General Dynamics

General Dynamics Corporation is an American aerospace and defense company. Formed by mergers and divestitures, it is the world's fifth-largest defense contractor based on 2012 revenues. General Dynamics is headquartered in West Falls Church, Fairfax County, Virginia.

The company has changed markedly in the post–Cold War era of defense consolidation. It has four main business segments: Marine Systems, Combat Systems, Information Systems Technology, and Aerospace. General Dynamics' former Fort Worth Division manufactured one of the Western world's most-produced jet fighters, the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon—until 1993, when production was sold to Lockheed. In 1999, the company re-entered the airframe business with its purchase of Gulfstream Aerospace.

History

Electric Boat

General Dynamics traces its ancestry to John Philip Holland's Holland Torpedo Boat Company. This company was responsible for developing the U.S. Navy's first submarines built at Lewis Nixon's Crescent Shipyard, located in Elizabethport, New Jersey. The revolutionary submarine boat Holland VI was built there, its keel being laid down in 1896. Crescent's superintendent and naval architect, Arthur Leopold Busch, supervised the construction of this submarine. After being launched on 17 May 1897, it was eventually purchased by the Navy and renamed USS Holland (SS-1). The Holland was officially commissioned on 12 October 1900 and became the United States Navy's first submarine, later known as SS-1. The Navy placed an order for more submarines, which were developed in rapid succession and were assembled at two different locations on both coasts. These submarines were known as the A-Class or Adder Class, and became America's first fleet of underwater craft at the beginning of the 20th century.

40 mm grenade

The 40 mm grenade is a military grenade caliber for grenade launchers in service with many armed forces. There are two main types in service: the 40×46mm, which is a low-velocity round used in hand-held grenade launchers; and the high-velocity 40×53mm, used in mounted and crew-served weapons. The cartridges are not interchangeable. Both 40 mm cartridges use what the US Army during the Vietnam War called the High-Low Propulsion System.

The less powerful 40×46mm is used in hand-held weapons such as the M79, M203, the M320 grenade launcher, and the multi-shot M32 MGL or Zakłady Mechaniczne "Tarnów" SA RGP-40.

The more powerful 40×53mm is used in automatic grenade launchers mounted on tripods, vehicles or helicopters, such as the Mk 19 grenade launcher, the Mk 47 "Striker" 40 mm Grenade Machine Guns (GMGs), the Heckler & Koch GMG or the South African Vektor Y3 AGL. In these roles, the rounds are linked together with a metallic disintegrating link.

A new 40×51mm cartridge recently (2007) developed in South Africa provides a more powerful alternative for hand-held weapons without increased recoil. A new version of the Milkor MGL chambered for the new round remains backward compatible with existing 40×46mm rounds.

IMI Desert Eagle

The IMI Desert Eagle is a semi-automatic handgun notable for chambering the largest centerfire cartridge of any magazine fed, self loading pistol. It has a relatively unique design with a triangular barrel and large muzzle. MRI is the most recent company to design and develop the Desert Eagle, having done so for more than 25 years. The design was refined and the actual pistols were manufactured by Israel Military Industries until 1995, when MRI shifted the manufacturing contract to Saco Defense in Saco, Maine. In 1998, MRI moved manufacturing back to IMI, which later reorganized under the name Israel Weapon Industries. Since 2009, the Desert Eagle Pistol has been produced in the United States at MRI's Pillager, MN facility. Kahr Arms acquired Magnum Research in the middle of 2010. The Desert Eagle has been featured in roughly 500 motion pictures and TV films, along with several video games (especially the Resident Evil series, Counter-Strike series, Grand Theft Auto series), and Call Of Duty series, making it well known in popular culture.

Mk 19 grenade launcher

The Mk 19 grenade launcher (also known as the Mark 19) is an American 40 mm belt-fed automatic grenade launcher that was first developed during the Vietnam War. The first model (Mod 0) in 1966 was determined to be unreliable and unsafe, but a total of 6 Mod 1 launchers were successfully tested on U.S. Navy riverine patrol craft in the Mekong Delta in 1972. The Navy made further improvements to the weapon, resulting in the Mod 3 in 1976. The MOD 3 was adopted by the U.S Army in 1983 and remains in service to the present day.

Overview

The Mk 19 is a belt-fed, blowback-operated, air-cooled, crew-served, fully automatic weapon that is designed not to cook off. It fires 40 mm grenades at a cyclic rate of 325 to 375 rounds per minute, giving a practical rate of fire of 60 rounds per minute (rapid) and 40 rounds per minute (sustained). The weapon operates on the blowback principle, which uses the chamber pressure from each fired round to load and re-cock the weapon. The Mk 19 can launch its grenade at a maximum distance of 2,212 meters (2,419 yd), though its effective range to a point target is about 1,500 meters (1,600 yd), since the large rear leaf sight is only graduated to 1,500 meters. The nearest safe distance to launch the grenade is 310 meters in training and 75 meters in combat. Though the Mk 19 has a flash suppressor, it serves only to save the eyesight of its operator; it does not conceal the weapon's position. For night operation, a picatinny rail quadrant sight can be added for thermal and night vision optics.

Rock Island

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