Grim news. Shortsighted. Good day for China. Intentional screwing of the defense industry, victory for the vaporware pork bonanza that is the F-35. Etc.  more

It looks like the F-22 production line may not fall idle after all. Cracks in the Administration’s attempts to kill it are appearing. First, as Mike Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard notes, the most important thing—preservation of the production line as a surge capacity in the event of war—appears to have gotten a boost from the House Armed   more

Another instance of anti-ketchup traditionalism: Thrasher’s French Fries (est. 1929) in Ocean City, Maryland. They have a big sign saying something like NO, YOU MAY NOT HAVE ANY KETCHUP. They stick with the old English, now Maryland salt-and-malt-vinegar tradition. 
 
Photo courtesy of rubyshoes.  more

The non-zero chance that the Chinese will hit a button and our F-35s will drop out the sky.  more

Today I’m wandering a little afield from “things that go boom” into the fens of public opinion and policy, in response to an inquiry from the Mujaddid al-Majawritî who e-mailed your humble contributor this CNN story which argues “Since 2001, most Americans have favored stricter gun laws, though support has slightly dropped in recent years:   more

If the Obama administration shelves the F-22 fighter plane, we would be deliberately denying ourselves the cutting edge of technology. While technology is not a guarantee of victory, effective use of new technologies can be. Take, for example, artillery.
The first documented use of artillery—a sort of bamboo cannon—was in 1132 when Sung Dynasty General Han   more

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was thinking about bringing back the “assault weapons” ban? The one that cost Al Gore his home state of Tennessee in 2000? When Democrats have figured out that gun control is so unpopular that Nancy Pelosi’s first reaction is the NRA-like “enforce the laws we have,” and that Harry Reid   more

Readers may smirk at the title, given that contemporary news from Mexico is dominated by narco-violence and the illegal immigration of her poor, but there was a moment when Mexico advanced the cutting edge of small-arms design. Credit for this lies not with the Mexican Army or government, but the genius of one man, the   more

Now, wealthy drug lords are buying expensive hunting and sniper rifles for their militias, but so far, the Taliban Snipers appear to be using grandpa’s old Lee-Enfield.
“Afghans Rediscover The Lee-Enfield” by James Dunnigan, strategypage.com, January 22, 2009
A scrimmage in a Border StationÑ            A canter down some dark defileÑ Two thousand pounds of education   more

The Obama Administration is pushing the idea of banning “space weapons.”
This proposal sounds lovely, but like nuclear disarmament in the 1980s, would be a unilateral effort on the part of the United States and Europe. Countries which regard the West as their enemies or obstacles will almost surely do as India, Pakistan,   more

testing   more

As the Gaza War seems to be winding down with Hamâs in ruinsÑto no one’s sorrow but Iran’sÑI thought we could take a look at the rifle that the average Israeli soldier has carried over the years.
In the Israeli War of Independence, Israeli fighters were armed quite haphazardly. Czech knock-offs of German weapons predominated in   more

You often read that a Pashtun village blacksmith can make his own AK-47. This is not quite right. Kalashnikov rifles are not high-technology devices. Invented in the 1940s in the Soviet Union, designed for durability rather than precision, as originally conceived they relied on technologies that a metalsmith in a remote part of the world   more

A casus belli of the Israeli air assault upon and subsequent invasion of Gaza, the Qassâm rocket is Hamas’s signature weapon, a low-cost, low-tech, in-house invention that has heretofore paid big strategic dividends (even as it‘s failed miserably as a tactical device).
The Qassâm’s design is not rocket science. Wait. Sure it is. It’s just not   more

You often read that a Pashtun village blacksmith can make his own AK-47. This is not quite right. Kalashnikov rifles are not high-technology devices. Invented in the 1940s in the Soviet Union, designed for durability rather than precision, as originally conceived they relied on technologies that a metalsmith in a remote part of the world   more