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The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye officially became ready for tasking with Airborne Early Warning Squadron 125 (VAW-125) during a ceremony at Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field, March 27.

"This is a revolutionary jump in capabilities," said Capt. Todd Watkins, commander, Airborne Command Control and Logistics Wing. "The E-2D serves as the eyes of the fleet. If it's out there, we will see it."
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The E-2D is expected to be instrumental to how the Navy will conduct battle management command and control. Able to sweep ahead of the strike, the E-2D can manage the mission and keep carrier battle groups out of harm's way.
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The E-2D's advanced technology makes it a multi-mission platform through its ability to coordinate concurrent missions which may arise during a single flight. These missions can include airborne strike, ground force support, rescue operations and managing a reliable communications network capable of supporting drug interdiction operations.

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Air Force Brat said:

Well spoken Asif, and the US had to learn an even more expensive lesson than the Russians were taught, BHO and his regime steering us back into Afghanistan brought us onto those same rocks the "Soviets" breached their own ship on, with very similar results, we were packing our bags in the Afghan theatre when Mr. Obama, inspired by greatness, or the hope of greatness, turned us back toward the Rocky Krags shortly after the 2008 election. We have already payed a heavy price, and will continue to do so unless we heed the lessons you are preaching, but I guess we are slow learners, time to put on the pointy hat and sit in the corner!

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Friendly fire: Navy seeks 'dummy' training missiles to shoot at pilots
By
Published March 28, 2014 | FoxNews.com
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The Navy is considering a novel way to protect its fighter pilots: firing live shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles at them to train them in evasive action and test aircraft missile warning systems.

The shoulder-fired missiles in the hands of terrorists, criminal and enemy fighters pose a worldwide problem. Insurgents in Iraq during the war posted YouTube videos showing their deadly ability with the weapons against U.S. military helicopters.

The Navy disclosed its intentions earlier this month in a little-noticed request for information. The request asks defense contractors if they can build a “missile surrogate” that would replicate the missile, also known as a Man-Portable Air Defense System.

“The MANPADS missile surrogate shall have a missile body with a rocket motor that replicates the ultraviolet and infrared signatures of specific threat MANPADS during their launch and fly-out, including eject, boost and sustain phases,” the Naval Surface Warfare Center says in the request for information.

The MANPADS missile surrogate shall exhibit the same spectral, spatial, and temporal characteristics of the actual threat missile it is intended to replicate,” the Navy says. “The one exception is that the kinematic range of the missile surrogate should be such that the missile can be fired safely within two to three kilometers of a manned aircraft and not reach the aircraft.”

The Navy wants their dummy missile to be recoverable so they can be reused.

“This would be a great training device for tactical pilots if they can be sure it will stop well short of hitting them,” said Fox News contributor Lea Gabrielle, a Naval Academy graduate and former fighter pilot who saw action in both Iraq and Afghanistan. “Knowing a missile was flying towards me—even in training—would certainly motivate me to take evasive action. There’s nothing better than training with the same sight picture that you would see in combat.”

Joe Robinson, president and chief engineer of Missile Design, a Huntsville, Ala., firm, has invented a missile surrogate and is helping the Army develop a prototype.

“It’s going to take thousands of shots before anyone can feel comfortable firing it at an aircraft,” the engineer said.

He said the military’s aircraft warning system is so sophisticated that simulating a MANPADS missile doesn’t work.

“The way the system is designed, they can only be properly tested with real missiles,” he said.

“Anything that isn’t a real missile isn’t an effective test,” he added. “We’ve done everything on ground-based equipment. It’s just not good enough.”

Documents from the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command put the cost of firing a fake missile at $100,000 a pop.


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asif iqbal said:

Think I missed this part AFB, the thing is weapons purchases and developments in US are driven by need but also politics

Three platforms I am talking about the A-10 tank buster, U-2 spy plane and Bells OH-58D, while not same operationally they have a common industrial trait, keeping them operational neither creates jobs or retains them in local congressional districts but retiring them building thier replacements does so that's why we see what we see

FYI 2015 is as follows
315 x A-10 to be retired
32 x U-2 planes
650 x OH-58D
179 TH-67

If DoD do it thier way F-22, C-17 and F120 engines will also go they are already stopped and so we are back to the age old fight between the Congress and US Airforce

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Air Force Brat said:

The F-22, and C-17s are safe and each irreplaceable in their own right, they each fulfill a role that nothing else will! In fact with this little Russian venture, I would be moving and shaking both these girls into theatre to "stop" the stupidity, but we will see????

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asif iqbal said:

Personally I think Russia's recent move will force a re-think of many US military projects

The whole time the entire time they have been focused on China the "Pacific Pivot" while right in the heart of Europe Russia just did the number on Crimea

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Night-vision contact lenses may be in your future
Mar. 28, 2014 - 04:03PM |

By Patricia Kime
Staff writer military times
FILED UNDER
News
Military Technology
Night-vision goggle technology has become more effective, streamlined and nimble in the past 10 years. But what if you could ditch that bulky headgear and pop in a pair of night-vision contact lenses?

It may sound like science fiction, but such dime-sized, lightweight optics may be possible in the future, thanks to researchers at the University of Michigan who have created a material that absorbs infrared rays at room temperature and translates them into an electrical signal, much like a silicon chip works with visible light inside a digital camera.

Night-vision contact lenses are still years away, but the engineers working on the base material, Ted Norris and Zhaohui Zhong of Michigan’s College of Engineering, are building a simple camera to prove their material has commercial application.

“If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision,” Zhong said. “It provides you another way of interacting with your environment.”

Here’s what you need to know:

1.
What it is. Graphene is a single-atom layer of graphite. It’s the same material found in that No. 2 pencil you chewed on in school, but constructed so thinly that it’s actually considered two-dimensional. Graphene absorbs a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from infrared — the wavelength picked up by NVGs that allows you to see in the dark — to ultraviolet.

2. How it works. Scientists have known since the mid-2000s that graphene absorbs infrared light. But at one atom thick, it can absorb only 2.3 percent of the light that hits it — and that’s insufficient to generate an electric signal strong enough for hardware to convert into a viewable image. “It’s a hundred to a thousand times lower than what a commercial device would require,” Zhong said.

Norris, Zhong and other researchers sandwiched an insulating layer between two graphene layers and then added electric current. When infrared light hits the layered product, its electrical reaction is amplified strongly enough to be converted into an infrared image.

3. What it could be used for (civilian): Norris and Zhong see possibilities that include chips in smartphone cameras for handy night vision, “smart” automobile windshields that improve night driving, improved thermal imaging in search and rescue robots, and new devices that allow doctors to monitor blood flow.

4. What it could be used for (military): This lightweight, super-strong material could eventually make its way into night-vision glasses or contact lenses and other imaging devices such as thermal imaging cameras, aircraft gimbal turrets, missile launch detectors and more.

5. What’s next? The researchers already have been able to produce infrared sensors the size of a pinky fingernail — also about the size of a standard contact lens.

“If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision,” Zhong said. “It provides you another way of interacting with your environment.”

Zhong and Norris are now working on their first camera but will need to pair up with commercial interests or rely on their own entrepreneurial efforts to move their material from the lab to contact lenses and other real-world applications.

“We’re materials scientists, not device people,” Norris said. “But what we do recognize is there are things we can do with these graphene layers that we couldn’t do with other traditional semi-conductors. It has opened up a lot of exciting possibilities,” Norris said.

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U.S. Army Cutting Live-Fire Training
by Matthew Cox on March 27, 2014 · COMMENTS (86)


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U.S. Army leaders told lawmakers today that the service will have to spend less on live-fire maneuver training as a result of the deep cuts to defense spending under sequestration.

Service leaders have been warning Congress for months that these cuts are forcing the Army to cut readiness training. A slightly clearer explanation of what cutting readiness training will mean to combat units emerged during a March 27 hearing before the House Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee.

“It has come to my attention … that in our budget in the area of marksmanship training for our personnel, both active and Guard, that the funding is being reduced by about 60 percent,” Rep Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, who represents the Ohio Army National Guard’s Camp Perry Joint Training Center, told senior Army officials.


“I would hope that if there were that type of serious cutbacks that you might take a look at the ability of our forces to train properly and to do what is necessary to provide them with those skills.”

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Odierno confirmed that marksmanship training is being cut but not at individual and small-unit levels.
“There has been no reduction in individual and squad-level marksmanship training – that’s funded,” he said. “Where we have had problems is where we get above that level — the collective training that happens at platoon, company, battalion – that is where we have had to reduce funding.”



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TerraN_EmpirE said:

Super high tech low profile NVGs
stupidity complete and utter stupidity

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