About SJPONeill

Retired(ish) and living on the side of a mountain. I love reading and writing, pottering around with DIY in the garden and the kitchen, watching movies and building models from plastic and paper...I have two awesome daughters, two awesome grand-daughters and two awesome big dogs...lots of awesomeness around me...

The Odyssey Part 2

Posted on 5 June 2011 by SJPONeill

Only a week to go before I get home and having a bit of a vege day today to build up energy levels again…in my travels, I achieved a couple of personal goals in getting aboard a for-real battleship and visiting the USAF Museum at Dayton, Ohio…getting to also visit the Olympia was an expected bonus…so for train-spotters here are links to photos if they are of any interest…

USS Jersey from USS Olympia (click for slideshow)

Martin B-10 (click for Early Days and WW2 slideshow)

Douglas C-124 Globemaster Day 2 Part 1…(click for slideshow – mainly Vietnam, Cold War and Modern Halls)

Douglas C-133 Day 2 Part 2 (click for slideshow…mainly Vietnam, Cold War and Modern Halls = Missile Wing)

Fisher P-75 Day 3 (click for slideshow of R&D Hall)

The National Museum of the USAF (to give it its full title) is am impressive resource that takes at least two days to work through if you have any interest whatsoever in aircraft or aviation history…if you are not driving, then you will need to stay at the Comfort Suites Wright-Patterson as that is the only off-base accommodation that is within walking distance of the museum…foreign nationals will need their passport in order to get to the R&D and Presidential Halls, US citizens will need some official Government-issued ID and DoD employees may go directly there if they have their ID. The rest of the Museum is freely accessible.

A lesson learned on photography inside the Museum: the lighting is quite dim to protect the exhibits, many of which have considerable historical significance…unless you have a camera flash that resembles a small sun, the best way to go is to switch off your flash, set your camera to Auto and practice holding it real still…the only except is closeups of confined areas like undercarriage bays and jet pipes…because of this technique, some of the images are not as crisp as I would like but they are a big improvement on flash ‘assisted’ images…

I was really surprised by the natural metal finish on aircraft like the Fisher P-75 and Seversky P-35…it is actually very very shiny and modelling these on the shiny side of sheet tinfoil is actually truer to the original than the matt side…the XB-70 was the one aircraft that I really wanted to see in the flesh and so I was conflicted when I thought I might have to cut short my visit in order to go back DC for the CNAS conference on Thursday…’fortunately’ the cost of changing my travel proved prohibitive and I was able to get across to the R&D Hall on Wednesday. Because it is on the active part of the base, access is quite strictly controlled and visitors only have 50 minutes in which to cover both halls – don’t count on going back again the same day as often the trips book out early in the day – you also don’t want to run around the R&D Hall too quickly as most of the wings, pitot tubes and other nasty sticky-out bits are around eye-level…

And just for the lads at Hawkeye UAV…

Douglas A-1E Skyraider in which MAJ Bernard Fisher won the Medal of Honor on 10 March 1966

Strangelove has re-entered the Building

Posted on 3 June 2011 by SJPONeill

As a headline, this one that concludes the Time article According to new Pentagon cyber strategy, state-of-war conditions now exist between the US and China, was too good to pass up…coupled with this SECDEF quote that Michael Yon put up on Facebook a couple of hours ago, it looks like lunacy has well and truly returned…

Just got this from Office of SecDef

“Secretary Gates believes that for the United States, once committed to a NATO operation, to unilaterally abandon that mission would have enormous and dangerous long-term consequences.“

You think he might be talking about Libya? A campaign even more ill-advised than OIF? In all fairness, though, at least America had the courage and integrity to see OIF through as her allies and apparent friends slowly bailed on her…she had done the right thing in withdrawing her foot sharply from the (blood) bath of Libya as soon as it was apparent that NATO was getting the wibbles. That there will be ‘…enormous and dangerous long-term consequences…” is without a doubt but those consequences will be for NATO as it finds that it might have to ante up and see it’s own war through to a conclusion without a US safety net…yesterday I heard for the first time the phrase ‘...NATO’s Vietnam...’

I agree with the theme of the Time article that MAD actually = sanity in that it essentially rendered the irretrievable impossible – so long as we kept Peter Sellers out of the White House…As the Cold War staggered to a close in the 80s, Ronald Reagan declared a policy based on ‘you can run, but you can not hide‘ and indeed authorised and conducted a number of kinetic actions against those he perceived had crossed the line in the sand…

Those however were all kinetic actions against specific kinetic targets to send very specific messages…what targets might a kinetic strike against Chinese cyber-warriors hit…a server in downtown Shanghai or Beijing? The same fibre link that carries the world’s communications and commercial traffic? Some geeky buck-toothed nerd who needs a bath and some dress sense?

One of the biggest and most-frequently stated concerns at the Irregular Warfare Summit here last week was that the takedown of OBL and the (so far) successful drawdown from Iraq is leading to a growing sense of relief at senior levels that the aberration of COIN is over and ‘…now we can get back to real war...’ This ‘real war’ dogma seems to be set in the minds of those who just missed Vietnam and spent the larger part of their careers preparing for World War III – which, if anyone was paying attention, never happened.

Thus, possibly more by circumstance, the leaders in the ‘new war’ (which is really an old war) are those who were on the ground in Iraq when the pendulum was shoved all the way from clean surgical shock and awe to dirty messy complexity and irregularity…names like Petraeus, Mattis, Chiarelli, Casey…to name a few. It’s no accident these names are all from the land forces because this new war, at the moment, is very much land-centric (sorry, air power guys) because that is where the people are…and while I am noted as not being a uber-proponent of population-centric warfare, this war is one between beliefs which live amongst the people and not platforms which can be anywhere…

Cyberwar is much the same…there are no clearly-distinguishable platforms at which to strike: it is a game of skill and knowledge not fixed to key infrastructure or platforms,,,that guy next to you on the bus, playing with his iPhone could be a node in the attack network…the ‘enemy’ doesn’t even need to be in their own country which leads to thoughts of retaliation for spoofed cyberattacks against countries that only appeared to be guilty – how many times can a cruise missile accidentally hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade…?

Cyberwar is elusive, diffuse and evasive…it’s another facet of complexity and irregularity, warfare conducted by ‘the people’…releasing the kinetic dogs of war on it will achieve no more than ‘shock and awe’ did in Iraq…like any other operating environment, this one will only be conquered by those who get their (cyber)boots dirty and adapt to it…in the mean time we need to THINK a lot more before we commit ourselves to careless policies promising kinetic attack against cyber-strike…regardless of how many cruise missiles and JDAMs might be nearly their ‘use by’ date…

As David Hoffman concludes in The cyber arms race:

The offensive cyber battlefield promises to be far more chaotic than in the nuclear arms race, with many smaller players and non-state actors, and the risks of retaliation against the United States might be quite high. We need good defenses, no question. But should we be fighting back with cyber warheads and real missiles? Are we ready for what could follow? Is there an alternative?

The Odyssey…

Posted on 1 June 2011 by SJPONeill

(c) The World According To Me 2011 — USS New Jersey (one of the last) from USS Olympia (one of the first).

Yes…the blog has been quite quiet of late…I’ve been on the road for the last fortnight and it has been both stimulating and challenging…a normal day consists of participating in the day’s activities, any after dinner networking and then spending a few hours logged-in on Kiwi time to keep up with events back home…doesn’t leave much time for scintillating insightful blog entries…

Still I have learned a lot in my various engagements since I arrived in Las Vegas two and bit weeks ago…I was last in Vegas in 1988, young and single, and it rocked!! Vegas when you’re married and a grandad and on your own after the rest of the team depart, ain’t much fun at all and is kinda boring…is that really boring, or just an opportunity for introspection and consolidation…? From Nevada, I arrived at Reagan International at some awful hour but got to the Marriott in time to catch Josh for a couple (or more!!) of beers before the Irregular Warfare Summit…

So…bubbling away in my mind are a number of insights relating to Unmanned Systems (sorry, ladies, the name ain’t changing anytime soon!) and Irregular Warfare – again the name ain’t changing anytime soon…yes, there are also irregular challenges, activities and threats and yes, we’d really like to intervene before irregularity becomes warfare…but let’s just go with the flow on this one. At least, it’s a big step up from the COINology that pervaded all aspects since 2004…and, sure, the official definition (a la DoD) will catch up…and no, the operators seem to be copying off the same sheet of music…not sure what language some of them might be scribing in but we’re getting there…

In the meantime, I am churning away…I try to maintain SA through FB mainly, supported by email although correspondents will have noticed that response might be a bit tardy (lax) at times…Skype’s handy too but it parasitically consumes bandwidth and that’s not good when I’m on a data cap (hotels with free wireless rock!!). One coup from this trip is that I bought a VirginMobile USB modem which has been a Godsend for mobile connectivity – a few more hotels charging USD12-15 a night for wireless access and it will have paid for itself AND the first months net access…The VirginMobile deal is far better than that offered by Cricket or T-Mobile and I really recommend it….

Last weekend, I caught the Amtrak to Philadelphia for bilateral discussions with Dean @ Travels with Shiloh on divvying up the world post-world domination day…I chose the USS New Jersey (tied up across the Delaware in Camden) as the venue as I figured that all that steel would cramp Doc Karma…ooops, I mean, Dean’s mind control powers…probably just as well that I did as he was showing off his power of mind-reading at lunch…you know, that thing super-villains do to show-off…”oh, I might just have…the thing in the menu you’re looking at – now!‘ Talks went well so look out world!

Honestly, it was a great day for a range of reasons…firstly, when you travel as much as I do, it’s always nice to be met on arrival – and not by a hoard of shovel-toting molemen (Dean, are you sure they didn’t follow you?!); secondly, I had no idea how to get from 30th Street Station to my hotel; and it was great to meet in person someone whose work I have admired and followed for a number of years…it was also well into summer, an awesome hot sunny day, a boat ride across the river…Philly cheesesteak for dinner…how could you go wrong…?

So more of the next few days of my adventures…and I’ll start to blend in some commentary on current events and my discoveries while here…

Memorial Day Remembrance

Posted on 30 May 2011 by SJPONeill

and I am thinking how to say

“and” and whether “and”

is the word for the way, beyond

the swamp, the ghosts of pines

and skeletal cypresses march for

miles in haze.

– Rosanna Warren

To Doc who got it in the neck and bled out.

And to B.

And the triple-stack that left his leg on me.

And Gunny, without his throat, gurgling on the tarmac to rush that pos.

And Rob, my fellow boot, in Samarrah and nothing left, not really.

Except Samarrah.

*****

I hear you still screaming from the far country, calling your roll.

And the rest of us will be there real soon.

I promise we’ll cover down.

And align.

It’s Memorial Weekend here this weekend, and all over the country, people are remembering in their own ways, those who have fallen…I wasn’t going to post anything on the subject but the words above were posted on Carl Prine’s Line of Depature and the link pushed out on the Doctrine Man! Facebook page…they cut to the bone regardless of nationality….

Weekly Photo Challenge: Water

Posted on 29 May 2011 by SJPONeill

I’m sure there’s a road here somewhere…

The Great Thailand-Singapore Bike Ride…it’s 1988…some of the lads from Charlie Company, the First Battalion, the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment take up the challenge to ride from the Malaysia-Thailand border back to their base at Dieppe Barracks, Singapore…why? Because they could…Day 1 of the ride was also Day 1 of the eastern monsoon and from there life became interesting…

Kota Bahru, like most of the region, flooded out but most took it in their stride…

…and after many adventures, the final destination was reached…

The final leg…coming onto the Causeway…

This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge...and an interesting exercise in hearts and minds as we worked our way down the east coast staying on beaches and in small kampongs each night…much as I would have liked to have been riding, someone had to take the photos…plus I didn’t have a bike anyway…and I was just back from six weeks in the States…and it looked like hard work…these really were the good ‘old’ days…

StealthHawk enters production – in China

Posted on 28 May 2011 by SJPONeill

Great news for aviation and specops aficionados to read in Time that bulk production of the H-60-based StealthHawk revealed in the OBL takedown has commenced…not so great news that production is in China…

Fortunately, production is also also only in 1/144 scale, so while small boys of all ages will be happy to find two in the box, the Specops balance of power remains stable…

I have got to get me one of these!

It is, though, a credible effort on the part of Dragon to design, tool, produce and distribute this model in only a few weeks since the May 1 raid where the new design was revealed…Dragon pulled off a similar coup in 1989 by releasing the first close-to-accurate models of the F-117 and B-2…

Edit: Some interesting analysis from over at Paper Modelers (the rest of the pictures referred to below are there):

I worked at Sikorsky for 9 years. That being said,that model is really “funny”. It is much like the old Aurora models of stealth aircraft that looked nothing like the real thing.

I think it is a variant of the S-92. The drive shaft for the tail rotor is far too long to be off of a Blackhawk, and they don’t even remotely look like that. Also, that picture of the tail rotor is not what it appears, as far as it is mounted to the helicopter.. In the attached picture, it looks like the tail rotor assembly flipped over from the torque of the drive shaft. On the helicopter facing from the rear, that tail rotor is probably on the left side. The black tiny parallelogram is the top and the flat spot is the back of the helicopter you are looking at. The 2 men of the picture hint at the scale. That is definitely not based on a Blackhawk, it’s huge.

The S-92 is all that’s left, it is also the most modern helicopter in the world. New standards had to be developed as it exceeds every standard for a helicopter of that class by that much.

The LHX75 is just for reference and rules any variation of that helicopter out because it is too small.

The S-92 SAR looks like the likely candidate. IMHO.

Boeing-Sikorsky S-92 SAR

Weekly Photo Challenge: Tiny

Posted on 22 May 2011 by SJPONeill

It's big but made up of tiny...

…lights…lots and lots of tiny little lights that form a dazzling night-time light show on the canopy of Fremont Street in Las Vegas...this week’s WordPress photo challenge…

I’ve enjoyed revisiting Las Vegas – it’s been about 23 years since I was last here and it’s sure changed somewhat…it’s been a fairly intense week and I am looking forward to a slow day tomorrow when I hit the road (air actually) for the next leg…I’ve been on my own tonight as the rest of the team here this week has already bomb-burst and, to be honest, I don’t find Vegas much fun on my own…

These challenges become a little more challenging when I am on the road without access to our photo library at home…but also an incentive to get out of the square to come up with something…I’m still determined not to miss a challenge…

Joining the dots…

Posted on 21 May 2011 by SJPONeill

Obviously air power has a most important role to play in combating an irregular force.
The purpose of this seminar is to ask you how you would consider employing air power in
such capacity. Not an easy question!

QUESTION
How would you consider employing Air Power in combating an irregular Force?

I would use air power to sense, move and engage..

I was really disappointed in this week’s seminar, especially since it’s closely related to the topic of my current research trip where I have been spending a lot of time with people who deal with the irregular environment every day and have done for years.

I’d also consider asking some questions that better explore the issues and challenges that air power faces in the irregular environment, and not limit it solely to irregular warfare i.e. explore the USMC concept of irregular threats or even better the UK one of irregular activity, against which air power is employed on a close to daily basis. I’d also find some readings that explore these issues and that are not simply regurgitated products from the school. There are ample writings available in the international IW community that would led to some good robust discussion (unfortunately only in a virtual forum) to peel back these issues and apply them to a national or regional context…

That might seem a bit harsh but it’s not because the time I can spare at the moment is around midnight…this seminar comes across as a last-minute bolt-on without much thought or preparation…a deviation from the path of true and pure i.e. real air power i.e. MCO. It should probably be one of the more important topics of the course that might lead into a module on ‘What Future For Air Power?’….some ideas for what could have been…

Two air forces: MCO and COIN? or a single air force for MCO and let partners handle COIN/IW…? Should we just toss COIN/IW into the SO box?

The advent of unmanned and now autonomous UAS.

How might we handle the proliferation of miniature (and smaller) UAS which are the greater threat to manned aircraft?

What are the challenges of ISR and strike in an IW coalition?

Are the days of MCO over?

Is there a place for air power in war amongst the people?

What happens when the ‘other guy’ gets UAS?

Will cyberwar replace or supplement traditional air power roles and functions? Should cyber even be an air role?

Is the current IW focus on PGM an ‘a’ war or ‘the’ war lesson?

What effects might events like wikileaks have on air power? Or do they have an effect at all – maybe we just tend to over-classify anyway…?

What effects might current outsourcing/contracting philosophies have upon air power in an IW environment?

As ISR collection capabilities expand exponentially, what changes might we need to make to ensure that air forces can optimise the terabytes of information now available – will we need a larger analysis ‘tail’ to support a shrinking number of teeth?

Do the OBL raid, Op BARRAS, and ISAF cross-border drone strikes lead towards an era where more smaller (possibly unilateral) cross-border incursions more more common as a tool of National power?

Axle-wrapping

Posted on 20 May 2011 by SJPONeill

This seminar considers the international laws and conventions that should limit the application of air power. Humanity, proportionality, and military necessity remain the underlying tenets of the application of air power. Should international law ever be overlooked in order to achieve a military victory? Some think so, do you? This seminar is a vital and most important segment of the course.

Questions

Does international law favour the offensive air campaign?

Most absolutely…offensive ≠ indiscriminate or disproportionate.

In 1928 the Chief of the Air Staff RAF wrote in his paper The War Object of an Air Force’ ‘ What is illegitimate, as being contrary to the dictates of humanity, is the indiscriminate bombing of a city for the sole purpose of terrorising the civilian population’. Would you regard this as evidence that the higher command of the RAF was fully aware of jus in bello?

Possibly…looking at the history of papers and articles written by air forces leaders, it is clear that there is a difference between what may be written in a paper, perhaps to foster or provoke debate and what actual policy and doctrine might be. Without context and supporting evidence, this constitutes little more than opinion.

In February 1942 the Chief of the Air Staff, RAF, Sir Charles Portal wrote to the C-in-C Bomber Command …’I suppose it is clear that the aiming points are to be the built up areas, not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories….This must be made quite clear if it is not already understood’. Would such a directive constitute a war crime today?

Again, this is a brief statement with no supporting context and thus rather meaningless. Is it a case of national survival? It states ‘built-up areas’, not centres of population…are such ‘built-up areas’ inhabited or just convenient and/or practical centres of mass for applying force? Today, without an operational context and much more information, the legality of this approach cannot be considered; certainly it does not call for direct attacks against the population and could in fact easily be employed as part of the much-vaunted Warden ‘doctrine’.

Do you think the provisions of Protocol 1 unduly hamper the proper use of air power?

No. That would entirely depend upon what effects are desired/required in support of national objectives, and what means might be available to create those effects.

Was the principle of Proportionality contravened with the destruction of the Republican Guard by air power while retreating from Kuwait at the end of the First Gulf War?

No, not really…firstly the Republican Guard was not destroyed and many of those killed in those attacks were just poor sods in the wrong place at the wrong time. If any ‘law’ was contravened it was more likely that of discrimination. But, then again, that unbridled use of air power may have discouraged a few of the other kids on the block from misbehaving so, in the global scheme of things, may have achieved a larger purpose in which it probably fell within accepted rules…which is just a bit unfortunate if you’d decided to take the new Merc for a spin up to Basra that week…

Can Protocol 1 be reconciled with Sherman’s view that war is cruelty and cannot be refined?

Easily…Sherman never said that it only applied to civilians or non-combatants; and it also takes into account that only a small proportion of combatants actually pay much more than lip service to accepted rules of war…

I found these questions very superficial and simplistic in regard to the weight of the actual issues which are neither superficial nor simple…and this didn’t really feel that compelled to develop the themes any further…the bottom lines remains the weighting added to national interest in determining the conduct of any campaign and while it may be easy to leap onto the moral high ground, it is quite another matter to conduct an effective campaign from that location. It may even be that an over-emphasis on one aspect proportionality, for example, simply shifts the moral breach to another area, perhaps the well-being of one’s own forces and nation…?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Red

Posted on 14 May 2011 by SJPONeill

This is where I was going....

…one lovely spring morning…and this is where I came from…

I’d left home no more than fifteen minutes before, this late September morning and there were just a very few snow flakes drifting lazily in the breeze as I closed the gate behind me, not an uncommon occurence when it is snowing on the Mountain and normally nothing to really worry about…we’re aboput 50 metres below the snow line normally so don’t get much actual snow…

By the time I got to National Park, about 5 kilometres up the road there was a layer of solid but very slushy snow over the road…again normally not to much to worry about at the time of year…and, anyway I was able to follow behind a couple of large trucks that broke it all up…but by the time I got to Pokaka, where I stopped for these pictures, it was snowing quite heavily…hmmmm, what to do? To go back through the snow is as far as pushing through…let’s push on I thought, as the lesser option of the dilemma and certainly one preferable to parking up where I was and sitting it out which would have been an overnighter!!

So away I crawled through the snow at about 15 km an hour, managing to stay in the troughs the trucks ahead of me had left, even though they were filling quickly. I’d just entered the first curve of the ZS-bend between the Pokaka and Horopito Straights when I spun 90 degrees across the road…

So what, you may ask, does any of this have to do with this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge theme of ‘Red‘? Well, you see, I was driving Li’l Red who’s life was about to get interesting…

Ouch!!

In spinning out, I had managed to stay in my own southbound lane albeit was 90 degrees across it – no worries I thought as it was unlikely that there was any traffic coming up behind me as the road gates at National Park would have already been closed…no sooner had I thought when this old guy comes toddling around the corner, heading north: he sees me (NOT blocking his lane!) and jams on his brakes…in the snow…the thick slippery snow…Of course he locks up and as Murphy would have it (no other way), slipped out of his lane into mine. All I could do was watch as he slid towards Li’l Red and braced for the impact.

How lucky can you be? Just before he struck, he got just a little traction crossing some of the truck tracks which slowed him just a little before he crunched into Li’l Red – fortunately just between the rear edge of the passenger door and the wheel well but jamming neither. I hopped out – in my so not practical office shoes and skated around make sure he was OK, and then to swap details. He’d had a bit of a fright and wanted to have a chat but all I wanted to do was get lined up again and head south before I became a resident…I suggested he might want to head south as well, not being in a 4WD or anything useful and noting the amount of snow that would have come down since I left National Park but no, he had to get to where he was going so away he toddled…

With some difficulty I manged to swing Li’l Red south and crawl south til the road cleared by the turn-off to ‘Kune although I took the discretion option and headed south via the Paraparas rather than display too much faith in the Council’s ability to keep the Waiouru road open…so that’s what white snow has to do with RED….