The Black Dragon M1 Howitzer: The WWII Superheavy Artillery That's Still Relevant in Taiwan
Megaprojects
The video starts with an ad that lasts up to the 1:10 mark, just in case you don't want to listen to Simon talking about hair loss.
This gun saw some serious use in WW2. It was used again in the Korean War and then the US put it away. The Republic of China (also known as Formosa or Taiwan) still has a few of them on some of the small islands just off the coast of mainland China. Taiwan has 166 minor islands besides the main island of Formosa. You can see that some of them are very close to the Chinese mainland.
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| Taiwan & Outlying Islands |
The Chinese Communists and the Nationalists have been fighting each other more or less continuously since 1927. Sometimes the war heats up and they start shooting at each other, and sometimes it cools down and they just glare at each other but they have never come to terms. The Commies have been making noise about how 'they should all be one China' lately. It might be that they are trying to distract their populace from bad economic news, but that kind of thing has started wars before, notably the Falklands war between Argentina and the UK.
I never realized ROC(Taiwan) has an island (Kinmen) only 6.2 miles from the mainland.
ReplyDeleteThat's like you estranged spouse and paramour living across the street.