Picture of the day

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A Swiss Army Panzer 68 hull being heat treated in an oil bath, at an Eidgenoessische Konstruktionswerkstaette facility in Thun, Switzerland, 1977.

That seems bad for the climate.:rolleyes:
 
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A Swiss Army Panzer 68 hull being heat treated in an oil bath, at an Eidgenoessische Konstruktionswerkstaette facility in Thun, Switzerland, 1977.

It appears that they heat up four of them at the same time. I wonder if they do that many per day?

Whatever, that's incredible.

My last full time job was at a factory that made commercial glass bottles at 4200 dozen per hour on multiple individual section machines. The furnaces held 450 tons of molten glass and the factory went through as much natural gas every day as the entire Metropolitan New York City residential areas used in a year.

We used electric rods in the corners of the furnaces to keep the unmixed glass from pooling and creating weakness.

I don't see any gas lines so they must be induction heating those frames. The energy bill would be horrendous.
 
Making tools of war is an expensive business. Thankfully, governments always seem ready to pay however much of the people's tax dollars to cover the costs. "War is a racket" said Smedley Butler, and one can't help but see some truth in that.

Anyhoo, imagine dropping into Occupied Europe aboard a glider. Took balls, that did.

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Gotta say, though - the Hotspur was a pretty bird.
 
Making tools of war is an expensive business. Thankfully, governments always seem ready to pay however much of the people's tax dollars to cover the costs. "War is a racket" said Smedley Butler, and one can't help but see some truth in that.

Anyhoo, imagine dropping into Occupied Europe aboard a glider. Took balls, that did.

26351032168_dae467e7b5_b.jpg


Gotta say, though - the Hotspur was a pretty bird.

Thanks for mentioning the Hotspur, I hadn’t heard of them before. It appears they were relegated to training duties for glider crews and that would have been very useful.

My old skydiving buddy, Pete Spencer was a paratrooper in WWII and I was aware that he jumped in on D-day, I can’t remember asking him what was his ride, glider or powered.

Some Hotspur info in the following link. I don’t think any made it to Canada though.

https://www.silverhawkauthor.com/post/canadian-warplanes-9-genera-aircraft-hotspur-glider
 
Making tools of war is an expensive business. Thankfully, governments always seem ready to pay however much of the people's tax dollars to cover the costs. "War is a racket" said Smedley Butler, and one can't help but see some truth in that.

Anyhoo, imagine dropping into Occupied Europe aboard a glider. Took balls, that did.

Gotta say, though - the Hotspur was a pretty bird.

Interesting that the AB unit had a mix of SMLE No.1 Mk.III and No.4 MK.I Rifles when the photos were taken.
 
On the hunt for company in Mavinga


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"Ricardo J. Alves
The so isolated MAVINGA municipality in the province of k.k. very few know it today. Few dare to take the Cuito canal route MAVINGA."
 
Anyhoo, imagine dropping into Occupied Europe aboard a glider. Took balls, that did.

Recovering them for re-use after the fact wasn't for the faint of heart either:

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There were entire specialist teams who would assess whether the glider was re-usable, reposition the glider in the field facing in an appropriate direction, set up a snatch line, and pat a glider pilot on the shoulder and wish him best of luck. The pilot then just had to sit tight and wait for a Dakota to come along and snatch the cable with a tow hook hanging out of the back of the plane and hope everything worked well enough to get the glider back to Merry Old - where it would get a quick once over before being re-used.

Absolutely nothing dodgy about the whole setup. Can't imagine anything going wrong.

Depending on the operation, anywhere from 1/3 to 3/4 of the gliders would be re-usable, which is quite remarkable given the places they were sent.
 

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On the hunt for company in Mavinga


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"Ricardo J. Alves
The so isolated MAVINGA municipality in the province of k.k. very few know it today. Few dare to take the Cuito canal route MAVINGA."

The Mbunda living in the area are renowned for their ferocity when riled up. I'm willing to bet not much has changed there.

It was a treachorous posting at best for those sent there.

If memory serves, the area was heavily mined with all types, from thousands of small, loose anti personnel to anti tank.

I doubt much effort was put into cleaning up those mines, other than on the main roads in and out.
 
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"Berliet tramagal gbc engine was a stunner For starters, it worked on several types of fuel: for example, stories of trucks that, in the lack of diesel or gasoline, end up running on motor oil, glitter and even cod liver oil. Antonio Duarte values that on a war vehicle. “In the lack of refueling, we could ride a few miles with only some power loss. Fortunately, we have never needed it. "
 
Akaflieg Berlin B9:

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Experimental prototype plane that first flew in mid/late 1943. "Akaflieg Berlin" is a Berlin glider and engineering club that exists to this day. They were tasked with designing a prone-piloted aircraft for testing the effects of G forces on a prone pilot. Average people pass out at about 4.5G, trained pilots can handle 6G for a short period (it takes practice to get there). G forces were the bane of the Stuka pilot - the planes could handle a higher G load than the human body is capable of. Testing of the B9 showed that with the pilot in the prone position, pilots could withstand an 8G dive pullout with no adverse effects. However by the time they figured this out, it was late 1944/early 1945, and the program collapsed under the increasing chaos of the general situation in Germany.
 
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Interior of the barrel shop at the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) factory in Smallheath. Workers are finishing gun barrels. The BSA factory was founded in 1861. This photograph, taken for Waring & Gillow Ltd, shows rifle barrels or possibly barrels for Lewis guns, a light machine gun used both on the battlefield and on aircraft. 1916.
Credit to, copyright: https://machinistlife.tumblr.com/…/interior-of-the-barrel-s…
 
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