From the Archives, 2016 In urban environments, the playing field is levelled between the conventional armies and insurgents BE IT ALEPPO or Damascus, Mosul or Ramadi, or even Eastern Ukraine, combatants in today’s conflicts are frequently fighting in and over urban areas. The decision to wage war in cities is driven in part by…
Category: Warfare
RHODESIAN COIN TACTICS
Excellent piece on Counter-Insurgency Tactics. As a follow-up I recommend reading up on the British vs. The Chinese Communist in Malaya in 1948 aka “The War of the Running Dogs.”
Know Your Cold War History: Operation Protea and Beyond…
Operation Protea was launched on 23 August 1981. Its objectives were to destroy the South-West Africa People’s Organisations (SWAPO) command and training center at Xangongo as well as to destroy its logistic bases at Xangongo and Ongiva. The South African forces reached Ongiva on 26 August 1981 and attacked the combined SWAPO/FAPLA forces dug in […]…
Know Your WW2 History: The Iron Fist – 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen
Marder I, 17 SS Panzergrenadier Division Gotz von Berlichingen 17. SS commander Werner von Ostendorf (left) plans the attack on Carentan with Fallschirmjager commander Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte (centre). Thrown into combat on 10 June 1944 near Carentan, the reconnaissance battalion of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division fought the American paratroops of the […]…
Know Your WW2 History: The Blitzkrieg – Word and Concept
I never used the word Blitzkrieg because it is a very stupid word. Adolf Hitler, 8 November 1941 The Word “Blitzkrieg” In sober military language, there is hardly any other word that is so strikingly full of significance and at the same time so misleading and subject to misinterpretation as the term blitzkrieg. Its early […]…
Ordinary Men: A Profile of the Chechen Insurgents and their Tactics
Dodge Billingsly’s work covering the Chechen Wars is well worth the time, as is his book, Fangs of the Lone Wolf. via Ordinary Men: A Profile of the Chechen Insurgents and their Tactics — American Partisan
China updates its ‘Art of (Hybrid) War’
China updates its ‘Art of (Hybrid) War’ I have emphasized the importance of understanding 4GW, aka “Hybrid” or “Asymmetrical” Warfare for some time on this blog. Understanding how War can be waged in every strata of society without a bullet ever being fired is mind blowing to some but none the less a painful…
Know Your WW2 History: Jagdtiger SdKfz 186
The heaviest armored vehicle fielded by the Germans in World War II was the Panzerjäger Tiger Ausf B. This was built on a slightly lengthened Tiger II chassis topped with a fixed casemate and a 12.8 cm PaK 44 L/55 antitank gun. It weighed seventy-nine tons. A few early versions of the Jagdtiger had a […]…
Military Organisation of the Holy Roman Empire
Know Your History, it’s Interesting Reading! Although firmly rooted and fairly well developed in the Rhineland, Franconia, Lorraine (the old Lotharingia) and Burgundy, feudalism in its widest sense was never as strong in Germany as in, say, France or England, and true knighthood and the customary granting of fiefs was unknown in Germany until…
Germanic Warfare
Chatti Germanic Tribe | Northern Germanic Tribes: Cherusci, Jutes, Saxons. Early Germanic warriors either first century BC or AD. The Germans east of the Rhine had a fearsome reputation and constantly waged war on their Gallic neighbours. The Gauls who lived close to the German border were considered to be the most hardened of the […]…