Free Republic

Beijing: In an apparent shift of its stand, a top Chinese military commander has called for militarisation of space, saying it was a "historical inevitability". "China will develop an air force with integrated capabilities for both offensive and defensive operations in space as well as in the air", People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force commander Xu Qiliang said. China has so far been opposing militarisation of outer space, and recently, along with Russia had offered to sign a pact with the US on non-weaponisation of outer space. Xu claimed, "Superiority in space would mean superiority over the land and oceans....

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq, Dec. 3, 2009 – The adage “Send in the cavalry” once referred to soldiers on horseback, riding to the aid of embattled comrades. Today, that same call for backup can be made a lot quicker and with much more devastating effect through the Army’s joint operations. A soldier tries to guide an air weapons team to a target verbally, without marking the target, during training near Contingency Operating Base Basra, Iraq, Nov. 20, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Maurice A. Galloway  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Twelve soldiers from 1st Battalion, 377th Field...

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanon's new government Wednesday endorsed Hezbollah's right to keep its weapons, the latest sign that the group has no intention of meeting a U.N. resolution calling for it to disarm. Lebanon's government is a shaky coalition of Western-backed factions and the militant group Hezbollah, which has virtual veto power over the government. The group is believed to have thousands of rockets and missiles hidden in basements and bunkers throughout Shiite Muslim areas of the tiny country.

U.S. Defense Exports Still Dominate Market Dec 2, 2009 Robert Wall/Dubai, UAE China, France and Russia are increasingly aggressive in courting customers for their military products, but it is the U.S. that is raking in the big dollars — and increasingly so. What’s more, the U.S.’s improving relationship with India could signal that record high levels of military exports are not just an aberration but are sustainable. This prospect would bring relief to U.S. defense companies, which face the possibility of shrinking modernization projects when Washington starts focusing on cutting its massive budget deficit. A decade ago, the U.S. booked...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Russia is building arms plants in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and cartridges and is finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the Andean nation, Moscow's envoy to Venezuela saidMonday. Ambassador Vladmir Zaemskiy told a news conference that Russian engineers and Venezuelan construction firms were building the rifle and cartridge plants which, when operational, would employ more than 1,500 workers. He gave no completion date for the plants under construction in the central state of Aragua. Details about Moscow's military shipments and projects have been scarce since socialist President Hugo Chavez's government began signing military...

U.S. Army Agrees That The M-4 Sucks November 25, 2009: The U.S. Army has finally addressed years of complaints about the M-4 and M-16 assault rifles. The M-4 is a short barrel M-16, and has become very popular with the troops. The army has asked the Department of Defense for permission to spend a few hundred million dollars on upgrades for its 400,000 M-4 assault rifles. The big change is replacing the main portion of the rifle with a new component that contains a short stroke piston gas system (to reduce buildup of carbon inside the rifle) and a heavier...

Amber Cummings, charged with murdering her husband last December, has pleaded guilty to domestic violence manslaughter and will spend at most one year in prison. The 31-year-old Cummings entered her plea before Justice Jeffrey Hjelm in Knox County Superior Court in Rockland on Friday. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Cummings was sentenced to eight years in prison with all but one year suspended and six years probation.

Indications that American voters are becoming concerned with ballooning federal deficits is building pressure on the President to come up with a solution. A leak from a well-placed Administration official says a “blockbuster” deal is in the works. The deal is said to involve a massive “payment-in-kind” to the nation’s largest creditor—the Government of China. Concerned that its holding of a trillion dollars in US Treasury debt might be wiped out by a collapse in the value of the US currency, the Government of China has reached tentative agreement with the Obama Administration for the debt to be cancelled in...

The U.S. Air Force has successfully tested its new Paveway II Plus laser guided bomb. The existing Paveway II bomb has a range of 14 kilometers and will hit within less than half a meter of where the laser designator is reflecting off the target. Paveway is actually a guidance kit (costing about $20,000) that is fitted to a dumb bomb, turning it into a glide bomb that homes in on the reflected laser light. The Paveway II Plus is more accurate and reliable, but the exact figures are classified. Laser guided bombs have been in use since the 1960s....

Spc. Eric Marquez, an infantryman from El Paso, Texas, digs for hidden weapons as an Iraqi Army Soldier looks on during a combined weapons sweep in northwestern Baghdad, Nov. 1. Photo by Staff Sgt. Mark Burrell, Multi-National Division – Baghdad. BAGHDAD — A concerned local citizen recently contacted U.S. Soldiers about a site insurgents used to store weapons here, just northwest of Abu Ghraib. With the help of local Iraqi Army Soldiers, the Fort Lewis-based troops assigned to Company A, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, quickly sprang into action and dug up...

Initial fielding of FNH USA's Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle (SCAR) to the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM)...is anticipated in early 2010 to fully equip the majority of [SOCOM]. So far 1,200 Mk 16 and Mk 17 SCAR weapon systems have been delivered...but...it expects a larger order for around 20,000 weapons next year...The order will also include...15,000 5.56 mm Mk 16 SCAR-Light and 5,000 Mk 17 7.62 mm SCAR-Heavy weapons as well as a number of 40 mm Mk 13 Enhanced Grenade Launcher Modules.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran wants major amendments within the framework of a U.N. nuclear fuel deal which it broadly accepts, state media said, a move that could unravel the plan and expose Tehran to the threat of harsher sanctions. The European Union's foreign policy chief said on Tuesday there was no need to rework the U.N. draft and he and France's foreign minister suggested Tehran would rekindle demands for tougher international sanctions if it tried to undo the plan. Among the central planks of the plan opposed by Iran -- but requested by the West to cut the risk of...

Russia’s new military doctrine, which is to come into force in 2010, has provoked a heated debate, first of all because it stipulates preemptive nuclear strikes. Moreover, it says that nuclear weapons may also be used in local conflicts in case of critical threats to Russia’s national security. The wording has encouraged some people to say that Russia intends to use nuclear weapons in conflicts with its closest neighbors – former Soviet republics. A critical threat to Russia’s national security can come from different types of conflicts, including a large-scale war with a block of countries, or a hypothetical territorial...

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev criticised on Monday the pace of military-industrial modernisation, saying it is affecting the quality of Russian weapons and harming national prestige. "Considerable funds have been invested over the past few years to develop the military-industrial complex. So far the results are mediocre," Medvedev said on Russian television. "Unfortunately we carry on filling in holes and the objectives for technological modernisation have not been achieved," the Russian president added. "The quality of military production for the Russian army and foreign exports is causing justified concern from clients," added Industry Minister Viktor Khristenko, speaking at a meeting on...

HELENA, Mont. — Fighting off a Helena Senators' fifth-inning rally, pitcher Brandon Patch checked the runner on first base. The 18-year-old Miles City Mavericks' southpaw then went into his windup, delivering what looked sure to be another strike. Instead, the Senators' hitter connected squarely, smacking the baseball so hard that it was nearly impossible to follow — until it ricocheted off Patch's head. The ball eventually fell behind first base after traveling, by some accounts, as high as 50 feet in the air. Patch, pitching in what was to be one of his final games with his American Legion team,...

Two separate incidents of potential school yard mayhem were narrowly averted by decisive action on the part of public school officials in New York and Delaware. In Delaware’s Christina School District, 1st grade student Zachary Christie was spotted eating lunch with an unauthorized Boy Scout mess kit tool—a combination knife/fork/spoon. Disaster was avoided when the vice-principal quickly disarmed and immobilized the child. The school’s “zero tolerance” policy calls for the offending 6-year old student to be sentenced to 45 days in reform school. School officials rebuffed arguments that the child’s age and the circumstances should be taken into consideration. “This...

Iran would not agree in multilateral talks this week to ship a portion of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to other countries for further refinement, but would instead seek to purchase more highly enriched material from abroad for use in a Tehran research reactor, state media quoted anonymous officials as saying (see GSN, Oct. 16). If Iran balks at the understanding, reached earlier this month in talks with the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany, the nation could eliminate the possibility of a compromise with Western powers aimed at creating additional time for negotiations over its disputed nuclear...

The Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete. Call it Plan B for dealing with Iran, which recently revealed a long-suspected nuclear site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom.

(IsraelNN.com) Weapons are flowing freely into Shechem and other Palestinian Authority-controlled towns in Samaria thanks to the recent removal of IDF checkpoints. So reports a senior IDF source who spoke to the Hebrew-language Arutz Sheva this week on condition of anonymity. The weapons come to Shechem from the south, the source explained. Weapons are smuggled from the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to Israel's Negev desert. From there, they are smuggled to the Hevron region, where the Judea and Samaria security barrier remains incomplete.

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either. When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of...

A 10-minute video showing the impact of bullets on various targets at 1 million frames per second. It was made by German engineer Werner Mehl who created the PVM-21 infrared chronograph, in many respects the most sophisticated ballistic speed-measuring system. Video found here.Also found on youtube

At a landmark session that included the highest-level bilateral contact between U.S. and Iran in years Iran and six world powers put nuclear talks back on track The meeting ended with a pledge to meet again this month. Disputes, however, surfacing shortly after its conclusion indicated a rough road to agreement ahead. Iran accepted a demand Thursday at the talks in a villa outside Geneva to allow U.N. inspectors into its covertly built enrichment plant, in a move that appeared to defuse tensions that had been building for weeks. Western officials at the session said the Islamic republic had also...

Several months ago I used to comment in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and I was castigated and villified when I said that Iran's nuclear technology had advanced further than the media was letting on. I did state that if we ever wound up with a leftist Democrat President, it could be far worse. Now I stand vindicated. Iran is vigorously pursuing several missile and space programs at an almost feverish pace with impressive achievements. The Iranians have upgraded their ballistic missiles to become satellite launchers. To orbit a satellite is a highly sophisticated endeavor. It requires...

Video of accoustic weapon used by police on protesters at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Russia has agreed to lend Venezuela over $2 billion to finance the purchase of weapons including tanks and advanced anti-aircraft missiles, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday. Chavez said the purchases agreed on a trip to Moscow last week included 92 tanks and the S-300 missile system, which is capable of shooting down fighter jets and cruise missiles. "We have to thank the Russian government, which approved a $2.2 billion loan for arms spending," Chavez said on his weekly television show. He did not say how much the new weapons cost. A major oil exporter, Venezuela's...

September 11, 2009 (San Diego) – “Long-range acoustic devices [LRADs] for crowd control can be extremely dangerous. These are used in Iraq to control insurgents. They can cause serious and lasting harm to humans…We want to know WHY our Sheriff Dept has this weapon,” Sal Magallanez of San Diego-based Liberty One Radio said in an e-mail sent to East County Magazine. The device was stationed by San Diego County Sheriff deputies at a recent town hall forum hosted by Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) in Spring Valley and at a subsequent town hall with Congressman Darrell Issa (R-San Diego). The...

KOLKATA: After trying to fob off Indian officials and investigators all of Sunday night, one of the pilots of the United Arab Emirates air force aircraft detained at Kolkata airport since Sunday finally admitted to the plane carrying a consignment of weapons. The C-130 Hercules among the biggest transport aircraft in the world was on its way to Xiangyang, China, from UAEAF's Western Air Command base in Abu Dhabi. Although the UAE government had the necessary clearances from Indian authorities for the flight to land in Kolkata, it had not informed that the aircraft would be carrying weapons. Indian Customs...

Both Men Arrested During 'Operation Rolling Thunder' SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- The Spartanburg County Sheriff called a week-long special traffic enforcement effort named Operation Rolling Thunder a success. Spartanburg County was just one of several agencies from across the state that took part in the week-long enhanced traffic effort along I-85 and I-26. Some of the people pulled over during the effort were wanted on serious charges.

SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Friday that it has entered a final phase of uranium enrichment, and is also building more nuclear weapons with spent fuel rods extracted from its only operating plutonium-producing reactor.

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) has accepted an offer by Iran to provide it with weapons produced by the Iranian defense industries, a newspaper in Lebanon reported on Wednesday. According to Al-Akhbar, the proposal was sent from the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. In their response, LAF officers said the army was in need of anti-aircraft weaponry. Israeli officials have expressed concern that the existence of such weapons in Lebanon, whether in the hands of Hizbullah or the army, would constitute a change in the strategic balance between Israel and Lebanon.

Two men arrested Friday night during a bizarre shooting spree along Interstate 5 in North Seattle may have been planning to fire at vehicles driving up and down the freeway, police said Sunday. “One theory is that maybe they were going to snipe at people as they were driving by on I-5,” Seattle Police Department spokeswoman Renee Witt told KOMO News

East Alton, IL – -(AmmoLand.com)- Winchester® Ammunition was recently awarded a contract by the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security to supply a maximum of 200 million, 40 cal. rounds over the next five years.

Craigslist now requires phone verification to submit ads to the Sporting Goods section. Maybe they're not requiring everyone to do so, but it just required me to verify by phone (recorded code) to be able to post to the sporting goods section. It includes a warning that violation of policy (guns, ammo) will result in suspension of account and blacklisting of the phone number. Ebay bought a large percentage of craigslist and is probably behind some of this. The liberals are in charge. Most Americans have little backbone to fight these people in control. The whole thing is a tragedy.

Ontario, Wayne County)- State Police in Wayne County arrested three men Saturday after reports of gun shots heard near the Ginna nuclear power plant in the town of Ontario. Police say the shots were fired on Ontario Center road around 4:50 a.m. Troopers say they stopped a car in the area and found an AK-47 rifle in the trunk.

One amphibian has evolved a bizarre and gruesome defence mechanism to protect itself against predators. When attacked, the Spanish ribbed newt pushes out its ribs until they pierce through its body, exposing a row of bones that act like poisonous barbs. The newt has to force its bones through its skin every time it is attacked, say scientists who have described the form and function of the barbs in detail. Yet this bizarre behaviour appears not to cause the newt any ill effects.

Today's Nature has a fantastic article about how psychoactive drugs are being developed into a new generation of chemical weapons design to have specific psychological effects on the enemy. This has long been part of military research (see the famous and unintentionally hilarious footage of British troops being given LSD presumably from the 1950s) but the effects of the mind altering weapons have generally been thought to be too unpredictable and largely restricted to the lab. However, the Nature article argues that as our knowledge increases and specific biochemical pathways in the body are discovered, chemical and biological weapons are...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends. The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says. Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration. Bart McEntire, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told SPLC researchers that this is...

A SCOTTISH soldier has been praised for making the longest recorded kill in Afghanistan after shooting a top Taliban fighter from almost a mile away. Corporal Christopher Reynolds took out the Afghan drug lord during some of the hardest fighting of the war so far. The 25-year-old, of 3 Scots, The Black Watch, kept watch on a shop rooftop for three days to eliminate the target. But he admitted the top-level Taliban fighter – known as Musa – was so far away it took him a couple of attempts to get the aim right. Initially Musa, who was with four...

Spc. Clancy A. Pratt does an annual technical inspection and servicing on an M2 .50 caliber machine gun at the 402nd Army Field Support Brigade's Small Arms Support Center on Joint Base Balad, July 25. Photo courtesy of 3rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary). JOINT BASE BALAD — For any Soldier walking through the doors of the 402nd Army Field Support Brigade's Small Arms Support Center here, the smell and sounds are unmistakable – the salty, acrid scent of weapons cleaner and the metalic clink of prescision tools fill the air. Since May 2005, the Soldiers and civilians working here have done...

A Russellville area doctor is facing new charges after a grand jury investigation. Dr. Randeep Mann, 51, of London faces a seven-count indictment that now includes his wife, Sangeeta, "Sue" Mann, 48. Dr. Mann is charged with possessing 98 grenades and two firearms, which were not registered to him. He was also charged with possessing a machine gun. The indictment also charges Mann and his wife with conspiring to obstruct or impede the proceedings against him and with concealing some checks with the intent to impair their availability for use in proceedings against Dr. Mann. Sue Mann was also indicted...

The Great Leonardo Da Vinci designed many weapons, including giant crossbows, machine guns, siege towers, cluster bombs and even a precursor to the modern-day tank. 1. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Terminator Leonardo Da Vinci’s mechanical knight was not discovered until 1957, when Carlo Pedretti discovered it, hidden amongst Da Vinci’s countless designs. The mechanical knight, first sketched by DaVinci in 1495, was mentioned in 1974, in the Codex Madrid edited by Ladislao Reti, but there was no attempt to reconstruct it until 1996 when Mark Rosheim published an independent study of the robot, followed by a joint enterprise with the Florence...

U.S. Marines with the 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward) sort captured enemy weapons at the Taji National Maintenance Depot aboard Camp Taji, July 28. The depot is responsible for destroying unserviceable weapons and turning over serviceable weapons to the Iraqi government to support the Iraqi Security Forces. Photo by Cpl. M. M. Bravo, 2nd Marine Logistic Group. CAMP TAJI — The 2nd Marine Logistics Group (MLG) delivered roughly 900 captured enemy weapons to the Taji National Maintenance Depot here, July 28, under an agreement requiring enemy weapons captured by the U.S. military to be turned over to the Government of...

Active Denial Technology is a breakthrough non-lethal technology that uses millimeter-wave electromagnetic energy to stop, deter and turn back an advancing adversary from relatively long range. It is expected to save countless lives by providing a way to stop individuals without causing injury, before a deadly confrontation develops. The technology was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Department of Defense's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. Approximately $40 million has been spent on this technology over the past ten years. In July 2005 it was reported that the Active Denial System would be deployed to Iraq before the end...

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2009 – The U.S. military plays a role in the monitoring of North Korean actions that may violate a U.N. Security Council resolution that prohibits North Korea from weapons proliferation, a senior Pentagon official said here today. The United Nations has banned North Korea from exporting its weapons technology -- such as its missile expertise – to other countries. The North Korean government, which also is suspected of developing nuclear weapons, has conducted several ballistic-missile tests in recent weeks. “The United States is fulfilling its obligations,” spokesman Bryan Whitman told Pentagon reporters, as part of U.N. efforts...

Defense Spending: The TARP bailout may hit $24 trillion, but the Senate says the F-22 is too expensive to build and maintain. So why are the Japanese so desperate to buy this "unnecessary" Cold War weapon?By a vote of 58-40, the Senate on Tuesday voted to remove $1.75 billion set aside in a defense bill to build seven more F-22 Raptors, adding to the 187 stealth technology fighters already in the pipeline. After some hope the production lines would be kept open, the Senate succumbed to arguments by the administration and others that the fighter was too expensive, too hard...

A day after Israel cried foul over an explosion that uncovered a hidden Hizbullah arms cache in southern Lebanon, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Wednesday that ammunition which had exploded in a southern Lebanon village was a "serious violation" of the UN-brokered ceasefire that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The blast occurred inside the village of Hirbet Selm on Tuesday, some 20 kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon border, south of the Litani River and within the area which falls under the mandate of the UNIFIL multi-national force. The explosion caused no casualties but highlighted the long-held...

Defense adviser says new threats challenge dominance that the U.S. has taken for granted American military dominance is eroding in the face of an ascendant Chinese power, hostile states like Iran and the spread of sophisticated weapons and technology to militant groups, and the Pentagon must reassess its long-term strategy, according to a top defense analyst recently appointed to review Defense Department policy. In a Foreign Affairs journal piece published this month, titled "The Pentagon’s Wasting Assets," Andrew Krepinevich argues that the Pentagon needs to better prepare for this new world order by rethinking U.S. global advantages largely taken for...

The fear on the street is palpable. Ever since the election of Barack Obama as President of these United States in November 2008, coupled with the election of a democrat party majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, concern for the United States and personal safety has ignited like a fire in dry grass. Sales of guns – black guns, rifles, shotguns and handguns (particularly 9mm) everywhere, have gone through the roof. AR15s have literally flown off of dealer shelves, and only now in the spring of 2009, have I seen the display samples of ARs begin to reappear...

Suspicious N. Korean freighter yet to reach home: official By Sam Kim SEOUL, July 6 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean freighter suspected of carrying weapons banned under a U.N. resolution has yet to enter North Korean waters, a South Korean official said Monday. "It has not yet entered North Korea. (The journey) will likely end within the day," South Korean defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said in a briefing.

If the Obama administration gets its way, the 50-year-old ban on importing switch blades may very well expand to include all knives that can be open single-handedly. There go your pocket knives...