Category Archives: weapons

Navy Greenlights CHAOS maritime strike system

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CoAspire’s CHAOS (Coalition Heterogeneous Affordable Offensive Strike) system, composed of the RAACM-ER cruise missile attached to a booster and a launcher system, is billed as a sort of cheap mini-Tomahawk or JASSM, with a 500-pound warhead, a 900nm(+) range, and a well under $1m cost per round (compared to a $2.6m JASSM or a $4m TLAM).

Further, it can be surfaced or air-launched.

It has the same lineage as the uber-underreported yet combat-proven Zone 5-made AGM-188 Rusty Dagger, which was just used by Ukrainian Mig-29s and Su-27s to strike the Voronezh Semiconductor Devices Plant, which is about 200nm north of the Ukraine border/lines.

Well, it was just announced that PAE Munitions has contracted with CoAspire and Zone 5 to deliver a CHAOS maritime strike system.

A cheap ship-killer.

CoAspire’s CHAOS Surface Launched system. The system is composed of the RAACM-ER cruise missile attached to a booster and a launcher system. (Photo courtesy of CoAspire)

Managed under Program Acquisition Executive Munitions, CHAOS is designed to rapidly build and deliver low-cost, scalable precision strike weapons to allies and partners.

“As adversaries increasingly deploy advanced area denial systems, coalition and allied forces face significant challenges in maintaining credible, modern, and affordable anti-ship capabilities,” said Capt. Sarah Abbott, PMX-201 program manager.

“CHAOS closes this capability gap, by delivering a highly capable, adaptable, and exportable maritime strike solution that overcomes present day obsolescence and supply chain challenges,” she said.

More here.

How Copy?

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Happy National Radio Day!

And, as the grandson of a Vietnam-era Fort Gordon Regular Army Signals Corps instructor (MOS 31Z5H, 31W50) with two tours in Vietnam and the two Bronze Stars and 7-starred-VSM on his DD-214 to show for it, big salute to those unsung RTOs with the PRC-25s and PRC-77s on their back, up to their chins in the rice paddies and river marsh, who were still able to smile about it.

Radio…check

ADA, the CIWS Way

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Official caption: Army field artillerymen conduct reload training in the Middle East on a counter-air defense Land-based Phalanx Weapon System, which can eliminate threats with its rapid-fire 20 mm Gatling gun, Aug. 12, 2026.

U.S. Army photo 260812-D-A0839-9196

The patch is of the Marion helmets of the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team “Gator Brigade” of the Florida National Guard, whose ADA units are drawn from the 164th Air Defense Artillery Brigade.

While some 1,000 Mk 16 CIWS mounts have been produced for use afloat around the world in 24 fleets, it is believed that the Army only has between 30 to 45 trailer-mounted LPWS/Centurion C-RAMs in its possession, a number which may be significantly lower with guns given to Ukraine.

Of note, they use specialized self-destructing rounds (M940 MPT-SD or M246) designed to detonate in the air to prevent collateral damage on the ground, and have successfully zapped incoming mortar rounds and rockets in Iraq and Afghanistan going back to May 2005.

Iranian UAVs and cruise missiles are new to the menu.

Twin bruisers

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Some 50 years ago this month, two sister sluggers, the 8-inch-gunned heavy cruisers USS Des Moines (CA-134) and Newport News (CA-148), rest on red lead row in Philadelphia, August 1976

USN Photo K-117046.

The massive Des Moines, tipping the scales at 21,000 tons, entered the fleet in November 1948 and was laid up just 13 years later, her nine 8″/55 RF Mk 16 guns quiet after a spate of Cold War service in the Mediterranean and Europe.

Sister Newport News, commissioned 1949, had a longer career and was only laid up in June 1975, a bit over a year prior to the above image. While Des Moines served in quiet strength, Newport News raised a racket in three tours on the gunline off Vietnam, earning six battle stars, two Navy Unit Commendations, one Meritorious Unit Citation, and the Republic of Viet Nam’s Gallantry Cross.

She fired more than 50,000 major-caliber rounds on 525 missions against nearly 4,000 targets and avoided at least 1,924 enemy counter-battery rounds in 46 separate incidents.

Both ships were kept in mothballs until the Cold War ended, just in case, and were only sold for scrap in the early 1990s.

Do you know the German .45ACP Service Pistol?

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While the huge (37 ounces, unloaded) H&K Mk23 SOCOM freakbeast in .45ACP is well known in the West, at least in video game use, the Bundeswehr’s similar (in concept) P12 flies largely under the radar.

You know, this bad boy:

The beefy Mk23 was a stepping stone for HK to create the USP (Universal Self-loading Pistol), which the Bundeswehr adopted in 9mm in 1994 as the Pistole 8 (P8) to replace the Walther P1– which itself was just an aluminum-framed Walther P-38.

With the Bundeswehr eager to fill a niche for a full-time suppressed pistol with subsonic ammo for commando and sniper support roles, the USP Tactical in .45ACP got the nod for adoption as the P12.

It comes in a tiny bit lighter (32 ounces, unloaded) but confusingly uses a longer standard suppressor (7.7 inches) than the 7.5-inch KAC found on the Mk23!

Meanwhile, the German Landespolizei also uses the 9mm USP Compact as the P10, but that’s a different story.

Land Cruiser, is that you?

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OK, Ok it isn’t the size of a guided missile cruiser on wheels, but Rheinmetall has marked a key advance in modern loitering munition technology by successfully demonstrating the FV-014 loitering munition/kamizakee drone launching from a container while in motion.

Developed entirely in-house, the system was launched from a modular Containerized Missile Launcher at the National Test Centre in Cochstedt in July 2026. During the test, the loitering munition demonstrated its flexibility by launching from an 18-cell VLS HX truck both while stationary and while moving, then completing simulated attack flights.

For reference, the 66-pound FV-014 can pull off recon, target tracking, precise single or swarm attack scenarios with a range of about 60 miles before delivering its 13-pound HEDP warhead with a penetration capacity of more than 24 inches of rolled armor.

In other words, it is akin to a smart TOW missile with a whole lot longer range and without the need for guidance wires.

A Couple of Batteries of Waterlogged Artillery return ‘home’ to Savannah

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What began as a dredging effort to deepen Savannah Harbor near old Fort Jackson became one of the most significant underwater archaeological discoveries in the city’s history.

The artifacts have now been unveiled at their new home, the Savannah History Museum. In early 2021, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews working on the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project unexpectedly pulled a cannon from the riverbed. Another scoop brought up two more, prompting crews to halt dredging and call in archaeologists and divers.

The resulting recovery effort uncovered 21 cannon and additional artifacts, including anchor fragments and pieces of a ship’s bell, from the bottom of the Savannah River, where they had been hidden for nearly 250 years.

Some cannon were recovered in pieces, and two fragmented examples displayed at the Savannah History Museum served as placeholders while also showing the effects of corrosion without proper conservation.

In February 2023, 17 cannon and several other artifacts were sent to the Conservation Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University. Over more than three years, experts removed corrosion, stabilized the iron, extracted wood plugs, paper wads, cannonballs, and intact gunpowder wads from 14 of the cannon, and conducted scientific analysis.

The 17 fully conserved cannon and related artifacts returned to Savannah on June 3, 2026. On July 2, after an official unveiling ceremony, they went on public display at the Savannah History Museum in the exhibit “Loyalists and Liberty: Savannah in the American Revolution.”

FRCs Roaming from San Diego to Panama, to Manila

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Sentinel (Webber) class Fast Response Cutters USCGC Douglas Denman (WPC-1149 and Forrest Rednour (WPC-1129) transit in formation during a photo exercise off the coast of San Diego, July 23, 2026.  (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Chris Sappey)

The crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Douglas Denman (WPC 1149) returned to her homeport at Coast Guard Base Ketchikan on Saturday, following a 41-day patrol in the Eastern Pacific. Douglas Denman conducted 42 investigative boardings and queries in support of Operation Border Trident along the sea frontier south of San Diego.

That’s a lot of time underway on a 154-foot boat.

Speaking of which, we have an update on the former PATFORSWA flotilla of six 154s that fell back from Bahrain through the Straits of Malacca and appeared in Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines since the war with Iran made their old base and mission in the Persian Gulf untenable.

It has been confirmed by U.S. Undersecretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby earlier this week in a speech during a forum organized by the Stratbase Group in Makati City, PI, that four of the former PATFORSWA boats, now designated the Expeditionary Cutter Squadron (ECS), will be in that Westpac archipelago on a rotational basis. I’d imagine the other two FRCs will be in yard/workup periods in Guam, co-located with the three 154s currently based there.

The USCG is falling back on its FRCs to fill in the gaps left by the stalled $20 billion frigate-sized Offshore Patrol Cutter. The 66th of 77 planned FRCs was delivered in June, bound to be the fourth 154 sent to Guam, set to join the family in a couple of months.

Meanwhile, another sister is roaming off the coast of Panama, winning hearts and minds.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Robert Ward (WPC-1130) alongside Mexican, Ecuadorian, Colombian and Panamanian vessels conduct tactical signaling training during Panamax in the Pacific Ocean near Panama, Aug. 7, 2026. The exercise was designed to improve interoperability, sharpen skills, and demonstrate the ability to respond and deter threats to the region and its critical waterways. (Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class William Kirk)

Lifting Battle Weary Eyes to the Heavens

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Some 60 years ago this week. A well-traveled paratrooper with good reason to wonder why.

Official caption: “14 August 1966. SP4 Ruediger Richter (Columbus, Georgia), 4th Bn., 503 Inf., 173 Abn Bde (Separate), lifts his battle-weary eyes to the heavens, as if to ask why? SGT. Daniel E. Spencer (Bend, Oregon) stares down at their fallen comrade. The day’s battle ended, they silently await the helicopter which will evacuate their comrade from the jungle-covered hills in Long Khanh Province.”

By Pfc. L. Paul Epley, 1966 National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer (111-SC-635974)

Richter, 25 years old at the time, had a long and winding history before the above image was captured. One that had included surviving Allied bombers in WWII as a youth, running away to the sea at age 14, then accepting a “join or go to prison” stint in the French Foreign Legion under a new name, before heading to America.

From a 2014 article, by which time he was a 73-year-old grandpa in Georgia, finally in a quiet time.

Born in Berlin in February 1941, when Hitler’s Nazi troops already had been marauding across Europe for years, Richter’s earliest memories are of bodies outside bombed-out bunkers and bright flares dropped by Allied bombers.

“We called them Christmas trees. They were beautiful,” he said. “You could hear the sirens going off all over Berlin.”

Richter said when the war ended in 1945 and the Allies sliced the city into sectors, he was fortunate enough to live in the American district, where GIs were a soft touch for a young German boy begging for food. With few options in Berlin, Richter said, he joined the German merchant marine at age 14. That three-year stint ended when his ship docked in Calais, France, where he and other sailors were arrested after a bar fight.

“They put us in a dungeon with water dropping down, just like in a movie. There was just a little window with bars,” he said.

After three days in lockup, a judge gave the penniless Richter a choice: Stay in prison or join the French Foreign Legion, which was battling rebels in French-controlled North Africa. He was too young to join legally at age 17, Richter said, so he was given a new name — Horst Timm — and allowed to enlist.

Richter does not know how many men he killed with the Legion, or how many night-long marches he made through Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. But after five years, he left the Legion and regained his true name. An aunt and uncle living in Columbus suggested he come to America to restart his life, so he did in 1964.

Richter grew bored with his job constructing helicopter landing pads, so he enlisted in the Army in 1965.

Checkerboard Fury: 110,743 rounds on Deployment

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From the February 1959 issue of Navy Aviation News comes this article about the month-long deployment of the “Checkerboards” of Marine Fighter Squadron (VMF) 312 to Cuba.

Sent “down south” during the height of the Cuban Revolution, their 24 FJ-2 Furies flew 1,300 flight hours of diplomacy and fired over 110,743 rounds in air-to-air target quals from their Colt Mk 12 cannons– that’s a lot of 20 Mike Mike!

VMF-312 hung up their FJ-2/3s for the F8U-1 Crusader in 1959, then became VMFA-312 when they moved to the monstrous F-4B Phantom in 1966, which they took to Vietnam.

In 1987, they became F-18C/Ds drivers, which they took to Bosnia and Iraq.

A U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C Hornet aircraft with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 312 flies loaded with six AIM-120D advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles and two AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles over the Pacific Ocean Oct. 27, 2022. (U.S. Marine Corps courtesy photo by Capt. Ryan Fronczek).

Currently, they are set to transition to the STOVL F-35B.

Word is, they are still a whizz with the 20mm. Some things never change.

VMF-312 Insignia, circa 1943

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