The Toyota Hilux - one amazing pickup truck. It still makes me laugh a bit to see all of the various uses people find for that vehicle and all of the ridiculous situations[1] it finds itself in. Hell, it even has a war named after it.[2]
I have similar pictures in albums from my childhood.
Same look of mad scientist engineering delight, damn lucky to be born in America where instead of machining artillery ammo I'm building forts, water balloon launchers, and other weapons of low destruction.
I was puzzled that the UB-32 rocket launchers have English instructions printed on them instead of Arabic. The CIA World Factbook does say that Arabic, Italian, and English are all understood in the major cities. Still surprising.
I was surprised by that too. I would have excepted Russian instructions instead of Arabic though. Maybe all (official) Russian exports have English text?
Hopefully they don't get too good at this. It's rare that a revolutionary army can lay down its weapons after the war. The French thought it would be fun to "liberate" the rest of Europe after their revolution.
The French Revolution was rather more ideological than this revolution looks. And besides, the French had been making a regular habit of rampaging through Europe at that point, so the revolution just let them do it more intelligently and enthusiastically.
Well after the American Revolution was finished, we stopped. There was the whiskey rebellion but it was a small affair. ie after the revolution we actually got something better and stable. only one civil war in +200 yeas not a bad record.
The native americans would object to your theory.
I think the only difference was that America was plenty big and the people killed there didn't survive in significant enough numbers in America today so their view of the whole affair doesn't concern many people nowadays.
Winston Churchill took up the Victory campaign enthusiastically, and made a V sign with his fingers whenever a camera was pointed at him, his palm facing in both directions. This dismayed his private secretary, John Colville. In September 1941, Colville wrote in his diary, ''The PM will give the V-sign with two fingers in spite of representations repeatedly made to him that this gesture has quite another significance.''
Churchill was eventually persuaded to use only the palm forwards gesture."
There are images of Churchill using both gestures.
I don't think one can be entirely sure of the intention though general body language and facial expression usually will carry which meaning is intended.
It seems that there is a lot of left over ammo all over the place or are they creating their own ammo? At what point of do the Qaddafi forces run out of cash to keep funding this war.
I think it is mostly captured, except for the moltov coctails and the refilled RPG that they showed. They did show that they were taking the time to get the rust off of ammunition. You probably wouldn't do that if you had means to produce it in quantity.
What's wrong with saying that? I'm just commenting that it's fascinating to see what they are coming up with. Obviously it's just an idea, but if there actually was a show or documentary or something, it would help them get there message out a lot more easily.
Information about the Libyan rebels has been on the frontpage of the news for weeks, I don't think a cable TV show is what they need right now. Their message is definitely out there, and it's being echoed by top US officials. Just a few days ago Hillary Clinton addressed the AU urging them to join in the call for Gaddafi to step down. While it is fascinating (and frightening) to see what these people are going through, I don't think a show on the Discovery Channel about how to refurbish and modify weapons seized from the military is an appropriate thing to talk about. If you want to talk about the journalists and the difficulties they face when trying to document events like these, that's fine.
Also interesting that the battlespace is being prepared for boots on the ground intervention by - among other things - getting the home front in the mood for intervention by showing plucky rebels with home built ordnance.
Well, there's a bit but its not like they're firing 120mm cannons from those things. And really, the US fires missiles from the backs of trucks all the time.
But different cases. The picture you linked (and many other cases) have low recoil because the missiles are equipped with a small jump motor to get the missile away from the launcher before the main motor launches. This is to reduce recoil, and the blast (you can fire from confined spaces safely).
The "lack" of recoil in the rockets in the pictures (as well as most rockets used as artillery) is because there is very little of the launcher impeding the rocket exhaust. Nothing in the way for the force to transfer onto the chassis.
That hummer also weighs in excess of 5000 pounds stock not including the missile system and is designed to have recoil less rockets fired from a top mounted turret. That Toyota truck weighs less, has a weaker chassis, and is in no way designed to have a non professional weld job mounted missile launcher designed for a hind gunship mounted in the bed. The Toyota truck only weighs about 3000 pounds, firing that system on the slightest of inclines would literally roll the truck over.
There is no recoil from a tube-launched rocket. These have no jump-charge, as they were not designed to be operated with humans in range, so it's pure rocket propulsion from the start.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Hilux#Reputation [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War