Iran touts new torpedo technology, test-fires domestically developed system





http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/10/13/ira...ped-system.html

US military to begin final test of “smart gun” that can kill enemies hiding behind cover







While high explosive shells are the only ones currently available for the XM25, others, including armor-piercing and nonlethal rounds, are planned.

Early next year, the US Army will begin acceptance testing of a weapon that seems like it's straight out of Call of Duty Advanced Warfare: the XM25 Counter Defilade Engagement System, a "smart" grenade launcher from Orbital Sciences subsidiary Orbital ATK. The XM25 is designed to be an "anti-defilade" weapon—its purpose is to allow soldiers to hit targets shielded by cover.

The XM25 has a built-in "target acquisition and fire control system" that allows any soldier with basic rifleman skills to operate it effectively—the soldier points the weapon's target selector down range, and a laser rangefinder determines how far away it is. The soldier can add additional distance to clear obstacles, and the fire control computer gives the soldier a new aiming point to put the round on target, as well as setting the fusing of the grenade in the chamber. The grenade doesn't have to strike anything to explode, so it can detonate in the air over whatever or whoever might be hiding behind a vehicle, wall, or entrenchment.

The XM25 has been in development since the middle of the last decade. It was originally developed by Alliant TechSystems, which was acquired by Orbital Sciences. In 2010, the Army's PEO Soldier program office sent prototypes of the XM25 to Afghanistan for "forward operational assessment"—use in actual combat to see how it performed. PEO Soldier's Lt. Colonel Chris Lehner said in a post about the field tests that the "introduction of the XM25 is akin to other revolutionary systems such as the machine gun, the airplane, and the tank, all of which changed battlefield tactics. No longer will our Soldiers have to expose themselves by firing and maneuvering to eliminate an enemy behind cover. Our Soldiers can remain covered/protected and use their XM25 to neutralize an enemy in his covered position. This will significantly reduce the risk of U.S. casualties and change the way we fight."

According to Orbital ATK, the XM25 can accurately hit a "point target" at 500 meters and hit targets with area airbursts at up to 700 meters. The semi-automatic grenade launcher, built by Heckler & Koch, is a semi-automatic that carries five 25 millimeter shells per clip. Non-lethal, armor-piercing, and door-breaching rounds are under development in addition to the high-explosive airburst shell currently in production.

The Army is also testing a smart grenade to work with existing rifle-mounted 40 millimeter grenade launchers. Called the Small Arms Grade Munition, the grenade round can detect when it passes over an obstacle and explode once it has cleared it.



http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-techn...-behind-things/

Massive Show Of Firepower In Russian/Syrian Offensive

Syrian troops, with the help of Russian airpower, have continued to advance, gaining ground from anti government forces during the current offensive in Syria.

The following video shows various Russian airstrikes against rebel groups in Idlib. At the end of the video an absolutely devastating barrage of what is believed to be BM-30 “Smerch” rocket cluster munitions explode in a single location for several minutes.



https://www.funker530.com/massive-show-of-f...rian-offensive/

Air force now able to launch long-range, precision strikes





http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-10...nt_22178561.htm

Unleash Hellhound! Northrop Grumman boasts new military buggy has laser weapons 'we would once only see in Star Trek'















http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/art...-Star-Trek.html

A walk around Sikorsky “Raider,” contender for world’s fastest military copter















http://arstechnica.com/information-technol...ilitary-copter/

Indonesian military visits PH Army in Maguindanao, exchange knowledge





http://www.interaksyon.com/article/118908/...hange-knowledge

Mystery in Iraq .. 76 military vehicles disappear



Iyad Allawi, head of the National List coalition, revealed the disappearance of seventy six military armored vehicles, pointing out that he personally requested them from an Arab country that sent them to Iraq. Allawi said that the Iraqi Defense Ministry told him that it did not receive any military armored vehicles from any country. On the other hand, Iraqi military sources stated that militias operating within the Popular mobilization backed by Iran took over these armored vehicles while a number of Iraqi MPs greatly insist on impeding the demand to open the investigation in the parliament on the disappearance of these armored vehicles.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/webtv/repo...-disappear.html

Russia to US: Quit Cruise Missile Fairy Tales, Deal With ISIL Toyotas



MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia is calling on the United States to stop telling fairy tales about Russian cruise missiles and to better handle the problem of off-road Toyota pickups ending up in the hands of the Islamic State in Syria, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday.

“Undisclosed sources make comments on missiles falling, but they don’t even know how IS militants got off-road Toyotas, so you don’t need to tell us fairy tales about Russian cruise missiles, but better to handle your jeeps,” Zakharova said during a briefing.

She said the Toyotas were delivered to Syria by the United States and Great Britain.

“Now everyone’s asking themselves the question of why IS militants, and not only them, but militants from other terrorist groups, are using off-road vehicles that were produced by Toyota, and the most important thing is where did the IS get them in such quantity. The answer to that question needs to be found not in the regions under the control of the IS, or even more so in Japan…the answer is banal. No one probably expected it. But these off-road Toyotas were delivered to Syria by our American and British colleagues themselves,” Zakharova said.

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151014/1...ia-US-ISIL.html

Golez: China building defense triangle at sea





http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/730721/golez-...triangle-at-sea

EVIDENCE OF COVERT US FORCES IN SOUTHERN SYRIA

Massive US presence was observed at the border between Syria and Jordan



Drone downed by Syria army over Daraa countryside:



The various munition experts on Twitter agree that this is debris of an Aerovironment Switchblade (Datasheet-pdf) loitering munition “for use against beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) targets”:

This miniature intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and lethal platform can be operated manually or autonomously. Switchblade provides the operator with real-time video and GPS coordinates for information gathering, targeting or feature/object recognition.

The switchblade has the size of a remote piloted hobby plane but features a visual and infrared camera and an explosive charge. It can be “suicided” on a target. According to the datasheet the battery powered killer drone has a “10 km radius of operation”.

Izraa, where the debris was found, lies (map) at the crossing of the M5 highway from Amman in Jordan north to Damascus and road 109 which runs west to east through south Syria. Izraa is about 40 km north of the Syrian Jordan border and 40 km east of the Golan demarcation line. Anyone who used this armed drone must have been on Syrian ground.

The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corp are the only known users. Since 2012 the weapons has been used in Afghanistan. The system surely requires significant training. Controlling a remote plane 10 km away over unknown terrain is not easy. This excludes the use of the system by some more or less untrained Syrian mercenaries.

My conclusion is that U.S. soldiers, likely some special forces, are in south Syria on Syrian ground on either reconnaissance or targeted killing missions. This is an invasion in violation of international law.

Russia plans to more than triple the airstrike sorties it flies per day in Syria. This to support the several thousand new fighters coming in now from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon to help the Syrian government and its people.

There should then be enough available flights and men to expulse the intruders from south Syria.



http://southfront.org/evidence-of-covert-u...southern-syria/

Iran airs unseen footage of secret underground missile base





https://www.rt.com/news/318702-iran-video-missiles-secret/

PUTIN OF ARABIA















http://southfront.org/putin-of-arabia/

2,200 US fighters needed to defeat PLA attack on Taiwan by 2017



By the year 2017, it will take the United States about 2,200 fighters, a full two-thirds of its Air Force, to defeat an aerial invasion launched by the PLA against Taiwan, according to a report by the Santa Monica-based think tank RAND Corporation.

While the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps together have a larger advanced fighter fleet than their PLA counterparts, China enjoys the geographic advantage. Such geographic and situational factors favor China in nearly all Asian conflict scenarios and allow Beijing to challenge US air power in the Far East without the need to have as many advanced fighters as Washington.

To defeat a potential Chinese aerial offensive against Taiwan, the United States would need to deploy 30 fighter wings to the Western Pacific. Such an attrition campaign against the PLA Air Force and Navy Air Force would be unsustainable for the US.

Seven fighter wings would be able to wipe out half of the Chinese air power over the Taiwan Strait within a week. Three weeks would be needed if the number of fighter wings were reduced to four.

A three-week campaign, however, would give the PLA ground forces enough time to occupy the entire island. It is doubtful whether the US military could logistically even support the deployment of 30 fighter wings to the Western Pacific, China's Global Times said. Even if the US is capable of deploying that many fighters and supporting aircraft to the region, PLA ballistic missiles may be able to wipe them out before they even launched, according to the Global Times report.

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news/content...000169&cid=1101

South China Sea: What 12 Nautical Miles Does and Doesn’t Mean





http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/south-china...nd-doesnt-mean/

Toothless tiger: Japan Self-Defence Forces





http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34485966

Putin’s Smart Bombs Aren’t All That Smart











http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/14/putin-...all-that-smart/

Insane Ukrainian Mercenaries Shoot At Each Other For Training

White-Wolf training company in the Ukraine puts students through rigorous mental toughness challenge.

Not a single thing on this planet can ever prepare you for the first time a round snaps by your face. Or at least that’s what I thought until I saw the training techniques being used by White Wolf in the Ukraine. These guys throw safety out the window and ensure that training is indeed paramount in all of their activities.

Students run in a circle around instructors as the instructors take pot shots at them with Ak-47’s. Any person with even the most minute amount of firearms handling instruction will surely be cringing at this video. It seems like insanity watching these instructors fire at their students while they run laps.



This video alone speaks on the lack of proper training these guys have. It’s one thing to train yourself in a realistic environment. It’s another thing entirely to risk the safety of your students to do so. One poorly placed round, or mistake in fundamental marksmanship and these guys are doing a productive realistic rehearsal in combat life saving.

A suggestion to the members of White-Wolf. Tone your training down a little bit. Keep it realistic, but do not risk the lives and safety of your students to provide realistic training. You can acquire these same skill sets through other means. Ensure the units sending their men to you maintain the fighters they send you, and return them in better working conditions than when they arrived.

https://www.funker530.com/insane-ukrainian-...r-for-training/

Russia and US Close to Agreement on Flights Over Syria













http://sputniknews.com/military/20151015/1...ghts-syria.html