The Tank Museum
Published on 23 Sep 2016In 1919 the British Army found itself short of armoured cars when many were needed quickly to police various trouble spots around the world.
In reality it did not make a very good armoured car. It was too big, too unwieldy and slow while the crew got a rough ride on solid tyres. However it was durable and quite a few were still in service when the Second World War began.
http://tankmuseum.org/museum-online/vehicles/object-e1949-321
April 9, 2018
Tank Chats #26 Peerless Armoured Car | The Tank Museum
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April 8, 2018
Pioneers – Legend of the Kraken – Redeployment of Troops I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
The Great War
Published on 7 Apr 2018In this week’s episode of Out Of The Trenches, Indy talks about Pioneer Battalions, how a Sea Monster allegedly sunk a German submarine and the redeployment of Austro-Hungarian troops after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
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Brexit: Why Britain Left the European Union
PragerU
Published on 12 Mar 2018Is the European Union good for Europe? Or would Europeans be better off without it? Nigel Farage, a leader of the United Kingdom’s Brexit movement, shares his view.
Script:
If one big government is bad, imagine how much worse two big governments would be. But that’s what people living in Europe have had to deal with: their own nation’s bloated government and the super-national government of Europe, now known as the European Union. Bureaucracy times two! How’s that for a horror show?
Well, actually, you’ve no idea. It’s worse than you think. Believe me — I know, because for seventeen years, I’ve represented South East England as a member of the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative body. I was also leader of the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, where I lead Britain’s efforts to leave the European Union. To their everlasting credit, that’s just what happened on June the 23rd, 2016: The United Kingdom left the European Union. The world knows it as “Brexit.”
Brexit is a statement of national sovereignty. Don’t misunderstand me: I like nations. I like borders. I like the people that live within those borders making their own laws. But I don’t like it when faceless bureaucrats make laws for nations they don’t even live in.
But that’s what they do in the European Union.
Imagine a Belgian telling a Brit how much he can charge his customers — or the reverse. The EU bureaucrats do this in a myriad of different ways, all day, every day. It is a conspiracy of the elites.
Who are those elites? Well, they’re a bunch of self-important, overpaid, social engineers with useless college degrees who have never done a proper day’s work in their lives and have no connection with ordinary, decent people. I’ll take the good sense of an Italian farmer or a French baker over the arid intellectualism of an EU bureaucrat any day.
And I say these things not as an anti-European; I love Europe! It’s a fantastic, exciting, great continent: different peoples, languages, and cultures. But these peoples, with their languages and cultures, have effectively been hijacked by a giant, ever-expanding bureaucracy: the European Union.
People will say, “but isn’t there a parliament, a European parliament, that represents the people of Europe?” Well, yes, but this body has got no real power; it can’t make its own laws. Rather, the power resides with the European Commission. They’re unelected and they can’t be removed, and that’s how absurd the whole thing is.
The European Parliament meets in Brussels. At least, that’s what I thought when I was elected there. But once a month, do you know what happens? They load the contents of our offices and papers into big, plastic trunks, and they put those trunks on lorries, and they drive them nearly 400 miles down Europe’s motorways to a French city called Strasbourg where, for four days, the contents of our offices, and our papers, are put into a new office, and the parliament then sits there. Twelve times a year this back-and-forth happens, and this from an organization who say they want to reduce their level of carbon footprint! This, from an organization whose accounts have not been given a clean bill of health by the auditors for the last twenty years!
This…a parliament? It’s more like a traveling circus.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/brexit-why-britain-left-european-union
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April 7, 2018
The Danelaw – Alfred vs. Guthrum – Extra History – #1
Extra Credits
Published on 5 Apr 2018The Vikings moved from Scandinavia to the coasts of Britain, intent on establishing a new kingdom by any blood necessary. What they probably didn’t expect was that one of their own leaders, Guthrum, and the local king, Alfred, would end up cooperating on the creation of a kingdom for the Danes.
Sponsored by Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia! http://store.steampowered.com/app/712100/Total_War_Saga_Thrones_of_Britannia/
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Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown discusses Luftwaffe Aircraft
spottydog4477
Published on 23 Apr 2014Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown discusses Luftwaffe Aircraft
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April 6, 2018
Operation Michael Runs Out Of Breath I THE GREAT WAR Week 193
The Great War
Published on 5 Apr 2018Two weeks after the initial success of the German Spring Offensive, Operation Michael loses pace and direction. The German supply situation is dire and when the troops find cattle and food behind the British positions, there is no way for them to ignore that. At the same time, orders for a new German offensive in Flanders are given and the Germans land additional troops in Finland.
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April 5, 2018
⚜ | Planes of the Graf Zeppelin – Germany’s Aircraft Carrier of World War 2
Bismarck – Military Aviation History
Published on 13 Jul 2017Germany never finished the Graf Zeppelin, an aircraft carrier intended for the Kriegsmarine. But had it done so, these planes would have been part of the likely loadout.
⚜ Sources ⚜
Breyer, Siegfried; Flugzeugträger Graf Zeppelin
Creek, Eddie J.; Junkers Ju 87 – From Dive-bomber to Tank-Buster 1939 – 1945
Griehl, Manfred; Junkers Ju-87 Stuka – Part 1 – the Early Variants A B C and R of the Luftwaffe
Haynes, Messerschmitt Bf 109 – 1935 onwards (all marks)
Radinger, Willy; Messerschmitt Me 109 – Das meistgebaute Jagdflugzeug der Welt,
Nowarra, Die Deutsche Luftruestung 1933 – 1945
Stammer, Dieter; Stuka Junkers Ju-87 – Das erfolgreichste Sturzkampfflugzeug des Zweiten Weltkriegs
Smith, Peter C.; Stuka Volume One Luftwaffe Ju 87 Dive-Bomber Units 1939-1941
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April 4, 2018
QotD: Epicureanism and the Social Contract
[…] we return to the great question: what of social order? How, without the terrors of religion, can the many be kept from murdering and plundering the more fortunate?
The answer, says Epicurus, lies in friendship and in an understanding of natural justice. This is, he says, a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.
He says also:
There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm.
We do not have any full explanation of this side of Epicureanism. But it seems that Epicurus believed a stable and just social order could be sustained by the self-interest of individuals. Let each person pursue his own happiness, only refraining from the lives and property of others, and a natural order of society would emerge — rather as the collision of atoms in the void had led to the emergence of a vast self-sustaining universe.
Certainly, we know that he recommended his followers to avoid politics. This did not mean withdrawal from the world. Bearing in mind the quantity of his own writings and the missionary zeal of the school he founded, he was as active in impressing his ideas on the world as Plato or Aristotle were.
According to Diogenes Laertius, the Epicurean
will take no part in politics…. But… he will not withdraw himself from life…. And be will take a suit into court…. He will have regard to his property and to the future. He will be fond of the country. He will be armed against fortune and will never give up a friend. He will pay just so much regard to his reputation as not to be looked down upon. He will take more delight than other men in public festivals. …. And he will make money, but only by his wisdom, if he should be in poverty, and he will pay court to a king, if need be. He will be grateful to anyone when he is corrected. He will found a school, but not in such a manner as to draw the crowd after him; and will give readings in public, but only by request. He will be a dogmatist but not a mere sceptic; and he will be like himself even when asleep. And he will on occasion die for a friend.
As said, we do not have much Epicurean writing on this point. As with the Benthamites, he does not seem to have found any imperative for these ethical teachings. We may ask, for example, what reason there is against my killing someone if I can thereby take possession of his property — or just enjoy the sensation of killing — and if there is no chance of my being caught. The only answers we have are:
Do nothing in your life that will cause you to fear if it is discovered by your neighbour.
And:
The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance.
If these are attempts at answering the question, they are feeble attempts. That the unjust are invariably unhappy is plainly false. As for the threat of discovery, the opportunities for secret crime have always been everywhere.
Nor does Epicurus take issue with the greatest injustice of ancient society. He admitted slaves to his school. He encouraged kindness to slaves. But he does not seem ever to have questioned the morality of or the need for slavery.
But, these reservations being granted, what we seem to have in the complete system of Epicurus is something remarkably similar to modern classical liberalism. While respecting the equal rights of others, we should pursue our own happiness in life. We can do so sure that we exist in a universe governed by knowable and impersonal laws that are not hostile to the pursuit of such happiness.
Sean Gabb, “Epicurus: Father of the Enlightenment”, speaking to the 6/20 Club in London, 2007-09-06.
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April 3, 2018
The Neutral Ally – Norway in WW1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 2 Apr 2018Norway declared neutrality when the First World War broke out and as a nation with a large merchant fleet, profited from the war economically.
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HMS Cockchafer: The Epic Voyages, 1915-1949
Thersites the Historian
Published on 12 Feb 2018Recently, I stumbled across the existence of the most oddly named ship that I have ever encountered and I decided to dig into its history. The following is a brief history of a British gunboat which saw action in many of Britain’s most noteworthy military actions during the early 20th Century.
Wikipedia entry on HMS Cockchafer.
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April 2, 2018
Vikings – did they actually exist?
Lindybeige
Published on 9 Oct 2015The term ‘Viking’ is used inaccurately most of the time. Scandinavia was home to many Norse-speaking farmers, fishermen, carpenters, and cheese-makers, who spent between none and very little of their time carrying out sea raids.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
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QotD: Is Danish following the same path as Maltese?
… while I was in Denmark I kept tripping over odd facts that pointed to a possibly disturbing conclusion: though the Danes don’t seem to notice it themselves, their native language appears to me to be dying. Here are some of the facts that disturbed me:
- I was told that Danish phonology has been mutating so rapidly over the last 50 years that it is often possible to tell by the accent of an emigre returning to Denmark what decade they left in.
- The Dane with whom I was staying remarked that, having absorbed spoken Danish as a child, he found learning written English easier than learning written Danish.
- Modern Danish is not spoken so much as it is mumbled. Norwegians and Swedes say that Danes talk like they’ve constantly got potatoes in their mouths, and it’s true. Most of the phonemic distinctions you’d think ought to be there from looking at the orthography of written Danish (and which actually are there in Norwegian and Swedish) collapse into a sort of glottalized mud in contemporary spoken Danish.
- At least half the advertising signs in Denmark – and a not inconsiderable percentage of street signs – are in English. Danes usually speak passable English; many routinely code-switch to English even when there are no foreigners involved, in particular for technical discussions.
The overall picture I got of Danish was of a language in an extreme stage of phonological degeneration, extremely divergent from its written form, and functionally unnecessary to many of its younger speakers.
I contemplated all this and thought of Maltese.
Maltese originated as a creole fusing Arabic grammar and structure with loanwords from French and Italian. I have read that since 1800 (and especially since WWII) Maltese has been so heavily influenced by bilingual English and Maltese speakers that much of what is now called “Maltese” is actually “Maltenglish”, rather more like a Maltese-English fusion, with “pure” Maltese only spoken by a dwindling cohort of the very old and very rural. Analysis of this phenomenon is complicated by the fact that the Maltese themselves tend to deny it, insisting for reasons of ethno-tribal identity that they speak more Maltese and less Maltenglish than they actually do.
Based on what I saw and heard in Denmark, I think Danish may be headed down a similar diglossic road, with “pure” Danish preserved as an ethno-tribal museum artifact and common Danish increasingly blending with English until its identity is essentially lost except as a source of picturesque dialect words. For a look at a late stage in this sort of process, consider Lallans, the lowland Scots fusion of Scots Gaelic and English.
Eric S. Raymond, “Is Danish Dying?”, Armed and Dangerous,2009-05-17.
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April 1, 2018
German Armored Cars in WW1 I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
The Great War
Published on 31 Mar 2018The German Tank Museum on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/daspanzermuseum
Germany only fielded 20-40 armored cars in World War 1, mostly on the Eastern Front. Not much about their operational history is known but they did play an important role in the German Civil War and the Weimar Republic.
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The Royal Air Force at 100
In The Register, Gareth Corfield notes the amusing detail of the RAF’s birthday happening to fall on April 1st by publishing a couple of days early (so nobody thinks he’s pulling their collective legs):
This Sunday marks the 100th birthday of the Royal Air Force – Britain’s military arm for the skies – as a separate Armed Force in its own right. The RAF has been at the forefront of many technological innovations over the last century, many of which are still in use to this day.
From the earliest days of biplanes (and triplanes), through the invention of radar, the jet engine, vertical takeoff tech, and aircraft designs that were decades ahead of their time.
While traditionally these types of “birthday journalism” articles are published on the actual birthday, we at El Reg still reckon it’s a bit weird that the RAF’s official foundation also takes place on April Fool’s Day, so here it is before smart-arses feel compelled to claim this is some kind of windup.
Going back through the history books, the RAF’s main technological achievements include developments in aerial navigation, aircraft sensing and ground-based control, and, somewhat controversially, the jet engine, though the actual milestones for that one are shared with Germany.
[…]
All in all, the RAF has been an aeronautical force for good, with the service developing the basics for many things that commercial passengers today take for granted. Its technological developments and innovations have contributed to making the world both safer and smaller, as aircraft fly ever faster, building upon the principles established and researched by the Air Force. Even those with grievous injuries have been benefited by the RAF, thanks to the pioneering work of the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine.
Let’s just hope it manages to shrug off the problem of having its birthday on the same day as April Fool’s Day…
Update: Samizdata relates the tale of the 50th anniversary non-celebration.
Today I would like to note one incident in the RAF’s history, which came at the ‘half-way’ mark, when in 1968, (actually on 5th April) after Harold Wilson’s Labour government decided not to commemorate the RAF’s 50th anniversary with a fly-past, and this did not go down well at all. In fact, it went down so badly that one RAF pilot, the heroic Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollock, threw away his career and very nearly his freedom in the ‘Tower Bridge incident‘, when, in protest at the lack of a commemoration, in his Hawker Hunter jet, he ‘buzzed’ the Houses of Parliament. Then on the spur of the moment, going down the Thames towards the sea, he flew under the top span of Tower Bridge at around 400 mph, and also ‘beat up’ a few airfields inverted, before landing, getting arrested but avoiding a court martial after being demobilised on health grounds by superiors eager to avoid the publicity of a trial, which is a weird echo of a similar ruse used in Viktor Suvorov’s ‘The Liberators’ when a Soviet Army soldier’s conduct presented a bureaucratic embarrassment that could not be concealed from higher authority. The jet only just missed hitting the top span of Tower Bridge with its tail, so no harm was done, however, it was close, there was a double-decker bus on the bridge at the time, and a cyclist on the bridge ripped his trousers dismounting in haste. Flt-Lt Pollock gallantly offered to pay for the trousers, but the cyclist declined.
Wikipedia has more detail on the Hawker Hunter Tower Bridge incident.
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