This is WAR

29/07/2023

https://youtube.com/shorts/RlJVvb3vSYM

Our latest YouTube Short. "How Effective Were Chemical Weapons in WWI?"

The use of chemical weapons in WWI has through time become an iconic aspect But how effective were these gases compared to other weapons? A quick look at th...

29/07/2023

The mighty Bismarck and its Achilles Heel, the rather flimsy steering that was easily damaged by a torpedo from a biplane, causing the death loop that allowed it to be cornered and sunk.
This, much like the Achilles story itself, is a powerful metaphor for perceived invulnerability and what lies beneath.

29/07/2023

Our latest YouTube Short for THIS IS WAR....

The 2nd Rangers scale Pointe du Hoc on D-Day.

Force 'A' of 2nd Ranger Battalion storms the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc on D-Day, June 6, 1944. How the Americans scaled a 35 meter cliff under fire during the ...

29/07/2023

Low level pe*******on. There are 24 jet engines and 100 tons of ordinance in this picture.

29/07/2023

Our latest YouTube Short for THIS IS WAR. This one on the Oregon Lookout Raids in 1942. Not about balloon bombs, but rather the only Axis airstrikes against the contiguous United States in WWII. Both committed by the same pilot, and what followed...

The Japanese Lookout Raids against Oregon in WWII.Subjects include: WWII, Imperial Japan, Oregon, fire bombings, aerial attack, Brookings Oregon, I-25, "Glen...

29/07/2023

16" HC Mk 13 shells for the Mk 7 guns on USS New Jersey, 1953. The yellow coding indicates they are charged with Explosive D (Composition D, or Dunnite), an ammonium picrate compound, rather than TNT or Amatol. These shells weighed 1,900 lbs each.

In a 9-gun broadside, the Iowa Class could toss 18 tons of steel and high explosive at 2,615 fps muzzle velocity to a maximum combat range of 26.64 miles - at a rate of two vollies a minute - with pinpoint accuracy. Maximum test range was 29 miles, but with some loss of accuracy.

29/07/2023

Captain Kris Kristofferson, 8th Infantry Division, helicopter pilot, undergoing Ranger training at Ft. Rucker, early 1960s. A strong multi-generational military family background here. His father was a USAF Maj. General. His grandfather an officer in the Swiss Army.

29/07/2023

USS West Virginia (BB-48). December 7, 1941. A very high res pic. She was refloated and later fought at Leyte Gulf and Iwo Jima. Tap for full pic.

29/07/2023

Evasion and countermeasures.

Attack helicopters are much nimbler than they appear...

29/07/2023

A German soldier returns to find his home and family no longer exist. 1945.

29/07/2023

British women train to defend Britain. 1941.

29/07/2023

Nice shot of a restored Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a biplane showing its .303 cal Lewis gun mounted on a Foster Mount to fire over the prop. The pilot could pull it down using the curved slide rack to clear jams and change mags. Before the Foster mount they actually stood up with the stick between their knees, in combat, to perform that task.

The S.E.5a also had a .303 Vickers geared fire through the prop timed with a Constantinesco interrupter gear assembly.
The tube through the wind glass is for targeting.

Top speed was 138 mph with a range of 300 miles and an altitude max of 17,000 feet. Where it would be very, very cold.

29/07/2023

Cockpit and gunner/observer position on a Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2. with its post-mounted Lewis gun. Click for full pick. Note the dearth of constraints and seating in the forward position.

Parachutes, even when they became available, were not initially issued by the Royal Flying Corps so as to encourage aircrew to stay with thier planes - the chutes, the brass reasoned, giving them too easy of an out.

Imagine manning that gun, in the frigid slipstream at 10,000 ft, while the aircraft was maneuvering in combat. An E Ticket ride with a pucker factor of 20 on a scale of 1 to 10.

29/07/2023

Americans man a captured Japanese contraption consisting of ten Ho-103 Type 1 .50 cal machine guns (a knock off of the Browning M-2 "Ma Deuce"). These were standard IJN/IJA aircraft guns repurposed from downed fighters.
Rate of fire was 983 rpm per gun. With ten barrels giving a total of 9,830 rpm, or almost 16 rounds per second - 1.5 times that of a modern Gatling gun. However the shorter cartridges used meant a lower muzzle velocity than (and lack of ammo interchangeability with) the Deuce.
Probably still sting a little, though...

29/07/2023

A French photo-reconnaissance camera operator in a modified Voisin III, 1915. The camera is housed in a sun shroud. A Lewis gun is nearby for any unwanted company.

29/07/2023

Captain Clark Gable USAAF Gunnery School, Britain.

29/07/2023

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE!!

"The N***s might be known for heinous war crimes, but assassination by chocolate is one evil plot that they were able to keep relatively under wraps. In the 1940s, Adolf Hitler's bomb-makers coated explosive devices with a thin layer of dark chocolate, then packaged it in black and gold paper in order to make it look fancy. German secret agents were to place this "chocolate" in Winston Churchill's War Cabinet dining room where he often ate his meals. However, the plan was foiled by British spies."
[Smithsonian]

29/07/2023

The Price of Land...

29/07/2023

B-29s under construction, revealing the pressure hull hemispheres for the forward compartments.

29/07/2023

A YouTube SHORT for THIS IS WAR. This one on the Great War Helmet Paradox, a lesson in survivor bias in statistics.

An interesting example of survivor bias demonstrated through the adaptation of the steel combat helmet in WWI, the results of which puzzled military commande...

29/07/2023

Pilot Peter Isaacson [Decorations: Air Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Force Cross, Distinguished Flying Medal], threads a Lancaster Bomber under the Sydney Harbour Bridge at 200 mph, 1943.

29/07/2023

Aussie soldiers inspect Baron von Richthofen's 7.92 mm (0.312 in) Maschinengewehr 08 "Spandau" machine guns in front of the wreckage of the Red Baron's Dr.1 Triplane.
It has long been disputed who's bullet killed the Ace, but the Australian gunners, in our opinion, have the stronger claim. But we will likely never know.

10/07/2023

This is the Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat, the US Navy's premier fighter during the second half of the Pacific War. Not as flashy as a Corsair or P-38 Lightning, the Hellcat nonetheless outscored both, maintaining an exchange rate of 19 to one in aerial combat against the Japanese.

However, it was not the superiority of American aircraft design that shifted the balance in the skies over the Pacific. It was the parachute.

Downed American pilots could be retrieved, their knowledge and experience intact, and sent back into action in any of the thousands of planes rolling off of uninterrupted American assembly lines. Japanese pilots, bred on the Bushido Code and forgoing armor, self-sealing fuel tanks and parachutes, were mostly lost with their aircraft.

This experience and knowledge imbalance would lead directly to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, which decimated Japanese Air power, and the desperation of the Kamikaze.

12,775 Hellcats were produced in total, with 11,000 built in '44 and '45 alone. The fighter could not turn with the Zero, but could dive faster and carried a far greater punch. Along with superior tactics, the American pilot pool was much more experienced than that of the surviving Japanese by 1944, and had an endless supply of aircraft to return them to battle in.

19/06/2023

16" HC Mk 13 shells for the Mk 7 guns on USS New Jersey, 1953. The yellow coding indicates they are charged with Explosive D (Composition D, or Dunnite), an ammonium picrate compound, rather than TNT or Amatol. These shells weighed 1,900 lbs each. Probably bruise a toe if you dropped one.

In a 9-gun broadside, the Iowa Class could toss 18 tons of steel and high explosive at 2,615 fps muzzle velocity to a maximum combat range of 26.64 miles - at a rate of two vollies a minute - with pinpoint accuracy. Maximum test range was 29 miles, but with some loss of accuracy.

16/05/2023

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUfej7SfPz5PdhxnJAxODV-Jp-8euxmpV

Catch our new podcast. Longer podcasts and other podcast related material will be available there soo. In the meantime, subscribe to THIS IS WAR on YouTube, and follow here!

Shorts and other videos that are also, or exclusively, podcasts - as well as other podcast related material from THIS IS WAR.

29/04/2023

https://youtube.com/shorts/hpMMUce1QgA

The Chennault Affair. 1968.

The Chennault Affair of 1968."As the Paris Peace talks began in 1968, then presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon enlisted Anna Chenault, widow of General C...

27/04/2023

27/04/2023

USAF Aerospace Engineer explains how Serbs Were Able to Shoot Down An F-117 Stealth Fighter during Operation Allied Force