Beach head is real? Problem Solved Problem Staying Solved
Seen in the German army……Beach head is real?
Category Archives: War On Terror
CBRN Company sponsors Zombie run
Now Zombie Runs are the popular thing in the 5K world. All over the place you see these fun runs where particpants skedaddle away from the shambling dead. What is different about one in Athens Alabama is that it is being sponsored by the 1343rd Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense (often abbreviated to CBRN defense or CBRN) company– the type of unit that would be on the front line of any zombie outbreak.
Members of the chemical brigade for a local Army National Guard unit want to show they are ready for a zombie apocalypse, even if they have to create one themselves.
Navy Enters the Laser Age With Shooting Down of UAV
http://www.firearmstalk.com/entries/Navy-Enters-the-Laser-Age-With-Shooting-Down-of-UAV.html
Back in 2007, the US Navy started looking at high-energy lasers for use as an active weapon. The most promising of these, the Laser Weapons System (LaWS) has already downed target aircraft and is on the way to the fleet.
(The LaWS prototype aboard the USS Dewey in 2012)
The LaWS uses series of six commercially available 5.4-kW fiber lasers focused through a frequency doubling crystal. This active laser system can fire a very tight 32kW beam at line of sight ranges than can travel in excess of 10-miles on a clear day. The typical commercially availible red laser pointer is about 1 milliwatts and is advertised to be able to damage your retinas if you stare into it. This laser is 32-kW, which means that it is 32,000,000-times more powerful than the thing you chase your cat around the house with. It costs some $32-million to develop, which may seem like a lot but when compared to such high-tech weapons as the multi-billion dollar F-35, it’s a comparative bargain.
How effective is it?
In a recent test aboard the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Dewey last summer the LaWS prototype downed a BQM-147A target UAV drone. This weapon, when fielded will be able to shoot down slow moving aircraft, such as UAVs and helicopters, as well as be able to engage small boats and possibly even targets ashore. Its beam does not have to destroy the target if not required. It can simply damage it, blind its sensors, or in the place of a small boat, kill its engine and leave it dead in the water.
Warning shots
If just a small portion of the laser energy is used, rather than a full power blast, an intense and visible beam can be projected to significant ranges to provide a clear and unmistakable warning that a potential target is about to be zapped unless an immediate change in their behavior is observed. This feature could also be used as a laser dazzler, a sort of less-lethal weapon, to disorient and warn away the crew of an aircraft or ship. In short the LaWS could be used to ‘flash’ an approaching unidentified craft at long distances, in the hope that a little bit of eye irritation could result in saving lives on both sides. While the 1995 United Nations Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons bans weapons designed to cause permanent blindness, the use of the LaWS in this sense could be examined if it could be turned down enough to not cause permanent damage.
A test video of the LaWS in action, shooting down a remotely piloted UAV drone. Pretty dramatic footage. From the Navy’s website: “120804-N-ZZ999-001 SAN DIEGO, Calif. (Jul. 30, 2012) the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) temporarily installed aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey (DDG 105) (shown here conducting an operational test) in San Diego, Calif., is a technology demonstrator built by the Naval Sea Systems Command from commercial fiber solid state lasers, utilizing combination methods developed at the Naval Research Laboratory. LaWS can be directed onto targets from the radar track obtained from a MK 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon system or other targeting source. The Office of Naval Research’s Solid State Laser (SSL) portfolio includes LaWS development and upgrades providing a quick reaction capability for the fleet with an affordable SSL weapon prototype. This capability provides Navy ships a method for Sailors to easily defeat small boat threats and aerial targets without using bullets. (U.S. Navy video by Office of Naval Research/ Released)”
Smoke one UAV
Costs $1 per shot
According to the Navy, the LaWS can fire a full-power burst that costs less than $1 per session. By comparison a SM-2MR surface to air missile, the Navy’s standard plane and missile killer for the past thirty years, costs about $400,000 a pop. Even smaller close in point defense type missiles such as the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) can run over $700K apiece. Further, whereas the number of missiles, shells, and bullets carried by a ship is always finite, as long as the ship’s engineering department can produce power, the LaWS can be fired.
This beast is the old 1989-era Sea Lite Beam Director, the Navy’s first active high-energy laser. Well, the USN has now figured out how to shrink this down to package that is more pallet-sized than supersized.
How will it look when it is adopted?
LaWS will deploy on the Persian Gulf next year on the USS Ponce. The Ponce is a nearly 50-year old former amphibious warfare ship that had been converted to an Afloat Forward Staging Base inthe Persian Gulf. An experimental Ord-Alt’ed CIWS on the Ponce is expected to carry the system sometime after October 2013.
The current US Navy’s Phalanx MK15 Close In Weapons System (CIWS) fires a high-speed computer controlled radar guided 20mm Gatling gun at over 4500-rounds per minute. It’s expected that the Navy will add the LaWS laser to this already cutting-edge gun after 2016.
(The red ‘can’ on the side of the CIWS is the LaWS laser…coming to the fleet at least in experimental form as early as this year)
The Navy is intending to add this system to the more than 250 CIWS Phalanx mounts found through the fleet. These devices are the familiar R2D2-looking systems that marry a small radar, fire-control system, and 20mm Vulcan cannon to track targets out to 10 miles away and destroy them once they are within 2.2-miles with accurate gunfire. The addition of the LaWS laser to this will allow the CIWS to engage threats first with the laser then with the 20mm Vulcan if needed.
This combined laser/gun mount, after testing and acceptance will be known as the CIWS Mk 15 Mod 41 with production and fielding in the fleet by 2017.
Times, it seems, they are a changing.
North Korea says what?
Inside the FBI Reference Firearms Collection
If every gun tells a story, the FBI’s reference firearms collection could fill a very, very large book. The inventory of more than 7,000 firearms—curated over 80 years—contains just about every make and model, from John Dillinger’s Prohibition-era revolver to the modern battlefield’s M16, and almost everything in between. More here:
Boston Bombers Had Trouble Getting Guns
In one of the most heinous acts of terrorism committed in modern times on the soil of the United States, the pair of immigrant bombing suspects in Boston apparently had trouble laying hands on firearms.
The two suspects in the Boston bombing, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 and his brother Dzhokhar, engaged police in multiple active firefights across the city. The thing is, according to a Reuter’s article, they were not licensed to own guns in the town where they lived. Neither brother had a firearms card on file with the Cambridge Police Department, a requirement of local and state law. The younger brother, only aged 19, was not eligible to apply for handgun ownership at all.
Therefore, the weapons in their possession were illegally owned for the jurisdiction they lived in.
So they went after a cop to try and get his guns…
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com
USMC Scout Snipers vs Small Boat
Think you can hit a bouncing target from a moving platform 1000+ meters away? Marines assigned to Scout Sniper Platoon, Battalion Landing Team (BLT) 3/2, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), and Sailors assigned to the USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), conduct a live-fire exercise while at sea, to practice defending the ship against small boat attacks. The 26th MEU operates continuously across the globe, providing the president and unified combatant commanders with a forward-deployed, sea-based quick reaction force. The MEU is a Marine Air-Ground Task Force capable of conducting amphibious operations, crisis response and limited contingency operations.
Just What is a 3D Printed Gun Anyway?
Great Vice Documentary on Defense Distributed,
A Conversation between Gun-owners in 2063
Leonard and Colin sat at the counter and waited on their breakfast to be served up. As they waited, Colin tapped the screen of his tablet and showed his buddy an article that just popped up.
The headline flashed, “Senate to Debate Gun Control Act of 2063 Today.”
Colin shrugged, “What else is there to debate? The vultures have already taken everything good away.”
Leonard nodded, “I remember when I was a kid back in 2013, and my Pop and I stood in line at Big Box one morning for two hours to buy any 5.56 ammo they had.”
“I can’t remember when it was that easy. You are a few years older than me.” Colin shifted on his stool. “Speaking of which, got any .22 to spare? My club is out.”
The days of walking into a store and buying ammunition over the counter had come to a screeching halt with the Ammunition Regulations of the 2030s. It seemed that some nut bought a few boxes of shotgun shells at a local store and then went to a school to settle a score with the imaginary demons in his head. To protect the kids now, the only way to get your ammunition was through membership in your local (highly regulated) shooting club…..
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
The Appleseed Marlin 795 Liberty Training Rifle
Marksmanship is a dying art in the United States that has been a staple of our country since the Revolutionary War. A group of grassroots volunteers known as the RWVA has teamed up with Marlin to produce a special model rifle to help change that.
Around the country every year, at shooting ranges from coast to coast, hundreds of Project Appleseed events are held that are open to the public. At these events, students of all ages learn to shoot a 20″ target out to 500 yards or a milk jug at 250 yards, using a standard, rack grade rifle, surplus ammo, iron sights, from field positions. These are put on by the RWVA.
The Revolutionary War Veterans Association (RWVA), a group of volunteer second amendment true believers that advocate training of rifle marksmanship and our early American heritage. While they allow any shooter with any rifle to come and train, it’s recommended that a 22LR rifle with good iron sights and a sling be used. This brings us to the Marlin 795.
Read the rest in my article at Marlin Forums
Danish War Doc Armadillo (Free whole movie)
In February 2009 a group of Danish Soldiers accompanied by documentary filmmaker Janus Metz arrived at Armadillo, an army base in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Metz and cameraman Lars Skree spent six months following the lives of young soldiers situated less than a kilometer away from Taliban positions. Good stuff. 1hr 40mins.