Some pentagon fucks better end up doing time for this.

[nosmokes]

i am so angry i could spit nails. i hope every bush voting mofo driving around in their gas-guzzling SUV chokes on their goddam *i support the troops* yellow ribbon* and i'm just waiting for one of those mouth breathing troglodytes to try and tell me again that the iraq war is about liberating the iraqi people or ridding the worrld of a threat or WMDS or freedom or democracy or any of that other horseshit i hear 'em spout all the time, when this plainly, as plain as the stripes on a zebra proves it's all about corporate fucking profit, and that the corporate bottom line comes way in front of the lives of our GIs. This has to be dereliction of duty of the highest order. to deliberately delay acquiring a proven defensive system that would save lives because we have a contract with a vendor we've had a long term relationship with to maybe deliver a similiar system 5 years down the line oughta be criminal if it's not. and if any one of the mofos that had anything to do with this decision took so much as one thin dime from raytheon i hope the bastard spends the rest of his life marching picket at leavenworth. fuck. i think it was rambo libreral originally posted something about this this morning but i couldn't find his post. props to him for locating this story to begin with.
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original

Army shuns system to combat RPGs
By Adam Ciralsky, Lisa Myers & the NBC News Investigative Unit
Updated: 7:16 p.m. PT Sept 5, 2006


Lisa Myers
Senior investigative correspondent
•
RPGs have killed nearly 40 Americans in Afghanistan and more than 130 in Iraq, including 21-year-old Pvt. Dennis Miller.

“They were in Ramadi, and his tank was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade,” says Miller’s mother, Kathy. “Little Denny never knew what hit him.”
Story continues below ↓ advertisement

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.



• Israeli test of Trophy
Video provided by Rafael shows the Trophy system successfully intercepting an RPG launched at an armored Stryker vehicle.

Nightly News
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.”
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complete article including link to video of demonstration ofthe system taking out an RPGhere

[Broken_Hero]

1. Yeah, I heard

this last night on msnbc...I believe the Israeli's all ready use them, but our military, has passed on them....another indication of poor priorities.

[opihimoimoi]

2. This thing could be saving our guys lives for the nx 6 fucking years

and they refuse to use it??? Because one of our own mil corps has a contract to develop it? Gonna take 6 years? WTF?

In only a deluded sick mind can this pass!!!!

[Broken_Hero]

3. Yep, and I totally share the frustration...

money you can replace....your brother/sister/dad/mother who are fighting, you cannot replace them...funny, where the priorities are. Well, not funny, down right embarrassing, and shameful....

[OneBlueSky]

4. like everything in American culture, money trumps all . . .

including the lives of our troops . . .

apparently the reason the Army didn't buy this system is that they're developing a new system of their own . . . or, more likely, some well connected corporation is developing it for them . . .

lots of money to be made here, don'tcha know . . .

[Broken_Hero]

5. I love your sig line...btw....:) nt

[countryjake]

6. It's the definition of "war profiteers"...

gotta keep that money rolling into the coffers of our defense contractors, otherwise, what would be the point? Anyone who thinks they actually give a shit about making things better for Iraq or making things safer for our soldiers, needs to examine this whole "contract bid" very carefully. Everyone who has lost a son to an RPG since this country began it's "war on terror" should be questioning the Army & asking the Pentagon...WHY?

Our tax dollars provide improvements to the armed servicemen and women ONLY when it's profitable to those in power and every single one of us is expendable in this regime's rush to expand that power.

Support the troops...only when there's money in it. What a mockery!


Not in my name!

[Blackhatjack]

7. Decisions? More $$ to Halliburton? or $$ spent on safety of Troops?

...Every CEO of war profiteering companies taking home over $90 million per year should be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to personally deliver body armor, vehicle armor and anti-rpg equipment, that he paid for out of his own pocket, to the troops on the ground.

I bet they would have a different view of how important it is that they take home their $90 million plus compensation over the needs of our troops on the ground.

And while they are there, let's give them a rifle and put them on point. As a added bonus, they are informed that they have been "held over" and cannot come home --wonder how they would like to participate in a "stop loss" order like the troops are doing right now?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. I don't think the pentagon's the problem this time.

Could be.

But when anybody claims their machine can shoot a rocket out of the sky with a bullet, I call bullshit.

I think what we've got here is a case of a defense contractor with another system that doesn't work, and somebody at the Pentagon putting his/her foot down and not wanting to spend billions of dollars on something that doesn't work, when troops are in want of body armor and food.

And then the defense contractor says the Pentagon does want to protect the troops.

[nosmokes]

9. didja bother to read the article? the US Army tested it and said it was

30 for 30 by their criteria. the only anomaly was once an RPG was taken out by shrapnel hitting the tail not the nose. this system has also been proved in actual combat recently in lebanon. this actually works, and it's available to save lives right now.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. Uh huh.

And they say missle defense works too. They're full of shit about that too.

[nosmokes]

13. true dat, but RPGs aren't missiles.

they're much slower and in the scheme of this sort of thing can be picked up quicker by the radar. i totally agree with you about trying to shoot down an ICBM, but this is a whole noter scale we're talking about here.

[porphyrian]

11. Support our troops!

The Pentagon and this administrations sure as fuck don't.

[LSK]

12. K&R this has to get out there

Prime example of Contractors being more important to the Pentagon than troops.