Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "Ed Nash's Military Matters" channel.

  1. Given its occasional role as a bomber, you'd think the Bombay would have had a bomb bay.
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  2. In the mid 1980s I went through a military acquisition program with an officer who had been assigned to the PA-48 evaluation program. He considered the airplane to be something of a cruel joke. The Mustang was very long in the tooth by then and Piper was having great difficultly keeping them in a serviceable state. I think your analysis of the problem and the ultimate "low cost" solution is correct.
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  3. The Battle of Britain would have looked even weirder if the slip-wing Hurricane had been fighting the Fw-159.
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  4. Tell Ian at Forgotten Weapons. He may want to add these to the Ebonian Army table of allowances.
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  5. Kudos for mentioning the long forgotten hero of China, Bob Short, and for covering the Demon. You may not be aware of this, but the Demon sired an offspring, the Curtiss-Wright CW-22 Falcon trainer. My Dad's best friend owned and operated one in north Florida when I was kid. At the tender age of six he took me up in it. I sat in my Dad's lap while Bill put the plane through its paces. What I remember most was how loud it was and how steeply it could climb. Sadly, Bill was killed in it a few years later when the engine stalled during takeoff due to insects (mud daubers) clogging his fuel line.
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  6. Sounds like the pilot was tougher than the aircraft. I'm glad he survived.
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  7. I have a couple books on the Thompson that mention this aircraft and include a few photos, but your information about the plane is more detailed. In the 1920s the Thompson Model 1921 sold for $200 - $225, so fitting out a Junkers with 30 of them would have cost well over $6000, or the equivalent of $112,000 today. This does not include the necessary modifications required or the cost of the 100 round C-drums. These drums were far less common than the 50 round L-drums because of the weight and bulk issue (8.25 lbs loaded). So equipped, a fully loaded Thompson would have weighed 19 lbs. Since the butt stocks were removed from at least 28 of the guns, the weight would be a little less, but the rigging necessary to hold them in place would bring that weight back up. The total load-out for 30 guns would be about 570 lbs. Sixty spare drums, fully loaded, would be an additional 495 pounds, bringing the total weapons load to 1065 lbs, a not insignificant sum in those early days of aviation. I don't see how 28 drum magazines could be swapped in four minutes even if the plane was stationary on the ground. This would equate to 8 1/2 seconds per gun. Assuming you had a container holding four drums (total weight at least 33 lbs), in 34 seconds you would need to grab the first box of drums from their storage rack, move to a row of guns, pull back the actuator knob on four guns, engage their magazine releases and slide out four empty drums, insert four loaded drums, stack the empty drums in the container, return it to the storage rack, and begin the process again. Now try doing this while the plane is bouncing around in the air. Swapping magazines would have been the least of your problems. The experiment failed due to a number of factors. Aiming was highly problematic, and the muzzle velocity of the 45 ACP round out of a Thompson barrel was only 920 fps. Compare this with the 2800 fps of a typical 30'06 bullet fired from a Browning machine gun. This meant the aircraft would have to fly danger close to its intended target if there was to be any hope of hitting a target, much less inducing a ballistically significant wound on the intended victims. I believe the Soviets attempted something similar and in typical Soviet fashion, went to even greater extremes.
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  8. McNamara was brilliant and arrogant, making him his own worst enemy. He got as much wrong as he did right. His assessment of Boeing was probably correct. I spent four years working on an air defense program they honcho'd. It was beyond their level of expertise and it suffered for it.
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  9. One of my ROTC instructors came to us directly from the C-141 product improvement program that resulted in the B version (which my younger brother would later serve aboard as a navigator). He told our class that when he began work on the upgrades he encountered a problem engineers were having with a lubrication oil delivery system. Someone had decided the plane needed to remain airborne over 24 hours, so this required developing a reserve oil reservoir and the means to pump it where needed. He was a pilot, not an engineer, but he quickly realized the team was designing a Rube Goldberg device. He pointed out that there was no place in the world where a C141 would have to fly that would take 24 hours to reach, so why were they wasting their time on this project goal? The powers-that-be eventually agreed with his logic and the entire system was scrapped, saving weight, cost, and sanity.
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  10. If your country does end up with Chinese aircraft, I believe you will suffer from buyer's remorse in the long run. This has been the case with Russian aircraft in the past because the technical support packages that came with them were not sufficient to maintain the fleets. This has much to do with Russia's logistics philosophy which dictates the return of aircraft to the factory for both intermediate and depot level maintenance and upgrade. I don't know if the Chinese follow this same practice, but I do know their production standards and ability to deliver in a timely manner are questionable. Also, the CCP will use any opportunity, including favorable loans, gifts, and bribery, to worm their way into a country so they can establish a base of operation from which to exploit the host country. One way to tell if this is their plan is to look at their technical package. Does it include a lot of spare parts, test equipment, tools, and on-site training for your Air Force technicians? Will they provide you with data packages that allow you to repair and fabricate your own components? The Chinese play the long game and have suckered a number of countries in recent years. I know the Philippines has had their fill of them. Caveat emptor!
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  11. I had to endure Jimmy Carter as governor when I was in college, then as President after I graduated and went into the Air Force. He has always portrayed himself as an honest, down-to-earth peanut farmer. I know better. It helped that a former governor of Georgia, Marvin Griffin, was a close family friend of ours. He once confided in me an incident about the real political of nature of Carter that I have no reason to doubt is true. Just thinking about the good men we lost in the aborted Iran rescue mission still makes me mad as Hell.
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  12. The F35, like the Global Hawk (one of my staff officers called it the Global Dork), had very long development periods and many teething problems before they became effective weapon systems. This is typical of cutting edge technology. If I had to pick a currently operational sh*t aircraft, it would be the Boeing V-22 Osprey. After 35 years of development, you'd think the bugs would be worked out of it, but no, the fleet has once again been grounded.
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  13.  @EdNashsMilitaryMatters  That's about the size of it. Romantic as the notion was, such thinking will only get you killed that much faster in the modern world. There is no such thing as a civilized age where war is concerned.
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  14. When I was in AFROTC during the Jurassic Age we were taught that the Thomas-Morse Scout (S-4) was the first American designed and built fighter. The only problems were it was actually designed by an Englishman and was relegated to stateside advanced flight training during WWI.
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  15. Le Boche will laugh so hard when they see it, monsieur, that they will be unable to shoot straight. That is our defense.
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  16. Somewhere in the ether electrons are laughing in Russian.
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  17. ​ @26th_Primarch  If such a mission requirement exits, I suspect better designs would be forthcoming. Few aircraft in history were so perfectly designed that they remain relevant today. The DC-3 (C-47), B-52, and C-130 certainly come to mind, but each of these planes has either been upgraded into virtually new aircraft (DC-3 and B-52) or been superseded by improved variants (C-130). The Army has very capable attack helicopters and the USAF has little need for a light attack aircraft. The A-10 has proven unbeatable so far. The reality is the Air Force cannot afford to field large cadres of small planes with limited capabilities. It must rely on smaller numbers of very mission flexible high performance aircraft. Drones of various sizes will likely prove to be the most affordable and safest solution.
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  18. The Karens have been fighting for their freedom since at least WWII. They are the only "Karens" I respect.
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  19. Famed stunt pilot Bob Hoover once wrote about flying a captured CR42 while stationed in Italy. He really enjoyed the handling of the obsolete biplane. I'll bet he would have loved the DB variant. It certainly appears as though it could have given the early Wildcats and Hurricanes a run for their money. It would have beaten a Gladiator in performance.
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  20. Ed Nash, the Paul Harvey of aviation storytelling.
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  21. In the mid 1980s while I was stationed in San Antonio and working on my Master's degree at night, a classmate of mine was working on a B-52 rebuild program at nearby Kelly AFB. He arranged a tour for us of their facility (a large hangar at Kelly). The planes entered one end of the hangar and as they slowly progressed through it were completely gutted, rewired, reskinned, and refitted with updated electronics and new engines. Essentially, what came out the other end many months later was a brand new aircraft. It appears the Air Force is about to do it again for the umpteenth time. I think part of the reason for the BUFFs longevity is the fact that the first generation jets were very overbuilt to begin with, ensuring a long and fruitful service life where feasible.
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  22. I think some were used in the 1916 Punitive Expedition into Mexico where they saw some limited combat use.
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  23. 0 for seven?
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  24. Jimmy Carter, the great malaise himself, was the master of the muddle.
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  25. I'm curious to see how effectively Ukraine can mount a counteroffensive and how will the Russian troops react if they are surrounded and cutoff? Will they capitulate or fight to the bitter end? Much of what is about to happen will depend on the steadfastness of NATO's continued support for Ukraine with the correct mix of arms and training. The longer these operations drag on, the last likely I think NATO will be willing to support them. And how will the West react if Ukraine tries to recapture all of its lost territory? Will Putin resort to tactical nukes? The world wonders.
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  26.  @dalenincehelser5747  Dale, everything you said is conjecture. Some officers do end up working for industry manufacturers and for consulting firms because they bring much needed expertise to those firms. Most do not. I am of the latter group. There is a lot more to the cost of operations than simply the number of planes you have. The personnel, logistics, and maintenance tail consumes about 80% of the USAF budget. There was no panic in the USAF over the Enforcer. It was hardly even noticed and treated more like a bad joke. The A-37 and the AT-28 before it, also had minimal capabilities and were wholly unsuited to a modern battlefield, which is why we got rid of them. We simply cannot afford to maintain the large cadre of pilots and support personnel required to be dedicated to a very limited capability aircraft. These days it would be hard to recruit that much talent anyway. Instead we chose far more advanced designs that can do any mission. The gap you are talking about in addressing low threat air support environments is being filled by drones. Even drone resupply and rescue are being tested.
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  27. Will Ukraine become a testing ground for new weapons and tactics the way Spain did in 1936-39?
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  28. Liberators were not well loved by their crews. They could not fly as high as a B-17, so had to suffer through more flak. Nor were they as rugged as the B-17. Pilots became fatigued while flying them, as you pointed out. And B-24 bases were further away from London than B-17 bases, so the B-17 crews were visited more often by war correspondents who showered them with praise. Lastly the B-17 (in my opinion) was more romantic and better looking than the B-24.
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  29.  @EdNashsMilitaryMatters  My grandfather always said history is an agreed upon error. I have long accepted this notion, and thus I am always glad to see different points of view on any given topic. It gives it more depth and dimension and infuses it with the human touch.
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  30.  @billwill7383  The B-70 gets my vote for the most beautiful airplane ever built, followed by the Spitfire and Staggerwing Beech.
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  31. New names for old countries always make me suspicious. Can you imagine lathering your face with Myanmar Shave? Thankfully the Karens are old hands at jungle warfare and resisting tyranny.
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  32.  @ajvanmarle  Houston, we have a problem.
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  33. Well done, Ed. That was a good intel summary of an issue the public press has been ignoring until recently. Perhaps the pendulum of Taiwanese support by the free world is finally swinging in their favor, but will it swing fast enough to prevent China from attacking them or will it hasten CCP action to fulfill its ultimate goal of reunification by force? The world wonders.
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  34. Ed, while I was stationed at the Pentagon from 2001 - 2007 I had partial responsibility for COOP (Continuity Of Operations Plan) which included evacuation by helo of critical personnel. Without going into classified information, suffice it to say the air assets available were a joke. I doubt that has changed much. Even if you had a fleet of modern helicopters standing alert, there simply isn't enough real estate around the critical office buildings to land and retrieve anywhere near the number of critical personnel required to relocate operations to other sites in a timely fashion.
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  35. Its service with the fleet was fleeting.
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  36.  @austindavies6371  I've only seen photos of the Victor, which looks like a giant insect to me. I once saw a Vulcan put on a demo at an airshow. It was much more graceful, rather like an oversized Douglas F4D Skyray.
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  37.  @mikenodine6713  No, we never put any nuclear armed cruise missiles aboard a C-5. By the time the cruise missile program came along we had long since stopped flying with nukes aboard our aircraft (Chrome Dome missions) because we had too many Broken Arrow incidents. We did once air drop a Minuteman missile out of a C-5 and successfully launched it. It was largely a publicity stunt intended to let the USSR know we had such a capability if we wished to develop it further. I've little doubt the concept scared the hell out of some Soviet war planners.
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  38. I know the 94th "Hat in the Ring" Sqn flew them, but they had a nasty habit of shedding wing skin and they could be tricky to fly. Eddie Rickenbacker used them before his squadron switched to the more robust SPAD XIII.
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  39. I hope both Sweden and Finland join NATO. It would be a good move for them and a poke in the eye for Putin.
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  40. I've often wondered if Kurt Tank's FW-190 design was influenced in some ways by the Fokker D.XXI.
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  41. This is by far the most information I've ever seen presented on this plane. Well done, Ed.
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  42. Eglin AFB is pronounced Egg-Lynn. Bien Hoa is pronounced Ben Whah. The word Skoshi was shortened to skosh by American GIs and remains in common use in the US military, particularly in bars.
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  43.  @jasonkrantz3643 Same here. I never considered the origin of the word until I watched this video and thought Ed might have been mispronouncing it, so I checked the etymology.
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  44. Inherent racism in American society at that time? So what was the rest of the world doing aside from practicing genocide, forced colonization, and wars of conquest?
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  45. For those members of your audience who may not be aware of it, Charles Lindbergh was not pro-Nazi. He actually spied on the Nazis for Roosevelt prior to the war, but when he saw how the major European powers were rearming for another war, he informed Roosevelt that we were both technologically and quantitatively behind them in air power and stated it would be wise of us to stay out of the coming conflict. This did not sit well with FDR, but when Lindy joined the isolationist movement, it angered Roosevelt, who retaliated against him with a smear campaign and an income tax investigation. The latter backfired as it was revealed Lindbergh had been overpaying his income tax for years and was owed a refund. When we entered WWII, Roosevelt refused Lindbergh's request to be recalled to active duty, so he went to work for Lockheed and Vought as a technical advisor. He ended up in the Pacific Theater demonstrating techniques to greatly extend the range of the P-38 by leaning out the fuel-air mixture, and doubling the bomb load of the Corsair. In the process he managed to shoot down a couple of Japanese planes. This was all done as a civilian. When FDR found out, he had him sent home, probably a wise decision, given his fame as the greatest living aviator in the world. Where there's a Lindbergh, there's a way.
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  46.  @popuptoaster  You know that was the same attitude the Brits had in 1775.
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  47. Very interesting application of light armor, but I'm still trying to figure out who the good guys are. I can say the same thing about the Iran-Iraq War.
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  48. The pledge is a reminder of the American ideals which the flag represents. This is why it incorporates the phrases "and to the Republic for which it stands" and "liberty and justice for all". Red Skelton gave what I consider to be the best interpretation of the meaning of the pledge. it is available on YouTube.
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  49.  @charlestaylor253  A brilliant mind is not necessarily one that makes the best decisions. I've known several brilliant people, but their expertise in one area did not always translate into fitness for another.
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  50. I've read very little about the B-54. Your video filled in a lot of blank spaces. As an aside, regarding General LeMay's fierce reputation, I can attest to the fact that it remained intact long after his retirement. When I was a 23-year-old second lieutenant I was assigned escort duty for the head of the Texas Rangers at a military law enforcement symposium. A BBQ lunch was being served on picnic tables under a large tent. While looking for a place to sit down I saw the figure of an elderly man alone at one of the tables. At first I thought I would join him, until I got closer and recognized the face of Curtis LeMay. Even in his 70s he appeared menacing enough to me that I erred on the side of caution and selected an adjoining table. He continued to dine alone and after a while I started feeling sorry for him. Before I could screw up the courage to approach him, some old acquaintances dropped in at his table and they all began a lively chat. I missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I suspect my initial discretion was still the better part of valor.
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