Matsimus
Published on 24 Dec 2018The M551 Sheridan was a light reconnaissance tank developed by the American company General Motors in May 1960 under the designation XM551. In November 1965 approval was given for the type classification of the XM551 as Limited Production and a four-year production contract was awarded to the Allison Motor Car Division of General Motors Corporation. In May 1966 the Sheridan was classified as Standard A and by this time production was well under way with the first production vehicle being completed in June 1966. Production continued until 1970 by when 1700 M551S (or General Sheridans) had been built, of which 1570 were still in service with the US Army in 1970. The role of the M551. as originally conceived, is to function as the main reconnaissance vehicle for armour, infantry and airborne operations and arms teams not employing main battle tanks. Late in 1978, it was announced that the M551 would be phased out of service and replaced by the M60A1 MBT, apart from those vehicles allocated to the 82nd Airborne Division (57) and Arkansas National Guard (12), 330 have been assigned to the National training Center at Fort Irwin, California. These are essentially basic M551s but with visual modifications to the outside to disguise them as “OPFOR force” vehicles such as BMP-1 and ZSU-23-4.
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January 21, 2019
M551 “Sheridan” AR/AAV | DESIGN DISASTER!
January 19, 2019
Stopper 37mm: A Simple South African Riot Control Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 29 Dec 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The Stopper is a simple 37mm single shot riot control gun designed by Andries Piek in 1980. The South African police services were at that time using 37mm guns made by Federal Labs in the US, dating back to the 1930s, and the international embargo on South Africa made it impossible to get parts and do basic maintenance on those arms. So Piek (whose other work included the BXP carbine/SMG and design improvements to the LDP/Kommando) whipped out the Stopper in all of two weeks to provide a new domestic-production 37mm weapon for the police.
The Stopper is a simple break-action gun, with a manually cocked, single action, hammer-fired trigger mechanism. Two versions were made, one with the front grip and one without, and all were fitted with collapsing stocks. Production began in 1982 and ran until 1999, by Mitco Special Products under the Milkor name.
As an interesting postscript, Piek was inspired by seeing Christopher Walken using a Mannville 25mm revolving gas gun in the movie Dogs of War to make something similar in 37mm or 40mm. The gun he designed to this end became the Milkor MGL, adopted by South Africa in 1983 and by the US Marine Corps in 2005.
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January 17, 2019
How effective was the Tiger really?
Military History Visualized
Published on 18 Dec 2018There are quite many debates about the Panzerkampfwagen VI AusfĂŒhrung E & B – the Tiger & Königstiger – tanks, so in this video we look at how effective or ineffective these panzers were in combat. This means we look at doctrine, kill to loss ratios, mission accomplishment and various other issues.
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» twitter – https://twitter.com/MilHiVisualizedMilitary History Visualized provides a series of short narrative and visual presentations like documentaries based on academic literature or sometimes primary sources. Videos are intended as introduction to military history, but also contain a lot of details for history buffs. Since the aim is to keep the episodes short and comprehensive some details are often cut.
January 13, 2019
Canada’s role in India’s nuclear weapons development program
Canadian nuclear technology was critical to India for helping them develop their first nuclear weapons (although the Canadian reactor was supposed to be used only for civilian purposes):
Maybe you have heard the story of how India got the Bomb with Canadaâs inadvertent help. We sold India a nuclear reactor called CIRUS in 1954 on an explicit promise that the facility would only be used for peaceful purposes. When India astonished the world with its first nuke test in May 1974, having upgraded the fuel output from CIRUS, it duly announced that it had successfully created a Peaceful Nuclear Explosive. The permanent consequence was, for better or worse, a nuclear-armed Subcontinent.
This is old news to enthusiasts of Cold War history. Hereâs the new news: it almost happened twice. Canadian technology was almost used by another country to break into the nuclear club.
In November, historians David Albright and Andrea Stricker published a new book called Taiwanâs Former Nuclear Weapons Program: Nuclear Weapons On-Demand. The book pulls together the previously sketchy story of Nationalist Chinaâs covert nuclear research, which had its roots in the postwar exodus of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang party (KMT). Albright and Stricker describe decades of effort by the offshore Republic of China on Taiwan to play a double game with nuclear weapons.
At first Taiwan engaged in sneaky nuclear research â it turns out that if you research nuclear safety you learn a lot about nuclear explosions â and it tried to create a plutonium stockpile on the sly. But their scientists left too many clues: a plutonium-based nuke requires processed plutonium metal, and that is hard to make without raising suspicions. The Indian test of 1974 was an important wake-up call to the world, and the nonproliferation establishment and the U.S. Department of State started to get nervous about Taiwan.
After a 1977 confrontation with American officials, who could hardly be ignored by the vulnerable Republic of China, the KMT deep state tried subtler methods to create the âon-demandâ weapon described in the title. Taiwan committed formally to nonproliferation and full U.S. inspections of their facilities, but sought to be able to make low-yield nukes within three to six months in the event of a Communist invasion from the mainland.
January 12, 2019
Shooting the H&K MP5K Operational Briefcase
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 22 Dec 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Heckler & Koch’s “Operational Briefcase” is a clever system for covert carry of a submachine gun without the need to conceal such a large type of weapon under bulky clothing. By putting the gun into a briefcase, they gave security personnel a way to blend right into the business and executive type of environment. Of course, the idea has become rather well known, at least in some circles. It may not have quite the same element of surprise it once did, but it is still a remarkably discreet contraption.
Thanks to H&K and Trijicon, I had the chance today to actually do some shooting with one of the briefcases. When properly used (which is to say, braced against the belly and aimed with the torso) it is quite a lot more useful and accurate than I had anticipated! It should definitely say something that H&K still sells these briefcases to law enforcement and security firms to this day…
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January 10, 2019
Patreon’s changing role
At Quillette, Uri Harris outlines how Patreon has changed over the last year or so and what those changes mean for both content creators and financial supporters:
On December 6, crowdfunding service Patreon removed the account of popular YouTuber Carl Benjamin, who is better known by his YouTube moniker Sargon of Akkad. In a statement, Patreon explained that Benjamin was removed for exposing hate speech under its community guidelines, which prohibit: âserious attacks, or even negative generalizations, of people based on their race [and] sexual orientation.â The incident in question was an appearance on another YouTube channel where Benjamin used racial and homosexual slurs during an emotional outburst. (The outburst was transcribed and included for reference as part of Patreonâs statement.)
Patreonâs reaction sparked immediate accusations of political bias from many centrists and conservatives, as Benjaminâwho identifies as a classical liberalâis a frequent and outspoken critic of contemporary progressivism, receiving hundreds of thousands of views on many of his videos. The fact that Benjamin was removed from Patreon for an outburst on another YouTube channel almost a year ago, when he produces hours of content every week on his own channels and appears regularly on many others, suggested that this was a targeted attempt to remove him due to his politics, either by Patreon employees themselves or as a response to outside pressure.
This belief was bolstered by the fact that Patreonâs CEO Jack Conte had appeared on popular YouTube talk show âThe Rubin Reportâ last year to explain the removal of conservative YouTube personality Lauren Southern, where he seemed to suggest that Patreonâs content policy had three sections and that hate speech was in the first section, meaning that it only applied to content uploaded to Patreonâs own platform. (Southern was removed for off-platform activity because she had âcrossed the line between speech and action,â Conte maintained, which he implied was covered by the more severe second and third sections of their content policy.)
Thereâs nothing unusual about a company revising its content policy, of course, but it seemed suspicious that Benjamin was being removed for a different set of rules than those Patreonâs CEO had previously articulated. In fact, several people pointed out the prevalence of similar slurs on Patreonâs own platform as further indication that Benjamin was specifically targeted for his political views.
January 8, 2019
Tank Chats #40 Crusader | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 30 Jun 2017In the 40th Tank Chat, David Fletcher looks at the Second World War Crusader tank.
The first Crusader III was delivered in May 1942. Crusader IIIs were landed first in Algeria on 13 November 1942, but removed from service upon conclusion of the campaign in Tunisia in May 1943. This vehicle probably never left England, as it was held by the School of Tank Technology, before transfer to the Tank Museum in 1949. This vehicle is painted to represent a tank serving in Tunisia.
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January 7, 2019
QotD: The lifecycle of the pop music industry
… the music industry, the people involved in the business end of things, is about half the size it was at its peak. A couple of years ago I did a post on the state of music. Per capita music sales have collapsed from their peak 15 years ago. That peak was largely a bubble created by the advent of the compact disc. Everyone went out and repurchased their music collection in the new digital format. A lot of old stuff was remastered for the new format and that boosted sales too.
We are now in a time when selling songs is no longer very profitable. Often, bands will put their new releases on YouTube free of charge. The song itself is a form of marketing for their live shows. In my youth, the opposite was the case. Bands went on tour to promote their latest album. The tickets to the show were often cheaper than the album. Now, anything you want is on-line so trying to monetize the songs has become a lost cause. As a result, the focus is on making money from the live shows.
In many respects, pop music is back to where it was before the great wars of the 20th century. In the 19th century, sheet music was the item of value in the music business. Many of our intellectual property laws, in fact, come from efforts to protect the owners of sheet music. The main source of income for musicians, however, was the live act. They went around performing for customers. It is where the expression âsing for your supperâ started. Often musicians were paid, in part, with a meal.
The Z Man, “The Cycle of Life”, The Z Blog, 2017-03-01.
January 6, 2019
WW2 Ball Turret with twin .50 cals at the Big Sandy Shoot
Gunscom
Published on 7 Dec 2018One of the highlights at this fall’s Big Sandy Shoot was a vintage WW2 ball turret with twin .50 cals that spectators could shoot.
Although it’s not uncommon to see unique and rare guns and military vehicles at the event, the fully functioning ball turret garnered a lot of attention.
Taigh Ramey, president of Vintage Aircraft, towed the Sperry A2 ball turret all the way from Stockton, California to the shoot, which takes place every April and October just outside of the town of Wikieup, Arizona.
Sperry A2 ball turrets were commonly mounted underneath either a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress or the Consolidated B-24 Liberator. They were used to defend the bomber against aircraft attacking from below.
Ramey found the turret in a surplus shop many years ago. It took him 15 years to convince the owner to sell it, and he’s sure glad he did. Ramey fixes up and maintains vintage aircraft for the Stockton Field Aviation Museum. The ball turret has proven to be very popular with visitors.
The turret was new ‘old stock’ from the 1940’s, so it never saw service. Despite having sat on a storage skid for half a century, Ramey says he brought it back to his shop, put hydraulic fluid, fired it up, and the turret ran like a charm.
Rumored to have inspired the inside of the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon from the Star Wars films, the Sperry turret was operated by the gunner inside using two hand controls that operated two Vickers hydraulic units. It could rotate 360 degrees and tilt up up and down. Atop two control handles were fire buttons that engaged two .50 caliber light-barrel Browning AN/M2 machine guns. The guns fired 850 rounds per minute, and each gun was fed by a 500 round box of ammunition. The guns could not be reloaded in flight, so gunners had to be careful.
Contrary to popular myth, ball turrets were not always manned by tiny people. People up to six foot could fit inside comfortably. Gunners sat in a fetal-type position, and aimed the guns using a Reflector sight in front of a small circular window between their legs.
Statistically, the ball turret was one of the safest crew positions during WWII as ball turret gunners had the lowest loss rate.
Ramey was at the Big Sandy Shoot not only to live fire the turret, something he’d never done before, but also to promote Bomber Camp. It is a two-day event held on May 29 and 30 of every year at the Stockton Metropolitan Airport in California. Participants get a chance to step back in time to train for a bombing mission, and then to fly it for real.
Participants learn how to use original bomber sights and compensate for height, distance and wind. Gunnery classes familiarize them with the ball turret and other aircraft mounted guns, all of which can be fired in flight using airsoft propane ‘blanks’.
The grande finale is a flying mission in which dummy cement bombs are dropped from high altitudes on targets from a B-24 or B17 aircraft. Bomber Camp offers a once in a lifetime experience to gain a greater appreciation for the men and women of the “greatest generation”. Enrollment is tax deductible.
January 4, 2019
SplashData’s Top 100 Worst Passwords of 2018
January 3, 2019
The ship that revolutionised naval warfare
Lindybeige
Published on 13 Dec 2018Thanks to World of Warships for sponsoring this video. Follow the link https://wo.ws/2Pp7LgQ and use the code âLINDYBEIGEâ to receive the Premium Soviet Ship âDianaâ, 500 Doubloons, and 7 Premium days of game time. For new accounts only.
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January 2, 2019
Is the Stoner 63 Really So Good? Shooting the Mk23, Bren, and 63A Carbine
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 8 Dec 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Is the Stoner 63 really as good of a gun as everyone says? Today is my first opportunity to try one out on the range, and I’m going to look at it in three different configurations: the Mk23 SEAL light machine gun, the “Bren” style automatic rifle, and the carbine. Let’s see how it handles!
I owe a tremendous thanks to Movie Armaments Group in Toronto for the opportunity to take the Stoner kit out to the range! Check them out on Instagram to see many of the guns in their extensive collection: https://instagram.com/moviearmamentsg…
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December 29, 2018
Helping Africa become less poor
In the Washington Examiner, Tim Worstall explains how and why Africans will benefit from adopting western agricultural methods:
No doubt much to the annoyance of the real farming types, Africa is starting to adopt American industrial farming practices. Thankfully, this is going to make Africa and its residents vastly richer. Tyson (that enemy of everything the organic and slow-food movements hold dear) is working and investing to bring the U.S. system of broiler chicken production to the world’s poorest continent, thereby making it less poor.
[…]
To an economist, everything is a technology. A supermarket is a technology, a mobile phone system, medieval peasantry is a technology, and so is battery farming of broiler hens. A technology is a method of doing something and battery farming is a more advanced, because it’s more productive, technology than the medieval techniques. Most of Africa would be overjoyed to have something as productive as that peasantry our own forefathers suffered through.
Places and people are poor because they use older and less productive technologies. As Paul Krugman’s possibly finest essay points out (and his finest is very good indeed), when a place is using technologies as productive as a richer place, then those users are as rich. That’s just the definition: We’re richer if we get more output from our input of labor. Adopt technologies that are more productive, and we become richer.
The reason places like Africa are poor is not because of capitalism, exploitation, the residues of colonialization, or even the long, dark shadow of the slave trade. Nor is it poor even because of idiotic socialism or the propensity of politicians to run off with the national treasury. You can blame any selection of those as you wish, and with some of them you’d even be right, but they are all proximate causes. The ultimate reason is simply that poor places are using less productive technologies, richer ones more productive. All of those varied things can be blamed for reducing the use of more advanced technologies, but it is the lack of technological advance itself that causes the poverty.
December 27, 2018
Shooting the FG42: The Hype is Real
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 3 Dec 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
The hype? Yeah, it’s real. The FG42 is the nicest full-auto full-power rifle I have yet fired. This is a recut of a previous video that YouTube decided to squash.
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
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Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754
December 24, 2018
Bottom 5 British Tanks â David Fletcher | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 6 Oct 2018Tank Museum legend and Tank Chat superstar David Fletcher couldnât possibly decide on a Top Five Tanks â so we asked him to pick the five worst!
Feel free to agree in the comments below, as we present David Fletcherâs Bottom Five Tanks
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