April 18, 2026

Military

Tools of the Trade: The Military Staff

Tools of the Trade: The Military Staff

Michael Cessna January 20, 2023 0

 

 

 

When people think of military actions, those thoughts are usually centered on frenetic Hollywood action sequences. There are the occasional meetings/briefings where the stock, lantern-jawed heroes get their orders from a grizzled, crusty-looking officer, who occasionally pushes their “knife hand” across what is probably a real enough map of…somewhere, but probably not the “somewhere” of the show.

The effect is even more divorced from reality when watching the average news broadcast: the tall, swarthy, lantern-jawed heroes are almost always either completely hidden by helmets and body armor, or are somewhat short, usually bald, and squinting through their sunburns and badly wind-dried skin. The vehicles and surrounding terrain are anonymous and dusty (or heavy with tropical foliage, or a blasted city-scape) – things are certainly happening, but the viewer has little context. The reporter delivering the story probably has even less.

The grizzled and lantern-jawed stock characters from Central Casting do occasionally appear – and are even frequently as heroic as Hollywood portrays them to be – but the above images (real and fictional) obscure the reality: the Grunts who have to carry out the mission have their tasks explained to them by sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated, and hyper-stressed troops suffering from ulcers, who have likely been awake for over 24 hours, straight, and have been monitoring units in combat with the enemy, while coordinating artillery fires, air support, medical evacuations, resupply, reinforcement and probably armored support, as well…and have to get creative on short notice when one, some or most of those things are not available, because of shipping delays, bad weather, enemy attacks on the supply lines and just plain bad-to-non-existent maintenance means that something else needs to be found to help the Grunts get the job done.

Those officers and troops, punchy from lack of sleep, are the Staff.

In the “old days”, military staff work was not overly taxing, by today’s standard. Literate officers and troops (read the letters of some officers on campaign in the old days – yikes) made the decisions and wrote the orders, trying to be as clear – yet couched and polite – as the writing conventions of the time allowed. Unit sizes were rarely above the Brigade level (c.3-5,000 troops), and the “optempo” (“operations tempo”, or, the pace of operations) was measured by how far a unit could march in a day. By modern standards, it was quite sedate. The only real “specialization” in the military staff were the Surgeon (for obvious reasons) and the Quartermaster, who handled the acquisition of supplies; this last position, while recognized as highly important, was not much sought after, as it was viewed as a rather menial task.

That all began to change with three wars in the 19th Century: The American Civil War of 1861-1865, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The actual mechanism for the increase to optempo in those wars was the railroad.

The railroad revolutionized warfare in a way not seen before in land warfare. In the past, like cargo, the fastest and most efficient way to move troops more than 100 miles was by water. By 1863, the United States Military Railroad (USMRR) was able to transfer some 25,000 troops a distance of 1,200 miles in just 12 days. The USMRR did this by creating a dispersed staff of railroad schedule planners who communicated via telegraph to coordinate their movement plans. In 1866, the Prussian Army – having sent observers to both sides of the American Civil War – calculated that they could concentrate 285,000 troops in twenty-five days, and used this ability to overwhelm Austrian forces. Four years later, Prussia would demonstrate the defensive advantage of the railroad, by using their internal rail system to rapidly shift their outnumbered troops around the country to first blunt, and then counterattack the French invasion, resulting in not simply the defeat of France, but the capture of an Emperor and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, specifically because they had established a “railway section” as a part of their ‘general staff’ system after the return of their observers from the American Civil War.

This is not, however, an article on the military use of railroads. Instead, it shows the first real expansion of the military staff system since the days of Napoleon, and going well beyond his reforms.

Napoleon Bonaparte created what we now refer to as the “Continental Staff System”, minutely categorizing and specializing roles that had previously been handled somewhat haphazardly. As armies began to grow in size and complexity after Napoleon, the old staff methods simply could not keep up. Even in the case of Napoleon’s own staff reforms, they could barely keep up with the demands of La Grande Armée. The US Army, first, then quickly followed by Germany, began to make significant reforms and expansions.

However, this was not a streamlined or consistent process. In fact, in Germany’s case, it became a decided negative, as the German General Staff took the statistical process too far, imparting a rigidity that more or less completely ignored the Clausewitzian warnings about “friction” and the “fog of war”. This rigidity contributed to the failure of the Schlieffen Plan and led directly to the hell of trench warfare on the Western Front of World War 1.

In the modern day, the staff system has evolved to the point where it can swiftly alter itself to account for new technologies. As radio replaced visual-sight signaling, dispatch riders, carrier pigeons and the telegraph, staffs were increasingly able to effectively control and support their subordinated commands in real-time. Today, that progression includes satellite communications and (theoretically) secure internet connections, as well as incorporating intelligence from ground- and air-based drones.

In order to better streamline the core functions of a staff, tasks and responsibilities are divided between departments led by specialized officers. Even in the last 30-odd years, there has been expansion and readjustment, as some of the current offices either did not exist in the 1980’s, or were considered to be part of a “Special Staff” section, created on an ‘as needed’ basis.

Currently, there are a total of nine departments recognized as part of the Continental Staff System. These nine offices scale upwards, as designated by a prefix letter code (see below), and generally only begin to appear as part of a battalion-level staff. The nine offices in general use are:

    1. Manpower or Personnel. This office manages the more mundane, non-combat personnel-management tasks of a unit, such as record-keeping and handling pay for the troops.
    2. Intelligence and Security. This is the office with the unenviable task of trying to predict what the enemy in a local area are planning. However, their ‘side functions’ are much more extensive, and include everything from weather monitoring and map making, to cultural and demographic surveys to refine information that was likely glossed over by their national-level counterparts.
    3. Operations. This is the office that actually controls the troops in the field. The unit commander, their executive officer (i.e., the “second in command”) and the “-3” officer (who is effectively 3rd in command) direct operations, through the mechanism of the “command post” system.
    4. Logistics. Logistics – what used to be called the “Quartermaster” office – is one of those dreary, ho-hum functions that people only get annoyed over when they either fail, or when someone points out that the military unit in question is incapable of functioning if they ignore the “4-Shop”. If your logistical plan is deficient in the civilian world, that is annoying and inconvenient. In the military world, bad logistics lose battles, campaigns and wars.
    5. Plans. This is where you will find those grizzled old officers making knife-hands over a map. The Plans office has to take the commander’s ideas and vision, lay them out coherently on a map, then write the orders to the various sub-units to carry out those plans.
    6. Signals (i.e., communications or IT). “Signals” are the people who run the radios, and make sure the computers are working right. They will also occasionally restore telephone service to a town or city…usually inside of 36 hours.
    7. Military education and training. Exactly what it says – there are always new things coming out, that troops need to be trained on, which can also include seemingly non-military course like the dreaded “Personal Finance” course. In case anyone is wondering why distance-learning courses like that are offered, troops who badly manage their pay are frequently preoccupied, hyper-tense and distracted in the field; this leads to very unpleasant results for them, and likely everyone in their general vicinity.
    8. Finance and Contracts. Also known as resource management. This is the department that handles buying tools, materials and food from the local area. In the “home country”, these kinds of contracts are normally handled at higher levels; when operating in a foreign country, however, the situation frequently dictates that a units needs to let contracts with the locals…which not only gets the unit supplies locally, easing the logistics burden of the higher commands, but also helps a local economy that may have been destroyed and needs more than simple hand-outs of cash.
    9. Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) or “civil affairs”, as well as PIO functions, who generally deal with the news media.

 

As noted above, there are a variety of letter designators for these staff functions, depending on the size and/or function of the unit in question. The most commonly used designators are:

    • A, for air force headquarters.
    • C, for combined headquarters (multiple nations) headquarters.
    • F, for certain forward or deployable headquarters.
    • G, for army or marine general staff sections within headquarters of organizations commanded by a general officer and having a chief of staff to coordinate the actions of the general staff, such as divisions or equivalent organizations (e.g., USMC Marine Aircraft Wing and Marine Logistics Group) and separate (i.e., non-divisional) brigade level (USMC MEB) and above.
    • J, for joint (multiple services) headquarters, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff).
    • N, for navy headquarters.
    • S, for army or marines executive staff sections within headquarters of organizations commanded by a field grade officer (i.e., major through colonel) and having an executive officer to coordinate the actions of the executive staff (e.g., divisional brigades, regiments, groups, battalions, and squadrons; not used by all countries); S is also used in the Naval Mobile Construction Battalions (SeaBees) and in the Air Force Security Forces Squadron.
    • U, is used for United Nations military operations mission headquarters.
    • CG, is unique to the US Coast Guard.

 

While there is certainly much more to military staff functions than this brief outline, the goal was to introduce the Reader to the idea behind the Military Staff, in a general way. If you would like more information on the subject from the source, check out the US military’s field manual on the subject, FM 6-0 – Commander and Staff Organization and Operations, in print here, or as a pdf download directly from the US Army, here. (Note that most military manuals in the United States are unclassified and publicly available for anyone to own – if it’s classified, you will definitely know, and you are definitely on your own, in that regard.)

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
Tools of the Trade: The Military Uniform

Tools of the Trade: The Military Uniform

Michael Cessna January 13, 2023 0

Uniforms are odd. They are not “normal” clothing, in the sense that they are not worn as ‘casual’ or ‘formal’ wear, nor really for most jobs in the workplace. Whether a person works as a mechanic for a shop, a security officer, a store attendant, a delivery driver or what have you, the uniforms that those people wear for their daily jobs are rarely anything those people would wear when stepping out after work. In the civilian job world, a uniform may be practical, but most often functions as an advertisement for the employer.

 

In contrast, military uniforms are rarely given a second thought, as most people unconsciously associate a uniform with some sort of armed force. While military uniforms certainly do that, their rationale does not necessarily make sense, unless one looks at them more closely.

Representatives of foreign armies, 2007. CCA/5.2.

 

There are very few verifiable “uniforms”, as we would recognize the term, in antiquity. Most of the references that mention uniform-like garments in armies are very shaky, and are likely confusions with ethnic or tribal dress, which are not “uniforms”, per se. The first recognizable and unequivocal military uniform was that of the Roman state. Down through the centuries, Roman military attire remained remarkably stable, at least compared to modern norms. Until the very late period of the Western Roman Empire, what we think of today as the “classic” Roman uniform remained more or less the standard attire, for parade, general duty or combat.

Roman reenactors in lorica segmentata. Public Domain.

 

After the fall of the Western Empire, “standardized” uniforms would not reappear in European armies until roughly the dawn of the 17th Century, during the “Dutch Revolt” against the Hapsburg dynasty of Spain. The Dutch needed a way to identify their own troops; short of money, they first tried long, colored sashes. Because of the problems of the sashes getting too dirty to recognize, the Dutch hit on the idea of wearing smaller versions of the sashes as scarves, and tying them in unique knots. Together with the Croatian mercenaries hired by France – wearing distinctive cravats (thus bringing the word ‘cravat’ into western Europe) – during this period, armies began to realize that some form of standardized uniform was a very useful item, despite the added expense.

Images of military uniforms from 1670 to 1865. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910. Public Domain.

 

To many people new to the subject, the military uniforms of the 17th to early 20th Centuries look bizarre. They are certainly highly distinctive, but to the modern mind, appear useless on a battlefield, as they are usually brightly colored and definitely stand out against the backdrop of natural foliage. The reason for the brightly colored uniforms – as with the combat tactic of the rigid firing line, in the open, with no real cover (meaning, protection from bullets) – was dictated by the combat technology of the time, as the smoothbore flintlock musket was notoriously slow to load and unreliable. Because of this, armies were forced to line up their troops, and have groups of them fire in sequence, like a giant shotgun. As should be obvious, this was a dangerous and terrifying experience, and it was felt that clothing the troops in distinct, flashy and (comparatively) expensive uniforms would help improve the morale of the troops.

Attack of Prussian Infantry, Battle of Hohenfriedeberg, June 4th, 1745. Carl Röchling (1913). Public Domain.

 

Whether troop morale was improved or not during this period is an open question, but the rapid pace of technological development in firearms technology during the 19th Century swiftly dictated that research was desperately needed to help the troops blend into their surroundings, the better to avoid fire from rifles and machine guns. While this trend was firmly established in the aftermath of World War 1, as that war had starkly demonstrated that modern weapons had fundamentally altered the battlefield, creating all the conditions necessary for staggering casualties, with France losing so many troops (well over one million), that large sections of the French Army mutinied in 1917, it had begun well before that war broke out.

World War 1 – Military Dress Uniforms. J.F. Campbell (1920). Public Domain.

 

Following World War 2, uniform development continued, with the general drabness of the US Army’s OG-107 pattern uniform giving way to the “Battle Dress Uniform” in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The BDU would eventually be replaced by the modern “digital camo” uniforms, starting in 2001.

 

US troops dressed in BDU’s during Exercise Peaceshield 2000. Yavoriv, Ukraine, July 16, 2000. US Air Force Photo.

 

While it should be obvious that a military uniform – whether for combat, day-to-day work or for formal parades – should be “distinctive”, that begs the question: What, exactly, constitutes a “military uniform”?

Remarkably, aside from generally practical notions of being distinctive, and comfortable to move in, there is no hard and fast definition of what constitutes a “military uniform”, aside from the admonishment of the 1949 Geneva Convention (pdf link) to not wear an enemy’s uniform for the purpose of deception.

Boer guerrillas during the Second Boer War, c.1900. Public Domain.

 

In the final analysis, then, a formally organized military force can essentially design any uniform they want, as long as it is distinct from common civilian attire, and will be protected under the Geneva Convention…

…Assuming, of course, that the other side abides by that document.

 

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

 

The Archons – The Nine Military Units Of History

The Archons – The Nine Military Units Of History

Michael Cessna January 6, 2023 1

 

 

 

Many times, taking the status quo for granted is the normal mode we all operate in. In this context, when growing up in the 1980’s, if one aspired to study “things military”, you would simply accept the organizational structures of various militaries without question. Studying old – even ancient – military organizations was seen as a good thing for historical research, but really didn’t have much utility in the modern day…

…Or did it?

On New Year’s Day 2023, I had one of those head-slap moments, when I realized something profound: In some four thousand years of recorded military history, only nine organizational units have made it down through history, some of which still exist to this day. Nine. There have been other unit organizations, certainly, but none of them have ever taken hold for any length of time, and none of them are ever seriously considered for resurrection. This is not a merely academic idea, either – trillion-dollar military budgets are largely based on supporting these unit formations (in theory, at least).

Today, we’re going to explore a basic outline of those nine unit types.

 

The Tribal War Band

 

The Tribal War Band is the oldest continuously used formation in recorded history. It is an amorphous collection of extended family and clan warriors, hastily assembled to either make a raid, or defend against one, after which it would disperse until needed again. The War Band grew out of familial hunting parties that took advantage of human numbers, communications and cooperative effort to hunt down either game animals, or predators encroaching on the family/tribe’s hunting/foraging grounds. In many parts of the world today, the tribal war band continues, as underdeveloped areas and peoples see no reason for a more formalized organization.

Combat for the old war band was similar to the kind of melee combat popular in modern television shows and movies, being essentially a street or bar brawl, albeit with swords and spears, instead of sharpened bicycle chains and switchblade knives.

 

“Three Young Ngoni Warriors, Livingstonia Malawi”, ca.1895. Public Domain

 

The tribal war band, in the modern day, remains dangerous primarily because it is almost impossible to gather meaningful intelligence on them, and thus it is nearly impossible to create plans to counter them by remote study and planning techniques. The only solutions in the “military tool box” are to use massive, overwhelming force and numbers to occupy and saturate an area, or to send in tiny parties on the ground, to locate the tribe[s] in question, and find out more information about them…which is usually vastly more effective – and practical – than simply running the proverbial steamroller over the area.

 

The Phalanx

 

The Phalanx was the first regularized tactical unit on record. While we know of armies before the time of Classical Greece – those of Sumer, or Egypt and the Hittites, specifically, as well as armies in China and India – those armies did not leave a record of their formal organizations.

In contrast, the ancient Greeks, as first described by the poet Homer, deployed their armies of citizen-spearmen – the Hoplites – in a rigid, square or rectangular formation, of anywhere from 100 to 500 men, and occasionally more, in files of 16 to 32 troops. These troops were armed with a sword and shield, but their main weapon was the “sarissa”, a type of spear or pike that could be up to twenty feet in length. In combat, the phalanx would try to use its weight and mass to basically “shove” the opposing phalanx off the battlefield. In a contest where the sides were more or less evenly matched, this came down to individual physical strength and stamina, and a willingness to hold out until the enemy got tired, and decided to try and run for it…and, as in most battles before about 1900AD, that would be where the real casualties would happen.

 

A phalanx fighting the Persians. 19th Century. Public Domain.

 

The phalanx has disappeared, only being resurrected by pre-gunpowder forces that were unable to organize or train for anything more complex, because the formation had severe and fundamental flaws: it was hard to keep it in formation; it was slow and clumsy to move in anything but a straight line; and it was helpless against lightly armed forces, such as archers, slingers or peltasts (a type of skirmisher that threw javelins).

 

Agrianian Peltast by Johnny Shumate, [email protected]. Public Domain.

 

As soon as the phalanx met an infantry formation that was more flexible, it was completely torn apart.

 

The Contubernium/Section

 

The next unit is the second-oldest unit overall, and the first of four units still in use to this day, well over two thousand years after its inception: the Contubernium.

 

Roman Reenactment legionaries about to attack. CCA/3.0

 

The Contubernium (derived from a Latin term meaning, “tenting together”) was the basic eight-man unit of the Roman Army. It consisted of eight legionaries who lived, trained and fought – and occasionally died – together. Unlike their modern equivalent, the Section, there was little volatility in the Contubernium, as the legionaries within would frequently remain together for up to a decade or more, barring deaths or promotions. The contubernium was the basic building block for the next level up, that being the Century.

Today, the contubernium still exists as the “Section”. The modern Section of eight troops is used in many armies for the same purpose as its ancestor, as the infantry’s basic fighting unit in combat.

 

A Wehrmacht infantry Gruppe (Section) armed with the MG 34 light machine gun. Poland, 1941. German Federal Archives.

 

The Century/Company

 

The Century was a unit of 80-100 troops (the number varied over time). Their leaders, the Centurions were long-serving, professional officers, and had to be literate, have prior military experience in the ranks (at least in theory, although this was mostly true for most of the era), had to have “connections” (expressed in ‘letters of recommendation’) and had to be able to demonstrate proficiency with all the common weapons of the soldier. The centurions were simultaneously soldiers, officers, disciplinarians, combat commanders, administrators, and occasionally, even jurists or spies.

 

Roman Centurion (reenactment). Hans Splinter, 2010. CCA/2.0

 

The modern Company, in contrast, is about one-half to twice the size of the Roman Century. However, that was an evolution, over about three hundred years, because the infantry Company, from before the American War of Independence, was roughly 50-80 men at full strength, until about the time of World War 1, with the advent of more complex weapons and the organizations to support them. However, the organization of the “fighting company” has remained stable at 100-200 troops. There have been attempts at explaining this, but the one theory that has taken hold is that 150 troops is the rough “sweet spot”, where one person can directly lead about 150 people in combat with only a minimal staff.

 

Soldiers assigned of Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, pause near Narizah, Afghanistan, 2002. US Army Photo.

 

In the Mess, we call that “learning through trial & error”.

 

The Cohort/Battalion

 

The next level up from the Century/Company is the Cohort/Battalion. The Cohort was a subset of a Legion (q.v.), which had a total of ten Cohorts. The Cohort, like its descendant, was a collection of centuries. Unlike its descendant, however, the Cohort was generally fixed in size, at about 600 legionaries. The modern battalion, in contrast, can be anything from 300 to 1,200 troops in size, depending on its specific job and organization. (As an aside, some translations of John 18:3 note that it was a “Roman cohort” that arrived to arrest Jesus at Gethsemane.)

 

“A Roman Legion”, by Marco Dente, c. 1515-1527. Public Domain.

 

This level of command is typically regarded as both the first “operationally capable” unit that can operate on its own, as it includes its own internal (or, “organic”) support elements, such as a medical staff that offers more than First Aid +, communications, supply, maintenance and a number of other dedicated support elements, is considered to be the basic tactical unit in combat. In Roman times, specialist officers within the Cohort and Legion were assigned drafts of troops for non-fighting tasks such as building roads and entrenchments, or manning artillery pieces.

 

Group portrait of the Australian 11th (Western Australia) Battalion, 3rd Infantry Brigade, Australian Imperial Force, posing on the Great Pyramid of Giza on 10 January 1915. Public Domain.

 

The Battalion, like its ancestor, forms the bedrock for larger units.

 

The Legion/Brigade

 

Rounding out the “units of history” is the legendary Roman Legion. Composed of ten Cohorts, plus additional troops (mostly cavalry and scouts) and support staff, a Roman Legion at full strength numbered anywhere from five thousand to seven thousand troops in size. The twenty-eight Legions of Octavian Augustus – a force estimated at c.300,000 troops overall – formed the core of a Roman military machine that would maintain the security of the Empire for nearly five centuries.

In the modern day, the basic structure of the Legion continues as the “Brigade”, which is at the core of most modern armies. While the modern-day brigade is a miniature army – effectively mirroring the Battalion albeit much larger in size – this was not always the case, as it evolved from an ad hoc grouping of Regiments (q.v.). With the end of the Cold War, however, most nations ‘downsized’ their militaries, leaving Divisions (q.v.) as mostly administrative commands for their component “maneuver brigades”. With the return of large-scale (if rather desultory) mechanized warfare with the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, many nations are reevaluating their policies of leaving brigades to operate independently, outside the “support umbrella” provided by the Division.

 

Lightning strikes as Bradley Fighting Vehicles from the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team prepare to fire TOW missiles during an exercise at Fort Bliss, Texas, in August 2018. (Staff Sgt. Brendan Stephens/Army). Public Domain.

 

In one of those quirks of history, the modern Brigade has approximately the same “bayonet strength” of troops as a Roman Legion, although it maintains larger support units.

 

De Re Militari

 

How is it that the preceding four organizations carried over to the modern day, over a span of some two thousand years? The answer lies in a book, De Re Militari (English translation), written sometime in the early 5th Century AD by a late-Roman author, Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus. In it, Vegetius reviewed the organization, training and discipline of the old legionary system, attempting to convince the Emperor of the time to return to those methods. While those exhortations apparently had little effect on the Western Empire, copies of the work circulated throughout the misnamed “Dark Ages”, until it received its first printed edition in 1473AD.

 

A morocco bound copy of the 1494 edition of “De Re Militari”. Public Domain.

 

Kings and commanders throughout Western Europe tried to emulate various aspects of Vegetius’ work, but social, political and technological limitations hampered anything more than the most basic of his ideas. With the rise of larger, better-organized states in the 15th Century, however, Vegetius’ ideas became viable, and many states – especially after the near-total adoption of firearms as the main personal combat weapon in the various armies – latched onto the book as a template for their new, much larger forces.

 

The Tercio

 

The Tercio (from the Spanish term for “a third”) is somewhat unique in this list, as it only really lasted for about one hundred and fifty years, at most, but had an impact out of all proportion to its size and organization. This was because it was the first unit in modern times to show the potential of what infantry was actually capable of, in an arena where the mounted knight had been viewed as the dominant power.

As originally organized, the tercio deployed was split into three more or less equal types of infantry: pikemen, swordsmen and crossbowmen. Rapidly, however, the arquebus replaced the crossbow, and the swordsmen began to dwindle in number, replaced by troops carrying halberds. Eventually, as the arquebus first became cheaper, then evolved into the musket, the swordsmen disappeared entirely. The result was the first real “combined arms” formation since the Roman Legions, a unit of 400-3,000 troops what could operate independently of outside support.

 

Rocroi, el último tercio. 2011. Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau. CCA/3.0

 

The tercio revolutionized warfare, and lead directly to the next ‘unit of history’, the Regiment.

 

The Regiment…and the Bayonet

 

The Regiment evolved out of the Tercio, as the technology of military firearms advanced. As the arquebus evolved into the musket, it was realized that coordinated firepower was the infantry’s final, real answer to cavalry dominance. However, while the Tercio did have advantages, the use of pikes was increasingly seen as a waste of troops: while the pikes did well in protecting the infantry from cavalry attacks, commanders wanted to somehow combine the pike and the musket into a single weapon.

The answer came in the form of the bayonet.

 

British infantryman in 1941 with a long WWI sword-type bayonet affixed to his rifle. 1941. Imperial War Museum. Public Domain.

 

In the late 17th Century, around 1671AD or so, French General Jean Martinet standardized the first practical bayonet (so named for its purported place of invention, the French city of Bayonne), the so-called “plug bayonet”. The plug bayonet was exactly that: it was essentially a type of dagger, fitted with a small, round hilt made of wood, that could be quickly inserted into the muzzle of a musket, turning it into a type of spear, which could be used to fend off cavalry that got too close, a common occurrence, given the limitations of the muskets of the time.

Obviously, though, this type of weapon was not ideal, as it could only be used while the musket was empty. The plug bayonet quickly evolved into the “socket bayonet”, which was fitted over the outside of the muzzle and was offset to one side, allowing the soldier to load and fire his musket while the bayonet was fixed.

It was at this point – in c.1700 – where the Tercio, as such, finally disappeared and was replaced by the Regiment.

 

The Sikh Regiment marching contingent passes through the Raj path during the 61st Republic Day Parade-2010, in New Delhi on January 26, 2010. GODL-India

 

This is not a useless digression – by eliminating the pike, military units (at least in Europe) became all-firearm formations, capable of both maximizing firepower, while simultaneously being able to counter direct cavalry shock attack.

The bayoneted musket directly allowed the creation of the Regiment. Nominally a unit of 500-1,000 troops, the regiment was usually organized into ten equal companies, ideally of 50-100 troops each, with a regimental command staff to handle administration, medicine and logistics. The troops could – as their Roman predecessors had been – be assigned to various specialist tasks under the supervision of officers skilled in fortification and road building, although gunpowder artillery was left to specially trained soldiers, given the dangers involved.

The Regiment, in this format, remained the dominant maneuver unit until after World War 1. Although the term was occasionally used interchangeably with the Battalion – even today – the Regiment remains the bridge between the Battalion and the Brigade. In its most basic form, the modern regiment is composed of two to three battalions, with perhaps a battalion’s worth of support units. This organization is the source of some confusion, as it appear to resemble a brigade…however, the main difference between the two units is in the number of support personnel.

Three hundred years on, the Regiment – while evolved in size and organization – is still going strong, and shows no sign of disappearing anytime soon.

 

The Division

 

While there has always been a delineation of larger military units into “divisions”, the modern Division (capitalized intentionally) originated during the Napoleonic Wars, as Napoleon reorganized the French Army into Divisions and Corps’.

In the modern day, a division typically consists of three brigades, of three “fighting” regiments/battalions each, with their associated support elements, and a collection of other support units under the direct control of the division headquarters. Numbers-wise, the division can range anywhere from 6,000-25,000 troops, depending on its composition, mission and national military doctrines.

M1-A1 Abrams main battle tanks of the U.S. Army 1st Armored Division, along with two AH-64A Apache helicopters coordinate their fire as they practice at a range in Glamoc, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on April 2, 1998. U.S. Army Photo.

 

As referenced above, while the Division faded into an administrative grouping in most nations following the end of the Cold War, the current (as of January of 2023AD) war between Russia and Ukraine is causing a serious reconsideration of reviving the Division as an operational combat command among nations fearful of being drawn, once again, into an all-out, conventional (hopefully) slugging match.

 

Soviet troops of the Voronezh Front counterattacking behind T-34 tanks, 1943. Mil.ru

 

Conclusion

 

Why is it important to know these things? Well…that really depends on one’s view of their place in the world: How much do you trust your government to properly inform you of what is happening with your nation’s military? When you see or hear a news story about “military unit X”, what does that mean? Is it a minor issue, or a major one? The popular media rarely, if ever, bother to try and explain it to you, and when they do, they usually get it wrong.

To paraphrase historian Niall Ferguson, in his 2008 series “The Ascent of Money”, not knowing this stuff can seriously affect your life.

 

 

“A Puzzlement” – The Genesis Of The ‘Assault Rifle’

“A Puzzlement” – The Genesis Of The ‘Assault Rifle’

Michael Cessna December 29, 2022 0

 

 

For nearly seventy-five years, the military forces of the world have been saddled with “assault rifles”, weapons that use an “intermediate cartridge” – smaller than a “full-power” rifle cartridge, but considerably more powerful than a handgun cartridge.

There is a never-ending controversy in the “gun vs. anti-gun” debate over the term “assault rifle”. While the “pro” side is technically precise in its language, the “anti” side verges on the neurotic in insisting on ignoring anything but the screaming propaganda fed to them.

The “assault rifle”, as such, comes from three distinct and separate strains of “institutional DNA”. The impact of the fusion of those strains on military affairs is our subject, here.

 

The German Strain

 

Prior to World War 2, a “rifle” was, well…a rifle. After the introduction of smokeless powder by France in 1884, the world’s militaries settled on rifles with calibers between 6- and 8mm, with bullet weights in the vicinity of 140 to 160 grains. This seemed to be the proverbial “sweet spot”, giving long ranges (as far as c.2200 yards/2000 meters), with acceptable terminal performance at the limit that troops could shoot.

 

An Indian rifleman with a SMLE (Short Magazine Lee-Enfield) No. 1 Mk III, Egypt, 1940. Public Domain.

 

And then – 1914 happened.

The First World War brought on (as could be expected) more military innovation in four years than in the previous four decades, radically altering the perception of warfare in all the participating states (whether those states could act to maximize those perceptions is another matter, entirely).

 

April, 1918 During the German Spring Offensive in Artois two German A7V tanks (Hagen 528) and (Schnuck 504/544) roll towards the Western Front. Public Domain.

 

The victors of WW1 were content to make a few improvements to their military structures here and there, but the collective sigh of relief at the war’s “conclusion” (because fighting continued for nearly five full years, at least, past 1918) imparted a dangerous wave of “Victory Disease” in those states, whose armed forces, while doing research and making a few alterations to their doctrines, either largely failed to learn the right lessons from the war, or failed to convince their political leadership to fund improvements promptly. This would come back to haunt them twenty years later. What most nations could agree upon, though, was the need for a semi-automatic rifle to replace the universally deployed bolt-action rifles, in models unique to every major nation.

Two of the major combatants in WW1, however, took the exact opposite approach.

While “Imperial Russia” was destroyed and replaced by the Soviet Union, “Russia”, as such, had suffered such a crushing defeat in the war, that the new Communist government immediately launched a long-range plan to create the most advanced armed forces in the world…and largely succeeded, at least on paper. This impressive force would be gutted by Stalin’s Great Purge, and would thus nearly collapse in the early days of its new war with Germany, in 1941…but that is another story.

 

Soviet tanks on Khalkhyn Gol, 1939. Public Domain.

 

In contrast, Germany – the leader of the losing faction of World War 1, the “Central Powers” – had the Treaty of Versailles inflicted on it, losing large swathes of territory, being forced into paying crushing war reparations (including the physical seizure of actual industrial plant equipment and machinery) to the victors, and being forced to officially reduce its military forces to a pale shadow of their former size.

While the minutiae of the Treaty are not the subject of this article, it did conclusively show that Germany had been defeated. This caused the remnant of the German military to immediately begin a careful assessment of what it had gotten right – and more importantly, wrong – during the war. This actually began before the war ended, in early 1918, when a certain Hauptmann (Captain) Piderit, part of the Gewehrprüfungskommission (“Small Arms Examination Committee”) of the German General Staff pointed out that infantry rarely fired at enemies further than 870y/800m distant, and that a physically smaller, intermediate cartridge would save on materials and allow for a smaller and lighter Maschinenpistole (submachine gun), while allowing the troops to carry more ammunition (the contradictory irony of his conclusions apparently escaped Hauptmann Piderit).

While these points did have some validity, specifically in regards to the American M1895 Lee-Navy rifle (YouTube link), it contained two fundamental flaws: first, that the General Staff was perfectly satisfied with its MP18 SMG, and second, that Hauptmann Piderit apparently concentrated his study on actions on the Western Front, which is the stereotypical vision of WW1, where most of the war was fought in the hell of the trenches, and largely ignored the much more mobile warfare of the Eastern Front, as well as the mountain warfare on the Italian front. Hauptmann Piderit’s assessment stands as a sterling example of the dangers of relying strictly on sterilized statistics.

 

A Maschinenpistole 18 (MP 18) in service in Berlin, Germany, 1919. Public Domain.

 

In any case, Germany – like most nations in the postwar period – recognized the need to adopt a semi-automatic rifle. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on one’s view – the Reichswehr (the post-Versailles German army) seemed to have taken Piderit’s study to heart, laying out requirements for a new rifle for the military that would ultimately lead to the StG 44 rifle, developed, manufactured and deployed during 1944, at the height of World War 2. This weapon, formally termed the “Sturmgewehr 44” – or, literally, “Assault Rifle 44” – is the origin of the term “assault rifle” itself.

 

The German Sturmgewehr 44, found in Iraq by US troops, c.2004. DoD Photo.

 

Using a cartridge very similar to the later Soviet M43 cartridge, the StG 44 proved a nasty surprise to Allied troops…when it worked. Postwar assessments were not kind to the design, which was made as the German economy and resource base were collapsing under Allied assaults, and which assessments thus overcompensated in dismissing the German “wunderwaffe”.

This flawed development process would continue to lie quietly, fascinating and exciting the minds of leaders and middle managers more enticed with monetary and resource savings than tactical utility.

 

 

The Soviet Strain

 

The Soviet Union’s Red Army, in contrast, was very practical in its approach to the problem of updating its infantry weapons.

Beginning World War Two with the perfectly awful Mosin-Nagant rifle, the Soviets quickly discovered that high-firepower weapons (mainly submachine guns) were the decisive winners in close assaults and urban warfare. Independently (probably), they hit on the idea of an intermediate cartridge for general issue. The first weapon to use this new M43 cartridge was adopted as the SKS (Samozaryadny Karabin sistemy Simonova) rifle, designed by Sergei Simonov. However, the Soviets freely acknowledged that the SKS was a carbine-class weapon…and, shortly after the SKS’s adoption, former tank commander and budding weapons designer Mikhail Kalashnikov perfected the first model of the AK-47, which would go on to become one of, if not the, premier, infantry weapon of the last seventy-five years.

 

Comparison of AKM and SKS 45. Swedish Army Museum. CCA/4.0

 

The AK-47 was adopted en masse as soon as it was made easier to manufacture. It seemed to be the very best “middle ground”: the M43 cartridge was suitably powerful; the rifle was accurate to 300-400m; it was lightweight and handy; it could fire in either semi– or full-automatic; it used a detachable 30-round magazine versus the SKS’s fixed, 10-round magazine; and was comparatively compact, even without a folding stock. Additionally, it was both rugged and easy to learn, making it the weapon of choice throughout a “developing world” with terrible levels of education, almost from the time of its creation.

 

 

The American Strain

 

In complete contrast, the United States of America backed into the assault rifle more or less by accident, aided by incompetence, parochialism, destructive pettiness that bordered on the criminal and a failed war.

The United States entered World War Two with what was arguably the best rifle of the conflict, the famed M1 Garand. Although an Army board had recommended the adoption of a lighter cartridge in 1928, the realities of shrunken postwar budgets precluded any real attempt at a fundamental change in caliber. However, development continued, as the Army searched for a combat-capable semi-automatic rifle. Adopted in 1936, the semi-automatic M1 was big and beefy, weighing 9.5lbs/4.31kg, and being almost 44in/1100mm in length. It fired the full-power .30-06 Springfield cartridge, fully capable of shooting out past 2,000 yards with ease.

 

M1 Garand rifle and M1 carbine. Public Domain.

 

As good as the M1 was, however, the US military realized that it needed to stay ahead of the development curve, and began experimenting with a detachable-magazine variant of the rifle as early as 1944, to counter the limitations of the M1’s 8-round “en bloc” clip…

…But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

The US Army saw the need, as early as 1938, for a ‘light rifle’ to issue to its support troops (clerks, drivers, radio operators, etc), who needed something more powerful than a handgun, but lighter than an M1 Rifle or a Thompson SMG. The result was the somewhat confusingly named M1 .30 Carbine.

The M1 Carbine was about 40% lighter than the rifle (a little over 5lbs/2kg), and its “.30 Carbine” round, although significantly lighter in projectile weight and range, was much easier to handle for its light recoil. The much shorter range of the Carbine (300y/270m) was not seen as a problem, as it was seen as what we would now refer to as a “personal defense weapon”. The M1 Carbine would go on to evolve through several variants, including fully automatic versions, and would continue to serve around the world well into the 1980’s.

None of the Carbine’s development, however, would really have a meaningful impact on postwar rifle development.

After the creation of NATO, and that body’s adoption of the 7.62x51mm cartridge, the US Army would hold a competition in the mid-1950’s that would result in the adoption of the M14 rifle.

 

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Richard Wiley demonstrates shooting an M-14 rifle in Iraq, 2006. US Army Photo.

 

While the long list of shenanigans – rising, bluntly, to the levels of criminal incompetence, corruption or both – surrounding that trial series are better left to another discussion, the end result was the adoption of a weapon that was intended to do “everything”: the M14 was supposed to replace the M1 Rifle, the M1918A2 B.A.R., the M3A1 ‘Grease Gun’ SMG and the M1 Carbine…In the end, the M14 only replaced the M1 Rifle, and then for a paltry five years, from 1959 to 1964, although it continued to serve in Vietnam until 1967, and in other limited roles until 1970.

Although the M14 would mature over time, and eventually become an exceptionally good firearm (and was used as a sniper rifle, the M21), the program was initially so plagued with severe development, production and cost-overrun issues that it finally drew the official attention of then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who overrode the protests of the parochial Army officers who had backed it, and ordered the program to be canceled in 1968…

…To be replaced with the M16…Back to the Fifties…

The original trials, which resulted in the M14, had three participants: the prototype M14, designated the “T44”; a version of the Belgian-designed FN FAL, designated as the “T48”; and the AR-10, from the ArmaLite division of the Fairchild aircraft company, which was a late addition to the trials, and did not receive a “T” designator.

 

AR10 rifle, with bayonet attached, 2017. CCA/4.0

 

The AR10 was an incredibly light and compact design for the powerful 7.62x51mm cartridge (which was essentially a scaled-down .30-06), weighing just 6.85lbs/3.11kg empty. Designed by the legendary Eugene Stoner, the AR10 was a huge leap forward in rifle design. Although the disappointingly gory details of the trials are best explained in “The Black Rifle”, by Edward C. Ezell, in the end, the trials guaranteed that the M14 prototype would be the winner.

Disappointed by the trial results, Stoner tried to shop the AR10 to foreign markets, and managed to get a few sales, with the rifles built by the Dutch company “Artillerie Inrichtingen”. Although the rifles received glowing reports from users fielding the rifles in combat, the AR10 never saw the kind of sales that it should have gotten.

Fairchild then decided to try and rework the rifle for the American market, and L. James Sullivan – working with Stoner’s notes, as Stoner had left Fairchild by that time – reduced the AR10 in size and caliber, resulting in the AR15.

The AR15 would eventually morph into the M16 and it’s many derivatives, despite controversies (including no cleaning kits being ordered for the weapons and the substitution of unsuitable gunpowder that significantly increased fouling, among other issues) generated by shocking levels of (possibly malicious) incompetence by the Ordnance Corps, and would go on to serve through the end of the Vietnam War.

 

From top to bottom: M16A1, M16A2, M4, M16A4. CCA/3.0

 

After the end of US involvement in Vietnam, in what President Jimmy Carter would call “a national malaise”, there was little incentive in Congress to fund yet another round of service rifle trials, despite there being a completely different, battle-proven weapon system designed by Eugene Stoner, that both the US Army and Marine Corps were seriously interested in. Instead, both services decided that the M16-series was good enough, and focused on acquiring the new “Big Ticket” vehicles and aircraft it wanted for its burgeoning “Active Defense Doctrine” (which would later be replaced by the “AirLand Battle Doctrine” that was the basis of US and Coalition strategy and operation in the 1990-1991 Gulf War) in the desperate attempt to erase the memory of the loss in Vietnam.

Now, some 60-odd years after it was first presented to the US military, the AR15/M16 series of rifles are still the primary infantry rifles for all of the country’s armed services, only now being replaced…

…With a significantly larger caliber weapon.

 

SIG Sauer XM5 rifle, 2022. DoD Photo.

 

So…what are we to make of all of this wandering down three different avenues, to get to the intersection of today?

As pointed out in Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer, by then-Major Thomas P. Ehrhart, US Army (pdf link), around 50% of infantry engagements in Afghanistan occurred at ranges beyond 500 meters…and the 5.56x45mm ammunition of the M16 and M4 rifles of the US infantry were completely inadequate to meet those challenges. Major Ehrhart’s data, stating the obvious, is one of the drivers that resulted in the Army’s adoption of the XM5 in 6.8x51mm caliber – a caliber of usable size and power, comparable to the 7.62x51mm, but looking “shiny, new and improved”, because they can’t be see to be reverting to “old stuff” by a civilian leadership wholly unqualified to assess the military’s needs.

As the world is moving into more urban-focused combat (YouTube link), rifles firing lightweight projectiles are at an increasing disadvantage. India recognized this, when they opted for a stopgap purchase of almost 140,000 SIG Sauer 716 rifles in 7.62x51mm for its army, when they finally accepted that their native-designed INSAS rifle program had failed.

 

Indian army soldier armed with a Sig 716i, 2021. GODL-India

 

Modern infantry combat happens at a variety of ranges, and always has. Whether it is point-blank, on the other side of a door, or takes place at distances where telescopic sights are necessary for accuracy, the infantry battle area is wide – and the infantry needs a weapon that can reach all of those points within a rational distance.

The assault rifle concept was based on a flawed statistical study, a bloodthirsty and unimaginative style of combat operations, and sheer, petty – and possibly criminal – incompetence…and troops of many nations have been paying the price of those flawed policies for nearly eight decades.

It is no admission of incompetence to recognize that an idea has failed, and needs to be corrected.

If India can do it, the rest of the world can, as well.

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
The PCC – Useless, Essential, Or Just ‘Okay’?

The PCC – Useless, Essential, Or Just ‘Okay’?

Michael Cessna December 23, 2022 0

 

 

 

 

In the firearms world, there is a wide array of classifications for various types of weapons. These varying classes and “families” of weapons change over time, as buzzwords come and go; one of the current buzz terms, and one that generates a great deal of controversy, is the “PCC”, or the “Pistol-Caliber Carbine”.

A PCC is best defined as a firearm intended to be used like a rifle, but which fires a projectile and cartridge caliber commonly associated with a handgun. This is not really a “new thing” – the majority of the 19th Century Winchester family (YouTube) of level-action rifles all came in pistol cartridges, at first.

 

Big caliber cartridge comparison. L to R: .22lr, 9x18mm, 9x19mm, 7.62x25mm, .40 S&W, 10mm Auto, .45 ACP, .454 Casull, .30 Carbine, 4.6mm HK, 5.56x45mm NATO, 5.45x39mm, 7.62x39mm, 7.62x51mm, 7.62x54mmR, .303, 7.92x57mm, .30-06. CCa/4.0

 

The first true “PCC’s” of the modern era, though, were the German submachine guns of the First World War, closely followed by the Thompson SMG, the famous “Tommy Gun” (a term that comes from WW2). These weapons – while not exactly “carbines”, as they were not “shortened rifles”, as such – showed armies that there was room in their doctrines for a lightweight and compact (comparatively speaking) type of “long-ish” weapon, that was cheaper and easier to produce than more conventional rifles and carbines.

In the United States this would eventually result, in 1942, with the introduction of the M1 Carbine. While using a cartridge considerably more powerful than most handgun cartridges, the .30 Carbine cartridge was far less powerful than a “full-power” cartridge, like the .30-06 used by the M1 Garand Rifle. The M1 Carbine was significantly lighter and handier than the larger and heavier M1 Rifle, and was only really usable out to about 150 yards/138 meters, but that was deemed to be perfectly sufficient for its intended use: giving troops who did not really need a “full-power” M1 Rifle something to defend themselves with that was more accurate and longer-ranged than a handgun.

 

M1 Garand rifle and M1 carbine. Public Domain.

 

The “carbine” field became somewhat muddied with the widespread adoption of the “intermediate” cartridge class after World War 2, but eventually settled back to the original idea of a “carbine”, that being a shortened version of a service rifle. One of the side effects of this adoption trend, meanwhile, led to fewer and fewer true “pistol-caliber” SMG’s being developed, as post-war battlefield developments made SMG’s largely redundant. Submachine guns were slowly pushed to the fringes, eventually used only by police or elite and highly specialized military units, primarily for hostage rescue and use in very crowded areas like airport concourses and large entertainment venues, where rifle cartridges – even coming from a shortened barrel – were not satisfactory, due to over-penetration at close-quarters’ range.

However, in areas that were friendly to private firearms ownership, the first PCC’s began to appear in the 1970’s. At first, these were weapons that mimicked the “look and feel” of SMG’s, but that fired only on semi-automatic. Soon, however, companies began to move away from the “military look”, as hysteria in certain quarters arose, and took on a more “civilian-friendly” look.

 

M105 Calico .22 carbine (Photo by Oleg Volk)

 

As the 21st Century dawned, companies in the United States began – after the 2004 sunset of the 1994 “Assault Weapons Ban” – to release PCC’s onto the civilian market. While little regard was given to these weapons at first, closer looks ensued as more an more people bought various types of PCC’s, for everything from recreational shooting to home defense. Inevitably, perhaps, highly raucous debate began as some quarters began to discuss the “tactical” uses of PCC’s…

…And, as in most debates about modern firearms, much hysterical screeching ensued.

The essential point of contention are that PCC’s are more or less useless against modern body armor – which is true…although the numbers of criminals staging “home invasions” at 2AM, while wearing high-grade body armor, is very low. As a result, the PCC is a good choice for home defense instead of a “full power” rifle or carbine, as its projectiles are less likely to leave your home and land a block or two away, in someone else’s home. As well, although there is a net savings on ammunition for practice, “training” (two different things) and recreational shooting, the savings are not that large, overall. One thing PCC’s are demonstrably good at, is acting as introductory weapon to ease new shooters into long-arm use.

 

Just Right Carbines (JC Carbine) 9mm. CCA/4.0

 

Do PCC’s have a “military” use? For an established national armies or police forces, the answer is “not really”. Although some arguments could be made that police forces would do better with a PCC than an actual “patrol rifle” (usually a military carbine), any real need for a pistol-caliber long-arm is usually better filled by a submachine gun.

However…as we pointed out in a previous article, there is one military area in which this class of weapon excels: insurgent warfare.

Unlike more high-powered firearms, PCC’s are well suited to “guerrilla factories”, especially using “additive manufacturing” infrastructures, as the tolerances required are considerably less than those required for fully-automatic weapons. Likewise, additive manufacture requires few, if any, of the tools, equipment and supplies needed – and thus more-easily tracked – for more conventional weapons.

 

Anti-junta rebels in Myanmar, armed with FCG-9 carbines. 2021-2022. Author unknown.

 

In sum, then, if you are living in a “gun-friendly” location, a PCC is a good tool for both recreation and home defense, while also being a good choice for introducing new shooters to long-arms…and, if things really go sideways, they are a good choice for arming an insurgency or resistance movement, with the intention – as in Myanmar – of using them to capture more powerful enemy weapons.

The only “obsolete” weapon is the weapon that can no longer harm you. You have to work with what you have at hand. Thinking in advance is one of the keys to personal safety and survival.

 

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
Additive Manufacturing: Ready For War, Or Blind Alley?

Additive Manufacturing: Ready For War, Or Blind Alley?

Michael Cessna December 16, 2022 3

 

 

 

 

Additive Manufacturing – better known as “3D Printing” – has been increasing in popularity and capability, while decreasing in price, for the last thirty years. Today, many very capable printers can be had for well under US$500. The products produced range from simple objects to complex and detailed models, both of mechanical parts, as well as people. As well, 3D printing has begun to expand into using metals, which can be heated after printing to make the printed items strong enough for working applications.

 

 

Naturally, as soon as the technology’s capabilities reached a certain, ill-defined threshold, minds in many quarters began studying the possibility of military applications. While many do see “potential”, is that potential actually useful “downrange”?

Military forces have – obviously – changed significantly over the millennia. A soldier of Sargon the Great didn’t really require a great deal in the way of supplies, weapons or equipment. Indeed, in many cases, a soldier of Sargon may likely have been able to make much of their needed weapons and equipment on the spot, if they had the time and resources. All that really needed to be supplied to the soldier was food and water (for both troops and animals), and perhaps some large parts for siege engines.

As time and technology progressed, of course, weapons and equipment became increasingly specialized and difficult to manufacture. But, while troops could still forage for food and water, once the weapons were delivered, they were comparatively uncomplicated to both use and work on, should repairs be required in the field.

By the end of the 20th Century, of course, weapons, ammunition and much of the soldier’s equipment had advanced to the point where the vast majority of troops in all armies had only a nominal idea of how their weapons worked, let alone how to make or repair them.

These were all factors taken into account by those studying additive manufacturing for military purposes.

As is it possible, and relatively easy, to pack a “job shop” or three into shipping containers, along with some raw material stock and possibly parts blanks (although 2- and 3-D pictures, animations and mechanical drawings are far easier with digital reference libraries that can “live” on computers, or even on microfilm archives), making repair parts for many weapons and vehicles are not overly taxing for most units in the field. Plus, there are no questions concerning how strong or durable the field-manufactured parts are…after all, armies are some of the most conservative organizations in history. As a result, there are few specifically military applications, at present, where additive manufacturing can excel over conventional methods…

 

Mobile Machine Shop truck of the 741st Ord. Co., 41st Inf. Div., at Horanda, New Guinea, 1943. US Army Signal Corps Photo. Public Domain.

 

…But then, came Defense Distributed.

Inevitably, someone was going to make a firearm using additive manufacture. While the saga of Defense Distributed is too complicated to wade through here, the point is that – like Britain’s P.A. Luty before them – Defense Distributed proved that making firearms at home was not that complicated a process, if a person could obtain some very basic materials and tools.

 

Side-view of Defense Distributed ‘Liberator’ 3D-Printed hand-gun.

 

Now, both the “3-D Printed Gun” from Defense Distributed, as well as Luty’s 9mm submachine gun, were – being charitable – both crude, barely-usable weapons. While Luty’s design is occasionally manufactured by criminal gangs in parts of the world with very strict firearms laws, the fact of these weapons’ existence simply proves the points made by both Defense Distributed and P.A. Luty, that no matter how strictly a state tries to enforce restrictive gun control, people who want firearms will get them somehow, even if they have to make them. But, in the law enforcement and military spheres, 3-D firearms remained crude and barely usable, even if they were dangerous.

This all began to change in 2019, when the FCG-9 appeared, designed by a shadowy German-Kurdish anti-gun control activist known as “JStark1809” (who, incidentally, was tracked down in 2021, using financial transaction records; two days after a raid that found no weapons in his residence, the 28-year-old JStark1809 was found dead in his car of, according to the coroner, a “heart attack”).

 

Prototype of FGC-9 made by its designer, JStark1809. CCA/4.0

 

A photo of FGC-9 firearm unassembled components, included in original FGC-9 release files.

The FCG-9 is an altogether different 3-D animal, as it appeared in the hands of a dissident IRA splinter group in a parade during Easter of 2022 and – much more significantly – it is reportedly in use by anti-junta rebel groups in Myanmar, beginning in 2021. Being made of 3-D printed media, with a few steel parts for strength, the 9mm weapon is easy to mass-produce in guerrilla workshops, and is apparently far more reliable and useable than either Defense Distributed’s or Luty’s deisgns, further reinforcing the ridiculous nature of restrictive firearms laws.

 

Anti-junta rebels in Myanmar, armed with FCG-9 carbines. 2021-2022. Author unknown.

 

But…How useful is this technology to an army? Well, beyond the obvious utility for guerrilla forces, as mentioned above, the answer is ‘not much’. As also pointed out above, there are far cheaper and more conventional ways to manufacture spare parts for military-grade vehicles and weapons

 

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

The Mighty Maxim

Michael Cessna December 1, 2022 1

 

 

 

There are very few machines in the world, today, that can claim to have been designed over a hundred years ago. There are some railroad engines, for example, that are still run as “living museums”, ferrying the curious around closed rail circuits, allowing modern riders to experience some of the feels and smells of bygone eras. In other places, there are hydroelectric dams that have changed little in the near-century since they were built; Hoover Dam comes to mind, as it nears its own century mark, with only minimal updates to its internal design.

Series of massive electrical generators beneath the Hoover Dam. CCA/4.0

This is equally true of firearms. The Browning Machine Gun, in both .30 and .50 calibers, and the Colt 1911 (also designed by John Moses Browning) all date from over a century ago, yet remain in both first- or second-line service around the world. The Mosin-Nagant rifle, and its 7.62x54mmR cartridge, in contrast, date all the way back to 1891, and while the Mosin rifle may no longer be in common service (aside from a few WW2-era examples turning up in Ukraine), the 7.62x54mmR remains the cartridge of choice for the PKM GPMG, one of the most widely deployed machine guns of the early 21st Century.

7.62 mm PKM machine gun used by Finnish military. 2012. Public Domain.

 

But one weapon stands apart from all of these: the Maxim Machine Gun.

Swiss Maxim Machine gun Model 1911, cal 7.5 mm. CCA/3.0

First invented in 1884 by an American inventory, Hiram Stevens Maxim, and first offered for sale in 1886, the Maxim Gun has been used in every part of the world, in virtually every conflict of note since that time. The Maxim was the first true “machine gun”, in the mechanical sense that we understand the term today. Unlike most machine guns of today, the Maxim is recoil-operated, meaning that it only uses the recoil impulse of the cartridge firing, to retract, extract, and eject spent cartridges, then chamber and fire a new cartridge. In contrast, most modern automatic weapons use some form of gas-operated piston – very similar to the piston in a car engine – to operate their cycle.

An Australian soldier manning a Vickers machine gun during the Korean War. Date Unknown. Public Domain.

Similarly, the Maxim typically use a large, cylindrical water jacket to cool and protect the barrel from the heat of firing, unlike modern weapons which rely on the flow of air and “quick-change” barrels to accomplish the same task. While very good at cooling barrels, the water jackets were very cumbersome, and prone to damage, both in and out of combat, which could cause catastrophic damage to the weapon if no immediately repaired.

With a cyclic rate of about 600 rounds per minute, the Maxim is – by modern standards – heavy, clunky, and awkward. As well, it is certainly nowhere near to modern standards of reliability in the field…and yet, the gun refuses to quietly disappear into a museum, because it continues to soldier on in the 21st Century.

Twin-mounted Maxim Guns with a modern optical sight. Ukraine. Author Unknown.

The Maxim was tweaked and fiddled with by every state operator who bought copies. But Maxim wasn’t done with his design: in the early 1890’s, he released a much larger version of his machine gun (YouTube link) that fired 37mm explosive shells, at a rate of c.300 rounds per minute, to about 4,500 yards. Versions of this “pom-pom gun” (so-called, because the sound it made while firing) would be used as secondary and tertiary armament on ships, as well as early anti-aircraft weapons, until the end of WW1.

U.S.S. Vixen, Maxim machine gun and gunner Smith. The gun appears to be a Maxim-Nordenfelt 37-mm 1-pounder autocannon, known to the British as a “pom-pom”. Public Domain.

 

British QF 1 pounder Mk II 37 mm “pom-pom” gun, World War I era, on display at the Imperial War Museum, London. CCA/2.0

The Maxim would be used as a frontline weapon through the war in Korea. By then, though, it was showing its age, as better materials and designs produced lighter, more reliable and more portable weapons. The surviving weapons, around the world, were mostly placed in storage…but the Maxim’s legacy continued: the PKM and its successor, the Pecheneg GPMG, both use ammunition belts that are backwards-compatible with the PM1910, the Imperial Russian version of Maxim’s design, dating from before WW1.

Photo of a 1910 Maxim Machine gun. CCA/4.0

But again – Maxim’s design refuses to gently go into that good night.

As the world exploded in the aftermath of the so-called “Arab Spring”, many citizen rebels and resistance fighters overran government armories, and found Maxim’s old guns in storage crates. Those guns were broken out and cleaned, training and maintenance manuals were sourced from online repositories, and the century-old weapons went back into action. They may no longer be the best guns available, but old and creaky guns are better that harsh words and rocks.

Captured German Maxim machine gun. Malard Wood, 9 August 1918. Imperial War Museums. Public Domain

Firearms – of all categories – are very recent additions to Mankind’s arsenal, as they have been effective combat tools for considerably less than 1,000 years. They are one of the most – if not the most – decisive “force multiplers” in human history. Learning about firearms makes no one “evil”, nor is it “glorifying” weapons – it makes them well informed and productive members of the societies…who should REALLY be wondering just whose side they are really on.

Don’t go gently into the night – because it may not be as gentle of a night as you think it to be.

 

A World Lit By Fire – Is The Westphalian Era Ending?

A World Lit By Fire – Is The Westphalian Era Ending?

Michael Cessna November 16, 2022 0

 

 

 

 

…And Why You Should Be Worried If It Is…

Central Europe lies in ruins, smoldering. Cities have been reduced to rubble. Entire urban populations have been massacred, displaced and raped; many survivors cower in hiding in forests, to avoid roving gangs of bandits. Famine and epidemics kill more of the survivors on a daily basis. Armed bands – the “armies” evaporated long ago – meander, too tired to loot and pillage, seeking to provide security in trade for food and shelter.

Thirty percent of the German population is dead. No one is sure how many others have met an untimely demise…

 

 

The preceding is not a work of post-apocalyptic fiction. And while it is history, it is neither the aftermath of either “world war”. This was the year 1645 A.D., the end of the Thirty Years War – a war that killed more people, both directly from physical attacks and from the side effects of war, than any event in Europe since the Black Death of the 14th Century. So ruinous and destructive was this war that the surviving rulers of Europe realized that something had to change.

The war had begun as just another petty squabble between even pettier aristocrats, claiming the sanctity of religion as their excuse. But those petty aristocrats had feudal overlords, and when they found themselves in far over their heads, they screamed to their somewhat exasperated overlords for help. And those overlords – who had to keep up appearances – moved to support their minions, the better to display their loyalty to their followers, and maybe grab some advantage over their churlish neighbors.

The reason they were in over their heads, was largely due to a democratization of technology: the first wisps of the Industrial Revolution had begun to waft through Europe, and allowed a resurgence of industrial-scale production of weapons and their accouterments, as well as systematized regimens of food production and storage, allowing a freedom of military action that had been rarely seen in Europe during the preceding five hundred years. This allowed small feudal aristocrats, and even many towns and cities, to equip small “pocket armies” with the latest military hardware.

All of that fed into an ever-increasing spiral of war, where most armies were more or less evenly matched, and the result of battles depended more on the character and skill of the commanders than anything else. Troops largely fought for whatever side paid them on time…and when promised cash was not forthcoming, looting, pillage, torture and murder were the order of the day.

The result was slaughter on a scale not seen again for nearly two hundred years, with the rise of the “popular army” of Revolutionary France, brought to its ultimate expression by Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Thirty Years War was ended by a treaty, signed at Westphalia, in modern-day Osnabrück and Münster, in 1648. One of the key aspects of the Treaty of Westphalia, was to establish what has come to be known as the concept of “Westphalian sovereignty”, or “state sovereignty”, the principle in international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its declared territories, and the understanding that other states will not interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign nations, as outlined by the Swiss jurist Emer de Vattel. It also formed the concept of ‘nation-state sovereignty‘ as being based on a defined physical territory.

While it is certainly true that nation-states since the Treaty have committed terrible crimes, it can be argued that Westphalia has tempered more war than it has encouraged.

However, as they say, “The times, they are a-changin’“…

Crystallized by then-Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations  in 1999, a new notion – driven most recently by Neoconservative ideas – began to arise: the notion of “Contingent Sovereignty“.

Contingent Sovereignty rationalizes (the idea is not codified in international law) the idea that a duty exists for other states to intervene in the internal/domestic affairs of an otherwise-sovereign state, if that state is “failing”, cannot protect its citizens, and/or is actively making war on its own citizens, thus invoking the principle of a responsibility to protect that nation’s citizens by external states.

While a seemingly noble idea on its surface, the opening for abuse should be plainly apparent: Contingent Sovereignty is a concept aimed at legitimizing neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism, imposed at bayonet-point by wealthy nations on countries too weak to resist, despite the widespread availability of affordable and equalizing armaments.

What the states of the Developed World have failed to realize, is that this sword cuts both ways: as many First World countries seem to be descending into political, economic and social chaos – at least, according to the popular press – as their internal blocs seem to be deliberately devouring their own economies and societies, less economically developed countries – but, countries with a surplus of manpower and cheap weapons – stare at them, remembering that their own states were created by colonial fiat, Contingent Sovereignty gives those “lesser” states all the authority they need to move en masse against the Developed World, making invasions “all nice and legal,” as the saying goes.

And, lest anyone think that this is not a possible fate for many “First World” nations, it must be pointed out that sufficient training and equipment has been provided to many Third World nations to allow them to at least ponder the idea.

All those states need, is a unifying figurehead, in effect, a 21st Century Napoleon Bonaparte.

And, as Napoleon himself is reported to have said, “A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.”

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
Outside The Box: DIY Navies?

Outside The Box: DIY Navies?

Michael Cessna November 11, 2022 2

 

 

 

In previous articles, we have touched on the ideas for building “DIY” ground- and air-combat forces. Today, we will take a look at the naval aspect of this idea.

Water-based travel is not new. In fact, for the majority of human history, travel further than 100 miles in any direction was usually faster, cheaper and safer than overland travel, even if wide detours were necessary. Without getting into the physics of fluid dynamics, movement is a lot easier when nature is helping you along, especially when friction resistance is determined more by shape than by weight. It was not until the advent of railroads in the early 19th Century that land travel became faster and comparatively safer than travel by water.

 

River Landscape with Man in Rowing Boat and Tree-Lined Shore. Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek (1778–1851). 1800-1850. Public Domain.

 

However, when looking at the military dimensions of water travel, while there were early examples of purpose-built warships, such as the Greek and Roman “triremes”, the vast majority of ships were perfectly suitable for both military and commercial use. Mostly, this consisted for transporting troops, animals, equipment and other supplies. Because of the ships’ designs of these eras, most vessels were also capable of going fairly far upriver; this was the main tactic of Viking raiders, from the 8th-11th Centuries, whose “Karvis”, “Snekkjas” and “Drakkars” drew as little as 30in/762mm in draft.

 

Gokstad Ship, late 9th Century, Viking Ship Museum, Oslo. CCA/2.0 Generic.

 

As previously noted, however, after about 1860, a dramatic divergence began to open between purely military and purely civilian merchant vessels. Without restating those points here, by the end of World War 2, it seemed that the divide was complete and unbridgeable: “Warships” fought in wars, and civilian vessels supported the warships, while remaining mostly unarmed.

But, there lurked an exception: the PT Boat.

 

Patrol Torpedo Boat (PT) 658 transits past U.S. Navy ships at the Portland Rose Festival. US Navy photo. Public Domain.

 

Developed just as WW2 was starting, the “Patrol Torpedo Boat” quickly became famous as the heavily armed war vessel of WW2, on a weapon-to-tonnage basis. Not much larger than most commercial yachts, the PT’s were fully capable of sinking full-size warships – as long as their torpedoes worked. If there weren’t enough enemy warships around to sink, the PT’s could easily remove their torpedoes, and bolt on heavier cannons to destroy lightly armored barges and lighters, as well as extra machine guns, turning them into floating anti-aircraft batteries.

While the US Navy seemed to have forgotten the lessons of PT Boat warfare after the end of the war, that turned out to not be the case. While light-armed craft more or less vanished from the Navy’s inventory after WW2, that was due to the savage budget cuts and vicious organizational fights of the post-war years, more than because the Navy didn’t want the boats. Indeed, the Navy had to burn significant political clout just to help prevent the Marine Corps from being disbanded by an Army and Air Force that were battling for scarce funding.

As soon as the Vietnam War began to heat up, it was discovered that North Vietnam was supplying the Viet Cong and its own troops in the South by smuggling arms and supplies down the coast in civilian sampans. The solution to this were the “Swift Boats” – small, high-speed, aluminum-hulled boats, heavily armed with machine guns. With very shallow drafts, these fast craft were able to chase down almost any watercraft, and usually outgunned whatever they could catch. As well, they could land small parties of US and Vietnamese Marines or SEALs deep in enemy territory, doing great damage to areas the enemy had thought to be relatively safe.

 

Fast Patrol Craft (PCF, Swift boat) during riverine operation in Vietnam. US Navy photo. Public Domian.

 

After the war in Vietnam ended, the US Navy once again had to struggle for funding, and small combat craft went onto the back burner. But not completely. As funding improved in the 1980’s small combat craft came back to prominence, leading to the expansion of the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) career field in the Navy, and the development of the SOC-R. NATO partners took note, at least to some extent.

And all seemed rosy.

But – what about smaller groups? What about “guerrillas at sea”?

Like naval warfare and transport in general, small craft-based warfare is not new. In the modern era, say from 1800 to today, military raids against pirates operating from swampland bases with open canoes and boats was far more common than fighting large ships, à la Hollywood pirate films. Indeed, in World War 1, the “Battle for Lake Tanganyika” was fought and decided by a handful of small boats that barely qualified as life rafts; the largest vessel, the SMS Graf von Goetzen, was barely 235ft long; that’s short for a warship.

 

German steamship Goetzen before its warship conversion in 1915. Public Domain.

 

Likewise, Filipino guerrillas fighting the Japanese in their archipelago after Japan’s conquest of the island group in early-1942 made good use of small-boat smuggling tactics to make amphibious raids throughout the islands for three years, until the war ended. The Philippine government continued this successful strategy in the Huk Rebellion that followed the war, and both government and anti-government forces continue to use boats for the same purposes to this day.

But the real advent of modern guerrilla small craft warfare begins (as do many things in this realm) with the LTTE – the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Starting from essentially scratch in 1976, the LTTE quickly showed – much as the Islamic State would do, decades later – that all that was required for an insurgency to grow exponentially, was intelligent, cunning and quick-witted leadership…Even if they end up using straight-out terror tactics.

In its 25-year history, the LTTE’s “Sea Tigers”, with no more than 3,000 personnel at any given time, not only fought the Sri Lankan Navy to a standstill, sinking nearly 30 vessels, while also conducting amphibious raids, it conducted widespread “strategic support operations”, until the Sri Lankan military got serious, got its collective act together, and ground the LTTE down by mid-2009.

 

Slovenian fast patrol boat HPL-21 Ankaran (Super Dvora MK II class), 2009, of a type used by the Sri Lankan Navy. CCA-3.0

 

But – what about other groups?

While the LTTE managed to create a ferociously effective “commando navy,” the “Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”, has taken the direction of using masses of small “Boghammer”-type speedboats. Based on a design from the Swedish company Boghammar Marin AB developed in the 1980’s, the modern “Boghammer” has taken on the moniker to describe any improvised naval fighting vessel.

 

A speed boat (used in a terror attack attempt on 5 May 1990) in the Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum, Haifa, Israel. CCA/3.0

 

As used by the IRGC-N, the Boghammer is armed with a variety of weapons, including RPG-7 type rocket launchers, as many as three 12.7mm heavy machine guns, recoilless rifles and 107mm multiple rocket launchers based on the Type 63 MRL. And these craft do pose a threat to major-nation warships, when used in swarms. After nearly ten years of study, it remains a problem that major-state navies – including those of the United States and Great Britain – don’t talk about in public.

That’s all well and good…but, what about “modern guerrillas”? The above examples, including the LTTE, were all either formally organized navies, or were at least funded on a regular basis. What about a small guerrilla force? What can they do on the water?

Quite a bit, actually.

While large, ocean going vessels are going to be mostly out of a small group’s reach, at least initially, acquiring civilian pleasure craft (through theft or “under the table” deals) that can be modified to carry weapons is not at all difficult. While craft as large as Boghammers are uncommon, they are not so unusual that they would be noticed.

There is, however, another class of vessel normally associated with major states that most people would not associated with guerrilla warfare: long-range submersibles – i.e., submarines…Specifically, drug-running “narco-subs”.

 

Narco-submarine captured by the Peruvian Navy in December 2019. Ministerio de Defensa del Perú. CCA/2.0.

 

While “combat submersibles” in the modern era begin with David Bushnell’s Turtle in 1775-1776, submarines have only played a pivotal role in naval warfare since WW1, and the first “Battle of the Atlantic”. Submarines have always been complicated and dangerous craft – there is always a solid chance that something will go catastrophically wrong while submerged. Survival rates when things like that happen at sea are never good.

Submarines are also expensive, in the extreme. As a result, few people imagine a threadbare guerrilla army being able to operate something as technically complex and ridiculously expensive as a submarine. Sure, there are “vanity” submarines out there, used to excursions by cash-rich vacationers, but surely no one is actually building submarines intended for combat.

Established navies, however, beg to differ – which is why they are spending significant amounts of money designing advanced harbor-protection systems…specifically to counter small combat submarines.

But, for our purposes, narco-subs are not that. Narco-subs are generally thought of as “semi-submersible”, in that they cannot “deep dive,” like a conventional submarine. Instead, they are designed to run at or just below the surface. And these craft are not small – narco-subs with cargo capacities of up to 17,000lbs have been captured. That’s a significant capacity for a “guerrilla shipyard”.

And, as hard as the militaries of North and South America try, they cannot catch them all; at best, one in ten are estimated to be intercepted. Worse, the drug subs are being much more sophisticated, diving deeper, becoming less detectable, carrying more, and extending their range, with some now being able to cross the Atlantic, to bring drugs into the waters of Spain and Portugal.

This is a serious concern, and not from the narcotics angle. While infiltrating “operators” into a nation (even the United States) is relatively easy, importing weapons and explosives is not. And 10-17,000lbs of weapons, ammunition and explosives at a time provides significant capacity for an attacker.

Indeed, since 2000, abandoned narco-subs – true deep-diving models – have been discovered in South America that have cargo capacities in the range of 20,000lbs or more, and with ranges of c.3,700km, more than enough to reach New Orleans from most of the South American Caribbean coast.

 

A fully-operational submarine built for the primary purpose of transporting multi-ton quantities of cocaine located near a tributary close to the Ecuador/Colombia border that was seized by the Ecuador Anti-Narcotics Police Forces and Ecuador Military authorities with the assistance of the DEA in 2010. Public Domain.

 

Making matters much worse, these craft are very difficult to detect at sea, because their hulls are made mostly of fiberglass and Kevlar; are painted sea-blue; and vent their engine exhaust along the bottom of their hulls before releasing it to the atmosphere, cooling it to the point of being indistinguishable from the surrounding water. Coupled to them running just below – or well under – the surface, this makes them virtually invisible to radar and sonar. In fact, the vast majority of the narco-subs captured were spotted by aircraft, running on the surface.

So – why is this important? It’s “just” drugs, right?

Well, “cargo” covers a very broad scope. Narco-subs don’t have to carry drugs, after all. Coupled to this, is the fact the fact that the South American and Mexican cartels operate these subs in alliance with guerrilla groups such as the FARC, among others. It requires no great leap of imagination to picture a scenario of a group like Revolutionary Iran or the I.S. infiltrating two- to four-hundred trigger-pullers into the US, hidden among the masses of illegal immigrants being allowed into the country by a criminally – if not deliberately – incompetent political establishment so arrogant, that they believe that the Rules of War do not apply to them.

Why is the author so vehement about this?

In 1974, R&D Associates – a think tank in Santa Monica, California – working under contract for the Department of Defense, produced a document titled A Soviet Paramilitary Attack on U.S. Nuclear Forces – A Concept (PDF link). The paper sketched out a threat concept to US strategic nuclear forces, wherein Soviet Spetznatz special forces could potentially infiltrate sabotage teams into the US to attack ICBM, bomber and nuclear submarine bases, simply by walking in over the borders from Mexico and/or Canada. It goes into detail of then-current estimated numbers of illegal aliens crossing the US border, who were not intercepted by the Border Patrol, and pointed out that enough four- to six-man teams could be infiltrated and housed by ‘illegal’ KGB agents just long enough to sabotage US nuclear forces in preparation for a Soviet first strike.

Very James Bond, yes?

This paper remained classified until 1995.

 

ISIS fighters execute Taliban fighter In the city of Jalalabad, December 2021. CCA/4.0

 

A threat – a clear and present one – exists against the United States, and its citizens. While some would argue that this author is “letting the cat out of the bag” by speculating on this in public, none of the information in this article is classified; there is no “whistle-blower” information here. If this author can find it, anyone can. You, the Reader, simply aren’t being told any of this. I will let you speculate as to why that is the case. The author, here alone, is unable to take corrective measures against this threat – it is the job of the Reader to do so.

All I can do, is warn you.

 

 

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

 

Outside The Box Thinking: Are We At The Dawn Of The DIY Air Force…?

Outside The Box Thinking: Are We At The Dawn Of The DIY Air Force…?

Michael Cessna November 4, 2022 1

 

 

 

Previously, we have talked about ersatz combat vehicles at length. While 300 angry people, armed with 200 machetes, 100 rifles and 50 rounds of ammunition made a respectable revolution as late as the mid-1990’s, the proliferation cheap, reliable and effect modern combat rifles around the world have shifted insurgent capabilities and tactics, there has been little movement in the other realms of physical combat, outside of the land environment.

Where any group armed with modern automatic weapons can turn themselves into “motorized cavalry” by seizing a used car and truck dealership and a tanker truck of fuel, there have been few examples of groups organizing actual combat ships on water, using what are essentially armed civilian pleasure craft – it happens, but infrequently.

Likewise, the use of equally ersatz militarized drones has been on the rise, for surveillance, assassination and combat. This theater of use has been accelerated in recent years, as many drones with significant capabilities, from a military perspective, are available “off the shelf” for well under US$200, with many retailing at under US$100. Expanding the capabilities of such devices requires little investment for a group able to recruit young and tech-savvy teens and early-20’s with an interest in gaming and computer mods.

Far more rare, are instances of “guerrilla air forces.” Appearing in significant numbers only twice since WW2, civilian aircraft being used as “armed combatant craft” usually appear in one’s and two’s, used by small states and groups who can only afford (or receive through donations) the kind of small, single-engine aircraft that are normally used for leisure flying or primary flight instruction for trainee pilots.

The question at hand, then, is this: Can an insurgent force create their own air force? That is what we will examine in this article.

The first questions to answer are, Where is the insurgent force getting its aircraft?, and What kind of aircraft can they easily acquire?

The first thing to understand, is that our hypothetical guerrilla force is not (probably) going to be buying craft like the AT-6B Wolverine, A-29 Super Tucano, AT-802L Longsword. These aircraft are being developed by defense contractors for established governments; for an insurgent group to obtain dedicated craft like this would require major-nation support. What we are discussing here, is the insurgent force acquiring specifically civilian craft, and using them as an “air force.”

 

An Afghan Air Force A-29 Super Tucano soars over Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 14, 2015. USAF Photo. Public Domain.

The insurgent force will be limited, first, by its financial levels – aircraft, even small craft like a Piper or an immortal Cessna 172 (go ahead – reflect on the irony…Moving on…) or 208 Caravan are expensive, for a small group, with a Cessna 172 coming in at around US$40-50,000 for a used model, each. Obviously, this is a major impediment, unless a group is very well funded.

On the other hand, these small aircraft can be effectively armed; can land on almost any flat patch of ground or blacktop road long enough; require no overly complicated tools or equipment to maintain, and have cheap and readily available spare parts and maintenance manuals available on the open market. These aircraft can – and are – be hidden in rural barns and warehouses very effectively, only requiring a door large enough for their wings.

Given the above, then, the next question is, Where can the prospective insurgent air force get its pilot?

The one major downside to an insurgent force using aircraft is the need for competent training. While learning to fly a basic aircraft such as a Piper or a Cessna is not actually difficult for most people with a decent high school education to learn, teaching one to fly requires a pilot with at least 250 flight hours to begin training for such a rating as an Instructor Pilot (IP). However, there are plenty of IP’s out there who could be recruited to train pilots for an insurgent force.

Ground maintenance on these common civilian airframes, as previously stated, is not difficult, and spares are common enough to not present major issues. That brings us to weapons: what can you arm these airplanes with?

Simply placing one or two people armed with rifles in the back seats of these kinds of aircraft, and having them shoot at enemies on the ground is not complicated. Likewise, hanging machine guns out of a side door is also relatively uncomplicated to set up.

 

Afghan Air Force Sgt. Razeg, a Gunner, fires an M-240 weapon from an Mi-17 Helicopter during a mission from Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov., 2012. USAF Photo. Public Domain.

Salvage and theft of opposition government aircraft – as well as weapons bought on the black market – is another important source of ground-to-air capability. In like manner to recovered helicopter rocket pods being used as ground-to-ground multiple rocket launchers since the civil wars in Libya, the same pods could be mounted to civilian airframes.

This is especially true for smaller pods, such as the venerable Hydra-70 rocket pods. In fact, the prevalence of mounting the ex-Soviet SA-5 rocket system, fired by UB-16 and UB-32 launchers to “technical vehicles” in both Libya and Syria have begun to inspire Western firms to begin cashing on the market, with such “drop-in kits” as the new V.A.M.P.I.R.E. system, which is a drop-in kit for a conventional civilian pickup truck, giving it the ability to fire four Hydra-70 rockets at a time in the ground-to-ground role.

 

Hydra 70 rockets in two M261 launch pods, mounted to an AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter, unknown date. US Army Photo. Public Domain.

As well, should the guerrilla force come into possession of anti-aircraft weapons such as the Stinger missile, that force could conceivably mount such weapons to a civilian airframe, which would be a very nasty surprise to any opposing aircraft that did not know about them.

 

Note that the foregoing applies to helicopters, as well, although rotary-wing craft are generally more expensive than their comparable brethren.

So…Is it possible for a guerrilla/insurgent force to create and operate an actual “air force” on the cheap? The answer, clearly, is a solid Yes, albeit with caveats concerning the perennial problem of money. Such a force would clearly be no match against a First World air force, but it likely won’t need to, at least initially.

 

Never become complacent inside your box…because someone is always outside, thinking about how to get in.

 

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

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