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A U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship fired three warning shots at an Iranian ship that sailed within 200 yards in the Northern Persian Gulf Wednesday after one of four close calls this week involving U.S. and Iranian vessels, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News on Thursday.

The USS Squall fired the shots, according to the official.

On Tuesday, four Iranian small boats "harassed" the USS Nitze, sailing near the guided missile destroyer in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. Navy official told Fox News.

via www.foxnews.com

Gee, you'd think after $400 million in ransom, and another $1.3 billion released from impound, the Iranians might be a little nicer.

On 5 August 2016, anti-government forces from the Free Syrian Army and the Islamist coalition Jaish al-Fateh stormed and captured a Syrian Arab Army (SAA) artillery school facility during operations aimed at breaking the Syrian regime siege of Eastern Aleppo. The following day, rebel group Ahrar al-Sham posted photos of materiel in the facility’s ‘Ordnance Square‘. Apart from a number of artillery pieces more commonly seen in the Syrian conflict, a photo showed a Soviet 180 mm S-23 artillery gun in the travelling position.

via armamentresearch.com

An interesting look at one of the more obscure Soviet artillery pieces.

A friend of mine spent 10 years building this incredible house for his clients.

Also the electro-mechanical complexity of this operation is fascinating. Engineering before computers was incredible.

I mostly remember her from The Equalizer.

She’s not just an actress, she’s also a respected singer.

What’s your favorite plane? What’s your favorite plane picture?

That’s an F-4E, and I belive the MY tail code is Seymour Johnson AFB, sometime in the mid 1980s.

BTW, there’s an interesting difference between how the Navy and the Air Force developed the various sub-types of F-4.

The Navy F-4B and F-4J (and their F-4N and F-4S mods) always had a limited ground attack capability, but were always optimized for the air to air role.

The Air Force, on the other hand, would modify some parts of the C, D, and E fleets to be optimized for the air to ground role, with sensors and navigation equipment that made some of their jets very formidable precision strike aircraft. Meanwhile, other parts of the Air Force fleet were still very optimized for the air to air role.

I went on a bit of a torpedo shooting spree in the Tier V Japanese destroyer, the Minekaze.

Busy day.

New Zealanders are famous for tinkering in the shed, and restoring old stuff. Like, say, an 88mm flak cannon? H/T to  ijkvmi88

Via CDR Salamander– since we’re on an Antipodean kick, here’s the Aussies and Kiwi’s at the Battle of Long Tan.

I was looking up some obscure old US aircraft, and ended up re-reading the wiki entry for the Curtiss SOC Seagull floatplane. Which lead to this personal history of an aircrewman who served in World War II flying from the USS San Francisco.  There are a few minor inaccuracies in the telling, but it is a good read. And how about starting the war as a Seaman, and making Chief, and then Chief Warrant Officer?

The new Air Force Chief of Staff is serious about cutting back on useless additional duties.

We all know that some guy in a missile bunker can’t just start a nuclear war on his own. What’s scary is, it hasn’t always been that way.

Two hours, but very interesting, and informative. Grab a cup of coffee.