Quotulatiousness

September 22, 2026

The US Army has an institutional aversion to admitting mistakes

Filed under: Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Tom Kratman, retired US Army officer, has strong opinions about a lot of topics, but especially on things related to the US military in general and the US Army in particular:

The US Army, all of the US armed forces, can never admit to a mistake, no matter how trivial. The reason the RS71 became the SR71 was because some senior officer had a slip of the tongue when briefing Johnson, called the RS71 the SR71, and the Air Force, rather than admit the mistake, changed the name. The reason there was no resistance training in Ranger School (that’s POW resistance, not weight lifting) was because someone, Navy, I think, said that the only resistance training in US armed forces was Navy run (they do run the big important school graduates are forbidden to talk about), so the Army and Air Force, rather than let Navy be embarrassed, killed their programs until rather recently. The reason the Army kept the OH-58 Kiowa was because, after being browbeaten into buying that recon helicopter, it would have been admitting a mistake, to say nothing of some measure of corruption and moral cowardice, to switch to the OH-6 which EVERY chopper pilot in the Army would tell you was a better bird for the mission.

And then, just for the cherry on top, we can contemplate my old slimy toad of a scum-sucking battalion commander who, as a brigade commander, browbeat his HHC commander [Wiki] into falsifying a PT test for him and, when the HHC commander went to the IG, and the story came out, was allowed to pin on BG stars and retire rather than being sent to play rock hockey, as he should have been, at Leavenworth. Why? Because the Army had made a number of serious mistakes with him; they let him command two infantry (one of them a Ranger) battalions, and had promoted him to colonel, selected him to command a brigade, and then selected him for promotion to brigadier general. That could never be allowed out because the army cannot admit to a mistake, let alone five of them.

Now, with that inability to admit a mistake in mind, roll back the sands of time to the late 1950s, when a certain Airborne Mafia general, serving as Chief of Staff of the Army, Max Taylor, had, as generals will, an incredibly stupid idea, that he, as generals also will tend to, thought was just fucking brilliant. He created the pentomic division [Wiki]. I’ve written on the iniquities and stupidities of this at length and won’t repeat myself here. Suffice to say it was a disaster, a complete, total, unmitigated, moral, operational, administrative, tactical, utter, unbefuckinglievable disaster from every perspective. One feature of the Pentomic Division was that regiments were done away with and replaced by one or more “battlegroups” bearing the same regimental number but not necessarily under the same command.

The Army could not admit that mistake. So they dumped the Pentomic Division and battlegroups as soon as possible but, rather than reverting to regiments, went to brigades [Wiki] composed of different battalions of different arms and regimental numbers. This was nothing but a way to pretend that the Pentomic Division hadn’t been a mistake, that it had been a great idea that just needed a little fine tuning.

Brigades, by the way, also sucked but not as much as the new, Pentomic 2.0, Brigade Combat Teams suck [Wiki].

Wiki links added for those (like me) who are not intimately familiar with US military formations.

The Forgotten Scandal Behind Britain’s Favourite Poem

Filed under: Africa, Britain, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The History Chap
Published 14 May 2026

In January 1896, a small column of mounted men rode into the Transvaal — uninvited, unsanctioned, and about to hand the British Empire one of its most embarrassing scandals of the Victorian era. Their leader was Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, trusted fixer of Cecil Rhodes, and a man absolutely certain he was doing the right thing. Within days, he was a prisoner of the Boers. But this is not simply a story of a military disaster. It is the story of how a disgraced Victorian adventurer — stripped of his reputation, imprisoned in Holloway, and abandoned by the powerful men he had protected — became the inspiration for the most famous poem in the English language.

Rudyard Kipling’s “If—” has been quoted by parents, coaches, and prime ministers for over a century. What almost nobody knows is the man Kipling had in mind when he wrote it — and the extraordinary story of how Jameson faced catastrophe with a silence and dignity that left Kipling genuinely moved. In this video, I tell the full story: the Jameson Raid, the cover-up that reached the highest levels of the British government, the parliamentary inquiry that should have destroyed several careers, and the remarkable rehabilitation of the man at the centre of it all.

It is a story about loyalty, resilience, and the gap between a man’s reputation and his character. Which is, when you think about it, exactly what “If—” is about.

0:00 Britain’s Favourite Poem
1:14 Leander Starr Jameson
2:40 Rhodes’s Plot
4:02 Joseph Chamberlain
4:36 Jameson Loses His Head
5:35 The Jameson Raid
6:31 Battle of Doornkop
8:26 Triumph & Disaster
9:26 Jameson on Trial
10:23 Holloway Prison
11:15 Before Parliament
13:46 Redemption
14:11 “If-” Poem
15:10 Jameson’s Death
16:12 “A Man, My Son”

September 21, 2026

Custom-Order Walthers: Model HP and P38 in 7.65mm Parabellum

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

Forgotten Weapons
Published 8 May 2026

When Walther first developed the P38, it was designated the Heerespistole — “Army Pistol”. Only after getting official Wehrmacht adoption did it get the designation P38. Walther offered models with both designations for commercial sale, albeit not to just anyone. Army officers, Party members, and other high-placed individuals could get pistols from Walther outside military orders. About 20,000 such guns were made during the war, and a tiny subset of them — just 225 — were made specifically in 7.65mm Parabellum instead of 9mm Parabellum. Today we are looking at two examples of those.
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QotD: Military doctrine

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

Doctrine. Something I keep promising to write about and then don’t. Doctrine is, “the body of formal knowledge that tells a fighting force how it is expected to fight” (Parshall and Tully, 83). it is not a plan for a specific war, but the general planning framework a military brings to every war; think of it like a very complex list of “best practices”. This is necessary because war is too complex to make this stuff up on the fly. That said, just because a military has a written out doctrine doesn’t mean they can execute on that doctrine; the doctrine may call for things that military (or its political leaders) are simply not capable or willing to do. That said, a military that finds itself operating well outside its own doctrine is likely in trouble. Russian maneuver warfare doctrine generally goes by the moniker Deep Battle or Deep Operations (Глубокая операция) and to say that the Russian Armed Forces [in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine] have not managed to pull off their doctrine in practice is a significant understatement.

Bret Devereaux, “Miscellanea: A Very Short Glossary of Military Terminology”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2022-03-25.

September 20, 2026

A Panzer For All Seasons – Panzerkampfwagen IV – Nazi Rearmament 06

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

World War Two
Published 19 Sep 2026

The Panzerkampfwagen IV began life as a short-barreled infantry-support tank. By the middle of World War II, it had become Germany’s principal medium gun tank, carrying thicker armor and a long-barreled 7.5 cm gun capable of confronting the Soviet T-34 and KV-1.

It was the only German tank to remain in continuous production throughout the war. From Poland and France to North Africa, Kursk, Operation Bagration, and the ruins of Berlin, the Panzer IV survived through constant adaptation. Its weight grew from roughly 17.5 to 25 metric tons, while its role changed from specialized support vehicle to the dependable workhorse of the Panzerwaffe.

But every upgrade imposed a cost. Greater weight strained a chassis already approaching its practical limits, while increasingly powerful Allied tanks and anti-tank weapons steadily overtook its protection. Even after the Panther entered service, production problems and mechanical failures ensured that Germany could never dispense with the older Panzer IV.

In this episode of our Nazi Rearmament series, we trace the Panzer IV from its secret origins under the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles through its wartime evolution and postwar service with the Syrian Army. It is the story of a remarkably adaptable weapons system, the industrial limitations of Nazi Germany, and the murderous war of aggression that this tank was built to serve.

Check out our episode about Panzer III: • The Backbone of the Nazi Panzer War – Panz…

What Caused the War of 1812?

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, France, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Real Time History
Published 17 Apr 2026

The War of 1812 broke out after a series of escalations between Great Britain and the still young United States. The impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy desperate to crew their ships in the ongoing war against Napoleon, the question if the US could trade with Britain and France at the same time and thus profit of the war, all came to a head after failed negotiations.
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September 19, 2026

How Britain’s oldest Proof House still tests modern military weapons

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

BFBS Forces News
Published 12 May 2026

For nearly 400 years a succession of Proof Masters have been making sure firearms in the UK are safe, stopping dangerous guns from being used.

Every firearm, whether it’s for military use or not, has to go through something called a proofing process.

This is a series of tests to make sure the weapon is not only made properly, but it can withstand the pressure generated by modern-day ammunition.

September 18, 2026

Worrying about post-combat lawfare will crush initiative and morale

Filed under: Britain, Europe, History, Law, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

As mentioned in Dr. Robert Lyman’s account yesterday, the British government wants to turn back the hands of time to change the rules of engagement under which British Army troops and police conducted themselves during “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. It may be an exciting prospect for law firms, activists, and other anti-military groups, but it would set a terrible precedent for British use of military force from this moment onwards. At The Critic, Alexander Gray explains why this is a dangerous and stupid idea that should be dropped forever:

“British Army working during the Field Training Exercise” by U.S. Army Europe is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0 .

The debate about the hounding of veterans through the courts has long been presented in terms of fairness. This is indeed one side of the story. No decent country should tolerate servicemen being dragged through repeated investigations decades after the events in question, often without new evidence and after previous inquiries have already reached their conclusions.

But focusing only on veterans misses an even more urgent point: this has become a national security threat.

Over the past two decades, the legal framework governing military operations has changed. Courts have increasingly applied standards developed for peacetime to scrutinise wartime situations of uncertainty and danger which often demand split-second judgement. Human rights law, designed principally to regulate relations between the state and individuals, has increasingly been applied to military operations, including to situations already governed by the Law of Armed Conflict.

This is having consequences on the battlefield. Personnel who believe that a lawful decision taken in combat may be reconstructed years later in a civilian courtroom are now incentivised to be more cautious, more process-driven and less willing to exercise initiative. That hesitation can slow decisions in situations where delay may place lives and the success of an operation at risk. The prospect of repeated investigations and prolonged legal uncertainty is also damaging morale and contributing to experienced personnel leaving the service, depriving the Armed Forces of skills and judgement that are difficult to replace.

This is why the Prosperity Institute has published the Military Operations Bill, presented to Parliament this week by Sir David Davis MP. It reasserts the principle that combat operations should be judged primarily by the Law of Armed Conflict. Courts have an important role in punishing wrongdoing, but they should not become alternative command structures reviewing military judgement from the safety of hindsight.

Update, 19 September: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substack – https://substack.com/@nicholasrusson that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.

Guatemalan Contract St Chamond 70mm Mountain Gun

Filed under: Americas, France, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 2 May 2026

Despite the French Army adopting a 65mm mountain gun in 1906, several French companies — including St Chamond and Schneider — developed their own mountain gun designs in the years before World War One. These were popular guns for foreign export, being relatively small, light, and inexpensive. St Chamond’s 70mm gun was built on the same breech design as their previous 75mm field gun, at the request of the Mexican military and famous small arms designer Manuel Mondragon. Quantities were sold to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belgium (for use in the Belgian Congo). This example is a Guatemalan one, now in the United States as a live, registered, transferrable Destructive Device.
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September 17, 2026

British government seeks to retroactively change the Rules of Engagement during “The Troubles”

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Government, History, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

I’m old enough to have had lengthy conversations with British soldiers and officers who were serving or had recently served in Northern Ireland at the tail end of “The Troubles”. It was a dangerous situation the troops found themselves in and the Rules of Engagement they worked under at least recognized that it wasn’t a normal day at the office back home. On his Substack, Dr. Robert Lyman explains why the current government’s plan to retroactively change the rules that governed the actions of the British military forces is one of the worst possible things they could do:

Lieutenant Robert Lyman in the Ballymurphy, 1983, in a photograph snapped by Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Elliott, CO of 1LI at the time. He was driving past in his Landrover and spotted a photo opportunity.
Photo via The War Room

For those who know me well, the idea that I might now be encouraging young men and women not to join the Armed Forces might sound that I had lost my marbles. I can assure you that is not the case. I am deadly serious. This government’s determination, building on the surrender of the previous Conservative government to the varying dictats of the ECHR, will drive an impossible moral and legal wedge between the people who the country ask to do its dirty work, and the government that sends them in harms way. It is an intolerable set of affairs that all sensible people in his country should oppose. What sort of perversity might think that this behaviour is acceptable from any government? I despair, yet it seems that this is precisely what our current morally impoverished government seems to desire.

[…]

The central concern is that the proposed changes will expose servicemen and women, many of whom have already undergone judicial scrutiny for actions undertaken during the Troubles, to further litigation and investigation. In practice, this is likely to encourage a new wave of cases brought by individuals seeking to revisit or reinterpret events from a campaign in which terrorist organisations such as the IRA and INLA were ultimately defeated.

The immediate implications are troubling enough. The longer-term precedent, however, is far more serious. If this legislation proceeds, it will send a clear message to today’s servicemen and women, that even after they have acted lawfully, completed investigations, and fulfilled their duty to the State, they may still face renewed legal jeopardy in later decades. It undermines the fundamental bond of trust between those who serve and the government that sends them into harm’s way.

Every member of the British Armed Forces operates within a strict and clearly defined legal framework. These rules, embodied in the Laws of Armed Conflict and implemented through Rules of Engagement (RoE), govern the use of force in military operations. During my own service, I spent countless hours learning these rules, teaching them to my soldiers, and ensuring they were followed in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and elsewhere.

This debate is not about whether soldiers should be above the law. Of course they are not, nor should they be. Rather, it is about whether the rules that governed military operations at the time can be retrospectively reinterpreted after a conflict has ended. The concern is that former adversaries will be able to pursue legal action against veterans for actions that were considered lawful under the Rules of Engagement in force at the time.

Today, Policy Exchange published an excellent report examining this issue in relation to former members of the SAS who served in Northern Ireland. The report sets out the problem clearly and persuasively, concluding that the proposed changes should be abandoned. I agree.

Predictably, some MPs have defended the legislation. Diane Abbott, for example, has argued on X that opposition to the changes amounts to “a call for armed forces personnel to be placed above the law.” That characterisation is deeply misleading. The debate has never been about exempting soldiers from the law. It is about subjecting veterans to repeated investigations and additional layers of judicial scrutiny many years after the events in question, often in ways that were never demanded of those they fought against on behalf of the nation.

At its core, this issue is one of fairness. It raises questions about double standards, retrospective judgment, and the constant shifting of the goalposts. Veterans who served under one set of rules are now being told that those rules may no longer be sufficient protection against further legal action.

September 16, 2026

The Korean War Week 117 – The Cost of Rotation – September 15, 1952

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

The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 15 Sep 2026

UN Commander Mark Clark is putting together five possible scenarios for hopefully solving the POW issue and getting an armistice, but who knows if the Communists will accept any of them? The war in the skies heats up, though it’s a quiet week on the ground, and we take a look at the pros and cons of the troops rotation system.

00:00 Intro
00:25 Recap
00:48 The Active War
01:23 The POW Issue
04:31 Five Plans
07:46 ROK Increases
08:58 Troop Rotation
11:05 Downsides
13:54 War in the Skies
15:06 Summary
15:13 Conclusion
16:01 Call to Action

Veterans of the GWOT “saw things with our own eyes that are hard for others to believe”

Filed under: Media, Middle East, Military, Politics, Religion, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Cynical Publius explains why some of the strongest opposition to Islamification comes from people who’ve seen Islamic culture up close in countries where it’s the majority religion:

Does this photo of Afghan men watching a young boy dance give you the creeps? It should.

Have you noticed that the community that is most vocal in warning about the Islamification of the USA is the GWOT veterans’ community?

That’s because we saw things with our own eyes that are hard for others to believe:

  1. The treatment of women as chattel property. Goats are treated better than daughters — no exaggeration.
  2. Widespread pedophilia and bestiality while at the same time people we call “LGBTQ+” in the West are subject to barbaric methods of execution.
  3. An absolute lack of freedom of religion.
  4. Wanton disregard for human life.
  5. Insanely paranoid antisemitism straight out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
  6. Wholly corrupt governments; bribery as a uniform standard.
  7. Tribalism to an extreme: tribe trumps truth and justice, always.
  8. In the Gulf Arab countries, “Third Country Nationals” from poor Muslim countries engaged in menial labor and literally treated as slaves.
  9. Absolute confidence that Islam will violently conquer the rest of the world, and a belief that this is just and proper.
  10. Acceptance of the idea that lying can be and is necessary and proper.

These are not one-off observations; these are widespread norms that are easily observed and experienced in day-to-day life in any nation that accepts Sharia law. ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE COMMONPLACE. Having seen this stuff up close and personal across the entire Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa, American veterans have unwittingly become like the prophets of old, warning everyone else of the dangers we have seen that we never wish to see come ashore in America.

Yet somehow our voices are not being heard sufficiently, and we now see literal Communists wishing to import these evil practices to the USA en masse, as a path to their own power.

Guess what Commies? It’s the other way around, you are the ones being used and when the Green forces dispose of you Red forces, it’s not going to be pretty.

Wise up.

Update, 17 September: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substack – https://substack.com/@nicholasrusson that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.

WWII British Tank Tech Tree

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

The Tank Museum
Published 8 May 2026

In 1939, the Vickers Light Mark VI formed the backbone of the British tank force. It’s hard to believe that in six years technology evolved from this to the mighty Centurion.

But this journey was no walk in the park. It took blood, sweat, lots of tea and various wrong turns. So, in this video we’re going to walk you through the entire British tank family tree to reveal this process.

This is a family tree organised by type not by chronology. That means Light Tanks, Cruiser tanks, Infantry tanks and Assault tanks.

So, without further ado, this is every British tank of World War II.

00:00 | Intro
01:14 | Light Tanks
03:21 | Cruiser Tanks
12:37 | Infantry Tanks
16:08 | Assault Tanks

This video features archive footage courtesy of British Pathé.

In this film, join Paul Famojuro for the ultimate deep dive into British tanks of WWII. Over six years Britain’s tanks evolved in a number of curious directions. From the light tanks of the early war to the troubled development of the cruiser tanks concept, the slow-moving infantry tank to the hard-hitting assault tanks, each branch of this tech tree was designed to solve specific problems on the battlefield. There were some successes, just as many failures, and a whole lot of weird and wonderful tanks along the way.

Want to learn more about the British tanks of WWII? Here are some of the sources we used to make this film:

British Tanks and Fighting Vehicles 1914-1945, B.T. White. 1970
British Cruiser Tank A13 Mk I & Mk II, Peter Brown. 2015
British Infantry Tank Mk III Valentine, Parts 1 & 2 Dick Taylor. 2010
The Great Tank Scandal, David Fletcher. 2021
The Universal Tank, David Fletcher. 2021
Centurion Owner’s Workshop Manual, Simon Dunstan. 2017
The Tank Museum Guide to Matilda, Dick Taylor. 2024
The Tank Museum Guide to Comet, Dick Taylor. 2025
A13 Cruiser Mk. V Covenanter Tank. A Technical History, P.M. Knight. 2018
A38, Infantry Tank, Valiant, https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/gb…

#tankmuseum #veday

September 15, 2026

“Napoleon remains the ghost in professional military education”

Filed under: Education, Europe, History, Military, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

InfantryDort responds to a complaint that military leaders are taught Clausewitz without the career of Napoleon for context:

THE THING WE STILL CAN’T TEACH

I’ll bite on this one. Napoleon remains the ghost in professional military education. Why? Let me take a stab at it …

Jomini watched him and tried to turn the phenomenon into rules. Anyone in the U.S. Army has seen this before. If you do something exceptional on the field (especially in training), then you’re often coached that you went outside the lines and need to get back in. You may have succeeded, but it COULD have been a disaster. So we try “putting baby in a corner” because the science of war is safe. The art scares people.

Clausewitz watched the same fire in Napoleon and concluded that rules would never be enough. Two centuries later we are still dissecting the campaigns, naming principles, drawing arrows on maps, and trying to explain what exactly lived inside that man.

Again, why?

There is a part of command that refuses to become curriculum. T.E. Lawrence called it the “kingfisher flash”. Clausewitz reached for the genius. It’s the instant when one mind sees through fog what a hundred educated men cannot see at all, then possesses enough violence of will to act before the moment disappears.

Read that last part again 👆

You can feed that gift with history, sharpen it through hardship. But you CANNOT manufacture it with another degree. It MUST be revealed.

Yet modern institutions are built around the opposite assumption. We stack schools, evaluations, gates, boards, and credentials high enough and convince ourselves that eventually genius will emerge from the assembly line. It won’t. It can’t. Ever.

Worse, the machine often recognizes the dangerous talent and rejects it precisely because it cannot reproduce it. The unusual man is “reckless”. The instinctive one is “unserious.” The officer who refuses the approved path becomes “unqualified”.

READ. IT. AGAIN. 👆 👆 👆

Then war arrives and burns the paperwork. That is the lesson Napoleon keeps trying to teach us from two hundred years away. You can study the flame forever. You still have to recognize it when it walks into the room.

The closest we can come to discovering this genius is testing our officers on it. No more reliance on pure paperwork. I say to these officers: Show us the gift you’re supposed to possess for the highest commands.

Or step aside for someone who will.

The First Military Luger: Swiss Model 1900 s/n 01

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 27 Apr 2026

The first nation to adopt the Luger was Switzerland, which began testing in late 1898 and formally accepted the Luger in May 1900. Their guns were the first Lugers to be mass produced, as they were the first order received by DWM. The first batch of 600 arrived in Switzerland in May 1901, and today we are taking a look at the very first of that batch — serial number 01. It is the first production military Luger, and that’s a pretty cool landmark.

C&Rsenal Swiss Model 1900 video: • History of WWI Primer 145: Swiss Luger 19…

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