War Developing and Upcoming Military Technology - Something new at least 3 times a week.

Radical Cadre · Mar 12, 2020

They're getting all kinds of toys up and running lately over there at the DoD.

The HELIOS laser thingy is just about ready to be deployed: http://alert5.com/2020/03/12/helios-has-cleared-cdr/

1Tonka_Truck · Mar 30, 2020

Marine Corps plans to scrap tank battalions, trim infantry to counter China with lighter force

The Marine Corps plans to get rid of its tank battalions as part of an ambitious plan to draw down from roughly 186,000 to about 170,000 active-duty Marines, the Wall Street Journal first reported.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger first indicated in February that the Corps planned to shrink beyond the reduction of 2,100 Marines called for in the Navy's proposed fiscal 2021 budget.

“I think every service chief would love to have a better force,” Berger told the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 27. “But you need us to be lethal. You need us to be mobile. You need us to be integrated with the Navy. So we’re going to reduce the size of the Marine Corps some this year, more next year.”

The Marine Corps issued a statement on Monday laying out exactly how it plans to get smaller by 2030:

Getting rid of all of the Corps’ tank battalions and associated Military Occupational Specialties, law enforcement battalions, and bridging companies.
Reducing the number of infantry battalions from 24 to 21.
Going from 21 to 5 cannon batteries.
Cutting the number of amphibious vehicle companies from 6 to 4.
Cutting back all tilt rotor, attack, and heavy lift squadrons.
Deactivating Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 264; Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 462; Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469; Marine Wing Support Groups 27 and 37; 8th Marine Regiment Headquarters Company; and 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines.
Realigning 1st Battalion, 8th Marines to 2nd Marines; and 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines to 6th Marines.
Deactivating Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367 and relocating it to Camp Pendleton, California.
Cancelling the activation of 5th Battalion, 10th Marines. Its assigned batteries will realign under existing 10th Marine Regiment structure.
Cutting the number of F-35B and C Joint Strike Fighters from 16 to 10 per squadron.

The 10-year plan involves more than cutting Marines. The Corps also plans to increase its rocket artillery capacity by 300 percent and add anti-ship missiles, the statement says.

The Corps also plans to double its number of drone squadrons, invest in a new light amphibious warship, and make Infantry battalions smaller and focused on naval expeditionary warfare.

The proposed reductions are meant to make the Corps lighter and more nimble to fight China in a 21st century version of the Pacific island hopping campaign during World War II, Berger said in an interview with Gordon.

“We need an Army with lots of tanks,” Berger told the newspaper. “We don’t need a Marine Corps with tanks.”

The 10-year plan envisions Marines waging war within the range of Chinese missiles and other weapons by establishing new expeditionary regiments that could rapidly send teams of between 50 to 100 personnel to islands in the South and East China Seas, according to the Wall Street Journal.

These teams would attack Chinese warships with unmanned aircraft and boats and then quickly move to another island within 72 hours by using sophisticated landing craft, according to the newspaper.

However, it remains unclear how the Marine Corps would rapidly move from island to island when its amphibious vehicles can only travel about six knots in the water.

High-speed landing craft would require a tremendous investment, and the Navy has already proposed massive cuts to its shipbuilding account – which may be a non-starter with Congress.

The Navy is also being squeezed by a ship maintenance crisis while trying to build new Columbia-class submarines, so the amount of money available to build new landing craft could be extremely limited.

-end of article-

This seems like hilariously bad idea. I get that man-portable ATGMs have become incredibly lethal and that the Marine Corps needs to be prepared for a conflict in the South China Sea. Giving up organic tank support in the form of attached tank companies for 3x the rocket artillery doesn't make sense to me. For better or worse the USMC is the expeditionary warfare branch. They know it and put E in half their acronyms.

The sun never sets on II MEF. We’re everywhere.
- Lt. Gen. Robert Hedelund

The Army isn't going to just ship a tank company to a MEB when they need one. They still don't have a heavy turret version of the ACV ordered yet. The only vehicles in the USMC inventory that will be able to engage anything bigger than a BTR-80 will be the LAV-25 and LAV-ATM.

thx1138 · Mar 30, 2020

The USMC dropping heavy armor is absolute lunacy. "To counter China" - what the fuck do you think the Chinks are fighting with, harsh language???

Radical Cadre · Apr 6, 2020

Hot new laser systems being sent "overseas" by the US military for testing.

AFRL gives warfighters new weapons system

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio - The Air Force Research Laboratory has set up the Air Force’s first high-energy laser weapon system overseas for a 12-month field assessment. The Air Force

www.edwards.af.mil

(archive)

Of the three systems being tested, THOR addresses an issue I've been wondering about: drone swarms.

The Air Force will be evaluating the Raytheon High Energy Laser (HELWS), Raytheon High Power Microwave (PHASER), and the AFRL Tactical High Power Operational Responder (THOR) drone killer.
[...]
“THOR is a directed energy game-changer,” said Dr. Kelly Hammett, AFRL’s Directed Energy director. “Drones are becoming more and more pervasive and can be used as weapons intended to cause harm to our military bases at long standoff ranges. We built the THOR weapon system as a deterrent against these type threats. THOR with its counter electronic technology can take down swarms of drones in rapid fire. This capability will be an amazing asset to our warfighters and the nation’s defense.”

Snekposter · Apr 7, 2020

We're going to need pics of the redshirts involved before and after the PHASER testing is finished. I'll be disappointed if they're all still alive at the end.

The best and greatest · Apr 7, 2020

thx1138 said:
The USMC dropping heavy armor is absolute lunacy. "To counter China" - what the fuck do you think the Chinks are fighting with, harsh language???

It could be that they know something we don't. Maybe Heavy armor is going to start seeing obsolescence over the next few decades. This was already underway since the adoption of the ground attack helicopter and with the advent of drone warfare and ATGM devices becoming more and more commonplace it'll only get worse.

thx1138 · Apr 7, 2020

The best and greatest said:
It could be that they know something we don't. Maybe Heavy armor is going to start seeing obsolescence over the next few decades. This was already underway since the adoption of the ground attack helicopter and with the advent of drone warfare and ATGM devices becoming more and more commonplace it'll only get worse.

We'll see. If the whole of the Army was inclined to do so I would say yes definitely. But the Army is keepin' on keepin' on with its tracked vehicle program, SEPv4 upgrade program for the Abrams, etc. The Imminent Death of the Tank has been predicted time and again since the end of WW2. Mind you I'm not dismissing what you're saying out of hand!

Radical Cadre · Apr 9, 2020

Not necessarily defense contracting news, but I don't think this is worthy of its own thread and I think you guys are about the only people here that might be mildly interested. I'll reward you with a pretty defense-related picture after.

Looks like China had a failure during a commercial satellite launch for Indonesia. Indications are that the third stage malfunctioned and gave Guam a light show. Bummer for the Chinese program, but at least nobody was hurt and there's always valuable data to gain from failure.

I promised you a pretty picture:

Radical Cadre · Apr 26, 2020

Looks like the X-37 is going out for another walk. Maybe it will shake hands with that new Iranian satellite?

http://alert5.com/2020/04/26/x-37b-heading-back-to-space-for-mission-otv-6/

CDWLTY · Apr 26, 2020

Radical Cadre said:
Looks like the X-37 is going out for another walk. Maybe it will shake hands with that new Iranian satellite?

http://alert5.com/2020/04/26/x-37b-heading-back-to-space-for-mission-otv-6/

Hopefully those lasers have been coming along okay. It's about time we start playing Moonraker up there.

BONE_Buddy · Jul 8, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34663/navy-to-add-laser-weapons-to-at-least-seven-more-ships-in-the-next-three-years

The U.S. Navy expects to have eight warships, in total, equipped with the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy, or ODIN, a laser directed energy weapon system, within the next three years. One Arleigh Burke class destroyer, the USS Dewey, is already equipped with ODIN, which The War Zone was first to report on last year.

Frank Peterkin, the Senior Technologist for Directed Energy at the Office of Naval Research (ONR), disclosed this general schedule for deploying the next seven ODINs across the Navy's fleets during an online discussion on July 7, 2020. Booz Allen Hamilton hosted the panel discussion as part of a slate of virtual programming in lieu of its annual Directed Energy Summit, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We’ve been working hard for the last five to seven years to try to bring directed energy forward in a meaningful sense to the warfighter and the operational community while at the same time advancing the technology," Peterkin explained. "The warfighters in those communities have to actually be touching these weapons, using them, seeing them work."

ODIN is one of a number of laser directed energy weapons the Navy has in development now as part of its larger Navy Laser Family of Systems (NLFoS) effort. While the service expects to field many of these systems, it also expects them to serve as stepping stones to more powerful laser weapons down the line.

{ A general breakdown of the Navy Laser Family of Systems (NLFoS) effort. }

While its exact power class is unclear, ODIN features a relatively low-powered laser and is designed to work as a dazzler to blind electro-optical and infrared optics. This could be used to confuse optical or imaging infrared seekers on incoming weapons, such as anti-ship cruise missiles, throwing them off course. It could also neutralize cameras used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) purposes on other ships, manned aircraft, and drones.

The Navy has actually publicly said that an urgent request from U.S. Pacific Command for a way to shield its ships against the prying eyes of potential adversaries was the main driving force behind the installation of the first ODIN on the Dewey. Pictures first emerged in September 2019 of that destroyer fitted with the dazzler and the service publicly confirmed that the ship was equipped with the system in February 2020.

"The Pacific Fleet Commander identified this urgent Counter-Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance need and the Chief of Naval Operations directed us to fill it as quickly as possible," Navy Commander David Wolfe, head of the directed energy office within the Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems. "The NSWC [Naval Surface Warfare Center] Dahlgren Division team did an amazing job addressing challenges and keeping our accelerated schedule on track and moving forward to deliver this capability."

It's worth noting that, also in February, a post appeared on the Navy's official Instagram account warning the Chinese military that "you don't want to play laser tag with us." This followed the service's announcement that a People's Liberation Army Navy destroyer had aimed a laser beam at one of its P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol planes in the Philippine Sea that same month. This is just one of a string of reported instances of People's Liberation Army forces shining lasers in potentially dangerous ways at U.S. military aircraft, as well as those belonging to American allies, in the Pacific region and elsewhere.

Iran also routinely uses unmanned aircraft to surveil Navy ships, including amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers, in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, and the Strait of Hormuz, which links those two bodies of water. ODIN could be useful addition to the service's ship operating in those areas, among others, as well.

As already noted, ODIN is just one of the new laser directed energy weapons the Navy has in the works now. In May, the service announced that the San Antonio class landing platform dock USS Portland had successfully employed its own new Mk 2 Mod 0 Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD), a much more powerful 150-kilowatt class design, to actually shoot down a small drone during a test. Northrop Grumman developed the Mk 2 Mod 0 as part of the Solid-State Laser Technology Maturation (SSL-TM) program.

There is also the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) project, which is working on a 60-kilowatt class laser weapon that will also be capable of knocking down smaller unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as functioning as a dazzler, just like ODIN. Lockheed Martin is developing the HELIOS system

{ An artist's conception of an Arleigh Burke class destroyer employing the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system. }

The Navy has not said exactly what additional ships it wants to arm with any of these systems, but it has expressed an interest in integrating them on more Arleigh Burke class destroyers, as well as Littoral Combat Ships, in the past. There is a clear desire to add these kinds of directed energy capabilities to a wide variety of other ships, too. "There have been discussions [about] even putting lasers on aircraft carriers," ONR's Peterkin said during the recent remote panel discussion.

Beyond that, the Navy's plan to field more ODIN systems and other laser weapons only underscores the progress that the services had continued to make in the directed energy realm, while other services have hit setbacks in their own efforts. "We’re in a little bit of a golden age for collaboration now for directed energy," Peterkin said.

As it stands now, Navy ships leaving for deployments armed with laser weapon systems looks to set to become an increasingly normal affair.

______________________________________________
Don't get too excited, this isn't some Star Trek Proton Beam or something like that.

This is an Electro-Optical Jammer system. These systems are there primarily to blind ASBMs like the new models of Chinese Dong Feng Anti-Ship Missiles. They are also there to blind Surveillance Drones and Aircraft. A distant third place goes to a capability to shoot down small and close Drones.

It is good that we are gaining this capability.

Icasaracht · Jul 8, 2020

A literal laser beam designated to blind Chinese Dongs. Bravo America!

Pinecandle · Jul 8, 2020

God, this is absolutely amazing. imagine how many faggots you can blind with this thing.

also imagine fucking SPACE LASERS

NerdShamer · Jul 8, 2020

Pinecandle said:
God, this is absolutely amazing. imagine how many faggots you can blind with this thing.

also imagine fucking SPACE LASERS

Remember, it only blinds drones, cameras, and potentially, missiles.

SiggyB · Jul 8, 2020

One secret hope is that anti-missile systems become so sophisticated that we go back to ye olden days of throwing slugs at each other. A pipe dream for sure, but one I wish for nonetheless.

Back me up! · Jul 8, 2020

NerdShamer said:
Remember, it only blinds drones, cameras, and potentially, missiles.

Yeah, cause anything else would straight up be a war crime.

ColtWalker1847 · Jul 8, 2020

How long until we get the sharks with friggen laser beams?

HarveyMCR · Jul 8, 2020

Pinecandle said:
God, this is absolutely amazing. imagine how many faggots you can blind with this thing.

also imagine fucking SPACE LASERS

Would probably be banned under the Geneva convention for the same reason gas is. It would only cause confusion and disorder on the battlefield and would be an intentional strain on the nations healthcare system than for any tactical or strategic purpose. Probably best we don’t blind humans and keep this to electronics

I’ve seen more news publications about the navy these past few weeks than I have in the past few years. If I were to hedge my bets, I’d say there’s a good chance we’re going to war with China in the next few years, and it’ll be a primarily naval war (think Pacific front instead of European front of WWII). My guess is that the US Navy is first going to move into the South China Sea and Japanese Sea first to cut off shipping, then into the straight of Ceylon, begin seizing foreign military bases and islands, and then turn it into a prolonged economic war.

I can’t see this being a large conventional war. Blowing one damn in China like we did to the Nazis could kill millions of people. Nuclear weapons are not necessary to achieve a death toll required to push threats of nuclear war, so I doubt we’ll make any incursions into the main land

NerdShamer · Jul 8, 2020

Back me up! said:
Yeah, cause anything else would straight up be a war crime.

Speaking of seizures, North Korea actually has those and China allegedly R&D's them.

thx1138 · Jul 8, 2020

IMMA CHARGIN' MY LAZER!

There's a military sci-fi author, I forget who (Pournelle, maybe?) who wrote a think-piece about seaborne missile defense ages ago - like, early 1980s, maybe in Omni magazine? Anyway, he talked about a future where you'd have a nuclear powered ship, with 3-4 reactors on board, and, rather like battleships of old, just loaded to the teeth with cannons, except laser cannons, and lots of search radar. When anything came near the battlegroup, they would fire it up and raster-scan the whole sky, pumping out enough laser power to intercept and disable whatever was flying in.

Deployed Ships Underway	Non-deployed Ships Underway	Total Ships Underway
46	33	79

Fleet Forces	3rd Fleet	4th Fleet	5th Fleet	6th Fleet	7th Fleet	Total
3	1	2	23	15	56	100

War Developing and Upcoming Military Technology - Something new at least 3 times a week.

Loaded Like A Boxcar Moving Like A Racecar

Are you now, or have you ever been?

Operation: Desert Snek

The artist formerly known as 'Tbag'

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Not dead yet.

You're all fags and I am your lighter.

my reaction score is low but my cock is massive

Friendship Windmill

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Casualty of the Culture War

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