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  • Happy Birthday to the United States Navy.

    We’re Army to the core, but we also recognize that the United States is and always will be a maritime nation, and that we must always have a strong Navy to support our use of the maritime commons.

    s-l1000

  • World of Warships

    So, there’s this game, online, called World of Warships. It’s free, kinda. You can play for free, or have a premium account. The developers know a certain percentage of their audience are willing to pay for premium content and add ons.

    I’m not. But I’m still advancing through the ranks fairly well.  I’m not really a gamer, but I’m addicted to this WoW like it’s crack.  It’s of a family with the popular World of Tanks online game.

    Any of you out there play? I’m interested in forming a division.

    worldofwarships 2015-04-01 13-34-30-94

  • Demolition Fail

    Hat tip to the Mad Marsupial, who sent this in:

    So of course people do the Leaning Tower of Pisa pic thing.

    A man does a Leaning Tower of Pisa impression at the Red Road flats

  • TOW Missile in Vietnam

    Today, the US designed TOW missile is almost ubiquitous, being used by more countries than you can shake a stick at. It’s also in use by the Free Syrian Army rebels in that nasty little civil war they have going on.

    But in 1972, the TOW was brand spanking new. The Army had its eye on the stupendous fleets of Warsaw Pact tanks in Europe, and wanted to get a good idea of just how well TOW would work, particularly mounted on a helicopter.

    As it happened, the famous Easter Offensive of the Vietnam War broke out just about the same time that TOW was ready for operational testing. While we generally think of the Vietnam War as one fought by infantry supported by artillery in jungles or rice paddies, there was a shift in the Easter Offensive. The US had spent the years from 1964 to 1972 perfecting counter-insurgency warfare. But the the North Vietnamese Army in 1972 launched an entirely conventional, mechanized, invasion of South Vietnam. Large numbers of tanks, APCs and fleets of trucks supported the invasion. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam was ill equipped to deal with that mechanized threat. Only the prompt and massive application of American airpower staved off the invasion.

    And one small part of that was the combat debut of TOW, mounted on UH-1B gunships.

    XM26_Drawing

    towviet2

    The success of the interim XM-26 TOW armament system would inspire the Army to mount a similar system on its fleet of AH-1 Cobra gunships, which would be the primary attack helicopter in the Army fleet until introduction of the AH-64 Apache and its Hellfire missile in the late 1980s.

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  • Daily Dose of Splodey

  • Load HEAT- Isabel Leonard

    Very occasionally we’ve been known to raise our level of culture above the plebian interests of the masses and enjoy a bit of opera. And this one of the rising stars of American opera is mezzo soparano Isabel Leonard.

     

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    As an added bonus, coauthor Spill spent yesterday squiring her ‘round Chicago.

    //totes not jelly//

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  • 5 Places You Can Drive a Tank Right Now

    As it turns out, it’s not all that difficult to rent a tank. The majority of companies that do so function as tourist attractions—it’s not like Enterprise where you grab the keys and try to return it with a full tank of gas.Generally speaking, each company offers packages with different aspects: shooting guns, crushing cars, even slam through a mobile home. It’s important to note that U.S. regulations generally require the “de-milling” of a tank’s cannon, so there’s no firing of the awesome big gun. But hey, you can still crush cars.

    Source: 5 Places You Can Drive a Tank Right Now

    Pffttt. Lemme know when they let you do a TOW live fire.

  • Russian Strike in Syria

    The Russians, not surprisingly, have their own version of our GPS guided JDAM bomb.

    Just a guess, but it kinda looks like it might not be quite as accurate as our.

  • Ankara explosions leave more than 80 dead – officials – BBC News

    TV footage showed scenes of panic and people lying on the ground covered in blood, amid protest banners.The blasts took place near the city’s central train station as people gathered for a march organised by leftist groups.The attack is the deadliest of its kind in modern Turkish history. In pictures: Aftermath of attacksPrime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has announced three days of national mourning, and said there was evidence that two suicide bombers had carried out the attacks.

    Source: Ankara explosions leave more than 80 dead – officials – BBC News

    In addition to the immediate and obvious story about the loss of human life, this is a scary story about the destabilization of Turkey. Ankarra isn’t a border town near ISIS occupied Syria. It’s smack in the heart of the country.

    My first question was, did the PKK conduct this? They’ve been known to directly attack Turkey. But it appears that HDP, a pro Kurdish party, might have been the target of the attack. So the question is, who did stage this attack? Was it an ISIS operation? Fundamentalist groups aligned with the Erdogan government? Will Turkey use these attacks to step up operations against PKK?

    Turkey has been content to let the chaos on its Syrian border continue, and let its western NATO allies conduct operations, while all the while doing its best to avoid having to make its own hard choices about involvement. It’s beginning to look like that might no longer be an option.

    Coupled with spotty reports that Turkey shot down a Russian MiG yesterday after yet another airspace incursion, Turkey’s days of peace might be coming to an end.

  • Veteran-made ‘Range 15’ zombie flick launches filming

    Is that Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell getting tackled by the “Jump to Conclusions” guy from “Office Space”?Yes. Yes, it is.And is that Jim O’Heir from “Parks and Recreation” licking a dude’s nipple on a hospital gurney?Uh, yeah.And could that be an undead William Shatner asking to be kicked just a little harder?Yep. That’s exactly what that is.It can only mean one thing: The boys from the Ranger Up and Article 15 online T-shirt shops are making good on their promise to create exactly the kind of post-apocalyptic zombie comedy war movie they’d want to see.And they hope you do, too.

    Source: Veteran-made ‘Range 15’ zombie flick launches filming

    I tossed ’em a few bucks a couple months back. And yeah, I’m patiently waiting for some good fun from this flick.