Military Tech / Science

[Enough]

The Chinook helicopter turns 50 and is still going strong.

[Kasey Chang]

They also showed a variant: the Kitty CornerShot. It's the pistol with a toy cat on top of it as a disguise. Put it low on the ground, and around the corner. The bad guy looks, gives a double take, and then is dead.

You know, that makes a wierd kind of sense - in a very disturbing way. See a gun barrel poke out around a corner - throw a grenade at it. See a stuffed animal poke out (or what looks like a cat) and go "Huh?"

They also have a "longarm" version, CornerShot mounted on a long extension pole, useful to look over a wall and such. And yes, it still shoots.

[GreenGoo]

RPGs don't just blow up; they hit your tank, and then a charge goes off that shoots molten metal into your armor at high speed, and this melts through and causes havoc on the inside of the tank. So, the theory goes, if you explode it on the outside, then all you have to deal with is the explosion, which your armor can handle.

Flanking infantry notwithstanding.

Not all RPGs have HEAT warheads though. Some are just explosive.


How is the Quick Kill system an improvement on Trophy?

Well, armour without infantry support is not a good idea, so flanking infantry should be countered by infantry. Or so I thought.

[Kasey Chang]

Not all RPGs have HEAT warheads though. Some are just explosive.

The "default" warhead of RPG-7 (the ones you see in movies and whatnot) are indeed HEAT rounds. Optional rounds such as tandem HEAT rounds, pure HE (anti-personnel) rounds, and thermobaric rounds are also available, but are very rare.

[Carpet_pissr]

Has the DARPA funded Dog been discussed elsewhere already?

This thing is awesome, and maybe a little creepy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqMVg5ix ... r_embedded" target="_blank

For some reason, although they don't even look the same, it immediately reminded me of this guy from HL2:

[LawBeefaroni]

Well, armour without infantry support is not a good idea, so flanking infantry should be countered by infantry. Or so I thought.

Well, I meant "flanking infantry" as the armor's support infantry. They probably won't take kindly to a giant flachette (or whatever it is) shotgun going off.

IE:
"which your armor can handle."

"but your support infantry might not."



Other news:

A christening.

MOBILE, Ala. (NNS) -- USNS Spearhead, the first of Navy's joint high-speed vessels designed for rapid intra-theater transport of troops and military equipment, was christened Sept. 17 during a ceremony at Austal USA in Mobile, Ala.

[Isgrimnur]

Has the DARPA funded Dog been discussed elsewhere already?

This thing is awesome, and maybe a little creepy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqMVg5ix ... r_embedded" target="_blank

I believe we did, but I couldn't find it on the forum search when I created the thread. Thanks for bringing it in.

[GreenGoo]

Well, armour without infantry support is not a good idea, so flanking infantry should be countered by infantry. Or so I thought.

Well, I meant "flanking infantry" as the armor's support infantry. They probably won't take kindly to a giant flachette (or whatever it is) shotgun going off.

IE:
"which your armor can handle."

"but your support infantry might not."

Ah. I guess it was the "flanking" term that threw me off. It's something I think of as done to the enemy, not to your own units. My mistake.

[LawBeefaroni]

Army best of 2010 inventions (crappy descriptions are mine, see article for full descriptions):

• 40mm Infrared Illuminant Cartridge, M992: 40mm with IR tracers only visible to the good guys wearing night vision.
• 5.56mm M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round: larger penetrator, copper core, better bullet.
• Green Eyes - Escalation of Force Kit Integration with the CROWS System: green lasers temporarily blind drivers, enemies, unruly civilians at checkpoints.
• Husky Mark III, 2G 2-Seat Prototype: Better landmine clearing.
• Jackal Explosive Hazard Pre-Detonation System: Better IED protection for footsoldiers and vehicles.
• M240L 7.62mm Lightweight Medium Machine Gun: lighter version of the M240B.
• mCare Project: HIPAA cell phone message system for Army docs to communicate with outpatient patients.
• Mortar Fire Control System - Dismounted: quicker targeting for mortars.
• RG-31 Robot Deployment System: Better way to transport and deploy robots in-field.
• Soldier Wearable Integrated Power Equipment System: MOLLE vest with power, communications, iTunes (well two of those anyway).

And since necessity is truly the mother of all invention, the Soldier awards:

2010 Soldier Greatest Inventions Award Winners

Ironman Pack' Ammunition Pack System for Small Dismounted Teams: Staff Sgt. Vincent Winkowski and fellow members of the 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment of the Iowa National Guard originally rigged their own prototype design for this high-capacity ammunition carriage system enables a machine gunner to carry and fire up to 500 rounds of linked ammunition from a rucksack-like carrier.

Culvert Denial Process: Cpl. Eric DeHart, 428th Engineer Company, designed and built a culvert-denial system to stop the placement of roadside bombs in culverts. The device looks like a screen across the opening and allows water and debris to pass through but doesn't leave enough space for improvised explosive devices.

[Isgrimnur]

Catholic Online (seriously) on the MOP, the Air force's newest bomb:

Boeing has just delivered the largest conventional bomb in the US arsenal to the Air Force. The new bombs weigh 30,000 pounds, and are designed to destroy bunkers buried deep underground.

The military has ordered 20 of the bombs for the tidy sum of $314 million. The bombs are guided by GPS and can be dropped by the B-52 Stratofortress bomber or the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.
...
The bombs carry more than 5,300 pounds of explosives and are more than 20 feet long. Dubbed the "Massive Ordnance Penetrator" they are believed to be substantially more effective than the current bunker busting munitions in the arsenal.
...
It is believed that such bombs could conceivably be effective against hardened targets (underground bunkers) in countries such as Iran or North Korea, which are suspected to be developing clandestine and potentially threatening top-secret weapons projects.

[Boudreaux]

Catholic Online (seriously) on the MOP, the Air force's newest bomb:

I've seen one of these in person. "Massive" is an understatement.

[Kasey Chang]

It's MOAB done right.

The beauty of hitting underground targets is if you get close enough, earthquake will destroy the rest. Solid rock is great for transmitting shockwaves. Furthermore, if you actually penetrate the cavity, any sort of explosive force will get channeled through the complex.

Now imagine that thing, with a ROCKET MOTOR behind it, to give it an extra downward kick.

[Isgrimnur]

Hypersonic Weaponry

The US has test-fired a new weapon which can travel at five times the speed of sound, the Pentagon says.

The missile was launched from Hawaii and reached its target on a Pacific atoll 2,300 miles (3,700km) away in less than half an hour.
...
The US defence department gave no details of the top speed achieved by the weapon.

However, defence analysts Global Security.org say the aim of the programme is to be able to strike a target 3,700 miles (6,000km) away in 35 minutes, with an accuracy of 10m.
...
Earlier this year a congressional report said the programme was part of a project to develop a "prompt global strike" system that can deliver long-range weapons anywhere in the world while avoiding flying over third-party nations.

With a speed like that, who cares if it flies over third party nations? It's not like they'd be able to shoot it down.

[Isgrimnur]

The rocks are listening

America is supposed to wind down its war in Afghanistan by 2014. But U.S. forces may continue to track Afghans for years after the conflict is officially done. Palm-sized sensors, developed for the American military, will remain littered across the Afghan countryside — detecting anyone who moves nearby and reporting their locations back to a remote headquarters. Some of these surveillance tools could be buried in the ground, all-but-unnoticeable by passersby. Others might be disguised as rocks, with wafer-sized, solar-rechargeable batteries that could enable the sensors’ operation for perhaps as long as two decades, if their makers are to be believed.

Traditionally, when armies clash, they leave behind a horrific legacy: leftover mines which can blow civilians apart long after the shooting war is over. These “unattended ground sensors,” or UGSs, won’t do that kind of damage. But they could give the Pentagon an enduring ability to monitor a one-time battlefield long, long after regular American forces are supposed to have returned home.
...
The new models are dramatically smaller and consume far less power, enabling them to operate for months — maybe even years — at a time with only the slimmest chance of being detected. Lockheed calls them “field and forget” systems for “persistent surveillance.”

And they won’t just be used overseas. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol today employs more than 7,500 UGSs on the Mexican border to spot illegal migrants. Defense contractors believe one of the biggest markets for the next generation of the sensors will be here at home.

[Combustible Lemur]

Shit, guess it's time to dig up my garden and start sorting dirt.

[Isgrimnur]

CIA declassifies spy satellite film recovery

On July 10, 1971, a classified U.S. satellite, code-named Hexagon, attempted to return a mysterious "data package" to Earth by ejecting a capsule over the Pacific Ocean. The capsule's parachute failed, and the canister slammed into the water with an excruciating 2,600 G's of force.

Hexagon satellites, which were declassified in 2011, were photo reconnaissance spacecraft that were part of an American Cold War-era spy program. Since these satellites preceded today's era of digital technology, Hexagons recorded images on film, sending them back to Earth in capsules that re-entered Earth's atmosphere and were recovered within a designated zone near the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

During the first Hexagon mission in 1971, the parachute attached to one of these capsules broke. The capsule sank to a depth of about 16,400 feet (almost 5,000 meters) in the Pacific.
To recover the sunken capsule, the U.S. Navy crafted a bold rescue mission to be carried out by its Trieste II Deep Sea Vehicle, or DSV-1. At the time, this mini-submarine was the Navy's best deep-sea submersible.
...
According to the documents, the Trieste II made three attempts to salvage the film capsule: first on Nov. 3, 1971; then on Nov. 30, 1971; and finally, in a successful third try, on April 25, 1972.

The mission's planners had four primary areas of concern, beginning with the ability to pinpoint the impact area. At that time, no object the size of the film canister had ever been detected by sonar and been searched for underwater. Officials were also unsure how much damage the capsule had suffered upon impact, and after being submerged in sea water. Finally, the Trieste II had yet to venture below 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) before then.
...
The film stack underwent extensive analysis, and it was determined that the Hexagon's Recovery Vehicle broke apart as it crashed into the water. The spools of film were separated from the capsule, and several pieces were cut and floated away.

All was not lost: The mission proved to be a valuable test of the Navy's ability to carry out deep-sea recovery expeditions. In the report, CIA officials discussed some of the lessons learned, particularly from the setbacks that were experienced on all three attempts.
...
Over the course of the operation, the focus shifted from the potential value of the film's reconnaissance to the value of testing the capabilities of the Trieste II submersible.

The stuff that our submariners have accomplished never fails to amaze me. And that's just the stuff that's been declassified.

[Fretmute]

NASA to test X-51A Jet that Goes 5 Times the Speed of Sound Tomorrow

...

The NASA and the Pentagons experimental aircraft could go from NY to London in about an hour. With a cost of 140 million dollars USD. During the test the X51-A will reach speeds of 1700 miles a second and climb to an altitude of 70,000 feet.

The bolded speed is about 8000 times the speed of sound. At that speed, it could reach the moon in under three minutes. Flying at 70,000 feet, it would orbit the Earth every 15 seconds.

[edit] - I was too indignant about the math to notice that one of those sentences is a fragment. Yikes.

[Isgrimnur]

Robot mule (video)

n a demonstration before the the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, and DARPA Director, Arati Prabhakar. the robomule strutted its stuff -- activities it could one day carry out for a squad of Marines or Soldiers.

The goal of the LS3 program is to demonstrate that a legged robot can unburden dismounted squad members by carrying their gear, autonomously following them through rugged terrain, and interpreting verbal and visual commands, the agency said.

And the robot cheetah (video)

The Cheetah recently broke its own land speed record of 18 mph, running a 20-meter split at 28.3 mph, faster than the world record for a human set in 2009 when Usain Bolt reached a peak speed of 27.78 mph.

But that accomplishment comes with a caveat, DARPA admitted in a news release. The robot had a slight advantage over Bolt, since Cheetah ran on a treadmill which provided the equivalent of a 28.3 mph tail wind. Still, most of the machine's power was used to swing and lift its legs fast enough to achieve its quick pace, not to propel itself forward, the agency said.
...
One day, the agency hopes to let Cheetah loose in the natural and man-made environments where defense personnel operate, allowing the robot to contribute to emergency response, humanitarian assistance, and other missions.

DARPA plans to test a prototype in the field next year, pulling Cheetah off of its current treadmill regimen and running it through natural terrain.

Powered by an off-board hydraulic pump, the robot has increased its speed since DARPA last released results in March, thanks to improved control algorithms and a more powerful pump.

[GreenGoo]

NASA to test X-51A Jet that Goes 5 Times the Speed of Sound Tomorrow

...

The NASA and the Pentagons experimental aircraft could go from NY to London in about an hour. With a cost of 140 million dollars USD. During the test the X51-A will reach speeds of 1700 miles a second and climb to an altitude of 70,000 feet.

The bolded speed is about 8000 times the speed of sound. At that speed, it could reach the moon in under three minutes. Flying at 70,000 feet, it would orbit the Earth every 15 seconds.

[edit] - I was too indignant about the math to notice that one of those sentences is a fragment. Yikes.

So, fast, in other words.

Good to know.

[$iljanus]

The Cheetah recently broke its own land speed record of 18 mph, running a 20-meter split at 28.3 mph, faster than the world record for a human set in 2009 when Usain Bolt reached a peak speed of 27.78 mph.


One day, the agency hopes to let Cheetah loose in the natural and man-made environments where defense personnel operate, allowing the robot to contribute to emergency response, humanitarian assistance, and other missions such as gathering the human survivors in centralized camps for Skynet for use as labor and eventual disposal.

corrected to reflect the future

[Isgrimnur]

Disposal will be handled by EATRs.

[Isgrimnur]

I'm pretty sure something like this stuff was in my computer when it arrived. Now your organs can be foam packed for secure shipping.

As part of DARPA's Wound Stasis program, Arsenal Medical has developed an injectable polymer foam that expands inside the body to stanch internal bleeding.
...
Based on testing in pigs, DARPA says the product can control hemorrhaging in an abdominal cavity for at least an hour, a critical window to get the soldier to a medical facility.

"During testing, minimally invasive application of the product reduced blood loss six-fold and increased the rate of survival at three hours post-injury to 72 percent from the eight percent observed in controls," DARPA said in a release.
...
The polyurethane polymer foam forms inside the body when two liquid phases are injected and react with one another. The liquid expands to about 30 times its volume and conforms to the internal features of the abdomen, as seen in the animation below.

The foam can also expand through pooled and clotted blood to reach the source of the bleeding. In testing, it took surgeons less than a minute to remove the foam, which comes out as a solid block.

Video at the link.

[Daehawk]

You survive unless they put too much in Then again how do you breath with that packing you full?

[LawBeefaroni]

...
Based on testing in pigs,

Doing my best not to think about this part.

[Isgrimnur]

The US Navy's Littoral Combat Ships are going into action with known, serious flaws:

In less than two months, the Navy will send the first of its newest class of fighting ships on its first major deployment overseas. Problem is, according to the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester, the Navy will be deploying the USS Freedom before knowing if the so-called Littoral Combat Ship can survive, um, combat. And what the Navy does know about the ship isn’t encouraging: among other problems, its guns don’t work right.

That’s the judgment of J. Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation, in an annual study sent to Congress on Friday and formally released Tuesday. Gilmore’s bottom line is that the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is still “not expected to be survivable” in combat. His office will punt on conducting a “Total Ship Survivability Test” for the first two LCSes to give the Navy time to complete a “pre-trial damage scenario analysis.” In other words, the Freedom will head on its first big mission abroad — maritime policing and counter-piracy around Singapore — without passing a crucial exam.

The systems the LCSs will carry, from their weapons to their sensors, compound the problem. The helicopters scheduled to be aboard the ship can’t tow its mine-hunting sensors, so the Navy is going to rely on robots instead — only the robots won’t be ready for years. And the faster the ship goes, the less accurate its guns become.

In fairness, the point of operational testing is to uncover and flag flaws in the military’s expensive weapons systems. And first-in-class ships often have kinks that are worked out in later vessels. Plus, it’s not like the Navy is rushing the Freedom to fight World War III. The local pirates there wouldn’t never be confused for a serious navy. But the flaws Gilmore identifies go to the some of the core missions behind LCS’ existence: to fight close to shore, at high speeds; and to clear minefields.
...
Gilmore’s new report stands by the 2011 assessment, though it sands down the rough edges. “LCS is not expected to be survivable,” it finds, “in that it is not expected to maintain mission capability after taking a significant hit in a hostile combat environment.” Additionally, Gilmore discloses that the Navy has “knowledge gaps related to the vulnerability of an aluminum ship structure to weapon-induced blast and fire damage,” but that it won’t conduct tests for those vulnerabilities until later this year or next year.

It might also not be able to depend on all of its weapons in a fight. The 30mm gun on board the Freedom “exhibit reliability problems.” The 57mm gun on both the Freedom and its sister ship, the differently-designed USS Independence, is apparently worse: “Ship operations at high speeds cause vibrations that make accurate use of the 57 mm gun very difficult,” Gilmore finds. Worse news for the Freedom: its integrated weapons systems and air/surface search radar have “performance deficiencies” that affect the ship’s “tracking and engagement of contacts.”

[morlac]

The US Navy's CLittoral Combat Ships are going into action with known, serious flaws:

Go Navy!?

[LawBeefaroni]

[Daehawk]

The local pirates there wouldn’t never be confused for a serious navy.

So sometimes they are confused for a serious navy? Sorta like Canada right?

I keeeed.

[AWS260]

Russian military adopts new "sock" technology:

Near the end of World War II, Soviet and American soldiers met at the Elbe River in Germany. Lacking a common language, they compared their boots.

The Americans wore socks and lace-up boots. The Russians wore something that boggled the minds of their allies from the West: pieces of cloth twirled around their feet and inserted into bulky, knee-high boots.

The cloth strips, called portyanki, have been a signature element of the Russian military uniform since the 16th century. On Monday Russia’s minister of defense issued an order for a militarywide switch to socks.

[Isgrimnur]

[stessier]

Good thing they showed right And left or else I would have never been able to figure it out.

[LawBeefaroni]

Good thing they showed right And left or else I would have never been able to figure it out.

What the diagram doesn't show is that you only get one piece of cloth. It's not right and left, it's right or left.

[Isgrimnur]

Electric submarines ... sort of.

The U.S. Navy is betting the future of its submarine force on a secret and revolutionary nuclear drive system that aspires to be more efficient and quieter than anything under the water today.

The heart of the planned ballistic missile Ohio Replacement (OR) program will be built around a drive that will not need to be refueled for the 50-year life of the boats and cuts out potentially noisy direct mechanical connection to the drive train. In other words, the Navy’s next-gen subs could be almost silent, and keep running for a half-century straight.
...
Current boomers have a direct mechanical connection to the props that drive the boat. Steam turbines driven by the nuclear power plant go through a series of mechanical gears that translate the high torque power from the nuclear plant into lower torque energy needed to propel the ship. All of those mechanical connections can generate noise, the bane of the submariner.

Moving forward, the Navy wants to use the power from the reactor to create an elaborate electrical grid inside of the submarine. The reactor power would feed the grid and in turn the electric motors that would drive the boats. Eliminating the mechanical connection would mean less noise under water. The set up would also free up power previously devoted to driving the ship. Currently anywhere from 75 to 80 percent of the power from a nuclear submarine is devoted to driving the ship through the water. Extra power could be routed to other systems like sonars and potentially unmanned underwater vehicles.

This will be the second try for the Navy to use electric drive subs. The service experimented with the technology in the 1960s and 1970s but found the boats equipped with the drives to be underpowered and maintenance heavy.

[Rip]

Electric submarines ... sort of.

The U.S. Navy is betting the future of its submarine force on a secret and revolutionary nuclear drive system that aspires to be more efficient and quieter than anything under the water today.

The heart of the planned ballistic missile Ohio Replacement (OR) program will be built around a drive that will not need to be refueled for the 50-year life of the boats and cuts out potentially noisy direct mechanical connection to the drive train. In other words, the Navy’s next-gen subs could be almost silent, and keep running for a half-century straight.
...
Current boomers have a direct mechanical connection to the props that drive the boat. Steam turbines driven by the nuclear power plant go through a series of mechanical gears that translate the high torque power from the nuclear plant into lower torque energy needed to propel the ship. All of those mechanical connections can generate noise, the bane of the submariner.

Moving forward, the Navy wants to use the power from the reactor to create an elaborate electrical grid inside of the submarine. The reactor power would feed the grid and in turn the electric motors that would drive the boats. Eliminating the mechanical connection would mean less noise under water. The set up would also free up power previously devoted to driving the ship. Currently anywhere from 75 to 80 percent of the power from a nuclear submarine is devoted to driving the ship through the water. Extra power could be routed to other systems like sonars and potentially unmanned underwater vehicles.

This will be the second try for the Navy to use electric drive subs. The service experimented with the technology in the 1960s and 1970s but found the boats equipped with the drives to be underpowered and maintenance heavy.

I am aware of much work on this approach and it was ALWAYS slower and often more failure prone. I am sure they can resolve the failure issues but I doubt the power xfer inefficiencies will be overcome. With boomers I guess you could deal with it as they don't need to travel at the same speeds as a fast attack. I doubt we will see a conversion for attack boats though.

[Isgrimnur]

The Navy wants ant robots:

Aircraft carrier crews are likely to get rather pungent as they perform the hard tasks of assembling, loading and hauling the massive weaponry that gives the U.S. Navy its edge. To make their lives easier, the Navy’s exploring the idea of developing a “robotic semiautonomous swarm on a ship” that can actually smell its way to weapons prep, thanks to an artificial pheromone.
...
Eventually, the plan is to “fully develop and test modules, for a leader and follower robots, capable of operating for duration of one complete week.”

The description of “leader” and “follower” robots comes down to the Navy’s requirement that the machines are at least semiautonomous, with a human controller in charge. These robots will be tasked with carrying 1,000-pound bombs inside tight spaces, after all. Per the Navy solicitation, the leader robot will be controlled by a human who guides it along and dispenses the chemical pheromone, with follower robots picking it up, analyzing it and following along like army ants. That should help take some of the load off the aviation ordnance crews known as Red Shirts.
...
If the project works, the sniffer-robots will begin deep below the carrier’s water-line, hauling bombs from nine levels underneath the flight deck into a series of elevators, before ending up at an assembly point on the deck called the “bomb farm.” Once there, the chemicals will have to withstand winds whipping over the deck, and “must be stable enough during direct contact with petroleum products,” withstand temperatures above 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and fade after a mere 20 minutes — thereby preventing other robot swarms with different instructions from getting confused when moving down the same hallway.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Redfive]

The US Navy's Littoral Combat Ships are going into action with known, serious flaws:

In less than two months... USS Freedom ...

.... the Freedom and its sister ship, the differently-designed USS Independence.....

I suppose I'm okay with the name Independence (actually it's pretty cool), but the Freedom?

Reminds me of Freedom Fries after 9/11

Whatever happened to the Wasp, Hornet, Enterprise, Lexington? I know they were carriers, and I'm not even sure there aren't ships currently with some of those names, but Freedom just sounds wimpy for a combat ship.

[Daehawk]

The USS Independence was a carrier. Im not sure I like it being used on a non carrier ship.

[Isgrimnur]

It was also a sloop, a ship of the line, a steamer, and two different carriers.

[Isgrimnur]

X-47B, autonomous drone, makes two carrier landings (video):

The third time was a miss. After two successful landings on an aircraft carrier — including the first ever by an autonomous drone — the X-47B drone "Salty Dog 502" aborted a third landing attempt after one of its three on-board navigation systems failed.

The anomaly was picked up by the functioning two computers, which alerted the crew monitoring the flight. An operator greenlit the backup plan to divert the drone to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, U.S. Navy officials reported Thursday.
...
One of only two X-47B drones in the program, Salty Dog 502 touched down for the first time at 1:39 p.m. Wednesday, and snagged the third wire that stretched across the deck (one of many possible wires to grab) before coming to a rapid "arrested" stop. Carrier engineers then launched the aircraft once again from the deck, and after circling, the craft performed a second successful landing, this time hooking the second wire.

[LawBeefaroni]

Navy Director of Undersea Warfare, Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge talks about replacing the DOD's best bargain evar:

YouTube video.