Diplomacy & Crisis News

The Communist Party is putting ideological battles first.

Peter Suciu

Security, Americas

The weapon could be carried on the B-52 and B-1B bombers or even perhaps the F-15 fighter.

Russia has been ramping up its tests of its Tsirkon hypersonic missile, a weapon that the United States military currently has no countermeasure against. If defense isn’t an option, then perhaps it is time to go on offensive and that is exactly what the United States Air Force plans to do—and last week announced that it will conduct a flight test of its own air-launched hypersonic missile before the end of the year.

Planned for production next year, the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) would be the first hypersonic missile developed by and employed with the U.S. military. Such capabilities could provide the United States with a stand-off strike opposition to address increased threats from China and Russia.

Will Roper, the Air Force’s top weapons and research official, said during the inaugural Doolittle Leadership Center Forum on Dec. 14 that the test will occur this month, but he added that while the development of a hypersonic weapon is a notable achievement, it is not a full solution to the challenges the U.S. military is facing.

The AGM-183A ARRW completed a captive-carry test earlier this year, and the first planned booster test flight is expected to occur in the coming weeks, while production would begin next year, Air Force Magazine reported.

While such weapons could provide increased capabilities as a stand-off strike platform, Roper added that hypersonic missiles may not be as crucial to addressing the threats from China and Russia.

“As we field the first hypersonic weapon, and I’m excited we’re doing that, it doesn’t undercut this investment our adversaries have, nor take away the principle of safety that I would expect they hold,” Roper said. “The U.S. has exceptional capabilities, especially in stealth aircraft that can penetrate and put weapons where they wish. So do our adversaries believe we don’t have the ability to target them? I would hope not. Hypersonic weapons just then become another way to do it.”

The ARRW is an air-launched boost-glide hypersonic weapon, which allows it to be initially accelerated using a rocket before gliding unpowered to the target at speeds greater than the speed of sound. Along with such speeds, the missiles also have the ability to maneuver with computerized precision, which could make it difficult to counter. Additionally, a hypersonic missile’s speed and force is so significant that it can inflict damage by sheer
“kinetic” impact without even needing explosives.

The Air Force has been conducting ARRWs tests with Cold War-era B-52H Stratofortress bombers. Over the summer, this included a “captive carry” test, which demonstrated the transmission of telemetry and GPS data from the weapon, called the AGM-183A IMV-2 (Instrumented Measurement Vehicle), to ground control stations, solidifying an essential part of the weapons overall launch, guidance and flight trajectory systems.

The Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) is also equipping the B-1B to carry hypersonic weapons. This month, a B-1B Lancer was used to launch an inert Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) from an external pylon underneath the aircraft’s fuselage, following a previous test, during which a B-1B carried an inert JASSM under an external pylon for the first time. The goal of these tests is to determine how the Cold War era B-1B bombers can be best employed to carry hypersonic weapons externally.

Earlier this year Roper also suggested the ARRW could even be carried on the F-15 fighter. While not quite hypersonic, the Air Force is certainly picking up speed on the development and deployment of the ARRW.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Security,

Even those who know guns probably don't know this. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: This brand got its start at the same time as Beatlemania. 

Thanks in no small part to movies such as Die Hard II even people who don't know firearms know Glock, the Austrian firm best known for its polymer-framed pistols. What most don't know is that the company was only founded in 1963, yet today produces more than two dozen models of handguns in three sizes and seven different cartridges in three calibers.  

That’s not bad for a brand that got its start at the same time as Beatlemania. 

And even those who do know firearms, still likely don't know all that much about Glock, which isn’t actually the manufacturer but rather the product that is made by the Austrian firm Glock Ges.m.b.H. The company may be known for its firearms, but it also produces field knives, entrenching tools and apparel.

Long before its founder Gaston Glock ever decided to produce the Glock 17, the company's first handgun, he started by making household products including curtain rods and later knives. While prolific firearms designer John Browning received his first patent for a firearm in his 1920s, Gaston Glock was fifty-two years old before he developed a firearm. 

In the 1970s Gaston Glock developed grenade castings and machine-gun belt links, and as an expert in polymers he began to use the materials to make knife handles and sheaths. Then in the early 1980s, he decided to see how polymers could be used in the production of a handgun. The result was the semi-automatic Glock series pistol, and it featured a polymer frame—which soon led to concerns about the “plastic gun” that some believed (even before Die Hard II) could get past airport X-ray machines.

However, the Glock 17 passed the strict NATO durability test and was selected by the Norwegian Army as its standard sidearm. That put the company and its unique handgun on the road to become the preferred international law enforcement sidearm. While the U.S. military adopted the Beretta M9 to replace the aging Colt M1911 .45 pistol, various Glocks have been the preferred weapon for Special Forces including the U.S. Navy SEALs.  

Moreover, the USMC followed by adopting the Glock 19M as the “M007 Concealed Carry Weapon” in 2016 for those Marines who had a need for a compact pistol—such as criminal investigation units and the crews of the HMX-1 helicopter squadron. 

Today, if there is a complaint about Glock it is that the handgun models can be downright confusing—instead of being named for the year or caliber, the company names the product for the next patent number. Hence the first Glock handgun was dubbed the Glock 17 not because it held seventeen rounds in the magazine, but rather because it was named after number patented by Gaston Glock during the development of the pistol. While that might seem reasonable for the day, especially for an inventor who also created field knives and a folding shovel, it has created confusion for gun owners today especially considering that the company has produced dozens of models.

The other big complaint is that some models aren't available in the U.S. for commercial sale. This has included the Glock 18, a full-sized nine-millimeter "automatic pistol" that can be fired like a submachine gun with a rate of fire of 1,200 rounds per minute. Yet, other handguns such as the Glock 25 and Glock 28, which each fail to meet the ATF's criteria for importation.

However, even if a select few Glocks can’t be imported, the company has shooters covered by offering its polymer-framed handguns in numerous calibers and sizes. It’s a good thing old Gaston didn’t decide to stick with curtain rods.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. 

Image: Wikimedia

UN independent human rights experts, on Thursday, called for an impartial and independent investigation into the killing of a 15-year-old child by Israeli security forces at a West Bank protest this month. 

Peter Suciu

Public Health, Americas

The Combat Cloth Face Covering is ready for action, even if it took this long to make.

Even as the vaccine for the coronavirus is now rolling out across the United States, it could be months before every American can be vaccinated. As a result, mask mandates are likely to remain in place across many parts of the country well into the spring and possibly even the summer.

Seeing that face masks will be required for the foreseeable future—not to mention that masks could be required for a future pandemic—the U.S. Army has responded with an official Army-designed, -tested, and -refined face mask. It even has an official military designation: Combat Cloth Face Covering (CCFC), and it will be provided to new U.S. Army soldiers during the second quarter of fiscal year 2021 (FY21). The mask was one of the updates provided by the Army Uniform Board (AUB) during its 152nd meeting on Nov. 18.

Fighting the Pandemic

Throughout the current novel coronavirus pandemic the Army has provided disposable as well as reusable, solid color masks to soldiers, and also permitted the use of neck gaiters and other cloth items, including bandanas and scarves, as face coverings.

This past summer, the AUB recommended and the U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James C. McConville approved the issue of CCFCs to soldiers at Initial Entry Training (IET) as part of their clothing bag. It was announced at the 152nd AUB that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) would begin to issue two CCFCs to each new soldier during the Q2 FY21.

Additionally, CCFCs will be available for purchase at the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) uniform stores later in FY21.

The Army noted that the CCFC was designed, developed and produced along an expedited timeline. Whereas it can normally take 18 to 24 months for the DLA to make an item available for order once the technical description, design and components are approved and slated—the CCFC, from inception to issuance, is slated to take less than a year.

The current U.S. Army guidelines for face coverings stated, “SOLDIERS ARE AUTHORIZED TO WEAR THE NECK GAITER AND OTHER CLOTH ITEMS, SUCH AS BANDANAS AND SCARVES, AS FACE MASKS. TO PROTECT THE FACIAL AREA, THE CLOTH ITEM MUST COVER THE MOUTH AND NOSE AND EXTEND TO THE CHIN OR BELOW AS WELL AS TO THE SIDES OF THE FACE. THE ITEM MUST ALSO BE SECURED OR FASTENED TO THE FACE IN A MANNER THAT ALLOWS THE SOLDIER TO BREATHE WHILE ALSO PREVENTING DISEASE EXPOSURE OR CONTAMINATION.”

The guidelines also stated that the soldiers may not wear masks that have “PRINTED WORDING, PROFANITY, RACIST, DEMEANING OR DEROGATORY LOGOS, SCRIPT OR IMAGERY.” Moreover, soldiers are not allowed to cut up clothing materials such as the Army Combat Uniforms to use for face masks as those materials may have been treated with chemicals. Any fabrics used for face coverings are required to be subdued and conform to the uniform.

Leaders were asked to use their “best judgment” regarding the color cloth and design of face masks, while soldiers were instructed to replace items that became soiled, damaged or difficult to breathe through.

Other AUB Updates

Beyond the face masks, the AUB also received updates on the implementation status of four other uniform changes from the 151st AUB, which took place in June 2020.

These include an Improved Hot Weather Combat Uniform-Female (IHWCU-F), which is expected to be added to the clothing bag in Q4 FY21 and available for purchase in Q2 FY22; a Hot Weather Combat Boot-Improved (HW ACB-I), expected to transition to DLA Troop Support for new contracting action in Q2 of FY21 and available for purchase by FY24; Black Athletic Socks, estimated to be available in the clothing bag in Q2 of FY22; and the Army Physical Fitness Uniform-Maternity (APFU-M).

Prototypes of the APFU-M are in development and the Army is working with the United States Air Force and United States Marine Corps on their respective past maternity uniform efforts in order to expedite pattern development. Form, fit, and function evaluations are expected to occur in Q3 of FY21. Additionally, the AUB discussed additional clothing articles, including items for new and expecting mothers. More information will be provided about these discussions in 2021 after Senior Leader decisions are made the Army noted.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

Image: Reuters.

Attacks by armed groups in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Zambezia and Niassa provinces have displaced more than 530,000 people, many of whom have been forced to move multiple times, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday. 

Graham Allison

Security, Asia

Unless China can be persuaded to constrain itself and indeed cooperate with the United States, it will be impossible to avoid catastrophic war or preserve a climate in which both can breathe.

THE RISE of China presents the most complex international challenge any American president has ever faced. China is at one and the same time the fiercest rival the United States has ever seen, and also a nation with which the United States will have to find ways to co-exist—since the only alternative is to co-destruct. If Xi Jinping’s Party-led autocracy realizes its dream, Beijing will displace Washington from many of the positions of leadership it has become accustomed to during the American Century. Unless China can be persuaded to constrain itself and indeed cooperate with the United States, it will be impossible to avoid catastrophic war or preserve a climate in which both can breathe.

To meet this challenge, President-elect Joe Biden and his team will have to craft a strategy that passes what F. Scott Fitzgerald defined as the test of a first-class mind. In Fitzgerald’s words, it is “to hold two contradictory ideas in one’s head at the same time and still function.” Fortunately, in sharp contrast with his predecessor, Biden comes to this test well prepared. Seasoned by decades of experience as vice president, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a legislator during the Cold War, he has wrestled with the hardest choices and developed considered views about how the world works.

On the one hand, unless it crashes or cracks up, Xi’s China will be “the biggest player in the history of the world,” as Lee Kuan Yew once put it. With four times as many people as the United States, if the Chinese were only one-half as productive as Americans, China would have a GDP twice our size. That would allow it to invest twice as much in defense as we do. Since the beginning of this century, China has risen to become the largest economy in the world (according to the metric the CIA judges the best yardstick for comparing national economies). Today, it is also the manufacturing workshop of the world, the No. 1 trading partner of most major economies, and since the financial crisis of 2008, the primary engine of global economic growth. At the end of 2020, only one major economy will be larger than it was at the beginning of the year. And that is not the United States of America.

To create a correlation of forces that can shape China’s behavior, the United States will have to attract other nations with heft to sit on our side of the seesaw of power. Despite President Donald Trump’s disdain for allies, his vice president and secretary of state-recognized this imperative. But their hope to take a page from America’s successful strategy in the Cold War by persuading other nations to “decouple” from China behind a new economic iron curtain misunderstood the underlying realities. As a politician, Biden knows that the mandate of other countries’ leaders to govern depends on their ability to deliver increasing standards of living for their people. Any attempts to force them to choose between their military relationship with the United States that makes them secure, and their economic relationship with China that is essential for their prosperity, are thus a fool’s errand. Enlisting allied and aligned powers in a much more complex web will be vastly more difficult than it was when confronting the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, Biden knows full well that the United States and China share a small globe on which each faces existential challenges it cannot defeat by itself. Technology and nature have condemned these two great powers to find ways to live together in order to avoid dying together. As a veteran Cold Warrior, Biden understands in a way most of today’s generation do not that we continue to live in a MAD world. He recalls how difficult it was for American policymakers to get their minds around the concept of nuclear MAD—mutually assured destruction—and to accept its strategic implications for sane statecraft. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy and his successors learned the lesson Ronald Reagan summarized succinctly in his favorite bumper sticker: a nuclear war cannot be won and must therefore never be fought. Realizing what that meant in practice for the U.S. rivalry with the Evil Empire was a huge struggle—one in which Biden spent countless hours helping Senate colleagues appreciate.

Today, in addition to nuclear MAD, President-elect Biden knows that we also face Climate MAD. Sharing a small globe on which we breathe the same air, either one of the top two emitters of greenhouse gases can disrupt the climate so severely that neither can live in it. Recognizing that reality, Biden worked with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to hammer out a climate accord with China that made possible the international Paris Agreement that began to bend these curves. While Trump withdrew from this agreement, Biden will rejoin it on Day 1 and seek to work with China to stretch to more ambitious targets.

In sum, the challenge posed by China is daunting. But brute facts are impossible to ignore. Having overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become the forty-sixth president of the United States, Biden will be ruthlessly realistic about the magnitude of this challenge, and unflinching in his determination to do what has to be done.

Graham T. Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the former director of Harvard’s Belfer Center and the author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

Image: Flickr / Office of the U.S. Navy

Peter Suciu

History,

They live by the motto, “better to die than be a coward.”

They’ve been described as the world’s most savage soldier, yet the average Nepalese volunteer stands at just five-foot, three-inches tall. Looks are truly deceiving because the men who make the cut to fill the ranks of the world's most famous mercenary units are ones few would want to face in a fight.

These are the Gurkhas and they live by the motto, “better to die than be a coward.”

If that doesn’t say enough about the determination of these men, then their history might. The Gurkhas, whose name originates from the Nepalese hill town of Gorkha, were actually an enemy of the British East India Company as it expanded in the Indian subcontinent in the early nineteenth century. The two sides fought so fiercely against one another during the Gurkha War of 1814–16 that a mutual respect was earned. 

According to the terms of a peace treaty between Nepal and Great Britain, the Gurkhas were allowed to join the ranks of the East Company’s army—essentially as mercenaries. During the Victorian Era, the Nepalese warriors were considered a “martial race” and were noted for their masculine qualities and general toughness.

For more than two hundred years they’ve been recruited exclusively from Nepal with the majority coming from the hill villages. In total, more than two hundred thousand Gurkhas have fought alongside the British military in every corner of the world.

They took part in wars in the Indian frontiers, in colonial wars in Africa, in both World Wars and even the 1982 Falklands War. To date, more than forty-six thousand Gurkhas have died fighting for the British Crown.

British Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw once said, “if a man says he is not afraid to die, he is either lying or a Gurkha!”

A total of twenty-six Victorian Crosses—the highest British military honor—have been awarded to Gurkhas. Until 1947 most served in the Indian Army under British officers—but following the end of British rule four Gurkha regiments were transferred to the British Army and became the Gurkha Brigade.

Their Infamous Weapon

Even those who haven’t heard of the Gurkha soldiers or their exploits in combat may know their even more infamous fighting knife—the curved eighteen-inch bladed knife known as a kukri. 

The modern kukri is based on the traditional weapon carried for centuries by the warriors of Nepal, but only in modern times have members of the Brigade of Gurkhas received combat training with the knife.  

A very common myth is that if the weapon is drawn in battle the blade has to “taste blood”—either of the enemy or its owner—before it could be re-sheathed. While not true, stories of the blade being used in close combat have only contributed to the misconceptions.

For much of its history, the weapon was just as often used for foraging and cooking by its owners, but the mystique around it has spawned countless “knockoffs.” 

Fewer in the Ranks 

As the British Army has scaled back in recent years so too have the number of Gurkhas in the ranks—numbers were cut from thirteen thousand in 1995 to just three thousand today. 

Yet many continue to try for those few coveted openings.  

In 2019 the Gurkha Company of the British Army agreed to a significant increase in the number of recruits that could be selected and instead of the initial 320—which had the biggest intake in thirty-three years—more than 400 joined the ranks of the famous unit. In total, 580 of more than 10,000 applicants were invited to return for the final assessment.  

The selection process is far from an easy one. Tests include a three-mile uphill race while carrying in excess of sand and rocks strapped to the applicants back; doing seventy-five bench jumps in one minute and seventy sit-ups in two minutes.  

Until quite recently, those who made the cut and were willing to die for “Queen and Country” weren’t actually allowed to live in the UK following their retirement from the service. That was because Nepal isn’t a member of the Commonwealth, so even as those men served in the British Army they were not technically British subjects. Some UK officials even went so far as to claim that allowing all thirty-six hundred living former Gurkhas into the UK could even create massive pressure for immigration and social services. 

However, in 2009 it was announced that Gurkha veterans who retired before 1997 and served at least four years would be allowed to settle in the UK. Yet, another controversy that involved pensions hasn't been resolved and even now-former Gurkha soldiers receive only a fraction of what British soldiers are paid after retirement.  

Many Gurkhas veterans who returned to Nepal were also left homeless after the early 2016 earthquake that struck their homeland and hit the hill villages quite hard. 

Today, even with the hardships many young Nepalese men from the foothills will still do everything they can to join the elite military unit. 

While the British Army remains the largest “employer” of the Gurkhas today, other nations including Singapore, Malaysia and India have all employed them in their respective armies and police forces. It is easy to see how these fierce warriors from the foothills of the Himalayas have become the world's most famous mercenaries.  

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. 

Image: UK Army

Peter Suciu

History, Europe

These five machine guns that deserve their moment to shine.

Here's What You Need to Remember: These guns were some of the best Europe had to offer.

World War I was truly the conflict in which the machine gun came into its own. It offered a devastating rate of fire that was able to mow down any troops that tried in vain to cross no man's land in one of the countless futile attacks. Heavy water-cooled machine guns were employed at the beginning of the war, and that lead to the development of more “mobile” weapons including automatic rifles such as the French Chauchat and American Browning Automatic Rifle. 

Germany also produced more machine guns than any other combatant power, yet still relied on captured and foreign-produced machine guns due to the demand for weapons at the front lines. While the war made such weapons as the Lewis Gun and Maxim almost famous, there were still weapons that have been largely overshadowed and almost forgotten.

Here are five machine guns that deserve their moment in the spotlight. 

The Austrian Schwarzlose M. 7/12

Developed by Prussian firearms designer Andreas Schwarlose at the turn of the century, the water-cooled, belt-fed Schwarzlose M. 7 resembled the German Mashinengewehr 08 (MG08), but it actually featured a far simpler design that relied on a delayed blowback action, which was unusual in early machine gun designs. However, the design also resulted in a far less expensive machine gun, which was one of the reasons cash-strapped Austria-Hungary adopted it as its standard machine gun. 

It had a slower rate of fire than the MG08 or British Vickers when it was introduced, but the cyclic rate of about four hundred rounds per minute was increased by the utilization of a far stronger mainspring. The Schwarzlose, which was chambered for the standard eight-millimeter cartridge employed by the Austro-Hungarian Army, proved to be a reliable machine gun when used primarily as an infantry weapon. It remained the standard heavy machine gun for the Austrian Empire throughout the war. 

After the war surplus weapons were used by the Czechoslovakian, Dutch, Romanian and even Swedish Armies. During World War II, some of the weapons were used by second-line units of the German Army while its Romanian Allies used a version that converted the weapon to 7.62x54mmR, which required the lengthening of the water jacket. Those guns were used with border guards and as anti-aircraft weapons and reportedly proved ineffective in that capacity.  

The British Hotchkiss Portative

After centuries of rivalry, Great Britain and France became close allies during World War I, but even then it was almost unheard of for either nation to use small arms from the other. There was one notable exception—the British adopted a special version of the French Hotchkiss M1909 Benét–Mercié light machine gun, which was developed and built initially by Hotchkiss et Cie. As the Hotchkiss factory in Saint-Denis near Paris was close to the front and there were fears that it could be captured by the Germans, production of the M1909 moved to Lyon while in 1915 the British government invited Hotchkiss to set up a factory in Coventry. 

Thus a French-designed machine gun was produced in the UK as the Hotchkiss Portative. As it was lighter and more compact than the heavy water-cooled Vickers machine gun, the British military found the Portative more suitable for cavalry and mounted infantry units and the weapon was widely used in campaigns in Gallipoli and Palestine. It was carried by such noted units as the Australian Light Horse, New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and the British Army’s Camel Corps.

One factor that aided in the portability was the weapon's ability to be fed either from cloth belts like other machine guns or from brass stripper clips that held 30 rounds—the latter option allowing a soldier to move forward without having to carry an ammunition box. 

As it was actually introduced before the mass adoption of the Lewis Gun or the French Chauchat, the Hotchkiss Portative was among the first truly portable light machine guns to see combat in the Great War.  

The Italian Fiat-Revelli Modello 1914

Much like the Austrian-produced Schwarzlose the Italian Fiat-Revelli Modelo 1914 was a machine gun that was visually similar to the Maxim in appearance but had internal workings that were quite different. It was unique for a water-cooled machine gun in that it offered selective-fire for both single-shot “semi-automatic” or fully automatic fire. It featured a recoil-delayed blowback mechanism and fired from a closed bolt. 

With a rate of fire of around 500 rounds per minute, its cyclic rate was slower than the Maxim/Vickers guns but on par with the original version of the Schwarzlose—which seems fitting as these were used on opposing sides of the lines. It was chambered for the 6.5x52 millimeter Carcano round, which helped with ordnance supply issues but gun experts have noted it was underpowered compared to the other heavy machine guns of the era. Instead of being fed from a belt, the Fiat-Revelli Modelo 1914utilized a 50-round or 100-round strip-feed box magazine.

The Italian machine gun saw use in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, while the Italian supplied it to the Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. It was used in a limited capacity by the Royal Italian Army during World War II.

Italian Beretta M1918

Along with the German MP-18, the Beretta M1918 has the distinction of being among the first submachine guns—and technically the Italian weapon predates the German effort. However, it grew out of the M1915 Villar-Perosa machine gun, which had been developed as an aircraft machine gun—albeit one that fired a 9-millimeter pistol round rather than the full rifle ammunition standard in other aircraft weapons of the era.

The Villar-Perosa was also unique in that it was a portable double-barreled weapon and consisted of two independent receivers and firing mechanisms that were attached together. It also had a high rate of fire that exceeded 1,500 rounds per minute but the 9-millimeter ammunition provides insufficient against enemy aircraft—not to mention that its range was limited—so the weapon was redeveloped for use as a ground-based submachine gun.

In its new capacity, the Beretta M1918 entered service in the spring of 1918, and some sources suggest it saw service a few weeks before the Germans deployed the MP-18 in battle. The two weapons have similarities in that each was mounted to a rifle stock and clearly inspired the next generation of submachine guns. 

However, the Beretta weapon was unique in that it featured a folding bayonet—and thus truly was the first SMG to utilize a bayonet—while it featured a top-loading stick magazine rather than the side-fed magazine of the MP-18. The Italian weapon saw limited use at the end of the World War I and even some use during World War II. 

The Danish Madsen Machine Gun: 

Denmark remained neutral in World War I, yet its Madsen light machine gun was employed by both the Allies and Central Powers. The weapon first entered service in 1902 and predated the Hotchkiss Portative and Chauchat and was arguably the very first portable machine gun produced. Its first use in battle was during the Mexican Revolution, while it also saw use with the Imperial Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War. 

During World War I, it was used by the German Army, which had it chambered in the 7.92-millimeter caliber. It was used with infantry units, mountain troops and then at the end of the war with storm troopers.  

It was also the first machine gun to feature a top-mounted magazine, in its case offset to the left side of the receiver to allow the sights to remain on the centerline. It featured a unique fully automatic falling block action with a mixed recoil-operated locking system, which resulted in a relatively slow rate of fire of just 450 rounds per minute. While sophisticated, its unique operating cycle proved to be a reliable system that could stand up to the harsh conditions of trench warfare. 

The Madsen proved to be a reliable weapon and was produced in dozens of calibers and configurations—so much so that it has been used in literally dozens of conflicts over the past one hundred years, and a few of the weapons even remain in use with the Brazilian Military Police.   

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Peter Suciu

History, Europe

Great Britain "won" the naval arms race, but at a terrible cost. It changed the balance of power in Europe as the Anglo-German naval race heightened tensions between the two great powers.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Dreadnought means "fear nothing," and the name was very appropriate. The ship was lightyears ahead of anything that rival navies could throw at it - though rival navies quickly began to catch up.

Prior to the First World War, Great Britain was the dominant naval power in the world. As an island nation with a vast colonial empire, it had to be, and since the Napoleonic Wars, the British feared not only invasion but being cut off from that empire. Moreover, while fielding the only truly "professional army" in Europe, the British Army was far smaller in terms of the men it could mobilize compared to its longstanding rivals France and Russia.

The Royal Navy sought to counterbalance the traditional military strengths of those nations with a "two power" standard at sea, whereby it had to feature enough powerful warships to stand up to what any allied coalition could throw at it.

It wasn't simply enough to have the largest fleet; the Royal Navy needed the finest and most powerful warships. That fact became apparent in 1858 when France—a long rival of Great Britain—constructed La Gloire, the first large warship that combined an armored hull, steam propulsion and explosive shell-firing guns. The Royal Navy began a vigorous campaign to build modern ships and more of them.

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, the Royal Navy maintained a numerical advantage with some of the most powerful warships in the world.

Then in 1906, the HMS Dreadnought was launched. It featured an innovative battleship design, and by the time the First World War broke out in 1914, all major navies measured their strength by the number of Dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers in their respective fleets.

When John "Jackie" Fisher became First Sea Lord in 1905 he retired many of the Royal Navy's older ships, as his vision centered on the battlecruiser—a ship that had the armament to destroy a foe and the speed to escape if necessary. The Admiralty saw the potential in such ships, but also called for a new class of battleship and that was the Dreadnought, which means "fear nothing." This new warship would actually be the sixth to carry the moniker, but it truly changed everything.

This new warship combined the "all-big-gun" armament, which included ten 12-inch guns, but was also quite speedy thanks to the new steam turbine engines. In addition to being well-armed, HMS Dreadnought featured redistributed armor to protect its guns, engines and magazines, while an innovative bulkhead structure in the interior made flood control easier, which increased her survivability.

The ship was so revolutionary that its name came to describe an entire class of battleships of the era—with the major all-big-gun warships built before her now described as "Pre-Dreadnought." The British may have had the most powerful warship in the world, but only briefly.

The arrival of this new ship inspired a naval arms race—and while at her commissioning the Royal Navy possessed a lead of twenty-five first-class battleships over the fleets of foreign navy, with HMS Dreadnought the Royal Navy possessed just a lead of only one ship in the newest class. Instead of providing a technological advantage, it essentially leveled the playing field.

While the Royal Navy had a head start, navies around the world built more powerful warships and soon even Dreadnought was eclipsed by so-called "Super-Dreadnoughts." By 1910, even Brazil had more powerful ships in its navy than HMS Dreadnought.  

By the time war came in 1914, Great Britain "won" the naval arms race, but at a terrible cost. It changed the balance of power in Europe as the Anglo-German naval race heightened tensions between the two great powers. While Germany never really closed the gap and had just seventeen Dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers to the Royal Navy's twenty-nine, the two navies only met in one major, yet far from decisive engagement at the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916.

After the war naval treaties limited the number of battleships navies could possess. Yet, the "all-big-gun" ships remained the Queen of the Seas through World War II, by which time the battleship was overshadowed by the aircraft carrier and Great Britain had lost its place as the world's dominant naval power.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and website. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared in early 2020.

Image: Wikipedia.

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Caleb Larson

Security, Americas

The U.S. Air Force’s legendary U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane made history as the first military plane to fly using an AI program to control key sensors and systems.

In a tweet, Will Roper, the U.S. Air Force’s Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and so-called acquisition Tsar announced the mating of an AI pilot program with the U-2 Dragon Lady airframe, saying:

“NEW. For the first time, @usairforce put #AI safely in charge of a U.S. military system. Call sign “Artuμ,” we modified world-leading μZero gaming algorithms to operate the U-2’s radar. This first AI copilot even served as mission commander on its seminal training flight!”

The AI program, playfully called ARTUµ after the iconic droid helper R2-D2 from the Star Wars series, helped pilot a reconnaissance flight near Beale Air Force Base. During the flight, ARTUµ looked for ground-based missile launchers that could have posed a threat to the airframe, while the pilot kept an eye out for incoming enemy aircraft. Both the ARTUµ and the human pilot shared the U-2’s onboard radar, though ultimately ARTUµ decided to dedicate radar to missile detection.

Roper went on to explain what the melding of man and machine means for the future of flying, referencing sci-fi pop culture, saying, “Like any pilot, Artuμ (even the real R2-D2) has strengths and weaknesses. Understanding them to prep both humans and AI for a new era of algorithmic warfare is our next imperative step. We either become sci-fi or become history.”

An Important First

The flight marked the first publicly-known time that an artificially-intelligent program was involved with the flying of a military plane. Though not directly in control of the plane, the AI program controlled the airframe’s navigation as well as radar control sensors.

Prior to the flight, which took place in California, the program had successfully completed over one million training flights and is based on a gaming algorithm known as µZero, which has been previously used to best human opponents in popular and complex games like chess or Go, a strategy game popular in Asia.

In an interview, the pilot, identified only as callsign Vudu said that the program’s “role was very narrow … but, for the tasks the AI was presented with, it performed well,” though the human pilot remained “very much the pilot in command.”

Postscript

Roper explained what the implications of this flight are for the future of AI flight and the United States military, saying that ARTUµ “was the mission commander, the final decision authority on the human-machine team. And given the high stakes of global AI, surpassing science fiction must become our military norm.” Stay tuned for more on ARTUµ, and for more on the future of artificially intelligent military flights.

Caleb Larson is a defense writer for the National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture.

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Technology, Americas

With a deal at last in hand, Roku users everywhere will not have to worry about missing out on watching Wonder Woman 1984.

Last week, nearly seven months after its launch, HBO Max finally landed on the Roku platform. Roku reached an agreement with AT&T and division WarnerMedia to finally close the biggest hole in the streaming service’s distribution, just in time for the debut next week of the blockbuster movie “Wonder Woman 1984.”

What took so long, and how did the sides finally come to an agreement? The Wall Street Journal reported this week on the protracted negotiations.

Roku, per the Journal report, “had tough financial terms WarnerMedia wouldn’t meet.” The battle ultimately hinged on “the question of how to divvy up the spoils of video streaming.” Both sides, though, were incentivized to reach a deal prior to the arrival of “Wonder Woman,” which will be followed in 2021 with the arrival of the entire planned Warner Brothers movie slate on HBO Max.

In addition, another point of contention in the negotiations was The Roku Channel, Roku’s in-house channel which has expanded throughout the year. Roku has leaned on media companies to provide programming for the channel, but WarnerMedia had resisted, while Roku, in turn, had asked for part of the ad space in a future ad-supported version of HBO Max. The exact shape of the final agreement is unclear, although a source told the newspaper that it did not entail Warner agreeing to supply content to the Roku Channel.

A similar Roku Channel disagreement was at the heart of Roku’s dispute earlier this year with NBC Universal, over the Peacock app. Those two sides reached agreement in September. Meanwhile, WarnerMedia agreed to a deal in November with its other remaining holdout, Amazon, to make HBO Max available on that streaming platform. HBO Max also arrived on Comcast set-top boxes shortly before the announcement of the Roku deal.

The WSJ report, citing Parks Associates, said that Roku now has forty-six million active accounts, and 38 percent of the hardware market in the United States. The Journal also said that Roku makes most of its profit these days not from the sale of physical devices, but rather from selling ads in streaming apps.

The deal that was reached between the parties led Roku’s stock to soar on Thursday. The stock reached as high as $349 a share on the news of the HBO deal, continuing a massive run ever since October. Roku was trading at $138.19 a share on January 1. One analyst, following the news, raised its price target for Roku to a Street-high $410.

Meanwhiile, Roku is in yet another standoff, with the cable company Charter Communications, and the dispute led the company to pull the Spectrum TV app from its channel store for new downloads, although the app still works for existing customers.

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.

Mark Episkopos

Security, Europe

These boats could lurk beneath the Arctic circle, only to surface when they recieved thier doomsday orders.

The largest and one of the most prolific submarines ever made, the Typhoon-class served for decades as a leading Soviet ballistic missile submarine (SSBN).

Conceived in the late Cold War, Project 941 Akula (North Atlantic Treaty Organization reporting name Typhoon) was meant to compete with the prodigious submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) payload capabilities of the rival U.S. Ohio-class. The Akula class in question is not to be confused with Project 971 Shchuka-B, a line of attack submarines also with the NATO reporting name Akula that is sometimes also referred to as the Akula-class.

Typhoon was to be larger than the Ohio-class, in order to account for its much heftier R-39 Rif missiles. But why were the Typhoon’s missiles so big in the first place? As previously noted by The National Interest, the answer surprisingly stems from differences in the ways that the U.S. and Russian plastics industries developed.

At a submerged displacement of around 48,000 tons, the Typhoon class remains the largest submarine in the world—for a sense of scale, consider that the largest U.S. submarine, the Ohio-class, comes in at just over 18,000 tons. With five internal pressure hulls of premium titanium construction, the Typhoon isn’t just big but also highly resilient. Some of the submarine’s other design features are considerably less practical. In what one can only imagine was a boost for crew morale, the Typhoon’s immense size enabled the addition of a swimming pool, sauna, and even a bird aviary.

As with any strategic submarine, the Typhoon’s core feature is its nuclear-capable arsenal. The Typhoon boasted as many as twenty R-39 Rif SLBM’s, each capable of delivering ten 100-kiloton nuclear warheads. The operational doctrine for Typhoon submarines was fairly straightforward: they would linger beneath the arctic ice cap, where they are much harder to detect and track, before surfacing to launch a devastating nuclear strike on U.S. or Western European infrastructure. But this plan proved difficult, not to mention highly expensive, to fully realize. For one, the submarine had to be of a strong enough construction to readily surface through ice—that’s where the titanium hulls came in. Special design accommodations also had to be made in order to support the massive, ninety-ton R-39 missiles and insulate them from shock.

Typhoon’s unique design had its drawbacks. Precise monetary values are difficult to come by, not to mention somewhat meaningless in the context of the Soviet military-industrial sector, but there is little question that Typhoon’s cost per model was astronomical. The process of extracting and handling titanium is extraordinarily costly, let alone all of Typhoon’s other complex design considerations.

The lead Typhoon submarine, Dmitri Donskoy, was commissioned and transferred to the Northern Fleet in 1981. The Typhoon series was to consist of seven models, six of which were completed over the course of the 1980’s; the last Typhoon entry was scrapped prior to completion. In the decades following the Soviet collapse, all except one—the Dmitri Donskoy, which serves as a testbed for the new Bulava submarine-launched nuclear missiles—were scrapped or decommissioned. Rumors have long swirled of a potential refit that could see several Typhoons turned into cruise missile carriers, but it seems increasingly unlikely with each passing year that the aging Typhoon class will get a new lease on life.

The Borei line of SSBN’s is set to replace both the Typhoon and Delta classes over the coming decade as the new sea leg of Russia’s nuclear triad.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.

Mark Episkopos

Security, Americas

While Austin’s appointment is not necessarily consequential for Biden’s China policy, it sends a clear signal within the broader context of the President-elect’s assembled foreign policy team.

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin to lead the Defense Department. What can Austin’s nomination tell us about the direction of U.S. military doctrine under a Biden administration?

Austin has served in a series of distinguished positions over the course of a forty-one-year military career that ended with his retirement in 2016. As the assistant commander of the 3rd Infantry Division during the early stages of the Iraq War, Austin is widely credited with the Army’s successes in Baghdad. Austin’s service record during the invasion of Iraq propelled him to the Army’s higher echelons; following a flurry of promotions in subsequent years, Austin went on to become the commanding general of all U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. From there, Austin became vice chief of staff to the Army in 2012 and, eventually, commander of U.S. Central Command in 2013.  

Austin enjoys a near-unanimous rapport with the military. Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, described him as a “soldier’s soldier.” “He is popular among many troops that served under his command over the past couple decades, as I can attest from a number of conversations over the years,” O’Hanlon said. Despite being frequently described by Washington insiders as a “team player,” Austin has intermittently broken ranks with Washington military policy orthodoxy—particularly over his skepticism of Middle-Eastern military entanglements. Austin reportedly expressed concerns over the strategic direction of the Obama administration’s efforts to combat the spread of the Islamic State, arguing that the thrust of the military effort should be in Iraq even as the Obama administration increasingly invested itself into regime change in Syria. Austin later testified that the U.S. policy of training “moderate Syrian fighters” as a local wedge against the Islamic State had borne little fruit. In that same testimony, Austin took a forceful stance against the then-popular, bipartisan push for a no-fly zone in Syria: “I would not recommend a buffer zone at this point in time,” stated Austin upon being repeatedly questioned on this point by the late Senator John McCain.

Opposition to Austin’s nomination runs across two broad themes. The first is the argument, fielded by a wide substratum of American political discourse, that the appointment of a retired general undermines the principle of civilian control over the military. There are those who say that Austin’s recent military service is inherently disqualifying. Federal law prohibits military officers from serving as the defense secretary within seven years of their retirement, which means that Austin can only accept the nomination with a waiver provided by congressional vote. There have only been two such cases in the postwar period—one for Army Gen. George Marshall, and the other for retired Marine Gen. James Mattis. It remains to be seen how the 151 House Democrats who voted against Mattis’s waiver will navigate Austin’s upcoming confirmation process.  

The second objection reflects the concern that Austin’s range of policy experience is too regionally-restrictive. ”Biden is rightfully focused on [Austin’s] strength in logistics that pertains to combating the pandemic,” Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project for The Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Japan Times. “But experience in counterinsurgency efforts in the Middle East is not what we need to deal with threats in the Indo-Pacific.” Austin’s proponents in Washington have pushed back against the suggestion that ongoing U.S. military operations in Asia could be hamstrung by Austin’s nomination: “I can assure you that neither free navigation in the South China Sea nor the security of the Third Island Chain will be imperiled merely because a former Army general is defense secretary,” Earl Matthews wrote in an op-ed published by the Washington Post. “The idea that the defense secretary must be an expert on China, or an Asia policy wonk is without merit . . . he or she must be a generalist with a broad strategic vision ready to meet any global challenge,” added Matthews, who served as principal deputy general counsel of the U.S. Army and as deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, in addition to being a senior director for defense policy and strategy on the National Security Council. 

While Austin’s appointment is not necessarily consequential for Biden’s China policy, it sends a clear signal within the broader context of the President-elect’s assembled foreign policy team.  It is not in the defense secretary’s purview to formulate U.S. grand strategy against peer competitors, but Biden’s decision to nominate Austin—especially over Obama-era Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, a long-speculated potential nominee with an established record of taking a hard line on China—poses yet another affirmation that the coming Biden administration is unlikely to pursue measures that might intensify U.S.-China military competition in the Asia-Pacific region.  

Mark Episkopos is the new national security reporter for the National Interest. 

Image: Reuters

Patrick M. Cronin, Audrey Kurth Cronin

Security, Americas

The Trump administration’s woeful response to many threats, but especially the coronavirus pandemic, demonstrates that dealing with tomorrow’s bioterror threat must be a national security priority.

Despite creating the U.S. Space Force and Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration failed to back U.S. expertise, so millions of Americans suffered as a result of the administration’s shortcomings. President-elect Joe Biden can reverse this with a bold new initiative to build U.S. know-how and skills for the twenty-first century. As John F. Kennedy mobilized all Americans for the space age, Joe Biden can call on all of us to create a knowledge society. 

America’s Pandemic Response—Not the Coronavirus—Is Key 

The groundwork has been laid. The key is that America’s response to the pandemic must be larger than this particular scourge.

Biden’s campaign elevated science to combat the global pandemic overwhelming the country. His first post-election act established a Covid-19 Advisory Board to contain America’s worst health crisis and humanitarian disaster. Appointing a trio of renowned co-chairs and diverse experts, the president-elect signaled that the day when people’s lives are secondary to personal ego and political gain will soon end.

Even great experts cannot make the coronavirus vanish overnight. Beyond therapeutics and vaccines, the logistics of inoculating a large population, many of whom could fall prey to anti-vaxxer misinformation, remains a challenge. Rallying former presidents to demonstrate that the vaccine is safe will help fill the vacuum of scientific leadership under outgoing President Donald Trump. But inoculating the public against anti-science attitudes is even more important than delivering the shots. 

Science Can Cure U.S. National Security Policy 

Science and knowledge can also help cure the maladies afflicting U.S. foreign and defense policy.

Beyond America’s shores, it now looks like an ignorant superpower, which is a perception that must be changed. Some of America’s closest allies think it unexceptional because of the mishandling of the coronavirus crisis. After combating the virus, a presidency dedicated to knowledge can move on to other policy priorities, including climate change, major-power competition, and combating tomorrow’s terrorism. By stating his intention to rejoin the Paris agreement on climate change and the World Health Organization, Biden declares U.S. support for both science and international engagement. Globalism is not an unalloyed good, but in an age of global problems, the United States ignores the world at its peril.

Re-engaging with allies and international institutions will allow America to regain its stature in the world. By working with other democracies, Biden can ensure that America’s values are baked into emerging standards and the regulatory scaffolding around privacy and data collection. Digital technology should advance freedom of thought rather than suffocate it by enabling the rise of oppressive surveillance states.

Resurgent great-power competition gravitates around technology. Biden’s advisers understand that the U.S.-China relationship is too crucial for America to allow it to fail. Thus, it must wage “competition without catastrophe.” Yet, Biden must not concede technological dominance to Beijing, which seeks to lead on 5G telecommunications, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and other high-tech frontiers. Fortunately, outstanding bipartisan studies and proposed legislation offer blueprints, including the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence; the Endless Frontier Act to enhance basic research and technology; and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. The Biden administration can stabilize relations with China while competing in science and technology (S&T).  

S&T will also play a prominent role in U.S. defense modernization by building a small, smart, and affordable force. The Biden administration’s defense team needs to wisely adopt fourth industrial revolution advancements in autonomy, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology into the nation’s arsenal. The U.S. military force structure must graduate from and transform our expensive and exquisite twentieth-century systems. 

Yet the same technology promising unprecedented breakthroughs poses untold future threats in the hands of irresponsible humans. For example, rapid progress in bioengineering, including CRISPR technology for editing genomes, could yield unintended consequences if unmoored from ethical constraints. America’s woeful response to the pandemic demonstrates that dealing with tomorrow’s bioterror threat must be a national security priority. 

S&T Can Unlock Political Gridlock

Despite Biden’s desire to heal the “soul of the nation,” his goodwill will not expunge U.S. political polarization. Faced with a surging pandemic, a K-shaped economic recession and recovery, a ramshackle infrastructure, a rival like China bent on technological hegemony, and an underperforming education system, Biden can inspire all Americans to respond to the challenge by learning new skills. Broader S&T literacy—covering everything from education to research and development to economic and military modernization—can improve bipartisanship.

To thrive, Americans must replace extreme arguments with pragmatism. The same rifts regarding anti-coronavirus mask-wearing hamper climate change discourse. Climate alarmists who push a green new deal and climate deniers who peddle dangerous myths will not hear each other. Biden can assemble a new political coalition, finding common ground with enough Republicans to invest in science and new technologies to lower emissions and drive a modern economy. 

 Scientific Literary is Necessary but Insufficient 

As First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden will bring personal experience as a professor of English and writing.  She can boost badly needed science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at all levels, with an equal push to study human behavior, regional studies, civics, and ethics. The academy needs better linkages between the sciences and the humanities. Not every American needs to learn how to code or evaluate drug trials, but America does need to rebuild a literate, educated citizenry that can recognize expertise and objective facts. 

Congress should get involved.  Just as the 1958 National Defense Education Act catalyzed a generation capable of putting a man on the moon, a similar act is required today. A Knowledge Society National Security Act could open opportunities for all Americans to learn the hard and soft skills critical to confronting human problems, ranging from disease and global warming to countering disinformation and the malign uses of emerging technologies. 

Building Back Better with Knowledge

In his inaugural address on January 20, Biden might echo sentiments of Kennedy, who sixty years ago advocated civility and summoned Americans to reach for a New Frontier. “Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors,” he said. “Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.”

In a similar vein, Biden can bridge our fractured polity and inspire all Americans to stretch toward the future. Francis Bacon is credited with the phrase “knowledge is power” (scientia potentia est). For Biden, power is knowledge, and presidential power can propel a dynamic new American knowledge society.

Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is the Asia-Pacific Security Chair at Hudson Institute.

Dr. Audrey Kurth Cronin is Professor of International Security and founding director of the Center for Security, Innovation, and New Technology at American University's School of International Service; her book, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists earned the 2019/2020 Neave Book Prize.

Image: Reuters

Peter Suciu

History, Americas

It was a tank that could do some hard-hitting and wouldn't need to run from a fight.

Here's What You Need To Remember: In the late 1940s and early 1950s, there was fear in Washington over the Soviet Union's superiority in armored warfare. The Chrysler M103 was certainly not an ideal weapon - but it helped to alleviate those fears.

When the tank was originally conceived during the First World War by the "Landship Committee," the concept was to have a lumbering vehicle that would be truly massive in size. That proved to be impractical—but as tank development continued tanks of different sizes were devised. This included light tanks able to scout and exploit breakthroughs, while a medium tank would offer firepower and mobility.

The bulk of most tanks used during the Second World War fell into the medium tank category, but Germany and the Soviet Union also fielded "heavy tanks," which could dominate the battlefield, taking out bunkers and fortifications while being able to stand up to the smaller tanks that attempted to stop them. The United States lacked such a tank, and during the war its M4 Sherman medium tank, while more than adequate when it entered service in 1942, couldn't stand up to the more powerful German tanks such as the Tiger.

Even the M26 Pershing wasn't heavy enough to withstand the Tiger and Panther. The development of a new heavy tank began for the next war even as the conflict in Europe was winding down.

This was because there was a real concern that the Soviet heavy tanks would be just as hard to stop as anything the German's had, maybe even more so. The IS-3 and IS-4—which the Soviets built due to Premier Josef Stalin's obsession for heavy tanks and thus named for him—worried American planners. These were heavy in every sense of the word, with strong front armor and a 122mm gun.

To address the threat from those Soviet behemoths came the T43E1, which was developed out of a series of prototypes built in 1953-54 at Chrysler's Newark, Delaware tank plant. Production ramped up even as the Korean War ended.

A total of three hundred tanks were produced and these were designed as "Tank, Combat, Full Tracked, 120mm, M103" – but known simply as the M103. It is notable too that no nickname was ever assigned to the tank.

As its official name implied, however, it had a powerful 120mm M58 main gun, which was fitted in the M89 turret mount. The tank was as well armored as it was armed, with upwards of five inches of hull armor at the front. It weighed 62 tons, and had a crew of five. It was a tank that could do some hard-hitting and wouldn't need to run from a fight.

Yet, like most heavy tanks, the size meant some compromises. The M103 had a maximum speed of just 21mph and only a range of 80 miles. It could pack a punch but it wouldn't exactly get into or out of a fight quickly, and that fight couldn't be all that far away.

Because the M103 was rushed into service it didn't entirely meet the needs of the U.S. Army, which operated eighty of the original T43E1 models – of which seventy-four were converted to the M103 standard. Instead, while it was the Army that had sought the tank, the U.S. Marines operated 220 of the T43E1s, with 219 converted to M103A1 of which 154 were further rebuilt as the M103A2. The former upgrade included a new Stereoscopic T42 sight, M14 ballistic computer and new turret electric amplidyne system traverse with a turret basket. The M103A2 upgrade, which took place in 1964, added a new 750 hp diesel engine that provided better range a top speed. The M24 Coincidence Rangefinder also replaced the older rangefinder.

The M103 served with the USMC until 1972 and reportedly none ever left American soil. It was replaced by the M60, and thus ended the American experiment to develop a true heavy tank.

As a footnote, only twenty-five of the original three hundred M103 tanks are preserved in museums around the world, including one at the Tank Museum in Bovington in the UK.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and website. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

This article first appeared in 2020.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

More From The National Interest: 

Russia Has Missing Nuclear Weapons Sitting on the Ocean Floor 

How China Could Sink a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier 

Where World War III Could Start This Year

Peter Suciu

Security, World

The company was founded in 1526—just over thirty years since Columbus “discovered” America.

Here's What You Need To Remember: At nearly five hundred, the company is certainly the oldest modern arms manufacturer in the world - and still as good as ever.

There is no denying that Italians are often called lovers, not fighters, and have a reputation for taking long vacations and not working much. However, the folks at Fabbricad’Armi Pietro Beretta would have reason to dispute that fact. The company was founded in 1526—just over thirty years since Columbus “discovered” America—making it among the oldest companies in continuous operation, the oldest family-owned business and certainly one of the oldest firearms makers in the world.

While the company has been known for centuries for its finely made firearms including hunting rifles and shotguns, it has had long ties to the militaries of the world. According to the company, it first made cannon barrels for the Venetian fleet, which were used in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and Beretta has supplied weapons for every major European war since the middle of the seventeenth century.

During World War I, the Beretta Model 1918 was one of the first submachine guns—and it is still debated whether it was fielded before the German MP18. During the fascist era, it produced weapons for the Royal Italian Army, including the Modello 38 (Model 38), an innovative submachine gun. Instead of having a fire-selector, it featured two triggers—one for semi-automatic and the other for full-automatic fire. That weapon, which was chambered for the 9x19-millimeter Parabellum round, was also used by German Waffen-SS as well as by the Romanian Army and saw postwar use in the Algerian War and the Congo Crisis.

The 9-millimeter Beretta 92 pistol had the unique distinction of being the handgun that replaced the venerable Colt M1911 .45 pistol. It was selected as the service handgun for the U.S. military under the designation of “M9 Pistol.” The Italian firearms maker provided the first 450,000 pistols in January 1945 after a contentious competition that had dragged on for the better part of a decade.

However, since its introduction, the Beretta has been seen to have several disadvantages including the size and weight, while its exposed locking block, which can fail and needs replacing every five thousand rounds, has also been seen as a serious issue. For those and other reasons in the mid-2010s, the Army began to seek a replacement, even as Beretta unveiled its newly redesigned M9A3.

Beretta claimed that the new pistol solved many of the problems with the older models. “The M9A3 Beretta looks like a futuristic, high tech version of its Reagan-era ancestor—which of course it is. The A3 is finished in a three-tone black, coyote, and flat dark earth scheme, unlike the flat black of the M9, a bit of marketing that reflects the type of environment U.S. forces have been fighting in for the last seventeen years,” according to Kyle Mizokami.

The A3 has “harder lines” than the original Beretta, along with a flattened mainspring housing that eliminated the bulge along the backstrap, creating a more angular grip reminiscent of the M1911A1. However, that wasn't enough to keep the U.S. Army interested but the M9A3 is available on the civilian market. 

While Beretta’s day with the U.S. military may be coming to an end, this company has seen the unification of Italy, the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini, endured countless wars and even Italian socialism. Beretta will likely be around when today’s firearms are thus dead and buried.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Peter Suciu

History, Asia

In the 1930s as Japan became more nationalist and more imperialist the bushido – "the way of the warrior" – was revived and Japan's military moved away from European style sabers for ceremony to a sword that resembled the samurai katana.

Here's What You Need To Remember: The decision was more cultural than tactical - but the swords did serve a military purpose, and sometimes a gruesome one.

It is a scene from World War II movies and comic books; seeming fanatical Japanese soldiers charging out of the jungle wielding a "samurai" sword, swinging widely and yelling "banzai." It isn't actually Hollywood or comic book fiction, however.

The "banzai" war cry began as a generic cheer uttered by soldiers and civilians alike, as the word literally means "ten thousand years." It had long been used in Japan to indicate joy or a wish for long life and during the war was used in celebration. Often the soldiers yelled "Tenno Heika Banzai," which roughly translated to "long live the Emperor." The war cry took up new meaning as the tide turned against the Japanese forces, which made the so-called "banzai charges" – the last-ditch attacks, which may have almost seemed futile in retrospect.

And during those charges, it was common for an NCO or officer to draw his curved sword and lead the attack. While thousands of these swords were certainly captured in the field, untold thousands more were surrendered to the Allies at the end of the war and given to U.S. and other Allied soldiers, including those who had been prisoners of the Japanese. The Japanese swords were among the most common "war trophy" from the Pacific campaigns of the Second World War, and even today these are misidentified as "samurai swords."

The swords may have the appearance, as well as many of the features, as the famed katana swords that were carried by the samurai, but apart from some few "ancestral blades" that were refitted with new hardware, the swords were in no way linked to the samurai class of earlier historic periods of Japan. The samurai, which had been part of the powerful military caste in Japan for centuries, rose to power in the 12th century. However, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 led to the abolition of the feudal system. While they were relieved of their traditional privileges, many samurai did enter the elite ranks of politics and industry in Japan.

In the 1930s as Japan became more nationalist and more imperialist the bushido – "the way of the warrior" – was revived and Japan's military moved away from European style sabers for ceremony to a sword that resembled the samurai katana.

The Imperial Japanese Army's "shin gunton" – meaning new pattern – replaced the western style "kyu gunto." The quality of the blades varied greatly. Some reused old blades, and this was common of higher-ranked officers whose ancestors may have been members of the samurai class, while some officers of means (who weren't of the old guard) opted for hand-made swords that were made by such famous smiths as the Yasukuni Shrine, the Gassan School and Ichihara Nagamitsu among others.

For the vast majority of officers and almost all NCOs the blades were machine-made and produced before the war in Germany and even in the UK. While officer's swords typically featured a traditional rayskin and a wooden base with a cloth wrapping, the NCO swords' handles were cast brass or aluminum. As the war progressed the quality of the swords suffered. The late war swords featured simpler mounts and nearly all were machine-made. Even the officer's handles featured simple wooden hilts.

While most of the swords lacked the craftsmanship of the earlier katanas, the swords still proved quite deadly. In 1937 during Japan's campaign in China, two officers – Tsuyoshi Noda and Toshiaki Mukai – reportedly took part in a gruesome contest to see who could kill 100 enemy soldiers with their swords. It has been questioned if such a contest took part, but both men were tried and executed as war criminals.

After the war, Japanese soldiers were required to surrender all arms, which included swords. There were many special ceremonies where the swords were surrendered and these were held in Japan as well as in many previously occupied areas. It has been reported that many of the soldiers who had taken their family blades to war would eventually have the swords returned. Over the years this has created some controversy as those blades were considered family heirlooms and have become especially valuable. The debate as to whether those should have been consider legitimate war trophies or priceless art objects continues to this day.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared in 2020.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

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Peter Suciu

Security, Americas

When it comes to military hardware rarely does a "one-size fits all approach" work, especially across services, but the F-35 could truly be the exception to the rule.

Here's What You Need To Remember: The F-35 isn't exactly purpose-built; it's been designed as a multi-role fighter. This could be a problem - it's usually better to have multiple single-purpose jets than one that can fill all roles less well. However, the F-35 is such an excellent plane that it might not matter.

When is a new plane actually three planes? Answer: when it is the F-35 Lightning II, a fifth-generation fighter that combines advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility. Three variants of the F-35 will be produced and these are meant to replace the United States Air Force's A-10 and F-16, the United States Navy's F/A-18, and the United States Marines Corps F/A-18 and AV-8B Harrier.

The single-engine, single-seat plane is unique in that it can also operate as a conventional-takeoff-and-landing (CTOL) variant for the USAF while the Navy version will operate from an aircraft carrier (CV). The United States Marine Corps, along with the UK's Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, will utilize an F-35 that can operate as a short-takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) fighter.

The aircraft was developed, produced and supported by an international team at prime contractor Lockheed Martin, with support from principal partners including Northrop Grumman, Pratt & Whitney and BAE Systems.

The F-35, which was born out of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, addresses key issues facing the United States military along with those of its allied fighter fleets, which have gotten both smaller and older. The USAF has fewer fighters than it did during the Cold War, while on average many of its current fighter aircraft are twenty-five-years-old.

As a fifth-generation fighter, the F-35 provides advanced stealth along with improved agility and maneuverability, plus better sensor and information fusion, network-enabled operations and advanced sustainment. This makes the F-35 among the world's most advanced multi-role fighters flying today. It has a range of 1,200 nautical miles, and can reach speeds of upwards of Mach 1.6 (1,200 mph). It is powered by F135-PW-100 engines that provide 40,000lb. of maximum propulsion.

The stealth, multirole fighter's armament includes a 25mm GAU-22/A 4-barrel rotary cannon with 180 rounds of ammunition. There are four internal and six external stations on the wings. It can carry a variety of air-to-air missiles, air-to-surface missiles, anti-ship missiles and bombs. In a "stealth mode" it can infiltrate enemy territory and carry 5,700 pounds of internal ordnance, and in its "beast mode" it can carry up to 22,000 pounds of combined internal and external weapons.

The F-35 features advanced electronic warfare (EW) capabilities that allow the pilots to locate and track enemy forces. In addition, the pilots can jam radars and disrupt threats, while the advanced avionics give the pilot real-time access to battlespace information that includes 360-degree coverage of the tactical environment. In addition, data collected by the fighter's sensors will be shared with commanders at sea, in the air or on the ground. This provides real-time data on the combat situation, which makes the F-35 a true force multiplier during collation operations.

When it comes to military hardware rarely does a "one-size fits all approach" work, especially across services, but the F-35 could truly be the exception to the rule.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and website. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared in early 2020.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

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