Quotulatiousness

May 15, 2026

“One of the most iconic pictures of WWII” – the seen and the unseen, USN edition

Filed under: History, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

CDR Salamander posts an iconic US Navy photo from late 1944, showing the unparalleled naval might of the American efforts against Japan. But, as with Bastiat’s famous economic essay, there are the obvious things we see and the important but unseen things that matter just as much:

Murderers’ Row. Ulithi anchorage, December 8th, 1944. Just three years after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

One of the most iconic pictures of WWII.

The carriers are (from front to back): USS Wasp (CV-18), USS Yorktown (CV-10), USS Hornet (CV-12), USS Hancock (CV-19) and USS Ticonderoga (CV-14).

The oldest of those ships, Yorktown, was only 19 months old. The youngest, Hancock, was commissioned only a little under eight months earlier. All were laid down and took from a bit under three to a bit under four years to build.

Just a year prior, the US Navy was so short of aircraft carriers, it had to borrow a carrier from the Royal Navy.

At first glance, it appears to be a flex of American naval power at flood tide — the aircraft carrier’s unassailable invincibility manifest — and it is. However, when you dig deeper, it has a more important story. It gives a warning. It informs us today, if we are willing to listen.

It isn’t about the power of being the world’s greatest shipbuider, that we were. It isn’t about an unequalled ability to project national will across the Pacific like no nation ever has in human history, which it is.

No. That isn’t what it tells us that is most important.

As we have done more than once over the last two decades, we’re taking a holder of a front row seat on the Front Porch and CDR Salamander Plank Owner Sid’s comments, in this case from yesterday, and bringing it to a standalone post.

Most of this post is his. The insight certainly is.

The actual story this picture tells is much more sobering, right there in plain sight, but you can’t see it.

The reality is that on the day this picture was taken, the Fast Carrier Task Force (TF 38/58) was down an entire Task Group from where it started two months earlier.

USS Franklin (CV-13) was severely damaged on 27 OCT by kamikaze and had to return [to] CONUS for repairs.

USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) was severely damaged in the same attack.

USS Princeton (CVL-23) was sunk on 24 OCT by a Judy dive bomber.

USS Essex (CV-9) had a devastating hit by a kamikaze on 24 NOV followed by a disabling machinery casualty requiring a trip back to CONUS for repairs.

USS Enterprise (CV-6) departed a few days earlier for repairs in Pearl Harbor.

All the carriers in this picture had been damaged to varying degrees. Damage that today would require a trip to the yard to fix, like the absent Enterprise and Essex.

For example Ticonderoga (fourth Essex in the line from the bottom) would take damage to her radar waveguides in January. That could not be repaired forward and she would have to return to Bremerton as well.

Bloodier Than Verdun? Winter Battles on the Eastern Front 1915

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Russia, WW1 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Great War
Published 16 Jan 2026

The first four months of 1915 witnessed a titanic struggle on the Eastern Front, in East Prussia, the Carpathians, Bukovina, and at Przemysl. Both sides suffered staggering casualties that surpass those of the Somme or Verdun the following year. Ironically, the Austro-Hungarians lost far more men trying to save Przemysl than there were in the fortress.
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May 14, 2026

Why did the Romans defeat the Macedonians and Seleucids so easily?

Filed under: Europe, History, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Adrian Goldsworthy. Historian and Novelist
Published 19 Nov 2025

Today I try to answer several questions about the confrontation between Rome and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranean — espcially the Macedonians and Seleucids. In contrast to the monumental struggle between Rome and Carthage, where Hannibal in particular inflicted very costly defeats on the Romans, the wars with the “sophisticated” military powers of the east seem much more one sided — brief and decided by a single pitched battle. How fair is the sense that these conflicts were “easier” for the Romans to win, and if they were — why was this?

May 13, 2026

The Korean War Week 99: The War’s Most Humiliating Crisis – May 12, 1952

Filed under: China, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 12 May 2026

The world turns it’s eyes to the UN POW camp at Koje-Do island when the Communist POWs in one of the compounds kidnap the Camp Commandant, an American General no less, and issue demands that they say must be met before his release. Can this be settled diplomatically, or is the army going in in force?

00:00 Intro
00:54 General Dodd Kidnapped
04:09 Koje-Do Phase Two
07:04 Dodd on Trial
13:18 The POWs Demands
18:30 Summary
19:03 Conclusion
19:54 Call to Action

May 11, 2026

The History of SPI: Part 1 / Simulations Publications Inc. / Wargaming History

Filed under: Business, Gaming, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Legendary Tactics
Published 18 Dec 2025

Remember the golden age of wargaming? This is THE definitive history of SPI (Simulations Publications, Inc.), one of the most influential publishers in tabletop gaming. From its groundbreaking magazine Strategy & Tactics to iconic titles like War in the East, StarForce, and Terrible Swift Sword, SPI reshaped what board wargames could be — and built a passionate community along the way.

This is Part 1, where we delve into the origins of SPI and Strategy & Tactics Magazine, and the people and games that were part of it.
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May 10, 2026

QotD: The cavalry

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Military, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

These chaps, and very recently gals, used to be stylish troops on horses who charged into the infantry and hacked them to bits. Until the infantry all stood in squares, then they needed artillery to kill them. Once weaponry got advanced enough, they decided to give all our tanks to the cavalry. Now we have few tanks, the cavalry are in denial about being infanteers and cling to the old ways by driving around in trucks claiming to be recce or other jobs. They are just posh infantry. Better tattoos but spelt correctly and mostly not DIY ones, traditions dating back to the Tudors, officers wear lemon cords and soldiers still fight each other on Friday nights.

Combat Boot, “So, ‘capbadges’, what’s that all about then?”, combatboot.co.uk, 2020-11-13.

May 9, 2026

M1E5 Experimental Paratrooper Garand

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 Dec 2025

In January 1944 men of the 93rd Infantry Division field-modified an M1 to give it a shorter (18″) barrel, and the rifle was sent back to the US and tested by the Infantry Board. The idea was that a rifle like this might be of use to paratroopers, being more powerful than the M1A1 Carbine they were already using. The job of exploring the idea was given to John Garand at Springfield Armory, and he began work that same month.

One example was made in the spring of 1944, using an underfolding stock designed by Garand (for which he received a patent in 1949). It was 5″ shorts and 1.2 pounds lighter than a standard M1, but exhibited excessive blast and concussion. The initial design used the folding stock with a traditional grip, and this was found uncomfortable (no surprise there). The rifle was refitted with a rather odd steel pistol grip, but this was also not a great solution. By this time testing found the whole thing undesirable and it went no farther.

Thanks to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site for giving me access to this truly unique specimen from their reference collection to film for you! Don’t miss the chance to visit the museum there if you have a day free in Springfield, Massachusetts: https://www.nps.gov/spar/index.htm
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May 8, 2026

How Hitler Wasted Germany’s Deadliest Weapon – Nazi Rearmament 01 – U-Boat Type VIIC

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two and Spartacus Olsson
Published 7 May 2026

Early in World War II, German U-boats came dangerously close to starving Britain into submission. The Type VII submarine — especially the VIIC — became the backbone of the Kriegsmarine‘s Atlantic campaign, sinking thousands of Allied ships and threatening to win the Battle of the Atlantic.

But despite its devastating effectiveness, the U-boat war ultimately failed — and not just because of Allied countermeasures.

In this documentary, Spartacus Olsson breaks down how Adolf Hitler’s strategic miscalculations, competing naval doctrines, and direct interference undermined Germany’s most effective naval weapon. From the clandestine development of submarines after the Treaty of Versailles, through Admiral Karl Dönitz’s vision of a tonnage war, to the catastrophic losses of German submariners, this episode examines how Nazi rearmament translated into wartime reality — and failure.

Featuring detailed analysis of Type VII design, production, deployment, and combat performance, this video reveals how industrial limitations, political priorities, and technological shifts turned a war-winning weapon into a death trap.

This standalone episode complements the Death of Democracy series by showing what Hitler actually did with Germany’s rearmament- and why it fell short.

QotD: North Vietnamese intelligence failures in the Tet Offensive

Filed under: Asia, History, Military, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Finally, a real intelligence failure on the NVA‘s part contributed to the US failure. The main reason US analysts were sure the North Vietnamese lacked the forces was because the NVA did, in fact, lack the forces. They called Tet the “general uprising”, and they were counting on widespread popular support — including, it seems, entire ARVN units defecting. That’s the only way they’d have sufficient force to knock ARVN out of the war …

… and it didn’t happen, because they, the North Vietnamese, had faulty intel.

The Americans suffered from the “intel to order” problem too, of course, which we in the civilian world call “telling the boss what he wants to hear”. But the NVA had it much worse, since that’s a much greater structural problem among Commies. Indeed, the Americans got at least one high-level defector during Tet — a lieutenant colonel I think — who only defected because the units he was supposed to command in the “general uprising” didn’t exist. They were purely paper fantasies, straight out of some commissar’s head.

And that’s what made [US Army military analyst Joseph] Hovey’s report so easy to dismiss. Hovey himself said it — it looks like they’re planning to do X, Y, and Z, but that would only make sense if they’re making a big mistake about the balance of forces. The US had pretty good intel on the ARVN and the political mood of South Vietnam. But they for some reason assumed that the NVA had basically the same information, so all of the NVA’s calls for a general uprising — which the NVA absolutely meant, and indeed were counting on — were easy for US analysts to dismiss as mere propaganda.

Severian, “Book Rec: Tet, Intelligence Failure”, Founding Questions, 2022-06-30.

May 6, 2026

The Korean War Week 98: No Peace at Panmunjom – May 5, 1952

Filed under: China, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 5 May 2026

At the end of last week the UN presented a peace package proposal to the Communists at the peace talks, but that package has been rejected. The only issue still left to clear up is that of POW repatriation, but that seems insurmountable, at least for the time being. In the field, there are ambushes, skirmishes, and night patrols, but still no larger scale actions, and the temperature at Koje-Do POW camp continues to rise and rise, perhaps nearing a boiling point.

00:00 Intro
01:34 Recap
02:09 The Package Rejected
03:58 Night Patrols
08:32 The Fighting
14:13 Koje-Do
15:58 Summary
16:15 Conclusion

Carney panders to the Euro elites and his TDS-afflicted base

Filed under: Cancon, Europe, Media, Military, Politics, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Ben Woodfinden explains Prime Minister Mark Carney’s constant pandering on the international stage:

The average voter won’t care, but the more Carney lays out his worldview the more the contradictions and incongruences in his thinking (or lack of sincerity) become apparent.

In his famous Davos speech he said “we actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be”. But the way he talks about and sees Europe does not fit this, and this statement is bizarre.

We should absolutely be pursuing closer ties to Europe, but it is delusional if he actually believes the new international order will be “rebuilt out of Europe”.

Europe for all its grand aspirations cannot even defend Ukraine by itself and without American help. Europe would need something like 300,000 additional troops and €250 billion a year in extra defence spending just to deter Russia without the Americans.

NATO’s own Secretary General told the European Parliament in January that Europe “cannot at the moment provide nearly enough of what Ukraine needs to defend itself today, and to deter tomorrow”, and that without American weapons “we cannot keep Ukraine in the fight. Literally not.” Rutte told European lawmakers that anyone who thinks Europe can defend itself without the US should “keep on dreaming”. Four years into the most serious land war on the continent since 1945 and this is where we are. That is not a continent about to anchor a new international order.

The world order is quickly is reorganising, yes. But around a US-China axis, not Brussels. The eurozone is forecast to grow 0.9% this year. China at 4.5%. China accounts for roughly 30% of global growth, Europe’s share of global GDP keeps shrinking. Europe is just one of many players. Again if you take Carney seriously here, it’s silly. Build closer ties with Europe yes but do not believe this is the next superpower.

But I suspect this is actually just another sign that Carney is good at politics — he knows exactly what the Davos crowd, his boomer base and media admirers want to hear and he is very good at giving it to them. Flattery has done him enormous favours in European capitals. But telling European elites the future runs through them is not realism, it is the opposite of realism. It is telling people what they want to hear, not the truth.

L. Wayne Mathison also comments on Carney’s profound europhiliac positions:

Europe is not the model. It is the warning label.

High regulation. Weak growth. Expensive energy. Soft defence. Endless bureaucracy.

America built. Europe managed. America innovated. Europe regulated.

And Carney wants Canada rebuilt “out of Europe”?

No thanks. Canada needs strength, productivity, energy, defence, and sovereignty, not Brussels-style decline with better catering.

May 5, 2026

QotD: Why China never adopted war elephants

Filed under: China, History, Military, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

If I have any readers familiar with the armies of China during the Warring States, Han Dynasty or Three Kingdoms Period, they may have already guessed my conclusion for China. China never flirted with the war elephant the way the great powers of the ancient Mediterranean did, although the Han in particular had far greater resources than any of these save imperial Rome and far easier access to elephants to boot. Chinese emperors received elephants and elephant handlers often enough as tribute or spoils from war. And yet, no war elephants. As Trautmann (2015) notes, “the absence of the war elephant in China is … the result of a deliberate choice”.

Trautmann (2015) finds the solution in land-use patterns: China had simply converted so much of its pasture and forest to crop-land, in a densely settled city-and-agriculture land-use pattern that incorporating large numbers of elephants was not just prohibitive, but also culturally foreign. And there’s something to this, though I don’t buy it completely. Absolutely, Chinese land-use patterns would make elephants a lot more expensive to maintain than in India or even Rome. Highly productive farmland would likely have to be turned over to elephant pasture. That said, Chinese rulers had embraced the chariot and cavalry, so such things could be done, if the military or political calculus made them worth doing. But they weren’t done.

Instead, I tend to think that the same basic calculus that applied for Rome applies neatly for China – elephants fare poorly in societies with access to large numbers of disciplined infantrymen who can be trained in anti-elephant tactics. And this was certainly true of China, which had disciplined infantry to spare. Also, Han armies seem to have relied on close integration of missile weapons and polearms, meaning that they had the same sort of integrated light infantry support that the legion of the Roman Republic did. Later Chinese armies, as Trautmann briefly notes, had no problem defeating elephants in battle.

As with Rome, in China, elephants seem to have been a military solution looking for a problem to solve – and never found it. For one Chinese dynasty after another, the major military threats were either peer competitors (during periods of political fragmentation) whose disciplined infantry armies were no more vulnerable to elephants than Rome’s, or else steppe nomads. Given the tremendous logistical difficulties of operating even small armies out on the open steppe, attempting to take war elephants there would have been the height of stupidity. Elephants weren’t going to stop the Mongols – to be fair, not much stopped the Mongols (we’ll get into India, Mughals and elephants next time).

Bret Devereaux, “Collections: War Elephants, Part II: Elephants against Wolves”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2019-08-02.

May 3, 2026

The Extremely Rare Folding Stock Beretta 38/43

Filed under: History, Italy, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 12 Dec 2025

The Beretta Model 38 SMG was a very successful design, and a folding-stocked version of it was a natural development. Beretta first made a prototype of such a thing in 1941, but it never went into production — possibly because Italy ceased to have an effective paratrooper corps after El Alamein. However, many of the design elements from this experiment saw use in the simplified 38/42 and 38/44 models of the Beretta SMG. Late in the war, a small batch of folding-stocked guns were actually produced (one source says about 200) specifically for the RSI. This was the puppet government Germany operated in northern Italy after the country surrendered to Allied forces.

This particular example came out of the Balkans, and managed to acquire a Yugoslav national crest along the way — although I don’t know the details of how. Thanks to Limex for giving me access to this extremely rare piece to film for you guys!
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April 30, 2026

China’s weaker-than-it-seems strategic position

Filed under: China, Economics, Food, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, ESR expands on a post by Tom Kratman about the strategic weakness of the current Chinese government:

Tom didn’t explain his second assertion, but it’s important so I’m going to do it.

China is in the worst strategic position of any great power in history because it is critically dependent on resources it has to import, and it doesn’t have control of the sea lanes over which it imports them.

China is neither food nor energy self-sufficient. It needs to import pork from the United States, grain from Africa, coal from Australia, and oil from the Middle East to keep its population fed and its factories running.

Naval blockades at about three critical chokepoints (Hormuz, Malacca, Sunda) would cripple the Chinese economy within months, possibly within weeks. China does not have the blue-water navy required to contrast control of those chokepoints. The moment any first-rate naval power or even a second-rate like India decides China needs to be stopped, it’s pretty much game over.

As a completely separate issue thanks to the one-child policy, Chinese population probably peaked in 2006 and has been declining ever since. Every year in the foreseeable future they will have fewer military-age males than they do now. Most of those males are only sons; their deaths would wipe out entire family lines, giving the Chinese people an extremely low tolerance for war casualties.

Then there’s the glass jaw. The Three Gorges Dam. Which is already in some peril even without a war — you can compare photographs over time and see that it’s sagging. If anyone gets annoyed enough to pop that dam thing with a bunker-buster or a pony nuke, the resulting floods will kill millions and wipe out the strip of central China that is by far the country’s most industrially and agriculturally productive region.

The Chinese haven’t fought a war since 1971. They lost. Against Vietnam. The institutional knowledge that could potentially fit their army for doing anything more ambitious than suppressing regional warlordism does not exist.

I could go on. But I think I’ve made Tom’s statements sufficiently understandable already.

The position of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in Hubei Province, showing the major cities downstream of the dam.
Image by Rolfmueller via Wikimedia Commons.

And Tom Kratman responds:

Almost perfect; you missed four tricks.

1. People, when we talk about blockading China, imagine that we’re talking about a civilized stop and search. Uh, uh; we will designate a no go zone and sink without further warning anything that enters it.

2. Our blockade will be distant, well out of range of those Oh-they’re-just-too-terrible-for-words (but never tested) DF-21s. [Wiki] (You did sort of address this, but not in so many words.)

3. We can blow the levees on the Yellow River, too, to kill many millions more and destroy still more industry (it flows above ground).

4. China not only doesn’t have the navy to contest with us, it can never have that navy. Why not? Because there’s only so much wealth to go around; China is surrounded on all sides by enemies with anywhere from decent to quite good armies, any or all of which might take a stab (pun intended) at carving China up like a turkey. They must put a lot more money and effort and manpower into stymying those than they can ever put into meeting us and Japan.

April 29, 2026

Three views on the Iran conflict

Filed under: Media, Middle East, Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In The Conservative Woman, Alex Story outlines the three distinct ways that western opinions differ on the ongoing struggle with Iran:

The BBC has a long history of … careful wording in describing events in Iran since 1979. I don’t think this cartoon is unfair in portraying that.

TRUTH is the first casualty of war.

Opinions on a conflict depend deeply on the prevailing culture, erasing nuance in the process. The less of it there is, the easier it is to convince yourself of your righteousness and your opponents’ wickedness.

For instance, the Iranian question divides the world in three main groups.

The first staunchly believes that the Israeli tail wags the American foreign policy dog, working around the clock to recreate Israel’s “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates” Old Testament borders as described in Genesis 15:18.

The second will accept the long-standing Islamic Republic of Iran’s evil nature and its core philosophy of perpetual warfare leading in due course to the unbeliever’s submission but are sceptical if it can be removed solely by this war. As David, an exiled Iranian, said: “I’m caught between wishing for the end of the regime and the very real prospect of its entrenchment through external violence”.

The third will argue that the Iranian leadership should be obliterated. Ending the regime’s five-decades long barbarism, exemplified by the slaughter of “40,000 Iranians” across the country in January 2026 in Prince Reza Pahlavi’s recent words, would make the world a better place. Having lived by the sword, the mullahs should die by the sword, they will say, adding that few will miss them.

Positions turn into intellectual fortresses at the speed of light, fed by a constant stream of “news” destined to further harden preconceived ideas. Little is provided that offers any hope of peaceful co-existence. Data is used, ignored and abused, thus ensuring escalation and lying becomes the accelerator for a world on its irrevocable path to war.

But while truth dies early in the antagonists’ deadly exchanges, war eventually reveals it, and its revelations tend towards the astounding.

In our case, for instance, it has become crystal clear that Britain is now effete, irrelevant and defanged. It is a flotsam on rough international seas, bullied by some, ridiculed by others and ignored by all who have not yet emasculated themselves.

The United Kingdom, the former global hegemon and only European country to come out of the Second World War justified, is not the same country it once was, dismantled stone by stone by an establishment haughtily bent on demise over decades and encouraging others, partially successfully, to follow them down to the Gates of Hades.

Our end, however, cannot all be pinned on Starmer, Hermer, Sands, the Fabians and purple-haired socialists.

He then goes on to make the case that only a counter-revolution will rescue Britain from its current path to misery and global irrelevance.

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