I’m going to write today mostly about a British unit but, we’ll get around some. This started over the weekend with an article from The Daley History Blog. It’s interesting, I suggest you read it (video too). Anyway he asserts and ably defends the assertion that British troops armed with the SMLE could put out a completely adequate volume of aimed fire, to the point that Imperial German units thought they were facing machine gun battalions. He further asserts that the MOD resisted the machine gun and later even assault rifles like the M-16 for this reason. My guess is that this is only partially true, I would guess that the government didn’t want to pay for all the ammunition that fully automatic weapons can burn.
If you remember, when the US adopted the M-16, which was originally developed for the Air Force as a survival rifle, we were involved involved in Vietnam, which involved very close range encounters and a need for very high firepower rates. Shotguns weren’t uncommon either. The other thing is, we were arming the ARVN, who were of a much smaller stature on average than Americans, and the M-14 is heavy, as is 7.62 NATO ammunition compared to .223. American troops on patrol commonly carried as much as 500 rounds into the field plus their other gear. The current model fires a three round burst rather than fully automatic, also.
Anyway James Daley also asserts that the British troops have a reputation since the Napoleonic Wars as marksmen. I think that’s pushing it a bit, although they are certainly better than average. The Brown Bess musket that the British carried from the 1740s till the 1830s was a .75 caliber smoothbore musket (a 12 gauge shotgun is .729 caliber) so essentially they were a long-barreled 12 gauge flintlock shotgun, what we would use for goose hunting today. Being flintlock they also had a very long lock time. In short they weren’t made for accuracy, they were made for volume of fire, especially volley fire. The American Springfield musket was very similar. This is so evident that the commands were not “Ready, Aim, and Fire”, they “Ready, Point, and Fire.” Some sources say that most troops shut their eyes as they pulled the trigger!
But while this was the standard issue there were exceptions, such as The Royal Green Jackets who trace their history back to the first troops equipped with the Baker rifles. They like American Marines, were all about aimed fire, and shock tactics. In fact they march at 140 steps/ minute as opposed to the regular 120, and the Napoleonic ages standard of 85. For my American readers, one of the units amalgamated over the years into the RGJ is the King’s Royal Rifle Corps which first mustered on Governors Island, New York in 1757.
Anyway, are you still wondering about the name The Royal Green Jackets? It’s pretty simple really, it’s the woodland pattern of its day. You see when they were over here trying to get us to come back to the king, they found out more than they wanted to know about being on the receiving end of rifle fire, due to all those Kentucky rifles present in the Continental Army. So to this day, a unit of the British army celebrates the accuracy of American riflemen.
From the E-Mail. Thought it would be nice to brighten your Saturday morning a bit.
So, here’s the world situation, according to John Cleese.
A little John Cleese humour to brighten up your day.
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.
The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.
The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France ‘s white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country’s military capability.
Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”
The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.” They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose.”
Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.
The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be alright, Mate.” Two more escalation levels remain: “Crikey! I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!” and “The barbie is cancelled.” So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.
– John Cleese – British writer, actor and tall person.
A final thought -“ Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC.”
I have often said that I have much the same regard for the British army as I have for the American. They have proved to be the staunchest allies and friends that a country could dream of having.
So I note that the British MOD has announced the units they are cutting to reduce the budget. I don’t think it’s a good idea in this troubled world but we are doing it too.
I thought I would list at least some of the units which are being disbanded.
We should notice that these are famous units, some with traditions going back 300 years. As they case their colors for the last time, this Yank, at least, wishes to honor them one last time, they will be missed. If I missed some, do feel free to append them in comments.
The following is a post of mine that speaks of the importance of tradition, especially in the military, but for us all as well. I think it applies equally to these “Soldiers of the Queen.”
Go with God, Soldiers of Freedom.
Tradition can make you seem dated, sometimes, but it is always important.
No, you say. Well, I disagree, lets see why.
We live in a country where all of our public institutions: the Congress, the Presidency, the various bureaus and agencies and almost all government institutions are held in, at best, disrepute. But there is one shining exception: The United States Military. Why, because the military has kept itself to its honest purpose for more than 200 years.
This is a remarkable performance. It should be remembered that our Founding Fathers so distrusted a standing army that they abolished it once. To this day, the Army is constitutionally prohibited, alone in the federal government, from a budget exceeding two years.
I think that this is so because the military has built itself a reputation with us and especially within its own ranks that would never allow it to overstep its bounds as the guarantor of the people’s sovereignty. This is so because it is truly America’s Army. What follows is a smattering of that tradition.
In They Died with their Boots on Gary Cooper (as Custer) said it this way. “A man dies but, a regiment lives on. It has an immortal soul of its own.”
It’s pretty hard to argue that the 7th US Cavalry doesn’t have a tradition of winning mostly, and losing gloriously. When you look at their battle honors starting from the Little Big Horn, to the Philippine Insurrection, to WWII Pacific campaign, to nearly all of the Korean Conflict to, Ia Drang, to Desert Storm, and Iraqi Freedom; I would find it difficult to call the 7th Cav anything but legendary. (They also rescued Ringo from the Sea of Monsters in The Yellow Submarine.)
You think that the current troopers sometimes think of those that have gone before? You and I both know they do, and want to live up to the legacy. That’s why the Cavalry still wears those black Stetsons, it’s Pride, writ very large.
Another institution I often speak of with regard to tradition is The United States Military Academy at West Point. Most of you know that the West Point uniform is gray. Gray in American history is the color of the militia (as well as the Confederacy), the Regular Army wore Blue. As it still does in its Dress Uniforms. This seems like an anomaly doesn’t it? It’s not. It’s rooted very deep in our history.
Since the Academy was founded on March 16, 1802 it has produced a lot of the men that have written our history: men like Grant, Lee, Eisenhower, Patton, Schwarzkopf and Petraeus. That’s all well and good, I hear you say, but about those uniforms.
Shortly after the Academy was founded we got ourselves into a little fracas with the United Kingdom; you may have heard of it, it’s called the War of 1812. It’s sometimes said that the Revolution freed us from Britain and the War of 1812 made us a Nation. There’s a lot of truth in that statement.
Anyway, like everybody else in the world we weren’t doing very well in battle with the British Regulars. Our soldiers were plenty brave but, their legs had a tendency to run away. Seems like there was something unnerving in the steady, silent advance of the British line, often playing the British Grenadier on their fifes and drums.
Probably something about those Brown Bess muskets with 2 foot bayonets attached, too.
A young general by the name of Winfield Scott got a hold of a bunch of these troops and trained them up to the British standard and took them off to Canada. They got attacked by the British at a place called Lundy’s Lane and for the first time stood up to a British charge in the open field. They were mostly regulars but, the service of supply being what is was (bad) in those days they had gotten uniformed as militia, in gray.
But standing up to the regulars was such an unprecedented feat that the USMA adopted militia gray as its uniform as a tribute, as it still is, to the coming of age of the US Army.
Actually, nobody, except maybe the Marine Corps, does tradition as well as West Point. Back on May 12, 1962, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur gave his farewell speech to the corps of cadets. We have all heard about the “Long Gray Line” part. But there is more, quite a lot more actually, all in MacArthur’s typical flowery prose. Here it is:
General Westmoreland, General Groves, distinguished guests, and gentlemen of the Corps. As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, “Where are you bound for, General?” and when I replied, “West Point,” he remarked, “Beautiful place, have you ever been there before?”
No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this, coming from a profession I have served so long and a people I have loved so well. It fills me with an emotion I cannot express. But this award is not intended primarily for a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code – the code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent. That is the meaning of this medallion. For all eyes and for all time, it is an expression of the ethics of the American soldier. That I should be integrated in this way with so noble an ideal arouses a sense of pride and yet of humility which will be with me always.
Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation’s defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.
They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for action; not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness; the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.
They give you a temperate will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.
And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory?
Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefields many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world’s noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.
His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy’s breast.
But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements.
In twenty campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people.
From one end of the world to the other, he has drained deep the chalice of courage. As I listened to those songs of the glee club, in memory’s eye I could see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs on many a weary march, from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle deep through mire of shell-pocked roads; to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of God.
I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always for them: Duty, Honor, Country. Always their blood, and sweat, and tears, as they saw the way and the light.
And twenty years after, on the other side of the globe, against the filth of dirty foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts, those boiling suns of the relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms, the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails, the bitterness of long separation of those they loved and cherished, the deadly pestilence of tropic disease, the horror of stricken areas of war.
Their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory – always victory, always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men, reverently following your password of Duty, Honor, Country.
The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong. The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training – sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country, is the noblest development of mankind.
You now face a new world, a world of change. The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres and missiles marked the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind – the chapter of the space age. In the five or more billions of years the scientists tell us it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development of the human race, there has never been a greater, a more abrupt or staggering evolution. We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier. We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds and tides work for us; of creating unheard synthetic materials to supplement or even replace our old standard basics; of purifying sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundred of years; of controlling the weather for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain and shine; of space ships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy; of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all time.
And through all this welter of change and development your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purpose, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishments; but you are the ones who are trained to fight.
Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men’s minds. But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation’s war guardians, as its lifeguards from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government. Whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as firm and complete as they should be.
These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.
The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished – tone and tints. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.
In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps.
I bid you farewell.
I have not the words to add to that except, to say, that we would all do well to read and take to heart GEN MacArthur’s words as they apply to us, and then forearmed in our knowledge of the right, to live them.
We’ve been in Afghanistan for ten years now. Have we accomplished anything? Looks to me like the same old story. And I mean the same really old story.
According to history, Afghanistan was first invaded by Alexander the Great and his Macedonians, the very first disciplined (modern style) army. It took Alexander 3 years to complete the conquest whereas Persia had fallen in 6 months. Incidentally if you have read much of ancient history the Bactrian warriors mentioned at the Battle of Gaugemela were from eastern Afghanistan.
It took from about 642 until well into the 11th Century to complete the conversion/conquest of Afghanistan by Islam. Incidentally the ethnic make up the Afghans like the Persians to the west is primarily Aryan; like Europeans and unlike Arabs who are Semitic. It pays to remember that the Middle east has been a crossroads of humanity as long as there has been humanity.
The Khwarazmian Empire which consisted of modern-day Iran, Afghanistan and neighboring territories was attacked by Genghis Khan. It wasn’t pretty. From Wikipedia “The Mongol invasion of Central Asia however would entail the utter destruction of the Khwarezmid Empire along with the massacre of much of the civilian population of the region. The Mongols systematically exterminated a particularly large portion of the people of the cities, such as Bukhara. This earned the Mongols a reputation for bloodthirsty ferocity that would mark the remainder of their campaigns.”
This was followed by a group of regional wars by empires in the are which went on more or less continuously until:
The First (of 3) Anglo-Afghan wars which grew out of the British East India Company attempting to expand and then defend their empire. These continued until 1919. As usual, Rudyard Kipling had some advice for Tommy Atkins.
The Young British Soldier
When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
So-oldier _of_ the Queen!
Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day,
You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay,
An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may:
A soldier what's fit for a soldier.
Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . .
First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts,
For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts --
Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts --
An' it's bad for the young British soldier.
Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . .
When the cholera comes -- as it will past a doubt --
Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout,
For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,
A' it crumples the young British soldier.
Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . .
But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead:
You must wear your 'elmet for all that is said:
If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead,
An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.
Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . .
If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,
Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;
Be handy and civil, and then you will find
That it's beer for the young British soldier.
Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . .
Now, if you must marry, take care she is old --
A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told,
For beauty won't help if your rations is cold,
Nor love ain't enough for a soldier.
'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier . . .
If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath
To shoot when you catch 'em -- you'll swing, on my oath! --
Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both,
An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.
Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . .
When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,
Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier . . .
When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch;
She's human as you are -- you treat her as sich,
An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . .
When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine,
The guns o' the enemy wheel into line,
Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine,
For noise never startles the soldier.
Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . .
If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier _of_ the Queen!
From this point on we all know the broad outlines.
The Soviet Union got sucked in to support their (more or less) puppet regime in Kabul in 1979. Note that they were very reluctant and stalled for a considerable time, and that the United States under Carter had something to do with it also. They stuck with it until 1989, and apparently ended up pretty much agreeing with Kipling. After they withdrew the Taliban staged a coup taking power.
They remained in power until late 2001 when having hosted al-Qaeda and refusing to extradite bin Laden they were overthrown by US forces cooperating with the Northern Alliance, a loose grouping of warlords. And so now the US is conducting ground operations and so-called nation building in Afghanistan. I don’t really see why we expected our troops to be a lot more welcome than anybody else’s have been over the millennia, and they weren’t.
And so now here we are, ten years into a nation building mission that may never end while the locals snipe and set off IEDs at us, and our Presidents apologizes for burning a few books used as message pads. He also feels the needs to telegraph that we will be leaving in 2013, telling our enemies that they merely need to lie low and wait.
Given the givens and the history of the area, I see no particular reason to wait any longer than it takes to get transport in and get our people out.
There no glory to be won and no particular shame in not winning in this theatre, nobody else has done any better than we have and most far worse. The only one that has done as well is Genghis Khan and our equivalent to his method would to be nuke the entire country. I don’t think we really have the stomach for that, do we
Just a couple, you are supposed to have better things to do today.
97 years ago today, the largest mass mutiny in either the German or British army happened when the enlisted men proclaimed a Christmas truce. They traded cigars and cigarettes , got drunk together and sang carols to each other. There was even a soccer game (the Germans won). Grumpyelder has the story. I’ve heard that neither the King nor the Kaiser was amused.
Starting in 1940, our troops (if they were lucky) got to see this show all the way to Desert Storm. There never was better support for the troops than this English immigrant provided.
United (States) Parcel Service Image by matt.hintsa via Flickr
Something I’ve been meaning to post about, given my interest in the military, freedom, and capitalism, is how they worked together to make the United States not only the most powerful nation in the history of the world, but able to defeat the entire world, if necessary.
Pretty bold statement, isn’t it? Well this isn’t going to be ironclad proof, but I think it is a given, if America decided to.
Let’s start with a quote from Courtney Messerschmidt, Great Satan’s Girlfriend, herself:
Which may funnily enough hinge on a factor that is flat out tough to factor in:
Unbridled free inquiry.
“Courtney, free societies have, in general, a decided advantage when it comes to creativity and innovation, including in the military realm. However, it’s a bit more complicated than that”
Stuff that makes the West the Best — Wonderbra, BvB, individualism, scientific inquiry, rational critical thinking, democracy with it’s inherent capitalism, political freedom, dissidence and open free wheeling debate functions as kryptonite in Smallville in regards to autocrazies, despotries — and by extension — to their acquisition, development and deployment of military power.
What she is saying here is that free inquiry and looking for the best solution (and being able to afford it) is what make free armies so formidable.
The other thing is, when fielded these same armies can react so fast that they may have 2 or three or even more decision cycles inside their opponents one.
Most of us, in business, don’t have a lot of use for an aircraft carrier, let alone a carrier battle group, that is why they are so expensive. There are less than 2 dozen in the world, ten of them American.
Each of the American ones are equal in power to most of the world’s air forces. They (some of them) are out there, all the time, 5 acre patches (plus their consorts) of the USA, representing all that we are. Freedom, Teamwork, Rock music, Movies, and all.
When the big steel battleships were coming into their own, it was a little different, the new developments were: Iron Ships, Steam Power, Radio Communications, Screw Propellers and such. This was also the time when America was industrializing. An example of these early dreadnaughts is the USS Texas. These developments had very obvious commercial uses and therefore were much less expensive for navies to to deploy.
So let’s go back to the infantry for a bit, it’s not nearly as sexy, even being the Queen of Battle, you tend to get all muddy. But what does the American military do so well? React. Small unit leadership is what we are all about. Spring and ambush on American forces and what do you get. If they are still doing it like they said they did when I was in college, this is what you get: Apaches, and Warthogs, and Abrams and p****d off grunts (Oh, my) coming your way at a dead run all spitting fire, and if you are really unlucky even Spectre may show up to complete the ruin of your whole day. And that’s the first 30 seconds of your ambush, your day will probably still get worse. Try it at night and it will be worse.
OK, back to us civilians for a while, we compete, like our infantry, right down to the stubbornness to hold our positions. The other thing is, did you ever wonder why it is always the big companies running to Washington for help, while those of us in small business don’t? It really not the money, we could combine and find enough to at least rent some Congress-critters. It’s because on anything remotely resembling a level playing field, we will outmaneuver the big companies so bad that we’ll run them all the way back home to mommy.
Why? Let’s think about it.
If I’m a supervisor at XYZ, Inc.that employs says 15,000 people (that would be a middle-sized company). I have probably something like 10 layers of management between me and the CEO, all of which have their bureaucracies to sustain, they aren’t all that interested in the company as a whole, they are interested in their little piece of it. So if I (a supervisor, remember) come up with a way to produce widgets at half the cost, how long is it going to take it to get out of the suggestion box and to a level where somebody says what a great idea. If XYZ is unionized, it’s going to be at least twice as bad. I don’t know either, but it will be a while, probably measured in years.
OK, now lets say I’m a supervisor at Joe’s Widgets, LLC. where there are, say, 20 of us working. When Joe started the company he just copied what XYZ was doing and because his overhead was lower he made pretty good money. But now, I come up with the same idea and as before I sketch out how the process will work. I think I’ve got a pretty good idea, now what do I do? If Joe’s is like most companies this size, when Joe comes to work, I ask him if he’s got a minute and he says yes. In some companies this would be an after work beer with the boss, but no matter. So, I go to Joes office and lay it out and he likes it, so later that day I’m talking to his support people and within a month it’s implemented. It will probably take a bit of tweaking, say another month and Joe’s cost has been cut in half. THAT is how small and/or informal businesses always win.That is also how Lockheed’s famed Skunk Works worked
The other thing you notice is that its more fun to work in a small company where your effort is appreciated, as it usually is.
The real point here is whether we are talking about war or business, free inquiry and minds that do not have to worry about being shot (or fired) for dissent are always able to run at high speed and outside the box. We’ve been doing this since at least when we decided the Redcoats needed to go home and it is what has fueled us all the way to where we are now.
The other thing that top down management stifles is quality. If we remember the Soviet union designed really sexy widgets, their problem was that a 8th grade shop class in America had better quality control. Courtney, again:
Cold War history continues the action for autocratic Commonwealth Russia. Long lol’d as more ‘evolutionary than revolutionary,” her defense industry is plaguedwith the horrible situation of being unable to redeem warranty claims by Pakistan, India, Iran and Algeria AND crank out new stuff at the same incredible instant. Since 1992, not a single state defense order has been fulfilled completely and on time.
If we allow ourselves to over to the European model, we will need to set our sights to European levels in all areas including the lower productivity, higher unemployment and the lack of what Courtney calls Hyper Puissance in both the military and commercial/cultural fields.
It amounts to a path to mediocrity, and I will never be ready for that.
We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. In these current fashions it is not really a question of the religion allowing us liberty; but (at the best) of the liberty of allowing us a religion. These people merely take the modern mood, with much in it that is amiable and much that is anarchical and much that is merely dull and obvious, and then require any creed to be cut down to fit that mood. But the mood would exist even without the creed. They say they want a religion to be practical, when they would be practical without any religion. They say they want a religion acceptable to science, when they would accept the science even if they did not accept the religion. They say they want a religion like this because they are like this already. They say they want it, when they mean that they could do without it.”
—G.K. Chesterton via The Anchoress
You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins.
JessicaHof
NEO
