Potentially interesting MILITARY-related stuff

[Winston]

Field Artillery Direct Fire

 

[Winston]

Here Is Our First Look At One Of Boeing's New F-15EX Eagle Fighter Jets For The Air Force
Air Force just awarded Boeing a contract worth nearly $23 billion related to these aircraft, which includes the purchase of the first lot.
JULY 13, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...w-f-15ex-eagle-fighter-jets-for-the-air-force
The Air Force has released the first picture of one of its new Boeing F-15EX Eagle fighter jets now under construction. This coincides with the service awarding the Chicago-headquartered plane maker a contract worth nearly $23 billion for work on these jets, $1.2 billion of which will go to the delivery of the first lot of eight aircraft.

The Air Force announced the deal on July 13, 2020. Additional information about the contract was also included in the Pentagon's daily contracting notice.

 

[Winston]

Boeing T-7 Red Hawk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_T-7_Red_Hawk
The Boeing/Saab T-7 Red Hawk, originally known as the Boeing T-X, is an American/Swedish advanced jet trainer developed by Boeing Defense, Space & Security in partnership with Saab Group. It was selected on 27 September 2018 by the United States Air Force (USAF) as the winner of the T-X program to replace the Northrop T-38 Talon.

 

[Winston]

Ruskie rocket artillery

122mm/220mm/300mm

 

[Winston]

Air Force Close To Test Firing Low-Cost Cruise Missile As Work On Swarming Munitions Progresses
The service is developing inexpensive stand-off munitions that can be networked together and with other weapons.
JULY 14, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...sile-as-work-on-swarming-munitions-progresses
The U.S. Air Force says it recently wrapped up a series of tests involving a prototype low-cost cruise missile developed under a program called Gray Wolf. This comes as the service is also working toward starting flight testing of networked swarming munitions as part of a separate project known as Golden Horde.

 

[Winston]

History of Strategic Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, 1945–1955: Volume I

https://history.army.mil/html/books/bmd/BMDV1.pdf
History of Strategic Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, 1956–1972: Volume II

https://history.army.mil/html/books/bmd/BMDV2.pdf
High Frontier, The Journal for Space and Cyberspace Professionals, provided a scholarly forum for space professionals to exchange knowledge and ideas on space- and cyber-related issues throughout the space community. The last edition of the High Frontier Journal was published August 2011.

https://www.afspc.af.mil/About-Us/High-Frontier-Journal/High-Frontier-Journal-Archive/

 

[Winston]

F-15 Uses New Infrared Search And Track Pod To Shoot Down Target With AIM-9X Sidewinder
Legion Pod will enable F-15s and F-16s to detect and engage even stealthy aircraft without having to turn on their radars.
JULY 16, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...d-to-shoot-down-target-with-aim-9x-sidewinder
A U.S. Air Force F-15C Eagle has fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile for the first time using targeting data provided by Lockheed Martin’s Legion infrared search-and-tracking pod. The AIM-9X live-fire mission took place during testing at Eglin AFB, Florida, on July 8, 2020, and involved an Eagle from the resident 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron (TES), the “Skulls,” part of the 53rd Wing. Five days later, an F-16DM from the same unit flew the first-ever operational test flight carrying the pod.

Previously tested on an F-16. This looks like a Nellis AFB, NV aggressor from the Fighter Weapons School:

 

[Winston]

Major Airfield Expansion On Wake Island Seen By Satellite As U.S. Preps For Pacific Fight
America's remote island outpost in the Pacific is an essential fallback point for pushing airpower west during a major conflict.
July 3, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...n-by-satellite-as-u-s-preps-for-pacific-fight
America's remote outpost deep in the Pacific, situated roughly between Japan and Hawaii, Wake Island serves as a reserve airfield should American airpower have to fallback from the far reaches of Western Pacific during a peer state conflict. It also provides a reverse utility, working as a staging ground in a crisis for air combat missions heading west, into Russia's and especially China's highly-defended anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) bubbles that emanate far from their shores. With the ongoing 'pivot towards the Pacific' and with adversary A2/AD capabilities creeping farther east, Wake Island is more important than it has been in decades, possibly since World War II.

The restricted access island—which is one of the most remote on Earth—is an unincorporated territory of the United States that is also claimed by the Marshall Islands. The vast majority of the atoll is taken up by a 9,800-foot runway—long enough to accommodate anything in the Pentagon's inventory—and the airfield infrastructure and staging areas that surround it. Although it supports some missile defense tests with launchpads scattered around its southernmost tip, it is best known for being an emergency divert point for aircraft crossing the Pacific and as a stopping point for U.S. military aircraft moving from the U.S. to Asia.

The Pentagon has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the secretive strategic stronghold in recent years. These expenditures have included the apron and runway improvements, as well as a large solar farm that can be seen in the western area of the island in the recent satellite photo. It's more likely than not that even more investment into the island's infrastructure will be made in the near term as rising tensions with China, North Korea, and Russia have reinvigorated the strategic importance of the remote base.

Beyond its clear logistical utility, acting as a major hub where there isn't another for thousands of miles, it sits outside the range of China's and North Korea's medium-range ballistic missiles, and largely at the end, if not entirely out of range, of their intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs). Guam, which is situated about 1,500 miles further west, is well within the range of these weapons.

During the opening stages of a major conflict with China, America's bases that are within range of these missiles would be overwhelmed by them, at the very least knocking bases like Kadena in Okinawa out of commission for a substantial period of time. These strikes would likely be layered with cruise missile attacks, making them harder to defend against and upping the odds that Beijing could neuter American airpower throughout the region in the opening exchanges of a conflict.

Guam, which hosts a key U.S. naval base and the sprawling Andersen Air Force Base, would be targeted as well, although at greater range. This island has a THAAD missile battery that has been in place for years to fend-off ballistic missile attacks specifically, but the sheer numbers a foe like China can fire at the island makes defending it a highly dubious exercise. Rebuffing more limited attacks from a foe like North Korea is far more relevant to the island's defenses. Other airfields in the Marianas Island Chain, or within the MRBM and IRBM range in general, are even more vulnerable.

 

[Winston]

What if the Trinity test had failed?
July 16th, 2020

https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2020/07/16/what-if-the-trinity-test-had-failed/
Excerpts:

Oppenheimer’s estimates are high-enough given the stakes of the test, but the big question is un-estimated part: the failure of a component. Because the “Gadget,” and its weaponized form, Fat Man, had a lot of components. And they were all capable of failure. The implosion design required a lot of things to work just right, in order to to get the simultaneous detonation (within a tolerance measured in nanoseconds) and correct shaping of the compressive forces that symmetrically shrunk the solid-metal plutonium core to over half its original volume. This is why they were having the Trinity test in the first place: they didn’t know if it could be done at all, and even if it could be done, they didn’t know how well it would work.

So let’s imagine three possible modes of “failure” for the test. The first is not really a failure at all: that “the Gadget” had gone off with the yield that it had been expected to have, prior to testing. This was around 4-5 kilotons, not the 20 kilotons it turned out to be. So that would have not been considered a failure by the scientists, but it would have made the plutonium bomb considerably smaller than their projections for the uranium bomb. We’ll round that up to 5 kilotons for simplicity’s sake.

A second possibility could be a result at the low-end of what they thought was plausible: a few hundred tons of TNT equivalent. Let’s say 500 tons, just to pick a number. That means that the Gadget would be seriously underperforming (their goal was at least a kiloton), but still a usable weapon. It would not meet their stated criteria for a usable atomic bomb (they had set that at 1 kiloton), but it would still be something you could drop on an enemy.2

And an ignominious third possibility would be a total failure, a “fizzle” of zero nuclear yield. This would be the true component failure that Oppenheimer mentioned: a problem with the detonation system, or a major flaw with the lens system. There would be about 5 tons of TNT equivalent result from the high explosive system, which would destroy the “Gadget” and scatter its plutonium. Again, this is not implausible at all — this was a new weapon, and these components were custom-made, and every technical system has a rate of failure. The scientists knew this was a real possibility; some of them even bet on it!

Prior to the Trinity test, the scientists had considered the (uranium-fueled) Little Boy bomb to be their “big” bomb, because they had always assumed it would be capable of hitting at least 5 kilotons, and probably around 15 kilotons. The (plutonium-fueled) Fat Man was guessed to have a yield that would range from a few hundred tons up to 5 kilotons. The advantage of the Fat Man design was that you could make more of them: their production rates, in late 1945, were about half of a Little Boy bomb’s worth of enriched uranium per month, compared to three Fat Man bombs worth of plutonium per month. So they saw their probable future capabilities as one big atomic bomb every couple months, with a few smaller atomic bombs in between. The actual Trinity test revealed that the Fat Man bombs were in fact more powerful than they had expected the Little Boy bombs to be.

 

[Winston]

07.16.2020
Nuclear Tests Have Changed, but They Never Really Stopped
75 years after the first explosive nuclear tests, now outlawed, sophisticated virtual testing allows American physicists to understand these weapons better than ever.

https://www.wired.com/story/nuclear-tests-have-changed-but-they-never-really-stopped
Excerpts:

The US signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—a bilateral agreement with the Soviet Union to cease above ground tests—in 1963. But nuclear testing only accelerated when it was pushed underground. The US nuclear arsenal peaked in 1967 with 31,255 warheads, and it detonated as many nukes in the 7 years after the partial test ban as it had in the previous 18 years. “With nuclear testing you were under constant pressure to design a new weapon, engineer it, put it down a hole, blow it up, and then move on to the next one,” says Hugh Gusterson, an anthropologist at the University of British Columbia and an expert on the human factors in nuclear weapons research. “The scientists didn’t have a chance to pause and catch a breath.”

The US ended all underground nuclear tests in the early 1990s in the lead-up to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, despite protests from the heads of the nation’s three national weapons labs—Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Los Alamos—who fought “tooth and nail” to prevent the ban, says Gusterson. They were concerned, he says, that a ban would reduce the reliability of America’s nukes and prevent the next generation of nuclear weapons designers and engineers from learning the tools of the trade.

At the heart of the US stockpile stewardship program is Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a sprawling complex across the bay from San Francisco. It’s home to the National Ignition Facility, which uses the most powerful laser in the world to re-create the conditions found in the heart of an exploding nuclear bomb. “It's not so much that it replaces nuclear testing, but it's a very different, richer perspective on what's happening in an operating weapon,” says Kim Budil, principal associate director for the Weapons and Complex Integration directorate at Livermore.

When they’re not smashing atoms with lasers, scientists at Livermore also conduct what are known as “subcritical tests” at a National Nuclear Security Agency site in the Nevada desert. At BEEF—the Big Explosives Experimental Facility—researchers subject (nonnuclear) materials found in nuclear weapons to extremely powerful conventional explosions to study how they’d respond to an actual nuclear blast. Down the road from BEEF, physicists use a 60-foot, gas-powered gun called Jasper to shoot projectiles at plutonium. These projectiles reach speeds of around 17,000 miles per hour—about 10 times faster than a bullet—and create shock waves as they pass through the barrel. By studying how the plutonium reacts to these pressures and temperatures, physicists can get a better idea of how it will behave inside an exploding nuclear weapon.

The data from these experiments is used to verify the predictions of nuclear weapons simulations cooked up by Livermore’s Sierra supercomputer and to refine the models of the weapon systems that are fed to it. Sierra is the third fastest supercomputer in the world, and Budil says its models are used to understand how changes in the stockpile over time may affect a weapon’s safety or effectiveness. But she cautions that the computer’s models are only as good as its data, which drives physicists at the labs to conduct ever more sophisticated and sensitive experiments.

 

[Winston]

Tiny Missile Interceptor To Defend Aircraft Against Enemy Missile Attacks Moves Forward
These miniature weapons could provide a robust hard-kill defensive option for everything from stealth fighters to bombers to tankers.
JULY 22, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...t-against-enemy-missile-attacks-moves-forward

 

[Winston]

Simulate Nuclear Blast On Ships Shock Wave & Blast Effect



Operation Sailor Hat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sailor_Hat
Operation Sailor Hat was a series of explosives effects tests, conducted by the United States Navy Bureau of Ships under the sponsorship of the Defense Atomic Support Agency.[1] The tests consisted of two underwater explosions at San Clemente Island, California in 1964[2] and three surface explosions at Kahoʻolawe, Hawaii in 1965. They were non-nuclear tests employing large quantities of conventional explosives (TNT and HBX) to determine the effects of a nuclear weapon blast on naval vessels, and the first major test of this kind since Operation Crossroads in July 1946.

Each "Sailor Hat" test at Kahoʻolawe consisted of a dome-stacked 500-short-ton (454 t) charge of TNT high explosive detonated on the shore close to the ships under test. However, since a TNT detonation releases energy more slowly than a nuclear explosion, the blast effect was equivalent to a 1 kiloton of TNT (4.2 TJ) nuclear weapon.[3] The main ship used for testing was the former Cleveland-class light cruiser USS Atlanta. In addition, the guided-missile frigates USS England and USS Dale, the guided-missile destroyers USS Cochrane, USS Benjamin Stoddert, and USS Towers, and the Royal Canadian Navy's escort destroyer HMCS Fraser all participated in the trial.[4] These were a mixture of the obsolete, Atlanta being built during WWII, and the recently constructed Cochrane. The highly complex operation yielded data useful for determining and improving blast resistance of naval ships.

The preparation of the charges was in itself an engineering feat. The TNT was supplied by the Naval Powder Factory in Hawthorne, NV that developed a method of producing high quality cast blocks from materials recovered from old torpedoes, mines and other weapons. A total of 92,022 4x12x12 inch blocks were produced for the tests. The Navy Construction Battalion Three had the hazardous task of carefully assembling 30,674 32.98-pound TNT blocks into 34 foot hemispheres that reached a height of 17 feet for each of the three tests. The domes were placed on thin octagonal concrete pads close to shore. In order to obtain the desired results, the ships also needed to be moored at precise distances from the charge for each test. This proved a difficult task in high winds and was accomplished with help from the Bureau of Ships, the tug USS Sunnadin (ATA-197) and salvage ships USS Safeguard (ARS-25) and USS Current (ARS-22)[1]

A central timing and firing system was on board Atlanta to direct photo planes, smoke rockets and hundreds of recording instruments, the synchronization of which was essential. The test shots resembled a small nuclear explosion, creating a shock wave on the water and an expanding shock condensation cloud. The fireball and mushroom cloud were present (but obviously no radiation or dangerous fallout was produced). The blast created an overpressure of 10 psi on the target,[11] a moving wall of highly compressed air with maximum wind speeds of 294 mph. An overpressure blast of that magnitude is equivalent to a 1 megatonne of TNT (4.2 PJ) burst at roughly 8000 feet[12] and is sufficient to be lethal and capable of destroying reinforced concrete buildings.[13] Knowing the yield of the blast, this also implies the Atlanta was placed around 800 feet away from ground zero for that particular test. Two blimps were also destroyed high above ground, and a life size mannequin placed on the deck facing the blast was violently thrown over.[14] The first test Bravo also produced a large amount of rock ejecta that caused secondary damage. To solve this problem, the second shot was placed over a five-foot mound of sand, and the last shot Delta was detonated over the previous crater that was back filled with 39,000 cubic yards of sand.[1]

On USS Atlanta, over 500 high-speed cameras on the ship recorded the effects of the blast.[10] During the tests, the ship was manned by a 169-man navy crew and 60 scientific personnel who remained below deck. In spite of the topside damage, the crew below deck experienced only a shock equivalent to that experienced aboard an Iowa-class battleship firing a nine gun 16-inch salvo. Had there been personnel in the superstructures, they would have been violently thrown about.

500 tons of high explosives awaiting detonation during Operation Sailor Hat. Note: a man is partially visible at the extreme right side of the dome. This gives a sense of scale to the dome construction:

 

[Winston]

Space Force Boss Says One Of Russia's Killer Satellites Fired A Projectile In Orbit
A very recent test involved small orbital "inspectors" that had previously been observed shadowing an American spy satellite.
JULY 23, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...s-been-testing-its-killer-satellites-in-orbit
The head of U.S. Space Force, the U.S. military's newest branch, had said publicly for the first time that the Russian government has conducted two on-orbit anti-satellite weapon tests in the past three years. These revelations come less than six months after the U.S. military expressed concern about a Russian "inspector" satellite that appeared to be shadowing an American KH-11 spy satellite.

Chief of Space Operations General John "Jay" Raymond, Space Force's top uniformed officer, revealed the two apparent tests in an interview with Time for a profile of the new service. Raymond is also presently head of the joint-service U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM). That piece, which was published on July 23, 2020, offers a detailed look at where Space Force is now and where it hopes to go in the future and is worth reading in full.

The Kremlin describes Cosmos 2543, also sometimes written Kosmos 2543, as a "space apparatus inspector," one of a number in orbit now, which are ostensibly intended to do just what the name says, inspect other satellites. On the face of it, this offers Russian officials a way to investigate problems with or assess damage to other space-based assets on-orbit.

However, given their small size and high degrees of maneuverability, there have been long-standing concerns that these orbital inspectors could double as spies or even "killer satellites" capable of getting close to and then disrupting or destroying other space-based platforms by any of a number of means, including electronic warfare jamming or a directed energy weapon, such as a high-powered microwave beam. They could also potentially manipulate a satellite in a way that would disable it or launch kinetic attacks, either smashing into the target themselves or launching projectiles, the latter being something that Space Force now says the Kremlin has been actively testing.

The assertion that these satellites are actually part of a space-based anti-satellite weapon system is even more significant given that Cosmos 2542 had moved into a position to shadow a U.S. KH-11 spy satellite, publicly identified only as USA 245, in January. The month before, USA 245 had shifted its own orbit, potentially to avoid hitting the smaller Cosmos 2543, which Space Force later said also appeared to be following the American satellite.

 

[Winston]

An unmanned stealth refueling aircraft for other stealth aircraft.

This Is Our First Look At Boeing's MQ-25 Tanker Drone Carrying A Refueling Pod
Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth saw the prototype fitted with the pod during a recent tour of a Boeing facility in her state.
JULY 20, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...s-mq-25-tanker-drone-carrying-a-refueling-pod
We now have our first look at Boeing's MQ-25 carrier-based tanker drone test article, also known as T1, carrying a Cobham buddy refueling store under its wing. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, Tweeted pictures of T1 after a recent tour of MidAmerica Airport, where work on and various testing of the unmanned demonstrator have been going on for more than a year now.

 

[Winston]

"Austria is not in NATO, but co-operates closely with it..." Not this time:

The Time When The USAF Got Caught Trying To Sneak F-117s Through Austrian Airspace
The clandestine stealth fighter overflight that outraged Austria in the months leading up to a second war with Iraq.
JULY 21, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...ing-to-sneak-f-117s-through-austrian-airspace
The story dates back to Oct. 18, 2002, when the USAF filed a flight plan for what turned out to be a McDonnell Douglas KC-10A Extender tanker to fly through Austrian airspace. What the USAF reportedly didn’t divulge was that two F-117s were neatly tucked under the wings of the big tanker in close formation during the flight. The U.S. military regularly overflew Austria and Switzerland when routing from Germany to Italy or to the Middle East to avoid long transits over France, however, the two the neutral countries could block any unwanted transits.

It was a time when the U.S. military was building up its forces in the Middle East ahead of a possible offensive against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Even NATO member states were struggling to secure public support for American overflights or support from their bases.

Generally, diplomatic clearance was more straightforward for big unarmed tankers and transports than aircraft capable of employing weaponry. Moreover, the flight plan stated the aircraft seeking the transit was a “DC-10,” which would largely go unnoticed. This was submitted and an application was made for permission for the aircraft to fly from Spangdahlem, Germany, routing over Austrian airspace, using the radio callsign “Cacti 31.” It was approved. However, Austrian air traffic control officials spotted that the plan included a DC-10 serial plus others. [STUPID mistake made probably due to "failure to communicate" on the part of someone(s) - W] This serial was subsequently changed, which aroused further suspicion. Shortly before 3:00 PM, the aircraft was detected by the Austrian air defense network’s new Goldhaube radar system as the aircraft approached the Austrian Tyrol region.

Due to the irregularities in the flight plan, two Austrian Air Force Drakens were “Alpha Scrambled” from Zeltweg air base. At 3:03 PM, the “DC-10” entered Austrian airspace and then deviated from its intended track. According to Austrian aviation writer Georg Mader: “After our two Drakens closed-in, we identified two F-117s very close below the KC-10.” Mader adds: “[The] US formation was in our airspace for exactly 10 mins.” It was also said at the time that the formation tried a “defensive maneuver” as the Austrian fighters closed in.

 

[Winston]

F-15 Eagle Seen Loaded With Loyal Wingman Drone For Previously Unknown Tests
F-15s carrying loyal wingmen into the fight is a fascinating proposition, but what these tests could be for beyond that is even more intriguing.
JULY 21, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...ingman-drone-tested-with-air-force-f-15-eagle
The Air Force has been quietly experimenting with air-launching Kratos Defense and Security Solutions' UTAP-22 Mako low-cost loyal wingman drone. The revelation came to us via images showing an F-15C from the Oregon Air National Guard's 142nd Fighter Wing with a highly modified UTAP-22 hanging off its left-wing. The images were taken in one of the Arizona Air National Guard's 162nd Wing's hangars—the unit is located at Tucson Air National Guard Base adjacent to Tucson International Airport. The wing's primary role is training foreign F-16 pilots, but it also hosts the Air National Guard-Air Force Reserve Command Test Center (AATC). The AATC works as the Air National Guard's development and testing arm for unique capabilities.

 

[Winston]

F-35s Nest In Big New Alaskan Facility Marking Strategic Shift For Critical Region
Eielson Air Force Base's huge new F-35 wing will rapidly become one of the U.S. Air Force’s most important units.
JULY 23, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...s-marking-strategic-shift-for-critical-region
The arrival of the first pair of Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning IIs at Eielson Air Force Base on Apr. 21, 2020, was significant on many levels. This remote installation is located 26 miles southeast of Fairbanks in the interior of Alaska and about 110 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The installation has received huge funding over the past three years to create a massive secure enclave for its new stealthy inhabitants. While the sheer amount of work that has been conducted at Eielson to bring the F-35 into the arsenal of the Pacific Air Forces is highly evident, the strategic impact on an increasingly important region that the rejuvenated fighter wing will have cannot be understated.

Eielson will be home to the U.S. Air Force’s second operational active-duty F-35 wing, the first being the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. This emphasizes the strategic importance of Alaska. The 354th will be home to a pair of Lightning squadrons that will operate 54 of the Low observable (LO) stealth fighters by the time deliveries to the base are complete. This target was initially scheduled for December 2021, but is now set for early 2022.

 

[Winston]

Tiger 131: Inside & Out

 

[Winston]

BELL AH-1 SUPER COBRA Huge Scale Turbine RC Model

 

[Winston]

ANASIS II South Korean milsatcom

 

[Winston]

5 Myths about World War II



5 Myths About WWII TANKS



5 Myths About WWII FIGHTER PLANES



4 Myths About Submarine Warfare

 

[Winston]

US Navy Railgun Projectile - How it was Filmed in Flight

 

[Winston]

How They Hid the Bomb: 75 Years After the Trinity Nuclear Test
When the first a-bomb exploded 75 years ago, the world was shocked. So were the people next door to where it was made
16 Jul 2020

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a33337320/trinity-test-nuclear-bomb
Fierce thunderstorms and unpredictable winds had kept Norbert Deare awake late into the sweltering summer night. He had helped batten down the filling station near Socorro, N.M., the night before, thinking there might even be an overnight flood. About 5:30 the next morning, Deare's worst fears seemed trivial as he was thrown out of bed by an apocalyptic explosion far more frightening than the worst thunder he'd ever heard.

"The state police said it was an accidental explosion at the Army camp," Deare told an interviewer in documents released to Popular Mechanics by the Defense Department under the Federal Freedom of Information Act. "But it seemed more like the end of the world."

That explosion, which took place seconds before 5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1945, was, perhaps, the most significant event of the 20th century.

Yet it was almost a month later before the people who witnessed it, and the rest of the world, learned of its true importance. They had witnessed the explosion of the first atomic bomb.

Despite the fact that hundreds of scientists and thousands of support personnel had moved practically overnight into a sparsely populated part of the country, despite the strict security surrounding an enormous canvas-colored device that moved for days along the New Mexico prairie on a train; and, though the first A-bomb blast shook buildings all the way to El Paso, Texas, the War Department managed to keep the bomb a secret.

Even today, hundreds of documents relating to the first A-bomb test remain locked away under secret classification. Still unavailable are several documents relating the results of radiation tests following the test blast at what is now the White Sands Missile Range. Also still under wraps are correspondences that might shed light on how much information leaked during the weeks between the test and the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.

Among the startling facts uncovered in our investigation:

Dozens of documents that had been available to the public but were never used suddenly became classified sometime in the 1970s.

The governor of New Mexico in 1945 was not informed of the nature of the test until after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima the next month.

FBI agents visited the publishers of several major newspapers the day after the test to quash potential stories that might raise questions about the test.

Defense Department officials who have acknowledged that three different stories were prepared to explain the test to the public actually had prepared a half-dozen explanations. Among those not revealed until now was an explanation to cover civilian deaths in the Alamagordo, New Mexico, area. (In the end, the simplest explanation was released since no deaths were involved.)

Then and now:

 

[Winston]

Atomic Effects on Drone Aircraft in Flight

 

[Winston]

The Interrogator: the Story of Hanns Scharff, Luftwaffe's Master Interrogator

 

[Winston]

Boeing B-47 Stratojet (Low Altitude Bombing System) LABS Maneuver

 

[Winston]

F-15 lands with one wing



How an Israeli F-15 Eagle managed to land with one wing

https://theaviationist.com/2014/09/15/f-15-lands-with-one-wing/

 

[Winston]

A-6 Intruder Carrier Deck Ejection in Persian Gulf - 2/16/91- the aircraft lost braking power after landing on the America, resulting seconds later in the carrier deck ejections of its pilot and bombardier/navigator; respectively Lieutenant Commander Mac Williams and Lieutenant L. Fox.

"A/C did not break-up or crash into the deck upon landing. A/C took several AAA hits but was able to return to USS America. A/C was losing hydraulic fluid and after a successful trap, did not have brakes after disengaging the arresting cable. The tail hook was down and subsequently the nose-wheel steering was centered. Pilot could neither retract the tail hook, steer or stop the A/C due to the fluid loss.

As the A/C approached the end of the deck, unable to stop, the pilot and BN ejected. The A/C nosed over the deck, coming to rest tail-up without going completely over. At this point the rest of the returning strike is in the pattern and low on gas. All available deck crew were summoned to push the A/C overboard to clear the deck so the rest of the strike could recover. The A/C was by all means repairable (it flew back to the ship) but time did not permit the use of the crane to move it out of the way."

"I was an ASM with VAW-123 and a witness to the entire event and one who helped push it over the side. Aviation boatswain mate 3rd class Wendell F Richie here I was on the P-16 fire truck that responded and I was the one who put aff on it so it wouldn't catch on fire. My driver/abh-2 Thomas White got in the Crane/Tilly boomed down waited for the Captains decision and used the boom to push it over the side...no one used their hands to assist pushing it over... Oh and pilots that ejected got hurt [broken leg] when landing on non skid flight deck..."

 

[Winston]

The Last Tank Has Left Marine Corps Base 29 Palms, Soon The Entire Service
The service is planning to retire all of M1s, as well as other heavy armored vehicles, in the near future.
JULY 29, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...e-corps-base-29-palms-soon-the-entire-service
There are no more M1 Abrams tanks at the U.S. Marine Corps' base at 29 Palms in California, one of the service's premier training facilities and its largest base anywhere. The Marines have been retiring M1s, as well as M88 armored recovery vehicles and Armored Vehicle Launched Bridges, and shuttering armored units all month as part of a radical new force structure plan that Marine Corps Commandant General David Berger publicly unveiled in March.

The Marines have been consolidating the retired M1s from all of these units, along with their M88s and Armored Vehicle Launched Bridges (AVLB) – some 200 vehicles in total – at Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow (MCLB Barstow) in California. From there, the service has been sending them by train to the U.S. Army's Sierra Army Depot in California and Anniston Army Depot in Alabama.

Sierra Army Depot is a storage facility where, among other things, the Army also keeps the primary production tooling for the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. Anniston Army Depot is that service's premier armored vehicle maintenance facility.

The Marine Corps plans to eventually divest the entirety of its M1 fleet, more than 400 vehicles in total, as part of the new Force Design 2030 plans, which you can read about in more detail in this past War Zone piece. The remaining tanks, including those belonging to the 2nd Tank Battalion, part of the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and other MARFORRES elements, will travel by train and truck to the Army's depots.

 

[Winston]

World's Heaviest Aircraft - Antonov An-225 Mriya





Antonov An-225 Mriya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya
First flight: 21 December 1988
Status: In service
Primary user: Antonov Airlines
Produced: 1985
Number built: 1