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World War II Tank, Europe

The weird and less than martial names assigned to this 68-ton fighting vehicle were oddly fitting.

Here's What You Need to Remember: While the United States and the Soviet Union settled early on basic, proven, armored fighting vehicles (the Sherman and the T-34 respectively, along with families of supporting tank destroyers), Nazi Germany produced an ultimately bewildering and industrially wasteful variety of machines.

World War II tanks usually had aggressive- or ferocious-sounding names, such as Hellcat, Panther, or Tiger. Yet the tendency was not universal, as with British Cruisers or the American M-3 Honey. But perhaps there was never a more unfortunately named beast than the German assault gun Sd Kfz 184, first known as the Ferdinand and later modified, as if it was an improvement, to the Elefant.

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The weird and less than martial names assigned to this 68-ton fighting vehicle were oddly fitting. Technically a member of the formidable Tiger family, the Ferdinand’s history is rather strange. To know the Ferdinand, one has to begin with the history of its better-known cousin, the Tiger, Germany’s first successful World War II heavy tank.

Germany entered World War II without a true heavy tank, relying on a mixture of light and medium vehicles and the superb and revolutionary military doctrine of the blitzkrieg. Nonetheless, German interest in a heavy “breakthrough tank” predated the invasion of Poland, and as early as 1937 the Reich authorized the Henschel Company to begin work on a prototype. This project does not seem to have been a high priority; the success of the panzer divisions obviated the need to do more than buy additional Mark III and Mark IV medium tanks. By May 1941, however, a design order had been issued to Henschel for the heavy tank designated VK4501 (H) and another to Porsche, VK4501 (P). Any German complacency was banished dramatically when, during Operation Barbarrosa, the invasion of Russia in June 1941, Hitler’s elite panzer units confronted superior Soviet T-34 medium tanks and KV-1 heavy tanks.

Tigers, Hellcats and Elefants

By April 1942, both the Henschel and Porsche heavy tank prototypes were ready for trials, with initial production planned for July. Evidently the Henschel design proved superior to Porsche’s and was selected for production. This tank became the excellent Tiger I, 1,354 of which were built by the end of the war. But Dr. Porsche did not wait for the completion of the trials before beginning production of his own heavy tank, with the result that 91 Porsche hulls had been completed by the time Henschel was awarded the contract.

In Nazi Germany, private defense contractors flourished, provided they produced a decent product and had the right political connections. This was true in the democracies as well, but under the Nazis a convoluted web of ideological intrigue and corruption further muddled the process. Ultimately, gaining favor with the top contracting official, Hitler, trumped all else. Hitler took a personal interest in the development and trials of the Tiger, as well as many other weapons. Did Dr. Porsche think the heavy tank contract was his, based on his favored relationship with Hitler? Or was Porsche instructed to start production of the Tiger as a hedge against an unsuccessful debut by the Henschel model?

Some sources presume the latter, despite the wasteful logic of producing a castoff design, both from the manufacturer’s and the regime’s standpoint. Porsche’s turning out Tiger hulls well after Henschel won the contract and had entered full production seems unlikely. Rather, Porsche plausibly gambled that his complex but innovative design, coupled with good connections, would secure the contract. When the gamble failed, Porsche and the Reich were left with 91 heavy-tank hulls and no contract to fill. Hitler decided to make use of the rejected tank hulls by converting them into assault guns. But this was not the simple solution it appeared to be. Nazi assault guns had their own peculiar politics.

Weaponry Upgrades Begin a Tank Arms Race

Germany pioneered the assault gun as a weapon type and was its chief exponent during the war. Originally assault guns, such as the ubiquitous Stug III, were intended to support the infantry detachments of panzer divisions. The Stug was a Mark III tank with its turret removed, enabling it to accept a larger 75mm gun, more powerful than the 37mm or 50mm guns in the turreted tank. This insight, that a turretless vehicle could carry a much larger gun, allowed the Germans to keep otherwise obsolescent designs, such as panzer Marks I through IV, in action throughout the war.

All manner of armaments and designs were utilized to build the vehicles, including captured weaponry such as the Russian 76.2mm guns used on the successful Marder assault vehicles. As the war progressed, the role of the assault gun changed from infantry support to mobile tank destroyer. Throughout the war the terms were used interchangeably, which is not to say that every assault gun was an effective tank destroyer, or vice versa.

The Henschel Tiger (Tiger I) entered service in the autumn of 1942, armed with the powerful 88mm L/56 gun, and eventually earned a formidable reputation as one of the war’s great tanks. But Hitler still sought a vehicle that could carry the longer and more powerful 88mm L/71. The bigger gun did not fit into the Tiger I’s turret. A solution availed itself in the Porsche hulls, which could be converted to build a turretless tank destroyer to accommodate the bigger gun. The result was the Ferdinand, named in honor of Dr. Ferdinand Porsche. Orders were placed in September 1942, and 90 Ferdinands were completed by May 1943, in time for the German summer offensive in the East.

Enter the ‘Ferdinand’

The Ferdinand was a powerful and technically impressive weapon. Atop the rear half of its hull sat a high, fully enclosed armored superstructure containing the big 88mm gun. Like all German assault guns, the forward-facing weapon had only a limited traverse.

Overall, the Ferdinand looked like a modern self-propelled gun, but was more heavily armored. Designers bolted an additional 100mm of armor to the hull, giving the Ferdinand twice the frontal armor of the Tiger I. With the larger gun and extra armor, the Ferdinand topped the scales at a massive 68 tons, which was 11 tons heavier than the Tiger I. Moving the machine required mounting a pair of Maybach HL 120 engines in the central hull. These replaced original Porsche air-cooled engines that, while innovative, proved unreliable in the Tiger trials.

Despite the tandem engines, the Ferdinand was still ponderous and had an inferior power-to-weight ratio than either the Tiger I or the later and heavier Tiger II. The Ferdinand required a crew of six, one more than usual in a German tank, and the vehicle lacked any mounted secondary armament, such as a bow machine gun.

The Ferdinand’s designers, with Hitler’s apparent blessing, intended the assault gun to serve as a heavy-tank destroyer capable of using its gun to hit Soviet tanks at safe ranges, and well-armored enough to absorb the heaviest counterfire. Its great weight limited its mobility and thus restricted its effective use to tactical defense, but the operational and political demands of the German 1943 summer offensive, Citadel, would demand an additional role.

Operation Citadel, on the Eastern Front, was conceived amid ambivalence and controversy within the German High Command. Hitler, for once, was unenthusiastic, reeling under the triple blows of Stalingrad, defeat in North Africa, and the increasingly deadly Allied bomber offensive. Citadel was not to be a grand strategic throw of the dice, but rather an operation in which the Germans planned to “pinch off” a huge Russian salient centered on the city of Kursk. Some German commanders wanted to launch the attack in May, but the army was exhausted, and Hitler and elements within the High Command favored an offensive only after units could be increased in strength and reinforced with new weapons, among them the Ferdinand.

The Iron Willed General’s Tank Army

Marshaling and organizing the German tank arm was the responsibility of General Heinz Guderian, in many ways the father of the panzer forces. Guderian had fallen from Hitler’s grace in 1941, but by 1943 the Führer needed Guderian and reinstated the strong-willed general. Guderian faced the difficult task of gathering sufficient German armor to launch a successful summer offensive. He wanted authority over both tanks and assault guns, the latter now making up about a third of German tank production. But assault guns were technically the province of the artillery, and the artillerists were loath to surrender authority over these prized weapons, the only means, they claimed, by which an artillery officer might win the Knight’s Cross. The parties struck a compromise, placing only the heavy assault guns under Guderian. This meant that the Ferdinand, the heaviest assault gun, was a “tank” again.

While the Germans assembled their armies, the Soviets developed their defenses around Kursk in depth. Multiple defensive lines featured thick belts of trenches, minefields, and antitank gun batteries, plus local, operational, and strategic armored reserves. A great mass of mortars and heavy artillery supported the defenses at every level. The Soviet positions were designed to defeat the classic German blitzkrieg by first savaging the German “breakthrough” infantry divisions then wearing down the follow-on panzer divisions. Ultimately, mobile reserves would exploit the depleted German attackers.

The southern arm of the German pincer, Fourth Panzer Army and Detachment Kempf, contained the cream of the German Army. Both forces fell under the command of Army Group South, led by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein. Fourth Panzer Army was particularly strong. Its strike force included units of the SS Panzer Corps, consisting of three SS panzer divisions, and the Army’s elite Grossdeutschland panzer division. These troops were equipped with most of Germany’s operational Tiger Is (about 120 vehicles) and all of the new but unproven Panther tanks (about 300). In addition to these, the Fourth Army panzer units had large numbers of older but upgraded Mark IV tanks. Manstein planned to take advantage of his troops and equipment by throwing the panzer divisions directly at the tough Russian lines, counting on their mobility, determination, and firepower to force a breakthrough—using his infantry to “mop up” rather than lead the attack.

The Ninth Army Begins Its Offensive

The northern pincer fell under the command of Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, Manstein’s rival. Kluge’s strike force, Ninth Army, commanded by General Walther Model, consisted of ordinary divisions and contained more infantry and less armor than Fourth Panzer Army and Detachment Kempf. Unlike the SS divisions and Grossdeutschland, Model’s panzer units were almost uniformly understrength. They lacked modern equipment and first-rate troops. Most panzer regiments contained a mix of Mark IV tanks and obsolete Mark III tanks. The divisions lacked half-tracked personnel carriers and mobile artillery. To make up for this shortfall, about 30 Tigers and all available Ferdinands were assigned to Ninth Army.

The infantry-heavy Ninth Army, unlike Fourth Panzer, would attack in classic blitzkrieg fashion, sending its infantry straight into the maw of the Soviet defenses. Model planned to use the Ferdinands and his few Tigers as assault guns, advancing with the infantry divisions into the Soviet defensive belts to pry them open for the panzer divisions in reserve.

The offensive began on July 5, 1943, with heavy artillery bombardments by both sides. The Ferdinands, organized as Tank Destroyer Regiment 656, led the German attack on the northern front, advancing with engineers and infantry into the Soviet mine belts. These cheap but effective weapons destroyed many of the big assault guns. For the infantry, the conditions were similar to the Western Front during World War I, as dug-in machine guns and artillery ripped into the gray-clad ranks.

“Quail Shooting With Cannons.”

Without personnel carriers, the infantry fell behind the slow but heavily armored Ferdinands. Yet, as the Ferdinands and their crews advanced their difficulties increased. Some machines broke down crossing the scarred and rugged terrain; others, separated from the German infantry and without secondary weapons, became easy prey for Soviet infantry. Many were destroyed by placed magnetic shaped charges on their rear or sides. Without machine guns, the Ferdinands could hardly defend themselves or each other against the infantrymen. Guderian later remarked that the Ferdinands had gone “quail shooting with cannons.” And the guns, which had to carry the larger L/71 shell, quickly ran low on ammunition.

The Ferdinands, however, were successful in places. Ferdinands of the 653rd Battalion, supporting the 292nd Infantry Division, quickly pushed several miles into the Soviet line, reaching their initial designated objective. The second Ferdinand battalion, the 654th, effectively supported the 78th Infantry Division in its attack, though this attack stalled inside the Soviet defensive system. Where Ferdinands encountered Soviet tanks, they destroyed them with aplomb. Their big guns were able to shred the lighter Soviet T-34 at long ranges, with slight fear of riposte. Some accounts credit the Ferdinands with the destruction of over 800 Soviet vehicles. Such claims are surely exaggerations, but both the Tigers Is and Ferdinands dominated Soviet tanks at all but the shortest ranges.

When Hitler finally called off Operation Citadel on July 12, Model’s Ninth Army had advanced a mere 12 miles at its deepest penetration, barely a third of the way toward its objective at Kursk. In the south, Fourth Panzer Army’s tank-heavy assault had more success, but not enough to justify further bloodletting in the offensive. About half the Ferdinands were lost in the battle and during the subsequent retreat. The surviving Ferdinands were ordered back to Germany in the fall of 1943 for modifications and redeployment. The modifications involved adding a bow machine gun, a new commander’s cupola, and applying Zimmermit antimine paste on the front and sides of the vehicles.

A Sophomore Slump for the Elefant?

The giant Ferdinands had long been called Elefants by their crews and were now formally renamed after the pachyderm. In February 1944, the refurbished and redesignated tank destroyer went to Italy and joined German forces attempting to repel the Allied attack at Anzio.

Although better armed and protected, the Elefants appear to have had little success in the muddy and mountainous conditions of Italy. They fought at Anzio and Nettuno without notable success. Challenging terrain, mechanical difficulties, and mobility problems seem to have doomed most of the Elefants, much the way Hannibal’s elephants finally floundered after successfully crossing the Alps. Most Elefants were lost in combat or abandoned by their crews during the German retreat. Little is reported about the fate of the surviving Elefants. Tank Destroyer Regiment 656 itself was broken up and its crews reassigned to other units. A few Ferdinands apparently survived and were grouped in a single company that returned to the Eastern Front, where they fought in dwindling numbers to the end of the war.

It is reasonable to assume that if Nazi Germany had possessed a rational arms procurement policy, the Ferdinand would not have been built. Germany’s tank designs displayed both creativity and effectiveness, and no other major combatant produced such a wide variety of vehicles. While the United States and the Soviet Union settled early on basic, proven, armored fighting vehicles (the Sherman and the T-34 respectively, along with families of supporting tank destroyers), Nazi Germany produced an ultimately bewildering and industrially wasteful variety of machines.

The German leadership’s fascination with weapons and close involvement in procurement matters better left to experts, along with the Byzantine internal politics of the murderous regime itself, were direct causes of this aimless policy. There was no reason but politics for Porsche to produce 90 expensive tank hulls for a machine doomed to fail in trials. But then again, the essence of the Nazi regime was its fickle and irrational favoritism and prejudices, which extended into all areas of endeavor.

The Ferdinand Earns Its Place In Military History

The effectiveness of the Ferdinand depended upon its optimum deployment, and politics intruded to ensure its ultimate failure in combat. The Ferdinand probably would have had a successful and relatively long-lived career on the Eastern Front if it had simply been deployed as a long-range tank destroyer. Instead, because Nazi politics dictated that SS troops would receive virtually all new German tank production in 1943, and the artillery branch wanted its share of glory, the Ferdinand was foolishly deployed in the first rank of the assault on the Kursk salient.

The big machines alone could not reverse the calamity that befell Model’s Ninth Army in the north. The transfer of the surviving Elefants to Italy again placed them in an inappropriate tactical setting, requiring the large, awkward vehicles to traverse difficult roads and terrain in hopes of acquiring a dominating position from which to finally shoot.

Yet, for one year the Ferdinand was the most powerful mobile land weapon ever fielded. Armed with the world’s best tank gun and protected by the thickest armor, it held this distinction until the arrival of the Tiger II and related tank destroyers in mid-1944. Despite its flaws, the Ferdinand was an impressive weapon in a world where the immobile stalemated trenches were less than 20 years in the past. This was no mean accomplishment and has ensured the Ferdinand its place in military history.

Originally Published September 30, 2018.

This article originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia

WarIsBoring

Vietnam War, Asia

This iconic weapon has been used across the world, including during the Vietnam War.

Key point: The AK-47 is one heck of a reliable rifle, able to function well in a variety of harsh conditions. Given the problems with some of America's weapons, some U.S. servicemembers picked up the enemy's rifle for use in the field.

While the Soviet Avtomat Kalashnikova has become the iconic weapon of bad guys in Hollywood blockbusters and big-budget video games, U.S. commandos made good use of the rugged rifles in Vietnam.

This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

By the end of the conflict, the American military had reissued captured Ak-47s, made new ammunition for them and came up with a few other surprises.

It’s often because the commandos hated their own U.S.-made guns.

“Initially, the AK-47 was available in only small numbers to the Viet Cong fighting in South Vietnam,” historian Kevin Dockery explained in his book Special Warfare Special Weapons. “This resulted in the AK-47 being something of a prestige weapon.”

This extended to the Americans.

The practice of taking enemy weapons from the battlefield as trophies was hardly new in the 1960s. But captured weapons—especially AK variants—quickly became important parts of U.S. Army Special Forces and U.S. Navy SEAL Teams’ combat arsenals. These new additions offered a number of practical and psychological benefits.

For one, the American M-16 rifle was pretty crappy. The early design was a maintenance nightmare, and the guns often jammed in battle. The AK-47 was far more dependable, and had a larger 30-round magazine to boot.

An American soldier might confuse his enemies by using their own guns against them, especially in the dead of night. The AKs had a distinctive report and their tracer rounds glowed green instead of red — the standard color in Western armies.

“With the few men we had, we just didn’t have the firepower to take on an enemy unit,” Dockery wrote, quoting an unnamed SEAL officer. “An M-16 … would stand out to the VC or NVA, telling them where and possibly who we were.”

And the Pentagon’s battle plans called for American troops to scour the Vietnamese countryside for insurgents and their supplies. So there was no shortage of these foreign firearms or ammunition to go with them.

Commandos and regular forces both seized contraband—from food stores to heavy weapons—on a regular basis. With the stroke of a pen, senior officials redirect the captured AKs and their 7.62-millimeter bullets to troops in the field.

For instance, one SEAL report of captured items simply stated “7,400 rounds of AK-47 [ammunition] retained for SEAL Team Two,” according to Dockery. “The most common source of supply for … ammunition was from the original people who made it.”

The Pentagon also began developing its own secret supply chain for the seized weapons. Government contractors made cartridges devoid of any identifying markings. The foreign weapons and “sanitized” rounds were perfect for commando missions in North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Washington was not officially involved in the fighting in any of these countries.

Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s top secret Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observation Group—a.k.a., MACV-SOG—and their South Vietnamese counterparts routinely crossed these borders to hunt North Vietnamese supply convoys, gather intelligence and sabotage enemy infrastructure.

MACV-SOG’s personnel became among the most notable users of captured gear. In September 1970, the group even asked the Army’s Land Warfare Laboratory to modify six of its captured AKs.

Less than a year later, the technicians returned the guns with silencers and modified sights, according to official progress reports. The weaponeers also created 10 silenced Walther PPKS pistols — the famed sidearm of fictional super-spy James Bond — as part of the project.

MACV-SOG distributed AKs to special units of North Vietnamese defectors and South Vietnamese special operators. With faked enemy uniforms and captured weapons, American commanders figured Hanoi’s forces would be less likely to uncover these teams, codenamed Earth Angels.

“As proposed, recruitment of these personnel would be of a highly selective nature amongst NVA officers and NCOs who had surrendered their units or turned in caches of arms and equipment,” a now declassified study of MACV-SOG’s operations noted.

“Once selected, they were to be trained in intelligence collection techniques, observation, reporting, radio communication, demolition [and] prisoner capture,” the report added.

As American forces captured even more enemy ordnance, the Pentagon approved more … creative tactics. In 1967, the Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on plans—initially dubbed Eldest Son, but later nicknamed Pole Bean—to sneak booby-trapped ammunition into Viet Cong supply dumps.

“The object of the program was to cause incidents and casualties among the enemy, thus instigating doubt, fear and lack of confidence in the reliability of Soviet and CHICOM weaponry,” the MACV-SOG review explained, using the acronym for Chinese communists.

The near indestructible AKs were one of the primary targets of this psychological campaign. A year after the project got under way, American commanders even warned reconnaissance teams not to pick up the rifles while in the field, except in emergencies.

Pole Bean became one covert program the Pentagon was perfectly happy for the press to hear about. “A news item in The New York Times … indicated that the contaminated ammunition program was having considerable success,” the MACV-SOG report noted.

Even as Washington’s involvement in Southeast Asia waned, the Pentagon still made use of its captured stockpiles.

After a coup deposed Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihanouk in 1970, the Pentagon turned over more than 27,000 AKs and three million bullets to Phnom Penh, which had previously received military aid from Moscow.

When Pres. Richard Nixon agreed to a “peace with honor” two years later, American forces brought a number of the captured weapons home with them. While some of the Kalashnikovs ended up in museums, a number of them remained in U.S. special operations arsenals for training purposes.

But America’s affair with AK-47s on the battlefield didn’t end. Today, with the Cold War over and the rifle still in widespread service around the globe, the Pentagon is once again buying the guns on the open market to ship to Washington’s allies — particularly in the Middle East.

This first appeared in WarIsBoring here. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Farley

Security, Europe

The states occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of the war remain deeply suspicious of Russian intentions.

Here’s What You Need to Remember: The war between Germany and the Soviet Union officially began in late June 1941, although the threat of conflict had loomed since the early 1930s. Germany and the USSR launched a joint war against Poland in September of 1939, which the Soviets followed up with invasions of Finland, Romania, and the Baltic states across the following year.

After Germany crushed France and determined that it could not easily drive Great Britain from the war, the Wehrmacht turned its attention back to the East. Following the conquests of Greece and Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941, Berlin prepared its most ambitious campaign; the destruction of Soviet Russia. The ensuing war would result in a staggering loss of human life, and in the final destruction of the Nazi regime.

The Fight on Land: 

On June 22, 1941, the German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe struck Soviet forces across a wide front along the German-Soviet frontier. Romanian forces attacked into Soviet-occupied Bessarabia on the same day. The Finnish armed forces joined the fight later that week, with Hungarian troops and aircraft entering combat at the beginning of July. By that time, a significant contribution of Italian troops was on its way to the Eastern Front. A Spanish volunteer division would eventually join the fight, along with large formations recruited from Soviet prisoners of war and from the local civilian population of occupied Soviet territories.

The course of the war is far too complicated to describe, Suffice to say that the German enjoyed overwhelming success for the first five months of the war, before weather and stiffening Red Army resistance led to a Soviet victory in the Battle of Moscow. Germany resumed the offensive in 1942, only to suffer a major defeat at Stalingrad. The Battle of Kursk, in 1943, ended the Wehrmacht’s offensive ambitions. 1943, 1944, and 1945 saw the pace of Soviet conquest gradually accelerate, with the monumental offensives of late 1944 shattering the German armed forces. The war turned the Wehrmacht and the Red Army into finely honed fighting machines, while also draining both of equipment and manpower. The Soviets enjoyed the support of Western industry, while the Germans relied on the resources of occupied Europe.

The Fight in the Air: 

Mercifully, the nature of the war did not offer many opportunities for strategic bombing. Russia launched a few sorties against German cities in the first days of the war, usually suffering catastrophic casualties. For their part, the German Luftwaffe concentrated on the tactical support of the Wehrmacht. Germany did launch a few large air raids against Russian cities but did not maintain anything approaching a strategic campaign.

Notwithstanding the improvement of the Soviet Air Force across the war, and the effectiveness in particular of attack aircraft, in general, the Luftwaffe mauled its Soviet foe. This remained the case even as the Soviet aviation industry far outstripped the German, and as the Combined Bomber Offensive drew the attention of the Luftwaffe to the west.

The Fight at Sea: 

Naval combat does not normally loom large in histories of the War in the East. Nevertheless, Soviet and Axis forces fought in the Arctic, the Baltic, and the Black Sea for most of the conflict. In the north, Soviet air and naval forces supported convoys from the Western allies to Murmansk and harassed German positions in Norway. In the Black Sea, German and Romanian ships struggled against the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, winning important victories until the tide of the land battle turned. In the Baltic, Russian submarines and small craft fought a guerilla conflict against Germany and Finland for the first three years, although the Germans successfully leveraged their surface naval superiority in support of retreats in the final year of the war.

The Fight Against Civilians: 

The Holocaust is perhaps the most remembered legacy of the War in the East. The invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union brought the bulk of Eastern Europe’s Jewish population under Nazi control, facilitating a German policy of extermination. For non-Jews, German occupation policies were nearly as brutal, although populations sympathetic to the anti-Soviet crusade were sometimes spared.

Towards the end of the war, the Soviets did their best to return the favor. Soviet depredations against the German civilian population of East and Central Europe do not generally receive the same degree of attention as German actions, in no small part because of an enduring (if problematic) sense that the German deserved what they got. Other Eastern European populations were caught in the crossfire, suffering starvation and other depredations from both sides. Nevertheless, there is no question that the Soviets (and the peoples of Eastern Europe) suffered far more deeply from the war than the Germans.

The Costs

The raw statistics of the war are nothing short of stunning. On the Soviet side, some seven million soldiers died in action, with another 3.6 million dying in German POW camps. The Germans lost four million soldiers in action and another 370000 to the Soviet camp system. Some 600000 soldiers from other participants (mostly Eastern European) died as well. These numbers do not include soldiers lost on either side of the German-Polish War, or the Russo-Finnish War.

The civilian population of the territory in conflict suffered terribly from the war, in part because of the horrific occupation policies of the German (and the Soviets), and in part because of a lack of food and other necessities of life. Around 15 million Soviet civilians are thought to have been killed. Some three million ethnic Poles died (some before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but many after) along with around three million Jews of Polish and another two million of Soviet citizenship (included in the Soviet statistics). Somewhere between 500000 and 2 million German civilians died in the expulsions that followed the war.

Statistics of this magnitude are inevitably imprecise, and scholars on all sides of the war continue to debate the size of military and civilian losses. There is little question, however, that the War in the East was the most brutal conflict ever endured by humankind. There is also little question that the Red Army provided the most decisive blows against Nazi Germany, causing the vast majority of German casualties during World War II as a whole.

Postwar:

The end of the War in the East left the Soviet Union in control of a vast portion of the Eurasian continent. Red Army forces occupied Germany, Poland, Czechosolvakia, parts of the Balkans, the Baltic states, and parts of Finland. The Western allies remained in control of Greece and much of western Germany, while Joseph Tito established an independent communist regime in Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union redrew the map of Eastern Europe, annexing large chunks of Poland, Germany, and the Baltics, and ceding much of Germany to Polish control. Russian domination over the region would last into the early 1990s when the layers of the Soviet Empire began to peel away.

The scars of the war remain, not least in the absence of the populations exterminated during the conflict. The states occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of the war (including Poland, the Baltics, and Ukraine) remain deeply suspicious of Russian intentions. For its part, memory of the war in Russia continues to condition Russian foreign policy, and Russia’s broader response to Europe.

Robert Farley is a frequent contributor to TNI, is the author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat.

This article was first published in October 2015.

Image: 

Lyle J. Goldstein

Chinese Navy, Asia

U.S. submarines may well be extremely quiet, yet still vulnerable to detection by active pinging from dipping sonars deployed by helicopters.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The above brief survey of recent Chinese writings on ASW force development provides additional evidence to support the apparently growing notion that U.S. undersea superiority could be a gradually, but steadily, fleeting advantage. An obvious policy recommendation may follow that the U.S. submarine force must be large enough that it can sustain losses in battle against improving adversary ASW capabilities. 

In January 2011, the cover of the Chinese naval magazine 现代舰船  [Modern Ships], which is published by giant state-owned shipbuilding conglomerate CSIC, carried a simple and elegant headline: “056来了” [The 056 has arrived]. In an impressive display of shipbuilding muscle, Beijing has proceeded in the 4.5 years that followed in building nearly 20 of this new type of light frigate or corvette. 

For an interesting comparison, the U.S. Navy has launched less than half that number of its own small surface combatant, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) over a longer span of time.  Never mind that LCS still lacks for an anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM), so it is quite clearly “out-sticked” by the Chinese variant. But what is really impressive about the Type 056 is its ability to fill in a much needed niche-capability in China’s naval arsenal:  the requirement for a small, cheap, versatile, rugged and well-armed patrol ship to show the flag in proximate maritime disputes.  One obvious lesson from the conspicuous buildup described above is to watch the cover of现代舰船  [Modern Ships] carefully.

Last year, two covers of that magazine were dedicated to “coming attractions” in naval aviation:  new anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopters are in the pipeline and may well even enjoy prioritized development.  One cover (4A) showed a modernized, ASW-optimized version, likely called “Z-18F,” of a large workhorse of Chinese naval aviation, the Z-8.  Another somewhat more shocking design gracing the cover of Modern Ships last year (2A) was designated as “Z-20,” and seemed to be a near carbon copy of the SH-60 Sea Hawk, the frontline naval helicopter operated by the U.S. Navy in a variety of roles, including ASW. 

This edition of Dragon Eye will survey some recent developments in Chinese ASW development, emphasizing the surprisingly noteworthy future roles of the two new helicopter variants mentioned above.

But returning momentarily to our theme of Modern Ships magazine covers, yet another issue (3B) from early 2014 shows an illustration of a Type 056 from the stern quarter deploying a prominent variable depth sonar (VDS) as it hunts a nearby adversary submarine.  A variety of sources took note of this major design adjustment for the Type 056 with the first of these ASW-optimized light frigates, featuring the much larger aperture in its stern for the VDS, appearing in late 2013. 

It is true that Beijing has been experimenting with towed arrays since the 1980s.  But most new surface vessels have deployed with long linear-type passive towed arrays.  The new VDS will give the 056 additional active sonar capabilities (along with the bow array) that can “ping” more effectively from within or below thermal layers.  According to the Modern Ships rendering, surface ships that “用主动模式工作，让潜艇无所遁形” [employ active sonar methods of operation will render submarines unable to hide].  Coupled with the possibility of new weapons, such as “火箭自导弹”[homing depth bombs] or even “新型反潜导弹”[a new type of ASW missiles], these forces promise a much more formidable challenge.  Let’s not forget, moreover, that even as the Chinese Navy has been upgrading the sonars and ASW weaponry in its surface fleet, it has also been pushing ahead with an ambitious program to set up fixed sonar arrays on the sea bed in its proximate waters as well.

Undoubtedly, a Chinese move toward more regularized “far seas operations”—quite visible in a variety of realms—will require a renewed emphasis on airborne ASW.  Quite simply, fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft make for highly potent ASW platforms because of their speed, range, search rate and near invulnerability to submarine-launched weapons.  Despite these advantages, aerial ASW has long been an Achilles heel of the Chinese Navy—a fact widely acknowledged in Chinese naval circles.

A decade ago, the PLA Navy may have had as few as a couple of dozen large Z-8 helicopters, progenitor of the new Z-18F.  However, production was radically increased in the 2004-07 time frame, according to the 2014 covers story in Modern Ships, indicative of a new priority for naval aviation.  The same article highlights the much more prominent surface search radar on the new helicopter’s chin.  This radar is said to be capable of picking up submarine masts and periscopes at ranges of at least 40-70 km.  A rather detailed article on the Z-18F appeared in another prominent defense magazine, 航空知识 [Aerospace Knowledge] in late 2014.  This report seems to confirm a graphic that accompanied the Modern Ships report, which had previously suggested that the Z-18F could heft up to four ASW torpedoes—a significant improvement over its predecessor, the Z-8.  Perhaps some skepticism is warranted on this point given perennial difficulties with Chinese helicopter engines. The same report also suggests that the Z-18F will likely have more sonobuoy dispensers than the U.S. Navy’s SH-60 Sea Hawk.  The author says its size may imply that only the European EH-101 has comparable range and capabilities.  According to this report, the Liaoning aircraft carrier is planned to have a complement of six Z-18Fs.  More interesting still is the suggestion that each new Type 055 cruiser will carry two Z-18Fs.  That may partially explain that vessel’s expected large displacement.

Even if the Z-18F can shoulder much of the ASW burden for China’s emerging carrier task groups, there still arises a definite need for a sturdy all-purpose helicopter than can fly off the decks of China’s expanding fleet of modern frigates and medium-sized destroyers (Type 052 variants).  The 2014 cover article on the Z-20 confirms that the current standard bearer, the Z-9C, has proved disappointing, since it apparently is not capable of carrying all the requisite sensors and weapons.  While Chinese analysts do note certain superior characteristics of the Russian Ka-28 even versus the American SH-60—for example, with respect to range—they maintain that its electronics and sensors are outdated.  Thus, the claimed detection range of the Russian dipping sonar (6-8 km) is said to be half of what the Chinese Navy seeks at this point.   In general, the Modern Ships cover story on the Z-20 cites the difficulty of continuously upgrading and also integrating an imported Russian helicopter into the evolving Chinese ASW system.  This article is not shy about the close connection between China’s Z-20 and the American Blackhawk, which after all was exported to China back in the 1980s. 

The Z-20 is said to have first flown back in late 2013, but the available photograph of the prototype does not clarify whether the naval variant has reached the testing stage.  Curiously, neither the Z-20, nor the Z-18F, are discussed in the spring 2015 report by the Office of Naval Intelligence on “The PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Missions for the 21st Century.”

The initiatives described above should be sufficient to convince any analyst that the PLA Navy is poised to make a major push to improve its heretofore weak ASW capabilities.  But there are other major fixed-wing programs including a large ASW-optimized maritime patrol aircraft called “Gaoxin-6” that was recently profiled on the front page of the major Chinese newspaper 国际先驱导报[International Herald Leader].  Another Chinese fixed-wing program that surely has an ASW component is an on-going Chinese effort to produce the world’s largest seaplanes. It is, moreover, highly likely that China will follow the American lead in preparing to deploy drones of all types in the ASW fight.

The above brief survey of recent Chinese writings on ASW force development provides additional evidence to support the apparently growing notion that U.S. undersea superiority could be a gradually, but steadily, fleeting advantage. An obvious policy recommendation may follow that the U.S. submarine force must be large enough that it can sustain losses in battle against improving adversary ASW capabilities.  After all, U.S. submarines may well be extremely quiet, yet still vulnerable to detection by active pinging from dipping sonars deployed by helicopters.  As Chinese aerial ASW improves, moreover, US submarines should perhaps be equipped with weaponry to strike back against the rapidly growing force of adversary aerial targets.  For now, the United States still retains a significant advantage in undersea warfare, but Washington cannot permit superiority to result in complacency.

Lyle J. Goldstein is Associate Professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. The opinions expressed in this analysis are his own and do not represent the official assessments of the U.S. Navy or any other agency of the U.S. Government. This article first appeared several years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Editor’s Note: The following is part ten of a new occasional series called Dragon Eye, which seeks insight and analysis from Chinese writings on world affairs. You can find all back articles in the series here.

Image: Flickr.

Adam Lammon

Jordan, Middle East

Jordan has weathered a series of dire challenges in recent years, including the hosting of millions of refugees and new stresses brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Saturday, Jordanian authorities arrested nearly twenty people and placed the kingdom’s former crown prince under house arrest. As first reported by the Washington Post, Jordanian officials moved swiftly to quash a “well-organized” and “far-reaching” alleged coup attempt against King Abdullah II, who has ruled Jordan since 1999 and is a close U.S. and Israeli ally. In a noteworthy statement, Petra, the official Jordanian news agency, further said that the purported plot is known to have unspecified “foreign” backing. The apparent coup attempt comes at a moment when the Hashemite kingdom confronts a welter of problems, at home and abroad.

Although security officials have stressed that Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, the kingdom’s former crown prince and the eldest son of the late King Hussein, had not been arrested, he has reportedly been “asked to cease all movements or activities that could be employed to target Jordan’s security and stability.” In a video provided to the BBC, Prince Hamzah stated that the chief of the general staff of the Jordanian Armed Forces had informed him that he was not allowed to leave his home, communicate with others, or access social media because of his connections to “meetings” and “criticisms” against the country’s political leadership. The prince, whose phone lines have been cut, denied any wrongdoing and further stated that some of his friends, whom the Guardian revealed as Sharif Hassan bin Zaid (a member of the Jordanian royal family and a former envoy to Saudi Arabia) and Bassem Ibrahim Awadallah (a former head of the royal court who is said to be close to King Abdullah), had been arrested.

Despite that investigations are ongoing and additional arrests are expected, governments near and far wasted no time in expressing support for Jordan’s government and King Abdullah II. Not long after reports surfaced, Ned Price, spokesman for the U.S. State Department in Washington, stated that “We are closely following the reports and in touch with Jordanian officials. King Abdullah is a key partner of the United States, and he has our full support.” Responses from regional Arab states followed suit. According to Reuters, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Yemen, Palestine, and the Gulf Cooperation Council and Arab League all issued statements in support of Jordanian sovereignty, security, and stability. Officials in Israel have not commented on the alleged coup plot as of the time of writing but were reportedly briefed by the Jordanians on the security situation.

Stability in Jordan is certainly of interest to the wider Middle East and the international community at large. Jordan, which has maintained a peace treaty with Israel since 1994 and is considered a crucial U.S. regional ally, has weathered a series of dire challenges in recent years, including the hosting of millions of refugees and new stresses brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. A small country of just over ten million people, Jordan is currently home to over 1.3 million Syrian refugees and the world’s second-largest refugee camp, where conditions are poor and underfunded, and people lack access to healthcare and employment opportunities. This responsibility has strained Jordan’s finances, overburdened its schools, and taxed its infrastructure, Jordan’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation told the Associated Press in 2019.

The coronavirus pandemic, too, has heightened tensions in the kingdom. Although Jordan was previously regarded as an international success story following its quick decisions to close its borders and enact restrictive lockdowns, the country experienced a sharp increase in cases last fall, before seeing another wave of cases spike in March. Now counting over 622,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 7,000 related deaths, the kingdom is hoping that vaccines can be its way out of a prolonged crisis that is overwhelming hospital wards and cemeteries alike.

Protests against the government over seemingly endless lockdowns, perceived political corruption, and economic problems have also become more commonplace. For instance, Amman’s efforts to secure International Monetary Fund loans by implementing austerity reforms have provoked sustained public opposition and assertions that the government is selling out its politics to foreign donors. Moreover, following widespread demonstrations in response to the government’s repression of a teacher’s strike and anti-lockdown protests, the deaths of nine coronavirus patients who ran out of oxygen in a government hospital have resulted in increased demands for the government’s resignation.

These internal problems also follow a slew of external political challenges for the kingdom. It is well known that Amman was not a fan of former President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plans; King Abdullah warned Trump against moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and rejected Trump’s Middle East “peace to prosperity” plan while having to contend with the protests that the U.S. president regularly instigated. The adoption of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain further shifted the ground beneath the kingdom’s feet. Until recently, Jordan had been one of only two Arab countries that maintained close relations with Israel. The accords, and speculation that Saudi Arabia may be next to normalize relations with Israel, have changed this dynamic; Amman may not be considered the vital interlocutor it once was—especially now that Arab capitals are moving closer to Israel despite a lack of Israeli-Palestinian peace. If this trend continues, Jordan will have to make tough decisions about its place in this emerging regional order, regarding both the Palestinian refugees that live within its borders and the funding from Gulf capitals on which its survival continues to depend.

Adam Lammon is assistant managing editor at The National Interest. Follow him on Twitter @AdamLammon.

Image: Reuters.

The Conversation

Health, Americas

Cocaine is a dangerous substance on its own, but becomes particuarly deadly when combined with alcohol. 

When anyone under the age of 40 is admitted to a hospital emergency department complaining of chest pain, the doctor is likely to ask if the patient has taken cocaine. Cocaine use is a risk factor for heart attacks, but that risk is magnified when combined with alcohol.

According to EU data, around 2.3m young adults (aged 15-34) in Europe used cocaine in the last year. And cocaine use in the UK has been increasing rapidly, with Bristol and London leading the way.

Londoners consume twice the amount of any other European city – roughly 23kg of the class A drug every day. This works out at more than half a million doses of cocaine, with an estimated street value of £2.75m.

What makes this data more striking is that while the cost of a gram of cocaine has historically remained the same, the purity has increased dramatically, from 20% in 2009 to 50% in 2016, with some reports of super-strength (100%) cocaine being sold.

How cocaine works

Cocaine has many effects on the body but has several target organs: the brain, heart and liver. Cocaine affects the brain by increasing the amount of a chemical called dopamine in the brain, which causes a person to feel euphoric, have more energy and feel more confident. Cocaine stimulates the reward centre of the brain within seconds to minutes. But the effects are short-lived, lasting between five and 30 minutes, which partly depends on how it is taken. Injecting or smoking cocaine results in a shorter-lasting high (five to ten minutes) than snorting (15 to 30 minutes).

The short-lasting effects cause a user to repeat taking cocaine for the rewarding stimulus, which can result in a person eventually becoming addicted. The consequences of long-term use include an increased risk of stroke, heart attack and depression.

Dangerous by-product

Many people who take cocaine drink alcohol at the same time. This is in part because of the opposing physiological effects of each drug. Cocaine can increase anxiety, whereas alcohol acts as a depressant, which relieves anxiety. The combination can also enhance the euphoric effect, fuelling the brain’s reward system. Despite this, an unknown consequence to many regular or even recreational users is that combining alcohol with cocaine is cardiotoxic.

The liver is the major organ where cocaine is metabolised (broken down). But when cocaine is taken with alcohol, the liver produces a new byproduct called cocaethylene. It is thought that about 20% of the cocaine that is consumed is turned into this new chemical. Cocaethylene also remains in the blood circulation three to five times longer than cocaine.

Cocaethylene has considerably greater potency than cocaine, increasing the heart rate and blood pressure, which can lead to increased risk of stroke, arrhythmia and heart attack. Some studies suggest a 20-fold increased risk of a heart attack when cocaine and alcohol are used together. Alcohol’s toxic products can also directly affect the heart, lowering blood pressure and causing an increase in heart rate. Our group has shown that binge drinking can increase the risk of a heart attack.

As cocaethylene blocks the reabsorption of dopamine in the brain, it produces higher euphoric effects for both cocaine and alcohol, which can create a vicious cycle of taking more of each drug. A person is also more likely to engage in risky and violent behaviour.

Both alcohol and cocaine alone can cause inflammation (hepatitis) to the liver, however, when taken together where cocaethylene is produced, studies have reported greater liver injury.

As cocaine is more readily available in many cities across the world, it is important for users to be fully aware of the short- and long-term health risks of using cocaine and alcohol because the consequences can be fatal.

Vinood Patel is a Reader in Clinical Biochemistry, University of Westminster

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. 

Image: Reuters 

Richard Douglas

Guns,

Though its price slightly above average, the Ruger SP101 is very durable and an excellent choice for anyone who needs a solid revolver for personal defense.

Ruger’s SP101 is a small, durable, and elegant-looking revolver that’s great for concealed carry, personal defense, or even home defense. It’s available in a variety of calibers, including .357 Magnum, .38 Special, .327 Federal, and .22 LR. Throughout my years of owning this little revolver, I’ve never had any failures whatsoever. It’s incredibly reliable and built for years of consistent service.

The SP101 features a triple-locking cylinder, locked into the front, bottom, and rear of the frame to ensure dependability and positive alignment. There’s also a transfer bar safety, which will prevent any accidental discharges during concealed carry. The SP101 is very easy to take down for cleaning or maintenance, and requires no special tools to do so.

It comes with a sleek, brushed stainless steel finish for extra aesthetic appeal. While it’s not quite as nice as what you might find on a Smith & Wesson revolver, it’s still very high-quality. The SP101 also features a cushioned rubber grip with either a black synthetic or hardwood insert, depending on which model you choose. It feels nice in your hand, and there’s no exposed metal in the backstrap to further ensure a secure, comfortable grip. It’s great for me, but if the grip doesn’t quite meet your standards, the frame easily accommodates custom grips as well.

Most SP101 models come with a five-round capacity, apart from the .22 LR model (which comes with an eight-round capacity) and the .327 Federal (six-round capacity). You can shoot the revolver in double-action or single-action by manually cocking the hammer. I’d recommend shooting in single-action for a quick, light pull that breaks around 4 lbs, as the double-action pull can be long, gritty, and quite heavy, breaking around ten to eleven pounds.

This revolver comes in several different barrel lengths, including 2.25-inch, 3-inch, and 4.2-inch. It’s small enough to fit in your pocket and designed for ultimate concealability and easy storage. Weighing in at around twenty-five ounces, it is a bit heavy for its size. However, this heft does help to mitigate some of the recoil.

Just like the Taurus 380, it’s relatively soft shooting despite its small size. The .357 loads are much more snappy than .38 loads, but the combination of the revolver’s heavier weight, solidity, and cushioned grip make the recoil much more manageable than most snubnose revolvers.

As far as accuracy goes, you’ll have the best chance at hitting your target from short distances. Shooting in single-action helps with accuracy, as well. In fact, when I switched from double-action, I was able to cut my five-shot groups in half! My average grouping in single-action was just 1.5 inches from twenty-five yards, using various .38 Special loads. Getting small groupings from close distances (up to thirty yards) is easy, but anything further requires a bit of practice.

It comes standard with some basic sights, lowered to reduce the chances of snagging on your clothes when you draw the revolver from the concealed carry position. Both are adjustable for windage and elevation and set within the frame.

The MSRP of the Ruger SP101 is between $719–$769, depending on which model you choose, but you can usually find them online for around $550. It is a higher-than-average price, but extremely durable, soft shooting, and an excellent choice for anyone who needs an easy-to-conceal revolver for personal or home defense.

Richard Douglas writes on firearms, defense and security issues. He is the founder and editor of Scopes Field, and a columnist at The National Interest, 1945, Daily Caller and other publications.

Image: Wikipedia.

Robert Farley

Stealth Bomber,

The YB-49 prototypes suffered an unusual run of bad luck.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The B-2 Spirit, while utilizing radically different technology, bears a strong visual resemblance to its distant cousin. Indeed, the two aircraft share exactly the same wingspan. Northrop adopted the flying wing shape for the B-2 because it offers the advantage of a low radar cross-section.

As the United States approached World War II, it enjoyed the luxury of many innovative aircraft companies, and a ton of money to spend.  Part of this bounty went to pursuit aircraft, part to tactical attack planes, and part to long-range bombers. This last generated one of the most interesting failures ever to emerge from the U.S. aviation industry; the Northrop YB-49 “flying wing” bomber.

The Flying Wing

Early aviation engineers appreciated the potential for a “flying wing” design. A flying wing, which minimizes fuselage and usually eliminates the tail, reduces many of the aerodynamic compromises associated with a normal fuselage, reducing overall drag. However, many of these features enhance stability, meaning that a flying wing often lacks the stability of a traditional airframe. This makes the aircraft more difficult to fly, especially before the advent of fly-by-wire technology. A flying wing can also struggle with creating space for crew, payload, and defensive armament, as any of these can reduce the aerodynamic advantages than the shape offers.

Nevertheless, engineers (especially in Germany and the Soviet Union) tried repeatedly in the interwar period to develop a viable flying wing, either for transport or for military purposes. While these efforts yielded useful data, they rarely resulted in practical airframes. Near the end of World War II, the German successfully developed a jet fighter flying wing, although it did not enter mass production.

From XB-35 to YB-49

In the early years of World War II, U.S. strategists realized that it might become necessary to bomb Germany directly from the United States, especially if Great Britain left the war. A U.S. Army Air Corps request triggered proposals from a Boeing-Consolidated alliance (eventually Convair) and from Northrop. The former resulted in the Convair B-36 Peacemaker, the latter in the XB-35. The B-36 had a relatively conventional design; it looked more or less like a bigger version of the extant bombers of the time, although it had innovative features. The XB-35, on the other hand, was something new to U.S. military aviation; a flying wing. It was smaller than the B-36, but comparable in many performance features.

By 1944, the XB-35 had fallen behind the B-36 (although both suffered significant technological problems), and in any case the immediate strategic necessity for a trans-continental bomber had waned. The Air Force, which acknowledged that both the B-36 and the XB-35 were largely obsolete, canceled the latter instead of the former because it believed that the problems of the B-36 were easier to solve. However, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) found the flying wing concept sufficiently intriguing that it proposed redesigning the XB-35 airframe around a jet, rather than piston, engines. Northrop developed a plan to re-engine a number of incomplete XB-35 frames with jets, eventually completing three such conversions and preparing several more.

The jet engines improved the top speed of the bomber to 493 miles per hour, an improvement of about 20% over its antecedent. The service ceiling of the YB-49 also increased, an important consideration for escaping Soviet interceptors.  However, the fuel-hungry engines shrank the YB-49s combat radius, making it more comparable to a medium bomber than to the long-range B-36. Unfortunately, while the YB-49 could outrun the B-36, it lacked the speed of Boeing’s new B-47 Stratojet medium bomber.

Sabotage?

The YB-49 prototypes suffered an unusual run of bad luck. One prototype was lost with five crew members in June 1948, when the aircraft broke up in midflight. Another was lost during taxi when the nosewheel collapsed, leading to a fire that destroyed the entire aircraft. The Air Force cancelled the contract for the YB-49 in May 1950, shortly after this second accident. The last prototype, a recon variant, flew until 1951 and was scrapped in 1953.

Advocates of the YB-49 long nursed the belief that the Air Force had deliberately sabotaged the program in preference for the B-36 and other, later bombers. Jack Northrop, founder of the company, believed that the Air Force canceled the YB-49 because he would not agree to a merger with Convair. A few dark rumors implied that the accidents suffered by the YB-49 prototypes had not been accidental at all, but rather the result of sabotage. No meaningful evidence has ever emerged to substantiate these allegations.

B-2

Northrop would not realize success in an all-wing airframe until decades later. The B-2 Spirit, while utilizing radically different technology, bears a strong visual resemblance to its distant cousin. Indeed, the two aircraft share exactly the same wingspan. Northrop adopted the flying wing shape for the B-2 because it offers the advantage of a low radar cross-section. Advances in fly-by-wire technology have made the B-2 much easier to fly than the YB-49 (or the YB-35). All indications suggest that Northrop Grumman’s B-21 Raider stealth bomber will have a similar configuration, as will the Xian H-20 strategic bomber and the Tupolev PAK DA. 

Although the YB-49 never reached full production, experience with the frame helped validate the concept which now dominates international thinking on strategic bomber design.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat. This article first appeared several years ago.

Image: Wikipedia.

Robert Farley

Security, Americas

Instead of an easy victory, the British handed the Americans a devastating defeat.

Here’s What You Need to Remember: 

American military failures have undoubtedly had an impact on the country’s strategic position, but have yet to fundamentally undercut national power. The United States recovered quickly from Operation Drumbeat, Antietam, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and the defeat in Korea.

National greatness depends on more than simply victory in battle, as the persistence of U.S. power suggests. Nevertheless, each of these avoidable defeats proved costly to the United States—in blood, treasure and time.

Nations often linger on their military defeats as long as, or longer than, they do on their successes. The Battle of Kosovo remains the key event of the Serbian story, and devastating military defeats adorn the national narratives of France, Russia and the American South. What are the biggest disasters in American military history, and what effect have they had on the United States?

In this article, I concentrate on specific operational and strategic decisions, leaving aside broader, grand-strategic judgments that may have led the United States into ill-considered conflicts. The United States may well have erred politically in engaging in the War of 1812, World War I, the Vietnam War and Operation Iraqi Freedom, but here I consider how specific failures worsened America’s military and strategic position.

Invasion of Canada

At the opening of the War of 1812, U.S. forces invaded Upper and Lower Canada. Americans expected a relatively easy going; the notion that Canada represented the soft underbelly of the British empire had been popular among American statesmen for some time. Civilian and military leaders alike expected a quick capitulation, forced in part by the support of the local population. But Americans overestimated their support among Canadians, overestimated their military capabilities, and underestimated British power. Instead of an easy victory, the British handed the Americans a devastating defeat.

American forces (largely consisting of recently mobilized militias) prepared to invade Canada on three axes of advance, but did not attack simultaneously and could not support one another. American forces were inexperienced at fighting against a professional army and lacked good logistics. This limited their ability to concentrate forces against British weak points. The Americans also lacked a good backup plan for the reverses that the British soon handed them. None of the American commanders (led by William Hull, veteran of the Revolutionary War) displayed any enthusiasm for the fight, or any willingness to take the risks necessary to press advantages.

The real disaster of the campaign became apparent at Detroit in August, when a combined British and Native American army forced Hull to surrender, despite superior numbers. The British followed up their victory by seizing and burning several American frontier outposts, although they lacked the numbers and logistical tail to probe very deeply into American territory. The other two prongs of the invasion failed to march much beyond their jumping-off points. American forces won several notable successes later in the war, restoring their position along the border, but never effectively threatened British Canada.

The failure of the invasion turned what Americans had imagined as an easy, lucrative offensive war into a defensive struggle. It dealt a major setback to the vision, cherished by Americans, of a North America completely under the domination of the United States. Britain would hold its position on the continent, eventually ensuring the independence of Canada from Washington.

Battle of Antietam

In September 1862, Robert E. Lee invaded Maryland with the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee’s objectives were to take advantage of foraging opportunities (the movement of armies across Virginia had left the terrain devastated), support a revolt in Maryland and potentially inflict a serious defeat on Union forces. Unfortunately for Lee, information about his battle disposition fell into the hands of General George McClellan, who moved to intercept with the much larger Army of the Potomac. President Lincoln saw this as an opportunity to either destroy or badly maul Lee’s army.

The Battle of Antietam resulted in 22,000 casualties, making it the bloodiest day in the history of the Americas. Despite massive numbers, a good working knowledge of Lee’s dispositions and a positional advantage, McClellan failed to inflict a serious defeat on the Confederates. Lee was able to withdraw in good order, suffering higher proportional casualties, but maintaining the integrity of his force and its ability to retreat safely into Confederate territory.

McClellan probably could not have destroyed the Army of Northern Virginia at Antietam (19th-century armies were devilishly difficult to annihilate, given the technology available), but he could have dealt it a far more serious setback. He vastly overestimated the size of Lee’s force, moved slowly to take advantage of clear opportunities and maintained poor communications with his subcommanders. A greater success at Antietam might have spared the Army of the Potomac the devastation of Fredericksburg, where Union forces launched a pointless direct assault against prepared Confederate positions.

Antietam was not a complete failure; the Army of Northern Virginia was hurt, and McClellan forced Lee out of Maryland. President Lincoln felt confident enough following the battle to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, promising to free slaves in rebellious states. Nevertheless, Antietam represented the best opportunity that the Union would have to catch and destroy the Army of Northern Virginia, which remained one of the Confederacy’s centers of gravity until 1865.

Operation Drumbeat

On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Germany’s treaty obligations to Japan did not require action in case of Japanese attack, but Germany nevertheless decided to make formal the informal war that it had been fighting with the United States in the Atlantic. Historically, this has been regarded as one of Hitler’s major blunders. At the time, however, it gave German submariners their first opportunity to feast upon American coastal shipping.

In the first six months of 1942, the U-boat force commanded by Admiral Doenitz deployed into the littoral of the eastern seaboard. The Germans had observed some restraint prior to Pearl Harbor in order to avoid incurring outright U.S. intervention. This ended with the Japanese attack. The German U-boats enjoyed tremendous success, as none of the U.S. Army Air Force, the U.S. Navy, or American civil defense authorities were well prepared for submarine defense. Coastal cities remained illuminated, making it easy for U-boat commanders to pick targets. Fearing a lack of escorts (as well as irritation on the part of the U.S. business community), the U.S. Navy (USN) declined to organize coastal shipping into convoys. The USN and U.S. Army Air Force, having fought bitterly for years, had not prepared the cooperative procedures necessary for fighting submarines.

The results were devastating. Allied shipping losses doubled from the previous year, and remained high throughout 1942. German successes deeply worried the British, such that they quickly dispatched advisors to the United States to help develop a concerted anti-submarine doctrine. Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) was (and is) immensely complicated, requiring a great deal of coordination and experience to pull off correctly. The United States had neither worked diligently on the problem prior to the war, nor taken the time to learn from the British. However, the USN would make good its mistake later in the war, developing into a very effective ASW force, and deploying its own submarines to great effect against the Japanese.

Across the Partition, 1950

Following the successful defense of Pusan, and the stunning victory on the beaches of Inchon, the United States Army and Marine Corps, with support of Republic of Korea forces, marched deep into North Korea in an effort to destroy the Pyongyang regime and turn over full control of the Korean Peninsula to Seoul. The United States saw a counteroffensive as an opportunity to roll back Communist gains in the wake of the Chinese Revolution, and punish the Communist world for aggression on the Korean Peninsula.

This was an operational and strategic disaster. As American forces approached the Chinese border on two widely divergent (and mutually unsupportable) axes, Chinese forces massed in the mountains of North Korea. Beijing’s diplomatic warnings became increasingly shrill, but fresh off the victory at Inchon, few in the United States paid any attention. China was impoverished and militarily weak, while the Soviet Union had displayed no taste for direct intervention.

When the Chinese counterattacked in November 1950, they threw back U.S. Army and Marine Corps forces with huge loss of life on both sides. For a time, it appeared that the People’s Liberation Army’s counteroffensive might completely rout United Nation forces. Eventually, however, the lines stabilized around what is now the Demilitarized Zone.

This failure had many fathers. While General Douglas MacArthur pushed most aggressively for a decisive offensive, he had many friends and supporters in Congress. President Truman made no effort to restrain MacArthur until the magnitude of the disaster became apparent. U.S. intelligence lacked a good understanding of either Chinese aims or Chinese capabilities. The invasion resulted in two more years of war, in which neither China, nor the United States could budge the other very far from the 38th parallel. It also poisoned U.S.-Chinese relations for a generation.

Disbanding the Iraqi Army

On May 23, 2003, Paul Bremer (chief administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority) ordered the Iraqi Army to disband. It is difficult to overstate the unwise nature of this decision. We don’t need hindsight; it was, as many recognized, a terrible decision at the time. In a moment, swept aside was the entirety of Iraqi military history, including the traditions and communal spirit of the finest Iraqi military formations. Eradicated was the best means for managing the sectors of Iraqi society most likely to engage in insurgent activity.

It’s not hard to see the logic of the decision. The Iraqi Army was deeply implicated in the Baathist power structure that had dominated Iraq for decades. Many of its officers had committed war crimes, often against other Iraqis. It was heavily tilted towards the Sunnis, with few Shia or Kurds in positions of responsibility. Finally, it had, from the American perspective, a recent history of appallingly poor military performance. As Bremer argued, it had largely dissolved in response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

But this was not how many Iraqis viewed the army. The Royal Iraqi Army had come into existence in the early 1920s, when Iraq remained a protectorate of the British Empire. It had revolted in 1941, but the British made the wise decision to keep the force together so as to maintain order. In 1948, its units fought against Israeli forces during the wars of Israeli independence, and it participated in the 1967 war, if briefly. In the 1980s, it waged an eight-year struggle against Iran. While its legacy was complex, for many Iraqis, service in the Army (and in particular its performance against Iran) remained a source of personal and national pride. Eradicated was eighty years of institutional history.

It’s impossible to say how the reconstruction of the Iraqi Army might have played out differently, but then it’s difficult to imagine how it could have been worse. The Iraqi Army has consistently failed in the most elementary of military tasks when not directly supported by American forces. It remains unpopular in broad sectors of Iraqi society, and its performance against lightly armed ISIS fighters has made it the laughingstock of the region.

Conclusion

American military failures have undoubtedly had an impact on the country’s strategic position, but have yet to fundamentally undercut national power. The United States recovered quickly from Operation Drumbeat, Antietam, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and the defeat in Korea.

National greatness depends on more than simply victory in battle, as the persistence of U.S. power suggests. Nevertheless, each of these avoidable defeats proved costly to the United States—in blood, treasure and time.

This article was first published in 2014.

Daniel Khalessi

U.S. Democracy, Americas

An old adage warns us that people who stand for nothing fall for anything. March 27, 2021, marked the passing of a great Cold War diplomat and professor who stood for something: Charles Hill.

An old adage warns us that people who stand for nothing fall for anything. March 27, 2021, marked the passing of a great Cold War diplomat and professor who stood for something: Charles Hill. From his time as a young China watcher during the Sino-Soviet split to his experiences as a career diplomat and trusted adviser to former U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, President Ronald Reagan, and U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Hill committed his life and teaching to the cause of upholding world order.

As a Yale professor, he co-founded the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy with John Lewis Gaddis and Paul Kennedy and pushed his students to think critically about the competing forces of world history. In his book Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order, he argued that effective leaders made sound strategic decisions because they could “sense the course of history.” He called this a strategist’s “sixth sense”—the ability to “size up the situation at one glance and decide how to incorporate it, or not, into your grand strategy.” 

To this end, Hill pushed his students to study oratory, geography, literature, classics, and philosophy. He viewed these disciplines as integral to leadership, diplomacy, and strategy—despite the fact that the many universities and public policy schools had long abandoned them. To Hill, the idea that policy schools would purport to teach “diplomacy” but fail to introduce students to the time-honored arts of great diplomats was irrational. For Hill, strategy was not political science; it was more of a philosophy of history.  

The central theme in Hill’s philosophy of history was that the international state system is under siege by modern-day empires and revisionist powers. A rising China, revanchist Russia, revolutionary Iran, and resurgent right-wing extremism in America threaten the international state system. In Hill’s view, America is the only nation with the creed, capacity, and coalitions congruent with establishing a balance of power that preserves world order.

To be sure, America cannot and should not extinguish any and every threat to the international state system. Prudent strategy requires an ecological view of tectonic shifts, prioritizing objectives, building coalitions, balancing opposing forces, and not losing sight of America’s highest national interest: preventing threats to order and liberty at home.

Hill would often point to Alexander Hamilton as an American strategist who understood well that the demands of statecraft must trump soulcraft. As the Jeffersonians pushed for America to support the French Revolution, Hamilton argued that American involvement would lead to a war “with greater dangers and disasters than that by which we established our existence as an independent nation.” The survival of the fledgling American republic was more important than the rigid pursuit of ideology through military adventurism.

At the same time, American leaders must not become paralyzed by the fear of war. The first rule of strategy, Hill noted, is to “never tell your opponent what you are not going to do.” Today, the word diplomacy has lost meaning. For too many, its practice has become synonymous with accommodation, concession, détente, or even appeasement. But historically, the purpose of diplomacy has been much more: to extract concessions, forge coalitions, and construct international rules and procedures. Accommodation was not its sole purpose. In the Cold War, Paul Nitze argued that American diplomacy was analogous to Niels Bohr’s principle of complementarity. As Hill explained, America would need to be “adversarial and accommodating at the same time.”

Absent meaningful diplomacy and strategic foresight, world order can collapse in three different ways. First, America surrenders its leadership role out of a fear of war. Second, America sleepwalks into a nuclear war through miscalculation. This war, Reagan famously noted, that “cannot be won and must never be fought.” And third, despotism emerges in America.

The remedy to the first is American economic, diplomatic, scientific, and military strength. The remedy to the second is the marriage of prudence with deterrence. The third, however, will require nothing short of a societal renewal of America’s commitment to law, national service, and civic engagement.

If despotism were to “spring up amongst us,” as Lincoln argued in his Lyceum Address, then “we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” The collapse of American democracy would pose the greatest threat to world order in a trial of a thousand years, and thus America must stand for something, so it falls for nothing.

Daniel Khalessi is a J.D. Candidate at Stanford Law School and a former student of Professor Hill’s in the Yale Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy.  

Image: Reuters

The Conversation

Culture, Britain

Easter Eggs are plentiful in Great Britain today, but that was not always the case. 

For weeks (and weeks) in the run up to Easter, brightly packaged chocolate eggs fill the shelves of British supermarkets. Piled high and sold cheap, they are easy to get hold of – even hard to avoid.

But this wasn’t always the case. For almost a century after the first ones were produced in the 1870s by Fry’s and Cadbury’s, chocolate eggs were a luxury product. They were expensive, and difficult to find, with specialist confectioners often requiring orders to be made several months in advance.

The ease of buying an Easter egg changed dramatically for British consumers in the middle of the 20th century, as they appeared in a wider range of retail outlets. Just a few years after the end of wartime rationing, Easter eggs were widely available in 246,400 outlets and thousands more co-operative shops.

But even then, matching supply and demand was a real headache for both manufacturers and retailers. After Easter Sunday, remaining stock was difficult to sell, potentially wiping out profits.

Shopkeepers did not want to over order because they had much less power over how much they could charge for sweet treats. Manufacturers were allowed to fix the prices of chocolate and confectionery until 1967 through Resale Price Maintenance legislation. If a shop wanted to discount Easter goods after the festival ended, they had to ask the permission of the manufacturer.

Although it sounds like manufacturers had it all their own way, confectionery producers made only slightly higher margins on Easter eggs compared to other chocolate goods – and eggs were much more difficult to make.

Meanwhile, self-service was becoming the major innovation in post-war British retailing. The number of supermarkets grew from approximately 50 in 1950 to 572 by 1961, and by 1969 there were as many as 3,400. Self-service operations (including smaller stores and supermarkets) accounted for around 15% of grocery turnover in 1959, rising to as much as 64% ten years later. Specialist confectionery shops were worried by the trend – and rightly so.

Then in 1967 the abolition of price fixing legislation led to Easter-themed goods becoming increasingly important in the supermarkets’ calendar. Ever since, they have offered cut-price chocolate eggs before Easter to attract shoppers into their stores.

Competing for for the deepest discounts and the largest sales, the pressure switched to manufacturers who had to meet demand, but risk over production.

How do you eat yours?

In the 1970s, supermarkets routinely cut the price of Easter eggs, meaning shoppers were shielded from some of the worst effects of inflation and soaring cocoa prices.

Yet despite the difficult economic environment, in 1974, Grocer magazine reported that Cadbury’s aimed to significantly boost its share of the annual Easter egg business, which was worth around £23m. The following year, Cadbury’s hoped to gain 45% of the market with 21 items in its Easter range.

Since the 1980s, manufacturers have invested heavily in technology and production abroad, in a bid to reduce their costs. And to meet supermarket demands for heavy discounts, they have reduced the variety of Easter eggs they produce.

Consequently, the consumer price of chocolate eggs has remained broadly similar for the last 40 years or so. Taking into account retail price inflation, an egg costing two shillings in 1962 should be around £2.20 today, which isn’t too far from what we would expect to pay in most supermarkets for a chocolate egg in 2018 (despite the rising costs of cocoa over the past ten years).

The Easter Bank Holiday is a time when shoppers spend money on groceries, which means that attracting people into stores is a particularly important objective for retail managers at this time of year. One way to do this is through big discounts on traditional chocolate treats.

Nobody remembers resale price maintenance now, but we are left with the effects of this change in supermarkets up and down the country. The cut price Easter egg is now a major feature of our supermarkets – and is likely to stay.

Changes in the law and the rise of self-service shopping have provided a huge boost to the total Easter chocolate trade. Worth an estimated £10m in 1960, it has jumped to around £364m today.

The real losers from this were smaller sweet shops, who lost out as sales migrated to supermarkets. And although Easter eggs are big business, it is likely that we don’t value them as much today. There is less variety, less novelty and our way of buying them has changed.

And this bountiful supply of cheap chocolate also means we are eating more of the stuff. By some measures Britons currently eat an average of 8.4kg of chocolate per year. That’s double the amount reported before 1967’s pricing rule change – and proves the confectionery industry is still on a roll.

Adrian Bailey is a Senior Lecturer in Management, University of Exeter

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. 

Image: Reuters 

Robert Farley

Russian Air Force, Europe

This excellent warplane was made to take on American jet fighters and is now used by countries such as China.

Key point: The Su-27 flexible, powerful, and affordable. Here is how it projected Soviet power and how the Chinese made their own copies.

To the West, most of the legendary Soviet aircraft of the Cold War came from the design bureau Mikoyan Gurevitch, which spawned such aircraft as the MiG-15, MiG-21 “Fishbed,” MiG-25 “Foxbat” and MiG-29 “Fulcrum.” The single best Soviet fighter of the Cold War, however, was Sukhoi’s Su-27 “Flanker.” Intended both to defeat U.S. fighters over central Europe in a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict and to patrol the airspace of the Soviet Union against U.S. bomber incursions, the Su-27 survived the end of the Cold War to become one of the world’s premier export fighters.

This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Origins

The Flanker emerged as part of the high part of the high-low fighter mix that both the United States and the Soviet Union adopted in the 1970s and 1980s. In the U.S. Air Force this manifested in the F-15 and F-16; in the U.S. Navy, the F-14 and F/A-18. The MiG-29 “Fulcrum” played the light role in the Soviet partnership.

Sukhoi designed the Flanker with the capabilities of the F-15 Eagle firmly in mind, and the aircraft that emerged resembles the fast, heavily armed, long-ranged Eagle in many ways. Whereas the Eagle looks healthy and well-fed, the Flanker has a gaunt, hungry appearance. Although designed as an air superiority aircraft, the Su-27 (much like the Eagle) has proven flexible enough to adapt to interceptor and ground strike roles. Sukhoi has also developed a wide family of variants, specialized for particular missions but retaining overall multirole capabilities.

The Su-27 entered service more slowly than its fourth-generation counterparts in the United States (or the MiG-29, for that matter). A series of disastrous tests bedeviled the program’s early years, with several pilots dying in early versions of the Flanker. As it entered service in the mid-1980s, production problems slowed its transition to front-line status. And of course, the end of the Cold War curtailed the overall production run of the aircraft.

The Su-27’s capabilities are formidable. The Flanker can reach Mach 2.35 with a thrust-to-weight ratio above one (depending on fuel load). It can carry up to eight air-to-air missiles (generally of short to medium range; other variants specialize in Beyond Visual Range combat) or an array of bombs and missiles. In the hands of an experienced pilot, the Su-27 can carry out a bewildering array of maneuvers, many of which have delighted air show audiences across Russia and Europe.

The basic Su-27 frame has proven remarkably flexible. The Russian Air Force has modified most of its existing Flanker fleet with a variety of advanced avionics, improving its air-to-air capacity and also giving it an effective ground attack capability. Several Flanker variants have acquired their own designations, especially on the export side.

Export

The original version of the Flanker has enjoyed tremendous export success, and still flies in eleven air forces around the world. The bulk of aircraft fly in Russian (359) and Chinese (fifty-nine) service. In some smoldering conflicts (Russia-Ukraine, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Vietnam-China) both sides fly Su-27s. Overall, 809 Flankers have entered service, plus large production orders for several variants.

The transfer of Su-27s to China caused a surprising amount of friction between Moscow and Beijing. China purchased some Flankers off the shelf, agreed to coproduce another batch, and acquired a license for production of additional aircraft. However, Russia soon accused China of violating the terms of the agreement by installing its own avionics on the J-11 (as the Chinese designated their own Flankers), appropriating Russian intellectual property and developing a carrier variant (eventually the J-16). The dispute cooled Russian enthusiasm for arms exports to China, a situation that persists today.

Combat

For such a remarkable aircraft, the Su-27 has seen relatively little combat. It has flown combat missions in several theaters across the world, although it has yet to serve in a sustained air superiority campaign. Flankers flew in some of the wars that characterized the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and have constituted the core of Russian airpower in the Wars of Russian Reconsolidation. Indeed, Su-27s have flown on both sides of the spasmodic conflict in Ukraine. Su-27s in Russian service also currently fly in Syria. In foreign service, the Su-27 has flown in the Angolan Civil War and the Ethiopia-Eritrea War, scoring its only air-to-air victories (over Eritrean MiG-29s) in the latter.

The Su-27 was the last of the major fourth-generation fighters to enter service, and has proven an exceedingly successful design. Big enough and powerful enough to sustain a number of modifications and improvements, the Flanker should continue to see service (and even production) for quite some time. This is especially true given the uncertainty associated with the future of the PAK FA, the fifth-generation stealth fighter intended to replace both the MiG-29 and the Su-27.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Information Dissemination and the Diplomat. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Farley

Israel Military, Middle East

These weapons are the foundation of why Israel is a military power no one wants to mess with.

Here's What You Need to Remember: When considering the effectiveness of Israeli weapons, and the expertise of the men and women who wield them, it’s worth noting that for all the tactical and operational success the IDF has enjoyed, Israel remains in a strategically perilous position.

Since 1948, the state of Israel has fielded a frighteningly effective military machine. Built on a foundation of pre-independence militias, supplied with cast-off World War II weapons, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have enjoyed remarkable success in the field. In the 1960s and 1970s, both because of its unique needs and because of international boycotts, Israel began developing its own military technologies, as well as augmenting the best foreign tech. Today, Israel boasts one of the most technologically advanced military stockpiles in the world, and one of the world’s most effective workforces.

Here are five of the most deadly systems that the Israeli Defense Forces currently employ--the foundation of why Israel is a military power no one wants to mess with.

Merkava: 

The Merkava tank joined the IDF in 1979, replacing the modified foreign tanks (most recently of British and American vintage) that the Israelis had used since 1948. Domestic design and construction avoided problems of unsteady foreign supply, while also allowing the Israelis to focus on designs optimized for their environment, rather than for Central Europe.  Around 1,600 Merkavas of various types have entered service, with several hundred more still on the way.

The Merkava entered service after the great tank battles of the Middle East had ended (at least for Israel). Consequently, the Merkavas have often seen combat in different contexts that their designers expected. The United States took major steps forward with the employment of armor in Iraq and Afghanistan (particularly in the former) in a counter-insurgency context, but the Israelis have gone even farther. After mixed results during the Hezbollah war, the IDF, using updated Merkava IVs, has worked hard to integrate the tanks into urban fighting. In both of the recent Gaza wars, the IDF has used Merkavas to penetrate Palestinian positions while active defense systems keep crews safe. Israel has also developed modifications that enhance the Merkavas’ capabilities in urban and low-intensity combat.

Indeed, the Merkavas have proved so useful in this regard that Israel has cancelled plans to stop line production, despite a lack of significant foreign orders.

F-15I Thunder: 

The Israeli Air Force has flown variants of the F-15 since the 1970s, and has become the world’s most versatile and effective user of the Eagle. As Tyler Rogoway’s recent story on the IAF fleet makes clear, the Israelis have perfected the F-15 both for air supremacy and for strike purposes. Flown by elite pilots, the F-15Is (nicknamed “thunder”) of the IAF remain the most lethal squadron of aircraft in the Middle East.

The F-15I provides Israel with several core capabilities. It remains an effective air-to-air combat platform, superior to the aircraft available to Israel’s most plausible foes (although the Eurofighter Typhoons and Dassault Rafales entering service in the Gulf, not to mention Saudi Arabia’s own force of F-15SAs, undoubtedly would provide some competition. But as Rogoway suggests, the Israelis have worked long and hard at turning the F-15 into an extraordinarily effective strike platform, one capable of hitting targets with precision at long range. Most analysts expect that the F-15I would play a key role in any Israeli strike against Iran, along with some of its older brethren.

Jericho III: 

The earliest Israeli nuclear deterrent came in the form of the F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers that the IAF used to such great effect in conventional missions in the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War. Soon, however, Israel determined that it required a more effective and secure deterrent, and began to invest heavily in ballistic missiles. The Jericho I ballistic missile entered service in the early 1970s, to eventually be replaced by the Jericho II and Jericho III.

The Jericho III is the most advanced ballistic missile in the region, presumably (Israel does not offer much data on its operation) capable of striking targets not only in the Middle East, but also across Europe, Asia, and potentially North America. The Jericho III ensures that any nuclear attack against Israel would be met with devastating retaliation, especially as it is unlikely that Israel could be disarmed by a first strike. Of course, given that no potential Israeli foe has nuclear weapons (or will have them in the next decade, at least), the missiles give Jerusalem presumptive nuclear superiority across the region.

Dolphin: 

Israel acquired its first submarine, a former British “S” class, in 1958. That submarine and others acquired in the 1960s played several important military roles, including defense of the Israeli coastline, offensive operations against Egyptian and Syrian shipping, and the delivery of commando teams in war and peace. These early boats were superseded by the Gal class, and finally by the German Dolphin class (really two separate classes related to the Type 212) boats, which are state-of-the-art diesel-electric subs.

The role of the Dolphin class in Israel’s nuclear deterrent has almost certainly been wildly overstated. The ability of a diesel electric submarine to carry out deterrent patrols is starkly limited, no matter what ordnance they carry. However, the Dolphin remains an effective platform for all sorts of other missions required by the IDF. Capable of maritime reconnaissance, of sinking or otherwise interdicting enemy ships, and also of delivering special forces to unfriendly coastlines, the Dolphins represent a major Israeli security investment, and one of the most potentially lethal undersea forces in the region.

The Israeli Soldier: 

The technology that binds all of these other systems together is the Israeli soldier. Since 1948 (and even before) Israel has committed the best of its human capital to the armed forces. The creation of fantastic soldiers, sailors, and airmen doesn’t happen by accident, and doesn’t result simply from the enthusiasm and competence of the recruits. The IDF has developed systems of recruitment, training, and retention that allow it to field some of the most competent, capable soldiers in the world. None of the technologies above work unless they have smart, dedicated, well-trained operators to make them function at their fullest potential.

Conclusion: 

When considering the effectiveness of Israeli weapons, and the expertise of the men and women who wield them, it’s worth noting that for all the tactical and operational success the IDF has enjoyed, Israel remains in a strategically perilous position. The inability of Israel to develop long-term, stable, positive relationships with its immediate neighbors, regional powers, and the subject populations of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip means that Jerusalem continues to feel insecure, its dominance on land, air, and sea notwithstanding. Tactics and technologies, however effective and impressive, cannot solve these problems; only politics can.

Robert Farley is a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs.He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter:@drfarls.

This first appeared in May 2015 and is being reposted due to reader interest. 

Image: Reuters.

Robert Farley

Superweapons,

The effect of the B-70 on the Air Force would have, on balance, been quite negative.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Technology undoubtedly matters, but only rarely in the sense that an isolated technological achievement lends decisive advantage in tactical engagements. Rather, technological innovations and choices shape the ways in which military organizations, and the broader defense-industrial complex, approach the prospect of war.

Weapons die for all kinds of different reasons. Sometimes they happen at the wrong time, either in the midst of defense austerity, or with the wrong constellation of personnel. Sometimes they fall victim to the byzantine bureaucracy of the Pentagon, or to turf fights between the services. And sometimes they die because they were a bad idea in the first place. For the same reasons, bad defense systems can often survive the most inept management if they fill a particular niche well enough.

This article concentrates on five systems that died, but that might have had transformative effects if they had survived. These transformations would only rarely have changed the course of wars (countries win and lose wars for many reasons besides technology), but rather would have had ripple effects across the entire defense industrial base, altering how our military organizations approached warfighting and procurement. Not all the changes would have been for the best; sometimes programs are canceled for sound reasons.

AH-56 Cheyenne

In the early 1960s, the Army was just beginning to appreciate the value of helicopter aviation. The Army had used helicopters at the end of World War II, and used them extensively in Korea for reconnaissance and evacuation purposes. As the sophistication of the machines grew, however, the Army began to see the prospect for much more advanced helicopters that could conduct a wide variety of missions.

The star of the show was supposed to be the AH-56 Cheyenne, a radical design that combined high speed with punching power. The Cheyenne could escort other helicopters in transport mission, or conduct ground support and attack ops independently. In particular, it contained a magnificent propulsion system that could offer speeds of up to 275 miles per hour.

But the Cheyenne fell victim to its own promise. The technologies that made the Cheyenne possible weren’t yet mature, and the early prototypes suffered from teething problems, leading to a fatal crash. The Air Force hated the whole idea of the Cheyenne, believing that the Army was trying to steal close air support and interdiction missions for itself. The Air Force went so far as to propose a fixed-wing attack aircraft (which would eventually become the A-10) in its effort to kill the program. Finally, the Vietnam War put enormous pressure on the defense budget, both in terms of making it harder to sell particular programs, and in diverting funds to directly support the war effort.

And so the Cheyenne never happened. Although, a few years later, the Army would push forward with the AH-64 Apache. In this sense, the cancelation of the Cheyenne merely delayed an advanced attack helicopter capability. But the Apache was also a much safer machine than the Cheyenne, and going with the more conventional system has undoubtedly limited the horizons of Army aviation.

B-70 Valkyrie

The B-70 Valkyrie deserves its own operatic cycle. Envisioned as the replacement for the B-52 Stratofortress and the B-58 Hustler, the B-70 was designed to penetrate Soviet airspace at high altitude, and upwards of Mach 3. Beloved of the “Bomber Mafia,” a generation of senior officers who had cut their teeth in World War II’s Combined Bomber Offensive, the B-70 represented, to many, the future of the Air Force.

And just to show I’m not a hard-hearted guy, and it’s not all dollars and cents, the B-70 was a beautiful aircraft. Long and sleek, the Valkyrie resembles a space ship more than an aircraft. The surviving prototype remains on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

But the Valkyrie was enormously expensive, and this expense made it vulnerable. First President Eisenhower, then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara were less than enchanted with the idea of spending enormous sums on another heavy bomber when ICBMs showed great promise in delivering nuclear weapons to the Soviet homeland. Advances in Soviet interceptor and surface-to-air missile technology were also making the B-70’s mission considerably more dangerous than first anticipated.

After constructing only two prototypes (one of which was lost during a PR stunt), the Air Force shut production down. Fifteen years later, the B-1B, with some superficially similar characteristics, would enter service.

The effect of the B-70 on the Air Force would have, on balance, been quite negative. Devoting tremendous resources to the procurement of another strategic bomber would have drawn attention away from both the tactical air force and the missile force. B-70s might (in desperation) have been committed to the bombing of Vietnam during Operations Linebacker I and II, but they would likely have performed no more effectively than the B-52s they were replacing. And both the B-52 and the B-1B have proven remarkably flexible in terms of missions and update technologies, in part because they have space for a larger crew (4 and 5, respectively) than the Valkyrie (2). McNamara saved the Air Force from itself by preventing a long, deep procurement chasm that would have lasted thirty years.

A-12 Avenger

What if we had a stealthy strike bomber that could take off from aircraft carriers? In the mid-1980s, the Navy needed a replacement for the beloved-but-venerable A-6 Intruder. Building on expectations about the progress of stealth technology, McDonnell Douglas developed the A-12 Avenger, a subsonic “flying wing” bomber that visually resembled a miniature B-2 Spirit. Combining stealth with the flexibility of carrier ops, the A-12 promised an unparalleled deep strike capability. Even the Air Force expressed interest in the A-12 as a replacement for the F-111 Aardvark.

But there were problems. Early expectations about the stealth coating proved optimistic, and the fixes substantially increased the Avenger’s weight. Expenses soared, but the aircraft did not. The biggest problem, however, was that the Avenger entered the design and production cycle just as the Cold War came to a close. Facing a tight defense budget, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney decided to kill the A-12 in favor of less risky programs.

The effects of the cancelation remain with us today. Instead of acquiring an advanced stealth bomber, the Navy settled on the Super Hornet, a significant, but conventional, upgrade on the F-18s it already possessed. Eventually, the continuing need for a stealthy, carrier-borne strike aircraft would manifest in the F-35C, a program that continues to teeter between “disaster” and “epic disaster.” Even if the F-35C somehow works out, the Navy gave up the deep strike mission when it settled on the Super Hornet. The Air Force is now concentrating on the Next Generation Bomber, a project that closely resembles the A-12 in many ways. The death of the A-12, in effect, transformed the nature of the USN carrier wing for a generation or more.

Future Combat Systems

In the early 21st century, the body of theory known as the Revolution in Military Affairs resulted in a major Army procurement plan known as “Future Combat Systems.” In brief, the application of RMA theory to modern operations suggested that the combination of precision-guided munitions, high processing speeds, real time communications, and all-encompassing sensor capabilities would transform the way in which armies fought. Future Combat Systems envisioned an integrated system of weapons, vehicles, and sensors that could prove lethal and decisive across the combat spectrum. The Army expected every element of the system to support the goal of linking sensors to shooters, enhancing killing power while reducing footprint. Army planners also intended FCS to result lighter, more deployable brigades.

But then the Bush administration dropped the Iraq War on the US Army. Iraq created major problems for the development of the FCS program. Intellectual energy and material devoted to developing the FCS concept to its fullest went, instead, to fighting the war. The conflict demanded systems (such as the MRAP) that did not fit into the FCS concept. Perhaps most important, the course of the war threw RMA theory into question, with guerrilla fighters consistently bloodying the nose of their technologically sophisticated American foes.

And so FCS died a slow death. The vision of a coherent system-of-systems surrendered to the need to get particular capabilities into the field in piecemeal fashion, regardless of their role in the larger puzzle. The Army fought the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars with a mix of new and legacy systems, combined with weapons that had no place in its future expectations. While individual parts of the FCS vision survive, the ideal has yielded to budgetary and military reality.

Sea Control Ship

What if, instead of a few very large carriers, the United States Navy had undertaken to build a large number of small carriers? In World War II, the Royal Navy and the US Navy (USN) employed large numbers of escort carriers, small flattops that could support anti-submarine and amphibious operations.

In the early 1970s, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt pushed the idea of the Sea Control Ship (SCS), a small carrier that would defend sea-lanes against long-range Soviet strike aircraft and Soviet submarines. Faced with the growing expense of modern supercarriers (the first Nimitz class carrier would enter service in just a few years) and the impending retirement of the venerable Essex class carriers, Zumwalt sought a low cost option for air operations that did not demand the full capabilities of a major carrier group. Escort carriers had helped win the Battle of the Atlantic, and Sea Control Ships might make a similar contribution in a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict.

The USN tried the concept with the helicopter carrier USS Guam for a couple of years, adding Harrier fighters to its complement of choppers. Eventually, however, the Navy decided that the expense of the new ships, and the risk that they might cut into resources dedicated to supercarriers, were too great, and nixed the idea.

Eventually, the big amphibious ships of the Tarawa and Wasp classes would take over the sea control role. In effect, the USN acquired Sea Control Ships, although we call them amphibious assault ships and delegate to them a broader array of tasks. We also rely on other countries to build small carriers to fulfill the missions envisioned by the SCS; many of the flattops operated by the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Japan essentially fulfill an SCS role.

Pursuit of the Sea Control Ship would obviously have led to a different naval force structure, as well as changes in the composition of naval aviation. The biggest difference, however, might have been conceptual; the Sea Control Ship might have changed the way we think about how naval aviation contributes to international security. The ability of small carriers to contribute to a variety of different missions and needs might draw us away from the (if incorrectly applied) Mahanian conception of naval power to a more Corbettian “dispersal” concept. And at a time when even strong advocates of the modern CVN have begun to buckle under the enormous cost of the great ships, the SCS might have offered a different way of approaching the projection of naval power.

Conclusion

Technology undoubtedly matters, but only rarely in the sense that an isolated technological achievement lends decisive advantage in tactical engagements. Rather, technological innovations and choices shape the ways in which military organizations, and the broader defense-industrial complex, approach the prospect of war. Each of these systems involved a radical rethink of organizational roles and priorities, and the cancelation of each left huge holes in capabilities, holes that continue to be filled in novel ways.

Honorable Mentions

USS United States class aircraft carrier, USS Montana class battleship, USS Lexington class battlecruiser, B-49, F-23 “Black Widow” and the F-20 Tigershark.

This first appeared in 2014 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Pedro Gonzalez

HR 1, Americas

To start, HR 1 would grant federal voting rights to convicted felons, enabling people who have been sentenced for cruel crimes to cast ballots so long as they aren't serving a sentence in a correctional facility at the time of the election.

The concept of a Trojan Horse may be something of a political cliché but it is hard to think of a better analogy for HR 1, also known as the For the People Act. It sits at the legislature’s gates now as an election reform bill formally designed to redress racial grievances. The reality, however, is very different.

To start, HR 1 would grant federal voting rights to convicted felons, enabling people who have been sentenced for cruel crimes to cast ballots so long as they aren't serving a sentence in a correctional facility at the time of the election. What about felons out of confinement? In 2017, Brian Golsby abducted, raped, murdered a twenty-one-year-old student at Ohio State named Reagan Delaney Tokes. Golsby had just gotten out of prison after serving a six-year sentence for abducting a pregnant woman and her child and raping the woman. He was staying in state-contracted housing at the time of the crime.

Golsby raped Tokes, then marched her into a field and shot her in the head. He didn’t even bother removing the GPS monitor issued to him by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Would HR 1 have allowed him to vote? The answer appears to be yes.

“Under the Democrats’ radical plan to give the vote to everyone, even violent felons including rapists and murderers who were just released can cast a ballot,” said Sean Kennedy in an interview for this story. Kennedy is a visiting fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute who has written extensively on felon voting rights and COVID releases. “The bill specifies that the individual only need be currently incarcerated so all probationers and parolees including those under home confinement or GPS monitoring could legally vote including dangerous predators like Golsby.”

He warns that many of the worst types could benefit from HR 1. “Thirty states currently restrict the ballot to only those who have completed their sentence or had their rights restored by a court, so over two-thirds of released felons would be instantly eligible to choose their Congressman, school board president, and local water board officials with a vote equal to their victims and their families.”

“So far,” he adds, “over 100,000 prisoners have been released due to ‘COVID concerns,’ many of which have gone on to commit heinous acts including murders, rapes, and hate crimes.”

Indeed, HR 1 would effectively codify as federal law the massive, emergency expansion of mail-in voting implemented in response to the pandemic while eliminating basic election integrity measures. HR 1 would dramatically expand ballot harvesting and remove limits on how many ballots a single person could return on behalf of others. It would compel states to accept mail-in ballots postmarked before or on election day—without requiring any standard of proof—if received within ten days after the election. The bill prohibits states from requiring a voter to provide an ID to vote by mail or require notarization or witnesses of voters’ signatures to cast an absentee ballot. It consequently paves over federal election laws that received bipartisan support, like the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

HR 1 registers to vote virtually anyone who interacts with the federal government for a variety of reasons. As a result, the bill’s authors anticipate noncitizens to be registered, so they include a provision to protect them from prosecution if and when they are automatically registered in error. Further, it would impose, as the MinnPost put it, “new safeguards against improper purges of voting rolls to prevent voters being incorrectly removed from their voter registration.” That is another way of saying it would make it more difficult to clean up and upgrade states’ voter databases.

In 2012, on top of millions of invalid voter registrations, the Pew Center on the States found more than 1.8 million dead people registered to vote across the United States, and approximately 2.75 million people with registrations in more than one state. Our voting systems, the authors warned, “are plagued with errors and inefficiencies that waste taxpayer dollars, undermine voter confidence, and fuel partisan disputes over the integrity of our elections.” As a result, elections can suffer from “the perception that they lack integrity or could be susceptible to fraud”—and that would only worsen under HR 1.

The bill would also eliminate all voter ID laws. “If ‘John Jones’ says he wants to vote, there's no way to prove that ‘John Jones’ is ‘John Jones,’” worries Raynard Jackson, CEO of the political consulting firm Raynard Jackson and Associates. He told The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat that there would be “no way to prove that ‘John Jones’ hadn't voted at five other locations, he just kept driving around town, voting multiple times.” That may or may not be an exaggeration, but all that would take the place of voter ID is a sworn statement. At a time when “interpersonal trust is in catastrophic decline,” HR 1 attempts to institute voting by the honor system.

The rebuttal goes that voter ID is intimately connected to the specter of Jim Crow. However, that is complicated by the fact that recent polling shows 69 percent of Black people and 82 percent of other minorities say voters should be required to present photo identification before being allowed to vote. Support for voter ID laws has actually increased from 67 percent to 75 percent since 2018 among likely voters.

But the worst, most significant aspect—and the real purpose—of HR 1 is hidden in plain sight. “It would abrogate the authority of state legislators to draw the boundary lines of congressional districts and transfer it to so-called independent redistricting commissions,” explains Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. As with all the other provisions, the justification for these commissions is anti-racism.

He notes that to be in the “selection pool” for one of these commissions, an applicant would, among other things, have to disclose their “race, ethnicity, [and] gender.” HR 1 requires that membership on the redistricting commission be “representative of the demographic groups [including racial, ethnic, economic, and gender] . . . of the State.” This is a racial- and gender-quota system that appears conspicuously at odds with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Like most affirmative action-type policies, these requirements would likely result in discrimination against white Americans.

Put simply, HR 1 would not make elections fairer, securer, or safer. There is certainly room and a need for reform, but HR 1 would be iatrogenic in its effects: its prescriptions would cause more harm. However, that’s beside the point.

Independent of its formal aims, the effective truth of HR 1 is the usurpation and centralization of individual states’ constitutionally assigned functions into bureaucracies that would serve above all the political party that created them—there is no such thing as an “apolitical” institution or commission. And Democrats, who control or benefit from much of the bureaucratic apparatuses of the managerial regime, know this.

Some of HR 1’s opponents have struggled to formulate a response to the anti-racism narrative behind the bill beyond merely yelping about double standards. Thus, it may be worth reflecting on the concept that Pierre-André Taguieff, a French philosopher who has specialized in the study of racism, likens to totalitarianism. President Emmanuel Macron himself reportedly uses Taguieff's work to better understand the dangers facing France from the social theories on race imported from American universities. Politicians and prominent intellectuals alike view them as an existential threat to the French Republic and French identity.

According to Taguieff, society is currently in the presence of “antiwhite anti-racism,” or what is a new, disturbing form of “politically and culturally acceptable political and cultural racism.” Some people believe that white people are “systemically” guilty of racism because they are white and Black people are “systemically” victims of racism—which is “white” by definition—because they are Black. “This militant definition of racism, known as 'structural' or ‘systemic,’ further implies a dogmatic definition of anti-racism as the fight against white racism, and nothing else,” Taguieff explains. “And if said racism is ‘systemic,’ then anti-racist action must aim at destroying the ‘system’ that produces racism by its very functioning.”

Taguieff adds that this definitional “sleight of hand” precludes “the very possibility of anti-white racism and conferred a revolutionary final telos on the anti-racist struggle.” Therefore, he concludes, “Marxists of all persuasions welcome these anti-racist anti-white mobilizations, in which they see the Revolution on the march.”

Though the ends of HR 1’s promoters may or may not be as lofty as Lenin’s, the means are more or less the same: by portraying the “system” as racist, its deconstruction is justified and opposition to HR 1, by definition, is racist in the Taguieffian sense. It is therefore irrelevant that some of HR 1’s provisions are, in fact, discriminatory, because this view renders “the existence of anti-white racism theoretically impossible.”

Taguieff’s advice is to explicitly reject intimidation from the hucksters of professionalized anti-racism and all the schemes they attempt to justify by those means. Americans should take a page out of his book before it’s too late.

Pedro L. Gonzalez is a Senior Writer for American Greatness.

Image: Reuters

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