As the female suicide bombing in Diyala the other day demonstrates, the more Iraqi government and security forces take charge and the US takes a back seat to counterinsurgency, the emphasis on offense is going to increasingly shift to defense.
Some folks I met at the Modern Day Marine Expo last week have an interesting system called "Counter Bomber" that uses radar and some wiz bang algorithms to detect if someone is concealing a suicide vest under his clothing.
Here's a short video that explains how the system works...
Counter Bomber costs about $300K, and that includes a computer and software that gives a no-joke "Marine proof" indication of whether someone's hiding something or not. A chime sounds if the radar detects a signature (it basically can pick up metallic objects under clothing) and gives a green-for-safe or red-for-threat indicator as the person passes the Counter Bomber's radar. The system works up to about 150 meters and the designers say it's best to have a couple arrayed so security officers can get a 360-degree view of what the person might be hiding.
Company reps say there are 12 Counter Bombers fielded to Marines in combat: eight systems are fielded in Iraq, including al Asad air base and the busy entrance to Ramadi on route Michigan, and four are stationed in Afghanistan.
-- Christian
War Spurs Change in Sniper Gear, Tactics
From the headlines at Military.com...
The conflicts stemming from the attacks on 9/11 showed America's military snipers were badly in need of modernization. Their gear, operational doctrine and training needed an update -- and fast. As the war evolved, units with combat experience shared lessons learned, identifying new requirements for a unique conflict. Fortunately the services took notice and began to revamp the sniper community in numerous ways.
Problem: Inadequate/outdated doctrine.
Solution: Small-unit leaders began to develop employment strategies that earlier training never covered, based on the current situation and environment. This, coupled with after-action reports, lessons learned and the general sharing of information, led to comprehensive sniper planning, support and employment-things like providing security for the sniper team during movement and relying on the sniper to provide the real-time intelligence for on-the-spot combat decisions.
Probably the biggest change was when-and-how to bring the snipers to bear for the desired result. Unit leaders learned that snipers could control large areas, create enemy reluctance and force enemy movement in a desired direction. There was a gradual recognition of how valuable assets like snipers and designated marksmen could be when properly utilized.
Problem: Inadequate equipment.
Solution: A number of commercially procured items became popular, including the Eberlestock pack, which allows the sniper to carry his rifle on his back protected and concealed while he carries a battle rifle for his own protection during movement. Other items such as rests, tripods and various bipods were procured to meet the varied terrain and conditions.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: The copy keeps pouring in from Colin and the gang over at DoD Buzz who are all over the Association of the US Army convention in DC like white on rice. We'll feature some of their content, but I'd recommend keeping an eye on what they're up to over at the Buzz.]
With up to $100 billion at stake in an era when defense budgets are probably going to shrink, you can understand why defense industry officials lust after the contracts for the three variants of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV). Final proposals are due this week with a contract award set for the end of the month. The rubber is about to hit the road with the Army set to award three 27-month technology development contracts.
One interesting tidbit: Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, Army’s deputy chief of staff for programs, told reporters Wednesday afternoon that JLTV must be able to withstand both IEDs and explosively formed penetrators. Until now, industry and government officials had avoided discussion of explicit protection levels. Most details of protection requirements are classified. Industry officials with each team declined to discuss this, only saying that their vehicles met or exceeded MRAP protection requirements.
Here are the teams competing: Boeing, Textron and SAIC; BAE and Navistar; Northrop Grumman and Oshkosh Truck; Lockheed Martin and Armor Holdings; Blackwater and Raytheon. A lot of the floor space at the AUSA conference this week boasted a variant of the JLTV. All of the JLTV’s variants on display boasted ISR systems that will allow them to joint FCS brigades, as the Army plans for them to do eventually. They also had either the ability to let drivers flip a switch or hit a computer screen for differing terrains and weather conditions.
BAE unveiled its prototype for variant B [pictured above], a rakish looking vehicle with a relatively spacious interior capable of seating seven fully loaded troopers.
Reporters can be really dumb. There I was in front of Raytheon’s booth at the Association of the US Army’s conference with a little button under my thumb. I hit the button. My lower thoracic area got very hot, very fast. So I waited for the machine to recycle and hit the button again. This time the pain was more intense — I wasn’t screaming or anything — and my skin felt like it was about to catch fire.
I didn’t do this just to make you all chuckle. The idea was to see what the Marines will probably buy from Raytheon with $25 million buried deep in the summer supplemental spending bill. The Marines haven’t signed the contract — yet — but negotiations are well under way for five nonlethal Silent Guardian systems . It looks as if the system will be used in Afghanistan to help protect high value assets as well as bases.
The system beams millimeter wave energy at the speed of light for more than 250 meters and penetrates the top layer of the skin. As soon as you move away from the beam the pain stops, although there is a nagging sensation of pain for few moments afterwards. The antenna covers a full 360 degrees and the beam can be used to sweep across a crowd or to target one person at a time. It’s got safety cutoffs so it doesn’t cause permanent damage, according to John Patterson, a Raytheon spokesman.
The Silent Guardian is one variant of Raytheon’s Active Denial Systems, most of which provide area-wide protections against weapons such as missiles.
Judging from the comments there's quite a bit of interest -- and insider knowledge -- of the IAR competition.
I just want to set one thing straight: I wrote the earlier post mainly to get what I had out there and I caveated the whole deal with the fact that my reporting was incomplete.
Thanks to Krag who set me straight on whether the IAR was replacing all SAWs...it clearly is not but I didn't specify that in my post. And sorry Sven for getting the Singapore company wrong. My source said Ultimax and in my notes it looks like I wrote it as the name of the company, not the name of the gun.
What I decided to do was to go ahead and post the entire response on my questions about the program to SysCom (Marine Corps Systems Command). They would not grant me a phone interview, but that's not surprising given my long a sordid relationship with them (body armor recall). Maybe if they'd agreed to let me talk to a real person, there wouldn't have been this confusion (and delay).
Anyway, here's what Syscom told me:
The Infantry Automatic Rifle (IAR) marks the return of the automatic rifle to the Corps. It provides the Marine Fire Team and Rifle Squad the capability to achieve fire superiority through short term accurate, high volume, automatic fire to suppress targets and enable the remainder of the unit Fire Team to close with and destroy the enemy. Additionally, The IAR is the individual weapon of the Automatic Rifleman in the Fire Team and, as such, provides his means for offensive and defensive direct fire engagement. The IAR consists of an automatic rifle, designated optic, magazines, bipod, cleaning and maintenance equipment, and sling. The IAR includes attachment points for integration of the full range of currently available weapon accessories such as the Rifle Combat Optic (RCO), PEQ-2A, PAS-13, PVS-17, MWS Broomstick grip, and others.
The deployment of the CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft to North Africa this month for Operation Flintlock 09 overshadows the retirement of the long-serving MH-53 Pave Low helicopter. The final Pave Low mission was flow in Iraq in September by the Air Force’s 20th Expeditionary Special Operations Squadron.
Once numbering 39 helicopters, the Pave Low fleet was employed around the world for low-level missions to insert and take out special forces as well as for Combat Search And Rescue (CSAR) operations. The Sikorsky H-53 series is the largest helicopter flown in the West, with the largest (three-turboshaft) H-53E variants also flown by the U.S. Navy (MH-53E) and Marine Corps (CH-53E).
The Air Force retired the last MH-53M Pave Low IV variants -- all upgraded from earlier models -- in September. The Air Force is acquiring 50 Bell-Boeing CV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft for the special operations role. The CV-22 and MH-53 are roughly the same size (but with very different configurations); however, the Osprey is much faster and has a greater range, and is provided with an in-flight refueling capability. (In July 2006 two MV-22s flew across the Atlantic in the first trans-ocean flight of the aircraft.)
The Marine Corps has already forward deployed its Osprey variant, the MV-22. In October 2007 the Marines sent ten MV-22s to Iraq, where they continue to operate. The Marines have a requirement for 360 MV-22s for the assault and combat support missions, replacing the long-serving CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter. (The original Marine requirement -- developed during the Cold War era -- was for 552 MV-22 aircraft.) The Marines currently have four MV-22 deployable squadrons plus a transition squadron, with a schedule to activate two additional squadrons per year.
I've been working on this for a few weeks and haven't been able to eke out enough gouge from the other participants for a fuller story, but I figured I'd share with you what I know before it dies on the vine.
An industry source told me that the Marine Corps is close to deciding who will replace its M249 Squad Automatic Weapon with a new gun so-far called the "Infantry Automatic Rifle." Basically, the Corps wants something that looks more like a standard assault rifle, fires from an open breech (and closed breech) in both full and semi-auto modes and "shall demonstrate improved portability, reliability, and maneuverability through constricted terrain and conditions over the current M249 SAW," SysCom told me.
The Corps plans to purchase 4,476 IARs and I'm told the decision on who wins the competition will be coming very soon. The industry source told me that about six companies entered the competition, including Land Warfare Resources Corp., Colt, H&K, FN-USA and a team of General Dynamics and the Singapore company called Ultimax.
Future Weapons has a good video on the LWRC version of the IAR and I'm told the FN-USA version is a play on the SCAR that fires in both open and closed bolt configuration.
The one thing I'm a bit concerned about is the amount of rounds in the mag -- 30 rounds is going to go awfully quick in a suppression or cover fire situation. I'm sure there's a drum being developed for each, but then it's going to be obvious who the automatic rifleman is.
But as long as it's lighter and more portable than the SAW, I guess I can see why they want to make the switch. If anyone has any insight on this competition, please chime in.
-- Christian
No (Quranic) Justice in Peace
The new Army doctrine intended as the by-the-book bridge between combat and stability operations is a bold step — even making clear the Army’s role in helping to establish a judiciary once the major shooting stops.
But there’s one place that doctrine framers decided not to boldly go with that mission — setting up a judiciary when the host nation is bent on having one rooted in religion.
“When we looked at the judicial sector, at the end of an operation you want what we call rule of law … where people are empowered, where the law serves the people and not necessarily the government,” Lt. Col. Steve Leonard, the primary author of the 200-plus page Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations, told Military.com during a bloggers’ roundtable held in Washington as part of the Association of the United States Army annual symposium. Though just released Oct. 6, the document has been in the making since late 2005. It points out that the U.S. military has a long history — though not a consistent one — of establishing or re-establishing civil authority once major fighting has ended.
The Stability Operations manual goes so far as to lay out the Army’s obligation to restoring civil authority, including existing laws, courts and justice systems when they function. Of course, these may be suspended by the Army if the players cannot or are not performing them, or if they impede the Army from carrying out its own obligations under international law, including the Geneva Conventions, according to the manual.
“But oftentimes what we see in these countries is rule by law, where the ruling authority maintains control over the civil populace by leveraging the laws to their benefit. You don’t want that.”
What the doctrine looks at is just two of three types of authority: civil authority, in which law is used to govern the population and provide for its essential needs, safety and security; and transitional military authority, which is what the doctrine calls for while the Army and its partners — other U.S. agencies, allies, or non-governmental agencies — help establish a working judiciary.
“You hit the third leg of that [religious authority],” Leonard told Military.com. “We actually had this debate as we developed the doctrine. Did we want to address establishing a religious authority or a religious judiciary? Say a … judiciary based on the rule of the Quran, for instance?”
So, after I posted the last thread, I went over to a forum that's populated with no-joke special operations forces troops and looked at the discussion on the KBL/ Dalton Fury imbroglio. Man is it hot in there.
Apparently, Dalton Fury's real name is Maj. Thomas Greer. I was wrong in thinking he was Pete Blaber, though it does turn out from the discussion that Blaber has a book of his own coming out called "The Mission, The Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander" that's supposed to be available in December.
These operators at the forum are none too kind to a guy who's attempting to "profit" from revealing covert operations covered under top secret non disclosure agreements. They skewer him and smoke his body over a pit of coals. But none of them disputes who he is, what he's done or how the mission went down. There's little comment about the actual 60 Minutes broadcast, though it would have been helpful if the reporters had mentioned the controversy Fury has caused and held fast on calling him by his real name (I did a search and his name comes up as a faculty member of American Military University). Once it's out in the open, it looks a little ridiculous for a reputable news organization to stick to a pseudonym.
As a reporter who's covered the military for a decade, I get a little annoyed at the knuckle-dragger attitude that someone who says anything about their covert activity should be banished. Give me a break. That attitude perpetuates an elitist, Samurai mentality that says "you don't need to know. Just trust us, we know what we're doing..."
Sorry, but I -- and millions of other Americans -- pay your salary and we damned right want to know what you're doing. You work for us. So I'm glad, as long as it doesn't deliberately put lives in danger of death (like the politically-motivated CIA tell-alls did back in the '70s), that these stories come out. There's been seven years between then and now, surely Delta and CIA have new ways of doing things that aren't compromised by this book.
I saw this program last night on 60 Minutes and I thought I'd explore it with you all.
It's a segment on a former Delta officer who lead a team tasked with killing or capturing bin Laden in Afghanistan. Calling himself Dalton Fury, the former officer (a major at the time) has written a book on his experiences artfully titled "Kill bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man" (in case we couldn't understand the title itself)...
I know nothing about the book, though I have requested a review copy from the publisher and I'll peel it open for you when I get it. But the premise of the report is that Fury was frustrated by higher headquarters' management of the hunt, denying his plan to A.) attack bin Laden in Tora Bora from the rear -- aka from Pakistan...and B.) lay landmines in the approaches to bin Laden's Tora Bora lair so that one one went off, Delta could target the al Qaeda troops with Specters and Spookies.
After being denied on both, they decided on a frontal assault with Afghan allies of questionable loyalties and motivations, eventually allowing bin Laden to slip away -- though they did think they'd killed him in an air strike.
My thought is this: First of all, NO DUH they denied your plan to approach Tora Bora from Pakistan...the risks, both diplomatic and military were too much to contemplate. It's one thing to have planes flying out of remote bases; another to have an "invading" ground force try an Alpine assault from an area teeming with AQ and their sympathizers. Also...LAND MINES!? Come on, you HAD to have known that would never fly. As if Afghanistan doesn't have enough of them littering the landscape already. What are we, the Soviets? (their potential words, not mine)...
