HAVE RETIRED US GENERALS BEEN CONTRACTED TO WAR AGAINST THE US?

This network with access to ShadowNet includes all of Obama’s top National Security personnel, including John Brennan, James Clapper, Michael Hayden and General James L Jones.

https://t.co/T4DMulz5pH

The #OMFV industry day last week provided some clarity and a few new angles on the requirement. A few highlights and thoughts below

(Image an old NGCV concept art, not from recent industry day)

Unsurprising desire to prioritise survivability, stated as #1 priority. At this stage specifics are unclear, but for contemporary ATGM/KE you need APS, ERA & some rather fancy composites. Even then overmatch will be tough in conjunction with mobility/transportability aspirations

Firepower requirements to engage infantry up to tanks, and helicopters. So an ATGM essential, and high elevation cannon. Given need for unmanend turret (see further down), could mean high profile turret, or loss of swept volume inside vehicle to allow that big 50 mm to elevate

The OM is back in OMFV. Clear statement that

"The OMFV should allow commanders to choose between manned or remote operation based on the tactical situation."

Not a small request, will be interesting seeing how contractors answer it. I note that it is 9th of 10 reqs for priority

"Each OMFV vehicle will be crewed by no more than two Soldiers who will be positioned in the hull. Squad members can perform crew duties prior to dismounting the OMFV but the vehicles must remain operational after dismounting."

So an unmanned turret and single commander/gunner

The Churchill Tank in Normandy: Part One 40-44

Ratty Relic or Bocage Buster?

How did it go from a hated, atrocious POS tank worthy only of the scrapheap to a reliable, trustworthy, survivable and popular gun tank in action?

Another pertinent tale. /1
#WW2 #SWW #History

At 38 tons the Churchill was clearly a beast but a manageable one, given concerns about railway loading gauge had informed development (even then you still had to remove the side air louvres for rail tpt).

As always, compromise & industrial limitations underpinned design. /2

Early Mk I and Mk II were respectively armed with a 2 Pounder with coaxial Besa in the turret but with differing hull armament, I - 3" howitzer, II - Besa machine gun.

88.9mm of front armour provided excellent protection for the five man crew, and WS No. 19 provided comms. /3

Other than being undergunned another problem was, they didn't work very well.

But why?

It call comes back to, you guessed it, June 1940 - at the height of that invasion-scare summer.

AFV cupboards were bare so the initial models were raced into production in June 1940... /4

there wasn't time for proper prototyping or accompanying development as the imperative to have ANY gun tank pushed Vauxhall to the limit in the race to get SOMETHING, ANYTHING into the field.

9 RTR probably enjoyed the dubious honour of the first Churchill deliveries. /5

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN FRANKFURT?

Is the evidence from the Frankfurt server raid so complete and so damning, that this is why Trump is so impassive and amused by the antics of his CCP-blackmailed staff, as they desperately try to force him to concede?

https://t.co/tKQa21zVCh

Thread: Interesting to see the excuse factory already being out to work to make Zarif’s grotesque conspiracy theory about Israel palatable. Reasonable people explaining and excusing a conspiracy about Israel attacking the US to cause a war.

Iran’s Zarif plays on historic western antisemitism to push these gross views, arguing that the very militias that it empowers in Iraq and which openly carried out dozens of attacks over the last year are now “Israel fake casus belli”....

It’s one thing for Iran to complain about the US...or slam Israel, but to push a gross conspiracy about Israel attacking the US in Iraq to cause a war in Iran is disgusting and should be condemned but because Iran’s regime always gets a pass it won’t.

This horrid regime that executed a wrestler, that kidnapped and murdered a journalist...that imprisons people for things like dancing/singing...the kind of people who are in league with excusing it at every turn are are the worst.

These same people would rightly call out conspiracy theories in the west but they don’t hold Iran to an equal standard because of their coddling Orientalist gross adoration for the regime. So the regime’s awful propagandists get a pass for every wild conspiracy and thuggishness