There are already upwards of 70 million AK-47s in circulation worldwide.

But amid domestic unrest, global criticism of Moscow, and EU and US sanctions, the state-owned Russian company responsible for the gun's production is trying to rebrand itself.

In Moscow on Tuesday, the Siberian company behind the rifle unveiled new slogans ("Protecting Peace" was one of them) and a red-and-black logo shaped like the letter "K."

The new logo appeared on the gun's ammo magazine, and Sergei Chemezov, head of a state company with a controlling stake in Kalashnikov, said he hoped the brand would reach Apple's level of worldwide recognition.

The AK-47 was designed in 1947 (hence the call number), but really took off in the late '50s when the USSR allowed its various satellite states and other friendly countries to produce their own.

As recently as 2012, Venezuela's late President Hugo Chávez said his country had begun production of AK-103s, another assault rifle in the Kalashnikov family.

Deadly, inexpensive, and widely available to both formal militaries and nonstate groups, the AK-47 is an icon of contemporary warfare. One of Saddam Hussein's sons had his plated in gold. It adorns the flag of Mozambique — and that of the Lebanese Shi'ite militia group Hezbollah. The AK-47 is the weapon of choice for terrorist groups like the Afghan Taliban and Somalia's al-Shabaab. Even so, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev once called Kalashnikov "a national brand which evokes pride in each citizen."

More recently, the company has been hit by US and EU sanctions over the Russian government's role in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Those sanctions blocked the delivery of up to 200,000 units to the US and Canada, and mothballed an ad campaign featuring actor and gun advocate Steven Seagal.

The rebranded Kalashnikov wants to use the company's iconic status to dull the effect of the sanctions and even move beyond the firearms market — it will expand its offerings to include accessories and a clothing line. Company CEO Alexei Krivoruchko also told Russian news agencies it aimed to double production and quadruple sales by the end of the decade. The company sold 140,000 units this year, twice as many as in 2013, reports stated.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the gun's creator, died last year at the age of 94. Visiting Germany in 2002, he revealed mixed feelings about his legacy.

"I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists," he said. "I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work — for example a lawnmower."

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The Pentagon for decades has been a reliable buyer of "Made in America" weapons technology.

While that should please U.S. companies, defense CEOs are warning that protectionist policies over time will backfire by thwarting innovation and by making U.S. companies less competitive in the cutthroat international arms market.  

The U.S. defense industry is in a fight for its future, and the government is not helping, says former Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn, currently the CEO of the aerospace and defense firm Finmeccanica North America.

American industry is shrinking and many of the technologies the Pentagon wants are not domestically available, he says. Nonetheless, the Defense Department consistently shows bias against foreign products, which in turn hinders U.S. companies' access to overseas markets, Lynn adds.

"You need something of a realignment," he says in an interview.

Today's military-industrial complex consists of a small group of conglomerates that are coping with declining Pentagon sales, investing less money in new technology and increasingly depend on the global market for innovation. A more open market would benefit the Pentagon by spurring competition and also would help U.S. companies to more easily tap into global sources of supply, he says.

"We need to have global sourcing. Our export regulations make that somewhat difficult. And our patterns of behavior make that even more difficult," Lynn says.

"The market has shrunk enough that if you want to maintain competition you have to look globally. The Defense Department needs to adapt."

Both the military and the defense industry would benefit from globalization, Lynn argues in a recent Foreign Affairs article, titled, "The End of the Military-Industrial Complex."

The U.S. military fights alongside allies in war zones, but the Defense Department "still often ignores technologies and products made overseas, sometimes at significant cost to the American taxpayer," Lynn says.

In the 1990s, for instance, the Pentagon sought to develop a new artillery system, called the Crusader, rather than adapt an existing German design that met most U.S. requirements. The Defense Department ended up canceling the program in 2002 when the cost spiraled, "wasting $2 billion and leaving the U.S. Army to rely on upgrades to a much older artillery model."

The United States, Lynn says, "no longer has to be the source of all advances in military technology, and in fact, bringing foreign companies into the fold will help distribute the burden of development costs, as it did with the F-35."

Although the Pentagon tends to be mistrustful of technology sharing agreements with foreign countries, U.S. defense contractors view them as necessary to grow their business. Co-development deals help companies stretch their R&D dollars, says Thomas A. Kennedy, chairman and CEO of The Raytheon Company.

The Pentagon is asking companies to step up R&D investments during these times of reduced defense budgets, but that is not realistic, Kennedy says during a panel discussion last month at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The Pentagon is "handcuffed with sequestration" which has kept spending decisions on hold and the industry with little incentive to invest. Sharing R&D programs with foreign partners is something the Pentagon should embrace, says Kennedy. "We have a tendency to do everything on our own."

Raytheon is finding that co-investment helps the company secure business overseas. Examples are a Navy ship-defense missile that was funded by 13 countries and the Patriot missile-defense system, which has been upgraded with funding from Middle Eastern buyers. Foreign military sales are not just about selling, but also sharing the cost and the investment, says Kennedy.

U.S. export laws hurt these efforts, says Robert J. Stevens, former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp. Further, many countries that want to do business with American companies are wary of U.S. protectionism, he adds. "What won't work is having one country open markets and not having a reciprocal opening of markets," Stevens says during an industry conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"We've seen a checkered pattern of what is an open market and how accessible technology is," he says. "The worst phrase I've ever heard is 'Buy America,'" says Stevens. "If that's imposed, all our programs are shut down. We don't have that reach any more in the U.S. industrial base. ... I don't see us having the ability to go it alone.

If Pentagon contractors only had to incorporate U.S. technology, says Stevens, “I can't think of one company that could deliver a product tomorrow."

Stevens was at the helm of Lockheed Martin when the company won the biggest weapons contract in history, the F-35 joint strike fighter, and went about the laborious recruiting of international partners. The program has a global supply chain, but that is an exception in U.S. weapon systems. "Congress was first skeptical but supported it. ... Just to get global procurement authority was a struggle," says Stevens.

"In the beginning we couldn't talk to our partners. We needed special authorities to simply have a conversation." Things are "better" now, he says, "But if we're going to have a market rather than a program, we have a lot of work to do."

Suppliers like Rockwell Collins that make avionics systems for both the Pentagon and for commercial buyers are designing products specifically so they are not subject to military export controls, says Clayton M. Jones, the company's former chairman and CEO. "A lot of countries I talk to say they don't look forward to doing business with the United States," he says. "We are a hard country to do business with. ... Our regulatory oversight creates a burden."

The biggest overseas opportunities for aerospace companies are in products that are "ITAR free," which do not have to comply with the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations, says Jones. "We have to consciously design around that.

The George W. Bush and Obama administrations have been advocates of U.S. arms sales overseas and pushed a number of administrative and bureaucratic reforms to the export licensing process. In recent years, the administration has removed several "dual-use" technologies from restrictive ITAR controls.

Industry executives have argued that, while these reforms are welcome, the agencies that oversee exports — Defense, State and Commerce Departments — still have to comply with export laws that are rooted in the Cold War and intended to shield U.S. technology from potential enemies.

That mindset still governs the export control system, argues former Pentagon procurement official Andrew Hunter.

"The single biggest challenge to U.S. industry in managing the reality of a global value chain for defense products may be ITAR," says Hunter, a senior fellow and director of the defense industrial initiatives group at CSIS.

"The increasingly global nature of industry presents opportunities for the United States to deepen its relationships with allies and partners in areas of common security interests.

However, significant challenges to capitalizing on these opportunities exist," Hunter adds. Countries naturally want to protect domestic jobs and economic interests, but often the benefits of cooperation outweigh the drawbacks, he says.

"While almost all nations rely to some extent on national champions in their indigenous industry to produce some or all of their most high-profile defense systems, it is already the case at the subsystem and component level that most technology is globally sourced. This is particularly true where technologies originate in the commercial realm, something that is increasingly the case even in the most sophisticated defense systems."

Hunter says the Pentagon should view the F-35 as a model to apply in other programs. "The F-35 program was high profile enough to work through these issues, but the question remains whether the United States and its partners can effectively extend this level of cooperation to multinational programs with lower profiles."

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The M4 rifle is a shortened M16 carbine and is by far the most common weapon found in the hands of US forces today. Special Forces troops carry the M4 and utilize the new SOPMOD 2 package, which includes the EO Tech 553 holographic reflex site, LA-5 infrared laser, foregrip, the M3X visible bright light (tactical light) and associated accessories. Also included is the Elcan Spector telescopic sight which is adjustable from 1 power to 5 power via a throw lever on the side of the optic.

While this is an interesting idea, nearly all Special Forces troops leave these sights in the cardboard boxes to collect dust, and simply use the EO Tech 553. We felt that the Elcan was a little bit too much and perhaps over engineered. Now, if we had been facing long range engagements in Afghanistan, rather than precision raids in Iraq, maybe we would have felt differently.

Along with the EO Tech, the LA-5 is much smaller than the PEQ-2 and together these are the most valued items in the SOPMOD kit.

The M9 Beretta pistol is essentially the military version of the civilian 92F. I never cared for the pistol due to the double action trigger and poor placement of the decocking lever. Another fail of this weapon is that it is chambered for the 9mm round. Most of us would have preferred a .45 caliber hand gun.

The manner in which this pistol is carried may be unfamiliar to some, so I will explain here. To load the pistol, the slide is locked to the rear, a loaded magazine is inserted, and the slide is released to chamber the first round. The decocking lever is then depressed to safely drop the hammer.

Next, the decocking lever is switched back up into the fire position. Special Forces do no consider the decocking lever to be a safety and do not use it as such. The weapon is considered to be safe while on fire with a round in the chamber due to the fact that it has a double action trigger. At this point, the pistol is safely holstered.  As I mentioned above, I never cared for the double action trigger, it makes sight alignment difficult with such a long squeeze needed before the hammer drops.

M249

The M249, or SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), is somewhat looked down upon Army-wide due to malfunctions. However, I suspect that many of these issues derive from the machine guns getting “shot out” and never being serviced by armorers or refurbished in any way. For instance, the SAWs we had in Ranger School were a nightmare to keep operational.

Still, when properly maintained, the SAW works like a charm and is an important force multiplier in a fire fight. In Special Forces, the SAW is usually left in the Humvee as a contingency weapon, while in Ranger Battalion, each Fire Team has one Private carrying a SAW (now the newer Mk46) even while clearing rooms. You can only imagine the devastating effect that this machine gun has in close quarters when fired standing up as you would shoot a rifle.

Special Forces and Rangers both utilize the shortened SAW barrels and collapsible butt stocks, making the weapon much more versatile and adaptable for mounted operations as well as CQB.

M240B

The M240B is generally used by Special Forces teams by being mounted on their humvees to supplement the M2 .50 cal. Usually, the M240B is mounted on swing arms positioned on the sides or on the back of GMVs (Ground Mobility Vehicles, Humvees designed for off-road travel), and crewed by riflemen until the convoy reaches the objective.

With the widespread use of armored vehicles, the M240 is more often than not mounted at the rear air-guard hatch. This has been the case when we used the Stryker armored vehicle, and later, the MRAP. Little changed; the M240B continues to be a mainstay in the US arsenal as a superior general purpose machine gun.

The M2 .50 cal

Known affectionately as the Ma Deuce. This .50 cal is no stranger to soldiers or military enthusiasts. I had an instructor in the Q-Course who told me that his father fired the M2 in Vietnam, his grandfather in Korea, and he himself was a .50 cal gunner in Afghanistan. I suppose that pretty much tells you all you need to know about this timeless weapon.

Not much has changed, except that you might see some strange looking funnels at the end of the heavy barrels used by the M2. These are flash suppressors that, as Weapons Sergeants, we fitted onto the barrels. At night, they do a fairly good job at reducing muzzle flash.

On my last deployment, we were no longer permitted to use the MK19 inside the cities, so these were left to collect dust in my weapons shed until myself or my Junior Weapons Sergeant gave them a cleaning every so often. While fun to shoot, I always found the 40mm rounds to be under powered, not providing sufficient explosive impact.

Then again, I never had the chance to use the MK19 against dismounted infantry. I did have a friend who was a MK19 gunner in Afghanistan when his convoy was ambushed. He rotated his turret and let it rip on the enemy positions to devastating effect. One point to remember with the MK19 is that you have to charge it twice, that is to say, rack the charging handles, drop the bolt, and then repeat the procedure once more to seat the first round all the way down onto the bolt face. Not knowing how to do this properly can result in an accidental discharge, or worse yet, leave you firing on an empty chamber during a firefight!

Mossberg 500

A timeless weapon. One thing I would like to clarify so there is no confusion, is that at no time did we use the shotgun to clear rooms or otherwise use it as a primary weapon. The shotgun is carried for ballistic breaches only. The shot gun is loaded and carried in a particular manner to ensure safety and ease of use once on the objective.

The weapon is always left on fire, never on safe, as the safety is difficult to manipulate, especially while wearing gloves and under pressure. The user shucks the shotgun and then pulls the trigger on the empty chamber. Now the shotgun is loaded, usually with Hatton rounds made specifically for door breaches. Once the shot gun is fully loaded, it is snapped onto the operator’s kit, usually by an elastic bungee cord, and stowed into a aluminum holder on the soldier’s belt or body armor to hold it in place.

On the objective, the shotgunner moves forward to the breach site, slings his rifle, and releases his shotgun. Shucking the weapon, he loads the first round into the chamber. The muzzle of the shotgun is placed above the locking mechanism of the door and canted at an angle. When fired, the shot blasts through the wooden door jamb. SOP is to fire two shots into the door jamb, then kick the door and step aside for the assaulters to flow through the entrance.

In my experience, the Barret .50 caliber anti-material rifle is much despised by the Sniper community. Mostly, this is due to the weapon’s lack of accuracy. I suspect that this reputation and resentment is also due to a misunderstanding. The Barret is not a sniper rifle, but an anti-material rifle. It isn’t designed to shoot a person, but to shoot an engine block or a generator. However, that isn’t always how the weapon is used, and it is understandable that many snipers demand a higher quality rifle for long range engagements. Another issue I’ve had with the Barret is that it often fails to chamber a round, and requires the shooter to manually push the charging handle forward.

M110 Sniper System

The M110 is the newest addition to the sniper’s arsenal and was conceived and developed to meet the sniper’s need for a semi-automatic platform for close-in urban engagements. I carried the M110’s predecessor, the SR-25, and was very happy with it. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the M110. Issues include the trigger mechanism breaking, resulting in the rifle firing on full auto.

Friends of mine in the sniper course also tell me that they have had barrels get shot out extremely fast, with just a few hundred rounds. This results in rounds flying wildly off target, suddenly dropping off eight Minutes Of Angle (MOA) or more. I believe that one day the Army will have a quality, reliable, semi-automatic sniper rifle, but it will probably take another ten years or so to work out all the issues with the M110 due to the bureaucracy involved. For now, I would much rather stick with the tried and true bolt-action M24.

M67 Grenade

On most missions, each Special Forces operator carries two M67 grenades. These grenades now include safety clips that snap into place over the spoon as an added precaution. According to the Army Safety Center, soldiers are no longer permitted to tape up their grenades, as the safety clip is sufficient.

We discarded the safety clip and taped up our grenades anyway. I’ve seen these grenades used in tight and enclosed spaces such as alleyways in Iraqi cities. The effect this has on enemy insurgents is devastating to say the least.

Flash bang

Over the years, I saw a variety of different flash bangs used in the military. Some of them were actually recalled due to manufacturing defects that cost a few soldiers their fingers. On my final deployment in 2010, we used the M84 flashbang to great effect. I also issued some of these to my Iraqi troops to use during missions. Sometimes they would come back to us in bewilderment and say they pulled the pin, threw it, and nothing happened. We would explain that you have to pull BOTH of the TWO pins before throwing the flashbang. Remember, these grenades don’t work like ordinary fragmentation grenades.

Flashbangs usually have a one second fuse and have to be thrown directly into the room you want them in. Any attempt to “cook off” a flashbang will result in lost fingers or hands. It was our SOP that once the pins are pulled, you throw the flashbang no matter what, even if not needed. If the situation no longer warrants a flashbang you just toss it in a closet or out on the street with no attempt made to put the pins back in place.

Thermobaric Grenade

We had only one of these in my team house and I was dying to use it. Thermo (Heat) + Baric (Pressure) is the basic formula used to destroy bunkers, enemy compounds, spider holes, and the like.

The trick is that the thermobaric device needs to be thrown, or shot into, the interior of the compound. The rapid increase of heat and pressure is what actually collapses the structure from the inside.

Milkor Mk14 Grenade Launcher

Much to my delight, we received this brand new weapon halfway through our deployment last year.

Based on the older South African design, the Mk14 was a pleasure to shoot.

Basically, it fired like a giant-sized revolver because that is exactly what it is.

The cylinder has to be rotated as it is spring loaded, then the 40mm grenades can be loaded.

The frame of the weapon is then swung shut and locked into place. Just for fun, I once loaded it full of flare rounds and cleared our shoot house.

MP-5 SD3

An outstanding weapon that lives up to the expectations that most people have in a suppressed weapon. With the integral suppressor, the HK-made sub-machine gun is so quiet that all you really hear is the bolt racking back. The first time I fired it, I kept performing corrective actions because I thought the gun was having a malfunction when it was actually cycling perfectly.

I had a great time shooting drills with this gun out at the range, but suppressed weapons are usually used in a little less of a dramatic fashion than most people would expect. Normally, they are used to shoot dogs in a quiet manner while approaching the objective during a mission, as to avoid the compromise of a loud gunshot. That might sound harsh, but these are feral animals. I was on one mission where a soldier got bit in the ass and had to get a series of rabies injections afterwords.

SEE ALSO: This Is The World's Most Successful Battle Rifle

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BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged faster development of advanced new military equipment to help build a strong army, state media reported, as the country steps up an ambitious modernization plan that has rattled nerves across the region.

Speaking at a two-day conference of the People's Liberation Army, Xi said that military reforms should be "guided by the objective of building a strong army", the official Xinhua news agency said late on Thursday.

"Advanced weaponry is the embodiment of a modern army and a crucial support for national security and rejuvenation," it cited Xi as saying.

"Equipment systems are now in a period of strategic opportunities and at a key point for rapid development."

Xi has been pushing to strengthen the fighting ability of China's 2.3 million-strong armed forces as they project power across disputed waters in the East and South China Seas.

China has developed emerging stealth fighter technology, anti-satellite missiles and now has one aircraft carrier in operation and is planning more.

Defense spending this year is set to rise by 12.2 percent to 808.2 billion yuan ($131.3 billion), a number many governments and analysts say is not representative of the country's true defense outlays.

Xi said that new weapons must be "innovative, practical and forward-thinking to meet the demands of actual combat and fill in the weak spots of China's existing equipment".

"Military officers at all levels should play a leading role and use actual combat to guide soldiers to improve their capacity to operate weapons," he said.

However the country's armed forces, the world's largest, came under criticism earlier this year from serving and retired officers and state media, who questioned whether they were too corrupt to win a war.

Part of Xi's much-vaunted campaign against deep-rooted graft has targeted the military.

In October, the government said one of China's most senior former military officers had confessed to taking "massive" bribes in exchange for help in promotions.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard)

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Apart from the AK-47, no other weapon has graced the world’s television screens more in modern times, than the RPG-7. 

Officially known in Russian as the Reaktivnoi Protivotankovii Granatomet (Hand antitank granade launcher), the slender hollow tube with its conical rear and oversized diamond shaped warhead continues to play just as an important role in today’s warfare as its small arms comrade. 

And just like the AK, the reason for this is simple – it’s an easy to operate, reliable, and brutally effective weapon capable of taking out just about all but the latest in modern armor. 

The RPG-7 has established itself as the most dominant shoulder-fired antitank system in the world, and can be expected to continue its reign of destruction well into the coming decades.

The RPG-7 was first introduced Soviet Army service in 1962. It used a design which, like most weapons of that era, could trace its origins to the Second World War, when the Germans began employing simple, cheap and disposable recoilless launchers with an oversized warhead called Panzerfausts.

Consisting of nothing more than a hollow tube with a propellant stick attached to a semi-hemispherical High Explosive AntiTank shaped charge (HEAT), Panzerfausts were employed with great success against Allied armor as they closed in on the Third Reich.

Its design allowed thousands of ill-trained boys and old men of the last ditch VolkSturm units an instant ability to take out tanks and caused great concern whenever armor operated in confined areas, such as forests or cities.

In fact, so disgusted were the Americans at a German technique of destroying a tank, then throwing away the launcher to surrender, that they ordered anyone doing so shot regardless of whether they had their hands up or waved a white flag.

Initially, the Panzerfausts were extremely short range (30 meters), but were worked-up over time by using stronger propellants to 60, 100, 150 and even a 250 meter variant. 

After the Soviets encountered the first versions, they immediately went to work during the conflict trying to come up with their own design, with a primary feature being that it would be reloadable.

The first prototypes were created in 1944 and called the LPG–44. The LPG-44 had a 30mm diameter launcher and weighed 4.4 pounds unloaded, and could fire a PG-70 70mm diameter HEAT round. 

This weapon later received the designation RPG-1, and had a maximum range of 75 meters. Its penetration of 150mm of steel was less than that of the Panzerfaust though, and eventually it was cancelled in 1948.

The next evolution was the RPG-2. Externally, it was similar in size to the RPG-1, but featured some refinements. Most important was a larger 40mm tube (6.4 lbs unloaded), and an 80mm warhead designated the PG-2.  It had double the range, at 150 meters, and fired at a flatter trajectory, giving greater accuracy. It also could penetrate more armor at 200mm. 

Its widespread deployment began in 1954, and this launcher, coincidentally, would be the primary weapon used by the North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong in the early stages of the Vietnam War against the U.S. 

Also, many more were Chinese manufactured versions and designated the B40. In theatre, this moniker ended up being used just as often as the word RPG when describing antitank weapons used by the insurgents.

Still another deadlier version showed up that asserted itself as THE standard by which all others were measured. Not resting on the RPG-2, the U.S.S.R had begun looking for its replacement as early as 1958.  The result was the little-known RPG-4, which had a 45mm launcher tube and 83mm warhead.

The launcher weighed 10.3 pounds and doubled the range again to 300mm. It could penetrate a little more armor at 220mm and, for the first time in the series, possessed an optical sight. It showed promise, but the RPG-4 quickly disappeared the moment the definitive RPG arrived: the -7 model.

This new design, even as it was being developed at the same time, proved far and away better than the -4 model with double the range at 300 meters for point targets, and out to 500 meters for an area target. 

It too mounted an optical sight which rode on a smaller tube of 40 mm and fired a slightly bigger 85 mm PG -7 HEAT warhead which was capable of penetrating 260 mm of armor.

The standard RPG-7 round, the most widely used variant, and its subsequent improvements share the same basic functions going back to the Panzerfaust. When the round fires, stabilizing fins deploy and impart a slow spin as it streaks through the sky at approximately 965 ft./s.

When it impacts a hard surface, a piezoelectric element in the nose crushes and sends an electrical signal through the round to a fuse at the base of explosives positioned behind a hollow copper cone. 

Once the explosives ignite, it forces the cone to turn itself inside out, shooting forward as a molten, thumb-sized slug of several thousand degrees, where in the case of an armored turret it will bore a similar sized hole through the metal until it reaches the interior.

Inside, it ricochets about along with flaming particles at several thousand miles per hour until it loses energy.  Anything from metal to flesh is torn asunder, leaving nothing but a charred compartment and human remains so scorched and destroyed that most can be washed out with a hose.

This is how a shaped charge works and it all happens in a fraction of a second.  It is a formula that, until advanced ceramics were incorporated into tank armor in the 1970s, forced designers to deal with a vulnerability gap that could be defeated only by designing a tank with such thick armor that its weight left it virtually unable to move.  So it was a welcome respite when the much lighter ceramic became available.

There were other targets the RPG proved just as adept at destroying, the kind that remains vulnerable. Helicopters. In this role, Western forces and America in particular have become all-too-familiar with the RPG-7’s ability. Mainly due to the most famous incident of when a couple of RPGs were employed to take down U.S. Army UH 60 Black Hawks hovering over Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993. 

This episode caused survivors of what was a planned operation to become trapped and forced to engage in some of the toughest close quarters combat seen since the Vietnam War. Later immortalized into a book, then a movie, it became known forever as ‘Blackhawk Down.’

More recently, the RPG-7 was used against U.S. and coalition forces on the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan, with varying results.

Most modern western tanks have shown they are capable of enduring multiple RPG hits and continue fighting, while lighter armored vehicles often use wire mesh cages extending around the bodies to prematurely detonate the round, making it far less effective at penetrating.

Where it continues to cause problems, though, is against the helicopter. Specifically in 2011, when ‘Extortion 17′, a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter carrying 38 personnel and a K-9 dog was downed over Afghanistan with what likely was an RPG-7.

This encounter remains the largest loss of life suffered by the U.S in a single incident during the War on Terror.

There have been attempts over the years to improve upon the RPG-7 by introducing new designs and much larger warheads. 

These have been produced in small numbers and have never even begun to replace the standard RPG, which continues to see developments in the warhead area such as fragmentation, thermobaric and even tandem designs to defeat modern sophisticated armor.

Nevertheless, the launcher tube itself has remained virtually unchanged since 1962, proving it is a design worthy of merit, like the Kalashnikov. And, at just $300 a copy, the RPG-7 remains the gold standard go-to weapon for a soldier or guerrilla looking to unleash a heavy dose of retail destruction at a wholesale price.

SEE ALSO: Here's The Wild Underwater Vehicle Navy SEALs Use On Stealth Missions

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PALMDALE, Calif. (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 weapons supplier, has rarely felt the need to blow its horn about its secrecy-shrouded crown jewel - until now.

"Skunk Works," Lockheed's business for developing weapons outside the company's main chain of command, is starting to lift the veil in a sign of fierce pressure to win new orders and protect its brand as military budgets shrink.

The pride of Lockheed, Skunk Works has been celebrated since it developed the first jet fighter in 143 days during World War Two to battle the Nazis. But its logo was kept off buildings and employees were barred from saying where they worked.

Now, the company has published a glossy brochure with a 10-point “Skunk Works 2015” agenda focused on keeping costs down, working closely with government, and building prototypes. Its officials are meeting in small groups with all 3,300 employees, or "Skunks" as they are known, to underscore the importance of staying competitive.

Over the past year Skunk Works has invited a few journalists to its most secure facilities, including Palmdale, a site in the high desert 60 miles (100 km) from Los Angeles, where new products range from next-generation unmanned systems to a hypersonic aircraft twice as fast as its Blackbird SR-71 spy plane that could fly across country in just over an hour.

Most of the 100 buildings and 3 million square feet of floor space at the site are off-limits, and photography and audio recordings are strictly forbidden, but a tour last month offered a glimpse of some projects.

In one building, Lockheed is using the world's largest gantry machine and 3-D printing to build aircraft. Across campus, Lockheed has a giant airship that could deliver cargo to remote areas, and a compact nuclear fusion reactor that could revolutionize power generation.

Pressures Mount

The decision to go public with Skunk Works, albeit modestly, reflects the unprecedented pressures Lockheed faces from tight budgets, nimble smaller competitors and shareholders who prefer dividends and share buybacks to long-term projects.

Challenging Skunk Works are such newcomers as Space Exploration Technologies Corp, or SpaceX, which operate more like commercial firms than legacy weapons makers. Their costs are lower due to a younger staff - the average age of SpaceX's engineers is 27, while Lockheed expects half its employees to retire in the next five years - and their ability to leverage commercial orders.

Defense consultant Jim McAleese said Skunk Works needed to win orders and cut costs given lower profits in the aeronautics division, where margins fell by about 10 percent last quarter. Aeronautics sales fell 6 percent to $14.1 billion last year.

Skunk Works has survived over the years because it is not only an advanced research arm, but also makes money by managing a few signature programs, including the F-22 stealth fighter and other classified programs, general manager Rob Weiss told Reuters. He gave no numbers.

Bucking an industry trend, Lockheed is boosting internal R&D spending by 5 percent this year after a 13 percent increase to $697 million in 2013, its highest percentage of sales ever, CEO Marillyn Hewson told analysts in October. She said the rate would rise again in 2015.

The Skunk Works outlook could dim if Lockheed loses out on the few big programs up for grabs: a new bomber, a carrier-based drone, and a new Air Force training jet, analysts say.

Skunk Works officials say they also need to be more open to strategic partnerships, such as those it has with GenCorp unit Aerojet Rocketdyne and Boeing Co, and new business models, such as fee-for-service deals.

Pentagon officials often say they see Lockheed's Skunk Works and Boeing Co's Phantom Works as models for rapid development of weapons and ensuring U.S. military superiority.

Deputy Vice President Steve Justice, who has 30 years with Skunk Works, said its historical focus on speed and affordability was more relevant than ever given the tough budget climate. The proof, he said, came in recent requests from the Navy and others that want to set up similar groups.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Howard Goller)

SEE ALSO: LOCKHEED: We made a huge breakthrough in nuclear fusion

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PALMDALE, Calif. (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp's Skunk Works was the driving force behind development of many well-known U.S. military aircraft, including the famed "Blackbird" or SR-71 spy plane that could fly from New York to Los Angeles in just over an hour.

Following are some facts about the Lockheed division, whose Skunk Works name is a registered trademark, and some of the weapons it has or is developing:

* Got its start in 1943 when Kelly Johnson and his engineers designed the first fighter jet for the U.S. military in a rented circus tent next to a manufacturing plant, whose strong odors permeated the place. Under orders to keep silent about their work, even when they answered the phone, an engineer responded to a phone call one day by referencing a stinky place called the "Skonk Works" featured in the popular Li'l Abner comic strip.

* While focused mainly on aircraft, it has developed other weapons, including the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile that entered service in 2009, and nuclear fusion energy that grabbed headlines several weeks ago.

* In the 1950s, developed and built the U-2, a spy plane that flies at 80,000 feet and was fielded within eight months.

* In the 1960s, developed the SR-71 "Blackbird," a long-range spy plane that was in use from 1964 to 1998. Designed to operate at three times the speed of sound, it still holds the world record for the fastest air-breathing manned aircraft.

* After the downing of U-2 pilot Gary Powers in the Soviet Union in 1960, developed D-21, the first high altitude unmanned spy plane, which carried out four operational missions over China from 1969 to 1971.

* In the early 1980s, developed the F-117 Nighthawk, the first operational stealth fighter. Sixty-four aircraft were used in combat, beginning with the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. The aircraft were retired in 2008.

* In the 1990s, developed the precursors for the F-22 stealth fighter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

* Developed the RQ-170 Sentinel, a tailless, stealthy unmanned aircraft, one of which went down in Iran in December 2011. The Air Force has acknowledged the plane's existence but few details have been released.

Current Projects

* Teamed with Boeing Co to bid for a huge U.S. Air Force contract to build a new long-range strike bomber.

* Developing proposal for a long delayed competition to build an unmanned plane for use on U.S. Navy carriers.

* Working with Aerojet Rocketdyne, a unit of GenCorp, on a new High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), a hypersonic missile that could be used on future bombers and fighters.

* Testing bonds for composite materials used in aircraft, which could reduce use of fasteners that add weight and cost.

* Seeking launch customer for new hybrid airship that could be used to deliver 20 tons or more of oil and mining equipment to remote areas, for far less cost than using helicopters, and about the same as current land-based methods.

* Working on SR-72, a hypersonic, unmanned plane that would fly twice as fast as the Blackbird.

(Editing by Howard Goller)

SEE ALSO: Lockheed is finally talking about its secret weapons unit

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For the first time, a laser weapon system (LaWS) was successfully operated aboard a US Navy ship.

A demonstration of LaWS took place in November aboard the USS Ponce while it was deployed to the Arabian Gulf. It struck targets aboard a small speeding boat, shot down an unmanned drone and destroyed other moving targets.

Produced by Alex Kuzoian. Video courtesy of the Associated Press. 

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US Army weapons officials will not evaluate an improved version of the service's Cold War-era 9mm pistol, choosing instead to search for a more modern soldier sidearm.

In early December, Beretta USA, the maker of the U.S. military's M9 pistol for 30 years, submitted its modernized M9A3 as a possible alternative to the Army's Modular Handgun System program — an effort to replace the M9 with a more powerful, state-of-the-art pistol.

The improved M9 features new sights, a rail for mounting lights and accessories, better ergonomics and improved reliability, Beretta USA officials said.

But by late December, it was all over for Beretta's engineering change proposal for the M9. The Army's Configuration Control Board decided not to evaluate the M9A3, according to a source familiar with the decision.

The move clears the way for the Army to release a pending request for proposal that will launch the MHS competition.

Program Executive Office Soldier would not comment for this story until Army Public Affairs has approved a statement, PEO Soldier spokesman Doug Graham said Thursday night.

The Army began working with the small arms industry on MHS in early 2013, but the joint effort has been in the works for more than five years. If successful, it would result in the Defense Department buying nearly 500,000 new pistols during a period of significant defense-spending reductions.

Current plans call for the Army to purchase more than 280,000 handguns from a single vendor, with delivery of the first new handgun systems scheduled for 2017, according to PEO Soldier officials. The Army also plans to buy approximately 7,000 sub-compact versions of the handgun.

The other military services participating in the MHS program may order an additional 212,000 systems above the Army quantity.

The effort is set to cost at least $350 million and potentially millions more if it results in the selection of a new pistol caliber.

Beretta USA officials said they have not received official notification of the Army's decision.

"Obviously, they didn't take a whole lot of time on this," said Gabriele De Plano, vice president of military marketing and sales for Beretta USA, reacting to the news of the Army's pre-Christmas decision after the M9A3's December 10 unveiling.

Army officials "didn't ask a single question; didn't ask for a single sample" for evaluation, De Plano said.

The Army maintains that the M9 design does not meet the MHS requirement. Soldiers have complained of reliability issues with the M9. One problem has to do with the M9's slide-mounted safety. During malfunction drills, the shooter often engages the lever-style safety by accident, Army weapons officials say.

The M9A3's "over-center safety lever" can be configured to act as a de-cocker, a change that eliminates the accidental safety activation, De Plano said.

As part of the joint requirement process for MHS, Army weapons officials did a "very thorough cost-benefit analysis" that supported the effort, Army weapons officials said. The old fleet of M9s is costing the Army more to replace and repair than to buy a new service pistol, officials said.

The M9A3 is not a perfect pistol, De Plano says, but the Army should at least evaluate it.

The M9 pistol can be "improved for hundreds of millions less than a new MHS pistol," De Plano said. "We can sell them this new pistol for less than the M9 pistol."

Beretta currently has an open contract for M9s that the Army awarded in September 2012 for up to 100,000 pistols. Deliveries of about 20,000 have been scheduled, leaving 80,000 that could be ordered in the M9A3 configuration for less than the cost of the current M9, De Plano said.

"Why not do a dual-path like they have done in other cases," De Plano said.

The Army was determined to do just that when it set out to search for a replacement for the M4 carbine. The service launched a competition to evaluate commercially available carbines while, at the same time, it evaluated improvements to the M4.

In the end, the service scrapped the competition and ended up adopting the M4A1 version used by special operations forces.

"They could explore this," said De Plano, by ordering 10 M9A3s. "What's the downside?"

SEE ALSO: The Pentagon doesn't know how it's going to fund its next generation of submarines

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The use of flash grenades by police officers during drug raids is becoming increasingly common across the US, and there are terrifying consequences like severe burns and dismemberment, a ProPublica investigation revealed. 

The supposedly nonlethal explosive devices, known as flashbangs or stun grenades, produce a blinding flash of light and a loud "bang" that temporarily blinds and deafens anyone standing in their path. They cost around $50 and were first invented in the 1970s to disorient criminals in hostage situations. Last week, French special forces used flashbangs to free hostages held at a kosher supermarket in Paris.

While sometimes useful during a hostage crisis, flashbangs are more often used as a quick solution by cops who don't necessarily need them.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, police used flash grenades on 84% of raids between 2011-2013, according to ProPublica. Almost every time, the most that was found was a small bag of marijuana and some beer bottles. 

The NYPD heavily curbed the use of flashbangs, after a Harlem woman died of a heart attack in 2003 when cops mistakenly raided her apartment with one of the devices.

As it turns out, the explosion of these grenades directly on a human body has caused severe injury — and death — on more than one occasion, according to the ProPublica investigation. 

The powder from the grenade's explosion burns hotter than lava. One woman who spoke to ProPublica said she suffered second-degree burns across her body after police looking for drugs threw three grenades into her boyfriend's home when they were sleeping.  

The flashbangs can sever hands and fingers, induce heart attacks, burn down homes and kill pets, the investigation found, and there are few checks on officers who want to use them.In May of last year, a 19-month-old toddler was critically injured in Atlanta when police looking for methamphetamine launched a flashbang into the playpen where he was sleeping. The grenade "blew open his face and his chest," his mother told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

In November, a 2-year-old boy was hospitalized with severe burns after police in California threw a flashbang into his room during a raid on the wrong home, according to Courthouse News. 

The grenades can be lethal, too. A 9-year-old girl in Detroit was killed in 2010 after a grenade launched through her window by police landed on her blanket and set it on fire.

SEE ALSO: This Is The Terrifying Result Of The Militarization Of Police

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The weapons used by a terror cell to kill 17 people around Paris came from outside the country and authorities are urgently tracing the source of the financing, a French police official said Tuesday.

Christophe Crepin, a French police union representative, said several people were being sought in relation to the "substantial" financing of the three gunmen, as well as others in their network.

He said the weapons stockpile clearly came from abroad and the amount spent shows an organized network.

The news came hours after a Bulgarian prosecutor announced they had a man in custody with ties to one of the brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo newspaper massacre.

French police say as many as six members of the terrorist cell that carried out the Paris attacks may still be at large, including a man seen driving a car registered to the widow of one of the gunmen.

The country has deployed 10,000 troops to protect sensitive sites, including Jewish schools and synagogues, mosques and travel hubs.

Earlier in the day, in ceremonies thousands of miles apart, France and Israel paid tribute to the victims of the terror attacks.

At police headquarters in Paris, French President Francois Hollande paid tribute to the three police officers killed in the attacks, placing Legion of Honor medals on their caskets.

"They died so that we could live free," he said, flanked by hundreds of police officers.

Hollande vowed that France will be "merciless in the face of anti-Semitic, anti-Muslims acts, and unrelenting against those who defend and carry out terrorism, notably the jihadists who go to Iraq and Syria."

As Chopin's funeral march played in central Paris and the caskets draped in French flags were led from the building, a procession began in Jerusalem for the four Jewish victims of the attack Friday on a kosher supermarket in Paris.

"Returning to your ancestral home need not be due to distress, out of desperation, amidst destruction, or in the throes of terror and fear," said Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. "Terror has never kept us down, and we do not want terror to subdue you. The Land of Israel is the land of choice. We want you to choose Israel, because of a love for Israel."

Defying the bloodshed and terror of last week, a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad is to appear Wednesday on the cover of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, weeping and holding a placard with the words "I am Charlie." Above him is emblazoned: "All is forgiven"— a phrase one writer said meant to show that the survivors of the attacks forgave the gunmen.

"I think that those who have been killed, if they were here, they would have been able to have a coffee today with the terrorists and just talk to them, ask them why they have done this," columnist Zineb El Rhazoui told the BBC. "We feel, as Charlie Hebdo's team, that we need to forgive the two terrorists who have killed our colleagues."

Two masked gunmen opened the onslaught in Paris with a Jan. 7 attack on the paper, singling out its editor and his police bodyguard for the first shots before killing 12 people in all. Ahmed Merabet, a French Muslim policeman, was one of the victims, killed as he lay wounded on the ground as the gunmen — brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi — made their escape.

Charlie Hebdo, which lampoons religion indiscriminately, had received threats after depicting Muhammed before, and its offices were firebombed in 2011.

France's main Muslim organization called Tuesday for calm, fearing that a new Muhammad cartoon could inflame passions anew.

Amid the hunt for accomplices, Bulgarian authorities said Tuesday they have a Frenchman under arrest who is believed to have links to Cherif Kouachi, one of the Charlie Hebdo attackers.

Fritz-Joly Joachin, 29, was arrested Jan. 1 as he tried to cross into Turkey, under two European arrest warrants, one citing his alleged links to a terrorist organization and a second for allegedly kidnapping his 3-year-old son and smuggling him out of the country, said Darina Slavova, the regional prosecutor for Bulgaria's southern province of Haskovo.

"He met with Kouachi several times at the end of December," Slavova said.

The Kouachi brothers and their friend, Amedy Coulibaly, the man who killed four hostages in the Paris grocery, died Friday in clashes with French police. All three claimed ties to Islamic extremists in the Middle East — the Kouachis to al-Qaida in Yemen and Coulibaly to the Islamic State group.

Two French police officials told The Associated Press that authorities were searching around Paris for the Mini Cooper registered to Hayat Boumeddiene, Coulibaly's widow, who Turkish officials say is now in Syria.

One of the police officials said the Paris terror cell consisted of about 10 members and that "five or six could still be at large," but he did not provide their names. The other official said the cell was made up of about eight people and included Boumeddiene.

Video has emerged of Coulibaly explaining how the attacks in Paris would unfold. French police want to find the person or persons who shot and posted the video, which was edited after Friday's attacks.

Ties among the three attackers themselves date back to at least 2005, when Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi were jailed together.

___

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten, Nicolas Vaux-Montagny, and John-Thor Dahlburg in Paris and Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed.

SEE ALSO: Paris Shooter's Girlfriend Told Police That People Have The Right To 'Take Up Arms Against The Oppressors'

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A California-based company is looking to provide police departments with the ability to know when and where an officer fires a shot or even unholsters a firearm the moment it happens.

Yardarm Technologies' gun sensor looks like a small door-stop. At only 2.5 inches in length, the device houses two accelerometers and a magnetometer.

Inserted into the grip of a gun, these instruments can monitor the weapon's movements and can tell when it's fired. And since a chip inside of the sensor is connected to individual officers' phones via Bluetooth, it also puts these developments on a digital map and shares them with other law enforcement officers. That way, police dispatch can get in touch or send back-up immediately once a firearm is discharged.

Thanks to $2 million in angel and seed funding raised in 2013, the company is testing its technology on a dozen guns at a sheriff's office in Santa Cruz County, California and a police department in Carrollton, Texas.

Jim Schaff, the company's VP of marketing, recently showed Business Insider how the Yardarm sensor works in tandem with an airsoft gun and iPad.

Schaff was logged into a user interface that tracks the activities and location of each gun linked with the system. On the left of the display, recent developments were automatically layered at the top of an event feed, with each of them time-stamped down to the second. Schaff pulled the trigger on his airgun. The event "Weapon Fired" popped up on the feed against a red triangle.

On the right, the gun's location was continuously flagged on a map.

To make their electronics accurately report something as dramatic as a gunshot, Yardarm's developers analyzed the recoil that rocks a gun every time it's fired. Accelerometers inside the weapon are tuned to pick up on that kinetic signature.

"We're profiling signatures for different events," Schaff said. Yardarm's field trials are providing further data for which signatures match which actions. Holster, unholster, and fire are the major targets for the device's development. But Yardarm is hoping to add a few additional actions that the system can identify, such as when a weapon is moved away from its armory, reloaded, or handled by a police officer in hot pursuit.

"Foot pursuit's been the big, hairy beast for law enforcement for a long time, right? Because as soon as an officer gets in foot pursuit, they start losing where that officer is," Schaff said. Yardarm's tracking system could solve this problem.

To spare the chip's battery life, the device passively sends an update on its location every ten minutes. But if the profile accompanying hot pursuit were met, a human responder could remotely increase that to every second to stay updated on an officer's movement, said Schaff.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Phil Wowak retired from the department last month, after 32 years of service. But he's staying on to help bring Yardarm into the organization's day-to-day workflow.

After talks with the company in 2013, Wowak offered his department as a test site for Yardarm's product. That was a few months after Santa Cruz Police Department, one of the four municipal police agencies under the county sheriff's office, saw two of its police officers — detectives in plain clothes — shot and killed while on duty.

For him, Yardarm's service is most useful "as an alarm" signaling dangerous situations to the department's decision-makers.

"This is what we're displaying: the person, the event, the time," Schaff summarized. "We're giving the location. It's all being recorded. So we're keeping a full history," he said.

A gun's history can be important far beyond the scope of real-time events. In the court of law, Yardarm could potentially supply a wealth of forensic information useful for reconstructing incidents like the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last year.

Eventually, Schaff said it's possible Yardarm would have a "somebody struggling for the gun" profile, which was part of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson's narrative of what happened during the incident in which he killed the unarmed Brown, sparking widespread protest.

Even more decisive to corroborating his story would have been the ability to reference the direction Wilson's gun was pointing each time he fired his weapon. That capability is in reach, Schaff said, but not yet with the reliability Yardarm hopes to deliver. It would take a small gyroscope to be able to make the censor capable of providing the information needed to go back and analyze a weapon's direction of fire at professional-level accuracy. Schaff thinks "will be a gen two" capability.

Yardarm's system is at the cutting-edge of technologies that aim to provide exact data to law-enforcement officers while enabling greater accountability for those officers' actions. Body cameras are one high-profile example. Another is a system called ShotSpotter, which uses microphones installed on college campuses (or even entire cities) to pinpoint where gunshots occurred and what type of gun they came from.

Divisive and high-profile cases of police abuse like Michael Brown's killing may spark a push for the technology's adoption. But Schaff also thinks it provides a critical crutch at a time when police forces are still suffering from a post-recession reduction in size.

"When you get a reduction in force, what you have is fewer officers in the field, more officers who are alone in the field; so officer safety becomes a question," Schaff said. "They're offsetting this with technology."

Schaff and Yardarm are also seeking clients in the world of private security, and industry which counts more employees than there are police officers in the United States. In that field, Schaff said, Yardarm might be more useful for employee oversight than security. "At 3:00 in the morning, did a private security officer actually walk patrol?" Schaff asked hypothetically.

Yardarm Technologies is looking to raise another round of funding in the first half of the year and in the next 45 days plans to manufacture one to two hundred test guns from their base of engineering and manufacturing in Alpharetta, Georgia. Purchase and use by law enforcement agencies could come as early as this summer or fall.

SEE ALSO: A look at the "smart guns" that could prevent future tragedies

MORE: How "smart guns" could eventually help shape US foreign policy

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China’s development of precision weapons and other advanced capabilities has undermined US military superiority, the Pentagon’s senior weapons developer told Congress on Wednesday.

“We’re at risk and the situation is getting worse,” Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, said.

Kendall singled out China’s military buildup as a major worry, noting that in 1994 the communist state was assessed by US intelligence agencies to be a backward military power, but one that would be more advanced in 10 or 15 years.

He also noted Russia’s increasingly threatening military posture.

“The intelligence estimates were correct,” he said, of China. “And I became, I think it’s fair to say, alarmed as soon as I started seeing technical intelligence reports on China’s modernization programs.”

“And I can say the same with Russia’s modernization programs as well,” he added.

The US military was dominant following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he said, and the US action in the Persian Gulf war demonstrated the nation’s conventional force prowess.

But beginning in 2001 the military has focused on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaigns against a very different kind of threat.

“No one observed more carefully the dominance that we demonstrated in 1991 than the Chinese,” Kendall said, referring to US precision arms capabilities, stealth forces, and ability to conduct wide area surveillance.

“And what I’m seeing [now] in foreign modernization, again, particularly China’s, is a suite of capabilities that are intended, clearly to me, at least, to defeat the American way of doing power projection, [the] American way of warfare when we fight in an expeditionary manner far from the United States,” Kendall said.

The US military’s use of what Kendall termed “high-value assets” such as satellites for targeting and communications, aircraft carriers, and foreign US air bases are now targeted by the Chinese and others with precision weapons, especially missiles.

“So if I we’re worried about one aspect of the threat, I would start by talking about missiles.,” he said. “Both ballistic and cruise missiles that can attack those high-value assets.”

China has been aggressively building up its missile forces with as many as six or seven new types of ballistic and cruise missiles of varying ranges, including three new land-based ICBMs and a new submarine-launched ballistic missiles, as well as new intermediate and medium-range missiles.

Both the Chinese and Russians understand that large numbers of highly accurate missiles are being developed and deployed for the goal of taking out those US high-value targets, Kendall said.

“And once those missiles become highly accurate and can kill the thing that you’re trying to actively penetrate, then you have a problem,” he said. “That’s the change that has occurred. And we’ve pioneered that change, but it’s now been emulated by others. And without saying too much about the Chinese, in particular, and again, though to a lesser extent, the Russians, are going beyond what we have done.”

Both countries are developing advanced weapons to defeat US defenses of the targets.

Kendall said senior Pentagon leaders understand the problem but protecting the assets has been complicated by budget cuts and the cost of maintaining global commitments.

“We also have readiness concerns,” he said. “We also have the threat of sequestration in front of us. So this is a serious problem for the country.”

In addition to missile threats, electronic warfare capabilities, anti-satellites weapon and other weapons to be used against US space systems are a problem, Kendall said, all of which “are being developed very consciously to defeat the American way of projecting power and we need to respond to that.”

Kendall’s remarks came during questioning from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R., Texas) who asked about his concerns on US military technology superiority.

Kendall said during the hearing that fixing the military shortcomings is “very much is like changing an airplane engine, while the engine’s in flight.”

“We still have to defend the country while we look to make improvements,” he said.

China has been building up its military forces aggressively for the past three decades.

However, close US business ties with China have made the US government reluctant to respond to the threat.

China’s People’s Liberation Army has developed key high technology weaponry as part of a strategy of forcing the United States to abandon its military presence in Asia.

The weapons include large number of ballistic and cruise missiles, including a carrier-killing DF-21D missile, anti-satellite missiles, lasers that can destroy space systems, and cyber warfare capabilities designed to cripple the US military’s ability to operate and support forces overseas.

Russia’s military has been building up nuclear forces in response to what Moscow views as potential threats in Europe to its offensive missile capabilities.

Moscow is building new generations of strategic missiles as well as a new strategic bomber.

Sharp defense cuts under the Obama administration, including a $478 billion cut over 10 years imposed during the first term and an additional $600 billion cut in the coming years, have hampered the modernization of US forces.

SEE ALSO: These Chinese military advancements are shifting the balance of power in Asia

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For 2o years Russians were equipped with a triple-barreled gun with a swing-out machete for space missions.

The TP-82 pistol was included in the Soyuz Portable Emergency-Survival Kit after two cosmonauts crash-landed into a forest in Siberia in 1965. They struggled to hunt prey, build shelter, and send a distress signal and thus, the "space gun" was born to shoot rifle bullets, shotgun shells, and flares.

During flight, the gun is stowed in a metal canister and if all goes well, the canister is never opened, NBC News space analyst James Oberg reports. "At the end of the mission, after landing, the gun is usually presented as a gift to the Soyuz spacecraft commander," Oberg reports.

Astronomer Matija Cuk at Harvard University explains that the only difference between shooting a gun on Earth and in space is that the bullet will keep traveling forever. "The bullet will never stop, because the universe is expanding faster than the bullet can catch up with any serious amount of mass," Cuk told LiveScience.

Astronomer Peter Schultz at Brown University also notes that in space you could technically shoot yourself in the back.

"For example, while in orbit around a planet, because objects orbiting planets are actually in a constant state of free fall, you have to get the setup just right. You'd have to shoot horizontally at just the right altitude for the bullet to circle the planet and fall back to where it started (you)," Shultz told LiveScience.

Russia replaced the gun with the semi-automatic Makarov pistol because all the in-stock ammunition for the TP-82 had expired.

While the conjoined gun-machete no longer exists in the Soyuz portable emergency-survival kit, an individual gun and machete are still included.

Here is a look at some of the item in the Russian survival kit: 

SEE ALSO: The 10 Most Incredible Weapon Systems Used By The Russian Army

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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.

SEE ALSO: Ukraine is just another proxy war between world powers

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NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton intends to create a new unit of police officers specially trained to use heavy weaponry. They'll be equipped with "extra heavy protective gear, with the long rifles and machine guns," he said during a Thursday press conference.

As a critic of militarized police forces, I must acknowledge that New York City and Washington, D.C., by virtue of their status as prime terrorist targets, can justify counterterrorism training and weaponry that would be absurd elsewhere, which isn't to say that this heavily armed, 350-person squad is a no-brainer. It isn't as if such a unit would've stopped the attacks in Boston or 9/11 or Oklahoma City—or the terrorist attack in Paris, or the ones some years ago in Madrid or London.

The benefit to such a squad is its ability to respond to an attack like the ones in Mumbai or Nairobi, where heavily armed gunmen seize a building with many hostages. The cost is the danger that the militarized unit will be turned on U.S. citizens.

Alas, that worst-case scenario seems to be Bratton's plan. The unit, dubbed a Strategic Response Group, is "designed for dealing with events like our recent protests, or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris,” Bratton declared, giving no sign of recognizing that one of those things is unlike the others.

The NYPD has a history of violently suppressing protests.

An investigation undertaken by law clinics at NYU, Fordham, Harvard, and Stanford concluded, after eight months of study, that the NYPD abused Occupy Wall Street protesters and violated their rights on numerous occasions during the 2011 protests that radiated out from Zuccotti Park. Their report is titled "Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street."

In a 2012 article, I noted 14 specific allegations of abuse.

Last year, the New York Civil Liberties Union declared victory in its lengthy attempt to seek redress for some of the NYPD abuses perpetrated during protests in 2004: "New York City has agreed to pay nearly $18 million for the arrest, detention and fingerprinting of hundreds of protesters, journalists, legal observers and bystanders during the 2004 Republican National Convention – the largest protest settlement in history. The NYCLU filed the first cases following the Convention and has been central to the legal challenge to the NYPD’s actions."

When the unit trained to fight terrorists with heavy weapons is sent to face unarmed New Yorkers exercising their right to free assembly, hopefully they'll wield their machine guns more responsibly than Anthony Balonga did his pepper spray:

Other changes announced by Bratton are more promising:

Under a plan created by chief of department James O’Neill, the NYPD will cut the number of officers assigned to specialty roles, and increase the number of officers on patrol in local precincts. “We’ll assign them to steady sectors," Bratton said. "Having more patrol officers and sector cars lessens the tyranny of the radio and allows time for new, creative types of police work.”

...this pilot program is similar to one he began rolling out when he was an officer working in Boston in the 1970s. It was so successful in his precinct, he was promoted within the Boston department to expand the program citywide. It never happened though, because Boston ended up laying off officers before Bratton’s plan could be implemented. Bratton also said there is a similar program used in the Los Angeles Police Department, which he led for seven years in the 2000s. “For years we’ve been asking our officers to engage in the community, but we’ve never given them time to do it, or the training,” Bratton said.

Under the new plan, officers will be able to more easily follow up on past crimes, meet with community members, and build relationships with local residents. “Cops will know their sectors and the citizens will know them. They’ll know the problem areas and the problem people. I truly believe when cops embrace their neighborhoods, their neighborhoods will embrace them back,” Bratton said.

If residents in those same neighborhoods take to the streets in civic protest, perhaps they'd be better policed by those same officers rather than heavily armed strangers.

SEE ALSO: The NYPD Could Be Wasting $410 Million A Year

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Despite a lack of archaeological evidence, the first North Americans have often been depicted hunting with spear-throwers, which are tools that can launch deadly spear points at high speeds.

But now, a new analysis of microscopic fractures on Paleo-Indian spear points provides the first empirical evidence that America's first hunters really did use these weapons to tackle mammoths and other big game.

The new study has implications for scientists' understanding of the way Paleo-Indians lived, researchers say.

To understand the inner workings of extinct hunter-gatherer societies, it's important to first learn how the ancient peoples got the food they ate, because their lives were closely tied to their subsistence activities. Current models of Paleo-Indian society are based on the assumption that hunters sometimes used spear-throwers, or atlatls, said study author Karl Hutchings, an archaeologist at Thompson Rivers University in Canada. [In Photos: The Clovis Culture & Stone Tools]

"We can now be assured that those assumptions were right," Hutchings told Live Science.

Ancient hunting tools

Similar to bows, atlatls can propel flexible, pointed shafts — called darts, rather than arrows — at high speeds across long distances. Essentially, they were sticklike tools that contained a hook or spur at one end to hold a dart. By swinging the spear-thrower overhead and forward, hunters could launch their darts with greater force than if they were to throw them like javelins.

Archaeological evidence indicates that hunter-gathers in the Old World used atlatls beginning at least 18,000 years ago. Researchers have long thought that Paleo-Indians — including the people of the Clovis culture, who lived around 13,000 years ago and are considered one of the first American peoples— also hunted with spear-throwers.

Researchers reasoned that "if the spear-thrower originated in the Old World, then it only made sense that it must have shown up with early [North American] colonists," Hutchings said. Additionally, Paleo-Indians were thought to have hunted big animals, such as mammoths and ground sloths, which would have required powerful, long-distance weapons to take the animals down safely. "People started wondering just how crazy you would have to be to run up to these things with just a sharp, broken rock tied to a stick."

But archeological evidence of Paleo-Indian atlatls and darts is lacking because these tools were often made of wood, which doesn't preserve well — the only part of the weapons left in the archaeological record are the stone points, which could have also been used in other types of weapons, such as spears, Hutchings said. In comparison, ancient spear-throwers from Europe were often made of ivory or bone.

The earliest known evidence of Paleo-Indian spear-throwers comes from 11,000-year-old "bannerstones," which are stone objects that may have functioned as atlatl weights, though the true function of bannerstones is debated, Hutchings said. [Top 10 Mysteries of the 1st Humans]

The earliest solid evidence of atlatls in the New World, then, are 9,000- to 10,000-year-old spear-thrower hooks from Warm Mineral Springs, a sinkhole in Florida. However, these tools date back to the Early Archaic subperiod, which came after the Paleo-Indian period.

Telltale fractures

To see if the earliest North Americans — including people from the Clovis culture, Folsom culture (10,000 to 11,000 years ago) and other Paleo-Indians — used atlatls, Hutchings analyzed the fractures present in hundreds of spear points. He looked for clues that the weapon tips experienced high-velocity, mechanically propelled impacts.

If a spear point hits a target hard enough, the energy of the impact will cause the tip to break. "When it breaks, it sends a shock wave through the stone that produces fractures, which are related to the amount and kind of force involved," Hutchings said.

By measuring topographic features on the fracture surface, you can calculate the "fracture velocity" of the impact, or how quickly the fractures spread through the material, Hutchings explained. Because different weapons — spears, javelins, atlatls or bows — produce specific fracture velocities and related forces, you can work backward from a fracture to determine what caused it.

Using this method, which he developed in the late 1990s, Hutchings determined the fracture velocities for 55 out of 668 Paleo-Indian artifacts that he examined. Of these points, about half of them exhibited fracture velocities that can only be achieved using an atlatl and dart or a bow and arrow.

Because Paleo-Indians aren't thought to have had bows and arrows or other propulsive weapons, the findings suggest that they most likely used atlatls to launch their spear points, Hutchings said.

Importantly, the method may also help scientists better understand ancient projectile technologies, by allowing them to trace the origin of the technologies and how they were used across societies and continents. "We can get a better resolution of when these technologies occurred, how they spread and why they spread," Hutchings said.

Hutchings detailed his findings in the March issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Follow Joseph Castro on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

• Image Gallery: Early Humans Wield Tools
• Mastodon Bones: Images of an Early Hunt
• Image Gallery: Our Closest Human Ancestor

Copyright 2015 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Knives, guns, and machetes. That's not the shopping list of a serial killer, just a few of the things that Russians carry on the subway with them every day. 

Photographer Oleg Ponomarev from The Calvert Journal took these X-ray pictures of the bags people carry during their commute on trains in St. Petersburg. There are plenty of normal things, like milk bottles and bread loaves. But there are plenty of weapons, too.

The author says his art project shows the paradox of the Russian security surveillance system. "There are more and more different means of state control and surveillance, from cameras on buildings to social media monitoring, which are meant to create order, but people still don't feel safe, so they have to carry weapons," he said. 

The Calvert Journal is an online magazine about Russian art and design based in London.

This bag, found on a Saturday night in St. Petersburg's Central district, contains an AKM Airsoft machine gun (it's like a paintball gun), a bag of pellets, and a can of Spam.

The pictures are taken from busy stations in St. Petersburg that have a small X-ray machine to let police perform random checks. This kitchen knife was found in the Moskovsky district on a Tuesday morning.

The following captions describe when and where the weapons were found: Traumatic pistol (a type of gas-powered non-lethal self-defence weapon; model unknown), glasses, walkie talkie. Moskovsky district, Friday afternoon.

Knives, guns, and machetes. That's not the shopping list of a serial killer, just a few of the things that Russians carry on the subway with them every day. 

Photographer Oleg Ponomarev from The Calvert Journal took these X-ray pictures of the bags people carry during their commute on trains in St. Petersburg. There are plenty of normal things, like milk bottles and bread loaves. But there are plenty of weapons, too.

The author says his art project shows the paradox of the Russian security surveillance system. "There are more and more different means of state control and surveillance, from cameras on buildings to social media monitoring, which are meant to create order, but people still don't feel safe, so they have to carry weapons," he said. 

The Calvert Journal is an online magazine about Russian art and design based in London.

This bag, found on a Saturday night in St. Petersburg's Central district, contains an AKM Airsoft machine gun (it's like a paintball gun), a bag of pellets, and a can of Spam.

The pictures are taken from busy stations in St. Petersburg that have a small X-ray machine to let police perform random checks. This kitchen knife was found in the Moskovsky district on a Tuesday morning.

The following captions describe when and where the weapons were found: Traumatic pistol (a type of gas-powered non-lethal self-defence weapon; model unknown), glasses, walkie talkie. Moskovsky district, Friday afternoon.

The US Navy has successfully altered a Raytheon Tomahawk land-attack missile (TLAM) to be able to hit a moving target at sea, USNI News reports. 

In a Jan. 27 test off of San Nicolas Island, California, the Navy launched a TLAM that was guided into a moving maritime target through directions given by a Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet flying overhead. TLAMs are capable of changing their direction mid-course.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, the Pentagon's second-highest-ranked civilian, praised the successful test of the missile during a keynote speech at the WEST 2015 conference. He said the missiles were part of the Pentagon's "Third Offset Strategy," an initiative focused on research into new long-range weapons. 

"A big part of the Third Offset Strategies is to find new and innovative ways to deploy promising technologies," Work said. "This is potentially a game-changing capability for not a lot of cost. It's a 1,000-mile anti-ship cruise missile."

TLAMs are already used for land-attack missions against static targets. By converting TLAMs into missiles capable of penetrating thickly armored vessels at sea, the Navy plugs a serious gap in its weapons capabilities. According to USNI News, TLAMs that have been converted into anti-ship missiles could be used aboard the Navy's newer guided-missile destroyers, which cannot use the service's antiquated RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missile. 

The new converted TLAMs would have a range of almost 1,000 nautical miles, allowing the US to maintain a considerable edge over rival naval powers. One of China's most threatening new military advancements is its development of its own advanced anti-ship cruise missiles. However, these missiles would have just half the range of a converted TLAM. 

If fully adapted, the newest iteration of the TLAM will function as a stop-gap measure until the Navy's next-generation Long-Range Anti-Ship missile is ready for action. 

Here's how last month's test went down.

The Tomahawk missile, after being outfitted with new sensors, was guided into a moving target by an overhead Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

The test was successful. The missile penetrated a moving maritime target, a milestone for the Tomahawk weapons system.

Here is a video of the converted TLAM in action. 

SEE ALSO: These weapons could be China's most threatening military advancement for the US

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