Chad's News

During World War II, it was important for the allies to be able to estimate German tank production. The Germans made this task easier by using a simple range of serial numbers that began with “1″ and were incremented by one for each new tank. Thus the allies could read the numbers off captured/destroyed tanks and use statistics to estimate the total number of tanks produced. After the war, when the production records were available to the allies, they found that the predicted number was nearly identical to the actual value, and that the estimate from traditional intelligence sources was off by a factor of five.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/…
(via Neatorama)

CNET News has a trio of articles on the cutting-edge technology being used on the latest generation of US Navy ships. There’s the DDG 1000 destroyer (slated for deployment in 2015), the upcoming CVN-78 aircraft carrier (USS Gerald R. Ford, to be completed in 2013 and deployed in 2015), and the Virginia class submarine (USS North Carolina, already in service). Each article has an associated photo gallery that’s interesting in its own right.

(via The Daily Caller)

For those of us who haven’t been involved in warfare, the video in the linked article shows details of an actual combat operation in Iraq. Note that although the video is heavily slanted toward a certain point of view, Chad’s News has no opinion on the matter and is only posting this link because it gives insight into a world hidden from most people.

Link: http://collateralmurder.com/
(via Slashdot)

This weapon is capable of identifying and destroying multiple ground targets. The first link is a video explaining how the weapon works, including real film footage. The second link has an embedded video showing a reconstruction of an Iraq war event where the BLU-108 played a major part. It’s just amazing how far weapons technology has come.

Link #1: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via digg)

Link #2: http://blog.wired.com/…

This is an interesting week for space events. On Wednesday night there will be a total Lunar eclipse. And the US military is planning to shoot down a defective spy satellite, possibly as early as Wednesday.

Update: The missile strike was successful.

The AA12 is a fully automatic, low recoil shotgun designed for military use, particularly urban warfare. The video goes to great lengths to show just how destructive it is, but then they add shells containing winged grenades and other types of explosives—with a range of nearly 200 yards. It would almost be worth going back into the military if I could use one of these.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via Neatorama)

I’ve just finished watching the seventh and final episode of the PBS documentary, The War. It was graphic, sobering, educational, and very, very eye-opening. I cannot express strongly enough, that I think everyone should see this documentary.

During US naval exercises in the Pacific, an undetected Chinese submarine surfaced within torpedo range of the battle group’s aircraft carrier. Needless to say, this was -not- supposed to be possible.

Link: http://www.clevelandleader.com/…
(via Slashdot)

Back in late August a US Air Force B-52, flying from Minot AFB in North Dakota to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, was found to have been armed with nuclear cruise missiles—unbeknownst to the flight crew (or anyone else in the military for that matter). After an investigation, the final reports are in and heads are rolling. Proper procedures, which have multiple checks to ensure this type of thing does not happen, were ignored. Many military careers have just effectively ended, with 4 colonels being relieved of their commands and 65 airmen losing their certification to work with nuclear weapons.

Link #1: http://ap.google.com/…

Link #2: http://www.latimes.com/…

The linked article is a somewhat lengthy history of the politics behind the building of the Pentagon, including how it got its shape.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
(via Slashdot)

Turns out that crossing the international date line will crash the on-board computers for the new F-22 stealth fighter plane. Oops…

Link: http://it.slashdot.org/…

Previously the fodder of first-person-shooter video games, railguns are becoming a reality. The US Navy is actively developing railguns with an expected range of 200-250 miles, more than ten times that of current 5-inch guns. They expect to use the railgun in place of the (much more expensive) Tomahawk missile. This is not just a vague concept—they’ve already developed and tested a prototype at 1/8th power. We can expect to see them deployed in about 13 years.

Link: http://fredericksburg.com/…
(via Engadget)