Bring The HEAT

M1TP2

 

 

World of Warships- Task Force Whiskey Dominates in Clan Battles

Clan Battles are very often quick and brutal knife fights. We won four out of five engagements last night, including this one where we simply dominated TF3.

 

 

Logbooks for SWOs?

Via USNI:

There are many useful and necessary discussions ongoing about the state of readiness in the Navy’s surface fleet. One piece in a solution could be borrowed from naval aviators: keep detailed individual log books.

While serving in command of a destroyer, my new strike group commander, Rear Admiral Mark Guadagnini, started his tour asking why surface warfare officers (SWOs) do not keep log books. The cheap answer was that our professional requirements were different than those of an aviator—pier landings for a ship cannot be graded as arrested landings for aircraft. Ship evolutions are a team sport; aviation logs are for individuals.

Admiral Guadagnini asked me (in the manner a flag officer asks a commander) to begin keeping logs for my officers during an extended under-way period. We had to be creative about what to measure, because there only was one planned unmooring/mooring and no under-way replenishments (unreps).

We tracked contact reports made, radio hails, deck-landing qualifications—anything where a metric could be applied. Little of what we measured mattered or was useful in determining a watchstander’s effectiveness. The value was in the second- and third-order effects that came from discussions with my watchstanders. That was when I discovered how much or little bridge experience my department head tactical action officers had in their division officer tours. I realized my officers had no idea how many special evolutions they had done—nor could I recall the same for myself. I also realized that if I did not make sure they were capable bridge watchstanders as department heads, a decade or more would pass between their last sea details as a division officers and their next in command.

Go read the rest of it. 

This strikes me as a pretty good idea. We have a few blackshoes here, and I'd like to hear your thoughts, particularly,  what should be included in such a logbook. 

The Near-Extinction of the British Dreadnoughts, 1921-28

In August of 1914, as war unexpectedly loomed over both sides of the English Channel, the Royal Navy was unquestionably the most modern and powerful force ever to ply the world's oceans.  Though challenged over the previous decades by an upstart Imperial Germany for maritime dominance of the Baltic and North Seas, in 1914 it was still the Union Jack which flew at the top of the mast of world naval power.  

The famous postcards depicting the Royal Navy Fleet Review in July of 1914 showed most (but not all) of the twenty-three dreadnought battleships and nine battle cruisers then in commission.   (Also shown were the 40 obsolescent pre-dreadnought battleships commissioned between 1896 and 1908.)  Not shown, of course, were the ten additional dreadnought battleships and five battle cruisers nearing completion, each more modern and far more powerful than their namesake.

The dreadnought battleship in 1914 was considered rightly the ultimate measuring stick of a nation's sea power.   The potential of such ships, individually and in squadrons or even fleets, to wreak destruction on an enemy fleet, seemed without limit.  But their immense cost, both to build and operate, increased the asymmetry of the means by which these "castles of steel", as Churchill's called them, might be destroyed.   The evolution of the torpedo from a short-range nuisance to a long-range ship-killer, and the concomitant development of ocean-going ships and submarines on which they would be employed, accelerated apace with the evolution of the dreadnought battleships.  And that old nemesis, the naval mine, remained a very vexing problem.  

In the course of the Great War, the dreadnought, both in its battleship and battlecruiser incarnation, proved both a fulfillment of its awesome potential, and a disappointment.   In the Falklands in December 1914, two RN battlecruisers destroyed Graf von Spee's Südseegeschwader in a running fight, without damage to themselves, despite abysmally poor British gunnery.   At Scarborough and Hartlepool, the High Seas Fleet bombardment presaged the possible destructive power of long-range artillery against cities and towns.  The Battle of Jutland, though a bitter disappointment and tactical reverse for the Royal Navy, was very much a strategic victory.  The outcome decisively determined that the High Seas Fleet would not be able to loosen the Royal Navy stranglehold that was slowly starving Germany.    However, the Allied naval effort at Gallipoli to break the domination of the Turkish forts over the Dardanelles was an utter failure, and highlighted the limitations of dreadnought power, and their vulnerability to mines and torpedoes.  

When the war ended in November 1918 as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had begun, Great Britain was bloodied, exhausted, and economically prostrate.  With the High Seas Fleet interned at Scapa Flow, and the Austro-Hungarian Navy reduced by combat loss to insignificance in the Adriatic, the only other powerful navies on the globe were those of the United States, France, and Japan, all British allies.  It was clear that retaining the massive wartime Royal Navy was not sustainable.   Additionally, technological developments in fire control, gun power, armor plate composition and distribution, propulsion, and watertight integrity had accelerated ever faster since 1906, when HMS Dreadnought had made the world's capital ships obsolete at a stroke.   Dreadnought herself, as well as her immediately succeeding classes of dreadnoughts, were hopelessly outdated, no match for the newer and more powerful "super-dreadnoughts" which were faster, better protected, and capable of accurate very long-range fire with 15-inch guns.  

The Royal Navy had lost five dreadnoughts during the war.  HMS Audacious had struck a mine in the Irish Sea not long after the war began.  At Jutland, three of Beatty's battlecruisers had fallen victim to magazine explosions resulting from German fire.  And HMS Vanguard had in 1917 suffered an internal explosion while in port.   Not long following the armistice, the dissolution of the Royal Navy's battle line began.   The older dreadnoughts were almost immediately decommissioned or placed in reserve, and were soon  sold for scrap or otherwise tagged for disposal.   Others of some combat value were retained for a few years, a handful were employed as training ships, but these also passed quickly out of commission and to the shipbreakers.

Between 1921 and 1928, an astounding twenty-three Royal Navy dreadnoughts were disposed of, representing more than half a million tons of warship strength.   One, HMS Canada, was sold to Chile (her original destination when impressed by the British in 1914).  Another, HMS Monarch, was disposed of as a gunnery target.   The other 21 were scrapped.  Dreadnought herself had been in service for just thirteen years.  Two others, HMS Agincourt and HMS Erin, were but eight years old. 

I will note here that the Washingon Naval Treaty of 1922 is often credited as the impetus for the mass dismantling of Britain's dreadnought fleet. This is not an accurate portrayal.  The agreement was instead a boon to the Exchequer, who was searching frantically for ways to stanch the economic bleeding.  The Washington Treaty provided a justification for the disposal of a great number of capital ships of questionable combat use, and the cancellation of those battleships still on the ways determined to be in excess of Royal Navy requirements for the post-war world.  While it is true that the 1922 treaty indeed stifled future construction for more than a decade, the vast majority of the decisions to dispose of the Grand Fleet's dreadnoughts had been made before the Washington Conference had even begun.  

The massed scrapping of Royal Navy dreadnoughts did have some very positive effects for Britain's shipbuilders. Shipbreaking companies at Faslane, Inverkeithing, Troon, Clydebank, Rosyth, and many other locations, kept skilled work forces employed, and shipyards and equipment in active use.  The market for high-quality scrap steel also provided an inject of capital into a British economy desperately short of liquidity.

The list of Royal Navy dreadnoughts disposed of between 1921 and 1928 is long and impressive.  Such a collection would have been the strongest force of capital ships in the world in 1914.  The original HMS Dreadnought, plus Bellerophon, Superb, Temeraire, St Vincent, Collingwood, Neptune, Colossus, Hercules, Orion, Conqueror, Thunderer, King George V, Ajax, Agincourt, Erin, Inflexible, Indomidable, New Zealand, Lion, and Princess Royal all were broken up.  Canada was sold to Chile, Monarch sunk as a gunnery target.   Mounted on these battleships and battlecruisers had been a staggering 128 12-inch and 86 13.5-inch guns, with a total broadside weight of more than 212,000 pounds.  

Following the decommissioning of the four Iron Dukes (and HMS Tiger), to comply with the London Treaty of 1930, the Royal Navy retained just fifteen dreadnoughts, the five Queen Elizabeths, the five Revenges, the two 16-inch post-war Nelsons, and battlecruisers Renown, Repulse, and Hood.   

At Jutland, it was the concentrated fire of 24 Grand Fleet dreadnoughts, steaming in line-ahead, creating the vision of "a horizon aflame", that had had such a powerful psychological effect on the sailors of the High Seas Fleet.  It was that image, and a sense that they had escaped the noose of certain destruction once, that played no small part in the mutinies in Kiel and the Jade in 1918, when they were ordered once again to face the Grand Fleet in a last, sacrificial gesture.     

Of Jellicoe's fearsome Jutland battle line, by 1931 only Royal Oak remained, along with the four veteran battleships of Evan-Thomas's 5th Battle Squadron.   The cutting torch had accomplished what no other force on the world's oceans could manage, the dismantling of the might of the Royal Navy, and the near extinction of the British Dreadnought.   (URR here.)

Wingtip Vortex and Wake Turbulence

All wings produce a vortex airflow at the tip. The bigger the wing, the bigger the vortex. Interestingly, the slower the plane, the bigger the vortex as well.   The vortex tends to wash outward from the aircraft. But under certain circumstances, a slight crosswind can cause a vortex  to "hover"  over a runway  or approach path. When we discuss the hazard of wake turbulence in aviation operations, that's what we're talking about. 

Ordinarily, such a vortex is invisible. But if you use a smoke system on the wingtips...

Women in the Infantry

The Army Times has a piece on women attending One Station Unit Training initial entry training to  become Infantry soldiers in the United States Army.  

Of course, the leadership at Ft. Benning is all about how they're adjusting, making it work, etc. And of course, no one wants to say women in the Infantry is a bad thing. 

But to give Army Times credit, they do list some of the reasons why allowing women in the Infantry is stupid. 

Commanders are adjusting to new concentrations of injuries among the women. While male recruits often get ankle sprains and dislocated shoulders, women are prone to stress fractures in their hips. In the latest class, six of the seven injured women in Charlie Company had hip stress fractures.

Emphasis mine. Stress fractures of the hips are not minor injuries. That's enough to sideline someone for at least a month, and usually two. Further, it's an injury that will almost certainly reoccur under similar circumstances. And take my word for it, the lightest rucksack march you'll ever do is in basic training. In a real unit, the loads only go up. 

We're grooming these women to suffer injuries at rates far beyond those of men, and with longer lasting consequences than a sprained ankle. We're going to see these women with service connected disability claims draining the public fisc such that no matter how hard they tried to serve honorable, they instead represent a net drain on the force. 

And when they are discharged due to injury or failure to complete training, at a rate twice of that for men, the Army has to recruit someone to replace them. And that delay means a deployable unit will go to war shorthanded. 

It is stupid. And everyone knows it. But none dare speak the truth. 

 

Issues with the OA-X

Via War on the Rocks

Military aviation circles are awash in the glow of the competition for the coveted Air Force contract for the OA-X, a cheap to acquire and cheap to operate counter insurgency aircraft. Some see the OA-X as a cost effective and more attenuated alternative to provide close air support (CAS) to ground troops. However, the success of OA-X will inherently be limited as it was conceived to support the U.S. military as it was operating nine years ago in Afghanistan. The world has since moved on, and warfare with it. The first limitation to the OA-X is due to the fact that the uncontested airspace which defined our air war over Afghanistan and Iraq is quickly disappearing, increasing the risk to its pilots. Secondly, its tactical abilities cannot overcome the political limitations which will reduce its use on the battlefield. Lastly, the manning shortfall in the Air Force will be exacerbated by a massive OA-X buy and not relieve pressure on its pilot shortage as advertised.

Major Chitwood raises some very salient points. 

My thoughts? First, I think there very much is still a place in the force structure for a light attack/ISR platform. And secondly, the entire OA-X saga is a lesson in missed opportunities. Had the Air Force recognized in 2001 that such a platform would be far better suited to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than, say, F-15E Strike Eagles, they could have quickly fielded such a weapon, at minimal cost. Instead, we've exhausted the airframes not only of our strike fighters, but also our tanker fleet making circles in the sky. 

Taliban IED Factory targeted

From a couple of days ago. That's one heck of a secondary explosion. 

 

 

World of Warships- Ewok's Kraken Loss.

 

 

Colonel Wesley Fox, 43-year Marine and Recipient of the Medal of Honor, Dead at 86

Colonel Wesley Fox, one of the true legends of the Corps, has died in his birthplace of Herndon, VA, at the age of 86.  Born on 30 September 1931, Colonel Fox enlisted in the Marine Corps in August of 1950, and served two tours of duty in Korea with 3/5.  On his first tour, as a rifleman, he was wounded, and awarded a Bronze Star for bravery. 

Between Korea and Vietnam, Fox rose to the rank of First Sergeant, serving a tour as a Drill Instructor, and as a Platoon Sergeant in Force Reconnaissance.  He was commissioned in 1966, returning to Force Recon, before being assigned to command Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines.   It was with Alpha 1/9 in the A Shau Valley in February of 1969 that Wesley Fox earned our nation's highest honor for bravery.

Colonel Fox would go on to write two books, both of which should be on the shelf of any leader.  The first is Courage and Fear; A Primer, and the second is Marine Rifleman; Forty-three Years in the Corps.  

Men like Wesley Fox are leaving us in ever greater numbers.   They will be missed more than can be measured, as their courage and their honor represent values that are the subject of ridicule and derision, and have been all but drummed out of our social consciousness.  

Semper Fidelis, Colonel Fox.  We stand on the shoulders of giants, and for three generations of Marines, you were prominent among them.  

URR here.