Bring The HEAT

The Big Guy Does Good Work

URR here.  Yesterday evening was probably the prettiest of the summer.  Cooler, less humid, with a wonderful breeze carrying the mid-summer scent of all of the wildflowers in bloom.  A perfect night for tooling around in the old Buick, just out of the shop with a rebuilt carburetor.   In the western sky, a work of art that makes every last effort of man to imitate but a drab pastiche of the beauty from His hand.  So I stopped, pulled over, and took the above, across the pond that feeds the local hydroelectric plant.   (In the bottom image, if you look closely, you can see a very contented duck  swimming along, enjoying the evening air, as well.)  

VR-1355 In a C-17

I’m more used to seeing Intruders and Aardvarks running the low level visual route known as VR-1355.

Airdrop!

No crash and burn this time, but a couple of really interesting camera angles.

Pure Brilliance

URR here.  I maintain that junior Marines are the funniest people on the planet, bar none.  They see the humor in their leaders, in each other, in their situation, in civilians, in everything.  And their talent for imitation and sense of the absurd is positively unmatched.

Behold:

Here's to ya, Marines.  

H/T  USMC Vets

The Ration Review- #1- Survival Kit in a Sardine Can

Don’t screw this up, Mel.

Desmond Doss was a conscientious objector, a Seventh Day Adventist, drafted into the Army during World War II.  The tenets of his faith forbade him from carrying a weapon.

But that didn’t stop him from earning the Medal of Honor for his actions with the 77th Infantry Division during the Battle of Okinawa.

Doss’ actions in that battle, over a sustained period, are some of the most remarkable in the entire war.

And now, Mel Gibson is directing a movie about Doss.

While I’m sure some of the drama is less than wholly historically accurate, Gibson knows how to tell a good tale, and I have high hopes for this movie coming out November 4th.

Oh, BTW, in case you’d forgotten, we’re still bombing ISIS.

#CJTFOIR airstrike destroys #daesh fighters in #Iraq. #defeatdaesh #isis #isil #military pic.twitter.com/zxuLwXNADE

— Inherent Resolve (@CJTFOIR) July 29, 2016

5” Gun for the Royal Navy

At a time when the US Navy is looking to field a light frigate variant of its troubled Littoral Combat Ship, with a main battery of a single 57mm Mk100 automatic gun, our cousins across the pond, the Royal Navy, have decided that their next frigate, the Type 26 Global Combat Ship, will be armed with a 5” gun.

For generations, the primary gun of the Royal Navy has been the 4.5” gun, in various mounts. In contrast, the main US gun has, since well before World War II, been a 5” gun. But the last class of US frigates, the FFG-7 Oliver Hazzard Perry class, dating back to the late 1970s, were armed with a single automatic 3” gun. And as noted, the follow on to the FiGs is armed with a 57mm.

The gun the RN chose for the Type 26 is an American gun, the Mk45 Mod 4. The Mk 45 first entered US service in the mid 1970s on the Spruance class destroyers and the Tarawa class amphibious assault ships. That variant, still in use on a great many ships of the Arleigh Burke class destroyers, had a 54 caliber barrel. That is, the bore (5”) time 54, for a barrel length of 270 inches, or about 22 and a half feet.

The Mod 4 variant of the Mk 45 has a barrel 62 calibers long, for 310 inches, or just shy of 26 feet. That longer barrel gives the gun a significant boost in range, and the more modern gun also has the ability to fire extended range projectiles, and growth potential to fire guided projectiles. It may not be the 16”/50 of an Iowa battleship, but it is a decent weapon.

Mississippi Crop Dusting

An interesting little video.

 

And, per the comments, the pilot is John Walton. I can’t swear to it, but it is certainly plausible. Walton was an interesting fellow. Son of what became the wealthiest family in America, Green Beret, pilot, philanthropist, and flutist.

World of Warships- In game voice chat

Questions? Leave a comment!

Got it figured out? Hit me up to join a division. My handle in the game is XBradTC.