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00:00Is a new Cold War on tap?
00:02The president sends two submarines to quote, appropriate regions in response to Russian
00:07leadership.
00:08Plus, the Navy loses a fifth-gen fighter.
00:11The Air Force narrowly avoids a mid-air disaster.
00:14Is this a trend or just a coincidence?
00:17And the Air Force wants to blow up some cyber trucks, why Elon Musk's most revolutionary
00:21product is headed for the bombing range.
00:33Hello and welcome to Weapons and Warfare, a show made for folks who just want to know
00:37more about our national defense.
00:39Our goal here is to help you have an informed conversation about what's happening with America's
00:44military.
00:45For Straight Arrow News, I'm your host, Ryan Robertson, and we start this week with our
00:49southern border, where we're getting an up-close look at a small portion of what the mission
00:54looks like for American troops.
00:59In the abstract, soldiers working the U.S.-Mexico border don't look much different from soldiers
01:05on patrol in parts of the Middle East.
01:08Miles and miles of rough, rocky terrain, barren and harsh.
01:14It's only when you tighten that focus that a fuller picture starts to reveal itself.
01:19You see U.S. troops sharing command stations and vehicles with U.S. Border Patrol agents.
01:25These vehicles here are United States Army striker vehicles, and our soldiers are using these
01:31vehicles as part of our mission to detect and monitor traffic attempting to cross the border.
01:37Soldiers, like Lieutenant Colonel Kyle Brown, are quick to point out other differences between
01:42this mission and ones abroad.
01:45You'll see that there are no machine guns or anti-tank missiles while we're down here
01:49supporting border patrol.
01:50So here in Nogales, we're using these vehicles almost exclusively for their cameras, as well
01:57as their ability, you can see they look fairly rugged and high off the ground, to traverse some
02:01rugged terrain that sometimes border patrols pick up trucks that aren't able to.
02:051,954.
02:08That's how many miles of border the United States and Mexico officially share.
02:12Running from about 18 miles out into the Pacific, all the way to about 12 miles off the shore of
02:19South Padre Island, Texas.
02:20To give you some added perspective, that's a little longer than the distance from Santa Fe, New Mexico,
02:27all the way to Boston, Mass. According to the Department of Defense, around 8,500 personnel
02:33from every branch of the military are attached to Joint Task Force Southern Border under an
02:40emergency declaration from President Donald Trump.
02:44For us, at least, we're just watching, so we're not affecting anyone in any way.
02:50But if things get to be different where there's a crime or something that's happening,
02:55we also have eyes on us where we can also say stop and we can get BP to get there and stop that crime.
03:02For Army Sergeant Anna Harker, it's an assignment with unique significance.
03:07I'm from Panama City, Panama, and I came to the United States around 12 when I was 12 years old.
03:15So obviously, with me also being an immigrant, doing this mission, I feel like I'm doing a difference
03:24in exchange in helping this country. Traditionally, border enforcement was handled by civilian agencies,
03:30with the military only stepping in occasionally. However, in April, many areas along the border were
03:37designated as militarized zones. The zones allow the DOD to sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act,
03:44an 1878 law that prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.
03:51This change allows U.S. troops to apprehend people trespassing in these areas. There are other
03:58deterrents as well. The Army is turning to technology that could make a difference for someone considering
04:05an illegal crossing. So this is the LRAD, stands for the Long Range Acoustic Device,
04:09that basically broadcasts any tone or any voice at a longer distance. Then we can inform them with this,
04:16and we can inform them that if they cross over the barrier, they will be in our national defense area.
04:20That is their early warning. If they cross into our national defense area, then they will be detained.
04:25They're also using anti-drone technology to counter smugglers and human traffickers
04:31in places where there are gaps in enforcement. The extra layer of security that they bring,
04:37pretty much deploying their soldiers to these different positions, locations in between the ports of
04:45entry. It is crucial and has been significant for us because of the fact that we have seen the numbers
04:53suddenly decrease. If you're wondering how much of a difference all of this is making,
04:58July was another month of record low illegal crossings at the southern border, with border
05:03patrol arresting only 4,598 people trying to cross illegally, according to the White House.
05:11That's a 24% drop from the previous record low in June, averaging just 148 illegal crossings a day.
05:20Despite those stats, there's no timetable for when American troops might leave the border, but President
05:26Trump has authorized funding for an additional 3,000 border patrol agents, offering $10,000 signing and
05:34retention bonuses.
05:37All right, folks, we are joined now by super producer Brett Baker. Just hit my microphone.
05:42Sorry for the noise. He is also an Air Force veteran. Brett, by the looks of your background,
05:48obviously you are a football fan. Summer is winding down. So, you know, spoiler alert,
05:55Brett's a Husker fan. For those of you who didn't know, although you don't have any Husker memorabilia
05:59behind you, what gives. Your thoughts on the upcoming season? You're closer to Lincoln than
06:05I am, obviously, so you get more inside news than I do. Oh, man, look at that. All right.
06:11All right. It's serious. Let's tackle this first. My answer is a 55-year-old would be a lot different
06:17than it was as a 25-year-old, unfortunately. But year three is the year that Mount Rule is supposed
06:23to make big leaps. I don't know if we'll get to double digits. I'm hoping for eight wins. I think
06:28eight wins would be an improvement on last year's record. Maybe go to a little bit better caliber
06:32bowl than the pinstripe bowl and knock off a ranked team. That would be nice. I haven't done that in
06:38a while. Yeah. No. So there we go. I've been properly. You like that though? I love that,
06:46Brad. All right. Let's get to the headlines. In early August, President Trump said he ordered
06:53two nuclear submarines to be positioned in, quote, the appropriate regions in response to remarks
07:00from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev about the risk of war between Russia and the US.
07:07Medvedev apparently set the president off when he said the president should remember that Moscow
07:12possessed Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities of last resort. Trump did not specify what he meant by
07:19nuclear submarines nor which specific vessels he was referring to. But, Brett, that ambiguity there
07:25means that we could just be talking about nuclear powered submarines, which all US subs are, or nuclear
07:32armed submarines. Right. It is difficult to know which one it would be, obviously under any circumstance
07:39anyway. However, mixed messaging is kind of a hallmark of this administration. So it's really hard to know
07:50what's really, I mean, they could be out there in those places already anyway. Right. And we haven't heard
07:57much about it since. So at least to this point as we're recording this. So, you know, saber rattling happens
08:06on both sides. True. Uh, and I think this may just be a case of saber rattling for the sake of saber
08:11rattling, but we don't know for sure. Um, but yeah, it's, it's an interesting, the rhetoric at least
08:18is new, uh, in this regard. We haven't heard this kind of talk before. So that is a new element.
08:23Right. Right. And Medvedev, you know, he's, he's Putin's little like
08:29mouthpiece, you know, that like, Hey, go, go say some stuff and see what lands.
08:35And, you know, that's kind of his role there as well. So you're probably right. A little bit of
08:40saber rattling on both sides, but just that, that ambiguity there is kind of just a nice reminder.
08:44Hey, Vlad, we got these things. We still keep up with ours. Don't try us. Right.
08:50Next up, some classic bad news. Good news. First up, bad news. A Navy F-35 crashed in a central
09:00California field. Good news. The pilot safely ejected before impact. Authorities confirmed
09:06the plane crashed near the Naval Air Station Lemoore in late July. Next, bad news. A near collision
09:13between a Delta operated jet and a B-52 in North Dakota triggered an FAA investigation. Good news.
09:22Thanks to an alert pilot, the commercial jet saw the B-52 and executed a go around
09:28and everyone was able to land safe and sound. Brett, what's the deal with planes crashing?
09:36Yeah. Uh, so the interesting question is, you know, is it, is it coincidence or is this a
09:41part of a broader trend and whatnot? So there's three different kinds of mishaps generally that
09:46the military or in aviation, uh, have. There's the class A, class B, class C, uh, class A being the
09:52most severe $2.5 million, uh, in excess of damage and fatalities and injuries and damaged property,
10:00that kind of thing. Class B, um, injuries and it starts at 600,000 up to 2.5. And then class C is lower,
10:09whereas something that doesn't really cause any damage, but action had to be taken, uh,
10:14at some point. So looking back at like the last five years, because I feel the way everything moves
10:21along and troop sizes, you know, you know, squadron sizes go up and down. Um, you get more F-35s into
10:29the mix. So taking this monoscope as opposed to like a 10 year grab, it's pretty much within the standard
10:36means. Um, you know, in, in 2014, the Navy had 17 class A's and in 2024, they had 11. So, uh,
10:47and I don't know what they're, where they're at at this point in this year, but I would, I don't think
10:50it's above 11. Um, and yeah, the same thing. Um, like the air force and the air force, of course,
10:56being the largest air force in the world, had 27 class A, uh, kind of averaged about 27 class
11:02A incidents annually. Um, which does seem like a lot, but then you have to also factor in how much
11:09aircraft actually possess. Right. So no, I just think, uh, I don't think it's a trend. I think
11:16it's probably within the, the means of the average of how this kind of goes. Um, I just think there's
11:22probably more eyeballs on it right now. It's super hyper-focused. Yeah. I was going to say that
11:27just the, there's more awareness about it, more cell phones, more, you know, internet guys talking
11:35about it. Right. Uh, so probably just, you know, more, more eyeballs, more focus, more awareness
11:41doesn't necessarily mean that there's more of it. So Brett, you will of course, appreciate this as an
11:48air force veteran, because this might be the air force's best recruiting pitch ever. Do you want
11:54to blow up a cyber truck? Recently, the folks over at the war zone detailed a particular finding in a
12:00contracts document from the air force test center. It seems the, uh, air force is looking for 33
12:07vehicles for target practice for the U S special operations command standoff precision guided
12:13munitions program. Brett, does the USAF just want to see how a big electric vehicle blows up or is there
12:19something, you know, particular about a cyber bin, excuse me, cyber truck. Uh, uh, I just think they
12:27look ridiculous. It's probably a fine vehicle, but they look like, you know, uh, uh, old school trash
12:32bin anyway. Why, why, why does the air force want to blow these things up? Well, other than kicks,
12:38personal kicks, I'm sure. Um, uh, do it, doing a little light reading. It's funny. So they requisitioned
12:4533 vehicles for this type of thing. The only one that was a name brand that was requested,
12:50there were like trucks and cars and whatnot, but the cyber Tesla cyber truck was the only one
12:55specifically mentioned one keynote. Uh, they didn't have to be running. They just had to be towable,
12:59which is pretty hilarious. But I think, uh, you know, the construction of those is interesting.
13:04Um, they probably want to see what happens when we do drop, you know, munitions on it. Uh, and then of
13:10course, yeah, you have that gigantic battery in there that, um, is what, you know, you want to
13:16see like what happens. Cause I think if a suspect a, or, you know, the, the, the person we're, we're
13:22looking for is cruising around in a cyber truck in downtown, wherever. Yeah. If you hit it with a
13:28stinger, that could be very bad. Like that could have, you know, exponential, you know, where were
13:34you really kind of want to minimize that footprint? Right. So yeah, I think it's probably just a learning
13:39thing other than so to like, man, I got to blow up a cyber truck today. And there's, there's that
13:46Russian, um, not Russian, but he was like the Chechen rebel leader, Chechen general. I can't
13:53remember his name. Uh, but he like, he mounted guns to his cyber trucks. Right. So like, we know that
13:59there are some like, you know, warlords out there with, with cyber trucks. So, you know, maybe kind of a
14:06little, uh, Hey guys, we're figuring out how to kill you efficiently. Um, I don't know,
14:12but might make me think twice if I was a drug lord in some third world country with a cyber truck.
14:16Right. Be a little more nondescript. Exactly. Like fly under the radar guys under the radar.
14:23All right, Brett, really appreciate your time. Thanks again. Uh, cyber trucks, you know, um,
14:28like I said, it's gotta be the air force. Like if I was in 17 year old kid and air force recruiters,
14:35like, Hey man, sign up and you can, you know, blow these things up. Be a hard sell for me to pass
14:41up. I'll tell you that much. Absolutely.
14:47So much of modern warfare means having the right tool for the job. And here to talk a little bit
14:51more about that is Joe Chan with American Ryan Mittal. And Joe, we're talking about air burst
14:56munitions today. Talk to me a little bit about this first 40 millimeter air burst that we have.
15:01So what we're doing for the army, uh, is to develop a 40 millimeter air burst round.
15:07Previously, the way you were engaging targets is the 40 millimeter round will have to hit the target.
15:13So it's a point detonating fuse. It's great for, uh, the target sets that it's going after, but
15:19it's not so great for target sets where you're trying to engage targets that are behind cover
15:24because you just can't hit them. So what the army is trying to do is how do you make this into an
15:29air burst round so that you can explode this above a target where they're hiding. So what the technology
15:37that we've provided is we're programming this fuse to explode at a 3d point in space by telling it the
15:45range, which then converts it into a time of flight. And the way that we're doing this is you'll see
15:51these little indentations here around the edge of the fuse that no other of the 40 millimeter rounds
15:58have, but those are our LEDs. They're receiving signals as it's, as it's launching out of the muzzle
16:06from an IR programmer on the barrel of the gun telling this how far to go. And then when it reaches
16:14the predetermined, uh, time of flight, it goes off very highly effective. You bet. So that's what the army
16:21is working on. And like you said, it's for people who are undercover. If you're behind a sand berm or behind
16:26a wall or something, your 40 millimeter round standard detonation wouldn't be able to necessarily
16:31punch through that. This can kind of take care of the target on the other side of the wall without
16:34going through the wall. The Navy has something different that you're working on. So this is a
16:3930 millimeter round, correct? Yes, this is a 30 by 173 millimeter round that the Navy is putting on some of
16:46their ships. Uh, it's, uh, still in the developmental phase, uh, and it is also an air burst round.
16:53It's a little different than what the army is doing. Uh, obviously the form factor is different,
16:58but it's being fired out of a big cannon. And while the army's round is more of an
17:02HE round, uh, and not necessarily optimized for counter air, this round that we're doing for the Navy is, is
17:11optimized for counter air. What you see here is a, like a couple of rows of tungsten, uh, sub projectiles.
17:18There's 168 of them. And the way this air bursts is upon reaching the time of flight, these, these
17:26tungsten projectiles are ejected in a forward cone of fragments that are, are, because the round is
17:34spiraling, it, this is the resulting frag pattern. Now this is just a one quarter scale 3D printed, uh,
17:42target array. The actual target that we scanned this from is about four times the size of it.
17:47And this is the pattern. Obviously you can see that all these tungsten small fragments will result in
17:55a bunch of little holes, about four times the size of this very effective against counter UAS targets.
18:01You bet. You bet. And like you said, the, the, the spoke pattern, the, the cyclical pattern is
18:07because the round is spinning and as it explodes, that cone of, of destruction is spinning in air
18:13as well. And that's what makes that impact pattern. Correct. All right. Joe, really appreciate
18:17your time today. Thank you so much for joining us today on our weapons and warfare segment. Appreciate
18:21it. That's all the time we have for this week's, uh, episode, uh, or excuse me, this week's segment
18:26of our weapon of the week. Time for comps check. And this week we're dipping into the email bag to
18:33tackle a viewer's observation about a recent episode. After watching our July 30th installment
18:41that focused on the Marine Corps effort to modernize, which is called the force design initiative,
18:48Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Benson wrote this recent article Marine Corps marks five years of force
18:53design modernization by Ryan Robertson and Brett Baker does not accurately reflect the historic retention
19:00success the Marine Corps has experienced, which has positively influenced the health of our recruitment
19:07program, as well as provided stability to our training pipeline. First Colonel Benson, thank you
19:14for watching and taking the time to reach out to us. We sincerely appreciate it. Second, you're right.
19:21On rewatch, we probably didn't spend as much time or take a deep enough dive on the Corps retention
19:28success. So let's go ahead and address it now. In 2021, the Corps launched an initiative called
19:34Talent Management 2030. The goal was to transform recruitment, development, and retention to meet
19:41future operational demands. So far, the results have been very positive for the Corps. In fiscal year 2022,
19:50the Marines met the retention goal early, marking the first time that happened in a decade. Going back to
19:57fiscal year 2023, it's more of the same with a goal of retaining 6,225 first-term Marines. The Corps exceeded
20:06that by nearly 14%, keeping 7,079 Marines in uniform. They also retained 64% of eligible subsequent-term
20:17Marines. And according to a September 2024 press release, the Marines exceeded their retention goals
20:24for fiscal year 2024, successfully retaining 114% of their first-term re-enlistment candidates and
20:34re-enlisting more than 5,700 subsequent-term Marines. The bottom line is this. Since launching what is now
20:42known as Force Design and Talent Management 2030, the Marine Corps has consistently met or exceeded its
20:50recruitment and retention goals. Something that definitely bodes well for the service as it
20:55continues to build a force capable of excelling when America faces its next conflict.
21:05All opinions expressed in this segment are solely the opinions of the contributors.
21:09Alright folks, we are in the final straightaway of the show. If you like what you saw and or heard,
21:14and want to help us in our mission to help others have a more informed conversation about national
21:21defense activities, you can. Just like and subscribe to our social media feeds and share these stories
21:27with your friends. For my wrap this week, I thought about doing something on President Donald Trump's
21:32deployment of National Guard soldiers to the nation's capital while the city is the safest it's been in
21:40about 30 years. But there are plenty of others chiming in about that, and I don't really have anything
21:46to add other than saying it's a bad idea. So today I want to talk about another bad idea,
21:54crashing a fully functioning NASA satellite on purpose. So apparently the Trump administration asked
22:01NASA to come up with plans to end the mission of two orbiting carbon observatory instruments,
22:08OCOs. It's not really clear why the White House wants to end the missions. We know the
22:15administration questions the impacts of climate change and says it's on a mission to save taxpayer
22:20money. But again, the intentions are not clear. One of the OCO devices is on the International Space
22:28Station. The other is on a freestanding satellite. If NASA carries out the plan to permanently end the
22:36mission of the OCOs, then the satellite will be abandoned and left to burn up in the atmosphere.
22:44It costs around $750 million to build and launch the things, but only about $15 million annually to keep
22:53them running. And the data gathered by the carbon observing units are some of the best the world has ever seen.
23:00It's used by scientists, farmers, and governments alike. In addition to gathering carbon data,
23:06scientists also discovered soon after launching the OCOs that they could also monitor crop growth
23:13around the world, which has national security implications, because crop collapse and famine
23:21are primary indicators of regional instability. The point is, we should not be trying to crash the things.
23:28It makes absolutely zero sense, unless the White House thinks that by taking the satellites down,
23:35suddenly carbon will stop entering the atmosphere. Killing the canaries in the coal mine doesn't
23:41nullify the dangers in the coal mine. It's just a bad idea. For senior producer Brett Baker,
23:48video editor Brian Spencer, and motion artist Dakota Patio, I'm Ryan Robertson,
23:53from Stradero News, signing off.
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