Tag: War

ArthurinCali Has a Post on NeoCon Madness

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Arthur has a post on what the endless NeoCon wars meant to him on the receiving side:

“If a young enlisted kid could recognize the futility of trying to establish the concept of liberal democracy amongst the former nomadic Bedouin tribes that now, playact as “nations”, surely the men and women at the highest positions of US political power and advisement knew this as well. To believe otherwise is a sure indication of their lack of sanity.”

Guest Contributor – War Pig – War, Up Close & Personal

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A lot of real action with elite units is up close and personal. You have to be able to look them in the eye and kill them. You can smell and almosr taste their adrenaline, their fear, their natural body odor. You have to become almost animalistic in your fury. Killing up close is killing well when done correctly. They gift you with their lives and you can almost see the other side in their eyes but they glaze over too soon. One thing, if you ever kill up close as with a knife, you, yourself will never fear death again and that is the greatest gift.

A Handy Primer on Nuclear Weapons

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If you’ve got an hour and a half and want to find out exactly what a three stage thermonuclear weapon is and how it works or whether a neutron bomb was really invented to empty a city of humans but leave the buildings intact then this guide might interest you.  I’d always wanted to know how a cobalt bomb worked.

I watched it with great interest.  I learned a number of things that I hadn’t known.  For instance, in a multi-megaton bombardment of a city very few of the deaths will be by radiation poisoning.  The fireball and blast wave will kill mostly everyone who would have received a fatal dose of primary radiation from the fission and fusion neutrons and gamma radiation.  and the fallout will be dispersed into the stratosphere by the mushroom cloud for the whole world to enjoy later.  And I didn’t realize that hydrogen bombs were filled with styrofoam.  Don’t tthese monsters know how environmentally unfriendly styrofaom is?

 

 

Guest Contributor – War Pig – Ulfberht Steel

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And we still don’t know who by or where the Ulfberht swords were made. The steel was centuries ahead of its time.

Ulfberht steel was crucible steel. It was remarkably fine grained and had very few inpuruties. Likely imported from south Asia. Europe did not work out crucible steel for centuries after the Ulfberht swords were made. You can learn a great deal in the NOVA special on PBS.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ciave

Also MAN AT ATMS REFORGED did a short on making an Ulfberht sword from scratch. They made their own steel from ore and all.

The flexibility and strength in sword steels today we rather take for granted. Ulfberht steel would have seemed to be magic to the smiths if the age. An Ulfberht sword would be equal in value to a small castle back then. Of course, where there is quality there were counterfeits. Humans haven’t changed much in the last thousand years or so that way. The NOVA special references fakes. Just like fake Rolex qatches today, there were fake Ulfberht swords.

An Interesting Article on Putin’s Strategy in the Ukraine

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The author’s thesis is that Putin losing the Ukraine war is probably the least likely alternative.  I thought it was a pretty good analysis of the likelihood of the various outcomes in the Ukraine War.

I think those in the West misunderstand the dynamic at work.  NATO has an agenda.  When that agenda threatens Russia too much it acts to push it back.  and now they’ve gone beyond a red line and may have permanently antagonized Vladimir Putin.  And that is a bad outcome for the West.  It is no longer a monopole world.  Russia, China, India and other states are starting to realize there is life outside of the West.  That is a very big deal.

The End of the End of History

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I can almost hear Simon and Garfunkel crooning, “Where have you gone Fran Fukuyama, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo, woo, woo.  What’s that you say Mrs. Robinson, Feckless Fran has left and gone away, hey, hey, hey … hey, hey, hey.

So, history ended with the fall of the Soviet Union.  Liberal Democracy was a global panacea where everyone would have all the stuff they wanted and nobody had to work and transgender soldiers wearing miniskirts and go-go boots would keep us safe from the Neanderthals until such time as we had them rounded up into reeducation camps.  Someone neglected to send the memo to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

I’m actually glad that the fantasy bubble has been popped.  I despise the boring stupid world of the future where Jean Luc Picard sits in the captain’s chair and endlessly drones on to his boring associates on how his warp engine powered mobile UN will make the galaxy safe for gender equality NGO’s.

Vladimir Putin has provided the wake-up call.  Realpolitik is real.  Hard power is the only power.  Everything else is sleight of hand.  As soon as the rest of the world saw the debacle in Afghanistan play out in real time, they knew that US military power has been dissipated.  Woke trannies call the shots at the Pentagon and other than the nuclear arsenal the United States is a paper tiger.

China will assert itself.  Its neighbors will recalibrate their own positions based on the weakness the United States has demonstrated.  Our military and economic clout have both been brought into question.  And without that aura protecting our interests, things will change.  That’s just harsh reality.  And Europe is also in a bad spot.  They depended on America’s prestige and example to lead the way.  If Vladimir Putin has his way in the Ukraine, then maybe Russia becomes the strong horse in Eastern Europe.  If nothing else, they provide the gas and oil that allows the Europeans to pretend to be green.  After all, when you eliminate your nuclear power plants and many days the wind and sun aren’t around it’s Russian natural gas that keeps the Germans and other Europeans from freezing in the dark.  It won’t be long before Russia starts using petroleum as a bargaining chip when its neighbors annoy it.  I expect to see Europe changing its tune.

All of these changes aren’t some end-of-times catastrophe.  All they reflect is the intentional self-crippling actions of the American Left.  Our military can be the strongest in the world.  We have the capability of rebuilding our industrial infrastructure at any time.  We have the resources to make this the premiere country on the planet again.  But what is required is for the American people to undeniably reject the world view of the Left that Western civilization is somehow something to be ashamed of.  The Left which is mostly the young have to wake up and see that the rainbow fantasy version of human life is just that, a delusion.  Power is real, the old values represent the formula for existing in the real world and all the feel-good blather about female and trans-whatever warriors might as well be comic book nonsense when actual men show up on the battlefield with actual guns.

The Outcome of the Ukraine War

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Predicting the future in a war is a fool’s errand.  So many things can happen to change the situation on the ground that even a few days of almost random occurrences can undermine the basis for a prediction.  But general principles can be used to guess what is likely to happen if the difference in strength between the two sides is lopsided enough.  So let me be foolish.

My first assumption is that Biden won’t risk military intervention.  He won’t declare a no-fly zone and he won’t shelter an openly operating insurgent force in a NATO country.  I think Biden is truly afraid of Putin.  Even the embargo against Russian oil and gas is probably more risk than he’s comfortable with.  Bottom line, I don’t think he’ll step into the war because he believes that Putin would as a last resort use nuclear weapons if the West interferes on the Ukraine battlefield.

The Russians have fought several wars in the last thirty years.  Some larger, some smaller.  The most difficult one was the Chechen insurgency.   Initially when the Russians attempted to occupy Chechnya the Chechens fought a brutal guerilla war that the Russians basically lost.  But in the second phase of the war the Russians figured out how to deal with guerilla fighters.  They surrounded them and then reduced the cities to rubble without engaging.  This limited the Russian casualties but increased Chechen civilian casualties.  I think that’s what they intend to do with the Ukrainian militias.  They’ll empty the cities of anyone who wants to get out and then starve the fighters out or blast them out.  This will tear the Ukraine to pieces and make it more likely that the Ukraine government will surrender.  But it’s not just the government that counts. Even if the Ukraine government surrenders guerilla fighters could extend the war indefinitely.

I guess the biggest unknown is just how committed the militia fighters are.  The Chechens were fearless and full of hate.  We’re about to find out what these Ukrainian militiamen are all about.  If they’re like the Chechens this thing won’t be over for years.  And that may exhaust the Russians ability to sustain the war while the West maintains sanctions and provides material aid.  If that happens Putin may decide to do something drastic and that could be disastrous for everyone including us.

But if the militias aren’t prepared to fight for every square inch of ground, then this thing will be over in a matter of months.  The Russians will be methodical and brutal.  They’ll reduce the cities to rubble and reclaim the country piece by piece until the militias have to surrender.  Putin has decided what he wants done and he will go about it in a determined fashion.  When the Ukrainian government surrenders, Putin will tie them up in a peace treaty to keep the West at arm’s length.

So that’s my read.  The only variable that matters at all is the fire in the rebels.  If they’re willing to fight to the death, they can hold up the war long enough to exhaust the Russians’ patience and resources.  If not, then the Russians will win.  It’s as simple as that.

Nuclear War Again?

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I haven’t thought seriously about the reality of nuclear war since 1988.  That year I moved from New York City to a small New England town.  And one day the town fire alarm was sounded.  I had never heard anything like it and I assumed it was an air raid siren.  Luckily a neighbor straightened out my thinking and told me these were a regular feature of town life.  But for just a minute I was desperately trying to figure out where the kids were and where was the best place to bring them for safety.  Never in my life before did I ever worry about nuclear war, nor since.  And once the Soviet Union imploded it no longer seemed like something that could happen.  No one would be stupid enough to push us into nuclear war.

Well, that was before I imagined Joe Biden as president.  Now I’m not saying Joe Biden is brave enough to start a nuclear war with the Russians.  Joe talks tough in speeches about going toe to toe with Putin.  But in reality, I think he’d be afraid being in the same room alone with the Russian.

He’s not brave enough to start a nuclear war but he’s stupid enough to start one accidentally.  Putin seems to be an egoist and Biden has said some provocative things about him.  If things go poorly for Putin and his back is against the wall, he might decide to settle scores with those he hates.  Now that is a sobering thought.

This is just something I thought about today, not as something that has me frightened, but as something surprising.  I guess in some sense I stopped thinking that nuclear war was still something to worry about.  And now I don’t think that way any more.  And maybe I should never have stopped worrying about it.  Truthfully, nuclear weapons are a balancing act.  And if that balance ever slips the probability they’ll be used goes from extremely low to fairly high very easily.  And when that happens who you have in charge of them becomes even more critical.  The judgement and reputation of the man with the nuclear football could be the difference between peace and destruction.  Would you want that man to be Dementia Joe?  I know I don’t.

I know one thing for sure.  It makes a lot of sense to live far away from large American cities, not only to avoid the crime and chaos they now represent for residents and neighbors but also because they’re on the target list for Russian and Chinese ICBMs.  This sounds slightly melodramatic and pessimistic but honestly, pessimism is now becoming the default setting when I think about our government.  The level of dishonesty and just plain stupidity it exhibits makes it the biggest threat to my family’s future.  So, I have to be pessimistic.  Let’s call it realistic instead.

When the election memes for 2024 are being thought up it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have one of those “Who’s answering the phone at 3 am at the White House?” commercials to remind the voters that Dopey Joe isn’t even sentient at 3 am.

So that’s what I was thinking about today.

 

Update

Apparently great minds think alike.  Read this.

 

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 03MAR2022 – On War

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(In reply to comments on the review of the 1965 movie “The Battle of the Bulge”) – photog

I’ve never heard what Eisenhower had to say about it. I get my lean on it from my uncle, an enlisted man. Battles are seen quite differently if you’re one of the dogfaces in the ranks than by staff generals and politicians and people who write about it later.

Having been in a couple or so battles myself I can say the troops fight a battle intimately, not cooly and detached like they do at headquarters. You fight what is in front of you and you do not fight for king or country. You fight for the dogfaces to your right and left, your brothers. Your own world in battle is quite small, really. Your brothers on your right and left, and what you can see to your front. Usually about 400 yards or so. Modern thermal sights changes that for tank xrews and the like, and better optics on rifles extends that range a little bit but the soldier with the rifle in the ranks can only worry about what he sees and what can see him.

I generally don’t watch war movies that involve ground action. They are so fake overall. I’ll watch Battle of Brirain or In Harms Way about planes and ships, but I usually don’t watch ground war movies. I saw Bulge before I went to Vietnam. After that I gave up on ground war movies. I especially never watch movies about conflicts or operations in which I took part. They remind me of things I’d rather not remember and they are so wrong I get angry.

 

The Dirty Dozen (1967) – A Movie Review

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The Dirty Dozen is a fictional story about a clandestine American military mission during WW II.  Disgraced Army Major John Reisman, played by Lee Marvin, is ordered by Gen. Sam Worden (Ernest Borgnine) to select twelve court martialed Americans whose sentences vary from 20 years at hard labor up to hanging and train them up for a mission behind enemy lines in Nazi occupied France.  If they survive and complete the mission honorably their sentences may be commuted.  If not, they will be returned to serve their sentences.

The beginning of the movie is our introduction to the prisoners.  Each man has an aversion to authority, several are hardened killers and one man (Archer Maggott played by Telly Savalas) is a delusional psychotic.  The most sympathetic characters are played by Charles Bronson, Jim Brown and Clint Walker.  Each has been convicted of murder but in each case, extenuating circumstances have been ignored by the military court that decided the case.  Probably the least sympathetic convict (other than Maggott) is V. R. Franko played by John Cassavetes.  He is a Chicago gangster who murdered a British civilian for less than ten dollars-worth of money.  But he is also the everyman of the outfit whose defiance of authority becomes the rallying point for the prisoners to gel into a functional team.

The movie progresses from the team being trained by Reisman, then to a confrontation with a hostile base commander, Col. Everett Dasher Breed, played by Robert Ryan, then to a test of their competence in a War Game against Breed’s elite troop and finally to their mission.

This mission is a night time parachute drop into occupied France where the team will infiltrate a château where the German High Command are assembled and kill as many of the high-ranking officers as possible in the hope that it will disrupt the command and control of the Nazi military response to D-Day which is scheduled the morning after the raid.

The action goes according to their very detailed plan until Maggott finds himself in a room with a young German woman and proceeds to sadistically murder her before running amok with his machine gun thus prematurely alerting the Germans to their peril.  The climax of the attack is James Brown tossing a series of grenades into the gasoline soaked and explosives filled ventilation lines for the bomb shelter where the Germans have taken cover.  The whole château goes up in pyrotechnic splendor and only Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson and one supporting cast member live to return home from the mission.

The full list of the actors who played the twelve prisoners is John Cassavetes, Tom Busby, Jim Brown, Donald Sutherland, Ben Carruthers, Clint Walker, Charles Bronson, Colin Maitland, Stuart Cooper, Al Mancini, Trini Lopez and Telly Savalas.

As absurd as this whole mission sounds, and it is absurd, the movie, especially the mission in France, is exciting, interesting and very well done.  Telly Savalas is a little over the top in his psycho characterization but he sells it well and it isn’t hard to see it coming.

Bronson and Marvin impersonating German officers in the château is fun to watch and the amount of gun play and other diverting activities is sure to keep a male audience’s attention.  I highly recommend this movie for its entertainment value.  It isn’t an actual war movie.  It’s more of a caper movie but a very exciting one.