Free Republic

Rockets are expensive, complex, bad for the environment and prone to occasionally exploding – so alternative launch technologies are popping up to reduce their use. We wrote about SpinLaunch's remarkable kinetic launch system earlier this week, which spins a rocket up to incredible speeds on the end of a long, carbon-fiber arm in a vacuum chamber, then releases it skyward at speeds up to and over Mach 6. Then another company dropped us a line, to show us a far simpler approach it says can get launch vehicles and ruggedized electronic cargo off the ground at nearly three times that...

CHINA has introduced a new howitzer weapon to its western borders following a fatal military clash with India in the Himalayas earlier this month. A howitzer is short cannon-type weapon that is capable of firing projectiles at high trajectories. The particular model that China is rolling out is called a PCL-181. These vehicle-mounted weapons are relatively new, having made a public debut at a military parade in Beijing in October last year. The cheap, light howitzer China is rolling out in Tibet The PCL-181 Click here to go to yuck tube.

An outsized and upgraded cannon spat shells a distance of 40 miles over the Arizona desert Friday, reaching almost three times as far as its previous incarnation. The army is scrambling to boost the range of its missiles and artillery as the number one modernization priority.That program includes an upgrade to a tank-like howitzer, the Extended Range Cannon Artillery, with three times the range and an autoloader, able to launch one round every 6-10 seconds.On March 6, the prototype, with its unwieldy-looking gun, successfully fired two different types of artillery 40 miles during a demonstration at the Yuma testing range...

The U.S. Army is pushing ahead with plans to field a cannon with an astounding 1,000-mile+ range. The cannon, along with hypersonic weapons, will allow the service to attack long range, strategic-level targets far beyond the reach of existing Army systems. According to Defense News, the Army’s program manager for long range fires, Col. John Rafferty, the service expects the gun to have a range of 1,000 nautical miles—or 1,150 statute miles. The technology behind the cannon is described as “cutting edge" that's so advanced that the service is not sure if the gun would be affordable. The Army is...

The U.S. Army is continuing development of a so-called “super gun” artillery piece capable of sending projectiles 1,000 miles downrange, or more than far enough to be free of counterbattery fire from existing enemy guns. Top service officials say the new gun, when fully developed and deployed, would be able to attack targets in and around China, including Beijing’s bases on the South China Sea islands, well out of range of Chinese defenses. “You can imagine a scenario where the Navy feels that it cannot get into the South China Sea because of Chinese naval vessels, or whatever,” Army Secretary...

IDF to replace outdated howitzers after decades of service By YAAKOV KATZ 17/07/2011 American M109 howitzers have undergone a series of upgrades since they debuted in the Yom Kippur War. The IDF is looking to replace its aging M109 155 mm. self-propelled howitzers, after decades of service and participation in a number of wars. Israel received the American M109 howitzers in the 1970s and they debuted in the Yom Kippur War. They have since undergone a series of upgrades and today are fitted with air purification systems so crews can continue operating in the event of a chemical or biological...

THE GIST Three metallic clusters at what is believed to be the wreck of Blackbeard's flagship reveal the pirate's gruesome secrets.The piles of ammo contain lead shot, nails, and glass which were likely put in canvas bags and fired from cannons.Blackbeard's improvised missiles were intended to scare sailors into surrendering.

The original artillery was towed, primarily by horses. Towed guns bring some advantages as opposed to self-propelled guns. They are lighter, which makes it easier to deploy them via aircraft (thus ensuring that a light division will have support). They are cheaper, which makes the bean-counters happy. They are also simpler, which means much less can go wrong. That said, the low price, light weight, and simplicity comes with a trade-off in tactical mobility. Towed howitzers, which rely these days on trucks to move them, have a harder time keeping up with mobile units (like armor and mechanized infantry) than...

10 Largest Caliber Weapons Ever Most weapons, from .45 automatics to 155-mm howitzers, are described in terms of caliber—the diameter of their projectile. These are the biggest of the big. Some are impractical showpieces built to satisfy the outsize egos of dictators such as Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Others are pure demonstrations of extreme gunsmithing. All of them pack a punch. Largest Muzzle-Loading Cannon The Tsar Cannon was cast in bronze in 1586 and weighs 40 tons. Its 35-inch bore and could fire about 1800 pounds of stone grapeshot, earning it the nickname the Russian Shotgun. It was never...

The U.S. Navy, without fanfare or notice, tested a new weapon last summer that could revolutionize surface warfare. The hyper velocity projectile (HVP) is a Mach 3 shell fired from existing guns on cruisers and destroyers. A guided projectile, HVP can drop high explosives on enemies on the ground up to three times as far as conventional ship gun ammo with a high rate of precision. It can also intercept incoming anti-ship missiles, providing an economical alternative to increasingly expensive anti-missile interceptors. According to USNI News, the guided missile destroyer USS Dewey fired 20 new HVP projectiles during the 2018...

The spasm of Hamas-provoked violence that gripped the Gaza Strip and parts of southern Israel last week has temporarily halted for the time being. According to credible reports, Israel informed Cairo that it would begin targeting Hamas leaders and commanders if Hamas failed to rein in its assorted thugs and gangsters. Hamas heeded the call, and for good reason. Over the years, Israel’s various security branches have developed a penchant for liquidating dangerous enemies who seek to inflict harm on the Jewish State. Hamas is keenly aware of this fact having recently lost two of its operatives – Mohammad Zawari and Fadi...

The Army is fast-tracking an emerging program to engineer a longer-range artillery cannon able to out range enemy ground forces by hitting targets at more than twice the distance of existing artillery. The service is now prototyping an Extended Range Cannon Artillery weapons with a larger caliber tube and new grooves to hang weights for gravity adjustments to the weapon – which is a modified M777A2 mobile howitzer. Existing 155m artillery rounds, fired with precision from mobile and self-propelled howitzer platforms, have a maximum range of about 30km; the new ERCA weapon is designed to hit ranges greater than 70km,...

MOSSAD'S KILLING MACHINE COMES TO BRITAIN A killing war between Israel's Mossad and Islamic fanatics came closer this weekend in Britain. The Israeli intelligence agency has sent four members of its kidon assassination squad to this country, to join fifteen other handpicked katsas, its relentless field agents. Their brief is to "disable" any of the "close to 50" British Muslims that the extremist Islamic group, Al-Muhajiroun, last week boasted were ready to carry out suicide missions similar to the one in Tel Aviv. Al-Muhajiroun spokesman, Asif Butt, said the 50 were "primed and ready to go". The threat was sufficient...