Recently, however, two POGO staffers spent a day at Fort Lewis, WA with Stryker Armored Vehicle Brigade soldiers and officers, in order to gain insight into two recent reports by the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) that raised significant issues with the program. To their surprise, they found widespread approval among ground troops and officers using the vehicle, to the point where they’re now re-thinking their criticism and looking for answers. Kudos to POGO for having that honesty; the “digital ghosts” of the Stryker Brigades have demonstrated some real operational advantages. Vasiliy Fofanov’s US Armor in Operation “Iraqi Freedom” analysis in Moscow Defense Brief #1 offers a corroborating view; it was harder on the M1 Abrams and M2 Bradley’s performance, and relatively positive about the Stryker.
The Joint Robotics Program Working Group meeting at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel in Pittsburgh, PA offered a window into current progress in robotics. EOD robots and reconnaissance robots such as the backpackable Dragon Runner “throwbot” are performing in Iraq, where they’re affecting the direction of future military robotics and saving soldiers’ lives.
The U.S. Marines deployed a dozen Dragon Runners to Iraq a year ago. The four-wheeled device is only a little more than a foot long and not quite a foot wide and weighs 9 pounds. It can be thrown over walls, out a three-story window or up a flight of stairs; the flat, 5-inch-high machine can operate whichever way it lands.
DID has referred to DefenseTech.org’s and the New York Post’s investigations of Tucson, AZ energy weapon company Ionatron, Inc. in a past article. Today we’re reporting on a new technology from Ionatron that’s about to be deployed to Iraq in order to counter the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) favored by insurgents and terrorists.
According to a recent report in the Virginian Pilot, commanding officer Cmdr. Norm Weakland, of the “Gunslingers” of Strike Fighter Squadron 105 says that using the pods has saved untold American lives. The targeting pods’ steadiness, surveillance range, and versatility are allowing Navy and Marine Corps pilots to become involved in close-quarters urban combat without killing friendly troops. Sometimes, F/A-18 aircraft are even being deployed in explicit surveillance roles, with attack as a secondary mission.
Recording knowledge learned through battle-tested situations is more important than ever. To improve Marines combat effectiveness the Marine Corps Center for Lessons Learned (MCCLL) has created an online Lessons Management System to ensure this information will be readily available. This web-based system contains documented experiences from before Operation Desert Storm, including some from Vietnam.
“One of the things we are finding new with the current MCCLL is we are relearning lessons again and again,” said Maj. Kevin Mooney, liaison officer, II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD) and reservist from Hercules, CA “If we go back to World War II and look at an after action report, you can see the repetition over the years. We’re doing the same things wrong now that we were doing back then. We are also doing the same things right that we were doing back then, but the lessons learned usually come hard.”
Four Canadians killed by U.S. friendly fire in Afghanistan were honoured by their American fellow soldiers of 187th Infantry Regiment. Amid the echoing strains of a lone bugler and the sharp report of a 21-gun salute, the men’s names were unveiled in a granite block, part of the 187th’s memorial to members who have died in conflicts dating back to the Second World War.
Sgt. Marc Leger, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Pte. Richard Green and Pte. Nathan Smith died April 18, 2002, when an American fighter pilot mistakenly dropped a bomb on Canadians who were conducting a night exercise near Kandahar, Afghanistan. The four men, who served alongside U.S. soldiers as part of Task Force Rakkasan, are the first non-Americans ever included on the memorial wall.
U.S. Army infantry divisions and armored cavalry regiments are equipped with mobile anti-aircraft vehicles called Avengers, HMMWV jeeps with a turret mounted on the back. The turret contains a FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-Red) sight, a laser range finder, 2 missile pods with 4 Stringer anti-aircraft missiles each, and a M3P .50 caliber machine gun under one pod.
In their Avenger configuation, however, the machine-gun can’t always depress enough to fire towards the front of the vehicle at ground targets. As they deployed to Iraq, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment decided to change all that…
The Army News Service reports that the tiny Raven drone’s aerial reconnaissance value has quickly earned the respect of battalion commanders in Iraq, filling a niche at the battalion level when larger UAVs are unavailable. Weighing in at 4.5 pounds, with a 3-foot body and a 5-foot wingspan, the Raven UAV is so small that it’s launched by hand.
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Raven in the field
The Army News Service reports that the tiny Raven drone’s aerial reconnaissance value has quickly earned the respect of battalion commanders in Iraq, filling a niche at the battalion level when larger UAVs are unavailable. Weighing in at 4.5 pounds, with a 3-foot body and a 5-foot wingspan, the Raven UAV is so small that it’s launched by hand.
Continue Reading… »
Raven in the field
The Army News Service reports that the tiny Raven drone’s aerial reconnaissance value has quickly earned the respect of battalion commanders in Iraq, filling a niche at the battalion level when larger UAVs are unavailable. Weighing in at 4.5 pounds, with a 3-foot body and a 5-foot wingspan, the Raven UAV is so small that it’s launched by hand.
