Tag Archives: spooky

Give it up to the AP…

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The Associated Press continues to put up archived footage from yesteryear online and some of it is striking. These recently caught my eye.

An 11-minute German training video from 1940 showing V1 and V2 rockets at Peenemunde.

A 20-minute 1976 report from Angola including some interesting footage of both CIA/South African-backed UNITA rebels and Cuban-backed MPLA in training– with lots of sweet FALs, HKG3s, and brand-new AKMs with bright orange Bakelite mags.

A 20-minute, sadly silent but in color, reel of AC-47D gunships out of Bien Thuy AB during the Vietnam War, October 1966.

A 16-minute, again silent but in color, reel of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger being rolled out.

A captured 1944 German small arms instruction training film— in color– showing the basic use of everything from an MP40 to a Luger and MG 42.

A highly entertaining 16-minute color 1952 film on the failed Lockheed XFV-1, an early VTOL fighter envisioned for WWIII convoy defense that never quite got the bugs worked out.

And a 52-second newsreel of Billy Mitchell’s Martin MB-2s flying out of Langley Field in the 1920s to drop bombs on the captured German battlewagon SMS Ost Friesland, complete with foley sounds added in the 1970s.

Marines looking to turn thier tankers into gunship-tankers

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DID Reports that, the USMC is taking thier KC-130T Herky bird tankers : 

 

and making them into lean mean chupacabra-like dealers of death and destruction :

 

The Marines’ program is called Harvest Hawk. The initial plan is to field 3 kits, and the eventual plan is to have 3 roll-on/ roll-off kits per squadron. That would mean about 9 kits by 2011, and 12 kits when the last KC-130T aerial refueling squadron converts to KC-130Js after 2012. All USMC KC-130Js are expected to receive the wiring needed to carry the kits, which will be improved and refined over time.

Harvest Hawk Capability I involves a roll-on/roll-off set of surveillance displays and fire control electronics. This is coupled with a modular surveillance and targeting unit that takes up the rear portion of the inboard left external fuel tank, or may simply be mounted below that tank as a surveillance turret. The sensor choice was said to involve 2 candidates. Lockheed Martin’s AN/AAQ-30 TSS, which is also used in the Marines’ AH-1Z attack helicopter and has been installed in some SOCOM AC-130s, was the front runner. L-3 Wescam’s popular MX-15 surveillance and targeting turret was the competitor, but competing against the Harvest Hawk’s integrator is not a promising position; the AAQ-30 TSS won.

Harvest Hawk Capability II involves mounting an M299 missile rack for 4 AGM-114P Hellfires and/or up to 16 DAGR laser-guided 70mm rockets to the left wing, in place of the left-hand aerial refueling pod. This leaves the left wing carrying the weapons and some fuel, while the right wing retains full aerial refueling capabilities. The laser/GPS-guided GBU-44 “Viper Strike”/SOPGM has also been moved into this category.

Bravo Zulu Marines, just remember……What Would Spooky Do?