Read up on the Rolling Airframe Missile CIWS...

Essentially, the Sunburn is the entire reason for the existence of the Rolling Airframe Missile CIWS system that is replacing the Phalanx CISW on all US ships. Much longer engagement range, can kill at a longer distance, and is designed with handling volleys of incoming missiles in groups instead of just one at a…

I would have to imagine that the fuel bill and maintenance upkeep on those DC-10s is just incredible. I can't imagine that they are a better overall choice for this role than some of the recently retired Boeing 757-200s that the airlines have parked out in the bone yard. Why that model in particular? A few things:

The true mistake was adding the low level penetration requirement to the B-2 design in the late stages of the aircraft development. If they had left that one demand out, the plane would have been ready at least a year earlier and at a lower cost per unit. Effectively, since the unit cost would have been lower,…

The B-36 had some SIGNIFICANT tactical advantages over everything in the sky for the first 5 years of its operational life. It could fly MUCH higher than any interceptor aircraft of the day could reach. My father was in the Air Force during the era of the B-36 and the B-47. The B-36 crews would routinely stage mock…

In practice, it likely would have had an armament very similar to the B-29 by the time it got to a -B or -C model. Probably a quad-50 cal powered turret on top, another on bottom, a nose turret, a tail turret that had the similar twin 50 plus cannon of the B-29. Maybe a quad 50 or pair of 20s out back instead.

And its ALL Fiendishly complicated. My dad used to turn a wrench on the civilian version of the Herculese back when Delta was flying a handfull for cargo ops. In training, his instructor encouraged all of the mechanics to sit down, take out the manual, and reread it twice each time you even considered messing with…

My take on this: Just like there is a periodic table of elements detailing all the different elements that we know of, it has it's holes in the super-heavy range where we predict elements to exist, but haven't proven that they are possible to form and remain stable for a measurable length of time, there is a list of…

Perhaps one of the below:

Perhaps one of the below:

Perhaps one of the below: