Topic: Military history/Military science, technology, and theory (Page 3)
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π The Dead HandβSoviet semi-autonomous nuclear command and control system
Dead Hand (Russian: Π‘ΠΈΡΡΠ΅ΠΌΠ° Β«ΠΠ΅ΡΠΈΠΌΠ΅ΡΡΒ», Systema "Perimetr", lit. "Perimeter" System, with the GRAU Index 15E601, Cyrillic: 15Π601), also known as Perimeter, is a Cold War-era automatic nuclear weapons-control system (similar in concept to the American AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket Communications System) that was used by the Soviet Union. The system remains in use in the post-Soviet Russian Federation. An example of fail-deadly and mutual assured destruction deterrence, it can automatically initiate the launch of the Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by sending a pre-entered highest-authority order from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Strategic Missile Force Management to command posts and individual silos if a nuclear strike is detected by seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors even with the commanding elements fully destroyed. By most accounts, it is normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during times of crisis; however, it is said to remain fully functional and able to serve its purpose whenever it may be needed.
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- "The Dead HandβSoviet semi-autonomous nuclear command and control system" | 2022-04-04 | 73 Upvotes 90 Comments
π Bouncing bomb
A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-determined, in a similar fashion to a regular naval depth charge. The inventor of the first such bomb was the British engineer Barnes Wallis, whose "Upkeep" bouncing bomb was used in the RAF's Operation Chastise of May 1943 to bounce into German dams and explode underwater, with effect similar to the underground detonation of the Grand Slam and Tallboy earthquake bombs, both of which he also invented.
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- "Bouncing bomb" | 2016-11-15 | 91 Upvotes 67 Comments
π Starfish Prime, outer space nuclear test
Starfish Prime was a July 9, 1962, high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency. It was launched from Johnston Atoll and was the largest nuclear test conducted in outer space and one of five conducted by the US in space.
A Thor rocket carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (designed by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 2 reentry vehicle was launched from Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, about 900 miles (1,450Β km) west-southwest of Hawaii. The explosion took place at an altitude of 250 miles (400Β km), above a point 19 miles (31Β km) southwest of Johnston Atoll. It produced a yield equivalent to 1.4Β megatonnes of TNT. The explosion was about 10Β° above the horizon as seen from Hawaii, at 11 PM Hawaii time.
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- "Starfish Prime" | 2022-02-05 | 69 Upvotes 9 Comments
- "Starfish Prime, outer space nuclear test" | 2010-07-01 | 41 Upvotes 24 Comments
π Davy Crockett (nuclear device)
The M-28 or M-29 Davy Crockett Weapon System was the tactical nuclear recoilless gun (smoothbore) for firing the M-388 nuclear projectile that was deployed by the United States during the Cold War. It was one of the smallest nuclear weapon systems ever built, with a yield between 10 and 20 tons TNT equivalent (40β80 gigajoules). It is named after American folk hero, soldier, and congressman Davy Crockett.
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- "Davy Crockett (nuclear device)" | 2018-09-15 | 58 Upvotes 59 Comments
π V-Mail
V-mail, short for Victory Mail, was a hybrid mail process used by the United States during the Second World War as the primary and secure method to correspond with soldiers stationed abroad. To reduce the cost of transferring an original letter through the military postal system, a V-mail letter would be censored, copied to film, and printed back to paper upon arrival at its destination. The V-mail process is based on the earlier British Airgraph process.
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- "V-Mail" | 2019-11-11 | 110 Upvotes 7 Comments
π "Some German bombers landed at UK bases, believing they were back in Germany."
The Battle of the Beams was a period early in the Second World War when bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) used a number of increasingly accurate systems of radio navigation for night bombing in the United Kingdom. British scientific intelligence at the Air Ministry fought back with a variety of their own increasingly effective means, involving jamming and distortion of the radio waves. The period ended when the Wehrmacht moved their forces to the East in May 1941, in preparation for the attack on the Soviet Union.
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- ""Some German bombers landed at UK bases, believing they were back in Germany."" | 2010-08-16 | 99 Upvotes 17 Comments
π Terfenol-D
Terfenol-D, an alloy of the formula TbxDy1βxFe2 (xΒ βΒ 0.3), is a magnetostrictive material. It was initially developed in the 1970s by the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in United States. The technology for manufacturing the material efficiently was developed in the 1980s at Ames Laboratory under a U.S. Navy-funded program. It is named after terbium, iron (Fe), Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL), and the D comes from dysprosium.
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- "Terfenol-D" | 2021-09-27 | 90 Upvotes 24 Comments
π Norden bombsight
The Norden Mk. XV, known as the Norden M series in U.S. Army service, is a bombsight that was used by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and the United States Navy during World War II, and the United States Air Force in the Korean and the Vietnam Wars. It was an early tachometric design that directly measured the aircraft's ground speed and direction, which older bombsights could only estimate with lengthy manual procedures. The Norden improved on older designs by using an analog computer that continuously recalculated the bomb's impact point based on changing flight conditions, and an autopilot that reacted quickly and accurately to changes in the wind or other effects.
Together, these features promised unprecedented accuracy for daytime bombing from high altitudes. During prewar testing the Norden demonstrated a circular error probable (CEP) of 75 feet (23Β m), an astonishing performance for that period. This accuracy would enable direct attacks on ships, factories, and other point targets. Both the Navy and the USAAF saw it as a means to conduct successful high-altitude bombing. For example, an invasion fleet could be destroyed long before it could reach U.S. shores. To protect these advantages, the Norden was granted the utmost secrecy well into the war, and was part of a production effort on a similar scale as the Manhattan Project. Carl L. Norden, Inc. ranked 46th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
Under combat conditions the Norden did not achieve its expected accuracy, yielding an average CEP in 1943 of 1,200 feet (370Β m), similar to other Allied and German results. Both the Navy and Air Forces had to give up using pinpoint attacks. The Navy turned to dive bombing and skip bombing to attack ships, while the Air Forces developed the lead bomber procedure to improve accuracy, and adopted area bombing techniques for ever larger groups of aircraft. Nevertheless, the Norden's reputation as a pin-point device endured, due in no small part to Norden's own advertising of the device after secrecy was reduced late in the war.
The Norden's secrecy had already been compromised by espionage before the United States entered the war. As early as January 1941, the Germans introduced a lightened derivative of the Norden called the Carl Zeiss Lotfernrohr 7 as the primary bombsight for most Luftwaffe level bombers and the first of its bombsights to have gyroscopic stabilization.
The Norden saw reduced use in the post-World War II period after radar-based targeting was introduced, but the need for accurate daytime attacks kept it in service, especially during the Korean War. The last combat use of the Norden was in the U.S. Navy's VO-67 squadron, which used them to drop sensors onto the Ho Chi Minh Trail as late as 1967. The Norden remains one of the best-known bombsights ever invented.
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- "Norden bombsight" | 2017-03-28 | 77 Upvotes 36 Comments
π Boeing MQ-25 Stingray
The Boeing MQ-25 Stingray is an aerial refueling drone that resulted from the Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) program, which grew out of the earlier Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program. The MQ-25 first flew on 19 September 2019.
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- "Boeing MQ-25 Stingray" | 2019-11-01 | 41 Upvotes 65 Comments
π Bomba (Cryptography)
The bomba, or bomba kryptologiczna (Polish for "bomb" or "cryptologic bomb"), was a special-purpose machine designed around October 1938 by Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologist Marian Rejewski to break German Enigma-machine ciphers.
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- "Bomba (Cryptography)" | 2022-11-05 | 88 Upvotes 12 Comments