When I was in middle and high school, I was a Star Wars geek. Besides binge-reading RPG sourcebooks, I was a big fan of the 90s Bantam novels, particularly those of Timothy Zahn and Michael Stackpole, which are generally considered to be the best of that vintage.¹ But there was one other author from that era who I really liked, despite his stuff being rather more obscure. It was Michael P. Kube-McDowell's Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, and it took me quite a while to work out why I liked it so much.²

Unlike anyone else I've read in Star Wars, Kube-McDowell captured the flavor of a real-world military. There's the sense of dealing with an immense machine, made up of a zillion moving parts and roughly focused on a goal, with all of the scars of bureaucracy and lessons learned that implies. This starts on the first page of Chapter 1: "At the same time, the carriers and cruisers began to disgorge the bombers, transports, and gunboats they had ferried to the battle. There was no reason to risk the loss of one fully loaded—a lesson the Republic had learned in pain. At Orinda, the commander of the fleet carrier Endurance had kept his pilots waiting in the launch bays, to protect the smaller craft from Imperial fire as long as possible. They were still there when Endurance took the brunt of a Super Star Destroyer attack and vanished in a ball of metal fire." This is an excellent example of doctrine, dropped naturally into the text, a subject often ignored in fiction. Later on, we get a rough TOE for a New Republic Fleet³ and other doctrinal asides, as well as the general sense that we're looking at a group of dedicated professionals, not just a bunch of people having an adventure fighting the threat of the week who also happen to have ranks.⁴ Read more...

While reading Norman Friedman's British Carrier Aviation, I stumbled across a gem of a story that perfectly illustrated how important organizational structure can be to the design of things (in this case ships) in the physical world. More specifically, how the British decision to consolidate all of their aviation assets into the Royal Air Force in 1918 handicapped their carrier aviation two decades later.

USS Randolph and HMS Indefatigable together off Japan

The fact that naval aviation was under the control of the RAF posed two problems. The first, which I've discussed previously, is that the RAF focused primarily on the direct use of airpower, starving the naval aviation community of funding and leaving the RN with a small force of rather bad planes when war broke out. The second problem was more subtle. Even the naval aviation forces that did exist reported up to the RAF, which meant that they had an outsize voice in carrier design and operation. And while this was undoubtedly nice for the pilots, it turned out that what was good for the pilots wasn't necessarily what was best in wartime. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't culture war.

A friend recently visited Missouri, and informed me that an important thing to know (particularly if you have a tour booked) is that access to the ship is rather complicated. You park in a remote lot, then take a bus to the ship, and the bus runs every 15 minutes. So if you are planning a visit and want to take the (very well-priced) engineering tour, show up early.

Overhauls are my reviews of Charleston Navy Yard and Battleship Cove, A Brief Overview of the United States Fleet, Lasers at Sea Parts two and three and for 2023, Military Spaceflight Parts five and six.

Reader John Olsen has contributed a rare European museum review, this one of the Danish steam frigate Jylland, one of the ships that falls between the introduction of steam and steel.

Steam frigate Jylland, permanently drydocked in Ebeltoft, Denmark.

Website

Introduction

Launched in 1860, the Danish frigate Jylland (Jutland)⁵ was third in a series of four planned ships. Whereas her two older sisters Niels Juel and Sjælland were built with sails only, Jylland was built from the outset with a steam engine to supplement the sails. Niels Juel and Sjælland were later rebuilt to include a steam plant, while a fourth ship, the Peder Skram, was completed as a larger, and armored, evolution of the Jylland, based on lessons from the famed 1862 battle of Hampton Roads. Jylland herself would make her claim to fame at the Battle of Heligoland Bight,⁶ during the 1864 war between Denmark and an alliance of Prussia and Austria. Read more...

Critiques of the defense industry are not hard to find. Claims of overpriced, underperforming systems abound. These are often the result of ignorance, but even the industry's staunchest defenders have to admit that something is deeply wrong. And I agree, but I think that the standard narrative of why this happens fundamentally misunderstands the drivers of the problem, which means that things keep getting worse and worse. I'm not sure there is actually a solution, but at the very least, a better understanding of the problem will keep us from solving the wrong one.

I should lay my cards on the table here. I'm an engineer with a major defense contractor who you have almost certainly heard of.⁷ Much of this is based on my experience, closing in on seven years now, in the trenches, trying to deliver products to the military. Some of the stuff I've worked on has finally fielded. To some extent, this is an introduction to a contractor's-eye view of the issues in the industry, although I have tried to be fair to both sides. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

Overhauls are Weird British Anti-Ship Weapons of WWII and for 2023, Military Spaceflight Part 4 and NWAS Trident Part 3.

The Motherly One and I went to Boise, Idaho to attend a wedding so we decided to add a few days on the front end to check out the town. We did the State Capitol, which was a disappointment as nothing was open within the building and it was somewhat boring as everything was the same white marble. We also planned to check out the Warhawk Museum, the Old Idaho State Penitentiary and found on the grounds of the Old State Pen, the J. Curtis Earl Weapons Collection.

Warhawk Museum

Nampa, ID
$15 for normal adults, kids are $5, discounts for seniors and veterans.
Website

As the Motherly One stated “This is a war museum with a few airplanes thrown in” and I agree. There were tons of war memorabilia which is not military equipment but personal artifacts and stories of men and women who have served in the armed forces from WW I and forward. The self-guided tour has over 300 entries in the provided paper guide and if you wish to go digital there is also an app you can download. Read more...

In the Naval Gazing Discord, John Schilling shared this analysis of the Ukrainian offensive of the past few days, and I asked him if I could post it here:

OK, I've had a chance to go through my usual sources, and I'm beginning to get a coherent picture of what's going on in Kursk:

Map not endorsed by John, but ISW has been a standard source throughout the war

It’s pretty solidly confirmed that Ukraine is digging in around Sudzha, about 10 km inside Russia proper. This is the site of a major natural gas pipeline junction & terminal, but I don’t think that’s actually very important – if the Ukrainians wanted to shut that down, they could have done it with their own artillery pretty much any time since March 2022. There are also reports of Ukraine defending against counterattacks in Kurenevo, NW of Sudzha and about 25 km inside the border. Credible reports of Ukrainian forces in Molyivtina(sp?), 35 km north of the border, and credible but unconfirmed about 50 km NE along the R-200 highway – more than halfway to the city of Kursk.

Those last, if true, are at the tips of narrow salients and probably raids rather than attempts to clear and secure territory. There are many reports of Ukraine bypassing and isolating Russian strongpoints; I’m going to tentatively guess that they are clearing and securing most everything inside the Sudzha/Kurenevo perimeter, and just raiding outside that. But their raiding parties may be just 25 km from the Kursk nuclear power station, and 30 km from the E-105 highway from Kursk to Belgorod, and Russia still doesn’t seem to have a firm defense in place.

Ukraine has pretty clearly achieved tactical and operational surprise in this operation, which is an impressive achievement in a world of ubiquitous satellites, drones, and social media. I’m leaning towards the theory that Putin pulled a Stalin, looking at reports of German, er, Ukrainian troops massing along a weakly-defended border and doing nothing because invasion was literally unthinkable, he’s the guy who does invasions, and there’s no place for something like this in the Master Plan.

Ukraine appears to be bringing their A-team to this one, the 22nd and 116th mechanized brigades and 82nd air assault (really another mech brigade), among others. These aren’t the light infantry and motorized cavalry raiders we’ve seen before. On the Russian side, confirmed reports of the 488th Guards motor rifle regiment taking losses, but also T-62s and MT-LB technicals being brought up. So more of a “whatever’s available” stopgap defense rather than a coordinated counterattack. This does suggest that Ukraine is drawing relatively more of its own forces away from the Donbas than Russia is, so Ukraine seems to value this operation for its own sake rather than just to relieve pressure elsewhere.

There have been concurrent amphibious raids on the Kinburn Spit in southern Kherson, which may be intended to prevent Russia from redeploying from Kherson to Kursk. Also substantial drone strikes at the Lipetsk and Morozovsk airfields, fairly deep inside Russia, reportedly destroying stockpiled munitions. The Lipetsk strike came after the initial Kursk assault, and may have taken advantage of disrupted EW coverage – the Russians will eventually reconstitute that, not sure how long it will take. For now, Russia will be handicapped in using air power to block the Ukrainian advance.

The Ukrainians have been taking POWs by the hundreds, at least, and mostly conscripts. This matters, because conscript POWs are a much bigger deal in Russian civil society than misplaced “contract soldiers”. Hence Moscow generally keeping the conscripts inside Russia and pushing the contract regulars into Ukraine. A hefty batch of conscript POWs could be a substantial bargaining chip in, e.g., a future prisoner exchange.

How logistically sustainable all this is, is an open question. I expect Ukraine can keep brigades just over the border in Sudzha supplied almost as well as they can the brigades playing defense in the Donbas, but that problem gets exponentially harder the deeper they advance into Russia. One key indicator will be any attempt to repair rail links across the border and establish Sudzha as a railhead.

Ukraine has been using Marders on Russian soil, and HIMARS in more than a counterbattery role, which I think would have been a no-no a few months ago, but the US and NATO are now apparently OK with that and the US has explicitly said so. Ukraine is reportedly asking permission to use ATACMs in support of this offensive, but hasn’t done so yet. No F-16s, Leopards, or Abrams that anyone has seen. Which is a pity, because I really want the Second Battle of Kursk to involve M1A2s going up against hastily-demothballized T-34/85s.

Suggests that there’s a political dimension to this, and it may not be a coincidence that this comes about a month after Biden dropped his bid for a second term. Possibly Biden is trying to lock in his legacy with a foreign-policy win, taking the gloves off Ukraine, or possibly Biden has just lost interest in the whole thing and his national security team is responsible for the new posture. I’m skeptical of the latter, but who knows. On the Ukrainian side, Zelenskyy et al may feel they need a game-changing victory before November, lest the next POTUS decide to quietly forget about Ukraine.

Also on the political dimension, there’s been a lot of pressure on the Western side to treat the conflict as an irredeemable stalemate and push for a ceasefire along current lines. And increasingly rumors that Russia was pushing for the same thing, at least for now. Redefining “current lines” to include a big chunk of Russian territory under Ukrainian control, pretty much takes that off the table. And if there’s going to be a ceasefire with exchange of territory, the Schelling point is pretty obviously “all of yours for all of ours, back to prewar borders”, though I think 2022 borders are more realistic than 2014 in that regard.

Also also on the political front, the “Oh noes, we can’t have Russia lose this war or they’ll throw a nuclear temper tantrum and kill us all!” faction has taken a big hit. A Moscow that demonstrably won’t go nuclear against an invading army taking and holding significant territory inside Russia, is a Moscow that is highly unlikely to go nuclear just because it was forced out of the Donbas. That wasn’t absolutely knowable in advance, which makes this a particularly ballsy move for Kyiv, but it looks like a winning play now.

As for why the Ukrainians are doing all of this, several possible concrete motives have been alluded to above. But this is war, and war is more than a concrete physical exercise. This offensive changes the narrative, from “slow grinding Ukrainian defeat” to “anything can happen”. And the narrative matters. Morale, definitely matters, and this is going to be a big boost on the Ukrainian side as well as a downer in Russia.

Ships only sink when you let air out and water in. This fundamental truth was a problem during the age of the gun, as gunfire, while quite effective at disabling the enemy, is not particularly good at either. Even the occasional shot "between wind and water" was unlikely to sink the enemy very quickly. Shot also had a second problem, in that the guns to deliver it were large and expensive, and required big ships to carry them.

Cornelis Drebble

The obvious way to solve this was to use explosives, and the first man to make a serious attempt at this was Dutch inventor Cornelis Drebbel, who developed what we now know as the spar torpedo as a weapon for his submarine, the first ever to successfully navigate underwater. His concept was extremely simple, a bomb on the end of a stick, which would be set off in contact with the enemy ship. Details about use are unclear, but he was a consultant to the British Admiralty for several years before they apparently became disillusioned with the idea and fired him. Read more...

It's time for our usual Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

Overhauls are Signalling Part 4, EABO and LAW and for 2023 my review of Fort MacArthur and Military Spaceflight Part 3.