Category Archives: weapons

War Pigeons on the Marne

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110 years ago this week. 31 August 1915, along the Marne.

A French Brillié Schneider P3 model bus has been converted into a mobile pigeon coop (pigeonnier mobile) for the Army

Réf. : SPA 29 M 467. Albert Moreau/ECPAD/Défense

Pigeonnier militaire aménagé dans un bus Berliet à impériale

The French military’s use of pigeons for communication dates back to the War of 1870, after the Prussians besieged Paris, and citizens volunteered 300 of their birds.

The program reached its zenith during the Great War, with upwards of 30,000 pigeons used by the French alone.

Proving especially adept at avoiding “the Boche” during the country’s German occupation in WWII, the Resistance used another 16,500 SOE-supplied birds— which had been parachuted in as part of Operation Columbia! As the birds had been bred in England, once released by French underground cells, they quickly winged their way back home across the Channel to their coops, carrying brief but vital intel.

The French only officially ended their pigeon program in 1961 after the Algerian War.

However, since 2014, the 8th Signal Regiment (8e Régiment de Transmissions, 8e RT) has maintained a small in-house pigeon breeding program as a hedge on potential electromagnetic attacks that could disrupt other communication methods.

“La relève de nos pigeons voyageurs est assurée!”

That big SOCOM 6.5 Creedmoor purchase makes more sense now

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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.

The last shots in the foggy, frozen Kuriles, 80 years ago this week

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While the sweeping battle between the shell of the once mighty Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria and Korea, reduced to some 600,000 second-rate troops, and the 1.5 million strong Soviet Far East Command, had officially ended on 16 August after just nine days of fighting, the Reds nonetheless kept pushing to seize territory right up to 2 September, meeting isolated pockets of resistance.

Meanwhile, in the Kurile Islands, a line of 56 volcanic islands stretching from north of Japanese Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s home islands, to just off the tip of the Soviet Kamchatka peninsula, was still very much in play after 16 August.

The battle for the Japanese island of Shumshu, just six miles south of Kamchatka’s Cape Lopatka, raged for a solid week, 18 to 23 August, and cost the Soviets somewhere in the region of 1,500 casualties (exceeding Japanese casualties by a ratio of 3:2) while five of the Soviet’s 16 Lend Leased LCI(L)s used for the landings were lost along with the minesweeper T-152 and torpedo boat TK-565.

A Soviet LCI landing on Shumshu Island, August 1945

The American-made Soviet landing craft DC-5 (former USS LCI-525), hit by Japanese coastal artillery fire and sunk at the landing site at Shumshu.

DS-1 (former USS LCI-672) sunk at Shumshu

DS-43, (former USS LCI-943) sunk at Shumshu

DS-9, in the background, DS-43 ((former USS LCI-554) lying on the shore

Destroyed Japanese tanks (“Ha-Go”, type 95) of the 11th Tank Regiment on the slopes of Hill 171 on Shumshu Island (Kuril Islands).

Soviet troops, Shumshu, August 1945. Note the PTRD anti-tank rifle, which would be needed

Landing on the Kuril Islands. Artist A.I. Dense, 1948 year

Japanese Lt. Gen. Tsutsumi Fusaki arriving at the Soviet line to negotiate the surrender of his forces in the Northern Kuriles, 22 August 1945. He led 12,227 remaining men of his 91st Division into captivity. He was released to Japan in 1946 and died in his hometown of Kofu in 1959.

Likewise, starting on 11 August, 100,000 Soviet troops swept past the Karafuto line, which had divided the island of Sakhalin into a Russian north and Japanese south since 1905. This began a straight-line ground campaign– sped up by leapfrog amphibious landings, bypassing strong points– that swept up the 20,000 Japanese defenders by 25 August.

Soviet soldiers from the landing force and the minesweeper T-589 (USN type YMS, ex USS YMS-237) in the port of Maoka, Sakhalin. Late August 1945.

In the meantime, on 16 August, Stalin proposed to Truman that, in addition to seizing all of the Kurile Islands, his forces should also occupy northern Hokkaido along a line from Kushiro to Rumoi.

Truman pushed back, saying that Hokkaido would surrender to MacArthur, but that an American base in the future Russian Kuriles sounded like a good idea.

Stalin backed down on the 23rd (the day Shumshu finally fell, showing the Soviets just how hard amphibious warfare against Japanese defenders could be) and said he would stay out of Hokkaido, but that the Americans would not be welcome to a base in the Kuriles.

In the background of this, at least three small Russian Series XI/XIII-Leninist, or L class, submarines and two squadrons of torpedo-carrying Ilyushin Il-4 (DB-3T) twin-engine bombers from Petropavlovsk were running amok off the North coasts of Hokkaido and around Sakhalin.

A Soviet Leninist, or L class, submarine. Smallish (1,400 tons, 273 feet oal) minelaying boats reverse engineered from the raised HMS L55, which sank in the Baltic in 1919, 13 of the type were built and operated by the Soviet Pacific Fleet

The DB-3T, with a suspended 45-36 AV (high-altitude) or 45-36AN (low-altitude) torpedo, looked ungainly because it was ungainly, with a cruising speed hovering around 180 knots with both of its knock-off Gnome-Rhone 14K radial engines glowing. It nonetheless could be effective in the right circumstances and would remain in Soviet/Warsaw Pact use long enough into the 1950s to gain the NATO reporting name “Bob.” Alternatively, it could carry MAV-1 or AMG-type aircraft mines.

They bagged at least eight Japanese ships in the last part of August, even though the IJN Admiralty had passed word that there was a general ceasefire and the rest of the Western Allies had paused offensive operations. Notably, all were sunk outside of the general Kuriles area.

  • Cargo ship Daito Maru No. 49 sunk by an unknown submarine on 22 August
  • Cable layer Ogasawara Maru (2,774 tons) sunk by L-12 (Capt. Shelgancev) on 22 August
  • Coaster Taito Maru (880 tons) sunk by L-12 on 22 August
  • Cargo ship Notoro Maru (1229 grt) sunk by aircraft on 22 August
  • Coaster Sapporo Maru No. 11 sunk by submarine, likely L-19 (Capt. Kononenko), on 22 August
  • Freighter Tetsugo Maru (1403 grt) sunk by L-19 on 23 August
  • Sub chaser Giso Maru No. 40 GO (273 grt) sunk in a surface action on 24 August
  • Sub chaser CHa-77 sunk by aircraft of unknown origin on 28 August

Ogasawara Maru was perhaps the saddest of these. Built for the Japanese Ministry of Communications in 1905 and capable of 10 knots, the cable layer left Wakkanai on Sakhalin Island on the afternoon of 21 August, carrying 702 evacuees– elderly people, children, and women ordered off the island by the military government– headed to Funakawa.

She never made it, with L-12 sinking her in the predawn of the 22nd while three miles off Mashike, littering the coastline for miles with bodies. Only 62 survivors were recovered.

Ogasawara Maru

Likewise, Taito Maru, on the same evacuation route, went down with another 667 souls.

A ninth ship, attacked but not sunk, was the 5,886-ton freighter turned minelayer Shinko Maru No. 2 (former Toyo Kaiun, 2577grt). Crowded with some 3,600 civilians evacuating from Otomari on Sakhalin, she left alone on the night of 20-21 August heading for Otaru Port at a speed of 9 knots. Around 0500 on 22 August, she caught a torpedo in her No. 2 hold and replied with her 12cm and 25mm guns in a surface action in the predawn against an unidentified submarine, which broke contact.

Shinko Maru No. 2, post torpedo hit

Brushing off a further attack by a torpedo-carrying plane once the sun came up that morning, she limped into Rumoi Port in Hokkaido with 298 bodies aboard and at least 100 known missing.

While Shinko Maru No. 2 was eventually repaired and, returning to commercial service, was still around as late as 1992, her likely attacker, L-19, disappeared on or around 24 August near the La Perouse Strait, thought to have either sunk from damage incurred in the battle or lost to a Japanese minefield (which ironically may have been laid by Shinko Maru No. 2). Her broken hull and the 64 crewmen were the Red fleet’s final loss of WWII.

L-12 returned to Petropavlovsk to honors, having logged two attacks and fired six torpedoes. Converted to a training hulk in 1959, the Russians only retired her fully in 1983.

Sistership L-18 (Capt. Tsvetko) was underway in late August in the area and landed 61 marines and three 45mm guns at Maoka (now Kholmsk), in the then Japanese-held south Sakhalin, the latter secured behind the fence constructed on the rear of the conning tower. She did not document any attacks on shipping. Tsvetkov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and would later retire as an admiral.

Today, the Japanese government considers the three refugee-packed emergency evacuation ships (Ogasawara Maru, Shinko Maru No. 2, and Taito Maru) to have been attacked post-ceasefire by submarines and aircraft of “kokuseki fumei” (“unknown nationality”), and numerous memorials dot Hokkaido to those vulnerable civilians lost on the ships.

Meanwhile, no Japanese government has recognized the Russian sovereignty over four of the southernmost Kurile Islands (Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan, and Habomai) occupied in 1945, and only marked the end of the state of war between the Soviet Union and Japan in 1956.

Siriuspatruljen at 75

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Danish polar explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen is perhaps most famous to the internet for this image, snapped in 1912 after he and a partner survived two winters marooned and trapped in a cottage in northernmost Greenland:

To be fair to Mikkelsen, an explorer, author (eight books, numerous studies and reports), and administrator (he spent two decades as the Royal Inspector of East Greenland), was a pretty together guy who deserves his monuments and accolades.

Mikkelsen when not looking so haggard.

Well, he has returned to the frozen island in a sense in the form of the 1,750-ton Knud Rasmussen-class patrol vessel HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen (P571), which is scouting the famed explorer’s old stomping grounds, which has since 1974 been known as the Northeast Greenland National Park. Covering about a fourth of the island, the park is some 375,000 sq. mi. in size, making it larger than 166 countries.

An interesting thing about Mikkelsen’s patrol of the NGNP is that it is carrying members of the Navy’s Sled Patrol Sirius (Slædepatruljen Sirius), aiding the elite unit in its summer sovereignty patrols and sending them ashore via small boat.

Mikkelsen, the explorer, had a role in the creation of Sirius, which was a carryover from a WWII sled patrol set up by the Greenland government while he was trapped back in occupied Denmark. The explorer was still Royal Inspector when the current patrol was rebooted 75 years ago this month.

The patrol and surveillance service was originally established to prevent unwanted activity during wartime and to fulfill Denmark’s sovereignty obligations through the surveillance service in peacetime. The patrol carries out its tasks year-round, using dog sleds in the winter months and patrol vessels in the summer.

Their traditional armament consists of the M1917 Enfield bolt-action rifle in .30-06 (typed as the Gevær M/53-17) and the Glock Gen 3 G20 in 10mm Auto. However, they have also been seen recently practicing with suppressor-equipped Gevær M/10 and Denmark’s Colt Canada-made C8/M4s.

Since its first sortie from Ella Ø Station on 18 August 1950, Sirius has mushed 773,108 miles in the northeastern part of Greenland. This is equivalent to 31 times around the world– and all of it with dog sleds in a high Arctic climate.

They use about 95 locally procured Greenlandic sled dogs (grønlandske slædehund) with new fur-clad talent scouted every year from around the island by a Navy veterinarian to keep the pack at its fittest.

Sirius consists of six sled teams (plans are to beef this up to eight teams in the next year), each consisting of two men and 11 to 15 dogs. These dozen men are supported by another dozen station personnel (stationsspecialister) at the four remote bases who handle support/meteorological/radio duties, giving the whole operation a force of 24. When traveling, each sled team carries approximately 770 to 1,100 pounds of gear, depending on the distance to the next depot.

Running 26-month tours, each sled team contains a senior member, the patrol leader (patruljefører), who has already “walked the beat” for 13 months and has mastered glaciers, frostbite, and polar bears, teamed with a junior member fresh out of training assigned to learn the ropes.

Speaking of training, before a new patrol member sets foot in Greenland, they have to pass a grueling 10-month Sirius Forskole course run by the Jaegerkorpset commando corps in North Jutland which typically starts with 48 carefully prescreened (marching and orientation tests, swim tests, rigorous health and psychological screening) volunteers and is whittled down to the best six over the evolution.

Sirius has its headquarters at Daneborg (over winter contingent 12, originally established in 1943 by the USCGC Storis with an Army weather detachment as Station OYK), and maintains personnel at Station Nord, Grønnedal, and Mestersvig, each with a 3-to-5 member overwinter team.

The only population in the region, other than the Sirius teams, their support personnel, and the ~400 inhabitants of the hunting village of Ittoqqortoormiit at the base of the park, are at three government-owned research stations at Brønlundhus (run by the University of Copenhagen), the Danmarkshavn weather station, and Zackenberg (run by Aarhus University). The research stations may sport as many as a few hundred transient expedition members in the summer, dropping down to a skeleton crew over winter.

Station Nord/Villum Research Station is the furthest north manned Sirius station, at some 700 miles overland from Thule (Pituffik Space Base, the DoD’s northernmost installation). It is also celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, established in 1975, and has been permanently manned since then.

Station Nord today. 

Station personnel at the four Sirius bases, usually assorted Navy mechanics and maintenance rates, have to undergo a similar screening process and a shorter seven-month training school as well as make the same 26-month tour of duty, teaming up senior stationsspecialister with junior ones on a rotating basis.

Sirius also utilizes more than 50 unmanned depot huts scattered across the patrolled area. The nominally polar bear-proof caches are resupplied by small boats in the southern area, and by aircraft in the northern part.

The boys are back in town!

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Following the fall of the Netherlands East Indies, the remnants of the Dutch colonial army– the KNIL– and Royal Dutch Navy fell back to Australia to regroup and carry on the fight for liberation from exile. They were the lucky ones. Of the 42,000 European POWs taken by the Japanese in the East Indies in early 1942, almost one in five (8,200) would die before liberation.

This rag-tag group of survivors would carry on the war, with the Dutch submarine force being especially active, while the land forces would reform and wait.

The Netherlands East Indies Forces Intelligence Service, or NEIFIS, was formed in Australia from KNIL remnants starting in April 1942.

Regrouping of exiled Dutch/Dutch East Indies soldiers in Perth, Australia, April 1942. Inspection by, among others, Lieutenant Commander JAFH Douw van der Krap. Van der Krap was later assigned to the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service (NEIFIS) as head of Division II, Internal Security & Security.

NEIFIS was eventually given its own clandestine operations unit, dubbed the Korps Insulinde. In all, the Korps Insulinde would muster no less than 36 teams made up of 250 agents. They made 17 landings in Sumatra alone in 1943-44, in addition to operations in Borneo, the Celebes, New Guinea, and Java. Operating in small six-to-ten-man teams (many of which never came back), they gathered actionable intel that was used for air and sea strikes and organized guerrilla units across the islands.

Moving past covert operations, in the liberation of Borneo in 1945, a 3,000-strong overt force dubbed 1ste Bataljon Infanterie and the Technisch Bataljon of the KNIL landed on the beaches alongside Allied troops. Before that, the unit had its baptism of fire supporting the Americans at Biak.

Trained in Australia during the war, they had a very Allied flavor to include tin hat helmets and M1928 Thompsons, balanced with the KNIL’s favorite edged weapon, the klewang. To this was added increasing amounts of American kit.

KNIL troops in American overalls and webbing with M1928 Thompsons and Dutch Hembrug rifles, along with klewangs and a Lewis LMG, late 1942, Australia

Dutch volunteers from Suriname training at Australia’s Camp Casino 1944 for KNIL AKL022816

Arrival of Dutch West Indian troops (in front of Camp Casino) in Sydney. 1944 NI 4468

KNIL soldier training at Camp Victory, Australia, 1945 M1 Thompson SMG and klewang with USMC frog camo AKL022854

The battalion first returned to the Dutch East Indies on 30 April 1945, when a company landed with the Australian 9th Division at Tarakan on Borneo.

Australian and Dutch units land in Borneo on the island of Tarakan. On April 30, 1945, units of the Australian Imperial Forces 9th Division and the KNIL landed on the island of Tarakan of Borneo, starting the first combined Australian and KNIL attack on the Japanese army in Dutch East India. The photo shows Captain FE Meynders, commander of the 2nd Company of the 1ste Bataljon Infanterie of the KNIL, discussing the progress of the Tarakan campaign with Mr. L. Broch, war reporter for the Dutch news agency Aneta, on the beach of Lingkas on Tarakan Island.

Optreden KNIL op het eiland Tarakan AKL019794

“KNIL troops have been dropped off on the landing beach of Lingkas with some vessels of the invasion fleet and are going inland,” Tarakan, East Borneo, Dutch East Indies, May 1945. NIMH 2155_019811

By late August, the KNIL was in battalion strength and was fast rebuilding in Borneo.

KNIL soldaten Balikpapan 1945. NI 3248

Mariniers of KNIL bij herbezetting Balikpapan. NI 3249

Meanwhile, in North Carolina…

A force of 5,000 mostly newly minted Dutch Marines, the Mariniersbrigade, was being trained and equipped at Camp Lejeune with the thought that it would help liberate the DEI or, if not needed there, would land in Japan as part of the Operation Downfall plan to invade the Japanese Home Island in late 1945-early 1946.

The bulk of these trainees, formed around a cadre of regulars that had been stationed in the Dutch East Indies and Suriname, were Dutch volunteers who had lived in Holland during the German occupation and had joined up in 1944-45.

Mariniersbrigade (Marbrig) recruiting poster, complete with LSTs, Sherman tanks, and United Defense M42 sub gun

As you would expect, they looked very much like the USMC, right down to their uniforms, both service and field.

Mariniersbrigade op Camp Lejeune 2158_049882

Mariniersbrigade op Camp Lejeune 2158_049881

Mariniersbrigade op Camp Lejeune 2158_049964

Mariniersbrigade members with M1918 BAR and M1 Garands. 1947. Note the USMC-branded HBT uniforms. 2174-0787

The Mariniersbrigade was organized into three infantry battalions supported by M3A1 37mm AT guns and 81mm mortars, a scout company of M8 Geyhound armored cars, a tank company with M4A3E8 105mm gunned Shermans, an LVT-3/4 Amfibische tractor (AMTRAC) company, and an artillery battalion with 3-inch and 105mm batteries. Their logistical battalion was heavy with jeeps, M3 Halftracks, and M5 trucks.

Mariniersbrigade (Marbrig) M4A3E8

Mariniersbrigade M8 Greyhound in action at Porong, Java, 1947 2174-0698

LVT-4, Mariniersbrigade 2174-0136

Mariniersbrigade (Marbrig), M4A3E8 landing from LST

Diverted to the Dutch East Indies in December 1945 once their training was finished, they spent the next three years fighting Indonesian insurgents, which often included unreconstructed Japanese Imperial Army holdouts.

A sort of extension of the New Guinea campaign, but with more communist undertones.

Mariniers, Nederlandse strijdkrachten

De Mariniers Brigade op Java

Mariniers in actie in Nederlands-Indië at Kletek, Java, June 1946 2174-0189

Canada is trying, man

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While on a shoestring budget (just a tiny 1.37 percent of GDP, hovering at the bottom of NATO with Luxembourg), the Canadian Defence Forces are at least trying to field some new gear.

Besides the build-out of the (admittedly very lightly armed but at least ice capable) six-ship DeWolf-class Arctic patrol ships, a couple of new (to them) weapons platforms have broken cover.

Last month, the RCN armed and deployed a 17-foot uncrewed British Meggitt-OinetiQ Hammerhead USV-T (Unmanned Surface Vehicle, Target) with explosives during Exercise Trident Fury 2025, turning the target drone into a killer drone.

Launched from the City (Halifax)-class frigate HMCS Vancouver (FFH 331) and guided via satellite link, the Hammerhead successfully struck a target vessel, ironically another Hammerhead, destroying both.

With a 135-hp gas 3.0L MerCruiser Alpha 1 engine, the 1-ton Hammerhead can hit 35 knots and has enough fuel for 12-hour operations. No word on how big the charge was, but it looked dramatic. However, keep in mind that this COTS USV has been trialed in swarm operations with up to 40 vessels.

Which could be cool.

Meanwhile, in the Baltics

CAF members, operating in the Multinational Artillery Battalion Group in Latvia, have been operating Saab RBS 70 NG Very Short Range Air Defence (VSHORD) systems during Exercise Baltic Zenith.

“From setup to missile launch and teardown, the system was put to the test and delivered the desired effect.”

Members of the Multinational Artillery Battalion Group conduct a teardown of the Very Short Range Air Defence (VSHORD) during Exercise BALTIC ZENITH near the Baltic Sea, Latvia, on 04 June 2025. Photo: Corporal Michael Vandenbroek, Canadian Armed Forces Imagery Technician

Members of the Multinational Artillery Battalion Group conduct setup of the Very Short Range Air Defence (VSHORD) during Exercise BALTIC ZENITH near the Baltic Sea, Latvia, on 04 June 2025. Photo: Corporal Michael Vandenbroek, Canadian Armed Forces Imagery Technician

Medium shot of the moment a missile is fired from the Very Short Range Air Defence (VSHORD) by the Multinational Artillery Battalion Group during Exercise BALTIC ZENITH near the Baltic Sea, Latvia, on 04 June 2025. Photo: Corporal Michael Vandenbroek, Canadian Armed Forces Imagery Technician

Wide drone shot of the Multinational Artillery Battalion Group firing the Very Short Range Air Defence (VSHORD) during Exercise BALTIC ZENITH near the Baltic Sea, Latvia, on 04 June 2025. Photo: Corporal Michael Vandenbroek, Canadian Armed Forces Imagery Technician

Canada has been acquiring a small number of RBS-70s since 2024, specifically “to counter the assessed air threat within the Baltic region.”

The platform, originally fielded in the late 1970s, has been steadily updated and is in its at least fifth generation at this point. It has recently claimed several low-flying (under 10,000 feet ceiling) Russian aircraft (Ka-52, Mi-8, Su-24, and large UAVs) in Ukraine– so you know it works.

You would be remiss to not consider their use by the Marine Littoral Regiments in their area denial role in the Pacific.

Marines putting 155mm howitzers back into maritime prepositioning

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Marines have been using 155mm howitzers in expeditionary warfare in remote places since at least Guadalcanal.

A 155mm howitzer is fired by artillery crewmen of the 11th Marines at Guadalcanal

Back in 2005, the Marines replaced their venerable M198 155mm towed howitzer, which had been in service since the 1970s, with the new M777. While both were 15mm L39 guns (6.1″/39), the M777 only weighed 9,300 pounds (as opposed to 15,300) and had both lower manpower requirements and superior electronics (digital fire control).

The Marines bought 580 of the new guns, a purchase larger even than the Army, which used them in its light/airborne infantry divisions. The Marines used them in 21 active and 12 reserve artillery batteries (with six howitzers each) with the “extra” 375~ guns allocated for training, wartime spares, and prepositioning stocks both ashore, such as in Norway (MCPP-N), and afloat.

A U.S. Marine with the 2nd Marine Division cleans an M777 prior to staging it in a Marine Corps Prepositioning Program-Norway cave facility. The Marines have used Norwegian storage facilities since 1981. 160705-M-IU187-013

Well, with the large-scale divestment efforts that began in late 2019 as part of Force Design 2030 to transition the Corps to a leaner organization, the Marines ditched all its 450 M-1 Abrams, all its AN/TPS-59 radar sets, all its M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicles, M88A2 Recovery Vehicles, and Armored Vehicle Launched Bridges, et.al, ad nauseum.

Also trimmed back to the ground were the M777s, with the number of active batteries sliced from 21 to 5 (or maybe 7) and from 12 reserve to (maybe) 8. Likewise, pulled from the prepositioning stocks, along with the tanks, bridges, radars, and recovery vehicles, were the howitzers.

Notably, since then, some 200 M777s were provided to Ukraine from U.S. stocks along with more than 3 million shells.

Well, with the continued hard use of the M777 in that conflict, soaking Russian lines with upwards of 5,000 shells daily, and a high-profile deployment of a Marine 155 unit to Syria that was so busy it burned out two barrels, it seems someone has decided maybe storing some nice shiny howitzers on forward deployed cargo ships for a rainy day is a good idea.

This from Marine Corps Support Facility Blount Island (Jacksonville) PAO:

U.S. service members, government civilians, and defense contractors backloaded M777 howitzers aboard the USNS Pililaau (T-AKR 304) on Aug. 19 at Marine Corps Support Facility Blount Island in Florida, marking the artillery system’s return to maritime prepositioning with the latest maintenance cycle.

An M777 howitzer is towed aboard the USNS Pililaau during backload operations Aug. 19, 2025, at Marine Corps Support Facility Blount Island in Florida. The return of howitzers to maritime prepositioning, along with new innovations such as a recoil exerciser, strengthens long-term readiness for global contingencies. (Official Marine Corps Photo/Dustin Senger)

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Jeremiah Murray, of Pacific, Missouri, awaits M777 howitzers as they are placed into the holds of the USNS Pililaau during backload operations Aug. 19, 2025, at Marine Corps Support Facility Blount Island in Florida. An embarkation specialist with Blount Island Command, Murray worked alongside defense contractors to return howitzers to maritime prepositioning in the latest maintenance cycle. (Official Marine Corps Photo/Dustin Senger)

The USNS Pililaau is the first vessel in the latest rotation, a process of offloading, inventorying, maintaining, and modernizing equipment and supplies aboard maritime prepositioning ships. Each rotation ensures cargo ships, operated by Military Sealift Command, carry combat-ready gear for global contingencies.

Along with the return of howitzers to maritime prepositioning, the cycle introduces a newly fielded recoil exerciser designed to preserve large-caliber artillery in long-term storage. Using a winch-driven pulley, the system replicates a full recoil stroke, improving lubrication and maintaining operational reliability.

Maybe someone is waking up.

Holding the pocket

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It happened 75 years ago today.

Defense of the Pusan Perimeter, 1950. Men of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade on the line after arriving in country just days prior.

Description: PFC Harold R. Bates and PFC Richard N. Martin rest atop the third objective that U.S. Marines seized overlooking the Naktong River, South Korea, 19 August 1950. Note: Canteen in use, M1 Rifle carried by one Marine and M1 Carbine with fixed bayonet carried by the other, who has a bayonet scabbard attached to his leg.

Photographed by Sgt. Frank C. Kerr, USMC.  Official U.S. Marine Corps Photograph, from the All Hands collection at the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 96991

The assorted 90,000 UN troops– roughly half ROK, and the other half U.S., with a few Brits– that had been pushed back into the defensive line along the Naktong River with the city of Pusan and the Sea of Japan at their back in August 1950 were at the end of their rope.

When the 6,500-odd men of the “fire brigade” of the 1st Provisional Marines pulled in, they were met with a band– then rushed to the line.

Marines Arrive in Pusan, Korea, 2 August 1950 “Arrival of U.S. Marines at Pusan, Korea. Band music on the dock greets this loaded transport.” From the Official Marine Corps Photograph Collection (COLL/3948)

However, with the might of the fleet carriers USS Valley Forge and the Philippine Sea offshore and dozens of fighter-bomber squadrons of the Fifth Air Force plastering already overextended Nork supply lines, the first counter-offensive of the Korean war soon kicked off and began pushing the invaders almost back to the Yalu River– when a totally new war began.

Babs Catching Sun on the Riviera

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It happened some 81 years ago today.

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.

Desert Ghosts

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Official caption: “Marines of the 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division operate an M777 howitzer during Service Level Training Exercise 4-25 at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif., July 28, 2025. The exercise provides a challenging, realistic training environment that produces integrated, capable, and combat-ready forces.”

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Judith Ann Lazaro. 250728-M-FC877-1526

Nice to see the “Triple Seven” 155mm howitzer still getting some love in the Corps.

The plan outlined in Force Design 2030 (now simply referred to as Force Design) calls for reducing the number of active-duty M777 batteries from 21 to just five, although this may be adjusted upward to a whopping seven. The latter optimistic figure allows for one six-gun battery for each battalion-strength Marine Expeditionary Unit or one-third of a battery (a two-gun section) for each of the Corps’ 21 infantry battalions.

The CONUS-based MEUs are 11th, 13th, and 15th from the West Coast and the 22d, 24th, and 26th MEUs from the East Coast. The 31st MEU is forward deployed in Okinawa, at least for now. The official line is a 3.0 MEU deployable commitment, provided the amphibious ships are afloat for it.

Without its howitzers, a MEU used to be able to opt for six 120mm M327 rifled mortars (towed, if the ITV worked), which could fit in an MV-22, but those were retired in 2018. Now, if the big tubes aren’t available to ride with the MEU, it has to fall back on its eight smaller M252 81mm and nine M224 60mm company and platoon-level mortars.

Ghosts indeed.

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