ECWCS-III: Dressed for the Cold

by Joe Katzman | May 11, 2011 | Asia - Central, Clothing, Contracts - Awards, Field Reports, New Systems Tech, Other Corporation, Project Successes, Soldier's Gear, USA, Warfare - Lessons

ECWCS-III: all 7 layers(click to view full) “During Operation Mountain Lion I found myself praying for bad weather, the first time in my military career I was actually begging for a cold front to come through. I knew my soldiers could handle it and the enemy...

South Africa Ordering Umkhonto Mk.2 Air Defense Missiles

by Joe Katzman | May 10, 2011 | Africa - Other, Contracts - Awards, Contracts - Modifications, Missiles - Surface-Air, Other Corporation, Protective Systems - Naval

Valour Class frigates(click to view full) In mid-April, South Africa’s DefenceWeb reported an R 49.2 million ($7.3 million) in contracts to begin resupplying its MEKO-derived Valour Class frigates with Umkhonto Mk.2 short range air defense missiles, perform...

Ride on the Ray: Boeing’s X-45 UCAVs

by Joe Katzman | May 8, 2011 | Boeing, Budgets, Contracts - Awards, Contracts - Modifications, Corporate Innovations, Design Innovations, Lobbying, New Systems Tech, People, R&D - Contracted, R&D - Private, Spotlight articles, Testing & Evaluation, Transformation, UAVs, USA

X-45C, F/A18F, F-15E(click to view full) In 1998, Boeing began a revolutionary development program: create an unmanned aircraft that was about the size of the USAF’s F-117 stealth fighter, with similar performance, better stealth, and better range. DARPA’s...

The USA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program

by Joe Katzman | May 4, 2011 | Asia - Other, Biological Weapons, Chemical Weapons, Chemicals & HAZMAT, Contracts - Awards, Issues - International, Northrop-Grumman, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, Scandals & Investigations, Support Functions - Other, USA, WMD Proliferation

Through the Co-operative Threat Reduction program, the Department of Defense provides equipment, services, and technical advice to Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to assist them in eliminating (or in the case of Russia, reducing) the weapons of mass...

Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle, April/ May 2011

by Joe Katzman | May 3, 2011 | Bases & Infrastructure, Coastal & Littoral, Delivery & Task Orders, Europe - Other, Fighters & Attack, Force Structure, Forces - Special Ops, Guns - Artillery & Mortars, Intelligence & PsyOps, Iraq, IT - General, Missiles - Anti-Armor, Other Corporation, Specialty Aircraft, Tanks & Mechanized, Training & Exercises, USA

(c) DJ Elliott(click to view full) DJ Elliott is a retired USN Intelligence Specialist (22 years active duty) who has been analyzing and writing on Iraqi Security Forces developments since 2006. His Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle is an open-source compilation...