Ares: A Defense Technology Blog

Ares' Top War Tech: Precision Munitions

One thing that the U.S. has learned is that the "Shock and Awe" strategy of overwhelming force, tried out on Iraq in 2003, does not always work. It left shattered infrastructure, lots of rubble to provide cover for the enemy and, worst of all, dead and injured civilians. Out go 2,000-pound bombs; in come weapons one-quarter and one-eighth the size. But with neither the time nor the money to invent all-new weapons, the goal is to solve problems with off-the-shelf technology and components.

About three-quarters of targets for U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are mobile, according to Defense Department officials. At the same time, as combat operations  become a fixture of ongoing life in those countries, U.S. officials eagerly look to refine and restrict bomb explosions to allow their use in populated areas.

Radar Reporting

Congratulations to Aviation Week's Pentagon Editor, Michael Fabey, on getting linked at Extra! Extra, the weblog of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.

The linked story was U.S., Canada Missed Chances For Radar C2 Upgrades. An excerpt:

The U.S. and Canada missed an opportunity to deploy an upgraded NORAD radar-based air defense system before the 2001 terrorist attacks because of problems that have hindered both countries' efforts to field a tried-and-proven system for more than a decade, including escalating costs, blown deadlines, mismatched technology and mismanaged programs, according to government audits and acquisition documents.

Two years before the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. and Canadian NORAD partnership was supposed to start installing a new command-and-control (C2) system for the radars with capabilities that possibly could have been used to help stop terrorists from slamming their hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The technology for that system would serve as the building blocks for the system the two countries eventually deployed last year - the Battle Control System-Fixed (BCS-F).

--Sean Meade

Extras for this Issue

The June edition of DTI has hit the stands, mailboxes, and the web. Here are the links mentioned:

+ David on A-10 upgrades: Smarter Hogs
Post: A-10 v. Apache (2 comments)
Post: CAS: AF v. Army (5 comments)
Post: The A-10 Upgrade Isn't Magic (4 comments)
Post: Airpower: Maintain Capability (1 comment)

+ Joris on anti-RPG nets: Grenade Catcher
Post and videos: RPG-7.net

+ Bill on Strategic Lift: Open Goal
Post: Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor Heat ...
Video: Boeing Begins C-17 Line Shutdown
Video: C-130s - A Half-Century Of Service, And Still Going Strong

+ David in East Timor: Keeping the Peace
Weblog series (newest post first)
Photos
Video: East Timor Checkpoint
Video: East Timor Patrol
Video: East Timor Weapons Search
Video: East Timor Election

+ Catherine's Cutting Edge

+ My column

And remember, you can always subscribe for free!

--Sean Meade

Compound Interest

Whether you call it meddling or injecting creativity into a hidebound bureaucracy, Congressional earmarks can have some interesting results. Witness the Piasecki-Sikorsky X-49A compound helicopter, now complete and being prepared for flight tests.

A compound helicopter is simply a helicopter with added wings and a forward propulsion system. They enjoyed a brief popularity in the 1960s, and one of the leading companies in the field was Piasecki, founded by Frank Piasecki, rotorcraft pioneer and father of the CH-47. The Piasecki company has revived its 1960s approach, which uses a single ducted propulsor to provide anti-torque control in the hover and forward thrust.

5/31 Frago

+ Brits: including French will delay carrier

+ Will JCA control shift from Army to AF?

+ Excalibur's not worth the money

+ Puma's fatal flaws

+ Taiwan's losing ground in the air

--Sean Meade

HAAWC Eye

Lockheed Martin successfully dropped an MK-54 torpedo from a P-3 aircraft flying at 8,000 feet. The test was part of the company's $3 million U.S. Navy contract to prove the High-Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapons Concept, or HAAWC .

The HAAWC concept uses Lockheed Martin's LongShot wing adapter kit to give the torpedo a range well in excess of 10 nautical miles, which keeps the aircraft out of harm's way. Lockheed Martin says the concept also enables "off axis" torpedo launches so the aircraft doesn't have to manuever. The Longshot can be used to extend the range and provide autonomous guidance to air-to-surface munitions including sea mines, dumb bombs, laser-guided bombs and tactical munitions dispensers.

In an interview for DTI's The Cutting Edge column last fall, Alan Jackson, the company's HAAWC program director, said the wing kit could eventually enable bomb damage assessment and deployment of sea mines and sonobuoys. The wing kit costs about $100,000 a copy and has been tested by the Air Force for delivering the MK-83 1,000 pound and laser-guided bombs, as well as CBU-87 tactical munitions dispensers on F-16 aircraft.

--Catherine MacRae Hockmuth

C-Sniper Strikes Again

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has released a solicitation for proposals for its counter-sniper technology called C-Sniper, which we've already written about in this space. Only the agency still isn't saying how it might work. C-Sniper aims to track and target snipers -- with and without telescopic sites and optics -- before they actually shoot, which is a big leap from currently developing technology to track snipers using the sound of muzzle blasts.

Darpa issued a brief announcement about the technology last month and held an industry day May 3. This time, the agency is only saying publicly that the program will have two phases. The first phase will be used to develop the technology and a "fully functional proof of concept system." The second involves the delivery and demonstration of a prototype on a moving vehicle in a "high-clutter environment" filled with false targets. C-Sniper is to be integrated with Darpa's ongoing Crosshairs targeting program, which is being developed by Mustang Technologies in Allen, Texas, and designed to track and intercept bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars fired at vehicles.

As you can imagine, the program has its challenges like how do you identify where fire might come from before it's actually fired?

If you think you've got something that might do the trick, act quick, proposals are due July 9.

--Catherine MacRae Hockmuth

Top War Tech #7: Hot Chow

The U.S. military does a lot with very little. It took 15 million U.S. troops to fight World War II for just four years. We've been at this globalterrorwarthingy for six years now with a force of 2 million, counting reserves. For the average trooper on the ground that means long tours: up to 15 months for Army soldiers. And the only way such lengthy service is possible is with plentiful, regular hot food.

That's right. Food is my pick for the seventh-best war tech.

I should know. I've eaten a couple hundred meals in military chow halls in Iraq (and Lebanon and Timor, too), and they always made me feel better about the shootings, bombings, riots and run-ins with fussy Frenchmen in baby-blue U.N. berets. The best food I've ever tasted was at a base in Baqubah on January 27th, 2005, the evening after I got blown up by a suicide bomber. Fried chicken. Mac and cheese. Peace of mind.

Cyborg Moths to Hunt Terrorists

The Times Online has a look at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's efforts to create cyborg moths to spy on terrorists.

Darpa's been looking for years at biological engineering, including building machines that act like animals and insects and using animals and insects in surveillance systems. The cyborg effort is part of Darpa's Hybrid Insect Microelectromechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) program and involves injecting computer chips into cocoons. The flesh then grows around the chip, enabling warfighters to control the moth's nervous system remotely. Darpa says because the flesh grows after the chip has been implanted, the tissue heals, creating a "reliable tissue-machine interface." The moths could be flown over suspected terrorists camps to get video and data, presumably without arousing much suspicion.

Rod Brooks, director of the computer science and artificial intelligence lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the newspaper that he expects the cyborg moths to be deployable soon.

“This is going to happen," said Mr Brooks. "It’s not science like developing the nuclear bomb, which costs billions of dollars. It can be done relatively cheaply.”

--Catherine MacRae Hockmuth

Top War Tech #8: Hercules

War, especially the comfy American way of war, takes stuff. Lots and lots of stuff: 100 million square feet of seaborne dry cargo for Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, according to Military Sealift Command. Once the stuff reaches a port, say in Kuwait, it gets hauled to the troops by mile-long ground convoys or in C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster transport planes. The ground convoys in Iraq got mauled pretty bad in 2004 and '05, so the Air Force has been hauling a growing proportion of the supplies, keeping logistics troops off the roads and saving perhaps hundreds of lives.