Picture of the day

USS Thresher (SSN-593)

uss-thresher-ssn-593.jpg


A US court recently ordered the release of unclassified US Navy documents related to the Thresher disaster, starting on May 15, 2020. Mark your calendars.
 
Tomorrow (13 February) marks the 75th Anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. The raids which sparked a firestorm destroying a large swatch of the city, have become a sort of causes celebres in which folks have tried to equate a (false) moral equivalency between the Allied bombing campaign and war crimes perpetrated by the Nazis.

Interestingly enough, of the five largest cities in Germany during the War; Dresden actually received the lowest tonnage in bombs dropped by quite a margin.

Pn6KOc0.png
 
They (West Germany) poured a great deal of money into former ‘East’ Germany (DDR) after reunification for infrastructure, public services, private sector development, modernization and maintenance. Personally I am surprised they didnt bankrupt themselves.
 
They (West Germany) poured a great deal of money into former ‘East’ Germany (DDR) after reunification for infrastructure, public services, private sector development, modernization and maintenance. Personally I am surprised they didnt bankrupt themselves.

I like to think of the post reunification time as the Second Economic Miracle that Germany had to grind through. The Warsaw Pact was pretty much defunct, Russia was on the ropes and it looked like the doomsday scenario of WWIII was kicked down well the road.
 
I often wonder how long it took the average post-war German to realize that those in West where going to be ok and those in the East were in for some rough (obvious not as bad as the war) times.
 
The Germans tried to integrate former East German troops into the military after unification. It worked with the soldiers and NCOs, but the East German officers had been conditioned to operate in very small boxes, so were generally not taken in.
 
xWwtajd.jpg


German First World War 7.92-mm Maxim Spandau MG 08/15 heavy machine gun being examined by Canadian Motor Machine Gun Brigade Officers, March 1918.

SEWQEmi.jpg


German First World War 7.92-mm Maxim Spandau MG 08 Machinegun assembly, May 1917

zt8eUIK.jpg


German 7.68-cm trench mortars captured by Canadians, Apr 1917.

PK5PHeJ.jpg


German First World War 24-cm Flügelminenwerfer ‘Iko’, Albrecht, captured by Canadians. September, 1917.
 
Last edited:
Wasn't that version of the Maxim with shoulder stock and bipod considered to be a "Light MG" at the time, as opposed to the tripod version?
 
PK5PHeJ.jpg


German First World War 24-cm Flügelminenwerfer ‘Iko’, Albrecht, captured by Canadians. September, 1917.[/QUOTE]

That thing is made of wood, including the wire wrapped barrel.:)

Grizz
 
@ Sharps '74

You are quite right on that.

I have encountered them marked as "le.M.G. '08/'15"

There was also an '08/'18 which was air-cooled all the way....

.... and a heavy MG '08/'16 which seems to have been an experimental which did not work out. It had a pistol-grip a la Browning 1919 but otherwise was a normal Maxim. I saw one in the Pattern Room collection, many years ago, serial number 9, believed to be the only survivor.
 
Back
Top Bottom