Thursday, March 3, 2022

Big Molotov Cocktails.

 Back in high school I knew a boy, Hungarian boy by the name of Tom Beyargin.  He had been active in the 1956 Hungarian uprising against the Russians.  Hr had gotten out of Hungary just a day before the Russians closed the western border of Hungary.  He told some hair raising stories about resisting the Russians in Buda Pest.  

  The Hungarians would lay down ordinary pie pans, upside down, across the city streets.  The pans looked just like land mines.  No tanker is going to drive his tank over a land mine.  The Russian tanks would stop and a tanker could get out to look the things over.  There was usually a Hungarian with a rifle on street level to deal with him.  Meantime a Hungarian would heave a gallon jug sized Molotov cocktail out a 3rd or 4th story window.  Since the tanks were stopped it was easier to hit them.  A gallon of gasoline was enough to set any kind of tank on fire.  After a few days of this and the tankers became extremely reluctant to drive down any city street.

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Dumping Putin

 The Russians would have to do it of course.  The Russian power structure, Army Generals, Politburo people, industrialists, the heavy duty kind of people, would have to become convinced that Putin was driving Russia into a disaster.   Then should enough of them get together they could force Putin out of power, the way they did Khrushchev years ago.  It could get touchy.  Should Putin catch wind of this, he would order everybody arrested.  

We probably would not know of a move to remove Putin until after it happened.  Unless we have another deep sleeper agent in the Kremlin, like the famous Oleg Penkovsky, we would not hear.  Planning to remove the head of state is high treason and would only be done in the deepest of secrecy.

State of the Union

 It went on past my bedtime and ran for ever.  I noticed a lot of empty seats in the House chamber.  Used to be, every seat was full and the room was jammed.  Not so much last night.  Biden didn't say much of substance, although he read well off the teleprompters.  Only two cases of lost train of thought that I noticed.  Not too shabby for Slow Joe.  He never spoke about getting oil production back up.  Most of what he said was either motherhood and apple pie, or the party of more free stuff promising more free stuff.  He wanted to lower drug prices but he never mentioned the sure fire way to make that happen, namely allow import duty free of drugs from any decent first world country, Canada, the EU, Japan, etc.  Republicans need to campaign hard to win the Congress. All American voters need to go to the polls in November and never vote for a democrat again.  We have seen how badly democrats have run the country this last year of Biden.

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

A no fly zone for Ukraine.

 There is a blond young woman from Ukraine in Washington.  Her English is excellent, she is pretty and she sounds like a very effective spokeswoman for Ukraine.  She was asking for a no-fly zone to keep the Russian air force out of the fighting.  Sounds nice.

  Trouble is having the US Air Force enforce the no fly zone could lead to war between us and the Russians.  We have made it a point to avoid that ever since the end of WWII.  The old Soviet Union was nearly as big as we were, and they had nukes.  After the Soviet Union failed, new nations formed out of the old Soviet Union wanted out of the Union.  About a third of the old Soviet Union escaped, so Putin is running a much smaller country that would be easier to defeat.  But, they still have a lot of nukes, and they would probably use them on us before they would accept defeat.  And we would likely retaliate and things go down hill from there. 

    Anyhow I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to declare and enforce a no fly zone in Ukraine.  Too dangerous.   We should stick with supplying SAMs, Stinger and Patriot.  Stinger is shoulder fired, which means it has to be fairly light.  However, light as it is, Stinger had enough punch in Afghanistan to bring down anything the Russians were flying.  Little to no training is needed to use Stinger; it is a point and shoot system.  Patriot is a bigger and fancier system.  It has a tracked vehicle to carry the missiles and the radar.  Crews need probably a week of training before they can make Patriot perform. 

Monday, February 28, 2022

Siege. Starve out the enemy

 Traditional way to take castles, cities, and the like.  Surround them, cut off their supplies, and wait for their food to run out.  It has worked for thousands of years.  From what I see on TV (reliable that is) the Russians have not yet surrounded Kyiv.  Last general I remember who neglected this essential step was German general Paulus at Stalingrad.  He was defeated and he and his entire army was killed or captured. 

Air Supply for Ukraine.

 We could fly weapons into Ukraine.  They must have at least one airport in Ukrainian hands, far enough back to avoid Spetnaz snipers taking the runways under fire.  Use big USAF transports.  Give them fighter escort just in case.  Equip then with Common Missile Warning System which uses TV cameras to detect a SAM launch and the microprocessor gets on the aircraft intercom and cries “Missile missile missile”.  That gets the crew’s attention every time.  Also equip the transports with flare dispensers and radar jammers to deflect any missiles launched.  Land on the Ukraine airport.  Pop the rear cargo door open and push all the pallets full of supplies and weapons out of the aircraft and onto waiting trucks.  Close rear cargo door and takeoff immediately. 

Sunday, February 27, 2022

What Schools should be teaching. Part II

 Public speaking.  All too many kids simply do not understand about speaking up and speaking clearly.  At my old high school all seniors were required to take public speaking which met once a week.  The course was taught by the school headmaster, old Daniel D. Test (Master Dan).  He taught it in the old school theater (the school has since built a fine big new theater).  We had to say our piece from the stage.  Master Dan would seat in the back most row of seats to insure that we spoke up so he could hear us.  Every so often some luckless student would hear Master Dan shout out "I cannot hear you!" from the back row. 

Some years later, taking Air Force ROTC, we had close order drill, from an Air Force Manual 54-12.  There was a section that discussed "command voice" and the need to give commands loudly and clearly when drilling cadets (or troops).  At debriefing after one after noon drill session I was gratified to here one to the instructors, a commissioned Air Force officer, say "Mr. Starr had the only decent command voice out there this afternoon."  I didn't say anything, but I thought back on Master Dan's public speaking course.   

Today we have a lot of people who don't speak up, who mumble, leaving the rest of us wondering what they were trying to say and if it is worth asking them about it.  This includes people who ought to know better, like movie actors.  The old line movie actors, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and company always spoke clear as a bell.  The new breed no longer understand about that, and they don't speak up and they mumble.  There was a scene in Game of Thrones with Jaime Lannister and Briene together in a hot tub sharing chit chat.  I would have loved to hear what they had to say to each other. I could not catch a word from either of them.  

Your children will go farther in later life if they understand about speaking up, loudly and clearly.