Bayou Renaissance Man

Michael Z. Williamson, friend, author, blogger, knife vendor and all-around good guy, has written a magnificent rant about the trials and tribulations of dealing with military administration - and administrators.  I've never served in the US military, but my memories of the South African military pretty much match his, and I spent a while giggling (unhappily) over the memories his article brought back to mind.  It's a lengthy rant, and will take some time to read in full, but if you're a veteran of military service, you'll appreciate it.

Getting Some Old Military Frustrations Down On Paper

Click over there and have fun!

Peter

Editor Jeremy Black, already a well-known expert in military strategy, has curated a large number of articles by numerous authors into a collection titled "The Practice of Strategy: A Global History".  The articles include:

• Grand Patterns of Strategy, old and new
• Escalation Dominance in Antiquity
• Powers in the Western Mediterranean.  A Strategic Assessment in Roman History
• A Kind of Strategy: Carthage’s confrontation with Roman soft power during the First Punic War
• Understanding a Different World of War:  Strategic Practice in Medieval Europe and the Middle East
• Ukrainism of Mālum Discordiæ:  Strategy of War and Growth,  Setting up the strategic scene
• War, Strategy, and Environment on  South Asia’s Northwestern Frontier
• Imperial Chinese strategy, A Play in Three Acts
• Spanish Grand Strategy c. 1479/1500-1800/1830
• Confronting Russia at Sea; the Long View (1700-1919)
• How to deter or defeat Russia – the maritime historical experience
• ‘New Paths to Wisdom’: Clausewitz: From Practice to Theory,
• Trade War, War on Trade, War on Neutrals
• Napoleon and Caesar: comparing strategies
• Hitler and German Strategy 1933-1945
• Stalin as Protean Strategist?
• Cold War Strategy and Practice
• Russian strategy across three eras:  Imperial, Soviet, and contemporary
• Swedish Strategic Practice
• India’s Strategy from Nehru to Modi: 1947-2022
• China’s Military Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping
• Strategies for the New Millennium

Best of all, you can download a full PDF copy of the entire book free of charge!  That's the best value in this field I've seen for a very long time.  Don't let some early pages in Italian put you off:  the full English translation of them follows.

Highly recommended to all military strategy and strategic planning buffs.

Peter

There's a very interesting article over at The War Zone on how Ukraine is training its FPV (first person view) drone pilots to take on the enemy, and win.  Here's an excerpt.

It’s one thing to have drones. It is something else altogether to reliably guide them to dynamic targets across a chaotic and bloody battlefield. While the many videos of attacks on tanks, trucks, and troops like the one below make it look easy, it’s not.

“We have a constant need to train our pilots and operators. The world of unmanned systems is constantly changing and the enemy comes up with certain methods or can prevent us from completing our tasks,” said one of the soldiers, who goes by callsign Teenager. “We have the opportunity to constantly train and improve our skills.”

As he speaks, the video cuts to an FPV drone flying through a net-covered tube obstacle. It’s one of the many hurdles new pilots have to navigate as they become familiar with flying and experienced pilots have to use to refresh their skills.

For rookies, just getting to that stage takes time.

“Our training is done in several stages,” said another soldier, callsign Glory. “It starts with a base of basic summer practices, then the second stage is more complex practices, and then there are application tactics, where our pilots learn to counter the enemy, an imitation of what is on the battlefield.”

The obstacle course offers many challenges, from mockups of building facades to slaloming around metal poles to buzzing through hoops. There are also static targets, like an old automobile ... This training teaches pilots to make kills that look right out of a dystopian movie, including strikes through open windows, doors and tank hatches.

There's more at the link, including photographs and links to some spectacular combat footage.

The trainees are also taught to use a 3D printer in the field, so that they can produce their own spare parts to repair their drones when needed.  I hope the US is watching developments like this closely;  our forces deploy tens of thousands of drones of different sizes, and their operators need to be as up-to-date as possible on actual battlefield tactics, defenses, and so on.

As I've said before:  I'm very glad my military service ended several decades ago.  I'd hate to be on a modern battlefield, where the slightest exposure might mean one or more drones hunting me down and blowing me up.  I'd feel pretty darn helpless out there!

Peter

The phrase "the fog of war" has become a cliché, but it remains as true as it's always been.  It appears to have dominated Israel's initial response to the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks.  Ynet News has published an extended interview with the pilots of some of the attack helicopters who tried to respond effectively on that day.  Here's an excerpt.

Do you even have a battle plan for an attack like this from the south?

Lt. Col. E.: “Yes. Since the 2014 Gaza War, we’ve been training for infiltration incidents in our territory, but we never imagined a reference scenario of this magnitude of a number of communities being infiltrated simultaneously.”

To be clear: There was an infiltration scenario and firing at terrorists in our territory does exist. It exists in our understanding, but it’s very extreme in our understanding. To get there, you must know that this is your only option, because in a battle plan where a soldier encounters a terrorist, it’s better to shoot him than firing mortars with a 100 square meter fall out range. 

What do your pilots see at the Re’im gate?

“They see the battle going on there – people running back and forth between the gate and the trees. They construct a picture and realize that these are definitely neither civilians nor our forces. They shoot and hit a group of terrorists inside the trees next to the parking lot. They kill six or seven. Before finishing the battle, they’re sent to another incident taking priority, and they move south.”

The division doesn’t ask them to say and carry on firing at the terrorists?

“The division tell them to move, that there’s another incident taking higher priority. They transfer them to work with the Southern Brigade.” 

But if the division command falls, response capabilities are damaged

“Everyone’s goal is protecting the communities. I don’t know of a commander in the army who would put the division, brigade or outpost above the community. I just don’t."

This modus operandi, transferring helicopters every few minutes from one place to another, carries on all morning. “Every five or six minutes, we were receiving call-outs to another incident,” says Lt. Col. E. “You can’t construct a picture as to where the more urgent thing is, so you go where they tell you.”

In hindsight, is this system of going from one spot to the next an effective method?

“If we’d have stayed in the same place the whole time with other forces - and there were cases like that - we might have prevented something from happening. But it affects the overall aggregate of what was going on at each separate battle at the same time. You can’t foresee what you’ll prevent at a given point.”

His colleague from the 190th Squadron, Lt. Col. A. says this question is hard to answer before investigations are completed. “There were places that helicopters finished off the incident in an hour, while in other places, helicopters operated for hours without bringing the incident to an end. Why? Perhaps there were fewer terrorists there, or maybe it was harder to get our forces in.”

There's much more at the link.

Those who've been "up the sharp end" will recognize much of what the pilots have to say.  Another way of putting it is the old saying, "Order, counter-order, disorder".  An individual command post has a problem, so it orders forces to deal with it, not realizing that there's a bigger problem a few miles away and the forces it needs have just been ordered (by a different command post) to deal with that one.  The forces concerned can only do their best to deal with a hard-to-understand, fractured situation - and risk being court-martialed if they do it wrong, because most command posts (and individuals) are never going to blame themselves.  They'll use the fighting forces as scapegoats.

It's a problem that's been with any and all armed forces since the first organized command structure was developed.  It'll probably end with the heat death of the universe, but even that can't be guaranteed.

Peter

Found on MeWe:

(Presumably referring to this study.)

And all of us who've "been up the sharp end" in our joint and several ways nod our heads in agreement, and say (loudly, with feeling, in well-lubricated chorus):

Of course it is!  You don't think we'd have been there without being demented, do you?

Sheesh!!!

Peter

This meme came out years ago, but every time I see it, I still laugh.  What's more, I have no idea where or when the picture was taken, but the tank resembles a South African-modified Centurion, and the scenery in the background is very like parts of South Africa, so it might even be from my old stamping-grounds.  Click the image for a larger view.

Ah . . . military memories!  I'm sure most veterans, seeing that, will be laughing too.

Peter

It's been announced that Russia's Air Force will retire its last remaining Antonov An-22 strategic transport aircraft this year.  The photograph below shows the prototype aircraft at the Paris Air Show in 1965, the year it first flew.

The An-22 was a behemoth.  It could carry up to 80 metric tons (approximately 88 US tons) of cargo, roughly equivalent to today's Boeing C-17 Globemaster III and almost twice the payload by weight of the contemporary Lockheed C-141 Starlifter.  It was routinely used to ferry intercontinental ballistic missiles around the Soviet Union, as well as carry large, heavy cargoes to favored client nations.  It was the largest turboprop-powered aircraft ever built, using the same engines that powered the Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bomber.

The An-22 was regarded by the Soviet Union as a strategic asset due to its missile-ferrying duties, which led to a potentially serious incident back in 1975.  At the time, the Soviet Union was pouring armaments and surrogate forces into Angola to support its favored MPLA "liberation movement" (a.k.a. terrorist organization).  South Africa, with US encouragement, was at the same time intervening on behalf of another such organization, UNITA.  I'm informed by sources I consider reliable that in late 1975, some South African special forces were camped out within sight of the runways at the international airport in Luanda.  They managed to get their hands on a number of man-portable ground-to-air missiles (presumably taking them off MPLA forces that "no longer needed them"), and sent an excited signal back to South Africa saying that they planned to sneak up to the runway and shoot down as many as possible of the parade of An-22's arriving every day, filled with armaments.  They would have been "sitting duck" targets, having no alternative airport within range to which they could be diverted after their long flight down the African continent.

I'm told that this was mentioned in passing between a South African liaison officer and the US embassy in Pretoria, and led to seismic-level upheavals.  The CIA was convinced that if South Africa shot down some of the Soviet Union's scarce strategic transports (only 68 were ever built), the Soviets would react very harshly, escalating the war in Angola out of control, and would probably act against other important US client states around the world.  The reconnaissance forces near Luanda were duly told not to carry out their plan, but to allow the An-22's to arrive and depart undisturbed.  They were bitterly disappointed, and I was told that some of the signals they sent back to Pretoria were "sulfurous" - but they obeyed orders.  I've often wondered what would have happened if two or three of these monster aircraft had bitten the African dust . . .

As far as I know, there's only one An-22 flying outside the Russian Air Force, a privately-owned example operated by Antonov Airlines of Ukraine.  I don't know whether it's still operational.  To give you some idea of the enormous size of this plane, here are two video clips showing its arrival and departure at European airports.

So, at last, a giant of the skies goes to its rest.  It will not be forgotten.

Peter

Yesterday Jeff Childers laid out the growing danger of fully autonomous robotic weapons, which have no conscience and no moral code, and can (and already do) kill without reference to a human operator or a controlling battlefield system.  I agree with him that it's a very disturbing element in warfare, one that threatens not only to make human combat more or less obsolete on the battlefront, but also pass an automated death sentence on anybody - combatant or civilian - in or near that battlefront.

Until very recently — so recently you will be forgiven lack of notice of the change — it was fashionable among elites to wring their hands over letting robots decide whether to kill people. Countless conferences were devoted to the subject, new UN departments were designed, and new job descriptions were drafted, spawning battalions of specialized military bioethicists.

Zing! What was that? That was bioethics flying out the window. Sorry, chaps, pack it in. All those new ethics experts and professors and opinion influencers just became redundant. They are moot.

. . .

On June 4th, 2024 — mark the date — the Washington Post quietly ran an unobtrusive “good news” op-ed headlined, “The Pentagon is learning how to change at the speed of war.” To call it “just an op-ed” would do violence to its malevolent significance. First of all, the author, spy novelist and columnist David Ignatius, is one of WaPo’s most senior writers, and it’s a poorly hidden secret he is inextricably intertwined with the deep security state.

. . .

David’s op-ed began gently chiding the U.S. military for, with the very best of intentions, its antiquated ‘addiction’ to overly complicated, finicky, insanely expensive, super high-tech, human-directed weapons systems, rather than cheap, practical, reliable, and effective alternatives like the Russians are using to beat the Dickens out of Ukraine.

. . .

Most folks now agree the Russians’ pragmatic, entrepreneurial approach in Ukraine has decisively proven its battlefield superiority over our fancy, high-tech, acronymized weapons that took decades to develop: our top-tier M1 Abrams tanks, our PATRIOT air defense systems, our HIMARS and ATACMS missiles, our JDAMS flying bombs, and our networked cluster munitions.

They all literally or figuratively bogged down in the Ukrainian rasputitsa. In other words, stuck in the mud.

But the bigger problem is that all our defense systems, from the most modest mobile artillery unit to the sky-scraping F35 intelligent fighter jet, are all e-something, or i-something. They are all linked together, connected to the internet, in a networked global battlefield information system (GBIS). They were designed to be centrally controllable from the confines of an op center safely concealed under two hundred feet of granite below the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

Unfortunately, the Russians — those ‘incompetent,’ slipshod, gas-station-with-nukes ice jockeys — somehow overtook us in electronic jamming technology. And then kept going, without looking back. The Russians are jamming all our toys!

Our Borg-like, electronically interconnected technology is dead in the water, or in the mud, if it can’t talk to the other parts of itself. Worse, Russian jamming cuts it all off from its handlers thousands of miles away in America. In other words, it’s damned useless, which is why Ignatius predicted it wouldn’t last five minutes against China.

Ignatius’ description of this perfectly foreseeable development understated the terror and panic on the part of U.S. generals. It all worked so well against Saddam Hussein’s disorganized army! But the generals are slowly and reluctantly coming to terms with the fact our entire arsenal is close to useless against near-peer adversaries like Russia and China.

In desperation, and because Ukraine uber alles, all those ethical concerns over autonomous weapons systems instantly became as obsolete as our trillion-dollar aircraft carriers. The ban on machines that kill on automatic has been swept aside.

It’s an emergency, dummy.

Then, Ignatius described the easy fix to the problem. The simple correction is truly autonomous weapons, weapons that can’t be jammed, weapons that don’t have to talk to each other, weapons that push the pesky humans right out of the picture. In the same way the military is now quietly moving aside the humans, David also glided right over the pesky ethical issues, which earned not a single syllable in his column.

. . .

Who’s responsible when the robot goes rogue and wipes out a village, or a wedding, or a whole city? Who’s tried for the war crimes?

Nobody, that’s who. You can’t expect technology to be perfect, dummy.

You can’t put a robot on trial. Come on, be serious.

The government knows full well that public outcry will only slow down the killer robot train. The military is now moving with mind-blowing, demonic, uncharacteristic speed toward building its dystopian, robot-armed future. The first fully autonomous killing machines have already been designed, built, and delivered to Ukraine.

. . .

Ignatius also assured us that the Air Force is, right now, building robotic fighter jets labeled with the grim euphemism “uncrewed.” The robots can keep on fighting, long after the human crews are gone.

Similarly, last month, the Navy formed a new squadron of hundreds of fully autonomous, uncrewed boats, a water swarm with the unwieldy name, “Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft.” GARC doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but maybe it echoes the last thing dying sailors say.

Instead of applying that awkward acronym, the Navy has nicknamed its new robot squadron the “Hell Hounds.”

. . .

It’s easy to blame Congress for failing to pull the plug, slow things down, or at least hold a public debate. But remember: attractive, well-spoken military analysts constantly deliver confidential, top-secret briefings to Congressmen, direly warning them China will win in five minutes unless we do something.

What can I say? It’s 2024. Here come the terminators, and nothing can stop it. We all knew this day was coming; we just didn’t think it would come from us.

Somebody track down that scrappy Sarah Connor and tell her it’s time to report for duty.

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

(Also recommended is this article at Strategy Page, analyzing how drone operations are dominating the war in Ukraine, and assessing their impact.  It doesn't look at the autonomous aspect, but is nevertheless a valuable summary of the current state of the art.)

This is a very ominous development for all the reasons Mr. Childers has stated.  However, think of the wider implications.  Nations ruled by dictatorial elites now have tools at their disposal that can steamroller right over opposition movements, and suppress rebellion and civil war before they even get out of the starting gate.  An oppressive regime no longer needs battalions and regiments and divisions of storm troopers to control its subjects;  it merely needs enough autonomous robots that will do its bidding without moral considerations or ethical hesitation.  A town is rebelling against government authority?  Send in the robots and wipe out every man, woman and child in that town.  There's an outcry afterwards?  Blame the robots, which were "not properly programmed", and put on trial and execute a couple of sacrificial puppets who can be alleged to have been responsible for that erroneous programming.  There!  Problem solved! - and the regime is still in power.  After the third, or fourth, or fifth such town is "depopulated", there won't be many more willing to take a stand for freedom, will there?

If you remove humanity from society, it becomes an inhuman dystopia.  That's what modern warfare is becoming, at least if Ukraine is any example.  What if the rest of society follows suit?

Scary thought . . .

Peter

Eighty years ago today . . .

My father was, at the time, in the process of returning from the Middle East to Britain after three years of fighting the Axis powers in the Western Desert and the Dodecanese campaign.  My mother, as she had been for the previous several years, was manning fire watch and incendiary patrols on the so-called "Home Front".  When I asked her, decades later, how she'd felt when the news broke that the Allies had landed in Normandy, she could only shake her head silently, while tears came to her eyes.

It was, for both of them, the sign that the war was now inexorably drawing to a close.  It still had a ways to run, but the Germans had grown so weak that they could not keep the Allied landing forces out.  Final victory seemed now to be assured.  They knew many long, trying days lay ahead;  both would lose friends and comrades in the last year of fighting . . . but the end was, at long last, in view.

Today, we remember.

Peter

If you said it was a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, you'd be wrong.  It's actually a Tupolev TU-4, an early Soviet-era carbon copy of a B-29, right down to a few combat scars that were slavishly copied from the three B-29's the Soviet Union had available when Josef Stalin ordered its development.

The story of how the Soviet Union copied the B-29 is a long and fascinating one.  You'll find all the details at the "WWIIafterWWII" blog.  Here's an excerpt.

The Soviet Union developed any number of highly effective fighters, ground attack planes, trainers, and twin-engined tactical bombers during WWII. One effort where the Soviets were far behind by the end of the war was strategic bombers. During WWII the USSR had only one (relatively) modern four-engined strategic bomber, the Pe-8.

Less than 100 were completed during WWII. They achieved little while suffering horrendous losses. By the time of Japan’s surrender in September 1945 there were only three dozen Pe-8s remaining. When NATO formed in 1949, they were considered so insignificant that they never even received a reporting name.

Throughout WWII, Josef Stalin sought to obtain American strategic bombers via Lend-Lease; with no success. As soon as Soviet intelligence became aware of the B-29 Superfortress, that type was requested as well. In 1944 the USA rejected the request, along with another attempt later that year and a third request in 1945. The USA considered the Superfortress such an advanced weapon that the requests were barely even given consideration.

. . .

The Soviet Union interned three B-29 Superfortresses during WWII. Until August 1945, the USSR had a non-aggression pact with Japan. Under international law, warplanes of warring parties landing in a neutral third country are required to be interned for the rest of the conflict.

“Ramp Tramp II” landed near Vladivostok on 29 July 1944, after taking an AA hit during a mission over Manchukuo. The damage was not severe but bad enough to make a return home impossible.

“General H.H. Arnold Special” landed at Tsentral’naya naval airbase on the USSR’s Pacific coast on 11 November 1944, after a storm blew it off course during a raid on the Omura aircraft factory in Japan.

“Ding Hao” landed at the same place ten days later after a Japanese AA round hit one of it’s engines. Of the three, it was the most significantly damaged.

All three of these B-29s were airworthy.

. . .

The idea for reverse-engineering the B-29 came not from Andrei Tupolev’s bureau, but rather from Vladimir Myasischchev, who ran his own aircraft design bureau. After the third B-29 was secured during WWII, Myasischchev suggested to Stalin that it would be both feasible and advantageous to reverse-engineer it. Stalin agreed, but for whatever reason, assigned the effort to his rival Tupolev in June 1945.

There's much more at the link, including many photographs.

I'd known about the TU-4 copy of the B-29 for a long time, but this article went into far greater depth than anything I'd read before.  It makes fascinating reading for aviation and military history buffs.  Recommended reading.

Peter

Recently Tucker Carlson interviewed Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, in an extended dialog over the Ukraine war and several related issues.  It's almost two hours long, but it's very worthwhile to take the time to listen and think about it.  You'll find the entire podcast here.  Highly recommended.

Real Clear Politics published part of the podcast, Erik Prince's views on the Russia-Ukraine war, that I found very sobering.  I daresay Mr. Prince is far more accurate in his assessment than most of the talking heads we're seeing in the mainstream media.  Here's an excerpt.

TUCKER CARLSON: So, yeah, I mean, he's a child, obviously. And like an angry destructive child. But what happens? Like, where does this go? We send another $60 billion to Ukraine.

ERIK PRINCE: Most of that money goes to five major U.S. defense contractors to replace at five times the cost, what the weapons cost that we already sent the Ukrainians. Meaning, you know, if we send them something that was built 10 years ago, well, now it's gonna cost four and five times as much. So, again, it's a massive grift paid by a Pentagon that doesn't know how to buy stuff cost-effectively. It doesn't change the outcome of the battle.

As the fields dry, it's May now, coming up on tank season. Weather still matters in warfare. If you have a wet, snow-covered farm field, it's very muddy, very gooey. Not great for tanks, mud season, I think the Russians call it the great slush. That's done now.

As June comes, it'll be game on and I think the Russian bear is hungry, and they're gonna have a time. So the war should have been ended. It never should have started. They should have made a deal, and froze the lines six months into it. But the Biden administration believed that all this American weaponry would have saved the day.

It hasn't. And it's ugly. And you know, the Russian commanders are not idiots. They know their history. The Battle of Kursk, which happened just North of where the fighting is now was the largest tank battle in history. It was the last offensive effort of the German army against the Soviets. They tried to push from the north and south on this salient. It was a bulge and the Russians knew they were coming. So they built lots of lines of defenses. It's the same thing they've done now, that they did last summer, which ate up all that equipment.

And now the Ukrainians are very thin. They've had a lot of corruption issues. All the defenses that were supposed to be built by the Ukrainians are much smaller or non-existent. So now it's allowing maneuver and especially as the tanks, as the fields dry and you can maneuver, it's gonna be a very ugly summer.

TUCKER CARLSON: What do you think the Russians want?

ERIK PRINCE: I'd say now they want to absolutely humiliate the West and make sure that they never have a problem with Ukraine again.

TUCKLER CARLSON: And that seems achievable. So, what happens to Ukraine?

ERIK PRINCE:I don't know if it survives as an independent country. If they take Odessa, if they take the ability for Ukraine to export its grain, that really threatens the long-term economic viability.

Maybe it goes back to -- look, Western Ukraine used to be part of Poland, right? Eastern Ukraine used to be part of Russia. Maps move depending on you know, military victories drive diplomatic breakthroughs. And right now the Russians are winning and they're going to have a very good summer.

TUCKER CARLSON: Is there anybody who is knowledgeable on this subject who believes Ukraine can "win," which is to say, push Russian troops all the way back to the old Russian border?

ERIK PRINCE: I didn't really believe it ever. I don't know who's advising the White House at this point or who they're listening to, but they probably need to change out their advisor list.

There's more at the link.  Highly recommended reading, and even more recommended is to listen to the entire podcast.  It's worth your time and attention.

Peter

I was taken aback by a photograph of the latest generation of M2 Bradley armored fighting vehicles, the M2A4E1.  I've closed in on the turret in this picture, cutting out most of the body.  Click the image for a larger view.

That's an awfully cluttered turret, isn't it?  It's got stuff hanging off it every which way you look.  I'm sure they're all valuable and useful items, but they're not under the protection of the armor plate in the vehicle's hull and turret.  They're stuck out in the open, exposed.

When I was shooting at the Other Side, way back when, we were delighted to see enemy vehicles with that sort of improvised, hodge-podge installation of equipment, precisely because it was so easy to damage.  One burst from a machine-gun, or one or two air-burst artillery rounds, or even a collision with a low-hanging tree branch (common in the African bush warfare environment), and that equipment would be at best damaged, at worst destroyed.  It was simply too fragile for a combat environment.

I'm sure the Army has done its best to protect all those exposed systems, putting them in armored boxes, leading as much as possible of the wiring inside and under cover, and so on.  Nevertheless, stuck out there like that, they're inevitably more vulnerable to damage or destruction than they should have been.  In a battlefield environment that depends as much as ours do today on latest-generation systems and networking, that's dangerous.  Can the vehicle, or those inside it, continue to fight effectively if their systems are blinded or shut down?

In the Army's shoes, I'd have insisted on an all-new turret design, putting all those tools behind armor and giving them a lot more protection.  Perhaps that would have been too expensive.  Nevertheless, I'd be very unhappy about having my critical combat systems exposed like that.  There's too much that can be damaged too easily.  What say you, veteran readers?

Peter

The BBC reports that Colombia's armed forces are missing a whole bunch of ammunition and weapons.

Colombia's military has lost millions of bullets, thousands of grenades and several missiles, the nation's president has said.

Gustavo Petro ... said the missing items came to light during surprise visits to two military bases - Tolemaida and La Guajira - on 12 February and 1 April, respectively.

At Tolemaida, there was a shortfall of more than 808,000 bullets and nearly 10,000 fewer grenades than the inventory listed on official records.

Meanwhile at La Guajira, the discrepancies included nearly 4.2 million bullets and more than 9,300 grenades. Mr Petro also said the base had lost two Spike missiles, 37 Nimrod missiles and 550 rocket-propelled grenades.

He told reporters that the military supplies would have been passed on to armed groups within Colombia, but could have been smuggled to Haiti or the international black market.

There's more at the link.

I'm sure the personnel at those military bases were delighted (NOT!) to have snap inspections of their facilities, giving them no warning and leaving them no time to cover up the missing items.  I'm sure many of them made a lot of money by diverting them to weapons smugglers.  I hope it'll be enough to compensate them for the years in prison that will likely be coming their way.

That sort of chicanery is a real problem in the drug wars.  Mexico's cartels are armed with full-auto military weapons that they've largely obtained from the Mexican armed forces and those in countries to the south.  When they have so much money at their disposal, it's not difficult to bribe those in charge of the weapons to turn a blind eye to wholesale theft.  Trouble is, those cartels then turn their weapons against their own authorities, and against the US as well in the form of ambushes directed against the Border Patrol, Customs officers and other law enforcement personnel.  Many such weapons have been found smuggled into this country, and in the possession of local cartel distributors.  The latest one I heard of amounted to more than 20 full-auto assault rifles, more than 100 magazines and over 5,000 rounds of ammunition, plus several hand-grenades and a rocket launcher.  That's enough to give any local police force conniption fits.  They're severely outgunned.

Of course, the gun-grabbers' answer is to blame private firearms owners for "allowing" their guns to be stolen, or selling them to the cartels.  That's largely not the case.  Private owners seldom own full-auto weapons, and almost never explosive devices.  Those are sourced from corrupt militaries more than anywhere else.  It's not a comfortable thought that law-abiding citizens like you and I might have to face up to criminals armed in that fashion.  I feel outgunned already.

Peter

Andrew Fox is a former Major in Britain's armed forces, who served three combat tours in Afghanistan.  He posted this tweet a few days ago.  I've taken the liberty of reproducing it in full.

I gave a presentation this morning, partly about Afghanistan. On the drive home it set me thinking.

My hunch is that part of the reason for Western protests about Gaza is a total failure to understand what urban war is, and what it looks like, and people are horrified to see it. Totally understandable. Now couple that to a powerful disinformation campaign that exploits those feelings of horror and tells them what they’re seeing and can’t comprehend (urban war) is something else (genocide).

As a commander in Afghanistan on my first two tours, which were before the “counterinsurgency” era, I saw my job as being to apply maximum violence to kill the enemy legally within rules of engagement. If I had a Harrier or an A-10 or an Apache to call on, I’d use that as a first option. If not, I’d use mortars or Javelin or machine guns if I had them. Only as a last resort would I commit my rifle sections.

That’s war. And that’s what Israel is fighting, on a far more brutal scale. Hamas and the surrounding Iranian proxies are an existential threat to Israel’s existence as a country. It’s that which people in the West fail to understand. We’re used to expeditionary wars of choice on the other side of the world. Israel has kibbutzim 5km from where their troops are fighting. The IDF in Gaza can look over their shoulders and see their home. It’s a totally different perspective on war from the one we in the West are used to. 

Hamas have to be deleted as a fighting force for Israel to survive as a country with safe borders. To achieve that is the single most basic function of government. This isn’t a war Israel wants but it’s one they’ve been forced to fight. They’ve already taken double the fatalities the British did in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. 

If they wanted to, they could stand off with jets, and hit Gaza City and Khan Younis and Rafah simultaneously and level the place - and legally. If it’s a military target and you can justify the collateral damage, the law of armed conflict says that’s legal. That Israel hasn’t done that tells you all you need to know about whether this is a genocide or not.

I don’t blame people for being sucked in by disinformation about Gaza. It’s been sophisticated and effective information warfare. I have no limits to my contempt for those who throw around “genocide” when they know perfectly well it isn’t. The most serious of crimes shouldn’t be debased like that, and shame on South Africa and their allies who have abused international law in this way.

War is horrifying, brutal, and extremely violent. Gaza isn’t a conventional counter-terror campaign. We saw on 7 October how well armed, organised and tactically aware Hamas are. They use human and humanitarian shields. They’ve forced Israel into the only appropriate response, and it’s the innocents in Gaza who suffer. That the numbers of innocents injured and killed is so low is a testament to the IDF using tactics that have incurred far higher IDF casualties than other options on the table.

“War is hell” is a cliche for a reason. But it’s nothing more than a war that we see in Gaza.

That's the military reality of the situation in Gaza at resent.  It's a war.  It's not a "peace mission" or a "genocide" or an "occupation" at all.  Israel was attacked, and now it's defending itself in the only way possible - by removing the attackers and the threat they represent.  That's a very harsh reality . . . but it is reality.  To pretend otherwise is stupid.

Peter

Some months ago, speaking about "Ground combat in an age of drone warfare", I said:

I predict we'll see new drones designed to do nothing but hunt down the other side's drones.  Think World War I.  Initially, aircraft were used only for reconnaissance, finding out what the enemy was up to.  In due course, the first bombs were dropped, to disrupt what the enemy was doing.  To stop both activities, fighter aircraft were designed to stop enemy aircraft from doing their thing.  I think we'll see "fighter drones" coming down the pike, to do precisely the same thing in modern terms.  I'll be very surprised indeed if they're not already being developed, along with weapons to equip them for that task.

Just one week later, I wrote about two Western interceptor drone systems that are being tested.

It seems that Russia has now developed its own interceptor drone technology, according to this video clip on Bitchute.  I'm sorry about the noisy advertisement embedded before the actual video:  I can't prevent that, but after only a few seconds you can select an option to skip the rest of the advert.  I recommend doing that.

I've no idea what drone system that is, but it certainly seems to be effective against relatively slow-moving quadcopter-type drone systems (those most often encountered over the Ukrainian battlefield).  If any reader knows more, please let us know in Comments.

We're seeing a much faster, rapid development environment in drone warfare than we have in most past "conventional" wars.  That's partly because the computer technology involved has become over-the-counter.  One no longer has to specially develop a chip or control system:  something already developed for other purposes can be re-programmed to do what one wants.  It's no longer necessary to spend months and millions of dollars designing a solution tailored for a single purpose.  Also, commercial components for light drones are freely available at very low prices.  Those developing them can buy what they want almost anywhere, and for not much money.  (For example, Ukraine has developed many different models, including this innovative - and very low-cost - "kamikaze" drone, costing between $5,000 and $10,000 apiece.  If one of those hits a battlefield vehicle like a tank or armored personnel carrier or artillery piece, any of which will cost many times as much, it's an economic victory every time as well as a tactical win.)

Sheer economics made interceptor drones inevitable.  If it takes a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar shoulder-fired missile to take out a ten-thousand-dollar drone coming towards one, it soon becomes impossible to afford such exchanges.  On the other hand, a ten-thousand-dollar drone intercepted by another ten-thousand-dollar drone is a much more affordable solution - and the much more expensive installations and vehicles protected by those interceptor drones will still be intact and able to operate.  It's a no-brainer.  I'm sure we'll see many more interceptor and fighter drones in the very near future.

Peter

My friend in meatspace and the blogosphere, Larry Correia, has been heard to say that he really wants to buy a tank.  Being a bestselling author, his income can probably stretch to it, too:  but being a very large gentleman, I think he'd have a problem fitting into anything small.  However, I think the solution may be at hand, in terms of both his size and his wallet.

Spain is selling off its remaining M60 tanks, of 1960's vintage.

If you've ever fancied owning a tank, or are in the market to add to your own private armor collection, now's your chance. As it turns out, Spain has put a number of its M60 tanks up for auction, with the base price for the lot starting at just over $50,000. The sale of the tanks, the condition of which remains very much unclear, has prompted speculation about potential buyers, and whether they could end up in Ukraine or the scrap yard.

The entire lot of tanks has a stated “base price” of €46,924.93 [US $50,721.73 at current exchange rates], according to the official notice, which also includes details on another auction of anchor chains.

There's more at the link.

That price is not per tank, by the way:  it's for all the surplus tanks.  It's only the opening bid price, of course.  I'm sure the final sale price will be higher.  Nevertheless, those tanks are basically being sold at scrap-metal prices, and I'm sure that doesn't include their cannons or ammunition.  I don't know how many are on auction now.  Spain bought about 300 M60's in total, but until recently had only 16 still operational, replacing the rest of its fleet with German-made Leopard 2's.  Nevertheless, even 16 would be a handy source of spare parts to keep them operational in the hands of a hobbyist owner.

Whoever wants them will have to move fast.  Bids are due by April 22.  Quick, get out your wallets and bank statements and start counting!

Peter

Over the past couple of days:

• An Iranian-made missile, launched from Iraq (probably by an Iranian surrogate terrorist group), struck an Israeli naval base at the port of Eilat on Monday, narrowly missing one of the Israeli Navy's newest and most modern warships.  This comes two years after Iranian TV showed its forces practicing to attack a mock-up of the same port, showing exactly the position struck by their missile this week, with a similar warship in the same location.
• On the same day, Israel bombed an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, striking with such precision that the building was destroyed, but two other buildings on either side of it were left with minimal damage.  Three Iranian Revolutionary Guard generals were killed in the strike, along with several other senior advisers.  The attack was presumably a rapid and pointed response to the missile strike on Eilat.
• Iran has been supplying almost all the missiles that Houthi insurgents are firing at Western vessels around the entrance to the Red Sea.  Those attacks show no sign of diminishing.  Sooner or later, the supply will have to be interrupted at its source.
• The USA has been supplying Israel with the aircraft bombs and guidance kits it needs to continue its campaign in Gaza and elsewhere.  Recently the Biden administration has appeared to be slow-walking further deliveries of munitions, in order to apply pressure to Israel:  but it's also just announced the proposed sale of up to 50 of the latest-model F-15EX strike aircraft to that country.  That's a very mixed signal, to say the least.

I get the impression that the Biden administration has been not-so-gently informed by Israel that, if that country's military operations against Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups are hampered by deliberately slowed weapons deliveries, then Israel will take up the option of stopping Iran's sponsorship of terrorism at the source by converting it into a radioactive glass-topped parking lot.  Whilst many Israelis might not want to do that, I think the Netanyahu administration is more than sufficiently determined to do whatever it takes to ensure Israel's security;  and I don't see the Israeli military arguing against that option.  Iran, and terrorists sponsored by Iran, are costing them too many lives.

Recent developments do nothing to make me feel more optimistic about the prospects for peace in the Middle East.  On the contrary, I think that region is closer to an all-out, devil-take-the-hindmost war than it has been for a very long time - and almost all parties to the dispute are absolutely adamant that they will not back down.  It's irresistible force versus immovable object.  Given the other geopolitical stresses on all the major powers right now . . . who knows where that could end?

Finally, remember that the religious fanatics running Iran see it as eminently desirable to bring about their version of the apocalypse, in order to expedite the return of the Twelfth Imam.  As far as they're concerned, a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel would be almost guaranteed to accomplish that - so they have nothing to lose.

Don't expect rationality, logic or statesmanship from Iran.  They no longer exist among that country's leaders . . . and that's a deadly dangerous reality.

Peter

I daresay by now most people have heard of the Israeli destruction of a clearly marked, position-broadcasting aid convoy in Gaza, in which seven aid workers were killed.  On the face of it, it looks to be a clear violation of every "law of war" (a misnomer if ever I heard one).  A tragedy indeed.  I don't think anyone in his right mind would dispute that.

Israel is being condemned from all sides for the attack.  To cite just one commenter:

The IDF murdered seven aid workers yesterday, three of whom were British special forces veterans, in three targeted drone strikes ... This isn’t self-defense. These attacks are not even taking place in Israel. No wonder Netanyahu is whining about how the whole world now hates Israel. Because it’s rapidly becoming impossible for any sane or impartial individual to not despise what the Israeli government and the Israeli military are doing.

More of the same can be found all over the Internet.

The attack should never have taken place, and was undoubtedly wrong.  I hope those responsible for it will face justice over their actions.  However, few people are looking below the surface.  There's more to this than you'd think.

First, Hamas has for years - no, for decades - used aid organizations and convoys as cover for its own movements.  This is beyond dispute.  Even worse, many of those aid organizations and their staff are openly partisan in their position, siding with Hamas and against Israel.  Indeed, after the October terrorism atrocities against Israel, it's known that UNRWA staff and aid workers actually assisted in holding some hostages prisoner and guarding them!  Those allegations cover almost all aid organizations in Gaza, and there's more than abundant evidence to prove them.  That being the case, you might say that any aid organization there - no matter how trustworthy and neutral it may actually be - starts out, as far as Israel is concerned, under a cloud of suspicion.  It's not a case of being regarded as innocent until proven guilty.  Rather, the assumption is that it's guilty unless and until it's proven innocent - and there won't be a lot of effort from Israel to prove that organization's innocence.  They've seen it too often.

Second, after the Israeli invasion of Gaza last year, Hamas continued to deliberately use aid vehicles and convoys to move its armed forces from place to place;  to resupply them;  and to move hostages to more secure areas to prevent Israel from freeing them.  This is beyond dispute.  There's video evidence of Hamas doing all those things;  indeed, there's video evidence of Hamas launching weapons (anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, bombardment rockets, etc.) from the premises of aid organizations, hospitals, etc.  Again, Israel has become accustomed to this, and now regards such premises as automatically suspect.

I don't blame them.  In their shoes, I'd have done the same thing - and, in another part of the world where I fought in a different war, that's exactly what I did, and experience seldom proved me wrong.  The amount of foreign "humanitarian" aid we found in the possession of terrorists - sometimes feeding and supporting entire terrorist base camps - was staggering.  (Do some reading about the role of, say, Norwegian People's Aid, and see for yourself.  That's just one of many organizations that were involved, including Oxfam, the Red Cross, and other very big names in the aid field.)  The concept of "neutrality" was conspicuous by its absence among most of the aid organizations we encountered.  Israel is experiencing precisely the same thing.

That reality does not excuse the strike that killed those seven aid workers, and I'm not trying to do so here.  As I've already said, I hope those responsible face justice for their actions.  However, those actions have to be viewed against a backdrop where Israel's armed forces have learned, the hard way, that any and all aid organizations are to be considered partisan rather than neutral;  where those working for them, no matter what their nationality or motivation, are to be regarded in the same way;  and where their activities are seen as potentially hostile to Israel and/or pro-Hamas, regardless of whether or not they really are either of those things.  No amount of official guidance, or standing orders, or military restrictions, can completely overcome that pre-judgment of anything that operators on the ground, conditioned by months of intensive combat, observe during the course of their duties.  Perhaps only those who've been "seasoned" by combat conditions can understand that.  Those who've never experienced that stress probably can't.

I'm pretty sure that the operator(s) who fired and guided the missiles that killed those aid workers were convinced, in their own mind, that they'd detected Hamas members and/or sympathizers dropping off supplies (which might be food or medicines, but might also include weapons) to terrorists.  Hamas has used ambulances to do precisely that on previous occasions, and aid convoys and shipments too, so this would be nothing new.  The fact that the charity in question had informed Israel of this movement, and its vehicles were broadcasting their identity and location, makes precisely no difference where such suspicions are concerned.  The ambulances and aid vehicles Hamas had previously used to distribute supplies had been doing exactly the same thing.  In a very real sense, part of the responsibility for the deaths of those seven aid workers lies with Hamas for making such activities automatically suspicious in the eyes of the Israeli military.  If I'd been on duty that night, watching for enemy movement in my sector, I'd have presumed that too.  I'd have been pre-conditioned to do so by my enemy's own previous actions.

I think that's why those seven aid workers died.  They were in a place where it was difficult to move around safely at the best of times, and in the wartime conditions that now prevail there, it's actively dangerous.  I'm not going to say they should not have been there - that was their own choice, and I honor their courage in being willing to put their lives on the line for what they believed in - but by being there, they made the choice to put themselves in danger.  Tragically, that danger caught up with them.  It should not have done so . . . but it did.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is belligerent, defensive, not inclined to cut aid organizations and international opinion any slack.  I think there's much about him to dislike;  but, in this instance, he's correct to say bluntly that "It happens in war".  It does.  It's happened in almost any war you care to name, including wars fought by US forces, who have been in the past as guilty of targeting innocent aid workers in other countries as Israel is today in Gaza.

May those who died rest in peace.  May their sins be forgiven them, and their compassion for their fellow human beings be rewarded;  and may their families and co-workers receive what comfort they may.  May justice be done for their deaths, and may the example of their deaths help to prevent - or, at least, minimize - such tragedies in future.  Nevertheless, don't see this as a deliberate, planned massacre by Israel of aid workers.  I think it's simply the overwhelming realities "on the ground" in Gaza overriding discretion and other potential explanations.

If I'd been in those drone operators' shoes, I might have pulled the trigger myself.  In another war, on another continent, based on what I knew in that place at that time, I had to make similar snap operational decisions.  I'll never know for sure (in this life, at any rate) whether they were the right ones.

Peter

Ladies, are you tired of your husband?  There's getting divorced, and then there's . . .

(Click either image for a larger view.)

Given the casualty rate among Ukrainian service personnel, that might be regarded as the equivalent of spousal murder!  Divorce, Ukrainian style???

Peter

Many people were surprised when the US Army cancelled its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program last month.  However, those who'd been following the battlefield performance of helicopters in the Russia-Ukraine conflict were less so.  Following the decision, there's been a lot of speculation about the way ahead for the US Army, and for other nations.  Flight Global observes:

“We are learning from the battlefield – especially in Ukraine,” army chief of staff General Randy George said as the FARA requirement was cancelled on 8 February. “Aerial reconnaissance has fundamentally changed. Sensors and weapons mounted on a variety of unmanned systems and in space are more ubiquitous, further reaching, and more inexpensive than ever before.”

Rather than continue to plough billions of dollars into the FARA project, the service instead has opted to “rebalance its aviation modernisation investments across new and enduring platforms”.

. . .

For FARA especially, the army envisioned a platform that would capable of operating low and fast. Such traits would enable the service to keep its aircraft and personnel out of harm’s when facing advanced ground-based air-defence systems and man-portable weapons.

Yet to be flown, the FARA candidates – Bell’s 360 Invictus and Sikorsky’s Raider X – were designed to meet a performance requirement of at least 180kt (333km/h) ... Instead, the service will continue to employ the Apache for such tasks, in concert with assets including a future tactical uncrewed aircraft system (FTUAS) and so-called air-launched effects (ALEs) ... The service has already performed trials involving the Black Hawk deploying Anduril Industries’ Altius-600 UAS. Such a system could be employed as an ALE, extending platform reach by providing surveillance, electronic warfare capability or kinetic effect.

The army will later this year also begin fielding Rafael’s Spike NLOS long-range air-to-surface missile with its V6-standard AH-64Es. The weapon has a precision strike capability against fixed and moving targets from a maximum range of 27nm (50km).

“There are a lot of countries interested in the integration of Spike NLOS for Apache ‘Echo’,” Rafael says, pointing to lessons learned from the war in Ukraine. “Everybody is looking for stand-off [range], since the threat is much greater than it used to be.”

Questions remain around the complex task of managing airspace congestion and deconflicting assets in an era where manned rotorcraft will operate in the same battlespace – and in many cases at the same altitude – as multiple UAS and ALEs.

There's more at the link.

In the light of the last paragraph above, I find the article's references to the Altius-600 and Spike NLOS weapons intriguing.  Both of the latter aren't exactly UAV's, and aren't exactly missiles;  they can both be "handed over" to guidance from different platforms, loiter over an area in reconnaissance mode (in the Spike's case, looking for targets), and generally make a longer-term nuisance of themselves in areas where the helicopter that launched them might not be able to survive enemy fire.  We're seeing "crossover" technology in action, where UAV's and missiles are less distinct from each other, more dual-purpose and flexible.

In that light, it's obvious why FARA was canned.  Even at higher speeds, a 180-knot helicopter simply can't cut it over a battlefield saturated with anti-aircraft missiles capable of ten times that speed or more.  It's too big and slow a target, comparatively speaking.  It would do no better than existing helicopters - so why not keep the latter, and save money by not developing the former?  It's far more difficult to detect much smaller ALE's and missiles, and much harder to shoot them down, so it makes sense to let them handle the well-defended battlefield airspace and treat the helicopter as a sensor integration and launching platform.

However, this gives rise to another question.  If helicopters have to adapt to that role, what about tanks?  I don't think we've seen the end of the tank, but its role on the battlefield may change, making it too a sensor integration and launching platform for other weapons - not a primary weapon in itself.  Nobody knows right now, but I'd hate to be a tank crew on a modern battlefield.  Video footage from Ukraine shows why.

It's almost impossible to evade detection by such a drone, particularly when there are dozens, even hundreds of them saturating a battle space.  A helicopter, or even multiple helicopters, could never achieve such saturation coverage - it would be far too expensive to buy that many helicopters, and every time one was shot down, the loss of its highly trained crew and an extremely costly machine would drain defense budgets.

I'm glad my soldiering days are done.  I suspect the battlefields of the future will be far more automated, and probably far more lethal.

Peter