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"We learned when somebody's back is up against the wall, they come up with a lot of creative solutions. And if they don't have a lot of money, like Ukraine doesn't, they can figure it out." As crucial American aid remains tied up in Congress, Ukrainian defenses have been forced to improvise with cheaper, lower-tech, but surprisingly effective countermeasures, from bleeding-edge first-person piloted kamikaze drones and repurposed Soviet tech to pickup truck-mounted MIRV launchers and "FrankenSAM" hybrids to Project Safe Skies: a donation-driven network of 8,000 cellphones and mics on sticks whose crowdsourced acoustic monitoring detected 84 out of 84 Russian UAVs in one day and shot down 80 of them with anti-aircraft fire -- at a cost of only $500 a pop.
posted by Rhaomi on Mar 26, 2024 - 72 comments

The WMD was discovered, quite by chance, lying by the side of a Bridgeville road in late July by a Delaware state trooper on an unrelated callout. Jutting out of the ground, the 75mm shell was encrusted in barnacles and pitted with rust; barely recognisable as a munition at all. The trooper called in his find and a military team took the bomb to Dover Air Force Base for disposal. As with most conventional rounds, a small charge was placed on the side of the shell and detonated to trigger the vintage munition’s own explosive. But something went wrong, and the bomb failed to explode. When the two staff sergeants and technician walked over to inspect the failed detonation, they found a strange black liquid seeping out of the cracked mortar. Given that the shell had been under the sea for the better part of fifty years, the men thought little of the foul-smelling substance until hours later, when their skin began to erupt in agonising blisters. All three were rushed to Kent General hospital, where two were released later after minor treatment. A third, more seriously injured serviceman was transported to Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, where he remained in serious but stable condition with what were only described as “burns or blisters” in a statement issued by the Army later that week. A scientific team were sent to Dover to collect soil samples from the area. The results were clear: the shell had been filled with mustard gas.
posted by Blasdelb on Sep 20, 2012 - 51 comments

"Estonian sculptor Mati Karmin creates mind-blowing furniture made out [sic] from sea mines." That is all. [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet on Apr 18, 2011 - 23 comments

How two American kids became big-time weapons traders - "Working with nothing but an Internet connection, a couple of cellphones and a steady supply of weed, the two friends — one with a few college credits, the other a high school dropout — had beaten out Fortune 500 giants like General Dynamics to score the huge arms contract. With a single deal, two stoners from Miami Beach had turned themselves into the least likely merchants of death in history." (via; previously on arms contractors)
posted by kliuless on Mar 21, 2011 - 69 comments

Arms dealers affiliated with 22 companies, including one with a former Joint Chief of Staff on its board of directors, have been indicted for soliciting kickbacks on multimillion dollar deals to supply munitions to representatives of a fictitious African government. [more inside]
posted by minimii on Jan 21, 2010 - 41 comments

More than 100 nations have reached an agreement on a treaty which would ban current designs of cluster bombs. Naturally, the most militant nations (USA, Russia, China, India, Pakistan) have refused to negotiate (creating significant interoperability issues for allied nations such as the UK to the USA). The Cluster Munition Coalition is an excellent resource about the issue. [more inside]
posted by wilful on May 28, 2008 - 41 comments

The Self-Healing Minefield From the current Village Voice: "Utilizing commercial off-the-shelf computer chips and 'healing' software, the networked minefield detects rude attempts to clear it, deduces which parts of itself have been removed, and signals its remaining munitions to close the hole using best-fit mathematics."

Bonus ubertasteless Flash animation courtesy of DARPA here. Color me fascinated and repulsed in equal measure.
posted by Armitage Shanks on Nov 27, 2002 - 40 comments