Quotulatiousness

February 13, 2011

US Army orders more HIMARS

Filed under: Asia, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:32

The pint-sized MLRS vehicle has been (if you’ll pardon the expression) a big hit with US troops in Afghanistan:

The U.S. Army has ordered another 44 HIMARS rocket launchers, for $3.2 million each. These will be delivered over the next two years, and give the army a total of 375 HIMARs vehicles. It was because of the success of the GPS version of the U.S. MLRS rocket, that the smaller, truck mounted MLRS (HIMARS) rocket launcher system became the most popular vehicle for launching the rocket. HIMARS carries only one, six MLRS rocket, container (instead of two in the original MLRS vehicle), but the 12 ton truck can fit into a C-130 transport (unlike the 22 ton tracked MLRS) and is much cheaper to operate. The first HIMARS entered service in 2005, about a year after GPS guided rockets did.

[. . .]

The U.S. Army is getting most of the 900 HIMARS vehicles planned, with the marines getting the rest. There are also several export customers. The U.S. Army is buying 100,000 GMLRS rockets, most of them fitted with a 89 kg (196 pound) high explosive warhead. These have been used with great success in Iraq and Afghanistan, where over a thousand have been fired so far. The guided rocket is much more effective than the older, unguided, version, and is replacing it in most cases. No more of the unguided rockets are being purchased by the U.S. The accuracy of GMLRS means that one or two rockets does the job that previously required a dozen or more of the unguided ones. That’s why HIMARS is so popular. While it only carries six rockets, that’s often enough to last for days, even when there’s a lot of combat. HIMARS can be reloaded, with another container of six GPS guided rockets, in less than ten minutes.


HIMARS: High Mobility Artillery Rocket System

February 12, 2011

Is it a movie or will it magically turn into a 14-hour monologue?

Filed under: Books, Liberty, Media, Railways, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:05

More information at http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/.

February 11, 2011

Taming the US defence budget

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:29

The US government is in a financial bind — that’s not exactly news. What is new, however, is that the military may actually have to take cuts, not just smaller increases in the annual budget:

On one side of the argument are fiscal hawks like Rand Paul, newly elected senator from Kentucky, who fear that a national debt heading towards 100% of GDP by the end of the decade is in itself a menace to the nation and defence must take its share of the pain. The sheer size of America’s defence budget puts it in the crosshairs. At around $700 billion a year including war expenditures, it as big as those of the world’s next 20 highest military spenders combined. Last year American defence spending exceeded the average spent during the cold-war years by 50% (adjusted for inflation), while in the past 10 years it has grown by 67% in real terms.

[. . .]

Mr Gates, a canny operator whom Barack Obama retained after he took over from George Bush, began to sniff which way the wind was likely to turn in 2008. He calculated that if he took the initiative, he might stave off deeper and more unwelcome cuts. So he curbed or cancelled more than 30 weapons systems including the army’s Future Combat System, the F-22 Stealth fighter, two missile defence systems and the Zumwalt-class destroyer. Last year he went further, proposing the closure of the Joint Forces Command in Virginia and a 10% reduction in the budget for contract workers for each of the next three years. He asked the armed services to find at least $100 billion worth of “efficiency savings” over the next five years, which he promised to reinvest in other programmes.

[. . .]

Buck McKeon, the Republican who now leads the House Armed Services Committee, has responded with predictable fury to the Gates plan, saying it was “a dramatic shift for a nation at war and a dangerous signal from the commander-in-chief”. Mr Gates can take some comfort from the fact there has been at least as much “incoming” from critics who say he has not gone nearly far enough. They point out that what is being planned is not so much a cut as a small reduction on what the Pentagon had been planning to spend over the next four to five years. The budget will still creep up in real terms until it flattens off in 2015. Given his intention to retire from office later this year, Mr Gates may not have the stomach for attempting anything more radical on his watch.

February 10, 2011

No more manned fighters?

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:24

As I said the last time this topic came up, “This is not a repost from 1957”. We may actually be looking at the last generation of manned fighters, if this update from Strategy Page is true:

On February 4th, the U.S. Navy X-47B UCAV (unmanned combat air vehicle) made its first flight. It was three years ago that the navy rolled out its first combat UAV; the 15 ton X-47B. This pilotless aircraft has a wingspan of 20 meters/62 feet (whose outer 5 meter/15 foot portions fold up to save space on the carrier). It carries a two ton payload and will be able to stay in the air for twelve hours. The U.S. is far ahead of other nations in UCAV development, and this is energizing activity in Russia, Europe and China to develop similar aircraft.

[. . .]

All of these aircraft are stealthy and can operate completely on their own (including landing and takeoff, under software control). The UCAVs would be used for dangerous missions, like destroying enemy air defenses, and reconnaissance. Even air force commanders are eager to turn over SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) missions to UAVs. SEAD is the most dangerous mission for combat pilots. But until quite recently, all these projects had either been cancelled, or were headed in that direction.

Now, the U.S. Department of Defense wants the new UAV combat aircraft in service by the end of the decade, some twenty years ahead of a schedule that was planned in the 1990s. The F-35 is expected to cease production in 2034, more than a decade after the first combat UAVs, that can match F-35 performance, enters service.

Unable to buy new aircraft designs (because they are too expensive, or simply take too long to get into service), and facing the prospect of unmanned aircraft (UAVs) displacing more and more manned ones, the American military is spending a growing chunk of its budgets on upgrading and refurbishing the combat aircraft they already have. This was not a deliberate, long term plan, but simply a reaction to shortages of new aircraft. A lot of the new electronics and weapons involved in these upgrades can also equip UAV designs still in development, so such efforts are a double win.

More and more, it looks like the new 36 ton F-22 and 27 ton F-35 are the end of the road for manned fighter-bombers. Not just because the F-22 and F-35 cost so much to develop, but because so much new tech has arrived on the scene that it simply makes more military, and economic, sense to go with unmanned aircraft. Meanwhile, the existing F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, A-10s and all American heavy bombers are being equipped with new targeting pods and combat Internet connections, along with new radars and all sorts of electronics. Older aircraft are having worn out structural components rebuilt or replaced. This buys time until the unmanned aircraft are ready. F-35s will also fill the gap, which may be a very small one.

Usual caveats apply of course, and you could do worse than reading the comment thread on that original post for some of the caveats spelled out.

XM-25 man-packable artillery piece takes the field

Filed under: Asia, Military, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:17

Lewis Page has some information on the first field use of the XM-25:

First reports are emerging on the performance of the futuristic, Judge Dredd style XM-25 computer smartgun, which went into combat with frontline US troops in Afghanistan in December. The hi-tech rifle — almost a portable artillery piece — is said to have been dubbed “the Punisher” by soldiers who have used it.

The US Army news service reports that the existing five custom-made prototype XM-25 weapons, which have long been trialled and tested in the States, arrived in Afghanistan in November and were first used in combat on 3 December. Since then, as of the army report, some 55 explosive smartshells have been fired in combat and hundreds more in practice.

“We silenced two machine-gun positions — two PKM positions,” said Major Christopher Conley, describing some of the firefights in which the XM-25 has been used. “We destroyed four ambush locations, where the survivors fled.”

Earlier post on the XM-25 here.

Update, 1 April: The XM-25 program is now under contract:

The US Army’s futuristic Judge Dredd style computer smart-rifle project, the XM-25, is moving ahead. Developer ATK, which has so far made just five prototype weapons, inked a $65.8m deal this week to move the weapon into manufacturing.

[. . .]

US troops in Afghanistan, who are trying out the initial five prototype weapons, apparently don’t favour Judge Dredd references. They have reportedly chosen to dub the new smartgun “the Punisher” instead.

Feedback from these users has apparently been positive, with the AM-25’s ability to strike out accurately and speedily at Taliban snipers or machine-gun teams lurking in cover at long range highly prized. The soldiers don’t much care for the gun’s battery system, however, which reportedly has the same flaws as an iPhone’s: it can’t be swapped for a new one and must be plugged in to charge up. ATK are apparently to sort this out as the design develops.

The new engineering and manufacturing development deal is to run for 30 months.

I’m not sure what the change from XM-25 to AM-25 in that report means . . . that is, if the weapon’s designation has changed with the switch to production, or if it’s just a typo in the write-up.

February 8, 2011

Hookers with Blackberries on Facebook

Filed under: Economics, Politics, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:17

The latest round of moral posturing by politicians has accomplished great things: more sex workers now use Facebook to communicate with prospective clients, fewer are using Craigslist. Success?

A study by sociology professor Sudhir Venkatesh on trends in the world’s oldest profession, published by Wired, estimated that 25 percent of hookers’ regular clients came through Facebook compared to only three per cent through Craigslist.

Five years before that, in 2003, nine per cent of the prostitutes regular clients came through Craiglist and none through the then infant Facebook.

“Even before the crackdown on [Craigslist’s] adult-services section, sex workers were turning to Facebook: 83 per cent have a Facebook page, and I estimate that by the end of 2011, Facebook will be the leading on-line recruitment space,” Venkatesh writes.

Venkatesh says that there’s another key indicator for those who frequently hire prostitutes:

Curiously, he found one of the three main ways a sex worker can boost her earning potential is not to get a boob job but to buy a BlackBerry. “This symbol of professional life suggests the worker is drug- and disease-free,” Venkatesh explains.

Of prostitutes that own a smartphone, 70 per cent have BlackBerries while just 11 per cent own iPhones. Feel free to write your own hilarious jokes using that information.

February 7, 2011

X-47B takes flight, Navy pilots feeling threatened

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:46

Lewis Page looks forward to the day US Navy aircraft carriers don’t have pilots cluttering up the works:

The disappearance of swaggering pilots from the flight decks of US naval aircraft carriers came a step closer on Friday with the first flight of the X-47B robot tailhook stealth jet.

The X-47B is intended to demonstrate that unmanned aircraft can take off from aircraft carrier catapults and land back on deck again using tailhook and arrester wires. Such arrested landings have long been regarded as one of the most difficult and dangerous feats for human pilots to master, and US naval aviators tend to measure their manhood (or occasionally these days, womanhood) by the number of “traps” in their logbook.

Not content with automating the Top Guns out of their main trick, the X-47B is also intended to demonstrate autonomous air-to-air refuelling. This is another vital trick which human pilots find quite difficult (the act of flying the probe of the to-be-fuelled aircraft into the basket trailing at the end of the tanker plane’s hose is traditionally described as being of similar difficulty to “taking a running fuck at a rolling doughnut”).

February 6, 2011

US repositioning military forces near Egypt

Filed under: Middle East, Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:58

It should come as no surprise that the American government is changing the location and composition of forces around Egypt, as the situation becomes more volatile. Both US Navy and USMC units are involved in the moves. According to the L.A. Times, the USS Kearsarge is a key part of the redeployment:

The Pentagon is moving U.S. warships and other military assets to make sure it is prepared in case evacuation of U.S. citizens from Egypt becomes necessary, officials said Friday.

The Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship carrying 700 to 800 troops from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the Ponce have arrived in the Red Sea, putting them off Egypt’s shores in case the situation worsens.

Pentagon officials emphasized that military intervention in Egypt was not being contemplated and that the warships were being moved only for contingency purposes in case evacuations became necessary.

Business Insider reports that USMC units are being moved now:

A senior member of the US Marine corps is telling people “multiple platoons” are deploying to Egypt, a source tells us.

There is a system within the US Marines that alerts the immediate families of high-ranking marines when their marine will soon be deployed to an emergency situation where they will not be able to talk to their spouses or families.

That alert just went out, says our source.

For those of you not steeped in military jargon, a “platoon” is a small tactical unit of about 40 men, commanded by a lieutenant. This is not an “invasion force” sized move.

February 3, 2011

Bipartisan big government

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:47

Bruce F. Webster addresses the “Clinton Budget Fallacy” by downloading some publicly accessible numbers and doing a bit of simple math:

Put simply, from 1999 to 2010, the US population grew by 10% and inflation reduced the value of the dollar by about 30%. Combine those two, and Federal spending should have gone up roughly 43% over that period. Instead, it went up 135%, or three times what it should have. Setting aside some of the bailouts, etc., that are in the budget, it’s still clear that almost every Federal line item went up at least twice what it should have during that period. Almost nothing (other than “general government”) grew a “mere” 43%.

I fully blame Bush and the 2002-2006 Republicans as much as I blame Obama and the 2006-2010 Democrats. The real question is whether the 2010 Republicans have the brains and the will to turn back the tide.

The smart money, I’m afraid, is betting against that outcome.

January 31, 2011

Showing their true colours?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Law, Liberty, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:42

To mark the Egyptian government’s shutdown of cellphone and internet access to their angry citizenry, the US government wants to have the power to do the same. Subtle, eh?

Legislation granting the president internet-killing powers is to be re-introduced soon to a Senate committee, the proposal’s chief sponsor told Wired.com on Friday.

The resurgence of the so-called “kill switch” legislation came the same day Egyptians faced an internet blackout designed to counter massive demonstrations in that country.

The bill, which has bipartisan support, is being floated by Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The proposed legislation, which Collins said would not give the president the same power Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is exercising to quell dissent, sailed through the Homeland Security Committee in December but expired with the new Congress weeks later.

The bill is designed to protect against “significant” cyber threats before they cause damage, Collins said.

Got to admire the balls of brass required to introduce legislation to do something in America at exactly the same time the US government is demanding that Egypt restore their citizens’ internet access. Breathtaking hypocrisy.

Update: By way of American Digest, a most appropriate image:

US Army to keep MRAP, speed up development of JLTV

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:48

For your morning dose of military acronyms, here’s a report from Strategy Page on a recent change in US Army planning caused by field experience in Iraq and Afghanistan:

The U.S. Army has decided that the MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) should be a permanent part of their vehicle fleet. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Four years ago, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps were in the midst of spending $20 billion to buy over 20,000 MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles. Shortly thereafter, the terrorist resistance in Iraq collapsed, and so did the need for MRAPs. This resulted in about a quarter of the MRAP orders being cancelled, and others changed to designs more suitable for use in Afghanistan, which had far fewer roads to use them on.

While the troops appreciated the MRAPs, some of the generals saw serious problems in the future. In Iraq and Afghanistan, people in these bomb resistant vehicles were much less likely to be killed or injured if they encountered a roadside bomb. But MRAPs are basically armored trucks (weighing 8-23 tons) that are hardened to survive bombs and mines, and cost about five to ten times more than an armored hummer.

As you can see, the MRAP isn’t a dainty sort of vehicle (this one has the recent overhead wire kit attached):

But now, thousands of those MRAPs will stay in service after the war in Afghanistan has ended. They will be considered armored combat vehicles, not transport, like the hummer and army trucks, and not used on a daily basis. This will keep down the operating expenses, as MRAPs consume a lot of fuel.

In addition to keeping thousands of the MRAPS, the army is developing a heavier replacement for the hummer, using a design with lots of MRAP features. This is the JLTV(Joint Light Tactical Vehicle), which is arriving a little ahead of schedule, as part of a program to massively upgrade army vehicles every few decades.

The JLTV competition is still underway, with three vehicles being tested:


Image from Wikipedia.

In addition to being built to better survive mines and roadside bombs, the JLTV will be able to generate 30 KW of electricity (for operating all the new electronic gear, and recharging batteries), have an automatic fire extinguishing system and jam-resistant doors. Like the hummer, JLTV will be easy to reconfigure, for everything from a four seat, armed scout vehicle, to an ambulance, command vehicle or cargo or troop transport. The hummer will continue to be used outside of the combat zone, where most troops spend most of their time. But the JLTV will be built to better handle the beating vehicles take in the combat zone, including a design that enables troops to quickly slide in armor and Kevlar panels to make the vehicles bullet and blast proof.

January 29, 2011

Government spending: it’s a problem of scale comprehension

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

Bad news for US small businesses

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Law, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:32

A very small item in the recent US Obamacare legislation will mean a huge increase in tax compliance paperwork:

Section 9006 of the health care bill — just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document — mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year.

[. . .]

But under the new rules, if a freelance designer buys a new iMac from the Apple Store, they’ll have to send Apple a 1099. A laundromat that buys soap each week from a local distributor will have to send the supplier a 1099 at the end of the year tallying up their purchases.

The bill makes two key changes to how 1099s are used. First, it expands their scope by using them to track payments not only for services but also for tangible goods. Plus, it requires that 1099s be issued not just to individuals, but also to corporations.

Taken together, the two seemingly small changes will require millions of additional forms to be sent out.

“It’s a pretty heavy administrative burden,” particularly for small businesses without large in-house accounting staffs, says Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Eliminating the goods exemption could launch an avalanche of paperwork, he says: “If you cater a lunch for other businesses every Wednesday, say, that’s a lot of information to keep track of throughout the year.”

For a one-person business, this change could double or triple the tax-related paperwork right there. Given that a lot of people have started new businesses in the last couple of years — partly because big businesses downsized and haven’t been hiring again — this will be a significant discouragement to self-employment.

H/T to Virginia Postrel for the link.

Update: It may not stand: there’s a bi-partisan coalition in the Senate to repeal that provision.

Inappropriate license plates, Virginia style

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Humour, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:07

Jason Ciastko send a link to this article. You can see why the Virginia authorities decided to recall the license plate (but you’re probably wrong):

A Virginia motorist has apparently had to return their vanity license plate after the Department of Motor Vehicles decided it was too lewd for public roadways.

According to the user-generated news website Reddit, the DMV revoked a special-issue “Kids First” Virginia plate with the personalized license plate “EATTHE” to spell out the phrase, well, you know…

Full story, including the sad bureaucratic recall procedure, here.

Most reactions were like the one from a mom in a minivan plastered with pro-Christian bumper stickers who chased him down.

“I thought she was going to yell at me and tell me I’m going straight to hell, but she and her kids found it absolutely hilarious and she took pics of it with her kids next to the plate,” said Yeaman. “I learned my lesson on judging people before they speak.”

Sadly, the Virginia DMV didn’t talk to him before they judged him offensive and sent him a letter requesting the plates back immediately. With his brother’s encouragement, Yeaman requested a hearing with a mediator to keep the plates, which he didn’t find offensive.

H/T to Craig Zeni for the Jalopnik link.

January 28, 2011

US Navy’s “pee antenna”

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:46

Warships have been sprouting more and more antennae for all the various communication equipment on board — more every year, as new devices are rolled out of development and into active service. This creates problems, especially with smaller vessels, as the multiple antennae need to be spaced far enough apart to avoid mutual interference with signals. The US Navy may have come up with a liquid solution:

With an $80 water pump, a $15 rubber hose and a $20 electrical device called a current probe that was easily plugged into a hand-held radio, [Daniel Tam] produced a spout roughly four metres tall from the waters of San Diego Bay. With this he could send and receive a clear signal. Over the intervening years his invention, dubbed the “pee antenna” by incredulous colleagues, has been tweaked and improved to the point where it can transmit over a distance of more than 50km (30 miles).

To make a seawater antenna, the current probe (an electrical coil roughly the size and shape of a large doughnut) is attached to a radio’s antenna jack. When salt water is squirted through the hole in the middle of the probe, signals are transferred to the water stream by electromagnetic induction. The aerial can be adjusted to the frequency of those signals by lengthening or shortening the spout. To fashion antennae for short-wave radio, for example, spouts between 18 and 24 metres high are about right. To increase bandwidth, and thus transmit more data, such as a video, all you need do is thicken the spout. And the system is economical. The probe consumes less electricity than three incandescent desk lamps.

A warship’s metal antennae, which often weigh more than 3½ tonnes apiece, can be damaged in storms or combat. Seawater antennae, whose components weigh next to nothing and are easily stowable, could provide handy backups — and, eventually, more than backups. Not all of a ship’s antennae are used at once, so the spouts could be adjusted continuously to obtain the types needed at a given moment. According to SPAWAR, ten such antennae could replace 80 copper ones.

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress