Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9 580
TJ_Phazerhacki writes "A new high tech weapon system demonstrated one of the prime concerns circling smarter and smarter methods of defense last week — an Oerlikon GDF-005 cannon went wildly out of control during live fire test exercises in South Africa, killing 9. Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers. 'Electronics engineer and defence company CEO Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed Projects Catchy and Dart. During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says. "They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the pol[e]s down."' The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether."
ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
To be fair, it did give them 30 seconds to comply.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, the editors may not have approved of my comments linking Bill Joy's "Cassandra" predictions of killer robots, with the pledge to remove the Roomba from my home - and idle speculation about the possible involvement of Windows XP in this incident...
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Interesting)
I think I'm too old for this stuff. It seems like these days, if I mention to a younger software developer that even now Robocop is still one of the scariest films I've ever seen, they assume it's because of the ketchup effects.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Automated weapons are going to make the blood cost of war (to us) too low. We need casualties in the millions before our dumb monkey brains can figure out it's a bad idea, sometimes not even then.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Warfare, as recently as the second world war, was not limited by counting civilian casualties. And yet many of our refined and erudite citizens now take it as the norm, lamenting even one collateral kill. I
Re:Government coders (Score:5, Insightful)
If programmers like HIM are writing the code for these "smart" weapons, then I think we should just give the things to our enemies for free.
* I was an intelligence analyst in the Army. I dealt strictly with excruciatingly mundane secrets. Boring, boring, boring. My father was an engineer for Hughes (now Raytheon). He worked on things like the B-2 Spirit ground mapping radar system. For years he "worked at Hughes", and that was it. Later, he was able to say "I work on the B-2 radar system. You'd be amazed at some of the cool shit we do with it, but I can't say what it is."
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Any time you are dealing with big guns, fast motors, high-speed fire, large rounds, and explosive projectiles there is a risk of disaster if things go wrong. These things aren't toys. Even if the fire button was completely manual things could still go wrong.
I recall reading an article about a magazine detonation in a battleship which went into all kinds of detail about all the things that could go wrong - and this was a fairly manual operation. It did involve lots of machinery (how else do you move around shells that weigh hundreds of pounds?), but it was all human operated.
Assuming the system is well-designed the automation actually has great potential to LOWER risk. Humans make mistakes all the time. They're even more prone to making mistakes when a jet is incoming loaded with cluster bombs.
Another thing to keep in mind is that peacetime training disasters always make the news with the military. However, the military has a fine line to walk - on one hand they want to be safe in their exercises, but on the other hand they want to be able to handle combat operations. A 30 minute single-shot firing procedure that allows for all kinds of safety checks sounds great in theory, but in wartime you'd lose more people to incoming fire than you'd ever save from gun explosions. Sure, you don't want to kill yourself, but if you're so ineffective that the enemy overruns you it is all for nothing. As a result we tolerate some friendly fire, accidents, etc.
Like it or not robotic weapons WILL be the future of warfare. Sure, one country might elect not to develop them, but sooner or later somebody else will, and once they work out the bugs they'll be overrunning everybody else...
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Informative)
Absolutely. I was on the range once when the guy a couple of spots over had the mechanism fail (never did find out if it was dirt or breakage) on his FN and it started firing full auto without his hand anywhere near the trigger. Fortunately he (and/or the sergeant that was on him almost immediately) had the presence of mind to keep it pointed downrange until it emptied.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously.. this thing was built with the explicit purpose of raining death down on people.
And lookee, it apparently did the job it was built to do....
Only on people we've all decided "deserved" to keep their lives.
Unlike the people this thing was *intended* to kill.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Funny)
You see, it's not just a structural failure of the support system for the (at least as far as reported) otherwise working gun, it's a structural failure of the support system for the otherwise working robotic gun. Apparently. I'll admit the difference doesn't seem important to me either, but all comments here have convinced me that adding the word "robot" to any story involving a mechanical failure is grounds for anti-technology panic.
And remember, those doors at the supermarket aren't just automatic, they're... ROBOTIC. OH NOES!!1! THE SUPERMARKET DOORS COULD KILL SOMEONE IF THEIR SUPPORT TRACK FALL OFF THE WALL. WE MUST REMOVE ALL ROBOTS TO SAVE THE CHILDRENS.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want really sick and twisted humor, try living in a war zone.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
150000 people die every day. That's almost 2 a second. I'm sure the family and friends of these 6 are heart broken, but for the 6.5 billion people who don't know them, it's not all that remarkable.
The only thing unique about these 6 people is that they died in a somewhat amusing way. If you want to mourn, mourn for the other 149994 people who died today that you'll never hear about.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Insightful)
What is this, a remaining pocket of common sense?
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Interesting)
It's called gallows humor, and it has been shown to be one of the most effective coping strategies when being involved with or witness to a traumatic situation that you have little control over.
Oh... after looking through your history, I finally get it. It's sick and disgusting to you because it happened to soldiers, rather than soldiers slaying civilians with their arsenal. Gotcha.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The simple matter is, many, many people die every day. Many, many people are also born every day. You can't be personally upset over every life lost or you would spend all your time in overwhelming grief. And sometimes humor is the only alternative to what would otherwise be shock, anger, sadness, or fear.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see you cracking a joke about the robot at the funeral if it was *your* son in the casket.
Now, I don't see anything bad about us making jokes in this forum, since we aren't personally involved in the matter at all and can only feel sorry in an "abstract" kind of way (as in, accidents and human loss are sad but oh well I can't feel sad for *every* bad thing that happens in this world right?), and this won't be read by the affected people. But let's not go around pretending that we are "dealing" or "coping" with anything here. That's just hipocrisy.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Funny)
Come to Australia then.
I've been a volunteer ambulance officer for decades, and I've seen people keep their sense of humour in the most horrific circumstances.
Went to a car rollover once. The driver had been seriously injured and trapped inside the inverted vehicle. He'd been there for almost an hour before anyone had found him (this was remote WA), and it took another half an hour to cut him out. We put him in the stretcher while the ambulance was reversing to us. As we moved towards the ambulance, he looked at the back wheel of his trashed car and said "Anyone got a shifter? I wouldn't mind adjusting the brakes now I can get to 'em easy."
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Insightful)
But when she asked how he died, he could barely hold a straight face so he told her to ask at the hospital.
Later she saw him and said, "No wonder you couldn't tell me how he died". Seems, she nearly pissed herself laughing at the hospital. She also told him to practice more, he'd given himself away with a tiny lift at the corner of his mouth when she asked.
Personally, I don't get what a period of mourning achieves. Losing someone leaves any empty place, but I wouldn't want anyone to waste a moment of their life mourning the loss of mine. Why is it that the west treats death as some kind of divine punishment, and the east tend to celebrate it?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Insightful)
My father is a paramedic, and some of the jokes that circle the station after a particularly gruesome scene would probably make you vomit. These men aren't deranged, dark humor is a very real way to deal with tragic events. These men are psycologically evaluated from time to time and the psycologists never seem to have any problem with dark humor. One has gone so far as to tell my father it is a COMMON coping mechanism, especially when one is trying to remain abstracted from the trauma.
I'm not saying they make these jokes at funerals (that's just called tact) or in the presense of civilians, but pull your head out of your ass and realize that laughter is a powerful healing tool.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Insightful)
That's coping, using humor. It happens in real life.
In this forum, however, nine South Africans are truly remote. They're about as far outside my monkey sphere as humans can get. You wanna joke about them? Fine by me. You want to complain about the jokers because you don't think people really deal with tragedy that way? You're quite wrong.
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:5, Interesting)
A bit of background:
Since the government changed from white-run to black about 15 years ago, almost nothing has been done to keep our military equipment up to scratch. We went from having one of the best (sizewise) defence forces in the world to one that "loses" millions of dollars worth of equipment in war torn countries like the Congo and Sudan. And by equipment, I mean armoured cars, transport vehicles, artillery, grenades, millions of rounds of ammo, you name it. When called to account, the minister of defense (Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota, I kid you not!) basically said that all armies lose equipment, and that he's not even going to bother looking into it. There's lots of things they won't look into these days. Even when our own health minister expounds on the value of garlic, lemon juice and beetroot as a cure for HIV, she's completely backed by all her cronies in the SA gvt. But I digress...
In an effort to bring our defence force back up to scratch, a number of black former anti-apartheid "struggle heroes" got involved in buying about R40bn (about US$6.5bn) worth of materiel from overseas arms companies based in Sweden, Germany and others. Corruption and kickbacks were so rife at this point that even the Germans are still trying to untangle the South African side of things (our government doesn't believe in transparency when it looks like president Thabo Mbeki might be involved, and he was, which is why the investigations keep stalling). But to give you an idea, the SA government purchased some new corvettes for what passes for our Navy, which are too expensive to run. Last I heard they were sitting in dry dock, because it was going to be too expensive to maintain them if they actually put them in the water and used them for exercises. I'm not sure who we'd be defending ourselves against anyway, actually...
More than to 40% of our military (which is about 90% black now) is infected with HIV, and half of them don't know which end of an automatic rifle is which. They lose or sell their weapons and ammunition to criminal syndicates which use them for cash-in-transit heists (there's at least 2 a day, they don't even make the papers any more unless the guards in the armoured cars died a more gruesome death than usual). They also use them in armed home invasions, where a group of 3-10 armed blacks will burst into a home, torture and rape and kill the homeowners and families (usually white) before making off with the family car and a few electrical goods. We have about 55 murders a day (conservative estimate, (think a tour bus full of people)), roughly 144 rapes a day, and about 880 burglaries a day in this country, all aided indirectly by incompetent military and police personnel. That may not sound like much, until you work it out, to about 50,000 people die. every. single. year. And those are just the ones reported. And it's getting worse. Have a look at what's going on in an average suburb in Pretoria (name sooned to be changed to "Tshwane", see below). http://search.news24.com/search?s=NWS&ref=NWS&q=Lynnwood&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0/ [news24.com]. This page covers just the last 3 months, more links at bottom.
Many of you will nod your heads and go "yeah well, you deserve it after apartheid", but there's a couple of things you need to realise. 1. that most other countries that have at some stage practised (or still practise) some form of racial segregation. That doesn't make it right, but the only main difference between those countries and ours is that SA had an actual word for it. "Apartheid" basically means "separateness" in
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Insightful)
The parents "racist beliefs" broken down were:
The post apartheid government is black. True
Corruption is running rampid in SA, which has a black government. True
HIV is climbing faster than curruption. True
SA is now dangerous. True
SA government (which again happens to be black) spends money on needless things rather than helping the people. True
The facts are that in the post apartheid era, things in South Africa are in fact worse. I dont think it's a black thing vs. a white thing, but when anybody points out these above facts they are called racist.
Your issue shouldn't be with the parent being racist, it should be with your government being accountable to the above issues, whether the government happens to be black or white it doesnt matter.
Sadly, most of Africa seems to be following this trend which is a shame.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, one of the most funny lines I ever heard was during a resusicitation of a sad young man who, having been discharged out of a psych ward fo
Re:ED-209 not available for comment (Score:4, Funny)
I use my giant robot cannon for hunting, you insensitive clod.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My dog once farted so loudly when asleep that it scared itself awake.
En-gag-ing.... (Score:5, Funny)
KILL ALL HUMANS (Score:4, Funny)
-Bender
too soon?
Re:KILL ALL HUMANS (Score:4, Funny)
Story is inaccurate -- weapons system from 1985 (Score:5, Informative)
This is typical of recent slashdot who is trying to compete more with the sensationalism of digg and other tech blogs. No fact-checking, just throw it up and wait for the ad impressions to roll in.
ED-209 (Score:5, Funny)
I seem to recall seeing a documentary about this about 20 years ago. Ahh, here it is. [imdb.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
BSOD. literally (Score:5, Funny)
This gives new meaning to the phrase "Blue screen of death".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Acme? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Acme no, South African aftermarket coding, yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Young says he was also told at the time that the gun's original equipment manufacturer, Oerlikon, had warned that the GDF Mk V twin 35mm cannon system was not designed for fully automatic control. Yet the guns were automated. At the time, SA was still subject to an arms embargo and Oerlikon played no role in the upgrade.
It may just be me, but automating a machine that fires explosives that isn't designed to be automated just sounds like a Bad Idea(TM).
Three Laws of Robotics (Score:2, Insightful)
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
"Asimov believed that his most enduring contributions would be his "Three Laws of Robotics" and the Foundation Series."Isaac Asimov [wikipedia.org] article in Wikipedia.
Re:Three Laws of Robotics (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, the stories weren't about robots, they were about people just like us, with a ce
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All of the stories in I, Robot are about pointing out the flaws in the laws, actually. From what several bigger fans of Asimov than myself have told me, he wasn't really trying to make grand philosophical statements with them though; they were just story hooks he used for the purpose of spinning a good yarn.
Interpreted seriously, the three laws are slavery.
Re:Three Laws of Robotics (Score:5, Insightful)
Asimov's three laws were meant to be a thought experiment in hubris and unintended consequences. They were sold (in the context of the stories) as the perfect control system for robots, and then there were always "problems" that the USR management couldn't understand and which Susan Calvin needed to figure out and fix.
Asimov wasn't naive, but some of his characters were...
Regards,
Ross
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just who do you think is paying for the development of our "inorganic offspring"? All Governments gain and maintain power,control,and funding through military force.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Asimov's "US Robotics" company leased robots to various companies to perform various tasks. All the robots were "hard-wired" with the three laws. Let's say you're a mining company and you're about to dump a bunch of gold on the market. Let's say I own a competing mining company at least a month away from being able to compete... I can walk to your facility and tell the robots to sabotage their equipment and themselves, and that's not against any of
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I missed the end of that story. How did it turn out, again?
Re:Three Laws of Robotics (Score:4, Insightful)
They are a set of fictional laws made up by an author for his science fictional books. Are we seriously going to accept every and all Laws that appear in fiction?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
0. A robot must know it is a robot.
That's why.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's why.. (Score:4, Funny)
"A sad day for robot history. But hey! We can always build more killbots!"
Testing before testing. (Score:4, Interesting)
"I want to tell you about a radical new idea I had - testing things before deploying them."
In the case of weapons systems, that means debugging the software before loading the gun.
Truth me told, most "automated" weapons are more like remote control, for precisely this reason.
Also, while my experience is not vast in the area, most American weapons testers follow a lot of safety rules - including not being in the line of fire of the darned thing. Note I said most - we have our munitions accidents here, too.
Re: (Score:2)
These same people later pay heavily for me to rescue their production systems.
Re:Testing before testing. (Score:5, Interesting)
Many times I have seen an automated system go out of control due to something as simple as a broken wire on an encoder to an entirely failed controller. Closest thing to this that we ever got was one day a SCARA robot (about the size and shape of a human arm) ran away (out of control) and hit the door on the work cell. Wouldn't have been a big deal except that another of the robotics guys was walking by and walked into the door as it swung open. Good times, good times, but I would never want to be around an automated machine with a gun, just too big of a chance for something to go wrong.
Re:Testing before testing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would never want to be around a human with a gun, just too big of a chance for something to go wrong.
But is Stairway okay? (Score:2)
Two words: Deadman switch (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My dear Mr. Watson, there was a provision. The problem was the confusion between programming for MS-DOS versus Unix.
The clues have told us exactly what happened. From "Robotic Cannon Kills 9", we see clearly the command kill -9 was issued but the weapon was DOS based and did its job all too well.
Re:Two words: Deadman switch (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
As with most automated technologies it will make some mistakes, but less than a human on average. The friendly fire rate for most militaries is no where near perfect.
Err... It's still firing at humans, and needs to be controlled somehow.. there's always the potential for friendly fire, especially so with automated weaponry. How will the weapon identify friend vs foe?
Ok, so you have some sort of identifier badge or something, but what happens if an enemy is mixed in there? How will the weapon identify "safe" firing situations?
Let's get it out of the way..... (Score:2)
SkyNet (Score:3, Funny)
No pun intended (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No pun intended (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No pun intended (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No pun intended (Score:4, Funny)
Riiight (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Riiight (Score:5, Interesting)
A few other points:
* The majority of low level flying targets are subsonic anyway
* It just takes a single hit in the right place on the airframe for the target to tear itself to pieces
* Having a computer fire a weapon is a very very bad thing, One of the principles that was drummed into us was a human must always pull the trigger. Always. Computers can aim for you, make the tracking easier, calculate the numbers, whatever - anything but actually fire the weapon. That should always be done by a person with the correct training and authorisation.
If this weapon fired by itself because of a software glitch, then it's poorly designed.
Re:Riiight (Score:5, Insightful)
Think you can shoot down supersonic missile flying below the horizon? No. They let the computer guided robots do that. You're not nearly good enough at it. Ok, maybe you get lucky and nail it. Now try thirty in five seconds all coming from different bearings. Didn't think so.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You just need a trackball and a good supply of quarters
I told you before... (Score:5, Funny)
"But what if we want to have the windows open?" (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA: (Score:4, Funny)
"software engineers find that a goto statement was the cause of the recent military disaster. Experts say while this was a terrible tragedy, it could have been much worse [xkcd.com]."
Ghost in the Shell: Standalone complex (Score:3, Interesting)
Is truth mirroring fiction now?
I, for one. . . (Score:5, Funny)
No three laws safe here (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe fill the magazines on the 5th live fire test???
Just sayin, ya know.
Guess the NRA has to change the slogan... (Score:5, Interesting)
BUSINESS PROPOSAL (Score:5, Funny)
It is my humble pleasure to write this letter irrespective of the fact that you do not know me. However, I came to know of you in my private search for a reliable and trustworthy person that can handle a confidential transaction of this nature in respect to our investment plans in real estate. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day. Let me start by first, introducing myself properly to you. I am Peter Okoye, a Branch Manager at one of the standard trust bank in South Africa. A foreigner, Late Nicholas Owen, a Civil engineer/Contractor with the federal Government of South Africa, until his death three years ago in a ghastly automated robot accident, banked with us here at the standard bank South Africa. He had a closing balance of USD$25.5M (Twenty five Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) which the bank now unquestionably expects to be claimed by any of his available foreign next of kin. Or,alternatively be donated to a discredited trust fund for arms and ammunition at a military war college here in South Africa. Fervent valuable efforts made by the standard trust bank to get in touch with any of late Nicholas Owen_s next of kin (he had no wife and children)has been unsuccessful. The management under the influence of our chairman and board of directors, are making arrangement for the fund to be declared UNCLAIMABLE and then be subsequently donated to the trust fund for Arms and Ammunition which will further enhance the course of war in Africa and the world in general. In order to avert this negative development. Myself and some of my trusted colleagues in the bank, now seek for your permission to have you stand as late Nicholas Owen_s next of kin. So that the fund (USD$25.5M), would be subsequently transferred and paid into your bank account as the beneficiary next of kin through our overseas corresponding bank. All documents and proves to enable you get this fund have been carefully worked out and we are assuring you a 100% risk free involvement.
Your share would be 30% of the total amount. While the rest would be for me and my colleagues for purchase of properties in your country through you/your Company. If this proposal is OK by you, then kindly get to me immediately via my e-mail (pokoye_mg@mail.com) furnishing me with your most confidential telephone and fax , so I can forward to you the relevant details of this tran! saction. Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.
Best Regards.
Peter Okoye
Branch Manager,
STANDARD TRUST BANK SOUTH AFRICA
I worked on those 35mm Oerlikons (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I still do military work - different country - different life - same old shit. The review and QA procedures are extensive and exactly the same around the world. It doesn't matter whether you are in South Africa, USA, UK or Switzerland - we all work to the same standards and procedures. I have worked in multiple countries, so I know, been there, done that. For the problem to get this far down the line, the
You call this a glitch? (Score:4, Funny)
You call this a glitch? We're scheduled to begin construction in 6 months. Your temporary setback could cost us 50 million dollars in interest payments alone!
-Stor
Historical precedent (Score:3, Informative)
A few years back, a cadet had his hands blown off by a cannon at Fort Henry, Ontario. While he was tamping down the powder charge
I was not unusual for soldiers to be killed by accident with US civil war gatling guns which lacked a mechanism for locking the crank in place. As a result, the crank would occasionally make a quarter turn or so under force of gravity, popping off a few rounds. Tough beans for anybody unlucky enough to be in front of it. Automatic weapons can "cook off" a round just from the heat of prior sustained firing.
The Forrestal fire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Forrestal_(CV-59) [wikipedia.org] of 1967 was caused when an freak electrical surge caused a F4 to launch a missile across the deck, puncturing the fuel tank of another plane loaded with live munitions and touching off a chain reaction that ultimately killed 132 of the crew.
HERO (Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation for Ordinance) http://usmilitary.about.com/od/glossarytermsh/g/h2814.htm [about.com] has long been a concern for the military.
A matter of Identity... (Score:4, Funny)
In point of fact the gun worked perfectly, it was just ill advised to use the "Dick Cheney" AI personality for live testing.
-And low, the lawyers ran like rabbits... and it was a good thing...
Y'all Missing The Point (Score:4, Funny)
er, statistically speaking, of course.
Gentlemen (Score:3, Funny)
you're the godwinner (Score:4, Funny)
You know who else [wikipedia.org] went around knocking down Poles... That's right.
An old computer axiom: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I, For One, Welcome Our... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Imagine having two over-sized, 3 meter long assault rifles mounted side by side on a very fast moving (rotate and yaw) mechanism and you'll have some idea. The radar and computer system usually stands behind the
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Good quality military systems have very long service lives. They don't get thrown in the trash every three years. These thing