"A Danish warship on patrol to thwart piracy in the Gulf of Aden ended up rescuing seven of its presumed prey when its crew found suspected Somali pirates adrift this week with a broken motor on their speedboat," the Times reports. Luckily for us, someone shot video of the operation:

Continue reading "Video: Danish Navy Rescues Pirates" »

As the vampire flick Twilight tops the U.S. charts and opens in Britain, female viewers are swooning over the impossible romance between mortal and immortal. But many of their male companions will be pondering the age-old question: "Just what kind of hardware do I need to take down that sucker?" 

Exactly how you kill a vampire is the subject of much learned debate. According to folklore it may require decapitation, burning, or the placing of communion wafer in the mouth. However, a wooden stake driven through the heart is favored in many Eastern European traditions.

Staking by hand is a perilous business, but maybe all you need are wooden bullets. Such bullets do exist, and were around during World War II. Here one soldier describes finding some German bullets:

I found the wooden bullets in this mat on the floor of the foxhole. The 7mm slug was bright purple made of some hardwood... [It] was designed to split into splinters and go in every direction as it passes through the body. It creates a wound that could not be operated on and left the man to slowly die of pain.

But in spite of many gruesome tales like this about both German and Japanese forces, the truth is rather different; the bullets were actually training rounds.

These days, wooden bullets are used for re-enactments using Gatling guns. While they could be used to shoot someone — much like the 5.56mm PVC training ammunition used by the Israelis as a less-lethal weapon for crowd control — they don't seem very effective. A load of splinters is no substitute for a stake, and you don’t want to get this one wrong.

Continue reading "How to Kill a Vampire (Try Wood, Ultraviolet Ammo)" »

On the U.S.-Mexico border, the American government has been trying, with limited success, to set up a string of sensor-laden sentry towers, which would watch out for illicit incursions. In Israel, they've got their own set of border towers. But the Sabras' model comes with automatic guns, operated from afar.

The Sentry Tech towers are basically remote weapons stations, stuck on stop of silos. "As suspected hostile targets are detected and within range of Sentry-Tech positions, the weapons are slewing toward the designated target," David Eshel describes over at Ares. "As multiple stations can be operated by a single operator, one or more units can be used to engage the target, following identification and verification by the commander."

We flagged the towers last year, as the Israeli Defense Forces were setting up the systems, designed to create 1500-meter deep "automated kill zones" along the Gaza border.

"Each unit mounts a 7.62 or 0.5" machine gun, shielded from enemy fire and the elements by an environmentally protective bulletproof canopy," Eshel explains. "In addition to the use of direct fire machine guns, observers can also employ precision guided missiles, such as Spike LR optically guided missiles and Lahat laser guided weapons."

In August, the Coast Guard cutter Dallas ran a gauntlet of Russian warships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia in the aftermath of that country's devastating war with Moscow. It was the high point in a long, eventful cruise for the 41-year-old ship. Before Georgia, Dallas had sailed up the West African coast to train alongside African militaries.

But the cruise came close to disaster several times. Dallas suffered not one, but multiple fires while crossing the Atlantic, according to Captain Robert Wagner, the ship's skipper. And a post-cruise inspection revealed so much "deterioration," in the words of Commandant Thad Allen, that Dallas has been ordered tied to her pier in Charleston, S.C., until extensive repairs can be made.

Dallas' problems aren't isolated, Allen said in a recent public message. Rather, they are "symptomatic of the deteriorating condition of the entire WHEC [large cutter] fleet."

Continue reading "Coast Guard Cutters Rusting Away" »

In March, word broke that the U.S. Army had given an ammunition contract worth as much as $300 million to a company led by a 22 year-old and a licensed masseur. Not surprisingly, the bullets, meant for the Afghan army, turned out to be useless.

So, just a few days after the New York Times revealed this embarrassment, the U.S. Army Materiel Command put out the word that it was looking for a new supplier for the "non-standard" ammunition, meant for the Afghans' Soviet-made weapons. Today, the Army found one, in old-school ammo-maker Alliant Techsystems, or ATK.

Under the $87 million contract, the firm "will provide the technical and supply chain management expertise necessary to mitigate supply chain risks that could impede, or prevent, the continuous flow of compliant non-standard ammunition to our Afghan allies. ATK will utilize capable international manufacturers and distributors with the ability to supply non-standard small, medium, large caliber ammunition and rockets," according to a company statement.

Masseurs, however, were not mentioned in the press release.

Even low-tech militants use some gadgets these days -- even if it's just a mobile phone or two. That's why the Air Force wants to build new microwave missiles, that can instantly fry circuitry. 

The three-year, $40 million Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) aims "to develop, test, and demonstrate a multi-shot and multi-target aerial HPM (high powered microwave) demonstrator that is capable of degrading, damaging, or destroying electronic systems," according to a request for proposals. On the target list: gizmos that are used for "military, industrial, civil, and asymmetrical" purposes.

By the end of the project, the Air Force want to see "five aerial demonstrators. One aerial platform without the HPM source shall be developed for a flight test to demonstrate delivery, controllability, and fusing. The remaining four aerial platforms with the integrated HPM source shall be developed for flight testing, demonstration, and HPM effects tests."

It's one of a number of U.S. military efforts to build better microwave weapons that zap electronics. The Air Force recently handed out a pair of $5 million contracts under a $75 million research effort to develop such weaponry. The Air Armament Command has its own effort for building "counter electronics payloads." The Navy recently invested more than $7 million on a "state-of-the-art Electromagnetic Pulse pulser." But, as we've noted before, these "e-bombs" come with all sorts of issues. Microwave "friendly fire," for one. "Seemingly intractable cost, size, beam-control and power-generation requirements," as well, according to Aviation Week.

[Image: LM]

In an article posted yesterday on the Foreign Affairs website, Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired a warning shot in the direction of the defense industry and the Pentagon bureaucracy. "We must not be so preoccupied with preparing for future conventional and strategic conflicts that we neglect to provide all the capabilities necessary to fight and win conflicts such as those the United States is in today," he writes.

Support for conventional modernization programs is deeply embedded in the Defense Department's budget, in its bureaucracy, in the defense industry, and in Congress. My fundamental concern is that there is not commensurate institutional support -- including in the Pentagon -- for the capabilities needed to win today's wars and some of their likely successors.

The wording is polite and careful, but the message is clear: Time may be running out for gold-plated weapons projects. While he doesn't single out any single culprit, he alludes to military systems that "have grown ever more baroque, have become ever more costly, are taking longer to build, and are being fielded in ever-dwindling quantities."

It's part of a larger theme Gates that has been sounding since he became Defense Secretary. In May, for instance, he grolwed at the defense establishment to stop focusing on weapons needed for tomorrow's imaginary conflicts -- and to start concentrating instead on the wars we're actually in. A few months earlier, he told Congress that the Air Force's high-priced F-22 Raptor stealth fighter wasn't really an appropriate tool for today's conflicts.

Continue reading "Gates Puts Gold-Plated Weaponeers on Notice" »

ORLANDO, FLORIDA -- Collectively, they’ve served in the U.S. Army for over 140 years.  Altogether, they’ve spent a total of 104 months in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.  And not one of five command sergeants major who spoke on "Technology and the Warfighter" at the Army Science Conference believe autonomous robots — as opposed to today's teleoperated systems — are in the cards any time soon.

Last week, the New York Times was the latest media outlet to feature a group of researchers and activists who suggest that thinking, fully self-directed robotic infantrymen are a near-term possibility for the U.S. military.  These Command Sergeants Major – some of the Army's top enlisted men – don't buy it.

Sure, there are "autonomous" machines right now, says CSM Jeffrey J. Mellinger, of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. "Weather satellites are autonomous.  All they do is regurgitate information," he notes. But "if you want to have a piece of technology that guards a border, for example, that’s wonderful [but] what are you going to do about it when somebody breaches it?  It’s still gonna take, as we say, boots on the ground.  Somebody’s gonna have to go investigate it to find out what happened."

CSM Robert A. Moore, of the U.S. National Training Center, agrees and touts the superiority of flesh and blood over actuators and hydraulic fluid.  "A soldier is a sensor.  He or she, that warrior, uses all five of their senses which you won’t have that same ability [with a robot].  And they can interact with a human and react to a human’s reaction, a hand movement, an eye shifting or just a feeling.  That’s what a soldier on the ground brings to the fight.  That’s why boots on the ground are important," says the Iraq veteran.

According to CSM Philip Johndrow, of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Ft. Leavenworth, "Not having that human interaction there to be able to digest the information, to be able to interact with other people on the ground—humans—is where we’ll run into problems."  CSM Hector G. Marin, of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, sees promise for autonomous robot vehicles "that can go on their own to do logistics runs," but he cautions, "you can only do it in a controlled environment."  A human must manage the movement of the vehicles, he says.

Mellinger, an Iraq War veteran who has served in the Army since he was drafted in 1972, uses the example of the uncertainty involved when viewing a rifle-toting man from a UAV flying high above—and not knowing if that individual is friend or foe.  "Having a lens in the sky tells you there’s somebody on the ground with an AK-47, blue jeans and a tee-shirt, [but] somebody’s gonna have to go look ‘em in the eye and say, ‘What are you thinkin'?' ‘What are you doin'?' 'Why are you out here?' 'Who you with?' 'What’s your name?' 'Who’s your daddy?'  It’s gonna take a human being—in other words a soldier, of some sort—out there to make a decision," says Mellinger.

CSM James E. Diggs, of the headquarters of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command, has experience with pharmaceutical dispensing robots, but even in the clinical setting, humans are still trusted much more than machines, he says. And the idea of armed autonomous robots is too risky.  "I think it's one of those things that you’ll always have a soldier in the equation," he says. — Nick Turse

- - -

Historian and journalist Nick Turse is the author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives. Research support provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute.

[Photo: WPB]

Continue reading "Robo-Soldiers? No Thanks, Top Sergeants Say" »

* Europe kicks off pirate-fighting mission

* Army eyes inflatable drones

* General: Beware the Facebook terrorists

* Navy's holiday wish list

* Always drink the chai

Here in America, we view the Taliban as a bunch of fanatics. And there's plenty of historical evidence for the wild-eyed portrait. But the Taliban are trying to transform themselves into more of a movement of national liberation, Anand Gopal reports. "The insurgents are still fighting to install a version of [Islamic] law in the country. Nonetheless, the famously puritanical guerrillas have moderated some of their most extreme doctrines, at least in principle." And that could make the Taliban tougher to beat.

Last year, for instance, Mullah Omar issued an edict declaring music and parties -- banned in the Taliban's previous incarnation -- permissible. Some Taliban commanders have even started accepting the idea of girls' education.

Meanwhile, a more pragmatic leadership started taking the reins.... [And] at the local level, some provincial Taliban officials are tempering older-style Taliban policies in order to win local hearts and minds. Three months ago in a district in Ghazni province, for instance, the insurgents ordered all schools closed. When tribal elders appealed to the Taliban's ruling religious council in the area, the religious judges reversed the decision and reopened the schools.

In Iraq, we saw that Sunni jihadists' extremism eventually repelled average people in Anbar province -- and pushed them into American arms. The Taliban are trying not to follow that same path, it would appear.

Continue reading "Taliban Backs Off Maximum Craziness" »

The recent anti-terrorist operation in Mumbai highlighted the difficulty of clearing hostiles from a large building. This is exactly the sort of situation that Darpa's Reversible Barrier program was intended to help. But the challenge appears to have been too daunting, even for the Pentagon's premiere research agency.

The problem is the sheer scale of the building compared to the number of troops available. "For example," Darpa notes, "U.S. Army doctrine states that for a large two-story building, 60 soldiers are required to safely clear the building. Many of these troops are 'leave behinds' who guard doorways and hallway intersections."

What is needed is a means of sealing off access points – in particular doorways and windows – to ensure that once an area is cleared, it stays cleared. Hostiles can't simply re-occupy an area that has been swept.

The requirements for the portable barrier are that it should weigh no more than 11 pounds and it should be possible to fit two in a standard issue rucksack. The installation time has to be under thirty seconds; and it has to be reversible, so that it can be removed again in under a minute.

But the real challenge is with how tough it has to be. Not only should the thing be able to "stand up against forces equivalent to attack by a fully equipped infantryman for one hour." It has to "resist commonly available chemicals and fire," as well. Which is not exactly a simple task.The document specifies that it has to be resistant to everything from crowbars and pickaxes to Molotov cocktails and paint thinner. (Not to mention gunfire.) The "fully equipped infantryman" is considered to have a bayonet, entrenching tool and AK-47.

Continue reading "Terror-Stopping Building-Sealer Too Much for Darpa" »

The U.N. is staring down on the Somali pirates from space. UNOSAT, the international body's satellite analysis wing, has produced a pair of reports, giving fresh views of the ships hijacked off the coast of east Africa, detailing their captors' activities -- and even snooping on the pirates' home base.

Using images taken from the Quickbird commercial imaging satellite, the group is plotting out exactly where ships are being captured, and where the'yre being held.

There have been a total 84 reported pirate incidents in just the last three months, UNOSAT says. Half of them occurred in or around the shipping "corridor" sent up by the international community to protect commercial vessels. And that corridor didn't seem to do much to deter the pirates; their rate of successful attacks dipped only slightly (37 percent, versus 42 percent)  inside the protected area. What the corridor did do was concentrate the pirate strikes. "The mean distance between reported attacks has fallen from 30.5km... to 24.6km after," UNOSAT says.

For an up-to-the-minute map of pirate incidents, check out the International Chamber of Commerce's site.

Continue reading "U.N. Spies on Pirates from Space" »

Two years ago, an Air Force A-10 pilot used flares, infrared cameras, his 30-millimeter gun, some quick thinking, and his huge gonads to save the lives of a German reconstruction team pinned down in a dangerous Afghan valley in the dead of night. For that, Capt. Brian Erickson was awarded a much-deserved Distinguished Flying Cross.

It was no isolated incident. Some of the most heroic teamwork in Afghanistan involves A-10 "Warthog" pilots and grunts on the ground.

Earlier this year, Staff Sergeant Robert Gutierrez, a radio-equipped air controller, was caught in an ambush with his Special Forces team during a mission to capture an insurgent leader, according to the Air Force. "Cut off from the heavy weapons in their convoy and pinned down by insurgent fire," and with two teammates wounded, Gutierrez killed four attackers with his rifle while calling in an A-10 for eight strafing runs. But that was only the beginning:

Consolidating the team's position, Sergeant Gutierrez then directed more than 70 close air support strikes over the next five plus hours while repelling numerous attempts by insurgents to overrun their position. His focus and technical battlefield expertise were deciding factors to the team's survival.

As many as 240 insurgents were "incapacitate[d]," including the targeted leader.

My only question: where's this guy's medal?

[Photo: Air Force]

An Army contractor accused of being a spy for Saddam is now free on bond.

Since 2003, the FBI has been investigating allegations that Issam Hamama spent a dozen years, passing information  to Saddam Hussein's intelligence operatives in Washington, D.C. But despite the investigations, Hamama was somehow able to secure a position as a translator with the Army's controversial Human Terrain social science program. It's the second federal felony case to hit the Human Terrain System in a month. Contractor Don Ayala was recently indicted for 2nd degree murder, for an alleged revenge killing in Afghanistan.

Over the summer, a federal grand jury indicted Hamama on four counts of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government, and making false statements. He was arrested on those charges in late November.

Yesterday, in U.S. District Court in Detroit, Judge Mona Majzoub released Hamama on a $100,000 unsecured bond and ordered him to surrender his U.S. and Iraqi passports. "We feel comfortable that when all the evidence comes out, he'll be acquitted of all the charges," his lawyer, Haytham Faraj, told the Detroit News.

If convincted, Hamama could face as much as 20 years in prison and a million dollars in fines.

Meanwhile, military officials are trying to figure out how Hamama managed to get the security clearance needed for the Human Terrain job. The Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office has blocked other Human Terrain applicants, on much flimsier grounds.

Continue reading "Accused 'Human Terrain' Spy Free on Bond" »

Drone feeds, informant tips, news reports, captured phone calls -- sometimes, a battlefield commander gets so much information, it's hard to make sense of it all. So the Pentagon's far out research arm, Darpa, is looking to distill all that data into "a form that is more suitable for human consumption." Namely, a story.

The author of this tale, however, would be a series of intelligent algorithms that can pull all of this information together, tease out its underlying meanings, and put it in a narrative that's easy to follow.

"Like people," Darpa notes in a request for information, such a story-telling system would be able to "retrieve and reuse stories to construct an appropriate interpretation of events, not because the stories have the most detail, but because they convey the aspects of a situation that are most important in determining a decision."

If it works, Darpa hopes to have this Experience-based Narrative Memory (EN-Mem)  system make "complex situations... simple, understandable, and solvable." To pull it off, however, researchers will have to make big leaps in understanding how people interpret, store, and reuse information -- and then program computers to learn those same lessons. No wonder En-Mem is being pushed by Darpa's Information Processing Technology Office -- the gang that's pushing for honest-to-God artificial intelligence.

Continue reading "Darpa Plan: Turn Warzone Data into Simple Stories" »

* U.S. combat deaths hit new low

* Mumbai terrorists high as kites

* Cocaine trade reroutes through Africa

* G-Man, actress, private eye in D.C. love story

* Blogging the Army-Navy game

A civil-military team in Afghanistan is using green tech as part of a push to bolster security in one of the country's remote southern provinces.

The Zabul Provincial Reconstruction Team recently installed solar-powered lamps in several communities, including Qalat, Sharjoy and Shar-e Safi. In areas where power generation is scarce, these lamps can store enough energy to keep operating for several sunless days. They have an added security benefit: according to a NATO news release, the lighting also allows Afghan security forces to conduct patrols more easily after sunset.

This kind of experiment has been tried in Iraq as well, with the Ministry of Interior sponsoring the installation of solar-powered streetlights (pictured). According to NPR, not everyone is pleased with the "sunny awakening": residents complain that the government has still not remedied basic problems with the electrical grid.

DANGER ROOM readers should already be quite familiar with the military's interest in renewable power. As Noah recently reported, the Army is planning to build one of the world's most powerful solar arrays. And portable solar power generators figured prominently in a recent Pentagon tech demo. SolarStick, which makes the generators, recently finalized a contract that will make it easier for the government to buy the system off the shelf.

[PHOTO: Sowind.it]

Continue reading "NATO Going Solar in Afghanistan" »

The sonic weaponeers at the American Technology Corporation are denying a story that one of their machines was ineffective during a pirate raid late last week.

Yesterday, the influential shipping journal Lloyd's List blasted the Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, as ineffective or worse during the capture of the Liberian-flagged cargo tanker, the MV Biscaglia.

"Our preliminary investigation of this incident is turning up very different facts," American Technology Corporation spokesman Robert Putnam tells Danger Room.

At stake, potentially, are millions of dollars' worth of orders for the company. The LRADs have become a tool of choice for contacting -- and warding off -- small-boat attackers to large ships. The U.S. Navy, for instance, has The U.S. Navy already has 45 of the sonic blasters, and is in the market for more. But on the MV Biscaglia, guards from AntiPiracy Maritime Security Solutions (AMPSS) firm found that the device fell short At least, that's what company chief Nick Davis told Lloyd's List.

Puntam has a different story. "Per unconfirmed reports from other vessels in the area, it appears the unarmed security force on board the Biscaglia was not aware that pirates had boarded the ship, never deployed LRAD or any of its suite of non-lethal capabilities and jumped overboard (probably hoping for rescue) when they saw the German helicopter overhead," he says. "It appears that the principal of APMMS is attempting damage control for his firm’s failings in this incident."

Putnam adds, "We are in the process of confirming the reports and will be pursuing the principal of APMMS and the writer of the Lloyd’s article to seek an immediate retraction."

[Photo: Secnews.ru]

Continue reading "Sonic Blaster Firm Disputes Pirate Tale" »

Want a real life lesson about job choices? Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who spied for the Russians, was paid $1.4 million in diamonds and cash for betraying his country. How much did the Russians offer American journalist Joshua Kucera for his services? About $300 or $400, Kucera writes, in his brief, but highly entertaining piece for the Atlantic.

Kucera wasn't expected to actually spy, just help plant Russian propaganda in the American press. A Russian embassy official named Vladimir laid out the proposal to Kucera over a meal of fajitas, helpfully pointing him to material from russianpeacekeeper.com and inforos.com.  "One top story was headlined 'Timoshenko Is a Playboy’s Star' (referring to Ukraine’s prime minister, Yulia Timoshenko, who had said something vaguely positive about the nudie mag in an interview with the Ukrainian edition of Elle)," Kucera writes of the proposed Russian propaganda. "Another was 'U.S. Navy: Spies, Deserters, Maniacs,' which collected various unrelated misdeeds by American sailors."

The story gets even better when Kucera, who accepted the free meal but had no intention of taking the Russian up on his offer, is contacted by the FBI.The Feds knew about his rendezvous, and wanted Kucera to tell them everything Vladimir had told him. It also turns out that the Washington restaurant Vladimir took him to, Cactus Cantina, is a favorite of the Russians.

Who knew the Tex-Mex joint with the swirly margaritas was a den of spies? Last time Nathan and I were there, we spotted Trent Lott.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates started the week with a detour to Chicago -- where President-elect Barack Obama introduced Gates as his pick to head the Pentagon.

That announcement -- and Gates' promise that he had "no intention of being a caretaker secretary" -- earned a lot of headlines. But equally interesting, perhaps, was his visit on Monday to Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, home of the 5th Bomb Wing and the 91st Missile Wing.

Over the past several months, the Air Force's nuclear forces have undergone a major shakeup. The service's top general and civilian chief were sacked over lapses in nuclear weapons handling; the Air Force is now in the process of reconstituting the nuclear mission.

Gates' message to the bomber pilots and missileers? The nukes still matter.

"I'm told that a Secretary of Defense has never visited Minot, but I wanted to tell you in person that, as stewards of America’s nuclear arsenal, your work is vital to the security of our nation," he said. "Handling nuclear weapons – the most powerful and destructive instruments in the arsenal of freedom – is a tremendous responsibility. ... There is simply no room for error. Yours is the most sensitive mission in the entire United States military. I am confident it is in good hands."

Continue reading "Gates to Nuclear Force: Smooch!" »