Ice And Lemon With That?

You may talk of gin and beer

When you're quartered safe out 'ere

An' you're sent to penny fights and Aldershot it

But when it comes to slaughter

You'll do your work on water

An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it

Some things have not changed since Kipling wrote Gunga Din about a heroic Indian water-carrier with the British Army; the Tommies are still fighting Afghans beyond the Northwest Frontier, and water supply is still a vital element in the logistics chain. But back then the water came from a goatskin bag, "was crawlin' and it stunk" -- these days quality control has improved somewhat.

According to one US Army estimate, up to 65% of military road traffic in Iraq is taken up with transporting water to the troops. Cutting the number of trucks used for water will reduce the number of convoys that need protecting, and Allied Command Transformation Headquarters aims to do that by generating drinking water in the field. They recently demonstrated a mobile bottling plant that fits into a C-130 which can generate, purify and bottle 700 liters of water an hour.

Further down the line, DARPA are pursuing a project called 'Water From Air', looking at ways of extracting potable water from the atmosphere or from vehicle exhaust (water is one of the by-products when any hydrocarbon fuel is burned). Water generation was also one of the many features included in the original plans for Future Combat System, all part of the goal of traveling light and reducing the logistics tail.

But there is one big, rather simple problem, as explained in this piece on logistics in Iraq:

Dependence on bottled water in Iraq turned out to be a major sustainment and quality of life issue, Chambers said. Bottled water made up 30 percent of the distribution requirement even though bulk water was available, he said.

Because the bottom line is:

"Soldiers do not like to drink purified water."

Which is why the idea of recycling urine into drinking water is even less likely to catch on, something that the Army has looked at on the grounds that "The technology is there. NASA is doing it.” However, Thomas Bagwell, acting executive director for research at TARDEC, admitted that the last time he put this idea to soldiers, “they chased me out of the room.”

Water may be technically safe and potable, but it can still taste terrible and troops are understandably not going to want to drink it. If you can solve that problem, you can take out a huge amount of the logistics overhead. Maybe they should look at additives (flavoring? caffeine?), or maybe it needs some branding and an advertising push ("Real Water For Real Men"). But I suspect it will take a lot more to persuade people to give up bottled water for purified. And if you can work out how to do that one, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

-- David Hambling

UPDATE: The Water Generation requirement was dropped from the FCS program during the last ORD review - thanks to Douglas Weber for the update.

No Blood for... Solar Power?

Last Thursday, the Christian Science Monitor reported on an unusual memo from the staff of Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, the highest-ranking Marine officer in Iraq’s troubled Anbar Province. According to the Monitor, and to more comprehensive treatments in Inside Defense and Defense Industry Daily, Zilmer asked the Pentagon to find a way to get "solar panels and wind turbines" into the hands of his troops. Without access to renewable energy solutions, Zilmer expects to see "continued casualty accumulation [which] exhibits potential to jeopardize mission success."

Say what?

The article in the Monitor suggests two different ways in which solar- and wind-powered generators for isolated outposts would reduce U.S. casualties. The first is that "despite desert temperatures, the hot 'thermal signature' of a diesel generator can call enemy attention to U.S. outposts." How, exactly, an array of solar panels and wind turbines would make U.S. troops less conspicuous in a country bristling with diesel generators is left unclear.

The second argument holds more water. As hard as it is to believe, diesel and other refined petroleum products are actually imported into Iraq by truck, largely from Turkey. And fuel convoys – not to mention the U.S. troops riding in them – are some of the most tempting targets to insurgents: in August 2005, for example, the Army 1st Corps Support Command alone was reporting 30 IED attacks a week.

All that fuel convoyin' costs not only lives, but money, too. Military estimates for the cost of one gallon of generator fuel delivered to a unit at a forward position range from $100 to $400. This is a problem.

(If you’re curious to know how they get those types of numbers for a single gallon of fuel, take a gander at this LMI presentation, from 2004, which cranks out an estimate of $3 per kilowatt-frickin'-hour – or about $120 per gallon of fuel consumed – on the battlefield, compared to $0.40/kWh ($16/gallon) to run those same generators stateside. If this stateside number seems high, too, remember that the number represents all costs associated with turning that gallon of fuel into useful energy, including personnel costs, equipment depreciation, and so on.)

So, what can be done?

Right now, there’s no easy answer. Arlington, Va.-based SkyBuilt Power offers a containerized, deployable solar-/wind-powered generating station which has gotten a lot of press, but the system, which produces "0.5 kW to 150 kW or more," is reported by the Monitor to go for a neat $100,000.

Still, that price tag looks a lot less scary when you keep in mind the absurd cost of running a diesel generator on the battlefield. According to the Monitor, Zilmer’s memo estimated that a system like SkyBuilt’s would pay for itself in three to five years.

That, of course, is probably why In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s own venture-cap firm, is one of SkyBuilt’s big backers.

Part of the logistics crunch which is feeding those convoy casualty rates has more to do with inept planning than with a lack of available technology. In February 2006, the engineering journal IEEE Spectrum published a must-read article describing how diesel fuel is trucked in from Turkey to power Baghdad’s main power station, even while the natural gas which could power the same turbines, if the appropriate equipment were installed, is flared off as waste at an oilfield across the street.

Obviously, renewable energy isn't going to solve problems on the scale of Iraq's FUBARed power grid, nor will it solve problems that are really about planning, and not technology. And just as obviously, there's no mature technology out there ready to take the place of every diesel generator and internal combustion engine in the U.S. armory.

But as I wrote almost a year ago, the Department of Defense can't afford to sit around and wait for someone else to mature those technologies: "the mature renewable-energy and fuel-efficient technology of the future may never appear in reality until it appears among DARPA's 'Areas of Interest.'"

Since I wrote those words, I'm glad to say that there's been all sorts of movement on this front. And the publicity garnered by Zilmer’s memo can only help matters along.

So next time you hear about a company that’s developing better solar cells, or more efficient wind turbines, pay attention. They’re not just Mother Nature’s best friends – they may well be a jarhead's best friend.

-- Haninah Levine

Parthenon in a Pouch

If I were to ask you to name your all time favourite iconic concrete structure, you'd probably come up with the same answer as me: the Seattle Kingdome.

But what if I were to ask you to name your favourite "low mass, strengthening fibre matrix temporary concrete shelter"? -- again you'd probably think Kingdome -- but you'd be wrong.

Aside from the Ministry of Defence's recent efforts to populate downtown Baghdad with giant blocks (presumably to be chipped away in reconstruction to reveal tribute art) some British designers see an alternative future for concrete. The UK has its very own pair of Frank Lloyd Wrights -- and they need your help.

You may have heard of the Concrete Canvas. The idea has received more press coverage than Janet Jackson's left boob, but oddly, remains as famous as the right one. (Check out this Wired article written over a year ago).

The idea is simple. Create a temporary hardened structure that can be transported across the globe and erected with minimal effort, training and supply in areas that need it most.

Literally, a "building in a bag" (or my own terms: "Vatican in a valise", "Kingdome in a container" etc) -- each unit weighs about 500 pounds, making it light and easy enough to transport in a variety of platforms. The bag is an inflatable plastic inner bubble, wrapped in a specially treated fabric and packed in plastic. The bag is then filled with water allowing the cement to hydrate, after which you cut, unfold and inflate. Inflation is achieved via a small chemical pack which moulds around the bubble, setting over a period of 12 hours. The shelter covers about 170 square feet of floor space and cost is estimated at $2,100 per unit.

The aid benefits are clear, but could the Concrete Canvas, (or CC01), benefit troops? Current living conditions seem varied depending on where or who you are, and Defensetech's own plethora of experts can provide first-hand experience of living in the kiln. Perhaps combining CC01 and the US Army's own ideas about the sun would assist in the current cable quagmire?

The Department of Defense has just annouced a juicy $120-million contract for Anchor Inc.'s party-size shelters and the less-than-attractive Battle Boxes are already used by some European forces. Reconstruction efforts in Iraq require temporary housing for residents, as do the countless disaster and conflict zones. So why can't you buy one?

Critics argue that the 145 liters of water needed to fill the thing is too valuable a resource in remote areas and others argue that CC01 is too permanent for relief efforts which should be helping people secure housing rather than shelter. Personally I think its a great idea, like the Life-Straw, and wish Pete and Will luck trying to get their idea to those who need it.

Designers Peter Brewin and Will Crawford both have impressive track records for innvoation and industrial design and the Concrete Canvas has recently won (among others) the Saatchi and Saatchi award for World Changing Ideas. Peter and Will are currently seeking further funding to bring CC01 into production and can be contacted via their website.

--Steven Snell

Update, 04/26/06: Peter Brewin has kindly contacted me to offer some specifics about the military aspects of CC01:

The key advantage of CC from a military position is that as a compressive structure it can be earth bermed (i.e., sand, earth, etc. can be piled on top to a depth of up to six feet). This has two main advantages:

* Protection from shrapnel and blast.

* Thermal insulation –- this massively reduces the logistical footprint, particularly if air conditioning is required for accommodation, as is the current situation in the Gulf. Better insulation means fewer air-conditioning units, hence less generator capacity and fuel and fewer maintenance personnel at the front line. Also it means a lower thermal signature.

Big Payoff for New Scale

A new scale being tested by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) could end up giving units a little extra time to train just before rapid deployments – in addition to being a big safety boost.

Enough new systems and technologies with battlefield applications are being developed that it’s pretty easy to dismiss a new way to weigh vehicles as a relatively low priority development (and not all too sexy). But it can matter more than you think.

The latest Weigh-in-Motion scale is meant to improve the process for preparing vehicles for airload, as it “automatically identifies the equipment, determines the individual axle weights, distance between axles, total vehicle weight, profile and center of balance.” It sounds boring, but this is the crucial data that has to be identified to safely load vehicles on cargo planes for transport, and any slight change in the way equipment is loaded on a vehicle means recalculating everything. Since the information is currently calculated in a very low-tech manner by NCOs and officers with minimal training in how to do so (I used to be one), this step in deployment-prep is often done well in advance and the prepared vehicles (and materiel on them) are then quarantined.

Vehicle quarantines aren't a big deal for regularly-scheduled deployments. But if you’ve just been given the warning order for a contingency deployment -- at a time when you would otherwise be training -- you want to spend as much time practicing with your gear as possible before you go. That's not possible with quarantined trucks. Instead, you have to spend months trying to beg, borrow and steal vehicles and equipment to train with, since your stuff is locked up on the flightline. (A situation my battalion found itself in for a few months in the winter of 2002-2003.) A reliable, simplified means of preparing vehicles for airload could someday insert a little more flexibility into that timeline and give units a few extra weeks of quality training.

This training is, of course, a possible extra benefit of the new system. The direct and bankable benefit is equipment that is prepared more accurately. Airload planning requires a lot of precision to be done safely, and every extra degree of accuracy makes the trip that much safer for the airmen and soldiers sharing the plane with the equipment. (Possibly avoiding, for example, the June 2002 C-130 crash in Afghanistan that was blamed on a load that wasn’t properly prepared.) ORNL estimates that current means of computing the data can often be off by 14% or more. The new system consistently performs without any measurable errors at all.

There’s room for skepticism, since Oak Ridge has been talking about this for more than 6 years. But it’s now moved from the lab to testing at the Transportation Center at Fort Eustis and rapid deployment posts like Fort Bragg and Fort Drum, so we’ll get to see how it does in action.

-- Matthew Tompkins

Lasers Reverse-Engineer Old Gear

The U.S. military is relying more and more on gear that's older than the soldiers who use it, Photonics Spectra notes. Which means the companies that built the hardware -- and originally supplied spare parts -- may be defunct. Blueprints and documentation may be outdated, or have just plain vanished. So reverse-engineering firms, armed with laser scanners, are stepping in, to re-create what was lost."

"Laser scanning systems work by projecting a line of laser light onto a surface," the magazine says. "A camera continuously triangulates the changing distance and profile of the line as it sweeps over the object... [And] a computer translates the video image of the line into 3-D coordinates, providing real-time data renderings."

In other words, think Tron -- the scene where Jeff Bridges gets zapped into the computer -- and you're on the right track.

In the reverse-engineering application, a technician moves the scanner around the object in a manner similar to spray painting. The data is sent to software to convert the point cloud into a surface model that can be imported into computer-aided design software.

The resulting model serves as the basis of a technical data package for the part, and the company sends the package out for bid to contract manufacturers. The winning bidder uses the 3-D model to generate a computerized numerical control program that either produces the finished part or that builds a mold for casting it.

Radian Milparts, out of Willoughby, Ohio, is making new M60 gun mounts for the Navy's H-3 Sea King helicopters. The Navy "had a sample gun mount, but no manufacturing source, and no accurate technical data," the company explains. So Radian scanned the mount, dumped it into the computer, and then produced fresh mounts -- and blueprints -- from the new, electronic design. The effort "follows an earlier, small program where Radian Milparts reinvented, documented and fabricated" an H-3 circuit board.

Wixom, Michigan's Nvision Inc. is using laser scanners at Boeing's Phantom Works, to help maintain the F/A-18 Hornet and the F-15 Eagle -- and to build new planes, like the Joint Strike Fighter.

In this case, it is necessary to compare the physical aircraft to the CAD [computer-aided design] model. An interference problem, for example, may arise when the aircraft is being assembled. In this case, the need arises to compare the physical aircraft to the original CAD design to determine the exact cause of the problem. The complexity of the geometry of state-of-the art aerospace structures makes this a very challenging task. Even when a specific problem doesn't exist, the need often arises to compare the aircraft to the model in order to confirm that the design intent is being met.

COOL GEAR; NOW WHAT?

Getting the gear may have been the easy part. The Army has quickly pushed more than 220 new technologies into the hands of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq -- stuff like bomb-detection bots and handheld translators.

"But much work remains to be done in the equally important second phase — offering spare parts, manuals and other important follow-on services, according to senior officials," National Defense magazine says.

The Army was able to purchase and deploy these items in relatively short time by skirting the traditional procurement bureaucracy and, instead, relying on so-called “rapid fielding” organizations.

Many of these new technologies, however, were sent to war in such a hurry that the Army was unable to arrange the support services usually associated with military systems, such as technical manuals and instructions on how to obtain spare parts...

“Products get fielded by the REF [Rapid Equipping Force],” Brig. Gen. Roger A. Nadeau, commander of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, said. “After a while, soldiers start asking ‘where are the parts?’ Where is the log [logistics] plan? … Collectively, we don’t have a good answer.”

ARMY WANTS DISHWATER DOUBLE-DIP

Water takes up to 40 percent of the U.S. Army's daily logistical load -- nearly 55 pounds of water per soldier per day, when medical treatment, meal rehydration and bathing are factored in.

The Army's latest attempt to cut down on that burden: a set of filters that reuses the dirty, soapy water from field kitchens.

Ordinarily, "pots, pans, utensils and other dishes are washed, rinsed and sanitized in the field with a three-sink food sanitation center that consumes nearly 250 gallons of potable water daily," notes a press release from the Army's Natick Soldier Systems Center. "Wastewater is either poured onto the ground, or stored in a tank or bladder for disposal."

Natick researchers are focusing on two different filter systems instead to recycle the water instead.

The Splitter XD from Infinitex uses spiral-wound membranes... [While a] micro-distiller from Ovation Products Corp [relies on a] vapor compression distillation process... Both processes use a commercial filter to pre-screen suspended solids, are low or no-maintenance, and are as easy to operate as flipping a switch...

Testing proved 85-90 percent of the greywater could be recovered, leaving 10-15 percent of it concentrated sludge for backhauling.

That's good enough for the Natick folks to start building water recycling into its next generation of field kitchens. But the recovered water still won't be clean enough to swig. To get drinable water, Pentagon researchers believe, soldiers will be need to pluck it out of thin air -- or condense it from their Hummers' tailpipes.