Wheels & Tracks No.40

During the period 1928-33 Nicholas Straussler's company Folding Boats and Structures Ltd was engaged in design of bridging equipment and devices to make tanks float (see W&7'36). Following these activities, Straussler concentrated more on vehicular developments but soon after the outbreak of war he invented a brilliant construction to convert existing tanks to amphibians which upon landing could shed all this equipment and engage in combat. It comprised a collapsible rubberized canvas screen — held rigid by compressed air in tubes — and a propulsion system. The invention became known as the DD, for Duplex Drive. Rather than narrate the story in our own words we have opted for publishing the notes made by a person who was there and used them for a film show and talk for the Birmingham Rotary Club at the Imperial Hotel on October 22. 1945. Unfortunately we do not know the name of the speaker but he was a high-ranking government official. For the film we have substituted a selection of Straussler-sourced photos showing the vehicles in a variety of modes.

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Special Ops - Journal of the Elite Forces & SWAT Units Vol.29

On 1 May 2003, US President George W. Bush announced the official end of the war in Iraq. But since then the situation in Iraq has been far from peaceful: the troops of CJTF-7 are attacked daily by Saddam loyalists and other resistance groups with different aims for the future of Iraq. The attacks range from drive-by shootings to convoy ambushes to suicide bomb attacks. Another deadly tactic is the placing of remote-controlled improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along convoy roads. Even coalition helicopters have been shot down by surface-to-air missiles. Some 362 US soldiers were killed in such incidents between I May 2003 and 19 January 2004. Together with the 138 killed in the war. the US Army at that time lost just 500 soldiers in Operation "Iraqi Freedom." An additional 2893 soldiers were wounded, some of them badly. The other 35 nations who have deployed soldiers to Iraq have lost only 95 killed, with 127 wounded.

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Le Fana De L'Aviation 2011-12

Le 9 octobre dernier, le pilote d'essai allemand Klaus Plasa a procédé au premier vol du FW190A-8 immatriculé N4190 à Baton Rouge, en Louisiane. Il a rapporté que l'avion se comporte bien et que tous les paramètres moteur étaient nominaux. Cette reproduction de Focke-Wulf 190 a été assemblée essentiellement par la société PAI Aero, à Baton Rouge, sur la base d'éléments de structure neufs récemment fabriqués par la société allemande Flug Werk, mais comporte également des pièces originales provenant du Fw 190 WkNr 173056. Le moteur est un ASh 82T de fabrication russe. Don Hansen, propriétaire de PAI Aero, a acheté ce qui n'était alors qu'un projet à l'Américain Malcolm Laing en 2000; celui-ci avait récupéré les restes très partiels et très abîmés de l'épave d'un Fw 190A-8 exhumée à Reims, en France. L'avion, WkNr 173056, volait avec le l/JG 11 et le code "14 blanc" quand il fut abattu. Après plus de huit années de travail, les premiers essais du moteur ASh 82T (substitué au BMW 801 d'origine, quasiment introuvable) ont eu lieu en septembre 2009. L'avion a été peint aux couleurs d'un des Focke-Wulf 190 de l'Oberstleutnant Hans Dortenman, as allemand qui termina la guerre avec 38 victoires et vola surtout avec la JG 54.

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