C70:arms-d (07/15/82)
>From HGA@MIT-MC Thu Jul 15 00:15:25 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 142 Today's Topics: Let's conquer Canada? Basic Military Library Disarmies End of the world Firepower vs. Manpower Soviet Launch-On-Warning Expensive vs. Cheap ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 July 1982 02:14-EDT (Tuesday) From: Robert A. Carter <CARTER at RUTGERS> Subject: Let's conquer Canada? But we have already tried twice. The first time, during the Revolution, was the most understandable. After all, why shouldn't all the British colonies in North America seek Independence together? We invaded Canada with two armies, using the natural strategic gateways, in the autumn of 1775 and the winter of 1775-6. Gen. Montgomery went up the Champlain and took Ontario, and Benedict Arnold took another force through the wilderness route to the gates of Quebec. Montgomery joined him there, but the siege of Quebec collapsed when Montgomery was killed and it became evident that the Canadians were fighting back. Even then, Canada's French origins made some of its people feel themselves a unique nation; the English-speakers were overwhelmingly loyalists, and were joined by a substantial number of loyalists from the 13 colonies. The second attempt was in the War of 1812. Indeed, conquest of Canada was the principal war aim of the Jeffersonian Democrats who (sans Jefferson, who had left office in l809) were the war party in Congress. The Democrats, from the South and southwest, were utterly uninterested in the putative casus belli, impressment, because they had little interest in maritime commerce. The maritime traders of the Northeast were all Federalists, the peace party of the time, and the fact that generations of junior-high school students have been told the war was about impressment is one of history's ironies. The British had perfectly good practical and legal reasons for impressing American sailors: Practical because they were fighting Napoleon, and every body counted; legal because under English law, liegance (we would say "citizenship") was a bilateral relation of mutual obligation between sovereign and subject which could only be terminated with mutual consent. See Calvin's Case for the best statement of this doctrine. While the British had concluded a treaty with the U.S., that treaty had been with the government of the U.S., not its citizens, and any caught beyond the power of that government were legally British subjects, and subject to compulsory service. (In modern times, even aliens have always been subject to the American draft, if found within U.S. jurisdiction.) Despite these reasons, the British were sensitive to the then growing international law of nationality, and the Order in Council that terminated the practice of impressment was issued just a few days after the War of 1812 began. The Democrats in Congress kept it going to get Canada. The war was a catastrophe. American forces had no success equivalent to Montgomery's 37 years before, and the only creditable fighting done by our side was on the water. Our main thrust was through the Champlain gateway again, and the principal result was that the British counterattacked and took Detroit. We could have won in Viet Nam, if we had had the will. The Democrats had the will in l812, but nothing else; no plan, no training, no reliable troops, no equipment to speak of. Some of our units even lacked uniforms, and had to be dressed in local homespun gray. This is said to be the origin of the gray uniforms still worn by the Corps of Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy. The disaster, among other things, showed that Jefferson's administration had been scandalously incompetent about defense planning. It did not help that during the war the presidency was in the hands of the Federalists, or that Federalist bankers conducted a strike of capital against it; for much of the war they refused to buy government paper. At least one Federalist congressman argued against appropriations on the ground that it was unconstitutional for the U.S. to wage aggressive war. The only Army officer to distinguish himself in 1812-14 was Winfield Scott, who was later the hero of the Mexican War, and who in the early days of the Civil War drafted what the newspapers scoffingly called his "Anaconda Plan." That plan, which called for a tight blockade of the Confederacy, seizure of the Mississippi and a war of attrition against the split Confederacy, described just what Lincoln and Grant wound up doing much later. The quality of the rest of the leadership can be judged from an engagement near Bradenville, Maryland. The American general drew up a line of defense to protect Washington, but was unable to hold it because his troops ran away. The battle is known to history as "The Brandenville Races." The British burned Washington. The Navy performance was more creditable, and gave us one famous victory and two famous quotations. Captain Lawrence of U.S.S. Chesapeake said "Don't give up the ship" just before being sunk by H.M.S. Shannon in the Atlantic. On the great lakes, where the victory was, Lt. Oliver Hazard Perry said "We have met the enemy and the are ours." This last was not as good as "Veni, Vidi, Vici," and not even in the same league as "Peccavi," (by the British general who had Sind), but had he not said it, Pogo could never have said "We have met the enemy and he is us." _R. Carter ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 1982 16:34:24-EST From: Carl Burch <cdb at Purdue> Subject: Basic Military Library In response to Laura Creighton's request in Arms-D #138 and an obvious need in view of the debate over ships-versus-aircraft, I recommend : Modern Warship Design and Development Norman Friedman, 1979 Mayflower Books, Inc. 575 Lexington Ave New York, NY 10022 Library of Congress 79-89722 ISBN 0-8317-6082-6 Other than glossing over the vast improvements in firefighting equipment deployed in the last ten years (and apparently not purchased by the British given their dismal damage control off the Falklands), the main limitation of this book is it's concentration on the single ship's view of the battle. Since it was originally published in England and they have abandoned the aircraft carrier battle group for all practical purposes, this is hardly surprising. The criticisms above aside, Friedman has an excellent insight into the design trade-offs involved in naval architecture and the various design approaches used among the naval powers. He explains technical weaponry and sensors in lay terms and includes their tactical implications. This is an excellent primer in modern naval warfare and equipment, quite appropriate to the nuts-and-bolts genre of discussion on this news-group. Carl Burch cdb@purdue ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 1982 15:48:53-PDT From: rabbit!wolit at Berkeley Subject: disarmies Robert Maas is sadly mistaken if he thinks that women are employed in combat roles by the Israeli army. This is a myth, propagated, I think, by such movies as "Exodus" and "Cast a Giant Shadow", but the fact is that women are better integrated into the U.S. Army than in the I.D.F. Israel uses women as typists, communications operators, etc., but never in anything approaching a combat role. By contrast, the Strategic Air Command has flown ALL-woman B-52 missions (even the ground crew was all-female). Just walk down the street of any Israeli city -- the male soldiers all carry automatic weapons, the women carry purses. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 1982 15:53:43-PDT From: rabbit!wolit at Berkeley Subj: Cheap vs. Expensive It was during the AIMVAL and ACEVAL (sp.?) exercised a couple of years ago that the effectiveness of cheap planes (Northrop F-5) against expensive ones (McDonnell-Douglas F-15, Grumman F-14) was demonstrated. In one-on-one fights, the more sophisticated aircraft came out on top, but once they started simulating dogfights involving the numbers and ratios expected in, say, a European conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, "cheap" proved better. This advantage was futher enhanced when the requirement was added that "enemy" aircraft be positively identified as such before being fired upon, a resonable restriction given the complicated air combat situation that could be expected under such conditions. In this case, the advantages of such long-range air-to-air missile systems as the Phoenix and Sparrow were much reduced, and the effectiveness of the guns and Sidewinder missiles carried by the F-5's proved quite adequate. Air combat in the radar environment for which our most sophisticated planes are designed has been likened to a duel between gunfighters in a dark room. All of them have flashlights that let them see their opponents, but the first to turn on his flashlight is a dead duck. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 1982 18:51-EDT From: Sesh.Murthy at CMU-750M at CMU-10A Subject: End of the world [from decvax!pur-ee!purdue!pur-phy!els at Berkeley; I wish I knew your name] (5) With US out of the way, think how many other wars start, Arabs vs. Israelis, Black Africa vs. South Africa, India vs. Pakistan, China vs. any Soviet remnant+Vietnam+ India. All of these are potentially NBC wars. Seriously, I think you are overestimating the influence of the US and the USSR in preventing wars. I think that without anybody present to provide really sophisticated arms the number of wars will decrease. (7) Without US food shipments, FAMINE, probably of a scale never before seen. (8) With all the dying and dead and weak from starvation, you pick your favorite disease and I'll bet it kills 10 million people at least. The biggies like typhus might get many 100 millions. Again you are underestimating the capability of nations to survive. I know for a fact that India produces most of the food it requires. I am sure the rest of the world can also produce food to meet its own needs. Also antibiotics are produced in most countries and I don't see why disease should kill so many people. Of course nuclear war could produce climatic changes that could affect crop production. I have been reading the "Long-term effects of multiple nuclear weapons detonations" ( see Caulkins' message Volume 0 : Issue 141) and I seem to get the impression that neither radiocative fallout nor U.V. pose a really serious threat to the survival of mankind in faraway areas. The world would definitely not end. Given the way things are going I am quite sure that in the near future there is going to be nuclear war. The only thing I can say is thank God man does not yet have the capability to completely destroy himself yet. An interesting thought is that the US is not following the right policy in trying to prevent nuclear proliferation. I think the best way to convince people is to tell them that if they produce such weapons they will have warheads pointed at them. I think this would really produce results. Enough rambling for today. Sesh. ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 14 July 1982, 05:45-EDT From: Joseph W. Boyle <boyle at MIT-AI> Subject: firepower vs. manpower On the "firepower" side, I'd like to recommend the book "Social History of the Machine Gun" Its main point is that military tacticians grossly underestimated the destructive power of the machine gun before and during most of WWI, causing much of the pointless slaughter of that conflict. Also, the machine gun allowed ridiculously small bands of European adventurers to extend colonial control to the African interior for the first time. However, Westerners generally preferred to credit racial superiority, British public-school training, ad nauseam. The conclusion seems to be that officers, especially army officers, are a conservative lot who will pooh-pooh the impact of new weapons unless a major war rubs their noses in it. The book is very readable and well documented. Another relevant book would be Noel Perrin's "Giving Up The Gun." Gun technology was introduced to Japan in 1549 and rapidly advanced to European levels. Since guns made the samurai monopoly of swordsmanship irrelevant, they were generally despised by the warrior class. Since Japan was divided into a patchwork of tiny feudal domains, though, when some lords adopted guns the rest had to reluctantly follow suit. This lasted until the Tokugawa reunification of Japan (largely carried out at gunpoint) some 50 years later. With no nearby competition, the shogunate was able to regulate guns back to the status of curiosities within a generation. This worked for over 200 years... ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1982 0732-PDT From: CAULKINS at USC-ECL Subject: Soviet Launch-On-Warning >From the 13 July 82 San Francisco Chronicle (P10): "Marshall Dimitri Ustinov, the Soviet defense minister, issued a veiled warning yesterday that the Soviet Union might adopt a defense policy that could trigger an almost instant retaliatory nuclear attack, dictated largely by machines, in response to President Reagan's arms buildup. ... In contrast to the current policy of 'launch under attack', the proximity of the Pershings might force them into a strategy of 'launch on warning'... Ustinov's article appeared to have been designed for domestic readers, suggesting concern within the Soviet Union about the government's 'peace policy', which does not seem to be going anywhere. In language that suggested an internal debate on defense, he said the Soviet people had been 'asking questions whether the right moment has been chosen' to pledge no first use of nuclear arms. ..." ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 1982 14:28:37-EDT From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX Subject: Re: expensive vs. cheap In response to your [APPLE's] message of Mon Jul 12 01:56:40 1982: Start with AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY, quoted to me by someone who considers most of my positions on weapons laughably naive. ------------------------------ End of Arms-D Digest ********************