The head of Marine aviation, Lt. Gen. George Trautman, told my colleague Colin Clark that after seven months of flying in Afghanistan that the MV-22 Osprey readiness rate has stalled out at about 70 percent. While recognizing that Afghanistan is a harsh operating environment, Trautman said he expects more out of the Osprey. Check out […]
From the monthly archives:
July 2010
With considerable fanfare unusual for the highly secretive Israeli military, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced on Monday that the “Iron Dome” counter-rocket artillery mortar system was ready for operational deployment. Iron Dome combines detection and tracking radars with vertically launched guided interceptor missiles to blow out of the air incoming Katyusha rockets, which Hezbollah rained down […]
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps continues to train and arm Shia extremist groups in Iraq attempting to attack U.S. bases with a crudely built, but potentially very deadly, improvised rocket-assisted mortar, or what the military calls IRAM, Iraq commander Gen. Ray Odierno told Defense Tech this morning. IRAM is basically a flying IED, consisting of a […]
Our man in Farnborough, Glenn Anderson, shot an informative interview with Northrop Grumman’s Ed Walby talking the high altitude, long-endurance Global Hawk drone. Global Hawk will supposedly replace the high-flying U-2, someday. However, as readers might remember, Air Force acquisition chief, David Van Buren, recently told our own Colin Clark that he was none too […]
Back in 2006, British Army Maj. Gen. Jonathon Riley issued a dire warning to a largely military audience: “We have not developed the intelligence or the tactics or the correct approach to defeat the [global] IED network.” It’s difficult to say that four years later there has been dramatic progress in defeating that global network. […]
