By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com November 24, 2008 Updated on May 6, 2009 Ever since he won the presidential election, the press has been following President-Elect Barack Obama around Chicago like a bunch of hungry (and annoying) puppies. Whether he’s going to his transition office in the Kluczynski Federal Building in the Loop (dowtown Chicago professional district, …

by David Crane defrev at gmail dot com March 20, 2008 DefenseReview was one of the first publications to report on the results of the Fall 2007 M4 Carbine "Extreme Dust Test". We published that story on December 18, 2007. Well, on December 19, 2007, we received two email communications (below) from one of our professional contacts in U.S. Army …

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 defrev at gmail.com This article may be modified/updated with new information in the coming days, so readers might want to check back in (to this article) over the next week. August 15, 2007 In late February 2006, DefenseReview broke the story on a developmental (but functional) prototype remote-controlled armed/weaponized semi-autonomous/fully-autonomous unmanned mini-helicopter called the AutoCopter Gunship, which …

by David Crane david@defensereview.com DPMS Panther Arms is currently making a civilian-legal replica of the semi-auto-only 5.56mm (5.56x45mm) U.S. Army Squad Designated Marksman Rifle (SDM-R), which is designed to allow squads to engage enemy targets at ranges of 600 meters (600m). According to the 2005 U.S. Army Field Manual, "The primary mission of the SDM [Squad Designated Marksman] is to …

by David Crane david@defensereview.com DefenseReview recently received an email communication from Bill Pegler, CEO of Television Equipment Associates, Inc. (TEA), about an interesting tactical communications (a.ka. tactical comms) product that TEA is currently marketing. It’s called the RAPID 40 Field Telephone System and it was designed and developed specfically for tactical military communications (tactical military comms). According to Mr. Pegler, …

by David Crane david at defensereview.com DefenseReview.com has received video footage of a weaponized version of the AutoCopter self-stabilized unmanned mini-helicopter being tested for the first time in sunny Huntsville, Alabama (The download link for this video is further down in this article.). The AutoCopter is made by Neural Robotics Incorporated (NRI), and the armament/weapons portion of the package is …

by David Crane david@defensereview.com On January 11th (2006), DefenseWatch/Soldiers For The Truth (SFTT) published an article by DW/SFTT editor Nat Helms about a critical/damaging U.S. Marine Corps forensic study on Interceptor OTV body armor, titled Interceptor OTV Body Armor Costs Lives, An Internal USMC Report Shows.Two days later, on January 13th (2006), DefenseReview reported on the current Pinnacle Armor Dragon …

by David Crane david@defensereview.com All photos contained in this article were taken by, and are the exclusive property of, DefenseReview.com.   Back in July 2004, DefenseReview published an article on the TASER X26 less-lethal/non-lethal weapon system, which uses Shaped Pulse™ Technology to disrupt the human body’s electrical impulses, making it (according to the company) physically impossible for an individual to …

by David Crane david@defensereview.com German textiles/carpet manufacturer Vorwerk & Co. Teppichwerke GmbH & Co. KG and semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies AG (also based in Germany) have joined forces to create the world’s first (at least publicly known) smart carpet or "thinking carpet". The Infineon Thinking Carpet is basically a carpet-embedded sensor network/sensor system that has the potential to literally revolutionize …