Armament. I’m a little unclear what the deal with the single .50 was, though.
Jun 012011
May 262011
If you’re of a mind to see the sort of COMPLETELY INSANE tank concepts that appeared in the Soviet Union around about the time of WWII, check out this (Russian language) blog, loaded with bizarre goodies dug out of the Central Defence Ministry Archive (Podolsk, Russia):
http://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/
Many people are thrilled to death with the wackier Nazi wartime tank projects, including the 1000-ton P.1000 “Ratte.” Well, that’s a tiny pipsqueak compared to this ridiculous monstrocity:
http://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/228432.html
Is that what you think it is? Well, if you think it’s fricken’ Babylon 5, loaded for bear and rolling across the farmlands, then, yes, it is. It’s a February, 1944, concept for a giant armored cylinder, apparently using tanks or train engines on the inside to roll it around, presumably to crush the invading Fascist scourge.
Which makes this concept seem absolutely tame in comparison:
http://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/223518.html
A 1942 concept for an “armored cruiser.”
Feel free to dig around the blog. A whole lot of other goodies including some nutty war bicycles.
May 242011
Immediately after WWII, the American aeronautical industry became interested in applying nuclear power to anything that could fly. In 1947, North American Aviation published a groundbreaking report on the use of atomic power in rockets and ramjets, concluding that both were possible. They designed the clear and obvious predecessors to both NERVA and Project Pluto. The NAA D44-100 nuclear ramjet vehicle was, like Pluto, a two stage intercontinental cruise missile, with the first stage being a rocket booster to get the nuclear ramjet up to speed. Unlike Pluto, the nuclear ramjet was an axially symmetric design with the payload (a single nuclear weapon) kept within the long inlet spike.
This, along with a nuclear rocket ICBM that clearly used V-2 aerodynamics, were the first serious engineering design studies of nuclear powered vehicles of which I’m aware. After more than sixty years, there’s nothing about the designs that screams “wrong.” Just a few aspect that scream “obsolete.” And, of course, some that scream “Ha Ha! Your civilization never got around to building anything nearly as cool as this!!!”
See more on these by checking out issue V2N2 of Aerospace Projects Review.
May 162011
Ya Commie bastitch…
On display at the West Point Museum is a Chinese Type 54 pistol with a difference. A difference that I heartily approve of! The description:
People’s Republic of China Type 54 Pistol
Caliber 7.62 mm
The Type 54 pistol is actually an exact copy, except for markings, of the Soviet TT-33 introduced in 1933. This model has also been produced by most of the Warsaw Pact Nations and so was very commonly used by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong.
Those pistols made specifically for export by communist China were marked only “M20” to disguise their origin. This M20 pistol was struck by a U.S. 5.56mm rifle bullet at Phuoc Loc, South Vietnam on 3 December 1967 and found next to the body of a Viet Cong officer.
Note that the rifle bullet didn’t just dent the barrel of this pistol, it punched straight through it.
May 072011
On display at the West Point Museum are a number of experimental World War One era helmets by a number of nations, including the US. World War One was a turning point in a lot of areas, not least of which being the return of effective body armor.
As firearms development made plate armor less and less effective on the battlefield, military planners simply gave up on the whole concept. Armor capable of stopping a bullet was so heavy that a soldier encumbered with it would be virtually immobile, so armor vanished and was replaced with… well, not much. The British famously gave their soldiers red coats, so that when they were inevitably shot (red is a bad color to wear as camouflage pretty much *anywhere*), the blood would not be obvious.
But by the time WWI rolled around, a whole lot of soldiers were dying due to head wounds from shrapnel. Thus the need for helmets became blisteringly obvious. The Germans produced their famous design, which survives to this day in general outline. The Brits produced their shallow “war hat” design… terrible for protection from the side, but effective from above. The United States put no helmet of its own into production until the M1 steel pot of WWII.
However, while the US did not field it own helmets in any quantity, it did nevertheless test a number of designs. One such helmet is the Model 8 Helmet shown below. It had a steel pot design much like that which would come along more than two decades later… and an armored face mask which would provide a measure of protection from the front. The Ford Motor Company manufactured a surprising 1,300 of these helmets, designed by curator of arms and armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, based on medieval helmet design. They apparently worked, but they messed with vision due to the narrow eyeslits.
More photos of Model 8 helmets can be seen HERE.
The concept certainly has flaws (vision and breathing, for example), but I’d be very interested in seeing a modern version. Made out of modern composites, with polycarbonate lenses over improved eyeslits, such a helmet would provide additional protection. Plus… properly painted, they could give soldiers a terrifying visage. Imagine if a helmet like this was the last thing Osama Bin Laden saw.
May 052011
You are guarding/working with/working for just about the most hated, most hunted man on the planet. So why would you arm yourself with a cheap plastic squirtgun when the baddest of SEAL Team Six badasses come a-knockin’?
WHY WOULDN’T YOU???
Osama bin Laden compound in Abbottabad – in pictures
Note for the squeamish: blood ‘n stuff.
May 022011
A photo found at the Watervliet Arsenal museum shows the XM28 120mm recoilless gun with a warhead attached. Note, however, that while the XM28 is pretty much what was actually put into production and fielded, the warhead is entirely different to the actual M388 warhead. The actual warhead was somewhat football-shaped, while this is a simple finned cone/cylinder. The question thus is whether this was a preliminary design for the warhead, or instead was it simply a more or less random shape meant to stand in for the actual warhead. Work on the Davy Crockett at Watervliet focussed on the recoilless gun launching systems, not on the warhead (a LLNL product), and thus early on Watervliet may not have had access to a warhead or dummy warhead… and they may not have even been clued in on just what it looked like. If Watervliets staff did not know what the warhead looked like (they would not have had a Need To Know in order to work on the guns), they might have simply guessed in order to set up a display.
Apr 292011
The “Falcon” logo on the Falcon missile on display at the Virginia Air & Space Center.
Apr 272011
One of the primary goals of this expedition has been to obtain information for a potential book on the XM-28 and XM-29 Davy Crockett atomic weapons systems. And while there have been a few disappointments, on the whole it has been fantastically successful, both in terms of getting actual stuff, and in terms of getting contacts to get more stuff.
Got: Photos of the Davy Crocketts on display at the West Point museum (New York):
Got: Photos of three Davy Crocketts on display at the Watervliet Arsenal museum (New York):
Got: Photos of the Davy Crockett on display at the Infantry Museum at Fort Benning (Georgia):
Got: Two different PDF files of a Davy Crockett Field Manual (“meh” image quality)
Got: Photocopies of most of a Davy Crockett Technical Manual (“really good” image quality)
Got: contacts with the possibility of detailed construction and layout drawings of the recoilless guns
Got: a heads up on a Technical Manual that deals specifically with the ammunition (including M388 atomic warhead) for the Davy Crockett system. More research required. Anyone know of a *complete* collection of Army TM’s? This one might, and might not, be classified.
Didn’t get: Photos of the Davy Crockett at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds museum. Guess what museum CLOSED FOREVER in September of 2010? So all I have on that are photos I took with a lesser camera in 2008.
Didn’t get: photos of *both* Davy Crocketts at the Fort Benning infantry Museum. The museum transferred all their stuff to a whole new building in 2009, and one of the Davy’s is in long-term storage. So all I have on that is a single photo I found online showing the previous setup. If anyone might’ve taken decent photos of the two of ’em prior to the move, please contact me.
BONUS Didn’t Get: good clear and unobstructed flash photos of the Fort Benning Davy Crockett, since flash photography is forbidden (!) and there are irritatingly placed signs in the way. I got a few flash photos when a docent said I could; then a security guard came along and over-rode her. Shrug.
Didn’t get: photos of the Davy Crocket on display at the Don F. Pratt Museum at Fort Campbell, Tennessee. If anyone is in the area and willing to take photos, please contact me. Willing to offer $$$.
STILL TO GET: photos of the practice Davy Crockett round on display at the National Museum of Atomic Science & History in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This will be a separate expedition at a later date, and will also obtain photos of the related SADM “nuclear backpack” bomb.
Unlikely to get: photos of the Davy Crockett on display at the Air Force Space & Missile Museum, Cap Canaveral, Florida; on display at the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada. If anyone is in the area and willing to take photos, please contact me. Willing to offer $$$.
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The idea of a book on the Davy Crockett has grown from a small, crappy and ill-conceived idea at the end of last year, to now looking like something pretty substantial. It is not my top publishing priority… Orion comes first. But this opportunity to scope out research for the DC book could not be sanely passed up. Of course, everywhere I go, when I talk to people about wanting to write this book, the response has been a pretty uniform “… uh, why?” Hell, damn near nobody has even *heard* of the Davy Crockett, much less are people clamoring to find out more. But for me, that’s prit near reason enough. Maybe I’d sell more books about the P-51 Mustang, saying the same thing that others have said in a thousands prior books, and showing the same nice photos that have appeared a thousand times before… but who’s ever seen *anything* on the Davy Crockett? I mean, come on… who wouldn’t want to read about an M-113 loaded with six nuclear weapons, or an atom bomb launched off a jeep and controlled by clockwork?
Apr 262011
On April 23, I toured the USS North Carolina (BB-55), a battleship moored at the port of Wilmington, North Carolina. As is my wont, I took a bunch of photos… a good percent of which are kinda crummy. But some turned out fairly well. Below are some shots related to the 16-inch gun turrets. More later (including panoramas) if there is interest.
These photos are higher-rez than what I usually post. I’m checking out the new “theme,” and if I can get the whole “blatant advertising project” underway, then future photos will be presented in a manner similar to this.
More photos below…