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February 11, 2010

Airborne Laser Testbed Successful in Lethal Intercept Experiment

The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic missile. The experiment, conducted at Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center-Weapons Division Sea Range off the central California coast, serves as a proof-of-concept demonstration for directed energy technology. The ALTB is a pathfinder for the nation’s directed energy program and its potential application for missile defense technology.

At 8:44 p.m. (PST), February 11, 2010, a short-range threat-representative ballistic missile was launched from an at-sea mobile launch platform. Within seconds, the ALTB used onboard sensors to detect the boosting missile and used a low-energy laser to track the target. The ALTB then fired a second low-energy laser to measure and compensate for atmospheric disturbance. Finally, the ALTB fired its megawatt-class High Energy Laser, heating the boosting ballistic missile to critical structural failure. The entire engagement occurred within two minutes of the target missile launch, while its rocket motors were still thrusting.

This was the first directed energy lethal intercept demonstration against a liquid-fuel boosting ballistic missile target from an airborne platform. The revolutionary use of directed energy is very attractive for missile defense, with the potential to attack multiple targets at the speed of light, at a range of hundreds of kilometers, and at a low cost per intercept attempt compared to current technologies.

Less than one hour later, a second solid fuel short-range missile was launched from a ground location on San Nicolas Island, Calif. and the ALTB successfully engaged the boosting target with its High Energy Laser, met all its test criteria, and terminated lasing prior to destroying the second target. The ALTB destroyed a solid fuel missile, identical to the second target, in flight on February 3, 2010.

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The Christian Science Monitor said:

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February 12, 2010

Last night, the military officially entered the age of airborne laser weapons. A large laser mounted to the front of a modified 747 jet successfully detected and shot down a ballistic missile while both were in mid-flight.

Remembering the Frisbee inventor and his simple sports innovation
.The airborne laser program – part Star Wars (the sci-fi flick) and part Star Wars (the Strategic Defense Initiative) – has taken years of work and billions of dollars it get here. But the Pentagon can now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station.

"While ballistic missiles like the one [the Airborne Laser Testbed] destroyed move at speeds of about 4,000 miles per hour, they are no match for a super-heated, high-energy laser beam racing towards it at 670 million mph," says defense contractor Northrop Grumman in a release after announcing the successful test Friday.

Thursday night, a test missile fired from an "at-sea mobile launch platform" – likely a ship or submarine. The 747 detected the liquid-fueled missile and fired three different beams. The first, a low-energy laser, allowed the system to track the missile. Its second blast monitored the atmosphere between the aircraft and the target to better hone the final stage.

Once the system has locked on, it powers up what Boeing calls "the most powerful mobile laser device in the world." The third stage actually involves six laser modules, each the size of a sport-utility vehicle, that fire in unison through a telescope-like lens located at the front of the 747. "When fired through a window in the aircraft's nose turret, it produces enough energy in a 5-second burst to power a typical household for more than one hour," says the US Air Force.

The beam cannot slice through a missile, lightsaber-style, but rather heats up pressurized portions of weapons, rupturing them. In Thursday's test, the airborne laser disabled the test missile two minutes after it launched.

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Source: MultiCam recommended for Afghanistan

By Matthew Cox - Staff writer army times
Posted : Thursday Feb 18, 2010 14:48:16 EST

Secretary of the Army John McHugh is about to decide on a recommendation to field MultiCam to soldiers in Afghanistan.

“A recommendation has been made to the Secretary of the Army, and he will make an announcement soon,” Army spokesman Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings told Army Times.

Cummings would not comment on the recommendation, but Army Times sources say Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey has recommended that the Army issue MultiCam to soldiers in Afghanistan.

The announcement comes eight months after the late Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., directed the Army to look at new camouflage patterns. Murtha said “a dozen” Army sergeants told him that the Army Combat Uniform’s pattern is ineffective in Afghanistan.

Murtha’s directive prompted Program Executive Office Soldier to launch a multiphase effort to search for potential camouflage patterns to replace the Universal Camouflage Pattern of the ACU.

PEO Soldier’s camouflage initiative came after the March 2009 release of a two-year Army study that showed how MultiCam, a pattern made by Crye Precision LLC, outperformed the UCP in woodland, desert and urban settings.

“Photosimulation Camouflage Detection Test,” conducted by the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center between March 2007 and March 2009, pitted the current UCP pattern against alternative camouflage patterns. MultiCam and three other patterns outperformed the Army Combat Uniform’s UCP.

In another study, Natick also chose multicam over UCP. “Computerized Visual Camouflage Evaluation” was conducted between November 2005 and July 2006. It found that “MultiCam performed significantly better than the UCP in most conditions.”

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Army to replace camo pattern in Afghanistan

By Matthew Cox - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Feb 21, 2010 9:07:31 EST

The Army will begin fielding MultiCam, a more effective camouflage pattern for Afghanistan, in August. Soldiers deploying in late summer will be the first to receive the new versions of the Army Combat Uniform; soldiers already in theater will begin getting them in the fall.

MultiCam, made by Crye Precision LLC, bested the existing digital pattern and others in multiple Army tests.

MultiCam was “21 percent less detectable than UCP,” the pattern used in ACUs, said Col. Bill Cole, project manager for Soldier Protection and Individual Equipment.

“MultiCam was the clear winner,” he said.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey was convinced of MultiCam’s effectiveness based on that statistic, Cole said.

“He’s an infantryman ... when he saw that, he said, ‘You mean I can get this much closer to the enemy before I’m seen?’” Cole said. “That’s what he wanted.”

Secretary of the Army John McHugh approved Casey’s recommendation Feb. 19.

The 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, at Fort Polk, La., and the Iowa National Guard’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, will be the first to receive MultiCam. The new uniforms will also feature other improvements slated to be incorporated in all future ACUs over time, including an improved collar and buttons to replace some Velcro.

Soldiers will receive four sets of MultiCam uniforms, four combat shirts and matching combat gear, Cole said.

“Anything they would wear on a dismounted combat patrol will be in MultiCam,” Cole said.

The Feb. 19 announcement came after a multiphase effort that culminated with soldiers from Fort Bragg, N.C., Fort Campbell, Ky., and Fort Drum, N.Y., evaluating hundreds of calibrated photos of the Army’s Universal Camouflage Pattern and five alternative patterns taken in different settings in Afghanistan.

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Official: Despite delay, JSF needs will be met

By John Reed - Staff writer Air force Times

Posted : Wednesday Feb 17, 2010 14:26:11 EST

A senior Air Force requirements official said Wednesday that the service will get enough F-35 Lightning IIs to meet its needs despite recent program delays.

Barbara Westgate, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategic plans, told reporters that while the F-35 program has suffered setbacks in the testing phase, she is confident that the Air Force will be equipped with the jet in time to “have the required capabilities we need, when we need it.” She spoke during an Aviation Week-sponsored conference in Washington.

The air service is banking on the F-35 to replace most of its aging fighters, which must be retired this decade or given costly service life extensions.

Just weeks ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a restructuring of the Joint Strike Fighter program that cut procurement funds for the jet and extended the plane’s test phase until 2015. On Monday, Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn announced that, even with the restructuring, the F-35 program will likely be delayed by one year.

Westgate could not say how the restructuring will affect the service’s planned annual purchases of 80 F-35s.

Both JSF-maker Lockheed Martin and Pentagon officials say that the first batch of production F-35s will be ready for delivery to the Marine Corps in 2012.

Still, Westgate said that the Air Force is taking a different approach to the F-35’s initial operational capability date than the Navy and Marine Corps.

“We let the wing commander determine when he has the capability he needs to do his mission, instead of picking a different date,” Westgate said.

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Corps to use more lethal ammo in Afghanistan

By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer Marine Times
Posted : Tuesday Feb 16, 2010 9:29:10 EST

The Marine Corps is dropping its conventional 5.56mm ammunition in Afghanistan in favor of new deadlier, more accurate rifle rounds, and could field them at any time.

The open-tipped rounds until now have been available only to Special Operations Command troops. The first 200,000 5.56mm Special Operations Science and Technology rounds are already downrange with Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, said Brig. Gen. Michael Brogan, commander of Marine Corps Systems Command. Commonly known as “SOST” rounds, they were legally cleared for Marine use by the Pentagon in late January, according to Navy Department documents obtained by Marine Corps Times.

SOCom developed the new rounds for use with the Special Operations Force Combat Assault Rifle, or SCAR, which needed a more accurate bullet because its short barrel, at 13.8 inches, is less than an inch shorter than the M4 carbine’s. Using an open-tip match round design common with some sniper ammunition, SOST rounds are designed to be “barrier blind,” meaning they stay on target better than existing M855 rounds after penetrating windshields, car doors and other objects.

Compared to the M855, SOST rounds also stay on target longer in open air and have increased stopping power through “consistent, rapid fragmentation which shortens the time required to cause incapacitation of enemy combatants,” according to Navy Department documents. At 62 grains, they weigh about the same as most NATO rounds, have a typical lead core with a solid copper shank and are considered a variation of Federal Cartridge Co.’s Federal Trophy Bonded Bear Claw round, which was developed for big-game hunting and is touted in a company news release for its ability to crush bone.

The Corps purchased a “couple million” SOST rounds as part of a joint $6 million, 10.4-million-round buy in September — enough to last the service several months in Afghanistan, Brogan said. Navy Department documents say the Pentagon will launch a competition worth up to $400 million this spring for more SOST ammunition.

“This round was really intended to be used in a weapon with a shorter barrel, their SCAR carbines,” Brogan said. “But because of its blind-to-barrier performance, its accuracy improvements and its reduced muzzle flash, those are attractive things that make it also useful to general purpose forces like the Marine Corps and Army.”
M855 problems

The standard Marine round, the M855, was developed in the 1970s and approved as an official NATO round in 1980. In recent years, however, it has been the subject of widespread criticism from troops, who question whether it has enough punch to stop oncoming enemies.

In 2002, shortcomings in the M855’s performance were detailed in a report by Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane, Ind., according to Navy Department documents. Additional testing in 2005 showed shortcomings. The Pentagon issued a request to industry for improved ammunition the following year. Federal Cartridge was the only company to respond.

Brogan said the Corps has no plans to remove the M855 from the service’s inventory at this time. However, the service has determined it “does not meet USMC performance requirements” in an operational environment in which insurgents often lack personal body armor, but engage troops through “intermediate barriers” such as windshields and car doors at security checkpoints, according to a Jan. 25 Navy Department document clearing Marines to use the SOST round.

The document, signed by J.R. Crisfield, director of the Navy Department International and Operational Law Division, is clear on the recommended course of action for the 5.56mm SOST round, formally known as MK318 MOD 0 enhanced 5.56mm ammunition.

“Based on the significantly improved performance of the MK318 MOD 0 over the M855 against virtually every anticipated target array in Afghanistan and similar combat environments where increased accuracy, better effects behind automobile glass and doors, consistent terminal performance and reduced muzzle flash are critical to mission accomplishment, USMC would treat the MK318 MOD 0 as its new 5.56mm standard issue cartridge,” Crisfield wrote.

The original plan called for the SOST round to be used specifically within the M4 carbine, which has a 14½-inch barrel and is used by tens of thousands of Marines in military occupational specialties such as motor vehicle operator where the M16A4’s longer barrel can be cumbersome. Given its benefits, however, Marine officials decided also to adopt SOST for the M16A4, which has a 20-inch barrel and is used by most of the infantry.
Incorporating SOST

In addition to operational benefits, SOST rounds have similar ballistics to the M855 round, meaning Marines will not have to adjust to using the new ammo, even though it is more accurate.

“It does not require us to change our training,” Brogan said. “We don’t have to change our aim points or modify our training curriculum. We can train just as we have always trained with the 855 round, so right now, there is no plan to completely remove the 855 from inventory.”

Marine officials in Afghanistan could not be reached for comment, but Brogan said commanders with MEB-A are authorized to issue SOST ammo to any subordinate command. Only one major Marine 5.56mm weapon system downrange will not use SOST: the M249 squad automatic weapon. Though the new rounds fit the SAW, they are not currently produced in the linked fashion commonly employed with the light machine gun, Brogan said.

SOCom first fielded the SOST round in April, said Air Force Maj. Wesley Ticer, a spokesman for the command. It also fielded a cousin — MK319 MOD 0 enhanced 7.62mm SOST ammo — designed for use with the SCAR-Heavy, a powerful 7.62mm battle rifle. SOCom uses both kinds of ammunition in all of its geographic combatant commands, Ticer said.

The Corps has no plans to buy 7.62mm SOST ammunition, but that could change if operational commanders or infantry requirements officers call for it in the future, Brogan said.

It is uncertain how long the Corps will field the SOST round. Marine officials said last summer that they took interest in it after the M855A1 lead-free slug in development by the Army experienced problems during testing, but Brogan said the service is still interested in the environmentally friendly round if it is effective. Marine officials also want to see if the price of the SOST round drops once in mass production. The price of an individual round was not available, but Brogan said SOST ammo is more expensive than current M855 rounds.

“We have to wait and see what happens with the Army’s 855LFS round,” he said. “We also have to get very good cost estimates of where these [SOST] rounds end up in full-rate, or serial production. Because if it truly is going to remain more expensive, then we would not want to buy that round for all of our training applications.”
Legal concerns

Before the SOST round could be fielded by the Corps, it had to clear a legal hurdle: approval that it met international law of war standards.

The process is standard for new weapons and weapons systems, but it took on added significance because of the bullet’s design. Open-tip bullets have been approved for use by U.S. forces for decades, but are sometimes confused with hollow-point rounds, which expand in human tissue after impact, causing unnecessary suffering, according to widely accepted international treaties signed following the Hague peace conventions held in the Netherlands in 1899 and 1907.

“We need to be very clear in drawing this distinction: This is not a hollow-point round, which is not permitted,” Brogan said. “It has been through law of land warfare review and has passed that review so that it meets the criteria of not causing unnecessary pain and suffering.”

The open-tip/hollow-point dilemma has been addressed several times by the military, including in 1990, when the chief of the Judge Advocate General International Law Branch, now-retired Marine Col. W. Hays Parks, advised that the open-tip M852 Sierra MatchKing round preferred by snipers met international law requirements. The round was kept in the field.

In a 3,000-word memorandum to Army Special Operations Command, Parks said “unnecessary suffering” and “superfluous injury” have not been formally defined, leaving the U.S. with a “balancing test” it must conduct to assess whether the usage of each kind of rifle round is justified.

“The test is not easily applied,” Parks said. “For this reason, the degree of ‘superfluous injury’ must … outweigh substantially the military necessity for the weapon system or projectile.”

John Cerone, an expert in the law of armed conflict and professor at the New England School of Law, said the military’s interpretation of international law is widely accepted. It is understood that weapons cause pain in war, and as long as there is a strategic military reason for their employment, they typically meet international guidelines, he said.

“In order to fall within the prohibition, a weapon has to be designed to cause unnecessary suffering,” he said.

Sixteen years after Parks issued his memo, an Army unit in Iraq temporarily banned the open-tip M118 long-range used by snipers after a JAG officer mistook it for hollow-tip ammunition, according to a 2006 Washington Times report. The decision was overturned when other Army officials were alerted.

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Boeing to convert old F-16s to targets said:

By John Reed - Staff writer Air force Times
Posted : Wednesday Mar 10, 2010 9:39:35 EST

The Air Force has begun replacing its dwindling supply of QF-4 target drones with QF-16s, according to a Boeing announcement made Tuesday.

With the supply of venerable F-4 airframes running low after years of use as target drones, the air service has given Boeing a $69 million contract to convert up to 126 of the service’s oldest F-16s in storage at Davis Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., into aerial targets, according to the announcement.

Design work on the drones will be done at Boeing’s St. Louis facility while production will be done in Jacksonville, Fla.

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Schwartz: We’re sticking with tanker RfP said:

By John Reed - Staff writer Air force Times
Posted : Wednesday Mar 10, 2010 16:31:01 EST

The U.S. Air Force does not plan to modify its request for proposals in the KC-X aerial refueling plane program despite the withdrawal of one of two expected bidders, said Gen. Norton Schwartz, the service’s chief of staff, at a March 10 congressional hearing.

Schwartz spoke at a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel.

Northrop Grumman said March 8 it would not bid for the $35 billion program, leaving Boeing as the sole bidder.

“We reached this conclusion based on the structure of the source selection methodology defined in the RfP, which clearly favors Boeing’s smaller refueling tanker and does not provide adequate value recognition of the added capability of a larger tanker, precluding us from any competitive opportunity,” Northrop President Wes Bush said in a statement.

In previous KC-X bids, Northrop teamed up with EADS to offer a tanker plane based on the Airbus A330. Airbus is a subsidiary of EADS, the European defense and aerospace group.

Boeing has offered a converted version of its 767 airliner.

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Northrop won’t bid on Air Force tanker said:

By John Reed - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Mar 10, 2010 12:00:00 EST

Northrop Grumman today confirmed that it will not bid for the Air Force’s $35 billion KC-X contest, saying the solicitation favors rival Boeing’s smaller 767-based offering.

“Northrop Grumman has determined that it will not submit a bid to the Department of Defense for the KC-X program,” Northrop president Wes Bush said in a late afternoon statement. “We reached this conclusion based on the structure of the source selection methodology defined in the [request for proposals], which clearly favors Boeing’s smaller refueling tanker and does not provide adequate value recognition of the added capability of a larger tanker, precluding us from any competitive opportunity.”

Key Northrop backer Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., quickly slammed the Air Force for its cost-focused request for proposals.

“The Air Force had a chance to deliver the most capable tanker possible to our war fighters and blew it,” the senator said in his own late-afternoon statement. “This so-called competition was not structured to produce the best outcome for our men and women in uniform; it was structured to produce the best outcome for Boeing.”

EADS North America Chairman Ralph Crosby echoed these statements.

“The source selection methodology clearly signals a preference for a smaller aircraft,” Crosby said.

He said the RfP “ignores the added combat capability that could be provided to our military and, for the first time, ensures that our allies will operate with superior capability in this vital mission area.”

Crosby was referring to several U.S. allies that are flying variants of the A330-based tanker.

Northrop’s move comes after months of wrangling between the defense giant and the Pentagon over the structure of the KC-X RfPs that the Defense Department unveiled last fall.

In a Dec. 1 letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Bush threatened to drop out of the competition unless the final RfP was considerably changed.

Bush argued that the cost-focused RfP did not give enough credit for the better performance of the newer, larger Airbus A330-based bid over the smaller, cheaper 767-based jet.

The final RfP, released two weeks ago, was little changed from the draft.

Shelby said, “The Air Force’s refusal to make substantive changes to level the playing field shows that once again, politics trumps the needs of our military.”
No protest

Bush said the company will not protest the Pentagon’s decision.

“We have decided that Northrop Grumman will not protest,” he said in his statement. “While we feel we have substantial grounds to support a [Government Accountability Office] or court ruling to overturn this revised source selection process, America’s service men and women have been forced to wait too long for new tankers.”

Bush took a parting shot at Boeing, which is almost guaranteed to be the sole bidder in the contest.

The Air Force should pay “much less” per airplane than the roughly $184 million apiece it would pay for the first 68 Northrop jets in the 2008 offer.

“We call on the Department to keep in mind the economic conclusions of the prior round of bidding as it takes actions to protect the taxpayer when defining the sole-source procurement contract,” his statement said. “With the Department’s decision to procure a much smaller, less-capable design, the taxpayer should certainly expect the bill to be much less.”

Northrop’s jet won the 2008 round of the KC-X competition. That victory was dashed, however, when Boeing filed a GAO-sustained protest arguing that the service wasn’t clear enough about what it wanted from the two jets in that round of competition.

Air Force officials did not respond to request for comment at press time

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Real Hurt Lockers in Iraq: Life is no movie said:

By Matt Ford - The Associated Press Writer
Posted : Monday Mar 8, 2010 17:40:19 EST

NASIRIYAH, Iraq — American bomb disposal experts in Iraq say few people — even in armed forces — long knew what they did. But not anymore.

Now, the military’s explosive experts are basking in their job’s newfound fame after the Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker” took home the best picture prize at Sunday’s Academy Awards in Hollywood.

But the soldiers still have to explain they are not all like the film’s arrogant, adrenaline-junkie hero.

Set in the summer of 2004, the movie tells the fictional story of an elite Army bomb squad that has 38 days to go before their members can leave Baghdad. Under enormous pressure, since one false move can kill them and everyone around them, they are itching to get the job done and head home.

Into the fray steps Staff Sgt. William James, who’s either a swaggering, brilliant, bomb disposal expert, or an egomaniacal showoff — perhaps a bit of both. The character and the screenplay both came from the screenwriter’s experience embedding with such a squad in 2004.

But James’ character earned mixed reviews from bomb experts in Iraq attached to the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division.

“That guy was more of a run and gun cowboy type, and that is exactly the kind of person that we’re not looking for,” said Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Phillips, a team leader in Iraq’s eastern Maysan province.

Phillips, 30, from Fayetteville, N.C., called the movie’s portrayal of a bomb expert “grossly exaggerated and not appropriate.”

Airman first class Stephen Dobbins said such swagger would put a whole team at risk.

“Our team leaders don’t have that kind of invincibility complex, and if they do, they aren’t allowed to operate,” said Dobbins, 22, of Paulden, Ariz. “A team leader’s first priority is getting his team home in one piece.”

But that doesn’t mean the movie doesn’t have it’s fans among bomb disposal experts serving in Iraq.

“While it was sexed up quite a bit, I really enjoyed it,” said Tech Sgt. William Adomeit, 31, from Las Vegas, Nev. Adomeit saw the movie for the first time at his base in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah.

Other than the best picture prize, the movie earned five more Oscars, including best director honors for Kathryn Bigelow — the first woman in the 82-year history of the Academy Awards to earn Hollywood’s top prize for filmmakers.

The movie’s title can mean different things — from GI slang for severe injury to a place no one wants to go, to a tricky, locked-in space a bomb expert finds himself in when a blast goes off.

Most bomb technicians accuse the movie of taking cinematic liberties that would never occur in a war zone, such as hunting bomb-makers down dark alleys alone, or riding around Baghdad unescorted by Army vehicles.

“The one vehicle going out by itself, that would not be realistic at all,” said Senior Airman Katie Hamm, 23, of Raleigh, N.C.

Six years after the film takes place, bombings are still the primary threat to Iraqis. Bomb disposal teams are still finding weapons caches and responding to rocket attacks, but the nature of their mission has changed dramatically since 2004, when the film takes place.

With the U.S. military preparing to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by September, American bomb teams are training up Iraqis to do a job American technicians usually spend years training for.

This new task moves American bomb technicians from the field into the classroom, where they pass on their knowledge to Iraqis who will take over the high-risk job.

“We weren’t really trained to be teachers necessarily, or advisers,” said Staff Sgt. Andrew Krueger, 24, of Greeley, Colo. “It’s something you kind of have to learn how to do as you go.”

Collecting intelligence on bomb-makers is one duty of explosive experts’ that hasn’t ebbed over the years — but trophies from disposed bombs are not exactly souvenirs you can take home.

“The Hurt Locker’s” lead character, played by actor Jeremy Renner, keeps bomb parts under his bed as keepsakes of the bombs that nearly killed him. In the real world, he would be accused of withholding evidence.

American bombs technicians take care to preserve pieces of bombs so they can use that intelligence to track down and identify bomb-makers.

“Each bomb maker has his own way of doing things, it’s like a hard-wired routine — they all have a signature, they all use a certain kind of tape, or they use a certain kind of battery,” said Phillips.

Reality is at odds with the movie when it comes to the film’s iconic bomb suit. Most of the time, it sits unused on a shelf in the teams’ vehicles. Even the robots — the workhorses of bomb-disposal teams — rarely see action nowadays in Iraq since the Americans use them only when called in for a response to a planted bomb.

The explosives experts say they never go for the suit first but use it as a last resort, preferring to do everything as remotely and safely as possible. So the movie’s idea that they show up every day and throw on the suit first thing is pretty out there, they said.

But one thing the movie got down pat, the experts in Iraq say, is a bomb disposal expert’s love for the adrenaline rush of a job well done. Now, with improved security across Iraq, their missions are rare.

“If we’re slow, and nothing’s going on, it means something is going right,” said Dobbins.

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CO fired for ‘cruelty’ gets new job said:

Personnel officials weigh ‘show cause’ board for Graf
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer Navy times
Posted : Wednesday Mar 10, 2010 14:53:19 EST

The former cruiser commanding officer who was fired in January after a years-long pattern of “cruelty and maltreatment” toward her crew is to report to a new job at Navy Air and Missile Defense Command in Dahlgren, Va., Navy Times has learned.

Capt. Holly Graf, relieved of command of the cruiser Cowpens on Jan. 13 in Yokosuka, Japan, is “in the process of executing those orders,” said Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for 7th Fleet in Japan.

When Graf was relieved in January, officials at the time said she would continue on to a previously arranged job in the Navy Staff in the Pentagon. However, she was given a different assignment after a standard administrative review that followed her admiral’s mast with Rear Adm. Kevin Donegan, commander of Carrier Strike Group 5, who found her guilty of “cruelty” and “conduct unbecoming an officer.”

Admiral’s mast is a nonjudicial proceeding.

A report by the Naval Surface Forces Inspector General substantiated allegations that Graf had belittled, harangued and even assaulted her subordinates on Cowpens and in her previous command, the destroyer Winston S. Churchill. The full details of that report are in this week’s Navy Times.

Navy spokesman Lt. Justin Cole said Tuesday that Graf has not yet been assigned a specific billet at the air and missile defense command, which was created last year under 3rd Fleet. Officials did not have information about why she is no longer being reassigned to the Navy Staff in the Pentagon.

Commanders’ initial willingness to permit Graf to transition to her planned reassignment in the Navy office of information, plans and strategy — known as “N3/N5” around the Pentagon — was unusual for a skipper who has been relieved. One explanation could be that Graf was already close to a scheduled change of command on Cowpens; her successor, Capt. Robert Marin, was already aboard the ship when Graf was relieved.

Even as Graf reports for duty at her new job in Dahlgren, she faces another administrative step in continuing her career. When officers are found guilty in a nonjudicial proceeding, their commanders must submit information about the incident to Navy Personnel Command. NPC then decides whether to empanel a board that requires officers to “show cause” why they should continue in the Navy. Having considered the case, the board makes a recommendation to the secretary of the Navy about whether an officer should be kept or separated.

Graf is in the middle of that process, Cole said; NPC officials now are deciding whether to appoint a “show cause” board. Whatever her ultimate fate, the Navy is confident about its process for screening and selecting officers, Cole said.

“Captain Graf had one of 1,500 officer billets coded for commanding officer positions in the Navy. In the last five years, 56 of them have been relieved of command, so we would point to the 99 percent of commanding officers who are successfully completing their tours,” Cole said. “When they don’t succeed, we evaluate those circumstances and we hold our commanding officers to a very high standard.”

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Mental health evacuations spike in war zones said:

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer military times
Posted : Wednesday Mar 10, 2010 10:10:38 EST

More than 10 percent of medical evacuations from Iraq and Afghanistan over the past eight years have been for mental health reasons.

From October 2001 to September 2009, 5,480 troops were flown back to the U.S. or to Germany due to “mental disorders,” according to the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center.

Most of the evacuations were for adjustment reactions or affective psychoses.

But the flow has not been steady over the past eight-plus years. Mental health issues only accounted for 6 percent to 9 percent of the evacuations from 2001 to 2005 — then jumped by 50 percent in just one year, from 714 in 2006 to 1,063 in 2007.

“The sudden increase in evacuations for mental disorders coincided with the surge in U.S. deployed troops and a change in strategy in Iraq,” wrote Timothy Powers, of the center’s Data Analysis Group, in a report about the evacuations. “The increase may reflect cumulative stress among individuals deployed more than once and/or increased awareness and concern regarding psychological stress-related disorders among deployed service members.”

Overall, 52,283 troops have been evacuated from the war zones, with 10,103 — or about 19 percent — going home for battle injuries. The number of battle injuries increased at the start of the war in Iraq — from 970 in 2003 to 2,042 in 2004 — and again during the surge in Iraq — from 1,640 in 2006 to 2,178 in 2007, and then went back down to 983 in 2008. About 4 out of 5 evacuations were due to illnesses or non-combat injuries.

The most common reasons for evacuations were musculoskeletal injuries — mostly back and knee — at 16 percent; non-battle injuries at 15 percent; mental disorders at 10 percent; and “signs, symptoms and ill-defined conditions” at 10 percent.

More than one-quarter of those ill-defined conditions involved “respiratory symptoms.”

Of the two million people who have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, 248 were evacuated due to pregnancy, according to the surveillance report. Of those evacuated overall, 45,975 were male and 6,308 were female.

The researchers also found that of those who were evacuated, many had had a medical encounter for the same issue within 90 days of deploying: 29 percent of those with musculoskeletal issues, 23 percent of those with respiratory issues, 22 percent of those with nervous system issues, and 18 percent of those with mental health issues.

“There may be opportunities to refine predeployment medical assessment procedures to reduce recurrences and exacerbations of preexisting conditions, and thereby decrease related medical evacuations among deployed service members,” Powers wrote

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US NAVY said:

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By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2010 – A month into a maiden voyage that has seen a trio of drug-smuggling attempts thwarted, the commander aboard the Navy’s first littoral combat ship today described the vessel’s performance to date as “exceptional.”

Now floating off the coast of Colombia, the USS Freedom received high marks from Navy Cmdr. Randy Gardner, who delivered an assessment to reporters today from aboard the ship via telephone.

“The performance of the ship so far has been exceptional,” he said of the Freedom, which set sail Feb. 16 from Mayport, Fla. “We are learning a lot about what Freedom can do well.”

Freedom and its crew grabbed headlines in recent weeks after interdicting three vessels transporting illicit drugs through the western Caribbean. Military officials say the ship’s speed, which at roughly 46 miles per hour is significantly faster than U.S. frigates that max out just below 30 miles per hour, is responsible for much of its counternarcotics success.

In its most recent interdiction, the Freedom disrupted a high-speed ship known as a “go-fast” vessel and recovered more than 2 tons of cocaine that officials said was bound for the United States.

After detecting the suspected drug vessel March 11, the Freedom launched a high-speed pursuit and deployed a separate team of sailors and Coast Guardsmen aboard rigid inflatable boats to intercept it. Smugglers aboard the fleeing vessel began dumping its cargo into the southern Caribbean Sea.

The Navy-Coast Guard response team recovered 72 bales of cocaine weighing a total of 4,680 pounds from the water after being jettisoned from the vessel that was on a “stereotypical route” pursued by drug traffickers with U.S.-bound narcotics, Gardner said.

During its first two successful drug seizures in the Caribbean -- on Feb. 22 and March 3 -- Freedom seized one “go-fast” vessel, five suspects and more than 3,700 pounds of cocaine.

In addition to counternarcotics operations, the Freedom made its first shore leave in Cartagena, Colombia, Gardner said. The Freedom also played host to top defense officials from Colombia who toured the ship while it was docked in Cartagena.

The Freedom, which is deploying about two and a half years before the first littoral combat ship was expected to be operational, is bound for Panama and Mexico before it’s set to return to its home port in San Diego in late April. After undergoing about a month of routine maintenance, the ship then will carry out operations in Canada, followed by an exercise in the Pacific Ocean, military officials said.

The Freedom, along with the USS Independence, is at the vanguard of a Navy littoral combat ship fleet that is expected to grow to about 55 vessels by 2035, officials said.

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Marksmen issued better rifles in Afghanistan said:

By Matthew Cox - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Mar 23, 2010 19:54:27 EDT

The Army is doubling the number of 7.62mm weapons in the infantry squad, increasing soldiers’ long-range killing power in the wide-open expanses of Afghanistan.

Since the beginning of the war, a typical nine-man infantry squad has included a single squad-designated marksman, armed with a surplus M14 rifle for engaging the enemy beyond the 300-meter range of M4s and M16s.

Today, squads are deploying to Afghanistan with two SDMs, each armed with the M14 Enhanced Battle Rifle, a modernized version of the Vietnam War-era weapon that’s accurate out to 800 meters.

“It’s a very precise weapon system,” said Spc. Andrew McMeley, a squad designated marksman serving in Afghanistan with B Company, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment. “All the improvements on it are fantastic.”

The EBR features a standard M14 barrel, plus a receiver and trigger assembly that’s fitted with a Sage International adjustable aluminum stock, a Leopold 3.5x10 power scope and Harris bipod legs.

“Units have been requesting this capability for a while,” said Maj. Elliott Caggins, assistant product manager for Sniper Weapons. “It provides more shootability than the old weapon.”

The Army began building 5,000 of these modernized M14s early last year in response to the growing need of infantry squads operating in Afghanistan to engage enemy fighters at longer ranges.

“Comments from returning noncommissioned officers and officers reveal that about 50 percent of engagements occur past 300 meters,” Maj. Thomas Ehrhart wrote in his Nov. 30 position paper “Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer” at the School of Advanced Military Studies at the Army’s Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Many engagements extend out to 800 meters, weapons officials maintain. The shift to these longer-range engagements is forcing the Army to rethink 5.56mm focus in the squad.

“We are looking at 7.62mm in the squad,” said Col. Doug Tamilio, who runs Project Manager Soldier Weapons. “We have always had a policy in a nine-man squad that we would keep 5.56mm flat across that.

“The fight in Afghanistan is showing us that 7.62mm, in certain aspects, is needed and required.”

The idea of supplanting the 5.56mm round in the squad will surely add fuel to soldier criticisms that the 5.56mm is ineffective for today’s battlefield.

Special Operations Command has already adopted this concept with its fielding of a 5.56mm and a 7.62mm version of the Special Operations Combat Assault Rifle.

Despite concerns over the increased weight of the 7.62mm ammunition, Tamilio said, “I think we are starting to think of a mix” of 5.56mm and 7.62mm within the squad.

As a short-term solution, “we have given them EBR14s — two per squad” until the Army develops a standardized squad-designated marksman rifle.

The squad-marksman role was hatched during development of Stryker brigades. Placing specialized shooters in these highly mobile, rapid-deployment units bolsters an individual squad’s precision-shooting capability when snipers are otherwise unavailable.

Infantry units deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq, whose missions in many ways have been expeditionary, have embraced the idea of a precision shooter at the squad level since late 2002.

The EBR effort also illustrates how the M14 has continued to evolve after its brief eight years of service when the M16 replaced it in 1965 as the Army’s standard infantry rifle. Patterned after the popular M1 Garand of World War II and the Korean War, the M14’s robust design features a gas operating rod system, wood stock and 20-round magazine. A more accurate version of the M14 — dubbed the M21 — served as the Army’s official sniper rifle from 1975 until 1988. The M21 featured a more accurate, match-grade, barrel.

The M14 didn’t see widespread conventional use until current combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The M14s, equipped with various commercial optics, have proven highly effective at extending the killing range of the infantry squad. Despite the M14’s popularity, units have been calling for a more modernized design.

The EBR concept, which was first used in 2004 by Navy SEALs, features a rigid, aircraft-grade aluminum chassis that secures the barrel more effectively, helping to increase accuracy, Caggins said. It’s equipped with a Picatinny rail system for mounting lasers, lights and other accessories. There’s also a removable Kydex hand guard that protects the shooter’s nonfiring hand from heat buildup during rapid firing.

The folding stock can be adjusted to different lengths and also has a multiple-position cheek rest for different shooter preferences. This is one of McMeley’s favorite features on the EBR.

“The adjustable cheek piece makes it to where, in a quick reflex situation, when you have a target of opportunity, you can just slap your face up against it and get the same spot on your cheek every single time,” he said. “All this adjustability makes the EBR more comfortable to shoot.”

The EBR also has a M16/M4-style pistol grip.

Weapons officials include a three-day new equipment training program when the EBRs are delivered to a unit. The program includes two days of classroom instruction and one day on the range.

Despite its improved design, the EBR isn’t perfect, weapons officials said. It’s just under 15 pounds unloaded, compared with the standard M14’s unloaded weight of 9 pounds. An unloaded M4 weighs just 6.5 pounds.

“We are looking at making it a little lighter,” Caggins said.

The EBR’s more complex design also makes it difficult to maintain, said Sgt. Paul Bullock, another SDM in B Company.

“The only thing I dislike is that you have to go through so much just to take it apart,” Bullock said.

With the older M14, “You just pull a few things and you’ve got it apart. With this one, you’ve got to take apart seven or eight different screws … I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time pulling it apart and putting it back together. But, the weapon system doesn’t get as dirty as the original so you don’t have to worry about it as much.”

It’s not cheap to produce, either — EBRs cost about $3,000 each.

But weapons officials view the EBR as just another step toward the Army selecting a standardized SDM rifle.

Fort Benning, Ga., officials are working on a requirement for the SDM rifle that should be ready sometime next year, Tamilio said.

Beginning this spring, Benning officials will assess different optics and different weapon systems and try to figure out what is the optimal solution for a squad-designated marksman: what works and what doesn’t work, Tamilio said.

For now, units deploying to the combat zone can request M14 EBRs by submitting an operational needs statement to Army’s office of the G-3, Caggins said.

Currently, the Army has issued about 3,750 of the 5,000 EBRs being built, he said. Units return the EBRs to the Army when they come back from deployment. The weapons are then reissued to other units.

While there is no set deadline for units to submit an ONS before a deployment, Caggins said, “earlier is always better.”

“We haven’t had a problem getting them the weapons before they deploy,” he said. “It’s a relatively quick process.”

———

Senior Photographer Rob Curtis contributed to this report from Afghanistan.

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Army will allow soldiers to recolor M4s said:

By Matthew Cox - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Mar 16, 2010 20:30:44 EDT

The Army is finally going to give soldiers the green light to paint their black weapons so they blend in with the terrain on the battlefield.

Soldiers have been using commercially available, spray-on camouflage paint since the beginning of the war — despite an unenforced Army policy prohibiting the practice.

Army weapons officials announced March 2 they will soon release guidelines on the proper way to paint M4 Carbines and other weapons so paint doesn’t interfere with the weapon’s operation.

“The soldiers are doing it anyway; if you go to theater, you will see that units have their weapons sprayed,” said Col. Doug Tamilio, head of Project Manager Soldier Weapons.

The reversal of the policy follows the Army’s Feb. 19 decision to start issuing MultiCam camouflage uniforms and equipment to soldiers deploying to Afghanistan this summer in an effort to help soldiers blend more effectively with the Afghan terrain.

Most Army infantry weapons are black.

“It sticks out, and we need to give them that ability,” Tamilio said. “We should issue out in the next couple of months an advisory message ... to say, ‘It’s OK to spray paint your weapons, but here is how to do it.’Ÿ”

The guidelines will identify parts of the weapons that should not be painted, such as inside the chamber and accessories such as optics.

“If you get any spray on these optics, you reduce the capability of that optic,” Tamilio said. The guidelines will also recommend the safest paints to use.

Weapons officials stressed that soldiers will have to get approval from their unit commanders before they paint their weapons.

“It will be up to the commander to say we are going to do it or we are not going to do it,” Tamilio said.

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Army makes moves toward new carbine said:

Staff report
Posted : Tuesday Mar 23, 2010 7:43:28 EDT

The Army is now following not one but two paths to give soldiers a better weapon than the current M4 carbine.

The Army launched an effort to find a new weapon in November 2008, a year after the M4 finished last in an Army reliability test involving three other carbines.

Officials hoped to start a competition for a new carbine last fall.

Army weapons officials said March 2 that the service still intends to go after a new carbine.

The requirement, or blueprint, for the new weapon, however is still awaiting approval from the Defense Department, said Col. Doug Tamilio, the head of Project Manager for Soldier Weapons.

“People have asked me how long it will be in the joint staff,” Tamilio said. “I don’t know when this will go through.”

Tamilio added that it could be late summer before the Joint Requirement Oversight Council makes a decision.

In the meantime, the Army is making progress on an effort to make significant improvements to the 500,000 M4s in the inventory.

Army weapons officials have asked the small arms industry “can you take the current M4 and make it more reliable, more durable, easier to maintain and more accurate,” Tamilio said. M4 modifications could include improvements to carbine parts, such as the bolt and bolt carrier assembly, upper receiver and barrel assembly, gas operating system, trigger group assembly and the rail system.

Improved M4s, however, will still be chambered for 5.56mm round. The next step in the M4 improvement program calls for the Army to release a draft request for proposal in the coming weeks. Gun makers will then have 30 days to come up with initial plans. The Army will then hold an industry day to allow gun makers to ask questions. The Army will then release an official request for proposal in the April-May time frame. Participating companies will have 90 to 120 days to submit “no-kidding pieces of equipment,” for the Army to evaluate, Tamilio said.

As for the effort to replace the M4, Army weapons officials said the service has the roughly $10 million it needs to open a competition but can’t set a date until the Joint Regiments Oversight Council approves the requirement for a new carbine.

The requirement has to go through one more short review by Army staff. Then it goes to JROC, where it could sit for “four to five months; that’s the maximum time usually,” Tamilio said “If it is non-controversial, it will go through very quickly.”

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By The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 11:11 a.m.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Boeing Co. workers who assemble C-17 planes went on strike Tuesday, shutting down the production line for the jumbo cargo jets in a feud over medical and pension benefits.

Nearly all of the 1,700 unionized mechanics at Boeing's Long Beach plant heeded the strike call, but about 3,000 non-union workers continued in jobs ranging from engineering to supply and sales, Boeing spokeswoman Cindy Anderson said.

The Chicago-based company shut down the C-17 production line indefinitely.

Anderson said the strike has not affected C-17 operations, such as parts supply and manufacture, that employ thousands of people in 44 states.

Such suppliers have "a long lead time" and their operations haven't been disrupted yet, but "everybody's anxious to get the workers back to work," Anderson said.

The strike was called nearly a week after negotiations failed to bridge a gap between Boeing and negotiators from United Auto Workers Local 148.

Boeing offered wage and pension increases, but the union wants a larger pension and opposes an increase in employee health contribution costs near the contract's expiration in early 2014.

Union members picketed Tuesday, arguing that the contract was unworthy of a highly trained work force that helped Boeing post a $1.31 billion profit last year.

They also complained about how much Boeing CEO Jim McNerney is paid. McNerney received cash and other compensation last year worth $13.7 million, according to an Associated Press analysis of the company's proxy statement.


"They're not trimming his wages but they want to trim them for the people that put the plane together," said Art Faffell, a jig builder who has been at the Long Beach plant for a quarter-century.

"I'm grateful to have the job but I don't feel we're lucky (to have one)," he said. "We're making this company billions of dollars through our skills and our talents."

Boeing's latest offer included a lump sum of $4,000 for each worker in the first year, a wage increase of about 3.4 percent over the life of the agreement, and an increase in the basic pension benefit to $79 per month for each year of service, from $70. But Boeing wants to raise the level of each employee's contribution for health coverage to 15 percent of the cost from 12 percent beginning in January 2014.

Workers rejected the proposed 46-month contract last week, and last-ditch discussions failed to result in an agreement. No new talks were scheduled.

Boeing is Long Beach's largest private employer with about 5,000 workers. The local work force has assembled more than 200 C-17s bought by the U.S. military and other countries.

The massive four-engine workhorse has been used in Iraq, Afghanistan and humanitarian missions such as earthquake relief in Haiti.

In February, Boeing announced that it was reducing the number of planes assembled in Long Beach by one-third to delay the plant's planned mid-2012 closure. Officials said they want to keep the plant operating while the company seeks more C-17 contracts.

Boeing endured an eight-week strike in late 2008 that shut down commercial airplane production and was a factor in delays for its new 787 and a new version of its 747. That walkout was by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which covered some 27,000 Boeing employees in Washington state, Oregon, and Kansas.

Meanwhile, machinists at Boeing's St. Louis defense systems plant authorized a strike earlier this month if no new contract is reached. The current agreement expires next month. Boeing has said it expects negotiations to lead to a new contract.

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‘Green’ ammo shipped to Afghanistan said:

By Matthew Cox - Staff writer Army times
Posted : Thursday Jun 24, 2010 13:22:23 EDT

This summer soldiers will start fighting with a new, “green” bullet that Army ballistics officials are touting as “the best general purpose 5.56mm round ever.”

The Army has begun shipping the M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round to soldiers serving in Afghanistan, according to a June 23 press release from Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.

The announcement comes 11 months after the service had to halt the program when the M855A1 lead-free slug failed to perform under high temperatures.

The new M855A1 will replace the current Cold War-era M855 round, which was developed in the 1970s and approved as an official NATO round in 1980.

In recent years, troops have widely criticized it. They complain it is ineffective against barriers such as car windshields and often travels right through unarmored insurgents, with less than lethal effects.

The M855A1 has a “number of significant enhancements not found in the current round. These include improved hard-target capability, more dependable, consistent performance at all distances, improved accuracy, reduced muzzle flash and a higher velocity,” the press release stated.

“During testing, the M855A1 performed better than current 7.62mm ball ammunition against certain types of targets, blurring the performance differences that previously separated the two rounds.”

The Army has recently completed the Limited Rate Initial Production phase for the M855A1 and is beginning the follow-on full rate production phase in which they plan to procure more than 200 millions rounds over the next 12 to 15 months.

Unlike the current round, the M855A1 is designed for use in the M4 carbine, which has a 14.5-inch barrel compared to the M16’s 20-inch barrel.

The Enhanced Performance Round contains an environmentally friendly projectile that eliminates up to 2,000 tons of lead from the manufacturing process each year in direct support of Army commitment to environmental stewardship, the release states.

“Its fielding represents the most significant advancement in general purpose small caliber ammunition in decades,” Lt. Col. Jeffrey K. Woods, the program’s product manager, said in the release.

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Petraeus readies for new Afghanistan duties said:

By Anne Flaherty and Kimberly Dozier - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jun 24, 2010 16:39:14 EDT

WASHINGTON — Army Gen. David Petraeus has already turned around a struggling U.S. war once. President Obama is betting he can do it again.

The professorial four-star general with an outsized reputation hasn’t been chosen as Afghanistan war commander to bring a bold new strategy to the effort. Instead, he is seen as the officer best able to make the current strategy work — and to end the squabbling between diplomats and military leaders that broke into the open and consumed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s career.

If McChrystal’s staff resembled a locker room-style boy’s club, Petraeus, a Princeton Ph.D., is known for running his team more like a graduate seminar.

But he can set a ferocious pace.

“He is the Energizer general,” says retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who was Petraeus’ executive officer in Iraq in 2007 and 2008. “But what he’ll need is someone on his staff to make him pace himself. That was my job.” Mansoor said: “His natural instinct is to run himself into the ground.”

Petraeus, 57, rises early for long runs, outrunning officers half his age, and responds to e-mails in the middle of the night. The intensity has sometimes shown. Petraeus briefly collapsed during Senate testimony last week, apparently from dehydration.

He is seen as most able to pick up the counterinsurgency battle plan exactly where McChrystal is leaving off. Petraeus was McChrystal’s boss as head of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., where he was already keeping tabs on the campaign, with frequent visits to Afghanistan, neighboring Pakistan and Washington.

“He’s already completely up to date on the intelligence, knows the political and military actors, and understands the region,” says John Nagl, president of the Center for the New American Security.

“He’ll have the support of the troops,” says Mansoor. “He can just roll up his sleeves and get right to work.”

Over the past two years at CENTCOM, Petraeus has fostered what’s been described as a good working relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He knows Afghanistan’s U.S. ambassador, retired Gen. Karl Eikenberry, from their years together in the Army.

Also important, Petraeus has established a solid relationship with the White House as one who took part in strategy reviews of Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran policies, says Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. “He and the president know each other pretty well right now,” he said, a personal relationship that was notably lacking between Obama and McChrystal.

The Afghanistan job is technically a demotion from Petraeus’ current post, where he oversees U.S. military involvement across the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan and several Central Asian nations.

Yet no one who has worked with him thinks that’s how he’ll see it. “He’s getting another opportunity to step into a war at a critical inflection point,” said Nagl, a retired Army officer who worked for Petraeus in drafting the Army’s counterinsurgency manual. “So this is by no means a step down.”

Response to his nomination on Capitol Hill has been widely positive, and he is expected to be confirmed quickly by the Senate. Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, said Petraeus’ willingness to step back as a war commander shows “the measure of a man.”

“He knows we have to be successful there,” Skelton said.

Petraeus is expected to continue McChrystal’s strategy in Afghanistan in large part because it is based on Petreaus’ own ideas about beating an insurgency. That plan calls for more troops to bolster security, while limiting the use of firepower in order to win the support of the local population.

In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said operations in Afghanistan will continue as planned and “will not miss a beat.”

The post will mean another long stint overseas for a man who had three tours in Iraq. His return to the U.S. did not mean much more time with his wife, Holly, in Tampa, however. He spent more than 300 days on the road last year, even as he battled prostate cancer. He was later declared free of the disease after a course of chemotherapy.

He has a favorite expression: “Luck is what you call it when preparation meets opportunity.”

There’s little question he’s prepared for his latest opportunity. It remains to be seen whether that will be lucky.

———

Associated Press writers Anne Gearan in Washington and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.

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U.S. Missiles Deployed Near China Send a Message
By Mark Thompson / Washington Thursday, Jul. 08, 2010

If China's satellites and spies were working properly, there would have been a flood of unsettling intelligence flowing into the Beijing headquarters of the Chinese navy last week. A new class of U.S. superweapon had suddenly surfaced nearby. It was an Ohio-class submarine, which for decades carried only nuclear missiles targeted against the Soviet Union, and then Russia. But this one was different: for nearly three years, the U.S. Navy has been dispatching modified "boomers" to who knows where (they do travel underwater, after all). Four of the 18 ballistic-missile subs no longer carry nuclear-tipped Trident missiles. Instead, they hold up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles each, capable of hitting anything within 1,000 miles with non-nuclear warheads.

Their capability makes watching these particular submarines especially interesting. The 14 Trident-carrying subs are useful in the unlikely event of a nuclear Armageddon, and Russia remains their prime target. But the Tomahawk-outfitted quartet carries a weapon that the U.S. military has used repeatedly against targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan. (See pictures of the U.S. military in the Pacific.)

That's why alarm bells would have sounded in Beijing on June 28 when the Tomahawk-laden 560-ft. U.S.S. Ohio popped up in the Philippines' Subic Bay. More alarms were likely sounded when the U.S.S. Michigan arrived in Pusan, South Korea, on the same day. And the Klaxons would have maxed out as the U.S.S. Florida surfaced, also on the same day, at the joint U.S.-British naval base on Diego Garcia, a flyspeck of an island in the Indian Ocean. In all, the Chinese military awoke to find as many as 462 new Tomahawks deployed by the U.S. in its neighborhood. "There's been a decision to bolster our forces in the Pacific," says Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There is no doubt that China will stand up and take notice."

U.S. officials deny that any message is being directed at Beijing, saying the Tomahawk triple play was a coincidence. But they did make sure that news of the deployments appeared in the Hong Kong–based South China Morning Post — on July 4, no less. The Chinese took notice quietly. "At present, common aspirations of countries in the Asian and Pacific regions are seeking for peace, stability and regional security," Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said on Wednesday. "We hope the relevant U.S. military activities will serve for the regional peace, stability and security, and not the contrary." (See pictures of the most expensive military planes.)

Last month, the Navy announced that all four of the Tomahawk-carrying subs were operationally deployed away from their home ports for the first time. Each vessel packs "the firepower of multiple surface ships," says Captain Tracy Howard of Submarine Squadron 16 in Kings Bay, Ga., and can "respond to diverse threats on short notice."

The move forms part of a policy by the U.S. government to shift firepower from the Atlantic to the Pacific theater, which Washington sees as the military focus of the 21st century. Reduced tensions since the end of the Cold War have seen the U.S. scale back its deployment of nuclear weapons, allowing the Navy to reduce its Trident fleet from 18 to 14. (Why 14 subs, as well as bombers and land-based missiles carrying nuclear weapons, are still required to deal with the Russian threat is a topic for another day.) (See "Obama Shelves U.S. Missile Shield: The Winners and Losers.")

Sure, the Navy could have retired the four additional subs and saved the Pentagon some money, but that's not how bureaucracies operate. Instead, it spent about $4 billion replacing the Tridents with Tomahawks and making room for 60 special-ops troops to live aboard each sub and operate stealthily around the globe. "We're there for weeks, we have the situational awareness of being there, of being part of the environment," Navy Rear Admiral Mark Kenny explained after the first Tomahawk-carrying former Trident sub set sail in 2008. "We can detect, classify and locate targets and, if need be, hit them from the same platform."(Comment on this story.)

The submarines aren't the only new potential issue of concern for the Chinese. Two major military exercises involving the U.S. and its allies in the region are now under way. More than three dozen naval ships and subs began participating in the "Rim of the Pacific" war games off Hawaii on Wednesday. Some 20,000 personnel from 14 nations are involved in the biennial exercise, which includes missile drills and the sinking of three abandoned vessels playing the role of enemy ships. Nations joining the U.S. in what is billed as the world's largest-ever naval war game are Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Singapore and Thailand. Closer to China, CARAT 2010 — for Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training — just got under way off Singapore. The operation involves 17,000 personnel and 73 ships from the U.S., Singapore, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. (See "Hu's Visit: Finding a Way Forward on U.S.-China Relations.")

China is absent from both exercises, and that's no oversight. Many nations in the eastern Pacific, including Australia, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam, have been encouraging the U.S. to push back against what they see as China's increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea. And the U.S. military remains concerned over China's growing missile force — now more than 1,000 — near the Taiwan Strait. The Tomahawks' arrival "is part of a larger effort to bolster our capabilities in the region," Glaser says. "It sends a signal that nobody should rule out our determination to be the balancer in the region that many countries there want us to be." No doubt Beijing got the signal.

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