Small Arms
It is with great interest that I read your
“Industry Shooting for Army’s First New Rifle in Half Century” in the March 2013 issue of National Defense (p. 20). Unfortunately, I did not find any mention of the Beretta ARX160 platform, one of the six contenders in the Army individual carbine trials. Beretta has been participating since the industry day, has successfully passed Phase I and has submitted Phase II documentation. To our knowledge, the Army has not yet down selected to three vendors, and we are still in the running.
I am concerned that you may have information that we do not. Did the Army specifically tell you that the five companies you listed are in and that we are not? Obviously, if you have no contradictory information, I would like to set the record straight. I believe this is the second time we have been omitted in a National Defense article on the individual carbine program.
Gabriele de Plano
Vice President of Military Marketing & Sales
Beretta USA Corp.
Accokeek, MD
The More Things ChangeI just finished reading the excellent article from August 2012,
“Security Firms Divided Over How to Succeed in the Anti-Piracy Business,” (p. 20). Interestingly, most of the solutions mentioned in the article are essentially those used in the 17th and early 19th centuries to counter piracy. Technology seems to be largely absent from anti-piracy systems with the exception of individual items requiring a human operator. Further, the essence of the problem — identifying potential pirates among the normal traffic — has been neglected.
Working with the Applied Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, my company WatchStander LLC has developed an automatic system to detect, identify and apply countermeasures to pirate craft. We have conducted a successful trial on the water and are in the process of a full-up at-sea demo.
David Rigsby
President
WatchStander LLC