Magpul FMG9: Gun in Disguise

Armed Forces

Taken from DefenseTalk.

The armed forces of a state are its government sponsored defense and fighting forces and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in a nations armed forces. Armed force is the use of armed forces to achieve political objectives.

The study of the use of Armed Forces is called military science. Broadly speaking, this involves considering offense and defense at three “levels”: strategy, operational art, and tactics. All of these areas study the application of the use of force in order to achieve a desired objective.

Organization
Armed forces may be organized as standing forces (e.g. regular army), which describes a professional army that is engaged in no other profession than preparing for and engaging in warfare. In contrast, there is the citizen army. A citizen army (also known as a militia or reserve army) is only mobilised as needed. Its advantage lies in the fact that it is dramatically less expensive (in terms of wealth, manpower, and opportunity cost) for the organizing society to support. The disadvantage is that such a “citizen’s army” is less well trained and organized.

A compromise between the two has a small cadre of professional NCOs (non-commissioned officers) and officers who act as a skeleton for a much larger force. When war comes, this skeleton is filled out with conscripts or reservists (former full-time soldiers who volunteer for a small stipend to occasionally train with the cadre to keep their military skills intact), who form the wartime unit. This balances the pros and cons of each basic organization, and allows the formation of huge armies (in terms of millions of combatants), necessary in modern large scale warfare.

CONTINUED

American Tax Dollars at War

Taken from Wandering American

New US Humvee Burns 70% Less Fuel

The new vehicle, dubbed FED Alpha, will be on display this week in the Pentagon’s courtyard for an Energy and Sustainability Technology Fair. The vehicle has a solar panel on its back hatch to recharge its electrical systems, a custom engine and transmission along with several new features that will drastically increase its range and reliability over other models of Humvees. The new vehicle has all the toughness and survivability of the standard up-armored Humvee but burns 70% less fuel.

While the FED may not ever be mass-produced, it’s a valuable platform for testing the practical uses of environmentally friendly and sustainable technologies. The vehicle features a 200 horse-power 4 cylinder engine, a six speed automatic transmission and low-rolling resistance tires. The tires provide a 7% fuel reduction all by themselves. The savings from the tires alone are expected to save about $45 million annually if applied to the entire Humvee fleet. Their are several computer systems on board, such as one that informs the driver when they exceed the optimum fuel efficiency speed by causing the gas peddle to vibrate and giving resistance against more speed. However, if speed is essential to the mission, the driver just needs to push through the feedback.

Some other features of the FED are its high efficiency 28 volt integrated starter-generator that allows for extensive electronics to be installed, a light-weight aluminum structure except for the armored cab and v-shaped blast protection on the undercarriage. And finally, the FED has a much improved driveline specially designed to reduce friction.It’s been undergoing testing since July and another prototype design is under construction.

Interesting timeline of the vehicle in a PDF file here.