Its obvious from posting traffic that politics not logic is guiding trading, what a sham. Listen to BOBO this week. he be rapping the groundless after his king smackdown.
Here is a story about an inconspicuous program within DOD thats being fully activated in milops. We have components that link into this and they are under attack. The issue isnt the war, but what happens after. Most have no clue or simply dont remember the changes that flowed post vietnam. We are on the brink of revolution.....and I dont mean the kind that fosters hippies.
Replay this video with the story below in mind and use some forward thinking...oila.
liveleak.com
ROVER Sics TacAir on America's Enemies (updated)
10-Sep-2007 17:17 | Permanent Link
Related stories: New Systems Tech, Americas - USA, Signals Radio & Wireless, C4ISR, UAVs, Fighters & Attack, Specialty Aircraft, Other Corporation, Electronics - General, IT - Software & Integration, Design Innovations, Field Innovations, Transformation, Soldier's Gear, Project Successes, L3 Communications, FOCUS Articles
Start with this…"ROVER" is an unimpressive piece of equipment. Mostly, it looks like a ruggedized laptop with antennas. But SpaceWar.com quotes Lt. Col. Gregory E. Harbin, of the 609th Combat Operations Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base, SC, who says "...the ROVER is bringing a phenomenal capability to our people on the ground." ROVER is the Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receiver, which receives camera images from nearby aircraft and UAVs (somewhat like Israel's wrist-mounted V-RAMBO), then integrates them with other US positioning and targeting software.
Staff Sgt. Justin Cry, a Shaw Joint Tactical Air Controller (JTAC), has a job that's an art form at the best of times. Describing features from the ground to a pilot looking down while flying at high speed is no easy task. According to a Dec 16/05 USAF article, he used the system in Iraq and in New Orleans, and says simply: "I can circle an area on my screen, drawing arrows for emphasis, and what I'm drawing appears on (the pilots') screens as well."
ROVER continues to evolve, and is becoming an unheralded but critical piece of equipment in America's arsenal. This is DID's FOCUS Article covering the system and its ongoing developments – the latest of which is a contract for next-generation ROVER III data links.
From X-Box to ROVER
Add an A-10…Col. Harbin notes that many of the improvements came from "X-Box Generation" troops asking questions and making lists of things they wanted, but key groups within the Pentagon have also pushed the effort forward. Col. James G. "Snake" Clark, the troubleshooting Director of the US Air Force Combat Support Office, adds:
"We piped Predator video directly to the AC-130 gunship beginning in Operation Enduring Freedom. We also now can send Predator video to tactical air control parties on the ground equipped with the ROVER man-pack kit, a laptop computer with an omnidirectional antenna, so they can see what the Predator is looking at, as well as see the target location data that the Predator is producing.
We've also done operational testing of the Litening II targeting pod on an A-10 downlinking a freeze-frame image of the target it is looking at to the ROVER, so the ground control team can be certain that the pilot is going to attack the right target. We plan to add the same capability to the Sniper XR targeting pod."
This kind of capability is a significant step up from previous options. In the January 2006 issue of Air Force Magazine, USAF Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, commander of 9th Air Force and US Central Command Air Forces, discussed the 2004 Battle of Fallujah and provided some illustrative stories:
"One of the things we found… hard was when you're dealing with an urban environment; we're looking from the ground, looking down. It was very, very hard sometimes to quickly get the pilot's eyes exactly on the target that the JTAC (Joint Tactical Air Controller) and the ground commander were talking about. In all honesty, if you took an overhead picture of Fallujah and looked down, it's a town full of literally flat brown roofs and a couple of mosques here and there…. There's one instance I can speak of in Fallujah where from the ground I looked up and I saw three different buildings. From the air, the roofs were all connected."
He added:
"We went into this fight with everybody having the exact same map all the way down to the company commander up to the folks in the airplanes, and so now, believe it or not, it got to the point where people would say, "OK, do you see the 'L' in 'Fallujah' on the map? Go two blocks south from that, and that's where I want to start from." Because the first Fallujah going in, you may remember, we had to use the crossroads to the east [of the city as] the starting point. "You see the highway crossroads to the east? Yep. OK, now going from there, going west" – and you kind of follow yourself in and count streets and all that kind of thing. We were much better at it."
"Black Lions" F-14D
(click to view full)The "Black Lions" of Navy Fighter squadron VF-213 appreciated ROVER. A joint investigation with the VF-31 "Tomcatters" revealed that it would be possible to modify their F-14D Tomcats aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt [CVN 71] with off-the-shelf technology for a mere $800 per aircraft, in order to allow rover streaming. A team of F-14D experts from the PMA-241 staff at Naval Air Station Paxtuxet River, MD was presented with this idea in early November 2005, and were able to research, develop, and field this technology within a six-week window, giving the old F-14D "Bombcats" a new capability that will keep them competitive with newer aircraft on their last operational deployment.
As of the their depployment's half-way point in December 2005 VF-213 had already flown more than 281 sorties on this deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom, totaling more than 2,200 hours including 1,730 combat hours. At this rate, The Black Lions are outpacing all previous air wing squadrons in terms of number of both OIF sorties and combat hours flown. The focus of the OIF missions was primarily in support of coalition troops in direct contact with insurgents, convoy escorts and patrolling routes in search of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and supporting raids. By that point, the Black Lions had dropped more than 5,000 pounds of ordnance and engaged insurgents on several occasions with precision bombs or strafing runs.
ROVER: Contracts and Key Events
One System® at workSept 7/07: L-3 Communications System West in Salt Lake City, Utah received a $16.3 million firm-fixed-price contract for Enhanced ROVER III Systems. Work will be performed in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is expected to be complete by April 30, 2008. This was a sole source contract initiated on July 30, 2007 by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, AL (W58RGZ-07-C-0209).
Nov 13/06: L-3 Communications announces that it has begun the first customer shipments of its next-generation ROVER III data links, adding the ability to decode multiple subcarriers from L and C Band analog and C Band digital signals. This new capability also supports add-in software to decode the proprietary metadata transmitted on many Unmanned Aerial Sensor (UAS) platforms. The new ROVER III is the major component of the U.S. Army's One System Remote Video Terminal (OSRVT). AAI's One System® was detailed in this DID coverage of the Shadow 200 UAV/UAS.
May 23/06: Sniper XR Pods add ROVER Downlink to Troops. Lockheed Martin has received a U.S. Air Force cost-plus contract worth approximately $9 million to upgrade its sniper pods with video downlink capabilities to Man Pack Rover III ground-based receivers. Sniper pods are currently flying on the U.S. Air Force F-15Es and F-16s, are in developmental flight test on the A-10, and are being integrated on the B-1 bomber. Norway, Poland, and Singapore also fly the Sniper XR/ Pantera pods.
Date ???: The Italians are also using ROVER in conjunction with Predator UAVs.
Additional Readings & Sources
L-3 communications – ROVER III Receiver product data sheet [PDF format]
ROVER is being integrated with the USMC's StrikeLink software [PDF format], with early connectivity to/from LITENING pods before the program moves on to UAVs.
USAF (Dec 16/05) – ROVER Gives Joint Force New Vision. See also SpaceWar.com version (identical)
Navy News Stand (Dec 14/05) – "Black Lions" Reach Halfway Point of Deployment
DID (March 16/05) – Dick Tracy Tech for UAVs: The V-RAMBO
C4ISR Journal (Nov 1/04) – A snake's-eye view: Interview with James G. "Snake" Clark, Director, US Air Force Combat Support Office
Blackanthem Military News (Dec 15/03) – ROVER System Revolutionizes F-14's Ground Support Capability |
