Category: Military

Nonsense

Military, The Gun Thing

Occasionally, something really stupid appears on Teh Intarwebz, like this:

I don’t even know if the Twatter account is real or not (I suspect not), but I do know several things:

  • wasting this Islamist scrote with a WWII rifle would be a romantic gesture, and today’s .dotmil is not renowned for its romantiscm
  • using the venerable .30-06 Springfield cartridge would likewise be romantic, but that might suggest that when someone absolutely, positively must be killed, all cartridges since the .30-06 are inadequate — in other words, using the boolets that we’ve been giving our boys to shoot the nation’s enemies since the 1940s won’t be up to snuff for the intended purpose
  • …which in turn would lead to suspicions that the 5.56 NATO poodleshooter is, indeed, a poodleshooter (as the late Jeff Cooper famously stated) rather than a lethal projectile
  • while all this time, the 7.62 NATO (.308 Win) is saying, “And what am I?  Chopped liver?”
  • and does the .dotmil even have any Garands in the arsenal, other than those decorative things used by the Marine Guard of Honor at Arlington National?

None of this passes the sniff test.

Those who know me well (and there are a few of you out there) will know that I am a romantic soul, and should the above silliness be true (instead of some puerile fantasy), I would be the first to do a Happy Dance.  (Better still that the bullets — of whatever caliber — were dipped in bacon fat beforehand, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

But let me be the first to say that even though I have considerable misgivings about the little .223, I would suggest that the simultaneous arrival of seven of the things in the heart area would have the same outcome as seven .30-cal bullets:  instantaneous death to the recipient.

So really, this is all a fuss over nothing.

Just as long as the deed gets done, I’m happy with the choice.

One idle question remains:  who gets to form the firing squad?  Will they call for volunteers from the military police?  Logic would suggest that be the answer, but for all I know, the .dotmil are planning to hand it over to the snake-eaters in SpecFor.

Just A Point, Here

Military

Talking about making America’s military great again (MAMGA?), this was said:

“The White House is seeking expanded manufacturing commitments from defense contractors, [and] is pressing automakers to convert spare production capacity to defense.”

Ummm the way I see it, the only “spare production capacity” that U.S. automakers have right now — because they sure as hell ain’t gonna quit making SUVs and pickup trucks — is in EV.  And I’m not so sure that the Dept. of War is looking for EV stuff unless it’s drones.

As always with Salamander, it’s a fine article.

Reader Question

Africa, Military

Reader Brian H. sends me this pic and asks:  “Seriously, which one is you?”

Seriously, neither could possibly be me:

  • I don’t smoke
  • I’m not Rhodesian
  • I wasn’t drafted till 1977
  • They’re holding guns, not a guitar, and finally:
  • I’d never wear those little shortie-pants in the African sun;  my lily-white skin would burn to a crisp in about half an hour.

But I’m flattered that you think I would have been in the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI).  Those guys were maniacs.

Not Much For The Grunts

Budgets, Military

I read this post at Insty’s place, wherein some people are complaining that the Pentagon is spending money on things like steak, ice cream, donuts and… lobster tails?  Go ahead and read it, because there are some telling points made.

However.

I have no way of checking on this, let alone quantifying it, but I think I’d sell my AK-47 if much (or any) lobster was being served in the enlisted men’s mess halls around the world.  In other words, I’m betting that those pricey lobster tails are being consumed by generals, military contractors and other REMFs, and not by the troops on the ground or at the sharp end.

Just so we’re all clear on my position on this:  I want the boys doing the hard work to eat whatever they want and whatever we can get to them. If that includes steak, ice cream, donuts or fucking lobster tails, then so be it.  But my concern for the diets of the aforementioned brass, leeches and REMFs drops off a cliff when it comes to said items.

To paraphrase some French* queen, let them eat Spam.

*I know, Marie Antoinette was Austrian.  Shuddup.

Related Actions

Military, Wars & Other Fun Games

First up, there’s this excellent thought from Bill Lehman (and read all of it because it’s excellent):

Take down their military structure. All of it. Take out their Quds Force, the entire IRGC in as far as we can find it, and leave their government, their military and their military logistics a pile of burning rubble. I would be a fan of flying a few hundred supply runs over Iran, C-17s and C-5s, full of crates of rifles, and ammunition, and dropping them, for the People of Iran to use, to finish the job. Then we need to LEAVE.

And here’s a manifestation of the above:

Thousands of Kurdish fighters have launched a ground invasion in Iran, according to a US official.  The Kurdish militias, based across the border in Iraq, began the offensive in northwestern Iran on Wednesday.  The Kurdish groups are widely seen as the most well-organized faction of the fragmented Iranian opposition and are believed to have thousands of battle-hardened fighters. 

President Donald Trump on Sunday night spoke with the heads of Kurdish militant groups in Iraq to discuss the situation in Iran.  The CIA was exploring plans to arm the Kurdish forces with the aim of sparking a popular uprising, CNN reported Tuesday. 

Yeah, I’m all over this idea, as long as we remember that sometime not so long ago we armed a group called the Taliban to rebel against the Russian invaders of Afghanistan, and that didn’t work out so well.  And I’m also a little apprehensive that these guys are coming over the border from Iraq — FFS, that whole area is a snake pit, isn’t it?

And just to remind everyone:  the PKK (main Kurdish political party) is soft-core Muslim but hardcore Marxist.  If that combination isn’t a toxic brew, I can’t think of a better one.  None of which bodes well for the future.

Me, I’d prefer to drop those rifles and machine guns into towns and villages all over Iran, after first notifying the local resistance leaders — we know who they are, right, CIA? — where and when the guns are going to arrive so that they aren’t just taken by the IRGC fanatics when the crates hit the ground.  Using history as a pointer, this would be akin to randomly air-dropping guns into Nazi-occupied Europe, only to have the SS intercept the shipments and use them for their own purposes, i.e. killing resistance fighters (and a few Jews, just for fun).

It’s all a little complicated and so on, but in this case, anything is better than dropping American boots on the ground to handle the thing.  Once again, a history lesson:  Afghanistan and a little further back, Vietnam.

Guns and ammo are cheap;  American lives are expensive, and worth more than the game.  Especially in this Middle Eastern shit pit.