Browsing: Military

A Brief History On April 18, 1942, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle led one of the most famous bombing raids in aviation history when he led 16 B-25 medium bombers over Tokyo, Kobe, Nagoya, and Yokohama, Japan. After the devastating sneak attack against Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the US military in the Pacific was reeling, as was the shocked and furious American public. With one Japanese success after another, the US finally mounted an offensive action by flying 16 stripped down B-25B Mitchell twin engine medium bombers off the deck of the USS Hornet, something that had never been…

A Brief History On April 16, 2018, the World continues to watch events in Syria unfold two days after the United States, the United Kingdom, and France bombed Syrian sites deemed part of their infrastructure required to produce and store chemical weapons in response to Syrian use of chlorine and sarin poison gases against Syrian rebels, killing dozens. The Russians had tersely warned against the Western Allies taking such retaliatory action and hinted at retaliation against the West. Digging Deeper As the rhetoric continued back and forth between the US, its allies, and Russia, one is forced to wonder whether…

A Brief History On April 15, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to join the US Army to put down the rebellion known later as the American Civil War. He was so far off on the number of troops needed it would be laughable if not so tragic. Often times politicians or military commanders have greatly underestimated the manpower or resources needed to succeed, and today we list 10 of those miscalculations. Digging Deeper 1. Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers, 1861. So how many men did Lincoln really need to put down the rebellion and keep the Confederate…

A Brief History On April 13, 2018, we “celebrate” Friday the 13th, the subject of myths, folk lore, movies, and general unlucky business related to the number 13. Or, for some people, 13 is a lucky number! In light of all the bad press the AR platform rifle (M-16 and M-4 family of military carbines adapted for civilian use as “AR” style firearms) has gotten lately, we would like to point out some of the many uses of these modern sporting rifles, at least in part by naming 13 of the calibers these carbines can commonly be found in. Digging…

A Brief History On April 9, 1937, a Japanese aircraft made the first ever flight by a Japanese built airplane to London, England, when the Mitsubishi Ki-15 Karigane nick named “Kamikaze” made the nearly 4 day flight. Not to be confused with the World War II Japanese suicide airplane missions dubbed Kamikaze (Divine Wind), this flight was purely peaceful in purpose, though it should have given a wake up call to British and American war planners that the Japanese aircraft industry had indeed entered the world stage as cutting edge in technology. Digging Deeper The Kamikaze, piloted by Masaaki Iinuma…