What ever happened to the rest of the world?Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called on Pakistan to combat militants who use the country as a launch-pad for attacks on neighbouring Afghanistan.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Boeing X-51A Waverider demonstrator successfully achieved sustained, scramjet-powered, air-breathing hypersonic flight above Mach 5 in its final test flight on May 1.
Although the Air Force is not yet commenting on details of the flight, the X-51A is thought to have experienced positive acceleration to speeds in excess of Mach 5 and run for the full duration of the planned powered phase of the test. Based on targets established for the previous test attempt, this could have been as long as 300 sec., followed by an unpowered gliding descent of around 500 sec. prior to impacting the sea in the Pacific Test range west of California. If these times and speeds are confirmed, they will represent new records for sustained, air-breathing hypersonic flight.
The X-51A is intended to prove the viability of a free-flying, scramjet-powered vehicle and is considered an essential building block toward the long-anticipated development of hypersonic weapons and other high-speed platforms. However, despite the partial success of the first flight, which reached Mach 4.88 under scramjet power in May 2010, that mission ended prematurely after a malfunction, as did the second flight in March 2011 and third in August 2012.
Coming in the wake of these disappointing prior tests, the success of the May 1 flight could therefore be pivotal in helping drive further research and development to meet the Air Force’s long-term goal of hypersonic capability. The test involved the last of the four vehicles to be built by Boeing and configured with a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne SJX61 dual-mode ramjet/scramjet engine, and incorporated improvements and lessons learned from the three former flights.
These included better sealing between interfaces in the engine flow-path that are thought to have suffered “burn-through” on the first flight, allowing hot gases to penetrate the vehicle’s interior and prematurely ending the flight. Additionally, it incorporated hardware and software changes to counter issues that brought the second flight to a premature end after only 9.5 sec. of powered flight at around Mach 5. On this flight, the vehicle experienced an inlet un-start during the switch to hydrocarbon fuel, effectively blocking flow through the engine and shutting it down. Finally, the mission also included changes to the hypersonic cruiser’s control fins, one of which failed on the third mission, causing it to go out of control only 16 sec. into the test while still under boost.
For the final test, as with previous missions, the X-51A, attached to a modified Atacms missile booster, was launched from a B-52H mother ship over the Pacific. The stack separated from the B-52 and the booster fired as planned before the Atacms burned out and detached, and the scramjet ignited.
WASHINGTON, May 1 (RIA Novosti) – In the midst of the Cold War on several occasions, nuclear missiles at US Air Force bases were mysteriously shut down, according to US servicemen who said they witnessed the failure of the heavily guarded missile systems.
But they don’t blame America’s Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union; they say aliens from space did it.
“This was something Russia could have developed, but it turns out they didn’t develop this and we don’t have it either – to be able to shut down nuclear weapons with a beam of light,” David Scott, a former sergeant in the US Air Force, told RIA Novosti at a conference in Washington on encounters with extraterrestrials.
Scott and three retired Air Force officers told a panel of six former members of the US Congress at the conference about their experiences with extraterrestrial “visitors” who meddled with US nuclear weapons systems.
The five-day conference, called the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, is sponsored by the UFO truth organization Paradigm Research Group and is being held in the style of Congressional hearings, with time limits for witness testimony, question and answer sessions with former members of Congress, and statements entered into the record.
About 40 international researchers, military and scientific witnesses are scheduled to testify during the conference, with some providing what they say is evidence of an alien presence on Earth. The former lawmakers listening to the testimony are each being paid $20,000 to attend the five days of hearings.
Speaking for the first time ever about his experiences some 50 years ago with extra-terrestrials, retired Air Force Capt. David Schindele told how, in the 1960s, what he is convinced were aliens knocked “all missiles” at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota “off-alert,” making them “unlaunchable.” “We had no doubt that the 10 nuclear-tipped missiles had been compromised, tampered with and put out of commission by the ‘object’ that had paid a visit” the night before, an emotional Schindele told the panel of former lawmakers.
Retired Air Force Captain Robert Salas told of an incident at an air force base in Montana in 1967, where nuclear missiles “were shut down as a UFO was seen overhead.”
While aliens were allegedly shutting down nuclear weapons systems in the United States, in the Soviet Union, in 1982, they are suspected of initiating launch procedures for nuclear warheads, sending Soviet troops scrambling to undo the extraterrestrial move, witnesses told the former lawmakers.
Funding for the conference is being provided by Canadian “philanthropist, futurist and visionary Thomas Clearwater,” Stephen Bassett, executive director of the Paradigm Research Group, told RIA Novosti.
US airmen, who claim they saw UFOs were forced to sign oaths of secrecy, forget they ever saw anything, and were ridiculed by their peers and superior officers when they reported UFO sightings, the witnesses told the panel.
Salas wrote a book in 2005, “Faded Giant,” about the Montana air force base UFO event, which spurred many of the other panelists to finally speak in public about their experiences with what they say were extraterrestrials.
In the Soviet Union, meanwhile, those who reported seeing UFOs were treated entirely differently, historian and UFO author Richard Dolan testified, citing a case in 1990, “which involved an unbelievable encounter by an object that was playing all sorts of games with the Soviet interceptor that was seen by multiple of witnesses.”
Following the encounter, “the Soviet minister of defense spoke about it, the Soviet top general for air defense spoke about it,” Dolan said.
And like the US airmen, the Soviet top brass did not blame their Cold War rivals, the Americans, but pinned the blame for the incident on extraterrestrial visitors, Dolan added.
“The top Soviet commander said, ‘There is no way we were going to attack this. It was vastly beyond anything that we or anyone we know had,’” Dolan said, adding that Soviet military “discounted that this was American -- not a chance.”
One of the former lawmakers on the panel was overheard by RIA Novosti as saying the conference was a first step toward holding a real Congressional hearing on UFOs.
“It clearly warrants a congressional hearing but that would violate the ‘truth embargo,’ which is the name I’ve given to the policy of the government to withhold acknowledgement and information of an extraterrestrial presence,” said Bassett of the Paradigm Research Group.
Grate vidiyoe....lotsa good shots, hy-deaf.
That is their RSR - Real Short Range - version.MN Kumar wrote:Dont know if this was posted earlier.
Video of a DF2 failed launch. Surprised that it doesnt have a self destruct option.
Nice gift to the tallel than mountail friends.
The US military has nothing to do after Afghanistan. How will all the Generals justify their jobs? Syria should've been carpet bombed 3 months ago. What were they thinking?TSJones wrote:Could it be the US Air Force is about to get its butt whipped?
The US is sending Patriot missiles and F-16s to Jordan. Syria has S-300 missiles and 80 Mig 29s. How can F-16s compete? What are we thinking?
IDF has developed countermeasures against S-300 (using one's purchased from Eastern Europe) but not against the newer S-400 which russia refuses to export. So i suppose USAF is not to concerned about it for that reason but rest of US allies Turkey, Saudis might not have ECM capability to deal with S-300.TSJones wrote:Syria has S-300 missiles
U.S. missile defense shields will not be able to stop Russia's new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which was test launched successfully on June 6, from reaching its target, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said in his lecture as part of the Civil University project.
"We closely watched last night's events. They were successful. We tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, which I call "a missile defense killer". Neither modern nor future American missile defense means will be able to stop this missile from hitting its target directly," he said.Russia will continue enhancing its potential "that will allow us to ensure our absolute freedom of action, should our country encounter any aggression," Rogozin said.
"The Russian Federation's state weapons procurement program will set such parameters of weapons and military hardware that will only be linked with responding to the threat of sixth-generation wars," the deputy premier said. Russia will develop appropriate aerospace systems and techniques that will be able to defeat any missile defense systems and will help maintain peace and balance in the world, he said.
The new ICBM prototype was successfully test launched from the Kapustin Yar site in Russia's southern Astrakhan region on Thursday.
I suppose remove those heels and runkrishnan wrote:
wonder how will they run if some emergency situation arises , with those heels
Rogozin said that that "little blood" paralyze a country like Russia, enough for a few hours, apply about 4 thousand strikes with precision weapons. During this time, you can destroy the nuclear capabilities of the country with minimal losses to the public. Resist such a threat, he said, is possible only with the help of an autonomous self new generation of weapons.
"What can we oppose this enemy? Main security guarantee Russia a strong strategic nuclear deterrence," - said Deputy Prime Minister. However, he doubted that this is only enough to reflect current threats.
"The American strategists first time in the last 50 years, a vision of how to defeat other nuclear" little blood ", while avoiding unacceptable damage for itself in responding to the country that was attacked - said Rogozin. - At the end of last year The Pentagon held a computer game, the results of which showed a blow to the largest and most highly developed country with the use of 3.5-4 thousand units of high-precision weapons in a few hours - and nearly destroyed the infrastructure, the state will lose the opportunity to resist. "
According to the deputy head of the cabinet of ministers, if such a blow will be inflicted on Russia, the main targets will be the objects of nuclear deterrence. He led the expert estimated that, in the event of such an attack could be destroyed from 80 to 90 percent of Russia's nuclear potential. At that civilian casualties would be minimal. Remaining the same weapons will not be enough to retaliate against the aggressor and the leadership of the country would not do it.
We can buy $28 bn worth of military equipment at scrap rate or a little more. an opportunity ,expected as not to be told to the Indian taxpayer.The massive disposal effort, which U.S. military officials call unprecedented, has unfolded largely out of sight amid an ongoing debate inside the Pentagon about what to do with the heaps of equipment that won’t be returning home. Military planners have determined that they will not ship back more than $7 billion worth of equipment — about 20 percent of what the U.S. military has in Afghanistan — because it is no longer needed or would be too costly to ship back home.
Video ---> http://youtu.be/9jQ_tPm0J2ERussia’s Proton-M rocket carrying three additional satellites for its Glonass global positioning and navigation network fell to ground shortly after launch early on Tuesday from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
The launch was broadcast live by the Rossyia 24 television.
“There was an accident during the launch,” a space industry source told RIA Novosti.
It was the second unsuccessful launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket with DM-03 booster in the past three years.
The crash of a Proton-M rocket shortly after take off on July 2 was due to a human error, a source close to experts probing the accident told Interfax-AVN.
"The angular velocity sensors were wired up with the wrong polarity. Therefore, the rocket was orientated incorrectly," he said.
Japan sounded the alarm Tuesday on rising security threats in Northeast Asia, warning in a government report of a potential military confrontation with China over maritime disputes, as well as North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated nuclear weapons program.
Okay, so maybe I’m not as big of a deal in France as I thought. But working with the French Army was still one of the highlights of my military career.
Almost every time I tell someone I worked with the French, I get comments like, “You mean the French have an army?”, “Did they surrender to you the day you got there?”, or some other variation of the “cheese-eating surrender monkey” theme. And if they don’t outright insult French troops, they usually dismiss my experience by saying, “Oh, you must have been working with the Foreign Legion. They’re not really French.”
Those comments really get on my nerves. And they’re flat out wrong. I served with a few Legionnaires and a lot of regular French troops. Whatever the French public’s or government’s politics are, their soldiers are brave, well-trained, in fantastic shape and aggressive. Describing those men as cowards is an absolutely unfair characterization.
Admittedly, I had a low opinion of French soldiers before I served with them. In Kosovo, the French military had a reputation as being politically biased and ineffective. As a UN cop I worked with French gendarmes, a type of military police officer. They didn’t like the regular French military either.
So in early 2009, when I was told I was going to a French firebase in Afghanistan, I was a little worried. I didn’t speak French, didn’t have a positive view of their troops, and was worried I’d be stuck inside the wire with people who didn’t want to be in combat. I had spent all of my Iraq deployment in a humvee on a convoy escort team; that mission sucked, and I wanted nothing to do with fobbit life or force protection. In Afghanistan I wanted to spend as much time as possible on foot with guys who wanted to fight. The French didn’t seem that type.
Then I started investigating. I went to soldiers who had been in Afghanistan for a while and asked what they thought about the French. And I heard something I didn’t expect, a phrase I was to hear many times during my deployment:
“The only soldiers here who really want to fight are the Americans, Brits and French.”
This phrase was, of course, totally unfair to the Australians and Canadians. It may have been unfair to the Germans, who had a reputation as frustrated warriors whose government didn’t allow them to blitzkrieg Taliban like they wanted to. It didn’t give nearly enough credit to some Afghan National Army units who were aggressive and eager for battle.
But in addition to giving the French well-deserved praise, the phrase did address a certain unpleasant truth. Some countries, apparently in response to American political pressure, grudgingly sent troops to Afghanistan. Those troops were either mandated to stay inside the wire, or when they went out showed zero desire to risk their lives for a cause they must not have believed in.
As an example, one of my best friends worked with a different nation’s troops (I won’t name which nation because I have no firsthand experience working with them and don’t want to slander them all; however, my friend is a reliable, experienced veteran of multiple deployments, and I believe him). According to my friend, this nation’s soldiers would “patrol” by finding an open field not far outside the wire, sit for hours, then go back to the FOB. They took great pains to avoid danger and when engaged immediately broke contact. He described an experience at the Tactical Operations Center, where cameras caught a Taliban cell emplacing a rocket at a frequently-used launch site. As they watched the Taliban preparing to fire on the FOB, my friend asked, “Why don’t you fire on them?”
One of the foreign military officers answered, “We can’t. They haven’t fired on us yet.”
The Taliban launched the rocket. Without a word, everyone in the TOC jumped up and sprinted for bunkers. They knew from experience that rockets from that site would impact in about fifteen seconds. My friend chased them to cover. A few seconds later the rocket exploded. Everyone ran back to the TOC. The camera showed the Taliban hurriedly leaving the area.
Frustrated, my friend asked, “Why the hell don’t you shoot at them now?”
The answer was, “We can’t shoot. Now they’re unarmed.”
Another foreign military, the Italian Army, was widely believed to have paid the Taliban not to attack them. The French were furious about that, with good reason. In 2008 French Paratroopers took over an Area of Operations from the Italians. The Italians had suffered only one death during the previous year in that AO, and assessed the area as low-risk. The French accepted that assessment, and sent one of their first patrols into the area with light weapons and only 100 rounds each, their then-standard combat load.
The patrol was ambushed. One group of ten troops was separated, pinned down, surrounded and wiped out to the last man. Despite what the Italians reported, Taliban forces were extremely strong in that area. But they rarely attacked the Italians, just as Iraqi insurgents rarely attacked Italians around Nasiriyah when I was at Tallil in 2005. Gee, I wonder why.
I arrived in Afghanistan six months after that ambush. Over the next nine months, I went on numerous patrols and reconnaissance missions with the French Mountain Troops and Marines. I learned to speak French well enough that I was able to relay information between American and French radio networks. At times I was the only American on French missions. My worries about working with them were completely unfounded, and since then I get pretty angry whenever I hear tired, old “Frenchmen are cowards” remarks.
