Well, it finally happened, the Predator drones ordered to Libya by the Pentagon last week took out their first target on April 23, a rocket launcher being used by Gadhafi’s troops to hit civilians in the besieged city of Misurata; the same day reports surfaced that regime forces were withdrawing from the city after a two month siege that […]
From the monthly archives:
April 2011
We heard a little chatter about this earlier in the month; apparently China is test flying its own vertical/short take-off and landing fighter jet dubbed the J-18. According to my old colleague Wendell Minnick at Defense News, the jet is similar in appearance to Russia’s Su-33 carrier based evolution of Sukhoi’s famous Su-27 line. (The […]
So, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is now projected to cost $1 trillion dollars to operate and maintain over its 30-year lifetime, this is a bump of $85 billion over the Pentagon’s 2009, estimates for the cost of the jet. However, the JSF, which has yet to enter service, features a computerized supply chain and maintenance […]
In light of the increased demand for a return of U.S. air power over Libya, despite the fact that U.S. jets are apparently available, the White House has given the green-light for the use of armed MQ-1 Predator drones in Libya, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. […]
Yup, that’s right, according to a new report from the New York Times. The Times’ ace war correspondent, C.J. Chivers, yesterday wrote a great piece highlighting the truly sorry state of the Libyan rebels arsenal; describing everything from jerry-rigged rocket launchers and machine guns stolen from tanks to the fact that many of them are […]
