Highspeeddub posted:

I had to stop and do a double take with this pic.

Chinese militia 1945. Two guns in this photo. One looks like a Thompson clone, but the rifle in the foreground made me really stare.

Animal-Mother posted:

Pitch posted:

It looks like a tanegashima-style matchlock, the predominant style of musket in Japan from the 1500s up until the late 19th century. Lord knows where that guy got it. Literal museum piece maybe? China in 1945 was a mess of scavenged equipment but that thing was 200 years obsolete for any fight where your enemy isn't carrying a spear.

Ras Het posted:

Here's my favourite US Army unit:

Highspeeddub posted:

I had to stop and do a double take with this pic.

Chinese militia 1945. Two guns in this photo. One looks like a Thompson clone, but the rifle in the foreground made me really stare.

Hell Diver posted:

Pretty cool dude! Here's a pic of my favorite protest!

Exclamation Marx posted:

I never realised I was a C-C-Communist

Thanks for sharing, ekuNNN.
Cosmonauts!

Forums Terrorist posted:

Another victim of the anarcho-communist clique that secretly controls d&d (Clumsy banned him because he sperged out in CD about how the pictures thread was full of communists.)

Forums Terrorist posted:

Another victim of the anarcho-communist clique that secretly controls d&d (Clumsy banned him because he sperged out in CD about how the pictures thread was full of communists.)

Armyman25 posted:

Thanks for proving my point.

quote:

The 3rd Contingent consisted of two companies, one of them, No. 5, recruited almost entirely from Canterbury. Equipment was largely organised and paid for by a committee of prominent Christchurch citizens and other members of the public. The company was called the Rough Riders as the men were good horsemen and marksmen but not trained soldiers. They left Lyttelton for South Africa on 17 Feb. 1900 after having spent some time at a camp in Addington. On their return to New Zealand in May 1901 they were disbanded.

Trench_Rat posted:

super_villain_blazer.jpg

agadhahab posted:

Comrades, courtesy of the TFR stupid poo poo thread...

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

quote:

But in recent days, a tide of self-doubt and introspection about the human costs of China’s Olympic prowess has arisen amid worries that the nation’s draconian sports system is sometimes producing damaged goods. Floundering athletes can even be cast aside after their careers are over — a point driven home last year when a former gold medal gymnast was found begging on the streets of Beijing. According to the state media, 240,000 retired athletes are grappling with injuries, poverty and unemployment.

Sometimes the victors inadvertently reveal the sacrifices they were forced to endure during their years of training. Last week, shortly after winning her third Olympic gold medal, the Chinese diver Wu Minxia was told that her grandparents had died years earlier and that her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Ms. Wu’s father explained that the family preferred to lie to his daughter all those years rather than risk harming her Olympic prospects.

“We accepted a long time ago that she doesn’t belong to us,” the father, Wu Yuming, told a Shanghai newspaper. “I don’t even dare think about things like enjoying family happiness.”

Like many Chinese athletes, Ms. Wu had been plucked from her family as an adolescent and sent to live at a state-financed sports academy, where training is grueling. Many athletes do not see their families for years. Last week, after Lin Qingfeng claimed a gold medal in men’s weight lifting, his father told reporters that he did not recognize his 23-year-old son, whom he had not seen for six and a half years, until he heard his name mentioned on television. “It’s been a long time,” Mr. Lin’s mother said, “since he’s had a meal at home.”
...
Dong-Jhy Hwang, a historian at the Graduate Institute of Physical Education at National Taiwan Sport University, noted that for many years China’s competitive fires were constrained by Mao, who proclaimed that during international sports events, friendship mattered more than competition.

The shift was perhaps best personified by the outburst last week of Wu Jingbiao, who sobbed uncontrollably to a Chinese camera crew and apologized for “shaming the motherland” after winning a silver medal in a men’s weight lifting event. A female weight lifter, 17-year-old Zhou Jun, was branded a “national disgrace” by a provincial newspaper after she finished in last place. (The newspaper later apologized after a firestorm of indignation raged across the Internet.)

Armyman25 posted:

Thanks for proving my point.



(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Pitch posted:

It looks like a tanegashima-style matchlock, the predominant style of musket in Japan from the 1500s up until the late 19th century. Lord knows where that guy got it. Literal museum piece maybe? China in 1945 was a mess of scavenged equipment but that thing was 200 years obsolete for any fight where your enemy isn't carrying a spear.

ReidRansom posted:

It's antique in design, in any case, if not necessarily construction.

You got me thinking and I found a picture I took of some Japanese ones from a museum in Sekigahara.

Orange_Lazarus posted:

I've been thinking about the draft lately, I mean, the draft sucks but at least with the draft there was a good chance the rich would be sent to war as well. Or did they have ways to get out?



They just had to go and take the tri-force too.

Bandanna posted:

Xandu posted:

Pictures of China's former Olympic athletes, many now living in poverty.

http://tealeafnation.com/2012/08/the-miserable-fates-of-chinas-former-top-athletes/







http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/sports/olympics/chinas-quest-for-olympic-gold-takes-toll-on-athletes.html?_r=1&hp


This is hardly just a problem in China, but there are some particularly bad examples here.

Orange_Lazarus posted:

I've been thinking about the draft lately, I mean, the draft sucks but at least with the draft there was a good chance the rich would be sent to war as well. Or did they have ways to get out?

agadhahab posted:

Orange_Lazarus posted:

I've been thinking about the draft lately, I mean, the draft sucks but at least with the draft there was a good chance the rich would be sent to war as well. Or did they have ways to get out?



They just had to go and take the tri-force too.

Highspeeddub posted:

Closing ceremonies 1980 Moscow Olympics

TheFluff posted:

Swedish draft stuff

Broken Machine posted:

I was at the supermarket today, and saw the following bottles up on a shelf:



Picked up a bottle of the Riesling, not quite $5 and not a bad wine. I'm just stumped that there is an honest-to-goodness Lucky Duck line of budget wine.

Crasscrab posted:

I miss the days when the Olympics were just a bunch of rich dunces running around in shorts pretending to have athletic talent.