Christopher Eger's Blog

Posted by Christopher Eger

The US Marines have always been innovators. The small unit tactics, raids and theory expounded by the Banana Wars between the World Wars helped shaped modern combat. They produced and honed modern amphibious warfare then morphed it into todays over the horizon rotary winged expeditionary warfare. Current tasking has the Marines sent to fight a Global War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq against the insurgents every bit as dedicated and dangerous as that of Sandino and Giap. The more modern nature of fighting in a 21st century urban environment has led to training opportunities.

Marines are being schooled to be hunters by hunters. They are being taught the same advanced fieldcraft and observation tactics as snipers and recon teams but adapted through input from police, hunters, and Iraq-experienced marines to move about the modern battlefield with the eye of a hunter. Trained to notice the out of place, based on a simple formula- B+A= D. This is explained as taking the Baseline environment, adding an Anomaly you observe, and then making a Decision based on empirical data. This program is referred to as Combat Hunter.

The Devil dogs have done it again

Posted by Christopher Eger

Russian Prime Minister (former President) Vladimir Putin, himself a former Communist Party and KGB member, seems to be defrosting the Russian Bear that had been put in carbonite when the Cold War ended. With the recent incursion into a disputed portion of the former Russian vassal of Georgia, relations have cooled to the point of near 1980s levels. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, US President Jimmy Carter boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Then in 1984 the Soviets withheld their enhanced team from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Games in return for the 1983 US invasions of Grenada and actions in Lebanon.

This game seems to be dusted off and being replayed on a smaller but no less important level today. When Russia entered disputed Georgian territory without asking last week, the US announced that it would be unable to participate in the FRUKUS naval exercise in the Pacific. The FRUKUS exercises were started in 1988 specifically to foster closer relations between Russia and the West. Now Russia, in turn has pulled out of the NATO Open Spirit 2008 naval games in the Baltic and canceled the scheduled port visit of a US Perry Class frigate to the Russian Naval Base at Petropavlask.

Posted by Christopher Eger

The Defense Intelligence Agency has recently released a report from scientists who are working through the night burning lean muscle tissue to come up with better weapons through chemistry. Past efforts in this field led to GB, Sarin, Tabun, VX and a host of other alphabet soups that have enriched the average grunts life so I for one am all a glow to see what is coming up next.

It looks like such exotics as pharmacological landmines, embedded polygraphic machines, electronic mind control torture, nanobots controlled by thought and other goodies could be making their way into Sun Tzu's book of tricks.

Posted by Christopher Eger

With the Russian incursion into disputed South Ossetia, the Russian Black Sea sailed forth again into combat. Born into battle in 1771 the Russian Black Sea Fleet has been wrapped in history. The Battles of Battle of Cape Kaliakra, Sinope and others carved the Sea into a Russian lake from the Ottoman Empire. The Crimean war and the defense of Sevastopol 1854-1855 was an epic in modern warfare that has tragically been forgotten. The first Ironclad combat was in the Black Sea in 1854, almost a generation before the Monitor and Merrimack. The Tsar's naval mutiny on board the Potemkin was in the Black Sea. Even wrought with revolutionaries the Russian fleet fought a combined Turko-German force alone in World War one and only lost by technicality. More than two hundred Black Sea Fleet sailors were made Heroes of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War.

On August 9, 2008 a force of Black Sea fleets lead by their flagship the 11,400 ton Slava class cruiser RFS Moskova, sailed across the sea and landed a regiment of some 4,000 paratroopers ashore. The Fleet engaged in brief combat with a number of Georgian vessels sinking at least one with a "Malakhit" (SS-N-9) anti-surface missile and bottling up the remainder in the harbor. Georgian sources stated that "saboteur' possibly Russian naval Spetsnaz teams, mined and destroyed another six of their Coast guard and Border Patrols ships while at anchor on the night of August 12th.

And the beat goes on……

Posted by Christopher Eger

Flight Lieutenant Chris Ball, regularly a RAF Tornado driver, has been on exchange with the US Air Force. This is a long standard practice with officers often being exchanged between the two countries military's for decades. During the first part of WWII when the US was still a neutral, many US Army Air Corps pilots were even given temporary furloughs to travel to Great Britain and join the Eagle Squadron of the RAF flying Spitfires during the Blitz.

Lieutenant Ball however has had an experience with coming into contact with US Air Force regulations due to his facial hair. Ball sports a prominent Handle-Bar mustache that would make Freddie Mercury envious. While the Queens Regulations on moustache length is not the same as the Uncle Sam's, he was given orders to conform. The Lieutenant won is battle and is still flying F-15s in Afghanistan with the USAF.

There's a war on terror going on, let's belay the chicken**** until we get it sorted out.

Posted by Christopher Eger

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is in the same stage oif development that the airplane was in around 1912-1913. The Wright Brothers took their rickety powered kit to the air in 1903 and soon afterward air services were popping up to use the dastardly new device for reconnaissance. In 1911 the Italian air force dropped a couple handheld bombs on the heads of some Ottoman Turks in the Libyan desert. Within the next couple of years you saw the Bulgarians doing the same thing in Thrace to the Turks as well as American mercenary pilots in Mexico dropping the same types of improvised explosives on Villa and the gang. World War one took the gloves off and today armed combat aircraft are fielded by nearly 100 countries.

The UAV took to the air in the 1940s experimentally and became mission capable in the 1960s with the Firebee recon drones in Vietnam. In the late 1990s it was thought possible to arm these robotic aircraft. In 2001 a few Predator UAVs were redubbed from RQ-1 to MQ-1 designations when they were equipped with two Hellfire AGM-114 laser-guided anti-tank missiles. In November 2001 they first launched their missile in anger. Today there are five squadrons of both the unarmed and armed versions of this craft in active service. Moving forward with specially designed weapons now is on the horizon. The Griffin missile is in development by Raytheon is a small 42-inch, 45-pound surface to air missile and the Predator can carry up to six of them.

Its only a matter of time before you see this turn the corner and the pilots of today are the joystick operators of tomorrow.

Posted by Christopher Eger

The Russian Black Sea Fleet, a favorite of the country since the time of the Tsars, may be homeless and forced to move soon. When the Ukraine broke away from the Russian state a few years ago the fleet, based in harbors that now belonged to the new country, the fleet's future was in doubt. Some units went to the Ukraine, others were scrapped, but about 35 remain. Sevastopol, the main Russian naval base in the Black Sea since before the Crimean War, is now part of the Ukraine and they want the Russians 100% gone by 2017.

One thought is that the Russians may take their fleet to Syria and be based in the Mediterranean . The Russians have been in the Med for centuries. Back in the time of old Tsar Nicholas the Russian Navy kept a Squadron in the European great lake Soudha on the Greek island of Crete was the homeport of the Russian gunboat Khrabry and others since the 1890s.

During the Cold War the Soviet navy again expanded around the world, setting up bases in Africa, Vietnam and Syria. In 1971 the base at Tartus was founded on Syria’s coastline and the Soviet Navy’s Mediterranean Squadron was founded to rival the US 6th Fleet. In 1991 with the break-up of the Soviet Union the Squadron was disbanded but the base remained. Today the base's 720th Logistics Support Point of the Russian Navy with its floating drydocks, warehouses, and barracks is the only remaining overseas unit. Russia is currently dredging the port of Tartus and began in 2006 to build another set of docks in the Syrian port of Latakia.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Dr Robert Ballard is a world renowned oceanographer and underwater archeologist. You may have heard his name if you are interested in the wrecks of the Bismarck, PT-109, the USS Yorktown, and others. Most famously he is the guy who found the RMS Titanic in 1985. Basically, between Clive Cussler and Bob Ballard, if it’s been lost at sea they can find it.

Something you may not know about Bob is that he got his start and financing for finding the Titanic from the US Navy. Contrary to Clive Cussler’s famous book Raise the Titanic, the US government had no interest in the Titanic but it did have an interest in two other ships: the USS Thresher and the USS Scorpion. They were US Navy nuclear attack submarines that went missing in the 1960s. The subs location was known as both were found by a team led by Naval Research Laboratory scientist named Chester "Buck" Buchanan shortly after they were sunk, however the Navy wanted more information. With the help of the US Navy-owned but Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute-crewed research ship Knorr and her crew the Navy contracted Ballard to take more intensive pictures in a second look on the lost submarines. It was with the ‘change’ left over on the contract that Ballard took the Knorr to the last location if the Titanic and fished around successfully for her.

Posted by Christopher Eger

War trophies are funny. Whenever a soldier bested another on the field of battle they took his weapons, part of his uniform, or some other souvenir. In the great halls of old Europe the walls are adorned with weapons and armor taken from vanquished knights. In Moscow to this day is an artillery park with hundreds of cannons captured by every Russian war lord from Ivan the Terrible to Stalin. There are stories of western settlers coming in contact with Native Americans on the Great Plains in the 19th century who proudly displayed Spanish Marion armor captured hundreds of years before. Most people have a grandfather or great uncle from prior generations who proudly brought back home with him a Luger or samurai sword.

Today British soldiers are coming back from Afghanistan with weapons that have already been trophies. Foolish enough to think the sun never in fact set on the British Empire, the colonial British Army pushed into Afghanistan from India several times in the 19th and 20th centuries with mixed success and often failure. One of these failures was at the Battle of Maiwand in 1880. In this battle nearly a thousand British and Indian soldiers were killed, routed by an Afghan army. These included almost 300 men of the 66th Regiment of Foot, who were armed with the excellent Martini-Henry rifles. These rifles fell into the hands of victorious Afghan warriors. With the Afghan warrior culture full of respect for firearms, these were passed down from generation to generation of men, no doubt seeing service many times in local blood feuds, and during later British and then Soviet occupations. Many of these weapons are being confiscated by British soldiers, once again in Afghanistan- this time in support of the GWOT, and coming back home.

Posted by Christopher Eger

War leaves reminders all over the place. It is hard to walk down a street in any town that had been around for more than a few generations and not tread over the ghosts of past warriors. London has seen conquerors and warriors come and go. From the Romans to the Saxons and the wars of the Roses to the Germans they have all come and left their mark. Sometimes these marks are not found until generations later.

Case in point, a construction crew working on venues for the 2012 Olympic Games came across a remnant of one of these erstwhile want to be conquerors. The remnant in question was a 2200 pound (1000kg) bomb. Royal Army Engineers were called to the scene and identified the weapon belonging to the WWII German Luftwaffe. It was pulled from the River Thames near Three Mills Island in East London near by a dredge. The device, more than five feet long and heavily corroded, was safely disarmed after a day long scare and evacuation of the surrounding area. The relic, a gift from Mr. Hitler sometime during the Blitz, true to German craftsmanship, even started ticking again while being disarmed. No doubt this is because it realized that British soldiers were nearby. London police frequently find Un-exploded Ordinance left over from both world wars, however no bomb of this size has been found in London in more than 30-years according to statements.

Posted by Christopher Eger

On a hot August morning in Samarra, Iraq a four man Reaper Team of the 82nd Airborne's 2-505 Parachute Infantry Regiment's Scout Platoon found themselves in a tight spot. Led by 22yr old Sergeant Josh Morley the team contained 21-yr old Specialist Tracy Willis, 23-yr old Specialist Chris Corriveau and unit armorer 23-year-old Specialist Eric Moser. Detailed to provide an over watch for a search operation below, they secretly climbed an apartment rooftop set up shop. With the search operation coming off without a hitch, the Reaper team went to displace, only to find that insurgents had followed and surrounded them. Armed Al-Qaeda foot solders held the stairwells and streets below them, trapping the team on the roof. Within the first few minutes a bad situation got worse. First Sgt Morley and then Spec. Willis were killed, leaving only Corriveau and Moser in the fight. Bombarded by grenades thrown up the stairwell by unseen hands and taking fire from multiple weapons the two snipers fought on unsupported, with a blown radio and dwindling supplies of ammunition.

The ten minute firefight ultimately ended with a nearby friendly infantry platoon coming to the sound of combat and the insurgents withdrawing. An after-action review found that the Reaper team had held off a squad to platoon sized group of men and inflicted no less than ten casualties. More importantly they kept both the bodies of their fallen brothers and their own from falling into the insurgent’s hand- preventing a propaganda victory for the insurgents. Morser and Corriveau were promoted to Sergeant and awarded the DSC, the 2nd highest award for valor in the Army. Morley and Willis were posthumously awarded the Silver Star. Read more in Jeff Emanuel's excellent piece.

Posted by Christopher Eger

A Russian pilot, most likely working a as a private military contractor (hip term for Mercenary) to the government of Sudan, lost his life while attacking a rebel column May 10, 2008. The pilot, listed by some sources as a flight instructor for the Sudanese Air Force, was shot down by medium caliber anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) the oldest form of anti-air weapon. Since the inception of the surface to air missile (SAM) in the 1960s it was thought that AAA had taken a back seat to the SAM. However AAA remains a viable alternative and is used as the working mans aircraft killer. Hundreds of modern combat aircraft have been swatted down from Vietnam to Syria to today's Iraq and Afghanistan by these easy to use weapons from another era.

The weapons involved in the Sudan incident were heavy machine guns (12.7mm and higher) on anti-aircraft mounts carried in the back of light civilian pick up trucks. These trucks, called 'technicals' have been a common sight in Africa from the Libyan-Chad conflict in the 1980s, and the epic civil wars in Liberia, Somalia, and elsewhere.

The Russian pilot, who has not been identified by in name apparently attacked a column of some 200 mixed vehicles at low level and paid the price. The fact that the Russian Defense Ministry refuses to even admit that one of its members was lost points to this pilot not being on active duty anymore with the Russian Armed Forces.

"The Russian defense ministry spokesman told Interfax that the pilot “was not in active service” during his time in Sudan.

"There are no fighter jet pilots in the Russian air group in Sudan" he said."

Posted by Christopher Eger

More than 60 million men and woman served on both sides during the Great War (aka the war to end all wars, World War One, etc) from 1914-1918. The war ended 90 years ago and an important milestone was just reached this week.

The last veteran of the Central Powers has left us. The Central powers, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, This year started with three veterans still alive. By April this number was reduced to just one. That final survivor was 107 year old Franz Künstler. Mr Kunstler served as a 17-year old gunner with the 1st Artillery Regiment of the Kaiser Karl's KuK Army of the Empire of Austro-Hungary. He fought with this unit on the Italian front in 1918. Later serving in World War Two as a courier, he immigrated to Germany where he has worked since 1946 as a museum guide.

He is survived by no less than a dozen British, American, Finnish and Italian veterans- all of whom are also in the 100's.

Künstler never apologized for his part in either war and remained a warrior until the end. The fearless old gunner was last quoted in March when He stated about his thoughts on his impending death

“When I'm 110 the devil can come and get me."

Looks like Mr. Künstler has finally mustered out.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Only four years old when Hitler invaded Poland and barely a year older when his home near Minsk in the former Soviet Union was occupied by the Axis powers, Ilya Galperin found himself in a most unenviable positioned. He was an orphan brought up in the madness that was the eastern front. Being adopted by the pro-Nazi Latvian police (many of whom were credited with some of the worst atrocities committed in the Soviet Union) the boy was renamed "Alex” by the soldiers, uniformed and made an honorary member of the unit.

He wandered across the war zone with the unit and was even forced to partake in Jewish pogroms and war crimes. The fact that he was a Jew and Russian by birth he carefully hid. The young mascot met Hitler, handed out candy bars to Jews being lined up to board trains to death camps, and even lured girls to be gang raped by squads of his soldier-uncles.

By the time the war was over he was just Ten years old.

By age 15 he had fled to Australia and reinvented himself. He kept his secret hidden for more than forty years until telling his family. Now his tragic story has been told in an excellent article by Olga Craig from the Telegraph and in the book - The Mascot: The Extraordinary Story of a Young Jewish Boy and an SS Extermination Squad, by Mark Kurzem, who is the son of one Alex Kurzem, an old Australian carpenter formerly known as Ilya Galperin.

Posted by Christopher Eger

When Imperial Japan invaded the Royal Dutch East Indies (what is now Indonesia) at the start of World War Two in the Pacific, Admiral Helfrich was the man charged with stopping them. Born 1886 to a native Indonesian mother in the islands that would be his home for decades, he started his naval career in 1908 as an officer. Steady appointments and service in the Far East brought him to the rank of Vice Admiral and commander of all Dutch vessels in the Pacific in October 1939. His small surface force consisted of a few light cruisers and destroyers. This surface force, under his subordinate Rear Admiral Kaarl Doorman, joined the impossible ABDA fleet on the suicide mission to try and stop the Japanese in the Java Sea. After the combined fleet was annihilated in February 1942 Helfrich was made Operational Commander of all Allied Naval Forces in the Southwest Pacific until the Allied command was dissolved.

The Admirals small fleet of submarines sank or damaged no less than 18 Japanese ships in the first ninety days of the war- including Lt AJ Bussemakers O-16 which sank three Japanese troopships in a single day. This feat brought Helfrich the nickname of "Ship-a-day Helfrich" when these much needed victories were announced and renounced in every newspaper across the Pacific.

Bearing stigma from the loss of his surface fleet, the rest of the war was uneventful for the Admiral who rode a desk in Ceylon for the next few years. At the end of the war he was made commander of all Dutch Ships afloat both in the Pacific and in Europe (there were not many) and was present for the surrender of the Japanese aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor, by far getting the last laugh.

Posted by Christopher Eger

When Japan opened World War Two in the Pacific it did it like a fat kid through cake. The Emperor’s Imperial war machine swept threw the Philippines, Hong Kong, Wake Island, Guam, Malaysia and Singapore within the first two months of the campaign. One road bump on their conquest was the naval forces of the Royal Dutch East Indies. The small force of light cruisers and destroyers was annihilated taking along their Admiral Karel Doorman and a number of allied ships to the bottom at the Battle of the Jave Sea.

This left the Royal Dutch Naval minesweeper HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, now trapped in Japanese controlled waters, in a very tight spot. The ship was modern but was very small (186 feet long- 460 tons displacement, about the size of a gunboat). Its armament was of token value so it could not fight its way out. Designed to poke around mine fields she was not fast enough to outrun the Japanese Navy. The only option left was to outthink them.

The ships crew disguised the boat as a tropical island, covering it with jungle foliage to make it blend in with the surrounding inlets of the Indonesian coastline. By staying hidden during the day in such a manner and moving only at night the Abraham Crijnssen was able to make Australia and survived the war.

Posted by Christopher Eger

1983, lets go back. It was the time of Sally Ride, Flashdance, and Michael Jackson’s Beat It. It was also the scene of a number of sensational international incidents that progressively cranked up the tensions between the East and the West to breaking point. In March Ronald Regan called the Soviets Union “the focus of evil in a modern world’ publicly then proposed Star Wars nuclear missile defense program. In September the Soviets downed Korean Airlines Flight 007.On October 25th more than 200 American Marines were killed in Beirut when their barracks was attacked. Less than a week later the US invaded Grenada, fighting Soviet proxy state Cuba over airstrips, medical students and nutmeg.

Then came Exercise Able Archer 83 on November 2, 1983. The exercise involved a few things that really creeped the Soviets out. It was designed to simulate a period of escalation leading to a nuclear exchange. When the exercise started the huge increase in NATO radio traffic, using a new code system that the Soviets ELINT people were unfamiliar with lit a lot of fires inside the Kremlin. This phase of the exercise mimicked what the Soviets knew of the actual upgrade from DEFCON 4 to DEFCON 3. When the NATO forces moved to a simulated DEFCON 2 on November 9th, the Soviets placed their own forces on actual alert, thinking this could be the real deal.

Luckily western observers noticed this and canceled the more provocative elements of the final exercise which was to include top leadership (Ronald Regan, etc) to disappear from public eye and go into a bunker. That last step may have led to a Soviet first strike and we would all be in a much more radioactive millennium.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Antoine Jean-Baptiste Marie Roger de Saint Exupéry was born to a wealthy family with ties to old France in 1900. At 21 he joined the army in a cavalry regiment but quickly transitioned to the fledging inter-war era French Air Force. After leaving the army in the mid-1920s he became a pioneering mail serve aviator and the author of many books including the Little Prince Le Petit Prince.

When war broke out in WWII and his country was overrun he joined the Free French Air force. As a reconnaissance pilot in an American made P-38 Lightening he was lost on a flight over the Mediterranean from Corsica July 31, 1944. His flight was to inspect the southern French coast for the coming allied invasion. For more than sixty years his ultimate fate has been a mystery. A drinker and branded a traitor by the Petain government in France it was thought that the author may have even committed suicide.

Now apparently it has been solved. In 1998 a fisherman found a bracelet given the author-aviator by his wife. Using that fisherman's location a wrecked P-38 verified as being Saint-Ex's plane was found in 2000. Now a researcher has found the man who shot down that plane, a German fighter pilot by the name of Horst Rippert. Antoine Jean-Baptiste Marie Roger de Saint Exupéry died a warrior's death

Posted by Christopher Eger

Cannibalism in military environment has been seen often throughout history. Tribal headhunters have for eons resorted to cannibalism of both their own and captured peoples. During the First Crusade the knights of Europe practiced cannibalism when they ate the bodies of their vanquished foes during the terrible Siege of Maarrat-al Numan. Aztec warriors ate human flesh as part of ritual. In 1945 on the island of Chichijima starving Japanese officers and men ate five US airmen who had been shot down on the island. During the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in Cambodia cannibalism was commonplace. In modern times African peacekeepers and United Nations personnel alike were killed and eaten on the battlefield of Liberia by Charles Taylor's militiamen.

Not to be outdone, a pair of Sergeants in the peacetime German Air force has been making sausages using their own blood as an ingredient. The recipe they used quoted from the article above read: “Make sure the blood is fresh and the bacon cubes diced finely with a nice proportion of fat to lean. Do not use too many breadcrumbs but if the blood starts to curdle stir in a teaspoon of wine vinegar.”

This type of sausage, called black pudding in Great Britain, boudin noir in French cultures and blutwurst in Germany has been popular for years but is usually made from pork blood. It is only recently that the phenomenon was introduced of using human blood. In a performance in 2003, performers of the group monochrom prepared blood pudding out of their own blood and ate it.

Posted by Christopher Eger

When the HMAS Sydney sank in 1941 it became the greatest loss of life in Australian Naval history and the largest warship crew lost with all hands. The 6800ton 562 foot cruiser constructed in 1933 could steam at a very fast 32 knots. She carried eight 6-inch guns, a secondary battery of four 4-inch guns as well as a brace of torpedo tubes and machineguns for anti-aircraft use. She carried a walrus scout plane and was designed to be the eyes and ears of the larger combat fleet. In the opening stages of the Mediterranean naval war she sank the Italian destroyers Espero and Zeffiro as well as several Axis merchant ships. The year 1941 found the HMAS Sydney back in the Pacific. When she was interrogating what appeared to be a newly built 19,000 ton Dutch merchant ship some 100 miles offshore of the Australian coast. When she pulled within gun range the merchant showed itself to be the German Kriegsmarine auxiliary cruiser Kormoran. The ensuing naval battle left both ships lost at sea forever. The larger Kormoran was armed with six 5.9 inch guns and got the drop on the Aussie cruiser but the Sydney took her down to the locker with her. The entire Austrailian crew, some 645 men, went with her.

After six decades of fruitless searches the ships have both been found. Oddly enough the HMAS Sydney that was lost in 1941 was named after another HMAS Sydney which was lost in 1914 during the First World War. That ship also sank in a mutually destructive battle with a German cruiser, the SMS Emden

Posted by Christopher Eger

An undisclosed quantity of plutonium oxide powder is soon to leave Britain for France. This is not too unusual as at any given time nuclear weapons, fuel, depleted uranium, plutonium and nuclear waste of all kinds are on the move somewhere. What is unusual is that this shipment will be moved with almost no security. According to an article in the Independent, the plutonium will be moved in an old unescorted, unarmed roll-on ferry. While reportedly the shipment will be guarded by side armed equipped officers from the UK's Civil Nuclear Constabulary, no fixed armament will be carried.

This may not be too big of a deal on closer look. Most plutonium of this type is carried in special casks. According to standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the specialized casks "are built to standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The casks are massive, made from thick forged steel, and weigh around 100 tons. Their security and reliability are carefully tested, including being dropped 9 meters onto an unyielding target, immersed in 15 meters of water for at least 8 hours, and fire tested, where the cask is fully engulfed in 800-degree-Celsius temperatures for 30 minutes."

However this voyage should be compared to other around the world. For instance Japanese nuclear fuel is carried by armed freighters escorted by the Shikishima (PLH 31), a 6500-ton destroyer sized Japanese Maritime Defense vessel with helicopters, 30mm cannons, machine guns, and an embarked commando force.

If you ask me, by doing this is such an apparently slapstick way and leaking the operation to the media, maybe the SAS is setting up a mousetrap for Al Qadea with this ship as the cheese?

Posted by Christopher Eger

Heinrich Boere is 86 years old and leads a quiet life in Germany. He used to be a Dutch citizen but that was a long time ago. Once upon a time, in 1941, just after the Adolf Hitler's German Army crashed into tiny Holland, young Heinrich Boere eagerly volunteered for service in the SS. Boere was a Dutchman and became part of a classified SS unit, code-named Silbertanne, or “Silver Pine”. The small 15-man force was put together for 'wet-works' - politically deniable assassinations. This group was responsible for no less than 54 assassinations in Holland during World War Two of people suspected of being members of the Dutch Resistance. They operated in the shadows and wore civilian clothes instead of the black uniforms of the Storm troopers on their missions. The brave Nazi hit man Boere personally shot at least three of these unarmed men by surprise in 1944 including a pharmacist in his shop, a bicycle shop owner in his own doorway and another man while feigning to change a tire.

Boere escaped to Germany after the war but was tried in absentia in 1949 in a Dutch court and sentenced to life imprisonment. This sentence however was never carried out as Boere now claims German and not Dutch citizenship. Germany has for years refused to either imprison the war criminal or extradite him to the Netherlands. However this may be subject to change.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Master Sergeant Woodrow Wilson Keeble was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on March 3, 2008. Master Sergeant Keeble was awarded the medal posthumously, having died in 1982.

Keeble is a Native American and the first full-blooded member of the Sioux Indian Nation to receive the Medal of Honor. He was a volunteer member of the North Dakota Army National Guard when World War Two broke out (Native Americans are exempt from the draft) and soon found himself with the first US Army unit at Guadalcanal. There, a master of the redoubtable BAR, he became something of a legend. Keeble chose the Army as a career and it was later in that career, while involved in the Korean conflict that he performed the actions for which he is finally being recognized. With all of his companies officers killed or incapacitated, Master Sergeant Keeble led his company of over a hundred men in successive assaults for a Chinese-held hill in 1951. During this assault he was wounded at least five times by no less than 83 grenade and shrapnel fragments but refused to retreat or give up command.

Master Sergeant Keeble was recognized in 1951 as a candidate for the MOH was instead awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and later the Silver Star. His family and his nation were finally given his MOH that his actions earned some 26 years after his death.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Lying about his age in 1917, 16 year old Frank Buckles joined the Ambulance Service with the US Army and was soon a “doughboy” in General Blackjack Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force to France. Born in 1901 he served the US Army for two years in Europe, including occupation work in Germany. In his postwar life he survived a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines during World War Two and now lives quietly on his farm in West Virginia where, at 103, he still spends his days working on his tractor.

The remaining World War One vets include one last French veteran, age 110, eight living British Commonwealth veterans including the last female WWI vet and British pilot Henry Allingham, and aged 111 who served in the Royal Flying Corps. Two still living former Italian servicemen round out the Allied powers. The last German veteran Dr. Erich Kästner, died earlier this year leaving former Austro-Hungarian artilleryman Franz Kunstler, 107 who now lives in Bavaria and 109 year old Turkish veteran Yakup Satar as the last of the Central Powers veterans. The third oldest man in Europe, Finn Aarne Arvonen, who served in the Russian Army as well as in the Finnish Red Guard, is also a survivor of this great and terrible conflict.

Posted by Christopher Eger

The Black Sea was a pivotal German naval front in the First World War. The German Battlecruiser Goeben and her consort the light cruiser Breslau escaped their British pursuers in the Mediterranean by hiding in the Black Sea under the protection of Turkish guns. There they saw much more action and almost any comparable ships of the German navy during the war, being responsible for bringing Turkey into the war and arguably leading to Russia’s eventual collapse.

In World War Two Turkey stayed neutral for the bulk of the war, denying both German and Allied ships access to the Black Sea through the Dardanelles. Germany found away around this by transporting six old small U-boats by river, road and rail across Eastern Europe some 2000 miles to the Rumanian Black Sea port of Constanza. The trip took some six months and the boats took to the water in May 1942, forming the 30th U-Boat Flotilla. They took the Black Sea by storm, sinking dozens of Soviet ships and losing half of their own. When Rumanian left the war in 1944 the U-boats were trapped and scuttled themselves.

And after being lost for over sixty years, these lost U-boats have been found.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Retired US Army Special Forces "Green Beret" member James T Taylor was recently tried for "failing to use a weapon of sufficient caliber". The former Special Forces Weapons Sergeant, who had seen the elephant in both Korea (when it was hot) and Vietnam (when it was hotter), was called to defend his home at 4:30 in the morning recently when an intruder surprised him. In self defense the 79 year old shot the suspect with a 22 rimfire (5.5mm) handgun in the forehead. The round bounced off but the suspect was wounded and later caught by the police in a nearby hedgerow. Special Forces Weapons Sergeants are masters of operating and maintaining a wide variety of U.S., Allied and even captured foreign weaponry. They are proficient with all high-density light and heavy weapons; selecting weapons placements and sites; and assigning targets and areas of fire. In short, they are the wrong type of individual you want to meet across the wrong side of a gun barrel at 4:30 in the morning!

Sergeant Taylor's local Special Forces Association Chapter held a tongue in cheek court marshal for using such a small gun. The Sergeant stood by his decision and was defended. The prosecutor argued that using a larger weapon would have killed the intruder and saved the public the cost of incarceration.

Sergeant Taylor beat the rap.

Posted by Christopher Eger

As you are driving to or from sometime in the past two months, watch out for falling satellites. That’s right, according to an unidentified spokesman from the US government, an unidentified satellite has gone rogue. No it hasn’t been taken over by Dr Evil, Al Qaeda, or some other nefarious organization (that we know of), it’s just lost.

It is believed that the United States has no less than 18 top secret spy birds. These include a few Keyhole photo satellites that beam pictures back to earth continuously, four electronic eavesdropping satellites dubbed Magnum, two Lacrosse radar-equipped satellites who track anything 3 meters square or larger in any weather, two Jumpseat satellites that specifically observe the Russian's in the Arctic, and at least eight White Cloud birds that track enemy transmitters. It is not know which of the above is the wayward bird in question.

All that is known is that the 20,000 pound bird in question has lost power, has no control, and in the most basic laws of physics; what goes up must come down. It is estimated that it should fall sometime in February or March. So if you find yourself confronted with a rapidly descending fireball in the sky during that time frame, duck and cover. But if it is actually the wayward bird, stay clear as it may be radioactive or contain beryllium which makes emphysema look like a head cold.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Mr. Louis de Cazenave, aged 110, died in his sleep at home in his beloved France. Born in 1898 he was only 16 when World War One started. Mr. de Cazenave served as an infantryman with the 5th Colonial Rifles made up of men largely drawn from the then-French controlled country of Senegal. He saw the elephant in the Somme and at the Second Battle of the Aisne.

Mr. de Cazenave leaves one last French veteran, also 110 as the last Frenchman to have lived through the Great War. . Britain and her commonwealth still have eight living veterans who served her including the last female and British pilot Henry Allingham, aged 111 who served in the Royal Flying Corps. Two still living former American servicemen and two Italians round out the allied powers. The last German veteran Dr. Erich Kästner, died earlier this year leaving former Austro-Hungarian artilleryman Franz Kunstler, 107 who now lives in Bavaria and 109 year old Turkish veteran Yakup Satar as the last of the Central Powers veterans. The third oldest man in Europe, Finn Aarne Arvonen, who served in the Russian Army as well as in the Finnish Red Guard, is also a survivor of this great and terrible conflict.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Werner K. Dahm has died.

You may not have heard much about him that is unless you are a fan of German rocket scientists of the World War two era. That's right; Professor Werner K. Dahm worked at the secret lab at Peenemuende with Wernher von Braun on the V-1 and V-2 rockets. Born in Kaiser Wilhelm’s 1917 Imperial Germany during the final brutal phase of the Great War, Dahm grew up in a turbulent and defeated country. At age 24 he joined von Braun on his projects to make Hitler’s "vengeance weapons". When World War Two

ended with Dahm, von Braun, and a factory load of V2 missiles and plans in the hands of the Americans, they went to work for the US. First for the Army, and then after Sputnik made the US look foolish, for NASA.

Dahm continued his work in rocket design for another fifty years, finally retiring in 2006 at just before his 90th birthday. He passed away in a personal care home in Huntsville, home of the Redstone Arsenal aka "Rocket town-USA".

Which is fitting.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Albania, former bastion of Maoist Communism in Europe, has an ammunition problem. You see the former beloved ruler for life, Enver Hoxha, was just a tad paranoid. He was born in what was part of the old Ottoman Empire, and saw at one time or another Austrians, Serbs, Italians, Germans, Greeks, and Soviets occupy or pass through his country. Little Albania, home to just about three million people, was a non-aligned Communist country for a large part of the Cold War. This meant it was alienated and possibly threatened by both NATO and/or the Warsaw Pact, not to mention a very finicky Yugoslavia led by Marshal Tito to the north. Taking a page from Switzerland's book, Hoxha decided to build over 700,000 bunkers all over the country (i.e. one for every four or five citizens) and stock them with an absolutely immense amount of small weaponry.

Well Hoxha died in 1985, the Cold War ended roughly a dozen years later and today Albania is a democracy looking to join NATO. The problem is they still have all of the bunkers and weapons. In 1997 no less than 839 million rounds of ammunition (about 300 bullets for each inhabitant) simply walked away from its arsenals and into the hands of local citizens. Another 46,000 tons of ammo and 130,000 assault rifles have been simply destroyed by the government. Thousands of Albanian SKS rifles (the last SKS's made for an armed forces, manufactured at the Umgramsh Factory from 1967-1980) are showing up all over the world as bargain surplus guns. The country is even looking into giving away its old Whiskey class submarines to the land-locked Czech Republic.

Now the country has hit on the idea to simply donate its surplus ammunition to Iraq and Afghanistan...where it will undoubtedly be used.

Posted by Christopher Eger

Ever sat down and wanted to figure out an army from scratch. Looking for the new TOE for the Iraqi army? Try Here at the Long War Journal. You see the break down of the 61 brigades-sized units organised into 15 divisions and a Special Operations Force. These are broken down into a large (Russian MVD style) Ministry of Interior-controlled armed force of 370,000 men and the Iraqi Army proper with some 208,000 men under arms.

It should be noted that in 1989- at the time of the end of the Cold War -the US Army also had some 480,000 men. These were organised in 18 divisions and many of those were not up to strength. The Regan-era green machine relied on a complicated system of 'round-out' brigades drawn from the National Guard to flesh out those 18-odd divisions to full strength. (For example, the 155th Mechanized Brigade of the Mississippi Army National Guard would have mobilized and formed the third brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division of the active army.) This was shown to be unrealistic as the round-out brigades, which were held in a higher readiness than the rest of the Guard, would still require 180-days of training before being able to deploy overseas.

So the US military has resurrected the Iraqi army as a landforce the same size or larger than its own largest size since the end of conscription. This is appropriate considering that the Iraqis are wearing the same style Kevlar helmets, chocolate chip desert BDU uniforms, and firing the same M16A2 rifles that the US Army had in 1989.

Posted by Christopher Eger

In war you see odd combinations.

During World War One there was a unit of the Austrian Army that was composed of Ukrainian soldiers led by Austrian officers. Neither spoke the other’s languages so operations were conducted in English as both sides had a passing knowledge of it. The officers had learned it in university and the soldiers had been studying it with an eye towards immigration. This unit fought the Russians in a war that began when a Bosnian terrorist shot an Austrian prince and his Czech wife.

Those men would be amazed by another story of an oddball combination that somehow makes sense. Recently, as part of the Global War on Terrorism, Danish forces engaged Taliban irregulars in Afghanistan. The Danes used German made Leopard tanks in the first combat by a Danish force since the Yugoslav morass of the last decade. These hardy Danes were of course operating under the aegis of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). No one pointed out that the Atlantic Ocean (or any ocean for that matter) is no where near landlocked Afghanistan. Another irony is the fact that those Leopard tanks were designed to destroy the same Soviet tanks that the Taliban grew up fighting against a generation ago.

But then again, the truth is stranger than fiction.