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 drop tanks are attached under fighters and bombers, giving them extra fuel to extend their range, but easily falling away if the plane gets in a fight and needs to prioritize agility and weight over range. The drop tanks are light, aerodynamic, empty shells when not filled with fuel, and that actually makes them a great starting point for hot rods.
And the hot rod community noticed these tanks during the Cold War, with some innovative spirits snapping them up to create tiny, fast cars. Now, these “lakesters” are quick racers that humans will cram themselves into to race across salt flats and other courses.
Many of these racers are made from World War II tanks like those used on the P-38 Lightning, the plane the F-35 Lightning II is named for. The P-38’s drop tanks were made of steel, like many of them in World War II, and its 300-gallon capacity was just big enough to allow for a motor and driver.
Getting ahold of a steel drop tank to convert was easy for a few decades after World War II, but enthusiasts now have to look harder for longer to find one of the few remaining, unconverted drop tanks.
A P-38 Lightning with its drop tanks during World War II.
(Public domain)
And they aren’t likely to get much help from the military. Modern militaries have often opted for more exotic materials for new drop tanks, reducing their weight and, therefore, the fuel usage of the plane. A lighter drop tank costs less fuel, and so provides more range, but the composite materials aren’t always great for racers.
It will only get worse, too. Drop tanks have a massive drawback for modern planes: They increase the plane’s radar signature while reducing the number of weapons it can carry. So the military and the aviation industry are shifting away from drop tanks, opting instead for “conformal fuel tanks.”
These are auxiliary tanks made to fit like a new, larger skin on an existing plane. They’re a little harder to install, and they can’t be jettisoned in flight, but they extend range with less drag and a much lower radar penalty. And they can be packed tighter to the body of the jet, allowing the plane to keep more of its agility than it would have with heavy tanks hanging from its wings.
Sorry, racers. Keep looking for the World War II-classics.
In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israeli Armed Forces successfully beat back a two-front invasion by Syria and Egypt. The war lasted only a few weeks, but its implications for air combat continue to reverberate — even helping make the case for ditching the iconic A-10 Warthog.
The Yom Kippur War raged from Oct. 6-25, 1973, and the Israeli forces initially suffered severe setbacks. It was a full, combined arms conflict where tanks, artillery, planes, infantrymen and air defense missiles all had their say.
But one string of events reaches forward in time from those weeks and threatens the A-10.
Israel’s air force, the Chel Ha’Avir, was able to slow and halt nearly all advances by tanks and other ground forces when it was safe to fly. But when the enemy forces stayed under the air defense umbrella, Israel’s pilots came under heavy attack.
In one instance, 55 missiles were flying at Israel’s pilots in a single, small strip of land occupied by Syrian forces.
The wreckage of an Israeli A-4 downed during the Yom Kippur War now rests in an Egyptian military museum. (Photo: Leclaire, Public Domain)
Israeli forces turned the tables with a few brilliant maneuvers. At one point, a pilot realized the enemy was firing too many missiles, so he led his men in quick passes as bait for the missileers, causing the enemy to expend all their ordnance while downing a relatively few number of planes. The survivors of this risky maneuver were then able to fly with near impunity.
On another front, artillerymen opened the way for the air force by striking the missile sites with long range guns. They moved forward of their established safe zones to do so, putting their forces at risk to save the planes above them.
Israel went on to win the war, allowing NATO and other Western militaries around the world to pat themselves on the back because their tactics and hardware defeated a coalition equipped with Soviet tactics and hardware.
But for the Chel Ha’Avir and aviation officers around the world, there was a lesson to be parsed out of the data.
Both the A-4 Skyhawk and the F-4 Phantom flew a high number of sorties against the Syrians, Egyptians and their allies. But the Skyhawk suffered a much worse rate of loss than the F-4s.
This was — at least in part — because the F-4 flew faster and higher and could escape surface-to-air missiles and radar-controlled machine guns more easily. Just a year after the A-10’s debut flight and over 3 years before it was introduced to the air fleet, the whole concept of low and slow close air support seemed dated.
An Israeli A-4 similar to those which flew in the Yom Kippur War. (Photo: Oren Rozen CC BY-SA 3.0)
The resulting argument, that low and slow CAS is too risky, is part of the argument about whether the Air Force should ditch the low-and-slow A-10 Warthog for the fast-moving, stealthy F-35 Lightning II.
Of course, not everyone agrees that the Yom Kippur War is still a proper example of the close air support debate.
First, the A-10 has spent its entire service life in the post-Yom Kippur world. While it suffered six losses against the Iraqis during Desert Storm, it has been flying against more advanced air defenses than the A-4s faced in the Yom Kippur War and remained a lethal force throughout the flight. The A-10 has never needed a safe space.
Second, while the A-10’s speed and preferred altitudes may make it more vulnerable than fast movers to ground fire, it also makes the jet more capable when firing against ground targets. To modernize the old John A. Shedd saying about ships, “A ground-attack jet at high-altitude may be safe, but that’s not what they are designed for.”
A-10s aren’t as safe as some other planes, but they save the bacon of the guys on the ground beneath them. (Photo: US Air Force)
Finally, the Yom Kippur War was a short conflict where the Chel Ha’Avir had to fly against a numerically superior enemy while that enemy was marching on its capital. This forced commanders to take additional risks, sending everything they had to slow the initial Syrian and Egyptian momentum.
The U.S. Air Force is much larger and has many more planes at its command. That means that it can field more specialized aircraft. F-35s and F-22s can support ground forces near enemy air defenses and go after missile sites and other fighters while A-10s or the proposed arsenal plane attack ground forces from behind the F-22 and F-35 shield.
This isn’t to say that the Air Force is necessarily wrong to divest out of the A-10 to bolster the F-35. The Warthog can’t stay on the battlefield forever. But if the A-10 has served its entire career in the post-Yom Kippur world, it seems like a shallow argument to say that it couldn’t possibly fight and win for another 5 or 10 years after nearly 40 successful ones.
It first entered Navy service in February, 1895, with some doubters mocking its excessive armament while Americans hoped that its speed, steel, and guns would allow it to survive while outnumbered if under heavy attack. Instead, the small but mighty USS Olympia slaughtered an enemy fleet, bombarded shores, and escorted convoys during its 27-year career.
The USS Olympia, a fast cruiser with heavy armament.
(U.S. Navy)
In the late 1800s, the U.S. Navy wrestled with what the service should do and what ships it needed for the 1900s. The battle of the Merrimack and Monitor decisively proved that wooden ships were on their way out, but the rise of steel ships showed that the iron vessels made in earnest during and after the Civil War wouldn’t survive either.
Meanwhile, sails were the efficient and cheap method of propelling a ship, but it was clear that steam gave commanders more flexibility and more options in combat.
And the Navy needed ships to secure American shores even as a constrained budgets made ship-building tough. Some presidents were already looking at using the Navy for power projection as well.
So, the Navy had to decide whether it should have lots of cheap ships, lots of coastal defenses, steam or sail power, all while keeping power projection a feasible option.
The Navy figured out a plan address all the changes and requirements: A new fleet of steel vessels that relied on steam power but still had masts for sails for long voyages when the winds were favorable. Because the U.S. couldn’t spend as much on ship hulls as potential European attackers, each ship would be heavily armed and as fast as possible.
This resulted in cruisers that could hopefully run ahead of enemy fleets, pelting the lead of the enemy ship with shot after shot while staying out of range of the rest of the enemy fleet. (Video game players do this today against powerful enemies and call it, “kiting.”)
The USS Olympia in front of a column of cruisers circa 1900.
(Francis Christian Muller)
The Olympia fit all the qualifications of the new naval plan. It could steam at over 21 knots while most of its potential enemies topped out at 18. It had four 8-inch guns, two in a single turret forward and two in a turret aft. These big guns were the primary armament, but the ship also had ten 5-inch guns. A few years after launch, it also got Gatling guns and sidearms for potential boarding parties.
Some naval observers around the world critiqued the design, saying that it was either an overarmed cruiser or a too-tiny battleship. But these heavily armed cruisers were designed for their own mission, and they could outrun attackers while picking them off with their larger guns.
The defensive war Olympia was ostensibly designed for never came, though. Instead, it was sent to the Pacific where it became the flagship of Commodore George Dewey before the USS Maine, a larger and even better armed ship, blew up in Havana Harbor. While the explosion was later found to have likely been caused by an ammo handling accident or an overheated bulkhead that touched gunpowder stores, the U.S. blamed it on a Spanish attack at the time.
In response to the Maine’s destruction, Dewey and his squadron were sent to Manila Bay to attack the Spanish fleet there. The hope was that the ships, protected by steel and heavily armed, could rush past the guns of the Spanish coastal defenses and engage the Spanish fleet with the large guns.
The USS Olympia leads the attack against the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila.
But the rest of the fleet held its fire until Dewey saw the fleet, crept in range, and got the angles right. Spanish rounds were raining against the steel hulls of the American ships, and gunners crouched behind the paltry armor and prayed for safety until Dewey, on the Olympia, calmly told the ship’s captain, “You may fire when ready, Mr. Gridley.”
The American fleet opened up and slaughtered the decrepit Spanish fleet, sinking all vessels and capturing the port in mere hours. America now owned the capital of the Philippines and would get the islands in the peace treaty that came later. Nine Americans had been wounded while the fleet had killed 161 Spanish fighters and wounded 210.
The Olympia and Dewey became famous, and the ship went on to serve in World War I as a convoy escort. And, in 1918, Olympia bombarded the shore during an amphibious assault at Murmansk in the Russian Civil War.
But the era of the Dreadnought had come, and in the years following World War I, it became clear that the Olympia was no longer enough ship to compete with enemy combatants. And America, flush with prestige after World War I and possessing overseas colonies from the Spanish-American War, had the money to build a larger, more powerful fleet.
In 1922, Olympia was decommissioned, and the hull was slated for the scrap heap, but activists pushed for the ship to be turned into a museum. It took decades of wrangling before Philadelphia donors got the money to return Olympia to the 1898 configuration and moored the ship in the city’s waterfront in 1958.
Since then, the ship has hosted visitors who wanted to walk the weathered boards of its deck or see the steam engines that made its speed possible. The Flagship Olympia Foundation is trying to raise the money necessary to dry dock and overhaul the ship. It’s already been on the water since 1892, and could have decades more in it after repairs.
Death’s flag is the flag flying above Old Glory when the nation is in mourning. No, you can’t see it, but at least you’re thinking about it, and that’s the whole point of the American flag being at half mast.
The tradition dates back to the 1612, when the British ship Heart’s Ease arrived in Canada with her captain dead. When it next arrived in London, its Union Jack was at half mast, making room for the invisible flag of death.
This is is what it might have looked like, if the Royal Navy of the 1600s had destroyers and such.
The U.S. Navy first observed the custom in 1799 to mark the death of George Washington. The Navy Department ordered U.S. Navy ships to “wear their colours half mast high.” The country would follow suit after that, but no guidelines were given for when and for whom it was appropriate.
Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 7 of the United States Code outlines strict guidelines for flying the U.S. flag, and for lowering it, depending on who died. All Presidents are remembered for thirty days while the current Vice-President, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Speaker of the House get ten days. The Department of Veterans Affairs has a handy quick reference page for flying the flag at half mast, adding “The flag should be briskly run up to the top of the staff before being lowered slowly to the half-staff position.”
President Eisenhower declared structure for lowering the flag in 1954. the President can order the flag lowered to mourn the deaths of other officials and foreign dignitaries as well as to mark tragic events in the history of a nation. And no, President Obama did not order the flag at half mast for Whitney Houston.
Whitney, we hardly knew ye . . .
The flag was lowered nationally for Pope John Paul II, Neil Armstrong, Rosa Parks, Winston Churchill, Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin and Nelson Mandela. It was also lowered to mourn the shootings in Virginia Tech, Newtown, Conn., and Charleston, as well as for the Boston Marathon Bombing and the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004.
Governors of the states, territories, and the Mayor of Washington, D.C. also have the authority to lower the flags in areas under their jurisdiction.
If you can’t lower you flag because its in a fixed position on the pole, the American Legion advises you to put a black ribbon to the top of the pole.
Ronny Jackson, the White House physician nominated by President Donald Trump to run the US Department of Veterans Affairs, withdrew his name from consideration for the role on April 26, 2018.
“Unfortunately, because of how Washington works, these false allegations have become a distraction for this president and the important issue we must be addressing — how we give the best care to our nation’s heroes,” Jackson said in a statement.
Jackson found himself in the middle of a runaway scandal this week as multiple accusations of workplace misconduct emerged. Among the claims, which Senate lawmakers were working to verify, Jackson was accused of professional misconduct, including providing “a large supply” of prescription opioids to a White House military officer.
Trump came to Jackson’s defense in an interview with “Fox & Friends” on April 26, 2018, saying, “These are false accusations. These are false— They’re trying to destroy a man.”
Trump also said Jackson had an “unblemished” record.
President Donald Trump
(Photo by Michael Vadon)
Jackson met with White House officials on April 25, 2018. As he left, Jackson told reporters, “Look forward to talking to you guys in the next few days,” a CNN White House reporter said. The White House later said the decision on whether to withdraw was Jackson’s to make.
Even before the recent allegations, Jackson was already under scrutiny over his qualifications to run the VA, the second-largest federal agency in the US. The management experience required for the role far exceeds what Jackson has previously undertaken. As the White House physician, Jackson led a medical staff of about two dozen people. The VA is a deeply troubled agency with 375,000 employees.
“It’s like having your Uber driver park the space shuttle,” Messina said.
Montel Williams, the former TV talk-show host and a US Marine and US Navy veteran, urged Jackson to withdraw. “This is too much, and Donald never should have put him through this on an impulse,” Williams said on Twitter.
The most recent VA secretary, David Shulkin, left the agency in March 2018, amid a scandal of his own.
Separately, the misconduct allegations against Jackson have opened up the Trump administration to new criticism over the process by which it vets appointees. Tobe Berkovitz, a political communications expert at Boston University, told The Hill: “It’s one more bit of proof, as if any were needed, that the Trump White House are not exactly the best vetters in the world when it comes to any kind of position.”
Here’s Jackson’s full statement on withdrawing his name:
One of the greatest honors in my life has been to serve this country as a physician both on the battlefield with United States Marines and as proud member of the United States Navy.
It has been my distinct honor and privilege to work at the White House and serve three Presidents.
Going into this process, I expected tough questions about how to best care for our veterans, but I did not expect to have to dignify baseless and anonymous attacks on my character and integrity.
The allegations against me are completely false and fabricated. If they had any merit, I would not have been selected, promoted and entrusted to serve in such a sensitive and important role as physician to three presidents over the past 12 years.
In my role as a doctor, I have tirelessly worked to provide excellent care for all my patients. In doing so, I have always adhered to the highest ethical standards.
Unfortunately, because of how Washington works, these false allegations have become a distraction for this President and the important issue we must be addressing – how we give the best care to our nation’s heroes.
While I will forever be grateful for the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me by giving me this opportunity, I am regretfully withdrawing my nomination to be Secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
I am proud of my service to the country and will always be committed to the brave veterans who volunteer to defend our freedoms.
This article originally appeared on Business Insider. Follow @BusinessInsider on Twitter.
As the U.S. starts to forward-deploy more of its F-35 Lightning, China and Russia have been putting the finishing touches on their own batches of fifth-generation aircraft — and they all express vastly different ideas about what the future of air combat will look like.
For the U.S., stealth and sophisticated networks define its vision for the future of air combat with the F-22 and F-35.
For China, the plan is to use range to take out high-value targets with the J-20.
For Russia, the PAK-FA shows that it seems to think dogfighting isn’t dead.
Here’s how the F-35 stacks up to the competition.
The F-35 Lightning II
An F-35B begins its short takeoff from the USS America with an external weapons load. (Photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin)
The U.S.’s F-35 isn’t an airplane — it’s three airplanes.
And it isn’t a fighter — it’s “flying sensor-shooters that have the ability to act as information nodes in a combat cloud universe made up of platforms, not just airborne, but also operating at sea and on land that can be networked together,” retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula told Defense Aerospace Report in November.
In a discussion with four F-35 pilots that was also produced by Defense Aerospace Report, a clear consensus emerged: The difference between an F-35 and an F-15 is like the difference between an iPhone and a corded wall phone. Phones of the past might have had crystal-clear call quality and the ability to conference call, but the iPhone brought with it unprecedented networking and computing capability that has changed life as we know it.
Lt. Col. David “Chip” Berke, a former F-35 squadron commander, told Business Insider that “we don’t even know 50-80% of what this airplane can do,” as it’s awaiting final software upgrades and pilots are finding new ways to use the data link and fused sensors.
That said, the F-35 doesn’t offer any significant upgrades in range, weapons payload, or dogfighting ability over legacy aircraft, while its competition does.
The Chengdu J-20
Flypast of the Chengdu J-20 during the opening of Airshow China in Zhuhai. (Photo courtesy of wiki user Alert5)
China’s Chengdu J-20 has one thing in common with the F-35 — it’s not a fighter.
Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Business Insider that the J-20 is “not a fighter, but an interceptor and a strike aircraft” that doesn’t seek to contend with U.S. jets in air-to-air battles.
Instead, “the Chinese are recognizing they can attack critical airborne support systems like AWACS” — airborne early-warning and control systems — “and refueling planes so they can’t do their job,” Davis said. “If you can force the tankers back, then the F-35s and other platforms aren’t sufficient because they can’t reach their target.”
On the J-20’s stealth, a senior U.S. low-observable-aircraft design engineer working in the industry told Business Insider that “the J-20 has many features copied from U.S. fifth-gen aircraft; however, it’s apparent from looking at many pictures of the aircraft that the designers don’t fully understand all the concepts of LO” — low-observable, or stealth — “design.”
The real danger of China’s J-20 lies not with its ability to fight against U.S. fighters, but with its laserlike focus on destroying the slower, unarmed planes that support U.S. fighters with its long range and long-range missiles, thereby keeping them out of fighting range.
The J-31
Shenyang J-31 (F60) at the 2014 Zhuhai Air Show. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
China’s J-31 looks a lot like the F-35, and one Chinese national has pleaded guilty to stealing confidential information about the F-35 program.
That said, the J-31 suffers from China’s inferior composite-materials technology and its inability to build planes in the precise way a stealth airplane needs to be built. Additionally, there’s reason to suspect the avionics in the Chinese programs significantly lag the F-35.
But the J-31, like the J-20, still poses a significant threat because China has developed long-range missiles, which combined with their ground-based radars and radar sites in the South China Sea could potentially pick off U.S. stealth aircraft before the F-35s and F-22s could fire back.
Davis told Business Insider that the J-31 doesn’t just seek to compete with the U.S. militarily, but that the J-31 “very clearly is an F-35 competitor in a commercial sense.” Nations that weren’t invited to participate in the F-35 program may seek to buy China’s cheaper and somewhat comparable J-31.
A fleet of J-31s in the hands of Iran, for example, could pose a serious threat to U.S. interests abroad.
The PAK-FA/T-50
The PAK-FA/T-50. (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)
Russia’s PAK-FA, also known as the T-50, has been criticized as being fifth-generation “in name only,” but as Russia proves time and time again, it doesn’t need the best and most expensive technology to pose a real threat to U.S. aircraft.
The PAK-FA’s greatest failure is in the stealth arena. While the PAK-FA has some stealth from the front angle, “it’s a dirty aircraft,” said a person who helps build stealth aircraft, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the work.
But stealth represents just one aspect of air combat, and the Russians have considerable counterstealth technologies. So while the PAK-FA fails to deliver the stealth or total networking capacity of the F-35, it is a fighter — and a damn good one.
The U.S.’s F-22 has 2D thrust-vectoring nozzles at the engines and is the most agile plane the U.S. has ever built. The PAK-FA has 3D thrust-vectoring nozzles and is even more agile.
Additionally, the PAK-FA can be armed to the teeth with infrared missiles that focus on heat and ignore the U.S.’s stealth. So while the U.S.’s fifth generation hinges on controlling the battle from range and at the jump-off point, Russia’s PAK-FA seems to focus on close-up fights, which the designers of the F-35 didn’t concentrate on.
Conclusion
The first F-35 to arrive at the 33rd Fighter Wing was on display during the aircraft’s official rollout ceremony on August 26 at Eglin Air Force Base. (The first F-35 to arrive at the 33rd Fighter Wing was on display during the aircraft’s official rollout ceremony on August 26 at Eglin Air Force Base. (U.S. Air Force photo by Samuel King Jr.)
China and Russia have both shown the world something new in their fifth-generation aircraft. No longer will these rising powers look to advance the capabilities they currently have — they will actively seek to enter new areas of aerial combat.
Both Russian and Chinese entries seem to focus on key weak points in the U.S.’s force structure by using specialized aircraft.
But the U.S. doesn’t specialize. The F-35 does everything well and seeks the informational high ground with massive computing power, all-aspect stealth, and the ability to network with almost every set of eyes and ears in the U.S. military.
The F-35 has limited range and ability for close combat, but unlike the Chinese and Russian fifth-gens that try to score kills on their own, the F-35 plays like a quarterback, sending targeting information to any platform available.
As the F-35 software develops, pilots will be free to take on more demanding missions, but China’s and Russia’s fifth-gens will still be confined to relatively narrow ones.
The United States wasn’t the most dominant country on Earth from the get-go. For most of our nearly 243-year history, in fact, we lived by the skin of our teeth. It’s a relatively recent development where some other country can call out for the blood of Americans to fill the streets, and we at home barely seem to notice. That’s the chief benefit of U.S. military. In the olden days, someone threatening the United States might have actually had a chance.
Those days are gone.
This list is about more than just how many Americans an enemy could kill. This is about being able to really take down the United States at a time when we weren’t able to topple the enemy government or wipe out their infrastructure without missing a single episode of The Bachelor.
If Wal-Mart sold armies, they would sell ISIS.
Terrorists
Radical terrorism is nothing new. Just like insurgent groups, extremists, and jihadis attacking Americans in the name of their gods, other militants have been picking at the U.S. for centuries. ISIS and al-Qaeda are just the latest flash in the pan. Anarchists, organized labor, and other saboteurs were bombing American facilities well before Osama bin Laden thought of it. The U.S. Marine Corps even established its reputation by walking 500 miles through the North African desert just to rescue hostages and kill terrorists… in 1805.
What terrorists have been able to do is force tough changes in defense and foreign policy – but as an existential threat, the Macarena captured more Americans than global terrorism ever will.
Maybe the state should buy fewer guns and more food, comrade.
The Soviet Union
The Cold War was a hot war, we all know that by now. It had the potential to kill millions of people worldwide and throw the American system into total disarray. It definitely had potential. Unfortunately, they were much better at killing their own people than killing Americans. In the end, their deadliest weapon was food shortages, which they used to great effect… on the Soviet Union.
But thanks for all the cool 1980s movie villains.
When the only southern border wall was one made of gunpowder smoke.
Mexico
It may surprise you all to see Mexico ranked higher on this list than our primary Cold War adversary, but before the United States could take on pretty much the rest of the world in a war, a threat from Mexico carried some heft. Until James K. Polk came to office.
Even though the Mexican-American War was a pretty lopsided victory for the United States, it was hard-won. More than 16 percent of the Americans who joined to fight it never came home. And imagine if the U.S. had lost to Mexico – California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Texas, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming could still be Mexican today.
Good luck with whatever is happening here.
China
The 19th Century and the first part of the 20th Century didn’t look good for China, but they sure managed to turn things around. While, like their Soviet counterparts, the Chinese were (and still are) better at killing Chinese people than Americans, they sure had their share of fun at our expense. The Chinese fueled the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, and the ongoing struggle with Taiwan and they continue their current military buildup to be able to face threats from the U.S.
While not an existential threat right now, China could very well be one day.
The old “cowboys and indians” movies leave out the relentless slaughter.
Native Americans
At a time when our nation’s growth and survival demanded it stretch from sea to shining sea, the principal stumbling block was that there were many, many other nations already taking that space between the U.S. east coast and west coast. Predictably, the Native American tribes fought back, making the American frontier manifest much more than destiny, it manifested death and destruction.
While the native tribes had very little chance of conquering the young United States, the Indians were key allies for those who could and for many decades, did keep the two parts of the U.S. separated by a massive, natural border.
Why we can’t have nice things.
Great Britain
The United States would be very, very difficult to invade, sure, but what if your armed forces were already on American soil and all you had to do was just keep those colonists from revolting while still paying their taxes? The only way anyone could ever have killed off the fledgling United States would be to kill it in its cradle and the British came very, very close. And just a few years later, they would have another opportunity.
In round two, British and Canadian forces burned down the White House and have been the envy of every American enemy ever since.
Don’t start what you can’t finish.
Japan
Japan had the might and the means to be able to take down the United States. Their only problem was poor planning and even worse execution. The problem started long before Pearl Harbor. Japanese hubris after beating Russia and China one after the other turned them into a monster – a slow, dumb monster that had trouble communicating. Japan’s head was so far up its own ass with its warrior culture that they became enamored with the process of being a warrior, rather than focusing on the prize: finishing the war it started.
No one likes to see this.
Germany
There’s a reason the Nazis are America’s number one movie and TV-show enemy. The Germans were not only big and bad on paper; they were even worse in real life. Even though the World War I Germany was vastly different from the genocidal, meth-addled master race bent on world domination, in 1916, it sure didn’t seem that way. But the threat didn’t stop with the Treaty of Versailles.
The interwar years were just as dangerous for the United States. The Great Depression hit the U.S. as hard as anyone else. Pro-Hitler agitators and American Nazi groups weren’t just a product of German immigrants or Nazi intelligence agencies – some Americans really believed National Socialism was the way forward. Even after the end of World War II, East Germans were still trying to kill Americans.
Other Americans
After all, who fights harder or better than an American?
Like many countries before the United States and many countries since no one is better at killing us than ourselves. But this isn’t in the same way the governments of China, the Soviet Union, and countless others decide to systematically kill scores of their own citizens. No, the closest the United States ever came to departing this world was when Americans decided to start fighting Americans.
The Russian maker of the AK-47 unveiled a new rifle on Aug. 20, 2018, called the AK-308, which it is expected to demonstrate at the Army-2018 Forum on Aug. 21, 2018.
“The weapon is based on the AK103 submachine gun for the cartridge 7.62×51 mm with elements and components of the AK-12 automatic machine,” Kalashnikov Concern said in a press statement on Aug. 20, 2018.
“At the moment, preparations are under way for preliminary testing of weapons,” Kalashnikov added.
The AK-308 weighs about 9 1/2 pounds with an empty 20-round magazine, Kalashnikov said. The gun also has a dioptric sight and foldable stock.
At this point, it’s unclear whether the Russian military will field the new AK-308, but it certainly seems like a possibility.
The AK-74M fires a 5.45×39 mm round, has a 30-round magazine, and weighs about 8.6 pounds when fully loaded.
On the other hand, the AK-12 shoots a 5.45×39 mm caliber round, and the AK-15 shoots a 7.62×39 mm round, according to Kalashnikov. Each of those two weapons with an empty 30-round magazine weigh about 7.7 pounds.
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Yes, they learn the basics in Boot Camp and Basic Training. Yes, they’ll acquire a general understanding of their MOS while in advanced training. But that’s just it — bare-minimum knowledge. Don’t expect those under your command to be experts in everything straight out the gate. After all, if someone doesn’t know or understand a specific task relevant to their career, there’s no one to blame but you.
This is the idea behind “hip-pocket training.” Sometime throughout the day, an NCO should give a class on a specific topic. No PowerPoint slides copied from someone else, no reading from a book — the NCO should be the subject matter expert in whatever they’re teaching. If not, there’s no shame in asking someone else who is to “assist” in training.
7. Weapons familiarity
Every grunt and every POG should know how to properly use their weapon system, not just “pull this here, it goes bang, and that thing over there drops.” They should know every inch of their weapon. What every piece does and how it works with other pieces. Troops should know how to properly maintain it and what to do if a malfunction occurs. There’s plenty more you can do other than dime drills.
If you don’t know what a dime drill is: lay in the prone position with a rifle and have someone place either a washer or a dime at the end of the barrel. The objective it to practice pulling the trigger without jerking the weapon to the left or right, but steadily enough to keep a constant grouping of shots.
Just as there are countless classes you can host on weapons training, there are countless you can teach on medical. How to treat and dress combat injuries, how to respond to casualties of various weather conditions (hot weather, cold weather, etc.), and how to prepare a troop to properly hand off the injured to professionals — these are all life-saving skills. They don’t need to be field surgeons, but there’s no excuse for not knowing how to bring someone to proper care.
One such class could be on how to properly extract a casualty under fire. For maximum effect, train as you fight — in gear. Practice all means available, from over the shoulder carries to drags. If even the smallest person in your team can find suitable means of extracting the largest person, you’re golden.
While the average troop may not need to touch a radio, if the worst comes to worst, they’ll need to know. Troops who can properly use a radio and not talk on it like it’s a freaking cellphone are invaluable on the battlefield. Teach the basics of setting up a radio, proper etiquette while talking, and the common requests, like calling for fire or a nine-line MEDEVAC.
If the radio operator can’t get on the hand-mic or is injured, someone else will need to operate it. The Medical Evacuation will need to know the most important five things before they can set out. They are: The location of the injured, the frequency to reach the radio operator, the precedence and number of the injured, if any special equipment is needed, and number of patients who need a litter or can walk. The mnemonic device most commonly used to remember this is, “Low Flying Pilots Eat Nachos.”
The best part about wilderness survival training is that, by definition, it’s supposed to be about not having the proper tools. Whether you train the troop in how to survive outside in a desert or how to survive the backwoods of your military installation, these are tips that can also be applied off-duty when civilians ask to go camping.
A quick and easy skill to learn is how to build a debris hut. You could use a poncho, but you can make a basic structure with just three sturdy sticks as a base and some branches for insulation.
Above all, the troop must know the skills required by their specific MOS. But, as what everyone who has ever deployed can tell you, you’ll always do more. Even if you believe that you and your troops have the most cushioned position in the safest place, they should know their battle drills. Specifically, Battle Drill 2: react to contact.
BD2 is the breakdown of what you should do after an enemy engages you. Immediately — before they have time to think — troops should be able to identify what makes great cover from wherever the enemy is. It should be second nature that they should stack on a concrete wall and await the next orders. The rest of BD2 falls on the leader’s shoulders.
Continuing on the theme of “things you weren’t trained to do but do anyways,” we have: other people’s tasks. Your troops should be self-reliant to the point that they don’t need the people from the other platoon to hold their hands through everything. A great way to do this is to find another NCO from another section and make a deal. You help teach their troops this time, they help you teach next time.
This doesn’t have to be between the squad or platoon levels. If you have a buddy in another battalion or brigade who has a wildly different MOS from you, ask them to help break the monotony of daily training. Everyone has something to offer. Even if they’re grunts and you’re far from it, you can still pick up a few things here and there.
Troops need to know the shoulders of the giants upon which they stand. Every military installation has names of great troops, famous battles, and historic locations written on nearly every building and street. If you’re a 101st Airborne soldier stationed at Fort Campbell, you should be able to give details on the significance behind the name “Market Garden Road” whenever you run it in the morning.
The Space Marines of Warhammer 40,000 are some of the most beloved, fictionalized versions of our beloved, real-life Marine Corps. Whether it’s the hyper-masculinity or the gratuitous violence dispensed against the Chaos-worshiping heretics, WH40K’s Space Marines are a logical place to start when imagining how our Marines might fare 37,982 years from now.
That being said, it’s easy to see the bright side of dropping onto a planet bringing nothing but a Storm Bolter and unbridled fury against the enemies of mankind. No one ever imagines the all of the bullsh*t details that would inevitably happen in the Adeptus Astartes.
Just because you were perfectly fit at 18 years old doesn’t mean you can charge into battle perfectly fine at 87.
(Games Workshop)
Physical Training
Keeping your Emperor-like body in peak condition takes plenty of work. After all, that 350+ lbs armor isn’t going to carry itself.
It’s kind of understood that Space Marines undergo rigorous training before they earn their futuristic equivalent of The Eagle, Globe, and Anchor — which is an organ from one the Emperor’s clones. As much of an edge as that would give a Space Marine over their purely human counterparts, they still need to do an insane amount of sustainment training.
“And remember, if you or your battle buddy feels like committing heresy, my office is always available.”
(Games Workshop)
Safety Briefs
Space Marines are also supposedly hyper-intelligent warriors who are bred for battle. It can be assumed they wouldn’t be grilled on the exact means of how they’re going to fight. Thankfully, they wouldn’t deal with “pre-drop” safety briefs.
What they would deal with is countless classes on why they shouldn’t desert or turn to chaos. Even if they’re the most devout Chaplain, they’d have to hear the same PowerPoint slide on why heresy is bad every weekend.
If you’re going to model yourself after intergalactic vikings, you have to drink like intergalactic vikings.
(Games Workshop)
Alcohol-related incidents
Remember those Emperor-cloned organs we mentioned? Apparently, one is implanted to purify any toxins from Space Marines’ system. For it to work, a Space Marine must manually activate their liver. This would come in handy because, apparently, the alcohol in the Warhammer Universe is insanely strong.
One could only imagine the parties that are thrown in a Space Marine barracks after a glorious battle…
Don’t even get me started on how much of a pain in the ass it would be to clean out all the xeno blood from a chainsword.
(Games Workshop)
Weapons maintenance
No matter what kind of future tech you’re using, if you’re constantly training with weapons, you’re going to have to clean them.
No matter how much the Space Marine cleanses, purges, and kills with their weapon, they still run the risk of hurting themselves (a one-in-six chance, to be precise) if they don’t keep things clean.
Go ahead: Guess which one is the officer. Take as much time as you need.
(Games Workshop)
Morale is entirely based off a unit’s leader
It doesn’t matter how devout a Space Marine is, how many battles they’ve fought, or how many comrades they lost, Space Marines still run the chance of defecting every turn fight because of low morale.
The only way to counter this is to have a good leader. But, since Space Marines leaders have never heard the term “sniper check,” it’s easy to pick them off and ruin a squad.
The Air Force is determining how best to move forward with the Defense Department’s new hazing and misconduct policy, aiming to follow guidelines while still keeping some traditions associated with the practice of “tacking-on” rank or insignia during promotion ceremonies, the top enlisted leader of the Air Force said Feb. 22, 2018.
The policy, released early February 2018, includes a definition of hazing that explicitly encompasses “pinning” or “tacking-on” during promotions.
“We want to be able to provide our senior leaders out in the field the right guidance on what they should do in lieu of these promotion ceremonies, which we have every month,” said Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright. Wright sat down with Military.com during the Air Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium here.
Wright said he knows there will be pushback from airmen on “the cultural birthright” to pin on new stripes, and while the Air Force-specific policy is still being crafted, the message is “clear-cut.”
“We need to make sure that we really understand the department’s intent exactly,” he said. But “I don’t think [the Air Force] will straddle the middle” between the guidance and the pin-on practice.
A 35th Fighter Wing Airman promotes at Misawa Air Base, Japan, June 30, 2017. Promotion ceremonies are held to officially acknowledge Airmen gaining their next level in rank. (Air Force photo by Brittany A. Chase)
While the term “pinning” or “tacking-on” may evoke the infamous tradition of pounding new rank into an airman’s chest hard enough to break the skin, the term also encompasses less extreme physical actions, such as an “atta-boy” nudge or other physical gestures of congratulation. In unofficial capacities, however, more dramatic hazing and abusive behavior may still persist.
“We’ll be in line with the DoD policy, again, we just have to figure out what it means, and exactly what we want to articulate to commanders in the field,” Wright said.
He said the guidance language is there for a reason.
“I hate to say and believe tacking and pinning ceremonies that we do in the Air Force were collateral damage, but this was probably aimed at some of the tacking and pinning and hazing that’s done, not just in a formal promotion ceremony in front of a crowd of people, but … in Special Operations or some other career field, some other specialty where you’ve achieved something significant and go through some ritual to culminate that process,” Wright said.
Tolerance of hazing has never been the Air Force’s message, he said. Leaders have tried to tackle various ceremonial issues that, for one reason or another, have gotten out of hand.
“I’ve worked for commanders who’ve decided, ‘Hey this is too much, so let’s stop doing that,’ ” Wright said, without specifying any incidents.
Whatever comes next for airmen, he said it’s always been about achieving a milestone in their careers.
“Airmen get excited for a day or two, then they move on, and realize that, ‘Man, I’m just thankful to get promoted, my family was able to be there, so if I don’t get the biggest guy in the world to knock me off the stage, then no problem,’ ” he said.
The Pentagon on Feb. 8, 2018, put forth a new policy — DoD Instruction 1020.03 Harassment Prevention And Response in the Armed Forces — aimed to deter misconduct and harassment among service members. The policy reaffirmed the Defense Department does not tolerate any kind of harassment by any service member, either in person or online.
Master Sgt. Tanya Hubbard, 60th Medical Group, left, and Staff Sgt. Roberto Davila, 60th Medical Group, right, tack staff sergeant stripes on to Spencer Stone, 60th Medical Operations Squadron medical technician during a promotion ceremony at Travis Air Force Base, California, Oct. 30, 2015. (U.S. Air Force photo by Ken Wright)
The guidance went into effect immediately, outlining the department’s definitions of what is considered harassment. However, each service — Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps — is in charge of planning its implementation, outlining steps and milestones in order to comply with the instruction, which supersedes any past anti-harassment policies.
Among activities that specifically define hazing are oral or written berating for the purposes of humiliation, “any form of initiation or congratulatory act” that includes striking or threatening to strike someone; encouraging someone to engage in “illegal, harmful, demeaning, or dangerous” activities; breaking the skin, as with rank insignia or badges in “pinning” rituals; branding, tattooing, shaving or painting someone; and forcing someone to consume food, water, or any other substance.
“Service members may be responsible for an act of hazing even if there was actual or implied consent from the victim and regardless of the grade or rank, status, or service of the victim” in either official or unofficial functions or settings, the policy continues.
Upon the policy’s debut, some airmen and Air Force veterans took to the popular Facebook group Air Force Amn/nco/snco to criticize the policy’s ban on the “tacking-on” tradition.
“It’s an honor to be tacked on!” wrote one former airman.
“This is why we should halt all Wing level promotion ceremonies and give the role back to the squadron to address promotions how they see fit for morale and unit bonding,” wrote another.
Others questioned what other policies will erode practices over time. “What little heritage and traditions we had… they’re gone now… no wonder the morale is at an all-time low,” wrote a retired airman.
Wright did not specify when the Air Force plans to present its own guidelines.
“We will have to convene, next time I sit down with the boss [Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein] … [to determine] where we want to go,” he said.
Additionally, the Pentagon will receive a first-of-its-kind report on hazing in the ranks, tracking data and victim reports in order to better standardize reporting information and case collection. Services need to meet that report deadline by Dec. 1, 2018.
The Trump administration plans to demand that US allies pay the full cost for hosting American troops, plus 50% more for the privilege of hosting them, Bloomberg News reported March 8, 2019, citing a dozen administration officials and people it said had been briefed on the situation.
The plan targets allies such as Germany and Japan but is expected to extend to any country that hosts US military personnel. With the so-called “Cost Plus 50” plan, some countries could wind up paying as much as six times what they pay now to host US troops.
In January 2019, South Korea agreed to pay just shy of id=”listicle-2631065522″ billion, significantly more than the previous 0 million, to host US troops in country. Bloomberg reports that President Donald Trump demanded “cost plus 50” in recent payment negotiations with South Korea and that it nearly derailed talks.
Trump has long railed against allies for not paying what he considers their fair share for US defense.
“We defend Japan. We defend Germany. We defend South Korea. We defend countries. They do not pay us what they should be paying us,” he said during the first presidential debate in September 2016. “We are providing a tremendous service, and we’re losing a fortune.”
President Donal Trump.
(Photo by Gage Skidmore)
“Wealthy, wealthy countries that we’re protecting are all under notice,” the president said at the Pentagon in January 2019. “We cannot be fools for others.”
Since he took office, he has repeatedly pressed NATO countries to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense as some countries pledged to do by 2024.
The Cost Plus 50 plan, according to Bloomberg, has alarmed both the State Department and the Defense Department, with rising concern that such a move could weaken the alliances at a time when the US is again facing great-power competition from rivals like China and Russia.
Countries such as Japan and Germany are already becoming increasingly resistant to the presence of the US military within their borders, and there are concerns that demands for larger payments could make the host countries even more hostile to the idea of hosting US troops.
“Getting allies to increase their investment in our collective defense and ensure fairer burden-sharing has been a long-standing US goal,” the National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis told Bloomberg. “The administration is committed to getting the best deal for the American people,” he added, while refusing to comment on ongoing deliberations.
It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will announce the Cost Plus 50 plan as is or lessen the steep new demands.
This article originally appeared on Business Insider. Follow @BusinessInsider on Twitter.
