Saturday, July 30, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
LA without cars
Running on Empty (Revisited) from Ross Ching on Vimeo.
so it's true every city in America has a Linden Drive.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
The Largest Gun Ever Built
In 1939, Adolf "Baby Dick" Hitler needed to figure out how to get past the French Maginot line, a 1500km defensive wall of fortifications, tank barriers, artillery and machine gun nests running along the French-German and French-Italian borders. Before he figured out to simply run around the line via Belgium, Hitler schemed to destroy it outright. To that end, he recruited the Friedrich Krupp A.G. company of Essen, Germany to build him a weapon capable of doing so. By 1941, the Krupp company had designed and built the largest gun of all time, the "Gustav Gun."
Named after the head of the Krupp family, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the Gustav Gun weighed in at a massive 1344 tons, so heavy that even though it was attached to a rail car, it still had to be disassembled before moving so as to not destroy the twin set of tracks as it passed over. This 4-story behemoth stood 20 feet wide and 140 feet long. Its 500 man crew, commanded by a Major-General (that's two stars), needed nearly three full days (54 hours, to be exact) to set it up and prep for firing. But when it did fire, whoowhee, hold on to your hat.
The Gustav had a bore diameter of 800 mm (just under a yard) and used 3000 pounds, more than a ton, of smokeless powder charge to fire its two primary shell types: a 10,584 lb. high explosive (HE) shell and a 16,540 lb. concrete-piercing shell—roughly the weight of an unladen 71-passenger school bus, travelling at 2700ft/s.
With a maximum elevation of 48 degrees, the HE shell could hit a target 29 miles away, while the bunker-buster could nail anything within 23 miles—both with reasonable accuracy. The Gustav could basically fire a shell over the widest point of Long Island, NY and hit nothing but water. If it did hit, the HE would leave a 30-foot deep crater while the piercing round could penetrate as much as 264 feet of reinforced concrete (or height of the Seattle Exchange Building).
The Gustav, luckily, saw only very brief action. It fired 300 shells on Sevastopol (at a rate of about 14 shells a day) and 30 more during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 before being captured by Allied troops and chopped up for scrap. Its 7 million Deutsch Mark sister, the Dora, was destroyed by the Germans themselves to keep it from falling into the hands of the Russians. The rest of the Nazis' evil War Machine would fall by 1945 after Allied forces finished curb stomping them back across the Rheinland.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5821389/the-largest-gun-ever-built
Friday, July 15, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
still got it
He may be 85 years old, but when Army sniper veteran Ted Gundy was given the chance to show off the skills he used in World War Two, he proved he could still keep up with the very best.
That’s because he was invited to try out the Army’s latest technology in a challenge to hit a target a whopping 1,000 yards away.
But the former member of the Missouri honour guard, stepped up to the challenge with an extremely level head.
After all, he had fought in the Battle of the Bulge – considered one of the most defining clashes of U.S. Army history and remains the largest battle ever fought by United States troops.
Before he could get his hands on the modern day equipment, the Army presented him with a 1903 A4 replica sniper – the same he used in the war and had not seen since 1944.
Despite a 66-year gap without using the gun, he had no trouble picking off a target at 300 yards, with all three shots hitting the target.
It was then that the officers taught him how the Army’s custom made Remington 700 works and explained how a 1,000 yard shot can be achieved.
It involves a second sniper, called a spotter, judging the wind direction and any other conditions that could affect the bullet’s trajectory.
Mr Gundy, who lives in Memphis, Missouri, said before the shot: ‘I couldn’t even dream in a thousand years how you would even see the target, yet alone hit it.
He tried the modern equivalent and manages three head shots less than five inches apart
Mr Gundy is presented with the 1903 A4 replica as a souvenir of his day which he said was 'the nicest thing to ever happen in my life'
‘I hope that I can hit the target but if I was betting money I’d bet nine to one that I don’t. That’s a long, long way.’
But his modesty was greater than his skills and he managed with ease to pick off the target, with three impressive head shots all within five inches of each other.
He said afterwards: ‘I couldn’t believe I could have hit anything that far away.’
SFC Robby Johnson, who taught Mr Gundy how to use the new equipment said: ‘To meet someone that was actually there and was a sniper back then, it’s just a great honour.’
Mr Gundy, holding back the tears, said the experience was ‘one of the nicest things to ever happen in my life.’
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
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