Lab thinks big, small in developing munitions

[unhappycamper]

Lab thinks big, small in developing munitions
By Mladen Ruman - Northwest Florida Daily News via AP
Posted : Sunday Dec 2, 2007 11:34:27 EST

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — Something about the nature of the work at the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate can be deduced from the badges people without appropriate security clearances must wear.

The badges sport a skull and crossbones graphic with “Escort Required” printed boldly beneath.

There’s no one way to characterize what the Munitions Directorate, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and its several hundred employees do. They’re prognosticators and theoreticians, assemblers and disassemblers, inventors and exploiters of existing technologies.

Although imagining weapons of the future is a big part of their mission, Munitions Directorate workers often handle immediate needs.

They were instrumental in fielding the “Bunker Buster” laser-guided bomb during the first Persian Gulf War and playing mind games with Saddam Hussein before the second war by dropping the nearly 11-ton “Mother of all Bombs.”

Ten or 15 years ago, the emphasis at the directorate was precision hitting a target dead-on.


Rest of article on next generation munitions at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_nanoweapons_071202/

[sam sarrha]

1. the big thing now is ..."Metal Storm" weapon of the future, fire rate of 1,000,000 rounds pr minute

mounted on a plane it will take out targets like a laser printer

[unhappycamper]

2. I'm also thinking of $75 10-lb bombs with a

$50,000 guidance system carried by $8,000,000 UAVs with a $15,000,000 support system using $5,000,000,000 satellites for guidance info. It just never ends.