The Armorer had another good day yesterday.

Which results in this challenge.

Identify this tank.

I have high expectations, Captain H. All the contextual clues are there!

No comments. Email. I don't want John spoiling it with an instant-answer!

To borrow from Blackfive...

...who may have already linked to this, I don't know. Here is Someone You Should Know.

Aside from the visitors to the Castle who come in from Google searches for Gun Pr0n, most are military, or military-related, like family members, friends, etc. This post is for you 'normals' who lead a regular life, but who surf blogs like this trying to get a sense of the who, what, and why-the-hell? of soldiering.

I'm going to link to a post by "The Questing Cat," a soldier of the 1st Infantry Division. In this post, you'll get a view into "A day in the life of an Infantryman, 'Interesting version.'" That's as opposed to "A day in the life of an Infantryman, 'Routine Version.'"

Several things to note.

1. People like to put a bash on military training. Fox Yankee Mike Fox (you who know, know). Military training has evolved over thousands of years, people. We really do know what we're doing. We understand all the levels of learning and all that cool stuff you learned in college while pursuing your Adult Education, Early Childhood Education, Fill-in-the-blank Education classes and majors. And a lot of that stuff is applied - first - in the military school systems. At the advanced levels. Well, mebbe not that Early Childhood stuff, except in the Marine Corps schools. At the basic level - we try to teach it to sub-atomic levels. So that when you are under stress, you don't think - you act. Because your Orient Observe Decide Act (OODA) loop already has the pattern recognition algorithms ingrained at a molecular level. You don't have to spend a whole lot of time in the Observe-Decide portion - because you have the template stored in the Orient section that short-circuits you to Act. That is how you stay inside the other guy's 'decision loop' (hat tip to Instapilot's hero, Boyd).
I'd note that people also put a bash on military planning. Well, for all you education majors out there who think that the planning for the War and it's aftermath were all bollixed up... those plans were drawn up by officers who attended the Advanced schooling where we apply all those fancy educational concepts. Draw what conclusions you will...

That is evident in this post.

2. Why we fight. Mom, Apple Pie, Chevrolet Ford, and the GI Bill get you into uniform and into theater. Once in combat, you fight pretty much for one thing. Each other. Yes, all the rest of it is there - but when the bees are buzzing, it's the Team, and nothing else. If you are thinking about something else, you and we have failed, and we're all at risk.

That is evident in this post.

3. That wondrous word, which will get me in trouble with net-nanny software... F*ck. It's a word born for combat. For soldiering. For combat soldiering. I had a buddy who, when under fire, if he wasn't giving orders or talking on the radio was just saying "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck" over and over again. He had no clue he did it. If he was shooting, "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck," if he was maneuvering, "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck," if he was motioning over the RTO, "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck," if he was looking at his map, "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck." Now, if things were exploding nearby, it changed. To "f*ck f*ck F*CKETY-F*CK!" If there were bullets coming close enough you sensed they might not have the normal addressing of "To Whom It May Concern," but rather "I'm Looking For YOU, Motherf*cker," it changed.

To "F*CKF*CKF*CKETYF*CKMOTHERF*CKING A$$HOLE!"

That too, is evident in this post.

Read about a day in the life of an Infantryman. And pay attention to the last line in the post.

Proud to be a veteran of the Big Red One. If you're going to be one, be a Big Red One!

Tip o' the hat to SWWBO for pointing me to the post!

Hey! Ow! Hey!!!...

The French even stick it up their friends' arses...

A Palestinian spokeswoman denied Lapid's assertion. "He is in a coma. We don't know the type but it's a reversible coma," Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, told French RTL radio. Shahid suggested the coma occurred after Arafat was put under anesthesia for medical tests including an endoscopy, colonoscopy and a biopsy of the spinal cord. She said doctors do not yet have a diagnosis.

My guess is the diagnosis was, "Mon Dieu, hee reeely eees full of sheet!"

Cheese-eating, Palestinian poop-chute peeping surrender monkeys...are they such goobs on purpose???

Instapilot

We may be about to bring another lost warrior home...

Remains found in Iraq might be those of LCDR Scott Speicher, shot down the first night of Desert Storm.

If this is the best answer, we can only hope for resolution for his family.

Leave no man behind.

Lest ye think, however, that all is darkness here...

We still have some of us with a Sense of Humor®.

Hat tip to Sean.

Let's take a little look around the world today...

First, CAPT H has been stuffing my mailbox. So, as a counterweight to MP Carolyn Parrish, who I noted yesterday, let's see what he has to offer...

First, there's his new line of playground equipment he's pushing.

Then, there's this relocation guide to Canada for liberals disheartened by the US election results (hint - Calgary is probably not a Good Idea).

Finally, there's this story of dedication and service. Truly a Canadian of Notable Dedication. After 52 years(!) of service, Canadian Ranger Peter Kuniliusie has decided to retire. Well, mostly, but not quite. I do like the rather cavalier approach Canada used to take to such things...

"He was recruited in the summer of 1949 when a ship showed up conducting TB testing. Peter and six other hunters were given .303 rifles and were told that they were now Rangers."

The enrolment forms weren't filled in for another three years.

Can you imagine Ottawa doing something like that now? Hee hee hee.

Elsewhere...

GEORGE Bush yesterday offered an olive branch to hostile European leaders — but was snubbed by the French President.

Heh. Gee, Monsieur Chirac was saying yesterday that those bridges needed to mending... guess not. He's got time to visit a brain-dead terrorist, but hasn't the time for PM Allawi of Iraq, a fellow trying to drag the Arabs into the late 20th Century (let's not rush things).

Ah well. No doubt Mr. Chirac takes comfort in today's anniversary of another French politico/military triumph... 1942 Madagascar: Vichy French surrender to the British at Fort Dauphin. (HT, Strategy Page)

In another interesting tidbit from history today... annoyed Catholics in Britain attempted something probably dreamed of by innumerable Kings and Prime Ministers - blowing up Parliament. Yep, today is the 399th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Guy Fawkes Day! Fireworks all 'round!

Stuck in my cocoon, I almost missed this...

Wow! Bush in, Daschle out, and then this... hell of a week!

Sgt Hook, one of whom's birds in Afghanistan is in the picture, has been selected (a surprise only to him) for promotion to Sergeant Major. I suspect further elevation to Command Sergeant Major is not long to follow.

And perhaps, just perhaps, the Hook will be the first Aviator to make Sergeant Major of the Army. In which case, Top, I wanna coin! But there went your early retirement plans!

For anyone who doesn't know, Sergeant Major is the top enlisted rank in the Army - not someone to be trifled with (like a First Sergeant is, eh?). A Command Sergeant Major is a Sergeant Major who has been further tabbed to be the senior Non-Commissioned Officer in units battalion sized (circa 500 soldiers and up) and higher. The Sergeant Major of the Army is the right arm of the Army Chief of Staff, and is the senior enlisted soldier, period.

This is good for the Army. Now if I could just finagle a 90-day recall to bump up the old retired pay...

On the vagaries of experimentation.

As regular readers know, I'm at Fort Benning working on an Army experiment. We're taking concepts, existing technology, and nascent technology, melding them together, trying to get an idea of ways to dramatically enhance the light/medium infantry platoon's effectiveness. Just like a business, the Army wants higher productivity out of our soldiers, and we are trying to leverage technology to do that.

We're also trying to do it faster than we did historically.

So, we've got a platoon here, comprised of about 2/3's recent combat vets, under the command of a 2nd Lieutenant.

We've got them instrumented with data-capture devices that attempt (boy is that being nice sometimes!) to track them around our battlefield, track hits and kills, capture screen shots of their computers, logs of their chat sessions, captures of their sensor imagery, etc.

But most of this stuff is developmental, and balky, so it can be a frustrating experience for the soldiers. Which is good - because we're also capturing the ways they adapt.

So, for example, if they are using their command and control device to pull sensor imagery around - and they lose the primary data path, we're observing how they adapt to that - and whether or not they find the data useful enough to develop a work-around for, or if they just blow it off as not worth the effort.

There's a lot of useful stuff in that.

But, for someone who grew up in the Operations and Training world, it's also a little bemusing to come up to the start point and see this:

A closer view, here.

A bit bemusing indeed to see this stuff we're hanging on the troops. It's not ruggedized to milspec yet (and may never, if it proves rugged enough, or is dropped from consideration). The whole intent of this series of experiments is to get the ideas out there, in the hands of the troops, and test 'em early. Yes, we're noting all the different battery requirements, so that people can start looking at rationalizing and standardizing on batteries... but the solution may well not be to re-engineer the devices, but to develop a standard battery pack that items can plug into.

Of course, that means cords. And plugs... and maybe the value-added ain't worth the pain. That's what we're here to try and determine.

What works - and more importantly, what works well enough to make further devlopment warranted... and what should get consigned to the trash. We don't make the decisions, we just capture the data, organize it, analyze it, and make recommendations. The decisions are at several echelons above where I work!

But this process forces us to make many compromises, as we develop simulations or simulated devices that roughly mirror a future capability. Like the proposed robotic scout vehicle. We don't have any here, they are a part of a different development spiral and none are available.

So we make do. How? We mount roughly equivalent sensors on an ATV (hat tip to Sean for the pic). And radio control the ATV, so the 'Robotics NCO' in the Weapons Squad can control the ATV and use it as if it was the objective vehicle. Of course, the troops don't mind - because someone gets to drive it from the LZ (landing zone) to the LD (line of departure, where you go tactical on the way to the objective), before it goes under remote control. As related below - we've learned the hard way that it ain't worth the trouble right now to try to drive it remotely to the LD!

By doing that we can start already to develop the TTP (tactics, techniques, and procedures) for the employment of the asset, even before any of the systems really exist. And not just in electronic simulation, but in the real world, with real soldiers, fresh from the Sandboxes. And what we learn from that can be incorporated over into the development spiral of the objective system, hopefully before a we-now-know-it's-worthless functionality is fully embedded and hard to remove.

Of course, there are *problems* with that... like the use of the ATV which mounts a sensor useful in urban combat. The Sergeant was maneuvering it into position pretty well, really - but like any kludged-up system, it has it's quirks. And one of those is a very sensitive throttle. Very little pressure on the stick - and the thing is popping wheelies, screaming down the avenue. Not terribly stealthy, perhaps.

However, we discovered that when employed that way, it makes a useful IED (improvised explosive device) sensor. By running over the IED and going 'boom' maybe, but hey, better than losing a soldier, right?

So, it's frustrating - but it's fun, nonetheless. Not the least of which because ya get to hang out with the upcoming Greatest Generation.

Of course, that's why I do what I do. I may not be able to walk the walk anymore, but I can help them do it better, hit harder, and come home more often.

Take It Down! Chaff! Flare!...

Wuff. Oi. Ouch.

The post below is what is known, in fighter squadrons, as a "F**k-S**t-Hate Debrief." You have been a buffoon and everyone in the flight knows it. No one died but you could have killed them. The recipient could be Blue 4, one of the element leads, the flight lead, or even the IP (but that's usually rare). In short, idiots deserve to be called same on occasion...nothing personal, just part of the culture.

In this case, someone has defecated in the Armorer's mess kit.

Remind me not to do that.

Instapilot.

I suggest this answer...

Osama bin Laden:

"Your security is in your own hands, and any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

Recommended answer, from each Governor of the fifty United States.

"To the Islamofascist Commander, on behalf of the residents of [state].

Nuts!

The Governor of [state]."

The fact that half the country probably wouldn't get it agonizes me.

Instapilot

(HT: LGF)

Andersonville

Andersonville sucked. In 1864 the war was not going well for the Confederacy. Grant and Sherman were starting the long grind that would end the war a year later, and the pressure on Confederate resources was high. To relieve some of the pressure on the Army of Northern Virginia, both in terms of security and food supplies, the Confederate government moved the Union prisoners of war from the Richmond area to other camps in the south, establishing a new one, that would be the largest of them, at Camp Sumter, near Andersonville, Georgia. The intent was also to get Union prisoners nearer to food supplies as well, though in the event... that didn't happen.

The site chosen was to eventually encompass 26.5 acres (in the photo, you'll see two lines of white posts that mark the deadline and stockade - photo taken from the 'star fort' at the souther end, which was Camp Sumter Headquarters). Essentially a rectangle, it was anchored at the ends on hilltops, with a valley and stream in center. The intent was for the prisoners to get their drinking and cooking water at the inlet side, bathe in the middle, and latrines at the outlet. A good enough plan on paper, a horror in implementation.

The stream was sluggish, due to little drop in it's course. When the log stockade was erected, pilings were driven into the streambed as well, essentially damming the stream, causing backflow to create a marsh - a mosquito breeding ground. Not to mention the backflow served to contaminate the water upstream, laying the groundwork for rampant dysentery.

Add to this the fact that the confederates never built (nor allowed the prisoners to) permanent structures in the camp to house the prisoners. They had to make whatever shelter they could, with whatever they had. (Lest you think the replica structures in the photo represent neglect on the part of park staff - look again. The pine boughs are fresh. This is what the Union POW's had for shelter) New prisoners coming in might have decent clothing and equipment, like the black oilcloth cape in the last picture - older prisoners were without - using either old clothing, or pine boughs if they were on outside work details and able to bring 'em in. This is what the prisoners had - fall, winter, spring, summer. This led to real problems among the prisoners, in an environment where the Confederate forces chose to exercise little control.

What control they did exercise was in terms of the Dead Line. A fence, 19 feet from the wall, that touching or crossing into the area beyond was automatic permission for the Confederate guards in the 'pigeon roosts' to shoot to kill.

A not insignificant number of Union prisoners deliberately crossed that line for the express purpose of getting shot.

The Confederates built earthworks around the enclosure - to both protect against the increasing risk of Union cavalry raids as Sherman neared Atlanta, and to guard against revolt in the enclosure. Half the guns pointed out, loaded with roundshot and shell, half pointed in - loaded with canister, the better to cut huge swaths through the prisoners. As most of the prisoners were combat veterans, they knew what those guns could do.

45,000 prisoners were held in Andersonville during its 14-month existence, with a peak population of 32,000 - held in an area intended to hold 10,000. 13,000 prisoners died of disease, exposure, malnutrition and poor sanitation. The Confederate authorities were unable to provide adequate anything, except burial space. 29% of the population died.

The conditions were so awful that an organized group of prisoners started preying on the others. Called the Raiders, their depredations grew so bad that the remaining prisoners petitioned the camp commandant to allow them to organize a counter-group, called the Regulators. The Regulators were able to capture the Raiders, and demanded from the camp commandant the right to try the offenders. This was granted, and a jury of 23 Sergeants (that's a hard jury!) sentenced the ringleaders to death by hanging, and the remaining Raiders to 'run the gauntlet.' The camp commander pleaded with the Union prisoners to not carry out the executions, however they demanded to, and accordingly the six raiders were hung inside the enclosure. This was a decision the camp commandant would come to regret later, as he was charged with murder for allowing it to happen, as, under military law at the time, the Sergeants had no standing to hold a trial. So bitter was the feeling in the encampment, the prisoners refused to allow the Raiders to be buried with the other dead - and separate they remain today.

The commander of the inner camp, Captain Henry Wirz, was arrested and tried for "conspiring with high Confederate officials to impair and injure thehealt and destroy the lives...of Federal prisoners" and "murder, in violation of the laws of war." The conspiracy never existed, but in the anger and indignation over the conditions of Andersonville, a military tribunal found Wirz guilty, and he was hanged on November 10, 1865. This was, in all probablilty, a miscarriage of justice.

Clara Barton came to the prison in July of 1865 to help in identifying the dead so their families could be properly notified. In this activity she was helped enormously by Dorance Atwater, of the 2nd New York Cavalry, who kept the books on the prisoners, living and dead, and kept a copy of his books, fearing the Confederate authorities would destroy the official copies. Thanks to their combined efforts, only 460 of the graves are unknowns. If you've visited other Civil War cemeterys, you know there is no small achievement there.

The Andersonville Cemetery is now a National Cemetery, and contains the graves of veterans of all eras who have died since the Civil War. You can easily find the prison graves, however. With a death rate approaching 100 a day, the gravediggers dug trenches and interred the bodies shoulder to shoulder - and the headstones from that era are shoulder-to-shoulder.

Andersonville also shows the downside of being a prisoner from a winning Army... many times your own side's military success weighs heavily against you. To be fair, Northern POW camps weren't always a lot better, having mortality rates comparable to most southern camps, in the mid-teens.

I'll close this part out with a quote from Sgt David Kennedy, of the 9th Ohio Cavalry:

"Wuld that I was an artist & had the material to paint this camp & all its horors or the tongue of some eloquent Statesman and had the privleage of expressing my mind to our hon. rulers at Washington. I should gloery to decribe this hell on Earth where it takes 7 of its ocupiants to make a Shadow."

For those with an interest, here are the State monuments at Andersonville, in no particular order. Some of these images are pretty large, best to right click and 'save as' or open in another window.

Wisconsin.
Rhode Island.
Massachusetts.
Tennessee.
Ohio.
Michigan.
New Jersey.
Connecticut.
New York.
Indiana.
Minnesota.
Pennsylvania.
Maine.
Illinois.
Omnibus Memorial for states otherwise not represented: Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, Vermont and West Virginia.

Finally (!) this:

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

My whole Andersonville Album is available here.