Sunday, May 31, 2009

Making the Leap

This is the next part of my little series on evolution of artillery. I keep saying that I am going to hit on the 75mm next post, but I keep remembering the stuff I need to hit on earlier. This post is no different. Another part of the build up to the 75mm gun and its brethren, I am going to hit on the driving factors behind the development of this gun.

One of the biggest driving points behind many weapons is something called doctrine. A military doctrine is simply a standardized guide to how that military is supposed to fight. Does it focus on infantry, artillery or cavalry? Does it combine them? How fast does it expect a war to be fought? Guerrilla or conventional? Heavy or light? Both? And so on. Once you have an idea on how you want to fight you are supposed to figure out if you can actually fight like that, and then build weapons to support your endstatement. Note the use of the word "supposed", this is not always the case. In the 1890s/1900s the worlds militaries were really running into a frightening situation of technology outpacing their understanding of how it effected their doctrines and some did not study how they wanted to fight, but declared how it was going to happen and then designed weapons to support it, evidence or not. The 75mm gun was a product of this thinking.

Numerous technological advancements had occurred that were drastically changing artillery technology. Better materials such as steel alloys, chemical propellents, and hydralic systems were making guns stronger and more powerful and allowing some interesting perks such as actually being able to have an effective breech-loader (i.e. you can load from the rear instead of ramming it in from the muzzle). The real question that started this ball rolling was asked by the French Army starting after the Franco-Prussian War. The French accepted that there would be another war with Germany. The question was how do we win it? Obviously their old tactics were a complete failure, especially their artillery which hit a big nerve as the French had always considered themselves the best artillerymen in the world (Napoleon was an artilleryman).

Old muzzle-loaders obtained effects by massing large numbers of guns in one location and blasting a hole in the enemy's line. This was no longer effective with the new breech and bolt action rifles which would mow down artillerymen firing Napoleon-style cannon before they could cause enough damage. Also the French felt that they had been unable to maneuver and mass guns quickly enough to be tactically decisive. So the conclusion reached was this: artillery for the next war needed to be maneuverable on the field, survivable, and could bring lots of firepower to bear quickly without having to have lots of guns (i.e. rapid firing guns).

History recognizes this theory as the "maneuver" arguement. Light guns, capable of keeping close to infantry, but having enough firepower that they can help to rapidly overpower the enemy forces without having to mass in large formations that became easy targets. This system is very decentralized and puts the decision in the hands of the infantry or cavalry commander on the spot as to how he needs the guns used. It is great if you are fighting smaller units (brigades or regiments), fighting people who have a lower tech level or are poorly trained and equipped. It breaks down in large scale operations against opponents of equal ability. The key to victory is being able to mass your effects in the location it is needed when it is needed. A decentralized system where your assets are parcelled out among smaller units makes massing difficult, and almost impossible to do quickly. This is especially true when you do not have radios or other means of reliable and rapid long distance communication.

This maneuver theory spelled out the doctrine for the French Military. With these requirements they designed a gun to meet the need. The Mle 75mm Gun.

Now we get to the fun irony of this situation. The French did design a gun that meet their specified requirements. But the problem was that they built a gun that went WAY beyond what they had been looking for. And it doing so caused a whole bunch more questions that eventually didn't get worked out until WWII. The next post will be on the actual French 75mm (HONEST).

Friday, May 29, 2009

Nork Artillery Capabilities

This is really a tie in to HappyCrow on the possiblity of a Nork (North Korean) invasion of the south. Rather than bury his blog, I figured to focus on the FA side of the house. Reason: the Norks have a HUGE amount of it and its one of their only strengths, sort of.

First off, the Norks have honest to God Artillery ARMIES. No, I am not making that up. Whole armies that are nothing but artillery. Based on the Soviet model, designed to support old Soviet-style mass warfare. They have lots of towed stuff (D 30 type howitzers), lots of BM series rocket and missile launchers (think MLRS on a truck with 1970's tech), some SP stuff for the armored units (1960s level tech) and some interesting homemade stuff (the Kokson Gun, a huge cannon with a 45 km range). Most of this is dug in along the DMZ or in caves near firing emplacements that are pre-sited and surveyed. Just add launcher or gun and fire away. Their power lies in the MASS of artillery. It is effective because they have lots of it. To quote a friend in 1995, "NK has more artillery than God. And God has a lot of artillery." Also, Russian built FA is longer ranged than some American and ROK artillery. The BM Rocket systems have a 40 Km range which outdistances any of our tube artillery and until the advent of GMLRS, outranged some of our MLRS. The D30 howitzer outranged all of our 105mm howitzers and some of their larger stuff could outrange our M109s.

Issues with this. First, the stuff they have is OLD. Nothing new since the late 80's and even then it was older stuff from China or Russia. They have no precision weapons like the US or SK, so it mass fire (aka, we will hit it because we are firing so much stuff something is bound to hit). Their ammo supply is also old and they have a major problem storing it so it doesn't rot or ruin (A/C is a major thing to have in Korea due to the humidity which will wreck ammo unless its stored correctly). All their firing sites are known and targeted by the US/ROK, and our stuff is a guarrented hit thanks to lasers or GPS smart munitions. Many of the homemade systems (the Kokson Guns are notorious for this) are not designed for sustained fire and will burst or break after a short (8 hours or less) amount of sustained fire. Their ADA and air force are laughable so any system that is out in the open (aka every FA system) will be hit by air power shortly after fighting starts. Most of this stuff in not mobile, should the fighting move south (not bloody likely) or north (getting much more likely every day) these systems will be out of range or overrun.

These systems will likely cause heavy initial damage, but will not last long in a sustained fight. The US caught a major clue in the late 90s and relooked how it planned to fight in the ROK. Most US bases are in the south or are moving south, out of range of both FA and commandos. The chances of them being taken out early (which is critical to the Norks plans) are rapidly decreasing. Also, the remaining US forces in the ROK are set up to really fight here. We have lots of artillery, ADA and guys armed with smart, man-portable weapons that can smash up the mobs of Nork armor and stationary artillery. The ROK Army's FA has gotten very modern so it is more than able to knock the Norks around. Aside from our precision munitions have come range increases that give us the advantage in both range and accuracy. 6 US shots are 6 hits, 6 Nork shots are maybe 1 hit, odds like that rapidly cut down the numbers advantage. This area is one place that Rumsfeld actually fixed up in a better way. Were we to fight here, it would be the last of the old Cold War era fights in both participants and doctrine.

Too bad for the Norks we have moved on in equipment and thinking.

The real threat is if the Norks can utilize this FA for chemical or biological attacks. Cannon or rocket delivered nukes are beyond their tech level. Biological is a bit too frightening for anyone and also very complicated. Chem they could do, but the backlash would be bad. Not world condemnation (they could care) but the "gloves off" that would result.

Good God WHY?!?!?!?!

No this is isn't about anything Congress did. As most of you know, I attended VMI and as a result of this marched in every parade for 4 years except for 1. I thought I was done with that.

Oh no.

Today I got to march in another one as the S3 for my battalion at the Post Retirement ceremony. This is done to honor soldiers who are retiring so its a good cause. But it still sucks to do. Especially since our post commander can't give a short speech (30 minutes long, and bad jokes to boot).

Ever stand at parade rest for 60 minutes? "Blows" doesn't get it.

Monday, May 25, 2009

IN case you were wondering...

I need to post a disclaimer. Some folks have mentioned via other media (emails, facebook, etc.) that I should comment on the Norks (aka North Korea) nuclear test, Iran's little ship trick and how our current President is reacting. I have the following comment on this:

No comment.

You heard me. I have an opinion on this, but since this site has made it fairly clear that I am a serving member of the armed forces this site isn't a place for me to be mouthing off about it. I may not always agree with the POTUS and what he decides to do, but he is the boss and it is unprofessional to shoot my mouth off in a manner that undercuts him. There is a regulation on this and it is against that reg to be talking bad about the C in C. It can (and does) get violated, but usually in private or in the form of standard grumbling (Cripes, the POTUS is sending us WHERE? I gotta deploy in 2 weeks?, etc.) I may send an email to a relative or friend discussing it, but it will be with the understanding that it is a private conversation and not for public consumption.

BLUF: (uh, Bottom Line Up Front) I'll leave the political commentary out of this blog when the politics deals with the President. I have buds who do better on this than me, so I'll stick to my own area. I will hit on politics, but on areas outside the chain of command. It will usually be in a post that deals with high level strategy or operations (such as getting the State Department and Defense to work together and plan joint ops, a major topic of debate as this is a very common issue), or on more domestic stuff such as local laws, stuff dealing with the US Constitution and its amendments and the like.

And just to mention it: the Norks are Dorks, all this did was give more juice to the Missile Defense System bubbas.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Napoleon

No, not the short little Corcisan who helped reinforce the concept that invading Russia is a bad idea. We are talking the cannon:



This is the next article on artillery evolution I am undertaking. Before diving into the "42" (aka the French 75mm), I feel it necessary to hit on some background. This is a recap of a short field trip I take my LTs on at Fort Sill to get them into the idea of innovation and how the army/military adapts to change and transformation. Before we talk French 75mm, we must talk Napoleons.

The Napoleon is a 12 pound cannon capable of shooting both round shot (aka cannonballs) and actual shells that can be set for timed explosions or point detonation (i.e. they hit the ground and go BOOM!). It is a smoothbore (no rifling) cast out of bronze (which is why it doesn't have rifling, bronze won't take the pressure a rifled shot would generate). This weapon system is horse drawn (usually 6 to 8), and has a cassion which carries its internal ammo supply of mixed types (ball, shell, grape and cannister, think shotguns). It had a crude system of elevating the tube and aiming. It had no internal recoil absorber so when it fired the gun rolled back and you had to manually reposition and aim it. Crew of 6, usually 6 guns per battery. Range varies: max with cannonball was out to 3000 yards (rarely used), usually used at 2000 yards or less. If you were less than 500 yards out you used cannister or grape. It could be fired using an open flame (if you were ghetto) or a percussion cap. It was a muzzle-loader, which meant you rammed the powder and projectile in from the front.

This gun was the high water mark for the black powder cannons, the pinnacle of black powder cannon technology for field artillery. This may be argued by some other cannon enthusiasts, but I am using a certain range for determination. It was as mobile as these systems ever got, it had decent range, reasonable reloading time (under a minute if you were quick), if was a flexible system that could shoot a variety of munitions and it was fairly dependable. It was a great example of "the box".

This is "the box". The first recorded used of black/gunpowder was in China around 800 AD. The first record of a type of firearm was dated in the 1100s. This was a type of hand cannon: metal tube, open on one end, apply flame at other, projectile blows out the other end. The point I made to my LTs is a simple one. A early user of the hand cannon could have figured out how to use a Naploeon cannon with little trouble. Boiled down, there was no massive difference in how either system worked just the overall size and range (even the most powerful black powder field artillery was still a direct fire weapon that was only used on enemies you could see). This leads to a "box" when it comes to thinking about how this type of weapon can be used. A box that was 700 years old. How do you think outside a box that is 700 years old? That is a hell of a box to try and disregard.

I bring this point up to set the stage for the arrival of what we recognize as modern artillery. The development of the French 75mm and its brethren destroyed a 700 year old box of military thought. Literally overnight, everything everyone thought they knew about how artillery worked no longer applied.

Welcome to Challenge 101.

Next post in this series will detail the French 75mm, its capabilities, and why it was different enough to literally change existance as it was know for every artilleryman on the planet (and why some of them didn't realize it).

And how everyone reacted to this.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Happy Memorial Day

Greetings All. More blogging later on this weekend but not so much right now. Recovering from a summer cold and a new boss. Just needed to say have a great Memorial Day Weekend and please take a moment to remember those who we are supposed to remember on this day. The ones who didn't make it back to enjoy the weekends and those that did but have now moved on.

And please take a moment for those who are in harms way now and face the chance that one day their name will be on that list of those departed sooner rather than later.

We cannot live the lives they wanted to live, we can only live ours and be thankful to them for their sacrifice that made that possible.

Monday, May 18, 2009

And its Game Over

Well, if you are a typical American you probably missed this. But the world's longest running insurgency has finally been crushed. The commander, founder and singular reason it ran so long of the Tamil Tigers was killed by Sri Lankan Army forces this morning (our time anyway) and the last 300 meters of Tamil Tiger controlled ground was taken. For the first time in nearly 30 years the Sri Lankan government controls all of its territory.

This is awesome. The TT were a bunch of rat bastards. By that I mean that they were mean, motivated and tough as hell. And also, they were just nasty people, especially towards the end when they were herding the people they were supposed to be "protecting" into zone to use as human shields while they had Tamil Immigrant groups in Europe protesting to have the EU stop the government advance.

Several observations. One, time length was LONG. Folks, this is insurgency. Long, unpleasant and nasty. Also expensive. If you are a typical yank and you want a nice clean and quick solution to these problems, do us all a favor and leave the pool as it is adult swim time. Two, the British have again proven how far they have fallen. The end of the world's longest insurgency and Britain's first statement was about "disturbing" reports of human rights violations by the army and "possibly" by the TTs. Yeah, this is why no one really listens to England much anymore. The SL government then sat back and let a mob nearly overrun the British embassy and when they complained the response was "Sorry, celebrations got out of hand. It happens when you WIN."

Let them cheer, they have earned it. And England can shut its gob on this, SL deserves its moment of triumph. They won without any help so let them cheer.

I have been following this fight since I was in high school. It, along with Angolia and UNITA, were some of the first real-politic situations I ever studied. I honestly never thought it would end like this with such a absolute victory.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

My growing interest in WWI

This doesn't deal with Ukraine. This deals with some military history and a topic that I am finding myself more drawn into recently: World War I (aka "The War to End all Wars" and the "War that would Never Happen").

Now, why would this war interest anyone? Well, major shaper (if not the defining shaper) of the 20th century aside, it is the massive changes in technology and how the various countries dealt with them that has completely captured my interest. What is lost on so many people due to the huge bloodletting and the completely jacked up ending (I have started to call this the war no one won thanks to the peace treaty that promised a rematch or our money back), is the absolutely perfect example of military transformation and impacts of technology on how militaries do business.

In a short period of time (20 or so years), every aspect of how a first class world military did business was changed. Infantry got machine guns and bolt-action rifles. Artillery got the rapid firing, recoil-less, long ranged cannon, aircraft were invented, the cavalry had motor vehicles/armored vehicles (Armored Cars to start, tanks came in the war), transportation had trains and motor vehicles and so on. And this was the first war which the medical science really started to be effective.

A very common word in the recent decade in the US Army has been "Transformation". We are talking about how the army/military is transforming due to new developments. This started as cyber/technology focused impacts, but after 9-11 it has included all kinds of asymetric threats and has started overlapping into all other areas (a good thing too, id Wilson had been smarter than he thought he was and had tied the military and polical parts together maybe WWI woudl have had a different ending).

I am not so big on the political aspects of this stuff. I will never be a general, so I am not trying to pry into that part. For me, the big one is the impact of new ideas or technology. Or the ideas that come from the new gear or the gear that comes from an idea or any other combo. And WWI (or the time leading up to it) provides a wealth of this stuff. Especially artillery which will be the center peice of this thread.

My thesis was actually on the impact of new artillery systems on doctrine in the US Army prior to WWI and how well did the US Army crack the code on the new rules. Or rather, its failure to do so even with 3 years of sitting on the sidelines while Europe provided examples on "how to NOT do things". But I realized something while studying this, this question is so complex and has so many factors influencing it that the answer wasn't that everyone got wrong. The problem was that everyone hadn't figured out what the exact question was.

Yes, to use a Hitchikers Guide reference, everyone got 42 and didn't have the question.

This discussion is way to long for one post, so we are going to do it in chunks. Next time I will discuss the "42" of this problem: the French 75mm.

For Russ and the little voice inside all of us that secretly wants to smash something with a mace...

Pictures from the Armaments Museum in Lviv (or Lvov if you are a Yankee). This part of Europe has been fought over for a LONG time. Lviv itself is over 800 years old and while the old city is cool as all get out, a great portion of that time has been fighting. Mongols, Cossacks, Turks, Tarters, Poles, Hungarians, Rumanians, Russians, and Germans have all marched through here and many marches were not nice. I have made comments about Russians not being very popular (and they are not in this part of Ukraine), but how about Poles? To some even less than Russians. I thought that was weird at first, but once you figure out some of the history it makes sense. This area is truely where Europe ends and where Russia (as in big, endless, steppe and snow Russia) begins. Like Poland, this area doesn't have a place where you can draw a line and go "here is where x ends and y begins". Germany and France have the Rhine, Italy has the Alps, UK is an island. Once you come down out of the mountains it is a big open area where control goes back and forth over time.

And alas, this leads to lots of warfare. But now for the pictures.


Mail coat and sword. Found in the river that flows through the city center. Found along with the original owner about 10 years ago. The Lviv soldier fell in the river during a siege and drowned.


Crossbow. Not exactly fast loading, but you are not getting up anytime soon if hit.

Stupidity should hurt...

Polearms. Lots of them. A rather big collection in this museum for some reason, couldn't find out exactly why. Something to do with the original collector's taste.

Me and my patron saint. Well, that would be St. Barbara. This is St. Michael, warrior saint. Also Lviv's city saint if I understand correctly. They also had a big church dedicated to him in Lviv. The most common church names were for St. Michael and St. George (the saint of knights and heros) in Ukraine.

Here is more my speed. Lviv was a major cannon maker for the area. It was this coupled with other gunpowder weapons that finally stopped the nomad invasions of Eastern Europe. I screwed up and didn't get a full picture of the tapestry you can see in the background which depicted the Battle of Halych that saw the Ukraine/Orthodox Church defeat invaders in the 1200s (urm, we think as Tamara doesn't remember exact dates). Who were the invaders? The Tutonic Knights (aka the Germans) and the Catholic Church. This battle is considered one that saved the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine and stopped the eastward expansion of the Tutonic Order. Ukraine became recognized as a distinct area/country after this.

This is a cannon in the shape of a fish and my wife in the shape of a tourist. The church commissioned this piece to fight the Ottomans.

Cavalry/Hussar armor (this and the following picture were taken for Russ Mitchell).

Not a bad museum if you are really into the old school stuff. I thought the cannons were interesting, you could definately see these were city guns and not really the mobile pieces. I did notice that this area was much more into swords and lighter weapons for a much longer period than Western Europe. Which makes sense given the terrain. Mobility here meant horses, horses meant less emphasis on gunpowder weapons until they became small enough and reliable enough to use. Cannons were great for city defense, so plenty of them. Matchlocks and later flintlocks not so much. Most gunpowder stuff I saw here was from Central Europe (Hungary, German states, Poland) until we get into the mid 1700s. I hate to say it, but since this wasn't my area of expertise I probably missed some great photos of great stuff just for simple lack of knowledge.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Ukraine Trip

Hi folks, we are back from Ukraine. We had a great time. I got to meet Tamara's family still over there (uncles, aunts, nephew, freinds, grandmother). We stayed in her family's house in Bohorodchany and we visited numerous places were she lived (she moved once while in grade school) and also her parent's hometown. Very much like one of the Eason guided trip of North Bend, except it was over a much larger area.

Several items:

One. Area we were in. Western Ukraine near the Carpathians. And I mean near. We were literally in the foothills of Carpathians, go one hour west and you were up in them. We stayed at a small house/hotel overnight and spent 2 days in the actual mountains. We hiked up one (1.2 kms in height, 14 km round trip) and also visited a Vail grade ski resort (which transformed a Deliverance style backwater into a Ukrainian Aspen in about 5 years). Go east and you get the steppes and a whole lot of Nebraska style open. Imagine the Platte River Valley but flatter and wider.



Two. May 9th. WWII Victory Day. Its a BIG deal in Ukraine. Every town had a major memorial (big honking Soviet style thing) in the center of town which listed every person who died fighting in WWII. It reminded me of older towns back east in the US that had Civil War memorials in the town cemetary, or France with WWI monuments. Parades, banks closed, whole thing.




Three. Ukrainian Nationalism. Next to every WWII monument was a new one which featured more names, a Trident, and two flags. These monuments were for the Ukrainian Liberation Army/National Army who fought and lost to the Soviets in the 5 year insurgency after WWII. The Trident is the symbol of Ukraine, the flags were the Ukrainian National Flag and the Liberation Army Flag (Black over Red). These monuments were VERY well kept up and always had flowers on them. In contrast, many WWII monuments were run down, not defaced though. I am going to do a separate post on this one as there was some interesting history worthy of a separate line. It was also interesting to note that some WWII monuments had been modified recently with some words obviously removed or sanded off.


Four. Livestock. Okay, I am a farm boy, but being in a city of 40K and being woken up by chickens crowing and seeing cows wandering around was a bit of a shock. And the cows literally walked themselves out to pasture and back again for milking. Bizzare in a way. And there are a bunch of crows in Ukraine too. Please note that this particular cow was actually a country cow we hiked past in the mountain. I only have video of the city cows.


Five. Water. Odd one to point out, but every house there had its own well. Even if they had indoor plumbing (and unless you were in small towns you did), you had a well. I rather liked that and the water was good. Again, this is a country well, but the design is the same. Again I only have video of city wells.




Six. Communist Stuff. NADA. And I do mean NONE. Every statue of Lenin had been torn down (in some cases rather violently I was told), and the one picture of Brezhnev I saw had the glasses, horns, beard, and a punk hairdo painted on by the locals with the words "Bite it commie" under it (in three languages, one being English). Russians are not so popular in Ukraine, but they will take their money. And as an interesting side note, Pres Obama is not really popular either. Not that he is unpopular, but the Ukrainians want into NATO and are not so sure O won't sell them out to Russia. This isn't my words, I heard this from many folks over there.

Um, no pictures. I have a cool video of a hole in the ground where Lenin's statue was, but it lasted about 10 seconds after Ukraine went independent.


Seven. My family. I now have family in Ukraine and they are a great bunch. Top to bottom, a Ukrainian Colonel, Commandant of a local military school. He is an Uncle in Law (great guy), Tamara and her Grandmother (Babushka) and her great aunt. Me and uncle Yuri and aunt Oksana. Last is Tamara and her nephew Andrew.


More stuff to follow as we go along.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

We're Back

Hi folks. Tamara and I have just returned from our trip to Ukraine to visit her home and family. We had a great time and I saw some neat stuff. I will post more on this later on, right now its time to hit the sack.