October 5, 2018 | International, Land
By David Vergun, Army News Service
FORT BELVOIR, Va. -- The Army is looking for an improved ghillie suit to replace the flame-resistant, camouflage suit now worn by snipers to keep them from being seen by the enemy.
The current ghillie suits are bulky, somewhat uncomfortable and hot in warm weather, said Debbie Williams, a systems acquisition expert with Program Executive Office Soldier, Product Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment.
The current suit is known as the Flame Resistant Ghillie System, or FRGS. The replacement the Army is looking for will be called the Improved Ghillie System, or IGS, Williams said. She added that although the term "flame resistant" is not in the new name, the IGS will still have flame-resistant properties. Soldiers will receive most of their protection from the base layer worn under the IGS, such as the Flame Resistant Combat Uniform, or FR ACU.
The IGS will be a modular system, worn over the field uniform, she said. It will be modular in that it can be taken apart, with pieces added or subtracted as needed, such as sleeves, leggings, veil, cape and so on.
Another change is that the IGS will not come with the accessory kit, like the one supplied with the FRGS, Williams said. It was found that Soldiers were not using a majority of the items in their accessory kit or preferred a different material.
Williams said the cost of the IGS will be lower than the current $1,300 FRGS.
Mary Armacost, a textile technologist with Product Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment, said the IGS will be made of lighter, more breathable material than the FRGS. Also, the material for the skeins that accompany the IGS will be stiffer than that of the FRGS, thereby making the IGS more effective at camouflaging the Soldier.
A request for proposal for the IGS went out Aug. 28 and closed Sept. 24, she said. Vendors must each provide three samples.
About 3,500 suits are expected to be produced under the contract for approximately 3,300 snipers in all three Army components, as well as Soldiers in U.S. Special Operations Command, Williams said.
After the samples are obtained, lab and field testing will begin at various locations in November, she said. For example, the Army's Night Vision Laboratory will do full-spectrum testing. It will also use night vision goggles to see how well the suits remain hidden in darkened conditions.
Daytime testing for visual camouflage effectiveness will take place as well, with sniper-qualified Soldiers at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, Williams said. Additionally, acoustic testing will be done by the Army Research Laboratory to determine how much noise the IGS produces in field conditions.
ARL will also test the effectiveness of the fabric regarding tear resistance and fire retardant effectiveness, she added.
Following all of this, a limited user evaluation should commence next spring using instructors from the Sniper School at Fort Benning, Georgia.
July 9, 2024 | International, Land
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been taking the temperature of Canada-U.S. relations in a series of high-level political and economic meetings ahead of the NATO Summit in Washington.
October 4, 2019 | International, Aerospace
TREVOR WILHELM It's a bird. It's a plane. It's the Windsor Police Service. Windsor police officially launched their new drone program Wednesday with a show-and-tell at their Sandwich Street training facility. Before sending one into the sky outside the Major F.A. Tilston Armoury and Police Training Centre, officers stressed they will not be using drones to randomly watch people. “We will not be going out there to do traffic stops,” said Staff Sgt. Sue Garrett, who runs the operational support unit. “We will not be putting it out there for routine policing on a daily routine. It will always have the proper judicial authority in order to use that. We will not be doing random surveillance or anything like that.” Citing operational reasons, police would not reveal how many drones they have. Without giving a reason, they also refused to reveal how much the program costs. They bought the equipment from Aeryon Labs, a company based in Waterloo that makes “unmanned aircraft systems” for military and police use. Six Windsor officers are trained to operate the drone. They will be pulled from their regular units to run it part time as needed. The drone — police call it a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) — has a two-kilometre range and lasts 50 minutes on a single battery charge. It can fly in light rain and snow, sustained winds of 50 km/h, and wind gusts up to 90 km/h. The aircraft has an optical zoom camera and an infrared night vision camera that pick up movement police can't see on the screen. It is also loaded with software that can reconstruct a crash scene with photos and measurements in 15 to 20 minutes. Other potential uses include search and rescue, taking aerial photos of crime scenes, and helping with marine emergencies. It will also be the eyes for police in dangerous situations such as bomb calls, hostage situations, and hazardous material spills. “The RPAS will assist multiple units within the Windsor Police Service, and it will increase the quality of our investigations as well as help to ensure the safety of our community,” said acting Chief Pam Mizuno. “The RPAS will enhance the Windsor Police Service's response to emergencies and it's going to provide our officers with the ability to lawfully gather intelligence prior to developing safe action plans.” https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/windsor-police-unveil-new-crime-fighting-drone
June 25, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR
Nathan Strout The Senate's annual defense policy bill would authorize an additional $120 million toward a space-based sensor layer capable of tracking hypersonic weapons, despite the fact the Department of Defense did not seek more funding for the project in its fiscal 2021 budget requests. The Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor is DoD's answer to the growing threat posed by hypersonic weapons being developed by China and Russia. Hypersonic weapons present a significant challenge to the United States' current missile warning architecture. Not only can these weapons maneuver around ground based sensors, they're too dim to be picked up and tracked by space-based sensors in higher orbits. HBTSS theoretically solves this problem via a proliferated constellation of Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) sensors operating in low earth orbit. At that lower orbit, the sensors will be able to pick up and track the otherwise dim objects. But because the satellites are closer to the earth and have a limited field of view, the system will need to pass off custody responsibility from sensor to sensor as the weapons traverse the globe. Hence the need for a proliferated constellation. HBTSS will plug into the Space Development Agency's National Defense Space Architecture, a new system of satellites operating in low earth orbit. The Missile Defense Agency awarded $20 million contracts to four companies in October to develop HBTSS prototypes: Northrop Grumman, Leidos, Harris Corporation and Raytheon. The Senate's version of the National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the Missile Defense Agency $120 million in research, development, testing and engineering funds for HBTSS. If passed, this would be the second consecutive year the department did not include money for HBTSS in its annual budget request, but Congress allocated money for the project anyway. In 2019, MDA put the program at the top of its unfunded priority list, seeking $108 million for that effort. Congress fully funded that request in the legislation that passed in December. The decision to give the HBTSS funding to the Missile Defense Agency in fiscal year 2021 continues a 2019 battle between the administration and Congress over which agency should lead the program's development effort. While lawmakers wanted to place MDA firmly in charge of the effort, the White House argued that it was too soon to put one agency in charge. Ultimately, Congress included a provision putting primary responsibility for the development and deployment of the system in MDA's hands. Just three months after that legislation passed, lawmakers expressed frustration and confusion over MDA's FY2021 budget request, which sought to transfer HBTSS funding responsibility to SDA. While MDA Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill tried to assure legislators at the March hearing that his agency was fully in charge of developing the sensor for HBTSS, skepticism has continued. According to Hill, funding for the effort would be allocated to SDA, who would in turn provide the funding to MDA. As currently drafted, the legislation de facto rejects DoD's request to transfer funding responsibility to SDA. Furthermore, it specifically assigns principal responsibility for the development and deployment of HBTSS through the end of FY2022, after which it may be transferred over to the U.S. Space Force. It's not the only legislative proposal emphasizing Congress' desire for MDA to be in charge of the system. The House version of the FY2021 defense bill made public in June asks for the Secretary of Defense to certify that MDA is indeed in charge of HBTSS. According to a defense official, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin sent a letter signed May 29 certifying that MDA was in charge of payload development. Griffin has since resigned, stating that he has received an opportunity to work in the private sector. The Senate version requires on orbit testing of HBTSS to begin by December 31, 2022, with full operational deployment as soon as technically feasible. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/06/24/senate-bill-adds-120m-for-hypersonic-tracking-satellites/