Thinking outside the box.

The Russians have always been a fan of artillery. And they've been pretty competent users of it, as well.

They also think differently from us, and take novel approaches to things. There's some pictures of a putative new Russian artillery piece making the rounds, and it's shown up in my email box a couple of times.

It looks to be a derivative of this SP artillery piece, the 2S19 "Mstas".

Artillery by Beretta... this thing, called 'Koalitcia-SV', or Coalition, hit the web over at the Cannon, Machine Guns and Ammunition website (which is a treasure trove of stuff, btw).

Murdoc noticed it last week, and the comments over at Strategy Page harbor some sceptics.

Interesting concept. Over and under 152mm cannon. They definitely aren't worried about trans-global power projection with this puppy - unless they're driving. However, the reinforcing plates on the travel lock (that gizmo that is framing the driver in the pic above) looks like it would really restrict the drivers vision to the corners - which could be an issue driving through urban areas. But, mebbe not. Of course, being a continental power, like Germany was, and not a sea power like the US and Great Britain, they've been more prone to this sort of thing anyway. Take this example... the Tsar Tank.

The Tsar Tank was designed and built in 1915. It was one of the largest attempts at tank-building during the war, reputedly weighing in at a lean(!) 40 tons. In comparison, the Brit Marks I-IV of the 1st World War weighed in at a sprightly 28 tons. The German A7V weighed around 33 tons. The French St. Chamond weighed 22 tons, while the other major large French tank, the Schneider, came in at 14 tons. It wasn't until the Mark VIIs, the "Liberty" tanksjointly designed by the Brits and US did anyone else approach the 40 ton mark that I'm aware of (but who knows, lots of people were tinkering back in the day). This sucker had two huge wheels each driven by it's own 250 hp motor. It had two small wheels in the rear. Some sources suggest the guns were placed outside the wheels, others suggest that machine guns in the small turret were all the armament. I've never seen a photo or drawing showing weapons on this baby - they may have realized what a clunker it was before they bothered. Two prototypes were made but they proved unable to handle mud (I can't imagine crossing a shell-pocked battlefield in one of these) and high costs caused the project to be cancelled, mercifully, in 1916. These photos show a partially scrapped vehicle without wheels in the rear. The last of the two was dismantled for scrap in 1923.

Then there is this puppy, the Object 279.

In 1957 the Russians developed a prototype of a new heavy tank. Take a look at that body and those quad tracks. It was intended to lower the ground pressure of this vehicle, to give it better cross-country mobility in soft ground. I'm sure if it had ever made it into service, crews would have hated it. Twice the track to break. The hull was intended to protecting it against HEAT ammunition by deflecting the rounds. Putatively this shape would also assist in preventing the vehicle from being overturned by a tactical nuke blast. I'm sceptical of that, but... hey, maybe they did the modeling. It was canceled by Khruschev in favor of his preference - missile tanks. I believe they built two of these - the survivor is at the Tank Museum in Kubinka, near Moscow. That's one museum I want to get to. [note to self, lottery tickets]

Not that the US and Britain didn't have their own behemoths, mind you. The Brits built the Tortoise. Intended to kill tanks and help fight through the Siegfried line.

We built the T28/T95.

This sucker had removeable outer tracks, which could be towed behind the vehicle so it would be able to cross narrow bridges in Europe. Also intended for breaching the Siegfried Line, we only built two before cancelling the project, and the survivor today sits outside the Patton Armor Museum at Fort Knox.

Gratuitous Historical Pic.

Armored Train... kewl.

Soviet Armored train MBV F34, used on the Leningrad battlefront

4 January 1951...

General Matthew Ridgway, WWII Airborne hero, stands on the last bridge across the Han River, as the combined forces of North Korea and China take Seoul for the second time (and last) time in the war.

ES42-6-56 (SC355598) LT General Matthew B. Ridgway, CG, U.S. 8th Army (front row, left), and Co. Itschner, Engineer, I Corps (front row, center), give the order to begin dismantling pontoon bridge after the last of the UN Forces evacuated Seoul. 4 Jan 1951. (US Army Photo)

ES41-6-56 (SC355548) A tank of the last UN Forces units in Seoul evacuated the city, withdrawing across the Han River on the remaining pontoon bridge which will be demolished as soon as they have passed. 4 Jan 1951.

And demolished it was.

ES71-19-62 (SC356266) A Han River pontoon bridge out of Seoul, Korea, slowly burns and sinks after the first charge of TNT has been set off by members of the 8th Engineer Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division. 4 Jan 1951.

Jan 3, 1944 (1945) [Dangnabbit!]

Some of these pics should bring back memories for those of you warrriors who did the winter of '81 in Germany - the coldest winter since... 1944. Especially those Jan '81 maneuver rights ARTEPs 1st Tank conducted in the area around Graf and Hohenfels - which, IIRC, were the swan song of the M60A2s, they being swapped for the A3 RISE Passives that spring.

Dec 31, 1944

Having shown a bit of what we're doing this year's end, I thought I'd show a different year's end...

SC 253856. The 101st Airborne troops move out of Bastogne, after having been besieged there for ten days, to drive the enemy out of the surrounding district. Belgium 12/31/45

SC 197832. Three members of an American patrol cross a snow covered Luxembourg field on a scouting mission. White bedsheets camouflage them in the snow. Left to right: Sgt. James Storey, Newman, Ga.; Pvt. Frank A. Fox, Wilmington, Del., and Cpl. Dennis Lavanoha, Harrisville, N.Y. (30 Dec 1944). Lellig, Luxembourg Signal Corps Photo #ETO-HQ-45-5003 (Hustead)

SC 198400. Tankmen of the U.S. First Army gather around a fire on the snow-covered ground near Eupen, Belgium, opening their Christmas packages (12/30/44) -5th Armd. Regt

December 25, 1944

Sometimes, Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men, well, it takes a vacation.

SC 200476. Members of the 101st Airborne Division walk past dead comrades, killed during the Christmas Eve bombing of Bastogne, Belgium, the town in which this division was besieged for ten days. This photo was taken on Christmas Day. 1944

SC 200446. German soldiers who attempted to storm the 101st Airborne command post in Bastogne, Belgium, lie dead on the ground after they were mowed down by American machine gun fire. The tanks, behind which they were advancing, were knocked out also. This photo was taken while Bastogne was still under seige (12/25/44) RESTRICTED--Signal Corps Photo #ETO-HQ-45-34 (Krochka).

Dec 23 1944

The bulk of the air cargo brought to Bastogne during the siege was artillery ammunition. By the 24th the airborne batteries were down to ten rounds per tube and the work horse 420th Armored Field Artillery was expending no more than five rounds per mission, even on very lucrative targets. This battalion, covering a 360-degree front, would in fact be forced to make its original 1,400 rounds last for five days. The two 155-mm. howitzer battalions were really pawing at the bottom of the barrel. The 969th fired thirty-nine rounds on 24 December and two days later could allow its gunners only twenty-seven rounds, one-sixth the number of rounds expended per day when the battle began.

The airdrop on the 23d brought a dividend for the troops defending Bastogne. The cargo planes were all overwatched by fighters who, their protective mission accomplished, turned to hammer the Germans in the Bastogne ring. During the day eighty-two P-47's lashed out at this enemy with general-purpose and fragmentation bombs, napalm, and machine gun fire. The 101st reported to Middleton, whose staff was handling these air strikes for the division, that "air and artillery is having a field day around Bastogne."

You can read the rest here.

Now, here's something you most likely didn't know. There weren't many black combat units in the US Army during either world war. IIRC, none at all during the First, only a few during the Second.

One of those few was the 969th Field Artillery, which won a Distinguished Unit Citation and Belgian Croix d’Guerre with Palm for their performance during the Battle of the Bulge. Some more on Black soldiers in the war is available here.

Dec 22, 1944

...in the Bastion of the Battered Bastards of the 101st.

To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.

The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Our near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hompre-Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.

There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.

If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours' term.

All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well known American humanity.

The German Commander.

To the German Commander:

Nuts!

The American Commander.

The American Commander was Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, Division Artillery Commander of the 101st Airborne Division.

Redlegs (like yours truly) aren't usually noted for their brevity.

McAuliffe's troops weren't the only ones inspired by his response. There was extra effort on the home front, too.

What may have been the biggest morale booster came with a reverse twist-the enemy "ultimatum." About noon four Germans under a white flag entered the lines of the 2d Battalion, 327th. The terms of the announcement they carried were simple: "the honorable surrender of the encircled town," this to be accomplished in two hours on threat of "annihilation" by the massed fires of the German artillery. The rest of the story has become legend: how General McAuliffe disdainfully answered "Nuts!"; and how Colonel Harper, commander of the 327th, hard pressed to translate the idiom, compromised on "Go to Hell!" The ultimatum had been signed rather ambiguously by "The German Commander," and none of the German generals then in the Bastogne sector seem to have been anxious to claim authorship.14 Lt. Col. Paul A Danahy, G-2 of the 101st, saw to it that the story was circulated-and appropriately embellished-in the daily periodic report: "The Commanding General's answer was, with a sarcastic air of humorous tolerance, emphatically negative." Nonetheless the 101st expected that the coming day-the 23d-would be rough.

Read the rest, here.

December 21, 1944

One Threat Subsides; Another Emerges

The Attempt To Relieve Peiper's Kampfgruppe

The quick and cheaply won victories which had taken Peiper's armored kampfgruppe so close to the Meuse bridges in so short a time may have blinded the higher German staffs for a while to the fact that Peiper was in danger. By the 21st, however, the most strenuous efforts were being made to save the ground he had won north of the Amblève and to rescue the men and matériel in his command. What happened to leave the kampfgruppe stranded and alone?

The 1st SS Panzer Division had begun its drive west in four march groups moving independently. The bulk of the 1st Panzer Regiment, a motorized battalion of armored infantry, a mobile company of engineers, and a battery of self-propelled artillery (as well as most of the gasoline available) had gone to Peiper with the expectation that the armored weight and the mobile character of this spearhead detachment would permit a quick breakthrough and exploitation even to the Meuse River. The balance of the division was to follow hard on Peiper's heels, provide reinforcement as required, and keep the line of communications open until such time as following divisions could take over and be prepared to re-form as a unit at the Meuse. By noon of 17 December Peiper's kampfgruppe was out of touch with the second and third march columns of the division and was racing alone toward the west. The strongest of the rearward columns, the fourth, which amounted to a reinforced armored infantry regiment, had been held up by mines at the entrance to its designated route' and in fact never made a start until 18 December. The student of first causes may wish to speculate on the fateful role of the unknown cavalry, engineers, and foot soldiers who laid the mines between Lanzerath and Manderfeld, thus delaying most of the 1st SS Panzer Division armored infantry for a critical twenty-four hours.

Read the rest here.

Dec 20, 1944

During the night of l9-20 December the advance kampfgruppe of the 12th SS Panzer Division and the bulk of one regiment from the 12 Volks Grenadier Division completed their assembly. About 0600 twenty German tanks and a rifle battalion converged on Dom Butgenbach in the early morning fog and mist from south and east. The front lit up as the American mortars and artillery shot illuminating shell over the roads leading to the village. Concentration after concentration then plunged down, three battalions of field artillery and a 90-mm. battery of antiaircraft artillery firing as fast as the pieces could be worked. The enemy infantry, punished by this fire and the stream of bullets from the American foxhole line wavered, but a handful of tanks rolled off the roads and into Dom Butgenbach. (They had shot down three bazooka teams and a Company H machine gun section.) Here, in the dark, battalion antitank guns placed to defend the 2d Battalion command post went to work firing point-blank at the exhaust flashes as the German vehicles passed. Two enemy tanks were holed and the rest fled the village, although the antitank gun crews suffered at the hands of the German bazooka teams that had filtered in with the tanks.

Read more here.

If you haven't noticed, I'm not following a specific trend here, other than trying to stick to actions of any particular day. Why? Historians make it easy - all nice, tidy, and wrapped with a bow. Participants see it through the straw of their existence and, in the case of more senior leaders, the sum of the straws of their subordinates.

19 December 1944

Company officers commanding troops facing the enemy had been carefully briefed to avoid the word "withdrawal" in final instructions to their men. This was to be "a move to new positions"; all were to walk, not run. Col. Leland W. Skaggs' 741St Tank Battalion, tank destroyers from the 644th Tank Destroyer Battalion, and the 2d Division engineers would form a covering force in the villages, laying mines and beating off any attempt at "pursuit." Disengagement was made from left to right, "stripping" the 2d Division line from Rocherath to Wirtzfeld. First, the 2d Battalion of the 38th Infantry pulled out of the north edge of Rocherath; the 1st Battalion, deployed in both villages, followed; the 3d Battalion tacked on at Krinkelt. A half hour later, just as the Germans moved into Rocherath, Company C of the 644th and Company B of the 741st hauled out, the tanks carrying the engineers. The move through Wirtzfeld, now in flames, brought the 38th under German guns and resulted in some casualties and confusion, but at 0200 on 20 December the rear guard tank platoon left Wirtzfeld and half an hour later the 9th Infantry passed through the new lines occupied by the 38th Infantry a thousand yards west of the village.

Read more about that day here.

December 18, 1944 Pacific

Those who go down to the sea in ships know that the ocean is a dangerous and fickle place.

Today in 1944, a typhoon severely battered Task Force 38, resulting in the loss of three destroyers and damage to numerous other vessels.

On 17 December 1944, the ships of Task Force 38, seven fleet and six light carriers, eight battleships, 15 cruisers, and about 50 destroyers were operating about 300 miles east of Luzon in the Philippine Sea. The carriers had just completed three days of heavy raids against Japanese airfields, suppressing enemy aircraft during the American amphibious operations against Mindoro in the Philippines. Although the sea had been becoming rougher all day, the nearby cyclonic disturbance gave relatively little warning of its approach. On 18 December, the small but violent typhoon overtook the Task Force while many of the ships were attempting to refuel. Many of the ships were caught near the center of the storm and buffeted by extreme seas and hurricane force winds. Three destroyers, USS Hull, USS Spence, and USS Monaghan, capsized and went down with practically all hands, while a cruiser, five aircraft carriers, and three destroyers suffered serious damage. Approximately 790 officers and men were lost or killed, with another 80 injured. Fires occurred in three carriers when planes broke loose in their hangars and some 146 planes on various ships were lost or damaged beyond economical repair by fires, impact damage, or by being swept overboard. This storm inflicted more damage on the Navy than any storm since the hurricane at Apia, Samoa in 1889. In the aftermath of this deadly storm, the Pacific Fleet established new weather stations in the Caroline Islands and, as they were secured, Manila, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. In addition, new weather central offices (for coordinating data) were established at Guam and Leyte.

Structure of a typhoon captured by a Navy ship's radar. This storm was the second tropical storm to ever be observed on radar.

In the event, the Navy decided not to cashier anyone over the decision to not sail around the storm - but it was a near run thing.

December 18, 1944 Europe.

The Defense of the Twin Villages 18 December

The German attempt to take Krinkelt and Rocherath during the night of 17-18 December had not been well coordinated, carried out as it was by the advance guards of two divisions attacking piecemeal in the dark over unknown terrain against resistance which was completely surprising. By the morning of 18 December, however, the enemy strength had increased substantially despite the miserable state of the woods roads leading to the twin villages. The 989th Regiment of the 277th Volks Grenadier Division (probably reinforced by a third battalion) had reached Rocherath. The 12th SS Panzer Division, whose tanks and armored infantry carriers made extremely slow progress on the muddy secondary roads quickly chewed up by churning tracks-was able by dawn to assemble the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, an assault gun battalion, and one full tank battalion east of the villages. During the 18th this force was strengthened by one more tank battalion, the final armored commitment being about equally divided between Panther tanks and the heavy Tigers.

I had the honor, while a battery commander, to be mentored by BG(R) Seitz, the officer who commanded the 26th Infantry.

17 December, 1944.

The German Effort Continues 17-18 December

Although hard hit and in serious trouble at the end of the first day, particularly on the right flank as General Lauer saw it, the inexperienced 99th Division had acquitted itself in a manner calculated to win the reluctant admiration of the enemy. German losses had been high. Where the American lines had been penetrated, in the 393d and 394th sectors, the defenders simply had been overwhelmed by superior numbers of the enemy who had been able to work close in through the dense woods. Most important of all, the stanch defense of Losheimergraben had denied the waiting tank columns of the I SS Panzer Corps direct and easy entrance to the main Büllingen-Malmédy road.

The initial German failure to wedge an opening for armor through the 99th, for failure it must be reckoned, was very nearly balanced by the clear breakthrough achieved in the 14th Cavalry Group sector. The 3d Parachute Division, carrying the left wing of the I SS Panzer Corps forward, had followed the retreating cavalry through Manderfeld, swung north, and by dusk had troops in Lanzerath-only two kilometers from the 3d Battalion, 394th, position at Buchholz.

The 12th SS Panzer Division could not yet reach the Büllingen road. The 1st SS Panzer Division stood ready and waiting to exploit the opening made by the 3d Parachute Division by an advance via Lanzerath onto the Honsfeld road. During the early evening the advance kampfgruppe of the 1st SS Panzer Division, a task force built around the 1st SS Panzer Regiment (Obersturmbannfuehrer Joachim Peiper), rolled northwest to Lanzerath. At midnight-an exceptionally dark night-German tanks and infantry struck suddenly at Buchholz. The two platoons of Company K, left there when the 3d Battalion stripped its lines to reinforce the Losheimergraben defenders, were engulfed. One man, the company radio operator, escaped. Hidden in the cellar of the old battalion command post near the railroad station, he reported the German search on the floor above, then the presence of tanks outside the building with swastikas painted on their sides. His almost hourly reports, relayed through the 1st Battalion, kept the division headquarters informed of the German movements. About 0500 on 17 December the main German column began its march through Buchholz. Still at his post, the radio operator counted thirty tanks, twenty-eight half-tracks filled with German infantry, and long columns of foot troops marching by the roadside. All of the armored task force of the 1st SS Panzer Division and a considerable part of the 3d Parachute Division were moving toward Honsfeld.

Honsfeld, well in the rear area of the 99th, was occupied by a variety of troops. The provisional unit raised at the division rest camp seems to have been deployed around the town. Two platoons

Read the rest, here.

16 December 1944

The Battle of the Bulge Begins.

You can read about the opening of the offensive here, from the official US Army history.

And more memories fade away.

USS Oklahoma survivor Jerry Tessaro, left, shakes hands with fellow USS Oklahoma survivor Raymond Richmond during the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, USS Oklahoma Lobby Display Dedication ceremony at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 6, 2006. The ceremony is honoring the historic tie between the Pearl Harbor shipyard workers who aided in the rescue of 32 Sailors from the capsized ship in the days following Dec. 7, 1941. DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class James E. Foehl, U.S. Navy. (Released)

But this year's reunion holds an urgency that hasn't been part of gatherings past: Most Pearl Harbor survivors, nearing their 90s or even older, say it will be their final trip back to this place that changed the course of their lives and their nation forever. Event organizers--many of them children of survivors who are ailing or already have died--pragmatically are calling this the "final reunion." And survivors' extended families, including children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, are coming along to the reunion in unprecedented numbers to glimpse history firsthand through their loved one's eyes before the opportunity is gone.

Read the rest here.

And locally, it's fading here, too.

Survivors’ message expected to fade. Pearl Harbor veterans fear that, as they make this year’s local remembrance their last. By BRIAN BURNES The Kansas City Star The goal of those who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor: Keep everyone else from forgetting the Japanese attack of Dec. 7, 1941.

That will be harder to do after Thursday. At 10 a.m., local survivors who have been organizing an annual anniversary remembrance will hold their last observance of the event that ushered America into World War II.

Time has greatly thinned the ranks of the Kansas City Metro Chapter III of the national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. Those still alive are getting too old to organize the annual event or, sometimes, to attend it.

So Thursday’s observance at the Sylvester Powell Community Center in Mission, they say, will be the final chapter.

“We think it’s been valuable for people who hadn’t known anything about Pearl Harbor,” said Jack Carson of Overland Park, who left last weekend for Hawaii to attend ceremonies marking the attack’s 65th anniversary. “We’ve invited schoolchildren and everyone else.

“But we are all getting old now, and it’s almost too much to get anything done.”

Read the rest here. I almost caused an early decrement to the number of Pearl Harbor survivors. I was driving from Fort Sill to Fort Leavenworth for a conference, and I passed a car with an older couple in it on the turnpike. The car had a Pearl Harbor Survivor license plate. I was in uniform, as I was going straight from the car into a meeting.

As I passed, I saluted. The driver, somewhat startled, returned the salute. And almost drove off the road. So, ma'am, if you're still out there and you visit the Castle - I apologize for causing your husband to scare you witless. At least that's what I assumed you were saying, but it was hard to tell from all the wild gesticulating going on...

0755AM, December 7, 1941.

Air Raid Pearl Harbor. This is no drill.

There are more pictures. I moved them below the fold into the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry to ease the burden on our dial-up visitors.

Reilly's Battery... Battery F, 5th US Field Artillery

...A final council of war assigned each national contingent a gate to attack along the city’s outer walls but agreed to postpone the assault when the Russian commander stated that his troops needed time to recuperate from the grueling march from Tientsin. The agreement was short lived, however, for on the evening of August 13 the Russians stole a march on the rest of the allies and attacked Peking on their own at the gate originally assigned to the Americans. News of the Russian action led first the Japanese and then the American and British contingents to make a mad dash for the city. There, on the morning of the fourteenth, they found the Russians pinned down at the Tung Pien gate unable to make further headway. Soldiers of the 14th Infantry scaled the city’s outer wall and cleared the gate, relieving the trapped Russians and opening the way for additional soldiers to pour into the city. Meanwhile, the British penetrated the outer wall at another point and relieved the legation quarter. The following day, Capt. Henry J. Reilly’s Light Battery F of the U.S. 5th Artillery shattered the gates of the city’s inner wall with several well-placed salvos, opening the way for the allied troops to occupy the central Imperial City.

Excerpted from Chapter 15 of American Military History Vol 1, from the US Army Center For Military History.

An interesting little tidbit I came across as I was doing a little research for these pics of Reilly's Battery - look at the number of Medals of Honor awarded to members of the China Relief Expedition. MG Adna Chaffee commanded 2500 Marines, Soldiers and Sailors in this campaign - that lasted all of two months in terms of fighting, with three major fights, Tientsin 13 July 1900, Yang-tsun 6 August 1900, Peking 14-15 August 1900.

Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom have generated... two (though there may be some more in the works.).

Food for thought there. Regarding standards, expectations, culture... and politics.

At the gallop, Charge!

`Forward the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldiers knew
Someone had blundered:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the Six Hundred

October 25, 1854. The Battle of Balaklava, and the Charge of the Light Brigade. Was there a man dismayed? I rather daresay yes! And not the Russian artillerymen who were on all three sides shooting down into the bowl. Well, until the end there, when the now-really peeved troopers were amongst the guns. Then the Gunners were probably a touch dismayed.

Honor the charge they made - but you can still marvel at the officers who thought it a good idea.

Of course, the officers of the Light Brigade might have been influenced by the performance of the Heavy Brigade and of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders the day before - when the 93rd Regiment under the command of Sir Colin Campbell earned the sobriquet "The Thin Red Line" when they stopped the charge of the Russian cavalry.

While the overall Russian force numbered 25,000, only their cavalry pushed down the road to Balaklava. First to receive the Russian attack was Scarlett's Heavy Cavalry Brigade. The rest swept by to charge the 93rd drawn up in line, rather than in a more traditional square, the accepted formation for infantry receiving a charge of cavalry.

"There is no retreat from here, men," Campbell said as he rode along the line, "you must die where you stand." They regiment presented and fired two volleys, breaking the oncoming cavalry into two groups that split and spun into a full retreat. Seeing the backs of the enemy, some Redcoats started a bayonet charge, but Campbell called them off with, "93rd, 93rd, damn all that eagerness!"

A newspaper correspondent, Mr. W. H. Russell, was standing on the hill overlooking the valley. It was clear from that vantage point that nothing stood between the Russian cavalry and the British base on the water but the "thin red streak tipped with a line of steel" of the 93rd. That phrase morphed into "The Thin Red Line" a phrase that encapuslates the Highland Regiments, and indeed, Brit infantry in general.

When asked why he had been so unorthodox as to receive a cavalry charge in line vice a square. Sir Colin Campbell responded; "I knew the 93rd, and I did not think it worth the trouble of forming a square."

Busy day in History...

...for battles, anyway.

1066: Hastings.

1431: The Catholic Hapsburgs beat up on the Protestant Hussites at Waidhofen - the only websites I found are in german.

1758, Frederick the Great gets his butt handed to him by the Austrians at Hochkirch.

1805 - It didn't always go Austria's way today. In 1805 Marshal Ney spanked Feldmarschall-Leutnant Graf von Riesch at Eichingen.

1806 - While Napoleon was spanking the Prussians at Jena, Davout destroyed them at Auerstadt, taking the Prussians out of the picture until Blücher shows up in 1813 for the beginning of the end. The Germans didn't always beat the French...

1912 - Teddy Roosevelt's life is saved by an excessively wordy speech - which he delivers even after he was shot...

1943 - Black Thursday. The 8th AF bombs the Schweinfurt ball bearing factory.

The Fighting 69th...

On this day in 1860, Colonel Corcoran, commander of the 69th New York State Militia - refused to parade his regiment of Irish immigrants for a visiting dignitary, the Prince of Wales, in protest to the British Government's response to the Irish Famine.

He was arrested, and remanded for Courts Martial. All of which was forgotten when Fort Sumter was fired on and the Civil War opened. Good thing, too - the 69th was a key player at Bull Run, as a part of the Irish Brigade, in that sad way that many Irish regiments are important in history - as bulwarks for retreating armies.

The Fighting 69th still fights.

We also got some good music out of it - and note in the song - the predecessors of the FDNY were "going up when we were coming down" way back in the day, too.

Boys that Wore the Green

Boys that Wore the Green
(William Woodburn)

On the twenty-first of July, beneath the burning sun.
McDowell met the Southern troops in battle, at Bull Run;
Above the Union vanguard, was proudly dancing seen,
Beside the starry banner, old Erin's flag of green.

Colonel Corcoran led the Sixty-ninth on that eventful day,
I wish the Prince of Wales were there to see him in the fray;
His charge upon the batteries was a most glorious scene,
With gallant New York firemen, and the boys that wore the green.

In the hottest of the fire there rode along the line
A captain of a Zouave band, crying, "Now, boys, is your time;"
Ah! who is he so proudly rides, with bold and dauntless mien?
'Tis Thomas Francis Meagher, of Erin's isle of green!

The colors of the Sixty-ninth, I say it without shame,
Were taken in the struggle to swell the victor's fame;
But Farnham's dashing Zouaves, that run with the machine,
Retook them in a moment, with the boys that wore the green!

Being overpowered by numbers, our troops were forced to flee,
The Southern black horse cavalry on them charged furiously;
But in that hour of peril, the flying mass to screen,
Stood the gallant New York firemen, with the boys that wore the green.

Oh, the boys of the Sixty-ninth, they are a gallant band,
Bolder never drew a sword for their adopted land;
Amongst the fallen heroes, a braver had not been,
Than you lamented Haggerty, of Erin's isle of green.

Farewell, my gallant countrymen, who fell that fatal day,
Farewell, ye noble firemen, now mouldering in the clay;
Whilst blooms the leafy shamrock, whilst runs the old machine,
Your deeds will live bold Red Shirts, and Boys that Wore the Green!

With all this politics stuff...

...I think we need some eye-candy.

How about the USS Idaho firing on Okinawa?

Yeah, that works.