Priory_of_Sion

Zumwalt's new 155 mm gun system seems to be catered to the role of gunfire support. It also has the added benefit of being able to hit targets ~95 miles away multiple times within a minute. Place this system on some Arleigh Burke destroyers and some Ticonderogas and you can have great inland naval gunfire support.

A Naval group could give gunfire support to troops in Pyongyang while being at the cusp of the range of the probable Silkworm ASM of North Korea(which would probably be shot down at longer range if it does have the range to threaten the naval group). 

I wouldn't try to save every endangered species. Things that can be considered pests shouldn't get anyone's sympathies. I also think that species should actually want to survive, I'm looking at you panda! Eat extremely nutrient poor food, have no sexual drive, and are freaking black and white but live in green bamboo forests. Die already.

Here is an article on some of the vehicles at that airshow.

link

Reading God and the Facsists. Pretty interesting on how the Vatican went along with Mussolini, Hitler, and the gang. There is anti-church bias, but it doesn't take away from the book too much.

How were those smaller spacecraft powered? Magic? 

Sweet. What's the citation?

It is Appendix E, Annex 7 to report ORO-T-117(title the same as the title of this thread). 

IKV 91 is rather tall IMO.

The IKV 91 is shorter than Sheridan and only .02 m taller than the AMX-13 and Type 62. The PT-76 is about .1 m shorter and the FV101 is .2 m shorter. 

The IKV 91 is significantly longer than its contemporaries.I'm pretty sure it's 2 meters longer than all other light tanks of the period. The FV101 is tiny BTW and has the lowest ground pressure by a large margin. 

I made a table of light tank characteristics circa 1975. I'm probably off on some of the numbers so don't be surprised by some off info.

IKV 91 is a lot more comparable to the Object 934 than the PT-76.

Obj. 934 wasn't in service in the 1970s which is why I used the term "of the period". The PT-76 is a little out-classed by the 1970s but it is still the main light tank of the USSR. 

Can we compare the IKV 91 to the other light tanks of the period(M551, AMX-13-90, PT-76, FV101, & Type 62)?

I'll get that scan on Sunday. I don't have access to the doc until then.  

I'm a little surprised that 29% of hits to the front hull of Panthers and Tigers penetrated. Blows a hole in the "invincible from the front" argument even though most hits came from the sides anyway.  

He is an American study on hits on German vehicles. 

"It is evident from this study that either the American 75-mm gun or the 76-mm gun is capable of destroying any German tank." 

China's Tank Industry seems to be one of the foremost in the world. Not only has it produced some of the best post-cold war vehicles like the ZTZ-99, but has been able to make them in pretty large numbers. I wouldn't be too surprised if Chinese vehicles start to overtake Russian and Western export models. Pakistan has already partnered with China with the MBT 3000, and you'll probably see more deals made with other Asian, African, and Latin American militaries. 

Have you seen the Chinese unmanned "Walker" AFV concept?

Now you have. 

PopSci has a blog dedicated to Chinese Weaponry called Eastern Arsenal. Here is the article on the "walker."

Here are some interesting pages from the report. Probably add more later. 

Summary

Basic Breakdown of Causes of Tank Losses

Average Range of Gunfire/Panzerfausts

Placement of Gunfire Hits

Caliber of Enemy Gunfire(most 8.8 cm are actually misidentified 7.5 cm, which is noted later in the report)

Mine/Tank Exchange Rate

Crew Casualties by Position

Sampling of Tank Losses 

Causes of Vehicles Destroyed v. Vehicle Disabled

The Norse were interesting in general, not just their American settlements. 

The Sandhavn settlement looks like it actually had co-habitation between Thule and Norse groups. 

Supposedly there was a blonde Inuit(s) that were supposedly linked some sort of Norse DNA, but the tests came back negative. 

Giving the infantry a little more firepower and protection can't be a bad thing. You are compromising a little on both sides, but you still end up with a vehicle that can transport some infantry and give them some sort of supporting firepower. I guess you can always put a TOW launcher on a GAVIN and call it a day.

Which is acid named after ants!

Formic. But there are so many combinations of chemicals that go into making ant venom, pheromones, and alt. acids!

Cool stuff. 

My wife hates ants, they don't bother me at all, I've even eaten them to gross her out.   

I've eaten ants by accident. Left a soda can out at dark, came back to take a swig of some Coca Cola and a healthy serving of ants along with it. 

Ants seem like a viable protein source for regions that find it unfeasible to have beef or pork, much lower energy needed to sustain ant populations. I would totally eat a good antburger. 

No love for the IKV 91? I have the Ogorkiewicz book/phamplet on it, seems rather good mobile gun platform.

I'm going to dedicate a topic to one of the world's most successful organisms, the ant. 

This is the Argentine Ant(Linepithema humile) which has former invasive "supercolonies" on multiple continents. It amazes me that some of the invasive ants have formed supercolonies, it seems like a parallel to human city-states aligning with one another to form countries.

There are more traits that seemingly connect ants with humans. Ants are one of the few creatures to wage wars, against other ants and against other species outside the ant family such as termites. The way ants conduct war is also quite sophisticated as they seem to have evolved a way of fighting which looks like they expend weaker forces while concentrating stronger individual ants which are spared. All this without any real command structure. 

I'm not going to go further into details but here are other interesting ant-stuff.

• Slavery of particular ant species by others
• Complex inter-species relations which are blurred between parasitism, commensalism, and mutualism. 
• Utilization of agriculture and farming
• Different caste system, but seeming equality(even with the queen, which can be ousted by workers or other queens). In a way you can describe ants as Marxist. 
• Differences in defense mechanisms among species, some that are really strange such as suicidal bombing, deadly venom, and jaws that can reach 230 kmh.
• The "hive mind" decision making. Possible ability to learn en masse. 
• The suspected biomass of the ant family is to be close to the world's human biomass. However collecting data for this is rather tedious as measuring all the dead ants falling out of an insecticide fogged tree in the rainforest. 
• Some ants have been documented risking their own lives in order to save other ants from antlions, which is rather altruistic of them. Wouldn't expect that from a eusocial species. 

I have personally documented 6 different species of ant on my property, 2 of which I believe are invasive(RIFA & Argentine).