Recent content by Matt

I'm really inclined to agree. Plus the GM produced Wildcats were filling a tactical niche despite their obsolescence. By this point the Dauntless isn't doing anything a Hellcat or Corsair can't do.

While the draft did drive plenty of 18 year olds to "voluntarily" enlist as to avoid service in the infantry, it did not take 18 years olds . Estimates are as high as 65% of all personal were driven by the draft in one form or the other, so I don't want to diminished that. It was so important...

No, not everyone would. Even today the SGLI benefits are elective and require the service member to pay a small amount per month. Its something like 20 bucks a month that only a fool would decline. The WW2 benefits would be the same way, and some guys would have not opted in because not...

A Service member could elect to pay for SGLI insurance that would disperse through the VA. During WW2 the max benefit was $10,000.00, which is equivalent to roughly 185k now. Post-war, if her husband's remains were known and accessible the government would provide at no cost to relocate...

A year after the establishment of the JGSDF? Sounds like they were fairly ambitious.

So, I started my career in 2000 almost as a bookend for guys of @Carl Schwamberger cohort. Mostly we got story and they can be of dubious reliability. So there were plenty of stories of the cut to nothing budgets, the drug use, and officers wearing side arms in barracks. The first of the...

How the heck did this turn into a conversation about the F35?

They successfully mated an M26 turret to an M4.

Jesus, don't listen to a thing TiK has to say about economics or politics.

How were individual replacements handled in the British Army during the World Wars at the unit level? How did the regimental system that Britain is famous factor in? Having spent a good deal of time and energy studying the organizational history of the US Army in the 20th Century, I have a...

Well, drat... Gonna have to go with the alternative title then.

My apologies for digging up my old material, but since I'm one of the TLs authors I want to give an update. Ed (Bulgaroktonos) and I still talk about this work all the time, which is impressive since it's been more that 10 years since it started. Obviously it has gone long dormant, but I...

Separate upper and lower receivers. Remove bolt carrier group and charging handle. Remove retention pin to separate bolt and firing pin from the bolt carrier group. Buffer and buffer spring. That's it.

It's a Ma Deuce fitted with a blank firing device.

With old STANAG magazines with green or black followers we loaded 27 rounds. There's no telling how old those magazines are, and how weak the springs are. For the new magazines with tan followers you could load the full 30 rounds.