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Captain Charles Hazlitt Upham, VC and Bar

🕔 07.10.2022

New Zealand soldier who was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC) twice during the Second World War - for gallantry in Crete in May 1941, and in Egypt, in July 1942. He was the most recent of only three people to receive the VC twice, the only one to receive two VCs during the Second World War and the only combat soldier to receive the award twice. As a result, Upham is often described as the most highly decorated Commonwealth soldier of that war, as the VC is the Commonwealth's highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy.
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    Evžen Čížek

    🕔27.01.2004

    Czechoslovak army officer and military aviator. During World War II, he worked as a fighter in the Armée de l'air, where he became an ace, and later served in the Czechoslovak Royal Air Force.

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    RBS-56-2 BILL 2

    🕔08.10.2022

    Based on the BILL system, Bofors has developed a new version known as BILL 2, which is designed to counter the most advanced tanks and armoured vehicles, both current and under development. Externally, the BILL 2 system is virtually identical to its predecessor. The primary difference from an operational deployment perspective lies primarily in the ability to destroy tanks with the additional dynamic protection of the main armour and the small dispersion of the missile in the target area. The modes of combat use are also different.

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    Garford-Putilov - the first serial armoured gun car

    🕔01.03.2014

    With the invention of the internal combustion engine, small or larger vehicle manufacturers began to emerge in many countries around the world. The engines were lighter and easier to operate than steam engines and, compared to the standard hippo engine used at the time, out of action in time with minimal maintenance and space requirements. But the situation of automobile production in Tsarist Russia was different from the rest of Europe and North America.

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    Type 2 Ka-Mi Amphibious Tank

    🕔08.10.2022

    The design of the new Mitsubishi amphibious tank was created at the request of the Japanese Imperial Navy in 1940. The machine was intended to act as a support in the landing operations of the Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces.

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    Canon de 47 sur Vickers-Carden-Loyd T.13 B2

    🕔08.10.2022

    The B1 design was judged satisfactory enough to serve as a basis for the conversion of the remaining 23 gun tractors of the Chasseurs Ardennais. They were converted in 1936 on the same lines as the B1, with small differences of hull fittings, suspension, and internal compartmentation. As such, these B1 and B2s formed the bulk of the motorized regiments of the Chasseurs Ardennais, generally placed in 6-strong mobile units. One B2 of the cyclist frontier of Limburg, (Maaseik group) is still preserved at Brussels tank & army museum. However, the need of more motorized defense units and a more satisfactory design, as far of the crew protection was concerned, led to a redesign of the type.

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    Turboprop NK-12 (TV-2, TV-12)

    🕔08.10.2022

    The Kuznetsov NK-12 is a Soviet turboprop engine of the 1950s, designed by the Kuznetsov design bureau. The NK-12 drives two large four-bladed contra-rotating propellers, 5.6 m (18 ft) diameter (NK-12MA), and 6.2 m (20 ft) diameter (NK-12MV). It is the most powerful turboprop engine to enter service.

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    Operation Mars, Autumn 1942

    🕔29.02.2004

    In late 1942, the Soviet High Command planned two strategic offensives. In the south it was Operation Uranus, the encirclement of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, using units of the Don and Stalingrad Fronts, and then creating the conditions for Operation Saturn, an offensive towards Rostov-on-Don. In the central part of the Eastern Front, it was then an effort to encircle the German 9th Army at Rzhev using units of the Kalininsky and Western Fronts - Operation Mars.

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    Sniper Vasily Zaitsev: how a legend is created

    🕔10.12.2010

    The sniper Vasily Zaitsev, an icon of the Great Patriotic War, is sometimes considered a mere product of Soviet propaganda. Like anyone who successfully fought in the Stalingrad inferno, Zaitsev deserves respect and admiration. It was the politruks and propagandists who politically exploited his name and fighting prowess. Half-truths and outright fabrications about Vasily Zaitsev have taken on a life of their own, and individual authors of historical and fiction publications have taken them over and copied them from each other. The crown of all this was put on by Annaud's film "The Enemy at the Gates". The name Vasily Zaitsev has thus become synonymous with the term "Soviet sniper", although there were dozens of Soviet snipers with more successful hits during World War II.

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    The arms industry debacle after 17.11.1989

    🕔02.12.2018

    One of the eternally mentioned wrongs committed by the Czechs against the Slovaks is the debacle of the conversion of Slovak arms production in Slovakia in connection with 17 November. And it was on this subject that JS sent me two absolutely brilliant links. With a concentration of unquestionable data and moreover of SLOVAK provenance! No article written by Czech hand! The suspicion that some Czech nationalist is distorting history on purpose is automatically eliminated!

There are 6756 published articles here.
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    17. November – International Students' Day

    🕔15.11.2006

    In late 1939 the Nazi authorities in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia suppressed a demonstration in Prague held by students of the Medical Faculty of Charles University. The demonstration was held on 28 October to commemorate the anniversary of the independence of the Czechoslovak Republic (1918). During this demonstration the student Jan Opletal was shot, and later died from his injuries on 11 November. On 15 November his body was supposed to be transported from Prague to his home in Moravia. His funeral procession consisted of thousands of students, who turned the event into an anti-Nazi demonstration.

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    Schneider CA 3 (project)

    🕔28.12.2021

    The CA3 tank, developed on the basis of the CA1 tank, was produced in several variants, all of which were rejected by General Estienne.
    Despite the increase in weight, the motorization did not improve, and the general rightly believed that by the time of the expected 1918 deployment, this machine would be completely outclassed.
    Paradoxically, the turret model was strongly opposed, but this must be seen in the context of a time when the threat of enemy tanks did not exist. Only forts, machine gun nests or artillery batteries could be potential targets, so installation in a casemate was quite sufficient.

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    Israeli tank Magach 7C

    🕔01.09.2010

    The Magach 7 is a comprehensive upgrade package for Israel's M60 series tanks, which was the mainstay of the IDFs armored corps. The Magach 7 is a further development of the Magach 6. It entered service with the Israeli Defense Forces in the 1980s. It has significantly improved capabilities over the original US M60 series tanks. In particular its armor protection was vastly improved.
    This final version had a fixed angled mantlet, redesigned wedge-shaped passive armor and gun slots.

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    Douglas XA-2

    🕔11.01.2022

    The Douglas XA-2 was an American prototype attack aircraft converted from a Douglas O-2 observation aircraft in the spring of 1926 by Douglas Aircraft. Only one prototype aircraft was built and the type was not ordered into production.

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    Margaret Schneider-Rytirova

    🕔15.02.2006

    The many books and articles about the battles and fates of members of the British Royal Air Force are mostly about fighter pilots, pilots of agile day fighters, crews of heavily armed night fighters and sky riders, battling death in their bombers in the hot night skies of occupied Europe or over the endless, bottomless Atlantic. But all these, brave and courageous, were but the imaginary point of the RAF's spear. They could not have taken off every day if it had not been for the thousands, tens of thousands of ground service personnel, mechanics, armourers, typists, cooks, etc. Women, the good-looking and efficient members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), were a significant and unmissable part of this machine. The Czechoslovak Air Force, fighting as part of the RAF Volunteer Reserve, was not left behind. Among the women in grey and blue uniforms, there were also WAAFs with the Czechoslovakia patch on their shoulders. One of them was Mrs. Margita Rytířová.

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    John Adams

    🕔01.10.2022

    John Adams was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain, and during the war served as a diplomat in Europe.

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    Battle of Romani, August 1916

    🕔02.10.2022

    The Battle of Romani was the last ground attack of the Central Powers on the Suez Canal at the beginning of the Sinai and Palestine campaign during the First World War. The battle was fought between 3 and 5 August 1916 near the Egyptian town of Romani and the site of ancient Pelusium on the Sinai Peninsula, 23 miles (37 km) east of the Suez Canal.

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    Italian mechanical mule for alpine shooters

    🕔07.10.2022

    Moto Guzzi production can also boast a complicated military vehicle with singular characteristics, commissioned by the Armed Forces at the end of the 1950s. 

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    Renault NC 2

    🕔28.12.2021

    Derivative of the legendary French tank Renault FT 17 from 1925. The new tank arose from the need to modernize its predecessor, with the proviso that the tank was to be fully autonomous for longer moves without the need for tank transporters.

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IL-2I heavy fighter

Armoured fighter aircraft, prototype only. Its concept was based on several air battles between Il-2 and Luftwaffe bombers. The aircraft proved to be unpromising, because in the air it could...
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