Weapons

Minuteman Nukes are just south of the Manitoba/U.S. border  

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Since the end of the Cold War in the 1990’s the two Superpowers, the United States and Russia, have reduced their nuclear arsenals drastically.  But the two military behemoths still possess thousands of nuclear weapons.  The United States Air Force base at Minot, North Dakota is a Minuteman strategic missile base.  Just south of Melita, Manitoba there is enough firepower hunkered in missile silos to wipe out half of red China.  Minot AFB also deploys 32 B-52 strategic nuclear bombers equipped with nuclear bombs.

The LGM-30 Minuteman is a U.S. nuclear missile, a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). As of 2010, the version LGM-30G Minuteman-III is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States. It is one component of a nuclear triad, which is complemented by the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and by nuclear weapons carried by long-range strategic bombers.

The letter “L” in “LGM” indicates that the missile is silo-launched; the “G” indicates that it is designed to attack ground targets; the “M” indicates that it is a guided missile.

The name “Minuteman” comes from the Revolutionary War’s Minutemen. It also refers to its quick reaction time; the missile can be launched in about 1 minute. The Air Force plans to keep the missile in service until at least 2030.

The current US force consists solely of 450 Minuteman-III missiles in missile silos around F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming; Malmstrom AFB, Montana; and Minot AFB, North Dakota.

If for some extraordinary reason, the nukes would start flying, the people of Melita and other parts of southwestern Manitoba better Duck and Cover.

1950’s U.S. Duck and Cover promo.  As if this would help.

United States Gun Culture

Aside Markosun Weapons

More mass shootings in the U.S.

How many guns are there in the US?

While calculating the number of guns in private hands around the world is difficult, figures from the Small Arms Survey – a Swiss-based leading research project – estimate that there were 390 million guns in circulation in 2018.

The US ratio of 120.5 firearms per 100 residents, up from 88 per 100 in 2011, far surpasses that of other countries around the world.

More recent data also suggests that gun ownership grew significantly over the last several years. One study, published by the Annals of Internal Medicine in February, found that 7.5 million US adults – just under 3% of the population – became first new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021.

This, in turn, exposed 11 million people to firearms in their homes, including 5 million children. About half of new gun owners in that time period were women, while 40% were either black or Hispanic.

A separate study, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2021, linked a rise in gun ownership during the pandemic to higher rates of gun injuries among – and inflicted by – children.

How do US gun deaths break down?

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a total of 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries of all causes during 2020, the last year for which complete data is available.

And while mass shooting and gun murders generally garner more media attention, of the total, 54% – about 24,300 deaths – were suicides.

A 2016 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found there was a strong relationship between higher levels of gun ownership in a state and higher firearm suicide rates for both men and women.

Advocates for stricter gun laws in the United States often cite this statistic when pushing lawmakers to devote more resources to mental health and fewer to easing gun restrictions.

How do US gun killings compare with other countries?

Are mass shootings becoming deadlier?
Deaths from the “mass shootings” that attract international attention, however, are harder to track.

While the country does not have a single definition for “mass shootings”, the FBI has for over a decade tracked “active shooter incidents” in which “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area”.

According to the FBI, there were 345 “active shooter incidents” in the United States between 2000-2020, resulting in more than 1,024 deaths and 1,828 injuries.

The deadliest such attack, in Las Vegas in 2017, killed more than 50 people and left 500 wounded. The vast majority of mass shootings, however, leave fewer than 30 people dead.

Futuristic concept aircraft carriers 

Aside Markosun Aviation, Weapons

Aircraft carriers have always evoked awe and amazement with their size and capabilities of launching airplanes from their giant decks.  Today the giant carriers that patrol the oceans belong to the United States Navy.  These ships displace 100,000 tons and are over a thousand feet long.  The U.S. currently has 11 of these super carriers with another under construction.  Other countries have aircraft carriers but nothing approaching the size of the American ships.

France has carriers less than half the size of the U.S. carriers.  The U.K. has carriers with a displacement of 65,000 tons.  Other than the U.K and France there a few other countries with smaller carriers.  But there are two countries with very big carriers.  Not as big as the U.S. but bigger than the U.K and French ships.  Russia has one and China has another one. 

Admiral Kuznetsov is the Russian carrier.  It displaces 65,000 tons and does limited patrolling in the Mediterranean. 

There was a second carrier of the same design that apparently has landed up in the hands of the People’s Liberation Army Navy of China,  the Varyag.

Varyag being towed in Istanbul.

Varyag was to be an Admiral Kuznetsov class multirole aircraft carrier of the Soviet Union. She was known as Riga when her keel was laid down at Shipyard 444 (now Nikolayev South) in Nikolayev December 6, 1985.  Design of the carrier was undertaken by the Nevskoye Planning and Design Bureau.  She was launched December 4, 1988, but she was renamed Varyag (Varangian) in late 1990, after the famous Russian cruiser.

Construction stopped by 1992, with the ship structurally complete but without electronics. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, ownership was transferred to Ukraine; the ship was laid up, unmaintained, then stripped. In early 1998, she lacked engines, a rudder, and much of her operating systems, and was put up for auction.

It was purchased at auction for US$20 million by Chong Lot Travel Agency, a company widely believed to be a front for Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Chong Lot stated that the ship would become a floating entertainment center and casino in the Chinese SAR of Macau. However, this has been proven incorrect as the ship is docked in Dalian and painted PLAN grey. The Chinese Navy has reportedly named the carrier Shi Lang and received delivery of the ship in October 2010.  Defense News and Intelligence sources claim that the ship has been refitted and will be put through Sea Trials in the summer of 2011.

Now that China is about to have an aircraft carrier in its inventory, there are some futuristic concept carrier designs showing up on-line with Chinese colours and aircraft. 

This catamaran design would be very fast in the water and allows for basically 2 carrier megastructures to be fused together.

These giant ships would be giant targets also.  The enemy would throw everything they had at the beast.  These ships would be very susceptible to U.S. cruise missiles and torpedoes.

Taking the futuristic carrier concept to a whole new level is the idea of an aircraft carrier that could fly itself.  A big nuclear powered platform that could fly at high altitude and launch fighter jets and helicopters while airborne.

These renderings show the power plants as giant fans along the sides of these leviathans.  It would be a lot of tonnage to keep in the sky for extended periods.

These giant flying ships would also be very detectable to radar and other sensors.  But maybe they would have a cloaking capability, which would allow them to pass into enemy airspace undetected and unleash the wrath of the fighter bombers zooming off the decks. 

The one below has the power fans running down the centre of the ship.  It looks like a Chinese design.

Russia’s Killer Drone in Ukraine Raises Fears About AI in Warfare

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The maker of the lethal drone claims that it can identify targets using artificial intelligence.

KUBBLA AI drone made by Zala Aero Group sitting in launch device with desert landscape in background

A RUSSIAN “SUICIDE drone” that boasts the ability to identify targets using artificial intelligence has been spotted in images of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Photographs showing what appears to be the KUB-BLA, a type of lethal drone known as a “loitering munition” sold by ZALA Aero, a subsidiary of the Russian arms company Kalashnikov, have appeared on Telegram and Twitter in recent days. The pictures show damaged drones that appear to have either crashed or been shot down.

With a wingspan of 1.2 meters, the sleek white drone resembles a small pilotless fighter jet. It is fired from a portable launch, can travel up to 130 kilometers per hour for 30 minutes, and deliberately crashes into a target, detonating a 3-kilo explosive.

ZALA Aero, which first demoed the KUB-BLA at a Russian air show in 2019, claims in promotional material that it features “intelligent detection and recognition of objects by class and type in real time.”

The drone itself may do little to alter the course of the war in Ukraine, as there is no evidence that Russia is using them widely so far. But its appearance has sparked concern about the potential for AI to take a greater role in making lethal decisions.

“The notion of a killer robot—where you have artificial intelligence fused with weapons—that technology is here, and it’s being used,” says Zachary Kallenborn, a research affiliate with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

Advances in AI have made it easier to incorporate autonomy into weapons systems, and have raised the prospect that more capable systems could eventually decide for themselves who to kill. A UN report published last year concluded that a lethal drone with this capability may have been used in the Libyan civil war.

It is unclear if the drone may have been operated in this way in Ukraine. One of the challenges with autonomous weapons may prove to be the difficulty of determining when full autonomy is used in a lethal context, Kallenborn says.

The KUB-BLA images have yet to be verified by official sources, but the drone is known to be a relatively new part of Russia’s military arsenal. Its use would also be consistent with Russia’s shifting strategy in the face of the unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance, says Samuel Bendett, an expert on Russia’s military with the defense think tank CNA.

Bendett says Russia has built up its drone capabilities in recent years, using them in Syria and acquiring more after Azerbaijani forces demonstrated their effectiveness against Armenian ground military in the 2020 ​​Nagorno-Karabakh war. “They are an extraordinarily cheap alternative to flying manned missions,” he says. “They are very effective both militarily and of course psychologically.”

The fact that Russia seems to have used few drones in Ukraine early on may be due to misjudging the resistance or because of effective Ukrainian countermeasures.

But drones have also highlighted a key vulnerability in Russia’s invasion, which is now entering its third week. Ukrainian forces have used a remotely operated Turkish-made drone called the TB2 to great effect against Russian forces, shooting guided missiles at Russian missile launchers and vehicles. The paraglider-sized drone, which relies on a small crew on the ground, is slow and cannot defend itself, but it has proven effective against a surprisingly weak Russian air campaign.

This week, the Biden administration also said it would supply Ukraine with a small US-made loitering munition called Switchblade. This single-use drone, which comes equipped with explosives, cameras, and guided systems, has some autonomous capabilities but relies on a person to make decisions about which targets to engage.

But Bendett questions whether Russia would unleash an AI-powered drone with advanced autonomy in such a chaotic environment, especially given how poorly coordinated the country’s overall air strategy seems to be. “The Russian military and its capabilities are now being severely tested in Ukraine,” he says. “If the [human] ground forces with all their sophisticated information gathering can’t really make sense of what’s happening on the ground, then how could a drone?”

Several other military experts question the purported capabilities of the KUB-BLA.

“The companies that produce these loitering drones talk up their autonomous features, but often the autonomy involves flight corrections and maneuvering to hit a target identified by a human operator, not autonomy in the way the international community would define an autonomous weapon,” says Michael Horowitz, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who keeps track of military technology.

Despite such uncertainties, the issue of AI in weapons systems has become contentious of late because the technology is rapidly finding its way into many military systems, for example to help interpret input from sensors. The US military maintains that a person should always make lethal decisions, but the US also opposes a ban on the development of such systems.

To some, the appearance of the KUB-BLA shows that we are on a slippery slope toward increasing use of AI in weapons that will eventually remove humans from the equation.

“We’ll see even more proliferation of such lethal autonomous weapons unless more Western nations start supporting a ban on them,” says Max Tegmark, a professor at MIT and cofounder of the Future of Life Institute, an organization that campaigns against such weapons.

Others, though, believe that the situation unfolding in Ukraine shows how difficult it will really be to use advanced AI and autonomy.

William Alberque, Director of Strategy, Technology, and Arms Control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies says that given the success that Ukraine has had with the TB2, the Russians are not ready to deploy tech that is more sophisticated. “We’re seeing Russian morons getting owned by a system that they should not be vulnerable to.”

Wired.com