Soldier Systems Technology Roadmap Weapons: Lethal and Non-Lethal Workshop

The Soldiers Challenge And Future Weapons Requirements

By Major Bruce Gilchrist DLR 5-5 DND November 23-26, 2009 Toronto, Ont.

Outline
Locating The Threat

Rules Of Engagement
The Shot The Shooter Lethality Current Weapons and Projects Ideas and vision of the future

The Weapon Effects Onion

(Lethality Chain & Overall System Performance)

Recognize / Acquire
Identify / Hit

Detect Defeat Protection (if required)

Desired Target Effect(s)

Locating The Threat

Recognizing a threat
Weapon may not be carried openly Camouflage may be civilian clothes May have detailed local knowledge May be one person or many May use other persons as shields May want to us to cause collateral damage including casualties

Rules of Engagement
International Laws Of War National Rules of Engagement
More restrictive than international law Positive identification of a threat/hostile intent May or may not require escalation of force measures

The Shot
Target
may appear with little or no warning may be visible for 1 or 2 seconds at a time may be obscured may be only partially visible may be moving between well camouflaged fire positions may not be concerned with surviving the engagement Maybe wearing body armor (protected target)

Error Budget
Shooting Accurately

5.56 NATO Error Budget

6 Error in range estimation with +/-20 % 5 Target lead for one meter per second Shooting uphill or downhill 10 degrees 4 meter 20 C temperature difference Drift due to rotation

Wind five meters per second

3 Firing from kneeling position (100 mm per 100 m) Weapon and ammunition (50 mm per 100 m) 2

0 100 m

200 m

300 m

400 m

500 m

600 m

Courtesy of Mr Per G. Arvidsson

The Shooter
Average Canadian Soldier is 82 kg Maximum weight carried should be

32% of 82 kg = 26.2

kg

But the equipment weighs

Ammo and Weapons 9 kg Ballistic Protection 10 kg Clothing, Indiv Eqpt, Load Carriage 9 kg Radio, NVGs, LAD, GPS + batteries 6 kg Water 3 kg

TOTAL 37kg + at temp above 40C

The Shooter
Sensors are critical but need power
AN/PVS-14 NVG (1 AA battery) Maglite (2 AA battery) PRR (2 AA battery) GPS (3 AA battery) EOTech Holographic Sight (2 AA battery) AN/PVS-505 Kite Sight (2 AA battery) AN/PAC-4C model 7500 Laser Pointer (2 AA battery) Insight M3X Tactical Flashlight (2 Li-ion CR123A batteries) BCID Beacon - TAG IR (1AA battery) Spares Mission duration dependant TOTAL At least 15 AA and 2 CR123 batteries daily

Op MEDUSA, one Infantry company used over 17500 AA batteries in the space of 2 weeks!

The Shooter
Does not want this:

Lethality
NATO

A soldier is incapacitated when he is unable to carry out his main task, at the required level of performance, because of being wounded.
A soldier is suppressed when he is unable or unwilling to carry out his task effectively, because of the actual or perceived threat, or because of fear (in particular of being wounded).

Lethality
Lethality results from
Disruption of the central nervous system Blood loss Infection

5 Important Factors
Shot Placement Shot Placement Shot Placement Shot Placement Everything Else calibre, barrel length, etc

Current Small Arms

Current CF Small Arms

Sub Machineguns Shotguns & Less Lethal Weapons Light Machineguns

Target & Training Rifles

Ranger & SAR Rifles

Pistols

Sniper Rifles

Assault Rifles & Carbines

Medium Machineguns

Signalling Devices

Heavy Machineguns

Acquired for pest/wildlife control No foreign weapons for family training No breaching weapons/ modern grenades

Not compatible with modern night vision or other sensors Manufactured 1945 to 1953

Manufactured 1943 to 1945

Not compatible with new ammunition

Current Capability Deficiencies

Lethality: does not defeat increased personal protection Ammunition: Minimal multi-effects and few non-lethal capabilities Accuracy: Requires significant level of training for effect Inconsistent Visibility: Even with viewing aids, visibility by day/night is different. Signature Management: Noise/flash are distinctive. Integration/Networking: No direct link to the Soldier System Adaptive Dispersed Operations (ADO): Difficulty in integrating current small arms into the net-enabled and dispersed concept of ADO Ergonomics: Poor weight, compactness and operating commonality Ancillaries: Ancillaries available but not integrated.

Snipers Systems Project

Will provide a complete and fully integrated system of sniper equipment from clothing, camouflage, sensors, communications, weapons, night vision equipment, to transportation.

Snipers System
Sniper Systems Project Will integrate the 8 sensors/devices used by the sniper spotter into 1 system
Laser range finder Night vision system High power telescope GPS Inclinometer Compass Weather station (air pressure, humidity, air temperature, wind speed) IR thermometer (ammunition temperature) Ballistic calculator

The system output, the ballistic solution, will be inserted directly into the snipers weapon sight

Snipers Systems Project

Will also acquire
Additional medium & long range rifles A sniper short range semiautomatic rifle New ammunition Specialized light weight clothing Specialized light weight protective equipment (helmet, frag vest etc) Special individual and collective camouflage Transportation system Lightweight communication equipment Battle management system

SARP II Program SARP 2 will modernize or replace the CF small arm capability

 Value $1.0 Billion to 1.4 Billion Three phases Phase 1 (Tentative 2012-2015) Pistol, Ranger Rifle, Grenade Launcher, Shotguns Phase 2 (Tentative 2015-2018) PDW, Boarding Party Weapons, Breaching systems, Grenades Phase 3 (Tentative 2018-2022) Infantry Assault Weapons & Machineguns

Small Arms Replacement Project 2

SARP 2 Major Issues

Coordination with Integrated Soldier System Project (ISSP)
What parts of the soldier system are to be weapon mounted & why

New operational concepts - ADO US Army/NATO decision on calibers Evaluation of Terminal Ballistics performance Reducing the training requirement

Weapons and the Network

The weapon is already the location for sensors and electronic devices Pointing with a weapon is natural for a soldier
Export information used by accurate pointing Use the Battle Management System to help the soldier locate the tgt in the weapon sights

Accurate pointing can be used to enhance the squad SA if the EO devices export information & images to the network
Need to be geo-referenced Time stamped

Allow the soldier to select what information is displayed

Information from the network IFF Direction to an assigned target

1 or 2 default configurations That can be tailored

Remaining Ammunition

The Scene Fire team on the balcony

The Squad Commanders view

Suspicious activity is noted

Using the EO on the weapon the squad commander tries to identify the threat but the view is obstructed

How can the squad commander direct the fire team to confirm the identity? How do they know they are looking at the same person?

The Scene

The Squad Commanders view

The Scene

The Fire Teams view

With networked weapon mounted sensors

With Blue Information From the BMS

The suspicious person is noticed, lased and the information is passed to the Fire team The Commander also passes an image of the person with the location information

The information is injected into the fire team weapon sights

They use their EO to rapidly locate, confirm and remove the threat

The Scene

With networked weapon mounted sensors

Any squad member can now quickly locate and bring accurate fire against a threat or put extra eyes on a potential threat

Requirement on the precision capability: Concept Automated engagement of the target

Or in a machinegun

Define the target area

Position sensors stops weapon from firing if shots will be outside of the box

The Vision?
The future vision is to develop a portable and integrated weapon system for the soldier and the section which will increase weapon effectiveness, provide scalable lethal and non-lethal effects, against a variety of targets at the desired range/conditions (night & day) while minimizing system weight, i.e. :
Enhanced target acquisition and hand-off through networking with ISSP Enhanced target identification Greater accuracy Enhanced hit probability Suitable target effects
For lethal cases: Rapid incapacitation For non-lethal cases: Target neutralisation with reversible effects