Extra Credits
Published on 17 Dec 2017Sponsored by World of Tanks! New players: Download the game and use the code ARMISTICE for free goodies! http://cpm.wargaming.net/ivmqe6kc/?pu…
PLUS! In the spirit of the Christmas Truce, World of Tanks has prepared a gift box for EVERY PLAYER. Redeem the bonus code: HULSE14On Christmas Eve in 1914, soldiers in the trenches sang together across the wastes of No Man’s Land. Some were brave enough to step out of their trenches and meet face-to-face, forming an unofficial truce that lasted (with a few blemishes) until the end of Christmas Day.
December 20, 2017
WW1 Christmas Truce: Silent Night – Extra History – #1
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December 19, 2017
Transcaucasia in World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 18 Dec 2017The Caucasus region with its many different ethnic groups and its resources was always of particular interest to the greater powers like Russia, Persia or the Ottoman Empire. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the idea of ethnic self determination and resulting national movements, the fluctuating powers situation caused by World War 1 created a unique situation for Georgians, Azerbaijanis and Armenians.
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December 17, 2017
Beer Brewing – Roger Casement – Surviving Aces I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
The Great War
Published on 16 Dec 2017Ask your questions here: http://outofthetrenches.thegreatwar.tv
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December 16, 2017
The Effectiveness of 18th Century Musketry
Old Fort Niagara Association
Published on Jan 27, 2016Scholars and historians at Old Fort Niagara strive to uncover the truth behind the musket’s true effectiveness on America’s 18th century battlefields.
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December 15, 2017
Jerusalem Surrenders – Bolsheviks Consolidate Control I THE GREAT WAR Week 177
The Great War
Published on 14 Dec 2017This week in the Great War, the British under Allenby capture the Holy City. Meanwhile the British War Cabinet beings to strategise for future offensives. In Russia, though the fighting may be over on the Eastern Front, the fight for control of the country is far from over. Before the Bolsheviks can negotiate peace with Germany, they need to establish peace within Russia’s own borders.
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December 14, 2017
The US Navy and Their Hilariously Inept Search for Dorothy and Her Friends
Today I Found Out
Published on 2 Dec 2017In this video:
While the Ancient Greeks had their celebrated Sacred Band of Thebes, a legendarily successful fighting force made up of all male lovers, in more modern times the various branches of the United States military have not been so accepting of such individuals, which brings us to the topic of today- that time in the 1980s when the Naval Intelligence Service invested significant resources into trying to locate a mysterious woman identified only as “Dorothy” who seemed to have links to countless gay seamen. The plan was to find her and then “convince” her to finger these individuals so the military could give them the boot.
Want the text version?: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/01/u-s-navy-hilarious-multi-million-dollar-fruitless-search-wizard-ozs-dorothy-friends/
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December 12, 2017
The Road to Independence – Finland in WW1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 11 Dec 2017The Grand Duchy of Finland was a largely autonomous part of the Russian Empire when the First World War broke out, but that would soon change. Rising nationalism in the country and chaos in Russia, among other things, helped Finland on its way to becoming an independent country.
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December 10, 2017
Father Victory – Georges Clemenceau I WHO DID WHAT IN World War 1?
The Great War
Published on 9 Dec 2017Today we look at the life of Georges Clemenceau, otherwise known as the Tiger or Father Victory. Before he went on to become French Prime Minister (twice) and played an important role in the later stage of the First World War, Clemenceau studied medicine, fought in the Franco-Prussian war, travelled to various destinations across the globe and founded two newspapers.
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December 9, 2017
Berlin Airlift: The Cold War Begins – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 7 Dec 2017Tension between the Soviet Union and their former World War 2 Allies escalated into a hostile blockade of Berlin. All sides wanted to avoid another war, but the United States, Great Britain, and France refused to bend to Stalin’s pressure. They came up with a daring plan to supply Berlin by air.
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December 8, 2017
Halifax Explosion – Peace in the East? | THE GREAT WAR Week 176
The Great War
Published on 7 Dec 2017This week in the Great War, we see some action in Italy and none at all in Russia – the peace negotiations are well underway. The Allied Supreme War Council meets for the first time as the Battle of Cambrai comes to a close. Two ships collide in Nova Scotia resulting in a deadly explosion.
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December 7, 2017
The battleships of Pearl Harbour
Last month Naval Gazing ran a three-part series on the US Navy battleships at Pearl Harbour on the morning of 7 December, 1941, their post-attack fates, and later careers in World War 2. Part 1 was about the initial Japanese attack:
In Pearl Harbor on December 7th were eight battleships: Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Tennessee, California, West Virginia and Maryland. All of them were of First World War vintage, representatives of what was known as the Standard Type. These were ships commissioned between 1914 and 1923, all of broadly the same size, and the first ships designed for long-range combat using an all-or-nothing armor scheme. All had four turrets, and all but West Virginia and Maryland mounting 14” guns. (They had 16” guns instead.)
Pearl Harbour at the beginning of the attack, Battleship Row at the top (the waterspout is the first torpedo hit on the USS West Virginia)
All of the ships except Pennsylvania (which was in drydock) were moored along Ford Island in the famous ‘battleship row’. I’m going to focus on the stories of the individual ships during the attack, moving north to south. The attack began at 0748 on Sunday, December 7th, and a total of 353 Japanese aircraft were involved, in two waves.
A map of Pearl Harbour before the attack
The second post in the series covered the salvage of the damaged US Navy battleships:
When we left Pearl Harbor, it was the evening of December 7th, and most of Battle Force was on the bottom of the harbor. But what happened to the ships afterwards? We’ll go through the ships in the order which they returned to service (if they did) and then look more broadly at the use of the survivors during the war.
Battleship Row, 8 December 1941. Left-to-right: Maryland, Oklahoma, Tennesee, West Virginia, Arizona.
Maryland was the first ship ready to go to sea again, albeit with some damage. Tennessee was slightly behind her, as she was wedged by the West Virginia. Both ships were sent to Puget Sound at the end of the year, and repairs were completed in February. Pennsylvania was sent to San Francisco at the same time, returning to duty in March. All three ships (along with Colorado, New Mexico, Mississippi, and Idaho) served as part of TF 1, the backup to the carrier fleet until after Midway. Tennessee and Pennsylvania were sent to the states for comprehensive refit, running 8/42-5/43 and 10/42-2/43 respectively. Both received the standard upgrade, a reconstructed superstructure resembling those on the fast battleships (although there was less work done on Pennsylvania than the others), 5”/38 secondary guns in place of the former mixed secondary battery and upgraded fire control. Tennessee was also blistered against torpedoes, restricting her to the Pacific or a long journey around South America. Maryland was never refitted.
Part 3 discussed the Pearl Harbour survivors at the battle of Leyte Gulf:
The invasion began on Leyte Island in October of 1944, and triggered the largest naval battle in history, the battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese, who had long planned for the ‘Decisive Battle’ between their battleships and those of the US, planned a counterattack on the US landings in three main groups. Their carriers would come in from the north and draw off the US carriers covering the invasion, while two groups of battleships would sneak up on the invasion fleet from the east, passing through the Philippines and pincering the US transports from the north and south.
USS Pennsylvania leads a column of battleships into Lingayen Gulf.
The northern group (basically without planes after severe losses in June during the Battle of the Philippine Sea) managed to draw off Admiral Halsey. He’s often criticized for this, but in fairness, he was tasked with destroying the Japanese fleet, and the US didn’t realize how badly the carrier air groups had been hammered. The center group (with the faster battleships) had been detected, and appeared to have turned back after Musashi, Yamato’s sister ship, was sunk. They in fact resumed their course, and their encounter with escort carrier group Taffy 3 is the stuff of legend, but also a matter for another time.
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December 6, 2017
The RCN doesn’t need a second supply ship, says Transport Minister Garneau
David Pugliese on the latest military inanity from the federal government:
Pre-completion illustrations of the Resolve Class AOR conversion of MV Asterix
Politicians and unions in Quebec are turning up the heat on the Liberal government, questioning why Davie shipyards in the province isn’t getting any more work from the federal government. Davie converted a commercial container ship into a supply vessel for the Royal Canadian Navy. It was on time and on budget. The ship, the Asterix, goes into service early next year and under the agreement will be leased to the RCN.
Davie is ready to quickly convert another vessel into a supply ship.
But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has said thanks but no thanks.
Transport Minister, and former navy officer, Marc Garneau said the federal government doesn’t need another supply ship. ” We cannot artificially create a need for something that doesn’t exist,” he told reporters on the weekend.
An artificial need?
Seaspan shipyards in Vancouver and the Department of National Defence don’t project the first Joint Support Ship (being built by Seaspan) arriving until early 2021. But that ship would still have to undergo testing, etc. So, let’s say that the first JSS is ready for operations by the end of 2021.
That means that the RCN will have one supply ship to support its fleets operating on two coasts. How is that going to work?
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December 5, 2017
Origins Of The German Alpenkorps I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
The Great War
Published on 4 Dec 2017Get Immanuel’s book about the Alpenkorps in English: https://www.zeit-lupen.de/alpinecorps
When World War 1 broke out, the German Army didn’t really have troops specialised in mountain warfare. But by 1915, they brought together the first parts of the Alpenkorps. To train them, the troops were sent – in secrecy – to the new Italian front to learn from their Austrian counterparts. From May to October 1915 the Alpenkorps was forged in the Dolomites on the peaks with names like Lagazuoi, Col di Lana or Marmolata.
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December 3, 2017
Command and microcontrol
Ted Campbell relays some thoughts from a recent British criticism of how military operations are now capable — and therefore very frequently are — micromanaged by higher authority:
There is a very useful and, I hope, thought provoking article (written under a nom de plume by a serving British officer) published in the Wavell Room website.* It is entitled “Mission Command; The Fall of the Strategic Corporal; the Rise of the Tactical Minister,” and in it the author laments the fact ~ and it is a fact in Canada, too, I assert ~ that “British Mission Command and performance has regressed, largely as a result of our headquarters incorporating American military information technology as well as replicating American headquarters structures and manning. During recent counterinsurgency operations we have employed increased quantities of manpower, technology and process to try and make sense of the exponentially increasing volumes of information piped into an increasingly static headquarters. These bloated headquarters have bred a culture of over planning and control. The information technology revolution has allowed Ministers and UK based senior officers to directly reach down to the tactical level in distant operational theatres.” As a British general said in a recent speech titled “‘In command and out of control’ [the] creep at the National Level to from Mission Command to Mission Control. Prolonged campaigning in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an expanded bureaucracy with a function of identifying and mitigating risk that has not receded. The advent of ‘lawfare’ and a hysterical media has reduced our Civil Service’s threshold for presentational and reputational risk. This has led to an ever increasing legal and policy oversight and scrutiny of operations. The lack of domestic appetite for wars of choice rather than of national survival has led to a dramatically reduced appetite for risk to life on operations.” I am 99.99% certain that several serving Canadian generals and senior officers (post ship/regiment-battalion and squadron command level) could have and wish they had written the same words.
First, the very term “Mission Command” is rubbish. I know there is a whole body of literature about it, but it’s still rubbish ~ just well very documented rubbish. There is, very simply, command which is supported by control. The notion of “Mission Command” came about in the USA when it became clear that too many US senior officers were unable to exercise effective combat command because they were “nervous nellies” (or overzealous careerist) who would not or could not trust their subordinates to get on with the job. The image of a helicopter belonging to the division commander hovering over a helicopter belonging to the brigade commander hovering over the battalion commander’s helicopter that is hovering over the company of men on the ground comes to mind. Then a few other US military leaders decided that a new “concept” and a few PowerPoint presentations featuring gothic lettering and pictures of German generals would put things right … instead things went from bad to worse, but not just in the US military.
[Click to see full-size image]
Second, command and control (C2) is, actually, a quite simple thing to understand … it is the whole process by which a commander receives and analyzes his (or her) orders, does his (or her ~ always presumed from here on in) reconnaissance, makes his appreciation (estimate) of the situation and his plan and then issues the orders that commit his troops to battle. There it is in under 40 words … that’s not too hard to grasp, is it? But it can be bloody hard to do!
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Shell Recycling – WW1 Monuments in WW2 – Resistance Movements I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
The Great War
Published on 2 Dec 2017Chair of Wisdom Time!
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