NASA’s Solid State Architecture Batteries for Enhanced Rechargeability and Safety (SABERS) is claiming they have created a solid-state battery that will break the barriers that held back the development of electric-powered planes. Some of the advantages of the new battery include it is not made with the scarce resource of lithium. It is also lighter than lithium-ion batteries, is not highly flammable, and has a greater range than lithium-ion batteries do.
SABERS has also been able to overcome a major disadvantage associated with solid-state battery technology. Typically, lithium-ion batteries are much more efficient when it comes to discharging power. But through a new innovation SABERS has been able to “increase a solid-state battery’s discharge rate by a factor of 10 – and then by another factor of five,” according to a report from Yahoo! News.
SABERS’ Rocco Viggiano, an investigator at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland said, “We’re starting to approach this new frontier of battery research that could do so much more than lithium-ion batteries can. Not only does this design eliminate 30 to 40 percent of the battery’s weight, it also allows us to double or even triple the energy it can store, far exceeding the capabilities of lithium-ion batteries that are considered to be state of the art.”
A former Google Executive reveals the true depraved nature of Silicon valley when he recently claimed that the future of humanity will see the rise of sex robots that will replace human-on-human companionship. Ex-Google executive Mohammad Mo Gawdat paints a future for humanity that involves less human to human contact and more human to AI contact, and he not only seems to like it, he doesn’t understand how you might disagree with him.
He said, “Why would you need another being when AI will make you enjoy companionship and sexuality by giving signals in your brain?”
He later said, “If my brain believes something is real then it is real for me no matter if it is actually alive or not,” a statement that reveals his absolute ignorance about the divine-requiring nature of humanity, something he has in common with others who operate under the godless anti-human ideology of leftism in general.
He did offer this one caveat, acknowledging that human dependence on AI to meet more of their needs could backfire, saying “A nuclear bomb can’t create more nukes but the AI that we are building is capable of creating another AI.”
For our readers, let this writer assure you that human nature will confound this godless man and all those who think like he does. We want, we need, human to human interaction, affirmation, and no robot can long satisfy the needs humans have for human affirmation. The only people who will accept an AI wife or husband over a human one are those as depraved as this man and people like him that embrace and live out the anti-human ideology of leftism.
Techspot shared news a new device that can be worn in the ear that is a more effective method of integrating a computer with the mind. The title of the article reads, “Scientists develop novel brain-computer interface that plugs into your ear canal.” The device was created in China. It’s called a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). The device could eventually augment memory, turn thoughts to text, and more. It could be used for “good” or for “ill,” such as helping you have better memory recall or conditioning your mind to believe false memories.
The Chinese Communist Party owns everything, directly (thanks to Communism) and indirectly (thanks to fascism), so the news should be troubling when it comes from a fascist police state of the nature of the CCP-controlled nation.
America has at least one device being developed here of a similar nature. It’s called a Neuralink and it’s being developed by Elon Musk.
BCI’s could be just what people who support a singularity (a merging of tech and human) need to make their dreams come true. Neither Neuralink nor the Chinese makers have made it clear if and when either device would be ready for “commercial” or even “institutional” use. The nature of advanced tech is typically such that states that can will secretly test and apply these technologies significantly before they’re ever available to the public, so it is likely that both devices are already being used by their respective state governments.
The American Accountability Foundation has sent out a warning to Americans that the federal government, under the direction of the mass mailer President Joe Biden, is seeking to program their AI programs to think like an an American-hating, white-fearing, heterosexual-resistant, child-grooming far left psychopath, or what is more commonly referred to as being “woke.”
The organization tweeted out, “The Biden admin. Has plans to make artificial intelligence systems WOKE. They have plans to rig AI in the name of fighting ‘algorithmic discrimination,’ ‘harmful bias,’ and ‘data that fails to account for existing systemic biases in American society.” The good news is their AI systems will fail to deliver accurate information to the far leftists manning their learning machines for answers on how to more effectively and rapidly destroy the American public. Private AI systems will run circles around these intentionally-cognizantly-challenged tools.
On the very first day of the public existence of Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter killer, Threads, the world learned that on Zuck’s platform it is not ok to say “non-binary isn’t real.” The world learned of Threads’ freedom-of-speech-killing policies after Chaya Raichik, aka Libs of Tiktok, dared sharing this post on Zuck’s “Twitter Killer.” The app cancelled Raichik’s post for violating its “hate speech” policies, which is a dog whistle for “resisting the far left’s orthodoxy.”
Zuck’s version of hate speech, according to Instagram, whose terms of service are what governs Threads, is speech that is “a direct attack against people…. On the basis of what we call protected characteristics: race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease.”
Never mind the FACT that the concept of non-binary is a direct assault on all people who hold to the right belief that God created man and woman in his own image.
Raichik said “Within hours of joining (Zuck’s “Twitter Killer) I got death threats, had people sharing my address, and was told to kill myself. None of those posts were removed despite me reporting them. Only my post stating a fact was removed.”
So the real standard is not speech that is a “direct attack against people,” it’s speech that affirms orthodoxy not accepted by far left grooming gangs such as Zuck seems to hope to cultivate. It is yet another example of the Orwellian tactic of naming policies the opposite of what they stand for. Zuck’s real standard is to cultivate “hate speech” against normal, non-child-grooming people to protect the abnormal, psychotic child grooming cult that is the far left.
A new metallic gel could lead to metal 3D printers that could create complete objects at room temperature. Not only is it a complete metal object, but it is also highly conductive, meaning you can use it for electronic metal 3D printing, meaning your smartphone might mostly one day be printed using this metallic gel.
According to NC State University, The paper, ‘Metallic Gels for Conductive 3D and 4D Printing,’ is published in the journal Matter. First author of the paper is Ruizhe Xing, a former visiting scholar at NC State who is affiliated with Northwestern Polytechnical University and Tianjin University. Co-corresponding authors of the paper are Dickey, at NC State, and Renliang Huang and Wei Qi of Tianjin University. The paper was co-authored by Jiayi Yang, a former visiting scholar at NC State, now at Xi’an University of Science and Technology; Dongguang Zhang, a former visiting scholar at NC State, now at Taiyuan University of Technology; Wei Gong, a former visiting scholar at NC State, now at the National University of Singapore; Taylor Neumann, a former Ph.D. student at NC State; Meixiang Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at NC State; and Jie Kong of Northwestern Polytechnical University.
Michael Dickey, the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University says of the findings, “3D printing has revolutionized manufacturing, but we’re not aware of previous technologies that allowed you to print 3D metal objects at room temperature in a single step. This opens the door to manufacturing a wide range of electronic components and devices.”
He explained the importance of the use of a metallic gel comprised of liquid metal and copper particles that stick to each other to form a metallic gel network, “This gel-like consistency is important, because it means you have a fairly uniform distribution of copper particles throughout the material. This does two things. First, it means the network of particles connect to form electrical pathways. And second, it means that the copper particles aren’t settling out of solution and clogging the printer.”
So far, the gel is still in testing mode, but the researchers hope to work with the 3D printing industry to develop applications for the discovery, which could lead to new ways of designing electronic components so they can be more completely manufactured in one printing, with little to no post-assembly required.
The hand grenade has been employed in warfare, in one form or another, for over 3,500 years. Very early on after gunpowder was perfected, well before the first real “firearms”, there were hand grenades. The first gunpowder grenades were small, fired-clay pots that were filled with gunpowder, small stones and scrap metal, had a simple fuse stuck into them and were hurled at an enemy. This was an easy development, because other such pots had been filled with thickened, flammable oil, and thrown at an enemy to cause burns, ignite flammable structures, and sow confusion and fear – essentially, what we would now call “Molotov Cocktails” – as well as various type of smoke making and stink bomb-type noxious mixtures.
The main problems with these early types of grenades were many. Their fuses were highly unreliable, for starters; this made them extremely dangerous to use, as they could easily explode early…assuming that the fuse didn’t sputter out, turning the grenade into a dud. Also, the early grenades suffered from the same issues of modern grenades, as there was a long development arc to learn how to balance the weight of the grenade canister, to the weight of the gunpowder charge, to the outer case’s design, to how to store and carry the devices. And, through trial and error, it was soon found that hand grenades are very non-discriminatory – if the thrower is too close when the grenade explodes, its fragments will hit the thrower as well.
An illustration of a fragmentation bomb from the 14th Century Ming Dynasty book “Huolongjing“. Public Domain.
It is that last part is what kept the grenade from truly widespread use: safety issues aside, the range of hand grenades is limited by the strength of the thrower. And, given the unreliability of fuses, getting close enough to physically hurl a grenade at an enemy was “problematic” at best; cannons were simply better. Although solutions were tested in the 17th and 18th Centuries, such as the creation of “grenadier” units – men chosen for their physical size and strength, seen as being better at throwing objects long distances – were tried, both the technology and the battle tactics of the era eventually made the throwing of hand grenades a largely pointless exercise; grenadiers eventually stopped carrying hand grenades entirely, instead refocusing their size and strength into acting as elite shock troops, used to storm enemy formations and entrenchments…most people tried to not think about the casualty rates.
By the end of the 19th Century, however, technology had advanced to the point where hand grenades could be equipped with reliable fuse mechanisms, while advances in metals and explosives could make hand grenades vastly more effective.
Hand grenades (as opposed to “rifle grenades”, which will be a subject for another article) are today one of the most widespread non-firearm “force multipliers” in use throughout the world. There are numerous misconceptions about hand grenades and their uses, largely engendered by Hollywood (the “pulling the pin with your teeth” being among the most egregious) that we will strive to correct here.
When World War 1 arrived, the war soon bogged down into the stalemate of trench warfare, it was soon realized that the infantry needed an edge when assaulting a trench. In both the Allied and Triple Alliance camps, some people remembered the grenade, and set to work. The results were very different – the German “Stielhandgranate” (known as the “potato masher,” from its distinctive shape) and the British “Mill’s Bomb” became the default standards.
Mills bombs. From left to right: N°5, N°23, N°36. Photo Credit: J-L Dubois, 2007. CCA/3.0
As the world passed through the inter-war years, then through WW2 and Korea, more types of grenades came into use, as the utility of the devices as married to advancing technology became evident. Today, grenades are everywhere, in a multiplicity of types.
Hand Grenade Types
There are several types of grenades in use, today. All of the types have very different characteristics, and thus should be used only in the right situation. Hand grenades can only be thrown about 30 meters/yards, and typically weigh between 0.75 and 1.25 lbs. Offensive and Pyrotechnic grenades are often rigged with tripwires as booby traps, although any type of hand grenade can be technically used as an IED.
There are five general types of hand grenades in current use:
Defensive
Offensive
Pyrotechnic
Gas
Special Purpose Munitions
Defensive Grenades
The Defensive Grenade (the “Mill’s Bomb”, referenced above) is what most people are probably thinking of when they hear the word “grenade”. This class of grenade is a high explosive, ‘fragmentation’ grenade, like a WW2 “Pineapple” grenade. These are termed “Defensive” because such grenades are designed to be used from behind “cover” (YouTube link).
A World War II re-enactor equipped with a replica Colt M1911 pistol, a pair of Mk 2 “pineapple” grenades (L) and a smoke grenade (R) on his uniform. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Nathanael Callon. Bastogne, Belgium, 2012. Public Domain.
These grenades explode violently, sending out a shower of fragments in all directions. In general, if you are within about 7 meters/yards of a Defensive grenade explosion, you have a better than 90% chance of becoming either a very serious casualty…or becoming very dead. If you are within 15 meters, chances are good that you will be wounded in some manner.
Russian combat F1 defensive fragmentation hand grenade. Photo Credit: Samo8383. CCA/4.0
In general, grenades technically have a 5 second fuse; one should expect a 3 second fuse, at best. Note, however, that when dealing with captured supplies, that anything recovered (or “dropped accidentally”) from a lone supply truck should be treated as suspect material.
Offensive Grenades
Offensive grenades – sometimes called “blast” or “concussion grenades” – are designed to kill/wound/stun through “blast effect” (the physical force of the blast) rather than through fragments. See the “Stielhandgranate” reference, above. The casings on these grenades are essentially vaporized by the blast (often, the casings are waterproof paper).
German soldier in Russia, about to throw a Stielhandgranate, c.1941. Author unknown. Public Domain.
For some reason, the Germans attached a handle to this grenade, which increased its throw-range (because the handle acts as a lever) by about 30% over the more “baseball”-like shapes, such as the Mill’s Bomb. It should be noted that WW2 Soviet RGD-33 stick grenade reversed this trend.
Soviet RGD-33 stick hand grenade. Photo Credit: MKFI, 2010. Public Domain.
The lethal radius of an Offensive grenade is about 3 – 4 meters, with a casualty radius of about 6 – 10 meters. Offensive and Defensive grenades are usually about the size and shape of a baseball.
Pyrotechnic Grenades
“Pyrotechnic” is a classification for grenades that do not cause casualties through their mechanism, but that do different things to support combat operations. In general, this means generating either smoke or illumination.
Smoke grenades produce smoke, usually in a variety of colors, the most popular being red, blue, green, yellow and white. These are useful for concealing movement, as well as signaling.
In contrast, illumination grenades use some kind of very bright-burning material, often magnesium, to light up dark places, usually well in excess of 200,000 candlepower.
Pyrotechnic grenades of all types are usually about the size and shape of a 12oz. soda can.
U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Israel Garza explains tactical concealment using M18 smoke grenades to Forces Armèes Nigeriennes partners at Nigerien Air Base 201, Niger, Dec. 15, 2018. U.S. Air Force Photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel Asselta. Public Domain.
Gas Grenades
Almost universally, “gas grenades” employ CS gas (2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile) as their “tear gas” agent. For those reading this who may have previously served in the armed forces and have gone through the “gas chamber”, but have never had a full-strength riot grenade used on them, the real, “tactical”, grenade is far worse.
American-made tear gas grenade utilizing CS gas, used by Egyptian riot police. Photo Credit: Sherif9282, 2011. CCA/3.0
Tactically, CS grenades make fantastic contact-breakers for an outnumbered patrol that may be surprised, and has to withdraw quickly. This is because gas training is almost never taken seriously by most militaries…which is why it is vital for every unit to maintain gas masks, and train regularly to “don and clear” as rapidly as possible…However, it should be noted that gas grenades are technically classified as a “chemical weapon” in some quarters, which is why
Gas grenades are generally about the size and shape of a “regulation” softball. They do not generally break into more than 8 or 9 fragments, and have only a very tiny explosive charge in the fuse, just enough to break open the grenade body and disperse the agent within.
Special Purpose Munitions
“Special Purpose Munitions” is a catchall term for “everything else”. This includes both “stun (or ‘flash bang’) grenades” (lots of loud noise and bright flash, but no fragmentation and little real blast effect…unless you’re hold it when it goes off), low-powered “sting-ball” grenades (low explosive charge – or even compressed gas – and the “fragments” are low-velocity rubber balls), and “demolition charges” such as Thermite (which burns hot enough to melt through most types of steel) or White Phosphorous (“WP”, also known colloquially as “Willie Pete”), which disperses particles of phosphorus over a wide area.
A Flash-Bang Explodes In The Air. Photo Credit: Hongao Xu, 2020. CCA/2.0
The phosphorus tends to ignite flammable objects, and inflicts severe burns on human beings, and cannot be extinguished by water, because it carries its own oxidizing compound. The only thing that can be done to remove the WP matter is to submerge the patient in water, and remove the glowing “coals” from their body with forceps or tweezers.
Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on your personal viewpoint – the hand grenade of today is the infantryman’s personal artillery: used intelligently, the hand grenade can get at enemies hiding around corners, hidden in rooms in a building, in folds in the terrain, or behind cover – all places rifles and pistols cannot reach.
While the technology behind the hand grenade is certainly lethal, and may be upsetting to contemplate for some, it will do to remember the words of the Chinese general Sun Tzu, writing c.500BC:
“There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.”
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
In the twenty-first century, few people in Western societies give much thought to bicycles. The machines are usually seen as something one gives to a child as a birthday present; or, something one buys to use for exercise in the sunshine. In some cities, and especially in Asia, bicycles are used as a primary mode of transportation, both in day to day living for activities like going to work and shopping, as well as in actual business, such as postal and product deliveries, but also as taxis for passengers, in those areas that still allow ‘rickshaw’ traffic.
Rickshaw in Japan, 1897. Credit: Rev. R. B. Peery, A.M., Ph.D. Public Domain
Very few people give any thought to the bicycle as a military tool, but it was – and remains – a vital component of many military operations.
The modern bicycle dates from a design created by the German Baron Karl von Drais, who invented his “Laufmaschine” (German for “running machine“) in 1817 (patented in 1818), that was called “Draisine” (English) or “draisienne” (French) by the press; this term would evolve over time into “velocipede”. Von Drais’ design was the first commercially successful two-wheeled, steerable, human-propelled machine on record.
It should be noted that it also quickly earned the nickname of “bone-shaker”, for obvious reasons.
An early ‘velocipede’. Photo of a Lithograph from 1819. Public Domain.
But, the design fascinated people, and progress was made in developing it. Many of these designs, such as the ‘penny-farthing’ of Englishman James Starley and Frenchman Eugène Meyer, are outright silly and fanciful, more suited to the pages of a Jules Verne novel than to any kind of useable machine. All that began to change in 1885, and first line militaries around the world began to take notice.
An example of a ‘penny-farthing’. Skoda Museum, Czech Republic 2003. CCA/3.0
In 1885, John Kemp Starley, James Starley’s nephew, invented what became known as the “safety bicycle”. Departing from past designs by making both wheels identical in size, employing a high-necked caster to better anchor the handlebars for steering, and incorporating the first rear-wheel chain drive on a bicycle, all combined to vastly improve the ride, handling and speed of the bicycle.
The younger Starley’s design – which was widely copied, as he had failed to patent the design – was swiftly followed by the last two major developments that would draw serious military attention to the bicycle for military use.
The first innovation was the reinvention of the pneumatic tire by John Dunlop in 1888, greatly smoothing out the ride and simplifying the design, and the patenting of the folding bicycle by African-American inventor Isaac R. Johnson, approved on October 10, 1889. Johnson’s design is also the first recognizable appearance of the “diamond frame” design that is still common over a century later.
Racing bike, showing the diamond frame. Photo Credit: Julius Kusuma. CCA/3.0
These two developments created an explosion of interest in cycling throughout the United States and Western Europe in the early 1890’s, actually causing an economic bubble near the turn of the century. It is at this point that the ‘Turmoil of the Century’s Turning’ happened.
The decade from 1895 to 1905 saw multiple – and massive – wars break out all over the world, from the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, to the Second Boer War (1899-1902) in southern Africa, which saw Great Britain deploy nearly 300,000 Imperial troops by steamship – to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. In the midst of these massive conflicts – a sort of “dress rehearsal” for World War 1 – there was the Spanish-American War of 1898, and the “China Relief Expedition” of 1900, with saw an allied force of British, French, Japanese, Russian, German, Austrian, Italian, and American troops marching from the Chinese city of Tientsin to rescue the diplomatic staffs in Peking (now Beijing) at the height of China’s “Boxer Rebellion” (1898-1901).
“I’ll Try, Sir!” – American troops in the relief of Peking in China on 14 August 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion. H. Charles McBarron, Jr., for the US Army. Public Domain.
All of these major conflicts – as large and expansive as most of the wars of the twentieth and twenty first centuries – made the various militaries realize that they needed to continue to innovate and upgrade their forces, a process that had already been happening in earnest for over thirty years.
Infantry – the core of all military forces – moves at the speed of a walking soldier, unless there are tools such as railroads, motorized vehicles or airplanes to carry them…and even then, they will still be walking. As well, the infantry have been carrying much of their own equipment for most of that time, to the tune of some 120lbs (c.54kg) on their backs. Something needed to be done to improve their mobility.
Typical US infantry load. USMC photo. Public Domain.
Bicycles were obviously useful to horse-drawn armed forces as messengers, as the cyclists did not need to worry about sick or lame animals; bicyclers were relatively easy to fix if something broke down. Other functions were tried out, including using bicycles to lay communication wire, create local maps by fixing clinometers to the frame, and patrol rail lines; there were even experiments to use them as ambulances and to haul machine guns around the battlefield. While not usable in the cavalry role – which should be apparent from the nature of the machine – could the infantry use it?
Italian Bersaglieri infantry with folding bicycles, c.1917. Public Domain.
This led to the creation of “bicycle infantry”: infantry units began to test out bicycles during long-distance rides, more or less to see what happened. This is where James Moss enters out story.
Then First Lieutenant James A. Moss, of the 25th United States Army Infantry Regiment (Colored), the storied “Buffalo Soldiers” (the United States military was still heavily segregated then) obtained permission in 1896 to take fifteen volunteers from the regiment on an experimental series of rides that culminated in a 1,900 mile ride from Missoula, Montana, to St. Louis, Missouri. Moss’ unit completed the trek – which avoided roads and paths where possible, sticking strictly to overland travel – made the trip in some 40 days, at an average of 6 miles per hour (pdf link). While the US Army was ultimately satisfied with conventional infantry units, armies outside the United States took notice of Moss’ experiments. (James Moss would go on to lead a bicycle-equipped unit in Cuba, and would later write a set of basic instruction manuals for troops and officer that form the basic framework of basic military instruction manuals today.)
25th US Infantry Bicycle Corps at Fort Missoula in 1897. Lt. James at right. Public Domain.
When World War One broke out, the bicycle served in all theaters. However, it was rarely deployed into direct combat, primarily due to the confines of trench warfare in Western Europe, and a simple lack of resources on the Eastern Front, in Russia. This unspectacular performance, overall, signaled the death knell of the military bicycle to the military pundits of the time.
However, other officers came out of World War One with a better understanding of bicycles and their military uses.
In the Second World War, bicycles were deployed extensively in Malaya, where Japanese intelligence officers, familiar with the Japanese Army’s use of c.50,000 bicycle infantry in the 1937 invasion of China, made sure in their pre-war scouting to note the presence of bicycle shops throughout the British-controlled colony. Likewise, Germany and Italy deployed units of bicycle infantry in rugged terrain, where horses would struggle. Many guerilla and partisan units – and the intelligence teams from the Allies who supported them – used bicycles for scouting, messages and to run electric generators to power radio systems that reported on Axis forces until the end of the war.
A German unit using a tandem bicycle power generator to power a radio station, September 1917. Public Domain.
Post-1946, the bicycle again faded into obscurity in most of the military world, although bicycle infantry units would continue to serve for decades in Swedish and Swiss military units. In one place, however, the military bicycle would reach its peak – in a place called Vietnam.
France, although it had been soundly beaten by Hitler’s Germany in 1940, was desperate to retain its colonial empire. When French forces returned to Indochina in September of 1945, the Vietnamese were less than impressed. Where French troops had capitulated to Japanese troops more or less without firing a shot, the resistance in Indochina had been led by native Vietnamese, and mostly by the Communist Party led by Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap (who were supported (pdf link) by the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the war). After French forces seized control of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) by force in September of 1945, the Communists retreated into the mountains and countryside, vowing to continue their war, now framed as a war of independence from France. This brought about the “cargo bike”.
The Communist forces, known as the ‘Viet Minh’, waged a brutal guerilla campaign in the rural areas of the country, causing steady and damaging casualties to French forces. However, the Viet Minh faced all the same challenges as a pre-WW2 non-motorized army, but with the added problem that suitable pack animals were few in number, and human porters could only carry a tiny amount of the supplies needed.
Viet Minh mechanics took the commonly-available bicycle, and began modifying it, resulting in a vehicle that could reliably carry up to 400lbs (c.181kg) at the pace of a walking adult human. While not the equal of a cargo truck or a boat, this was a far better solution. And it very shortly made its effects known.
Vietnamese army bike – Vietnam War Museum in Hanoi. Photo credit: Przemek P, 2010. CCA/3.0
In 1954, Viet Minh forces surrounded and destroyed the cream of the French Army in Indochina, at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. France deployed its best units, numbering over 12,000 troops, in a badly thought out plan to bring the Viet Minh to battle in order to destroy them. At the extreme range of supply and support aircraft, the French troops found themselves over-extended and cut off, as French ground forces could not break through to reach them. The Viet Minh surrounded the town the French had fortified, and fought a nightmarish siege for nearly two months. Eventually, some 11,000 French troops would surrender; nearly 8,000 would die in a march to prison camps that rivaled the Bataan Death March in its brutality. The result was France agreeing to Vietnamese independence, surrendering their Indochina colonies in whole, which would lead to yet another war…but that is another story.
Viet Minh troops plant their flag over the captured French headquarters at Dien Bien Phu, May 7, 1954. Photo credit: Roman Karmen. Public Domain.
One of the primary reasons the Viet Minh were able to crush the French was their ability to move supplies, and the ‘cargo bicycle’ was at the heart of the Vietnamese logistical triumph. But again, the military use of the bicycle receded into seeming obscurity, despite its next successful showing against American forces in Vietnam…
…And yet – the bicycle remains in use as a military tool by guerilla and insurgent forces around the world. Why?
Within its obvious limits, the military facts of the bicycle of today remain unchanged from those same facts discovered by James Moss and his unit of Buffalo Soldiers in 1896: the bicycle requires no fuel, beyond the food required for its operator; it moves essentially silently, at a constant speed of up to twelve miles per hour; it raises no dust in its passing; it can operate in most weather and terrain conditions; and it can be used to power various systems, from air circulation fans to electric generators, and does so with no heat output, again, aside from the signature produced by the operator.
Three Swedish bicycle infanterists armed with m/45 SMGs and Bantam anti-tank missiles, Sweden, 1965. Public Domain
Given the ludicrous progress of the US Army’s new Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV), it might be time for regular militaries to think about “going old school”.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
A letter from a Republican and Democrat Senator accuses TikTok representatives of lying under oath to congress about the way the CCP-owned company treats its U.S. User Data. The Senators, Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) claim NY Times and Forbes reports call into question the testimony from TikTok’s representatives during congressional testimony back in March.
The claims are that the CCP-owned company is not handing over U.S. user data to Xi Jinping’s Communist Party. Forbes claims the CCP-owned company is tracking user Social Security numbers and Tax ID numbers on servers in China, while the NY Times report alleges U.S. user data is being shared on a Chinese collaboration tool called Lark.
The letter said, in part, “We are deeply troubled by TikTok’s recurring pattern of providing misleading, inaccurate or false information to Congress and its users in the United States, including in response to us during oversight hearings and letters.”
We would like to express our thanks to naval OSINT analyst H I Sutton, of Covert Shores, for his kind assistance with this article.
Illness is an odd thing. One rarely pays close attention to outside events unless those events have a direct and immediate impact on the ill person. In the case of your humble author, 2022 was a rough year. As a result, I completely missed this article when it came out, and didn’t think clearly about the implications of using larger vessels in a DIY Navy when that article was written.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…Consider this to be Part 2.
For small national navies, as well as “guerrilla” navies, Part 1 is still absolutely true: limited funds and resources limit options when building a naval force of any kind. However, for the nation-state that is in the “middle sea” [sic], so to speak, those have more options.
As described in a previous article, a nation desiring to construct a navy needs to first decide on exactly what kind of navy they need – not want, but need. To briefly recap, there are three basic choices: Blue, Green & Brown:
A “blue” navy is basically the kind of navy used by the United States, Great Britain, and France, the kind of navy that Communist China aspires to: a naval force to maintain the “Sea Lanes of Communications” (the SLOC). This is the hardest kind of fleet to build, and far and away the most expensive.
A “green” navy is mostly a coastal force, whose main job is to facilitate amphibious operations, i.e., landing troops ashore. Still expensive, but the better choice for nations like the Republic of the Philippines.
A “brown” navy operates almost solely along rivers and close in to coastlines. These naval forces are comparatively cheap, but are very limited in range and capabilities, compared to the other two types of fleet.
Obviously, there is a good deal of overlap between the various types: brown and green navies complement each other well, where their environments meet. Likewise, green and blue navies can have a very great deal of overlap when projecting state power at a long distance. While there is little overlap between blue and brown fleets, blue water units can benefit from the lightweight/high-speed boats of the brown squadrons.
Iran, however, has taken the path of outside-the-box thinking to a different level.
Beginning in 2021, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commissioned the building of at least two “drone carriers,” former “Panamax” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax] box-carriers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship] refitted to operate combat and surveillance drone aircraft, “Shahid Mahdavi” and “Shahid Bagheri”. In form, the two ships initially looked like their recent sister ship, the “forward base ship” “Makran”.
Unlike Makran, however, Mahdavi and Bagheri are apparently focused solely on drone craft operations. The Bagheri is being fitted with an overhanging deck extension on their port (left) side. While visually similar to US Navy carriers of the last c.65 years, this seems to have been designed in order to launch and recover heavier drone craft on an angle, from port to starboard, due to the container ships’ superstructure at the aft (rear) end, which cannot be easily modified. This seems to be confirmed, as Iranian state news is showing pictures of a “ski jump” being installed on the Bagheri. The “ski jump” flight deck has been used to aid in flight operations since at least the 1970’s, when the UK’s Royal Navy used them for their “Harrier carriers”, HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible, during the Falkland Islands War of 1982.
IRGC ship “Bagheri” under construction in shipyard near Bandar Abbas, 2022, showing angled flight deck. Diagonal arrows show the non-standard flight deck. Photo credit: H. I. Sutton, Covert Shores
IRGC ship “Bagheri” under construction in shipyard near Bandar Abbas, c.early-2023, showing the ‘ski jump’ nearing completion on the flight deck. Photo credit: H. I. Sutton, Covert Shores
Harrier Jump Jet, Farnborough Air Show 2014 by Christine Matthews. CCA/2.0
This modification opens the possibility of launching much heavier drone craft, capable of carrying much heavier ordnance than other drones. While certainly incapable of handling heavier, manned craft, this bodes ill for anyone Iran chooses to focus on.
Bayraktar TB2 on the runway. Credit: Bayhaluk, 2014. CCA/4.0/Int’l.
There has not been a direct, “force on force”, aircraft carrier battle since WW2; the aforementioned Falklands campaign nearly resulted in one, but that turned out to be a false start. While there have been thousands – if not tens of thousands – of carrier-launched fighters and bombers attacking land targets and land-based aircraft, these were not “carrier” battles, in the naval sense. The concern, here, the nightmare of rational naval planners since the 1970’s, has been the “improvised aircraft carrier.” The naval dimension of the Falklands War, once again, informs on the problem.
SS Atlantic Conveyor, approaching the Falklands. About 19 May 1982. Photo: DM Gerard. CCA/2.5
A combination roll-on/roll-offcontainer ship, Atlantic Conveyor was used primarily to ferry aircraft for the British invasion force. When the vessel arrived in the combat area, the Harrier ‘jump jets’ she carried were launched from her, and flown off to the aircraft carries. On May 25th 1983, during the ferocious air attacks by Argentine air forces during the Battle of San Carlos, Atlantic Conveyor was struck by two Exocet anti-ship missiles, killing twelve of her crew, including her captain; gutted by fires, the ship sank three days later, while under tow, joining several other vessels in becoming the first Royal Navy vessels lost in action since World War 2. The loss of all of the remaining aircraft aboard (all of them helicopters) would severely hamper British operations ashore for the remainder of the campaign.
But note the first part of that story: Atlantic Conveyor was able to at least launch manned fighter jets while underway. What the Royal Navy – long starved for funding for ships and manpower (HMS Hermes was scheduled for decommissioning – without a replacement – when the invasion happened) had built a “jack carrier”, effectively equivalent to a WW2 “escort carrier”, at very short notice, with the potential – had she not been destroyed – of being able to conduct combat operations at some level.
This capability had been recognized with helicopters for many years, but this was the first time it had been proven valid for manned combat jet aircraft. Although conjectural, this is likely the real reason why the US and UK defense establishments buried the Harrier’s proposed follow-on aircraft, the supersonic version of the Hawker Siddeley P.1154, cancelled in 1965. No serious attempt was made to perfect a supersonic-capable VTOL until the introduction of the F-35B by the United States in 2015. As there are few carriers in the world capable of operating conventional jet aircraft, this ensured the naval dominance of those states that possessed these massive and expensive weapons.
F-35B Lightning taking off from a ski-jump, from HMS Queen Elizabeth, 2020. Photo: LPhot Luke/MOD. UK/OGL v1.0
Now, however, we find ourselves in the 21st Century, and technology has significantly progressed, across the board. Long-range drone craft, capable of carrying heavy ordnance, and armed – presumably – with anti-ship missiles and capable air- and anti-ship missile defenses, have now changed the structure of naval “battle calculus.” This is because the world’s second- and third-line military forces have relearned the fundamental truth of national military strength: it doesn’t matter how strong a nation’s military is overall, but how much of that force can be brought to bear against a particular target.
Iran’s naval deployment of ersatz carriers may seem laughable to many in first-line forces, but no one in second- or third-line navies are laughing. Iran has demonstrated that they are perfectly capable of worldwide naval cruises and deployments, and while their carriers and other vessels almost certainly stand no chance against a US or UK task force, they are more than a match for most of the other navies in the world. This is especially true for their “forward base ship” concepts, which are capable of deploying commando units via helicopter and speedboat, in a manner similar to first-line navies.
The deployment of these three vessels, the Makrun, Mahdavi and Bagheri, marks the first time since 1976 (in the days of the Imperial Navy of Iran) that Iran has had a truly capable naval arm for its military forces. Given the country’s friendly relations with Russia and Communist China, the possibility of joint fleet operations with at least China, if not Russia, along with their recent truce – brokered by the PRC – with Saudi Arabia, means than Iran can easily conduct far more complicated and wide-ranging power projection operations than they were able to in the past.
Much more worryingly, these ship commissioning’s are being done in public, and there are plenty of nations in the world at Iran’s tier who can take inspiration to boost their own naval capabilities.
The foundations of the world economy are set on the concept of the “freedom of the seas”, a concept enforced since World War 2 by the United States, Great Britain and France…but all three states are in financial trouble, and their navies are down to razor-thin numbers, in both ships and sailors. It will take careful, resolute and competent leadership to navigate through this.
The question is: is that leadership in place? Or even on the horizon?
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