John Kettler

French56, Thought so myself. Was blown away to see the SU-76Ms, let alone in Beutepanzer role. Had never seen one in any film, so it was a huge gift and treat. Certainly didn't weep seeing real StG44s, either, or the ZIS-3 and all those lovely Panzerfausts, however they did them. Regards, John Kettler

This clip is overflowing with martial goodness: Panzerfausts, StG44s,flare pistol, MG-34, ZIS-3, T-34/85, tankodesantniki ,Su-76M Beutepanzer etc. Especially notable in the clip is what Russian military writing calls aktivnost, or combat activity by the soldiers. Here, it's the Germans exhibiting it, and it's quite the thing to see. The only oops I saw was that the Russians somehow took really early delivery on a small arm. Other than that, this looks like something perfect for a CMRT fight. Commenters took exception to Su-76M Beutepanzer, as did I--until seeing the contents of link. Clip's from "The Adventure of Werner Holt." http://beutepanzer.ru/Beutepanzer/su/su-76m/su-76m.htm Regards, John Kettler

Was doing some research on hangings for war crimes and crimes against humanity and found a good quality video on YT of the hangings in Lansberg, Germany in 1947. Barely did I have the video playing when I looked down and noticed this stunning and first comment on the execution video by Seep Stoxreiter PhD. Wanted to preserve it while I could remember to do so. Quite the read. Video title is MUNICH. [No. ] 191 HANGINGS AT LANSBERG, GERMANY. Wasn't sure whether a link would be acceptable to Mods. "Let me add my thoughts to this video from a different perspective. My father was in the Waffen SS. Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Rank Captain, Tiger tank commander. And in 1944, one of the select few to guard Hitler himself. He was present when Stauffenberg unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Hitler, although he was not in the same room. He knew all of the big wigs, Goering, Himmler et al. He told me a few stories about them, but kept most things to himself. Growing up in Austria in the 50's and 60's I found that most men I met were very unfriendly and bitter people. Had no idea then why. My father never managed to readjust to civilian life and battled to keep a steady job as he was so thoroughly brainwashed by the Nazis (btw, he was tall, blond with blue eyes. The perfect candidate for the SS). And he had very little education before he joined the SS. He was a very arrogant man, looking down on everybody else. He treated me and my brother really bad, taking out his frustration on his kids. Things got so bad that I developed some psychological problem which took me years to overcome. Same with my brother. He is also psychologically damaged, joined the French Foreign Legion for a brief stint before he managed to desert while in Africa! As soon as I finished my Engineering Degree I emigrated to a English speaking country where I was able to shake off my rather sorry childhood and become a very successful Engineer and business owner. Porsche in garage and Helicopter in the hangar. My son and my grand kids don't speak a word of German. When I compare the Austrians/Germans to the people in the English speaking world, and I have traveled extensively there, I always found them very friendly and open minded wherever I went. That is in stark contrast to the bitter and often downright nasty behavior of the people I left behind. That will explain the many nasty things the Nazis and their supporters did. Not only to the 'Enemies' but their own people. Hundreds of thousands of Germans were sent to the extermination camps as well, don't forget that. People with handicaps or genetic disorders were also gassed. Times of course has changed in Europe and the younger generation is more open minded. But there is still a very strong following of the Nazi ideology in the area I grew up. Remember Jorg Haider? Look him up. That's the place I left. Still hankering back to the 'Good Old Times'. So whenever I see one of these war criminals being hanged I have very little sympathy. I had to flee the Nazis myself and that was in 1971!!." Regards, John Kettler

By sheer happenstance I came across a YT video I dare not link to called Top 10 People Getting TRIGGERED. It is extremely NSFW on the language front, but at 9:47 there is a tirade which, were it in a film, would absolutely rate an Academy Award. See what you think and get back to me. I think method actors would lose their minds to act this scene as the outraged person. Regards, John Kettler

absolutmauser, If both flame projectors are feeding from the same pressure vessel at once, then the line pressure must drop, and with it, range. Also, the handheld projector is visible in the lower right corner of the 251/16 pic CMFDR posted. The idea was to be able to flame targets in heavy cover, close terrain (say tightly grouped trees), or BUA w/o exposing the halftrack to do it. The rig was not all that different from the old gas hose and nozzle before all the anti-pollution vapor traps and short hoses became common. Regards, John Kettler

Found, but forgot to best, another one. It's TM 9-1252 Ordnance Maintenance Manual, dated March 1951. It covers no fewer than five separate 40 mm Bofors gun, including dedicated tracked AFV configurations. Grog heaven and includes ammo types and ranges. https://maritime.org/doc/boforstm/index.htm Regards, John Kettler

absolutmauser, Thanks for the info! Regards, John Kettler

The skinny on US flamethrowers, man-portable and AFV-mounted, including the special POA types, is in the Army Green series ORDNANCE Corps: Beachhead to Battlefront. It also discusses German and other flamethrowers to a fair degree, but I don't recall there being much on the plethora of AFV-mounted ones. If the Germans simply moved their existing flamethrower to an AFV, there's no way it could compete with the Crocodile's five huge compressed air tanks in the armored trailer alongside the fuel. Based on something I just saw online, max flamethrower range is obtained by the right balance among pressure, fuel and nozzle size. Regards, John Kettler

Wasn't sure what I was getting into, and when I saw it was an hour-long presentation, I backed off temporarily, but I happened to notice this brilliant, pithy and acerbic summary of the German situation. "News from western front my fuhrer we have captured France and defeated combined forces of Anglo French in 20 days News from Eastern front my fuhrer we have captured 1 room of 3 bedroom house in 30 days with cost of 2000 death soldiers." Also, I discovered from the More Videos there is at least one more of these. It covers the Commissar's House. Regards, John Kettler

Andy, Can't tell whether or not you're being tongue in cheek, since I'm awful at emojis, so shall answer presuming you're serious. I think Azov is an appropriate unit to cover, certainly as much as the Separatists are, and I had zero control over what some person chose for music to the video. My preference for videos of such events, weapons firing, aircraft in flight, etc., is that they have no music, and, if possible, no VO, either. Without the, cough, gilding, a video is much more useful. Regards, John Kettler

Found this while rambling around Tumblr. Have no idea what's being said in the music (do understand the band name, though), but there are lots of segments showing uniforms, body armor, what look like COTS pickups, individual weapons, AFVs, trucks, insignia and such. On a separate note, the other night NBC News, for reasons I don't quite fathom (is it heating up again?), did a segment of the ongoing war in Ukraine, which it called "forgotten.". The reporter went to the Ukrainian forward entrenchments, noted the similarity of the situation to WW I and was informed there was an active sniper only 300 meters away! His hosts flatly informed him the Separatists were Russian officered, Russian armed and Russian supplied. Regards, John Kettler

Believe guys owe some other guys a lot of beer! What say you? Regards, John Kettler

How flight line ordnance mishaps occur. All right, it's obviously a stunt, for those are WW II era 250 lb bombs (really, casings), and we use nothing like them today on our planes. Regards, John Kettler

Cerberus seems to have lost a head. After this, they howled Kumbayah to celebrate their bond. Got both from a Tumblr series on weird things huskies do. And from my occasional sign finds... Told you not to pet the kitty! Regards, John Kettler

This is a first for me, and it's gorgeous. Am no astrologer, but this is definitely an astrological device, and I believe it's a calendar which shows what's where and when so that horoscopes may be generated. Looks like it's in Praha or somewhere in that general region. This, on the other hand, would've freaked me out had I seen it when a little boy! Four days accumulation of freezing rain have brought down the mighty metal giants near Montreal in Boucherville, Canada, January 9, 1998. Image Credit: Photo by Robert Laberge, via archives Regards, John Kettler

Finished Zagorski's The Nazi Hunters but wound up taking an unexpected detour from the above Stalingrad or Prokhorovka options via Charles Boardman Hawes's The Dark Frigate. Despite its having won the Newberry Medal in 1924 and been deeply researched, I didn't find it anywhere nearly as gripping and engaging as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. The reasons may be the story, that it was written in what was then called Great Britain and appealed to those sensibilities, my ability to properly take in what I was reading (oft marginal, sadly), or some combination of those. Though supposedly a children's book, I did not find The Dark Frigate so. Still, it was a worthwhile and informative interlude before returning to that decision fork I mentioned. I ultimately plumped forJason Mark's Island of Fire which I'd forgotten I had ordered, but not received, when I made my January 17th post. It beat out Valeriy Zamulin's Demolishing the Myth by the virtue of having type at least double in size and tons more white space, greatly facilitating my ability to read at a time when my eyes are a bit rheumy, making it hard to see small closely spaced type. Am blown away by Island of Fire and hope my brain comes out of Low soon so my pace doesn't match the Barrikady Gun Factory German experience! As it is, I've managed 16 glorious pages since yesterday. Not much, but there's so much to take in on even a single page. Mord, Have seen a whopping one episode of GoT and read none of the books, but my understanding is that lots of adult scenes were in the show that weren't in the books; that this was done to put eyes on the show. True or false? Regards, John Kettler

Got a heads up from one of my tabletop gaming colleagues about a phenomenal index to some 5000 and increasing wargame articles from a bunch of different magazines covering the hobby. Regards, John Kettler

Michael Emrys, No, but the VO specifically said it was to keep rain out of the barrel. Erwin, NO such reason was mentioned. Below please see a wholly new to me main gun F-Kill pic, on a Tiger 1, no less. It's quite clear, from the nature of the damage, that this was caused by a projectile through and through which so overstressed the cannon barrel that part of it sheared clean off. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2230376720616235&set=gm.2241339692748888&type=3&eid=ARCTgUNbyhaIaIgyOYCgu82A25znzeLy58IzqXQn-ERgDsn-RNXWtWlBft6CsHxjmyNWlui0to8rkWBo&ifg=1 Regards, John Kettler

Here is a truly bizarre and remarkable business which provides real value to society, too. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/12/18/the-csi-of-dog-poop-pooprints-makes-7-million-a-year.html Regards, John Kettler

How to be en pointe without taking years of ballet lessons! Regards, John Kettler

Wicky, That's quite the collection you've got there, with the guy on the Segway being the weirdest by far. A more bizarre collection of wildly disparate elements, be it the man or the story, would be difficult to imagine. Also, always thought Druids were confined to Britain and immediate surrounds on that side of the Channel. Andy, Thanks for IDing the Segway mounted assault force. Michael Emrys, Definitely not an IS-2. The tank portion of Wicky's montage shows a turret without the distinctive armored lip atop and extending from the roof armor and over the mantlet proper. Concur with Andy and believe it's a T-34/85, a conclusion reinforced by the distinctive shape and left side position of the Driver-Mechanic's hatch. Image Credit: 1945 Russian wartime photo via Tanks Encyclopedia.com Regards, John Kettler

Ref above pic, find the backdrop, a big photo of what looks to me to be an airliner fuselage for plane storming, training to be of interest. Am of the opinion, these guys are Spec Ops of some sort, but not necessarily military per se. Regards, John Kettler

This looks like something the Monty Python boys would've come up with, had they the tech. Anyone recognize these guys? Regards, John Kettler

Transcripts of what JFK said ref tying Jupiter missile removals from Turkey to getting Russian MRBMs out of Cuba were released in 1987 and discussed in WaPo at link. He did link the one to the other, but his advisers explicitly asked him not to do so. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/10/22/transcript-confirms-kennedy-linked-removal-of-missiles-in-cuba-turkey/1596db24-709f-453d-87df-dede2e19b17c/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.87017613ee96 Regards, John Kettler

Note how few rounds are with the tube (believe six in toto) assigned to the attacking infantry company, and any discussion of further ammo supplies was lost because the film and resulting video ended prematurely. Given all the mortar firing footage I've seen, found it odd that the CW types replaced the muzzle cover after every single shot, since I'd never seen that happen before, including, am pretty sure, for the highly limited footage I've seen of this mortar type in action. Regards, John Kettler