It’s going up a little early today because I won’t be around to post it tomorrow! A good batch this week to make up for no monday report last week!
Urban Combat - The Israeli Experience
US to Probe Russia on Iraq Intel Report
Marines Try to Recruit 78-Year Old
Good Pay Attracts Many Role Players
N. Korea Vows ’strong’ Response to Joint US/S. Korea Drill
In the early days of the blog there were nuclear battleships. Now, from a dark corner of my mind emerges a new concept. The Space battlship. For quite a while I have wanted the US to develop some sort of space bearing battleship. Unfortunately, the obvious practical uses of a space battleship limit chances of seeing one anytime soon. So I decided to point out the obvious and not so obvious uses of a space-bearing ass kicker.
The single-most obvious reason to not build a space battleship is…there are no space foes for it to fight, and if there are hostile space-bearing civilizations, they are probably way more advanced and could take it out with ease. The most obvious counter to this is that its primary objective should not be erm…space to space combat. The primary role of the space battleship would be a mobile heavy weapons platform to support ground troops or strike enemies with near invulnerability and high loitering times. It would also, however, be extremely useful in recon and scientific studies. I digress, I am getting too far ahead of myself. Let me break down my vision of what a space battleship would consist of and it’s duties. But before I begin, I must clarify that this ship would have to be massive, and while I have no dimensions in mind, I would speculate that the size would be at the very least the size of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
The first question would be: Where would we build it? Assemble is piece by piece in space, like the ISS, or here on planet Earth? A project as massive as the space battleship would almost certainly have to be built on solid ground. We have seen the massive delays in the ISS construction due to the tedious process of building it piece by piece and sending them up one at a time and also due to the uncertainty of the future of the shuttle flights. Constructing it on Earth would also let the engineers see how the entire thing operated as a whole before it went to space. If there were compatibility issues we could solve them on the ground before a launch.
The first monday report. I’ve decided that every monday i’ll post links that I find interesting from around the web for you to go through over the week.
This week:
China’s military budget up…again.
Keep this recipe in the vault at Area 51.
A little something called Active Protection.
More bureaucracy and greed no doubt.
A short list this week because I only thought about doing this a few minutes ago.
P.S. - It was still Monday in my time zone when I posted this! 
“Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, who was leading the Army’s V Corps toward Baghdad, had told two reporters that his soldiers needed to delay their advance on the Iraqi capital to suppress the Fedayeen threat in the rear.
Soon after, General Franks phoned Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of allied land forces, to warn that he might relieve General Wallace.”
Another example here:
“A United States Marines intelligence officer warned after the bloody battle at Nasiriya, the first major fight of the war, that the Fedayeen would continue to mount attacks after the fall of Baghdad since many of the enemy fighters were being bypassed in the race to the capital.”
And yet another:
“Instead of sending additional troops to impose order after the fall of Baghdad, Mr. Rumsfeld and General Franks canceled the deployment of the First Cavalry Division;
General McKiernan was unhappy with the decision, which was made at a time when ground forces were needed to deal with the chaos in Iraq.”
All of the field officers suggestions were completely disregarded. It was as if the top dogs didn’t believe their field commanders or, even worse, didn’t care. It has become clear to me that General Tommy Franks was nothing more than Rumsfelds puppet. Rumsfeld wanted a fast war and, in his apparant memory loss of past wars, thought that guerilla fighters would just throw in the towel. This kind of nonsense cannot continue. Politicians can send our military to fight where they see fit, but they shouldn’t tell them how to fight. Down with civlians running wars and puppets commanding armies. Rumsfeld and Franks disrespectively.
In recent decades, the US militaries research and development industry has become increasingly bogged down in bureaucratic nonsense. Military programs like the F-22A Raptor and the DD(x) are the perfect examples of R & D mismanagement. Early in the Raptor program the cost started to bloat, deadlines were pushed back, and ultra-optimistic goals were set, and the end result is almost a billion smackers per jet, a huge cutback in the number of total units purchased, and a delivery years later than originally thought. The DD(X) program is also taking its first steps into the bureaucracy entangled morass that will be hard to get out of. The F-35 JSF, while having a better record, is slowly becoming bogged down in bureaucracy as well. The FCS program hasn’t even reached the stages of development of the aforementioned projects but already has more problems than all three combined. This is just the tip of the iceburg. This ultimately begs the question, “Why are more and more of our projects turning out this way and how can we fix it?” To answer the first question would take all day and could probably be discussed in detail over a period of weeks or years! One of the key problems that could cause a good chunk of the price bloating would be stupid spending. We have seen that the pentagon itself regulary throws away tax payer money by buying extraordinarily overpriced products. Could it be the same way with the new military projects? Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for using the best equipment possible to ensure the safety of our men and women in uniform, but to pay several tens of thousands of dollars on a mini-fridge, thats just stupid. That’s beyond stupid. Take the F-22. At one billion dollars a pop it is easily one of the most expensive units we are buying, but why does it cost that much?
It all boils down the industry. I’m sure it is expensive to build but how much of that price is going into actual procurement of the craft and not into the pockets of greedy industry owners or buying a $40,000 phone for their secretary. I wonder what we would find if we asked where each cent went. I’m not usually one to complain about the price of procuring something, but when the price bloats this much…something is wrong. Now on to the other part of the problem. The politicians are getting ever more nosey into each procurement decision. At first this seems like a decent Idea, but like with most political things is overblown. Sure, we all want to make sure what we are buying is worth it, but when that political tampering affects the project in question, there is reason to worry. Suddenly the politicians are engineers and military strategists and know what we need and don’t need and how to go about building it or “fixing” it. What they like they hype, probably because it is cheap or a multi-million dollar contract goes to one of their companies, and what they don’t like get canned, probably because its expensive and doesn’t benefit them to build and they don’t see the strategic potential. Apparantly, the defense industry is not longer here to serve the United States, its all about profit for those who own the industry.
However, there is an solution to help alleviate the problem. The US governments way-out research and development arm, DARPA, hit it on the head. Leave the big, bad wolf out of it. It started with one simple contest, in which anyone could enter, to build an automated vehicle to meet a certain criteria. The contestants (mostly from Universities) would have little beauracracy to deal with when building a prototype. The end result was a design that was probably quicker and cheaper to design and build than if it had been handed to an industry giant to create the same thing. The event was so successful that they started another contest for armor. They have gone back to the roots of r&d. Old fashioned ingenuity and competitiveness of the American spirit. Now, this does have its limitations but it is a start.
Now that the situation along the border is getting more and more attention and calls are coming from all over the US for something to be done about it, the question still remains: what should be done? Foreign taxpayers (Read: Immigrants) are a vital part of this economy, but when they don’t pay taxes, usually don’t have insurance, and take advantage of all the things the US has to offer, they cease to be immigrants and become leaches. Stopping the leaches is not the only goal of the border patrol of the United States. They also seek to stop would-be terrorists from sneaking across the border and waitinf for the moment to strike. Every year millions of illegal immigrants enter the US through our poorly guarded borders. As of right now, the US government wants, at best, to increase the number of border patrol agents patrolling the border. At first, the plan seams to be a good idea. However, there are ever increasing hostile incidents in confrontations with individuals crossing the border. These incidents include our border patrol agents coming under sniper fire and even an armed band of men crossed the border and took back a large confiscated drug seizure by outgunning the border patrol agents who were unloading it from the truck it was found in. At this point it becomes clear that the job of securing our border should be given back to the people whose responsibility it was in the first place. The military. Sending in the military is only part of the overall solution to secure the borders. Rebuilding border defenses and a reorganized legal entry plan for legitimant immigrants is needed.
Any system for securing either border would, obviously, need an active component and a passive component. The funamentals on which these components are based would need to be completely new. We need to make the risk of crossing our border very high to deter larger number of people from attempting to do just that. The wall that we currently have can stay where it is but it should not be our biggest obstacle to cross. The main “wall” should be around 200 meters back from where it currently is. A minefield should be placed in between the original wall and the new “wall” for a HUGE deterrent. Of course, these minefields would be very clearly marked. Just past the minefield along the inner wall would be a widely dispersed series of small observation towers connected by a road and each has a small detention area and helipad. If an immigrant does breach the minefield and innerwall, and there will be a few, they will be either picked up by a helo or loaded on a truck and sent to the nearest observation post. These observation posts will be the jointly operated by the military and border patrol agents. They will not only use line of sight observation but they will be the command center for their area of responsibility. All the data from UAVs, cameras, spotters, patrols, and various sensors from that area of responsibility will be sent here. A few times a day, these observation towers will send any illegal immigrants caught to a heavily fortified deportation area. These reception and deportation area will be the only entry and exit points along the borders. The security will be provided by the military while the bureacracy of receiving and deporting immigrants will be handled by border patrol. The actual patrols along the border would consist of light infantry patrols, helicopter patrols, as well as UAV and manned recon craft. Rules of engagement would be simple. If they are unarmed they should be captured and processed. If they are armed, they cease to be illegal immigrants and become invaders and be treated as such. There is also the potention to use the border as a test area for the latest in less-than-lethal weaponry such as ADS and PHASR. With all these systems in place, the border would be better suited to deter and stop illegal immigration and also provides a better situational awareness of the border.
With the recent pirate attack on a cruiseliner, one can see the shift in pirate philosophies. Attacking a cruise liner is not a good choice to attack for many reasons. Unwanted attention being at the top of the list. One can speculate that they have turned into “pirates for hire” style organizations. Al-Qeada may just pay them enough to risk such a high publicity stunt. You may be thinking something like, “Just send the navy!” But at around 250 ships it is impossible to stop piracy. Usually pirates won’t attack naval warships or anything in proximity to one and there isn’t enough ships in the world to patrol every part of the worlds oceans to stop piracy. So, logically, if you can’t go to the pirate, make the pirate come to you. My idea comes straight out of world war part dos. In WW2, the allies disguised gunboats as merchant ships to lure german ships in close and then open fire from concealed weapons. So apply this concept to cruise liners. First, take a cruise liner or a freighter and add some armor underneath the main skin to protect from RPGs and small arms fire. Then add some concealed weapons. One or two MK-45 5-inch guns with various calibur machine guns would do just fine. A boarding/security detail will be needed. Perhaps some SEALs or Marines? This next part is optional. If a large enough vessel is used, a hidden hanger for a helo could be built, but that could bloat the relatively cheap cost of the ship. Then once you are ready, just float up and down the coastline hoping to draw some fire. When you do, the pirates will no doubt be in range of the mk 45. That’s when you start firing back and raise a huge US flag to let them know who it was and that we mean business.
Imagine that you are a soldier looking out over the ocean one day and, on the horizon, you spot something in the distance. The unmistakeable outline of a battleship is comes into view. Fear fills your heart but another emotion joins it. Something that won’t let you look away, even as you see the flashes of its massive deck guns. Seconds later you hear explosions around you, and seconds after that you hear the thunder of the guns finally arriving. You run for cover but you still have trouble looking away. You stare at the massive beast…in awe. Battleships may not be the queen of the seas anymore but there is no doubt that they still possess many attributes the US navy could use not to mention the US Marines. With the retiring of the last Iowa Class battleships in the early 90s the USN has not had any major gun support. The need for a few battleships is very real, so why aren’t there any still in the fleet? In the early 90s when they were taken off of active duty, the main reasons why the navy did not keep them could all be solved. First, the Iowa class was, not surprisingly, a fuel hog. Afterall, getting a ship with a full displacement of over 57,000 tons to move at over 30 knots is quite a feat and required 8 giant boilers. With that in mind consider that it only takes 2 nuclear reactors to move a 97,000 ton Nimitz-class carrier at 30 knots. Also, since there are no aircraft on board a battleship, fuel expenditures would be minimal. Another major reason for scrapping the battleship was its crew compliment. The Iowa-class battleship had a crew compliment of 1,515. I am very confident that with a total upgrade and overhaul of it’s systems that number could be cut dramatically. This brings me to another point. According to Global Security:
…the cost to reactivate and modernize a battleship is about that of a modern guided missile frigate.
Now, I admit, I do not think they were thinking of upgrading the engines to nuclear reactors in that estimate. There is also the possibility the current battleships are already beyond saving (Museums, completely scraped) and the price tag would be a higher. Yet another reason the navy scrapped the battleship was its lack of accuracy and range compared with cruise missiles and smart bombs. Until recently this seemed to be an impassable downside to battleships operating in the modern world. In the 1990’s the Navy started development on the Advanced Gun System along with the Extended Range Guided Munition. Although the AGS and ERGM are not being developed specifically for the big caliber guns of a battleship it is not insane to believe that they could be adapted to a battleship. The AGS introduces an autoloader which can reduce crewsize and the ERGM will increase the range and accuracy of a shell. Even the Army’s Excalibur program, which uses GPS guided artillery shells, proves that viability of accurately precision indirect fire. The last “excuse” I will touch upon is actually a grave misconception, one that I used to buy into. Simply put the battleship is a floating target. It is true airpower could cripple a battleship’s fighting capabilities. But the same goes for an aircraft carrier. The misconception is that anti-ship missiles launched from smaller ships could take out the battleship from a distance. One thing about a battleship’s design is that it is suppose to have enough armor to withstand what it can dish out. An Iowa-class battleship has an armor belt thick enough to stop most anti-ship missiles. It is plain to see that having a few battleships is not a waste of money or metal. While I wouldn’t recommend having more than 3 or 4, the shore support for amphibious forces would be worth the money while giving the USN a highly survivable and versatile weapons platform.
Historically, the National Gaurd has always been employed in time of disasters too large for local agencies to handle in terms of manpower or resources. The recent crisis around the Gulf Coast region was no exception. With the present world situation and more gaurdsman in Iraq, the question arose whether to allow active military forces to participate in the relief effort specifically the police part. The use of federal troops on US soil as a policing unit is prohibited by the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.As you may have heard, during the Katrina relief effort people were getting shot at, so any active troops would have had to do some policing if they were used. President Bush has already taken steps to help active forces play a bigger role in relief efforts here at home. Should the US military be given full control of any relief efforts? After the Tsunami in Indonesia we saw how effective active military forces can be when they are employed to their full potential. Response to the Tsunami was quick and organized at a location that was halfway around the world. Response to hurricane Katrina was slow and unorganized even though it was right here in the US. One of the linchpins of any relief effort it organization. In a military controlled situation there is a clear command structure and communication network in place. In a civilian run operation the command structure is not always clearly defined. In hybrid operations containing joint operations between military and civilian agencies, communications and command structures become even more undefined. In the critical early stages of the Katrina relief effort there were several command and communications breakdowns which caused key supplies and transportation to be delayed. FEMA was no doubt in control of the entire operation but who was in control of the efforts on the ground? The Military? Local Authorities? Federal Authorities? Early on it was not a pretty site. After this quagmire there should be no doubt that the military should be put in full control of any relief efforts at home. We have seen that it knows how to get it done abroad, so why not allow them to help at home? No civilian agency can match the US Military in command, control, communication capabilities not to mention logistical support.So here is one of the 2 blogs I have made. This one is geared more towards my military side. If you are surprised that I picked a military topic…then you don’t know me at all! Anyway, in this blog you will get the privilege of reading my thoughts on certain aspects of the military. Not just the US military, but other nations militaries as well. Also, in order to be able to gauge interest I will duplicate each blog and post it on the DM message board where users can provide feedback, point out errors, and comment on the post. I’m still debating on whether or not to have users register before they post. I probably will not do this unless spam gets bad. I probably will not have to worry about that since I have next to no readers at this point.One more thing, if you are wondering about that blank box on the left-hand side…well that is where I will link frequently cited sources and other blogs.