“Hellfighters of Harlem in the Meuse-Argonne, September 26-October 1, 1918.” The 369th Infantry fought valiantly in the Allied (Champagne) Offensive as part of the French 161st Division, U.S. Army painting by Col. H Charles McBarron Jr
Black New York National Guard Soldiers, known as “Hellfighters” for their fight against the Kaiser’s boys 100 years ago, were recognized with Congress’s highest honor during a recent ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.
The Congressional Gold Medal was presented to descendants of some of the 4,000 Soldiers who served in the 369th Infantry Regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, during World War I.
Some 95 years ago this summer. Could you imagine if this were at the modern National Matches?
Original Caption: “National Rifle Matches, Camp Perry, Ohio, Aug. 25 – Sept. 14, 1930. Typical combat firing – with gas masks.” Note the M1903 Springfields with ladder sights and what look to be KTM (Kops Tissot Monro) Model 1919 (M1) gas masks, the interwar standard.
Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-95390-108 National Archives Identifier 405231277
So it looks like the DOD (and the Coast Guard) is finally getting serious about UAVs and USVs. Lots of recent developments.
To kick it off, a recent Congressional Research Service report on the U.S. Army’s Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems Programs highlights the increase in funding for the UAS, with the Army requesting $803.9 million for procurement and research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) for FY26. Compare this to just $99.9 million in FY24.
In a nod to the increase, the Army formally established the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) with a mission to enhance the DOD’s unmanned systems and affordable C-sUAS capabilities.
Further, Fort Rucker has established its first Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course.
Speaking of Rucker, during the Army’s Unmanned Aerial Systems and Launched Effects Summit, held Aug. 11-15 on the base, a paratrooper from the 173rd Airborne Brigade “achieved a milestone once unimaginable for conventional Army units: destroying an aircraft in flight using a first-person-view drone carrying an explosive charge.” In short, strapping a remote detonated claymore to a Skydio.
The service has been using small FPVs with charges in exercises in Europe in recent months.
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade prepare to operate and detonate a live First Person View (FPV) drone at Pabradė Training Area, Lithuania, during a joint forcible entry operation as part of Swift Response 2025 (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jose Lora)
And in Poland, as part of Project Flytrap 4.0, an evolving C-UAS training event, troopers with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment “detected, tracked, engaged and defeated multiple drones at ranges between 500 and 800 meters using the Ballistic Low Altitude Drone Engagement system from a Stryker vehicle.”
BLADE has been fielded slowly since 2019, and is interesting.
Ballistic Low Altitude Drone Engagement, or BLADE, prototypes are mounted on trucks during an engineering test in June at Fort Dix, New Jersey. BLADE is integrated with an armament system to shoot down smaller unmanned aerial systems at close ranges. The test proved that the BLADE system can hit them with only a short burst of fire. (Photo by Marian Popescu, CCDC Armaments Center BLADE team)
“Some of those [drone] threats were being flown simultaneously, so the system defeated one target then quickly targeted and defeated a second target in a matter of seconds,” said David Goldstein, counter-unmanned aerial systems lead for the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey.
With BLADE, a precision radar and C-UAS fire control software are integrated with CROWS hardware and software to assist operators in identifying, tracking, and pointing the weapon to a continually calculated intercept point, enabling the difficult challenge of destroying enemy drones.
Capable of functioning with numerous weapons, the BLADE/CROWS combination at Project Flytrap included an M2 .50-caliber machine gun firing multiround bursts.
The Army has also initiated production of the second tranche of its short-range reconnaissance (SRR) unmanned aircraft systems, and has “selected two vendors to manufacture the SRR system, which will equip the Army’s Transformation in Contact units with advanced, networked communication systems designed to address emerging threats.”
Initial fielding of SRR tranche one began in September 2022, and, to date, the Army has fielded over 16 brigades with this capability. Critical lessons learned and soldier feedback from tranche one were incorporated into tranche two. This strategy of integrating new technologies into future tranches will continue to provide the best UAS capabilities on an accelerated schedule.
Meanwhile, with the Coast Guard
The U.S. Coast Guard announced recently the Initial Operating Capability of the Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Program Executive Office (PEO), “dedicated to the rapid operationalization of the Unmanned Systems Strategic Plan.”
While the service has been sending cutters overseas with contractor-operated Scan Eagle UAVs since 2018 and has been trialing other platforms, a USCG LCDR who has been flying an MQ-9 with the Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Patrol’s Air and Maritime Operations Division out of San Antonio just earned his wings, becoming the Coast Guard’s first aviation vehicle pilot. The service plans to spend $266 million to acquire its own MQ-9 Alphas in the coming months.
And finally, DARPA’s USX-1 Defiant, the No Manning Required Ship (NOMARS) platform, was recently christened in Everett, Washington.
The 180-foot-long, 240-ton lightship, which “can handle operations in sea state 5 with no degradation and survive much higher seas,” is completing final systems testing in preparation for an extended at-sea demonstration of reliability and endurance.
Back in 2023, we covered the story of Geissele Automatics winning the $23 million SOCOM MRGG-S (Mid-Range Gas Gun, Sniper) award for a full-time suppressed 6.5 Creedmoor rifle with a 20-inch barrel, MOA accuracy, and a fully adjustable stock.
This thing, seen largely as the replacement for the FN SCAR 20 in use by SOCOM
Then last week came the news of the Navy Surface Command dropping $40 million for 17,367,760 rounds of DODIC AC58 6.5x49mm Special Ball Long Range Ammunition.
Now we have a big development, with LMT Defense picking up a $93 million award for the more compact (14.5-inch) new Medium Range Gas Gun-Assault (MRGG-A) carbine.
We have been in contact with LMT, so you can expect to see much more in the coming days.
I love passing by the Trent Lott Gulfport Combat Readiness Center, which houses various Guard and Air Guard units, just outside the municipal airport from which I often fly out.
It is a historic base, with the Guard’s AVCRAD unit having a great display of an AH-1S Cobra, OH-58A, and OH-58D Kiowa Warrior on pedestals. That part of the base, besides lots of use in the recent sandbox wars, was a training area for the helicopter crews of Eagle Claw back in 1979.
Moving past the Guard area to the Air Guard portion, the old 200×80-foot circa 1942 Army Air Corps hangar, which has recently been restored, features an early WWII U.S. “meatball” roundel.
Back during WWII, Gulfport Army Airfield trained ground crews on B-17s, B-24s, B-26s, and B-29s.
It became a primer of sorts for units headed to the South Pacific. If they could endure the 95-degree/95-percent humidity/95-percent chance of rain/Hurricane inbound days that is the Mississippi Gulf South summer, odds were they would do Okay in New Guinea or the Solomon Islands.
It lived on into the Cold War as the Gulfport Air Force Base until 1957, continuing as a Guard base.
And, true to form, the hangar had a group of visiting F-35s aboard, likely from Eglin.
There are a lot of 250th anniversaries this year, looking back at 1775. One of the most overlooked is the Semiquincentennial of the founding of the Army’s Chaplain Corps (DACH).
Established during the Revolution, the Corps was created on 29 July 1775, when the Continental Congress authorized a Chaplain for each of the Continental Army’s 38 regiments.
In the shadow of Chaplain headstones and the four memorials to Chaplains’ service and sacrifice in our nation’s wars, Arlington National Cemetery’s Senior Army Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Ludovic Foyou recently welcomed a crowd of Chaplains, family members, and well-wishers, saying the cemetery was “where the legacy of our Corps is not just remembered, it is buried into the very soil we stand on.”
Foyou highlighted the significance of the memorials behind him, explaining their tributes:
One honors Chaplains killed in World War I.
Another commemorates 134 Protestant Chaplains who died in both world wars.
A third memorializes 83 Catholic Chaplains who lost their lives in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
And the most recent honors 14 Jewish Chaplains who died while serving their country.
“These stones do not simply remember the dead,” he said. “We follow in the footsteps that walked through the mud, fire and fear to reach those in need.”
Original Caption: “During the Allied invasion of Southern France, tank destroyers waste no time after hitting the beach on D-Day to get started. 15 August 1944.” The image was taken on Camel Green Beach, near the seaside resort of Saint-Raphaël, about 4 hours after H-Hour.
Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-192909, by Stubenrauch, 163rd Signal Photo Company, National Archives Identifier 176888192
The above shows “Babs,” an M-10 GMC Wolverine, complete with 3-inch M7 main gun and deep water wading trunks, heading inland during the initial stages of the Dragoon Landings. Babs likely belongs to the 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion, which hit Green Beach that day from LST 612 to support the predominantly Texan 36th Infantry (“Arrowhead”) Division. The 636th would be the first American unit to enter Lyon and the first to reach the Moselle River in September, charging some 300 miles through Southern France in just 26 days.
Note the sunglasses-wearing combat medic trudging by and USS LST-49 in the background on the surf line with her bow doors open. She was the first LST to hit Green Beach on D-Day for Dragoon, carrying elements of the 36th ID’s 141st (“1st Texas”) Infantry Regiment.
An LST-1 (Mk 2) class built by Dravo in Pittsburgh, LST-49 had already participated in the Overlord Normandy invasion between 6 and 25 June 1944– hitting Utah Beach on D-Day– before heading to the Riviera for Dragoon. She was later transferred to the Pacific theater, where she participated in the Okinawa landings from 8 to 30 June 1945. Following the war, she performed occupation duty in the Far East and served in China until mid-March 1946, earning three battle stars. She was sold for her scrap value in the Philippines in 1947.
80 years ago this week. The moment production switched from military equipment to civilian automobiles at this Ford plant in Chester, Pennsylvania, on 13 August 1945.
The tanks on the left are M26 Pershings, followed by a base-model Ford F-series truck.
The factory was built in 1925 on the 50-acre site of the former Roach’s Shipyard and began operations in August 1927, cranking out the Ford Model A. The 20 millionth Ford came off the line there in 1931 to great fanfare.
In early 1942, it was commandeered by the U.S. Army’s Ordnance Department to produce military vehicles, with the line converting hot from wood-paneled station wagons to GPWs (Jeep variants). The plant produced 18,533 GPWs and, as the location of an Ordnance Depot and Modification Center for armored vehicles being shipped overseas, processed a mix of 155,000 tanks, half-tracks, trucks, and jeeps through the facility.
The plant closed in 1961, and operations were moved to Mahwah, New Jersey.
The site is now occupied by several smaller businesses, including GWSI, M&M Industries, and Dee Paper Co.
Men of the 304th Army Cavalry Group perform night firing exercises with the 3.5-inch M20 “Super Bazooka,” 31 July 1952. A Boston-based Reserve unit, the image was likely taken at Pine Camp (Fort Drum) during summer training before the unit became the short-lived 57th Tank Battalion.
Signal Corps photo SC 405194-S
Designed after learning from the captured German 8.8 cm RPzB 43 and RPzB 54 Panzerschrecks during WWII, the Super Bazooka was slow walked into service but rushed to Korea in July 1950 when the smaller M9 2.36-inch ‘zook proved ineffective against North Korean T-34s.
By August 1950, some 900 Super Bazookas were holding the line during the Battle of Pusan Perimeter, and ROK forces used them to knock out enemy tanks the same month.
The Superbazooka even appeared in Army recruiting posters during the Korean War
“Two North Koreans captured by men of F Co., 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, south of Chinju, Korea, are being searched and interrogated by a South Korean G-2 officer. 29 July 1950.”
Note the M1 Carbine-armed ROK officer’s rather unorthodox uniform capped by what could be a second-hand Australian bush (slouch) hat. Also, the Joe to the left has a muzzle cover on his carbine while the Soldier to the right is missing his canteen, which may have been loaned to the new EPOWs. Photographer: Butler. Signal Corps Archive SC 348779
After the armistice was signed in 1953, UN Command repatriated 70,183 North Korean prisoners of war as part of Operation Big Switch, which also included the return of 12,773 UN POWs to their respective countries; the latter figure contained just 7,862 South Korean POWs.
Another 22,959 Chinese/North Korean POWs elected to be sent anywhere else than home (mainly Chinese to Taiwan), with an Indian custodial force set to guard those defectors until they could be transferred abroad into 1954.
Some 7,614 Chinese and North Korean POWs died in UN custody during the war, mostly from tuberculosis and dysentery/diarrhea.
The ledger that recounts the number of Allied POWs that died in Chinese/Nork camps during the war has been forever lost to history.
