Shaleesh

joined 4 years ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Im a little late to the party on this one but there are a number of grenade rifles employed by the PLA.

Soldier aiming a QLU-11 grenade rifle

They have a series of 35mm magazine fed grenade launchers that acts as an infantry support weapon, posessing anti-materiel and anti-infantry capability. The most recent one is designated QLU-11 and it has a rangefinding optic that works with programmable airburst munitions as well as normal 35mm grenades.

A mannequin displaying a QTS-11 combination grenade launcher and assault rifle

The QTS-11 is more or less an analogue to the US OICW program. It has a single shot, bolt action 20mm grenade launcher paired with its own rangefinder mounted above what is ultimately a short-barreled QBZ-03. It is believed to be the lightest of these kinds of weapons at around 7kg/15lb fully loaded and the specialized optic attached. The nifty thing about these is that instead of having one high-tech round that does everything it has multiple ammunition types that include both programmable "smart" rounds and traditional "dumb" rounds. The optic pairs with a headset that allows the shooter to look around corners but it can be removed and used with iron sights. Some reports suggest that around 50,000 have been made and that they have been deployed with some mechanized infantry units, which would make it the most successful of the OICW-like weapons. However, I have some doubts about those reports because these rifles haven't been spotted very much, if at all since the mid-2010s. Personally? I think the whole concept has been shown to be a dead-end and that weapons like this just aren't useful enough to justify the downsides of weight, safety, and cost.

Xi Jinpeng aiming a QTS-11

also heres a picture of Xi jinpeng holding one

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This is a fair point, however the programmable infantry airburst rifle concept runs into issues those don't, largely because of the mode of usage and size.

One of the problems with the OICW and XM25 systems was that fitting the electronics that would allow for the programming of the rounds meant there was less space for the explosive charge. Something like a 105mm artillery round would sacrifice a small fraction of the space for the same capability compared to say, a 25mm round. Unlike artillery, which is static when it is being used and fires a number of rounds at the same target, infantry airburst systems are used much more dynamically. They are expected to be banged around and have to repeatedly "re-zero" targets in rapid sucession.

Basically, it works in big guns because theyre big and the technology is matured, and it doesn't work all that well in small guns because theyre small and have additional design challenges.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Russia has begun to field a helmet-mounted laser warning system that can detect the presence and direction of infrared laser emissions. Similar systems are being developed elsewhere and will likely proliferate in the coming years. Experience in the war in Ukraine has shown that in some instances infrared emissions can give away positions as much as gunfire will.

This development is very interesting in light of a trend we are seeing with this and the NGSW program. The US military is developing infantry small arms that are largely reliant on the frequent use of infrared laser rangefinders. Given that future doctrines may require "laser discipline", it is possible though not guaranteed, that these new US systems may be a developmental dead end.

Also lol @ the fact theyve been trying this shit for 40 fuckin years and every time they just stick with 40mm bloop tube grenades. Zillions of dollars poured into this stuff and the latest hotness is issuing standalone UBGL systems to grenadiers, not laser blazing airbursting spaceguns. This shit doesnt even work out when its tripod mounted lol.

XM307 crew served automatic airburst grenade launcher, nasty stuff.

To be fair and balanced(tm) it should be mentioned that programmable 40mm grenades do exist and could be used with existing systems after some modifications. Things like that have been floated as potential anti-drone weapons but it doesnt seem like thats gone too far as of yet.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Theres quite a few attempted mountain dew flavors out there that have been around for over a decade. They just cant use the name for legal reasons and PepsiCo probably thinks its a dumb idea to get involved in vapes at this point.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The craziest thing about all this is how it clearly shows how few, if any consumer protections exist in the gun industry. People have spent years trying to argue with the manufacturer that they are selling an unsafe product, theres been lawsuits, but still there haven't been any meaningful repercussions for Sig. This might be a poor comparison, but childrens toys get recalled on suspicion alone whereas these have recorded instances where they've shown to have a potentially lethal design flaw.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Kinda? Sig has a "voluntary upgrade" program that claims to replace the striker assembly with one that they claim doesn't have the design flaw that caused the issue...

However it's not clear if the upgrade fixes the root problem of the issue since the reports of misfires are still coming in.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Does transgender stuff get brought up explicitly at any point?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

If theres anyone who really needs to move on, its cumtown fans.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

~~ahahahah what the fuck kind of screen name is 3blue1brown????~~

Ok apparently its a reference to their sectoral heterochromia and it's not some kind of bizzare brainrot screenname. Now I feel like a dick,

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

This is likely to be an inaccurate and inflated figure. The methods used in this study have high false positive rates and there is some doubt as to its usefulness in detecting microplastics in the human body.

This twitter post discusses the paper in question and links to a paper critical of the methods used.

I wish I had something better to offer than posts on social media but heres another one that discusses the paper's findings.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Back when I made my own juice I had a blend that was equal parts peppermint, vanilla ice cream, menthol and rose candy. It was very refreshing, pleasingly sweet, and it paired very nicely with black coffee. It was also really easy on the atomizer so I could stretch out a Nautilus coil to 2-3 weeks without issue.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I've been gathering information and pictures on this and the other homegrown cuban gunsight. Once Im done getting crushed by my workload I'm going to do a writeup on both and post it here. I know very little about this one other than a rumor that it is based off of the AimPoint CompM2 and that they started appearing sometime around 2021.

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