A newsie writes about engineering history

Saturday's Wall St Journal had book review of Richard Rhodes "Energy a Human History".  The reviewer was Charles R. Morris.  Reading Morris's review made it clear to me that Mr. Morris is one of those "cannot change a light bulb" newsies.  For instance, Morris is describing early steam engine operation.  Morris says " Steam was pumped into the piston".  Not so.  The piston is a round metal part that moves back and forth. No where for steam to go into.  The piston moves inside the cylinder, into which steam can go.  Any motor head, like me, knows the difference between pistons and cylinders. Apparently Mr. Morris does not.  Plus, you don't pump steam into anything.  Just open the intake valve and steam under boiler pressure will flow in freely.  No pump required.
   Then Mr Morris writes "Franklin's famous wet-kite experiment demonstrated that ordinary static electricity and the same stuff as lightening by capturing its charges in Leyden jars, primitive batteries."  Not so.  The Leyden jar was an early version of a capacitor, not a battery.  Improved versions of the Leyden jar were called condensers up until the 1950's when the name capacitor was introduced.  All your electronics, TV, stereo, smart phone, desktop, whatever, contain lots and lots of capacitors. 
   And then we read "DC systems drew their power from low-voltage battery storage."  "DC was dependent on battery charging, it had limited range, only a half mile or so."   Not so.  Both DC and AC systems obtained their power from steam driven DC generators or AC alternators.  Edison's first commercial power station at Pearl St in New York city  had a generator.  So did all the later power stations, both AC and DC.  It isn't right to say that DC has limited range.  The right thing to say is that there was/is  no way to change the voltage of DC.  For transmission over distance, you want to set the voltage as high as you dare, thousands of volts, to reduce line losses.  Once the electricity gets to where is was going, you want to reduce the voltage.  Nobody wants thousands of volts in their lamp sockets and wall outlets.  A hundred volts or so is plenty running around your house.  With AC, transformers can change the voltage up for transmission and and then down again for use.  Transformers only work on AC.  Which accounts for the universal use of AC by today's electric companies. 
  "the disgraceful story of leaded gas-its toxicity especially on the brains of children."  Not the problem with leaded gas.  When we got serious about cleaning up the smog problem we put catalytic converters on all our cars.  Leaded gas poisoned the catalyst rendering the converters inoperative.  So the industry switched over to unleaded gas some time in the late 60's to early 70's.  They put smaller fill pipes on cars requiring unleaded so the standard leaded gas nozzles would not fit, and put smaller nozzles on the unleaded gas pumps. 
   I was surprised that the usually dependable Wall St Journal would publish a piece with so many glaring errors.

Smartphone required for parking meters in Cambridge MA

So I find a legal street parking space in Harvard Square.  I park, get out, and face up to the parking meter.  The meter has a plaque on it directing me to download a "Pay Cambridge Parking Meters" app.  I guess the city fathers of Cambridge figure that all their citizens, or at least all Harvard students have smartphones.  I'm behind the times, I just have a dumbphone.  I finally wind up in a public parking garage that charges $16 an hour. 

Farewell Charles Krauthammer

The cancer got him yesterday.  He will be missed.  His commentary on current events was inspired, intelligent, and at times very witty.  The Fox people have been eulogizing him since last night.  NPR hasn't even mentioned his death.  They don't call it National Progressive Radio for nothing. 

United States Space Force (USSF)

President Trump is now pushing this.  As an old Air Force veteran I am luke warm to the idea.  I assume he is talking about creating a Department of the Space Force, with a separate Congressionally approved budget, and moving all the Air Force people and facilities working on space projects over to the new service, creating a new uniform, titles of rank, and regulations for the Space Force, in short setting it up like they did the Air Force back in 1947.  
   One objection to the idea.  The existing armed services actually engage in real combat, the kind where people get killed.  I don't see the Space Force mission as involving combat.  Launching missiles from an underground command center is pretty risk free.  Much of the morale that makes the current armed services so effective comes from membership in an elite fighting force.   In my Air Force units the enlisted men never fired a shot in anger or flew into enemy airspace, but they took great pride in keeping their fighter planes in the air, and combat ready.  Plus, the enlisted men bore the title of "Airman", until they made sergeant.  How would the Space Force enlisted men feel about bearing the title of "Spaceman"?
   The United States presently relies upon a whole lot of satellites, recon sats, comm sats, GPS sats, and others.  These satellites are not that far up, and in wartime the enemy could shoot them down, or jam their transmissions.  It would be nice to defend them somehow.  But I don't really see how this might be done.  All the enemy needs to do is lob something, with a little maneuvering fuel and an IR sensor, up as high as the target.  The target satellite is moving at 18,000 mph, and when it runs anything at that speed it is blown into dust.  Bright flash, easily seen from the ground.  Short of equipping all the satellites with a battery of anti-missiles, or nuking the enemy launch sites, I don't see any way to stop it. 
   If the independent Space Force could be freed of the existing Department of Defense (DoD) procurement regulations, it could achieve faster, cheaper, and better procurement, especially of expensive, custom built flight hardware.  Current procurement regulations slow everything down, jack up cost, and deliver inferior flaky hardware.  Getting out from under them would be a big improvement.  But, since the new Department of the Space Force would be under DoD, I don't see this as very likely. 

I'm running for Senate!

The phone rang the other day.  It was Bruce Perlo of the NH Republican Party asking if I would stand for election to the NH senate.  I was flattered, and honored, and so I said “yes”.  Filing for the September primary closed last Friday and since no one had filed, the party is entitled to submit a name.  My name came up. 

   It’s the NH first senate district.  The district is Coos and Grafton counties.  It starts at the Canadian border and reaches down a bit south of Franconia Notch. The current incumbent is Jeff Woodburn, a democrat.  It’s the biggest NH senate district, at least in land area.  It’s thinly populated, but that doesn’t make driving around the district any easier. 

   I got down to the Secretary of State’s office in Concord yesterday and filed the necessary paperwork.  It was $10 to file, I had the cash on me, and I got a receipt.  Chuck Morse, Senate President wanted to meet me.  We had a nice talk.  I should have worn coat and tie, but Jeanie Forester had assured me that it wasn’t necessary. 

   What can you do to help me run?  First, just tell everyone you know that I am running, and I am a good guy.  I’m not a household name up here, especially in Coos County.  Next time you have a party or a cookout, invite me.  I don’t eat much, and I am a fairly entertaining speaker.  I’ll say “Please vote for me” and give reasons, and tell a few war stories.

Combined arms operations. Test of the officer corps

The German army in WWII showed the world the power of combined arms, infantry, with artillery support, tank support, air support.  It was potent enough to crush the French, largest army in Europe in 1940, an army that had stood off German attacks for four years just twenty years earlier.  The Anglo Americans needed a year of combat experience in North Africa to learn how to do it. 
   Doing combined arms operations is complicated.  To order a single infantry or tank unit into action is simple, give them the objective, and the time and date.  Then it's up to the unit commander to bring his men into action.  Not too hard. 
   Now consider doing an operation with artillery support.  You want the guns to shell  enemy positions until your men reach them.  Then you want to "lift" the barrage to strike enemy rear areas while your men assault the front line positions.  You have to order the artillery units into position, and make arrangements to get tons and tons of shells up to the guns.  You have to coordinate with the artillery, make sure that both artillery and infantry are using the same maps of the action.  You have to make sure that both the artillery and the infantry know just where the attack is going in, and especially when the attack goes in.  Before the introduction of walkie talkies in WWII, the timing was the Achilles heel.  The attack usually was late, for any one of a number of reasons, and there was no way for the artillery to know this.  So they would lift the barrage as scheduled, even if the infantry was hours from making contact with the enemy.  Once the infantry had walkie talkies to control the artillery things got a lot better. 
   Tank support was not as complicated as artillery.  Order the tank unit[s] to attack at the same time as the infantry.   Make sure the infantry is knows the tanks are friendly tanks, lest they start pot shotting them with bazookas. 
   Air support can be tricky.  The aviators, especially single seat fighters, are never all the sure where they are.  It's real easy to get confused and bomb your own forces.  This happened repeatedly.  The best of coordination, aerial photos of the target area, special marking on friendly vehicles, and forward air controllers will improve things. 
   Getting all this stuff right is what you have officers for.  If they don't get it right, they are apt to loose the battle. A division commander who could put all this together and get it right was a rare asset. 

That FBI Inspector General Report

The report includes numerous emails and text messages showing ridiculous amounts of anti Trump bias on the part of FBI personnel, but the report writers claim that this appalling attitude did not affect their actions.
   I say that is Bulls**t.  People displaying that sort attitude, in writing no less, will do whatever they can to tip the election their way. Leaking of uncomplimentary material, spying, politically motivated prosecution, intimidation, and more. 
   Surely Comey's work in the Hilary Clinton email scandal, first declaring it to be un prosecutable, then declaring that the Anthony Weiner laptop information required re opening the case is heavy duty interfering the in the 2016 election.  Fortunately it damaged Hilary's chances more than it hurt Trump's chances.  Comey was never a very smart guy, he thought he was helping Hilary when in actual fact he was damaging her.