Bring The HEAT

"...should we not inquire if America sees its military clearly?"

We hear endlessly that the solution to the so-called "civil-military divide" is to make the military more like  civilian culture.   And that whatever "divide" exists is somehow more the military's fault than anyone else's.  We are surrounded by such assertions, even from the mouths of senior officers.  The President of the Naval War College makes no bones about "normalizing" the institution responsible for preserving and advancing the intellectual and warfighting consciousness of the United States Navy, as if Brown University must educate Naval Officers about how to fight and win America's wars at sea.  

Such assertions have seemed to me to be much more the stuff of political claptrap than the astute observations of people who have fought and studied war.  It always seemed to me to be a deliberate effort to erode the warrior ethos and the culture of a military fighting force.  That "traditions of things endured, and things accomplished, such as regiments hand down forever" is merely toxic masculinity and must be stamped out.  Over at the Washington Examiner, Michael Ferguson writes an op-ed piece that makes the point superbly, far better than I ever have.  

Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan, published a May 2017 article in The Nation suggesting pop star Ariana Grande's philosophy of open-armed inclusion might deter Islamic State more effectively than Secretary of Defense James Mattis' pugnacious strategy of envelopment, isolation, and annihilation. Cole describes Mattis, an erudite warrior-scholar, as symptomatic of a reckless military culture that creates terrorists.

Behold, the push for the female infantryman, or artilleryman, or tanker.  Because all-male units are "hypermasculine".   And, well, GIRL POWER!  Never mind what veterans of ground combat in many wars have cautioned.  Ignore Captain Kate Petronio's voice of experience in trying to keep up with men in harsh and unforgiving environments.    Or the numerous studies that told us everything we already knew.  Except that Ferguson tells us again about the supposed "changing nature of war".

Subjective notions of social propriety, however well-intentioned, will not change the fixed identity of ground warfare. It is a brutally masculine and inherently violent enterprise. Warrior culture serves as a utilitarian mechanism that not only allows our troops to ignore their instincts of self-preservation and rush toward gunfire, but also steel their minds to the psychological rigors of armed conflict. Stigmatizing this culture by making it a problem to be “fixed” instead of a core principle in the combat conditioning process is, for the men and women who will fight tomorrow’s war, a dangerous game indeed.

But not dangerous to Ellen Haring, or Juan Cole, or DACOWITS.  Or the President of the Naval War College, for that matter.  Because "lean-in circles" happen a long way from the furnace of combat.  URR Here.

 

H/T RMH

 

So Long, Concrete Bob

Blackfive posted on the loss of a Big. Damn. Hero.  

Bob championed, I mean CHAMPIONED, veteran causes.  His work on behalf of veterans raised tons of money, awareness and gave vets and their families hope.  Of all people, Concrete Bob brought a sense of normalcy to people whose lives had changed dramatically.  Bob would hear of someone in need and immediately reach out to his network to find a way to help.  He saved lives.  Because that’s what Concrete Bob does.

Big. Damn. Hero.

Indeed he was.  Always giving his time and work to Veterans' causes, like "Feed the Troops".  Worth the whole read.  And a hand salute.   Sorry for the late word on this, but life and work preclude the perusal of the milblogs as I once had.

URR here.

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.)

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.  

Argentine Submarine ARA San Juan Confirmed Lost

Very sad news to hear for anyone who has made a living plying "the old grey widowmaker".  ARA San Juan S-42 is now reported as being lost, with no sign of survivors from the crew of 40.  Initially, reports were that she was having communications issues, but would continue her mission.  She was not an antique boat by any means, being of the German-built TR-1700 design and having been commissioned in 1985.  She is a modern, capable diesel boat, with 30-days' endurance and a submerged speed greater than 25 knots.  San Juan underwent refit, and was modernized not long ago, being in the yard from 2008-2012.  

Now comes the search for survivors.  But those are some inhospitable waters off Patagonia.

A total of 13 ships and six aeroplanes are braving strong winds and high waves over an area of 66,000 sq km (25,500 sq miles) more than 400 km (250 miles) east of the bay of San Jorge off the coast of Patagonia in southern Argentina.

And the US Navy, as is virtually always the case, is lending a big hand in the form of MPRA, providing P-8 Poseidon aircraft, aircrew, and ground crew.

Prayers for those aboard, and for their families.  URR here.

What is a woman that you forsake her, 

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, 

To go with the old grey Widow-maker? 

-RK

 

 

I'll Just Leave This Here. You're Welcome.

 

H/T to Weena, the birthday girl.  URR here.

 

The Patriots Lost on Sunday

...and lost big.  

Sixteen of their number, players James White, Alan Branch, Brandin Cooks, Devin McCourty, , Lawrence Guy, Trey Flowers, Elandon Roberts, Duron Harmon, Jonathan Jones, Deatrich Wise, Johnson Bademosi, Adam Butler, Malcom Brown, Malcolm Butler, Stephone Gilmore, and Jordan Richards, chose to intentionally show disrespect to our flag and our country by kneeling in protest during the National Anthem.  What were they protesting?  Racial injustice, supposedly.  (You see, it is considered de rigueur by the far-left to denigrate the United States and everything about it, because in their views it fails to be the perfect utopia they have constructed in their heads.) 

Of course, most of this was done in response to President Trump's pointed remarks condemning such behavior, in which he called for NFL owners to fire players who showed such disrespect (former QB Colin Kaepernick first started this crap in its current form).  While Trump used questionable wisdom in making his remarks (he is the President, not a candidate), and while it is certainly true that such protest is legal free expression, the players kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem of the freest nation in the history of mankind, in order to protest "racial injustice", are rich, spoiled, and ignorant hypocrites.  

If "black lives matter" so damned much, why haven't those sixteen players gone into Chicago or Baltimore or St. Louis and employed some of that self-congratulatory courage to put an end to the gang and drug violence, and the overwhelming cause of deaths of young blacks.  Which is, of course, being murdered by other blacks.  Nearly every black person murdered in this country is killed by another black person.  To the tune of 93%.  Blacks are, according to the Justice Department, responsible for better than half of the murders committed in this country between 1980 and 2008, despite being slightly less than 12% of the population during that time.  Self-described "team leader" Devin McCourty?  You go first.  Put up or shut up.  

You see, the men and women who serve the country and the flag you protest while making your millions, do just those sorts of things.  They go into places that are terribly dangerous and they risk their lives every day to defend the innocent.   Save me the bullshit about this not being about money, either.  The sixteen players that showed such disrespect?  They are paid more, on average, as INDIVIDUALS (not counting endorsements) every month than a USMC Rifle Platoon earns in that same month in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Nearly twice as much, in fact.  For playing a game the rest of us played for the love of it.  Perhaps one of those sixteen could use his millions to fly to Sangin and tell the Lance Corporal walking a combat patrol in the 110-degree heat all about his "white privilege".  

Were I to possess a magic wand, I would wave it over the sixteen assholes mentioned above.  Then, they could learn about real discrimination.  Some would become Copts in Egypt, being burned alive inside their Church by the same Muslim Brotherhood that Barack Obama invited to the State Department over and over again.  Or they could suddenly find themselves as ethnic Kurds in Saddam's Iraq, seeing  themselves and wives and children buried alive by the Iraqi security forces.  Or they could be ethnic Poles, enslaved and starving, being worked to death in an Arbeitslager in Germany or a Gulag in the Soviet Union.  Or an Armenian without food or water or hope, on the death march across the Syrian desert.  Then, perhaps, they could have a taste of what hate and discrimination truly is.  But none of them know, not even a little.  Instead, they play a game for great deal of money and are treated like celebrities, simply because they possess physical talents given them by God.  

As for owner Robert Kraft, fuck you.  You are supposed to be the adult in the room.  When those players wear that uniform, in that stadium, they work for YOU.  They show such disrespect to our flag and our Anthem because you condone and approve of it.  Your players are not "intelligent" or "thoughtful".  They are ignorant, arrogant, spoiled children.  If they were intelligent and thoughtful, they would understand, in some small way, that they should kiss the ground in front of them, and thank their God they were born into this time and this place.   Into the freest nation ever on earth, bought and paid for by those who fought and died for their liberties, to end slavery and oppose tyranny.  None of those terrible things mentioned above will happen to your players, because better people than they will lay down their lives to prevent it.  Men and women for whom the flag and Anthem your players have shown such contempt for represents anything but injustice. 

The cascade of boos from people who paid their hard-earned money for a ticket yesterday showed that they understand, even if your players don't.  One would think you might have the spine to teach them.  Or tell them.  Stand your asses up and respect your country and your flag.  But you don't have that courage or that spine.   

The score of the game was immaterial.  The Patriots lost.  Perhaps they should consider a name change for the franchise.  URR here.  

 

"God is with us all this day"

September 4th is the 50th anniversary of the death of Lieutenant Vincent R. Capodanno, CHC, USN.  He died while ministering to the wounded of Mike Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines in the Que Son Valley.   Nicknamed "The Grunt Padre", Fr. Capodanno was a revered and beloved figure to the Marines to whom he ministered.  The Marine Corps Association published a superb 2011 article about this remarkable man of courage and faith.   As did the Catholic website The Word Among Us.  

Soon after landing, Capodanno’s unit was hit hard by a force of nearly two thousand North Vietnamese. As the Marines came over the crest of a hill, they were bombarded with mortar shells and automatic weapons fire. “We’re being wiped out!” one platoon radioed back. “There are wounded and dying all around.”Hearing the message, the chaplain ran to their aid. He went back and forth, bringing in wounded men and giving Last Rites to the dying. Even though hit twice—once in the face and also in the right hand—he continued to look for wounded, telling them, “Jesus said, ‘Have faith. Jesus is the truth and the life.’”

One of the men he helped was Ray Harton, who was bleeding heavily and feared that he was going to die. Then he looked up and saw Capodanno. “I can’t explain it, but when he touched me and I heard his voice, I had a calming feeling that I have never had before or since.”Capodanno reassured Harton that “God is with us all this day,” and blessed him with his still intact left hand.

Then a wounded corpsman screamed in pain, and Capodanno ran to help. As he knelt there, a burst of machine-gun fire killed both men instantly. One of the soldiers who brought in Capodanno’s body hours later said, “He had a smile on his face, and his eyelids were closed as if asleep or in prayer.” 

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as Chaplain of the 3d Battalion, in connection with operations against enemy forces. In response to reports that the 2d Platoon of M Company was in danger of being overrun by a massed enemy assaulting force, Lt. Capodanno left the relative safety of the company command post and ran through an open area raked with fire, directly to the beleaguered platoon. Disregarding the intense enemy small-arms, automatic-weapons, and mortar fire, he moved about the battlefield administering last rites to the dying and giving medical aid to the wounded. When an exploding mortar round inflicted painful multiple wounds to his arms and legs, and severed a portion of his right hand, he steadfastly refused all medical aid. Instead, he directed the corpsmen to help their wounded comrades and, with calm vigor, continued to move about the battlefield as he provided encouragement by voice and example to the valiant marines. Upon encountering a wounded corpsman in the direct line of fire of an enemy machine gunner positioned approximately 15 yards away, Lt. Capodanno rushed a daring attempt to aid and assist the mortally wounded corpsman. At that instant, only inches from his goal, he was struck down by a burst of machine gun fire. By his heroic conduct on the battlefield, and his inspiring example, Lt. Capodanno upheld the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the cause of freedom.

The Knox-class frigate USS Vincent R. Capodanno  (FF-1093) was commissioned in 1973.  While aboard USS Miller (FF-1091) I went to sea alongside Capodanno in the summer of 1983.   (She was sold to Turkey in the mid-1990s and served until a few years ago.)  

Father Capodanno is under consideration for canonization as a Catholic Saint, whose life was lived with "heroic virtue".   The Marines of Mike 3/5 on that hot September morning in the Que Son Valley might be able to answer that.  Whatever the decision, Lt Vincent R. Capodanno died a hero's death, fifty years ago this day.  

URR here.

Controversy Surrounding Nolan's "Dunkirk"

You knew this would happen.  Christopher Nolan's recently-released World War II film Dunkirk has drawn heavy criticism from the French, and ridicule from the Russians.  The French, of course, object to the "writing out" of the heroism of the French forces who defended the pocket which allowed the massive evacuation to succeed.  And to the lack of mention, apparently (I have NOT seen the film yet, so none o' youse bastids spoil it for me!) of the more than 100,000 French soldiers evacuated along with about 310,000 Tommies which constituted the vast bulk of the British Expeditionary Force.  

That the film would come under criticism is both instructive and expected.  (Which is a step up from the average American's understanding of the Second World War, even the American chapters.)  But I have little sympathy for the French and their complaints.  While it is undoubtedly true that several tens of thousands of French soldiers fiercely defended the shrinking salient, had France and her massive military been anywhere near ready for modern war, doctrinally, mentally, and spiritually, there never would have been a Dunkirk.  The expectation that Great Britain owed them the expenditure of the bulk of her young men in uniform in a hopeless gesture once the Wehrmacht had overrun most of northern France is both absurd and typically French.  The 120,000 or so French soldiers rescued from the beaches were carried on British ships and craft, beneath air cover provided by the RAF and its precious remaining fighters.   And when they got to England, they were re-equipped with British, and then American, arms and equipment.   

As for the Russians, terming the film a "celebration of British cowardice" is about as disingenuous as it gets.  Stalin's Soviet regime, having murdered the brains and competence of the Red Army's Officer Corps in the Great Purges, expended its soldiers in futile, foolish, costly, bumbling disasters in 1941.  Should the British have kept the BEF on the continent to be captured by the Germans?  One would think perhaps the Russians think so, judging from their track record in July-October 1941, where the Wehrmacht captured nearly 2.7 MILLION Soviet soldiers in the great encirclements at Kiev, Smolensk, Briansk, Vyazma, and smaller cauldrons before the cold weather and Hitler's indecisiveness caused BARBAROSSA to grind to a halt.  So perhaps the Russians should be reminded of the callous and wasteful stupidity with which they squandered the lives of their soldiers, as a response to criticism of Britain.

The British Expeditionary Force suffered some 70,000 casualties fighting for France in the six weeks between 10 May and 25 June 1940.  With the concomitant losses of precious aircraft, tanks, vehicles, artillery pieces, supplies and equipment.  When England stood alone following France's capitulation, she did so with much of her ability to defend herself rusting away on the beaches and battlefields of Northern France.  For which the French (the government, at least) remain somewhat less than grateful, to the surprise of nobody.   Which is why General Swartzkopf's words in 1990 rang so true.  He wondered why we would count on the French in Desert Storm.  Because, after all, they didn't even help us kick the Germans out of France, why would they lift a finger to help kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait?

Perhaps, as Max Hastings relates, 

'The French will have to make their own film if they want their national story properly told.' 

But rather than do that, they expect others to do it for them, and then they'll likely complain about it when they don't like the result.   Here's an idea, then.  Next time?  Be ready for war.  And then fight like your country and your freedom depend upon it.  Because it does.   URR here.

Bodies of Seven US Sailors Found in Flooded Compartments on Fitzgerald After Collision

URR here with an update on the collision and report of the missing sailors.  Fitzgerald was struck near midships on the starboard side, the bow of the Philippine-flagged container ship doing a great deal of topside and underwater damage.   The damage below the waterline was severe, and the picture above (from MSNBC) shows Fitzgerald in Yokosuka, with a very pronounced list to starboard.  Most of the flooded compartments appear to be berthing spaces.  The seven sailors were found in those flooded compartments.  

Commander 7th Fleet VADM Joe Aucoin called the efforts of the crew to control the flooding and save the ship "heroic", while TF 70 Commander RADM Charles Williams praised the "extraordinary courage" of the sailors.   This should be a reminder to everyone that service at sea is a very dangerous occupation, and there are a hundred ways to get killed on any given day aboard ship, even in peacetime.  Kipling called the sea "the old gray widow maker" (through the mouth of  Danish sailor's wife), as true a description as there ever has been.   Prayers to the families of those sailors, and to their shipmates.  And to everyone who plies the world's oceans in gray hulls for the defense of liberty.

Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arms hath bound the restless wave,

Who bidst the mighty ocean deep, 

Its own appointed limits keep.

O, hear us when we cry to thee,

For those in peril on the sea.