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H&I* Fires, 31 JAN 2007

By Denizens on January 31, 2007 | | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (1)

Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite. [Hey - trackbacks work again!]

You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...

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Michael Totten sure does get around. First he writes his own blog. Then he’s over at Dean’s World. Now I notice he’s at Winds of Change debunking Hezbollah infowar pablum---while writing from Lebanon no less. Stay safe, Mike, you 9/12 democrat you.
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Gertz and Reuters provide two stories on US ABMD recent tests and the context of these tests.
And yes, I did notice the claim in the first para of the Reuters piece.

Within a year, the U.S. missile defense system should be able to guard against enemy attacks, while testing new technologies, the deputy director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said on Monday.

I soooo wish.

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Bill Arkin painted a big ol’ bull’s-eye on his chest with his column. I wouldn’t want to be Bill for the next few days after writing this:

I'm all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn't for them to disapprove of the American people.

Bonapartism is something to worry about, but, hey, if the media/pop-culture has made it such a big deal to care about those who ‘have something on the line’ in this why shouldn’t the American public get the Grunt’s view and opinion? It’s their butts on the line. Or can’t we Normals take criticism we collectively earned?
ry

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Stock Tip of the Day: Invest in whoever markets this, the first truly bi-partisan bumper sticker --

RUN, HILLARY, RUN!!

Dems can affix it to their rear bumpers, Republicans to their front bumpers...

H/t to Doc E, who's been cleaning out the attic. -- BillT

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Here's a good snerk - in a comment to Bill's tank post, Sanger said: True... But I could put a 105mm on a dunebuggy and it still wouldn't be a tank.

Well, it would appear that WWII put the French Army in a somewhat parlous state, post-war. So the Army that gave us a truly revolutionary piece of artillery, the "French 75" found themselves trying again to revolutionize warfare. Apparently very fond of the 75mm caliber, while they were unable to produce a new gun on their own, they gave us a new mounting and deployment option for a 75mm gun.

Scooters up !

-the Armorer

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Longtime Denizens may remember that Arkin (linked in Ry's post above) is the guy who accused the milbloggers of being "bought" by the Army and linked little ol' me (rather than some of the bloggers who truly had an ideological impact in the online world) as an example. That was a fun little bit... Not! Yeah, I couldn't resist a fisking of Arkin's column, though I'm not exactly in my best form these days. - FbL.

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Bummer - Phred Felps and his Whelps lose one in Federal Court - the Feds refuse to prevent Missouri from enforcing their law banning protests at funerals. Glib Fortuna at Stop the ACLU has the story. Crocodile tears flow. -the Armorer

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Hey! I see the Adjutant showed up... yet there is no notice of... Neffi's Natal Day! Andre', where are you? All good Denizen/nes will go find Neffi presents! -the Armorer

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With two Hosers on the Denizen/nes roll, John et al now officially have a more open border policy than the U.S. government.

So to celebrate my shiny-new posting privileges, I plan to write something with enough extraneous vowels to properly show how honourable, colourful, and neighbourly we Canadians can really be...

But first, I'd like to draw your attention to Canada's rough analogue of Bob Hope, a Newfoundlander (never call them Newfies...to their faces at least) who is so consistently supportive of the Canadian Forces, he was recently named Honourary Colonel of a helicopter squadron that flies spin-tops older than he is.

In fact, Rick Mercer spent this past Christmas in Afghanistan. Not at Kandahar Air Field, mind you, but out in Sperwan Ghar at a quaint and cozy little FOB called Strong Point West, huddled around a Coleman stove "watching a pot of Tetley tea bags threaten to boil." Needless to say, he's not out there for a career boost.

He showed his true colours once again (for those who are counting, that's two superfluous vowels already) in delivering a well-deserved public shaming to a...wait for it...Women's Studies prof who complained in print about how her holidays were ruined by incessant reporting of Canadian troops in Kandahar, and went on to write off double amputee and hero Cpl Paul Franklin as some "poor sod." Mercer's rebuttal starts here, and just gets better:

I know I should just ignore the good professor and write her off as another bitter baby boom academic pining for what she fondly calls "the protest songs of yesteryear," but I can't help myself. A response is exactly what she wants; and so I include it here. After all, Newfoundlanders have seen this before: Noreen Golfman, sadly, is Margaret Wente without the wit.

Between that and his final salvo of "the gates of Auschwitz were not opened with peace talks," there's a bunch of fun reading.

And yes, for those who managed to keep reading this entry to the bitter end, I'll try to be less wordy next time. I promise.

But the extra vowels will stay. - Damian, aka Babbling Brooks

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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.

Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.

Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*

The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.

I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to. It's also an open trackback, so if (Don Surber uses it this way a lot) someone has a post they're proud of, but it really isn't either Castle kind of stuff, or topical to a particular post, I've basically given blanket permission to use that post for that purpose. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".

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Look from Cadillac Tight on January 31, 2007 8:28 PM

I’m busy as all get-out this evening, with various work related projects that would bore you all to death. I’ve also all but given up Milblogging - there are other individuals out there who do it far better than I, and who are, quite frankl... Read More

29 Comments

By fdcol63 on January 31, 2007 8:10 AM
I tired of Bill Arkin long ago ... about the same time I got sick of Chris Mathews, IIRC. LOL
 
By wolfwalker on January 31, 2007 8:47 AM
Not directly relevant to any of these items, but I had a thought this morning about an item posted a couple of days ago: that raid in Iraq where unknown Bad Guys infiltrated a base and snatched five American soldiers, later killing them. The reports I've seen have all emphasized the high level of preparation the raid must have required: the attacker were driving US-type vehicles, dressed in US-soldier-type clothes, carried standard issue US weapons, spoke excellent English, and obviously spent a lot of time training for the raid. All of this is being interpreted as pointing to Iranian commandos. This morning, out of nowhere, I had a different thought. The raiders were dressed and equipped like Americans, acted like Americans, knew the security procedures, etc. Is anyone seriously considering the possibility that they were Americans -- ex-Army or maybe even deserters, who turned coat and are now working as mercenaries for the enemy?
 
By John of Argghhh! on January 31, 2007 8:56 AM
Wolfwalker - I hadn't thought of it, but now that you've brought it up, I don't find it very compelling without a smoking gun. I find it much more compelling that we have five Iranian operatives hostage, and 5 dead Americans - who may, before the Iraqi police got suspicious of the convoy, been intended as hostages for the Iranians. That is a *very* IRGC kind of thing to do. As was killing them.
 
By SangerM on January 31, 2007 9:08 AM
I love the scooter. Of course it just begs comments I can't begin to touch..... I also happen to have a picture I took in '74-ish of a Army dunebuggy with a longbarrel TOW mounted between the seats. It was part of an experimental scout unit in the 1CAV (which was still TRI-CAP at the time), and included motorcycles (oooo, imagine), and all sorts of extra stuff. I was on driver duty for the test folks at West Fort, and got to see all sorts of neat stuff, but this was actually on display for the div org. day. Gen Shoemaker was the CG at the time, I think... A little while before Gen Becton took over (who was the first General I ever saw, in fact, when I was at Basic on Ft. Dix.)... Ah, the joys of age and reverie...
 
By Boquisucio on January 31, 2007 9:19 AM
Charging into war on a War-Vespa may not be that glamorous, but it's sure some pimpin' ride.
 
By SangerM on January 31, 2007 9:36 AM
This is the note I sent to Arkin: ---- This is one of the saddest pieces of tripe I've encountered in a while. Soldiers ARE American people, and they certainly have every right to criticize their peers and the people they are fighting to protect. By your standard, however, it would seem they are nothing more than mercenaries and ought to just shut up and do what they are told... You just can't imagine how wrong and pathetic that all actually sounded... You really ought to be ashamed of yourself. And certainly I would stop calling myself a journalist if I were you --or are you bucking for a spot at the NY Times? ---- Not my best work, but I was in a hurry... What a putz schmuck he is.
 
By John of Argghhh! on January 31, 2007 9:52 AM
My thought, when reading it, was that I was being told, "Keep to your place, ni**er." With all the baggage therein implied. Mind you - that's how I see the speaker's attitude, and I'm not trying to make a link between the two on the receivers side. The receivers in this instance did, in fact, volunteer to enter a form of servitude, and did so proudly, which the historical receiver of the epithet did not. It's the attitude and underlying assumptions I'm after. Not a perfect analogy, no - but hey, victimology is all about feelings, right? I'm sure my visceral response would shock and inflame Mr. Arkin to stuttering apoplexy, or worse, smarmy condescension (oh, wait, he's already been there) - but is it not, effectively, what he said?
 
By FbL on January 31, 2007 9:57 AM
but is it not, effectively, what he said? Sounds like it to me...
 
By Maggie on January 31, 2007 9:57 AM
Arkin writes: Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order. WTF?
 
By FbL on January 31, 2007 10:03 AM
Yeah, Maggie. Don't you just love his choice of verb?: "indulged."
 
By fdcol63 on January 31, 2007 10:29 AM
And it sounds as if he's trying to make some sort of "moral equivalence" between the atrocities of Abu Ghraib/Haditha/et al and the right of ALL Americans to exercise one's freedom of speech and opinion. Arkin is demonstrating typical liberal traits like: 1) disdain for the American military; 2) paternalism; and 3) intellectual pretentiousness.
 
By bad cat robot on January 31, 2007 10:37 AM
For Neffi-san, who doesn't look a day over 80! A silk scarf and goggles (he keeps losing them in flight)and a dashing Sopwith Triplane to go with. (Said triplane being capable of hands-off flight permitting adjusting of scarf and goggles without Sudden Changes in Trajectory).
 
By FbL on January 31, 2007 11:20 AM
Happy Birthday, Neffi! Here's your present. [Maybe it'll help him keep his hands off my tail tuft... *grin*]
 
By kat-missouri on January 31, 2007 12:01 PM
First, if you wear the uniform, you're too stupid to make the decision to serve. You are simply a duped moron. Then, you're a duped moron that is supposed to be smart enough to know that the war is "illegal" and you should "disobey" illegal commands. Then, because you don't, you're back to being a slobbering, murderous, rapists, feasting on the brains of women and children. Criticize the President's plans in public, you're a brilliant leader. That criticism includes any mention of increasing troops and the new meme is "increase in troops is escalation", you're back to being an idiot.
 
By ry on January 31, 2007 12:21 PM
For neffi I present: good flying weather(at least as a wallpaper). Happy natal, do something I wouldn't do(which isn't hard and is often very, very legal).
 
By kat-missouri on January 31, 2007 12:41 PM
BB...that was great tongue in cheek stuff. I believe that is what you call a "dressing down". The only thing missing at the end was a "what, what?"
   
By Damian on January 31, 2007 2:06 PM
Hmm. Maybe I should have mentioned that Mercer is a comedian and political satirist with a weekly fake news show. So (and this is a rough comparison) imagine Jon Stewart heading over to Afghanistan once a year to headline a comedy event and then go out into the weeds with the troops. And imagine him doing a segment once every couple of months on some military base somewhere where he makes fun of how he looks jumping out of an airplane with the military's top general, or how scared he is rappelling down a training wall, or skewers the politicians for cheaping out on an equipment purchase or some such. Then imagine him looking somewhat goofier than Stewart, and talking with a Newfoundlander's distinctive lilt. That's kind of like Mercer. Or, you could skip all this, and just see him for yourself here.
 
By KCSteve on January 31, 2007 2:10 PM
ry,
Within a year, the U.S. missile defense system should be able to guard against enemy attacks, while testing new technologies, the deputy director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said on Monday.
"should" is the operative word in that quote. I'm guessing they trimmed it a bit thinking that "but it's highly unlikely" sounded a bit pessmistic.
 
By SangerM on January 31, 2007 3:47 PM
Ry, for quite some time, the problem has not been so much "hitting" the incoming as sorting out the incoming from the debris of other incoming, and from knowing what to shoot and what not to shoot. A clear example of technology being too good and having to figure out a way to give it sense... According to a couple of relatives who served on Navy stuff (and IAW what I know from a past life), the Aegis can actually be too aggressive, just like the Phalanx, which used to shoot stuff into pieces, then shoot the pieces, then shoot the smaller pieces... I understand it doesn't anymore. But a decade ago, if the Aegis had been given it's head, everything in range of a Naval battle group not ID'd as friend was an enemy, and would have been destroyed. As for the missile stuff, an awful lot of successful stuff was done under the aegis of the "star wars" program that surely has evolved. And my point is that I doubt it's highly unlikely. But note that he said guard against, not prevent. See, there's the kicker. No one has yet said they could prevent an attack, so he might have actually been talking about the parts that do detection and ID, etc. Hard to say. Moreover, given the great game, it might be that it's already a done deal, and they were just letting the Chinese know they don't have a lot of time andmaybe should just stop now... Again, hard to say, but I suspect there's a lot more to that comment than just an off-the-cuff announcement for the peoples' ear... V/R
 
By Maggie on January 31, 2007 4:57 PM
Happy Birthday Neffi! We will all sit down and celebrate with a great dinner. Cricket will tell us what's being served. Then we will raise a glass.
 
By BillT on January 31, 2007 7:41 PM
To Neffi I present a 5-gallon jug of propwash, a thousand-foot reel of flightline and a 150-watt ultralight bulb...
 
By Consul-At-Arms on January 31, 2007 8:08 PM
Thanks for bringing Mr. Arkin's article to my attention. I've linked to you here.
 
By Andre the Pole on January 31, 2007 8:47 PM
Ho, Neff survivink nudder birtday?! Next will be comink plague of spiders or sumzink, no doubt...! Here for you, Neff'- you unnerstandink dis ol frend!
 
By Neffi on January 31, 2007 9:00 PM
Thangya, thangya verra much... BCR, you couldn't know the 'Tripehound' is one of my favorite machines from the Great war era- nice job! Fuzzy dear, at 52" the lionness is very nearly 'life-size', hehehehe Ry- muches grassies for the flying weather, we've had 66" snow since last Dec. 20th- I'll take anything I can get. Take my arm, Maggie dahlink- dinner looks marvellous! Chief- you've been hanging around the wrong end of that horsie, methinks! Besides, my prop doesn't need washing... Andre, you pig! Just pay up- and gimme my FS back before you hurt yourself... Sigh. Best to all from gelid Colorado!
 
By MKL on January 31, 2007 9:21 PM
I'm surprised I haven't seen a mention of the new show starting on the Military Channel called Tank Overhaul They a rebuilding a Comet, Panther, Sherman, and Hellcat...Here's the episode guide: http://military.discovery.com/tvlistings/series.jsp?series=115495&gid=0&channel=MIL
   
By Boquisucio on February 1, 2007 7:40 AM
Hey Neff - Knowing how much you like both Sharpies and Furry Friends, why not put them both to good use. Just strap one of your old K-Bars hanging from your walls, put on a daub of Duct-Tape, and just watch the fur fly. HAPPY B-DAY NEFF!!!
 
By ry on February 1, 2007 8:57 AM
Sanger, I've been raised in the school of thought that says even a 20% chance of hitting any one 'vampire' is enough to screw the other guys plan to hell and gone. The shrouding and decoys and such are a problem, but not as much of one that the press makes it out to be---particularly with the look down shoot down during boost phase option. At least not from what I've read and the people I've talked to. Sure, there's the academic physicists who claim it's impossible, but, hey, Standard already has some, tested, ballistic missile capability. It's more the other issues. Like missile not leaving the silo for some software glitch. Where to put the X-band radar to do the job(and does Xband actually do the job). Fuel stability for the booster(and how long it stays good). It's the little stuff. The seeker head of the HTK vehicle's tested. It can find stuff----that's one of the things detractors always go after, that the seeker's been tested in simple scenarios. And the Israeli ARROW system seems to be progressing nicely. But ready to be a real and useful system? I'm not holding my breath. I remember, or more accurately people I know worked on, the HAWK SAM system. 'Fix in the Fleet'. That seems to be the way of this. I'm a believer in ABMD. I think if you want nucweaps to go away you have to make them ineffective(like the mounted knight, the crossbow, etc). The best way of making them useless is making sure they never reach their targets. Not some silly piece of paper for a deal nobody will honor. I just don't want to be sold a bunch of crap about the system. I *WANT* the system and I want it to work. There is no such thing as a perfect defense, particularly in this area, but it isn't the 'sheild' aspect that'll be the real deterent. It's that he can't be sure how well his plan will work or how much he'll have to spend to ensure it'll work(via overkill). I want this system. I think it should be an imperative in appropriations(before DD(x), LCS, F-22, and a laundry list of other, necessary, things). But I'm not buying the industry hype just yet.