* Defense budget cuts split HASC Republicans between hawks and Tea Partiers.
* With a bevy of batteries weighing soldiers down, MIT’s research into mini gas turbines in a silicon chip promises a possible way out.
* US Army’s Dugway Proving Ground, which stores and tests chemical and biological weapons, reopens after a lockdown because of a “serious concern within the test area.”
* Hard to find is one thing. But could it be possible to make a submarine completely invisible to sonar? Experiments by scientists at the University of Illinois indicate that a sonic cloak may be possible.
* Lockheed Martin rocks 4th quarter with an 18.9% jump in net earnings.
* URS gets up to $63 million to provide engineering, program management, analysis, and logistics support for the B-2 bomber program.
* CACI gets $238 million in national security intelligence support work.
* Eurofighter CEO sees 2011 as a pivotal year, in order to avoid the end of production in 2015. India’s M-MRCA competition, and hopes of a “Tranche 3B” from its consortium countries, are the key underpinnings.
* The Marines recently said they’re more focused on local police and governance than on technology in Afghanistan. They won’t be the only ones cheering the recent firings of many Afghan police officials.
* One of the USAF’s big technologies, meanwhile, is on shaky ground. The twin-pod Gorgon Stare payload for UAVs and aircraft is supposed to let troops cover square kilometers with surveillance, instead of looking through a soda straw. But the left-wing CDI reveals that a recent testing report gave it a terrible rating. The US Air Force has some disagreements with that assessment, but probably regrets their recent boasting to the Washington Post. So does Chuck Spinney, albeit for a different set of reasons.
* Meanwhile, ex-Army general Stan McChrystal talks about his aggressive pursuit of tech on the battlefield – and the human side that makes it worth anything.