Category: War
2nd December 1878, the men of the 72nd “Duke of Albany’s Own “Highlanders found themselves in the darkness of night scaling the rocky heights of mountains in Afghanistan. They were about to play a decisive role in the Battle of Peiwar Kotal.
Part of the Kurrum Valley Field Force, the 72nd had been deployed to Afghanistan to help impose a British mission in Kabul in an attempt to counter the spreading influence of the Russian Empire in Central Asia. Sandwiched between the Russian Empire and British Raj, (Modern Day India and Pakistan), Afghanistan was a victim of the Great Game, as geopolitics were played out in the great seats of power in London and Moscow.
The concerns of their political masters were far from the minds of the Highlanders of the 72nd however, they had far more pressing thoughts. Chiefly how to overcome the Afghan position in front of them.
The expedition under Major General Frederick Roberts had barely arrived in Afghanistan and was already presented with a challenge. Afghan forces had taken a strong defensive position on the heights of Peiwar Kotal blocking the road to Kabul. A frontal attack would be suicide.
Thus, while Roberts and the main force held the attention of the Afghans, during the night the 72nd alongside the 5th Gurkhas scaled the surrounding mountains to outflank the enemy position. 
They made it to higher slopes that allowed them to take the Afghans from the side just as the sun began to rise. The stirring Afghans were taken utterly by surprise, as the Highlanders and Gurkhas fired a close-range volley and slammed home with the bayonet.
The Afghans were chased and driven from ridge to ridge along the range. Their flank broken, the main Afghan army pulled out and withdrew, opening the way to Kabul. Mission complete, the Highlanders and their Gurkha comrades settled down to bivouac upon the heights.
For gallantry and heroism performed during the battle, 6 Highlanders of the 72nd would subsequently be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
I still say the old Army Tradition of putting the idiot in a room with a bottle of whiskey and a loaded pistol needs to come back in style. Grumpy
Both do use AK pattern guns, with main caliber being 5.45×39, though Ukraine isn’t using them exclusively.
Current standard Russian issue rifle is the Kalashnikov AK-12, which is a modernized iteration of the AK-74, itself a variant of the AK rifle chambered in 5.45×39. This one has better sights, top mounting rail, foldable stock, etc:
Ukraine is less consistent. Its been trying to get away from Kalashnikov pattern guns, in part just for symbolic reasons, but also to go to NATO standard. Right now, I think its more tolerant of “use whatever we can get” so individual soldiers may be using non standard guns.
Its got plenty of AK-74 rifles still in service, but its also has other AK pattern guns, including individual AK-12 rifles its captured from Russians, and older AKM guns in 7.62×39. Its also got some AR-15 pattern and other rifles in both NATO standard 5.56×45, but also 5.45×39.
Reportedly some Ukrainian special forces are carrying Fort-221 rifles, which are licensed copies of Israeli Tavor rifles in 5.54×39:
Civilian/export version of Ukranian UAR-15, which is domestic version of AR15. There was some talk of Ukraine adopting this, but I don’t think its happened yet.
Interestingly some of the older Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifles have seen some field use on both sides mostly out of expedience. They’re available, the 7.62x54R ammo is available (its still commonly used for machine guns), and these are modifiable into passable designated marksman/sniper rifles:
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The Battle Of Gandamak
Towards the end of the 1842 retreat from Kabul, the last survivors of the 44th of Foot (East Essex Regiment) on the 13th of January 1842 made a heroic last stand against Afghan tribesmen.With General Elphinstone’s army mostly destroyed in the valleys between Kabul and safety, 20 officers and 45 soldiers tried to push on to the garrison at Jalalabad, but quickly found themselves surrounded.
Moving to a snowy hill outside the village of Gandamak, with limited muskets and shot, the heroic men refused to surrender. When pressed to give up by the Afghans, a British sergeant is said to have cried back “Not bloody likely”. In what was a most savage massacre of the army, one can only imagine what they had seen happen to the injured who fell behind and what could be done with by the sharp blades of the avenging Afghans.
Multiple charges were fought off by hand to hand fighting, but each time more and more men fell. Sniping also took a heavy toll, a skill the Afghans had perfected during this period, usual from the hilltops down into advancing columns of men.
When the final charge took place, a Captain Souter was taken captive rather than killed. This was due to him wearing the regimental colours of the 44th around his waist to protect them. This fanciful appearance, had him mistook for a general or higher-ranking officer. He was taken prisoner at the very end alongside a handful of others.
The remaining men fell on the hill, and it is believed that evidence of the battle could still be seen as late as the 1970’S, indeed even to the 2010’s. Being in such a remote and arid location, I could well imagine this being the case.
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Why 90% of Stormtroopers Died
Categories
Ukraine: Rifle Periscopes Return
Just a quick show of hands, who here loves paying taxes? That is, of course, a rhetorical question. The only folks who enjoy paying taxes are New York socialists and Bernie Sanders, a man whose only extra-governmental real jobs were as an aide in a psychiatric hospital and a part-time carpenter. The rest of us think taxes pretty much suck.
The federal income tax rate in America ranges from 10 to 37%. State taxes are a wildly mixed bag. Alaska has reverse taxes. They actually pay people to live there. Eight predominantly-red states levy no income tax at all. California is naturally the worst at 13.3%. Every state charging above 9% is a Democratic stronghold. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
So, why all this talk of infernal revenue, might you ask? Because I have finally found something that makes me glad to pay my taxes. The AGM-114R-9X is the coolest weapon since the Roman gladius. Folks in the know call this the Ginsu Missile or the Ninja Bomb. Uncle Sam won’t reveal what these bad boys cost, but they’re worth every penny.
AGM-114 Hellfire Details
The AGM-114 Hellfire was first introduced in 1984. Hellfire stands for Helicopter-Launched, Fire and Forget. The Hellfire missile weighs about 100 pounds and is 64 inches long. Today’s Hellfires are precision guided via a semi-active laser homing system or a millimeter-wave radar. Max effective range is somewhere around 11 kilometers. The Hellfire was originally intended as a dedicated anti-armor weapon to be used on AH64 Apache gunships. However, they’ve gotten way cooler since then.
The problem in the modern era of ubiquitous camera phones is proportionality. The days of leveling a city to undermine a nation’s capacity to wage war or kill one seriously evil dude are over. We need weapons that will whack the bad guys without unduly cluttering up the place.
The basic AGM-114 isn’t bad. The Hellfire employs a top attack profile wherein the round climbs to a high altitude and then plunges down toward a target from above at around Mach 1.3. The intent is to defeat the thinner roof armor of most modern armored vehicles, and the Hellfire is magnificent at that. A single conventional Hellfire missile costs between $99,600 and $150,000 per round dependent upon the particulars. They are otherworldly accurate.
Hellfire warheads weigh about 20 pounds and come in a wide variety of flavors. Current rounds are equipped with a tandem HEAT (High Explosive Antitank) charge designed to defeat explosive reactive armor systems. However, when used against individuals, this shaped charge warhead is still fairly untidy.
The AGM-114R-9X first saw service in 2017. The Hellfire 114R-9X doesn’t have a warhead at all. Instead of explosives, this vicious little monster deploys half a dozen steel blades out of its central chassis immediately before impact. Now imagine a 100-pound swirling steel salad shredder coming at you at 1,000 miles per hour. As this is well above the speed of sound, you won’t even hear it coming.
The Dude
Abdullah Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Rajab Abd al-Rahman was also known as Ahmad Hasan Abu al-Khayr al-Masri. His friends, if ever he had any, would have called him Abu Khayr al-Masri. The general deputy to the notorious al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Khayr al-Masri was a proper psychopath.
I’ll spare you the gory details, but this reprobate guy blew stuff up and murdered people across a couple of continents because his dark god told him to. For this reason and some others, Donald Trump rightfully determined that al-Masri needed to die.
On February 26, 2017, al-Masri was toodling along in a car alongside another unwashed, bloodthirsty terrorist in the Syrian province of Idlib. Orbiting silently overhead was a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drone equipped with AGM-114R-9Xs.
There was a loud bang, and al-Masri’s car swerved to a stop amidst a massive shower of sparks. Bystanders rushed up to see what had happened. What they found was pretty tough to unsee.
The Aftermath
Photos of what remained of Abu Khayr al-Masri’s car were fascinating. We hit the vehicle with two of these weapons, leaving a pair of matching star-shaped holes in the roof.
The windshield wipers remained intact. At least one round punched all the way through and left a crater in the ground. The car rolled a short distance past the impact point prior to stopping. Suffice to say, Al-Masri’s gory encounter with the U.S. military didn’t enhance his vehicle’s resale value.
Thanks to the AGM-114R-9X, the United States of Freaking America can puree pretty much any Bad Guy on Planet Earth. Think of the Ginsu Missile as a supersonic Cuisinart that will pulverize the enemies of our great nation most anyplace in the world. I’d gladly pay taxes for that.