Description
National Security, Politics, Tech and More.
Feed Activity
Similar Feeds
Latest Posts
‘Like Being Sent to a Prison that Could Also Sink and Drown You’: US Navy Deployments are Hard. Aircraft Carrier Deployments that Go Almost a Year Are Even Harder
A Navy veteran who stood watches on frigates and destroyers in the Cold War explains what the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) faces after 10 months...
Decades Later, Admiral Chester Nimitz Best Line on ‘Making Waves’ Is Still One of the Greatest Quotes in US Navy History
Summary and Key Points: “If you’re not making waves, you’re not under way.” The line, widely credited to Chester Nimitz, fits the arc of his career: an ensign who ran...
79 Years Later, General George S. Patton’s Best US Army Line on Fear in War Is Still the Greatest Military Quote in Armed Forces History
“If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows not fear, I have never seen a brave man,” George Patton wrote in War As I...
29,000-Ton US Navy Battleship USS Pennsylvania Summed Up in 1 Word
The battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) sat in drydock at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, took one 500-pound bomb, and was seaworthy again by April 1942. She steamed more than...
$369,000,000 US Air Force Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor Stealth Fighter Biggest Flaw Summed Up in 1 Word
The F-22 Raptor was built to fight over Europe, and its 500-to-590-nautical-mile combat radius shows it. Against a Chinese arsenal that can range every US base in the First Island...
The US Navy Mach 2.34 Grumman F-14E Super Tomcat 21 Fighter Summed Up in 1 Word
Grumman’s answer to the 1990s question of what would replace the F-14 was another Tomcat. The Super Tomcat-21 would have swapped in upgraded GE F110 engines for 60,000 pounds of...
12 of the 32 SR-71 Blackbirds Ever Built Were Lost in Accidents, and Only 1 Crew Member Died in Flight. Above 80,000 Feet, One Wrong Pitch Move Could Break the Plane Apart
The SR-71 Blackbird flew above 80,000 feet at Mach 3, high and fast enough that Soviet missiles and interceptors could not reach it. On July 28, 1976, Blackbird 61-7962 set...
Dwight Eisenhower Never Fired a Shot in Combat and Won the Largest War in History. His Best Line Was About the Next One: “The Only Way to Win World War III Is to Prevent It”
Dwight Eisenhower never fired a shot in combat, yet he won the largest war in history and then spent eight years as president making sure the next one never started....
Winston Churchill Signed His Letters to His Wife as “Pig” and Called Her “Cat.” His Line on Pigs Explains Why: “A Pig Will Look Man Right in the Eye and See His Equal”
Winston Churchill had a line about pigs that says more about him than most biographies: “a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal.” He lived...
The Aristotle Quote That Defines US Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis Is Simple and Effective: “By Doing Brave Acts, We Become Brave”
“By doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled, and by doing brave acts, we become brave.” Aristotle’s line runs through the career of General James Mattis, the Marine known...
Russia’s New ‘AIP’ Lada-Class Submarine Has a Problem: No AIP Stealth Propulsion System So They Went Diesel Instead
Russia set out in 1997 to build the Lada-class submarine as a smaller, quieter replacement for the Kilo and a new export boat. The lead ship took 13 years to...
The US Navy Has a Problem: It Needs to Start Retiring Nuclear Aircraft Carriers and It Has Never Been Done Before
USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, left service more than ten years ago and is still waiting to be dismantled. Submarines are relatively simple to dispose of, but...
The US Navy’s 100,000-Ton Nuclear Aircraft Carrier USS Nimitz Summed Up in 1 Word
The US Navy will keep USS Nimitz, its oldest aircraft carrier, in service until March 2027, a ten-month extension. Retiring the 1975 ship sooner would drop the fleet below the...
US Warplanes Will ‘Fly Over Canada’ if Ottawa Does Not Buy all 88 Lockheed Martin F-35 Fighters
Canada’s trade war with Washington has stalled its planned 88-jet F-35 buy. Ottawa is legally committed to 16 and has put down payments on 14 more, while Mark Carney’s government...
The Navy’s Newest Aircraft Carrier Could Not Handle Its Newest Fighter: The F-35C’s 3,600°F Exhaust Was Too Hot for USS Gerald R. Ford’s Flight Deck as Built
The Navy’s newest carrier class and its newest fighter did not fit. As built, USS Gerald R. Ford’s jet blast deflectors could not take the F-35C’s 3,600°F exhaust, and the...
US Navy Attack Submarine USS Grayling Collided With a Russian Submarine Carrying 16 Nuclear Missiles 105 Miles North of Murmansk in 1993, and Both Sides Swept It Under the Rug
On March 20, 1993, the Sturgeon-class attack submarine USS Grayling was shadowing the Russian Delta IV ballistic missile submarine Novomoskovsk in the Barents Sea when it lost track of the...
80,000-Ton Navy Aircraft Carrier USS John F. Kennedy Sliced the Top Off the Cruiser USS Belknap in 1975. The Fires Burned Within 40 Feet of the Cruiser’s Nuclear Weapons, and 8 Sailors Died
The collision between the USS John F. Kennedy and the guided-missile cruiser USS Belknap during maneuvers in the Mediterranean Sea is considered one of the worst ship collisions in United...
China Does Not Have to Sink a US Navy Aircraft Carrier. It Only Has to Keep It Outside the First Island Chain, Where Its Jets Need Tankers, and Tankers Are Easy Targets for the J-20
Iran’s cheap drones and missiles have blown through US defenses and left the Navy wary of the Strait of Hormuz. China has been building the same kind of wall across...
I Am a Retired US Army Special Forces NCO: The Colt King Cobra Carry Holds 6 Rounds at 26 Ounces and Ran a 0.89-Second Speed Drill. It Beat 2 Lighter Smith & Wessons Doing It.
Six rounds instead of five, 26 ounces instead of 36, and a cylinder that takes the old Colt Detective Special speedloaders. The trade is capacity — six against the 12...
The F-4 Phantom Flew Without a Gun Because Missiles Were Supposed to Make Dogfights Obsolete. Then Vietnam Put It Nose to Nose With Agile MiGs, Its Missiles Kept Failing, and the US Air Force Fix Was a Gun Pod
For F-4 Phantom crews, the saying went that two ejections ended a flying career, not as punishment but because the G-forces of the seat could permanently compress a spine, a...