Nothing Is Too Good For Our Boys So That's What We're Giving Them

If you were to list those things that our troops need in Iraq number one would have to be some defense against improvised explosive devices and number two would be some way to stop a RPG or rocket propelled grenade attack.

IED's seem to be a hard nut to crack but it seems there is a system created by Israeli defense contractor Rafael called Trophy that can detect and shoot down an RPG in flight. Well, it's about time and I'm sure we're buying a bunch of them, right? Wrong! It seems that the Army already has a system in the works that would include a RPG killer.

It seems they hired favored defense contractor Raytheon to build a system from scratch instead of buying the Trophy system already in testing. How did Raytheon get selected? Hell, they selected themselves.

The Army is attempting to field a weapons system called the Future Combat System or FCS. This is the most expensive system in the Army's history. In the selection process they form technical teams to evaluate different systems and of those evaluated they chose Raytheon even though their system exists only on someone's hard drive. What was the makeup of that technical team?

The Army later told NBC News that, its own document notwithstanding, the technical team actually consisted of 30 people plus two administrative assistants and that a total of eight people were from Raytheon.
"That sure doesn't look like an objective panel to me," says Phil Coyle, a former principal adviser to the secretary of defense on weapons testing and evaluation who is now with the Center for Defense Information. "It just doesn't pass the ho-ho test when you have that many people from one company on the selection panel and then that company is the one that's chosen."

It doesn't look like an objective panel to anyone.
There is a combat system out there now that has already been tested. As a matter of fact it's been tested by the Army and was on the way to Iraq for more testing.

In March 2006, Pentagon testers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., put Trophy through its paces and found it remarkably effective at killing RPGs. An official involved with the tests told NBC that Trophy "worked in every case. The only anomaly was that in one test, the Trophy round hit the RPG’s tailinstead of its head. But according to our test criteria, the system was 30 for 30."
As a result, OFT(Office of Force Transformation) moved forward with plans to battle-test Trophy — which cost $300,000-$400,000 per system — on several Strykers headed to Iraq in early 2007.

The Army stopped the test. Why? To protect one of it's own systems and the troops be damned. There is a lot of talk about making sure our boys in Iraq get everything they need but that's all it is, talk.

A further evaluation of Rafael's Trophy gave it a rating of 7- 8 on the 9 point scale of the Technological Readiness Level that measures the technological maturity of a weapons system. The Raytheon Quick Kill was rated a 3.

The Trophy could be in the field by 2008. The findings on the Quick Kill is that it would not achieve a TRL rating of 8 until 2012 at the earliest. 2012? When Israel has a system now that works and works good? Look, I know, we'll still be there in 2012 but how many lives would the Trophy save in that four year period.

This is a dangerous world we live in and our troops will be fighting somewhere from now so by all means attempt to develop a system for future wars and technologies. But our troops are in the field now. They need something that stops RPG's now, not in 2012.

Hell, it's Israel that has this thing not France. That should even our make our right-wing non-french fry eating idiots in congress happy. It's time for the congress and the White House to put their money where their mouths are. Will we do anything for our boys or won't we.

The buck doesn't seem to stop anywhere in Washington, hell, it doesn't even come for a visit.

Jim Martin