Archive for the 'Military' Category

Sci-fi Becomes Sci-fact: Autonomous Swarm Boats

Tuesday, October 7th, 2014

ShipAutomated combat systems have long held a place in science fiction. Warfare turns into battles between machines, some directly controlled by human beings and some completely autonomous. We’ve all heard about the airplane drones that are seeing significant use in recent conflicts, but here’s something quite different. The US Navy is testing autonomous swarm boats. They’re small, unmanned boats that sense the environment and work together to achieve their objective. That may be to protect a particular ship, attack a target, etc. It’s quite interesting. Note, however, that the Navy doesn’t allow the swarm boats to utilize their weapons unless there is a human being on board. The linked video explains in more detail.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via Kim Komando)

Sci-fi Becomes Sci-fact: Railguns and Laser Weapons

Wednesday, February 19th, 2014

ExplosionThe US Navy will be deploying a laser weapon system later this year, a la Star Wars, and has plans to deploy a railgun within the next two years. Railgun systems have been available in laboratory settings for a while now, and the real challenge has been meeting their huge power requirements on a seagoing vessel—the ship hosting the railgun, for example, will be able to generate 78 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a medium-sized city.

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/…
(via Kim Komando)

Flying the SR-71 Blackbird

Friday, February 1st, 2013

AirplaneThe linked article is a firsthand account by Air Force pilot Brian Shul of what it’s like to fly an SR-71 in combat conditions—in his case, over Libya in 1986. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the SR-71 is the fastest plane ever built, reaching speeds well above Mach 3. Shul also provides some background information on the plane, which was retired in 1989 (then reactivated in a limited capacity and retired again in 1998).

Thanks to Mike Primm for this link.

Link: http://gizmodo.com/…

One Fighter Jet To Rule Them All: The F-35

Monday, July 30th, 2012

AirplaneThe linked article is a glowing review of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. If the plane lives up to all the praise being heaped on it, we’ll have the fighter jet equivalent of a grand slam home run. It’s something of a technological marvel.

Link: http://dailycaller.com/…

Putting Math to Work Estimating WWII Tank Production

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

TankDuring World War II, it was important for the allies to be able to estimate German tank production. The Germans made this task easier by using a simple range of serial numbers that began with “1” and were incremented by one for each new tank. Thus the allies could read the numbers off captured/destroyed tanks and use statistics to estimate the total number of tanks produced. After the war, when the production records were available to the allies, they found that the predicted number was nearly identical to the actual value, and that the estimate from traditional intelligence sources was off by a factor of five.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/…
(via Neatorama)

High Technology in Modern Navy Vessels

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Navy ShipCNET News has a trio of articles on the cutting-edge technology being used on the latest generation of US Navy ships. There’s the DDG 1000 destroyer (slated for deployment in 2015), the upcoming CVN-78 aircraft carrier (USS Gerald R. Ford, to be completed in 2013 and deployed in 2015), and the Virginia class submarine (USS North Carolina, already in service). Each article has an associated photo gallery that’s interesting in its own right.

(via The Daily Caller)

Iraq Combat Video

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

MilitaryFor those of us who haven’t been involved in warfare, the video in the linked article shows details of an actual combat operation in Iraq. Note that although the video is heavily slanted toward a certain point of view, Chad’s News has no opinion on the matter and is only posting this link because it gives insight into a world hidden from most people.

Link: http://collateralmurder.com/
(via Slashdot)

Textron Systems BLU-108 Submunition

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

BoomThis weapon is capable of identifying and destroying multiple ground targets. The first link is a video explaining how the weapon works, including real film footage. The second link has an embedded video showing a reconstruction of an Iraq war event where the BLU-108 played a major part. It’s just amazing how far weapons technology has come.

Link #1: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via digg)

Link #2: http://blog.wired.com/…

Look to the Skies This Week

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

SpaceThis is an interesting week for space events. On Wednesday night there will be a total Lunar eclipse. And the US military is planning to shoot down a defective spy satellite, possibly as early as Wednesday.

Update: The missile strike was successful.

Now THAT’S a Shotgun

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

ShotgunThe AA12 is a fully automatic, low recoil shotgun designed for military use, particularly urban warfare. The video goes to great lengths to show just how destructive it is, but then they add shells containing winged grenades and other types of explosives—with a range of nearly 200 yards. It would almost be worth going back into the military if I could use one of these.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via Neatorama)

The War, By Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

Saturday, November 17th, 2007

The WarI’ve just finished watching the seventh and final episode of the PBS documentary, The War. It was graphic, sobering, educational, and very, very eye-opening. I cannot express strongly enough, that I think everyone should see this documentary.

The US Navy Gets A Chinese Surprise

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

NavyDuring US naval exercises in the Pacific, an undetected Chinese submarine surfaced within torpedo range of the battle group’s aircraft carrier. Needless to say, this was -not- supposed to be possible.

Link: http://www.clevelandleader.com/…
(via Slashdot)