Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Battlefields of Future?

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Exoskeletons are the future of body armor - Task & Purpose > .
> PLA > 

Bionic Troops?

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U.S. Official Says China Attempted To Create 'Super Soldiers' | MSNBC > .



Is China trying to make its own version of Captain America? US intelligence has suggested so. But beyond the hype, the possibility of a super soldier is not so outlandish and one that not just China is interested in. With deep pockets, and a desire to get an edge, the world's militaries have often driven technological innovation, from the state-of-the-art to the humble.

Announcing a new initiative in 2014, then-President Barack Obama told journalists: "Basically I'm here to announce that we're building Iron Man." The US military had already begun work on the project - a protective suit, known as the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit. (Talos). A video game-like promotional video showed the wearer bursting in on an enemy cell, bullets ricocheting off the armour. Iron Man was not to be. Five years on, the initiative ended, but makers hope individual components of the suit will have applications elsewhere. Exoskeletons are just one of the promising technologies militaries are exploring to enhance their soldiers.

Enhancement could mean much more than merely giving an individual soldier a better gun. It could mean altering the individual soldier. In 2017, Russia's President Vladimir Putin warned that humanity could soon create something "worse than a nuclear bomb". ... "One may imagine that a man can create a man with some given characteristics, not only theoretically but also practically. He can be a genius mathematician, a brilliant musician or a soldier, a man who can fight without fear, compassion, regret or pain."

Last year, the former US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), John Ratcliffe, went further with a blunt accusation against China."China has even conducted human testing on members of the People's Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities. There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing's pursuit of power," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Needless to say, China called the article a "miscellany of lies".

A 2019 paper from two US academics said that China's military was "actively exploring" such techniques as gene editing, exoskeletons and human-machine collaboration. The report was based primarily on comments from Chinese military strategists. Ratcliffe was referring to testing on adults. While some characteristics could be altered in adults using gene editing, changing the DNA of embryos would offer one of the most plausible routes to a "super soldier".

Some analysts see China's efforts as a direct response to the US. A 2017 report in the Guardian said that a US military agency was investing tens of millions in genetic extinction technology that could wipe out invasive species, something UN experts warned could have military applications. China and the US are not the only countries seeking an advantage. France's armed forces have been given approval to develop "enhanced soldiers" with a report laying out ethical boundaries for the research.

Monday, April 25, 2016

DEW - Directed-Energy Weapons

23-9-15 Directed Energy Weapons in Future Weaponry - nwyt > .
drones 

Companies are now developing and deploying sophisticated new defences, from frying the electronic circuits with powerful beams of microwave radiation (phasers), to precise jamming systems.

A directed-energy weapon (DEW) is a ranged weapon that damages its target with highly focused energy without a solid projectile, including lasers, microwaves, particle beams, and sound beams. Potential applications of this technology include weapons that target personnel, missiles, vehicles, and optical devices. In the United States, the Pentagon, DARPA, the Air Force Research Laboratory, United States Army Armament Research Development and Engineering Center, and the Naval Research Laboratory are researching directed-energy weapons to counter ballistic missiles, hypersonic cruise missiles, and hypersonic glide vehicles. These systems of missile defense are expected to come online no sooner than the mid to late-2020s.

Xina, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, India, and Pakistan are also developing military-grade directed-energy weapons, while Iran and Turkey claim to have them in active service. 

The first use of directed-energy weapons in combat between military forces was claimed to have occurred in Libya in August 2019 by Turkey, which claimed to use the ALKA directed-energy weapon. After decades of research and development, most directed-energy weapons are still at the experimental stage and it remains to be seen if or when they will be deployed as practical, high-performance military weapons.
...
By programming a UAV to fly around numerous points before arriving at its target it can avoid the obvious directions from which an attack is expected. This may explain why existing radars failed to spot the drone formation which attacked Abqaiq.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49984415

Drones (UAVs) ..

Sunday, April 24, 2016

EU's Future?

22-3-23 Polish citizens join army b/o Russian invasion of Ukraine - BBC > .
> EU >

● Geopolitics: Europe, Mediterranean ..BrexTWIT - Divided We Fall ..
BrexTWIT to Devolution? ..

Geostrategic Projection
European Geostrategic Projection ..

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Future Conflict?

> PLA > 
On The Radar: Defence Experts - FoTV >> .

Future of War

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NVGs 
ars mīlitiae - anffyddiaeth >> .




Future US Army Weaponry?

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NVGs 
Armor - Fyrd Færeld >> .

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Intel - Past & Future


Monday, April 18, 2016

Kamikaze Drone - Loitering Munition

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AI & Future of Autonomous Warfare | DW Analysis > .
> DEWs - Directed Energy Weapons >
23-9-24 Combat Drones & Future Air Warfare - Humans + Wingman - Perun > .
23-6-30 Directed Energy Weapons - Lasers vs Drones, Missiles - T&P > .
23-6-13 NATO IAMD | NATO Integrated Air and Missile Defence > .
23-6-13 Drones and the Dystopian Future of War - Journeyman > .
23-6-11 Rocket Roulette: Ruscia uses drones & missiles against Ukraine - U24 > .
23-6-7 Ukrainian Defense Tech Boom - War Startups - U24 > .
22-11-11 Economics of Kamikaze Drones - nwyt > . skip > .
22-4-9 Drones, Missiles, Mercenaries in Future of Militaries - CNBC > .
2013 Rise of the Drones (FULL doc) | NOVA | PBS > .

The artificial intelligence revolution is just getting started. But it is already transforming conflict. Militaries all the way from the superpowers to tiny states are seizing on autonomous weapons as essential to surviving the wars of the future. But this mounting arms-race dynamic could lead the world to dangerous places, with algorithms interacting so fast that they are beyond human control. Uncontrolled escalation, even wars that erupt without any human input at all. 

A loitering munition (also known as a suicide drone or kamikaze drone) is a weapon system category in which the munition loiters around the target area for some time, searches for targets, and attacks once a target is located. Loitering munitions enable faster reaction times against concealed or hidden targets that emerge for short periods without placing high-value platforms close to the target area, and also allow more selective targeting as the actual attack mission can be aborted.

Loitering munitions fit in the niche between cruise missiles and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) sharing characteristics with both. They differ from cruise missiles in that they are designed to loiter for a relatively long time around the target area, and from UCAVs in that a loitering munition is intended to be expended in an attack and has a built-in warhead.

Loitering weapons first emerged in the 1980s for use in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) role against surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and were deployed for the SEAD role in a number of military forces in the 1990s. Starting in the 2000s, loitering weapons have been developed for additional roles ranging from relatively long-range strikes and fire support down to tactical, very short range battlefield systems that fit in a backpack.

Loitering munitions have proliferated into use by at least 14 countries, with several different types in use as of 2017. The rising proliferation and the ability to use some systems as lethal autonomous weapons coupled with ethical concerns over such use have led to research and discussion by International humanitarian law scholars and activists.

Extended version includes a blow-by-blow scenario of a cyber attack against nuclear weapons command and control systems: https://youtu.be/TmlBkW6ANsQ .

The world is entering a new era of warfare, with cyber and autonomous weapons taking center stage. These technologies are making militaries faster, smarter, more efficient. But if unchecked, they threaten to destabilize the world.
 
DW takes a deep dive into the future of conflict, uncovering an even more volatile world. Where a cyber intrusion against a nuclear early warning system can unleash a terrifying spiral of escalation; where “flash wars” can erupt from autonomous weapons interacting so fast that no human could keep up.
 
Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tells DW that we have already entered the technological arms race that is propelling us towards this future. “We’re right in the middle of it. That’s the reality we have to deal with.”
 
And yet the world is failing to meet the challenge. Talks on controlling autonomous weapons have repeatedly been stalled by major powers seeking to carve out their own advantage. And cyber conflict has become not just a fear of the future but a permanent state of affairs.

DW finds out what must happen to steer the world in a safer direction, with leading voices from the fields of politics, diplomacy, intelligence, academia, and activism speaking out. 

00:00 - Introduction
02:37 - The Cyber Nuclear Nightmare
17:05 - Flash Wars And Autonomous Weapons
30:12 - Trading Markets And Flash Crashes
31:45 - Time To Act

Kit of Future?

UK F-35B + US B2 > .
24-3-31 Global Arms Exports - Winners, losers, trends in race to rearm - Perun > .
> DEWs - Directed Energy Weapons >
23-12-15 FPV drone use in R-U war - cheap guided missiles - Binkov > .
23-9-18 South Korean Factories Churning Out Armaments for NATO | WSJ > .
23-9-10 Industrial Competition & Consolidation, Military Procurement - Perun > .
23-9-7 Pentagon announces Replicator cheap-AI-drone program vs Xina - Binkov > .
23-8-20 NATO's Rearmament & Spending - NATO's R-U Response - Perun > .
23-8-13 Game Theory Of Military Spending | EcEx > .
23-7-29 Why the US Military isn't Out of Ammo - T&P > .
23-7-18 Futureproofing for changing threats; Defence Command Paper - Forces > .
23-6-13 Drones and the Dystopian Future of War - Journeyman > .
23-6-11 Rocket Roulette: Ruscia uses drones & missiles against Ukraine - U24 > .
Kit
22-10-15 US Army’s Universal Camouflage: A Terrible Mistake - Half > .

sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...