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Brigantes Presents – Brigantes Issue Essentials

Wednesday, February 12th, 2020

Each week we bring you products that should be on all military standard issue kit lists. This week it’s the Snigel 90L backpack system

Snigeldesign started their first backpacks back in 1977 and was directly aimed at military use.

Rough terrain and hard work required the most reliable and functional of solutions which naturally attracted the military user. Since those humble beginnings Snigeldesign has expanded to bring its innovative and functional approach to a large range of load carriage and protective products.

The 90 Litre Backpack is designed for the needs of forward elements and light role forces out in advance of the main body of troops. It offers a huge range of options and flexible ways to carry all the mission essential equipment. The back system provides an ultra-comfortable way to carry large loads for long patrols enabling the user to get where they need to be without compromise and fit to fight.

Enhancements from earlier versions of the 90L backpack:

• The outer pockets are fitted with a zipper instead of a hole band / buckle. Easier and faster to take off and to put them back.

• The hip belt is sewn with edge bands so it keeps the shape better.

• Fixed strap for side stabilization of the hip belt does not get lost and does not break as the rubber cord did.

• Change to a stronger 10 mm zipper from 8 mm

• The openings on the inside compartment in the lid are now both accessible when opening the lid. It is easier to access now

• A hole band at the back of the lid for attaching duffel straps, when the lid is to be used as a small backpack

For more information contact: interantaional@brigantes.com

Or for UK sales: warrior@brigantes.com

Posted in Guest Post, International, Packs | 4 Comments »

SureFire Field Notes Ep 54: Injured Shooter Carbine with Will Petty

Wednesday, February 12th, 2020

In this episode, Will Petty of Centrifuge Training LLC discusses techniques for injured shooters while running a carbine.

William Petty began his Law Enforcement career in 2003 in Albuquerque, NM. While there he served as a Firearms Instructor, an Emergency Response Team member and was also a member of the department’s shooting team. In 2011, Petty relocated to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates where he worked as a Counter Terrorism Instructor with the Critical National Infrastructure Authority. In 2013 (to present) he returned to the U.S. and resumed law enforcement with his department in Texas. While there he worked patrol and ran the firearms programs for several large regional Police academies. He has and continues to run contract courses establishing various programs and in-service material for major local, state and federal departments in the US and Canada.

centrifugetraining.com

www.surefire.com

Posted in Advertiser, Guest Post, Training | 5 Comments »

10th Mountain Soldiers Test New Cold Weather Gear

Monday, February 10th, 2020

This article from the 10th Mountain Division discusses the testing of new Army cold weather clothing systems. It’s important to note that CTAPS is a material and not a design program. Natick has been evaluating different materials from industry but has specified the cut of the clothing components. In the lab, the Army’s effort is called Regionally Aligned Combat Ensemble – Arctic or RACE-A. After the article we’ve included Army Future Command slides depicting cold weather clothing evaluated over the past few years along with what’s next.

A select number of 10th Mountain Division (LI) Soldiers received new, prototype cold-weather gear at Fort Drum, N.Y. Jan. 23, 2020. Soldiers testing the gear will provide feedback on the durability, dexterity, tactility, ability to stay dry, and drying time so that any necessary improvements can be made.

Among the gear issued were six different variants of Cold Weather Glove Systems, new cold weather boots, three variants of cold-weather over boots, a cold weather sock system, as well as a canteen and canteen cup with two different designs for a canteen holder.

The different glove systems were briefly tested when issued to see if Soldiers could properly load and fire a simulated round and apply a tourniquet to a simulated casualty in a timely fashion. Soldiers were instructed to wear the gloves outdoors as much as possible for the evaluation team to get an accurate program of record for the Cold Weather Glove Systems.

A few Soldiers also received the prototype Cold Temperature and Arctic Protection System, or CTAPS for short. CTAPS is an innovative multi-layer system that aims to keep Soldiers warmer in cold weather environments, spanning from 45 degrees Fahrenheit to -65 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Overall, everybody has liked what they’ve seen so far,” said Kate Young, a textile technologist with the Soldier and Clothing Configuration Management Team.

The next step is for the Soldiers to test CTAPS during training to get feedback from them after they’ve used the gear for a while, Young said.

CTAPS is designed to be lighter weight, more durable, and more comfortable for Soldiers. The system features a longer jacket and more high-waisted trousers to keep Soldiers warmer while moving and to aid in the ease of their movement. They also have no-melt no-drip next-to-skin layers to prevent skin injury in the event of a fire, and moisture management throughout all layers. CTAPS is intended to be more functional and an improvement over the Extended Cold Weather Clothing System (ECWCS).

“I feel that it’s sensible,” said Staff Sgt. John Philadelphia, one of the Soldiers who received CTAPS. “I feel comfortable, and I feel confident in it.”

By PFC Anastasia Rakowsky

Slides:

Information on new Cold Weather Canteen

Posted in Guest Post, Mountaineering | 5 Comments »

SCUBAPRO SUNDAY – APNEA Snorkel

Sunday, February 9th, 2020

There are two schools of thought when it comes to carrying a snorkel when you dive in the civilian world, and I guess in the military world also. It is to carry or not carry a snorkel. You are taught to have one to save air when you are close to the surface for whatever reason so you can use it and not the air in your tank. When I first started diving in the teams, you had to have a snorkel on us. We would get issues a cheap old school “J” type one with the big orange stickers on it you had to peel off and then you would have to cut a couple of inches off of it and keep with you in case you had to work around piers or whatever so you could save O2. Well, I never used it and stopped carrying it as soon as I could. But that doesn’t mean I would have never used it or could have; I choose not to have it.

Like everything else in the world, technology is growing and growing. Once a problem is fixed, companies move onto the next one. So, the issues associated with the old “J” snorkel have been fixed; that is not to say that companies still do not make them have them; they are still around. But now there are all kinds of snorkels out there. There are several different types of snorkels Classic (J type), Simi-dry, Dry, and Flexible, to name a few.

So why carry a snorkel? A snorkel helps on the surface when you are in rough water. You can keep your head in the water and not drink as much seawater when you are just floating waiting to be extracted. It is also useful when you are working in the water waiting for a helo pick up, and you are under its rotor wash, or when you are doing a K duck or a swamp duck. It is also helpful to have when you jumped into the water, and you have to undo some of your parachute lines that might be tanged in your fins or whatever. It makes it easier to breathe on the surface without lifting your head out of the water if you have to swim to a boat or shore for some reason.

Diving in the military is different than as a civilian as you would never leave your snorkel hanging on your mask during a dive. This is why we would cut it down a little so that we could tuck it away or you would hang it off the bottom of your LAR V with heavy rubber bands. But with today’s technology, most companies have one that you can roll-up. For SCUBAPRO, it is the Apnea Snorkel, it was launched in 2015 for Apnea divers and won the SCUBALAB’s 2015 best buy.

The SCUBAPRO Apnea Snorkel is a foldable freediving snorkel design. Made from a soft and flexible non-toxic silicone, SCUBAPRO Apnea Snorkel easily attaches to your mask strap when being used. When not needed, it can be rolled up and stowed away in a pocket. When it’s time to do some more stuff on the surface, it pops right back into shape. The Apnea’s upper barrel can be removed if you prefer to use a shorter pipe. Without question, this is an easy-to-use and very versatile surface breather. Functional yet straightforward traditional “J” Snorkel design. No valves that can leak. Snorkel is specifically for spearfishing and free diving. The contoured shape of the silicone mouthpiece and the air tube has been ergonomically designed to follow the profile of the spear fisherman’s face to reduce its visibility significantly during the dive. This flexibility is also advantageous when around piers or rocks.

Posted in Advertiser, Guest Post, Maritime | 1 Comment »

Army Develops Big Data Approach to Neuroscience

Sunday, February 9th, 2020

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — A big data approach to neuroscience promises to significantly improve our understanding of the relationship between brain activity and performance.

To date, there have been relatively few attempts to use a big-data approach within the emerging field of neurotechnology. In this field, the few attempts at meta-analysis (analysis across multiple studies) combine only the results from individual studies rather than the raw data. A new study is one of the first to combine data across a diverse set of experiments to identify patterns of brain activity that are common across tasks and people.

The Army in particular is interested in how the cognitive state of Soldiers can affect their performance during a mission. If you can understand the brain, you can predict and even enhance cognitive performance.

Researchers from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory teamed with the University of Texas at San Antonio and Intheon Labs to develop a first-of-its-kind mega-analysis of brain imaging data–in this case electroencephalography, or EEG.

In the two-part paper, they aggregate the raw data from 17 individual studies, collected at six different locations, into a single analytical framework, with their findings published in a series of two papers in the journal NeuroImage. The individual studies included in this analysis encompass a diverse set of tasks such simulated driving and visual search.

“The vast majority of human neuroscientific studies use a very small number of participants employed in very specific tasks,” said Dr. Jonathan Touryan, an Army scientist and co-author of the paper. “This limits how well the results from any single study can be generalized to a broader population and a larger range of activities.”

Mega-analysis of EEG is extremely challenging due to the many types of hardware systems (properties and configuration of the electrodes), the diversity of tasks, how different datasets are annotated, and the intrinsic variability between individuals and within an individual over time, Touryan said.

These sources of variability make it difficult to find robust relationships between brain and behavior. Mega-analysis seeks to address this by aggregating large, heterogeneous datasets to identify universal features that link neural activity, cognitive state and task performance.

Next-generation neurotechnologies will require a thorough understanding of this relationship in order to mitigate deficits or augment performance of human operators. Ultimately, these neurotechnologies will enable autonomous systems to better understand the Soldier and facilitate communications within multi-domain operations, he said.

To combine the raw data from the collection of studies, the researchers developed Hierarchical Event Descriptors (HED tags) — a novel labeling ontology that captures the wide range of experimental events encountered in diverse datasets. This HED tag system was recently adopted into the Brain Imaging Data Structure international standard, one of the most common formats for organizing and analyzing brain data, Touryan said.

The research team also developed a fully automated processing pipeline to perform large-scale analysis of their high-dimensional time-series data–amounting to more than 1,000 recording sessions.

Much of this data was collected over the last 10 years through the U.S. Army’s Cognition and Neuroergonomics Collaborative Technology Alliance and is now available in an online repository for the scientific community (see Related Links below). The U.S. Army continues to use this data to develop human-autonomy adaptive systems for both the Next Generation Combat Vehicle and Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Teams.

By U.S. Army CCDC Army Research Laboratory Public Affairs

Posted in Guest Post, Medical | Comments Off on Army Develops Big Data Approach to Neuroscience

Special Tactics Operators Simulate First-Ever Extreme Cold Weather FARP with Next Generation Fighters

Friday, February 7th, 2020

HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. — If an aircraft is behind enemy lines and running low on fuel, a forward area refueling point may be necessary to refuel that aircraft and carry out the mission.

Behind those enemy lines, Special Tactics Airmen are relied on to survey the area of interest to ensure the aircraft can land and be refueled. Special Tactics teams can assess, open, and control major airfields to clandestine dirt strips in either permissive or hostile locations, providing strategic access for our nation’s military.

For the first time, aircrew with the 27th Special Operations Wing, Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, along with a team of Special Tactics Airmen carried out a simulated FARP for F-22 Raptors assigned to Pacific Air Forces’ 3rd Wing in an extreme cold weather environment during Emerald Warrior at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, January 21- 31.

“The ability to refuel aircraft at forward airfields and in austere environments is a critical element of Agile Combat Employment,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Robert Davis, commander of the 3rd Wing, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. “Practicing this capability with Special Tactics operators enhances our interoperability with the special operations community and increases our ability to generate combat power in a contested environment. Special Tactics operators are uniquely suited to seize and control airfields, and demonstrating our ability to conduct forward area refueling in challenging arctic conditions takes ACE to new heights.”

The ACE concept provides special operations forces an opportunity to produce lethality with a smaller footprint.

“Bringing together [Air Force Special Operations Command] and the [Conventional Air Force] capitalizes on the rapid planning cycle and precision lethality of Special Tactics in combination with the overwhelming firepower of the CAF,” said a Special Tactics officer and one of the leads for the exercise. “We are able to break open opportunities not afforded to aircraft, like the F-22, in a major combat operation when we rapidly seize an airfield and utilize it to rearm and refuel air dominance assets to keep them in the fight.”

The training familiarized Special Tactics operators with the Air Force’s fifth-generation aircraft, providing unmatched lethality and adaptability to the warfighter.

“F-22s and F-35s were designed to compete and win against advanced adversaries,” said a Special Tactics officer. “Working with the newest and most advanced fighters in the Air Force provides [Special Tactics] the opportunity to maintain technological edge and develop the tactics, techniques and procedures needed in order to leverage their full capabilities.”

During this exercise, Special Tactics operators integrated with an MC-130J Commando II and F-22 Raptors. The airfield was surveyed, secured and operated by an ST team while the C-130 crew refueled the fighters.

The environment allowed ST teams to train on how to best prepare and pack for an extreme cold weather mission as well as perform certain tasks with decreased dexterity.

“This year’s location pushed our limits on sustainability in a major combat operation and provided an opportunity to refine and rewrite TTPs for a challenging operational environment,” the STO said.

Emerald Warrior is a U.S. Special Operations Command directed exercise focusing on irregular warfare in a joint, NATO combined realistic environment. This training hones special operations forces’ air and ground combat skills and the development of improved tactics, techniques and procedures, while strengthening relationships for future deployments.

For Special Tactics, Emerald Warrior is a way to execute and demonstrate a range of skills while integrating the capabilities of joint assets and allies, maintaining an edge over the nation’s adversaries.

“The team was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the professionals in the F-22 and MC-130 community,” the STO said. “We experienced incredible motivation and creative problem solving to push this program forward.”

Special Tactics is U.S. Special Operations Command’s tactical air and ground integration force, and the Air Force’s special operations ground force, leading global access, precision strike, personnel recovery and battlefield surgery operations.

Story by: Senior Airman Rachel Williams, 24th Special Operations Wing Public Affairs

Photos by: Staff Sgt. Ridge Shan

Posted in AFSW, Air Force, Guest Post | 3 Comments »

FirstSpear Friday Focus – Final Flannel Re-Stock

Friday, February 7th, 2020

FirstSpear has announced the final re-stock in the super heavy Stratton Flannel including a throw back to a few popular colors from last season. Available in the extra thick 9oz and lightweight 4oz weight. Features two oversized chest pockets with button closure. Machine-washable and 100% made in the USA.

Don’t miss out this is the final run for these colors and won’t be restocked until next season.

www.first-spear.com/stratton-flannel-7386

Posted in Advertiser, Clothing, FS Friday Focus, Guest Post | 2 Comments »

Soldier Helps Pave the Way in Army’s First Tabletop Wargame Team

Wednesday, February 5th, 2020

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — When 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives (CBRNE) Command Headquarters and Headquarters Company commander, Capt. Ivan Cho, first started playing tabletop wargames in eighth grade, he never would have thought he’d be playing his favorite games while wearing the Army logo.

Cho, and three other Army active duty and reserve Soldiers, did just this as the U.S. Army eSports’ Warhammer 40,000 Team at the Las Vegas Open on January 24, 2020, which hosts the largest Warhammer 40,000 Tournament in the world.

“It really opens up avenues for civilians and other parties to see that the United States Army has opportunities within it if you are willing to branch out and try new things,” said Cho.

The U.S. Army eSports Team is a competition team of the U.S. Army and pulls its members from the Regular Army and Army Reserves. The Team has various sub-teams that fall under the Army eSports Team, including the Army eSports Warhammer 40,000 Team. Members play competitive Warhammer 40,000, a tabletop wargame where players enact battle by using miniature models of warriors and combat equipment on top of the layout of a battlefield.

“For a lot of veterans, Warhammer 40,000 is considered great for morale and therapeutic because of the vast hobby aspects that come with it including building the miniatures, painting them, then being able to compete against other players and hobbyists,” said Cho.

Cho and his teammates competed against over 750 players and played more than six rounds of games. Each round was roughly two and a half hours long, totaling about 15 hours of gaming over the course of two days. All four team members made the top 25 percent of players, competing with some of the best players in the world.

“I think it will have a lot of benefits for future Army players to know they have the backing of the United States Army to play and compete in a hobby they love to do,” said Cho.

The Army eSports Warhammer 40,000 Team consists of six active members from across the Nation: Capt. Red Powell of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Capt. Ivan Cho, Capt. Matthew Talley of U.S. Army Forces Command, Master Sgt. Justin Pizzoferrato of the U.S. Army Cadet Command, Staff Sgt. Shane Watts of Defense Information Systems Agency, and Staff Sgt. Jason Rider of 1st Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.

“At this time, we are in the works for opening up more slots on the active team and create a second team to encourage more growth in the Warhammer 40,000 community as well as show the rest of the world that you can be a Soldier and still do your normal hobbies,” said Cho.

By Rebecca Nappi, 20th CBRNE

Posted in Guest Post, Profession of Arms | 13 Comments »