Slashdot Mirror

Hanoi, Hai Phong, Nam Dinh were all destroyed during bombing operators. HCM trail have no civilian target.
John McCain was shot down while bombing a lightbulb factory.

It's misleading that Vietnam war was a guerrilla warfare, in fact it's was serial of battles to capture/defense positions, areas, with participation of large number of soldiers and weapons, between U.S and NVA (not VC).
There's a myth of U.S military won all battles but lost due to politics.
Also, there's problem with statistic, such as using "body counting" as a measure of "victory".

The irony of you posting an image from crooksandliars is demonstrated by linking to an actual gun manufacturer that builds and sells AR15 models: http://www.colt.com/Catalog/Ri...

I don't see a scope, a tripod, a bipod, a drum magazine..

I guess you also want to ban the sale of toyota pick-up trucks based on this image: http://www.g2mil.com/toyota-gu...

After all, nothing says "personal transportation" like a 23mm anti-air cannon.

You can light steel wool with a common cigarette lighter. We should definitely stop making firetrucks out of steel.

Aluminium is actually far more flammable than steel. This is why they stopped using it for the superstructure of warships and you will not see aluminium armour. Aluminium is highly reactive but what stops it burning is that it very rapidly forms an inert, oxide layer in air which, unlike iron that has rust, remains strongly attached to the metal. However under the right conditions you can overcome this and then aluminium burns which is clearly not the case for steel.

However I expect that it will be a lot safer in a battery than lithium because of the protective oxide layer...unless the battery technology circumvents the formation of this layer in someway to make the battery function.

I'll add that I just read that 155mm rounds cost $50,000 each. So it's even cheaper than conventional artillery.

Citation please.

The new GPS radar guided Excalibur perhaps. But no a standard HE round.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

The max range of a 155 round is a lot shorter than some are indicating.
16000 yards or about 9 miles for the howitzer. It is necessary to
not confuse naval guns with army howitzers. Since I am an Army guy
I will not worry about naval guns beyond acknowledging that "guns" have
longer range but the max is about 23 miles.

Rail guns are interesting as kinetic weapons. The projectile must be
something dense and durable. One guess would be tungsten, or tungsten carbide, depleted
uranium perhaps. Depleted uranium amo is commonly jacketed with gliding metal to protect
the barrel for sure. I wonder if U has sufficient strength as is for a rail gun acceleration profile.

There is a big gap between modern guns ~25 miles and cruise missiles, both range and cost.
Perhaps this is the true goal of a rail gun.

      http://www.g2mil.com/8inchguns...

Why not just add another mission to regular passenger planes, and make them bombers, as well? Just make the seats able to hold bombs as well as humans, and add bomb bay doors on the floor.

Humor aside, the addition of a bomb bay is a major change to the structural dynamics of an airframe. There WAS a concept to mod a 747 airframe for use as a cruise missile platform: that would require far less major structural alterations from the baseline B747 design. . .

Details and a drawing

It's funny. The first thing you thought of was how lasers won't work because they can't replace conventional cannons.

The first thing I thought of was how lasers would be perfect as a close-in defense system against the new class of supersonic anti-ship missles.

I don't know why TFA talks about defending against small, slow-moving suface vessels. A 50-cal machine gun works just fine against those.

I'm not certain that's correct. Aluminum will burn http://www.g2mil.com/aluminum.htm
So you've got ice there also, and when it vaporizes, it's adding more oxygen and hydrogen to the fire, thus keeping it burning, since in space, you don't have enough of those.

Consider how much energy it would take to move this massively long cable. There is no way in hell that is going to be efficient. You're going to be wasting a massive amount of energy as you move the entire cable the whole time the thing is climbing.
****

If the entire system is powered from the ground, we have essentially unlimited power available. Just build a couple of reactors nearby to power it exclusively. The major problem with getting materials up to space isn't a lack of power, it's a lack of space to hold the fuel. And, of course, the safety factor. Nearly one in every 30 launches still is a failure (3% even with the best technology). This appears to do away with all of that. At least for the trip up.

http://www.g2mil.com/safety.htm
It's horribly dangerous to try to get up to and back from space. Speed isn't the real issue here.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/information/shuttle_faq.html
It costs 450 million to do a single Shuttle launch. That buys a LOT of electricity or other fuel down on the ground to power a space elevator. Honestly, I can't imagine how much fuel that would buy. Dozens? Hundreds of climbs? It's worth exploring this technology in any case, as the potential long term savings is huge.

Are you talking about this Sky Ramp
or this Magnetic Launch System
There was a site that had done some work on a maglev track to launch directly to orbit. www.maglev2000.com (the site seems to be down now.) The maglev track for a manned launch to orbit (4g max acceleration) is over 500 miles long!

http://www.g2mil.com/ABL.htm

Hmm... are you referring to the V22 Osprey?

From the sound of it he is referring to the Sikorsky X-Wing The idea was to build a conventional helicopter that had rotors who generated lift no matter how they were oriented by using compressed air that was bled over the rotor surfaces to create lift. I am no aerodynamicist but I think this concept is called a boundary layer control system (like blown flaps). The X-Wing would thus be able to take off like a Helo but could fix the rotors in place and have them act like conventional wings for high speed flight. The X-Wing was abandoned in favor of the V-22 which is a more elegant if troubled solution. I rather liked the X-Wing though it was the closest engineers ever got to creating a real world AirWolf.

Well, I agree with you in principle that the program is an imposition, there are a lot of other scams that put this one to shame. Example? And that's a drop in the ocean.

The major problem with electronics is the heavy metals that go into their manufacture and disposal, polluting the soil and groundwater for generations. I can foresee a day when people file environmental lawsuits against the electronics manufacturers, in a manner analagous to what they've done, rather unjustly, I add, with the tobacco and handgun industries. Hopefully, the manufacturers see the writing on the wall and clean up their own industry both as a defense against future litigation, and more advantageously, as a marketing gimmick.

Personally, I see the consumer as bearing the full weight of responsibility for the heaps of digital crap getting dumped into landfills. Nobody is making anyone buy that stuff, nor are consumers exactly burying the electronics companies in demands for greener manufacturing. And companies do respond to customer feedback, some more than others, but being profit-oriented entities, they will recognize an emerging market in green electronics, and the smart ones will capitalize. Yuppies will, as always, be the early adopters and pay a premium. Prices will drop, and the masses will follow suit.

Guess again. And remember that very few troops are driving around in M1s. Most are in Humvee death traps.

The US soldiers have the best protection, the best fire power, the best communications, recon etc... Yet they are slowly losing control of the situation.

You are right about that. Some problems simply cannot be solved with more and better weapons.

Those futuristic weapons are designed to fight 20th century's wars, not today's or tomorrow's wars. What's the use of a gun that fires a million rounds per minute when you're trying to control a riot? How can space darts help you identify the terrorist hiding in the crowd?

I believe the US military (the military industrial complex) is still fighting (and losing) the Cold War. For all the talk of "transformation" and this "different kind of war" the paradigm remains the same: spend more money on high tech toys. Spend into bankruptcy just like the Soviet Union. The US did not win the Cold War, the Soviet Union just ran out of money first. So why keep spending on these ridiculous systems when more basic training and better armour protection for troops is what is really needed today?

These are not my ideas (I'm not that smart). I probably read them first on G2mil. Check it out, it has lots more interesting and insightful articles.

Remember, all the technology in the world cannot help you conquer a guy who is willing to die for a cause. The best you can do is try to minimize the damage he inflicts.

Parent should not have been marked flamebait. This is the straight truth (though my understanding is that the death toll sits at at least 23).

Indeed. Here is an excellent compilation of articles and letters on the V-22 fiasco (an even bigger fiasco than Comanche). The Marines (and other services) would be much better served by a unified Blackhawk upgrade plan.

Indeed. Here is an excellent compilation of articles and letters on the V-22 fiasco (an even bigger fiasco than Comanche). The Marines (and other services) would be much better served by a unified Blackhawk upgrade plan.

Better get used to it, because it just doesn't work. It is an even bigger disaster than Comanche.

G2mil published this editorial on the Comanche last month. Excellent reading (as G2mil usually is). Some good responses to it on this month's letters page.

G2mil published this editorial on the Comanche last month. Excellent reading (as G2mil usually is). Some good responses to it on this month's letters page.

Purely for performance it seems. As always, google has the answers: M1 Abrams tank use a turbine.

The first search result is pretty interesting.

/mike

A friend of mine introduced me to g2mil.com, a website run by a former Marine Corps officer. Essentially he prints commentary on the state of the US Military. His insight, though, is really something. Anyway, this month, he posted This Article, in which he proposes we scrap the space shuttle program altogether. Makes some good points as far as I can tell (granted, I'm no expert, but I'd like to read comments by those who *are* experts).

-dan

A friend of mine introduced me to g2mil.com, a website run by a former Marine Corps officer. Essentially he prints commentary on the state of the US Military. His insight, though, is really something. Anyway, this month, he posted This Article, in which he proposes we scrap the space shuttle program altogether. Makes some good points as far as I can tell (granted, I'm no expert, but I'd like to read comments by those who *are* experts).

-dan