Free Republic

"Start shooting": the surprise mission of the combat helicopter disrupted the plan for Hezbollah. The UAV disaster this week at Golani training base was a painful reminder of the danger, but not long ago a historic achievement was recorded - when two Apache pilots set out on a complex mission. The goal: to intercept an explosive UAV that was making its way towards strategic targets in Israel. "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, we shot it down in a four-second burst," repeated the squadron's deputy commander, Major A. Without firing a single missile: behind the perfect interception...

Native American campaigners are raising questions about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s first-ever curator of Native American art — claiming she does not belong to a federally recognized tribe in the US, The Post has learned. Patricia Marroquin Norby was hired with great fanfare in 2020, after what the museum said was “a long and competitive search,” as its “inaugural Associate Curator of Native American Art” in its American Wing. For years, Marroquin Norby, 53, described herself — including in legal filings — as “Apache,” “Eastern Apache” and “Nde” as well as “Purepacha/Tarascan,” an indigenous group from the northwestern part...

Interested in knowing which Army air bases in Germany fly AH-64 Apache. SIL is transferring there.

Some students wrote that their gender was “Apache attack helicopter” in response to a survey about “engineering culture,” which prompted accusations from the academics that “fascism” is on the rise in America. The researchers wrote a paper that described their experiences while working on a survey about LGBT students in STEM in the Summer 2023 edition of the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, housed out of Northwestern University. Titled “Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interesting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences,” the paper reported on “individuals exercising discursive power in their...

In the Northeast woodlands the most feared and hated nation was the Iroquois — especially the Mohawk and Seneca. The Algonquian speaking nations and Iroquoian speaking Huron were particular enemies of the Iroquois. In the 1640s, the Iroquois unleashed a virtual genocide on the other Nations of the region, one that was not quickly forgotten. The Ojibwa defeated a number of the Iroquois incursions and ran the Sioux out of their forested homeland onto the plains. The Ojibwa (Chippewa and associated bands) occupied more land than any other tribe ever has from Manitoba to Indiana and took over smaller tribes...

Apache has been accused of cultural appropriation and Indigenous erasureNatives in Tech, a charitable organization founded to empower Native American peoples by offering networking events among other initiatives, has urged The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to change its name out of respect for the Indigenous culture that it is said to appropriate. In a blog post(opens in new tab), the group criticizes Apache for failing to abide by its code of conduct, citing the tech firm’s words: “be careful in the words that [they] choose”. The company’s name was said to come about when co-founder, Brian Behlendorf, watched a documentary...

Alfonso Borrego is the great-grandson of Geronimo, a prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Apache people. Geronimo was known for his fearlessness – he resisted both the Mexican and American militaries when they attempted to remove his people from their tribal lands in the late-1800s. Borrego, 66, has spent years researching what happened to his people and his great-grandfather. While speaking with EL PAÍS, he discusses the various conflicting narratives that have been pushed over the past century. Some say that the Spanish drove the Indigenous to near-extinction in the United States, while others suggest...

The “Apache” actress and activist wasn’t Native American, say her sisters. And that wasn’t the only thing she lied about. You might not know her name, but you’ve probably seen the video that made her famous. In 1973, actress and activist Sacheen Littlefeather took the stage at the Oscars dressed in a beaded buckskin dress in place of Marlon Brando, after he was awarded Best Actor for his role as Vito Corleone in “The Godfather.” Claiming Apache heritage, she spoke eloquently, to a backdrop of boos, of the mistreatment of Native Americans by the film industry and beyond. The...

ASF board member resigns in protest of org's online chatter 'policing'The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has removed Marko Rodriguez from the TinkerPop project he co-founded because his provocative Twitter posts were said to have violated the ASF Code of Conduct."I was removed from the project I started 11 years ago for 'publishing offensive humor that borders on hate speech,'" Rodriguez explained in an email to The Register. "However, now that Big Tech has secured the ASF board, it is a way to 'shut me up' about the monopolistic practices of Big Tech."Rodriguez argues that "woke culture" is a creation of...

-- The incident reportedly took place at Wattisham Flying Station in Suffolk on Nov. 6, 2020. The AH-64D in question had returned to this base the day before after experiencing a malfunction with the gun during live-fire training. As such, it had been loaded with practice rounds, which have solid projectiles, rather than high-explosive or high-explosive-incendiary shells. -- The exact circumstances of the incident, including how the M230 went off, are still unclear. It's also not known if British Army personnel were actually working on the gun at the time of the discharge. There are unconfirmed reports that ground crew...

The Republican parties in Yuma, Navajo, Apache, and Maricopa counties filed a lawsuit against all state recorders and the secretary of state late Wednesday, as the Arizona U.S. Senate race still hangs in the balance. What is the issue? The groups are challenging how Arizona counties verify signatures on mail-in ballots that come into the polls on Election Day, according to a complaint obtained by the Arizona Republic. Arizona’s U.S. Senate race has no declared winner because it is too close to call. Results following Tuesday’s election showed that Republican Martha McSally earned 49.4 percent of the vote and Democrat...

Following Israel’s lightning Six-Day War victory over the Arabs, Israel’s military leaders determined that the time was ripe for the acquisition of a new tank to meet the challenges of the modern battlefield. The Soviets had begun supplying the Arabs with more modern T-62 tanks and Israel needed to maintain its qualitative edge. After conducting extensive tests and trials and examining alternatives, the Israelis determined that the British Chieftain tank, Britain’s own successor to the venerable Centurion, would be best suited for Israel’s needs. In 1968 Britain’s Ministry of Defense agreed to the sale but the following year, the British...

The United States Special Operations Command just tested a high-energy laser on the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, marking the first time such a weapon has been deployed aboard a rotary-wing aircraft. According to a press release from defense company Raytheon, the test was a complete success, “providing solid experimental evidence for the feasibility of high resolution, multi-band targeting sensor performance and beam propagation supportive of High Energy Laser capability for the rotary-wing attack mission.” Matthew Ketner, branch chief of the High Energy Laser Controls and Integration Directorate at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Virginia, shows the effects of...

Recent photos of an Israeli Air Force (IAF) AH-64D equipped for the carriage of Rafael Spike missiles show that the indigenous precision-attack system is operational on the air arm’s attack helicopters. The photographs, taken by an AFM correspondent, have been cleared by the Israel Defense Forces censor, demonstrating that the Spike is now officially considered part of the Israeli AH-64D armoury. The missiles’ twin launcher is mounted on the right stub wing of AH-64D Saraf 743. The weapons carried may well be the Spike NLOS (Non Line Of Sight) that has already been integrated on several rotary-wing platforms, including the...

In normal circumstances, Australia’s 22 Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters (ARHs) would be expected to remain in service until around 2040 — but the chances of them being retired in less than a decade are increasing. This is not because of major problems with the airframes — they have plenty of life left in them — but rather because the Defence Department in general and the army in particular are tired of a series of issues that have affected reliability and cost of ownership. Indeed the feeling about the helicopters has become so negative that Defence might not even go ahead...

The IAF has completed modifications to its Apaches helicopters that will enable them to use Israeli—in addition to US-manufactured—missiles as part of a project which has been undertaken over the course of recent months. The modifications were presided over following a problem which arose during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014 when US leaders delayed the delivery of US-made Hellfire missiles to Israel due to concerns that Israel would employ them in areas in Gaza containing population centers. Prior to the changes, Israel's Apaches' main offensive weapon was the Hellfires, rendering their use entirely at the mercy of...

The JLTV (Oshkosh Defense) As the U.S. Army readies to bring its current crop of Humvees into the 21st century with a new vehicle, reconnaissance officials are also looking to replace the Humvee's pre-World War II .50-caliber machine gun with a version of the Apache helicopter’s cannon in 2019. The Army has embarked on a major project to replace the Humvee, officially known as the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWVS). Last year the Army signed a $6.7 billion deal with Oshkosh Defense for 17,000 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs). Touted as offering more protection and greater off-road mobility, JLTVs...

The Ministry of Defence is poised to hand another major deal to a US company, with a £2bn contract for new Apache helicopters set to be awarded to Boeing. Leonardo, the Italian aerospace manufacturer until recently known as Finmeccanica, had been battling to land the deal, which would have seen the refitted helicopters produced at its base in Yeovil, Somerset, where 3,700 staff are employed. Such an agreement would have provided a significant long-term boost to UK jobs and skills. However, it is understood the MoD has decided to hand the 50-aircraft contract, worth £2bn over its lifetime when servicing...

It has a fine walnut stock, a blue finish and a very simple inscription that reads “Albee to Lawton.” But this 19th-century rifle has become the most expensive single firearm ever sold at auction according to the Rock Island Auction Company, which recently sent the historic piece to a new destiny with an undisclosed buyer. The price: $1,265,000. “Other guns have sold higher as a pair, but no other single firearm surpasses this new world record. It was an honor to be entrusted with an American treasure,” said Kevin Hogan, president of the Illinois-based company. The rifle itself was a...

Photo credit: US Army via Military Times The Pentagon is realizing that fighting in the frigid north may be more of a possibility than ever as Russia prepares its forces for sustained arctic operations. Now a handful of the US Army’s attack helicopters are getting optimized for this scenario, receiving skis, a pilot survival pod and being tested to see how they adapt to the extreme environment. The Apache’s permanent presence in Alaska is still a relatively new development. It came about as the result of the Army’s aviation reorganization plan that saw the sudden (and some would say boneheaded)...