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On this day in 1993, US Army Rangers and Delta operators engaged in the Battle of Mogadishu, better known toe the public as Blackhawk Down.  18 Americans would lose their lives in a fierce battle against huge numbers of armed enemies.

And seven years ago, 53 American soldiers emplaced in the incredibly vulnerable Combat Outpost (COP) Keating would defend against an attack by as many as 400 enemy fighters holding the high ground surrounding them. Eight American Cavalrymen would perish at the hands of the enemy.

In the grand scheme of things, these were both rather small unit actions. Indeed, neither fight actually met the doctrinal definition of a battle.

But both reveal much about the spirit of the American soldier.  Both fights, actions that in World War II wouldn’t have even merited a mention in the newspapers, yielded multiple awards of the Medal of Honor.

At Mogadishu, MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randy Shugart died protecting CW3 Michael Durant. Both Gordon and Shugart would be posthumous recipients of the Medal of Honor.

At COP Keating, SSG Clinton Romesha and SSG Ty Carter would both be awarded the Medal of Honor for their efforts to save their fellow soldiers.

Of course, it ain’t bragging if you can do it.

So, before the start of golf’s Ryder Cup, during putting practice, the Euro team was struggling a bit with a 12’ putt. And one spectator, having voiced his opinion that even he could sink that gimme, was called out. Oh, you think it’s easy, why don’t you try it?

OK.

And there’s a $100 riding on this putt.

Our friend AggieSprite mentioned the other day that her latest trip to the thrift store had yielded some silverplate for a future project.

Which, my ears perked up and a memory was triggered.

By the middle of 1943. the scientists and engineers on the Manhattan Project began to have a fair idea what the size and shape of the two types of projected nuclear weapons they were building would be. There were two bomb designs. The first was a plutonium gun type design, known as Thin Man. The second, riskier approach was a plutonium implosion device, known as Fat Man.

With a rough idea of the weights and dimensions of the bombs, they began to consider what airplane should be used to deliver the bombs. The existence of AVRO Lancaster bombers already modified to carry extremely large bombs was a possibility, but range restrictions, and a strong desire to utilize an American design meant the Manhattan Project, in cooperation with the Army Air Forces, settled on using modified B-29 Superfortress bombers as the delivery platform.

But not just any B-29 could drop an atomic weapon. First, no B-29s were equipped with the shackles and release latches needed for extremely large bombs. Second, the Thin Man bomb design was longer than either of the B-29s two bomb bays.

The project to produce and modify a limited number of B-29s for the atomic mission was soon dubbed “Silverplate.”

The Army Air Forces first attempted to design their own shackles and releases, but when that proved problematical, they simply borrowed the existing British designs.

As to the bomb length,  the Army Air Force  converted the two 12 foot long bomb bays of a standard B-29 to one enormous 33 foot long bomb bay. This was more than enough to carry the projected 17 foot length of the Thin Man bomb.

Soon after modifying the first Silverplate B-29, scientists at Manhattan realized that high spontaneous fission rates would make the plutonium gun type bomb impractical. The bomb design was modified to use Uranium 235.  The change in bomb design also meant the bomb would be much shorter, at about 10 feet, meaning the standard B-29 bomb bay length would be sufficient. Accordingly, the first Silverplate had its bomb bays returned to the normal configuration.

Seventeen further Silverplate production aircraft were ordered from the Glenn L. Martin company, with 14 bombers assigned for training to what would eventually become the 509th Composite Group, and three assigned for testing.

These 17 Silverplates, being early production B-29s, suffered the same problems conventional early production B-29s struggled with, including a nasty tendency for the Wright R-3350 engines to burst into flames. By early 1945, a great number of changes to the B-29 had been made on the production line, improving the engines, adding a radar bombing capability, and other myriad improvements. Rather than going through the trouble of modifying the existing Silverplate fleet, another tranche of aircraft were ordered, 28 “next gen” Silverplates were ordered, with 15 of them combat coded for use by the 509th.  The remaining 13 were dedicated to the testing program, or held in reserve in Utah as replacements for any losses the 509th might suffer.

A final tranche of 19 Silverplates were ordered just before the atomic missions, and delivered between the end of the war, and 1947.  By 1948, the Air Force had an operational fleet of 32 nuclear capable B-29s. They represented the entire US atomic delivery capability.

Soon the B-29 would be supplanted in the nuclear role by the B-50 and B-36 bombers, but for a time, the US nuclear deterrence rested upon an incredibly small fleet of aircraft.

Every aircraft forms vortices as a consequence of generating lift.  And large aircraft, particularly at low speeds, in the landing configuration, form large vortices.

This video, shot on a foggy day at Birmingham, England, shows these vortices quite clearly.

Depending on the conditions, especially on days when the winds are mostly calm, these vortices can actually persist for as much as five minutes. Note during the video that there is a slight left to right crosswind, and the vortex from the left side of the aircraft drift across the center of the runway.  While these examples dissipate fairly quickly, the danger is that one might come across a vortex from a previous aircraft while landing. And usually, pilots don’t have the visual cue of fog to clearly show the vortex.

More than one aircraft has been doomed by flying into such a vortex. These powerful disruptions have more than enough energy to flip over an airliner as large as a DC-9.

There’s a reason why air traffic control has to space out landings behind larger aircraft.

The first P-8A Poseidon for the @Aus_AirForce debuts with its signature livery, including a Wandering Albatross and a kangaroo. pic.twitter.com/CzZEzcvTrQ

— Boeing Defense (@BoeingDefense) September 27, 2016

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An American Infantryman, laden with equipment and weaponry, steps off the ramp of a specially modified landing craft. He is not storming the beaches of Normandy or moving ashore on Guadalcanal – in fact, he is not even landing from the open ocean or a sea. Instead, this is the scene of a member of the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), a joint Army-Navy venture formed during the Vietnam War. In an often-overlooked part of the war, soldiers and sailors worked together in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam to dominate the fluvial local terrain in the region—rivers, streams, and swampy rice paddies. Using World War II era equipment and creating tactics and techniques while under fire, the men of the MRF wrote the modern chapter on riverine warfare for the U.S. Army.

While preparing for riverine warfare is not a common task, it is not a new challenge for the U.S. Army. Since its inception, the Army has dealt with the tactical challenges caused by rivers – from New Orleans to Vicksburg, and from the Philippine Insurrection to the Rhine. Despite the fact that the Army’s experience with riverine warfare peaked with the MRF of the Vietnam War, the concept is not outdated.

via cimsec.org

Read the whole thing. The MRF was one of the most successful initiatives in the whole Vietnam war, and was formed and fielded very rapidly, at minimal cost. It was an excellent example of how the Army and Navy could cooperate with a minimum of bureaucratic burden, and allowing relatively junior leaders to exercise sound initiative and judgment to overcome challenges.