Ares: A Defense Technology Blog

Stryking Out

The Army's Stryker vehicle is racking up enough losses in Iraq to prompt some questions about its vulnerability, according to this interesting story by the Associated Press:

Since the Strykers went into action in violent Diyala province north of Baghdad two months ago, losses of the vehicles have been rising steadily, U.S. officials said.

A single infantry company in Diyala lost five Strykers this month in less than a week, according to soldiers familiar with the losses, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release the information. The overall number of Strykers lost recently is classified.

Jassm Spasms, Again!

We thought we were clever when we used the headline “Jassm Spasms” the last time the Lockheed Martin stealthy cruise missile ran into problems. Now, we are wondering how to top that headline.

With all the rhetoric from the Pentagon on concerns of GPS jamming for precision-guided munitions, it seems three recent tests proved Jassm is apparently not in need of such sophisticated countermeasures. Three of the missiles – one each from Lots 2-4 – experienced a GPS dropout problem, which resulted in the missiles hitting up to 200 ft. from their intended targets and proving ineffective at inflicting damage on the intended targets.

Exclusive Raytheon Missile Image

Raytheon researchers will test a new interceptor missile’s seeker -– fired from a fighter -- against a boosting ballistic missile in late summer at the White Sands Missile Range, N.M. To cut development costs, it will be a derivative of the AIM-120 AMRAAM.

Because 75% of the missile's components are already in production, company officials predict they could field a weapon for about $1 million a missile in about four years. The demonstration project is to produce 20 production representative missiles for further testing.

Ouch!

An Israeli company with headquarters in Toronto says it recently briefed Army researchers on a wireless, electric bullet that causes muscle spasms painful enough to make you fall over, but not die. Security Devices International Inc. says its Lektrox nonlethal ammunition is being designed to instantly incapacitate targets from up to 60 yards. SDI says its team briefed officials at U.S. Army Research and Development Command at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. during the first quarter of 2007.

SDI has a somewhat grisly video of the patent-pending Lektrox on its Web site. Unfortunately, I can't download it, but it's the first thing you'll see on their site. It works by affixing itself to the target with a miniature harpoon, thus activating the built-in "Wireless Electro-Muscular Disruption Technology," that is similar to technology used in stun guns. SDI isn't clear on just how the Lektrox affixes itself to the target, but since the company is claiming that it causes no serious injury, I'm thinking maybe it just latches onto the target's clothes. The projectile also has a collapsible head that enlarges the surface area of the ammo to absorb some of the impact.

NATO Sniffs Toxins

The Jerusalem Post reports today on NATO-funded research to detect chemical and biological agents in municipal water supplies.

Last year, a San Diego company announced it had developed a system that relies on bluegill fish to monitor water supplies. The Intelligent Automation Corporation's system is being used in San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and New York City.

Are Missile Defense 'Bullets' Smart Enough? [updated]

Nightline did a piece recently on 100th Missile Defense Brigade at Ft Greely, AK. Since the Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) has posted the video for download on their website, I figured it would be ok to upload it to YouTube for your viewing convenience.

Reporter Terry Moran says, and soldiers interviewed on the video say, that they can shoot down an incoming missile.

ABC calls on Theresa Hitchens, Director of the Center for Defense Information, to provide counterpoint to SMCD's claims. She says 'The missile defense interceptors that are in the ground at Ft Greeley and Vandenberg have absolutely no proven capability against an enemy missile under operationally realistic  circumstances.' She notes possibilities for beating missile defense, like overwhelming with sheer numbers or using false targets, like balloons. And she says all of the tests so far have been scripted.

MDA Director, Lt Gen Henry Obering, presents the DoD's side of the debate. He notes the importance of creating defenses against undeterrable countries or organizations (Al Qaeda foremost among them).

What do you think? Is missile defense worth the more than $100 billion that we have put into it?

Update: Japan, U.S. to boost defense ties - including missile defense

Ready for Primetime? Part Four

One of the greatest advantages of the Bell/Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor over existing aircraft is one that many critics might dismiss as irrelevant: because it can tilt its rotors to provide forward propulsion, the Osprey can taxi, unlike conventional choppers, which have to be dragged around the flight decks of amphibious ships. "It seems a minor point," admits Colonel Glenn Walters, one of the Marines' most experienced V-22 pilots. But he says that taxiing translates into faster and more flexible launches of larger groups of aircraft.

Marine Corps air assaults are among the most delicate and complicated of military operations due the variety and limitations of the aircraft involved and because amphibs are pretty small, as far as runways go. "There's only a certain amount of territory available in terms of the deck: we normally use just six spots" for helicopters, Walters explains. And since choppers can't maneuver themselves into these spots, tractors must move them into position -- and in the right order.

Darpa Wants Instant Print Translation

Say you're cruising around Baghdad on foot scoping out the area for signs of trouble when you pass some graffiti or a few flyers written in Arabic. Wouldn't it be handy if you could whip out a tiny little, lightweight box that would scan the literature and tell you what is says?

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency thinks so. Darpa, which is always trying to think up ways to make soldiers lives easier and longer, has a new program to develop instant language translation tools for printed materials.

When I spoke to Alan Shaffer, director of plans and programs in the Pentagon office of Director, Defense Research and Engineering, at ComDef West 2007 last month, he listed better language translation, and particularly instant translation of printed materials as a major priority for his office.

Darpa says a broad agency announcement detailing the goals of the Multilingual Automatic Document Classification and Analysis, or MADCAT, program will be issued as soon as possible, and an Industry Day is planned for May 1.

--Catherine MacRae Hockmuth

Ready for Primetime? Part Three

After more than 20 years of development – and seven years after two fatal crashes nearly killed the program entirely – the Boeing/Bell V-22 Osprey is finally prepping to actually do its job. This fall Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 based at New River Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina will deploy to Al Asad in western Iraq for seven months with around a dozen Ospreys, replacing 1960s-era Boeing H-46 Sea Knights for ferrying and re-supplying Marines fighting in that huge, desolate province.

Despite the Corps’ apparent confidence in their new bird, skeptics in the media and at think-tanks continue to predict disaster – foremost among them, Lee Gaillard from the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., who last week weighed in with an email distributed to the media: "With lives at stake, the question bears repeating: how combat-ready and maintainable is the MV-22B Osprey?"

Saddam's Databases Aid Cop Trainers

Biometric identification systems are one of those technologies that everyone in the military seems to want but that few can make work. Biometrics in theory might solve the problem of how you sort bad guys from throngs of innocent civilians in a place like Iraq: you ID them by their unique iris- or fingerprints or their facial patterns. The problem is that you have to know a person's prints and patterns first -- you have to "enroll" them -- before you can pick them out of a crowd.

Many handheld enrollment systems in use on an ad hoc basis in Iraq have proved too flimsy and sensitive for local conditions, as Paul McLeary will report in the next issue of DTI. But for one organization, enrollment isn't even an issue: the coalition advisors training the Iraqi police are using the Automated Fingerprint Identification System -- which is popular with U.S. police forces -- paired with old Ba'ath Party fingerprint databases, to screen police recruits.