If U.S. military weapons planners have learned anything from the
varied conflicts of the past quarter century, it is that the
challenges are not getting any more predictable. With the nature
and capabilities of U.S. opponents changing on practically an
engagement-by-engagement basis, deciding which new weapon
technologies will best serve soldiers in the battle theaters of the
future remains a high-stakes guessing game.
The enemy is no longer necessarily a nation; it can be a terrorist
cell. The enemy may not possess high-tech weaponry yet still pose a
threat--by exploding truck bombs on suicide missions or by firing
hand-launched missiles against F/A-22 fighter jets. Nor, despite
the absolute technological supremacy of the U.S. military today,
can strategists afford to ignore the possibility that a nation that
has developed advanced weaponry might come to pose a threat in a
nightmare future.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, which mulls responses to future conflict
scenarios, is preparing for everything from ground invasions of
North Korea to air strikes against terrorist camps. "The process is
complicated by the fact that you are less certain than ever who you
will be fighting and the circumstances under which you will be
fighting them," says John Pike, a senior military analyst at
GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank that specializes in evaluations of
military technology and strategy. "When you don't know what problem
you're trying to solve, it's hard to come to a solution."
Efficiency is also a factor to a military that finds itself
stretched from old bases in Europe to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
to calls for intervention in Africa, Haiti and other hotspots. The
scores of potential combat scenarios sketched out by the Joint
Chiefs, as well as individual branches of the U.S. military, have
convinced the Department of Defense that a fast-track modernization
program is critical to national security. Many current weapons
systems are fast becoming out-of-date, from aging attack helicopter
fleets to the early-'60s-designed rifles troops carry on the
ground. Key trends will be automation--unmanned land, air and
underwater vehicles; communication networks that connect all the
players in a battle theater, so that information flows freely
between pilots, foot soldiers and commanders; and finding new ways
to solve old problems--such as firing ballistics electrically
rather than with explosives.
But perhaps more in need of overhaul than the weapons systems
themselves is the process that produces them. New weapons typically
start out as ideas developed in one of the R&D labs belonging
to the U.S. military or to private defense contractors such as
Raytheon, Lockheed Martin or hundreds of smaller companies around
the country. As it progresses, though, a new technology may get
bogged down by Byzantine red tape and excessive
everything-but-the-kitchen-sink tinkering. Years may elapse--5, 10,
15 or more--while proposals and demonstrations are requested,
Congressional approvals secured, contractors chosen, and the
technology tested and fielded--and by then the weapon that emerges
may be technologically obsolete, or designed for threats that no
longer exist. The Defense Department has a history of continuing to
fund needless programs because of political pressures and sheer
momentum. A prime example: the Army's Comanche attack helicopter,
which was canceled in February after a 21-year, $6.9 billion
development program. One of its key missions, battlefield
reconnaissance, is quickly being usurped by far less expensive
unmanned aerial vehicles.
Weapons procurement is also plagued by redundancy: More than one
branch of the armed services may develop different systems that
accomplish the same goal. This could range from small-caliber
bullets being developed for each branch up to entire weapons
platforms.
Then there's the chicken-and-egg problem. New weapons usually
address specific needs, but the reverse can occur. Military leaders
can simply be dazzled by new technologies, and develop weapons to
exploit them. "These are often solutions in search of problems,"
cautions analyst Loren Thompson of the Arlington, Virginia-based
Lexington Institute, a Department of Defense watchdog organization.
Meanwhile, U.S. military supremacy has made certain weapons systems
seem like overkill--the submarine fleet, for example. In the case
of the supercavitating torpedo described in this article, skeptics
ask where the need is. "If we ever face a hostile navy again
I'd like to take a look at it," says Thompson. "Obviously it's an
improvement over what we have, but what's the enemy? It's not
enough to have a weapon that can use new technology creatively. It
needs to answer a valid military need or threat." It's also wise to
recognize that the technological supremacy that drove U.S. forces
into the heart of Baghdad in record time won't necessarily
forestall the low-tech agony of the fight that has followed.
To streamline weapons development, in the mid-1990s the Department
of Defense implemented its advanced concept technology
demonstration program, a sort of try-before-you-buy setup that
helps bypass usual R&D hurdles. One result: In 1997 the Air
Force, after only two-and-a-half years of development, put the
Predator unmanned aerial vehicle into service. Then, in 2002, with
only minimal testing, they equipped several of the drones with
Hellfire missiles and used one to attack an al Qaeda vehicle in
Yemen. "Someone came up with the idea and just did it," says
Patrick Garrett, an associate analyst at GlobalSecurity.org. "It
harkens back to the good old days of WWII."
Another example of DoD-backed corner-cutting: the littoral combat
ship, a versatile vessel with interchangeable modules that can be a
minesweeper one day and a special forces troop lander the next. "It
normally takes a decade or so for a new ship class to be decided,"
says Garrett, "but the Navy put out the bid in 2002, had five or
six shipbuilders come up with designs, and they're hoping to start
construction in 2005. That's a major feat."
Officials hope new technologies will shorten combat, minimize
casualties, and enable attacks to be carried out with greater
precision.
Many weapons in the pipeline, such as the space-launched darts and
electromagnetic railgun, will use no explosives at all, relying
instead on kinetic energy to destroy targets. Some, like Metal
Storm, will use electricity rather than mechanical firing
mechanisms. Laser weapons will disable enemy gear with heat rather
than force, providing pinpoint accuracy and speed-of-light
delivery.
A KINETIC MISSILE THAT FLIES AT MACH 7
Picture this: A massive destroyer receives the location coordinates
of an enemy headquarters more than 200 miles away. Instead of
launching a million-dollar Tomahawk cruise missile, it points a gun
barrel in the direction of the target, diverts electric power from
the ship's engine to the gun turret, and launches a 3-foot-long,
40-pound projectile up a set of superconducting rails. The
projectile leaves the barrel at hypersonic velocity--Mach
7-plus--exits the Earth's atmosphere, re-enters under satellite
guidance, and lands on the building less than six minutes later;
its incredible velocity vaporizes the target with kinetic energy
alone.
The U.S. Navy is developing an electromagnetic railgun that will
turn destroyers into super-long-range machine guns--able to fire up
to a dozen relatively inexpensive projectiles every minute. The
Navy is collaborating with the British Ministry of Defence, which
has a similar effort under way. In 2003, its facility in
Kirkcudbright, Scotland, hosted a 1/8-scale test of an
electromagnetic railgun that produced stable flight in a projectile
fired out of the barrel at Mach 6. But Capt. Roger McGinnis,
program manager for directed energy weapons at Naval Sea Systems
Command in Washington, D.C., estimates the U.S. version won't be
"deliverable" until 2015 at the earliest.
The technology behind the electromagnetic railgun has been around
for more than 20 years, but early efforts wilted because of the
huge power requirements: No ship could generate or store enough
electricity to fire the gun. The concept was revived a few years
ago when the Navy announced plans for its next-generation
battleship, the all-electric DD(X). "In the past, destroyers had 90
percent of their power tied to propulsion," explains McGinnis. "But
with DD(X), you can divert the power to whatever you need. We can
stop the ship and fire the railgun as many times as we need, then
divert the power back to the screws."
The barrel of the electromagnetic railgun will contain two parallel
conducting rails about 20 feet long, bridged by a sliding armature.
In the current design, electric current travels up one rail,
crosses the armature, and heads down the second rail. The loop
induces a magnetic field that pushes the armature, and the
projectile aboard it, up the rails.
The challenges that remain include ensuring that the gun can target
enemy sites with precision, and creating equipment that can
withstand the gargantuan pressures the gun will create. "Right now,
guns are only as accurate as the targeting of the bore, and now
we're talking about 200-plus-mile ranges, so there has to be
aerodynamic correction," says Fred Beach, the assistant program
manager for the electromagnetic railgun at Naval Sea Systems
Command. The projectile, he says, will receive course correction
information from satellites and will steer itself with movable
control surfaces. And because the projectile will be subjected to
up to 45,000 Gs during firing, the onboard electronics must be
strengthened to withstand the acceleration. Forces inside the gun
itself--particularly getting the armature to move easily within the
system--are also challenging the designers. "Getting two pieces of
metal to slide past each other is pretty hard--we're getting a lot
of damage to the rails," Beach says.
The electromagnetic railgun's projectiles will cover 290 miles in
six minutes--initially traveling 8,200 feet per second and hitting
their target at 5,000 feet per second. Current Navy guns, which
shoot powder-ignited explosive shells, have a maximum range of 12
miles and, because they are unguided, are difficult to aim. Though
guided missiles, the current long-range alternative for destroyers,
can achieve ranges comparable to that of the electromagnetic
railgun, their cost and storage problems are what's driving the
efforts to find an alternative. Ships can only carry up to 70
guided missiles and must return to port to restock because the
missiles cannot be loaded at sea, whereas railgun projectiles can
easily be loaded at sea, and by the hundreds. Also appealing is
that the electromagnetic railgun's missiles do not contain volatile
explosives; the weapon does its work with kinetic energy. a rocket
torpedo that swims in an air bubble
Submarines peaked in power and relevance during the Cold War; there
has since been a shift in focus to aircraft-based combat, and subs
have become budget-cut victims. But subs are still prized for their
ability to sneak about global waters undetected and to defend
surface ships from attack. Many U.S. subs are being converted from
missile launchers into delivery vehicles for special operations
troops.
But the supercavitating torpedo--a rocket-propelled weapon that
speeds through the water enveloped in a nearly frictionless air
bubble--may render obsolete the old submarine strategy of sly
maneuvering and silent running to evade the enemy. The superfast
torpedo could be outfitted with conventional explosive warheads,
nuclear tips or nothing at all--a 5,000-pound, 230-mph missile
could do enough damage on its own. The Russians invented the
concept during the Cold War, and their version of this underwater
killer--dubbed the Shkval ("Squall")--has recently been made
available on the international weapons market; the United States,
of course, wants a new, improved version of the original.
The hard part about building a rocket-propelled torpedo isn't so
much the propulsion as clearing a path through the ocean. Water
creates speed-sapping drag; the best way to overcome that drag is
to create a bubble that envelops the torpedo--a supercavity. A gas
ejected uniformly and with enough force through a cavitator in the
nose of the torpedo will provide such a bubble, permitting speeds
of more than 200 mph and a range of up to 5 miles (traditional
torpedoes have slightly longer ranges, but lumber at only 30 to 40
mph).
Though submerged, the torpedo remains essentially dry, with a
frictionless surface. "That sounds easy, but doing it is extremely
difficult, especially if you're trying to steer," says Kam Ng,
program manager for the torpedo at the Office of Naval Research,
which has been developing the weapon since 1997. "If your torpedo
moves in a straight line, you just aim and shoot," says Ng. "That
capability already exists with Shkval. But the U.S. vehicle will be
more capable--it will turn, identify objects, and home in on the
target." (Improvements to the torpedo to make it steerable likely
froze when the Soviet Union collapsed, says GlobalSecurity.org's
Pike.)
Among the greatest challenges for U.S. torpedo researchers is
developing detection and homing technology that will enable the
torpedo to distinguish an enemy sub from, say, a rock formation,
says Ng. Also tricky is finding a way to control the gas bubble to
permit those course changes. "When you turn, the bubble distorts
because it is no longer symmetrical," he says. "So you have to
compensate for that by putting more bubble to one side." This is
done, Ng explains, by ejecting more gas toward the outside of the
turn.
Naval officials say the high-speed torpedo will enable submarines
to attack enemy subs and surface ships without giving them time to
respond. The U.S. military has tested a prototype, but combat-ready
versions are not expected for at least 15 years.
A LASER CANNON THAT BLASTS FROM THE AIR
Directed-energy weapon specialists at the Air Force Research
Laboratory are close to overcoming the two main hurdles that have
confined laser weapons to science fiction for the last
half-century. Tests by lead contractor Boeing have demonstrated
that the laser has enough power to function as a weapon, and that
the chemical exhaust, which could pose a considerable threat to the
weapon's operators and individuals on the ground, can be safely
contained in a sealed system. If all goes according to the U.S.
Special Operations Command's plan, within a decade or so the
Advanced Tactical Laser may introduce a new class of weaponry to
the battlefield.
The weapon's first incarnation, expected by 2010 at the earliest,
will be a megawatt-class chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) fired
from a rotating turret beneath the nose of a C-130 gunship. The
beam could be up to 4 inches in diameter and have a 20-mile
range--enabling it to burn through vehicles and machinery with a
precision and millisecond timing that missiles and cannons can't
achieve. (Cannons, in particular--now centuries old in concept--are
tricky to aim. These "indirect fire" weapons must be pointed far
from the target to factor in wind speed, humidity, firing
force--even the rotation of the Earth.)
Next on the agenda: developing targeting, tracking and firing
hardware. Among the questions researchers must answer: how long
must the beam linger on a target to have the desired effect. "There
are some interesting things with the directed energy technologies
that we just don't know about," says Lt. Col. Joseph Panetta Jr.,
program manager for the Advanced Tactical Laser at the U.S. Special
Operations Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in
Florida. "We need to determine exactly how it will perform on the
battlefield."
Laser weapons are a relative bargain compared with existing
long-range weapons: They're expected to cost $8,000 per shot versus
up to hundreds of thousands for missiles. Lasers are also tunable,
which adds versatility: When less-than-lethal force is required,
such as in urban areas or when hostages are present, the beam's
duration can be reduced so that it disables technology but only
injures people. "We want a system that can generate a variety of
effects on the battlefield, from damaging something to totally
destroying it, to just kind of harassing with it," Panetta says.
"This seems to offer us that."
Next-gen tactical lasers will likely be electrically-powered and
diode-pumped, since chemical lasers require storage and transport
of heavy ingredients. The greatest challenge with electric lasers,
says Lt. Col. JoAnn Erno, head of the power division at the Air
Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in
Ohio, is managing the heat that's generated--lasers are only 10
percent efficient, so 90 percent of the power is lost in heat.
"Controlling the heat will require active cooling," she says, "such
as spraying the laser's diodes to keep them from overheating."
Solid-state lasers will be smaller than chemical ones, permitting
their use on fighter jets and ground vehicles. The Joint Strike
Fighter, due to enter service in 2009, is a well-suited potential
platform, says Erno, because its engine includes a metal shaft that
spins fast enough to easily power a laser.
Lasers are an example of a weapon that should be developed for
multiple uses, says Garrett. "If you can get several (military)
branches to use it instead of four different devices that do the
same thing, you can make it cheaper by cutting down logistics
problems and easing training."
SPACE-LAUNCHED DARTS THAT STRIKE LIKE METEORS
This technology is very far out--in miles and years. A pair of
satellites orbiting several hundred miles above the Earth would
serve as a weapons system. One functions as the targeting and
communications platform while the other carries numerous tungsten
rods--up to 20 feet in length and a foot in diameter--that it can
drop on targets with less than 15 minutes' notice. When instructed
from the ground, the targeting satellite commands its partner to
drop one of its darts. The guided rods enter the atmosphere,
protected by a thermal coating, traveling at 36,000 feet per
second--comparable to the speed of a meteor. The result: complete
devastation of the target, even if it's buried deep underground.
(The two-platform configuration permits the weapon to be "reloaded"
by just launching a new set of rods, rather than replacing the
entire system.)
The concept of kinetic-energy weapons has been around ever since
the RAND Corporation proposed placing rods on the tips of ICBMs in
the 1950s; the satellite twist was popularized by sci-fi writer
Jerry Pournelle. Though the Pentagon won't say how far along the
research is, or even confirm that any efforts are underway, the
concept persists. The "U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan,"
published by the Air Force in November 2003, references
"hypervelocity rod bundles" in its outline of future space-based
weapons, and in 2002, another report from RAND, "Space Weapons,
Earth Wars," dedicated entire sections to the technology's
usefulness.
If so-called "Rods from God"--an informal nickname of untraceable
origin--ever do materialize, it won't be for at least 15 years.
Launching heavy tungsten rods into space will require substantially
cheaper rocket technology than we have today. But there are
numerous other obstacles to making such a system work. Pike, of
GlobalSecurity.org, argues that the rods' speed would be so high
that they would vaporize on impact, before the rods could penetrate
the surface. Furthermore, the "absentee ratio"--the fact that
orbiting satellites circle the Earth every 100 minutes and so at
any given time might be far from the desired target--would be
prohibitive. A better solution, Pike argues, is to pursue the
original concept: Place the rods atop intercontinental ballistic
missiles, which would slow down enough during the downward part of
their trajectory to avoid vaporizing on impact. ICBMs would also be
less expensive and, since they're stationed on Earth, would take
less time to reach their targets. "The space-basing people seem to
understand the downside of space weapons," Pike says--among them,
high costs and the difficulty of maintaining weapon platforms in
orbit. "But I'll still bet you there's a lot of classified work on
this going on right now."
A GUN THAT FIRES A MILLION ROUNDS A MINUTE
Firing a gun has always been an intensely mechanical process: Pull
the trigger and a hammer strikes the back of a bullet--usually
inserted into the chamber by a spring mechanism--causing explosive
powder in the bullet to shoot out a slug. The slug exits the front
of the barrel and another spring ejects the empty shell from the
side of the gun.
For centuries, gun manufacturers have only been able to finesse the
firing process, and guns remain prone to jamming, misfiring due to
deterioration of moving parts, and occasional explosive failure
that can kill or severely injure the soldier firing the weapon. The
Australian company Metal Storm has an answer: Bring digital
technology to what has been one of the battlefield's last holdouts
from the electronics revolution. Metal Storm's solution--now being
examined by the Department of Defense--is to remove virtually every
moving part from modern guns and replace them with electronic
ballistic technology and computerized controls. Bullets stacked in
the barrel fire at rates of up to 60,000 rounds per minute, even a
million in certain multi-barrel configurations. Coded electric
signals ignite propellant embedded within each specially designed
bullet. The pressure created by the small explosion pushes out the
bullet while at the same time enlarging the bullet behind it,
sealing the barrel and preventing the other charges from igniting
until commanded to do so.
Though hand-carried versions won't fire at a million rounds per
minute--no soldier would want to reload every three
milliseconds--vehicle-mounted systems could. Art Schatz, the senior
vice president of operations in Washington, D.C., says that if
larger barrels were clustered on the back of a Humvee or in a
helicopter, the result would be a powerful "area-denial" weapon.
The system can be adjusted to meet various needs. "We're not
talking about always firing at a million rounds per minute," Schatz
says. "But if you've got one of these mounted in an aircraft and
have a rocket-propelled grenade coming at you, you can in an
instant have 200 little bullets intercepting it." Moreover, Metal
Storm could fire nonlethal rounds such as rubber bullets--for, say,
crowd dispersal. The system's key drawback: The guns require
electrical power, making them yet another gadget soldiers will need
to keep supplied with batteries.
The Metal Storm system has been tested on rounds ranging from 9mm
to 60mm, and in a variety of weapons, including the O'Dwyer VLe (a
"smart gun" with electronic safety controls, named after company
founder Mike O'Dwyer), and clustered pods of barrels that achieve
the million-round-per-minute numbers. The U.S. military is helping
fund Metal Storm. If the Pentagon decides to adopt the weapon, it
will probably enter use in 5 to 10 years--that's how long it will
take for the military to design new weapons around the system, test
them, and distribute them to soldiers. n
Eric Adams is PopSci's aviation and automotive editor.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,12543,636378,00.html