Long Range Recon Patrol LRRP, Vietnam War

North Korea upgrades jamming devices:report

North Korea is upgrading jamming devices to disrupt South Korean military communications, Yonhap news agency said, citing a defence ministry report.

The communist state has some 20 types of jamming devices mostly imported from Russia and it has been developing a new device with a range of more than 100 kilometres (60 miles), the South Korean news agency said on Tuesday.

Yonhap cited a defence ministry report to the parliamentary defence committee. The ministry declined to comment, saying the report was confidential.

North Korea is known to have deployed jamming devices to the heavily-fortified border that are capable of disrupting Global Positioning System (GPS) signals within 50 to 100 kilometres, it said.

The North is thought to have been responsible for the intermittent failure of GPS receivers on naval and civilian craft along the west coast in August 2010.

South Korea's then-defence minister Kim Tae-Young said at the time that the devices could disrupt guided weapons and posed "a fresh security threat" to Seoul.

South Korea Developing Anti-Ship Missiles:Report

The South Korean military is developing anti-ship cruise missiles, a news report said Wednesday, after sea trials of China's first aircraft carrier sparked regional security concerns.

Development of the supersonic missiles is expected to be complete in three or four years, Seoul's Chosun Ilbo daily said.

"Fully-fledged research on the development of supersonic anti-ship missiles has been underway at the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) for years," the newspaper quoted an unidentified South Korean government source as saying.

"The supersonic anti-ship cruise missile is aimed at defending the country against naval threats from other countries in the region rather than North Korea."

Both ADD and Seoul's Defense Acquisition Program Administration declined to comment.

Army integrates technologies during NIE exercise

The Army is beginning to harness some initial lessons learned from its recent Network Integration Evaluation this past June/July at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

Scores of technologies were assessed at Network Integration Evaluation, or NIE, and integrated in realistic combat-like scenarios in order to evaluate their potential military utility as part of a battlefield communications network, service officials said.

Initial indications are that much was learned about the Army's ability to integrate a host of emerging technologies into a single coherent network architecture, said Col. John Wendel, deputy program executive officer, Network Integration.

"The integration is a tremendous accomplishment. There is a lot of value added by integrating 35 SUTs [Systems Under Test] and SUEs [Systems Under Evaluation] in a true systems of systems environment that spanned 285 by 50 kilometers and included rugged, strenuous terrain. When you bring everything together simultaneously, you end up with the best solution for the network and for the Soldier," Wendel said.

Navy Tests LCS Minesweeping System

The Navy announced the successful completion of shore-based and at-sea integrated system tests on the prototype Unmanned Influence Sweep System, July 20, at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Panama City Division, in Panama City, Fla.

Designed for the LCS as part of the mine countermeasures mission package, the system provides unmanned mine sweeping capability that keeps warfighters out of the mine field. The system consists of an unmanned surface craft that carries and tows the minesweeping payload.

The test, known as Phase 1 Sweep Operational Checkout, consisted of confirming that the new sweep system can be deployed and retrieved from a surface craft and that it tows properly. The test was the first use of the prototype Sweep Power Subsystem which includes magnetic and acoustic sweep systems. The first phase of testing was completed on July 1. Phase II is currently ongoing.