SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. Our most popular blogs on MilitaryEmbedded.com from 2020 covered topics by guest bloggers from VITA, Crystal Group, Winmate, Curtiss-Wright, and Advantech on subjects such as 6G -stealth fighter planes, hardware security trust, UFOs, rugged tablets, tensors, unmanned fighter jets, small form factors, the kill web and more. Check them out below.

WARFARE EVOLUTION BLOG. Back in 1991, U.S. and coalition forces decimated the Iraqi Army in 42 days during Operation Desert Storm. At the time, Iraq had the world’s fifth largest army. Can we do better than 42 days in the future? Yes, with the help of cloud computing and a supercomputer.

WARFARE EVOLUTION BLOG: DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) officials announced the concept of the Kill Web at the C4ISRNET Conference in May 2018. Throughout the history of war, many elements of the Kill Web were being developed independently, but the dots were not connected until Admiral William Owens wrote a paper about a “system of systems”. He proposed integrating command-and-control, the intelligence from the sensors, and the weapons together in the mid 1990s. He also coined the acronym ISR (for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance).

VITA, September 15, 2020 — VITA, the trade association for standard computing architectures serving critical and intelligent embedded computing systems markets, announces the ratification by ANSI and VITA of the ANSI/VITA 62.2-2020 Modular Power Supply Standard for 270v Applications. This standard provides requirements for building a 270 volt/3U or 6U class power supply module that can be used to power a VPX chassis in the VITA 62 family of standards in high altitude applications. The module will fit within the standard envelope defined for VPX modules in the VITA 48.0 standards.

WARFARE EVOLUTION BLOG. In late 2013, Combat Aircraft Monthly magazine published an article about the Iranian military’s encounters with UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects). The article states that in November 2004 and again in January 2012, the Iranian Air Force scrambled their fighter planes to intercept unidentified aircraft flying over their secret nuclear facilities. The pilots reported that the invading aircraft were spherical, emitted a greenish light, executed maneuvers that defied the laws of physics, disabled the electronic systems onboard their fighter planes, and flew away at MACH 10 (7672 MPH). Iranian authorities insisted that these unidentified aircraft were advanced-technology reconnaissance drones flown by America’s CIA. This incident, among many others, demands that we explore UFOs and how they fit in the kill web.

WARFARE EVOLUTION BLOG. Unmanned autonomous fighter planes are the most interesting elements in the advanced kill web, even more intriguing than the manned super-stealthy 6G fighter planes we discussed in previous articles. UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles) have the potential to render our enemy’s A2/AD (anti-access/area-denial) strategies completely obsolete. These platforms appear under different names: Loyal Wingman, ATC (Airpower Teaming System), Dark Sword, Taranis, Remote Carriers, nEUROn, and Sidekicks. To understand how they enhance the kill web, we need to look at their specifications and their missions.