by Andrew
This is really hilzoy's shtick, but I'll hope she'll forgive me for jumping in on it. While IEDs are the biggest killer of our troops in Iraq, RPGs remain a significant threat and will do so for the foreseeable future. The DoD, to its credit, went looking for a way to protect troops from RPGs, and they found one is Israel, where the Israelis have developed a system called Trophy.
Trophy works by scanning all directions and automatically detecting when an RPG is launched. The system then fires an interceptor — traveling hundreds of miles a minute — that destroys the RPG safely away from the vehicle.
OFT [Office of Force Transformation in the Pentagon] subjected Trophy to 30 tests and found it is "more than 98 percent" effective at killing RPGs.
So the DoD decided to look into outfitting U.S. vehicles with Trophy systems and providing another layer of protection to our soldiers. At which point, (I'm embarassed to admit), my service decided to step in.
[T]he U.S. Army blocked that testing. Why? Pentagon sources tell NBC News — and internal Army documents seem to confirm — that Army officials consider Trophy a threat to their crown jewel, the $160 billion Future Combat System (FCS). Under FCS, the Army is paying Raytheon Co. $70 million to build an RPG-defense system from scratch.
In an interview with NBC News on June 26, 2006, an Army official said Trophy simply is not ready.
"The Army is opposed to deploying a system before we assure that it's safe, effective, suitable and supportable," said Col. Donald Kotchman. "Trophy is not there yet."
In letters to Congress since our first reports, the Army says that the best proof Trophy is not ready is that the "Israeli Defense Forces have yet to integrate and field Trophy."
To check out the Army's claims, we went back to Israel. We found that the Israeli military has indeed begun to integrate and field Trophy on tanks, buying at least 100 systems.
Brig. Gen. Amir Nir leads that effort. We asked him about claims that Trophy has not been sufficiently tested and that it's not ready to be deployed.
"It's the most mature, and it can do the job," he said. "We cannot afford waiting for the next generation."
Why are the words 'military-industrial complex' echoing in my head as I write this? I understand the desire to make sure that critical military systems are manufactured by domestic companies, so we don't have to worry about losing access to them in an unexpected conflict. But I think the odds of us going to war with Israel are pretty long, and we've got soldiers being killed and wounded for lack of this system now. Not buying it makes no sense whatsoever, unless you have people in the Army who are more interested in protecting the defense industry than American soldiers.
I know Congress has a lot of things on its plate, but I'd love to see the House Armed Services Committee delve into this.
Not buying it makes no sense whatsoever, unless you have people in the Army who are more interested in protecting the[ir future careers in the] defense industry than American soldiers.
Fixed.
Posted by: Ugh | January 11, 2007 at 06:54 PM
The programmer/geek side of me just kicked in big time, but also, I have to admit, the insurgent side.
How does the system detect approaching RPGs, and could insurgents rig up something that gives it false signals?
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | January 11, 2007 at 07:09 PM
I have a friend in Kabul whose buddy ordered about $5,000 in Dragon Skin body armor. Sure enough, they made him send it right back. Not on the approved list.
I could handle it if it was about, you know, conformity, or military judgment about what's safe and what's not. But when people are risking their lives for the country, it shouldn't be about contracting bullshit. But money rules all, I guess.
Posted by: Steve | January 11, 2007 at 07:22 PM
Meanwhile, the Army is taking donations of Silly String to help them locate IED tripwires.
Posted by: Phil | January 11, 2007 at 07:23 PM
Close tag.
Posted by: Phil | January 11, 2007 at 07:24 PM
The Israeli system might even work out to being effectively free, if the US could wrangle a way to count the money paid as part of our hefty financial support of Israel.
Posted by: Jon H | January 11, 2007 at 10:21 PM
Andrew: Mi schtick es su schtick. -- Seriously, I didn't have any idea about this; thanks.
I don't like corruption when it's just a matter of (say) using a slightly more expensive, though perfectly functional, type of asphalt on the highway. I can't imagine doing this sort of thing when lives are at stake.
Posted by: hilzoy | January 11, 2007 at 10:22 PM
dpu: Trophy uses radar mounted on the vehicle to detect the RPG and then basically kills it with a high-velocity shotgun. You can put it on Stryker or on a tank. Probably not on Humvee - it sounds as though it might be fairly big, heavy and power-hungry (radars tend to be).
As for spoofing the radar - not my area. It's not like the insurgents have high-speed decoys they can fire - if you fire a decoy, why not just fire RPG? - and electronic spoofing might also be beyond them. Radar jammers aren't easy.
I suspect a better approach might be to use an IED or just rifle fire to damage the radar, then use RPG as a can-opener.
Posted by: ajay | January 12, 2007 at 07:05 AM
My counter would to deploy two shooter teams, first shooter would fire a projectile with a small bursting charge and lots chaff. When detected and destroyed by Trophy it would fill the area with a radar blocking cloud of aluminum foil bits. The armor piercing projectile would follow through that cloud.
I still believe that we should buy and field Trophy until we can develop something better. Fielding ambush teams is much more difficult that sending a single ambusher. The chaff shell would have to be purpose built and seeing how long it takes for the insurgents to design and build, or get someone else to build it for them would get us useful information about their capabilites and supporters.
Then wait to see how long before double barrel rpg launchers appear.
Still, worth doing and unconsienceable to wait when it would save lives now.
For Humvees, could the Trophy system be mounted on a small trailer with a generator to provide power? Wouldn't provide protection from directly ahead and would probably require changes to the software but still might be useful.
Posted by: Baskaborr | January 12, 2007 at 08:15 AM
One problem is that with such a system activated it is not safe for anyone to be on the ground around you. If you want to have armor backing up troops on the ground you have to turn it off whenever anyone dismouts.
And if someone shot anything at you the automatic response could kill lots of civilians.
It does not seem that good a system for an occupation situation.
Posted by: Fred in Vermont | January 12, 2007 at 08:41 AM
Um, well, RPGs are also No Good for the civilians nearby. Ditto (in spades) IEDs. I'd think they'd tend to backsplash all kinds of debris into the crowds. I've done a little reading on this system, and it appears that Trophy is fairly highly directed, so any damage is fairly confined. Certainly worse than the magic force field that gently catches RPGs, disarms them, and recycles them into garden fertilizer, but better than nothing.
Trophy will be marketed in the US through General Dynamics Corporation, and so they've got some incentives to overstate its abilities and understate the hazards. Hence: understandable DoD wariness and requirement for extensive testing. This sort of thing doesn't happen overnight, folks.
And no WWII analogies, please. These aren't low-tech tanks or bombers we're talking about. And, to be fair when invoking WWII cranking-out-the-hardware efforts, a LOT of men died in those tanks and airplanes.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 12, 2007 at 09:08 AM
Modern radars can be surprisingly small and light (pounds, not tens or hundreds of pounds).
Posted by: togolosh | January 12, 2007 at 10:02 AM
Am I a bad, uncaring citizen if my first thought is "Role-Playing Games are a threat to the troops?!? Only when Bush is playing them, I hope."
We need a bigger alphabet -- 17,576 TLAs is clearly not enough.
*slinks away in shame*
Posted by: Doctor Science | January 12, 2007 at 10:33 AM
Am I a bad, uncaring citizen if my first thought is "Role-Playing Games are a threat to the troops?!? Only when Bush is playing them, I hope."
Not just a threat to the troops. A threat to their souls.
Posted by: Anarch | January 12, 2007 at 02:04 PM
There are good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.
If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armaments”
http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html
The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment, budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Administrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.
How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the new Sec. Def.Mr. Gates, understand such complexity, particularly if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?
Answer- he can’t. Therefore he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.
From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.
This situation is unfortunate but it is absolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.
This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen until it hits a brick wall at high speed.
We will then have to run a Volkswagen instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.
Posted by: Ken Larson | January 12, 2007 at 03:44 PM
I'm really surprised by this. The RPG has to be biggest headache facing our military today. The, um, War Nerd wrote an interesting history of its use.
Posted by: Fledermaus | January 12, 2007 at 05:55 PM
Don't 'um'; the War Nerd has provided better analysis than 90% of the MSM put together, and better thant 99% of what the administration says.
Posted by: Fred in Vermont:
"One problem is that with such a system activated it is not safe for anyone to be on the ground around you. If you want to have armor backing up troops on the ground you have to turn it off whenever anyone dismouts.
And if someone shot anything at you the automatic response could kill lots of civilians.
It does not seem that good a system for an occupation situation."
Which simply means that there are some times where the operator turns it off; I'm assuming that there *is* an on/off switch.
Posted by: Barry | January 12, 2007 at 07:45 PM
Don't 'um'; the War Nerd has provided better analysis than 90% of the MSM put together, and better than 99% of what the administration says.
Yea - as he's the first to point out how insane it is that a So Cal Community College grad knows more about fighting war and history than most of the pundit elite. I really liked his savaging of Victor D Hansen
I wonder how he ended up with a job writing for a Moscow alt-weekly?
Posted by: Fledermaus | January 12, 2007 at 07:54 PM
I assumed it was a safer location to put up his musings, which, since they are so iconoclastic, provide a layer of protection.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | January 12, 2007 at 08:01 PM
As far as mounting on a Hummer, if it's an issue at all, it would probably be possible to configure an RPG-killer Hummer that would accompany non-equipped Hummers. Such a Hummer could be set up with additional power-generating capacity.
Posted by: Jon H | January 12, 2007 at 10:27 PM