Web and Tech

ZOMBIE TRAINS

Michael Cessna March 13, 2026

Military planning is weird. While most people view the field as planning to simply “blow stuff up and kill people“, that only makes up a vanishingly small sliver of the field. “Military planning“, as such, encompasses planning that considers what amounts to every other field that you can imagine…just with a particular focus. This is because military officers are – or were – not at all the cartoon characters they are frequently portrayed as in popular media.

As a result, composing a military plan – especially at the higher levels – usually takes into account things most civilian planners never have to think about at any scale. Case in point…

In that vein, here’s a Cold War planning problem that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: what do you do with your railroad network after the bombs fall?

While this sounds like the setup for a bad science fiction novel, planners in the Soviet Union took it with deadly seriousness – and their answer was one of the more quietly ingenious contingency programs of the entire Cold War era. They called it the “Strategic Steam Reserve“, and by the 1970’s it amounted to thousands of carefully maintained steam locomotives, pre-positioned across the length and breadth of the USSR, ready to rise from their cold storage like iron zombies to keep the country moving when everything modern had stopped working.

The Problem

To understand why this was so vital, requiring a massive diversion of money and resources, you have to understand how utterly dependent the Soviet Union was – and, in the form of modern Russia, is – on its rail network. The Trans-Siberian Railway was not merely a transportation asset…it was the central nervous system of a continent-spanning state. Break that spine, and Moscow’s control over its eastern territories, all the way to the Pacific, collapses. This was true in the 1960’s and it remains largely true of modern Russia today.

Through the 1950’s and into the 1960’s, as part of the nation’s recovery from the destruction of the Second World War, Soviet railways completed a rapid transition from steam to diesel and electric railroad systems. It was the right call operationally – diesel locomotives are faster, more fuel-efficient, and required far less infrastructure support than steam. But the transition created a new vulnerability that Soviet planners were not prepared to ignore. A nuclear exchange, or even a large-scale conventional assault on infrastructure, posed two catastrophic risks to a modernized diesel and electric network.

*View of the refinery explosion in Catano, Puerto Rico, 2009. CCA/3.0*

First, a disrupted fuel supply chain could ground diesel locomotives almost immediately. Second – and much more troubling to Soviet military planners – the later discovery that the electromagnetic pulses generated by nuclear detonations could destroy the solid-state electronics increasingly embedded in modern motive power. An electrified network with no electricity, and diesel locomotives with fried control systems, is a very expensive collection of unusable metal.

A steam locomotive, by contrast, is magnificently indifferent to electromagnetic pulses. It has no sensitive electronics to fry. It runs on fire, water, and mechanical ingenuity – technologies that were already ancient when the first Bolshevik fired up a nationalized engine in 1917. Coal works. Wood works. Siberia, as one observer noted, is covered in wood. And while contaminated surface water would be undrinkable after a nuclear exchange, it is perfectly adequate for generating steam.

The Reserve Itself

The Strategic Steam Reserve consisted of withdrawn steam locomotives maintained in working order for potential use in a national emergency. The program was structured with genuine military rigor. Locomotives were dispersed to special depots across the country – deliberately sited in rural and mountainous areas away from likely nuclear target sets. Some engines were kept indoors in controlled environments to reduce rust and degradation. Many more were simply parked wherever space existed: in yards, on sidings, in tunnels, beside forgotten branch lines.

Critically, these were not museum pieces; they were maintained as “operational assets“. Mechanics periodically fired up the engines and ran them under load. Dedicated cadres of engineers were trained in steam operations long after those skills had vanished from the mainstream railway workforce – and those specialists were deliberately kept dispersed so that a single strike couldn’t eliminate the entire knowledge base at once. The reserve was structured along military readiness standards, with some locomotives capable of being operational within 12 to 24 hours, others requiring several days of preparation, and a long-term cold storage tier beyond that.

The locomotive types kept in reserve reflected Soviet engineering pragmatism: the workhorse SO series, valued for reliability and ease of field maintenance; the powerful FD series freight locomotives; the postwar L series; and the more sophisticated P36 passenger engines. The reserve also absorbed significant numbers of captured German Kriegslokomotive Class 52 engines – over 6,000 of which had been built during the war against Germany – many of which ended up rusting in Soviet reserve lines, waiting for a call that never came.

*Steam locomotive FD20-1679 at train parade during Expo 1520 railway exhibition in 2017 on railway test circuit in Shcherbinka, Moscow, Russia. 2017 photo. Public Domain.*

Secrecy & Aftermath

The existence of the program was classified throughout the Cold War. Western intelligence had only fragmentary knowledge of the depot locations, which were kept off civilian maps. Even within the USSR, knowledge was compartmentalized, and workers assigned to the reserves were sworn to secrecy under conditions comparable to military installations. It was not until the post-Soviet years that researchers and railway enthusiasts began uncovering the remains of reserve depots, often finding locomotives still intact – heavily rusted, vandalized, sitting in forgotten sheds or overgrown sidings. Those are the source of the striking photographs of abandoned Soviet steam engines with red stars that circulate online.

The collapse of the USSR in 1991 effectively ended the program. Economic chaos, loss of strategic direction, and the privatization of the railway system meant that most reserve locomotives were either scrapped or sold off. By the time researchers began documenting what remained near cities like Roslavl, only a handful of engines survived in any condition – and the Russian government was considering scrapping those, too.

The idea was not uniquely Soviet. Sweden and Finland maintained their own strategic steam reserves during the Cold War, structured against the possibility of a Soviet invasion rather than nuclear exchange. Britain is rumored to have done the same – but despite decades of enthusiast mythology and at least one BBC Radio investigation, no evidence of an official British reserve has ever surfaced.

The Verdict

It is easy, in retrospect, to smile at the image of stolid Soviet planners earnestly cataloging steam locomotives as strategic assets while American engineers were designing MIRV warheads and advanced satellites. But their logic was sound. The Soviets were solving a real problem – how do you maintain national cohesion and logistical function in a post-nuclear environment where modern infrastructure has failed? – and they solved it with the tools available. For a nation held together by rail, the answer was to keep the old iron breathing, just in case.

The zombie trains never rolled in earnest. They quietly rotted away in their sidings while the Cold War ended around them. But the thinking behind them deserves more credit than it typically gets.

*The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To*

When Availability Beats Capability

Michael Cessna February 13, 2026

From the days of the very first aircraft carriers, like the USS Langely (CV-1), until the 2009 retirement of the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), virtually all of the aircraft carriers in the United States Navy ran on some flavor of marine diesel fuel. Beginning in 1961, however, with the advent of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the Navy began transitioning all of its new aircraft carriers to nuclear power. The benefits appeared to be clear, as the nuclear powered aircraft carrier could cruise without refueling its nuclear power plant for up to 25 years.

But, just how clear was that advantage, over the conventionally engined carriers of the past? And – much more important – what were the downsides of completely shifting to nuclear power? These question came into needle-sharp focus on January 1st, 2026.

The United States Navy began 2026 with a problem that should alarm anyone paying attention to the global security of the United States: of the current fleet of eleven aircraft carriers, exactly two were deployable – the USS Gerald Ford (CVN-78), which was the center-point of the operation against Venzuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, and the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), which was patrolling the South China Sea.

By early February, facing simultaneous crises from the sudden Iranian revolution, to the increasing instability in Communist China, the Navy emergency-scrambled two more carriers (the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) and the USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77)) to operational status — completing their Composite Training Unit Exercises COMPTUEX while already underway to their deployment zones.

Of the remaining carriers, only the USS Eisenhower (CVN-69) is undergoing “workups”, beginning the three or four month process to return to deployment. Every other nuclear carrier is either undergoing decommissioning (USS Nimitz (CVN-68)), or undergoing repair/overhaul/refueling. It is unclear exactly when a carrier other than the Eisenhower will be available for operations.

This isn’t a sign of extraordinary capability – it’s a symptom of a fleet in crisis.

The ten nuclear-powered Nimitz-class and the one Ford-class carriers represent remarkable engineering achievements. They can steam virtually forever without refueling. The USS Stennis, however, has been undergoing its mid-life nuclear refueling and overhaul since 2021 — a process now entering its fifth year. The USS Truman remains sidelined following collision damage, unable to deploy before its own – now-delayed, because there is only one refueling dock for nuclear carriers – refueling cycle. When you need carriers now, theoretical capabilities matter less than actual availability.

This brings up the uncomfortable question: what are we actually buying with nuclear propulsion for aircraft carriers?

The standard answer is “unlimited range” — carriers that never need to refuel their main engines. But carrier strike groups don’t operate in isolation. Their aircraft require JP-5 jet fuel continuously. Their escorts need bunker fuel. Even the carriers run backup diesel generators and require regular underway replenishment for aviation ordnance, food, and supplies. The nuclear reactor means the ship’s hull doesn’t need to refuel, but the mission absolutely does. The need for UNREP operations remain constant regardless of propulsion type.

Underway Replenishment (UNREP) operations in the Arabian Sea support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Pictured foreground-to-background are the USN Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN 76); the USN Military Sealift Command (MSC), Supply Class Fast Combat Support Ship USNS RAINIER (T-AOE 7) and the USN Arleigh Burke Class (Flight II) Guided Missile Destroyer (Aegis), USS McCAMPBELL (DDG 85). Undated US Navy phot by PH3 Aaron Burden, USN. Public Domain.

What nuclear propulsion does require is specialized infrastructure. Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) cycles take two to three years, normally, and demand nuclear-qualified facilities and workforce. The Navy has only one, single facility that can refuel nuclear aircraft carriers – which is why the USS Truman is currently riding at anchor, waiting for the Stennis to clear the dock, as the carrier fleet cannot use the same refueling docks as nuclear-powered submarines, due to size and configuration.

Budget cuts have also compounded the maintenance delays — the Obama administration’s sequestration-era budget reductions followed by COVID-related disruptions have created a cascading refueling backlog across the fleet. When institutional maintenance capacity is disrupted, nuclear carriers don’t degrade gracefully; they become tied to pier-side for years.

An aerial view of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN 69), right, being assisted into port at Pier No. 12 by large harbor tugs. The aircraft carrier USS AMERICA (CV 66) is tied up at the right. 1985 US Navy photo. Public Domain.

Diesel-powered carriers offered a different trade-off. Yes, they need refueling — something which is already done constantly for the rest of the carrier’s accompanying strike group. But they also eliminate multi-year RCOH cycles. Conventional powerplants can be serviced at standard shipyards around the world without nuclear certification requirements. Battle damage to diesel systems can be more easily repaired or replaced; damage to nuclear propulsion systems requires specialized facilities and extended timelines, if they are actually repairable at all – unlike World War Two, where rapid repair of severe combat damage was routinely accomplished in a few months, at most…But, as no nuclear powered carrier had yet to be seriously damaged in combat, we really have no idea if repair of a combat-damaged nuclear carrier is even possible. Construction timelines also shrink dramatically when you remove the nuclear certification requirements from the process.

The question isn’t whether nuclear carriers are impressive pieces of engineering. They are. The question is whether that impressive engineering serves strategic needs. Consider the Essex-class carriers of World War II and beyond — diesel-powered, mass-produced, and maintained in sufficient numbers to ensure availability. Twenty-four hulls provided persistent presence through Korea and Vietnam. Our current eleven-carrier nuclear fleet just demonstrated it can field four during a global crisis.

The Reagan administration’s 600-ship Navy called for fifteen carrier battle groups — emphasizing numerical presence across global theaters. President Trump has recently advocated for returning battleships to service, arguing their firepower and durability offer capabilities modern vessels lack.

Both proposals address real problems but miss the core issue: availability. Fifteen carrier groups – or eleven – mean nothing if chronic maintenance backlogs sideline half the fleet simultaneously. The proposed battleships — essentially huge missile platforms with armor — require crews of 1,500+ versus modern a destroyer’s c.300, while offering marginal advantages over “distributed lethality” concepts using existing hulls.

The actual requirement isn’t more carriers or bigger guns — it’s operational carriers and maintainable systems. Fifteen diesel-powered carriers with conventional maintenance cycles would provide far more deployable presence than fifteen nuclear carriers cycling through extended overhauls. Similarly, additional Arleigh Burke-class destroyers deliver sustained missile capacity without the proposed battleships’ manpower and maintenance burdens.

Strategic presence requires operational availability — not just impressive-looking platforms.

Ships of the U.S. Navy Pacific fleet anchored at Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, February 1945.. The aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3) is in the right middle distance. There are at least eight Essex-class carriers present. 1945 US Navy photo. Public Domain.

Form should follow function. If the function is “project American power globally during crisis,” then presence matters more than theoretical endurance. A diesel carrier that’s actually there outweighs a nuclear carrier in year five of refueling. This isn’t about going backward technologically — it’s about being operational strategically.

The Navy faces a choice: continue investing in exquisite platforms that spend years unavailable for specialized maintenance, or diversify toward simpler systems that prioritize fleet availability. The Iranian crisis and Western Pacific tensions aren’t waiting for the Stennis to complete its overhaul. Neither will the next emergency. We need carriers that can steam now, not carriers that can theoretically steam forever.

Strategic availability isn’t a compromise…And in February 2026, it’s the actual requirement.

Knees To The Breeze…?

Michael Cessna February 6, 2026

Mankind has always been fascinated by the idea of flight. The more rational thinkers realized that they had to find a way to land safely. In Europe, Leonardo Da Vinci designed a parachute – that worked – but didn’t really have a viable way to make it a “tactical system” (to borrow the modern term).

Later, in France, a balloon designed by the Montgolfier brothers was first flown successfully in 1783; luckily, the ‘aeronauts’ did not have to bail out in an emergency. In 1797, that was changed by André-Jacques Garnerin. Not exactly a “tactical” jump, but it worked.

The sight of thousands of paratroopers descending from the sky remains one of warfare’s most dramatic images. From the mass drops over Crete in 1941, and Normandy in 1944 to the 173rd Airborne’s combat jump into northern Iraq in 2003, airborne operations have captured military imagination for over eighty years. But, as anti-aircraft capabilities proliferate and modern warfare evolves, a hard question emerges: can massed parachute assaults above the battalion level still accomplish their mission in contemporary conflict, or have they become elaborate exercises in nostalgia?

A 22-aircraft “freedom launch” took place Sept. 11, 2013, at Travis Air Force Base, Calif. Seven C-17 Globemaster IIIs, 11 KC-10 Extenders and four C-5B Galaxies from the 60th Air Mobility Wing lined up in what is historically referred to as an “elephant walk,” then launched consecutively over 36 minutes to take part in Air Mobility Command missions. (U.S. Air Force photo/Ken Wright)

The last major U.S. combat jump occurred over two decades ago when the 173rd Airborne Brigade dropped onto Bashur Airfield in northern Iraq — a deliberately uncontested drop zone that faced minimal air defense threat. Since then, American paratroopers have deployed worldwide, but only as elite infantry landed by aircraft that are delivered by aircraft landing at the field, rather than jumping from aircraft in flight. This isn’t coincidence or lack of opportunity; it reflects cold calculation about what modern air defenses can do to slow-moving transport aircraft packed with paratroopers.

The tactical problem is straightforward. A C-17 or C-130 transport aircraft flying at jump altitudes — typically 800-1,250 feet — presents an ideal target for modern air defense systems. Unlike fast-moving fighters that can employ countermeasures and evasive maneuvers, transports must fly straight and level at predictable – and slow – speeds during the actual drop. Man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) like the Russian SA-24 Igla-S or American Stinger can engage targets up to 11,000 feet, well above jump altitude. More sophisticated systems like the Pantsir-S1 or Tor-M2 can simultaneously track and engage multiple aircraft, turning a mass drop into a massacre before the first paratrooper touches ground.

Historical precedent supports this concern. The 1956 Anglo-French drop on Port Said during the Suez Crisis faced minimal organized resistance and still suffered significant casualties during the drop phase. The Russian airborne assault on Hostomel Airport outside Kyiv in February 2022 — conducted by helicopter rather than parachute — was devastated by Ukrainian air defenses despite Russian air superiority claims. Transport helicopters are marginally more maneuverable than fixed-wing transports, and they still suffered catastrophic losses.

The infrastructure requirements compound the problem. A brigade-level parachute assault — roughly 3,000-4,000 personnel with equipment — requires somewhere between 40-60 transport aircraft flying in close formation. This aerial armada must be assembled, staged, and flown through potentially contested airspace to reach the drop zone. Suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) operations must precede the drop, requiring air superiority that itself demands significant resources. By the time you’ve secured the airspace sufficiently for a mass drop, you’ve likely already achieved the operational objectives that justified the drop in the first place.

The equipment limitations compound tactical vulnerabilities. Paratroopers drop with what they can carry — typically small arms, some types of crew-served weapons, and man-portable anti-tank systems. Heavy-drop platforms can deliver light vehicles like HMMWVs and 105mm howitzers, but these require separate aircraft, precise drop coordination, and recovery time before becoming operational. The U.S. M551 Sheridan light tank was specifically designed for airborne operations but proved too fragile for conventional combat and was retired in 1996. Its replacement, the Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle, won’t be air-droppable. Russia’s BMD series represents the most capable air-droppable armored vehicles globally, but even these sacrifice protection for air-transportability. This means airborne forces hit the ground significantly outgunned compared to even light mechanized forces, entirely dependent on air support and rapid linkup with heavier reinforcements. Without that linkup – or even a delayed linkup – an isolated airborne force becomes a besieged force, nearly guaranteed to be destroyed…as the British discovered at Arnhem in 1944.

Modern alternatives offer similar rapid deployment without the vulnerability. Air assault operations using helicopters provide tactical mobility with greater flexibility in landing zones and timing, the ill-planned and poorly-executed Hostomel assault notwithstanding. Air-landing operations — where aircraft actually land and offload troops — allow heavier equipment and supply delivery while reducing the time troops spend exposed during descent. Special operations forces conducting small-unit infiltrations can seize airfields for follow-on air-landing forces, the approach used successfully in Grenada and Panama.

*U.S. Army Rangers parachute into Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury. 1983 US Army photo. Public Domain.*

Yet the massed airborne capability persists. The United States maintains the 82nd Airborne Division as a ready brigade combat team capable of deploying anywhere globally within 18 hours. Russia’s Airborne Forces (VDV) number roughly 45,000 personnel organized into divisions specifically for airborne operations. France maintains the 11th Parachute Brigade, while China has expanded its own airborne corps and continues developing heavy-drop capabilities for armored vehicles.

The retention suggests these forces serve purposes beyond massed combat jumps. Airborne units provide rapid-reaction forces for contingency operations, often deploying by air-landing rather than parachute. Their light infantry organization and expeditionary culture make them ideal for quick-response scenarios. The threat of airborne operations forces adversaries to defend potential drop zones across wide areas, tying down forces and resources. And in permissive or semi-permissive environments — humanitarian operations, disaster response, non-combatant evacuation — airborne forces provide capabilities no other units match.

The answer, then, appears to be both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Against peer adversaries with modern integrated air defenses, massed parachute drops above battalion level represent unacceptable risks for uncertain gains. The operational requirements to make such drops feasible — comprehensive SEAD, air superiority, electronic warfare support — require resources that could achieve the desired objectives through less vulnerable means.

But against less sophisticated opponents, in denied areas where air-landing isn’t feasible, or in time-critical scenarios where hours matter, airborne operations retain relevance. The capability also serves as strategic deterrent and rapid-response option that justify maintaining the specialized training, equipment, and doctrine even if actual combat jumps remain rare.

The parachute remains in the arsenal, but it’s increasingly a tool for specific, narrow circumstances rather than a general-purpose solution. Sometimes, the most important capability is the one you maintain but rarely use — because its mere existence shapes adversary planning and preserves options when conventional approaches fail.

The M60 Tank’s Surprising Second Act

Michael Cessna January 30, 2026

The war in Ukraine, once again, has revived the tired old saw about the armored combat tank being “obsolete” in warfare, because – drones…and, like every other time someone said something this silly, it has been proven categorically false. Not least, in the fact that older tanks – not simply older designs, but physical vehicles that are older than their crews…and sometimes, older than the entire crew, combined.

Both Russian and Ukrainian tank crews are driving the full panoply of ex-Soviet designs long considered not simply obsolescent, but absolutely obsolete. From T-54/55‘s, T-62‘s, T-72‘s and T-80‘s, these old warhorses still grind around the modern battlefields of Ukraine in large numbers, a function of the truly massive numbers of the vehicles produced during the Cold War.

But these vehicles also still fight in battles all over the world, as most of them were exported in large numbers to anyone aligning with Soviet ideology – honest or not – or, later, any state with very modest cash reserves.

In this, the 1990-1991 Gulf War – “Operation Desert Storm” – created some fundamental misunderstandings about old armor, “brain bugs” that have metastasized over the decades, creating truly insane levels of incompetence (but we’ll talk about “Force Design 2030” in a later article). Among those were the general idea that Soviet vehicles were grossly inferior to western designs, when the reality was abysmally poor training, logistics and leadership on the Iraqi side.

The M60A3 main battle tank was considered “old” during Desert Storm; only the US Marine Corps fielded them in that conflict, when the Marine Corps still had tank units (“Force Design 2030” Delenda Est). Even with hasty add-on “reactive armor“, the -60’s were viewed as being dangerously under-armored, going hand-in-hand with its 105mm main gun, which had been replaced in its successor, the 120mm cannon of the M1 Abrams.

**Magach 6**, an Israeli-upgraded M60A1 Patton with Blazer ERA in Yad la-Shiryon Museum, Israel. 2005 photo by Bukvoed. CCA/3.0

And yet – the United States still maintains M60A3’s in “deep storage”, in places like the Sierra and Anniston Army Depots, despite parking older-model M1’s in the same storage lots.

But – why?

When the United States retired its last M60 Patton tanks from front-line service in the 1990’s, conventional wisdom suggested this Cold War workhorse would fade into history alongside other relics of the Soviet-American standoff. Instead, something curious happened: nations around the world began investing serious money into modernizing their M60 fleets rather than replacing them with newer designs. From the deserts of the Middle East to the mountains of Taiwan, the M60 has been experiencing a quiet renaissance that tells us something important about practical defense economics.

The M60 entered American service in 1960 as a counter to Soviet tank development, eventually seeing production of over 15,000 units, in various models. It fought in multiple Middle Eastern conflicts, performed credibly in Desert Storm, and became one of the most widely exported tanks in history. By most measures, it should be obsolete — after all, its basic design is now 65 years old. The M1 Abrams replaced it in U.S. service decades ago, and even the Abrams is facing questions about its age in modern warfare.

Yet in 2023, Taiwan awarded a contract worth hundreds of millions to upgrade 460 M60A3 tanks with new fire control systems, improved armor packages, and 120mm main guns. Turkey has upgraded hundreds of M60s with indigenous modifications, creating the M60T “Sabra” variant, which have seen extensive combat in Syria. Egypt operates over 1,700 M60’s with ongoing modernization programs. Israel, which originally developed many of the upgrade packages now used worldwide, continues operating upgraded M60s alongside newer Merkava tanks. Even smaller nations like Bahrain, Jordan, and Morocco maintain modernized M60 fleets.

**Magach 7**, an Israeli-upgraded M60A1 Patton with the “Sabra” package, in Yad la-Shiryon Museum, Israel. 2005 photo by Bukvoed. CCA/3.0

The economics tell the story. A new main battle tank costs anywhere from $6-9 million per unit — and that’s for Russian or Chinese models. Western tanks like the M1A2 Abrams, Leopard 2A7, or British Challenger 3 run $8-15 million each. Comprehensive M60 modernization packages, by contrast, typically cost $2-4 million per tank. For a nation maintaining a battalion of 58 tanks, that’s the difference between a $120 million upgrade program and a $400-600 million replacement program, not including the necessary retraining and new logistics chains. When you’re not facing adversaries equipped with the latest Russian or Chinese armor, that cost differential becomes compelling.

But the financial argument only explains part of the M60’s longevity. The platform offers practical advantages that newer designs sometimes sacrifice. At roughly 52 tons combat weight, the M60 can cross bridges and operate on terrain that won’t support the 70-ton M1 Abrams. Its fuel consumption, while substantial, doesn’t approach the gas-turbine Abrams’ notorious thirst. The mechanical simplicity of its diesel engine means maintenance doesn’t require the specialized expertise that more sophisticated platforms demand — a critical factor for smaller militaries with limited technical infrastructure.

Modern upgrade packages address the M60’s original shortcomings remarkably effectively. New fire control systems with thermal imaging, laser rangefinders, and digital ballistic computers bring targeting capabilities close to contemporary standards – in an environment where “close” still counts. Explosive reactive armor tiles, cage armor, and composite armor packages significantly improve survivability against modern anti-tank weapons. Some variants mount 120mm smoothbore guns — the same main armament found on current M1A2 Abrams tanks. Engine upgrades improve power-to-weight ratios. The result is a platform that, while not matching the latest MBT’s in every parameter, provides legitimate armored combat capability at a fraction of the cost.

The strategic calculus matters too. Many nations employing M60s face threats from irregular forces, not peer militaries with modern tank armies. In counterinsurgency, urban warfare, or defensive operations, an upgraded M60 provides mobile protected firepower that is perfectly adequate to the mission. Turkey’s experience in Syria against Kurdish forces demonstrated that properly supported and employed, modernized M60s remain effective in contemporary combat environments — though they also verified the main battle tank’s well-known vulnerabilities when employed without adequate infantry support or air cover.

There’s a broader lesson here about defense procurement. The endless pursuit of cutting-edge capability often produces systems too expensive to acquire in meaningful numbers, too complex to maintain, and too precious to risk in actual combat. The M60’s ongoing renaissance suggests an alternative approach: proven platforms, continuously modernized, maintained in sufficient numbers to matter operationally. It’s not glamorous, and it doesn’t win promotions for procurement officers, but it might represent more actual combat power per defense dollar than many more modern and “sexier”, alternatives.

As so-called “hybrid warfare“, drone technology, and precision fires force reconsiderations of armored combat tactics, questions about the main battle tank’s future persist. But for nations prioritizing practical capability over theoretical performance, the upgraded M60 offers a pragmatic answer: sometimes the best tank for your situation isn’t the newest one — it’s the one you can afford to field in useful numbers, while still paying your soldiers, that will continue to get the job done.

The Battleship Question

Michael Cessna November 7, 2025

Everyone thinks battleships are cool, right? Certain movies not withstanding…

When President Trump floated the idea of bringing battleships back into service, the response from the defense establishment was immediate and predictable: eye-rolling dismissal, lectures about “modern warfare,” and knowing smirks about nostalgia trumping strategy. The think tanks and defense journals lined up to explain why this was obviously impossible, impractical, and frankly embarrassing.

There’s just one problem: The more you examine the actual arguments, the less absurd it looks.

Starting with what Trump actually said, stripped of the mockery:

Modern aluminum-hulled ships are vulnerable
Guns deliver cost-effective firepower compared to missiles
Battleships demonstrated effectiveness in the Gulf War
China’s naval expansion requires a response that doesn’t bankrupt us

The “experts” immediately attacked the metallurgy comment. Aluminum doesn’t just “melt,” they said. Trump doesn’t understand materials science. Except…the U.S. Navy already agrees with him. That’s why the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers went back to steel construction in the 1980’s. The Falklands War demonstrated aluminum’s vulnerability to fire and battle damage. The 1975 USS Belknap fire drove the lesson home. The Navy’s own design decisions validate exactly what Trump said—they just said it in engineering reports instead of campaign speeches.

*USS Belknap (CG 26) after her collision with USS John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1975. US Navy photo. Public Domain.*

Now consider the actual strategic problem Western – and American – navies face: magazine depth. The Red Sea operations against Houthi drones and missiles – consuming an estimated 30 years of firing in 15 months – exposed a critical vulnerability. Modern warships carry perhaps 90-100 missiles in their Vertical Launch Systems. Once those are expended, you’re done. You’ve got a $2 billion ship that has to withdraw from the fight and spend weeks getting rearmed for anything beyond self-defense. Each Standard missile costs between $2 and 4 million. Each Tomahawk missile runs $1 and 2 million. Between October 2023 and January 2025, Navy ships fired more defensive missiles than they used in the three decades following Desert Storm. You can burn through a quarter-billion dollars in magazine capacity in a single extended engagement.

A Tactical Tomahawk Cruise Missile launches from the forward missile deck aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Farragut (DDG 99) during a 2009 training exercise. US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class L. Stiles. Public Domain.

Compare that to a 16-inch gun. Modern rocket-assisted projectiles could reach 100+ miles. Each round costs perhaps $25,000-50,000 in current dollars — less if produced at scale. An Iowa-class battleship could fire continuously for days, delivering devastating effects on shore targets, surface vessels, and even providing anti-air support with proximity-fused rounds. The math isn’t even close: sustained and accurate fires at a fraction of the cost.

But what about vulnerability to modern anti-ship missiles? This is where the analysis gets interesting. An Iowa’s belt armor is 12 inches of hardened steel, backed by layers of structural protection. Modern anti-ship missiles — whether subsonic Harpoons or supersonic weapons — typically carry 500-1,000 pound warheads designed to penetrate thin aluminum hulls and detonate inside the ship. Against 12 inches of armor backed by compartmentalized protection? The penetration physics are completely different. Modern warheads might crater the armor, but achieving a “mission kill” (rendering a vehicle or craft unable to continue fighting, without destroying it) becomes vastly more difficult.

Survivability

Three cases are instructive in the vulnerability argument:

When HMS Sheffield was sunk during the Falklands War in 1982, the warhead of the French EXOCET missile that struck it failed to detonate, or at least did not detonate properly. Instead, the Sheffield was irreparably damaged by fires started by the missile’s still-running engine
In 1987, the USS Stark was attacked and struck by a pair of Iraqi-fired EXOCET missles. Prompt damage control prevented the ship sinking. After extensive repairs, the Stark returned to service, before being decommissioned in 1999, and scrapped in 2006.
Later, in early 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian naval mine while escorting a civilian oil tanker. The severely damaged ship required around a full year off repairs, before being returned to service.
In 2000, the USS Cole was mined in the harbor of Aden, Yemen (although framed as a “bombing”, the actual attack counts as a ‘mining’ in naval terminology) by Al Qaeda terrorists using a massive IED. Following extensive repairs, the Cole remains in naval service.
In contrast, there is the USS Nevada (BB-36), the only battleship on the list. Severely damaged by relentless air attack at Pearl Harbor, the Nevada was repaired and returned to service, serving throughout World War 2. At that war’s end, however, the ship was worn out, and thoroughly outdated, as it had originally been laid down in 1914…So, it was decided to use the old battleship as a nuclear target during Operation Crossroads, the first atomic tests at Bikini Atoll. The Nevada survived not one, but two, close range detonations, to such an extent that she had to be scuttled in 1948 by naval gunfire from the USS Iowa. That, however, was still insufficient to sink her, so she was finished off by an aerial torpedo.

Battleships, it would seem, are remarkably resilient.

*Battleship USS Nevada (BB-36) painted in orange as target ship for the Operation Crossroads Able Nuclear weapons test. 1946 photo by US Navy. Public Domain.*

Drones

The drone threat is real, but consider the defensive advantage: modern close-in weapon systems, electronic warfare, and updated radar married to a platform that can absorb damage and keep fighting. A kamikaze drone that could cripple an aluminum-hulled destroyer might barely scratch an Iowa’s main deck.

And, as operations in the Red Sea have shown, against actual warships – properly manned with trained crews – drones simply don’t present the threat that many believe to be real.

Manning – The Real Problem

The manning argument deserves serious consideration. Yes, the original crew was 1,500-1,800 sailors. But that was 1940’s technology with manual systems throughout. Selective modernization — updated damage control, automated fire control, modern propulsion plant controls — could potentially reduce crew requirements by 30-40 percent while maintaining the core advantages of proven mechanical systems over fragile digital networks.

Currently, while all services saw an increase in recruiting in the aftermath of Trump’s 2024 election victory, it remains to be seen if this increase will continue. The fact that the only real restriction on a “big-gun” battleship revival is whether the Navy can recruit enough personnel, is telling.

Conclusion

The real question isn’t whether battleships make technical sense. The real question is why the defense establishment is so hostile to the idea. And here’s where it gets interesting: battleships represent everything the current procurement system hates. Simple, proven technology. Conventional construction. Multiple potential suppliers. Long service life. Low-margin, high-volume ammunition. No proprietary software requiring endless updates. No justification for $100 million unit costs or trillion-dollar development programs.

Trump’s idea threatens a very lucrative business model. That’s why it sounds “crazy” to people with consulting contracts and board positions. To people actually concerned with sustainable naval power?

It starts looking remarkably sane.

The Myth of the Surgical Strike: Precision, Promises, and Reality

Michael Cessna October 10, 2025

For the longest time, at least fifty years, military forces in the West – and especially in the United States – have held fast to the dream of “clean” warfare, where civilian casualties are greatly minimized, if not eliminated. This dream grew out of the nightmare of World War 2’s “Strategic Bombing” campaigns, which were not simply failures, overall, but verge into war crimes territory, if one looks too closely.

While technically requiring fewer weapons dropped, as “smart bombs” are certainly more accurate, the dream of airpower alone ending wars is still a phantasm of science fiction – for all the damage precision munitions can inflict, airpower alone stopped neither Saddam Hussein, nor the Taliban, nor the “Islamic State”. Those forces were definitely damaged by technology, but that damage did not stop those forces on their own, by any stretch of the imagination, or suspension of disbelief.

Modern militaries have spent decades cultivating an image of warfare transformed by technology — conflicts resolved through clean, precise strikes that eliminate threats while sparing innocent lives. Defense contractors promote weapons that promise “one target, one bomb” accuracy. Military briefings showcase grainy video footage of munitions threading through windows and down ventilation shafts. Politicians assure anxious publics that twenty-first century warfare has evolved beyond the brutal arithmetic of earlier conflicts.

The reality on the ground tells a different story.

The Promise of Precision

The evolution of precision-guided munitions represents genuine technological achievement. During the 1991 Gulf War, only 9% of munitions were guided, yet they accounted for 75% of successful hits, proving 35 times more effective per weapon than unguided ordnance. Modern systems like the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) can achieve circular error probabilities of approximately 20 feet, transforming standard “dumb bombs” into satellite-guided weapons for roughly $20,000 per kit.

*GBU-31/32 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). 2006 photo by USAF. Public Domain.*

These capabilities have fundamentally changed how militaries plan operations. Where previous generations of commanders compensated for inaccuracy through overwhelming volume — dozens, if not hundreds, of aircraft dropping hundreds or thousands of bombs to ensure target destruction — contemporary planners can theoretically strike with surgical economy. The technology exists, and in controlled conditions, it performs as advertised.

But technology is only one variable in an equation that includes intelligence, decision-making, environmental conditions, and the fog of war. These factors, environmental and otherwise, have not changed for millennia, and are unlikely to change anytime soon.

“Accuracy” Is Not “Effectiveness”

The critical distinction between “accuracy” and “effectiveness” undermines much of precision warfare theory. A weapon might strike precisely where it was aimed while failing utterly to achieve its intended effect, a phenomenon researchers call the “Precision Paradox“.

Consider the 2003 strike against “Chemical Ali” — Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin and a high-value target. Two JDAM satellite-guided bombs hit his residence exactly as planned. The strike was accurate. It was also completely ineffective — Chemical Ali survived and remained active for months. When targets are hardened, mobile, or simply more resilient than anticipated, accurate strikes create a destructive feedback loop: the initial precise attack fails, requiring follow-up strikes, then more strikes, with each iteration expanding the circle of destruction and increasing civilian casualties.

This pattern repeated throughout recent conflicts. In battles like the siege of Mosul, accurate but ineffective strikes accumulated, generating precisely the widespread destruction and civilian harm that precision warfare was supposed to prevent.

The Intelligence Problem

Even perfect weapons cannot compensate for imperfect information. Precision-guided munitions hit their designated coordinates with remarkable consistency — but those coordinates are only as good as the intelligence providing them. One USAF officer notes that “the term ‘precision’ does not imply, as one might assume, accuracy. Instead, the word precision exclusively pertains to a discriminate targeting process.”

*A view of an Iraqi Su-25 fighter aircraft destroyed in a Coalition attack during Operation Desert Storm. March 1991 photo by US Army SSGT D. Wagner. Public Domain.*

This distinction matters profoundly. Military spokespeople describe “precision strikes” knowing that civilian audiences will interpret this as “accurate strikes” — a deliberate misunderstanding military force have little incentive to correct. Yet targeting failures remain common: the 2015 Kunduz hospital strike that killed 42 people, the 1999 Chinese embassy bombing in Belgrade, repeated incidents of strikes on Afghan weddings and Iraqi civilian gatherings.

The Hidden Costs

The gap between precision warfare rhetoric and empirical evidence manifests in sobering statistics. Between 2002 and 2020, U.S. strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen killed between 10,000 and 17,000 people — with 800 to 1,750 confirmed civilians among the dead. More recently, drone strikes across six African countries killed over 943 civilians in just three years — casualties that governments either disputed or attributed to “terrorists.”

These figures understate the full toll. Collateral damage — the antiseptic military euphemism for dead civilians and destroyed homes — extends beyond immediate blast effects. Infrastructure destruction cascades into humanitarian crises: a “precision strike” on a power station is “surgical” in execution but indiscriminate in consequence when hospitals lose electricity, water treatment fails, and disease epidemics follow.

Environmental and Technical Realities

The technology itself faces inherent limitations that military public relations rarely acknowledge. GPS-guided munitions are vulnerable to electronic warfare—jamming and spoofing that can render satellite guidance useless. Laser-guided weapons struggle in adverse weather, smoke, and dust—precisely the conditions created by ongoing combat operations. An Australian military study found that 45.5% of laser-guided weapons used in early Desert Storm operations missed their targets due to weather, technical malfunction, or pilot error — hardly the “near-unerring accuracy” promised by manufacturers.

*Extended Range Interceptor (ERINT) launch, c.2006. US Army Photo. Public Domain.*

Moving targets compound these challenges exponentially. While military marketing showcases successful strikes against vehicles, such footage represents carefully selected successes, not typical outcomes. The failure rate for strikes against mobile targets remains classified, a telling omission.

The Attrition Reality

Perhaps most damning for precision warfare theory: history provides no clear example of precision strikes hastening wars to swift conclusion. Instead, conflicts like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine demonstrate that precision-capable forces still find themselves mired in grinding wars of attrition. When strikes prove accurate but ineffective, belligerents escalate to saturation bombardment — the very approach precision warfare was meant to supersede.

The U.S. military now formally institutionalizes procedures for civilian harm mitigation, acknowledging what operational reality has long demonstrated: even with advanced technology and genuine efforts to minimize casualties, modern warfare remains fundamentally destructive. Recent policy shifts — including the 2025 dismantling of offices dedicated to addressing civilian harm — suggest this institutional knowledge remains fragile and subject to always shifting political winds.

Beyond the Mythology

None of this argues that precision-guided munitions offer no improvement over unguided ordnance. They do, significantly. The problem lies not with the technology but with the mythology surrounding it — the dangerous fiction that modern militaries can wage “antiseptic” wars where force is applied with surgical precision at minimal cost.

This mythology serves multiple audiences. It reassures domestic populations that their military operates with restraint and discrimination. It provides political cover for interventions that might otherwise face stronger opposition. It allows defense planners to minimize discussions of civilian casualties by framing them as aberrations rather than inevitable consequences.

But for those living beneath the drones and missiles, the distinction between precise and imprecise warfare often proves academic. The “smart bomb” that destroys a wedding party because faulty intelligence identified it as a terrorist gathering is no less devastating than a “dumb bomb” that misses its military target. The family killed when an accurate strike proves ineffective and requires three follow-up missions experiences no comfort from knowing that each bomb hit exactly where planners intended.

The path forward requires abandoning comfortable fictions in favor of uncomfortable truths. Precision-guided munitions are powerful tools, but they remain tools of war — and war remains, as it has always been, inherently destructive and unpredictable. Acknowledging this reality doesn’t diminish efforts to minimize harm; it makes those efforts more credible and more effective by grounding them in operational truth rather than technological fantasy.

Until military and political leaders stop marketing “surgical strikes” and start acknowledging the messy, costly reality of modern warfare, the gap between precision rhetoric and bloody fact will continue to undermine both strategic effectiveness and moral credibility.

To restate what should be the obvious, war is inherently destructive; it always has been, and always will be. Sometimes, war is a necessary evil…

…Because sometimes, “peace” is merely another word for “surrender”.

The Aluminium Taxi – The M113

Michael Cessna September 5, 2025

Military vehicles develop slowly, and not in very predictable ways. Most of the time, the requirements for a military vehicle are largely divorced from what manufacturers actually come up with. However, sometimes, the stars align, and magic actually happens.

Case in point: the M113.

*M113 crew firing their .50-caliber machine gun during South Vietnamese training exercise. US Army photo by PFC J.C. Rivera. Public Domain.*

As World War 2 developed, the United States developed the M3 Half-Track, an odd – but highly effective – hybrid, with a wheeled front axel much like a truck, in front, with a “tracked” rear drive system that used what amounted to a very large rubber tire, stretched over a huge span.

While very strange, the M3 proved highly effective at everything from delivering infantry right behind the tanks, to light artillery, anti-aircraft and logistics, doubtless why some 38,000 ended up being produced. But, the half-track wasn’t perfect, and by the beginning of the 1950’s, the Army needed a replacement.

The M113 Armored Personnel Carrier stands as one of the most widely produced and utilized armored vehicles in military history, with its operational footprint spanning over six decades and more than 80 countries worldwide. The M113 is the unlikely gold standard for “battle taxis” arounf the world.

Since its introduction by Food Machinery Corporation (later United Defense) in 1960, the M113 has become synonymous with versatility, reliability, and adaptability in military operations across diverse theaters and conflict zones. While it can technically carry 11 troops, plus its 2-man crew, most current operators use an 8- or 9-man squad.

Originally developed to meet the U.S. Army’s requirement for a lightweight, amphibious armored personnel carrier, one light enough to be air dropped, the M113 quickly demonstrated its value well beyond its initial design parameters. Two prototypes were initially produced, the aluminium-hulled T113 and the steel-hulled T114. The aluminum hull construction provided substantial weight savings compared to steel alternatives while maintaining adequate protection against small arms fire and artillery fragments. In contrast, the steel hulled design, owing to the severe weight restrictions set by the design targets, offered no greater protection than the aluminum hull. This lightweight design enabled the vehicle to achieve speeds of up to 42 mph on roads and maintain mobility across various terrains, from jungle environments to desert conditions.

*US Army infantrymen armed with M16A1 rifles unload from an M113 armored personnel carrier during a training exercise, 1985. US Army photo. Public Domain.*

The Vietnam War marked the M113’s combat debut and established its reputation for durability under harsh conditions. American forces employed thousands of M113s in Southeast Asia, where the vehicle’s amphibious capabilities proved invaluable in the Mekong Delta‘s waterlogged terrain. The “Green Dragon,” as it became known, served not only as a troop transport but also as a command post, ambulance, and fire support platform. Its aluminum armor, while initially questioned, demonstrated remarkable resistance to mines and improvised explosive devices, contributing to crew survivability rates that exceeded expectations.

International adoption of the M113 family has been unprecedented in armored vehicle history. Countries ranging from NATO allies to Middle Eastern nations, Asian powers, and African states have incorporated various M113 variants into their military arsenals. Australia, for instance, has operated M113s since the 1960’s and continues upgrading these platforms for modern operations. Similarly, nations like Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands have maintained M113 fleets for decades, a testament to the platform’s capabilities in severe environments showing its enduring utility and cost-effectiveness.

The M113’s modular design has facilitated extensive variant development, with over 40 different “official” configurations currently documented. These include the M106 mortar carrier, M577 command post vehicle, M901 Improved TOW Vehicle, and M163 Vulcan Air Defense System; one variant, the M752, was built to launch the MGM-52 Lance tactical missile, which could launch nuclear warheads. This adaptability has allowed military forces to maximize their investment by utilizing a common chassis for multiple mission requirements, simplifying logistics, maintenance, and training procedures.

Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment drive an M-163 20mm Vulcan self-propelled anti-aircraft gun system to a refueling area during Operation Desert Shield, c.1990-1991. US Army photo by SPC. Samuel Henry. Public Domain.

Production numbers underscore the M113’s global impact, with over 80,000 units manufactured across multiple production lines in the United States and licensed manufacturing facilities internationally. Countries including Italy, Turkey, and South Korea have produced their own variants, often incorporating indigenous modifications to meet specific operational requirements. This distributed production model has enhanced the platform’s accessibility and sustainability for allied nations.

Contemporary operations continue to validate the M113’s relevance in modern warfare. During conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, various nations deployed upgraded M113 variants equipped with enhanced armor packages, digital communication systems, and improved weapon stations. The platform’s relatively low signature and proven mechanical reliability have made it suitable for peacekeeping missions, border patrol duties, and domestic security operations.

The M113’s influence extends beyond traditional military applications. Law enforcement agencies, particularly SWAT teams and tactical units, have adopted surplus M113s for high-risk operations. Emergency services have converted these vehicles for disaster response, leveraging their mobility and protection in hazardous environments. This civilian adaptation demonstrates the platform’s fundamental design soundness and operational flexibility.

Modernization programs worldwide continue extending the M113’s service life well into the 21st century. Upgrade packages typically include improved armor protection, digital battlefield management systems, enhanced powertrains, and modernized weapon systems. Countries like Australia have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in comprehensive M113 upgrade programs, indicating long-term confidence in the platform’s viability.

*Canadian Air-Defense, Anti-Tank System (ADATS), built on an M113 chassis, on display during the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo, 2008. Photo by Jonathon A.H., 2008. CCA/3.0*

The M113’s legacy encompasses not only its direct military impact but also its influence on subsequent armored vehicle development. Design principles established with the M113 – including aluminum construction, amphibious capability, and modular architecture – have informed modern infantry fighting vehicle development programs worldwide.

Today, despite being supplemented or replaced by newer platforms in some applications, the M113 remains actively deployed across numerous conflict zones and operational theaters. Its combination of proven reliability, operational versatility, and cost-effectiveness ensures continued relevance in military inventories globally.

The M113’s near-seven decades of service represents an exceptional achievement in military vehicle design, establishing standards for durability and adaptability that continue influencing contemporary armored vehicle development. This enduring success reflects not merely engineering excellence but also a fundamental understanding of operational requirements that transcend technological generations.

Try as it has, the US Army has not been able to completely retire the M113, although it has, yet again, announced its imminent demise. Why is this the case? After all, the M113 was designed in the 1950’s, right? well, so was the AR-15, from which we got both the M16 and the M4, neither of which have been fully replaced, either.

The answer, then, is:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

A Puzzlement, Part 2.5 – The 7.62mm Mystery

Michael Cessna August 8, 2025

This is not the typical article that I write, here. In an odd way, this is unusually personal…and I have no real idea why.

What started as a curious observation, eventually became something of an obsession. I knew that something was wrong about my observation, but I couldn’t put my finger on why it was wrong. Many might see this as an odd — possibly disturbing — example of OCD, but as you will see, while it is certainly “odd”, it is not irrational…Not least, because it is properly placed between two earlier articles here. It is connected to the two, but because it was so odd, it appears here as the third installment, instead of its proper place as the second article in the series.

It took that long for me to parse out what had happened. As to why it happened…well, we’ll get to that point.

Firearms are curious things, when it comes to weapons. If you look back through all verifiable human history, there are no mentions of “firearms”, as we understand the term — going back as far as c.50,000 years ago, to the oldest cave paintings and petroglyphs — before about the 8th Century AD (c.900 AD). Every other weapon that appears is a club, a spear, a bow and arrow, a sling, and the occasional jawbone of an ass. But, once gunpowder was invented, and someone realized that it was useful as a weapon in more than rockets, development began in earnest.

Over the centuries, lessons were learned, and weapons, projectiles and propellants were improved, sometimes slowly, sometimes at breakneck speeds…Until 1945.

In the aftermath of World War 2, there were something like thirteen “calibers” of military small arms in general use in the world. As the Cold War began to dawn, the Soviet Union — in the form of Russia — established a regimen of standardization in small arms ammunition, beginning with the 7.62x54mmR caliber for rifles and machine guns, and the 7.62x25mm “Tokarev” for handguns and submachine guns. This was not unusual — the 7.62mm as a basic bore diameter had been settled on by the Soviet’s predecessor, the Imperial Russia of the Romanov Dynasty.

(Note: When reading a weapon’s caliber in millimeters, the numbers at the beginning are the bullet’s diameter in millimeters; the number following the ‘x’ is the overall length of the cartridge, again in millimeters.)

But, before the Warsaw Pact was formally organized, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed in 1949. As a purely and openly military alliance, the NATO member states quickly decided that the alliance’s national militaries needed to standardize on a common caliber, even if they did not adopt the same small arms.

To describe caliber in brief, caliber is determined by the diameter of the barrel, but is also determined by the chamber — which holds the cartridge case — and the spiral grooves (“rifling“) that stabilizes the projectile as it moves down the barrel. It is this combination of features that determine the caliber of a firearm, and is the reason why you cannot “trade” ammunition between different weapons, without a great deal of serious machinist work.

But…The first, and most critical step in making a barrel is to punch a bore down the length of the “barrel blank” (the steel bar stock you are cutting the barrel from) at the precise diameter, because as the old rubric goes, you can take material away, but you cannot add it back. With this established, you can move on to rifling the bore, and reaming our the chamber for the (usually) brass cartridge case, forming the overall “cartridge“.

This is not an academic exercise, because in the world of military procurement, few decisions are made without extensive documentation, cost-benefit analysis, and strategic rationale, because the cartridge — the bullet, propellant and case — represents a colossal expenditure of money and infrastructure. For NATO, a standard cartridge for rifles and machine guns made perfect sense, both in a manufacturing sense, but also in the tactical and strategic senses: being able to share ammunition would cure one of the chief problems the Allies had during World War 2.

So…What’s the problem? The problem is what the NATO nations standardized on…and no one knows why. One of the most significant standardization decisions of the 20th century — the global convergence on 7.62mm-diameter ammunition — remains curiously undocumented and logically inexplicable.

Consider the scope of this convergence: the Soviet 7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol cartridge for handguns and submachine guns; the 7.62×39mm “intermediate” rifle round for the AK-47/AKM; the 7.62×51mm NATO standard for the M14, FN FAL and H&K G3, as well as in the M-60 and MAG-58/M240 General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG’s); and the 7.62×54mmR Russian full-power cartridge in the ‘Dragunov’ SVD “Designated Marksman’s Rifle” (DMR) and the PK-series GPMG. Four distinct ammunition types, serving five completely different tactical roles — pistol, submachine gun, assault rifle, battle rifle, and machine gun — yet all sharing the same precise bore diameter to within hundredths of a millimeter.

From a manufacturing perspective, this represents extraordinary efficiency. The same rifling buttons, bore drilling equipment, and quality control gauges can produce barrels for weapons ranging from sidearms to tripod-mounted machine guns. But this efficiency only matters if you’re planning coordinated, large-scale production across multiple weapon systems — exactly what you’d need for rapid global mobilization. More importantly, uniformity is a real concern, because of how “good enough” barrels can be made in very basic workshops.

The timeline of adoption makes conventional military explanations even more problematic. When NATO standardized on 7.62×51mm in the 1950s, superior alternatives were readily available. The .30-06 Springfield had proven performance and massive existing production infrastructure. The 8mm Mauser was the world’s most widely distributed rifle cartridge. The .303 British had decades of successful Commonwealth service.

Instead, NATO chose to develop an entirely new cartridge that required complete retooling of production lines and weapons systems. This makes sense tactically, strategically, politically and diplomatically. No doubt. You take the logistical and manufacturing infrastructure hits, but it makes everyone in the alliance feel like they’re not the only ones making sacrifices. The official justifications — improved efficiency and reduced weight — however, would apply equally to other available diameters.

So — why 7.62mm diameter, specifically? Why precisely the same diameter as the bullets used by the Soviet Union…not the cartridges, not the bullets themselves, but the bullet diameter?

The mystery deepens when examining the ballistic evidence. The abandoned cartridges — .303 British, 8mm Mauser, and .30-06 — all delivered essentially identical performance, despite bore diameters ranging from 7.57mm to 7.92mm. The differences are all within normal manufacturing tolerances and offer no meaningful ballistic advantages.

From a purely ballistics and physics perspective, these major “battle rifle” cartridges deliver functionally identical terminal performance despite NATO’s insistence on 7.62x51mm standardization. Cross-sectional analysis reveals the marginal differences:

The .30-06 Springfield (150gr @ 2910 fps) delivers 2,820 ft-lbs of energy
The 8mm Mauser (198gr @ 2600 fps) produces 2,800 ft-lbs
The .303 British (174gr @ 2440 fps) generates 2,300 ft-lbs
The 7.62x51mm NATO (147gr @ 2750 fps) yields 2,470 ft-lbs

These performance variations fall within normal manufacturing tolerances and environmental factors. At combat ranges under 400 meters (which is the normal range for most infantry engagements), the sectional density, penetration, and lethality differences in these cartridges are statistically insignificant. Wind drift, drop, and terminal ballistics vary by mere percentages.

The engineering reality is that any of these cartridges would have served NATO’s stated requirements equally well, as the FN-49 rifle would demonstrate, being made in multiple cartridges, depending on what the customer wanted. The choice of 7.62mm over existing alternatives cannot be justified by ballistic superiority – suggesting the true rationale lay elsewhere entirely.

*SAFN .30-06 Springfield 1951. 2007 photo by Wikimedia User “Ainat00”. CCA/4.0 Int’l.*

The technical evidence is clear: NATO’s choice of 7.62mm as a bullet diameter cannot be explained by ballistic superiority or manufacturing convenience alone. When military organizations abandon proven systems and invest billions in retooling for marginally different alternatives, there are usually compelling strategic reasons documented in procurement records. But those records, if they exist, remain conspicuously absent from public view. What we’re left with is a pattern that suggests coordination on a scale that transcends normal military alliance cooperation—and raises uncomfortable questions about what scenarios would justify such systematic preparation.

Manufacturing compatibility, not ballistic performance, appears to have been designed for rapid, large-scale interoperability — but between whom, and for what purpose?

Yet somehow, across different continents, political systems, and industrial bases, everyone converged on 7.62mm as a bullet diameter. The Soviets, developing their own weapons independently, chose the 7.62mm bore diameter for their entire small arms family, because they had been using it for so long, and wanted to make only the most minimal changes, as their industrial base struggled to recover from the devastation of World War 2.

But then, we have the example of NATO, deciding to completely retool their arms infrastructure to make a completely new round…whose diameter was precisely the same as that of their supposed enemies on the opposite side of the Fulda Gap…not the same cartridges, but the same bullet diameters — the most important part of a modern firearm. To put the proverbial ‘last nail’ on the problem, the only 7.62mm diameter weapon in wide use by NATO members at the organization’s formation in 1949 was the US .30 Carbine round, which is 7.62x33mm.

The only logical possibility is clear: This wasn’t market pressure or alliance requirements — this was systematic coordination at a level that transcends normal military procurement.

The implications become more unsettling when considering modern developments. Recent U.S. military procurement of obsolete M60 GPMG’s, massive ammunition purchases by US domestic agencies, and the recent emergence of “plug-and-fight” deployment systems all suggest preparation for scenarios requiring rapid mass armament using standardized systems.

The 7.62mm convergence may represent the most successful case of industrial coordination in military history — a decades-long effort to ensure global manufacturing compatibility for weapons systems across supposedly competing nations. Whether driven by legitimate defense planning or more extraordinary circumstances, the technical evidence suggests coordination at levels most people would find difficult to accept.

The question isn’t whether this coordination exists — the manufacturing evidence is too consistent to ignore. The question is, what scenarios would justify such systematic preparation, and why has the public never been informed of the reasoning behind these decisions?

As we pointed out in the “Hamlet” article above, none of the possible reasons for this subtle standardization are good…But there is one last wrinkle, that I cannot shake from my mind…

All of this happened very quickly…..after 1947.

Additional Resources:

– NATO Standardization Agreements (STANAGs)
– Congressional Defense Primer: Conventional Ammunition Production Industrial Base
– International Ammunition Technical Guidelines

The Shadow Fleets

Michael Cessna August 1, 2025

Illicit drugs are everywhere. Since at least the Imperial Chinese attempts at curbing the British opium trade, governments have – for one reason or another – tried to end, or at least restrict as far as possible, the flow of drugs they find objectionable. From cannabis to cocaine, and opium/heroin to fentanyl, massive, militarized law enforcement structures have been built up, to try and end the trade.

For the most part, these efforts have failed.

The problem are the iron laws of supply and demand, and the Streisand Effect: If you overreact to the problem, people get curious as to why…and when trust in government is problematic, that urge becomes obsessive. And in an environment of induced artificial scarcity, imposed by efforts to ban “Bad Thing X” – be that drugs or alcohol – both demand for that substance, as well as its price tends to skyrocket…and the harder law enforcement cracks down, the more creative the suppliers get in bringing their product to market.

Case in point: The “narco submarine“. We discussed the “big-state” military aspects of leveraging narco-sub technology last year, but now we take a deeper dive into the flip-side of the “big-state” use of this ecosystem.

The evolution of narco-submarine technology from crude, semi-submersible craft to sophisticated vessels capable of trans-Atlantic voyages represents more than just an escalation in drug trafficking capabilities—it signals a potential paradigm shift in how insurgent and terrorist organizations could maintain covert supply networks across vast distances.

*Trans-Atlantic range narco submarine in Aldán, Cangas, Galicia, Spain, 2019, following its capture by Spanish authorities. Photo by Estevoaei. CCA/4.0 Int’l.*

Traditional counter-insurgency doctrine has long emphasized the critical importance of disrupting enemy supply lines. However, the emergence of advanced narco-submarines, some capable of carrying multi-ton payloads across oceanic distances while remaining largely undetected, introduces a new variable into this equation. These vessels, originally developed by South American drug cartels to transport cocaine, have demonstrated remarkable sophistication in recent seizures, featuring diesel-electric propulsion, advanced navigation systems, and even air-independent propulsion capabilities.

The implications now extend far beyond narcotics. Intelligence assessments suggest these platforms could theoretically transport weapons, explosives, communications equipment, or even personnel across traditional maritime security perimeters. Unlike conventional smuggling methods that rely on commercial shipping or aircraft — both heavily monitored — narco-submarines operate in the vast expanses of international waters where detection remains extraordinarily difficult.

This point cannot be overstated: While the “old school” methods have long been known, and control measures developed to address them, the rise of covert submarine logistics at the small(ish) scale is a titanic problem, because almost any coastal beach, inlet or swamp is now a potential delivery point. While traditional inseriton methods like rough airstrips or road checkpoints can be easily identified, the sheer scale and unimproved nature of naval landing avenues severely hamstrings surveillance efforts – airstrips, roads and even drop zones are almost comically easy to identify, especially when they are not on official maps as crossing or entry points. Beaches, however, are everywhere.

Recent interdictions have revealed vessels with ranges exceeding 6,000 nautical miles, sufficient to connect South American manufacturing bases with conflict zones in Africa, the Middle East, or even Europe. The technical expertise required to construct these platforms has proliferated through criminal networks, with evidence suggesting construction techniques and blueprints have spread beyond their Colombian and Ecuadorian origins.

A primary case study of even non-submersible combat logistics support to an insurgent force comes from Mozambique, in 2020-2023:

The Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado demonstrated sophisticated maritime capabilities between 2020-2023 that transformed what began as a land-based rebellion into a complex amphibious threat. Ansar al-Sunna militants systematically leveraged traditional dhow boats and small craft to create covert supply networks that proved nearly impossible for Mozambican security forces to interdict.

The insurgents’ capture of the port of Mocímboa da Praia in August 2020 marked a strategic watershed, providing direct access to established heroin trafficking routes from the Makran Coast. Intelligence assessments suggest the group began “taxing” drug shipments landed from dhows, creating a maritime revenue stream that complemented traditional funding sources. This convergence of insurgent logistics and narcotics trafficking created a self-reinforcing cycle — drug money funded operations while operational control over landing sites enabled further revenue collection.

The tactical sophistication was remarkable. Insurgents used coordinated land-sea assaults, arriving simultaneously from multiple vectors to overwhelm defensive positions. They demonstrated proficiency with maritime navigation, successfully conducting what were functionally full-on amphibious operations across the island chains of the Quirimbas archipelago. Perhaps most concerning, they showed adaptive capabilities — after reportedly sinking a Mozambican patrol boat with an RPG-7, they captured additional vessels to expand their maritime fleet.

The geographic advantages were substantial. Cabo Delgado’s extensive coastline, numerous islands, and traditional reliance on dhow-based trade provided perfect cover for covert supply operations. The insurgents exploited the fact that legitimate maritime commerce — fishing, inter-island transport, and traditional trade — created background noise that masked military supply movements. With limited Mozambican naval capabilities and virtually no maritime patrol presence, the ocean became an uncontested highway for insurgent logistics.

For insurgent groups, the strategic value is clearly compelling. As the World War 2 OSS demonstrated, traditional arms trafficking routes face increasing scrutiny from international security partnerships and advanced surveillance systems. Port security measures, while effective against conventional smuggling, are largely irrelevant to vessels that can surface miles offshore and transfer cargo to smaller craft or coastal staging areas.

The financial model also aligns with insurgent economics. Drug trafficking organizations have demonstrated willingness to treat narco-submarines as expendable assets — vessels are often scuttled after single-use missions. This operational approach could extend to insurgent logistics, where the strategic value of delivered materiel outweighs platform preservation.

Counter-narcotics operations have struggled with these platforms despite significant resource investments. The U.S. Coast Guard estimates that even with enhanced detection capabilities, the vast majority of narco-submarine transits remain undetected. This detection challenge would be magnified in insurgent applications, where hostile groups’ operational security might be even tighter and cargo manifests wouldn’t trigger the same intelligence indicators as bulk narcotics shipments.

The convergence of criminal and insurgent networks is not theoretical — established precedents exist in regions where these organizations share operational space and mutual interests. The DEA has linked 19 of 43 officially designated foreign terrorist organizations to some aspect of the global drug trade, demonstrating that such collaborations are already occurring. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) provided a decades-long example of how insurgent groups can leverage drug trafficking networks to fund operations and maintain supply lines, activities that continue with the FARC’s splinter factions.

Perhaps most concerning is the adaptive nature of this technology. Each interdiction reveals new innovations: improved stealth characteristics, enhanced range capabilities, and increasingly sophisticated construction techniques. The rapid evolution suggests that by the time security services develop effective countermeasures, the threat may have already evolved beyond current detection and interdiction capabilities.

This potential weaponization of narco-submarine technology by hostile non-state actors represents a convergence of criminal innovation and insurgent logistics that could fundamentally challenge existing maritime security frameworks and force a reassessment of how covert supply networks might operate in an era of advanced surveillance.

The 30-Minute Apocalypse: How Coordinated Grid Attacks Could Cripple America

Michael Cessna July 25, 2025

Electricity if the foundation of modern society. Many people wistfully ponder the idea of living permanently in the wilderness, the old “back to Nature” idea. The fact is, most people – at least in the West – are going to survive in the wild for longer than a week. Electricity is what allows you to read this, and not simply because the immediate of an internet connection: electricity is fundamental to the industrial processes that made the device you are reading this on.

America’s electrical grid represents both the backbone of modern civilization and its most vulnerable single point of failure. Recent incidents at power substations across the country have revealed a terrifying reality: a relatively small number of coordinated attacks could plunge vast regions into darkness for weeks or months, with cascading effects that would make Hurricane Katrina look like a minor inconvenience.

The December 2022 attack on two Duke Energy substations in Moore County, North Carolina, illustrated the basic vulnerability. Two individuals with rifles caused a blackout affecting 45,000 people for several days. But this was amateur hour compared to what organized groups could accomplish with proper planning and coordination.

The math is sobering. The Department of Homeland Security has identified roughly 55,000 electrical substations nationwide, but destroying just nine of the most critical ones could theoretically black out the entire continental United States. Unlike the heavily fortified nuclear plants or major power stations, most substations are protected by little more than chain-link fencing and security cameras. Many critical transformer installations sit exposed in rural areas with minimal surveillance and lengthy emergency response times.

*Marelli coupling transformer in Italy. 2020 photo by Herbert Hönigsperger. CCA/4.0 Int’l*

What makes this threat particularly insidious is that it doesn’t require sophisticated weapons or technical expertise. The critical transformer equipment that steps down high-voltage transmission lines is custom-manufactured, expensive, and takes 12-18 months to replace under normal circumstances. A coordinated rifle attack, or even the intelligent use of a reciprocating saw, on multiple substations simultaneously could create a replacement bottleneck that extends outages for months across multiple states.

The cascading effects of a decently-coordinated series of attacks would be catastrophic. Within hours, water treatment plants would lose power, leading to pumping capacity failures. Hospitals could switch to backup diesel generators, but their fuel supplies typically last 72 to 96 hours. Cell towers would go dark as their backup batteries drain, as even those with some minimal solar backups would be drained faster than solar can recharge them. Gas stations could not pump fuel; grocery stores and ATM’s stop working – in the case of the grocery stores, that would be because few, if any,m are set up to switch to paper receipts. Supply chains would being to collapse, as refrigerated transport becomes impossible, electronic payment systems began failing, and regional grocery supply centers would not be able to fulfill orders, if they were even able to receive them.

Behind this vulnerability is the very thing that makes modern society as comfortable as we have become accustomed to: Just In Time Delivery. This is the system that dispatches all manner of inventory to retailers, homes and factories at will, usually arriving within 24 to 96 hours after ordering. This means that very few warehouse areas have more than three or four days of stock in their “back rooms”, at best. This is one of the reasons for the videos of stores being emptied in mere hours when a disaster strikes – it’s not simply damage to the structure, but the location’s inability to order replacement stock.

Most Americans have never experienced true grid-down conditions lasting more than a few days. The best estimates indicate that potentially 90% of Americans would be dead within one year of a sustained nationwide blackout due to starvation, disease, and violence. Even regional blackouts lasting weeks would likely trigger mass refugee movements, as happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, that local authorities couldn’t manage.

The threat isn’t theoretical. In recent years, domestic extremist groups have conducted surveillance of electrical infrastructure. FBI investigations have uncovered plots targeting substations by nihilistic accelerationists larping as neo-Nazis who believe destroying the grid would trigger societal collapse and racial conflict. The knowledge required for effective attacks are spreading through online forums and training materials.

International actors represent an even greater threat. Chinese and Russian operatives have been caught conducting reconnaissance of American electrical infrastructure. State actors could coordinate cyber attacks on grid control systems with simultaneous physical attacks on key substations, maximizing damage while minimizing the chances of rapid recovery.

And what happens if such a series of attacks do happen? None of the possibilities are good. Aside from the initial casualties of the sick and injured as hospital generators run dry of fuel, and those dying in the panic after the lights go out, the near-term (60 – 90 days) will see vast deaths via starvation, as most people have perhaps only two or three weeks worth of food at home, and human performance degrades fast, the longer we go without food. Rural areas are better positioned, since those areas are food producers by default, but they do not have the capacity to absorb refugees, nor to suddenly step up food production, because of the physics and biology of agriculture: even without the fact that most farmland is sectioned off for corporate, single-crop “monoculture” products, it takes time, at least sixty to ninety days, to grow most plants into nutritious crops that will sustain a human. And although hog hunting in the South does produce meat, it is barely impacting the hog population – and the vast majority of Americans have no comprehension of how dangerous feral hogs really are.

The fix is neither quick, simple nor cheap. Hardening critical substations would cost billions and take years to implement. Installing backup transformer capacity requires massive infrastructure investments that utility companies stridently resist making without punitive federal mandates. Meanwhile, the grid continues operating with vulnerabilities that a competent adversary could exploit with devastating effectiveness.

The uncomfortable truth is that America’s electrical grid was designed for reliability and efficiency, not security. In an era of increasing domestic extremism and great power competition, that design philosophy represents a strategic vulnerability that adversaries understand better than most Americans. The question isn’t whether someone will eventually attempt a coordinated grid attack — it’s whether we’ll address these vulnerabilities before they do.

The only good thing in this, is that if we go down, we will take the reast of the “developed world” with us.

Yay. I guess.

The lights we take for granted could go out faster than most people imagine, and stay out longer than our society could survive. As with many things we report here, you are on your own – after reading this, you cannot claim that you weren’t warned to prepare, because the government will not be able to help you.

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The Verdict

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The Myth of the Surgical Strike: Precision, Promises, and Reality

The Promise of Precision

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The Intelligence Problem

The Hidden Costs

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The Attrition Reality

Beyond the Mythology

The Aluminium Taxi – The M113

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

A Puzzlement, Part 2.5 – The 7.62mm Mystery

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The 30-Minute Apocalypse: How Coordinated Grid Attacks Could Cripple America

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