Free Republic

Biden: American troops would defend Taiwan if invaded by China. Whitehouse tried to walk it back later

We are still the world’s largest economy. We spend more on our military than the next ten nations combined, and that money buys some terrific weapons. Additionally, our soldiers are better motivated and far better trained than any in the PLA, a force of terror and intimidation. But, they will take heavy losses, both in terms of personnel and equipment. So, if we want the answer to be “can America defeat China in a war?” to remain “yes,” then we need to make further investments in our military. We cannot be like the British Empire in World War I or...

Apart from the Charge of the Light Brigade (the actual charge, but also the poem), the Crimean War (1853-1856) is best known as the first “modern” war, in that it was during the Crimean War when later military staples like rail, telegraphs, trenches, and rifled firearms and artillery first got tested on a major battlefield. Oh, and it also led to the development of modern professional nursing, triage, and anesthetics, but who’s counting? The 1853 Battle of Sinop is perhaps most noteworthy for the way it helped pioneer another development in military technology, although it’s also important in that it...

A NEWSWEEK article by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball about the memo linking Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein dismisses a recent WEEKLY STANDARD report as "hype" and concludes, the "tangled tale of the memo suggests that the case of whether there has been Iraqi-al Qaeda complicity is far from closed." While it's refreshing to see the establishment media pick up the story, the Newsweek article is less than authoritative. The authors write: "The Pentagon memo pointedly omits any reference to the interrogations of a host of other high-level al Qaeda and Iraqi detainees--including such notables as Khalid...

circa 1915: Cat on a cannon The mascot cat of HMS Queen Elizabeth on a 15-inch barrel

U.S. Navy to ditch its dolphin and sea lions in favor of robots The U.S. Navy's Marine Mammal Program started back in the '60s, and the dolphins and sea lions in it help defend harbors, retrieve sunken equipment and, most dangerously, identify mines for deactivation. By 2017, the Navy wants robots to do all that, instead. The dolphins and sea lions the Navy uses really pull their weight: they're highly trained, and a team of veterinarians and handlers keep the animals primed and ready to be deployed anywhere in the world. The flip-side to that is that they're also expensive...

Gently used submarine base yours for $17.5M (sub not included) Norway is joining a growing trend of governments selling off old infrastructure installations like cupcakes at a bake sale. They've recently listed the Olavsvern Naval Submarine Base on the real estate market, and hope to add a cool $17.5 million to their budgetary bottom line for their efforts. Submarine is not included in the asking price. That's a sure sign times are really tough folks. Since anyone who will buy this base is clearly a gazillionaire that's not likely to stop them. In addition to needing to bring your own...

In a high-threat environment, the Navy’s AEGIS vessels have a problem. They cannot be re-armed. AEGIS cruisers have 122 vertical launch system (VLS) cells, while the destroyers have 96. Each magazine is “multi-use,” composed of specialized land attack and self-defense weapons, so a desired missile may not be available in sufficient numbers. Complicating matters, AEGIS vessels sometimes sail with a partially-filled magazines, and missile reliability rates aren’t often anywhere near 100%. CSBA expert Jan Van Tol, in his recent AirSea Battle monograph ,is the latest to highlight this vulnerability, and pointedly suggests that, given the way high-end warfare is likely...

Watch the video at the link provided. Most of the communications are in Russian, with a little bit of English dialogue between the Russian sailors and the captured pirates...

In the U.S. the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is planning to introduce unmanned frigates for long missions shadowing diesel-electric submarines. The vessels, dubbed Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessels or ACTUVs, are designed to be unmanned, with only intermittent communication from operators on shore or on a ship, and to require no maintenance for months. They will also obey navigational rules and be able to avoid collisions at sea. The three main objectives of the program are to build an “X-ship” that operates without anyone stepping aboard at any point in its operating cycle, secondly to demonstrate the...

Divers have uncovered the wrecks of three Second World War German submarines off the British coast, shedding light on a British operation that has remained secret for more than 60 years. Historians were amazed at the discovery of the severely damaged U-boats, which are lying close to each other seven miles off Newquay, Cornwall, because none had ever been recorded as being lost there. After extensive research it was found that they had been sunk in a secret minefield laid after the British intercepted a radio message from a U-boat commander. His boat had sunk a British destroyer after discovering...

The most powerful frontline warship since the Second World War was launched by the Countess of Wessex yesterday, marking a resurgence of British naval ship building. The first of Britain's new Type 45 destroyers took to the waters of the Clyde as the world's most advanced air defence ship. Daring will be able to track and destroy a target the size of a cricket ball travelling at more than three times the speed of sound, a "quantum leap forward in the Navy's capabilities", according the Royal Navy. The boat's defensive system, combining a hugely powerful radar and missile system, has...

A Palestinian teenager was critically wounded Saturday after an Israeli navy patrol boat fired on a Palestinian fishing boat off the Gaza coast. According to the army, the fishing boat, which was carrying two Palestinians, had strayed into Israel's territorial waters, some 16 kilometers from the permitted area. The presence of the fishing boat aroused the suspicion of a navy patrol, which was on routine operational duty off the Gaza coast. Naval crewmen signaled to the fishing boat to turn around, but the two Palestinians ignored the warnings and approached the naval vessel, ramming it several times, the army said....

China National Offshore Oil Corporation is considering a nearly $14bn (£7bn, €10.6bn) takeover of Unocal of the US. Sinopec, another Chinese state-controlled oil group, has struck a $70bn deal to buy Iranian crude oil and liquefied natural gas over three decades. China has sent $6bn to Rosneft, the Russian company that bought the main production unit of the embattled Yukos oil group, as advance payment for oil supplies. India has just reached a $40bn agreement to import LNG from Iran and develop Iranian oilfields, and is promoting pipeline projects to bring oil and gas across neighbouring countries to supply its...

    For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.     Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ANCIENT WARFARE Part X: War in Ancient India   Naval WarfareThe old notion that the Hindus were essentially a landlocked people, lacking in a spirit of adventure and the heart to brave the seas, is now dispelled. The researches of a generation of scholars have proved that from very early times the people of India were distinguished by nautical skill and enterprise, that they...

"Cowardly," "bitter enders," "a sure sign of weakness," "desperation tactics," "pathological," "aberrant." Terms that could be drawn from a Donald Rumsfeld briefing on terrorism in fact constitute some of the more printable characterizations of submariners and their tactics at the opening of the last century. That a weapons system invented to facilitate a guerre de course -- or "commerce war," a form of maritime insurgency that slithered over into piracy -- would elicit condemnation from more tradition-minded warriors was foreseen by Leonardo da Vinci, who refused to actualize his design for a submersible for the benefit "of men who practice...

PORTSMOUTH, Va. -- An underwater survey found what might be remnants of the Confederate ironclad warship Virginia, the former USS Merrimack that fought the Union's ironclad Monitor in the 1862 battle that redefined naval warfare. "It would be a stroke of incredible luck to discover it after all these years," said Dick Hoffeditz, curator of the Virginia War Museum in Newport News. The underwater survey, for the proposed construction of a marine terminal on the Elizabeth River, describes two shipwrecks in the area and says there is "a distinct possibility" that they might be parts of the Virginia and of...