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Six Fun Things to Do With Serious Military Hardware at a Russian Armaments Show
Posted by John Mahoney at 9:30 AM on August 26, 2008
The International Defence Exhibition of Land Forces went down in Moscow this past weekend, and it seems like it was a pretty a great time, judging from these photos sent in to our good friends at English Russia. First stop, obviously, is to strap on the Tevas and nautical print Hawaiian shirt for a quick sit in this bad-arse anti-aircraft (I think?) battery. And as you can imagine, that's not all the fun to be had for the whole family with all the heavy weapons around.
When Joachim Schoeneich of Neu Anspach Germany goes shopping for groceries with the fam from now on, he does so in style: with a tank. Or, more accurately, with a US$47,376 six-ton British Army Fox FV721 armoured reconnaissance vehicle. "We take the tank to go shopping and little trips," Schoeneich said. "It is a bit hard to find a parking place, but we get right of way at every junction." No kidding. It's too bad the gun doesn't work, but this thing's definitely intimidating enough without it. Well, that and the baby seat he installed for his kid. [
The RainwaterHOG is a design-y rainwater tank (yes, there is such a thing) that collects rain to re-use in the garden, give to your dog or fill up your 
We think Danbar Toys has a winner on its hands today with this US$92 amphibious BB-shooting RC tank, with cupholders. I mean, what better way to cap off a beer-fuelled barbecue than with a remote-control tank that can go anywhere, turn on a dime, and take people's eye balls as war trophies at the same time? The "creatively written" instruction manual (borderline Engrish) cautions against firing at people or animals, but we've had a few already this morning, and Uncle Bob and his stupid cat are totally asking for it. Drink, er, fire away.
Incrudo makes water-proof, shock-proof, scratch-proof, and apparently T-72B tank-proof USB flash drives out of pure titanium. And to prove it, the crazy Ivans pitted the key—which also has a special metal-ceramics composite on the front and back panels, as well as a real ruby that illuminates from the inside—against the legendary tank. Sure, the test is on the mud, but that's 49.1 tonnes of tank. A Soviet tank. If there's something cooler than that, I don't know what is. [
This dad went above and beyond the traditional lazydad Carvel and built his son a cake in the shape of a tank, with a motorised rotating turret. The canon also adjusts elevation as it turns. But due to wife-husband restrictions from the Tank Cake Treaty of 2006, it does not fire whipped cream munitions anywhere near the freshly cleaned kitchen table, thank you very much mister. Vid after the jump. [
A Rommel-wannabe from Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, has built a fully working, 1:2 scale version of the Tiger I 56.9-tonne heavy tank used by the Wehrmacht in World War II. Not happy with that, he drives his amazing creation—Guderian-style—on the road, with a "yellow triangle" on the back. The thing is so menacing that his neighbours called the police, thinking he was planning to take over Poland. Or Detroit. It could have gone either way.
"Comedian" Joe Rogan has got himself a new 7-foot tall isolation tank, and he is giving away his old one. This was created after the 1980s movie Altered States, in which the protagonist—played by William Hurt in his first role—uses it to get in touch with "ultimate reality." Isolation tanks deprive you of your physical senses and, according to Rogan, they make you have hallucinations with no secondary effects or addiction. Sounds weird? Yes. That's why we got deeper into this whole altered states thing.
First introduced in 2005, the Rip Saw is about to hit the market with a $200,000 price tag. The custom-built UGV can hit 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, go 80 mph, and can manoeuvre over any surface or terrain a tank can. And the video is pretty good; watch as it drives through a barn as if it were the cardboard boxen your handset came in.
Patton would've killed for a battalion of these babies. The British Army's testing an "invisible" tank that works like the invisibility jacket Susumu Tachi put out a couple of years ago. Basically a camera/projector setup throws images of the surroundings onto the tank, letting you see through it, so it's not quite the kind of future-y awesomeness DARPA's 
