Rapid Fire 2011-10-21: Warfighting Energy Use Intensity
Oct 21, 2011 09:30 EDTRelated Stories: Africa, Alliances, Americas - USA, Asia - Central, Asia - India, Daily Rapid Fire, Fuel & Power, Logistics Innovations, Russia, Submarines, UAVs
- With Qaddafi dead, NATO operations in Libya are set to wind down quickly.
- Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems to cut 800 jobs in Maryland and other states (further details are lacking). Meanwhile the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) won’t have to lay off people but they may have to use furloughs.
- India, Brazil and South Africa are in early talks of trilateral defense cooperation.
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- Russia’s defense ministry and the country’s shipyards disagree on submarine costs.
- US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey made the case for better energy efficiency. Warfighting energy use is at an all-time peak: 22 gallons of fuel per soldier per day, 400 pounds of batteries for your typical 30-man 72-hour infantry mission (about 6kg/soldier). So-called smart and micro grids may be part of the answer.
- Contractors such as SAIC at looking at ramping up dual-use with the sale of miltech to civilian law enforcement agencies.
- C-5M Super Galaxy flies straight from the US East Coast to Afghanistan in less than 14 hours, refueling over England by a KC-135R Stratotanker and skipping the usual overnight stay in Germany. Better planning takes the credit. Not credited but probably equally at work: better avionics.
- The candidate bases for a single active-duty US Air Force MQ-1/9 Remote Split Operations Squadron are: Davis Monthan Air Force Base, AZ; Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii; and Shaw AFB, SC. This base will host ground control stations, not the UAVs themselves.
- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had an interview with ABC News on the difficult relationship with Pakistan.
- France’s Moyenne Altitude Longue Endurance (MALE) Harfang UAV reached 5,000 hours of operational flight.
- Bloomberg video below on the state of, and stakes for, the F-35B variant:
