Veteran, student of history, sporadic writer, and perpetual vicious optimist.
Joined January 2020
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"They pick the most dangerous enemy they can findβ¦and itβs themselves. And all we need do is sit backβ¦and watch."
milsurpwriter.wordpress.com/β¦
"On my way to get another can of Royal Mills iced coffee, the sight of a green flight suit striding purposefully towards me caught my attention. This guy carried himself with profane authority and looked like a stand-in for Tom Skerritt."
30(ish) years ago... how time does fly.
milsurpwriter.com/2019/08/16β¦
βHow many Veterans do combat and then later question the wars they participate in?β
There's so much there, but my answer today is the same as it was back then: not this one. I served for the folks to my left and right - everything else came secondary.
milsurpwriter.com/2019/09/11β¦
20 years ago today:
RL progression - 2 CEs UH-60A 85 24420 1.4D/.6N/2.2NVG
COB Speicher, Iraq
(Pictures from 12Oct06)
Whether it is about headstones from a century ago and experienced vicariously, scanned PDFs from patrol reports from 80+ years ago, photos I have taken two decades ago, comments and discussions via podcasts/blogs, or tying to understand how glacial current events are in relation to a history we don't know yet, history is a fascinating subject because someone experienced it - it carried more than a global significance to future scholars...
It was lived by someone.
History is addictive.
I started out learning about old torpedo tube shutters and ended up digging into patrol logs and reading terse snark commentary about how the refit of sanitary tanks at Mare Island were cancelled "with the approval of certain administrative offers who have never been depth charged."
...I need to venture back to Cleveland... and Manitowoc... and Muskegon... and San Francisco (briefly and for one purpose only).
youtu.be/JmeD_h4Pg24
"Parisian boys without your names
Ghetto stones instead of chains
Talk 'em down cause it's up in flames
And nothing's changed
Parisian boys without your names
Riot like 1968 again
The days of rage yeah nothing's changed
More pretty flames"
youtu.be/DilYs7scIgU?is=uYZpβ¦
After reading the entire article, I want to vomit...
And then print it out, tie it to a brick, and low-tech/high-velocity sling it at the various PEOs, PMA, and other fucking glacial "Offices of Excellence."
"The Russia-Ukraine battlefield has become a βlive test siteβ for Chinaβs military learning. The evidence shows a systematic process through which the PLA and the Chinese defense industry identify battlefield innovations and translate selected lessons into training and procurement," write @csis_ai experts.
Read: bit.ly/4iaD66n
"...learning [...] without bleeding."
It's not just China learning from Ukraine.
It's a spectacle witnessed by all and appreciated by those without the strategic and logistical depth.
Action... reaction... reflection... adaptation.
It is not just drones and the kinetic tactical application - it is also shipping... intelligence... magazine depth... and, most disturbing, probing on all fronts... and even far from a "front."
Non-critical attrition can, and will be, another dimension of conflict until the EM spectrum is dominated and/ or negated.
China is learning from Ukraine without bleeding. We should be alarmed at how fast.
CSIS tracked it. PLA analysts are writing about new battlefield techniques within about 4 months. Fiber-optic FPVs went from Russia's front line to Chinese unit training in about a year. After Spider's Web, a PLA brigade was training against a drone infiltration within 4.5 months.
Russia now strikes a detected target in 3 to 5 minutes.
One PLA trial participant put it plainly: "The errors we make in trials are detours the troops will not have to take."
That's our pacing threat, adapting right now. Great power competition isn't coming. It's here.
Now be honest about us. How long does a hard lesson from a CTC rotation take to work its way through doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, and facilities? Years. We don't have years. We don't have the luxury of traditional DOTMLPF timelines.
CSIS also names the PLA's weakness: a military built on centralized approval cannot create decentralized improvisation by command.
That's our edge, if we use it. True mission command. Strike authority pushed down with clear intent and predetermined high-payoff target lists. Junior leaders trusted to adapt before the next approval comes back.
An edge only exists if it's trained. That takes an OPFOR that fights like the PLA and the Russians, learns as fast as they do, and makes Blue pay for every slow decision.
My proposal: using the Agincourt requirements for a realistic OPFOR as the incubator. Make it joint and honest, a place where new tech and tactics get proven against a thinking enemy in months, not program cycles.
The question isn't whether we can see the lessons. China sees them in 4 months.
The question is this: can we think and adapt faster to win, or will we keep reacting to others?
@SecArmy @DeptofWar #USArmy
[Taps sign]
"A government that cannot protect its people eventually loses the moral authority to govern them."
"You know, in certain older civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords."
Sometimes, the Operative makes sense, and I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.
People currently can NOT manage driving on flat ground... throwing in a Y-axis variable... yeah, how about "No."
Y-axis profanity is what I will have to contend with, now.
And the landing "burn" or whatever you want to call it...
Imagine you are gridlocked and some douche wants to Y-axis merge while you are doing 30 mph... Great, now you are a new version of IMC/DVE and lose situational awareness... getting creamed by a rubbernecker who drifted into your lane due to fixation or panic.
Why I am suspicious of the Tesla Roadster- part 2:
Intuitive math isn't mathing.
4,000 lb curb weight (estimate).
Unless Tesla has discovered some unobtainium propellant with some amazing specific impulse capabilities, I am skeptical as hell. Even for short duration, flashy but inefficient BSG-style flip/rolls.
My stance still stands: either fancy wire fu or AI. The physics just doesn't make sense.
AND... that's not even going into the ramp velocities.
Sometimes, I want to respond to some of the most asinine comments or statements here on X.
I *really* want to.
Unfortunately, no amount of back-and-forth will ever change anyone's mind. No logic, agreed-upon sources, or well-constructed Rogerian argument will change the minds of the most entrenched.
Shame.