IRST: B-2, ICU
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The F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet Block IIs are just beginning to enter service, with significantly improved AN/APG-79 AESA radars and other electronic upgrades. Recent years have seen another spreading improvement within global fighter fleets, however: Infa-Red Search & Track (IRST) systems that provide long range thermal imaging against air and ground targets. Most of these deployments have been on Russian (MiG-29 family, SU-30 family) and European (Eurofighter, Rafale) fighters, or special American exports (UAE’s F-16E/F Block 60s, F-15K/SG).

That absence puts American fighters behind an important curve. This IRST approach can defeat radar stealth in some instances, by focusing on engine exhaust or on the friction of the aircraft as it powers through the atmosphere. As F-14 pilots will recall, long range electro-optics also offer positive identification, conferring the ability to use a plane’s missiles to their full ranges, without creating friendly fire concerns. Best of all, IRST offers a passive way to locate and target enemy aircraft – one that won’t trigger radar warning receivers. When coupled with medium-range IR missiles like some Russian AA-10 variants, France’s MICA-IR, or even future versions of AMRAAM NCADE, an IRST system offers a fighter both an extra set of medium-range eyes, and a stealthy air-to-air combat weapon.

A program is beginning that would give American “teen series” fighters this capability, albeit in a somewhat unusual way…

• Tanks for the View: The IRST + Fuel Solution
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
  
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Ultra APV demonstrator
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In an age of non-linear warfare, where front lines are nebulous at best and non-existent at worst, one of the biggest casualties is the concept of unprotected rear echelon vehicles that do not need to be designed for combat. That imperative is being driven home on 2 fronts. One front is operational. The other front is buying trends.

These trends, and their design imperatives, found their way into the USA’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program, which aims to replace many of the US military’s 120,000 or so Hummers as its main tactical vehicle in combat zones. The military’s goal is a 7-10 ton vehicle that’s lighter than the MRAPs and easier to transport aboard ship, while offering substantially improved protection over existing up-armored Hummers. They’d also like a vehicle that can address front-line issues like power generation, in order to recharge all of the batteries troops require for electronic gadgets like night sights, GPS devices, etc. The end of October 2008 saw 3 contract awards out of 7 qualifying submissions, which will be developed over the next 27 months into rival designs for the JLTV’s systems design and development phase.

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record. JLTV certainly qualifies, though its future remains cloudy due to expected spending cutbacks and the possible presence of “good enough” substitutes. Recent updates include Australia’s continued participation, India’s interest, and a progress report…

• JLTV: Program & Risks
• JLTV: Goals and Constraints
• JLTV: Participants and Platforms
• JLTV: Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
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AN-70
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Antonov’s AN-70 has had a long and difficult development history from its first studies and concepts in 1979, including the dissolution of its sponsoring state in 1991, the crash of the initial prototype aircraft in a 1995 collision with its chase plane, and the selection of the EADS A400M development project as the basis of Europe’s Future Large Aircraft. The project has been kept alive on a shoestring budget by the participating companies, who have consistently believed that they had a winner on their hands if they could just make it into production. The A400M’s struggles and cost escalation, and the C-130J’s 20-ton limitations, have validated that assessment – but assessments don’t meet payroll, or pay for equipment.

The European FLA/A400M program has been criticized of late for its rejection of the AN-70, but there are always considerations beyond the base financials. Development of domestic aerospace industries and technologies, albeit at greater expense, is always a factor. Then there’s the longer-term market forcecasts that saw the American C-17 program reaching its end, leaving a decade or 2 of dominance for a transport that could bridge the gap between strategic and tactical transport options. Who would produce it? Financing the development and refinement of a critical power projection tool that would be likely to see service with Russia is a project not to be undertaken lightly, especially if it means that Ukranian and/or Russian firms would also be able to compete for future production business in a key aerospace segment.

The FLA loss was indeed a bitter blow to an AN-70 program that had already seen many setbacks. For many years, it even looked like it might turn out to be fatal, consigning the AN-70 to “what if” status on par with Canada’s fabled CF-105 Avro Arrow fighter. Recent developments, 30 years after the project first began, look set to change that status…

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Skyhook concept
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In April 2006, “WALRUS Hunted to Extinction By Congress, DARPA?” dealt with the cancellation of DARPA’s WALRUS ultra-heavy lift program. WALRUS aimed to develop an airship that could lift between 250-500 tons, offering capacity that rivaled ship-borne options, but offered the benefits of transport all the way to the front without requiring ports and related infrastructure.

The program would have developed a 30-40 ton capacity demonstration model in its early stages, which would have had a useful role of its own. “Walrus Heavy-Lift Blimp Rises, Falls” also noted the requests of combat commanders for airlift options that could be used with smaller airfields, that cannot accommodate the 20-ton capacity C-130 Hercules aircraft. Not to mention related items like pressure to lower fuel use at the Pentagon, and 2005 warnings from the Army Corps of Engineers about energy costs/supplies and future military operations.

Now a private consortium sees similar needs and trends in key civilian sectors. A Canadian/American partnership that includes Boeing has set itself the public goal of building the commercial equivalent of DARPA’s desired demonstrator…

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In “Hydra-70 Rockets: From Cutbacks to the Future of Warfare,” Sen. Leahy’s [D-VT] work to keep the Hydra 70mm rocket family alive through special appropriations was discussed, just in time for the Hydras’ potential on the battlefield to rise again. The key was the addition of low-cost precision guidance, which would expand the number of precision weapons carried by helicopters, aircraft, and even UAVs. “APKWS II… Hydra Rockets Enter SDD Phase,” discussed a laser-guided version from BAE, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman that appeared to have the inside track as a precision weapon of choice for helicopters, UAVs, and aircraft. This proved true, and the team won that contract in April 2006.

A lot can change in a couple of years. A lot has. This second attempt at APKWS has seen its program status change, before righting the program with Navy funding. Meanwhile, private development efforts from Lockheed Martin, Thales TDA, and a raft of international partnerships between major defense firms and partners in Korea, the UAE, Canada and Norway, and Israel are introducing new competitors into the precision-guided 70mm rocket space. The latest updates include successful tests of Elbit/ATK’s 70mm GATR system, and of a USMC program to retrofit its larger Zuni rockets…

• APKWS II: To be, or not to be…
• Lockheed Martin: Is this a DAGR I see before me…?
• LOGIR: ”...the heavenly-harnessed team/ Begins his golden progress in the east…”
• Raytheon and the UAE: “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie…”
• Other Entries: “Come unto these yellow sands….” [updated]
  
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Hydra-70 is a family of unguided rockets offering a variety of warhead configurations, from smoke and illumination rounds, to flechettes (hundreds of anti-personnel darts), submunition carriers, and unitary warheads up to 317 pounds. These versatile and relatively inexpensive rockets can be fired from a variety of aircraft, from attack helicopters to jet fighters to light helicopters like the OH-6 Little Bird, the new Bell 407 ARH, et. al. Hydra-70s have seen use in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they are arguably the world’s most widely used helicopter-launched weapon system. Magellan’s 70mm CRV-7 rockets and Thales’ 68mm SNEB system are its main Western competitors, while countries using Russian equipment have a variety of choices that begin with the 57mm S-5 family, extending through the 80mm S-8 family, and continuing up to the 266mm S-25.

While 70mm Hydra rockets are low cost weapons, and easy to carry in numbers, they are not a very accurate weapons system by modern standards. This makes them problematic choices for urban warfare if limitations exist on the use of force, and sharply limits their value to platforms like UAVs. The US Army intended to scale back production of the rocket system in 2003, but Congress, led by Senator Leahy’s [D-VT] efforts, reversed the decision with a $900 million contract.

Production continues under that contract, even as technology developments promise to make Hydra rockets a multi-headed battlefield threat once again…

• Leahy’s Leverage
• Hydra Rockets: Contracts [updated]
• Hydra Precision: APKWS etc.
• Additional Readings
  
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DBR on CVN-21
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The US Navy’s newest light cruiser and aircraft carrier designs offer a wide array of new technologies. One is the Dual-Band Radar (DBR) system, which can be scaled up or down for installation in the new DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class “destroyers”, and the CVN-21 Gerald R. Ford Class aircraft carriers.

The DBR concept involves a significant change from current naval design approaches, and that change is not without risk. The USA’s GAO audit office has identified it as a significant risk to on-time fielding of the USS Zumwalt [DDG 1000], and any more development or testing snags could widen those impacts to include other ships. The radar is beginning to move from design to production, however, following a successful full-power “lightoff” of both DBR radars in an early April 2009 test.

The latest development involves a significant production contract for one of the DBR’s modules…

• DBR: Concept and Comparisons
• DBR: Contracts and Key Developments
• DBR: Additional Readings
  
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UK Phalanx at night
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The Mk15 Phalanx system was originally developed as a ship’s final hope against incoming missiles: a radar-guided 20mm gatling gun would would fire up to 6,000 rounds per minute, throwing up a last-ditch wall of lead. Phalanx has become a popular naval weapon that’s also effective against helicopters, UAVs, and even small boats. It has even migrated onto land, where its “Centurion” version can protect a 1.2 km square area against incoming mortars and rockets.

In September 2007, Jane’s reported from the British DSEi exhibition that Raytheon is working on a Phalanx variant that can fire lasers. Kevin Peppe, Raytheon’s Phalanx program director, said that:

“The Centurion system has provided a near-term C-RAM (Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortars) solution for our deployed forces. But we know that our customers would like a larger defended footprint beyond the kinematics of a gunbased system. A missile is too expensive, so we are looking instead at a solution based on the adaptation of a robust but relatively lowpower, low beam-quality commercial laser…. By using clever optics to focus the laser beam at range, we demonstrated that we could achieve sufficient energy on target to deflagrate a 60mm mortar round.”

The concept has promise – but it also has substantial obstacles to overcome before it can become militarily useful…

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Thales I-Master
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As UAVs begin to take on a wider array of battlefield roles, the ability to carry radars for situational awareness, detection, and targeting will become more and more important. Radars are also important to UAVs’ current functions as long-endurance ground surveillance platforms, however, offering an option that can supplement visual and thermal optics in order to penetrate foliage, and scan over a wider field of view. Many medium and large size tactical UAVs carry them now, from the General Atomics AN/APY-8 Lynx that can equips the MQ-1/9 Predator family, to the 65 pound Thales I-Master that equips Britain’s Hermes Mk450B Watchkeeper UAVs, to the tiny 2-pound NanoSAR radar that Boeing has tested on its small ScanEagle UAV.

France DGA recently announced a tri-national SIMCLAIRS program (Studies for Integrated Multifunction Compact Lightweight Airborne Radars & Systems) research program aimed at keeping European industry competitive in this area….

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CAE Sim
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Global simulation firm CAE, located in the the Saint-Laurent district of Montreal, Canada, has announced a C$ 714 million (about $450 million equivalent), 5-year “Project Falcon” to enhance its modeling and simulation technologies, develop new ones, and diversify into other visualization markets including analysis and operations.

Aerospace is a major industry in Canada, but the size of Canada’s population and market ensures that over 80% of the industry’s business comes from exports. Hence the province of Quebec’s recent moves to assist Pratt & Whitney Canada with engine development, and the federal Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative (SADI) for strategic industrial research and R&D in the aerospace, defence, space and security industries. For CAE’s Project Falcon, SADI will provide a 6-year, C$ 250 million (about $200 million equivalent) repayable loan.

Project Falcon will focus on applying investments into 6 main technology thrusts, including…

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