Brown Beret unintended irony.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Message Reinforcement
Scene: Elevator in Federal Building near you. Get on, ride until you are alone.
Step One: Once you have privacy, take one of these and stick it on the inner door.
Step Two: Add a liberal squirt of this.
Step Three: Exit building.
Step Four: Laugh your Liquid ASS off all the way home.
Now here's irony for you.
Selfish, anti-firearm bitch kills her daughter and then herself WITH A BORROWED PISTOL. If she was in financial trouble, why didn't she just sell her office like every other politician?
NRA's Judenrat seeks to retain Hermann Goering as head of the Gestapo in preference to Heinrich Himmler.
Judenräte (singular Judenrat; German for "Jewish council") were administrative bodies that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union
The first Judenräte were formed by Reinhard Heydrich's orders on September 21, 1939, soon after the end of the German assault on Poland.
The Judenrat served as a liaison between the German occupying authorities and the Jewish communities under occupation. The Judenrat operated pre-existing Jewish communal properties such as hospitals, soup kitchens, day care centers, and vocational schools.
With the formation of ghettos, these bodies became responsible for local government in the ghetto, and stood between the Nazis and the ghetto population. They were generally composed of leaders of the pre-war Jewish community (with the exception of the Soviet Union, where Jewish organizations were eliminated in 1930s). They were forced by the Nazis to provide Jews for use as slave labor, and to assist in the deportation of Jews to extermination camps during the Holocaust. Those who refused to follow Nazi orders or were unable to cooperate fully were frequently rounded up and shot or deported to the extermination camps themselves.
In a number of cases, such as the Minsk ghetto and the Łachwa ghetto, Judenrats cooperated with the resistance movement. In other cases, Judenrats collaborated with the Nazis, on the basis that cooperation might save the lives of the ghetto inhabitants. -- Wikipedia.
When Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in January 1933, Goering was appointed as minister without portfolio. He was one of only two other Nazis named to the Cabinet (the other being Wilhelm Frick) even though the Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag and nominally the senior partner in the Nazi-DNVP coalition. However, in a little-noticed development, he was named Interior Minister of Prussia--a move which gave him command of the largest state police force in Germany. Soon after taking office, he began filling the political and intelligence units of the Prussian police with Nazis. On 26 April 1933, he formally detached these units from the regular Prussian police and reorganized them under his command as the Gestapo, a secret state police intended to serve the Nazi cause. -- Wikipedia.
Margaret Carlson on the NRA's soon-to-be endorsement of Harry Reid.
On 20 April 1934, Goering formed a partnership with Himmler and Heydrich. Goering transferred authority over the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), the Prussian secret police, to Himmler, who was also named chief of all German police outside Prussia. On 22 April 1934, Himmler named Heydrich the head of the Gestapo. Heydrich continued as head of the SD, as well. -- Wikipedia.
Choosing between the lesser of two tyrants just gets you enslaved more slowly.
Your Tax Dollars at Work: The Secret Surveillance State, federal hogs at trough get fatter and none of it has "consent of the governed."
From the Washington Post, "Top Secret America."
ClearanceJobs.com poster in DC. From the AltlanticWire.com, What's in the WaPo story that terrifies the "Intelligence Community."
And, in a related story, "Reality gap: U.S. struggles, D.C. booms."
Small wonder, then, that only "23% Say U.S. Government Has the Consent of the Governed."
WE DO NOT CONSENT, AND WE WILL RESIST.
On the painful necessity of "holding back."
The fish that covets bait is caught; troops who covet bait are defeated. - Mei Yao-Ch'en
An Anonymous commenter below spoke thusly:
"When, Mike, when? When will we stop worrying about 'playing the game the right way' and realize that its probably already too late? These aren't even sneak attacks on liberty anymore. They have grown bold. Will you hold back until it is too late? I have begun to fear that you will......"
To which I responded:
Organize and prepare. Organize and prepare. No one is yet ready, not them, not us. Remember our inherent strengths and take not counsel of your fears. We can and will win, but we must be of all things patient, calm, deliberate. They will overstep finally, irrevocably. Their appetites compel them. But we must take every second they give us to get out own shit together.
They expect to be able to provoke us. The essence of victory is to never do what your enemy expects and at the same time never become the evil your enemy represents.
Is this easy? Hell no. But this is the way of the Founders. And we all know that in the end they "played the game the right way."
Redouble, re-triple your efforts. Time is short and quit worrying about what advantage they may make of what is left. Just make sure YOU use it wisely.
No frigging Fort Sumters. Period.
Don't worry. Lexington Green awaits. Indeed. It is the least of your worries.
Worry instead about how to win our equivalents of Concord Bridge, Breeds Hill, Kings Mountain, Cowpens and Yorktown.
TRAIN.
PREPARE.
Carefully figure out what you are going to do to the enemies of the Republic when they finally, irrevocably start the fray.
And then (I should have concluded, and correct the omission now), THEN and ONLY THEN, execute your counterstrike ferociously into the head, the heart and the belly of the tyrannical beast.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
"Indiana Black Expo": The latest example of Gangsta Marksmanship on parade.
Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851.
Expo (short for "exposition") . . . (is a name) given to various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom in 1851 under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations". "The Great Exhibition", as it is often called, was an idea of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, and was the first international exhibition of manufactured products. -- Wikipedia.
Defining "Expo" downward . . .
Sanitized Indianapolis police account.
Three separate shootings left 10 people wounded and scattered hundreds in downtown Indianapolis during the crowded Indiana Black Expo, police said early Sunday.
Police spokesman Lt. Jeff Duhamell said authorities made no immediate arrests directly tied to the shootings and investigators were seeking leads to the suspects.
None of the victims' injuries were life-threatening, Duhamell told The Associated Press, adding police had made three unrelated arrests on weapons charges. . .
Duhamell said the shooting victims were all males between 10 and 18 years old. He said most were taken to two area hospitals where they were in good condition early Sunday. One person was treated at the scene.
Demonstrating Gangsta version of sight picture.Or lack thereof.
White gangsta wannabe James B. demonstrates the inferior shooting style. From the September 2002 issue of RecoilMag.com, an explanation. I love the Ayoob quote at the end. One wonders what the Deacons for Defense and Justice would say about this turn of events, where "gangstas" kill more black folks than the Klan ever dreamed of doing.
Mike
III
New gangsta trend significantly reduces inner city shooting fatalities
Los Angeles, Calif. -- According to an article published in the September issue of Handguns magazine, a recent decline in fatalities resulting from inner city handgun shootings can be credited to the thriving popularity of a flashy new gangsta-style shooting technique wherein the weapon is canted 180 degrees from its normal upright position.
"Hollywood overkill of the sideways gangsta shooting method encouraged many modern hoods to look for a less trendy but equally cool-looking technique for offin' someone,'" wrote freelancer Marian Ayoob in Handguns' September cover story, entitled "Better To Look Good Than To Shoot Good." "Over the last three months, holding a gun completely upside down has become the predominant method used by stylish gangstas whom, as they say, 'be fixin' to put a cap in a [person's] dome.'"
The article went on to reiterate statistics from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), which documented August 2002 as having the lowest record of shooting fatalities for men between the ages of 17-34 since December 1980.
"The number of gang-related altercations involving gunplay has remained steady, yet the rate of fatalities resulting from these shootings dropped fourteen percent last month," wrote Ayoob. "These statistics clearly indicate that the bullets - of which there are approximately the same number being fired - are not hitting their intended targets."
Ayoob also cited studies by ballistic experts at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which estimate that employing the unorthodox handgun shooting technique can reduce a subject's short range accuracy by as much as 80 percent.
U of M researchers said that this significant decrease in accuracy results from attempting to shoot the firearm while it is upside down.
"A gangsta utilizing the sideways, ninety-degree shooting method generally experiences only an accuracy loss of roughly twenty percent," said Dr. Keith Marcus of the University of Michigan. "But the shooter loses tremendous accuracy when the gun is turned an additional ninety degrees. With the sideways method you could still use the sights to aim. Upside down, you have to pretty much guesstimate [when aiming]. And having to use your pinky to operate the trigger certainly doesn't help."
Marcus added that a shooter's accuracy is further reduced if the subject is either running from police or trying to look at himself in a mirror while aiming.
Still, Ayoob contends, more and more gangstas are becoming willing to sacrifice accuracy in return for aesthetic rewards.
"What the shooter loses in short and long-range accuracy, and the ability to quickly fire consecutive rounds, he or she more than makes up for in presenting a more 'bad ass' appearance [than using a standard shooting technique]," wrote Ayoob. "Polls indicate that thugs consider 'how you be representin' be just as important as how you be shootin'.'"
Ayoob said that Americans can expect the number of shooting fatalities to continue to drop as the flamboyant attack pose gains further popularity among the public.
"Right now, only gangstas residing in the bigger, more progressive cities are employing the 'one-eighty cock,' as some are calling it," said Ayoob. "As soon as the entertainment media gets wind that holding the gun upside down is the 'wuz-up cuz' cool way to fire off a round, you'll be seeing it in all of the movies and television shows."
Added Ayoob: "Wait until the next Denzel Washington character blasts a cop using the one-eighty cock. Everyone will want to be shooting that way. Morgues across the country will probably have to layoff half of their staffs due to lack of business."
Praxis: Written Communication in a Grid-Down Environment.
The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo) is a low-cost printing press that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper.
Along with spirit duplicators and hectographs, mimeographs were for many decades used to print short-run office work, classroom materials, and church bulletins. They also were critical to the development of early fanzines because their low cost and availability enabled publication of amateur writings. These technologies began to be supplanted by photocopying and cheap offset printing in the late 1960s.
Although in mid-range quantities mimeographs remain more economical and energy efficient, easier-to-use photocopying and offset have replaced mimeography almost entirely in developed countries, although it continues to be a working technology in developing countries because it's a simpler, cheaper, and more robust technology, and because many mimeographs can be hand-cranked and thus require no electricity. -- Wikipedia.
Folks,
You probably have to be as old as I am (58 on the 23rd of this month) to remember one of these. When I was the assistant editor of my high school newspaper, we used a mimeograph to turn out our product.
High school kids turning out a school newspaper, circa 1951.Memories of smelling mimeo ink came flooding back when a buddy of mine told me that he had just found and acquired for the carrying off, an old AB Dick machine, quantities of ink and master stencils. A neighbor of his asked him to help clean out their garage as part of moving sale, and there in the back, under a tarp and covered with the grime and dust of probably thirty years, was a machine that had been used to turn out church bulletins. He is in the process of cleaning it, and will run a test leaflet before storing it back in a cool, dry place of his own for the purpose of communications in a possible grid-down future.
I asked him if he would consider selling it, and he just gave me a look that said, "No way in Hell, Vanderboegh, are you getting your hands on this."
One machine I DO have is a portable manual typewriter. In fact, I have two of them plus plenty of carbon paper I scored about 15 years ago in a going-out-of-business sale at an office supply store in Irondale, Alabama.
Royal Quiet DeLuxeOne of the typewriters is a Royal Quiet DeLuxe similar to the one above, with accompanying hard-shell case. The other is a more modern Olivetti MS-25 Plus like the one below.
If I recall correctly, I got the Olivetti for about ten bucks at a yard sale, and the Royal for the carrying off at the tail end of an estate sale one late afternoon. Both have smooth actions, crisp carriages and smooth rollers pretty much like new. I scored big on the carbon paper, as I recall, hauling off pads of 25 per for like a dime a piece.
Carbon paper.Some years ago, I also picked up several thousand 8.5x11 military "Hand Receipt" forms, each having a carbon copy underneath the original. The idea was that you would sign for the property issued, get the carbon copy underneath and the original with your signature would remain in the property officer's book. These can be used for a variety of messages and records. Acquisition cost? The effort required to pull them out of a National Guard unit's dumpster.
Yes, I confess, I'm a dumpster diver from way back.
Remember, too, that many companies give out note pads as promotions. Like cops giving out gunlocks, I take as many of these as are offered. Same goes for promotional pens and pencils.
All of it goes in five gallon buckets or other cache-suitable containers. Such packratism is probably a character flaw, but then again I won't run out of means to communicate in a grid-down environment for a very long time.
Mike
III
Praxis: Some Experience in Storing Items in a Humid Climate
This is why I always store any perishables in the proverbial "cool, dry place." And if the place is not cool and dry, I pack it and cache it so it is.
My source for free used food-grade 5 gallon buckets -- WalMart -- has recently changed policy and no longer gives them out. There are other grocery bakeries who still do. Sealing anything in a 5-gallon plastic pail and burying it below the frost line in a cache (or stashing it in a cool cave) will almost always keep it fresh. We recently opened and tested some 15 year old five gallon bucket caches (some buried, some caved), including ammo and MREs. No signs of corrosion or spoilage.
Large items -- ALICE packs on frames, USGI packboards, large sleeping bags, small tents, camouflage netting -- can be stored in footlocker sized "Tuff Boxes."
You can seal any container with a large enough bead of silicone.
Remember that any container (except steel ammo cans) can be chewed through by rodents to get at what's inside. After about 1998, we would include a liberal spraying of the outside of the sealed containers (and the storage area if possible) with pest repellent.
We have always sprayed inside of containers with insecticides of various kinds (be sure and let them dry out completely before sealing).
For electronic stuff such as radios and field telephony equipment that requires the improvising of an EMP-resistant Faraday cage, I am fond of the South African steel ammo cans in 7.62 NATO and .50 BMG.
South African ammo can in 7.62 NATO (The .50 BMG can is larger).These require some hole-plugging with silicone-daubed bolts/nuts in the drainage holes on the bottom and, if cached, a bead of silicone around the lid.
For storage of books and other perishables in conditions where rodents are known to be, I prefer USGI 20MM steel ammo cans as below.
I have a quite extensive collection of US Field and Technical Manuals stored in 7 of these. Smaller collections of FMs and TMs can be secured in intermediate size ammo cans such as the SAW ammo can.
Having it both ways on "The Intolerable Act."
Whatever you call it, it is still spelled T-Y-R-A-N-N-Y.
And if you don't believe me, check out "the IRS's vast new ObamaCare powers."
Of Civil War sabers and cavalry tactics: two sources.
"Well, there ain't no GOOD way to charge an artillery battery." -- Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Winslow Homer's idealized Civil War cavalry charge.Given the recent discussion of swords, I thought some of you might like to read some discussion of the cavalry saber in the War Between the States.
Gervase Phillips' essay "Sabre versus Revolver: Mounted Combat in the American Civil War" is an excellent overview of the subject. I reprint the essay in its entirety below because the formatting at the original site is difficult to read.
Phillips refers to another valuable source on cavalry fighting of the Civil War, Frederick Whittaker's Volunteer Cavalry: The Lessons of the Decade. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I was a cavalry re-enactor, belonging first to a mounted unit, then a dismounted one, the 7th Tennessee Cavalry, based in Memphis. Eventually, I was a founding member of the 1st Alabama Union Cavalry, Company C.
The best dismounted cavalry units were always in a constant "authenticity" struggle, both with the mounted units (who disdained getting down off their horses to fight with carbines) and other dismounted units who were, to say the least, not entirely connected to the realities of Civil War cavalry combat as well as the actual appearance of the original units they claimed to represent.
One thing that the 7th Tennessee and the 1st Alabama did was to comb the original sources of Civil War cavalry history to improve our performance. Whittaker was one source I turned up in our research. Back then, I did a search for original copies in libraries and finally found one copy that I requested inter-library loan and then xeroxed. Today, such effort is not necessary, for Whittaker's slim volume is available on Google Books here.
Frederick Whittaker was born in London on 12 December 1838. His father was a solicitor, but, having endorsed some papers for a noble client who defaulted, he was obliged to flee to the Continent to escape being imprisoned for debt. In 1850 Frederick came to New York City, where he obtained a position as managing clerk in a law office. After experiencing the legal profession from a worm's eye view, Whittaker decided it wasn't for him, and left to join an architectural firm as an assistant but poor eyesight forced him to quit.
He tried his hand at writing, with some small success, until the outbreak of the War Between the States. He enlisted 11 November 1861 at Camp Scott, Staten Island, as a private in Company L, 6th New York Cavalry. He was transferred to Company D in the same regiment 16 February 1863, and was honorably discharged 15 December 1863, as a corporal, to enable him to enlist as a veteran volunteer. He re-entered the same organization 16 December 1863. In the Battle of the Wilderness, in May, 1864, he was shot through the left lung and was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant on 12 February 1865, in Company A. He was mustered out and honorably discharged 9 August 9, 1865, as 2nd Lieutenant, Company A, New York Provisional Cavalry. Although he later claimed to have been brevetted the temporary rank of Captain, the record does not support this.
After the war he worked as a book agent for a while, and then taught school. During this time Whittaker began to seriously write fiction and non-fiction for a variety of publications. In the Army and Navy Journal in early 1871, he published a series entitled: "Volunteer Cavalry, the Lessons of the Decade, by a Volunteer Cavalryman," in which he gave personal experiences during the war. He later wrote a worshipful hagiography of George Armstrong Custer after the latter's death at Little Big Horn and picked public fights with Major Marcus Reno and Captain William Benteen over their alleged "treason" to Custer in failing to support him on 25 June 1876.
One source described Whittaker as "always of an excitable disposition, irascible, and at times became extremely violent."
On 13 May 1889 Whittaker returned home from his office at the Mount Vernon, New York, newspaper. After meeting his wife at the door and exchanging some pleasantries, Whittaker ran up the stairs.
He always carried a revolver in his pocket and, apparently taking it out to put it away as was his custom on returning home, when he reached the head of the stairs his cane seems to have caught in the banisters, tripped him, and he fell, breaking the rail. His pistol exploded and he was shot in the head, dying in half an hour without regaining consciousness. His wife, three daughters, and a stepson survived him.
As a fan of Fred Benteen, I don't think much of Whittaker's biography of Custer. As the American Indian Movement bumper sticker in the 1970s read: CUSTER HAD IT COMING.
Volunteer Cavalry, on the other hand, is extremely useful because -- unlike Custer -- Whittaker was writing about a subject he knew well.
His points about the saber (and Gervase Phillips' repetition of them in the essay below) are interesting, but they were passe even when Whittaker wrote in 1871. The repeating rifle killed the mounted charge with saber as dead as the dinosaurs. And right behind the repeating rifle came the Maxim gun. The weapon may still have been as deadly one-on-one, but the mounted charge as a tactic (even with pistols) was now obsolete. That the mass of horsemen waving three foot razors is psychologically daunting is without doubt -- to unprepared troops in the open. (So, too, is the bayonet.) But to a dug in enemy behind cover in a woodline, they became just so much easy meat.
Whittaker's love of the saber aside, it is the rest of his discussion of cavalry fighting and tactics -- especially that of the dismounted skirmish line -- that is most useful. Here we see the beginnings of what would later be codified in the American Army as Upton's Infantry Tactics. The horse, no longer the mounted knight's battle platform becomes something entirely more useful -- a means of rapidly getting men who fight on foot around the battlefield. They still provide all the traditional uses of cavalry -- reconnaissance, screening, pursuit -- but in the face of a rifle skirmish line, whether of infantry or cavalry (and certainly of artillery, a fact that had been demonstrated by the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War before Whittaker took to the saddle) the mounted charge was an invitation to mass suicide.
The last mounted charge of the US Army horse cavalry -- 26th Cavalry Regiment, Philippine Scouts, 16 January 1942.Horse cavalry would serve on into the 20th Century. The last mounted charge of American cavalry would take place during the Bataan Campaign on 16 January 1942, carried out in desperation by the 26th Cavalry (Philippine Scouts). Led by LT Ed Ramsey, G troop, 26th Cavalry, the charge with .45s drawn was successful in driving back the Japanese temporarily, but after breaking the Japanese line, Ramsey did the sensible thing and dismounted his men to continue the fight on foot. In the end, the American and Filipino forces were forced to pull out of the hard-won village. After the 26th withdrew into the prepared siege lines further down the Bataan Peninsula, they fought as infantry and were later forced to eat their mounts. A first-hand description of "the last charge" can be found in Ramsey's autobiography Lieutenant Ramsey's War: From Horse Soldier to Guerrilla Commander.
Yet as obsolete as the horse-mounted charge is, the concept of rapid movement of soldiers to deploy to fight on foot has found its ultimate expression in the mechanized infantry and cavalry scouts of today.
The only sabers these soldiers sport are the crossed saber insignia on their covers.
Mike
III
Sabre versus Revolver: Mounted Combat in the American Civil War
By Gervase Phillips
On 1st April, 1865, in thick woodland near Maplesville, Alabama, two bodies of horsemen fought a short and bloody skirmish. The Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his immediate staff were outnumbered four to one by the Federal troopers who rode boldly at them, sabers drawn. Yet this hectic mêlée among the trees was dominated by the cracking reports of the Navy Colts carried by the Rebel troopers. Forrest suffered a glancing blow to the head from a saber cut, but shot his assailant from the saddle. Six of his entourage were also wounded, but, it was said, some thirty Union cavalrymen had been killed in the encounter, and a larger number still were wounded. The day belonged to the revolver.
Indeed, for many civil war cavalrymen, the day of cold steel was altogether over. John S. Mosby recalled that ‘we had been furnished with sabers … but the only real use I ever heard of their being put to was to hold a piece of meat over a fire. I dragged one through the first year of war, but when I became commander I discarded it.’ The Canadian colonel George T. Denison, who talked at length with many veterans of the conflict, criticized ‘old-fashioned cavalry officers’ and urged ‘that cavalry intended for the battlefield’ should henceforth ‘rely greatly upon the revolver.’ It is, therefore, surprising to find another veteran trooper who expressed a very different opinion. Captain Frederick Whittaker, of the 6th New York Cavalry, was adamant that he ‘never remembered an instant in which the saber charge, resolutely pushed, failed to drive the pistols.’ Whittaker cannot simply be dismissed as a blimpish reactionary.
A thorough survey of cavalry combat during the war confirms many instances of the triumph of saber over revolver. On 17th May 1863, in a skirmish at Bradyville Pike, Tennessee, two companies of Federal Tennessee cavalry under Major- General John Palmer charged 80 troopers of the 3rd Georgia Cavalry: ‘we came on them under a quick fire, but they broke when we got within 100 yards. We pursued them a mile, and have 18 prisoners … The enemy, after they reached the wood, rallied and fought well, but they had no sabers, and only inflicted a few slight wounds.’ After the battle of Winchester, 19th September 1864, Brigadier-General George Armstrong Custer recalled that ‘the enemy relied wholly upon the carbine and the pistol; my men preferred the saber. A short but costly struggle ensued, which resulted in the repulse of the enemy.’ For the historian of cavalry, this presents something of a puzzle. It is difficult to understand why, in one combat, the revolver should have so completely bested the saber, and yet, on another occasion, the saber proved the better weapon.
The contest between the weapons was, of course, never quite that straightforward. Each encounter was shaped by a host of factors: the training and experience of the rival units; the condition of their mounts; the boldness of their leadership and the tactical circumstances in which they found themselves, from the sudden ambush of small patrols to the clash of whole brigades in set-piece engagements. A consideration of the characteristics of the rival weapons in combat leads to the conclusion that both weapons were still of considerable value; the trick was to know when to trust to fire, and when to trust to steel. There was, however, a particularly serious obstacle to the effective use of the saber during the war: the lack of training in its use.
In 1861, there was little thought given to attempting to raise volunteer mounted forces comparable to regular cavalry. Colonel Francis Lippitt explained this hesitancy. Since it took three years to train such cavalry properly, it seemed that the undoubted expense of raising such units would be wasted. The war would be over, it was assumed, before they could be deployed. Nor was the ‘rugged, mountainous or densely wooded’ countryside over which much of the fighting was likely to take place well suited to conventional cavalry. The preference, therefore, was to raise light cavalry, ‘of a kind requiring comparatively but little time and training,’ to perform the tasks of outpost duties, patrols, escorts, foraging parties, reconnaissance and providing the advance, rear and flank guards to marching armies. They were not, however, generally trained to deliver charges on the battlefield. Nor was it possible at the beginning of the war to equip all troopers with sabers.
In June 1861, Jubal Early, then a colonel in Lynchburg, Virginia, complained ‘there is no company of [Confederate] cavalry here fully armed. Two companies have doublebarrelled shotguns but no sabers. There are two companies tolerably well drilled, with forty or fifty sabers each…’ Federal troopers were often no better off. The 2nd Illinois Cavalry, in Paducah, Kentucky, later that year, was short of sabers, pistols and carbines and was thus, ‘not adequate to attempt the service of scouting this part of the country…’ Lances, made by local blacksmiths and carpenters, were issued to some Union cavalry regiments around Washington in January 1862, until sabers could be provided. (The 6th Pennsylvania, ‘Rush’s Lancers,’ was an exception; the lance was their weapon of choice until early 1863.
In the far west, two companies of the Rebel 5th Texas Cavalry carried lances and a company of Federal Native California Cavalry was armed with the lance as late as October 1864). For many Civil War troopers, the saber was an unfamiliar weapon; even if they were issued one they were rarely fully trained in its use. This was readily apparent in the way the weapon was handled in the field. The original regulation saber issued to Federal troopers was a rather clumsy, long, heavy sword, of a Prussian pattern. This was later replaced by a lighter, curved saber, a more suitable weapon for light cavalry but still difficult to master.
In combat, officers who had been taught to fence used the point of the blade to deadly effect, but enlisted men tended to hack and slash at the head or upper body, often wounding the enemy but without killing or incapacitating him. After colliding with Stuart’s cavalry at Boonesborough, 8th July 1863, Colonel Preston, 1st Vermont Cavalry, thus reported ‘the charge was spiritedly made and sabers freely used, as the heads of my men will attest.’ In November, 1861, Joseph Hooker, then a divisional commander, said this of his cavalry, ‘with good arms and a little training [they] might be of great service…’ In the meantime though, ‘I felt apprehensive in dispatching them in troops beyond supporting distance, with no arms of any account but their sabers, and they are not skilled in the use of those.’ For many, it was this simple lack of training that accounted for any failure by saber-armed troopers. Whittaker went so far as to claim that ‘in all instances during the war in which the saber proved ineffective it may be safely asserted that it was owing to two things – want of fencing practice and blunt sabers.’
Arthur Freemantle, a British officer who spent three months in the Southern States, April-June 1863, described cavalry combats as ‘miserable affairs.’ He noted how rival bodies of troopers approached each other to within forty yards and then ‘at the very moment when a dash is necessary, the sword alone should be used, they hesitate, halt and commence a desultory fire with carbines and revolvers.’ Confederate troopers he noted, ‘wear swords but seem to have little idea of using them – they hanker after their carbines and revolvers…’ Yet, while recognising that lack of training in swordsmanship was an inhibiting factor in the combat effectiveness of the saber, we should be wary of accepting this explanation wholesale. Freemantle was not in the country long enough to appreciate fully how skilled the rival cavalries became. The ‘miserable’ skirmishes that he witnessed in June 1863 took place during a wearying series of cavalry engagements in northern Virginia, when both sides were trying to preserve the strength of their horses.
This brings us to another crucial factor in the saber versus revolver equation: the condition of the mounts. On campaign troopers struggled to care for their over-burdened, under-fed and exhausted mounts; many were, thus, in generally poor condition, unfit for shock action. Additionally, the demand for horses, and the activities of some unscrupulous purchasers, led to many unsuitable animals being issued to regiments. The Union Quarter-Master General, M.C. Meigs received a report in mid-1863 that described one shipment of 100 horses from New York: only 48 were fit for service, the rest were diseased, too young or simply, ‘quite used up.’ In one instance, horses were confined to railroad cars for fifty hours, unfed and unwatered. Weak, starving and thirsty, they were then issued for immediate service to a regiment in the field. Such a poorly-mounted regiment could be quickly reduced to a pathetic spectacle.
Chaplain Henry Pyne, 1st New Jersey Cavalry, recalled the state of his regiment after seven days campaigning in the Shenandoah Valley in late May 1862: ‘with increasing frequency men could be seen to dismount and attempt to lead forward their enfeebled animals, which, with drooping heads, lacklustre eyes, and trembling knees could scarcely support the weight of the saddles and equipments.’ The mortality rate was horrific. Louis Philippe, the Comte de Paris, aide-de-campe to McClellan, estimated that in the opening twelve months of the war ‘more than one regiment used up three horses to every man’ and that ‘it was only through the severest discipline that troopers were taught at last to take care of their horses.’
Confederate troopers initially faired better than Federals, for they supplied their own horses. However, once the South had lost control of the horse breeding regions of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and trans-Allegheny Virginia, procuring remounts and draft animals became one the Confederacy’s most pressing military problems. Tactically it led the individual trooper to become warier of taking risks in battle. An 1864 report on the cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee noted ‘that the soldier will invariably take so much care of his horse as to feel at least disinclined to risk it in battle.’ In the east, Lieutenant-Colonel W. W. Blackford lamented that ‘the most dashing trooper was the one whose horse was the most apt to be shot, and when this man was unable to remount himself he had to go to the infantry service… Such a penalty for gallantry was terribly demoralizing.’
In the worst cases, regiments that could no longer procure suitably large, fast and strong mounts ceased to operate as cavalry but became de facto mounted infantry. Heros von Borcke, the Prussian adventurer who served the Confederacy, noted that the quality of horses had so declined by 1863 that ‘one was obliged by this fact to have greater bodies of cavalrymen used as dismounted sharpshooters.’ The generally poor condition of Civil War mounts favored the revolver over the saber in close combat. The cavalryman relying on edged weapons needed his mount to be nimble, fast and strong for he dueled as much with his horse as he did with his blade. When firing a revolver from the saddle, the condition of the horse was far less important.
A good illustration of this point comes from the Crimean War of 1853-56. Captain Soame Jenyns, of the ill-fated British Light Brigade, had been pursued by three Russian Cossacks while retreating from ‘the valley of death’ at Balaklava. His horse was too badly wounded to risk duelling with his saber, so he shot one of his assailants with his revolver and the others hastily withdrew. For Civil War horses it was less likely wounds than exhaustion that left them unequal to the demands of saber tactics. General William Averell, a divisional commander in the Army of the Potomac, testified to the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War in 1863 that ‘our cavalry has been confined very much to details, and had a great deal of duty to do which did not properly belong to it... We have done a great deal of picketing, independent of the infantry. That has worn down our horses and worn out our equipment ....’ It is circumstances like this that largely explain those ‘desultory’ combats with revolvers and carbines that Freemantle witnessed.
Yet there were commanders on both sides whose faith in l’arme blanche (‘the white arm’) was unshakable. Their belief transmitted itself to their men; properly trained and with sufficiently high standards of horse-mastery to keep their mounts in ‘hard condition,’ these regiments demonstrated the continued potency of the saber, even in the face of the revolver. Jeb Stuart was one such practitioner of saber tactics. During his audacious three-day ride around the Army of the Potomac, 12th-15th June1862, von Borcke recalled ‘we were obliged to fight all the way through, charging continually with sabres in hand the hostile cavalry forces which in all haste were dispatched to oppose us…’ Across the lines, there were commanders in blue with a similar attitude; at Kelly’s Ford, 17th March 1863, Colonels Alfred Duffié and J. B. McIntosh brought the 1st Rhode Island, 4th Pennsylvania and 6th Ohio into line, drew sabers and charged, driving Rebel cavalry from the field ‘in magnificent style.’ The battle-hardened cavalries now looked more and more to the saber. Francis Lippitt, noting the reliance on revolvers, shot-guns and carbines in the early stages of the war, suggested that ‘it was not until the fight at Brandy Station [9th June 1863] that sabres were used, to any extent, at close quarters.’
The cavalry campaign of late spring 1863, and the battle at Brandy Station in particular, does seem to have been watershed in many ways. The creation of the Federal Cavalry Bureau earlier that year had improved both the quality of remounts and the care of injured and sick horses.
The creation of a Cavalry Corps for the Army of the Potomac concentrated regiments en masse and allowed for units of a sufficient size to undertake independent, or ‘strategic,’ operations, such as the attempt to beat up Stuart’s camps at Culpepper and get information as to the enemy’s position and movements that led to the clash at Brandy Station. In this set-piece cavalry versus cavalry encounter, in which whole brigades charged in concert, the traditional weapon of the horse soldier, the saber, proved supreme. Blackford asserted that ‘there was here presented in a modern battle that striking phenomena of gunpowder being ignored almost entirely. Not a man fought dismounted, and there was heard but an occasional pistol shot and but little artillery, for soon after the opening of the fight the contest was so close and the dust so thick that it was impossible to use either without risk to friends.’ Both sides emerged from the engagement with a strengthened faith in the saber; Stuart congratulated his men for demonstrating once more the ‘proof-steel’ of their mettle and told them ‘with an abiding faith in the God of battles, and a firm reliance on the saber, your success will continue.’
Yet, lacking remounts and short of fodder, the Rebel cavalry was less and less able to compete as an arme blanche force. By the time of Sheridan’s campaign in the Shenandoah, August to October 1864, it was painfully obvious that a mounted force relying on firepower was unequal to meeting one that could use the saber in large-scale engagements. After seeing Confederate troopers defeated at Fisher’s Hill, 9th October 1864, Jubal Early concluded glumly that his cavalry, ‘have no sabers and the consequence is that they cannot fight on horseback, and in this open country they cannot successfully fight on foot against large bodies of cavalry.’
To understand why the revolver was not a match for the saber in these engagements, requires us to look at the particular characteristics of the weapon. Early in the war there were not enough to go around and some troopers were initially issued obsolete singleshot flintlock pistols. Yet, as the war progressed, the ‘revolving pistol’ became nearubiquitous, favored for its rapid fire and its utility in both mounted and dismounted combat. On the other hand, as Blackford suggested, the inaccuracy of fire from the saddle was a problem; in a swirling mêlée of hundreds of horsemen, the revolver was as much a danger to friend as foe.
A second disadvantage was psychological. The man who relied on firepower from the saddle was reluctant to charge home and often fired his revolver at too long a range. Furthermore the revolver charge lacked the ‘moral force’ of an arme blanche charge. The enemy’s resolve was strengthened by the knowledge that the oncoming horseman would not charge to impact. The point is well illustrated by an incident that occurred during the expedition from New Berne to Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, in July 1863. Major Floyd Clarkson, 12th New York Cavalry, delivered a revolver charge against Rebel skirmishers hovering on the edge of a wood; most of the weapons were discharged prematurely ‘and their fire lost.’ The Federal troopers wheeled away, leaving the Rebels firmly standing their ground. Clarkson rallied his men and now ordered ‘sabers to be drawn’ for a conventional charge. The startled enemy broke and fled. Yet we cannot be dismissive of the revolver. All over the world, types of light cavalry, particularly those associated with frontier zones, developed tactics for mounted combat that utilised open-order or ‘swarm’ formations. These were found useful for the fast-moving operations of border warfare: the raid; the pursuit; the ambush. Furthermore they were especially suited to relatively small bodies of troopers operating in broken country.
The French Empire’s Chasseurs d’Afrique often attacked in a loose mounted skirmish line, a formation they called ‘en fourraguer.’ American light cavalry essentially operated in much the same context and thus they too often fought ‘as foragers.’ This was particularly true where the terrain was wooded, coherent shock action by a whole regiment or brigade was impossible and fighting broke down into a series of individual duels or clashes between small bodies of troopers. In these engagements the revolver was supreme. Those units, like Mosby’s or Forrest’s, that fought primarily as raiders or partisans excelled with the weapon, as did troopers steeped in ‘frontier’ warfare, such as the Texas Rangers. In short, the saber may have retained its place as the premier arm for battle-cavalry, but the patrol that ventured into woodland without revolvers was asking for trouble.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, when cavalry armament was again a matter of considerable debate, Captain Alonzo Grey, 14th US Cavalry, undertook a detailed study of the lessons of the Civil War. On the question of saber versus revolver, he concluded that, ‘each weapon has its distinct and proper uses, and neither can replace the other; neither can either of them be discontinued as a necessary part of modern cavalry armament.’ This was certainly a perceptive reading of the evidence and explains why, for as long as western armies continued to field cavalry, the American trooper was amongst the most heavily armed, with his carbine for dismounted combat, his revolver for the skirmish and his saber for the charge.
Sources: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 127 Volumes, (Washington DC: US War Department, 1880-1901), [CD-ROM Version, Zionsville: Guild Press of Indiana, 2000]
The Report of the Joint Committee of the Conduct of the War (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863).
W. W. Blackford, War Years with JEB Stuart (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993)
Heros von Borcke, Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence, 2 Vols (Peter Smith, New York, 1938)
George T. Denison, A History of Cavalry from the Earliest Times with Lessons for the Future (Macmillan, London, 1913)
Arthur J. L. Freemantle, Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991),
Alonzo Gray, Cavalry Tactics as Illustrated by the War of the Rebellion (Fort Leavenworth: US Cavalry Association, 1912)
Francis Trevelyan Miller (ed.), The Photographic History of the Civil War, Vol. 4 (New York: Review of Reviews, 1911)
Henry Pyne Ride to War: The History of the First New Jersey Cavalry (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1961)
Charles W.Ramsdell, “General Robert E .Lee’s Horse Supply, 1862-1865", The American Historical Review, 35 (1930), 758-777.
Stephen Z.Starr, "Cold Steel: The Sabre and Union Cavalry", Civil War History, xi (1965),142-159.
Stephen Z.Starr, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War, 3 Volumes (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1979-1981)
F. Chenevix Trench, Cavalry in Modern War (London: Kegan Paul, 1884)
Russell Weigley, Quartermaster General of the Union Army: A Biography of M.C.Meigs (Columbia University Press, 1959)
Saturday, July 17, 2010
"The thin walls of law." Great quote I found at SurvivalBlog.com
"How complacent we become when we sit secure, hedged round by laws and protections a government may provide! How soon we forget that but for these governments and laws there would be naught but savagery, brutality and starvation. For our age-old enemies await us always, just beyond our thin walls. Hunger, thirst and cold lie waiting there, and forever among us are those who would loot, rape and maim rather than behave as civilized men. If we sit secure this hour, this day, it is because the thin walls of law stand between us and evil. A jolt of the earth, a revolution, and invasion or even a violent upset in our own government can reduce all to chaos, leaving civilized man naked and exposed." - Louis L’Amour, Fair Blows the Wind
Praxis: Creating Secure Perimeter Fencing with Plant Life
God's razor wire, the blackberry bush.Interesting post at SurvivalBlog.com. While this is written with "survivalists" in mind, it is also a useful way of channeling all sorts of evil bad guys who wish to get access to your homestead even if it is not "The End of the World as We Know it."
Mike
III
Creating Secure Perimeter Fencing with Plant Life
By James Wesley, Rawles on July 14, 2010 9:20 PM
I’ve read enough about the Golden Horde, mutant zombie biker gangs, and the occasional parent who will do anything to feed their family to know that in a TEOTWAWKI situation not only do I not want anyone breaking into my house, I don’t want anyone to be able to get past the perimeter of my property. I live in a very rural area of the South, surrounded by a few neighbors that would do anything to help someone out, cotton farms, and cows. I’m as far out in the hinterboonies as is possible in this part of the US. Yet, if I were to construct a perimeter fence that would properly keep people out, everyone in the general area would be talking about “that strange anti-social family” since most properties in this area have only decorative fencing, simple electric fencing, or none at all. Neither my husband nor I really want to spend the 11th hour adding more barbed wire around the livestock pens, gardens, orchards, or the house. Because of this we’ve decided to take a slightly more natural approach to our perimeter fencing. In our area it’s not uncommon to see wooded areas with vast overgrowth so we’ve decided to create a perimeter fence that’s impenetrable and looks like an abandoned wooded area.
When creating a plant based perimeter fence there are three main criteria you need to consider:
1. Is the plant native or common to your specific area? (For example, at a retreat in the southwest various species of cacti would be perfectly appropriate whereas in my area that would be a dead giveaway that someone lives beyond the overgrowth)
2. Will it grow rapidly without much intervention? (This is very important; you don’t want to waste water that could be used for drinking, household duties, or your garden on your perimeter fence)
3. Will it be difficult to get through? (You want to be sure to use plants that are thorny and grow in extremely dense)
Another criterion that you can look at is will your perimeter plants provide you with additional resources. Because my retreat is in an area that allows for such a diversity of plant life to grow without human intervention I added on that final criterion to narrow down the choices. The plants my husband and I chose are Bamboo, Pyracantha, Blackberries, and Spanish Bayonet. So, the reasons why we chose these plants
Bamboo
Bamboo is the fastest growing woody plant on earth, and an invasive plant at that. Some species can grow as fast as 48” in a 24 hour period. It is also an extraordinarily diverse plant that can be used in construction, cooking, even as medicine. For perimeter fencing having an invasive plant is a good thing because it means it will grow without much human intervention and it will become very dense, which is better for keeping people out. For my fence I went with a clumping variety instead of a running variety because it’s easier to contain clumping varieties. One great thing about bamboo is there are varieties that will grow from climate zone 4 to zone 11; you’ll just have to do a little bit of research to see which specific species of bamboo will work in your region. Also be sure to look around your area to see what sort of bamboo appears to be growing wild, remember, you want your perimeter to blend in. We’ve managed to make sure we get bamboo common to our area by scouting craigslist, freecycle, and various local classifieds for people offering up free bamboo plants. Because it is such an invasive species of plant, man people will give bamboo away as long as you’re willing to uproot it for them because they can no longer contain it.
Pyracantha
Pyracantha (sometimes called Firethorn) can grow to be about 20 feet high, produce edible berries, and they are covered in thorns. I’ve read a few articles that suggest cultivating Pyracantha around windows for home defense because of how densely the thorns grow. Where I live, beyond extra watering when first planting a Pyracantha tree they need no human intervention to grow. Another benefit is the berries, they attract deer and birds which make for excellent hunting and you can pick the berries to feed to chickens who don’t mind the bitter flavor. For human consumption you just need to boil down the berries to create a tasty jelly with about 40 calories per tbsp; 4 ½ cups of berries will produce approximately 2 cups of jelly. Pyracantha does best and is fully evergreen in zones 7 through 9 though with some research you can find strains that have been bred for hardiness in colder climates.
Blackberries
We chose blackberries for a few reasons; one being that they are my absolute favorite berry and providing food is always a good idea when preparing for TEOTWAWKI, especially a food as healthy and diverse as blackberries. Blackberries are notable for their high nutritional contents of dietary fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, folic acid - a B vitamin, and the essential mineral, manganese and they rank highly among fruits for antioxidant strength, particularly due to their dense contents of polyphenolic compounds, such as ellagic acid, tannins, ellagitannins, quercetin, gallic acid, anthocyanins and cyanidins. Blackberry root and leaves are also common in herbal medicines to help with ailments such as diarrhea, dysentery, and more. But the security reasons being that they are everywhere where we live, to the point where during blackberry season all you have to do is walk along any road in the area and you’ll be likely to pick enough blackberries in one day to feed your family blackberry cobbler for a year. They are extraordinarily invasive and require no human intervention to thrive. And they are extremely dense, thorny plants, since Pyracantha grow so tall their thorns only affect the upper half of a person, blackberries will take care of the lower half. Blackberries do best in zones 7 through 9; though you can grow blackberry bushes in slightly colder climates they’re unlikely to produce any fruit.
Spanish Bayonet
The final plant we decided to add to our perimeter is the Spanish Bayonet, named so because it’s leaves will puncture someone even through thick layers of clothing. The Spanish Bayonet becomes top heavy between 5 to 20 feet when the it topples over, then the tip curves upwards and continues growing. Meanwhile it readily sends out shoots around the base rapidly becoming a thick, impenetrable clump of bayonet like leaves. Though these provide no additional purposes beyond security, these are the sharpest and easiest plants to take care of in our specific area and therefore a very worthy plant to add into our plant perimeter fence. The Spanish Bayonet grows best in zones 8 through 11.
I always think getting your plants from a local nursery is best because then you know for sure the plant will survive in your specific climate and the conditions in your particular area, not to mention most local nursery owners are willing to help you and they’re a lot more knowledgeable than your average big box employee when it comes to the plants they sell you. Depending on how big of a perimeter you need to create and how much time, and money you have could make it difficult to get all of your plants from the same local nursery. If there are only 1 or 2 local nurseries and you’re unable to get all the plants you need for your perimeter from them I would suggest seeing if you can find a somewhat local nursery that you can order from online. For those on a budget, of which I am one, build up your perimeter fence over time. Simply find the weakest points of your property and start there. You can find plants for free or cheap on craigslist, freecycle, even by searching for garden club plant exchanges. Remember, you don’t have to use the same exact plants around the entire perimeter, just make sure whatever plants you use match the criteria you need. In fact, the more diverse your plant perimeter is, the more likely it is to resemble overgrown woods.
When creating your perimeter fence you’ll want to layer your plants in a way that provides the most protection. We’ve chosen to plant the Spanish Bayonet on the outside, then Pyracantha, Bamboo, another row of Pyracantha, and then let the blackberries run crazy throughout. Behind the plant perimeter we’ve constructed a sturdy barbed wire reinforced fence that will help keep our livestock in and provide an extra layer of security if someone manages to make it through the dense, thorny perimeter we’ve created. The major weak point to this is of course the point of entry through our driveway, after all, someone may not be able to fight their way through the plant life but who needs to when you can walk up a driveway and find the home easily? We’ve handled that problem by putting in a livestock grate and standard livestock gate that is chained shut and kept locked. By not maintaining the entry point into the property from the road it appears to be merely an entry to a livestock pasture that’s become overgrown from years of disuse. In case of TEOTWAWKI we can remove the grate, fill in the hole with barbed wire, tangle foot wire, or even create a punji pit using some of the bamboo from our perimeter fence.
He'll probably remember that "CLICK!" the rest of life.
Thanks to JW Rawles at SurvivalBlog.com for posting this link and video. The cop owes his life to the expended round in the first cylinder.
The email bringing it to Rawles attention is entitled "Observations on a Gunfight in Montana."
The email bringing it to Rawles attention is entitled "Observations on a Gunfight in Montana."
Jim:
Take a look at a one-minute a video of a routine nighttime DUI stop in Hamilton, Montana that turned ugly. Listen for the first “click” as the suspect attempts to fire his .41 Magnum revolver about two inches from the officer’s nose. The “click” is the hammer dropping on an expended round in the cylinder. The second round was live, but Officer Jessop had by then recovered and made a strategic move to the rear of the vehicle, buying more time and a much more advantageous position for a firefight. He tossed his flashlight so he could use both hands for better gun control, and opened fire on the suspect as he sped away. His aim looked very controlled, and was obviously very much in the ballpark. The suspect was hit at least once, crashed into a power pole, and was declared dead at the scene. Don’t know what the officer was carrying, but he fired 14 rounds in return and they were bigger than a 9mm. Probably Glock .40s. And then he casually picked his flashlight up as he was returning to his car and notifying dispatch. While you can always Monday morning quarterback someone’s technique, how many of us would have done this well under these circumstances? All things considered, this officer did the basics, did them fast, and did them well. I’d ride with him anytime.
Final score: Officer Ross Jessop, 1; Raymond Thane Davis, 0
A jury ruled on April 13, 2010 that Hamilton Police Officer Ross Jessop was justified in shooting Raymond Thane Davis.
The oft-quoted Sun Tzu recognized the value of training centuries ago when he wrote: "Victorious warriors win first, and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first, and then seek to win."
Learning to win occurs in training.
JWR Replies: Thanks for sharing that video link. I have just one observation. Did you see the officer reload? From what I saw, he re-holstered a pistol that had been shot dry. But, all in all, I'd say that he did well, given the extremely stressful circumstances.
My ATT e-mail is not working.
Hasn't been for several days and I can't get the bastards' attention to fix it. Any pressing communication can still be sent to GeorgeMason1776 AT aol DOT cam.
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