Military - SlashGear

‘Military’ Stories

Lockheed Martin HALE-D airship flies for first time

Shane McGlaun, Jul 29th 2011 Discuss [5]

Lockheed Martin has been working on a new generation of airships, which I have always called blimps. Decades ago, the airship was seen as the future of passenger flight across the country and between continents. The airship was quickly surpassed in capability by aircraft and thanks to notable disasters it was relegated to use for advertising and filming sporting events for the most part. Read The Full Story

MAUL shotgun fires up to five Taser shells as fast as you can pull the trigger

Shane McGlaun, Jul 25th 2011 Discuss [3]

I think it's a great thing that police and military have weapons at their disposal that will allow them to stop someone committing a crime without having to use lethal means. Almost all police in my area also carry a Taser so they can Tase a bro instead of the alternative. The catch is that most of those Tasers have to be very close to work. That isn’t the case anymore with some of the weapons that military and law enforcement can use. Read The Full Story

Navy testing remote controlled jet ski to detect swimming attackers

Shane McGlaun, Jul 21st 2011 Discuss [0]

The US military is constantly adding new remotely controlled and automated weapons and surveillance systems to its arsenal. The USAF has a fleet of drones that can perform surveillance at a location or attack targets when they have weapons onboard. The US Navy is now testing out a remotely controlled platform of its own that will be used to patrol harbors where Navy ships are docked. Read The Full Story

Pentagon Announces Cyberspace as Operational Domain

Chris Burns, Jul 15th 2011 Discuss [27]

Time to grab your Androids and equip them with pistols, all you cyber-attack ladies and gentlemen, because the Pentagon has decided to tap the ON button on when it comes to defending the United States Government when it comes to hacking. On Thursday, Pentagon officials announced that it would begin treating “cyberspace” as an operational domain, the same as land, sea, and air. This comes amid, but not directly in response to, an announcement that the Pentagon had very recently lost 24,000 files in a major network breach.

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Haptic belts steer soldiers in the right direction

Shane McGlaun, Jun 30th 2011 Discuss [0]

All I know of communication on the battlefield when you can't talk is what I see in the movies. It apparently involves many hand signals from what I can tell. A new system that uses belts loaded with sensors and feedback from vibrating motors may replace those hand gestures in the future. It sounds like some of the tech that is in video games today. The solider would wear the haptic feedback belt and it could guide them along a route without the fighter having to look down to follow a GPS or map. Read The Full Story

Are soldiers testing night vision contact lenses?

Shane McGlaun, Jun 29th 2011 Discuss [13]

This is a cool thing to me. If you watch any movies with a military theme or any of the discovery type programming centering on military themes you have, seen night vision goggles before. The things clip on to the helmet of the solider and they flip them up or down to control when they need to see in the dark and when normal vision will do. The goggles look to be very bulky and uncomfortable and cut down on peripheral vision too. Read The Full Story

Raytheon microwave warhead would fry enemy defenses, not blow them up

Shane McGlaun, Jun 21st 2011 Discuss [2]

Today in any military conflict there is a bunch of missiles and other exploding ordinance that is used against hard targets like air defenses to prevent them from being used on the opposing force and on civilians in the conflict. The way these missiles destroy the enemy equipment is by blowing it up. The high explosive warheads have the sad drawback of at times causing damage beyond what the military intends with civilian casualties always a risk, especially in heavily populated areas where defenses might be placed. Read The Full Story

Pentagon sets stage to respond to cyber attacks with military action

Shane McGlaun, Jun 1st 2011 Discuss [6]

Today if a foreign government hacks into a US computer system and causes issues, nothing much happens. Just look back at the hubbub with the hacks on Google and other major tech firms that were allegedly backed by the Chinese government and see that nothing other than name calling really happened. The Pentagon is setting the stage for a major change in policy with regards to cyber attacks. Read The Full Story

British firm makes military backpack that can see through walls

Shane McGlaun, May 4th 2011 Discuss [1]

If you are a gamer that plays shooters or other games, you have seen the little maps in the bottom of the screen that put dots up when an enemy is nearby. I have a watch though that something along those lines wasn’t possible in the real world, but it is. A British company called Cambridge Consultants has unveiled an awesome product called the Prism 200c that looks a lot like that HUD in some video games. The device is worn like a backpack. Read The Full Story

Apache helicopters get new ground fire location system

Shane McGlaun, May 3rd 2011 Discuss [1]

Not too long ago I watched a show on the Discovery Channel that showed some of the helicopter combat operations during the Gulf War. The thing that stuck out in my mind was the pilots talking about how hard it's for them to locate ground fire and fire back when the enemy is targeting them. The difficulty is so great that one of the helicopters was being fired on by tanks and still couldn't locate the enemy to fire back. Read The Full Story

Nuclear Submarine flaws revealed in government PDF blunder

Chris Davies, Apr 18th 2011 Discuss [1]

A heavily edited, declassified military report detailing weaknesses in British nuclear submarines has left the Ministry of Defense (MoD) red-faced, after it was revealed that the high-tech redaction used merely involved turning the background color black to match the text. The Daily Star discovered that merely copying the full text of the dossier - written in 2009 and listing what structural damage would prompt a core meltdown, other "potentially catastrophic accidents" and flaws in reactor designs - and pasting it into a fresh document would reveal the sensitive information. Read The Full Story

DARPA program develops sweet holographic tactical goggles

Shane McGlaun, Apr 13th 2011 Discuss [5]

The programs that DARPA runs often result in some of the coolest hardware and gear for military and civilian use being invented. One of the cool things that DARPA and its contractors have been working on are holographic goggles that give soldiers a bit of augmented reality on the battlefield. Read The Full Story