One would almost swear its photoshop its so bad

Heh that brings back some memories. I am on the far right in this pic.

https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...a7&oe=593AE240

What unit were you in?

Thanks for posting that, Marcellus :rockon:

Delta Co 3/7 24th Infantry Division.

Just a mechanized grunt during the Gulf War.

The Bradley is a badass weapons system. Very underrated.

I have a few old pics of interest I may dig up later if you are interested. Just some first person Gulf War stuff.

Me and and old Army buddies have a FB group and have been sharing pics. Its pretty cool from a historical perspective I think.

There are many others on CP that have been through way more and done much more than I have.

Of course we're interested, its great material for this thread... post it up!

If you do it, maybe a few others will

Irans ridiculous stunt of a homemade stealth fighter is back, remember that from 2013?

Once again, Ari nails it in the comment section

https://warisboring.com/its-back-ira...b90#.lviv1ihs1

Were you dancing?

Chinas J-20 stealth jet has entered service

https://www.defensetech.org/2017/03/...ghter-service/

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The First Rule of B21 Is You Do Not Talk About B21

https://www.defensetech.org/2017/03/...not-talk-b-21/

Cannot wait to see the real thing, and not just an artists concept... the wings will be dramatically shorter IMO

It looks like they literally made a Firefox. Is Clint Eastwood flying that thing? "You MUST speak in RUSSIAN"

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...31_Firefox.jpg

LMAO I dunno... Clint is still an American Badass, but he is getting a bit long in the tooth for a mission like that

The SR-71 flew its first flight in 1964, and the general public knew nothing of its existence for over a decade. There is no telling what we have flying right now or for how long we have had it flying....

Less than 20 years after the piston fighter era, and this thing was operational.


That is mind blowing.

Secrecy until the end is probably best, I guess we'll see it when we see it

But you just know its going to be a sight to behold

To bring this thread back to unique weapons I bring you the Francisca axe also known as the Frankish throwing axe. It is also how the Franks got their name.

http://casiberia.com/img/prod/xh2120n_1.jpg

Throwing axes are quite uncommon in large scale military use for several reasons. You can't throw them very far, you can't carry very many, and they don't really pierce armor or shields well. Usually a javelin or dart is a much better weapon for nominally melee infantry to carry.

The francisca has one property that makes it worthwhile despite all the drawbacks. It bounces, a lot and off of almost anything: the ground, shields, and people included. It also bounces quite high and since it is heavy it probably won't kill but it can injure.

Having a band of fighters all throw francisca's into the enemy formation would cause complete chaos as the axes bounce around and allow the fighters close in and to take on a broken enemy formation instead of a solid one.

Thanks for bringing the thread back to its roots, high tech weapons arent always the most beautiful... that ax looks very light, balanced, and easy to control

But clangs off things too easy because its on the light side

Watching "Forged in Fire" at the moment, so this is a perfect post

But the francisca/tomahawk isnt quite as outdated as some might think, they seem to still come in very handy on the modern battlefield

http://www.wearethemighty.com/uncate...ck-knives-mcut

Captions suck, and off topic, but a cool show nonetheless.

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It is supposed to clang off things and most battle axes where small and light anyway. It isn't a killing weapon when thrown, it is a weapon to disrupt the enemy ranks before your guys charge in. Its functional duty is the same as Roman Pilum just better in wooded areas where you expect to be closer to the enemy before engagement.

Tomahawks aren't made to bounce, francisca's are as that is their function in battle, remember that they were thrown in a volley.

Ah, so I kinda misread its use... its an occasionally deadly distraction to be thrown before you close in, got it

And the fact it tends to bounce off helps it to be picked back up and thrown by the man behind you?

The fact that it bounces makes sure it hits the back ranks if it hits a shield or person. If it falls short it can bounce into the front line.

It really is a beautiful, streamlined creation

Is it time to retire the F-15?

http://www.wearethemighty.com/articl...-15cd-in-2020s

Interesting that in one breath they say they are considering retiring the entire F-15 model, then turn around and say they need thousands of new pilots to fill the ranks they are aiming for. If anything, move the F-15 to the Guard units, but do that only if the F-22 is ready to have the baton passed to it. Are there enough 22's to fill what would be the empty 15 ranks?

IIRC there are something like 190 F-22s, with only about 150 of those being flight ready at any given time... thats not really enough of them according to pretty much everything I've ever read

To drop the F-15, they would need to re-start production of the Raptor IMO... unless they think the F-35 can be just as good in an air to air/air supremacy role

The pilot shortage thing is hard to figure, you'd think there would be no shortage of people wanting to be glamorous flyboys

240 rockets in 2 minutes... wanna be on the receiving end of that?

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Watch 1 F-22 Raptor dogfight 5 F-15s

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Wow, the Archer is impressive... wars will need to be fought with robots pretty soon because the tech thats coming out lately will demand it, men wont stand a chance

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Good stuff, Bowser... military tech is amazing, space age stuff

Plasma force fields

Multiple types of lasers

Robots packing grenade launchers

Railguns - rods from God that dont have to be lugged into space

In a nod to recent events in Syria, here is a list of the 9 weapons banned from modern warfare

https://www.wearethemighty.com/artic...modern-warfare

I am once again surprised that they try to make rules for war. In a real war there won't be any rules.

Please tell me there is a clause in there that says if you use them first watch your ass.

Anyone that's ever done anything competitive knows that cheating works, and it is very difficult to beat someone who is cheating. And you can bet ISIS or whomever is going to do whatever they can.

Spoiled for DC - Don't get this moved, ****ers.

In a fight in which EVERYTHING is on the line, horrific things are going to happen.

If the US is ever invaded, we will not follow the rules. Can't blind the enemy? Can't use cluster bombs? LMAO

The only thing I don't think we will do is use hospitals and schools as shields.

This is what a modern torpedo can do to a ship, you can even see part of the torpedo continue out the other side... just crushes it

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MK-48 ADCAP...

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Great stuff, GloryDayz... the first one is great footage, the second one is very informative

So just what the **** is that?

LMAO

Soviet anti-surface warfare "plane" It used ground effect to just lift off the water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan

Repost... but a very good one, what a crazy hunk of shit that thing was

Technically not military, but...

http://pop.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/05/...02-0114-de.jpg

Crap. Did I post it before?

Probably also a repost (**** you Easy 6), but:

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Krauts go ballistic.

Cant recall if it was you or not, its back there somewhere

The 163 is incredible, great footage... the Germans were sooo advanced for their day... the first jet fighter, and the first delta wing with the Horton bomber

The vertical climb at :36 is unreal for the 1940s

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So what exactly are we looking at here?

NASA AD-1

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Meet the new Sikorsky S-97 Raider, a likely replacement for the Kiowa Little Bird made famous in movies like Blackhawk Down

Looks minimalist, sleek and bad ass... its also rumored to be the fastest helicopter prototype around

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-97_Raider

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Lets take a look at the ultimate weapon, the human weapon... in the form of King Abdullah leading his men in a live fire, building takedown exercise

You gotta click the link, so what... read the short article then watch a helluva leader in action. No wonder he has Jordan in such a firm grasp, as the article states... imagine what its like for a junior enlisted to see his King in action like that

I have great respect for that man, just imagine an American president doing the same things... being a jumpmaster, getting down on the ground for firefight training, flying real combat sorties in an F-16 etc etc etc

Is there an aspect of modern combat he cant pull off? What a ****ing stud, I'd vote for that guy

https://www.wearethemighty.com/artic...-fire-exercise

It figures Japan would be leading the charge in the field of stealth drone attack platforms, the US is missing the boat here... missile laden little UFOs piloted by Digital Takiwara types who kill at video games

http://www.wearethemighty.com/news/t...ding-in-secret

Not a "new" military weapon, by any stretch of the imagination, but I recall the first time it happened in Viet Nam - our Company Commander had requested air support from Battalion and they said that it was on the way - to "get everybody's heads down and STAY down'

a couple of minutes later the B-52s came Hell, you could barely see the con trails they were so high.....and then the bombing started.

My God in heaven....the earth was actually shaking....and everyone in my unit was SCREAMING.....Lordy but those things were effective.

20 Minutes later - the jungle and the canopy in front of us (1,000 yards) was gone - and so was every living thing with it...from that point on, when we left the fire base to head out - we were all hoping that those damned '52s were too busy to help us if we needed them....

I want more cool stories about life on the 17th parallel.

The days before bombs were 'smart' must've been unimaginably scary... all you could do was hope the bombardier knew what the hell he was doing

I can't imagine 40 tons of bombs x the number of 52s would be like impacting the ground nearby.

In the 80s one of the boats I was on, the USS Narwal (SSN 671) hosted the WWII vet of the former USS Narwhal (SS 167) and we got to hear from one of the crew members what it was like to be depth charged. I don't think it was as loud as what you had happen, but the one NarVet just laughed and said "if you stood it was like you had Elvis Presley crazy legs."

The military applications of this are clear to see IMO, particularly when they figure out how to put a set of wings on it and control it better, as the guy here talks about

In 10-15 years we'll be hearing about Delta/SEAL types using this technology while wearing temperature controlled, automatic wound treating exoskeleton suits, with heads-up display visor helmets that give them total awareness of the battlefield like an F-35

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Fantastic photo of an F-4 Phantom barrel rolling over a Soviet Bear Bomber, on a routine intercept circa 73-74

http://www.wearethemighty.com/news/t...russian-bomber

Its also incredible to see the side by side difference in the Phantom, and the fighter it replaced, the F-102... we had clearly made a dramatic leap in capability

Dramatic departure in terms of aerodynamic form, and hawkish profile... my Korean War pilot Uncle 'Bad' Bob Campbell used to fly the 102

He once 'stole' one of them from the Montana ANG to go visit a relative in Wyoming

Here's a good one.

https://youtu.be/mY1IFTR12Kg

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-n...works-11700133

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Its hilarious how close some of those shots got, he had him on the run LMAO

I was in tears I was laughing so hard. I think it being in Italian made it even funnier for some reason.

Sent from my LGMP450 using Tapatalk

Heh yes to the babbling on in Italian, with the general tone being 'yeah come on and get some you mother****er!'

Heh

Yeah we used to have a lot of fun with bottle rocket at one time. :doh!:

Me and my friends had Roman candle fights all the time. Fun times. [emoji23]

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Yeah we did the same as well as using bottle rockets as weapons while driving down the road. I won't even get into the carp we used to do with a .22LR. :hmmm: Its a good thing we didn't own AR's back in the day. :facepalm:

The Navy has turned the MQ-25 Stingray drone into a carrier launched stealth tanker, seems like a perfect mission for unmanned

http://www.wearethemighty.com/gear-t...ker-looks-like

Some really incredible looking flight footage here, displaying all of its weapons bays... what a hawkish beauty, look at that natural front profile... its like a bird crossed with a UFO

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Laser cannons on US fighter jets by 2021, some really sweet CGI of it in action here

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https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...02&oe=5ACFD805

Not really unique but my nephew sent me this picture he took last week. He joined the AF in May.

My sister in law posted it on FB.

Incredible shot, joined in May... hooking up Eagles by December

I swear we should be like Israel, every young man and woman will serve at least 2 years

I agree about some kind of service being mandatory.

He is actually a heavy bomber mechanic in training but got to go up on this refuel exercise.

He just got to Fairchild AFB in Washington in late October.

Yes. Slavery is grand! :rolleyes:

Its wishful thinking on my part, your angle is valid in the American context

My point is that military service can be such a great eye opening, multi-cultural, self affirming adventure experience... its the best glue any nation has for holding itself together

Bet you could ask every veteran here, and almost all would tell you they wouldnt trade that experience for anything

:facepalm:

Does Israel compare it slavery? Interesting question since they were slaves for 400 years.

You dont have to be a killer, there are office jobs and strangely you get paid.

And reasonably you could make it exempt to people who go to college or trade school.

Quit being a pussy.

Being forced to work under threat of imprisonment is slavery. It doesn't matter if you are paid or not. Israel does it out of necessity and even then parts of their population are not required to serve like the Druze.

Here is a very interesting piece that talks about a Russian pilots claim that they were always able to get on the 6 of American fighters over Syria

Whats even better though, is to read through the 100 or so comments... Americans and people from several other nations like Israel mixing it up nicely with Russkie trolls

Its a real hoot...

https://theaviationist.com/2017/12/2...an-pilot-says/

Really? Slavery? Being required to give a couple of years service to your country? Wow...

Look, you are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but Wow.....


God help us if there is ever another World War.

Is Jury duty slavery?

Yes. Being forced to due something under threat of imprisonment is slavery.