128
votes
Did Trump himself order the National Guard to clear out protesters (who sided with him) on the Capitol on Jan 6?
No, Trump did not order the National Guard to mobilize at that time. As The New York Times reported, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller made the ultimate ...
- 11.1k
126
votes
Accepted
Was George H. W. Bush the "youngest pilot in the US Navy"?
Yes, when George H. W. Bush became a pilot, on June 9, 1943, 5 days before his 19th birthday, he was briefly the youngest pilot in the US Navy.
However, a month later, Chuck Downey became a pilot on ...
- 34.1k
116
votes
Accepted
Did the CIA blow up the Nordstream 1 pipeline, using BALTOPS 22 as cover?
There is a good OSINT (open-source intelligence) based assessment of Hersh's claims by Oliver Alexander, which you can read in full at Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream.
The executive ...
- 3,063
111
votes
Does the US Armed Forces refuse to recruit anyone with an IQ less than 83?
Our sister site, Law StackExchange, has this same question: Is it truly illegal for the US army to hire someone with IQ less than 83?, with a high-quality accepted answer.
The answer is not a simple ...
- 145k
53
votes
Accepted
Did an AI-enabled drone attack the human operator in a simulation environment?
Apparently no, this was a purely hypothetical scenario, and the US Air Force has not run that experiment. This is the content of an update made today (2 June 2023) to the original blog post on the ...
- 690
48
votes
Accepted
Was a Russian tank photographed during the 1956 Hungarian revolution destroyed in Ukraine in 2023?
They're rather unlikely to be the same tank. The bottom photo has all those "bumps" on the right-hand side cupola, as you're looking at the photo. (It's the commander's cupola, I think.) ...
47
votes
Accepted
What makes up $17,500 cost to outfit a U.S. Soldier mentioned in War Dogs?
This graphic appears to be close to the source and lists items but not individual costs.
I was able to find a breakdown from 2002
Here’s the breakdown:
helmet, $322;
uniform, $67.65;
body armor, $1,...
- 9,512
47
votes
When John McCain was shot down was his mission to bomb a civilian light bulb factory?
According to John McCain: A Biography (2009):
His target that day was a solid one—the power plant in Hanoi, the heavily defended capital of North Vietnam
John McCain (2001) has an aerial photograph ...
- 109k
40
votes
Does the US Armed Forces refuse to recruit anyone with an IQ less than 83?
This popular science article, generally backs up Peterson's claims.
All military recruits must take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to qualify for enlistment. The ASVAB is ...
- 12k
35
votes
Accepted
Has LSD 'been widely used in hospitals for the treatment of mental disorders'?
Yes, LSD has a history of psychiatric use
In terms of the number of doses administered in an official clinical setting, it might not fit the definition of widely, but it has been tried out for wide ...
- 44.1k
33
votes
Was a Russian tank photographed during the 1956 Hungarian revolution destroyed in Ukraine in 2023?
The number on the side of Soviet tanks in 1956 did not have a consistent meaning. It varied unit by unit, but it was never a unique identifier for the tank and certainly not over 70 years. That these ...
- 22.7k
32
votes
Did the US push the Kurds to lower their defences against Turkey in the months preceding the latest Turkish military operation against them?
The best I could confirm from official sources is this US CENTCOM tweet:
Within 24 hours of the phone call between U.S. SECDEF and Turkish MINDEF to discuss security in northeast Syria, the SDF ...
26
votes
Did the CIA blow up the Nordstream 1 pipeline, using BALTOPS 22 as cover?
Not according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, whose spokesman accused "British Navy personnel" of having done it, back in October. Hersh in contrast is very specific that US Navy "...
25
votes
Accepted
Is Kaspersky Lab a military unit?
While there's no proof, this seems like an incorrect assertion.
Based on the wording, this most likely seems like either a typo (or simply a rather grammatically-challenged typist); or simply two ...
- 31.4k
25
votes
Can Russia's Poseidon nuclear underwater drone create a 500 meter tidal wave?
No multi-megaton nuclear warhead ever has been exploded underwater, so the best we can hope for in the way of sources is "what is the research on this".
Wikipedia: Underwater explosion -- ...
- 19.2k
24
votes
Accepted
Does the United States Army pay $1,200 per civilian killed to their family?
There doesn't seem to be a set amount that is paid, but $1200 is approximately in the ballpark, if maybe a little low.
Several sources online have given various different values for the amount paid ...
- 22.4k
23
votes
Did the US push the Kurds to lower their defences against Turkey in the months preceding the latest Turkish military operation against them?
See this article which includes pictures of the removal of fortifications.
photo caption reads:
A US service member observes as Syrian Democratic Forces remove military fortifications along the ...
- 341
23
votes
Does this clip show Israeli Apache helicopters shooting their own citizens on Oct 7?
The footage hasn't recently emerged as the tweet claims, but is available since at least Oct 9th with the description:
Israeli AH-64 Apache attack helicopters engage Hamas militants with 30mm chain ...
- 52.1k
22
votes
Is SARS-CoV-2 a biological weapon released by the US military?
Let's start by saying that all available evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19) is not made (and not even modified) in a lab. There's a very good Bio SE question on this, which I ...
21
votes
Has there been a "buildup" of 175,000 Russian troops on the Ukraine border in January 2022?
The existence of the troop buildup is undisputed by everyone involved. All the major western powers agree, pretty much all news organizations agree. The Russians themselves do not deny it, even in the ...
- 57.9k
20
votes
Accepted
Is "five" removed from military countdowns because it sounds like "fire"?
Yes, at least sometimes.
In the 2nd episode of the 2nd season of the British TV show Scrapheap Challenge the challenge was to build a cannon. They tested the cannons in a DERA facility where "real" ...
- 33.4k
20
votes
What makes up $17,500 cost to outfit a U.S. Soldier mentioned in War Dogs?
The big complication here is that an individual soldier might have have a lot of equipment allocated to them which isn't necessarily in their possession or immediately available to them at any one ...
- 307
20
votes
Accepted
Has Trump, as of January 2020, used military force less than any other president since Jimmy Carter?
Yes by some measure; no by others
Operations
Wikipedia maintains a list of U.S. military operations.
Obviously not all "operations" are of equal size, but initiating fewer military actions is a ...
- 6,825
19
votes
Can Russia's Poseidon nuclear underwater drone create a 500 meter tidal wave?
Well, nobody has tested really, really big nuclear bombs underwater. But we do have some underwater tests we can look at.
In 1946, the US tested a 21 kt bomb underwater in Operation Crossroads. You ...
- 7,070
19
votes
Did an AI-enabled drone attack the human operator in a simulation environment?
According to the Vice article, the Air Force has denied the story:
"The Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI-drone simulations [...]," Air Force spokesperson Ann ...
- 3,694
18
votes
What is the economic burden of having transgender people in the US military?
There's a Scientific American article, Cost of Medical Care for Transgender Service Members Would Be Minimal, Studies Show, which cites two studies:
One from the RAND Corporation:
The study also ...
- 26.7k
18
votes
In 2015, did the Israeli Defence Force execute an elderly Palestinian woman, Ghalia Abu Reida, after taking a picture with her?
This case is far from proven to the end.
No proof she was shot, and that it was from close range, or that it was intentional.
Finding a dead body in a place where intense fire exchanges took place ...
- 326
17
votes
Accepted
Have Indian forces been shooting hundreds of Kashmiris in their eyes, with pellet guns or shotguns?
782 is near the minimum with eye injuries
The title of A series of 777 pellet gun ocular injuries over a 4-month period in Kashmir is pretty self-explanatory. The authors reviewed records from 777 ...
- 34.1k
16
votes
Accepted
Did a US Navy ship demand that a lighthouse get out of its path, thinking it was another ship?
It's fake.
Until the last couple of lines, the script matches almost exactly the Snopes disproven internet joke: The Obstinate Lighthouse.
That includes number of degrees, direction of suggested ...
- 326
16
votes
Does this clip show Israeli Apache helicopters shooting their own citizens on Oct 7?
The video was contextualized in a Ynet article.
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/b111niukzt
After the pilots realized that there was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the occupied ...
- 47.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible