When my air conditioning broke in mid-July I was very nervous about the repair costs, but I remember that my real estate agent purchased a home warranty for my home. I called Nationwide Home Warranty and within a few hours my a/c was fixed for only a service call fee. My realtor really helped me out.
Nothing is official yet but Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), may throw his hat in the ring to become ranking member of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, responsible for overseeing space, missile defense and nuclear weapons programs. Two senior Pentagon officials have asked Franks to make the try.
After all, the Arizona conservative may be the GOPs most outspoken missile defense advocate remaining in the House after the election. Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), former presidential candidate and the departing ranking member of the whole committee, Jim Saxton (R-NJ), current ranking member of the powerful airland subcommittee, and Terry Everett (R-Ala.), current ranking member of the strategic forces subcommittee, all plan to leave the House at the end of the year.
The ranks of missile defense advocates will be further reduced by the departure of Democrat Bud Cramer of Alabama, who is one of the few Democrats on the committee who has consistently fought for missile defense funding.
Franks told me yesterday morning at a breakfast sponsored by the National Defense University that he hasnt made up his mind about running for the subcommittee spot. He conceded that he might be interested.
-- Colin Clark
Russia's military chief urged NATO Thursday to take steps to stop a build-up of arms in its neighbour Georgia and warned that conflict could break out if no action is taken.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Korea of AIM-9X Sidewinder Missiles as well as associated equipment and services.
The Army hit a milestone in its continuing efforts to provide a capability to counter the indirect fire threat with the 100th successful intercept of a rocket or mortar round fired at high value Multi-National Corps-Iraq assets in late March.
[EDITOR: From a DT friend (who prefers to remain anonymous) on his chop of the AWG's fight for their HK-416s]
The AWG folks are a special US Army task force to deal with IED threats that has turned into a semi-covert group of trigger pulling "trouble shooters." They got the HK416 because of their semi-official/semi-covert status and then got them taken away when Sen. Coburn both noticed this and embarrassed the Army small arms procurement brass by pointing it out.
To be fair to the Brass, they are in a no-win situation because small arms are a religious faith where true believers will not be swayed by real data.
In the realm of hard "non-religious data," there seem to be two major knocks against the M4: fouling after lots of firing, and excessive jamming in sandy conditions. Controlled tests in sandstorm-of-the-century conditions indicate the M4 is worse than the HK416 and FN SCAR, but all are in the 99-percentile reliability range.
To quote something a friend of mine sent on the issue:
"Excessive fouling depends on how many major firefights you get into before you can pull maintenance. All three systems use some sort of cylinder-and-piston arrangement to manage the gases. In the M16-type system, it's in the bolt carrier itself, while the other two restrict it to a small area near the gas port. They all have to be cleaned, eventually. The competition community has developed some M16 gas system tweaks that might interest serious trigger-pullers.
As a professional, your weapon's health comes first, just like your horse would if you were cavalry. If someone gave me one of each of these weapons, and several thousand rounds of ammo, I might develop a clear favorite. I doubt highly that I would find one totally unfit for my uses."
I have also been told that a number of M-16 jam problems would disappear if the H&K M16 magazine were adopted as standard issue. It is "...the absolute best out there. Built, and priced, like a BMW.
In the particular case of the HK416 and the AWG, Sen. Coburn would have done better by the troops by earmarking money for HK416.
Since Coburn is a Republican "Small Federal Government"/anti-earmark true believer, this was the result.
From the military procurement point of view, earmarks actually play a very important role in defense readiness in non-glamorous things like transport ships, trucks, and planes.
Rep Les Aspins 1980s earmarks of extra 10-ton HEMET trucks gave the US Army the truck transport to pull off the famous left hook in the 1991 Gulf War.
Sen Trent Lotts earmarks of amphibious ships have given the USMC 20% of its current amphibious fleet.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrichs earmarks of extra C-130s and Rep Dana Rohrabachers earmarks of extra C-17s are the wings resupplying troops in Afghanistan.
Outside of those non-glamorous areas, DoD earmarks are rightly seen as pernicious.
-- [Anonymous]
The U.S. Air Force announced it plans to construct a large botnet. The term Botnet is jargon for a collection of software robots, referred to as bots, that take over and run autonomously or by remote control on infected computers. These bots present a serious security threat to the computer owner. Cyber militaries and hackers leverage the combined power of hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of millions of computers that have been compromised to pump out spam e-mail or disable targeted servers by overwhelming them with Internet traffic.
There are over 100 million computers that have been compromised and are now part of botnets. The largest botnet is thought to owned and operated by the RBN -- Russian Business Network. They lease capacity of their botnet for spamming and other more sinister purposes. The second largest botnet is owned and operated by the Chinese military. The estimated size of their botnet is put at 85 million and growing fast.
Military Applications
Espionage - collecting information from the network of computers that have been infected with the malicious code. Collecting keystroke information that contains log-ins, IDs and sensitive information or actually capturing screen shots of what the user is doing.
DDoS - the network of computers can be remotely commanded to start flooding a target system with transaction, overwhelming it until it shuts down
A bit late to the game, the U.S. Air Force has to rapidly construct their botnet. In the May edition of the Armed Forces Journal, Col. Charles Williamson III outlined the cyber warfare strategy being hashed out by the U.S. military. There are reports that the plan calls for using the publics computers to create this offensive cyber weapon. There is no question in the minds of many who are working in the cyber warfare field that the U.S. must create cyber weapons and that a botnet is just one of the many that need to be in our arsenal. But the devil is in the details!
Even the once-vaunted National Reconnaissance Office, builder of Americas spy satellites, is having serious trouble managing the enormously complex and expensive satellite programs under its wing.
Ive confirmed that, for the second time since early March, the NRO has been stripped of Milestone Decision Authority on a program -- the power to decide whether a program can progress from one stage of a program to the next stage. The program is so highly classified that we cant discuss its name or what it does. The confirmation came from a former senior intelligence official.
In early March I broke the story that the NRO had had decision authority withheld by senior intelligence and defense officials about a new program called BASIC, or Broad Area Satellite Imagery Collection. Questions were raised in the Pentagon, by industry and Congress about whether BASIC would violate the Bush Administrations national space policy directing the military and intelligence community to rely on commercial satellites for general mapping purposes. There were also serious concerns raised about whether the NRO could, on a broader basis, successfully execute the program.
At the time, DNI and NRO officials were careful to note that milestone decision authorities are reviewed every year for all intelligence agencies. But sources in the intelligence community made it clear to me then that the NRO has stumbled badly in recent years and needed the sort of close program supervision that the NSA and Air Force have been subject to for the last few years.
The Pentagon stripped the Air Force of decision authority for space and several other programs in March 2005 by Michael Wynne, who was then the Pentagon's acting acquisition czar. That authority was restored for several non-space programs in January 2006 but the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technloogy and logistics, John Young, still retains that authority for unclassfied space programs.
-- Colin Clark
In today's afternoon headlines at Military.com we have a story on the shut-down of Boeing's CH-47 line in PA.
Army criminal investigators are looking into problems found in two military helicopters on a production line at a Boeing Co. plant in suburban Philadelphia, prompting the company to shut down the line.
A Boeing spokesman said Wednesday that aircraft at the plant were being inspected. The company didn't disclose specifics about why it shut down the H-47 Chinook line at Boeing Rotorcraft Systems plant in Ridley Township, Pa., on Tuesday. Employees reported to work Wednesday morning, but the line had yet to fully resume operations.
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat whose district includes the plant, said he was told during a briefing that wires that appeared to be broken or severed were found in one helicopter and a suspicious washer was found in a second.
Sestak said the assessment was preliminary and he expected the findings of a more thorough review would be available later Wednesday. He praised Boeing's handling of the situation, and said it was too early to speculate on what happened.
Dave Foster, an Army spokesman, said in an e-mail that normal production was expected to resume shortly.
"At present, this is thought to be an isolated incident, confined to these two aircraft," Foster said.
Foster said the Defense Contract Management Agency was overseeing the situation.
All aircraft on the premises were being inspected, said Jack Satterfield, a company spokesman. But he said the shutdown was isolated to one line at the plant and did not affect helicopters already in use by the military.
The Defense Criminal Investigative Service had agents on the premises conducting interviews, said Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the agency. Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman Christopher Grey confirmed the agency was also involved in the investigation, but said he could not comment on it.
The Chinook is known as the Army's workhorse aircraft. It is used to transport troops and supplies.
Boeing is currently producing new Chinooks for the Army, as well as updating older models.
Now, I'm sure these are isolated incidents. But still, with a tough protest fight going on in the CSAR-X program, this certianly can't help matters in that arena at all.
Boeing's sure taking some licks these days, huh?
-- Christian
All right, so does Gates have a point? As you'll remember, yesterday DefSec Gates said the services are stuck in a rut...they can't pull their gaze away from high-tech programs that have nothing to do with today's bloody fight but rely on assumptions forged into the plan back in the '90s.
So what I've done is to set up a survey to see what you all think. Lemme know...
From the front page of Military.com:
COLUMBUS, Miss. -- It's an old adage that the Guard and Reserve are the red-headed step children of "Big Army." It's the guys on active duty that get the newest, shiniest, priciest piece of gear while the part-timers get the cast offs -- last year's equipment on its last legs.
Well, that's about to change in a few weeks when the Army National Guard receives its first of 200 UH-72A Lakota helicopters to replace its inventory of Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey and OH-58 Kiowa utility helos and some UH-60 Blackhawks.
Yes, the Big Army's already gotten about 20 of the new Lakotas to free up some of its Blackhawks for duty in Iraq, but the so-called "light utility helicopter" is purpose built for the Guard to use for domestic medivac situations and other state-assigned "general support" missions.
"For a lot of missions in the U.S. we don't need a Blackhawk," said Col. Neil Thurgood, director of the Army's utility helicopters project office, during a visit to the manufacturer's Columbus assembly plant May 9. "So, we're going to save the taxpayers some money."
Based on the Eurocopter EC-145 -- a commercial bantam-weight helo used commonly for hospital "life-flight" missions -- the UH-72 takes advantage of all the modern amenities typical of its class. With two engines, advanced rotors and a glass cockpit, pilots say the Lakota is easy -- and safer -- to fly than its predecessors, particularly the venerable Huey.
"I've been flying Hueys for years and you've got to be on the controls all the time," Thurgood said. But with the Lakota's advanced flight controls and auto pilot, "squeezing the stick the entire time" isn't in the cards anymore.
"I was coming into the airfield and all I had to do was turn some knobs and dials until I was in a hover, the auto pilot did it all," Thurgood added.
For Guard pilots who already have some stick time, it'll be an easy transition to the UH-72, Army officials here said. Pilots will have to attend a 10-day course on the Lakota at a Eurocopter facility in Grand Prairie, Texas, before they fly their home-station birds, and maintainers will have to do roughly the same thing to get up to speed on the LUH's modern systems.
New Guard pilots will simply leave initial flight training and attend the same 10-day course as their more experienced brethren.
"The transition won't be a problem at all," said Lt. Col. Jim Brashear, LUH product manager.
But a helicopter that program officials claim is one of the few Army aviation contracts that's adhering to projected cost and schedule timelines does have some limitations. For one, the LUH isn't built for a combat environment, so Guard units who deploy to a war zone won't get to take their shiny new helos with them.
"They'll still be able to fly their Blackhawks when they deploy," said Keith Roberson, deputy director of the Army's utility helicopters project office.
While officials here cite the LUH as an example of what can go right with an aviation program, the helo has seen its share of controversy. In July 2006, after the Army awarded the $3 billion contract to American Eurocopter -- a subsidiary of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company -- competitor McDonnell Douglas Helicopters protested the decision, throwing the program's future into doubt.
The UH-72 emerged from the fight unscathed, but critics later charged the aircraft was ill suited to some environments, including so-called "high-hot" conditions like mountaintop wildfires and the deserts of California.
"There are no areas in the United States that we think we can't take this aircraft," Roberson countered.
The Lakota is being manufactured partly in Germany; with final assembly here at this newly-built plant in rural Mississippi. Through the rest of this year, more of the aircraft will be assembled at the Columbus plant, with the entire end-to-end production of Lakotas coming from domestic manufacturers by mid-2009, officials say.
The Lakota's foreign designers "are fulfilling their promise to shift production from Germany to the U.S.," Thurgood said. "That's contributing to our industrial base and our economy."
-- Christian
Has China "secretly built a major underground nuclear submarine base that could threaten Asian countries and challenge American power in the region"? Thomas Harding, writing in the London Daily Telegraph early this month, has declared that it is.
According to Hardy, "Satellite imagery, passed to The Daily Telegraph, shows that a substantial harbour has been built which could house a score of nuclear ballistic missile submarines and a host of aircraft carriers."
The threat from Chinese submarines, long touted by "hard liners" in the West, now includes the ballistic missile submarine base and protective tunnels for the craft being constructed at Sanya on the southern tip of Hainan Island in the South China Sea.
The report comes almost simultaneously with word that a Chinese Type 094 (NATO Jin-class) ballistic missile submarine was sighted at the base in satellite images. Also visible was a newly constructed pier that appears to be a demagnetization facility for submarines. Demagnetization is conducted before a submarine deploys to remove residual magnetic fields to reduce the craft's vulnerability to magnetic mines.
The satellite image was taken by the QuickBird commercial satellite on 27 February 2008, and purchased by the Federation of American Scientists from DigitalGlobe.
China is believed to have completed two Jin-class SSBNs with at least one more unit under construction. (An older SSBN is also in service; see below.) The U.S. Intelligence Community estimates that China would probably build five SSBNs if it wants to have a near-continuous deterrent at sea. Each Jin-class SSSBN will carry 12 JL-2 nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. A "score" of such submarines -- as reported in some newspaper accounts -- seems highly unlikely.
While some Western defense analysts as well as journalists are touting this new Chinese capability, it should be noted that there have been submarine tunnels in southern Hainan for probably two decades or more and that similar (albeit smaller) tunnels are also found at the Northern Fleet's Jianggezhuang naval base. Indeed, China has long constructed tunnels for military (and civilian) purposes in the even of a nuclear conflict. This writer visited some of those near the base complex of Dairen, near the Soviet-Russian border.
Further, while submarines could be "hidden" in the tunnels, they could be observed by U.S. reconnaissance satellites as they enter and leave the tunnels. This possibility, coupled with the likely noise level of the Jin-class SSBNs would increase their vulnerability to U.S. detection and surveillance methods.
Also, in wartime, any submarines in the tunnels at the outbreak of hostilities would be vulnerable to the tunnels being easily blocked by U.S. conventional or nuclear weapons.
Certainly the Chinese Navy is being modernized, although it is significantly smaller than it was during the Cold War era. The slow development pace of China's SSBN force, the failure of the first Chinese SSBN, the Type 092 (NATO Xia) completed in 1988, to have ever made a deployment, and persistent reports that a ballistic missile for the SSBNs is not yet available, raise major questions about this aspect of the "Chinese threat."
China's new underground nuclear submarine base close to vital sea lanes in Southeast Asia has raised US concerns, with experts calling for a shoring up of alliances in the region to check Beijing's growing military clout.
Between eight and 12 KC-135 Stratotankers from Eielson Air Force Base depart each day, providing fuel to as many as 18 aircraft in one mission for Northern Edge 2008.