Defense Tech

Makeshift Flamethrowers: Syrian Rebel Style

John Reed — Wed, 30 May 2012 19:21:45 +0000

It’s been a while since we’ve shown you any videos featuring the makeshift weapons used by rebels fighting dictators in the Middle East. Well, we’ve got one today and it’s a doozy. The video below shows Free Syrian Army rebels attacking a government checkpoint, capturing army troops and, wait for it … using a fuel [...]

Proof That Military Chips From China Are Infected?

John Reed — Wed, 30 May 2012 15:36:09 +0000

For years, everyone has warned that counterfeit microchips made in China and installed on American military hardware could contain viruses or secret backdoors granting the Chinese military cyber access to U.S. weapons systems. These warnings/predictions recently expanded beyond counterfeit parts, now we’re worried that any Chinese-made components could be infected. The problem was that until [...]

Flame ‘Redefines Cyber Espionage’

John Reed — Tue, 29 May 2012 21:03:35 +0000

Yup, Stuxnet’s famous follow-on, the Flame worm is making its way through computers in the Middle East, showing that it can take snapshots of an infected computer’s display screen, record audio conversations using the computer’s microphones as well as steal normal computer files. However, it can also be remotely re-programmed to switch from intel-gathering to [...]

First Pic: Russia’s Newest Spy Plane

John Reed — Tue, 29 May 2012 17:07:16 +0000

I’ve been looking for this for a long time. It’s a picture — the first public one, actually — of Russia’s Tu-214R spy plane on a recent test flight near its factory in Kazan. No one is quite sure what it will do. Some say it will serve as an airborne command post (those radomes [...]

The F-35: Kicking Off Your Long Weekend

John Reed — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:06:45 +0000

That’s right, kick off this long weekend by watching this amazing high-def video of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ops out of Edwards Air Force Base in Calif. Enough said. Click through the jump for the video. H/t to Gizmodo.

Introducing Iran’s Newest Attack Helos, Wait a Second…

John Reed — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:20:35 +0000

Continuing it’s tradition of reverse engineering and fabricating its stockpile of 40-year old American weaponry, Iran annoucned that it is about to unviel its first ever domestically produced Cobra attack choppers. Yup, nearly 50-years after the U.S. introduced the Cobra, Iran has figured out how to make its own. Kinda reminds me of Iran’s Saeqeh [...]

Pic of the Day: Afternoon on Mars

John Reed — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:05:17 +0000

Let’s celebrate Memorial Day weekend a little bit early with this incredible late afternoon picture of a 14-mile wide crater on Mars that was just beamed back to NASA by the Mars Rover, Opportunity — which has been on Mars for a loooooong time; like, since 2004. That’s nearly 3,000 Martian-days, according to NASA. Yes, [...]

10-Hour Blaze Aboard USS Miami (updated)

John Reed — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:19:46 +0000

That’s right. A fire burned for 10-hours last night aboard the nuclear-powered Los Angeles class attack submarine, USS Miami, while she was in drydock at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Me. All we know now is that seven people were hurt fighting the fire and that the blaze was contained to her forward spaces [...]

Eglin’s F-35Bs Take to the Skies

John Reed — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:10:53 +0000

Here you have it, the Marine Corps’ first training variant (well, kinda) F-35B Joint Strike Fighter taking off on its maiden flight from the F-35 schoolhouse at Eglin Air Force Base, Fl., yesterday. Keep in mind that the Marines were supposed to be flying their short take-off and vertical landing F-35Bs operationally by this year. [...]

One LCS Class for the Gulf, one LCS Class for the Pacific

John Reed — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:42:44 +0000

As expected, Navy officials are on the PR offensive with the Littoral Combat Ship program, saying the little ships will see combat from day one of any fight (you know, to counter the steady stream of reports that say the LCS can’t survive in combat). In fact, the two classes of LCS, the Lockheed-Martin-built Freedom [...]