No pics but I became intrigued....

 I have always read about war.  Something about it has always fascinated me.  How a country like the US can start from a full peace time standing and roll into an industrial powerhouse seemingly overnight.  How ships, tanks, planes, rifles, bazookas......everything could be built and sent off to fight in record numbers.

I think that is something that should have fascinated me but it rarely facisnates anyone....except professionals: Logistics.  The art form of getting everything required to where it needs to be at the time it is needed.  And having served in the Marine Corps as a logistician, I am surprised I never really focused in on it.  

A friend at work and I were talking the other day and he mentioned about how the US Navy got its collective ass kicked off Guadalcanal.  And he asked me why I thought the US did not pull any of the undamaged battleships down there to fight.  For the life of me, I had never thought of that.  

There were plenty of battleships available, in 1942 the Atlantic Fleet had:  the New York (BB34), the Washington (BB56), Arkansas (BB33), North Carolina (BB55), and the Texas (BB35).  

In the Pacific Fleet, of the 9 battleships, one was undamaged during that attack at Pearl Harbor: the Colorado (BB-45).  

The reason?  It came down to LOGISTICS.  What do ships require most?  Fuel.  How many fleet oilers were there in the Pacific in 1942?   11 total.  

Kanawha (AO-1), Cuyama (AO-3), Brazos (AO-4), Neches (AO-5), Ramapo (AO-12), Sepulga (AO-20), Tippecanoe (AO-21), Neosho (AO-23), Platte (AO-24), Sabine (AO-25), and Kaskaskia (AO-27)

Neches and Neosho were both sunk.  

Neches was sunk by a submarine while supporting the failed Task Force heading to support Wake Island.

Neosho was sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea.  

Of all the Task Forces set up during that first year of the war, none included battleships?  Task Forces 8, 11, 14, 16, 17, and 18 were all centered around a carrier with its cruiser and destroyer escorts.  

Where were the battleships?  

One therory is that Nimitz held them back in the Pacific so they could support the Carrier Task Forces...not enough to go around.

I am now intrigued enough to dig deep into fleet oiler operations in the first year of WWII.

Down the rabbit hole I go!!

Yep...could not agree more.

Wall Street seems to have taken over our country.  Business and the pursuit of the all mighty profit seem to have replaced governance for the good of all.  

I do not blame a single party.  Both  are complicit with this fiasco.  Republicans act like Democrats when they are in charge....they shout about limited government and downsizing, shrinking the budget deficet (no mention of the current trillions of dollars owed), personal linerties and other such things.  But when in power they enact things like the poorly named "Patriot Act" which allows the wholesale spying on the American public just like the Stasi in East German or the KGB in Soviet USSR.  

At least the Democrats tell you EXACTLY what they are going to do...they are going to raise taxes, they are going to open the border, they are going to cut oil production.  They do not lie to us.  You know EXACTLY where you stand with Democrats.

Both parties spend money like fools.  I was going to say they spend money like a drunken Sailor but even they had to stop when they ran out!  These idiot politicians are writing checks our Great Great Great Great Grandchildren will still be stuggling to pay off. 

Truth be told....I hate them both.

 

WWII continues to fascinate me....

 I am not sure whose blog I was reading (sorry...would give credit but I forgot!) and came across a story that seemed to fantastic to be true.  This story is about the pilot of a Piper L-4 Grasshopper observation plane that actually figured out how to, or convinced his crew chief to do it...however he did it...he installed 6  M1 Bazookas (2.36 IN rocket launcher) to the wing spars of his slow moving, low flying observation plane!  Not only did he install them, or had them installed, but he actually killed Nazi tanks with them!  He, Charles Carpenter, actually became an "Ace" at killing tanks having been creditited with 6 kills!  

I am blown away by the sheer audacity of the times.  I mean, there was Cpl Tony Stein who took 6 AN/M2 .30 cal machineguns off a wrecked aircraft, fitted them with stocks and took them into battle on Iwo Jima.  There is Sgt Curtis Cullen who started welding bits of scrap metal to the front of tanks to enable them to plow through the hedgerows in Normandy.  A General saw how effective this was and soon every tank had this modification.  Then there Charles Carpenter who made a anti-tank aircraft out of a lightweight observation plane.   And these are just a few examples!!

Can you imagine the brass these days if someone did that these days?  There is the story of the guys that began fitting acrap metal around the machineguns on top of HMMWV's during Iraq where none used to be ad being told to remove it by ranking officers no matter how good it protected the gunners because it was not "tested and approved".  

Rosie the Rocketer with Charles Carpenter

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/real-weird-wwii-charles-bazooka-charlie-mad-major-carpenter.html

USMC Cpl. Tony Steins "Stinger" the AN/M2 .30 cal 

https://blog.theveteranssite.greatergood.com/tony-stein-moh/

Sheridan tank fitted with a Hedgerow Cutter designed by Sgt Curtis Cullen

https://ww2today.com/9-july-1944-the-culin-hedge-cutter-on-the-normandy-battlefield

If there is one thing that Americans are is inventive and resourceful.  If there is a problem, we figure out a way to remedy it.  And to stifle that sort of innovation is counter to everything I was ever taught about being an American.  

Truth

 

I do not know why but I laughed my butt off at this pic!!

My wife, bless her soul, has had to deal with me for 24 years this March.  When I start laughing or do something that she finds annoying, her standard questions is "How old are you?"  To which my reply is "12...cause the things I found funny then are freaking hilarious now!!"  

She shakes her head and goes about her business!