Mil-Tech

Thermal weapon sight contract for Army rifles, machine guns, and mounted weapons goes to BAE Systems

U.S. Army officials needed thermal weapon sight technology for rifles, machine guns, and mounted weapon systems for infantry soldiers in combat. They found their solution from the BAE Systems Electronic Solutions segment in Lexington, Mass.

BAE Systems won a $123 million Army contract to continue production of thermal sights that improve situational awareness and survivability for infantry soldiers, company officials announced today. The order increases the BAE Systems total thermal weapon sight contract value to more than $1 billion since 2004, company officials say.

BAE Systems Electronic Solutions produces light, medium, and heavy thermal weapon sights using the company’s MicroIR uncooled infrared sensor technology to generate superior IR imagery without the need for bulky, power-consuming cryogenic cooling equipment.

In April BAE Systems also received a $14 million contract to provide thermal weapon sights to the Canadian army. These weapon sights enable operators to see deep into the battlefield in darkness and through smoke, fog, and other obscurants, to help them detect and identify targets at long ranges.

The company tests its thermal sites for their ability to withstand harsh battlefield environments, and to date has delivered more than 80,000 sights to meet Army fielding requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Army wants soldiers to have improved carbine

Soldiers, get ready for a better carbine. The Army has launched a dual strategy designed to give you a more accurate, durable and lethal weapon that will be the mainstay for the next 40 years.

The first part of that strategy is to radically overhaul the M4 starting now and give grunts an improved version of the special operations M4A1. Simultaneously, the second part challenges industry to come up with a new carbine that can outperform the M4. The competition opened in early August.

“This is an historic event. We have not done a carbine competition in our lifetimes,” Col. Douglas Tamilio, project manager for soldier weapons, told Army Times. His office is spearheading the M4 Carbine Improvement Program. “We don’t switch rifles and carbines too quickly, and it is not an easy thing.”

The M4 has faced some criticism from soldiers and others who have cited problems with its lethality and reliability, including a 2007 “dust” test in which the M4 performed the worst among four weapons tested, with the greatest number of stoppages.

Tamilio, a career infantry officer, said the weapon has “served the Army extremely well” and touted the 62 improvements made to the M4 in the past 19 years. But, he said, “We can’t sit on our laurels and say M4 is good enough.”

Deadlier weapon

The improvements have begun on thousands of M4s being built now, and thousands more will get conversion kits.

The upgrades will be done in phases. The improvement plan’s first phase essentially distributes an improved M4A1, which is notable for its heavier barrel and automatic fire. The heavier barrel reduces warping and erosion, resulting in better performance and longer life. It also allows for a higher sustained rate of fire.

The Army also is adding ambidextrous controls.

The Army has 12,000 M4s on the production line, and has told manufacturer Colt to turn them into A1s, said Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, Program Executive Office Soldier.

In addition, 25,000 M4A1s would be purchased beyond existing contracts, as well as roughly 65,000 conversion kits, Tamilio said.

“The Army would like to convert about 150,000 in the near term for infantry brigade combat teams,” he said. The optimal plan would be to convert all the M4s, he added, but funding will be a large factor in that decision.

More changes external to the weapon are also improving its reliability and lethality, Fuller said.

Soldiers will experience fewer jams, thanks to a new magazine that doesn’t allow rounds to move, he said.

And the new M855 A1 ammo provides more stopping power at shorter distances. The older round had to get into a yaw dependency for maximum effect. If it hit the enemy straight, it would punch right through them. The new ammo is not yaw dependent. If it hits the enemy, he is going down.

Many combat vets surveyed in 2006 described how enemy soldiers were shot multiple times but were still able to continue fighting. The survey included 2,600 soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One in five U.S. soldiers polled recommended a more lethal round. The new round is designed to address that.

“It’s not enhanced performance, it’s consistent performance,” Fuller said. “It really performs the way you want a round to perform, and it’s optimized to the M4.”

Better accuracy

The second phase of the M4 improvement program begins this fall and will focus on increasing the M4’s effectiveness and accuracy, with emphasis on the bolt, bolt carrier assembly and the forward rail assembly.

Over time, reliability will degrade with the bolt, as that component provides the weapon’s action. Officials will host an open competition for a new bolt assembly to determine whether different materials and coatings can enhance the bolt. The Army also is interested in “unique design changes” that have arisen within the industry, Tamilio said.

The service also looks to strengthen the forward rail assembly on top of the receiver. This lends stability to the weapon and serves as the mount for weapon attachments, but restricts the barrel movement that is required for accuracy when re-engaging the target. The Army wants to determine whether a free-floating rail is the answer.

Officials also will look to provide a more consistent trigger pull for better control, according to a June Congressional Research Service report.

New operating system

The third phase, focusing on the operating system, will begin in about 18 months, Tamilio said. The goal is to improve the gas system by allowing less gas and dirt in, or replacing it with a conversion kit similar to the HNK16 that would put a piston in the M4.

Both have their benefits and detractors, the colonel said. The piston reduces the number of moving parts and provides better stability, but there is “a little more metal on metal,” which can diminish durability and accelerate fatigue.

A gas-impingement system is far smoother in operation, and supporters say its reduced heat and carbon deposits will decrease malfunctions. But the gas system requires a lot more elbow grease to get it clean.

The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, or “Delta Force,” replaced its M4s with the HK416 in 2004, according to the congressional report. That weapon combines the operating characteristics of the M4 with the piston system.

“There’s a lot of dynamics involved,” Fuller said. “When you go to a piston charger, you’re actually driving that bolt down at an angle versus back, so you have to make sure you understand it might not be the same weapon.”

The next carbine

The competition for the Army’s next-generation carbine opened in early August, and the service is looking for the “future Army weapon for any environment,” Fuller said.

The Army’s open, industrywide Individual Carbine Competition was approved Aug. 4 by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council.

No caliber restriction has been placed on a new design. The requirements, instead, are for the most reliable, accurate, durable, easy-to-use and easy-to-maintain weapon out there, Tamilio said.

It will be at least a 500-meter weapon and have a higher incapacitation percentage, meaning if a shot doesn’t kill the enemy, it will put a serious dent in his medical record.

This weapon will be modular and able to carry all the existing attachments soldiers use.

It can have a gas or piston system.

Interchangeable barrel sizes, such as those seen in the SCAR, are not a “must have,” but “certainly won’t be a negative thing,” Tamilio said.

But above all, Fuller wants a weapon that has the soldiers’ approval.

“We really need to figure out lethality from a ‘soldier in the loop’ perspective,” he said. “If you can’t shoot the weapon accurately, it doesn’t matter how lethal it is.”

To meet that goal, Tamilio will release a draft request for proposal late this year. It is a warning order of sorts that will give industry a preliminary idea of what is expected. An industry day will follow in which officials will answer questions and provide clarity.

The official RfP will go out early next year, in the second quarter of fiscal 2011, which begins in January. Manufacturers will have a set time, typically a few months, to respond with their proposed weapons.

Next comes the “extreme, extensive testing” and selection of the weapons, Tamilio said.

During testing, hundreds of thousand of rounds will be fired over 12 to 18 months as weapons are tested to their destruction point. The primary goal is to determine if they meet Army specifications. But evaluators also will know whether a weapon can live up to its manufacturer’s claims.

“If they say it has a barrel life up to 20,000 rounds, we’ll test to that,” Tamilio said.

Weapons will also be tested to see if they maintain accuracy throughout their life cycle — something the military has not tested before, Tamilio said. A weapon typically loses accuracy as it ages.

“This is a huge importance for us,” he said.

Soldiers will be involved in virtually all aspects of this testing, Tamilio said. From the individual to unit, he said the tests will focus on what soldiers really care about: “When he pulls the trigger, it fires in a reliable fashion, and what he aims at, he hits.”

Mixed reviews

Investing in an improved M4 has met some opposition.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in April 2007 asked Army leadership why the service planned to spend $375 million on the carbine through fiscal 2009 “without considering newer and possibly better weapons available on the commercial market.” The senator’s letter questioned the M4’s reliability and lethality and called for a “free and open competition” to evaluate alternatives.

Nevertheless, improvements have been recommended from within the service. The Army Infantry Center in a Small Arms Capabilities-Based Assessment in 2008 identified 42 separate ideas for material solutions to address capability gaps. Thirteen solutions called for new or improved munitions, and 10 involved aiming devices, optics or laser designators. Only seven suggested modifying or developing new small arms.

After-action reports from soldiers both praise and criticize the M4’s reliability and lethality. The mixed reviews are reflected in the congressional report:

• A February 2001 U.S. Special Operations Command study said the M4A1 was “fundamentally flawed” and suffered “alarming failures … in operations under the harsh conditions and heavy firing schedules common in [special operations forces] training and operations.”

• An Army report from July 2003 on small arms performance during Operation Iraqi Freedom found the M4 was “by far the preferred individual weapon across the theater of operations.”

• A December 2006 survey requested by Army’s Project Manager for Soldier Weapons and conducted by the Center for Naval Analyses polled 2,600 soldiers who had engaged in combat action in Iraq or Afghanistan. More than half said they never experienced a stoppage in the M4 or M16.

The study found that the frequency of disassembled cleaning did not affect the number of stoppages. The type and amount of lubrication used had little effect on stoppages, though dry lubricant decreased reports for M4 stoppages. Nearly nine in 10 soldiers said they were satisfied with the M4.
• A December 2007 test — resulting from Coburn’s letter — evaluated the M4 against the HK416, the HK XM8 and the FNH SCAR. Each system had 10 weapons on the line, and each fired 6,000 rounds under sandstorm conditions. The XM8 had 127 stoppages, the SCAR had 226 stoppages, the HK416 had 233 stoppages and the M4 had 882 stoppages. The Army later modified that number to 296 stoppages, attributing the difference to discrepancies in the test and scoring.
When you’ll get it

A new weapon could be selected by the end of 2011. How long it would take to field a new weapon would depend on funding. Fielding could start fairly quickly, but will take up to 10 years, Tamilio said.

No cost estimate of producing a new weapon is available from the Army, as the dozens of potential manufacturers have yet to receive specifications and generate the subsequent design.

By Aug. 19, the Army had 41 respondents to its market survey, Tamilio said.

“Industry is waiting for this,” he said. “They are excited about this … and that’s exactly what we want.”

How the dual-path strategy unfolds remains to be seen, but it means every soldier should be getting a better carbine.

That’s because there are 1.1 million soldiers, but only 500,000 M4s in the system. If the Army selects a new carbine, it may purchase 1.1 million. But a more likely scenario would see 500,000 purchased for infantry brigade combat teams, and the existing and improved M4s given to support troops to replace their M16s.

If the M4 turns out to be the weapon of choice, then the ICBTs will likely be fitted with the improved M4s, and the existing M4s would again be given to support troops to replace their M16s.

For soldiers “consistently using that M4 and satisfied with that M4, to know the Army is going out there to get you something better … that’s pretty damn exciting,” Tamilio said. “And that’s only going to make you more effective on the battlefield.”

www.armytimes.com

Internet and e-commerce industry in Iraq

We are to consider today Internet and e-commerce industry of one of the Arabic countries, located in Western Asia, Iraq. This Muslim country is spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert. Iraq is bordered by Jordan to the west, Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. The economy of the country is dominated by the oil sector, which has traditionally provided about 95% of foreign exchange earnings.

As for the country’s telecom market, it has undergone much repair and development since the end of hostilities. Until the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Internet access was tightly controlled and very few people were allowed to go online.

Thus far, the most developed and mature appeared to be mobile sector, with four operators sharing the market. But Zain of Kuwait’s subsidiary Zain Iraq has much the largest market share, with well over 50% share. Actually, boom in mobile sector can be partially explained by the lack of any significant fixed-line market, with infrastructure almost non-existent outside of the capital, Baghdad. There is also a great lack of fibre-optic backbone infrastructure, both nationally and for international connections. With better backbone infrastructure mobile Internet services could probably be successful but as yet 3G/HSPA services are not available.

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Internet access has become commonplace. At present, the stress is making on developing the network, with the national regulator launching a tender for wireless local loop licenses. The major development has been the establishment and rapid growth of mobile services from a zero start following the award of three temporary mobile licenses.

Several Wireless Local Loop licenses have been awarded and operators have launched services using CDMA networks but they have not as yet made much impact.

The incumbent Internet services provider, Uruklink, used to be the sole Iraqi ISP. However, currently the leading operator faces competition from other ISPs, including broadband satellite Internet access services from both Middle East and European VSAT hubs.

The premier military telecom service provider competing the national incumbent appeared to be TS2, an Internet Provider for US Army soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite most of all active TS2 users are Polish and US Army soldiers, the operator’s solutions have been implemented also for private companies and organizations. Before end of 2007 year, the TS2 solutions have been available for numerous NATO military entities. Since 2009 TS2 started advertising satellite Internet services for the US Marine Corps in Afghanistan. At present, TS2′s network in Iraq and Afghanistan has over 15 thousand military users of local broadband satellite connections. TS2 also delivers telecommunication services for Iraq-based Police Transition Teams.

Since 2006 several other companies were launched their services, offering cheaper services and smaller bandwidth affordable for single users such Advanced Technology Systems-Iraq. As of 2010, the top 4 ISPs in the capital of the country operate:

• Rose Telecom, delivering speed up to 4/0.7 Mbps in off-peak times and 512/128 in peak times
• Halasat, offering speed up to 3/0.5 Mbps in off-peak times
• Earthlink, targeting home/single users
• ATS-Iraq, also targeting individual users

Among other ISPs operating on the Iraqi market successfully, according to ostamyy there are:

• Afaq Link Technology – offers communication and Internet services by providing satellite system and wireless services in Iraq.
• Baghdad Telecom – provides infrastructure solutions in the areas of wireless, security and other IT solutions to small, medium and large entreprises in Iraq.
• Nashita – represents a leading ICT US-based ICT Company providing Satellite Internet in Iraq since 1999 and now provides both dedicated and shared VSAT satellite internet service in Iraq.
• Iraq Satellite Internet Services – delivers high-speed Internet connectivity in Iraq with our high-performance Galileo satellite network.

Interestingly, because of the disappearance of phone lines since 2004, all the Iraq’s ISPs uses the Wi-fi Technology to deliver Internet connection. The Iraqis are waiting for the current government to start repairing the phoneline to provide them with the cable/DSL Internet.

Internet access, limited prior to the war, has grown quickly since then due to the availability of satellite broadband access and the opening of Internet cafes. Nevertheless, Iraq has the lowest in the Middle East penetration level, with 1.1% Iraqis connected, as says www.internetworldstats.com. In order to compare, we are to note, that only 0.1% of people in Iraq, or 12,500, were subscribed to the Web. At present, mainly Iraqis get Internet access at Internet cafes with satellite connections.

Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Iraq is .iq, administered by Network Information Center of Iraq. Registrations are mainly available at third-level domains beneath following second-level categories:

• gov.iq – Governmental entities
• edu.iq – Educational Institutions
• com.iq – Commercial entitites
• mil.iq – Military Institutions
• org.iq – Non-profit organizations
• net.iq – Network Service Providers

Importantly, .iq domain name had previously been in limbo for years, as the delegated manager was imprisoned in Texas on charges of alleged connection to Hamas for which he was later convicted in 2005. Some talk of redelegation and relaunching began taking place at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in 2005 a redelegation to the National Communications and Media Commission of Iraq was approved by ICANN.

As for e-commerce sector in Iraq, it’s eventually on the initial stage of its development due to the imperfection of Internet infrastructure in the country.

However, more and more businesses are launching their websites; and business cards are now displaying e-mail addresses.

Besides, there was launched a new Iraqi Business Center that represents a partnership between the CPA and the Iraq Ministry of Trade and provides on-site business counseling for the local Iraqi business community.

The Center is located at the Convention Center in Baghdad and has an informative website at www.iraqibusinesscenter.org, which however, is temporary under construction. The Iraqi Business Center website provides a database of Iraqi companies seeking subcontracts and international partners for work in Iraq.

The sites like this, or some others like, for instance, the US Department of Commerce Iraq Reconstruction Task Force website, target to promote the present and future use of the internet by businesses wishing to do business in Iraq.

Importantly, the US Commerce has one of the best websites for obtaining Internet information regarding business opportunities in Iraq.

An international business center was recently opened in Kirkuk. It is operated between the local government, Coalition forces, the Kirkuk Chamber of Commerce, and the Kirkuk Contractors Union. One of the prevalent goals is to facilitate coordination between local and international businesses and to facilitate unsolicited bids for reconstruction work.

Since 2003 the Central Bank of Iraq has authorized Iraq’s private banks to process international payments, remittances and foreign currency letters of credit. However, national banks are still not offering on-line banking services and transactions. Thus far, Iraqi banks need to do e-business in order to provide security. This would include authentication, data integrity, confidentiality, payment gateway.

As for the e-government page, since 2003 Iraq has been in transition and led by the US Coalition Provisional Authority. Future goals for the Iraqi and other e-governments include a national ID, health care database, and e-voting.

However, some barriers still exist in Iraq for successful e-government deployment. Among them, like in other countries in the region, there are: societal rigidity, weakness in ICT education, unfair income distribution resulting in lack of access to ICT education and technology. Iraq faced brain drain when thousands of Iraqis fled the country or were forced to leave during Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Well, despite this Muslim country cannot boast about the high level of ICT progress and as the result of e-commerce sector development, some good signs of future success in this sphere are obvious.

Defense jobs face shift from wartime footing

Central Florida’s two biggest military contractors – Lockheed Martin Corp. and Harris Corp. – have received billions of dollars in contracts during the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, yet their employment levels have remained nearly at a standstill.

Although both companies have made many new hires — engineers, technicians and financial analysts, to name a few — they say the added employees have generally been offset by retiring baby boomers and other forms of attrition.

As a result, after more than eight years of war-time work on multibillion-dollar military systems, their work-force totals in Central Florida are almost unchanged — or, in Harris’ case, down about 7 percent.

If the number of people working for the two companies hasn’t grown during almost a decade of war-time spending, what might happen in leaner times, as the Pentagon ratchets back its $700 billion-a-year budget?

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The answer to that question matters a lot in tourism-dependent Central Florida, which continues to look to high-wage, high-technology companies to provide badly needed economic diversification.

Lockheed and Harris say they have managed their work forces efficiently and conservatively as the U.S. has fought wars in two far-away countries, resisting the urge to over-hire or over-react to the ebb and flow of military orders.

Even before U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned last year that the war-time spending “spigot” would soon be closing, Lockheed was working on cost savings, said Ken Ross, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin Global Training & Logistics in Orlando.

“We feel that really we got the jump on this,” he said. “We’ve been looking for ways to do things much more affordably for our customers.”

Lockheed has closely matched its staff to its current workload and the program bids it expects to win, Ross said. (Lockheed’s Central Florida operations have received contracts worth about $1 billion so far this year.)

“We have not been in a situation yet where we’ve been able to really staff up,” he said. “But we have been able to fill the openings we have.”

Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed has about 4,500 workers in its Orlando missiles and fire-control unit and nearly 2,000 in its simulation-training operation. Melbourne-based Harris employs more than 6,500 in Melbourne and Palm Bay.

They each make high-tech systems considered key to military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, such as missiles and weapons-firing equipment for Apache helicopters (Lockheed Missiles & Fire Control), high-tech armored-vehicle training for tank and convoy personnel (Lockheed Global Training), and fighter-jet avionics and battlefield-command satellite communications (Harris).

Their wide-ranging operations for the military have sustained their work forces despite the nation’s economic woes — no small feat, say experts, given the loss of more than one million jobs nationwide in the Great Recession.

“If their employment base has been stable through all of this, then they are certainly better off than many industries that have been in decline,” said Paul Taibl, vice president of the Business Executives for National Security, a Washington-based defense-and-intelligence think tank. “This would have to be a case of the cup half full.”

There are some signs of cracks forming in the local employment picture, however.

Lockheed laid off 90 engineers last month in its Orlando missiles and fire-control operation — the first layoffs there in a decade. The company cited competitive pressures and shifting military requirements, among other factors. During the past year or so, Lockheed has also trimmed nearly 100 jobs from its local high-tech training and information-technology operations.

Harris streamlined its work force last year, laying off more than 100 people and eliminating another 300 jobs vacated by retirement or other attrition.

Both companies say no further job cuts are planned. And even with the layoffs, they have each continued to fill certain openings, often with newly minted engineering graduates.

“We take a long-term view of work-force development,” said Craig Vanbebber, spokesman for Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control. “That applies to recruiting and mentoring college students. All of those initiatives have continued on track.”

Lockheed Missiles & Fire Control units in Orlando and Texas are working on new technologies that could eventually lead to job growth, he said. For example, the Orlando unit recently won a $1.1 million contract to develop “wearable robotics” — computerized hydraulic “suits” that enable soldiers to carry extraordinary amounts of gear on the battlefield.

Harris said it expects its employment to remain stable for the foreseeable future. In many cases, it moves workers from programs that are winding down to others in which activity is picking up, spokesman Jim Burke said.

He cited as an example a non-military program, Harris’ Census Bureau communications systems, in which the workload has subsided as the government’s nationwide census wraps up its collection phase.

“Some of those employees are shifting onto new programs that are ramping up, which we’ve won during the past year,” he said. “That has always been one of our strengths employment-wise.”

So far this year, Harris has won more than two-dozen military and non-military government contracts worth more than $1 billion combined. More than one-third of the programs are tied to its Melbourne and Palm Bay operations, including satellite commmunications, missile-defense radios and fighter-jet avionics.

But both Harris and Lockheed will be challenged in the months and years ahead as more Pentagon budget cuts take effect, said Taibl, the Washington think-tank official.

“Overall, the outlook for defense spending will be either flat or on a slow decline,” he said. “What we’re seeing right now is probably the tip of the iceberg in terms of cuts the Pentagon is going to have to make.”

www.orlandosentinel.com

Israeli military confronts new foe: the Internet

The security obsessed Israeli military is confronting a new adversary — trying to control what its own soldiers post to the Internet.

Facebook, along with YouTube and other popular sites, is turning into a formidable nuisance for the army, as young recruits in this tech-crazy country post embarrassing and potentially sensitive information online, circumventing tight military controls.

The issue exploded onto the national agenda this week when a young ex-soldier posted pictures of herself in uniform, posing in front of handcuffed, blindfolded Palestinian prisoners on her Facebook page under the heading “Army — The Best Time of My Life.”

The controversial posting, along with a series of other recent gaffes, highlights the challenges facing Israel’s high-tech military — known, among other things, for its shadowy electronic-warfare units — as it struggles to keep up with the ever-shifting sands of the Internet.

Last month, a video of Israeli soldiers dancing to the drunken party anthem “TiK ToK” during a patrol in the West Bank emerged on YouTube, earning them a reprimand.

Around the same time, a secret intelligence unit launched a Facebook group for its members that divulged details of the secret base where they served. The site was removed several days later after the army found out.

And, in perhaps the most serious breach, a military raid in the West Bank had to be called off earlier this year after a soldier posted details about the upcoming operation on Facebook.

Such incidents illustrate “how difficult it is for the military to operate, stick to policy, and keep people in line in light of the new communication realities,” said Sheizaf Rafaeli, director of the Sagy Center for Internet Research and the Study of the Information Society at the University of Haifa.

That’s in stark contrast to the traditional media, over which Israel’s military censor has long maintained tight control.

Both Israeli and international news outlets are required to submit reports with potentially sensitive material for review, and the censor’s office often returns them with words or even entire sections blacked out. Access is severely limited to military personnel, from field soldiers to the army’s top echelons, and it can take weeks to line up an interview with key commanders. Once approved, there are tight restrictions — quotes often must be run through the army spokesman’s office and soldiers frequently can’t be named or photographed.

The emergence of the latest pictures dominated Israeli news shows Tuesday, drawing tough criticism from the army and receiving heavy coverage in the Arab media.

Palestinians, along with Israeli human rights groups, denounced the photos as a cruel symbol of Israel’s four-decade occupation, and the Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera interspersed its coverage with pictures of Abu Ghraib, the notorious U.S. prison in Iraq where American soldiers tortured inmates.

The former Israeli officer, Eden Aberjil, struck a defensive tone in interviews with Israeli media, insisting she did nothing wrong and saying she was surprised she had offended anyone.

“I have nothing to say sorry about. I treated them really well, I didn’t abuse them, I didn’t curse them, I didn’t humiliate them. I merely took a picture near them,” Aberjil told Channel 2 TV.

She said the men were civilians from the Gaza Strip who had been caught trying to enter Israel, apparently in search of work, and she posed for the pictures because she had never met anyone from Gaza.

Aberjil, who the army said is in her mid-20s, denounced any comparisons to Abu Ghraib as “delusional,” saying she was astonished by the attention she had received and accusing the army of abandoning her. She claimed similar things take place in the army “every day.”

She did, however, say she was sorry if the pictures, taken in 2008, had hurt anyone’s feelings. She said she removed them after learning that others felt they were inappropriate.

Asked whether the posting violated Facebook’s code of conduct, the company said “it appears that the girl in question removed the photos from her account on her own — and we were not involved in the removal of these photos in any way.” It declined further comment.

The army said it permits soldiers to utilize social-networking sites, but only to upload unclassified material. It said all soldiers are taught about the guidelines.

One officer, speaking on condition of anonymity under military guidelines, said the censorship office has ways to monitor the Internet and make sure sensitive information does not appear online.

However, in cases deemed embarrassing but not a threat to security, such as the Aberjil pictures, “there is nothing anyone can do,” he said.

Capt. Barak Raz, an army spokesman, said the issue was about morals, not security.

“I’m not concerned with the fact that photos were uploaded. As the military, we’re concerned that such photos were taken to begin with, which are a gross violation of our ethical code,” he said. “This isn’t who we are as a military.”

Because Aberjil is no longer in the army, it’s unclear whether she can be punished.

Rafaeli said that while the military would like to curb the use of social media for the purposes of secrecy, PR and internal control, it is “probably up against an insurmountable challenge.”

Before, soldiers would have words censored out of letters that were sent home, but because of the Internet and social media, this is “no longer feasible,” he said.

Social networks are a part of everyday life for today’s generation of American military service members as well.

Many keep in touch with friends and family using Facebook, and they are savvy users of YouTube, Twitter and Flickr. A YouTube video featuring Afghanistan-stationed soldiers re-enacting Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video, for example, gained viral popularity earlier this year.

Recognizing the reach of these services, the Pentagon announced earlier this year that everyone from troops in the field to the highest brass and civilian leaders will be allowed to use social networking sites on the military’s non-classified computer network.

The policy followed a seven-month review in which the Defense Department weighed the threats and benefits of allowing the wide use of Internet capabilities. It permits commanders to cut off access — on a temporary basis — to safeguard a mission or reserve bandwidth for official use.

With the decision, the army unblocked YouTube, MySpace and more than a dozen sites that had been closed in May 2007.

NIST Evaluates Smart Phone-based Language Translators

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is evaluating three smart phone-based Pashto and Dari language translation devices the U.S. Defense Department is developing for use in Afghanistan. The institute recently assessed Pashto language translation capabilities, and in late August, it will evaluate translation technology for Dari, another Afghani language. The devices are being developed under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Spoken Language Communication and Translation System for Tactical Use (TRANSTAC) program, which is intended to develop and field the technology rapidly. NIST has previously assessed Iraqi Arabic devices.

The tactical situation in Iraq and Afghanistan requires soldiers to communicate effectively and efficiently with local residents in their native languages. By doing so, the soldiers gain a better perspective on the people, surroundings and potential threats. Unfortunately, the U.S. military is experiencing a significant shortage of trusted interpreters trained in the local languages. The smart phone devices will assist military personnel in certain situations where human translators are not available, but they are not intended to replace humans.

“There are things that are intangible—reading body language, understanding different dialects, things of that sort. A phone will never be able to read body language, and just the ability to build rapport will always be easier with a human translator,” says Craig Schlenoff, NIST project lead for the DARPA TRANSTAC evaluation team.

Previous generation translation software was installed on laptop computers with microphones. Although the underlying technology may differ, the three smart phone devices all work essentially the same way. An English speaker talks into the phone, and automatic speech recognition software generates a text file that it then translates into the desired language. Text-to-speech technology converts the text file into an audible response. The process is simply reversed for the foreign language speaker.

To evaluate the devices, NIST called in U.S. Marines who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and who volunteered to participate in the assessments on their own time, outside of their official duties, according to Schlenoff. “We brought in military personnel who have served time in Afghanistan or Iraq, who had need of such technology but who certainly didn’t have it available at the time. We also brought in native Pashti speakers and put together scenarios to see how well the interaction could happen between them using these technologies,” Schlenoff says.

The Iraqi Arabic translation capabilities have been developed over the past four years and are more mature than the devices currently being evaluated. “For these Pashto evaluations, the systems certainly are not as mature yet. In general, they were able to give concepts back and forth, and they were able to carry on dialogues, but there were a lot more problems with interaction. The translations were definitely not perfect. Key words came across, but how the words were put together and how understandable they were could be questionable at times,” Schlenoff relates.

Still, he added that the smart phone devices compare favorably to previous generation laptops. “So far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the performance of the phone-based system as opposed to the laptop-based system because the processing is not as powerful in the phone, but the performance is really not that bad, considering,” he notes.

The one-week evaluation involved a variety of nonscripted scenarios, including checkpoints, medical assessments and training sessions with Afghani soldiers. The scenarios were chosen through feedback military personnel previously provided about how they would most likely use the devices. Each scenario took about 30 minutes, during which the Marines and Pashto speakers used the translators to communicate. On-site judges observed each scenario and interviewed participating Marines and Pashto speakers afterward. Weeks later, another panel of judges fluent in both English and Pashto viewed videos of the simulations and evaluated the performance of the three devices. NIST is providing a written report to DARPA to aid future decisions on funding and program direction.

Although language translation software is already available for smart phones, Schlenoff says they do not meet the needs of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. “There are currently translation apps out there apart from what we’re doing here. What really makes this different is that we’re focusing on the jargon and the scenarios that the military faces. If they were to use the current translation systems, I think there would be a lot of terminology that the more generic translation services wouldn’t recognize. What we are developing in this program is the app for that,” Schlenoff says.

Three contractors—SRI International, Raytheon BBN Technologies, and IBM Corporation—are developing technologies under the program.

Europe And Beyond: U.S. Consolidates Global Missile Shield

On September 17, 2009 U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and President Barack Obama separately announced plans to shift the emphasis of the global American interceptor missile – so-called missile shield or anti-ballistic missile defense – project from the previous George W. Bush administration’s plans to a more mobile, flexible and geographically broader system.

The proposed deployments of ten ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and a forward-based X-band radar installation in the Czech Republic were abandoned in favor of what Obama deemed “stronger, smarter and swifter defenses of American forces and America’s allies.” Both Poland and the Czech Republic, however, remain part of Pentagon plans and will be incorporated into a broader grid with all 28 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which in its final stage will cover all of Europe. Or at least the entire continent west of Russia and Belarus.

Plans for ground-based interceptors in Poland alarmed Russia, which necessarily saw them as aimed at itself, but would also have been housed in fixed silos that made them easy targets.

In the month before the announced change in American plans to begin the incremental buildup of a missile shield in Eastern Europe – phased adaptive approach in government terms – a report surfaced at the annual U.S. Space and Missile Defense Conference of the Boeing Company planning a 47,500-pound mobile interceptor missile launcher to be deployed within 24 hours to NATO bases in Europe. During the same month the Missile Defense Agency and Boeing also announced the successful test of their joint Airborne Laser (ABL) anti-missile system.

At the end of last August the first disclosure appeared of plans to expand U.S. interceptor missile deployments to the Balkans and the Black Sea region, Israel and Turkey. [4] The head of the Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, said at the time that he supported the installation of Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors in the Balkans and Turkey. (In 2007 his predecessor, Lieutenant General Henry Obering, mentioned placing U.S. interceptor missile radar sites in the Caucasus and even Ukraine.)

The SM-3 is a ship-based anti-ballistic missile and anti-satellite interceptor – used to destroy an American satellite in orbit over the Pacific Ocean in February of 2008 – and part of the U.S. and allied Aegis ballistic missile defense system. It has the main advantage of being deployable around the world on destroyers and cruisers. What O’Reilly was referring to, though, was a combination of sea-based SM-3s and their adaptation for use on land.

In describing current U.S. missile shield plans last September, Pentagon chief Gates spoke of a four-phase program that began with the deployment of Aegis class warships equipped with SM-3s in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea last year, to be followed by enhanced versions of the missile both on sea and land, with successive generations of more advanced models in the third and fourth stage.

This February plans to station land-based SM-3s in Bulgaria and Romania were announced [5], and when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in the latter’s nation early last month to sign an amended agreement on interceptor missile cooperation, it was revealed that SM-3s will be stationed in Poland in the second phase of the Pentagon’s plan for a continent-wide interceptor system. [6] Slightly more than a month before, the U.S. moved Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors and approximately 100 troops into eastern Poland, only a few kilometers from Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave. [7] U.S. deployments in the country are also part of a broader NATO strategy.

Connecting the ship- and land-based components of the global U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe with other locations to the east and the south, the Pentagon has also been qualitatively expanding Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Standard Missile-3 deployments in the Persian Gulf. Washington is now preparing to provide Gulf Arab states with the longer-range Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile intercept system.

Last October and November the U.S. and Israel conducted the fourteen-day Juniper Cobra 10 exercise with five missile interception systems, the largest such live-fire maneuvers ever held. An American military officer present at the war games said the unparalleled drills would “help the development of a planned NATO missile shield for Europe.” A year before, the U.S. deployed an X-band missile shield radar (Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance) to Israel with 120 troops, the first and to date only long-term foreign troop deployment in Israel’s history.

Washington and NATO are well advanced in solidifying an impenetrable interceptor missile system from the Baltic Sea to the Arabian Sea and the Black Sea to the Red Sea.

In the past few days further details have emerged concerning the expansion of those plans in both breadth and sophistication.

On August 30 Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas announced that “his government has been negotiating a plan with the United States to place a warning center in the Czech Republic as part of a reworked U.S. missile defense plan.” He also stated that personnel manning the facility could be provided by the U.S. and other NATO states and that the site could even be based in his nation’s capital, Prague. Necas added, “The U.S. plans to initially invest $2 million in 2011 and 2012 for the center, which is expected to become part of a joint NATO missile defense shield in the future,” and that no new treaty with Washington would be required for the project. Czech popular opposition to the earlier plan for an X-band missile defense installation was credited for the U.S. discarding the Bush-era plan.

Two days afterward Czech Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra confirmed that the U.S. had allotted $2 million for the construction of the facility, that American experts would be deployed there and that it would be in operation by the middle of next year. Vondra added, “I believe it will be one of many parts of the NATO system….”

In August of last year the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza revealed that the U.S. would expand its interceptor missile plans to the Balkans, Israel and Turkey. This August the Washington Post belatedly confirmed that design.

An article by staff writer Craig Whitlock appeared in the August 1 Sunday edition of the newspaper which quoted several U.S. military officials to the effect that:

“The U.S. military is on the verge of activating a partial missile shield over southern Europe….

“Pentagon officials said they are nearing a deal to establish a key radar ground station, probably in Turkey or Bulgaria. Installation of the high-powered X-band radar would enable the first phase of the shield to become operational next year.

“At the same time, the U.S. military is working with Israel and allies in the Persian Gulf to build and upgrade their missile defense capabilities. The United States installed a radar ground station in Israel in 2008 and is looking to place another in an Arab country in the gulf region.”

Not substituting for deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic, as has been seen above, but adapting and extending the network of which they are a part southward and eastward.

The Washington Post feature added that although the interceptor missile projects in Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf are technically distinct, “they are all designed to plug into command-and-control systems operated by, or with, the U.S. military. The Israeli radar, for example, is operated by U.S. personnel and is already functional, feeding information to U.S. Navy ships operating in the Mediterranean.”

Providing historical perspective and dispelling the prevalent notion that the current administration’s plans are in any manner a retreat from those of its predecessor, the piece stated:

“The concept of a missile shield began with former president Ronald Reagan, who first described his vision of a defense against a Soviet nuclear attack in his ‘Star Wars’ speech in 1983….It has expanded further under President Obama, despite the skepticism he expressed during the 2008 campaign about the feasibility and affordability of Bush’s plan for a shield in Europe.

“In September, Obama announced that he was changing Bush’s approach. Instead of abandoning the idea, he directed the Pentagon to construct a far more extensive and flexible missile defense system in Europe that will be built in phases between now and 2020.”

The author provided these additional details:

Starting late last year the U.S. has steadily deployed Aegis class warships in the Mediterranean Sea equipped with Spy-1 360 degree missile radar and “arsenals of Standard Missile-3 interceptors [which] will form the backbone of Obama’s shield in Europe.”

The initial detachments, one or two destroyers and cruisers at a time, will be tripled in number. Furthermore, “the Obama administration has plans to nearly double its number of Aegis ships with ballistic missile defenses, to 38 by 2015.”

Citing the commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, Vice Admiral Henry B. Harris Jr., the Washington Post article stated that one “option would be to assign some Aegis ships to home ports in Europe instead of making them sail constantly back and forth to the United States.

“Other Navy officials have floated the idea of flying in fresh crews so a ship could more or less deploy continuously, obviating the need for long breaks.”

It then supplied further specifics, disclosing that “Aegis ships, armed with dozens of SM-3 missile interceptors, will patrol the Mediterranean and Black seas and link up with…high-power radar planned for southern Europe.”

Romania will host land-based Standard Missile-3 deployments and Poland will follow as the site of SM-3s and additional sensors.

Although as recently as last year the Pentagon envisioned a total of 147 SM-3s, the Obama administration intends to nearly triple that number to 436. The new strategy “will require an unspecified number of new SM-3 missiles, which cost between $10 million and $15 million apiece.”

The system will expand in earnest after the NATO summit in Portugal in November, when the U.S.’s 27 members in the military bloc are expected to endorse a comprehensive, layered, mobile interceptor missile system for the entire European continent, albeit still firmly under U.S. control.

The Missile Defense Agency’s O’Reilly “said combined defenses would feature the best of both worlds: an ‘upper layer’ framework of SM-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptors, operated by the United States, that could shoot down enemy missiles in space or the upper atmosphere; and a ‘lower layer’ of Patriot batteries, operated by European allies, providing a second layer of defense closer to the ground.”

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles have a longer range than both the PAC-3 and SM-3 and had not been discussed before as part of the new system.

Regarding the placement of U.S. and NATO interceptor missiles in Romania, on the Black Sea across from southwestern Russia, a recent analysis examined the geopolitical consequences:

“This means that the U.S. front line of defense is shifting from the eastern border of Germany to the Black Sea, which is adjacent to the Middle East, the Caucasus and Russia.

“Romania is ready to accept deployment of 20 SM-3 anti-ballistic missile units, currently installed on American naval vessels with the Aegis Combat System. These missiles could later be replaced with the more advanced terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) missiles. They will also be deployed in Bulgaria. Meanwhile, it has become more likely that the X-band radar system, which the U.S. originally planned to install in the Czech Republic, will be set up in Israel.”

Bulgarian Defense Minister Anyu Angelov was summoned to Washington for six days starting in late June for “the launch of technical negotiations about NATO’s missile defence in Europe in general” and meetings with Defense Secretary Gates, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher, the last-named the key point person in securing U.S. missile shield deployments in Eastern Europe.

Angelov was given his marching orders and returned home to confirm that his nation will join the U.S. interceptor missile program in Europe (and beyond) and that “Bulgaria is participating actively in the discussions and the practical realization of all steps concerning the establishment of a NATO-wide missile defense system.” [17]

For domestic consumption he presented the decision as his country’s own – “We are the most interested state in Europe in the establishment of a missile shield because we are in the most threatened region – we fall within the range of ballistic missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles [such] as the ones employed by the states in the wider Middle East” – but since Bulgaria was incorporated into NATO in 2004 it now receives orders from the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon.

In a recent report that 700 Bulgarian combat troops have been ordered to Afghanistan (as Dutch troops have left), a leading local news agency demonstrated how such decisions are made: “Bulgaria’s center-right government, elected last July, initially said it would not be able to provide more forces in Afghanistan due to the economic crisis, but later changed its strategy under pressure from the United States and NATO.”

The same relationship of supremacy and subordination obtains between the U.S. and all other NATO members, particularly the twelve new acquisitions in Eastern Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic Sea.

The Pentagon has secured seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania since the latter two states joined NATO in 2004. Those sites include the Bezmer Air Base in Bulgaria, fifty kilometers from the Black Sea, and the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania near the city of Constanta on the Black Sea. Both are being upgraded to strategic air bases which, already employed for the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, are available for strikes against Iran and in the South Caucasus in the event of an equivalent of the Georgian-Russian war of two years ago. The Romanian base is the main headquarters for the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force-East.

At any given time there are several thousand U.S. troops in Bulgaria and Romania, the first foreign forces in Bulgaria since shortly after the end of World War Two and in Romania since 1962.

A comparable situation exists in Poland. An American military newspaper recently ran a feature on the deployment of Patriot missile batteries in the country called “U.S. Army’s presence in Poland most significant since World War II” in which an American Army spokesman stated, “We have between 80 and 150 troops going there on a regular basis. We’ve never had that number and for that long of a period.” No foreign troops had been stationed in Poland since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991.

The article also stated that “For the first time since the end of World War II, U.S. Army soldiers are making regular rotations into Poland, this time to train its forces to use Patriot missiles.

“Forty miles from the Russian border, a small group of U.S. Army Europe soldiers is instructing the Polish military about the missiles, which are designed to counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced aircraft.”

A Fox News report characterized the operation as “the first long-term U.S. troop presence…in Poland,” and quoted U.S. ambassador to the nation Lee Feinstein as maintaining “It’s U.S. boots on the ground, a very tangible symbol of the U.S.-Polish alliance.”

Regarding Israel, where the U.S. has also deployed the first foreign troops on that country’s soil, in late July the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense added $95.7 million to a White House funding request for Tel Aviv’s long-range Arrow and medium-range David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile programs subsumed under the Iron Dome layered air and missile defense system. Abiding by the subcommittee’s recommendations, Congress will allot $422.7 million for the above purpose for next year (with $109 million for the Arrow 3 system), bringing total U.S. underwriting of Israeli interceptor missile programs to $1 billion over the past four years.

According to member of the subcommittee Congressman Steve Rothman, “Given the concern and attention that we are focusing now on every dollar we are expending on behalf of the US taxpayer for all purposes, including the defense of the United States and its allies, it is a mark of the importance of these projects that they were all funded so robustly and fully by our subcommittee.”

By absorbing most all of Eastern Europe into NATO, the U.S. has also provided its Israeli ally access to air bases and training sites of strategic significance for future attacks on neighboring Middle East nations. On July 29 Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i stated, “We fly in Romania so we can act deep inside neighboring Arab states.”

The more extended and flexible, the “stronger, smarter and swifter” U.S. missile strategy, then, pursues a trajectory from the Baltic Sea, with Standard Missile-3-equipped Aegis warships also available for service in the Norwegian and Barents Seas, to Southeastern Europe into the South Caucasus, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf, covering Russia’s western and southern flanks and encroaching upon Iran.

When President Obama visits India in November he intends to secure billions of dollars in arms deals with the world’s second most populous nation.

On July 12 Russia’s Vzglyad newspaper reported that “The deal, if signed during Obama’s visit, would [have] the US replace Russia as India’s biggest arms supplier…adding that the deal would also help India curb China’s rise.

“India’s shortlist includes Patriot defense systems, Boeing mid-air refueling tankers and certain types of howitzers, and the total cost of the deal may exceed $10 billion….”

By selling anti-ballistic missile systems to India – starting with Patriots and advancing to longer-range models – Washington will connect its missile interception network from Europe through the Middle East to its eastern wing, that which includes 26 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska, a 280-foot-tall, 50,000-pound sea-based X-band radar in the Aleutian Islands, and PAC-3, SM-3 and THAAD missiles in Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Current U.S.-China tensions, the worst in several decades, were triggered early this year when Washington confirmed it was providing Taiwan with 200 advanced Patriot missiles and warships capable of being upgraded for the Aegis Combat System.

For all the talk of protecting the U.S. Mainland from alleged Iranian and North Korean missile threats – accusations that are in the first case absurd and in the second highly improbable – at the end of the day Washington and its military allies around the world are well on the way to encircling Russia, China and Iran with an insurmountable barrier of interceptor missile deployments in conjunction with the militarization of space and the Prompt Global Strike program. Neither those three nations nor any other outside the rapidly expanding U.S. global military nexus will be permitted to retain effective deterrence or retaliation capabilities.

Army Has Put Safeguards In Place For Satellite Transmissions

The military got one of its biggest security-related wake-up calls in many years in late 2009 when it learned that Iraqi insurgents were intercepting Predator transmissions by using easily available hardware.

Interception of transmissions is also possible with satellite communications that pass through very-small-aperture terminals, which has inspired extensive efforts to beef up what’s commonly called transmission security (transec) for VSATs. The worry is that an adversary would be able to determine traffic patterns.

That vulnerability is not new, and it relates to the nature of communicating with satellites. Satellites beam their transmissions to a wide area so anyone in the proximity can intercept those transmissions. The technology to obfuscate satellite traffic patterns has existed for only the past couple of years.

“Without transec, it’s possible that for an adversary to tell who is talking to whom,” informed Karl Fuchs, vice president of engineering at iDirect Government Technology. The company provides one of the key elements of military VSATs: the modem, which is where transec is housed. “In other words, is a lot of traffic going to Site A and very little traffic going to Site B, and then all of a sudden that changes and Site B is getting all the traffic? The adversary might not know exactly what’s going on, but they know something’s happening at Site B.”

Captured VSAT transmissions can also reveal the priority level of traffic. As in the example above, a sudden shift from low-priority transmissions to high-priority ones could alert an enemy about impending action.

One of the steps the military is taking to improve transec is transitioning from hardware key exchanges to software key exchanges.

“The key exchange is really the differentiator in what makes it easy or cumbersome for the end user,” Fuchs informed. “The key to usability is the implementation of software key exchange as opposed to hardware key exchange. We are trying to help soldiers by extending this to the global network.”

The military also is working to make it easier to configure VSATs by addressing the IP configurations through which they communicate. The goal is to enhance worldwide portability so a VSAT configured in the United States can be deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan or any other part of the world and will operate as previously programmed with little to no user intervention.

“This means maintaining a persistent IP address from location to location to location around the globe,” Fuchs informed. “That portability and usability is really what’s key to making this system effective for the end user. This is very much a modem challenge and, ultimately, an operator challenge because whoever owns the network has to design it with portability in mind.”

Programs of Record

The Army’s VSATs are managed by the Project Manger Warfighter Information Network-Tactical — part of the Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications-Tactical. PM WIN-T is perhaps best known for its communications-on-the-move program, but it also is responsible for all tactical military satellite communications terminals that the Army buys.

That includes tactical terminals for the Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) satellites, of which three are in orbit and three are under construction, and the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites, the first of which is expected to be launched in the fall. AEHF satellites will operate in the portion of spectrum that the military uses for protected, anti-jamming communications.

Thermal Weapon Sights From BAE Systems Headed For Canadian Army

BAE Systems will provide second-generation thermal weapon sights to the Canadian army under a $14 million multi-year contract announced late last week.

The sights are lighter, quieter, and use less power than the first-generation units, reducing the load on soldiers. BAE’s second-generation thermal weapon sight technology is in service with the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The weapon sights are for rifles, machine guns, and mounted weapon systems to deliver day and night surveillance and target acquisition. BAE Systems has provided more than 75,000 thermal weapon sights to meet U.S. Army fielding requirements to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Taliban Military Equipment

The bullet made a zipping, or fizzing sound. American soldiers, relaxing beside their vehicles and backpacks without body armor or helmets, looked around, bewildered. A moment passed. Then another zip, fizz.

“They’re shooting at us,” a soldier claimed. Laughing, giddy almost, they moved behind an armored vehicle that shielded them from the fields to the west. Somewhere out there, a sniper was trying to kill them. He was far enough away for the gunshot to be inaudible, or he may have been using a silencer.

The fight in southern Afghanistan between insurgents and NATO troops, along with Afghan forces still learning on the job, is not a conventional war. A lot of it is harassment, the deadly kind. The Taliban shoot, drop their weapons and walk off. They plant roadside bombs and disappear. They know that they will lose a head-on clash with Western firepower.

“We have all this great technology and everything,” stated U.S. Army Capt. Michael Kovalsky of Fords, New Jersey. “We overlook the little things like a piece of garbage in a tree,” which is sometimes used by insurgents to mark the location of a bomb.

As U.S. Marines press the Taliban in a five-day-old offensive against their stronghold of Marjah, insurgents are resorting to tactics that worked for them against the Soviet Army in the 1980s. Or much further back. Alexander the Great, the British Empire – Afghanistan has known many invaders throughout history.

The insurgents of today have radios and cell phones, but little more in the way of a sophisticated communications network.

When Kovalsky’s Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Stryker Brigade moved into the Badula Qulp area, northeast of Marjah, last week, they occupied an abandoned Taliban compound. On some walls, they found cell phone numbers, possibly of insurgents, and drawings of American Chinook helicopters and other military hardware, said 1st Sgt. Gene Hicks of Tacoma, Washington.

The pictures appeared to provide a crude “running log” of American military strength in the area that could be consulted by other fighters as they moved from compound to compound, Hicks said.

The Taliban are patient and crafty when they plant roadside bombs, one of the biggest threats to American forces. They often do it in stages to avoid detection, according to American forces.

One man will drop off the explosives; the next day, a man will put in the charge; a day later someone will link up the materiel for detonation, and finally an insurgent will leave a marker – sticks across a path, a bundle of hay or rocks on the track.

Sometimes, they plant bombs – IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Devices – under puddles in the road. Or they create their own puddle, pouring water on the road to soften the earth for digging.

An insurgent’s bomb marker “could be anything. That’s the difficulty of it,” Kovalsky said. A rag on a branch could be a locator.

“Then again, who knows?” Kovalsky said. “On a windy day, it could have been somebody’s garbage blowing around.”

Alpha Company suffered casualties when it arrived in Afghanistan last year; the losses of new units are often higher when they first deploy because of inexperience. Alpha became battle-hardened in Maywan province and the Arghandab river valley of Kandahar province, other nesting grounds for the insurgency. They have yet to suffer a casualty in their current mission in support of the Marine offensive in Marjah.

Alpha Company’s commanders say they have noticed that Taliban cells operate locally, without much coordination with other groups of fighters, and that their leaders are, for the most part, not in the area.

Meanwhile, American technology – much of it high in the sky – scores successes, and falters at times. An Associated Press reporter and photographer accompanying a recent patrol heard a large explosion, one of many in the area. Soldiers said a Reaper, a pilotless reconnaissance aircraft with a weapons system, had killed a man who was apparently planting a bomb in the road.

The Stryker infantry carriers, designed for urban and open areas, can clock 110 kph (70 mph) on a highway. But they have had some trouble operating along a narrow canal road in Badula Qulp. The earth has caved in under at least three vehicles, pitching them at sharp angles in the mud and requiring hours to winch them out.

Instincts and experience, wedded to technology, help the Americans. One night, a gunner studying the thermal imaging screen of a Stryker’s weapons system spotted a man crouching and acting suspiciously in a field beside a compound. He was sure the man was planting a bomb.

Hicks took a look at the screen. Then the man stood up and wiped his hand on a wall. The sergeant had seen the same when he was deployed in Iraq. The man was no bomber; he was just going to the toilet.