Figured I should put in my 2 cents about the Ossetian War here. I don't have anything to add to the news out there. But this conflict is glaring in the absence of some major players.
China and India aspire to super power status. The Ossetian War presented many opportunities to a power looking for good press: Russia took a side, America the other. A third way to mediate the crisis, as a semi-neutral third party, is an obvious opening. At the end of hostilities there will be a need for peacekeepers/observers to enforce the ceasefire, for which China and India has plenty of bodies to deploy, and which will be a great occassion for photo ops in a low-risk environment. The role of a mediator does not require any commitments and has a great return on international good will.
Both China and India are for "Non-intervention", "territorial integrity", etc. China in particular can use another friend to face off Russia. At the same time, both countries have a huge diaspora population abroad and can use that to relate to Russia.
Of course, France took the diplomatic opening and is working to mediate a ceasefire. India and China should have been jumping on the bandwagon and everything. Yet there is nary a peep from either of them. One wonders why.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Army Needs to Buy American Piston ARs (Updated!)
Christian at Defense Tech broke a story on Congress and the M-16. This past weekend, some Congress staffers went to Quantico to get an orientation on "commercial" alternatives to the Colt M-4. There has been no updates on what happened this weekend, nor which vendors/weapons showed up at the orientation. It probably included the HK416, HK XM-8, and the FN SCAR-L, which were in the recent Army rifle endurance test. Rumors state that the various 6.8 SPC, 6.5, et al, cartridges and platforms would have been present as well.
It's nice that the Congress people got to play w/ guns. I hope that they included some real American vendors such as LWRC, POF-USA, and Ares, who have already brought piston-operated ARs to the market successfully.
Other than the HK brand name and some quality control advantages, HK does not have an edge in this arena. LWRC and Ares both use the tapped rod, AR-18 mechanism on the HK416 and XM-8. The whole point of a piston-operated system is to be resistant to fouling. If you tighten the tolerance, like what HK likes to do, you lose the robustness advantage. It's interesting how the "greatest gun company", as HK fans likes to tell you, does not get that idea. Tightening the tolerance will give you accuracy, but also increases maintenance requirements, as we have seen w/ the MP-5/G-3 system.
Later I'll talk about what this M-4 controversy says about the modern military small arm philosophy.
UPDATE: Participants reported that Barrett, FN, LWRC, HK, and Bushmaster provided equipment to the demonstration. The demonstration was reportedly very professional, with no commercial sales pitches and stuck to the numbers and facts. The calibers were 5.56, 6.8 SPC, and 7.62x51mm. It's great that LWRC participated in this demonstration.
Personally, I'm agnostic on the 5.56 vs 6.8 vs 7.62 debate. Line units may benefit from switching to a heavier caliber. However, the low recoil of the 5.56 enabled better marksmanship among rear echelon personnel and soldiers of smaller stature.
Dr Roberts (CDR, USNR) has made a persuasive case for upgrading to 6.8, tho.
One last point: It is important for the layperson to realize that switching calibers or to piston operated gas systems does not require us to abandon the M-16 platform. The M-16/M-4 has two sub-systems, the Upper Assembly and the Lower Assembly. The lower assembly contains the trigger and the stock, and generally stays the same among most M-16 variants. The upper assembly has the barrel and is the main difference among the various calibers and operating systems. If we were to upgrade the M-16/M-4, we can just buy new upper assemblies or modify our existing inventory of upper assemblies.
It's nice that the Congress people got to play w/ guns. I hope that they included some real American vendors such as LWRC, POF-USA, and Ares, who have already brought piston-operated ARs to the market successfully.
Other than the HK brand name and some quality control advantages, HK does not have an edge in this arena. LWRC and Ares both use the tapped rod, AR-18 mechanism on the HK416 and XM-8. The whole point of a piston-operated system is to be resistant to fouling. If you tighten the tolerance, like what HK likes to do, you lose the robustness advantage. It's interesting how the "greatest gun company", as HK fans likes to tell you, does not get that idea. Tightening the tolerance will give you accuracy, but also increases maintenance requirements, as we have seen w/ the MP-5/G-3 system.
Later I'll talk about what this M-4 controversy says about the modern military small arm philosophy.
UPDATE: Participants reported that Barrett, FN, LWRC, HK, and Bushmaster provided equipment to the demonstration. The demonstration was reportedly very professional, with no commercial sales pitches and stuck to the numbers and facts. The calibers were 5.56, 6.8 SPC, and 7.62x51mm. It's great that LWRC participated in this demonstration.
Personally, I'm agnostic on the 5.56 vs 6.8 vs 7.62 debate. Line units may benefit from switching to a heavier caliber. However, the low recoil of the 5.56 enabled better marksmanship among rear echelon personnel and soldiers of smaller stature.
Dr Roberts (CDR, USNR) has made a persuasive case for upgrading to 6.8, tho.
One last point: It is important for the layperson to realize that switching calibers or to piston operated gas systems does not require us to abandon the M-16 platform. The M-16/M-4 has two sub-systems, the Upper Assembly and the Lower Assembly. The lower assembly contains the trigger and the stock, and generally stays the same among most M-16 variants. The upper assembly has the barrel and is the main difference among the various calibers and operating systems. If we were to upgrade the M-16/M-4, we can just buy new upper assemblies or modify our existing inventory of upper assemblies.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Heller
The Volokh Conspiracy has many excellent articles parsing the Heller vs DC decision. Heller pleases neither the left nor the right, but at least it did not affirm the Federal Government's abuse of the Interstate Commerce clause. Overall, I agree with Sandy Levinson that Heller may have seriously disarmed the Gun issue for this election.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles
Christian over at Defense Tech broke the story of a Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile program. It is an intriguing thought, but this idea just brings back too many memories of reading Payne Harrison's Thunder of Erebus.
We all know that you don't have a real Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile until you mate a torpedo to the warhead!! Close-In Weapon Systems cannot yet deal with torpedoes!
But in general, yeah, current generation CIWSs are designed to deal with the terminal "diving" maneuver of modern anti-ship missiles. So they have the maneuverability to acquire and track something diving down at them from space. The current technical challenge is that of mass: Can they pump out enough bullets/fragments to shred the re-entry vehicle?
At this time, the fastest countermeasure would be to network multiple CIWS together, and target one RV at a time. The current ammo capacity on the CIWS is definitely insufficient in a saturation attack scenario.
In the future, we can expect to see more multi-gatling CIWS like the Russian Kashtan or the Italian Myriad. They have to make up for the Gatling gun's low initial firing rate by adding guns.
Update: Yes, I know you're going to bring up Metal Storm as a potential solution. No, Metal Storm is NOT a solution to this. Their design has a serious limitation to ammo capacity. Just imagine lining up 400 20mm bullets from end to end, and you can see that they are unrealistic.
We all know that you don't have a real Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile until you mate a torpedo to the warhead!! Close-In Weapon Systems cannot yet deal with torpedoes!
But in general, yeah, current generation CIWSs are designed to deal with the terminal "diving" maneuver of modern anti-ship missiles. So they have the maneuverability to acquire and track something diving down at them from space. The current technical challenge is that of mass: Can they pump out enough bullets/fragments to shred the re-entry vehicle?
At this time, the fastest countermeasure would be to network multiple CIWS together, and target one RV at a time. The current ammo capacity on the CIWS is definitely insufficient in a saturation attack scenario.
In the future, we can expect to see more multi-gatling CIWS like the Russian Kashtan or the Italian Myriad. They have to make up for the Gatling gun's low initial firing rate by adding guns.
Update: Yes, I know you're going to bring up Metal Storm as a potential solution. No, Metal Storm is NOT a solution to this. Their design has a serious limitation to ammo capacity. Just imagine lining up 400 20mm bullets from end to end, and you can see that they are unrealistic.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Manifestation of Asian Growth Risks
The LA Times today brings confirmation of the precarious economic situations of China and India. This confirms my article last week about the popular misperception of Asian economic prowess. The Asian Depression is coming soon. How everyone deal with it will define the Twenty-First Century, just as the Great Depression defined the Twentieth Century.
PS: The Chinese official CPI for May'08 is rumored to be 7%. Looking for confirmation report.
PS: The Chinese official CPI for May'08 is rumored to be 7%. Looking for confirmation report.
Up-gunning of Remote Weapon Stations
Finally, my first article on defense technology!
A note from Eurosatory 2008: Nexter has unveiled a remote weapon station that can mount medium caliber cannons from 20mm and up. As Jane's reported,
"We noticed that forces wanted something more powerful than a .50 cal [machine gun]," explained Pierre Clouvel, Nexter's executive vice-president for equipment. "For example, we received orders recently for the P20 [a Nexter 20 mm-armed manned weapon mount] to be mounted on the Otokar Cobra [armoured personnel carrier]."
This remote weapon station is primarily meant for light vehicles such as Humvees. This model marks the leap in RWS capability from small caliber machine guns to medium caliber cannons. Airborne forces will directly benefit from this development.
More broadly, the Iraq war has spurred the transition from manned turrets to unmanned ones. The proliferation of RWSs started as a way to keep gunners under armor protection, without significantly adding weight to the vehicles or increasing rollover risk. Along the way, vendors have increased RWS's capabilities by adding missiles, and now light cannons. As unmanned turrets adorn light armored vehicles with medium caliber cannons, armies around the world will have to ask themselves, Why should they keep manned turrets on their infantry fighting vehicles?
This rise of the unmanned turrets also has implications for the US Future Combat System. FCS manned vehicles are overweight and do not meet their original C-130 transportability specification. Based on the current artist drawings, it appears that the designers are trying to hold down weight using unmanned turrets. However, the turrets are still too bulky in the current configuration. GDLS and BAE needs to go all in and reduce the turrets to skeletal conditions. They can save the armor panels for "up-armored" situations.
A note from Eurosatory 2008: Nexter has unveiled a remote weapon station that can mount medium caliber cannons from 20mm and up. As Jane's reported,
"We noticed that forces wanted something more powerful than a .50 cal [machine gun]," explained Pierre Clouvel, Nexter's executive vice-president for equipment. "For example, we received orders recently for the P20 [a Nexter 20 mm-armed manned weapon mount] to be mounted on the Otokar Cobra [armoured personnel carrier]."
This remote weapon station is primarily meant for light vehicles such as Humvees. This model marks the leap in RWS capability from small caliber machine guns to medium caliber cannons. Airborne forces will directly benefit from this development.
More broadly, the Iraq war has spurred the transition from manned turrets to unmanned ones. The proliferation of RWSs started as a way to keep gunners under armor protection, without significantly adding weight to the vehicles or increasing rollover risk. Along the way, vendors have increased RWS's capabilities by adding missiles, and now light cannons. As unmanned turrets adorn light armored vehicles with medium caliber cannons, armies around the world will have to ask themselves, Why should they keep manned turrets on their infantry fighting vehicles?
This rise of the unmanned turrets also has implications for the US Future Combat System. FCS manned vehicles are overweight and do not meet their original C-130 transportability specification. Based on the current artist drawings, it appears that the designers are trying to hold down weight using unmanned turrets. However, the turrets are still too bulky in the current configuration. GDLS and BAE needs to go all in and reduce the turrets to skeletal conditions. They can save the armor panels for "up-armored" situations.
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