The US Navy’s fleet of amphibious ships has declined by half in the last 25 years, from 62 in 1990 to 31 today, with current shipbuilding plans calling for four additional amphibious ships to be added by fiscal year 2024, increasing the total number of amphibious ships to 35. The shortage reduces the ability of …
The Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded the University of Dayton Research Institute a $9.8 million, three-year contract for research and development in materials and structures for reusable hypersonic vehicles. Hypersonic vehicles, which travel at speeds faster than five times the speed of sound, experience significant thermal and aerodynamic loads, said Steven Olson, group leader …
The head of Russia’s defense council Viktor Bondarev confirmed the Zircon cruise missile is now available in Russia’s arsenal while speaking on Tuesday. The weapon – which Russia boasts is capable of Mach 8 – was last tested back in June. In April 2017, it was revealed that the Zircon had reached a speed of …
The United States Navy has 11 active supercarriers. Supercarrier is an unofficial descriptive term for the largest type of aircraft carrier, typically those displacing over 70,000 long tons (71,000 metric tons). China and the UK will each have two active supercarriers by 2021. The United Kingdom’s first Queen Elizabeth-class carrier is undergoing sea trials and …
China may be considering sharing its J-20 fifth generation stealth fighter jet technologies with allies such as Pakistan. Sino-Indian ties following a stiff face-off since June on the Doklam Plateau, a border area claimed by both Beijing and New Delhi. Beijing may invest for a stake in Russia’s Su-57 program. The Russian stealth fighter program …
On average it takes about 50,000 bullets to kill one soldier. Soldier have protection and are working together to avoid getting killed. A bullet costs about 50 cents. It costs about $25000 to kill each soldier. It costs less to kill civilian soft targets. There is also the issue of protecting hydro dams and oil …
The USS Benfold sustained slight damage when a Japanese tug drifted into the guided-missile destroyer during a towing exercise off central Japan on Saturday, the U.S. Navy said. “No one was injured on either vessel and Benfold sustained minimal damage, including scrapes on its side, pending a full damage assessment,” a statement from the U.S. …
Stealth planes and submarines currently have the great advantage of being very hard to detect. For stealth planes that can be detected but when it is too late to react. Mass production of new underwater and aerial drones with new sensors and assistance from persistent monitoring from thousands to tens of thousands of small satellites …
China is building the world’s fastest wind tunnel to simulate hypersonic flight at speeds of up to 12 kilometers per second (mach 40, 43200 kph, 26843 mph). A hypersonic vehicle flying at this speed from China could reach the west coast of the United States in less than 14 minutes. Zhao Wei, a senior scientist …
Tupolev Tu-160M2 strategic bomber prototype will take to the skies for the first time from the airfield of the Kazan Aviation Enterprise in February 2018. Serial production of Tu-160M2 bombers should begin in 2023. In 2015, Russia had made a decision to resume the production of Tu-160 bombers in their upgraded Tu-160M2 modification and delayed …
The U.S. military budget is $824.6 billion. That’s the budget for Fiscal Year 2018 which covers the period October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. 1. $574.5 billion base budget for the Department of Defense. 2. $64.6 billion Overseas Contingency Operations for DoD to fight the Islamic State group 3. $78.9 billion Department of Veterans …