The Day of the Black Dragon
One of the largest artillery pieces ever used by the US Army was the 240 mm towed howitzer, nicknamed The Black Dragon. “The 240 mm howitzer M1 proved very valuable against difficult targets such as heavy concrete fortifications. It, along with its super heavy artillery 8 inch gun design-mate saw considerable action during World War II in Europe. These weapons were also used in the Pacific campaign, notably in the Battle of Manila, but few targets justified the need for them … During the Battle of Monte Cassino, the weapon was used in the final destruction of the monastery at Monte Cassino already damaged by air attacks.”
The Black Dragon smashed down reinforced concrete buildings and through forty foot walls across a swath of Manila in 1945. As they say, “it worked”. (Click to enlarge photos).
Where 76mm and 4.2 inch mortar Doesn't Work
Then dig out the soldiers of the Emperor
House to House Everywhere
The Pasig water barrier sheltering the Japanese Naval Force
US Infantry Crossing the Pasig. The "undamaged" North side is visible
Assault through the forty foot thick walls of Intramuros
Inside the Walled City -- where the Japanese fought to the death
The Faith of Our Fathers
Upon the surrender of all Imperial Forces in the Pacific, the Japanese High Command were actually instructed to fly to Manila and there receive their instructions. The photo below shows MacArthur receiving the representatives of the Japanese General Staff in his office inside the ruins of Manila’s City Hall. MacArthur is visible in the window.
The Second World War was an incredibly destructive event. It traumatized Europe and even traumatized Japan. The scale of its death and destruction is little understood by today’s generation — one which has by and large lived in peace. Today the Black Dragon is as mythical as Smaug. Could such things really have rampaged through the cities of Europe and in Manila? Yes they could, though we cannot really bring ourselves to believe it — or it’s like — could happen again.
Belmont Commenters
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Interesting question as to the proper role of artillery on the modern battlefield. Fixed fortifications would seem better addressed from a much longer distance by PGM, but if it comes down to sheer tonnage, as in leveling an entire city, perhaps artillery is appropriate. Also artillery is forward-positioned and may have a role in tactical roles, in spite of less accuracy than PGM that may have to be set up and launched from hundreds of miles away. Plus, artillery shells are far cheaper than actively guided anything – and might even have modest active homing capabilities themselves.
Problem is loading anything that large, five-inch gun is about as large a cartridge as one or two soldiers can handle.
If we ever build the new-technology eight-inch (200mm) Crusaders, maybe then can look at a new 240mm as well, at least like the Black Dragon as a semi-howitzer.
Heavy arty will always have a place. Don’t even need smart shells as once the range gets close enough (like in Manila), you can’t miss anyways.
When the U.S. Army invaded the first German city it encountered, Aachen, the Germans had the place locked down tight, from the main gate, which resisted even bazooka fire, to the massive opera house in the middle of the city, which was both their HQ and final redoubt.
With its study stone structure, the clear fields of fire around it, and their stockpiles of supplies, the Germans expected to hold out in the opera house indefintely.
The US Army had developed new urban warfare tactics when it took the French city of Brest. You don’t go down the streets into those overlapping fields of fire, but through the sides of the buildings, and thus clean out each house one at a time, protected by the same exterior walls the German were using. It was a bit rough on the architecture, but hell, it wasn’t our city, so who gave a rat’s rump?
At Aachen, there was no reason to be any more delicate. And when they got to the opera house they brought up tracked 155 MM guns and proceeded to knock the place down around the Germans’ ears.
The German general in charge of Aachen later said that the use of such heavy artillery for direct fire applications in urban combat should be outlawed.
By the way, for the Japanese surrender delegation the U.S. gave specific directions as to how the aircraft carrying them were to be painted – overall white with green crosses. They were met enroute by the very heavily armed and fiercely painted B-25′s of the 345 BG Air Apaches. Upon their arrival the US found one of the Betty bombers carrying the delegation to be in such bad repair it required extensive maintenance; in fact the Betty crashed on the way home. I wonder if the Japense flew in their own airplanes to Manila or if we provided transport.
I would have preferred that we had used a few of these in Fallujah rather than risk the lives of Marines.
A fundamental difference between radicals and conservatives is that the radicals think they can perfect human nature and conservatives think human nature is inherently flawed.
Radicals then set out to construct their utopia; conservatives turn to faith or healthy sketicism.
What scares me about Dear Leader and his ilk is that they (a) think they are above the savagery of humankind and/or (b) think their fix is just what we need to overcome it. At the best, it’s naive; at the worst, it sets opens the door to the savages.
I’m reading Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year” ( first published in 1722), on my new Kindle Paperwhite. I love the kindle, and love his Plague Year, which convincingly portrays one man’s fictional experience of the bubonic plague of 1665 which devastated London. It seems impossible today to appreciate how traumatizing events such as the plague must have been… And yet within living memory some humans have endured similar apocalyptic traumas. It’s been interesting to watch the breathlessness of NY newscasters covering the latest storm, you’d think the world was coming to an end. These media figures, who think of themselves as giants bestride the world from their perches in DC and NY, suddenly seemed very small and petty as they covered a dangling crane from a skyscraper and a few lousy flooded tunnels. Sure it was a terrible storm, and I don’t want to minimize the destruction, but it is not even a blip in the scheme of things – and this storm doesn’t rise to any significance in comparison to the things that same media are choosing to ignore.
Been staring into the abyss a bit much lately, Wretchard?
155′s can pound a target at over 10 miles. Unlike a PGM it can do it over and over again and pivot and hit anything within 10 miles in the other direction. That is why artillery is so effective for area denial. Modern systems are designed to use small crews and essentially are built like semiautomatics as opposed to bold action. Eventually you’d have a fully automated system that required no crew. Just a contingent to keep it protected and logistically supplied. I don’t know what the accuracy of these systems but they are certainly capable of knocking down a fixed target.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Ger%C3%A4t
It was the largest self-propelled weapon to see service.[1] Its heaviest munition was a 60 cm (24 in) diameter, 2,170 kg (4,800 lb)shell, and the range for its lightest shell of 1,250 kg (2,800 lb) was just over 10 km (6.2 mi). Each gun had to be accompanied by a crane, a heavy transport trailer, and several modified tanks to carry shells.
The abyss is a good view to remember.
What’s eerie about those photos is that except for the picture of those 37th division people going over a residential wall (my guess is that it’s somewhere in the Singalong or Vito Cruz area) is that I know each and every one of those streets by heart.
There is a curious winterlike quality about the photos of that era. All the trees, even the coconut ones, are bare of leaves but there is no winter in the tropics. The leaves had been sheared off by blast. More than a decade after the war the concrete park benches were pitted with fragmentation damage.
I’ve written elsewhere that from the point of view of Japanese engaged, most of the Pacific War happened on Luzon. A quarter million or more of the IJA died there, more than Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Peleilu, Okinawa and all the rest of it put together. I don’t know that it means much. Just a forgotten series of 70 year old events that is literally disappearing into myth.
But our modern world is based on those events though perhaps not for much longer. The old foundations are too distant to serve as any sure footing any more. We can no longer stand on those days.
Occasionally I wonder if in consequence we will have to redo the foundations to establish the new era. Well that would be a drag considering how destructive the process might be. In general history seems to require that we tear down our old roots and replace them every now and again.
That is the root of historical tragedy: the loss of memory and the return of the forgotten Dragons.
I understand, now. The world is changed. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.
My view of WW2 is probably 180 degrees off from yours; remembered in the kindly smiles of the aging veterans who formed the…somehow solid bulwark of my childhood. All the while, the world outside my small town seemed to be decaying into dysfunction, if one but looked and listened. The victors’ peace was troubled.
I miss them now. They’re nearly gone. And the world they brought forward is collapsing, though not without the seeds of new growth. The information revolution, a rebirth of spiritual longings, renewed efforts in space exploration, and (just perhaps) new ways of utilizing energy. It’s on our shoulders to build that new world as best we can, and sometimes that seems a heavy load doesn’t it? I do miss them.
This passage from Samuel Eliot Morison’s “Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus” seems appropriate:
At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .
Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed.
The work of giants, to serve well the guns.
I would be very surprised to meet a former Black Dragon cannoneer who did NOT wear a hearing aid. There may no longer be any above ground.
M777 155mm howitzers and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems need fewer gunbunnies to serve them than the old dumb projectile firing pieces did. The King of Battle gets deadlier even while his branch shrinks.
“The world is changed. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.”
It hasn’t changed much, Neil. There are still Nazis with guns, such as Jeff Hall who was shot by his own son.
Although it took them a year-and-a-half to come out with this, today they explained how it happened… It seems that guns were not so much to blame as was television.
Please make your children watch Sesame Street, or you too could die like Jeff Hall the Nazi.
W: “Could such things really have rampaged through the cities of Europe and in Manila? Yes they could, though we cannot really bring ourselves to believe it — or it’s like — could happen again.”
Something like it will happen again, because the depraved “will to power” aspects of human nature have not changed. There may be less need for an updated Black Dragon since a future enemy can be killed by precision ordinance delivered from stealth bombers or from orbit, or via genetically engineered viruses (make sure you take the vaccine first), or by RNA poisons, and why destroy a building when whole cities can be destroyed by a suitcase nuclear device, or whole regions put out of action by a single EMP explosion.
Service of the piece, 8-inch gun M1 and 240-MM howitzer M1
18 cannoneers, a chief of the section, a gunner, an ammunition corporal, 2 drivers, a mechanic and a crane operator to unlimber this baby. Lots of hard physical labor in the mud.
Somebody point Bahadur to page 133.
Neil 7: “Been staring into the abyss a bit much lately, Wretchard?”
From what I know of Wretchard he has stared into a real abyss or two. There likely is an abyss out there which awaits us because there still exists in our species a heart of darkness.
Paranoia is an irrational belief, believing something to be true when it is false. Most people think of paranoia as seeing something that isn’t really there – this is suspicious paranoia – the man who irrationally stares into a future abyss when none awaits. There is however another type of paranoia – another type of irrational belief – which is intellectual blindness – this is blind paranoia – the man who can’t see a threat that really is there – a man who believes there is no future abyss when in truth there is. The blind fool is as paranoid as the suspicious fool.
I have recently been reading Winning the War on War: the decline of armed conflict worldwide, by Joshua Goldstein.
It might have been a good book if it weren’t marred by a smug triumphalism that credited the United Nations with the decline of armed conflict over the last forty years. As if American military hegemony had nothing to do with it.
As a rule of thumb, if you think you can’t get conned by a grafter, you are his best mark. Likewise, massive wars tend to erupt precisely where people assume it can’t happen – those wars erupt precisely because of complacency.
Call me superstitious, but I regard bragging about the decline of major wars as utter hubris. Such bragging almost sounds like a complaint toward the monsters of the world that recent atrocities have not killed enough people, at least not enough to measure up to horrors inflicted by Hitler and Stalin. Regardless of how good the world seems to have become, it always teeters over the abyss.
Some have argued (I do not know with what accuracy) that Godzilla (which Toho produced in 1954) was a metaphor for the B-29. It was an explanation given to children to explain the ruin of Japanese cities.
And it makes sense. How do you explain to a child born in 1950 why the Tokyo looked like it did? The easiest thing to say is “Godzilla”. Manila saw Smaug. But Japan saw Godzilla.
A piece they should have given to Bobby Shaftoe.
“In general history seems to require that we tear down our old roots and replace them every now and again.”
Yes, today our government is in league with Al Qaeda against Israel… is in league with Mexican drug lords against tax paying Americans, is for unions against the common man, are for foreigners against the interest of any US citizen. What pray tell is there we must try to preserve of this ungodly beast? Anything that was not enshrined in days of old?
If we were to enter WII again I have little problem believing that we’d ally with Japan. Because they were anti-communist? No, because samurai’s are so cool. Progressives do not have a common interest in anything, they are only out to destroy what is.
11. Neil
This passage from Samuel Eliot Morison’s “Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus” seems appropriate:
At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future.
……………….
I have mentioned from time to time on this blog and elsewhere that this age is most analogous to the time somewhere between 1492 and 1517 when Luther posted his 95 thesis on the door the church in worms.
why?
1.)well modern space exploration maps over onto the initial discoveries of the new world. In astronomy Some of the initial observations were made that would change the 1500 year old Ptolemaic geocentric world view to the Copernican heliocentric world view. in technology the printing press was analogous to the internet. The Spanish had just kicked out the moslems but the furthest advance north by the moslem armies was still several decades off at the Gates of Vienna in 1532. Today the moslems are on the march and we have not yet seen their furthest advance–nor have we seen anyone analogous to Luther. But I think both Luther and a moslem high water mark are coming. We have today as well a welfare system and government spoils system that’s funded and supported in a way that’s very similar to the catholic indulgence system. By the indulgence system you paid to get your ancestors into heaven–and out of purgatory. Today you pay to not be called a racists because of what your ancestors did. (One of Luther’s charges against the indulgence system was that holding ancestors hostage caused witchcraft–something I think is also true of today’s racial system.)
” It was a bit rough on the architecture, but hell, it wasn’t our city, so who gave a rat’s rump?”
yes, because you haven’t cultural remains from two millenariums, thing that even the German Nazis had in mind, even the Paris Gauleiter refused to obbey to Hitler that wanted to blow up Paris before that the allies could recover it
though when the twin towers were hitted, you happen to know what does that mean !
“though when the twin towers were hitted, you happen to know what does that mean !”
Yes, fight fascism before they are in a position to knock your city down. In the US, there are those who value freedom more than they value the edifices of self indulgent fame. Ask the Philipinos if it was worth expelling the Japanese at the cost of thier architecture.
PGM technology is fully functional in the gun projectiles. The navy is soon to field a 5″ guided rifle round with a notional range of 89 miles and guided/ laser designated accuracy. Army/USMC are working with the same technology.
Land based field guns are limited by the need to service the gun, rounds get heavier and heavier.
Naval rifles have the advantage of automated handling.
My 5″-38′s (WWII vintage) took 36 men, magazine to trigger for a two gun mount.
Today a 5″-70 takes 6 men for one tubed, magazine to trigger. (Both are less fire control). I believe land self propelled land systems are striving for the same reduction in man power.
The comparison is: Land systems have a stable platform and therefore have a smaller CEP (Circular Area Probable) than Naval rifles. Naval pieces, however, have a much greater rate of fire, longer range, size for size, and can more likely be in larger caliber. (Assuming someone actually builds the ships!)
Ok, so you didn’t want the detail….but I really enjoyed blabbing. ta
Charles: Yes, I’ve thought that many times these last few years. We await a Copernicus to tear down our Ptolemaic particle physics. We await a Luther to…well, if I knew that I’d probably be in danger of being jailed for heresy. Then again, perhaps Copernicus and Luther are the same in our age? Heresy against Science is punished more severely than any theological heresy.
Wretchard: Yes, how to explain it to the children? Godzilla visited Japan, the Yankees liberated the Philippines, the Germans learned guilt. For us, Grandpa came back from the war and never spoke of it again, a sailor kissed a nurse on Times Square, then Mommy and Daddy were born and everybody drove around in ’53 Chevys for a while. In the back of my mind, the one-railroad farming community of my father circa 1955 is still “the way things ought to be”, but I can’t bring that back now.
Just maybe, the U.S. public is starting to grapple with the fact that we no longer live in our grandfathers’ world and it’s time to start thinking about the new one.
If Paris had been defended by the Imperial Japanese Marines they would have blown it up good. Admiral Iwabuchi died in Intramuros along with the rest of his command. The Germans, Nazi though they were, surrendered by the thousands in Stalingrad. I think about 60 Japanese were taken prisoner out of the 16,000 in the Naval Defense Force, many probably because they were found unconscious or captured for intelligence. Nobody walked away except in freak circumstances.
As for the rest, they lived the life of the damned in hell. They actually had guidelines for killing Filipinos. You may be sure the same applied to Americans.
And from unit diaries.
Those were hard hombres, those Japanese Naval infantry. And combat in that time and place was really an irrational business. Reason, humanity, pity — none of these apply. It was completely insane. That’s what the Battle of Manila was like. I think that most of us could not comprehend it. It’s place that very few people in the last two generations have visited.
Now any Japanese who by some miracle escaped the Black Dragon and other fearsome armaments would almost certainly be caught by other guerillas or their relatives and friends hovering just behind the US lines. And they would almost certainly be paid back in their own coin. Therefore it was perfectly rational for the Japanese to die to the last man, which they invariably did.
People talk about “battles of annihilation” but in the Pacific War this was literally the way it happened. Thinking on it I came to the conclusion that it is dangerous to think of war and peace as part of the same continuous universe. They are discontinuous. All the rules that seem so solid and reasonable in peacetime cease to be in effect in times of belligerence.
Thus, the only way to “humanize war” is to avoid it altogether by deterrence or diplomacy, or if caught up in one, to exit it via victory as soon as possible. The idea that you can wage an effective conflict indefinitely according to some legal and humane protocol strikes me as complete nonsense. I’ve described elsewhere how I was on a plane to Jolo with a guy from Medecins Sans Frontiere who believed his ‘humanitarian status’ would protect him. He was kidnapped that very afternoon. Luck might protect him, or a certain usefulness to all concerned. But a piece of paper signed by someone in Geneva won’t stop a bullet.
But it is all the fashion now to “mow the lawn” and “manage conflict”. I suppose it works to some extent. But if they should ever get away from the conflict-managers, the forgotten dragons will prove very difficult to tame.
I recently finished reading Intrepid Aviators, about the USS Intrepid and Air Group 18, and especially VT-18. They were the first to attack the IJN Musashi in the Sibuyan Sea, leading to its sinking and thus probably saving our invasion fleet off Samar. Imagine if Taffy 3 had to face both the Yamato and the Musashi as well as the other IJN battleships, cruisers, and destroyers of Force A.
One of the VT-18 pilots was shot down on that strike and ended up on Panay, via Banton Island. On Banton Island the Japanese set fire to a village and killed the 3 people who rescued and provided medical aid to the pilot after one of the villagers confessed to their having helped him.
What came out very clearly was the great difficulty of finding food, even for highly organized groups like the guerilla forces on Panay. With the Japanese disrupting normal commerce and collecting food for their own needs, it was hard for anyone to get enough food. Normal crops could not be planted due to Japanese interference and theft. Any animal walking around would be grabbed and cooked, by someone. Apparently one of the staples of the diet was bats – if you were lucky.
And the Filipino guerillas were not outdone by the VC. The book described them coming upon 4 Tony fighters that had bellied in on Panay after getting lost. It seemed doubtful that the Japanese pilots captured by the Filipinos would survive. And when a Japanese patrol boat came to the village of Libertad the guerillas ambushed it and killed the entire crew, even those who surrenderd.
Talk about Design Margin! They had little or none and then it went negative.
Marie Claude: Promise not to turn Brest over to fascists who are trying to take over the world again and we promise not to blow it up from the inside out again. As Adolph Hitler said, Americans have no sense of history. But as Adolph found out, we are very good at blowing up things.
am @ 8: 155′s can pound a target at over 10 miles. Unlike a PGM it can do it over and over again and pivot and hit anything within 10 miles in the other direction.
But a PGM can put a 1,000 or 2,000 pound (or larger – even much larger) warhead exactly on target, equivalent to 10 or 20 or more shells even if they are the newfangled guided versions. Apparently “boosted” shells out of a long gun have even more than 10 mile range now, maybe much more (though probably decreasing the warhead). But even 20 miles puts you closer to their defenses as well, compared to a PGM loaded 100 miles away and launched from 40,000 feet in a brief intrusion even farther than 20 miles out. Not to mention cruise missile delivery from 1,000 miles out.
You ask me, we ought to have 10,000 pound class cruise missiles – and some of those and smaller should be supersonic. Still, I’m not disrespecting artillery at all, one Crusader could launch something like six shells to meet simultaneously on target at something like ten miles, pretty neat! And then there’s stuff like MLRS, too. Should have used all that kind of stuff at Falluja.
27. RWE
hmm bombing was quite a big deal, not always justified
But today, arms are different, thy can destroy their target without (much) collateral dammages, or you could launch a “neutons” bomb, no ruins, just faune death !
We need major caliber heavy naval gunnery systems. Thirty years ago the testeval of the 8″ MCLWG was sabotaged. We should have 100 6″ Verticle Load Guns deployed.
Rail guns are coming…
So don’t sweat the lack of old fashioned powered rifles.
Josh – “You ask me, we ought to have 10,000 pound class cruise missiles”
Oh yeah, I think Haji already invented one of those, 767-200. Savages.
Referrimg to W’s comment, why did the Japanese have so many troops in a place like the Phillipines? Seems like a difficult place to defend, and there were probably other places closer to Japan that were more strategic. Appreciate the insight.
The way things are shaping up, I suspect they will be used first in the next Civil War in the US.
Why do I say this? Because despite all the evidence, maleficence, and utter incompetence of the Obama administration, he still stands a good chance of winning the White House again. It should not even be close in the polls now, but that is apparently what we are seeing. The parasites have gained too much power to ever want to give it up.
The hatred and distrust will only continue to rise – there is very little tying the disparate sub-cultures, de facto castes, and various ethnic groups together. No matter who wins.
Will the black dragons appear? Where will they show up first? Who will have them?
@Neil,
Looks to me as though the abyss has been staring back at all of us for quite some time now.
I see it.
Some people have their eyes shut.
I served with a Marine Corps 8” Howitzer Battery in Viet Nam. The M55 self propelled howitzer had a projectile that weighed just over 200lbs and we could drop one in a garbage can at nearly 12 miles.
The shell was equipped with an eye bolt in its nose such that an iron bar with a hook could, with two men, lift the shell into the gun where a hydraulic jack would shove it into the breech after the eye bolt was removed and the round was properly armed.
The powder charge came in two separate metal canisters each about 8” in diameter and 3ft? long. One canister had the base charge that was always used and the second canister was divided into seven segments, the usage of which was determined by desired range .
The battery had four platoons, three gun platoons with two guns each and an HQ platoon co-located with one of the gun platoons. The gun platoons were deployed roughly 10 miles distant from each other. Usually, there would be one or two gun platoons of 105 and 155 guns/howitzers deployed along with each of our gun platoons.
8″ guns (M110A2) were still in the Army inventory as late as when I retired in 1987; retired now, I believe. A battalion of them darn near killed me and my OP section at Graffenwoehr in 1982 when someone in fire control got their numbers backward and a right-by-piece walked its way out of the impact zone and toward our concrete OP bunker. All of our ears and noses were bleeding when it was over and our jeep was junked by shrapnel.
With RAP (rocket assisted projectiles) and Copperhead (PGM) artillery rounds, the artillery is fully accurate. In fact, with GPS to site the pieces, the Paladin 155mm SP gun is very accurate (the Paladin is also fully nuclear weapon capable). The MLRS even has a tactical missile (ATACMS) with GPS which is accurate to feet over 175 miles, and it is STILL cheaper than a Tomahawk or other PGM cruise missile.
The advantage of artillery is that it is accurate and adjustable and it works in all weather, day or night. An artillery battalion can pound a fortress with a pretty much continuous barrage, 24 hours a day until their ammo runs out. Aircraft cannot do that and using lots of PGM missiles are very pricey when they run close to a million bucks apiece. Dumb artillery shells are quite cheap, really.
Referrimg to W’s comment, why did the Japanese have so many troops in a place like the Phillipines? Seems like a difficult place to defend, and there were probably other places closer to Japan that were more strategic. Appreciate the insight.
Well, whatever strategic plan originally brought them to Luzon, by that point in the war Japan didn’t have much ability to move them anywhere else. Japanese shipping sank at an alarming rate in 1944.
#29 Marie Claude
Trust me, as one who has experienced the real life view on FORCE, captivity and rescue, 10 (ten) real battleships in the Persian Gulf would be the equivalent of about 10 million (quadrillion?, maybe 10^88) tonnes of Metamucil on the Persians. There is nothing like knowing that you are about to be royally and truly F–ked to induce tremendous humility and understanding of your adversary’s goals and priorities.
All you need is a few of these to induce total panic in the opfor:
http://www.williammaloney.com/Aviation/BattleshipUSSNewJersey/USSNewJersey.jpg
For a few billions (what’s that these days) you could have both strategic superiority and psychological satisfaction.
Not only does Godzilla (actually named Gojira, but American promoters thought that was too hard for Americans to say for some reason) stand in as a psychological proxy for the US, but you can carry the parallels much farther than that.
Consider the other monsters:
Godzilla – unstoppable, seemingly immortal force of nature which destroys Japanese cities for no discernible reason – but who then becomes the PROTECTOR of Japan when the other monsters show up! monsters like RODAN….
Rodan – a flying monster, similar in power to Godzilla but also Godzilla’s enemy. When Rodan attacks Japanese cities, Godzilla fights Rodan for dominance! Can you imagine a better metaphor for the cold war between the US and Russia from the Japanese perspective than this tale from 1956? The Japanese are shown as helpless before the great monsters raging against them, and completely dependent on a former destroyer for their salvation. and then there is…
GHIDORAH, 1964. Ghidorah resembles a 3 headed dragon. Hmm, what large world power, threatening to the Japanese, would be represented as a monstrous dragon? What’s fascinating is that Ghidorah is only defeated when the Japanese manage to play off Godzilla, Rodan, and Ghidorah against each other in a 3 way title bout. The Japanese don’t defeat the monsters, rather the monsters defeat each other.
And at the end of the day, Godzilla is still large and in charge. Tell me that isn’t a very neat little rundown of superpower politics in the pacific for the decades since WW2 ended.
#15 Cannoneer No. 4
spotted, noted, and bookmarked. Thanks.
#33 Steeple
VERY short form. Japanese strategic goal was a “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”™ which was functionally dominion over Asia. Believe it or not, the primary sources of oil in those days were either the US or the Dutch East Indies [now Indonesia]. The Saud family was still pounding sand. Roosevelt engineered a Dutch-American oil embargo against Japan to get them to yield to our foreign policy purposes. Within 6 months Japan would run out of oil.
It did not occur to Roosevelt or his State Department that Japan could choose war instead of surrender. They had to have oil. Couldn’t invade Texas for it. Could invade the Dutch East Indies. But there was the matter of the well armed US possession, the Philippines, directly between Japan and the DEI. Therefore it had to be neutralized, from the Japanese point of view. That meant invasion and occupation. The Filipinos were not …. good subjects. That meant a garrison force that could not be reduced.
There are a lot more facets of this, but that is the gist.
***************************
Moving back to the Abyss that Wretchard has directed our attention to; it is still there. Mankind’s normal state for almost all of its existence has been tyranny, poverty, and brute force. The last 60 years or so has been the most peaceful and prosperous time in the history of Western Civilization. And it is quite possibly coming to the end as mankind returns to the norm. The Long Night seems to be falling.
Look at those who lead us, and the quality of those who are led. It is as if humankind has shrunk since this time a century ago. Not in the sense of lacking a “Great Man” as leader, a Führer-type; but rather that neither our leaders nor our people are capable of dealing with large concepts or great problems. We specialize in paralysis to avoid conceiving that anything can be done, rather than doing them. We and those in charge, seem to seek a static society that is easily controlled and not subject to surprises.
Anything static or rigid will eventually encounter a force that causes it to shatter. There is always a surprise. There will always be a Dragon. And it will not be the benevolent Chinese conception of a Dragon. It will be a combination of Smaug, Godzilla, Gamera, Ghiddrah, and the 240 mm howitzer crewed by Orcs. The evil and suffering will beyond our pampered conception. And unless we learn to grow up from the obstacles in front of us now, when the new Dragon appears we will shatter.
Subotai Bahadur
The Dragon has become smaller, but he’s there all right. Marines, April 2003, outside Bagdad, during the march up.
http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/169273
Apparently Base Bleed or RAP (rocket assisted projectiles). One imagines the target had its architecture rearranged.
Artillery Brings Dignity To What Would Otherwise Be Just A Vulgar Brawl
wws @41
…And then there were the various Mekagojiras and the birth of the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center (UNGCC).
From right around the period where Japan’s industrial capacity was transitioning from toy robots to the transistors and Toyotas that went on to dominate world markets…And Nixon shook Mao’s hand.
Of course a true to form Hollywood eventually unleashed Godzilla (this time a product of French nuclear tests and an iguana) on Manhattan where she lays her eggs in Madison Square Garden amidst the massive destruction caused in no small part by the US military relentlessly attacking the misunderstood momma who was an unhappy accident of our warlike polluting ways.
Today Godzilla is worth 30 billion Yen and does little to help kids sleep better. (Unless you are child of Sony, in which case your bed is stuffed with money bags.) I forget how this relates to anything, but it seemed almost brilliant when I thought of it today.
Wretchard @ 26: “Thinking on it I came to the conclusion that it is dangerous to think of war and peace as part of the same continuous universe. They are discontinuous. All the rules that seem so solid and reasonable in peacetime cease to be in effect in times of belligerence.”
I agree, but for us to come to grips with that discontinuity, we’ll have to remove all the lawyers from the battlefield. Over in CENTCOM, no one can take a shot without clearance from the lawyers. For example, I’ve heard some hairy stories from the AC-130 gunship community about what happens to them when rounds fall outside the CEP.
A couple of things . First thing , the the assualt gun platoon , M-4(105mm) of the 716th Tank Battalion was used to clear the building interiors. The crews used their 105s like .45 pistols ,literally firing into individual pill boxes , then backing away only to rearm . Incredible combat ,intense, savage and without mercy. The Japanese defenders of Manila were busily raping and murdering their way through the fight, had to be exterminated .
Secondly, went to Cassino and Anzio as well as a side trip to San Pietro this past May. Fantastic tour and very moving. There’s an interactive museum in Cassino that lays out the battle , the personalities involved and artifacts still being gathered from the battlefield . Of course, the destruction of the Monastery was central. The usual oohs and ahhs . The tour guide was still mourning that destruction and , of course, being the gator in the punchbowl I pointed out 2 things. One, damn, the Army Air Forces did a fabulous job, and two, everyone needed to be thankful it didn’t happen in June. By then we had napalm.