An ideal tool for naval ship boarding and platform operations, Swedish company ActSafe released the T1-16 tactical rope ascender at DSEI.

The waterproof unit can handle a dunking down to about 34 feet and has an uncomplicated rope threading process that can have a climber on his way up in 10 seconds. It runs up a dry or wet 10-13mm rope with a twist of the motorcycle throttle-like control at 6 feet per second with as much as 400 pounds clipped in.

Floating hundreds of feet below an oil platform or alongside a super tanker, the T1-16 offers a simple way for teams to board a structure without arriving topside out of breath after using manual ascenders or climbing ladders.

The battery is good for about 1000 feet per charge and recharges in about 30 minutes.

This is the first tactical model in the company’s 15 year history making industrial rope ascending systems.  This latest version combines major technological advances and is faster and tougher, offers better battery performance and better environmental sealing than their industrial models. All this improvement comes with a 12,000 Euro price tag. More information is available from www.actsafe-tactical.com.

Hearing protection on the battlefield has always been a compromise between situational awareness and effective sound attenuation. Bone conduction speakers and mics, frequency filtration, active noise reduction and occlusive enclosures have all been used with varying degrees of success.

The new system, called ITE (In The Ear), is made of three components; an in-the-ear stereo headset, a replacement Personal Role Radio (PRR) switch pack and the CTX triple input push-to-talk input. The earpieces are used with either the switch pack or the CTX module depending on which radio system you have at hand.

The headset looks like a pair of foam tipped, in-the-ear iPod headphones. The foam alone provides 29db of passive noise attenuation. But, inside each side is a set of microphones, facing fore and aft, that enables frequency-specific active noise reduction while passing safe sound levels of ambient noise to the wearer.

The combination of foam and electronics provide a cumulative noise reduction rating of up to 40db, depending on the frequency of the sound. The fore and aft facing earpiece mounted mics serve two purposes. First, they provide SA by passing through spatially accurate representations of surrounding noise so the wearer can tell where a sound came from. For this SA mode, the mics combine with digital signal processors (DSPs) encapsulated in either the replacement PRR switch pack or the CTX controller. Second, the mics use a form of bone conduction to relay the wearers voice into the attached radio without a boom mic.

Photo: Courtesy Selex

The PRR switch pack is modular and can be swapped out in the field with the twist of a few screws and is compatible with single or dual radio PRRs. The low power system has a negligible effect on the PRRs 24 hour battery life. A selector switch lets the wearer disable the SA system so no ambient sound is retransmitted through the earphones.

The second interface is the CTX. It allows the headset to be simultaneously connected to two separate radios and an intercom system. It also sports an auxiliary headset connector for use with a secondary head/handset and an internal backup battery to keep the SA system running when disconnected from the host radios.

Actual pricing depends on many factors but the ballpark is about 400 GBP for the ITE PRR switch pack upgrade kit and 650 GBPs for the ITE CTX triple interface kit. The system is available now from Selex Communication.

Chrysler has partnered with the Jankel Group to bring new tactical versions of the once iconic Jeep back to the battlefield. The Jeep J8, named because it’s the 8th version of the Wrangler, will soon be available only on the foreign and domestic military/government market.

“What the J8 is, really, is a tremendously capable and flexible platform for modifications,” Jack Robinson, Jeep Government & Military Sales General Manager says. “Our business model is to have Jankel, JGMS’s parent company, work with Jeep engineering to create a family of vehicles.”

The J8 is based on the commercially available Jeep Unlimited and has been extensively modified for military operations. The common, long-wheelbase, drivetrain is available in 12 configurations that include a three- or five-door light patrol vehicle variant, pickup truck variant, personnel carrier variant, armored variant, cargo variant and ambulance variant.

Chrysler began with the Jeep Unlimited gave it a VM Motori 2.8L, four-cylinder turbo diesel engine then reinforced the frame, added heavy-duty brakes, engine cooling and suspension systems, a upgraded axles and an enhanced air filtration system that is designed to keep the vehicle running for 5 hours in a desert sandstorm. Many of the upgrade parts came from the Dodge truck line.

Chrysler then turned to the military vehicle engineering specialists at Jankel Armour Holding in the UK to modify the vehicle further for use in military operations. The Brits designed 12 variants by adding roll-bars, tubular mounts for weapons and accessories, a weapon turret, a folding windshield, and light ballistic armor to the J8 base vehicle.

The conversions from base vehicle to each of the 10 other variants can be completed in an average of 25 man hours on the South Carolina factory floor and Jeep will offer modification packages for local assembly.

The base, 3-door vehicle is priced in the high $30,000’s.

US-based Atlantic Inertial Systems launched its new MinIM IMU, which is smaller than a one inch cube, at this year’s DSEi show in London. Built with solid state technology or with gyros, IMU’s measure distance and direction travelled and are vital when GPS measurements cannot be taken, perhaps because a soldier is inside a built up area. IMUs are also widely used in guided weapons.

The new MinIM, which is AIS’s smallest IMU yet, weighs 50g, rising to 200g with battery and electronics. “The IMU is shock resistant and has a patented algorythym which registers the impact of a footfall and calculates that the foot will stop moving momentarily at that moment,” said Ian Scaysbrook,the chief engineer of AIS’s U.K. operation. Interest in the idea will likely come from militaries who want to keep tracks on their soldiers, even when GPS is down, he added. “The Felin program in France for instance requires this for platoon commanders,” he said.

The MinIM is one quarter the size and weight of the firm’s established production IMUs. Apart from inside soldiers’ boots, AIS said it could find applications for the MinIM in guided munitions as they become smaller, as well as in UAVs. AIS’s IMOU2 is currently being used in the Raytheon Excalibur guided munition.

The Persides Chili combines three radios into an electronic support measures (ESM) system that fits in a backpack. With a frequency range from HF up to 3 GHz, the unit can listen, record, and locate the origin of raw transmissions from all manner of radios.

While this isn’t particularly new technology, the fact that it can be run out of a backpack brings great flexibility for such a portable SigInt/ESM kit. For example, since the Chili is a manpack, it circumvents airworthyness requirements when used in an aircraft. A portable system would be impaired by a huge direction finding antenna, so Persides designed a 12″ DF antenna that can be carried in the ruck along with the radio.

The system can be controlled from a laptop or a handheld controller depending on the mission mobility requirements. With a 22MHz wideband staring system, the unit can process thousands of signals simultaneously across a wide swath around the target frequency.

Persides was brave enough to display a prototype that is about three times the size of their planned production version. We noticed the Chili was in a customized, vented Karimore Predator rucksack and hope the $100,000 price tag includes the bag.

“Mexico will have received a few thousand ARX160 rifles by year end and will receive more next year,” the spokesman said at the DSEi 2009 show in London, without specifying the exact quantity ordered. The 5.56×45mm calibre, 3kg ARX160 was ordered by Albania in December 2008. One hundred rifles and 40 matching GLX160 grenade launchers have now been delivered to Albanian Special Forces.

“Albania will be using this rifle in Afghanistan,” said the spokesman, who added that a follow up order could be made by the Balkan nation.

The rifle was formally approved by the Italian Army in March, with a first order of 1,600 rifles set to be made by Italy by year end. Italy has already acquired the GLX160 grenade launcher. Company officials have said the rifle costs around 1,200 to 1,500 euros depending on accessories. Australia and Far East markets are now considered possible customers by the firm, which is offering possibilities for local production as an incentive.

The firm’s OH395 full bone conduction headset, which is connected to a push to talk radio, features two pads which perch at the top of the jawbone, just in front of the ear. The bone vibration caused by the wearer speaking is picked by the pads and transmitted as voice communication. The pad also turns incoming voice into vibrations which are picked up by the facial bone and registered as sound by the ear.

Elno’s export manager Jean-Jerome Ambrosini said the system allows wearers to use face masks and still communicate, and to wear earplugs yet still hear incoming communication. When not wearing earplugs, users can listen to radio communication while still focusing on ambient sound.

Bone conducting speaker technology is already on the market, but Ambrosini said Elno was the first company to combine the speaker with a microphone in one component. “Throat microphones are the same principle but we believe they are less effective at picking up the wearer’s voice than our product,” he said. “You also need an Adam’s Apple to use a throat mike, which rules out women.” Since the system works by transmitting and receiving vibrations, the headset will not work well in a vibrating environment such on board a tracked vehicle, said Ambrosini.

Elno has received an order for 22,000 headsets from Sagem as part of the French military’s Felin future soldier program. Five hundred prototypes have already been delivered and series production has begun. Sets are being sold at between 200 and 500 euros each depending on configuration. A contract has also been signed with the French police, while an order for the French special forces will come with traditional microphones. “The encryption technology they use in their radio was creating interference with our microphone,” said Ambrosini.