Free Republic

Eventually, the U.S. Air Force wants to replace the low and slow-flying A-10 Warthog with the fast-moving F-35 stealth fighter. But it’ll take years before the troubled jet fighters are ready for duty. In the meantime, the Air Force still needs a plane for dedicated close air support missions — something the A-10 excels at. So what does the flying branch propose? Not keeping the Warthog. Instead, the Air Force wants to replace the Warthog with a modified F-16 fighter jet — an old concept that failed to live up to expectations decades ago. The F-16s would fill in temporarily until the F-35s can...

An Iranian-backed proxy group in Iraq released a video on Sunday showing its fighters in possession QW-1M man-portable air-defense missiles, marking the introduction of one of the more sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons seen in more than a decade of conflict in Iraq. The video, released by the Shiite terrorist group Kata’ib Hezbollah, shows fighters parading with the missile. In one scene, the camera zooms in on the launch tube to reveal its QW-1M markings. China’s Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation manufactures the QW-1M, and the missile launcher first appeared in 2002 at the China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition. But responsibility...

Don't miss the Season 2 premiere of TURN: Washington's Spies, returning Mon., April 13th. Only on AMC. Go behind the scenes for a look at what's in store in Season 2 of TURN: Washington's Spies. he cast looks back on their characters' journeys through Season 1 of TURN: Washington's Spies.

When 85-year-old Bob Mountz arrived at the USS Midway Museum on Tuesday, his heart, he said, fluttered up toward his throat. The former Navy hospital corpsman served aboard the Midway for two years in the mid-1950s, toward the end of the Korean War. He hadn’t seen the aircraft carrier since. So it was, you might say, the wish of a lifetime to see the old ship again. Mountz, from Fort Wayne, Ind., is dying of lung cancer. His daughter nominated him to be sponsored by a charity that grants the final wishes of older people. The Denver-based group Wish of...

A U.S. Air Force veteran has been charged with trying to join ISIS after watching their online propaganda videos, the Department of Justice announced today. Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, 47, was indicted by a grand jury in Brooklyn on Monday for allegedly attempting to provide material support to the group and attempting to obstruct justice. Pugh is an American citizen who previously served as an avionics instrument system specialist in the Air Force. His most recent address according to property records was in Bridgeton, New Jersey. Authorities say he tried to join ISIS earlier this year, weeks after being fired...

By March 1865, it was obvious to all but the most die-hard Confederates that the South was going to lose the war. Whether that loss was inevitable is an unanswerable question, but considering various “what if” scenarios has long been a popular exercise among historians, novelists and Civil War buffs... Perhaps the most common scenario centers on the actions of Gen. Robert E. Lee... What many fail to recognize is that Northerners were just as committed to winning as the Southerners. Some saw it as a war to free the slaves, while others fought to ensure that their republican form...

Running around the battlefield with a rapid-firing, grenade-lobbing machine gun sounds like something Arnold Schwarzenegger would do in a movie. But in the 1960s, the U.S. Army experimented with one such weapon. After introducing the crude but functional M-79 in the late 1950s, the ground combat branch saw fully automatic, 40-millimeter grenade launchers as the next logical step.

Iraqi and Shia militia forces have been taking back ground from Islamic State, pushing the jihadist fighters out of much of the town of Tikrit. But in a sign of Tehran’s growing military presence in the Iraq, Iranian weapons were a nearly ubiquitous sight in images and videos coming out of the offensive to take the mostly Sunni city. Ever since Islamic State shocked the region with its capture of Mosul last summer, Iran has opened up its arsenals and flooded clients, proxies and friends in Iraq with arms and vehicles.

On March 4 at 5:31 p.m., computer screens at the European Mediterranean Seismological Center lit up. A a 2.3-magnitude tremor had just rattled Aleppo in eastern Syria. But it wasn’t an earthquake. Rebel tunnelers had planted a huge stash of explosives under the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Directorate headquarters. The underground attack represented a powerful blow against the Syrian regime. The explosion was a current adaptation of a medieval siege tactic. Pre-modern soldiers would dig a tunnel deep under an enemy castle’s walls, collapse the tunnel and bring down the castle along with it. Syria’s rebels do the same, but...

The Iraqi push into Tikrit features loads of Iranian weapons. And the pint-size Safir jeep is one of the most distinctive of them all. Dozens of the rocket launcher-equipped, Iranian-made buggies are in Iraq, helping out Iraqi troops and allied Shia militias. The buggies reflect Iran’s preference for swarm tactics, which emphasize deploying large numbers of simple, cheap vehicles in order to outmaneuver and overwhelm the enemy.

About six miles from Maastricht, in the Netherlands, lie buried 8,301 American soldiers who died in "Operation Market Garden" in the battles to liberate Holland in the fall/winter of 1944. Every one of the men buried in the cemetery, as well as those in the Canadian and British military cemeteries, has been adopted by a Dutch family who mind the grave, decorate it, and keep alive the memory of the soldier they have adopted. It is even the custom to keep a portrait of "their" soldier in a place of honour in their home. Annually, on "Liberation Day," memorial services...

At the end of the day, the debate comes down to "how committed" are those that claim to stand for Liberty and our Constitution.

A historic deal offers hope that the country's landmines could be cleared More than 11,000 people have been killed or maimed by landmines in Colombia over the past 25 years. Only Afghanistan has higher numbers of landmine victims, Colombian government figures suggest. Many of the mines have been planted by Colombia's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), during the 50-year armed conflict with the government. As part of peace negotiations currently under way in Cuba, the Farc recently agreed to work with the Colombian security forces to clear the mines. Risky task The guerrilla group...

Sarah Palin's getting a new son-in-law! Bristol Palin is engaged to her boyfriend, Sgt. Dakota Meyer. The bride-to-be announced the happy news via Instagram on Saturday, Mar. 14. "Truly the luckiest girl in the world, cannot wait to marry this man!!!!" Palin, 24, captioned an Instagram pic of the couple kissing. In a second photo, she gave a closer look at her gorgeous cushion-cut diamond engagement ring....

X-47B UCAS Stealth and F/A-18 Super Hornet "Operations" "USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71)" HD

The Life and Death of Julius Caesar ... Soothsayer: Ceasar! CAESAR: Ha! who calls? CASCA: Bid every noise be still: peace yet again! CAESAR: Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,Cry 'Caesar!' Speak; Caesar is turn'd to hear. Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March. CAESAR: What man is that? BRUTUS: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March. CAESAR: Set him before me; let me see his face. CASSIUS: Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar. CAESAR: What say'st thou to me now? speak once again....

In WWI Alvin York almost single handedly captured 132 German soldiers using nothing but a rifle and a pistol, while the German soldiers having among them 32 machine guns along with rifles and pistols and the advantage of being above him in the biggest of the forays.  And did I mention York was out in the open during the largest gun fight?  Ya, when the Germans attacked they pretty much mowed down almost the entire unit that York was with, including York’s commanding officer, which put him in charge.  The other soldiers left from the original group of 17, were...

In 1945, Wilbur “Bill” Brunger was an engineer with the U.S. Army, and it was his job to break things. Namely, three underpasses on the Autobahn near Dortmund, Germany. He had to break the underpasses, so the rubble would block the road from any attacking enemy vehicles. But as Brunger and a squad of soldiers attempted to take control of the underpasses, they spotted German armored half-tracks coming their way. Fortunately, he had the right tool for the job at hand—an M-9 Recoilless Rocket Launcher—better known as a “bazooka.” Brunger fired a round at one of the half-tracks.

The karambit is a small Southeast Asian hand-held, curved knife resembling a claw. The origin is believed to have originated among the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra where, according to folklore, it was inspired by the claws of big cats. As with most weapons of the region, it was originally an agricultural implement designed to rake roots, gather threshing and plant rice. Watch Filipino Martial Arts instructor Doug Marcaida a military contractor in edge impact weapons systems demonstrate some techniques using the karambit here.

I'm going to comment on the ethics of nuking Japan. This is one of those perennial issues that America-bashers constantly raise. There are two extremes we need to avoid: "my country right or wrong," and "blame America first." For me the war has a personal dimension. My late father was a WWII vet who served in the Pacific theater. He was radio operator in the Air Force. His squadron conducted reconnaissance over Japan. He had some interesting stories to tell: i) He trained on B-17s in Alaska, then flew on B-29s in Florida. ii) Our pilots discovered the jet stream....