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Canada has bought fifty Nyala armored vehicles, to be used by troops it is sending to Afghanistan. The Nyala is a South African vehicles, costing about $2 million each (with support and spares), that was designed to resist landmines and roadside bombs. It was developed from the earlier Mamba armored personnel carrier, and has an excellent track record. The wheeled (4x4) vehicle weighs eight tons and can carry up to eleven people. The model Canada is getting (RG-31M), usually it operates with a crew of five, and a cargo area in the back. Before Canada, the UN and the United...

January 17, 2006: The U.S. Department of Defense has decided to make the next generation heavy bomber an unmanned aircraft. The Department of Defense also wants the new aircraft in service by the end of the next decade, some twenty years ahead of schedule. At the same time, the current combat UAV program (J-UCAS, run by the air force and navy) is to be changed as well. The current X45 project will be split up, with the air force and navy allowed to develop a shorter range combat aircraft to suit their particular needs. These will be bombers, with some...

January 17, 2006: The biggest threat to American air superiority is not Russia selling high performance combat aircraft to countries like China, but the development of really inexpensive flight simulators. Over the last decade, computers have become a lot cheaper, and the graphics capability of these machines has skyrocketed. That’s important in bringing the cost of realistic flight simulators down to a level that any country can afford. Until a decade ago, a realistic combat flight simulator cost about as much as the aircraft it was simulating. While that did reduce the cost (per “flying” hour) of pilots practicing, it...

A MAN tried to sue the council after he soiled his own trousers, it emerged today. He blamed the embarrassing accident on the council's decision to close a public lavatory at a bus station, and claimed he was owed the cost of a new pair of trousers. The bizarre claim was among thousands of public liability claims which cost local government and insurance firms an estimated £250 million per year. Public sector insurer Zurich Municipal said many claimants are genuine but exaggerated and spurious claims are an increasing problem. The firm compiled a list of other ludicrous and dubious claims....

If you missed your opportunity to buy a brand-new Chevrolet Camaro before General Motors stopped making them in 2002, here's your chance. You'd better have some serious cash, though. The reincarnation of a muscle-car era team that specialized in making high-performance Chevrolets has brought the reincarnation of the Camaro itself. This time, they're making their own Camaros from scratch with bodies designed with the help of a 22-year-old California car artist. The look of the new Baldwin-Motion 540 Camaro SuperCoupe calls to mind the the 1969 Camaro, but this is a bigger, broader two-seat monster. The SuperCoupe is powered by...

POTTSTOWN, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A 14-year-old girl may lose her arm after being bitten by a poisonous copperhead snake at school, authorities said. The snake was caught in Valley Forge by a 17-year-old male student, who took it in a shoebox to a drama club gathering at St. Pius X High School on Friday, Lower Pottsgrove Police Chief Ray Bechtel said. No regular classes were held that day, which was designated for staff development. The boy was showing the reptile to other students when it bit the girl's finger, Bechtel said. The girl, whose name was not released by police,...

Move over, New York. This year alone, Shanghai will complete towers with more space for living and working than there is in all the office buildings in New York City. That is in a city that already has 4,000 skyscrapers, almost double the number in New York. And there are designs to build 1,000 more by the end of this decade. China's real estate market is so hot that miniature cities are being created with artificial lakes, and the country's nouveau riche suddenly seem eager to put down as much as $5.3 million for a luxury apartment in skyscrapers with...

India has been emerging as a major power over the last twenty years. The Indian economy is growing at a rate of roughly 6.8 percent a year, and its GDP is currently at $3.13 trillion. It also has a military that matches up well with any potential adversary. But how powerful is India when compared to other Asian powers? There is one major rival that has to be considered in Asia: China. With a GDP of $7.2 trillion (about twice that of India’s), China also has a population (1.3 billion) about 30 percent larger than India’s. These two countries are...

The U.S. Air Force is betting lots of money on its B-1B bomber, an aircraft that was the victim of many cancellation attempts, and the butt of many jokes because of that. But in the end, or at least as of today, the B-1B turned out to be a good investment. The B-1B carries more bombs than any other American heavy bomber. It can also move fast (about 1,500 kilometers an hour) if it needs to, and is stealthy. The B-1B played a major role in the 2001 campaign in Afghanistan, where eight of them dropped 40 percent of the...

August 10, 2005: Figuring out who the best intelligence service is can be quite difficult. The very nature of intelligence often means that the successes will not be public knowledge for years (for instance, World War II decryption efforts – the key to the United States winning the battle of Midway in 1942 – were not declassified until the 1970s), whereas failures or controversial operations will be taken to the press. It’s a thankless situation. Still, from what little has emerged, one can have an idea of some of the better intelligence services out there, with the understanding that this...

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Imagine yourself cruising the high seas in a lavish, super-secret ocean-faring vessel complete with a remote controlled undersea rover, a 12-man submersible and a personal crew of 60, including several former Navy Seals and a recording studio. No, you're not 007's nemesis in some 1970s James Bond flick. You're aboard Microsoft (Research) co-founder Paul Allen's $200 million private yacht. Details about the 416-foot boat, named Octopus, are hard to come by. Spokespeople for all the boat owners in this story declined to comment. One even asked if this was an investigation into executive compensation. Of course...

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Porsche will build a four-door car starting in 2009, the company announced Wednesday. To be called the Panamera, the car will have four doors and four seats but will have a swooping, coupe-like profile. It will have a front-mounted engine driving the rear wheels. Pricing for the car, which is still under development, has not been announced. The company expects to sell at least 20,000 Panameras per year, according to the announcement, which would make it the company's most popular model by far. Porsche is currently on track to sell about 9,600 Boxster sports cars this...

July 21, 2005: A recent analysis of the profiles of more than 150 Americans convicted of espionage against the United States has revealed some interesting patterns. Gender: 93 percent were men, 7 percent women. Age: They were young, with 40 percent age 20-29, 27 percent 30-39, and another 27 percent 40-49. However, while 44 percent of civilians convicted of espionage were over 40 when they began their nefarious work, 57-percent of those in the armed forces got their start during their 20s. Race: Most (84 percent) were white, 6 percent black, 5 percent Hispanic (who can be of any race),...

July 21, 2005: SCAR (Special operations forces Combat Assault Rifle) has begun field testing with American commandoes. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) did not want to wait for the U.S. Army to finish work on their similar XM-8 rifle. SOCOM has the money, and authority to develop their own weapons. In this case, SOCOM wanted a weapon that did everything the XM-8 did, and a little more. Some 22 months ago, SOCOM asked rifle manufacturers to submit proposals, and FN (a Belgian firm) came up with the best ideas. One advantage FN has was it’s ability to quickly implement requests for...

July 20, 2005: About 35,000 non-citizens are currently serving on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces, while another 12,000 serve in the Reserve Components. The navy has the largest proportion of non-citizens on active duty, almost 16,000, nearly half the total. The Marine Corps has about 6,500, the Army about 5,000, and the Air force about 3,000. The differences are the result of variations in the service regulations governing the re-enlistment of non-citizens. The Navy and Marine Corps place no restrictions, while the Army allows them to stay in for only 8 years of service, and the Air Force...

July 20, 2005: The U.S. Navy feels it is in need of more “soldiers of the sea.” But since the U.S. Navy has lost control of the U.S. Marine Corps, the navy is assembling a new force of naval infantry. This is not really new. For example, the toughest troops in the Navy Department are not the marines, but the sailors who belong to the SEALs, an organization formed in the 1960s. But the process of regenerating the American naval infantry is accelerating. There was a time, not too long ago, when the marines where what marines had always been,...

A coastal force extends its reach and capabilities. The People’s Liberation Army Navy recently introduced two domestically designed and built guided missile destroyers that include Aegis-type radars and related technologies. Known as Project 052C guided missile destroyers (DDGs), the ships feature Aegis-type phased array panels, vertical launch systems, long-range missiles and considerable command and control. These capabilities were not found on any previous Chinese-built DDGs. The design of a lead ship with prototype Aegis radar, combat direction links and a vertical launch system (VLS) into a small 6,600-ton hull is an ambitious development. The smallest U.S. Navy Aegis ship with...

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...

American homeowners have made a trillion-dollar bet that mortgage rates will remain near record lows for at least a few more years. But with some interest rates already rising, economists worry that the bet could turn bad. The problem is that new types of mortgages that hold down monthly payments for families - helping many buy homes that they would not otherwise be able to afford - also require potentially far higher payments in future years. The bill will soon start to come due in a serious way, as the initial period of fixed payments, typically set at artificially low...

June 14, 2005: The U.S. Marine Corps has agreed to turn over a force of 2,500 specially trained marines to SOCOM (Special Operations Command.) Bowing to pressure from the Department of Defense, and SOCOM, the marines are the last of the services to make such a contribution. Created in 1987, SOCOM gained control over army Special Forces (including Civil Affairs, Psychological Warfare and special helicopter units), navy SEALs and air force commandoes and special aviation units. But the marines said they had nothing to offer. The marine SOCOM force will consist of 400 marines trained to provide military instruction for...