Update-- ACUPAT

I found some more info on the Army's quest to find a more effective universal camouflage pattern. I discussed the Army's ACUPAT or Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) a few weeks ago. For those of you who were late to class, this is the ACUPAT:


There have been many people who say that the ACUPAT is absolute crap, and some of them are soldiers who have worn the ACU in Iraq and Afghanistan and unlike the rest of us armchair general types, actually know what they are talking about. Congress, never wanting to be left out of something they have a chance of screwing up, have also made their braying voices heard.

The result of 4 or more years of talk on this has produced the following: a new set of modified camouflage patterns intended to at least partially replace the ACUPAT.The UCP-D is regarded as the best of these new options, and has been tested by Natick Labs and of course, roundly disparaged by the military and the Internet crowd. To me it looks like it might be a step in the right direction, at least as far as what is needed in Afghanistan, which is much more wooded in many areas than most of Iraq. It is also worth noting that, in general, the only new equipment that is liked by soldiers is equipment that has not yet been issued to them. I don't have any pics of these newer patterns out in the real world, but hey, who needs real world testing right?

UCP Delta

The main difference between the current ACUPAT and UCP Delta is the addition of a lot of a color known as coyote brown, which is the main color of new gear being issued in the USMC. Coyote brown is very useful because it blends in a very wide variety of terrains, from jungle mud, to sand, to rocks, or tree trunks. For that reason the Marines have begun to issue their plate carriers (armor), pouches, and other gear in coyote brown. The idea is that they can use those items with either their woodland or desert uniforms.

Killdozer

Some years ago, in Colorado, if memory serves, this guy, Marvin Heemeyer, was pissed at his whole town over some zoning issue or such, and built this monstrosity. It is a Komatsu bulldozer with steel and concrete armor, multiple cameras protected by 3 inch thick bullet resistant plastic attached to two monitors, and firing ports. He had mounted a Barret M82 .50 caliber rifle in the rear, and had 5.56 rifles, a Ruger Mini-14 on the right and a FN FNC in the front.

Well, as crazy fuckers tend to do, this dude went on a rampage, tearing the whole town apart, especially the businesses of his hated enemies from the town council. Eventually, he got the killdozer (as it came to be known) stuck in the foundation of a building he had demolished and while the police waited for the Colorado National Guard to get there with anti-tank weapons, he shot himself in the head with his .357 magnum.

The Other Guns of Russia -MSP

This is the MSP( Malogabaritnyj Spetsialnyj Pistolet), from our friends the USSR. The MSP is a break action, double barrel pistol, similar in some respects to a derringer. This gun was adopted by the KGB and Soviet Army in 1972. It is only intended for close range, and would likely not be accurate beyond 5 meters. It is a fairly unique weapon, firing internally silenced 7.62x38mm bullets. The ammunition is known as the SP-3.

Internally silenced ammunition?

Well, the idea is that almost all of the sound that a firearm makes is caused by hot gases escaping from the barrel. A conventional suppressor traps these gases long enough for them to cool and slow down. The MSP uses ammo with a special strengthened case and a gas-sealing piston that pushes the bullet and then locks the powder gasses within the case. This has its drawbacks, and the Sp-3 cartridge only generates velocities of about 600 feet per second, which would severely limit its range and penetration. The gun has a single action trigger and is cocked with a rather strange front cocking mechanism, which sets the internal hammers. Once the pistol is loaded and the breach is closed, the shooter pulls down the lever to cock the pistol and then releases it.

The MSP has no projections or controls to snag when drawing from within a coat or holster. Absent from the design are any form of extractors or ejectors, and spent cartridges are removed by pulling out the small clip that binds them together.

The MSP has little military value as it is only useful at conversational distances, and it is mostly regarded as an assassins' tool. It was replaced by the much more conventional and effective PSS pistol.

Warhawk Air Museum (more)

North American T-28 Trojan, 1950's training aircraft

They had a great collection of propaganda posters from WWII, I think they are really one of the most interesting things about the war. Even people born years after the war have their attitudes influenced by these very insidious weapons.



I love aircraft nose art of WWII, and I am beginning to believe there is a conspiracy to hide the awesome (read: naked girls) ones from us.

Also great art from a bomber crewman's leather jacket.

F86 Saber- Korean War era jet fighter

WWII era Seebee bulldozer (Navy Construction Battalion)



Once again I would like to thank the staff, volunteers, and contributors of the Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa, Idaho for all their dedication.

Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line

The Distant Early Warning Line was a system of radar installations from Alaska to Iceland and Greenland designed to watch for a Soviet Nuclear air attack coming over the North Pole to Canada and North America. It was made up of 63 stations over a 10,000 kilometer swath.


As you can see from this azimuthal equidistant projection map (thanks google!) you can see that the shortest route between the USSR and the USA was over the North Pole. Faced with the technological obsolescence of the Mid Canada line and Pinetree line of radar stations the Governments of Canada and the USA agreed in 1954 to jointly build a third line of radar stations, this time running across the high Arctic. The line would run roughly along the 69th parallel, 200 miles or 300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. America agreed to pay for the construction of the line with Canadian labor, and Canada agreed to have joint US- Canadian staffing in many of the stations. The stations used a number of long-range Pulse radars called AN/FPS-19. They were interconnected by a series of secure radio systems, often relying on tropospheric scattering to both boost the signal and ensure security.

The line consisted of Large stations with a sizable staff and amenities spaced out with intermediate stations with only 3 people ( Chef, Mechanic, and Chief) in between. There also were small unmanned "gap fillers" that were checked by aircrews only every few months during the summer. The gaps between the stations were watched by the directional AN/FPS-23 Doppler radar.

DEW site in Greenland

With the introduction of ICBMs and submarine launched missiles a few years after it was completed, the line lost became somewhat obsolete. A number of stations were decommissioned, but the bulk were retained to monitor potential Soviet air activities and to assert Canada's sovereignty in its Northern territory.

In the 1980's, the more capable of the DEW Line stations were upgraded with new technology and automation was increased. These sites were merged with the newly-built stations into the North Warning System and became a main part of NORAD, headquartered in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.

In 1990, with the end of the Cold War, the United States withdrew all their personnel and turned full operation of the Canadian stations over to Canada, while retaining responsibility for NWS sites in Alaska and Greenland.

Stations of the DEW

B-25 Mitchell Bomber, Warhawk Air Museum

This is a the Pacific Princess, a WWII B-25 Mitchell at the Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa, Idaho. I recently took a trip across the country and was able to visit the museum, and I took a lot of pictures, so I will have more posts in the next few weeks with their many treasures.




The B-25 is named after General Billy Mitchell, a pioneer of American air power. It is the only aircraft ever flown by the United States military to be named after a specific person.
It was the aircraft used in the famous Doolittle Raid on Tokyo on April 18, 1942. A force of 16 B-25s were launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to make the first attack on the Japanese mainland of WWII.

The Mitchell was fast for a bomber, with a top speed of 275 mph and a cruising speed of 230.
It could carry up to 6,000 pounds of bombs, and had a hard point to carry a Mark 13 torpedo under the fuselage. Machine gun and canon armament were different in the various versions of the B-25, but the Pacific Princess was armed with 12 Browning .50 caliber HMGs, 2 in the nose, a turret up top with 2, 4 on cheek mounted blisters, 2 waist guns and 2 rear guns. The Mitchell was also an amazingly sturdy aircraft and could withstand tremendous punishment. A B-25C of the 321st Bomb Group was named Patches and its crew chief painted the aircraft's flak hole patches with high-visibility zinc chromate paint. They completed 300 missions in this aircraft, had 400 patched holes in the aircraft and belly landed six times.


Although the B-25 was originally designed to bomb from medium altitudes in level flight, it was used frequently in areas like Burma and New Guinea to perform treetop-level strafing and drop parachute-delayed fragmentation bombs missions against Japanese bases and airfields in Southwest Asia and the Pacific Rim. These later version Mitchells, often field-modified under Major Pappy Gunn, were also used on strafing and skip-bombing missions against Japanese shipping trying to re-supply their armies.

and it has the sweetest nose art ever.

they also tore the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy a new one, when they weren't thinking about hotties.

Nearly 10,000 B-25s were manufactured in Kansas City and Inglewood, CA and they saw service in every theater of the war. Fast, maneuverable, and versatile, they were used for more than 40 years in various other Air Forces, including Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union .


B-25 Mitchell

• Crew: six (two pilots, navigator/bombardier, turret gunner/engineer, radio operator/waist gunner, tail gunner
• Length: 52 ft 11 in
  
• Wingspan: 67 ft 6 in
  
• Height: 17 ft 7 in
  
• Powerplant: 2× Wright R-2600 "Cyclone" radials, 1,850 hp each

Performance

• Maximum speed: 275 mph
  
• Cruise speed: 230 mph
  
• Combat radius: 1,350 mi
  
• Service ceiling: 25,000 ft
  
• Power/mass: 0.110 hp/lb
  

Armament

• Guns: 12 × .50 in M2 HMG
• Hardpoints: 2,000 lb (900 kg) ventral shackles to hold one external Mark 13 torpedo
• Rockets:
• Bombs: 6,000 lb (2,700 kg)

Rare Weapons- .44 Auto Mag

The .44 Auto Mag was developed for handgun hunters to enable them to have a semi-automatic pistol with the same power as the .44 Magnum. Released in 1971 after several years of refinement, several versions have been produced and the weapon was manufactured until 2002, although the initial run was only about a year. The Auto Mag has been available in several different calibers, .44 AMP (Automatic Magnum Pistol), .357 AMP, . 41 JMP, .45 Win Mag, .30Carbine, and several others. Many of these cartridges are difficult to find and expensive, which helped to lower the demand for the weapon. However, handloaders do have the option of making new .44 or .357 AMP cases from .308 or .30-06 brass. The actual bullet is a .429 inch, 240 grain, brass jacketed round that is said to achieve a similar velocity to the .44mag. (1100 to 1350 fps). To help control the heavy recoil, the pistol has short recoil system with a rotating bolt with locking lugs that is reminiscent of the AR-15. It is fed from a steel single stack magazine that holds 8 cartridges.

The Auto Mag never found much favor in the shooting community and is mostly forgotten today. It is probably most famous for being featured in Sudden Impact, the fourth Dirty Harry movie. The combination of a new design with a new ammunition type is simply too daunting for most consumers. Fewer than 3000 guns were made on the initial run and they will fetch at least $2,000 today, if you can find one. Bad management decisions forced the Auto Mag Corporation to lose money on each pistol sold and a rush to start production meant that manufacturing was not always up to spec and costs were higher than profits. The Auto Mag was eventually produced under the name of 12 different companies and was produced in many different locations. It was a promising design, especially for its time, that was never fully explored or vindicated.


Specs:

• Chambering: .44 AMP (Auto Magnum Pistol) [10.74x33 mm] (1970), .357AMP[9x33 mm] (1972), .41JMP (Jurras Mag Pistol) [10.41x33 mm]
• Barrel Length: 6.5 inches.
• Overall Length: 11.5 inches.
• Weight: 57 oz (3 lb 9 oz) [.44 AMP]; 54 oz (3 lb 6 oz) [.357 AMP].
• Magazine: 8-round single-column box magazine.
• Sights: Adjustable target sights.
• Finish: Stainless steel.

This Day in History- September 9

How about this for a good day.


1776- The Continental Congress votes to rename the Country from the United Colonies to the United States of America.

good job boys, time for a pay raise

1976- Chairman Mao Zedong, the greatest murder in history, dies peacefully in bed at age 83, after killing 70 million people.

fuck you, commie

Vektor Y3 AGL 40mm

The South African firm of Vektor produces this belt fed, automatic grenade launcher. it is designed to be able to defeat targets that are not in the firer's line of sight as well as those it can see. By using a grenade with a medium velocity, and a high trajectory, the Y3 can lob explosives into trenches and field fortifications as well as through windows. While weapons of this type are most often mounted on vehicles or in defensive positions, they can also be carried and deployed in the field by a crew of 3.

The Vektor Y3 is equipped with an electronic sight that can be used to fire at targets beyond visual range, provided that coordinates are provided by some type of forward observer.
40mm grenades have proven to be extremely useful in all types of conflicts and having a weapon that can hit targets out of sight or invulnerable to rifle fire can save the lives of an infantry squad. There are several different grenade types in use for this system:

High Explosive (HE)

Designed for used against vehicles and personnel (with a casualty radius of 5 m)

High Explosive Dual Purpose (HE DP)

This round has some armour piercing capability (50 mm armour, 350 mm concrete) and is designed for use against vehicles and fortifications.

Practice

This round produces a flash and smoke intended for realistic simulations and training.

Target Practice Tracer

Similar to the Practice round, but producing a visible light trail similar to tracer rounds for firearms.

Target Practice

This round is inert and has the same ballistic properties as the HE and HE DP rounds.

Place of origin	South Africa
Production history
Designer	Vektor
Specifications
Weight	32 kg (weapon), 18 kg (tripod)
Length	844 mm
Barrel length	300 mm (12 in)
Width	281 mm
Height	267 mm
Cartridge	40 mm grenade
Action	long recoil
Rate of fire	280–320 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity	242 m/s
Maximum range	2200 m
Feed system	20 round belt
Sights	optical or electronic (ballistic computer)

Iconic Guns - Part 3- 1851 Colt Navy Revolver

The Colt Revolving Belt Pistol of Naval Caliber was designed by Samuel Colt in the late 1840s, the pistol that came to be known as the "Colt Navy" was in production from 1850 to 1873, more than 250,000 were made and shipped all over the world.

Although they are known as the Colt Navy, most of these weapons were in use by land forces or civilians. They were called the Navy due to the engraving on the cylinder of the Battle of Campecehe in 1843. The Texas Navy had purchased a number of earlier Colt Patterson, and the new "Naval" pistols were engraved with a scene of their victory to honor them. Most of the pistols were chambered for the designated Naval caliber .36 but some were produced in the heavier .44 caliber.

Famous users of the 1851 Colt Navy included Wild Bill Hickok, Robert E. Lee, and Ned Kelly. Lee. While the 1851 Navy was used for many years the ascendancy of modern cased ammunition made it obsolete by about late 1870s.

The 1851 Colt Navy was, in many ways, the Gun that Won the West, well, the pistol that did anyways. It was an up sized variant of the .31 caliber pistols that Colt had already had a great success with. The heavier bullet and longer barrel made it more effective, while it was smaller and lighter than the 3rd Model Dragoon revolvers chambered in the heavy .44. These pistols were extremely popular with settlers in the west and were used on both sides of the Civil War extensively.

This is a black powder, percussion cap revolver, with a 6 shot cylinder. It is loaded by pouring black powder into each of the cylinder chambers and then seating a lead bullet in the chamber and tamping it down with the plunger located under the barrel of the weapon. then percussion caps are fitted to the nipples running around the sides of the cylinder. When the hammer strikes the cap, a spark is produced, igniting the powder in the chamber. The .36 caliber round lead ball weighs 86 grains and, at a velocity of 1000 FPS, is comparable to the modern .380ACP in power. Loads consist of loose powder and ball or bullet, metallic foil cartridges (early), and combustible paper cartridges (Civil War era), all combinations being ignited by a fulminate percussion cap applied to the nipples at the rear of the chamber.

The sights consist of a brass bead front sight with a notched top of the hammer, as with most Colt percussion revolvers. While these sights might seem crude compared to modern hi-viz sights, the 1851 revolver and their modern replicas have a reputation for being quite accurate

Many firearms of the day in private hands were richly engraved

This is a modern reproduction from the Italian firm Uberti. They are very accurate copies and are widely liked. Many modern black powder reproductions are pretty cheap ($200-300) and have a pretty good reputation for quality. If you buy one, here is a tip: don't wear clean clothes.

Guns in our Culture

I found all sorts of interesting quotes on firearms when aimlessly looking around the other day, so I figured I would share them with you.


Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisky: “There's no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them.”


James Earl Jones: "The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose."


U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop: "The ruling class doesn't care about public safety. Having made it very difficult for States and localities to police themselves, having left ordinary citizens with no choice but to protect themselves as best they can, they now try to take our guns away. In fact they blame us and our guns for crime. This is so wrong that it cannot be an honest mistake." - former U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wy.)


Paul Hager: "One of the arguments that had been made against gun control was that an armed citizenry was the final bulwark against tyranny. My response had been that untrained, lightly-armed non-soldiers couldn't prevail against a modern army. I had concluded that the qualitative difference in firepower was such that all of the previous rules of guerilla war no longer applied. Both Vietnam and Afghanistan demonstrated that wasn't true. Repelling an armed invasion is not something that American citizens are likely to face, but the possibility of a despotic government coming to power is not wholly unthinkable. One of the sequellae of Vietnam was the rise of the Khmer Rouge and slaughter of perhaps a million Cambodian citizens. Those citizens, like the Jews in Germany or the Armenians in Turkey, were unarmed and thus utterly and completely defenseless against police and paramilitary. An armed minority was able to kill and terrorize unarmed victims with total impunity." – Paul Hagar, "Why I Carry"

Daniel Schmutter: "The tragic history of civilian disarmament cries a warning against any systematic attempts to render innocent citizens ill-equipped to defend themselves from tyrant terrorists, despots or oppressive majorities," Daniel Schmutter, lawyer for Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

Jeff Cooper: "Hoplophobia is a mental disturbance characterized by irrational aversion to weapons, as opposed to justified apprehension about those who may wield them." Jeff Cooper, To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth

Sigmund Freud: "A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." ("General Introduction to Psychoanalysis," S. Freud)

Senator Orrin Hatch: "If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying--that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976--establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime." Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, 97th Cong., 2d Sess., The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Committee Print I-IX, 1-23 (1982).

Diane Feinstein: "US Senator, If I could have banned them all - 'Mr. and Mrs. America turn in your guns' - I would have!" (Statement on TV program 60 Minutes, Feb 5 1995)

Mao Tse Tung: "All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party." (Problems of War and Strategy, Nov 6 1938, published in "Selected Works of Mao Zedong," 1965)


Ted Nugent: "To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic."


Laurence H. Tribe of the Harvard Law School: "The federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification." (2000 edition of American Constitutional Law)


and lastly...

The Dalai Lama: "If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times)

Rare Weapons -China Lake Pump Grenade Launcher

Developed by the Special Products Division of the China Lake Naval Weaposn Center, which made weapons for the US Navy SEALs. The SEALs had expressed a desire for more firepower than the single shot M79 Grenade Launcher in use. The China Lake GL had a tubular magazine under the barrel with a capacity of 4 40mm grenades. It is said that a skilled operator could fire all four grenades before the first one hit the ground. Due to extensive use of aluminum alloys the China Lake GL actually weighs less than the M79 when unloaded and only 0.5 lb more when loaded. The GL saw use in Vietnam with the SEALs and were also reportedly used by the Marine Force Recon teams and the Army's 5th Special Forces Group.

This weapon never entered mass production and the total produced is likely under 50 units.

Weight	4.63 kg (10.21 lb) loaded 3.72 kg (8.2 lb) empty
Length	875 mm (34.4 in)
Barrel length	356 mm (14.0 in)
Cartridge	40x46mm SR
Action	Pump-action
Rate of fire	15 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity	76 m/s (249 ft/s)
Effective range	350 m
Feed system	3-round tubular magazine
Sights	Open, leaf-type, square-notch/blade

Equality

The only problem would be carrying all the ammo...

Historical Oddities-Grenade Catapult

To prove that everything that is old becomes new again, here we see French Army, early in WWI, using a small catapult to attempt to lob grenades into the German trenches. How well this worked is unknown, but if the catapult was well-built, it could probably add 10-15 meters on a grenade throw, which is significant. Those grenades look like they are of a pretty good size as well. To me, the biggest advantage would be that you could send a grenade towards the enemy without exposing yourself to fire. I find it fascinating that a weapon that goes back 2500+ years was still being made use of in what was one of the first "modern" wars. Things like this show that whenever someone says something like "this weapon is obsolete, get rid of it" or "infantry battles will never take place again" or "dogfighting is a thing of the past" or any other nonsense, they should probably be put out to pasture, or into the bar, or someplace else out of the way, because inventiveness and initiative win wars as much as anything else.

Historical Parallels

Now I try to not be TOO crazy on this here blog, and those of you who know me know that I am not what most would consider to be a crazy, zealous, right winger. That being said, I was most pleased when Obama was forced to keep out of gun rights issues for at least a little while by the roar of a huge, voting, sector of the populace. While Obama might not have the desire or the political capital to drastically alter our Nation's Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Firearms, others ( I am looking at you, Nancy Pelosi) have stated again and again their desire to restrict, license, ban, and confiscate most types of guns.

I don't often engage in "New American Revolution" type nonsense, I do not favor the flat tax, etc. But I do like to compare past events with what the future might bring. So with no further delay, I bring you the PAST effects of weapon confiscation in America.

‘‘War clouds were gathering rapidly. The sending of more than 3,000 British army regulars under Maj. Gen. Thomas Gage to Boston further exacerbated the imperial rift. When a column of these troops under Lt. Col. Francis Smith moved into the countryside to collect arms and munitions gathered by the patriot militia, hostilities erupted at Lexington and Concord on Apr. 19, 1775.’’

Just sayin'

Camouflage Effectiveness- ACUPAT

If you are like me, you hear a lot of smacktalk on these intarwebs. While we won't be getting into 9mm vs. .45, 7.62mm vs. 5.56mm, or even Coke vs. Pepsi, today we will discuss the Army's "new" camo, known as ACUPAT (Army Combat Uniform Pattern) or just the ACU.

ACU was developed as an All Environments camouflage, intended to help hide the wearer whether they are in a wooded, arid, or urban environment. Technologists noted that at the time of final development (2003), Army soldiers could be patrolling in a very arid desert area of Iraq and in 1o minutes, go through a palm grove oasis that is almost entirely green and then be in an urban area with very little vegetation of any type.

Modern camouflage operates in 2 different ways to hide its wearer. The first is with color. Earth tones, greens, etc. are much harder to see than bright red or blue and make it where the eye is not immediately drawn to you. This idea goes back a long way. From prehistoric buckskins, to the grey and acorn brown of Confederate Rebels to the best of them all, good old Olive Drab (or Army Green, if you prefer). One of the most radical changes in the color scheme of the ACU was the removal of black from the uniform. It was decided that true black is actually quite uncommon in nature and black tends to make a person "pop" or stand out from their surroundings. The ACU is mostly a tan uniform with Foliage Green and Urban Grey laid out over it.

The second component of camouflage is shape. The human eye has developed to automatically distinguish items of interest from a background.
(Think how far away you could spot a girl in a bikini, for example. I wear glasses, but I am pretty sure I can spot a hottie at at least 200m.)
One thing that is considered important by our brains is other people. The shape and silhouette of a person is one of the most recognizable things in nature. So, to combat that, we came up with the idea of using different shaped patterns on clothing to "break up" the shape of the body. This was first used widely by the Germans, both in WWI and especially in WWII. ACU is what is known as a digital pattern camo, that uses arrangements of pixels rather than amorphous blobs or stripes to break up the human shape.

Now, before we go any further with this, let me put this out there for you. A soldier's uniform is not really meant to camouflage him. It is meant to give him something tough and useful and sufficiently warm to wear. It is an extra benefit if it helps them to not stick out of their surroundings. Please keep in mind that general camo is also not really meant to make you invisible to the enemy when they are 25 feet away. Distance, concealment, light levels, and movement are all about as important when we are trying to hide from someone.If you wish to be invisible to the enemy, digging a hole or wearing a ghillie suit would be a lot more effective. Congress has even started to look into the ACU debate, on account of many people say that the ACUPAT does not camouflage anything, anywhere.

I would also like to say that while I don't think that ACU is useless or horrible, I also do not think it is good at camouflaging in all environments. I have seen many pictures of soldiers in ACUs in temperate wooded areas (GA and NC mostly) that seemed like they were glowing. But in the mostly arid areas of Central Asia and the Middle East where we are now engaged in fighting, it seems like it works pretty good. There are many who say the the ACU works fine, but only when it is good and dirty, and some of these pics reflect that and some do not.

You want proof? Check out these pics, including some from Afghanistan and Iraq and then tell me what you think in the comments section. To clarify, I am only requesting comments on the camouflage of the ACU, not its durability (terrible) or its new features (pretty good).

Stryker Brigade in Iraq

ACUPAT and German Flecktarn

USMC Desert MARPAT, Woodland, ACU, and Flecktarn

Count the soldiers you can see

This is the current " best" camo, known as Multicam, being tested by Army Rangers way back in 2003, and yes, the one on the left is using a Xbox 360 controller.

So while I feel I have vindicated the Army's ACUPAT, for one final thought, check out what some soldier did before deploying to Afghanistan. The one behind the other is original ACUPAT and the front has been modified.
He simply put a little brown dye in the wash and made a much better overall color. Of course, he was yelled at and threatened by his superiors, instead, of you know, given a medal and a job at DARPA.

So what do you think?

GBU-28 Bunker Busting Bomb

We had a small problem way back in 1990 when H.W. Bush was figuring out how to knock the hell out of Saddam Hussein and Baathist Iraq. In addition to a well orchestrated air defense system, the Iraqi army had dug dozens of very deep reinforced concrete bunkers.

Weapons engineers knew they needed a bomb that could power through several meters of sand, concrete, and re bar and still have the explosive ability to destroy a high value target. It also needed to be accurate enough to strike the bunkers with a single air strike.
And thus the Guided Bomb Unit-28 was born.

The GBU-28 is a 5,000lb laser guided bomb, designers based the weapon on repurposed
8 inch artillery gun barrels, mostly from unused M110 howitzers. Only 2 of these weapons were actually used, both dropped by F-111s. The bomb can "see" the reflected energy from a laser designator and "rides" the laser beam into the target .

The GBU-28 proved capable of penetrating over 30 metres (100 ft) of earth or 6 metres (20 ft) of solid concrete. Fully deep enough to destroy most any bunker. It is unique in that the total development time from conception to the first drop test took only 2 weeks, and the weapon went into active service after only one test drop.