The Ukraine Shovel Video

Jonathan H asked in comments if I had seen the Ukraine shovel video.  I had not, so I went looking for it.

Yep, that is the way an Army uses a shovel.

That's Exactly RIght

 It seems that Ukraine is having none of it.  Trans women are actually men and are required to bear arms fr the defense of the country.  According to Zero Hedge:

The Ukrainian government is refusing to allow transgender women to leave the country along with the millions of women and children refugees who have been streaming into Poland and other European nations. Instead, Ukrainian border guards are turning them back and forcing them to return home to join the fight.

That sounds exactly right.   

Anonymous said in comments to an earlier post. 

 The vehicle commander and driver for the matter do not need to ride open hatch with their heads exposed. Button up and use vision blocks and weapon sights to view and navigate.

That sounds great in theory, but seldom works in practice. While it is true that the driver of an M1 series is often buttoned up, the vehicle commander wants his head out of the tank for more complete vision.  Vision blocks limit your awareness considerably, up to about 60%.  A tank commander loses over half of his situational awareness when he closes the hatch.

I freely admit that I never took a tank into combat, but I trained in them extensively for 25 years as an Armor and Cavalry officer.  I never wanted to be "buttoned-up" and did so only when required by the training scenario.  And, in training and maneuver, I wanted my loader's had outside and on a swivel as an additional set of eyes.

The commander needs to have his head out to see what is going on.

A single rifleman would have to be suicidal to take on a tank in a fair fight.  However, we never want to be in a fair fight.  Sneak and peek, find a tank or APC in a waiting area.   Fire one good shot, and boogie out of the area.  The bad guys will return fire on the area, so you need to be gone pretty quick.

If you get in a fair fight, you are doing it wrong.

Peace Talks?

 Some are reporting that peace talks will soon begin in Ukraine.

It isn't going well for the Russians.  Their gains have been limited and slower than they expected.  Resistance is stiffening.  The Russians have a tough military problem, and a tougher political problem.

Zelensky is in the catbird seat. He must balance the idea that Russia is the aggressor with his desire to limit damage to his country, but he knows that he is on a target list.

Were I Zelensky, I would start the talks with three demands.  Immediate ceasefire.  Removal of Russian forces to recognized borders.  Hang Putin publicly as an example to other dictators.  That's right.  Dangle Putin from a rope, and post it on Rumble, Facebook, and YouTube.

Those would be my starting demands, and they would not be negotiable.

The Russians face a tough military problem that will only get worse as the days drag on.  The soldiers on the ground know this and they are not looking for a protracted fight.

"The Ghost of Kyiv" - The Legend of the Ukrainian Ace in a Day

Ace In A Day, over the Ukraine.  Whoever you are, congratulations.

Russia Attacks Ukraine "The World is Watching!" 24 Feb 2022

Juan Brown has some interesting footage of Russian aircraft over Ukraine.

Fighting in Ukraine

 The BBC is reporting on the fighting in Ukraine.

About 10 civilians are believed to have been killed, including six in an air strike in Brovary near the capital Kyiv. A man was also killed in shelling outside the major eastern city of Kharkiv.

 A Ukrainian presidential adviser said that more than 40 soldiers had died and dozens more were wounded. Ukraine said it had killed 50 Russian troops and shot down six Russian aircraft, but this has not been verified.

MSN has some photos. 

I admit that I haven't been paying much attention to the conflict.  I have been more concerned about other things closer to home.  Things like gas prices, food prices, energy costs,  the effect that inflation is having on my retirement income, rising crime, and other outrages that this inept administration has foisted upon us.  It seems like Biden is more concerned about European orders than he is with the US border.

I am reminded that I predicted the timeline of the invasion in a post in late January.  I predicted that the invasion, if it occurred, would be after the Olympics and before the spring thaw.  Here we are in the last week of February.

Thinking About Ukraine

 I'm no strategist.  My military career was spent at battalion level troop leading, but I've beentot he schools, and I've been thinking about Ukraine.  Terrain is terrain, and we battalion-level officers tend to think of terrain as a guiding force in the deployment of military power.  Terrain dictates tactics, and whatever else you might say about the art of war, terrain has always been known to hold advantages or challenges to an invader or defender.

War is politics by the use of force, and whatever else we may think about Vladimir Putin, he is a political animal.  He looks at risk and reward through a political lens.  As much as he might like to assert influence over the Ukraine, there are political considerations that might conspire against him in the coming month.

The Beijing Olympics starts next week, and as much as Putin might like to move soon, he doesn't want to move until the end of the Olympics.  The political cost would be too great.

Spring is coming in the Ukraine, but it won't come until at least mid-March, when the ground thaws.  Armored forces don't farewell in mud, and if he's going to move, he needs to move while the ground is frozen.  Russian military formations are no stranger to winter and do very well in it.  If Putin waits till after the spring thaw, he will probably have to wait until summer, when the ground dries enough to support heavy mechanized forces.  He doesn't want to get bogged down in the mud, or limit his forces to paved roads.

If he's going to invade, the time to do it would be after the Olympics, and before the spring thaw.

I'm just spit-balling here, and there is a good analysis at the Center for Strategic Studies.  Go read it, if you are interested.

In Memoriam

 In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

Later today I'll raise a glass to absent friends.

Iran Fesses Up

It seems that Iran has admitted that their air defense forces shot down the Ukrainian jet liner earlier this week.

Iran finally admitted Friday night to the incontrovertible evidence that it had shot a Ukraine jetliner out of the sky less than two minutes after it took off.

I was horrified when I heard the initial reports,  It seems that a whole bunch of Canadians were on board, and I admit that mystified me.  What the hell were they doing in Tehran?  And, what was the pilot thinking?  Didn't he know that he was flying in what seemed to be contested air space?  How did the ground controllers let him take off in the first place?

Somewhere outside Tehran, a young officer had a crew at a missile site.  They were expecting an American response to their missile launches into Iraq.  This young officer saw a bogey on his screen and launched a missile.  The missile did just exactly what it was designed to do.

It's a tragedy, but it seems to be a cascading chain of events that lead this Ukrainian jet to be over a missile site that was cocked-and-locked for incoming air traffic.  A blip on a screen, and war has begun.

Iran Calls The Thunder

It appears that the Iranians have lost their damned minds, and are attacking US bases in Iraq.

From senior US military source in Iraq:
“Under missile attack from Iran. These are either cruise missiles or short range ballistic missiles. All over the country.”

Other tweets indicate that this is revenge for the lawful, battlefield killing of whatshisname.

 Fars News agency in Iran says this is video of a missile attack that has been launched in Al Assad airbase in NW Iraq. Home to Iraqi and U.S. forces. In their own words  "Start of Iran's vengeful US retaliation / Moment of Iranian missile firing at US base in Ain al-Assad"

They may have called the thunder, but I bet that they are not willing to reap the whirlwind. 

Here we go.

Soleimani? Who?

If you've never heard of him, don't worry about it.  Qassem Soleimani was a top general in the Iranian military.  He came up (militarily) in the Iran-Iraq war and the proxy wars that followed.  He was tight with the mullahs, and festered terrorism across the region, often behind the scenes.

He came to Baghdad recently to stir up shit, and was fostering the demonstrations there against the US embassy.  Donald Trump remembered the destruction of the US embassy in Benghazi several years ago and decided that he had smelled just about enough of this particular brand of bullshit.

In a targeted airstrike by US forces, Soleimani, along with several henchmen, bit off more than they could chew, and have now achieved room temperature.

You can read all the background here.

The killing of Soleimani will surely lead to a response from Iraq, and the good folks in US Intelligence need to keep their ears to the ground.  This isn't over by any rational estimate, but surely the mullahs get the message.

Arrow v Armor

Great video of archaic weapons v archaic armor, vis a vis Agincourt.



I figured the arrows would have penetrated, but I'd be wrong.

John Chapman, USAF

John Chapman was a US Air Force combat controller.  These guys work closely with units on the ground to help deliver assets to the battle. (That's a gross over-simplification).

Early in the Afghan unpleasantness, Chapman was assigned to the theater, and was present at the battle for Takur Ghar, and was involved in an action in which he was killed, and for which he first received the Air Force Cross, and was ultimately up-graded to the Medal o Honor.

What is amazing, other than the valor and intrepidity of Sergeant Chapman was that the entire engagement was caught on film.

Trigger warning.  This is combat footage where men fight and die.



Amazingly, there was another Medal awarded for this action.  Navy Chief Britt Shabinski was also awarded the Medal for this action.

I am in awe of men like this.

History Made

Seventy-five years ago, the Allied Expeditionary Forces waded ashore in Normandy.  Many individual stories have been told, and each has its place in history. We have grown accustomed to these stories of heroism and resolve, but we can't forget that success was not a foregone conclusion.



It could have all gone horribly wrong.  But, it didn't.

Lucky

I don't know the provenance on this gif, found it over at Knuckledraggin.

It's time to move, they have you spotted.  I wouldn't put my head up over that wall for any amount of money.

Annotated Battle Maps

If you're like me, it's hard sometimes to put together the strategy of a war ad follow the events as they unfold.  We generally study battles as a series of engagements, and sometimes I get confused about the order of things.

The Civil War Trust has a number of annotated battle maps that really help to see events as they unfold.

Here's one that shows the major events of the Revolutionary war.



Enjoy!

The Future of Warfighting

This is a great video.



It explains stuff that we need to be aware of.

Remember When

This AP photo brings back memories.

A Kuwaiti helicopter herds Iraqi prisoners of war, arms in the air, across a stream in southeastern Kuwait, Monday, Feb. 25, 1991, as Operation Desert Storm continues. (AP PHOTO/STR)

Twenty-eight years ago, we ejected Iraqi forces from our ally, Kuwait.  Many Iraqi units fought bravely and tenaciously, but many others surrendered almost immediately because we had severely disrupted their command, control and logistics chain.  Some units hadn't eaten in days and had little in the way of food.  We had destroyed their will to fight and surrendered en mass.

As an old soldier, I hope those guys made it, and enjoyed a pleasant, productive, and peaceful life.

Hat Tip, PJMedia.

Lest We Forget

I was working the night shift at the parish jail, came in and went to sleep.  Phone rang about 9:00.  I didn't get much sleep the rest of the day.