Military Memes

[StG58]

That was a fantastic read, thank you.

You're welcome.

 

[StG58]

I’ll check that out, thanks.

You're welcome.

 

[Dr. Internet]

I’ll check that out, thanks.

Something a lot of folks don't know about Adm Nimitz is that he was fully submarine qualified. See the dolphins in his picture:

 

[Dan The Video Man]

 

[Mhass]

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That shit can kill a man!

 

[Wildman]

 

[Wildman]

 

[Wildman]

 

[Dr. Internet]

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I've still got the scar from a hot .45 shell that got stuck under my t-shirt.

 

[Wildman]

 

[Wildman]

 

[Wildman]

 

[Wildman]

 

[Wildman]

 

[bbaldwin237]

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Reminds me of my brother's Husky that he got blown up in. He was doing route clearance and hit a homemade ampho IED. It blew the whole front off, rolled the armor plating back like tin foil, launched the vehicle into the air and landed on it's side. He was lucky to walk away with only a severe concussion.

 

[Wildman]

Reminds me of my brother's Husky that he got blown up in. He was doing route clearance and hit a homemade ampho IED. It blew the whole front off, rolled the armor plating back like tin foil, launched the vehicle into the air and landed on it's side. He was lucky to walk away with only a severe concussion.

For those who don't know.....
That is/was a mine clearing vehicle... The stuff in front was suppose to roll over mines and it'd blow up and was mounted on a hinge.. But this rig drove over the IED 3 times that day before it finally blew...

I was lucky I guess since I didn't do a lot of convoys so never delt with IED's but did with VBIED's and getting shot at.... Rockets & mortars aren't any fun either.

 

[Wildman]

This photograph from the Washington State Archives shows the USS Pennsylvania or Arizona (left) and the USS California or Tennessee (right) at anchor in Elliot Bay during summer maneuvers, ca. 1935.

"These battleships are lying in Seattle's harbor, in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, Washington State's highest mountain peak. The United States battle fleet visits the North Pacific annually in the Summer, and ships can be seen in July and August in Washington ports, before and after maneuvers," a typewritten note attached to the photo reads.

 

[Wildman]

For decades, laser weapons were the stuff of science fiction, the ray guns of movies and comic books. Not anymore. The US Army has a real, working laser weapon that can shoot drones out of the sky, and this week, it used it in the real world for the first time, downing three drones. Here's how this remarkable technology actually works, and why it may change modern warfare.

THE WEAPON

The system is called the Multipurpose High Energy Laser, and at its heart is a directed-energy weapon built by the American company AeroVironment, known as LOCUST. It's a laser in the 20-kilowatt class, powerful enough to physically destroy a drone in flight.

What makes it especially clever is how it's packaged. Rather than being some giant, fixed installation, the Army mounted the laser on a lightweight, highly mobile Infantry Squad Vehicle, essentially a rugged military buggy small enough to be moved around easily and even transported by air. That means this futuristic weapon can ride right alongside frontline troops and protect them wherever they go.

HOW IT ACTUALLY WORKS

A laser weapon isn't quite like the movies, where a beam instantly vaporizes everything. The real technology is arguably more impressive, because of the precision involved.

First, radar and sensors detect an incoming drone and cue the system to the target. Then a sophisticated beam-control system locks onto the drone and does something genuinely difficult: it holds an invisible beam of concentrated light on a single specific point of a small, fast-moving object, and keeps it there. The intense energy rapidly heats that spot until the drone suffers a critical failure, its structure, its motor, or its electronics burn out, and it falls from the sky.

That precision is the hard part. Keeping a laser locked on one exact spot of a maneuvering drone requires advanced machine vision, adaptive optics, and beam control that are every bit as important as the raw power of the laser itself. It's an extraordinary feat of engineering happening in a fraction of a second.

THE GAME-CHANGER: COST

Here's the part that may matter most, and it comes down to simple math.

Drones have become one of the biggest threats on the modern battlefield. They're cheap, they're everywhere, and enemies can send them in swarms. The problem has always been that the traditional way to shoot down a drone, firing an expensive missile at it, costs far more than the cheap drone it destroys. When a $1,000 drone forces you to fire a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar missile, you lose that exchange every time, even when you win it.

A laser flips that equation completely. Once the system is built, each shot costs almost nothing, essentially just the price of the electricity to power it. A laser can fire again and again, as long as it has power, for a tiny fraction of the cost of a single missile. Against swarms of cheap drones, that's not just an improvement, it's a revolution in how you defend troops and bases affordably.

BUILT TO GROW

The technology is also designed to scale. The laser systems can be built in different power levels, from the roughly 20-kilowatt class version up to 35 kilowatts and beyond, letting them take on everything from small commercial-style drones to larger, more capable unmanned aircraft. A parallel Army effort mounts an even more powerful 50-kilowatt laser on a Stryker combat vehicle. In other words, this isn't a one-off gadget; it's the leading edge of an entire new class of American weapons.

THE FUTURE IS HERE

For years, the US military has been developing and testing directed-energy weapons, working to move them out of the laboratory and into the hands of soldiers. This week's real-world use, in which the system successfully downed three drones, is a milestone: proof that these weapons don't just work on a test range, but can perform when it actually counts.

The age of the laser weapon, long promised and long awaited, has genuinely arrived. American soldiers now have a tool that can knock threats out of the sky at the speed of light, for pennies a shot, and defend against the swarms of drones that increasingly define modern conflict. It's a reminder that when it comes to military technology, the United States continues to turn what was once science fiction into battlefield reality, and to give the men and women who serve the most advanced tools on earth.

 

[Wildman]

This photograph from the Washington State Archives shows the USS Pennsylvania or Arizona (left) and the USS California or Tennessee (right) at anchor in Elliot Bay during summer maneuvers, ca. 1935.

"These battleships are lying in Seattle's harbor, in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, Washington State's highest mountain peak. The United States battle fleet visits the North Pacific annually in the Summer, and ships can be seen in July and August in Washington ports, before and after maneuvers," a typewritten note attached to the photo reads.

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Can one of you Squids maybe explain what was being done to the main guns on the ships? Or what those smaller boats are doing near the sides?

 

[Wildman]