PrairiePundit

The Drive: U.S. Army personnel at Fort Bliss in Texas are conducting a limited user trial of the service’s new 7.62x51mm Squad Designated Marksman Rifle, or SDM-R. This is the latest in a series of efforts to give individual infantry squads, as well as scout and combat engineering units, the ability to more precisely engage targets at longer distances. The service revealed the ongoing evaluations on Dec. 27, 2018, in a year-end wrap-up of developments associated with its new Futures Command, which includes a team dedicated to improving the lethality of individual soldiers. The first batch of nearly 120 rifles had gone to the 82nd Airborne Division and other select units in September 2018. “The Army's current rifle technology is most effective below the 300-meter [nearly 330 yards] range,” U.S. Army Captain Weston Goodrich, the Assistant Program Manager for Soldier Weapons at the Program Executive Office Soldier, said in an official interview in June 2018 . Trained snipers, h...

LA Times: ... The arrowhead-shaped unmanned aircraft, dubbed Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara, into the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere aboard an eight-story Minotaur IV rocket made by Orbital Sciences Corp. After reaching an undisclosed altitude, the aircraft jettisoned from its protective cover atop the rocket, then nose-dived back toward Earth, leveled out and glided above the Pacific at 20 times the speed of sound, or Mach 20. The plan  was for the Falcon to speed westward for about 30 minutes before plunging into the ocean near Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,000 miles from Vandenberg. But it was ended about nine minutes into flight for unknown reasons. The launch had  received worldwide attention  and much fanfare, but officials didn’t provide much information on why the launch failed. On Friday,  DARPA said in a statement  that the searing high speeds caused portions of the F...

AFP: The Pentagon on Thursday held a successful test flight of a flying bomb that travels faster than the speed of sound and will give military planners the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world in less than a hour. Launched by rocket from Hawaii at 1130 GMT, the "Advanced Hypersonic Weapon," or AHW, glided through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific "at hypersonic speed" before hitting its target on the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands, a Pentagon statement said. Kwajalein is about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii. The Pentagon did not say what top speeds were reached by the vehicle, which unlike a ballistic missile is maneuverable. Scientists classify hypersonic speeds as those that exceed Mach 5 -- or five times the speed of sound -- 3,728 miles (6,000 kilometers) an hour. The test aimed to gather data on "aerodynamics, navigation, guidance and control, and thermal protection technologies," said Lieutena...

Daily Mail: U.S. Navy fires the railgun that can shoot a missile 100 miles at eight times the speed the sound for the 1,000th time It can go over 290 miles in about six minutes and his with a force of 1.5 megajoules.  Read the article to figure out how really powerful that is.  There are also photos and diagrams showing how the weapon works.

Washington Post: One afternoon last fall at Fort Benning, Ga., two model-size planes took off, climbed to 800 and 1,000 feet, and began criss-crossing the military base in search of an orange, green and blue tarp. The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on any control. After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed images from an onboard camera,  zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object. Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look. This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. Imagine aerial “Terminators,” minus beefcake and time travel. Target confirmed. The Fo...

Image via Wikipedia LA Times: A bat-winged robotic jet resembling a miniature B-2 stealth bomber flew for the first time at Edwards Air Force Base in a test flight that could mark a new age in naval aviation. Century City-based Northrop Grumman Corp. ’s experimental drone, dubbed X-47B , climbed to 5,000 feet in a 29-minute flight on Friday, the U.S. Navy said in a statement. The X-47B is being developed to take off from an aircraft carrier, drop a bomb on an enemy target and then land back on a carrier, all without a pilot. "Today we got a glimpse towards the future as the Navy’s first-ever tailless, jet-powered unmanned aircraft took to the skies," said Capt. Jaime Engdahl, X-47B program manager, in a statement. ... Currently, combat drones are controlled remotely by a human pilot. The X-47B could carry out a combat mission controlled entirely by a computer. A human pilot designs a flight path and sends it on its way and a computer program guides it from a ship...

It can also be cranked down to launch UAVs.  It is expected to be operational in 2015 on the USS Gerald Ford.  It gives the US an advantage in an area where it has been the leader for decades.

Washington Times: In the language of Beltway defense wonkery, the results of this year's test launch of the hypersonic unmanned U.S. aircraft designated Falcon HTV-2 might be called sub-optimal. In plain English, it appears certain that the experimental space plane - a key element of U.S. efforts to develop a conventional weapon that can strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour - disintegrated and burned up in the upper atmosphere in a failure that casts a question mark over the program's future. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA ), which conducted the test flight, would say only that an engineering review board is examining data from the test flight. Contact with the Falcon was lost about nine minutes into the half-hour flight on April 20, DARPA spokesman Eric Mazzacone said. "The test went well for nine minutes," former Air Force chief scientist Mark J. Lewis told The Washington Times . "After that, not so well." ......

You can read more about the X-51 WaveRider cruise missile in the Danger Room . Engineers hope this cram jet technology can be applied to space left making it easier to get big loads into orbit. The LA Times has more on the technology and the potential of the scram jet. It also has video.

The AP reports that the winged mini space shuttle looking craft will be used to "conduct technology tests in orbit and then glide home to a California runway." What the test entail is still something of a mystery, but it may involve scram jet technology. We will have to keep an eye out for the results. A space drone could also provide some focused intelligence that is more maneuverable than current satellites offer.

CNET: The X-51A WaveRider is one step closer to its inaugural test flight later this year, now that airmen at Edwards Air Force Base have successfully "mated" the scramjet-propelled vehicle to a B-52 Stratofortress. In December, an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52 is scheduled to papoose the X-51A to 50,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean before cutting it loose. At that point, a solid rocket booster from an ATACMS missile will fire up, accelerating the X-51 to about Mach 4.5. That's when the supersonic combustion ramjet kicks in, pushing the WaveRider to more than Mach 6 for up to five minutes, longer than all of its predecessors combined. NASA tests have reached Mach 9.6, or nearly 7,000 mph, according to some reports, but not for very long. The previous record was less than 10 seconds. Flight data will be telemetered back to Edwards Force Base before the X-51A test vehicle crashes into the Pacific. A scramjet is an air-breathing engine that burns regular jet fuel, and may...

Ralph Peters: PRESIDENT Obama went to Moscow desperate for the appearance of a foreign-policy success. He got that illusion -- at a substantial cost to America's security. ... President Obama's ideological bias against nuclear weapons dates back to his undergraduate years. Yet those weapons kept the peace between the world's great powers for 64 years. A few remarks about deterrence notwithstanding, Obama just doesn't get it. He agreed to trim our nuclear-warhead arsenal by one-third and -- even more dangerously -- to cut the systems that deliver the nuclear payloads. In fact, the Russians don't care much about our warhead numbers (which will be chopped to a figure "between 1,500 and 1,675"). What they really wanted -- and got -- was a US cave-in regarding limits on our nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles that could leave us with as few as 500 such systems, if the Russians continue to get their way as the final details are negotiated. Mo...

Telegraph: The Laser Avenger successfully shot down a series of unmanned aerial vehicles during recent tests and is being hailed as a revolutionary weapon for future warfare. The experiment was the first time that a ground vehicle has used a laser to destroy moving aircraft and marks a watershed moment in the development of lasers for battlefield use. Invented by Boeing, the laser is fitted to a Humvee off-road vehicle, allowing it to be moved into the most remote locations to shoot down enemy planes. It is hoped that the Laser Avenger will be used to help US forces tackle small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which often carry explosives or surveillance equipment. Such devices are difficult for conventional air defence systems to shoot down. The complex testing at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, required the laser to track three UAVs against a backdrop of mountains and desert. When the targets were sighted, the Laser Avenger successfully shot down three UAVs with its high-po...

Bloomburg: North Korea may be preparing to test- fire a Taepodong-2 long-range missile, the Sankei newspaper reported, citing unidentified Japanese government officials. A U.S. satellite has observed truck movements at a missile- launch facility being constructed in North Korea, the Sankei said. Preparations may be completed within two months, the report said. ... With a two month lead time in firing this missile, I would think the US could take it out before it was launched if we were in a state of war with North Korea. Come to think of it we have been since the 1950's when a cease fire agreement was reached but there was not treaty to end the war. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Boeing has won a $250 million contract for work on the ground based missile defense system. Hopefully, the Democrats want kill it, or they are likely to put a lot of their West Coast voters at risk.

Investors Business Daily: ... Fortunately, another answer to the threat posed by rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea has just passed a critical milestone. That answer is the YAL-1A, a modified Boeing 747-400F equipped with the Airborne Laser (ABL) system, which includes a high-energy chemical laser designed to destroy ballistic missiles in their very vulnerable boost phase, missiles such as Iran's Shahab series. The ABL program places a megawatt-class, high-energy Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL) on a modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft to detect, track and destroy all classes of ballistic missiles. ABL also can pass information on launch sites, target tracks and predicted impact points to other layers of the global ballistic missile defense system. This week, Boeing and the Missile Defense Agency announced another successful test — the first ground test of the entire weapon system integrated aboard the aircraft, including the firing of a high-energy laser through the ABL b...

BBC: A "grenade" camera, that would enable soldiers to look into hazardous areas, is being developed for UK troops. Dubbed the I-Ball the wireless device is robust enough to survive being thrown onto a battlefield. The I-Ball's internal camera gives a 360 degree view, with images being sent from the instant it is launched. It is thought the new technology would enable soldiers to see into potential danger spots without putting themselves at risk of ambush. The ball can be fired from a grenade launcher - or thrown into a room - giving troops vital information of who - or what - is on the ground or around the corner. Inside the sphere are image sensors and two fish-eye lenses. The data is then sent back and remapped through a type of processor known as a Field Programmable Gate Array which compensates for spin and tumble and then displays a true 360 image in real time. ... This image is apparently the view available from the camera grenade. I can see some applications in...

A ground based missile defense battery successfully knocked a simulated second stage missile out of the air near Hawaii. The THADD system if a land based system that attacks targets at a high altitude than the Patriot system. We have come a long way from the Gulf War when teh Patriots were first used.

AP: The U.S. military intercepted a ballistic missile Thursday in the first such sea-based test since a Navy cruiser shot down an errant satellite earlier this year. The military fired the target, a Scud-like missile with a range of a few hundred miles, from a decommissioned amphibious assault ship near Hawaii's island of Kauai. The USS Lake Erie, based at Pearl Harbor, fired two interceptor missiles that shot down the target in its final seconds of flight about 12 miles above the Pacific Ocean. The target was shot down about 100 miles northwest of Kauai in its final seconds of flight, about five minutes after it was fired. The test showed Navy ships are capable of shooting down short-range targets in their last phase of flight using modified missiles the service already has, the military said. The Navy and the Missile Defense Agency have already demonstrated that ships equipped with Aegis ballistic missile defense technology can intercept mid-range targets in midcourse of flight. ...

USA Today: In a high-security compound where some of the world's most exotic aircraft were born, engineers and technicians are building a prototype for a new Air Force cargo plane that may change aviation. Lockheed Martin is building the first military cargo jet in which the craft's structure will be made of fibers, resins and epoxy, replacing metals such as aluminum and titanium that have been in use in aircraft for decades. The composites hold huge potential for saving weight, a critical factor in aviation performance and fuel consumption, aviation experts say. The goal is to put the test plane in the air by October, one year after the $50 million contract was awarded — and just 18 months after the concept took shape, a record time for the military. "This is fundamentally a different way of building aircraft," says Mike Swanson, project lead engineer. "We're going up against 70 years of traditional metal fabrication." Non-metal parts have been used ...

Popular Mechanics: And you thought the Air Force's bidding war on tankers was ugly . As the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps look to increase their fleets of small, unmanned aircraft that can serve as communication relays and sensor platforms, they're seeing contenders in the fight over which company gets to build them. Boeing, which is protesting its $35 billion loss to Airbus parent EADS on a refueling plane contract, currently has a lock on small, portable Marine and Navy UAVs used for recon missions. The company's ScanEagle first placed into Marine hands four years ago, when the Pentagon decided that they were vital for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. A year later the Navy purchased more to provide over-the-horizon monitoring of oil platforms and suspicious ships. (A nearly identical ScanEagle model is making its way into U.S. police departments .) To cover these purchases, the Pentagon crafted a non-competitive order—permitted when an item is designated as an “urgent ope...