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The Howdah pistol
I shamelessly clipped this from Tom Kratman and farcebook a couple days ago. I thought it was a pretty good post. I have blogged a bit about “Battleships” in the past on my blog.
In Starship Troopers Heinlein listed as one of the branches possibly open to Rico, “Combat Ecology.” I’ve always thought that referred not to saving the interstellar snail darter, but the relationship between weapons systems and tactics that advance some groups and depress or eliminate the use of others.
Hence, this very thoughtful peace from Quora on, though the author didn’t phrase it that way, the combat ecology of the battleship:
Could a modern navy build a new class of battleships, or would such vessels be obsolete?
Eric Husher, former Senior Balkan Intelligence Analyst (1992-1996)
Answered Feb 12 · Upvoted by Olan Prentice, Veteran at United States Navy
The short answer is ‘no,’ as I will explain.
I think one of the more pernicious myths is that ‘the battleship was made obsolete by the aircraft carrier and has no function today.’
You see this in book after book, but a closer examination of the facts indicates otherwise.
It is important to understand a few things about battleships before talking about ‘obsolescence’ or aircraft carriers, and the FIRST thing to know is that battleships are the direct descendants of the ‘line of battle’ of Nelson’s time.
In other words, they were NEVER intended to operate alone, or as ‘a pair,’ but as a SQUADRON of no fewer than four, and preferably more, with the squadron being considered the minimum necessary to conduct all maneuvering evolutions. Squadrons would be combined to produce fleets, and it was the squadron that was used as the minimum tactical unit for battleships. This ‘understanding’ held true until WW2, when events forced navies to use battleships otherwise, and with invariably poor results.
The next thing to know is that battleships were not just intended to deliver powerful blows (like modern warships), but to RECEIVE and WITHSTAND powerful blows as well (unlike modern warships), and thus, could not just ‘stand in the line,’ but STAY in the line regardless of multiple hits.
It was this dual function that produced the international naval armaments race prior to WW1, as newer and stronger forms of armor and design were developed, and at the same time, newer and more powerful naval guns were successively produced to defeat that armor.
Such ships produced from the 1880’s until the end of the ‘battleship era’ at the conclusion of WW2, were rapidly made obsolete by these rapid advances, such that a battleship might only have a useful life of less than ten years before being superceded by a much more powerful version, and of course, this was a VERY expensive proposition.
As well, the logistics tail necessary to produce a battleship, its armor, engines and weaponry was likewise very expensive and quite specialized in nature and with little application outside the production of more battleships.
Consider the equipment necessary to found, forge, and roll out enormous plates of armor steel as much as 16″ thick, and you get some idea what I am talking about.
This ‘process’ and ‘race’ by nations to create the ‘ultimate’ battlefleet found its ultimate expression just before WW1 with the invention and production of the ‘dreadnoughts;’ heavily plated with armor belts up to 14″ thick, oil-fired turbine engines to produce a minimum speed of 20 knots, and an ‘all-big gun’ armament of eight or more guns firing 11″ to 15″ diameter shells as much as 20 KM to hit their targets.
These dreadnought battleships, and their dreadnought battlecruiser escorts proved their worth and lived up to their reputations in WW1, but because they WERE so expensive to produce, and any losses would represent such a loss of national treasure, there was a fair bit of concern as to how boldly they might be used.
The Germans in particular (because they were outnumbered by the British navy), were loath to ‘commit’ their fleet in anything other than an opportunity whereby they might outnumber the British by trying to isolate a squadron or two of British ships that they might then destroy with their own numbers.
The British attempted numerous times to achieve the same effect, but at the end of the day, there were really only three significant clashes between the behemoths, at the Falklands, Dogger Bank, and of course, Jutland.
The ‘performance’ of the battleships in the clashes can be considered not just by the amount of hits achieved, and damage inflicted, but by the number of times these ships were hit and did NOT simply explode or immediately sink, but in fact ‘stayed in the line’ and returned home in some cases wounded, but alive.
The German battlescruisers were each hit by as many as 28 heavy shells of 12″, 13.5″ and 15″ shells, yet CONTINUED to fight and return damage of their own (three British battlecruisers were sunk that day, in return for the loss of but one German battlecruiser).
Such was the concern over the capabilities and expense of these ships, that after the war, long thought was given to the need to restrict the building of further battleships, and the reduction in the number of existing battleships both as a means of ‘improving the chances for a lasting peace,’ but more importantly, to protect the nations from bankruptcy.
The goal of these various treaties and negotiations was to produce national fleets that were much smaller than those of the Great War and prior, with the leading nations restricted to no more than two or three battleship squadrons, depending on the nation involved (the US got three squadrons, as did the Brits, but the Japanese were only allowed two, the French and Italians one each, and the Germans NONE).
By the middle of the 1930’s, many of these battleships were becoming quite elderly, and replacements were designed on much more modern principles, with serious thought given to the threat of air-power. It is concurrent with this period that the first fleet aircraft carriers became fully operational.
Because of the reduced size of the battleship fleets available, some nations, particularly the Japanese considered that the only way to achieve the kind parity necessary to fight on an equal footing was through increasing the size, firepower and armor of any new ships built.
This was the origin of the ‘Yamato’ class super-battleships. Other countries like the US and Britain were similarly concerned, but with more modest ideas, such as the American ‘North Carolina’ class, and the British ‘Rodney’ class.
Other nations were concerned with the rise of such threats as the German ‘pocket battleships’ of the ‘Graf Spee’ class (which in reality were not much more than rather slow heavy cruisers), producing a couple new battlecruisers of the ‘Dunkerque’ class, but generally speaking, none of these materially increased the sizes of the fleets concerned, and with the restrictions on battleship production, all navies turned to the ‘Heavy Cruiser’ as their means for fleet expansion, and just as was the case prior to WW1, produced yet another ‘arms race’ to produce the most capable heavy cruisers possible within the treaty tonnage regulations.
The result of all of this was two-fold; the remaining battleships were now even MORE precious than they were during WW1, and many of the ‘tasks’ previously assigned to battleship or battlecruiser squadrons were now assigned to the heavy cruisers, and all the while the aircraft carriers became more capable and more dangerous, with the actual ‘threat’ being brought home by the British at Taranto, and the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.
NOTE: At this early point in WW2, battleships were now being deployed in pairs, not squadrons, both because of the lack of available battleships, and the concurrent loss of
OPPOSING battle squadrons. This was the case for the Bismarck’s first and final cruise, opposed by a battleship and a battlecruiser (Hood), the latter of which was sunk by the German guns, but the Bismarck after escaping further attacks by the British battleship, was tracked down first crippled by aircraft torpedoes, and then finished off by a combined squadron of battleships, heavy cruisers and destroyers. Bismarck was ALONE.
The Italians had a number of sorties with their battleships, invariably in pairs, and they accomplished little when faced by a similar number of British battleships and cruisers accompanied by aircraft carriers, and it was this that became the key to the future, the combined ‘task force.’
In the Pacific, the severe blow against the US battleship fleet by the Japanese as well as the British loss of a battleship and battlecruiser (again, operating ALONE and without air support) meant that there were essentially too many areas to cover to allow for the kind of ‘squadron operations’ for which the battleships were designed, and instead, the fast battleships were deployed singly, or in pairs as escorts for carrier task forces, and the heavy cruisers took up the tasks that once would have been assigned to battleships.
As such the battleships were not really intended to provide ‘surface support,’ though of course that would be readily available in the event of a surface attack, but instead to use their formidable air defenses to cover the carrier from air attack, and in this role, the American battleships eventually ruled supreme.
On the Japanese side, while they would often provide a ‘Kongo’ class battleship to escort carrier groups, the Japanese never assembled the kind of ‘task forces’ made so effective by the Americans. Part of the reason for this was the Japanese did NOT want to expose their battleships to situations where they might be lost individually, but preferring to keep them ‘in reserve’ for what they hoped would be a climactic ‘final battle’ in which they WOULD be used in squadrons against a weakened American fleet.
But here comes the interesting and notable part. When the Japanese finally DID deploy their battleships in squadrons (Leyte Gulf to the battle of Samar), they were duly attacked by swarms of American aircraft, HUNDREDS of American aircraft, equipped with 500 and 1000 lb bombs and torpedoes too.
But only ONE of the Japanese battleships (‘Musashi’) was STOPPED by the aircraft, and only after receiving 19 torpedoes, and 17 heavy bomb hits over three continuous hours of air strikes before she was sunk!
ANY of these kind of hits would have stopped, or even sunk most modern warships, and in the MEANTIME, the REST of the Japanese battleships and cruisers proceeded to their destination and point of attack.
Yes, these ships were eventually driven off by hundreds more American planes, but no more battleships were lost in this quadrant, and they RETURNED to Japan for further use.
Further South, a PAIR of Japanese battleships accompanied by heavy cruisers managed to escape the attentions of the American aircraft and proceeded down Surigao Straight by night, with the idea of attacking the American landing force from the rear.
Unfortunately, they were met by… TWO SQUADRONS of American battleships, in a classic ‘line of battle,’ and after a number of broadside salvoes, BOTH Japanese battleships were SUNK, the cruisers were damaged and several destroyers likewise sunk. ‘See the difference?’
In a different scenario, that also involved waves of carrier aircraft flying against battleships, the example of the ‘Marianas Turkey shoot’ otherwise known as the ‘Battle of the Philippine Sea’ provides yet another example of the relative inability of aircraft against battleships.
In this case, the American fleet was steaming North for the preliminaries of the invasion of the Philippines, and this brought the last big effort by the Japanese carrier forces to bear. However, while their primary targets were the big American carriers, in order to GET to them, they had to fly over an American battleship squadron and cruiser/destroyer task force in a ‘ring’ formation that stretched over tens of miles.
As the waves of Japanese attack planes flew over, they were MOWN down by battleship anti-aircraft fire using ‘proximity fuses,’ and hundreds of Japanese planes were shot down before they ever arrived in the vicinity of the American carriers.
Once again, battleships operating as a squadron at sea are a devastating force to contend with.
So what HAPPENED at the end of WW2? Why were no new battleships built, if they were such powerful warships? TWO things happened; the first being the atomic bomb, which was used in several tests against anchored fleets to see ‘what would happen,’ and the results were pretty devastating, even though many of the battleships so employed actually SURVIVED the tests.
The second was the fact that, other than the United States and the UK, no one else HAD any battleships to speak of, let alone ‘squadrons.’ Britain finished ONE new battleship after the war (Vanguard), and the French had one, and finished another (Richelieu and Jean Bart), but their industries were largely destroyed by the war, and Britain’s economy was destroyed by the war, all heavy industry in Europe was destroyed by the war, and the Soviet Union was likewise devastated.
At the same time, the US at this point now had 12 modern fast battleships, and a bunch of old ones (soon to be decommissioned), and an untouched industrial base and economy too. In other words, there was NO ONE ‘available’ to provide any naval competition, and with the Brits rapidly decommissioning and scrapping its battleships, soon to be followed by France, there was simply no CHALLENGE to the mighty American battlefleet.
But battleships are expensive to maintain, and expensive to man, and as we already had an unrivalled fleet of aircraft carriers, there seemed to be no further USE for the battleships, and one by one they were put into mothballs, scrapped, or turned into ‘memorials.’ At the same time, the steel industries, now no longer needed to produce battleships, quickly scrapped the heavy and expensive equipment needed to build them, and by the mid-1960’s there was no longer the CAPABILITY to ‘build battleships,’ even if we wanted to.
It is for this reason the last and most modern class of American battleship, the ‘New Jersey’ class, have REMAINED in operational condition, and in fact, they have been dragged out of mothballs and recommissioned several times since WW2, including Korea, Vietnam, and their last deployment was for the First Gulf War.
That is not an ‘indication’ that battleships or the battleship concept is any way ‘obsolete,’ because regardless of whether a weapon delivery system consists of a heavy shell, or a bomb, torpedo or even missile, the fact STILL remains that these are ALL designed to deliver a large explosive against a warship, even if the delivery ‘method’ is different.
In EVERY case, the battleship REMAINS ‘standing in the line’ if hit by ANY such, not just once or twice, but again and again, and that can NEVER be considered ‘obsolete.’
ANd here is the information from “Wiki” about the proposed “Trump Class Battleships“
Personally to me the Jury is out on that class of ship, as much as I would like to see one.
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Russia’s Secret American Air Force
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That is a lot of Red Coats!
“One With Britain, Heart and Soul, One Life, One Flag, One Throne!” A Large Group Portrait of the Soldiers of the British Empire (1898)
“We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do/ We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!
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When the Lt knows a shortcut.
Duke firing his Chinese-contract Inglis Hi Power 9mm with wooden shoulder stock/holster.
Here’s a conundrum for you — what World War II pistol had the same name, fired the same cartridge but were made by two different manufacturers on different continents and issued to opposing sides? They were the FN (Fabrique Nationale/Belgium) 9mm Hi-Power and Inglis (John Inglis/Canada) 9mm Hi Power.
The FN factory was seized by the German Wehrmacht in 1940 and all its production of weapons were diverted for use by Axis forces. Prime among those weapons was the Browning Hi-Power, aka the P35. The Nazi SS especially was known to favor Hi-Powers. On the other hand, the Inglis Hi Power made in Canada were intended for Canada’s military, plus Britain’s and even the Nationalist Chinese.
Top is the Inglis Hi Power made for the Canadian and British forces in 1944/1945.
Middle is Inglis Hi Power made for the National Chinese with wooden shoulder stock/holster.
Bottom is the FN Hi-Power 9mm made in Belgium for the German Wehrmacht.
Two Tales
There are two basic stories of how the Inglis Hi Power came to be. One is six FN Hi-Powers were smuggled from Belgium to Canada then reverse engineered. The second story — and likely the correct one — is six Belgium-made Hi-Powers were obtained from China by Inglis and reverse engineered.
This information came from a booklet titled The Inglis-Browning Hi Power Pistol by R. Blake Stevens. Mr. Stevens also reported Inglis Hi Power production did not start until February 1944 and ended in September 1945. Despite the short period of manufacture, 151,816 were made.
FN and Inglis Hi Power pistols look the same but are different. Some but not all parts may interchange but from my own experience, their magazines do. When the Inglis engineers designed their Hi Power, they changed screw threads from metric to American National Form (ANF) — inches, in other words. Belgian-made Hi-Powers still received a blued finish with wooden grips while the Inglis Hi Power was given a phosphate finish (Parkerizing) and checkered grips of a synthetic material.
One small factor gives the Canadian version a plus in my mind — their front sights are blades fitted into a dovetail on the slide while the Belgium Hi-Power has a staked-in blade front sight. Thusly, the Canadian version can be fitted with four inserts of varying heights ranging from 0.125″ to 0.165″ and drifted laterally for zeroing. Interestingly, they were adjusted for point of impact at 20 yards. America’s U.S. Model 1911/1911A1 were set for 50 yards.
According to Steven’s booklet, Inglis specs were barrels of 4.875″ with six-groove, right-hand rifling of one turn in 10″. Weight empty was 2 lbs., 1 oz. Magazines were double stack but single feed. A lanyard ring was installed on the left side at the bottom of the grip panel. Safety was an up/down latch at the rear of the slide. Hi-Power pistols from both sides had magazine safeties, meaning the pistols could not be fired when the magazine was absent. There was also a half-cock notch on the hammer.
Inglis copies were made in two basic styles. For the Canadian and British militaries there was a simple non-moveable notched rear sight coupled with the already mentioned dovetailed front. For the Nationalist Chinese, the Inglis Hi Power was fitted with a tangent style rear sight, which could be raised in increments from 50 to 500 yards — ridiculously optimistic for 115-grain bullets at about 1,250 fps!
The Chinese/Inglis pistols also had a fixture at the back of the grip frame so wooden shoulder stocks, also serving as wooden holsters, could be fitted. The Hi Power meant for China had a CH as part of their serial numbers. Early Chinese contract versions also had Chinese characters stamped on their slides while later ones did not.
Here is one last tiny interesting feature — even though the Inglis Hi Power pistols were actually a counterfeit, their slides did carry the name Browning. Also, unlike most military firearms of this era, Inglis Hi Powers were caliber stamped “9mm.”
One advantage the Inglis Hi Power has over the FN Hi-Power is its front sight
is dovetailed to the slide so it can be moved laterally for windage or replaced
with a differing height as needed for elevation.
Judgment
This brings us to my Hi-Power experiences. For years I owned 9mm Inglis of both types. However, I came to favor the Chinese version with its tangent sight and wooden holster/stock and sold the one made for Canadian and British issue. Why? The Chinese one is so unique and fun to shoot with the stock fitted.
Also, I should mention I have a World War II FN Hi-Power and sometimes shoot the two side by side. Once in a while, I also include my World War II vintage German P08 (Luger) and P38 (Walther).
Here’s my opinion — the German 9mm and the FN Hi-Power are better finished and fitted handguns while the Inglis Hi Power is just a mite crude. With some factory loads and handloads, the German P08 and P38 occasionally have a failure-to-feed or extract, especially the Luger. Neither one of my Inglis Hi Powers have ever had a failure to function, period. They are amazingly reliable.
In this article, Dr. Will Dabbs discusses why he carries a firearm for self-defense. The article includes discussing a real person with a serious mental illness. Real names have not been used. Nothing in this narrative is intended to disparage or stigmatize those who might suffer from any medical condition. However, it is a dangerous world. It behooves one to face potential danger with his or her eyes open to the risks they might face.
Crazy is a lyrically overused term these days. Psychiatrists institutionally despise that word. Labels are passe in today’s enlightened society. Such antiquated terminology invariably foments subconscious bias.
What most people mean when they use the word “crazy” is psychosis. Distilled to its essence, this just means disconnected from reality. People with schizophrenia, for example, typically hear voices or, more rarely, see things that are objectively not real. The age of onset is typically late teens or early twenties. The experience is uniformly horrifying for all involved, particularly the patient.
The overwhelming majority of folks who develop such maladies are utterly harmless. They might make you feel a little bit weird when first you meet. However, once you get to know them, in my experience they are people just like the rest of us. In fact, I’ve found that schizophrenics and folks with notable bipolar disorder are often a bit more artistic and creative than the rest of us. AntiSocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), by contrast, reflects an inability to empathize with the suffering of others.
One cute little blonde-headed kid I met in the hospital with ASPD looked perfectly normal. However, he came to us because he had spontaneously stabbed his foster mother in the thigh with a pencil. Thankfully, such extreme psychopathy is fairly rare. However, it is in those rare outliers where the real danger can be found.
Arnold Eats a Hypodermic Needle
I met the subject of this article in the ER of a large metropolitan trauma center. Let’s call him “Frank.” He was 25 years old. At first impressions, Frank was incredibly imposing. I would guess he was maybe six feet one and weighed perhaps 210 pounds without a gram of extraneous body fat. This guy was built like Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1984. He was a simply incredible specimen.
Frank’s family had brought him to the ER because he was acting strangely at home. In the presence of a nurse, he proceeded to swallow a drywall screw along with a hypodermic needle he had retrieved from a sharps container. This bought him a ticket to the lockdown psych ward.
Frank was engaging and articulate, if a bit strange. I inquired regarding his story, and he was quite forthright. Frank ultimately taught me quite a lot. One of the things he taught me was that I should never leave the house without a gun. Let me explain.
Talking to Demons
When Frank was a teenager he developed an insatiable interest in the occult. He said he read rapaciously on the subject and subsequently began actively praying to Satan. When the time was right, he said he asked the Prince of Darkness to send him some company. At the time of our meeting, Frank said his head played home to three entities — Dagon, Demidagon, and Begorred. He said one of the three talked to him all the time.
Frank eventually took a job in a rough part of town. One day he was strolling past a group of four males just listening to his three demons having a confab. One of the three, I forget which, directed his attention to the four men. Let’s assume it was Dagon.
Dagon pointed out one man in particular for attention. He told Frank that he needed to “do something” about that guy. When Frank pushed back, Dagon explained that, if he failed to “do something,” then the man might hurt somebody. Frank explained that he didn’t care. Dagon said failure to intervene meant that this gentleman would actually hurt Frank.
My new friend then walked up to a total stranger and killed him because the voices in his head told him to do so.
Unsettling Thoughts…
Frank spent the next several years in prison. As near as I could tell, all he did for those years was lift weights. He had been released some 30 days before we met. He stopped taking his medications, and, before you know it, was snarfing hypodermic needles in the ER. As an aside, the needle and the screw passed of their own accord without further intervention. The human body is a simply breathtaking machine.
The following morning I returned to his room, this time at the head of a train of nursing students, PT students, and sundry straphangers. Of the nine of us who went into Frank’s room, I was, incongruously, the only physician and the sole male. We were arrayed in a line with me being farthest from the door. Frank was sitting up in bed shirtless with the sheet pulled up to his waist. As I mentioned, he was jacked like an absolute beast.
Once we filed in, Frank suddenly shouted at everybody to stop. To use a tired metaphor, time momentarily stood still. I didn’t know if he was about to kill and eat me, the girls, or some random sampling. He put his hands together in a strangely unnatural way and indexed to each of us one at a time, twirling his mitts rhythmically in our direction. Once he completed this exercise he smiled and pleasantly asked what he could do for us. I naturally asked him what exactly it was that he had just done.
Explaining as he might to a child, Frank said he knew we were coming to visit that morning. He elaborated that, the night before, he had moved all the furniture aside before drawing a big pentagram on the floor with soap. He said this was designed to keep us safe while we were with him in his room. When he realized that the soap pentagram was invisible, he made do with this weird individual counter-curse hand thing. I thanked him for both the explanation and the effort.
The Mental Health and Medical Intervention Problem
Inpatient facilities for the mentally ill are incredibly expensive. By contrast, anti-psychotic drugs are relatively cheap. In their defense, these medications do typically work quite well…if you take them as you should. In Frank’s case, he explained that the voices in his head would direct him to stop his medications from time to time when they needed him to “think clearly.” Just such a chain of events had brought him to the hospital that evening.
Rare, But Real…
Frank was a nice kid with a really bad disease. The overwhelming majority of those similarly afflicted are quite incapable of the sorts of violence that bought Frank several years in the state pen. Fortunately, Frank remained peaceful and calm when we interacted with him. I fear what might have happened if he had not.
Those of us fortunate enough not to carry such a weighty burden should take great care not to stigmatize those who do. However, for that rare minority who do embrace the darkness, I pack a gun. Until and unless they do something that brings them into the light, these folks do indeed walk among us. I feel it’s simply sound policy for me to be prepared if I must face a deadly and unavoidable threat.