Czech Republic soldiers have deployed a Provincial Reconstruction Team as part of NATO’s ISAF missionto Afghanistan’s southern Logar province, along the very dangerous Pakistani border. The USA offered to lend them more than 20 up-armored Hummers for the duration, but the dangerous regions of southern Afghanistan also demand blast resistant vehicles for the tip of the spear. Hence the government’s November 2007 purchase of KMW’s Dingo 2s (currently in service with German forces to the north) and Iveco’s MLV (known as “Panther CLV” to the British, and also bought by Norway and Spain for use in Afghanistan).

The Dingos appear to have run into trouble, however…

Continue Reading… »

+3 Terrorist Bane

Oct 3/06: L-3 Communications subsidiary MPRI Inc. in Alexandria, VA received a $15 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for law enforcement personnel embedded with units deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. Work will be performed in Washington, D.C. (13%), and Iraq or Afghanistan (87%), and the contract will end on Sept. 30, 2007. This was a sole source contract initiated on Aug. 31, 2006 by the U.S. Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD (W91CRB-06-C-0040).

DID has also reported MPRI contracts for operating artillery ranges in Iraq, and staff recruitment at Fort Knox.

Continue Reading… »

Technical innovation is present in all militaries, but America’s combination of do-it-yourself types, large defense budgets, and a gadget-happy national character makes it particularly fertile ground. Now add a global war and its challenges, plus a defense sector with a strong small business component made up of ex-military types. The overall innovation transmission belt may not be as tight or as effective as Israel’s or Singapore’s, but the scale of the US defense establishment more than compensates in terms of the sheer number produced.

Adoption, of course, is another matter. One way to improve it is to raise the profile of sucessful innovations through awards. Along those lines, the US Army recently recognized some special innovators by naming its “Top 10 inventions of 2005,” a list that should be of interest to many militaries around the world.

It includes…

Continue Reading… »

Project Sheriff ADS

Back in May 2005, DID covered the Active Denial System “riot breaker,” a microwave transmitter whose focused beams create burning sensations that force targets to flee in order to escape. Despite the pain, however, the beams reportedly cause no real injuries. A follow-up DID article in August 2005 noted that testing on human volunteers was underway, and a September 2005 article noted the role of the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation in creating the ADS (aka. “Project Sheriff”) as an alternative to sometimes-lethal plastic bullets or even live ammunition in order to control hostile crowds.

In December 2005, DefenseTech noted that Iraq may soon have a new Sheriff in town…. but as of January 30, 2006, an article in US Air Force AIM Point expresses general puzzlement at the failure to release the system, despite the US Army’s requests.

Well, that may be about to change. DefenseTech covers the latest developments, noting reports that Army just got the OK to spend $31.3 million on three deployable Project Sheriff vehicles. Furthermore, Army Brig. Gen. James Huggings, the chief of staff for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, proposes 14 vehicles: 4 for the 18th Military Police Brigade, 4 for the 42nd Military Police Brigade, and 6 for the Marine Corps. CENTCOM Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. John Castellaw fully supported the request. The vehicles, either Cougar mine-resistant vehicles or Stryker APCs, will be equipped with “Spiral 1” Sheriff equipment that can escalate its responses from a “Long Range Acoustic Device” (sonic blaster), up to a Laser Dazzler, then on to the ADS pain ray before things escalate to live ammunition. Read DefenseTech’s article: Pain Ray, Sonic Blaster, Laser Dazzler – All In One; and see also “Bring the Pain.”

Continue Reading… »

Project Sheriff

Back in May 2005, DID covered the Active Denial System “riot breaker,” a microwave transmitter installed on a Humvee whose focused beams create burning sensations that force targets to flee in order to escape. Despite the pain, however, the beams reportedly cause no real injuries. A follow-up DID article in August 2005 noted that testing on human volunteers was underway, and a September 2005 article noted the role of the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation in creating the ADS (aka. “Project Sheriff”) as an alternative to sometimes-lethal plastic bullets or even live ammunition in order to control hostile crowds.

Now DefenseTech notes that Iraq may soon have a new Sheriff in town….

UPDATE: As of January 30, 2006, ADS still has not been deployed. An article in US Air Force AIM Point expresses general puzzlement at the failure to release the system, despite the US Army’s requests.

Continue Reading… »

Northrop Grumman Defense Mission Systems Inc. in Reston, VA received a $5.2 million indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee, performance-based contract to provide technical support for integration, development of interfaces, deployment, testing, and transitional operations and maintenance of an integrated Investigative Data Warehouse and FBI Automated Messaging System (FAMS, which provides for secure email interlinks). This contract includes options, which, if exercised, would bring its cumulative value to an estimated $9.8 million.

Work will be performed in Charleston, SC (10%) and Washington, DC (90%), and is expected to be complete by August 2006 (August 2007 with options). The Request for Proposal was posted on the SPAWAR Systems Center E-Commerce website, with one offer received. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in Charleston, SC issued the contract (N65236-05-D-6853).

Continue Reading… »

With great power comes…

Switzerland Economics Minister Joseph Deiss said on Aug. 15/05 that the country would freeze a deal to send 180 armored personnel carriers (APCs) to Iraq until Baghdad guarantees that the APCs will only be used for “police services, border protection and transport of material.” To Defense Industry Daily’s deep annoyance and considerable regret, our article on the subject has become part of that debate after it was used to assert that the M113 armored personnel carriers would become part of Iraq’s new armored division. To reiterate what we’ve told several Swiss journalists, and what we added on Aug. 13/05 to the very article the Basler Zeitung (wrongly) cited as support for this thesis:

DID did not mean to imply that the M113s are destined for Iraq’s armored division – we had no information to that effect. We used the term “join” only in the sense that these are the first 2 major armored assets purchased by the elected Iraqi government. Which does indeed intend to use the T-72s as part of an armored division. DID could have worded that better, and we apologize for any confusion.

We wish the Basler Zeitung had contacted us in some way (editorial@... works) before running this story – and we wish even more fervently that national and international media like Associated Press and Agence France Presse had either contacted us or gone online to the purported source when dealing with a major political issue, and noted our clear explanation that Basler Zeitung’s claim was based on a misinterpretation. Especially after this fact was published in Berne’s NZZ am Sonntag on Aug 14/05. We have contacted them to set the record straight in no uncertain terms, and we will continue to do so with any other media that get this story wrong. Nevertheless, our article was written in a way that someone, for whatever reason, misunderstood. DID is responsible for writing it that way, which means we screwed up, and we apologize.

M113 in Doraville, Georgia
(click to view full)

N.B. With respect the plausibility of M113s for police departments et. al, see the photo at left from the Doraville, Georgia, USA police department. More examples of American police with M113s can be found here. Their Iraqi counterparts, who face much bigger threats due to regular attacks by Islamist paramilitary death squads armed with RPGs and explosives, could probably put M113s to very good use.

Continue Reading… »

On Patrol in Iraq

Armor Holdings subsidiary O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Co. in Fairfield, OH received a $21 million firm-fixed-price contract to purchase 350 of the M1114 up-armored High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV). Work will be performed at the company’s Fairfield facilities and is to be completed by Dec. 31, 2005. The U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command Rock Island at Warren, MI issued the contract (DAAE07-00-C-S019).

The up-armored M1114 model were originally only going to be built in small numbers (a few hundred) for military police. Now over 4,000 of these armored Hummers are being built for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, and military police are shifting toward better protected vehicles like the M1117 Guardian ASV. Some observers have criticized the M1114 for lacking a full gun shield like the USAF’s M1116 HMMWV, to protect the machine-gunner and reduce avoidable casualties (see pictures). Others have noted that its flat bottom does a poor job at dissipating or deflecting the explosive effects of mines. For all this, it remains the most frequently used patrol and escort vehicle in the war.

Continue Reading… »

M1117 Guardian ASVs
(click to enlarge)

Textron’s M1117 Guardian ASV was discussed in a 2005 DID feature covering procurement issues for up-armored Vehicles headed to Iraq. It has performed well and proven popular with Military Police in limited Iraq deployments, but failed MRAP-I testing at Aberdeen and was disqualified from orders under that program. Nevertheless, it continues to be purchased as a better-protected, higher-firepower armored car alternative to the HMMWV.

In July 2005, there were 130 ASVs deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom; by June 2007, there were over 950, with more on order. In between, Textron’s sole production facility was hit hard when Class 5 Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, and the company had to undertake heroic efforts just to keep production alive. We’ve all met venomous snakes in corporate conference rooms, but few of us have been given permission to kill them.

Miami ICE

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Arms and Strategic Technology Investigations (ASTI) division is responsible for investigating illegal exports of military products and sensitive technologies. Last year, ICE’s ASTI division opened approximately 3,000 new criminal investigations. Through an industry outreach program called “Project Shield America,” ICE’s ASTI division is visiting US manufacturers of arms and sensitive technology to educate them about export laws and to solicit their assistance in preventing illegal foreign acquisition of their products. A recent article by Jim Kouri of CPP offered a series of wrap-up summaries regarding some of the recent ICE investigations.

Continue Reading… »