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In a series of experiments this year, units from 2nd Marine
Division will be silencing every element of an infantry battalion
— from M4 rifles to .50 caliber machine guns.

The commanding general of 2nd Marine Division, Maj. Gen. John
Love, described these plans during a speech to Marines at the Marine Corps Association Ground
Dinner this month near Washington, D.C.

The proof-of-concept tests, he said, included Bravo Company, 1st
Battalion, 2nd Marines, which began an Integrated Training
Exercise pre-deployment last month at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat
Center Twentynine Palms.

via www.businessinsider.com

Suppressing a .50cal sounds like a bit of a challenge, but the rest makes a fair bit of sense.

There's a very slight penalty in weight, but the ability for small unit leaders to control their elements will be greatly increased.

Further, it will make it somewhat more difficult for the enemy to precisely locate friendly forces.

And at an estimated cost of about $700,000 to equip one battalion, well, that's pretty damn cheap.

The use of copper sheeting to prevent boring mollusks from ruining the wood of ships was a relatively new technology at the birth of the US Navy, but was quickly adopted world wide.

And to this very day, the US Navy replenishes the copper bottom of USS Constitution roughly every 20 years.

England’s Royal Navy began experimenting with copper-cladding its warships in the early 1760s and found it extended the life of the ships by preventing boring mollusks from destroying the wooden hulls. Below-the-waterline copper sheathing also allowed for greater ease in cleaning barnacles and crustaceans from ships’ bottoms. USS Constitutionand the other five frigates of the original U.S. Navy were each copper-clad before launching, per the instructions of Joshua Humphreys, the frigates’ designer.

When coppered in the summer of 1797, Constitution‘s lower hull required “12,000 feet of sheet copper” and thousands of copper nails. There is no 18th century plan of the layout of the copper sheathing, but it is probable that the workers at Edmund Hartt’s shipyard began at Constitution‘s stern, down at the keel, and worked their way both forward and upward with row upon row of copper. Each sheet would have overlapped one inch on all sides, with the vertical joints between the sheets facing aft. This created a smooth “fish scale” affect to the hull, thereby preventing the sheets from being lifted by the action of the water. It is understood that the Royal Navy laid its warship copper with the horizontal joints facing upwards and it is possible that Constitution‘s copper was so installed, as depicted in the illustration below.

One minor bit of trivia that always amuses me- the US Naval Surface Weapons Center at Crane, IN, maintains a section of white oak specifically to support repairs to USS Constitution. 

This is grossly simplified, but does show in an accessible way how the Aegis combat system copes with saturation attacks.

Ask any Iraq War veteran about Jersey, Alaska, Texas, and Colorado and you will be surprised to get stories not about states, but about concrete barriers. Many soldiers deployed to Iraq became experts in concrete during their combat tours. Concrete is as symbolic to their deployments as the weapons they carried. No other weapon or technology has done more to contribute to achieving strategic goals of providing security, protecting populations, establishing stability, and eliminating terrorist threats. This was most evident in the complex urban terrain of Baghdad, Iraq. Increasing urbanization and its consequent influence on global patterns of conflict mean that the US military is almost certain to be fighting in cities again in our future wars. Military planners would be derelict in their duty if they allowed the hard-won lessons about concrete learned on Baghdad’s streets to be forgotten.

via mwi.usma.edu

A very interesting look at the use of concrete in Iraq not simply for fortifications, but as a tool to enable the scheme of maneuver.

The life of a destroyer captain can be exciting (and often brief) at Tier X.

The most vulnerable platform in the game can also be the deadliest.

The 1967 sinking of the Israeli destroyer Eliat by a SS-N-2 Styx cruise missile greatly increased international interest in defense against such weapons. Existing destroyers and cruisers with long range guided missile systems were one obvious answer. But the problem was, such systems were far to expensive to build in the numbers needed. And such systems were vulnerable to being overwhelmed by a saturation attack, where the enemy simply launched so many missiles that some where bound to get through.

A couple of different answers to the problem arose. First, more ECM and chaff launchers for surface combatants.

Second, lightweight, short range guided missile systems were mounted on a variety of ships. Such missiles include the British Sea Cat and the US Sea Sparrow.

But even then, there remained a desire to counter a threat detected at the very last moment.

In the US Navy, this lead to the development of the Phalanx Close In Weapon System, or CIWS. A radar aimed 20mm gatling gun would send a stream of bullets to any incoming cruise missile.

The loss of HMS Sheffield in 1992 convinced the Royal Navy that they too needed  a CIWS system. While some RN ships would eventually carry Phalanx, they also looked to the Dutch, who were developing and fielding a CIWS system built around the massive GAU-8 Avenger cannon that is famous for being the main armament of the A-10 Warthog.

The GAU-8, mounted on a General Electric EX-83 gun mount, and coupled with Dutch radar systems would eventually reach the ships of several European navies as Goalkeeper.

Here’s a look at a demonstration of the gun in action, while a possible short ranged land based air defense variant was being pitched.

With URR’s excellent weekend posts of covering the turning of the tide of the Solomon’s Campaign at the 1st and 2nd Naval Battles of Guadalcanal, let’s look at another grim moment in the campaign. This one took place three weeks prior, and at the time, was seen as a defeat. Indeed, the battle of Santa Cruz would set the stage that would lead to the November battles URR chronicled.

The pattern of the Solomons campaign was that surface warfare groups of destroyers and cruisers and occasionally battleships would operate daily (or rather, nightly) in the waters east of Guadalcanal, in the famed “Slot” of the Solomon Islands chain. Major operations, such as reinforcement convoys, either US or Japanese, would receive wide ranging support from carrier task forces attempting to provide air superiority. Intelligence services on both sides tended to note when such surges occurred, meaning that if our forces sortied carriers, the Japanese would surge theirs as well.

In late October 1942, while the issue ashore on Guadalcanal was very much in the balance, and the Japanese planned a major offensive by ground forces on the island to pierce the American lines. Supporting the operations ashore, the Japanese planned a major naval effort. The US Navy moved to counter this effort.

On 26 October, 1942, north of the Santa Cruz Islands, the Japanese and American carrier fleets would clash. During the battle, the USS Hornet, the newest carrier in the fleet, would be left a smouldering wreck, to be later sunk by Japanese destroyers.

One of the most amazing aspects of this battle was that the attack on Hornet was actually filmed by Navy combat camera crews.

The other US carrier, USS Enterprise, would be heavily damaged.  Of the eight carriers the US Navy built before the war began, only three would survive the war. USS Saratoga, USS Ranger, and USS Enterprise. Ranger was in the Atlantic, readying for the invasion of North Africa, and Saratoga was in drydock for repairs after being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in August. USS Enterprise, badly damaged in the Battle of Santa Cruz, was repaired in forward waters. For a brief time, the US simply had no available carriers.

But while the US was losing carriers at an appalling rate, they also had literally dozens of fleet and light carriers under production.

The US Navy grasped that, but that was cold comfort when the Japanese Navy still possessed a force of several excellent fleet carriers.

What the US Navy soon grasped though, was that the heart of Japanese Naval Aviation wasn’t the carriers, but the naval aviators. The US Navy had a stupendously large training establishment that would churn out thousands upon thousands of well trained aviators. The Japanese, on the other hand, had a small, elite cadre of exquisitely trained carrier pilots. Unfortunately for Japan, the sustained operations since Pearl Harbor, and the very heavy losses of the Battle of Santa Cruz had gutted the ranks of aviators. The remaining Japanese carriers simply had no one to fly from their decks.

The Japanese Navy would spend the next 18 months struggling to train aircrews for their carrier fleet.  But lacking the investment in training resources the US could apply, they managed to produce numbers, but not quality.

The shortcomings of Japanese training would be apparent when, a year and a half later, the US invaded the Marianas. Officially the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot would see the results of 18 months of training utterly devastated by well trained US carrier air wings in possibly the greatest one sided aerial massacre of all time.

To this day, the US Navy spends a ridiculous amount on training its aviators. And it is worth every penny.

With the help of celebrities and professional activists, protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota attracted international attention. The shouting and violence have drawn sympathy from people who are hearing only one side of the story — the one told by activists.

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via www.wdaz.com

Here's the Paul Harvey on the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Read the whole thing. 

As the decimated US Navy force limped away from Ironbottom Sound after dawn on 13 November 1942, the prospects for protecting the Marines on Guadalcanal and preventing the counter-landing of powerful Japanese reinforcements seemed distinctly unpromising.   Four US destroyers, Laffey, Barton, Cushing, and Monssen, had been sunk, Barton with heavy loss of life.   Light cruisers Atlanta and Juneau were badly damaged, both in danger of sinking, heavy cruiser San Francisco was a shambles.  As was previously noted, the fight to save Atlanta was lost, and Juneau would fall victim to a Japanese submarine.

But the Americans did hit back.  During the daylight hours of 13 November, aircraft from Henderson Field, Espiritu Santo, and Enterprise finished off the crippled battleship Hiei, and sank the smoking hulks of destroyers Akitsukiand Yudachi.

On 13 November, Yamamoto ordered Admiral Kondo to reconstitute a bombardment force, marrying 8th Cruiser Squadron under Admiral Mikawa with the remaining ships from Abe’s force, including battleship Kirishima.  8th Cruiser Squadron consisted of four powerful heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and four destroyers.  The force slipped into the waters off Henderson Field unchallenged in the waning hours of 13 November and commenced a bombardment of the airfield.  The intent was to neutralize the airfield in order that the eleven transports, carrying supplies for Hyukatake’s starving ground forces and reinforcements from the 38th Division, could be unloaded.  The results of the bombardment were ineffectual.  The Japanese fired approximately 1,000 rounds in little more than half an hour, and damaged some aircraft, but the airfield and most of its planes remained fully operational.

Not long after dawn, the Cactus Air Force, as well as aircraft from Enterprise and Espiritu Santo, pounced on the Japanese ships.  They fell first upon the bombardment fleet, inflicting heavy damage to cruisers Chokai, Isuzu, Maya, and Kinugasa, the latter eventually sinking.

Next were Tanaka’s transports.  A series of attacks, including high-level B-17 sorties, sank seven of the eleven transports.  While most of the Japanese troops were saved, all the weapons and equipment, food, fuel, and ammunition were lost.  Instead of welcome reinforcements, those survivors became liabilities to an already badly broken supply system.

Earlier in the day on 13 November, Vice Admiral Willis A. “Ching” Lee, with new radar-equipped fast battleships Washington and South Dakota and four destroyers, was ordered east to defend Guadalcanal.  Named Task Force 64, Lee’s cobbled-together force entered Ironbottom Sound north and west of Cape Esperance, and picked up the Japanese ships on radar just before 2300 on 14 November.  Shortly after, the Japanese force under Kondo spotted the Americans.  However, Kondo believed he was facing cruisers rather than battleships, and he believed they would not be a match for Kirishima or his remaining heavy cruisers.

Kondo split his force, around either side of Savo Island.  Lee briefly engaged Sendai and several Japanese destroyers with radar-guided fire.  The Japanese cruiser bid a hasty withdrawal.  The cruiser Nagara and four destroyers actually sighted Lee’s force before they were reacquired by American radar.  Nagara and her accompanying destroyers, plus Ayanami, engaged the four American destroyers with guns and torpedoes.  Much like the results of the previous evening, the US destroyers lost heavily.  In a very short time, Benham, Preston, and Walke were mortally wounded, Gwin heavily damaged.

It was at this juncture that Kondo’s mistaken identity of the two US fast battleships spelled doom.  Washington and South Dakota steamed on, closing with Kirishima, two heavy cruisers, and two destroyers.  South Dakota, closest to the Japanese force, suffered a massive power failure which blinded her radars and knocked out her gun mounts.  She was set upon by the Japanese destroyers and cruisers as she passed, impotent, within 5,000 yards of the enemy.  As she had turned to avoid the burning American destroyers, she had been silhouetted against the flames, and became a target for every Japanese gun.  The battleship was hit repeatedly topside, damaging her gunfire control systems, knocking out communications, and causing almost 100 casualties.

However, unseen and unmolested by Japanese fire, Washington loomed in the darkness.  Her secondary (5-inch/38) batteries pounded the destroyer Ayanami to a burning wreck within a few minutes.  She had refrained from firing her main battery at her radar contact, because she had been unable to communicate with South Dakota to confirm her location.  When South Dakota was engaged by Japanese guns, Washington had no doubt of her target.  What followed was the first encounter between battleships in the Pacific War.  It was a one-sided affair.  At a range of just 8,900 yards, Washington commenced a radar-targeted engagement of Kirishima with her 16-inch main battery.  In just over six minutes, Washington fired 75 16-inch projectiles, striking Kirishimabetween ten and twenty times, and plastering her with 5-inch fire.  Kirishima was finished.  Her topside was a wreck of twisted metal, her steering destroyed, and she had been holed below the waterline.  Kirishima capsized and sank in the early hours of 15 November.  Ayanami was abandoned and scuttled.

The surviving Japanese transports reached Tassafaronga, but as soon as daylight broke, the four ships were taken under fire by aircraft from Henderson Field, the 5-inch guns of the 3rd Marine Defense Battalion, and an Army Coastal Artillery battery (155mm Long Toms).  As with their sunken sisters, most of the Japanese soldiers managed to get ashore, but almost all of the supplies, food, ammunition, and equipment were lost.

The naval actions in the skies and waters of Guadalcanal between 12 and 15 November 1942 were costly to both sides.  The action was fierce, confused, and deadly.  Losses of men and ships were nearly even.  However, these battles were the turning point in the Solomons.  Control of the waters around the island of Guadalcanal passed permanently to the United States Navy.  There would be more bloody fights in those waters, and even stunning setbacks (Tassafaronga), but US naval and air power in the Solomons would continue to grow, while that of Japan would continue to wane.  The Japanese would continue to attempt supply of its garrison ashore, to diminishing effects, but would never again send reinforcements down “the Slot” to wrest the island from the Marines.  The First and Second Naval Battles for Guadalcanal represent the last running of the Tokyo Express.