The Soviets, and their parred down left overs, the Russians, have a bad habit of copying “stuff” we design, test and produce. Side Note: We’re not above doing a little ourselves, but that can be a whole series of posts unto itself….

So, we made the “Mother of All Bombs,” the Massive Ordnance Air Burst bomb in 1993. weighing in at 21,000 lbs, it is 6K lbs heavier than the BLU-82 “Daisy Cutter” used since the Vietnam War. The weapon relies upon it’s “FAE” (fuel air explosive) characteristics to make a point when it detonates.So, the Russians, after a decade and a few years, have managed to make what they call the “Father of All Bombs.”

Russia’s military yesterday announced that it had successfully tested a lethal new air-delivered bomb, which it described as the world’s most powerful non-nuclear weapon.

In what appears to be the Kremlin’s latest display of military might, officials said Moscow had developed a new thermobaric bomb to add to its already potent nuclear arsenal.

Russia’s state-run Channel One television said the new ordnance – dubbed the Father of all Bombs – is four times more powerful than the US’s Mother of all Bombs.
[…]

According to the article, the FOAB is delivered by the TU-160 “Blackjack” strategic bomber (oh, BTW, a knock off of the B-1 Lancer), reported to have a payload 88,220 lbs, which, would square with the “four times” as big claim….The Guardian, where I found this report, can’t manage to stick to reporting, but has to blame this new weapons on President Bush’s plan to locate ABM systems in Europe:

[…]
The development of this latest device appears to be another response to the Bush administration’s plans to site elements of its missile defence system in central Europe. Mr Putin has denounced the plan, arguing that it upsets Europe’s strategic balance, and has vowed to respond.
[…]

My comment: What buffons! Weaponry such as this didn’t begin their development on June 7th (or 8th, if you want to to think the leadership slept on the decision to order the development), 2007. Besides, from a tactical standpoint, you wouldn’t need an “almost a nuke” to render ABM sites combat ineffective. No, the Russians made it, because they want to have a “big bang” in their pocket, and can say with a straight face, “nope, that’s sure not a nuke we got here, boys!” at the negotiation table.

Anyhow, We’re gonna have to make a bigger bomber if we’re gonna compete in the “who can make the Grand-Pappy” of all bombs race…

Update 09/14/2007: Major John (USAF) of OpFor sez we got a bomb with more bang than the new one the Russians built…and oh, yea, it goes deep and then goes “BOOM!” The Russian FOAB isn’t a penetrator…ya’ll paying attention Iran?

Welches ist jene?
“I dunno, but it was something FAST!” – Bill Cosby

Something about having to back off the throttle at 230 mph due to road conditions…and that was…ummm…56% power…

If Lex can’t manage to find his chestnuts and get a non-military jet flying job, despite several offers, maybe he can consider one of these as a 2D substitute. Then, for the ValOUR-IT 2007 fund raising drive, he could take a lucky high bidder out for a spin in the desert near his house…How ’bout it, Lex? Feeling charitable?

And who would say NASA isn’t useful for something?

H/T: Wired Magazine – Sep 07 Edition

They didn’t think of Windows, they had to wait for someone else to make it work…

Consider now, the possibility of copying a wildly successful product line and calling it their own…

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BUT….this is not merely a philosophy from Bill Gates, but it seems
to be prevalent in Russia these days, too…

And two something extras for the Mac loyalists out there:

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Today will not be devoted to some hero who had a ship named after them, but rather to a particularly American tree that made a difference in our early history. Yesterday, I posted about the famed battle between the USS CONSTITUTION under Captain Issac Hull and the HMS Guerrière commanded by Captain James Dacres. That 25 minute battle, resulting in an astonishing one sided victory for the American Navy was, in part, due to the foresight of the US Navy’s first shipwright, Joshua Humphreys (who’s story led off this series of Monday postings).

Quercus virginiana, better known as “Live Oak,” was a specific ingredient in the building of our first six warships.

Angel Oak, John’s Island, SC. Photo Credit: © Cedric Baele

The tree, which is a live oak, Quercus virginiana, a species prevalent in the sea islands of South Carolina, is 65 feet high and has a circumference of 25 feet. While its height may not be impressive, the shaded area covered by its foliage extends over 17,000 square feet, making it a delightful place to catch some shade in the summer months.

One of its largest limbs is 89 feet long, with a circumference of 11.5 feet.
[…]

Why this type of wood for our ships? According to the research of Ian Toll, author of “Six Frigates,” it has to do with it’s strength, resistance to salt water, weight per cubic foot up to 75lbs, among other fine qualities:

Humphreys was exacting in his specifications. The beams and decks would be made of Carolina Pine, he wrote, and the planks of red ceder. But most important,-here he was both explicit and insistent-key pieces of the frame, including the futocks, knight heads, hawse pieces, bow timbers, stanchions, knees, transoms, and breasthooks, must be made of live oak.

So where does one get this wood? Along the coasts of the US, from Virginia to eastern Texas. What type of coast line does this mean? Swamps….mud that sucks leg into the ankle or knee when it’s nice and wet. Mosquitoes, and all sorts of others vermin that make men deathly ill in the living conditions of the late 1700’s. But, as we know, it made it’s way into the ships.

“Moulds,” that were actually full sized models of the finished pieces were laid out at the building yard from light wooden battens. These models were taken into the swamps to determine which trees would yield a match to each model.

Getting these trees became an monumental task. First to strike out in August 1794 to the coast of Georgia was a Boston shipwright named John T. Morgan. His hopes were to then be assigned as one of the master constructors. All support would have to come the camp by sea and soon, no wood was collected and most of the party was disabled with disease, most likely malaria. Soon, no amount of money could entice the workers, of the original 90 from New England, who had not died to remain.

in late October, Captain John Barry proceeded to Georgia to assess the situation. He found the camp inhabited by sick men. He sent for reinforcements. Slaves from the local area were used to help clear a road to the best timber and work commenced. The trunks and branches were floated and/or drug from the swamps by teams of oxen and did eventually get to Philadelphia, albeit 6 months late for the work schedule.

While this wood is an excellent material for ships at sea, it is not what ship’s caprenters like to see hauled into the building yards. From “Six Frigates:”

BUt the shipyard workers also dreaded the extra work it took to cut, shape and manipulate live oak, and they rolled their eyes whenever a new load of raw timber sections was brought into the yard. A nail driven into it was nearly impossible to extract. Axes bounced off it and saws moved back and forth across it again and again, making little or no discernable progress. Nothing took the shaprness out of a ship carpenter’s tools as quickly as well seasoned live oak.

So, there is a salute to another American resource, this time a natural and not human one, that earned the USS CONSTITUTION the nickname “Old Ironsides.”

I had often wondered about this, as I was homeported in Charleston in September 1989 when Hurricane Hugo devastated the area. I recall there were a number of large live oaks that the storm toppled, mostly due to the wet ground, that no longer afforded a secure hold for the roots. The comments in the news reports were the salvaged limbs and trunks would be useful in maintaining old sailing ships, the complete significance I did not understand until reading “Six Frigates,” and finding the story of the decisions and the effort to get this type of wood for ship construction.

On this date 195 years ago, a historical naval battle took place, which spawned a legendary nickname for one of the first warships built in the course of our nation’s history: “Old Ironsides.”

Painting by Michael Corne Captain Issac Hull, commanding USS CONSTITUTION, would take on the British Frigate HMS Guerrière (44 guns), commanded by 28 year old, but experienced, Captain James Dacres, in a short and furious engagement in the vicinity of 41° 42’N 55°48’W, approximately 750 miles East of Boston.The CONSTITUTION’s crew sighted sails at 2PM and the ships closed for the deadly engagement. Shortly before 6PM, at the CONSTITUTION closed within gun range of the British ship, the HMS Guerrière began firing some long range shots. Captain Hull held fire, even after having taken a hit in a gun port at 6PM.When the CONSTITUTION was broadside to the HMS Guerrière at a distance of about 75 yards, First Lieutenant Morris asked “Shall we fire now?” At 6:05PM, Captain Hull replied to LT Morris with “Yes, sir, you may now fire.”

Double shotted loads spoke in a single thunderous voice from the side of CONSTITUTION, and the entire structure of the ship shook from the blast, and the crew gave a triple cheer that was clearly heard aboard HMS Guerrière. The result of this fire discipline? When the smoke cleared, the HMS Guerrière’s mizzenmast had ruptured just above the main deck and falling into the sea and the mainyards were shot away, taking the sails, too. The American sailors gave another triple cheer.

It was in this interval, when an American sailor saw a British 18lb cannon ball bounce off the Ship’s side and said “her sides are made of iron!” The nickname for the USS CONSTITUTION was born.

Captain Hull maneuvers his vessel into position, providing the Marine sharpshooters the opportunity to fire at the confused British crew, then a second, close range broadside was loosed with the same fury against the enemy. The ships closed and became entangled, and boarding parties was called for. Stern chasers and bow guns were employed at close range, and the CONSTITUTION’s main batteries could still fire into the HMS Guerrière. The heaving and plunging of the heavy seas finally tore the ship’s loose from each other.

The HMS Guerrière was dismasted and most of her officer’s out of action, dead or wounded. Captain Dacres struck his colors at 6:30PM.

In 25 minutes, the US Navy won a victory, aided and abetted by the foresight of Joshua Humphreys. How? That will be the subject of tomorrow’s Monday Maritime Matters post.

This account was derived from the book “Six Frigates” by Ian Toll. The details of the battle covered there are presented in far greater detail.

In the mean time, the Historical Naval Ships Association site for the USS CONSTITUTION is here. Points of interest there include that the below poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes kept her from the scrap yards in 1830, and the money of school children collected in 1927 restored her to her 1812 condition.

Old Ironsides

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar; —
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
Or know the conquered knee; —
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!

Another website found while researching this material was The Captain’s Clerk, a site set up as “an archive specifically created to contain historically accurate stories and other information on that fabled frigate, the USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides”).”

Come back tomorrow to read how another field of my academic background is put to use to tell more of this story!

I can hear it now, a new parody song for NASA’s shuttle crews:

“Ground Control to Major Tom:
“Go out there and put some Duct Tape on”
You can work on the rest of the replacement lyrics yourself. You also can get credit for preforming it on YouTube.

NASA Photo: Expedition 15 Flight Engineer Clay Anderson holds a Crew Equipment Translation Aid cart as he rides on the end of the International Space Station’s robotic arm during STS-118’s third spacewalk. Image: NASA TVAnyhow, if you check out the link above, you’ll see it’s not so much a joke.Now, on the more serious side, think about being a bona fide astronaut and, having scoffed at skydivers all these years (for no real aviator would jump out of a ‘perfectly good’ airplane) and now you are in orbit, above the atmosphere and the safety of being able to depart a potential soon to be disaster and put some space age fabric in the shape of a wing above your head, mumbling to yourself while on the EVA, what Bill Cosby said (“Hope the plane don’t crash!”) and praying that it’s Duct Tape to the rescue on reentry…

I’m thinking it might not be such a silly idea to see if you can make a spacesuit and integrated lifesaving parachute for future Shuttle flights, but then again, I know how much fun freefall really is. Now that I think about it, in WWI, only the Germans supplied their air crews with parachutes, with the Allies believing that, once so equipped, pilots would rather jump than work to get the plane back to home plate. Oh, how wrong they were in that assessment.

If you’d like some real data on the STS-118 “issue,” check this page out to see several videos of the damage.

Too many have already been there and tried it before anyone today could try it: Going lower than the ground in an aircraft.

The USAF has a plan to keep it from happening: Auto-GCAS.

From Defense Tech:

Helping Pilots Avoid the Ground

Aviators have a saying: “You can only tie the record for low flight.”

Well, the U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command is installing a system in its jets that is designed to keep future pilots from tying the record. Press Zoom reports that the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System is a software-based technology that has demonstrated a 98 percent effectiveness rate at eliminating aircraft crashes into the ground. The system is ready for operational integration on F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-22 Raptors and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

Auto-GCAS differs from other crash-avoidance systems in that it doesn’t create nuisance warnings and activates only at the last instant to take control and recover the aircraft when it determines collision is imminent. The determination is made when the aircraft is within 1.5 seconds of the “point of no return” and no action has been taken by the pilot.
[…]

In the skydiving world, we have the “AAD” or “Automatic Activating Device” that monitors your rate of descent, and if you reach a certain altitude and are still moving at a fairly high percentage of freefall speed, the system activates a cutter that cuts the loop holding your ripcord pin on your reserve. There are versions designed to pull main parachute ripcords, and are commonly used with military related High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) equipment, but the sport world only uses them for activating a reserve canopy.

I, once, will acting as a jumpmaster for a SEAL just returned from operational deployment, had to get a requal sport jump (AFF Level 4) to get active sport jumping again. The exit was fine, his stability was great, but the plan to knock off turns once 6000′ AGL was reached went out the window. He kept doing turns. At this point, I was falling about 4 feet in front of him, where I had been since turning him loose a few seconds after exiting at 13,000′.

I gave him the hand signal to pull several times, then I began to fly in to position myself next to his main ripcord to back up his thought process. Instead of realizing I was moving, he thought he was turning (using me as a reference point, and not some landmark out in front of him on the ground), so he kept maneuvering to point at me. Net result: I couldn’t get into position to pull either his main or reserve ripcords), about hip position on the right side (main) and heart position on the left for the reserve.

I lost altitude awareness, as had he, so we proceeded, at the speed of the pull of gravity (it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law!) towards the pine trees on the south side of the airport. I finally got smart and backed off and reached for my pull out for my main, and as I let go of the pilot chute, my AAD opened my reserve. A quick check of my altimeter put me just a little above 1000′. The setting for the Cyres AAD I was wearing is fixed at 800′, but apparently it comes on about 1200′ to monitor and when it saw the drastic change in the rate of pressure change (indicating rate of fall change) when my main began to open, it activated a little early. I had two clean canopies, so I cut away my main, checked my reserve for controllability, then hung a left turn into the wind and landed.

The student’s AAD also performed as designed. He got a talking to, and so did I from the DZ Owner. He made only one remark, but that’s all he had to say: “They have an AAD, too. It’s not worth losing your life if you’ve done all you are supposed to.”

Then George reminded me that training for students included “If you see your jumpmaster pull, it’s probably a good idea to do the same.” I had said it for years in class, too, but it’s one of those cases you just don’t happen into with regularity.

So, moral of the story:

• Jumpmasters: Don’t forget to pull on time
• Students: Yeah, what they did!

Oh…and I never tried to break the low pull record either.

FbL has the after action report of the Soldier’s Angels Conference in San Antonio, TX, specifically on the ValOUR-ITfront. Can you believe it? In 2 years, 1200 laptops have been passed out to those needing them? Take one wounded geek, put in a blog blender with a school teacher and push the “liquify” button. See what happens in two years:

Last weekend was the 2007 Soldiers’ Angels Conference, and the highlight of the event for Angels was a party at the Brooke Army Medical Center’s (BAMC’s) Fisher Houses in which 78 Valour-IT laptops were distributed to wounded Soldiers and Marines. This brings Valour-IT’s total laptop distributions to over 1200 in two years, and an additional 22 laptops are on standby at BAMC.

Valour-IT was able to distribute the 78 laptops at once thanks to a $150,000 grant [warning, PDF file] from the San Antonio Area Foundation (SAAF), which is by far the largest donation Valour-IT has ever received. The money must be used exclusively in Texas, but that will free up other donations to be applied to locations around the country. SAAF has five million dollars to distribute and this was the first round of grants. Valour-IT received the largest grant of this round (about $80,000 of it remains at this time).

In related news, Circuit City has been working with Valour-IT for some time now, helping us to stretch our donated bucks. They negotiate with their major suppliers to get the best dealer incentives and bulk rates available at any given time and pass that savings directly on to us.
[…]

Read the rest of the story, for there’s plenty of great things happening around the SA/ValOUR-IT program! and…if you have a few spare bucks, I bet there’s a service member support charity that might appreciate them!

Samsung is cranking out DLP TVs that are able to provide fast enough frame rates so you can see 3D images. You will need to wear your shutter glasses, but they’re wireless. Low end for the TV is $1499, but can run towards $4500 (size) and then you’ll need a media center type PC.

Samsung HL-T5087S DLP HD 3D TV
David Berlind from ZDNet has a little report and video on the new toy….

Desktop Factory Printer
About 90 lbs, and it can create 3D objects up to 5″x5″x5″, with the specs fed in from your CAD/CAM program. Just advanced bubblejet like printing technology. Layers are .01″ per pass.

Got about $5000 you don’t need more than small parts fro your car, your home, or stuff just for fun?