Military in Scale 08 2002

Rotary-wing fans will need no introduction to the AH-64 Apache, the US Army's all-weather attack helicopter. This pugnacious bruiser has been captured to a tee in 1 /48 by Hasegawa. The real aircraft looks simple at first glance, but look closer at the nose-mounted Target Acquisition and Designation Sight, the 30 mm nose gun. the wing stubs, the undercarriage, the rotors, the ordnance, and a different perspective emerges. The Apache is a complicated aircraft and Hasegawa has reproduced this machine with a complicated kit. More than 200 parts go into the mixing pot. but where do they go? Ten parts alone make up the tail rotor, while the main rotor uses up a staggering 20. This all looks a bit daunting, and the instructions do nothing to help They follow quite a logical assembly sequence but the 25 construction stages have been crammed together on the instruction sheet, making an already complex kit look even more frightening.

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Military Parade 11-12 1994

In the late 1960s armies included in their inventories a substantial number
of operational air defense weapons, capable of intercepting high- and medium-flying aircraft rather effectively. This fact, coupled with the adoption of new more sophisticated airborne flight support means, facilitated extensive use of new tactics - air defense penetration at low and extremely low altitudes, using nap-of-the-earth flights, which enabled tactical aircraft to launch surprise attacks and stay in the air defense zone for a short time. During the same period a number of countries adopted fire support helicopters, capable of "jump-up" attacks, where they fired guided missiles with a range of 6 km. This created a new and serious threat for adversaries. Under these circumstances air defense weapons, directly protecting Army units on the battlefield, were required to provide a high firing rate, short reaction time, high maneuverability, mobility and operation on the move.

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Waffen-Arsenal Band 109 - Der Russische Kampffwagen T-34 und seine Abarten

Es stimmt nicht, daß der T-34 - die große Überraschung im Zweiten Weltkrieg für die deutschen Truppen - fast aus dem Nichts entstanden ist. Hier lag nur ein Mangel an Aufklärung vor. Schon die ab 1931 entstandenen BT (Bystro-chodya Tank = Schnelle Panzer )-Serien 1 bis 7 und der schließlich 1936 entwickelte BT-IS (Ispitatelniy = Forscher) zeigten von Beginn an das später auch für den T-34 typische Christie-Laufwerk mit den großen Laufrädern. Seit dem BT-7 waren sie mit dem robusten Dieselmotor ausgerüstet und der BT-IS zeigte als erster die abgeschrägte Panzerung. Alle, auch die zwei Nachfolgemodelle A-20 und A-30, waren noch mit einer 4,5 cm-Kanone ausgerüstet und konnten auch ohne Ketten auf ihren Laufrollen fahren — daher auch die Bezeichnung: Schnelle Panzer. Vieles deutete somit schon auf den T-34 hin. Noch näher kam ihm der auf den A-30 aufbauende T-32 (1939), der zwar nicht in Serie ging, aber als Zwischenentwurf für den darauf folgenden T-34 entscheidend war. Zeigte dieser Entwurf doch bereits die 7,62 cm-Kanone, das fünfte (bisher nur vier) Paar Laufräder, und hatte er sich endlich von dem komplizierten Rad/Kette-System gelöst.

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Waffen-Arsenal Band 68 - Deutsche Spezialpanzer (I)

Neben den Kampfpanzern und Selbstfahrlafetten entwickelten sich nach und nach das Bedürfnis nach kettengetriebenen Hilfsfahrzeugen für die verschiedenen Zwecke innerhalb der gepanzerten Truppenteile, insbesondere für deren Pioniereinheiten. Schon frühzeitig wurde die Entwicklung von derartigen Minenräumern und Brückenlegern vorangetrieben, die jedoch mit Fortschreiten des Krieges und zunehmendem Rohstoffmangel gegenüber den Kampffahrzeugen zunickstehen mußten und deshalb über das Stadium des Baus einer geringen Zahl von Prototypen oder gar nur der Planung und des Reißbrettes nicht hinaus gediehen. Es blieb den West-Alliierren mit ihrem Materialüberfluß vorbehalten, die Effektivität solcher Spezialpanzer. die heute zur selbstverständlichen Ausrüstung der Heere gehören, durch Einsatz in großer Stückzahl unter Beweis zu stellen. Etwas ausdauernder beschäftigte man sich auf deutscher Seite mit dem Problem eines gepanzerten Munitionstransporters, der immerhin noch vor Kriegsende - wenn auch in geringer Stückzahl — zum Einsatz kam. Am umfangreichsten war die Produktion und Verwendung kettengetriebener und ferngesteuerter Sprengladungsträger, die in mehreren Größen und verschiedenen Ausfüllrungen gefertigt wurden, von denen der sogenannte "Goliath" am bekanntesten war. Ihnen ist deshalb auch der Hauptteil dieses Heftes gewidmet, das zum ersten Mal diese Pionierpanzer und Spezialfahrzeuge in zusammenhängender Form behandelt. Mit aufgenommen wurden die Bergepanzer, die vor allem mit dem Einsatz der schweren und kostbaren Kampfpanzer "Tiger" und "Panther" überaus wichtige Requisiten der Instandsetzungseinheiten wurden, leider aber auch nie in ausreichender Stückzahl zur Verfügung standen.

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Kagero Topshots 38 - SU-76

At a time when the Red Army was losing battle after battle, and it cost hundreds of thousands of soldiers' lives to stop the enemy, the Soviet strategists came to a conclusion that an infantry support vehicle was urgently needed. It was to be effective in battles, yet cheap and fast to produce. Thus, it had to be based upon a tank already in production, but not T-34, too important for the military to use their chassis for the production of the self-propelled gun. The T-70 light tank was chosen, as it was loosing ground to the more and more powerful German vehicles, and could be used for reconnaissance only The 76.2 mm gun, similar to those used in the T-34, placed on the T-70 chassis would make a vehicle with medium tank's fire power and light tank's mobility. And at the same time significantly less expensive and faster in production.

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Kagero Topshots 37 - Multiple Gun Motor Carriage M16

The Americans commenced the construction of the light antiaircraft gun mounted on the universal half-track carrier in the early 1940. Warfare doctrines ascribed the vehicles of this type to defending military convoys from air raids. There were two vehicles, the M13 and the M14, designed and accepted into service in 1941 and 1942, both armed with two coupled large-calibre machine guns. In the late autumn of 1942, the next two models were built - the Ml6 and the Ml7 respectively, armed with four large-calibre 12.7mm machine guns. Each gun could fire at a rate of around 400 rounds a minute, which, multiplied by four, provided with a significant firewall against attacking airplanes. Maximum effective ceiling of vertical fire reached 6500 meters. The serial production started at the end of 1942. The vehicles manufactured at White Motor Company in Cleveland were mai'ked Ml6, and identical vehicles from International Harvester Company in Chicago - Ml7. The differences between the two were insignificant. There were 2877 M16 and 100 M17 vehicles manufactured between 1942 and 1944.

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Die Geschuetze, Ortungs- und Feuerleitgeraete der schweren Flak

Im Zweiten Weltkrieg wurden auf deutscher Seite schwere Flugabwehrkanonen (Flak) der Kaliber 8,8 cm, 10,5 cm und 12,8 cm eingesetzt, von denen wohl die 8,8 cm Flak die bekannteste war. Sie erlangte wegen ihrer vielfältigen, erfolgreichen Einsätze sowohl bei den eigenen Truppen als auch beim Gegner einen fast legendären Ruf. Die Anfänge der Entwicklung dieses Geschütztypes reichen zurück bis in den Ersten Weltkrieg. Ballone und erstmals auftretende Kampfflugzeuge wurden außer mit den vorhandenen Schußwaffen — Gewehren, Maschinengewehren, Kanonen, Haubitzen und Mörsern — auch schon mit sog. Ballonabwehrkanonen, kurz «BAK« genannt, bekämpft. Diese Kanonen waren auf eine säulenförmige Lafette, eine sog. Pivot-Lafette, gesetzt, die ein Richten der Höhe nach von —3° bis +85° erlaubte und ein unbegrenztes Seitenrichtfeld hatte. Da die Fluggeschwindigkeiten und Flughöhen der ständig verbesserten Flugzeuge stiegen, mußten auch die ballistischen Leistungen der Abwehrwaffen gesteigert werden. Die Anforderungen an eine Waffe zur Bekämpfung eines Zieles, das sich frei im dreidimensionalen Räume bewegt, mußten größer sein, als sie bei der Erdartillerie gestellt wurden. Während der Flugweg eines Geschosses nach dessen Abfeuern auf ein Flugziel nicht mehr zu beeinflussen war, konnte das Flugzeug in der Zwischenzeit nicht voraussehbare Kurs- und Höhenänderungen vornehmen, so daß es kaum zu einem Volltreffer kommen konnte. Daher wurden neben Schrapnells auch Patronenmunition mit einem Zeitzünder und einer möglichst großen Splitterwirkung verschossen. Die Geschoßflugzeit sollte durch eine hohe Anfangsgeschwindigkeit (Vo) verkürzt und die Geschoßflughöhe vergrößert werden.

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HMS Vanguard 1944-1960 - Britain's Last Battleship

Without doubt HMS Vanguard, with her flared bow, forward sheer, towering superstructure and her raked-topped funnels, was the most handsome battleship ever built for the Royal Navy. In 1939, when plans were first mooted for the construction of this one-off vessel, no one could foresee the demise of the battleship as the Navy's capital ship. Nevertheless, in September 1945 when the Second World War ended, and Vanguard was still languishing in the builder's shipyard, there were those who thought that she was already a white elephant, and that she would prove to be a liability. In the age of nuclear weapons and fast aircraft carriers which would soon be flying off jet aircraft with speeds of over 500 knots and ranges of up to 950 miles, what role could the battleship have? When, in 1946, Vanguard was eventually commissioned she was given a prestige role - that of a "Royal Yacht". It was the illness and subsequent death of King George VI which prevented her from keeping the role in the years that followed. There were even plans that she should carry Sir Winston Churchill across the Atlantic Ocean for a summit meeting with
the President of the United States. There is something rather sad in seeing this leviathan of the sea, the last of the Royal Navy's magnificent battleships, being reduced to carrying VIPs round the world, or acting as a floating saluting platform for state visits to this country of foreign heads of state. The reality of the situation was, however, that the day of the battleship was over and, in the words of a distinguished US Navy Admiral, it was as "dead as the dodo".

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Killing Hope - US Military and CIA Interventions since WWII

For four years, numerous Americans, in high positions and obscure, sullenly harbored the conviction that World War II was "the wrong war against the wrong enemies". Communism, they knew, was the only genuine adversary on America's historical agenda. Was that not why Hitler had been ignored/tolerated/appeased/aided? So that the Nazi war machine would turn East and wipe Bolshevism off the face of the earth once and for all? It was just unfortunate that Adolf turned out to be such a megalomaniac and turned West as well. But that war was over. These Americans were now to have their day in every corner of the world. The ink on the Japanese surrender treaty was hardly dry when the United States began to use the Japanese soldiers still in China alongside American troops in a joint effort against the Chinese communists. (In the Philippines and in Greece, as we shall see, the US did not even wait for the war to end before subordinating the struggle against Japan and Germany to the anti-communist crusade.)

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Discovering the Rommel Murder

Field Marshal General Rommel died as a result of the severe head injuries he sustained in an automobile accident while commander of an army group in the West. The Führer has ordered a state funeral. German radio on 15 October 1944 In Germany and the Allied world this news was accepted at face value. It was known that the dashing "Desert Fox" had been wounded in the Normandy fighting. The Allied press had reported it, and a few days later the German media had confirmed it. Not until six months after Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's death was it known to more than his widow, his son, his aide, and a handful of the political and military hierarchy that Germany's most colorful field commander of World War II had been executed upon the direct order of Adolf Hitler. Not until the details of the execution were revealed by Rommel's widow was there reason to doubt the story of the German press and radio. To match the perversity of this murder one would have to go back five centuries to those committed by Cesare Borgia during his unification of the Papal States.

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Air Pictorial 1957 10

IMPRESSIVE as was the static display of Britain's guided weapons, permitted by security for the first time, at the S.B.A.C. Display, there is an underlying feeling of unease in many quarters. The "missile switch" forecast in the April Defence White Paper was so conclusive, so emphatic—and at first sight so final--that it is scarcely reassuring to have the entire reliance for defence based upon no more than four missiles. True, economies in armament were essential, but to rely upon a single, highly complex, device for each task seems foolhardy in the present state of technology. After all, three V-bombers (plus the Short Sperrin) were required as an "insurance" against failure to live up to estimates—and the troubles of the Swift and Hunter are scarcely yet in limbo. The missile programme has been in being for rather more than ten years, some four hundred companies are said to be involved, while the main projects have been undertaken by large special divisions organised by some of the greatest aircraft companies in this country. Yet not a single operational guided weapon is available for the R.A.F., not even the fighter-borne air-to-air missile which is to precede the more advanced ground-to-air interceptor "fighter replacement". Of the four weapons "in production", the Firestreak is planned to enter service about the end of next year—so, presumably, operational versions of the other three are even further off. Ten years, untold millions of pounds and many thousands of technicians seem a vast effort to achieve such a result. One's disquiet is scarcely allayed by the fate of the Fireflash.

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