The official story is that Russia is in Syria in order to fight ISIS and other jihadis… *not* that they’re there in order to get them selves a strategic foothold in the region by way of supporting Assad so he’ll give ’em a port. But then there’s this:

Videos suggest Russian government may be arming Taliban

Hmmm.

Some might suggest that this is irony,or turnabout s fair play. The US armed the proto-Taliban against the Soviets, after all. But in the 80’s, the great threat was the Soviet Union, not global jihadi terrorism. Now that the Russian government claims that jihadis are enough of a threat that they’re willing to carpet bomb cities full of civilians, they are *apparently* arming the very same jihadis.

Boring headline:

NBC News poll: American fears of war grow

Interesting photo attached to MSNBC tweet:

Alternative interpretation of the photo:

Think This Is Just A Picture Of A Missile Launch? Think Again

Looks like a Minuteman and its slightly paranoid escorts.

You might not think that dropping a bomb from underneath an airplane would be that big a deal… just release the thing and down it goes. Guess what: at 500miles an hour, wind blows *hard.* And it can blow in unexpected directions when it’s bending around complex contours.

Currently available on ebay is a 1955-vintage Jeep complete with a Davy Crockett 120mm recoiless gun. It’s a little unclear whether the weapon system is entirely authentic or if some (or all) of it was built from scratch for the restoration. The M388 warhead is clearly a reproduction.

Original Military Jeep M38A1D, Atomic Cannon, Davey Crocket 120 mm Gun

The Pluto nuclear ramjet is often considered one of the crazier (or perhaps more accurately, “badass”) weapons systems ever considered by serious people. In short, it used a nuclear reactor as the heat source for an airbreathing ramjet; it would fly at a few hundred feet altitude at Mach 3 with nearly unlimited range. Several American aerospace corporations vied for the contract; LTV won the contract to build the airframe in 1961. The “Tory” nuclear ramjet was static ground tested with some success, but the program was cancelled in 1964.

Convair gave the concept considerable study from the beginning of the program in 1957 until at least 1961. Their “Big Stick” concept has been reasonably well known, but they had another idea that was somewhat further from the basic idea. It was mentioned in at least two briefings that I’ve come across; some amount of serious work was done on it, but the information I have is fragmentary. The concept was called simply the “Submersible Nuclear Ramjet.”

Pluto and Big Stick were unmanned cruise missiles. They would be launched from the ground with solid rocket boosters (some though was given to launching from ships, subs and aircraft) and would fly “grand tours” of the Soviet Union, spitting out a number of individual nuclear bombs. They would leave in their wake a line of ruin… the shockwaves from their passage would likely shake apart civilian structures, and the reactors would constantly spit out radioactive particles. At the end of the mission the missiles would crash into one final target.

But the Submersible Nuclear Ramjet would work a little differently. For starters… it was manned. There would be a crew on board throughout the mission.

Rather than starting off at some Air Force base, the Submersible Nuclear Ramjet would actually start off as a submarine, floating around on its own in the ocean. Propulsion would be provided by the nuclear reactor, serving as a “water ramjet” by heating seawater and expelling it. Feeding salt water, diatoms, kelp, fish and all the rest of the junk the ocean has to offer directly through a nuclear reactor seems a bit dubious.

When the order to begin an actual mission comes in, the propulsion system would be reconfigured from seawater-burning ramjet to seawater-burning rocket. The vehicle would expel stored seawater through the reactor, generating a large amount of thrust, enough to launch the craft vertically out of the water and up to high speed. The craft would then angle over towards the horizontal; the propulsion system would reconfigure once again, this time to an airbreathing nuclear ramjet. The vehicle would then fly a mission essentially similar to Plutos… low altitude, screamingly high speed, ejecting nuclear weapons as it goes. At the end of the mission, unlike Pluto it would *not* crash itself into one final target. Instead, the manned vehicle would return to secure waters and slow to subsonic speed. It would enter a vertical climb and slow to a stop; the ramjet would again reconfigure, this time back to rocket mode. Four drag brakes would deploy around the nose and the vehicle would back down into the water for a soft “splashdown.” It would of course land with nearly empty tanks, so it would be quite buoyant; until the tanks refill, it would likely sit tail-down in the water.

I’m going to try to find out more about this concept, but I have minimal hopes. I’ve gone all this time without hearing about it until just a few weeks ago.

Because why no, I’ve made a basic model of the concept. Complete accuracy is not assured… I have a top view and an inboard profile; as with a distressing number of concept aircraft diagrams, the views seem to conflict on things such as the cockpit canopy, and the inlet configuration is only partially shown. Still, it’s a really interesting concept.

If you’re interested in Pluto, take a look at Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N1. There is a very large, highly illustrated article on Pluto in that issue. If you are interested in the Submersible Nuclear Ramjet, keep an eye on US Bomber Projects… it will show up in the next issue or two.

The renders below show the Convair Submersible Nuclear Ramjet to scale with the LTV Pluto.

This is certainly one of the most oddball, whackadoodle ideas I’ve ever seen. And I want one.

This was Convairs idea for the Pluto project… a nuclear ramjet cruise missile. Capable of Mach 3 flight at an altitude of 500 feet, it would be virtually impossible to intercept, and would have virtually unlimited range. The YouTube video:

There is more on the Big Stick, including diagrams, in issue V2N1 of Aerospace Projects Review:

http://aerospaceprojectsreview.com/ev2n1.htm

Thanks to eBay, I hope to, within a few days, have information on a subject related to Pluto/Big Stick that makes them looks absolutely tame in comparison.

Now if you identify as an attack helicopter, you can come with laser weaponry as an option.

Laser strike

A high energy laser mounted on a helicopter shoots a target in groundbreaking test

Giggity!

No real details about the power or capabilities of the laser weapon. Chemical laser? Free electron? LED diode? Dunno, though the cables that run from the chopper to the laser pod seem to be fairly sizable. Certainly not capable of anti-armor operations; no such thing as a portable laser that is. Almost certainly poorly capable of taking out missiles and the like… a helicopter is a shaky platform for that sort of thing. But for setting individual jackasses on fire? Torching small buildings, piles of ammunition, IEDs, light vehicles? Burning the gunners girfriends name into the roof of the Mosul Piggy Wiggly? This might be just the thing.

Yeah, well, you try coming up with a clever headline for this…

Reportedly the armor on this T-72 was badly trashed after whacking into a light pole. Which does not seem to be a good advertisement for the T-72, honestly. Note also that the tank commander nearly got his noggin lopped off by the power lines.

Whoopsie.

Pretty sure someone’s gonna catch some hell – both from the base commander and from everyone back at the barracks – for this little screwup. There was a time when someone could make an embarrassing blunder in an eastern European totalitarian Soviet dictatorship and have a hope of covering it up… but now, the T-72 got swarmed with millenials taking cell phone snapshots. Heh.

The far left went buggo under Bush, but has gone truly insane under Trump. With calls for violence against “Nazis,” and redefining “Nazi” to mean anyone not on the far Left, it was only a matter of time before people like the fascists in Antifa and similar groups decided to step it up from simply assaulting people in the street to gunning people down. Well, here we are.

Lawmaker Steve Scalise critically injured in GOP baseball shooting; gunman James T. Hodgkinson dies in custody

The shooter in this case was a dedicated Bernie Sanders supporter and vehemently anti-Trumper.

And because in this era of social media Everything Must Be About Me, I found these quotes especially interesting:

I met him on the Bernie trail in Iowa, worked with him in the Quad Cities area.”

Orear described Hodgkinson as a “quiet guy” who was “very mellow, very reserved” when they stayed overnight at a Sanders’s supporter home in Rock Island, Ill., after canvassing for the senator.

Yup. Home town area. Joy.

Remember during the 2008 campaign when Jared Joughner shot and injured a Democratic Representative (and *killed* a republican judge, but never mind him), the Dems and the media went through the roof blaming it on Sarah Palin and her supposed rhetoric? it’ll be interesting to see if they do the same here. In fact, I kinda expect they will: in 2008, they blamed Republicans for violence against a Dem. Now, I expect they’ll *still* blame Republicans (specifically Trump, I’ll bet) for this violence. But even if they don’t blame Republicans specifically, they are already trotting out the “blame the inanimate object” argument. As an example, here’s the Democrat governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, informing the public that ninety-three MILLION Americans are gunned down EVERY DAY:

An interesting note: the BernieBro opened fire with a rifle (I’ve not seen a description, but probably safe to assume it’s an AR-15) and fired *many* rounds… and yet, killed nobody. He was a *terrible* shot. These socialist whackos might think they’re going to start a new civil war but, man, I don’t think it’d turn out well for ’em.