11.
FOLDING ROAD
We know the Netherlands for its extremely low elevation in some places, with the lowest
points dipping to 23 feet (7 meters) below sea level.
It also gets a lot of rain.
The ground is soft in a lot of places, often making it difficult for trains and other heavy
vehicles to travel on.
It’s a tough problem to get around.
Trains risk being canceled or delayed or ending up in danger.
The Dutch military has its own unique ways of dealing with this problem.
For example, the Royal Dutch Army of Engineers lays down a mat-like material called a “folding
road.”
They lay this on the ground to make it easier for heavy vehicles to travel without sinking
and getting stuck.
The folding road is laid down and picked up by a device called the “Faltstraßengerät,”
or the “folding road machine.”
Besides helping the Dutch navigate over the soggy ground, it’s used by various militaries
for traveling on snowy, sandy, swampy, and other soft terrains.
This enables forces to create bypasses, travel along riverbanks, and even set up supply points
in otherwise impassable areas.
10.
HIGH-FLYING HOVERBOARD
During France’s Bastille Day celebrations in 2019, inventor Franky Zapata blasted toward
the sky on his newly created high-flying hoverboard.
The contraption fascinated the French President, Emmanuel Macron.
He Tweeted a video of the demonstration, along with a caption suggesting that the device
might come in handy someday for the French military.
In the post, Macron wrote “Proud of our army, modern and innovative.”
Zapata’s invention, known as the Flyboard Air, can soar at speeds of up to 118 miles
an hour (190 km/hr).
The machine’s official website describes it as “mixing the design of a drone with
a racing car and as the most practical means of transport for short distances, with a top-of-the-line
stabilization system and autonomous capabilities.”
But it has yet to be implemented into official military use.
9.
SQUID CAMOUFLAGE As infrared vision systems become increasingly
common, traditional camouflage is losing its effectiveness.
To combat this growing problem, scientists at the University of California have been
working in recent years to develop an infrared coating called invisibility patches.
They’re made from a structural protein called reflectin.
This enables some animals, including common squids and certain octopus species, to change
their skin color and reflectivity.
The team that created the invisibility patches used reflectin that was grown in a bacteria
culture.
In 2015, a team of scientists conducted the first-ever genome analysis of an octopus.
The findings revealed several unique features, including some of which likely played a role
in the evolution of this adaptive camouflage trait.
Developers are likely years away from turning the invention into a practical military product.
But they’re off to a good start, and the future of reflectin is promising.
Especially because it functions along the same wavelengths as night vision systems.
It would help improve camouflage for stealth operations and make it more difficult for
enemies to detect troops in the dark.
8.
POCKET-SIZED SURVEILLANCE DRONE Military technology is constantly advancing
and improving.
Because of this, there’s a pocket-sized drone that’s capable of performing sophisticated
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions in combat.
Known as the Teledyne FLIR Black Hornet III, the system comes as a pair of drones.
One for daytime and another for use at night.
Each drone measures just six inches (15.2 cm) long and can fit on a soldier’s utility
belt.
Besides being small and incredibly light, they’re nearly silent in flight, making
them extremely difficult for the enemy to detect.
They can each fly for up to 25 minutes at a time.
Designed and built in Norway, the Black Hornet III transmits live video and images to the
operator and is available to qualified military and civilian buyers.
As of 2019, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division already
had a FLIR Black Hornet III system.
At some point, the Army hopes to issue a pair of drones to every one of its soldiers.
Do you think civilians will ever be able to own a pair of these drones?
7.
UNMANNED SUBMARINE HUNTER In recent years, some countries have made
it a priority to develop quieter submarines that can travel close to the shore undetected.
To keep up with this advancing technology, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
or DARPA, launched a new program.
It’s called The Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV).
They also call the program the “Sea Hunter.”
The program’s vision is to create an unmanned aquatic drone.
One that’s capable of traveling through thousands of miles of open sea for months
at a time without a single operator aboard.
Its purpose is to hunt enemy submarines.
Navigating through narrow channels and shipping traffic using sonar, radar, and other systems
that can get the job done with no crew.
Open-water testing of the technology began in 2016; two years later, DARPA announced
the successful completion of the program.
At that point, they handed the prototype vehicle over to the Office of Naval Research for further
development.
DARPA program manager Alexander Walan praised the transition between agencies as a significant
milestone toward the development of unmanned submarine hunters.
Without a doubt, this type of marine vessel would come in handy for the U.S. military,
given Russia’s recent ambitions to replace its outdated naval submarine fleet with newer
and better vehicles.
These new Russian subs can carry highly destructive nuclear weapons.
But if Russia has a similar project to the Sea Hunter up its sleeve, it could put the
U.S. at a great disadvantage in submarine warfare.
6.
ENHANCED NIGHT VISION GOGGLE-BINOCULAR (ENVG-B)
Late last year, the U.S. Army announced it had awarded a $100,000,000 contract to L3Harris
Technologies for the development and production of the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular
(ENVG-B) system.
A press release from the company states that the system “delivers imagery and data from
the battlefield directly to the soldier’s eye.”
It will also “enhance situational awareness, mobility, survivability, and lethality.”
Simply put, the technology will enable troops to shoot around corners and from the hip.
L3Harris Technologies equipped the system with better thermal imaging capabilities and
depth perception than past versions.
L3 Harris Integrated Vision Solutions President Lynn Bollengier said that the soldier’s
ability to identify, assess, and engage a target with speed and accuracy will be “unmatched”
with the ENVG-B system.
She describes the technology as “game-changing” and as the “most advanced, combat-ready
situational awareness goggle” in existence today.
During the final testing phase, Deputy Commander of Army Futures Command Lieutenant General
James Richardson told Congress that the new goggles have dramatically improved marksmanship.
The first forces to use the system were an armored brigade combat team that was deployed
to South Korea.
Would you rather own night vision goggles or a tiny drone?
Let us know in the comments below and hit that subscribe button while you’re at it!
:)
5.
ADVANCING SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY There are countless commercial and government
satellites orbiting the globe hundreds and even thousands of miles above the Earth’s
surface.
They need to be this far away to effectively perform various meteorology, national security,
and communications services.
But the distance is extremely inconvenient when something goes wrong.
The distance creates an enormous problem when a satellite needs to be inspected, diagnosed,
repaired, or upgraded.
For this reason, when a satellite is launched into space, it’s loaded with as much fuel
as it can carry and as many backup systems as it can accommodate.
To address the growing number of satellites with obsolete payloads, DARPA launched the
Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites, or RSGS, program.
One of the program’s goals is to establish a robotic servicing vehicle that can attend
to ailing satellites.
Another DARPA program launched jointly with Northrop Grumman and Raytheon seeks to enhance
national security.
The program developed technology that will seek and hunt an adversary’s satellite.
In the best-case scenario, simple physics will enable the DARPA-created satellite to
destroy the enemy’s device over several weeks.
The satellite does this by reflecting a harmful sunbeam directly on it.
The heat would cause the enemy’s satellite to either combust or fall out of orbit.
4.
SELF-STEERING BULLETS The technology that’s currently available
to them, making it especially difficult to hit targets in challenging conditions like
high winds and dusty terrain limits even the most skilled snipers.
And any shot that misses its mark puts the marksman and his fellow troops at risk.
A missed shot reveals their location and possibly exposes them to enemy fire.
So one of the U.S. military’s goals is to enable faster and more accurate engagement
of sniper targets.
In 2011, DARPA collaborated with military contractor Teledyne Technologies and ammunition
manufacturer Orbital ATK on the EXACTO Project.
This helped them to develop the first-ever guided small-caliber bullet.
The project’s developers have avoided going into too much detail about exactly how the
bullet works.
But they’ve revealed that the system tracks and delivers the projectile to the target
using a real-time guidance system and the maneuverability of the bullet itself.
The nose and tail of the .50-caliber bullet contain tiny optical sensors, enabling it
to rapidly change course in midair.
With a system this advanced, even an amateur shooter could theoretically hit moving targets
with ease.
Sudden environmental changes, such as a gust of wind, would not interfere with the shot,
given the bullet’s course-correcting abilities.
This new technology supersedes current state-of-the-art sniper systems and enhances a sniper’s day
and nighttime range.
Although this system has not yet officially entered service, the future of the EXACTO
project is promising: DARPA revealed in a 2018 press release that to date, the “smart
bullets” have passed their most advanced live-fire tests.
3.
EVERY SHIP AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER Ever since World War II, the U.S. Navy has
imagined a day when fixed-wing aircraft can vertically launch from and land on any ship
deck.
That dream could soon become a reality, thanks to DARPA’s Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance
Mode, or TERN program, which was launched in 2013.
According to DARPA’s official website, TERN “is an advanced technology development program
that seeks to design, develop, and show a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aircraft
system and related technologies that enable future launch, recovery, and operations from
small ships.”
In 2017, Signal Magazine reported DARPA had developed a successful prototype vehicle.
Using a pair of nose-mounted, counter-rotating propellers, the unmanned aerial vehicle can
launch vertically and hover.
Then it transitions to high-speed horizontal flight.
The aircraft does this by shifting the propellers to propulsion mode, causing air to be pushed
over its large, fixed-wing surfaces.
The Tern looks like an aircraft sitting on its tail at first glance, and that’s what
it essentially is.
Besides its takeoff and flight capabilities, designers equipped the Tern with a radar-based,
automated landing system.
2.
THE NEXT GENERATION SQUAD WEAPON If all goes according to plan, the U.S. Army’s
newest rifle, known as the Next Generation Squad Weapon, will come equipped with technologies
that are customarily used in other products like iPhones and tanks.
The weapon will arm ground troops and infantry, combat soldiers, and will possess features
that nobody has ever seen before in the weapons industry.
These highly advanced features include facial recognition, target tracking, and hydrophobic,
or water-resistant, lens coatings.
One of the two Next Generation Squad Weapons that are being developed, known as the XM5,
will replace the M4A1 carbine.
It’s an updated version of the M16 that was introduced into the military in 1965.
The other, known as the XM250, will replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.
The M249 automatic weapon first entered service during the late 1980s.
Warfare has changed drastically since those times.
One of the military’s goals with the Next Generation Squad Weapon is to develop a ballistic
computer that can predict a bullet’s exact impact point.
The Army also plans for the weapon to have a one-second boot-up time and wireless connectivity
capabilities.
This is the first time in 65 years that the Army will finally replace its individual rifle,
its squad machine gun.
It will also replace the caliber and optics of both weapons according to Popular Mechanics.
A spokesperson recently announced that the Army has awarded two multi-billion dollar
contracts to Sig Sauer to develop and manufacture both of the Next Generation Squad Weapons.
Sig Sauer has scheduled the first shipment of weapons to be delivered to the Army sometime
late next year.
1.
PSYCHEDELIC CAMOUFLAGE As the next item on today’s list proves,
some of the wildest military technology that ever existed wasn’t super-advanced; rather,
it was the simple yet ingenious nature of these inventions that made them even more
impressive.
Starting in the early 20th century, The British occasionally painted their warships in “razzle-dazzle,”
a type of psychedelic, brightly colored pattern.
The paint job made targets visually confusing, rather than hiding them, as concealment technology
for warships did not yet exist.
Besides featuring wild colors, razzle-dazzle consisted of contrasting lines and shapes
going in various directions.
This made it difficult for an enemy to figure out important details such as the type of
vessel, its size, how fast it was going, and in what direction.
Each razzle-dazzle ship had a unique pattern and color scheme.
One featured red, gray, black, and white angular shapes.
Another had more curved shapes in blue, black, and white.
There was also a zebra-print ship and one that was painted like a brick wall!
Although we can credit the Brits with starting the razzle-dazzle trend, the Americans also
used it.
In 1904, the US Navy launched the USS Nebraska, which had a contrasting chevron pattern on
its hull and smokestacks.
The navy eventually covered a dozen warships in crazy patterns and colors.
Razzle-dazzle reached its peak popularity during World War I, especially among the British
Royal Navy.
One newspaper reporter described the radically patterned warships as “a flock of sea-going
Easter eggs,” while another referred to them as “floating Cubist paintings.”
Today, only a few of these eye-popping ships survive.
Which military tech did you find most interesting?
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already.
See you again soon!