by Philippe Gastonne
The Daily Bell
One of Russia’s most alarming new weapons capabilities may be on the move soon. Jane’s reports that KBM, a state-owned armament company specializing in missile systems, recently presented its 9K333 Verba man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS).
At an arms fair this week, the company announced that the weapon had been cleared for export — although KBM designer Gen. Velariy Kashin would not reveal the foreign buyer or buyers.
Kashin described the 9K333 Verba as “the most capable” MANPADS ever developed, according to Jane’s. Missiles are guided to their targets using a “three-channel optical seeker, which operates in the ultraviolet, near-infrared, and mid-infrared wavelengths,” a feature that increases the weapon’s accuracy and speeds up its target acquisition. – Business Insider, June 19, 2015
During the Cold War, American soldiers learned to fear the Soviet Union’s advanced weaponry and fanatical communist foot soldiers. Where did we get this fear? Our leaders instilled it in us.
As it turned out, the fears were misplaced. We learned in the 1990s that most Soviet-era weapons threatened their hapless users far more than they would have hurt us. Some of our own equipment was not much better, frankly, despite costing exponentially more.
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