The navy loses a carrier and a helicopter landing ship immediately (no words on the planned acquisition of the next 2 carriers) and four frigates. The army loses a brigade as well as artillery (35%) and tanks (40%). The air force loses Harrier immediately and will lose C-130 10 years earlier than planned as well Read more about UK Strategic Defence and Security Review published[…]
Lockheed Martin’s objective is to deliver 15 field-testable and hardened prototype systems by October 2011 that provides the capability to profile downrange crosswind and range to target in near real time, at longer ranges, and improved probability of a first round hit. The system’s integrated spotter scope ISS should measure crosswinds, maximum effective range of Read more about One Shot program – auto aiming for snipers[…]
The visualising data blog has a few interesting graphs of how the wikileaks data shows the war in Afghanistan is spreading and getting progressively worse. They’ve also used data analysis to show that the data isn’t faked. Visualising the wikileaks war logs using tableau public Wikileaks War Logs: A triumph in ‘data journalism’?.
Wikileaks has released logs from the Afghanistan war covering 2004 – 2010. The amount of data is massive and Wikileaks is down Wikleaks The Guardian has a good rundown going on about the data and has some analysis. Afghanistan war logs: live blog | World news | guardian.co.uk.
This is what it looks like to be lasered down Raytheon airs video at Farnborough Airshow of CIWS laser shooting down drone | News.com.au.
Unexpected deviations in gravity are indicative of differences in density. If you point your detector (a gravity gradiometer) in that direction, you can tell what kind of structure is underground. Lockheed Martin is calling this the GATE (Gravity Anomaly for Tunnel Exposure) programme. Using Gravity to Detect Underground Threats | Lockheed Martin.
In order to reduce costs on the allready expensive F-35, they’ve decided to remove the shutoff valves for engine coolant and hydraulic lines and five of six dry bay fire-suppression systems. This means if they get hit by 30mm incendiary AAA rounds (very common), it’ll blow up instead of venting the extra pressure in these Read more about Cost cutting on JSF dangerous for pilots[…]
Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), the service’s technology development arm, announced today that LaWS (Laser Weapons System) had “successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed” a drone in flight, during an over-the-water engagement at San Nicholas Island, Calif. via Navy’s Drone Death Ray Takes Out Targets at Sea | Danger Room | Wired.com.
It’s a good document, showing that NATO is definitely heading in the right direction. However, you can tell that much of the experts are stuck in the mud a bit and that the US is using this document to flex its muscles in Iran’s direction. NATO needs to form a new and clear strategic vision, Read more about NATO’s Strategic Concept: Experts’ Report on the New Strategic Concept Released[…]
Not only is the F-35 underperforming and overpriced, it’s also not an air dominance fighter. It’s a point defence fighter with the same limitations of the F-16 when it first came out. If you want to play with the big boys, you gotta have a big stick, and the F-35 just isn’t it. Now it’s Read more about F-35 price hiked by 90%[…]
Opinion piece by a former CIA operative on its current lack of operational capability, On December 30, in one of the deadliest attacks in CIA history, an Al Qaeda double agent schemed his way onto a U.S. base in Afghanistan and blew himself into the next life, taking seven Americans with him. How could this Read more about A dagger to the CIA[…]
It used to be that you needed a huge cellphone network to start mapping changes in air currents, but now these guys have developed a sensor that can measure the movement and displacement of air particles using a sensor smaller than a matchstick head! The Microflown The Microflown is the worlds first and only MEMS Read more about End of stealth aircraft[…]
well well well, not that we didn’t expect it – it’s now delayed by a year and development costs are $100m over budget allready. Now if only the Netherlands had bought something like Eurofighter or Rafale. F-35 Delayed Again | Defense Tech.
Looks like the Rafale provides a lot more bang for buck than the F-22, at least in close range… In those six engagements, the F-22 scored one gun kill, but the other five dogfights ended in a draw, Air & Cosmos says. Another sources tells the magazine the F-22 scored two gun kills, with four Read more about Rafale vs Raptor[…]
The US Navy had 2 flying aircraft carriers – zeppelins, which launched and recovered biplanes using a skyhook. The USS Akron and the USS Macon The Sparrowhawk aircraft had their landing gear removed and had to hit a hook that slung them in a corner in and out of the ship. No arrestor cable, no Read more about Flying aircraft carriers[…]
Boeings airborne laser has had its’ first shootdown – a short range ballistic missle, which was destroyed in the boost phase: the earliest stage in flight a missle has been shot down to date. Airborne Laser hits 16-year-old goal — extremely quietly [Updated w/video] – The DEW Line.
The other five are broken. Navy has only one working submarine left | The Australian.
This is a newly overhauled unit, zero-houred. Not bad! $5M Buys the Ride of Your Life | Autopia | Wired.com.
It turns out that there is a universal human method for doing insurgency, when it comes down to the number of casualties and the timing of events. This pattern is distinct and is based on an approximate power law. Slashdot Science Story | Insurgent Attacks Follow Mathematical Pattern.
It looks like the Iranians have found out that the video feeds from Predator drones are in some cases unencrypted and can be tapped into using a $26,- program called Skygrabber. FOXNews.com – Iranian-Backed Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones. Now it turns out that the ROVER system, a hand held video system for infantry, also recieves Read more about Predator UAV feeds unencrypted[…]
These guys make the original US military flight sunglasses, starting at only $70,- AO Eyewear, Inc..
The art of swordmaking has remained fundamentally unchanged for the past couple of centuries, but Dan Watson has gone and changed the way the steel is tempered, making for swords twice as tough and flexible as any of the old ways. He does this by making the molecular strands in the steel twist in a Read more about Angel Swords[…]
A single sheet of this applied as sticky wallpaper is enough to stop a wrecking ball. Two sheets stop small projectiles. It stretches and catches the blast debris and then elastically returns the wall to its’ former state. Xflex Blast Protection Systems.
When sprayed over an area, after a while the bacteria covering mines start to glow grean, making cleanup a doddle. BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Edinburgh, East and Fife | Glowing bugs could find landmines.
And it looks like the F-35 JSF will probably be even worse. This premature buckling of the landing pads by the hot exhaust fumes, mean that the pads (which you can’t just go and replace without capsizing the ship) will run out before the ship does. The USMC has issued DARPA a request to invent Read more about V-22 Osprey melts ship landing pads[…]