The Crusader Project
banner
crusaderproject.bsky.social
The Crusader Project
@crusaderproject.bsky.social
Long-running research project on the desert war 1940-43, with a specific focus on Operation CRUSADER.

www.rommelsriposte.com
Pinned
This Bluesky feed serves to disseminate information and new posts related to Operation CRUSADER, the #desertwar in WW2 and #ww2 in general.

If desert #armour warfare, surrendering Germans, and challenges to preconceived ideas about the Italians are your thing, you might want to give us a follow.
Reposted by The Crusader Project
There are also Guevara cigarettes.
February 2, 2026 at 11:22 AM
I have several questions.

@alanallport.bsky.social
February 2, 2026 at 11:15 AM
The difference between these two vehicles is that one is at least somewhat useful.
February 2, 2026 at 4:19 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
Make sure you're following Jules, who literally wrote the book(s) on how brutal the Olympics are on marginalized people.
HERE COMES THE OLYMPICS DISPLACEMENT MACHINE
"Efforts to remove unhoused people will focus on the security perimeters of Olympic venues, according to the report."

For many of the major venues, what's been discussed has been a one-mile radius. For the Figueroa/Expo Park cluster, that would encompass huge sections of downtown and South LA
February 2, 2026 at 2:12 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
In many of the first generation of modern concentration camp systems (near the turn of the twentieth century), the vast majority of deaths were caused by disease and malnutrition. Most of the victims were women and children.
February 2, 2026 at 12:29 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
What does it mean that something is a Revolution in Military Affairs?

Fundamentally, I think it must be something that in a very short span of time after its introduction transforms the way we think about X or Y in a military context.

Classic examples:
Machine Gun
Radio
Dreadnought
Staff System
January 31, 2026 at 6:04 PM
At the end of January 1942, 11 Indian Infantry Brigade executed a successful and hard-fought rearguard action against pursuing German forces, keeping them at bay long enough to allow Allied forces in the Jebel Akhdar to escape along the coastal road.
11th Indian Brigade in Crusader
Background The Brigade had a short but interesting history during Operation CRUSADER, and served well. In a letter written to a senior officer in India by Major-General Tuker, GOC 4th Indian, follo…
rommelsriposte.com
January 31, 2026 at 6:56 PM
Panzergruppe ended up with a lot of weird and pointless stuff for trial reasons and presumably because nobody quite knew what on earth to do with the bin-ends or German AFV design.

Even considering this, the Panzer-Selbstfahrlafette II 7,5 cm Kanone L/41 auf Zugkraftwagen 5t stands out as a bizarro
January 31, 2026 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
In Jack London's early post-apocalypse novel 'The Scarlet Plague' (1912), civilisation has long since vanished. Only a Palaeolithic existence has survived. Histories of ancestors, now fabled beings, could only be told through folk tales since the art of writing had also been lost.
#BookWormSat
January 31, 2026 at 11:20 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
'The 450,000 objects, which are being held in a secret warehouse, include a possible Roman gladiator's tag, a hand axe that may be more than 40,000 years old and 19th Century gold dentures.'
Treasures found on HS2 route stored in secret warehouse
Archaeological finds from the planned HS2 train line have been shown exclusively to the BBC.
www.bbc.co.uk
January 31, 2026 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
Pavlo Martsovenko, a Ukrainian anti-fascist musician, died in combat defending the village of Bilyakivka in the Dnipro direction from Russian occupiers. He played in the doom band House of Flowers and crust punk act Zlyden. He was an electrician, enjoyed powerlifting, and a committed vegetarian.
January 30, 2026 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
Northumbrian rebels slew their new earl, the Fleming Robert de Comines, and hundreds of his men in Dunholm (Durham) #OTD in 1069. ‘Every street was covered with blood’ in one account. The rebels then made for York and killed the castle’s defender, Robert FitzRichard. 📸Matt Buck #medievalsky
January 31, 2026 at 6:26 AM
The Bostons saw their first frontline service in the Middle East during Operation CRUSADER, equipping No. 24 Sqn S.A.A.F. In No.3 (Bomber) Wing. While it was thought they could operate without escorts as fast daylight bombers, but RAF command was quickly disabused of that notion.
Douglas A-20 Boston medium bombers. #WW2 #HISTORY
January 31, 2026 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
Douglas A-20 Boston medium bombers. #WW2 #HISTORY
January 31, 2026 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
Introduced in 1815, the Corn Laws imposed tariffs on imported grain to protect British landowners by keeping food prices high. While they safeguarded rural interests, they were bitterly resented in industrial areas, where expensive bread weighed heavily on working-class 1/5
January 31, 2026 at 6:12 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
83 people were executed for riots relating to the Corn Laws in 1816, including 5 people from Littleport, just outside Ely. 19 people were transported or imprisoned for their part in the Littleport Riot.

The local Morris side are called the Ely and Littleport Riot.
January 31, 2026 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
By all means dislike Chomsky for his Epstein Fan Club credentials but please remember to dislike him for his genocide denialism too.
Noam Chomsky and Stephen Pinker say Epstein was an intellectual force with a mind like steel trap and then his e-mails read like the ending of Flowers for Algernon.
January 31, 2026 at 12:14 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
#OTD in 1942. Churchill tanks from 9 Royal Tank Regiment during an exercise on Salisbury Plain. #WW2 #HISTORY
January 31, 2026 at 7:33 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds
January 30, 2026 at 11:58 PM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
I saw somebody say that the British guns of Nelson and King George V. Could not penetrate the armor of Bismarck...

(Breath in)

BOI WHAT?!
January 31, 2026 at 7:22 AM
It is a well known fact that the only successful way to fight fascism is for the progressives to (checks notes) tear themselves apart.
January 31, 2026 at 7:05 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
1. Yesterday I was fortunate enough to visit the Alfa Romeo museum in Milan. What a gorgeous museum of design.

Over the next few days I'll be posting a thread of pictures from my visit.

Here's a teaser.
January 18, 2026 at 9:33 AM
Reposted by The Crusader Project
More tomorrow, but there’s a free little piece on my substack this week. Which involves the Crown Jewels, a biscuit tin and WW2… achurchill.substack.com/p/free-artic...
FREE ARTICLE: Hiding the Crown Jewels, 1941
A short one today, but interesting.
achurchill.substack.com
January 30, 2026 at 7:33 AM