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WASHINGTON - Rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, are a favorite weapon of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are cheap, easy to use and deadly. RPGs have killed nearly 40 Americans in Afghanistan and more than 130 in Iraq, including 21-year-old Pvt. Dennis Miller. “They were in Ramadi, and his tank was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade,” says Miller’s mother, Kathy. “Little Denny never knew what hit him.” Sixteen months ago, commanders in Iraq began asking the Pentagon for a new system to counter RPGs and other anti-tank weapons. Last year, a special Pentagon unit thought it found a solution in...

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and three wounded in a firefight in northeastern Afghanistan after militants attacked an American patrol with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, a military spokesman said Saturday. U.S. troops used artillery to repel the attack in Nuristan province Friday, and helicopters rushed the wounded soldiers to medical care, said Col. Tom Collins. A civilian was also injured. U.S. forces in recent weeks have been pushing to their northernmost points along the mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border, including Nuristan, opening military bases in one of the wildest region in the country. Their mission is to crush militants loyal...

Insurgents using new advanced Russian RPG from Iran SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Friday, May 12, 2006 BAGHDAD ?The U.S. military has identified an advanced variant of a Soviet-origin rocket-propelled grenade system being used by Iraqi insurgents since early this year. Officials said the military has detected shipments of the RPG-29 in Iraq. They said the weapon system has been smuggled from Syria into Iraq by operatives of the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah. "This is the most advanced RPG that the insurgents have," an official said. "The [RPG-] 29 can rip through just about any armored platform." [On Tuesday, 17 people were killed...

The Trophy active protection system creates something equivalent to a hemispheric "force field" around the protected vehicle. It has three elements providing – Threat Detection and Tracking, Launching and Intercept functions. The Threat Detection and Warning subsystem consists of several sensors, including flat-panel radars, placed at strategic locations around the protected vehicle, to provide full hemispherical coverage. Once an incoming threat is detected identified and verified, the Countermeasure Assembly is opened, the countermeasure device is positioned in the direction where it can effectively intercept the threat. Then, it is launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory to intercept the incoming threat...

Rapid deployment of 'Project Sheriff' rocket-propelled grenade defense system tested at Dahlgren could save American lives in Iraq There's a new sheriff in town. And it did some pretty impressive "RoboCop" shooting Friday at Dahlgren. A super-fast shield designed to protect American troops from rocket-propelled grenades that's becoming part of a platform nicknamed "Project Sheriff" succeeded in its first live-fire test as 140 VIPs and members of the media looked on. The prototype demonstration of what's being called "whiz bang" tech by some was conducted at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division on the heels of similar Israeli experiments...

Woodstock – Jerry West was a bundle of nerves yesterday, waiting for more word of a grenade and car bomb attack in Iraq that seriously wounded his son-in-law, killed a Vermont soldier and injured another man from Rochester. West will depart early this morning for Walter Reed Army Hospital in Bethesda, Md., where his daughter’s husband, Sgt. Jose Pequeno, is expected to arrive early this evening. “As soon as I hear what’s happening, I’m getting on the road,” West said. Driving down with him will be his stepson, Jon McGoon, a lifelong friend of Pequeno’s and a member of the...

Raytheon tests anti-RPG mini-missile WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Raytheon has tested a small vehicle-mounted missile that intercepted a rocket-propelled grenade in a simulation of an ambush on the streets of Iraq. The test of the Quick Kill "hit avoidance system" could lead to a deployable counterpunch to the ubiquitous weapon employed against U.S. troops before the end of the year. "Quick Kill's speed, precision and effectiveness are truly amazing," boasted Raytheon Combat Systems Vice President Glynn Raymer. "It offers our current force a level of battlefield protection that no one has ever seen before." The Feb. 7 test carried...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version January 13, 2006, 8:11 a.m. The Butcher with the Terror Ties The evidence mounts. Drip, drip, drip. Drop by drop, isolated news stories and emerging documents are eroding the popular myth that Saddam Hussein had no connections to Islamofascist terrorists. These revelations undermine war critics’ efforts to whitewash Baghdad’s ancien regime — such as when Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid declared: “There was [sic] no terrorists in Iraq.” Likewise, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) describes a “nonexistent relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.” Reid, Levin, and others who dismiss...

WASHINGTON - Four years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are showing renewed strength, using suicide bombs and rocket-propelled grenades. They are even training the next generation. Since June 2005, 54 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan, by far the most lethal period since the U.S. invaded. Behind some of the most deadly attacks is one man, a 35-year-old Afghan who calls himself “Commander Ismail.” In his first interviews with Western media, Ismail brags about killing three Navy Seals this summer, then downing a Chinook helicopter that came to rescue them, killing another 16 Americans. Commander...

Russian RPG Line Dominates World Market for Man-Portable Anti-Armor Weapons NEWTOWN, Conn. (December 5, 2005) ¯ As the role of a man-portable anti-armor weapon continues to morph from a dedicated anti-tank weapon to a general-purpose fire support asset for light and medium forces, the international market for man-portable anti-armor and bunker buster weapons remains robust. In its annual analysis, "The World Market for Man-Portable Anti-Armor and Bunker Buster Weapons," the Forecast International Weapons Group expects the market will produce nearly 1.9 million weapons, worth $5.33 billion, through 2014. Dean Lockwood, a weapons systems analyst at Forecast International, notes the Russian...

Insurgencies are not put down in a fortnight. But considering the successes in the recent counter-insurgency sweep in Iraq's Al Anbar Province, one fact becomes obvious to anyone with so much as a sliver of an understanding of ground combat operations: Eliminating the insurgency in Iraq is best left to those who best know how to do it.

Berman was supposed to be part of the Blackwater team that was in Fallujah on that ill-fated day. But a last minute schedule change placed him in the south of Iraq at Camp Bucca, near Umm Qasr. On the highway to Baghdad the following day, Berman received the phone call: A Blackwater detail had been hit. Four men were dead.

VICTORIA, Seychelles (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy responded Nov. 7 to a request to dispose of suspected unexploded ordnance left over from a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) that struck the cruise liner Seabourn Spirit during a Nov. 5 attack by pirates near the coast of Somalia. Members of U.S. Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit (EODMU) 8, Detachment 4, were already in Seychelles to provide support to a previously scheduled port visit by USS Gonzalez. The EOD team met Seabourn Spirit at sea prior to its arrival in port. Two RPG rounds had struck Seabourn Spirit while the vessel evaded...

A cruise liner that was attacked by pirates over the weekend docked safely on this Indian Ocean archipelago Monday after changing its course to escape. Passengers described their horror as pirates in speedboats chased their luxury cruise liner at sea, firing rocket- propelled grenades and assault rifles _ with smiles visible on faces otherwise hidden by ski masks. [snip] The Seabourn Spirit had been bound for Mombasa, Kenya, when it was attacked by pirates armed with grenade launchers and machine guns on Saturday about 100 miles off Somalia's lawless coast. The ship escaped by shifting to high speed and changing...

MIAMI (AP) - Pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade and machine guns Saturday in an attack on a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast, the vessel's owners said. Two armed boats approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia and fired as the boats' occupants attempted to get onboard, said Bruce Good, a spokesman for Miami-based Seabourn Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp. The crew initiated a trained response and avoided being boarded, Good said. The ship outran them and changed its course. "Our suspicion at this time is that the motive was theft," Good...

No matter where Marines are serving, from the Pentagon and Marine Barracks in Washington, to the loneliest outposts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Marines will stop, shake hands, say happy birthday, sing the Marines' Hymn and, if it is available, have a piece of cake. It doesn't matter to us if its an elaborate cake from some big hotel, a smaller cake from the great cooks aboard ship, or a cookie from an MRE, we're going to celebrate!

Seem's that a maintenance worker found a live Grenade somwhere here in Nevada (Reno I think) and loaded it onto his cart and called it in to police. The bomb squad determined that the round was live. I can't find the story anywhere on the internet. It was broadcasted on a local AM news station while I was scanning. Anybody have any info?

The U.S. military confirmed Thursday that all 16 servicemembers aboard a special forces helicopter died when it crashed into a mountain ravine earlier this week, apparently after being shot down. The remains of those killed were being recovered at the site in eastern Afghanistan where the MH-47 chopper went down Tuesday. The helicopter crashed while ferrying reinforcements to a battle against the insurgents, the military said in a statement. The military reported earlier that 17 people were on board but revised that figure to 16 later Thursday. "At this point, we have recovered all 16 bodies of those service men...

The U.S. military said Wednesday that hostile fire likely brought down a Chinook helicopter that crashed in eastern Afghanistan, and officials said the status of the 17 American servicemembers aboard was "unknown." The Chinook helicopter was carrying members of a special operations unit into an operation against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the rugged mountains near the border with Pakistan when a second helicopter reported seeing an explosion, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin. It will take an investigation to determine whether or not this helicopter was, in fact, shot down, Martin added. If it was, this...

KABUL, Afghanistan — A U.S. Chinook helicopter (search) that crashed in eastern Afghanistan was likely shot down by hostile fire, and the fate of 17 American service members aboard was unclear, the U.S. military said Wednesday. The troops were on a mission against Al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan (search) when the helicopter went down on Tuesday in mountainous terrain near Asadabad, in Kunar province.