Wait...you think Algeria paid for Su-35s and Su-57s - yet didn't bother to buy the missiles which allow those same Su-35s to dominate Ukraine's old F-16s to the point they have to sneak at low heights to do ground attack missions and cannot even hope to strike back?
archive.is/h4qJq
!["The bombing campaign destroyed almost every substantial building in North Korea. The war's highest-ranking U.S. POW, U.S. Major General William F. Dean, reported that the majority of North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wasteland. Dean Rusk, the U.S. State Department official who headed East Asian affairs, concluded that America had bombed "everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another." North Korean factories, schools, hospitals, and government offices were forced to move underground....
In an interview with U.S. Air Force historians in 1988, US Air Force General Curtis LeMay, who was also head of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, commented on efforts to win the war as a whole, including the strategic bombing campaign, saying "Right at the start of the war, unofficially, I slipped a message in "under the carpet" in the Pentagon that we ought to turn SAC lose with some incendiaries on some North Korean towns. The answer came back, under the carpet again, that there would be too many civilian casualties; we couldn't do anything like that. We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another, and some in South Korea, too… Over a period of three years or so we killed off, what, 20 percent of the population of Korea, as direct casualties of war or from starvation and exposure? Over a period of three years, this seemed to be acceptable to everybody, but to kill a few people at the start right away, no, we can't seem to stomach that"."
Pyongyang, which saw 75% of its area destroyed, was so devastated that bombing was halted as there were no longer any worthy targets.[32][33] By the end of the campaign, US bombers had difficulty in finding targets and were reduced to bombing footbridges or jettisoning their bombs into the sea"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreiakvc7m7vmm6ollvfu3rlovdquwykcqh7oydolrqzeplwvqkmmx7e)
!["The Canadian Car and Foundry of Fort William, Ontario, Canada, was a major Hurricane manufacturer, producing them from November 1938 after receiving their initial contract for 40 Hurricanes. The facility's chief engineer, Elsie MacGill, became known as the "Queen of the Hurricanes".[26] The initiative was commercially driven, but was endorsed by the British government. Hawker recognised that a major conflict was inevitable after the Munich Crisis of 1938 and drew up preliminary plans to expand Hurricane production at a new factory in Canada. Under this plan, samples, pattern aircraft, and design documents stored on microfilm were shipped to Canada. In 1938/39 the RCAF ordered 24 Hurricanes to equip one fighter squadron, 20 of which were delivered, and two were supplied to Canadian Car and Foundry as pattern aircraft, but one probably did not arrive, while the other was returned to Britain in 1940. The first Hurricane built at Canadian Car and Foundry was completed in February 1940.[26] Canadian-built Hurricanes shipped to Britain participated in the Battle of Britain.[26]
Overall, some 14,487 Hurricanes and Sea Hurricanes were produced in England and Canada.[27] The majority of Hurricanes, 9,986 were built by Hawker (who produced the type at Brooklands from December 1937 to October 1942 and at Langley Airfield, Berkshire from October 1939 to July 1944), while Hawker's sister company, the Gloster Aircraft Company, constructed 2,750. The Austin Aero Company completed 300 Hurricanes, and Canada Car and Foundry produced 1,451.[28] Those shipped to Britain, though, were often incomplete airframes, and about 80% were delivered without an engine."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreiaqhiqpkpcjufvhdr54bxifr5wkkc5fbnq6645v7k3ctyyqwclooi)
!["Tegart introduced Arab Investigation Centres where prisoners were subjected to beatings, foot whipping (bastinado), electric shocks, denailing and what is now known as "waterboarding".[1] Tegart also imported Doberman Pinschers from South Africa and set up a special centre in Jerusalem to train interrogators in torture."
Role of the Royal Air Force
"The Royal Air Force developed close air support into its then most refined form during the Arab Revolt. Air patrols had been found effective in keeping convoys and trains free from attack, but this did not help to expose insurgents to battle conditions likely to cause their defeat.[126] From the middle of June 1936 wireless vehicles accompanied all convoys and patrols.[126] During rebel attacks these vehicles could issue emergency "XX calls" (XX with a coded location), which were given priority over all other radio traffic, to summon aerial reinforcements.[126] Bombers, which were usually airborne within five minutes, could then either attack insurgents directly or "fix" their position for infantry troops. Forty-seven such XX calls were issued during the revolt, causing heavy losses to the rebels.[126] In the June 1936 Battle of Nur Shams British planes attacked Arab irregulars with machine gun fire.
This use of air power was so successful that the British were able to reduce the regular garrison.
In 1936 an Air Staff Officer in Middle East Command based in the Kingdom of Egypt, Arthur Harris, known as an advocate of "air policing",[127] commented on the revolt saying that "one 250 lb. or 500 lb. bomb in each village that speaks out of turn" would satisfactorily solve the problem.[128] In 1937 Harris was promoted to Air Commodore and in 1938 he was posted to Palestine and Trans-Jordan as Air Officer Commanding the RAF contingent in the region until September 1939. "Limited" bombing attacks on Arab villages were carried out by the RAF,[129] although at times this involved razing whole villages."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreiaseu6yacweoda3gaeupvq5l7aaw4pui2oq5ivovf6avvqtfqrcse)
!["The following day 18 B-52s struck Thanh Hóa's Bai Thuong Air Base. Three more days followed before another strike, this time by another 18 bombers in a pre-dawn attack against an oil tank farm outside Haiphong. They were followed by more than 100 tactical aircraft attacking targets around Hanoi and Haiphong during daylight.[21] Between 6 and 15 April, U.S. aircraft also struck and destroyed the Paul Doumer and Thanh Hóa bridges and the Yên Viên railway marshalling yard. This marked the introduction of laser-guided bombs against strategic targets in North Vietnam. Both bridges had previously been attacked unsuccessfully with conventional bombs and even missiles. The B-52s were then withdrawn from operations in the north and when they returned in June, their missions would be limited to South Vietnam.[31]
By mid-month, nearly all of North Vietnam had been cleared for bombing raids for the first time in over three years. Air Force and Navy commanders and pilots were relieved that Nixon (unlike President Johnson) left the operational planning to local commanders and loosened the targeting restrictions that had hampered Operation Rolling Thunder.[32] Between 1 May and 30 June B-52s, fighter-bombers, and gunships had flown 18,000 sorties against formidable anti-aircraft defenses with the loss of 29 aircraft."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreicsbdfr7pxkfvheiz4277r5d2ocmuddkpx237fx52f3fc6u5zzoai)
!["The bombing campaign destroyed almost every substantial building in North Korea. The war's highest-ranking U.S. POW, U.S. Major General William F. Dean, reported that the majority of North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wasteland. Dean Rusk, the U.S. State Department official who headed East Asian affairs, concluded that America had bombed "everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another." North Korean factories, schools, hospitals, and government offices were forced to move underground....
In an interview with U.S. Air Force historians in 1988, US Air Force General Curtis LeMay, who was also head of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, commented on efforts to win the war as a whole, including the strategic bombing campaign, saying "Right at the start of the war, unofficially, I slipped a message in "under the carpet" in the Pentagon that we ought to turn SAC lose with some incendiaries on some North Korean towns. The answer came back, under the carpet again, that there would be too many civilian casualties; we couldn't do anything like that. We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another, and some in South Korea, too… Over a period of three years or so we killed off, what, 20 percent of the population of Korea, as direct casualties of war or from starvation and exposure? Over a period of three years, this seemed to be acceptable to everybody, but to kill a few people at the start right away, no, we can't seem to stomach that"."
Pyongyang, which saw 75% of its area destroyed, was so devastated that bombing was halted as there were no longer any worthy targets.[32][33] By the end of the campaign, US bombers had difficulty in finding targets and were reduced to bombing footbridges or jettisoning their bombs into the sea](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreifpjbfc37lw6ppoeg2holo4rqrmw6q74cgaq767novo6beikf624e)
!["Despite several partial mobilisations since 1936, during the full mobilisation in September 1939, officers were unfamiliar with their duties, technical experts were simultaneously expected to hand over their vehicles, report to recruitment centres and were also exempt from service as essential workers. Reservists flooded the depots leading to shortages of beds and poor sanitary conditions. The army lacked 150,000 pairs of trousers, 350,000 blankets, 415,000 tents and 600,000 pairs of boots. Recruits often left their centres and returned home or drank excessively as they waited around for someone to take charge and integrate them. This was a disastrous process not too dissimilar from that of 1870, though the main German blow fell on Poland initially and not France.[93]
The French mechanised light and heavy armoured divisions (DLM and DCr) were new and not thoroughly trained. Reserve B Divisions were composed of reservists above 30 years old and ill-equipped. A serious qualitative deficiency was a lack of anti-aircraft artillery, mobile anti-tank artillery and wireless, despite the efforts of Gamelin to produce mobile artillery units.[89][94] Only 0.15 per cent of military spending between 1923 and 1939 had been on radio and other communications equipment; to maintain signals security, Gamelin used telephones and couriers to communicate with field units."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreicclinu2cnfwi3acvbtwrtszpmvedstmt6reiblo3r5afdhmh6lz4)
!["Poland and the campaign in the west
On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland using seventy-two divisions (including 16 reserve infantry divisions in OKH reserves), including seven panzer divisions (1., 2., 3., 4., 5., 10., "Kempf") and four light divisions (1., 2., 3., 4.). Three days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany. The seven panzer and four light divisions were arrayed in five armies, forming two army groups.[52] The battalion strength of the 1st Panzer Division included no less than fourteen Panzer Is, while the other six divisions included thirty-four.[56] About 2,700 tanks were available for the invasion of Poland, but only 310 of the heavier Panzer III and IV tanks were available. Furthermore, 350 were of Czech design—the rest were either Panzer Is or Panzer IIs.[57] The invasion was swift and the last Polish pockets of resistance surrendered on 6 October.[58] The entire campaign had lasted five weeks (with help of the Soviet forces, which attacked on 17 September), and the success of Germany's tanks in the campaign was summed up in response to Hitler on 5 September: when asked if it had been the dive bombers who destroyed a Polish artillery regiment, Guderian replied, "No, our panzers!"[59]
Some 832 German tanks (including 320 PzI, 259 PzII, 40 Pz III, 76 PzIV, 77 Pz35(t), 13 PzBef III, 7 PzBef 38(t), 34 other PzBef and some Pz38(t))[60] were lost during the campaign, approximately 341 of which never to return to service. This represented about a third of Germany's armor deployed for the Polish campaign.[60] During the campaign, no fewer than half of Germany's tanks were unavailable due to maintenance issues or enemy action, and of all tanks, the Panzer I proved the most vulnerable to Polish anti-tank weapons"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreiaftlbjuhtq4ky24jtz7arg64gam2r2t2iwukvlrh457kkr2lab5q)
!["Word War II
"Production of synthetic rubber in the United States expanded greatly during World War II since the Axis powers controlled nearly all the world's limited supplies of natural rubber by mid-1942, following the Japanese conquest of most of Asia, particularly in the Southeast Asian colonies of British Malaya (Malaysia) and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) from where much of the global supply of natural rubber was sourced.[6] However, production of synthetic rubber was still not sufficient to eliminate the threat that the U.S. would run out of rubber.
During the Allies' Operation Pointblank, bombing targets in Nazi Germany included the Schkopau plant (50,000 tons/yr) and the Hüls synthetic rubber plant near Recklinghausen (30,000, 17%),[8] and the Kölnische Gummifäden Fabrik tire and tube plant at Deutz on the east bank of the Rhine.[9] The synthetic rubber factory in Ferrara, Italy (near a river bridge) was bombed August 23, 1944.[10] Three other synthetic rubber facilities were at Ludwigshafen/Oppau (15,000), Hanover/Limmer (reclamation, 20,000), and Leverkusen (5,000). A synthetic rubber plant at Oświęcim, in Nazi-occupied Poland, was under construction on March 5, 1944[11] operated by IG Farben and supplied by the SS with slave labor from the associated Monowitz concentration camp"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreiexfyerbnjzp4d7tymxndwwyasdtxg7wahrzq2qogpd24hmx2krdq)
![Wikipedia's "Nimitz-class aircraft carrier" article section on "Carrier air wing".
"In order for a carrier to deploy, it must embark one of ten Carrier Air Wings (CVW).[Note 3] The carriers can accommodate a maximum of 130 F/A-18 Hornets[39] or 85–90 aircraft of different types, but current numbers are typically 64 aircraft. Although the air wings are integrated with the operation of the carriers they are deployed to, they are regarded as separate entities. As well as the aircrew, the air wings are also made up of support personnel involved in roles including maintenance, aircraft and ordnance handling, and emergency procedures. Each person on the flight deck wears color-coded clothing to make their role easily identifiable.[40]
A typical carrier air wing includes 36-48 F/A-18E or F Super Hornets as strike fighters, split between 3-4 squadrons; up to 12 F-35Cs, contributed by a squadron of Navy or Marine aviation; 4–8 EA-18G Growlers for electronic warfare; 4–6 E-2D Hawkeyes for airborne early warning (AEW), 1-3 C-2 Greyhounds used for logistics (to be replaced by CMV-22 Ospreys); and a Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron of 6–8 MH-60R and MH-60S Seahawks and 'Knighthawks', respectively. Marine F/A-18C or D Hornet squadrons are also sometimes deployed in place of F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and/or F-35C squadrons. Future aircraft planned for operation from Nimitz and future classes of aircraft carrier include the MQ-25 Stingray, and two squadrons of F-35C, replacing a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet squadron. Aircraft previously operated from Nimitz-class carriers include F-4 Phantoms, RA-5C Vigilantes, RF-8G Crusaders, F-14 Tomcats, S-3 Vikings, EA-3B Skywarriors, EA-6B Prowlers, A-7 Corsair II, and A-6E Intruder aircraft.[41]"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreicusza732gf3bopz6sc3k57yrmuyhff55fpph3ik4rp2kw3hfbr44)
![Caption of this Wikipedia image: "Hiroden cars 651 and 652, which both survived the atomic bomb.[1] As of June 2025 both cars are still in service."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o2psjjwfsd2zox25jnu3hsc4/bafkreicztwnl6ya64dkyrf2rnwhsezftnyx5opi2ajbrx2fvbyv5m42eve)
