The New Military Industrial Complex

[budanski]

The New Military Industrial Complex (http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,47023,00.html)

interesting weapons for the upcoming show, i meant war. ;)

[96B]

You are the man for bringing this to my attention. woot

[front]

Howdy

Strange article. According to it the US troops are going to war next month with:

"Laser vision", "Stryker Interim Armored Vehicle", "Tactical High-Energy Laser", "Upgraded Phalanx MK-15 Close-In Weapons System", "Bandwidth Satellites", "GPS IIR Satellites", "Pocket-Sized Forward Entry Device (PFED)", "Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (CATT)"?

All of this tested, fielded, deployed, maintained, and ready-for-action...?

I would'nt give Darth Vader a chance against this article in business2.com.

:-)

cheers

front

[Apogee]

Yeah, most of those sytems are still in the design or testing phase. Although the Styker Brigades are now operational. I doubt these will be deployed in a war with Iraq since that doesn't really seem to fit the mission profile for that sort of unit. Of course our troops and weapon systems did very well against the Iraqis in Gulf War I, so we may not need those new capabilites.

In my opinion, it is better to wait until later to deploy a weapon system. Its better to develope both the technology and the doctrine to make it a truely effective weapon.

[fng]

THEL? What sort of acronym is that? "You thelly." We Americans need to learn from the British and pick cool names for our equipment. HWWMV, or however that is spelled, just ain't cuttin' it.
On a more serious note, this might have been the device that brought down one of the Marine One Blackhawks over Northern Virginia (or maybe it was Maryland; I forget now) and was covered in an article in Soldier of Fortune about ten years ago. There was a big cover-up but an anthropoligist (?) uncovered reckage that suggested that the aircraft was cooked from the inside, a la a microwave oven. Eye witness reports of crew members hanging out of the aircraft in obvious distress and the erratic flight path of the Blackhawk seemed to cooraborate his analysis. Food for thought.

[hood]

I was reading a while back about that THEL heat laser device but that version was a design that would be attached to a bomber. So far the biggest problem is that it generates an incredible amount of heat which the plane can't dissipate fast enough. Can't wait for satellit based laser destruction devices that'll fry individuals targetted for assasination. We'll have to go back to wearing tin foil on our heads.

[David]

you mean you don't wear tin foil on your head now? geez, that's so unsafe.

[Kitsune]

Hood old nut....
The tin foil only works against the satelite based microwave thought control beams, it's totally useless against assassination-lasers!

I can't tell you anymore... I fear the MiB's will visit me...

[GazB]

"We'll have to go back to wearing tin foil on our heads."

Damn Hollywood... after watching "Total recall" I've been using a wet towel... :D

[hood]

Popular Science has more on this type of thing here:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,12543,424266,00.html

[hood]

Looks like the Daisy Cutter is getting a big brother...

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/US/03/11/sprj.irq.moab/vert.moab.jpg http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/images/03/11/top.bomb.moab.jpg

Pentagon officials say the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, carries 18,000 pounds of tritonal explosives.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/11/sprj.irq.moab/index.html

[Apogee]

Thats some good stuff, on less it lands within a grid square of your unit