The British Army’s new Ajax vehicles ride too rough, too loud: report

Sur le même sujet

• 

  3 septembre 2019 | International, Naval

  These Tactical Glasses Could Give Marine Grunts an F-35 Pilot's View of the Battlefield

  By Matthew Cox Marine infantrymen may soon be able to see through the floor of an MV-22 Osprey and track terrain features as they approach their attack objective. It sounds like science fiction, but Marine Lt. Col. Rory Quinn of the Pentagon's Close Combat Lethality Task Force says it could become reality if the Marine Corps decides to field the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), a sophisticated Microsoft technology that the Army is developing to give soldiers a new level of situational awareness in combat. In October, the Army will hold its second round of soldier evaluations, known as Soldier Touch Points, on what will eventually consist of a special set of tactical glasses that will display a soldier's weapon sight reticle and other key tactical information they will take into battle. Army officials say IVAS will be ready for initial fielding in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021. Quinn said he sees IVAS as key to transforming Marine and Army infantry into a fifth-generation fighting force similar to the way fighter aircraft such as the F-35 Lighting II have evolved into fifth-gen technology. "Effectively, we have a third-generation infantry," Quinn told an audience Tuesday at the iFest 2019 symposium, put on by the National Defense Industrial Association. The lethality task force was stood up in 2018 by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis with the goal of resourcing the U.S. military's close-combat forces to become far more deadly than they are today. "In the MV-22, the windows are [not that big] so if I am lucky, I am next to one and ... I can see ... the river path and I can see that we went on this side of the river, so that confirmed that we went in the right direction," Quinn said. "But the F-35 pilot has cameras on the outside of the airplane and looks through the floor of the airplane. ... He can look through the wing and see someone who is down low at six o'clock on his right flank. "IVAS is coming, and it's going to create an F-35 [technology] for grunts, so I will simply look through the skin of the aircraft and see that I have turned 180 degrees out. I otherwise wouldn't be able to see that, and it creates chaos," he added. The Marine Corps has not committed to IVAS, but officials at Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Combat Development and Integration, "are watching the [Soldier Touch Points] and watching to see how the results occur versus what the metrics had to be" on the system, Quinn said. Roughly 50 Marines participated in the first Soldier Touch Point and the same number of Marines will likely be involved with the second evaluation in October, he said. "The Marines often follow and trace the Army -- let the Army do the research and development," Quinn said. The Army awarded a $480 million contract to Microsoft in late 2018 to develop its HoloLens technology into IVAS. The system is also being designed to provide soldiers with a synthetic training environment that will feature enemy avatars capable of learning soldier tactics so training scenarios are never the same, Army officials say. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/08/30/these-tactical-glasses-could-give-marine-grunts-f-35-pilots-view-battlefield.html

• 

  4 juin 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  US Should Pull Drones From Missile Control Regime: Mitchell Institute

  "I have great hopes that this administration, with its bold unilateral actions on so many fronts, would take unilateral action with this regime on UAVs," says Keith Webster, former DoD head of defense cooperation. By THERESA HITCHENSon June 03, 2020 at 12:48 PM WASHINGTON: The Trump administration should unilaterally declare that it will no longer subject drone sales to export control restrictions under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), says a new Mitchell Institute study. And Congress should use the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to redefine unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as aircraft, which not only remove them from MTCR restrictions but also would ease US domestic export controls, asserts the paper, “”Modernizing UAV Export Policy for Effective Coalition Forces,”. “The US Congress should craft language in the 2021 NDAA that defines UAVs as aircraft, not cruise missiles, but as aircraft, and subject to the same export considerations as any other military aircraft,” said Heather Penny, senior resident fellow at Mitchell and the paper's author, during a webinar today. “We believe that this language, a statute, would be sufficient to be able to remove UAVs from being subject to the MTCR guidelines.” The 35-nation MTCR agreement requires a “strong presumption of denial” for sales of so-called Category 1 drones — those that can carry a 500 kilogram payload more than 300 kilometers. The Category 1 definition is considered as the minimum capability a missile needs to carry a nuclear warhead. Smaller unmanned aerial vehicles also are covered under MTCR's Category 2 rules, but those export restrictions are less stringent. Even the treaty-hating Trump administration sees the MTCR — a political agreement rather than a treaty — as a key tool in preventing the proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles. This is despite its long-standing efforts to ease drone sales to allies, including through revamping US domestic law to allow “Direct Commercial Sales” by companies, rather than requiring all sales to go through the formal Foreign Military Sales process that requires approval by DoD, the State Department and Congress. Indeed, over the past year the administration tried — and failed — to convince its MTCR partners to revamp the rules to allow drones flying less than 800 kilometers per hour to slip out from under the Category 1 rules, said Penny. Washington is now expected to try again at the annual MTCR signatories meeting, she said, instead suggesting a 600 kph speed limit as the line of demarcation between the two categories of export restrictions. (The meetings are usually held in the fall, although there has yet to be an announcement of the 2020 dates.) But, Penny argued, even if this new effort comes to fruition, it would fail to fix the underlying problem of allowing allies to buy high-end US combat drones — and preventing them from fully integrating with US operations. Secondly, she asserted, complying with MTCR rules “distort the market” in favor of Chinese sales, she said, since China is not a member of the MTCR and has few formal restrictions on arms exports. “Continuing to adhere to and apply MTCR guidelines to UAVs facilitates Chinese strategic interests,” Penny said. “It's working against US interests.” Keith Webster, former DoD head of defense cooperation, agreed — calling efforts to revise the MTCR as a “Band-Aid” that would soon loose viability because of the rapid pace of technology improvement. “I wish we would act unilaterally,” he told the Mitchell Institute webinar. “We have the ability to act unilaterally. And I would like to see us do so very soon. I have great hopes that this administration, with its bold unilateral actions on so many fronts, would take unilateral action with this regime on UAVs.” That doesn't mean, Webster hastened to add, pulling out of MTCR itself. “Stay in the MTCR,” he said. “It served its purpose.” The experts acknowledged that a unilateral US move to exempt UAVs from MTCR could spur other nations to do the same for their own weapons systems that could exacerbate nuclear proliferation. Penny stressed that it was key for the US to renew its commitment to nonproliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles, and support MTCR's rules for those systems. Saying that “we need to be honest with ourselves about the implications” while seeking “creative solutions” to the UAV issue, Webster seemed to suggest that ultimately the US may decide the MTCR itself isn't worth the trade off. “There are challenges with compliance within the regime with at least one member,” he warned. As Breaking D readers know, US military leaders and Congress have sounded the alarm on the proliferation of cruise missiles by Russia (an MTCR member) and China that can more easily slip through US ballistic missile defense systems. This is especially true for hypersonic missiles, which have speeds above Mach 5 and while visible on radar are extremely hard to target. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/06/us-should-pull-drones-from-missile-control-regime-mitchell-institute/

• 

  11 septembre 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité

  New RAMBO Attack Uses RAM Radio Signals to Steal Data from Air-Gapped Networks

  New RAMBO attack exploits radio signals from RAM to steal data from air-gapped networks, posing cybersecurity risks.