USAF Politics and Lt Gen(P) Wolfenbarger

I saw this interesting story on Yahoo today, Obama Air Force Nomination Reeks of Politics, by Teri Heisler.  It talked about the careers of 3 different female USAF flag officers: Lt Gen(P) Wolfenbarger, Maj Gen Masiello, and Lt Gen(ret) Gabreski.  Wolfenbarger made the news because she will become USAF's first female 4-star.  Heisler decried the selection because she thinks that the other two officers were more qualified, worthy, of being the first USAF female general.

The 3 generals had very distinct career paths:  Wolfenbarger, an Academy grad, is a developmental engineer.  Masiello is a contracting officer.  And Gabreski is a maintenance officer with significant command and operational experience.  Masiello deployed to Iraq once, while Gabreski served a tour in Korea.  Wolfenbarger stayed CONUS the whole time, but she did have a GWOT Svc Medal. [Couldn't find where she got it from.]  Heisler thought that Masiello and Gabreski are better role models because of their deployments and operational experience for an Air Force at war.

However, I think USAF went with the right choice with Wolfenbarger, both as a female role model and as AFMC Commander.  Wolfenbarger is an engineer, which is exactly the raison d'etre of AFMC: to engineer weapons for the USAF.  If Gabreski was in the Army, then she would have made 4-star because the Army likes operational experience.  But the USAF needs an engineer to manage its technical programs, so Wolfenbarger got the nod.

Moreover, as a female engineer, Wolfenbarger is the right STEM role model.  It's somewhat ironic that Heisler, who just wrote about "Women in STEM Careers", turns right back around and decries a female engineer making ranks.

[On the other hand, the current AFMC Commander, Gen Hoffman, a male, was a fighter pilot and an engineer.  So when USAF female pilots come of age, we can expect AFMC commanders to stay pilot/engineers.  Gabreski was operational, just not the right kind of operational.]

Charles Stross's Saturns Children and Thoughts on AI

Finished Charles Stross's Saturn's Children this weekend.  It was a great read.  The "sex scenes", which obliquely referenced sex but not directly, are a welcome break from the modern fiction these days.  Given that the heroine is a pleasure robot, the sexual references were exactly right, relevant and integral to the story, without detracting from it.  Compared to, say, Tom Clancy, this book is a textbook example of addressing this subject.  One suspects that the extraneous sex scenes in books these days are a plague inflicted by the book agents.

In any event, Saturn's Children paints a thoughtful picture of Artificial Intelligence inheriting the earth.  The classic tragedy of robots bound by the human property laws, in a world where humans are extinct, is haunting.  The constraints of economic reality on robots' actions is a great reminder that, despite the hopeful communism of Star Trek, et al, Resource Limitation is the universal condition no matter the scale of your civilization.

The notion of Artificial Intelligence having to pattern the human brain to achieve symbolic manipulation, is in line with current thinking on AI.  The spontaneous emergence of consciousness is the combination of the hardwired neural complexity and the profusion of environmental stimuli.  To recreate that neural complexity in software form is probably too expensive, compared to implementing that complexity in hardware form.  Moreover, the role of the environmental stimuli is crucial in guiding the development of the neural complexity.  Without the interaction with the environment, a brain is only latent, not realized.  There are some interesting research taking place on this particular AI hypothesis, and we will soon find out if the hypothesis hold any validity.

One note of caution, though, is that current researchers may be underestimating the amount of environmental stimuli required to realize intelligence.  Brains emerged to interact with the environment, not just to observe it.  Without interaction with the data stream, these new AI brains may starve just like the sensory-deprived orphans of post-communism Russia and Romania.  Or worse, the Hikikomori phenomenon in Japan.  One might think that the current projects are somewhat flawed because they are focusing on building the brain itself, rather than the educational apparatus required to realize the intelligence.

If the prototypes succeed, Dr. David Brin's future of AI working alongside man will be close at hand.  That future of augmented intelligence (where a brain can interact with a digital computer) definitely sounds exciting!

MGI Might Revive Bushmaster Pistol

Mack Gwinn Industries, the inventor of the Marck-15 Hydra weapon system with modular mag wells and quick change barrels for multiple calibers, and the licensee for the Valkyrie belt-feed system, [which itself was a revival of the Ciener light machine gun,] has publicly expressed interest in the Bushmaster pistol.  Mack Gwinn, Jr, founder of MGI, was the primary developer of the original Bushmaster pistol, which later went to the Bushmaster Firearms company, had a rifle variant, and merged with the Edenpine SAK-30 to become the Bushmaster M-17S bullpup rifle.  Whew, that was a handful. 

Duncan Long's AR-15 Sourcebook said that Bushmaster and Mack Gwinn developed the Bushmaster pistol on their own, and which later evolved into the M-17S rifle.  However, other sources such as Small Arms Review's article as well as Guns.Ru stated that the M-17S directly descended from the Armstech/Edenpine SAK-30.  The original Bushmaster pistol does not appear to have the tensioned barrel that M-17S has, so perhaps M-17S inherited the barrel from SAK-30, and the receiver/fire-control/bolt/bolt-carrier from Bushmaster Pistol.  All three used the gas system from the AR-18.

In any event, MGI said that they want to bring the Bushmaster Pistol back into production, which is great news! [You can find the announcement in their Facebook wall photo album.]  In an earlier ('07-'08?) private correspondence with their marketing rep, they had expressed interest in reviving the M-17S at a later date.  Perhaps the time has come for this bull-pup design.  I hope they bring back the M-17S and the pistol together, but either one would be great.  Given their Hydra mag-wells and quick-change barrels, perhaps MGI can add these features into the new gun.  Guess I need to start saving money now! :D

Take Back Your Kilometer!

MAJ Ehrhart's paper, "Taking Back the Last Half Kilometer", has been making the rounds these past few days. It is an interesting paper on the tactical and technical deficiencies of the American and allied infantry in Afghanistan, using a 5.56mm carbine against enemy mortar attacks up to 2km away.

However, this is not a new problem. Mountain warfare experiences from WW2 and Indo-Pakistan wars have shown the necessity to engage enemy infantry beyond 500m. Some writers had warned, for example, that the US Marines reinforcing the Scandinavian flank during a Soviet invasion should bring the 7.62mm M-14 rifles with them to handle the mountainous terrain of Norway. For infantry warfare, there are two extremes: the close range (within 100m) of most infantry combat, and the long range (500m-1000m) requirements of mountain warfare.

To meet this combat requirement, the 6.8mm booster club would like to push the 6.8mm intermediate-intermediate cartridge onto the military. [Intermediate-intermediate because 5.56mm was originally sold as the intermediate cartridge.] They've been looking to get rid of the 5.56mm since its inception, and this is about as good a chance as they're going to get. The 6.5mm club is getting some airtime, too, but they're really too small compared to the 6.8mm club. However, due to the Army's historical foot-dragging on topics like this, this is not likely to happen. [Iraq was too close-quartered for their arguments to be effective, whereas our long war in Afghanistan will bring them many more instances of 5.56mm ineffectivenss.]

On the other hand, there are a couple of fixes we can implement fairly quickly, to meet this combat requirement of engaging enemies 500m to 1000m, with infantry squad weapons. The answers are the 40mm grenade and, surprise, the 5.56mm M-4 carbine.

Currently the 40x46mm unguided, low velocity grenade has a maximum range of 400m with an elevated trajectory. By putting a pair of pop-out fins and a laser seeker on the grenade, we can easily double the range of the grenade out to 800m. It's good timing, too, because the US Army just transitioned from the sliding breech M203 launcher to the swiveling breech M320 launcher. The M320 launcher can accommodate the increased length of the guidance package. Due to the low muzzle velocity of the grenade (76m/s), which is well-below that of common missiles, guidance integration should not be an issue. This development effort would take some time, but will be relatively fast due to the low technical risks involved. A smart grenade would be a "leap-ahead" technology the brass will love, so there will be few bureaucratic obstacles to its adoption. Long-term this grenade is the ideal solution to the mortar ambush scenario. The area effect of the grenade will easily suppress the insurgent mortar crews.

While we are waiting on the smart grenade, the infantry in the field can use their 5.56mm M-4 carbine to suppress the far-away enemy. But wait, you say, isn't the whole problem we're facing that 5.56x45mm cannot reach beyond 500m? Actually, the 5.56mm can go all the way out to 2,000m. The only problem is that you cannot aim it accurately beyond 500m, because the bullet is too light and will drift off course. Back in World War I, the bolt-action rifles all had sights that ranged out to 1,000m, even though few people can aim that far without scopes. [Even today, AK-47 sights can adjust out to 1,000m.] Back then, infantry often had to provide its own fire support, sometimes without help from artillery. The whole regiment would line up, adjust the sights out to 1km, then fire at that target together. The massed rifle fire would blanket that far away target with a rain of lead bullets. The mass fire compensates for the inaccuracy of the individual rifle and man at that distance. Similarly, the machine guns of the era had long range sight markings for indirect-fire, area suppressions. Machine guns were organized in batteries then, and they would mass arcing fire on targets kilometers away.

We can do the same thing today. A squad or two can mass their fire against the suspected insurgent position. A squad of M-4s can generate the fire volume of a WW1 battalion by aiming together. With a bit of range experimentation, you can easily figure out how to shoot out to 1km. I did a bit of calculation and I found that you probably need to elevate your muzzle by 0.28 degrees to shoot 1km. According to online ballistic calculators, you will need about a 1 degree elevation. So work with that and try it out. A bit of Kentucky windage in the field will get you close enough to the target to suppress them. A rain of steel and lead will make the insurgents think twice of mortaring you.

Of course, you still need to close with and assault the enemy. A squad can suppress the position while other squads maneuver to close the distance. You will need at least a squad to generate the fire volume to suppress out to 1km.

Some people will say that the 5.56mm cartridge does not have enough energy to kill a man at 1km. However, try standing out there, without a helmet, while bullets rain down around you. The 5.56mm still has enough energy to lodge inside your braincase at that distance.

So, write your Congresscritters to start this smart grenade program. In the meantime, start experimenting with the sights of your M-4 carbine. Your squad can still suppress that insurgent mortar team, despite what your training told you.

ETA: links and paragraph breaks

Humanities vs Engineering at the Service Academies

Tom Ricks had an interesting article and discussion on the service academies last week, http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/08/which_teaches_officers_more_engineering_or_the_humanities

Basically, the argument is over whether the academies have over-emphasized engineering at the expense of humanities.

My sense is, it is not one or the other, as plenty of cadets majored in non-engineering fields (economics, history, etc) at the West Point. Rather, I think it's that the academies force the non-engineers into a bachelor of science track, whereas they might be better served with a bachelor of arts track. The BS track, with its concentration on the majoring subject, gives the social science students a false sense of mastery over the subject. Whereas a BA track would encourage the students to think in a non-standard direction.

Moreover, the requirement of multivariable calculus, newtonian mechanics, and electro-magnetism are not enough in understanding our physical world. The requirements of calculus and newtonian physics sprang from an era when we thought we could solve every equation. [ie, they offer the world view where we can solve everything deterministically, rather than empirically.] It is only when you go one step higher, to differential equations and dynamics, that you find the far bigger world of problems we cannot solve, where most equations do not have closed-form solutions.

The BS curriculum tries to be a scientific program by offering calculus and newtonian physics, but it does not go far enough. So we end up with students who think they can solve everything, who has not seen the world as it is.

So the service academies are doing a dis-service to the nation by forcing non-engineering cadets to go through the BS program. The academies need to get with the times, step beyond their 18th century curriculum, by either requiring DiffEqs & Dynamics for all, or start offering BAs.

PS: Added tags

Modifications to Improve Reliability of Short-Barreled M-16 Variants

The Small Arms Review, which is an awesome firearms magazine, has been running a series of interviews with various firearm designers, such as Arthur Miller, Reed Knight, Dr. Philip Dater, et al. The interviews are great, with lots of insights into designing firearms and making design tradeoffs. Unsurprisingly, many of these designers are connected to the M-16 system in one way or another, due to its prominence as the last successful American rifle design to have wide acceptance.

In OIF and OEF, there have been documented reports of unreliability with the M-16 and its derivatives, the M-4 and the Mk-18 CQBR. Soldiers' failure to clean their weapons contributes to some of the reliability problems. However, the rest of the reliability issues may be design-related, and several of the designers above discussed this topic with Small Arms Review in the interviews.

In particular, in the March, April, and May 2008 issues, Jim Sullivan talked of the design problems he dealt with in designing the M-16, and how they have contributed to the current reliability problems. Jim Sullivan was one of the lead designers to complete the AR-15/M-16 design. Mr. Sullivan said that the current M-4 reliability problems come from barrel heating. According to him, the 5.56mm cartridge, because of its straight case design, is very sensitive to barrel heating over the course of many shots. The chamber pressure from the gunpowder expands the case against the chamber of the barrel. As the case temperature increases, it pushes harder against the barrel chamber. Normally, there is enough time for the case to cool and relax (and depressurize) before case extraction starts, which pulls the case out of the chamber and ejects it. However, if the extraction starts earlier than designed, such as with the M-4 and other shorter variants, the case is still pushing against the chamber during extraction. This "sticking" to the chamber exerts a friction force against the extraction, which may be strong enough to cause weapon failures. During a long firefight or range session, the rifle barrel heats up over time. The barrel heating causes the chamber to expand itself, decreasing the clearance between the chamber and the cartridge case. This sticking process, according to Mr. Sullivan, is the cause of the M-4 reliability problems, and is a concern for all 5.56mm weapons with a barrel length of less than 16 inches. (The M-4 has a barrel length of 14.5 inches.)

The Russians avoids this problem entirely by using a highly tapered case for its 7.62x39mm and other rifle cartridges. As the case expands, it also pushes itself away from the chamber, due to its case taper. For the Russians, barrel heating and case heat improves extraction, and they can go with a shorter barrel for their compact carbines with no reliability issues.

For us Americans, however, we're stuck with the 5.56mm cartridge for the foreseeable future. The federal government's budget problems means there is no money to change our service cartridges. Therefore we need to find low-cost fixes for our M-4 carbines, which is coming into wide use in the US Army and the USMC. In fact, the Army is making the M-4 its standard soldier weapon, replacing the M-16. To deal with the chamber sticking problem, there are two main methods: increasing cycle length to give the cartridge case time to cool, or decrease barrel heating to draw heat out of the cartridge case.

One way to decrease barrel heating is to install a heat sink onto the chamber end of the barrel. The POF-USA piston operation system has a barrel nut that also doubles as the heat sink. The heat sink may contribute to the reliability of POF's weapons as much as its gas piston system. In addition, a non-free-floating rail forearm can work as the heat sink as well. [The link shows a free floating rail system. There aren't many non-free-floating railed forearms on the market. A non-free-floating forearm clamps onto the barrel, thus drawing heat, whereas a free floating forearm does not contact the barrel.]

The other approach is to increase cycle length, but Colt has already exploited this approach with the M-16 and the M-4 currently in service. Colt re-designed the buffers to slow down the bolt carrier during the ejection process. The modified buffers make the M-16 somewhat reliable, but is not an adequate solution for the M-4.

The AR-15 commercial market is debating the merits of the gas impingement system versus the piston/operating-rod system on improving AR-15/M-16 reliability. The piston/operating-rod system changes the force pushing on the bolt carrier, but as Mr. Sullivan says, that's not necessarily the solution. The root of the reliability problem comes from the barrel heating/cartridge sticking. This phenomenon is the result of prolonged rapid fire through the weapon, which is not how most users use their weapons. For most users, the current M-4 and CQBR configuration is adequate for their needs. For users who need to engage in prolonged rapid fire, though, they need to consider installing heat sinks on their barrels.

For the users who are looking for a short-barreled rifle/personal defense weapon, the cartridge sticking is a factor they need to consider in evaluating the market. As the barrel gets shorter, the problem becomes more pronounced.

In a later article I will evaluate the effectiveness of the Picatinny railed forearm as a heat sink.

Chinese Weapon Engineering Textbooks

Just came back from a personal trip to Beijing. The bookstores there are very impressive. Of course they have the small hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop bookstores. The super-bookstores, though, are multi-story affairs. They have at least three floors dedicated to books, one or two floors for CDs and DVDs, and floor space for stationery and other products. The bookstore in Sidan district has 1.5 floors for consumer electronics, with a focus on electronic dictionaries. Each of these floors is about the size of a one-floor Barnes & Nobles. And these stores are all packed! The three super-stores I visited are all filled with people browsing and purchasing books. Even on a weekday during school hours the stores are still busy. I just don't know if I can go back to Barnes and Nobles anymore after this trip.

One particularly impressive area is in the engineering textbooks. As an engineer, I just had to go check that out. If you go to a Barnes & Nobles here in the states, you will find about 8 to 16 shelves (1-2 short aisles) for engineering, programming, and "technology" books. In the Beijing super stores, the engineering section takes up at least a quarter of a floor. Mechanical engineering itself takes up at least 8 shelves. Food processing/manufacturing takes up several shelves, too. Even weapons/military/aero/astro engineering has about 3 to 4 shelves, more if you include the shipbuilding shelves. Civil engineering and architecture/construction occupies half of the whole engineering section, which is notable from an American perspective, where the undergrad civil engineering departments are usually the small departments in the engineering schools (approx 10-20 students/class year).

The military engineering books seem good. You get some fluff there, like a "modern weapon catalog" that is the size of a pocket book, but the rest are pretty solid. I saw "Principles of Submarine Design", "Principles of Fire Control System Design", "Design of Automatic Firearms", and "Introduction to Propellant Design", to name a few. I flipped through these books and they all seemed to cover the basics, with plenty of equations to start component designs and instructions on how to make the design tradeoffs. Good textbooks. It is sad that books like these are not more accessible to the American public, or even the American engineering students.

Because of the current Chinese emphasis on space flights and ballistic missiles, rocketry is pretty big in the military/aero&astro engineering book section. The books cover all segments of rocket/missile design. They even have an "Artillery Rocket Design" translated from the original Russian textbook.

All in all, it was very impressive visiting these bookstores. They are definitely on the to-see list for anybody visiting Beijing.

Does any of you know how the bookstores are like in India's major cities? How are their engineering books selling?

PS: edited for grammar

A Design to Improve Canine Effectiveness in Arid Climates

The military employs military working dogs in bomb detection. Therefore, working dogs can help us avoid mines and improvised explosive devices, and detecting the female suicide bombers currently in vogue in Iraq. However, the dogs are not effective in OIF and OEF because it is too dry over there.

A dog's nose is a mucous membrane with sensors all over. The sensors bind to the scent particles in the air through the mucous membrane. If the nose dries out, the sensors are not as effective in binding to the scent molecules. Because the air is so dry in Iraq and Afghanistan, it dries out dog noses rapidly. The bomb detection dogs were only effective for much less than one hour before needing to take a break and re-wet their noses.

When I was deployed, I wrote up a proposal to build a humidifier for a working dog, to extend his working time. To accomplish this, you can take a spritzer to spray water onto his nose directly, for a low tech method, interim capability.

My design was: Mount the spritzer by the dog's head, and aim it to a point 3 inches in front of his nose. The spritzer would automatically spray water toward this point periodically, to moisturize the air as he breathes in. The exact configuration and timing will require experimentation, for which I did not have the money, personnel, nor assets to do.

Alternatively, we can spray moisturized air, instead of water spray, into the air. This might be more effective, but it would also be more complex.

Anyway, I submitted the proposal to the local counter-IED working group. They forwarded it to some people in the K-9 community. And I never heard back from them again. Story of my life, eh? :)

This proposal will make a great college/backyard engineering project if you want to build it. All you need is a dog, some dry weather, and some time to tinker with. It is not technically sophisticated, but you do need to program that motor controller.

So that is another one of my engineering ideas as I was sitting in the Fallujah contracting office doing paperwork. We need to get more working dogs into the military because they are so useful. In Vietnam, soldiers used to patrol the jungle with working dogs. The dogs could smell and hear the boobytraps, and were great sentries at night. Dogs also are good at reading body language and help us separate good guys from bad guys. In the new population-centric warfare we are fighting, working dogs are a crucial tool that we are not using effectively.