Author: Michael

RAF Gunnery School training at Rang-du-Fliers. Copyright: © IWM.

During the dawn of aerial combat in World War I, flyers came up with inventive ways of practicing using their aircraft-mounted machine guns. The image above is a case in point. Taken on July 17, 1918, it depicts a Royal Air Force (RAF) Pilot Officer conducting target practice from a moving ‘cockpit’ as it hurtles around a curved track at the RAF’s Rang-du-Fliers gunnery school at Berck in northern France.
At this late stage of the war, the RAF was actually still an extremely new branch of the British military.

USN

Ukraine is to receive an undisclosed number of radar-guided RIM-7 Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs, which will be integrated onto the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ existing Soviet-era Buk air defense systems. The missiles are included as part of the latest U.S. aid package for Kyiv officially announced today, which significantly also includes M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.
The provision of Sea Sparrow missiles was first disclosed by Politico.

The intelligence community’s key research hub is launching a new program to build tools that exploit recent advances in artificial intelligence to ultimately help intel analysts write their reports with stronger evidence and better reasoning.
To answer complex and constantly evolving intelligence questions, military and government analysts frequently have to comb through large amounts of uncertain and sometimes conflicting information.

The first base mailroom closure of the year is here. With Martin Luther King Jr. Day around the corner, we wanted to inform you of the military base mailroom closures, as well as the Sandboxx print schedule that may impact the delivery of your letter. Below you’ll find the MLK Day Print Room Schedule. Note: […]
The post Martin Luther King Jr. Day Base Mailroom Closures appeared first on Sandboxx.

Rifle grenades were the infantry’s first experimentation with organic grenade launchers and indirect firepower at the squad level.
The post What are rifle grenades and are they still relevant? appeared first on Sandboxx.

Video Above: Air Force Scientist Details New, Cutting Edge Methods of Air Bomb Attack By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military …

U.S. Army National Guard Photo by Staff Sgt. Brendan Stephens

During what would become known as the Battle of 73 Easting in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm (ODS) in 1991, Staff Sergeant David Lawrence, commanding an M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, gave the order to shoot at a target with its Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided (TOW) tank-busting missile.

The Department of the Air Force on Friday published a two-step, closed call for white papers under a commercial solutions opening as it pursues software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) technology to support its forthcoming Advanced Battle Management System and Joint All-Domain Command and Control architecture.
The tech is viewed as a critical enabler of the data transport layer for the envisioned global network that the military wants to use to more rapidly and effectively connect sensors, platforms and end-users across multiple domains at the enterprise, regional and tactical levels.

A prisoner died in his sleep that night. Whether he was taken due to starvation, or cold, or if he just gave up it didn’t matter.
The post Letters to Loretta: The American POWs are not broken despite their losses appeared first on Sandboxx.

The decision by the US, French, and German governments to supply the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), AMX 10RC wheel armoured reconnaissance vehicle, and Marder IFV respectively to Ukraine point towards Kyiv’s war against Russia moving towards a new phase in the first half of 2023, with a greater emphasis on mobile protected firepower.
That Ukraine is able to utilise the resources and financial support of NATO members and replenish or renew its stocks of munitions, small arms, artillery, and armour, runs in stark contrast to the difficulties Russia is facing in its own efforts.