Air Force selects NorGrum to design next new bomber program to be cancelled

 aircraft, Hmm..., news, projects, weapons  5 Responses »
Oct 272015
 

Northrop Grumman Wins Air Force’s Long Range Strike Bomber Contract

Presumably this will be the “B-3,” but who knows. Supposedly they’re shooting for an initial operational capability of 2025, some 70 or so years after the B-52, 39 years after the B-1, 28 years after the B-2. Assuming that it somehow doesn’t suffer delays.

Boeing and Lockheed lost the competition. I would expect them to sue; this seems to be the standard response to a loss. Unless the contract gets yanked from NorGrum, this will leave only them and Lockheed as manufacturers of new manned combat aircraft; Boeing hasn’t built  a new fighter since the unsuccessful X-32 or a bomber since the B-1 (in the form of Rockwell). The F-22, F-35 and the LRSB/”B-3″ are very likely to be the last manned high performance combat aircraft designed in the US for the next… what? Twenty years? By that point there’ll probably be nobody at Boeing left alive who had a hand in designing a combat aircraft that actually entered service. Few enough at Lockheed; the F-35 was designed circa 2001

No data on the configuration or performance.

 

 Posted by at 4:03 pm

Another one for the hoplophobes

 awesomeness, news, Utah, weapons  9 Responses »
Oct 162015
 

I went up to Logan today and briefly visited the one shopping mall in town. It has been some months since I was last there; in the intervening time, one of the generic mall-stores (I think it was a “Dillards”) closed up shop. But rather than being left empty, or replaced by another generic mall store (like a Nordstroms or some such), the Cal Ranch store that used to be situated across the parking lot moved in. So now, at long last, there is a shopping mall with a store that will sell you ammunition, pistols, shotguns and AR-15s. Ha!

And in other news sure to instill rage and fear into the civilian disarmament proponents:

Concealed-gun law takes effect in Maine

Mainers no longer need permit to carry concealed handguns

cc2015

 Posted by at 7:17 pm

Nasty Flash Drive

 blather, dumbassery, Hmm..., news, science, weapons, wisdom, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Oct 142015
 

Let’s say you randomly stumble across a flash drive out in the wild. What do you do? Well, if’n yer an idjit, you plug it into your computer to see what’s on it. If you are a supremely lucky idjit, there will be nothing of interest on the drive. If you are an unlucky idjit, the drive will have some form of malware on it that will invade your computer and either delete your files or steal your identity. And now, if youa re a supremely unlucky idjit, you’ll get *this* little nugget of joy:

This Treacherous 220-Volt Flash Drive Can Fry Your Computer In Seconds

The drive is packed with not just electronics but also capacitors. Plug it in and it automatically charges up the capacitors, which then discharge back into your computer until the motherboard is *physically* fried. The hard drive and your data aren’t destroyed, but, hey, shouldn’t be too hard to load some malware on the drive that will encrypt all your files and *then* trash your motherboard. So you take your burned-out computer to get fixed, only to find all your data unrecoverable. Wasting your time, money and resources.

Now, what would be *really* evil would be a setup that doesn’t just use the little capacitors in the flash drive to damage your computer, but somehow attacks the battery. In the early days of laptops there were a number of celebrated incidents of the lithium ion batteries bursting into flames, not only destroying the computer but potentially destroying the building or vehicle they were in, with the added potential of causing injuries and death. I don’t know if a virus or a set of capacitors (or a combo) could actually cause a modern laptop battery to eat itself; I expect it’s most likely not feasible. But if you own a computer, or work with computers, or run a business that has employees who use computers, perhaps it would be best to *assume* that any random USB flash drive you come across will, at the very least, physically destroy the innards of your computer, and could even burn your house down and summon up angry elder gods from some dark dimension.

That said… imagine the fun *you* can have with one of these. I would not suggest leaving one in a location where a random schmoe would get hold of it, but instead leave it somewhere – a desk drawer, perhaps – where the only person who would access it would be someone stealing from you.

 Posted by at 5:10 pm

Pike: The new must-have toy for Christmas

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, rockets, weapons  9 Responses »
Oct 122015
 

Those of you old enough… remember when parents just *had* to procure a Cabbage Patch Doll, or a Furby, or a Tickle Me Elmo? Well, just in time for Christmas 2015, Raytheon presents the “Pike.”

Miniaturized, Laser-Guided Munition

Pike™ is a 17-inch-long, semi-active laser-guided precision weapon, measuring 40 mm in diameter and weighing two pounds. It’s the world’s only hand-launched precision-guided munition. Fired from a rifle-mounted grenade launcher, the miniaturized munition can travel one and a half miles and hit within five yards or less of a target, minimizing collateral damage.

The laser-guided munition is nearly as narrow as some large-caliber ammunition and can fit in the palm of a hand. A lightweight precision weapon, the Pike munition doesn’t tether ground troops to a vehicle launcher. Using a laser designator that resembles a pistol, one soldier points at a target, while another fires the munition.

Powered by a rocket motor, the Pike munition can be fired from the new family of Enhanced Grenade Launcher Modules (EGLM), specifically the H&K M320 and the FNH Mk13. The munition travels to its target using a high-tech guidance system that brings the same pinpoint accuracy once found only in mammoth missiles and hulking bombs.

The Pike munition can be mounted on multiple platforms, including Class 1 and II, unmanned aircraft systems, all-terrain vehicles, ground mobility vehicles, Common Remotely-Operated Weapons Station and small boats.

I know *I* want a twelve pack.

A mile and a half is pretty good range, but the within-five-yards-of-the-target accuracy seems like it could be better. The size of the warhead doesn’t seem to be given, but it looks like it can’t be much bigger than that of a standard 40mm grenade. I wonder if it would have the ability to nail something like an attack chopper.

It also seems like it might be possible to make a variant that trades the solid rocket motor with more explosive, or even just dead weight. Dropped from an aircraft (a drone, say), if the system is accurate enough it could be used to bullseye womprats from your T-16 take out individual targets with either minimal or maximal collateral damage.

 

 Posted by at 9:58 pm

Yay, *this* again

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., I'm from the government, news, politics, weapons  40 Responses »
Oct 012015
 

So yet another nutburger goes and shoots up a joint. Any rational person would say This Is A Bad Thing. But for some people, This Is An Awesome Thing. It took approximately two seconds for *some* people to determine that todays mass shooting in Oregon is a fantastic opportunity to try pushing for their civilian disarmament programs. Yet again.

And elsewhere the mad scramble to find *anything* about the shooter that can be used to push a chosen political agenda. So far I’ve heard (note: any or all of these could be dead wrong):

  1. He was a conservative Republican
  2. He specifically targeted Christians
  3. He was “mixed race,” half white, half black. So… he was white, unlike Obama, who is half black and half white, thus black. Or something.
  4. He used a pistol, which means we need more controls on assault rifles
  5. He was a fan of the Nazis
  6. He was a fan of the IRA
  7. He was a Muslim convert
  8. He was a quiet loner
  9. He was born in England. Not sure how that’s relevant. Probably a sign that the Crown is finally starting it’s big move to recapture the Colonies.

Somebody wake me up when there’s an incident of a crazy person going buggo and politicians *don’t* promptly jump on it to push whatever their agenda is.

At least it should knock Clochmed out of the headlines.

 Posted by at 11:28 pm

Phalanx

 art, awesomeness, models, weapons  4 Responses »
Sep 292015
 

Some months back someone had a contractors model of the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System up on ebay. These photos might be handy if you have or are working on another Phalanx model, as one does.

2015-07-03 phalanx ebay 3 2015-07-03 phalanx ebay 10 2015-07-03 phalanx ebay 1  2015-07-03 phalanx ebay 11 2015-07-03 phalanx ebay 7 2015-07-03 phalanx ebay 8 2015-07-03 phalanx ebay 9

 Posted by at 10:06 pm

Conceptual Casaba Howitzer

 awesomeness, drawings, history, Hmm..., My Fiction, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Patreon, Pax Orionis, science, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons  20 Responses »
Sep 282015
 

I’ve been pondering the Casaba Howitzer weapon system for a decade now. When I re-issued Aerospace Projects Review V2N2 some years back I published a few images of what I thought it might look like; since then I’ve done some rethinking. As to the weapon itself, and exactly how it worked, and how well it worked… I’ve got no data, and no good idea of how to make it work, so that hasn’t changed. But the control systems for the weapon? Those have evolved in my thinking.

Here’s an overall view of my idea for a Casaba Howitzer preparing to fire:

Casaba

And here’s a layout drawing of the same:

PAX-0004 Casaba 1st gen-Model

Feel free to discuss.

The full-rez version of the layout drawing is available in the second Pax Orionis installment. If interested, check out the Pax Orionis Patreon.

becomeapatron

 Posted by at 7:50 am

At least they have goals

 blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, history, news, nukes, politics, religion, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 252015
 

ISIS is like a pack of savages, capable of little more than cheap thuggery on a large scale. But they seem to have some long term dreams and goals involving nuclear annihilation:

Nuclear TSUNAMI: ISIS wants to wipe hundreds of millions from face of the earth

This is no doubt just the insane dreaming of a bunch of rabid knuckleheads, but it is instructive as to the mindset. Where would ISIS actually get nukes, though? They won’t be stealing them from the Israelies, and the Iranians probably wouldn’t want them to have nukes. The Pakistanis, perhaps. Fortunately, the one source that ISIS *could* have tapped for nukes, the Iraqi nuclear weapons program, was finally and permanently dismantled in 2003.

Imagine a world where the ’03 invasion of Iraq didn’t happen (perhaps Gore won in 2000). So by 2005 or so, the inspection regime ends; the Iraqi nuke program recommences. By 2015 the Iraqis have themselves some nukes… as do the Iranians and the Saudis. Saddam kicks the bucket in 2016; Iraq falls into civil war, with the Saudis pushing in from one side, the Iranians from another, perhaps the Syrians from a third side. A pseudo-ISIS forms, this time armed with Iraqi nukes and Iraqi nerve gas and Iraqi bio weapons. Let the chaos begin!

 Posted by at 2:57 pm
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