Tag Archives: War

by - 0 comments

the best mercenary gig since December 25th, 1776

So pretend for a moment we know a dude in Damascus and let’s just say he’s a day labor construction worker.  Business is pretty good for him.  Much of his country has to rebuilt since his President, along with some Iranians, and some guy named Vlad utterly destroyed most of it.  But let’s face it, working in construction can be dull and repetitive.  So our bored Damascene (we’ll call him Fred) is looking for a little zest in his life.  Then one day he hears he can earn a few grand a month as a merc.  All he has to do is join a few thousand of his Syrian buddies and head off to Ukraine.  For you see, Fred’s heard that some guy named Vlad needs his help.

For you see, Vlad has a problem.  He needs an army to win a war.  But the problem is that when his troops aren’t looting gas stations, shooting rockets and artillery at apartment buildings, or getting main battle tank turrets blown clear into the stratosphere, they’re executing a total clusterfuck of an invasion.  This makes Vlad angry.  And everyone knows you don’t want to make Vlad angry.  But when 1/4 of the army has become casualties courtesy of brave, freedom fighting Ukrainians, then Vlad needs more bodies to feed into the inferno.  Or as ordinary average gentlemen titan badass Volodymyr Zelenskyy has termed it: “…throwing Russian soldiers like logs into a train’s furnace.”

We think Fred might have before him the best mercenary gig since December 25th, 1776.  After all, once Fred and his Syrian buddies are ambushed and most of them killed or captured, Fred will sure have a story he can tell his grandkids.  But in general, here’s why Fred should take this gig, hands down:

– Gets a firsthand view of the supposed second most powerful land army on Earth, only to wonder why they haven’t figured out how tires work

– Has the chance to remember his Damascus days when the civil war was at its height and he was starving, as he now starves again as the supposed second most powerful land army on Earth also apparently hasn’t figured out field rations

– Might get the chance to meet a real swell, beautiful young Ukrainian woman who he might imagine they could get married one day, right before she shoots him in the face

– Might get the chance to meet a real swell, beautiful old Ukrainian woman who might feed him a real meal, but who will likely tell him how her witchcraft will cause his dick to fall off or shine him on by giving him sunflower seeds so that when he dies his corpse can produce something useful

– Everyone loves explosions, even Fred.  And boy oh boy when a 46 ton main battle tank goes, it goes spectacularly.  Fred will have plenty of opportunities to marvel at just how high in the air a tank turret can actually fly

– Has the opportunity to realize just how wonderful the job of a day labor construction worker is

– Will remain puzzled how he never meets a Nazi, because Vlad kept telling him there were Nazis everywhere.  Fred just guesses it might be a cow he sees every now and then, but he’s not so sure

– Learns a valuable life lessons about avoiding con artists once he realizes Vlad has no intention of actually paying him the promised merc salary

– Can kindle a new interest in history as Fred becomes one with the spirit of an old Hessian dude as he’s likewise mopped up in an ambush by freedom fighters

– He gets to conduct the classic, ever memorable Tour of Europe after throwing away all his weapons, deserting, and trying to join a cousin he knows who lives in Bremen

give me more

by - 0 comments

witchcraft against tanks

While I have a lot to say about Ukraine, I have refrained because frankly what I think doesn’t actually matter.  Maybe I’ll write about it later after I’ve had more time to think.  But this caught my eye this morning from The Economist and I felt compelled to share:

“Spirited resistance across Ukraine—from Berdyansk on the Azov Sea to Sumy in the north-east—has been backed up by a widespread unwillingness to acquiesce in the parts of the country where Ukraine has lost control. There is no evidence of Vladimir Putin’s soldiers being welcomed anywhere. The mood is generally one of contempt. In Konotop, a town in Sumy oblast, a local woman was filmed asking a Russian tank-driver if he knew about the town’s literary association with the occult. “Every second woman is a witch here,” she told him. “Tomorrow you won’t be able to get your dick to stand up.”

The Ukrainians might lose this war.  Or they might have to fight a smoldering conflict for years where the violence constantly ramps up and down, like in Donbas since 2014 only throughout the whole country.  But in general, as human history shows, you at least have a decent shot at a future provided a people, a culture are willing to tell evil people to fuck off.  Here’s to witchcraft.

by - 0 comments

Civil War – 31 January 1863 – not a routine day on the water

If you’ve ever been at sea for a significant time or been a sailor you know the art of the routine is of considerable importance.  Routine allows you to get done what you need to get done so you can do actual work, or have fun, or just stare out at the awesomeness of being at sea.

When the routine is busted is when things go bad.  During peacetime this can be bad weather, equipment breaks, some dummy does dummy things, etc.  War is of course when the routine is shattered by expected or unexpected action.

The Union blockade of the Confederate States was one of the most successful (and least appreciated) acts of the war.  By the time the war was halfway over goods might be 20 or 30 times more expensive in parts of the South.  By the end, the Confederacy was starving.

Making this blockade happen was the genius of many hands, but much credit is due to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles.  But for the average Union sailor it was a boring slog of a routine, day after day, sitting off the southern coast watching mostly empty water, in an era where air conditioning didn’t exist.

So on January 31st, 1863 at least it’s not Summer, so the temperature is good.  But there’s a blockade runner’s dream in an early morning fog.  But it’s not a blockade runner the Union Navy has to worry about, the Confederates are coming out to fight:

Two Confederate rams, the CSS Chicora (Commander John R Tucker) and Palmetto State (Lieutenant John Rutledge) under overall command of Flag Officer Duncan N Ingraham, left Charleston Harbor in an early morning fog and attacked the blockading fleet.  The rams successfully destroyed the USS Mercedita (Captain Stellwagen) and the Keystone State (Commander William E LeRoy).  General PGT Beauregard commander of the Charleston district, claimed that the blockade had been lifted.  More Federal ship arrived.

– Chicora and Palmetto State were modern ironclad rams, arguably two of the most dangerous warships then afloat.  Whereas Mercedita and Keystone State were wooden steam ships.  In order to blockade such a long coastline, the Union Navy had to rely on hundreds of old model wooden vessels which were fine for chasing down blockade runners but simply couldn’t compete with modern armored warships.

– The reality is the Confederacy didn’t have the industrial base to generate enough modern warships, and those they had were slowly and methodically run down and destroyed as the Union captured Confederate port after port.  Chicora and Palmetto State are exceptions in that since Charleston held almost until the end of the war, they lasted all the way until 1865 and were scuttled when Union forces finally took Charleston.

– So this was of course a very one sided battle, at least at the tactical level.  Mercedita was hit by gunfire and then rammed to the point that she surrendered.  Keystone State was disabled by gunfire afterwards.  Contrary to the above text, both ships would survive, be towed away, and continue service for the Union after repairs.  Chicora and Palmetto State would exchange gunfire with the rest of the blockade fleet before retiring.

– A one sided affair and a complete tactical victory for the Confederacy, it did nothing to change the overall scope of the war.  The Union blockade of Charleston remained intact.  Which is, of course, the purpose of an effectively executed blockade.

– All throughout the war are the scattered names of dozens of Union and Confederate generals who are just kind of there.  And even when they execute brilliant acts here and there, they’re still just kind of there.  They’re just guys.  And you ask yourself, why?  Beauregard was the co-winner of First Bull Run.  Why is he just kind of there for the rest of the war?  Well, it’s because of statements like this: ”claimed that the blockade had been lifted”.

– So if you’re some Charleston citizen, and Beauregard says the blockade is over, and two days later you look out over the water and the blockade is still there, you’d be certain that man was an idiot.  Here is a perfect example of Southern spirit over common sense.  Elan is not enough to win a war, and yet many of the South’s leaders (even those in the most key of positions) figured it would be enough to triumph.  It wasn’t.  The text above blandly notes: “More Federal ship arrived.”  Beauregard’s outlandish view of the war cannot compete with a Union war machine that can replace ships at will, no matter how many are destroyed.  And crewed by Union sailors who had one of the hardest, most thankless tasks of the war, but who completed their mission in the end.

Chicora and Palmetto State in Charleston harbor

by - 0 comments

Nagasaki – Peace Park

On March 10th, 1945, 279 B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers conducted the most devastating conventional bombing raid in human history.  Their target was Tokyo.  The new tactics they employed had been tested but never implemented on such a large scale.

High altitude precision bombing over Japan had proved difficult compared to Europe due to high altitude winds over Japan.  The US Army Air Forces decided to switch tactics, primarily at the behest of Curtis LeMay, although the ideas were not entirely his own.

The tactic of large formations of B-29s conducting high altitude precision bombing using high explosive bombs was completely altered.  The attacks would happen at night.  The B-29s would attack as a swarm, with each bomber flying individually without formation.  The attacks would be conducted from very low altitudes to ensure accuracy and to confound Japanese anti-aircraft defense.  Finally, the B-29s would use incendiary bombs instead of high explosive bombs.

The target was Tokyo itself, its people, and the largely wooden based construction of Japanese homes and small businesses.   Some bombers carried a small number of high explosive bombs which were the first out of the bay.  The idea being to crack open the roofs of structures using high explosives so the follow on incendiary bombs would fall within.

LeMay took extreme risks in the plan.  To increase bomb load, all defensive guns on the B-29s were removed except for the tail gun.  A lack of defensive formation meant each B-29 would be highly vulnerable to Japanese night fighters without mutual defensive support from other B-29s.  Nevertheless, LeMay decided to proceed with the new tactics.

The raid succeeded on a scale few could have imagined.  The Japanese were completely taken off guard by the new tactics.  No Japanese night fighters were able to engage a single B-29.  Japanese anti-aircraft guns did manage to down 14 B-29s with the loss of 96 Americans.  But generally, Japanese anti-aircraft fire was ineffective as the gunners were not prepared for a low altitude attack and the low altitude run of the B-29s rendered Japanese radar mostly blind.

The attack started a firestorm throughout Tokyo with a ferocity previously seen in places like Hamburg.  However, the wooden base of Japanese construction made the consequences even stronger.  An estimated 100,000 Japanese died in one night, almost all of them civilians.

Until the end of the war, the USAAF would continue to employ the nighttime, low altitude, incendiary attacks across all of Japan.  And yet, by August 1945 even after five months of firestorm bombing Japan was no closer to surrender.  As World War II would demonstrate, no amount of conventional strategic bombing would ever bring an Axis country to surrender.

In Germany, it had taken a complete conquest via ground forces.  American plans were in place for a ground invasion of Japan to start on Kyushu which estimates claimed would cost millions of lives.  And so the decision was made to try and short circuit such a scenario.  The Soviet Union would enter the war, and America would employ atomic weapons in a last attempt to force Japan’s surrender without a ground invasion.

On August 6th, 1945 the first atomic weapon was dropped on Hiroshima with perhaps over 100,000 Japanese killed.  And yet, Japan still did not surrender.  President Truman did announce to the public and to Japan what had been done.  A single plane, with a single bomb, had done what had previously taken hundreds of bombers.

Japan’s leadership was well aware of what had happened, but refused to surrender anyways.  The same concept, that the Japanese people could endure anything, and Japan could fight on remained inside their minds.  It must be acknowledged that by this point most of the Japanese senior leadership were certifiably insane.  It is akin to Hitler’s last moments, where he ordered divisions to attack, that no longer existed.

And so the decision was made to use a second atomic weapon, this time on Nagasaki.  For the most part, Nagasaki had avoided conventional bombing throughout the war due to its difficulty as a target.  But with an atomic weapon accuracy and raid tactics were essentially irrelevant.

On August 9th, 1945, once again, a single B-29, with a single bomb.  At 11:01 in the morning a plutonium core weapon detonated about 2,000 feet above Nagasaki (the airburst setting allowing for the blast wave to not be absorbed by the ground).  Approximately 80,000 people died.

The devastation is clear to see, before and after:

Hirohito, finally, seeing the inevitable, and perhaps making one of the braver decisions of his life (there was no guarantee that the militarists would not simply assassinate him and fight on) decided to surrender.  When he spoke via radio to the Japanese people it was the first time they’d ever heard his voice.

Nagasaki Peace Park began in 1955 and has a museum and hall adjoining it.  It’s hard to explain what it was like to visit the place as an American man in my early twenties.  Nuclear war on such scale, such horror, is difficult to comprehend when you haven’t seen it or know personally anybody who did.

I don’t really have any conclusions to draw here.  I could probably write a super long post on the morals of strategic bombing done by both sides during the war.  Or the ethical decision to use atomic weapons to avoid a horrific ground invasion.  But others far wiser than I have written legions of books on these topics.

As to the rest of this post, it’s just about the photos I took while there, and a few words from the Japanese themselves.

ground zero or otherwise known as the hypocenter

some of the ruins were left on purpose inside the park

inside the museum

    After experiencing that nightmarish war,

    that blood-curdling carnage,

    that unendurable horror,

    Who could walk away without praying for peace?

    This statue was created as a signpost in the

    struggle for global harmony.

    Standing ten meters tall,

    it conveys the profundity of knowledge and

    the beauty of health and virility.

    The right hand points to the atomic bomb,

    the left hand points to peace,

    and the face prays deeply for the victims of war.

    Transcending the barriers of race

    and evoking the qualities of Buddha and God,

    it is a symbol of the greatest determination

    ever known in the history of Nagasaki

    and the highest hope of all mankind.

    — Seibo Kitamura (Spring 1955)

by - 0 comments

live by the sword, and die by it

All the best battlefield commanders of our generation are in Africa. All the West’s haughty generals and admirals are only good for losing wars for the last 20 years while simultaneously running their hallowed institutions into the ground.

Perhaps the absolute best battlefield commander alive on the planet is Paul Kagame, Dictator & Overlord of Rwanda, Teddy Bear Darling of the International Development Community, If You Like Your Teddy Bear to be Really Stabby, Stranglee, and Shootee.

Another is Idriss Deby of Chad. Deby lasted over three decades and probably woke up every single one of those days wondering who was trying to kill him or who he was trying to kill. Photographs can tell quite the story. Just get a load of this photo, this was not a man you messed with:

Chad’s army on both paper and in photographs looks like a bunch of kook losers.

Don’t be fooled. Chad’s army is one of the most base lethal on the planet and it’s because of Deby and the fact he’s kept them at war for 30 years straight.

Well, now his luck has finally run out. Apparently Deby was killed on the very day of his sixth presidential “election” up in Chad’s north by the 427th round of rebellion against him. The details are very vague and strange and I’m super skeptical here. It just doesn’t make sense. Personally, I think somebody inside his own circle did him in, but I’m just straight guessing. If his battle death was legit, it would be super appropriate and a proper end to Deby’s life if he died on his 1,317th completely meaningless skirmish.

Now all the generals have rallied around Deby’s son, who is in his late 30’s and happens to be a four star general (I wonder why). I don’t know anything about this guy, he could be awesome on the battlefield too. But just look at this photo, I can’t make up my mind:

I can’t decide whether this photo is of a subdued, calm killing machine, or of a little man who will struggle all his life to replace his Father. It’s probably both.

Meanwhile, after three decades of Deby’s rule, Chad remains mostly destitute, with grinding, unspeakable poverty for at least 1/5 to 1/2 of the population. Granted, Chad is on the Sahel, and so not all of this was Deby’s fault. But after three decades in power anything that happens to your country is your fault.

Deby was a brilliant general, but a terrible president. Now, onto the son. It’s positively medieval.

by - 0 comments

Nagasaki – reborn

In going through the few photos I have of Nagasaki, the other major bunch are of the hypocenter or peace park. That post will be a long one on history, with a lot of the photos from the park and my thoughts on the museum. However, today is just one shot. I came across this photo and I was shocked I had it. This is at the hypocenter. I had to go back and look it up, I was in Nagasaki in April of 2004. So this is Nagasaki in the Spring, 59 years after a nuclear weapon exploded right above this location. I’ll leave any conclusions and thoughts to you.

by - 0 comments

Civil War – 22 April 1862 – a visit from Uncle

The Battle of Shiloh was fought 06-07 April 1862 and was the first truly massive battle in the Western Theater and up to that point the largest of the war.  Its ferocity must have shocked the civilian population on both sides who even though the war was almost a year old probably still assumed somehow that massive bloodshed could have been avoided.

Instead, the stakes of the war and how strongly the individual soldier believed in their view of it shone through.  Entire units would fight nearly to the last man rather than retreat.  Men who were exhausted from the worst day of their lives yesterday, would show up today and do it all over again.  It wouldn’t be for the last time.

Two weeks later the Union Army remained encamped on their victorious battlefield at Shiloh.  Private Lucius Barber, then 22, was in Company D of the 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry:

I was agreeably surprised one morning when I awoke to find Uncle Washington in my tent.  My friends had sent him down to see if anything was needed.  Although his services were not required, his company was very acceptable.  He stayed a couple of weeks with us and then returned home.  The roads were in an awful condition at the time and it was impossible for the army to move…

You’re in the bloodiest war in American history (though nobody knew that yet) and your Uncle shows up just to check on you.  Note a few things from this short passage:

– A walk (or he could have rode) from Illinois to Shiloh and a multi-week stay is not a minor amount of time, one wonders what, if any, employment Uncle Washington had

– Note that his friends, undoubtedly shocked by what they had read of the battle, sent Barber’s Uncle to check on him

– His friends were still at home, not yet enlisted in the Army, over the years this would have changed as the war turned into mass mobilization for both sides

– The roads were impossible for movement by armies, but apparently not by one Uncle checking in on his family

In wouldn’t be the last the war would hear from Private Barber.

by - 0 comments

we present our axe throwing business plan

So the latest urban gentrified hipster recreational activity is axe throwing. And so, um, uh, … what? Essentially people go to what is in any sense a bar/club, only while you get pasted you throw axes at wooden boards. Although it seems not all venues permit alcohol while you throw, I think it depends on the jurisdiction’s laws.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about the use of any kind of weapon and the proficiency that comes with it. Throughout most of human history, the ability to expertly wield (at a minimum) a small dagger was considered necessary to remain alive. Now we’re lucky if people can chop an onion. But I just don’t get why this is a thing?

First off, how is this even legal? In today’s bubble wrapped society this is one that somehow got past the government nanny filters. Is it like those infernal scooters where regulation just doesn’t address it? I suppose there’s no law that says you can’t run an axe club, but if you tried to open a throwing knives club I bet that’d be illegal. Or heavily regulated.

As a weapons example, the axes these clubs use most closely resembles the Francisca; the quintessential battlefield throwing axe first perfected by the Franks and later used to spread mayhem by other such warlike races such as the Vikings. It was essentially an attempt to break the deadlock that was the spear and shield wall warfare of the period. The age of the longbow and armored heavy cavalry came later, but for a few hundred years it was spears, shields, and axes; backed up by limited and essentially ineffective archery.

So if you’re throwing an axe at a club with your mates, this might be cool, but you don’t get the real experience. So we at TAP are here to help. We’ll open our own axe club. Let us know what you think. We always get lots of feedback to the posts on this degenerate blog.

Here are the guidelines:

– Intoxication is mandatory, as it likely was on most medieval battlefields; the customer may choose whatever beverage they desire, but before beginning, a BAC test will verify the customer is above the legal limit to operate a motor vehicle.

– Axe throwing will not be done individually, but in a group via the shield wall. The inexperience of the customer is irrelevant. Armor and shield will be used. Those who refuse or cannot wear armor or lift shield will be ejected from the venue without refund.

– Customers will submit to a short training rehearsal on shield wall tactics so as to experience abject suffering and shocking reality of being one minor cog in a mass of human meat meant for the medieval grinder. Training mistakes will be met with physical correction with a ferocity as determined by venue management and training staff.

– Actual axe throwing is conducted from the shield wall with environmental conditions necessary to fully simulate the medieval battlefield experience. Noise generators will produce human screaming and shouting at decibel levels prohibited for airport runway employees. The building’s heat will be at a level considered medically negligent to induce dehydration. Despite the level of intoxication, no substance fitting the proper definition of food will be offered to the customer. And so on.

– Axes will be thrown by the shield wall at wooden walls simulating an opposing shield wall. Customers will be ranked by the number of axe hits assessed by venue management as solid kills or crippling blows enough to have removed the target from the fight.

– Customers with the lowest scores would normally have become medieval battlefield casualties. To simulate this for the customer, before departing the venue they will receive a single bare-knuckled punch to the face via a former, jaded heavyweight boxer. Physical injury and its associated potential medical costs are the responsibility of the customer.

– Customers with the highest scores will receive free alcohol for the remainder of the evening, a refund of their fee (paid in gold coins), diligent (legal) attention and adoration from venue employees from the gender of the customer’s choice, ample roasted meats for consumption, and several musical templates which they can sing with their fellow high score patrons.

That is all. Please carry on. Enjoy your day!

iu5EIZ50O0.jpg

by - 0 comments

the BBC can’t remember own failures; but we can!

Oh my, I have no life. How come I can remember a lunatic piece I wrote over four years ago but not when I last took mine doggy for a haircut? The BBC is (rightly) all over the Washington Post’s obit about how Baghdadi was just a misunderstood neighborhood religious tutor. But the BBC seems to have forgotten when it once referred to Hitler as just a poor failed struggling artist. Said this blog’s unhinged, dumb author (me) back in 2015:

I especially like how the BBC wraps their article with this one liner about Hitler:

“He went on to become Germany’s military and political leader from 1933 to 1945, launching World War Two and causing the deaths of millions.”

For some reason they wrote this line in a non-dominant, weak voice; like Hitler was just some disgruntled toll booth operator who spray painted his bosses’ car.

How about this instead, BBC:

“He went on to brutally acquire the title of Germany’s military and political dictator from 1933 to 1945, attempted to conquer Europe and committed cultural, physical, and emotional genocide against tens of millions. Nobody misses him.”

Why does this modern newspaper writing style surprise anybody? It sure doesn’t surprise me. The modern elite (which includes the media) is all about the grey. Moral equivalency is a supposed virtue now. Good/evil, black/white, are for bigots and losers. Monsters aren’t meant to be hated, they’re meant to be understood.

It’s tolerance and understanding for all! Except, for those who voted for somebody they didn’t, or for somebody who says something online about [insert anything here] that they disagree with, or if they’re fans of the Houston Astros, and so on.

In the year 2176, Big Brother will murder one-billion people. The joint BBC/Post obit headline for him: “I love you.”

PS: goodbye false caliph, you piece of shit, nobody will miss you

by - 0 comments

poison own body, gas fellow humans, earn minimum wage

This weekend democracy protestors in Hong Kong were sighted singing the Star Spangled Banner while asking Trump for help against the Giant Octopus that is the Chinese Communist Party and its turncoat Hong Kong underlings.

I’m not entirely sure this the best move.  I even wonder if the Commies inserted these people as a fifth column to make the protestors look like foreign agents instead of shopkeepers and airport baggage handlers who don’t relish the idea of being black bagged to Beijing on a dark night’s moment’s notice.

But if these folks are legitimate, they might do well to look at Afghanistan, or Syria, or Iraq, and wonder if America might perhaps not make the best of allies to ask for help at this current moment in world history.

In any event, our plucky freedom lovers were promptly tear gassed for their trouble.  Guess what, the gas canisters are Made in America.  Here’s a shot of an expended canister lying on the Hong Kong streets.

sub-buzz-462-1567712872-1

Here’s the BuzzFeed article on the background of dirt poor folks struggling to make a living on minimum wage in rural Pennsylvania as they poison their own bodies so the stuff they make can poison others in various foreign lands.  If you’re a dictator, nothing says quality in the misery tools you employ like Made in America!  Just ask your Yemini neighbor.

Gee, thank God BuzzFeed is on the case, otherwise nobody would know.  I guess the New York Times and Washington Post are too busy looking at Twitter and admiring themselves in the mirror.  We gotta rely on BuzzFeed for help here, geez.  Gee wiz.

I think this tale is quite the perfect encapsulation with just about everything that’s wrong in America right now.  Of course, at the end of the article it says Congress is on the case.  There’s gonna get it fixed!  [cue laugh track]

teargas_3.jpg

Cheers!  From our country, to yours.