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Technical Intelligence Bulletins Sept - October 1998
 Vol. 3 No. 5 September-October 1998
A non-profit publication about the veterans of Technical Intelligence in war and peace,the current operations of the
National Ground Intelligence Center, the Technical Intelligence Unit at Aberdeen Proving Ground and news items
of interest to the technical intelligence community.
Changes in the 203rd M.I. Bn
Dave Matthew is out of the army, and now a member of the 323d MI Bn (RC). and employed by the National Ground Intelligence Center. He says it takes some getting used to but he is adjusting. He is thankful to be in the reserves, though...and is getting ready for ....you guessed it, a PT Test in November...
Navy Scientists delevlop non polluting rocket fuel. LOS ANGLES - Navy researchers have developed a non-polluting rocket fuel that relies on alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, and scientists say a variation might one day propel cars. The technology could be used to boost satellites or space craft into orbit or alter their paths in space. Hey Wait a Minute...At Kummersdorf, von Braun and his team built the first of the planned A series of rockets, the A-1. The A-1 was the grandfather of most modern rockets. It used a pressure-fed propellant system burning liquid oxygen and 75% alcohol. The A-1s regeneratively-cooled motor had a thrust of 300 kg (660 pounds), and a burning time of 16 seconds. Wonder if the Navy scientists ever read the WW 2 reports on the V 2 rocket ????
Obit Notice Manley Mallett, chemist on Manhattan Prolect
A member of several technical organizations, he worked with the team that devoped the atomic bomb. Maniey William Mallett, a memnber of the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb that led to the end of World War II, died Wednesdav (Sept. 2, 1998) at Morton Plant Hospital, Clearwater. He was 89. Mr. Mallett, born in Toledo, Ohio, graduated cum laude in 1932 from the University of Toledo, Ohio, with a degree in chemistry. A chemical engineer, he worked in metallergy and gas metal analysis for the Manhattan Project. In 1979, he moved from Columbus, Ohio, to work for the neutron devices department of General Electric Co. in St. Petersburg, Florida. More than 70 of his works were published in technical society journals. Many of his works remain classified. He earned the Silver Award of the U.S.A. War Department Army Service Forces Corps of Engineers, Manhattan District in 1945 and the Lincoln Gold Medal from the American Welding Society in 1947. He was a member of Sigma Xi, an organization devoted to the promotion of research in Science, the American Chemists Society, the Electrochemical Society, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Pretoleum Engineers, and was a life member of the American Society of Metals.
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Andy Robbins who works for a TV producer wrote to advise me that they are currently producing a six part historical documentary series for Channel Four Television in the UK exploring the impact of technology on the world of espionage. The series is due to be completed in January and will also be broadcast in the United States next year.Briefly the programmes are:
1.Tools of the Trade: The development of the miniature camera (and it's numerous concealments), the KGB Roll-over camera, the invention of the micro-dot, and the use of fake ID's, disguises, hidden maps and dead drops.
2. Are You Receiving Me?: Traces the development of the agents radio and likewise, the detectors developed to locate them.
3. Spies in the Sky: Tells the story of aerial reconnaissance, from the First World War to the U2's and the CORONA satellites the special cameras and the methods used to interpret the pictures.
4. The Walls Have Ears: Explores the development of the bug and the technology developed to find them. Also tells the story of the 'Thing' and the joint CIA/ MI6 operation to dig the Berlin tunnel, and how, in the pre-digital age agents tapped, recorded and analysed telephone calls.
5. Assassins and Saboteurs: Looks at assassination devices and secret weapons such as the KGB gas gun and the Royal Navy's X Class Midget submarines. This programme will concentrate mostly on the Second World War with SOE and OSS technology although it could feature some Cold War Soviet assassination devices.
6. Spy Catchers: Looks at the development of concealed cameras, invisible spy-powders, the use of dogs to track agents, letter inception kits, the first electronic tracking devices and the invention of the lie detector.
In about 4 weeks time I am planning to come to United States to meet everyone who may take part in series. I am glad this series is of interest and I look forward to hearing from you.
ed: Sounds like an interesting series. wlh
Sunday July 26, 1998 Iran confirms it tested missile TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Saturday confirmed that it successfully tested a medium-range missile, a weapon capable of reaching Israel, Iraq and thousands of U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. State television quoted Defense Minister Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani as saying the missile with a range of 800 miles was tested Wednesday by Iranian experts "without any foreign support." U.S. intelligence had tracked the missile Wednesday, although Iran did not acknowledge the test then.The test contradicts estimates by U.S. intelligence in 1997 that Iran would need up to 10 years to develop a medium-range missile. Its military capacity is important to U.S. interests because Iran opposes peace with Israel and backs guerrilla groups in Lebanon.
Fushion inches forward
By KURT LOFT of The Tampa Tribune
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TAMPA - The sun has been doing it for more than 5 billion years, so scientists aren't exactly blind to its secrets. Take a couple of light elements, such as hydrogen and helium, and squeeze them together under tremendous heat and pressure. The result is nuclear fusion, which produces a relatively clean, inexhaustible source of energy. The problem is how to harness the power of the sun here on Earth, but researchers are inching closer with a device called the Z Accelerator at Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. A team has tapped into the process that fuels the sun by increasing the machine's X-ray power output by nearly 10 million times in the last two years. The accelerator releases bursts of electrical energy to compress and heat small amounts of fusion fuel in a chamber. The machine recently produced 290 trillion watts of power for a fraction of a second - many times more than the entire global output of electricity - and hit temperatures of 1.6 million degrees Celsius. Scientists believe temperatures above 2 million degrees Celsius are needed to sustain a fusion reaction. With the right heat and pressure, they hope to compress a capsule full of fusion fuel - deuterium and tritium - until it ignites into a ``high-yield'' reaction, meaning the system produces more energy than it takes in. The next step is to boost the system by another 100,000 degrees, says Don Cook, director of Sandia's Pulsed Power Sciences Center. ``We have now met three of four milestones we set for the accelerator,'' he says, ``and are very close to meeting the fourth - a radiation temperature of 1.7 million degrees.'' Fusion is the fusing of two light nuclei into a heavier one. The new nucleus has less mass than the total of the two
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just transformed, with the difference in mass released as energy. Fusion is the opposite of fission - used in nuclear power plants - in which a heavy nucleus splits into two lighter ones.
Technically, the accelerator fires powerful electrical pulses through cables arranged like the spokes in a wheel and insulated in a pool of oil and water. The pulse strikes a target about the size of a spool of thread, which contains hundreds of tungsten wires smaller in diameter than a human hair. The discharge of radiation through these wires creates a magnetic field that compresses the wires as they disintegrate. The vaporized particles, pushed inward by the field, collide with each other to create super-hot temperatures, which in turn heat the walls of a vacuum chamber. Creating fusion reactions is one thing; containing them is another. Few materials or processes can house the hot bath needed to keep the process going. That will be an engineering feat for the future, says Neal Singer, a spokesman at the Sandia laboratory. Sustainable nuclear fusion is at least 20 years away, scientists believe, and putting it into power plants to light up cities will take longer.
``Right now we're concerned with making the fire - we'll worry about how to build a steam engine later,'' Singer says. ``If you have this powerful explosion going on every second, it has to be contained, and that hasn't been figured out yet. But it really isn't that far off, and people are startled by the progress that's being made here.''
Historical Perspective: Who Has the Right To Call Israel Home? By JASON FIELDS AP Writer
The origins of the fight for Israel reach back before written history. According to the Bible, Jews fled slavery in Egypt to the land of Canaan (modern day Israel) around 1300 BC. After years of warfare, the Canaanites were defeated and Jerusalem established under King David (approx. 1000 BC). Internal squabbling led to a division of the kingdom, which then fell under the domination of the Assyrians, then Persians, Greeks and Romans.
In 70 AD, Romans razed Jerusalem, including its Temple, which was the center of religious life for Jews. This followed Jewish attempts to throw off Rome's yolk. Thousands were taken as slaves, while others fled Roman occupation. This dispersal of Jews throughout the Roman world and beyond became known as the Diaspora. Very few Jews were left within the territory of Israel, which was held (after Rome's collapse) by the Byzantines, Arabs, Christian crusaders and finally the Islamic Ottoman Empire.
In the 19th Century, a group of European Jews began to look for a single homeland for all Jews to escape the persecution they suffered throughout Europe and in the Arab world. The leaders of the movement, known as Zionism, considered Uganda, but eventually decided to return to the area known to their religion as Israel.
The Ottomans allowed some immigration by Jews into the area, then known as Palestine, and the movement continued after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by the British in World War I. Of course, there were already a large number of people who had been living in Palestine at the time of the first waves of Zionist immigrants. They didn't share the dream of an independent Jewish state.
After the Holocaust, hundreds of thousands of Jews attempted to flee Europe for Palestine. The British tried to block many of those seeking "the Promised Land," in an effort to maintain a balance between the interests of Jewish settlers and Arabs in Palestine. In 1948, the United Nations mandated the creation of Israel as a Jewish state with the backing the United States and the Soviet Union. The Arab nations surrounding Israel were violently opposed to the new state in their midst.
War began on the day of U.N. mandated independence, May 14, 1948. The Jews in Israel managed to stave off armies from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraqi. Palestinian unrest was also born.
Three more wars have been fought between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Israel has persevered. The United States has remained a firm backer of Israel, while during the Cold War, the Soviet Union sided with the Arabs. Since the collapse of Communism, Russia has allowed Jews to emigrate to Israel and relations have warmed.
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Current Situation in Brief: The Struggle Continues
By JASON FIELDS
Associated Press Writer
Modern Israeli history has been marred by wars, bombings, assassinations and terror. Efforts to break the cycle of violence have met only limited success.
Israel has made peace with two of its neighbors, Egypt and Jordan, and has reached several accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization, based on returning some degree of control to Palestinians in specified territories, like the Gaza Strip in southern Israel and the West Bank of the Jordan River.
Under the accord reached in Oslo, Norway, and the implementation accords which followed, Palestinians have authority over all things in their regions other than foreign relations and defense. The accords also provided for: creation of a Palestinian police force; freeing of many Palestinian political prisoners from Israeli jails; elections to be held to form a Palestinian authority.
Several tough battles were left to the future by the accords including the final size of the Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank; the division of Jerusalem which both sides claim for a capital; and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Implementation of the accords has been halted by a series of attacks on Israelis by Palestinian Muslim fundamentalists known as Hamas and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist opposed to the settlement.
Israel's current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he will not implement the rest of the accords until he receives security guarantees from the Palestinians, led by Yasser Arafat. Arafat has said Netanyahu must abide by the terms of the accords, and he has pledged to ferret out terrorists. One of the central points in dispute is Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim for a capital. Netanyahu ordered the building of Jewish settlements in an Arab section of the city, and though construction is currently halted, Netanyahu claims further building is an Israeli right.
The Sept 1998 issue (Vol. 8, Number 5) of the JOURNAL OF MILITARY ORDNANCE, devoted to armor and artillery equipment and warfare of the 20th century and beyond, contains:
T-72 155mm GCT SELF-PROPELLED GUN, by Jeffrey McKaughan. (Jordanian versian of a French mating of a Russian T-72 chassis and hull with a GCT turret. Color photos.)
THE M48A5; A CREWMAN'S PERSPECTIVE, by Michael Eastes. (An interesting review of the pros and cons of this weapon: best sleeping spots, where to store gear,relative job satisfaction of the various crew positions, etc.)
JAPANESE TYPE 95, by Jon Dupris. (Detailed technical evaluation based on Australian survey of a captured vehicle in New Guinea.)
ABERDEEN'S Pz.Kpfw. I Ausf. B, by Thomas Jentz. (Short overview of a vehicle captured in North Africa.
ITALY'S MUSEUM OF MILITARY MOTORIZATION, by Steven Andrano. (Useful reports on recommended museums, with lots of vehicles.)
Plus classified ads, book reviews, and intelligence notes. 30 pages, very well produced; color and B&W photo reproduction quallity is excellent. Six times a year from Darlington Productions, Inc., PO Box 5884, Darlington, MD 21034. (410) 457-5400. $24/year US, $30 foreign surface.
Back issues available. Credit cards accepted.
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US snaps up robot spy invention that Britain rejected
(ElectronicTelegraph, 27 Sept 1998)
ROBOT "insects" capable of flying military spy missions inside buildings are being developed by a Cambridge University scientist. But the technology -- which could revolutionize the nature of flight -- is set to be lost to Britain. It is being snapped up by the United States Department of Defense after the British military said it was not interested. Charles Ellington, who has spent many years researching the aerodynamics of insects, this week is expected to receive part of a £1.6 million contract to produce a robot micro aircraft, about the size of a hand and with a 3ins or 4ins wingspan, that will fly surveillance missions inside buildings. He is currently working on a 3ft wingspan model, based on a hawk moth. The craft, called an entomopter, will use a chemical engine to flap wings like a moth, crawl about, and flit from in-trays to out-trays taking photographs and recording conversations for transmission to satellites.Mr Ellington's breakthrough in understanding insect flight will make flapping-wing flight by an aircraft possible for the first time. American officials believe his work offers huge opportunities for development -
nothing in creation has been developed with fixed wings and power thrust, just flapping wings.
"Technically, this is a very exciting development," said John Anderson, an adviser with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington. "Micro air vehicles with flapping wings use different aerodynamics from birds, and I think we will continue to use fixed-wings for manned flight. But this will fill in one significant corner of the flight spectrum. "If it comes here rather than to Britain, well, I must say I've always been very impressed with the pioneering work Britain did in aviation - swing-wing flight and vertical take-off."
Sir Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the Dambusters' bouncing bomb, designed the first variable- geometry swing-wing aircraft, which would have become the TSR-2 if the government had not cancelled it in 1965. Instead, the Americans developed it as the F-111 bomber. As for vertical flight, Britain did produce the Harrier but is now a junior partner in American-driven developments of the next-generation Joint Strike Fighter. The Americans are now well ahead with many aerospace ideas, particularly in unmanned air vehicles.
Mr Ellington, an American who has dual citizenship, said: "I did approach the Defence Research Agency at Farnborough six or seven months ago, but they just seemed to drop it. They weren't interested. Darpa (the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) in America was much more interested." He now keeps his proposal under lock and key because the Pentagon is concerned about the security of the research. "I'm not allowed to show it to anyone here," he said. "I would hope this doesn't mean completely shutting out Britain, or anyone else. It's a shame there isn't more interest from the government here."
A spokesman for the British agency said that Mr Ellington did approach it but its scientists were not doing any work in that area, and had no funding for it. The proposal was passed to the Royal College of Military Science at Shrivenham, Oxon. Mr Ellington said he was not told of that transfer and has heard nothing from Shrivenham. Instead, he and the nine-strong team from his laboratory at Cambridge University's Department of Zoology will join Robert Michelson, the principal research engineer at Georgia Tech Research Institute in Atlanta, to produce a working entomopter. The three-year Darpa contract calls for them to build a controllable, stable, flapping machine. Since batteries are too heavy and combustion engines are too big their entomopter is to be powered with Mr Michelson's reciprocating chemical muscle.
He describes this as a catalyst that breaks apart a chemical to release heat and gas that drives the wings rapidly and releases up to one watt of electricity. Micro-electronics, controls and sensor systems will then be added. When placed by a special operations team or remote controlled aircraft, the entomopter would fly through an open door, window or ventilation shaft of a building. Its flapping wings would make it much quieter than helicopter rotors. It would use ultrasonic detectors to avoid obstacles and chemical detectors to locate humans at which to direct sound recorders. URL:
<<http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=LKtL3G7d&atmo=LKtL3G7d&P4_FOLLOW_ON=/98/9/27/nspy27.html&pg=/et/98/9/27/nspy27
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Operable missile seized in customs By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. and British authorities are investigating how a Russian-design Scud missile was imported illegally by a weapons collector in California, The Washington Times has learned. "This is a full-blown missile," said John Hensley, a senior agent of the U.S. Customs Service in Los Angeles. "The only thing missing is the warhead." A Scud B missile and its mobile transporter-erector launcher --minus the warhead -- were seized Sept. 2 by customs agents in Port Hueneme, Calif., about 35 miles north of Los Angeles, said officials familiar with the case. The missile system was licensed for importation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. But paperwork in the case was falsified, and the missile system was not "demilitarized" -- rendered inoperable -- as required by import rules, Mr. Hensley told The Times. British customs officials are investigating the seller, a small firm outside London, and U.S. investigators are questioning an arms collector from Portola Valley, Calif., near Palo Alto, who bought the system, Mr.Hensley said. The missile transfer has raised fears about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile-delivery systems. It also could be an embarrassment for the Clinton administration, which is engaged in a major international diplomatic effort to halt missile exports by Russia and China to the Middle East. The importation raises questions about U.S. national security controls. Mr. Hensley said U.S. military experts examined the missile and determined that it was produced in Czechoslovakia in 1985. The missile was identified as an SS-1C, which the Pentagon has designated as a Scud B. Transfers of missiles like the Scud B, with a range of 186 miles, are banned under the international export agreement known as the Missile Technology Control Regime. Customs officials said the missile was not identified until it was driven off the British freighter that delivered it and an inspector called customs agents to examine it.
Such weapons can be imported but must first be cut up with a blowtorch so they can never be reassembled. The officials identified the buyer only as a wealthy man who is a U.S. citizen. He is a legitimate arms collector -- apparently not linked to terrorists or illicit arms dealers. But the false paperwork has raised questions about the deal and prompted the U.S. investigation. Mr. Hensley said the buyer had purchased a Scud missile earlier that had been properly rendered inoperable. But a photograph of that missile was attached to the illegal system, seized Sept. 2, in an effort to fool customs officials. After examining the missile, customs agents called the ATF and were surprised to learn that an ATF license had been issued for the missile importation.> "We thought they were nuts," said one official close to the case. The missile system is being stored at the Navy's Pacific Missile Testing Center in nearby Point Mugu, near Oxnard, where it has been impounded. John D'Angelo, an ATF agent in Los Angeles, had no official comment on the case. "Routinely, the ATF and U.S. Customs Service examine items to determine their suitability for importation under federal regulations,"he said. "We have not yet completed the inspection of this importation and therefore can't discuss it." The SS-1 Scud is a liquid-fueled missile that is among the most widely deployed weapons in the world. It is in service with more than 16 nations. Iraq's military forces were able to extend the range of the missile,which was fired extensively during the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The chassis of the missile's launcher was identified as a MAZ-543 truck used commonly by the former Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces for short-range missiles. "The guidance was totally intact and the engine was ready to go," Mr. Hensley said. "All you needed to do was strap on a garbage can full of C-4 and you had a weapon." C-4 is military high explosive.
Concerning how the missile was handled by the British firm, Mr. Hensley said, "It is illegal to import this into the U.K., so the Brits are wondering how this guy got this company to do this."
Investigators suspect the missile may have been bought in Europe on the black market.
"Our concern is not so much that [the buyer] might have a licensing problem," Mr. Hensley said. "It's just that in the aftermath of the embassy bombings in Africa and the Oklahoma City bombing, that this could be a real problem." The Customs Service is intensifying its efforts to check for illegal imports of such weapons, he said. Stephen Bryen, a former Pentagon technology-transfer official, said weapons like the Scud must be fully dismantled before they can be allowed into the country. "You have to worry anytime somebody brings a missile into the
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United States, whatever cover it might be," Mr. Bryen said.He noted that terrorists or rogue states could use such collectors to acquire missiles illegally Sept. 25 Customs Service officials say they are investigating whether the shipping records used to import a fully operational Scud missile into the United States were falsified. Officials fear that the importation could hint at a black market in the missile made famous by the Persian Gulf War.THE MISSILE, complete with a MAZ-543 transporter-erector-launcher and empty warhead, was rolled right off a ship in Port Hueneme in California on Sept. 2 and has been impounded until the investigation determines if there were any crimes committed, said Customs spokesman Pat Jones. Another U.S.official identified the buyer as Jacques Littlefield, a well-known military hardware collector and self-proclaimed tank nerd who lives on a 450-acre ranch in Portola Valley, Calif., near Palo Alto. As one of General Electrics largest individual stockholders, Littlefield is worth hundreds of millions of dollars,according to several news articles about the man and his military collection. The seller is listed as R&R Motor Services Ltd. of Ashford, England, an automobile service company that deals in military vehicles. Contrary to initial reports, the missile was fully operational and included an empty warhead, said Jones. It was manufactured in what was then Czechoslovakia in 1985. Officials declined comment on how it got to Britain. British Customs is also investigating. A Scud missile has an operational range of 190 miles. Officials say Littlefield paid about $50,000 for the missile. There is a warhead, just nothing in it. ... The Pentagon experts who looked at it told us it was fully operational, Jones said. All it needed was fuel. REVIEWING DOCUMENTATION The U.S. Customs Service is investigating whether the documentation was falsified, he added. We know it was inaccurate; we dont know about intent. We would need to know of the intent to determine whether it was falsified, Jones said. U.S. defense and intelligence officials say they are concerned not only that this missile was delivered to a US port, but also that it points up two growing fears among proliferation experts: that there is a black market in Scud missiles and that a terrorist could fire one or more from a ship off a major U.S. city. The fact that a complete missile was available and on a freighter made what were once abstract fears very real. One official described the missile as looking like a fire engine on steroids as it came off a freighter at Point Hueneme, about 35 miles north of Los Angeles. Customs has inspectors trained to recognize all sorts of nasty stuff. This one was easy,the official said. Customs records indicate this was the second Scud shipped to the California port for delivery to Littlefield. The first, which was not operational, was delivered a month earlier, Customs officials said. MUST BE DEMILITARIZED U.S. law requires military equipment on the U.S. munitions list to be demilitarized made inoperable prior to being cleared for private collections. After identifying the missile, Customs first called in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, then the U.S. Navy, which has its Pacific Missile Test Center in nearby Point Mugu. The missile was examined there, then seized and impounded. The first missile remains at the weapons collectors ranch. Various profiles of Littlefield reported that he has collections of 46 tanks and another 80 military vehicles to go with his private railroad, a fire truck and 15 vintage cars. Im interested in all mechanical things, how they work, how they run, Littlefield once told the San Jose Mercury News. The fact that they are weapons is almost beside the point. Littlefield is a member of the Wattis family, which merged with GE in a 1976 stock deal. The family is worth more than $3.5 billion. Neither Littlefield nor R&R Motor Services Ltd. returned phone calls seeking comment.
ARMY SHUTS DOWN INTERNET WEB SITES;
Army goes offline in reaction to Pentagon order BY BOB BREWIN (antenna@fcw.com)
The Army slammed shut its door to the wired world last week, closing down all its World Wide Web sites in reaction to a new Pentagon Web security policy. Only the Army had such a drastic response to a Defense Department memo issued last week that spelled out what information DOD Web sites should and should not post. The Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps still offer the public access to popular and highly visible Web pages.
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The Army's move is in reaction to Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre's policy memo released Sept. 17, which directed all military organizations that maintain Web sites to review and then remove sensitive information that could aid potential enemies of the United States. Hamre said some Web sites in the past have provided "too much detail on DOD capabilities, infrastructure and operational capabilities.'' Hamre said this new policy will help DOD to "strike a balance between openness and sound security.'' The Army, according to an internal message furnished to FCW, responded by directing all commanders to ensure that "all of their publicly accessible Web sites are immediately disconnected from the Internet.''
Lt. Gen. William Campbell, the Army's director of information systems for command, control, communications and computers, sent the message at 5 p.m. Friday. He added that the shutdown could be accomplished by physically disconnecting Web servers from the public
network, moving all Web site files from public to nonpublic servers or instituting control mechanisms that prohibit public access. The internal Army message also suggested that commands deal with frustrated users trying to access Army Web sites by posting a new "cover page'' (in use on many Army Web pages, including the main site at www.army.mil) that reads: "This Army Web site is not currently available. This Web site will be available again after maintenance is completed.''
The Web shutdown caught the public affairs staff at the Department of the Army's headquarters in the Pentagon by surprise. An Army spokesman was unable to offer any explanation for the move or any indication of when the sites would be operating again.
(Originally posted by Bob Margolis on another list.)
Russia Makes Powerful Flamethrower .c The Associated Press
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia has developed a jet-powered flamethrower with the power of a cannon that has greater range and is more accurate than earlier models, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported today. The Russian version is a major advance because it combines the jet with the flamethrower, ITAR-Tass said. An infantry weapon dating back to World War I, flamethrowers fire blasts of burning gasoline or other chemicals at targets. They are no longer widely used because they were cumbersome and had limited range. The new flamethrower, called the Bumble Bee, has an impact comparable to a 152 mm artillery shell and a range of up to 1,000 yards, ITAR-Tass said. It can be used in rugged countryside or city fighting where artillery would be difficult to employ.10/3/98
Obit Notice: Anthony Jones
Anthony Jones, who has died aged 82, was a gifted rocket scientist, appointed in 1944 by General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, to lead a team behind enemy lines and track down the sites from which the Germans were launching the V-2. The mission was of prime importance; the V-2 was inflicting devastating damage in Britain - not least on the morale of a population wearied by five years of war. Eisenhower insisted that Jones should work under his direct orders. A major in 1944, Tony Jones became the commanding officer of "X" Special AA radar battery, Royal Artillery. The task which he faced was formidable: the Germans had managed to reduce the time required for packing up and removing their launching equipment after firing the rockets from 25 to ten minutes.Nevertheless, Jones's unit succeeded in locating some of the launching sites. Radar was eventually strung in an arc through south-west Holland and across Belgium to a point midway between Liège and Namur. All sets were beamed to the crossing point, approximately where the rocket passed on its upward flight before falling in England. When picked up on the radar screen, the information was telephoned to a control room, and the launch point calculated by correlation and backtracking. After the war, the V-2s were removed from the Germans' slave-labour factory at Nordhausen to Cuxhaven, where Jones was able to reassemble them and achieve a successful launch. Anthony Mervyn Harold Jones was born at Pontypool on July 19 1916 and educated at Monmouth College. Fascinated from an early age by radio and electronics, he used to supplement his pocket money by fitting radios into motor cars. He left school at 15 to work at the Lanchester Institute of Electronics, then in 1937 moved to Philco Radio. The next year he enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment, from which he was subsequently transferred to the Royal Artillery.
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Philco equipped him to become, in 1940, one of the first Instructors of Fire Control, specialising in the use of radar to control anti-aircraft fire on the South Coast.Before the war Jones had developed a keen interest in amateur motor racing, and even during hostilities he managed to find opportunities to pursue his passion for cars. In Normandy, after the D-Day landings, he spotted a drunken American soldier with a badly shot-up BMW 327 German staff car. The soldier ran off as he approached, and Jones was able to take the car back to England. Always an admirer of German engineering, Jones used eggs to seal the bullet holes in the BMW's radiator, and subsequently spent £20 having the car restored at a garage in Cambridge. It was later used in the first scene of The Longest Day (1962), the film about D-Day.
Jones's wartime booty also included six German searchlight generator engines - adaptations of those used in the BMW 328 sports car. He sold them on to the Bristol Aircraft Company, where they proved of much assistance in helping the company to go into car production. In August 1945, Jones was able to sample the German autobahn, and proudly reported that he had averaged 75 mph over the 300 miles to Berlin. Once there he remarked upon the friendliness of the Berliners to the British. "For once our chaps have cut out the Yanks," he observed.
Jones left the Army in 1946 to work in radar development for A C Cossor Ltd under Leslie H Bedford, who helped to develop the Thunderbird anti-aircraft missile. The company also made televisions, and Jones found himself popular in his village when he succeeded in building a set from a modified radar screen. From 1956 to 1961 he was senior electronics engineer at Sperry Gyroscope, where he worked on the missile programme which resulted in Polaris, and the abandoning of the Anglo-American Skybolt.
In the 1960s, Jones worked as a guided weapons engineer for the British Aircraft Corporation. He developed a three-axis accelerometer which became the basis for the inertial guidance system used for the Blue Streak missile. When Blue Streak was scrapped, Jones found other uses for the missile's components, employing the titanium alloy fuel tanks as cattle troughs on his farm in Berkshire, and the inertial guidance system as a doorstop. In 1968, wearying of the low pay, he left BAC to start a gravel digging business on his farm, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Jones was always modest about his achievements, and seldom spoke of his wartime activities, least of all about having been mentioned in despatches. During the early 1950s, he rescued a drowning girl from the sea. A witness reported to a local newspaper: "She was clinging on to the end of the groyne. Just then another chap [Jones] dashed past and went into the water fully clothed. "He reached her first . . . He did all the real work. It took about 10 minutes." Afterwards Jones refused to give his name to the police or the press. Tony Jones always kept extremely fit. He enjoyed beagling, sailing and, in his youth, rugby. At 50 he took up skiing, and was still tearing down the ski slopes at 80. This summer he was camping and windsurfing in Cornwall. On the day he died he had bicycled 10 miles to collect spare parts for his MG sports car. Jones married, in 1940 (dissolved 1965), Diana Readdett-Bayley. He is survived by a son and two daughters.
TECHINT IN KOREA
I received the following information from COL K. R. Cunningham Chief, FOB-K/DIA, "Remarkably enough, my unit will participate in an aviation technical intelligence exercise next month with the ROK Defense Intelligence Command which still has a TECHINT Unit. We will exploit an F16 aircraft at Osan Air Base to role play a captured enemy plane. Should be interesting. TECHINT isn't dead here by a long shot."
T. I. B.Vol. 3 No. 5
September-October 1998
Page 10
With ion drive, blue glow makes it go
By DAVID BALLINGRUD © St. Petersburg Times, published October 17, 1998
In an early episode of the television series Star Trek, a mysterious woman materializes aboard the starship Enterprise and somehow absconds with the brain belonging to the ship's Vulcan first officer, Spock. The organ must be recovered, of course, so the crew of the Enterprise sets off in pursuit of a strange spacecraft powered by an ion propulsion system. Years later, when Luke Skywalker and pals battle the evil Darth Vader in Star Wars, the small fighter spacecraft used in battle are ion-powered, too. Since the 1950s, whenever science fiction writers have sought to conjure up images of exotic spacecraft, the imagined source of power often was an ion drive.
It was a logical choice. First, ion engines were grounded in good scientific theory, as is the best science fiction. In addition, an ion drive is quiet, smooth and supremely fuel-efficient. It even produces a dramatic blue glow as it ejects ionized atoms to produce thrust. This month, life once again will take a cue from art with the launching of NASA's Deep Space 1, the first ion-powered spacecraft. Liftoff from an Air Force launch pad at Cape Canaveral is scheduled for 8 a.m. Oct. 24, but NASA may move it to the following day.
In either case, the launch comes just days before the Oct. 29 space extravaganza involving 77-year-old John Glenn. NASA is hoping Glenn's flight aboard the space shuttle Discovery will give the nation's moribund space program a boost, and the popular Glenn may pull it off. While there's no fanfare attending the more modest Deep Space 1 mission, its achievements may be more long-lasting. Deep Space 1 is part of NASA's New Millennium Program, designed to work the bugs out of new technologies for space missions of the 21st century.
NASA is dependent on new technologies but wary of them, too. Not only can an equipment failure in deep space result in loss of the mission, but the cause might never be known. To this day, NASA scientists can only guess at what caused the sudden and permanent silence of the billion-dollar Mars Observer in 1993. NASA has been studying ion propulsion systems since the 1960s but accelerated the research in recent years as the agency began to emphasize smaller, less expensive robotic missions to explore deep space.
What's the attraction? Compared with a rocket motor, which provides a brief, violent surge of power, an ion engine is an elegant system, providing a steady, continuing accumulation of thrust that is maintained throughout flight. "Firing a rocket is kind of like hitting a car with a giant mallet to start it on a trip to San Francisco," said Jack Stocky, who manages the ion propulsion project for NASA. "Maybe you'll hit it a few more times along the way to correct its course."
With an ion engine, he said, "it's more like driving: . . . The engine operates smoothly the whole time." 'A ghostly blue exhaust' The sci-fi writers of the 1950s and '60s envisioned huge ion engines of vast power, but for now the reality is much different To begin with, an ion engine can
operate only in a vacuum, so Deep Space 1 will travel into space atop a conventional Delta II rocket. It will "park" in Earth orbit awhile, then receive a push into deep space from another conventional rocket, a Thiokol Star 37. Then the ion engine will fire, slowly adding its power to the momentum provided by the Star 37. Over the first year of the mission, the ion engine will add about 8,000 mph to the speed the spacecraft was traveling when it left Earth orbit.
Deep Space 1 will undergo tests on its way to an encounter next summer with an asteroid called 1992 KD. If the spacecraft is still healthy at that time, NASA plans to send it to explore a mysterious object known as Wilson-Harrington, which may be a comet. The primary purpose of the mission, though, is to test the ion engine and new navigational equipment.
T. I. B.Vol. 3 No. 5
September-October 1998
Page 11
Here's how an ion drive works: Electrons emitted by a cathode bombard xenon gas inside a chamber inside the engine. As an electron strikes an atom of xenon, it knocks away one of the 54 electrons orbiting the nucleus of each atom, leaving the atom with positive charge. Toward the rear of the engine, an electrostatically charged grid pulls these positively charged atoms, or ions, past it and out into space at extremely high speeds. The departing ions produce thrust -- but not very much. In fact, the thrust produced by the ion engine is barely detectable -- about one two-hundredth of a pound, or the weight of a piece of paper on a human hand. The force becomes meaningful, however, as it accumulates in the vacuum of space.
Stocky, head of NASA's ion program, explained the physics this way: Propulsion systems change the momentum of the spacecraft. A rocket provides a large push for a brief period and changes the momentum rapidly. "But you can get the same momentum change with low thrust for a longer period of time," he said. "The amount of force used is not meaningful." The big advantage of the ion engine, he said, is that it does its job using about one-tenth as much propellant as a comparable rocket engine. In turn, this means that smaller, less expensive spacecraft can be used, in keeping with NASA's new frugality. In fact, Stocky said, the next generation of ion engines may be smaller than the ones being built now, making possible tiny swift satellites that could make journeys too expensive to contemplate now. "We could get to some targets in half the time it would take us now," he said. In theory, ion engines could power some manned missions, too, but those much larger spacecraft would require much larger engines not now contemplated. As these things go, Deep Space 1 looks like a bargain. With development costs of $95-million, the mission has a total price tag of $152.3-million. A number of NASA's more grandiose space-traveling satellites have cost more than $1-billion. Deep Space 1 also will test new navigation and control systems, and a beacon designed to report on the spacecraft's overall health to controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The Sept issue of the "Retired Officer Magazine" has a very interesting article on the relationship between the CIA and the military. Mentions the role of the NIST. The NIST is the National Intelligence support Team. It is supposed to provide the on the ground commander with access to the the national intelligence assets. Sounds like a high priced version of the technical intelligence teams but a bit more comprehensive. The article was written by an employee of the C.I.A. so naturally is was a bit slanted toward the C.I.A.
For those of you with an interest in WW II radio equipment, Stan Tajima has just written an article on Japanese Ground receivers.In it he discusses the Mark 1, 2,3, and 4 radios. The "mark #" is the Chi 1,Chi 2, Chi 3, and Chi 4. Chi in Japanese means "Ground" and Chi represents those radios used on the ground. (TOBI is used to designate airborne radios) The article is in the latest issue of ELECTRIC RADIO Magazine.
The Russian submarine, the U 484, which was at the Bayboro Harbor in St. Petersburg, Florida has been moved to "The Pier" where it was supposed to go when it first arrived. If you get to this part of Florida this winter, stop and tour the submarine. Or stop and tour my museum and I will take you to the submarine.
British television is doing a six hour documentary on "Historical Espionage Technology" They will be here in November to film some of the Vietnam era sensors, that were used in the IGLOO WHITE program.. The series is due to air in January or February 1999. When I know more, I will pass it along to you.
T. I. B.Vol. 3 No. 5
September-October 1998
Page 12
I recently heard from Wick Tourison whose first book wa "Talking With Victor Charlie," released by Ivy Books seven years ago, the first and only book to describe interrogation in depth. It dealt with two years of his life, mid-sixty five to mid-sixty seven. It has been out of print since Ninety-two. His second was "Secret Army, Secret War" by the Naval Institute Press, released in Ninety-five. It came out in Ninety-seven in paperback by St. Martin's Press renamed "Project Alpha." It provides examples of the use of Vietnamese agent teams to emplant sensors along the HCM Trail inside the DRV in Sixty-seven.
Interrogated many signal types during the mid-sixties and there are lots of stories about this in his autobiography. He also dealt with this in Laos as the senior interrogation officer there and there are examples of what was done there in the Epilogue, such as the Chinese manufactured PT-Sixty-three, K-Fifty-nine, etc. His team handled the pick-up and shipment of tech intel materiel from Laos into Saigon during Seventy-one through mid-Seventy-four. He knew Major(LTC) Baker who headed CMEC in the mid-Sixties whom Maj. Gen. McChristian wrote about in the Army writing about intel in Vietnam during the mid-sixties. He also worked with Baker's former deputy and LTC Frank Meine when they were together in the OACSI planning group and Frank was looking at the future for foreign materiel exploitation with the exploitation center concept. His late neighbor, Major Norman Merrill, was the foreign materiel advisor to the RVNAF materiel exploitation center; Norman worked for Col. William LeGro, the last intel chief of MACV who became chief of the intelligence division under USDAO Saigon. So, although his experience was essentially HUMINT, he, like many others, brushed across the foreign materiel exploitation side of the house, as did many others from CMIC.
When I asked him about the sensor program, he said: "It's unfortunate that the air force general who set up and directed the sensor program is deceased; he died two years ago, or three years ago. I'm sure his deputy or senior staff is around, too bad you didn't get them to contribute, as they really set up the system. Also, you should have people from NKP where the sensors were monitored. Best regards, Wick Tourison". Does anybody know where these people are today?
OOPS! The Russian submarine that was being towed broke a tow cable and when the cable snapped it punched a hole in the submarines hull. The sub began taking on water and was riding to low to clear the reef between the dock and the pier so, they could not finish the tow to the pier. It was towed back to Bayboro Harbor. One wonders just how sturdy these Russian submarines are????.
This has been a long issue but hope that you found some of the topics interesting. Plkease try to find time to send me a note , phone call to let me kow you are still alive and what you are up to these days. If you are on the internet, send me an e-mail.
THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM
e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 727- 585-7756
This page last updated June 15, 2004
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