Posts Tagged ‘World War II’

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Movie Review: Oppenheimer

Monday, August 7th, 2023

Title: Oppenheimer
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird, Martin Sherwin
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Jason Clarke, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Alden Ehrenreich

I finally saw Oppenheimer, and if you have an interest in the subject, it’s well worth seeing. It’s a near-great film that’s great when it covers the atomic bomb project, and considerably less great when It Has Important Things To Say.

The movie covers much of the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), director of the Los Alamos part of the project to build the atomic bomb. The movie has a non-linear format, using the framing device of two different hearings (on the renewal of Oppenheimer’s security clearance, and the cabinet confirmation hearing for Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), who lured Oppenheimer to Princeton and oversaw the Atomic Energy Commission, and who is eventually revealed to be the film’s antagonist) interspersed with Oppenheimer’s life before and during the The Manhattan Project.

When the film is good, it’s flat out great. The scenes here tend to be small in scope, seldom more than a minute long, slowly building up Oppenheimer’s life, his love and study of physics, his dalliance with communism (he was a fellow-traveler who never joined the party, but did take a commie (Florence Pugh) as his first wife and an ex-commie (Emily Blunt) as his second), his dismay as a Jewish American at the rise of Nazism, and his involvement in the atomic bomb effort.

The brevity of the scenes is one of the film’s greatest strengths. Though mostly quiet and understated in themselves, they slowly build up a heady steam of narrative momentum. By the time they get to Los Alamos itself you’re absolutely riveted.

And it gets better. The scenes leading up to the Trinity detonation are a masterpiece of film editing, successfully ratcheting the tension higher and higher just by showing scenes of the elaborate preparations leading up to the blast, under-laid by Ludwig Göransson’s tense, violin-heavy score. I saw the film in IMAX, and I think I got my money’s worth out of that sequence alone.

But that headlong pace enfolds within it a problem: Things move so fast, that some scenes have a certain checkmark quality to them, so that you know exactly what’s coming. Gee, when commie girlfriend picks up a Sanskrit text, what do you want to bet that the passage he’s reading is “I am become death, destroyer of worlds?”

Please, no wagering.

But that’s a minor problem compared to the biggest flaw of Oppenheimer, which is what they chose to include as the main non-Trinity storyline. Why have the climax of your film feature the literal explosion of an atomic bomb when you can spend the rest of it on the pulse-pounding excitement of committee meetings?

To be fair to Nolan, this is obviously the film he wanted to make, and the film is called Oppenheimer rather than The Making of the Atomic Bomb. And the committee meeting scenes are as well-acted, well-directed and well-paced as you could reasonably ask of a big-budget, A-list Hollywood film. But the real reason they’re there is so the leftist screenwriters can Say Important Things.

Oppenheimer must feel massive guilt and remorse for having helped usher in the atomic age, because this is Approved Opinion. Leftists, even commies, must be shown in a positive light, because this is Approved Opinion. Likewise, McCarthyism must be shown to be Very Bad, so all the crimes of communism have to be kept offstage.

Indeed, an awful lot happens off-stage, including the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then again, Oppenheimer is the viewpoint character.

From my better-than-the-average-layman-understanding-at-how-an-atomic-bomb-works-but-hardly-an-expert vantage point, the historical accuracy for the film seems painstaking and effective. I understood why Klaus Fuchs was important when he was introduced, appreciated the Nixie tubes in the Trinity countdown, and figured out the guy with the bongos must have been Richard Feynman. Everything sure as hell looks accurate, and the New Mexico photography is gorgeous.

But with so much time spent on the commie and Strauss plots, and Oppenheimer having visions of particle physics (early) and atomic destruction (late), the rest of the film (the far more interesting part) feels a bit rushed. Plus the sheer smallness of the stakes that drive the frame-story/post-Trinity portion feels like a distinct anticlimax. Indeed, the primary subplot turns out to be (spoilers) Strauss secretly shiving Oppenheimer by getting his security clearance yanked for…his supporting export of radioactive isotopes to Norway? It’s like if during the climax of Kill Bill, you find out that the Bride’s entire motivation for her revenge spree was Bill never returning her DVD of Steel Magnolias.

All that said, this is still an exceptionally good film, and even the ostensibly bad guys Have Their Reasons. Even hydrogen bomb father Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), who the writers must have been tempted to turn into a secondary villain, comes across as a smart, sympathetic figure. And history validates both his and Strauss’ view that America was right to move forward on the H-Bomb, as the Soviets were utterly untrustworthy as arms control treaty partners.

I expect Oscar nominations galore.

If you’re the kind of person that would watch a three hour movie on the making of the atomic bomb, this is the one to watch.

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Posted in Communism, Media Watch, Military | 15 Comments »

Nicholas Moran Rates Realism of Tank Scenes in Movies (Again)

Saturday, July 15th, 2023

Just as he did about a year ago, Nicholas Moran rates the realism of tank scenes in various movies and TV shows.

Good: Band of Brothers.
Bad: Rambo III (“Is he driving or is he gunning?” You can’t do both in any Soviet tank.)

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Posted in Military, video | 5 Comments »

LinkSwarm for June 2, 2023

Friday, June 2nd, 2023

Bit of a short LinkSwarm this time around, as I was focused on putting out a book catalog this week. Plus a lot of damn news from San Francisco.


  • Every Company Leaving California: 2020-2023. All the following have located to Texas:
    • Ruiz Foods
    • Cacique Foods
    • Kelly-Moore Paints
    • Landsea Homes
    • McAfee
    • Boingo Wireless
    • Obagi Cosmeceuticals
    • Chevron
    • Aviatrix
    • Review Wave
    • Tesla
    • NinjaOne
    • AECOM
    • MD7
    • Wiley X
    • Wedgewood LLC
    • Green Dot Corporation
    • Digital Realty
    • Lion Real Estate Group
    • Charles Schwab
    • Oracle
    • Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • CBRE Group
    • O. W. Lee
    • Incora
    • DZS (Dasan Zhone Solutions)
    • QuestionPro

    And those are just the ones with over 100 employees. There are much more with fewer (including Gordon Ramsay North America, which has a chain of restaurants, which has moved its headquarters to Irving, despite having no restaurants in Texas). (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Like so much of the rest of the welfare state, minority contracting is a scam.

    For the past few years, Atlanta has been roiled by corruption scandals centering on the city’s decades-old program to favor minority-owned businesses in government contracting. The troubles started when Elvin “E. R.” Mitchell, Jr., a black contractor, began paying what became more than $1 million in bribes to city official and friend of the mayor Reverend Mitzi Bickers. Mitchell and his associates wanted to ensure that they could keep winning city-favored contracts and subcontracts for minorities, despite submitting bids higher than their competitors’. Mitchell also helped Bickers bribe officials in Jackson, Mississippi, so that she could secure minority-favored contracts on some of that city’s projects. Meantime, Larry Scott, head of Atlanta’s Office of Contract Compliance, which ensures that minority firms win contracts, started a side gig to help such businesses get favorable deals with the city—receiving over $220,000 in unreported income and partnering with the mayor’s brother and sister-in-law in the scheme. Mitchell, Bickers, Scott, and several other city officials have been sentenced on federal charges ranging from bribery to wire fraud.

    Affirmative-action plans in schools or workplaces get the headlines, but the practice of favoring minorities in government contracts is almost as old, and even more far-reaching. Such favoritism—in the form of Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBE), or Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) programs—exists across all levels of government and in states and cities of every political hue.

    The subject of government contracting, or procurement, may not seem exciting, but its importance can’t be overstated. Nearly 10 percent of the U.S. economy goes through government contracts. The federal government spends over $600 billion yearly on contracts, making it the largest buyer of goods and services on the planet. State- and local-government spending on contracts totals about $1.3 trillion annually. Government contracts and purchases range from aircraft carriers and highway construction projects to office supplies and human-resources software. Favoritism to minority-owned companies pervades this vast universe.

    Minority contracting was never a coherent way to make amends for the nation’s long, lamentable history of racism. Instead of righting historical wrongs, the policy has enriched a small subset of already-wealthy businesses, bred corruption and fraud, deepened racial divisions, and cost taxpayers countless billions of dollars—while doing nothing to help the truly disadvantaged. Indeed, minority residents of urban areas pay the highest price for lackluster and expensive services caused by such programs. One underappreciated reason for the unparalleled costs of American urban and infrastructure projects is that the government too often picks contractors based on their sex or race, not the quality or cost of their bids.

    Snip.

    Today, governments use several methods to favor minority contractors. At the federal level, Congress has stated that “not less than 5 percent” of all contracts should go to “disadvantaged” businesses. Regulations clarify a “presumption” that “Black Americans; Hispanic Americans; Native Americans,” and “Asian Americans” are disadvantaged. Government treats the goal as a floor, not a ceiling: in recent years, the true share of contracts going to disadvantaged firms has been around 10 percent, and politicians have urged the bureaucracy to push the total higher. The SBA then sets goals for individual agencies—recently demanding, for example, that the Department of Transportation offer 21 percent of all contracts to disadvantaged enterprises. It also requires that federal “prime contractors” (the lead contractor on a project) create subcontracting plans to maximize minority participation.

    State and local governments set even higher goals for minority procurement but usually focus on encouraging large businesses to subcontract out to minorities. Chicago insists that 26 percent of all construction dollars go to minority companies and 6 percent to women-owned businesses. But a city-funded report noted that “almost all City funded construction projects require M/WBE” goals for subcontractors and that “project goals should exceed the ‘baseline’ goal.” Maryland has a target of 29 percent of contract dollars to minority firms. New York City and State have set a goal of 30 percent of all contracts going to MWBE, and the city itself goes into more detail, setting precise contracting goals for each race and business category (for instance, black-owned businesses should get 11.81 percent of all city professional-service contracts).

    Agencies have various ways of meeting these benchmarks. Federal agencies can directly award contracts to minority firms, without a normal bidding process and through a no-bid deal, if they cost less than $5 million. This arrangement, of course, has caused abuse. After 9/11, the federal government, hoping to accelerate security purchases, expanded awards to “Alaska Native Corporations,” which had a special exemption that allowed them to get no-bid minority contracts of unlimited amounts. Federal contracts to these corporations increased 20-fold in the decade ending in 2009, when spending totaled almost $6 billion. The army’s infectious-disease center at Fort Detrick, in a no-bid deal, shifted the management of all its contracts to an Alaskan Native Corporation, whose most significant former venture was a failed cruise-ship line. Another such corporation won a port-scanning deal and then subcontracted it out to traditional defense companies; only 33 of the corporation’s 2,300 employees were Alaskan Natives. Though Native Americans are the smallest “disadvantaged” group assisted by the federal government, they get 2.7 percent of all federal contracts—more than twice the proportion of any other group.

    Snip.

    The City of Austin Disparity Study for 2022, conducted by Colette Holt & Associates, a large disparity-study firm started by a lawyer who had previously worked for Chicago’s city government, is typical. It approaches 300 pages and contains a recitation of every supposed ill that has befallen a minority business in the Texas capital. The report uses only anonymous quotes that make accusations against unnamed individuals about racism or sexism. “There is no requirement that anecdotal testimony be ‘verified’ or corroborated,” the report notes.

    Try as they might, these studies have had little success proving racism or sexism in contracting. They typically use a “disparity ratio” to show the difference between the number of available minority firms and the number of government contracts going to these firms, though these ratios rarely account for the ability of different firms to perform government jobs. Yet studies conducted by Austin and Washington State found that MWBE firms were more likely to get contracts than were those owned by white men. A Missouri disparity study found that minority firms were more likely to get contracts than nonminority firms. A Chicago disparity study found that black and Hispanic firms were about twice as likely to get construction contracts, and Asian firms four times as likely, relative to their availability.

    These reports’ surveys of minority firms find that most aren’t worried about discrimination. Of those MWBEs responding to a survey in Austin, 75 percent said that they had not experienced barriers to contracting based on race or gender. Over 85 percent agreed that they did not get different prices or terms because of their race or gender. Disparity studies ignore such data and argue that the minority of minorities who report unspecified discrimination need assistance.

    When studies admit that there is no discrimination in contracting, politicians refuse to abide by them. Miami-Dade County made the mistake of employing a legitimate accounting firm, KPMG, for a disparity study, which determined that companies owned by blacks and Hispanics were not underused. The Miami mayor rejected the study. Los Angeles’s city council rejected a study that found that black firms did not suffer discrimination in contracting. The occasional lawsuit will surface, challenging these disparity studies when they provide no evidence of discrimination. But in such cases, governments will simply look for another minority contractor to conduct another study calling for more minority contracting.

    Minority-contracting programs are a magnet for fraud. No-bid contracts represent an obvious avenue, but the most common kind of MWBE fraud is simple: contractors with subpar bids either lie about being run by minorities or lie about involving other minority businesses in the contract. The Wedtech scandal in the 1980s involved such fraud; though John Mariotta, a Puerto Rican immigrant, had started the company, it was partially run by Fred Neuberger, a Romanian Jew who escaped the Holocaust in Europe but did not count as “disadvantaged” for the purposes of the 8(a) program. Similar issues arose with the recent Atlanta scandals: while contractor Charles Richards was white and won many “prime” contracts, he promised to subcontract work to Mitchell’s minority firm, and then paid Mitchell without asking his firm to do any work. A 2016 Department of Transportation presentation stated that more than one-third of its contracting-fraud cases involved minority contracting and that, over the preceding five years, cases involving minority-contracting fraud had led to $245 million in financial penalties and 425 months of incarceration for offenders.

    These cases tend to follow a certain playbook. A minority-owned front company wins the government contract, takes a small cut, and issues a pass-through contract to a white-owned firm. The largest such case in American history involved Schuylkill Products, a Pennsylvania firm that manufactured concrete bridge beams but had used a Filipino-owned front company for 15 years to win more than $130 million in contracts. The federal investigation led to several prison sentences in 2014. Front-company and pass-through fraud has dogged construction work at Chicago’s O’Hare airport and New York casinos. According to the New York State inspector general, the minority firms in the casino-fraud case did little more than submit invoices. A former Dallas councilman, meantime, went to prison for his role in setting up minority front companies for government contracts. Sometimes, the fraud is even more direct: in Seattle, the owner of a company that was paid to clean up homeless camps falsely identified as black on city forms. She also happened to be a city employee.

    Hey, that sounds sort of familiar…

  • “Target Donates To Group That Promotes Secret Child Gender Transitions, LGBTQ Books In Schools.”

    Target has repeatedly boasted about efforts to support the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, also known as GLSEN, an entity which helps teachers place LGBTQ books in school libraries and hide their students’ so-called gender transitions from parents.

    Conservatives have launched a boycott against Target after the retail behemoth marketed a female swimsuit as “tuck-friendly” and with “extra crotch coverage,” as well as hired an artist who creates Satanic items to make various designs for the company. Links between the company and GLSEN, which supports “affirming learning environments for LGBTQ youth” and activates “supportive educators,” resurfaced amid the backlash against Target.

    The retail behemoth boasted last year about donating more than $2.1 million to GLSEN over the past decade, lauding the group’s mission to create “affirming, accessible, and antiracist spaces for LGBTQIA+ students.” Target also actively promotes GLSEN on its online store.

  • Strangely enough, having a DA who will prosecute criminal and not lawful citizens defending themselves makes a difference. “San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins follows the law and the evidence and does not make decisions based on what may be politically expedient.”
  • Chesa Boudin, the recalled Soros tool she replaced, was just named head of UC Berkeley’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center.
  • Speaking of Soros-plagued cities: “Citywide Youth Curfew Begins In Baltimore As Mayor Strives To Restore Law And Order.”I doubt Mayor Brandon Scott’s policy will make that much of a difference, though maybe with Soros-tool Marilyn Mosby out of office and awaiting trial on federal perjury charges, maybe there’s a chance of Baltimore improving. But remember:

  • Of course. “Just Stop Oil’s Hollywood Patron Has Holiday Home in Ireland That he Jets Off to ‘When the Going Gets Tough.'” “Oscar winner Adam McKay, whose films include The Big Short and Don’t Look Up, is one of a group of multi-millionaires behind the Climate Emergency Fund. The Beverly Hills-based fund raises cash from its mega rich supporters and distributes it to ‘disruptive’ activists, including handing almost £1million to help Just Stop Oil wreak havoc in the U.K.” Being a Democrat means never having to apologize for your hypocrisy.
  • Speaking of liberal hypocrites: Darren Mark Stallcup, a “World Peace Movement” activist, launched a fundraiser for other people to escape the zombie apocalypse hellhole San Francisco. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Shareholder value destruction update: Since their disasterous tranny pander, Anheuser-Busch has lost $27 billion in market cap.
  • Three Antifa supporting assholes arrested.

    The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and the Atlanta Police Department (APD) arrested Marlon Scott Kautz, age 39, of Atlanta, Savannah D. Patterson, age 30, of Savannah, Ga., and Adele Maclean, age 42, of Atlanta, on Wednesday on charges of money laundering and charity fraud in association with fundraising efforts for the domestic terrorists who are currently in jail.

    “The GBI, along with the Atlanta Police Department, have arrested three people on charges stemming from the ongoing investigation of individuals responsible for numerous criminal acts at the future site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center and other metro Atlanta locations,” reads the GBI’s press release.

    The trio ran a non-profit called Network for Strong Communities, which worked with another group called the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which, at least on paper, was a bail fund for the thugs who attacked the training center property and other areas in Atlanta.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • IMDB has chosen to actively suppress negative ratings of the Little Mermaid remake.
  • Given that, it might be time to take a look at Worth It or Woke for honest movie reviews.
  • Dwight has a good look at the Battleship Texas, and (for Memorial Day) seaman Christen Christensen, who was killed in combat during the bombardment of a German shore battery off Cherbourg.
  • Don’t let JinJin eat poop off San Francisco’s street, or they may end up tripping balls.
  • “America Votes To Add ‘Can You Walk And Speak In Sentences’ To Presidential Job Application.”

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Crime, Elections, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »

    Memorial Day: Honoring George D. Keathley

    Monday, May 29th, 2023

    This Memorial Day we honor the memory of Medal of Honor George D. Keathley, born in Lamesa, Dawson County, Texas, and died September 14, 1944 in Italy having fought for 15 minutes after receiving a mortal grenade wound.

    For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, in action on the western ridge of Mount Altuzzo, Italy. After bitter fighting his company had advanced to within 50 yards of the objective, where it was held up due to intense enemy sniper, automatic, small-arms, and mortar fire. The enemy launched three desperate counterattacks in an effort to regain their former positions, but all three were repulsed with heavy casualties on both sides. All officers and noncommissioned officers of the 2d and 3d platoons of Company B had become casualties, and S/Sgt. Keathley, guide of the 1st platoon, moved up and assumed command of both the 2d and 3d platoons, reduced to 20 men. The remnants of the two platoons were dangerously low on ammunition, so S/Sgt. Keathley, under deadly small-arms and mortar fire, crawled from one casualty to another, collecting their ammunition and administering first aid. He then visited each man of his two platoons, issuing the precious ammunition he had collected from the dead and wounded, and giving them words of encouragement. The enemy now delivered their fourth counterattack, which was approximately two companies in strength. In a furious charge they attacked from the front and both flanks, throwing hand grenades, firing automatic weapons, and assisted by a terrific mortar barrage. So strong was the enemy counterattack that the company was given up for lost. The remnants of the 2d and 3d platoons of Company B were now looking to S/Sgt. Keathley for leadership. He shouted his orders precisely and with determination and the men responded with all that was in them. Time after time the enemy tried to drive a wedge into S/Sgt. Keathley’s position and each time they were driven back, suffering huge casualties. Suddenly an enemy hand grenade hit and exploded near S/Sgt. Keathley, inflicting a mortal wound in his left side. However, hurling defiance at the enemy, he rose to his feet. Taking his left hand away from his wound and using it to steady his rifle, he fired and killed an attacking enemy soldier, and continued shouting orders to his men. His heroic and intrepid action so inspired his men that they fought with incomparable determination and viciousness. For 15 minutes S/Sgt. Keathley continued leading his men and effectively firing his rifle. He could have sought a sheltered spot and perhaps saved his life, but instead he elected to set an example for his men and make every possible effort to hold his position. Finally, friendly artillery fire helped to force the enemy to withdraw, leaving behind many of their number either dead or seriously wounded. S/Sgt. Keathley died a few moments later. Had it not been for his indomitable courage and incomparable heroism, the remnants of three rifle platoons of Company B might well have been annihilated by the overwhelming enemy attacking force. His actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service.

    Today we honor George D. Keathley and all America’s war dead for their service and sacrifice.

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    Posted in Military, Texas | 8 Comments »

    Weird Guns Used in the Russo-Ukrainian War

    Sunday, April 2nd, 2023

    “AK Guy” Brandon just dropped the fourth installment of his “Weird Guns Being Used in Ukraine Right Now” on YouTube, showing some of the funky, modified, and just plain ancient weapons be used in active combat there. The first installment is age limited and non-embeddable, but the other three are below.

    Highlights:

  • Both sides are using he original Maxim belt-fed machine guns, a World War I mainstay “patented in 1883. Timeline-wise this weapon was designed closer to the beginning of the American revolution in 1776 than it was to the current Ukrainian conflict.”
  • PKM machine guns taken off armored vehicles and converted for individual use. Which is more difficult than it sounds, since the firing mechanism is triggered by an electric solenoid. “They had to rig up an entirely new firing system to rig up to these things, and quickly, and frankly I’m impressed. Ghetto gunsmith to ghetto gunsmith, crisp internet high five.”
  • Chechen soldiers (assuming there are any of them still around) are better equipped than Russian soldiers.
  • “You’re seeing all sorts of modern munitions, anti-armor stuff, aircraft drones. But then in the exact same confrontation, you’re also having guys that are carrying around weapons that are so old that their great grandfathers could have easily carried in the Great War to end all wars. And while the reality of war is obviously very tragic, the significance of some of the stuff being used in the field is extremely interesting.”

    • Highlights:

  • “Modified mortar RPG rounds…in guerrilla warfare, it’s always useful to have a couple of rednecks around.”
  • That ridiculous “six antipersonnel grenades attached to an RPG” thing.
  • “Some poor Ivan got handed a squirrel killer (a Chinese QB-57 single shot air rifle) and was thrown into the middle of 21st century combat with drones and tanks and was told good luck, have fun. It’s no wonder a lot of young Russian men are leaving the country rather than being conscripted…nothing says the government cares about your well-being quite like being tossed into fucking combat with a Red Ryder from A Christmas Story.”
  • Russia is also using World War II era DPM or DP-28 Degtyarev machine guns. “It’s basically like a PKM, if a PKM wasn’t belt fed and was instead fed by a pizza dish. It’s the closest thing to a full dinner plate most Soviets ever got to see.”
  • Other World War II era machine guns seeing combat: MP40s, Sturmgewehr (STG) 44s and MG 42s.
  • “There’s a lot of Russians now rolling around with
    [American Thompson] .45 ACP submachine gun, AKA of course the Tommy Gun.” A legacy of Lend-Lease.

  • Plus: Anti-tank rifles! Including a PTRS-51 chamber in 14.5mm. “I guarantee you that shit will buttfuck the engine of any vehicle ever, as well as probably penetrate some of the light armor on some of the lightly armored armored personnel carriers.”
  • A suppressed Barrett M107, which is every bit as monstrously long (and no doubt heavy) as you would suspect.
  • Ukraine is also using everyone’s favorite space-alien looking FPS gun, the FN FS-2000.

  • Lots of ghetto gunsmithing.
  • A really funky glider with an RPG-7 on top. It actually looks slightly funkier than the flying yeet of death. Which comes next in the video.
  • Russians using old-fashioned sporting break action shotguns against drones.
  • More Maxims, including in duel, triple, and quad mounts. “We’re starting to get in the territory of like those mech things from Matrix Revolutions. [Now] we have something that is basically just a ghetto-rigged Minigun.”

    • If you’re interested in vintage, weird and improvised weapons, all the videos are worth taking a look at.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Military, unions, video | 12 Comments »

    Faster, Traxxas! Kill! Kill!

    Tuesday, March 21st, 2023

    During World War II, the Wehrmacht developed the remote-controlled Goliath tracked mine to take out tanks, fortifications, and other targets. Despite some models packing a whopping 220 pounds of explosive, they sort of looked like a toy a child could ride on, and would almost be adorable if it weren’t for the fact that they were Nazi death bombs.

    Photo taken of a Goliath tracked mine at the Bovington Tank Museum

    Who’s an adorable little Nazi death bomb? You are! You are!

    As in so many things, Ukrainians have rediscovered and deployed (kinda) another lost weapon/tactic from World War II. Namely, they’re using remote control vehicles as suicide antitank bombs.

    I’ve long thought you could use even smaller, slightly modified off-the-shelf RC cars in mass to take out softer targets like trucks. Or drive into a enemy barracks with just a couple of pounds of plastique studded with roofing nails.

    The Russo-Ukrainian War continues to expand the possibilities of drone warfare, and I trust the Pentagon (and every other military in the world) is taking notes.

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    Posted in Military, video | 17 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for December 23, 2022

    Friday, December 23rd, 2022

    Greetings, and welcome to a Christmas Eve Eve LinkSwarm! It got down to 14°F yesterday, and only up to a balmy 30°F or so today. In addition to trying to stay warm, I’ve been working finishing up my latest Lame Excuse Books catalog, which went out earlier this evening. (Drop me a line if you want a copy.) Due to that, I think I’m going to break this LinkSwarm into two parts.

  • House passes pork-filled omnibus spending bill that 18 Republican senators let escape the senate. The amount of bad stuff in here will probably require multiple links tomorrow…
  • The real cause of homelessness in California.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom, newly inaugurated Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and legislative leaders are pledging decisive action on California’s homelessness crisis, which raises a pithy question: Why did it erupt during a period of strong economic growth?

    The reasons often offered include a moderate climate, the availability of generous welfare benefits, mental health and drug abuse. However, a lengthy and meticulously sourced article in the current issue of Atlantic magazine demolishes all of those supposed causes.

    Rather, the article argues persuasively, California and other left-leaning states tend to have the nation’s most egregious levels of homelessness because they have made it extraordinarily difficult to build enough housing to meet demands.

    Author Jerusalem Demsas contends that the progressive politics of California and other states are “largely to blame for the homelessness crisis: A contradiction at the core of liberal ideology has precluded Democratic politicians, who run most of the cities where homelessness is most acute, from addressing the issue.

    “Liberals have stated preferences that housing should be affordable, particularly for marginalized groups … But local politicians seeking to protect the interests of incumbent homeowners spawned a web of regulations, laws, and norms that has made blocking the development of new housing pitifully simple.”

    Demsas singles out Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area as examples of how environmentalists, architectural preservationists, homeowner groups and left-leaning organizations joined hands to enact a thicket of difficult procedural hurdles that became “veto points” to thwart efforts to build the new housing needed in prosperous “superstar cities.”

    While thriving economies drew workers to these regions, their lack of housing manifested itself in soaring rents and home prices that drove those on the lower rungs of the economy into homelessness.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Benjamin Netanyahu manages to form new government in Israel. It only took two months since the election!
  • Mayor Adler’s legacy in Austin:

  • Members of Houston rap group The Sauce arrested for making sauce. And by “sauce” I mean “meth.”

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Barnes and Noble to closes 30 stores in 2023…wait, they’re opening 30 stores??? Did I suddenly wake up in 1999?
  • Not news: Buying a used Blazer in El Paso. News: an ex-Cartel Blazer.
  • Lawsuit frees the Eleanors.
  • History matters talks about why the Soviet Union agreed to share control of Berlin with the allies after World War II. Pretty much all the History Matters videos are worth watching, but this one is particularly amusing.
  • “Journalists Warn Of Frightening Trend Where Rules Apply To Them.”
  • Awww:

    I want to know what song is playing on that TV…
    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • Pressed for time, so more links tomorrow…

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    Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Republicans, Supreme Court, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Hiroshi Miyamura, RIP

    Wednesday, November 30th, 2022

    Via Dwight comes word that Medal of Honor winner Hiroshi Miyamura has died at age 97.

    Hiroshi “Hershey” Miyamura, the son of Japanese immigrants who was awarded the U.S. Medal of Honor for holding off an attack to allow an American squad to withdraw during the Korean War, has died.

    The Congressional Medal of Honor Society announced that Miyamura died Tuesday at his home in Phoenix. He was 97.

    Born in Gallup, New Mexico, Miyamura’s parents operated a 24-hour diner near the Navajo Nation where the family interacted with the diverse population of miners and travelers who passed along Route 66.

    Miyamura’s mother died when he was 11 and his father never talked about Japan, Miyamura said in later interviews. He would earn the nickname “Hershey” because a teacher couldn’t pronounce his first name.

    Miyamura worked as an auto mechanic during high school. He joined the U.S. Army late in World War II after the federal government lifted restrictions on Japanese Americans serving. Miyamura was allowed to join the 442nd Infantry Regiment, composed almost entirely of “nisei” — those born in the U.S. to parents who were Japanese immigrants.

    After the war, Miyamura met Terry Tsuchimori, a woman from a family who had been forced to live at the Poston internment camp in southwestern Arizona following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They married in 1948 and had three children.

    Miyamura continued to serve in the Army Reserves and was called into action during the Korean War.

    On the night of April 24, 1951, near Taejon-ni, Miyamura’s company came under attack by an invading Chinese force. Miyamura ordered his squad to retreat while he stayed behind and continued to fight, giving his men enough time to evacuate.

    Miyamura and fellow squad leader Joseph Lawrence Annello, of Castle Rock, Colorado, were captured. Though wounded, Miyamura carried the injured Annello for miles until Chinese soldiers ordered him at gunpoint to leave Annello by the side of a road. Miyamura refused the orders until Annello convinced him to put him down.

    Annello was later picked up by another Chinese unit and taken to a POW camp, from which he escaped.

    Miyamura was held as a prisoner for two years and four months.

    Upon his release, he was presented the Medal of Honor by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It had been awarded in secret while he was still a prisoner of war.

    I previously celebrated Miyamura’s service here.

    Here’s a video of him talking about his combat experiences:

    And here’s a video celebrating his service:

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    Posted in Media Watch, unions, video | 3 Comments »

    The Sky Warden: “An Up-Armored Crop Duster With Rocket Launchers”

    Saturday, November 19th, 2022

    At first, I was not at all enthused about the Air Force’s new Sky Warden platform, a step back to a single-seat, propeller-driven combat aircraft not used since the Douglas A-1 Skyraider was retired in 1973. Some background:

    U.S. Special Operations Command on Monday announced it has selected the AT-802U Sky Warden, made by L3Harris Technologies and Air Tractor, for its Armed Overwatch program.

    The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract will be worth up to $3 billion, L3Harris said in a release Monday. The initial program contract award is for $170 million.

    Air Tractor is an aircraft manufacturer from Olney, Texas, that typically makes firefighting aircraft and agricultural planes such as crop dusters.

    Initial production of the Sky Warden will take place at Air Tractor’s facility in Olney. L3Harris will then modify those planes into the Armed Overwatch mission configuration at its Tulsa, Oklahoma modification center, beginning in 2023. L3Harris said work will also take place at its other sites in Greenville, Rockwall and Waco, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee.

    Air Force Special Operations Command’s Armed Overwatch program aims to build a fleet of up to 75 flexible, fixed-wing aircraft suitable for deployment to austere locations, with little logistical tail needed to keep them operating.

    SOCOM is planning for the single-engine Sky Warden, as AFSOC’s Armed Overwatch plane, to be able to provide close air support, precision strike and armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for counterterrorism operations and irregular warfare.

    When I heard that the Air Force was considering going back to a prop plane for a ground attack aircraft, I thought that: A.) This was a sign of their continuing disdain for the A-10, and B.) This was a role better suited for drones that manned aircraft, and thus the Air Force wanted it only to keep their institutional budget up, since anyone can fly a drone.

    However, if it’s specifically geared toward supporting special forces operations, then the move makes a lot more sense. In that case, you need the hyper-loiter capabilities, and larger drones can be of limited use if you’re out of line-of-radio-control (say, in mountainous terrain) and you don’t have them set up for satellite relay.

    Here’s a YouTuber who’s quite enthusiastic about it:

  • “That is an up-armored crop duster with rocket launchers on it. It looks like somebody maxed out the starter item in a video game.”
  • “It’s got bulletproof windows, a heavily armored cabin engine compartment, self-healing fuel lines [and] reinforced landing gear allowing you to land virtually anywhere. And it absolutely packed with ISR [intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance] equipment, [basically] making this a spy plane.”
  • “The standard payload is currently set to be 14 APK WS laser-guided Hydra rockets.”
  • “It’s basically an acoustic version of an F-22.”
  • It can loiter about 6 hours, as opposed to 1.5 hours for the A-10.
  • It’s also cheaper: “For every hour the A10 is in the air, there’s $20,000 in maintenance to be done. Compare that to the Sky Warden, which is less than $1,000 per flight.”
  • “Nobody wants to be the guy getting murked by a plane with a propeller in 2022. If you wake up dead, and you got to explain to all your buddies in the afterlife you got taken out by an A-10 Warthog, that’s respectable. You tell them you got taken out by a crop duster, they’re gonna talk shit for the rest of Eternity. ‘Hey guys, you hear that Groot over here got taken out by the fucking Wright Brothers.'”

    • The Pentagon is spending $3 million for the program, which is a lot of cheddar by normal people standards, but nothing by Pentagon standards. Being the biggest and baddest on the bloc means you can buy niche role weapons like this.

    While it remains to be seen if this is effective in modern combat, it’s hardly the first time the U.S. military has done this. In World War II, spotter pilot Charles Carpenter put bazookas on his Piper Cub and successfully took out panzers.

    (Trivia: The last P-51 used by the U.S. military was actually used by the army as a chase aircraft for helicopters in 1968.)

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    Posted in Military, video | 12 Comments »

    Ian McCollum and Nicholas Moran Team Up To Talk About The German .50BMG (Or Lack Thereof)

    Wednesday, September 21st, 2022

    Like a Marvel crossover comic that features two characters you’re interested in, having both Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons and tank expert Nicholas Moran talk about the .50cal machine gun (and why the Germans never adopted it) did indeed peak my interest.

    A few takeaways:

  • “That the M2 I think is so well known today, it’s so recognized and … is ubiquitous. During World War Two, the U.S. kind of did a like a massive industrial flex on the rest of the world with the M2. It’s a bit memey, but you could think of this as like the classic Uncle Sam painting with like glowing red eyes of fire. Because the US manufactured about 2 million Browning .50 caliber machine guns.”
  • “We’re going to put them on trucks, we’re going to put them on tanks, we’ll put them on some Jeeps, we’ll put them on half-tracks. We’ll put four of them together in a big mount and put that on a half-track or on a trailer. It’s like Oprah just handing out .50 cal machine guns.”
  • Because McCollum didn’t know, he asked Moran, leading to the special Gun Jesus/Chieftain Crossover Issue.
  • Moran’s first cut: “Dunno! Let me ask around.”
  • For starters, the Germans used small canons instead of big machine guns.
  • It was a hell of a lot safer to be buttoned up in the tank with aircraft shooting at you than outside it trying to score an unlikely machine gun kill.
  • “The reality was that aircraft generally were horrible at killing tanks.” (Caveat: I hear the Stuka version with the 37mm cannon was actually pretty good at it, but German tankers obviously didn’t have to worry about that.)
  • Also, since they thought taking out aircraft with machine guns was unlikely, one light machine gun with tracers was just as good as four heavy machine guns at “giving pilots something to think about” on their strafing runs.
  • The Germans did have “the MG 131, a 13mm weapon, and thus as close to a caliber .50 as possible. Though primarily an electrically primed aircraft gun, it could be converted to a ground mount and percussion fired. It could thus be mounted on a tank much like an American caliber .50, yet it never was.”
  • Germans had a doctrinal preference for saving ammo wherever possible if the possibility for effective fire was too low. Americans had a doctrinal preference for turning out giant piles of ammo.
  • “If you want something which provides a lot of coverage, and has a good chance of actually shooting down a target, especially an armoured one like an IL-2, you’re better off with a heavier gun on a dedicated platform with a trained, dedicated anti-aircraft crew.”

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    Posted in Global Warming, Guns, Military, video | 7 Comments »

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