It’s May 1947 and you, as a senior service see that the new upstart service has taken over an Army order for a turbojet powered, unmanned missile that will be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. What do you do? You go out and place a similar order with a competitor. Welcome to Flightdeck Friday…
Some increased levels of chatter these past few days re. cooperation between Iran and NK in nuclear weapons and missile fields. First up, the nuclear issue: NORTH KOREA HELPING IRANIANS TO SET UP NUKE TEST: REPORT: KOREANS SHARING THEIR TEST RESULTS, The VancouverProvince (British Columbia), January 24, 2007. North KoreaIran to prepare an underground nuclear…
MOGADISHU, Jan 24 (Reuters) – A U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship has launched a second air strike against suspected al Qaeda operatives in southern Somalia, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing unidentified U.S. officials. No confirmation of Monday’s reported attack was immediately available in the region and a Pentagon spokesman declined to comment. The…
This is just way too cool — imagine what a ship’s TAO or E-2C/D CICO could do with something like this: (sorry — plugin was misbehavin’ — see the video here) More on touch screens here (and yes, DARPA has a contract with them…)
Items of note from around the world today: 1. China’s ASAT test: China admits anti-satellite test: January 24, 2007. BEIJING: China has broken its silence and admitted that it held an anti-satellite test two weeks ago, confirming earlier reports from Washington. But a Foreign Ministry spokesman said China opposed any arms race in space and…
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran plans to conduct missile war games during a three-day period beginning Sunday, state-run television reported. The war games will be carried out near Garmsar city, about 60 miles southeast of Tehran, according to the broadcast. “Zalzal and Fajr-5 missiles will be test fired in the war game,” the broadcast quoted…
Lots of press these past few days over China’s ASAT test/demonstration vs. a defunct FY-1C weather satellite. Some may ask why the big deal — space after all, is not the province of but a few privileged nations and the target satellite was theirs, so why the concern? In a word, debris. The rather violent…
The phrase "assassin’s mace" is the English translation of "shashou jiang," a term of ancient Chinese strategy. "Shashou jiang" was a club with which the "assassin" incapacitated his enemy, suddenly and totally, instead of fighting him according to "the rules." To summarize from Part I – a Chinese strike using Theater BM’s has been conducted…
Over the years, the acreage afforded by carriers from the Essex through Nimitz-classes have stirred some creative thinking as to what might be launched and/or recovered therein. Of course, everyone should remember the specially configured P2V-3C’s that provided an iterim nuclear capability until the AJ Savage could come along. Along the way, though have been…
A simple clock served as one of the signatory icons of the (first) nuclear age. The “Doomsday Clock” of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists hearkened a reminder of impending destruction. First set at 7 minutes to Midnight when it appeared in 1947, the clock’s minute hand has moved closer to and fallen away from…
