US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

bd popeye said:

Interesting Jeff, I once saw a film many, many years ago about sidewinder missiles when I was an AO serving in the USN. This was in the 70's. One segment showed an USAF Phantom firing a sidewinder at an old steam locomotive and destroying the engine.

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Camo tested in Afghanistan said:

By Matthew Cox - Staff writer army times
Posted : Saturday Dec 12, 2009 12:41:04 EST

The small team of soldiers knew the enemy was watching them from above.

Each of the soldiers could see the two armed Afghans spying on them through binoculars from their mountaintop perch northeast of Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost province, Afghanistan.

“All of the sudden the spotters disappeared,” said Program Executive Office Soldier’s Lt. Col. Mike Sloane, a member of the nine-man team formed to help evaluate alternative camouflage patterns. The effort could result in a new pattern for Afghanistan by late January.

Eight members of the team left the safety of Salerno that Oct. 20 morning to take photographs of six camouflage patterns against the rugged Afghan terrain. One team member remained in over-watch at a nearby observation post.

Music announcing a late-morning Muslim call to prayer echoed over the landscape. The next sound the soldiers heard was the whoosh of incoming rockets.

“Right away the eight of us hit the ground,” Sloane said. Just as they had rehearsed, the team members, many of whom are combat veterans, talked to one another over radio headsets and quickly found a defendable position. “We all got up and moved out to a nearby dried-up riverbed and established a 360-degree perimeter.”

As the product manager for Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment, Sloane had been working on the highly publicized camouflage effort since Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., directed the Army in mid-June to look at new camouflage patterns after “a dozen” Army sergeants told him that the Army Combat Uniform’s pattern is ineffective in Afghanistan.

As Sloane covered his sector with an M4 carbine, enemy rifle fire persisted for several minutes. Sloane thought to himself, “Wow … camouflage has never been so exciting.”

The enemy launched a handful of rockets then disappeared, Sloane recalled. It was the only time the enemy fired at the team, but their photo-gathering was never boring.

“We would see people coming over the tops of the mountains, kind of checking us out, bearing rifles,” he said.

During the 17-day mission, the team took more than 1,000 photographs of camouflage uniforms and equipment in desert, woodland, cropland and mountain settings between Kandahar and Bagram. Each photograph was calibrated to show the correct color despite varying daylight conditions.

The team members went outside the wire nearly every day, Sloane said. Each took turns wearing different camouflage uniforms and equipment for photos and providing security. They evaluated each terrain setting to determine “where in this scenario would we be moving if ambushed or where would the enemy be coming to us,” Sloane said.

The team decided on this approach after rejecting other methods. “One of the options was to fly out to locations, dress up some mannequins, put them up on the mountains, take pictures and come back,” Sloane said. “We knew that … would limit our ability to truly get realistic photos.”

Another option was to ask commanders at different base camps to assign soldiers to work with the team. “It would have been a distracter to their regular mission,” Sloane said.

The calibrated photos gathered have been used to create a computerized photo simulation test that involves identifying individuals wearing different patterns at multiple ranges and settings. Several hundred soldiers from bases such as Fort Bragg, N.C., Fort Campbell, Ky., and Fort Drum, N.Y., will take the tests through December. The data from the tests will go into a report, and senior Army leaders will decide by late January whether to select a new camouflage pattern for Afghanistan.

Looking back at the effort, Sloane said he was thankful for the mix of experience on the team.

“I think every one of us that signed up for the mission wanted to do it right,” Sloane said.

Besides Sloane, the team consisted of individuals from the Asymmetric Warfare Group; Army Special Operations Command; Army G4; the Maneuver Center of Excellence; the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center; and the Naval Research Laboratory.

The AWG members were assigned as “tactical lead to ensure every one of us was trained the same way. We had guys that had been into theater several times. … It was really good to have that experience with us.”

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Heart-rate monitors help PT flunkers said:

By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 14, 2009 9:51:39 EST

ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska — A program to equip out-of-shape airmen with heart-rate monitors is yielding substantial improvements in fitness, base officials here say.

Since the initiative was launched a year ago, participating airmen have on average cut their run times by one minute and 57 seconds, slimmed their waistlines by 3.55 inches and lost 19.18 pounds, said Leyla Kelter, director of Elmendorf’s health and wellness center.

The center is one of only a handful across the service that gives heart-rate monitors to airmen who fail their physical-training tests. The Air Force couldn’t give an exact number of bases distributing the monitors but singled out Elmendorf and Aviano Air Base, Italy, as two that are taking extraordinary measures to help airmen boost their PT scores.

Every base has heart-rate monitors — the number depends on the base’s size — to administer a bike test for airmen who have a medical waiver for the 1.5-mile-run component of the PT test, but bases aren’t required to lend the monitors to flunkers. The Air Force Instruction, however, does require every airman who fails the PT test to participate in the service’s fitness improvement program and monitor his heart rate — usually by taking his pulse — as part of that program.

Elmendorf’s fitness experts have 200 heart-rate monitors, all the $270 RS400 model made by Polar USA, to distribute as part of the base’s year-old Downloadable Heart Rate Program. Right now, 169 of the monitors are on loan.

The Downloadable Heart Rate Program augments the AFI-mandated Fitness Improvement Program, targeting airmen who score fewer than 69 out of the possible 100 points on the PT test and need to reduce their abdominal circumference (by 4 inches for men and 2 inches for women), cut their run time by three minutes, increase their maximum oxygen capacity score by five or bring down a body mass index above 30.
Dramatic results

Forty-nine airmen received the monitors shortly after Kelter launched the program. They have shown significant improvement in their fitness levels and are pleased with the results, according to Kelter.

“People like the heart-rate monitors so much that they don’t want to come off the program so they don’t have to turn them in,” she said.

A monitor has two parts: a band worn around the chest and a digital watch. The band measures the heart rate — the number of beats per minute — and sends the information to the watch, which displays the rate to the wearer.

Each Friday, the airmen bring their monitors to the center so the fitness experts can download information on their progress. Elmendorf chose the Polar RS400 because of its download feature, Kelter said, though Polar and competitors Nike, Suunto, Timex and Garmin produce less expensive models, some priced as low as $35.

A person should exercise at 50 percent to 85 percent of his maximum heart rate to burn fat and build muscle, according to the American Heart Association.

“You will see a benefit any time your heart rate goes over 50 percent,” said Dr. Tracy Stevens, a cardiologist at the Muriel I. Kauffman Women’s Heart Center at Saint Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo. “Using a heart-rate monitor will help you exercise. They are not critical, but knowing when you go over 50 percent is important.”

The simplest way to calculate your maximum heart rate is to subtract your age from 220, Stevens said. For example, the maximum heart rate for a 20-year-old is 200 beats per minute. His target heart rate zone is 100 to 170 beats per minute.

Fitness specialists at Elmendorf use a three-step method called the Karvonen formula to determine an airman’s target heart rate zone.

Regardless of how the target heart rate zone is calculated, Stevens and the Elmendorf experts agree an airman must exercise in that zone to see results.

“If an airman doesn’t reach their target heart rate, they need to work out harder,” said Ryan LaRock, an Elmendorf fitness test cell specialist. “We are there to meet with them to help provide different exercises to ensure they reach that heart rate.”

Matt Sargent, another Elmendorf fitness specialist, recommends spinning classes, water aerobics, running and circuit training to the airmen he advises. Adding repetitions to a workout also helps, he said.

Lt. Col. Andy Hird is a firm believer in heart-rate monitors because he has seen how they have helped the airmen he oversees as commander of Elmendorf’s 517th Airlift Squadron. He is investing about $18,000 in squadron funds to buy 180 monitors for his airmen.

“The ones we used so far … greatly benefit the airmen using them,” Hird wrote in an e-mail to Air Force Times. “We intend for anyone close to the [minimum] fitness standard to wear a monitor when we get [them].”

Kelter thinks the heart-rate monitors help hold airmen accountable. The monitors tell her fitness specialists how hard and how often airmen are working out, she said.

“I wish we could give one to every airman,” she said, “but obviously they are expensive.”
The Aviano experience

Aviano’s fitness center has about 150 Polar F11 and Polar F6 heart-rate monitors, said Maj. Lora Pietszak, health promotion manager for the base. The F11 costs about $180 retail; the F6 runs about $120 off the shelf.

About 100 are checked out, all to airmen who flunked the PT test and are enrolled in the base’s fitness improvement program. Unlike Elmendorf, Aviano did not stand up its own program for PT flunkers.

The F11 and F6 models are less advanced than the RS400 and don’t have the download feature. The airmen at Aviano receive worksheets and write down their heart rates after each workout.

“The heart-rate monitors give the airmen immediate feedback because they understand the importance of their heart rate while exercising. … They are very specific giving airmen their heart rate and how many calories they are burning,” Pietszak said. “They help motivate the airmen to work out harder and longer.”

Pietszak acknowledges an airman could take his own heart rate but she favors the heart-rate monitor because it details how long the airman has worked out in his training zone.

The heart-rate monitors are also popular with squadron commanders. Some, like Hird, have bought monitors to distribute to their airmen. Pietszak, however, did not know how many squadron commanders are buying the monitors and how many monitors are owned by the squadrons.

“Commanders see the benefit they provide,” she said, “and want to make them more available to their airmen.”

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MCPON: Chiefs must shape up said:

By Mark D. Faram - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 15, 2009 5:16:35 EST

Too many senior enlisted sailors have gotten into trouble over the past several weeks — and the Navy’s top master chief wants it to stop now.

Following a year in which 10 command master chiefs or chiefs of the boat were detached for cause — and an average of 54 sailors ranked E-7 and up are busted for drunken driving every year — Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West delivered a broadside to his top master chiefs Dec. 11.

In a personal message to senior enlisted leaders, West said too many chief petty officers have gotten in trouble for driving under the influence, sexual assault, domestic violence, fraternization and general misconduct.

He directed all his CMCs to meet with their chiefs’ messes to discuss the problem, and he said fleet and force master chiefs will brief him on any major disciplinary problem involving a chief.

“This is unacceptable within our mess and must stop immediately,” he said in the personal message, a copy of which was obtained by Navy Times.

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Corps considering a range of rucks said:

By Amy McCullough and Rob Curtis - Staff writers
Posted : Tuesday Dec 15, 2009 6:49:55 EST

Marine officials will begin field testing possible replacements for the Corps’ standard ruck as early as spring, having already identified at least five options for improving the pack that combat-tested leathernecks have deemed “completely unacceptable.”

The goal is to know what the new pack will look like by the end of 2010, said Lt. Col. A.J. Pasagian, head of the Corps’ infantry combat equipment systems.

The Corps has scheduled an industry day for the end of January, at which commercial vendors from across the country will demonstrate products to address shortcomings with the service’s Individual Load Bearing Equipment pack, which was approved in 2004 before the proliferation of improvised explosive devices prompted the development of beefier body armor. Marines surveyed by the Corps earlier this year said the pack doesn’t work well with their armor, noting also that it causes chaffing and pain in their knees, back and shoulders. Ultimately, they graded it “completely unacceptable.”

At least four existing packs, three of which already are in use within the Army and U.S. Special Operations Command, could do the job, Marine officials have said.

Additionally, the Corps will consider revamping the ILBE to accommodate Marines’ bulkier body armor. Officials have declined to give many specifics, citing acquisition laws that exist to ensure a fair competition can take place. But through discussions with leading pack manufacturers and by examining the basic requirements already mapped out by the Corps, an approximate picture of the next pack begins to emerge.

Based on a Marine Corps Times analysis, four possible replacements include:

• Mystery Ranch’s TactiPlane: Special Operations Command’s recce pack.

• Mystery Ranch’s Wolfpack with NICE frame.

• Granite Gear’s CHIEF Patrol pack: SOCom’s patrol pack. A larger version also is available.

• The Army’s Modular Lightweight Load Carrying Equipment pack, or MOLLE.

The requirements laid out by the Corps aren’t drastically different from what ILBE already offers. A big exception, however, is the requirement for adjustable suspension systems, which would allow the pack to fit tightly against a Marine’s body whether he is wearing body armor or not. One reason the ILBE integrates so awkwardly with body armor is because the back Small-Arms Protective Insert plate is curved and the back of the pack is flat, meaning it makes only a single contact with a Marine’s back, causing additional strain on his joints.

The challenge will be finding a system that has multiple adjustments but is still user friendly, Pasagian said. Officials also will keep a close eye on the straps presented at the industry day. They want something that’s not too bulky, so it doesn’t interfere with a Marine’s ability to engage his weapon, but that can still be adjusted to fit different body and load shapes.

The Corps expects to begin testing prototypes of the new pack in late spring or early summer, Pasagian said. It’s still too early to say which bags will be tested, who will test them or when the Corps will formally request proposals from industry. All that will depend on information gathered at the industry day, he said.

“We are in the decision phase now,” Pasagian said, “and we are considering everything from going with an Army design, to going with a whole new pack,” to re-engineering the ILBE.
Hello, MOLLE

The Army’s MOLLE could conjure bad memories for Marines who toted the Corps’ old MOLLE pack that was prone to breaking under pressure. But the Army’s pack, manufactured by BAE, is a completely different bag with a completely different frame that works relatively well with body armor, sources said.

Unlike the Corps’ MOLLE, soldiers have a quick-release snap at the waist belt and on the shoulder straps, making it easier to shed their gear in a fire fight. When Marines dumped their old MOLLE packs, the waist belt stayed wrapped around their waists, making it a bit more cumbersome.

The Army’s pack has a compartment for your sleeping bag and can be accessed from the bottom. It also is wider than the ILBE, ensuring that a soldier — or Marine — can effortlessly lift his head and fire his weapon from the prone position if he doesn’t have time to drop the pack.

MOLLE’s once-controversial frame, designed by Maine-based Down East, has been reinforced with stronger plastic and no longer is prone to cracking, as many Marines experienced with the Corps’ MOLLE, said Justin Kiger, the company’s research and development manager.

“The original Marine Corps frame was all black and was made out of the same kind of plastic as [automotive] door panels. Part of the issue we worked to fix with the Army system was to totally change that material,” Kiger said. “The proprietary grade material now is light years ahead of the old automotive plastic, which was like a paper clip. You could bend it and it would be fine, and then bend it again and it would be fine, but eventually it would break.”

The new frame meets the Army’s requirement that it can be dropped from eight feet carrying a 100-pound load without breaking. Kiger said the company typically tests the frames from 28-foot drops without any problems.
Spec-ops gear

Montana-based Mystery Ranch was awarded the contract for SOCom’s recce pack in December 2008. Its TactiPlane pack may be another option. So might Minnesota-based Granite Gear, which also holds a SOCom contract for its CHIEF Patrol pack.

The Corps is looking at the SOCom packs and other products made by both companies, Pasagian said, but he declined to elaborate.

The 6,000-cubic-inch TactiPlane weighs 9 pounds, 10 ounces, and has an internal frame that can carry up to 100 pounds in three compartments. The TactiPlane has bolsters that fit around the SAPI plate, more evenly distributing the load.

Dana Gleason, Mystery Ranch owner and lead designer, said the company is still trying to figure out exactly what it will demonstrate for the Corps in January, but the company will most likely show off its external NICE frame, which offers many of the same benefits as the internal TactiPlane frame but with better stability.

The company also offers the “Mystery Cinch,” a modular cinch strap that can accommodate almost any pack. That will go a long way toward fixing the body armor problem, the company says. The Mystery Cinch attaches to a Marine’s Pouch Attachment Ladder System, or the MOLLE-compatible webbing on his body armor, pulling the ruck straps toward the center of the chest and preventing the straps from sliding off the armor and cutting into a Marine’s armpits. It also has a quick-release snap.

A lot of soldiers and Marines have been rigging their own versions of the Mystery Cinch by tying a cord to their attack vest and pulling the straps into the center of their armor.

“The current system ... don’t get me wrong, their packs are really good packs, but they have to be used right. They have to be fitted right and they have to be packed right in order to give any of that goodness to the user,” Gleason said. “You know most Marines have other things on their mind at the time, like having to pack way too much stuff, like having to maintain decent situational awareness around them and just not having to mess with gear that a civilian-derived pack is going to require to get max performance.”

However, the location of the industry day may suggest the Corps is in fact leaning toward a civilian-based pack, said Jeff Knight, chief executive officer and designer at Granite Gear. The event will be held Jan. 22 in Salt Lake City, presumably to take advantage of a large number of pack companies in town for the Outdoor Retailer Show on Jan. 21-24.

Knight said his company sent the Corps a larger version of its CHIEF Patrol, called the CHIEF Recce pack, which at 6,500 cubic inches is 1,000 cubic inches larger than SOCOM’s patrol pack. Both bags have a removable lumbar pad and easily removable Velcro-attached padding, making the bag more comfortable. It has an adjustable lid for overstuffing, and the straps adjust for both height and width, whereas most packs’ straps adjust only for height.

In order to win the SoCom contract, the CHIEF Patrol was designed to weigh less than 7 pounds empty, while being capable of carrying 90-plus pounds comfortably while the wearer is suited up with body armor.

“For the past 10 years we’ve all been working in the outdoor market trying to create lighter gear. The lightweight movement has been really strong; so has the ergonomics and making things fit right,” Knight, Granite Gear’s CEO, said. “However, in the tactical world they kind of stood their ground [until about five years ago] that this stuff has to be super-heavy. That certainly gave us an advantage in the SoCom contract because we already knew how to make things lighter.”

Plans to improve or replace the ILBE pack were put in motion after the Corps surveyed 770 battle-tested Marines and corpsmen earlier this year, seeking their opinions on usage, fit and integration, and durability, among other things.

Marines overwhelmingly panned the ILBE, according to Marine Corps Systems Command, although an exact breakdown of the survey was unavailable because the results are considered “acquisition sensitive material.”

Of the 487 Marines who responded online, most were grunts ranked from lance corporals to gunnery sergeants.

“The focus on the … pack is for current and future operations,” said Maj. Amy Calhoon, project officer for the load bearing and equipment team. “It’s not focused [solely] on Afghanistan.”

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1st surge units leave today from Lejeune said:

The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Dec 15, 2009 8:10:00 EST

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — The first units in the Afghanistan troop surge are scheduled to leave Tuesday.

About 200 Marines from the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, based at Camp Lejeune were set to depart early Tuesday morning. The rest of the unit will depart later this week.

The battalion is the first wave of Marines sent to Afghanistan in President Barack Obama’s planned increase of 30,000 troops.

More than 1,500 Marines from Camp Lejeune are expected to depart before Christmas. An additional 6,200 are to follow next year.

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Fixes on the way for nonsecure UAV links said:

By Michael Hoffman, John Reed and Joe Gould - Staff writers
Posted : Friday Dec 18, 2009 12:42:31 EST

The Air Force has known for more than a decade that the live video feeds from its unmanned aerial vehicles can be intercepted by the enemy but opted not to do anything about it until this year. An official document puts a completion date to secure the feeds at 2014.

Defense officials confirmed Thursday that Iraqi insurgents have been capturing the nonsecure, line-of-sight signals used by troops on the ground to view video feeds from MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers since mid-2008.

The drones, built by General Atomics, also have two secure datalinks; one for the pilot controls and one to feed video to commanders.

The service has identified how to protect the feeds, according to an Air Force officer who asked not to be identified. The officer said the service is starting to encrypt the feeds with a software modification but refused to discuss when the fix will be completed. The Air Force’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan puts the completion date at 2014.

“In today’s information age, we realize these are not encrypted datalinks, but we have taken steps to rapidly upgrade our current and future [remotely piloted aircraft] fleet to protect those datalinks,” the official said.

The Air Force isn’t relying solely on encryption to protect the video.

An immediate solution is to narrow the area from which the video feeds can be received, making it more likely that an insurgent would be spotted trying to intercept them, a defense official said. Typically, militants would need to be within 100 yards of the airman or soldier receiving the signal.

A report published in Thursday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal detailed how defense officials earlier this year discovered laptops in Iraq loaded with a $26 Russian-made software program called SkyGrabber that hacked into video broadcast by Predator cameras, which show the location of insurgents being targeted by the drones.

Besides the SkyGrabber software, insurgents have used high-tech methods to capture the video feeds.

U.S. troops found advanced electronic warfare equipment in a 2008 raid on Shiite militia, according to an Air Force intelligence officer briefed on the raid.

Air Force officials refused to officially comment on the hacking; the Pentagon issued a general statement on the security of its intelligence gathering.

“The Department of Defense constantly evaluates and seeks to improve the performance and security of our various ISR systems and platforms. As we identify shortfalls, we correct them as part of a continuous process of seeking to improve capabilities and security. As a matter of policy, we don’t comment on specific vulnerabilities or intelligence issues,” the statement said.
An Iranian connection

One service official contends the insurgents’ ability to watch drone feeds have adversely affected U.S. operations in the Middle East.

“We noticed a trend when going after these guys; that sometimes they seemed to have better early warning” of U.S. actions, said the officer briefed on the raid. “We went and did a raid on one of their safe houses and found all of this equipment that was highly technical, highly sophisticated. It was more sophisticated than any other equipment we’d seen Iraqi insurgents use.”

The militia, known as Kata’ib Hezbollah and based out of Sadr City, Baghdad, has long been suspected of being a surrogate for Iran’s Quds Force, the wing of the Iranian army responsible for conducting clandestine warfare outside of Iran via various insurgent groups.

The group had a “very long and well-documented history” of getting their training and equipment from Iran, the officer said.

“It was the technological know-how to make the antennas, computers and software go together and pick up the appropriate bands that was impressive. It is something that would take some very smart electrical engineers to put together. Iran had to choose the most loyal and capable surrogates that they could trust with equipment like that,” the officer said.

Soon after the raid, top commanders in Iraq convened a task force to identify the extent of the threat and how best to deal with it, according to the officer. Initial findings showed the threat was isolated to Kata’ib Hezbollah.

“They knew that we were flying Predators over their heads 24/7, so it’s easy to say ‘yeah, I know that I’m going to do a signals analysis search for [the drone]’ and take advantage of it,” the officer said.
An Army problem, too

Like the Air Force, the Army is aware of the vulnerabilities that its UAV datalinks have and are working to fix them. The laptops loaded with the SkyGrabber software had footage filmed by smaller Army UAVs as well as the Predators.

“We are well aware, and OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] is well aware, and we have a well-researched response set in motion,” said Col. Robert Sova, the Army’s capability manager for unmanned aerial systems. “This ability, this is not new information.”

The military has not implemented encryption for drones for “various reasons,” according to Sova.

“It’s not just monetary, but technology readiness,” he said. “We’ve taken certain risks and mitigated those risks with our tactics, techniques and procedures.”

Still, Sova said, the ability to hack a drone’s video feed is a “very low risk” since the insurgents haven’t figured how to hack into the command and control systems of the drones.

“It’s not like they’re going to control the payload or move it off,” Sova said. “They’re able to see a specific interval, like a camera system in the mall.”

Sova considers it unlikely that an insurgent could tap into a specific drone overhead.

“It’s happenstance, if they were able to tap into that feed,” Sova said. “Only in the best scenario, and only for a short period of time.”

Within the last year, the Defense Department’s Office of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics directed the services to beef up encryption, Sova said.

The Army plans to field or retrofit its drones with encryption technology over the next several years, according to Col. Gregory Gonzalez, the Army’s project manager for unmanned aerial vehicles. By Jan. 1, the Army will field encrypted Ravens, micro-UAVs.

Air Force officers and defense analysts caution that video broadcasts from manned aircraft to U.S. ground troops are vulnerable to hacking as well because their technology is similar to that of UAVs.

“Anything that projects a video is going to have the same problem. If the encryption is not strong enough, the signal will be susceptible. The insurgents figured out how we were using line-of-sight signals,” said Joel Harding, director of the Information Operations Institute for the Association of Old Crows.

Ground units get the Predator feeds through a Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receiver, or ROVER — a mobile device that looks like a laptop that can either be carried by hand or mounted in a ground vehicle.

An encryption package can be added to the ROVER; however, not all troops have the encryption package. The latest ROVER model being tested by the Pentagon comes equipped with two advanced encryption packages.
The Bosnia channel

As far back as 1996, the military has known outsiders can see the video feeds. The Air Force first flew the RQ-1 Predator, the MQ-1’s predecessor, in combat over Bosnia. In published reports, local residents with satellite television told of watching Predator video feeds on their televisions.

“I remember that some of the people there said it was harder to get the Disney channel than watch U.S. military operations,” said defense analyst Peter Singer, author of “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.”

Former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley was the 57th Wing commander at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., when the 57th became the first Air Force unit to operate a Predator. Moseley said his worry was about the security of the aircraft’s datalinks.

“My question from the beginning was … ‘What is our confidence level that links are secure?’ Not just the imaging that comes off, but also the command and flying links. The answer was ‘We’re working that’ from the General Atomics folks,” Moseley said.

Moseley’s civilian counterpart, former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, said he knew about the insecure datalinks but considered the threat worth taking to deploy the UAVs faster.

Moseley and Wynne took part in meetings with the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2004 and 2005 about concerns with the links, but the consensus from the meetings was to field the UAVs as quickly as possible.

“I would say people were aware of it [the vulnerability], but it wasn’t disturbing,” Wynne said. “It wasn’t yet dangerous; it certainly didn’t disrupt an operation, so why make a huge deal of it?”

Wynne said he thinks the security gap is in part the result of the UAVs being fielded before they were fully developed.

“I would say that the enemy can find a flaw in a 70 percent solution and they are going to exploit it,” Wynne said. “On the other hand, before they did exploit it, you did get utility from it … in the case of the Predator, we’ve extracted tremendous utility out of them.”

Moseley said he and Wynne pushed hard to ensure the services protected the datalinks and that he proposed the Air Force oversee UAV development but was rebuffed by the Pentagon.

“In failing to come to grips with standardizing all of this, if this is as big a problem as identified, than we have a serious problem,” he said.

Wynne contends the Pentagon needed the jolt of being hacked to act on improving UAV encryption.

“It’s like we were talking about this class of war, like somehow the bad guys will never get sophisticated,” the former Air Force secretary said. “Now, the sophistication of the enemy might lead you to ask, just like we are with IEDs, ‘OK, here’s [the enemy’s] capability now, where do we have to go?’ ”

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

the choice is in and It's a bit of a shocker... It's not Colt... And it's not FN!
I was betting on the Scar my self who knows though maybe when the army makes it's choice for new carbine they might change too.

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Jeff Head said:

AIM-9X Sidewinder demonstrates Air-To-Surface capability

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| (by Lieven Dewitte)

During a Sept. 23 test, an AIM-9X fired from a U.S. Air Force F-16C fighter sank a rapidly moving target boat in the Gulf of Mexico.

Raytheon thus demonstrated the capability to employ the AIM-9X Sidewinder advanced infrared-guided air-to-air missile to attack surface targets.

"With a software upgrade, AIM-9X retains its air-to-air capabilities and gains an air-to-surface capability," said Harry Schulte, Raytheon Missile Systems vice president of Air Warfare Systems. "AIM-9X now has the potential to take on an additional mission at a very affordable cost."

The test marks the third time an AIM-9X engaged moving surface targets. In April 2008, a U.S. Air Force F-16 launched an AIM-9X and sank a maneuvering boat, and in March 2007, a U.S. Air Force F-15C fired an AIM-9X and destroyed a fast-moving armored personnel carrier.

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Scratch said:

Some speculation about the F-35 Programm coming up here. Nothing sure, but no pure nonsense either, I think.

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F-35 total may be cut by half, report says

Manufacturer disputes findings

By William Matthews - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Oct 31, 2009 13:05:26 EDT

Rising costs, changing threats and rival aircraft — manned and unmanned — could cut nearly in half the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that ultimately are built, a Dutch defense analyst said in a report to the Dutch parliament. And if fewer planes are built, the price for each, already $100 million or more, will undoubtedly increase, analyst Johan Boeder warned.

A “likely estimate” is that 2,500 F-35s eventually will be built, Boeder wrote in a report delivered to Dutch lawmakers in September. The Netherlands, one of nine countries financing the development of the F-35, was expected to buy 85 planes, but may cut that to 57, Boeder said.

[...]

But U.S. defense analyst Barry Watts agreed that, ultimately, it is likely that only half of the planned F-35s will be built.

Watts, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said history is against the F-35. In the four stealthy aircraft programs that preceded the F-35, the U.S. military declared a need for 2,378 planes, but ultimately bought only 267. Those programs were the F-117, A-12, B-2 and F-22.

Current plans call for the U.S. military to buy 2,443 F-35s, “but if history is any guide, I would not hold my breath waiting” for that many purchases to be completed. “I think the number is going to be about half of that,” said Watts, who is a retired Air Force combat pilot and former chief of the Pentagon’s Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation.

Watts said he expects the Air Force to buy 800 to 1,000 F-35s instead of the 1,763 in current service plans. The Air Force can get by with fewer F-35s because it has decided to keep its A-10s and F-15Es in service.

And the Navy is likely to reconsider its F-35 buys because the plane does not have adequate range to permit U.S. aircraft carriers to operate outside the range of area denial weapons being developed by China and other nations, Watts said.

Unmanned carrier-based aircraft are expected to offer the Navy much greater range, he said.

[...]

Originally, the U.S. planned to buy 2,978 F-35s, but by 2005 had cut that number by more than 500. Since then, even lower numbers have been suggested. In 2007, Boeder said, the U.S. pushed acquisition of 515 F-35s far into the future — to between 2028 and 2035 — to ease funding problems. But Boeder said that move raises questions about whether the planes will ever be bought.

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I've read an interesting AF magazine article somewhere some time ago talking about the US combat AF structure and a hi-lo mix were the F-35 doesn't really fit, because it stands right in the middle.
That article basicly argued to use the bulk of the JSF money to buy more F-22, and the rest to buy quite a numer of cheaper, more A-10 like planes for lower intensity COIN ops.
At this stage of the JSF programm most likely not going to happen anymore, but still an interesting thought in the strategic view.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

need I remind you of the A12 Avanger II, or the cost over runs that almost killed the DDX or LCS and debate of seemingly killed CG21 just too name a few. The problem is not the Air force it's the whole system. FCS, XM8, ARH66 for the army the Marines have been fighting tooth and nail for the V22 and EFV Sure we all want too see the US NAVY packing a true air superiority fighter with variable geometry wings and thrust vectoring but then push comes too budget well new jets usually get shutdown. it seems that the high low mix is gone and the future is one fighter that does all roles only differing based on launch platform. the whole system is messed up.

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