Since COVID-19 has kept the major archives closed or so limited in access they might as well be. This thread is an examination of an on-line source of primary sources here:
The bulletpicker.com collection went public in late May, 2016 and has a huge number of ordnance, small arms, and defusing related items.
The library section is the heart of the site and it covers WW2 UK, US, Australian, and technical intelligence by those powers on German, Italian and Japanese ordnance, engineering and small arms.
It is very comprehensive in coverage of WW2 bomb disposal.
The Technical Intelligence Summaries are a WW2 Australian military product covering 1943 - 1945 era weapons, bombs & mines. bulletpicker.com/technical-inte…
400 Houthi aerial drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles were fired at/near USN ships since Oct 2023
120 SM-2 & 80 SM-6 missiles, 160 five-inch main guns rounds, plus a combined 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow and SM-3 missiles engaged them.
Drone War Cost Trades 🧵 1/
Tyler Rogoway has reported the following missile costs:
SM-2 Block IIIC - $2,530,000 per missile.
SM-6 - $4,270,000 per missile.
Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) RIM-162 Block II - $1,490,000 per missile.
SM-3 -$12,510,000 for the Block IB, and $28,700,000 for the Block IIA 2/
So:
120 SM-2 * $2.53 million = $303.6 million
80 SM-6 * $4.27 million = $341.6 million
12 ESSM (guess) = $17.88 million
6 SM-3 IB (guess) * $12.51 million = $75 million
2 SM-3 IIA (guess) * $28.7 million = $57.4 million
The fire and forget millimeter wave (MMW) radar guidance AGM-114L "Hellfire Longbow" being referred in the War Zone post as "a new anti-drone armament" for the LCS actually ceased production in 2005 and reaches end of life in 2025.
One of the reasons the AGM-114L was dropped from the US Army M-Shorad is the US Army didn't want to pay money to recertify the AGM-114L inventory...
2/
...with the AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) equipped with dual-mode Semi-Active Laser (SAL) and millimeter wave (MMW) radar seeker just entering production.
3/
The process was invented by a Russian, Via wikipedia:
"The Russian chemist Sergei Vasilyevich Lebedev was the first to polymerize butadiene in 1910....
2/
...In 1926 he invented a process for manufacturing butadiene from ethanol, and in 1928, developed a method for producing polybutadiene using sodium as a catalyst.
The government of the Soviet Union strove to use polybutadiene as an alternative to natural rubber ...
3/