Now that parvusimperator is back with us, I can focus on this post more than usual. As usual, when I focus on something more than usual it doesn’t just get done. It gets overdone.

Categories arranged not in the usual defense-first fashion, but rather in the order they showed up in our weekly-news-stories channel on the company Hangouts Chat.

Американский футбол

• The PAC-12 is terrible – Having married into a USC family, I find my heart warmed by this story.

Science

• First we saw too few Milky Way satellite galaxies, now we see too many – An interesting case where refinements to the theory brought the estimated number of satellite galaxies down, while refinements to measuring tools brought the number of discovered satellite galaxies up. As always, a good read from Quanta. This story came from the daily news dump at Ambient Irony, a blog run by a Twitter acquaintance, which usually has some good stuff in the science/technology field.
• Rocks: the next dark matter detector – When the next Einstein rolls around and upsets the luminiferous-ether-like consensus on dark matter, I’m going to be smiling very smugly from my little corner of the internet. (Or we’ll eventually catch a WIMP, and you’ll never hear from me again.)

Technology

• Apple cutting iPhone production – Almost as though they’ve been coasting on their reputation as innovators for far too long, and it’s finally catching up to them.
• The story about the spy microchip on server motherboards we reported on a while ago has fallen apart almost completely – Never let it be said we don’t own up to our mistakes.
• A recent post by Cory Doctorow takes the heterodox position: it’s at least possible – Granted, saying that it’s a coordinated coverup takes believing that it’s one of the largest correct conspiracy theories in history. There’s a 40-minute talk from an expert on firmware attacks who believes it’s “at least possible”, which I haven’t seen yet but intend to listen to as I close out the work day.
• System boundaries and the Linux kernel – Why kernel updates break closed-source drivers, why the closed-source driver people are in the wrong, and why it would be a bad idea to introduce stable APIs for drivers.

Defense

• Merchant ships to missile slingers – I’m for it. Q-ships are much more effective when warships dispense with armor.
• Will China go to war over Taiwan? – I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to test it. I’m curious how much of Taiwan’s electronics industry comes from its need to have a native defense industry.
• The Navy looks to establish a polar port – Timely news, given the bit about Russian Arctic basing last week. Trivia: The Ticonderogii¹ were the last American ships with purpose-built deicing systems. Anything later and it’s men on deck with sledgehammers.
• Are FONOPS effective? – ASEAN has its doubts.
• Big Army prepares to fight sci-fi battles – In megacities and underground.
• China’s Type 001A may be in service within months
• Big Army should bring back Pathfinders – They would make a great accompaniment to the sci-fi battlefield.
• On the evolution of the PLAAF – The defense section has been a bit China-heavy lately, but that’s the way the geopolitical cookie crumbles.
• Speaking of China, keep your hands off Subic Bay – Maybe we need to set up a base there again?
• The Navy Times got their hands on the Fort report on the Fitz collision – It’s bad. No, worse than that. Bad.
• About 1/3 of the RAF is in the ‘sustainment fleet’ – Elsewhere, I found a quote from an RAF spokesman saying that the sustainment fleet is aircraft undergoing upgrades and long-term maintenance, as well as those in storage, so it isn’t like 30% of the RAF is being cannibalized to keep the other 70% flying. Honestly, compared to (for instance) Germany, 70% in the forward fleet isn’t bad at all.
• Navy looking for a sixth-generation fighter to replace the Super Hornet – Not to be glib, but isn’t that the F-35C’s job?

The Акула/Typhoon-class boomers, in pictures

• I came across this photo on Twitter… – …and thought it was worth a section unto itself. It’s really easy to miss how enormous they were. In the picture above, it’s next to a Grisha of some flavor. Here’s one next to an Udaloy, and the Udaloy only looks bigger because less of it is under the water.
• Here’s a handy schematic of the pressure hulls, which helps clarify their arrangement inside the light hull.
• Lastly, here are some interior shots of the crew spaces – This is a different set of photos from the one I usually see floating around, taken of TK-17 Архангелск shortly after her decommissioning, so everything is in much better shape than other sets I know of.

History

• Why is the DOS path character backslash?
• King Tut’s dagger came from meteor iron – They determined this with x-ray fluorescence, a technology we have some acquaintance with here at the office from a past customer.

American Politics

• Why is all the shutdown talk focused on government workers missing paychecks, and not on the work that isn’t getting done? – The article suggests maybe because there isn’t much value to the work that’s getting done. I haven’t worked in government, and am unlikely to do so in my lifetime, so I leave that judgement to people closer to the matter.

Monroe Doctrine

• The US has apparently declared Maduro an illegitimate president – Which is basically saying, “If you guys want to have a coup, we’re cool with it.”

Today is an extremely grab-bag day.

Defense

• A lovely F-35C glamor shot
• The Tu-22M3M, the logical end result of Russia’s insane aircraft naming scheme. (Remember, folks, the Tu-22 and the Tu-22M are different airframes!)
• Forbes on the business impact of the Army’s ITEP re-engining program – Helicopter engines are big money. Think 10,000 units at least.
• The Maritime Silk Road, or China’s geopolitical strategy – Basically, all their repossessed infrastructure investments make for a nice network of bases, and a nice network of countries pleasantly disposed toward China.
• Quality, not quantity, or the American military spending strategy – I think this is a reasonable peacetime choice, except insofar as modern military production is very hard to scale up.
• US Navy tests Littoral Combat Groups – They don’t include any Littoral Combat Ships, because why would they?
• Britain plans to build a new base in Southeast Asia – Brunei is apparently high on the list. Singapore seems like a natural choice, too, but there’s way less room there.
• Flashpoint: Arctic Circle – Russia is improving its bases in the high arctic.
• A tweet from John Noonan on Chinese rhetoric in 2019 vs. Japanese rhetoric in 1941 – “[…] the US is a weak, pleasure-seeking nation, and if we thump their Navy hard enough, they won’t fight for little Pacific islands.”
• Ongoing problems with the Ford-class carriers’ weapons elevators – You’d think they’d have that nailed down by now. Also on the grapevine is continued issues with the advanced arresting gear. Those, at least, operate on an interesting principle, using adjustable vanes in a water-twister energy sink to vary arresting force by aircraft.
• Soapbox favorite CDR Salamander writes an ode to the naval gun – As I recall, he came of age as an officer in some battleship or another before they were retired, so it’s no surprise he’s fond of gunnery.

Firearms

• GQ Magazine on training gun-carrying teachers – parvusimperator has been to a class with the guys who ran the training course, and recommends them highly. He also recommends the article as a very fair look into that world.
• Aluminum bolt carrier test (video), and one for sale at a good price – If parvusimperator springs for one, we want to do a blind test. One guy slaps either a steel or aluminum bolt carrier into a rifle while the other isn’t watching. Then the other guy shoots. Swap the carriers, do it again. Can we tell the difference?
• The USPSA magazine reports on popular competition gear – I’m gratified to say that none of my guns appear on it.

Technology

• Patreon’s censors (video) – Noting the danger megacorporations pose to free speech online is one of the least traditionally conservative positions I hold politically. I have a longer post on the issue in draft status, but it’s a hard one for me to write, probably because there aren’t any easy fixes. The main point I found compelling in the linked video is that it’s absurd that Patreon exercises editorial control, when in effect it’s content creators hiring them to do behind-the-scenes accounting.

Welcome to 2019! Maybe it’s just me, but saying ‘twenty-nineteen’ feels like the future to me in a way ‘twenty-eighteen’ didn’t. I was making plans to put a garden in our back yard the other day¹, realized I wasn’t going to get there this summer, and subsequently realized that meant I was making plans for 2020, which is absolutely the future.

Technically, I wasn’t supposed to start these back up until next week, but we have a few items in the queue that I figured I might as well whip into some kind of article.

Defense

• Australia’s Defence Technology Review, January 2019 – The front cover has what I can only call an LST-X on it, which is why it’s in the roundup to begin with, but it also has a ton of interesting news on Aussie defense inside. The advertising and other non-editorial inner matter reminds me of early-20th-century Janes books, where (usually) English companies manufacturing things like boilers and armor plate would advertise.
• Parvusimperator had another link on the Achates-Cummins opposed piston engine, but we’d already covered the information therein, so here’s a different article – This one focuses a bit more on possible consumer applications, rather than the 1000hp Cummins project for combat vehicles, but has some good animations and graphics to consult if you have a hard time picturing just when things happen in an opposed piston cycle. Cummins was supposed to present a report on initial test results in November, but I can’t find a copy. Scrounging is parvusimperator’s gig. If we find one, we’ll have it for you.
• Foreign Affairs writes on Trump’s foreign policy – They use the term ‘illiberal hegemony’ to indicate that current American foreign policy is not strongly focused on exporting democracy or liberalizing illiberal regimes. I think it’s fair to say it’s a foreign policy with the idealism knob turned down to zero, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
• China’s railgun test ship is undergoing sea trials – Some Twitter pictures show it steaming at sea. Business Insider calls it a ‘warship’, but it’s just a landing ship with a big honking railgun turret plopped onto the bow.
• Secretary Mattis’ departure delays KC-46 deliveries – Apparently, some paperwork was awaiting his signature.
• The PLARF tests an S-400 system on a ‘simulated ballistic target’ – I still can’t type PLARF without snickering.
• China can’t control the South China Sea – The author is speaking specifically in circumstances less than war. At war, he seems pretty happy with the US-SoKor-Japan-etc. bloc’s ability to beat China, which is (I think) where the sober, non-hysterical money ought to go. At levels of tension less than war, he also thinks China doesn’t have sufficient hulls to enforce its control over the South China Sea. He gets there by excluding the PLAN from patrol and flag-waving duties, which seems to me to be a questionable assumption.
• US Navy considering a block buy of aircraft carriers to save money – U-S-A! U-S-A! More seriously, it’s what the kids might call (might have called?) a baller move to order two aircraft carriers at once when competitor states are working toward that capability, in peacetime, because a bulk buy is cheaper. ‘Murica.
• F-35 AAM testing – They’re really playing up the simultaneous engagement thing for reasons which aren’t fully clear to me. Was it an EOTS engagement? Sensor fusion? If it’s just shooting AMRAAMs at two separate targets tracked by radar, I’m not all that impressed. It’s 70s/80s state of the art.

Mattis’ Farewell Letter

I’ve decided to transcribe the entire thing here, because it’s so clearly the work of an old soldier rather than a politician.

MEMORANDUM FOR ALL DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE EMPLOYEES

SUBJECT: Farewell Message

On February 1, 1865, President Lincoln sent to General Ulysses S. Grant a one-sentence telegram. It read: “Let nothing which is transpiring change, hinder, or delay your military movements or plans.”

Our Department’s leadership, civilian and military, remains in the best possible hands. I am confident that each of you remains undistracted from our sworn mission to support and defend the Constitution while protecting our way of life. Our Department is proven to be at its best when the times are most difficult. So keep the faith in our country and hold fast, alongside our allies, aligned against our foes.

It has been my high honor to serve at your side. May God hold you safe in the air, on land, and at sea.

Technology

• The Economist dives deep into next-gen satellite internet – The short version is that next-gen satellites orbit much lower, which means there’s much less latency involved in making a round trip to them. The downside is that you have to be able to track the satellite with your antenna, which is hard. Most of the current contenders seem not to bother with mechanically-tracked antennas, instead favoring phased arrays and electronic steering.
• Perennial favorite Quanta Magazine on proving a potential problem with RSA encryption is not actually a problem – Phew. Also, now that we’ve been linking to Quanta in two separate years, calling it a perennial favorite is more accurate than it’s been.

Grab Bag

• Philadelphia is a terrible place – It’s an old story, but as proud residents of Pennsylvania’s better half, we’re honor-bound to trash Philly whenever we get the chance.

A day late again. Blame Strategic Command WWII: World at War, which has been consuming my evenings, and busy days at work, which have been consuming my days. (SCWWIIWAW review should be coming sometime soon.)

A note on Christmas schedule: officially, our break starts on the 19th and ends on January 8th. We won’t be altogether absent during that stretch, but we certainly won’t have two-articles-and-a-linkpost per week.

Defense

• Coal, oil, and now cobalt – A strategic material for the modern age.
• Oh, Canada – Canada is having trouble keeping enough fighters in the air. (But hey, at least Gripen is on the table!)
• F-35 Block II feature list – Pardon what is perhaps an impolitic question, but isn’t Block I still in development? Then again, as a software developer by day, I understand having to promise new features before the existing ones are done.
• A history of US ASW efforts in the First World War
• Apparently, I forgot to stick the link to the story in our what-we’re-reading chat channel, but the USAF is planning on consolidating F-22 basing, leaving Tyndall AFB out of future plans. (Tyndall will continue to house F-35s.) That leaves active F-22 squadrons at Hickam, Langley, and Elmendorf, which the USAF wants to expand from 21 to 24 aircraft each. There were 17 F-22s left at Tyndall during the hurricane, so that’s presumably a not-easily-salvable rate of a bit under 50%.
• Soapbox favorite naval affairs writer James Holmes on Pearl Harbor, and how it’s Mahan’s fault – Both that it happened to us, and that it was a bad idea for the Japanese. Read it all the way through. It’s a good one.
• The British Army demos an urban ops Challenger 2 – Something for a certain regular commenter of ours.
• USAF must overhaul pilot training to fix future shortages – For a few months, I was in a Bible study at church with an ex-USAF pilot. He remarked once that for everyone outside of fighters and bombers, an Air Force job is basically an airline job with worse hours and a lack of cushy union-negotiated pay. Still, if I were in my early 20s, unmarried, and possessed of better eyesight, I might consider a career switch.
• Russia rises to #2 in global arms sales – We’re #1! We’re #1! (I’m surprised Russia wasn’t already #2, though.)
• Assad is back in charge in Syria – I saw a professional defense/geopolitics commentator on Twitter say that the only way Assad was ever going to leave was with a suitcase full of Franklins on a plane to Moscow. Makes sense to me—in recent years, it’s not a good idea to yield to the West if you’re a Middle Eastern dictator.
• An animation of Helge Ingstad‘s sinking, showing the proximate cause – That’s leaking shaft seals, which leaked because of bent bulkheads and so on after the collision.

Flashpoint: Ukraine

Tip of the hat to Kilo Sierra for sharing these on Discord. (Join us! The link is in the sidebar!)

• Is Ukraine headed for a Russian showdown? – Some compelling arguments here.
• Can the West prevent it? – Yes, but the correct question is will the West prevent it.

Flashpoint: South China Sea

• Japan plans to buy some more Aegis – Good for them.
• China’s ‘fishing fleet’ in the South China Sea is a naval militia
• More on the US, China, and long-term prospects for peace – I didn’t really read this one. Instead I share it for the nostalgia of seeing a Badger escorted by Flankers, all festooned with red stars and red flags.

Grab Bag: Technology, Guns, Oil, etc.

• Twitter’s @RexValllachorum (note three Ls) is an émigré from Romania, who came of age late in the Communist era and writes both on why Communism sucks and occasionally on modern American politics – Here he is on guns and the blood price of taking them in America.
• In lighter news, parvusimperator submits a video on the topic of how Dragon’s Breath shotgun ammo can go wrong – Magnesium and powder residue is a volatile combination.
• The largest continuous oil and gas resource ever discovered is on the Texas/New Mexico border
• The world economy in dynamic graph form, from 1960 to 2017 – I was surprised to see Japan in the #2 spot for so long, and China up into the top tier so recently.

Defense

• NASA receives some leftover Hornet-Bs from the Navy
• Russia shares some дезинформация on the subject of its 9M729 cruise missile – I don’t know if it’s actually disinformation, but it seems like a safe bet.
• Mexico buys better ships than the LCS
• “Why the Navy Thinks the Carrier Gerald R. Ford Will Work After All” – I should hope they aren’t just coming to that conclusion now.
• The death of precision in warfare – There’s a section in this article which makes a point I want to expand on: I don’t think total economic mobilization is feasible with the platforms we have available to us today, because it’s much harder to convert a Ford plant to build F-35s than it was to convert a Ford plant to build B-24s.
• USNI Proceedings makes an argument to buy something not invented here
• An unofficial model of a proposed Kaga F-35 conversion
• Relatedly, Japan clears the way for such a conversion
• Is North Korea building MiG-29s? – Probably not very good ones, if indeed they are.
• FONOPS for fun and profit
• Four logistics dilemmas awaiting the Army on the modern battlefield – We may not produce very much meaty, in-depth commentary of this sort, given that we have day jobs, but we sure can link to it.
• Taking a cue from Macross, Japan wants to upgrade its F-15s to carry up to 18 air to air missiles – Japan’s really going all-out on the self defense efficiency thing, aren’t they?
• F-35s with lasers? – We’ll see if anything comes of it.
• Can the US and China avoid war? – One hopes.
• The Helge Ingstad accident report appears! – We Americans can’t really throw stones, given our recent record of smacking into large commercial vessels.
• Late-breaking news: Ukraine tests a new anti-ship cruise missile, and has perhaps modified SA-3s to hit naval targets?

Science, Industry, and Technology

• An under-construction Russian icebreaker bursts into flames – Russian shipyard worker is looking less and less like a good career choice lately.
• Archimedes anticipated calculus, combinatorics
• SpaceX loses a booster – There’s only one hydraulic pump which runs all four grid fins. It failed, leading to a loss of control authority and a fast, uncontrolled roll. When the landing burn started, the booster recovered enough on thrust to make a soft water landing.

The good news is, we’re on time this week. The bad news is, we didn’t spend much time on article-reading over the holiday week, so we don’t have many stories for you.

Defense

• The European Army, a story which won’t go away – As I snarked last time, hooray! Another army for Europe to chronically underfund, which will undoubtedly have the German Army’s problem of 1. tons of equipment of which 2. maybe 20% works at any given time.
• Big Army wants a new turbine for its helos
• Big Navy: we can’t buy new boomers and a 355-ship fleet at the same time – To sum up, anyway. CDR Salamander has the right answer: “If not, build the boomers.”
• Some fun pictures of the auxiliary thrusters on the Perry frigates – Apparently, there’s talk about bringing some Perry hulls out of mothballs. I’m largely pro, but I wish they hadn’t deactivated the old single-arm missile launchers.

Technology

• NASA extends the American dominance in terms of Mars landings – The Soviets technically succeeded in landing a probe on Mars, but it stopped working so quickly that you can’t really count it.
• China’s social credit score isn’t real – In which Foreign Policy notes that sure, there’s a national system of blacklists and citizen information on anyone who has opened a credit card or taken a loan, and that system is often arbitrary and capricious and certainly totalitarian, but it’s okay because it’s not a single, unified, national system with a single top-line score. I dunno. Seems like an implementation detail to me.