Batteries that harvest energy from the nuclear decay of isotopes can produce very low levels of current and last for decades without needing to be replaced. A new version of the batteries, called betavoltaics, is being developed by an Ithaca, NY-based company and tested by Lockheed Martin. The batteries could potentially power electrical circuits that protect military planes and missiles from tampering by destroying information stored in the systems, or by sending out a warning signal to a military center. The batteries are expected to last for 25 years.

The anti-tamper systems are to prevent someone who gets their hands on equipment from being able to determine its inner workings to defeat or reverse-engineer it.

Battery technology is a major roadblock, and not only for the military.

Of course, if the military suddenly had batteries that were ten times as powerful and one-tenth the size of current batteries, it wouldn’t be “Gee, look how much less our troops have to carry.” It would be, “Gee, I can carry all this new gear now plus four extra mags.”

Via Instapundit.

An Iraqi tank crew member loads a .50 caliber machine gun during a live fire training exercise with an M1 Abrams tank, in Baghdad, Iraq, Nov. 14.

A few more at DVIDS.

Report: Lax leadership led to Hormuz collision

An informal atmosphere — along with crew complacency, a “weak” command and inferior submariner skills — are named as contributors to the March 20 collision between the attack submarine Hartford and the amphibious transport dock New Orleans in the Strait of Hormuz.

And according to a heavily redacted 102-page Judge Advocate General Manual investigation obtained by Navy Times through a Freedom of Information Act request, what turned into a major embarrassment for the submarine fleet was entirely “avoidable.”

No blame lies with the crew of the USS New Orleans according to the report.

Pictures of the damaged sub here.

Ford family celebrates beginning of aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford construction

The 38th president’s daughter, Susan Ford Bales, declared the keel “truly and fairly laid” at an authentication ceremony attended by congressmen, dignitaries and shipworkers at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding’s shipyard.

Bales, the ship’s sponsor, on Friday added her initials in chalk on a metal plate, which was welded to the 900-ton keel — the building block upon which the carrier will rise.

Susan Ford Bales, daughter of former President Gerald R. Ford and ship's sponsor of the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), writes her initials onto a metal plate during the keel laying and authentication ceremony. Gerald R. Ford is the newest class of aircraft carrier. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kevin S. O'Brien/Released)

Robert Bowker welds the initials of Susan Ford Bales into the keel of the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) during a keel laying and authentication ceremony at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding in Newport News. Gerald R. Ford is the newest class of aircraft carrier. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kevin S. O'Brien/Released)

Ford served aboard USS Monterey (CVL-26) during World War 2 and was nearly washed overboard during Typhoon Cobra. As I wrote in that post, Murdoc doesn’t really believe that ‘Ford’ is a good choice for the name of an aircraft carrier, particularly a lead ship. But I guess it could have been worse.

Here’s a video from WOOD-TV:

The ship is scheduled to enter service in 2015.

A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft flies a combat mission June 17, 2009, over Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Robertson/Released)

Noticed this tidbit in Afghanistan airstrikes highest since July 2008:

Over Iraq, the use of bombs continues to be rare. AFCent reported only two bombs were dropped in 742 sorties in October.

Two bombs in a month.

After the elections in 2006, Nancy Pelosi said this about Iraq:

We cannot continue down this catastrophic path. And so we say to the president, ‘Mr. President, we need a new direction in Iraq. Let us work together to find a solution to the war in Iraq.’

In 2005 she said the war in Afghanistan “is over”:

“I assume that the war in Afghanistan is over, or is the contention that you have that it continues?” she said to a reporter.

A few moments later, she said: “This isn’t about the duration of the war. The war in Afghanistan is over.”

The war that was “over” more than four years ago sees the most bombs dropped, 647, in the past 15 months and the war on the “catastrophic path”, the one where she fought tooth and nail to surrender or at least prevent the “surge”, saw two.

Let’s just keep that in mind as this crowd decides what to do in Afghanistan.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Instapundit publishes this observation from a reader:

The towers fell in New York on 9/11/01, Kabul fell to American led forces on 11/14/01. That’s 65 days.

President Obama’s hand-picked replacement commander in Afghanistan, GEN McChrystal, delivered his Afghanistan war plans to President Obama on 8/30/09, and President Obama hasn’t acted on his General’s recommendations as of today, 11/11/09. That’s 73 days, and waiting.

Potential 767 and 777-based platforms make up the “7A7 family of tankers.”

Americans owe an awful lot to our veterans. So do others around the world. Thank a couple today. Murdoc will be.

Meanwhile, a little graphic I came up with a couple years back continues to get a lot of attention, bringing in tons of search engine traffic and clicks from emails. I’m taking it that it’s appreciated, so I’ll post it once again:

A lot of our allies have Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, and maybe other special days today. Though I’m understandably biased, there is no shortage of courage in the veterans of other nations, too.

And on this week of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it’s important to note that the vets who didn’t serve during a shooting war were performing the mission, too.

Thank-you all.

UPDATE: Murdoc’s been remiss about blogging the Valour-IT drive. Got a couple extra bucks? Support our guys who are doing the heavy lifting.

Also, the Smithsonian Channel has a new six-part documentary premiering tonight: Apocalypse: The Second World War

Here’s the trailer:

C-RAM in Action

U.S. Army Awards Northrop Grumman Major C-RAM Systems Integration Delivery Order

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has received a $58 million delivery order to install additional systems and continue maintenance of existing installations for the Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortars (C-RAM) system at forward-operating bases in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Under this delivery order, announced October 9, Northrop Grumman will provide systems engineering, production, deployment and logistics support for the C-RAM system. The delivery order was awarded by the Army Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. Program management and technical direction will come from the Director, Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar Program office, in the Army’s Program Executive Office, Command Control and Communications Tactical.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard anything negative about this system. I first posted on it in 2005: R2-D2 vs. Mortar Rounds. And here’s more info on the Block 1B Phalanx.

Marines and sailors from the Hawaii-based Echo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment paused to celebrate the Marine Corps’ 234th birthday Nov. 10, 2009, here. Members of the battery and the Okinawa-based 12th Marine Regiment and 3rd Battalion, 12th Marines, participated in Artillery Relocation Training Exercise 09-03, which took place Nov. 2-10. Photo by Staff Sgt. Marc Ayalin

On a related note, the son of a buddy of mine qualified Expert Rifleman in boot camp. I think his dad told me 7 out of 10 at 500 yards with iron sights.

Murdoc can barely see the target at 500 yards.

Happy birthday, Marines.

Andrew Bast has a story on the Newsweek blog asking Is Fort Hood a Harbinger?

Of course, being Newsweek, the worry is that Nidal Malik Hasan May Be a Symptom of a Military on the Brink.

It’s hard to draw too many conclusions right now, but we do know this: Thursday night, authorities shot and then apprehended the lone suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. A psychiatrist who was set to deploy to Iraq at the end of the month, Hasan reportedly opened fire around the Fort Hood Readiness Center, where troops are prepared for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. And though this scene is a most extreme and tragic outlier, it comes at a time when the stress of combat has affected so many soldiers individually that it makes it increasingly difficult for the military as a whole to deploy for wars abroad.

and

Hasan’s perspective is unknown. He had yet to fight abroad. But the accusations against him can’t help but bring to mind the violence scarring military bases all over the country after the duration of two long, brutal wars.

So after spending some time making the case that soldiers who have spent too much time in the combat zone on repeated deployments are close to the breaking point, he finally mentions that Hasan has never deployed.

He then goes into the whole “transferred PTSD” thing. Sure, we get it. Counselors are not immune to the horrible stories they hear.

None of the following words appear in the article:

• Muslim
• terrorist
• militant
• extremist
• religion
• I gave up trying at that point

And no mention is made of reports that Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar!”, confirmed or otherwise.

He concludes by suggesting that by deploying more troops to Afghanistan like Gen. McChrystal has requested, the military may be inviting more shooting rampages.

Of course, the vast majority of those under that stress, no matter how brutal, will not pick up a gun and shoot indiscriminately, like Hasan did.

The “vast majority.” Is he saying that 9 in 10 won’t become mass murderers? 99 out of 100? 99,999 out of every 100,000? Hmm. Let’s see. How many troops that have deployed so far have become mass murderers? Only one?

Oh, no. That’s not right either, is it?. So far NO US troops that have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan have become mass murderers. Zero. “Vast majority” my ass.

But the situation is bad, and getting much worse. From there, it isn’t much of a leap to argue that to further tax our military would do as much as anything to guarantee that the homegrown terror on display today could well repeat itself in the future.

Whoa, buddy. If we’re going to talk “isn’t much of a leap,” there are a few other leaps that should be in the conversation. Leaps involving religion. Leaps involving diversity policies and political correctness concerns that allowed a guy with what appear to have been fairly obvious issues to stay in the system. Leaps involving self defense on military installations. Leaps involving people seeming to hope for another Timothy McVeigh homegrown terrorist. Leaps involving the media actively working to distort the facts.

As I noted earlier somewhere, if this turns out to be a simple case of a PTSD case “just snapping”, it will be used as a broad brush to paint the entire military as a bunch of loose cannons “on the brink.”

If, on the other hand, this turns out to be a simple case of religious jihad, it will be portrayed as one lone nutjob and anyone who thinks otherwise is probably a racist and a bigot.