Over a year ago, we discussed the possibility of an “American Foreign Legion”. This was a hypothetical idea, based on most of the US Armed Forces’ continual failure to meet their recruitment targets. Tangentially, about a month prior to this article, we discussed a possible “deep plan” (an idea that, admittedly, verged into raw “conspiracy theory”) that the disaster at the border, specifically in allowing ‘unfettered’ access to the nation for tens of thousands of “military-age males”, potentially allowing in a hostile army, an army that could be used for nefarious purposes against Americans in general, not simply that percentage of the population that is armed and very unhappy with the status quo in Washington, DC.
But – what if there is something else going on?
In writing that article this past September, there was a wrinkle that kept bothering this author, namely, that while the numbers of unaccompanied males entering the country was indeed dangerously large, it was not large enough to actually be a significant threat to the supposed target, that being those unhappy gun owners.
Something, some other point, was missing.
But then, a funny thing happened: Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, and the most likely contender for the Republican nomination for President in 2024, stated “categorically” that he would round up and deport every person currently being allowed over the border…
However, this doesn’t make a great deal of sense: how could such a thing be accomplished? Leaving aside the fact that such a program would certainly be fought tooth and nail at every step in Congress and the Courts, the problem is similar to “confiscating guns”: With no registry of firearms, police officers would have to raid and search every single building in the United States, to effectively “confiscate” privately-held firearms. Even assuming that absolutely no resistance to such a thing would occur – a notion that is, quite literally, “whistling past the graveyard” – there are simply not enough law enforcement officers available to conduct those searches. The idea is ludicrous.
But not when it comes to the flood of “migrants” crossing the border. The reason is that those crossing the line, while largely vanishing into the masses of large cities, are in fact on the radar of various agencies of the Federal government, not least because the governors of Texas and Florida are not doing all of the busing of those migrants to cities like Chicago and New York City. And this is over and above the “CBP One” app those migrants carrying smartphones are encouraged to place onto their phones. Those carrying such apps on their devices are loading tracking software that gives them a level of legitimacy to then file for status as refugees entitled to economic support with state and local agencies.
Assuming that Donald Trump were to win in 2024, and would attempt to make good on his campaign promise to deport illegal migrants, and, given the certain resistance to such an attempt, if presented with an option to “negotiate a middle ground”, would Donald Trump do so?
Given both the nature of his character, and factors we will look at below, such a negotiation is almost a given.
What is this “middle ground” approach? Simply put – join an “American Foreign Legion”, or face immediate arrest and deportation.
This is not idle speculation. In Issue 3 of Volume 53 of Parameters, the magazine of the US Army War College, there is an article from August of 2023, “A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force”, discussing the need to seriously rethink the Draft. Strident calls from the mainstream press’ gatekeepers to the contrary, this article is blunt, to the point that it is worth quoting:
“…These numbers cannot fill the existing gaps in the active force, let alone any casualty replacement or expansion during a large-scale combat operation. The implication is that the 1970s concept of an all-volunteer force has outlived its shelf life and does not align with the current operating environment. The technological revolution described below suggests this force has reached obsolescence. Large-scale combat operations troop requirements may well require a reconceptualization of the 1970s and 1980s volunteer force and a move toward partial conscription.16…”
It is that superscript note that presents an issue, as at press-time, the referenced article, “Was Fifty Years Long Enough? The All-Volunteer Force in an Era of Large-Scale Combat Operations”, by Kent Park, is not available for review.
This is a direct and pointed statement that the US Armed Forces need to consider the likelihood that the government will have to resort to a new Draft to meet it’s operations needs.
But – why?
Simply put, both “Millennial’s” and “Gen-Z” have little interest in volunteering for military, despite eye-watering bonuses of up to $75,000, over and above issues such as chronic obesity and a medical screening process that eliminates up to 25% of potential recruits who do volunteer. Bland platitudes from military managers wearing stars to the contrary, this is situation is very likely to persist.
And yet – for good or ill, the United States needs to keep recruits flowing into its units…And a “negotiated solution” to the illegal immigrant crisis is a very attractive answer.
Speaking strictly hypothetically, such a force would be easily and quickly fielded. All that would be necessary would be deploying fingerprint scanners to recruiting offices, to verify whether the illegal immigrant had been arrested while in the United States before that point. If not, the illegal immigrant could be offered a minimal cash bounty for enlisting, considerably less than those currently being offered to citizens born here, along with a guarantee of amnesty and legitimized citizenship after a minimum of four years’ service.
This is a very attractive prospect to someone coming from a culture that respects and/or fears soldiers, and which neatly sidesteps the problem of a large percentage of bitter and bluntly un-patriotic teens and twenty-something’s who would absolutely not report to a Draft board if faced with the prospect…
…It’s almost as if it were a planned operation.
“Five-D Chess”, indeed.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
Let us start off by addressing the proverbial elephant in the room.
On October 7th, 2023, the forces of Hamas – the Palestinian terror group with such delusions of legitimacy that they haven’t bothered with elections since attaining power – launched a short, sharp and brutal assault into southern Israel. For the first time since the rise of ISIL in 2011, the world was “treated” to a level of sadistic brutality that beggars the imagination. The acts of savagery – including the live-streamed slaughter, brutalization and kidnapping of mostly under-30 year olds at a literal “peace festival” – stunned the “polite” world as much as the apparent failure of some of the most vaunted intelligence services in the world.
The resulting war, on the fifty-year anniversary of the first “Yom Kippur War”, is now being termed “Israel’s 9/11”.
This article will not go any further into the political situation. Likewise, “sides” are not our purpose, here. This is strictly an examination of Hamas’ military operations, based on published reports and “informed supposition”, from October 7 to October 14, 2023. A much more in-depth examination of the situation will be available to our subscribers towards the end of the month.
OVERVIEW
In the early dawn hours of October 7, Hamas combat units launched a “broad spectrum” attack from its sanctuaries in the Gaza Strip. The assault opened with a massive and concentrated barrage of rocket artillery. The artillery assault was large enough and concentrated enough that it overwhelmed the “Iron Dome” anti-missile system that Israel has relied on for over a decade to defend itself from such attacks.
As the rocket attacks opened, mobile combat groups – some dressed in Israeli Defense Force (IDF) uniforms – infiltrated border checkpoints and massacred or captured the troops within, most of whom seem to have still been asleep. Simultaneously, other units conducted combat breaching operations at several points along the border, using a variety of techniques, ranging from simple RPG-7 rocket, to dedicated breaching charges, to using civilian construction equipment to batter holes in the security fences. Mobil combat groups, mounted on “technicals” and small motorcycles, quickly swarmed through the breaches, and fanned out to assault small town and villages, ultimately capturing and holding these urban areas for up to four days, a circumstance that has not happened since Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.
A map of the Gaza Strip showing key towns and neighbouring countries, 2009. Credit: Wikimedia User: Gringer. CCA/3.0
Perhaps most spectacularly, an airborne element assaulted the aforementioned peace festival using “paragliders” to insert a raiding force into the festival grounds, timed to strike shortly before the arrival a relief convoy mounted in technicals.
In both cases, at the peace festival and in Israeli urban settlements, Hamas forces deliberately massacred civilians, and captured as many as possible, carting them off to Gaza to be explicitly used as hostages and human shields against the expected Israeli counterattack. This has resulted in the largest number of Jewish lives lost in a single weekend since the Holocaust of World War Two.
While some Hamas forces held out for as long as four or five days in places, the bulk of surviving Hamas units had retreated into Gaza within seventy-two hours.
ANALYSIS
Hamas’ attack, on the purely tactical level, stands as a masterclass in operational deception, tactical ingenuity, flexibility and maximizing limited supplies on a shoestring budget.
It was also a complete and abject failure.
Way back in 2022, we discussed the emerging phenomenon of small-scale, targeted, and focused military training that was available to the general public around the world with nothing more than an internet connection. And that remains true – anyone who is at least moderately intelligent and educated can learn a very great deal by searching out real military informational guides via the internet.
The unspoken cautionary warning in the last paragraph is that such information, if not presented in a coherent manner, will most certainly not convey the level of competence necessary to fight and win.
Case in point – Hamas.
While Hamas demonstrated a surprisingly level of competence at the commando/light infantry level of warfare, its forces were absolutely no match for their enemy, once that enemy roused itself, and organized a coordinated counterattack. While Hamas’ leadership seems to have understood this, in a strictly tactical sense, it completely failed to tie tactical acumen to a realistic operational or strategic plan.
There was no possibility that Hamas was going to “win” against Israel in a conventional military sense. Hamas could – and did – certainly bloody Israel’s nose, exposing staggering complacency within the IDF, while also demonstrating the stark reminder that unarmed civilians are nothing but targets in a combat environment. As a result, as of this writing (October 16th 2023), the IDF has eliminated all Hamas forces that remained within Israel after the initial assault…and the IDF is now girding for an all-out assault into the Gaza Strip to put an end to Hamas, once and for all, world opinion be damned.
This also demonstrated the defective strategic thinking of Hamas, as the avowed purpose of taking hostages, to be used as human shields – and joyously live-streaming it via the internet – is something that they allowed themselves to believe would be a viable tool of negotiation with Israel…The problem being, this is not an “intifada” – Hamas’ very success is the agent of their coming destruction, because the State of Israel will now stop at nothing to destroy them.
Put more prosaically, Hamas’ combination of tactical acumen with idiotic and outdated strategic thinking, is effectively the strategy for a “live action” first-person shooter video game, like a combination of “Call of Duty” with “Grand Theft Auto”, where the player gets more rewards for being more ruthless and savage, a view that is being reinforced daily, with the gleeful cheering on of troops in combat zones operating drone that drop grenades on enemy forces…just like in a video game – and if a war crime is committed in the process, that is worth double-XP.
Video games, however, are not real life. They are nothing more than a pale and warped reflection of reality – and basing your military plans on visions of video game victory is not simply a poor strategy, it is a strategy of suicide.
Yours.
Write that on your hand, if you need to.
For a more detailed look at this conflict, subscribe to the FREEDOMIST today for exclusive content
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
The dawn of the 19th Century heralded perhaps the greatest explosion of technological development in human history. While technologies in most areas had been advancing slowly for centuries, a little-understood combination of factors combined to radically reshape human societies, developing – for better or worse – faster in one hundred years, than at any other point in human history. Steam engines radically reshaped transport on land and sea, opening broad new ranges of products, both agricultural and manufactured; the telegraph radically altered patterns of human communication; medicine suddenly evolved from speculation and bloodletting to observable and testable practices, radically reshaping human mortality rates. The maturing of electrical power generation, transmission and use resulted not only in the telegraph and the light bulb, but of an early form of fax machine.
Caselli’s pantelegraph tinfoil mechanism, 1866. Public Domain.
In firearms technology, the developments were just as radical. In 1800, the only personal firearms out there were flintlock muskets (aside from some pretty radical one-offs). Less than thirty years later, the percussion cap significantly changed the calculus, by making the musket vastly more reliable. By the end of the 1860’s, self-contained rimfire and centerfirecartridges had begun to dominate the battlefield. Well before the end of the century, smokeless powder and functional machine guns had begun to fundamentally alter infantry warfare.
This steamroller of technological advancement held true in the world of artillery technology, as well. The muzzle-loading cannons of 1800 gave way to breech-loading guns by 1870…Which is where our story actually begins, when artillery met steam power, but off the railroad or warship.
Edmund Louis Gray Zalinski, (1849 – 1909) was a Polish-born American soldier, military engineer and inventor. Born to a Jewish family in Kórnik, Prussian Poland in 1849, he immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1853. Lying about his age to enlist, he joined the US Army and served during the Civil War. Commissioned a 2nd LT in an artillery regiment from the state of New York, Zalinski served on the staff of General Nelson Miles. While not much is known of the details of his exact service, it was apparently enough to see him offered a commission in the Regular Army after the war, which is a notable thing, given the drastic post-war cuts in manpower and budgets. During his career, he served as an artillery officer at the Fort Jefferson military prison in Florida (where he authored an appeal to President Andrew Johnson to pardon Dr. Samuel Mudd, who had been convicted as a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, for the doctor’s service during an outbreak of Yellow Fever at the prison), and as a professor of military science at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). During this time, he patented a number of inventions, including an artillery sight.
In 1883, Zalinski witnessed a demonstration of a pneumatic artillery weapon, designed by D. M. Medford of Chicago, Illinois. Zalinski began working on the idea, and eventually designed his own pneumatic gun. While the Army was not initially interested, the US Navy was intrigued. As chemistry had advanced, it had started to create high explosives, that were far more powerful than the older black powder; however, these new explosives were very unstable, and were liable to detonate when fired in a conventional gun. The Navy, wanting to find a way to use the new tool, thought that Zalinski’s new system might be the answer.
USS VESUVIUS Dynamite Cruiser, 1888-1922. Photo: H.C. Peabody. Public Domain.
In late 1887, the USS Vesuvius was laid down at the William Cramp & Sons yard in Philadelphia, PA; she would be commissioned some six months later. As fitted out, the Vesuvius (named for the Italian volcano) carried three 15-inch “dynamite guns” (a term coined by the press), that could each throw a 500-lbs shell (called a “torpedo”, because – Navy) out to about one-and-a-half miles, adjusting the range by varying the air pressure. Without a war to fight, however, the ship was mostly relegated to the dreaded “dog & pony” circuit, visiting port towns to help them celebrate various holidays. In South America, the Brazilian Navy also fitted a 15-inch model to an auxiliary cruiser named the Nichteroy, which was later sold to the US Navy, which named that ship the USS Buffalo.
15inch ‘Dynamite Gun’, mounted on the Brazilian Navy ship Nitheroy, 1892. Photo by Marc Ferrez, 1982. Public Domain.
Wanting to stay as far ahead of the game as possible, the Navy also commissioned the USS Holland in 1900, to see if an 8-inch version of Zalinski’s gun could be used on a submarine.
USS Holland (SS-1), the first submarine of the U.S. Navy, showing the 8-inch dynamite gun muzzle open at the bow. Taken in 1898. US Navy Photo.
Following a two-year stint in the yards for repairs, Vesuvius returned to the fleet in 1897, as relations with Spain worsened. These tensions would soon lead to the Spanish-American War, in 1898. While the Vesuviusperformed well in nighttime raids on the Cuban city of Santiago, the ship was saddled with a number of flaws, not least of which was the fact that it was very difficult to aim her main guns, as they were set deep into her hull, instead of being mounted in more conventional turrets. This led the Navy to convert the Vesuvius into a torpedo test vessel in 1904, stripping her of her ”dynamite guns” and replacing them with a variety of torpedo tubes.
U.S.S. Vesuvius, c. 1890-1901, showing its main gun barrels protruding from its deck. Library of Congress. Public Domain.
As well, the US Army would abandon their experiments with Zalinski’s guns. The Army, which was responsible for coast artillery defense, had installed a number of 8- and 15-inch guns at various forts around the country. But, by 1900, the “dynamite guns” had all been dismounted and sold for scrap.
“Battery Dynamite” at Fort Winfield Scott, San Francisco, CA. Photo c.1900. Public Domain.
The reasons for the abandonment of Zalinski’s design are simple: the development of stable high explosives and the limited range of the guns made the “soft-launch” of the pneumatic guns irrelevant, as both issues were easily overcome by conventional artillery. As well, the low velocity of the shells forced them to fire at a high angle, limiting both their accuracy and impact force against armored targets.
While it is neat to speculate on “what if,” the fact remains that pneumatic artillery, although playing an interesting and important role in late-19th Century artillery, has had its day: the support infrastructure to operate pneumatic guns, even using modern technology, is not sufficient for use in combat, even using rocket assist to increase their range.
There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
Near the end of World War 2, the Soviet Union was searching for a new rifle. While the country was very happy with the venerable 7.62x54mmR (Rimmed)cartridge (dating from the 1880’s), its primary service rifle – the Mosin-Nagant – was long past its due date. The Mosin was, and is, a terrible rifle. Its one major positive, was that the Soviet state arms factories had been producing it for so long, they could (figuratively) make the rifles in their sleep. The 7.62x54R was, and remains, a fantastic cartridge for machineguns, as well as for sniper weapons, but as a general-issue cartridge for infantry weapons, there are serious issues that run against the cartridge, as the Soviets discovered to their regret.
SVT-40 Russian semi-automatic rifle (1940), without magazine. Caliber 7.62x54mmR. From the collections of Armémuseum (Swedish Army Museum), Stockholm, Sweden. CCA/4.0
The solution presented itself in the form of the M43 cartridge. The M43 – developed in 1943 – was formally adopted in 1945, for use in the SKS rifle. But the SKS, although a perfectly fine weapon, was on the tail end of technical developments, much like the Western FN-49 rifle. The Soviets had found that as war had changed, so too did tactics need to evolve as well. We touched on these tactical concerns recently, but a short review is warranted.
In their fight-back against Nazi Germany, the Soviets had learned that massed, fully automatic firepower from the infantry, assaulting alongside tanks, was one of the main keys to victory. This was especially true in assaulting into urban areas, where suppressive fire, delivered in close concert with the infantry, was vital to success. In these tight, fast-moving combat environments, long, cumbersome and slow-firing weapons like the Mosin (even in its shorter cavalry carbine version) were simply incapable of getting the tasks done.
The Soviet solution was deploying massive numbers (YouTube link) of submachine guns. This, however, was only a stopgap solution, as almost all SMG’s fire pistol caliber only. Even when using a longer barrel than a handgun, this significantly restricted the range of the weapons, forcing Soviet infantry to not fire until almost at point-blank range. And after that, if ranges suddenly opened back up, SMG-armed troops were immediately thrust back into a severe range disadvantage.
The solution to this problem was not a smaller weapon, but a carbine-class cartridge – and hence, the M43 was born. Fired from a 14- to 16-inch barrel, the M43 is accurate to 300-400 meters.
Home studio shot of the most common pistol and rifle cartridges. From left to right: 5.45×39mm, 5.56×45mm NATO, 7.62×39mm (the M43 cartridge), 7.62×51mm NATO and 7.62×54mmR. CC0/1.0
As noted above, although the SKS was – and is – an excellent carbine, it is severely limited by its fixed, 10-round magazine. A different weapon was required, a weapon that could feed its ammunition through a detachable magazine, similarly to an SMG, and with a similar ammunition capacity, of preferably in the range of thirty rounds. It needed to be selective-fire (capable of firing either single shots, for accurate fire, or emptying its contents in bursts, in the assault), and it needed to be compact, to fit in tight confines in vehicles, and when maneuvering through trenches and urban areas.
SKS Carabine, with charger strip of M43 ammunition inserted. CCA/4.0
The Soviets had faced the German StG-44 – the first true “assault rifle” – on the Eastern Front, and it fit the requirements for their new weapon. Although certain quarters still try to insist that what became the AK47 is a copy of the StG-44, nothing could be further from the truth. Aside from a superficial resemblance on the outside, the AK47 and the StG-44 are completely different weapons under the skin.
Although the story has almost certainly been embellished over the decades, Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (1919-2013) had grown up tinkering, as so many inventors do, with anything mechanical. But his “grease monkey” side was balanced with his love of poetry; he would go on to publish six books of poems over the years. In 1938, Kalashnikov was conscripted into the Red Army, where his engineering skills had him first assigned as a tank mechanic, and then a tank commander. When Nazi Germany turned on Stalinist Russia, Kalashnikov commanded his T-34 tank in several battles, before being seriously wounded at the Battle of Bryansk in October of 1941.
While recuperating in the hospital, Kalashnikov began designing small arms in earnest. His design for a submachine gun was rejected in 1942, but was seen as good enough to warrant assigning him to the Central Scientific-developmental Firing Range for Rifle Firearms of the Chief Artillery Directorate of the Red Army.
The original prototype of the Kalashnikov rifle. CCA/2.0
Over time, his design would evolve, eventually being adopted as the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova, model 1947).
English: AK-47 copies confiscated from Somali pirates by Finnish minelayer Pohjanmaa, during Operation Atalanta, c.2012. Public Domain.
Comparatively light in weight and relatively cheap (especially after a stamping process was developed for the receivers), the AK47 was also more reliable than most of its Western competitors, and was a very easy weapon to learn. If the stock version of the AK47 has a major fault, it is the rifle’s “iron” (or, “manual”) sights, which – while usable – need real improvement. In this regard, however, it is no worse than most of the rifles and carbines that preceded it.
Once the design was perfected, the Soviet Union began producing them on a gargantuan scale. Factoring in licensing to non-Soviet manufacturers, a 2007 study (pdf link) estimated that, of the c.500million firearms in circulation in the world, approximately 100million are AK-variant weapons, with some ~75million being AK47’s.
AK47s are, quite literally, everywhere: in every conflict zone in the world – actual or potential – a person is guaranteed to run across an AK-variant rifle. The weapon is so ubiquitous, it is a central feature on national flags and emblems from Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to East Timor, in the Pacific Ocean.
The only significant version to see widespread service to date is the AK74. Entering service in 1974, the AK74 is chambered for the 5.45x39mm cartridge. This caliber was chosen as a result of studies of infantry combat during the Vietnam War (1946-1975), where the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong guerillas battled with French and US forces, the latter of whom deployed the M-16, in 5.56x54mm. While sharing the simplicity and reliability of its older sibling, the –74 is merely different – “good different,” to be sure, but only that. The later Kalashnikov variants have never surpassed the older rifle in popularity, reinforcing the rubric, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
For good or for ill, Kalashnikov rifles have battled across the globe for over 75 years, and are not likely to disappear within the lifetimes of the readers of this article. Anyone who thinks that they may encounter a Kalashnikov model at some point, would do well to find a manual – if not an actual weapon – and learn how to employ it.
One never knows when that kind of information might come in handy.
AK47 Manual, 2009. USMC. Public Domain.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
No matter how you consume your news, whether from the “mainstream” or from more “alternative” sources, recent months have been all abuzz about the “mighty HIMARS“; and the HIMARS is, indeed, a very capable system…for those who either have friends, or who can afford it. But — what about us? What about the “poor’s“? Every weapon has a development cycle, and HIMARS is no exception. In this article, we will take a (very) brief look at the history of rocket artillery, and a singular weapon that is everything the HIMARS is not: cheap, simple, flexible, and readily available for anyone or any group with even a modest mount of cash.
Rocket artillery is far from ‘new.’ In fact, rockets were arguably the first practical use for gunpowder when it was invented in China, in the 9th Century AD. As gunpowder migrated westward, however, the idea of rocketry largely disappeared, until the late 18th-early 19th century, when rocketry began to reappear, most famously in the form of the Congreve Rocket. These early attempts were wildly unreliable, including having a nasty habit of exploding on their own, or returning to their owners in the most unpleasant of manners. Thus, it should not be surprising that rockets mostly disappeared from European-style warfare after about 1850 or so.
Fireships firing rockets and details of storage and launch. Colonel Congreve, 1814. Public Domain.
As a result, it would take until World War 2 to resurrect rocket artillery in a meaningful way, with the German introduction of the “Nebelwerfer” (or, ‘smoke mortar’) multiple rocket launcher (MRL) system. The system fired a variety of rockets, normally 5 – 7 at a time, depending on their exact size and weight. While initially intended to deliver chemical weapons, the distaste – and fear – from all sides outside of Asia about using such weapons caused the Germans to quickly develop high-explosive rounds for the various calibers. These were used to devastating effect by the Germans, initially…not so much for their raw destructive power, but for their terrifying psychological effects on troops who had never imagined the sound the rockets produced.
Nebelwerfer crew in action, Soviet Union, 1944. German Federal Archives.
All of the major Allies quickly copied the concept, and by the end of the war, were deploying far larger and more capable designs. However, the love affair with short-range multiple rocket systems wouldn’t last. By the mid-1950’s, most “First World” nations had largely begun to abandon the battlefield MRL; the notable exception was the Soviet Army and it’s subject armies, who maintained the devastating BM-21 ‘Grad’ into the present day. The reason for this abandonment of MRL’s was that, despite the MRL’s decided advantages (they were cheap and lightweight, compared conventional artillery, and were capable of firing truly impressive amounts of rounds in a time far shorter than regular artillery when grouped into batteries), they had significant disadvantages: their range tended to be shorter; they took far longer to reload; they were nearly impossible to use in “direct fire”, a feature of conventional artillery; and their rockets’ velocity was far too low to actually penetrate dug-in shelters or tank armor.
Nebelwerfer crew moving into action, France, 1944. German Federal Archives.
The reason the Soviet Bloc hung on the BM-21, was that while it had all of the disadvantages cited above, it had a very powerful warhead, a long range, was simple and easy to maintain, and was far cheaper and easier to build than conventional artillery. The Soviets accepted the downsides of the MRL idea, and found a way to incorporate it into their artillery fighting doctrine.
BM-21 Grad on display at the Karen Demirchyan Complex, Armenia. CCA/4.0
The Chinese Communists, following their disastrous – if effective – intervention in the Korean War (1950-1953), had a terribly disorganized arsenal. As China had spent the previous fifty years alternating between civil wars and hellish foreign invasions (WW2 actually begins in 1937, in China, instead of Poland in 1939), the PLA was stuck with a hodge-podge of weapons from at least six or more sources, they were badly in need of a complete rearmament strategy, literally from the top, down.
The immediate problems for the CCP was that their manufacturing base had to be completely rebuilt – which, being fair, was a problem for most of the active participants of the war, although Mao Tse Tung’s “Great Leap Forward” almost destroyed the country wholesale – but, more cripplingly, they had very little money to buy foreign equipment. Unable to pay even the Soviet Union for enough field artillery, the PLA went looking for an alternative.
And, in 1963, they created one of the most important, but least-known, pieces of artillery in modern history: the 107mm Type-63 MRL.
Type-63 107mm MRL. 2016. CCA/4.0
A 12-shot launcher mounted on a 2-wheeled trailer, the system weighed in at about 1,300lbs/602kg, and only needed a crew of five. It was capable of firing a wide variety of ammunition (albeit limited to HE-types, as well as incendiary and smoke rounds) to (initially) c.5mi/8km; ranges were quickly improved. Some models could be broken into 2-tube loads for transport through rough terrain, by either people or mules. Eventually, a variety of single-tube launchers were developed for the rocket ammunition. The PLA realized that they had a good thing, and eventually equipped each infantry division with 18 units.
It was also quickly realized that the unit’s light weight made it easy to mount on small vehicles, giving the launcher the ability to quickly fire its rockets, and quickly relocate to avoid counter-battery fires.
IRGC Ground Force Commandos loading a Type-63 type MRL. 2017. CCA/4.0
As word got around, and the units began to be used by Communist guerrillas and regular armies, the system became a source of hard currency through exports and licensing; at least seven countries would eventually obtain legal production licenses for both the launchers and their ammunition.
Naturally, the advantages of the Type-63 became apparent to every rebel, guerrilla and terrorist group in the world, and those entities quickly began competing with small armies to buy, steal or beg units on both the legal and black markets.
The Type-63 has proved itself to be a significant game-changer in “low intensity conflicts” because it allows small forces operating on a shoe-string budget to seriously threaten adversaries who cannot afford the advanced systems, like battlefield radars or C-RAM (which are fantastic to have, if you can afford or get them, somehow), to counter the fast-moving artillery. As a result, lightweight, highly mobile “technical” units can add a significant punch to their operations.
While susceptible to well (and expensively) equipped Western armies, the Type-63 remains a significant threat to anyone without powerful “friends” willing to commit to their aid.
The Type-63 has been reshaping battles for nearly 65 years, at this writing. There seems to be no end in sight for this venerable weapon…not least, because it is now being deployed on high-speed inshore craft…Newer may often be better, but old weapons will still harm you.
We all like nice things. Especially new, nice things. New things tend to have that “new” smell and/or touch. They “feel” better, and give us all a certain sense of accomplishment – after all, “new” tends to be expensive, in comparison to older things, and “buying new” gives us a feeling of accomplishment, because the new thing is a physical representation of our hard work paying off.
But – is “new” actually “better“?
In the realm of consumer products, the reality of new items hitting the shelves (literally or figuratively) is very much hit or miss. Many times – perhaps even most times – the new stuff offers new features, or is lighter, or does things more efficiently than what it is replacing. Conversely, many times, the new product – while looking very snazzy or streamlined on the outside – is actually flimsy, cheaply made and has a very good chance of failing if you look at it sideways, usually the day after its warranty expires (if it even came with a warranty). This can lead the frustrated consumer to try and return the product for a replacement or a refund (which sometimes, they are actually able to receive), and often going out and buying a similar product from a more reliable and trusted brand.
But in reality, buying a “new and improved” coffee maker on sale and having it fail on you after three months, while frustrating, really isn’t a monumental problem; annoying, certainly, but no one is dying over it…In the military realm, however, the consequences of untested tools – and worse, untested structural models – can be catastrophically disastrous.
Let’s look at two examples, one a matter of hardware, the other, a matter of organization.
Boom Sticks
First, with the rise of the AK-47, militaries around the world began to clamor for a rifle chambered in an “intermediate cartridge“, in short, something more powerful than a pistol-calibersubmachine gun, but not as massive as a full-power cartridge. The path to the intermediate cartridge idea is one of those dark secrets of firearms history, that will make for a good, more in depth article down the line, but here, it will be sufficient to outline a brief overview.
Intermediate rounds are, on average, smaller and lighter than their larger cousins, which equals less use of materials (i.e., gunpowder and various metals); while the savings are tiny, per cartridge, when you are producing billions of rounds at a time, those tiny figures become very significant, very quickly. On the side that really matters to a land army – infantry combat – the “field experiment” of the last sixty or so years, initially seemed to validate the idea of the intermediate cartridge: the intermediate class of round seemed to be perfectly effective at its intended role. But looks, as usual, can be deceiving.
Comparison of Pistol, Rifle and Intermediate cartridge. From left: 9 × 19 mm Parabellum (Pistol cartridge) 7.92 × 33 mm Kurz (Intermediate cartridge) 7.92 × 57 mm Mauser (Rifle cartridge)
While fine at ranges out to 300 meters or so (the intermediate’s intended range), when ranges moved out past that, the rifles rapidly became very ineffective, more so because – since the “maximum effective range” was accepted worldwide as 300 meters – the militaries of the world saw little reason to train the average recruit to shoot any further than that…and besides, the few times where the ranges opened up, military forces had General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG’s), Heavy Machine Guns (HMG’s), mortars, artillery, sniper rifles and even air support to deal with anything “out there.”
The resulting twenty-plus year long series of wars and interventions around the world began to show cracks in the armor of the intermediate cartridge idea. As infantry combat moved out of jungles and cities, and into vast deserts and mountain ranges, combat ranges opened up considerably, well outside the range (pdf link) of intermediate cartridge weapons. And this is where the US military hit a wall.
After going “all in” on the intermediate cartridge during the Vietnam War, the US military was stuck with an entire ensemble of weapons, equipment, training foundations and doctrines that revolved around the intermediate M-16. But now, they were finding themselves being engaged by guerrilla’s firing near century-old rifles, shooting at ranges well beyond 1200 (YouTube link) meters (pdf link). In those instances, US troops generally only had a few GPMG’s and HMG’s to respond. The US military’s response was to develop a completely new (and, inevitably, veryexpensive) rifle and light machine guncombination, along with a completely new type of cartridge that is best described as “intermediate plus“, that had longer range and better “hitting power” than the 60+ year old 5.56x45mm rounds.
U.S. Soldiers with the firing party with the 69th Infantry Regiment, New York Army National Guard prepare to fire a rifle salute during the Pearl Harbor Day ceremony in New York Dec. 7, 2012. US Army photo.
For those who might be scratching their heads and wondering why the US military went this route, congratulations – many other people have been doing the same thing: Why not simply adopt an older cartridge, specifically the 7.62x51mm M80, that was already in the system (such as the M240-series), and any of a number of older-pattern rifles of proven design…after all, new manufacturing techniques and materials would surely make those older designs very competitive, weight-wise, right?
The answer for the US military was, simply put, politics: with a Congress facing a public tired after twenty years of inconclusive war, and massive budgetary issues, there was no way that the military could go to Congress and ask them to fund a step “backwards”. On the other hand, they couldask Congress to fund something “new and improved” – they just had to put the right “bells and whistles” on it…or, to be peckish, a nicer ribbon.
In contrast, stands India: Faced with a rifle that just wasn’t working, no matter what they did, India bit the bullet, admitted defeat, and inked deals to both purchase and manufacture the AK-203 rifle in 7.62x39mm (a total of 670,000 – 70,000 directly from Russia, with the remainder to be manufactured under license) in Uttar Pradesh, while also purchasing slightly modified SIG 716 G2 Patrol rifles in 7.62x51mm.
Indian Army soldier armed with a modified AK-type rifle. Indian Ministry of Defence photo.
The bog-standard 7.62x51mm M80 cartridge has been standard for most western GPMG’s since at least 1983 – it just works.
Whether switching to a “new and improved” weapons suite is a good idea for the US military or not, remains to be seen. Hopefully, it will work.
Hopefully. Troops’ lives depend on it.
Misusing An Organizational Idea
The current war between Russia and Ukraine brought into focus the Russian idea of the “Battalion Tactical Group” (Russian: Батальонная тактическая группа, batal’onnaya takticheskaya gruppa). The BTG is one of those oddities that is rather hard to define, primarily because it only works in a very narrow area of military operations, that being as a “cadre force.”
On paper, a BTG is a combined arms formation that is technically a “battalion” of mechanized infantry, with a number of smaller specialist units (i.e., engineers, medical, air defense, etc.) being assigned as needed, and kept in a high state of readiness. Conceptually, a BTG is similar to the Western “task force” at various levels…except in artillery, where the BTG – with fewer than 1,000 troops assigned – has more long-range firepower than a US Brigade Combat Team (BCT).
There are, however, problems.
The first, is a lack of infantry support. One of the mistakes many civilians make in studying modern warfare, is the idea that tanks can do everything on their own. They cannot. A tank crew is seriously restricted in seeing what is happening around them, specifically in that they cannot see enemy infantry armed with lightweight anti-tank missiles that are more than capable to turning a tank into burning scrap metal. This is not a feature unique to Russian tanks – it is a feature of all main battle tanks in the world, in general. The only viable solution to this problem, was training specialist infantry to escort and guard the tanks against enemy infantry.
Obviously, this requires a lot of infantry…Yet Russian BTG’s, on average, have about 250 infantry escorting them, somewhere between 1/3 and 1/4 of what they actually need. Why?
The BTG dates from the end of the Soviet era, when the Soviet Army was refining its plans for invading Western Europe, and were carefully studying how to deal with Western company, battalion and brigade task forces. BTGs were deployed as an experiment in Afghanistan, before the final collapse of the Soviet efforts in that country in 1989, and worked well enough in that level of fighting that they were kept on, until the Soviet Union dissolved. At that point, the rancid Soviet economy that Russia inherited simply could not support the expense of permanently established combat units that required careful tactical training to work effectively. Worse, the necessary reforms to make all of this happen required a long-serving, professional corps of non-commissioned officers (NCO’s, i.e., Corporals and Sergeants), which was something the Soviets had never really tried to build. This, coupled to the political upheavals of the day, and the general Russian attitude towards their military as a barely-necessary evil (unless the enemy is literally inside the gates…and sometimes, not even then) which made an “all-volunteer” force of the likes of the United States or Great Britain an impossibility, made mass formations and a rigid conscription system moot points. While the Russian army retained the idea of brigades and divisions, at their hearts, they were really just a collection of sketchily-trained, down-market BTG’s.
A farewell ceremony for the 331st Airborne Regiment of the 98th Airborne Division withdrawn from Chechnya. www.kremlin.ru
As a result, while the concept of the BTG was retained after the Soviet Union became Russia again, the training of the troops in those formations was very haphazard. As the Russian economy began to rebound in the late-1990’s, training and readiness began to improve, and combat experience in forming ad hoc BTG’s during the wars in Chechnya showed that the concept was a viable way of fighting minor forces and guerrillas. This culminated in the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, where the BTG idea seemed to work very well against the Western-trained Georgian Army (yet another article for the future). All of this led to the 2008 Russian military reform, an all-out attempt to revamp the Russian military establishment into something like a 21st Century force.
When Russia began its “intervention” in Ukraine in 2014, the BTG finally seemed to find its niche. While it had glaring weaknesses against comparable Western formations, Russian BTG’s being sent into eastern Ukraine were able to augment themselves with swarms of thousands of local anti-Kiev insurgents who, while poorly armed and scarcely trained, were able to advise and guide Russian units through local terrain, and were also able to help screen the BTG’s against Ukrainian anti-tank teams, backed up by the more professional Russian infantry and artillery. And, when Russia intervened in Syria in 2015, the Russian commanders on the scene quickly duplicated this model with local Syrian auxiliaries. The concept worked there, as well.
It seemed that Russia had found the perfect balance: BTG’s were simultaneously long-service soldiers, not conscripts, and – not being manpower-intensive – thus would not unduly upset the Russian population when they were sent out. At the same time, they seemed to be able to get the job done, and were very cost-effective in comparison to the older-model, mass formations of past wars.
“Scene of Gen. Custer’s last stand, looking in the direction of the ford and the Indian village.” Unknown author, ca. 1877. From the US National Archives.
Unless carefully controlled, Victory Disease can rapidly infect a population with the idea that their forces are nigh-invincible. If left alone to fester, this breeds an arrogance that the nation can take on any opponent, anywhere, anytime, without too much effort or thought.
Which brings us back to Ukraine, 2022.
Whatever the causes of the current war may be, this is not the article to discuss them. The Russian leadership clearly assumed that their forces would overrun Ukraine with relative ease, and would allow them to accomplish limited objectives that would not be too onerous on the Russian population. While this was mostly true in the southern sectors, it only appeared to be so, initially, in the northern theater. There, the BTG’s showed all of their glaring faults, as stalled convoys strung out along roads (an inevitable consequence in armored warfare – just ask the US Army and Marines about the advance on Baghdad in 2003) were suddenly cut to pieces by Ukrainian infantry and partisans operating behind the Russian advance. Without the mass of infantry that a more conventional organization would have had, the Russians were unable to defend those convoys as US forces had in 2003, as there was no way that the razor-thin film of infantry the Russians had access to could adequately protect the long columns of vehicles packed tightly into ready-made kill-zones. It was never that the Russians were “running out of infantry” – they simply never had the necessary numbers plugged into their organizational combat unit structures. The disastrous results of this oversight have now greatly lengthened the war, and have led – as of late-September, 2022 – to the Russian leadership calling for a “partial” national mobilization.
What impact this may have on the war, remains to be seen.
For the purposes of this article, Russia took a low-impact approach to military organization out of harsh necessity, and allowed it to become a dominant aspect of its military and – dangerously – its political psychology. When it then applied that approach to smaller wars, and saw that it worked, they made the assumption that it would work against larger opponents. With the inevitable failure of the model when it stepped outside its boundaries, Russia is now in the position of being forced to escalate the conflict to avoid defeat.
It has long been acknowledged that John Browning is one of – if not the – greatest American firearms designer of all time. Indeed, his Winchester 1894 – the venerable “.30-30” – with over six million units produced, is the most numerous sporting rifle ever made. Browning’s designs have lasted well over one hundred years; in fact, variations of his M1911A1 pistol and M2HB heavy machine gun are still in service in the United States Armed Forces, at least in some capacity, despite both being over a century old.
John M. Browning, c.1920.
At the end of World War One, however, Browning did not rest on his laurels after a sixty-year career of designing weapons for both civilians and military forces. As he was no longer offering his designs exclusively to Winchester, after the war was over, Browning began working with the Belgian firm Fabrique Nationale (FN). One of the final designs Browning was working on, a French military requirement for a new service pistol, the “Grand Rendement” (French for “high efficiency“), would never be completed, as Browning would die suddenly of heart failure, on the floor of his son and co-designer’s shop November 26, 1926, at the age of 71.
The service pistol design, while not complete, had advanced far enough that it could be completed by Browning’s assistant, designer Dieudonné Saive, a tremendously talented designer in his own right, who would go on to design many legendary firearms, including the FAL (Fusil Automatique Leger or Light Automatic Rifle), which would become known as the “Right Arm of the Free World.”
The pistol for the French contract was a “game-changer” design. Browning had been one of the first designers of practical and reliable semi-automatic pistols, as far back as 1899, and the French pistol built on from everything he had learned to that point. The task, however, was not simple, as Browning had to compete with himself — he had previously sold his patent on the M1911 to Colt Manufacturing; as a result, Browning was unable to directly copy that design. The new pistol used a 13-round, detachable box magazine (designed by Saive), the first true ‘staggered-stack’ design that allowed a near-doubling of ammunition capacity, without overly-enlarging the grip.
Due to the French commission’s wandering requirements (something all to common in the weapons design world, being one of the chief reasons for mindless cost overruns in defense products), the design was unable to mature until 1931, when the Belgian Army ordered 1,000 units of the early design, and was finally completed in 1934…Which was, of course, when the French chose another pistol, that went on to become barely a footnote in history.
Weapons used by Swedish Volunteer Corps. Inglis of Canada HP-35 in upper-right corner (#4).
The Belgian Army, however, had been following the pistol’s development, and were highly impressed with the small sample that they had purchased three years earlier. The French competition was barely over, when the Belgians formally adopted the pistol, as the “HP-35“, as their national sidearm, which would become known as the “High Power“.
World War 2 saw Nazi Germany swallow Belgium whole, and with it, the FN factories. When it became clear that Belgium would fall, Saive and other FN engineers fled to England, and carried the designs of many weapons, including the High Power, with them. The High Power’s plans were handed over to John Inglis and Company, of Toronto, Canada, who rapidly tooled up lines to produce two versions of the design: the standard model with fixed sights, and a version with an adjustable rear sight and a detachable shoulder stock (primarily for a Nationalist Chinese contract). From there, the High Power took off to became the primary sidearm of the armies of 93 nations, as well as many special operations forces, most famously, Great Britain’s SAS, and remains in service with many of those militaries to this day.
Canadian soldiers inspect their weapons, Camp Blanding, Fla., April 18, 2009, in support of Partnership of the Americas 2009. USMC photo.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end – or seem to. After 82 years of continuous production, FN Herstal announced that the production of the Hi-Power would end, and it was discontinued in early 2018 by Browning Arms. From 2019 to 2022, with no new Belgian Hi-Powers being built, clones were designed by various firearm companies around the world, including Springfield Armory, as the “SA-35.” These new Hi-Power clones began competing with each other by offering new finishes, enhanced sights, redesigned hammers, beveled magazine wells, improved trigger, and increased magazine capacity.
However, in 2022, presumably to compete with the sudden surge in Hi-Power popularity, FN announced they would resume production of the Browning Hi-Power. The 2022 “FN High Power” incorporated a number of entirely new features such as a fully ambidextrous slide lock, simplified takedown method, enlarged ejection port, reversible magazine release, wider slide serrations, different colored finish offerings, and 17-round magazines.
As of the end of 2022, the eighty-seven year old design has suddenly found new life, and will likely continue in service well past its 100-year design mark…
Since the earliest days of people hanging armor plates and machine guns onto motor vehicles, “armored cars” have formed an essential component of military’s around the world. The better versions are small(-ish), cheap, fast, reasonably dependable and armed enough to defend themselves, as their crews sent recon reports via their radios.
But sometimes, something special appears.
Introduced in 1959, the AML- series (Auto Mitrailleuse Légère, or “Light Machine Gun Car”), manufactured until 1987 by the French company Panhard (who have been making automobiles since 1890), is small, even by armored car standards, at 16’9″x12’5″x6’6″, and weights in right at six tons.
AML-60, armed with the 60mm Brandt gun-mortar.
Initially, it was armed as a light, fast, highly-mobile mortar carrier, carrying a 60mm Brandt gun-mortar and a pair of the uniquely French MAS AA-52 NF-1 machine guns. However, although the little armored car was an immediate hit with French troops in Algeria, as that conflict wound down, there was less of a need for a mobile mortar carrier. As foreign buyers began looking at the design, it was the Apartheid-eraSouth African Army who asked if Panhard could give the little truck a heavier punch.
And thus, the AML-90 was born.
Mounting a DEFA D921 90mm/3.54in rifled cannon, this new vehicle was fully capable of engaging and destroying the main battle tanks of the 1960’s. As the years wore on, even though its 90mm cannon could not keep pace with developments in tank armor, its high-explosive (HE) projectiles remain fully capable to destroying most vehicles smaller than a tank or modern IFV. Even the US Army’s the United States Army Research Laboratoryacknowledged in 1979 (PDF link) that the AML “operated effectively in Beirut” and noted that “the ease with which the Panhard is driven and repaired, and the absence of tracks, provide the mobility desirable in an urban environment.”
An AML-90 (R) of the Lebanese Army, Beirut, Lebanon, 1982
And it was simple, in the extreme – AML hulls were assembled from only 13 welded pieces. Thirteen. In the early 1980’s, an upgrade to the AML-90 Lynx became available, offering a new turret loaded with a modified D921 main gun and up-rated range-finding equipment and night-vision gear.
Bottom: Original H-90 turret. Top: Lynx 90 turret incorporating a new commander’s cupola, sights, searchlight, and a laser rangefinder.
The AML-90 and its somewhat lesser known variants were sold all over the world, albeit mostly in Africa, where they proved very effective when used for their intended roles. As just one example, when France conducted a series of operations during the Chadian-Libyan Conflict, only three vehicles were reportedly lost in action, apparently to RPG fire, despite several engagements versus Libyan tanks. While not completely immune to land mines, the AML’s were not known to fall prey to them very often.
Although withdrawn from French service in 1991 (replaced by the Panhard ERC and AMX-10RC vehicles), the AML – in most of its forms – continues to soldier on, around the world, with the last foreign sales being completed in 1999.
An Iraqi AML-90 light armored car, captured during Operation Desert Storm. USMC photo.
Are there better vehicles, today? Absolutely. The AML, by modern standards, is cramped, has neither NBC protection, nor any real “comfort” items modern forces take for granted, and has poor armor. But still…until it comes against those better vehicles, the AML remains cheap and effective — even sixty-odd years later.
“Old” does not necessarily mean “useless”…A thing that more military’s in the world would do well to learn.
To give our non-military readers a very basic overview, the better to understand the problem, let’s take a brief look at the framework of supply in the military sphere.
Warfare destroys and wastes whatever it touches – both people and equipment. People can be recovered (where that can be possible) through medical treatment and counseling.
But what about equipment?
Kansas Army National Guard Soldiers work to package and stage personal protective equipment. (U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. Ian Safford, 105th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment)
Everything a military force needs – the “beans, bullets and band-aides,” if you like – can be categorized, ordered, received, inventoried, issued and turned back in at will. The trouble is getting all of those actions to work in sync, on time, and (hopefully) in something close to the right amounts. For the most part, your humble author is happy to stick with the US Armed Forces system, not simply because it is what I am used to, but because it is more precise than comparable systems, while also not being overly cluttered.
Oshkosh M-978 fuel servicing trucks line a holding area during Joint Logistics Over the Shore (JLOTS) training, part of exercise Ocean Venture ’92. An M-901 TOW vehicle is parked to the left. US Navy photo.
Class I– Rations – Subsistence (food and drinking water), gratuitous (free) health and comfort items
Class II– Clothing And Equipment – individual equipment, tentage, some aerial delivery equipment, organizational tool sets and kits, hand tools, unclassified maps, administrative and housekeeping supplies and equipment
Class III – POL – Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants (POL) (package and bulk): Petroleum, fuels, lubricants, hydraulic and insulating oils, preservatives, liquids and gases, bulk chemical products, coolants, deicer and antifreeze compounds, components, and additives of petroleum and chemical products, and coal
Class IV – Construction materials, including installed equipment and all fortification and barrier materials
Class V – Ammunition of all types, bombs, explosives, mines, fuses, detonators, pyrotechnics, missiles, rockets, propellants, and associated items
Class VI – Personal demand items (such as health and hygiene products, soaps and toothpaste, writing material, snack food, beverages, cigarettes, batteries, alcohol, and cameras—nonmilitary sales items)
Class VII – Major end items such as missile and rocket launchers, tanks, mobile machine shops, some parachute systems and vehicles
Class VIII – Medical material (equipment and consumables) including repair parts particular to medical equipment
**Class VIIIa – Medical consumable supplies not including blood & blood products
**Class VIIIb – Blood & blood components (whole blood, platelets, plasma, packed red cells, etc.
Class IX – Repair parts and components to include kits, assemblies, and sub-assemblies (repairable or non-repairable) required for maintenance support of all equipment
Class X – Material to support nonmilitary programs such as agriculture and economic development (not included in Classes I through IX)
Miscellaneous – Water, salvage, and captured material
Saraktash scrap-heap. By “Imankulov”, under CCA/3.0 Unported.
My only real complaint about this list is the last item, because the only true “miscellaneous” items are truly ‘scrap‘ materials. Thus, I use the following, in addition:
Class XI – Non-potable Water
Class XII – Captured/Recovered Material
Of these, “Class XI” (Non-potable water), is the simplest: Non-potable (i.e., non-drinkable) water is fine for washing equipment, fire-fighting and for flushing out waste.
An Iraqi AML-90 light armored car captured during Operation Desert Storm. A captured ZPU-23-4 anti-aircraft machine gun is at right. USMC photo.
Class XII(Captured/Recovered Material) are the various detritus that can be scraped up from a battlefield, including enemy material. The process for handling this class of gear (whether from a friendly, liberated, requisitioned or enemy source) is as follows:
a. The materiel is brought into a receiving yard, where it is identified, categorized and assessed for serviceability. Anything of direct and immediate interest to Intelligence goes straight to them. For everything else, we move on to…
b. Type Classification and Field Stock Number Registry: Materiel recovered and brought in should have a tag applied to them, then be classified with a temporary Stock Number, first, using the Supply Classifications as listed above to categorize the item. Then, after applying a two-digit number for the supply class, add one of the following qualifiers after the class to the item tag:
(x) – Material recovered from allied/friendly military sources
(y) – Captured/Liberated enemy material
(z) – “DIY”, improvised, ad hoc or requisitioned from civilian sources
Then, add the appropriate qualifier from the following list:
(A) – Ready To Issue; the item can be issued immediately, with minimal servicing and/or repainting. It should be tagged, and placed into an appropriate storage slot
(B) – PM Required; minor maintenance/clean-up required prior to reissue. This should be forwarded to the appropriate maintenance queue
(C) – Major Repairs Required; the item is repairable, but is dead-lined until it can be repaired. This should also be forwarded to the appropriate maintenance queue
(D) – Sub-Assembly Salvageable; the complete item is too damaged to reissue as a complete unit, but can be broken down into its constituent sub-assemblies (i.e., brake drums, alternators, engines, various major components, etc.) to issue in order to repair other items. This process should be commenced immediately, using either unit specialists, or civilians hired on contract.
(E) – Scrap; the item is damaged to the point where it can no longer be used. This material should be towed or set out of the way, and should either be returned to a manufacturing area for re-smelting/recovery, or sold off. Depending on the material, it may be able to be repurposed into engineering barrier or shelter material.
One of the oft overlooked aspects of the military in general are the small items that form part of a soldier’s kit. While the vast majority of these items are very mundane, indeed, occasionally an item appears which offers a sea-change in its sphere.
While mass produced, purpose-designed combat first aid dressings date back to the early 1920’s with the advent of the “Carlisle Dressing“, developed at the US Army’s Carlisle Barracks, in the aftermath of World War One, surprisingly little further development occurred until PerSys Medical’s design came along. The Carlisle Bandage was a simple affair, simply a sterile dressing on one side, backed by a gauze, later cotton, cloth backing used to secure it in place. (Indeed, Bar-Natan attributes his drive to invent the bandage with being issued Carlisle bandages manufactured in 1938, during his time as an IDF medic.)
While the Carlisle and its successors were useful, and certainly saved lives on the battlefield, they were far from perfect solutions. The dressings frequently came loose, and the design allowed for a great deal of contamination to enter the wound area, even if tightly secured in place. The only way to effectively protect the wound from post-trauma infection was to apply an ace-type elastic wrap after applying the battle wound dressing. Obviously, this was rarely done, as medics tended to use the space and weight of the ace wrap to carry extra bandages, instead.
Variants of the Carlisle were used all the way into the 1990’s, two being included in the first-aid kit of the day, until the deployment of the modern IFAK, which includes the “Emergency Dressing”, as it is termed by the US Military.
Bar-Natan’s design abandoned the simplicity of the Carlisle, in favor of a significantly improved version which, although somewhat more complex to use, provides far better care for an injury victim. The Emergency Bandage comes already attached to an ace-type wrap, which is integral to the dressing’s function. After removal, the sterile side of the dressing is applied as direct pressure to the wound area, and the elastic wrap is wound one turn around the extremity (or the torso or head), until it meets the second essential part of the design.
U.S. Military First Aid Kit. US Department of Defense photo.
The Emergency Bandage’s patented “pressure bar” is a stirrup-shaped device mounted directly with the elastic wrap. Slipping the wrap through the stirrup of the pressure bar, then reversing the direction of the wrap, causes the pressure bar to exert a mild tourniquet-type force against the wound. This results in the creation of an additional barrier to external media contaminating the injury. The wrap is then secured in place by the bandage’s closure bar, which hooks into the bandage in much the same way as a ballpoint pen clipping to a shirt pocket.
US Military-issue IFAK, 2012. US Army photo.
Additionally, the Emergency Bandage can in many instances be self-applied one-handed, something extremely difficult, if not impossible, with the Carlisle-model dressing family.
Mated to QuikClot-impregnated gauze, this provides a very powerful field dressing that is practical, easy to use and easy to train on. Indeed, the Emergency Bandage has been credited with saving many of the victims of the notorious 2011 shooting in Tucson, AZ, in which Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded.
The Emergency Bandage – the “Israeli Bandage” to many US troops – has saved, and continues to save, lives in combat theaters and disaster emergencies, around the world.
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