from the sharks-with-frickin-swords-on-their-heads dept.
Submitted via IRC for carny
This Photo Proves How The Hellfire Missile That Uses Blades Instead Of Explosives Works
After the most recent known use of the AGM-114R9X Hellfire missile, a weapon that uses blades instead of explosives to kill its target with minimal collateral damage, literally smashing and slicing through them, evidence of exactly how the bizarre weapon works has come to light. Imagery from the scene of the attack, located less than 10 miles from where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in Syria, shows what appears to be the core of the weapon and its deadly appendages. It appears to be a gruesome, but stunningly effective device.
The image, seen at the top of this story, shows a thick central hub structure that would act as a penetrator with six swing-out skeletonized blades. Basically, anything in the radius of the blades would die.
[...] The payload area is roughly a foot and a half long and let's say the swords are roughly the same length, this would provide about a three and a half foot diameter kill zone, which is similar to what we see in the images of the vehicles that have been struck. It is the ultimate precision air-to-ground weapon—surgical both in metaphor and application.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @03:11AM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:28AM
Ahh, this brings back memories of when Wile E. trying to drop that 500lb weight onto a speeding Road Runner. This sounds exactly like what Wili E would come up with but somehow it never ends well for Wile E.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mhajicek on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:51AM (1 child)
These missiles were originally designed to sever the tenticles of pink alien monsters.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @01:24AM
or their testicles.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:13AM (5 children)
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:31AM (2 children)
Hell, 100lbs of marshmallows traveling at 1600kph impacting .5m away would have a high probability of lethality in the right surroundings.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:17PM (1 child)
"He died a delicious death."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @11:23PM
"Marshmallowed be thy name"
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday December 10 2019, @11:51AM (1 child)
Yup, and that photo really doesn't show anything except the standard twisted mass of metal you get when an object flying at high speed ploughs into something on the ground. You could label it "Remains of MH17" and it'd be just as informative. For all we know this was a bog-standard Hellfire whose warhead didn't detonate. Or maybe something slightly exotic like a continous-rod warhead that didn't detonate.
As you point out, you don't need some exotic sword-flinging dervish weapon, anything hitting at a high enough speed will cause considerable damage.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @01:54PM
Considering that the original Israeli version was just a Hellfire with a dummy warhead and that it could easily scrap a car, I must agree with you.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:39AM
So, really, why would anyone care, except Stephan Miller, and then only if it could be used on Mexican children? Technology of death is really a sick fuck thing. Here, let me insert the multi-bladed expanding butt plug. See what I mean? Not clean, not OK, not even American.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:28PM
"We're just using standard American methodology", reports ISIS spokesman Mohammed al-Jihadi, "so no war crime here".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:04PM
some virtual version of this must have hit the writer of the title:"this photo proves how XYZ works". wtf? did they mean "this photo proves THAT XYZ works"?
anyways, it should be called "the hellsword" -or- "hellblade(s)" or sumething?
next up: the missile/rocket that curses the target with bad luck! nullifying charms can be had when turning themselfs in...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:50PM
Apparently the weapon is just another example of the anti-personnel flechette:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechette [wikipedia.org]
Flechettes were widely used in the Vietnam war in the "beehive" artillery round:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_anti-personnel_round [wikipedia.org]
It would be no great surprise to use the Hellfile missile as a delivery vehicle
for the flechette.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:56PM (2 children)
OK, it's precise. Now do they hit the intended target or some mourners at a funeral? Or do they just hit something, and then claim it was the intended target?
Precise isn't accurate. To be accurate you need not only precision, but tracking. So how do you track your target, when your kill radius is only 6 feet or so? I doubt you can depend on anyone to carry a given cell phone.
So I suspect something unmentioned is going on. (One suggestion, that it could be dummy warheads being puffed up by PR, isn't implausible.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday December 10 2019, @09:15PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:59AM
Any 14yr and older male is _defined_ to be a combatant, and therefore a legitimate target per the US rules of engagement.
Sick fucking shit. Would love to see all those in charge who approved of this shit be sent to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc., for trial and punishment. Set a precedent like that, and those sadistic fuck tards would think twice about going on a murder rampage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:14PM
So we can now once again literally beat our swords into plowshares!