By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com April 13, 2009 Updated on 4/26/09. My good friend and professional contact, prolific infantry small arms/machine gun designer Jim Sullivan (a.k.a. L James Sullivan), has complained to me quite a bit about U.S. military infantry warfighters not having an American version of the Russian RPG-7 / RPG-7V shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade weapon …

By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com April 6, 2009 I’ve been writing about the vulnerability of U.S. Navy surface ships, particularly large expensive aircraft carriers, against other countries’ anti-ship cruise missiles and torpedoes for awhile, now. Specifically, I’ve focused on the latest crop of supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles and supercavitating torpedoes, even though some argue that long-range wake-homing …

By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com November 19, 2008 Human Events is reporting on the use of Chinese armor-piercing a.k.a. armor-penetrating (AP) bullets by enemy snipers in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the article, this new Chinese AP rifle ammo is copycatting U.S.-made AP ammo design, and is "sending alarm bells through the Pentagon as it hurries to …

By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com August 20, 2008 The recent dust-up in Georgia between Russian and Geogian forces, i.e. the Russian invasion of Georgia, has reinvigorated expensive, high-tech conventional-warfare/Cold-War-type weapons like the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor low-observable/stealth fighter aircraft a.k.a. F/A-22 Raptor air-to-air (air-superiority fighter)/ground attack aircraft. The F-22, in particular has been receiving a lot of …

by David Crane defrev at gmail dot com April 8, 2008 Updated on 4/10/08. DefenseReview readers may remember an article we published on September 16, 2007 about our aircraft carriers being vulnerable to attack by our enemies and/or potential enemies employing/deploying the latest supersonic cruise missile and supercavitating torpedo technologies being developed by the Russians and shared with countries like …

By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com September 16, 2007 Article updated on 4/07/08. In the world of big business, and big military, money is power. The more money one controls, the more powerful one is. And, in the U.S. military, the bigger the program and sexier the hardware/technology, the more prestige you’ve got, especially if that hardware can …

by David Crane david at defensereview.com By now, everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock in the middle of the Sahara desert (or similar-type isolated location) has heard about China’s supposedly successful anti-satellite shoot-to-kill missile test that has the West, including the U.S., "up in arms" (excuse the pun) about the safety of our military and civilian communications and …

by David Crane david at defensereview.com November 20, 2006 By now, everyone and their mother knows that last month, in the Pacific, a Chinese submarine stalked a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group and surfaced within torpedo and missile firing range before being detected. DefenseReview can’t really say we’re surprised by this, especially since U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups are no …

by David Crane david@defensereview.com Some folks at Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD), a.k.a. NAVAIR Weapons Division (China Lake, CA), are currently developing a "man-packable, shoulder-launched guided missile" system for U.S. infantry warfighters called SPIKE. The developmental system is essentially a low-cost, compact, and lightweight man-portable shoulder-fired fire-and-forget missile system that incorporates three separate guidance modes–inertial, laser, and imaging …

by Bob Taubert October 19, 2005 Let me start out by saying that I’m an unabashed fan of assault rifle/small arms systems that provide relatively long barrel lengths in compact packages. Troops in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters of operation want agile shoulder weapons that they can fight from vehicles with, clear buildings and rooms and at the same time …