Xlucine

Normally, for a decent model, you can run it from the command prompt. You tell it where to find a file with the input settings, and where to put the file with the output settings, and it goes off and does its thing. This is handy because writing a program that can modify the text file of input settings, call the model, and then read the output text file is very easy. So with a fancy model that can be run in batch mode you can easy write a function that takes a setting (e.g. 'bow width'), feeds that setting to the fancy model, and returns something from the calculated results.
 
This is useful because you can do lots of complicated maths involving gradient descent on this. With a black box that takes values and returns a calculated value, you can calculate the partial derivatives for each of the inputs and roll down that hill to a local minima (or roll up to a maxima, whatever). So if you wanted to calculate the required width of bow needed for a certain draw weight (with everything else held constant), the steps would look like this:
you need a cost function that you want to maximise or minimise - for this example, the RMS of (ideal draw weight - calculated draw weight) will give a minimum when you've found the ideal width calculate the derivative of the output with respect to the input by running the model for a box that's a bit thicker and a bow that's a bit thinner increase or decrease the input (as determined by the direction and magnitude of the derivative you just calculated) Then take the gradient again, to see if you've found a minima You can apply the maths for this to an arbitrary number of input variables, and the best part is that someone's already done it for you - scipy.optimize.minimize is a function that takes a black box and an initial guess, and works to minimize the output of that black box function without ever trying to understand it. Any program that can be run in batch mode can be easily fed to optimization programs, so is trivial to optimize.

Materially it's one big weld (thinking of SLM, which is laser welding aluminium powder into the desired shape - in an inert atmosphere ofc). Not great for fatigue (e.g. you're very likely to end up with porosity), which might not be ideal for a receiver (I don't want to say it can't be done, but it'd need testing before saying it can be done). If this was really getting made then it'd be a much better option for the first half dozen prototypes, before the geometry was finalised enough for the big spend on the die for the extrusion.
 
Upper receivers are hollow bodies of almost constant cross section by definition (as they're enclosing the reciprocating moving parts), so it's a natural match for extrusion for full production

more details of this setup

Let's continue about the artillery. Now about the field guns of the pre-WW2 Czechoslovak army. 
 
7,5 cm light gun vz.1897. This legendary French gun was still in reserve by the fall of 1938 (38 pieces). They were bought in 1919 as a stop-gap during the war with Hungarian Soviet Republic. I think that this gun was on display in the military museum in Prague Vítkov but I'm not sure (the museum is closed now due to ongoing reconstruction). 

 
8 cm ligh gun vz.5/8. These Škoda guns fired the first salvos of the WW1. First series still had brass barrel, later production after 1916 was all steel already. Most of the guns in Czechoslovak army was of post war production, but not all. Even though the gun was old in 1938 it was very light and used in higly mobile cavalry units and on armoured trains. 86 pieces were in service in 1938 (part in reserve). You can see it in Lešany museum. There is one peculiar thing about this gun. Small number of them was converted into anti-aircraft guns and a battery of four guns was still in service in Prague in 1938.   

 
8 cm light gun vz.17. Another škoda gun which was used in the late months of the WW1 on the Italian front. The Czechoslovak guns were from post-war production running till 1937 (the first series was actually originally ordered by Austro-Hungarian army before the end of war). The army had nearly 300 of these guns and despite many discussions about replacing the 76,5 mm barrels by 83,5 mm it was never realized because the army decided that in the future it's wise to replace the light guns with howitzers. The interesting thing about this gun is it's transport. Originally it was towed by horses but later it was being carried on the truck (not behind because its chassis could not cope with speed higher than 10 km/h). 

 
8 cm light gun vz.30. This gun was a bit of cat-dog design. It had a light barrel but a heavy over-dimensioned support from the howitzer vz.30 which allowed high elevation (80°) for anti-aircraft fire (that was later found not very usable). Nevertheless it had a pretty good 13 km range for its time. Part of the 202 guns in the army was used in motorized units, part with horse traction. Wehrmacht completely missed this category of guns by 1938 and took around 120 pieces. The strange thing about that is that the guns were officially sold to Germany 4 days before the occupation on 11th March 1939 (Germany never paid of course). The government was trying to sell large parts of the military equipment after the Münich. The war preparations hit the economy hard because the army was absolutely enormous compared to the country's size (imagine that a country of 15 million managed to mobilize more than 1 million soldiers and give them equipment in September 1938) and after the Münich it was clear that no fight is possible on the rest of the country (for many reasons which may be discussed later). 

 
7,5 cm mountain light gun vz.15. This is maybe the most legendary weapon of Škoda production ever. Very widely used in the WW1 and after by many countries. The gun was very easy to transport disassembled to six pieces with weight of 150 kg. It was capable of fire to 7 km distance and its crews were even trained to fight tanks. This gun was used by Czechoslovakia in the short war with Poland in 1919 and Hungarian Soviet Republic in the same year. Overall Czechoslovakia had some 235 pieces and sometimes in very unusual installations (in armoured trains, on Danube boats or as provisional equipment of the artillery blockhouses of the border fortifications). Wehrmacht took them and some other from other states and used them through the whole was especially in Italy and Balcan. This gun is on display in Prague Vítkov muzeum. Muzeum in Lešany has a more modern variant for Yugoslavia from late 20'.   

 
10,5 cm heavy gun vz.13. This French gun was used after the creation of Czechoslovkia but none was in service in the fall of 1938. As other French weapons 13 pieces were bought during the war with Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. One piece is on display in Lešany. 

 
10,5 cm heavy gun vz.35. This Škoda piece was for sure the most modern gun in the army inventory and one of the most modern guns in the world of its time. It was capable to deliver 18 kg round to 18 km with its own weight just 4,2 tons. It was also designed to directly engage tanks if needed (that was of course a total overkill against Pz.I and II in 1938 but very useful in the future). The army managed to get 106 pieces before Münich. There was a lot of interest in the gun from abroad but due to the political situation most of the export orders were taken by Wehrmacht (Yugoslavia, Latvia, Netherlands). Even USSR decided to buy this weapon but the agreement was never signed due to the post-Münich situation. Wehrmacht used some 140 pieces, the rest was used by Slovakia. One of these guns is preserved in Lešany museum. 

 
Next time anti-tank guns. 
 
 

This time, photo taken by myself.
APC Rosomak firing single 81mm camouflage granate GAK-81
 
single 81mm in 1st salvo:

 
 
and single 81mm in 2th salvo:

 
 
And this one was mucht difficult due to weather conditions.
 
Six 120mm motar round on one picture:

 
And twins:

 
 
And the result:

 
 
 
 
In summary - 120mm SMK Rak is very good weapons, very powerfull modern and now the best serial produce in the world. Nice that at least one type of weapons producing in my country can be on top lvl... 

I did read the document, and your conclusions from it are so off-base that I'm not sure you read it.
Consider, for example, the closing remarks, on page III of the document (page 6 of the PDF):

"small real cost growth" is not at all the situation you describe.

A growth of 19%, mostly because extra features were added in? say it ain't so!


And again, 19% growth for features, mainly the strengthened powertrain, is literal taxpayer rape. wew.
Also, the 507k is hardware costs for a single vehicle. Doubling the order for what is pretty much the same hardware cost per unit does not mean that the hardware cost per unit has doubled, and indeed the paper only talks about an estimated price increase if 19%. I really don't know how you could even reach that interpretation.
You know, that's a fascinating source, but once again your source does not say what you claim it does.
To wit, the Army's response to that claim:

Page 89 of the very PDF you posted. If you're gonna cherry pick quotes from sources, at least bother to read your entire source. Cause it firmly disagrees with the conclusion you are trying to draw from it.

Fun for the whole family!
And a bit more, just to get the point across:


Oh no muh poor taxpayer getting ripped off for squillions of dollars oh no
It's almost as if getting sent to an active war zone in the sandbox leads to greater wear and therefore need for spare parts, as well as high fuel consumption, while the M60A3s are left at home or in Europe, who'd a-thunk it?
The cost of the M1 exceeding the M1A1 is interesting, wonder what led to that.
You do have a legit point that in practice it appears that the M1 has turned out to be expensive to operate, but that's a far cry from it being a case of the US MIC "raping the taxpayer".

1-800-come-on-now
Ah, a clear sign that you indeed don't know what you're talking about, thanks for playing.
for reference, the 1.5 trillion is a lifecycle cost for the entire fucking fleet. Not a sunk cost. And that's a really shitty way to dodge the point, which was that early LRIP costs are not indicative of full scale production.
All the congressional testimony you've posted says otherwise, the design to cost was largely successful and the tank was delivered on time and mostly on budget, a great achievement for any development program, let alone one run by the US Army.
It was absolutely the successor program to the failed MBT-70, what are you on to?
So the US Army disagrees with you on the cost issue, and by all accounts the Abrams program has been a resounding success. You don't scale up a 3300 tank buy to 7000 if the cost balloons out of control, and sufficient evidence has been posted in this thread (ironically, by you) to disprove that notion.
Inflation is a hell of a drug, and the extras in the TTS don't help.
 
But anyway, TL;DR there's plenty of evidence that the Design-To-Cost of the M1 Abrams was by and large successful, and that it was successfully limited to a unit hardware cost significantly below that of the MBT-70, thus backing up the claim that started this whole discussion, ie that the Abrams was a budget tank born from the failure of the MBT-70 project.
Not really no. What is however ironic is that you're calling out Ram despite you being the one who's incredibly wrong about this. The F-35 cost issue is prime bait and you took it like a champ. Thanks for playing.

It has to do with the Abrams development mostly evolving from a cut down MBT-70. Ending up more expensive than the M-60 is mostly irrelevant because by that time the M60 was entirely obsolete, and therefore could not fill the role required, nor could any vehicle of equivalent cost. For the defined role, the Abrams as designed was a very austere design with few exceptions, and if you think for some reason that the Abrams wasn't designed under some pretty strict cost limits you are sorely mistaken and are more than invited to re-read Hunnicutt.
Also penny pinching in general is a figure of speech for cost cutting, not only the cost cutting associated with small low value details. But choosing a 1-axis gunner's sight stab over 2-axis because it's $3000 cheaper is indeed penny pinching when it comes to a tank.
Not than the MBT-70, to which the comparison must be made.
Yes, also killed were the FCS, GCV, and some other programs which were supposed to replace the Abrams with an autoloaded vehicle. The fact that these projects all got cut and ate up most of the budget, leaving fuckall for Abrams upgrades, is a separate issue.
Also talking facts here, bucko. Compare the estimated price of the MBT-70, M60A1 and M60A3 to that of the Abrams in then year dollars.
Had you bothered to open a copy of Hunnicutt, you'd see that he provides the following numbers in equivalent 1972 dollars:
$422k final Chrysler proposal
$507k RFP design goal
 
$526k XM-1 1978 estimate (including GFE) (from here)
$339k M60A1
$432k M60A3
$611k XM803 (MBT-70)
 
So yeah, Definitely a budget conscious development.
(now if you're going "wait those numbers can't be right how come it's so much cheaper than the design goal", the answer is "competition". Chrysler's bid was $196M to GM's $232M).

Hah
 
"It's unfair to expect a fighter jet to fight, ours are ideal for recent wars in afghanistan NO STOP LOOKING AT THAT TUCANO"
 
"We tried to twist their arm into excluding lockmart on a technicality, but it didn't work"

Possibly last post dedicated to the fortification but a very long one dedicated to the heavy fortifications. I hope that a lot of those peculiar details are new for you. Most of the info comes from very knowledgeable staff of heavy infantry casemate N-S-82. If you ever want to visit some object of Czechoslovak fortification system you must not miss this one because this is the only one fully equipped as it shall have been (in fact it's a bit better equipped than in September 1938 then it was not totally finished inside). All photos are from my phone (it's allowed to take photos inside). 
 
N-S-82 is a stand alone infantry casemate located in a line on a slope upon the border crossing Náchod-Běloves. It was built in 1938 in a resistance class II. Which means that it had 2,25 m thick frontal wall (with a stones and earth cover). The roof was 2 m thick and the side and rear facing walls were 1 m thick. The border crossing is down bellow while roughly 1,5 km away on the hill there is an artillery fortress Dobrošov. It was guaranteed to withstand 240 mm artillery shells and 250 kg bombs (according to many authors Luftwaffe had no 500 kg bombs fielded at September 1938 yet) however during weapon testing on a casemate Jordán (experimental one used for fortification and weapon development) which had same resistance class even 305 mm heavy mortar hit didn't penetrate the roof (there were volunteers inside during the test fire!). It is said that there was some damage to the equipment but I don't know more details. 
 
On the same picture you can see also a combined anti-tank/infantry obstacle made of steel U-shape profiles welded together and stuck in a concrete base. Behind them there is anti-infantry barbed wire and a line of steel hedgehogs. Anti-infantry barbed wire could have been placed also in front of those rods. At certain place with high danger of tank attacks concrete anti-tank moats wete built too (sometime they can still be found). 
 
 
In 1938 you could find also these older concrete hedgehogs in the area. Those were used only earlier because they had two importnat drawbacks. The first one was that they offered better cover for the attacking infantry and the second was that their large area made them easier to move by shockwaves from artilery. 

 
A historical image showing how such line looked like in the September 1938 (where it was finished). This picture shows a heavy object K-S-35. 

 
N-S-82 was armed with one 47 mm AT gun, 5 HMG and 5-6 LMG. AT gun with coaxial HMG and a twin HMG were pointing down the valey towards the border crossing. On the opposite side (uphill) there were two single HMGs. LMG were used only in observation cupolas and for close defence of the object (normally the priority was to defend the neighbouring object with primary weapons). 
  
 
Let's go inside. There are three door covered by 2 LMG fire posts and one fire post for personal weapons directly in the entrance which alone had S-shape to prevent any direct fire into the object and on the main door. The first cage door are 200 kg heavy and on the left side behind them there is a fresh-air intake. On the right side there is armored door 600 kg heavy. Behind another corner there is third presurrized door 450 kg heavy. Both heavy door had emergency hatches in them so that the crew could get out if the door were deformed and stuck. 

 
The casemate has two floor. The top floor is combat and the bottom one is technical and living one. Every single heavy object had its own water source which must have been able to deliver at least 1,5 litres per minute. In this particular case it was around 4 litres per minute.

 
This is the electric generator which was pretty noisy. It's in fully working state. It's cooling was used for heating the interior but even in summer the inner temperature didn't get upon 17°C and the soldiers often suffered from respiratory or rheumatic issues. 

 
This is the filtering and air venting room. On the left side there is the ventilator with back-up handles for manual operation (I tried it myself and it's quite tough). On the right side there are filters which were used only in case of gas attack. The whole object had an overpressure in it which was used also for extracting the fumes from gunnery rooms. 

 
This particular object had 32 men crew (only the commander was an officer). The soldiers had one bedroom (see bellow). The sub-officers had their own room with own bed for each one and the commander had also his own room but located on the combat floor. Only Czech or Slovak nationals were allowed to serve in the permanent boarder units manning the heavy fortifications (no German, Poles or Hungarians because low loyality was expected with them). 

 
This is part of the bathroom (it's difficult to take some photos inside because it's quite cramped and I don't want to post gazillion of photos, rather only millions). The lavatories had a water filtration station used to prevent pollution of the main water source and a ventilation preventing methane acumulation). 

 
Down bellow there was also a food storage, hand granade storage (275 pieces) and a telephone room (on the picture). The bunker had several external telephone lines leading to the neighbouring objects and to the sector command post. As a backup a ground telegraph was used with cable antenas dug underground. Depending on the particular soil composition it was capable of morse communication to the range of 5-10 km. Ground radio antenas for voice communication were not installed by September 1938 (the radio was developed and tested but not fielded). 

 
Here you can see some internal communication means in the gunnery room. A simple speaking tube and a telephone. 

 
There was another way how to communicate between the observation cupolas and the gunnery rooms and that was a color code (in case of big noise from bombardning for example). 

 
With that we got onto the combat floor. This is the LMG firing post for the defence of the rear side. You can see observation insert on the left side which was interchangeable with the LMG. The LMG is vz.26 which I don't need to introduce to you for sure. There were 120 ready-to-fire magazines for each LMG in the object! 

 
Here is similar firing post with the observation insert mounted and a removable periscope to the right side of it. That was used to observe the close surroundings and the moats at the weapons. Under the periscope there is a tube for hand grenades used for close defence. 

 
A view inside the observation cupola from bellow. The very peculiar thing here is that the floor worked similarly to the office chair and the soldier could very simply adjust the floor position to his height. The middle column was also used for evacuation of spent cartridges. The cupola is made of 200 mm thick cast steel and the inner diameter is 1,35 m. 

 
This is a periscoipe which could have been errected through the cupola roof for 360° observation.

 
A simple lift was used to transport LMG mags to the cupola.

 
Some more details before we get to the main weaponry. These are JIGs for MG loading. Top is belt-loading JIG for HMG vz.37 and bellow is a one for mag loading of LMG vz.26.

 
This is the kitchen, gentelmen. Yes, for 32 people! The bunker had food reserves for 14 days but I can hardly imagine to fight 2 weeks inside without getting crazy. 

 
This is one very peculiar detail. When the bunker was bombarded by heavy weapons the ceiling could elastically deform. To prevent internal much thinner walls from collapsing they had on top of them a cork layer which worked like a spring reducing the pressure on the walls.

 
Except for the grenades all ammo was stored in the combat department close to the weapons. The capacity of this object was 600 47 mm shells and 600 thousand 7,92x57 rounds. Now imagine that 263 heavy and nearly 10000 light objects were actually built before Münich. What an insane amount of ammo stored in the fortification system!  In reality around 3/4 of the ammo was delivered at 28th September but I would say that it's still huge achievement of the army logistics. On the picture you can see AP and HE-FRAG round of the AT gun (from later war production). A third anti-infantry round was being developed but wasn't fielded. I don't know how it's called in English when the round is filled with steel balls. Can you help me?  

 
This is the right gunnery room with two single HMG vz.37 and one LMG vz.26 for close defence. Notice that all frontal and side walls and also the ceiling had metalic anti-spall and anti-vibration layer.

 
All main weapons (AT gun and the HMGs) had sights with 2x zoom (upon the gun there is a drawing of the surroundings). Unfortunately not a single original support for the single HMG was preserved and the plans shall be dug somewhere in the German archives. Therefore these are just approximate replicas. The HMG vz.37 (ZB-53) alone is basically what the Brits know as BESA (rechambered to 0.303). Each single HMG had 2 men crew, the shooter and the loader. 

 
This is one of only three preserved heavy barrels for the HMG vz.37 in Czechia. This barrel would be used exclusively in fortifications. 

 
This is a view into the left gunnery room with an AT gun with coaxial HMG and a twin HMG. Both weapons and supports are original. 

 
Both the HMGs and the AT gun could have been quickly aimed by the body force alone without using elevation and traverse screws (that was also a possibility). The twin HMG vz.37 on the picture had a crew of three (one shooter and two loaders). 

 
I believe the most interesting thing is the AT gun Škoda vz.36. This particular gun was moved to Atlantic Wall in Norway and in 2002 returned back into N-S-82 and moreover with a spare barrel. There are only around ten of such guns preserved worldwide and very few spare barrels (only one or two in Czechia) and these two have matching serial numbers (173 + 2173; 2173 means second barrel for 173) and moreover they originally belonged to this particular bunker!
 
The gun was capable of very rapid fire. Normally 20-30 aimed shots per mimute (depending on the skill of the crew) or up to 40 rounds per minute in autofire mode. That meant that it fired automatically once it was loaded (this was possible max. for 3 minutes and after a water cooling up to 6 minutes long was needed). The shooter could fire both the AT gun and the HMG by the same hand and he could use his second hand and his body to aim like with a gigantic rifle in a ball joint without using traverse and elevation screws. The gun had three loaders - two for the AT gun and one for the HMG. The gun penetration values vary in sources I saw but it shall be around 50 mm of cemented steel at 500 meters and 30°, i.e. more than enough for 1938. Later in the war special ammo with claimed double penetration values was developed by Škoda but I don't know if ever used anywhere.  

 
 
Well, that was N-S-82. Now some more peculiar things from other objects. This is a 15 cm Röchling shell still being stuck in a frontal wall of N-S-91. This object was built in class III therefore the wall on the picture is 2,75 meters thick and if the object was fully completed it would be covered by stones and earth (those would have likely little effect against the Röchling anyway). The wall was not penetrated. Czech fortifications were used for Röchling development just like later also the Belgian ones. However there is an important difference. I believe there is no Röchling hit in the roof in any Czech object while in Belgium the Germans tried the indirect fire and they achieved some very spectacular penetrations. The direct fire used against Czech fortifications was much less effective in terms of penetration but with the indirect fire it was close to impossible to actually hit something. 

 
I believe that this is another Röchling hit in the wall of N-S-49. Maybe a larger calibre for 21 cm guns, honestly I can't recognize. This is an object of an unfinished artilery fortress Skutina and the wall is 3,5 meters thick. It was too high to actually see inside and the object is not accesible from inside for public but it looked like it's not a penetration. Fun fact about this unfinished fortress. The guys who take care of it plan to connect the underground corridor betwen the existing objects where 27 meters were missing by the time when it was abandoned. 

 
Last thing is a replica of .380 ACP SMG vz.38 which was never fielded (on display in the object N-S-84). The SMG was basically developed in one month! It had two magazines, straight for 24 and drum for 96 rounds. 3500 pieces were ordered by the fortification command to be used to protect the entry door or in some light objects which were close to each other in difficult terrain instead of the LMG. The SMG was roughly 4x cheaper than the LMG. Only 15 were made before the order was canceled after Münich. Strangely Czechoslovakia which was very successful in small arms development never fielded an SMG in the interwar period. When the army realised it would be good to actually have one it was too late and moreover it had no money for it (at least the cavalery and artilery wanted it). 
 
Under the SMG You can also see Czechoslovak handgrenades from 1930'. 

 
  
 
 
 
 
 

I like books about tanks so much that I even wrote one myself.
 
https://www.mortonsbooks.co.uk/product/view/productCode/15014
 

Material was not given, direct quote was "с термоупрочненным сердечником" which literally translates as "with heat strengthened core".

Called off strike has been officially confirmed
 

Called off strike has been officially confirmed
 

"rofl-stomping" doesn't fit in the usual list of goals in conflict. Iran's likely goal is to be the biggest pain in the arse possible, and they have the deck stacked in their favour:
 
21% of the worlds oil flows through that strait, and it'll take anywhere from a week to a month to clear the mines (a week for a narrow, sort-of-safe channel, but what insurer would accept a 10% chance they lose the ship?). That's without iranian forces interrupting the MCM, or targeting tankers in other regions near the iranian coast (ASM launchers won't last longer than their first salvo, but that's a lot of missiles in the air. You can't reliably get them before they fire either, as iraqi scuds proved - and scuds are larger than ASMs). For reference  the 1979 oil crisis only involved a 4% drop in oil production, and lead to a doubling of the price of oil.
 
The US options to respond are pretty short of a rofl-stomp - they can muster a small air & naval campaign at best with the forces available. The first gulf war involved thousands of aircraft (compare to the few squadrons moved to the region recently), and even with a ground campaign saddam wasn't replaced. They could sink most of the iranian naval assets, probably enforce air superiority over the important bits, pop most of the ASM launchers, and might as well strike the nuclear facilities, but what's the end-state? How do they get the iranians to stop fighting, short of a total occupation (something that would be several times larger than gulf war 2)? ASMs have shown up in the hands of non-state actors, so a bloodied state actor like iran could dangle the credible threat of ASM strikes on nearby shipping for the foreseeable future even with a constant US fast jet presence.
 
Autonomous mine countermeasures has the potential to greatly improve MCM speed, but it's not ready today in the numbers needed and doesn't solve the ASM issue.

"rofl-stomping" doesn't fit in the usual list of goals in conflict. Iran's likely goal is to be the biggest pain in the arse possible, and they have the deck stacked in their favour:
 
21% of the worlds oil flows through that strait, and it'll take anywhere from a week to a month to clear the mines (a week for a narrow, sort-of-safe channel, but what insurer would accept a 10% chance they lose the ship?). That's without iranian forces interrupting the MCM, or targeting tankers in other regions near the iranian coast (ASM launchers won't last longer than their first salvo, but that's a lot of missiles in the air. You can't reliably get them before they fire either, as iraqi scuds proved - and scuds are larger than ASMs). For reference  the 1979 oil crisis only involved a 4% drop in oil production, and lead to a doubling of the price of oil.
 
The US options to respond are pretty short of a rofl-stomp - they can muster a small air & naval campaign at best with the forces available. The first gulf war involved thousands of aircraft (compare to the few squadrons moved to the region recently), and even with a ground campaign saddam wasn't replaced. They could sink most of the iranian naval assets, probably enforce air superiority over the important bits, pop most of the ASM launchers, and might as well strike the nuclear facilities, but what's the end-state? How do they get the iranians to stop fighting, short of a total occupation (something that would be several times larger than gulf war 2)? ASMs have shown up in the hands of non-state actors, so a bloodied state actor like iran could dangle the credible threat of ASM strikes on nearby shipping for the foreseeable future even with a constant US fast jet presence.
 
Autonomous mine countermeasures has the potential to greatly improve MCM speed, but it's not ready today in the numbers needed and doesn't solve the ASM issue.

"rofl-stomping" doesn't fit in the usual list of goals in conflict. Iran's likely goal is to be the biggest pain in the arse possible, and they have the deck stacked in their favour:
 
21% of the worlds oil flows through that strait, and it'll take anywhere from a week to a month to clear the mines (a week for a narrow, sort-of-safe channel, but what insurer would accept a 10% chance they lose the ship?). That's without iranian forces interrupting the MCM, or targeting tankers in other regions near the iranian coast (ASM launchers won't last longer than their first salvo, but that's a lot of missiles in the air. You can't reliably get them before they fire either, as iraqi scuds proved - and scuds are larger than ASMs). For reference  the 1979 oil crisis only involved a 4% drop in oil production, and lead to a doubling of the price of oil.
 
The US options to respond are pretty short of a rofl-stomp - they can muster a small air & naval campaign at best with the forces available. The first gulf war involved thousands of aircraft (compare to the few squadrons moved to the region recently), and even with a ground campaign saddam wasn't replaced. They could sink most of the iranian naval assets, probably enforce air superiority over the important bits, pop most of the ASM launchers, and might as well strike the nuclear facilities, but what's the end-state? How do they get the iranians to stop fighting, short of a total occupation (something that would be several times larger than gulf war 2)? ASMs have shown up in the hands of non-state actors, so a bloodied state actor like iran could dangle the credible threat of ASM strikes on nearby shipping for the foreseeable future even with a constant US fast jet presence.
 
Autonomous mine countermeasures has the potential to greatly improve MCM speed, but it's not ready today in the numbers needed and doesn't solve the ASM issue.

"rofl-stomping" doesn't fit in the usual list of goals in conflict. Iran's likely goal is to be the biggest pain in the arse possible, and they have the deck stacked in their favour:
 
21% of the worlds oil flows through that strait, and it'll take anywhere from a week to a month to clear the mines (a week for a narrow, sort-of-safe channel, but what insurer would accept a 10% chance they lose the ship?). That's without iranian forces interrupting the MCM, or targeting tankers in other regions near the iranian coast (ASM launchers won't last longer than their first salvo, but that's a lot of missiles in the air. You can't reliably get them before they fire either, as iraqi scuds proved - and scuds are larger than ASMs). For reference  the 1979 oil crisis only involved a 4% drop in oil production, and lead to a doubling of the price of oil.
 
The US options to respond are pretty short of a rofl-stomp - they can muster a small air & naval campaign at best with the forces available. The first gulf war involved thousands of aircraft (compare to the few squadrons moved to the region recently), and even with a ground campaign saddam wasn't replaced. They could sink most of the iranian naval assets, probably enforce air superiority over the important bits, pop most of the ASM launchers, and might as well strike the nuclear facilities, but what's the end-state? How do they get the iranians to stop fighting, short of a total occupation (something that would be several times larger than gulf war 2)? ASMs have shown up in the hands of non-state actors, so a bloodied state actor like iran could dangle the credible threat of ASM strikes on nearby shipping for the foreseeable future even with a constant US fast jet presence.
 
Autonomous mine countermeasures has the potential to greatly improve MCM speed, but it's not ready today in the numbers needed and doesn't solve the ASM issue.

It looks a lot like an iranian boat
http://parstoday.com/en/news/iran-i5290-iran's_speed_boats_delivered_to_irgc
 
I'm convinced that the iranians did it, based on the footage, unless someone manages to find footage of a really good vis-modded boat that looks like that in a saudi port

Licence production isn't the same thing as joint development - Altay, K-X and Merk all relied on external designs, but they were exclusively national programs (unless the US buys the K-X or merk, or SK buys the altay). This is a key distinction, because the infighting over workshare and who's requirements to design the vehicle to is generally fatal for a proper international program.
 
 
With MBT-70, the threat was rapidly changing from T-55/62's (which M-60 was designed against, possibly not even considering the 115mm) to T-64/72/80 (along with big improvements in and proliferation of ATGMs). Leo 2 and Leclerc were designed against T-72's, and the threat is changing to T-72B3 mod 2016 mk53 (until we see volume production of the T-15)

Also 3" HE for the WW2 skirts IIRC

Reposting:
Bat-winged dino with teeth and feathers!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1137-z
 
Artist's impression:

http://fav.me/dd6kjv6

August last year, the tower on top of the engine test stand was gone:
https://www.38north.org/2018/11/sohae110818/
 
More recently, the tower has been rebuilt:
https://www.38north.org/2019/03/sohae030519/
 
Deconstruction doesn't normally involve making a copy of the previous structure just to tear it down again

August last year, the tower on top of the engine test stand was gone:
https://www.38north.org/2018/11/sohae110818/
 
More recently, the tower has been rebuilt:
https://www.38north.org/2019/03/sohae030519/
 
Deconstruction doesn't normally involve making a copy of the previous structure just to tear it down again

In 1989 an import ban was put into place barring foreign military style rifles from entering the country. Companies did all sorts of goofy stuff to get around it (thumbhole stock and milled off bayonet lugs). However rifles could still have original magwells that would accept military magazines.
 
In 1997 the ban was strengthened by a Clinton executive order declaring guns that could accept military mags as "non-sporting" and hence fell under the import ban. The Saiga cannot take military mags because without the guide, rounds just slam nose-first into the bottom of the barrel. Hence, the Saiga mags are proprietary and have the built in (err, molded in) bullet guide.