N-L-M

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Huh, never noticed this before but it looks like sideskirts 3 and 4 are noticably thinner than sideskirts 1 and 2- looks like only enough thickness for 1 reactive element.
On early Sabra prototypes there were no reactive sideskirts aft of 1 and 2.

A kind of :

Vickers Valiant on a muddy track :
 

 
 
Barr & Stroud LF 11 gunner sight and the Pilkington PE  Condor commander day/night sight :
 

 
 
Hull ammo rack (30x105 mm) and driver's compartment, the handlebar features a throttle twist grip :
 

 
 
VR 1000 powerpack comprising the Rolls-Royce CV12TCA Condor 1000 hp engine and the TN 12-1000 automatic transmission :
 

 
The pyramidal louvers above the transmission are typical of the Valiant.
 

I haven't posted anything on this website for a great while, so I want to write something to SH's standards of quality and spite in order to properly fill the role of nobility.
 
The website indoeuropean.eu has a great amount of information on Indo European migrations, unfortunately it has a large and glaring problem. The author of a great deal of its articles is an idiot. His name is Carlos Quiles, and he has created his own theory on the IE expansion, which seems to have a few problems of its own.
 
The main contention between his "demic diffusion model" and typical systems of logical deduction begins with how it is introduced in his article defending his idea against its opponents, which seems mostly to rest its rhetoric on roulette analogies and not so much on comprehensible evidence.  The general claim here is that the Y-DNA haplogroup R1b represents the Indo-Europeans and R1a represents the Finno-Ugrics. There are a few problems with this theory:
1. R1b and R1a are clades of the same supergroup, and thus should represent related groups, which, you will note, linguistics shows that the IEs and Finno-Ugrics are not.
2. The contention of this theory is that, somehow, the Finno-Ugrics teamed up with the Indo-Europeans during their expansion into Europe, and then, when everyone was burninated and pillaged, they just all started speaking Indo-European languages because all populations with majority R1a DNA speak Indo-European Languages and all Finno-Ugric groups have a Y-DNA haplogroup of N, not R1a. This isn't even addressed by Quiles, he just says:
 
"The Indo-European demic diffusion model was based on a very simple assessment: R1b-M269/L23 and R1a-M417/Z645 lineages expanded with different peoples, associated with different cultures (Yamna-Bell Beaker and Corded Ware) ergo they spoke different languages. Given the later evolution of their cultures in Europe and Asia, tracing these cultures back, their languages had to be necessarily identified with Indo-European and Uralic, respectively, which has very interesting consequences in linguistics, since it helps to select among conflicting theories."
 
Essentially, 
 
"Oh yeah here's my idea - different groups so they spoke different languages, but they speak the same language now so that's weird for linguistics huh" The rather low likelihood of an entire group of marauding steppe nomads just happening to give up their unique language to another group of marauding steppe nomads for no real discernible reason is glossed over as well as the fact that the "different cultures" of the Yamna and Corded Ware are nearly identical and also likely derivative.
 
What Quiles is mainly scoffing at is the idea that the Corded Ware culture (the one in Eastern Europe that shows up after the IEs realize that horses are good for conquering shit) was IE. His evidence for this mainly consists of holding up his own theory as evidence that they weren't IE and that then proves his idea since the strongest shape for logic to be in is a circle. Aside from this, he provides links to his own articles citing genetic studies which he seems to interpret as saying:
 
1. The Bell Beakers (culture in Western Europe that happens to appear when IEs both realize horses are good at conquering and also physically reach central Europe) are IE.
2.  The Corded Ware had wives from different cultures.
3. The ancestors of the modern Finns came from somewhere else.
4. The IE spread south into Iran/India contains both R1a and R1b genes.
5. Finno Ugric borrowed IE words therefore they were buddies.
6. The Southern Caucasus is genetically distinct from the Northern Caucasus.
 
You'll notice that the either tangential or contradictory nature of these studies to his claim against an Indo-European Corded Ware culture is not particularly compelling, and it is rather mysterious to me how he interprets in the main article linked above that each of these articles is a separate and individually complete confirmation of his theory.
 
There are more things that Quiles objects to in other articles that I don't care to find again because of his ridiculous naming conventions. He thinks it ridiculous that the Corded Ware culture can be IE since it had a culture too different than the Yamna (ancestral IE group), despite the fact that the CW share the burial practices and pastoral economy of the Yamna. The cultural differences that can exist are easily explained by something simpler than his practice of inventing a new magic group of people that switch genetic lines and languages on the fly. Conquering groups adapt to the practices of the conquered (i.e. Vikings, Mongols, non-penninsulares in Spanish New World colonies), especially when they move into conquered land and take a fuckload of wives from the conquered people (MtDNA of Europe is both IE and preexisting people). The pottery is the best example - "The CW pottery isn't IE so mustn't the whole culture not be IE?????" Well no, when you have a bunch of wives whose people you just finished genociding and looting, what kind of pottery is she going to make? She's going to make the kind she was raised to make or the kind from a fusion of her culture and yours. He did not raise this objection based on difference in pottery when declaring the Bell Beakers Indo-European.
 
This objection goes hand in hand with his inability to reconcile the idea that both the Bell Beakers and Corded Ware were IE - the article stated something sarcastic like "wow that's dumb - how could the IE invaders change cultures twice???" Here Quiles briefly forgot that the number two exists, and so disregards that the BB and CW people might be separate successor IE cultures.
 
That's a breakdown of the main support of his theory and his denial of opposition, but there is a much more obvious theory supported even by evidence he provides in his articles that satisfies all questions.
 
The earliest IE expansion was due to the movement out of a caste of warrior nobles represented by R1b genes (all the IE kurgan burials pre-IE expansion are R1b (i.e. the upper classes were R1b); and the earliest R1 expansion into Europe is R1b). This expansion and the cultural fusion with locals created the Bell Beaker culture which conquered Western Europe. Once all the nobles had moved out and were happy with their new conquering kingdoms, the social structure of the homeland changed and the previous lower castes were moved into the upper classes since there always has to be someone to rule and then this class expanded into Eastern Europe, fusing with the locals to form the Corded Ware culture (CW is R1a and the later R1 expansion is perfectly in line with this). After all of Europe is taken, these two societies (largely culturally homogeneous due to very closely related languages) both expanded into Southeast Asia (there are both very much R1b and very much R1a populations in India/Iran/Pakistan), thus bringing us to the status quo distribution of IE languages and genes.

My Dad was in the Navy from 1965 to 1969. He's been dead since 2000, so there is no asking him for info on this stuff, my mom is around but won't knot much about the Navy details so I am putting this together from memory and whats in the photos.  The slides were not in great shape, and the first set of scans were rough, and then the scanner broke. So, since Amazon didn't have the same model anymore, I spent a little more money and got a much nice scanner, with a better "technology" for film scanning, and it fixes the flaws when it scans them. The results are remarkable.  As far as I know these images were taken with a Minolta 35mm Camera,   I guess an SLR, since he had a bunch of lenses for it. I learned photography with it, and have a few pictures of my GTO I took with his Camera.  This was the type of camera you focuses, and set the light settings, and had to hand wind. Considering how much harder a camera was to work back then, I think my old man was a reasonably talented photographer.
  
As far as I can remember he went to boot camp in San Diego, then he went to schools for Ejection Seat Maintenance and Air Condition systems on the F4J Phantom. He got assigned to VF-33, part of CAG-6, with  VF-102,  VA-82, VA-86, VA-85, RVAH-13, VAW-122, VAW-13 Det. 66, and VAH-10 Det. 66. CAG-6 was assigned to the USS America, who was about three years old and about to go on a world cruise, that would include the Ships only Vietnam deployment in 1968. When the ship got back, it was stationed on the east coast, and VF-33 went to CAG-7, and ended up on the Independence. My dad was with them for at least one work up cruise, since there are a set of photos from that ship. By mid 69 he was back in San Diego, working with VF-121, the west coast RAG, waiting to get out . I do not have any photos yet from San Diego, at least Navy stuff. 
 
Here is a shot of the CVA-66 USS America, she displaced 61,174 tons empty, 83,500 full load. She was the second Kitty Hawk Class Carrier,  she would spend the majority of her Career in the Med.  (if the logo for the Sherman Tank Site seems like its in odd places, its usually covering a flaw the scanner could not fix)
 

 
Here's a VF-33 Phantom. 

A VF-102 Phantom, an F-4J the same as VF-33. 

 
Here are some pretty cool shots from an underway replenishment. It could be anywhere on the World cruise in 68. 



 
I think this is also from an Unrep, maybe the same one.  This photo is one of my favorite, you get an A-7 and Sea Night for the the price of one!

 
Old shot with bad scanner as a place holder for a duplicate. 

 
This shot is of the flight deck, by the cats on the angle deck looking forward. Not the kill mark on the intake of the F-4J, 212 sitting there, pretty cool. 

 
 
 
These last three shots are all from the USS Independence, in early 69, I assume off the East Coast on work ups for their upcoming Med Cruise. 
 

 

 
 

 

This is my old Man, Rick T, I'm pretty sure that's a Martin Baker Ejection seat right next to him. Several VF-33 Phantoms got shot down, and the seats always worked, so he had that going for him.  This image was scanned on the original scanner, note how cruddy it looks, when get to this slide again, I'll post the improved version. Compare the below image to the one above too. 

 
I'll posts more as I water mark them and host them. 
 
There was a crossing of the line ceremony, that my Dad took a ton of pics on, its pretty interesting. 
 
It was really nice to find these, I had thought hey got lost in a move. 
 
 
 

Thats some absolutely atrocious track tension on the second tank.

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/01/bradley-replacement-did-army-ask-for-unobtainium/
 

Few photos from last weekend taken by my phone. It was all taken around the Orlík dam, which is the biggest in Czechia (by volume, the lake is rather narrow but 64 km long). Currently the water level is kept lowered by some ten meters or so. The castle has the same name Orlík. The road bridge called Žďákovský was finished in 1967 and in that time it had the longest arc of all the bridges of this type in the world. Now not anymore of course. The bridge became infamous in 90' when a gang of murders was throwing bodies of their victims sealed in barrels from the bridge. Anyway strange January... 

Note - Plant No. 9 is cannon-designer/production company.

Spain voids production contract for Piranha V:

https://www.ejercitos.org/2019/12/23/defensa-declara-desierto-el-contrato-del-vcr-8x8/
https://www.ejercitos.org/2019/12/24/vcr-8x8-requiem-por-un-sueno/ 

Proposal found unsatisfactory on all fronts:
Non-compliance with technical requirements Failure to comply with the deadlines Lack of integration of industrial components required for hull or the turrets under study Lack of financial guarantees for possible cost overruns in respect of the amount approved as the program's expenditure ceiling  "From the aforementioned DIGAM report it seems that the contract will be submitted to public tender"
Article mentions that Iveco Freccia could be considered the favourite. VBCI and Boxer other contenders.

Review of the Behind Enemy Lines.
 
   Behind Enemy Lines (or "Soldiers: Heroes of World War II" for Western markets) is an RTS game set in WW2 released in 2004, made by Ukrainian company Best Way using their own "GEM" engine. BEL focused on small-scale operations, most of which are happening… behind enemy lines (how surprising). You will be able to command wide range of units, including directly (which was one of many selling points of this title).
   BEL was released in the same year as many other big titles, and for me it was on par or even more enjoyable than some of them. My gaming year of 2004 started with a visceral Painkiller, after it I played Far Cry, continued with cathartic and smart Behind Enemy lines, ended up 2004 with DooM 3 and Half-Life 2. For me, BEL stands in one list with all those big games of 2004 and this review should explain why.
 

 
 
   Presentation
   For 2004 RTS game Behind Enemy Lines had good graphics, excellent physics simulation, good level of animations and details (even if some small objects in few places were just sprites, haha). Almost all maps have saturated enough colors, making picture to look juicy/vibrant, even a bit “toy-ish” in some moments. Sound and music were also well done, supporting visual side of this game.
   When things are moving and interacting, it is where Behind Enemy Lines really shined back in 2004, and probably still is able to deliver fun moments today. A lot of objects in this game had a physics model and other aspects of them modelled, allowing to rather impressive level of interaction between objects. When I first played this game, first 76 mm HE shell from T-34 that hit German 75 mm AT gun created a big explosion, throwing parts of the gun in different directions, setting grass and houses on fire. Screaming nazi soldiers started to run out of those houses, while their roofs collapsed into the buildings, bringing chaos into enemy defense line in the village. I was laughing at that moment really hard, it was delightful! No other RTS could provide such experience back in the day.
   Game had detailed building destruction system that allowed to level whole maps and city blocks. Debris and parts of destroyed houses, vehicles, installations were not de-spawned from level, but left on the field for entire game session. This game presentation allowed to wreak havoc and see results, making combat feel more impactful.
   BEL is better to be played than watched, IMO, as a lot of fun player can get by interacting with game mechanics.
 

 
 
   Gameplay
   Behind Enemy Lines is system-driven small scale sandbox RTS with ability to directly controls units under you command. You command small number of soldiers that are given an objective and no define way to deal with it. You choose how to solve problems using many systems in this game. All soldiers and vehicles have an inventory system. Humans have stamina bars that can be recharged by resting, vehicles need fuel to drive. To fire a gun, trooper need to have a proper ammunition type (SMG ammo, MG belts, rifle catridges, etc) in his inventory. Cannons need proper caliber shells and so on. Humans can have protective gear in form of helmets and steel breastplates. Tanks have armor and game takes into account armor layout, range, angle and type of shell that hits it and so on during penetration calculations. Vehicles don’t have HPs, BTW, so there is some level of realism and nuance to ballistic system.
 
 
   Environment also plays a big role in this sandbox. Soldiers can take cover behind any object using dynamic cover system, troops can hide in bushes or grass/trees. Vegetation and wooden structures can be set on fire, fire can spread through materials that can burn. Weak structures can be knocked out by explosion of hand grenades, small vehicles driving through. More sturdy buildings can survive that, so they need a bigger caliber guns/cannons or bigger vehicle/tank to be damaged. Buildings takes damage in sections (no HP bar as well).
   And there are more of mechanics that are in the game, like wheeled vehicles drive slower on bad types of soil/terrain, etc.
 
 
   Part of sandbox is how your troops can interact with vehicles or gear. Game have a lot of different vehicles and different weapons modelled. Vehicles have modules modelled – firing bullets into cargo hold will not stop a truck, but if you aim your fire against engine or wheels (or driver) – it will. Tanks can lose tracks from explosions close and powerful enough, but will not lose ability to fire a gun. Turrets on AFVs can be jammed by hits, while rest of the vehicle continue to work, if hit was not powerful enough. Bigger AFVs can smash small and unarmored vics (like civilian cars or tractors).
   Each vehicle needs a crew to work, crew number and role depends on what vehicle is it. If number of crew members is not enough for given vehicle (3 people crewing 5-man tank, for example) some of soldiers would need to jump from his place to another place in the vehicle to do the job of lacking members. It means that vehicle would not be able to do several things in the same time, which it would be able to do if it had full crew. For example if you don’t have a loader in a tank, a gunner would be forced to load a main gun, during which tank would not be able to rotate turret and aim at enemies or use coaxial MG.
 
 
   All this sounds rather complicated, but it is rather easy to learn and get how it works, as game doesn’t overcomplicate those things. There are no spreadsheets of buttons that you need to learn, no special menus to go through each time you get a vehicle with crew members jobs or something similar. Some of things game solves on its own, which make player’s life easier and leaves his attention open for actual gameplay that is based on interaction of those systems.
 
   Final piece of this sandbox are enemies. They are ok when it comes to tactics, but where developers really put their time are AI capabilities tied to effects of other systems. All enemy soldiers have simulated vision/hearing systems, they don’t telepathically sense casualties of their forces if they don’t hear it or see it. Enemies also use same dynamic cover system as a player. Bad guys use same equipment as a player’s controlled soldiers. AI knows how to drive cars, trucks, tanks, AFVs, half-tracks, use static MGs and cannons and so on.
   AI behavior support stealth gameplay, making it much less OP then in some other games (including FPS/3rd person shooters). Depending on amount of noise you make and damage done, enemies will react differently – from small investigation by few guys of bushes and tall grass around their positions to full scale assault with tank support. Enemies can blind fire into vegetation if they know that you are there (heard a shot, or saw/heard grenade), but can’t see your soldier directly. Even tanks can do that, BTW. This means you can’t sit on one place after making some ruckus, even if it is technically a cover or hide spot.
   AI reacts to fire, trying to get away from big fires. Enemies, when it comes to open fight, are rather generic, but still are able to be dangerous, even if you drive a well-armored vehicle.    
 
 
   Different systems of BEL are coming together to form a sandbox RTS, with open-style objectives (you are not forced down overscripted path of execution of given mission). You are free to make your own plan. Meat of BEL gameplay is coming with plans using all mentioned above systems and trying to execute those plans, then trying to quickly fix/react to situations when they fail and a “cockup cascade” erupts, haha. This style of gameplay is very enjoyable for me. I’m not mad when I lose, thanks to ability to save as much as you want – quickly load saved game and do something else instead, to avoid a mistake. Trial and error approach allows to experience plenty of different events during just one level.
 
   And a flavor on top of all that is direct control feature. It allows to control units like in 3rd person shooter (although with RTS-style camera) and execute some actions that would be hard to do using indirect classic RTS control scheme. This feature also works as steam release when you take a tank under control and start to spread destruction and chaos by our own hands, using destroyable buildings/physics/etc to your advantage. First time I did that, it was simply glorious.
 
   Conclusion
   Sandbox WW2-themed RTS with big number of detailed and intertwined game mechanics, enriched with physcis, cool special effects, tense stealth, visceral action and overthought plans of how to break through enemy positions. Best experienced in 1 mission per play session, use save features often, don’t be afraid to experiment and making new attempts if you failed to do something first time. For me BEL is one of the best “small-scale” RTS games I ever played.  

IDF Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin and Israel Tal, head of the Armored Corps, with an early Chieftain.

GMerlon is correct but if you happen to experience a soft head failure the entire rifle is probably going to be wrecked and you are heading to the ER or undertaker.

 
Example of a soft head failure I investigated.  This happened on the sixth round in a M1 Garand.  I was contacted and told him to send me all the fired cases prior to it and he did.  Headspace was perfect on the first 5 and no 6 completely wrecked the Garand.
 
This round was loaded in Britain for the Greek Army in the 50s and found out this arsenal had these prior.  The bolt lugs held, the receiver held but the escaping gas broke the lower stock in about 5 pieces.
 
Soft heads occur when the cases go through the annealing line upside down and the flames are directed at the head of the case instead of the neck/shoulder and is one of the bad things that can happen on a manual loading line thus if you ever see a round of military ammo where the head is blue and the other ammo the neck/shoulder is blue this is your warning do not fire it under any circumstances.
 
This was known to occur on 5.56 ammo loaded on manual lines at LC, TW etc and we got a M16 in that had sustained a case failure about every four months when I worked in the Product Engineering section for the Army Small Cal Lab at Picatinny Arsenal.  The upper receiver is bowed outwards and is ruined.  We never had a case of lug faillure on the bolt or barrel socket.  It was estimated that this occurred once every 30 million rounds..
 
 

Finnish Navy Lifts Veil On Its Future Anti-Ship Missile: The Gabriel V
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2019/12/finnish-navy-lifts-veil-on-its-future-anti-ship-missile-the-gabriel-v/
 

Somebody decided to mount optical sight from RPG-7V ("PGO-7V", 2.7x) on AK (both 5.45 and 7.62), like some of Soviet Army soldiers did in A-stan and find out how to use it and why people were doing that.
https://gunsforum.com/topic/2291-granatomyotnyy-pritsel-pgo-7v-na-aksaygu/
 

 
 
   Using ballistic tables and empirical data they figured out ranges/zero/holdovers for PGO-7V using both 5.45 and 7.62
   For 5.45 it looks like this ("crosshair" is at 300, was zeroed to this range)

 
   7.62x39
 
   Rangefinder shows range to a target that are 2.7 meters high (AFVs), works for humans ~1.7 meters high if you decrease resulting range by 100 meters.
   Probable reasons to use this sight is slightly lower magnification that gives better view on ranges where AK are effective, relatively easy to use and this sight was avaliable at the time for some of soldiers to put on their rifles. It also have illuminated reticle (although it will be hard to find proper battery, owner of the sight in the post re-made it for AAA battery) and sight is small enough to not obscure iron sights.

Couple more from the same site:

Some shamelessly stolen from a russian blog.
 

Indonesian Army Leopard 2RI 
 

 

 
 

Some concepts for tanks armed with the 152mm cannon, published in March 1959. All of them had separated ammunition stored in the bustle and the light tank concept used a turbine.
 
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/501680.pdf