ARMY REJECTS SYSTEM WHICH WILL PROTECT GIs FROM RPGs

[JohnWxy]

HUZZAHs to NBC for reporting on this!!

The Israeli system is 98% effective at shooting down RPGs before they hit their target!
This system will save lives. Army prefers Reaytheon system that doesn't work. Army is no doubt being subjected to political pressure from Reytheon owned politicians.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14686871/

NBC Nightly News

Army shuns system to combat RPGs
Experts agree it might help save lives, so why isn’t it in the field?

By Adam Ciralsky, Lisa Myers & the NBC News Investigative Unit
Updated: 10:16 p.m. ET Sept 5, 2006

Lisa Myers
Senior investigative correspondent

WASHINGTON -

~~

Sixteen months ago, commanders in Iraq began asking the Pentagon for a new system to counter RPGs and other anti-tank weapons.

Last year, a special Pentagon unit thought it found a solution in Israel — a high-tech system that shoots RPGs out of the sky. But in a five-month exclusive investigation, NBC News has learned from Pentagon sources that that help for U.S. troops is now in serious jeopardy.

The system is called “Trophy,” and it is designed to fit on top of tanks and other armored vehicles like the Stryker now in use in Iraq.


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.

The Israeli military, which recently lost a number of tanks and troops to RPGs, is rushing to deploy the system.

Trophy is the brainchild of Rafael, Israel’s Armament Development Authority, which has conducted more than 400 tests and found that the system has “well above 90 percent” probability of killing RPGs and even more sophisticated anti-tank weapons, according to reserve Col. Didi Ben Yoash, who helped develop the system. Ben Yoash says he is “fully confident” that Trophy can save American lives.

And officials with the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation (OFT) agree. Created in 2001 by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, OFT acts as an internal “think tank” for the Pentagon and is supposed to take a more entrepreneurial — and thereby less bureaucratic — approach to weapons procurement and other defense issues, and to get help to troops in the field more quickly. OFT officials subjected Trophy to 30 tests and found that it is “more than 98 percent” effective at killing RPGs.

An official involved with those tests told NBC that Trophy “worked in every case. The only anomaly was that in one test, the Trophy round hit the RPG’s tail instead of its head. But according to our test criteria, the system was 30 for 30.”

As a result, OFT decided to buy several Trophies — which cost $300,000-$400,000 each — for battlefield trials on Strykers in Iraq next year.

That plan immediately ran into a roadblock: Strong opposition from the U.S. Army. Why? Pentagon sources tell NBC News that the Army brass considers the Israeli system a threat to an Army program to develop an RPG defense system from scratch.
The $70 million contract for that program had been awarded to an Army favorite, Raytheon. Raytheon’s contract constitutes a small but important part of the Army’s massive modernization program called the Future Combat System (FCS), which has been under fire in Congress on account of ballooning costs and what critics say are unorthodox procurement practices.

[flyarm]

1. so much for the republican liars who say support the troops eh?????

have i told you lately how much i hate the murdering rethuglicans??????

well i do...

all republicans who support this president have the blood of our troops on their hands and pocket books...they are filthy murderers! of our troops!

fly

[blondeatlast]

2. If every RWinger who claims to "support the troops"

would petition their congress critter for this...

Well, it isn't Raytheon or Halliburton, so I guess it wouldn't help anyway.

I remember when I believed in my country. Guess I'm getting old.

[blondeatlast]

3. While we're planning actions against ABC for a simple TV program, perhaps

we can spare a moment to show them who REALLY SUPPORTS THE SOLDIERS.

:kick:

Already recommended.

[Karmageddon]

4. Is this what they mean by "military intelligence"

So our troops are going to have to wait at least 5 years for a system that is inferior to one that is available now. So much for "supporting the troops".

[blondeatlast]

5. Well after all, we aren't fighting a traditional enemy.

:sarcasm:

We must give the ARMY Intelligence (note that the Pentagon actually wants this hardware NOW) time to figure it out.

This story needs to go out far and wide, and the Dems should pick this ball up and run like hell with it.

[Imagevision]

6. Rumsfeld, the man with the plans...

[blondeatlast]

7. Dying a slow death, but so important.

:kick:

[Jacobin]

8. They're spending $6 billion

trying to do whizz bang technocrap to disarm IED's. Its stupid and hopeless and a waste of money. We shouldn't be there. Small tweaks to the IEDs will make each system they develope useless.

We've lost. We need to leave. Its over. Its Viet Nam.

How many more billions, how many more shattered Iraqi and American lives will it take for dems and republicans to admit that they (yes THEY) fucked up and need to OWN their fuck up