Category Archives: TEOTWAWKI
I have to admit, apocalypse builds are growing on me…like mold
Just in time for Halloween of course, these two rifles, an AR flattop build constructed with a split wooden stock around the buffer tube and what used to be an Ottoman Turkish Mauser, seem like they are a step away from being shiny and chrome. But before you reach for the blood pressure meds about hacking up the vintage bolt-gun, the creator cautions the Mauser was on its last legs and was no longer collectible, and of course, AR components are almost dirt cheap these days.
Is that a rake?
The AR reminds me of this SIG 542 (an early 7.62x51mm variant that eventually shrunk down into the SIG 550), in use in the Tchad army in the 80s.
The Swiss made these with all plastic furniture, so the wood is very Sahara “after market”
Anyway, more in my column at Guns.com
Here comes Peter Cottontail
Have a safe and happy weekend, and watch out for the Bunny. He isn’t what he used to be…
And relax, the image is part of Eliot Lee Hazel’s The Poppy Field Gang art project.
And you thought Godzilla was bad…
The “most adaptable animals that you’ll ever find” are running rampant across parts of rural Japan in the wake of the 2011 nuclear catastrophe and strict gun laws aren’t helping.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, in which a boiling water reactor nuclear power plant largely went Chernobyl after a tsunami knocked it offline has left Japan with a host of problems to include radiation-induced health impacts, some 200,000 displaced locals and possible exposure of groundwater to melted down nuclear fuel for decades to come.
Oh yeah, and the wild hogs.
Thousands of wild, radioactive boars? Check! 0.6 guns per every 100 Japanese? Check! (Photo: Kyodo/AP via Outside online)
2 Great tastes that shouldn’t taste great together– but somehow seem to work
German firearms wonk Herbert Werle doesn’t a talk a lot in his videos, but that is OK because the custom creations he comes up with carry the conversation just fine.
Hailing from Ludwigshafen, Germany, Werle really digs custom Garands and Lugers and one of his latest experiments is a rock-and-rolling full-auto Luger with a custom Kalashnikov-style rear stock and forearm/barrel assembly that still uses the standard Luger 32-round artillery “snail” drum and toggle action.
First test fire above, second below, followed by a bonus video (!) of a similar build he did on an AR Luger. You know you want one.
[ Gattip, cerebralzero/Gunblr]
So what if we have been doing it this way for 241 years…
Just when you thought Ray Mabus couldn’t get any more lame:
Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (MCPON) Steven Giordano announce changes to the way the Navy classifies its enlisted ratings to modernize the force. Instead of using rating names and their abbreviations, the Navy will now use an alphanumeric code.
From the Navy’s presser,
MCPON: “While we certainly understand that this represents a significant cultural shift for the Navy and will take time to become fully adapted throughout the Fleet, this is about giving Sailors more choice and flexibility and ultimately providing the Navy opportunities to get the right Sailors with the right training and experience in the right billets.
“Sailors would no longer be called, ‘yeoman second class’ or YN2, for example,” he said. “Instead they will be ‘second class petty officer, or ‘petty officer.’ However, Sailors’ rates will not change: an E-7 will remain a Chief Petty Officer and an E-3 will remain a seaman. Additionally, there will no longer be a distinction between ‘airman, fireman and seaman.'”
Atom Age Combat!
Atom Age Combat was a short series of comic books produced in the 1950s by Gerard Arthus (St. John Publishing Company) that occupied that special little niche that war comics have always tried to juggle: Be appealing enough that your audience would want to read em and exploit the hell out of the horrific subject matter to keep them coming back for more.
Everything old is new again in 1960s tactical nukes
In 1961, Los Alamos National Laboratory started work on a project known then as TX-61 to come up with a 700~ pound tactical nuclear bomb with a yield that could range from 0.3-340 KT of glow in the dark.
Put into production at the Pantex Plant (Zone 11) near Amarillo, Texas in 1968, an estimated 3,155 B61 bombs were completed by the 1970s and, with the steady paring down of Russo-American nuclear stockpiles in the START and SALT treaties as others, the current number of operational devices stands at around 1,200 with only about 200 deployed.
The old school B61 (DOE image). Seems pretty simple.
Today the B61-3, -4, -7, and -10 series bombs, most of which are stockpiled on U.S. bases abroad such as in Europe and the Pacific, are the oldest items in the American nuclear triad and it is doubtful they could penetrate ultra modern strategic C4I facilities deep underground such as the ones believed to exist in Russia, China, DPRK and Iran, built since the 1990s, which can run over 1,000 feet deep and are protected by granite.
Still, they serve as something of “NATO’s Nukes” giving regional powers such as Italy, Spain, Germany and Turkey the nominal capability to carry an American-owned nuke under extreme circumstances (a B61 can be toted aloft by a Tornado or F-16).
Last week, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) announced they formally authorized the production engineering phase of its B61-12 warhead life extension program (LEP), which will include some capability for deep digging, dial-a-yield warheads, upgraded guidance packages and tail units.
The new B61-12, graphic by engadget
“Reaching this next phase of the B61-12 LEP is a major achievement for NNSA and the exceptionally talented scientists and engineers whose work underpins this vital national security mission,” said NNSA Administrator Lt. Gen. Frank G. Klotz (Ret.). “Currently, the B61 contains the oldest components in the U.S. arsenal. This LEP will add at least an additional 20 years to the life of the system.”
They expect it to be able to send the B83-1—the last megaton-class weapon in America’s nuclear arsenal— into retirement when the program gets fully fleshed out by 2020.
Was it Wrong to Drop the Atom Bomb on Japan?
Today, on the 71st anniversary of the first atomic attack, that of the bombing of the city of Hiroshima, Japan, some argue that Truman was wrong to order that the Army Air Force undertake to have Little Boy tumble out of the bomb bay of the Enola Gay.
Most of the nation’s five star admirals and generals later went on record against the use of the A-bomb. Here is what the two top admirals in the Pacific had to say on its use:
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet stated in a public address given at the Washington Monument on October 5, 1945:
The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war. . . . [Nimitz also stated: “The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan. . . .”]
In a private 1946 letter to Walter Michels of the Association of Philadelphia Scientists, Nimitz observed that “the decision to employ the atomic bomb on Japanese cities was made on a level higher than that of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander U.S. Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946:
The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it. . . . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before.
Professor of History at Notre Dame, Father Wilson Miscamble weighs in on the subject with the opinion that dropping the bomb shortened the war and saved countless lives — both American and Japanese.
And now, for your Debbie Downer today
Here is a more realistic take on what would have happened starting July 5, 1996 on the original Independence Day’s timeline. Hint: it will be bad. Like, while we aren’t extinct this will forever leave a mark on humanity, kind of bad.
laststandonzombieisland 