PHILADELPHIA (AP) — You're a 16th century German prince plotting to crush a peasant rebellion, or perhaps you're leading an army against the Ottoman Empire or looking to settle the score with a rival nobleman. What's a guy looking for a tactical edge to do?

Bring on the rocket cats!

Fanciful illustrations from a circa-1530 manual on artillery and siege warfare seem to show jet packs strapped to the backs of cats and doves, with the German-language text helpfully advising military commanders to use them to "set fire to a castle or city which you can't get at otherwise."

Digitized by the University of Pennsylvania, the unusual, full-color illustrations recently caught the attention of an Australian book blog and then found their way to Penn researcher Mitch Fraas, who set out to unravel the mystery.

"I really didn't know what to make of it," said Fraas, a historian and digital humanities expert at the Penn library. "It clearly looks like there's some sort of jet of fire coming out of a device strapped to these animals."

So were these unfortunate animals from the 1500s really wearing 20th-century technology?

Fraas' conclusion: No. Obviously.

The treatise in question was written by artillery master Franz Helm of Cologne, who was believed to have fought in several skirmishes against the Turks in south-central Europe at a time when gunpowder was changing warfare.

Circulated widely and illustrated by multiple artists, Helm's manual is filled with all sorts of strange and terrible imagery, from bombs packed with shrapnel to missile-like explosive devices studded with spikes — and those weaponized cats and birds.

According to Fraas' translation, Helm explained how animals could be used to deliver incendiary devices: "Create a small sack like a fire-arrow . if you would like to get at a town or castle, seek to obtain a cat from that place. And bind the sack to the back of the cat, ignite it, let it glow well and thereafter let the cat go, so it runs to the nearest castle or town, and out of fear it thinks to hide itself where it ends up in barn hay or straw it will be ignited."

In other words, capture a cat from enemy territory, attach a bomb to its back, light the fuse and then hope it runs back home and starts a raging fire.

Fraas said he could find no evidence that cats and birds were used in early modern warfare in the way prescribed by Helm.

A good thing, too.

"Sort of a harebrained scheme," Fraas said. "It seems like a really terrible idea, and very unlikely the animals would run back to where they came from. More likely they'd set your own camp on fire."

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A detailed analysis of satellite imagery published Monday provides additional evidence that a Chinese rocket launch in May 2013 billed as a research mission was actually a test of a new anti-satellite weapon based on a road-mobile ballistic missile.

Brian Weeden, a former U.S. Air Force space analyst, published a 47-page analysis on the website of The Space Review, which he said showed that China appears to be testing a kinetic interceptor launched by a new rocket that could reach geostationary orbit about 36,000 km (22,500 miles) above the earth.

"If true, this would represent a significant development in China's anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities," wrote Weeden, now a technical adviser for Secure World Foundation, a Colorado-based nonprofit focused on secure and peaceful uses of outer space.

"No other country has tested a direct ascent ASAT weapon system that has the potential to reach deep space satellites in medium earth orbit, highly elliptical orbit or geostationary orbit," he wrote, referring to orbital paths that are above 2,000 km (1,250 miles) over the earth.

The article includes a previously undisclosed satellite image taken by DigitalGlobe Inc that shows a mobile missile launcher, or "transporter-erector-launcher" (TEL) at China's Xichang missile launch site. A TEL is used for mobile ground launches of ballistic missiles instead of a fixed pad.

Given the new imagery and the absence of a different rocket at the Xichang site that could have carried out the 2013 launch, Weeden said there was now "substantial evidence" that China was developing a second anti-satellite weapon in addition to the previously known system designated as SC-19 by U.S. agencies.

He said the new system may use one of China's new Kuaizhou rockets.

RISKS OF REMAINING SILENT

Weeden renewed his call for the United States to release more information about the Chinese weapons development program, arguing that more public dialogue was needed about efforts to develop and test anti-satellite weapons around the world.

"Remaining silent risks sending the message to China and other countries that developing and testing hit-to-kill ASAT capabilities is considered responsible behavior as long as it does not create long-lived orbital debris," Weeden said.

U.S. military officials have been increasingly vocal about China's development of anti-satellite weapons over the past year, but they have not been nearly as critical as they were after China destroyed a defunct weather satellite in orbit in 2007, creating more than 3,000 pieces of debris.

After the May 2013 Chinese launch, the U.S. government issued a single statement saying it appeared to be on a ballistic trajectory nearly to geostationary orbit, and that no objects associated with the launch remained in space."

Weeden said U.S. intelligence agencies remained reluctant to reveal any finding on China's weapons development efforts for fear of revealing "sources and methods" of intelligence-gathering, but said that policy could ultimately backfire.

"One wonders if the overbearing secrecy regarding intelligence about Chinese ASAT testing might end up negatively impacting U.S. policy efforts down the road, including efforts to develop norms of behavior in space," he wrote.

The secrecy, the Pentagon's focus on a "new near peer" adversary, a drive by U.S. arms makers to sell new equipment, and grandstanding by some U.S. lawmakers could ultimately drive the two countries toward confrontation, he said.

Weeden said U.S. officials might be worried that creation of new international norms would undermine Washington's own work on a mid-course missile defense system, which could inherently be used to destroy other countries' satellites.

The United States was the first country to develop anti-satellite weapons in the 1950s, but it currently has no known weapons dedicated to that mission.

Weeden noted, however, that Washington's use of a modified Standard Missile-3 to destroy a falling U.S. satellite that contained toxic chemicals had proven the United States had the ability to destroy a satellite in orbit if required.

He said China was likely to carry out additional tests of the new system, including possible intercept tests, which could be "extremely dangerous and damaging" for other countries that operate satellites.

Weeden also analyzed U.S. comments about debris from China's May 2013 launch reentering the atmosphere above the Indian Ocean, and said they were in line with U.S. claims that the Chinese launch reached a high point or apogee of 30,000 km (18,600 miles), rather than the 10,000 km (6,200 miles) that the Chinese had claimed.

The full article is available on the journal's website here.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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America may be getting safer, but gangs are expanding and becoming more violent, posing a growing threat across the country, according to a 2011 FBI report.

An estimated 1.4 million Americans belong to 33,000 gangs, and together they are responsible for 48% of violent crime in the country.

Following up on a 2012 article, we have profiled 12 of the gangs mentioned in the report and noted their recent activity.

The 18th Street gang is a huge transnational gang in Los Angeles.

One of the most well-known of the "Sureño" gangs in Southern California, the 18th Street Gang is a violent enterprise that was linked last year to a large methamphetamine ring.

The gang is one of the most rapidly expanding criminal groups in the country, with a reach that extends across 32 states, from Maryland to Hawaii.

18th Street gangsters have been linked to homicide, extortion, alien smuggling, drug smuggling, auto theft, and running massive document mills in New York City. These "mills" paper the streets with fraudulent government identification allowing anyone to gain fresh lines of credit, government benefits, and driver licenses.

Florencia 13 nearly turned Los Angeles into a war zone.

Florencia 13 works closely with the Mexican Mafia and is a rival of the 18th Street gang. Florencia 13 is part of a terrifying gang war scene in Los Angeles, and it also has influence in more rural states like Virginia and Iowa.

Gang members have been charged with offenses ranging from piracy to conspiracy to selling drugs to murder. In August, three dozen members of Florencia 13 were indicted for racketeering and drugs. At the time, the Los Angeles Times reported that the gang allegedly "controls swaths of Los Angeles County" and had outposts there for drug-dealing and illegal gambling.

Barrio Azteca's violence comes straight from the Mexican cartels.

Originally based out of El Paso, Texas, Los Aztecas are a powerful paramilitary force on both sides of the Mexican border. Many of the gang's members are recruited from Texas prisons, with some of the organization's most notorious activity taking place inside prison walls.

Los Aztecas work with the Juarez and Los Zetas cartels running drugs and smuggling illegal aliens; gang members also allegedly murdered consulate officials. The gang has a military-like structure that has helped keep rigid order.

In March 2011, 35 members of the gang were charged with a variety of crimes, including the murder of a U.S. Consulate employee and several family members.

That trial was still underway in February 2014.

In the not-too-distant future, the U.S. military may turn more combat roles over to robotic soldiers, NPR reports.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started robotics trials last December with the ultimate goal of creating robots that can perform advanced functions such as driving cars, manipulating everyday objects, and having a free range of motion.

While the robots are being developed with the altruistic goal of providing disaster relief, prominent roboticists are concerned that advances in robotics sponsored by DARPA can be shifted to military use.

Roboticist Illah Nourbakhsh warned NPR:

If researchers set out to build a robot that can drive a regular car, climb a ladder and operate a jack hammer, "That means that that robot can manipulate an AK-47. That means that robot can manipulate the controls of all the conventional military machines as well," he says.

The overall concern with the gradual shift towards replacing soldiers with autonomous robots, which Nourbakhsh believes is a likely outcome, is who will be held accountable for the robots' actions.

There is also a very real concern that if wars are waged by robots, humans may become more comfortable with the thought of killing.

Former U.S. commander General Stanley McChrystal told BBC's Today Program, "There’s a danger that something that feels easy to do and without risk to yourself, almost antiseptic to the person shooting, doesn’t feel that way at the point of impact."

SEE ALSO: Budget Constraints Lead To Debate Over Robots Fighting In Battle

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A mother who was checking in on her son via Facebook may have saved the teen's life when she saw comments from posters threatening to shoot him and decided to intervene, CBS affiliate KUTV reported Monday.

The commenters said they would be at a specific place waiting to kill the teenager with a gun.

The mother called her son's school, West High School in Utah, to share the comments with administrators.

They agreed that the threats were not a joke. 

"They were threatening his life on Facebook. Pretty credible threats. And there were also pictures on Instagram involving a weapon," detective Greg Wilking told KUTV.

KUTV reports:

Police arrested two teenagers on Friday afternoon, using the information boys had posted on social media to find them.

The boys were picked up down the street from West High School — right where they had said they would be, police said. In the suspects' car, police said they found a handgun, a loaded magazine, marijuana, and a large bong.

"Mom obviously was monitoring social media and did the right thing by calling us," Wilking said. "She saw something on there that concerned her and took it seriously, and that's what parents need to be doing. Paying attention to the social media that their children are involved with."

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Students at a Los Angeles high school are fighting to get their science teacher back after he was suspended in February for "supervising the building, research and development of imitation weapons," the Los Angeles Times reports.

The students in Greg Schiller's class at the Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts were creating projects for a science fair. One student created an air cannon that can propel small objects and another submitted an electromagnetic coil gun that can be used in roller coasters and spaceships, according to CBS Los Angeles.

The coil "gun" was later confiscated.

These projects aren't uncommon for science fairs — the LA Times points out that President Barack Obama tested a student's similar, but more powerful, air-pressure device at a White House science fair in 2012.

But an employee at the school reported the air cannon because she thought it looked like a weapon. After the report Schiller was placed on paid leave, according to the LA Times. His biology and psychology students, though, are left without his help in preparing for their advanced placement tests.

The Los Angeles Unified School District released this statement to CBS:

There is an ongoing investigation, therefore, we cannot comment. It is the practice of the Los Angeles Unified School District to reassign an employee to a non-classroom setting when there are allegations related to student safety.

Students and parents are protesting Schiller's suspension. They've created a Facebook group and a Change.org petition to support him and organized that took place on campus Thursday.

With the increasing prevalence of mass shootings in America, educators seem to be especially on-edge and on the look-out for any signs that a student could be dangerous.

Last year, a Baltimore-area second-grader was suspended for chewing a Pop-Tart into a shape that vaguely resembled a gun and saying "bang bang."

SEE ALSO: Fun Science Fair Projects You Can Do In One Night

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Camp Stanley, a U.S. Army weapons depot north of San Antonio, is the probable location of a secret CIA weapons cache, Charlie Savage of The New York Times reports.

Until now, nobody has known the exact location of the cache known only as Midwest Depot, which the CIA has used to collect and distribute untraceable CIA weapons to conflicts throughout the world, including several of the agency's most famous operations like Bay of Pigs.

However, retired CIA analyst Allen Thomson recently assembled a series of clues that point strongly to Camp Stanley as the location of the Midwest Depot.

For example, a 1986 memo by Col. Oliver North mentions how the CIA trucked missiles "to Midwest Depot, Texas" for preparation before having them flown out of Kelly Air Force Base during Iran Contra. 

More recently, the Times reported, the Army ordered 2 million rounds of ammunition that could be used for AK-47s, rifles that U.S. soldiers do not use. The rounds were due to be delivered to Camp Stanley. 

Thomson told The Times the history of the Midwest Depot should be scrutinized to ensure accountability for how the weapons are used once they're shipped overseas.

"Such weapons are pretty durable and, after the cause du jour passed, where did they go?" Thomson said. "To be a little dramatic about it, how many of those AK-47s and RPG-7s we see Islamists waving around today passed through the Midwest Depot on their way to freedom fighters in past decades?"

Thompson's full analysis of the Midwest Depot can be found here.

SEE ALSO: Syrian rebels are being armed with US-made anti-tank missiles

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Alongside a global reputation for peacemaking and generous foreign aid, Sweden has become a major world supplier of weapons counting a number of regimes criticized for human rights abuses among its customers.

Ranked the third largest arms exporter per capita after Israel and Russia, Sweden's booming industry has stirred up ethical concerns among Swedes about some countries it is doing business with.

In a hangar in the heart of Sweden's military-industrial complex, Saab technicians are building an assembly line for the next generation of Gripen fighters -- at least 60 destined for the Swedish airforce -- equipped with state-of-the-art warfare systems and larger weapons bays.

The Gripen E, designed to stand up to Russia's best warplanes, boasts a unique networking system allowing planes to communicate and divide up tasks such as detecting, electronic jamming and firing, Saab operations chief Lars Ydreskog told AFP during a recent visit to the plant in Linkoeping.

"It was this tactical way of working that was noticed by Brazil and Switzerland," he said, referring to the recent selection of Saab's fighter jet over stiff French and US competition -- even though Swiss voters rejected the deal in last weekend's referendum.

Saab and other Sweden-based firms including BAE Systems and Bofors have been hugely successful in the 2000s, last year alone selling weapons and defence material to 55 countries to the tune of $1.8 billion (1.3 billion euros).

But critics charge that Sweden has become more inclined to arm regimes accused of human rights abuses, including Saudi Arabia, UAE and Pakistan, as demand from Western nations has declined since the Cold War ended.

Arming dictators

"Swedes see themselves as very ethical and restrictive when it comes to giving human rights violators or dictators things that help them stay in power. But the reality is that has happened," said Siemon Wezeman, an arms expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

"In the last decade or so they've been more open to it, because those are the markets," he added.

"In the past they wouldn't have done business with Saudi Arabia due to human rights concerns -- it's obviously a place that rings all kinds of alarm bells -- but that has changed... They've sold them Eriye (radar tracking systems) and anti-tank missiles and marketed other weapons there."

Other sales have been clandestine.

In 2012, Swedish public radio revealed that the national defence research agency has provided Saudi Arabia with covert technical support for a missile factory, leading to the resignation of a defence minister and the launch of an inquiry into new ethical criteria for weapons sales.

One of the most controversial Swedish exports, the Saab-made Carl Gustav rocket launcher -- used by US armed forces and other armies around the world -- has reportedly fallen into the hands of groups that Sweden would not normally trade with, including Myanmar's military and al-Shebab Islamists in Somalia.

Peace activist Martin Smedjeback said Sweden's original reason for developing a large weapons industry -- the desire to be self sufficient and independent -- has vanished, along with the country's policy of neutrality as it develops closer ties to NATO.

"Politicians raise the issue of jobs and technology because there are all these other arguments that they cannot use, like 'it's macho and I like macho things'," said Martin Smedjeback.

"And they also can't say that the weapons industry is powerful and they have influence over the decisions of politicians."

Jobs, economy

Several leading defence analysts argue that Sweden could buy fighter jets and other defence material more cheaply and efficiently abroad but that commercial interests stand in the way.

"The Swedish government, like many others, knows that advanced defence industry technology will spill over to other areas," said Gunnar Hult, deputy head of military studies at the National Defence College.

"And the jobs issue is quite big. People care more about local jobs than about what we do in Saudi," he added.

Some 30,000 people are employed in the Swedish defence industry, many of them in towns where arms factories are the largest private sector employer.

Hult believes at times Swedish foreign policy becomes entwined with commercial arms export interests, citing the example of Sweden's participation in enforcing a NATO no-fly zone over Libya in 2011.

"Our participation in the Libya campaign was quite beneficial to the Gripen. This is something no politician would ever admit, but it's true. People saw it participating in air campaigns. It's good for business."

Allan Widman, a prominent member of the governing centre-right coalition, said that successive governments have had good reason to focus state support on two particular parts of the industry: jet fighters and submarines.

"I think we've had this strategic idea in Sweden that these two weapons represent our national security interests," he told AFP.

"I think there's a view among politicians in Sweden that defence technology and industry represents (one)... of the most essential parts of the Swedish economy."

But many defence analysts and peace activists reject that view, arguing that weapons represent just one percent of total Swedish exports and that government support is more a question of national pride -- particularly when it comes to selling Saab fighter jets.

"Saab is seen as one of the crown jewels of Sweden," said Wezeman at SIPRI.

"There is a strong feeling of pride and nationalism -- that this is a good Swedish product -- they're proud of it and that plays a major role."

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Russia plans to sign a contract with Iran this year to build two more nuclear reactors at its Bushehr power plant as part of a broader deal for up to eight reactors in the Islamic state, a source close to the negotiations told Reuters on Thursday.

It was not immediately clear how this might affect six global powers' talks with Iran addressing disputed aspects of its nuclear program.

Iran has resisted demands for cuts in its uranium enrichment capacity, pointing to plans for a future network of nuclear power stations.

Western powers want any lasting agreement with Iran to put to rest suspicions that it could develop nuclear weapons-making ability through enrichment. Iran denies any such intent.

The talks ended last week with little progress; they are to resume in Vienna in June.

Russia, one of the six powers, built Iran's only operating nuclear power reactor, at Bushehr.

"Russia and Iran may sign an intergovernmental agreement this year on building from four to eight nuclear reactors, and, under the deal, the contract for the construction of the first two reactors as additions to Bushehr," the source said.

Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said earlier it was in talks with Iran on the potential construction of more reactors there but revealed no details. Rosatom officials could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.

Longstanding Western fears that the Bushehr project could yield spent fuel of use in nuclear weapons - something it denies it is seeking to do - receded after Iran promised to send the material back to Russia.

Moscow voted for four rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran over its contested nuclear activity but has sharply criticized additional measures imposed by the United States and European Union, calling them a hindrance to diplomacy in search of a permanent settlement with Tehran.

(Reporting by Svetlana Burmistrova; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Steve Gutterman, editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Sweden and Switzerland have a global reputation for being peace-loving countries. 

So it seems counterintuitive that they are also the third and fifth biggest arms suppliers per capita in the world, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the World Bank.

Israel ranks No. 1, followed by Russia. Belarus is in fourth place.

1. Israel, $97.71 per capita 

2. Russia, $57.72 per capita

3. Sweden, $53.05 per capita

4. Belarus, $35.71 per capita

5. Switzerland, $25.63 per capita

Sweden and Switzerland have long maintained neutral positions in international conflicts, preferring instead to offer assistance through peacekeeping missions and foreign aid.  

Yet they appear to have no qualms sending their military equipment to regimes accused of human rights abuses.

In 2013, their customers included Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and China.

The equipment ranged from anti-aircraft guns and naval weapons to planes. 

"Swedes see themselves as very ethical and restrictive when it comes to giving human rights violators or dictators things that help them stay in power. But the reality is that has happened," Siemon Wezeman, an arms expert at SIPRI, told AFP.

"In the last decade or so they've been more open to it, because those are the markets.

"In the past they wouldn't have done business with Saudi Arabia due to human rights concerns — it's obviously a place that rings all kinds of alarm bells — but that has changed ... They've sold them Eriye (radar tracking systems) and anti-tank missiles and marketed other weapons there."

And even if Switzerland and Sweden tried to take precautions to ensure their weapons were not used against civilians, in reality there’s very little they can do to stop that from happening.

"It's illusive to believe that Swiss authorities are able to control whether exported Swiss weapons and ammunition are used for human rights abuses," Stefan Dietiker, secretary general of pacifist Group for Switzerland without an Army, told the Inter Press Service.

"Once they've left our country, they're gone, no matter how many clauses the purchasers sign and how many promises they make."

The total value of military equipment exported by Sweden and Switzerland last year was dwarfed by that of Russia, the United States and China, which were the top three arms exporters, according to SIPRI.

But they still ranked among the top 20 suppliers. Here's the full list.

1. Russia, $8.28 billion

2. United Sates, $6.15 billion

3. China, $1.84 billion

4. France, $1.49 billion

5. Britain, $1.39 billion

6. Germany, $972 million

7. Italy, $807 million 

8. Israel, $773 million

9. Spain, $605 million

10. Ukraine, $589 million

11. Sweden, $505 million

12. Belarus, $338 million

13. South Korea, $307 million

14. Netherlands, $302 million

15. Switzerland, $205 million

16. Canada, $199 million

17. Poland, $131 million

18. Romania $108 million

19. Finland, $94 million

20. Turkey, $82 million

SEE ALSO: This Chart Shows How The Rest Of The World Doesn't Even Come Close To US Military Spending

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History is full of examples of human ingenuity run amok. Weapons design is no exception.

A group of Quora users sought to answer the question "What are some historical weapons that most people have never heard of?" The answers provide an amazing insight into the history of war, and offer examples of some of the most ingenious — yet impractical — weaponry ever created. 

We've highlighted some of the most interesting below. 

1. The Bat Bomb

Developed by the U.S. for use against Japan during World War II, the bat bomb was literally that. Each bomb would contain 40 hibernating bats, each of which would be strapped with a small napalm bomb and a timer.

The bombs could deploy their own parachutes, giving the bats time to fly out and look for places to roost. They would then explode, potentially burning down whatever structure they had chosen as their new home.

2. Anti-Tank Dogs 

The Nazi betrayal of the Soviets during World War II caught the Russians completely off guard. In a desperate attempt at staving off the Nazi advance into their territory, the Soviets strapped dogs with explosives and trained them to run under German tanks.

Soviet propoganda claims that around 300 German tanks were destroyed in this manner. The anti-tank dog program continued until 1996. 

3. Submarine Aircraft Carriers

At the height of World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy commissioned a series of Sen Toku I-400 class submarines. These subs were large enough to carry three Aichi M6A Seiran aircraft underwater, surface, launch the planes, and then dive again. The submarines were also equipped with torpedoes.

A total of three of them were completed.

4. Nuclear Artillery 

Conventional nuclear weapons are capable of destroying entire cities, but during the Cold War, the idea of 'tactical' nuclear weapons emerged. These smaller nukes were limited-yield weapons that would be launched from the ground at targets on the battlefield. Nuclear artillery was delivered with shells and short-range rockets. 

5. The Soviet Ekranoplane

The 300-foot-long Lun-class Ekranoplane flew a mere four meters above the ground or water through an effect generated by its wings. It was intended to be a revolutionary transport vessel, bigger than any plane and faster than any ship. It was also capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

But it never entered into wide production and was never used in action. 

6. Kaiten Torpedoes

Kaiten torpedoes were built by the Imperial Japanese Navy and were in service between 1944 and 1945. These torpedoes were manned and were a variant of the suicide weapons that Japan resorted to towards the end of the war. The torpedoes were launched from submarines and the pilots of the torpedoes could steer the weapons as necessary to inflict maximum damage against an enemy. 

7. Pigeon-Guided Missiles

Pigeon-guided missiles were developed by noted behaviorist B.F. Skinner during Project Pigeon. Although the project was ultimately cancelled because of the impracticality of the weapons, the idea of pigeon-guided missiles showed promise.

The missile had an array of lenses at the front that projected an image of the target to an interior screen. The pigeons were conditioned to peck at the target on the screen. The pigeon's pecks corrected the missile's flight-path. 

SEE ALSO: The 11 most powerful militaries in the world

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Law enforcement in Arizona these days resembles a military. At least, that's what its weapons collection would imply.

A new ACLU report on the militarization of America's police makes it clear Arizona's law enforcement is putting together quite the weapons collection through the Department of Defense's 1033 program, which transfers military-grade weapons to local cops.

Here is the list of Arizona's military gear outlined in the ACLU report:

• 32 bomb suits
• 704 units of night vision equipment, such as goggles
• 1034 guns, 712 of which are rifles
• 42 forced entry tools, such as battering rams
• 830 units of surveillance and reconnaissance equipment
• 13,409 personal protective equipment and/or uniforms
• 120 utility trucks
• 64 armored vehicles
• 4 GPS devices
• 17 helicopters
• 21,211 other types of military equipment

One of the largest collections of military-grade gear belongs to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which has 120 assault rifles, five armored vehicles, and 10 helicopters, according to the ACLU report. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which has seen its fair share of controversy for the racial profiling of Hispanics, even has a .50 caliber machine gun that can blast through buildings, according to the ACLU. 

In addition, a two-year investigation by the Arizona Republic revealed that another Arizona Sheriff's Office, Pinal County, gave millions of dollars' worth of military equipment to non-law enforcement agencies and planned to auction off some of its arsenal to raise revenue for itself.

Most of the military equipment in Arizona was ostensibly sent there to protect the border, but the ACLU says the state's cops have more heavy-duty equipment than they need.

"The bottom line is that Arizona law enforcement agencies at and well beyond the actual border have become unnecessarily and dangerously militarized," the ACLU report said. "Arizona law enforcement, designed to serve and protect communities, is instead equipped to wage a war."

SEE ALSO: Frightening ACLU Report Shows How Militarized America's Cops Really Are

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With the ISIS forces entering the outer region of Baghdad, the move towards Iraq’s capital lead to a lot of equipment being captured by those forces. This new and advanced equipment will likely play an important role in future battles.

It is important to look at some of the tanks and artillery that might become key players on the battlefield in various conflicts around the world.

Previously, limited help was given to Syrian rebels despite many requests for ammunition and weapons. Small arms and anti-tank rockets may only have been highlighted with the occasional Stinger anti-aircraft missile, or more likely the updated SA-7/SA-14 style Russian Stingers.

ISIS has captured many towns and the city of Mosul in Iraq and likely obtained many combat systems used by U.S. forces that were given and sold to the Iraqi army since the U.S. pulled out. Combat systems like the M1 Abrams and Humvees may already be in the hands of ISIS troops. Beyond the ground equipment, Iraq recently obtained some Apache attack helicopters with 500 Hellfire guided anti-tank missiles. While they might not be in the ISIS territories, some of this equipment might find its way into Syria and add to the conflict in both Syria and Iraq.

It is unknown if they have obtained M1 Abrams tanks or how many might have been taken or lost, but for the first time ISIS and the rebels in Syria have some advanced equipment to use against the Syrian Army and their opponents in Iraq.

Assad’s army had been resupplied by Russia and Iran, but while older equipment was lost or ran out of ammunition, new equipment that has come from Russia is often modern, deadly and made for the battlefield of 2014. The main tank that has been seen all over YouTube is the T-72 main battle tank used by the Syrian Army. Many videos can be seen online being hit several times in rebel videos, sometimes succumbing to RPG fire but often surviving such attacks.

Some of the most deadly equipment sent to Syria may be advanced anti-aircraft systems, replacing their aging ZSU-23-4 anti-aircraft artillery systems with missile systems, like the SA-11 BUK-M1 medium range SAM or the SA-15 TOR-M1 short range SAM system.

BM-21 multiple rocket systems and the 2S4 Tulypan, the biggest caliber mortar system currently in operation, are weapons that have been supplied to Syria and are some of the most destructive systems in operation against civilian populations.

It is unclear if the TOR-M1 is present or how the rockets and 2S4 mortars are being used, but with the ballistic missiles like the FROG-7 system being a strong candidate for the system that launched chemical weapons, modern version of these missiles may have found their way into the conflict.

According to NATO and local Ukrainian sources, last week there was great concern that Russian tanks have passed over the border into Ukraine along with the BM-21 rocket systems. These tanks were considered to be inactive, but there have been claims that Russian T-64 tanks are now operating in Ukraine.

The T-64 tank was one of the first truly modern tanks, never being exported outside of the USSR. Initially it was kept secret due to the technological advancement of the T-64, serving only within Soviet borders. Some 1,500 T-64s serve in a converted format in the Ukrainian army; until last week it was assumed Russia has none in operation and all were scrapped in 2013. Some claims suggest that these tanks are in Ukraine as they resemble Ukrainian T-64s. 

In either case, the T-64s have passed their time in the front line of many modern armies and can be confidently eliminated by modern weapons systems. This does not quell concerns by Ukraine and NATO, however, as any Russian tank, even one that has seen better days, is still a threat whether it is driven by a Russian soldier or Ukrainian separatist.

It is hard to predict what military challenges will be faced with an increasingly assertive Russia and various armies in the Middle East that will keep fighting without fail, but with regional powers in both parts of the world coming in direct conflict, it will surely involve many modern combat systems.

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Improvised explosive devices, mines, and other kinds of roadside bombs are a major threat to U.S. troops serving overseas. That may be about to change, and not just because we’re pulling out of Afghanistan.

U.S. defense contractor Oshkosh Defense already keeps soldiers away from harm with the M-ATV, an armored vehicle specially designed to resist blasts from IEDs and mines. Even better, it detects explosives using special ground penetrating radar and a 12-wheeled mineroller which attaches to the front of the M-ATV.

But that’s not quite good enough: Oshkosh wants to move soldiers even further from the danger zone by putting them in another vehicle entirely and making the minesweeping truck drive itself.

Minesweeping is a “very dangerous job where unmanned ground vehicle technology could have a big payoff in saving lives,” says John Beck, head engineer for Oshkosh’s Unmanned Systems group.

Self-Driving Warriors 

The company has spent a decade developing an autonomous driving technology called TerraMax, which can be applied to vehicles already on the road. You may recognize it from Top Gear, where it was installed on Oshkosh’s six-wheeled cargo truck, the MTVR MK25A1. TerraMax came to life in 2004 as a competitor in the DARPA Grand Challenge, a 150-mile race across the California desert designed to spur development of autonomous vehicles. It did well in the great robot race and has since evolved into a more advanced and versatile platform.

It’s now equipped with radar and LIDAR, which uses lasers to detect nearby objects, along with a drive-by-wire system that electronically controls engine speed, transmission, braking, and steering. The system does more than steer and hit the throttle and brakes. It can intelligently control a central tire inflation system and driveline locks to navigate deep sand or mud, all without any input from the operator.

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TerraMax works pretty much like the self-driving cars Google and others are developing for civilian use, adapted for use in much tougher conditions.

Google can carefully map roads before its vehicle ever tackles them on its own. The big automakers can make their vehicles recognize lane markings and speed limit signs. Oshkosh doesn’t have those advantages.

So it made TerraMax capable of combining overhead imagery from satellites and planes with standard military maps generated through geographic information systems. That lets where soldiers define roads and other obstacles, much like with a commercial GPS system.

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Once given a defined course, either through waypoints along a route or with just a final destination, the vehicles can navigate themselves. Operators can set things like vehicle speed and following distance. They have access to a live map of the entire convoy and receive diagnostic reports on vehicles.

These aren’t entirely autonomous vehicles, at least not yet. If they reach an impasse of some kind, they can alert an operator farther back in the convoy and ask what to do. One operator can monitor up to five vehicles, Oshkosh says, a number chosen through warfighter feedback. Even with that limit, TerraMax achieves two objectives. It allows the military to move more cargo with fewer personnel. And it makes a convoy look like it’s carrying more personnel than it really is, which could discourage an enemy from attacking.

Oshkosh’s unmanned vehicle technology is still in testing, but the company has spent the last three years working with the Marine Corp Warfighting Lab and the Office of Naval Research to get it ready for the battlefield. It’s not the only military-grade autonomous technology in development. Lockheed Martin is working on something it calls the Autonomous Mobility Appliqué System, which also allows for autonomous or semi-autonomous operation in a convoy.

Autonomous Minesweeping

TerraMax can be applied to just about anything that drives, though modern vehicles work better because they have more computers to work with. To teach a vehicle to search for roadside bombs instead of simply drive along, Oshkosh just has to change the software.

The defense contractor has developed a new “driver profile” with behaviors unique to minesweeping, which it announced earlier this month. The company has attached TerraMax to its M-ATV armored vehicle platform and reprogrammed it to drive at the front of a convoy, searching for IEDs and land mines rather than simply driving a route. A convoy could have one minesweeper sweeping the left side of the road and another searching the right, keeping everyone else safely behind. “The technology is the same but we’re looking at very different vehicle behaviors,“ head engineer Beck says.

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Because TerraMax-equipped vehicles can still be driven by humans, Oshkosh added safety features usually found in luxury sedans, including electronic stability control, forward collision warning, adaptive cruise control and other advanced driver assist tech.

Though allied forces are drawing down their presence in Afghanistan, Oshkosh’s unmanned ground vehicles will likely be used in conflicts around the world in the years to come. Company representatives gave demonstrations of the technology at Eurosatory 2014, a defense industry trade show, and say they received positive feedback from other nations as well.

Beck says the technology could be applied to tracked and other types of combat vehicles in the future, and be used in civilian settings, like autonomous snow clearing at airports. For now, though, Oshkosh is focusing on military application where it can save lives. That’s where all the early-adopter money is, after all.

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The F-35 is the most expensive weapons program in the history of the Pentagon, with a price tag of $396 billion so far and climbing.

This would be a tremendous expense even for a flawless plane, but endless cost overruns and mechanical problems show it is anything but.

The fiscal year 2015 defense appropriations bill is moving through the Senate this week, and it continues funding and procurement of the chronically troubled program, despite mounting criticism of its spiraling costs and mediocre performance.

It is far from the only controversial program, even if it is by far the biggest.

Here’s a look at some of the appropriations from Tuesday’s markup that are raising questions, yet still cost less than the F-35:

1. Green Machines 

The military, as might be expected, burns a lot of fuel, spending over $20 billion a year on various hydrocarbons. Because of bulk purchasing, it typically spends $2.50 to $3.00 per gallon, not a bad deal compared to what your average driver has to pay. But the Navy and Air Forces biofuels program makes that gas bill seem tame in comparison. The Navy paid $26 a gallon for what is essentially distilled algae, while the Air Force’s green jet fuel is even more expensive at $56. The Navy plans to generate half its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has argued that biofuels are important to national security because threats of foreign instability could cause oil shocks and price spikes. He compared the program to the switch from coal to oil in the 1890s, even though it was very expensive at first. Considering North America is rapidly becoming an energy powerhouse, shocks that would drive costs about $56 a gallon, or even $26, seems very unlikely for the foreseeable future.

2. Iron Dome On The US Dime 

As Palestine and Israel commence yet another round of their bi-annual mutual bombardments, a stand-out star of the conflict has been the Iron Dome anti-missile system, which has been shooting down Palestinian rockets with a high degree of success, dramatically limiting rocket impacts in heavily populated areas in Israel.

With the interceptors at over $50,000 a pop, used against Katyusha-style rockets that typically cost $5 to $10 dollars, this protection does not come cheap. But Israel only picks up part of the tab, because the United States plans to spend $351 million next year on the program as part of the $626 million we give Israel for missile defense. That is over $600 per Israeli citizen.

Israel has long been a traditional ally facing intractable instability, but it is also a highly industrialized, wealthy country with military spending per capita second in the world behind the United States. With chronic deficits and budget cuts at home, many are asking that Israel defend its own borders when it clearly has the means.

3. The Black Budget 

Reading the defense appropriations bill, you will come across many line items simply labeled “classified,” or have designations that are vague at best. Much of what the Pentagon does is secret for security reasons, but the scale of this spending is huge. The proposed budget allocates $58.7 billion dollars for classified programs, ranging from Special Forces operations to a rumored new bomber.

Secret weapons systems and covert operations are nothing new for the military. But this number accounts for more than 10% of the baseline budget, and is by definition not subject to public scrutiny. Even the documents released by Edward Snowden, which included files on the Pentagon’s classified “black budget” programs, often raised more questions than they answered.

4. Tobacco Discounts 

As anyone who ever deployed knows, Big Tobacco has no better friend than the U.S. military. Thirty-two percent of military personnel smoke, compared to 18% of the civilian population. This number doesn’t even include everyone who dips or chews tobacco.

The military used to issue cigarettes with K rations as late as 1975. Now, on post, tobacco is typically sold at a 5% discount compared to the prevailing prices in the area, though in some stores, the discount can be as high as 20%.

This discount may or may not be on the chopping block. The Navy’s plan to drop tobacco from its stores drew criticism from some lawmakers. “Having spent time around Marines and sailors through multiple deployments, I believe there are far more immediate priorities for the Navy and the Marine Corps, all of which require your leadership and attention,” Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California told Mabus. Tobacco use results in $1.6 billion in health care costs a year, according to the DoD.

5. Fighting Rhinoceros Beetles

Included in the defense spending bill is a provision requiring Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to come up with a plan to eradicate the coconut rhinoceros beetle, an invasive species that has spread to Hawaii.

Democratic Rep. Colleen Hanabusa blames the DoD for the problem. “The coconut rhinoceros beetle is an invasive species that can cause millions of dollars of damage to property. The beetle was likely introduced to Guam via military shipments from Indonesia and the beetle has been introduced to Hawaii through military shipments from Guam,” according to her statement on the bill.

For an organization with a global mission overseeing everything from aircraft carriers to K-12 schools, saddling it with wildlife management is the sort of pork-barrel provisions defense appropriations are already notorious for.

Stephen Carlson served two tours in Afghanistan as an infantryman with the 10th Mountain Division. He lives in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter.

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Military experts think that a Buk missile — an easy-to-use type of anti-aircraft weapon — is the most likely culprit in the destruction of a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet that's thought to have been shot down over eastern Ukraine.

These missile launchers are specially created for hitting high-altitude aircraft, and can fire at targets of up to 80,000 feet.

But unless linked to other weapons or an air traffic control system, they are almost incapable of telling the difference between military and civilian aircraft. The Buk is mobile, easy to use, and capable of hitting aircraft at all but the most outlandish altitudes. Yet as the MH17 disaster proves, that comes with a huge potential drawback, especially when the weapon is in the hands of people incapable of using it responsibly.

Pro-Russian separatists have apparently admitted that they have Buk missiles. These weapons reach far higher altitudes than the shoulder-fired rocket launchers that pro-Russian separatists have been using to destroy Ukrainian aircraft during the past week, high enough that they could reach the over 30,000-feet altitude at which the airliner was flying.

The missiles are straightforward to operate and work as stand-alone weapons — they can function outside of a sophisticated networked air defense system.

While that's useful in some respects it also makes it unnervingly easy to make a mistake, particularly for guerrilla or non-conventional fighters who are capable of firing the easy-to-use missiles, but don't have the training needed to distinguish between civilian and military aircraft by sight.

As one expert explained to Technology Review, the Buk's ease of usability is also what makes the weapon so prone to tragic and costly errors like the MH17 crash.

The system cannot tell the difference between civilian and military-type aircraft based on their transponder signatures alone. In order to tell the difference between targets, it would need to be interfaced with other weapons systems that can work off of additional information.

Being a Soviet design, the user interface is fairly simple, says Michael Pietrucha, a former F-4G and F-15E electronic warfare officer and expert on air defenses. Pietrucha says he trained with German forces operating a similar Russian-built system during the 1990s.

Pietrucha says that the Buk variant operated by the rebels might have been especially unable to distinguish between civilian and military air traffic because of a quirk related to aircraft transponders. The transponder is a device that broadcasts an aircraft’s identity when a radar "interrogates" it for information.

Military and civilian aircraft often use the same transponder modes and therefore that signal is not used as a "discriminator" for a military targeting system, Pietrucha says. The system has to be tied into the national air traffic control system to use that information effectively.

So the Buk can pick up the signal of an aircraft. But if it's operating in standalone mode, it can't tell whether that aircraft is a military target, or a jetliner with nearly 300 people onboard.

As Thomas Gibbons-Neff reported in the Washington Post, the Buk can be interfaced with other systems, but U.S. intelligence sources believe the Buk was the only one anti-aircraft system operating in the area of the crash at the time the plane was shot down.

The transponder explanation seems likeliest here: Whatever unit shot down MH17 simply couldn't see if it was a civilian or military aircraft — they could just see it was an aircraft in their airspace — because it wasn't hooked up to a system that would have made such recognition possible.

On some models of the weapon, radar systems are rudimentary at best. With untrained irregular soldiers at the helm, even a linked system could have made a terrible mistake. To the right is a GIF of a Buk M2 surface-to-air system in action. The radar and firing interface are relatively simple and user-friendly.

"This definitely could have been an error," Steve Zaloga, an expert on missile systems at the Teal Group, told Technology Review.

SEE ALSO: Civilian planes have been shot down with alarming frequency in the former Soviet Union

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Afghanistan is facing a serious problem of accountability for the hundreds of thousands of weapons and small arms that the U.S. has provided, according to a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report. 

As of November 13, 2013, the Department of Defense had supplied Afghanistan with 747,000 weapons including over 465,000 small arms, which are defined as rifles, pistols, machine guns, grenade launchers, and shotguns.

A number of these weapons have gone missing, or have become unaccounted for, due to serious errors in record keeping on both the American and Afghan side. 

All weapons supplied to Afghanistan are recorded in two systems. The first system, the Security Cooperation Information Portal (SCIP), records weapons during procurement. The second system, the operational verification of reliable logistics oversight database (OVERLORD), records the weapons once they arrive at national weapons depots in Afghanistan. 

Neither SCIP nor OVERLORD are linked to each other, and both face significant user input error on both the U.S. and Afghan sides. 

SIGAR found that OVERLORD was missing data on the shipment dates of 50,304 weapons, 87% of all entries in the data base did not contain a transfer date, and that 43% of weapons registered in OVERLORD were missing information or contained duplicate serial numbers. 

Likewise, SCIP contained 59,938 weapons that were missing shipping and receiving dates. SCIP also contained 22,804 serial numbers that were repeated two or three times, causing significant confusion as to a weapon's actual location and documentation. 

Even more concerning, the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) said it was unable to track the distribution of small arms after they had been transferred to Afghan custody. The Afghan National Police have no standardized or automated system to account for weapons, instead relying on hard copies or single excel sheets.

The Afghan National Army (ANA) uses a database system called Core IMS, but the system features incomplete and unreliable information. The ANA and CSTC-A only began inputing weapon serial numbers in 2007, and the system was never designed for weapons.

Further, the ANSF as a whole are hindered by the lack of basic education in the ranks and a high turnover rate. 

The ANSF currently has significantly more weapons than is necessary. In the most shocking example, the Afghan National Army has 83,184 more AK-47s than are necessary since the army transitioned to using only NATO standard weapons. There has been no provision put in place for the return or destruction of the extra weaponry. 

This issue becomes more severe as the ANSF is set to lose a number of soldiers in the years to come. The number of soldiers in the force is set to be reduced from 352,000 to 228,500 personnel by 2017. 

"Given the Afghan government's limited ability to account for or properly dispose of these weapons," the report states, "there is a real potential for these weapons to fall into the hands of insurgents." 

The U.S. military is in the process of drawing down its presence in Afghanistan. Currently, there are less than 34,000 U.S. troops in the country from a high of 101,000 soldiers in June 2011. 

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This infographic designed by Maximilian Bode and posted on fastcodesign.com illustrates the terrifying power of today's nuclear bombs. Each red block represents a ton of TNT.

It breaks down the difference between bombs of the past, such as the Little Boy dropped at Hiroshima, and ones more recently detonated by the U.S., like the Castle Bravo.

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The United States may be the land of the gun, but it may be have lost its place as the world’s top weapons source. Since 2003, the United States has led the world in arms exports, shipping more than $7 billion a year in weapons on average, according to data collected by the Stockholm International Peace Research Association.

But in 2013, the most recent release of data, Russian weapons exports surpassed the U.S. by more than $2 billion, marking a a 35 percent increase in Russian arms sales. While weapons manufacturers in the U.S. saw an average decline of more than 6 percent, Russian companies in the top 100 defense companies as ranked by SIPRI had, on average, the biggest gain in revenue.

The change in status quo has been partially fueled by a series of aggressive arms races. Countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle-East have increased defense spending and rapidly begun building up their military capabilities. Military budgets ballooned in every region, according to SIPRI, while nations in North America, Western and Central Europe, including the United States, have scaled back.

U.S. companies still occupy a majority of the world’s top defense companies. No other nation even comes close.

However, in terms of growth, U.S. companies slid from an average revenue growth of almost 5 percent in 2012 to an average decline this year. With decreases in military spending, many have embraced diversified portfolios, investing in energy, transportation and manufacturing, as Defense News reports. But Russian companies have remained focused on defense technology and seen revenues climb more than any other country.

While Russian weapons have faced issues with quality in the past, high costs keep many countries away from U.S. goods, especially when it comes to high-tech military hardware like fighter jets. In 2013, Richard Aboulafia, the vice-president of analysis at the Teal Group, told a conference of aviation industry experts, that America had essentially priced itself out of the export market, according to National Defense Magazine.

Examining some of the latest sales, it's not hard to see why. The U.S. finalized a deal with Saudia Arabia in 2011 to sell 84 F-15SA jets, upgrade 70 existing F-15's and provide munitions and technical support. That breaks down to $190 million for each jet. In Russia's latest deal with India, 42 SU-30MKI Flanker fighters were sold for $38 million a piece. Even without the extras, that's a 400 percent difference. 

Most recently, Pakistan announced a plan last month to switch from U.S. Cobra helicopters to cheaper Russian-made Mi-35s.

As military expert, Alexander Goltz, told the Christian Science Monitor last month, it doesn't make sense for developing nations, which account for the majority of the world's weapons sales, to spring for expensive, high-tech American equipment when most of their enemies are limited to RPG's and assault rifles.

And in recent years, Russia has stepped up quality, even giving some experts a reason to believe that some of the newest gadgets could give NATO's arsenal a run for its money.

Check out these photos to see some of the weapons made by the top companies in the Russian arms industry.

Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies produces the Krasuha-4, an electronic warfare center that can suppress enemy radar and spy satellites. Revenue Growth from 2012-2013: 12.3 percent. Rank 52/100. 

This article originally appeared at International Business Times. Copyright 2014. Follow International Business Times on Twitter.

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They say the Cold War is over, but Russia and the U.S. remain the leading supplier of weapons to countries around the world and are the two biggest military powers. Lately, tensions have been pretty high, too.

The U.S. supplies much of NATO and Middle Eastern allies like Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

Russia supplies other BRIC nations, as well as Iran, much of Southeast Asia, and North Africa.

We took numbers from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for 2012-2013 to see whom the two rivals were supplying with weaponry. The U.S. dealt to 59 nations that Russia doesn't sell or send weaponry to, while Russia dealt to just 15 nations that don't receive U.S. arms.

Fifteen countries received weaponry from both the U.S. and Russia, including Brazil, India, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

The country that received the highest dollar amount of U.S. weaponry was the United Arab Emirates, with more than $3.7 billion in arms received over that period. Russia dealt the greatest value of weapons to India, sending more than $13.6 billion.

Overall, the U.S. sent more than $26.9 billion in weaponry to foreign nations, while Russia sent weaponry exceeding $29.7 billion in value around the globe.

Interestingly, the U.S. actually recieved roughly $16 million worth of weaponry from Russia. This was part of a $1 billion helicopter deal the two nations made so that the U.S. could supply Afghan security forces with equipment they were already more familiar with.

Importantly, SIPRI's totals don't measure the cost of the transaction but the cost of the weapons' production. The numbers are listed as the production value of the weapons sold rather than the amount they were actually sold for. In addition, SIPRI does not track the transfer of certain small arms.

SIPRI gives several examples to explain their chosen method. In 2009, six Eurofighters valued at $55 million each were delivered by Germany to Austria. Therefore the delivery was valued at $330 million, even though the actual transaction likely netted a much higher total. For comparison, when The New York Times listed the total of weapons sold by the U.S. at $66.3 billion in 2011, SIPRI came up with a much lower total based off of production cost of $15.4 billion.

You can read the full explanation of SIPRI's calculations here.

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