Category Archives: Military

The M103 and M60 Tanks At The Dowagiac, Michigan, National Guard Armory – Cold War Armor

My wife and I like driving around and war memorials, VFW displays, and military tributes are always likely to cause us to stop, read and take pictures. Dowagiac, MI, is about 45 minutes from where we live and one fine summer day we decided to stop at the National Guard Armory there and take pictures.

It wasn’t until I was researching for this post that I found out that Dowagiac was the “Home of Armor” for the Michigan National Guard. From sometime in the 1940s until October 2006, the armor batallion was located there. Click here if you want to read more about the armory’s history.

Today, when you drive by the armory you will see two tanks and lets start with the M103 Heavy Tank stands at the corner West Prarie Ronde Street and Middle Crossing Road.

The M103

The 120mm Gun Combat Tank M103 began with the designator “T43” and was meant to counter Soviet armor at a distance. It suffered from an underpowered gasoline engine and then they moved to a diesel to try and improve matters. The M103 served with both the US Army and Marine Corps – 80 units with the Army and 220 with the Marines. They were in use from the late 1950s until 1963 when the Army started switching to the M60 Main Battle Tank and with the Marines until 1973. Wikipedia has a good history if you wish to read it – click here.

The following photo gallery lets you see some different angles of the M103 on display and you can see its current shape as well. The following is a gallery so if you click on a small photo to begin, a larger photo will pop up and then you can navigate through the larger photos:

The M60

The M103 at least sits by the corner displayed with a bit of aging pride. Behind a fence on the Middle Crossings Road side of the armory you can see an M60 sitting in the weeds sinking into the ground. I realize there is probably little budget or time to put much care into these tanks but it is a shame to see their current state at an actual armory no less.

The M60 was a second generation main battle tank that evolved from the M48. Over 15,000 of them were built by Chrysler. The first combat usage of a M60 was Israel in the 173 Yom Kippur war. The largest US deployment was in the 1991 Gulf War. The tanks were phased out from front line use after that and even retired from national guard use in 1997. The M60 is still in use by a number of militaries around the world. Wikipedia has a through write up on the history and evolution of the M60 and its various models – click here to access it.

Because the M60 was behind the fence at the armory, I was limited to the photo angles I could get. The following is a gallery also so click on a small photo and a large one will pop up:

In Summary

Dowagiac is a neat town to visit. They have some very good restaurants on their main street plus a number of memorials – we still need to stop and get photos of some of their others – I did do a post about their German trench mortar a few years back.

The history of armory was interesting to learn while researching for this post plus seeing the two tanks is always pretty neat.


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Video: Manufacturing an Eight Inch High Explosive Howitzer Shell Circa 1917 – Shows a Ton of Machining Operations

If you like to watch old school machining, this video from the Library and Archives Canada is pretty amazing. It’s a silent black and white video that is just shy of 54 minutes long. The title of the video is “Manufacturing an Eight Inch High Explosive Howitzer Shell At The Works Of The John Bertram & Sons Company, Ltd., Dundas, Ontario – Canada”.

The video steps you through the process as well as general view of the shop. This shows you manufacturing in an era where a lot of artisan skill was required to turn out products. It’s really fascinating to watch. The following are some screen shots from the video:

Here’s the Video:


I hope you enjoyed this bit of history!


Please note that all images were extracted from the video and are the property of their respective owner.


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Motivational Video: US Navy Seals and SWCC – “Never Quit”

Many folks have heard of the US Navy’s Sea Air and Land (SEAL) teams. The SEALs have been in a ton of movies and books but they are supported by another critical special warfare group – the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman (SWCC). These are the teams that man the small boats that deliver and pick up the SEALs.

I have a lot of respect for the SWCC crews and get a real kick out of their boats – wow. These things are packing some serious firepower.

So, I ran across this cool motivational video this morning and thought I would share it:


Please note that all images are extracted from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s).

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.




Video of Spectre, Spooky II and Stinger II AC-130 Gunships – Both internal and External Views. So Cool.

I’ve always found the gunships of interest and always like videos that show the AC-130s. This is the first time I have seen this particular high definition video that shows three models: The AC-130H Spectre, AC-130U Spooky and AC-130W Stinger.

The AC-130s pack a serious punch with their firepower. For the three models in this video, here is an armaments list:

AC-130H Spectre From 2000 onwards

AC-130U Spooky II

AC_130W Stinger II

Here’s the Video


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Details on the armaments were obtained from Wikipedia where there is a great page that outlines the AC-130 gunships. Click here to visit it.


How to Defeat WiFi censorship around Firearms, Military and Law Enforcement with VPN Apps on Mobile Devices

I am sick and tired of businesses and other groups telling me that something that is perfectly legal is not acceptable. Have you ever tried to use your phone or mobile device in an establishment and got some kind of message like the following instead of the web page you wanted:

Or perhaps something like this when you know full well the website is working:

What is happening is some pain in the butt liberal is blocking your web access based on the website address you’re going to.

I’m really sick and tired of messages like these when I try to access websites from my phone or tablet that involve firearms, law enforcement, military, or anything else perfectly legitimate that the provider of the Wi-Fi services feels is inappropriate. Screw them.

What happens with Wi-Fi is that your phone is connecting to a wireless network which in turn passes through any number of devices that can subscribe to what is known as a “block list.”

The block list is provided either by the vendor of the network device or from a service provider and is updated regularly with a list of websites with different categories that the subscriber can then block. So if you try to go by name to my website like the above image shows, you will be blocked at many public venues.

Use Virtual Private Network Apps

The way to get around this is to run virtual private Network (VPN) software on your phone or tablet. It basically works by using an application that encrypts all of your phone’s WiFi data traffic to the VPN provider who then routes the data on their servers and network to your desired destination. The group trying monitor your traffic has no idea where it is going or what the contents are due to the encryption in the VPN

There are free providers that can be very slow and your security might be in question or, like me, you can use a commercial service.

I prefer a service called “IPvanish” and I’ve been using it for a year and a half. I have no affiliation with them and get absolutely zero money for this recommendation. It just so happens that I’m at a major theme park right now and I’m royally pissed off because they are blocking my access to sites I normally go to that are perfectly legal. This is censorship.

So I’m sitting here ticked and figured writing a blog post to help you guys out so you can get to these sites whenever you want would be my best revenge.

IPvanish

I have a Samsung Note 8 phone that runs Android and IPvanish makes an app that is very affordable. You can get it through the Play Store for Android plus other platforms are supported such as Apple and they are in the Apple store.

Getting going is pretty easy.  You simply sign up, pay, install the app, enter your user ID and password and you’re ready to go.  Yes, you do pay but this means you have fast connections because they can afford to have adequate capacity.

If you want to read more first go to their website at http://www.ipvanish.com

Some interesting options

There are a few interesting options to point out to you. You can have the software start automatically if you wanted to, you can tell it what country or maybe even what city you want to say it’s accessing from. For example if I wanted to make it look like I am in Canada, I can do that. If I am in another country and I want it to look like I’m in the United States, I can do that too. It gives you some interesting capabilities if you run into a situation involving digital rights such as situations where content you normally use in the United States is not licensed for people outside of it and so forth.

In summary

If you are sick and tired of being blocked, get yourself some VPN software. Ipvanish is my preference but you definitely have others to choose from. Don’t let other people dictate to you what you can and cannot do when it comes to perfectly legal topics such as Firearms, law enforcement and Military websites.



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Last Man Standing – Footage of Various Special Forces Groups Including the US and Germany

Yeah, I definitely liked the song and video footage in this one. It’s a good chance to see a variety of NATO-related weapons including M4,s HKs, Mk.19, AUGs and more. You always need at least one minigun on a US Navy Riverine boat too 🙂

Here’s the Video


Please note that all images are from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s),


If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.



Understanding The Histories of Some of the Special Operations “Spetsnaz” groups in Russia Today

In the West, folks tend to think that Russian special operations groups, collectively termed “Spetsnaz” are one entity. In fact, there are many special operations groups in Russia both in the military as well as the police.

FTD Facts assembled a brief video focusing on a number of groups wherein he provides a historical narrative with photos as well as modern footage as well. It’s very informative if you ware wanting to understand a bit more about some of the Spetsnaz groups and how they were formed.

Here’s the Video


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All photos come from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s).



Video of Anti-Terror Exercise in Russia in 2018

This is a video of a training exercise at the Kalingrad stadium simulating a hostage situation. Units from the FSB, police, Regardie and MOE were involved.

Parachute drop to the stadium
Going up a frozen ditch

Here’s the Video


If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.



All photos come from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s).