As reported on The Verge. By Ben Popper An explosion of advanced flying vehicles is about to hit the skies, but regulation lags way behind technology It was a muggy spring morning in South Texas almost one year ago when Gene Robinson arrived at the swampy waters near Sam Houston Lake Estates. All that week the area had been a hive of activity, as authorities searched along the banks, diving underwater with scuba gear, and flying…
As reported on Wired. BY NADA BAKOS U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Shane Chapman yells for a medic after a car bomb explodes in Mosul, Iraq, March 2008. Photo: U.S. Army Ten years ago this week, the U.S. invaded Iraq, citing intelligence that turned out to be bogus. I had to work on some of it — and I also had to work on keeping the really, really terrible versions of it out of our analysis. Specifically, I…
As reported on Wired. BY DAVID AXE The F-35′s rearward visibility is limited. Photo: Lockheed Martin The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the military’s expensive main warplane of the future, has a huge blind spot directly behind it. Pilots say that could get them shot down in close-quarters combat, where the flier with the better visibility has the killing advantage. “Aft visibility could turn out to be a significant problem for all F-35 pilots in the future,”…
As reported on Businessinsider.com by Geoffrey Ingersoll via AmericanSpecialOps.com/photos/ Ever since the Osama bin Laden raid, America has gone bonkers for U.S. Navy SEALs and Military Special Operators in general. Skip to the units > The Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, is scheduled for spending and personnel increases while the rest of the military looks to be making cuts. End strength goals indicate that America’s entire crop of military operators will top off at 70,000.…
As reported on TechCrunch. by GREGORY FERENSTEIN Private First Class Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to leaking classified government documents to WikiLeaks. Reading from a 35-page statement, Manning said he leaked diplomatic cables to “spark a domestic debate as to the role of the military and foreign policy in general,” but denies aiding the enemy. Perhaps most revealing, Manning said that he first attempted to go to media outlets, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, but his…
As reported on Wired. BY SPENCER ACKERMAN British Army Sgt. Scott Weaver of the Queens Royal Lancers launches one of the world’s smallest drones from a compound in Afghanistan. Photo: U.K. Ministry of Defence British troops in Afghanistan are flying a drone that’s shrunk down to its essentials: a micro-machine that spies, built for a solitary user. This is the Black Hornet. Its Norwegian manufacturer, Prox Dynamics, bills it as the world’s smallest military-grade spy drone,…
As reported on The Verge. By Amar Toor The US Navy is looking to develop a swarm of odor-sniffing robots to help assemble and load some of its most dangerous weaponry. As Wired reports, these semi-automated robots would act almost like mechanized ants, with “leader” and “follower” bots loading 1,000-pound bombs into tight spaces aboard aircraft carriers. A human-controlled leader robot would lead the procession, with its automated followers trailing behind. The key ingredient to the Navy’s proposal is an…
As reported on Wired. BY SPENCER ACKERMAN Sailors react to a simulated improvised explosive device detonation during a San Diego training session, Oct. 28, 2011. Photo: Flickr/U.S. Navy Like all wars, the war in Afghanistan must someday end. But the end of its signature weapon may not arrive on the same schedule. Insurgents’ homemade bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, look increasingly like a lasting fixture on the early-21st century battlefield. The Pentagon’s bomb squad warns…
As reported on Wired. BY DAVID AXE The guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge tows the lifeboat from the Maersk Alabama to the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer on April 13, 2009. Photo: U.S. Navy On April 8, 2009, four pirates armed with AK-47s clambered up the side of the U.S.-flagged container ship Maersk Alabama, sailing off the coast of Somalia. But after a brief scuffle with some of the 20 crewmembers, the pirates opted to abandon the 508-foot…
As reported on Businessinsider.com by Robert Johnson Chinese Military Review Type 052B Guangzhou class Wuhan (169) guided missile destroyer (click to expand) When Chinese and Japanese fighters met for the first time over disputed islands in the East China Sea earlier this month, Japan promptly declared its right to fire tracers at China’s jets. Though met with outrage by China at the time, Japan continues promoting the live firing which Chinese military academics are calling…