The last aerial dogfight in World War 2 on the Western front was between two utility aircraft: a Fiesler Storch and a Piper L4 Grasshopper. Duane Francis and Bill Mart in the Grasshopper shot down a Fiesler Storch they encountered with their .45 caliber pistols, achieving the only air to air combat victory in World War 2 using handguns alone.
These little airplanes played a major role in World War 2. “All the German afteraction reports show that the German artillery would not fire if a U.S. artillery spotter plane or fighter-bomber was observed.” They were the ultimate vanguard of Patton’s columns, scouting ahead to find the Panzers lying in wait for the advancing Shermans, sometimes swooping down to fire bazookas clamped to their wings with the trigger worked through the operation of wires. Spotter planes weren’t always successful. They failed to adequately warn Groupement Mobile 100 of the Viet Minh ambush in Mang Yang pass.
But they were useful all the same. Which is why their automated descendants are now flying for Israeli infantry over Gaza. Aviation Week describes the role of the new Grasshoppers:
“when the forces enter and cross the border, the UAV flies 500 meters in front of them, clearing the area. We guide them and give them advice regarding a safe point of entrance, what is risky and what is not.” The Givati Brigade, for instance, has had dedicated UAV support, with folks familiar with the system stationed in the unit’s operations room to directly respond to demands from the ground forces.
But eyes in the sky can be deceived through illusion. It was later learned that the Viet Minh had deceived Groupement Mobile 100′s spotters by selectively showing the pattern which they wanted the French to see. They faked the French into avoiding an ambush where there was none and persuaded them to reroute over an ambush in which all the attackers had long since concealed themselves.
The iconic countermeasure to the UAVs soaring over Gaza are the Hamas tunnels snaking beneath it. Israel owns the skies but Hamas literally owns the underground. The two coexist in an uneasy standoff, each perhaps the technological expressions of the societies they represent. But just as the snake cannot leap into the sky, neither can eagle delve into the tunnel. To achieve that requires — diplomacy. Well, maybe.
The Washington Post reports that “the United States today signed an agreement with Israel that pledges help in halting weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip, part of a flurry of diplomatic activity designed to halt a conflict that has left more than 1,000 dead.”
The U.S.-Israeli deal “should be thought of as one of the elements of trying to bring into being a durable cease-fire, a cease-fire that can actually hold,” Rice said. A key element, she said, “is to do something about the weapons smuggling and the potential for resupply of Hamas from other places, including from Iran.” …
Hamas has managed to smuggle the arms through hundreds of tunnels on the Gaza-Egyptian border. In its three-week campaign, Israel has repeatedly targeted the tunnels, and Livni said at the signing ceremony that the understanding was meant “to complement Egyptian actions and to end of the flow of weapons to Gaza.”
The agreement closes the circle. What could not be achieved by Egypt and the international community in the first place was supposed to be attained by ground action in Gaza by Israel in the second place. Now, what could not be achieved by ground action in Gaza, or perhaps more accurately could be permitted to be achieved, will now be obtained by the diplomatic efforts of the international community in the third place. International politics is sometimes the art of promising to do what you have already promised to do.
But that’s how things go. Vision is not a matter of eyes. It’s a matter of sight. Or, as blind Master Po once asked Kwai Chang Kaine, “do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet?”
“No. Old man, how is it that you hear these things?”
“Young man, how is it that you do not?”
I’m sure the War on Smuggling Tunnels will go just as splendidly as all other Prohibitions which do not change incentives or demand.
About the tunnels: can’t synthetic aperture radar detect tunnels?
Any other commenters know? I’ve been wondering about that all along during this Gaza thing. Why should tunnels in Gaza be invisible to sophisticated aerial detection?
“Which is why their automated ancestors are now flying for Israeli infantry over Gaza.”
Descendants?
V/R
Descendants?
Fixed.
Could the Israelis use thermobaric explosives to destroy the contents of the tunnels and collapse the tunnels?
You could build a completely remotely operated arsenal for this. Use them for the next invasion of Gaza, or to enforce any “no tunnels” agreement.
Use armored robot tankers to drive to the tunnel location, drill down, pump the explosive into the tunnel, detonate it, and drive away. Use UAVs and ground-based robots to shoot at anyone who gets near the thermobaric delivery robots to interfere with the demolition.
The IDF could hang back and only make in-person appearances when absolutely necessary.
Wretchard,
T.R. Fehrenbach wrote the following in his Korean War classic “THIS KIND OF WAR”:
“You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life, but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud.”
Small UAV “Point men” have a place in war.
In the end, it will require men on the ground taking it to the enemy to ultimately create a “Regime change” that can keep Israel safe.
To do that, however, requires that the Israeli political elites have to will to use the means available to them.
UAVs and light spotter planes have more in common than just their effectiveness. First, they both were regarded as crackpot ideas.
Prior to 1941 military spotter planes were big, slow, multi-man aircraft like the O-47 and O-52. They all but towed a banner that said, “Shoot me down!” They required similar support to fighters and bombers but lacked the combat aircraft’s performance and survivability.
Light aircraft enthusiasts pushed the idea of using Piper Cubs and similar machines for spotting, operating close to the front lines. They proved their point during maneuvers in Texas; proved it to none other than Lt. Col Dwight Eisenhower, who flew light aircraft himself.
Roderick, you need to set off charges and record the sound in many different places. Sound travels faster in solid ground than in air, and tunnels are air. This plus some fancy computer work will give you a seismic map of the tunnel network. But radar is useless. Microwaves do not penetrate rock or water.
“Our Gal” Trent
You are entirely right that men on the ground are required.
Does Israel have the will to use the means available to them? Yes, if they employ their nuclear ammunition.
Military offense and defense is a never ending game. Offensive technologies improve and are matched by defensive technology improvements. Both offensive and defensive tactics are developed that match the changing technologies.
One of the reasons for the Israeli attack was the escalation from using Quassam rockets to Katyushas, a technological improvement for Hamas. The Katyushas have larger warheads and are more lethal because of it. I think that the main reason for the increase in Israeli civilian deaths during the past month or so is due to the larger warheads of these factory-made rockets. Israel also wanted to act before even longer-range rockets were smuggled in.
While the tunnels may be the countermeasure to the UAVs Hamas really hasn’t made a good showing in this conflict. They had plenty of time to build every tunnel they wanted and to place mines wherever they wanted. Israel avoided the roadways and used bulldozers and tanks to make their own roadways straight through buildings as a way to provide ingress to the towns. It’s surprising to me that there have been no reports of tanks or even APCs being damaged or destroyed, given Hamas’ familiarity with the terrain, possession of anti-tank rockets, desire for a significant attack, and lots of bragging beforehand about destroying tanks and Gaza being a graveyard for the Israelis.
In the end no weapon system is a magic bullet. All must be used together, along with good tactics, in order to win. There’s a lot of talk in the Israeli press about the IDF having learned the lessons of past conflicts and using those lessons in this one. Especially the Leb war, of course, but also Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank.
Regarding the signed agreements, Israel doesn’t want an agreement with Hamas. They see any agreement with Hamas as legitimizing the organization. Instead they want agreements with Egypt and the US, and perhaps others. These agreements are aimed at tying Hamas’ hands and preventing them from re-arming. Whether they’ll work or not or for how long is hard to predict. In the end Hamas has to be pushed out of power.
Israel must continuously raise the price of aggression against Israel. Sooner or later HAMAS will be unwilling or unable to pay it.
It is a matter of will.
That which is simple, isnt, necessarily …..
Not entirely true.
On a small scale, microwave devices are used to check the condition of pavement, looking for cracks, water entry, etc. New Jersey’s counties and road authorities use it heavily. Ground-penetrating microwave is also used to look for buried caches, graves, anything that involves disturbance of the soil.
On a larger scale, back in the sixties National Geographic ran an article on how satellite radar had mapped underground watercourses; I’ve read that this was a hint to the USSR that their underground installations were no longer secret.
So yes, it could be done. But the tunnels run from Gaza out into Egypt, without going through any other part of Israel. Unless Egypt invites Israel in, I don’t see how they can do it. Though it might make a very nice, focussed explosion.
How does the composition of the soil in Gaza affect microwave or other wave detection. Doesn’t the sandy nature tend to eat some waves and severely deflect others? That is a tall order for aerial recon, it seems to me.
Should such tunnel details be detected by an aerial array, would they be sappers aloft, or miners away?
““Which is why their automated ancestors are now flying for Israeli infantry over Gaza.”
Descendants?”
How about ascendants?
Cut a moat at the Egyptian/Gazan border…
Let macro-engineering be your friend….
How about ascendants?
Ascendants is not a word in the English language. Are you French?
As far as ground penetrating microwaves — microwaves are absorbed by water, so ground moisture is the enemy of this technique. I believe, the desert environment ought to be the best place to deploy this stuff.
Seismology should work as well. I have been puzzled why the Isrealis have not gone down the border with Egypt and blown off dynamite every quarter mile and caught the echos on a grid of microphones, and then back calculated the tunnel locations. The border is only 10 miles long.
@Ruby #8: Where did you learn seismograph?
I’ve always known about it since I grew up in the oil patch. Seismograph crews were often followed by wire line operators. I rather imagine some form or other of microwave technology has found its way in during the subsequent decades.
However, the whole nine yards seems to be most effective at sea where a variation on towed array sonar can be employed over a wide area. (That is the advantage of offshore drilling as compared to on land. You can locate lots of source rock in short order.)
For military purposes in places like Gaza
I would estimate that the best way to go would be to air drop shaped charges in and detonate them a 100 feet or so above ground.
The shock waves would certainly reach hollow tunnels and “take their picture”. Now then, what do we have to record said picture for posterity?
About GM100 at Mang Yang Pass: The Viet Minh
countermeasures were effective in no small part because the French did not have aircraft
with long loiter times on station. Best they had were P 63s (erroneoussly referred to as P39s) which carried about 90 minues worth of fuel. So when an initial error was made,
correction took until after the battle was over.
In my day, Route 19 through the Mang Yang was turned into a wide thoroughfare. Been hard to stage an ambush there. Elsewhere we did encounter the constricted terrain GM100 found. However, there were always a least two
of those big, beautiful flying dump trucks
called A1 Skyraiders in the air and nearby.
Weakest link in the French military in Indochina was the air arm. Not only a lack of adequate numbers of planes but a lack of
understanding of what to do with them.
Utopia Parkway,
Non, Je suis American, les Etats-Unis.
as·cen·dant also as·cen·dent (-sndnt)
adj.
1. Inclining or moving upward; ascending or rising.
2. Dominant in position or influence; superior.
n.
1. The position or state of being dominant or in control: a conservative policy currently in the ascendant.
2. In astrology, the point of the ecliptic or the sign of the zodiac that rises in the east at the time of a person’s birth or other event.
3. An ancestor.
Well for the sake of pundantry lets pretend the third definition isn’t there, but not the rest.
If there is anything I will give the IDF credit for, it is for being confusing.
If flushing Hamas out of Gaza were the plan, it would have pushed from the east using a “toothpaste strategy”.
If a reoccupation of Gaza were the plan, it would sending troops into Gaza itself.
If cutting off the tunnels were the plan, Israel would definitely bomb tunnels. However, it would also send in ground forces to take over Rafah and use seismic sensors to detect every tunnel. Each tunnel would then be systematically destroyed. And yet, while Israel is rhetorically demanding that the tunnels must be sealed, it doesn’t seem to be focused on actually sealing those tunnels as part of its war plan. If it were, Rafah would be a central part of its ground offensive.
Israel appears to be running a spread-out multipronged offensive, a landward “Anaconda Plan”, which implies that Israel is merely planning for another round of siege warfare, this time with the battle lines a little bit further away from Israel. This is suggestive that Israel plans a reprise of the Siege of Paris. Yet, that doesn’t square with Israel’s diplomatic strategy.
Although the IDF has sown confusion, it is far from clear what Israel is attempting to accomplish in this war. Although simulated strategic confusion can be an ally on the battlefield, real strategic confusion is rarely conducive to victory in war.
The State of Israel had better know what it is doing. Israel needs clear strategic objectives that the IDF can effectively implement. Unfortunately, I have gained the impression that the Israeli cabinet came into this war with no clear idea of what strategic objective it really wanted to achieve. And if you don’t know what you want, you won’t get it.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill all the diggers, and then both the tunnels and the smuggling would take care of itself?
The last aerial dogfight in World War 2 on the Western front was between two utility aircraft: a Fiesler Storch and a Piper L4 Grasshopper. Duane Francis and Bill Mart in the Grasshopper shot down a Fiesler Storch they encountered with their .45 caliber pistols, achieving the only air to air combat victory in World War 2 using handguns alone.
That’s very ironic, because that’s pretty much how the first aerial battles of World War 1 were waged, before they came up with the idea of attaching machine guns to the airplanes.
It’s simple. Isreal has bult a wall to enclose Gaza. On the border with Egypt, dig a moat . 20 feet deep, supplied by the Mediterrian. Before its flooded, drill 1 foor diameter hole every 3 feet in the bottom of the moat through its entire lengh. To the depth of 50 feet. Dig as tunnel…Drown!
We, who can not control our southern border, will keep weapons out of Gaza. Fat chance and I hope the Israelis reject the proposal.
The border between Gaza and Egypt is perhaps 12 miles long. The border between Mexico and the US is 1,969 miles long (according to Wikipedia)
So, which do YOU think you be the easiest border to close?
Re: closing the Mexican border.
A couple years ago, I ran across an obscure discussion group conversation among practitioners of my profession in one of many former lives: heavy construction estimating.
They took a look at closing the Mexican border. After much trading spreadsheets back and forth, the consensus was:
(No attention to EIS details, no interminable lawsuits from toadhuggers, just go build it.) 12-foot precast (like the soundwalls along many freeways), concrete foundations. Mobile precast plants and other crews, following the wall.
8 months of gearup, 16 months construction, 3.4 billion $ total cost. Concrete from the California sheetpile walls to the Gulf of Mexico.
Can we do it? Easily. The real question is why haven’t we done it?*
Egypt has a longstanding peace treaty with Israel, and they seem genuinely interested in honoring it (note their actions during Operation Cast Lead serving as the anvil to Israel’s hammer) but it’s evident they need to do so quietly.
Three different times, Israel has offered Gaza back to Egypt: Egypt has refused to resume sovereignty. Good reason: it’s a nest of vipers, capable of destabilizing their own regime. It could always have been the new Riviera of the eastern Mediterranean (as Lebanon once was, 30-40 years ago). Instead they got Dubai’s ridiculous sandbar palm trees.
I invite anyone who still buys the “refugee camp” myth to use Google Earth to view the maze of 4-story apartment blocks, and the occasional 8-story office building there.
Perhaps the IDF will be successful in cleaning out the vipers. So the normal population (if there are any) can go back to normal life.
—————–
*It’s been said that the secret to effective counterintelligence is to operate consistently on the offensive. Counterintel on the defensive gets you either a draw or a loss. Only way to win is to be on the offensive.
We need to apply some of that here at BC.
The West has accepted the Islamic mental map. And advanced deeply into dhimmification. For 500 years or more the normal conditions of a state were either war or peace. An Armistice, Truce, or Cease Fire were abberations of an increasingly temporary nature. Isreal wants “Peace” and she should offer Peace. Any offer of a Truce or Hudna should be rejected.
Syria should be reminded that as she is currently in a State of War with Israel a blockade is possible at any time. Russia may want to reconsider where to put her ships.
Dave: Quite true, although the French really liked the P-63’s. They wanted more of them but we had shipped essentially the entire production run to the USSR, and after the war they ended up in the air forces of places like North Korea. The Viet Minh probably could have gotten some but we were fresh out. When the P-63’s were gone they were replaced with F6F’s and F8F’s, which were not very well suited to ground attack either in range or payload. The F7F would have been nice but we built very few of those. Interestingly enough, the last aircraft shot down over Dien Bein Phu was a PB4Y-2, which shows the French were so desperate that they were using long range heavy bombers for close air support.
One big difference between the war in Lebanon and the Gaza offensive is that Lebanon was planned by Hezbolah, and they drew the IDF in with the capture of those troops. The Gaza offensive was planned well in advance by Israel. It’s like the difference between Task Force Smith and Operation Cobra.
By the way, the last aerial combat in all of WWII was supposedly between Japanese fighters and a USAAF B-32, if a certain painting in the Pentagon is accurate.
Israel signs ceasefire, Palistinians come out of their shattered caves and shelters, dance, hand out sweets and declare “Victory” then go back to tunnel digging, arms smuggling and random rocket attacks on Israel.
what changed?
The current Gaza op has several intended consequences.
1. It has reset the tolerance to zero for Hamas/Islamic rockets
2. It has shown that Israel can go against the world to take action against her enemies
3. It has begone to re-educate the islamic world to the concept of deterrence.
4. It has proven to the world that Hamas is not about making a real peace and this war is not about borders, it’s about Israel’s right to BE….
Obama and the left are correct that this war cannot be won with bullets alone…
But they are wrong in thinking that winning hearts and minds can be accomplished by aid and jobs….
it’s time for hundreds of millions of people to do acts of disrespect to the mainstream people of Islam…
those silent millions who sit back and say NOTHING when 7000 rockets are fired on israel, those silent million who sit back and say nothing against the world trade bombers, madrid, bali, london, mumbai attacks…
those silent millions who say nothing of genocide in darfur, the congo, Mugabe, FGM and more…
The silence of the billion moslems for any action that those who murder in their name is deafening….
So maybe we need to humiliate them, shame them to choose…
Silence is not an option anymore…
Either you are PART of the beheading jackals that rule Islam or you need to stand up and protest and wrest change from the religion death that currently IS the STANDARD BEARER of your so called faith….
The time for being quiet is over…
Or be quiet and accept that the other 3 BILLION on the planet are getting real tired of your bullshit….
For those more informed than I (Which is just about all of you)…Are the Israeli’s installing some sort of detection/ monitoring system similar to the old SOSUS networks under the cover of their incursion?
If so, since as someone noted above, the distances are short, small spec ops groups could pop the new tunnels one at at time, off line and without attribution.
Sorry, it is 18 degrees and I am having random thoughts.
ta
I think israel created confusion and chaos
i wonder how many undercover israelis are now on the ground IN GAZA, blending in with the general population?
Israel has agents that speak perfect arabic with accents!
Hamas can try to claim they won by not being totally destroyed but it’s a same prize when israel did kick them in the ass…
Hamas shot 900 rockets and killed HOW MANY?
Once again, the mightly arab rockets do nothing but terrorize. And for that terror? 1.4 BILLION in damage to their lovely gaza strip..
The arab world JUST announced that it has actually LOST 2.5 TRILLION dollars in the last 4 months due to the crashing of the stock markets and bad investments. Couple that with oil at $37 a barrel (take note Iran & Russia)
The HONESTY of Hamas is refreshing, no it will not stop wanting to murder any and all jews but now a new dynamic has been imposed… Hate us all you want, shoot at us? and will stick a boot up your ass AT WILL….
Hamas has been humiliated and shown to be an empty suit….
Shiny new tee shirts and parades in the end dont do shit… and if the people of the Gaza strip are committed to islamic jihad and the forever war against Israel they will get what they deserve…
RUBBLE AND DEATH
Lunar Tuna:
It would be very advantageous for Israel to dig a major trench along its border with Gaza. This is not merely for military reasons but also for ideological, historical, theological, and thus diplomatic reasons.
Muslims can complain about walls. No Muslim can ever complain about a trench. Ever. It’s written into the code of Islamic psychology that no Muslim can ever regard a trench as evil. Given that Mohammed used the Persian technology of the trench against the Meccans in “The Battle of the Trench”, the very act of digging a trench implicitly proclaims the other side as un-Islamic.
Hamas cannot complain about Israelis using a trench against them without implicitly criticizing Mohammed.
pour gasoline into the tunnels, wait a minute for it to turn into vapor, then toss in a match.
@WadeUSA 19, you mentioned ascendants not ascendant. The way that Herb used it, to which you were commenting, its meaning was as a plural noun meaning ancestors. The adjectival meaning and the astrological meaning aren’t relevant, although you’re right that they exist.
In French the words descendant and ascendant are opposites, meaning descendant and ancestor. I am pretty sure that in English, although descendant has been borrowed from the French, and has the same meaning, ascendant, as a noun meaning ancestor, hasn’t been borrowed. The context made it clear that was your meaning and French speakers often expect that ascendant also exists in English, but I don’t think it does.
Finding the tunnels would not be a problem if Israel had access to the border region.
Haaretz reports…
“Prime Minster Ehud Olmert on Saturday night announced that Israel’s security cabinet has voted in favor of a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, which will come into effect at 2 A.M…”
It will be interesting to see how Hamas reacts.
Exhelo: You got that right! My thoughts exactly. Israel should tell Egypt that if they can’t stop the smuggling then the IDF should be allowed to.
And that is an idea. Any international “peacekeeping force” should stay out of Gaza and instead be required to control the Gaza/Egypt border.
Can any one point out to me or remind me of a single instance when an “international peace-keeping group” actually did that? They filed in Bosnia, failed in Lebanon, failed in Rwanda, and didn’t even show up for Darfur.
Why on earth is this even ever bandied about as an option when it simply does not work, has never worked, and only results in brown soldiers from 4th world countries seducing little brown girls from 5th world countries with jam filched from their UN backpacks?
If you want something protected or someone killed in self defense it simply will not happen unless you can convince the Americans to go in and do it and the Americans have never EVER allowed themselves to be a part of an “international peace-keeping group”. (Except for NATO where it gets muddy and I’m not sure if American soldiers in AFghanistan were reporting to NATO-niks or not.)
re: 20. Alexis – “The State of Israel had better know what it is doing. Israel needs clear strategic objectives that the IDF can effectively implement.”
Alexis, you have insightfully penetrated to the crux of the problem. Unfortunately, the remainder of your comment also contains a hint of the seed of what I believe will again cause Israel to fail to achieve any lasting success:
You state “Unfortunately, I have gained the impression that the Israeli cabinet came into this war with no clear idea of what strategic objective it really wanted to achieve. And if you don’t know what you want, you won’t get it.”
While the last sentence of your comment above is dead-on correct, I disagree, however, about the Israeli cabinet/Olmert government having no clear objective for this campaign.
Unfortunately, I believe that their primary objective is simply to put on a sufficiently convincing show of toughness to fool the Israeli electorate long enough to ensure a Kadima victory against Likud/Netanyahu in the upcoming elections.
Just as here in America, there is a potentially fatal paucity of statesmen among Israel’s political leadership. Most of them, especially Olmert and Livni, are basically the equivalent of big-city political machine hacks. And yes, I do believe they are completely willing to spend the blood of the IDF and their own fellow Israelis just in order to win an election and stay “in power”.
O man, I love this thread.
At the top, Roderick Reilly – SURE THING – About the tunnels: can’t synthetic aperture radar detect tunnels?
Apparently the satellite radar imagery that finds vanished rivers and lakes in Egypt is great at penetrating sand, but doesn’t get through gravel or granite (aka ancient riverbeds). Man-made magic has its limits.
Consider this extra dollop of satellite imagery:
Satellite radar data can be used in a technique called interferometry to map tiny millimetre-scale land shifts above aquifers, enabling scientists to deduce changes in groundwater levels. And by measuring local variations in Earth’s gravity field, the future GOCE (Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer) mission should enable the identification of subsurface aquifer locations worldwide.
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMDHU2VQUD_planet_0.html
I’ve never been to Gaza. Maybe the tunnels are in heavily populated cities? Like the ones they had in Boston and Chicago during Prohibition? Space radar would have a hard time finding tunnels 50 feet under cities, right?
The Oxford English Dictionary lists eight definitions of “ascendant” as a noun. They are grouped into two broad categories. The first four definitions are contained in a grouping with the heading “In senses belonging to, or derived from, astrology.” Definitions 5-8 belong to the second group entitled “In general senses.” There we find the following definitions and examples:
5. An upward slope, an acclivity, a rise; a flight of steps. Also fig. Obs., e.g. “A Lordly Ascendant..from Primate to Patriarch, and so to Pope.” [1641]
6. One who ascends or goes up. Obs., e.g. “That like the ascendants To the altar, by degrees, I thus approach you.” [1701]
7. That which rises above its surroundings; a summit or peak, e.g. “All the Capitals are Ascendents, so called because they stand higher than the Head-line of the Short.” [1676]
8. One who precedes in genealogical succession; an ancestor; a relative in the ascending line, whether lineal, as father, mother, or collateral, as uncle, great-uncle, e.g. “Their highest living ascendant, the father, grandfather, or great-grandfather.” [1861]
The numbers in brackets after the examples are the years given in the OED. In each instances I selected the most recent example that the OED supplies for a particular definition. We can infer from these examples that the term is largely obsolete (except for its astrological uses where it is still very much in use). But it does exist in the English language.
Starling and Utopia,
I do enjoy my Circa 1948 Merriam Websters too too much, so I had little doubt the meaning I ascribed to “ascendants” was obsolete in English (ouch), but I did not give thought to whether it indeed ever possessed the meaning I tried to attach to it, en anglais.
I am humbled by your fine insight into the linguistics of my offhand reply to Herb and Wretchard, Utopia. That is just too cool.
I am not only gratified to know someone reads my comments occasionally
, but also I am now challenged into questioning the ascendancy of our very American English language.
I must now ascend into the heights of fancy, and declare the technological improvements made in the birds do indeed justify the use of the word, be it English or French in antecedent, as American terminology. I know that is a very liberal use of language, but it is also a compelling argument. I find the birds, as well as words, to be neat if not concise.
In a gravely voice I say, Tony you are right, thanks for correcting my flawed recall.
RWE: French also had some A26s (called B-26s of course) but none of them seemed to have been available where GM100 operated.
And as memory serves me, General Navarre bungled things when he ordered GM100 to mount
an offensive while Dien Bien Phu was already absorbing all the assets that he had and then some.
Did not think about F7s, but they would have had ample quantities of fuel and might have carried enough air-to-ground ordanance to be useful.
Wade, you are most welcome. As you may have guessed, I am a regular comment-reader. Wretchard’s posts are always informative and thought-provoking, and equally so are the comments. I’ve learned a lot in the last five years from both and suspect I’m not the only one.
37. Dan:
Haaretz reports…
“Prime Minster Ehud Olmert on Saturday night announced that Israel’s security cabinet has voted in favor of a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, which will come into effect at 2 A.M…”
It will be interesting to see how Hamas reacts.
————————————————————————
They reacted like this:
Israel unilaterally halts fire, rockets persist
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090118/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians
Dave: Yes, I thought about Douglas B-26′s too, but never heard where they were used at DBP. So, prompted by you remark, I reached over a whole 3 ft or so and picked up my copy of “Foreign Invaders” and here is what is says:
1.The French were to get P-51′s but the outbreak of the Korean War stopped that.
2. They got B-26′s and formed the 1/19 bombardment group at what we now call Da Nang on 1 Jan 1951. And they proceeded to kick butt.
3. The B-26′s were based in the Tonkin delat area, which made it a long flight to DBP but they covered the initial parachute drop and flew standing patrols and many air support missions.
3. At the time of the final Viet Minh push on DBP the weather over the B-26 bases was so bad that the aircraft were not of much use.
Gen. Donald Bennett confirms the use of L-4 aircraft in the advance through France with his M-7 self-propelled artillery in his book, Honor Untarnished. He makes the point that it was during the Battle of the Bulge that he was first given proximity fused shells. The ability to burst shells 30 meters above ground to create a hail of shrapnel was devastating to the Germans.
I highly recommend this book, with personal experiences from Africa, Sicily, D-Day & the Bilge.
RWE: I prefer to call the Douglas Invader
A26s, their original name.
The original B26 was of course the Martin Marauder. It was retired ASAP after WWII.
The A26 was retained and Curtis LeMay renamed it.
Why were they eager to ground the Marauder?
Google up “B26 Carolyn” and the lucky button
and read how it needed to be landed.
And thanks for where those A26s were stationed. I was out of DaNang final tour
wretchard, kudos on the Kung Fu quote!
alexis, interesting about the trench.
Israel pioneered the use of UAVs, I think it was circa the 1973 war.
We are less than a generation away from completely automated, autonomous weapons of all sorts, while Islam is still trying desparately to get back to the seventh century.
Sure, Hamas, make yourself an irritation for another generation, and then look down, see the grasshopper – before it detonates at your feet.
Dave:
If you think about it, you will realize that there were no “A” attack aircraft in the USAF for many years after WWII. The A-41 was going to be the USAF approach to the A-1, and would have been at least as awe inspiring (same engine as the A-1 and four 37mm guns in the wings), but tests confirmed that it could not defend itself like P-51′s and P-47′s with bombs on them could. And that was it for the Attack aircraft in the USAF, until the A-1 was adopted on limited basis, the A-7 bought in and old Spooky invented.
Of course, the problem was that fighters keept going faster and faster and getting further and further away from the characteristics that attack aircraft needed.
About 65 air miles from where I am now there is a guy who has a B-26A. As in Martin, not Douglas, and as in short wings, not the B model. Amazing that there is still even one of those left.
I think the biggest problem with the French B/A-26′s in Indochina was that DBP was not the only thing going on. The Invaders fought all over the place, from Laos to the Tonkin Gulf. They had 25 to start out with (counting recon birds) and eventually got 6 or so replacements, but that is not much airpower to handle a country. And they were so short of cargo planes that they were using the 26′s to supply DBP. By the way, I guess the French had only 6 P-63′s; no wonder they ran out.
It defies belief that the Israelis didn’t emplace lines of sensitive tiny microphones underground, all along the Gaza/Egyptian border, years ago. Continuous monitoring, triangulating and filtering would have located all the tunnels in real time as they were dug. This is, I admit, the seismograph technique noted above, but it’s passive and doesn’t need any exterior pings or explosions. They wouldn’t have to be out in the open, any basement would do.
Unfortunately, I have gained the impression that the Israeli cabinet came into this war with no clear idea of what strategic objective it really wanted to achieve. And if you don’t know what you want, you won’t get it.
Kill a bunch of Hamas guys. Destroy lots of buildings. Cause Iran to lose face if it doesn’t pony up for rebuilding. Which it will have trouble doing with oil prices hovering around $35 a bbl.
It’s simple. Isreal has bult a wall to enclose Gaza. On the border with Egypt, dig a moat. 20 feet deep, supplied by the Mediterrian. Before its flooded, drill 1 foor diameter hole every 3 feet in the bottom of the moat through its entire lengh. To the depth of 50 feet. Dig as tunnel…Drown!
The proposed moat is 20 or 30 meters deep. i.e. 65 to 100 ft. It need not be very wide as long as it keeps the soil below it wet.
RWE: Where do you live and is that B26 flyable? Pretty sure the Confederate Air Force might be interested. Have not had one
since the Carolyn crashed in 95.
BTW you mentioned the B32. I had never heard of those until I read “The Last Mission” a few years ago.
Wonder if any of those things still exist. I think that they only built about one group (48 planes) of them.
The P47 is underrated IMO. It was intended to be a do-everything plane and came pretty close. Main shortcoming was a lack of range to be an escort. But one of the most fascinating stories was how Patton used them.
Each squadron would take off with 12 armed air-to-ground and 4 armed air-to-air. The latter kept with Luftwaffe at bay while the former cleared the way. That is how the Third Army reached and crossed the Rhine without stopping for an artillery preparation.
Dave: The B-26A is flyable and the guy who owns it, Kermit Weeks, could buy the entire Confederate Air Force, the Valient Air Command and the Mid Atlantic Air Museum for lunch. He also owns the only flyable Mosquito left in the world. He has a nice B-24J and a B-17 as well and a Sunderland.
A friend of mine was supposed to be a B-32 gunner. He was told that for the invasion of Japan they were planning to arm them with extra guns and go in at low altitude to serve as what today we would call Gunships, for CAS.
The P-47N had the range, but they built few and they flew their intended mission only once, escorting B-29′s from Saipan to Japan. And it could hit 470 MPH. Would have been great for Korea.
RWE: WAtch out for compressibility in that JUg. Got a good war story from General Gerald Jackson.
He got bounced by Bf109s and forgot to deploy dive doors. Understandable.
He got out of it by (1) reduced pitch, (2) full throttle, (3) full flaps and (4) firing
his 8 .50 calibers. Anything to slow her down!
Ever see anything on Chrysler’s first “hemi”?
2200 cubic inches. 2100 peak horsepower.
good fuel economy (.44 pounds per cruising horsepower). Was installed in a P47 and changed it from jug to needle nose.
Too late for the war of course and jet propulsion meant the design was shelved.
Dave: Yes, I read a very good technical article on the compressibility problem in the P-47 in a historian magazine a few years back.
Air and Space ran a double pgae plus poster of that long Chrysler engine in the P-47 a few years ago.
The XP-47J was not as pretty but it hit 505 MPH.
But the Ultimate Jug was the P-72. Oh, Lord, what a gorgeous airplane! An R-4360 up front and if it had gone into production they would have used the P-47N airframe. 500 MPH plus would have been no problem.
Isn’t building a moat in the desert just the teensiest bit counterproductive?
Fastest propeller driven aircraft was ??????
F84 converted to turboprob with piston engine booster in tail section.
Hoped for speed was 500 knots (575 mph).
Achieved was 470 knots (540 mph). Used to have one of those crazy things up on a pedestal outside Bakersfield airport. It went to a museum somewhere and was replaced with T38.
Mind you, those speeds were achieved in level flight.
Rather imagine P72 would have run into both prop and piston engine outer limits.
Wonder what Kelly Johnson could have done with the P38 had he and it not suffered from incessant micromanagement?
Even with a Congressionally hobbled Allison 1710, could sustain 360 knots (400 mph)
for one hour.