The direct thread HQS Slim Suppressor is available for UK hunters from Edgar Brother.
You can expect a 30dB noise reduction from this Bulgarian can. Offered in a variety of thread patterns, the HQS Slim can be had in .223, .264, .30 and 9mm Para.
www.edgarbrothers.com/shooting-sports/brands/hqs-slim
Training like you fight doesn’t just mean having your body armor on when you are on the range, and you should always practice basic skills whenever you get in the water. The best way to become a better diver is to practice and improve on the basic skills constantly. Here are some basic skills you should practice every time you get in the water.
Buoyancy
This is one of the most critical skills for every diver to master. Mastering buoyancy is not necessarily a difficult task, but it requires a calm, focused mind, and practice. You will consume less air when your buoyancy is on point, and you will not risk shooting to the surface and giving yourself away or, worse, getting injured. To practice your buoyancy, try and be a couple of feet off the bottom of the pool using a body positions simulation to sky diving. Try maintaining the same distance from the bottom and now just using your fins spin to your left, then spin to your right, again holding your positions. Now once you have that, try, and move backward, besides just using your fins. This will help you with moving in confined spaces and around piers.
Descents
The descent should always be performed slowly and controlled. You will need to equalize the pressure in your ears as you descend constantly; that can mean every 12-18 inches 30-40cm for some divers. Descending too quickly can cause your eardrums to rupture, which can lead to more severe complications. A slow descent will also prevent silting on the bottom, which will decrease visibility. Also, practice your emergency descents. It will be the same as before but faster.
Clearing Your Mask
At some point, you will get water in your mask. So, it is better to practice in a controlled environment than to have not done it a long time and try and remembered when it is the middle of the night in someplace where you don’t want the water touching your face. If you have water in your mask, follow the clearing techniques you learned in your training. If you need to stop momentarily, alert your buddy so you do not get separated. You should be able to master this essential skill without having to stop. It would help if you also did this, allowing as a minimal number of bubbles as possible. Make sure you practice this when you are learning to use any diver propulsion vehicle.
Emergency Ascent
It is no different than practicing a down man drill. Well, other than the fact that you are in the water. Your emergency ascent may require that you share air with your buddy, swim in a controlled manner to the surface, you might have to drop your or their weights. I have had to do this when my dive buddy passed out, and I was so freaked out I didn’t have to drop anything to get him to the surface. It was also my first dive in the teams, and I thought he was dead Practice all types of emergency ascent techniques whenever possible to not panic when a real emergency occurs.
Hand Signals
Once you start diving with someone, you might come up with some hand signals of your own, like you have your head up, you’re a$$. But the essential hand signals will be used by everyone worldwide. You never know when you will be diving with someone from a partner nation, and that is all you have to go by. So, knowing the basics will help.
Going Up or Down
Use a thumbs-up signal to indicate that you are going up or a thumbs down to indicate the opposite.
I’m OK
Place your thumb and forefinger together, forming a circle, and leave the other three fingers extended upright. This is the same as you would say, OK, as you would above water.
Stop
Signal your dive buddy to stop by holding up one hand, the same as you would in any other instance. You can also use a closed fist like being on patrol.
Changing Direction
Just like with up and down, point your thumb (or your index finger) to indicate which direction you’re heading. You can tell again like on land.
Turn Around
To let everyone know it’s time to turn around, put your index finger up and rotate in a circle. Similar to rally-up.
Slow Down
Place your hand in front of you with your palm facing down. Wave your hand up and down to indicate that you need everyone to slow down a bit.
Level Off
To indicate that you want to level off once you’ve reached a certain depth, put your hand out in front of you, palm down, and wave it back and forth.
Something’s Wrong
Place your hand out in front of you, fingers spread and palm down. Wave your hand back and forth in a rocking motion. It is similar to the hand signal, maybe.
Help!
Wave your entire arm from outstretched by your side to over your head. Repeat the motion as long as you need to.
How much air do you have?
With the forefinger and middle finger hit in the palm of your hand to ask your buddy how much air is left in the tank. The usual response is in numbers.
I’m Low on Air
It takes practice to be able to make your air last. Clench your hand into a fist and pull it in toward your chest. Repeat as much as you need to indicate how urgently you need to resurface. When diving a rebreather, you should point at the pressure gauge. With some of the newer rebreathers, you can pull your gauge out and show it to your dive buddy if needed.
I’m Out of Air
Suppose something has gone wrong with your equipment, signal quickly and repeatedly. Place your hand, palm down in front of your throat, and move back and forth in a cutting motion.
This discussion, focused on veteran healing through stories of resilience, purpose and success, will be heard exclusively on Wreaths Across America Radio!
COLUMBIA FALLS, Maine — Sept. 28, 2021 — Wreaths Across America Radio is proud to announce the next episode in its series of roundtable discussions focused on veteran healing through sharing stories of resilience, purpose, and success. This discussion will take place on Thursday, October 13, 2022, at 12 PM ET, and can be heard exclusively on Wreaths Across America Radio.
The roundtable will focus on the recalibrated warrior, and how finding purpose can benefit not only in your own journey of resilience but help connect with others working to overcome similar challenges. Guest panelists – listed below – will be interviewed by Wreaths Across America’s Executive Director Karen Worcester and Director of Military and Veteran Outreach, Joe Regan, United States Army Veteran.
Guest Panelists Include:
Travis Mills, Founder and President of the Board for the Travis Mills Foundation. United States Army Staff Sergeant (ret.) Travis Mills of the 82nd Airborne is a recalibrated veteran, a motivational speaker, actor, author, and advocate for veterans and amputees. He is one of only five quadruple amputees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to survive.
On April 10, 2021, Travis was critically injured by an improvised explosive device (IED) during a routine patrol in Afghanistan and spent 19 months at Walter Reed. After his recovery, Travis attended an adaptive sports camp in Colorado and realized the need for a such a place where a veteran, and their entire family could relax, reconnect, and find strength. Born out of this idea, the Travis Mills Foundation Veterans’ Retreat was founded.
Ginger Gilbert Ravella, Author, Military Wife, and Ambassador for the Gary Sinise Foundation. Ginger Gilbert Ravella is a military wife, Gold Star (widow), mother of five and stepmother of two. Her personal mission is to encourage anyone who seeks reconciliation and peace when life hurts the most and to continue to serve a nation by serving others.
Ginger works tirelessly to support and raise funds to help fallen and disabled veterans and their families. She is an international speaker and author devoted to her God, her family, and her country. She is remarried to another widower and USAF fighter pilot, Colonel (Ret) Jim Ravella, who lost his wife to breast cancer. Ginger currently resides in Nashville, Tenn., with her family.
The goal of the roundtable series is to help reduce barriers for veterans by:
• Supporting generational bonds between service veterans through stories of service and success;
• Destigmatizing issues faced by veterans and asking for help;
• Combating inaccurate perceptions of veterans by discussing the diverse experiences, challenges, and success of service members, veterans, and their families; and
• Connecting veterans with valuable resources.
“I know this is going to be a meaningful discussion,” said Karen Worcester, Executive Director, Wreaths Across America. “As everyone involved has a synergy of mission and a deep understanding of veterans’ needs and the needs of their families. We look forward to this opportunity to share these stories and the importance in addressing veterans’ healing.”
You can listen to Wreaths Across America Radio’s 24/7 internet stream anytime and anywhere on the iHeart Radio app, Audacy app, TuneIn app, or at www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/radio.
This is the seventh broadcast in this series, RoundTable discussions are broadcast on Wreaths Across America Radio at least once per quarter.
Learn more at: www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/pages/19520/News/823
LANGLEY AFB, Va. —
During the week of July 18-22, 2022, U.S. Marine Corps 1st Lt. Anthony Rosa, an unmanned-aerial surveillance electronic warfare officer with Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 2, and his team competed in the BRAVO Hackathon. The BRAVO Hackathon was an event to help the Department of Defense by combining the information-technology knowledge of civilians and service members. Rosa’s team won first place for “Most Tactically Relevant for Maintenance Data,” and second place for “Most Tactically Relevant for Cyber Operations” with their program.
When attending the BRAVO Hackathon, Rosa and his team of U.S. Airmen and Guardians all had the same mission in mind.
“The premise is we have all this classified data,” said Rosa. “Nobody knows how to properly manipulate the data. In our minds all of that is pretty retroactive. What is more effective is to understand data that’s coming out of present systems.”
“When you build something useful, and then you see somebody’s life improved by it, that’s good and positive feedback from that experience. That makes you want to build more things.”
1st Lt. Anthony Rosa, an unmanned-aerial surveillance electronic warfare officer
Rosa and his team made a program that safely and efficiently compresses and sends classified documents and data. The program creates and processes electronic messaging in seconds as opposed to upwards of a week.
“This is a way to press down data so that you can send a lot of information at once,” said Rosa. “If you’re trying to send a classified document right now, we have to use couriers. We might use FedEx or [U.S. Postal Service] and they’ll bring the letter by hand. Our program can send all the information in less than a minute using the smart contract we wrote.”
Rosa has been interested in programing since high school.
“I taught myself how to program when I was in high school, then got a job with website development,” said Rosa. “I continued to work in in tech fields, and even after I went into the Marine Corps, I continued to do it.”
Rosa spends his free time working on his programming skills. He plans on continuing his work in the future.
“I understood that this was going to be a high-income skill,” said Rosa. “When you see people using , you understand exactly how it’s helping them. When you build something useful, and then you see somebody’s life improved by it, that’s good and positive feedback from that experience. That makes you want to build more things.”
Rosa plans on continuing to program and finding new ways to help people with it. His program was made from thousands of lines of code and took the hard work of his entire team. Their program is currently being looked at by multiple companies and organizations.
“They are maybe going to move the application over to the National Security Agency,” said Rosa. “They have a program for integrating technology. When it gets operationally used, then I’ll feel that satisfaction. You could build something amazing, but if nobody uses it, then it doesn’t matter.”
LCpl Anakin Smith
2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
We recently passed the milestone of 34,000 live posts on the site. That’s an accomplishment of posting every day since May of 2008 and multiple times per day since 2009. I don’t want to break my arm patting myself on the back but that’s not bad for a one-man band.
Here’s an image of the tag in the original Scorpion uniforms by Crye Associates, now known as Crye Precision.
30 September 2022
The Federal Government has signed a multi-million dollar agreement with a Queensland company to start acquiring and supplying the next generation of small arms for the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
The contract is part of a $500 million plus commitment to provide Australia’s soldiers, sailors and aviators with enhanced lethality weapon systems.
Head Land Systems, Major General Andrew Bottrell today announced the awarding of the Lethality System Project (LAND 159) Tranche 1 contract to Queensland-based company NIOA, in the lead-up to the Land Forces 2022 Exposition in Brisbane.
Between now and the mid-2020s, NIOA will use a range of sub-contractors to supply new sniper rifles, pistols, shotguns, personal defence weapons, fighting knives, and an assault breaching system to the ADF, with many of the new weapons to be on display at Land Forces.
Major General Bottrell said the contract would include munitions and ancillary equipment including optical and laser systems, torches and suppressors for the new generation of small arms.
“Under the contract, NIOA will be the prime contractor, working with local and international suppliers and weapon manufacturers on the acquisition, integration, delivery and ongoing support of the new weapon systems from 2023.”
“This is a bold step into modern weaponry to quickly improve Australia’s defence preparedness.”
Major General Bottrell said early engagement with industry had proven very successful.
“NIOA has demonstrated a long?term commitment, private investment, and a focus on growing sovereign industrial capability to support Australia’s war fighters.”
“The collaboration between Defence and industry means we will acquire the best available weapon systems for our troops.”
Defence will seek to maximise Australian industry involvement throughout the life of the Lethality System Project, and ensure continuous engagement with industry partners.
New weapons systems to be acquired include:
• Australian manufacturer ZU Bladeworx’s Double-Edged Fighting Knife – selected as the basis of the ADF’s new Hand-to-Hand Fighting System. The black, double-edged fighting knife has a 100mm blade, is machined from a solid billet of A2 steel and features a non-slip handle and retention ring.
• The SIG Sauer P320 XCarry Pro – selected as the platform for the Sidearm Weapon System, which will replace the venerable Browning Mk3 pistol. It will be complemented with reflex sights, and a white light illuminator.
• The Benelli M3A1 – selected as the platform for the Combat Shotgun System. Operable in semi-automatic or pump-action mode, it is complemented with a red dot sight and white light illuminator.
• The SIG Sauer MCX, in .300 Blackout calibre – selected as the platform for the Personal Defence Weapon System, to provide dismounted combatants with a light, modular, and compact weapon system that can be rapidly optimised for specialised roles.
• The Accuracy International AX-SR – selected as the platform for the Long Range Sniper Capability. It will be introduced into ADF service as a multi-calibre system capable of delivering in .338 Lapua Magnum, .300 Norma Magnum and 7.62mm NATO calibres.
• The Sniper Surveillance Capability – selected to provide ADF snipers with a day and night capability utilising the Safran JIM Compact multispectral surveillance device and Steiner laser range-finding binoculars.
• The M107A1 rifle, manufactured by Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Incorporated, – selected as the platform for the Anti-Material Sniper Capability. The M107A1 is a lighter, modernised and suppressed derivative of the in-service weapon, and is complemented with precision optics, night vision, and ranger-finding devices.
FORT HOOD, Texas – The 1st and 5th battalions of 3rd Security Force Assistance Brigade cased their colors before their upcoming deployment to United States Central Command in front of the brigade’s headquarters here, Sept. 19.
The advisors will deploy to USCENTCOM for six months. The Soldiers will advise, support, liaise and assist nations within their area of responsibility, which includes 21 different countries. The goal is to support and assist allies in the region so they can build capacity and maintain stability.
Security advisor teams increase interoperability and achieve strategic goals by providing experienced leaders from the maneuver, combat engineer, signal support, intelligence, medical and logistics career fields.
“The advisors, of Force Package 23-1 are about as ready as it could possibly be,” said Col. Zachary Miller 3rd SFAB commander. “They’ve trained intensively on individual and collective skills that make them ready to partner in any environment. They built teams where everyone looks out for each other and pushes their fellow advisors to be their best.”
In his remarks to the Soldiers and families gathered for the ceremony, Miller spoke about the 3rd SFAB being a new type of formation in today’s Army and how its mission of enabling combatant commanders to accomplish theater security objectives by training, advising, assisting, accompanying, and enabling allied and partnered security forces. Miller explained that the unit provides an essential capability for the Army and fills a critical need in today’s operational environment.
“Our advisors’ presence matters in Iraq because we are enabling the Iraqi security forces to contain and defeat ISIS without external assistance,” Miller said. “We deter Iran … (which has) for more than 40 years, aggressively supported terrorism or terrorist organizations,” Miller said. “Our advisor’s presence matters, because it helps deter Iran and its proxies from continuing activities that destabilize not only that region, but global security and commerce.”
With advisors already deployed and present in theater, this force-package deployment of SFAB teams to the CENTCOM area is significant because it will be the first time this many advisors will deploy to the region, Lt. Col. Patrick Caukin, 1st Bn., 3rd SFAB commander, said.
“This is our first deployment as a dual battalion headquarter package with the 1st Battalion and 5th Battalion going out as a team to CENTCOM,” Caukin said. “You know, the teams that are over there, 3rd Squadron, they’ve really set the tone, and the groundwork for us to come in and continue the advising efforts to broaden the U.S. is mission there.”
Miller finished his speech with a quote from Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, who said, “Presence buys you influence, which is built on trust. You can’t surge trust.”
By Eric Franklin, Fort Hood Public Affairs
