Some cool 9 axis machining photos:
The memorial temple of Queen Hatshepsut and the Dayr Al Bahari cirque – Luxor Egypt
Image by Camerons Private Page
My driver Jellae (I just love becoming able to say that: ‘my driver’ – “I’ll have MY DRIVER come ‘round and choose you up. Is nine o’clock very good? We’ll go to the club from there. Tee time is 9:30 sharp”) anyway my driver was now lastly convinced that I had lost it.
Following watching me climb up to the best of the very first pylon (wall) at The Ramesseum the previous day, lay in the dirt with my camera, and wander off unattended on many occasions into the bowels of these temples, now this crazy American was asking to be driven over to Hatshepsut’s temple at four in the morning “to go mountain climbing”!? “Mister Cam-a-doon are you sure you want to do this?” he asked prodding, somewhat concerned for my security but also questioning just what the hell I was going to do up on a mountain, alone, in the dark. “I’m fine Jellae, this is why I came to Egypt in the very first place.”
He wasn’t a color junkie I couldn’t explain this to him.
I was focused, prepared and in shape, after all this was ‘only’ a 600 foot vertical relief hike, it’d be ‘like baggin’ wamp rats in my T-16 back home’! I had my kit in order and I knew what I was performing. I had a great feeling about this. And besides, I was out the door and gone extended just before the
Morning Call to Prayer
as well. So off we went in the dark, across the bridge with its machine gun turrets more than to the west bank of the Nile and then back north numerous miles by means of the tiny town of Qurna, up previous the memorial temples. Previous the hot air balloons preparing for vacationers at sunrise, and into the extraordinary Dayr Al Bahari cirque which contains one of the most incredible sights in all of Egypt: the memorial temple of Queen Hatshepsut.
Jellae dropped me at the trail head and drove off to hang out with his hot air balloon buddies at a nearby field and drink black tea. He was on the clock so what’d he care? I’d be seeing him once again about 9:30 or so.
I had been studying this location for some time, given that I very first saw Hatshepsut’s temple on Google Earth, wondering what it looked like from ‘up there’ and maybe at sunrise also?
Queen Hatshepsut was 1 of the only female Pharaoh’s. She usurped her own infant son for the throne and then deified herself, (became god) holding onto the position for about 20 years during which she achieved some truly amazing issues. When her son lastly succeeded her, he attempted to erase her legacy defacing and removing her photos on wall carvings all more than the area, and walling in her two obelisks more than at Karnak, across the river, this only succeeded in preserving them to this day.
The projects undertaken under Hatshepsut stand as a record of the power of the human spirit, coupled it would appear with unlimited funding. What she achieved is really exceptional!
Hatshepsut’s temple points virtually directly on axis to the Karnak complex a number of miles away across the Nile. A canal utilised to come up here from the Nile when the Nile ran considerably closer to this location than it does now. The temple sits in a all-natural ‘cirque’ or bowl in the mountains which offer you organic protection and create a beautiful and jaw dropping scene. Right away behind it in the next valley more than is the globe well-known Valley of the Kings. As she was female and not permitted to be buried in the Valley of the Kings, so she had her engineers dig by way of the mountain at the rear of her temple and nearly back into Valley of the Kings to have her tomb be placed there.
The website that her temple sits in is also the scene of a single of the darkest days in modern day Egypt’s history.
In early November 1997, six people dressed as temple guards descended on this temple from these hills and more than a gruesome 45 minute period they massacred 62 foreign tourists (including three honeymooning Japanese couples) with guns and machetes.
Then they hijacked a tour bus out in the parking lot and would have escaped entirely had not the captive driver crashed it intentionally at a police checkpoint.
Locals and the police then chased them up into a cave exactly where they committed mass suicide rather than be captured and face trials.
Considering that this terrible incident, security all over the Luxor location and Egypt has been beefed up to the point that now there are guards with machine guns on every block, in every single hotel, and anywhere else westerners would travel including all of the temples and monuments.
It really is sketchy.
This location on the west bank is cool since several wonderful day hikes crisscross the hills correct here going back and forth from Valley of the Kings, to Valley of the Queens (house to all the disco’s, hair solons, and Pottery Barn’s), and back down into the Dayr Al Bahari cirque and Hatshepsut’s temple. These day hikes are a wonderful way to beat the crowds and acquire a special perspective on this remarkable spot. I hugely suggest them to any individual who has time. There are taxis waiting at every single trailhead to whisk you back to your commence points all day lengthy.
From the best of the cirque you can see the whole Luxor area including the Nile valley and out across the open desert to the Red Sea hills in the far distance. We happened to get a rare cloudy day this morning which made the eastern sky basically explode. Notice the hot air balloons taking flight down under (how cool would that be?) and the city of Luxor still lit up beyond those. I sat up right here for a whilst following the shot enjoying a light breakfast and taking this all in. No terrorist loser can possibly detract from what this is and what 1 of the greatest civilizations in human history accomplished. *sigh* this alone was worth flying half way about the globe for. Merely wonderful!
Understand: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut
Technical nerd info on this image is as follows.
I had initially posted this from the hotel room in Luxor but it wasn’t accomplished so I removed it. I’ve now had time to give it a proper tweak.
This was three entirely diverse HDR processes from the nine sources RAW’s 1 for the sky, one for the foreground, and one particular for components of Hatshepsuts’s temple itself.
These three HDR Tiff’s have been merged utilizing Exposure Fusion and then layer masked against every other more than about a week’s time. So I’ve got the merge of the 3 AND the three themselves all as layers and I’m painting out stuff. As soon as I was satisfied with that, I applied a small Lucis SE and Topaz Detail to finish the image.
A variety of curves were applied.
You are gonna contact ‘bullshit’ but this is damn close to photorealism for this amazing scene. Every single time I tried to go OTT it looked like crap, there’s SO A lot color and UV coming out of these clouds and washing these hills that it doesn’t genuinely require something added to suit my tastes, in truth I desaturated it a tad on the way to the final master.
Get pleasure from! C.G.
IS-2 Soviet Heavy Tank. 1944.
Image by Peer.Gynt
Moscow, Kubunka Tank Museum. Jul 2009.
The Iosif Stalin tank (or IS tank, named after the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin), was a heavy tank created by the Soviet Union during World War II. The tanks in the series are also occasionally named JS or ИС tanks.
The heavy tank was developed with thick armour to counter the German 88 mm guns, and sported a principal gun that was capable of defeating the German Tiger and Panther tanks. It was primarily a breakthrough tank, firing a heavy high-explosive shell that was helpful against entrenchments and bunkers. The IS-two was put into service in April 1944, and was used as a spearhead in the Battle of Berlin by the Red Army in the final stage of the war.
Style and production
[edit] IS-1
The KV series of Soviet heavy tanks was criticized by their crews for their low mobility, and lack of any heavier armament than the T-34 medium tank. In 1942, this dilemma was partially addressed by the lighter, more quickly KV-1S tank. The KV series remained significantly more expensive than the T-34, without getting greater combat efficiency. The heavy tank program was practically cancelled by Stalin in 1943. Nevertheless, the German employment of substantial numbers of Panther and Tiger tanks at the Battle of Kursk in the summer time of 1943 changed Soviet priorities. In response, the Soviet tank sector developed the stopgap KV-85, and embarked on the KV-13 design system to generate a tank with more advanced armour layout and a much more strong principal gun. Simply because Marshal Kliment Voroshilov had fallen out of political favour, the new heavy tank series was named Iosif Stalin tank. The IS-85 prototype was initially accepted for production as the IS-1 heavy tank.
[edit] IS-2
Gun option
Two candidate weapons were the A-19 122 mm gun and the BS-three one hundred mm gun. The BS-3 (later adopted on the SU-one hundred tank destroyer and the T-55 tank) had superior armour penetration (185 mm compared to 160 mm), but a significantly less useful high explosive round. Also, the BS-3 was a reasonably new weapon in short provide. Excess production capacity existed for the A-19 and its ammunition. Compared to the older 76.2 mm tank gun, the A-19 had quite good armour penetration, equivalent to that of the efficient 75 mm high velocity gun mounted on the German Panther, and delivered three.5 instances the kinetic power of the older F-34.
Soon after testing with both BS-three and A-19 guns, the latter was chosen as the primary armament of the new tank, mostly since of its prepared availability and the impact of its massive high-explosive shell when attacking German fortifications. The A-19 utilised a separate shell and powder charge, resulting in a decrease rate of fire and lowered ammunition capacity, each critical disadvantages in tank-to-tank engagements. However, the gun was quite potent, and while its 122 mm armour piercing shell had a reduced muzzle velocity than comparable late-concern German 75 mm and 88 mm guns, Soviet proving-ground tests established that the A-19 could penetrate the front armour of the German Panther tank [two], and it was therefore regarded adequate in the anti-tank part.
German Army information on the penetration ranges of the 122 mm A-19 gun against the Panther tank showed it to be much less powerful than the Soviets believed: the A-19 gun was unable to penetrate the glacis plate of the Panther at any distance, and could only penetrate the bottom front plate of the hull at 100 m.[3] It was nevertheless the big HE shell the gun fired which was its main asset, proving highly helpful and destructive in the anti-personnel function. The size of its gun continued to plague the IS-2, the two-piece ammunition was challenging to manhandle and extremely slow to reload (the price of fire was only about two rounds per minute). Yet another limitation imposed by the size of its ammunition was the payload: a mere 28 rounds could to be carried inside the tank. [four]
IS-2 Production
The IS-122 prototype replaced the IS-85, and started mass production as the IS-2. The 85 mm guns could be reserved for the new T-34-85 medium tank, and some of the IS-1s built had been rearmed just before leaving the factory, and issued as IS-2s.
The primary production model was the IS-2, with the strong A-19. It was slightly lighter and faster than the heaviest KV model 1942 tank, with thicker front armour and a considerably-improved turret design. The tank could carry thicker armour than the KV series, while remaining lighter, due to the better layout of the armour envelope. The KV’s armour was much less nicely-shaped and featured heavy armour even on the rear, whilst the IS series concentrated its armour up front. The IS-2 weighed about the identical as a German Panther and was lighter than the German heavy tank Tiger series. It was slightly lower than each.
Even though the style was very good for its time, Western observers[who?] tended to criticize Soviet tanks for their lack of finish and crude construction. The Soviets responded that it was warranted contemplating the need for wartime expediency and the normally low battlefield life of their tanks[five].
Early IS-2s can be identified by the ‘stepped’ front hull casting with its modest, opening driver’s visor. The early tanks lacked gun tube travel locks or antiaircraft machine guns, and had narrow mantlets.
Later improved IS-2s (the model 1944), had a quicker-loading version of the gun, the D25-T with a double-baffle muzzle brake and far better fire-handle. It also featured a easier hull front without having a ‘step’ in it (utilizing a flat, sloping glacis armour plate). Some sources called it IS-2m, but it is not to be confused with the official Soviet designation IS-2M for a 1950s modernization. Other minor upgrades included the addition of a travel lock on the hull rear, wider mantlet, and, on extremely late models, an antiaircraft machine gun.
IS-3
In late 1944 the design and style was upgraded to the IS-3. This tank had improved armour layout, and a hemispherical cast turret (resembling an overturned "soup bowl") which became the hallmark of post-war Soviet tanks. While this low, hemispherical turret may have produced the IS-three a smaller target, it also imposed extreme penalties inside the tank by significantly diminishing the working headroom, specially for the loader (Soviet tanks in basic are characterized by uncomfortably little interior space compared to Western tanks). The low turret also restricted the maximum depression of the main gun, since the gun breech had little space inside the turret to pivot on its vertical axis. As a outcome, the IS-3 was significantly less able to take advantage of hull-down positions, a tactic at which Western tanks were far better suited[6]. The IS-3’s pointed prow earned it the nickname Shchuka (Pike) by its crews. It weighed slightly less and stood 30 cm reduce.
The IS-3 came also late to see action in Planet War II. Although some older sources claim that the tank saw action at the finish of the war in Europe, there are no official reports to confirm this. It is now usually accepted that the tank saw no action against the Germans, despite the fact that a single regiment may possibly have been deployed against the Japanese in Manchuria.
In 1952, a additional development was place into production, the IS-ten. Due of the political climate in the wake of Stalin’s 1953 death, it was renamed T-10.
In the mid-1950s, the remaining IS-two tanks (mostly model 1944 variants) have been upgraded to keep them battle-worthy. This upgrade produced the IS-2M, which introduced fittings such as external fuel tanks on the rear hull (the standard IS-2 had these only on the hull sides), stowage bins on each sides of the hull, and protective skirting along the prime edges of the tracks. IS-three was also slightly modernized as IS-3M.
Operational history
The IS-two tank very first saw combat in the spring of 1944. IS-2s have been assigned to separate heavy tank regiments, usually of 21 tanks every.[7] These regiments were used to reinforce the most important attack sectors for the duration of key offensive operations. Tactically, they had been employed as breakthrough tanks. Their part was to help infantry in the assault, employing their large guns to destroy bunkers, buildings, dug-in crew-served weapons, and other ‘soft’ targets. They had been also capable of taking on any German AFVs if essential. As soon as a breakthrough was accomplished, lighter, more mobile T-34s would take more than the exploitation.
The IS-three 1st appeared to Western observers at the Allied Victory Parade in Berlin in September 1945. The IS-3 was an impressive improvement in the eyes of Western military observers, the British in distinct, who responded with heavy tank styles of their personal.
By the 1950s, the emergence of the primary battle tank idea – combining medium tank mobility with the firepower of the heavy tank – had rendered heavy tanks obsolete in Soviet operational doctrine. In the late 1960s, the remaining Soviet heavy tanks had been transferred to Red Army reserve service and storage. The IS-two Model 1944 remained in active service a lot longer in the armies of Cuba, China and North Korea. A regiment of Chinese IS-2s was available for use in the Korean War, but saw no service there. In response to border disputes between the Soviet Union and China, some Soviet IS-3s were dug in as fixed pillboxes along the Soviet-Chinese border. The IS-three was used in the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Prague Spring in 1968.
In the course of the early 1950s all IS-3s have been modernised as IS-3M models. The Egyptian Army acquired about 100 IS-3M tanks in all from the Soviet Union.[eight] Throughout the Six Day War, a single regiment of IS-3M tanks was stationed with the 7th Infantry Division at Rafah and the 125th Tank Brigade of the 6th Mechanized Division at Kuntilla was also equipped with about 60 IS-3M tanks.[9] Israeli infantry and paratrooper units had considerable difficulty with the IS-3M when it was encountered due to its thick armour, which shrugged off hits from normal infantry anti-tank weapons such as the bazooka.[9] Even the 90mm AP shell fired by the major gun of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) M-48A2 Patton tanks could not penetrate the frontal armour of the IS-3s at regular battle ranges.[9] There were a quantity of engagements between the M48A2 Pattons of the IDF 7th Armoured Brigade and IS-3s supporting Egyptian positions at Rafah in which several M48A2s had been knocked out in the fighting.[9] In spite of this, the slow rate of fire, poor engine efficiency (the engine was not nicely suited to hot-climate operations), and rudimentary fire handle of the IS-3s proved to be a important handicap, and about 73 IS-3s had been lost in the 1967 war.[9] Most Egyptian IS-three tanks have been withdrawn from service, even though at least 1 regiment of IS-three tanks was retained in service as late as the 1973 October war.[9] The IDF itself experimented with a couple of captured IS-3M tanks, but discovered them ill-suited to rapidly moving desert tank warfare those that had been not scrapped were turned into stationary defensive pillbox emplacements in the Jordan River area.[9]
After the Korean War, China attempted to reverse-engineer the IS-two/IS-three as Type 122 medium tank.[10] The project was cancelled in favour of the Variety 59, a copy of the Soviet T-54A.
Kind Heavy tank
Spot of origin Soviet Union
Service history
In service 1943–1970s
Employed by Soviet Union, Cuba, China, North Korea, Egypt
Wars WWII, Hungary, Six Day War, Czechoslovakia
Production history
Designer Zh. Kotin, N. Dukhov
Designed 1943 (IS-two), 1944 (IS-three), 1944–45 (IS-4)
Manufacturer Kirov Factory, UZTM
Created 1943–45 (IS-two), 1945–47 (IS-three), 1945–46 (IS-4)
Number built 3,854 IS-2, two,311 IS-three, 250 IS-four
Specifications (IS-two Model 1944[1])
Weight 46 tonnes
Length 9.90 m
Width 3.09 m
Height two.73 m
Crew four
Armor 30–160 mm
Primary
armament D25-T 122 mm gun (28 rds.)
Secondary
armament 2×DT, 1×DShK machine guns
Engine 12-cyl. diesel model V-2
600 hp (450 kW)
Energy/weight 13 hp/tonne
Suspension torsion bar
Fuel capacity 820 l
Operational range 240 km
Speed 37 km/h
From Wikipedia