The Swedish Visby class corvette showed up at the DSEi defense systems and equipment international London. It looks cool:
That being said, I’m rather dubious of the merits of full on stealth for surface combatants.
Given the harsh environment (spray, etc.) and the fact that some inexpensive radars can find the wake of ships, I’m not sure that it means a whole lot.
Of course, the real stealth ships, submarines, have been around for nearly 100 years now.
Here’s another story on the disastrous nuclear deal that the Bush administration has cut with India.
Money quote:
India’s leftist parties object strongly to the accord. They say it undermines the country’s sovereignty and its right to conduct nuclear tests. They insist the government stall negotiations, scheduled with the International Atomic Energy Agency and others, until their objections are met.
So, what are the consequences of this deal?
This is quite literally a bigger blunder than invading Iraq.
From the Boston Globe: Carrier relaunches jets after 2 years.
Russia is rearming and developing a more aggressive military posture, and it seems to be primarily in response to the fact that US leaders are batsh%$ insane.
Care of Defense Tech:
Like me, you’ve probably stayed awake countless nights wondering, “Did the Brits ever make plans for a nuclear landmine, powered by chickens?”
Well, dear reader, I’m here to tell you that the answer is yes.
The interesting thing is that this is far less shocking than some of the things that British Cooks do to chickens.
There is an interesting article in the Military Times about the Pentagon rethinking the drawdown of troops in Europe.
The article claims that “The idea of cutting troops from 68,000 in 2001 to 28,000 by 2012 was part of an initiative by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to transform the military into a leaner, more cost-effective force,” but it was really all spite.
Rumsfeld began this policy when the most of the governments of Europe were unwilling to follow him into Iraq. It’s a part and parcel of his “old Europe” slam.
Gates realizes that reality prevents this.
Unlike the chemical lasers used in the Boeing 747 demonstrator, solid state lasers are much more likely to be tactically usable.
Cooling could be a real bear though.
Northrop Grumman demonstrates high-power laser building block
By Graham WarwickHigh-power solid-state lasers could be fielded within four years if the US military funds its growing interest in directed-energy weapons, believes Northrop Grumman. The company says it is on track to demonstrate a lethal 100kW-class solid-state laser late next year.
“With funding, we could put a 25kW laser out there in less than two years and 100kW in three to four years,” says Mike McVey, vice-president for directed-energy systems for Northrop Grumman Space Technology. A 10-20kW laser could blind sensors while a 100kW weapon would allow an airborne platform to take out radar sites and destroy vehicles, he says
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Would that Karl Rove’s evil minions were so incompetent.
Hacker breaks into Pentagon email system
By Austin Modine in Mountain View
Published Friday 22nd June 2007 00:20 GMTThe Pentagon took as many as 1,500 computers offline yesterday to stamp out a security breach in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters in a news briefing today that a hacker had penetrated an unclassified OSD email system, prompting the shutdown. The system reportedly does not contain information related to military operations.
“A variety of precautionary measures are being taken. We expect the systems to be online again very soon.”
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I see an IP lawsuit. They are using my likeness (sort of) without my permission.
A more pressing question is how is Lockheed getting its cut of this?
Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale
By Mark Baard
Published Saturday 23rd June 2007 09:02 GMTPerhaps your real life is so rich you don’t have time for another.
Even so, the US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality to see how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda.
The DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual “nodes” to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR.
Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a “synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information”, according to a concept paper for the project.
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It should be noted that DARPA is late to this game. Most of the heaby lifting was done by the DSTO before the US DoD got involved.
The US has a number of FAR MOER EXPENSIVE projects in this area that have not gotten to this point.
By Lester Haines
Published Monday 18th June 2007 09:26 GMTAustralia’s Woomera Test Facility last Friday hosted the successful launch and firing of a scramjet engine which reached speeds of “up to Mach 10”, the country’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) has announced.
The HyCAUSE vehicle – a joint project between DSTO, the US’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the Australian Hypersonics Initiative (AHI)- took off atop a TALOS rocket and reached a heady 530km before firing its way to around 11,000km/h (6,800mph), according to Oz’s parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Defence, Peter Lindsay.
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