During the MAKS 2017 air show at Zhukovsky, a city about 25 miles from the Russian capital of Moscow, A Sukhoi Su-35 “Flanker E” or “Super Flanker” gave a stunning performance of aerial maneuverability.
The full name of the show is the International Aviation and Space Show, and it is held every two years on off years. Often, the cream of Russia’s cutting-edge aviation is introduced at the show, including the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter.
This photo montage shows the Su-35S making an almost-impossible maneuver. (Wikimedia Commons)
According to MilitaryFactory.com, the Su-35 is an advanced version of the Su-27 Flanker. Russia has been showing this plane off for the last few years. It entered service in 2010, and among its most notable innovations was a radar that not only looks in front of the plane, but behind it as well. It can carry a wide variety of air-to-air and air-to-surface weaponry, and it has a 30mm cannon with 150 rounds. The plane also is equipped with a thrust-vectoring capability.
The Su-35 has dealt with a long development. Early versions, known as the Su-27M, were built in the 1990s, but the Russian military was short on money, and so it didn’t take off. The Su-35S, the Flanker E, was developed through most of the 2000s. The Su-35 did see some action in Syria on behalf of the Russian military, and China has ordered two dozen of these planes.
A Sukhoi Su-35 in flight. (Wikimedia Commons)
Today, Russia has acquired 58 of the Su-35s, and plans to buy as many as 90, according to GlobalSecurity.org. To put this into perspective, the similar Dassault Rafale has over 160 airframes, with orders from India and Qatar pending. The Eurofighter Typhoon, another similar plane to the Su-35, has over 500 examples in production.
You can see the Su-35 putting on an aerial demonstration of its maneuverability. Do you think this plane will prove to be better than the Rafale or Typhoon, or is it a pretender? Let us know!
After Action Report | World of Tanks from WATM on Vimeo.
World of Tanks” has a simple premise: Get into a tank and go kill stuff. And yes, it’s as fun as it sounds.
The game starts off with a tutorial level that gives the absolute basics of tank driving in World of Tanks before allowing players to fight bots for practice. After that, players are thrown into the deep end with other players.
And that’s when it gets really fun. After all, “World of Tanks” is a multiplayer game, and the best parts happen when fighting in the massive 15-on-15 tank battles. Playing in random groups gives you the chance to drop right into the action. But players can set up platoons with friends so that they can go into the battle and fight as a team.
Fighting as a team is very valuable considering the game has 120 million players worldwide, some of whom have been gaining experience since the game launched five years ago.
These teams are built around a mix of tank types. Players can drive light, medium, and heavy tanks as well as tank destroyers and self-propelled guns.
No matter which tank type you try driving, you get the feeling that you’re moving out in a true, multi-ton weapon of war, driving over trees and through buildings in battle.
But, you learn that the enemy is just as strong as you the first time a medium or heavy tank starts pounding on your hull with anti-tank rounds or an SPG hits you with artillery through your soft top armor.
Each kind of tank has its own strengths and weaknesses, and “World of Tanks” does a good job making them feel unique while teaching players how to tactically use each tank on its own and in a platoon.
Tactics are very important in “World of Tanks.” The game’s physics discourage firing from slopes down onto the enemy, a big no-no in real tank combat as well.
Each vehicle has specific weak points that players learn to protect. Players also have to quickly learn to fire from behind cover and to use concealment when maneuvering.
Juggling all of this can be hectic but is exciting in matches, especially when the enemy missteps and you’re able to blast them away with a shot in the rear armor.
To make your mission a little easier, the game lets you recruit and train crew members, allowing for faster reloads or better tank handling in combat. Players can also upgrade their tanks. Researching a new gun may give a semi-automatic capability or buying a new engine will get a tank around the battlefield faster. The eight research trees are split by nationality and each country’s armor strategy feels unique.
With all eight tech trees combined, the game features 450 tanks complete with their own handling, armor, and weapons characteristics as well as notes about their history and development.
Historical accuracy is important to “World of Tanks,” and the tanks and weapons are carefully created to match their real-world counterparts. The game does take some liberties with the historical accuracy, though, tweaking some weapons and stats to keep the game balanced and fun.
Basically, everything is kept true to history unless one tank starts being able to run roughshod over everyone else. When that happens, the designers make a few small changes to rebalance the game.
While 15-on-15 tank battles are the default, the game does have other modes like Clan Stronghold or Global Map, where clans of tankers fight each other for resources.
Wargaming.net is even bringing Football Mode back for a short time to celebrate Euro 2016. Basically, it’s soccer with tanks:
The game is free to play, but the premium version allows players to more quickly upgrade their tanks. Players can also opt to buy awesome, premium tanks in one-time transactions.
A U.S. Army tanker who lost his arm to an IED attack in Iraq was able to manipulate a prosthetic arm for the first time since his 2007 injury.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland worked with Army Spc. Jerral Hancock to develop the Modular Prosthetic Limb, a robotic arm being built by JHU’s Applied Physics Lab. The goal of the program is to create a robotic prosthetic with all the capabilities of the human arm.
Hancock has struggled in the years since his injury to live a fully-functioning life after the attack left him paralyzed from the mid-chest down. His right arm has limited mobility, making it difficult to do even one-handed tasks.
Army Spc. Jerral Hancock and a researcher from John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab discusses the calibration procedures for the Modular Prosthetic Limb. (Photo: YouTube/Freethink)
The MPL features hundreds of sensors that help it accurately gauge the angles, speed, and power the arm is using. Other sensors strapped to Hancock’s body read the signals being passed through his skin to his missing limb. The device’s software then tries to replicate the movements that Hancock is imagining, syncing his commands to the robotic arm.
In one heart-breaking moment, Hancock tells the researchers that he doesn’t imagine a left hand with full mobility, but one that has the same physical limitations of his injured right hand.
In the video, Hancock teaches the software his signals for opening and closing his hand and bending his elbow. Once the software is calibrated, he can then use the arm to grab a drink from the fridge and to fire a foam dart with his daughter.
See Hancock with the arm and his family in the full video below:
Video: YouTube/Freethink
Hancock won’t get to use the arm just yet, but his work with researchers to refine the technology will hopefully allow people who need prosthetics to get a more functional option in the next few years. JHU currently has six MPLs that are being used for research purposes and four more in development, according to the project’s website.
The U.S. Army Brotherhood of Tankers helped link Hancock and JHU together. The USABOT is a nonprofit organization that promotes knowledge of tanker culture, history, and capabilities.
This year at the inaugural LA Fleet Week, three Navy ships and a Coast Guard cutter brought together their top culinary experts for the very first Galley Wars cook-off!
Teams from USS America, USS Champion, USS Wayne E. Meyer, and the USGC Sector in Los Angeles – Long Beach came together for the Steel Beach Burger Challenge.
Marine veteran James P. Connolly (Sirius/XM Radio, Comics Unleashed) hosted the 6th Annual Veteran’s Day Benefit Comedy Show “Cocktails Camouflage,” at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank, California in early November.
All funds raised were donated to Veterans in Film Television (VFT), a non-profit networking organization that unites current and former members of the military working in film and television and offers the entertainment industry the opportunity to connect with and hire veterans.
In this video, we get to laugh with Navy veteran Steve Mazan, who talks about his foolproof plan to have a celebrity emergency contact.
It’s the big fight, the heavyweight championship — the U.S. against the world. The whole world. And not just traditional rivals.
In this scenario, the U.S. has to fight off its allies like the United Kingdom, France, and South Korea as well.
So if it’s the U.S. against the world, who’s going to win?
In short, the rest of the world is going to have a rough time of it — especially if American forces pulled back to the continental U.S. and made a stand there.
It’s a little more complicated than just who has the biggest military force, but the U.S. is still in a pretty decent position.
You can read more about the specifics here and listen to the author and other veterans discuss the subject on the We Are The Mighty podcast.
When the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mason (DDG 87) came under attack multiple times in October 2016, the ship was able in at least one instance to use its defenses to shoot down the incoming Noor anti-ship missiles.
But there are times when a ship can’t shoot down the missiles – and thankfully, U.S. Navy vessels have plenty of options.
There are a number of reasons why a U.S. Navy ship may not be able to fire. In some cases, it may be due to restrictive rules of engagement. Other times, the inability to shoot may be due to battle damage. Perhaps there’s concern about what a miss might do.
In those cases, the Navy relies on decoying an inbound missile in one of several ways.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Mason (DDG 87) steams through the Atlantic Ocean. Mason is participating in Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX) 08-4 as part of the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Katrina Parker /Released)
One option is via electronic countermeasures, or “ECM.” Specifically, the goal is to interfere with the guidance systems on the missiles by confusing or blocking the seekers on radar-guided ones.
The confusion angle is very simple. An ECM system like the AN/SLQ-32 would create false targets. This gets the missile to hopefully chase into empty ocean. Another method is to reduce the seeker’s effective range with jamming. This would allow the ship to get outside the seeker’s ability to acquire a target — again sending the missile off on a merry chase to nowhere.
An antenna for the AN/SLQ-32 system on board USS Nicholson (DD 982). (US Navy photo)
However, missile makers are wise to the countermeasures and haven’t stood still. The field of electronic counter-countermeasures exists to help make seekers both more powerful and more intelligent, enabling them to beat the ECM. Thankfully, there is another option.
Most U.S. Navy ships also have launchers for chaff. Like the deception portion of ECM, it creates a false target for a missile seeker. Unlike the deception portion of ECM, since it is actually physically metal, it creates a real “target” for the seeker to home in on.
Furthermore, firing a bunch of the rockets makes a bigger “target” – which the incoming missile will hopefully go for.
You can see a Burke-class destroyer launch a chaff rocket in the video below.
These are known as “soft” kills. The enemy missile is negated, but it is misdirected as opposed to being shot down. “Soft” kills do have a potential to go bad, though.
During the Argentinean air attacks on the Royal Navy on May 25, 1982, a Royal Navy frigate, HMS Ambuscade, fired off chaff to decoy incoming Exocet anti-ship missiles. The missiles flew through the chaff cloud and locked on to the Atlantic Conveyor, a merchant vessel carrying supplies for the British forces. Two missiles hit the vessel, which sank three days after being hit.
It’s one of the longest-serving weapons in the U.S. arsenal, packing a punch that few forget — whether they’re firing the weapon or on the receiving end of its tremendous firepower.
The Browning M-2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun casts a long shadow over U.S. military history, and it holds a special place in the hearts of many soldiers.
Nicknamed “Ma Deuce” by World War II G.I.s, some who have fired the weapon consider it the mother of all machine guns.
The troops at MCAS Miramar, San Diego received a special screening of ‘The Wedding Ringer’ and a heartfelt message from Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, and Kaley Cuoco.
Anyone who’s ever served in uniform has probably heard someone say the immortal line: “I would have joined the military, but…”
Lots of civilians make a trip to the recruiter with an eye toward military service, full of patriotic zeal and martial courage. But many pull out at the last minute and give their friends and family some song and dance about why they couldn’t commit.
No matter what excuse they give you for not signing on the dotted line, here are six real reasons recruiters tell us people decide not to join.
Secrecy is one of the best currencies in war, so it’s sometimes best for commanders to keep their best assets hidden from the enemy and the public. While the military has admitted that most the units on this list existed at some point, a lot of their missions were classified for decades before being disclosed to the public. For the units that are still operating, America still only gets glimpses into their activities.
When some renegade Navy SEALs discover the whereabouts of a treasure buried under 150 feet of water at the bottom of the Bosnian lake, they set out on a secret unauthorized mission to retrieve more than 300 million dollars of Nazi-stolen gold bars.
This action-adventure stars Sullivan Stapleton (300: Rise of an Empire), J.K. Simmons (Patriots Day), and plenty of hand-to-hand — and air-to-ground — combat. With the essence of 3 Kings, Renegades is a treasure hunt that takes you deep behind enemy lines.
Check out the trailer below with plenty of tank-on-tank contact — and watch out for headhunters.
