Weaponsblog

For the people who watch shows like Future weapons, here’s some good news. Boeing has signed a deal with US Army recently. The Boeing company would be developing truck mounted laser canons. So far we have had truck mounted regular cannons and missile launchers, but no laser cannons. This will be the first of its kind.

This will be part of the US Army’s High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator project. The deal is worth about 7 million dollars. Part of the project will deal with mounting this heavy duty cannon on top of a 20 tonne tactical truck. The other part is to test out the newly developed beam control system. The US Army plans on mounting this laser system on trucks, hummers, jeeps and choppers.

Doesn’t this sound like some kind of space age technology out of Star trek? I think it does. This will take weapons to a new arena and will probably give the US Army the edge over other forces of the world. The General Manager of Boeing Missile Defense systems Pat Shanahan agrees:

We consider this program an important win for Boeing because it supports a cornerstone of the Army’s high-energy laser program

Eventually, the project costs will go up to about 50 million dollars due to the further enhancements involved in the project. A system like this should be able to pin point an incoming mortar shell and split it into half. At least, that’s what the project is geared towards.

Image Credits: Newlaunches, Strangehorizons

The British Royal Navy has received a new class of whale-like submarine known as the Astute.

This monstrous submarine generates its own air and water and has a strike range of cruise missiles from English Channel to North Africa but the most surprising feature of this gigantic submarine is that it does not demand any fuel throughout its lifespan of 25 years. By this we can sense that it can sail round the globe 40 times continuously.

According to the contractor of BAE Systems in Barrow:

It learnt a lot from US sub builder Electric Boat - namely to build sections of the sub vertically (hence the 12-storey construction towers at the plant) which saved on manpower.

The Astute specs comprise:

*Weight: 7,800 tons
*Length: 97m
*Time to build: 6 years 4 months
*Power: pressurized water reactor, fuelled for life
*Crew: 98
*Astute Combat Management System (ACMS) receives data from sonars and other sensors and, through advanced algorithms and data handling, displays real time images on the command consoles.
*Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile from Raytheon fired from 533mm torpedo tubes (range 1,000 miles, flies at 533mph)
*I-band navigation radars
*Thales Underwater Systems Sonar 2076
*Atlas Hydrographic echosounder, the DESO 25, is capable of precise depth measurements down to 10,000m.
*Rolls Royce PWR 2 pressurized water reactor
*2 Alsthom turbines
*Rolls Royce pump jet propulsor

Initially, three submarines are ordered by British Navy that will cost $2.33 billion each and are projected to come into service in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Via: Gizmodo

The revolver pictured above might not be the most high-tech, but it does have something to boast. It’s the world’s largest revolver as per Guiness Record Award in 2005 that measures 1260 mm.

This .28mm, Pfeifer Zeliska of Mr. Ryszard Tobys is a copy of the Remington’s 1859 model. I think it should also encompass some rest with it to make it handier for use.

Via: Newlaunches

The world leader in high-intensity illumination and low-light viewing technologies Xenonics Holdings has unveiled a new special device that enables you to see in the dark.

This SuperVision digital night viewing device uses a patent-pending ‘night vision’ technology to see in the dark and operates on highly stylish CCD sensor to generate superior resolution of 380,000 pixels.

This breakthrough technology outshines current military (Gen III) night vision device on performance grounds; thanks to its unparalleled benefit of up to 8x zoom magnification that enables targets to appear more crystal clear in the dark.

The device utilizes xenon short-arc lamp technology with a specially designed parabolic reflector to throw its glittering white light beam till upto1.5 miles via its infrared filter.

This SuperVision can prove highly beneficial for armed forces and other bird watchers to keep an eye on targets even at night and to get it one has to shell $1,399 only.

Via:Gizmodo

Boeing has just tested their ahead of its time robotic helicopter that can fly around without any pilot to accomplish its mission successfully.

However, this robotic helicopter was tested for only 12 minutes but this spy machine is capable to reach swiftly at 140 knots on 30,000 feet for approximately 20 hours.

This flying machine is chiefly designed to spot terrorists from above and to pick them off without any margin for error.

I am quite excited to know what kind of goggles or sensors this advanced helicopter is bundled with that enables him to fly itself to spot and pick only terrorists, is the technology applied to develop this spying machine is quite confidential, might be!

Whatsoever, not much info is yet unveiled about the spying machine that can be sent to search out terrorists democrats in some major cities but we will definitely keep you posted.

Via: Scifi

It has been every youngster’s dream to emulate a superhero and acquire super-human powers. All of us at some point in time have dreamt of turning invisible or having self-healing attributes that make one invincible. Till date, these characteristics have been rendered an air of fantasy and have been associated only with comic book characters. However, this dream might turn into reality someday. DARPA – Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency has allotted a whopping $15million for research into super shields for urban soldiers.

Materialization of this research would mean soldiers who wear the shield would turn invisible, possess healing properties and would even turn transparent to allow bullets to be fired right through them. Grapevine has it that the Agency would never invest into anything that is remotely impractical. This means, the research is anticipated to deliver the goods. In recent times, significant progress has been observed in research on visible light bending meta-materials and self-healing substances. Going by these advancements, the production of the super shield might just be a matter of time.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a subsidiary of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. It is the technological engine of the Department of Defence.

Via: OhGizmo

After filing his candidacy for the Tokyo gubernatorial election Dr. NakaMats a winner of a 2005 Ig Nobel Prize has announced that if he got a chance to become a governor he will surely invent the ultimate missile shield that will protect the nation’s capital from enemies attacks.

The latest candidate to put his name in the lists of gubernatorial elections is an eccentric inventor who plans to protect Tokyo with a missile deflection device and also claims to hold 3,000 world record for number of inventions including ‘PyonPyon‘ spring shoes.
This avant-garde inventor aims to live over 140 years and plans to invent a missile shield that can make missile turn around but the detailed process to accomplish this achievement is yet not unveiled.

Via: Blog.wired

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have devised a new chemical weapon agent sensing technique by employing lasers and tuning forks, which they claim could be used to add to the budding defense and homeland security chemical detection necessities.

The prototype of the new system dubbed the Quartz Laser Photo-Acoustic Sensing (QPAS) is ready for the testing phase. The technique has been tested OK for its ability to sense gaseous nerve agent surrogates. Michael Wojcik, a research scientist at PNNL said:

QPAS is an extremely sensitive and selective chemical detection technique that can be miniaturized and yet is still practical to operate in field environments. We’re eager to take it to the next level.

The archetype comprises 10 pairs of quantum cascade lasers and tuning forks in a box that is 12 inches long, 12 inches wide and 6 inches high. The full-fledged casing would weigh less than 15 pounds.

Via: physorg

To design some giant flying robotic-plane that can fly of its own for minimum two days and spy everything in the air and on the ground for miles, Air Force has signed up all major aerospace companies. As per expectations, we can now actually see incredible design pouring out of the best minds working on it and among them one is the diamond-shaped shuriken that looks like a Boeing. Nevertheless, according to Defense News, Air Force has to embed sensors themselves on the wings of this plane as per the requirements.

To make it lighter, the wings of this SensorCraft are kept empty from inside and can stay in the air at 60,000 feet altitude. Some other designs in the next 5 years unveil designs like B-2-esque flying wing that will consume approximately $12 million. All the planes will be gigantic, whereas the linear distance between the extremities of an airfoil in the area will be around 200 feet with 90,000 pounds or more gross takeoff weight.

According to the industry analysts the designs require good size to sport the king-sized, low-frequency high precision antennas fabricated on to the mid section of the aircraft those are especially designed to bestow ‘high gain and foliage penetration radar capability... to defeat extreme difficult targets.’

Defense News further quotes that an ultra high frequency radar system can form fraction on the outboard wings (at least in the Northrop design) to record long-range moving targets in the air, whereas an X-band radar system with antennas planted at the trailing edges of the inboard wing can facilitate planes to spy in the air targets with accuracy.

Therefore we can assume that sensors have to function twofold because they spy and support plane too for smooth actions. It seems that sensors can perform more functions then this but I think that their functions can vary according to aircraft design. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that these flying spying machines will definitely help to record the data that is essentially important for security reasons and to keep an eye on enemies and on their activities.

Via: Blog.wired

Detecting explosives had been a major problem for bomb disposal squad for a long time but now to surmount the common problems of detecting explosives by losing their glow, Ling Zang and his colleagues from Southern Illinois University at the University of Illinois based at Urbana-Champaign with the Chinese Academy of Sciences have come up with the new system.

If we consider present scenario to detect explosives it is totally based on technique known as ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) with which explosive compounds pass down a length of tubing where they are ionized by a strong electric field whose distinctive drift speed plus ‘kinetic signature’ of each molecule permit the sensor to distinguish between compounds with different mobilities. Now to overcome present technique barriers to detect explosives, this new generation sensor material that is a fluorescent film and which is made of nanofibrils(carbon nanotubes predominantly having diameters substantially less than about 200 nm.) can sense the presence of vapors from TNT and from other related explosives compound with greater efficiency than existing materials.

The tests reveal that the material was able to recover its capability to fluoresce after initially losing its fluorescence while sensing the explosive compounds.

These preceding nanotubes or nanofibrils are grown in aggregates and encompasses a macroscopic morphology of either bundles of relatively straight tubules, cotton candy (’CC’), or approximately spherical aggregates of highly intertwining, curved tubulesresembling bird nests (’BN’), or mishmash of these.

This new innovation uses essentially amorphous cellulose nanofibrils equipped with a crystallinity index not more than 50 % as emulsifying and/or stabilizing agent in dispersion.

It is also noteworthy that these nanofibrils can also be used in the form of an aqueous suspension or in dispersible dry form.

Via: Softpedia