military-machine

Military Illustrated Magazine 2012-04

2012-02-02T23:51:00.000-08:00

This is the last paper issue of Military Illustrated. After 25 years of regularly appearing in print, MI will now no longer he available in newsagents, but you can still buy it online. It has been a great honour and pleasure to edit MI for 205 of those issues and I look forward to this new digital chapter in the magazine's history. Publishing is changing rapidly and MI is seeking to keep up with the revolution in reading. I appreciate that some of our readers may not be able to access this format, but I hope many others will. Our digital magazine will look exactly like the print edition, but is presented on your computer screen instead—and you will be able to print out your favourite articles.

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Defense Technology International Magazine February 2012

2012-02-02T22:22:00.000-08:00

Incidents of maritime piracy reached an all-time high since the start of the European Union's anti-piracy naval mission more than three years ago, according to the annual report by the EU on Operation Atalanta. There were 176 pirate incidents during 2011, up from 174 in 2010 and 163 in 2009. The total number of pirated ships dropped to 25 from 47 the previous year. But even those figures may be low, according to Ecoterra International, an independent organization that tracks Somali-area piracy. That group, which has frequently criticized Operation Atalanta for not doing enough to protect ships and for under-reporting the true number of pirate attacks, says the EU tends to only count high-value ships insured by British companies. Ecoterra notes that as of January 2011, Somali pirates are holding 26 large ships in addition to 18 smaller ones, as well keeping more than 418 people hostage. The EU launched Operation Atalanta in December 2008 to protect ships from piracy off Somalia and in the Indian Ocean; it recently extended its mission through December 2012. The €8 million ($10.4 million) per-year budget for the anti-piracy operation is financed by EU member states.

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Aviation Week & Space Technology 2012-01-23

2012-02-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

Researchers are all too familiar with the huge costs, high risks and frustratingly slow pace of high-speed flight testing, not to mention the scarcity of opportunities. Now a Colorado-based team is developing a small supersonic UAV (below) for low-risk testing at a fraction of the cost of existing systems. Dubbed the Gojett (graduate organization jet engine technology team), the ambitious project is aimed at breaking the supersonic test paradigm and filling part of the void left by retirement of reusable flying testbeds like the legendary X-15. The development stems from work begun three years ago—which later grew to include a supersonic vehicle—at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder to develop improved small turbojets. The project has now morphed into a bid to build the world's fastest small UAV, and is being carried forward by Starkey Aerospace Corp. (Starcor), a new company set up to transfer the technology out of CU for commercialization. Starcor was recently incubated by eSpace, a joint venture between the university and Sierra Nevada's Space Systems Group.

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America In WWII Magazine 2012-04

2012-02-01T21:52:00.000-08:00

Soldiers, police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses. Superhero comics often went out of their way to make it clear that those were the real heroes. It was inevitable that some of them would make the transition to comic book hero. Early in World War II, there was Pat Parker, War Nurse. The British medic Pat Parker began plying her caregiving trade in May 1941 in Speed Comics No. 13. One issue later, Harvey Comics in New York City had taken over the title from original publisher Brookwood Comics and begun crafting a more stylized identity for her. By No. 15, Pat had grown tired of getting too much personal publicity and hid beneath a costume, a rather generic supersuit with Wonder Woman-like boots. She settled into a bona fide superhero persona.

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Aeroplane Monthly 2012-02

2012-02-01T21:46:00.000-08:00

AT OMAKA AIRFIELD, New Zealand, FlugWerk FW-190 A8/N ZK-RFR received afresh Certificate of Airworthiness on December 13, 2011, and was expected to resume test flying before the year's end. Now owned by the Chariots of Fire Collection, the machine was the first of the new-build FlugWerk FW-190s to fly, in July 2004 at Manching, Bavaria (see News, October 2004 Aeroplane). It arrived in New Zealand in January 2011 and made its first flight there on April 20, but two days later a couple of cooling-fan blades sheared off, damaging two propeller blades. Sadly, the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 powered fighter had to sit out the Classic Fighters air show at Omaka over the Easter weekend. Over the past few months aJEM Aviation team at Omaka, led by Jay Mclntyre, have completed repairs and constructed undercarriage doors, which had not previously been fitted. The aircraft now also has a more accurate representation of the colour scheme worn by 222-victory ace Maj Erich Rudorffer's Focke-Wulf Fw 190 when he commanded II./JG 54 on the Eastern Front during the second half of 1943.

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Flight International 2010-02-02

2012-02-01T21:43:00.000-08:00

Revised rules of engagement in Afghanistan have seen the UK Royal Air Force's Panavia Tomado GR4 crews adopt a "less kinetic" approach to combating operations by the Taliban, but senior officers say the shift is paying dividends. Speaking after returning to Marham in Norfolk after a three-month tour of duty at Kandahar airfield, personnel from the RAF's 31 Sqn said they adjusted well to the new campaign strategy. This was imposed late last year by International Security Assistance Force commander US Army Gen Stanley McChrystal, who wants NATO-led forces to "reshape the fight to achieve more lasting effects, grow our partnership with Afghan security forces, and strengthen relationships with government officials and the Afghan people". "Our role was very much in line with the guidelines set by Gen McChrystal: to support the troops, where possible without killing anybody," says Wg Cdr Ian Gale, officer commanding 31 Sqn. "We've been pretty successful in replacing bombs and bullets with 'shows of force'."

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Janes Defence Weekly 2012-01-25

2012-02-01T21:39:00.000-08:00

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was expected to clear the short take-off/ vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter from a probation period that could have led to its cancellation, according to sources familiar with the decision. Panetta was scheduled to travel to Patux-ent River Naval Air Station in Maryland on 20 January - the location for F-35B testing - and where Pentagon sources said he would announce that he was lifting probation on the jump jet variant. The announcement had not been made as Jane's went to press. Then defense secretary Robert Gates put the F-35B on probation on 6 January 2011 when he announced his Fiscal Year 2012 budget decisions for the programme. He was concerned about developmental problems unique to the B model - including deficient fatigue life in the bulkhead, excess vibration in the auxiliary air inlet doors, excess lift fan clutch heating, excess wear on the lift fan driveshaft and excess heat at the site of the roll post actuators. All the issues were adding a cost burden to the overall programme as well as schedule delays to the B model's development timeline.

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Airfix Model World 2012-02

2012-02-01T01:28:00.000-08:00

KITS OF torpedo boats aren't exactly prevalent, so the 1/72 resin Vosper 72' 6" Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) from Coastal Craft should excite naval buffs. It's magnificent in terms of quality and detail, this being reflected in the £85 price, but it does provide a new dimension to small-scale MTB modelling which has been relatively poorly served. Airfix's 1/72 Vosper is long-in-the-tooth, and so is RevelI's ageing kit, which is also inaccurate around the rear hull section. Coastal Craft's kit (CC72001) offers a one-piece hull with separate full-length deck. What follows is a feast of smaller resin components for the wheelhouse, torpedo tubes and associated gas equipment, cowl vents, depth charges and racks, and more. There's also white metal, etched brass, plastic strip and brass rod included for finer embellishments. A resin stand also features, while the instructions are packed with detail, build advice and colour artwork of the boat in question, MTB 234, from the 21st Flotilla. Home Fleet, in 1943. Casting quality is assured as the kit's resin has been produced by Prague-based specialist Czechmaster Resins.

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Aeroplane Monthly Magazine 2012-03

2012-01-31T21:15:00.000-08:00

EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER Koloman Mayrhofer and his team at the Craftlab workshops near Vienna began constructing an exact reproduction Albatros D.III First World War fighter, the completed machine has been moved to the Deutsches Museum Oberschleissheim, just north of Munich. Owner Eberhard Fritsch hopes to have the aircraft flying during the summer of 2012, to mark both the centenary of Oberschleissheim airfield and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Bavarian Flying Corps at the airfield. The Albatros has been painted to represent an Austrian licence-built machine constructed by Oesterreichische Flugzeugfabrik AG (Oeffag) at Wiener Neustadt, and delivered to Fliegerkompanie (Flik) 51/J in June 1918. With the serial 253/24, it became the personal aircraft of the unit commander, Oberleutnant Benno Fiala Ritter von Fernbrugg, who became the third-ranking Austro-Hungarian fighter pilot, with 28 kills.

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Model Airplane News Magazine 2012-04

2012-01-31T21:09:00.000-08:00

Model Airplane News magazine is the world's leading authority on radio control aviation and modeling. All types of RC planes are covered. This includes nitro, electric, indoor and gas R/C planes. The substantial free content available on the website includes product and plan reviews, building hints, flight sims, helis, how-to articles and details about the current and upcoming issues. Model Airplane News Member Only area entitles you to exclusive online product reviews, access to 20 plus years of Model Airplane News magazine, Pit Tips, Podcasts from the editors, 360° product views, video interviews with top pros and industry leaders, new wallpaper every week, member contests with additional content added everyday!

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Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress (photo)

2012-01-28T21:04:00.000-08:00

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History's Greatest Wars

2012-01-28T21:03:00.001-08:00

All the wars included in this book arc thunderous affairs, wars that Mars himself would be proud of. None of your three-day wonders or saber-rattling standoffs, but wars with meat to their bones, wars that took the world by the throat and shook it. Starting with the Greco-Roman Wars and moving on to the Soviet-Afghan War, each one of these twenty-five History's Greatest Wars has been of extraordinary importance in making the world the place we find it today, for better and for worse. There is a reason for a book like History's Greatest Wars—it's to remind us that we are born of fire and blood, shaped more by conflict than peace. War is rarely a surprise, only a shock. The Greek victory against the Persians in the Greco-Roman War helped Greek culture and literature—that all-important sense of the individuality and imperishability of the human spirit—survive. The Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, as savage as they were, gave those of us who live in the western world our civilization, law, money, and language. The Muslim conquests of the first millennium spread the message of Allah across what is now the modern Middle East and into North Africa and Spain, and the Crusades and the Spanish Reconquista fought to reclaim this lost territory (of both flesh and spirit) in the name of Christ, thus setting up violent religious dichotomies that exist to this day.

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Spanish Galleon 1530-1690

2012-01-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

The Spanish Galleon is one of the most romantic ship types in history. Long associated with sunken treasure, pirates, conquistadores and the Spanish Armada, these ships have come to epitomise Spanish maritime power during the 16th and 17th centuries. Hollywood has much to answer for, and although these galleons were spectacular vessels, they were nothing like the grandiose ships of the Spanish crown portrayed on the silver screen. Rather they were the workhorses of Spain's maritime empire, protecting her interests in European waters, and ensuring that the Spanish crown benefited from the extraordinary wealth produced in her American colonies. This book is an attempt to describe the real vessels behind the popular facade, and to explain how they functioned. We are fortunate in that the Spanish during this period were meticulous record keepers, giving us a wealth of information to help us define exactly what a galleon was.

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Guns of the Civil War

2012-01-28T21:01:00.000-08:00

With the start of any history book there is research, and much of what comprises new books on any subject, is derived from the works of previous authors, historians, and scholars. This is true for Guns of the Civil War. While the photography is new, the story has been told time and again over the last 150 years. But each telling is often different; history is a matter of opinions. Sometimes there are different interpretations of events at the time they occurred depending upon which side the authors of various historic documentations may have fought, or where their sentiments laid; new material can be uncovered through comprehensive research of original records, and there are occasional discoveries and revelations through the uncovering of letters and papers from the era. All of this has contributed to the countless volumes written about the Civil War, and it is not the intention of this book to reinterpret history or become a revisionist tale of the events which unfolded prior to or during the War Between the States, but rather to look more closely at the different handguns and longarms which figured so prominently in the bloodiest war in our nations history.

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Flight International 2011-04-05

2012-01-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

If the circumstances surrounding the loss of Ethiopian Airlines 409 at Beirut evoke a miserable sense of déjà vu, it is hardly surprising. Another dark and thundery night, another departure over featureless terrain, another fatal spiral. The similarities with the Kenya Airways 507 inquiry - which was wrapping up as Lebanese soldiers were hauling parts of the Ethiopian 737 out of the sea - make it hard to avoid wondering how far the parallels will go. Because if the already-remote possibility of an undetected technical problem on the Ethiopian jet is conclusively brushed aside by the inquiry, it will mean a fully functional 737 spent 4min blundering aimlessly through Mediterranean airspace on a flightpath punctuated by automated warning after automated warning. In which case, someone needs to ask: where was the airmanship?

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Cots Journal 2012-01

2012-01-28T20:58:00.000-08:00

An airborne signals intelligence system configured specifically for the newest C-130J aircraft has been delivered to the U.S. Air Force by Lockheed Martin. The system, which is part of the Senior Scout program that enables C-130 aircraft to be used for tactical signals intelligence and reconnaissance, underwent acceptance testing in December. Senior Scout is an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) system built into a trailer-like container that can be rolled on and off C-130 aircraft (Figure 1). This ISR suite of equipment rapidly configures standard C-130 aircraft for tactical signals intelligence, providing capabilities that exploit, geo-locate and report communications intelligence and signals of interest to air and ground component commanders.

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After the Battle 148 - Wilhelmshaven

2012-01-28T20:55:00.000-08:00

Wilhelmshaven is a German coastal town on the North Sea. about midway between Hamburg and the Dutch border. Situated some 35 kilometres up the Jade river on the wide inlet of the Jade-Busen bay, it was created in the 19th century for the sole purpose of serving as a principal dockyard and base for the German Navy, and served in this capacity during two world wars. It was Prussian Prince Adalbert who selected Wilhelmshaven as a site for a naval base. lie had been appointed leader of the federal technical commission to identify the best way of countering naval threats from Denmark against the north German coasts. In 1848 he wrote a Denkschrift über die Bildung einer deutschen Flotte (Memorandum on the Formation of a German Fleet) in which he identified a three-stage approach to building a navy: he proposed firstly a coastal defence force which would prevent blockade and invasion; this would later develop an offensive capability to protect trade; and finally there would be a navy that could apply force at a distance in support of foreign policy. Following on from this, in 1849 he recommended the construction of two bases on the Baltic and North Sea coasts linked by a canal. The former would become Kiel (the site for it was acquired from Austria in 1865), the latter would become Wilhelmshaven.

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Jet & Prop 2011-04

2012-01-28T20:53:00.000-08:00

Als einzige in Europa stationierte Lockheed T-33 hatte sie gerade erst ihre Zulassung erhalten, als die von Schallflug aus Hahn betriebene Maschine bei ihrem ersten öffentlichen Auftritt in Bitburg auf einem Feld notlanden musste. Es war indes erst der fünfte Flug nach 4-jähri-ger Restaurationszeit. Kurz nach dem Start von der ehemaligen U.S. Air Base meldete der Pilot ein Triebwerksproblem, was ihn zur sofortigen Notlandung zwang. Mit eingezogenem Fahrwerk landete die Maschine auf einem freien Feld unweit des Flugplatzgeländes. Glücklicherweise konnten beide Insassen die Maschine, die nach Fotos zu urteilen wenig beschädigt wurde, unverletzt verlassen. Ausschlaggebend für den Unfall war der Ausfall einer Benzinpumpe. Das Team von Schallflug bietet die Maschine zurzeit im Internet zum Verkauf an. Mit dem Erlös sollen weitere Projekte gefördert werden, darunter eine Fougar Magister und auch der Erwerb einer „neuen" T-33 ist im Gespräch.

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Janes Defence Weekly 2012-01-18

2012-01-28T20:49:00.000-08:00

Relations between Pakistan's armed forces and its elected politicians began sliding on 11 January after Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani dismissed a retired general recently appointed as Secretary at the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Gilani dismissed retired Lieutenant General Naeem Khalid Lodhi, who was the MoD's second highest-ranking official, after he testified before the Supreme Court without seeking prior clearance from the government. He was summoned by the court in connection with an investigation into 'memogate' - allegations that senior government officials wrote a memo to the US in May 2011 asking for help in dissuading the Pakistan Army from staging a coup. In a related development, the Pakistan Army issued a statement warning Gilani of "serious ramifications" after he criticised the army in an interview with China's People's Daily newspaper. Gilani was quoted as saying that General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, chief of the army staff, and Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of the army-run Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, had acted unlawfully when they submitted themselves to the Supreme Court's inquiry.

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Proceedings Magazine February 2012

2012-01-27T19:18:00.000-08:00

As a maritime nation, the United States relies on the sea for our prosperity, trade, transportation, and security. We are also an Arctic nation. The Arctic region—the Barents, Beaufort, and Chukchi seas and the Arctic Ocean—is the emerging maritime frontier, vital to our national interests, economy and security. The Arctic Ocean, in the northern region of the Arctic Circle, is changing from a solid expanse of inaccessible ice fields into a growing navigable sea, attracting increased human activity and unlocking access to vast economic potential and energy-resources. In the 35 years since I first saw Kotzebue, Alaska, on the Chukchi Sea as a junior officer, the sea ice has receded from the coast so much that when I returned last year the coastal area was ice-free. The shipping, oil-and-gas, and tourism industries continue to expand with the promise of opportunity and fortune in previously inaccessible areas. Experts estimate that in another 25 years the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free during the summer months.

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Seapower Magazine February 2012

2012-01-27T19:14:00.000-08:00

A new Asia-focused defense strategy unveiled Jan. 5 could bode well for the Navy, whose presence in the Pacific will be a top priority for military planners even as Defense Department officials prepare to cut as much as $1 trillion from their budgets over the next decade. The details of the new plan, dubbed the Defense Strategic Guidance, will not be known until the Defense Department releases its fiscal 2013 budget request this month. But early indications are that the Navy, in particular, could come out on top while the ground forces face potentially deep reductions to their manpower and equipment after a decade of war. The new strategic guidance, which was prompted by the looming defense cuts, puts into policy a shift already under way within a Pentagon that is focusing more on the Pacific, where naval power is paramount, and less on ground-centric Europe. Strengthening security relationships with countries such as India, Australia and Singapore will be key under the new strategy.

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USNS Gem State (T-ACS 2) (Photo)

2012-01-22T20:41:00.000-08:00

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The Western Front 1944 - Memoirs of a Panzer Lehr Officer

2012-01-22T20:22:00.000-08:00

Colonel Helmut Ritgen's book "The Western Front: Memoirs of a Panzer Lehr Officer" opens with a description of the Wehrmacht's early successes in the West through to the Dieppe Raid and describes, as only a soldier can, the days spent waiting for the impending Allied invasion. It continues with an account of the events of D-Day and the ensuing American and British/Canadian pushes on and through Caen, describing the German actions to defend the Scheldt Estuary and delay the Allies as Hitler planned his great counteroffensive, nicknamed the Battle of the Bulge. Over fifty years have now passed since the Allies landed on the Normandy coast on the 6th of June 1944 in the greatest combined naval, air and land invasion the world has ever seen. In the summer of 1994, thousands around the world commemorated this historic event in their own countries and especially at all the landing sites, villages, and cities in the Normandy region. For all Allied veterans who returned to this hallowed ground it was a time of remembrance, and for most it will be their last opportunity to retrace those footsteps of their youth. Young people were also there to learn the horrible mistakes which wars create. Hopefully they realized the importance of their future dreams to create stable and peace-loving nations.

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Aviation Week & Space Technology 2012-01-16

2012-01-22T20:20:00.000-08:00

The uncontrolled reentry of Russia's stranded Phobos-Grunt spacecraft presented a moving target to satellite trackers just days before pieces of the botched Mars mission were expected to fall to Earth. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said Jan. 12 that while much of the 13,200-kg (6,000-lb.) spacecraft was likely to burn up during a fiery atmospheric reentry Jan. 15, as many as 30 chunks of the unmanned probe were expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere over a patch of the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa. However, the prediction came less than 24 hr. after Russia forecast the spacecraft's reentry over the opposite side of the ocean, just west of Indonesia. Cautioning that it is too soon to predict the precise time and place of impact, Roscosmos said on Jan. 6 that the dynamics of spacecraft deceleration in the Earth's atmosphere depends on a variety of factors. Chief among these, Roscosmos said, is the variability of the behavior of the atmosphere, which expands and contracts relative to the Earth's solar cycle. "The exact spot, the date and time of their fall is possible to predict, but not earlier than one day beforehand," the agency said.

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Steel Masters No.108

2012-01-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

La Hongrie naît en 1918 de la désintégration de l'Empire austro-hongrois. Le pays connaît une révolution bolchevique brisée par l'amiral Horthy, violemment anticommuniste, qui devient chef de l'Etat. Dans les années 1930, il se rapproche de l'Allemagne dans l'espoir de revenir sur les dispositions du Traité de Trianon. S'il en retire des bénéfices, récupérant de nombreux territoires entre 1938 et 1940, il bascule dans l'orbite nazie, signant le Pacte Tripartite qui le fait rentrer dans l'Axe. Par conséquent, en 1941, trois des 37 brigades de la Honved - armée hongroise -participent à l'invasion de l'URSS. Elles regroupent cependant 75 % des forces mobiles - quatre brigades motorisées ou de cavalerie. Ajoutons un corps d'armée d'occupation en Ukraine. Mais, fin 1941, « Barbarossa » se solde par un échec et le corps mobile hongrois rentre décimé. Il faut repartir en campagne dans une guerre devenue vraiment mondiale - la Hongrie déclare la guerre aux Etats-Unis le 13 décembre, qui ne répondent qu'en juin 1942! Bref, Horthy maintenant renâcle. Pourtant, pressé par le Reich et certains militaires, espérant peut-être toujours une victoire, et apprenant que les Roumains envoient deux armées en URSS, il accepte finalement de fournir un nouveau contingent. Début janvier 1942, les Allemands demandent cinq corps d'armée - 15 divisions -, le corps mobile, une brigade de montagne et sept autres divisions de sécurité, des exigences impossibles pour la Honved, qui souhaite se moderniser et veut conserver des forces pour garder à l'œil le voisin roumain ... Cependant, la Hongrie et le Reich s'accordent finalement sur l'engagement de trois corps d'armée et d'une division blindée en URSS.

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