Members of the Iowa National Guard deployed in Afghanistan were dealing with a logistics issue. Namely, the belts of ammunition for their Mk 48 machine guns were difficult to carry on foot patrols. Cutting the belts into shorter lengths and reloading frequently took too much time during firefights. Staff Sgt. Vincent Winkowski, with input from Spc. Derick Morgan and Spc. Aaron McNew, built a solution: he removed the bottom of one ammo box, welded it to another ammo box, strapped them to an old ALICE (all-purpose lightweight individual carrying equipment) frame, and mounted a CROW (common remote operating weapons station) at the top to feed the ammo over the shoulder. This pack, nicknamed The Ironman, allowed a gunner to carry and use 500 rounds of his own ammo without assistance, and the whole set-up weighed 43 pounds.

Winkowski submitted the design to Army science advisers, and within 48 days the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) created a lighter, refined version of the pack ready for mass production. Dave Roy of NSRDEC called the pack a “game-changer”.

And the inspiration for this “game-changing” design? Predator.

Someone mentioned actor Jesse Ventura in the movie “Predator.” His character brandished an M-134 Mini-gun fed by an ammo box on his back. After the Soldiers had a good laugh over that thought, Staff Sgt. Vincent Winkowski asked why a gunner couldn’t carry a combat load of ammo. He decided to pursue the idea. [Army via Gizmodo]

Maybe this is an Iowa thing, that we see something on TV and totally try to build it. I still think my brothers and I could have built a working insect teleporter if it weren’t for those meddling adults.

We’ve rarely covered the adaptation of Max Brooks’ World War Z starring Brad Pitt and produced by Pitt’s company, Plan B Entertainment. That may be because they seem to be eliminating everything that made the book good (see Burnsy’s rant here), changing the story into yet another “trying to stop a global outbreak” movie with a potential happy ending instead of letting it be what it should be: a chronicling of the inevitable aftermath of a global zombie outbreak. It reminds me of this awesome podcast with Robert Kirkman, where he says he started writing Walking Dead because he was fed up with zombie movies that didn’t show what happened after the outbreak. (That podcast also introduced us to the term “Sasquatching”, the sexiest of all cryptozoological fetishes.)

Now we have a good reason to talk about World War Z, as a SWAT team has raided a warehouse in Budapest, Hungary, and seized 85 firearms shipped to Budapest as “non-functional” props for the movie. The firearms, mostly assault rifles, were all in working order and illegal to transport, drawing attention from Hungary’s Anti-Terrorism Unit. Holy crap, can you imagine if they were actually using real assault rifles on set? It could have ended up like that scene in Child’s Play 3. Except good.

[Us Weekly via The Daily What]

Jörg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel is back with another slingshot, a pump action crossbow. It shoots 20mm steel balls and can hold twenty balls at the same time (like your mom). It can grab a new ball with one very quick move of the hand (like your mom). The video below shows Sprave smashing glass bottles with this ultra-convenient slingshot. He’s also got a new intro and outro for his clips, which includes the scene pictured above for some reason.

Sprave says this repeating slingshot crossbow is the fastest shooter he’s built yet. It can fire the next shot faster than his machete slingshot, Gatling gun slingshot, 6-shot slingshot, circular saw blade launcher, musket ball crossbow, zombie decapitator, and slingshot cannon. That was merely an excuse to link to a bunch of our posts. We’re just simple folk trying to make a buck (like your mom).

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We could talk this one up, but realistically speaking, you know everything you need to know from reading the title. We do have to admit, however, that we like the little disclaimer that opens the video that insists the glass is only “bullet resistant.” Yeah, it resists bullets so well, we want to get our cars redone with this stuff. Especially Brian, since his day job is as a Columbian drug lord. We can’t tell you how many times he’s canceled on us for beers because of BS reasons like “the Medellins hired an assassin to take me out.”

[ via the bullet sponges at Laughing Squid ]

Jörg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel has built another awesome weapon to add to his collection next to the machete slingshot, the Gatling gun slingshot, the 6-shot slingshot, the slingshot that launches circular saw blades, and the musket ball crossbow.  We’ve been saying for awhile we’re team Sprave when the zombiepocalypse happens, and now he’s given us another reason to hide behind him during a zombie attack.  He’s built a slingshot designed specifically for decapitating zombies and halving watermelons.  THIS IS IMPORTANT.

He calls it the “world’s first handheld guillotine” and adds, “This video is not entirely meant serious, and please, don’t do this at home.”  Yeah, definitely don’t do this at home, especially not the part where he put his own head in it and I almost crapped my pants till I noticed it wasn’t cocked and loaded at the time.  He built this decapitation machine after receiving an “indirect challenge” from zombiehunters.org. If this is how he responds to an indirect challenge I’d like to see what he does about a direct one.  Many watermelons will perish that fateful day.

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Things I Saw On The Internet Today That I Want Really Bad [Uproxx]

This week in posters [Filmdrunk]

The Best and Worst of WWE Raw 6/27 [WithLeather]

Anonymous: ‘We’re Going To Disney World!’ [Uproxx]

Trailer for Adam Carolla’s ‘Car Show’ [WarmingGlow]

Mexican Soccer Fans Are Boorish Animals: A First-Hand Account [WithLeather]

Fun with Rotten Tomatoes career graphs [Filmdrunk]

Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys, And Seinfeld Headline The Best Of My Little Pony YouTube Mashups [Uproxx]

Bill Clinton Is Totally A Broney [Uproxx]

Introducing The Pioneer AppRadio [TSS]

Howard Stern’s Beef With Mel Karmazin Heats Up (Plus Our Favorite Stern Moments) [Uproxx]

Female Armor Sucks [CollegeHumor]

Black Death: More Like Blech Death, Amirite? [Geektress]

Bear Grylls is admitting his love of pee again [Buzzfeed]

Burning Bridges: A Supercut of Explosive Proportions by Harry Hanrahan [Pajiba]

Watch Some Guy from Cirque du Soleil Throw the Most Dizzying First Pitch in MLB History [Brobible]

VIDEO BELOW: Just a Russian guy showing off his machine gun. No biggie. [via ObviousWinner]

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