railwayman2013
Published on 2 Jan 2013I love hornby trains !!!
November 1, 2017
James May’s Top Toys
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October 31, 2017
Strategic Bombing on the Western Front I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 30 Oct 2017Bismarck’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bis18marck70/featured
With the development of planes shortly before the Great War, the concept of strategic bombing made its debut in this conflict. Each country had different doctrines with regards to strategic bombing, and in this video we’ll be looking at British, French and German doctrines regarding the bombing of civilian targets and supply lines, as well as considering their effectiveness.
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October 30, 2017
Otto von Bismarck – III: Iron and Blood – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 28 Oct 2017Bismarck was just starting to get the hang of diplomacy when the throne of Prussia passed to a new Frederick Wilhelm who promptly sent him away to Russia. But then Bismarck got tapped to serve as the Head of Government and began pushing for his great project: the unification of Germany.
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Tank Chats #19 Matilda II
Tank Museum
Published on 28 Apr 2016The name Matilda means Strength in Battle from the Germanic roots Maht, meaning strong and Hild meaning battle.
The Matilda was regarded as a superb tank in its day and carved a remarkable career for itself. A few served in France in 1940 but in the early stages of the North African campaign, under General Wavell, it virtually ruled the desert. Even when the Afrika Korps arrived it remained a formidable opponent, immune to everything but the notorious 88mm gun. Its main failings were its slow speed and small gun, which could not be improved.
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October 29, 2017
On the Battlefield of Caporetto – Exploring the Kolovrat I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 28 Oct 2017The Walk of Peace in the Soča Region Foundation
http://www.potmiru.si/Follow Indy and his guide Leon up the heights of the Kolovrat Ridge and into the Italian frontline trenches and bunkers. From there we take a look down towards the Isonzo Valley and reconstruct the advance of the German and Austro-Hungarian forces during the Battle of Caporetto towards Tolmin and Kobarid. Walking through the narrow corridors, we try to understand the conditions in which the defenders lived and fought.
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October 28, 2017
QotD: Special forces are not a “cheaper” alternative to large, conventional forces
Special Forces are a good tool, and an old one … their origins go all the way back to colonial (mid 18th century) North America when units like Butler’s Rangers and Rogers’ Rangers were formed. The British kept skirmishing troops alive in the form of The Rifles (heirs to the traditions of numerous, famous “rifle” and “light infantry” regiments) and many 21st century Canadian regiments still bear similar titles. Special Forces had a rebirth of sort in World War II when the British made raiding and commando operations into an important tool ~ because they, the Brits, did not have the resources to take the fight to the Germans in Europe in 1941 and ’42. Modern history is full of raiding exploits from Entebbe to the killing of Osama bin Laden and it all encourages penny pinching politicians to believe, incorrectly, that a few Special Forces soldiers can replace battalions and brigades … they cannot, they do not: they are (relatively) narrow specialists who do a few, small things very, very well but cannot conduct major combat operations or even their own specialized tasks for anything like a sustained period.
Canada needs some Special Forces ~ maybe 2,500 is the right number, I do not know. But good Special Forces are always drawn from a large pool of tough, superbly disciplined, well trained sailors, soldiers and aviators. If the government wants to use more and more Special Forces in a variety of roles then it needs, above all, to maintain a large enough, high quality base from which to create and sustain them. Special Forces are part of a modern, combat capable (and, therefore, expensive) military … they are not a low cost replacement for it, no matter what the Liberal Party of Canada might want.
Ted Campbell, “Special Forces”, Ted Campbell’s Point of View, 2017-10-16.
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October 27, 2017
The Battle of La Malmaison – Breakthrough at Caporetto I THE GREAT WAR Week 170
The Great War
Published on 26 Oct 2017The French score a morale boosting victory over the German at La Malmaison, but the Canadians were not so successful elsewhere on the Western Front. Whilst the Germans continue on through the Estonian Archipelago and onto the Russian mainland, the 12th Battle of the Isonzo takes place on the Italian Front. Unlike the 11 battles that came before it, this one was initiated by the Central Powers and was their biggest breakthrough yet on that front.
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QotD: Russian meddling in US politics
In last week’s decidedly un-jocular “news”letter, I wrote about how the hypocrisy of the Left’s newfound outrage at Russia’s meddling in our politics can’t be summarized by saying “Romney was right!” when he said Russia was our biggest geopolitical foe in a debate with Barack Obama. Starting with George Kennan’s Long Telegram [link], conservatives spent the entirety of the Cold War pointing out that the Russians were undermining American life, and we got mocked and ridiculed for it by self-styled sophisticates who thought such concerns were little more than paranoia.
The ridicule didn’t end with the Cold War (when, by the way, the extent and danger of Russian meddling were much greater than they are now). Liberals were so invested in the idea that the political Right made too big a deal about Soviet Communism and that we used our hawkishness as an unfair wedge issue against Democrats that when Mitt Romney said an incandescently true thing about Putin’s Russia, liberals rolled their eyes and then laughed uproariously at Obama’s “the 1980s called” quip. In other words, they were so married to the myth of their moral and intellectual superiority, liberals preferred to stick with the punch-line than even imagine that reality wasn’t on their side.
Jonah Goldberg, “Binders Full of Asininity”, National Review, 2017-10-13.
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October 26, 2017
How A Man Shall Be Armed: 15th Century
Royal Armouries
Published on 20 Feb 2017The 15th Century was the highpoint of the armourers craft, with knights across Europe taking to the field of battle in elaborate and almost impregnable suits of plate armour. Discover how a knight of the 15th Century would arm themselves for combat.
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October 25, 2017
History of the Royal Navy 1914 to 1970
James Lyon
Published on 16 Jun 2016
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Crusader helmets
Lindybeige
Published on 4 Sep 2014Here I show you three common styles of crusader helmet, and I comment upon them.
Thanks to Dr David Tetard for the loan of his helmets. These particular ones were bought here:
www.getdressedforbattle.co.uk
http://www.kovexars.cz/index.php (HL 007 and 103)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: Oligarchies and universal franchise democracy
Fortunately the ideologues had a solution to overcome these minor imperfections of limited franchise democracy… universal franchise.
The more recent concept of Universal Franchise Democracy, is founded on the ridiculous, and incorrect, early 1900’s assumption that all Europe’s problems can be traced back to a limited voting Oligarchy.
Clearly if the ‘ruling classes’ in a state are the rich and powerful – i.e., the naturally conservative propertied elements who make the economy work and provide the productive jobs – then the chattering classes who want change will need to enfranchise the not-rich and not-powerful, so they can ride the wave of demand for change into their ideal world. In fact so they can direct it to provide taxpayer funding for non productive jobs… For people like them.
It is certainly no accident that the modern ‘ruling class’ is the nouveau-rich chattering classes – and the power base they have established in the completely unproductive taxpayer-supported lawyers and civil servants and union officials – who lead inevitably to ‘leaders’ who have the right and duty to lecture their stupid populace for not being politically correct enough… People like Merkel, Obama, and the European Union President. (Go on, name him? He has more practical power to interfere in his ‘citizens’ lives than either of the other two. Who is he?)
It is not just the Australian Union Movement of which we can say ‘they used to consist of the cream of the working class, now they consist of the dregs of the middle class’. All the petty tyrants who gorge in the taxpayers trough, and who try and force the ignorant peasants under their care down the correct path – whether medieval monks selling indulgences, or modern human rights lawyers banning free speech on issues they disapprove of – tend to be the dregs.
The dregs, of the intellectual fervor, of the previous generation, of wrong thinkers.
The dregs of any intellectual movement eventually have to accept that their ideal is hogwash. Even Marxists have started to admit that after a century of promoting Communism, they can no longer hide the hideous nature of Communism. Still, they are not going to give up their world-view just because the evidence against it is so overwhelming that continued attempts to argue in favour of it become ridiculous. Instead they move smoothly to supporting another, equally ridiculous ideology that they think will support their worldview. Say Environmentalism, or Multiculturalism.
Nigel Davies, “The Solution is… European Union/Multiculturalism/Communism… Name your poison!”, rethinking history, 2015-12-26.
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October 24, 2017
German Defensive Strategy and Tactics At Passchendaele I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 23 Oct 2017Hindenburg Line Poster: http://bit.ly/HindenburgLinePoster
The Hindenburg Line, which was developed in early 1917, was designed to have depth and flexibility. Pillboxes, bunkers and machine gun nests all played vital roles in the system, as did the counter-attacking Eingreiftruppen. Since its conception, it had been effective when used properly, but Passchendaele would be where the Siegfriedstellung would face its toughest test yet. Allied superiority in artillery and aircraft, unrelenting bad weather and exhausted soldiers all put a huge strain on the German defence system, but would they be its undoing?
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The many false faces of Aleister Crowley
In the latest Libertarian Enterprise, Sean Gabb reviews a new collection of essays about Aleister Crowley:
Turning to practitioners of the occult, I see no evidence of special success. They do not live longer than the rest of us. However they begin, they do not stay better looking. Any success they have with money, or in bed, is better explained by the gullibility of their followers than by their own magical powers.
So it was with Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) — the “Great Beast 666,” or “the wickedest man alive.” He quickly ran through the fortune his parents had left him. He spent his last years in poverty. Long before he died, he had begun to resemble the mug shot of a child murderer. Whether his claims were simply a fraud on others, or a fraud on himself as well, I see no essential difference between him and the beggar woman who cursed me in the street. He had advantages over her of birth and education. But he was still a parasite on the credulity of others.
Nor can I see him as a thinker or writer of any real value. The book that I am reviewing does its best to claim otherwise. Its varied essays are all interesting and well-written. Anything by Keith Preston, who wrote the fourth essay, is worth reading. Mr Southgate has done a fine job on the editing and formatting. But I found myself looking up from every essay to think what a terrible waste of ability had gone into producing the book. Was Crowley a sort of national socialist, or a sort of libertarian? Was he a sex-obsessed libertine, or did he preach absolute self-control? I suspect all these questions have the same answer. The overall theme of the book is that he was a penetrating critic of “modernity,” and each of its writers — all, in my view, men of greater ability than Crowley — has done his best to reduce a corpus of self-serving nonsense to a coherent system of thought.
The truth, I think, is that, beyond a desire to impose on everyone about him, Crowley had no fixed ideas, but he was too bad a writer for this to be apparent. Take these examples of his prose:
We are not for the poor and sad: the lords of the earth are our kinsfolk. Beauty and strength, leaping laughter, and delicious languor, force and fire are of us…” [quoted, p.68]
The sexual act… is the agent which dissipates the fog of self for one ecstatic moment. It is the instinctive feeling that the physical spasm is symbolic of that miracle of the Mass, by which the material wafer… is transmuted into the substance of the body. [quoted, p.151]
In the second of these, he seems to show an influence of D.H. Lawrence — or of the sources that made Lawrence into another bad writer. In the first, he has certainly been reading too much Swinburne. I confess that I have not read anything by Crowley beyond the quotations in this book. Having seen these, though, I am not curious to look further. He was a nasty piece of work in his private life, and a victim of early twentieth century fashion in everything else.
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Why Women Fainted So Much in the 19th Century
Today I Found Out
Published on 8 Oct 2016In this video:
Dropping like flies (or at least as far as many stories indicate), it seems as if well-bred ladies in the 1800s struggled to maintain consciousness when faced with even the slightest emotional or physical shock. Over the years there have been several theories as to why this seemed to happen, from the women’s garb to simply conforming to societal expectations.
Want the text version?: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/05/women-fainted-much-19th-century/
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