CEJAY CIRLS portable landing zone market system now runs on AAs or CR123s in the same housing. $80 for housing, $150 for the beacon light.

Keeping a basic trauma care kit under a rifle plate. Genius. Valkor can configure kits according to user requirements. The contents are kept dry in a one time use, heavy duty, poly bag. Valkor is distributing the blowout kit through W.S. Darley & Company.

The one-man Raider tent is only 2 pounds set up with the included MMI polymer tent stakes and two DAK Featherweight aluminum poles. Thats for a double wall tent with 88″ of internal length.

The low profile tent needs to be staked out, but setup is simple with one main hoop and a single pole section to hold up the foot end.

The tent should hit in late summer/early fall for about $250. Initially, the Raider will only come in coyote tan.

He said that he is interested in seeing small, portable equipment that will allow operators on the ground to rapidly collect DNA and identify latent fingerprints on site, and to have the ability to more effectively pull data off cell phones and computers and be able to analyze it while on an operation.

“We’re trying to find something that will help our guys on site analyze what they get off of cell phones,” he explained. “We need something to help the operator evaluate that very quickly, on site. And we’re looking for something that does a little better job at tracing explosives,” he said. The explosives tracing system that SOCOM is fielding right now “does ok with nitrates,” Fitz added, “but we’re looking to do chlorates and bromates and those types of things—we’re finding more and more of those, especially as we get in to Africa.”

Spectators watch a demonstration by a special operations marine assault team near the Tampa Convention Center during the Special Operations Forces (SOF) Industry Conference involving SOF delegates from 96 nations in Tampa, Fla., Wednesday, May 23, 2012. (AP Photo/The Tampa Bay Times, Daniel Wallace)

Since the crash “we’ve kind of been in a strategic pause,” Rombough said. “We’ve developed a lighter weight [DARPA developed] Forrester radar system which will give us even more time on station because of the amount of fuel we have to carry,” he added. The Forrester radar system is a forest penetrating device, and SOCOM lost one of them during the Belize crash. SOCOM is continuing to work on the program, but Rombough cautioned that “the aircraft continues to struggle with some technical issues, so we’re also looking at other platforms to install” the Forrester radar on, including the Army’s lighter-than-air airship, the Long Endurance Multi Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), which is being designed by Northrop Grumman. Essentially, Rombough said, SOCOM is looking for “any platform that can sit up for a long time and hover over a spot on the ground,” in order to give operators on the ground better situational awareness.

SOCOM is also actively seeking hostile fire indicators for its aircraft, and wants to connect them to existing sensors on the aircraft “to be able to pick up both small arms and rocket fire from the ground and present that to the pilots both visually and orally by clock position and the general distance,” Rombough said.

The command is also looking hard at fielding secure, real time video capabilities. Rombaugh said that the goal is to have “video being piped from a UAS into the [helicopter] cockpit and into the back end of the aircraft so the operators in the back can get situational awareness of may be going on at the objective area they’re going to.” In the end, high definition video is where “everything is going,” he said. “There’s a big push across all of SOCOM to go HD with everything.”

The Tactical Air Initiated Launch system will be renamed the Rapid Air Launch System based on the use of a new, in-line, spring loaded grappling assembly that replaces the TAIL’s sabot driven launch system with a shorter, more efficient hook. The new hook assembly increases the system’s range three times and reduces the length and weight of the launcher system.

The RAIL hook is chambered upside down in the bore of the air cannon and is launched with a tow line attached from the waterline and enables swimmers to assault large vessels such as tankers. The system is quieter than other systems that use powder based launchers and can be charged using compressed air from standard scuba tanks.

Though the system was originally envisioned for use in maritime operations, the RAIL system can be used in land based breaching operations on multi-story buildings.

Above, the new, bullet shaped spring actuated grappling assembly seen as it would be loaded in the air cannon.

Above, the original TAIL system with larger, sabot driven grappling assembly installed.

SUREFIRE’s Don Alexander explained the updates to the 556-RC suppressor came as engineering change proposals to the existing design as the company worked with end user after the contract award. Shown above are the 556-RC, right, and 762-RC suppressors.

The muzzle interface change does away with the pin and slot arrangement that could sometimes lead to a misaligned suppressor when the pin inside the suppressor indexed improperly on one of the open tines of a flash reducing muzzle device. The new system uses an alignment notch and tab that provides more positive engagement and simplifies the muzzle design since it’s ratcheting system is now entirely integrated into the suppressor itself. The older system relied on ratchet teeth that were cut into the end of the muzzle device.

The internals have also been optimized to further reduce muzzle flash. Suppressed carbines have a very small amount of muzzle flash, perhaps an inch or two that is barely visible as a dull flame to the naked eye. But, that small flash can still be observed, and is more noticeable when seen through image intensification optics. Alexander says the companies engineers reduced the amount of suppressor muzzle flash significantly while adding internal durability without affecting the original weight of the device.

Above, the new alignment slot that replaces the older index pin inside the can’s mouth.

Above, the new tab on SUREFIRE’s muzzle adapters that replaces the older u-shaped cutout.

Above, the wider camming cuff and new integrated ratchet teeth.

Called Fused Reality, the system consists simply of an upgradeable software package that contains a number of scenarios as well as a set of helmet-mounted goggles. Landon said that a trainee can sit in the co-pilot’s seat of an aircraft and view the control panel normally though the goggles, but when he looks out the window, the view will be one of the virtual training scenarios, allowing the training mission to be conducted anywhere. “It makes every aircraft a potential trainer,” he said. “You don’t need a simulator—every airplane becomes the simulator.”

The system uses DoD’s terrain database to develop landscapes, and it some of the training scenarios the company is demonstrating at SOFIC include a pallet drop from a CV-22 and an in-flight refueling mission. Since the inside of the aircraft is viewed normally, the system provides a 360-degree training experience. Landon also said that the system can be networked, so multiple users in different locations can run the same training exercise.

The company recently completed an in flight integration test with NASA and  Edwards Air Force base.

He said that North Korea has some 180 underground munitions facilities, at least 20 underground air bases, and that are four tunnels burrowed under the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. He’s confident that there are “more that we don’t know about.”

Since this is all hidden from satellites and “our ISR platforms are not as effective as we need them to be,” he continued, “we have to put humans there.” Tolley termed these missions “special reconnaissance” and to make them more effective he needs better communications, new and better stand-off intelligence gathering equipment, and smaller radios and sensors. “We need something a soldier can carry on his back,” he said. Since satellite communications are a problem in the region, he also said his forces need better high frequency radios that are “discrete in direction” when sending signals.