Royal Marines + HK GMG(click to view full) The infantry soldier sits at the center of gravity of current wars. While institutional infatuation with larger projects often makes defense departments slow to adapt to this reality, improvements to the individual soldier's...
Rafale, Mirage 2000Dover Afghanistan(click to view full) Projects to give GPS-guided smart bombs dual-guidance capability are popular these days. Israel has developed its GPS/EO Spice bomb, the USA has Laser JDAMs, and Britain has cobbled together a Paveway II+ as an...
In conventional silicon transistors, a certain finite voltage swing on the order of 150-200 mV (for high performance devices) is needed to switch a device between the on and off states. Reducing that number would enable drastic improvements in power consumption,...
Stryker M1128(click to view full) In February 2006, "New Stryker Variants Gear Up for Testing" described the M1128 Stryker Mobile Gun System, and the M1135 Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicle. The vehicles passed testing and have been fielded to...
On Feb 7/08, the USA's Congressional "Government Accountability Office" auditors released report #GAO-08-298, "DOD's Practices and Processes for Multiyear Procurement Should Be Improved." Multi-year procurements are used for a number of key projects, including the...
I wanna be achairborne Ranger...(click to view full) It has been said that Power Point slides have become the primary communication tool in the US military, and in other militaries, too. It's certainly endemic in the corporate world, and quite a few folks are less...
AH-64, Afghanistan(click to view full) Releases or articles that clearly explain a contract or product milestone make a big difference to media pickup, and organizational branding. DID supports the Plain English Campaign, which counts the UK Ministry of Defence as an...
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency at Fort Belvoir, VA leads US Department of Defense efforts to stop the global spread, transfer, and usage of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Recently, they issued a $6.1 million contract to Dyncorp's...
LCS-1, Pre-launch(click to view full) Back on July 24/07, in a statement to Congress, the Congressional Budget Office had this to say [PDF] about the Littoral Combat Ship program: "The first FFG-7, including its combat systems, cost a total of about $650 million (in...