Chinese Infantry may Outgun American Troops

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China claims to have entered its QTS-11 OICW into service.  

The QTS-11 is of the same breed as the now cancelled OICW the US Army was pursuing, but could not get to work: it involved an air bursting 25mm grenade launcher mated to a 5.56mm assault weapon.  That proved to be too heavy, by US Army standards and they went with just developing the grenade launcher as a standalone weapon.  Due to some weird legal wrangling - HK wanted the US gov to grant some statements regarding international law about explosive projectiles below a certain diameter and the US gov didn't - HK refused to continue with the manufacture of the weapon.  Orbital ATK was the contract holder with the US Army - having teamed with HK - and failed to deliver the weapons.  The US Army then cancelled the contract last April.  Orbital ATK is now in legal hell with HK to pursue another manufacturing partner to try to win back the contract.

However, in the mean time, if the Chinese have successfully pulled off the introduction of an effective OICW, the US Army Infantryman is outgunned.  Big time.  Really big time.  

And we have a very serious problem.

What Should the Infantry Squad of the 21st Century Look Like?

Since the firearm’s creation, firepower has aggregated at increasingly lower echelons in armies with each century, allowing smaller number of soldiers to dominate larger amounts of terrain and inflict greater amounts of damage on enemies. Today, a pair of soldiers handling a 20th-century machine gun can exceed rates of fire achievable only by an entire regiment of 19th-century riflemen. Advances in robotics, miniaturization of technology, and most importantly, exploration of human-machine combat teaming concepts will continue this trend and render the infantry squad of the 21st century the deadliest yet.

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Poland to Embark on $1 Billion Program to Replace Infantry Fighting Vehicles

The Polish government is planning to spend up to 80 billion zloty (US $21 billion) to replace its military’s Soviet-designed BWP-1 and BWP-2 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) with new tracked vehicles, Deputy Defense Minister Bartosz Kownacki told local news agency PAP.

“This is a major undertaking for the next dozen years which, according to various estimates, will generate a cost of between 20 and 80 billion zloty if we decide to acquire two types of infantry fighting vehicles, lighter and heavier units,” Kownacki said.

According to the deputy defense minister, the government is considering various partnerships on the project. This includes launching a joint procurement with the neighboring Czech Republic, as well as using the license for South Korea’s K9 chassis, which was acquired by Polish manufacturer Huta Stalowa Wola for its ASM Krab 155mm self-propelled howitzer.

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US Army Researchers Have Patented a Limited Range Bullet

Researchers from the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center recently patented a new type of bullet capable of self-destructing after traveling over a predetermined distance.

The idea behind the new and advanced projectile is that it might help limit the extent of collateral damage (read: innocents dying) during battle or in other operational settings and environments.

As for how it all works, the U.S. Army explains that when one of these limited-range projectiles is fired, a pyrotechnical material is ignited at the same time and reacts with a special coating on the bullet.

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Automated Target Detection for Infantry Rifles: Threat or Menace?

The weapons that will be used to fight tomorrow’s wars will need to address a very old problem — friendly fire. Researchers think complex algorithms can help by telling soldiers where to shoot, and where not to. But how much trust should soldiers place in a machine that helps them to decide who to kill?

“The reality is that soldiers are doing a very difficult task under very difficult circumstances,” Greg Jamieson, a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Cognitive Engineering Laboratory, told me over the phone. “So, if you can provide some kind of tool to help people make better decisions about where there’s a target or who this target is or the identity of that target, that’s in the interest of the civilian or non-aligned people in the environment.”

The problem is that the tool Jamieson is referring to, called automated target detection or ATD, doesn’t really exist in any sort of ready-to-deploy form for individual soldiers. So, in partnership with Defense Research and Development Canada, Jamieson and the other researchers at CEL are tackling the research backwards — instead of testing new tech to see how soldiers respond, they’re testing soldiers to understand what they need out of new tech.

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Australians Seeking new Tracked Vehicles for Army (IFVs Primarily)

A request for information (RfI) for 450 tracked infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to meet the mounted close combat requirements of the Australian Army was released by the Department of Defence (DoD) on 13 November.

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In the first official confirmation of the number of platforms under consideration, the Phase 3 RfI refers to 312 turreted direct-fire high-survivability IFVs, 26 command-and-control vehicles, 16 Joint Fires vehicles, 11 engineer reconnaissance vehicles, 14 ambulances, 14 recovery vehicles, 18 repair vehicles, and 39 combat engineer variants.

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A Smart Weapon Revolution for the Infantry

Precision-guided weapons have revolutionized American airpower, enabling the kind of devastating strikes first seen in the 1991 Gulf War. To date, however, this revolution has largely happened outside the realm of ground combat. Especially for the infantry soldier, combat has changed little since World War II. With a brief introduction to the M4 carbine’s operation and night vision goggles, a D-Day soldier could be ready to fight in today’s infantry squads. Soon, that may no longer be the case. Precision-guided weapons are beginning to filter down to the squad level — a trend that could usher in the most dramatic changes in infantry tactics since the invention of the machine gun. Like the machine gun, this technology is likely to increase lethality on the battlefield dramatically. The United States must begin to prepare for these changes now.

On the morning of July 1, 1916, 11 divisions of British troops marched forth, hoping to break the German lines entrenched north of the Somme in France. By the day’s end, 20,000 British soldiers lay dead, their largest single-day loss in the war. Sixty percent of all British officers in the advance were killed. Their deaths resulted from a mismatch in tactics and technology. The British were still employing infantry tactics from a previous era, but the invention of the machine gun had changed the rules of the game. While the British had used an early version of the machine gun, the Maxim gun, to great effect in colonial wars around the world, they had not yet faced an adversary similarly equipped. This single day mirrored the larger pattern of the Battle of the Somme and World War I. New technologies such as machine guns and railroads changed the rules of the game in surprising ways, and the result was a protracted, bloody stalemate.

Today, early signs of a new revolution in infantry combat are apparent. Improvements in computer processors and sensors are enabling smaller, lower-cost, and more ruggedized electronics. These, in turn, are putting the same game-changing advances in precision-guided munitions that revolutionized American airpower into the hands of the infantry soldier. The beginnings of this revolution can be seen across a range of first-generation precision-guided infantry weapons. While these weapons have limitations in their current form, such as weight and cost, they hint at the potential of what is to come. Just as early arquebus matchlock guns had limitations, but signaled the firearms revolution that followed, these first-generation weapons similarly show the nascent potential of precision-guided weapons in ground combat.

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Israel has Started Building 8 Wheeled Eitan Infantry Fighting Vehicle Prototype

Israel’s Tank Production Authority is producing its first prototype of Eitan, an eight-wheel-drive armored fighting vehicle designed to weigh nearly half as much as the new Namer heavy carriers.

The locally developed Eitan — Hebrew for steadfast — will be deployed alongside new Namers and will replace old M113s that still support the bulk of Israeli infantry.

Sources here said it will weigh no more than 35 tons and will incorporate a new generation of active protection, an advanced turret and a full complement of munitions and sensors.

Field demonstrations are slated by the end of next year, with initial serial production expected to begin by 2020.

“It will be a lot lighter [than Namer] and will be designed to cost,” said Maj. Gen. Guy Zur, commander of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Ground Forces Command. “It may be less good [than the Namer], but it will be affordable and allow us to equip a large part of our force.”

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Raytheon Tests 2 km Range Pike Missile That can be Fired From a 40mm Grenade Launcher

Raytheon Company successfully fired two Pike 40 mm precision-guided munitions from a standard tube grenade launcher during flight tests at Mile High Resources in Texas. Both rounds landed within the targeted impact area after flying more than 2,300 yards. (2.1 km). Weighing less than two pounds and measuring just 16.8 inches (42.6 cm) in length, Pike can be fired from a conventional, single-shot grenade launcher such as the M320 or EGLM (Enhanced Grenade Launching Module). The maximum range of M320 grenade launcher is 437 Yards (350 meters).

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After Many Delays, XM-25 Grenade Launcher to Enter Qual Testing, Contract Validation

The maker of a new grenade launcher that can fire rounds that explode when they pass walls or barriers is "finalizing development" of a weapon it believes will give soldiers a serious edge.

XM-25 carries a magazine of five 25mm grenade rounds and a fire-control system that lets the soldier instantly program how far the grenade will travel before it explodes. That means a soldier can engage an enemy hiding behind a target — only he doesn't need to hit something to ruin the enemy's hiding place and his day.

According to XM-25 maker Orbital ATK spokesman Jarrod Krull, in spring the Army will conduct qualification testing and contract validation. If the weapon fulfills the Army's requirements, the Army could see fielding in early 2017, Krull said — assuming budget decisions also line up in the weapon system's favor.

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British Future Soldier Equipment Concept

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US Army Chief of Staff Wants Bradley Replacement, Light Tank, Jeep & More

“In the next two years,” Army chief of staff Ray Odierno said today, the service could move out on four new combat vehicles and reboot its aging inventory for a new era of war. They range from a parachute-droppable light truck for Airborne soldiers to a scout car, a light tank, and a new infantry fighting vehicle to carry heavy troops into the teeth of enemy fire.

These projects are more incremental than revolutionary, more modest than ambitious, but they’re a step beyond the variants of 1980s-vintage vehicles the Army is currently procuring. They don’t attempt to transform the Army like the cancelled Future Combat System or the Reagan buildup’s famed “Big Five” — but they might just be the Feasible Four.

The biggest challenge is the IFV, sometimes also called the Future Fighting Vehicle. This machine would replace the Cold War mainstay of the armored force, the M2 Bradley, which FCS and the Ground Combat Vehicle programs both failed to do.

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A Technology for US Special Forces TALOS Powered Armour? DARPA/ASU's Jet Pack for Running Faster

Jetpack helps soldiers run faster from ASU Research on Vimeo.

DARPA's ULTRA-Vis: A Wearable Ocular Head's Up Display for the Infantry

After 20 years of unsuccessful efforts to produce a wearable display to provide foot troops digital data without blocking their view of the real world around them, DARPA has invented one called ULTRA-Vis.

“The prototype was completed within the past several months. The breakthrough [was] the holographic wave guide” program manager Yiftach Eisenberg told me as he displayed me an admittedly clunky demonstration model at this afternoon’s “DARPA Demo Day” in the Pentagon courtyard.

Yes, he said “holographic,” but no, the wearer doesn’t see a three-dimensional image hovering in front of him like Princess Leia in Star Wars asking Obi Wan for help. The holographic wave guide is a system of channels etched into high-tech coatings on the glass. Those channels convey light from a 0.3-lb projector mounted on the side of your helmet — the prototype is awkwardly unbalanced — to the display over your eye.

That makes it possible to superimpose data directly over your natural field of vision, without requiring you to look up at an eye-straining angle as with Google Glass or look down at a smartphone display as with the Army’s Nett Warrior system. Nor does the display block your field of vision like the ill-fated monocle display on the Army’s earlier Land Warrior.

Instead, you get an augmented reality effect where the data you desire — say, the direction to the nearest friendly unit or your objective — floats over the landscape. The indicators move to stay superimposed over the correct place in the real world as you turn your head, because the helmet-mounted device tracks the direction you’re looking as well as where you are. If there are friendly forces on the other side of the hill, their icon will stay over that hill. A flattened ring on the bottom of the display gives a compressed 360-degree view so you can see if what you’re looking for is currently behind you. (Fighter pilots have long had such “heads-up displays,” but it’s a lot harder to implement in something compact enough to wear).

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Every Infantryman a Sniper: Part 2.

The U.S. military has begun testing several so-called smart rifles made by the applied technology start-up TrackingPoint Inc., company officials said.

The Army is rumored to have acquired six of the precision-guided firearms, which cost as much as $27,000 apiece. Oren Schauble, a marketing official with the Austin, Texas-based company, confirmed the military bought a handful of them in recent months for evaluation. A spokeswoman for the service didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

“The military has purchased several units for testing and evaluation purposes,” Schauble said during an interview with Military​.com Tuesday at the annual SHOT Show here.

It’s not hard to see why more than 30 government and law enforcement agencies have requested demonstrations of the potentially game-changing technology since the company debuted the rifle at last year’s show.

With only a few minutes of instruction on the weapon, this correspondent was able to hit a target almost 1,000 yards away on the first shot. Of the 70 or so reporters and other novice shooters who tested the weapon on Monday at a range in Boulder City, Nev., only one or two missed the target, which was located about 980 yards away, according to Schauble.

“That is a better day than usual,” he said. “I would say we’re at about 70 percent first-shot success probability at 1,000 yards … with inexperienced shooters.”

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Every Infantryman a Sniper

This week at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show, firearms-manufacturer TrackingPoint announced an AR-15 version of its computer-controlled precision rifles. The company claims that the new weapon can hit moving targets “out to five football fields away.” And anyone can use it.

Described by the company as a “precision-guided firearm,” the 500-Series rifle could revolutionize how armies all over the world prepare for war. The technology promises a world where expert riflemen can be trained with very little effort—blurring the distinction between infantry and sharpshooters.

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US Army Airborne Forces Want Light Tanks. Again.

(history repeats itself)

 (or close enough)

Army paratroopers gave up their tanks in 1997. Now they want them back.

“The infantry needs more protection and more firepower,” says Col. Ed House, Army Training and Doctrine Command manager for the infantry brigade combat team.

Even in these times of deep budget cuts and a projected steep decline in purchases of military hardware, senior Army officials believe that a light tank is a high priority that should be funded. In a future war, they contend, Army airborne forces would parachute into a warzone equipped with only light weapons and might have to confront more heavily armed enemies.

Army leaders understand that, after 12 years of war, the infantry brigades have a “capability gap,” House says in an interview from Fort Benning, Ga. “The forcible entry forces we put in harm’s way lack sufficient protected firepower platform.”

The current plan is to provide the XVIII Airborne Corps — a fast-to-the-scene 911 force — a flotilla of light tanks that can be flown by C-130 cargo planes and parachuted into the warzone.

Light tanks existed in the Army’s inventory from World War I until the end of the Cold War. Production of the 16-ton Sheridan ended in 1970 after approximately 1,700 vehicles were delivered to the Army. The last unit to operate the Sheridan was the 3d Battalion, 73d Armor Regiment of the 82d Airborne Division, which was inactivated in July 1997 following a wave of cost cutting. The Army considered buying a replacement for the Sheridan, the Armored Gun System, but that program was terminated after the Army had bought just six vehicles.

House says the goal is to replicate the functions of 3-73 although he admits it will be hard to locate a modern version of the Sheridan. “The tough part of this is to find a vehicle that fits in the back of a C-130 and can descend by parachute,” he says. “The Sheridan did that pretty well back in the 1990s.”

Training and Doctrine Command officials are scoping the market for existing vehicles that could perform a similar role as the Sheridan.

Up to 140 candidates are being considered, says Col. Rocky Kmiecik, director of mounted requirements at the capabilities development and integration directorate.

Even though tanks are tracked vehicles, the Army is open to wheeled alternatives. The vehicle has to be air droppable, must have enough ballistic protection against 14.5 mm and .50 caliber rounds, and be able to drive off road.

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