Every year on the first Sunday in June, Canada celebrates Armed Forces Day. At the start of the First World War, the Canadian Armed forces had just 3,500 men, but by the end of the war with conscription announced, they expanded to 400,000. 24,000 of these took part in battles in Europe. The conscription for the Second World War was even larger, with more than a million Canadians serving and of these, 42,000 died in combat. Currently, the Canadian Armed Forces have just over 90,000 personnel.
The Great French Revolution shook the entire world, and one of the first and most important events of that time was the storming of the Bastille prison-fortress on July 14th, 1789. This date was not celebrated for almost a hundred years until 1880, when July 14th became a National Holiday. For this day, a large military parade on the Champs Elysees was established one hundred years later in 1980.
New local content for hundreds of thousands of Turkish War Thunder players! A new short movie honors the courage of Turkish military personnel and highlights the contributions of Turkish engineers to the world of military aviation. In addition, Turkish T129 ATAK helicopters have been made temporarily available at the game store, while premium versions of Leopard 2A4 tanks and F-5 fighter jets got Turkish army camouflages.
On the 15th of September, 1916, exactly 109 years ago, the world witnessed an event that forever changed the image of war. It happened in France, near the Somme River. The British army was assaulting German trenches when it deployed a brand-new weapon: armored, tracked monsters created specifically to breach defensive lines.
In the early 1940s, Italian fighter aviation had a serious problem on its hands. Its main fighters, the Fiat G.50 and the Macchi C.200, had good maneuverability but were clearly inferior to the newest aircraft in speed, climb rate, and altitude performance. Some of the issues were alleviated by the modernization to “Serie 2” and using licensed copies of the German DB 601 engine. But those were only temporary measures that still didn’t improve them enough to engage targets at high altitudes — altitudes now occupied by strategic bombers. Besides, the Italian fighters were mostly armed with machine guns, and that was another point for improvement.
Finland is not well known for its arms manufacturing prowess, and there is a reason for that: before the mid-20th century, the government simply didn’t have the means to develop the industry, and during the Cold War, political complications arose. Historically and geographically, though, Finland could not really remain truly neutral: after the events of the Winter War and the Second World War, the country found itself between the devil and the deep blue sea, squeezed between two massive geopolitical blocs.
In the early stages of the Cold War, jet aviation was making extraordinary progress. In only a decade, engineering teams across the world switched from making clumsy jet turbines slapped onto former props to complex, expensive, and very fast planes. Even the sound barrier became surmountable. Still, there were missions that could be completed by simpler, less refined machines. Besides, training the new generation of pilots demanded jets with simplified controls. At the same time, it became clear that some of the requirements for trainers and strike aircraft intersected. The idea to create a single combat trainer aircraft was in the air, so multiple nations tried their hands at making them, resulting in the Swedish Saab 105, the British Strikemaster, the Franco-German Alpha Jet, and many others. The Czechoslovakian L-39 Albatros was one of the most popular combat trainers among the Warsaw Pact countries.