Random News and Notes 27 March
We start this Friday edition of RNN with a Florida Man story. Bryan J. Parker, 58, from Holly Hill, rammed his blue Ford Mustang through a perimeter gate at Daytona Beach International Airport on March 25 around 4:25 p.m., racing toward the Embry-Riddle airfield and nearly hitting a plane preparing for takeoff. He ditched the damaged car, tried entering an occupied aircraft and climbed into two unoccupied ones, until airport staff and security chased him down and cuffed him.
In bodycam footage, a dazed Parker admitted blacking out after an AA meeting, turning to cocaine, alcohol, and pot. He faces serious charges like attempted aircraft piracy, multiple DUIs, and exposure, with a history of prior offenses, and remains in jail without bond.
Y’all know this editor is a history type-guy. So when he sees something interesting pop up history wise, he shares it here. A video of a cuirass from the Napoleonic wars is making the rounds again. The breast and back, worn by François-Antoine Fauveau, a 23-year-old recruit in Napoleon’s elite heavy cavalry, during the June 18, 1815 clash at Waterloo that ended in Napoleon’s defeat. A British 9-pounder cannonball tore a grapefruit-sized hole through the front at chest height, shredding the backplate and killing him instantly, as confirmed by papers found inside.
Faveau was an Imperial Cuirassier, one of Napoleon’s picked elite heavy cavalry. They were Napoleon’s shock troops, used to break lines and squares.
The battered armor, now at Paris’s Musée de l’Armée, stands as a stark relic of the battle’s brutality, where over 40,000 were killed or wounded in a day.
This is an odd one. Russian national Matvei Rumiantsev, a 22-year-old former MMA fighter, attacked his girlfriend in their Canary Wharf, London flat on January 18, 2025. He was sentenced to 4 years total, 2 for the assault, 2 for trying to ‘pervert justice’ (yes, that is the actual offence he was charged/convicted of) by writing to the victim and trying to get her to drop the charges.
So, why is this news? Barron Trump was the one who reported the assault. Apparently, the victim and Barron know each other and she FaceTimed him during or shortly after the assault. Barron then called 999 – the Brit equivalent to 911 – to report it.
It seems the presiding judge praised Trump’s responsible action while noting Rumiantsev’s lack of remorse.
Epic Fury News
An F/A 18 jock had the scare of a lifetime recently. The Super Hornet was targeted by an Iranian infrared MANPADS.
The Hornet had just completed a strafing run when the missile was launched. The pilot immediately broke – made a very hard turn – towards the incoming missile to disrupt the geometry of the intercept. It worked, barely.
It looks to me, based on the absolute lack of video of radar guided SAMs, that the only thing Iran has left to shoot at aircraft are MANPADS – man portable air defense systems. I would guess that one was some variant of the Soviet Igla family of IR MANPADS.
I am seeing a lot of chatter online about an invasion force being spun up for Iran. That isn’t happening and here is how I know. None of the strategic sealift fleet has moved to an onloading port or sailed from said ports to the Middle East with a couple of exceptions, and we know those few ships are laden with munitions not equipment.
Keep in mind, the largest US airlifter, the C-5M Galaxy can only carry two of the 60 ton M-1 Abrams tanks. A C-17 can only carry one. Tanks and other large tracked vehicles are almost always moved by ship, and none of the ships responsible for moving them are doing so.
If there was an invasion afoot – US troops taking and holding Iranian territory – you would see the large scale movement of tanks, APCs, IFVs, and all the other large equipment that cannot be efficiently moved by air. We are not seeing that.
If there are kinetic actions brewing, they will be limited in scale and not intended to seize and hold territory.
I saw this next post and felt the need to share and comment. Some of you may be wondering what nearly expended its entire on-hand stock of TLAMs means. I assure you that the US is not running out of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. It means that the Vertical Launch Cells on the Burke destroyers, Champlain cruisers and whatever subs are in the region are just about empty.
The issue is that reloading those cells requires the ships to be alongside at a base somewhere. As far as I know, the VLS cells cannot be reloaded underway. If I am wrong about that, I would appreciate the correction.
The cells can be reloaded in Bahrain, but that may not be the safest spot to do so. The next closest spots would be Diego Garcia and Crete. Israel also has facilities that can reload the VLS, but again, it may not be the safest spot to do so.