Topic: Military history (Page 9)
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π The Emu War
The Emu War, also known as the Great Emu War, was a nuisance wildlife management military operation undertaken in Australia over the latter part of 1932 to address public concern over the number of emus said to be running amok in the Campion district of Western Australia. The unsuccessful attempts to curb the population of emus, a large flightless bird indigenous to Australia, employed soldiers armed with Lewis gunsβleading the media to adopt the name "Emu War" when referring to the incident. While a number of the birds were killed, the emu population persisted and continued to cause crop destruction.
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- "The Emu War" | 2020-02-05 | 80 Upvotes 34 Comments
π Terfenol-D
Terfenol-D, an alloy of the formula TbxDy1βxFe2 (xΒ βΒ 0.3), is a magnetostrictive material. It was initially developed in the 1970s by the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in United States. The technology for manufacturing the material efficiently was developed in the 1980s at Ames Laboratory under a U.S. Navy-funded program. It is named after terbium, iron (Fe), Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL), and the D comes from dysprosium.
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- "Terfenol-D" | 2021-09-27 | 90 Upvotes 24 Comments
π Norden bombsight
The Norden Mk. XV, known as the Norden M series in U.S. Army service, is a bombsight that was used by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and the United States Navy during World War II, and the United States Air Force in the Korean and the Vietnam Wars. It was an early tachometric design that directly measured the aircraft's ground speed and direction, which older bombsights could only estimate with lengthy manual procedures. The Norden improved on older designs by using an analog computer that continuously recalculated the bomb's impact point based on changing flight conditions, and an autopilot that reacted quickly and accurately to changes in the wind or other effects.
Together, these features promised unprecedented accuracy for daytime bombing from high altitudes. During prewar testing the Norden demonstrated a circular error probable (CEP) of 75 feet (23Β m), an astonishing performance for that period. This accuracy would enable direct attacks on ships, factories, and other point targets. Both the Navy and the USAAF saw it as a means to conduct successful high-altitude bombing. For example, an invasion fleet could be destroyed long before it could reach U.S. shores. To protect these advantages, the Norden was granted the utmost secrecy well into the war, and was part of a production effort on a similar scale as the Manhattan Project. Carl L. Norden, Inc. ranked 46th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
Under combat conditions the Norden did not achieve its expected accuracy, yielding an average CEP in 1943 of 1,200 feet (370Β m), similar to other Allied and German results. Both the Navy and Air Forces had to give up using pinpoint attacks. The Navy turned to dive bombing and skip bombing to attack ships, while the Air Forces developed the lead bomber procedure to improve accuracy, and adopted area bombing techniques for ever larger groups of aircraft. Nevertheless, the Norden's reputation as a pin-point device endured, due in no small part to Norden's own advertising of the device after secrecy was reduced late in the war.
The Norden's secrecy had already been compromised by espionage before the United States entered the war. As early as January 1941, the Germans introduced a lightened derivative of the Norden called the Carl Zeiss Lotfernrohr 7 as the primary bombsight for most Luftwaffe level bombers and the first of its bombsights to have gyroscopic stabilization.
The Norden saw reduced use in the post-World War II period after radar-based targeting was introduced, but the need for accurate daytime attacks kept it in service, especially during the Korean War. The last combat use of the Norden was in the U.S. Navy's VO-67 squadron, which used them to drop sensors onto the Ho Chi Minh Trail as late as 1967. The Norden remains one of the best-known bombsights ever invented.
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- "Norden bombsight" | 2017-03-28 | 77 Upvotes 36 Comments
π USA built 151 Aircraft carriers in WWII
The escort carrier or escort aircraft carrier (U.S. hull classification symbol CVE), also called a "jeep carrier" or "baby flattop" in the United States Navy (USN) or "Woolworth Carrier" by the Royal Navy, was a small and slow type of aircraft carrier used by the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, the United States Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army Air Force in World War II. They were typically half the length and a third the displacement of larger fleet carriers, slower, more-lightly armed and armored, and carried fewer planes. Escort carriers were most often built upon a commercial ship hull, so they were cheaper and could be built quickly. This was their principal advantage as they could be completed in greater numbers as a stop-gap when fleet carriers were scarce. However, the lack of protection made escort carriers particularly vulnerable, and several were sunk with great loss of life. The light carrier (U.S. hull classification symbol CVL) was a similar concept to the escort carrier in most respects, but was fast enough to operate alongside fleet carriers.
Escort carriers were too slow to keep up with the main forces consisting of fleet carriers, battleships, and cruisers. Instead, they were used to escort merchant ship convoys, defending them from enemy threats such as submarines and planes. In the invasions of mainland Europe and Pacific islands, escort carriers provided air support to ground forces during amphibious operations. Escort carriers also served as backup aircraft transports for fleet carriers, and ferried aircraft of all military services to points of delivery.
In the Battle of the Atlantic, escort carriers were used to protect convoys against U-boats. Initially escort carriers accompanied the merchant ships and helped to fend off attacks from aircraft and submarines. As numbers increased later in the war, escort carriers also formed part of hunter-killer groups that sought out submarines instead of being attached to a particular convoy.
In the Pacific theater, CVEs provided air support of ground troops in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. They lacked the speed and weapons to counter enemy fleets, relying on the protection of a Fast Carrier Task Force. However, at the Battle off Samar, one U.S. task force of escort carriers and destroyers managed to successfully defend itself against a much larger Japanese force of battleships and cruisers. The Japanese met a furious defense of carrier aircraft, screening destroyers, and destroyer escorts.
Of the 151 aircraft carriers built in the U.S. during World War II, 122 were escort carriers, though no examples survive. The Casablanca class was the most numerous class of aircraft carrier, with 50 launched. Second was the Bogue class, with 45 launched.
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- "USA built 151 Aircraft carriers in WWII" | 2023-09-17 | 43 Upvotes 69 Comments
π Night Witches β all-female Soviet aviator regiment WW2
"Night Witches" was a World War II nickname for the all-female military aviators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, known later as the 46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Red Banner and Order of Suvorov Regiment, of the Soviet Air Forces.
Major Marina Raskova used her position and personal contacts with the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to obtain permission to form female combat units. Combat facilitated and ushered in a reluctant acceptance of women in military, based more upon practicality and necessity than for equality. On October 8, 1941, an order was issued to deploy three women's air-force units, including the 588th Regiment. The regiment, formed by Raskova and led by Major Yevdokiya Bershanskaya, was composed primarily of female volunteers in their late teens and early twenties.
An attack technique of the night bombers involved idling the engine near the target and gliding to the bomb-release point with only wind noise left to reveal their presence. Allegedly, German soldiers likened the sound to broomsticks and hence named the pilots "Night Witches". Due to the weight of the bombs and the low altitude of flight, the pilots did not carry parachutes until 1944.
When the regiment was deployed on the front line in June 1942, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment became part of the 4th Air Army of the Southern Front. In February 1943 the regiment was honored with the Guards designation and reorganized as the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment in the 325th Night Bomber Aviation Division, 4th Air Army, 2nd Belorussian Front; in October 1943 it became the 46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, "Taman" referring to the unit's involvement in the Novorossiysk-Taman operations on the Taman Peninsula during 1943.
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- "Night Witches β all-female Soviet aviator regiment WW2" | 2026-06-30 | 85 Upvotes 26 Comments
π Z (Military Symbol)
"Z" is one of several symbols painted on military vehicles of the Russian Armed Forces involved in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The symbol has been used in Russian popular culture as a sign of support for the invasion. Displaying any of the symbols on vehicles in public is illegal in Kazakhstan.
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- "Z (Military Symbol)" | 2022-03-07 | 61 Upvotes 49 Comments
π 5BX
The Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plans are two exercise plans developed for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) by Dr. Bill Orban in the late 1950s, first published in 1961. The 5BX plan (Five Basic Exercises) was developed for men; a corresponding program was developed for women under the name XBX (Ten Basic Exercises) and the two plans were subsequently published together as one book. The popularity of the programs in many countries around the world helped to launch modern fitness culture.
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- "5BX" | 2010-06-20 | 77 Upvotes 32 Comments
π Black Tom Explosion
The Black Tom explosion was an act of sabotage by German agents to destroy U.S.-made munitions that were to be supplied to the Allies in World War I. The explosions, which occurred on July 30, 1916, in the New York Harbor, killed four people and destroyed some $20,000,000 worth of military goods. This incident, which happened prior to U.S. entry into World War I, also damaged the Statue of Liberty. It was one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions to have ever occurred.
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- "Black Tom Explosion" | 2020-09-22 | 60 Upvotes 49 Comments
π Soviet Pilot Escapes from POW Camp by Stealing a German Bomber and Flying Home
Mikhail Petrovich Devyatayev (Russian: ΠΠΈΡ Π°ΠΈΠ» ΠΠ΅ΡΡΠΎΠ²ΠΈΡ ΠΠ΅Π²ΡΡΠ°Π΅Π²; Moksha/Erzya: ΠΠΈΡ Π°ΠΈΠ» ΠΠ΅ΡΡΠΎΠ²ΠΈΡ ΠΠ΅Π²ΡΡΠ°Π΅Π²; 8 July 1917 β 24 November 2002) was a Soviet fighter pilot known for his incredible escape from a Nazi concentration camp on the island of Usedom, in the Baltic Sea.
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- "Soviet Pilot Escapes from POW Camp by Stealing a German Bomber and Flying Home" | 2021-01-18 | 75 Upvotes 33 Comments
π Boeing MQ-25 Stingray
The Boeing MQ-25 Stingray is an aerial refueling drone that resulted from the Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) program, which grew out of the earlier Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program. The MQ-25 first flew on 19 September 2019.
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- "Boeing MQ-25 Stingray" | 2019-11-01 | 41 Upvotes 65 Comments