DDH-181 Hyuga...

With the Japanese set to buy the F-35B at any minute, I decided another look at the Hyuga class Helicopter Destroyer was in order.  In the short video below, a couple of things are obvious.  In its current load out the ship is not being used to its fullest and its appears to be more than capable of operating STOVL aircraft from its deck.  I hope Navy Research is able to get that deck problem solved...our allies are going to need the recipe too!

Morale Patches...

I never understood the reason for them, but they're quite popular with certain individuals.  The moral patch is a personal mystery to me and when trying to do a google search on the subject I can't find a satisfactory history on when and where they came from.

The most reasonable answer that I got was from Military Photos.net.  There a poster stated that they originated with the Air Force and the Navy.  Specifically with their pilots.  The earliest patch that I remember is those worn by the pilots that shot down the Libyan fighters that chose to do battle with some F-14's.  The major difference was that they were authorized by the Navy for wear.

The current crop of morale patches aren't authorized and I don't see anything wrong with them (except for the waste of money but its not mine so to each his own) but back to the point.  If you know of a better history regarding morale patches I'd definitely be interested.  Also they seem to be a bigger hit in the US Army than in the Marines.  I would guess that it has to do with a difference in uniform rather than standards but I could be wrong.

Any info would be appreciated.

The next couple of patches are from OML Patches...http://www.omlpatches.com/

737 AEW&C WedgeTail...

The Boeing 737 AEW&C. Boeing flubbs a bunch of projects. This is one they seem to get right and the sky is the limit with the 737 platform being adopted to military uses.   Stats from wiki...

Role	Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C)
Manufacturer	Boeing IDS
First flight	2004
Introduced	Early 2009
Status	Under development
Primary users	Royal Australian Air Force Turkish Air Force Republic of Korea Air Force
Unit cost	US$490 million
Developed from	Boeing 737
Variants	C-40 Clipper P-8 Poseidon

V-22...Why not redirect the exhaust??

The V-22 causes ship decks to buckle, the AH-1Z had problems with the tailboom heating.  With the AH-1Z they simply "redirected" the exhaust.  Why not do the same with the V-22????  Below are pics with the fix in place...the straight exhaust has "burns" on the tailboom the modified one (top pic) has the turned exhaust.  It should be fairly simple to reroute the exhaust to the front, back or side (away from the aircraft).

Amazing Frugality!

Hat tip to Survival Spot Blog!  This is amazing frugality...give the vid a look before you tune it out...
Yeah its outside the sphere of "covering everything military" but this is just awesome!

China's 5th Generation Stealth Fighter...

Aviation Week ran a story a while ago about the theft of information on the F-35.  The Air Force and DOD came out and state that the loss of information was limited.  Seems like they lied.  According to a follow up article, it seems that the conventional wisdom now states that China has all the information needed to produce a 5th generation fighter.

Pity that our security to all these thefts of information hasn't improved.  A bigger pity that we're aware of it but still allow it to happen.  Its really treason.  But that's for another time.  What might this plane look like.  Well much like the PAK-FA, the web is hot with speculation.  Here's a few guesses...

It would seem that they're all variations on a similar theme.  Either semi- or full copies of the F-22 or F-23.  Additionally most feature canards.  I'm not sure but I thought that canards were definitely unstealthy.  Anyway here's your peek at what many are imagining.

Anyway here's a link to hook you in to the debate....
http://foxyurl.com/LYQ

Singapore's 3rd Generation Armed Forces....part 2...

"The SAF is undergoing a transformation. The 3rd Generation SAF will be leaner and more potent. It will employ new operating concepts and systems, and optimise the use of our limited manpower resources"

- Mr Teo Chee Hean
Minister for Defence

I did an earlier post on Singapore's 3rd Generation Armed Forces.  After a look at the concept it might be something that we might want to imitate.  They break it down into these categories...

Capable of a Spectrum of Operations
The 3rd Generation SAF will possess the capabilities to fight decisively in war and respond flexibly in peacetime for counter-terrorism, peacekeeping and humanitarian aid.

Focused on People and Values

The 3rd Generation SAF will continue to rely on the dynamism, will and competence of its people. It will remain steadfast to the core values that have nurtured our people.

Integrated and Networked

Forces operating on land, in the air and on/under the sea would be interconnected and able to fight co-operatively.

Holistic Advancements
Besides fighting strength, the 3rd Generation SAF will also see improvements to administration, training, human resource management, planning and logistics.

Technologically Advanced
The 3rd Generation SAF will continue to employ state-of-the-art technology to gain an asymmetric edge over its potential adversaries, such as in areas of precision strike, advanced networks and unmanned systems.

Its basically what every other advanced military is doing...but they have a focus on it from the Ministry of Defense.  Not at the service level.  For all of Rummy's push to centralize power in the DOD that effort has failed and you have the 5 services (I count SpecOps Command as its own mini kingdom) flailing about finding their own way in the world.  The  best example of this dysfunction would have to be in the UAV fiasco.  The DOD has numerous projects in the work and no one is able to rationalize the process.


We might do well to follow the example of a small Asian country that seems to have its act together.

Japan to build largest Helicopter Destroyer to date...

This from the Telegraph UK....

"The nation's Maritime Self-Defence Force is reportedly planning to construct a new 284 metre long destroyer capable of transporting 14 helicopters, 4,000 people and 50 trucks."

Can we say F-35 for Japan???  Seems a natural fit doesn't it?????

Marines are doing US Army Special Forces A-Team Mission....

Look back into history my friends...before the war on terror and what do you see?  That the living and talking to locals and leading and training a newly established military was a job for US Army A-Teams.

Those days are no more.  Not only are conventional US Marine and Army units doing that mission but it appears that they are doing it well.  Next question becomes this.  If the US Army Rangers are the strike force of choice then what do our other elite forces do?  The Army Rangers are leading the way in direct action missions.  US Marine and Army units are training foreign nationals.  What are the SEALs and A-Teams and Force Recon doing?  Deep Recon?  In the war we're in that can be handled by Drones.  Specialized assaults against high value targets?  Ranger mission, if the target is heavily defended....you're getting into company sized assault teams...that's what got the SEALs mauled in Panama (and they said so themselves---I think the quote was that they wouldn't do multiple Platoon size ops again)....So where are they and what are they doing????


Lance Cpl. Ray Alvarado, Jr., a rifleman with India Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, shares food with local children in the village of Kace Satar, Afghanistan, during a patrol of the village and surrounding area, Nov. 11.
Photo by Cpl. Zachary Nola

Marines from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, walk with local elders during a patrol of the village of Kace Satar, Afghanistan, Nov. 11.
Photo by Cpl. Zachary Nola

 Cpl. Nic Rodriguez, a vehicle commander with India Company,3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment speaks with Afghan villagers during a patrol of Kace Satar, Afghanistan, Nov. 11.
Photo by Cpl. Zachary Nola

Decks buckle under V-22 exhaust heat...

A couple of other bloggers posted on this but I blew it off....old news I said....It was one of Sweetman's talking points to be anti- F-35 and V-22... Now Navy Times is on the bandwagon and I can't look away any longer. This might be a problem. Lets hope they can solve it.  Aviation Week had this in June...

Flight decks buckle from heat in 10 minutes

By Andrew Tilghman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 23, 2009 6:53:38 EST

Leaving an MV-22 Osprey’s rotors idling on a flight deck will create enough heat to melt and buckle the deck in about 10 minutes.
Repeated deck buckling will ruin the flight deck in about 40 percent of the ship’s projected life span.
And introducing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jump-jet variant will only add to the problem.
Those are among the issues cited by the Office of Naval Research as it seeks a modification for flight decks to better withstand and distribute the heat from the new aircraft’s exhaust and downwash.
ONR is seeking proposals on how to build a “flight deck thermal management” system that will help distribute the heat from the aircraft and keep the deck temperatures below 300 degrees.
Testing shows Osprey downwash can raise deck temperatures as high as 350 degrees.
“Currently there are no available solutions other than heavy structural modifications to mitigate deck buckling and thermo-mechanical deck failure,” according to a recent document seeking proposals from private companies, known as a broad agency announcement.
The new systems — which could involve a one-inch plate on top of the deck or a cooling system installed below the deck — will likely be installed in the Wasp-class amphibious assault ships and future America-class flattops, according to the ONR document.
The ONR announcement reveals the Navy’s challenges as it tries to introduce a new generation of aircraft with tilt-rotor and short-take-off-vertical-landing ability on ships designed for traditional helicopters.
The Ospreys, the military’s first tilt-rotor aircraft, create extraordinary heat and force when the nacelles are tilted upward and the rotors muster enough force to lift the aircraft like a helicopter.
The F-35B Lightning IIs that are expected to join the fleet in 2012 have a unique vertical-landing feature that turns the jet’s thrusters to face downward during landing and expose the flight deck to hot exhaust that could damage the flight decks.
Osprey’s downwash creates enough force to knock sailors and aircraft off the flight deck, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.
Naval Sea Systems Command has not made any determination on the need for flight deck modifications, and potential solutions are still under consideration, NavSea spokesman Alan Baribeau said. Procedures used on the Osprey’s first at-sea deployment aboard the amphibious assault ship Bataan were effective and will be used again, he said.

WHAT’S NEXT

The Office of Naval Research’s proposed timeline aims to develop a flight deck cooling system by 2014:
• 2010: Award contract.
• 2011: Test materials to handle aircraft heat.
• 2012: Build a large-scale test panel.
• 2013: Conduct land-based testing.
• 2014: Install the Thermal Flight Deck Management system on a ship.

Too Funny!

Oshkosh TerraMax....

M4 Carbine Improvements?

Steve over at the Firearms Blog is reporting this...

The Army Times reports that Army weapons officials have presented to Congress six proposed upgrades to the M4. They are ...

Read more over at his site.  Crazy!  They essentially want the HK416 or another piston driven clone...I don't see it happening but read it for yourself.

Task Force 714...

"Task Force 714...small groups of Rangers going pretty much where ever they want with an authorization that an undisclosed NSC staffer could not go into."

That's what I found on the internet this morning.  I never heard of Task Force 714 .  I knew the Rangers were deeply involved in the war effort but did not know that they were basically spear heading the direct action missions.  It makes sense though.  They are the most heavily armed and highly staffed of the SpecOps forces.  Hmm...But this story from the Washington Independent does more than reveal the existence of Task Force 714, it exposes the discussions taking place in the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  I wonder why this story never received more air play?

Special Operations Chiefs Quietly Sway Afghanistan Policy

  By Spencer Ackerman 11/9/09 7:22 PM

     Two senior military officers from the shadowy world of Special Operations are playing a large and previously unreported role in shaping the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy, a move that underscores that the internal debate has moved past a rigid choice between expansive missions to provide security for Afghan civilians and narrowly tailored missions to find and kill terrorists.Navy Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command  (JSOC) at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward, the deputy leader of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., are attending and informing the strategy meetings that the White House began in September to refine its approach in Afghanistan. Both men have deep ties to Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the war. 

They are said to favor large infusions of U.S. troops to Afghanistan for performing counterinsurgency operations in select population centers, but they also advocate marshalling forces to pursue terrorists across Afghanistan’s rugged, mountainous terrain — a task in which McRaven plays a key role.

Debate about a “purely counterterrorism strategy” advocated by Vice President Joseph Biden was “bounced around at one point, but that has been cast aside,” said a National Security Council staffer who attends the meetings and who asked for anonymity because the debate is still ongoing, “mostly because JSOC has said ‘We’re going to do this anyway.’ And it’s not like they’re going to be in a supporting role.” Biden’s advice, which had practically no support from the armed services, was that the military should shy away from protecting the Afghan people and helping build Afghan governing institutions, and instead focus on the JSOC specialties of going after terrorists directly.
Yet the fact that JSOC veterans like McRaven, Harward and McChrystal favor an overall counterinsurgency strategy with a counterterrorism component demonstrates that the military no longer believes distinguishing between the two is tenable in the Afghanistan war. “Special Operations Forces that were traditionally used for counterterrorism better understand how their capabilities fit into a counterinsurgency campaign than perhaps they did when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began,” said Andrew Exum, a veteran of both wars and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security who over the summer advised McChrystal in a review of Afghanistan strategy.

More directly, McRaven and Harward share a professional fraternity with McChrystal. Before McRaven took over JSOC — an entity that operates almost entirely in secret — McChrystal ran it for five years, supervising stealthy teams in Afghanistan and Iraq that tracked down and killed senior terrorists like al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. One of McChrystal’s deputies during that period was Harward, and the bonds between the officers remain strong. “General McChrystal and Vice Admirals McRaven and Harward have established relationships through the special operations community,” said McChrystal’s spokesman, Air Force Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis.

In his Afghanistan review, McChrystal said that a key goal for him would be to increase coordination between his NATO command and the independent command of JSOC, which suggested that the dichotomy between using Special Operations Forces for counterterrorism and conventional forces for counterinsurgency was eroding. “One of General McChrystal’s priorities is seeking greater unity of effort across all military activities in Afghanistan, which includes regular interaction with ISAF Joint Command, regional, and task force commanders,” Sholtis said, using the acronym for NATO’s military command in Afghanistan.

As a result, McChrystal is turning to McRaven and Harward for critical tasks in Afghanistan. McRaven runs a secretive detachment of Special Forces known as Task Force 714 — once commanded by McChrystal himself — that the NSC staffer described as “direct-action” units conducting “high-intensity hits.” In an email, Sholtis said that because Task Force 714 was a “special ops organization” he “can’t go into much detail on authorities, etc.” But the NSC staffer — who called McRaven “McChrystal Squared” — said Task Force 714 was organized into “small groups of Rangers going wherever the hell they want to go” in Afghanistan and operating under legal authority granted at the end of the Bush administration that President Obama has not revoked.

In a move signaling his own importance to McChrystal, Harward will arrive in Afghanistan later this month to command a new task force, known as Task Force 435, that will take charge of detention facilities in Afghanistan, “primarily the new one at Bagram that will open this month,” Sholtis said. In his famous August strategy review, McChrystal wrote that detention operations are “critical to successful counterinsurgency operations” and need to work toward “the long-term goal of getting the U.S. out of the detention business” through transition to Afghan control — a counterinsurgency task not traditionally given to a Special Operations veteran like Harward. McChrystal’s strategy recommended creating a new command, which Harward will now lead, of “approximately 120 personnel” focused on “defeat[ing] the insurgency through intelligence collection and analysis,” prisoner de-radicalization, and working with the Afghan corrections apparatus to “employ best correctional practices [and] comply with Afghan laws.”
Last month, McChrystal delivered a request for additional troops to the Obama administration for the Afghanistan war. The request, structured as a palette of options from which the president could choose, included so-called “high-risk” options of numbers as low as 10,000 new combat troops and a so-called “low-risk” option of an 85,000-troop reinforcement. Participants in the discussions have said on background that they viewed the 85,000-troop request as an unserious option meant to clear the way for Obama to approve a middle course of around 40,000 new troops.
But while the media has typically discussed a counterterrorism approach in Afghanistan as a low-troop option, the two counterterrorism-experienced admirals are both said to favor “as many troops as we can muster,” according to the NSC staffer, who specified that McRaven and Harward were pushing for McChrystal’s largest resource option of 85,000 new troops. A senior administration official who requested anonymity said that the Obama administration was not considering a troop escalation of more than 40,000 combat troops. (It is possible that support and logistical units could increase any troop number that the administration cites as the total estimate, as happened when President Bush announced a troop surge to Iraq of about 20,000 troops in January 2007 but about 28,000 new troops actually deployed.) On Saturday, McClatchy Newspapers reported that Obama is leaning toward an increase of 34,000 troops. An announcement is expected shortly after Obama returns from a trip to Asia on Nov. 20.
The advice of McRaven and Harward to the White House strategy review, the staffer said, was to push for a “heavy, heavy, heavy COIN [counterinsurgency] presence” in select population centers like the capitol city of Kabul, while relying on new or expanded counterterrorism units like Task Force 714 for hunting and killing terrorists outside of those population centers — particularly in areas like the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a key transit point for Taliban and al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgents.

“They’re focusing on the main population centers that they think they can save with manpower on the ground, and everything else will be crossborder,” the NSC staffer said. An executive order signed by George W. Bush in mid-2008 and not revoked by Obama authorized special forces to, in some cases, cross the Afghan border into Pakistan in pursuit of top insurgent targets. “JSOC is already ramping up for that. … These are what they call kinetic, direct-action task forces,” military terminology to describe intense fighting with small units. The prospect of crossborder raids by U.S. military forces has been greeted in Pakistan as an offensive violation of Pakistani sovereignty.
The two admirals are also said to be influential with Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser. McRaven, at least, worked with Jones in a previous assignment, commanding Special Operations Forces in Europe in 2006 while Jones was ending his tour of duty as NATO commander. “A lot of people think Jones is not taking military counsel, that he’s anti-surge, he’s this, he’s that,” said the NSC staffer. “In reality, he’s taking counsel from pretty much a purely military palette of people, including McRaven.”
Asked about McRaven’s role in the strategy debates, Ken McGraw, a spokesman for the U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees JSOC, said, “It would not be appropriate for us to comment on who may or may not be involved in discussions at the White House or what may or may not have been the substance of conversations at the White House.” A spokesman for the Joint Forces Command did not return repeated phone and email messages seeking comment about Harward. A spokesman for the National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment about Jones’ interactions with Harward and McRaven.

The bonds between McChrystal and the two admirals may not have been widely known because of the secrecy surrounding almost all aspects of JSOC, but the Obama administration is getting a sense of their strength. “Harward and McChrystal were running JSOC,” said the NSC staffer, “and all three of them [have been] in the nether regions forever.”

British Troops had only 5 rounds during Iraq Invasion!~?~!

Sky News is out with a damning report this morning.

Secret government reports which suggest Britain was ill-prepared and under-equipped for the Iraq war have been leaked. The documents, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, emerged two days before public hearings begin in the inquiry into the UK's involvement in the conflict.
They are reported to contain transcripts of classified interviews in which Army commanders said troops were exposed to "significant risk" because of a "rushed" operation "lacking in coherence and resources".
The operations, which began in 2003, were plagued by shortages of kit including body armour which failed to arrive on time and a lack of chemical weapons protection, the paper said.

Lt Col ML Dunn, of 9 Supply Regiment, Royal Engineers, was quoted as saying his soldiers "only had five rounds of ammunition each, and only enough body armour for those in the front and rear vehicles".

Another commanding officer, Lt Col John Power, of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, criticised the supply chain in the reports.
"The in-theatre asset tracking was absolutely appalling," he said.
"I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert."
Communications also came under fire with complaints that the main long-distance radio system "tended to drop out at around noon because of the heat", forcing combat troops to use mobile phones on the Kuwaiti network.
At least four commanders described the performance of the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence as "appalling", according to the transcripts.
Many of the documents leaked to the Telegraph deal with the key questions which will be covered by Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the Iraq inquiry.
The Foreign Office said: ''The Iraq inquiry was set up to investigate the run up to the conflict, the conflict and the reconstruction. All these issues will be dealt with.
"The Government is not going to comment on the lines of investigation the inquiry might pursue, or on what conclusions it might draw from these hearings.
"Those are matters for the inquiry, which is clearly independent of Government."

Wow.  But we're still skirting the real issue.  Material failures, as bad as they are, can be expected (somewhat).  Command failure less so.  Especially when we choose when, where and how to strike.

Archer Artillery System

Remember my modest proposal to marry up the M777 and the MTVR?  Well, keep the MTVR (commonality within the vehicle fleet) but add the gun system from this jewel from BAE.  Its the Archer Artillery System.

Stats from Wiki...

Type	Self-propelled artillery
Place of origin	Sweden
Production history
Designed	1995
Specifications
Weight	30 tonnes
Length	14.1 meters
Width	3.0 meters
Height	3.3-3.9 meters
Crew	4 (1 driver, 3 operators)
Primary armament	Haubits L52 155mm FH77
Secondary armament	BAE Systems AB Remote Weapons Station
Engine	Diesel 340 hp
Operational range	~500 km
Speed	70 km/h

F-35 close to being sold to Singapore...

The Idaho Statesman has an ordinary article proclaiming the chances of Mountain Home AFB landing the F-35 because Singapore is CLOSE TO INKING A DEAL FOR THE F-35!  The story is below and the emphasis is mine.

Deal with Singapore could help Mountain Home Air Force Base land F-35s

BY KATHLEEN KRELLER - kkreller@idahostatesman.com

Pomp and circumstance marked the official beginning of a 20-year agreement between Mountain Home Air Force Base and the Republic of Singapore to train flight and ground crews to operate F-15 fighter jets.But Thursday's ceremony was only the tip of the iceberg. The deal will pump millions of dollars into the area economy, officials say, and could help the base land a F-35 fighter jet mission.

On Thursday, Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley said the U.S. was "progressing" on a deal to sell the F-35, the next generation of fighter jet, to Singapore.

Mountain Home is among six finalists the military is considering for a long-term F-35 mission.
Already having a training deal in place with Singapore could help Mountain Home when a decision is made about the F-35s, said Wing Commander Col. John Bird.
It is unclear exactly how much the current arrangement for F-15 training will ultimately bring to the local economy. But the Singaporean government has already hired 95 contractors to maintain the jets, which will bring $25 million to the base through Sept. 30, 2012, a spokeswoman said.
Singapore is covering the cost of housing and training the 428th Fighter Squadron, dubbed "The Buccaneers," in Mountain Home.
"This is a relationship based on shared strategic objectives," said Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, who explained that his country is "faced with severe land and airspace constraints at home."
The nation of Singapore is 274 square miles, not even the size of Mountain Home's training range, Teo Che Hean said.
Singapore has training agreements for other aircraft with other military bases in the United States.
About 255 military and other personnel and 200 family members from Singapore are based in Mountain Home.
Kathleen Kreller: 377-6418

The pieces are really coming together.  The push by the SecDef to pump an additional 200 million dollars into the program, the fact that no partners are leaving the program, Israel's pushing so hard to get a piece of the manufacturing pie...it all makes sense.  The program, thankfully is full speed ahead!

5.7x28mm round and the Ft. Hood Shooter.

 

Thats a video of the P-90 Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) --close to the end of it is a demonstration of the FN 5.7 pistol.  They both fire the 5.7x28mm ammo round made famous (for the uninitiated) by the scum sucking Ft. Hood Shooter.  Problem is that the 5.7 round is NOT a cop killer round.  Its best described as a small 5.56 or probably more accurately as an upsized 22 magnum round.  If the police officers that responded to the call were wearing standard body armor then it would not be defeated by civilian ammunition (ammo that the shooter could purchase without a letter head from his superiors...but that opens up a whole new can of worms).

In short, a firearm is a tool...a baseball bat can kill, a hammer can kill, so can a screwdriver.  Yet people use those same tools for recreation (in the case of a baseball bat) or to do constructive tasks (hammer and screwdriver) everyday.  The villain is the shooter not the tool.

CheaperThanDirt blogspot has an excellent primer on this weapon that everyone should check out.

Kel-Tec PMR-30...more photos...

I luv SayUncle's Blogsite.  He always shares the good stuff and when I went looking for more info on the Kel-Tec PMR-30 wouldn't you know he would have it!

Anyway he turned me on to this guy's  Oleg Volk's gallery.  Its beyond awesome!  Check out some of his photos of this weapon....

KEL-TEC PMR-30...New Toy Alert...

I'm usually not into weapons that are just plain tacti-cool.  I want something functional and practical.  But this new offering from Kel-Tec has caught my attention.  Why?  Because it appears to be a nice plinking handgun with an impressive magazine capacity.  Let's face it...ammo prices still have not gone down to the pre-Obama scare price so if you can get range time with the affordable 22 cal round, then you're doing something.  This is suppose to hit the market in the 2nd quarter of 2010.  I can't wait..

Kel Tec Website....

Specs
Caliber: .22 Magnum (.22WMR)
Barrel length 4.3”
Length: 7.9”
Height: 5.8”
Grip Width: 1.1”
Max width, across safety levers: 1.3”
Magazine capacity: 30 rounds
Trigger pull: 3.5 to 5 lbs
Weight (no mag): 13.6 oz.
Muzzle Velocity (40 gr): 1230 fps
Made in USA
More info will be available at the SHOT show 2010 Kel-Tec Booth (#2825)

.