Octopus Overlords

Paingod wrote: ↑Fri Dec 13, 2019 4:34 pm I'm seriously disappointed that no one photoshopped a little white flag to the top of it.

In the weeks following Iran's Jan. 8 ballistic missile attack on the Ain al-Assad air base in Iraq, 110 American service members deployed there were diagnosed with what has been the signature, albeit invisible, wound of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: traumatic brain injury caused by concussive blasts from exploding weapons.

That's because ever since the first modern combat helmet came out in 1915, these so-called "brain buckets" have been designed to protect heads not from invisible shock waves, but from shrapnel, bullets and other blunt physical objects.

The Air Force has been quietly experimenting with air-launching Kratos Defense and Security Solutions' UTAP-22 Mako low-cost loyal wingman drone.
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Kratos describes the UTAP-22 as an "unmanned aircraft capable of collaborative operations with manned assets in contested environments," a role also commonly referred to as "loyal wingman." This means that the drone is primarily intended to operate at least semi-autonomously based on instructions from another aircraft with an actual pilot in it. Beyond their primary loyal wingman mission, the company has also demonstrated the ability for multiple Makos to work together cooperatively on their own and they could operate independently, as well.
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Outwardly and in terms of general performance, the UTAP-22 is very similar to the BQM-167. Both can fly to altitudes of up to 50,000 feet, have a top speed just under Mach 1, can pull up to 9Gs, can carry substantial external stores, are highly reconfigurable, and can stay aloft for around three hours, which translates to a maximum range of around 1,500 miles, in total.
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In 2015, Kratos announced that the UTAP-22 had flown for the first time. In November of that year, the company conducted a second set of flight tests at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake (NAWS China Lake) that included f the drones flying 'tethered' via data-link to a U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier jump jet, supporting the Harrier’s mission in a semi-autonomous fashion.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 1:16 pm More likely to go to war with unmanned vehicles.

Asimulated F-16 Viper fighter jet with an artificial intelligence-driven "pilot" went undefeated in five rounds of mock air combat against an actual top Air Force fighter jockey today. The event was the culmination of an effort that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began last year as an adjacent project to the larger Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program, which is focused on exploring how artificial intelligence and machine learning may help automate various aspects of air-to-air combat.

Heron Systems, a company with just 30 employees, had beaten out Aurora Flight Sciences, EpiSys Science, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Lockheed Martin, Perspecta Labs, PhysicsAI, and SoarTech to claim the top spot in the last of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) AlphaDogfight Trials. This three-day event had started on Aug. 18, 2020.
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Lockheed Martin beat Physics AI, while Heron Systems defeated Aurora Flight Sciences. Heron Systems pulled out a major upset over number two ranked Lockheed Martin before going on to face the actual human F-16 pilot, a Weapons School instructor pilot with the callsign Banger, in simulated combat.

This tournament was the third and final trial in a series of events that started in November 2019. That initial trial involved teams flying simulated F-15 Eagle fighter jets, while the second one, which took place in January of this year, shifted to using the F-16 as the representative aircraft. The teams taking part in the competition this week again used digital representations of the Viper.

Asimulated F-16 Viper

The U.S. Navy is testing something big and loud over the Potomac River this week. The service just issued an advisory over “munitions testing” in Virginia’s Tidewater region, closing sections of the river to boat traffic and warning that civilians could hear loud noises. The projected source of the loud noises is the same range where the service first tested its experimental railgun. NSWC Dahlgren warns of “loud” noises on Tuesday, December 1, on the eastern side of the site and downrange. The Potomac River will be restricted to naval traffic for 10,000 yards downrange, or a distance of 5.68 miles.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 10:03 pm

BREAKING: Space Force members will officially be called GUARDIANS Vice President Mike Pence announces alongside Space Force chief Gen. John Raymond, A/SecDef Chris Miller and SecAF Barbara Barrett at the White House

Holman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:20 pm This image is floating around and being treated as legitimate.

Surely this isn't real, right? Surely it's not this ridiculous?

While the picture has drawn strong reactions from people online, who have compared the design to German uniforms in World War II and what the bad guys wore in Spaceballs, it is not something that the Space Force is considering adopting, said Maj. Nicholas Mercurio, a spokesman for the service.

“The uniform graphic being shared on social media is not an official U.S. Space Force uniform design concept,” Mercurio told Task & Purpose. “The Space Force service dress uniform is still in development.”

Sepiche wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:42 pm

Holman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:20 pm This image is floating around and being treated as legitimate.

Surely this isn't real, right? Surely it's not this ridiculous?

The first new F-15EX built for the U.S. Air Force took the skies for the first time today from Boeing’s plant at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis. The aircraft, serial AF 20-0001, blasted off from runway 30L at about 1:53 pm ET, using the callsign RED 62
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As usual for the fighters departing from Boeing’s facilities, the F-15EX performed the “Viking departure”, as St. Louis workers call the unrestricted climb immediately after a very short takeoff roll meant to reach the upper flight levels before overflying the crossing runway 6/24, clearing this way the airspace for civilian aircraft that may be departing or arriving on that runway.
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Boeing published last summer the photos of the first two new aircraft being built, following a USD 1.2 billion deal for the first lot of eight F-15EX jets that will be delivered to Eglin Air Force Base (Florida) to be thoroughly tested before starting to replace the oldest F-15Cs and F-15Ds in the U.S. Air Force fleet. The Air Force is planning to buy 76 F-15EX aircraft over the five-year Future Years Defense Program, a number that could eventually increase up to 144 aircraft.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:12 am Actually the H model (which is what is being used now) of the B-52 has been flying since 1962 and was the last model built.

Holman wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 10:46 amThe first models of the Piper Cub flew in 1938

Today’s Moment of Science… Wacky Bat Hijinks.

Animals have been used in various capacities in warfare as long as we’ve had animals and warfare. Horses for transportation, homing pigeons for transporting messages, and I assume modern armies have 30-50 feral hogs as their first line of defense. A month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a dentist on a spelunking trip to the Carlsbad Caverns had himself a batty little revelation.

Dr. Lyle Adams observed the bats carrying multiple offspring and deduced they must be quite strong. Given that they seek out a place to hide like a cave during daylight, he hatched a bonkers plan that would have died between his ears, but he shared it with his good friend, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

He figured if they can carry three baby bats, why not one little incendiary device? If they would fly into a cave to avoid daylight, why not one of many buildings made of flammable materials in Japan? Their hibernation could be artificially induced by lowering their body temperature, so why not take advantage of that and keep some hibernating, bomb carrying bats on hand?

Why not turn a small army of bats into unwitting suicide bombers?

Y’all, they fucking did that.

Project X-Ray was set in motion. After much research, they opted for the Mexican Free-Tailed bat. Tiny critters, but there were plenty of them, and that’s what Adams wanted for his revenge for Pearl Harbor; zillions of tiny sentient flying bombs. They then needed to downsize their smallest bomb significantly from two pounds to under an ounce for a bat to carry it. In order to make that small of a bomb worth it, it had to make it particularly blastey.

A half ounce of the most devastating stuff they could possibly find was strapped to the unfortunately plentiful bats: napalm.
Napalm Loaded Hibernating Mexican Free-Tailed Bats. Now that’s my goddamn band name.

Giant canisters designed to store a thousand bats would hold them in hibernation, waiting to be deployed over a target. A timer for the incendiary devices to detonate would be started on their release, just waiting for the bats to go find a cozy home to set ablaze.

I struggle to pinpoint the most absurd part of this fuckery. The one thing they actually set on fire was the Carlsbad Army Airfield Auxiliary Air Base when some bats roosted under a fuel tank, kinda proving that the idea goddamn worked. They spent two million dollars researching this and in large part only abandoned it because a nuke would be available first. And did I mention that the US military took this idea from a dentist who was friends with the first lady?

Perhaps most embarrassingly, the president of the United States accepted a plan that suggested “the millions of bats that have for ages inhabited our belfries, tunnels and caverns were placed there by God to await this hour,” and we should use them to “frighten, demoralize and excite the prejudices of the Japanese Empire.”

Yikes, Murika. Given that the only thing this project burned down was an American Air Base, you’re gonna have to sort that out with your God.

This has been your daily Moment of Science, asking you to just leave the bats alone, because they play the long game.