Affentitten

Likely even better when nobody is trying to shoot at you, sending you into the Channel in a blazing wreck.

As for letters home, it would be the man's direct officer. Additional letters may have been sent by company level and battalion commanders and the padre too, though I guess this would depend on how often and how many casualties were concerned. Obviously a telegram was the first notice of death. The letters would have followed weeks or months later when time allowed. I guess as time went on they were mainly formulaic but a good officer would drop in one or two little personal points to ensure that connection "He was well know to the platoon for his footballing skills...", "He often spoke fondly of the farm and his desire to get back there after all this is over..." As for their veracity, they were not neccesarily propaganda, but straight reporting of what happened was unlikely to be helpful. "Your son died clutching his shrapnel-ridden entrails after screaming for half a day." wouldn't pass muster.

I always think it took a lot of balls to be stooging away over occupied territory in the only plane in the sky with no weapons. (And yes, I get the speed thing.)

Wiki says: "Despite the weight, recoil is significant, and shooters must be sure to choose components (i.e., scopes and bipods) that can handle the abuse. The sheer size and weight of these weapons makes them impractical for hunting use, as they cannot be carried afield. Thus, they are largely "range queens"—rifles that are brought to the range for a fun time, but not usually used for hunting or other "more practical" uses.... ...In a 110 lb (50 kg) rifle, this will develop well over 200 ft·lbf (270 J) of free recoil energy if an efficient muzzle brake is not used. This is far beyond the shoulder-firing capacity of nearly all humans, even without considering the difficulty of shouldering such a heavy rifle. Shooting is usually heavy "lead sled" or similar shooting rest, and the rifle is not held to the shoulder because of the severe recoil and possible injury. The rifle scope has significant eye relief to avoid injuring the ocular orbit."

Oh I get the "because you can" argument. I was just a bit mystified as to why it was being badged as a "hunting rifle" rather than just a rifle. The thing is, if I had the money I can buy something ridiculous like a Bugatti Veyron, with the knowledge that I was never going to be able to use it to its true capabilities. But I could still drive it to the office. And it would still work as a pussy magnet. But that rifle doesn't even have any use at all except for knocking fat guys backwards off their seat.

Sounds like a giant wank to me.

Um, what's the point? You could never really use it in the field without breaking your shoulder. And anything you shoot would be torn into pulp.

The Whitley, the Ju-86, the Nell, the Vampire...

Also, go to The Australians at War Film Archive and search WW2 and some keywords like "Jamaican". I just found about four or five references to Jamaican aircrew there.

The one specific mention I saw was a book about a Bomber Command crew. They had a couple of West Indian AGs, but I guess you would today call them 'mixed race'. The implication seemed to be that they were somehow 'of the establishment' rather than cane cutters or something. Can't recall the book. Perhaps it might have been The Eighth Passenger by Miles Tripp.

Yes what I have read and seen mainly concerns West Indians in Bomber Command. I recall. It will be a tough research job because I would think that race would not be marked in the records. You'd have to rely on POB, which would not be a given.

US grounds F-35 fighter fleet Not like the American version can fly either. Perhaps the Pentagon just has a more advanced PhotoShop suite.

Aye, but it's a bit like saying horses are cheaper than tanks. So lets go and cash in all our amroured divisions and give them saddles! I'm not saying there's a logical answer...the AT-ATs are eye candy. But the thing that bugs me so much about the Star Wars universe is those ludicrous inconsistencies in the mil-tech. There are hover tanks in Episode 1, but by Episode 5 we're using dumb walkers that are massively tall and heavy (why?). Or the storm troopers who wear armour that patently does no good whatsoever against even the lightest weaponry of their foes.

The thing that always bugged me was that if you've got anti-grav tech, why the frig would you use massive and clumsy quadruped walkers? I mean, nothing is more all terrain than something that can hover over it, right?

Anyone help with an aircraft ID here. These are pics of an airbase that has been over-run by the Syrian rebels, but I am having difficulty working out what the planes are in these shots, based upon what Wiki says is the Syrian Air Force inventory. Most of the stuff on inventory is Sovietm with either dual rudder and/or the boxy air intakes along the fuselage. The T empannage in the al-Jazeera pic is also hard to place. BBC shot al-Jazeera shot

I think it's mainly airframe design and layout. Those medium German bombers were a big wing spar with a cockpit strapped to the front. Being inter-war designs, they were also built with smaller bombs (like the 50kg ones) and smaller ranges in mind. The bigger 250kg bombs they wanted to use in 1940 meant retro-fitting other rack mechanisms. The bomb loads of these guys were really small at that point. Eg. a DO-17 could carry just four 250 kg bombs and that was at a real range penalty. The He-111 could carry bigger bombs externally, but the hardpoints blocked the internal bomb doors, so it was one or the other. The B-17 suffered similarly though from that short but tall bomb bay. Compare to the Lancaster's ability to carry just about any shaped load.

See my post higher up about Heinkel bomb bays.

Here is a similar attempt with Bristol. This one is a bit different because it plots the impacts of a single raid. You can see the stick patterns in some cases, but in general it shows how randomly bombs dispersed once they left the aircraft.

Yep. According to the article, the first base was at................Wow. Out the window...That's cool. Looks like a Panther turret only upside............................................................................................................................................

It's in English. If you really want it, I can email it to you. But it's not particualrly riveting stuff. Mainly just a record of the aerial surveying done on the expedition.

Proof that they really were flying around down there Investigation of the unknown

I wrote it up for my own column too.

Am I not getting something here with your subtle irony? They made a law to ban people being investigated.

The Balck Buck bombing raids on the Falklands, using Vulcans (and Victors for tanking) were carried out with mechanical computers and a 2 quid calculator that one of the pilots had bought from a street market.

You see when I passed through Auckland airport last week I only had eyes for the duty free booze priced in a third world currency.