Potentially interesting MILITARY-related stuff

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
It's interesting that the nuclear weapons "stockpile stewardship" program supercomputers follow the US nuclear weapons testing program naming sequence: Trinity, then Crossroads. I'd guess a Trinity, then Hiroshima naming sequence never came up in meetings even though the latter was actually a test shot since the gun configuration had not been tested prior to its operational use.

National Nuclear Security Administration selects HPE Cray for Crossroads supercomputer
October 01, 2020

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/...on-selects-hpe-cray-crossroads-supercomputer/
The US National Nuclear Security Administration has contracted HPE Cray for its next major supercomputer, Crossroads.

Hosted by Los Alamos National Laboratory, the $105m Cray EX supercomputer will be used for classified nuclear weapons research when it is delivered in the spring of 2022. It will replace the existing Trinity supercomputer, which has had its useful life extended as Crossroads was delayed due to issues with Intel's CPU roadmap.
 
It Looks Like Russia’s Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile Test Program Is Back In Business
Satellite imagery indicates that work on the controversial Burevestnik missile has resumed at a test site in the Russian Far North.
OCTOBER 21, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...uise-missile-test-program-is-back-in-business
Recent satellite imagery suggests that Russia may be working to resume testing of its 9M730 Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile program in Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago above the Arctic Circle. This highly controversial missile, which is codenamed SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO, has suffered a number of mishaps during development work in the past, including a deadly explosion last year.

CNN was first to report that work might have resumed at the test site, drawing upon satellite images from Planet Labs that had been analyzed by researchers Michael Duitsman and Jeffrey Lewis at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Two U.S. officials also told CNN that they were aware that Russia “has been preparing to test missiles as part of its advanced weapons program.”

201020101541-01-satellite-launch-site-sep-2020-exlarge-169.jpg


More images:

https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1210186/burevestnik-testing-to-resume/
 
Found: A Shipwrecked Nazi Steamer, Still Filled With Cargo
It carried soldiers, military vehicles, and sealed crates that divers can’t wait to open.
OCTOBER 21, 2020

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nazi-shipwreck-cargo-baltic-sea
ABOUT 40 MILES OFF THE coast of Poland, nearly 300 feet below the surface of the Baltic Sea, a beam of light cut through the cold water and fell onto the metal hulk of a ship. As the light panned across the wreck in September 2020, it cast long shadows across the seafloor. For the first time in 75 years, the Nazi-era steamship Karlsruhe had been seen by human eyes.

“It is one of the last unresolved mysteries of the Second World War,” says Tomasz Stachura, the president of the SANTI diving company and a technical diver who dove on the wreck last month. The steamer “carried quite a large load and was an utterly submerged story … This story must be completed.”

Two German ships called Karlsruhe sank in the Baltic during World War II—one at the beginning of the war and one at the end. Remarkably, both were identified only this year. In September, the German cruiser Karlsruhe—which was sunk in April 1940—was identified off Norway’s southern coast. The same month, to the east, Stachura’s team dove on the German steamer Karlsruhe, which was sunk in April 1945. At the time, Germans were fleeing the Red Army, which was pushing through occupied Eastern Europe and into German territories such as East Prussia.

Germany’s hasty flight was part of Operation Hannibal, one of the largest sea evacuations in history. During the last five months of the war in Europe, millions of Germans moved westward, as did cargo that was deemed valuable or useful to the war effort—which was looking increasingly grim for Germany. So far, finds from the shipwreck include well-preserved military vehicles, china, and many sealed wooden boxes in the ship’s hold, which require more thorough excavation to unpack and study.

It’s not just in Indiana Jones movies that Nazi crates are cause for intrigue. According to SANTI, Karlsruhe was the last ship to leave the port at Königsberg, the historically Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia, which has led Stachura to speculate that Karlsruhe may have spirited away the ornate Amber Room of the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg. Originally built in Berlin at the beginning of the 18th century, the room was an ostentatious ensemble of gold leaf, mirrors, and several tons of amber. In 1716, King Frederick William I of Prussia gifted it to Peter the Great of Russia. In 1941, it was dismantled by the Nazis, brought to Königsberg, and then—like many of the war’s looted artifacts—it vanished.


image.jpg


image.jpg
 
Capt. Chuck Yeager at 1:46. His 27 November 1944 activities.

Air Attacks (1944)



https://www.chuckyeager.com/1943-1945-the-war-years
Once in England and assigned to the Eighth Air Force, the unit was equipped with North American’s P-51 Mustang, soon to be recognized as the best all-around fighter plane of World War II. Yeager’s first mount was a P-51B, which he named Glamurus Glen after his fiancee, Glennis Faye Dickhouse. Yeager entered combat in February 1944 and claimed one Me 109 before being shot down on his eighth combat mission on 5 March.

With the help of the French underground, he evaded capture and rejoined his unit in England. Carrying his appeal to return to combat all the way up the chain to Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, he resumed combat operations in August, flying Glamorous Glenn II, a P-51C with a “Malcolm Hood” canopy. Soon, Yeager was flying the P-51D model, which he named Glamorous Glen III, and in which he achieved most of his aerial victories. Blessed with exceptional 20/10 vision, Yeager had eyes that could “see forever.” He combined this advantage with cunning, concentration, relentless ferocity and superb piloting skills to rack up a final total of 12.5 aerial victories—including five Me109s on 12 October and four FW 190s on 27 November.

Of his 27 November experience, he recalled: “That day was a fighter pilot’s dream. In the midst of a wild sky, I knew that dogfighting was what I was born to do.” Yeager was ultimately promoted to captain during his tour in the European theater and, when he completed his final flight on 15 January 1945, he had totaled 64 combat missions for 270 hours. He married Glennis Faye Dickhouse, for whom his P-51B, -C and -D Mustangs were named, when he returned stateside in February 1945.
 
RDS-37 Soviet hydrogen bomb test (1955) - Topaz Video Enhance AI

RDS-37 was the Soviet Union's first two-stage hydrogen bomb, first tested on 22 November 1955. The weapon had a nominal yield of approximately 3 megatons. It was scaled down to 1.6 megatons for the live test.

 
The 200 Millisecond Mission: Inside the Secret CIA Plan to Steal Soviet Missile Data
During the height of the Vietnam War, the Soviet SA-2 missile ravaged U.S. air forces. This how the CIA, with a small fleet of suicide drones, defanged the enemy's most fearsome weapon.
28 Oct 2020

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a34386117/suicide-drone-cia-sa-2
On February 13, 1966, a high-altitude reconnaissance drone flew a top-secret mission over Vietnam. North Vietnamese air defense picked up the drone’s disguised U-2 spy plane radar profile on its approach to Hanoi. In response, a Soviet-made SA-2 Guideline missile streaked towards the drone, turning it into a fireball of metal seconds later—the mission was over.

From all appearances, the small skirmish would've been a clear win for the North Vietnamese, but all was not what it seemed—this "SAM Sniffer" was created to be destroyed. In the 200 milliseconds before its demise, the drone’s electronics would—if everything went according to plan—record details of the missile's radar tracking, guidance systems, and its warhead fusing and transmit them before it was too late.

Under the codename United Effort, the CIA had planned and prepared for this mission for three years in the hopes of attaining data that no manned aircraft ever could.

The SA-2 Guideline missile, also called the S-75 Dvina, is the most widely used air defense system in history, and famously delivered the explosive blow that brought down Francis Gary Power's U-2 in 1960. Sometimes called the ‘flying telegraph pole’ because of its enormous size, the SA-2 was 35 feet long and more than three feet in diameter. It also carried a 400-pound fragmentation warhead and traveled at over Mach 3.

What made the SA-2 so effective was that it didn't have to hit a plane, it just needed to get within a few hundred feet and its shrapnel spray would act like a mammoth shotgun blast. Because of its immense success, the Soviet Union happily supplied other communist regimes in Cuba, North Korea, and North Vietnam with the missile.

But without knowing it, Soviet missiles designers built in a flaw that the CIA thought they could exploit. The SA-2 triggered its warhead by a proximity fuse which detected a nearby aircraft using radio reflections. If the CIA could only find out the radio pulse characteristics of the fuse, U.S. electronics engineers could build countermeasures to jam or detonate it at a safe distance.

To look like a more threatening warbird, engineers fitted the drones with a Traveling Wave Tube, which increased the drones’ radar reflection. This larger radar profile made the Long Arm drones look like U-2 spy planes, a target worth attacking.

[snip]

With all of these defenses working simultaneously, U.S. aircraft survivability ratios against the SA-2 began to climb. In 1965, the year before the CIA’s successful mission, SA-2s destroyed one aircraft for every four missiles fired. By 1967, it took closer to 50 missiles.

This success led Eugene Fubini, the Assistant Secretary of Defense, to call the SAM sniffer mission “the most significant contribution to electronic reconnaissance in the last 20 years.” He said the one success more than paid for the entire drone reconnaissance program.

An F-105 moments after being hit by an SA-2 surface-to-air missile. The jet can be seen on fire on the right.:


f-105-hit-by-sa-2-over-vietnam-1602797390.jpg


The US drone type modified for CIA elint missions:

4-00315-1-1603821636.jpg
 
Australia’s First [Boeing] Loyal Wingman Completes Low-Speed Taxi Testing

 
SOVIET JOE-3 ATOMIC BOMB TEST (1951)

The third atomic bomb developed by the Soviet Union, RDS-3 Marya/Joe-3 was tested on October 18, 1951 at the Semipalatinsk test site. This was the first Soviet air-dropped bomb test. The bomb was dropped from a Tu-4 aircraft (B-29 clone) from a height of 10 km, it detonated 380 meters above the ground. It was the first mass-produced nuclear weapon by the Soviet Union.

The bomb had a composite design with a plutonium core inside a uranium-235 shell, providing an explosive power of 41.2 kilotons of TNT.




I can't find an RDS-3 (Joe 3) picture, but it was supposedly an RDS-1 with the composite core for higher yield, so here's an RDS-1:

rds1.jpg893211c2-ba49-4fe4-ad8f-5ba118ffb958Original.jpg
 
Video about the Me-163 plus a small bit on the Natter. The first man in history to lift off in a vertical-takeoff rocket flight (in a Natter) and, possibly, the first man to fly supersonic - just before impact - was Lothar Sieber. "Shortly before his flight, he had become engaged to Gertrud Naudit, a Luftwaffenhelfer. Sieber had held the rank of second lieutenant but was demoted to private after an alcohol-related AWOL. Posthumuously he was promoted to Oberleutnant." (First Lieutenant)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothar_Sieber
The German Rocket Fighter that Dissolved its Pilots Alive

 
A cleverly simple and, therefore, reliable mechanism. Used black powder cartridge ammo.

Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon captured in Cuba during the Spanish-American War



That cannon at auction:

https://auctions.morphyauctions.com...rican_war_used_french_hotchkis-lot464720.aspx


Hotchkiss gun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotchkiss_gun#Hotchkiss_revolving_cannon
The 1-pounder revolving Hotchkiss cannon had five 37 mm barrels, and was capable of firing 68 rounds per minute with an accuracy range of 2,000 yards (1,800 m). Each feed magazine held ten rounds and weighed approximately 18 pounds (8 kg). Besides the field gun version, several other versions of the 37mm Hotchkiss revolving cannon were in existence, notably versions for naval defense against torpedo boats as well as fortress versions firing shrapnel or canister shells for the defense of moats. The naval version was adopted by Russia and the United States, amongst others. The field cannon version was accompanied by a horse-drawn ammunition limber, which held 110 rounds plus six loaded magazines, totaling 170 rounds.[2] One example is on display at the Museum of the History of the Brazilian Army at Fort Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro.[3][4]

A 3-pounder 47mm Hotchkiss revolver cannon was also adopted by the US and Russian navies in the 1880s. This had five barrels.[5][6] With 3-pounder and 1-pounder weapons, it is difficult to determine from references what type of weapons a particular ship had. Single-shot, revolver cannon, and (from 1890) Maxim-Nordenfelt 1-pounder cannon weapons were all used on new warships 1880-1910. All of these were called quick-firing or, in the US, rapid-firing.

Screen-Shot-2019-03-20-at-5.37.46-PM.png
 
RDS-37 Soviet hydrogen bomb test (1955) - Topaz Video Enhance AI

RDS-37 was the Soviet Union's first two-stage hydrogen bomb, first tested on 22 November 1955. The weapon had a nominal yield of approximately 3 megatons. It was scaled down to 1.6 megatons for the live test.



At 2:12 you can see people 12 miles away standing in the street flatted by the blast effect.
 
Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper and General Atomics MQ-1 Predator

 
B-1B Lancer Night Afterburner Takeoff and Spiral Climb - EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2018

 
Enhanced video of B-36 takeoff, flight through clouds, and landing

From the film Strategic Air Command.

 
Chinese Long-Range Ballistic Missile Struck Moving Ship In South China Sea: Report
The test could represent the first full demonstration of a real Chinese long-range anti-ship ballistic missile capability.
NOVEMBER 16, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...-struck-moving-ship-in-south-china-sea-report
At least some of the ballistic missiles that China's People's Liberation Army fired into the South China Sea during an exercise earlier this year, which you can read about more in the War Zone's initial story on those drills, reportedly hit a moving target ship. If true, this would be the country's first known demonstration of an actual long-range anti-ship ballistic missile capability, which could significantly change the operational calculus for any potential opponent, including the United States, in the disputed maritime region and elsewhere in the Pacific.

The South China Morning Post reported last week that Wang Xiangsui, a retired People's Liberation Army (PLA) officer, had said that one DF-26B intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) and one DF-21D medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) had struck the target vessel as it sailed near the Paracel Island chain during the August exercise. Wang, who has been described as "well-connected" in the past, is best known as one of the co-authors of the 1999 book Unrestricted Warfare, which covered various asymmetric means to undermine and defeat countries that were technologically superior to China. It has become a highly influential text, and general concept, in national security circles.


df-26.jpg
 
Makes it kind of obvious that the Discoverer series were spy sats to any adversary with half a brain... as if the polar launches weren't a big enough clue. Shows tethered Minuteman I silo launch, Atlas, Thor, and Titan I launches and lots of related hardware. Great color film condition.

Vandenberg Aerospace Air Force Base (1959)

 
1 vs 30 - The One Man Air Force

James Howard, the only American fighter pilot in the World War 2 European Theater to be awarded the Medal of Honor. He was also the only U.S. pilot to ace both the European and the Pacific skies.



HighFlight-DingHao2.jpg
 
Medina Modification Center Explosion, November 13, 1963

An explosion involving 123,000 pounds of high explosive components of nuclear weapons caused minor injuries to three Atomic Energy Commission employees. There was little contamination from the nuclear components stored elsewhere in the building. The components were from obsolete weapons being disassembled.



NOVEMBER 2020
Remember That Time a Nuclear Weapons Bunker Blew Up in San Antonio?

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/nuclear-weapons-bunker-blew-up-san-antonio/
 
I suspect this will be used to free up commissioned officer pilots from drone piloting.

Enlisted Airmen Can Now Get A Taste Of Air Force Flight Training
The hope is that the adjustment to the Rated Preparatory Program could help address the Air Force’s longstanding pilot shortage.
NOVEMBER 18, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...-now-get-a-taste-of-air-force-flight-training
The U.S. Air Force is poised to overhaul the way it recruits its pilots by opening the very first door in the process to enlisted personnel. The goal is to help fast-track individuals onto a path to becoming pilots, navigators, and other crew members into aircraft cockpits, as well as operating unmanned aerial vehicles, or, at the very least, expose them to the Air Force's core mission—flying.

The new initiative was brought to our attention by Oriana Pawlyk at Military.com. It is an extension of the Rated Preparatory Program (RPP) that the Air Force set up in 2019.

“The Rated Preparatory Program provides Department of the Air Force officers and for the first time enlisted applicants, who are interested in cross-training to a rated career field the opportunity to gain and strengthen their basic aviation skills,” explained Colonel Scott Linck, Aircrew Task Force deputy director, in a news release. “This program will allow them to enhance their knowledge through developmental modules and acquire valuable flight time in order to increase their competitiveness as candidates for future undergraduate flying training boards.”

While the RPP was, in the past, open to Air Force officers, this is the first time that entry has been extended to enlisted airmen. Candidates, including those who have passed through a separate Space Professional Development Program, who think they have what it takes to earn their wings have until December 31, 2020, to apply for the next course, beginning at Denton Enterprise Airport in Denton, Texas, in spring 2021.
 
November 23, 2020
Flight tests to show B61-12 will work on Air Force’s newest fighter jet

https://share-ng.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/b61-12_flight/
During the Aug. 25 flight test, an F-35A flying faster than the speed of sound dropped a B61-12 — containing non-nuclear and mock nuclear components — from about 10,500 feet above Tonopah Test Range. The inert B61-12 struck the desert floor in the designated target area about 42 seconds later.

B61-12 Flight Test with F35-A Lightning II

A mock B61-12’s strike in the dusty Nevada desert successfully completed the first in a series of flight tests with the U.S. Air Force’s newest fighter jet, demonstrating the bomb’s first release from an internal bomb bay at greater than the speed of sound.

 
Most decorated crew in WWII - two Medals of Honor, all the rest received the second highest honor, the Distinguished Service Cross.

B-17 tail number 666 vs 17 A6M5 Zeros | Most heavily armed B-17 of WW2

 
Back
Top