text: Note: LPG, LNG or CNG vehicles with more than one tank of that type are required to have one additional diamond attached to the front and back number plates.


title: Vehicle registration plates of Australia

text: Hydrogen or electric powered vehicles built or converted before 1 January 2019 are still subject to relevant state-based standards for their labeling. For example in Victoria, all electric-powered vehicles (including hybrid vehicles) need to display ‘EV’ number plate labels on both number plates. Electric-powered passenger cars and hybrid vehicles registered before 4 October 2020 were required to display a different style of label.


text: These labels are still permitted and don’t need to be replaced. If you need new labels (e.g. if replacing number plates), you’ll be given the new style of label.


text: However, new plates issued to the Army are now in this format: nn-nnnn, where the first two digits represent the year the vehicle was registered, e.g. 05-1832.


text: Current Australian Army registration plate format is A"nn"nnn with this newer format beginning in 2003. The A represents "Army" with the next two digits representing the year the vehicle was first registered. For instance, a 2008 model Toyota Coaster used to transport army cadets might have the plate A08227. This format has also been adopted by the Defence Force, Navy, and Air Force with combinations D"nn"nnn, N"nn"nnn and R"nn"nnn respectively.


text: The official car of Chief of the Defence Force carries plates ADF1 and official cars for the three service chiefs carry plates ARMY1, NAVY1 or RAAF1.


text: The Commonwealth Government of Australia used the Z prefix for its government owned vehicles up until 2000 when the Commonwealth Vehicle Registry was closed.


text: These plates were on a black on white background, usually marked with "C of A" at the top of the plate – an abbreviation of Commonwealth of Australia and the leading Z being red to further distinguish it from other state plates.


text: Issuance of Z prefixed plates used for same purposes was passed onto the states after 2000. Australian Capital Territory plates started at ZYA-000, Victoria plates started at ZED-000, Queensland plates started at ZQ-0000, New South Wales plates started at ZZZ-000, South Australia plates started at ZSA-000, Western Australia plates started at ZAA-00F and Tasmania plates started at ZTA-000. Only New South Wales and Victoria chose to use their state base colours rather than the standard black on reflective white, with the use of red embossed Z prefix.


text: Each of the states display their state initials as seen above the numbers instead of the old "C of A" legend.


text: The registration plate of the Prime Ministerial Limousine was C*1 (i.e. Commonwealth No. 1) with a seven-pointed Commonwealth Star. This has been updated in November 2015 showing C (Australian Government crest image) 1. Other Commonwealth fleet cars for official transport carry "C of A" plates in the form C-nnn.


text: The Governor-General's official cars do not carry registration plates, but simply depict a representation of the St Edward's Crown. They tend to also have a flag mounted on the official car. Similar plates are used for vehicles carrying Queen Elizabeth II when visiting Australia.


text: For official visits to Australia, special plates are often put over the top of normal 'Z' plates, depicting the Australian Coat of Arms and, in red 'Visit to Australia' with a numeral. These are not strictly registration plates, but are useful for police and other officials to identify cars in official motorcades.


text: Diplomatic plates are issued to foreign diplomats by the Government of the Australian Capital Territory. They would formerly grant diplomatic immunity to the vehicle and driver from all traffic laws, speed limits, parking infringements and tolls in all reasonable course of duty by a diplomatic officer, in compliance with international treaty, but this is no longer the case. They follow the format of 'DC nnnn', 'DCnnnnn', 'DX nnnn' or 'DXnnnnn', where the first two or three numbers are the code for the home country of the diplomat, and have black text on a powder blue background. DC plates are issued to members of the diplomatic corps, whereas DX plates are issued to persons who are attached to diplomatic missions but are not themselves diplomats, e.g. household staff.


text: Older issues have no territory identifier, however newer plates have 'ACT' embossed at the top centre of the plate. Newer plates are also written as 'DC' and 'DX', rather than 'D.C.' and 'D.X.' to allow for the inclusion of a greater number of characters in the sequence. A substantial number of older-style plates are still in use, however.


text: The first two or three numbers appearing in the plate correspond to a specific country, for example 69 is issued to the United Kingdom. The following two digits are typically issued with lower numbers to higher-ranking officials, usually 01 being issued to the ambassador from that country. So DC 6901 would be found on the vehicle of the British High Commissioner to Australia.


text: The number issued to each country has no particular relevance, and was allocated by ballot. Countries with many vehicles (such as the USA) are allocated two numbers. Before the blue D.C. plates were introduced, diplomatic cars in Canberra carried plates which had white letters on red.


text: The numbers then correlated to the length of time the particular diplomatic mission had been in Canberra and the British High Commissioner's car proudly carried the plate D.C.1 The replacement arrangement is more egalitarian.


text: State registration authorities issue CC plates to consular representatives in their relevant state capital.


text: The ACT Government issues similar plates to representatives of international organisations in the Territory. These plates are also coloured black on powder blue, and follow a format of IO nnnn.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: Admiral Radhakrishnan Hari Kumar (born 12 April 1962) is a serving flag officer in the Indian Navy. He is the 25th and current Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS). Previously, he served as the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command. In his prior appointments, he served as the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff, Chief of Personnel, Controller Personnel Services, the Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet, Flag Officer Sea Training and the Chief of the Staff of the Western Naval Command. He was the Commandant of the Naval War College, Goa and served as a naval advisor to the government of Seychelles. He is an alumnus of National Defence Academy, the Naval War College, the Army War College, Mhow and the Royal College of Defence Studies.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: Kumar was born on 12 April 1962 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He attended the Sacred Hearts Convent School, Thanjavur, Carmel Convent School, Thiruvananthapuram and Mannam Memorial Residential High School, Thiruvananthapuram. He completed his pre-degree course at the Government Arts College, Thiruvananthapuram.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: He joined the 61st course of the National Defence Academy (NDA) in January 1979 and was assigned to the Juliet squadron. He graduated from the NDA in December 1981. In 1996, he attended the Naval Staff Course at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He attended the Army Higher Command Course at the Army War College, Mhow in 2004 and the Royal College of Defence Studies, London in 2009.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: He holds a bachelor's degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a master's degree from King's College London. He holds an MPhil in Defence and Strategic Studies from the University of Mumbai. He also holds a postgraduate diploma in shipping management from the Narottam Morarjee Institute of Shipping in Mumbai.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: Kumar was commissioned into the Indian Navy on 1 January 1983. He specialised in gunnery. His positions included gunnery officer (GO) of the Rajput-class destroyer , the commissioning GO of and commissioning GO of the Khukri-class corvette . He also served as executive officer (EXO) of Veer-class corvette .


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: As a commanding officer, he commanded the Coast Guard Ship C-01, the missile boat , the , missile corvette , and . He was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal for his command of the "Ranvir" when the mid-life upgrade was completed in which the ship was retrofitted with the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: His fleet appointments include Fleet Gunnery Officer and Fleet Operations Officer of the Western Fleet. His staff assignments include Command GO of the Western Naval Command, and naval advisor to the Government of Seychelles. He also served as the Training Commander of the gunnery school INS Dronacharya. During the second phase of the UN intervention in Somalia, from December 1992 to June 1993, he served in the Civil and Military Operations Centre in Mogadishu.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: On promotion to flag rank, Kumar was appointed the first Commandant of the Naval War College, Goa in January 2012. After a two-year stint, he was appointed Flag Officer Sea Training (FOST) and was responsible for the operational sea training of all personnel of Naval and Coast Guard ships and submarines. On 1 October 2014, he took command of the Western Fleet. While serving as the Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet (FOCWF), he was promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: In October 2015, he relinquished command of the Western Fleet, handing over to Rear Admiral Ravneet Singh. For his command of the fleet, he was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal on 26 January 2016. He was then appointed Chief of the Staff of the Western Naval Command in Mumbai. He subsequently moved to Naval HQ as the Controller, Personnel Services (CPS). On 1 August 2018, he assumed charge as the Chief of Personnel (COP), succeeding Vice Admiral Anil Kumar Chawla. Get help with editing


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: After an 18-month tenure as COP, Kumar was promoted to Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) grade and appointed Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (CISC). During his tenure as CISC, the Department of Military Affairs was created by the Government of India and the appointment of Chief of Defence Staff was created. For his tenure as CISC, he was awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal on 26 January 2021. On 28 February 2021, he was appointed Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Naval Command, taking over from Vice Admiral Ajit Kumar P.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: On 9 November 2021, the Government of India appointed Kumar as the next Chief of Naval Staff. He took office after superannuation of Admiral Karambir Singh on 30 November 2021.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: Kumar is married to Kala Nair, with whom he has a daughter. He enjoys swimming, playing badminton, and walking.


title: R. Hari Kumar

text: During his career, he has been awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal (VSM) in 2010, the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) in 2016 and the Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM) in 2021 for his service.


title: Neutronium

text: Neutronium (sometimes shortened to neutrium, also referred to as neutrite) is a hypothetical substance composed purely of neutrons. The word was coined by scientist Andreas von Antropoff in 1926 (before the 1932 discovery of the neutron) for the hypothetical "element of atomic number zero" (with zero protons in its nucleus) that he placed at the head of the periodic table (denoted by -, or Nu). However, the meaning of the term has changed over time, and from the last half of the 20th century onward it has been also used to refer to extremely dense substances resembling the neutron-degenerate matter theorized to exist in the cores of neutron stars; hereinafter ""degenerate" neutronium" will refer to this.


title: Neutronium

text: Neutronium is used in popular physics literature to refer to the material present in the cores of neutron stars (stars which are too massive to be supported by electron degeneracy pressure and which collapse into a denser phase of matter). This term is very rarely used in scientific literature, for three reasons: there are multiple definitions for the term "neutronium"; there is considerable uncertainty over the composition of the material in the cores of neutron stars (it could be neutron-degenerate matter, strange matter, quark matter, or a variant or combination of the above); the properties of neutron star material should depend on depth due to changing pressure (see below), and no sharp boundary between the crust (consisting primarily of atomic nuclei) and almost protonless inner layer is expected to exist.


title: Neutronium

text: When neutron star core material is presumed to consist mostly of free neutrons, it is typically referred to as neutron-degenerate matter in scientific literature.


title: Neutronium

text: The term "neutronium" was coined in 1926 by Andreas von Antropoff for a conjectured form of matter made up of neutrons with no protons or electrons, which he placed as the chemical element of atomic number zero at the head of his new version of the periodic table. It was subsequently placed in the middle of several spiral representations of the periodic system for classifying the chemical elements, such as those of Charles Janet (1928), E. I. Emerson (1944), and John D. Clark (1950).


title: Neutronium

text: Although the term is not used in the scientific literature either for a condensed form of matter, or as an element, there have been reports that, besides the free neutron, there may exist two bound forms of neutrons without protons. If neutronium were considered to be an element, then these neutron clusters could be considered to be the isotopes of that element. However, these reports have not been further substantiated.


title: Neutronium

text: Although not called "neutronium", the National Nuclear Data Center's "Nuclear Wallet Cards" lists as its first "isotope" an "element" with the symbol n and atomic number "Z" = 0 and mass number "A" = 1. This "isotope" is described as decaying to hydrogen-1 with a half life of .


title: Neutronium

text: Neutron matter is equivalent to a chemical element with atomic number 0, which is to say that it is equivalent to a species of atoms having no protons in their atomic nuclei. It is extremely radioactive; its only legitimate equivalent isotope, the free neutron, has a half-life of 10 minutes, which is approximately half that of the most stable known isotope of francium. Neutron matter decays quickly into hydrogen. Neutron matter has no electronic structure on account of its total lack of electrons.


title: Neutronium

text: While this lifetime is long enough to permit the study of neutronium's chemical properties, there are serious practical problems. Having no charge or electrons, neutronium would not interact strongly with ordinary low-energy photons (visible light) and would feel no electrostatic forces, so it would diffuse into the walls of most containers made of ordinary matter. Certain materials are able to resist diffusion or absorption of ultracold neutrons due to nuclear-quantum effects, specifically reflection caused by the strong interaction. At ambient temperature and in the presence of other elements, thermal neutrons readily undergo neutron capture to form heavier (and often radioactive) isotopes of that element.


title: Neutronium

text: Neutron matter at standard pressure and temperature is predicted by the ideal gas law to be less dense than even hydrogen, with a density of only (roughly 27 times less dense than air and half as dense as hydrogen gas). Neutron matter is expected to remain gaseous down to absolute zero at normal pressures, as the zero-point energy of the system is too high to allow condensation. However, neutron matter should in theory form a degenerate gaseous superfluid at these temperatures, composed of transient neutron-pairs called "dineutrons". Under extremely low pressure, this low temperature, gaseous superfluid should exhibit quantum coherence producing a Bose–Einstein condensate. At higher temperatures, neutron matter will only condense with sufficient pressure, and solidify with even greater pressure. Such pressures exist in neutron stars, where the extreme pressure causes the neutron matter to become degenerate. However, in the presence of atomic matter compressed to the state of electron degeneracy, β decay may be inhibited due to the Pauli exclusion principle, thus making free neutrons stable. Also, elevated pressures should make neutrons degenerate themselves.


title: Neutronium

text: Compared to ordinary elements, neutronium should be more compressible due to the absence of electrically charged protons and electrons. This makes neutronium more energetically favorable than (positive-"Z") atomic nuclei and leads to their conversion to (degenerate) neutronium through electron capture, a process that is believed to occur in stellar cores in the final seconds of the lifetime of massive stars, where it is facilitated by cooling via emission. As a result, degenerate neutronium can have a density of , roughly 14 orders of magnitude denser than the densest known ordinary substances. It was theorized that extreme pressures of order might deform the neutrons into a cubic symmetry, allowing tighter packing of neutrons, or cause a strange matter formation.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire is an architecturally significant country house from the Elizabethan era, a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house. Built between 1590 and 1597 for Bess of Hardwick, it was designed by the architect Robert Smythson, an exponent of the Renaissance style. Hardwick Hall is one of the earliest examples of the English interpretation of this style, which came into fashion having slowly spread from Florence. Its arrival in Britain coincided with the period when it was no longer necessary or legal to fortify a domestic dwelling.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: After ownership for centuries by the Cavendish family and the line of the Earl of Devonshire and the Duke of Devonshire, ownership of the house was transferred to the Treasury in 1956 and then to the National Trust in 1959. The building was ruinous and required stabilisation and a subsequent restoration.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Sited on a hilltop between Chesterfield and Mansfield, overlooking the Derbyshire countryside, Hardwick Hall was designed by Robert Smythson in the late 16th century. Ordered by Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury and ancestress of the Dukes of Devonshire, it was owned by her descendants until the mid-twentieth century.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Bess of Hardwick was the richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth I, and her house was conceived to be a conspicuous statement of her wealth and power. The windows are exceptionally large and numerous at a time when glass was a luxury, leading to the saying, "Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall." The Hall's chimneys are built into the internal walls of the structure, in order to give more scope for huge windows without weakening the exterior walls.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: The house's design also demonstrated new concepts not only in domestic architecture, but also of a more modern way in which life was led within a great house. Hardwick was one of the first English houses where the great hall was built on an axis through the centre of the house, rather than at right angles to the entrance.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Each of the three main storeys has a higher ceiling than the one below, the ceiling height being indicative of the importance of the rooms' occupants: least noble at the bottom and grandest at the top.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: A wide, winding, stone staircase leads up to the state rooms on the second floor; these rooms include one of the largest long galleries in any English house. There is also a tapestry-hung great chamber with a spectacular plaster frieze illustrating hunting scenes; the room has been little altered.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: The architecture was influential, and in March 1608 the Earl of Salisbury, who was planning new buildings at Hatfield House, asked Bess's son-in-law, the Earl of Shrewsbury, for a plan, "any rowgh drawght of Hardwick". Hardwick was but one of Bess's many houses. Each of her four marriages had brought her greater wealth. She was born in her father's manor house on the site of the later, now old Hall at Hardwick, which today is a ruin beside the 'new' hall.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: After Bess's death in 1608, the house passed to her son William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Devonshire. His great-grandson, William, was created 1st Duke of Devonshire in 1694. The Devonshires made Chatsworth, another of Bess's great houses, their principal seat. Hardwick thus was relegated to the role of an occasional retreat for hunting and sometime dower house.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: As a secondary home, it escaped the attention of modernisers and received few alterations after its completion.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: The famed political philosopher Thomas Hobbes died at the Hall in December 1679. For the previous four or five years, Hobbes had lived at Chatsworth House, also owned by William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire. Hobbes had been a friend of the family since 1608 when he first tutored William Cavendish. After his death, many of Hobbes' manuscripts were found at Chatsworth House.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: From the early 19th century, the antique atmosphere of Hardwick Hall was consciously preserved. A low, 19th-century service wing is fairly inconspicuous at the rear.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: In 1844, William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire published a book called "Handbook to Chatsworth and Hardwick". It was privately printed and provided a history of the Cavendish family's two estates.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: In 1950, the unexpected death of the 10th Duke of Devonshire, with the subsequent death duties (rated at 80%), caused the sale of many of the Devonshire assets and estates. At this time, Hardwick was occupied by Evelyn, Duchess of Devonshire, the widow of the 9th Duke. The decision was taken to hand the house over to HM Treasury in lieu of Estate Duty in 1956. The Treasury transferred the house to the National Trust in 1959. The Duchess remained in occupation of the house until her death in 1960. Having done much, personally, to conserve the textiles in the house as well as reinstating the traditional rush matting, she was to be its last occupant.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Hardwick Hall contains a large collection of embroideries, mostly dating from the late 16th century, many of which are listed in the 1601 inventory. Some of the needlework on display in the house incorporates Bess's monogram "ES", and may have been worked on by Bess herself. There is a large amount of fine tapestry and furniture from the 16th and 17th centuries. A remarkable feature of the house is that much of the present furniture and other contents are listed in an inventory dating from 1601. The Sea Dog Table is an especially important piece from around 1600, and the Eglantine Table has an inlaid top of interest to musical historians.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Hardwick is open to the public. It has a fine garden, including herbaceous borders, a vegetable and herb garden, and an orchard. The extensive grounds also contain Hardwick Old Hall, a slightly earlier house which was used as guest and service accommodation after the new hall was built. The Old Hall is now a ruin. It is administered by English Heritage on behalf of the National Trust and is also open to the public. Many of the Old Hall's major rooms were decorated with ambitious schemes of plasterwork, notably above the fireplaces. Remarkably, impressive fragments of these are still to be seen (protected by preservative coatings and rain-shields), though most of the building is unroofed.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Both Hardwick Hall and the Old Hall are Grade I listed (the highest designation) by Historic England.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Dan Cruickshank, an historian specialising in architecture, selected the Hall in 2006 as one of his five choices for "Britain's Best Buildings", a documentary series made by the BBC for television. Innovative in its own time, it would serve, three centuries later, as a source of inspiration for the enormous Main Exhibition Building at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Hardwick Hall was an ideal model for a building which was intended to merge historicism with the large expanses of glass that had become "de rigueur" for the main exhibition halls at international expositions and fairs in the wake of the success of The Crystal Palace constructed for the 1851 London Exhibition.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: In March 2012, a £6.5m restoration was completed; this included the addition of a large restaurant. In December 2020, three years of additional restoration had been completed and further work was being planned.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Hardwick Hall was the setting for the 10-part BBC series "Mistress of Hardwick", broadcast in 1972, which followed the life of Bess of Hardwick. Most of the episodes are now lost.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Hardwick Hall was used in the 1978 "Connections" TV series to illustrate a long series of changes that occurred in home design as a result of the Little Ice Age.


title: Hardwick Hall

text: Hardwick Hall was used for the exterior scenes and some interior scenes of Malfoy Manor in the 2010 film "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1".


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The M247 Sergeant York DIVAD (Division Air Defense) was a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG), developed by Ford Aerospace in the late 1970s. Based on the M48 Patton tank, it replaced the Patton's turret with a new one that featured twin radar-directed Bofors 40 mm rapid-fire guns. The vehicle was named after Sergeant Alvin York, a famous World War I hero.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The Sergeant York was intended to fight alongside the M1 Abrams and M2 Bradley in the U.S. Army, in a role similar to the Soviet ZSU-23-4 and German Flakpanzer Gepard. It would replace the M163 Vulcan Air Defense System SPAAG and MIM-72 Chaparral missile, "ad hoc" systems of limited performance that had been introduced when the more advanced MIM-46 Mauler missile failed to mature.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Despite the use of many off the shelf technologies that were intended to allow rapid and low-cost development, a series of technical problems and massive cost overruns resulted in the cancellation of the project in 1985.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The first effective SPAAG in U.S. Army service was the all-manual M19 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage, which consisted of twin 40 mm L60 Bofors guns based on the same chassis as used for the M24 Chaffee. When the M24 and vehicles on the same chassis were retired, the turrets were taken from the M19s, modified and mounted onto the M41 Walker Bulldog light tank chassis to produce the M42 Duster. While capable for the era it was designed in, by the time it reached widespread service in the late 1950s it was clear that it was ineffective against high-speed jet-powered targets. The Duster was completely removed from service by 1963, only to be re-introduced briefly during the Vietnam War when its replacement never arrived.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The first proposed replacement for the Duster was the Sperry Vigilante, which referred to the six-barreled 37 mm Gatling gun proposed as the basis for a new SPAAG. Although the gun was extremely powerful, at some point in the late 1950s the Army decided that all gun-based systems were out of date.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The next proposed replacement for the Duster was the ambitious MIM-46 Mauler missile system. Mauler mounted a nine-missile magazine on top of an adapted M113 Armored Personnel Carrier chassis, along with detection and tracking radars. Mauler featured a completely automatic fire control system, with the operators simply selecting targets and pressing "OK". It would be able to respond to low-flying high-speed targets at any angle out to a range of about five miles. However, Mauler proved to be beyond the state-of-the-art and ran into intractable problems during development. Realizing it was not going to enter service any time soon, it was downgraded to a technology demonstration program in 1963, and eventually cancelled outright in 1965.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Still lacking an effective anti-aircraft system, the Army started development of two stop-gap systems that were meant to operate in concert as the "Chaparral-Vulcan Air Defense System". The M163 VADS combined the M61 Vulcan cannon, the M113 chassis, and an all-optical fire control system with a simple lead-computing gunsight. Suitable for "snap shots" against nearby targets, the VADS system was equipped only with a small ranging radar for the gunsight, its firing range being too small to justify a larger tracking radar.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: VADS was intended to operate in concert with the MIM-72 Chaparral missile system, which combined the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile with a more heavily modified version of the M113 chassis. The Chaparral's AIM-9D missiles were capable of tail-chase launches only, but offered ranges up to 5 miles. Also using an all-optical firing system, the Chaparral nevertheless required the operator to "settle" the missiles on the target for a period of time to allow them to lock on, limiting its ability to deal with quickly moving targets. Both vehicles were optionally supported by the AN/MPQ-49 Forward Area Alerting Radar (FAAR), but this system was towed by the Gama Goat and could not be used near the front lines. The pair of weapons was, at best, a nuisance to the enemy and had limited performance against modern aircraft.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: At one point the Army started to become concerned about developments in sensor technologies that would allow attacks by fixed-wing aircraft at night or in bad weather. They developed a requirement for a weapon system able to operate using FLIR and a laser rangefinder in order to counter these threats. However, the rest of the military establishment disapproved of the idea; even the US Air Force was able to carry out only limited operations in bad weather, and the Soviets had a considerably less capable force in this regard. The idea gained little traction and died.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: During the late 1960s the combination of the helicopter and anti-tank missiles improved to the point where they became a major threat to armoured operations. The U.S. led the field with their TOW missile on the UH-1 Iroquois, demonstrating this powerful combination in combat in the Vietnam War's 1972 Easter Offensive. The Soviets initially lagged behind the U.S., but the introduction of the 9K114 Shturm missile on the Mil Mi-24 (called the "Hind" by NATO) in the 1970s offered the USSR a level of parity.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Unlike fixed-wing aircraft, attack helicopters had the ability to loiter near the front behind cover and pick their targets. They would then "pop up", launch a missile, and return to cover as soon as the missile hit its target. Using fast-reacting wire-guided or radio-command missiles meant the total engagement time was kept to a minimum, as there was little or no "lock-on" time required; the operator simply fired as soon as they were clear of the terrain, and then adjusted the missile's flight path onto the target while it flew. Against these aircraft, the Vulcan/Chaparral combination was effectively useless.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The Vulcan could react quickly enough to the fleeting targets, but its 20 mm gun had an effective range of only about 1,200 meters, far shorter than the 3,000 to 5,000 meters range of the 9K114. While the Chaparral had enough range to engage the "Hind", its lengthy lock-on period meant the Hind would have hit its target and hidden behind terrain again before the Sidewinder would reach it. Additionally, the older Sidewinder missiles used on the Chaparral homed in on exhaust, and had limited capability against helicopters faced head-on.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The limited effectiveness of the Vulcan/Chaparral was not the only problem the US Army was facing in the late 1970s. At the time they were also in the process of introducing the new M1 Abrams and M2 Bradley vehicles, which had dramatically improved cross-country performance. The M113-based Vulcan and Chaparral could not keep up with them on the advance, which would leave the new vehicles open to attack in a fast moving front.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Finally, the Soviets were widely introducing the ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" SPAAG, which was cause for some concern after it appeared in the Middle East. Israeli pilots attempting to avoid fire from Syrian SA-6 batteries would fly low, directly into the Shilka's envelope. Several aircraft were lost or damaged. The Shilka proved that a modern SPAAG was effective against modern aircraft.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: For all of these reasons, the Army developed the "Advanced Radar-directed Gun Air Defense System" (ARGADS) requirement for a new weapon system combining the reaction speed of the Vulcan with the range of the Chaparral, and placing them on a chassis that could keep up with the new tanks in combat. They also worked in the earlier FLIR/laser requirement. The system was later renamed "Division Air Defense" (DIVAD).


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: At the time, most U.S. military policy was based on the US Air Force quickly gaining air superiority and holding it throughout a conflict. In keeping with this, the Army had previously placed relatively low priority on anti-aircraft weapons. This gave them time to mature through testing and shakedowns. In the case of DIVADs the threat was considered so serious and rapidly developing that the Army decided to skip the traditional development period and try to go straight into production by using a number of "off-the-shelf" parts.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Colonel Russell Parker testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 1977 that "We expect this somewhat unorthodox approach to permit a much reduced development time, thus resulting in an earliest fielding date, albeit with higher but acceptable risks... the manufacturer will be required by the fixed price warranty provisions, to correct deficiencies." It was claimed that this would cut up to five years from the development cycle, although it would require problems to be found in service and fixed on the operational vehicles.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Colonel Parker unveiled the DIVAD plan to 49 industry representatives on 18 May 1977. The DIVAD's requirement demanded that the entrants be based on the M48 Patton tank chassis, provided by the Army, which were held in large quantities in surplus depots. DIVAD called for the gun to acquire a target and start firing within five seconds (later extended to eight) of it becoming visible or coming into its 3,000 m range, and had to have a 50% chance of hitting a target with a 30-round burst. In addition to all-weather capability, it also needed to have optical aiming capabilities, including a FLIR and laser rangefinder.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Sperry Rand entered a system based on their older Vigilante gun, modified to fire the 35 mm round from the Oerlikon KDA series, widely used in NATO in the anti-aircraft role. The gun could be fired at 3,000 rounds per minute for anti-aircraft use, or 180 rounds per minute for use against ground targets, fed from a 1,464-round magazine. The aluminium turret was topped by two radars and an IFF system, all from Sperry.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: General Electric entered a version with a small turret mounting their 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger cannon from the A-10 Thunderbolt II. It included a single search/track radar adapted from the earlier FAAR, although they later suggested an improved system.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Raytheon proposed using the turret from the Dutch version of the German Gepard flakpanzer. Most of the turret remained the same as the original Gepard, including the twin 35 mm Oerlikon KDA cannons, but used Hollandse Signaalapparaten radars and an Oerlikon Contraves fire-control computer. Raytheon demonstrated that the turret, although designed for the Leopard 1, could be mounted on the M48 with some adaptation.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: General Dynamics' entry also mounted twin Oerlikon KDA cannons, but mounted them side by side in a new aluminum turret, as opposed to either side of the turret as in the Gepard. They could be fired in either the automatic or semiautomatic mode, and their combined rate of fire was 1,100 rounds per minute from a 600-round magazine. The radar and fire control systems were derived from their Phalanx CIWS system, with the tracking radar mounted on the front of the turret, beside the guns, and the search radar on top. The turret also included independently stabilized optical sights and a laser range finder for manual engagements.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Ford Aerospace's entry was based around the Bofors 40 mm L/70 cannons, twin-mounted in the center of the turret in a fashion similar to the General Dynamics entry. The relatively large and boxy turret also mounted separate long-range search and short-range tracking radars on top. The radars were mounted on booms to give them a clear view of the sky, and both had the ability to be folded down to reduce the vehicle's height during travel. The tracking radar was a modified version of the Westinghouse AN/APG-66 from the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Like the General Dynamics entry, it also mounted a complete optical sighting and ranging system.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Some critics claim that Ford's use of the 40 mm Bofors appears to have been a business decision, not a technical one. While the 35 mm round was already a widely accepted NATO standard and was technically well respected, Ford had a marketing agreement with Bofors. As Gregg Easterbrook later reported:


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: However, the Bofors 40 mm L/70 cannon also had worldwide popularity and had become NATO standard back in the mid 1950s. In addition, FACC had developed a proximity-sensing round for the 40 mm, which increased probability of a kill, and the shell carried either a greater explosive charge or higher deadweight mass than the smaller anti-aircraft platforms. These factors would be important in the primary scenario for which the DIVAD was to be deployed, that being the large-theater land operations vs the Warsaw Pact.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: On 13 January 1978, General Dynamics and Ford were given development contracts for one prototype each, the XM246 and XM247 respectively, to be delivered to Fort Bliss in June 1980. On schedule, both companies delivered their prototypes to the North McGregor Test Facility and head-to-head testing began. The shoot-off was delayed for two months "because the prototypes which arrived at Fort Bliss test range were too technically immature." In the DT/OT II test series they shot down two F-86 Sabre fighters, five UH-1 Huey helicopters and twenty-one smaller drones.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: After the 29-month Phase One trial, Ford's entry was selected as the winner of the DIVADs contest on 7 May 1981, and given a fixed-price $6.97 billion development and initial production contract for deliveries at various rates. The system was officially named M247 Sergeant York when the contract was awarded. The decision was controversial, as the General Dynamics entry had "outscored" the Ford design consistently in testing, nineteen "kills" to nine by most accounts.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Ford's prototype vehicle started demonstrating problems almost immediately. The main concerns had to do with the tracking radar, which demonstrated considerable problems with ground clutter. In testing, it was unable to distinguish between helicopters and trees. When the guns were pointed upward to fire on high-angle targets, the barrels projected into the radar's line of sight and further confused the system. Additionally, the reaction time was far too slow; against hovering helicopters it was 10 to 11 seconds, but against high-speed targets it was from 11 to 19, far too long to take a shot.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The RAM-D (reliability, availability, maintainability and durability) tests ran from November 1981 to February 1982, demonstrating a wide range of operation concerns. The turret proved to have too slow a traverse to track fast moving targets, and had serious problems operating in cold weather, including numerous hydraulic leaks. The simple electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) suite could be defeated by only minor jamming. The used guns taken from U.S. Army stock were in twisted condition due to careless warehousing. Perhaps the most surprising problem was that the 30-year-old M48 chassis with the new 20-ton turret meant the vehicle had trouble keeping pace with the newer M1 and M2, the vehicles it was meant to protect.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: In February 1982 the prototype was demonstrated for a group of US and British officers at Fort Bliss, along with members of Congress and other VIPs. When the computer was activated, it immediately started aiming the guns at the review stands, causing several minor injuries as members of the group jumped for cover. Technicians worked on the problem, and the system was restarted. This time it started shooting towards the target, but fired into the ground 300 m in front of the tank. In spite of several attempts to get it working properly, the vehicle never successfully engaged the sample targets. A Ford manager claimed that the problems were due to the vehicle being washed for the demonstration and fouling the electronics. In a report on the test, Easterbrook jokingly wondered if it ever rained in central Europe.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: In February 1984 the Defense Department sent a "cure-notice" censuring Ford Aerospace for numerous "totally unacceptable" delays in the program. In March 1984 the Army took delivery, six months late, of the first production model for testing. One of the early models was reported to have locked onto a latrine fan, mistaking its return for a moving target of low-priority. Reporting on the incident in another article on the vehicle's woes, "Washington Monthly" reported that "Michael Duffy, a reporter for the industry publication "Defense Week", who broke this aspect of the story, received a conference call in which Ford officials asked him to describe the target as a 'building fan' or 'exhaust fan' instead."


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Nevertheless, the program's manager within the Army was cautiously positive. Major General Maloney said, "The DIVAD battery-eight systems plus one spare-activated 1 November 1984, at Fort Bliss to prepare for tests, has been demonstrating 90% reliability for full systems capability. The systems have been able to operate in a degraded manner a further 2% of the time and have had an 8% inoperable rate." He later stated that the "gun still had problems with software and electronic countermeasures, but my sensing was that it was certainly no worse than many weapon systems at this period in their gestation".


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: In spite of the bad press and development problems, the Army continued to press for the system's deployment as they had no other system in the pipeline to replace it. To add to the problems, another generation of Soviet helicopter and missile designs was pushing their envelope out to 6,000 m, rendering DIVADs ineffective at long range. In response, the Army announced it would consider adding the Stinger missile to the DIVAD system, leading to even more cries about its ineffectiveness.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: As Washington became increasingly fed up with the DIVAD's problems, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger ordered a $54 million series of battlefield-condition tests. Congress authorized production money to keep the program alive through a test-fix-test cycle but with a caveat; the funds would be released only if Weinberger certified that the gun "meets or exceeds the performance specifications of its contract." The tests were monitored by the Pentagon's new Director, Operational Test and Evaluation Office (DOT&E), mandated by Congress in 1983 to serve as an independent watchdog. The tests were carried out late in 1984.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The results were abysmal. When the gun proved unable to hit drones moving even in a straight line, the tests were relaxed to hovering targets. The radar proved unable to lock even to this target, as the return was too small. The testers then started adding radar reflectors to the drone to address this "problem", eventually having to add four. Easterbrook, still covering the ongoing debacle, described this as being similar to demonstrating the abilities of a bloodhound by having it find a man standing alone in the middle of an empty parking lot, covered with steaks. The system now tracked the drone, and after firing a lengthy burst of shells the drone was knocked off target. As it flew out of control, the range safety officer had it destroyed by remote control. This was interpreted by the press as an attempt to "fake" the results, describing it as "sophomoric deceits". From that point on, every test success was written off as faked.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The OT&E concluded that the gun could perform the mission as originally specified, but the tests also showed that the system had considerable reliability problems, many as the result of trying to adapt a radar system developed for aircraft to the ground role. Initial production tests run from December 1984 to May 1985 turned up a continued variety of problems, failing 22 of 163 contract requirements, and 22 serious failures in operational readiness. Contrary to the Army's earlier reports, OT&E Director Jack Krings said the tests showed, "the SGT YORK was not operationally effective in adequately protecting friendly forces during simulated combat, even though its inherent capabilities provided improvement over the current [General Electric] Vulcan gun system. The SGT YORK was not operationally suitable because of its low availability during the tests." They measured the availability of the system at 33%, as opposed to the required 90%.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: On 27 August 1985, Weinberger killed the project after about 50 vehicles had been produced. He said, "the tests demonstrated that while there are marginal improvements that can be made in the York gun, they are not worth the additional cost-so we will not invest any more funds in the system." Noting that cancelling the project did not imply a lack of need, he started the process of studying a missile-based system to fill the same niche. This led to the Oerlikon Canada ADATS system, which suffered problems of its own and entered service only in the Canadian Army. The niche was eventually filled by the M6 Linebacker, an adaptation of the M2 with Stinger missiles. Although far less capable than the ADATS missile, the Linebacker is able to keep up with mobile heavy forces. The Linebacker has been retired from active service, while the M1097 Avenger HMMWV-based Stinger-equipped systems have been downsized.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: Most of the production Sergeants York ended up as targets on air force bombing ranges. However, one is on display at the Sgt. Alvin C. York State Historic Park in Pall Mall, TN where its namesake hailed from, one is in the Wahner E. Brooks Historical Exhibit at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds, AZ, another is located at the AAF Museum in Danville, VA, one at the Fort Snelling Military Museum in Minneapolis, MN (now closed), and one located at the Arkansas National Guard Museum at Camp Robinson, North Little Rock, Arkansas.


title: M247 Sergeant York

text: The M247 Sergeant York was referenced in the movie "Pentagon Wars", where it, along with other Army projects, such as the Paveway Laser Guided Bomb, is berated for its lack of success in testing, despite the long and expensive efforts put forth.


title: CMMG Mk47 Mutant

text: The CMMG Mk47 Mutant is an American-made semi-automatic rifle chambered in 7.62×39mm caliber, made by CMMG Inc. It can accept all types of Kalashnikov pattern magazines, including steel, polymer and drum magazines.


title: CMMG Mk47 Mutant

text: The Mk47 was publicly announced for a release in 2014. In 2015, CMMG released its first production Mk47s to stores throughout the US.


title: CMMG Mk47 Mutant

text: According to CMMG Production Manager Tyson Bradshaw, he mentioned that CMMG made the rifle due to the need of "consumers to have a reliable, U.S.-made rifle that could properly handle the dimensions of the 7.62x39 mm cartridge. To do this properly, it required CMMG to build the rifle around the caliber. Using AK magazines was an easy decision to make, because they are known to be some of the most reliable magazines available that work properly with the tapered cartridge".


title: CMMG Mk47 Mutant

text: In SHOT Show 2015, CMMG representatives have suggested the possibility that they can do a variant of the rifle based on the 5.45×39mm caliber.


title: CMMG Mk47 Mutant

text: The Mk47 Mutant has an AR-10-sized bolt carrier, which was enlarged, with a CMMG RKM KeyMod handguard and an upper/lower receiver manufactured from 7075-T6 billet aluminum.


title: CMMG Mk47 Mutant

text: The rifle has an AR-15-based pistol grip, safety selector, trigger group and a buffer tube. It was influenced by the CMMG Mk3 assault rifles. The Mk47 relies on a direct impingement gas system.


title: CMMG Mk47 Mutant

text: For rifles/pistols being marketed to California, they are sold with Vepr 10-round magazines and with the mandated bullet button on the magazine release.


title: CMMG Mk47 Mutant

text: The Mk47 underwent several tests in reliability, being manageable to handle, especially with a suppressor. Shooting Illustrated mentioned that the only thing the rifle needs is something to hold the bolt open so that the shooter or someone can see that the weapon is not loaded.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Sword-and-sandal, also known as peplum (pepla plural), is a subgenre of largely Italian-made historical, mythological, or Biblical epics mostly set in the Greco-Roman antiquity or the Middle Ages. These films attempted to emulate the big-budget Hollywood historical epics of the time, such as "Samson and Delilah" (1949), "Quo Vadis" (1951), "The Robe" (1953), "The Ten Commandments" (1956), "Ben-Hur" (1959), "Spartacus" (1960), and "Cleopatra" (1963). These films dominated the Italian film industry from 1958 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by spaghetti Western and Eurospy films.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The term "peplum" (a Latin word referring to the Ancient Greek garment "peplos"), was introduced by French film critics in the 1960s. The terms "peplum" and "sword-and-sandal" were used in a condescending way by film critics. Later, the terms were embraced by fans of the films, similar to the terms "spaghetti Western" or "shoot-'em-ups". In their English versions, peplum films can be immediately differentiated from their Hollywood counterparts by their use of "clumsy and inadequate" English language dubbing. A 100-minute documentary on the history of Italy's peplum genre was produced and directed by Antonio Avati in 1977 entitled "Kolossal: i magnifici Maciste" (aka "Kino Kolossal").


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Sword-and-sandal films are a specific class of Italian adventure films that have subjects set in Biblical or classical antiquity, often with plots based more or less loosely on Greco-Roman history or the other contemporary cultures of the time, such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Etruscans, as well as medieval times. Not all of the films were fantasy-based by any means. Many of the plots featured actual historical personalities such as Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Hannibal, although great liberties were taken with the storylines. Gladiators and slaves rebelling against tyrannical rulers, pirates and swashbucklers were also popular subjects.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: As Robert Rushing defines it, peplum, "in its most stereotypical form, [...] depicts muscle-bound heroes (professional bodybuilders, athletes, wrestlers, or brawny actors) in mythological antiquity, fighting fantastic monsters and saving scantily clad beauties. Rather than lavish epics set in the classical world, they are low-budget films that focus on the hero's extraordinary body." Thus, most sword-and-sandal films featured a superhumanly strong man as the protagonist, such as Hercules, Samson, Goliath, Ursus or Italy's own popular folk hero Maciste. In addition, the plots typically involved two women vying for the affection of the bodybuilder hero: the good love interest (a damsel in distress needing rescue), and an evil femme fatale queen who sought to dominate the hero.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Also, the films typically featured an ambitious ruler who would ascend the throne by murdering those who stood in his path, and often it was only the muscular hero who could depose him. Thus the hero's often political goal: "to restore a legitimate sovereign against an evil dictator."


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Many of the peplum films involved a clash between two populations, one civilized and the other barbaric, which typically included a scene of a village or city being burned to the ground by invaders. For their musical content, most films contained a colorful dancing girls sequence, meant to underline pagan decadence.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Italian filmmakers paved the way for the peplum genre with some of the earliest silent films dealing with the subject, including the following:


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The 1914 Italian silent film "Cabiria" was one of the first films set in antiquity to make use of a massively muscled character, Maciste (played by actor Bartolomeo Pagano), who served in this premiere film as the hero's slavishly loyal sidekick. Maciste became the public's favorite character in the film however, and Pagano was called back many times to reprise the role. The Maciste character appeared in at least two dozen Italian silent films from 1914 through 1926, all of which featured a protagonist named Maciste although the films were set in many different time periods and geographical locations.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The Italian film industry released several historical films in the early sound era, such as the big-budget "Scipione l'Africano" ("Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal") in 1937. In 1949, the postwar Italian film industry remade "Fabiola" (which had been previously filmed twice in the silent era). The film was released in the United Kingdom and in the United States in 1951 in an edited, English-dubbed version. "Fabiola" was an Italian-French co-production like the following films "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1950) and "Messalina" (1951).


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: During the 1950s, a number of American historical epics shot in Italy were released. In 1951, MGM producer Sam Zimbalist cleverly used the lower production costs, use of frozen funds and the expertise of the Italian film industry to shoot the large-scale Technicolor epic "Quo Vadis" in Rome. In addition to its fictional account linking the Great Fire of Rome, the Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire and Emperor Nero, the film - following the novel "Quo vadis" by the Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz - featured also a mighty protagonist named Ursus (Italian filmmakers later made several pepla in the 1960s exploiting the Ursus character). MGM also planned "Ben Hur" to be filmed in Italy as early as 1952.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Riccardo Freda's "Sins of Rome" was filmed in 1953 and released by RKO in an edited, English-dubbed version the following year. Unlike "Quo Vadis", there were no American actors or production crew. The Anthony Quinn film "Attila" (directed by Pietro Francisci in 1954), the Kirk Douglas epic "Ulysses" (co-directed by an uncredited Mario Bava in 1954) and "Helen of Troy" (directed by Robert Wise with Sergio Leone as an uncredited second unit director in 1955) were the first of the big peplum films of the 1950s. Riccardo Freda directed another peplum, "Theodora, Slave Empress" in 1954, starring his wife Gianna Maria Canale. Howard Hawks directed his "Land of the Pharaohs" (starring Joan Collins) in Italy and Egypt in 1955. Robert Rossen made his film "Alexander the Great" in Egypt in 1956, with a music score by famed Italian composer Mario Nascimbene.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: To cash in on the success of the Kirk Douglas film "Ulysses", Pietro Francisci planned to make a film about Hercules, but searched unsuccessfully for years for a physically convincing yet experienced actor. His daughter spotted American bodybuilder Steve Reeves in the American film "Athena" and he was hired to play Hercules in 1957 when the film was made. (Reeves was paid $10,000 to star in the film).


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The genre's instantaneous growth began with the U.S. theatrical release of "Hercules" in 1959. American producer Joseph E. Levine acquired the U.S. distribution rights for $120,000, spent $1 million promoting the film and made more than $5 million profit. This spawned the 1959 Steve Reeves sequel "Hercules Unchained", the 1959 re-release of Cecil B. DeMille's "Samson and Delilah" (1949), and dozens of imitations that followed in their wake. Italian filmmakers resurrected their 1920s Maciste character in a brand new 1960s sound film series (1960–1964), followed rapidly by Ursus, Samson, Goliath and various other mighty-muscled heroes.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Almost all peplum films of this period featured bodybuilder stars, the most popular being Steve Reeves, Reg Park and Gordon Scott. Some of these stars, such as Mickey Hargitay, Reg Lewis, Mark Forest, Gordon Mitchell and Dan Vadis, had starred in Mae West's touring stage review in the United States in the 1950s. Bodybuilders of Italian origin, on the other hand, would adopt English pseudonyms for the screen; thus, stuntman Sergio Ciani became Alan Steel, and ex-gondolier Adriano Bellini was called Kirk Morris.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: To be sure, many of the films enjoyed widespread popularity among general audiences, and had production values that were typical for popular films of their day. Some films included frequent re-use of the impressive film sets that had been created for "Ben-Hur" and "Cleopatra".


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Although many of the bigger budget pepla were released theatrically in the US, fourteen of them were released directly to Embassy Pictures television in a syndicated TV package called "The Sons of Hercules". Since few American viewers had a familiarity with Italian film heroes such as Maciste or Ursus, the characters were renamed and the films molded into a series of sorts by splicing on the same opening and closing theme song and newly designed voice-over narration that attempted to link the protagonist of each film to the Hercules mythos. These films ran on Saturday afternoons in the 1960s.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Peplum films were, and still are, often ridiculed for their low budgets and bad English dubbing. The contrived plots, poorly overdubbed dialogue, novice acting skills of the bodybuilder leads, and primitive special effects that were often inadequate to depict the mythological creatures on screen all conspire to give these films a certain camp appeal now. In the 1990s, several of them have been subjects of riffing and satire in the United States comedy series "Mystery Science Theater 3000".


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: However, in the early 1960s, a group of French critics, mostly writing for the Cahiers du cinéma, such as Luc Moullet, started to celebrate the genre and some of its directors, including Vittorio Cottafavi, Riccardo Freda, Mario Bava, Pietro Francisci, Duccio Tessari, and Sergio Leone. Not only directors, but also some of the screenwriters, often put together in teams, worked past the typically formulaic plot structure to include a mixture of "bits of philosophical readings and scraps of psychoanalysis, reflections on the biggest political systems, the fate of the world and humanity, fatalistic notions of accepting the will of destiny and the gods, anthropocentric belief in the powers of the human physique, and brilliant syntheses of military treatises".


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: With reference to the genre's free use of ancient mythology and other influences, Italian director Vittorio Cottafavi, who directed a number of peplum films, used the term "neo-mythologism".


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: A series of 19 Hercules movies were made in Italy in the late '50s and early '60s. The films were all sequels to the successful Steve Reeves peplum "Hercules" (1958), but with the exception of "Hercules Unchained", each film was a stand-alone story not connected to the others. The actors who played Hercules in these films were Steve Reeves followed by Gordon Scott, Kirk Morris, Mickey Hargitay, Mark Forest, Alan Steel, Dan Vadis, Brad Harris, Reg Park, Peter Lupus (billed as Rock Stevens) and Mike Lane. In a 1997 interview, Reeves said he felt his two Hercules films could not be topped by another sequel, so he declined to do any more Hercules films.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The films are listed below by their American release titles, and the titles in parentheses are their original Italian titles with an approximate English translation. Dates shown are the original Italian theatrical release dates, not the U.S. release dates (which were years later in some cases).


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: A number of English-dubbed Italian films that featured the word "Hercules" in the title were not made as Hercules movies originally, such as:


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: None of these films in their original Italian versions involved the Hercules character in any way. Likewise, most of the "Sons of Hercules" movies shown on American TV in the 1960s had nothing to do with Hercules in their original Italian versions.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The Italians used Goliath as the superhero protagonist in a series of adventure films (pepla) in the early 1960s. He was a man possessed of amazing strength, although he seemed to be a different person in each film. After the classic "Hercules" (1958) became a blockbuster sensation in the film industry, a 1959 Steve Reeves film "Il terrore dei barbari" ("Terror of the Barbarians") was re-titled "Goliath and the Barbarians" in the U.S. The film was so successful at the box office, it inspired Italian filmmakers to do a series of four more films featuring a generic beefcake hero named Goliath, although the films were not related to each other in any way (the 1960 Italian peplum "David and Goliath" starring Orson Welles was not part of this series, since that movie was just a historical retelling of the Biblical story).


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The titles in the Italian "Goliath" adventure series were as follows: (the first title listed for each film is the film's original Italian title along with its English translation, while the U.S. release title follows in bold type in parentheses)


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The name Goliath was also inserted into the English titles of three other Italian pepla that were re-titled for U.S. distribution in an attempt to cash in on the Goliath craze, but these films were not originally made as "Goliath movies" in Italy.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Both "Goliath and the Vampires" (1961) and "Goliath and the Sins of Babylon" (1963) actually featured the famed Italian folk hero Maciste in the original Italian versions, but American distributors did not feel the name "Maciste" meant anything to American audiences.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: "Goliath and the Dragon" (1960) was originally an Italian Hercules movie called "The Revenge of Hercules", but it was re-titled "Goliath and the Dragon" in the U.S. since at the time "Goliath and the Barbarians" was breaking box-office records, and the distributors may have thought the name "Hercules" was trademarked by distributor Joseph E. Levine.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: There were a total of 25 Maciste films from the 1960s peplum craze (not counting the two dozen silent Maciste films made in Italy pre-1930). By 1960, seeing how well the two Steve Reeves "Hercules" films were doing at the box office, Italian producers decided to revive the 1920s silent film character "Maciste" in a new series of color/sound films. Unlike the other Italian peplum protagonists, Maciste found himself in a variety of time periods ranging from the Ice Age to 16th century Scotland. Maciste was never given an origin, and the source of his mighty powers was never revealed. However, in the first film of the 1960s series, he mentions to another character that the name "Maciste" means "born of the rock" (almost as if he was a god who would just appear out of the earth itself in times of need). One of the 1920s silent Maciste films was actually entitled "The Giant from the Dolomite", hinting that Maciste may be more god than man, which would explain his great strength.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The first title listed for each film is the film's original Italian title along with its English translation, while the U.S. release title follows in bold type in parentheses (note how many times Maciste's name in the Italian title is altered to an entirely different name in the American title):


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: In 1973, the Spanish cult film director Jesus Franco directed two low-budget "Maciste films" for French producers: "Maciste contre la Reine des Amazones" ("Maciste vs the Queen of the Amazons") and "Les exploits érotiques de Maciste dans l'Atlantide" ("The Erotic Exploits of Maciste in Atlantis"). The films had almost identical casts, both starring Val Davis as Maciste, and appear to have been shot back-to-back. The former was distributed in Italy as a "Karzan" movie (a cheap Tarzan imitation), while the latter film was released only in France with hardcore inserts as "Les Gloutonnes" ("The Gobblers"). These two films were totally unrelated to the 1960s Italian Maciste series.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Following Buddy Baer's portrayal of Ursus in the classic 1951 film "Quo Vadis", Ursus was used as a superhuman Roman-era character who became the protagonist in a series of Italian adventure films made in the early 1960s.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: When the "Hercules" film craze hit in 1959, Italian filmmakers were looking for other muscleman characters similar to Hercules whom they could exploit, resulting in the nine-film Ursus series listed below. Ursus was referred to as a "Son of Hercules" in two of the films when they were dubbed in English (in an attempt to cash in on the then-popular "Hercules" craze), although in the original Italian films, Ursus had no connection to Hercules whatsoever. In the English-dubbed version of one Ursus film (retitled "Hercules, Prisoner of Evil"), Ursus was actually referred to throughout the entire film as "Hercules".


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: There were a total of nine Italian films that featured Ursus as the main character, listed below as follows: Italian title / English translation of the Italian title (American release title);


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: A character named Samson was featured in a series of five Italian peplum films in the 1960s, no doubt inspired by the 1959 re-release of the epic Victor Mature film "Samson and Delilah". The character was similar to the Biblical Samson in the third and fifth films only; in the other three, he just appears to be a very strong man (not related at all to the Biblical figure).


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The titles are listed as follows: Italian title / its English translation (U.S. release title in parentheses);


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The name Samson was also inserted into the U.S. titles of six other Italian movies when they were dubbed in English for U.S. distribution, although these films actually featured the adventures of the famed Italian folk hero Maciste.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: "Samson Against the Sheik" (1962), "Son of Samson" (1960), "Samson and the Slave Queen" (1963), "Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World" (1961), "Samson vs. the Giant King" (1964), and "Samson in King Solomon's Mines" (1964) were all re-titled Maciste movies, because the American distributors did not feel the name Maciste was marketable to U.S. filmgoers.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: "Samson and the Treasure of the Incas" ( "Hercules and the Treasure of the Incas") (1965) sounds like a peplum title, but was actually a spaghetti Western.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: "The Sons of Hercules" was a syndicated television show that aired in the United States in the 1960s. The series repackaged 14 randomly chosen Italian peplum films by unifying them with memorable title and end title theme songs and a standard voice-over intro relating the main hero in each film to Hercules any way they could. In some areas, each film was split into two one-hour episodes, so the 14 films were shown as 28 weekly episodes. None of the films were ever theatrically released in the U.S.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: The films are not listed in chronological order, since they were not really related to each other in any way. The first title listed below for each film was its American broadcast television title, followed in parentheses by the English translation of its original Italian theatrical title:


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Steve Reeves appeared in 14 pepla made in Italy from 1958 to 1964, and most of his films are highly regarded examples of the genre. His pepla are listed below in order of production, not in order of release. The U.S. release titles are shown below, followed by the original Italian title and its translation (in parentheses)


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: There were many 1950s and 1960s Italian pepla that did not feature a major superhero (such as Hercules, Maciste or Samson), and as such they fall into a sort of miscellaneous category. Many were of the "Cappa e spada" (swashbuckler) variety, though they often feature well-known characters such as Ali Baba, Julius Caesar, Ulysses, Cleopatra, the Three Musketeers, Zorro, Theseus, Perseus, Achilles, Robin Hood, and Sandokan. The first really successful Italian films of this kind were "Black Eagle" (1946) and "Fabiola" (1949).


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: Inspired by the success of "Spartacus", there were a number of Italian peplums that heavily emphasized the gladiatorial arena in their plots, with it becoming almost a peplum subgenre in itself. One group of supermen known as "The Ten Gladiators" appeared in a trilogy, all three films starring Dan Vadis in the lead role.


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: After the peplum gave way to the spaghetti Western and Eurospy films in 1965, the genre lay dormant for close to 20 years. Then in 1982, the box-office successes of Jean-Jacques Annaud's "Quest for Fire" (1981), Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Conan the Barbarian" (1982) and "Clash of the Titans (1981 film)" (1981) spurred a second renaissance of sword and sorcery Italian pepla in the five years immediately following. Most of these films had low budgets, focusing more on barbarians and pirates so as to avoid the need for expensive Greco-Roman sets. The filmmakers tried to compensate for their shortcomings with the addition of some graphic gore and nudity. Many of these 1980s entries were helmed by noted Italian horror film directors (Joe D'Amato, Lucio Fulci, Luigi Cozzi, etc.) and many featured actors Lou Ferrigno, Miles O'Keeffe and Sabrina Siani. Here is a list of the 1980s pepla:


title: Sword-and-sandal

text: A group of so-called "porno peplum" films were devoted to Roman emperors, especially - but not only - to Caligula and Claudius' spouse Messalina:


title: Kelli Goss

text: Kelli Amanda Goss (born February 1, 1992) is an American film and television actress. She began her career appearing in a recurring roles in the Nickelodeon comedy series "Big Time Rush" (2010–13) and on the CBS daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless" (2013–15). From 2016 to 2020, Goss played the role of Heather Roth in the Netflix comedy series "The Ranch". Most recently, she played main character Vanessa on the CBS sitcom "United States of Al".


title: Kelli Goss

text: Goss was born in Valencia, California. Her first television role was on the NBC sitcom "My Name is Earl" in 2007, then she appeared in "United States of Tara" in 2009. In 2010, she was cast in the role of Jennifer 2 on the Nickelodeon comedy series "Big Time Rush", substituting temporarily for Spencer Locke while Locke was filming "". Locke would return in the middle of the second season after finishing with the recording of the movie, however she reversed the decision because many people prefer the interpretation of Goss.


title: Kelli Goss

text: In 2012, Goss starred in the Lifetime movie "Sexting in Suburbia", along with Liz Vassey, Jenn Proske and Ryan Kelley. Also that year, she had appeared on the Nick at Nite prime time soap opera "Hollywood Heights" as Hunter King's onscreen friend. In 2013, Goss was cast in the CBS daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless" as Courtney Sloane, an undercover cop who becomes engaged to Noah Newman before her on screen death on April 6, 2015. The character was well received by critics.


title: Kelli Goss

text: In 2016 Goss began appearing in a recurring role as Heather Roth in the Netflix comedy series "The Ranch" with Ashton Kutcher, Danny Masterson, Debra Winger and Sam Elliott. The series ended in 2020.


title: Kelli Goss

text: Goss was cast in a lead role for the new CBS sitcom "United States of Al", which premiered on April 1, 2021 surrounded with controversy. Released to mostly negative reviews, United States of Al and its makers were criticized for the show’s humor, use of antiquated tropes, and in particular, critics called out the casting of a South-African-born Indian actor to play an Afghan lead and his use of an inauthentic accent.


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: Songs of Leonard Cohen is the debut album by Canadian folk singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, released on December 27, 1967, on Columbia Records. Less successful in the US than in Europe, "Songs of Leonard Cohen" foreshadowed the kind of chart success Cohen would go on to achieve. It reached number 83 on the "Billboard" 200. It peaked at number 13 on the UK Albums Chart, spending nearly a year and a half on it.


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: Cohen had received positive attention from critics as a poet and novelist but had maintained a keen interest in music, having played guitar in a country and western band called the Buckskin Boys as a teenager. In 1966, Cohen set out for Nashville, where he hoped to become a country songwriter, but instead got caught up in New York City's folk scene. In November 1966, Judy Collins recorded "Suzanne" for her album "In My Life" and Cohen soon came to the attention of record producer John Hammond. Although Hammond (who initially signed Cohen to his contract with Columbia Records) was supposed to produce the record, he became sick and was replaced by the producer John Simon.


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: Initially, Hammond had Cohen work up guitar parts for "Master Song" and "Sisters of Mercy" with jazz bassist Willie Ruff, and then brought in some of New York's top session musicians to join them, a move that made Cohen nervous; as biographer Anthony Reynolds observes in his book "Leonard Cohen: A Remarkable Life", the dynamic between Cohen and Ruff had been intimate and natural but "the arrival of more anonymous personnel unnerved Cohen, the studio novice put off by their proficiency." Cohen did ask that a full-length mirror be brought into the studio because, as he explained to "Mojo" in November 2001, "through some version of narcissism, I always used to play in front of a mirror. I guess it was the best way to look while playing the guitar, or maybe it was just where the chair was. But I was very comfortable looking at myself playing." After Hammond dropped out of the sessions, John Simon took over as producer and, by all accounts, Simon and Cohen clashed over instrumentation and mixing; Cohen wanted the album to have a sparse sound, while Simon felt the songs could benefit from arrangements that included strings and horns. Writing for "Mojo" in 2012, Sylvie Simmons recalls, "When Leonard heard the result, he was not happy; the orchestration on 'Suzanne' was overblown, while everything about 'Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye' felt too soft. Several tracks had too much bottom, and there were even drums; Leonard had clearly stipulated no drums." The singer and producer also quarreled over a slight stop in the middle of "So Long, Marianne" – a device Cohen felt interrupted the song. According to biographer Ira Nadel, although Cohen was able to make changes to the mix, some of Simon's additions "couldn't be removed from the four-track master tape".


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: The instrumentalists – not credited on the album sleeve – included Chester Crill, Chris Darrow, Solomon Feldthouse and David Lindley of Kaleidoscope, who had been recruited personally by Cohen after he saw the band play at a New York club.


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: The album features some of Cohen's most celebrated songs. "Mojo" has described the album as "not only the cornerstone of Cohen's remarkable career, but also a genuine songwriting landmark in terms of language, thematic developments and even arrangements." "Suzanne" was ranked 41st on "Pitchfork"s 'Top 200 Songs of the 1960s', while "So Long, Marianne" was also featured on the list at 190th. In a 1986 interview with the BBC Cohen explained, "The writing of 'Suzanne,' like all my songs, took a long time. I wrote most of it in Montreal - all of it in Montreal - over the space of, perhaps, four or five months. I had many, many verses to it. Sometimes the song would go off on a tangent, and you'll have perfectly respectable verses, but that have led you away from the original feel of the song. So, it's a matter of coming back. It's a very painful process because you have to throw away a lot of good stuff." In the same interview, Cohen also revealed that "Master Song" was written "on a stone bench at what was the corner of Burnside and Guy Street...I remember sitting on that bench, working out the lyric to that song."


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: As recounted to "Uncut"'s Nigel Williamson in 1997, "Sisters of Mercy" had been written "in Edmonton during a snow storm, and I took refuge in an office lobby. There were two young back-packers there, Barbara and Lorraine, and they had nowhere to go. I asked them back to my hotel room – they immediately got into the bed and crashed while I sat in the armchair watching them sleep. I knew they had given me something, and, by the time they woke up, I had finished the song and I played it to them.” In the 1996 memoir "Various Positions", biographer Ira Nadel contends "Stranger Song" addresses loss, departure, and essential yet destructive nature of love. In the book "Songwriters on Songwriting", Cohen told author Paul Zollo that he wrote "So Long, Marianne" "in two hotels. One was the Chelsea and the other was the Penn Terminal Hotel. I remember Marianne (Ihlen, Cohen's girlfriend at the time) looking at my notebook, seeing this song and asking, 'Who’d you write this for?'" When Cohen played the Isle of Wight in 1970, he told the crowd that he'd written "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" in a peeling room in the Chelsea Hotel when he was "coming off amphetamine and pursuing a blond lady that I met in a Nazi poster."


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: By the time the album was released in December 1967, Cohen had already signed away the rights to "Suzanne" and "Stranger Song" (along with "Dress Rehearsal Rag", which would later surface on his 1971 album "Songs of Love and Hate"), to arranger Jeff Chase, with the singer lamenting to Adrian Deevoy of "The Q Magazine" in 1991, "Someone smarter than me got me to sign the publishing over to them. I lost 'Suzanne,' 'Stranger Song' and 'Dress Rehearsal Rag.' I finally got them back three years ago, but I lost a lot of money."


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: On the back cover of the album is a Mexican religious picture of the Anima Sola depicted as a woman breaking free of her chains surrounded by flames and gazing towards heaven. In a "Rolling Stone" interview, Cohen described the image as "the triumph of the spirit over matter. The spirit being that beautiful woman breaking out of the chains and the fire and prison." Cohen found the picture in a botánica near the Hotel Chelsea in 1965. The album's front cover depicts a sepia tint photo of Cohen credited to Machine.


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: The album spent over a year on the UK album charts. The album received mixed reviews at the time of its release, with Arthur Schmidt of "Rolling Stone" writing, "There are three brilliant songs, one good one, three qualified bummers, and three flaming shits." While praising "Suzanne" for its "moments of fairly digestible surrealism", "The New York Times" opined in a January 1968 review that on the alienation scale, Cohen rated "somewhere between Schopenhauer and Bob Dylan, two other prominent poets of pessimism".


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: Critics have been far kinder to the album since its release, with many considering it a highlight in the Cohen canon. Mark Deming of AllMusic states, "The ten songs on "Songs of Leonard Cohen" were certainly beautifully constructed, artful in a way few (if any) other lyricists would approach for some time, but what's most striking about these songs isn't Cohen's technique, superb as it is, so much as his portraits of a world dominated by love and lust, rage and need, compassion and betrayal...few musicians have ever created a more remarkable or enduring debut." Writing in "Mojo" in 2012, Sylvie Simmons called the LP "brilliant", adding that it "sounded like nothing of its time—of any time really—fresh and ancient, cryptic and intimate". Brian Howe of "Pitchfork" declares, "1968's "Songs of Leonard Cohen" contains many of his most essential songs—'Suzanne,' 'Master Song,' "Stranger Song,' 'Sisters of Mercy,' 'So Long, Marianne'—and establishes the themes and stylistic tics he would pursue relentlessly over the ensuing decades." In 2007, Tim Nelson of BBC Music called the collection "the absolute must-have classic".


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: It was voted number 149 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums" (2000). Though not included in the 2003 original nor the 2012 revision, it was ranked number 195 in the 2020 revision of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. In a 2014 "Rolling Stone" readers poll ranking the top ten Leonard Cohen songs, "Suzanne" came in at #2 while "So Long, Marianne" came in at #6.


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: "Stranger Song", "Sisters of Mercy", and "Winter Lady" were included on the soundtrack of Robert Altman's 1971 film "McCabe & Mrs. Miller". "Suzanne", "So Long, Marianne", "Sisters of Mercy", "Winter Lady", and "Teachers" were included on the soundtrack of the 1971 film "Beware of a Holy Whore" by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.


title: Songs of Leonard Cohen

text: "Songs of Leonard Cohen" was released on CD in 1989, while a digipak edition was released in some European countries in 2003. A remastered version, with the bonus tracks "Store Room" and "Blessed is the Memory," was released in the United States on April 24, 2007, and in Japan on June 20, 2007. The Japanese version was a limited edition replica of the original record album cover with lyric card insert. In 2009, the album (including the 2007 bonus tracks) was included in "Hallelujah - The Essential Leonard Cohen Album Collection", an 8-CD box set issued by Sony Music in the Netherlands.


title: Bleed American

text: Bleed American is the fourth studio album by American rock band Jimmy Eat World, released on July 24, 2001, by DreamWorks Records. The album was re-released as Jimmy Eat World following the September 11 attacks; that name remained until 2008, when it was re-released with its original title returned.


title: Bleed American

text: Following a lack of recognition for their third studio album "Clarity" (1999) from Capitol Records, Jimmy Eat World departed from the label in late 1999. Aside from working odd jobs, the band toured to raise money for their next album. It was recorded with Mark Trombino and the band served as producers in October and November 2000 at the Cherokee and Harddrive studios in Los Angeles, respectively. The musical style was more direct and accessible than its predecessor, with simpler chord structures.


title: Bleed American

text: "Bleed American" was released to radio on June 5, 2001, as the album's lead single, coinciding with Jimmy Eat World's tours of Australia and Japan (the latter supporting Eastern Youth). After appearing on the East Coast dates of the Warped Tour, the band supported Blink-182 and Weezer. "The Middle" was released as a single on November 19, 2001. The band went on a headlining European tour in early 2002, followed by a Japanese tour, leading up to a two-month support slot for Blink-182 and Green Day on their Pop Disaster Tour. "Sweetness" was released as the third single on June 3, 2002. The band supported Incubus in Australia, before embarking on headlining tours of the UK and the US. "A Praise Chorus" was released as a promotional single during 2002.


title: Bleed American

text: Each single from "Bleed American" entered the top twenty of at least one US chart. The most successful was "The Middle", which reached number one on the "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks chart and number five on the "Billboard" Hot 100. In August2002, "Bleed American" was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America after its sales reached over one million copies. As of September2016, the album has sold over 1.6million copies in the US. "Bleed American" appeared on several publications' best-of-the-year album lists, by the likes of "Addicted to Noise", "CMJ" and "Kerrang!", as well as all-time lists by publications such as "Consequence of Sound", "NME" and "Spin".


title: Bleed American

text: In February1999, Jimmy Eat World released their third studio album, "Clarity", through Capitol Records. Frontman Jim Adkins recalled that the label was disorganized at the time, due to having a new president and new people in charge of each department. As a result, any trust the band had within the company had dissipated. Capitol began to shelve the album until radio stations started playing the song "Lucky Denver Mint", which became its second track. The release of the album marked the end of their two-record deal with the label, which was made official in August1999. Drummer Zach Lind recalled that the label "really didn't believe in us. But in a way, that was sort of a good thing, because it let us take control of what we needed to do. We learned we had to do it ourselves, because no one else would do it for us."


title: Bleed American

text: Due to a lack of funds, the members had taken up odd jobs: Adkins sold art supplies; Linton did construction work; Burch sold auto parts; and Lind worked at a car dealership. In August2000, Jimmy Eat World released the compilation album "Singles" through the independent label Big Wheel Recreation, which included B-sides and unreleased songs from the band up to that point. They went on a five-week tour of Europe; they bought copies of their previous releases from Capitol at cost value to sell them directly in that territory. The band's management were against the idea of this tour as they lacked a foothold in the United States. They decided to break away with their management to work as free agents. The tour was ultimately considered a success by the band, with "Clarity" selling 500copies a week by that point. After this, they released a split EP with Jebediah in September2000.


title: Bleed American

text: "Bleed American" was produced by Mark Trombino and Jimmy Eat World. Trombino had already produced two of the band's previous studio albums: "Static Prevails" (1996) and "Clarity" (1999). He had struck up a brotherly relationship with the band; he reacted positively to the demos that Adkins had played him. The sales from "Singles" and the proceeds from Jimmy Eat World's European tour helped fund the album's recording sessions, but the money budgeted for the record was insufficient. Trombino offered to work for free until after the album's production, confident he would be reimbursed by the album's predicted commercial success. Recording sessions took place in Los Angeles, California in October2000. Clark Robertson, who had been in a band that Linton saw live, rented equipment on the band's behalf.


title: Bleed American

text: The drums were recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, which proved costly to the group. The band took a brief break to tour with Jebediah for two-and-a-half weeks, including a performance at "CMJ" New Music Marathon festival, before returning to Los Angeles. To save money, sessions moved to Harddrive in North Hollywood, where they did overdubs over the course of a month and a half from November2000. Partway through, at the suggestion of Trombino, the band uploaded demo versions of songs on the music platform Napster for fans to hear. By this point, artists and repertoire (A&R) people from various labels visited the band, often unannounced. As a result of this, they had to lock the doors to keep people out. The album was mixed at South Ecstasy Recording Studio, also in Los Angeles, in January2001. As Lind was writing a check to cover the cost of mixing, he was worried they were close to bankruptcy, and hoped it would not bounce.


title: Bleed American

text: The material on "Bleed American" was more accessible and aggressive than its predecessor "Clarity", which had a more "layered, sprawling sound." In regard to the stylistic approach of the album, Adkins said, "Things still got pretty gnarly in the studio as far as experimentation, but it was always to an end that was to the song. We wanted to really make sure that we weren't doing things, like, just to put a wacky keyboard sound in. It had to be doing something constructive for the song." They intentionally strayed away from the complex writing of "Clarity" for simpler structures. "Hear You Me" and "My Sundown" were initially intended for Go Big Casino, Adkin's orchestral side project. Critics have described the genres of the album as alternative rock, emo pop, pop-punk and power pop. According to Adkins, the band called the album "Bleed American" as it and the title-track dealt with "chang[ing] one's lie for the better", and as such that theme "runs throughout the entire album". He also stated that people "all too often get caught up with things they don't really need. America just needs to be a strong bloodletting process".


title: Bleed American

text: The lyrical composition in "Bleed American" also remained rather direct and straightforward in comparison to "Clarity". Mark Vanderhoff of AllMusic said that "Bleed American" didn't have any "16 minute songs," referencing "Goodbye Sky Harbor" from "Clarity". Rather, he called the music on "Bleed American" "just straight-ahead rock & roll, performed with punk energy and alt-rock smarts." Author Andy Greenwald said the album dealt with self-medication, "more specifically the Jim Adkins Diet—where music, any music, equals salvation". He noted that the majority of the songs on the album are sung from a second-person perspective. Towards the end of touring in support of "Clarity", Adkins began having what he thought was a heart attack. It was later revealed to be a panic attack, for which he had to take medication; the incident inspired some of the lyrics throughout the album. Rachel Haden (of That Dog) lent her voice in "Hear You Me", "If You Don't, Don't", "Cautioners" and "My Sundown".


title: Bleed American

text: Adkins said "Bleed American" is about how trivial things in a person's life can overtake more important things. The grunge-esque track has been compared to the work of Helmet, At the Drive-In and Braid. Journalist Alex Rice felt that its loud-quiet structure and lyrics about the disillusionment of youth recalled "Thinking, That's All", the opening track from "Static Prevails". When writing "A Praise Chorus", the band were stuck on the bridge section; they sent it to Davey von Bohlen (of the Promise Ring) who wrote a bridge referencing various songs, including "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells, "Our House" by Madness, "Kickstart My Heart" by Mötley Crüe and "Don't Let's Start" by They Might Be Giants. Throughout "A Praise Chorus", which deals with nostalgia, Adkins employs a vocal stutter. The new wave-esque "The Middle" includes a guitar solo that, according to Adkins, was a homage to Doug Gillard of Guided by Voices and their song "I Am a Tree". Its lyrics speak about "fitting in" and self-acceptance; Adkins wrote the song in response to an email from a fan who felt they were "not punk enough". Lind said his drums on the song were an attempt to emulate the ones heard in "You Wreck Me" by Tom Petty.


title: Bleed American

text: "Your House" details the pain of a break-up, cutting all communication with the person, and is reminiscent of the work of Versus. The drum parts were played in unison by Lind, Adkins and Trombino, as Lind wanted something similar to a marching band. "Sweetness" was one of the songs that Adkins had more doubts about because of its lyrical content: "I just had this melody in my head and I was demoing it and singing it and kind of having a hard time with it. I almost didn't bring it to the band because I was thinking to myself, ’I can't just say nothing. I can't just use all these sort of alyrical whoahs for this much of a song.’" The "whoah" vocalizations were intended as a placeholder for other lyrics, though as the members were unable to come up with anything else, the parts remained. The drum beat was done in the style of U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr.; it incorporates influences from post-hardcore and . A demo version of the tune was recorded during the "Clarity" sessions, though Capitol Records did not think much of the track, so the band scrapped it.


title: Bleed American

text: "Hear You Me" is a tribute to Mykel and Carli Allan, two popular Weezer fans, who died in a car accident while returning home after a concert. The guitarwork uses a countermelody against the vocals; it includes a piano, organ, horns and Haden's vocals. "If You Don't, Don't" tackles the theme of lost love; the guitars were initially much faster in the style of the Wedding Present, until Adkins slowed it down. "Get It Faster" opens with a minute of drum fills, which were programmed in the PlayStation game "MTV Music Generator". "Cautioners" is a five-minute electropop song that meshes electronica and rock. It channels the sound of the Cars and recalls the quieter songs on "Clarity". An earlier version of the track, released on a split EP with Jebediah, was centered around guitar strums. The version on the album features heavy use of decay, which Adkins said sounded "computerized". The drums were made up of several loops that were made at Cherokee, done over the course of a few days. The title and lyrics of "The Authority Song" are a direct reference to "Authority Song" by John Cougar Mellencamp, and it also contains a reference to "Automatic", an album by the Jesus and Mary Chain. It deals with being half-open with a person one is not too familiar with. The album concludes with the ballad "My Sundown".


title: Bleed American

text: DreamWorks Records' A&R member Luke Wood monitored the band's potential from when they became free agents and offered to help them. Wood had previously been in the band Sammy, who opened for Jimmy Eat World during the 1990s, and was adamant about signing them after hearing "A Praise Chorus". Jimmy Eat World considered Wood's help, but it was not until a year later when they returned to contact him. By then, the industry hype behind the forthcoming album caused a bidding war between labels. The band met with various staff members from six labels in Los Angeles and New York City in March2001, before signing to DreamWorks in the following month. Lind said the label had a solid working relationship with their artists, "[t]hey understand what a career is, like how fragile it is." Capitol Records had unsuccessfully tried to re-sign the band after hearing the finished album; the band said they would have a meeting if the label would give them their master recordings back.


title: Bleed American

text: Soon afterwards, the band enlisted a new booking agent and co-managers Gary Gersh and John Silva; they knew Gersh from when he was CEO at Capitol a few years prior. Despite these new representatives, Lind continued acting as the band's de facto manager, a role he had been doing for two years by that point. "Bleed American" was made available for streaming on July 19, 2001, before being released five days later. The album artwork, showing a set of bowling trophies sitting on top of a cigarette machine, is taken from William Eggleston's photograph "Memphis". Adkins was a fan of Eggleston, going as far as to dub him the "father of color photography". Out of concern that its title could be misinterpreted following the September 11 attacks, the album was re-released with an eponymous title in December2001, despite the band initially saying that they would not change its name. The decision was ultimately the band's, which was supported by their label; instead of recalling existing copies, they simply had the name amended with subsequent pressings of the album. In addition, the title-track was renamed "Salt Sweat Sugar" and reissued on December 11, 2001.


title: Bleed American

text: "Bleed American" was released to radio on June 5, 2001, and released as a physical single on August 21, 2001. The US 7" vinyl version included a demo of "Your House", while the German CD edition featured, demos of "Your House" and "The Authority Song", alongside "(Splash) Turn Twist" and the music video for "Bleed American" (directed by Ross Richardson).