Potentially interesting MILITARY-related stuff

[Winston]

Inside the Pentagon's Secret UFO Program
14 Feb 2020

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mi.../government-secret-ufo-program-investigation/

Excerpts from very long, excellent article:

After months of conducting interviews and uncovering previously undisclosed materials, Popular Mechanics is revealing here that the U.S. government does indeed have a definite interest in UFOs.

Provided, of course, that nobody says it out loud.

Gordon, whose area of expertise is in federal contractor misconduct, contractor accountability, and government privatization, says running the “commercial in confidence” program through AATIP is consistent with how the DoD deals with programs it wants to keep secret. “Whether it’s right or not is another story,” Gordon says, “but everything sounds very common for how black budget programs run.”

The DIA may have had extensive access to the UFO materials, but because all of the data technically belonged to BAASS, under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, disclosing or releasing proprietary materials provided to the government in confidence is a federal crime. Essentially, the DIA’s UFO program was set up to circumvent FOIA requests and avoid having to discuss UFOs publicly.

Out of concern for providing Popular Mechanics access to the 2009 BAASS Ten Month Report, the person who made these materials available did so only under the guarantee of anonymity. It’s worth noting this person is not a current government employee, nor were they involved with BAASS or the AAWSAP contract.

Puthoff, meanwhile, says BAASS produced “stacks of material to the ceiling,” but because of the way things were done, he was surprised to hear any of it had become public. “To be honest, I didn’t think this stuff would ever see the light of day,” he says.

When reached for comment, Colm Kelleher, the former Deputy Director of BAASS, said, “I am unable to discuss this topic.” Multiple other requests to Bigelow Aerospace for comment went unanswered.

The entire manner in which the DIA partnership allegedly operated raises an important question: Could the reason for the Pentagon’s recent denials of AATIP or AAWSAP conducting UFO research be the result of the current DoD administration being naive to the program’s underlying and commercially secret hidden purpose? It seems like a plausible theory … if it wasn’t for something else Popular Mechanics uncovered.

 

[Winston]

I decided to start this thread since military stuff isn't always appropriate fro the STEM thread.

Video Shows Thrusters, Sauna, Other Features Of Russia's Newest Ballistic Missile Submarine
The Borei-A class boats are said to be among the quietest in Russia's fleet and they feature some amenities that are distinctly Russian.
10 Mar 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...of-russias-newest-ballistic-missile-submarine

A guided tour of sorts of the first of Russia's nuclear-powered Project 955A Borei-A class ballistic missile submarines, the Knyaz Vladimir, one of the country's most advanced types, which is in the very final stages of construction, is something that promises to be interesting from the start. With the Russian Navy's submarine force and its activities being major topics of discussion recently, including within the U.S. government, as well as the public at large, it's something even more worth watching now.

TV Zvezda, the official television channel of the Russian Ministry of Defense, released a special on the Knyaz Vladimir, which is also known by the hull number K-549, on Mar. 7, 2020. This submarine is the first of the improved Borei-A subclass and has been under construction at the Sevmash shipyard since 2012. It conducted initial sea trails in 2018, followed by a second phase of at-sea testing last year, which included the launch of an RSM-56 Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile from one of its 16 missile tubes.

Unspecified issues have delayed the ship's commissioning, which is presently scheduled to occur in May. The Russian Navy already has three regular Project 955 Borei class submarines in service.

 

[Winston]

Edwards AFB Upgrades Point To Unexpected Home For B-21 Raider, Other Secretive Programs
It was thought that the B-21 would be tested at the South Base complex, but it appears that won't be the case. So what will live at South Base?
10 Mar 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...-for-b-21-raider-and-other-secretive-programs

Historic Edwards Air Force Base, the center of the flight test world, has been going through a series of changes in preparation to receive the B-21 Raider stealth bomber. Now, satellite imagery shows that the area of the base where the B-21 test program was thought to be headed may not actually be its destination. As a result, it would seem that more than just one secretive large aircraft program may kickoff at the base in the not so distant future, or may even be underway there already.

For years, the remote South Base complex at the sprawling test base was thought to be the place where the B-21's flight testing would occur. The other bomber test forces, aside from the B-2 test force, were moved from South Base to the base's main ramp years ago in preparation for new shadowy developments at South Base, which were thought to be at least primarily related to the new bomber. But satellite images point to the possibility that the B-21 test program may actually be housed in a remodeled complex located in the central part of the base, not South Base. This, in turn, points to the real possibility that South Base will house other sensitive large aircraft programs, and may be doing so already.

A few of the photos at the link provided:

 

[Winston]

Long-lost bunker belonging to 'Churchill's secret army' discovered in Scottish forest
The bunker was one of hundreds built to sabotage Nazi German invaders, historians say
10 Mar 2020

https://www.livescience.com/secret-auxiliary-unit-bunker.html

Forestry workers were felling trees in southern Scotland when they noticed something peculiar among the roots and bracken: An iron door. It turns out the team had accidentally discovered a lost WWII-era bunker, built to house one of Great Britain's most secretive — and suicidal — military forces.

Known as the Auxiliary Units (or sometimes "Churchill's secret army"), the force was a corps of volunteers similar to Britain's Home Guard, charged with defending the country in the event of a Nazi German invasion. Unlike the Home Guard, however, the Auxiliary Units were a guerilla warfare brigade shrouded in secrecy. Each unit, which held up to eight men, based their operations out of one of hundreds of tiny, concrete-capped bunkers buried throughout the countryside. The locations of these bunkers were such fiercely guarded secrets that many of them still remain undiscovered today.

Now, one fewer of those secrets is lost to history. Forestry workers discovered the new bunker last fall in the wooded countryside south of Edinburgh, buried 4.2 feet (1.3 meters) underground at its deepest end, according to a news release from the AOC Archaeology Group, which recently surveyed the site.

With a tin roof and brick walls, the bunker was a concrete sardine can, roughly 23 feet long and 10 feet wide (7 m by 3m) that would have housed about seven soldiers for months or years on end. The archaeologists found some wooden scraps in the bunker that may have once been a soldier's bed, plus an empty tin can that may have contained his supper.

"From records, we know that around seven men used this bunker and at the time were armed with revolvers, submachine guns, a sniper's rifle and explosives," Matt Ritchie, an archaeologist with Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS), told the BBC.

These men would have acted as an autonomous guerilla strike force during a Nazi invasion, emerging from their hidden dens to sabotage the enemy's advancement by any means necessary. The unit members — nicknamed the "scallywags" — were trained in ambushes, assassinations, demolition and, if push came to shove, suicide. According to British Resistance historian Malcolm Atkin, any given scallywag's life expectancy was just two weeks. They were expected to die fighting — and, if capture seemed likely, ordered to kill themselves and their comrades with bullets or bombs.

 

[Winston]

Nuking the moon - The Secret USAF Project A119

 

[Winston]

Inside the Cockpit of the F-22 Raptor

 

[Winston]

This Experimental Drone Could Change America's War Strategy
17 Mar 2020

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a31122720/kratos-xq58a-valkyrie-future/

The Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie, an unmanned and experimental combat aerial vehicle, is tough to spot on radar and could be directly linked to the F-35 through an encrypted data connection to serve as a wingman under the pilot’s control. But even with these pros, it’s the cost of the Valkyrie, not its capabilities, that could change America’s aerial warfighting strategy.

The Valkyrie has an internal weapon payload capacity of at least two small-diameter bombs and boasts a flight range of more than 2,000 miles, but more importantly, the Department of Defense (DoD) has a plan to connect these unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) to F-35s and the new F-15EXs via encrypted data links to serve as support drones—an initiative known as the Skyborg program. These links, coupled with on-board artificial intelligence, will allow pilots of manned aircraft to control their drone wingmen, even sending them out ahead to relay sensor information back to the pilot.

That means the Valkyries would be able to engage ground targets on behalf of a manned fighter and potentially even sacrifice themselves to protect manned aircraft from inbound missiles.

All that capability comes with the tiny price tag (for jet-powered combat aircraft) of around $2 million per plane. Considering Raytheon’s single-use Tomahawk cruise missiles ring in at an estimated $1.4 million each and combat drones like the RQ-4 Global Hawk cost over $120 million apiece, $2 million for a reusable combat aircraft like the Valkyrie’s is a steal.

The Valkyrie’s low price tag lands it squarely within the DoD’s “attritable aircraft” concept—planes that are so cheap to replace that commanders can take greater risks with them without fearing their loss as much as they would a manned platform or even a high-dollar drone. As Kratos points out, the Valkyrie also offers “open architecture” that allows them to modify the aircraft to suit different mission requirements with different payload options. This dramatically increases the number of mission types these drones can support, including air-to-air and air-to-ground engagements.

A shift toward producing a large number of these “attritable” platforms could offer a huge boost in America’s air power capabilities by returning to overwhelming force through volume. That’s important, because despite how advanced air defense systems have become, they still have a limited magazine. By using drone swarms, the U.S. hopes to overwhelm defensive systems, which is a big part of why the Air Force is emphasizing the “attritable” part of its drone program.

"Swarming allows you to build large numbers of low-cost expendable agents that can be used to overwhelm an adversary," Paul Scharre, from the Center for a New American Security think tank, told BBC News’ Thomas McMullan last year. "This reverses the long trend of rising aircraft costs and reducing quantities.”

Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratos_XQ-58_Valkyrie

 

[Winston]

Their path getting in... no thanks! One of Italy's LANDSOUTH NATO nuclear war command bunkers. Probably"West Star" (Site A). Very extensive. A Cheyenne Mountain level facility.

Abandoned NATO command bunker in Italy



Allied Land Forces Southern Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Land_Forces_Southern_Europe

Bunkers

In case of war with the Warsaw Pact LANDSOUTH would have moved to the "West Star" (Site A) bunker complex in Affi. Built between 1960 and 1966 West Star could support up to 500 people for 15 days without need for external supplies. Besides LANDSOUTH also the command of 5ATAF would be operating from West Star. As backup the bunker "Back Yard" (Site B) was built between 1960 and 1966 in the village of Grezzana. If West Star would have been knocked out, then Back Yard would have taken over command of allied forces. Additionally in Soave a communications bunker was built (Site C), whose backup bunker was in Cavaion Veronese.

West Star Bunker (great site with a lot of info about it; a few interior photos from when it was still in operation, but I suspect most are in the books they want to sell you)

https://www.ace-high-journal.eu/affi,-bunker--weststar--.html

1981 CIA document on data terminals seen in video: Delta 7260TC

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84-00933R000100140004-4.pdf

THE RESCUE OF DELTA DATA SYSTEMS
Special to the New York Times
June 10, 1982

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/10/business/the-rescue-of-delta-data-systems.html

For the small companies that come and go at the feet of the industry's giants, computer terminal manufacturing can be a business of sudden extremes.
Just two years ago, the Delta Data Systems Corporation, a manufacturer that does substantial business with NATO and with United States Government agencies, was in such bad shape that it took an outside auditing team 12 weeks to locate $1.1 million that somehow had been improperly accounted for in the company's disorganized inventory control system.

The terminal manufacturing industry, because relatively little in the way of start-up costs is required, tends to fill up rapidly with small companies hoping to serve specialized needs ignored by International Business Machines, Burroughs, Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment and the other fixtures of the field. And just as rapidly, those small companies that have weaknesses in management, marketing or inventory control tend to collapse.

In that context, Delta Data Systems, with a plant in England as well as the one in this Philadelphia suburb, is an unlikely survivor. The company's problems stemmed from inadequate financial and inventory controls, according to Robert C. Aldworth, who led a team that investigated the company's discrepancies and who is now its vice president of finance and treasurer.

 

[Winston]

USAF UK Cold War Command Center

 

[Winston]

Inside the Jagdpanzer IV Pt.1

Inside the Jagdpanzer IV Pt.2

Panzer Wrecks in Bulgaria

Jagdpanzer IV

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagdpanzer_IV

The Jagdpanzer IV, Sd.Kfz. 162, was a German tank destroyer based on the Panzer IV chassis and built in three main variants. As one of the casemate-style turretless Jagdpanzer (tank destroyer, literally "hunting tank") designs, it was developed against the wishes of Heinz Guderian, the inspector general of the Panzertruppen, as a replacement for the Sturmgeschütz III (StuG III). Guderian objected against the needless, in his eyes, diversion of resources from Panzer IV tank production, as the Sturmgeschütz III was still more than adequate for its role.

Officially, only the L/48-armed vehicle was named Jagdpanzer IV. The L/70-armed vehicle was named Panzer IV/70. In this article, both versions are referred to in general as Jagdpanzer IV, except in the variants and surviving vehicles section.

Produced: December 1943 – April 1945
No. built: about 2,000

 

[Mugs914]

I always enjoy Chieftain's stuff...

 

[Winston]

I always enjoy Chieftain's stuff...

Yeah, he's incredibly thorough because of his encyclopedic knowledge on the subject. Video production value is also excellent.

 

[Winston]

Crater in German field caused by WWII bomb
Jun 25, 2019

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidb...-formed-by-74-year-old-dud-bomb/#40ed29ac4182

Residents of the German town of Limburg in the State of Hesse, Central Germany, were awoken by a loud blast yesterday morning, followed by a weak shaking of the ground. Later the owner of a field of barley near the town discovered a 10-meter in diameter and 4-meter deep crater in his property. Apparently some kind of explosion formed the crater during the night. A first survey yesterday by the police failed to find clues to explain the explosion. However, military specialists now confirmed that it was likely a 250-kilogram (500-lb) aerial bomb, buried there since the end of World War II. The bomb was equipped with a chemical time fuze that detonates after a set period of time by using a chemical reaction. After 74 years buried in the ground, corrosion likely triggered the firing mechanism and the bomb exploded, fortunately without causing any victims.

Thousands of unexploded bombs which may be able to detonate are discovered every year, particularly in Germany. It was estimated that during World War II, about 15% or 20% of Allied bombs failed to detonate, especially if they hit soft soil and the pressure-operated detonating mechanisms failed. Chemical fuzes were used for fire bombs or high-explosive ordnance, to maximize the effect of the detonation on the ground. Allied air raids targeted the nearby train station of Limburg and unexploded ordnance in the soft sediments is not too surprising. During the entire conflict, an estimated 1.3-billion-kilograms of bombs were dropped on Europe, a number paled by the 1.27-trillion-kilograms of bombs and explosives deployed in the Vietnam War.

In 2006, geographers Joseph Hupy and Randy Schaetzel introduced the term bombturbation to describe the geological features associated with bomb craters. The authors suggest that the common use of bombs and explosives is such a significant erosion factor, that it will leave recognizable traces in Earth's fossil record.

 

[Winston]

Fantastic documentary. "A healing bomb on the wounds of war."

The Berlin Airlift and The Candy Bomber

 

[Winston]

Quite a process.

Forging and Machining WWII 3 inch Artillery Shells

 

[Winston]

Great HD video on the Su-57, Russia's stealth fighter. Some glimpses of the "glass cockpit" instruments in the simulator, but blurred out in a wide shot to avoid showing what's on the displays. Stick is shown up close.

Another great video of Russian fighter evolution to present and the current weapons carried by them. Shows the Su-57 cockpit instruments, at least the early version.

 

[Winston]

Photographs of a Rare and Glorious Formation of Four B-1B Bombers
The B-1B fleet has suffered from very low readiness rates and airframe fatigue, so seeing four in formation at the same time is quite a treat.
MARCH 24, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...e-and-glorious-formation-of-four-b-1b-bombers

 

[Winston]

MANY photos and analysis by one of the guys involved in the Apollo AGC restoration.

Inside a Titan missile guidance computer

https://www.righto.com/2020/03/inside-titan-missile-guidance-computer.html

 

[Winston]

Unfortunately makes sense. Sleeping quarters are far more packed together than even on the floating petri dishes called cruise ships. I wonder what it did to the Chinese navy.

Navy Is Hardest-Hit Military Service in Coronavirus Outbreak
25 Mar 2020

https://www.military.com/daily-news...it-military-service-coronavirus-outbreak.html

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Tuesday that the service had 57 cases of COVID-19. Several of those sailors are assigned to Navy warships, including three on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which is deployed in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Pentagon -- which tallies the cases among uniformed personnel, dependents, Defense Department civilians and contractors -- on Tuesday reported 174 positive COVID-19 cases among service members. Data provided by the individual services total 170 cases.

Nine troops have required hospitalization for the virus, according to the Pentagon data. COVID-19 can cause acute respiratory distress and organ damage -- or in extreme cases, death. Seventeen of the troops, according to the data, have already recovered.

Behind the Navy's 57 cases, the Army and the Air Force have been the next hardest hit.

The Army has seen 44 coronavirus cases in the ranks, said Jason Waggoner, a spokesman for the military's largest service. The Air Force, as of Tuesday, reported 43.

Five of the sick airmen have required hospitalization. Just one of the 43 has so far recovered from the virus.

"I am amazed how little disruption entered our programs despite all the disruption around them," Dr. Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, said in a statement this week. "That speaks to how creative and capable our people truly are." [I wonder if the low figure is instead caused by the same reason we had the phony "See, we're doing a great job" low figures nationally - you can't find what you aren't widely testing for. How many tests has the DOD actually conducted? - W]

 

[Winston]

Here Is What The Pentagon Is Not Answering About The Air Force And Recent UFO Encounters
The Air Force attempted to answer our questions, but the DoD official in charge of UFO inquiries didn't share their findings or anything at all.
MARCH 23, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...about-the-air-force-and-recent-ufo-encounters

One of the biggest questions regarding the U.S. Navy's recent disclosures regarding strange encounters with supposedly unidentified flying craft is why are we only hearing about this highly concerning phenomenon from just one service? A fact that isn't commonly understood is that it is not the Navy's job to maintain sovereignty over America's airspace, it is the U.S. Air Force's. If strange and unidentified craft are being detected or seen, the Air Force has the mission to respond and investigate, not the Navy, and it can do so at a moment's notice. So far, the Air Force has been totally mum on this issue, which is extremely bizarre considering the Navy's own messaging surrounding it.

With this in mind, last September, I reached out to the Air Force with a series of very pointed questions regarding what seems like a massive discrepancy in regards to the military branch's ability to execute its homeland air defense mission. What seemed like a good start to finding answers to these key questions quickly turned into something of a nightmare that has made me lose all confidence in the Defense Department's ability to address a subject, which they themselves have actively helped elevate within the public's consciousness, in any meaningful manner.

My initial inquiry to the Air Force resulted in a very positive experience. The folks at the Air Force headquarters' press desk were not phased at all by the topic and seemed eager to look into it on our behalf. After discussing the issue with them directly on the phone, the questions I sent them were specifically written to move the ball forward on this critical aspect of the issue and, in doing so, getting the Air Force on the record about the issue overall in some manner. Ideally, this would have included some background as to the nature of these events from the service's point of view, and especially in regards to its homeland air sovereignty mission, as well as information about whether its own aircrews were experiencing similar encounters.

Here are the questions I fielded to them on September 19th, 2019:

[continued at link]

 

[Winston]

M1A2C Abrams Tank

 

[Winston]

COVID-19 Drives Command Teams Charged With Homeland Defense Into Cheyenne Mountain Bunker
Another US military command and control element is also now isolated in a third, undisclosed location.
MARCH 27, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...omeland-defense-into-cheyenne-mountain-bunker

U.S. Northern Command has dispersed essential command and control teams to multiple hardened locations, including the famous Cheyenne Mountain bunker complex in Colorado, as well as another unspecified site, and is keeping them in isolation. The command took these steps to help ensure these personnel can continue to watch around the clock for potential threats to the U.S. homeland as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to expand across the country and around the world, including within the U.S. military.

U.S. Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, head of Northern Command (NORTHCOM), who also serves as the commanding officer of the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), detailed the changes during a virtual town hall on Facebook on Mar. 24, 2020. Under normal circumstances, the watch teams, which support both NORTHCOM and NORAD missions, would take shifts staffing a central command center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.



"To ensure we can defend the homeland despite this pandemic, our command and control watch team here in the headquarters split into multiple shifts and portions of our watch team began working from Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station," O’Shaughnessy explained. A portion of the watch team personnel remain in place at Peterson, as well.

Short, well done video showing modern Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station (CMAFS):


History:

Super Structures of the World - Episode 6 - NORAD: Cheyenne Mountain - Full Episode

 

[Winston]

Submarines? ICBM launch crews?

A Supercarrier Sidelined By COVID-19 Could Be The Canary In The Coal Mine For The Navy
Tight living conditions make U.S. Navy ships ripe for outbreaks of COVID-19, which could have damning consequences for national security.
MARCH 26, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...d-be-the-canary-in-the-coal-mine-for-the-navy

Two days ago, three Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) tested positive for COVID-19. Yesterday an additional five Sailors tested positive. This is the first time that the Navy has detected the virus onboard a warship at sea. While aircraft carriers have capable and well-equipped medical departments, complete with operating rooms and intensive care units, ships at sea are an extremely difficult environment in which to quarantine individuals who are infected. Accordingly, Roosevelt has suspended its deployment and is now in port in Guam. The entire ship will be placed in quarantine while its crew, literally all of the personnel onboard, will be tested for COVID-19.

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly sought to stress “the ship is operationally capable and can do it’s mission if required” — no doubt a message ultimately meant for America's rivals and enemies in the region.

Now Both Aircraft Carriers In The Western Pacific Have COVID-19 Cases, Raising Readiness Concerns
Sailors from a carrier forward deployed to Japan had contracted the virus as confirmed cases grow onboard another flattop in Guam.
MARCH 27, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...ave-covid-19-cases-raising-readiness-concerns

Two sailors onboard the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which forward-deployed in Japan and presently pier-side there, have tested positive for the COVID-19 novel coronavirus. This comes just a day after the U.S. Navy announced it had quarantined the entire crew of another aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, on their ship in port in Guam after a number of sailors contracted the virus. The War Zone had already warned that the Roosevelt's predicament could be an ominous sign of what's to come for the Navy. If Reagan is sidelined, as well, the service would have no carriers presently deployed in the Pacific region that can actually operate.

 

[Winston]

A History of Hospital Ships


I never knew about this incident. Also covered in the video are the hospital ship sinkings during WWII.:

HMHS Llandovery Castle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMHS_Llandovery_Castle

HMHS Llandovery Castle, built in 1914 in Glasgow as RMS Llandovery Castle for the Union-Castle Line, was one of five Canadian hospital ships that served in the First World War. On a voyage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Liverpool, England, the ship was torpedoed off southern Ireland on 27 June 1918. The sinking was the deadliest Canadian naval disaster of the war. 234 doctors, nurses, members of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, soldiers and seamen died in the sinking and subsequent machine-gunning of lifeboats. Only 24 people, the occupants on a single life-raft, survived. The incident became infamous internationally as one of the war’s worst atrocities. After the war, the case of Llandovery Castle was one of six British cases presented at the Leipzig trials.

Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Howard MacDonald of Nova Scotia, HMHS Llandovery Castle was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine SM U-86 on 27 June 1918.[3] Firing at a hospital ship was against international law and standing orders of the Imperial German Navy. The captain of U-86, Helmut Brümmer-Patzig, sought to destroy the evidence of torpedoing the ship. When the crew, including nurses, took to the lifeboats, U-86 surfaced, ran down all but one of the lifeboats and machine-gunned many of the survivors.

Only 24 people in one surviving lifeboat survived.

 

[Winston]

USAF Almanac 2019 (139 pages - 16.4 MB PDF)

https://www.airforcemag.com/PDF/Mag...ts/2019/June 2019/AFM_June2019 Full Issue.pdf

 

[Winston]

B-29 Superfortress Operation Against Germany

 

[Winston]

Abandoned German cold war fallout shelter built to hold 1,800 people:

 

[Winston]

All about A-12 stealth features. Links in article to previous SR-17/A-12 stealth content.

CIA's Predecessor To The SR-71 Blackbird Tested Electron Guns To Hide From Radars
Concerns about advanced Soviet radars prompted the development of systems that could generate invisible radar-absorbing fields around the aircraft.
MARCH 25, 2020

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...bird-tested-electron-guns-to-hide-from-radars

A12 at Groom Lake (Area 51):

A scale model of an A-12, mounted upside down at Area 51 for tests of its radar cross-section circa 1959. Model was hidden for Soviet spy satellite passes, but they saw the shape anyway from the thermal pattern left by its shadow. I'm really surprised no one on our side thought of that. I can think of easy countermeasures. We only learned this after the end of Cold War v1.0.:

 

[Winston]

Start at 2:18. So much cool hardware footage. Two metal case diodes touching in a power inverter caused control failure shortly after launch of the first test missile:

"BIOGRAPHY OF A MISSILE" JUNO II EXPLORER SATELLITE - WERNHER VON BRAUN - JAMES VAN ALLEN

 

[Winston]

Math in video is wrong. Claims 10% of bombs dropped on Germany did not explode, a figure I've also read and heard elsewhere, states 1.35 million tons were dropped, so 135,000 tons remained, not 13,500 as stated in the video's narration. Video text also states "13,500 of these never exploded" incorrectly implying bomb numbers and not tonnage. For that to be correct as a bomb count, each bomb would have needed to weight 10 tons - not the case.

Europe's Unexploded Bomb Problem

Zone Rouge [France]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge

The area is saturated with unexploded shells (including many gas shells), grenades, and rusty ammunition. Soils were heavily polluted by lead, mercury, chlorine, arsenic, various dangerous gases, acids, and human and animal remains.[1] The area was also littered with ammunition depots and chemical plants.

Each year, dozens of tons of unexploded shells are recovered. According to the Sécurité Civile agency in charge, at the current rate 300[2] to 700 more years will be needed to clean the area completely. Some experiments conducted in 2005–06 discovered up to 300 shells/10,000 m2 in the top 15 cm of soil in the worst areas.[3]

Some areas where 99% of all plants still die remain off limits (for example, two small pieces of land close to Ypres and Woëvre), as arsenic constitutes up to 176 mg/kg of soil samples.[4]

Unexploded ordnance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexploded_ordnance

Vietnam

In Vietnam, 800,000 tons of landmines and unexploded ordnance is buried in the land and mountains.[citation needed] From 1975 to 2015, up to 100,000 people have been injured or killed by bombs left over from the war.[citation needed] At present, all 63 provinces and cities are contaminated with UXO and landmines.

https://libcom.org/history/1957-1975-the-vietnam-war

7 million tons of bombs had been dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia - more than twice the amount of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II.

Danger UXB (great UK series)

Streaming:

https://www.amazon.com/Episode-1/dp/B072K3TBRX

DVD:

https://www.amazon.com/Danger-UXB-Anthony-Andrews/dp/B0054DPLHK/