I just refer to it as “No.24” for obvious reasons. Gotta love the 19-year old PFC that probably put the dummy mark on it…
So far about 20,000 of these veteran pistols have been transferred to the CMP over the past few years from the Army’s stockpile of about 100K held in long-term arsenal storage at Anniston. The guns, remnants of more than two million produced for the Army between 1912 and 1945, were withdrawn from front-line duty in the mid-1980s, replaced by the M9 Beretta.
However, to be clear, some of these guns were very much in recent 21st-century martial service.
Retired Green Beret Jeff Gurwitch covers the “re-adoption” of the M1911A1 by U.S. Special Forces after 9/11 in the below very interesting video. The half-hour piece covers the timeline, how it was employed, accessories, and its performance in Iraq and Afghanistan.
HMS Queen Elizabeth, USS Carl Vinson, and JMSDF Izumo-class helicopter destroyer JS Kaga transiting in formation with an airborne flypast comprising (left to right): F-35B (617 Sqn), F-35C (VFA-147), F/A-18E Super Hornet (VFA-192), E/A-18G Growler (VAQ-136), E-2D Hawkeye (VAW-113), F/A-18F (VFA-2), F/A-18E (VFA-113), F-35C (VFA-147) and F-35B (USMC VMFA-211). In the background, the eagle-eyed will see pair of Sea Hawk helicopters.
One of the most unsung members of the UK Carrier Strike Group 21 (CSG21), formed for the inaugural deployment of the largest British aircraft carrier in history, has been the guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans (DDG-68). While a 24-year-old Flight I Burke, Sully’s Aegis suite and SM-2 missiles are still much more effective against high-end threats than the other two air-defense escorts of the task force, the Type 45 destroyers HMS Diamond (D34) and HMS Defender (D36)— which are reportedly plagued by “technical issues” as a class.
Sailing from her DESRON 28 homeport at Mayport on 19 April 2020, bound for the United Kingdom in order to join the British carrier strike group for deployment, Sully finally broke away from CSG21 on 20 October 2021, headed home after some 18 months on loan to the RN.
RN photo
“Thank you and fair winds,” noted First Sea Lord, ADM Tony Radakin.
Of course, and somewhat ironically, Sully is named for a five-pack of tough Irish-American brothers. Who better to escort the Queen?
The Sullivan brothers on board USS Juneau Joe, Frank, Al, Matt, and George. NH 52362
The famed Battaglione San Marco— Italy’s current Marine force that traces their unofficial lineage back to the 16th century Fanti da Mar of the old Republic of Venice– recently celebrated the unit’s 50th anniversary of moving into the 13th Century Swabian castle, the Castello Svevo, in the Adriatic coastal city of Brindisi.
And they did it in typical understated San Marco fashion.
Ran across these images from the Chilean Army while researching a piece on the IWI Galil Ace which the Chileans have adopted. Fans of the venerable old M40 106mm recoilless rifle, especially when mounted to a Land Rover, should be overjoyed.
106mm recoilless rifle, Regimiento N°19 Colchagua, exercise Ojos de San Pedro, Oct 2021. In this case, the gun could be used for avalanche control.
106mm recoilless rifle, Regimiento N°19 Colchagua, exercise Ojos de San Pedro, Oct 2021
106mm recoilless rifle, Batallón de Infantería Motorizado Nº 15 “Calama” exercise Ojos de San Pedro Oct 2021. Likely not avalanche control…
Compañía Antiblindaje “Karut” del Destacamento Motorizado N°14 “Aysén” with M40 106mm recoilless rifle Aug 2021
Same unit and date as above, with the Land Rover, dug in
Now that is a good ambush position that American anti-armor teams of the 1950s and 60s will easily recognize.
While the M40– first fielded just after Korea cooled down in 1955– was in production at Watervliet Arsenal for the U.S. and her allies until 1970 when the TOW system was standardized, licensed copies were made by Lohner in Austria, Kia in South Korea, and SBS in Spain since then (along with unlicensed copies made in China, India, Iran, and Pakistan). Still, with a 1,500-yard maximum effective range and the ability to penetrate 700 mm of armor with advanced HEAT rounds, it has proved popular as a sort of low-tech mobile artillery as it can be carried by any vehicle capable of toting 500 pounds on a rear platform without squatting.
On a further side note, Chile also fields 48 more capable M109 155mm SPGs (to accompany their 270 German/Dutch surplus Leopard tanks and 800 Marder/M113 APCs) while towed artillery includes three dozen Israeli 155mm Soltams and about 75 Vietnam-era M101 105mm howitzers. Further, Chile, which fields four serious battalions of Andean mountain infantry, is one of the few countries that uses the very cute OTO Melera M56 105mm pack gun (largely because neighboring Peru and Argentina have the same guns for their respective mountain men).
105mm OTO mountain gun pack howitzer, La Batería de Artillería de Montaña N°2 Maturana, Oct 2021.
One of the smallest of the armed forces– in manpower terms only about a tenth the size of the U.S. Navy, and roughly equivalent in the same metric to the much better-funded French Navy — the U.S. Coast Guard has been showing up overseas a lot recently.
Yesterday, the icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB 20), arrived in Baltimore following a recent transit of the Arctic’s Northwest Passage for the first time since 2005. Importantly in terms of polar commerce, Healy’s skipper said the ice had receded to the point that the cutter’s crew couldn’t even get an “ice liberty” call.
“A lot of the floes had melt ponds with holes in them like Swiss cheese,” Capt. Kenneth Boda, commander of the Seattle-based icebreaker, told the Seattle Times. “We couldn’t get the right floe.”
Healy left her Seattle homeport on July 10, arrived at Dutch Harbor 19 July, conducted operations in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, then entered the Chukchi Sea, crossed the Beaufort Sea, entered the Northwest Passage which involved transiting the straits between Banks and Victoria Island and Devon and Baffin Island, proceeded down Baffin Bay and the Devon Strait, calling at Nuuk, Greenland on 13 September. From there, she proceeded through the Labrador Sea to Halifax (9 October) and Boston (14 October) before calling at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore after a 102-day cruise starting in the Pacific, running through the Arctic Ocean, and ending up on the Atlantic coast.
It should be pointed out that Healy is one of the Coast Guard’s polar-capable icebreakers and the service operates her as a “multi-mission vessel to protect American interests in the Arctic region.” However, she is only termed a “medium icebreaker,” built more for science than for crushing ice. Further, her only provision for armament is pintel mounted crew-served weapons, such as .50 cals, which are almost always stowed.
The 418-foot National Security Cutters like Munro, essentially an old school fast frigate sans ASW weapons (but with sonar), have been making WestPac cruises under the tactical control of Commander, U.S. 7th Fleet, with much regularity. Big Navy likes these white hulls as they are arguably more capable than the LCS and free up precious DDGs from nation-building and flag-waving evolutions so they can spend more time with the carrier and phib groups.
September 2021, HMAS Sirius (AO-266) conducts a dual replenishment at sea with HMAS Canberra (LHD-2) and USCGC Munro (WMSL-755), during Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2021. (RAN Photo by LSIS Leo Baumgartner)
During her deployment, in addition to meshing with U.S. Navy assets, Munro worked alongside the Japan Coast Guard, the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force, the Philippine Coast Guard and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the Royal Australian Navy, and the Indonesia Maritime Security Agency. She also kept tabs on a Chinese naval task force found unexpectedly operating just off the Aleutians.
Since 2018, three other National Security Cutters – Bertholf, Stratton, and Waesche – have deployed to the Western Pacific.
Overseas training
Finally, as many gently-used former Coast Guard assets, including 110-foot Island-class and 87-foot Maritime Protector-class patrol boats, are being gifted to overseas allies, the USCG has been training the incoming new owners. Such an example is the below video from VOA, posted this week, of USCG personnel training Ukrainian navy bluejackets.
We have previously covered the tale of the 190th Fighter Squadron’s 75th anniversary A-10 Thunderbolt II made up to emulate the antecedent squadron’s P-47D Thunderbolt’s Northwest Europe 1944 livery, including OD “ground attack” scheme with white cowling and tail stripes, WWII roundels, 8N squadron code, and D-Day invasion stripes.
A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II from the Idaho Air National Guard’s 124th Fighter Wing is painted with a heritage WWII paint scheme at the Air National Guard paint facility in Sioux City, Iowa. The paint scheme is designed to replicate the look of the original P-47 Thunderbolt as it appeared during the 2nd World War. The 124th Fighter Wing conceived the idea in order to commemorate the unit’s 75th anniversary and lineage to their predecessor, the 405th Fighter Squadron. U.S. Air National Guard photo: Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groot
It is a striking aircraft, to be sure, and the squadron has recently added a companion Willys in a photo series that really does it justice.
The Idaho Military History Museum’s World War II 1941 restored Willys Jeep or the 124th Fighter Wing’s heritage A-10 Thunderbolt II Warthog, painted to resemble the World War II P-47 Thunderbolt.
The Jeep became one of the museum’s newest exhibits this year. Rob Lytle, a retired brigadier general, spent several months restoring the Jeep to get it operational again. Between 1941 and 1945, approximately 650,000 Jeeps were produced by the American Bantam Car Company, the Ford Motor Company and Willys Overland-Motors. This Jeep was painted to represent Idaho’s 183rd Field Artillery Battalion (155mm Howitzer-Tractor Drawn) and is similar to those the battalion operated in the European theater of operations between June 1944 and May 1945.
Earlier this year, the Idaho National Guard honored its heritage by unveiling the vintage-looking A-10 Thunderbolt II to pay tribute to the 405th Fighter Squadron’s P-47 Thunderbolts that provided aerial support during World War II. The wartime 405th Fighter Squadron returned to the United States in October of 1945 and was inactivated. It was reactivated and designated as the 190th Fighter Squadron, allotted to the Idaho Air National Guard, in 1946. The A-10 Thunderbolt II Warthogs came to Idaho in 1996.
While there has been lots of heartburn, particularly in East Asia, about Japan’s use of their traditional 16-ray Kyokujitsu-ki rising sun flag, especially in martial settings– with some comparing it to the swastika– the Japanese Navy really don’t care about the haters.
The Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force launched the second of the very advanced Taigei-class diesel-electric submarines this week, JS Hakugei (SS-514). As Taigei means roughly “Big Whale” it is appropriate that Hakugei means “White Whale.”
And you better believe the current naval ensign, which was the old IJN’s ensign going back to the 1870s, was front and center (although it should be pointed out that an alternative version of the flag, with fewer rays and gold added to it, is used by the Japan Self-Defense Forces and Japan Ground Self-Defense Force).
Other than possibly the Germans, the Japanese are making the world’s most deadly SSKs. Post-WWII, they have earned lots of experience in that realm with domestic production including the Sōryū class (12 boats), Oyashio-class (11), Harushio-class (7), Yūshio-class (10), Uzushio-class (7), Asashio-class (4), JDS Ōshio, Natsushio-class (2), and Hayashio-class (2) since 1960, a run of 56 boats thus far, not counting the new Taigeis.
But, with neighbors like Communist China and North Korea, can you blame them?
The famed “blue devils” of the French Army’s 13e Bataillon de Chasseurs Alpins (13e BCA) date back to before the Crimean War, when they were initially raised as the plain old 13e Bataillon Chasseurs à Pied (13e BCP), fighting as such in Algeria, the Italian unification wars, and the Franco-German War.
Transitioning into crack mountain infantry in 1888, they guarded key Alpine passes in peacetime, then in the Great War fought in the Vosges, the Somme, in the Italian Alps against the Austrians, and generally everywhere they were needed, earning seven unit Croix de Guerre by 1918.
“Les Diables Bleus” WWI Chasseurs Alpins by Georges Bertin Scott, circa 1915
The blue devils received their name due to their dark blue uniforms and large berets, retained to this day in their service and dress uniforms. Hard fighters, their motto is “Jamais être pris vivant,” (Never to be Taken Alive)
French blue devils Chasseurs alpins uniforms by Hector Large
French blue devils Chasseurs alpins marching order uniforms by Hector Large
Interbellum, they remained on the move for the Occupation of Germany, with vacations in sunny Tunisia to fight insurgents for the glory of the Republic.
Chasseurs alpins during the Occupation of the Ruhr in Buer (now Gelsenkirchen), 1923. Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-09896
In WWII, following honors in the battle for Narvik against German mountain troops trying to hold on to Norway, they returned home to be dissolved by the Vichy government, leaving most of its members to shrug and quietly join the maquis resistance. Reforming their battalion in August 1944, they fought for and captured the Grand Roc Noir (11,752 ft) from the Germans before descending into the Aosta Valley in Italy by the end of the war.
French Chasseurs Alpins showing off a captured MG42 in the Alpine mountains, January 1945.
Since then, they fought in Algeria, prepared for mountain combat in the Cold War, and, since that thawed, have been very busy in recent years with deployments to Bosnia, Lebanon, Chad, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Djibouti.
Incidentally, the Chasseurs Alpins wear a distinctive piece of headgear: an oversized beret they call la tarte, or ‘the pie, ‘ and it is actually more useful than you think.
1st Lieutenant Clement from the 27th Brigade Chasseurs Alpins unit explains the various uses of la tarte, from keeping your feet warm to protecting your eyes from the sun. Clement and his fellow mountain infantry soldiers deployed to Rena, Norway, for Exercise Brilliant Jump 22, which tested the ability of the very high-readiness component of the NATO Response Force:
Continuing a long tradition of fielding domestically-made warplanes, the Svenska Flygvapnet is set to stand up the Skaraborg Wing (F 7 Såtenäs) as the first in the world to fly the fully-operational Saab JAS 39 Gripen E.
First introduced in 1996, over 250 earlier Gripen A/B and C/D-series aircraft have been produced over the past 15 years for a half-dozen countries from Europe to Thailand and South Africa.
But that is your daddy’s Gripen.
Splinter Camo Saab Gripen E #6002 of flygflottilj F 7 armed with Meteor and IRIS-T missiles
The Gripen E, or Super Gripen, uses a new engine, the GE F414G (developed from the Super Hornet’s engine) which allows it to supercruise at Mach 1.1, as well as Raven ES-05 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar (based on the Leonardo Vixen), and has significantly increased internal fuel capacity that gives it something like 40 percent greater range. It also has two additional underwing hardpoints than the older planes.
Swedish Gripen E equipped for air-to-air combat via Saab, with Meteor and IRIS-T missiles
Gripen E. Gotta love that camo
In short, it is a budget answer to the F-18E and F-35A while falling technologically somewhere between the two.
Is it any good? At Red Flag Alaska earlier this year, a Gripen E from the Swedish Air Force’s Tango Red training unit flew simulated combat sorties against F-16 Block 50, Eurofighter Typhoon, and F-15C and scored 10 kills, including a Typhoon and five Vipers on day one of the exercises. With no losses.
The Swedes have at least 60 E variants on order and Brazil has ordered 28 E-series and 8 F-series two-seaters for SEAD work for starters, with the Brazilian planes assembled domestically at São Bernardo do Campo.
The first Brazil Gripen E, #4001, alongside #6002 in Swedish markings, via Saab
The Brazilians have a contract with technology transfer packages that will potentially allow them to field and support as many as 108 Gripens (which they dub the F-39E/F) through 2050. Meanwhile, a dozen countries ranging from Canada to Argentina are looking hard at the Gripen E/F for their future needs, putting the Saab boom jet on course to being Sweden’s most-exported warplane.
Pennsylvania-born Emlen Lewis Tunnell earned a nickname in his football career of “The Gremlin” and was both the first African-American to play for the Giants (14 seasons before going to Green Bay, at the insistence of then-assistant coach Vince Lombardi) and the first to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
However, before all that, he was 17 years old during the attack on Pearl Harbor and, cutting short a subsequent college football career at the University of Toledo due to a broken neck (!) in a game against Marshall, he tried to enlist in first the Army, then the Navy, during WWII once he recovered.
Rejected by both, he kept trying and was accepted into the Coast Guard as a volunteer enlistee in the USCGR, serving on the Coast Guard-manned Crater-class cargo ship USS Etamin (AK-93)in the Pacific. When Etamin was disabled by a torpedo hit in Milne Bay in April 1944, Tunnell “saved a fellow crew member who was set afire in the blast, beat out the flames with his hands, sustained burns to his own hands, and carried the shipmate to safety.”
Just after the war, while assigned to frigid Naval Station Argentia in Newfoundland, Tunnell again saved a life by leaping into the water to save a man overboard, despite the fact that it was 32 degrees.
Tunnell was active in USCG team sports– playing on the racially integrated All-Pacific Coast service football team and the San Francisco Coast Guard basketball team– as well as served close enough to the fighting to catch a Japanese torpedo.
While the Coast Guard awarded two Lifesaving Medals to Steward’s Mate 1st Class Tunnell (one posthumously) and named an athletic building on the Coast Guard Academy campus in his honor, this week they will welcome a new 158-foot Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter into the fleet named after the Coastie and NFL great who kept knocking on recruiters’ doors to get in the game.
The 45th of her class, like her namesake, however, will soon be headed overseas. The new cutter will join the USCGC Glen Harris (WPC 1144) for transit to homeport later this year in Manama, Bahrain, and serve as one of six Sentinel-class FRCs with the U.S. Coast Guard Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA) as part of CENTCOM. Very much on the sharp end.
