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

NerdShamer · Jul 11, 2020

BONE_Buddy said:
So, from what I have heard, it was a problem with production and design.

Simply put, before WW2 Japan had little access to rubber. They produced very little of the valuable materials from the home islands and their colonies. This is a problem because self-sealing tanks use quite a lot of rubber, especially compared to the standard fuel tanks.

Besides the material cost, you had problems with the manufacturing of the systems themselves. Compared to making a fuel tank which doesn't self seal, the takes which do self seal are much more complicated. It seems absurd to say, but Japan was a nation which was just beginning its industrialization. As such, it has very wide discrepancies for what it could actually make and produce easily. Therefore, it wasn't just something that they could check a box on and have it made, there had to be actual government effort put into fielding said self sealing tank, which they did in the last half of the war.

They didn't focus on putting self sealing tanks into their Zeros because several Japanese design studies came back with very disappointing reports about early native self sealing tank designs. It was found that the hydro-static shock of a round impacting these early self sealing tank designs would just rupture that tank completely. That combined with middling results when the tanks didn't fail spectacularly put the top brass off of the idea for a long time.

Then comes the design considerations of the Japanese Zero. The fundamental concept was that Maneuverability was its Survivability. The going thought process was that if you were caught in the enemies guns, you were already dead, so one should focus on being able to avoid the kill box. In their minds it was better to not get hit, than to be able to survive the first 50 rounds of a 200 round burst of gunfire.

So, to put it all together:

Does self sealing fuel tanks help survivability? Sure, but it is only of moderate effectiveness when it works.

Well, can we make it easily? No, it will cost a lot to get production going, and the materials needed are going to have to be imported.

Would it be a net benefit to the vehicle? Well, We are already talking abut an aircraft that had no armor, few redundancies, and an extremely lightweight construction. Agility is it's strength and adding this system would only make it slower and heavier, and therefore less maneuverable.

Putting oneself into that frame of mind allows you to see why the Japs did what they did.

Of course, we now know today that a lot of the Japanese air doctrine was drawing off the wrong assumptions. In fact, one could call a many of the decisions stupid in hindsight. But before the war at least, there was a rational reason for why things were made the way they were.
_
But that is just what I have heard.

One of the caveats of the Zero was it's range. Although, it was mostly from the reduced weight.

CDWLTY · Jul 11, 2020

Are small arms outside of this? I thought it was interesting that the JSDF finally made an equipment change. Sidearm goes from Sig P220 ripoff to HK's {glock ripoff} Polymer 9.

In addition,HOWA finally made something new, by testing the standard crop of SCAR, AR, etc. and decided they'd be best off just making their own super original OC DO NOT STEAL rifle. The article I saw was in Jap but I'm not good at surfing their net, this guy has it third hand at least. Brand new, all original.

If this belongs here just let me know or delete it at leisure. I'm sure there are some other weebos interested in the JSDF.

BONE_Buddy · Jul 11, 2020

CDWLTY said:
Are small arms outside of this? I thought it was interesting that the JSDF finally made an equipment change. Sidearm goes from Sig P220 ripoff to HK's {glock ripoff} Polymer 9.

In addition,HOWA finally made something new, by testing the standard crop of SCAR, AR, etc. and decided they'd be best off just making their own super original OC DO NOT STEAL rifle. The article I saw was in Jap but I'm not good at surfing their net, this guy has it third hand at least.Brand new, all original.

If this belongs here just let me know or delete it at leisure. I'm sure there are some other weebos interested in the JSDF.

Anything Military related is welcome here. Small arms are definitely military related. The only thing I would exclude is discussions explicitly about civilian ownership, we have the Mega Rad Gun thread in general for that. So your post should be good, at least by my calculus.

Your image seems to be a bit broken though.

Thanks for the information!

Snekposter · Jul 11, 2020

Worth pointing out that early US carrier planes didn't have self-sealing tanks or pilot armor for weight reasons. Later versions of the Wildcat and everything else afterwards got them when we finally had the horsepower and fuel capacity to not be overly hindered by their mass. Also, not every self-sealing design was the same. The single best material for tanks was rubber, since it could flex with kinetic impact and would be melted by the leaking gas to seal the hole up. German designs were a mixture of fabric and leather, with very little rubber. Said shortage of rubber also lead to their distinctive overlapping wheels for tracks, since that minimized rubber use. The most common self-sealing in the US was from Goodyear, and it used as much rubber as you'd expect. Of course, said tank could reliably take hits from everything of a 20mm and not leak, explode, or otherwise spontaneously ignite by successfully preventing fuel vaporization from anything but the most severe impacts, but it was also as heavy as you'd expect from all that rubber. US submarine batteries were similarly super-reinforced to not burst when subjected to stresses, which also meant in normal use they needed very little maintenance. Oh and as for production of synthetic rubber during WW2: synthetic rubber comes from petrochemicals, so obviously in order to meet the wartime demands the US by itself had to synthesize roughly double what had been naturally produced at the start of the war.

Fork Cartel · Jul 11, 2020

On the subject of aircraft, are we ever going to see the F/A-XX this side of 2050? There are no peers for it to fight, drones seem likely to replace human pilots altogether soon, and the F-35 and 22 seem sufficient for purpose going forward. I don't really think there's much room for a 6th gen aircraft in a world where only the US would even be interested in it, is all.

BONE_Buddy · Jul 11, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34704/american-surveillance-aircraft-have-been-flooding-into-the-airspace-south-of-taiwan

American Surveillance Aircraft Have Been Flooding Into The Airspace South Of Taiwan (Updated)

Online flight tracking software has shown a notable uptick in U.S. military aerial activity in the strategic Bashi Channel, which runs from the southern end of Taiwan to the northern tip of the island of Luzon in the Philippines, in recent weeks. A steady stream of U.S. Air Force KC-135 tankers has been seen flying in and out of this general area, which serves the main boundary between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea. Particularly noteworthy, clusters of P-8A Poseidon and P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, and EP-3E Aries II and RC-135V/W Rivet Joint intelligence-gathering planes having also been observed operating there on many occasions over the last month or so.

Just today, an RC-135W and a KC-135T were spotted flying in the area. Yesterday, an EP-3E and three separate P-8As flew in and around the channel. The day before that, a P-8A, a P-3C, an EP-3E, and an RC-135W had all been present at various times, with at least one KC-135R flying in support of the activity there.

https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1281189636581154821

USAF RC-135W is leaving the #SouthChinaSea around 18:40, whose coming trajectory is unclear, while USAF tanker KC-135T was detected in the same airspace earlier this day around 10:00, implying that the former might have come since then, July 9.

https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1280685633321631749

US Navy EP-3E (#AE1D91), again, approached the offshore airspace over Guangdong, as close as about 50nm, July 8. On the late evening of July 7 and early morning of July 8, three P-8As were also spotted near #BashiChannel. (one around 22 pm, another 3 am, the other 5 am)

https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1280452469923835904

1 EP-3E,1 P-3C, 1 P-8A, 1 RC-135W and 1 KC-135R, July 7. Also some reminders for media : 1) The US military conducts 3 to 5 sorties to the #SouthChinaSea every day, but not every time brings big news. 2) We collect and share this data for research purposes, not for making news.

"The US military conducts 3 to 5 sorties to the #SouthChinaSea every day," the SCS Probing Initiative noted in a Tweet on July 7. China's Peking University in Beijing hosts the SCS Probing Initiative, which is, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the most active entities tracking American military aviation activity, as well as that of U.S. military ships, in the South China Sea and elsewhere in the Pacific. The project does also tracks other countries' military activities in the region, too.

Still, there does seem to have been a notable increase in U.S. military aerial activity in this one particular area since the end of June. One of the first major conflagrations came on June 24, when two P-8As, a P-3C, and an RC-135W were tracked in the Bashi Channel. Another major cluster aircraft, including 4 P-8As, an EP-3E, an RC-135W, and at least two KC-135s, also appeared in the area on July 3. In the intervening days, the SCS Probing Initiative watched smaller numbers of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance aircraft regularly move through the region, including one of the Air Force's two RC-135U Combat Sent electronic intelligence aircraft.

https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1275773816782741504

A total of four U.S. surveillance aircraft were operating near the #Bashi Channel from early morning till late afternoon on June 24. What a busy day! 2 P-8As, 1 P-3C and 1 RC-135W.

https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1277460846822608898

Very intense reconnaissance by EP-3E and RC-135U. It seems that RC-135U is going back, leaving a tortuous flight path, June 29.

USN EP-3E #AE1D8A is patrolling the #SouthChinaSea, USAF RC-135U #AE01D5 is heading for #SouthChinaSea from #Kadena, June 29.

https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1279025811446624258

On, July 3, the US military just set a recent record for reconnaissance in the #SouthChinaSea today. A total of 6 large reconnaissance aircraft including 4 P-8As, 1 EP-3E and 1 RC-135W, plus 2 refuelling tankers. Maybe there were more which could not be seen with open source.

It's not clear what the exact reasons for this might be, but it is likely due to a confluence of factors.

Beginning in June, the People's Liberation Army Navy has conducted a number of significant naval exercises in the region. The PLAN's newest aircraft carrier, the Shandong, has taken part in at least some of those drills.

Then, at the beginning of July, the U.S. Navy sent two of its own Nimitz class aircraft carriers, the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan, into the South China Sea, the first dual-carrier exercise it had held there in some six years. Ticonderoga class cruisers and Arleigh Burke class destroyers escorted the flattops and American submarines would have been in the area keeping watch, as well. The two carriers' air wings trained together, as well as with a U.S. Air Force B-52 that had flown all the way to the area from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The bomber landed on Guam after the conclusion of its long-range training mission.

{ An Air Force B-52 bomber flies together with Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers, and E-2 Hawkeye in the South China Sea in July 2020. }

The U.S. military has a clear interest in simply monitoring the Chinese drills in the region, as well as looking to gather any kind of intelligence about the technical capabilities of People's Liberation Army Navy aircraft and ships taking part and their tactics, techniques, and procedures. Similarly, observing how the Chinese military responds to American military maneuvers offers its own opportunities to gather additional intelligence.

The U.S. aircraft have been flying in the area in recent weeks are certainly equipped to collect a wide variety of information, from full-motion video via electro-optical and infrared cameras on the P-8As and P-3Cs to a host of signals and electronic intelligence via the sensors suites on the EP-3Es and RC-135s. The P-8As have significant SIGINT capabilities, as well. Depending on their configuration, P-8As and P-3Cs can carry powerful radar imaging systems, too.

China's response to the relatively rare dual-carrier exercise, in particular, was no doubt especially significant and would have provided a unique intelligence-gathering environment. Ensuring that the two carriers were able to operate in the South China Sea unmolested could easily have also driven requirements for additional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. Wanting to make sure opposing submarines, especially, did not get too close to the carrier strike groups would have called for the dedicated anti-submarine warfare capabilities of the P-8As and the P-3Cs, as well.

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1279348624812470273

Look! China's Southern, Northern and Eastern Theater Commands held naval drills in the #SouthChinaSea, Yellow Sea and East China Sea, respectively, with the participation of 054A frigates & 052D guided missile destroyers.

Beyond these more immediate events in and around the South China Sea, there's definitely no shortage of potential items of interest for the U.S. military to point those sensors at in this region. The Bashi Channel serves as an important passageway from the South China Sea in the broader Pacific to the East, including for Chinese submarines. Earlier this year, there were reports that the PLAN had deployed two new Type 094 Jin class ballistic missile submarines, which would have brought the total size of the fleet to six subs.

The Type 094s are all are based at the sprawling Yulin Naval Base on Hainan Island in the northern end of the South China Sea. In May, a specially-configured P-8A carrying the powerful and secretive AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor radar pod was observed flying around Hainan Island, including in international waters near Yulin. Chinese submarines, especially those packing ballistic missiles, would traverse the greater Luzon Strait after leaving their base on Hainan Island to move into the far less congested Philippine Sea and out into the greater Pacific. As such, this area is a critical submarine-hunting ground and natural choke point.

{ A P-8A equipped with the AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor, as indicated by the red arrow. }

The activities of China's submarine fleets, which are growing in overall size and seeing the introduction of more modern designs, have been a major area of focus for the U.S. military and its allies in recent years. In June, the Japanese government took the unusual step of publicly disclosing that it had tracked a likely Chinese submarine sailing submerged in international waters between Amami-Oshima Island and Yokoate Island, which are situated to the north of Okinawa in the East China Sea.

All of this comes as U.S.-Chinese relations are at a particularly low point due to a host of issues, including the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities in Beijing recently imposed a new heavy-handed security law on Hong Kong, which has prompted the U.S. government, among others, to reassess its relationship with that semi-autonomous region. China's leaders have also taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward Taiwan in recent years, as officials in Taipei have sought to distance the island more from the mainland.

Though the United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, it nonetheless remains its principal ally and has responded to the pressure from Beijing by stepping its own Freedom of Navigation Patrols (FONOPS) in the Taiwan Strait, with aircraft and warships taking part in those operations. In early June, a Navy C-40A passenger transport took an unusual route over the island itself. Later in the month, the U.S. Army released rare video footage of Green Berets training with their Taiwanese counterparts.

There are no clear indications that the overall geopolitical situation in the region is set to take a more positive course in the near future, so it seems probable that we will see more U.S. military activity in this strategic area in the weeks and months to come.

Update: 4:45 PM EST—

Bloomberg is reporting that President Donald Trump's Administration is expected to make a major policy announcement regarding tensions with China in the South China Sea next week.

"The U.S. has raised concerns over China’s decision to conduct military exercises in the contested waters around the Paracel Islands," according to Bloomberg. "The Defense Department last week called the actions “unlawful,” and the U.S. plans to lay out its official position next week, said one of the people who spoke on condition of anonymity."

___________________________________________________
First of all, it is hilarious the the Chinese are complaining about the US conducting activities just outside the Chinese borders when the Chinese themselves are actively encroaching on all their neighbor's territory.

Secondly, this should tell people just how intently we are watching and tracking Chinese forces.

Thirdly, that's a lot concentrated recon power.

BONE_Buddy · Jul 11, 2020

Fork Cartel said:
On the subject of aircraft, are we ever going to see the F/A-XX this side of 2050? There are no peers for it to fight, drones seem likely to replace human pilots altogether soon, and the F-35 and 22 seem sufficient for purpose going forward. I don't really think there's much room for a 6th gen aircraft in a world where only the US would even be interested in it, is all.

Well, the thing is, that your enemies capabilities are a moving target. By 2040, the Chinese (or whoever else) might very well have something which could start matching the F-22 and F-35s. by the time that comes around we want to be another generation ahead of that particular enemy aircraft. Stealth aircraft are this era's dreadnought race, and we are Great Britain in this metaphor.

As for if it will have a pilot or not, I think it probably will. It will probably have drone companions however. We will probably see it start getting serious funding after the production of the F-35 starts tapering off.

NerdShamer · Jul 11, 2020

Well, let's hope that nothing stupid happens from the politicians. But that's essentially an given, considering Bloomberg's statement.

Fanatical Pragmatist · Jul 11, 2020

Forgive me if old news, but:

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/06/army-tests-prsm-seeker-to-hunt-ships-sams/

The brand new missile seeker can home in on radio and radar, which means it can also target anti-aircraft defenses – blasting a path through them for US airpower.
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on June 04, 2020 at 5:41 PM

Lockheed’s prototype Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) fires from an Army HIMARS launcher truck in its first flight test, December 2019.
WASHINGTON: The Army has begun testing a new multi-mode seeker — an upgrade for the Precision Strike Missile — even though the missile won’t enter service until 2023,
The upgraded seeker is expected to be part of a major program improvement planned for 2025.
The new multi-mode seeker was tested yesterday for the first time outside the lab. It should allow the upgraded missile, known as “Spiral One,” to hunt a variety of moving targets on land and sea, Army officials told reporters this afternoon.
Yesterday’s test was five years in the making. The Army launched an initiative in 2015 called the Land-Based Anti-Ship Missile (LBASM). The challenge? While the Army’s long-range artillery rockets and missiles can strike fixed coordinates with high accuracy, ships don’t stay still. If the Army was going to help the Navy and Air Force take on the Chinese navy, it needed to upgrade its missiles to strike moving targets.
That required a new sensor – or better yet, multiple sensors — to track the target in different ways and at different distances. After the missile arrives in the approximate area of the target, the “multi-mode seeker” initially listens for radio-frequency emissions from the enemy’s communications and radar. As the missile homes in on the target, the seeker turns on its infrared imaging mode to refine the precise point to strike.
The Army initially sought this multi-mode sensor to hunt Chinese ships in the Pacific. But it quickly realized the ability to track a mobile target by its radio emissions would also be invaluable for tracking down and destroying mobile radars, an essential piece of Russia anti-aircraft defenses in Europe. Using Army land-based missiles to blast a path for airstrikes from all the services is central to the evolving battle concept known as Joint All-Domain Operations, so this mission has become the focus, said the Army’s artillery modernization director, Brig. Gen. John Rafferty.

“Primarily, the PrSM Spiral One approach is against integrated air defense systems,” Rafferty told reporters.
The new multi-mode seeker was mounted under the wing of a small jet yesterday and flown over the Redstone Test Center in Alabama, where it hunted a target in the messy, cluttered terrain of the real world. The Army’s now crunching the data gathered to see if the seeker’s algorithms need refinement, said the Aviation & Missile Center’s Mike Turner, the primary science & technology advisor to Rafferty’s artillery modernization team.
That test was just the beginning, Turner said, with the seeker operating at “about half its capability.” This fall, he said, the jet will take it up for another test flight, but this time will function at full power against a more realistic target, at the much larger White Sands Missile Range.
“A few months after that,” Turner continued, the seeker will be installed on a “surrogate missile” for three further flight tests. If all goes as planned, the seeker will then be installed on actual PrSM missiles for final testing in 2025.

“We insert all the points along the flight path into a deep neural network that was trained to be able to predict the exact launch point and the location of the drone operator,” Eliyahu Mashhadi of Ben Gurion University says. Testing the model with the flight simulator, the team were able to locate and target the drone operator 78% of the time.

That upgrade is just one of many planned for PrSM, Rafferty emphasized. The base Precision Strike Missile entering service in 2023 will offer dramatically greater range – more than 500 km (313 miles) — than the Reagan-era ATACMS in current use. Spiral One in 2025 will add the ability to track moving targets on land and sea. Spiral Two, with no set date as yet, will focus on “enhanced lethality,” probably by developing an alternative warhead that can eject submunitions to strike multiple targets, like a formation of armored vehicles; that will require further seeker upgrades, Rafferty noted. Spiral Three will increase the missile’s range to 700-800 kilometers (438 to 500 miles). Despite the names, it’s possible that Spiral Three may actually enter service before Spiral Two, Rafferty said: The service will see how both the technology and the threat evolve.
In the near term, the challenge is just getting all the engineering and testing done without exposing the Army and industry workforce to COVID-19. That required some work to get done while wearing masks and other protective equipment, Rafferty said, but it got done. The dedication to staying on schedule while still protecting the people was “very inspiring,” Rafferty said.
“We don’t have time to wait,” he said. “There’s a pacing threat and the Army’s counting on us to deliver.”

This is a good move IMO. Future conflicts will no doubt involve the need for more than just aircraft to be able to target enemy SAM systems, and the ability to turn places like Japan, Australia and South Korea into points in a giant kill-box for the ChiCom navy would ideally help dissuade them from making grabs on their neighbors.

The Un-Clit · Jul 11, 2020

BONE_Buddy said:
So, from what I have heard, it was a problem with production and design.

Simply put, before WW2 Japan had little access to rubber. They produced very little of the valuable materials from the home islands and their colonies. This is a problem because self-sealing tanks use quite a lot of rubber, especially compared to the standard fuel tanks.

Besides the material cost, you had problems with the manufacturing of the systems themselves. Compared to making a fuel tank which doesn't self seal, the takes which do self seal are much more complicated. It seems absurd to say, but Japan was a nation which was just beginning its industrialization. As such, it has very wide discrepancies for what it could actually make and produce easily. Therefore, it wasn't just something that they could check a box on and have it made, there had to be actual government effort put into fielding said self sealing tank, which they did in the last half of the war.

They didn't focus on putting self sealing tanks into their Zeros because several Japanese design studies came back with very disappointing reports about early native self sealing tank designs. It was found that the hydro-static shock of a round impacting these early self sealing tank designs would just rupture that tank completely. That combined with middling results when the tanks didn't fail spectacularly put the top brass off of the idea for a long time.

Then comes the design considerations of the Japanese Zero. The fundamental concept was that Maneuverability was its Survivability. The going thought process was that if you were caught in the enemies guns, you were already dead, so one should focus on being able to avoid the kill box. In their minds it was better to not get hit, than to be able to survive the first 50 rounds of a 200 round burst of gunfire.

So, to put it all together:

Does self sealing fuel tanks help survivability? Sure, but it is only of moderate effectiveness when it works.

Well, can we make it easily? No, it will cost a lot to get production going, and the materials needed are going to have to be imported.

Would it be a net benefit to the vehicle? Well, We are already talking abut an aircraft that had no armor, few redundancies, and an extremely lightweight construction. Agility is it's strength and adding this system would only make it slower and heavier, and therefore less maneuverable.

Putting oneself into that frame of mind allows you to see why the Japs did what they did.

Of course, we now know today that a lot of the Japanese air doctrine was drawing off the wrong assumptions. In fact, one could call a many of the decisions stupid in hindsight. But before the war at least, there was a rational reason for why things were made the way they were.
_
But that is just what I have heard.

That's some interesting shit. I knew Japan had a serious shortage of wartime-required materiel especially oil, rubber and metals which is why the moved so aggressively fast after disabling most of the U.S. Pacific fleet (except the targets they REALLY wanted, the carriers) and invaded and captured the resource-rich areas of Indo-China, the Phillipines and such, but had thought that yeah they were just stupid in their air doctrine, less fully aware of what they were doing and not that they were so direly short of required materials that they made their choices as they were forced to make them. Good food for thought.

BONE_Buddy · Jul 11, 2020

Fanatical Pragmatist said:
Forgive me if old news, but:

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/06/army-tests-prsm-seeker-to-hunt-ships-sams/

The brand new missile seeker can home in on radio and radar, which means it can also target anti-aircraft defenses – blasting a path through them for US airpower.
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on June 04, 2020 at 5:41 PM

Lockheed’s prototype Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) fires from an Army HIMARS launcher truck in its first flight test, December 2019.
WASHINGTON: The Army has begun testing a new multi-mode seeker — an upgrade for the Precision Strike Missile — even though the missile won’t enter service until 2023,
The upgraded seeker is expected to be part of a major program improvement planned for 2025.
The new multi-mode seeker was tested yesterday for the first time outside the lab. It should allow the upgraded missile, known as “Spiral One,” to hunt a variety of moving targets on land and sea, Army officials told reporters this afternoon.
Yesterday’s test was five years in the making. The Army launched an initiative in 2015 called the Land-Based Anti-Ship Missile (LBASM). The challenge? While the Army’s long-range artillery rockets and missiles can strike fixed coordinates with high accuracy, ships don’t stay still. If the Army was going to help the Navy and Air Force take on the Chinese navy, it needed to upgrade its missiles to strike moving targets.
That required a new sensor – or better yet, multiple sensors — to track the target in different ways and at different distances. After the missile arrives in the approximate area of the target, the “multi-mode seeker” initially listens for radio-frequency emissions from the enemy’s communications and radar. As the missile homes in on the target, the seeker turns on its infrared imaging mode to refine the precise point to strike.
The Army initially sought this multi-mode sensor to hunt Chinese ships in the Pacific. But it quickly realized the ability to track a mobile target by its radio emissions would also be invaluable for tracking down and destroying mobile radars, an essential piece of Russia anti-aircraft defenses in Europe. Using Army land-based missiles to blast a path for airstrikes from all the services is central to the evolving battle concept known as Joint All-Domain Operations, so this mission has become the focus, said the Army’s artillery modernization director, Brig. Gen. John Rafferty.

“Primarily, the PrSM Spiral One approach is against integrated air defense systems,” Rafferty told reporters.
The new multi-mode seeker was mounted under the wing of a small jet yesterday and flown over the Redstone Test Center in Alabama, where it hunted a target in the messy, cluttered terrain of the real world. The Army’s now crunching the data gathered to see if the seeker’s algorithms need refinement, said the Aviation & Missile Center’s Mike Turner, the primary science & technology advisor to Rafferty’s artillery modernization team.
That test was just the beginning, Turner said, with the seeker operating at “about half its capability.” This fall, he said, the jet will take it up for another test flight, but this time will function at full power against a more realistic target, at the much larger White Sands Missile Range.
“A few months after that,” Turner continued, the seeker will be installed on a “surrogate missile” for three further flight tests. If all goes as planned, the seeker will then be installed on actual PrSM missiles for final testing in 2025.

“We insert all the points along the flight path into a deep neural network that was trained to be able to predict the exact launch point and the location of the drone operator,” Eliyahu Mashhadi of Ben Gurion University says. Testing the model with the flight simulator, the team were able to locate and target the drone operator 78% of the time.

That upgrade is just one of many planned for PrSM, Rafferty emphasized. The base Precision Strike Missile entering service in 2023 will offer dramatically greater range – more than 500 km (313 miles) — than the Reagan-era ATACMS in current use. Spiral One in 2025 will add the ability to track moving targets on land and sea. Spiral Two, with no set date as yet, will focus on “enhanced lethality,” probably by developing an alternative warhead that can eject submunitions to strike multiple targets, like a formation of armored vehicles; that will require further seeker upgrades, Rafferty noted. Spiral Three will increase the missile’s range to 700-800 kilometers (438 to 500 miles). Despite the names, it’s possible that Spiral Three may actually enter service before Spiral Two, Rafferty said: The service will see how both the technology and the threat evolve.
In the near term, the challenge is just getting all the engineering and testing done without exposing the Army and industry workforce to COVID-19. That required some work to get done while wearing masks and other protective equipment, Rafferty said, but it got done. The dedication to staying on schedule while still protecting the people was “very inspiring,” Rafferty said.
“We don’t have time to wait,” he said. “There’s a pacing threat and the Army’s counting on us to deliver.”

This is a good move IMO. Future conflicts will no doubt involve the need for more than just aircraft to be able to target enemy SAM systems, and the ability to turn places like Japan, Australia and South Korea into points in a giant kill-box for the ChiCom navy would ideally help dissuade them from making grabs on their neighbors.

Yeah, thanks for the good info.

I had caught some rumblings from earlier this year that they were going to be doing an Anti-Radiation Missile upgrade, but beyond hearing about the upgrade plan and roughly what they wanted to do with it, I had heard nothing.

This is also the first time I am hearing about plans for a sub-munition upgrade. just imagine stuffing a BLU-105 into the PrSM. Terrifying.

JosephStalin · Jul 12, 2020

NerdShamer said:
@It's HK-47 I think you missed a few threads.

Look on the bright side: If the North Koreans are using biplanes, then we can bring the Meat Chopper out of retirement.

Remember seeing these in Korea in the 76-83 time frame.

BONE_Buddy · Jul 12, 2020

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htwin/articles/20200712.aspx

"Winning": Japan Choses Quiet Over Security

July 12, 2020: Because of poor planning Japan has decided to cancel the installation of two Aegis Ashore ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) systems. The decision to buy and install the two Aegis Ashore in two existing military bases was made at the end of 2017.This decision was encouraged by the fact that in 2016 the first Aegis Ashore system became operational in Romania. The second one became active by 2018 in Poland.

Unfortunately, Japan is not like Romania and Poland, two nations that suffered decades brutal Russian occupation. Japan has prospered greatly under the protection of the American military after World War II and developed some bad habits when it came to defense matters. What killed the Aegis project were several of those bad habits. First, as defense officials were working out the details the soon found they had had underestimated the cost of preparing the two Aegis Ashore sites. That cost was about 25 percent higher than estimated. Costs threatened to increase still more when civilians living near the two Aegis base areas discovered that there were side-effects from the use of Aegis missiles. Planners made some adjustments to the area Aegis would occupy but that was not enough to assure local civilians that the booster portion of the two stage SM missile would never fall in or near a populated area. In one Aegis Ashore site there were civilian concerns about living too close to the AESA radar Aegis uses to detect and track incoming missiles. Once the Japanese media and local politicians get hold of issues like this they stay active until the “threat” goes away. North Korean and Chinese missiles are seen as less of a threat. In Poland and Romania Russia is always seen as the primary threat and the side effects of using Aegis are not an issue.

Japan might still reconsider but it is more likely that the Aegis Ashore funds will be used to upgrade two existing Japanese destroyers to provide these ships with Aegis ABM capabilities. This is not as effective as Aegis Ashore which, as a land base, is cheaper to maintain and always available to defend against North Korean or Chinese ballistic missiles. Ships have crews and ships spend only about a third of their time at sea.

North Korean remains the primary threat to Japan. North Korea unwillingness to get rid of its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons program persists. As a result, Japan is still moving ahead to expand its ballistic missile defenses. Most of these will still be based on the Aegis system, which is normally installed on large (8,000 tons and up) warships. Japan has five of these Aegis anti-missile system destroyers with another due to enter service in 2021.

The Maya class destroyers are improved versions of the earlier Atago class destroyers. The Mayas also borrow much from the first four Japanese Aegis-ABM ships, the 9,500-ton Kongos, which were built during the 1990s and modeled on the American Burke class Aegis destroyers. The Kongos have 90 VLS (Vertical Launch System) cells for anti-aircraft/missile missiles as well as ASROC anti-submarine rockets (that carry an anti-submarine torpedo to, in effect, extend the range of the torpedo by 22 kilometers). Japanese Burke type destroyers also carry a five-inch gun and eight Japanese designed anti-ship missiles (similar to the American Harpoon). The Maya class has 96 VLS cells (as do Atagos) as well as more advanced electronics that enable the Mayas to link with the U.S. Navy CEC (Cooperative Engagement Capability) that allows real-time sharing of sensor and other data in real time between other CEC equipped ships and even shore-based systems like Aegis Ashore.

The two land-based Aegis Ashore anti-missile systems were not expected to be in service until 2024. At that point, Japan would have eight Aegis anti-missile systems and could have two more Aegis anti-missile destroyers by 2024 by upgrading the Aegis systems on two of the older destroyers. That upgrade is more likely now that Aegis Ashore has been cancelled. It appears that North Korea will continue to be a threat and how much more of a ballistic missile threat China becomes is still considered less of a problem. China has a long history of threatening but not acting. North Korea has demonstrated an ability to attack without warning, and did so in 2010. North Korea has always been less cooperative than China although the Chinese are still a threat.

What prompted the original Aegis Ashore order was the Japanese decision, in 2017, that it did not need the more expensive THAAD anti-missile system when it realized that two land-based Aegis systems on the main island could do the same job at less cost. That plus the Aegis equipped destroyers armed with the SM-3A anti-missile missile would enable those two land-based Aegis systems to protect all three of the home islands.

In addition, Japan has 24 Patriot anti-aircraft missile batteries that can also fire the PAC-3 anti-missile missile. The PAC-3 has one drawback, it only has an effective range of 30 kilometers against incoming missiles. The Aegis SM-3 anti-missile missile has a range of from 700 kilometers (older Block 1) to more than three times that for the later Block II models. This is why two Aegis land-based systems can protect most of Japan (the main island). The Patriot PAC-3 provides local defense for key targets (the capital and major military bases).

The first (Romanian) Aegis Ashore system appears to be as reliable as the original ship-based systems. This was expected because the East European Aegis Ashore system had never been to sea. In early 2014 the only land-based Aegis system in existence (in New Jersey) was taken apart, packed into sixty 60 18.2-meter (40 foot) shipping containers and sent to Romania where it was put back together and in 2015 was an operational anti-missile system by early 2016. After that two more ground-based Aegis systems were ordered; one in Poland and one in Hawaii (for testing and development). All three, including new Aegis components for two of them and needed missiles (24 per location) and launching hardware for all of them came out costing $767 million each. Then came the Japanese Aegis Ashore order, which were initially estimated to cost over two billion dollars for each system. Defense projects have always been more expensive in Japan because of local laws (no weapons exports) and customs (creating the maximum number of jobs with government projects).

The U.S. has long sought to put anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe to protect against ballistic missile attacks from Iran. Russia has opposed this and sees it as a subterfuge to weaken the effect of Russian ballistic missiles attacking European targets. Most Europeans don’t know what to make of that, but East European countries (like Romania and Poland) that spent 1945-89 as involuntary Russian vassal (or “satellite”) states, do see a need for protection from Russian missiles and Russian aggression and domination in general. Romanians and Poles considered Russian anger over Aegis Ashore as a benefit, not a problem.

It is different in East Asia where Japanese atrocities during World War II are still remembered. Japan, in turn, considers itself a victim of World War II and still insists it was trying to help its neighbors. The neighbors disagree and two of them, North Korea and China, openly threaten Japan with more nuclear attacks.

Meanwhile Aegis remains one of the most effective missile defense systems available. Aegis has achieved an 83 percent success rate during live test firings. As a result, many countries want Aegis ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) ships for protection from local ballistic missile threats. The Aegis system was designed to operate aboard warships. These are usually cruisers and destroyers that have been equipped with the special software that enables the Aegis radar system to detect and track incoming ballistic missiles. Currently, the U.S. Navy has about 40 ships with the Aegis anti-missile system. There are over 100 American and foreign warships equipped with Aegis, but less than half of them had the software mods and anti-missile missiles that enable them to shoot down ballistic missiles and low-orbit satellites. Converting an Aegis ship to Aegis ABM costs about $30 million, mainly for new software and a few new hardware items. This is seen as a safe investment and the U.S. expects to see most Aegis equipped ships to be upgraded to ABM versions in the 2020s.

To knock down ballistic missiles Aegis uses two similar models of the U.S. Navy Standard anti-aircraft missile, in addition to a modified version of the Aegis radar system, which can now track incoming ballistic missiles. The anti-missile missile is the RIM-161A, also known as the Standard Missile 3 (or SM-3). It has a range of over 500 kilometers and max altitude of over 160 kilometers. The Standard 3 is based on the anti-missile version of the Standard 2 (SM-2 Block IV). This SM-2 missile turned out to be effective against ballistic missile warheads that are closer to their target, as is its replacement, the SM-6. One test saw a SM-2 Block IV missile destroy a warhead that was only 19 kilometers up. An SM-3 missile can destroy a warhead that is more than 200 kilometers up. But the SM-3 is only good for anti-missile work, while the SM-2 Block IV and SM-6 can be used against both ballistic missiles and aircraft. The SM-2 Block IV also costs less than half what a SM-3 costs. SM-3 is not being replaced by instead constantly upgraded.

The SM-3 has four stages. The first two boost the interceptor out of the atmosphere. The third stage fires twice to boost the interceptor farther beyond the earth's atmosphere. Prior to each motor firing it takes a GPS reading to correct course for approaching the target. The fourth stage is the nine kg (20 pound) LEAP kill vehicle, which uses infrared sensors to close on the target and ram it.
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This is a good piece on why Japan's Aegis ashore program was canceled, as well as general information about the system and it's counterparts.

Snekposter · Jul 12, 2020

The Un-Clit said:
That's some interesting shit. I knew Japan had a serious shortage of wartime-required materiel especially oil, rubber and metals which is why the moved so aggressively fast after disabling most of the U.S. Pacific fleet (except the targets they REALLY wanted, the carriers) and invaded and captured the resource-rich areas of Indo-China, the Phillipines and such, but had thought that yeah they were just stupid in their air doctrine, less fully aware of what they were doing and not that they were so direly short of required materials that they made their choices as they were forced to make them. Good food for thought.

Its also worth pointing out that the Japanese government itself didn't desire any sort of major conquests or war, at least initially. However, they had decided to put all their ultra-nationalist military officers overseas in the Kwangtung Army, safely away from the Home Islands where they couldn't start trouble, as had happened in the past. Of course, that just meant they were left unsupervised to cause trouble in mainland Asia, starting with the Mukden Incident and only escalating from there.

Just Some Other Guy · Jul 12, 2020

NerdShamer said:
One of the caveats of the Zero was it's range. Although, it was mostly from the reduced weight.

The downsides of having limited engine hp. It affected the US too, at least until we started slapping R-2800s in everything that could mount it. I swear, that engine was an instant win button for plane design.

BONE_Buddy · Jul 13, 2020

https://www.marinelog.com/shipyards/shipyard-news/two-submarines-share-dry-dock-for-simultaneous-inactivations/

Two submarines share dry dock for simultaneous inactivations
View attachment 1.webp
{ Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarines USS Louisville (SSN-724), foreground, and USS Olympia (SSN-717) are moved into Dry Dock 5 July 9, 2020 to begin the inactivation process at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Bremerton, Washington. (U.S. Navy photo by Scott Hansen, PSNS & IMF) }

Two elderly Los Angeles-class submarines headed for decommissioning — USS Olympia (SSN 717), commissioned in 1984, and USS Louisville (SSN 724), commissioned in 1986, – both entered Dry Dock 5 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility yesterday.

The two submarines are to be inactivated simultaneously. According to Cmdr. Jack Tappe, project superintendent, this brings both challenges and benefits.

“Most project teams have only one ship complement or crew to synchronize with,” said Tappe. “Our folks have had to coordinate communications and planning across two very different crews, and they have done this very well. Fortunately for us we have the benefit of having some very experienced folks on the Project Team.”

Tappe said the coordination among the project team and the leadership and crews of Olympia and Louisville has been very successful thus far.

“I am extremely proud of our ships’ crews and project team,” said Tappe. “I have never been with a team that has been able to pull two projects to the left by a month and dock early, even during our time of resource shortage and COVID-19 response. This win is due to the hard work and dedication of our friends in the shops and tech codes helping us out.”

Leaders from both ships agreed that efficient communications among all the stakeholders will be key to the continued success of the concurrent inactivation process.

“Transparency and good communications, early and often, are the key to this,” said Louisville’s Commanding Officer Cmdr. Chris Brown. “The inactivation is a team sport, so we’re working hand-in-hand with the project to make sure that all questions are answered in advance so that as we approach each milestone we’re ready to go.”

Olympia’s Commanding Officer Cmdr. Jim Steffen agreed.

“The key to a successful project is communication,” Steffen said. “We’ve already started off on the right foot with the project team. We’re fully integrated, and our goal is to keep communicating not just what’s happening today, but also what’s happening next week. If we can keep that up, this is going to be a smooth project.”

“I think the biggest part is understanding we are one team,” said Olympia’s Chief of the Boat Master Chief Arturo Plasencia. “As long as we’re moving in one direction toward one common goal; that will be the key to success here. We can help the shipyard with any manning shortfalls, and the shipyard can help us by providing us with various skills we don’t necessarily hold onboard, and teaching our Sailors some of those skills.”

Tappe said executing concurrent inactivations is more cost and time efficient than inactivating the ships one at a time.

“We save an enormous amount of time and money by conducting a dual inactivation,” Tappe said. “A single project team is deactivating two submarines at the same time. That is a significant cost savings in the way of personnel. Additionally, the team has identified key individuals to cover two submarines versus having one individual for each submarine.”

“We have one Chief Refueling Engineer responsible for defueling both submarines,” Tappe continued. “We can also surge the workforce between both submarines if necessary, so we have scheduled similar work within weeks of each other to maximize efficiency. By doing this we can also have one ship’s crew watch the other during their evolution, so they can learn from that evolution in as near real-time as possible before they begin their evolution.”

Passing lessons learned from one part of the team to the other, and to ship’s force, may also help streamline operations.

“I’m excited we’re going to run both projects concurrently,” Brown said. “Lessons learned from one unit can be immediately passed to the next. That way we’re able to minimize any delays and accelerate the timelines as we learn each new lesson.”

According to Tappe, capturing lessons learned in real time will assist not only with the concurrent inactivations, it can help future inactivation teams.

“We are hot washing many evolutions once they are completed instead of waiting for the end of availability,” Tappe said. “Our Risk Manager, Roxanne Minder, has been a key player in assisting with gathering the lessons learned from previous inactivation availabilities and documenting all our own lessons learned. We should have a significant amount of detail to turn over to the next SSN-688 inactivation team.”

“The crew will be involved in all aspects of the inactivation,” said Brown. “We’ve had many opportunities to expand their role. With COVID-19 mitigations, we were actually able to get them more involved than they would have been, to keep us on track.”

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The Los Angeles-class Attack Submarines have served well. However, age and technology have started to over take them. USS Olympia and the USS Louisville are the oldest attack submarines in the fleet. The Olympia was one of the last of the 688 style hulls (SSNs 688-71

, the Louisville and friends had an upgrade reactor that didn't require "refueling" and had 12 vertical launch tubes for Tomahawk missiles (SSNs 719-750).

Unfortunately, neither of these Submarines got the improvements of the 688i boats (SSNs 751-773). They have a quieter design, upgraded sonar, increased under ice capabilities, and mine laying technology

The fact of the matter is that the silencing technology is 35 years old in these boats, upgrading them to the new standards would require pulling out so much of the Submarines that it just would be worth it. After-all, one of the biggest contributors to noise on a nuclear boat, is the reactor itself and all the associated piping and mechanisms.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/ssn-688-design.htm

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Here's a little chart I found on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles-class_submarine (yes, I know its wikipedia). If this is relatively accurate, it definitely time to begin putting the early Los Angeles-class into retirement (SSNs 688-750).

BONE_Buddy · Jul 13, 2020

Got a pair of stories for you all:

https://defence-blog.com/news/army/u-s-army-deploys-abrams-tanks-to-poland.html

U.S. Army deploys Abrams tanks to Poland
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The U.S. Army has begun deploying Abrams main battle tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles to Poland as part of the final phase of training linked to DEFENDER-Europe 20, July 14 – Aug. 22.

The Baltic Security has reported that the equipment, to include approximately 55 Abrams main battle tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, was originally moved from Army Prepositioned Stock sites in Germany and Belgium to Bergen-Hohne Training Area, Germany, in February as part of the original DEFENDER-Europe 20 exercise. The equipment will move via commercial and military line-haul to Drawsko Pomorskie Training Area, Poland, for the second phase of the modified exercise.

As part of the training, the unit will also mount the Trophy system on Abrams tanks. Trophy is an active protection system that is designed to detect and defeat rocket propelled grenades, recoilless rifles and anti-tank guided missiles. The fielding of Trophy systems provides the U.S. Army’s logistics teams with the opportunity to assess and experience the dynamics of moving and installing the system in a field environment.

Approximately 550 Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, out of Fort Hood, Texas, will participate in the exercise. The 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters (Forward) out of Poznan, Poland, will serve as mission command for the exercise while the 7th Army Training Command out of Grafenwoehr, Germany, will provide exercise control.

All appropriate COVID-19 prevention ad mitigation measures will be taken prior to and during the deployment to ensure the health and protection of participating armed forces and the local population.

DEFENDER-Europe 20 was designed as a deployment exercise to build strategic readiness in support of the U.S. National Defense Strategy and NATO deterrence objectives. In response to COVID-19, DEFENDER-Europe 20 was modified in size and scope. The first phase was linked exercise Allied Spirit, which took place at Drawsko Pomorskie Training Area, Poland, June 5-19, with approximately 6,000 U.S. and Polish Soldiers.

https://defence-blog.com/news/army/u-s-army-decided-to-mount-active-protection-system-on-abrams-tanks.html

U.S. Army decided to mount active protection system on Abrams tanks
View attachment 4.webp

The U.S. Army has announced on 10 July that it is decided to mount Trophy active protection system on Abrams tanks which will deploy to Poland.

According to a press release issued Friday by the U.S. Army Europe, the fielding of Trophy systems provides the U.S. Army’s logistics teams with the opportunity to assess and experience the dynamics of moving and installing the system in a field environment.

“As part of the training, the unit will also mount the Trophy system on Abrams tanks,” it said in a statement. “Trophy is an active protection system that is designed to detect and defeat rocket propelled grenades, recoilless rifles and anti-tank guided missiles.”

In 2019, the Army has also mounted the Trophy system on Abrams during multinational exercise Justice Eagle 19 at Smardan Training Area, Romania.

The U.S. Army Europe officials said that Abrams was equipped with visual modifications to simulate having the Trophy active protection system take part in Saber Guardian 19.

”The visual modifications, which are the same size and weight of the actual system, are being used so that the unit can provide feedback to the Department of Defense concerning the impact of the system on vehicle maneuver, crew situation awareness, and ability to engage targets,” noted by U.S. Army Europe Public Affairs.
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Defender 2020 was supposed to be a reincarnation of ReForGer, a large scale exercise designed to ensure that NATO and the US specifically had the skills required to move an extremely large amount of forces very quickly to West Germany. The new exercise was/is focused around getting troops to Poland and friends instead of Germany because of the new reality of European political geography.

Many of the lessons to be learned by a Defender exercise can also be applied to rapidly deploying troops to someplace like Japan or South Korea. It is important that these exercises start getting carried out again because the last ReForGer was in 1993 and was a mere shadow of its former self. This means that the people practical hands on experience of moving several divisions over an ocean in a very short period of time have either been rotated out or up.

So Defender 2020 was supposed to be a medium scale mobility and campaign exercise to get practical experience back into the force, with a particular focus in the lower rank logistics teams. Unfortunately it had to be significantly scaled back due to the coronavirus. What does this means for the future Defender exercises? I don't know.

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It is also interesting to note that while the Army has the new M1A2C (Formerly known as M1A2 SEPv3) which has the Trophy APS installed natively, the older variants of the Abrams seem to have the capability of mounting the Trophy APS as well. It is nice that they have an ability to be retrofitted on.

The Army is currently in the process of fielding its first brigade of the new M1A2Cs. The M1A2Cs have upgraded armor, management systems, auxiliary power systems, Trophy APS, and other upgrades. The M1A2Ds are expected to start delivery in 2021, and include upgrades to the Main Gun (most notably having the new Advance Muli-Purpose round), greatly improved sensor technology i.e. 3rd+ Generation FLIR, improved optics, and new/upgraded warning recievers, and other upgrades.

CDWLTY · Jul 13, 2020

Well at least we know all that projection after the soviets fell about "peace for the forseeable future" we had in kids' magazines and books was wrong. I remember being crestfallen that there was a kind of belief that no one would have much need to push the envelope as much as they did in the cold war without the strong opponent. It's kinda weird to read those things, I found an old issue of some teen mag from the 90's writing about the raptor. There was a lot of optimism.

The Un-Clit said:
That's some interesting shit. I knew Japan had a serious shortage of wartime-required materiel especially oil, rubber and metals which is why the moved so aggressively fast after disabling most of the U.S. Pacific fleet (except the targets they REALLY wanted, the carriers) and invaded and captured the resource-rich areas of Indo-China, the Phillipines and such, but had thought that yeah they were just stupid in their air doctrine, less fully aware of what they were doing and not that they were so direly short of required materials that they made their choices as they were forced to make them. Good food for thought.

I wish I could find it, but I recently had a friend tell me about a book he read that mentioned the war from the Jap view point, and it talked about their reaction to seeing the Yank Seebees building an airfield by bulldozing it and adding all kinds of org and accoutrements, it dawning on him that they never did anything that labor intensive and professional grade. He said when they started lining up the aircraft and paving the airstrip, he understood they would lose the war regardless.

I really wanna find it, I have a guy working over there who's been tasked with obtaining oral histories if possible from the older generations. So far I only get snippets but I feel like their POV is very under-researched. They don't open up to yanks so much though.

Thornforg · Jul 13, 2020

CDWLTY said:
Seebees

Seabees, the original 'Can do' attitude. Seriously, they're amazing at what they do and invaluable to the Military and should get more credit for making the US the most powerful nation on the planet in regards to its military might.

BONE_Buddy · Jul 14, 2020

I am going to go ahead and post a bunch of stuff in succession, not a lot of time today.

Shock-dissipating fractal cubes could forge high-tech armor | DefenceTalk

Tiny, 3D printed cubes of plastic, with intricate fractal voids built into them, have proven to be effective at dissipating shockwaves, potentially leading to new types of lightweight armor and structural materials effective against explosions and impacts. "The goal of the work is to manipulate...

www.defencetalk.com

Shock-dissipating fractal cubes could forge high-tech armor

Tiny, 3D printed cubes of plastic, with intricate fractal voids built into them, have proven to be effective at dissipating shockwaves, potentially leading to new types of lightweight armor and structural materials effective against explosions and impacts.

“The goal of the work is to manipulate the wave interactions resulting from a shockwave,” said Dana Dattelbaum, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author on a paper to appear in the journal AIP Advances.

“The guiding principles for how to do so have not been well defined, certainly less so compared to mechanical deformation of additively manufactured materials. We’re defining those principles, due to advanced, mesoscale manufacturing and design.”

Shockwave dispersing materials that take advantage of voids have been developed in the past, but they typically involved random distributions discovered through trial and error. Others have used layers to reverberate shock and release waves. Precisely controlling the location of holes in a material allows the researchers to design, model and test structures that perform as designed, in a reproducible way.

The researchers tested their fractal structures by firing an impactor into them at approximately 670 miles per hour. The structured cubes dissipated the shocks five times better than solid cubes of the same material.

Although effective, it’s not clear that the fractal structure is the best shock-dissipating design. The researchers are investigating other void- or interface-based patterns in search of ideal structures to dissipate shocks.

New optimization algorithms will guide their work to structures outside of those that consist of regular, repeating structures. Potential applications might include structural supports and protective layers for vehicles, helmets, or other human-wearable protection.

The research will be published in the July 2020 issue of AIP Advances, in the article “Shockwave dissipation by interface-dominated porous structures,” by D.M. Dattelbaum et al

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This is some really amazing stuff, I hope that it pans out and can be implemented well.

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

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

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

Friendship Windmill

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Operation: Desert Snek

The 1% are literally the spawn of Satan

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Friendship Windmill

Bomber Harris Do It Again!

The nexus of the crisis and the origin of storms

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Vozhd

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Operation: Desert Snek

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Thanks for the company.

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