What never ceases to amaze me about WW2 is just the size and scope of the forces in play and the number of battles fought. Quite by accident today I stumbled across a reference to Operation Hailstorm. This it seems was a truly devastating strike on a Japanese naval base called Truk. Well worth a read. Link. -
- What is the unknown warrior? As part of Remembrance Services the Queen is to lay a wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey. The Dean of Westminster Abbey, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall explains its significance. Link - Napoleonic sea fort goes on sale A Napoleonic sea fort near the entrance of Portsmouth harbour is expected to fetch as much as £750,000 when it is sold at auction next month. This looks amazing ! I wish I had enough money to buy this :) Link - WWII tank 'blows up' bungalow A 1930s bungalow at the front of the Royal Armouries Museum at Fort Nelson has been spectacularly blown up after being shot at by a World War II Sexton self-propelled gun. Link - Fighting Talk This is a very intersting article about some of the history of Aghanistan. Link -
This is worth checking out... - Underwater robot wars University teams battled it out to become underwater robot champions at an event this week. It was held at Europe's largest freshwater tank in Gosport, Hampshire - a facility normally used by the Ministry of Defence for ship and submarine trials. Link - Five consumer laws you really ought to know (if you live in the UK)To mark National Consumer Week, here are five laws the canny shopper should be using in their battle to get stuff that actually works. There is a war being fought between customers and many of the firms they have to deal with. It is an asymmetric conflict - the little man versus the faceless, bad customer service monoliths. On the little man's side there are only newspaper consumer pages and a rather handy selection of laws. Link -
Broadband Speeds. For those interesting in trying to find out what their broadband speed is (in the UK), both these sites are quite good, although they give different results ! 1. Broadband Watchdog. 2. My Broadband Speed - Top 10: Britain's best underground attractions. Link - Call for debate on killer robots. An international debate is needed on the use of autonomous military robots, a leading academic has said. Link - The Massive Ordnance Penetrator Will Be the Largest Non-Nuclear Bomb Ever. The Pentagon is trying to speed up the deployment of an ultra-large bunker-busting bomb, which would constitute the largest non-nuclear bomb the U.S. Has ever used. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, is a 30,000-pound bomb that would dive deeper than any previous bomb, and could be strapped to B-2 or B-52 bombers by July of 2010. Link -
This is the 100th posting on my blog !! As such I've made it a bigger one than normal to mark the occasion. Hopefully those of you who are regulars to my ramblings will continue to find light entertainment in this and my future postings :) - This is an excuse of course for a spot of Blackadder Bloopers :)
- On the gaming front I've been playing lots of Company Of Heroes on the PC recently. A totally top game, especially when my old friend Andy Rolf drops in for the evening and the two of us take on two computer players in skirmish mode in several games. The last one was a really hard fight which went on longer than we had planned, and ended up with us finishing at 1:45 in the morning. Suffice to say we weren't at our sharpest the following day... :) I've also been busy painting up some more 15mm sci-fi vehicles, and I'm now happy with the results. Hopefully I get a couple of photos taken either today or tomorrow. Talking of favourites here's one I took some years ago of a Chaos Terminator who had somehow got himself involved a game of Space Crusade ! :) - - Warhammer fantasy mark of chaos - Trailer I do enjoy a good film / game trailer, and these two are pretty good :) They make me feel like digging out my 28mm Orc Army and giving the 'boyz' an outing :)
- New Warhammer trailer
- - INTERNET GAME - EUROFIGHTER TYPHOON Check this site out if you want to while away 15 minutes flying the Typhoon, shooting at bad guys :) Link - - THE NEWS & LINKS - Bloodhound diary: speed record. RAF fighter pilot Andy Green intends to get behind the wheel of a car that is capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,609km/h). Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the Bloodhound car will mount an assault on the land speed record. Link - Scott 'to direct Alien prequel'. Director Sir Ridley Scott is to direct a prequel to seminal sci-fi horror film Alien, according to reports. Link. As a massive fan of the Aliens series having Scott involved in another film is great news, - Remains of Gulf War pilot found. The US military has found the remains of the last American still officially missing in action from the Gulf War. Capt Speicher's remains were found in a remote area of western Iraq. Link - Images reveal 'lost' Roman city. Aerial photographs have revealed the streetplan of a lost Roman city called Altinum, which some scholars regard as a forerunner of Venice. Link - Little David - 36 Inch Caliber Mortar. Check out the size of the crater this makes ! Link - Rise of the robot warplanes. The UK Ministry of Defence's London headquarters yesterday, Thursday 30 July 2009, hosted an exhibition of the latest Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) giving military and civilian staff a chance to gather their own intelligence on the future of military aviation. Link - Being Five.Link -
Churchill bunker 'not bomb-proof' Winston Churchill complained he had been "sold a pup" when he discovered his underground wartime headquarters in Whitehall were not bomb-proof. Link - How Poles cracked Nazi Enigma secret. A silk scarf bearing the image of a horse race was a suitably cryptic gift for a Polish mathematician to receive from a British code-breaker. Link
1. Medieval battle records go online. The new website reveals which medieval soldiers rode the furthest The detailed service records of 250,000 medieval soldiers - including archers who served with Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt - have gone online. (Link) - 2. Topic: German Casement Tanks - Leopard 3. Modern arour buffs should find this interesting (Link) -
