Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
- Start date
A Fairey Barracuda. In the background, HMS Spurious:
Wow thought I kinda new WW2 British fighters... Guess not.
Famous Swordfish, Firefly even the later Gannet. But never heard of a Barracuda.
Ugly isn't it.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Military themes, Ed. While that's an impressive amount of snow, it's a titch off topic. 
But if we're talking "snow fights", well there's always the Ostfront.
The Battle of the Bulge was about six weeks long. The Yanks (and Germans) experienced some substantial cold, limited supplies, inadequate uniforms (at least on the US side) and life in close proximity to the enemy. Six weeks. And they consider it legendary hardship.
Karl here finds that funny.
Hans less so.
Months of conditions substantially worse than what the Bulge saw, and four entire winters. The suck was constant for the guys on der Ostfront. Few of us have been as cold and miserable as those poor bastards, sent to a vast unwelcoming land, beset by angry, strongly motivated people like these lads:
Crappy gig all around for everyone involved.
But if we're talking "snow fights", well there's always the Ostfront.
The Battle of the Bulge was about six weeks long. The Yanks (and Germans) experienced some substantial cold, limited supplies, inadequate uniforms (at least on the US side) and life in close proximity to the enemy. Six weeks. And they consider it legendary hardship.
Karl here finds that funny.
Hans less so.
Months of conditions substantially worse than what the Bulge saw, and four entire winters. The suck was constant for the guys on der Ostfront. Few of us have been as cold and miserable as those poor bastards, sent to a vast unwelcoming land, beset by angry, strongly motivated people like these lads:
Crappy gig all around for everyone involved.
Yeah, as I've mentioned before ....
my late German FIL was a Panzer Grenadier who got out of Stalingrad before the complete encirclement. He was captured by partisans and turned over to a Red Army unit who put him on the next train to Siberia. He came back home in 1951, a bitter and broken man.
My two winters at CFB Churchill convinced me that hell is not hot - it's cold!
my late German FIL was a Panzer Grenadier who got out of Stalingrad before the complete encirclement. He was captured by partisans and turned over to a Red Army unit who put him on the next train to Siberia. He came back home in 1951, a bitter and broken man.
My two winters at CFB Churchill convinced me that hell is not hot - it's cold!
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Next time you go sledding or cross country skiing on club trails without paying...think again.
New security guys will get you.
Click on the pic.
Outtake from the lost Bond film, 1989's "Potatoes Are Forever".
Sorry, not a pic but relevant to winter warfare. This is stolen from reddit and a worthy read. It's the story of a US Marine's experience with winter combat in Norway.
In the U.S. Marines, doing a mock war in the Norwegian city of Trondheim with the Dutch, Germans and other allies, training in urban combat. My infantry unit was positioned in a large soccer field next to an elementary school. Keep in mind there was no actual combat, even simulated; it was mostly just practicing maneuvers and tactics. But we still looked out of place with weapons and gear, etc. It's ####ing February. In Norway. Cold as balls. Snow up to our knees. Norway obviously has no snow days, so the kids were all in school.
Anyway, so Norway has this most delicious and amazing delicacy, I have no idea what it's called, but it's basically a bacon-wrapped hot dog; we just assumed it was called Candy of the Lord. As Americans we were naturally and instantly addicted. You find them at gas stations, and there just happened to be one on the other side of the school where we were camped. A few of my fellow Marines and I requested permission to go to the gas station and we set out on our way.
We made it to right about where the main entrance of the school was, and the doors opened; school was out. There were only a few kids, probably 6 or 7 years old. Lots of talking and laughing. Gawking at us as we walked by, with our guns and huge ridiculous snow suits. One precocious little bugger made shooting noises at us. We made shooting noises back.
And then someone in my group. I don't know who. God help me I don't know who...
Someone threw a snowball and hit a little girl in the leg.
And those little Norwegian children unleashed hell.
There was a shrill cry in unintelligible Norseman and the doors to the school burst open. School children flooded out like a never-ending flood of something that never ends. Screeching, smiling, sprinting - how the #### were they sprinting?? - little bastards were slinging snowballs faster than the laws of physics should allow. It was like that movie Elf. If you can imagine riding in a fast car in a snowstorm and sticking your head out the window. Now imagine the snowflakes that are hitting your face are the size of snowballs. We couldn't ####ing see. We couldn't run. We could barely breathe. Holy ####....
We tried to return fire and threw one, maybe two half-packed, ####ty snowballs that fell apart in the air, arms flailing like drunk octopi. I am from Texas. We were a unit stationed in North Carolina. We were so outmatched and out of our element, it only made them laugh harder. We were cutoff from our main forces. We tried to perform a flanking maneuver but #### me they were fast. I think some of them were throwing rocks!
My comrades. I could see them speed waddling in their huge suits back to camp like a ####ed up pair of white Teletubbies, under withering fire. #### tactics, #### me, #### the Candy of the Lord, this was survival! I was the slow one in the group. My snowboots were too big but they were the smallest size they had at Issue goddammit!! My Marines left me behind.
I tried pulling my hood over my head and keeping my head down. No longer content to pelt my defenseless body with ballistic snow, the enemy swarmed me and dragged me down, cackling like a pack of hyenas descending on a wildebeest. I tried to sling them off by spinning. I came out of one of my boots and fell. I began to scream and plead for them to stop but they neither understood nor gave a single Nordic ####. They literally pinned me down with about five kids on each limb. It was then that I actually thought - oh ####. I'm really in trouble. My snow-mittens were ripped off and flung into trees. They started shoving snow down my suit. Have you ever had anyone drop an ice cube down your shirt?
Well now imagine someone shoveling handfuls of ice cubes down your shirt. It literally shocked the breath out of my body. Thisishowidie.jpg.gif
They left me laying like a Family Guy accident victim. Moaning and screaming in the cold. Rifle packed with snow and dirt. Boot buried some-####ing-where. They ran away laughing, jabbering in their crazy language. I lay there trying to figure out just what in the great American #### had happened.
Edit: Unrelated winter warfare picture.
In the U.S. Marines, doing a mock war in the Norwegian city of Trondheim with the Dutch, Germans and other allies, training in urban combat. My infantry unit was positioned in a large soccer field next to an elementary school. Keep in mind there was no actual combat, even simulated; it was mostly just practicing maneuvers and tactics. But we still looked out of place with weapons and gear, etc. It's ####ing February. In Norway. Cold as balls. Snow up to our knees. Norway obviously has no snow days, so the kids were all in school.
Anyway, so Norway has this most delicious and amazing delicacy, I have no idea what it's called, but it's basically a bacon-wrapped hot dog; we just assumed it was called Candy of the Lord. As Americans we were naturally and instantly addicted. You find them at gas stations, and there just happened to be one on the other side of the school where we were camped. A few of my fellow Marines and I requested permission to go to the gas station and we set out on our way.
We made it to right about where the main entrance of the school was, and the doors opened; school was out. There were only a few kids, probably 6 or 7 years old. Lots of talking and laughing. Gawking at us as we walked by, with our guns and huge ridiculous snow suits. One precocious little bugger made shooting noises at us. We made shooting noises back.
And then someone in my group. I don't know who. God help me I don't know who...
Someone threw a snowball and hit a little girl in the leg.
And those little Norwegian children unleashed hell.
There was a shrill cry in unintelligible Norseman and the doors to the school burst open. School children flooded out like a never-ending flood of something that never ends. Screeching, smiling, sprinting - how the #### were they sprinting?? - little bastards were slinging snowballs faster than the laws of physics should allow. It was like that movie Elf. If you can imagine riding in a fast car in a snowstorm and sticking your head out the window. Now imagine the snowflakes that are hitting your face are the size of snowballs. We couldn't ####ing see. We couldn't run. We could barely breathe. Holy ####....
We tried to return fire and threw one, maybe two half-packed, ####ty snowballs that fell apart in the air, arms flailing like drunk octopi. I am from Texas. We were a unit stationed in North Carolina. We were so outmatched and out of our element, it only made them laugh harder. We were cutoff from our main forces. We tried to perform a flanking maneuver but #### me they were fast. I think some of them were throwing rocks!
My comrades. I could see them speed waddling in their huge suits back to camp like a ####ed up pair of white Teletubbies, under withering fire. #### tactics, #### me, #### the Candy of the Lord, this was survival! I was the slow one in the group. My snowboots were too big but they were the smallest size they had at Issue goddammit!! My Marines left me behind.
I tried pulling my hood over my head and keeping my head down. No longer content to pelt my defenseless body with ballistic snow, the enemy swarmed me and dragged me down, cackling like a pack of hyenas descending on a wildebeest. I tried to sling them off by spinning. I came out of one of my boots and fell. I began to scream and plead for them to stop but they neither understood nor gave a single Nordic ####. They literally pinned me down with about five kids on each limb. It was then that I actually thought - oh ####. I'm really in trouble. My snow-mittens were ripped off and flung into trees. They started shoving snow down my suit. Have you ever had anyone drop an ice cube down your shirt?
Well now imagine someone shoveling handfuls of ice cubes down your shirt. It literally shocked the breath out of my body. Thisishowidie.jpg.gif
They left me laying like a Family Guy accident victim. Moaning and screaming in the cold. Rifle packed with snow and dirt. Boot buried some-####ing-where. They ran away laughing, jabbering in their crazy language. I lay there trying to figure out just what in the great American #### had happened.
Edit: Unrelated winter warfare picture.
Donny Fenn1
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- East Kootenays
Attachments
Bubba Yugga
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Midwestern Ontario
Does it chew its mate's head off when copulating?
I knew that the RCMP had a Pilatus -- saw it frequently at Buttonville... I never knew they had a Piaggio - wish I had seen it..
on another note: A 2003 Piaggio Avanti P180 was auctioned off earlier this year on a government of Canada surplus website. It was bought by the RCMP under former commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli for more than $8 million, but sold for $1.3 million. (gcsurplus.ca)
Do you suppose Zaccardelli is an Italian name?
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