Caption: The LCS – another Navy money pit – are being retired as fast as they are produced. The new proposed FF is no more capable than the Little Crappy Ships. Come on, USN, you’re better than this.
Bullet Points:
** Shot and shell: Beretta Defense Technologies announced the Livet remote-controlled weapon station (RCWS) at the Eurosatory trade show, taking place in Paris from June 15 to 19. This turret, designed to counter UAS drones, utilizes eight Benelli Drone Guardian M4 12-gauge shotguns, supported by Dualee technology. “Livet,” according to the official press release. Is the system belt-fed? My sense is that you’d need to develop special ammunition for this beast if you wanted it to work. The problem with this system is the limited range of a 12-gauge shotshell (buckshot, rifled slugs, #4 shot?). (h/t Claudio)
** Iran & Hormuz – Internally, Iran is a mess with the IRGC holding the power, and there is nothing benevolent or hopeful in that. A ‘normalization’ of the situation in the Gulf, where 25% of the Earth’s energy passes, pivots on Iran giving up enriched uranium stockpiles, opening the Straits to free and open innocent passage, and some sort of hedge (though how you get it is another thing) against resumed financing of terror operations in Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza and Iraq – don’t forget Iraq. How can anyone trust Iran to honor anything?
** SECTRES Scott Bessent announced that any person on public assistance can no longer wire money out of the USA!
** In May 1919, Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur returned to the United States after serving occupation duty in Germany. He was greatly disappointed at the lack of recognition he and the rest of the 42nd “Rainbow” Division men received when they returned to the country after serving in the Great War. He grew increasingly concerned by events happening in Europe in the months following the armistice, especially the Treaty of Versailles. He wrote to an old comrade that it seemed to him to be a “treaty of perpetual war rather than perpetual peace.”
** Old NFO discusses events in the Old Dominion.
** Tomb raiding (right). Yeah, it’s a thing, I guess. I’ve never done it, but why not? Maybe it’s all about who you are tomb raiding with?
** Ash and Iron exposes Americans enslaved by Muslims. Understanding the past helps frame the imperatives of the present.
** CDRSAL takes us back to Ukraine – as the war grinds on and lessons are learned. It has always been true that if you want to better prepare your nation for its next war, watch closely what works or does not work in other people’s wars.
** Ryan tackles the “military men are bad in bed” allegation. True/False – urban legend?
** Gulf sovereign wealth funds have ramped up dealmaking in the past three months, despite the region being embroiled in the Iran war and oil revenues being hit by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The five biggest spenders in the Gulf — the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, L’IMAD, and Mubadala; Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund; and Qatar Investment Authority — collectively spent almost $26 billion during March, April, and May, a higher deployment rate than over the previous five years, according to Global SWF.
** Coalitions are inherently slower than unilateral campaigns. However, coalitions ultimately bring vastly more power to the fight. I am as frustrated as everyone else by the pace of talking with the dictatorship, but having reviewed the correlation of forces and the options available to the coalition on one side and the Iranian religiously motivated dictatorship on the other, I am prepared to assert that President Trump’s coalition leadership (something almost none of his critics want to acknowledge) is within reach of an enormous historic victory. – Gingrich
Wait Your Turn – Digging Wells in Arizona
A feral burro in the Sonoran Desert digs a hole in a dry riverbed with its front hooves until it hits groundwater six feet down. It drinks. It leaves. By the next morning, a badger, a mule deer, two javelinas, a bobcat, a Woodhouse’s scrub jay, and an elf owl have all used the same hole.
The animal accused of destroying desert ecosystems is building the only water source some of those animals have access to in the hottest months of the year. An article published in Science in April 2021 showed that burro and horse wells increased the density of accessible surface water at every study site. At one site, where the seasonal stream dried up completely in midsummer, burro wells provided 100% of the available drinking water. At other sites, the wells contributed up to 74% of the surface water during peak heat. The wells were deepest and most critical during the exact window when natural water disappeared. The burros were not supplementing the water supply. They were replacing it.
Fifty-seven vertebrate species were documented using the wells. Camera traps recorded mule deer, American badgers, black bears, javelinas, bobcats, mountain lions, coyotes, kit foxes, desert cottontails, jackrabbits, Gambel’s quail, scrub jays, and elf owls drinking from holes that burros had excavated in dry sand. Several of the bird species documented at the wells are in decline, including the elf owl, which has been disappearing from its historic range across the low desert. The wells did not just provide water. They concentrated wildlife.
The mechanics are simple. A burro walks into a dry wash where groundwater sits a few feet below the surface. The sand and gravel are loose enough to excavate with hooves. The burro paws at the ground, digging with its front feet the way a horse digs at a frozen water trough. It keeps going until water seeps into the hole. The well fills. The burro drinks and moves on. The hole persists for days or weeks depending on temperature, evaporation rate, and how frequently other animals visit. Some wells are re-excavated by the same or different burros after they start to fill in.
The behavior is not unique to North American burros. Wild equids across the world do it. Mountain zebras dig wells in Namibia. Grevy’s zebras dig in Kenya. Kulans dig in the Gobi Desert. Feral horses dig in the Australian outback. African elephants have been documented digging wells that sustain entire savanna wildlife communities during drought. Lundgren’s argument is that well-digging by large herbivores is a global ecological function that has operated for millions of years, and that feral equids in North America are performing a version of the same service that native horses provided on this continent before they went extinct roughly 12,000 years ago.
That last point is the one that starts arguments. The modern feral burro is descended from the African wild ass, brought to North America by Spanish colonizers in the 1500s. It is not a native species. It is classified as feral and invasive by every federal land management agency in the United States. The Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service manage burro populations through roundups, removals, and fertility control because the animals damage native vegetation, compete with desert bighorn sheep for food and water, trample riparian areas, and accelerate erosion. All of that is documented and real. But the well-digging is also documented and real, and it complicates the narrative. A burro standing in a dry wash, digging a hole that a declining elf owl will drink from tomorrow, is simultaneously an invasive species damaging the desert and an ecosystem engineer providing a critical resource that no native animal in the current landscape provides. Both things are true at the same time. The ecological debate around feral equids in the American West cannot be reduced to a good-or-bad dichotomy, because the animals are doing both.
Note: I’m not aware of wild horses or burros on the heavily forested top of the Mogollon Rim where I live, but there are herds at the base of the Rim and in the surrounding desert. There are many water seeps on the rim, and year-round free-flowing creeks that animals use, and the Rim country is all bedrock. It may be that the Mogollon Monsters (relatives of Bigfoot) have eaten all of them. I have never seen a Mogollon Monster, nor have I seen the space aliens said to populate the remote top of the plateau, where the White Wolf Mine stands in active defense against nature and space-alien encroachment.
White Man Runs Him
The Crow (Apsáalooke) scout posed in war paint (right). In April 1876, White Man Runs Him was among 25 Crow scouts recruited by Col. John Gibbon, commander of the Montana Column of 7th Infantry from Fort Ellis and Fort Shaw. After Gibbon rendezvoused with Gen. Alfred Terry’s Dakota Column at the steamer Far West, White Man Runs Him was among six scouts assigned to Lt. Col. George Custer just days before the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
White Man Runs Him died in 1929 at about age 70 on his ranch, not far from the LBH Battlefield in Eastern Montana. Digital restoration of photo by Gary Coffrin.
In the historical novel “The Crow Creek Expedition,” the participation of Crow scouts in General Sully’s Campaigns against the Dakota Tribes in 1863 and 1864 is discussed and described. In the upcoming fourth novel in the duelist series, Vengeance and Retribution, a Crow scout’s journey through the white man’s world of deception, conspiracy, and revolution at the conclusion of the War of Southern Independence is discussed. The life and times of Sleeping Wolf (Wolf-who-pretends-to-sleep), considered to be a dangerous and bloodthirsty man in his early twenties, who took up with a scarlet woman named Hannah Clifford (The Ice Widow) said to have burned her husband alive by pouring coal oil over him while he slept and lit it, are explored.
Sleeping Wolf was first defined as a warrior at the Battle of Pryor Creek in 1861. The battle began near present-day Sheridan, Wyoming. The Crow heard a rumor that the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho were going to attack a Crow village on the Tongue River (Montana). The Crow fled northwest, but the attackers caught up with them at Arrow Creek. Arrow Creek was difficult to cross – a very defensible position. It was one of the largest battles the Crow ever fought, outnumbered 10 to 1 by the Sioux Confederation as the Sioux engaged in a war of ethnic cleansing. If you would like to read more about the Battle of Pryor Creek, you can do so here.
Why did Sleeping Wolf meet John Wilkes Booth at the Bare Hill Tavern at the intersection of Old Pimlico and Falls Roads just outside of Baltimore in January 1865, and why did the Copperheads from the Golden Circle know him as the Frenchman? Is it true that Sleeping Wolf killed a U.S. government Indian Agent on a train in Ohio?
If you’re going to read the books, it’s better if you start with The Confederate Cipher and read them in order to better understand the context. The series is available in paperback, digital, and AI-Audio formats.
Identify the Aircraft
1
6 built
2
11,020 built
3
91 built. Hint: designed to be launched from an aircraft catapult.
4
About 100 built – Hint: It’s a beast.
5
Originally equipped with diesel engines.
Parting Shot
You can start drinking before 8 am because the Sun is over the yardarm somewhere.
End
(1) Avro Ashton.
(2) Avro Anson.
(3) Fairey Seal.
(4) VIckers Vildebeest.
(5) Yer-2.
– Kle.
SLAP, Kle. That was fast!
Larry. Reference the “military men are bad in bed” question above. For those interested, a book they might find interesting is “Sleeping With Soldiers: In Search of the Mach Man”, by Rosemary Daniels, which was published in the mid-1980s. I initially read it, years ago, because it makes mention of people I knew/know, without mentioning their names, who ran with the Soldier of Fortune crowd out of Boulder, Colorado. And, for those who know Boulder, or knew it in the mid-1980s, these people were the real deal, not trust fund snots, namby pamby yuppies, DINKS, or other leftist or socialist ratbags.
You didn’t cite her findings. Must we search out the book to satisfy curiosity now? Yes, I know at least some of the SOF guys, and now I’m curious about their performance or lack thereof. Did she run through them all at those SOF conferences? Most are gone now. RIP.
Tell us more!
Larry. Sorry for the delay in replying. Time zone differences. As far as I know she did not b**g any of the people from Soldier of Fortune, although I was not so crass as to ask. She apparently attended a SOF Convention in Las Vegas with her then boyfriend, an Army Ranger. Whilst there she interviewed The Prince of Darkness, RKB himself, along with several of his senior reporters/contributing editors, most of whom (although I won’t name names) were former Special Forces officers, although not all, one of whom is an accomplished writer and appears/appeared on television as an expert consultant on special operations and Montagnard matters, and another who was/is an expert with explosives. There was also a former Air Force officer and a medical practitioner who ran medical aid, and other missions, into Central and South America. From my recollections of the book she appeared more interested, in this case, in the complex relationships between the men and their wives/girlfriends/concubines and how these ladies fitted in, or not, as the case might be, with the world inhabited by their men. It is now some forty years since I read the book in forty years so this is the best I can do.
Thanks.
Iran & Hormuz – With the IRGC holding the reins it’s not likely there will be any negotiating an end to this. And I do not think the Iranian people have the will or the strength to enact regime change from inside. The IRGC will have to be wholly removed and that is going to get Real Messy – Real Quick. I doubt this is a surprise to anyone that has real knowledge of this situation and that there are contingencies for how to handle this and the amount of damage and casualties required for success are high.
I harbor no doubts that Trump, Hegseth and Rubio are prepared to carry this out and finish it but that the pressure from the Gulf States is immense and that they, the Gulf States, are doing everything possible to bring a diplomatic resolution to this mess that has been created by 50+ years of treachery and poor diplomacy from all sides.
X2
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Avro Ashton
2. Avro Anson
3. Fairey Seal
4. Vickers Vildebeest
5. Yermolayev Yer-2
Well done
Wasn’t the native American named White Man Runs From Him but was shortened? This was mentioned in the book Son of the Morning Star, I believe.
Even though I wrote the bit on the blog the memory of reading that in Son of the Morning Star (highly recommended reading) until you mentioned it. Yes, as I recall, that is the case.
Uncomfortable question: How old does a tomb have to be before a grave robber becomes an archaeologist?
I think that the flesh needs to be off the corpse. Though that is not the definitive answer, it’s the one that comes to mind.
A tomb raider looking for gold is a tomb raider, if they are going to take pictures & write about it they are an archeologist. If they are doing both it’s Indiana Jones.
Do you know why the pyramids are in Egypt? Because they didn’t fit in the London Museum.
exactly
Like the Elgin Marbles…
Aircraft today… knew the Vickers.
*
Trailer park tavern.. the bartender needs some tattoos… otherwise it’s spot on.
*
Bigfoot hunting near the WWM? Something for the grandkids to do. Big camping expedition, s’mores over a campfire, tenting overnights in the forest, it would be fun. Of course LL would need to be on rattler, bear and lion guard duty. But with proper location pre planning you might even turn up something unexpected.
*
I await the next book in the series “Vengeance and Retribution”. So far the series has been a lot of excellent reading, situations, travel, and great characters. Plus some really surprising plot twists that I will not mention as to not ruin the surprises. I anxiously await the outcome of the prophecy. For those who have not engaged in the series give it go. I’m not normally a big fiction reader but LL’s writing is really good.
There are caves in the limestone (called Coconino Limestone) that are occupied by either the Mogollon Monster or large black bears, depending on your interpretation. I have yet to see a rattlesnake here, and I’ve lived here for 8 years. I know they’re here; I just haven’t seen one. If you kick around the rimrock enough, you’re sure to find what you’re looking for. I have seen kingsnakes and gopher snakes. Lots of lions and a few wolves. So if you’re ‘brave enough’ to go poking around the caves, you’re bound to turn up a mountain lion den with a sow protecting her kittens or a bear mama with cubs, if you’re lucky, a rattlesnake — and maybe the monster or a space alien? Most of the roads here were built by the Army (General Crook or Miles) in the search for Geronimo or to contain other Apache tribes, so they’ve been here since the late 1800s. There is a lot of territory where there aren’t any roads, and that’s where you’d want to set off with your backpack and your bacon (sure to lure in something because everyone and everything loves bacon).
I’d think that after 500 years the burro is part of the ecology.
That’s how I see it. I don’t consider them an invasive species.
.
There are more elk than deer here. They were introduced in 1910 from herds in Oregon, and the elk love it here. The bighorn sheep are native to the area but are managed. One of my neighbors who lives about a mile from me (a younger guy new in the area from Idaho) said that he saw ‘mountain goats’ – but what he saw were the female (bighorn) sheep that show up on the property from time to time. There is almost always a ram in the area, but they are more cautious.
.
The mustang herds are mostly remnants of the US Army remount herd that escaped 150 years ago. Though most of the males were geldings, you only needed the rare stallion to accommodate the mares and nature takes things from there.
They consider the white man an invasive species.
Can’t think of General Douglas MacArthur without recalling the Bonus Army.
—
Burros in the desert. More desert water–
—
https://www.youtube.com/@Desertwaterer
There are a LOT of springs in the Mojave Desert. I am not much of a desert rat these days but I did explore the place on weekends just for fun and was surprised at the amount of water present. In wet years, the water level is high and supports wild horses and burros. In dry years – or after a series of dry years – you find 25+ burro carcasses at waterholes where the level is too low for them to get to.
And Patton.
Bessent: And why wasn’t this obvious step ever been taken before? (Semi-rhetorical….we all know why.) Problem is the Minneapolis criminal theft of billions from WTP has already happened, but guess better late than never, and this chips away at the ability for illegals etc. to game the system.
***
USN: Name me one thing government does well (aside from taking our earnings in ever-increasing creative ways)? Now The Bern and his Democrat cohorts want to own half all new AI, which means that too will fail miserably while WTP get to pay for it. Never ends with these people…can’t even design a decent frigate because the geniuses decided to reinvent the wheel like they were God’s gift to engineering. C’mon fella’s, stick with what works and had worked before thinking you’re Scotty on Start Trek.
***
Military Men in Bed: Okay, when your adrenaline tanks after an op where people are shooting AT you, pretty sure the T-levels will follow suit. Either that or ‘everything’s a mission’ comes into play…no romance in that.
***
Parting Shot: Looks fun…but partially unrealistic, there’s no burn barrels giving off smoke in the background. But hey, an American flag and the bartender is known around as ‘the skinny one’.
the bartender is known around as ‘the skinny one’.
.
There has been a demand in blog comments for me to picture more ample women on VM. I take your requests (Your in the case is the Royal You, not PaulM) seriously.
You ARE a merciful leader.
Note: The polite ‘ample woman’ characterization instantly brought back my 8th Grade brain and the ‘joke lines’ we boys would tell each other (Okay, ONE example: ‘Tons of fun’)…believing we were funny legends in our own minds….proving we males are still 12 year-olds inside…which explains everything.
Shade in the summer, food in the winter.
🤣
“military men are bad in bed”, Robin Williams had a routine that made jest of it. His premise was a guy returning from deployment would tend to not last as long. He did go on to say after a month of being home things usually improved.
After MikeW’s revelation that some people I may know were subjects of a first hand (published) study on the matter, I’m torn on how much I want to know.
I have no personal experience to offer on the military men in bed thing,
but my dad was a Naval Aviator in the war, and my parents were still
going at it in their 70s. If they’d lived to their 80s, I expect little would
have changed.
– Kle.
Most military men I know are horny as three-peckered billy goats – but that was then. I have no idea about now with the whole girly boy thing/metrosexual/multi-gender craze. Society complicated something as simple as birds and bees/Mars vs Venus.
Military men in bed. Qualifier–yes, I wore the uniform. No, I have never experienced a shot fired in anger.
—
If there is a single word to describe military men in bed, I vote for the word “eager”.
—
I do not buy her premise. If a military man seems distant or un-caring, most likely there is some form of PTSD going on, however mild it may or may not be. He has a monster inside him, locked away in a box in the basement. He cannot and will not talk about it, except with those who are members of his “Band of Brothers”.
—
Cat Stevens had a point.
—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8T8pLAxCXg
I don’t know if he ended up with four hard-headed women when he became a Muslim. Was that why he went from Cat to Yusuf Islam? Look, I’m not knocking it, though four hard-headed women might be more than most men could handle – and an unlimited number of concubines, also authorized by the Qur’an. Cat is British – maybe he was able to finagle welfare payments to cover the needs of the extras?
* SECTRES Scott Bessent announced that any person on public assistance can no longer wire money out of the USA!
Sounds like a good idea but how do you enforce it? Anytime government demands something without an effective enforcement mechanism, all it promotes is another middle finger from the targeted population, IMO.
i suspect that SSNs and known account numbers that welfare recipients use to receive direct deposits are in the system. There may be something more sophisticated than that involving AI, but I don’t know what it would be.
jes thinkin’
that gal in the leopard top and dungaree shorts would probably make Barrel look svelte
I can understand why they’re not sitting at the bar; the average bar stool holds only 250#
*
I appreciate Newton Leroy’s viewpoints (and realize that he has far, far more knowledge of the political situation in the Gulf area than I’ll ever have), but …
I get the feeling (paranoid that I am) that there’s an additional character(s) and (particularly) money in play that hasn’t been reported/investigated
I have a problem thinking that this situation is about power or control; someone/(country/conglomerate) ‘s gotta be making $ somewhere
The intricacies of the worldwide oil supply would boggle the Byzantines.
I can’t understand how a ship like the LCS went beyond a prototype stage. Sea trials should have exposed the problems, and anyone that pushed for more would obviously be in the back pocket of a ship-builder. Our Navy should be smarter that that, and weeding out such people.
Yes, but it isn’t. I can recall sitting at Hodads discussing the prototype with Old NFO (twenty years or more ago) and talking about what a POS it is. He agreed. And they kept building them because the Beltway Bandits made so much money on them. Every system required a civilian tech rep to fix it at cost + 40%. The crews were small to save money, which meant that the slack was taken up by the Bandit employees. it was a cash cow to be milked. And milk it they have.
“War of Southern Independence”
That would only be true if they gained it.
Thanks for boosting the signal, and looking forward to Vengeance and Retribution!!!