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An amphibious assault vehicle with 15 Marines inside burst into flames during a training exercise at Camp Pendleton, California on Wednesday, according to a source with knowledge of the incident.

Although the vehicle was engulfed in flames, all of the Marines were able to escape.

However, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to talk with reporters, said that at least three Marines were being taken by helicopter to a local hospital for burns and smoke inhalation.

The extent of their injuries is not yet known.

via americanmilitarynews.com

Prayers for the injured Marines.

This is interesting. While armored vehicles catch fire more often than you might think, it's pretty rare that it involves injuries.

Each armored vehicle is equipped with a fire suppression system that can be manually activated from several locations inside and out of the vehicle. There's an automatic mode as well, but that's usually switched off in peacetime.

Once a fire does start in an armored vehicle, there's very often quite a good bit of fuel for the flames. Diesel, fabrics, rubber, plastic, ammunition and a host of other fuels.

It will be interesting to see exactly what happened here.

The use of armed remotely piloted vehicles such as the Predator and Reaper is commonplace in our nations wars since 9/11. But prior to that, it was virtually unknown.

In the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam war, and especially seeing the lethality of Soviet air defense systems in the Yom Kippur War, the US Air Force redoubled its efforts at the Suppression of Enemy  Air Defenses, or SEAD. 

Back in 1948, with jet aircraft entering into widespread service,  the Air Force realized it would need jet target drones. Eventually, Ryan Aeronautical would design what, after several designation changes, would be known as the AQM-34 Firebee. To say Ryan got it right on the first try would be something of an understatement,  as the Firebee is still in service today, from  its first flight in 1951!

Along the way, a great many variants have been produced.  

When the Air Force began using the Firebee, it turned out it was often quite a bit more difficult to shoot down than a full scale aerial target. That led to what became known as Operation Buffalo Hunter, where Firebee drones were used as reconnaissance platforms over Vietnam, Laos, and China. 

While Firebees suffered a high loss rate per sortie than manned aircraft, the fact that aircrews were not at risk, and the relatively low cost of the drones meant that it was a highly efficient program, and very cost effective. 

The Air Force was also looking at how to improve the effectiveness, and lower the risks to, its Wild Weasel SEAD program. And the idea of using AQM-34s made sense. 

Unfortunately, budget and technical challenges, as well as a general distaste for unmanned aircraft, meant the armed BGM-34 never entered service. But lessons learned in the program are still cited today  in Remotely Piloted Vehicle doctrine. 

A very interesting wrinkle in this video is the choice of munitions. The weapons used as cited as the Mk 81 Self Propelled Air to Surface Munition, or SPASM, and the "Stubby HOBO."  SPASM looks very much like a predecessor to  China Lake's later AGM-123 Skipper II rocked boosted Laser Guided Bomb, and Stubby HOBO is obviously a variant of the Vietnam era GBU-8 Homing Bomb System (HOBOS). 

What's weird is that I can't find any information about either weapon. Every cite simply refers to them being used by the BGM-34. 

Looks like great fun. 

As many as half a million people were evacuated on 9/11 via an impromptu boatlift. 

Two of the blogs longtime friends were actually in the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Naval Command Center. 

Steeljaw Scribe wrote of his experience that day. 

Reflections- Part I

Reflections- Part II

In the years since, three US Navy warships have been named to honor the three sites of the 9/11 attacks, USS New York, USS Arlington, and USS Somerset. 

Prior to  GPS, most aerial navigation in the US was based on radio systems known as VOR/DME. But VOR/DME didn't become popular until the 1960s due to costs. Prior to that, a low frequency radio range system was  used. And in bad weather, that meant some creative techniques were required to allow jets to safely descend and approach an airport.