Analyzing helicopter evasive maneuver effectiveness against rocket-propelled grenades

It has long been acknowledged that military helicopters are vulnerable to ground-launched threats, in particular, the RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade. Current helicopter threat mitigation strategies rely on a combination of operational tactics and selectively placed armor plating, which can help to mitigate but not entirely remove the threat. However, in recent years, a number of active protection systems designed to protect land-based vehicles from rocket and missile fire have been developed. These systems all use a sensor suite to detect, track, and predict the threat trajectory, which is then employed in the computation of an intercept trajectory for a defensive kill mechanism. Although a complete active protection system in its current form is unsuitable for helicopters, in this paper, it is assumed that the active protection system’s track and threat trajectory prediction subsystem could be used offline as a tool to develop tactics and techniques to counter the threat from rocket-propelled grenade attacks. It is further proposed that such a maneuver can be found by solving a pursuit–evasion differential game. Because the first stage in solving this problem is developing the capability to evaluate the game, nonlinear dynamic and spatial models for a helicopter, RPG-7 round, and gunner, and evasion strategies were developed and integrated into a new simulation engine. Analysis of the results from representative vignettes demonstrates that the simulation yields the value of the engagement pursuit–evasion game. It is also shown that, in the majority of cases, survivability can be significantly improved by performing an appropriate evasive maneuver. Consequently, this simulation may be used as an important tool for both designing and evaluating evasive tactics and is the first step in designing a maneuver-based active protection system, leading to improved rotorcraft survivability

Post-Westgate SWAT : C4ISTAR Architectural Framework for Autonomous Network Integrated Multifaceted Warfighting Solutions Version 1.0 : A Peer-Reviewed Monograph

Police SWAT teams and Military Special Forces face mounting pressure and challenges from adversaries that can only be resolved by way of ever more sophisticated inputs into tactical operations. Lethal Autonomy provides constrained military/security forces with a viable option, but only if implementation has got proper empirically supported foundations. Autonomous weapon systems can be designed and developed to conduct ground, air and naval operations. This monograph offers some insights into the challenges of developing legal, reliable and ethical forms of autonomous weapons, that address the gap between Police or Law Enforcement and Military operations that is growing exponentially small. National adversaries are today in many instances hybrid threats, that manifest criminal and military traits, these often require deployment of hybrid-capability autonomous weapons imbued with the capability to taken on both Military and/or Security objectives. The Westgate Terrorist Attack of 21st September 2013 in the Westlands suburb of Nairobi, Kenya is a very clear manifestation of the hybrid combat scenario that required military response and police investigations against a fighting cell of the Somalia based globally networked Al Shabaab terrorist group.Comment: 52 pages, 6 Figures, over 40 references, reviewed by a reade

Optimizing Engagement Simulations Through the Advanced Framework for Simulation, Integration, and Modeling (AFSIM) Software

The ability to effectively model and simulate military missions holds the potential to save lives, money, and resources for the United States. The Advanced Framework for Simulation, Integration, and Modeling (AFSIM) software is a tool used to rapidly simulate and model new technologies and mission level scenarios. In this thesis, our objective is to integrate a closed loop optimization routine with AFSIM to identify an effective objective function to assess optimal inputs for engagement scenarios. Given the many factors which impact a mission level engagement, we developed a tool which interfaces with AFSIM to observe the effects from multiple inputs in an engagement scenario. Our tool operates under the assumption that simulation results have met an acceptable convergence threshold. The objective function evaluates the effectiveness and associated cost with a scenario using a genetic algorithm and a particle swarm optimization algorithm. From this, a statistical analysis was performed to assess risk from the distribution of effectiveness and cost at each point. The method allows an optimal set of inputs to be selected for a desired result from the selected engagement scenario.No embargoAcademic Major: Mechanical Engineerin

Gaming the heart of darkness

The history of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has been one of adaptation and change. The enduring story is based upon Conrad’s experiences in the Congo in the 1890s and has been published as a novella in 1902. Since then the story has been criticised for racism by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe (1975) and relocated to Vietnam by Francis Ford Coppola as Apocalypse Now (1979), influencing computer games such as Far Cry 2 (2008) and Spec Ops: The Line (2012). In examining the adaptations of Heart of Darkness we can consider how the story evolves from the passive reading of post-colonial narratives through to the active participation in morally ambiguous decisions and virtual war crimes through digital games: examining Conrad’s story as it has been adapted for other mediums provides a unique lens in which to view storytelling and retelling within the context of how we interpret the world. This paper compares the source material to its adaptations, considering the blending of historical fact and original fiction, the distortion of the original story for the purpose of creating new meaning, and reflects on whether interactivity impacts upon the feeling of immersion and sense of responsibility in audiences of different narratives

The Central Intelligence Agency’s armed Remotely Piloted Vehicle-supported counter-insurgency campaign in Pakistan – a mission undermined by unintended consequences?

This paper views America's 'drones-first' counter-insurgency effort in Pakistan through the lens of Merton's theory of the unintended consequences of purposive action. It also references Beck’s Risk Society thesis, America’s Revolution in Military Affairs doctrine, Toft’s theory of isomorphic learning, Langer’s theory of mindfulness, Highly Reliable Organisations theory and the social construction of technology (SCOT) argument. With reference to Merton’s theory, the CIA-directed armed Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) campaign has manifest functions, latent functions and latent dysfunctions. Measured against numbers of suspected insurgents killed, the campaign can be judged a success. Measured against the level of collateral damage or the state of US-Pakistan relations, the campaign can be judged a failure. Values determine the choice of metrics. Because RPV operations eliminate risk to American service personnel, and because this is popular with both US citizens and politicians, collateral damage (the killing of civilians) is not considered a policy-changing dysfunction. However, the latent dysfunctions of America's drones-first policy may be so great as to undermine that policy's intended manifest function – to make a net contribution to the War on Terror. In Vietnam the latent dysfunctions of Westmoreland’s attritional war undermined America’s policy of containment. Vietnam holds a lesson for the Obama administration.Publisher PD

Psychological, social and welfare interventions for psychological health and well-being of torture survivors

Background: Torture is widespread, with potentially broad and long-lasting impact across physical, psychological, social and other areas of life. Its complex and diverse effects interact with ethnicity, gender, and refugee experience. Health and welfare agencies offer varied rehabilitation services, from conventional mental health treatment to eclectic or needs-based interventions. This review is needed because relatively little outcome research has been done in this field, and no previous systematic review has been conducted. Resources are scarce, and the challenges of providing services can be considerable. Objectives: To assess beneficial and adverse effects of psychological, social and welfare interventions for torture survivors, and to comp are these effects with those reported by active and inactive controls. Search methods: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were identified through a search of PsycINFO, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINA HL), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTR AL) and the Cochrane Depression, Anxiety and Neurosis Specialise d Register (CCDANCTR), the Latin American and Caribbean Health Science Information Database (LILACS), the Open System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe (OpenSIGLE), the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP) and Published International Literature On Traumatic Stress (PILOTS) all years to 11 April 2013; searches of Cochrane resources, international trial registries and the main biomedical databases were updated on 20 June 2014. We also searched the On line Library of Dignity (Danish Institute against Torture), reference lists of reviews and included studies and the most frequently cited journals, up to April 2013 but not repeated for 2014. Investigators were contacted to provide updates or details as necessary. Selection criteria: Full publications of RCTs or quasi-RCTs of psychological, social or welfare interventions for survivors of torture against any active or inactive comparison condition. Data collection and analysis: We included all major sources of grey literature in our search and used standard methodological procedures as expected by The Cochrane Collaboration for collecting data, evaluating risk of bias and using GRADE (Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) methods to assess the quality of evidence. Main results: Nine RCTs were included in this review. All were of psychological interventions; none provided social or welfare interventions. The nine trials provided data for 507 adults; none involved children or adolescents. Eight of the nine studies described individual treatment, and one discussed group treatment. Six trials were conducted in Europe, and three in different African countries. Most people were refugees in their thirties and forties; most met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the outset. Four trials used narrative exposure therapy (NET), one cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT ) and the other four used mixed methods for trauma symptoms, one of which included reconciliation methods. Five interventions were compared with active controls, such as psychoeducation; four used treatment as usual or waiting list/no treatment; we analysed all control conditions together. Duration of therapy varied from one hour to longer than 20 hours with a median of around 12 to 15 hours. All trials reported effects on distress and on PTSD, and two reported on quality of life. Five studies followed up participants for at least six months. No immediate benefits of psychological therapy were noted in comparison with controls in terms of our primary outcome of distress (usually depression), nor for PTSD symptoms, PTSD caseness, or quality of life. At six-month follow-up, three NET and one CBT study (86 participants) showed moderate effect sizes for intervention over control in reduction of distress (standardised me an difference (SMD) -0.63, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.07 to -0.19) and of PTSD symptoms (SMD -0.52, 95% CI -0.97 to -0.07). However, the quality of evidence was very low, and risk of bias resulted from researcher/therapist allegiance to treatment methods, effects of uncertain asylum status of some people and real-time non-standardised translation of assessment measures. No measures of adverse events were described, nor of participation, social functioning, quantity of social or family relationships, proxy measures by third parties or satisfaction with treatment. Too few studies were identified for review authors to attempt sensitivity analyses. Authors’ conclusions: Very low-quality evidence suggests no differences between psychological therapies and controls in terms of immediate effects on post- traumatic symptoms, distress or quality of life; however, NET and CBT were found to confer moderate benefits in reducing dis tress and PTSD symptoms over the medium term (six months after treatment). Evidence was of very low quality, mainly because non- standardised assessment methods using interpreters were applied, and sample sizes were very small. Most eligible trials also revealed medium to high risk of bias. Further, attention to the cultural appropriateness of interventions or to their psychometric qualities was inadequate, and assessment measures used were unsuitable. As such, these findings should be interpreted with caution. No data were available on whether symptom reduction enabled improvements in quality of life, participation in community life, or in social and family relationships in the medium term. Details of adverse events and treatment satisfaction were not available immediately after treatment nor in the medium term. Future research should aim to address these gaps in the evidence and should include larger sample sizes when possible. Problems of torture survivors need to be defined far more broadly than by PTSD symptoms, and re cognition given to the contextual influences of being a torture survivor, including as an asylum seeker or refugee, on psychological and social health