Monthly Archives: January 2023

Ukraine’s Rusty Iron Fist

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M1A2 Abrams Tank 1st Marine Division TIGERCOMP Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton Aug 2019. 1st Marine Division photo by Sgt. Tayler P. Schwamb

So, the Western allies are ramping up planned tank main battle tank deliveries to Ukraine. The sums are pretty paltry and diverse to an almost Kafkaesque extreme.

From the U.S. will come 31 M1 Abrams supported by eight M88 recovery vehicles (but no additional HET transporters, essential to move both to the front.) These will join a planned 109 M1 Bradley IFVs, 90 Stryker 8x8s (which may include some gun systems), 300 Vietnam-era M113 APCs, 250 M1117 4×4 armored cars, and 580 largely new MRAPs that never made it to Iraq.

From Germany will come 14 Leopard 2s (with as many as 100 additional third and fourth-hand Leos on the menu from places like Poland and Finland).

From the UK will come 14 exceedingly rare (and exceedingly cranky) Challenger 2 tanks.

The figures are arbitrary, based on the size of a Ukrainian tank company (14 tracks) and battalion (31 tracks). In the end, the Ukrainians want 250 to 300 Western tanks over and above the surplus T-62s and T-72s that have already been transferred. 

While some commo gear between the three incoming tank platforms is compatible, be sure that the tanks themselves are bewilderingly complicated with dozens of subcomponent systems, unique drivetrains, and main gun systems. For instance, Challenger uses a special two-piece shell (known to cause death in its crews if handled without respect) for its Royal Ordnance L30 120mm rifled gun that no one else in the world uses, the Leopard series runs several different models of the Rheinmetall Rh-120 120mm smoothbore that are fairly omnivorous in that caliber, while the Abrams, at least in A1 and A2 models, run a Watervliet-made variant of the German gun with some tweaks to barrel thickness and chamber pressure that is modeled specifically to mate with the M829 family of sabot rounds that have proven deadly effective against T-72s going back to 1991. Are M829s themselves going to be risked in a theatre where tech transfer can occur easily and often?

The logistics (not to mention training) nightmares to support these tanks– which surely (especially in the case of the thrifty Germans) will be older models that have long been in arsenal storage– will be daunting. Like tossing the proverbial keys to a well-used and abused F1 car to a guy that has only ever driven a Lada and expecting him to get in the ongoing race and finish with a win. Meanwhile, the pit crew is still watching PowerPoint slides written in another language on how to keep it running, and, while they have a pallet of spare parts, they go to a different car.

The Leopard 2A7 tank gunner’s position. Not something you could figure out on the fly…

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby, in yesterday’s White House press briefing, confirmed the Abrams at least will be coming from storage rather than current unit stocks, which means months longer to get them to Europe and ready to hand over to crews that will, likewise, need lots of time to spin up. 
 
There’s — there’s training that’s needed. There’s sophisticated maintenance requirements. There’s a supply chain. I mean, it uses a gas turbine engine to — basically, a jet engine — 1,500 horsepower. So, there’s a lot that goes into operating these tanks on the field.

This is fine, because apparently the Abrams transferred would have to be built as export models such as those operated by Egypt and the Saudis without any of the current armor that the Army has used for the past couple of decades, which is restricted to U.S. military use only. 

But Ukraine seems to think this cobbled-together force of 3-4 battalions of NATO-supplied MBTs will become a hard armored fist for future planned offensive operations. The tip of the spear in piercing the Russian occupiers’ lines this upcoming Summer. A Cinderella story akin to the Lake Placid Miracle on Ice with armor taking the place of hockey skates.

I’m just not sure trying to beat the Russians at tank-v-tank offensive warfare with the Russians shortening their supply lines while Ky’iv’s stretches back to the Sierra Army Depot outside of Reno is the best play here. Especially when you look at the past Russian relish for the immovable die-in-place scenario (see Port Arthur 1904, Petropavlovsk/Sevastopol 1855, Osowiec 1915, Leningrad 1941-44, Brest Fortress 1941, Smolensk 1502/1514/1609-11/1613-17/1654, et. al.) that has so often popped up in that country’s military history.

To me, it would probably have been a better idea to keep up the artillery game, which can be easily trained at the crew level, while keeping the little groups of anti-tank killer teams in heavy operations and hundreds of cheap Turkish drones and purpose-built American loitering munitions overhead supported by realtime NATO targeting data (which, let’s face it, makes the war a legit NATO conflict). After all, it has worked thus far.

Anyway, the updated U.S. military aid to Ukraine list, just in case you haven’t seen it in recent weeks.

Shoehorned Greyhounds

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Mare Island Naval Shipyard‘s Dry Dock No. 2 is filled with six unidentified “four-piper” type flush-deck destroyers circa 1922. To the side, you can see California Avenue, east side near Ninth Street, in Vallejo, California.

Photocopy of photograph (the original is located at Mare Island Archives). The original photographer is unknown. LOC HABS CAL,48-MARI,1BR–1

All of the destroyers are four pipers with four open-mount deck guns and four triple 21-inch torpedo tubes. Of note, the center ship of the top trio has landed two of its torpedo tube racks and has two empty turnstiles looking to heaven.

The arrangement identifies the six as members of the prolific Wickes or follow-on Clemson classes of tin cans of which a staggering 267 hulls were completed between 1917 and 1922. Several of both classes have been profiled on past Warship Wednesdays.

As for Dry Dock No. 2, the 720-foot long/98-foot wide concrete graving dock is still in active service and has been extensively photographed over the years.

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023: The Kaiser’s Tin Cans do Broadway

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023: Kaisers Tin Cans do Broadway

Bain News Service collection, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-50381

Above we see, in the summer of 1920 a trio of once-sunk former torpedoboten of the old Kaiserliche Marine, anchored in New York City, from left to right ex-SMS V43, G102, and S132, with the newly commissioned Lapwing-class minesweeper USS Redwing (AM-48) outboard.

A closer look. Note that all the vessels have Union Jacks on their bows, as they are in possession of the Navy if not in direct commission. LC-DIG-ggbain-31137

Check out the inset, showing a little girl playing on G102’s forward 8.8 cm SK L/45 naval gun and her boater hat-wearing father close by. Besides four such guns, the 1,700-ton vessel carried six 19.7-inch torpedo tubes and could make 34 knots on her steam turbines, a speed that is still fast today. Another boater-clad man is inspecting the view from atop her wheelhouse.

German destroyer S132 in possession of the U.S. Navy, showing the mine laying stern. Note the stern of the minesweeper Redwing. LOC

German destroyers G102 and S132 in possession of the U.S. Navy, in 1920 in New York with a great view of Manhattan from the Hudson and the ships’ guns and searchlights. LOC

The vessels had been interned at Scapa Flow by the terms of the Armistice of 11 November 1918, then scuttled by their skeleton crews on 21 June 1919. Saved by the British, who worked quickly to beach these small craft along with a few others, they were turned over to the U.S. as war reparations as part of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1920, along with the German Helgoland class battleship ex-SMS Ostfriesland and the Wiesbaden-class light cruiser ex-SMS Frankfurt.

All five ships saw extensive action with the High Seas Fleet during World War I, including (except for SMS V43) the epic clash at Jutland. That service, while fascinating, is beyond the scope of this post but I encourage you to look into it if curious.

Scuttling of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow: Tug alongside scuttled German destroyer G 102 at Scapa Flow, June 1919. Of the 74 interned German ships at Scapa, 52 were lost– including all three of G102’s sisters– with the remainder saved by the British and divvied up post-Versailles. IWM SP 1631

Turned over to a scratch American crew, they were shepherded across the Atlantic to New York by the minesweepers Redwing and USS Falcon (AM-28).

The German Imperial Navy destroyer SMS G 102 is escorted to a U.S. port by the U.S. Navy minesweeper USS Falcon (AM-28), circa 1920. Note her six assorted torpedo tubes arranged front, aft, and center. NH 45786

Ostfriesland, Capt. J. F. Hellweg (USNA 1900), USN, in command, became the only German-built battleship commissioned into the U.S. Navy on 7 April 1920 at Rosyth, Scotland, and made New York under her own power, where she was decommissioned on 20 September 1920. Hellweg, who had spent his career in surface warfare including service with the Great White Fleet and in Mexico, went on to command the Naval Observatory and was certainly an interesting figure at parties. 

After their summer as “propaganda ships,” the three tin cans were soon stripped at Norfolk and disposed of off Cape Henry, Virginia, at the infamous hands of Billy Mitchell’s land-based aircraft, followed up with a coup de grace on the humble yet still floating 1,100-ton V43 made by assembled American battleships on 15 July 1921.

Via NYT Archives

Direct hit on G102, July 13, 1921. They were sunk during the Billy Mitchell aircraft bombing tests on German and U.S. Navy ships, showing the vulnerability of ships to aerial bombing, on July 18, 1921. Photograph from the William “Billy” Mitchell Collection, U.S. Navy Museum.

Anti-Ship Bombing Demonstration, 1921. Shown: G-102 showing smoke from a direct hit made by SE-5 with a 25-pound TNT-filled fragmentation bomb, June 21, 1921. From the album entitled, “First Provisional Air Brigade, Langley Field, Hampton, Virginia, 1921.” Note her tubes and guns have been removed. From the William Mitchell Collection. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

As for Redwing, she went on to be sheep-dipped and serve in the Coast Guard during Prohibition, then would return to Navy service first on the West Coast in 1929 and then on the East by 1941. Converted to a rescue/salvage ship (ARS-4), she was lost to an Axis mine off the old Vichy French navy base at Bizerte, Tunisia, during WWII on 29 June 1943.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Mush v the Harusame

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80 years ago today: The Shiratsuyu-class destroyer Harusame of the Imperial Japanese Navy was torpedoed by the famed Gato-class submarine USS Wahoo (SS-238) under the command of LCDR Dudley Walker “Mush” Morton, near Wewak, New Guinea. It would be the third of 11 attacks logged during the boat’s Third War Patrol

Harusame’s back is clearly broken. Wartime intelligence evaluated this photo as showing one of the Asashio-class (see Photographic Intelligence Report # 82, 17 March 1943). However, the ship’s bridge structure identifies her as a Shiratsuyu-class destroyer, with the # 2 (single) 5 gun mount removed. Official U.S. Navy photo 80-G-35738 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command

From Wahoo’s patrol report, in “Mush’s” words. 

Just two weeks after the above image:

Lieutenant Commander Dudley W. Morton, commanding officer of Wahoo (SS-238), at right with his executive officer, Lieutenant Richard H. O’Kane, on Wahoo’s open bridge at Pearl Harbor after her very successful third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-35725.

Beached to avoid sinking with her keel broken, Harusame was salvaged and towed to Truk where she was fitted with an emergency false bow, then sailed in convoy in May to Yokosuka for rebuilding. She returned to service in late November 1943, joining Desdiv 27, Desron 2, IJN Second Fleet.

Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Harusame underway after rebuild on November 30, 1943. Shizuo Fukui – Kure Maritime Museum, Japanese Naval Warship Photo Album: Destroyers, edited by Kazushige Todaka, p. 81

Her service would come to an end just seven months later, dispatched by USAAF B-25s 30 miles northwest of Cape of Good Hope near Manokwari on 8 June 1944 while on a troop transport run to Biak. She was lost with 74 of her crew.

As for Wahoo, she had already been lost by a remarkably similar fate– sent to the bottom by Japanese aircraft in October 1943 while returning home from her Seventh War Patrol, sunk with all 79 hands by a sustained air and surface attack as she was attempting to exit the Sea of Japan via the La Perouse Strait.

Detailed by DANFS:

The loss of Morton and Wahoo caused profound shock in the submarine force. All further forays into the Sea of Japan ceased, and it was not again invaded until June 1945, when special mine-detecting equipment was available for submarines. Morton was posthumously awarded a fourth Navy Cross. When he died, his claimed sinkings exceeded those of any other submarine skipper: 17 ships for 100,000 tons. In the postwar accounting, this was readjusted to 19 ships for about 55,000 tons. This left Morton, in terms of individual ships sunk, one of the top three skippers of the war. So ended the career of one of the greatest submarine teams of World War II: Wahoo and “Mush” Morton.

So Beretta *finally* made another SAO 92

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“Did you see the Single Action?” he asked in lieu of a greeting. The man posing the question was a friend of mine, long involved in the behind-the-scenes R&D and market research at Beretta and now with another similarly large and distinguished European gun maker in whose booth we were standing at SHOT Show in Las Vegas.

In fact, I had not seen the new Beretta 92 XI, or “9211” first-hand but I had heard of its existence from a fellow gun writer who had gone to the media day for the gun the day prior. It was a small community and news always traveled fast, especially in the digital age.

“So I take it you had a hand in that?” I asked.

“Oh yeah.”

“Why did it take so long to do that? Folks loved the Billennium,” I said, speaking of the limited run of SAO Beretta 92s released in 2001. These guns are often described as the best 92 ever made.

Heading over to Beretta shortly after speaking to my friend about everything his new company was working on, I encountered the 92XI and was impressed.

Using all the “X” series features that the company had previously introduced in the 92X Performance model– optics ready slide, slim Vertec frame, DLC coated trigger internals– the new 92XI runs a crisp single-action-only trigger with a flat bow and a manual frame-mounted safety lever, ideal for carrying “cocked and locked.”

More in my column at Guns.com.

The ‘Gendarme of Africa’ Increasingly shunned

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French 120mm RTF1 Brandt mortar in action in Mali 2019, as part of Operation Berkhane

While France was a big player in East vs West counter-insurgency wars in Africa throughout the Cold War including the twin disasters of the Algerian Wars and the Suez intervention, the Toyota Wars in Chad against Libya, Ethiopia/Somalia, and the Horn of Africa (remember, Djibouti was the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas until 1978 and the country still has 2,000 troops there) the nightmare that was the Congo and Biafra, Kolwezi in 1978, the Gambian coup response in 1981, et. al. They were also on the periphery of the South African/Rhodesian efforts in the 1970s-80s as well, being one of the few countries to ignore the general weapon embargoes on those apartheid states. 

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, France kept up its self-imposed Gendarme d’Afrique role, enforcing the way things should be as seen by Paris, overturning the repeated mercenary coups by Bob Denard, still mixing it up in Libya, sending troops to the Central African Republic (which saw no less than eight French interventions since 1960), being involved in a simmering 20-year conflict in the Ivory Coast, the forever war of the continued Operation Barkhane saga in Mali, and in Burkina Faso. 

Regarding the latter two, Russia seems to be increasingly pushing the French out for assorted reasons. The below from AJ: 

May we all grow up to be Buzz Aldrin

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Downing a pair of NorK MiG-15s while flying an F-86 Sabre as part of the famed 51st Fighter Wing over Korea would be the highlight of a career for most, but was just the opening act for Buzz…

Col. Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr., (USMA 1951), besides flying 66 combat missions during the Korean war, shooting down two enemy MiG-15s, making three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, serving as the lunar module pilot on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission where he was the second man to walk on the surface of the moon– and pack later a punch to defend that honor— just made his 93rd orbit around the sun while aboard this humble rock in style.

On my 93rd birthday, and the day I will also be honored by Living Legends of Aviation, I am pleased to announce that my longtime love and partner, Dr. Anca V Faur, and I have tied the knot. We were joined in holy matrimony in a small private ceremony in Los Angeles, and are as excited as eloping teenagers.

The oldest surviving moonwalker (only 4 of the 12 remaining) got hitched in combat boots, no less. 

Clowns and Mills Bombs

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78 years ago today, 23 January 1945: PVT Marcel St-Laurent of “D” Company, Le Régiment de Maisonneuve, clowns for the camera at Cuyk, Netherlands. Details of the fuze on the bottom of the No. 36 Mills Bomb grenade can be seen. The length of the cloth bandolier has been altered by tying a knot in it to make it shorter.

First introduced in May 1918 and updated in the 1930s, the No. 36M Mk I was the British Army’s standard hand grenade until 1972 and still pops up in Africa and the Middle East from time to time.

A Canadian UN soldier in Korea with a U.S. made M-1 Carbine and several British Mills bomb grenades.

As for the good PVT St-Laurent, the Montreal-recruited Régiment de Maisonneuve was first recruited in 1880 and covered itself in glory in both World Wars– where its members became well-acquainted with the Mills Bomb. When the top image was taken, the regiment had previously landed in France in July 1944 as part of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. It was bled white through the Battle of the Scheldt, and the Walcheren Causeway before reforming for the final campaigns in the northern Netherlands and the Battle of Groningen.

Infantry of the Regiment de Maisonneuve moving through Holten to Rijssen, both towns in the Netherlands. 9 April 1945. Lt. D. Guravitch. Canadian Military photograph. New York Times Paris Bureau Collection. (USIA) NARA FILE #: 306-NT-1334B-11

It endures to this day as a Primary Reserve unit, still based in Montreal, along with the better-known “Van Doos” of the 22nd Regiment, making up one of the few French-language units of the Canadian forces.

The two Coolest things at SHOT Show

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You know, if you told me 10 years ago that the two coolest items across the 13.9 miles of aisles and 2,500 companies exhibiting at the 45th annual SHOT Show in Las Vegas would both be at the Palmetto State Armory booth, I would not have believed you.

However, it happened.

The company has brought back two icons: H&R M16A1s and a centerfire U.S.-made Sturmgewehr 44.

The H&R brand comes as a reboot of the old circa 1871 firearms company that PSA picked up for pocket change in Remington’s 2020 bankruptcy sale. Turning the refreshed brand over to NoDakSpud founder Mike Wettleland, they will be making classic M16A1 as well as Colt 723 and 635 models. The former were made by H&R as a Colt subcontractor in 1968-71.

The H&R M16A1 retro rifle is hand-crafted from proprietary forging dies with 1960s vintage government markings. As the guns made for the Army back in the Fortunate Son era were in the 2-million range, the new H&R will mimic that although will be distinctive in the fact that they have West Columbia, South Carolina rollmarks rather than the Worchester, Massachusetts marks of the original. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

This brings us to Hill & Mac Gunworks of Alpharetta, Georgia, a small gunmaker that had been working on an updated semi-auto Sturmgewehr clone made with modern techniques complete with a threaded barrel, a long stroke piston operating tilting bolt action, an HK style trigger pack, wooden furniture, and the possibility of being chambered in 5.56 NATO, 7.62x39mm, .300 AAC Blackout, or the original 7.92 Kurz– the latter is still in production by Privi Partisan in Europe.

Well, while HMG did sell some generationally similar CETME-L builds a few years back and marketed some reactive steel targets, their Sturmgewehr never made it to serial production and by 2020 the project largely fell off the radar after the company went radio silent.

Until now.

Popping up at Palmetto State Armory’s booth at SHOT Show last week was Mac Steil, the “M” of HMG, with news that PSA had stepped in to bring the project across the finish line. Advancing to the production stage, HMG customers that had preordered it from them back in the day will still get their HMG-marked gun while new guns for PSA will be under that company’s new “Battlefield” series.

The StG will still be offered in all four HMG calibers, use a STANAG mag pattern, and still runs an HK trigger pack. Caliber can be swapped by the user via a mag, barrel, and bolt change. There will also be things such as BFAs for reenactors, folding stock models, and more planned for the future.

Scraping horses

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Found this interesting for anyone curious about U.S. Army Great War-era veterinary and farrier services for transport, cavalry, and artillery horses.

22 January 1919, U.S. Army of Occupation in Montabaur, Rhineland, Germany (official caption):

Horses from 1-7th Field Artillery [part of the 1st Infantry Division at the time] being led to “Dipping Vat” constructed by 1st Engineers for the Veterinary Dept. The animals take a plunge in a bath composed of sulfur, lime, carbolic acid, and creosote. The bath is kept at a temperature of 100 degrees fahr. After the plunge, the animals are “scraped.” This is the method of treating these animals for the mange [probably rain rot] and cooties. Horses are bathed at a rate of one a minute.

U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-51250 by SGT J.A. Marshall, via NARA

“Ready to Plunge.” 111-SC-51252 by SGT J.A. Marshall, via NARA

“Scraping Horses.” 111-SC-51251 by SGT J.A. Marshall, via NARA

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