Military History

My favourite WWII era fighter, the Supermarine Spitfire, entered service 70 years ago today. Link to a collection of articles at Flight International.

May we never forget.

A curious site referenced in the AirForcesMonthly of this month, of strange organization and merchandising oriented: http://www.dassault-passion.fr http://www.thestore-dassault-aviation.com/art-de-vivre.html (I never would think the books are in this section ).

An very impressive and detailed 339 pages document about U-2, her flights, and her sucessor A-12/Oxcart, with some comments of Chris Pockock: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/

What did these mean?

Just finished reading Steve Davies' Red Eagles: America's Secret MiGs (Osprey Publishing, 2008); an account of the CONSTANT PEG programme that used MiG-17s, 21s and 23s as Aggressor adversaries to help in the training of US aircrew. A highly interesting read, which illuminates an interesting aspect of the Cold War. Anyone else here read it?

They're free to download too. :)

Some interesting updates on the sub here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_confederate_submarine Buddha

From Air Force Magazine, Feb 2012 issue [excerpt]

Probably of great interest, history of the SQS-26 sonar by one of its designers. Thanks Bob Mack. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA538018.pdf

From Air Force Magazine, July 2012 issue [excerpt]

Academic article on the "window of vulnerability"- aka the perceived ICBM gap in the early 1980s. Thoughts?

Route Pack 6 By Walter J. Boyne Air Force Magazine Nov 1999 It was the most dangerous of the "Route Packages," taking airmen into the deadly defenses around Hanoi. In every war, there is a place that comes to symbolize its most ferocious moments. For airmen in the Vietnam War, it was Route Pack 6, taking the battle to the heart of Hanoi-"going downtown." A relatively small band of US pilots fought a long and valiant war under conditions that rarely made sense to them. Handicapped by onerous-foolish might be the better term-rules of engagement, they nonetheless flew into battle every day, delivering bombs on the most well-defended targets in history. Many brave…

Can anyone identify the particular ship or at least class of the carrier at the following two pictures? Thanks! Sorry about the off topic post, kind of... Tony Image 1 Image 2

From Globe and Mail, 6 June 2012 High resolution aerial images from WWII Normandy beaches, Pegasus bridge, and others, with zoom features.

From Air Force Magazine, April 2007 issue In the South Atlantic and the Middle East, two short air wars taught some lasting lessons. The Wars of Eighty-Two By Adam J. Hebert, Senior Editor Twenty-five years ago this spring, two short and intense armed conflicts —fought in widely separated theaters—delivered a jolt to military thinking. Defense establishments the world over vigorously debated all of the “lessons learned” from the small wars of 1982. They still do. In the first, Britain and Argentina came to blows over the Falkland Islands, bleak South Atlantic outposts whose ownership had long been in dispute. This war, which ran from April 2, 1982 until A…

From The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 17 January 2007 We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S. emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth. As in past deliberations, we have examined other …

Details of regiments and locations from 1945-1991

This one certainly seems to fall under the heading of "Someone should be taken out and shot": http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,601522,00.html

50 Years Later: The Legacy of USS Thresher (USNI News)