spottydog4477
Published on 23 Apr 2014Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown discusses Luftwaffe Aircraft
April 7, 2018
Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown discusses Luftwaffe Aircraft
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April 1, 2018
QotD: Modularity
I was able to repair my sewer system because everything in it was modular. The pipe leading out of the house was made up of identical sections of fired clay pipe put together like legos. They were made of durable stuff, and they were installed to work using gravity alone. They worked for over one hundred years despite the efforts of dozens of people to screw them up in the interim. If they were a unitary system of some sort, and they failed, I would have been forced to replace them as a unitary system. To translate, that would have meant moving into a cardboard box behind a strip mall dumpster.
I could fix the broken components, and leave the others alone. Don’t underestimate the importance of this concept. In housing, everyone desires everything to be unitary, and wants it to be brand new forever. I can’t fix a modern house. I’m a dolt, but that’s not why I can’t fix it. In general, everything to do with a modern house can be replaced, but it can’t be fixed. If your hardwood strip flooring is worn, you can sand it and refinish it and get another fifty years out of it. If someone puts a coal out on your Pergo floor, you can lump it, or you can replace it. It’s sold as permanent. In real life, “permanent” really means “disposable.” The word “sustainable” is similar. It really means “in need of massive, permanent subsidy.”
Sippican, “You May Not Believe This, But ‘Weapons-Grade Nuts’ Is the Name of My Psychedelic Furs Tribute Band. But I Digress”, Sippican Cottage, 2016-03-16.
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March 27, 2018
German WW1 Prototype Tanks Of 1918 I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
The Great War
Published on 26 Mar 2018Get Our New Oberschlesien Tank Poster: http://bit.ly/PanzerOberschlesien
The German Tank Museum: https://www.youtube.com/DasPanzermuseum
While the German Army only fielded 20 A7V tanks during World War 1, they understood the potential of the tank and started working on different designs in the last year of the war. Some designs like the LKII almost got deployed while the Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien or the Krupp-Protze never left the prototype stage.
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March 23, 2018
Tank Chats #25 Mark VIII | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 12 Aug 2016In the 25th Tank Chat David Fletcher explores the First World War Mark VIII tank. The Mark VIII tank, also known as The International was a joint project between the British and American forces, following their entry into the war. Once the designs had been refined massive orders were placed in 1918 and then swiftly cancelled with the end of the war. In the end six Mark VIII tanks were built for Britain of which The Tank Museum’s is the sole surviving example.
http://tankmuseum.org/museum-online/vehicles/object-e1949-363
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March 20, 2018
Inside the German A7V WW1 Tank I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
The Great War
Published on 19 Mar 2018The German Tank Museum: http://daspanzermuseum.de/
We visited the German Tank Museum (in Munster, not Münster) and talked to the director Ralf Raths about the German tanks in World War 1. The only one that saw action was the A7V and will find out how it was designed, how up to 23 men fit inside one of these and what the operational history was.
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March 17, 2018
Tank Chats #24 Vickers A1E1 Independent | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 5 Aug 2016In the 24th Tank Chat, David Fletcher looks at the rather unusual Vickers A1E1 Independent. The Independent originated in 1922 with a War Office specification for a heavy tank. Ultimately it proved to be a failed project was abandoned in 1935, by which time it had cost more than £150,000, and sent to Bovington. It is the only tank of its kind in existence.
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March 15, 2018
Vintage Stanley Planes: Is older really better?
Rex Krueger
Published on 25 Jan 2018Most hand tool collectors and users go way back when they get Stanley bench planes. Older ones are usually more valuable and are often considered to work better, especially when compared to later-model, post-war planes. But this wisdom is almost totally wrong. Stanley planes did start to suck in the 1960s, but the planes they made in the 1950s and before may be the best they ever made. These late-model planes have improved features, thicker castings, easier adjustment and more precise machining. And, these planes are typically ignored by collectors, so you can get them cheap.
Are you thinking about shelling out big bucks for a premium plane? Maybe first, you should check out a late-model Stanley.
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March 7, 2018
Tank Chats #23 Hornsby Tractor | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 15 Jul 2016In the 23rd Tank Chat, David Fletcher takes a look at the Hornsby Tractor. The Hornsby Tractor was the first tracked vehicle in service with the British Army. They were designed to tow artillery.
The Museum’s example is still running and is the oldest vehicle in the collection.
http://tankmuseum.org/museum-online/vehicles/object-e1958-15
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March 4, 2018
Why Is The Porsche 911 Rear-Engine?
Engineering Explained
Published on 11 Feb 2018Why Does The Porsche 911 Carrera Put The Engine In The Back?
When you’re sitting at the drawing board, one of the most critical decisions you’ll make in designing a vehicle is where you place the engine. The engine’s placement will have a huge impact on passenger space, practicality, acceleration, braking, weight distribution, and overall driving dynamics.
Porsche decided to put the 911’s engine in the back, behind the rear axle, way back in the day when the 911 was first designed. Since then, that engine has remained there, and while some might say it’s out of stubbornness, there are legitimately wonderful reasons for having a rear-engine car. In this video, we’ll discuss five different scenarios, and how a rear engine makes a lot of sense for each.
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February 25, 2018
Assassin’s Creed: Games with a Libertarian View of the World
ReasonTV
Published on 23 Feb 2018A look into the philosophy of Ubisoft’s long-running franchise.
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Video games have become one of our most influential, popular, and creative forms of media. Last year, the industry generated almost $150 billion in revenue worldwide, rivaling books and films and dwarfing music.
Gamers spend over three billion hours a week in the virtual worlds of their choosing. And more so than other contemporary forms of media, video games explore the themes of freedom and personal agency, allowing players to go where they want and do what they please — as long as they’re prepared to bear the consequences. Two of the three best selling video games of all time are Grand Theft Auto 5 and Minecraft. They’re polar opposites in terms of violence and target audience, but both were designed to offer players the opportunity to make their own destinies.
But it’s the Assassin’s Creed series, published by Ubisoft, that puts the conflict between liberty and authority at the center of its plots, its characters, and the alternate history in which the games are set. Reason takes a look at the series’ narrative merits, and at the titular creed.
Written and edited by Ian Keyser. Read by Andrew Heaton. Gameplay footage by Sean Keyser.
“Plague” by Kai Engel is used under CC BY 4.0.
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January 14, 2018
M4 Sherman Tank – Crew tell how shocking it was
spottydog4477
Published on 18 Sep 2011Doctrine
As the US approached entry in World War II, armored employment was doctrinally governed by FM 100-5 Operations (published May 1941, the month following selection of the M4 tank’s final design). That FM stated that:
The armored division is organized primarily to perform missions that require great mobility and firepower. It is given decisive missions. It is capable of engaging in all forms of combat, but its primary role is in offensive operations against hostile rear areas.
In other words, the M4 was envisioned to primarily fill the role of a cruiser tank — although the US Army did not use that doctrinal term. The M4 was not primarily intended as an infantry support tank; in fact, FM 100-5 specifically stated the opposite. It placed tanks in the “striking echelon” of the armored division, and placed the infantry in the “support echelon”. Neither was the M4 primarily intended for tank versus tank action. Doctrinally, anti-tank engagements were the primary role of tank destroyers. The field manual covering the use of the Sherman (FM 17-33 The Tank Battalion, Light and Medium of September 1942) devoted one page of text and four diagrams to tank versus tank action (out of 142 pages). This early armored doctrine was heavily influenced by the sweeping initial successes of the German blitzkrieg tactics. Unfortunately, by the time M4s reached combat in significant numbers, battlefield demands for infantry support and tank versus tank action far outnumbered the occasional opportunities for cruiser tanks.
Although envisioned primarily as a cruiser-type tank, US doctrine did also contemplate the M4’s use in other roles. Unlike some other nations, which had separate medium tank designs tailored specifically for anti-tank roles (e.g., the German PzKfw III) and support roles (the PzKfw IV), the US intended the M4 to fulfill all roles. Although not optimized for tank versus tank engagements or infantry support, the M4 was capable of performing these missions to varying degrees. In the Pacific Theater, the Sherman was used chiefly against Japanese infantry and fortifications; in their rare encounters with lighter Japanese tanks with weaker armor and guns, the Shermans were vastly superior.
The doctrine of the time had Shermans as a sort of infantry tank. All anti-tank work was supposed to be done by tank-destroyer crews. Speed was essential in order to bring the tank-destroyers from the rear to destroy incoming tanks. Thankfully, for Sherman crews, this doctrine was not entirely used as it would create a small window of time of weakness in the armored battalion until tank destroyers moved to the front. Obviously this would make it harder for an armored force to achieve a breakthrough, a main objective of armor, if the enemy had tanks. It would also be easier for an opposing armored force to achieve a breakthrough against an American tank battalion which would not have all of its anti-tank assets at the front during the beginning of any attack.
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December 28, 2017
How A Cargo Ship Helped Win WW2: The Liberty Ship Story
Mustard
Published on 14 Nov 2017During World War Two, hundreds of cargo ships raced across the Atlantic in an effort to keep Britain supplied. But these ships were being sunk by German U-boats, warships and aircraft. In 1940 alone, over a thousand allied ships were lost on their way to Britain.
The United States, while not yet at war, was playing a vital role in supplying Britain. But with ships being sunk daily, Britain and America desperately needed a way to keep all that material moving across the Atlantic. In response, 18 shipyards across the coastal United States mobilized to build thousands of large cargo ships known as Liberty Ships. They would be built even faster than the enemy could sink them. At one point the shipyards were building one large Liberty Ship every eight hours.
Two revolutionary changes in shipbuilding will make this enormous feat possible. The first is welding and the second is the use of a modular assembly process. By mid 1941, the sheer number Liberties out at sea, along with increasing armed escorts overwhelmed German forces. Advances in anti-submarine technologies also started stamping out the U-boat threat.
Today, there are only three Liberty Ships remaining of the 2,710 built that remind us of their enormous contribution to winning World War Two.
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November 23, 2017
Tank Chats #20 Mark IV
Tank Museum
Published on 13 May 2016Mechanically the Mark IV tank was the same as the Mark I but it had thicker armour, improved fuel supply and modified sponsons with slightly shorter guns in the Male version.
Mark IV tanks went into action for the first time in the summer of 1917, they were the mainstay of the Tank Corps at Cambrai in November and fought through to the end of the war with 7th and 12th Battalions of the Tank Corps. It was a male Mark IV tank which won the very first ‘Tank versus Tank’ action in April 1918 by knocking out the German A7V tank Nixe.
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November 19, 2017
Unique Ross Experimental A2 Pistol Prototype
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 13 Mar 2017This is a very rare Ross automatic pistol, patented in 1903 by Charles Ross, of the Ross Rifle Company in Quebec. It is a short recoil, toggle locked design, made for the .45 Ross proprietary cartridge (although efforts were made, unsuccessfully, to make a .45 ACP version for the US 1907 pistol trials).
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November 12, 2017
The Great Ships Ironclads Documentary
History Of Wars
Published on 6 Sep 2016With their menacing dark silhouettes belching fire and smoke, the Ironclad warships of the mid 19th century burst onto the naval scene like hulking metal monsters. Combining iron plating, steam propulsion and the biggest and most powerful guns afloat, the Ironclads represented a radical advance over all previous warships.
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