The EA-6B Prowler is a long-range, all-weather aircraft with advanced electronic countermeasures capability. The high-tech plane provides an umbrella of protection for strike aircraft, ground troops and ships by jamming enemy radar, electronic data links and communications.
The twin-engine, mid-wing configured aircraft has a side-by-side cockpit arrangement, and weapons systems including the AN/ALQ-218 (V)2 Tactical Jamming Receiver, ALQ-99 tactical jamming pod, USQ-113 communications jammer and AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM). The Marine Corps will fly the aircraft until its 2019 sundown.
The Navy completed its transition to the EA-18G GROWLER aircraft in 2015.
The Kurdish YPG, a contingent of the US-backed forces fighting ISIS in Syria, released a video Aug. 29 showing the underground tunnels that ISIS digs to launch sneak attacks.
The video shows two rather large tunnels inside a captured, bombed-out mosque, from which the YPG claim that ISIS had been using.
“The barbaric group, aware of the YPG’s sensitivity towards people’s places of worship and other historic sites, has been using [mosques] as bases to delay the liberation of Raqqa,” text in the YPG video reads.
ISIS has been known to use such tunnels in Iraq and Syria not only for sneak attacks, which the militants reportedly paid civilians $2 per day to dig, are also used for moving supplies, housing ISIS fighters, and laying booby traps.
The United States Army recently demonstrated some new killer robots at Fort Benning, near the city of Columbus, Georgia. While these robots are new, some of the gear they used looks awfully familiar to grunts.
According to a report by the Army Times, automated versions of the M113 armored personnel carrier and the High-Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle, or HMMWV, were among the robots that were shown off to high-raking brass. These vehicles are currently planned for replacement by the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.
Troops make their exit from a M113. (Photo: US Army)
While it might seem odd to use the older vehicles as the basis for robots, keep this in mind: The military has thousands of M113s and thousands of HMMWVs on inventory. The vehicles have also been widely exported. In fact, the M113 is so widely used, it’s hard to imagine anyone would want the used M113s the United States Army has to offer. The same goes for the HMMWV.
Furthermore, while these vehicles may not be ones that you can keep troops in during combat, they can still drive. They can carry cargo. Or, they can carry some firepower. With today’s ability to either drive vehicles by remote control, or to program them to carry out missions, these vehicles could have a lot of useful service left to give.
A U.S. Army HMMWV in Saladin Province, Iraq in March 2006. (Photo: U.S. Navy)
An Army release had details about how the old platforms helped. One M113 was used to deploy other robots from its troop compartment – one that could hold 11 grunts. Another M113 was used to provide smoke – and conceal a pair of M1A2 Abrams tanks. An unnamed HMMWV demonstrated its ability to use a remote weapon station and a target acquisition system.
That’s not all. The military also had a modified Polaris all-terrain vehicle show its stuff. The ATV also featured an unmanned aerial vehicle on a tether. Such an eye in the sky can have huge benefits. Furthermore, the ATV has a much lower profile.
If these experiments are any indication, American grunts will still be seeing the M113 and HMMWV on the battlefield. This time, though, they will be fighting alongside them, not riding in them.
A common misconception is that Daylight Savings Time exists so the farming industry could have more evening hours, but in fact, agriculture has long opposed DST (and for awhile there, they were successful at overturning the practice and returning the United States to “God’s Time”).
DST as we know it was actually instituted in the U.S. in 1918 to support war-fighting efforts, and we were late to the game; the German Empire and Austria-Hungary began DST in 1916, and one by one other countries began to follow suit. It was generally abandoned after WWI, but reinstated during WWII.
Once the war was over, there was no uniformity throughout the U.S. as to whether or not states would adopt DST permanently. It wasn’t until 1966 that Congress legislated DST for 48 states through the Uniform Time Act.
Arizona (save for the Navajo Indian Reservation) does not observe DST because extending daylight hours during summer increases energy consumption; people want the AC on when they’re active. Hawaii also opted out of the Uniform Time Act; because of Hawaii’s latitude, there isn’t much of a difference in the length of days throughout the year anyway.
Check out the video for a quick look at the history of DST in the United States:
USAF Pararescueman Cameron Hystad sat down with We Are The Mighty to talk about his role in saving the British paratroopers in the minefield at Kajaki. The story of Kajaki has been adapted for the big screen as ‘Kilo Two Bravo’, hitting select theaters Nov 13th and available on iTunes Nov 10th.
Kaj Larsen with VICE News went on an airborne operation with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team and filmed a 360-degree video of what it’s like to climb onto the plane and conduct a jump from 1,000 feet.
Check it out below. Computer users can click and drag in the video to look around. Phone users should play the video full screen and then turn their phone to look in different directions.
A dramatic rescue of a little girl trapped by ISIS gunfire was captured Friday on video.
David Eubank, a former Special Forces soldier-turned-aid worker, was filmed as he ran out in the open amid ISIS sniper fire to rescue the girl as two other men covered him with rifle fire.
“I thought, ‘If I die doing this, my wife and kids would understand,” Eubank told the Los Angeles Times.
According to the Times, Eubank’s dramatic rescue played out on a street in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where ISIS snipers were firing at civilians that were attempting to flee. Wearing only a t-shirt, bulletproof vest, and helmet, Eubank is seen running out into the street approximately 150 yards where he picks up the girl and brings her back safely behind a tank.
Eubank, 56, served for a decade with the US Army Special Forces. After leaving the military, he founded an aid group called the Free Burma Rangers, which seeks to bring “hope and love to people in the conflict zones of Burma, Iraq, and Sudan,” according to its website.
Many children grow up with parents in the military. It usually means frequent moves, a parent being gone for long periods of time. And there is the possibility that some day an officer and chaplain might turn up, bearing bad news.
Whether the parent is a Green Beret, constantly deploying to a foreign country on missions they can’t talk about, or someone who pushed papers at a desk in a building at a military installation – they all served, and they all knew that there was some measure of risk. And when the parents pass on, what’s left behind are medals, uniforms, photos, and in some cases, films.
Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina on a patrol during World War II. (US Navy photo)
In this clip, Fred Linden discusses the memorabilia left behind by his late father, Navy Lieutenant Commander Frederick “Bud” Linden, of his service during World War II. His dad flew a Consolidated PBY Catalina – one of the famous “Black Cats” that made the life of many Japanese sailors miserable during the fighting in the Pacific.
Linden’s memorabilia included a map showing the route his father took to the theater he served in, as well as medals.
The two rolls of 16mm color film included in the memorabilia collection showed a wide variety of events during his father’s tour, including bombing raids. The film was preserved through the involvement of Film Corps, an outreach organization that seeks to preserve records like Linden’s.
PBY Catalinas flying in formation during World War II. (Youtube Screenshot)
“The stuff – the medals and so forth – is not something he’d care about, but he would love to be able to sit down in front of that movie and point out the names of the guys and what they did and things he remembered about them, what happened at the time with the people he was with,” he says. “That would be the most important thing for him”
Israel is a country that has been facing terrorism long before 9/11 awakened America to the threat. Now, though, some have capitalized on it by creating what one could call counterterrorism tourism.
According to a video by Business Insider, the tourism takes place at a training center in the West Bank that was established in 2003 during a Palestinian uprising. The training compound, Caliber 3, is designed to look like an open-air market. In 2009, it opened for tourism.
A Krav Maga lession at the IDF’s paratrooper school in Israel.
That might sound surprising, since in most countries, the tourism is all about showing off highlights. The purpose is to show what life is really like in Israel. However, this gives a chance for civilians to see what many counter-terrorism operatives go through – including the split-second life or death decisions that have to be made.
For the price of $115 for an adult and $85 for a child, people get a chance to see what life is really like in Israel. Among the experiences offered is the chance to thwart a terrorist attack. These have become all too common, not just in Israel, but also in Europe. Adults can even fire live ammo.
Officers with the Kfir Brigade practice fighting in built-up areas. (Israeli Defense Forces photo)
Tourist will also learn much about the Israeli Defense Forces, including their values. The camp is used to train security guards and commandos. In essence, it explains that while life in Israel can be beautiful, the reality is that they are still living in an active combat region, and there are certain things that people have to know how to do.
Coasties (as the other branches of the military tend to label members of the U.S. Coast Guard) often come off as black sheep of the family of military veterans, which isn’t fair. They are members of the military and serve in deployed locations in the Middle East and elsewhere, they just happen to be under the Department of Homeland Security, and not the Department of Defense. Coast Guard basic training is difficult as all get out, despite what other branches tend to believe. The day to day life of the USCG isn’t a walk in the park either. And when all is said and done, having a primary mission of saving lives, especially those who could not save themselves, is a mission worthy of respect.
This day was no different. The 229-foot Glory Pacific No. 8 fishing boat was a Papua New Guinea-flagged ship which caught fire some 2,070 miles off the coast of Hawaii. The Coast Guard dispatched a C-130 Hercules to locate the ship based on its emergency beacon. The found the Glory Pacific engulfed in flames, unmanned and adrift. They coordinated the rescue of the ships 36 crewmembers with another civilian ship in the area, the Lomalo, out of the Marshall Islands, using smoke flares. Lomalo will take the rescued crew back to their home port.
It’s all fun and games to make fun of the Coasties, and as you do, just hope you’re never stranded adrift in the middle of 2,000 miles of ocean. That’s a lot of crow (or seagull) to eat.
An Army soldier stationed in Germany picked up two Rolexes from the PX before rotating back to the states in early 1960. One watch was to wear himself while the other was a gift for his dad.
Photo: PBS Facebook video screenshot
He had never heard of Rolex before and only bought them because his sergeant told him they were the best watches ever made. Almost 60 years later, both watches are still working and the sergeant’s advice turned out to be spot on.
The veteran recently appeared on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow and learned that one of the watches, which he paid a little over a month’s salary to buy in 1960, was “easily today, it’s $65,000 to 75,000 on the market.” See the full video from PBS below:
You’ve heard of the samurai, but you probably don’t know what made them among the most lethally amazing warrior classes in history. The samurai were aristocratic warriors of the noble class followed the seven virtues of the Bushido code and were known for wielding the daishō, the long katana blade and the short wakizashi sword. Samurai were beholden to their masters, and those who refused to follow their masters became ronin warriors (a very common occurrence in the Edo period). Some believe that the ronin were responsible for founding the modern criminal organization, the yakuza.
