I just realized last weekend’s post was dated March 27th, because I changed the month but forgot to change the day. Rest assured that, if we were to guess at news from the future, we would try a little harder than two or three weeks out.

Apologies for the lateness of the post. It’s Mrs. Breath’s birthday today¹.

Defense

• A human interest story to start off – The chief of staff of the Air Force was shot down over Serbia. He recently met with the pararescueman who got him out.
• It’s approximately the beginning of a month, so there’s a new issue of Defence Technology Review for your perusal – It’s one of parvusimperator’s regular reads, so it’s worth putting here. Also, there’s a great deal of potential humor in a notional Defence Technology Revue.
• An old story, but a good one: China’s plans to sell Pakistan an aircraft carrier and integrate militarily – Given Pakistan’s F-16s and AMRAAMs, that would make it a fascinating case of a nation buying from two great powers at once.
• More on that Truman early-retirement scheme
• Taiwan mulls F-16V purchase – If, like me, you hadn’t heard ‘F-16V’ before, here’s the LockMart store page.
• Germany concerned with readiness of submarines and aircraft – You don’t say!
• On the Zumwalts, ASW, and defeating hypersonic cruise missiles – The article suggests using the Zumwalts as linebackers to the Burkes’ safeties, given that (the article claims) their green-water ASW is better than the Burkes’. I see two problems with this: 1. The submarines just attack the Zumwalts then; 2. The Zumwalts are so expensive and there are so few of them that it seems silly to send them in-shore like that.
• The Drive’s The War Zone gets angry about the MiG-21/F-16 reportage – Mr. Rogoway writes up just about everything we know and what we can reasonably conclude.
• From The Drive’s related pages, some cool aggressor F-5 pictures – Aggressors get the best paint jobs.

(Mad) Science and Technology

• “We designed ocular injectable photoreceptor-binding upconversion nanoparticles” – In English, some nano-gubbins which, when squirted in the eyes, grant near IR vision sufficient to differentiate complex shapes, fully compatible with ordinary daylight vision. Where do I sign up?
• SpaceX launch manifest includes some Falcon Heavy, some Starlink – The next Falcon Heavy launch is slated for early April. You can bet I’ll be watching.
• Another ancient US-flagged container ship in bad shape – In which the Jones Act fails to overcome market forces. If we were to let foreign-built ships into the coastal trade space, we’d see an extraordinary expansion in US-flagged vessels, which is an unalloyed good. Building non-warships in the US has been an economic nonstarter for a long time.
• Some in-depth analysis of Land 400 and the tactical considerations developing therefrom

History

• A 1949 chart showing strike range into Asia from aircraft carriers – It lists a 700-mile combat radius under ‘short-range aircraft’. Also, Jerry Hendrix is a good Twitter navalist to follow.
• Dazzle camouflage in action – I guess it does work.
• Nobody can explain the dominance of cavalry
• Counterpoint: yes we can
• Sidebar: is linking to another blog’s comment section a new low for this segment? – I argue no, given that the commenters at SlateStarCodex are frequently better at writing and arguing than we official bloggers are.

Guns

• Beretta makes a steel-frame 92 for competition – Parvusimperator provides this picture, which I can’t find anywhere else on the Internet. I don’t know how he does it.
• Armed civilian in Venezuela fights back – Just saying.

Grab Bag

• A wargame about carrier damage control in WW2 – Thrill, as you play out the narrative of Shattered Sword!
• Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail – If it’s as good as Ultimate General: Civil War at capturing the feel of its era, I am altogether in.