Having grown up less than ten miles from the airport and attending school in Oromocto, I remember very clearly those old girls. Seeing them fly overhead transported one to another time and place. It was weird though, seeing them almost everyday, driving by the airport, no one really thought about their relevance or their history. I was sad to hear the NB government stopped using them as spray planes. I think they are in a better place now though.
Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
- Start date
Having grown up less than ten miles from the airport and attending school in Oromocto, I remember very clearly those old girls. Seeing them fly overhead transported one to another time and place. It was weird though, seeing them almost everyday, driving by the airport, no one really thought about their relevance or their history. I was sad to hear the NB government stopped using them as spray planes. I think they are in a better place now though.
Neat video clip! I see a 2011 militia-type long-range rifle shoot. The guy the camera was focussing on was using one of their SIG military rifles - in 7.5x55mm Swiss judging from the recoil, so perhaps an Stg57? A lot of the others on the line were using various models of Schmidt Rubin.
So, whatever happened to the whole "assault rifles aren't useful for hunting or target shooting because they're just lethal sprayers of close-range death" meme? That first shooter with the SIG rifle in semi-auto (or maybe even selective fire) with the 20 or 30 round mag was pumping off rounds at the high rate of about 4 a minute ...
Yes, stgw 57 nearest the camera. It's a "field shoot", meaning not at a dedicated full time shooting range, under military shooting rules, with no rest, at 250-260m distance targets. This area has held this annual historic shoot since 1862. Their view all their rifles rather differently than the liberal minded zombies do.
If your German is rusty, just copy the address into google translator.
http://www.ruetlischiessen.ch/ch/
If your German is rusty, just copy the address into google translator.
http://www.ruetlischiessen.ch/ch/
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I had an apartment right across the road from the service hanger at the airport 90-91 . when they run up the engines the noise was insane.
I was fortunate enough in my forestry career to get to work in close proximity to the B26 water bombers flown by AirSpray (I think) in Alberta.
Unfortunately they had a fire in a hanger in Red Deer and a lot of their spare parts got burnt up, so they couldn't keep them flying profitably anymore.
Wonder what ever happened to them all? I'll have to see how many 35mm pictures of B26's I can scrounge up....
Unfortunately they had a fire in a hanger in Red Deer and a lot of their spare parts got burnt up, so they couldn't keep them flying profitably anymore.
Wonder what ever happened to them all? I'll have to see how many 35mm pictures of B26's I can scrounge up....
I was going to mention Airspray operating the A 26 in a water bomber role(the B26 is a different bird). I was told they were sold south. The last one I saw was in pieces at Wetaskawin airport in 2009. Airpray also operated a civilian registered F86 saber, now that is a cool warbird.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Name this tank:
And no, it's not a Panther that someone ran through the dryer by mistake...
And no, it's not a Panther that someone ran through the dryer by mistake...
Pz.Kpfw.II Ausf.L “Luchs”
Otherwise known as a waste of industrial resources. The Germans continued to tinker with innumerable tank designs right up to 1945.
So if the scandal of Allied tank design was inadequate armour and guns, and the use of barely suitable "off the shelf" components, the scandal of German tank design was the usual over-complexity and the waste of resources on developmental blind alleys that bore little relationship to what was actually needed in the field and would actually work there.
Otherwise known as a waste of industrial resources. The Germans continued to tinker with innumerable tank designs right up to 1945.
So if the scandal of Allied tank design was inadequate armour and guns, and the use of barely suitable "off the shelf" components, the scandal of German tank design was the usual over-complexity and the waste of resources on developmental blind alleys that bore little relationship to what was actually needed in the field and would actually work there.
Kampfhamster
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Switzerland
The germans are still really good at that, just look at their new G28 
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
A trait I am very thankful for.
Apparently, they wasted at least a year developing a brand-new semi-auto rifle (the G.41, IIRC) that utilized a gas system working off gas escaping at the muzzle because someone high-up determined that Germans didn't want a system that tapped gas from the bore. Like everyone else used. And had proven workable. Years before.
They wasted time and energy reinventing any number of better, more technically advanced wheels that utilized a lot of strategic materials. As a result you and I can visit London, England without a stamp from an officious Nazi in our passports.
Surprisingly inefficient behaviour coming from Germans...
A trait I am very thankful for.
Apparently, they wasted at least a year developing a brand-new semi-auto rifle (the G.41, IIRC) that utilized a gas system working off gas escaping at the muzzle because someone high-up determined that Germans didn't want a system that tapped gas from the bore. Like everyone else used. And had proven workable. Years before.
They wasted time and energy reinventing any number of better, more technically advanced wheels that utilized a lot of strategic materials. As a result you and I can visit London, England without a stamp from an officious Nazi in our passports.
Surprisingly inefficient behaviour coming from Germans...
This is the danger of assigning a single style of behaviour to a people, while ignoring individuality—an imperial approach.
Interestingly, German industrial capacity was not fully mobilized for armaments production until 1944 with many factories running on a single shift basis before that time. There is also the German penchant for over-engineering things just for the sake of doing so, thus impacting both the volume and cost of production. Albert Speer finally imposed some discipline and focus to their industry, but it came too late. Again, "Der Fuhrer" was often our ally by meddling in these things in the same way that he tried to direct military operations down to a surprisingly low level, often being driven by ideological and political considerations which flew in the face of military realities, like his decision to attack Russia and then his refusal to withdraw from Stalingrad at the opportune time.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Here's a survivor - in Poland, apparently.
[youtube]DAtpeHHResg[/youtube]
[youtube]DAtpeHHResg[/youtube]
Germany remained on a peace-time economy until 1942 IRRC. That is to say, production of civilian market products continued except where it interfered with military contracts. Women were not mobilized as they were in the UK in both world wars, the Nazis felt this would harm their "moral qualities" and interfere with their reproductive duties to the volk.
When that noted (post-war) anti-Nazi Herr Speer wasn't busy with Uncle Adolf planning the new capital of Germania to be built with slave labour (good way to get rid of the Poles and Slavs at the same time), he was probably wringing his hands over the injustice of feeding people 800 calories a day while housing them in concentrations camps. Or maybe he wasn't; I haven't read his "diary" for more than 30 years.
Hitler actually had a high level of knowledge about weapons and sometimes he was right, not the ordnance department of the OKH. For example, Hitler insisted on the long 50mm cannon for the Pz.III when the ordnance people wanted the short 50mm. It was Hitler who had pushed forward Guderian and the other "panzer generals" against the resistance and resentment of the senior officers in OKH. Without him, Germany would have fought a war much like 1914...except that she wouldn't have fought at all. He was right often enough and early enough, that many found it hard to recognize, both in weapons and strategy, when his judgement began to fail. And in that "befehl ist befehl" culture (even today BTW) you don't question too much or too often, if at all.
As for invading Russia, if I were Winston Churchill in 1940/41 I would had my emissaries telling the Nazis that we would love to come to terms if only it could be made obvious that there was no hope of defeating Germany, and of course that was exactly what Hitler wanted to hear, because as he told Galland in 1940, he considered it "the greatest failure of my policy that I have failed to come to an understanding with England". (Galland was bold enough to suggest to Hitler that Germany should be fighting the Bolsheviks rather than the British.) Hitler wanted a free hand on the Continent in exchange for leaving the British Empire intact, even supporting it. All he needed was to be told that if the Soviet Union was destroyed Great Britain would make the agreement he wanted. The British of course were not so stupid as to think that with Nazi Germany in control of the Continent from Spain to Siberia, they would have any hope of survival. There is more to this story, but it is too much like fiction for most people..
You can be sure that all record of what was actually said to the Nazis in 1940/41 has long since vanished up the chimneys of Whitehall. And as someone observed at the time, the British are one of the few nations that actually know how to keep their mouths shut.
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You can be sure that all record of what was actually said to the Nazis in 1940/41 has long since vanished up the chimneys of Whitehall. And as someone observed at the time, the British are one of the few nations that actually know how to keep their mouths shut.
do you think that we will ever hear the "true story" behind the Herman Hess "mission of peace"? I think that one would really throw conventional history on its ear, along with much of the true events of the second world war.
do you think that we will ever hear the "true story" behind the Herman Hess "mission of peace"? I think that one would really throw conventional history on its ear, along with much of the true events of the second world war.
