We maintain and continue this committee of correspondence in memory of our founder and mentor, Colonel W. Patrick Lang. The image to the right is Marcus, a character from William S. Burroughs’s “The Coming of the Purple Better One.” Colonel Lang would refer to Marcus sometimes in clever jest, sometimes in biting social commentary and sometimes simply because he liked Marcus. May everyone who corresponds here do so in a similar spirit.
Essential Writings on History, War, Religion and Strategy
From the Introduction:
“In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Col. Lang created his own blog which to this day still serves as a committee of correspondence for a large network of former military and intelligence officers, diplomats, and scholars of international affairs.
Since its launch in 2005, the Turcopolier website has had over 40 million unique visits.
Since leaving the government, he has also authored five books, including a Civil War espionage trilogy, a memoir of his years in government service, and a primer on human intelligence.
This present volume—his sixth book—is an anthology of some of his most important writings. The content speaks for itself. So have at it.”
The United States has long been at the forefront of technological innovation, but one key sector where the U.S. lags significantly behind is in the drone industry. Currently, China’s DJI dominates the consumer and professional drone market, owning as much as 80% of the global market share. This overwhelming dominance poses not just a competitive challenge but also a national security risk. The U.S. must prioritize the establishment of a domestic drone industry to secure technological autonomy and protect sensitive data. However, this won’t be possible without a well-thought-out strategy that addresses the supply chain and market leadership issues. Here’s how the U.S. can jump-start its domestic drone industry.
1. You Can’t iterate faster than China without a DJI Competitor
DJI’s market leadership is built on its ability to rapidly iterate its technology, bringing new models and innovations to market faster than its competitors. This agility allows DJI to consistently maintain its competitive edge while collecting massive amounts of data, which is then used to improve future products. More concerningly, this drone data, collected over U.S. soil by DJI drones, is accessible by Chinese authorities, creating significant security vulnerabilities.
Without a home-grown competitor to DJI, the U.S. will always be playing catch-up. American companies struggle to iterate at the same pace due to limitations in both supply chain efficiency and production cost. Even firms like Skydio and other U.S.-based drone startups cannot scale quickly enough to meet market demands because they rely on key components sourced from China, limiting their independence. If the U.S. is to successfully break away from this cycle, it needs to create an environment where iteration and innovation can flourish domestically, unencumbered by supply chain constraints or external data risks.
2. You can’t build Drones without China: Fixing the Supply Chain
The uncomfortable reality is that most drones, even those designed and assembled in the U.S., rely heavily on Chinese components. China currently controls key aspects of the supply chain for microelectronics, motors, sensors, and batteries—components essential for drone manufacturing. This stranglehold over critical components not only gives China a substantial advantage in cost and production scale but also makes it incredibly difficult for American companies to compete without relying on Chinese suppliers.
To break free from this dependence, government intervention is crucial. The U.S. must incentivize the near-shoring, re-shoring, and friend-shoring of critical component manufacturing. Policies that support domestic manufacturing of microelectronics, motors, and other essential drone parts are needed. This can be done through tax breaks, research and development grants, and investment in domestic infrastructure. Moreover, collaboration with allied nations to build a supply chain that does not involve China could help diversify sourcing and reduce dependence on a single foreign power.
An additional layer of complexity lies in the labor and environmental regulations that make it difficult for the U.S. to compete with China’s low-cost production model. However, with proper investment in automation and next-generation manufacturing techniques, the U.S. could reduce costs while maintaining high-quality production standards. An aggressive push to develop U.S.-based suppliers and manufacturers would be a significant step toward breaking China’s chokehold on the drone supply chain.
3. Becoming the Market Leader: Re-shoring the Supply Chain and Outpacing DJI
The key to building out a domestic drone industry is to take over DJI’s position as the market leader. However, this cannot be accomplished without taking control of the supply chain. To do so, the U.S. must prioritize re-shoring and near-shoring, bringing critical drone component production back to U.S. soil or to trusted allies. Friend-shoring with countries like Japan, South Korea, and European allies can help diversify the supply chain and ensure that the U.S. is not vulnerable to supply disruptions.
To effectively compete with DJI, the U.S. must also foster a vibrant ecosystem of drone-related companies that can work together to innovate rapidly. This requires not only investment in existing drone startups but also collaboration between tech companies, universities, and government agencies. A public-private partnership approach, similar to what was seen in the early days of the space race, could give U.S. companies the edge they need to overtake DJI in terms of innovation, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.
Additionally, leveraging existing tech talent and capabilities in AI and machine learning would allow U.S. drone manufacturers to introduce smarter and more capable drones. This would help the U.S. surpass DJI, not just in hardware but in software and autonomous operations. However, none of this will be possible unless the U.S. establishes a stable and secure supply of drone components that are independent of Chinese influence.
Conclusion
To jump-start a domestic drone industry, the U.S. must address both the supply chain and market leadership challenges posed by DJI. This requires strategic government intervention in supply chain development, with a focus on near-shoring, friend-shoring, and re-shoring of critical drone components. Only then can the U.S. foster a competitive environment where domestic companies can iterate faster, innovate more effectively, and ultimately take over DJI’s dominant position in the consumer and professional drone market. Without such a concerted effort, the U.S. will continue to trail behind China in this vital industry.
https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/china-has-the-us-drone-industry-by
Comment: This is a continuation on the subject of drones. It’s about the elephant in the room… or the panda bear in the room. DJI and China have been the world leaders in the field for as long as I can remember. Both Ukraine and Russia were using a lot of DJI drones in their war and, as far as I know, still are. Security experts in the US have bemoaned the omnipresence of DJI drones in the US, especially in police and security applications.
The author of this article, Benjamin Cook, suggests doing what’s necessary to replace DJI as the market leader. That’s a fairly tall order and will, as Cook says, require changes in rules, regulations, marketing practices and probably tariffs. He also suggests pairing with a trusted ally to accomplish the same thing. This is something we can accomplish now. The Ukrainian drone industry. The linked NPR article describes the state of the Ukrainian drone industry. It’s very well developed, but Kyiv needs foreign investment to keep it developing. And since it is such a distributed industry, it should be easier to expand the Ukrainian model to Europe and the US than trying to replicate a DJI.
TTG
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/13/nx-s1-5147284/ukraine-drones-russia-war
Ship 30 and Booster 12 lifted off at 7:25 am Central Time on Oct 13. The liftoff and ascent was flawless with all 33 engine running on Booster 12 all the way to hot-staging. Ship 30 then ignited its six engines and went on its way to the Indian Ocean.
Booster 12 then reignited the middle ring of 10 engines for its boost back burn which was just as flawless as its ascent. However Booster 12 was not done, following its boost back burn Booster 12 made its way back to the launch site. With one kilometer to go it ignited its center 13 engines for the landing burn to quickly slow down then switching to the center three.
Booster 12 then translated over to get in between the chopsticks and was successfully caught by the tower. This is a massive milestone for the Starship program and now comes the question of what SpaceX will do with Booster 12.
Ship 30 then coasted to reentry to test its new heat shield configuration. The new heat shield fared far better than Ship 29’s configuration, however there was still some burn through on at least one of the forward flaps. Despite this Ship 30 made it to flip and landing burn and a soft splashdown in the Indian ocean before exploding after tipping over captured by a buoy at the landing zone. This means that SpaceX hit the mark on Ship landing.
Overall SpaceX hit every single milestone and objective for Flight 5 and who knows what they will do for Flight 6.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/10/starship-flight-5-catch
Comment: I totally missed this. Not surprised. I spent all day yesterday removing and dumping a couple of overgrown hollies from his front yard. That wore us both out and I slept in this morning. We also missed the opening game of Caps hockey season. Well, that’s life.
This launch was successful on all fronts. The super heavy booster was caught by the chopsticks on the launchpad. The improved heat shields and redesigned winglets on the Starship worked much better than the last time. It made a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean right on target before it tipped into the ocean and blew up. All in all, it was a damned fine performance.
I find it odd that there was nothing on TV, at least broadcast TV, this morning about this, not even a ten second mention. Granted Musk is making all kinds of political news lately, but this launch was a big thing. Are we getting that jaded by these launches already?
TTG
As Ukraine’s stocks of artillery shells have dwindled, its army’s reliance on drones has grown. These are able to deliver ammunition with great precision over long distances—provided they can maintain connections with GPS satellites (so they know where they are) and their operators (so they know what to do). Such communication signals can be jammed, however, and Russia’s electronic warfare, as signals scrambling is known, is fearsomely effective. With large numbers of its drones in effect blinded, Ukraine’s drone technologists have been forced to get creative.
Enter Eagle Eyes, a remarkable software package for drones. Developed by Ukraine’s special forces, it allows drones to navigate by machine sight alone, with no need for outside input. Using artificial-intelligence (ai) algorithms, the software compares live video of the terrain below with an on-board map stitched together from photographs and video previously collected by reconnaissance aircraft. This allows for drones to continue with their missions even after being jammed.
Eagle Eyes has also been trained to recognise specific ground-based targets, including tanks, troop carriers, missile launchers and attack helicopters. The software can then release bombs, or crash-dive, without a human operator’s command. “Bingo for us,” says a captain in White Eagle, a special-forces corps that is using and further developing the technology. The software has been programmed to target jamming stations as a priority, says the captain, who requested anonymity. Russia’s vaunted s-400 air-defence batteries are priority number two.
Optical navigation, as this approach to guidance is known, has a long history. An early version was incorporated in America’s Tomahawk cruise missiles, for example, first fired in anger during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. But lightweight, inexpensive optical navigation for small drones is new. In the spring of last year Eagle Eyes was being tested in combat by just three special-forces teams, each with two or three drone handlers. Today Eagle Eyes is cheap enough for kamikaze drones and is in wide use, says Valeriy Borovyk, commander of a White Eagle unit fighting in Ukraine’s south. With a range of about 60km, the system also guides fixed-wing drones that have struck energy infrastructure in Russia, he says.
Last autumn the number of Ukrainian drones with optical navigation probably numbered in the hundreds. Today the figure is closer to 10,000, says an industry hand in Odessa whose design bureau builds prototype systems for two Ukrainian manufacturers. Anton Varavin, chief technologist at a competing design bureau, Midgard Dynamics in Ternopil in western Ukraine, says optical navigation is increasingly seen as a “must have”, especially for drones with a range above 20km.
Optical navigation works best near distinctive features such as crossroads, power lines, isolated trees, big buildings and nearby bodies of water. For small drones with inexpensive optical navigation, the ideal cruising altitude is about 500 metres, says Andy Bosyi, a co-founder of MindCraft.ai, a developer of optical-navigation prototypes with workplaces at undisclosed locations in and near Lviv. That altitude is low enough for the software to work out terrain details, and yet high enough for a sufficient field of view. The height is also beyond the range of small-arms fire.
MindCraft.ai shipped its first models, appropriately dubbed NOGPS, to manufacturers in December. While cruising, the system needs to fix on at least one object per minute to avoid drifting more than 50 metres off course. That’s good enough for reconnaissance, if not precision bombing. To improve accuracy and allow night flights, MindCraft.ai is incorporating a heat-sensing infrared camera. The upgrade should be ready by the end of this year.
MindCraft.ai has also developed a NOGPS feature for what they call semi-automated autonomous targeting. Now being tested by clients, it allows drone operators to lock onto targets they spot in live video. If jamming subsequently severs the video link, the system delivers the munition without further human input. This function is valuable because jamming typically gets worse as drones approach enemy assets, says Mr Bosyi, who is also MindCraft.ai’s lead data scientist. MindCraft.ai’s clients serially manufacture NOGPS models for a unit cost of between €200 and €500 ($217-$550).
Other systems cost more. Midgard says the componentry in its designs costs its manufacturer clients roughly €1,500 per unit. Their systems augment optical navigation with inertial data from accelerometers and gyroscopes like those used in smartphones. To stay on course while cruising, Midgard’s optical system needs to find a match between a terrain feature below and one in an onboard map only every 20 minutes or so. Mr Varavin says that in ideal conditions precision is within several metres. That is comparable to GPS.
Demand for optical navigation is rising elsewhere, too. An Israeli firm called Asio reports brisk sales of an optical-navigation unit to the Israel Defence Forces and American firms. (Israel forbids exports of such technology to Ukraine.) Introduced in 2021, the roughly $20,000 system, now dubbed AeroGuardian, weighs as little as 90g, draws just five watts of power and is accurate, in good conditions, within a metre or so, says David Harel, Asio’s boss. Asio expects sales this year to exceed $10m, double the figure for 2023.
Ukraine now sees optical navigation as a capability “focal point”, says Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former chief of NATO. Ukraine’s defence ministry has provided detailed terrain maps to Atlas Aerospace, a drone manufacturer in Riga, Latvia. One way to better compare such maps with a drone’s view is with lidar techniques, which record the travel time of laser pulses bounced off the ground. As lasers reduce stealth, Atlas designed a “virtual lidar” system. This measures what founder Ivan Tolchinsky calls “optical flow”—the time it takes a pixel representing a terrain feature to transit the onboard camera’s view. Since an initial shipment in October, Atlas has delivered over 200 reconnaissance drones with such a system to Ukraine’s army, and more have been ordered.
Might optical navigation help Ukrainian forces get off their back foot? Perhaps, says Kurt Volker, a former American ambassador to NATO and, until 2019, Donald Trump’s special representative for Ukraine negotiations. He reckons it could prove to be one of the “technological step changes” that some Ukrainian military leaders have said will be needed to turn the tide. It will take time, however, for the actual effectiveness against Russian jamming to become clearer. Ukraine’s military leadership, Mr Rasmussen says, is rightly keeping tight-lipped about the technology.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1d4dyqi/
Comment: Although I found this on reddit, it was taken from an article in the Economist from last May. And a damned fine article it is. We’ve talked about the rise of computer vision in drones and how it is not a new concept. As the article points out, it was used on our Tomahawk cruise missiles. What’s different now is that this technology is small, light and cheap enough to use on kamikaze drones, drones cheap enough to take out single vehicles or single emplacements or even single soldiers. And it not the Raytheons of this world developing and producing these self-navigating drones.
The nerds and geeks are becoming more and more critical to this war. Young Ukrainians were dabbling in this stuff soon after Russia’s first invasion kicked off. Drones were used to take out a DNR mortar position that was targeting Ukrainian villages between the wars. That was the first instance I heard of their use in this war. Now drone operations are key to the defense of Ukraine. They are also of increasing importance to Russian operations. The rest of the world is watching, tearing up their field manuals and pondering on how they’ll catch up with Ukraine and Russia in drone warfare.
It’s not just militaries facing critical choices, the current industrial base is woefully unprepared for this revolution. The old defense giants and beltway bandits are just not going to cut it. I think units should start hooking up with engineering schools and encourage start ups to work directly with the units. Or perhaps some newly created DoD office chock full of geeks and nerds should make the connection with geeks and nerds in Ukraine to form joint ventures, provide capacity to their drone industry and to learn from the Ukrainian masters.
TTG
In the mid-to-late 1980s, I was passionate about windsurfing. I kept a board in the back of my pickup truck and, when the conditions were ideal, I would drop everything to go sailing. What, you might ask, was the attraction of it?
Someone once said to me that windsurfing is the purest form of sailing. Upon decades of reflection, I couldn’t agree more. There’s no rudder; rather, there’s just the mast articulating on a universal joint to steer the board. A sailor is literally holding the center of effort in their hands when windsurfing, and the center of lateral resistance is right there below the feet. These two terms move solidly from the theoretical to the practical when windsurfing: rake the mast aft, and the board heads up; rake it forward, and the board bears away. It’s rig-balance personified; weather helm has consequences beyond a heavy tiller. The sport certainly made me a better sailor.
I don’t know why I drifted away from windsurfing, but the sport’s popularity certainly crashed after a while. I think it had something to do with gear intensity: To really remain engaged in windsurfing and keep up with fellow sailors, one eventually needed—or at least craved—a “quiver” of sails and boards for various conditions. I recall cars stuffed with sails, wetsuits, and other gear. The purity of the learning days—of one sail, one board, and one sailor—bled out of it.
Somehow, through genetic predisposition or osmosis, my son Linus recently developed a passion for windsurfing, and resolved to spend a portion of his summer earnings on a board. It turns out there are some real bargains out there due to leftovers from the days of gear-stuffed cars. Together we found a board, for which Linus paid a hundred bucks cash, and he let me take my first ride in 35 years. My balance and strength were rusty, but the muscle memory remained.
https://www.woodenboat.com/issue/301
Comment: This is the first half of the editor’s introduction to the latest issue of “Wooden Boat.” Sounds like Matt Murphy, the editor, caught the bug of windsurfing just a few years before I did. I arrived in Germany on New Year’s Day 1990. As soon as the snow, ice and hoarfrost receded, every lake in Bavaria was filled with windsurfers. I wanted in… badly. I bought my first board at Surfstadl Hase not far from the Dorf I then called home. Surprisingly, even my Bavarian neighbors called it a Dorf. It was that small. Every day after work, I’d tie my rig to the roof of the car and head to the nearby lake to teach myself the art of windsurfing. I would get on and fall down until I was too exhausted to get up again. I understood the theory behind the art as Matt Murphy described, but it took a while to turn that theory into practice. Once I did, it was such an exhilarating joy to plane across the lake. It was even more exhilarating doing so on the Chiemsee.
I would have still had that board if it wasn’t crushed in the move back to the states. But not to worry. I put in a claim to Army Transportation at Fort Belvoir and took a trip to Annapolis to pick out a new one. I got a beauty, a Mistral Escape with a 7.2 meter North sail. My plan was to continue my windsurfing on the Potomac. However the Potomac is not the cleanest body of water. Neither I nor SWMBO fancied the idea of gulping river water on a regular basis. That doesn’t happen in my kayak. I have a decent reservoir in Stafford that reminds me of that Bavarian lake where I learned to windsurf, but I’ve only been able to try out the new rig a few times. Between being assigned first to a SMU and then to DIA left me little time for windsurfing. Now that I’m retired, I’ve concentrated on my sailing kayak.
After reading this editorial from “Wooden Boat,” perhaps I’ll spend a little more time with the windsurfer. The Potomac Conservancy says the river has cleaned up a lot since I first returned to the States. I can see my self screeching up to DC or maybe down to the Chesapeake depending on the winds.
TTG
By Robert Willmann
After growing up on the coast and spending time there, I have personal knowledge about hurricanes. My parents built their house to withstand hurricanes, and stayed during the vicious Hurricane Carla in 1961, which had wind gusts over 200 miles per hour. As little kids, we thought it was exciting, with kerosene lamps, candles, and relatives staying with us. But the adults were keeping a careful watch. After it was over, in other parts of the county, shrimp boats and butane and propane tanks had been blown quite a distance inland. Some houses were completely gone, except where a sink or commode had been fastened to a concrete slab.
In more recent years, an annoying practice began of quoting the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Radio, television, and print articles constantly referred to Category 1, Category 3, Cat 5, or Category 4. Or, “Will it be a Category 2?” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) started saying the same thing. This told the people nothing.
In order to make decisions, the public needs to know five things: 1) The wind speed in the hurricane; 2) Where the hurricane is located and its relation to a land mass; 3) How fast it is moving; 4) How wide it is, or its diameter; and 5) How high the water line might get at the shoreline, also called a storm surge.
Rain comes with a hurricane, but the issue of flooding is known throughout the year.
The Saffir-Simpson scale divided up hurricanes according to how much damage they might cause. But any damage depends on how buildings and infrastructure are built and maintained.
“Emergency management” is done by family, friends, church, your associates, and the community. Before the recent storm Beryl on the Texas coast, I called a friend who was also going to stay and offered to let the family use an electric generator, but they had one. As it turned out, the electricity in the area did not even go out for a second, mainly because the company is attentive and responsive. Beryl was not a real powerful storm at all, but in the Houston area, an electricity company, which makes millions of dollars a month and is on the public stock exchange, did not spend some of that money to maintain the electrical lines and trim back tree limbs, but instead kept it. That resulted in a scandalous outage of electricity in Houston.
Whether you decide to stay during a hurricane or leave, your family, friends, church, and associates can and almost certainly will help before and after. You and they are the “first responders”. Not the Sheriff or police department. And definitely not the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
As of around noon eastern time, Hurricane Milton is about 150 miles away from Fort Myers, Florida and about 175 miles away from Tampa. It is moving at about 17 miles per hour, which is not slow.
Milton rapidly strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday and was forecast to become a Category 5 storm on a path toward Florida, threatening a dangerous storm surge in Tampa Bay and setting the stage for potential mass evacuations less than two weeks after a catastrophic Hurricane Helene swamped the coastline. A hurricane warning was issued for parts of Mexico’s Yucatan state, and much of Florida’s west coast was under hurricane and storm surge watches. Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, which often floods during intense storms, was also under a hurricane watch. “This is the real deal here with Milton,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said at a news conference. “If you want to take on Mother Nature, she wins 100% of the time.”
Milton was a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 kph) Monday morning over the southern Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center said. It was forecast to become a Category 5 storm later Monday with winds greater than 157 mph (250 kph) and become a large hurricane over the eastern Gulf.
Its center could come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay area, and it could remain a hurricane as it moves across central Florida toward the Atlantic Ocean. That would largely spare other states ravaged by Helene, which killed at least 230 people on its path from Florida to the Appalachian Mountains. Forecasters warned of a possible 8- to 12-foot storm surge (2.4 to 3.6 meters) in Tampa Bay and said flash and river flooding could result from 5 to 10 inches (13 to 25 centimeters) of rain in mainland Florida and the Keys, with as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) in places.
The Tampa Bay area is still cleaning up extensive damage from Helene and its powerful surge. Twelve people perished, with the worst damage along a 20-mile (32-kilometer) string of barrier islands from St. Petersburg to Clearwater. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that it was imperative that messes from Helene be cleared ahead of Milton’s arrival so they don’t become dangerous flying projectiles. More than 300 vehicles picked up debris Sunday but encountered a locked landfill gate when they tried to drop it off. State troopers used a rope tied to a pickup truck and busted it open, DeSantis said. “We don’t have time for bureaucracy and red tape,” DeSantis said. “We have to get the job done.”
About 7 million people were urged to evacuate Florida in 2017 as Hurricane Irma bore down. The exodus jammed freeways, led to long lines at gas stations and left evacuees in some cases vowing never to evacuate again.
https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-milton-helene-florida-557c5c512135e0a8661b298e45e17c92
Comment: I’m sure Fred, Lars and Harper are acutely aware of this. I was shocked when I opened my laptop this morning and saw Milton was already a Cat 4. Now it’s a Cat 5 and it still has a lot of hot Gulf water to traverse before Milton will hit Saint Petersburg, Orlando and the Space Coast. Lake Okeechobee and Everglades flooding will likely be severe.
Two Cat 5 hurricanes in close succession in the Gulf of Mexico. That’s unusual to say the least. We can discuss how this happened, what caused this unusual weather pattern later. Right now, it is imperative for Fred, Lars, Harper and so many others in Florida to grab your loved ones, including pets, and even your neighbors and seek safety. If you’re advised to un-ass the AO, un-ass the AO. I’ll be thinking of you.
TTG
Vuhledar… what happened there the last week, ‘or so’ is nothing but a shame.
As first, the GenStab-U might have intended to-, but didn’t rotate out what’s left of the 72nd Mech. It left the remnants of a completely exhausted unit at its own, partially still inside the ruined town. The way things are looking right now (i.e. on basis of currently available information), the CO 72nd Mech then started organising a phased withdrawal. The GenStab-U didn’t take care to help the unit through securing flanks, but – in the light of troops inside Vuhledar posting complaints and requests for withdrawal from the ruined town – dismissed the CO 72nd Mech – and then left the Russians massacre troops still inside the town by dropping FAB-3000 and similar, free-fall bombs from their Su-24 and/or Tu-22M-3 bombers on the ruins of the town, plus massacre troops that attempted to withdraw over open fields north of it, so the town wouldn’t fall while Zelensky was (still) in the USA…
If that is truth, and it looks like it is, then…. well, I’m not pro capital punishments, and my standpoint is that one shouldn’t waste a single life. Therefore, my recommendation would be both Zelensky and Yermak, and the Commander-in-Chief of the ZSU, plus everybody in the GenStab-U who knew about all of this, but refused to quit on his own, belong being re-organised into a de-mining company and sent either to Kherson or to eastern Kharkiv.
Following appropriate training, of course.
There’s simply no other way any of them to ever make good what they did here – while there is a lots of work waiting for their eyes, hands and legs there.
….and that would be a very suitable warning for whoever would replace them, so their successors might learn not to play with lives of thousands of other people.
One way or the other, and what’s worse, based on experiences from the last two years, the net result of this entire affair is going to be that the 72nd – the unit that held out at Moshchun, the unit that held out in Vuhledar for two years, and the unit that was shamefully left down by the political leadership in Kyiv, and by the entire top of the ZSU – is going to join the growing list of Ukrainian brigades that are ‘spent’ for illusions and fantasies, and then left to vegetate while ‘cannibalised’ for whatever officers and other ranks are ‘loyal’ to their superiors, so the GenStab-U can create two other new brigades, consisting of insufficiently trained mobiks.
Atop of that, the ZSU thus lost the best defence position in this part of Ukraine (it comes not out of nothing the 72nd held out in Vuhledar for two years, with no help from the GenStab-U and the rest of the ZSU, plus the PSU). It’s not only that Bohoyavlenka and Novoukrainka are now exposed to further Russian advances. The Russians can expect to advance all the way to the line Velyka Novosilka – Pokrovsk by the end of this year.
https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/ukraine-war-4-october-2024-illusions
Comment: The defense and eventual loss of Vuhledar points out much of what is good and bad in the Ukrainian army. This unit, the 72nd Mech Brigade has been in combat since the first days of Russia’s invasion. They defended Kyiv at the Battle of Moshchun and were heavily engaged at Bakhmut. They suffered a lot of casualties there and were reinforced, for the first and last time with conscripts. After that, they took up the defense of Vuhledar in January 2023. From that point to now, the 72nd received no help from the General Staff in Kyiv, no individual replacements, no reinforcing units and no time to rest and refit. That they held on against repeated assaults this long and dealt the Russians some truly devastating losses is a testament to their courage and skill. That they received no replacements, reinforcements or time for rest and refit is a failure of Ukrainian leadership… and Western training.
It’s actually a call back to Soviet military thinking. A call back to sending in the next echelon rather than resting and refitting units, as an initial unit is worn out and destroyed, a second and third echelon takes its place. The higher levels of Ukrainian leadership grew up with that thinking and are still wed to it. Rather than creating a program to flow a steady stream of individual replacements to existing units, the Ukrainian General Staff is creating new brigades manned with conscripts. Ukraine is going to have a tough time trying to defeat Russia with this system.
Eight years of Western training, primarily US training, failed to divorce senior Ukrainian leadership from that thinking. Perhaps that’s too much to expect, teaching old dogs new tricks, but training at lower levels worked quite well. Much of that training is conducted by Special Forces teams working with individual training and small unit training. That also explains the success of Ukrainian special operations and resistance forces. Once the war started, training in European bases never went beyond company level. As far as I’ve read, there was no formal Command and General Staff or War College level training. Sure a few Ukrainian officers attended such training in the states from time to time, but that’s not many.
What is needed is a concerted effort to provide that training to a wide group of field grade and even general officer level leaders in the Ukrainian army. I believe it’s too much to ask SF to fulfill this task. Senior SF officers now spend their whole careers in the special operations community. They don’t have the experience and training to train others in high level command and logistics at that level. Even the new Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFAB) are not set up to do this. Either the SFABs have to be refocused and organized to do this or, preferably in my opinion, the command and general staff schools and war colleges should create training teams to bring their knowledge to the Ukrainian armed forces… before it’s too late.
TTG
As should be well-known by now, the exceptionally popular telenovela better known as the ‘War on Hamas’, also ‘Iranian-Israeli Conflict’ and different other names, launched into its new season with Episode 516: Netanyahu’s assassination of Secretary General of Hezbollah, Nasrallah.
Late on 1 October (around 23.00hrs local time, which is around 22.00hrs in Israel), the IRGC Air-Space Force (IRGCASF) then aired the Episode 517: it’s retaliation for Nasrallah’s and the death of the Deputy Commander IRGC-QF (Major-General Abbas Nilforushan), the Operation True Promise-2 – In form of a massive missile strike on Israel. Arguably, amid all the related boasting, hysteria, and a few seas of lies vented by all the involved parties, it’s a bit hard to follow what weapons were deployed, what was targeted, what was hit, or not. Thus, here an attempt at summarising what’s known so far.
As far as can be assessed from videos available by now, the IRGCASF has primarily deployed older of its ballistic missiles: indeed, something like ‘upgraded 2nd generation’ of these. The biggest were liquid-fueled types like Qadr and Emad. Both are, essentially, ‘upgraded Shahab-2s’: originally developed on basis of the Soviet-made R-17E (ASCC/NATO-designation ‘SS-1 Scud’), and manufactured back in the 1990s and 2000s, these were meanwhile upgraded to carry MIRVs and have an improved guidance system. Mind that the majority of such missiles are meanwhile nearing the end of their ‘shelf-life’: i.e. free along the principle ‘first in, first out’, the IRGCASF spent them, instead of something made more recently.
The IRGCASF also said it has fired a number of more recent, solid-fueled Khaibar-Shekan (a derivative of the Fattah, itself a derivative of the Chinese-designed Fatteh-110, which was the first ‘modern’ Iranian ballistic missile). In best traditions of the IRGCASF’s ‘highest standards of quality control’, several missiles detonated on launch or crashed – still inside Iran – short after their launch. Reportedly, 5 people were killed and 12 wounded by them. Indeed, RUMINT has it: all of these casualties were caused by detonation of one of missiles at launch. The missiles are known to have been launched from positions outside (between others): Tabriz, Kermanshah, Shiraz, and Esfahan.
Read: no news in this regards. All the IRGCASF bases in question are well-known (indeed: the one outside Kermanshah was the first Iranian ballistic missile base, originally constructed with Israeli advice, back in the 1970s). It remains unclear exactly how many missiles were fired by the IRGCASF: some say 180, others 200, some claim as many as 400.
The defences of Israel included (in order of their activation), PAC-2/3 SAMs operated by the Royal Jordanian Air Force, US-operated air defence systems deployed in Jordan, IASF-operated Arrow II and III ballistic-missile interceptors, and SM-6 Standard interceptors operated by guided missile destroyers USS Cole (DDG-67) and USS Bulkeley (DDG-84) of the US Navy (both underway off the coast of Israel). (Reports about ‘Iron Dome’, widely circulated in the social media, are errant: Iron Dome is unsuitable for defence from this kind of ballistic missiles.)
Several of incoming IRGCASF-missiles were intercepted while still outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Such, ‘exoatmospheric’ intercepts are then resulting in such ‘Moon-shaped’ explosions like the one visible here. A number of booster stages from IRGCASF’s and debris from Jordanian, Israeli, and US interceptors, crashed inside Jordan: they seem to have caused no material damage, but wounded at least two persons.
As for what was targeted… in a TV-appearance of this morning, the Chief-of-Staff Iranian Armed Forces (IRGC) Major-General Mohammad Bagheri, said that the targets were ‘three main air bases, HQ of Mossad, several radar sites, concentrations of IDF armoured vehicles around the Gaza Strip. So far, have seen evidence ‘only’ for five of targets in question….which is bringing me to what is known to have been hit (where, at least according to official Israel and the USA: the answer to the latter question is simple: nothing – while one of targets obviously hit by the IRGCASF missiles was not even mentioned by Bagheri)…
From north towards south:
– Mossad HQ & Unit 8200 HQ in Gillot (northern Tel Aviv). Israelis did not show either of two compounds, only an obvious miss about 500m away.
– Tel Nov AB: home-base of the IASF’s F-15-fleet (Nos 106 and 133 Squadrons) CH-53/S-65-fleet (No. 118 Squadron) Aviation Maintenance Unit 22 (major overhaul facility): what exactly was hit there remains unknown right now.
– Nevatim AB: home-base of the IASF’s F-35-fleet (Nos. 116, 117, and 140 Squadrons), C-130-fleet (No. 103 and No. 131 Squadrons), Boeing 707 tanker fleet (Nos. 120 Squadron), and the Israeli early fleet of G.550 reconnaissance and early warning aircraft (No. 122 Squadron). The IRGC claimed to have destroyed ‘20 F-35s’ there. What was really hit there remains unknown. However, services like Flightradar24, were showing clear indications of the Israelis scrambling the mass of their transports and reconnaissance aircraft, probably all the F-35s from this air base.
Few (early) conclusions:
One must not, but better should (that’s your own decision, of course), pay attention at distinct difference between systematic and intentional demolishing of apartment buildings, UN facilities, schools, refugee camps etc. by the Israelis, and IRGC’s targeting of obvious military and intelligence targets. That said, while multiple military facilities in Israel were the primary target, there are indications that several facilities related to energy-supply system were a secondary target.
Any kind of military-related reporting from Israel is subjected to the military censorship of the AMAN (Israeli Military Intelligence; should there be any doubts, this comes from somebody ‘neck-deep’ involved, as editor and illustrator, in book-projects like this, or this). Unsurprisingly, the Israeli and/or foreign sources in Israel are never releasing any kind of details about strikes on military facilities. If at all, either damage to civilian facilities (like that school in Gedera) is shown, or – like in April this year – minor damage to military facilities is shown for PR purposes (see: ‘dumb Iranians missed everything’).
At least as unsurprising is that the IASF and the USA are both claiming a perfectly successful defence – even if dozens of videos are clearly showing IRGCASF’s missiles hitting facilities listed above. Indeed, although a rough estimate is that up to 80% of IRGCASF’s missiles have penetrated the multi-layered air defences protecting Israel. Something like a ‘mix of official explanations and private assumptions’ is that ‘these were all left to pass through, because they were obviously about to miss’, and thus only hit ‘empty spaces’ – so also at Israeli air bases. Well, not sure if the IASF was delighted to let 18 out of 19 missiles (or MIRVs) in one wave, and then 27 out of 29 missiles (or MIRVs) in another wave all pass by and hit Nevatim AB, just for example.
Similar is valid for Tel Nov AB, hit by at least a dozen of missiles, at least one of which caused a ‘secondary’ (i.e. either hit something that then detonated, or caused a detonation of something). Arguably, RUMINT has it that fires and conflagrations are incompatible with air bases and offshore oil/gas facilities. Of course, Israel is an exception from all the rules, so also this one. Therefore, it is on hand that this fire at Tel Nov AB, and this explosion and the following fire on an offshore gas-facility off Ashkelon were either intentionally caused by the Israelis, or merely smoking accidents. By no means was anything of that kind a result of IRGCASF’s missile strikes.
Ah yes, and I forgot something like ‘overall conclusion’: one way or the other, and for reasons explained yesterday, the IRGC is still far away from running an all-out strike on Israel. It’s still using primarily 10+ -years-old, less precise missiles, like Qadr and Emad. It’s still using them in limited numbers (i.e. at least in theory, it could strike with many more missiles and far more precisely). And, it is clearly focusing on targets of – indisputably – military nature, and targets large enough to hit with such old, less-precise missiles. With other words: they remain sober enough to avoid provoking Netanyahu into nuking Iran, while ‘still retaliating’.
That much about facts, beliefs and feelings. Hope is slim but, who can say: perhaps sometimes in the coming days, weeks, months or – most likely – years, it might become possible to separate the three.
https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/iranian-israeli-soap-opera-episode-034
Comment: This is Tom Cooper’s (Sarcastosaurus) take on the latest Iranian missile strike on Israel. Judging by the way he entitled this article (Iranian-Israeli Soap Opera – Episode 517), he also thinks this attack displays elements of kabuki theater. And given that this attack did not deal Israel anything like a devastating blow, Israel’s explanations are reminiscent of the Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” If nothing else, Israel’s image of invincibility has been tarnished… once again.
Tom Cooper’s point about Iran not wanting to goad Netanyahu into nuking Iran is a good one. It’s Iran’s version of the Biden administration’s “escalation management” strategy in Ukraine. I’m sure the Biden administration is trying to apply some version of this strategy to Israel. We don’t want Netanyahu nuking Iran, but I don’t think Netanyahu is as bothered about the prospect as the rest of the world is.
And the latest satellite photos in this NPR article shows either Iran’s missiles are not as accurate at this range as they were on the much closer airbase attack in Iraq or Israel can determine the impact point of these missiles while in flight. But I have a feeling we’ll soon enough find out how Israel’s A2/AD system will deal with a larger attack with Iran’s first line missiles.
TTG
Iran fired at least 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening, an attack that marks a sharp escalation in the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Iran and could tip the region further into turmoil and a full-blown war.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement that the missile attack had been in retaliation for the assassinations of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah; Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh; and an Iranian commander. The statement said Iran would launch more missiles if Iran were attacked.
A spokesman for the Israeli military, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said a handful of missiles had landed in central and southern Israel, but most of the them had been intercepted. There were no immediate reports of casualties, he said. He said the attack appeared to be over by 8:30 p.m.
During the attack, air raid sirens sounded across Israel, including in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Loud booming explosions were heard above Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and flashes of light from the arcing intercepting rockets of Israel’s air defense system were visible. The salvo of missiles from Iran came a day after Israeli forces began a rare ground invasion of southern Lebanon aimed at crippling the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah there. Iran backs Hezbollah and Hamas, the two militias currently fighting Israel, as well as the Houthis in Yemen.
A senior White House official said the United States would help defend Israel and warned that a direct attack against Israel “will carry severe consequences for Iran.” The U.S. Embassy in Israel sent employees home and told them to be prepared to enter bomb shelters, the first such order in months.
Iran last attacked Israel in April, but Israel, with help from the United States, Jordan and others, intercepted almost all of the hundreds of missiles and drones fired at its territory. With the United States urging restraint, Israel’s response was muted; it fired at an air base near some of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but did not hit the facilities themselves.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/01/world/israel-lebanon-hezbollah
Comment: Is this kabuki theater attack, a retaliation for the killing of Nasrallah and others or something far more serious? We’ll see. No damage reports yet, but “at least eight people were killed and several more injured when two gunmen opened fire on a light rail train in Tel Aviv shortly after residents were urged to seek shelter from an Iranian missile attack.” There were no coordinated strikes from Hezbollah.
As in Ukraine, Russia, Lebanon and now Israel, an effective A2/AD capability, or lack thereof, seems to be a major determining factor in how one does in war.
TTG
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Hezbollah’s flexible chain of command, together with its extensive tunnel network and a vast arsenal of missiles and weapons it has bolstered over the past year, is helping it weather unprecedented Israeli strikes, three sources familiar with the Lebanese militant group’s operations said.
Israel’s assault on Hezbollah over the past week, including the targeting of senior commanders and the detonation of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies, has left the powerful Lebanese Shiite militant group and political party reeling. On Friday, Israel killed the commander who founded and led the group’s elite Radwan force, Ibrahim Aqil. And since Monday, Lebanon’s deadliest day of violence in decades, the health ministry says more than 560 people, among them 50 children, have died in air barrages.
The Israeli military chief of staff Herzi Halevi said on Sunday that Aqil’s death had shaken the organisation. Israel says its strikes have also destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rockets and shells.
But two of the sources familiar with Hezbollah operations said the group swiftly appointed replacements for Aqil and other senior figures killed in Friday’s airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an Aug. 1 speech that the group quickly fills gaps whenever a leader is killed. A fourth source, a Hezbollah official, said the attack on communication devices put 1,500 fighters out of commission because of their injuries, with many having been blinded or had their hands blown off.
While that is a major blow, it represents a fraction of Hezbollah’s strength, which a report for the U.S. Congress on Friday put at 40,000-50,000 fighters. Nasrallah has said the group has 100,000 fighters.
Since October, when Hezbollah began firing at Israel in October in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza, it has redeployed fighters to frontline areas in the south, including some from Syria, the three sources said. It has also been bringing rockets into Lebanon at a fast pace, anticipating a drawn-out conflict, the sources said, adding that the group sought to avoid all out war.
Hezbollah’s main supporter and weapons supplier is Iran. The group is the most powerful faction in Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance” of allied irregular forces across the Middle East. Many of its weapons are Iranian, Russian or Chinese models. The sources, who all asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, did not provide details of the weapons or where they were bought. Hezbollah’s media office did not reply to requests for comment for this story.
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, said that while Hezbollah operations had been disrupted by the past week’s attacks, the group’s networked organisational structure helped make it an extremely resilient force. “This is the most formidable enemy Israel has ever faced on the battlefield, not because of numbers and tech but in terms of resilience.”
Comment: Netanyahu has said the war against Hezbollah is entering a new phase. I’ve seen reports of Israeli armor massing on the border. Perhaps they’ll try a dash to the Litani… again. Israel needs that water badly. Over half of their water now comes from desalinization plants and the situation is getting worse. I think Netanyahu is more concerned about continuing a war to keep his corrupt ass out of jail than about thirsty Israelis.
Judging by this article, another run at the Tabouleh Line, as Colonel Lang called it, may not work much better than the last time. The IDF’s best chance is to mirror the Russian tactics of absolutely massive bombardments, total obliteration, prior to any advance. It’s what they did in Gaza. But I bet Hezbollah anticipates this. I recall the Green Devils of Monte Cassino did pretty well and exacted a heavy price from the Allied forces in the face of truly massive bombardments. Is Netanyahu willing to pay that price to keep his ass out of jail? Probably.
TTG
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2006/08/the_tabouleh_li.html
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2006/08/the_tabouleh_li_1.html
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2006/08/the_tabouleh_li_2.html
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