Belesarius

SeaHawks at NAS Jacksonville, June 13/19. Jeff Morton, USN

Here’s an interesting(frightening?) paper looking at the American nuclear taboo versus Iran: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/ISEC_a_00284
 

Do we want to start the "US-Iran won't stop flirting thread yet" in the meantime? 

Both are back up.

Revenge for debunking India's lies during their ass beating by Pakistan.

Twtter suspending OS Intel accounts dedicated to breaking military news.
 
https://www.jpost.com/International/Concerned-users-worry-as-Twitter-suspends-several-OSINT-news-accounts-592663
 
I follow ELINT News and they have provided content for here and on Discord discussion. ELINT news got a wierd sort of official email from Twitter in regards to their tweets violating Indian law about 24 hours before they went down.

Someone elsewhere asked me to compare the Chauchat with the Breda 30, which gave me an excuse to go off about automatic rifle genealogy!
 
The more complex answer is that the M.30 and the Chauchat are two different weapons. The Chauchat is really an individual weapon, like a BAR. It is what I like to call an "automatic rifle", and within that category I'd include the weapons traditionally called "assault rifles". So think of the Chauchat as a really primitive assault rifle that eats standard gun food. And because of the circumstances at the time, it's fundamentally a support weapon, and not a mainline rifle. That's just the nature of the beast. But in 1916, the concept here wasn't really differentiated, I think a lot of people get confused on that. I've seen a lot of dickering for example about the Fedorov Avtomat, saying it is or is not an assault rifle. People arguing yes (like myself) will point out its muzzle energy was within a few joules of the later StG-44 "Ur-assault rifle", and that it meets all the criteria we know now. People arguing no say "hey the Russians only ever issued it as a squad automatic weapon". That's also true. The problem for me is, the light machine gun and the assault rifle were not really differentiated yet in the late teens and early twenties. They were kind of the same thing. For example, only a few light machine guns at the time had tripod mounts. The Chauchat didn't. The BAR didn't. The Lewis and Madsen did get tripod mounts eventually, but in both cases they were effectively afterthoughts. See the images below:



In both cases, the tripod has an adapter that clamps to the barrel shroud. There is no integral tripod pivot point, as in, say, a Vickers:
 

 
That point near the front of the receiver with the big hole in it? That's a tripod mount. None of the early LMGs, which I'd argue are all basically early automatic rifles (proto-assault rifles), have that as an integral feature. Now fast forward, look at an M249 (which for a long time was not even designated as a light machine gun, warranting only the euphemistic "squad automatic weapon"):


 
Integral tripod mount. From day 1. 
 
(Just by the way, here's an experimental BAR tripod from 1944, it's pretty cool and probably also a horrible idea).
 
Now, during the interwar period, things change. Let's look at the Bren, perhaps the archetypal interwar light machine gun:


 
Bingo. Tripod mount. This is one of the major changes that occurs during the interwar period. Weapons that previously only provided for prone or shoulder fire, like the Chauchat, were either adapted for or replaced by weapons that provided for tripod use. This was a stage in the development of the modern General Purpose Machine Gun. It produced a magazine-fed weapon that could be used like an automatic rifle, or in rare cases just like a Vickers or Maxim gun. I would say it is with the addition of integral tripod mounts that the larger collection of automatic rifles (which, as of 1918, I would say is basically a singularity of assault rifles, squad support weapons, and light machine guns all in one) began to diversify into several distinct categories, including modern light machine guns, general purpose machine guns, and assault rifles. This process happened from about 1930-1950. If I were to use an analogy to zoological evolutionary cladistics, I would identify the stem group "Automatic Rifles" (or maybe "Weapons"), and divergent from that "Light Machine Guns", "General Purpose Machine Guns", "Assault Rifles", and a number of other dead-end ("extinct") groups like "Support Submachine Guns". 

Now that I'm done with the rundown of the history of the concept, where does the Breda 30 fit? Well it's super weird, not just mechanically but in terms of its lineage. Originally, the design was the Breda 5C, which was a medium machine gun, complete with tripod mount, spade grips, the whole shebang. It was intended to compete with things like the Vickers, directly. 
 

 
The Breda 30 is basically the 5C with the spade grips removed and a pistol grip and stock added (which was an option on the 5C, as seen above). The Breda 30 even retains the tripod mount of the 5C:



(That flat dovetail looking thing under the feed housing is the tripod mount).
 
So the Breda 30 is really one of these interwar light machine guns like the Bren. Which means it's not exactly the same kind of gun as a Chauchat. You can't strap a Chauchat to a truck. You can strap a Breda 30 to a truck. You can't very easily reload a Breda 30 by yourself. You can reload a Chauchat by yourself without issue. The differences are admittedly subtle and nestled within details, but they're there. So comparing the two directly is difficult!

Better word will be "a chance to neutralizes the projectile's warhead without initiating it." 

Why is it so difficult to understand that a solution that requires a turret is not viable?
 
Last I checked the US Army has ~3200 Strykers in active use and only plans on outfitting 3 SBCT worth of A1 Strykers with turrets (about 80 vehicles each). That would leave the vast majority of Strykers without the option of mounting an APS when forward deployed.

Another reminder of why steel was so expensive:
 

I know I've been doing this a lot this competition, but I went through another complete redesign:
 

 
I'll update as things shake out.
 
Edit: this is a slightly prettier shot:

The main features of this one are a four-man crew, front engine setup (two cut-down V-10 engines in the hull left, driving the transmission in the rear via a shaft), a 85mm/L70 high-velocity gun, and four 250mm SACLOS missiles with two guidance options (IR or radar - the equipment for each being seperately installed). The mass is about 54 tonnes.
 
The project's provisional name is "Stumpy".

Get out of here with that bullshit
 
 

The Martin XB-68 is, in my opinion, one of the best looking stillborn aircraft projects of the 1950s.
 

 
Development of the XB-68 began in 1954, in response to a USAF request for a supersonic tactical bomber to satisfy the WS-302A requirement. A top speed in excess of Mach 2 was envisioned, with the aircraft conducting the bombing run at high altitude. Three companies, Martin, Douglas, and North American, submitted designs. Martin's design was assigned the internal company number 316. Initial concepts off all three entries clearly show aircraft optimized for high speed flight;
 
Martin;
 

 
Douglas:
 

 
North American:
 


 
 
(Douglas and North American images via source (1))
 
(I am not certain if there is any connection between the design of the Vigilante and North American's WS-302A entry. Given the similar operational requirements and the timeframe, it is highly likely the A3J was as least somewhat based on the WS-302A design).
 
As can be seen, the original design of the XB-68 had roughly 45 degrees of wing sweep. Additionally, it was to have used the J67 turbojet engine, an American version of the Rolls Royce Olympus. (The J67 was also considered for several other aircraft, including the XF-103). Both of these features would change as the XB-68 evolved. At this time, the aircraft had a maximum weight of about 96,000 pounds, and 900 square feet of wing area. Two crewmembers sat in tandem in a highly streamlined cockpit.
 
The Martin 316 was selected as the winner of the competition in 1956, and selected for further development. At the time, plans were for the aircraft to enter service in the early 1960s. As the design underwent further development, several changes were made. The J67 engines were discarded, and replaced with J75 turbojets. The exact reasoning behind this was unknown, but the J67 (built by Curtiss-Wright) had a very troubled development and was ultimately stillborn. In contrast, Pratt & Whitney's J75 was successfully used in several other aircraft, including Martin's P6M that was also being developed in the 1950s. (The dihedral on the stabilizers of both the P6M and XB-68 shows common Martin influence).
 
The second change was moving to a less swept, trapezoidal wing, rather than the swept wing of the initial design. Studies in the NASA Langley wind tunnel (4) showed that a wing swept at only 19.2 degrees had less drag at high mach numbers than the 45 degree sweep wing, due to the thinner airfoil that could be used. The result was an aircraft that resembled another 1950s aircraft intended to operate at Mach 2 at high altitudes; the F-104 Starfighter.
 

 

 
The design of the XB-68 was finalized by approximately 1957. The final aircraft had a maximum takeoff weight of 100,000 pounds, with a wing area of 875 square feet. (3). With a length of 109.8 feet, but a wingspan of only 53 feet, it was more than twice as long as it was wide. Using the two J75s, top speed at the maximum altitude of 57,250 was to have been 1357 knots, roughly Mach 2.35.
 
 
 

 

However, when fitted with a water injection system, the XB-68 could have reached altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet, and a slightly higher top speed. According to (3), this limit was imposed by the structure of the aircraft (likely aerodynamic heating).
 
The primary armament of the XB-68 was never fully decided on; according to (3), up to 8,500 of bombs would have been carried in a rotary bomb bay (this was the payload over a short range, at maximum range the payload would have been limited to about 4,000 pounds). Given the time and the aircraft's intended mission,  munitions could have included the Mark 7, Mark 10, and Mark 28 nuclear weapons. The XB-68 was also to have been equipped with a 20mm T171E2 rotary cannon mounted at the extreme rear of the aircraft.
 
 
 
The XB-68 made it as far as mockup form, before being cancelled in the late 1950s;
 

 
With how ambitious the XB-68 was, the aircraft would likely have not entered service until the mid-1960s. A development time of over a decade, while short today, was a relative eternity in the 1950s. Another problem was the development of surface to air missiles such as the S-75. The development of these missiles, and the Soviet deployment of them in Europe would have placed the XB-68 in severe danger. Granted, the XB-68 would have performed well at low level. Source (3) indicates it was projected to achieve Mach 1.25 at sea level, and the high wing loading (114 lb/ft2, vs 148 lb/ft2 for the F-104) would have given it excellent stability at low level. While the similar looking F-104 suffered severe accident rates in the low level strike role, the XB-68 would certainly not have been given to green West German crews. However, the F-104 was much cheaper, and had an air to air capability which the XB-68 lacked. However, it is possible that the XB-68 could have found a niche as a low level penetration bomber with superior range to the F-104. In this role it would have been soon eclipsed by the F-111, which first flew in 1964, around when the XB-68 would have entered service.
 
 
 
 
 
Sources:
 
(1)https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/usaf-weapon-system-302a-tactical-bomber-competition.22864/
(2) https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/martin-model-316-xb-68-tactical-bomber.479/
(3) http://www.up-ship.com/apr/v0n0.pdf
(4) https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc64207/m1/2/
 
 

K2's APS (in development)

 

Brazilian River monitor, entered service in 1938, still serving.
 
 
" Entering service in 1938, the Brazilian river monitor Parnaíba is the world's oldest warship in active service.

Displacing over 700 tons, the ship has a draft under 6' (1.6m), enabling her to cruise the many rivers and coastal estuaries of Brazil. Parnaíba is armed with a 76mm gun as well as smaller weapons including two 40mm bofors, six oerlikon 20mm, as well as two mortars. "

GShG-7.62 with electric drive, shown recently at weapon expo.
 
SR-2Ms

i am really exhausted
my feet are killin me
first i will try google pics
if it doesnt i have to upload them to imgur
feel free to share them(except for tanknet.forum! F.U. tanknet!)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hSSBM66MUsiYTteC8

PAK-FA is canceled, guys
 

Brazilian River monitor, entered service in 1938, still serving.
 
 
" Entering service in 1938, the Brazilian river monitor Parnaíba is the world's oldest warship in active service.

Displacing over 700 tons, the ship has a draft under 6' (1.6m), enabling her to cruise the many rivers and coastal estuaries of Brazil. Parnaíba is armed with a 76mm gun as well as smaller weapons including two 40mm bofors, six oerlikon 20mm, as well as two mortars. "

Um... ok

I spent too much on a comically inaccurate rifle.
 
It came with the modern polymer furniture on it but retro is always cooler.
 
 

 
 

https://news.usni.org/2019/05/08/vt-halter-marine-details-coast-guard-icebreaker-bid



 

As i posted on Discord about video that Bele linked, units of 4th Mechanized were moved from South to Lattakia.
 
They are slowly working on that area:

   Very likely they want to take over good positions that overwatch Jisr Ash-Shugur.