Category Archives: armor

by themavf14d | May 17, 2013 · 9:43 am

Final Hog Sortie in Europe

The Cold War ended more than 20 years ago and things like this still make me realize just how much things have changed.

SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany – The U.S. Air Force launched the final A-10 Thunderbolt II tactical sortie in Europe at Spangdahlem AB May 14, 2013.
The airframe belongs to the 52nd Fighter Wing’s 81st Fighter Squadron, which inactivates in June.
“I’m proud to be a part of the last sortie,” said Lt. Col. Jeff Hogan, 81st director of operations and a pilot from today’s flight. “It’s definitely a sad day for the (81st) as we end 20 years of A-10 operations here. I’m just proud to take part in this historic event.”

The A-10 has been a Cold War icon in Europe for over 20 years and was originally deployed to stop the hordes of Soviet armor across the Fulda Gap in then West Germany.

I’d always pictured that operations would look something like this:

Speaking of Soviet Armor, English Russia has an interesting feature on the Armoured Repair Plant №61 in St. Petersburg.

On a side note there’s, as of yet, there is no comment from DoD on whether or not the 81st Fighter Squadron will be reactivated and deployed to counter the “cat-tank” threat that has recently emerged in the Chicago loop (the vid was sent to me by a friend as I was working on this post. She works here.).

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by ultimaratioregis | May 11, 2013 · 8:25 am

Battle for Berlin, 1945

This week marks VE Day, commemorating the Victory in Europe over Hitler’s Third Reich. The last and perhaps the most savage battle was for the German capital of Berlin. This from the Battlefield series, which was aired weekly on Far East Network (“Forced Entertainment Network”) when I had an artillery battery in Okinawa in 1996. The entire series is superb, and if you look, you can find most of them on line. They are also available on DVD. They contain a pretty good description of the higher tactical through the strategic picture, and have enough detail and technical stuff, but not too much.

Since the series was made, Russian archives have been explored more completely, and the number of Soviet casualties have been scaled up more than two-fold, from the 305,000 quoted in this episode, to nearly 700,000. Note the ever-present use of artillery and mortars, rockets, and field guns, even in an urban environment. The episode is 116 minutes, roughly the time one spends clicking on all of Mav’s aviation links and cool pictures and videos and stuff. So get your Eastern Front geek on, and watch it. You know you wanna.

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Filed under 120mm, Air Force, armor, army, Around the web, Artillery, guns, history, infantry, planes, Splodey, Uncategorized, veterans, war

by xbradtc | April 23, 2013 · 8:29 am

Does the Army Still Need Armor?

That’s the question posed by this piece at Foreign Affairs. Sadly, it’s a premium article, so I can’t read the whole thing, just the set up. But it does raise the question. Do we still need heavy forces in an era of a “pivot to Asia?”

I’ll just note that we’ve actually spent a lot of time post-World War II fighting in Asia, and armor was important in every fight.

Plus, here’s a tank.

Continue reading →

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Filed under armor, army

Tagged as Asia, Foreign Affairs, history, United States Army, Wars and Conflicts, World War II

by xbradtc | April 4, 2013 · 11:48 am

End of an Era

Since September 1943, with the amphibious landings at Salerno, Italy, the US Army has maintained armored formations in Europe. Until now.

The U.S. Army’s 69-year history of basing main battle tanks on German soil quietly ended last month when 22 Abrams tanks, a main feature of armored combat units throughout the Cold War, embarked for the U.S.

The departure of the last M-1 Abrams tanks coincides with the inactivation of two of the Army’s Germany-based heavy brigades. Last year, the 170th Infantry out of Baumholder disbanded. And the 172nd Separate Infantry Brigade at Grafenwöhr is in the process of doing the same.

On March 18, the remaining tanks were loaded up at the 21st Theater Sustainment Command’s railhead in Kaiserslautern where they then made the journey to the shipping port in Bremerhaven, Germany. There they boarded a ship bound for South Carolina.

When I arrived in Germany in 1989, the principal US ground force was the US 7th Army. It consisted of two corps, the V Corps, and VII Corps. Each corps consisted of an armored division, a mechanized infantry division, a seperate heavy brigade, and an armored cavalry regiment.* Very roughly, that’s a little over 1500 tanks. That didn’t count the tanks of the German Bundeswehr, the British Army Of the Rhine (BAOR) or any of the other NATO nations. Then there were the POMCUS sites. Prepositioning Of Materiel Configured in Unit Sets- basically, if the US needed to reinforce Germany, the entire III Corps (headquartered at Ft. Hood, TX, but with units also at Ft. Stewart, GA) would fly to Germany. Since getting all their equipment there would take time and shipping that likely wouldn’t be available, complete sets of the needed equipment were stored in Germany, just waiting for troops to draw them. Call it roughly another 1000 tanks.

In addition, war replacement stocks were on hand, though I honestly don’t know how many there were. At any event, there were a couple thousand M1 tanks in Germany when I arrived.

With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, obviously much of the need for a strong forward US presence in Germany went away.

And so we find ourselves, for the first time in decades, without a forward deployed armor unit in Europe. If you’d told me in 1989 that we’d come to this, I’d have thought you crazy.

H/T to Jason for the Stripes article.

*These were merely the principal ground maneuver units. Each corps also had an array of combat support and combat service support brigades such as artillery, aviation, intelligence, engineer, military police and logistics.

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Filed under armor, army, ARMY TRAINING, history

Tagged as cold war, Fort Stewart, germany, M1 Abrams, US Army

by ultimaratioregis | April 1, 2013 · 9:08 am

1 April 1945: Love Day

Today is the 68th anniversary of L-Day, known as “Love Day” to the half a million Allied soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines whose mission was the conquest of the island of Okinawa. An armada of 1,300 ships included 40 CVs, CVLs, and CVEs, and close to 400 amphibious vessels carrying 187,000 troops, thousands of trucks, artillery tubes, mortars, tanks, amtraks, and many thousands of tons of ammunition and all classes of supply to sustain the landing force of the XXIV Corps and the Marine III Amphibious Corps in the fighting ashore.

The Japanese, to the surprise and immense relief of the invasion force, barely contested the beaches. Almost every unit came ashore without opposition, as the first night saw more than 60,000 ashore. The Japanese 32nd Army’s 100,000 defenders and the locally recruited militia of Okinawan men would instead meet their American enemy inland, in expertly-prepared and defended positions on key terrain. But all of that, the massive kikusui of the kamikaze aircraft, the drenching rains that turned the island into a reprise of the horrors of the Western Front in the Great War, the savage fighting for Naha and the Shuri line, the Half-Moon, Sugar Loaf, the sacrifice of the Yamato battle squadron in Operation Ten-Gō, the massed suicides of civilians, was yet to come. On this day, casualties were negligible, and a lodgment established. The question became not if, but when, Okinawa would fall.

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by ultimaratioregis | March 14, 2013 · 9:47 am

14 March 1943; Kharkov Miracle

Today is the 70^th anniversary of the accomplishment of one of the most impressive feats of arms in the history of warfare. On the heels of a disastrous defeat in the Ukraine, German General Erich Manstein’s counterstroke against the Red Army regained the tactical initiative just two weeks after the situation, and perhaps the war itself, seemed irretrievably lost. On 14 March 1943, I SS Panzerkorps recaptured Kharkov after a savage fight. For those who had endured the loss of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, it seemed a miracle.

Historical examination of the Eastern Front tends to identify the catastrophe at Stalingrad as the beginning of the end of the Wehrmacht in the East. Certainly, with the loss of more than 300,000 men, including 92,000 prisoners, and the virtual annihilation of the Italian, Hungarian, and Rumanian forces north and south of Stalingrad on the Volga, Stalingrad was an unmitigated disaster. And worse looked likely, as the forces of Vatutin’s (Southwest) and Golikov’s (Voronesh) Fronts pushed south down the Don River basin aimed at Rostov. The loss of Rostov would effectively pin the remaining German forces (Army Group A and the remnants of Army Group B) against the Sea of Azov and the Dniepr bend, almost guaranteeing their destruction.

But in their efforts to destroy the German forces deep inside Soviet territory, Vatutin’s Sixth Army and First Guards’ Army (along with Mobile Group Popov), and Golikov’s Sixty-Ninth and Third Tank Armies became badly overextended. In addition, Soviet intelligence on German force disposition was almost non-existent. When most of the Wehrmacht forces slipped out of the bottleneck through Rostov, and Hausser’s I SS Panzerkorps abandoned Kharkov (counter to orders, on 15 February 1943), what seemed like another major Soviet victory was actually a precursor to near-disaster.

On 18 February 1943, Manstein’s reconstituted Army Group South received permission for a counterstroke. Led by 4^th Panzerarmee (XLVIII Panzerkorps and I SS Panzerkorps), Army Group South struck on 19 February, and the poorly-disposed Soviet forces were thrown into panic. When on 20 February 1^st Panzerarmee and XL Panzerkorps began the destruction of Mobile Group Popov, a full-fledge disaster was in the making for the Soviets.

The counterstroke was a microcosm of the entire war in the East. In open country, the German Army proved still infinitely superior to its Soviet opponent, even when significantly outnumbered. (Indeed, Manstein’s Army Group South was on the small end of a 1:1.2 force ratio when he launched his counterstroke.) But in the defense, particularly within the built-up city of Kharkov, the Russian soldier’s toughness and determination made the fighting there a bloody affair. Of 30,000 German casualties in this counterstroke, almost 12,000 were in the fight for Kharkov.

Nevertheless, Manstein accomplished a seemingly impossible victory, pushing the Red Army virtually back to their starting points before the attacks to encircle Army Group South. It was a pattern that the Soviet Stavka would become all too familiar with. The Wehrmacht retained until the last days of the war the capability to counterattack and retrieve what seemed to be hopelessly lost situations, while inflicting heavy losses. In the weeks between 19 February and 15 March, Soviet casualties were enormous, with the loss of more than 100,000 men (including about 40,000 prisoners), some 1,100 tanks, and 3,000 guns. Much of Vatutin’s and Gorlikov’s armies were shredded, and would not be combat effective again for several months.

To both the Germans and the Soviets, Manstein’s counteroffensive must have seemed like old times. But, of course, they weren’t. The Wehrmacht in the East, while still powerful and dangerous, was not the same as it had been in 1941 or even 1942. And neither was the Red Army.

The squandering of the last significant German armored reserves against the Soviet defenses in the Kursk Salient in July of 1943 was followed by a devastating counteroffensive from Red Army forces staged to strike once the German Ninth Army and 4^th Panzer Army had run out of steam at Kursk. This counteroffensive was not the costly, awkward affair that had been evident in the wake of Stalingrad. This was to be the model of the Soviet way of war until Berlin fell in 1945, and indeed, was the blueprint for Warsaw Pact tactics until the 1990s. Massed artillery, attack aircraft, and highly mobile and powerful mechanized and tank formations would turn the Blitzkrieg tables on the inventors of the art. Kharkov fell to the Soviets for good in August of 1943, and Army Group South would never again have any except very local initiative as it was pushed back inexorably toward the borders of the Reich.

But all that was yet to come, for on this date in 1943, impossible as it seemed, the Wehrmacht had regained the initiative, and had stopped, then routed, a massive Soviet offensive just six weeks after the surrender at Stalingrad.

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by ultimaratioregis | March 11, 2013 · 6:09 pm

Question for the Gang: What is the Most Beautiful Warship Ever?

One of the great things about being able to write for this or any other blog is the ability to ask questions with the purpose of drawing out opinions and generating discussion amongst knowledgeable readers.

The question I pose today is the following:

In your opinion, what was the most beautiful warship ever built?

Defining “beauty” in an instrument of war may seem a contradiction, but to the denizens here and elsewhere who are either Naval enthusiasts or have been to sea on a warship, there is an instinctive reaction to the sight of a graceful and well-balanced vessel that exudes power and strength.

Beauty, also being in the eye of the beholder, still has some qualifiers on this first offering:

The ship (for this round, at least) must be a capital ship, a fleet carrier, battleship, battle cruiser, armored cruiser, guided missile cruiser, or heavy cruiser.
The ship must be primarily steam-powered and of steel/iron construction.

Note that neither design success nor combat record is a part of any consideration. This is not about the most effective fighting vessel, but rather the most aesthetically pleasing.

My offerings below are not at all exhaustive, and I encourage any additional input for which class or one-off ship strikes your sense of beauty. That said, one can likely easily spot some of my biases in my selections. The “clipper” or “Atlantic” bow. Funnel caps. I could think of no pre-Dreadnoughts that were beautiful ships. Amphibs, either. I offer only a single aircraft carrier class, as well. I heavily favored guns, but not exclusively. And there are a few selections that either precede or follow major rebuilds which make the vessels all but unrecognizable from their original design. Which is good in one case, bad in another.

And I selected no French battleships. They tend to be ugly affairs, with tumble-home sides and oddly-spaced machinery and funnels. Even the Dunkerques and Richeleius, while significant improvements, suffer from the truncated appearance that plagued Nelson and Rodney, which are also not on my list.

Without further ado, grouped by country, below are my considerations for the most beautiful warships ever built. Select from them, if you like, or offer your own choices.

Germany

Bismarck-class Battleships

Gneisenau-class Battlecruisers**

Helgoland-class Second Generation Dreadnoughts

Derfflinger-class Battlecruisers

Hipper-class Heavy Cruisers**

Great Britain

Battlecruiser Tiger

Queen Elizabeth-class Super Dreadnoughts (As built)

Renown-class Battlecruisers

Battlecruiser Hood

Battleship Vanguard

Japan

Yamato-class Superbattleships

Mikuma-class Heavy Cruisers

Maya-class Heavy Cruisers

Italy

Andrea Doria-class Battleships (post-rebuild)

Vittorio Veneto-class Battleships

Zara-class Heavy Cruisers

The United States

Lexington-class Fleet Aircraft Carriers

South Dakota-class Battleships

Alaska-class Battlecruisers

Iowa-class Battleships

Des Moines-class Heavy Cruisers

California-class Nuclear Guided Missile Cruisers

France

Duquesne-class Heavy Cruisers

Suffern-class Heavy Cruisers

Soviet Union/Russia

Project-68 (Sverdlov)-class Heavy Cruisers

Kirov-class Battlecruisers

So there you are, some suggestions for the most beautiful warships ever built. Fire away, either with the ones I provided, or offer your own ideas.

(Next round will be Light Cruisers and Destroyers.)

** Both Gneisenaus and cruiser Hipper were completed with straight stem and no funnel cap. The addition of the “clipper bow” and capped funnel was not considered a significant rebuild in either class/unit.

UPDATE and BUMPED: Now with a poll added. I’ll have to teach URR how to make one before the next round. Vote!

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Filed under armor, Artillery, guns, history, navy, Personal, SIR!, Uncategorized, war

Tagged as Bismarck-class battleship, Cruiser, Naval

by ultimaratioregis | March 6, 2013 · 6:45 pm

Desert Rats to Lose Their Tanks in Defense Cuts

Seems deeper Defense cuts in Britain will do something that Rommel and his Panzerarmee Afrika couldn’t do. Destroy the 7th Armored Brigade as a tank force. Sad commentary on the times, decades of budget-busting socialism, and askew priorities. Though the Ministry of Defense asserts that the additional cut of some 20,000 soldiers amounts to the British Army “configuring itself for future conflicts”, it is hard to imagine such truly being the case.

I hate to say it, but Elvis Costello was wrong. Oliver’s Army isn’t here to stay. It is mostly gone, and likely forever.

But yes, London is full of Arabs just the same.

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Filed under armor, army, Around the web, guns, history, iraq, Lybia, veterans, war

by ultimaratioregis | March 3, 2013 · 12:59 pm

Counterinsurgency Words of Wisdom from Pete Ellis***

There is a saying among historians that the best place to find a new idea is in an old book. Time and again over the years, I have cracked open long-forgotten volumes to find gems of timeless and timely wisdom, astute commentary, and unimpeachable good sense. Contained on those yellowed pages are answers to problems and challenges not at all different from contemporary times, and appreciations of conditions and factors that are surprising for their sophistication and insight.

In the March 1921 edition of The Marine Corps Gazette, then-Major Earl H. “Pete” Ellis penned an article entitled “Bush Brigades”, which dealt with the deployment of US Marine forces into areas in the Western Hemisphere in which instability and violence threatened US interests and the safety of the native populace. These interventions, known collectively as the “Banana Wars”, were the basis for the seminal 1940 Small Wars Manual. Interestingly, nearly two decades before SWM was published, Major Ellis struck upon a number of maxims that fairly leap off the page, and would have been excellent counsel for US commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the minimum, Ellis’s words would have permitted today’s Officers and NCOs (and politicians!) to understand that the challenges and issues faced in the decade-long counter-insurgency fights were not new or unprecedented, but rather something with which US military thinkers had had to wrestle and solve for a significant portion of the previous century. And in those words and the words of others might have been lessons and cautions that aided in success on the battlefield and in the newspapers.

The mercurial Major Ellis expounded upon a number of topics from large to small, that military thinkers would find highly relevant today. I will attempt to do justice to the more salient of those topics below:

The character of enemy operations:

a)      A somewhat disorganized attempt to prevent landings.

b)      More or less resistance in cities followed by a race to the jungle.

c)       The organization and operation of armed bands, at first risking open battle and finally waging guerilla warfare.

d)      The operation of outlaw bands (bandits, ladrones, cacos) who murder members of the forces of occupation and their own people indiscriminately.

In general, enemy operations will be those of irregular forces or guerilla bands with the usual series of surprise raids, ambushes, and assassinations. The enemy will have moral support from most of his own people, material support from many, and will operate in their midst.

Replace “landings” in a) with “invasion”, and “jungle” in b) with “desert”, and you have a pretty accurate description of the course of things in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The role of the press/media and the “peculiar attitude of the American people themselves”:

The Marines are down in Jungleland!- and killed a man in a war!

And the oft-forgotten fact that

…the Marines are only doing their job as ordered by the people of the United States.

The usefulness of cash payoffs to the locals:

…it must be emphatically stated that a flying column should never be sent into the bush unless amply provided with CASH. With it can be purchased knowledge of the terrain and movement of the enemy, and food. It is safe to say that at least 50 percent of the so-called harsh measures used in bush warfare could be eliminated by providing troops with adequate information money.

Considerations in the location of a fortified post:

The site of the post should have, if possible, the following characteristics:

a)      Be capable of defense by a small detachment.

b)      Be of sufficient extent to permit the bivouac of … one hundred men, with mounted detachment.

c)       Permit control of any town in the vicinity and all approaches, especially roads and ravines.

d)      Have sufficient elevation to generally observe the surrounding country.

e) Permit control of a landing field for aeroplanes.

The main requirement for a fortified post, garrisoned as it will be by only a few men, is that it cannot be rushed.

The above would have been a helpful guide to the Officers who decided to emplace COP ~~Kahler~~ Keating in Wanat.

What is now termed “Lawfare”:

To enforce one’s will upon an enemy of the nature depicted without subjecting one’s self to undue criticism is one of the most difficult tasks that can confront a soldier. The “Rules of Land Warfare” lay down certain rules which are to be followed, subject to military necessity during hostilities between regular forces of civilized nations. The “Rules of Land Warfare” for the guidance of regular forces engaged in hostilities with irregular or guerilla forces have never been written; and it is doubtful if they ever will be written…

“Phase Four” operations and “Information Dominance”:

It is the final phase which is difficult because, owing to the policy pursued, the following conditions will prevail to a greater or lesser extent:

a)      Bands of murderers and other criminals base in thick, difficult country, and prey indiscriminately on the peaceful people in the production areas.

b)      These bandits have no property other than that which they carry with them or keep in hiding.

c)       Many bandits, having been captured and turned over to proper authority, have been permitted to escape and have rejoined their bands.

d)      The inhabitants of localities frequented by bandits keep them informed of the movement of the force of occupation

e)      The forces of occupation are at a minimum.

Major Ellis’ article was never officially published by the Marine Corps (the Gazette is as then an MCA publication), but nonetheless provides context and narrative which our current generation of Officers and NCOs would find startlingly familiar a century hence. As it would be to Napoleon’s veterans of the Peninsula War a century previous.

Most famous for his prescient divination of the character and requirements of the Pacific War yet to come, Ellis was no stranger to the counterinsurgency efforts of the Marine Corps in the early 20th Century, nor was he unversed in conventional war. He had been plucked from Quantico by General Lejeune and was a key planner for the successful Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France in 1918. Ponder.

*** Milblog writer/reader/commentor “Moe DeLaun” was most gracious in his gift to me of the March 1921 Marine Corps Gazette (along with a wonderful collection of Kipling by Somerset Maugham and the DVD of The Man Who Would Be King!) There is much more in that March of 1921 edition that I will be sharing and commenting on over the next several months, including articles on Russia, American Marines in Nicaragua, and the Aisne-Marne Offensive of the late war. THANKS MOE!

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Filed under Afghanistan, armor, army, Artillery, guns, history, infantry, iraq, marines, navy, planes, Uncategorized, war

by xbradtc | February 18, 2013 · 7:56 am

Thoughts on the Greywolves, OpFor, and NTC.

As Esli mentioned in the comments on this post,

In an interesting twist, our allies, the Atropians, are role played by OPFOR from 11th ACR, and actually roll in the same equipment as our common Donovian enemy. So the OPFOR not only fight us, but they fight each other.

It’s simply a fact of life that US units will operate alongside allies and coalition partner nations. The only truly unilateral action since before World War II that I can recall is Grenada.

As fractious as the US/British alliance was during World War II, in fact, it was a model of successful allied operations. Very few armies in history can claim such a level of cooperation and success. And since that time, the US and Britain have often operated side by side. Other notably successful partnerships include Australia, and Canada. Non commonwealth nations that we have close relationships with include counties such as South Korea, where for 63 years, Americans and South Koreans have served side by side.

The biggest, most obvious example of allied interoperability is, of course, the NATO alliance, one so successful, it never had to fight to fulfill its original mission.

While the US has a good track record working with several friendly nations, the fact is, most actual combat alliances are extemporaneous. And while other nations may well be willing to fight alongside us in any number of campaigns, it important to remember that they do so for their own reasons, not ours.

Aside from describing how our nation anticipates winning campaigns, doctrine exists primarily to provide a shared vision of how wars will be fought. Every battalion and Brigade Combat Team in our Army fights under the same doctrine. When units that have never trained together before are thrust into combat together, they still have a great deal of interoperability built in due to a single doctrine. But our allies in any given battle may have their own doctrine. And their own political objectives, as well. And few things are more likely to enhance the fog of war than divergent goals.

Battles make strange bedfellows. Don’t forget, Syria sent two armored divisions to fight alongside against Iraq during Desert Storm. Whether Syria genuinely wished to thwart Iraqi territorial ambitions, or just wanted to bask in the goodwill of other coalition nations, for whatever reason, a nation with historical enmity to the US, equipped as a vassal state of the Soviet Union, found itself fighting alongside the US, Britain, France and other nations that have historically been considered its foes.

Command of foreign forces is always more nominal than real. Just as we shudder that the thought of US forces under the command of a foreigner, so to would any ally. Further, no matter what the putative chain of command is for an operation, allies are still sovereign forces, answerable to their own government. Further, it is a very rare foreign force that shares our current doctrine of Unified Land Operations.

So while theoretically, the OpFor in the Greywolves rotation was a net positive in the available combat power, differences in national goals, doctrine, and sheer bloody-mindedness can see a foreign force taking actions that can catch a US commander of guard. Foreign forces may not attack with the zeal US commanders are accustomed to. Or they may actually attack so fast as to find themselves far from support of US forces, and vulnerable to local counterattacks. Or maybe their attention to the laws of war and treatment of prisoners isn’t as fastidious as our own.

US commanders will have to learn to operate alongside foreign troops that vary wildly in their equipment, training, doctrine, support for the rule of law, and ability to operate on a decisive battlefield.

Now for the first time, US leaders are being exposed to the challenges of this in training, rather than having to devise solutions while actually upon the field of battle.

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Filed under armor, army, ARMY TRAINING

Tagged as Brigade combat team, Opposing force, United States

by xbradtc | February 14, 2013 · 4:48 am

OpFor Vismods

The National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, CA originally had a fairly simple purpose. Units tagged to deploy to Germany in case of a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe would face an incredibly steep learning curve. By putting them through their paces at NTC, that curve could be flattened somewhat. It was very similar to the Air Force’s paradigm of Red Flag operations that would give squadrons their “first 10 wartime missions.”

At the time, one of the more radical concepts of NTC was the use of a full time Opposing Force* to model the size, tactics, and visual representation of a Soviet Motorized Rifle Regiment. Traditionally, units training in the field would face off against a sister unit. Not surprisingly, those units tended to use American tactics. Worse, American units were equipped with American equipment, and distinguishing friend from foe on the battlefield was virtually impossible. One of the goals of NTC might be to sow confusion in the unit being trained, but that was taking it a bit far.

The OpFor at NTC went to great lengths to model themselves as the vanguard of the Evil Empire, going so far as to wear uniforms resembling the Soviets.

But equipping an entire Motorized Rifle Regiment (roughly equivalent to a US mechanized brigade) posed a bit of a challenge. When NTC opened in the late 70s, there wasn’t a lot of surplus Soviet equipment available on the market. What there were plenty of was M551 Sheridan Armored Reconnaissance Vehicles. Less than satisfactory as light armor or recon vehicles, there were plenty of them available to equip the OpFor. Unfortunately, they didn’t look very Russian.

But by adding various plastic, fiberglass and other panels, a Sheridan could be given the rough visual outline of either a Soviet tank or BMP fighting vehicle. Not surprisingly, these visual modifications quickly became known as VISMODS.

M551 Sheridan pretending to be a BMP-1 IFV

M551 masquerading as a T-80 tank

Now, even on the best of days, a Sheridan with with plastic wasn’t a dead ringer for any Soviet vehicle. But that’s kind of beside the point. It was sufficient that it was visually distinctive from American vehicles, and that the US unit under training could distinguish between tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and a few other types. That was important because the type and number of vehicles you see on any given spot on the battlefield can tell you a lot about what the enemy intentions.

And it didn’t really matter if the Sheridan’s weapon systems were very different from the vehicles they were portraying. Since the force on force gunnery at NTC was done via the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES), switching out the control box would allow a Sheridan to replicate virtually any direct fire weapon system, from machine guns, to tank guns to guided missiles.

So the Sheridan served the OpFor well through the 80s and into the 1990s.

But, you say, by the early 1990s, there was a ton of surplus Soviet armored vehicles available for dirt cheap. Why didn’t the Army just use those instead of modified American tracks?

We could have easily brought back enough Soviet (and Chinese) armor from Desert Storm to equip the OpFor with real vehicles. The problem would have been spare parts. As reliable and rugged as Soviet designs were, they still needed a lot of spare parts. Providing a pipeline for those parts, training mechanics to repair new vehicles, and training drivers and crews for them would have been prohibitively expensive.

By the mid 1990s, the Sheridan fleet was getting pretty tired. The supply of spare parts was pretty close to exhausted as well, and keeping the vehicles running was becoming more and more expensive. A replacement was needed, but there wasn’t a huge budget for one.

What the Army needed was a vehicle that was in plentiful supply, with a large, established spares pipeline. Buying new vehicles was out. What was there in the fleet that would be suitable?

The trusty M113 filled the bill. No longer in front line use as an infantry carrier, thousands of them still serve in various support roles. But having been replaced in mechanized infantry battalions left plenty of them to equip the OpFor. But the square squat M113 didn’t look much like any Soviet vehicle.

A quick, relatively low cost program actually rebuilt about 120 M113s by adding some visual panels, but more importantly a power driven turret. Known as the M113 OSV (OpFor Surrogate Vehicle) these tracks form the backbone of the OpFor’s armored vehicle fleet. The basic M113 hull and powerplant were identical to those in service. Most of the components of the turret were from the M2/M3 Bradley, so service, operation and spares were relatively low cost. Changing some outside fiberglass panels allows OSV’s to represent either tanks or the BMP-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

While the OSV isn’t the only presentation of Soviet vehicles the good guys are likely to see. BRDM recon vehicles are represented by modified Humvees.

The OpFor at NTC isn’t the only OpFor. There are also full time opposing forces at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft. Polk, LA (geared primarily to light forces), and the Combat Maneuver Training Center at Hoehenfels, Germany. And while the VisMods form the main body of the OpFor, the Army does have a limited number of captured vehicles either for familiarization or occasionally to act as OpFor.

The top frame of the pic is your humble scribe setting a Dragon missile simulator for the next mission.

Helicopters are also represented by the OpFor.

Often times, the permanent OpFor needs to be augmented by “normal” forces. To differentiate these interim OpFor from the friendly forces, some minimal modifications are usually made. In my days in Germany, we’d strap a painted 55 gallon drum on the top deck of our M113s. Tanks often carried drums on their rear deck, simulating the common Soviet Practice of carrying spare fuel there. Since the full time OpFor at NTC has morphed into a real Combat Brigade Team, in addition to its OpFor duties, it also has access to the normal complement of combat vehicles of the Army. These can also be used to simulate a Soviet equipped force, though with considerably less fidelity.

M1 KVT (Krasnovian Variant Tank) Krasnovia is the notional nation the OpFor represents.

In tight budget times, Opposing Forces are an attractive target for budget cutters. From a wide array squadrons, the Air Force, Navy and Marines have had their aggressor strength greatly diminished. But the effect of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have actually worked to expand and diversify the Army’s OpFor , and while some cutbacks are inevitable, the Army will fight tooth and nail to maintain the core of its capability to present a realistic threat scenario to maneuver forces under training.

*Technically, now it is the Contemporary Operating Environment Force or COEFOR, but everyone still calls it the OpFor.

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Filed under armor, ARMY TRAINING, helicopters, history, infantry

Tagged as Fort Irwin Military Reservation, Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System, NTC, Opposing force

by ultimaratioregis | January 28, 2013 · 11:23 am

Women in Combat Arms: The Perspective of a Warrior

The Late General Robert H. Barrow, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, winner of the Navy Cross, Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Veteran of three wars, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, speaks on the notion of women in ground combat units. Thirteen and a half minutes. (The last three are dark screen.) Listen to it all.

Those who would dismiss General Barrow as hidebound, sexist, closed-minded, or any other of the various derogatory labels that tend to be employed by the feminists who push such agendas should feel a tinge of shame. If they are capable of such, which I doubt.

Those who comprise the Joint Chiefs of Staff, particularly CJCS Dempsey, CSA Ordierno, and Marine Commandant Amos, should be ashamed of themselves. They must know deep down that what a man like General Barrow asserts is the brutal truth. Yet they have nodded their heads in enthusiastic agreement with their political masters as a sop to the feminists and progressives who despise our military and everything it stands for. Gentlemen, you must do some serious soul searching. You KNOW that General Barrow speaks an unvarnished truth honed by 41 years of wartime service and leadership of men in some of the most bitter combat of the 20th Century. Are your current assignments and your careers so much more important than the lives of those you will unnecessarily risk to implement this corrosive policy?

The Commandant’s assertion that “we will maintain our high standards while ensuring maximum success for every Marine” smacks of the dishonesty of the “everyone gets a trophy” Left. War, we damned well should know, knows no such considerations. If we didn’t have such morally and intellectually bankrupt leadership spending so much time and money painting the Potemkin Village instead of training to win our nation’s wars, we would not find ourselves in the current fix.

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Filed under Afghanistan, Air Force, armor, army, Artillery, girls, history, infantry, iraq, marines, navy, obama, Politics, recruiting, SIR!, stupid, Uncategorized, war

by ultimaratioregis | January 23, 2013 · 3:34 pm

Defense Chief Panetta to Clear Women for Combat Roles

Of course he does. He is leaving in February, so the damage will be in his wake. And the Democrats will gain big points from the far-left “DACOWITS uber alles” crowd.

“We are moving in the direction of women as infantry soldiers,” one senior defense official said.

No comment from the hordes of female volunteers who have successfully met the standard at the USMC Infantry Officers’ Course.

A few other things need to happen immediately. Beginning tomorrow morning. (Pardon if this is Marine Corps-centric, as the Corps is my service and its standards are the ones I shall address.)

As of 0001 on 24 January 2013:

All Marines must do a minimum of 3 pullups, 50 sit-ups in two minutes, and run 3 miles in under 28 minutes, and score a minimum of 135 on the formerly-male Physical Fitness Test. That means that pull-ups are five points apiece for everybody, and the run time score is one point for every ten seconds over 18 minutes. (Hint, you have to do considerably more than the minimum on at least two areas to pass, with the minimum score for each being listed above.)

Any Marines unable to pass the PFT will be placed on remedial physical fitness IAW MCO 6100.3, regardless of rank or gender. PFT failures will be annotated in directed comments on those Marines’ fitness reports. Promotion and assignment eligibility will be contingent on meeting the standard.

On the Combat Fitness Test, all Marines must conform to the formerly male standards, including the Movement to Contact, which will require a time of 4:13 or under for Marines aged 26 and below, the lift of the 30-pound ammo can for a minimum of 33 reps, with 91 being maximum, and Maneuver Under Fire time of 3:58 and under. All other formerly male age-specific scoring will apply. CFT failures will be annotated in directed comments on those Marines’ fitness reports. Promotion and assignment eligibility will be contingent on meeting the standard.

All Marines will adhere to the formerly-male body fat percentage requirements. Marines ages 18-26 will ALL have a maximum body fat percentage of 18%. Any Marine, regardless of gender, who exceeds that percentage (and it is graduated to a maximum of 21% for Marines over age 46) will be given the 60 day notification period, and then the 60 day caution period, IAW MCO 6100.3. Failure to adhere to body fat standards will be annotated in directed comments on those Marines’ fitness reports. Promotion and assignment eligibility will be contingent on meeting the standard.

All Marines, regardless of assignment, will be required to complete the annual MCCRE 25-mile, 8 hour conditioning march with 55 pounds of required march-order, plus organic Marine-portable unit equipment.

I doubt any of that will happen, of course. Because that kind of equality, rather than the “equality” loaded with special considerations that so many push for, would thin the ranks of female Marines dramatically. Instead, Panetta’s policy, like so many these days from the People’s Defense Commissariat, is about political grandstanding and not combat effectiveness or warfighting proficiency. I am sure the glowing appraisals of how all this works out are already being written, talking points for “impromptu” interviews and Commanders’ assessments scripted carefully.

Of course, any problems or failures that may possibly be encountered will be blamestormed in the direction of sexual harassment, hidebound chauvinism, discrimination, lack of “fairness”, or lack of “vision” on the part of those who might not nod enthusiastically enough. Certainly the problems won’t be attributed to the notion that mixed-gender combat arms units is as horrendously unwise now as it was fifty years ago, and will be fifty years hence. Not a chance of that.

“In fact, it’s important to remember that in recent wars that lacked any true front lines, thousands of women already spent their days in combat situations serving side-by-side with their fellow male servicemembers,” said Murray, who heads the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Which is, of course, precisely the same as being in the Infantry or Artillery or Armor, where the MISSION of the unit is to “locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel his (or her, apparently) assault by fire and close combat.”

Whatever, I am sure it will work out fine. Just like in the movies. Where chicks kick ass all the time.

The move came at the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the sources said.

Why doesn’t that make me feel better? “Three bags full”.

Note: I have been very clear in my opinions that female Marines should be trained for combat. The Marine Corps has done so for a very long time, and done so successfully. I have served next to female Marines in combat. But combat incidental to other missions is NOT the same as that of units in combat arms. Despite the strident assertions of those whose interests are in furthering a special interest group instead of preparing for war.

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by ultimaratioregis | January 13, 2013 · 7:43 pm

The Grim Tale of Savo: Battle Damage Report from Quincy, Astoria, and Vincennes

There are many superbly written and gripping accounts of the disastrous August 1942 engagement known as the Battle of Savo Island. Works that explore the decisions and failures of Allied naval commanders, and sequences of events that led to the annihilation of three US heavy cruisers (and one Australian) in the narrow waters near Guadalcanal. James Hornfischer’s masterpiece Neptune’s Inferno is among the most recent.

However, the document that provides among the most compelling commentary is the Battle Damage Report, filed 13 months after the action, which describes in heartbreaking detail what took place aboard the three doomed vessels. It bears reading and absorbing in its entirety, as it tells both a cautionary tale and one of an incredibly adaptable “learning organization”, to use modern jargon. The report outlines events, without flowery language or hyperbole, but in the solemn professional language of the post-mortem of a catastrophe suffered at the hands of a skillful and determined enemy at a time when control of the Pacific hung in the balance.

Much of the report summarizes the frightful carnage each ship suffered, piecing together eyewitness accounts from ships’ crews who witnessed events on their own ships and on others in the ill-fated Allied cruiser column. Para. 52 tells the tragic tale of Quincy (CA-39):

Events aboard Astoria (CA-34), which had returned the ashes of Japanese Ambassador Saito to Japan just 28 months earlier (commanded by Captain Richmond Kelly Turner), were just as dreadful:

Interesting in the report is Part E, which is Notes and Recommendations by Commanding Officers, and how quickly the wartime Navy took them to heart, and acted upon them. One can only hope we would be so nimble in the present day.

There are twenty-six pages to the Savo Island Damage Report. Every one is worth the read. It was the tragic beginning of the finest hour of the US Navy, and is the unvarnished story behind the stories.

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by xbradtc | January 12, 2013 · 10:12 am

Saturday Links of Interest

Japan and China face off in the air.

Tensions continued to escalate between Japan and China over disputed islets in the East China Sea on Thursday, with Japan reportedly sending two F-15s from Naha, Okinawa, after several Chinese military aircraft crossed into its Air defense identification zone (ADIZ). China responded by scrambling two J-10s of its own.

Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force spotted the Chinese aircraft in its ADIZ over the East China Sea at about 12pm on Thursday, Kyodo quoted a senior Defense Ministry official as saying, adding that the Chinese aircraft never entered Japanese airspace. Kyodo said the Chinese aircraft penetrated Japan’s ADIZ on three occasions.

It’s not illegal for China to fly into the Japanese ADIZ. But it is understood that any non-scheduled flight into an ADIZ will trigger an interception. So sending military aircraft into the ADIZ is considered rather rude, and provocative. And sooner or later, it will get ugly. It only takes a moment for something like this to turn into a shooting incident.

—–

The Navy’s Task Force Uniform spent 5 years and untold millions coming up with the Navy Working Uniform. It’s ugly, expensive, and best of all, highly flammable!

The U.S. Navy’s standard-issue blue digitized camouflage fatigues are highly flammable and will burn ‘robustly until complete consumption,’ a report revealed last month.
The findings show that the digital-print camo, which is made from 50 percent cotton and 50 percent nylon, will drip as it burns, causing potentially hazardous burn injuries.
But the Navy’s top spokesman said that the government organization is aware of the report findings, and added that sailors had asked for a fade-resistant uniform that was also comfortable.

Big Navy’s response is that sailors who will be in direct contact with fire will have appropriate fire resistant clothing. The problem is, aboard ship, every sailor is a firefighter.

When the USS Stark was struck by two Iraqi Exocet missiles, sailors didn’t have time to change out of their dungarees into firefighting clothing. They fought as they were dressed. The old cotton dungaree pants and blue chambray shirts might not seem very suitable for firefighting, but in fact, with one hose team spraying fog, and another hose team attacking a fire, the 100% cotton clothing provided excellent protection for most flashover situations. I know, I’ve been in a massive pool of burning jet fuel wearing them. The blended materiel in the NWU not only burns, it melts, clinging to the wearer’s skin, causing horrific pain, and greatly complicating treatment for burns.

NWU- Making the Army’s ACU fiasco look sensible!

—–

The latest version of the Army’s AH-64 helicopter was developed as the AH-64D Block III. In a move that shows a stunning bit of common sense, the Army finally decided to follow the actual stated policy with regards to Tri-Service aircraft designations and redesignated it the AH-64E. But just to add to the fun, they also decided that this sub-type of Apache also needs a sub-name. And as usual, they picked a dud. The Guardian. We certainly can’t have a weapon designed to hunt down and kill our foes having an aggressive name, now can we. On Outlaw 13’s Facebook page, he was looking for better names. Given the PC trends of the services, I suggested it should have been named the AH-64E Apache Fluffy Kitten.

—–

The Army is justifiably proud of its networked combat systems, where every vehicle and most troops have instantaneous access to the battlefield internet. Locations of friendly and enemy forces are plotted in real-time, and shared across the battlefield, providing levels of situational awareness that were simply unimaginable in my time. Orders are transmitted digitally, reports are similarly sent across the ether. Logistics, medical support, maintenance and fire support all are managed through this battlefield network.

But what happens when the network fails? Armed Forced Journal has an article that explores this problem. It seems the article is focused a bit above the Brigade Combat Team level, but the questions apply there as well. Our soldiers have spent a decade using these digital tools to facilitate their operations. Can they still execute the mission without them? One wonders if Esli’s rotation at NTC will see a mission or two where the Force XXI Brigade and Below Command and Control System (FB2C2) will be degraded or denied.

Via Bryan McGrath at Information Dissemination

—–

Roamy should like this. It’s got both splodey, AND rocket science!

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Tagged as armor, army, planes

by xbradtc | November 27, 2012 · 5:11 am

BMP-3 (with a little shooty and splodey)

The Russian BMP Infantry Fighting Vehicle family has been around since 1967 in various forms. The current production model, the BMP-3, has a very formidable suite of weapons, including a 100mm main gun capable of firing both conventional ammunition as well as a guided missile, a 30mm gun, and a 7.62mm coax gun. As an added bonus, it also features two hull mounted 7.62mm guns.

Before you dismiss the BMP-3 as just more Russian junk, ponder this- when Greece, a NATO ally of ours, was looking to replace its older Armored Personnel Carriers, they passed up the opportunity to buy US M2 Bradleys, and instead bought the BMP-3.

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by ultimaratioregis | November 16, 2012 · 6:11 am

Paper-thin super material stops flying bullets

Great article about bulletproofing efforts at MIT and Rice University. One has to wonder how much such material can lighten up the body armor our folks wear into combat, including the helmet, while increasing ballistic protection. Especially if they can keep the cost below a jillion dollars per Marine.

The material will have to be extensively tested, obviously. This includes the crucial “Lance Corporal Using the Helmet to Hammer in Engineer Stakes” test. But Marines have been begging for a helmet that is ballistic proof against 7.62×39, without excessive weight that makes extended wear a problem.

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Filed under Afghanistan, armor, Around the web, guns, infantry, iraq, marines, war

by xbradtc | November 11, 2012 · 9:17 am

Veterans Day

So today is Veterans Day. Today, dear friends, is not a day for mourning, but rather a day to remember the service of American veterans of all wars. Come Memorial Day we shall mourn our dead. Today, let us celebrate life instead.

Veterans Day is a relatively new observance. The holiday started out as Armistice Day, first observed in 1926 to commemorate the end of WWI. It wasn’t until 1954 that the observance was extended to veterans of all wars. For a brief time, 1971-1975, Veterans Day was observed on the closest Monday to November 11th, but thankfully, that foolishness went by the wayside and we now observe this day on the proper calendar date.

I don’t have any big plans for the holiday. I’ll celebrate the way I usually do, with quiet thanks for the opportunity to have served this great nation. Interestingly, while I was serving, I never did get Veterans Day off.

As you go about your day, either at work or leisure, take a moment to thank any veterans you know.

Update: As I’m currently sick as a dog, this is a repost of the first Veterans Day post on the blog, from 2008.

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Tagged as army, army life, ARMY TRAINING

by ultimaratioregis | September 21, 2012 · 6:27 pm

Great Commercial (With Battleships!)

I am not a rum guy, really. When I do drink, which is very seldom, it is Mr. John Walker, Red or Black, neat. And the occasional beer. So please don’t take this post as an endorsement of the product. But one has to admire this Sailor Jerry Rum commercial. Two Colorado-class battleships, filmed between the wars, still with both lattice masts, and their twin forward turrets and decks pitching in the heavy seas. Later in the commercial we see two Colorados unleashing broadsides from their 16in/45 caliber Mk 5 main guns. And sailors, looking like SAILORS, going on liberty. With some damned fine tattoo work in the mix. Even though I am not a rum drinker, I will hoist one of the Sailor Jerry variety. For all those men filmed in black and white. And the tough old battlewagons they served on. They won the war, didn’t they?

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by ultimaratioregis | September 3, 2012 · 7:26 am

A Wider European War

Brad yesterday highlighted the final act of the Second World War, the formal surrender proceedings on the quarterdeck of USS Missouri, on 2 September 1945. The defeat of the Axis powers was complete at long last, the end of a six-year nightmare which extinguished the lives of almost forty million souls.

Today marks the seventy-third anniversary of the affirmation that the German invasion of Poland had brought about the “wider European war” that a generation of French and British statesmen and diplomats had bargained so assiduously to avoid. At 11:15 AM, London time, on 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain spoke from Number 10 Downing Street to a somber and apprehensive, but resolute, Britain:

This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11.00 a.m. that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different I could have done and that would have been more successful.

Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland, but Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened; and although he now says he has put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement.

The proposals were never shown to the Poles nor to us; and although they were announced in a German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to make comment on them, but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier.

His actions show convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force.

The Western Democracies, France and England, had spent the majority of the previous half-decade negotiating with a cruel and despotic dictator whose virulent anti-semitism and design for world domination had been lain open in Mein Kampf for all to see and read.

They were concerned but unmoved when Austrian Nazis with ties to Germany’s Third Reich assassinated Chancellor Dollfuss in 1934.

They had stood idly by when, in 1935, Hitler unilaterally abrogated the Versailles Treaty and began to build the weapons and forces expressly forbidden by that treaty.

They were paralyzed by fear and inaction when Hitler’s nascent Wehrmacht reoccupied the Rhineland in March of 1936, and when Germany swallowed Austria with the Anschluss two years later.

In the early Autumn of 1938, Chamberlain and France’s Edouard Daladier, being desperate to avoid the war that Hitler demanded, dismantled Czechoslovakia at Munich, and handed it to Der Fuhrer in the most notorious act of appeasement in the entire sordid Allied failure.

The spectacle of Chamberlain, arriving in the rain to wave the Munich Agreement and proclaim “Peace in our time” was a travesty of responsible statesmanship and a stain on the Western Democracies that has not faded appreciably in the seven and a half decades hence.

Despite the warning cries from an Essex back-bench MP whose time on the world stage had seemingly passed, both the French and British leaders clung to the absurd hope that Hitler was being forthright in claiming that the Sudetenland represented his “last territorial claim in Europe”.

Of course, he was not. Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in March of 1939, and turned it sights to the “oppression” of the German minority population in the “free city” Port of Danzig, on the Polish border. When the German armor rumbled through the Polish defenses on 1 September 1939, neither Britain nor France had any choice. And when Hitler ignored British pleas to cease military operations immediately and return all forces to the German side of the border, the “wider European war” that had terrified the Western Democracies into inaction and appeasement was upon them. German forces would not return to the German side of the Polish border until the Soviet armies of the 1^st Byelorussian and 1^st Ukrainian Fronts smashed across the Oder in the first months of 1945. By that time, the damage had been done, and Europe had been awash in blood for more than five years.

So, on the morning of 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was impelled to admit to England and the world that his course of appeasement and accommodation had failed. Chamberlain was forced to verbalize the conclusion that eventually must be reached regarding every dictator who desires wars of conquest and extermination; one that, had it been acknowledged five years earlier, might have saved Europe perhaps the greatest and most preventable tragedy of its long history:

His actions show convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force.

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by Craig Swain | February 18, 2012 · 7:15 am

Army Leaders Defend Plan to Shutdown M1 Tank Production | Military.com

Army Leaders Defend Plan to Shutdown M1 Tank Production | Military.com.

The Army’s top two leaders defended the service’s strategy to cut spending before lawmakers on Capitol Hill today, including a plan to shutdown M1 tank production.

Members of the House Armed Services Committee applauded the Army’s proposed 2013 defense budget but expressed concern over how the plan’s deep cuts will affect the defense industrial base.

Texas Democratic Congressman Silvestre Reyes said he was worried about the future of the Army’s armored combat vehicle fleets since “the current plan, according to the budget submitted, calls for a total shutdown of the Abrams, Bradley and Stryker production lines for three to four years, which starts in 2014.”

Such a move could result in layoffs of experienced workers and damage industry’s ability to meet the Army’s needs in the event of an unforeseen conflict, Reyes said.

“That is a very real concern on behalf of industry, that the skilled workers aren’t going to be there after such a lengthy shutdown,” he said. “So after going cold for three or four years, how can we be sure that that capacity will be able to be regenerated?….

I’ve tried to bring out a similar point up in the “Artillery Evolutions” posts of late. America entered World War I with the assumption that industrial might would “build” an army – just let the captains of industry know what is needed, and within a few months there will be plenty of guns for the expanded army.

Didn’t work out so well – embarrassingly low production numbers and an Army using guns made by foreign sources.

Lesson learned – if you want the ability to mass produce weapons for the next “great war,” the mix is one part good design and two parts production capacity. Contrary to the popular myth, the automobile industry is not capable of switching from Chevy Volts to Abrams MBTs without substantial retooling and retraining. During the Cold War, men who’d been around to see the “Arsenal of Democracy” in action were keen to throw a little money around here and there in order to maintain capacity.

If history is any guide, industry will need ten to twelve years to rehabilitate the skills and capabilities which will grow stale in the projected three to four years. Who knows, maybe the next “great war” will wait.

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by xbradtc | November 9, 2011 · 5:30 am

DIVADS

You may have noticed we’re generally a fan of evolutionary versus revolutionary development of weapons. The M247 SGT York Divisional Air Defense System or DIVADS should have been a prime example of this evolutionary approach, but was instead a poster child for failed weapons development programs.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s the M163 Vulcan was increasingly obsolescent as the Short Range Air Defense platform for the protection of the maneuver forces of a heavy division. With an effective range of only about 1200 meters, the Vulcan couldn’t be relied upon to engage Soviet attack helicopters attacking with wire guided anti-tank missiles from up to 3000 meters. The Army had the MIM-72 Chapparal missile system to overcome this range deficit, but the Sidewinder based missile had a much longer reaction time than any gun based system, too long to effectively engage helicopters in the 20 to 30 seconds a Sagger missile attack might take. The Chapparal, with its early generation seeker head, also had trouble locking on to head on attacks. Finally, both the Chapparal and the Vulcan, based on the M113 hull, had trouble keeping up with the new M1 and M2/M3 vehicles on the battlefield.

The Army requested proposals for a radar directed gun system in the 30mm to 40mm range. The Army had already prioritized its spending to support acquisition of “The Big Five” programs*, so money for development of any other systems would be tight. The RFP urged contractors to use as many off-the-shelf components as possible. About half a dozen contractors submitted proposals, and eventually General Dynamics and Ford Aerospace were awarded development contracts to build prototype systems. After a controversial shoot-off, Ford Aerospace’s entry was selected.

Ford’s entry, named the M247 Sgt. York, used a surplus M48 Patton tank hull, a newly designed turret mounting twin Bofors 40mm L/70 cannons, and a search and track radars. The track radar was derived from the APG-66 radar of the F-16.

The choice of a derivative of the APG-66 proved problematical almost immediately. Remember, the APG-66 had been designed for the air to air environment. At ground level, it suffered greatly from ground clutter, making it very difficult for it to distinguish targets against the back ground of trees, rocks, buildings, powerlines and moving vehicles. This was the early days of digital radar signal processing and fire control. Programmers had little experience in designing software to work in such a difficult environment, and further, there were very real limits on the computational power in early digital radar signal processors. The General Electric proposal had used a radar system derived from the Navy’s Phalanx guns system, which was designed to work in a cluttered surface environment. Whether it would have been easier to adapt is an open question.

Further, the while mounting an aircraft radar on a tracked vehicle exposes it to stresses far different from on an aircraft. Vibration and dust are killers to delicate electronics, and the radar system suffered from reliability issues.

The Army was pretty much forced by fiscal restraints to use the M48 hull, but that had its own costs. The M48 was never as fast as the M1 and M2/M3 vehicles it was supposed to protect. The new 20 ton turret actually weighed more than the original tank turret is replaced, placing further strain on its performance. Apparently, hydraulic leaks in in the turret were a fairly common occurrence as well.

Initial production began, and work to alleviate the problems continued, but it eventually became clear that no (reasonable) amount of money would overcome the flaws in the design. The gun/radar combination never achieved any great success in destroying targets, even under the most benign testing.

Eventually, in 1985, the program was cancelled. About 50 systems had been built. Most were eventually used as targets on Air Force bombing ranges, but some were donated as museum pieces.

The need for a short range air defense system hadn’t disappeared, but given the other needs of the Army, funding for a replacement program was still a low priority. After an aborted attempt to procure the ADATS (Air Defense/Anti-Tank System) missile mounted on an M113 chassis, the Army eventually settled on mounting Stinger missiles on a Humvee chassis as the Avenger system, and on the Bradley as the M6 Linebacker system. The collapse of the Soviet Union meant by the mid 1990s, the perceived need for short range air defense had lessened, and the M6 Linebackers were withdrawn from service, many to be rebuilt as B-FIST fire support team vehicles. Current short range air defense for heavy brigade combat teams rely on Avenger systems and shoulder fired Stinger missile teams.

The Army realized it was taking a higher risk approach to the DIVADS problem by trying to adapt components designed for one purpose to a new mission, and compressing the development timeline. They failed, however, to conduct a realistic risk assessment, and when the program showed obvious shortcomings, the threw good money after bad in an effort to save the program. They could have learned a lesson aviators have been relearning since the Wright brothers- don’t attempt to salvage a bad approach. Go around.

*The Big Five were the M1 Abrams, the M2/M3 Bradley, the UH-60 Blackhawk, the AH-64 Apache, and the MIM-104 Patriot.

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by roamingfirehydrant | September 30, 2011 · 3:18 pm

Ig Nobel Peace Prize

Roamy here. The Ig Nobel Prizes are a spoof of the real Nobel Prizes, meant to pique interest in the sciences as well as make you laugh. It’s held every year at Harvard with real Nobel Prize winners sharing in the festivities. Some of the previous winners are Ivette Bassa, the inventor of bright blue Jello, Yuri Struchkov, for writing 948 scientific papers in one decade, Donald L. Unger, who cracked the knuckles on one hand but not the other every day for 50 years as a possible cause of arthritis, and Edward A. Murphy, Jr. of Murphy’s Law fame.

This year’s Ig Nobel Peace Prize winner is Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, who demonstrated that “the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.” (Youtube commenter says it’s a BTR-60 armored personnel carrier. Readers?)

And here I thought any problem could be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.

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by xbradtc | September 18, 2011 · 5:00 am

GPS

Esli writes:

Out of extreme boredom, I recently read through some of XBrad’s archived material. (Yeah, I know.) This post , combined with this one got me thinking about my own early experiences with the GPS. We have all wondered why some people are seemingly so stupid that they follow their Garmin right into a river, down a boat ramp, or even off a cliff. At first it is incomprehensible, but I know better because I have seen it in action.

First, a little background. The army has always extolled the virtues of land navigation. Pretty much all NCO schools, officer commissioning sources, and certainly combat arms schools teach land navigation. Even though often someone else actually does the navigation, if a leader can’t navigate, he has a hard time leading (either figuratively or literally!). It is all about credibility.

Basically, you navigate in one of two ways. The first method is dead reckoning. In this technique, you know where you are, and if you walk a given distance and direction, you know where you will arrive.

The other technique, called terrain association, simply says to follow the terrain. For example, I walk up this trail to the fork, turn right 90 degrees, and head downhill to the creek, and then up the far side to the right-hand of two hilltops that I can see. Plot your new location and repeat. Skilled navigators combine the two techniques.

Mounted navigation adds a whole extra layer of complexity due to speeds and distances. After all, a dismounted infantryman may have been lost for an hour, but he is still only at most 2 km away! Tank navigation, pre-GPS, included neat tricks like pointing the main gun in a given direction and stabilizing it so that it would always point that direction. Then the driver could turn as necessary. As long as he turned back to get the main gun over his head, he was driving the right direction. Now, just watch the odometer. But, since compasses don’t work while on the tank, someone had to get down and walk out a way to get an azimuth. Pretty slow work.

Terrain association requires an understanding of the terrain, called “micro-terrain” that is all around you. This extends to vehicle crewman. For example, I should be able to tell my driver, “See that big hilltop on the horizon? Get us there.” From that point, his own form of land-navigation, called “terrain driving” takes over, and he follows the terrain, both to navigate, and to drive in the most survivable terrain (i.e. keeping in low ground, but not soggy ground with cattails growing in it), leaving me free to “lead the unit.”

Mortar Platoon Leader. Working on the Battalion Command Net, the Mortar Platoon Net, and the Fire Support net is on the third radio that you can’t see at my feet. It is easy to get distracted, and a good driver can save you!

The GPS changed all of that. Appearing just in time for the Gulf War, the SLGR (Small Lightweight GPS Receiver and pronounced Slugger) revolutionized navigation. A more capable and widely-fielded variant, called the PLGR (or Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver or Plugger) was fielded in the mid -90s. The PLGR has been largely supplanted by the DAGR (the Defense Advanced GPS Receiver, or Dagger). But these items were not fielded without a learning curve by the force. The primary lesson of which is that a GPS does not replace a map!

So, how do they result in tanks driving into the river, down the boat ramp or off the cliff? A couple quick stories illustrate.

There I was…. It was 1994. I had just deployed to Kuwait and met with my first tank platoon, which was already there (Vigilant Warrior, Craig). I brought with me a box of 58 PLGRs as initial issue for the battalion. A couple of the “Geek-smart” platoon leaders quickly learned how to use them, but I was a bit slower. One day, we conducted a training lane consisting of a company attack. I followed in the right rear of a company wedge for about 20 Km. During the movement, I had limited success with my GPS, but had been so fixed on it that I had not used the map much. After the end of the mission, we went back to the assembly area to re-run it, at which time my CDR designated my platoon to lead the next run. I was pretty sure that I knew where I was, but had no idea how to get back to the objective for the next run, so I did what any quick-thinking tanker would do. When I rolled into the assembly area, I did a tight enough 180 degree turn that I got back on my own tracks in the sand. When we were ordered to move out for the next run, I unerringly led the company straight to the objective of the company attack. Score one for credibility.

You tell me how to navigate through this “trackless” desert without GPS! (XBrad: LORAN-C?)

A few months later, there I was…again. This time, I was at Fort Irwin, the National Training Center. It was about midnight. The commander of the infantry company I was attached to drove up to my tank, threw me a six-digit map grid, and told me to establish a screen line “now.” I alerted the platoon, we got fired up, and moved out promptly, heading directly for the grid I was given. This turned into one of the most torturous night movements I have ever been on, taking about 3 hours to move 3 Km to the east and including a near-rollover into a wadi and the blowing away of something into the night sky that I saw but never figured out what I lost. This was across what NTC insiders call “the washboard” which is a nightmare of up and down, washes, cuts, wadis, etc. In the morning, when I was called to collapse the screen and link up with the unit, it took me all of 15 minutes to look at my map, drive south into the open maneuver corridor, and link back up with the company. Score one for the GPS, but credibility took a big hit here! Never move without looking at the stupid map first….

Fast forward a year to my next NTC rotation where I was now the mortar platoon leader. While driving to the Tactical Operations Center to receive an order from the battalion, I called the platoon and gave them a six digit grid and told them to move there and establish the next firing position. I would link up with them at the firing point after the order. I drove to them and discovered the whole platoon sitting in the wide open, within 100 meters of a perfect defilade firing position (that is, below ground level due to the terrain). They had, I was told, just moved to the grid I gave them, following the GPS to the end…. Amid much grumbling, I directed them to shift to the new position and passed on a lesson -learned about not just following the GPS. Score one for credibility.

The very next mission, I again moved them to a new position while I was gone, this time on “Crash Hill” and in the dark. I drove up to the hill, straight to the grid I had given them. They were not there. I drove around that hillside for 60 minutes, searching that location, getting progressively more and more angry. For some reason, I ripped the wooden roof from my HMMWV and flung it into the dark and the wind whipped it away. Finally, sitting right on the grid that they were supposed to be at, I noticed radio antennas coming from a defilade position (pretty hard to see with night vision goggles on). Because I insisted on complete blackout, the mortar tracks were not flying the traditional chemlight Christmas tree from every vehicle, and they were literally invisible, even after I finally saw them.

Sundown at NTC. When it gets dark, with zero percent illumination (i.e. no moonlight), even 8 tracks will be really hard to find in a ten foot deep hole!!

The GPS got me where I needed to be; I just couldn’t find them. Because I refused to tell them I couldn’t find them, it appeared that I had driven right up on them it was a win for my credibility (and GPS technology…). Because they had used the GPS to get to the right area and then used the terrain to appropriately conceal themselves, it was a win for old-school map-reading skills. This lesson was firmly driven home, for me anyway.

Now, as for people that follow a GPS down a boat ramp, or off a cliff, that is just plain stupid, and we all know that.

GPS technology can give us precise locations and is one of the elements critical to get steel on target.

XBrad here- I too had an “early adopter/steep learning curve” experience with SLGR. The system gave your location via an alphanumeric display. That is, your coordinates were displayed as numbers. Not a graphic map representation like you might see in your cars modern GPS system. I had never used one before. Now, just having the ability to determine your location with great confidence was pretty nifty. But you could also program the system to navigate from one waypoint to another. It would give bearing and distance to the next waypoint. Simple, right?

Well, as Esli mentions above, looking at the map first is ALWAYS a good idea. I had to drop off a fire team for a recon mission. Again, only a few clicks away, but finding your way by night without doing a map recon of the route was a bad, bad idea. But on a simple mission like this… heck, we’ll even let the gunner have the night off, and just take the Bradley out with only me and the driver as the crew.

Finding my way home was every bit as challenging. And SLGRs had an antennae that meant the device had to be held outside the turret of the Bradley. And mine had a loose battery case. I had to take off my night vision goggles, hold the SLGR just right, stand way the heck out of the turret, and try to give my driver, Chuck, directions left and right to head us back to our unit.

While I was focused on reading the little numbers, I wasn’t paying much attention to anything else. So I didn’t even notice the giant tree branch the driver headed under. Not until it hit me smack in the face, and dragged me out of the Bradley’s turret, and had me rolling off the back of Bradley’s hull. And my commo helmet got knocked off. And I was badly stunned. And my driver had no idea that I wasn’t just quietly enjoying the night. He kept driving along, and I was in terror that I would fall off and be crushed under the tracks, or at best left stranded in the middle of nowhere.

I finally found my CVC helmet rolling around on the back deck with me and screamed a while till Chuck stopped the track. Apart from some cuts and bruises, I survived. But I never again used GPS to navigate. Only to confirm where I really was.

5 Comments

Filed under 120mm, armor, army, ARMY TRAINING, Personal

Tagged as armor, army, GPS

by Craig Swain | September 13, 2011 · 8:23 am

M42 Duster… Walk around

Brad never asks… he should at least send out an RFI to support his posts. He should know by now that Craig’s archives are full of AFV and cannon pictures.

But don’t forget the “forebears” of the M42.

The M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage (yes… that rolls right off the tongue) with quad .50s was among several self-propelled anti-aircraft weapons built on the trusty M3 half-track chassis during World War II. The M16 was perhaps the better of the lot, and saw service well beyond the World War II years.

Arriving just at the close of World War II, the M19 Gun Motor Carriage lacked the “sexy” name, but was comparable to the M42 Duster in many regards. Armed with a wartime version of the twin 40mm Bofors, the M19 used the chassis of the M24 Chaffee light tank.

Lots of duckhunter stuff!

1 Comment

Filed under armor, army

Tagged as Bofors 40 mm, M16 MGMC, M19 GMC, M42 Duster

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I finally found my CVC helmet rolling around on the back deck with me and screamed a while till Chuck stopped the track. Apart from some cuts and bruises, I survived. But I never again used GPS to navigate. Only to confirm where I really was.

M42 Duster… Walk around

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I finally found my CVC helmet rolling around on the back deck with me and screamed a while till Chuck stopped the track. Apart from some cuts and bruises, I survived. But I never again used GPS to navigate. Only to confirm where I really was.

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Share this:

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