A couple shots of a few of the SPIW prototype rifles at the Rock Island Arsenal museum. These examples are pretty rough… the museum has better.
Jan 012010
Dec 262009
Here’s a missile I’ve not seen too much on… the early/mid-1950’s “Cannon Ball” developed by Johns Hopkins for the Navy and the Army. Some aspects of its design are suprisingly modern-looking, while some are creakingly antiquated. It was a spherical anti-armor missile (apparently also adapted for anti-submarine use) with an impressively large shapred charge warhead. The solid propellant seems to have been wrapped around the central cylindrical core formed by the warhead, and contained within the spherical shell. A single propulsion nozzle was located off-axis; three sets of control jets (attitude control thrusters) were located equidistant around the perimeter.
It was controlled remotely via radio. Sadly, the control system seems to have been a nightmare… there were *two* pilots, one controlling pitch, the other yaw. They guided it by watching the smoke trail its rocket left behind.
The basic design is very similar to modern hit-to-kill anti-missile systems. Simply replace the warhead with an optical sensor and some computers, and you’ll be pretty much there.
<> A bit more on Cannonball is here.
Dec 152009
In the US, we have the “Castle Doctrine” (at least in most states) which means that if someone breaks into your home and poses a threat, you can use deadly force to defend yourself, without first having to resort to running away and cowering in the furthest corner. Britain, on the other hand, does not seem to have that. When even millionaires can’t buy themselves some justice, you know the legal system is well and truly screwed. Witness the case of Munir Hussain:
Mr Hussain’s nightmare began on September 3 last year when he, his wife, 18-year-old daughter and two sons aged 18 and 15 returned from their mosque during Ramadan to find three intruders in their home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
They were tied up and told to get on the floor if they did not want to be killed. One of Mr Hussain’s sons managed to escape and alerted Mr Hussain’s younger brother Tokeer, 35, who lived a few doors away.
Mr Hussain made a break for freedom by throwing a coffee table at his attackers. He and Tokeer chased the gang and brought Salem to the ground in a front garden.
Reading Crown Court heard how Mr Hussain and his brother then beat Salem while he lay on the ground, using a cricket bat, a pole and a hockey stick – leaving him with a fractured skull and brain damage following the ‘sustained’ attack.
Alright, so far I imagine that most readers of the Unwanted Blog would have a reaction that is essentially “good job Mr. Hussain.” Violent criminals assaulted his family and presented them with terror and the immediate threat of death; when the opportunity came to turn the tables, Munir and his brother did so and laid a beatdown on a man who posed a clear and present danger to him, his wife and his *children.* Now, the proper response of society at large would be a handshake from the chief of police, a pat on the back from the mayor, and a loud “thank you” from a grateful public. But what actually happened?
Judge John Reddihough said some members of the public would think that 56-year-old Salem ‘deserved what happened to him’ and that Mr Hussain ‘should not have been prosecuted’.
But had he spared Mr Hussain jail, the judge said, the ‘rule of law’ would collapse.
He said: ‘If persons were permitted to take the law into their own hands and inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting the criminal justice system take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse.’
Munir Hussain has been sentenced to 30 months in prison, and his brother to 39. Waled Salem, the man who broke into Hussains home, threatened the family, then got his ass handed to him, has been given a “non custodial sentence.”
The article includes this helpful sidebar:
If you use force which is ‘not excessive’ against burglars then the law is on your side.
Last year’s Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill contained clauses to protect people from prosecution if they act instinctively and out of fear for their safety.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw said:‘Law-abiding citizens should not be put off tackling criminals by fear of excessive investigation.
‘For a passer-by witnessing a street crime or a householder faced with a burglar, we are reassuring them that if they use force which is not excessive or disproportionate, the law really is behind them.’
The problem is that the British Nanny State does not seem to understand what “excessive” is in this context. Using a flamethrower or a heavy machinegun or an RPG against someone who has tried to kill your family is excessive, because the weapons themselves very likely will cause collateral damage to your neighbors and their property. But in this case, the weapons used were a pole, a hockey stick and a cricket bat. These will *not* cause collateral damage to innocent bystanders; they are in fact extremely short-ranged weapons. And since the threat posed was “death,” then no amount of force, so long as it is reasonably precise and focussed solely on the criminal, can be excessive. It’s not like you can kill the man twice.
So, for me there are two lessons to take from this:
1) The Founding Fathers knew what they were doign when they dragged us away from this sort of horrible governance
2) Always remember the the Rule Of SSS:
A) Shoot
B) Shovel
C) Shut up
————————
One other reason to be glad for the separation from Mother England:
Mother’s fury at Tesco Christmas card that pokes fun at ginger children
The actual story is not terribly important, but it is just another in a long, incomprehensible line of items that show that in Britain, redheads seem to be seen as lesser people or some such. While in the US, redheads – barring recent showings of a certain episode of South Park – are not seen the same way. We see them… somewhat differently (go ahead and do a Google image search for “redhead” and try to find something that’s safe for work).
Any culture that responds instinctively to the word “readhead” with “ewww,” well, that just ain’t right.
Dec 122009
On display outside the Strategic Air & Space Museum in Nebraska…
Dec 122009
I dunno, this just seems kinda tacky… a gold plated, non-functional M-60 at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum.
The info plate reads:
US M-60 7.62mm Gold Plated Machine Gun
Manufactured by Saco-Lowell. This weapons was given to the Commanding General of Weapons Command by Saco-Lowell upon completion of contract. This machine gun is made of unservicable parts.
Dec 102009
Hero-Gear is pleased to introduce BATTLE MUG
Battle Mug starts as a 13.5 pound solid block of 6061 T6 billet aluminum before it enters a state of the art CNC facility in Huntsville, Alabama. This facility produces specialized parts and equipment for the U.S. Department of Defense, major weapons manufacturers, NASA, and a host of other companies working at the U.S. Rocket and Space Center.
Built to military specifications, Battle Mug features a M1913 rail interface system which allows the operator to mount a standard issue M4 carry handle, tactical light, laser device, holographic sight (we call them “beer goggles”) or even a bayonet for close quarters, high risk operations.
Each individually serialized Battle Mug features Mil-Spec Type III anodizing and a crenelated base and is built with the operator in mind.
Whether you are fighting drug lords deep inside the jungles of Colombia, stomping out Al Qaida terrorists in Falluja Iraq, or eradicating no-good hippies in Berkeley, California…
Ummm… You can also get a set of fifty Battle Mugs for only $12,450.
<> Seems a bit steep to me, but how many other mugs are you likely to find that you can mount a grenade launcher to?
Also:
Dec 082009
From the Glenn L. Martin Aviation Museum archive, an inboard profile painting of the diminutive Martin Midget ground attack plane.
Note that much more on the Midget can be seen here.
Dec 062009
Certain products are sold with commercials that follow a predicatable sort of script. Beer is sold by happy party goers, sports cars by idjits with lead feet and unoccupied roads. And anti-animal-cruelty organizations beg for donations by showing slow-mo videos of sad (typically damaged) animals with a sad soundtrack. Well, as if this ad from the ASPCA wasn’t bad enough, the Humane Society of the US has decided to step it up a notch in a new commercial by adding large-font “thought bubble” quotes along with the sad critters. And of course, the “thoughts” the critters are expressing are not “hey, thanks for your help” or “won’t you please donate.”
Oh, no. Not even a little bit.
And then to top it off, they tack on this little nugget of joy:
Now, unless I really miss my guess, the basic purpose of these ads is to make people not only want to donate to the Humane Society, but to actually get off their butts and do it. But this ad does not have that effect on me. Instead, it makes want to grab a baseball bat and start whacking the crap out of things and people… starting with the damned television, progressing to the nearest animal abuser, moving on to the people who dreamed up this ad, and finally finishing with the executives of PETA (not because they were involved with this ad, but just because they suck so very, very much).
As might be guessable based on the “cat” postings I’ve made, I’ve a fondness for critters such as these. My oldest cat Koshka came from a rescue shelter, and was an abused cat herself (she still has numerous relatively serious psychomologimical issues… she recognizes weapons like knives and firearms, and runs away in stark terror). So you’d think that I would be the precise target audience. But if the result is not me diving for my checkbook, but instead diving for the remote control to turn the channel to something more cheerful like the latest episode of “House” or “Johnny Got His Gun,” I can’t help but think someone might’ve miscalculated.
Gah. It was bad enough when it was fictional.
Dec 062009
911 Call Released From Home Invasion Shooting
Cushing – Officials have released the 911 tape from this morning’s home invasion shooting that left an intruder dead from a shotgun blast.
It happened in Cushing, about 50 miles west of Tulsa in Lincoln County. Police say the female homeowner was awakened by her barking dog and called 911. While she was on the phone with dispatchers, police say she warned the intruder that she had a rifle.
Authorities say the intruder, identified as Billy Dean Riley, ignored the woman’s warning and threw a chair through the window. That’s when the woman opened fire.
…
RESIDENT – “i’ve got a big shotgun. I’m not going into a tiny bathroom…”
RESIDENT – “He’s walking around the house trying to find a way in…”
RESIDENT – “Oh crap, he’s at the back…”
911 – “Okay , (unintelligible) is advising that you can defend your property if you need to.”
…
911 – “I can hear him banging again.”
RESIDENT – “I don’t want to have to kill this man, but i’ll kill him graveyard dead ma’am.”
911 – “I understand.”
Reading the whole thing, it looks to be a sad story of a guy who got himself drunked up and went stupid. But as Heinlein pointed out…
- Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.
- There is a grand total of one real victim here… the homeowner who was forced to shoot someone who chose to act the jackass. Hopefully she won’t need too much therapy, but even though some folk just need killin’, it’s not something that most people can just shrug off.
Still, that was a hell of a line.
And if you think the woman over-reacted, here’s another story from the same news source:
Reward Increased In Home Invasion Homicide
Sam Sanders was shot and killed by two masked intruders at about 4:30 a.m. on March 24th in his home near Fairland.
Dec 022009
OK, bear with me. This will seem like a pretty meaningless and trivial post (as opposed to the world-shatteringly important ones, like the cat photos), but I think there might be something of some cultural importance here.
Two science fiction shows from recent years that I found entertaining were “Stargate SG-1” and “Primeval.” They had a few points of similarity:
1) Both are set in the present day
2) There are wormhole-like things that allow for instant travel from this world to another
3) There are teams whose job it is to investigate these “portals” and what lies beyond
4) The government is fully aware of the portals and what lies beyond, but is covering it up from the public
5) There are, nevertheless, journalists trying to uncover the truth
6) There are competing groups trying to control the portals
7) there are dangers on the other side of the portals… and sometimes they come through into our world
OK. Now, the differences:
1) Stargate is American TV, set largely in America; Primeval is Brit TV set largely in Britain
2) The “Stargate” is a machine built millenia ago by aliens, and it opens a portal to other stargates on other worlds across the galaxy; the portals in Primeval are gateways to the distant past (or future) of Earth, and appear to be naturally occuring holes in spacetime
3) Stargate thus deals with aliens; Primeval deals with dinosaurs and such.
Now, here’s where this becomes interesting to me. In both shows, the people involved are *forever* getting in trouble with the aliens/critters on the other side of the portals. In general, they’re always getting their asses handed to ’em by those on the other side. But… while the Stargate team is getting whupped by aliens thousands of years more technologically advanced than modern humans, the Primeval team is getting spanked by critters with no more smarts than your average retarded rat. Now, why might this be? Well, let’s take a look at the teams involved:
Primeval:
Stargate:
Primeval:
Stargate:
Primeval:
Stargate:
Primeval:
Stargate:
I notice one subtle difference in how the teams are equipped. Did you catch it? That’s right… the Stargate team wears camouflage.
And packs heat. Lots of heat.
If you notice in the last of the Primeval cast shots, there is one guy tucked way in the back holding a shotgun. This character was an addition in the third season, when it was becoming obvious even to the BBC that “gee, maybe some form of defense might make some sort of sense, as these velociraptor chaps aren’t behaving properly.” But even then the guy was something of a puss… and of course none of the rest of ’em were armed (except for the occasional tranquilizer rifle which tended to not work terribly well on the bigger and angrier critters).
Granted, this Just Television. Getting too worked up about this makes as much sense as a Kirk vs Picard argument (when we all know the winner: Nuke ‘Em Sheridan). Still, I think a message of some small importance can be gleaned from this.
Anybody with more than a double-digit IQ should be able to figure out that if there is a Magic Portal To A Dangerous Beyond, you had damned well better prepare for all kinds of eventualities… and often enough those eventualities seem to be aliens and other critters that want to eat you. As a consequence, if you must send people through, or have a reasonable suspicion that those Dangerous Nasties are going to come through on their own…your people had damned well better be armed. This is just basic sense. And yet, the British take on the idea seems to be that arms are dirty, nasty things, almost more distasteful than being chewed up and swallowed by some prehistoric blighter. While in Stargate, they’d often enough go through packing not just guns… but nuclear fricken’ bombs. And when we encountered aliens, the first things we did was reverse engineer their weapons and power systems.
Interestingly, one thing that repeatedly startled me for the first few years of Stargate SG-1 was how often the team would wander into some alien village with machine pistols, rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, zap guns, grenades, knives and what have you all hanging out in the breeze, right out in front of Odin and everybody… and the villagers/aliens – from paleolithic tech on up to Star Trek-level tech – *never* freaked out about it. For the longest time this seemed like an oversight to me. But then I realized that it was a rare case of Hollywood *not* being stupid. In a world where all kinds of people and aliens and critters are coming and going… of course you go about armed. Duh.
In the end, Willing Suspension Of Disbelief lets me sit back and enjoy TV shows about stargates and cracks in the fabric of spacetime; stories about aliens snakes living in people’s heads, and super-evolved bats. But I just can’t suspend disbelief enough to let Primevals’ wholly bizarre world of intentionally defenseless humans slip by without complaint.