The art of war: new developments

The IDF has finished developing a new firing position in the rear of advanced V3 and V4 Merkava tanks, based on its experience using the tanks during the intifada. It was unveiled at the first international conference on limited conflict, underway this week in Tel Aviv.

From Haaretz. Also this:

. . . a tiny new tiny unmanned aircraft weighing less than half a kilo, launched from a rifle barrel and with a range of about 300 meters. It is meant to provide over-the-hill imagery for ground forces.

It includes a digital camera sensor and a communications system, is fired from a grenade launcher and begins transmitting images from the moment of launch until it hits the ground, taking some 25 pictures a second.

The images are broadcast to a digital map of the area loaded into a personal digital assistant used by the infantry team commander. The entire system was developed from off-the-shelf civilian equipment.

Pretty amazing, but so is the componentry available nowadays.

UPDATE: Also in Haaretz:

The Israel Defense Forces is equipping its forces with a new range of spy drones small enough to fit in a soldier's backpack, including one that weighs less than a can of soda, the army said Thursday. . .

The new baby drones have already been supplied to some ground units. The portable planes give the units almost immediate access to aerial photographs "when the need arises," a military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. . .

BIRDY - with a weight of 1.3 kilograms (3 pounds) - can be carried and launched by a single soldier, who guides the drone by clicking on coordinates on a laptop computer. It has a five-kilometer (three-mile) range, IAI said.

The slightly larger Spy There is operated by a two man crew and has twice the range, IAI said. Both UAV's can fly for an hour while transmitting pictures back to their operators.

IAI also displayed two prototype micro-drones, the Mosquito and the Mosquito 1.5. These tiny spy gadgets weigh a mere 250 grams (9 ounces) and 500 grams (18 ounces) each.

The Mosquito, equipped with a miniature video camera, has already completed several successful 40-minute trial flights, IAI said.

Back when I was a boy playing with model airplanes nobody thought to tell me I'd do well to keep working on them. . .

AND MORE via StrategyPage:

After three years of development, the "recon round" is now under consideration by the army and marines for adoption as a reconnaissance tool. The navy put up $1.7 million for researchers at Georgia Tech to develop an 81mm mortar round that could carry a video camera and take pictures as the shell floated to the ground via a parachute, and transmit those pictures to a nearby soldiers laptop computer. The recon round takes over a hundred pictures as it floats to ground from about 2,000 feet, and transmits them to the nearby American troops at the rate of one megabyte of data a second. The recon round used off-the-shelf components, which will keep its price down to about $700 a round if it is produced in large quantities (at least a few thousand.)

Another version for the 40mm grenade launcher is also in the works. Both offer advantages in windy conditions over UAVs, although the latter can, obviously, remain in the air for a substantially longer period of time.

Posted by David on March 26, 2004 5:59 PM