#Military Technology

[reality-detective]

What the technological part of a missile looks like. 🤔

[youzicha]

It's cute to say that stealth aircraft got rounder for the same reason that video game characters did: because the computers got more powerful. But it's not the complete story. More accurately, it was specifically Lockheed's stealth aircraft that evolved that way.

Famously, a Lockheed employee noticed a paper describing how to calculate electromagnetic scattering from a polyhedron. They implemented it in software and used it to design the Have Blue demonstrator, which evolved into the F-117.

But at the same time, Northrop developed the Tacit Blue demonstrator, which was not designed using the edge diffraction software, and did not consist of only flat polygons.

Tacit Blue was the first aircraft to use "edge convolution" (a.k.a. "Gaussian stealth"). This smoothes out the edges by convolving them with a gaussian function. In particular, the convolution makes the edge of the wing sharper than if it was just a wedge between two polygons (with an ideal gaussian function it would extend out infinitely, so the acute angle would approach 0 degrees). This means that the edge of the wing will reflect less radar waves if it is illuminated directly from the side (from the horizon), which is the typical case if the plane is flying straight and the enemy radar is far away.

All stealth aircraft now use the gaussian smoothing idea, and you can clearly see the commonalities between Tacit Blue and the Northrop B-2.

Actually, when it came time to design the ATF (which evolved into the F-22), Lockheed also had to abandon their edge diffraction software. The ATF chief engineer commented:

We did not know how to analyze a curved stealthy shape in those days. The software wasn't sophisticated enough, and we didn't have the computational capacity we needed. We had our hands tied by the analytical problems. Lockheed had become convinced that, if we could not analyze a design as a stealthy shape, then it could not be stealthy. We would not break through that barrier until 1984. [...] We simply started drawing curved shapes even though we could not run the designs through our analytical software models. When we went to curved airplanes, we began to get more acceptable supersonic and maneuver performance. Instead of relying on software models, we built curved shapes and tested them on the company's radar range. The curved shapes performed quite well in the radar tests.

So in the end, I think the "smooth stealth planes" (B-2, F-22) were mainly designed heuristically and evaluated by building actual model airplanes; having fast computers to simulate them was not the bottle neck.

[tri-bi-blast]

Being creative, with intreats, while on social media is horrible because I'll just be watching YT, looking for some background noise while I play games, and then auto play will send my into a rabbit hole of military tech that I'll come out of with the inspiration to design a new missle based CIWS system in From The Depths, only for me to lose motivation when finding targets to test on, only to go back to YT and get inspired again, and yet I still can't test it.

[possumcollege]

Automated gunnery's made our sailors lazy as shit. Look at him down there. Useless swab doesn't even know how many cheese wheels it takes to send a party hat downrange anymore. "tHe GuN KnOWs, WhY sHouLD i hAve t0?"

PICK UP A BROOM OR SOMETHING FUCKSTICK.

[betterbemeta]

I love you Transformers, but even SD Gundam Force has a depiction of an APS (active protection system) in it. I'm talking about the specialized guns on certain tanks, military trucks, and ships that detect missiles and destroy them at a distance (hard-kill system), and about flares or laser systems that confuse heat-seeking missiles (soft-kill system.)

In real life, missiles are super destructive. they don't dramatically miss when fired at point blank so protagonists can leap away from explosions.

There's air to surface missiles, surface to air missiles, air to air missiles, surface to surface missiles, it's pretty much missiles all around. Some can pierce tanks easily, to the point where reactive tank armor is designed to explode with an opposite force when struck, negating some of the blast.

It's not WWI okay, modern air dogfights are some guy firing missiles at you and it's not like TV where you Dodge the Missiles. Air superiority planes have laser dazzlers and flares because infrared guidance systems are very sophisticated nowadays. Like, what do you think 'stealth aircraft' is about? Modern ordinance is so effective that the first 'defense' is not being detected or the other guy not being able to get a lock. If it's fired at all it's going to destroy something (expensive) unless it's disabled.

I understand that action shows and movies-- Transformers being one example-- do not want to depict a default lethality. Death happens to mooks, or when it's time for a Main Character to redeem their audience investment. But at this point the IP Movie Phenomenon has gone on so long and made so much money it can't help but ask adult audiences to be taken seriously.

At best most media that features 'armed conflict' is stuck in a pre-modern mindset because the current reality is depressing. It's not heroic for all sides to have 'prevent resistance or mitigation of your violent enforcement' as their M.O. Ordinary people relate to Sword Fights and Survival because we all need to use willpower every day to confront challenges in our world. But this is not that.

I could barely make it through half of the first bayverse transformers movie when I watched it recently for the normal reasons (misanthropy, misogyny, mis-everything) but given how much money the US military spent on this movie??? almost all of it is bullshit that completely ignores what the featured equipment is even FOR. The Military being Sexy but Useless IS propaganda: the public awareness is of the glamor shots, and not of the purpose or effectiveness of ganking everything with missiles.

I'm not asking for Starscream to obliterate the protagonists of a tv show with hellfire missiles that he copied. That would be boring. And I'm not asking movies or shows that are To Sell Toys to educate children on the murderous nature of war, or starting any kind of Discourse. It just amazes me that so much stuff that features Military Technology is totally disinterested in it.

[codexofforbiddenknowledge]

Time Travel: The Philadelphia Experiment Revealed—a Navy ship vanished in 1943, only to reappear with its crew in chaos. Was it a secret time travel experiment, teleportation gone wrong, or a government cover-up? We explore the conspiracy, from the USS Eldridge to whispers of the Montauk Project.

follow The Codex Of Forbidden Knowledge for more hidden tech mysteries.

What do you think—time travel or fiction?

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Lithuania is officially leaving the convention on cluster munitions on Thursday. Defence Minister Dovilė Šakalienė says officials are also considering alternatives to this type of weaponry.

“Quite a lot of work has already been done in this area, but we’re looking into certain types of weapons that we’re acquiring – ones that are slightly different but would essentially perform the same function. This process is currently being coordinated and worked out,” she told the Žinių Radijas radio station.

According to the minister, leaving the arms control convention is not only about the types of weaponry Lithuania plans to acquire but also about the “strategic message” of being prepared “to use absolutely everything”...

P.S. Main reason - the collapsing concept of the West... the European nations should boost defense capabilities as USA surrenders to Kremlin and North Korea... and failing miserably in the Middle East and Asia as well...

[exehun]

I made these pictures last summer

[ophilosoraptoro]

Something Very EVIL Is Going on In Maui | We Have The Proof...

[unwelcome-ozian]

[monetizeme]

"A Niantic executive said that he “could definitely see” governments and militaries purchasing the company’s newly announced AI model for navigating the real world, which would be based on scan data generated by Pokémon Go players, but that if the use case is specific to the military and “adding amplitude to war, then that’s definitely an issue.” 

The comment was made by Brian McClendon, Niantic’s Senior Vice President of Engineering and formerly the co-creator of Google Earth, Street View, and Google Maps, at the investigative journalism group Bellingcat’s Bellingfest event on November 14. McClendon was giving a talk titled “Coordinates of tomorrow: Why spatial computing needs a new map,” which covered his history in the industry, his work at Google and Niantic, and some details on Niantic’s Large Geospatial Model, or LGM, that the company announced two days earlier. 

During a questions and answers portion after his talk, Bellingcat’s open source analyst and ex-British Army officer Nick Waters said that LGMs would be “unbelievably useful” to the military and asked if McClendon could see governments and militaries purchase LGMs from Niantic. 

“I could definitely see it,” McClendon said. “I think the question is would there be anything that they would do with it that would be outside of what a consumer or a Bellingcat want to do with it. If the use case is identical then that seems completely fine. If the use case is specific in military and adding amplitude to war then that’s obviously an issue.”

McClendon did not rule out selling Niantic’s data or LGM to governments and militaries."

[stromuprisahat]

Six of Crows- Chapter 39 (Leigh Bardugo)

Anyone more familiar with tanks, able to confirm verisimilitude of this description?

[jamestownmuse]

I went down a rabbit hole...

The Ferguson Rifle used a breech load rather than a muzzle load, which gave it an amazing 6-10 shots per minute. In comparison, the standard issues Brown Bess, used by the majority of troops on both sides of the Revolutionary War, only managed 3-4 shots per minute.

The Ferguson rifle also had almost double the range of the Brown Bess. However, the new gun was expensive and slow to produce. They also broke down in combat, particularly the wood stock around the lock mortise.

[youzicha]

Interesting twitter thread about intercontinental missile warheads getting more aerodynamic. They enter the atmosphere at the same speed (since that's determined by the range), but the first generation Minuteman reentry vehicles slowed to subsonic (800 ft/s = 0.24 km/s = Mach 0.74) while the current ones hit at 9000 ft/s = 2.7 km/s = Mach 7.9.

[uncleclaudius]

Crosscut of the quinquereme, the warship that was ubiquitous in ancient navies. It had a set of three oars on each side, handled by five rowers, hence the name.

Contrary to the popular image of slaves rowing these ships, the majority of the rowers were free albeit poor citizens as it required skill and experience.

This particular quinquereme is equipped with the so-called "Corvus", a boarding device invented and employed by Romans to great effect in the First Punic War.

(Image Source: Ancient Warfare Magazine)