In Battlegroup professor and former British Infantry Officer Jim Storr takes his considerable, training, knowledge, and experience and condenses it down toward assessing the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the NATO and Warsaw Pact armies that faced off across the East/West German border during the 1980s. I enjoyed this book and think you will too. Check out my review here.
I have just published my review of Special Forces Berlin by James Stejskal. After reading this book anyone would be hard-pressed to argue that "Detachment A" wasn't the best-of-the-best in the US military throughout much of the Cold War era. One could even argue that it's skillset as practiced in the late 1970's up to the mid-1980's equally stood up as best in its class in comparison to even its newest and more widely acclaimed US special forces peers in Delta Force or SEAL TEAM 6.
Regardless of your feelings about automatic rifles and their place in modern society, there is no denying the military utility of such weapons as brutally efficient killing machines. And of the innumerable automatic rifles created in the past seventy five years perhaps none had the impact of Mikhail Kalishnikov's reliable, simple, and effective AK-47 (and its modern variants).
On December 23, 2013 former peasant, World War II veteran, and eventual Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov passed away in Izhevsk, the capital of the Russian republic of Udmurtia.
The USS Kittiwake was a US Navy submarine rescue ship built during WWII, and commissioned on July 16, 1945. Decommissioned in 1994, the Kittiwake was sunk early in 2011 as an artificial reef just off the island of Grand Cayman in the Caribbean Sea.
Though not a warship - in comparison to most modern corvettes and other such vessels the Kittiwake certainly ranks as good sized.
Yesterday evening the Cold War Era US Navy Destroyer USS Edson passed through Detroit (picture below) along the Detroit River, the river also separates the US and Canada, on its way to its final berth as a floating museum at the Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum. Pulled and pushed by tugs, the Edson left Philadelphia on July 18th on a 2,500 mile journey to its final destination.
Launched in 1958 the Edson is a Forrest-Sherman Class Destroyer that most notably saw extensive service in the South China Sea during the Vietnam War.
This year the U.S. Air Force's B-52 "Stratofortress" heavy strategic bomber is completing its 60th year since it's first flight, and nearly 60th year of service. Capable of carrying nuclear or precision guided conventional ordnance (or even "dumb" bombs for that matter), the youngest of these versatile and durable aircraft have been in front line service for 50 years!
Though widely regarded as perhaps one of the quintessential symbol's of the Cold War and the nuclear age the B-52 is also superb in a conventional role. According to the U.S.
It is the end of an era. The final living WWI veteran, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) waitress Florence Green, passed away at age 110. Green served in the RAF for the war's final two months in 1918, having joined at the age of 17.
Though WWI is often overshadowed by WWII it is important to remember the tremendous impact the First World War had on modern history.
If in 1919 the question arose regarding which of the Great European Powers stood destined to drive Europe’s twentieth century fortunes, few candidates would have stood out as more unlikely than the Soviet Union. Russia had not only been forced into the Treaty of Brest-Litvosk, but had been occupied by a foreign power from 1917-1921, was in the throes of a Civil War that would kill between three and five million Russian citizens, and had foreign armies again fighting on its soil far beyond the First World War’s end. Then, in 1922 Josef Stalin.
