Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

The Marine Corps is fielding tracked robots that crawl the seabed, transit the surf zone, and hunt mines and unexploded ordnance on the beach itself. The Bayonet Autonomous Underwater Ground Vehicles give explosive ordnance disposal teams a way to survey and clear the most dangerous stretch of the approach without first putting Marines in the water. Recent awards to Greensea IQ cover Bayonet 250 systems under the Littoral Explosive Ordnance Neutralization, or LEON, family of systems. The contract forms part of the service’s effort to place unmanned platforms into high-risk roles that once required divers or dismounted teams. Bayonet 250…

Few rifles have given the .50 BMG cartridge a reputation quite like the McMillan TAC-50. It is a large, heavy bolt-action rifle, yet its story isn’t really about size. It’s about what happens when a powerful cartridge is built around precision rather than volume of fire.The TAC-50 emerged from McMillan’s experience with .50-caliber rifle designs and eventually found its way into military service, most notably with Canada’s C15 Long Range Sniper Weapon and the U.S. Navy’s Mk 15 Mod 0. Its reputation grew further through extraordinary long-range battlefield engagements, including a widely reported 3,540-meter shot in Iraq in 2017.But focusing…

The TWZ Newsletter Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy. Earlier today, Chinese firm LandSpace achieved the country’s first successful recovery of a reusable space launch rocket booster on land. This follows China’s first-ever recovery of a reusable space launch rocket booster last month, which state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) conducted at sea using a specially configured ship. Reusable boosters can lower costs and increase the tempo of launches dramatically, which would be extremely beneficial for China’s already massively expanding military and national security space enterprise. It could also…

Merab Dvalishvili and Henry Cejudo are having their wrestling rematch this weekend for RAF, and a previous RAF opponent of Dvalishvili thinks Cejudo is being catered to a bit here. Frankie Edgar is the wrestler in question who lost to Dvalishvili, but the former UFC lightweight champ would then bounce back to beat Clay Guida on points at RAF 11. In Cejudo’s initial Real American Freestyle contest with Dvalishvili, already a quasi rematch after the latter beat the former in the UFC, saw ‘Triple C’ put together a sizable lead all throughout. Dvalishvili would then rally and end up getting…

President Donald Trump’s new plan to enlist private companies to help disrupt cybercriminals abroad may face a fundamental problem when it comes to Russia: distinguishing criminal hackers and state-backed operatives.Russian intelligence services have long tolerated, protected or intermittently recruited financially-motivated hackers without exercising full control over them. That dynamic gives Moscow easier access to hacking talent, and it complicates a major carveout in Trump’s new directive that excludes groups part of or directed by a foreign government, experts and former U.S. officials say.“The line between government control, government-affiliated and government-acknowledged is certainly blurry in Russia,” said Michael Daniel, president and…

Four members of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Logistics Management Division joined Space Systems Command’s (SSC) product support managers (PSMs) during a two-day forum at SSC headquarters Aug. 5-6. The forum brought together SSC PSMs and other officials from the command’s S4 Installations, Logistics and Product Support directorate to discuss current efforts, issues and updates. The forum included presentations and a tour of SpaceX’s Hawthorne facility. Working with NASA logistic officials isn’t new for SSC. Last year, officials from NASA, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office and U.S. Space Force headquarters met to…

The game has been announced for some time already, and few have been able to see it. One key reason is that it took us a long time to add the necessary code for this game (in particular code handling the behavior of non-player nations in the SGS engine). As an example, the screenshots herewith display some battle cases with those ‘neutral’ but aggressive monsters… In general, this year first half was focused on engine development (as you can see with all the Version 1.7 updates), with bug fixing, improvements and, more important, new editor and game features that are…

The Hanwha K9MH is a truck-mounted, 155mm howitzer that draws inspiration from the highly successful K9 tracked self-propelled howitzer. (Hanwha Aerospace)On 18 August, Hanwha Defense USA, a subsidiary of Hanwha Aerospace in South Korea, was awarded a contract to provide its K9 Mobile Howitzer (K9MH) for the US Army’s Mobile Tactical Cannon (MTC) programme.The MTC programme is seeking a wheeled, 155mm artillery system intended to replace towed M777 howitzers within the US Army.Under this contract, Hanwha will deliver six prototype 8×8 vehicles on an accelerated schedule, with an option for an additional twelve K9MHs. The initial contract with a four-year…

When people think about the risks of mixing AI and armed forces, their thoughts often drift to one famous film franchise: the Terminator. Its premise is simple. American scientists invent a superintelligent computer system, called Skynet. The Department of Defense then integrates it into the military and embodies its intelligence into lethal robots. Skynet soon becomes self-aware, and American military leaders attempt to unplug it. In response, the AI starts a nuclear war and deploys its robots—the terminators—to eliminate the human race.There is no doubt that people need to maintain control over AI systems, and so it is essential for…

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.—There are less than four months left in the year, but defense and aerospace company Arcfield’s plans seem to just be getting started, as they prepare for an upcoming satellite launch and explore manufacturing a highly specialized component key for optical sensors and laser communications.“There’s a lot going on at Arcfield. And what we’re really focused on is bringing the government a fully-baked solution,” Dan Knight, Arcfield’s vice president for Golden Dome initiatives and strategy, told Defense One at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Ala., last week. “Instead of saying, ‘Hey, I’m the one-trick wonder that…