The 107-country Outer Space Treaty signed in 1967 prohibits nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons from being placed or used from Earth’s orbit. What they didn’t count on was the U.S. Air Force’s most simple weapon ever: a tungsten rod that could hit a city with the explosive power of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
During the Vietnam War, the U.S. used what they called “Lazy Dog” bombs. These were simply solid steel pieces, less than two inches long, fitted with fins. There was no explosive – they were simply dropped by the hundreds from planes flying above Vietnam.
Lazy Dog projectiles (aka “kinetic bombardment”) could reach speeds of up to 500 mph as they fell to the ground and could penetrate nine inches of concrete after being dropped from as little as 3,000 feet
The idea is like shooting bullets at a target, except instead of losing velocity as it travels, the projectile is gaining velocity and energy that will be expended on impact. They were shotgunning a large swath of jungle, raining bullet-sized death at high speeds.
That’s how Project Thor came to be.
Instead of hundreds of small projectiles from a few thousand feet, Thor used a large projectile from a few thousand miles above the Earth. The “rods from God” idea was a bundle of telephone-pole sized (20 feet long, one foot in diameter) tungsten rods, dropped from orbit, reaching a speed of up to ten times the speed of sound.
A concept design of Project Thor.
The rod itself would penetrate hundreds of feet into the Earth, destroying any potential hardened bunkers or secret underground sites. More than that, when the rod hits, the explosion would be on par with the magnitude of a ground-penetrating nuclear weapon – but with no fallout.
It would take 15 minutes to destroy a target with such a weapon.
One Quora user who works in the defense aerospace industry quoted a cost of no less than $10,000 per pound to fire anything into space. With 20 cubic feet of dense tungsten weighing in at just over 24,000 pounds, the math is easy. Just one of the rods would be prohibitively expensive. The cost of $230 million dollars per rod was unimaginable during the Cold War.
Like lawn darts, but with global repercussions.
These days, not so much. The Bush Administration even considered revisiting the idea to hit underground nuclear sites in rogue nations in the years following 9/11. Interestingly enough, the cost of a single Minuteman III ICBM was $7 million in 1962, when it was first introduced ($57 million adjusted for inflation).
The trouble with a nuclear payload is that it isn’t designed to penetrate deep into the surface. And the fallout from a nuclear device can be devastating to surrounding, potentially friendly areas.
A core takeaway from the concept of weapons like Project Thor’s is that hypersonic weapons pack a significant punch and might be the future of global warfare.
The commandant of the Marine Corps wants the service to come up with a strategy to give Marines more time at home between deployments before the end of the year and get new aircraft cranking off production lines ahead of schedule.
Those are two of the 25 time-sensitive tasks for service commanders published Tuesday alongside Gen. Robert Neller’s second major message to the force. In the task list, he calls on Marine Corps leadership to invest in people, build up readiness, and take training into the future.
Neller’s checklist tasks Marine Corps Forces Command and Manpower and Reserve Affairs with developing a plan to give Marines on average more than twice as much time at home than they spend deployed.
Increasing “dwell time,” as it’s called, from the current 1:2 ratio has long been cited by Marine Corps commanders as a goal at odds with the service’s high deployment tempo and ongoing force reductions. As leaders await approval of a defense budget measure that would modestly increase the size of the force for the first time in years, Neller’s order is a signal that times may be changing.
A Marine signals to move forward in an amphibious assault vehicle (AAV) during an amphibious landing for Exercise Dawn Blitz 2015. | U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan Riley
“The optimal deployment-to-dwell ratio will not be the same for all elements of the [Marine air-ground task force] and we must strike the right balance between risk-to-force, risk-to- mission, and risk-to-institution,” Neller cautioned in the document. “Potential factors to consider among others: increasing the end strength of the force, growing key Military Occupational Specialties (MOSs), and decreasing in Global Force Management (GFM) demands.”
Another goal dependent on budget decisions is the plan to accelerate aviation recovery for the service, which has seen aircraft readiness rates and pilots’ flight hours plummet and then begin to recover in the last two years.
In an interview this month in his office at the Pentagon, Neller said the Corps would try to buy new aircraft faster, including F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, to replace aging legacy platforms, and petition Congress to fully fund the service’s flight hour program and spare parts requirements so aviation readiness as a whole will improve.
“We’re going to be in a position where we’re fielding new aircraft and sustaining legacy aircraft for a number of years and it would be nice if the [operational] tempo would go down, but I don’t see that happening either. So we’ve got to do this all on the fly,” Neller said. “We’ve got to improve our readiness and continue to meet our requirements.”
Gen. Robert Neller | U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Shawn Valosin
Whether or not the extra money rolls in within future defense budgets, Neller is asking aviation leaders to come up with more efficient ways to accelerate the recovery plan.
He’s also calling for better training for aviation maintenance Marines, citing recent readiness reviews that highlighted a lack of training and standardization in these fields. By improving and standardizing the training pipeline for specialized aviation maintainers, he wrote, “We can improve overall readiness and performance of Marine Aviation.”
In parallel, Neller wants commanders to develop a comprehensive plan by the end of the year to modernize the Marine Corps ground combat element, allowing infantry Marines to fight with similar technological and training advantages to their aviation counterparts.
He reiterated his desire to get quadcopter drones fielded to each Marine rifle squad “immediately,” and said he wanted to see ground Marines take advantage of the 5th-generation platforms, sensors and networks that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will bring to the force.
Neller endorsed a growing trend in the Marine Corps to tailor equipment and gear to the specific needs of the ground combat Marine.
In 2015, the Corps announced that infantry Marines would use M4s as their standard service rifle, while non-infantrymen would continue to carry the longer M16; and last fall, Marine Corps Systems Command held an event focused on equipping infantry Marines with tailor-made gear specific to their jobs, with leaders even discussing the possibility of tailoring Meals, Ready to Eat to the needs of grunts.
“While every Marine is a rifleman, not all Marines serve in or alongside ground combat units like the infantry as they actively locate, close with, and destroy enemies by fire and maneuver,” Neller wrote. “Their mission and risks are unique. From clothing and equipment to training, nutrition, and fitness, we must look at and develop the [ground combat element’s] capabilities differently than the rest of the MAGTF.”
Like it or not, the NFL’s ratings are pretty much the same in 2018 when you look at them year over year. The ratings do dip at times, depending on the teams and the time of day. And really, I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to spend three hours on a Thursday night watching the Jets and Browns pillow fight — especially because there’s no guarantee that Cleveland will lose every game in spectacular fashion this year.
That job is taken.
But just because a team wins games doesn’t mean they’re fun to watch. This problem is most evident in college football. I’ve been raised as an Ohio State fan, but that doesn’t make the game exciting. I remember spending Saturday afternoons watching the zoomed-in-completely-yet-still-too-far-away telecast as Ohio State puts 900 points on someone like Dartmouth College. It’s just a boring day when you already know the outcome.
Of the 32 teams in the NFL, these are the ones that actually make me wish they were blacked out, just so I could watch a different, interesting game. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a Bengals fan — and the only reason the Bengals didn’t make this list is because it’s kind of exciting to see how they’re going to blow their lead every week. Will it be a well-timed fumble? Will they just stop scoring points in the second half? Who knows?
Or maybe it’s an Andy Dalton pass that does it!
It’s a race to the bottom here, but some other teams deserve a mention, especially the Houston Texans and New York Giants. By the time they played each other, they were both 0-2. Somebody had to stand out, but they sure waited until the fourth quarter to do anything to make anyone care.
This is the only Bills-related thing I want to see every week.
5. Buffalo Bills
If the Bills were a flavor, they’d be vanilla. Watching the Bills is like opening a Neapolitan Ice Cream box and finding out someone ate the two good flavors and didn’t throw the rest away. Even watching them blow out the Vikings got old after a while. At least the Vikings were fun against the Packers.
It’s hard to believe the Bills gave up two second round picks to get Wyoming’s Josh Allen because they also have nothing for Allen to work with. The team’s sound reasoning is that “he is Buffalo.” Great call. No wonder the Bills’ fans are the best part about the team.
NBC’s Chris Simms was excited for Allen because his Wonderlic intelligence test score was the highest in the league, despite the fact the Wonderlic means nothing. Dan Marino scored a 15 to Allen’s 37, but my guess is the Bills would love to have a Marino. EJ Manuel complained that the Bills didn’t let him grow as a player, and there might be something to that. Many former Bills players saw limited success until they left the organization – Marshawn Lynch, Sammy Watkins, London Fletcher, Ronald Darby, and even all the way back to Antoine Winfield.
The Bills went to the playoffs last year, so obviously they have to change their entire team. You might as well sign Colin Kaepernick, Buffalo. At least it would give people something to talk about — aside from Vontae Davis retiring in the middle of a game.
They may have gotten their asses handed to them in the Super Bowl last year, but this is still the New England Patriots we’re talking about, right? Right? The most interesting thing that’s happened watching the Patriots in 2018 so far is the look on Dolphins fans’ faces as their 3-0 ‘Fins get annihilated by the person they hate the most for four quarters.
The problem with that game is that the rest of us couldn’t stand to watch New England beat a lifeless Dolphin team. It sure wasn’t fun watching the Pats score two field goals they didn’t need to stay on top of the Texans. Every minute the Patriots have played after halftime of week one has pretty much been garbage time.
The headline on Chargers.com on October 2nd reads “Philip Rivers Off to Best Start of His Career,” which tells you what it must be like for Chargers fans, waiting 15 years only to have Rivers’ “best start” be 11 touchdowns and a 2-2 record.
3. Los Angeles Chargers
The Bills may be a vanilla team, but if you’re going for consistent blandness year after year, look no further than the Chargers. They’re the plain yogurt of the NFL. As a matter of fact, since the Chargers went 13-3 in 2009, their record has been around 50-50 on average. Of all the teams in the NFL, they’re Charlie Browniest. They’re even at number three on this list.
Charger fans might ask about their recent two-point win over San Francisco, but that only proves my point. Sure, they won by just two points, not only did the Chargers only score field goals in the whole second half, their game-winning field goal was the only one they scored in the fourth quarter and they did it with more than four minutes left on the game clock. The Garoppolo-less 49ers didn’t even get past midfield in their last possessions.
If you thought the Chargers were forgotten in San Diego, remember that LeBron James plays for the Lakers, the Dodgers are in the National League Division Series, and the Rams are f*cking explosive. I’m really not sure why LA wanted the Chargers.
Just leave the ball there. It’s not like you were doing anything with it.
2. Indianapolis Colts
At least the Jets are getting fined for crude touchdown dances. The 1-3 Colts are headed to face New England in what will probably be the game I’m forced to watch in the afternoon on television after I get home from watching fun games at the bar. Which is totally fine, I like a good nap in the afternoon — but even the Indianapolis Star is calling the game a “joke.”
Sure, the Colts lost a squeaker to the Texans in overtime on week four, but you had to sit through three quarters of Colts football to catch that end, so of course no one saw it (unless you were watching the Red Zone). What’s interesting about Colts games? Their kicker. 45-year-old Adam Vinatieri just broke the all-time field goal record after 20 years and four Super Bowls and shows no sign of stopping.
That’s about it.
Larry Fitzgerald, headed to the locker room, probably to call Vontae Davis.
1. Arizona Cardinals
The winless Cardinals are not only the worst team in the league right now, but they’re also the hardest to watch. They didn’t even score a touchdown until week three and even then they didn’t do anything for the rest of the game. They don’t need to win games to be interesting, I mean, watching Cleveland is still fun, even when we’re reasonably sure they aren’t going to win, but at least Cleveland thinks they can.
That engine is practically in a Browns uniform.
Arizona averages a whopping 9.2 points per game, making the Rams blowout their most interesting game just because we all wanted to see if LA could keep them scoreless while putting up 34 points. A Madden simulation would have been more interesting.
While typically used in medieval warfare, tunnel bombs have made a comeback over the last few years, especially in Syria. This video shared on Twitter on July 16 by researcher Hugo Kaaman shows just how powerful these bombs can be, and this time, in Afghanistan.
Video of a Taliban tunnel bomb detonated two days ago near an Afghan army position in Sangin, Helmand. This age-old tactic was popularised in contemporary times by Syrian rebels, but has seen less action in Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/8triFTtK0F
Tunnels have seen a resurgence in “popularity” in the last few years, after being a very effective means of warfare utilized throughout history. They are exactly as they sound: bombs placed in sub-terrain under enemy forces. We’ve seen them in every major conflict, but in the middle east, they took a bit of a back burner to the more frequently used roadside IED. There’s an excellent history of the tunnel bomb here.
To see the “inside look,” watch this video uploaded to social media.
Taliban have used tunnel bombs in Sangin, Helmand multiple times before. This video from December 2019 shows the inside of a tunnel packed with explosives – h/t @RisboLenskypic.twitter.com/r8QtzAsq9e
A top US admiral explained March 13, 2019, that the Navy is keeping high-level promotions a secret because hackers from China and other adversarial countries are targeting flag officers.
While the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps all continue to publish lists of newly promoted officers, the Navy abruptly stopped in October 2018, USNI News first reported February 2019.
The policy reportedly began with the promotion of Trump’s doctor, Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, who withdrew from consideration to lead Department of Veterans Affairs amid a scandal.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson defended the policy decision March 13, 2019, arguing that publishing this information — which the US Senate continues to publish— leaves high-ranking Navy officers vulnerable to cyberattacks.
“I don’t know if you’ve been personally attacked in the cyber world, but our flags are,” Richardson said at a conference in Washington, DC, Breaking Defense reported. It is “just a vulnerability that we are trying to think about,” he added, according to Military.com.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson.
“There’s always a tension between on the transparency and security,” he explained, telling reporters that the Navy intends to do anything it can “to make sure we’re keeping their information and stuff secure.”
An alarming internal Navy cybersecurity review recently concluded that the service, as well as its industry partners, are “under cyber siege,” The Wall Street Journal reported March 12, 2019.
“We are under siege,” a senior US Navy official stressed to The Journal. “People think it’s much like a deadly virus — if we don’t do anything, we could die.”
The service has been hit relentlessly by Chinese, Russian, and Iranian hackers, with the threat presented by Chinese cyber criminals among the most severe. China is accused of hacking the US military, large and small defense contractors, and even university partners to steal anything not nailed down.
In 2018, Chinese government hackers stole important data on several US Navy undersea-warfare programs from an unidentified contractor. Among the stolen information were plans for a new supersonic anti-ship missile, The Washington Post reported in June 2018, citing US officials.
Speaking to Congress March 13, 2019, Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of US Cyber Command, said that the US is prepared to aggressively strike back against adversarial powers in cyberspace.
While Navy leadership argues that the decision to keep flag officer promotions a secret is to eliminate exposure that could put its admirals at risk, the defense appears a bit thin, as their names, ranks and biographies are still publicly available.
“This may not work out in the end, I don’t know, but that’s kind of our mindset there,” Richardson reportedly said March 13, 2019.
This article originally appeared on Business Insider. Follow @BusinessInsider on Twitter.
Not many remember the Australians’ commitment to aiding the United States in Vietnam, but the Aussies were there, and they sent their best. Australia’s best troops included their very own Special Air Service, special operators in the mold of Britain’s SAS, formidable fighters capable of bringing the enemy’s method of irregular warfare right back home to Hanoi.
The Aussies weren’t content with the M-16, for a number of reasons, so they opted instead to do a little frontier mechanical work on their weapons. The end product became known as “The Bitch.”
When you want to use an M-16 but your standards are higher.
When the M-16 first took over for the M-1 Garand as a standard-issue infantry weapon, the result was less than stellar. It jammed. A lot. Frustrated troops began leaving their M-16s at home and using AK-47s captured from the enemy instead. The Aussies preferred a weapon that worked. Even after the weapon was updated to fix its issues, the Australians still opted for a different solution. They liked how handy the M-16 could be, but they wanted the stopping power of a 7.62 round.
But the barrel of the S1A2 self-loading rifle was so heavy… what to do?
“Cor, mate… I ‘ave an idea…”
The Australian special operators lopped that heavy barrel and its tripod off at the end of the gas block. Then, the MacGuyvers from Down Under fashioned special flash suppressors for the new muzzle for those who wanted it. For those who didn’t, they just left the weapon without any kind of suppression at all. The new, shorter barrel was louder and produced a much bigger bang for the buck.
They wanted the Communists to know who was pulling the triggers and raining death on their Ho Chi Minh Trail parade. If that weren’t enough, sometimes the operators would put a pistol grip on the end so they could control the weapons in fully automatic settings. Others preferred a grenade launcher attachment.
Fun was had by all.
Feature image: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Taking a page from the 2006 self-help book The Secret, the United States Air Force believes saying good things about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will make them come true. In an eight-page For Official Use Only (FOUO) memo to its public affairs offices, the Air Force gives detailed instructions on how to say only nice things about the troubled weapons system.
The estimated price tag of the 14-year-old Joint Strike Fighter program now tops $1.5 trillion. The Air Force, a service that has trouble keeping track of the cost of its new weapons systems, is pushing the fighter as a weapon designed for the “entire battle space.” The problems with the fighter are mounting, well beyond the battle space.
This is the space where it gets the most help.
A recent RAND corporation study found the fundamentals of the F-35 design to be “double inferior to Chinese and Russian designs.” Other comments from the RAND study include: “Inferior acceleration, inferior climb, inferior sustained turn capability. Also has lower top speed.” Earlier in 2015, the F-35 lost a dogfight to the F-16, a jet from the 1970s. If that wasn’t enough, the Air Force and Lockheed only just recently figured out what kept causing their engines to ignite on takeoff. Finally, the Air Force is taking a lot of flak (see what I did there?) from Congress and a community of military members who support the A-10 Thunderbolt II (aka the Warthog). In an effort to put billions toward the F-35, the Air Force is trying to forcefully retire the A-10’s close air support mission in favor of the new stealth fighter, even though the F-35’s gun won’t fire until 2019.
The Air Force Public Affairs Agency’s communications theme is “Lethal, Survivable, and Adaptive.” Lethal is a strange choice for an airframe whose weapons won’t be operational for another four years. Survivable is good to know if you’re piloting a plane whose engine is known to ignite. Adaptive is good for cost sharing with Coalition partners, because all of this stuff is really expensive.
Pictured: a $300 Million Bonfire
It’s so expensive that in July of this year, the USAF released a 20-year strategic forecast titled “America’s Air Force: A Call to the Future,” which calls for an end to big-ticket programs like the F-35. That report says it’s no longer possible to build a strategy advantage with large, expensive programs that take years to complete. Yet Lockheed and the U.S. military hope to produce 2,400 of the F-35s over 20 years.
The public affairs memo coaches public affairs officers how to address other questions, like the fighter’s $400,000 helmet, the advanced technology the U.S. is sharing with 11 countries, or the fact that the F-35 is bad at long range power projection.
After addressing concerns about the F-35, the Air Force believes it will see “U.S. opinion leaders, the American public and international partners are reassured and have confidence in the capability and can articulate why the F-35 is required for national defense.”
Are you reassured yet, American public?
USAF Public Affairs: Puttin’ out fires left and right
A German-born rapper who traded in the life of a MC for a life of terror with ISIS was killed earlier this month in a U.S. airstrike in Syria, multiple news outlets reported Thursday.
The Daily Beast, citing two U.S. officials, reported that Denis Cuspert, aka Deso Dogg, was killed Oct. 17 while traveling in a car with two other people. The website reported that Cuspert was the target of the strike, though he was not considered to be a high-value member of the terror group.
Reuters, citing a U.S. official, reported that airstrike was believed to have taken place on Oct. 16. The discrepancy could not immediately be reconciled.
In February, Cuspert was formally designated as a terrorist by the State Department, a rare step against a European citizen, after he appeared in numerous grisly propaganda videos on behalf of ISIS. In one particularly gruesome video, dating from this past November, Cuspert was seen with other fighters who shot one person and beheaded another. Cuspert was not shown killing anyone, but holds the severed head and announces that the dead were enemies of ISIS.
“That’s why they’ve received the death sentence,” Cuspert announced in German on the video.
In this screengrab from a video believed to have been shot in November, Cuspert holds the severed head of a victim of ISIS (Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently)
German law enforcement and intelligence officials had long marked Cuspert out as a leader of ISIS’ German-speaking contingent.
“Denis Cuspert stands in the focus of security circles because of his essential role for Islamic State,” a German law enforcement official told FoxNews.com in February. “He is propagandist of IS.”
The son of a Ghanian father who left Cuspert’s German mother, he recorded three albums for a Berlin-based gangsta rap label, toured with American rapper DMX and scored a minor hit with “Willkommen in meiner Welt” (Welcome to my World) in 2010.
“Welcome to my world full of hate and blood,” went part of the song. “Children’s souls weep softly when the black angels sing.”
Even the dark lyrics Cuspert wrote as a rapper did not foreshadow the butchery he embraced as a member of ISIS.
According to a Vice.com report, he converted to Islam in 2010 following a near-fatal car accident. It was then that his music began advocating violent jihad.
In 2011, Berlin prosecutors charged him with illegal possession of weapons after Cuspert appeared brandishing weapons as “Abou Maleeq” in a YouTube video. A police raid on his home yielded weapons and ammunition, and although it did not result in jail time, he was squarely on the radar of German counter-terrorism investigators.
In 2012, Cuspert left Germany for Egypt, before eventually making his way to Syria where he joined Al Qaeda. When Islamic State broke away from the terror group behind 9/11, Cuspert pledged his loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“Cuspert is emblematic of the type of foreign recruit ISIL seeks for its ranks,” the State Department, using another acronym for the terror group, wrote in February, “individuals who have engaged in criminal activity in their home countries who then travel to Iraq and Syria to commit far worse crimes.”
Fox News’ Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.
While most of the things COVID-19 has brought us have been horrible, contagious, disappointing, frustrating, no good and almost overwhelmingly sad (just me? No?), one of the many silver linings has been the accessibility of entertainment. Movies like Trolls released straight to television, Ryan Seacrest hosted a family Disney sing-a-long (can you tell I have young children at home?) and museums and theaters all over the world are opening their doors for virtual shows, tours and the like.
And now (well, Sunday, April 19), you can watch one of our favorite Bond movies, GoldenEye, with none other than Bond. James Bond. (Fine, Pierce Brosnan, the fourth actor to star as 007).
Whether or not he’s your favorite Bond, you can’t say no to that face.
Put on by Esquire UK, the GoldenEye watchalong will stream live on their Facebook, Twitter and YouTube feeds this Sunday 19th April at 7pm BST (2pm ET for American viewers.) According to Esquire UK:
The 66-year-old screen icon will be taking us all behind the scenes of the spy epic, discussing his time in the tuxedo and how it felt to take up the mantle, as well as interacting with his legions of fans – which, of course, is where you come in. We need you to supply us with all the unanswered questions that have been burning away inside your brain for 25 years. Send them over to us via our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages now for a chance to get them answered by the main man himself.
The idea is simple: press play on GoldenEye (rental options are listed below) at the same moment as Pierce, and listen along to his play-by-play analysis and commentary in real-time.
The Russian military will be replacing its standard issue AK-74M rifle with the AK-12 and AK-15, according to Military Times, citing Russian state-owned media.
The “5.45mm AK-12 and 7.62mm AK-15 are officially approved and recommended by Russian Ministry of Defense for issue to Infantry, Airborne and Naval infantry troops of Russian Armed Forces,” the Russian defense manufacturer, Kalashnikov Concern, which also made the AK-47 and AK-74M, said in a press statement in January 2018.
The AK-12 and AK-15 have 30-round magazines and can shoot 700 rounds per minute, the Kalashnikov statement said. They’re also equipped with “red dot, night and IR sights to underbarrel grenade launchers, forward grips, lasers and flashlights, sound suppressors and more.”
The two new weapons will be part of Russia’s “Ratnik” program, a futuristic combat system that includes modernized body armor, a helmet with night vision and thermal imaging, and more.
The first-generation Ratnik suit was reportedly given to a few Russian units in 2013, and some pieces of the suit were spotted on Russian troops in Crimea.
Russia claims the second-generation suit will be operational in 2020, and the third-generation suit will be operational in 2022.
See more about the AK-12 and AK-15 in the short Kalashnikov video below:
The Desert Storm portion of the 1990-1991 Gulf War lasted only 100 hours, not only because the combined land forces of the Coalition gathered against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was overwhelming and talented – it was – but it was also the contribution of two of the U.S. Navy’s biggest floating guns that drew a significant portion of Saddam’s army off the battlefield.
Shelling from the 16-inch guns of the USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin made it all possible, playing a crucial role in a conflict that would end up being their last hurrah.
Here comes the boom.
Everyone knew a ground assault on Iraqi-occupied Kuwait was coming and had been for months. The only question for the Iraqis was where it would come from. Iraqi forces had been on the receiving end of a Noah’s Ark-like deluge of bombs and missiles for the past 40 days and 40 nights. Iraq believed the Coalition would make an amphibious landing near Kuwait’s Faylaka Island, when in reality the invasion was actually going into both Iraq and Kuwait, coming from Saudi Arabia.
If the Coalition could make the Iraqis believe an amphibious invasion was coming, however, it would pull essential Iraqi fighting units away from the actual invasion and toward the Persian Gulf. It was the ultimate military rope-a-dope.
Here’s what really happened.
The best way to make Saddam believe the Marines were landing was to soften up the supposed landing zone with a naval barrage that would make D-Day look like the 4th of July. The USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin were called up to continuously bombard the alleged landing beaches – and they sure made a spectacle of it. The Iraqi troops were supposedly shocked and demoralized, surrendering to the battleships’ reconnaissance drones as they buzzed overhead, looking for more targets.
It was the first time anyone surrendered to a drone. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of another Iowa-class barrage. But the Marine landing never came. Instead, the Iraqis got a massive left hook that knocked them out of the war.
Military families can wait up to 49 weeks for burials of loved ones at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) because of the high demand for graveside ceremonies and the increasing mortality rates of older veterans, according to a Pentagon Inspector General’s report.
The system in place for scheduling and conducting burials is suited to the task, the IG’s report states, but the sheer volume of family requests routinely exceeds “the resources available on a daily basis for the conduct of burials,” including honor guards and chapel availability.
In addition, the advanced age of veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam leads to more requests for burials than can be handled on a daily basis, states the IG’s report, released in May 2019.
Delays in families’ completion of required documents, and decisions regarding the type and timing of burial service, can also add time between the request and burial, according to the report.
U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Katie Maynard salutes as a casket is lowered during a funeral ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery Oct. 24, 2013.
(DoD photo by Cpl. Mondo Lescaud, U.S. Marine Corps)
As a result, “burial services at the ANC can result in a 6- to 49-week wait from the initial contact to the conduct of the burial ceremony,” the IG’s report states.
As of September 2018, there were 3,471 burial requests in process at Arlington — 3,259 for cremation services and 212 for casketed services, according to the report.
Arlington has the capacity for 30 burials per day, but the military teams available for Full Military Funeral Honors services also have responsibilities for other ceremonies in the National Capital Region and can conduct only about eight per day at ANC, the report states.
The 59-page report examined the operations and management of ANC and the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery (SAHNC) in Washington, D.C. — the two national cemeteries in the nationwide system of military cemeteries. There are also 36 other cemeteries run by the service branches.
Arlington National Cemetery.
(DoD photo by SSG Sean K. Harp)
The report found that major reforms at Arlington had corrected the mismanagement that led to scandals over missing markers and missing remains in 2010.
As of late 2018, Arlington was the final resting place for more than 375,000 decedents and had space available for 67,000 more, the report states. The IG’s office took a random sample of 553 burials and 145 available spaces and “found no accountability errors in the records.”
At SAHNC, the burial site for more than 14,000 veterans, the report found five errors in a random sample of 290 burials and 62 available spaces.
In two cases, the names of the decedents were not on the grave marker at the corresponding location in the cemetery. In two other cases, what were coded as empty plots in the database actually contained decedents.
In the fifth case, the location of the decedent in the database did not match the location of the headstone, according to the report.
This article originally appeared on Military.com. Follow @militarydotcom on Twitter.
Marines in the Pacific carried out the first-ever, at-sea F-35B “hot reloads” in that theater, allowing the aircraft to drop back-to-back 1,000-pound bombs on a target in the middle of the Solomon Sea.
Marines from the amphibious assault ship Wasp went to war last week with the “killer tomato,” a big red inflatable target that was floating off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The Joint Strike Fighter jets left the ship armed with the 1,000-pound GBU-32 Joint Direct Attack Munition and a 500-pound GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bomb.
Once they dropped the bombs on the target, they returned to the Wasp where they reloaded, refueled and flew back out to hit the floating red blob again. It was the first-ever shipboard hot reloads in the Indo-Pacific region, according to a Marine Corps news release announcing the milestone.
Or as Chief Warrant Officer 3 Daniel Sallese put it, they showed how Marines operating in the theater can now “rain destruction like never before.”
Marines with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 (Reinforced), 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, move Joint Direct Attack Munitions and laser guided bombs during an aerial gunnery and ordnance hot-reloading exercise aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1), Solomon Sea, Aug. 4, 2019.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Dylan Hess)
“Our skilled controllers and pilots, combined with these systems, take the 31st [Marine Expeditionary Unit] to the next level,” he said in a statement. “… My ordnance team proved efficiency with these operations, and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”
The aircraft, which are assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 (Reinforced) and deployed with the MEU, also fired the GAU-22 cannon during the exercise. The four-barrel 25mm system is carried in an external pod on the Marines’ F-35 variant.
An F-35B Lightning II fighter aircraft with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 (Reinforced), 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, armed with a Joint Direct Attack Munition and a laser guided bomb, prepares to take off during an aerial gunnery and ordnance hot-reloading exercise aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Dylan Hess)
The F-35Bs weren’t the only aircraft engaging the “killer tomato” during the live-fire exercise. MV-22B Osprey aircraft and Navy MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters also fired at the mock target.
An ordnance Marine with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 (Reinforced), 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, prepares ordnance during an aerial gunnery and ordnance hot-reload exercise aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp.
(Official U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Cameron E. Parks)
The 31st MEU was the first Marine expeditionary unit to deploy with the F-35B. The aircraft has since had its first combat deployment to the Middle East, where it dropped bombs on Islamic State and Taliban militants.
This article originally appeared on Military.com. Follow @militarydotcom on Twitter.
