Category Archives: cold war

Royal Blue

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It happened 50 years ago today.

A great original Kodachrome with an air-to-air right side view of a “hump-backed” A-4F Skyhawk (BuNo 154975) of the “Royal Blues” of Attack Squadron (VA) 127, on 21 July 1975. Hot rods, they carried J52-P-408 engines with 11,200 lbf of thrust on an aircraft with an empty weight of 10,450 pounds.

Scene Camera Operator: PH3 Stoner. DN-SC-88-06702, National Archives Identifier 6430109

Established 15 June 1962 at NAS Lemoore with a complement of F-9F/TF-9J Cougar, VA-127 soon switched to Skyhawks. At the time of the above image, the Royal Blues were the only A-4 Replacement Air Wing squadron in the Navy, a role that switched to a primary mission of adversary training by November 1975. Switching to T-38B/F-5Es in 1987, just after they became the “Cylons” in an ode to Battlestar Galactica, they briefly flew F-18s as the “Desert Bogeys” out of NAS Fallon until they were disestablished in 1996.

As for BuNo 154975, she arrived in the fleet in 1967, then flew with VA-113, VA-192, and VA-212, seeing time on Yankee Station from USS Hancock (CV-19), before serving almost a decade with VA-127 starting in 1973, and was loaned to the Blues for a period.

It was in Blue No. 5 Livery that she and her pilot, LCDR Stuart R Powrie (USNA ’70), 34, was killed when the airframe crashed in the Imperial Valley desert near the Salton Sea following the completion of a maneuver called “the clean loop-dirty loop” while flying from NAS El Centro, on 22 February 1982.

Dutch AMX Days

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It happened some 50 years ago. 1975, somewhere in the Netherlands.

Antitankwapen TOW mounted on the camouflaged superstructure of an AMX Pantser Rups Anti Tank (PRAT). The vehicle’s radio antenna is tilted to the side for a better field of view.

Defensiebladen Objectnummer 2044_061411

During the Cold War, the Dutch were big fans of the compact 15-ton French AMX tracked platform.

Big fans.

Staring in the 1960s they ordered no less than 800 assorted hulls including 26 of the tank killing PRATs seen above, 345 infantry carriers (PRI=Pantser Rups Infanterie, armed with the Browning M2HB heavy machine gun), 131 light tank (AMX-13 PRLTTK=Pantserrups Lichte Tanks), 82 self-propelled guns (PRA= Pantser Rups Artillerie) carrying the 105mm L30 howitzer, 67 mortar carrying AMX PRMRs, 46 PRGWT ambulance models, 46 PRVR cargo carriers, 34 engineering/recovery vehicles (PRB=Pantser Rups Berging), and a command (PRCO) version.

AMX-PRI and AMX-13 of the Dutch Army’s Armored Infantry Driving Training Centre (Pantser Infanterie Rij Opleiding Centrum, PIROC). 1963-1970 2155_032884

A pantserinfanteriecompagnie of AMX at the De Ruyter van Steveninck barracks in Oirschot, circa 1965. Dig those dismounted infantry squads, armed with a mix of FALs, FN MAGs, UZIs, and 90mm M20 Super Bazookas. 2001_N0003854-02

Billed as holding as many as three crewmen and 10 well-armed dismounts, it was anything but comfortable due to the low ceiling of its hull.

Dig those 1970s Dutch Army conscript hair standards. Official caption: Tijdens oefening PANTSERSPRONG in 1975 zitten infanteristen in een gepantserd rupsvoertuig AMX-PRI ( Pantser Rups Infanterie). De achterdeuren van het voertuig staan nog open. 2000_064611

The Dutch maintained their AMX fleet into the early 1980s when, going heavier, they were replaced with 889 M113s (YPR-765 in Dutch parlance) and 468 Leopard 1 series platforms, the latter of which replaced both the AMX-13 and British Centurion Mk5s.

Bullswool and wavy lines

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County Kildare, Ireland. Some 65 years ago this week.

Official period caption: “Following the Security Council resolution of 14 July 1960 authorizing UN military assistance to the Republic of the Congo, soldiers from several nations have been sent to help restore order and calm in the country. One of the countries to send contingents to make up the new UN Force was Ireland. These three members of the Irish contingent are seen waiting with their packed lunches, papers, and magazines, ready to leave from Baldonnel airport. From left to right: Cpls. Michael Kavanagh, Michael Cleary, and Kevin O’Rourke.”

UN Photo # 105685

Note the good corporals wear Ireland’s distinctive zig-zag style of chevrons on their thick “bullswool” tunics and, with tall peaked hats and their slung .303 Enfields, look more ready to fight in 1922 than 1960.

Irish Defence Forces personnel boarding a USAF C-124 Globemaster transport aircraft for the Congo in the early 1960s armed with the Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk 2, Bren, and Swedish Carl Gustaf m/45.

As told by Eoin Scarlett:

Without doubt, the Congo did spark a modernization of the Defence Forces’ personal equipment and small arms. The first and most discernible example of such modernization was in the uniforms that troops were issued. As a result of the twin effects of the speed of the formation of the first two battalions to serve in the Congo, and years of underfunding, the soldiers of the 32nd and 33rd Battalions were issued with winter Irish uniforms for their tour of duty. These were the notorious so-called ‘bulls’ wool’ tunics which the soldiers wore when they departed Ireland in the summer of 1960. These uniforms were quickly abandoned by the troops once they arrived in the tropical Congo climate. Additionally, the first two battalions were not equipped with mosquito nets and were given winter leather boots. Officers of the 32nd Battalion expected that ONUC would have stores of tropical uniforms, suitable boots, and mosquito nets, but were surprised to discover that ONUC had no such supplies. In an extraordinary demonstration of just how desperate the uniform situation was, officers of the 32nd Battalion commandeered a local textile factory to produce tropical uniforms for the battalion.

On 8 November 1960, the 11-man patrol from A Coy, 33 (Irish) Bn, led by Lt. Kevin Gleeson, was ambushed by Baluba tribesmen on a bridge over the Luweyeye River, resulting in nine Irish peacekeepers being killed. It turned out the Congo was no game.

Some 6,000 Irish soldiers served in the Congo from 1960 until 1964, losing 26 men in action, an effort highlighted by the now well-known stand of the outnumbered 35th Battalion at Jadotville in 1961.

The Congo deployment resulted in greater investment by the government in contemporary personal kit and weapons, including the rapid adoption of the FN FAL and FN MAG58 in 1961, and the purchase of modern armored vehicles such as Panhard AMLs and M3s.

Pinzgauer sighting!

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A neighbor of mine has his mint 1974 Austrian Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer 710M 4×4 for sale, and I just couldn’t resist passing it on. I’ve told Guns.com they ought to buy it to use in photoshoots and take to events like SHOT Show, but only got laughter as feedback.

Sigh.

So long, Tiger

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Best known in the West as the Freedom Fighter or Tiger II in later models, the Northrop F-5 in Taiwan, the Republic of China, will always be remembered as the Tiger, a 60-year love affair that ended last week.

The first seven F-5As and two F-5Bs, shipped to Taipei under the U.S. Military Assistance Program in 1965, entered service with the RoCAF in 1965, serving as frontline air defense fighters.

This ultimately led to a force of 83 F-5A/Bs by the early 1970s (of which half were loaned to the South Vietnam Air Force and never returned, backfilled by aircraft from the USAF).

Local assembly of E and F-models began under the “Tiger Peace” Project in 1973, with Taiwan’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) eventually assembling 308 aircraft domestically, making the country the world’s largest F‑5 operator with over 336 operational aircraft in 1986 when the AIDC assembly line closed.

It was the stuff of recruiting posters.

Relegated to secondary tasks after the mid-1990s as the RoCAF obtained F-16s, Mirage 2000s, and domestic AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo fighters, the F-5 E/F endured as a trainer and reserve fighter while some were converted to RF-5E Tigergazer recon aircraft.

In late 2024, the training aircraft mission was taken over by the AIDC T-BE5A Brave Eagle (an updated Ching-kuo) while Tigergazers were replaced by dedicated AN/VDS-5 (later Phoenix Eye and MS-110) recon-pod carrying “Leo Gazer” RF-16As as the last 46 F-5/RF-5 frames were cued up to withdraw from service. This capped 40 straight years of F-5E/F service with the RoCAF alone.

To commemorate the occasion of the type’s retirement, last week on 4 July, five Tigers (F-5F: 5398 and 5413, RF-5E: 5504, 5505, and 5507) took to the skies from Hualien Air Base for a last flyby over and along Taiwan’s east coast, the end of an era.

As noted eloquently by the RocAF last week:

Some voices fade away with the curtain.
Some spirits live on through the years.
The F-5E/F and RF-5E are not just the names of aircraft models,
but also the epitome of a period of the Air Force.
They have accompanied us through the forefront of combat readiness and have also entered the deepest part of the memories of the Chinese people, and are deeply rooted in the hearts of every comrade who has driven, maintained, and guided them.
Pilots guard the nation. Iron wings defend the skies.
Generations rise to protect this land.
The spirit of steel endures.

While the F-5 continues to be flown by 15 other countries, most in Latin America and Asia, as the U.S. Navy has been big on keeping F-5s in an aggressor role, with the Marines recently acquiring 22 retired F-5E/Fs from the Swiss Air Force, we may see the final RoCAF F-5s in Stateside service.

1990s Forgotten Classic: The Walther P88

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A design sandwiched between two of the most iconic pistols in history, the oft-forgotten yet still very collectible Walther P88 gets overlooked.

Developed in the early 1980s as a double-action/single-action 9mm duty pistol with a double-stack magazine to compete against just about every other big handgun maker in the world for the U.S. Air Force (and later Army) pistol trials, the gun that ultimately became the P88 has a distinctive profile.

Walther P-88 9mm pistol
A circa-December 1986 P88 prototype with wood grip panels and an extra safety behind the grip. The P88 entered production in January 1987. Photo taken at the Walther Museum in Ulm, Germany. (All photos unless noted: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
A circa-1988 cutaway Schnittmodell of the production variant of the P88, complete with the now familiar decocker lever. Photo taken at the Walther Museum in Ulm, Germany. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
When introduced, the P88 was billed as a more full-sized companion to the P5 Compact. The banner reads, “Self-loading pistols: over a century of experience in handgun manufacturing.” (Image courtesy of Walther.) 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The most common P88 variant has the fixed front sight milled into the top of the slide and a large frame-mounted decocker lever that doubles as a slide catch. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
Note the ambidextrous controls to include left and right-side push-button magazine release and decocker/slide catch. The pistol borrows the Walther P-5’s double-action trigger and safety system. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
Compare the pistol to the final variant of the P38, the P4. Introduced in 1974, Walther only produced a limited run of 5,200 P4s, with most used primarily by the West German Border Protection (Bundesgrenzschutz) and Customs (Zoll) agencies during the chilliest days of the Cold War. The follow-on P88, which debuted 50 years after the single-stack P38 was adopted, was billed as the metaphorical heir to the throne. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The standard full-sized P88 uses a 4-inch barrel, which gives the pistol a 7.4-inch overall length and a 5.92-inch sight radius. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
With its 15+1 shot double-stack magazine, it stands 5.61 inches high. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The width over the slide is a trim 0.93 inches, akin to the Browning Hi-Power. Note the milled sight trench with the integrated front sight blade and the peaked barrel hood inside a flared ejection port in the slide. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The width at the pistol’s widest point over the He-Man polymer grips and ambi controls is a beefy 1.5 inches. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The unloaded weight is 31.5 ounces, which bounces to 38.3 when loaded. Using a Duralumin alloy frame helps save a few ounces over an all-steel gun. Walther had lots of experience with alloy-framed service pistols, going back to the post-WWII P1 (updated P38) series, which debuted in the 1960s. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
Peeking at the inside of the pistol is easy, as takedown is toolless and familiar to many other common designs. Of note, the P88 was Walther’s first modern locked-breech pistol to abandon its traditional locking wedge design, instead opting for a Browning-style cam system. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
Note that the slide rails are full length. The pistol just glides through its cycle. 

 

Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The textured polymer grip includes a recessed lanyard ring, a must for handguns being shopped around for military and police contracts. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The Walther P88 had the distinction of being the company’s final production hammer-fired DA/SA 9mm with a decocker. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
This specimen shows the Ulm proof house’s antler proof mark and a 1990 date. Like most Walthers from that era, this one was imported and sold through the now-defunct Interarms company. For reference, Interarms folded in 1999. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
An exceedingly accurate design, the P88 shipped from the factory with a 25m proof target serial numbered to the gun, as seen to the left. Right is an example of rapid offhand fire from the 25, with all rounds keeping inside the 5-zone of a B27 silhouette. 

Walther later debuted several additional variants of the P88, including the Compact, Competition, Champion, and Sport.

Walther P-88 9mm pistol
Introduced in January 1991, the P88 A1 Compact uses a 3.83-inch barrel to create a pistol some 7.15 inches in overall length. It has a 14-round magazine due to its shorter 5.29-inch height. Unloaded weight is 29 ounces. This puts it almost the same size as the Walther P5. Note the slide-mounted P38-style decocker rather than the frame-mounted decocker as seen on other P88 models. It was also marketed in a 16-shot 8mm signal pistol format. Image courtesy of Walther. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The full-sized production P88, top, compared to the P88 A1 Compact, bottom. Photo taken at the Walther Museum in Ulm, Germany. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
By 1993, the Compact spun off into the Competition. Photo taken at the Walther Museum in Ulm, Germany.

 

Related: Factory Tour of Walther’s German Plant, Home of the PDP and PPK.

 

Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The P88 also evolved into longer-barreled Champion models such as this 5-inch circa-1993 specimen, complete with adjustable rear target sights and a muzzle brake/compensator. Note that the Champion is based on the Competition series with its shorter grip and slide-mounted safety decocker. Photo taken at the Walther Museum in Ulm, Germany. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
And this Lang Champion. Walther also made a rimfire variant dubbed the P88 Sport. Photo taken at the Walther Museum in Ulm, Germany. 

In all, Walther only made just under 10,000 standard P88s, which ended production in 1992, spanning six short years. The Compact variant remained in production until 2000 before the line shut down. In his book on Walther pistols, Dieter Marschall puts P88 Compact production at 7,344 pistols. The production numbers for Competition and Champion models are not mentioned in the book, but are likely much smaller.

The P88 line pistol was replaced with the smash-hit P99series, which was introduced in 1997 and has enjoyed a more than quarter-century run that is only now ending.

Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The P88 proved to be a bridge design, a link of sorts that took Walther from the legacy P38/P1/P4 series to the P99. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol in movies
The P88 was popular for a minute in the early 1990s and is seen in both an installment of “Beverly Hills Cop” and in Antoine Fuqua’s “The Replacement Killers,” famously appearing in the “empty gun standoff” scene between Kenneth Tsang and Chow Yun-Fat,
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
The build quality of the P88s we have seen come through our warehouse over the years has always been excellent. A pistol that has gravitas to it for sure. 
Walther P-88 9mm pistol
Interestingly, the P88’s nose and frame size are common enough to fit a wide array of holsters that are in circulation. For instance, this Galco Concealable 2.0 OWB holster, designed for a G48, fits it like a glove. 
We’ve even seen the occasional flashier variant pass through our vault. 

Suffice it to say that, should you come across a good P88, a gun that represents Walther’s old-world dedication to quality and craftsmanship, you’d kick yourself for not adding it to the collection.

We’d like to thank Christian Liehner from Carl Walther GmbH for his help with the research for this piece. 

They Call this Man a Frogman

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Original caption: 3 Aug. 1952, Officers and men of U.S. Pacific fleet and Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, staged the largest fresh water amphibious assault training operation in Navy and Marine Corps history on the shores of Lake Washington, Seattle. Frogmen of UDT #1 prepare to drop over the side of the rubber boat being towed by the master pick-up boat. Frogmen swam ashore to blast obstructions impeding the progress of the assault location. NARA 80-G-449678

The AP Archive continues to deliver, with this great circa mid-1950s Cold War-era 30-minute UDT team recruiting film, “The Navy Frogmen.”

It includes footage of the 110-foot New London submarine escape tower, UDT shorts, classic beach delivery and recovery techniques, early double and triple-tank (!) Aqualung open-circuit SCUBA gear, Pirelli Lung rebreathers, beach clearing demo against obstacles, submerged submarine lock-in/lock-out ops, and the like.

Enjoy!

8-inch Howie still on Watch

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The U.S. military perfected a self-propelled 8-inch howitzer in the early 1960s using the same Detroit Diesel 8V71T-powered double-tracked hull as the M107 175mm gun, only fitted with a short-barreled (25.3 caliber) 203mm M2A2 howitzer. The resulting gun, the M110, was improved in the 1980s with the longer-barreled (43-caliber) M201 203mm gun, complete with a double-baffle muzzle brake, in the follow-on M110A1/A2 variants.

US Army 8-inch gun Vietnam M110 SP, short tube

Vietnam 8-inch gun at Oasis 1968 D Battery, 5/16th FA, SP Howitzer M110 Diablo II. Note that short tube

Vietnam 8-inch gun at Oasis 1968 D Battery, 5/16th FA, SP Howitzer M110 Diablo II. 

1976 Rock Island Arsenal M110E1 203 mm 8-in Self-Propelled Howitzer with Muzzle Break

Used extensively in Vietnam and during the Cold War (the latter including a watch on the Fulda Gap, complete with the M426 chemical, M422, and M753 nuclear shells), a total of 1,163 M110 systems had been manufactured by the time the line ended in 1985.

American gunners of B Bty, 6 Bn, 27th Artillery, fire an M110 8-inch howitzer during a fire support mission at LZ Hong, approx. 12 km northeast of Song Be, South Vietnam. 26 March 1970.

3rd and 4th Armored Division artillerymen watching over W33 Atomic shell near M110 Self-Propelled Howitzer circa 1970. At 40 kilotons, it was double the yield of Hiroshima. It used tritium boosting to get more power.

Replaced by the 270mm MLRS in U.S. service in 1994 following a swan song in the first Gulf War, the Pentagon shopped around the low-round count M110A2s still on hand to assorted customers in the Middle East/Mediterranean in Bahrain, Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Morocco, and Pakistan, most of which still have them.

Also, Taiwan got a boatload, of which 70 are still in front-line service, as seen in this recent moto video from the country’s military, loading their 200-pound shells via hydraulic rammers and blasting them offshore at ranges under 26,000 yards.

Ash Cans Away!

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Something once incredibly common, a staple then on its last legs.

75 years ago this week, the Gearing-class destroyers USS Epperson (DDE-719), center and USS Sarsfield (DD-837), at right, dropping depth charges during anti-submarine warfare exercises, 15 June 1950. Sarsfield has also fired her Mark 6 K-Gun depth charge projectors, making vertical smoke trails (aft of the ship) and impact splashes to port and starboard.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-415520

First fielded by the U.S. Navy in 1916, when it ordered 10,000 100-pound Mark 1 depth charges, the fleet would place orders for 43,466 “ash cans” during the Great War in seven varieties, with the largest being the mammoth 745-pound Mark IV.

This figure was swamped in WWII with orders for 622,128 depth charges of all types placed by the Navy Department between December 1941 and September 1945, with the 420-pound Mark VI being the most numerous (218,922 built). The last new conventional American DC was the Mark 16, a 435-pounder developed in 1946 that used an advanced acoustic fuse.

Post-WWII, rocket-propelled Hedgehog, Mousetrap, Squid, and Alfa/Alpha devices supplemented and then replaced the more traditional depth charge. Then came dedicated ASW homing torpedoes with the Mk 32 in 1950, followed by the Mk 43 and Mk 46, which helped bring the Rocket Assisted Torpedo (later ASROC) on-line in 1958.

While the 29-pound counter-frogman Mark 10 depth charge remained in limited service, and assorted tactical nuclear depth charges were kept as special weapons, the Navy was eager to remove its huge stocks of WWII-era charges from inventory by the late 1950s due to their high maintenance requirements and outright danger– just recall the final moments of the USS Reuben James.

When the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) program for updating the Navy’s WWII-era destroyers for the Cold War kicked off in 1958, depth charge racks and projectors were “unceremoniously removed.”

As recalled by Captain Eli Vinock, U. S. Navy (Retired), in the meeting about the program with CNO Adm. Arleigh A. Burke, probably the most renowned destroyerman to ever hold a rank in the fleet:

Depth charges were unceremoniously removed as a weapon system for destroyers that presentation. As the list of weapon systems (new and old) that would be ‘incorporated in destroyers was being presented. Admiral Burke interrupted at the mention of depth charges and said, “Who included those things?” There was an embarrassing pause. Without comment, I drew a line through “depth charges,” turned toward the admiral, and said, “Sir. depth charges have been removed.” Good,” he said, and that was that.

Bluejackets taking in the sights

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It happened 80 years ago this week. Wesermünde (Bremerhaven), Germany. 11 June 1945.

Official caption: “Two members of the USN security guard aboard [redacted] inspect the surrounding harbor together with two members of the party directing the re-fitting.”

Photographer: Pvt. Gedge, 3908 Bremen. SC 364338 Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive.

(L-R) Leslie Graber, Momm 2/CL, Canton, Ohio; Jack Beach, MM 1/CL, Flint, Mich.; Grover Bradford, MM3 3/CL, Newman, Ill., and Ollin Donohue, Momm 1/CL, Wichita Falls, Tex.

The men are likely on the seized 49,000-ton Norddeutsche Lloyd liner SS Europa, which survived the war largely intact. Commissioned as USS Europa (AP-177), she was used as a U.S. Navy troop transport until May 1946, when she was handed over to France in compensation for the loss of the SS Normandie during the war, and became the CGT liner SS Liberté.

The dazzle-camouflaged German passenger liner, SS Europa, moves out of drydock at Bremerhaven, Germany, 18 July 1945, while being reactivated. She soon became USS Europa (AP-177) and made two Southampton to New York troop-carrying voyages under U.S. control. Note U-boat hull sections on shore at left. SC 209687

As agreed by the Allied governments in February 1945, immediately following the German surrender in May 1945, the U.S. Navy assumed command of and took part in mine-clearing operations at the wrecked ports of Bremen and Wesermünde (now Bremerhaven) to clear the vital harbors for use. As such, the USAAF and RAF leveled 79 percent of the surrounding town but spared most of the port infrastructure itself.

Sending in roadborne recon teams on 29 May, the “Bremen Enclave,” under RADM Arthur Granville Robinson (USNA 1913), remained under U.S. Navy control through June 1946 before they were turned over to local authorities, albeit with American oversight. The Army sent in the 487th Port Bn and the 330th Harbor Craft Co for support, and it soon became the major German port complex used to support the Western Allies’ occupation. The curious part of this was that this USN-run enclave was inside the British zone of occupation.

U.S. Navy in Germany, 1945. Members of the U.S. Navy advance reconnaissance patrol keep a wary eye out for Nazi snipers as they rumble through the debris-lined streets of Bremen, en-route to the dock area. Photograph release May 29, 1945. Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. Navy. 80-G-49286

Note the extensive presence of side arms and knives. U.S. Navy in Germany, 1945. Transported 400 miles across Europe by the U.S. Army, a force of Naval Officers and men took over the administration of the port activities of Bremen, Germany. Damaged but readily repairable facilities are inspected by the command staff of the U.S. Navy. Captain V.H. Coufrey points out salient features of Europe Hafen Docks to Rear Admiral Arthur G. Robinson. Photograph released May 29, 1945. Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. Navy. 80-G-49281

The first American ships to unload in the harbor, post-war, were the freighters SS St. Thomas and SS Black Warrior on 22 June, with 22,000 tons of cargo discharged at the port by the end of the month.

By July 1945, this rose to 162,000 tons.

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