Archive for December, 2003
Tired of economy-class seats where the passenger in front of you reclines back into your lap? These are little plastic blocks that you slide onto the arms of your tray table that prevent the seat in front of you from reclining.
Apparently, the airlines and FAA think passengers have the right to use them. Only $18.90 per set (including shipping.)
FIVE-HUNDRED-AND-EIGHTY ROCKETS CONFISCATED
An Iraqi tip led our guys to nearly 600 57mm rockets hidden near Iraq.
The intelligence acquired suggested the rockets could be found hidden in some undergrowth along the river next to a tree line. After a short search, the soldiers and airmen found a berm near a tree line that was approximately 35-feet long and four feet high. Buried in the berm, covered with plastic and dirt, they found 580 57-millimeter rockets. The unit secured the perimeter of the site and coordinated with an explosive ordinance disposal team for the destruction of the weapons.The soldiers secured the position overnight until an explosive ordinance disposal team could destroy the rockets.
Not earth-shaking, to be sure, but nice to see up near Tikrit.
Military Mobilization: Ralph Peters is Wrong
I’m not pleased about the way we’re treating the Poles. I’ve explained myself here.
Trent Telenko notes in Winds of Change
The US Army has caught unholy hell because it shipped interceptor body armor to the Poles ahead of US National Guard formations getting ready for or now in Iraq. It isn’t going to do the same with HMMWVs. The type of HMMWV that the Poles want are the M1114 armored variants. The Army is flat out at maximum production capacity with the vehicle, and every truck that it lets the Poles buy is one less for American troops in Iraq.The issue is likely the same for C-130s. The USAF can only fly C-130s and C-17s into Baghdad and Kabul because of the shoulder fired missile threat, and it is flying only the latest and most up to date electronic counter measures equipped planes. The Poles want the same anti-missile equipment that the USAF is using up in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and there is none to spare.
If this is the case, and I imagine that it very well could be, I fully support keeping the equipment for our troops before sending it to Poland. However, I certainly hope that we have been very honest and forthcoming to Poland about the reasons for witholding the goods.
Poland is going to be one of our most important allies over the next decade. Or more. We had better be doing everything we can to keep them happy.
If we keep the reasons for stiffing them “secret,” we risk alienating them as well as scaring off potential allies down the road. Help the US? After they treated Poland like that for helping in Iraq?
Now you can own your very own “Major Award!” No, not a bowling alley. It’s a leg lamp.
Electric sex gleaming in the window.
Just like A Christmas Story. And, at only $199 plus shipping (wooden crate extra), not to be missed. It includes a Major Award certificate. (via Wizbang)
Ralph Peters wrote this article about Poland’s general support of liberty, the fact that they’ve been near the head of the pack in the coalition, and how we’re pretty much screwing them over.
While the establishment media agonize over the fickle moods of Paris and Berlin, there’s little mention in the press of the superb contribution made by our Polish allies – at great cost to their own country.In the words of an American officer who works closely with them, “Poland has taken to the Iraq mission for idealistic and principled purposes: Its leadership and military truly believe that freedom and justice are universal values worth fighting for.”
but
Like the Czech Republic, which sent a few medics to the Persian Gulf then withdrew them in panic, Poland will get a standard package of $12 million for NATO-related programs. Other than some logistical support in Iraq, that’s it. Strategic peanuts for our most enthusiastic ally on the European continent.Poland did have one request – a humble one, in the great scheme of things. Warsaw asked for $47 million to modernize six used, American-built C-130 transport aircraft and to purchase American-built HMMWV all-terrain vehicles so elite Polish units could better integrate operations with American forces. Much of the money would go right back to U.S. factories and workers.
Our response? We stiffed them.
Peters points out that Turkey, which not only denied access to Iraq for the 4th Infrantry Division but hemmed and hawed long enough to keep them from being shifted to Kuwait in time to take part in the invasion, is getting a sizable aid package.
Peters doesn’t note that Poland is able to bid on Iraq reconstruction contracts, something that opponents of our invasion can’t do. I’ve also read that the AK-47s we bought for the Iraq Army were purchased from Poland. And Poland may become the new location for some US bases if we follow through with the idea of closing bases in Germany. That’s not at all insignificant, but it’s not enough.
(I’d also like to point out that those who think France and Germany should be allowed to bid AND who also think we’re wrong to provide aid to Turkey but not to Poland because of Iraq issues aren’t being very consistent except in their hatred of the Bush administration.)
MO is a big fan of Poland’s role in the Fourth World War. I’ve written about it before, and I posted about the Seige of Vienna and some parallels to today’s world in September.
I think we’re right to freeze opponents out of the Iraqi reconstruction bidding. I don’t think we’re necessarily wrong to provide aid to Turkey and other places, since we have an interest in their stability and friendship. But to stiff the Poles makes no sense whatsoever. We should be falling all over ourselves to make them happy, not taking their support for granted.
This is going to be a very long, very difficult war. There are going to be long stretches where there is no overriding newsworthy military campaign to kindle public support, but where we will need the support of our allies as much as ever. We don’t want to look back at 2003 and 2004 five or ten years from now and wish we had made better decisions.
Poland is on our side. Solidly. And it (obviously) isn’t just because they want monetary rewards. That’s all the more reason to make sure they get everything they need and most of what they want. (via Instapundit)
UPDATE: Andrew Olmsted has something to say about this, as well.
The bureaucracies of the State and Defense Departments are hugely dysfunctional. Anyone familiar with bureaucracies can’t find that surprising, but those two groups bear much of the responsibility for protecting the United States’ interests overseas, and they’re blowing it. It is the responsibility of the Bush Administration to fix this problem, and to ensure that the United States government spends more time working on what matters and less time on internecine feuds.
As they say…Indeed.
UPDATE 2: Captain’s Quarters urges us to contact our representatives to urge them to address this. I think I’m going to do just that.
Quick-Hitting Brigade Test-Drives a New Army Vehicle in Iraq
Tomorrow’s NYT has a story on the Stryker. It’s pretty much basic information, stuff MO readers have known for weeks and months.
One aspect of the brigade that’s noted is the fact that the Army has a lot riding on its success in Iraq. A lot of money and a lot of reputations are on the line, not to mention the lives of the brigade’s men and it’s mission in the war.
With the cost of fielding each brigade now at about $1.5 billion, the Army is not cutting any corners in seeking the unit’s success. It is even spending $9 million on individual gear for the soldiers, like kangaroo-leather gloves and custom-designed uniforms with built-in knee and elbow pads. “The Army has set this unit up to do well,” said First Lt. Leonardo Flor, 23, a platoon leader from Leavenworth, Kan.
That’s all understandable, I guess, but I’m wondering why the rest of the Army hasn’t set the rest of the units up to do well. That’s not what 1Lt Flor meant, of course, but when we hear about shortages of batteries, body armor, and tracks for Bradley Fighting Vehicles, it makes you wonder.
You won’t believe how many times I’ve had this EXACT discussion. Check it out.
Ground Moving Target Engagement System Hits Tank With JDAM
In October, an F-16 armed with a Joint Direct Attack Mission bomb (guided by GPS) destroyed a moving, remotely-controlled M-60 tank. Just before weapon release, the tank crossed paths with several other vehicles, but the tacking system, called the Affordable Moving Surface Target Engagement (AMSTE) system, stayed on the scent.
The test team used two radar systems developed by Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems to track the tank. An APY-7 system installed on a Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) test-bed aircraft flew 100 kilometers from the target.A prototype Joint Strike Fighter active electronically scanned array aboard a BAC 1-11 flew 35 kilometers from the target. The F-16, flying at 20,000 feet, was more than 11 kilometers from the target when it dropped the GPS-guided weapon.
As the JDAM fell, it received location information on the tank from the Joint STARS that was so precise that the live bomb hit the tank directly on its turret completely destroying the tank.
The system uses two seperate radars to track the target, calculates the coordinates, and continuously beams the updated target location to the JDAM unit on the bomb, which adjusts its flight path accordingly. Then the target goes ‘boom.’
The JDAM is going to be bomb-guidance system of choice for years, if not decades. There’s concern about jamming and attacks against the GPS sats that transmit to the recievers on the bomb units, of course, but the ability to hit a moving target with a coordinate-guided weapon is a major boost for our military.
For a PDF summary with diagrams and illustrations, check this DTIC site out.
Finally finished “The March Up” by Bing West and Ray L. Smith. As I’ve said before, it’s an excellent account of the 1st Marine division’s sprint up to Baghdad. Here’s a final excerpt:
The Aziz mansion was located near the underpass of a large highway bridge, and as we waked to the vehicles, we heard a short burst of shooting near the up ramp. Conlin had left a platoon–call sign “Animal 3″–at a circle that controlled traffic on and off the bridge. After sitting for a few hours, the Marines of Animal 3 had become bored and decided to shoot up an abandoned Iraqi military truck–just as the platoon walked outside the mansion. Nighttime fireworks were nothing new–with arms caches seemingly in every school and ammo on every truck, Marines never lacked for something blow up. But this one was a doozy. The truck had been carrying heavy artillery shells, and soon shrapnel was whizzing in all directions and pinging off the concrete pillars supporting the overpass. As the Marines scattered for cover in the darkness, a few mistook the shrapnel for incoming bullets and fired their M-16s. A CAAT joined in with their two .50-calibers, firing at the exploding truck mainly but also inadvertently into Animal 3.
Read the rest of this entry »
Informant leads troops to weapons cache
Soldiers from the Stryker brigade operating near Samarra (north of Baghdad about 2/3 of the way to Tikrit) captured a load of weapons during Operation Arrowhead Blizzard.
Col. Mike Rounds, the brigade commander, said each of his two infantry battalions in Samarra was supposed to attack 12 targets in the first three days of the operation, which began Dec. 17.Instead, they hit those 12, then another 12 each, in the first two days. After a lull of two or three days, he said Samarra residents now are starting to come forward with information about former regime loyalists and others who are attacking U.S. forces and disrupting efforts to rebuild the country.
Samarrans see that Stryker troops have “taken away a lot of the folks that they frankly don’t like all that much, either,” Rounds said.
As we kill, capture, or drive off insurgents and take their weapons stores, the local Iraqis are going to see that they stand to beneift greatly by helping get rid of the bad guys. When one guy steps up and tips us off, and we follow through, it demonstrates to two or three others that they can safely do the same. It’s a snowball effect that will help both us and them.
I’ve also come across some more good Stryker brigade pics. Click on the image for a large hi-res version (Makes a great desktop):
Both these pics show the MEN of the brigade going about their business, and it’s important that we remember that the Stryker LAVs are simply a means of getting our soliders to the places they need to be and supporting them once they get there. Not the other way around.
