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Explanation: The Big Dipper is an easy to recognize, well-known asterism in northern skies, though many see the Plough or Wagon. Famous bright nebulae of the north can also be found along its familiar lines, highlighted in this carefully composed scene with telescopic insets framed in the wider-field skyview. All from Messier's catalog, M101 and M51 are cosmic pinwheel and whirlpool on the left, spiral galaxies far beyond the Milky Way. To the right, M108, a distant edge-on spiral galaxy is seen close to our galaxy's own owl-faced planetary nebula M97. Taken on January 16, the wider-field view seems to...

The U.S. Military Announces A Search For The Next Service Pistol After 30 years in service with American troops, give or take a few months, the U.S. Military announced formally that it intends to replace the 9mm Beretta M9 pistol with a new Modular Handgun System (MHS) that will address many shortcomings of the generally unpopular M9. Older readers will recall scratching their head in confusion when the M9 was first adopted in 1985, replacing the .45 ACP M1911 and M1911A1 pistols that had served as the standard sidearm of American soldiers from the Philippine Insurrection through most of the...

Nearly 80 percent of Soldiers said in a recent survey they are satisfied with their weapons, though almost half recommended a replacement for the standard-issued M9 pistol or ammunition with more stopping power. Additionally, nearly 30 percent of Soldiers in the December 2006 survey, conducted on behalf of the Army by the Center for Naval Analyses, said the M4 carbine should be replaced or more deadly ammunition fielded. "Across weapons, Soldiers have requested weapons and ammunition with more stopping power/lethality," the report said. (excerpt)

China, Pak missiles challenge India -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NDTV Correspondent Sunday, July 9, 2006 (New Delhi): India faces a missile threat from Pakistan on the West and China to the North East. The Pakistani missile programme is a fascinating example of blatant missile proliferation from North Korea and China. Pakistan's nuclear capable missiles have the names of Muslim leaders who invaded India but are in fact, little more than direct imports from Beijing and Pyong Yang. The Shaheen Missile sometimes referred to as the Hatf 3 is in fact the Chinese M-11 missile with a range of 300 kilometres. The Shaheen I...

Duct tape kept some going. Zip ties did the trick for others. Needed: buckshot rounds. These were just some of the comments soldiers and Marines had for teams of researchers who fanned out across the battlefields in Iraq to find out which weapons were what the troops needed and which ones weren’t up to snuff. The war in Iraq tested not just the soldiers and Marines on the ground, but their gear as well. Two after-action reports from a Marine Corps Systems Command Team and an Army Special Operations Battle Lab collected comments recently to rate everything from uniforms to...

U.S. forces rolled over the Iraqi military in just weeks. The plans seemed flawless, and the courage of the soldiers and Marines unflappable. But with the dust settling — and the adrenaline rush of battle now subsiding — military officials are finding some weapons performed as advertised. Others, however, let troops down when they needed them most. Army and Marine officials recently released after-action reports compiling what was right and what was wrong about the small arms with which troops squared off against Iraqi forces. Soldiers and Marines rated the rifles and pistols they carried into battle, and not all...

CAMP HANSEN, Okinawa — Not everyone in the U.S. military carries Beretta’s M-9 9 mm handgun. A small group of Marines still carry .45-caliber pistols — but they’re a far cry from Grandpa’s World War II gun. Marine Corps officials keep about 500 .45-caliber pistols, based on the Colt M-1911A1 frame. They’re called MEU (SOC) .45s, specially designed for applications within the Marine Expeditionary Unit’s Special Operations Capable missions. They’re issued to Force Reconnaissance Marines as secondary weapons to submachine guns for their role as the Maritime Special Purpose Force. This gun shoots up close and personal. Marine Capt. Jeffrey...

Part one of two ARLINGTON, Va. — Army infantry troops deployed to Afghanistan are struggling to keep weapons clean and in good working order, with soldiers particularly concerned about the maintainability and reliability of the M-4 carbine and the squad automatic weapon, according to an Army report on lessons learned in Afghanistan. But soldiers also are more than pleased with the performance of other weapons, such as the M-240B machine gun, which won a 100 percent vote of confidence overall. And troops often described a love-hate relationship with the same weapon, such as the soldier who called his squad automatic...