You need to get it right.

 

Russians – Pulling T-54s and T-55s out of Mothballs

Destination: Ukrainian Front

About a month ago, I posted an article to the blog about how Russian military formations on the Norwegian border had been hollowed out. There were still a few people but the equipment had been destroyed in Ukraine. Strategypage has an interesting article on the subject. The 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, Russia’s (formerly) 3,000-man-strong Arctic Warfare elite unit has taken heavy losses and retraining replacements (whenever they arrive) in Arctic Warfare would take years. One day after the war ends they’ll have their equipment replaced,  though don’t count on anything before 2033. That is the reality of the toll the Russian Army has taken in Ukraine.

An update from warmapper.

 

Stormy

And yet, the progs push for indictment.

 

Identify the SPG

 

Painting of a British F4F Wildcat going head-to-head with a Condor

 

Bullet Points:

** Apocalypse Avoided – It just wasn’t our time—more from American Thinker.

** Kari Lake fights on for the Arizona Governor’s mansion.

** From the mailbag:

Q  – “LL, do you ever get writer’s block?”

A – Creating blog posts that people might find interesting and posting them is not easy.  Sometimes I feel that blogging takes me away from more productive work. But when I step back and analyze it, I get the work done.

Q – “LL, Do you know what happened to CNTPO?”

A – See the short answer above. CNTPO had the lead in developing technology for interagency and multinational operations to disrupt, deter, and deny narcoterrorist activities in an effort to reduce trafficking in illegal narcotics and materials that support global terrorist activities. I worked under that umbrella in an operational sense in Latin America. It was replaced by a program managed by the Air Force after I left the government.

 

From the Days of Fighting Sail

The Chatham Chest

Life was hard for families of sailors who died at sea. Prize money was only distributed among survivors. The victim’s shipmates would action his possessions for a few coins to pass on to his widow, paying well over the odds for items, but this would not put food in the mouths for very long.

Image

A sailor’s widow listens while a woman reads her a letter. Colored lithograph by J. Vallou de Villeneuve, 1830s, and The Sailor’s Wife by William S. Leney 1793

Already as early as the 16th century there was some formal help for injured sailors and their families. From 1590, all seamen in the Royal Navy made contributions of sixpence per month from their wages to support the Chatham Chest, which paid pensions to injured seamen. Two men were largely responsible for setting up the fund, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake. The assets of the fund were kept in an actual chest at Chatham dockyard and secured by five locks, which opened to five separate keys held by five different officers, an expedient intended to prevent misappropriation of funds.

Payments were on a sliding scale, £ 6 13s. 4d. per annum for the loss of a limb, £ 12 for blindness, and £ 15 for the loss of both arms. In addition, each claimant received a lump sum, equal to one year’s entitlement. In effect, this was the world’s first occupational pension. However, during the 224 that it existed, there were a number of difficulties with meeting the payments, and from 1670 the government took over the administration of the system, for which responsibility was assumed by Greenwich Hospital 1814, the physical Chest was removed from use and is today in the Chatham Dockyard Museum.

Image

The Chatam Chest was ordered in 1625. The iron chest has five locks: a disguised keyhole in the top, which operated an elaborate lock covering the entire interior of the lid, and four hasps for padlocks. The keyhole in the front of the chest is false. The original key survives with this chest.

But there were still two other ways to collect money for the wounded and widows. One was that King George II decided that each Royal Navy ship had to carry in the books one or two widows’ men per 100 of her complement, depending on her circumstances. These men were purely fictitious and given Pusser’s tallies, imaginary names. Their pay went towards a fund for the relief of the families of the warrant and commissioned officers who were killed in service. This practice lasted from 1760 to 1832.

The other one was that, after each of the major naval battles of the 1790s a charitable subscription was started in the City of London to relieve the suffering of the wounded and bereaved. These were usually organized and managed by a committee of merchants at Lloyd’s Coffee House, later to become the famous insurance market. The first of these funds were raised in 1794 after Lord Howe’s victory over the French at the Glorious First of June. Howe donated his entire prize money from the battle. Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund, established in 1803, helped both wounded seamen and officers and dependants of seamen killed in action with cash sums. It was one of the first charitable trusts of this nature to be established in the world and continues to this day.

Image

A Battle of the Nile veteran begging with his model of Nelson’s flagship, ‘Vanguard’, by Laurence J. Cossé 1804      

As much as one tried to help the wounded by such help, it did not help everyone and was often not enough so it often happened that the wounded were wandering the streets begging or the widows sell their bodies to have at least a few more coins to survive.

 

Burgundy

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54 COMMENTS

  1. Apocalypse Avoided: c.f. “Inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven.

    “Overseas” tabloids. Nice circumlocution.

    Russia may be getting its ass kicked (or not). Either way, they are nowhere near as evil as the architects of this mess. I doubt those malignant entities will get what’s coming to them (after all, haven’t they suffered enough?), but if it did happen, well, that’d be a pity, wouldn’t it.

    PS did YOU take the site offline this morning?

    • Mike_C, I experienced the site down with a message. Miss Insomnia held me in her grasp from 2am and not until 6am, her appetite satiated, released me to my sleeping pallet.

  2. The Progs/Left/Demorats (sp??) simply make stuff up…truth matters not to those with an agenda to destroy everything in their evil sights. When you later uncover the truth/data/facts they call you a racist/denier/conspiracy monger. They have no answers except more chaos.

    Lake again proving her velvet pitbull status. God speed on this latest path that may lead her taking down a pile of political operative criminals and a clear fraudulent election.

  5. Welcome back to the blogging world 🙂
    Outside of work, people have hobbies that occupy time, energy, and mental effort. Yet they still get their work done as well. I suspect that hobbies allow the brain to do ‘work’ work at the subconscious level much like sleeping. Can’t say how many times I solved a work problem in my sleep over the years, but it adds up.

  6. From Russia Collusion to Stormy Collusion, or haven’t the leftys jumped to that conclusion yet?

    When does that SPG get pulled out of mothballs and sent to the front?

  7. The “Dodging the Apocalypse” article was pretty decent, but there are always mistakes in these things. The CME may well have been stronger than the Carrington Event but the biggest thing we need to put that in context is how many others have there been and how strong they were. Sorry. There were no instruments more than a few years ago (alright, century or so). There has only been one in recorded human history, and it “just so happened” to come just as we were starting to wire the world. There are hints of other massive solar events in history but there just isn’t good enough data characterizing any of them.

    The other thing he said, was, “We do know that we have two more years before the current solar cycle tops out, and so far, this has been one of the most intense on record,” and that’s just horribly wrong. It looks like this cycle is going to surpass the last cycle, but that ain’t saying much. The last cycle was the weakest in the last 100 years. See this chart:
    https://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png

    The short rising line at lower left (I’m going to call it olive drab) is the current cycle, 25. It is higher, faster than cycle 24 but nowhere near as high/fast as 23, 22, or 21. The others charted just go back to cycle 21 which started in ’76. Cycle 21 is the strongest of this bunch but far from cycle 19, the strongest on record.

    As this CME demonstrates, it not only has to be intense but it has to be pointed right at us at the right moment. That’s two independent variables and each one of them is rare.

    If you owned parts of the power grid, you’d be stupid not to prepare for a major CME. As people, preparing for a global, or more likely, hemispheric return to the middle ages is pretty darned tough to prepare for.

    • thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-i-am-afraid-of-emp.html?showComment=1459774082197#c497803475555074093

      I live in Canada, and a power failure in the winter would be without precedent. Many would die, esp in the cities, where having a woodstove ain’t so convenient

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ice_storm

      Millions were left in the dark for periods varying from days to several weeks, and in some instances, months. It led to 34 fatalities

      Why do I get the impression that the big problem of a CME vs. the power grid comes when the power is still on when it hits? Just tell everybody to disconnect everything. The CME will generate random voltages, but in the absence of utility power to misdirect the CME doesn’t have enough power to melt anything. Would you agree?

      • You would think that people living in the Frozen North would have preps in stock, yet every big winter storm (not massive, just big) ends with 20-40 people dying and people bitching about loss of power and heat and yada yada.

        Please. I live in Florida. Most Floridians (not transplants, actual Floridians – people who have been here for 10 years or more or who grew up here) have the ability to survive 3 days and many who live in non-metropolitan areas have backup generators and much more preps.

        When will the people of the Frozen North realize that, like ants, they should be using the non-frozen months to prepare for Winter coming?

        • Arizona shouldn’t be the frozen north, but Flagstaff (for example) received more snowfall this year than any time in recorded history.

          Measures to cool down the nation are working.

      • Area where I grew up in had a massive ice storm (long after I had moved away, got married, and settle elsewhere) that took down all power lines. The closest town to the family farm had a population of about 140. FEMA set up shelters with portable generators and told everyone they could move in until things got back to normal. Nobody did – all old farm houses with propane heat and/or wood stoves. All propane tanks get filled up in the fall and everyone was ready for winter. FEMA was puzzled why no one showed up 🙂

        • I go through about 2000 gallons of propane a year, the vast bulk in the winter. The price of propane is now $3.90/gallon (delivered). And at that, I augment with wood and electricity. to heat.

          • High energy prices are due to this juvenile Administration hamstringing our energy production, forcing us into the Dark Ages with their unreliable and bad for the environment Industrial Wind & Solar gambit.

            We also use wood during the days when we want it toastier in the house…it’s “free” heat. We have a 500gal LP tank, but that’s only for the range (and eventually the 10kw backup genset). 20 years ago when we built the house REA electric was 7c/kwh so went to an ElectroBoiler instead of an LP flash-boiler (the EB is nearly 100% efficient in the application). Now electric is 9.1c/kwh with a 15c/kwh for “peak usage” which isn’t bad considering everything the Dem’s touch gets more unreliable and a lot more expensive.

            Last LP tank fill was 2019. Can’t see online what we paid per gallon but it was something like $1.30 off-peak prepurchase…$3.90/gal is highway robbery.

            If we could figure a practical way to use a Micro-SMR for home power…problem is some terrorist will figure out a way to make a bomb out the parts.

          • When I built the hovel at the White Wolf Mine, yes, propane was around $1.30, but I pay more because of global warming, you see. It’s very woke. I’m sure that there is an equity excise tax baked in. $7,800 a year for heating simply meant that I needed to up my daily rate and pass it on to the consumer. So far, so good. Now, if I wasn’t able to do that, it would be bad. I had about a cord of wood that I refer to as “ready-available” on my deck but that’s gone and the main wood supply was under a deep blanket of global warming for much of the winter. So I’ll need to re-think that. It’s ARIZONA, PaulM. Not Colorado. I didn’t expect a 4′ drift to completely cover the front of the house and block the driveway. I have a drive-through garage and I can enter/exit through the RV roll-up on the other side, so being lazy, I did that rather than dig. The wood had about 5′ of global warming on it at one point but it’s melted now.

      • drjim – good to see you’re “up and around”! Or even just “around.”

        Extreme libertarian: I think disconnecting as much as possible from the grid is a good idea. Shut down the hemisphere most likely to get the CME. It would be better if breakers could be thrown to isolate all the big transformers because they’re the heart of the problem, but I honestly don’t know how much of that exists. Since they’re connected to miles of powerlines as antennas, they’ll get the high most power.

        We knew of the CME on the far side of the sun on the 13th because that information travels at the speed of light. The big geomagnetic storm was, what?, a week later? There’s plenty of time to respond to the big CME since the particles are so much slower than the light.

        • I should really learn to proofread better.

          “Since they’re connected to miles of powerlines as antennas, they’ll get the high most power. ” should finish with “…they’ll get the most power”.

  8. As far as for blogging displacing more lucrative activities, I was always led to believe that if you wanted something done, you should task it to a busy person. They will find a way!

  9. CME
    We live because of the fusion furnace we call the sun and we can die because of the sun. Our climate is dictated by the sun. Surely, there must be some tax that can be levied to gain control of the sun. The (P)regressives are missing this opportunity.

    • I dunno know about govt revenue enhancement, but the grievance industry is prepared.

      “Massive solar flare sterilizes Western Hemisphere: Negros and LGBTQ+ hardest hit!”

  10. You know, regarding the Ukraine War, I do believe both sides are full of bull-scat and lying and using the media to spread propaganda.

    But… If Mother Russia was so great, her daily accomplishments wouldn’t be measured in meters. She made some serious inroads early on but lost the momentum and now the war has devolved into trench warfare. Even Russia’s vaunted armored and mobile forces have lost bigly. Just like armored forces suffered in WWI, only occasionally being able to make actual breakthroughs.

    Still waiting for the CCP to invade the old CCCP lands. Wonder what Xi is waiting for? What is the tipping point? When will Russian material losses be large enough that Xi thinks the CCP can jump?

    My personal feeling is that Chyna jumps at the beginning of June, maybe July, with the cutting of any east-west rail and roads in Russia by cruise missiles followed by air assets. Quick punt to divide Russia in half, then spend next year taking the eastern portion of Russia.

      • We had very nice aurora displays here I Colorado.
        Still in the rehab facility, and it’s been a week since I fell, and three weeks since I quit smoking. Unfortunately, some other issues have been uncovered since I’ve been under observation. Hopefully I’ll be released to home in another 5 days. It truly stinks to try and blog from a cellphone.

          • If DRJIM starts listing to Yoko Ono recordings or something like that, we’ll know that it was a 24 hour CNN feed on the TV

        • Oh boy…hope you are on the mend and getting back to an even keel.

          BTW, going to “doctor’s” means THEY WILL find other things to fiddle with and prescribe, not always a bad thing but that’s been our recent experience…and right now we have little good to say about the medical profession save for orthopedic. As MrsPaulM says, “Treat ’em and street ’em” with not a lot of thought involved, more like a Yes/No Flow chart.

          • I sent an e-mail to DRJIM. I can mail him a flask of Southern to Comfort him if needed. It’s a long drive to smuggle food in. What’s with the no computer thing? How is he expected to survive without coffin nails OR a computer? Re-runs of I Love Lucy won’t hack it. Maybe he has a porn channel?

          • Hopefully the Rehab place has more news than Pay to Play CNN, otherwise he’ll need a year of counseling to get on an even keel again.

          • I could have SLW bring my laptop. I’ve never done email on a phone. I’ll see if I can get into my account.
            The hospital had DirecTV, and I have Comcast Xfinity here.

        • You do need to get a laptop. At least to read, play a few games, do some surfing and, of course, blogging.

          Plus, when the medicos come in and say something unintelligible you can look it up real time and question them.

  11. They might as well re-activate the T-54s and -55s. They have tons of them, they are mechanically simple enough to fix and keep a decent number operational, they are highly resistant to small arms fire, and they have some MGs and a pretty big artillery gun. Not much of an ATG any more, but I wouldn’t be terribly happy to be shot at by one outside a modern western MBT.

    -Kle.

    • In the right battlefield environment a Civil War era Parrot gun or a 12 pdr Napoleon will work. I think that the same is true for the T-55. As you say, they’re simple and rugged, but they’ll be brutalized by modern infantry-carried A/T weapons.

  12. Re. The Chatam Chest and war wounded and death benefits: this really makes me further understand lack of popularity of impressment and press gangs amongst the general population.

    • Wooden warships were maiming places. Splinters, loose fast moving balls, loose cannon, loose rigging, all made them a decidedly unfriendly place.

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