A Little Common Sense
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
– Thomas Paine
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
– Thomas Paine
The mid-1950’s were a fascinating time in aircraft development in the US. The famous “Century Series” was well underway with participation by almost all of America’s premiere aircraft manufacturers, a series of X-planes were pushing the boundaries at a remote desert lake-bed only recently renamed for one aviator who gave his life while testing a…
Task Force 17 – Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher in Yorktown Task Group 17.5 Carrier Group – CAPT Elliott Buckmaster USS Yorktown (CV-5)CAPT Buckmaster CVG-5 – LCDR Oscar Pederson VS-5LT Wallace Clark Short, Jr.19 (17) x SBD-3 VF-3LCDR John Smith Thach27 (25) x F4F-4 VB-3LCDR Maxwell Franklin Leslie 18 (17) x SBD-3 VT-3LCDR Lance Edward…
This week, courtesy UltimaRatioRegis, is a look at the IJN post Midway. After suffering grievous losses in ships, sailors and airmen at Midway, the IJN was still far from finished.-for the moment. For while Midway had turned the tide, that razor’s edge could cut the other way given the reed-thin status of the US fleet….
Project CADILLAC (Part II)     Project Cadillac was more than just a program to develop radar – it would develop an entire AEW system — Radar, IFF, relay equipment, shipboard receivers, and airborne platform. Such an undertaking would be ambitious enough in peacetime, at the height of a critical stage in the…
October 3, 1936: a naval legend is born: On a bright October Saturday in 1936, a sleek steel hull, 800 feet in length, towering over the assembled dignitaries and onlookers, slipped the ways of Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. The autumn air ringing with the words from Shakespeare’s Othello – "May she also…
“…everybody’s going to make it.” – Thomas K. Jones, 1982 Counterveil vs. Countervalue… Decapitating strikes… Winning a protracted nuclear war… Nuclear calculus… These, and other topics were points of not just mere discussion, but deep, serious study and analysis in the early 1980’s by, among others, a small cohort of graduate students at the Naval…