The Next Generation Hellfire Missile And Better Explosives

A Much Improved Successor To The Hellfire Missile

A Hellfire missile has a similar size (a little over 100 pounds), explosive capacity (20-24 pounds), and range to a 155mm Howitzer round. The guided missile is more accurate, hitting targets within a 10 foot radius about 50% of time, but has a 7 mile range, while the unguided artillery round has a 12 mile range but is much less accurate, hitting targets within a 180-900 foot radius about 50% of the time (which is about 324-8100 times more area than the Hellfire strike zone). 

Both pack more punch than the 70 pound shell launched from a 5" naval gun (the largest naval gun in service on any U.S. warship), a 120mm tank shell, a 120mm mortar round, a 105mm tank shell, a 105mm artillery round, a GUB-44/B Viper Strike guided bomb, or any kind of anti-tank missile, rocket, or recoilless rifle round in wide use.

But it is less powerful than a torpedo, a U.S. Army Standard MLRS artillery missile, a Naval Strike missile, and ATACMS missile, a missile launch from a naval vertical launch system (VLS), or any fixed wing aircraft dropped bombs bigger than a Viper Strike.

The Hellfire missile needs only minimal launching apparatus (which allows it to be used from helicopters, light aircraft, drones, and even a slightly modified Humvee), while a howitzer requires a heavy and slow artillery system, about four tons towed, or almost 28 tons for an armored tracked Paladin mobile artillery system (with a peak speed of only about 35 mph, slowing down the force, whose poor fuel efficiency adds to the logistics trail of the force). 

The Hellfire missile is much more expensive (around $150,000) than an artillery round (around $2000 with inflation), however. But, the missile's greater accuracy means that far fewer rounds are necessary to reliably destroy the same target, and that it produces far less collateral damage. 

As noted in a previous post (emphasis added):

155mm M795 U.S. high explosive howitzer shell (103 pounds) The 155mm (about 6") M777 howitzer, used by the U.S. Marines, has a 90 pound shell, weighs four tons, and has a range of 12 miles with conventional shells and 24 miles with guided shells (Excalibur) which are more accurate as well. Existing Paladin M109 mobile howitzers used by the U.S. Army has a range of about 30 kilometers (18 miles); the design requirement for the existing systems was a target zone of 180 feet radius to about 900 feet depending upon range and other factor; it weighs 27.5 tons (and thus can't be carried in a C-130) and has a maximum speed of 35 mph. The Crusader mobile howitzer, which was cancelled, was going to cost on the order of $24 million or more per one howitzer vehicle. A standard 155mm howitzer shell costs about $1,500 per round.

A proposed next generation successor to the Hellfire missile is similar in size and weight to the existing Hellfire missile, but has twice the amount of explosives (40 pounds) and an 138 mile range with undiminished accuracy, which would hit a tank sized target in Cheyenne, Wyoming (101 miles), Vail (97 miles), or Pueblo (113 miles) from Civic Center Park in Denver. 

The main difference between the successor and the existing Hellfire missile is that instead of using a solid fuel rocket, it uses a disposable jet engine. It may actually end up being cheaper than the Hellfire missile when produced in quantity.

California-based Anduril Industries has been scooping up defense contracts left and right in recent years. And now the firm, which is primarily known for its advanced and highly autonomous drone systems, is looking to apply that expertise to precision-guided munitions in a new line of air-breathing cruise missiles they call the Barracuda M.

The Barracuda M line is made up of three different weapons: the M-100, M-250, and M-500 cruise missiles. . . . the M-100 significantly outclasses the weapons it could feasibly replace. The M-100 was designed to be carried by rotorcraft like the AH-64 Apache gunship or the AH-1 Cobra, in very much the same way these platforms carry Hellfire missiles today. (Although it could feasibly be launched by any of the long list of other platforms that carry Hellfires.)

Indeed, the M-100 is very close in size to the long-serving AGM-114 Hellfire, and even closer in size to the AGM-179 Joint Air to Ground Missile (JAGM) that’s meant to replace the Hellfire.

The M-100 is about 70 inches long with a six-inch diameter and weighs roughly 110 pounds. In comparison, the AGM-114 is 64 inches long, with a seven-inch diameter and a total weight of around 104 to 108 pounds; and the new AGM-179, which is 70 inches long with a seven-inch diameter and an undisclosed total weight. 

 

(Graphic by Alex Hollings)

But while the M-100 is about the same size as the Hellfire or the JAGM, it packs a much bigger punch.

The Hellfire missile carries a roughly 20-pound high explosive warhead and the JAGM is expected to carry about the same. In our original story, Anduril initially told Sandboxx News that their M-100 would carry a 35-pound warhead, but that has since been increased to 40 pounds – twice the size of the Hellfire’s and JAGM’s warhead.

The Hellfire missile usually has a maximum range of between four and 6.8 miles, depending on launch conditions – though some variants, like the AGM-114R-4 long-range Hellfire missile that saw testing in 2022, can reach as far as 21 miles. The AGM-179 JAGM, meanwhile, started its journey to service with a stated range of roughly five miles, but has since doubled that figure to 10. 

 

Comparing the maximum ranges of the AGM-114 Hellfire (yellow), the AGM-179 JAGM (green), and the Barracuda M-100 (red). (Graphic by Alex Hollings)

The M-100, on the other hand, can carry its 40-pound warhead to targets 138 miles away – or 20 times the Hellfire’s range. This is possible because the weapon carries a completely different type of propulsion system than you’ll find in weapons like the Hellfire which are powered by a solid propellant rocket motor. The M-100 is powered by a very small, air-breathing turbojet engine, the same sort of propulsion system you’d find powering a tactical aircraft or other long-range cruise missiles.

The only place the M-100 would fall short of the Hellfire is in maximum speed, as the Hellfire is known to top out at around Mach 1.3, while the M-100 is limited to high subsonic speeds, according to Anduril.

Depending on the iteration, Hellfire missiles have a per-unit price of around $150,000, while the newer JAGM costs about $320,000. Although we don’t know how much the M100 will ultimately cost, Anduril focuses on streamlined and simple production. The company says that the entire weapon can be assembled using fewer than 10 simple hand tools, which will make it very easy to train personnel in assembling it. Because of that simplicity, the company claims it can double its production capacity anytime the U.S. needs a surge of precision-guided munitions.

This weapon . . . has already seen testing in-house at Anduril and now the company is shopping these weapons to the Department of Defense in hopes of securing a production contract.

In a war like the currently pending Ukraine War, where Russian troops feel secure stationing weapons systems and bases outside artillery range from Ukraine's front lines, widespread availability of these missiles could push back the front lines by 130 miles into Russian territory. 

Similarly, this makes it possible to strike at another country (e.g. Israel), or into international waters, from deep inside sovereign territory of the person making the shot.

The larger version of this new missile (the M-250 and M-500) are more comparable to full sized HIMARs, M270, and navy cruise missiles, and to other intermediate range, larger missiles which the Marines, Army, and Air Force are all actively developing.

The greater range also makes real time forward reconnaissance much more important. 

A forward observer with a device about the size of a satellite phone, a small reconnaissance drone (ideally with a long range), spy planes, high altitude airships or balloons, or spy satellites, could all provide real time imagery that could direct missiles from distant launch sites to a target.

The Case For A Canon Artillery Substitute Missile

Another possibility would be to develop a missile similar in concept to the M-100, but smaller, with a warhead size similar to a Hellfire missile or 155mm artillery round (20-24 pounds), and perhaps only a fifth as much fuel for a 28 mile range, that is significantly lighter (perhaps 60-75 pounds) than the 90-103 pounds of a 155mm artillery round or the 104-110 pounds of a Hellfire missile or an M-100, as a canon artillery substitute missile. 

This canon artillery substitute missile could be fired from a variety of platforms, e.g., a pickup truck mount, a JTLV, a Stryker, an ATV sized ground based drone, an air based drone, a helicopter, a light plane, an AC-130, an A-10, an F-35, a patrol boat, a corvette, or a frigate. Faster, lighter platforms, operating at a greater distance from opposition forces, would be better suited to the modern scoot and shoot tactics of modern artillery forces. Its lighter weight would allow more to be carried on any given platform.

Advanced Energetic Materials

Another way to reduce the weight, without sacrificing explosive power, would be to introduce a new generation (paywalled WSJ article) of "advanced energetic materials - chemicals that propel or explode" which have advanced little since the RDX and Torpex used as TNT replacements which were about 50% more powerful per weight than TNT towards the end of WWII.

For example, an explosive material called CL-20, first identified in 1993 which is currently the subject of research by China and Russia's defense scientists, has been basically stalled in the R&D phase for the last thirty-years, during which it wasn't a priority because counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were the priority. It is supposed to be 10 times more powerful than TNT (video) making it the most powerful non-nuclear explosive known to man.

The B-2 Is Rarely Used

Despite the small size of the U.S. B-2 bomber fleet, it isn't a heavily used resource despite its immense cost.

The U.S. bombing yesterday of five bunkers where Houthi rebels in Yemen stored weapons (which killed no civilians) was carried out by a B-2 bomber.

The last time that this class of bomber was used in combat before this week was seven years ago in 2017 in a January 18 strike on an ISIS training camp by two B-2s. 

Before that it was used to strike targets in Libya in March of 2011. 

They were used 49 times in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003. 

It was first used in combat in the Kosovo War in 1999 (where it was used heavily), two years after it entered military service in 1997. The first B-2 bomber flew thirty-five years ago on July 17, 1989, eight years before it entered military service.

The B-2's global range (6,900 miles, which can be greatly extended with aerial refueling), stealth capabilities, and heavy bomb payload (20-25 tons) is a combination unmatched in the world. It has a crew of two. 

Just 21 were built (driving up the per unit cost immensely) and 17 remain in service, while four had accidents or crashes that removed them from service. This is quite unimpressive for such a small number of aircraft when the number of combat missions it has flown in the 27 years it has been in military service is so small. 

The U.S. is in the process of fielding a replacement B-21 bomber which is quite similar in design and capabilities to the B-2. 

360 x 360

In the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan, two of the biggest vulnerabilities of occupying U.S. and allied forces that the local resistance in Iraq and Taliban in Afghanistan used were to shoot exposed gunners with snipers, and to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs), as land mines (sometimes controlled visually by cell phones), to exploit the flat bottoms of Humvees, tanks, and other armored vehicles.

Humvees weren't designed to be on the front lines, but ended up there in wars that had no front lines.

Armored vehicles, including tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, were designed to have side armor protecting them from direct fire in a two dimensional battlefield, and had the heaviest armor on the front where their opponents were supposed to be.

In the moment, the U.S. bought mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles to respond to those threats. These featured curved rear surfaces to deflect blast energy from mines and make IEDs less effective, and either protected or remote controlled gunner positions to protect gunners from ambushes.

But neither the M1 Abrams tank, nor the M2 Bradley Infantry fighting vehicle, which are the mainstay of U.S. Army armored forces, were redesigned to provide mine and IED resistance, although some upgrades to protect gunners from ambushes and sniper fire were adopted.

The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) that has replaced the Humvee has the features of the MRAP, but more thoughtfully put together without the time pressure of a war being conducted.

The Ukraine war has cast attention on another of the problems with almost all armored vehicles in protection. They almost all have lighter armor on top, because the threats that their armor was designed to stop were expected to come from opponents, like other tanks, in front of them, or at most, on the sides in a two-dimensional plane. So, almost all existing armored vehicles are especially vulnerable to anti-tank missiles and artillery rounds that strike from above, and to bombs dropped from drones and loitering munitions from above, relative to strikes from the front where their armor is strongest. Tens of thousands of armored vehicles in Ukraine on both sides of the conflict, modern and dated alike, have fallen to top side attacks.

A new generation of front line military vehicles and systems need to be defended not only from the 360 degrees surrounding the vehicle from all sides in a two dimensional plane, but also from threat below, like land mines and IEDs, from above, and from all angles from low to high in between, including fire from the side from ditches, and fire from above from tall buildings or mountains.

The Limits Of Armor

Of course that's not the only design issue facing armor in an era of new threats.

Offense has surpassed passive defenses for the foreseeable future. The maximum feasible amount of armor protection comes with immense weight, makes it hard to deploy to the conflict quickly, slows the vehicle down, makes it vulnerable to mud or pits and trenches, and makes it less fuel efficient with a longer and vulnerable logistics supply chain. But even maximal armor can be overcome by much smaller, lighter anti-armor missiles. And, lesser strikes to tracks on the vehicle, for example, can produce soft kills that force troops to abandon it.

While armor is invincible against small arms fire and shrapnel, and provides some meaningful protection against lighter anti-tank weapons like 20mm to 50mm canons and RPGs, no amount of armor is going to prevent a direct hit from an anti-armor tank round, an artillery shell, an anti-tank missile, and a guided bomb dropped by fighter aircraft or a bomber. For those threats, the only defenses are to be out of range, to be undetected, or to have active defenses.

When it comes to deployments, airlift and transportation of armored vehicles by rail and road bridges built to civilian standards in most places where the U.S. might go to war is greatly impeded for vehicles with more than 38 tons or so, while vehicles of 19 tons or less are much more easily deployed by air (including a C-130) and across civilian road and rail bridges.

The Problems With Tracked Vehicles

The same considerations that disfavor heavy armor also disfavor tracked vehicles. Tracked vehicles top out at about 45 miles per hour and that simply isn't fast by any measure. At that speed, even trying to get out of range of incoming opposition forces is basically futile. And, any military unit with even a single tracked vehicle is limited to the speed of its slowest vehicle. The last sixty years of experience have shown that the off road capabilities of tracked vehicles are utilized much less than planners anticipated (and again, a whole unit can't travel off road unless every vehicle in the unit has that capability), and the comparative disadvantage of wheeled vehicles designed to be used off road against tracked vehicles has greatly declined. Also, slow, heavy, tracked vehicles are hard to hide and not being seen by opponents who can destroy you until it is too late is critical in modern ground warfare. A drone can easily see where a tracked vehicle has been and trace that to its target. Tracked vehicles use at least twice as much fuel per mile as comparable wheeled vehicles.

Tracker artillery vehicles and missile launchers are ill suited to modern "shoot and scoot" tactics.

Active Defenses

Active defenses, in contrast, have made immense leaps and bounds. Electronic warfare devices can disrupt the controls of remote controlled or GPS guided weapons. Automated active response systems can shoot and defeat incoming drones, missiles, and shells before they hit an armored vehicle, leaving its armor to merely deflect shrapnel. Long range anti-air and anti-tank missiles can defeat incoming ground attack aircraft, attack helicopters, drones, and enemy armored vehicles before they are within the range of direct fire weapons like the main gun of a tank, cannons, rocket propelled grenades, recoilless rifles (a.k.a. bazookas), or other enemy weapon ranges.

Vulnerable Logistics Supply Lines

Logistics also takes on a new relevance in an era of war without true front lines. No military unit can get far without supplies of fuel, ammunition, food, and water. The heavier and less fuel efficient military vehicles are, the more fuel they need. The more "dumb" their weapons are, the more ammunition they need. But in a world without front lines, logistics supply trucks are vulnerable because they are softer targets than armored vehicles. Increasingly, however, logistics vehicles need to be as protected against hostile fire as the vehicles which were traditionally the tip of the spear. So, we need to minimize the size of the logistics supply line and to make the vehicles that are a part of it more survivable, to at least the point of armored personnel carriers.

More Thoughts On The Conflict In Israel

* Palestine hasn't been a sovereign state for more than 75 years and the international community has done great harm by supporting this expectation. Palestinian claims for a right of return have no validity. Claims that people who have never lived in Israel proper (which is the case for most Palestinians in Gaza) are refugees aren't valid either. Conquest is a legitimate basis for sovereignty.

* In the same way, the international community has done great harm by refusing to recognize the People's Republic of China's claim to Taiwan and by not pressuring Taiwan to drop its claims to the mainland. 

* The current conflict is fundamentally the fault of the Hamas leadership in Gaza supported by Iran.

* The military actions of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iranian backed militias in Iraq and Syria, and Iran, purported directed at Israel are all completely unjustified. The U.S. and Israel should formally declare war on all of them, exterminating completely all of the soldiers and political leaders behind all of Iran's proxies and destroying Iran's military capabilities and nuclear efforts of all kinds completely.

* Gaza claims that 32,000 lives of its 2.3 million people have been lost, it should count itself lucky that the number is so small. Everything that it has suffered, it has brought on itself, with broad popular support. It should have unconditionally surrendered. Instead, even now, most Gazans support the decision to launch the October 7 attack, and still is pushing for Palestinian sovereignty, and still wants to exterminate Israel. They tried, over and over again. They lost. It's over. The Middle East will be at war forever until the world acknowledges once and for all that the Palestinians lost.

* Gaza cannot support 2.3 million people anymore in any sustainable way due to destroyed homes and infrastructure. Something like half of the population needs to be relocated somewhere. And, about the same proportion of Gazans would like to leave. The international community should stop questioning the fact that most Gazans need to be relocated, i.e. exiled, basically permanently, and should start recruiting countries to receive exiled Gazans. Exile is really the only solution that is humane and viable. If the Islamic world really cares about the people suffering in Gaza, it should offer to take them in with open arms.

* Cease fires, efforts to reinstate local home rule, and so on, are only aggravating the suffering.

* The Palestinians of the West Bank should be given a choice: be ceded to Jordan or be exiled with the people of Gaza. They chose Hamas to lead their home rule too, and as such, they should not be eligible for further local home rule.

Sunday Musings

 * The United States is deeply politically and culturally divided, and it has had a few political dynasties. But, ultimately, the U.S. has at least largely resisted the hereditary principle and clan politics. We have oligarchies of big corporations, but those big successful corporations, while not entirely free of it, are not hotbeds of nepotism either. Father to son CEO succession happens, but it is rare, and tends to happen second tier businesses not in big national S&P 500 companies.

* We are approaching a point where it may make sense to declare war on both Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq. The Houthis have directed piracy and missiles at commercial ships in the Red Sea and their insurgency has led to one of the worst famines in the world in Southern Yemen which has historically been the bread belt of Arabia. (It is worth nothing that both sides of the civil war in Yemen are united in their hate for the United States.) Hamas carried out the October 7 attack and has continued a suicidal response by Gazans to Israeli retaliation. Hezbollah in Lebanon has been lobbing artillery and missiles as Israel for decades. Iranian missiles recently killed a detachment of U.S. troops in Jordan. Iran has fired several hundred missiles at Israel in the last few days, has been in multiple skirmishes with U.S. Navy forces in the Persian Gulf, and has terrorized commercial traffic in the Persian Gulf.

* The U.S., admittedly, plays an important part in Iran's ascendancy. U.S. support for the Shah in Iran played an important rule in the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran that put the current regime in place. Sanctions the U.S. pushed for caused Iran to develop its own domestic military production (something similar happened as a result of sanctions in Israel, in South Africa, and in Turkey), and also pushed Iran into Russia and North Korea's circle of allies. U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan defanged Iran's neighbors who were among its greatest military adversaries. Dislodging the neo-Communist dictatorship in Iraq opened the door to Iranian backed Shiite party political gains there. Encouraging Arab Spring revolutions in Syria contributed to the Syrian Civil War that still isn't over and has created a vacuum for Iranian backed militias there.

* Golf courses are a waste of water in the arid west:

About 1% of total Colorado water consumption goes toward golf courses (this is about 5% of non-agricultural water use):

In its 2021 economic and environmental impact report, the Colorado Golf Coalition, a collection of state organizations, reported that the industry’s water consumption represents less than 1% of the state’s 2018 total — 41,213 acre-feet, compared with 4.7 million acre-feet for agriculture, the largest consumer.

It also touts the positive environmental impact of its more than 33,000 acres of greenspace statewide, of which a little more than 16,000 acres constitute irrigated turfgrass, species like bluegrass that can endure high traffic and low mowing heights ideal for golf. That’s more than 17% less irrigated acreage than in 2002.

By region, the courses in the Denver metropolitan area account for more than 43% of the irrigated acreage. Since the 2002 measurements, Colorado courses have increased use of reclaimed water and significantly reduced use of municipal sources.

Still, golf courses have joined lawns as targets for restrictions in places like Aurora, where Mayor Mike Coffman invoked the “new reality” of water scarcity in Colorado in support of a proposed ban on new courses — unless they employ the buffalo and blue grama long a staple on the Eastern Plains — as the city looks at limiting grass yards, medians and decorative office park areas.

In fairness, golf courses in the arid west have made very significant efforts to reduce their water consumption; far more significant efforts than agricultural users have.

* Agriculture and evaporation consume all but 18% of water in the Colorado River basin (and that 18% includes a significant portion for lawns and golf courses). About 70% of agricultural water is used for cattle feed, mostly alfalfa and to a lesser extent hay, according to a Denver Post analysis:

* Despite its immense water use, agriculture is almost economically irrelevant in Colorado.

* According to Denver Water, household water used breaks down as follows:

54% landscaping

13% toilets

11% laundry

10% showers and baths

6% faucets

5% leaks

1% dishwashers

* The Southwest is, however, a naturally ideal place for solar energy (and it doesn't hurt that a lot of the electricity demand there is for air conditioning which coincides with solar energy availability):

* This week I learned that there are both role playing games and video games in which the protagonist that you play is a bird.

* It turns out that a certain part of Poland is the heartland of ketchup production (a widely used product there):

The Polish Ketchup Belt is a narrow lane between the 51.5N and 52.5N parallels where almost all ketchup production in Poland is concentrated. (Source)

* Ukraine has made strikes deep into Russian territory:

It is 755 kilometers from Ukraine to Moscow and there are numerous Russian refineries and oil storage sites to attack along the way. Ukraine has been attacking those oil facilities and . . . the damage to oil facilities and other targets has been so great that Russia has had to ration how much fuel civilian and military users can get. It is estimated that the Ukrainian attacks destroyed twelve percent of Russia’s oil refining capability.

* Bible reading has recently fallen dramatically in the U.S.:

 * Coal use is up globally, despite falling in the U.S., the U.K., and a number of European countries, due predominantly to new coal fired power plants in Asia:

Greece's failure to tap into its abundant wind power capacity and its near ideal geography for electric cars, baffles me. The same can be said for Hawaii.

* Turkish people drink a lot of tea.

* According to data cited the Economist magazine, South Korea has an intense "glass-ceiling" for women in the workplace, which surprises me. I had thought that the situation for South Korean women who didn't marry or had kids was pretty good.

* Early 19th century grave robbing was driven by incentives you wouldn't expect:

At the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte’s final battle, more than 10,000 men and as many horses were killed in a single day. Yet today, archaeologists often struggle to find physical evidence of the dead from that bloody time period. Plowing and construction are usually the culprits behind missing historical remains, but they can’t explain the loss here. How did so many bones up and vanish?

In a new book, an international team of historians and archaeologists argues the bones were depleted by industrial-scale grave robbing. The introduction of phosphates for fertilizer and bone char as an ingredient in beet sugar processing at the beginning of the 19th century transformed bones into a hot commodity. Skyrocketing prices prompted raids on mass graves across Europe—and beyond.

* In the Netherlands, the interest rate on a particular mortgage fall over time to reflect the reduced risk of loss to lenders as the debt to equity ratio falls as principal is paid off and real estate appreciates in value. But, this also disincentivizes selling one home to move to another, or refinancing.

* Average hourly wages vary greatly across Europe:

* In Ray Bradbury's short story "All Summer In A Day": "The children let Margot out of the locked closet at the end of "All Summer in a Day." They had locked her inside while the teacher was elsewhere, making Margot miss the sun, which only comes out every seven years." It was a story the affected me greatly as a child and still does.

* Skunks are an American thing. The skunk family (Mephitidae) consists of 13 species, and almost all are restricted to the Western Hemisphere, reaching from Southern Canada to the Strait of Magellan in South America. The exception is the Stink Badger which can be found in Indonesia.

* Gasoline prices, adjusted for inflation, are similar or lower now than they were in 2006. U.S. mortgage interest rates are middling by historical standards and historically low rate until recently may have helped drive up real estate prices:

* High rise office buildings are plummeting in value.

* There were once more than 9,000 Blockbuster video stores. There is now one, in Bend, Oregon.

* What's better with Jalapeños?

1. Pizza.
2. Beer.
3. Lemonaide.

* Humans are basically fish in flesh suits and our blood is a decent approximation of sea water. An image gets across the concept:

*  There ought to be a law disqualifying judges from deciding cases involving the person who appointed them as a party (in the appointing person's personal, as opposed to their official, capacity).

* Trump does not have legitimate defenses in the classified documents criminal case against him, despite the fact that a judge he appointed seemed to be "confused" about this point.

More Discussion Of Tanks

The first new armored vehicle in the U.S. Army in 40 years, the M10 Booker Mobile Protected Firepower a.k.a. Light Tank is about to enter service. The Army wants to buy 504 of them. 

This is still basically a bad idea. The number of units of the M10 should be greatly reduced as it provides a brief interim respite until a better alternative that is better suited to the realities of modern warfare can be fielded.

* The Ukraine war has demonstrated that tanks with a large main direct fire gun firing a dumb shell, tracks, and only minor secondary weapons, no matter how advanced, are generically sitting ducks in modern conventional warfare that provides little offensive capabilities that other military systems can't provide equally well or better. Other recent conflicts involving tanks tend to reaffirm this conclusion.

* The M1 Abrams was ill-suited for the Iraq War, was ill-suited for Kosovo, was ill-suited for Afghanistan, is ill-suited for the Ukraine War, and is ill-suited for any kind of war in the Pacific with China or North Korea. It isn't fit to fight in cities with narrow streets, in mountains with narrow passes, in jungles or other muddy terrain, and in countries with rivers crossed by bridges that can't hold 73 tons, although it performs adequately on plains and in deserts outside major cities that aren't broken up by canyons or rivers. It is also generically ill-suited to any kind of rapid response expeditionary mission where they cannot be prepositioned, because so few of them can be delivered by air and delivering tanks by sea is far slower than the pace at which modern warfare proceeds. 

* But the M10 Booker solves too few of the M1 Abrams' flaws. It doesn't solve the limited ability of crews to see their surroundings, and limited angular range of fire issues that make the M1 vulnerable to mines, IEDs and infantry with short range anti-tank weapons when it lacks dismounted infantry support. It doesn't solve the M1s vulnerability to drone and missile attacks. It doesn't solve the weak top armor problem. It doesn't solve the problem that its direct fire main gun has a shorter range than artillery rounds and anti-tank missiles. It doesn't solve the M1s slow speed that denies it a capacity to flee attackers moving at even modest speeds and slows down units that could otherwise move faster. It doesn't reduce the number of soldiers in harm's way in the tank. It is basically just an M1 Abrams with a smaller tank shell and somewhat less strong armor, that is more fuel efficient and 32 tons lighter, which is a pretty unimpressive improvement after 45 years on a tank that has consistently proven how ill-suited it is for most of the missions where its use might potentially be considered.

* The speed and lower fuel consumption and maintenance costs of wheeled armored vehicles make them superior to slower and more expensive tracked vehicles, in exchange for only minor reductions (if any) in their off road capabilities. Attacks on supply conveys were major military issues in the Ukraine, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, as modern warfare no longer has clearly defined front lines, so any vehicle located anywhere in the theater of conflict, including lightly armored and unarmed diesel fuel tankers, can be attacked.

* Anti-tank missiles deliver the same punch, with greater accuracy and range, with vastly less weight than a main gun on a tank. Tank shells are less expensive,  but the less expensive delivery devices for anti-tank missiles make up for that, unless the number of shells fired in anger is far greater than post-WWII combat history suggests are usually needed. And, the prices of anti-tank missiles can plummet as their tech goes out of patent.

* The M10's fairly heavy armor which is second only to the M1 main battle tank is virtually irrelevant, because it doesn't appear to have a V-shaped hull to deal with mines and IEDs, it lacks active defenses against drones and anti-tank weapons, and it appears to share the flaw of having thin top armor relative to front and side armor of most tanks that have increased their vulnerability to drones and anti-tank missiles. It also doesn't have its own drones to provide situational awareness and/or sniper capabilities at greater ranges that it can without drones.

* Unlike the Russian "Terminator", it doesn't have a versatile and numerous enough set of weapons to take on large numbers of infantry effectively in all directions and at all angles in an urban setting, where many future wars with a need for protected firepower are likely to be fought.

"The Russian army’s three-person, 53-ton BMPT Terminator tank support vehicle combines the thickly-armored hull of a T-72 tank with an unmanned turret packing twin 30-millimeter autocannons and launchers for four anti-tank missiles.", via Forbes magazine.

* There is no reason that a light tank entering service in the year 2024 should have the same sized four person crew as the M1 Abrams tank that entered service in 1979, 45 years earlier. It should have been possible with modern automation technologies to reduce the M10s crew to two, if not to make it optionally unmanned. The M2 Bradley which entered service in 1981, and has proven the equal of the M1 Abrams in actual combat, has a crew of three (commander, driver, and gunner) and could function with two.

* The M10 is still too heavy for an expeditionary armored vehicle meant to deploy rapidly with infantry by air. It is similar in weight at 41 tons to many other countries' main battle tanks. If the weight could be brought down by 14 tons to 27 tons, three of them could be deployed per C-17 sortie, instead of two, which would be huge in terms of its ability to get more systems in the field quickly, even if it didn't get down to the 19 tons of the Stryker that can be deployed four to a C-17 and one per C-130 sortie. More than tripling deployment rates is much better than more than doubling deployment rates.

* Getting to 27 tons for a light, wheeled missile tank is very technically feasible. The M2 Bradley's initial version was 27 tons and it had to carry six infantry and three crew while a new armored vehicle should only need a driver and a gunner. The other suggested changes, like wheels and losing the main gun in favor of anti-tank missiles (with the same punch and more range and accuracy), would also help achieve that weight goal. It would also be feasible to trade some of its passive armor capabilities for active protection systems and a drone of its own that weigh less.

Key observations about the M10 Booker:

Mobility, Deployment, and Training

* The 41 ton M10 is too heavy to be transported on a C-130. But a C-17 can carry two of them on a roll on, roll off basis, while a C-17 can carry only one 73+ ton M1 Abrams main battle tank and some assembly is required with heavy equipment (such as an M-88 tank recovery vehicle) after a C-17 drops off an M1 resulting in considerable delay in it being battle ready. It is comparable in size to the most fully extra-armored and kitted out M2 Bradley, a design that started in its base model at 27 tons, and is heavier than many M2s.

* An M10 can travel far more miles per gallon of diesel fuel than an M1, so they are less of a logistics burden. Every diesel fueled vehicle implies a caravan of tanker trucks that must follow not too far in their wake. 

* The M10, M1 and M2 Bradley are all tracked vehicles that travel at similar speeds (about 40 miles per hour). They are all considerably slower than wheeled vehicles on roads (where most tanks end up operating most of the time) like the Stryker and JLTV, and the cost of maintaining the tracks is more expensive per mile and harder to maintain than the wheels of wheeled armored vehicles. The M1, in particular, has proven expensive to maintain.

* An M10 can operate on narrower roads and cross weaker bridges than an M1. The M1 has had problems dealing with narrow urban streets, narrow mountain roads, weak non-U.S. road and train bridges, and mud, due to its great weight and great width.

* Operating an M10 is very similar to operating an M1. Minimal retraining is necessary for crews trains on an M1. Both have a crew of four.

Weapons and Defenses

* The M10 has a 105mm main gun, while the M1 has a 120mm main gun.

* A 105mm tank shell, a 120mm tank shell, and a 105mm howitzer shell (with a 7 mile range), are all in the 33-48 pound range and an order of magnitude cheaper per round than guided weapons systems (ca. $800-$2,500 each) This is comparable in size to the Chinese HJ-12 anti-tank missile (37 pounds), the BGM-71 TOW missile (42 pounds), the FGM-148 Javelin missile (49 pounds), and the AGM-176 Griffin missile (45 pounds), and Viper Strike guided bombs. An M2 Bradley with weight and deployability comparable to the M10, typically has a 7.62mm machine gun, a 25mm canon, and TOW missiles, giving it comparable or superior firepower (but fewer rounds of anti-tank class ammunition) to a tank, in addition to carrying six infantry passengers.

The 105mm and 120mm tanks rounds are significantly larger than rocket propelled grenades, bazookas (a.k.a. recoilless rifles), mortar shells (up to 120mm), 2-3" naval gun shells hydra rockets, and Bofors RB56 anti-tank missiles. 

But these tank rounds are smaller than 5" naval gun shells (70 pounds), 155mm howitzer shells (90-103 pounds), and heavier anti-tank missiles such as Israeli Spike missile (75 pounds), Chinese HJ-10 missile (94-95 pounds), U.S. AGM-114 Hellfire missile (108 pounds), and British Brimstone anti-tank missile (110 pounds). 

Airplane launched bombs other than the Viper Strike bombs, Army MLRS missiles, and naval ship missiles and torpedos (250 pounds to 3,900 pounds for everything but bunker buster bombs and ICBMs) are all much larger than tank shells.

Stinger and French Mistral man carried surface to air weapons are in the same overall weight range as tank shells, but pack much less punch (6-6.5 pound warheads) because their weight is devoted to achieving guided supersonic speeds to take on jet fighters. 

* The M10 has a secondary 7.62mm machine gun and a secondary 0.50 caliber machine gun, which is similar to an M1.

* The M10 has lighter armor than the M1, although its armor is still heavier than an M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, a Joint Light Tactical Light Vehicle (JLTV) or a Stryker armored personnel carrier. The need to fill this gap has not been demonstrated:

During the two decades of largely counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, there was little need for a vehicle that could bridge the gap between the Abrams and armored vehicles like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle or the Stryker Armored Vehicle. A mobile gun system Stryker variant had a 105mm gun, but the Army divested that in 2021 because of problems with its dated cannon and autoloader. That platform was also far less protected than the Booker and its wheels meant it could not get to the same places as easily as the M10 can.

At present, Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs) just have light tactical vehicles – Humvees that are now in the process of being replaced by Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) – armed with .50 caliber M2 machine guns, 40mm Mk 19 automatic grenade launchers, and TOW anti-tank missiles, for organic mobile fire support.

* The M10 does not initially have an explosive reactive armor add on, although it is designed to be able to receive one, or a "skirt" designed to protect against fire from the side at its tracks.

* The M10 does not have active defenses against anti-tank missiles or drones or a current plan to add these active defenses, while the Army's goal is to upgrade M1s with this capability. As noted here:

Initially . . . Bookers will not have a Modular Active Protection System (MAPS). . . . That system, designed to be adaptable to future threats, helps guard against anti-tank guided missiles and infantry anti-tank rockets by combining radar with launchers that shoot out blasts of metal pellets, intercepting the incoming round.

“The initial M10 Booker design is complete and vehicles are in low-rate initial production now,” Norman told us. “The M10 does not include an integrated Active Protection System. The Army is consistently evaluating best-of-breed APS from domestic and foreign sources and may elect to equip M10’s with one of those systems in the future but that is not currently programmed.” . . . In addition to not having APS, the M10 will not have anti-tank guided missiles or drone capabilities, at least at first.

Anticipated Use

* The M10 will be deployed in Army infantry brigades, which deploy more quickly and are more expeditionary, while the M1 is deployed in Army armor brigades. The Army also has Stryker brigades that will have neither M10s nor M1s. 

* The M10 is being pitched as providing a way to allow infantry to take on medium strength fortifications and armored vehicles that don't have weapons effective against tanks at beyond its direct fire range. Cheaper ammunition seems like a weak reason to use tank shells rather than missiles for this purpose.

* This means that M10s and M2 Bradleys (if any) in infantry brigades, plodding along at 40 miles per hour on their tracks along the roads that they actually travel on the vast majority of the time, will slow down the advancement of the wheeled vehicles in the brigade that could otherwise advance at least 50% faster, thus degrading the mobility of the unit as a whole, which can move no faster than its slowest member. Nothing else in an infantry combat brigade is tracked and limited to 40  miles per hour. Yet time is of the essence in war, and  this undermines scoot and shoot tactics.

* The M10 still doesn't have the range to take out artillery positions or anti-tank missile units with its main gun before it is within range of these threats, and doesn't have the speed to outrun these threats even if they are mounted on slow tracked vehicles themselves. In the vicinity of enemies with anti-tank missiles or artillery that has a range of at least three miles and can move at 40 miles per hour or more, the members of an M10 crew are dead men walking if they don't abandon their tank.

* Tanks v. tank engagements have always been uncommon and remain rare (under 5% of destroyed tanks). Artillery shells, armed drones, helicopters, loitering munitions (i.e. one way drones), ground attack fighters, anti-tank land mines and IEDs, anti-tank missiles, rocket propelled grenades, and 20-40mm cannons all destroy more tanks than the main guns of other tanks. As explained here:

Hundreds of expensive tanks of both sides are being destroyed on the battlegrounds of Ukraine by cheap UPV drones. These include the Russian T-90MS Tank (worth about $4.2million) and the German Leopard 2A6 Tank (about $6.3 million). They are being destroyed by ubiquitous Chinese UPV drones, and their local variants, that sell for about $3000. The U.S. has also supplied Ukraine with 155mm howitzer rounds known as Remote Anti-Armour Munitions (RAAM). Each shell scatters nine 2.3kg magnetically activated mines. Tanks with limited vision, especially Russian tanks, often hit these mines, damaging their tracks, and making them sitting targets. They are all then finished off by precision artillery and antitank guided missiles.

It also notes the massive losses of tanks in the Russian-Ukraine war (very few of which come from other tanks). More than 60% of tanks fielded by Russia and the Ukraine have been destroyed in the first year and a half of the war, with tanks every kind from the most advanced to the most out dated destroyed.

The same article also has interesting discussion of future tanks:

In the short term:

Tanks that are lighter in order to ease the logistic, with V-shaped floors, crewless turret, with minor heat signature, APS systems against drones (like Trophy or light Droneguns), more equal armor thickness all around since now top hitting kamikaze drones and missiles are the main enemy, not other tanks anymore.

They would all be armed high-trajectory indirect-fire weapons like rockets, missiles, or mortars. Many tank models would also have additional secondary weapons like rotary multi-barrelled autocannons, machine guns, anti-infantry explosive strips on the sides, side-firing ports for internally carried soldiers or crew, etc. They would also have various types of advanced computer brains, communications, systems, and sensors.

Increasingly they sound like the relatively inexpensive M3 Bradley and the variants America are about to produce.

In the long term:

Tanks will be AI controlled and/or remotely controlled, crewless vehicles, with light armor and focus on mass production and low maintenance.

U.S. Troops In Iraq And Afghanistan Over Time

 My sources aren't entirely consistent.

From here (a Congressional Research Service report).

Afghanistan (from chart above)

2001 (October)  2,500

. . . 

2005 (January) 19,500

2006 (January) 21,500

2007 (January) 25,240

2008 (January) 30,051

2009 (January) 60,065

2010 (January) 101,205

2011 (January) 102,077

2012 (January) 81,174

2013 (January) 63,673

2014 (January) 33,186

2015 (January) 12,802

2016 (January) 12,489

2017 (January) 16,500

2018 (January) 14,000

2019 (January) 14,000

2020 (January) 8,000

2021 (January) 2,500

2021 (August) 7,500

2021 (September) 0

From USAFacts.org.

Note that the total number of active duty personnel in the U.S. military has fallen from the peak of the Iraq War/Afghan War era, to close to the 1940 levels (not replicated in absolute levels since of a little under 600,000 active duty soldiers and sailors) on a personnel per capita basis when the U.S. had 40% of its current population.

Also, it is worth noting that the peak number of personnel deployed in these wars was facilitated with stop-loss orders for existing personnel (i.e. by prohibiting them from leaving the military at the end of the term that they signed up for), heavy deployment of reserve and national guard forces, and even limited reassignments from one service (e.g. the U.S. Navy) to work on missions primarily being handled by another service (e.g. the U.S. Army). 

Thus, peak deployments in these conflicts is a good rough estimate of the maximum number of ground troops that can be deployed to a foreign war at any one time, without abandoning other foreign bases or wholesale transfers of personnel from one service to the other. Indeed, the peak deployment capacity of the U.S. military now is probably less than it was then, due to the reduced number of active duty personnel serving today.

Roughly speaking, the U.S. can deploy about 1/7th of its total number of active duty personnel on the ground in a foreign war while tapping reserve and national guard forces to the greatest extent possible in a time period after air superiority is achieved.

About half of that amount is due to U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force troops not being available and/or useful in conflicts where air superiority is achieved and there are no naval battles to fight. 

Some of the rest comes from ongoing commitments to man foreign bases in places like South Korea and Japan and Germany. 

Some of the rest comes from having some personnel who aren't suitable for that particular conflict in a forward base due to the nature of their specialized training or the fact that they are still, for example, in basic training. 

The balance of the limitation is due to the need to rotate troops periodically, rather than keeping them indefinitely in the field in war zones.

The bottom line is that while the U.S. military has by far the most expensive military in the world, with the most high end military systems, and is reasonably well trained, it does not have particular great numbers of deployable ground troops.

Geopolitical Musings

The U.S. urgently needs to restore some of its soft power. It has fallen off the wagon of being a country the rest of the world looks up to, and has instead become a cautionary tale.

One doesn't have to be terribly altruistic or idealistic to think so. The single biggest determinant of who wins wars is the allies that each side has in the fight.

Although, the way that you fight when you are the powerful party and the way you fight in an asymmetric battle as the weaker party is very different.

One of the major lessons of the Ukraine war is that the Russian military's conventional warfare capabilities are far inferior to what had been widely believed. While Russia has some advanced weapons, it has proportionately far fewer, its troops are much less well trained, and its leaders are less competent.

The good news that flows from this fact is that everyone can be much more comfortable that the Western European powers, a coalition that has grown larger in the post-Soviet era, together with the U.S. and Canada, would soundly defeat Russia and its handful of allies in a conventional war.

The bad news that flows from this fact is that Russia will be inclined in future conflicts as it has in this one, to maximize the leverage that it has available to it from its possession of nuclear weapons by threatening to use them and possibly by actually using them.

The temptation for Russia to use them will grow even greater because its global economic and diplomatic clout have been greatly undermined by sanctions and boycotts in response to its invasion of Ukraine, and because the rest of the world has been forcefully encouraged to become energy independent of Russia, since energy is the main thing that the rest of the world relies upon it for.

A major development this week has been an act of sabotage by Belorussian railway workers, shutting down rail based logistics support from Belorussia to Russian forces in Ukraine. As sanctions have impaired the quality of life in Russia, and the intelligentsia, as well as many of the powerful and the rich in Russian who aren't in Putin's inner circle, have found themselves out of the loop, dragged into a war that isn't in their own interests, and at grave peril of persecution both from within Russian for dissent, and outside Russia for loyalty, the stream of Russia's best and brightest out of their country is giving rise to brain drain.

The voluntary exile of dissenters and opponents from Russia, together with crackdowns on those who dissent without leaving, will no doubt help Putin to consolidate power at home, as will the fact that the world seems united against Russia providing a bond to those facing this outside action. But it also means the Russia's economy and society will be much weaker for it, and that untold Russian secrets are escaping to the outside world.

Ten million Ukrainians, roughly a quarter of its population, are now refugees too. It appears that those refugees are disproportionately women and children, with far more than a quarter of them departed. According to a news report from today:

Russian forces appeared unprepared and have often performed badly against Ukrainian resistance. The U.S. estimates Russia has lost a bit more than 10 percent of the overall combat capability it had at the start of the fight, including troops and tanks and other materiel. Western officials say Russian forces are facing serious shortages of food, fuel and cold weather gear, leaving some soldiers suffering from frostbite. . . .

Thousands of civilians are believed to have died. Estimates of Russian military casualties vary widely, but even conservative figures by Western officials are in the low thousands.

On Monday, Russia’s pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, citing the Defense Ministry, reported that almost 10,000 Russian soldiers had been killed. The report was quickly removed, and the newspaper blamed hackers. The Kremlin refused to comment. The Western official said the figure is “a reasonable estimate.”

Russian forces aren't gaining much ground, basically having been stalled out for weeks, but also aren't ceding much ground to Ukraine's offensives. The air space over Ukraine remains contested with daily dog fights between fighter aircraft on both sides and Ukrainian forces harrying Russian aircraft with anti-aircraft missiles.

Russia's poor military performance in Ukraine doesn't just undermine its credibility in future conflicts either. It also depletes Russia's finite resources of military equipment like tanks, warplanes, military helicopters, missiles, and soldiers, especially in the European theater, leaving it less ready for any sequel European conflict to the war in Ukraine. With a weak economy and isolation from international trade, Russia won't be able to easily replace that lost equipment, and it appears to be short of qualified troops to fill the gap as well.

A Russia isolated from the outside world by sanctions and boycotts will still never be as insular as North Korea or Soviet era Albania. But economic isolation and brain drain will dampen its economy and impair its technological capacity. 

True to type, Russia will probably try to shift a larger share of its economy to military spending while dealing with a shrinking economy with reduced consumer spending, as unpleasant as that will be for ordinary Russians. But even so, its resources for military spending will be limited and the military goods it can produce will be degraded.

All of this will leave Russia with few options to exercise power other than its nuclear arsenal, much like North Korea, but far more potent, and apparently with a leader who seems to be going mad and disconnecting  his entire country from reality, as his grand vision for Russia has turned to ash.

It looks as if even Russian-Chinese relations are falling apart. China's society is healthier and the rest of the world's trade means much more to it than Russia's does. Talk of a Chinese pivot towards the West and away from Russia is growing. China is increasingly surpassing Russia as the number one non-Western power in the world.

China's society may be awash in reality challenged propaganda from top to bottom as well. But its leaders, unlike Putin, do not appear to be crazy.

it seems that there is no foreseeable hope of revolution from within to bring about regime change in North Korea. It is less clear if this is a possibility in Russia, despite the current dominance of the United Russia party and Putin. In particular, in areas where Russia thought it had put down insurgencies for good in the past may, in the face of a perception that Russia's military is overtaxed and the regime is weak, some of those insurgencies could reignite, leading Putin to be more embattled and more prone to take ruthless action.

Also, despite the fact that the leadership in Belorussia has kowtowed to Russia to the point of practically rejoining it in a union again, and despite the fact that the Belorussian leadership has been drifting in a totalitarian direction, it seems from some things I've read that its leadership is much less secure, even if it can swiftly be replaced with the normal democratic process. And, Belorussia is facing many of the same economic sanctions and boycotts that Russia is from its collaboration with Russian in its invasion of Ukraine.

Of course, whatever upside Russia had hoped to gain from its invasion of Ukraine seems to have largely evaporated. International recognition of a bit more Ukrainian territory in areas that are heavily ethnically Russian, a withdrawal of its forces from the remainder of Ukraine, and a partial relaxation of sanctions and boycotts, is probably the best outcome it could hope for at this point, and that is far from a sure thing. Russia has already irrevocably lost more than it can reasonably hope to gain.

In an ideal world, all countries of the world would learn from Russia's debacle in Ukraine that unprovoked invasions of other countries don't pay.

And, let's be honest. While not quite as brazen, U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan weren't terribly honorable or well justified either (and who knows what the U.S. was thinking in the Gulf War when it sought to protect a slave holding monarchy in Kuwait from an Iraqi invasion). But, it isn't as if the U.S. benefitted all that much from those wars either.

When the U.S. finally withdrew from Afghanistan last year, the Taliban regime that had been on the verge of ruling the country promptly replaced the regime the U.S. and its allies had put in place in a matter of days and now rules the entire country. I'm hard pressed to explain how the U.S. benefited from the Iraq War, or the Gulf War, either.

Both wars provided a sandbox for the U.S. and its allies to sharpen their military acumen. But these wars were extremely expensive. The Iraq War gave rise to the Islamic State as a major global adversary. Afghanistan and the Iraq War combined have defanged for Iraq, its most threatening neighbors in both directions.

The U.S. has also gains little or nothing from providing military aid to Saudi Arabia, which is not its friend and is using those military resources to fight a proxy war with Iran in Yemen with horrific humanitarian consequences.

The cost of these foreign wars to the U.S. in lives lost has been relatively modest for two decades of war, although it hasn't been nothing. But the money the U.S. has spent to fight these wars and prepare to fight more wars has been immense. One doesn't have to be a pacifist to recognize that we could spend less and yet use U.S. military might in a way that provides us with greater security benefits.

So, returning to the core questions:

1. How can the U.S. restore its soft power and become a global model again?

2. What is the best way to deal with a nuclear armed and unpredictable and aggressive Russia that is starting to collapse and become dangerous out of desperation?

3. How can the U.S. reduce the immense expense it continues to incur for the military and stop fighting wars it does not benefit from, while remaining capable of military operations that make sense for it?

4. Can the U.S. lure China more into the fold of the developed world? How?