weapons – Page 117 – The Unwanted Blog

Orbital Bomber

aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, nukes, projects, spacecraft, weapons 3 Responses »

Oct 152009

In June, 1959, Boeing presented to the Air Force a concept for an orbital bombardment system based on work then being done on the Dyna Soar program. The bomber itself was a Dyna Soar derivative, with bombs that were each contained in lifting re-entry vehicles also based on Dyna Soar work. The bomber would carry one of the winged bombs under each of the bombers wings, and six more around the conical adapter behind the bomber.

The bombs would have a crossrange capability of up to 3000 miles. Coupled with a 30-degree inclination orbit, this would put essentially the entire Soviet Union within range of the system.
The Orbital Bomber would remain in a 125-nautical mile circular orbit with its three-man crew for up to two weeks. At the end of that time, assuming the Soviets hadn’t earned a dose of nuclear whoopass, the bomber would release its bombs. The bombs and the bomber would re-enter separately, gliding to a runway landing for refurbishment and relaunch.

<> Sixty-three bombers would be needed to wipe out 300 selected targets. An impressive 1683 launches would be required every year (five and a quarter per day). In order to cost effectively launch this force, a two-stage booster with a winged, turbojet-equipped flyback first stage would be used.

Five launches of a reusable manned launch vehicle per day. NASA has a hard time pulling off that many launches per year.

Cabela’s take on the California ammo ban

dumbassery, I'm from the government, news, politics, weapons 19 Responses »

Oct 142009

Oh, sure, it’s not really a ban, but it’s certainly outrageous. Imagien if you needed to jump through the same unConstitutional hoops to, say, buy a newspaper or go into a church. Or even *vote.*

To: Cabela’s California Customers
From: Cabela’s Communications
Subject: California Assembly Bill 962
Date: Sept. 22, 2009

We are writing to inform you of pending legislation that will restrict purchases of handgun ammunition in California and will terminate our ability to service your needs for certain products.

On Friday, Sept. 11, the California Assembly passed Assembly Bill 962, by a 44-31 vote.

Among other regulations, AB 962 would:

• Ban all mail-order and Internet sales of handgun ammunition.
• Prohibit the retail sale, the offer for sale or the display of handgun ammunition in a
manner that allows ammunition to be accessible to a purchaser without assistance of a
vendor or employee.
• Require that the delivery or transfer of ownership of handgun ammunition occur in a
face-to-face transaction, with the deliverer or transferor being provided bona fide
evidence of identity of the purchaser or other transferee.

That evidence of identity, which must be legibly recorded at the time of delivery, includes:

• The right thumbprint of the purchaser or transferee.
• The date of the sale or other transaction.
• The purchaser’s or transferee’s driver’s license or other identification number and the
state in which it was issued.
• The brand, type and amount of ammunition sold or otherwise transferred.
• The purchaser’s or transferee’s signature.
• The name of the salesperson who processed the sale or other transaction.
• The purchaser’s or transferee’s full residential address and telephone number.
• The purchaser’s or transferee’s date of birth.

The bill is on the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, where it awaits his consideration. He will have until Oct. 11 to sign or veto the bill. If he does not veto the bill, it will become law.

If you wish to comment on AB 962, you may contact Gov. Schwarzenegger by phone at (916) 445-2841, or via fax at (916) 558-3160. To e-mail Gov. Schwarzenegger, visit
http://gov.ca.gov/interact

We encourage all Cabela’s customers who participate in the shooting sports to contact Gov. Schwarzenegger to voice their opposition to this initiative, which will limit your opportunities to shop with Cabela’s, and will restrict the sale of handgun ammunition everywhere in California.

New aircraft drawing: BOMARC diagram

aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, models, new products, nukes, weapons 1 Response »

Oct 132009

Now available is a Boeing digram for a 1/20-scale BOMARC display model. This shows the missile in good detail, giving dimensions and cross-sections. Perfect for anyone wanting to scratchbuild a BOMARC either static model or flying model rocket. Or for the truly adventurous, a flying RC model… preferable with a solid rocket booster in the fuselage and two turbine units in the “ramjet” pods. The drawing is in grayscale and is 11031X7184 pixels, and comes with a half-size version for easier viewing and printing.

The BOMARC drawing can be downloaded for $5.50.

New Aircraft Drawing: AH-56 Cheyenne

aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, new products, weapons 2 Responses »

Oct 112009

Perhaps the single most impressive helicopter to ever almost make it into production, the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne represented the pinnacle of late 1960’s helicopter technology. Featuring a pusher prop, larger than average stub wings, rigid rotors and a gunners station that could rotate a full 360 degrees, the AH-56 would seem futuristic even today. Sadly, the technology simply wasn’t quite ready at the time, and the very expensive helicopter failed to make it into production.

Now available for download is Lockheed drawing 1005976, “Inboard Profile – Model AH-56A.” This includes four versions of the drawing… the original full color version and a cleaned-up grayscale version (8856X3213 pixels), as well as halfsize versions of each for easier viewing and printing. This is a very nice drawing of a very impressive vehicle.
The AH-56A drawing can be downloaded for $6.50:

———

More drawings will be coming shortly, along with updates to the Drawigns & Documents page.

Here’s how to lie with statistics

dumbassery, politics, weapons 1 Response »

Oct 072009

Note the title of this article by NewScientist:

Carrying a gun increases risk of getting shot and killed

Well. That sounds pretty definitive. It also reads as “here’s a bullet-point for youto use when arguing in favor of more gun control.”

But what did the study actually present?

Packing heat may backfire. People who carry guns are far likelier to get shot – and killed – than those who are unarmed, a study of shooting victims in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has found.

It would be impractical – not to say unethical – to randomly assign volunteers to carry a gun or not and see what happens. So Charles Branas’s team at the University of Pennsylvania analysed 677 shootings over two-and-a-half years to discover whether victims were carrying at the time, and compared them to other Philly residents of similar age, sex and ethnicity. The team also accounted for other potentially confounding differences, such as the socioeconomic status of their neighbourhood.

Note that it does not say whether the people who got shot were themselves criminals.
In any event, hopefully within the year the USSC will rule properly on McDonald vs. Chicago, and the dumbass gun bans that have helped turn numerous urban areas into criminal cesspits will be overturned. And if things go *really* well, citizens who ahve suffered under these bans will be able to sue the pants off not just the cities and states that have enacted these bans, but also the treacherous scumbags who passed them in the first place (though most of them are probably worm food, given how old these bans are).

Iran: We’ll launch missile into space

news, nukes, politics, weapons 5 Responses »

Oct 072009

Yeah. This is good news…

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3786886,00.html

Islamic Republic’s Space Agency says Kavoshgar-3 to be launched within next six months for research purposes

A previous model of the Kavoshgar-3 missile was used by Iran to launch a satellite into space in February.

“The Kavoshgar-3 missile will be launched into space by the end of the Persian year (which ends on March 20) for the purpose of research,” Mohammad Ibrahimi of the ISA was quoted as saying in honor of the Islamic Republic’s space week.

There was once a time when for a missile to truly be a threat as an ICBM, it would need several capabilities:

1) A payload weight big enough for a large thermonuclear weapon and its re-entry vehicle

2) Some measure of accuracy

3) A developed and reliable thermonuclear weapon and re-entry vehicle.

It seems likely that the Iranian sat-launcher will have a small payload, will probably not be terribly accuract, and they probably do not have a well-developed re-entry vehicle. So don’t worry too much about Iranian nukes raining down out of space.

Sadly, setting off a small nuke somewhere over the middle of the US at a few hundred miles altitude is well within this rocket’s capabilities.

A minor news story, not worth mentioning

blather, news, politics, religion, weapons 6 Responses »

Sep 252009

Yesterday, September 24, 2009, almost became another “Islam Outreach Day” on par with September 11, 2001. But due to the actions of the FBI, it became a day with a few minor news stories, soon to be forgotten.

Officials: Terror Plot Most Significant Since 9/11

Afghan-born Najibullah Zazi set up shop in suburban Denver, scouring the Web and visiting beauty supply stores in a hunt for chemicals needed to build bombs for Al Qaeda, authorities charge, calling the alleged plot one of the most significant terror threats to the U.S. since 9-11.

The 12-page memorandum outlining the alleged conspiracy also used the repeated phrase “and others,” evidence of a possible Al Qaeda cell plotting a homemade bomb attack on U.S. soil.

A chemist posts here that Zazi could have made about six pounds of the unstable explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) given the supplies he procured. Six pounds of TATP would have done a good job of converting everyone on a bus or a subway train into hamburger.

Also yesterday there were two further attempted bombings of note:

In unrelated terrorism cases elsewhere around the country Thursday:

— Michael C. Finton, a 29-year-old man who idolized American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh, was arrested after attempting to detonate what he thought was a bomb inside a van outside a federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill., officials said. FBI agents had infiltrated the alleged plot months ago.

— A 19-year-old Jordanian was arrested after placing what he thought was a bomb at a downtown Dallas skyscraper, federal prosecutors said. The decoy device was provided by an undercover FBI agent. Federal officials said the case against Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, who is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, is unrelated to the Illinois case.

Ummm… holy crap. Two *unrelated* major carbombings on the same day?

This brings up something else for me to rant about… “attempted” vs “successful” and the legal differences. To my mind, there ain’t none. If Johhny Jihad takes a gun and shoots someone in the head, killing them, or he takes a gun and shoots *at* someone, misisng them, why the difference in punishment? We arrest people and try them and jail/execute them for not only what they do, but *why* they did it. Someone who kills another person could be an out-and-out murderer, or it could have been in self defence, or it could have been an accident. The legal system properly recognizes this. But why the difference if the murderer just happens to have bad aim?

Let’s say that rather than these jackasses having been tricked by the FBI into trying to set off carbombs filled with flour (or whatever the phony explosive was), they had actual carbombs with actual explosives.

<>In alternate reality A, the detonator had a faulty battery. When they pushed the button, nothing happened. And then they were caught and the bombs disarmed.

In alternate reality B, the wiring was done properly, and a thousand people died.

What did they *do* that was truly different? In reality A, nobody died. In reality B, a thousand people died. But the terrorists *actions* were entirely the same. The terrorists *motives* were entirely the same. The differences in outcomes were not due to differences in intent or action. So why should “attempted murder” get a lesser punishment than “murder”? Is the terrorist who failed somehow less of a danger to society than the successful one, just due to a trick of chance?

The right tool for the job

awesomeness, news, weapons 6 Responses »

Sep 162009

From news.com.au, an Australian news outlet:

Medical student ‘slays burglar with samurai sword’

A US student has killed a burglar with a samurai sword, slicing off his left hand and severely cutting his neck after he spotted the intruder in his garage, police allege.

The undergraduate medical student at Baltimore’s prestigious Johns Hopkins University was being questioned by police but he may not be charged if found to be acting in self-defence.

So far, so good. Simple straightforward facts of the case. But the report does go in a slightly odd direction:

Samurai swords are legal in the United States.

Well, duh.

The United States, where the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected, has few restrictions on owning swords although some local jurisdictions limit the right to brandish them in public.

“I think everyone has the right to first of all defend themselves and defend their home and if this individual felt that a samurai sword was an appropriate tool to do so, I’m not in a position to say that’s good or bad,” [Baltimore police spokesman] Mr Guglielmi said.

Most “samurai swords” are dangerously poorly made cheap pieces of crap, as shown fantastically well in this video right hyar. They tend to be brittle, and like as not will shatter if whacked against something that puts up a good solid resistance. Still… it takes a special kind of moron to decide to lunge at someone weilding a sword in the defence of his own home. But wait… “The burglar, who was in his late 40s, had a history of burglaries and had just been released from prison on Sunday…” Yeah, there it is. A special kind of stupid.

A vaguely similar case from a few years ago.

Shock waves

awesomeness, photography, science, weapons 1 Response »

Sep 142009

A year-ish ago I visited the museum at Aberdeen Proving Gorunds, Maryland. On display were a few APDS (armor piercing discarding sabot) tank rounds, along with some photos showing these dart-like rounds in flight shedding their sabots. What I liked about the photos was the clarity with which they showed the shock waves being shed off of the penetrators and the sabots.

Gun, guns, holy crap helicopter artillery

aircraft, awesomeness, projects, weapons 4 Responses »

Sep 112009

A Boeing-Vertol design study from October 1972 for the US Army Weapons Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois (just about my home town). The idea was to strap an XM204 105 mm “soft recoil” howitzer to either side of a CH-47C Chinook helicopter. This was not for the purpose of transporting the weapons from place to place, but to actually use them in an air-to-ground “lay down some whoopass” role. A nine man gun crew and 96 rounds of ammo would be carried. Mission radius was 100 n.mi.

The helicopter could be used in two ways:

1) Land, and fire the right-hand gun. A special platform was built for the weapon for crew servicing while on the ground. The left-hand weapon was a complete field piece, and was meant to be easily removed and located for firing.
2) Fire while in flight. As reported:

both XM204 soft-recoil howitzers are
mounted for forward direct air-to-ground firing with automatic
ammunition-loading mechanisms provided for rapid firing (30
rounds per minute each). The copilot is provided with a
simple, fixed, depressible-reticle sight and laser rangefinder
for aiming the helicopter/gun system for firing in this mode.
Preflight adjustments of the howitzer elevation settings will
allow for aiming the weapons with the helicopter at various
airspeeds, rates of climb, and heights above the target.

Yow.

Sadly, the illustrations are of suck quality, but they get the idea across.

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