of a period of even more intense vio­lence pre­ced­ing the Iraqi elec­tions sched­uled for Jan. 30.
“On the strate­gic level, we were expect­ing an hor­ren­dous month lead­ing up to the Iraqi elec­tions, and that has begun,” retired Army Col. Michael E. Hess said.
Jeffrey White, a for­mer Defense Intelligence Agency ana­lyst of Middle Eastern mil­i­tary affairs, said he is espe­cially wor­ried that the insur­gents’ next move will be an actual pen­e­tra­tion by fight­ers into a base. “The real dan­ger here is that they will mount a sophis­ti­cated effort to pen­e­trate or assault one of our camps or bases with a ground ele­ment,” he said…
The attack also indi­cates that the insur­gency is grow­ing more sophis­ti­cated with the pas­sage of time. One of the basic prin­ci­ples of wag­ing a coun­terin­sur­gency is that it requires patience. “Twenty-​​one months” — the length of the occu­pa­tion so far — “is not a long time to tame the tribal war­fare expected there,” said retired Marine Lt. Col. Rick Raftery, an intel­li­gence spe­cial­ist who oper­ated in north­ern Iraq in 1991. “My guess is that this will take 10 years.“
Another prin­ci­ple, less noted but painfully clear yes­ter­day, is that insur­gents also tend to sharpen their tac­tics as time goes by. Over the past 20 months, enemy fight­ers have learned a lot about how the U.S. mil­i­tary oper­ates and where its vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties lie.
“The longer you are any­where, the more dif­fi­cult it becomes,” said Hess, who served in north­ern Iraq in 1991 and in Bosnia in 1996. “They have changed their tac­tics a lot in the year-​​plus.”

THERE’S MORE: “Worried about recent artillery attacks on American mess halls in Iraq, the U.S. mil­i­tary was just days away from com­plet­ing a rein­forced din­ing area at the camp where a rocket attack killed more than 20 peo­ple in a tent the bunker was meant to replace.“
AND MORE: The Mosul blast now appears to have been the work of a sui­cide bomber. And that’s even worse news than a rocket attack. Because it means that insur­gents are slip­ping into American bases, the Times explains.

The announce­ment on Wednesday of the likely cause of the Mosul attack pro­duced a new source of con­cern by leav­ing a cru­cial ques­tion unan­swered: How was the attacker able to infil­trate a heav­ily guarded mil­i­tary base in one of the most hos­tile regions of Iraq?
It also raised the pos­si­bil­ity that one of the most com­monly dis­cussed fears of American sol­diers sta­tioned at for­ward oper­at­ing bases in Iraq had come true — that an Iraqi or other for­eign worker had been able through spe­cial access, knowl­edge and priv­i­leges to sab­o­tage the troops he was sup­posed to be serv­ing.
Other heav­ily guarded com­pounds have been infil­trated, includ­ing the main American gov­ern­men­tal zone in Baghdad, where sui­cide bombers killed five peo­ple in October. But the attack on Tuesday far exceeded the size and dev­as­ta­tion of any pre­vi­ous strike on American troops within a secured com­pound.
“I’ve been expect­ing it,” said Wayne Downing , a retired four-​​star Army gen­eral who headed the inquiry into the bomb­ing at the Khobar Towers hous­ing com­plex in Saudi Arabia in 1996. “They’re try­ing to get in. We have a ter­ri­ble prob­lem. We have all this indige­nous labor. We don’t wash our dishes, cook our own food. When you bring indige­nous labor­ers into camps, you imme­di­ately have a secu­rity problem.”

Posted in War Update | Comments Off

REMOTE CONTROL FOR KILLER DRONES

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2004

x45_small.jpgIf you’re going to have a bunch of killer drones roam­ing the skies, you bet­ter make damn sure you can con­trol ‘em.
Pilotless plane pro­mot­ers have long promised this would be doable. And now, after a series of test flights ear­lier this month, there’s rea­son to think they’re right.
In one trial, con­trol of the X-​​45A exper­i­men­tal unmanned plane was passed from an oper­a­tor at Edwards Air Force Base in California, to another, 900 miles away, at a Boeing facil­ity in Seattle. The Seattle pilot took over for only six min­utes. But the switch was sig­nif­i­cant, regard­less.
Equally reas­sur­ing was what went down at the begin­ning of the month at Edwards. One pilot was able to take charge of two X45s at once, for about an hour.
Eventually, the goal is to let one flesh-​​and-​​blood oper­a­tor guide an entire squadron of death-​​dealing drones at once. That’s still a ways off. But this start ain’t bad.

Posted in Drones | Comments Off

« Older Entries