RSS Feeds
Weapons
Rocket Grenade Smashed to Bits In Flight By Quick Kill Defence System
Posted by Kit Eaton at 9:37 PM on November 21, 2008
We've written about the sci-fi sounding Army's Future Combat System before, but the Army's just demonstrated a successful test of one of its components: the Quick Kill vehicle defence system. Check it out: the Raytheon system uses an electronically-scanned radar array to detect an incoming anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade, then vertically launches a countermeasure missile that blows the round to smithereens in mid-flight, saving the RPG's intended target. It's a very simple test setup, and, of course the real system will have to deal with complications like vehicles in motion, but it's an important first step. And it goes boom. [Danger Room]
The US Army banned YouTube, social networking sites and blogging well over a year ago, citing security and bandwidth issues. Standard wartime practice, really, just updated for the internets. It has the unfortunate side effect, though, of cutting troops from technology that would keep them closer to their family. Enter TroopTube, a video sharing site where soldiers can upload clips for the families and "supporters" that are screened by Pentagon employees for "taste, copyright violations and national security issues."
The US Army is ramping up the development of technology that previously could have been classified as X-Files, "making science fiction into reality" as Dr. John Parmentola, Director of their Research and Laboratory Management. The list of things currently in the works is amazing: regenerating body parts on "nano-scaffolding", telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp, and self-aware virtual photorealistic soldiers that can be deployed in the battlefield through "quantum ghost imaging". To test these they want to use them into a massively multi-player online games like World of Warcraft or Eve online:
Not far from a kick arse gadget that Batman would own, the Solar Com-Bat Spy Plane is a surveillance device which is powered by solar, wind and vibrations, making it seem like the perfect device to use in the heat of battle. Although this bat-like spycam is only 6 inches long, it will be a huge help in gathering real-time data for soldiers, which includes tracking down sound detection, and detecting nuclear radiation and poisonous gasses. The only thing that could make this gadget cooler is if its parents—a stapler and a coffee machine—were shot by a mugger in front of its eyes, giving it a more brooding personality. [
Death and Taxes 2009 is a detailed graphical account showing where your tax dollars will go next year in the most detailed and fascinating way: Everything is set to scale according to the amount of money spent on it, showing the amazing weight that military-related spending has in the total Federal budget. It's just mindblowing to see it all with one look. It's easy to get 
The NYTimes's Bits blog 
Real-time videos that detect the most minute movements in enemy battle areas and advanced analytical systems that will efficiently sift through them are all in the works, according to DARPA documents. A $US6.7 million contract with software company Kitware revealed a DARPA project focused on rapidly indexing archived aerial surveillance. It also gave a taste of the technology our military already uses, and it sounds like something out of the Bourne Identity.
BusinessWeek reports that counterfeit hardware has been found to be the cause of several malfunctions in high-level military machinery. The phony infiltration has a distinct possibility of leading to espionage or sabotage. In other words, move over, 
Here's the first look at the final version of the deadly XM25. We learnt this morning about the weapon's 
From the "how the hell did we miss this" department comes word that the U.S. military is hard at work creating 
