Blimps are great, especially if you don't fill them full of screaming, burning people. The Marines in Iraq are testing out this new MARTS (Marine Airborne Re-Transmission Systems) blimps as replacements for radio towers, running singals up through fiber-obtic which are then repeated over UHF/VHF. They are a few million dollars a pop, but they can run for two weeks without refueling and are harder to disable than a ground-based radio tower—each MARTS can resist small arms fire and operated wtih a 4-inch hole in its skin.

BLIMPS FOR MARINES IN IRAQ [DefenseTech]

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