Military Matters, Briefly

I’m sure most readers have seen the stories recently about the severe recruitment problems facing the US military. Here’s a good example:

Biden Administration Intentionally Weakening Military: Retired General

Boykin [Lt. General (Ret.) William Boykin] believes weakness is more than an international perception, and he gave examples of how Biden is intentionally weakening the military, including kicking out service members who refused to get the COVID-19 shot and teaching critical race theory and inclusion tolerance instead of teaching how to be in a constant state of readiness for war.

“All of these things that have nothing to do with the mission and everything to do with the agenda of the administration—you are doing them an injustice and ultimately you’re going to pay the price for that,” Boykin said.

“At the same time, they’re turning around and writing to old generals like me, saying, ‘We need help recruiting because we just can’t recruit enough people.’ Well let me explain to you how this thing of mathematics works. You get rid of all of them, and then those who are watching from the outside say, ‘I don’t want a part of that.’ And those on the inside, many of them leave on their own.”

Many in leadership at the Pentagon got their start under President Barack Obama, Boykin said.

“If they’re compromised—if they lack focus, the question we need to ask as a nation is, who’s mentoring the next generation of leaders? Who’s bringing up the warrior leaders for the future? The answer is nobody,” he said. “And that’s the hardest thing to fix in terms of restoring the Navy and the Army and Air Force and the Marine Corps.”

Judging from these articles, the challenge facing the Russians and Chinese will be how to deal with a US military that’s understrength, fatter, dumber, and sexually confused. Will they be up to the challenge?

A few days ago a commenter wrote about the Russians being so short of tanks that they were having to use “obsolete” T-62 tanks (in fact, Russia has also deployed T-90s). I responded at some length regarding the T-62. Today at The New Atlas Brian Berletic had an interesting discussion on Ukrainian pleas for more and better airplanes, air defense, and tanks. It’s all good stuff for military watchers: Ukraine Seeks F16s, Patriot Missiles, & Leopard Tanks. The mention of the Leopard tanks—they’re a German MBT, and rated up there with the Abrams—is interesting. NATO countries like Poland have stripped themselves of their older Soviet T-72 tanks—which are, in fact, inferior to the Ukrainian and Russian T-62s. Poland did this on the promise of receiving Leopard 2s, but has reportedly been stiffed by the Germans, who are remilitarizing—the Leopard 2s may be needed for the next Drang nach Osten:

Expulsion of Poles following the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Poles were removed to make room for German colonists, as part of a plan to Germanize western Poland.

Berletic cited the following article regarding the merits of this state of the art NATO MBT:

Turkey's Leopard 2 Tanks Are Getting Crushed in Syria

Not so good armor after all.

To give you an idea on the notion of “obsolescence” with regard to tanks, Turkey—a very important NATO member with a very large military—had been using Patton tanks. The most recent version dates to 1960, so it’s much older than the T-62, but it’s still widely used. But the Turks thought they could do better against the Kurds and ISIS with Leopard 2s. Not so much, as you can tell from the title of the article. Pictures are always good for … getting the picture:

Images of three destroyed Turkish Army Leopard 2A4s, which were destroyed by Daesh near Al-Bab

Three smashed Leopard 2A4 tanks sit smashed on the plain outside Al-Bab. ----------------------------- The 2A4's performance to date against ATGMs has been poor

Follow the link for more images.

How about the M-1 Abrams? I found this interesting snippet at its Wikipedia page:

In May 2008, it was reported that a U.S. M1 tank had also been damaged in Iraq by insurgent fire of a Soviet-made RPG-29 "Vampir", which uses a tandem-charge high-explosive anti-tank warhead to penetrate explosive reactive armor (ERA) as well as composite armor behind it. The U.S. considered the RPG-29 a high threat to armor and refused to allow the newly formed Iraqi Army to buy it, fearing that it would fall into the insurgents' hands.

Iraqi Army service

Between 2010 and 2012 the U.S. supplied 140 refurbished M1A1 Abrams tanks to Iraq. In mid-2014, they saw action when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant launched the June 2014 Northern Iraq offensive. During three months, about one-third of the Iraqi Army's M1 tanks had been damaged or destroyed by ISIL and some were captured by opposing forces. By December 2014, the Iraqi Army only had about 40 operational Abrams left. That month, the U.S. Department of State approved the sale of another 175 Abrams to Iraq.

The RPG-29 is Soviet era weaponry—it was adopted by the Red Army in 1989, but it’s still plenty good, as you can see from the above. And that’s Berletic’s point. There is no magic weapons system that will save Ukraine, and talk of outdated Russian systems are simply propaganda, in most cases. Tanks are highly vulnerable unless used in carefully monitored situations with plenty of support. The fact is, modern warfare is way more complicated than the MSM wants you to believe.

Finally, in Samarkand Putin once again referred to the West as having a “colonial” mentality. Perhaps this is what he had in mind:

Climate czar John Kerry warns Africa not to use natural gas to bring power to millions

Maybe he doesn’t want Russia developing any new markets for Russian gas? Maybe this isn’t really about the climate? I suspect Africans have that ploy figured out.