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Category: War
What is it exactly about Somalia? The New York Times has described the Somali ethos as “legendarily individualistic.” In 1995 the US General Colin Powell said of Somalia, “Where things went wrong is when we decided, the UN decided, that somehow we could tell the Somalis how they should live with each other. At that point we lost the bubble…”
Somalis were the first people to domesticate the camel some 2,500 years before Christ. Early in the 20thcentury the Somali Dervishes successfully repulsed English military operations four different times, no mean feat at the height of the British Empire. The Republic of Somalia was formed in 1960 by the confederation of a British protectorate and a former Italian colony.
Mohamed Siad Barre seized power in 1969 and ruled as a dictator until he was overthrown in 1991 in a bloody civil war. Barre’s model of governance has been described as “scientific socialism,” whatever that really means. The reality was that it was a quirky mixture of Islam and Marxism with a little Somali nationalism sprinkled over the top for flavor. His was described as “the worst human rights record in Africa.” Considering the competition that is no small accolade.
After the ouster of Barre in 1991 Somalia pretty much didn’t have a government. Governance devolved into something fairly feudal driven by clan, religious, and tribal connections. The resulting utter chaos came atop a deadly famine. Ten percent of Somali children under the age of five died of hunger. The world through the UN stepped in to try to help. This turned out to be a really bad idea.
The planet threw food at these people, but petty warlords armed to the teeth weaponized food shipments to enhance the power of their own little fiefdoms. Under the guise of the UN, governments deployed military forces in an effort at stabilizing the situation enough to mitigate the famine. In response, the Somalis stole stuff, attacked UN forces, and generally made life miserable for everybody.
The Italian Contingent
The Italians came ready to play. They fielded paratroopers, M60 Main Battle Tanks, armored cars, and tank destroyers. The first serious combat engagement involving Italian forces since the end of WW2, this particular mission was titled Operation Kangaroo 11.
The Italian command split their mechanized forces into two columns and pushed into the Haliwaa District north of Mogadishu. Their mission was to search for weapons and attempt to disarm forces loyal to local warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid and his Somali National Alliance. As part of this operation, the Italians set up a checkpoint alongside, appropriately enough, an abandoned pasta factory. The resulting bloodletting has come to be known as The Battle of Checkpoint Pasta.
Toward the end of their sweep, Somali militia used women and children as human shields and attacked the two columns. The Somalis engaged Italian VCC-1 Camillino armored vehicles at close range with RPG-7 rocket launchers and immobilized some. Meanwhile, Somali militia barricaded the surrounding streets and unlimbered pretty much everything they had. The result was an epic close-quarters firefight over some of the most worthless terrain on the planet.
Italian Weapons
The Italians wielded Beretta AR70/90 assault rifles and MG3 light machine guns. The AR70/90 has been the standard 5.56x45mm service rifle of the Italian armed forces since 1990. It is currently undergoing a phased replacement by the polymer chassis ARX160. A gas-operated, piston-driven design, the AR70/90 evolved from the previous AR70 first fielded in 1972.
Those early AR70 rifles were initially inspired by a joint SIG/Beretta project to develop the SG530 rifle. The general similarity to the SIG family of weapons is fairly obvious. While a serviceable enough design, the AR70’s stamped steel receiver featured pressed-in bolt guides that could deform under hard use and deadline the weapon. In 1985 the Italian military began testing an upgraded version eventually called the AR70/90.
Those original trials pitted the AR70/90 against the HK G41 and an Italian-made copy of the Israeli Galil SAR. The Colt M16A2 got an invitation as well but was disqualified due to some kind of nebulous legal troubles. The AR70/90 ultimately won the trials and gained acceptance as the new Italian military rifle.
The AR70/90 featured a four-position selector that offered safe, semi, 3-round burst, and full-auto operation. The standard rifle included a fixed polymer stock, while the SC70/90 version sported a folding stock and was intended for Alpine troops. The SCP70/90 was that same weapon with a shorter barrel crafted for use with airborne forces. The AR70/90 weighed 8.8 pounds, fed from STANAG magazines, and cycled at 650 rpm on full auto.
The MG3 is essentially a German MG42 light machinegun rechambered for 7.62x51mm. The MG3 and MG42 share a high level of parts commonality. While the wartime MG42 cycled at a blistering 1,200 rpm, most modern MG3 variants include a heavier bolt and redesigned recoil spring that slow the rate of fire down considerably.
Beretta, Whitehead Motofides, and Franchi have produced licensed versions of the MG3 in Italy since 1959. These guns include a 1,200-gram bolt that offers a rate of fire of around 800 rpm. The Italians used the weapons on both ground and vehicle mounts.
Somali Weapons
This part of Africa has been showered with small arms for decades. Somalia was originally aligned with the Soviet Bloc until the late 1970’s when the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre abruptly changed teams and jumped in bed with the West. As a result, Somali arms bazaars are a cornucopia of military small arms from around the world. That means FN FALs, G3’s, M16’s, and AK’s—lots and lots of AKs.
We have discussed the Kalashnikov assault rifle in this venue before. Designed by Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov as a tool with which to defend Mother Russia against aggression from the West, the AK ultimately became the single most influential mechanical contrivance of the 20thcentury. With more than 100 million copies in service, the AK is the most produced firearm in human history.
You can indeed kill an AK, but it takes a great deal of effort. I used Kalashnikov rifles back when I wore the uniform that had not been cleaned since they left the factory, were employed in combat against US forces and captured, and were then repurposed into American stores yet still ran reliably and well. Everything about the gun is massively overdesigned. The critical bits are chrome-plated for wear resistance in sordid locales. The same basic action found itself into the PK-series belt-fed machineguns as well, albeit slightly modified and upside down.
The Rest of the Story
Once the Somali militia erected their roadblocks and disabled a couple of Italian armored vehicles things started to get real. An Italian paratrooper named Pasquale Baccaro was struck in the leg by an RPG and killed, while the unit Sergeant Major was grievously wounded in the abdomen. A third paratrooper was badly wounded in the hand.
At this point, the Italian commanders unlimbered the serious stuff. A column consisting of eight M60 tanks, seven B1 Centauro tank destroyers, and several Fiat 6614 armored cars proceeded to the checkpoint near the pasta factory and opened up with their organic machineguns. Meanwhile armed Italian UH-1H Huey helicopters along with Agusta A129 Mangusta gunships joined the fray from above. One of the Italian raiders was killed clearing a Somali fighting position with an OD 82/SE hand grenade.
The tanks engaged a series of shipping containers used by militia members, graphically educating the Somalis on the salient battlefield differences between concealment and cover while killing several in the process. One of the Mangustas took out a captured Iveco VM 90 vehicle with a TOW missile. 2LT Andrea Millevoi, the track commander of a Centauro tank destroyer, was shot and killed as he leaned out of his vehicle.
Both sides thoroughly blooded, the Italians took their toys and went home. The Battle for Checkpoint Pasta has since been described as an Italian defeat, but that’s not an entirely fair assessment. Somali militia had the Italian forces cut off and surrounded. In a remarkably chaotic environment, the Italians blasted their way clear and relocated to a position of safety. While they did suffer three dead and 22 wounded, Somali losses were estimated at nearly 200.
Ruminations
Three months later, American forces fought the Battle of Mogadishu, the two-day bloodbath that was so graphically depicted in the book and movie Blackhawk Down, against forces aligned with the same dirtbag warlord. In this later engagement, there were nineteen Americans killed against several hundred Somalis. One of the rawest aspects of the American fight was the lack of organic armor support.
Unlike the Italian contingent, the US civilian government under Bill Clinton felt that the inclusion of tanks made for a bad optic. This decision forced our warriors to fight their way out on foot. I’ve had a tough time forgiving Clinton for that.
The last UN troops left Somalia in March of 1995. Somalia has subsequently become one of the world’s most ghastly hellholes. For his part, Mohamed Farrah Aidid was shot in battle a year later and subsequently died of a heart attack during surgery. Good riddance.
World War II In The Pacific: Logistics 1, Spirit 0
The Pacific campaign of World War II is often presented as uniquely tough for the Americans that fought there. But it was absolutely deadly for Imperial Japanese Navy seaman and aviators. Here are a couple of videos that say why.
First up: 91% casualty rates.
- “91%. That’s how many Japanese carrier crew members were dead by August 1945. Not casualties, dead. For every 100 men who served on Japanese carriers, nine survived the war.”
- “The Imperial Navy started with 10 fleet carriers. They ended with zero.”
- “The Japanese started war with the best carrier pilots in the world. Each one had over 800 hours of flight training. By 1944, new pilots got less than 50 hours. Why? Because Japan made a fatal decision. They never rotated experienced pilots home to train replacements. Every veteran stayed in combat until they died. And they all died.”
- “Here’s the brutal arithmetic. At Midway, Japan lost four carriers and 322 aircraft. But here’s what destroyed them. They lost 110 veteran pilots. Each one had over two years of training. Japan produced 200 new pilots per month. America produced 2,500.”
- “The carriers themselves were death traps by design. Japanese damage control doctrine was offensive spirit overcomes material weakness. They literally didn’t train damage control.”
- “American carriers had firefighting schools. Japanese carriers had buckets.”
- “When the Taiho was hit by one torpedo, the crew didn’t know to turn off ventilation. Aviation fuel vapors spread through the ship. Six hours later, one spark turned the entire carrier into a 27,000 ton bomb.”
- “A survivor from the Shokaku described it. ‘The American dive bombers came from the sun. Three bombs. That’s all. Three bombs and 20 minutes later, our carrier was gone. 1,360 men. The water was on fire. Those who escaped the ship burned in the ocean.’”
- “Japanese carriers packed aircraft everywhere. In the hangers, on deck, in the passages. The Akagi carried 91 planes in space designed for 60. When one bomb penetrated to the hanger, it didn’t destroy one plane. It destroyed 20. The chain reaction of exploding aircraft turned carriers into crematoriums.”
- “The real killer was Japanese carrier doctrine. They armed and fueled aircraft in enclosed hangers. Americans did it on deck. One bomb in a Japanese hanger meant every plane exploded in a confined space. At Midway, the Kaga took four bombs. 711 dead in 9 minutes. The survivors said the hangar deck turned into a blast furnace fed by aviation fuel.”
- “Japanese carriers had no radar-directed anti-aircraft guns until 1944. They aimed manually at 400 mph aircraft. Hit probability: 2%. American carriers with radar directed guns 18%. That’s not combat, that’s mathematical suicide.”
- “After losing four carriers at Midway, Japan had six fleet carriers left. In the next two years, they built seven more. America built 90.”
- “Japan launched one new carrier in 1944. America launched 19.”
- “The Japanese were fighting industrial capacity with human spirit. Spirit lost.”
- “The pilot training collapse was even worse. By 1944, American pilots got 300 hours of training, including 100 hours in operational aircraft. Japanese pilots got 30 hours total, mostly in gliders to save fuel. They couldn’t land on carriers in calm seas, much less combat.”
- “At the Philippine Sea, the Great Mariana’s Turkey shoot, Japan lost three carriers and 400 aircraft. But here’s the devastating part. They lost 450 pilots. Only 43 were rescued. America lost 29 aircraft. The kill ratio was 13 to 1. That’s not a battle. It’s an execution.”
- “A captured Japanese naval officer admitted, ‘We knew after Midway. We knew we couldn’t replace the pilots. Every carrier operation after that was a suicide mission. We just didn’t call them that yet.’”
- “The Shinano tells the whole story. The largest carrier ever built, 72,000 tons, sunk on her maiden voyage by four torpedoes from one submarine. 1,435 dead. The crew didn’t know how to use damage control equipment. They had watertight doors that they didn’t close. The pride of the Japanese Navy sank because nobody taught the crew basic damage control.”
- “By 1945, Japan was using converted battleships and cruise ships as carriers. The pilots couldn’t actually land on them. They were one-way launch platforms for kamikaze attacks. The crew’s job was to sail to launching range and die. Survival wasn’t part of the mission profile.”
- “The last operational Japanese carrier, the Amagi, was destroyed at anchor by American aircraft. The crew was still aboard, waiting for aircraft that would never come. Pilots who didn’t exist for a war already lost.”
- “Japan started with 3,500 trained carrier pilots. By war’s end, 112 were alive. The carriers that revolutionized naval warfare became steel coffins for 25,000 sailors who believed offensive spirit could overcome mathematical reality.”
- “The Japanese carrier fleet didn’t lose the war. It committed industrial sepukuku, taking 91% of its men with it.”
Second: The power of ice cream. Japanese POWs saw what Japan was up against. Instead of being tortured to death as their commanders had led them to believe, their captors provided them with more food than Japanese officers ate.
- “He held a tray loaded with more food than his entire squadron had shared in three days. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes swimming in butter, green beans, white bread, apple pie, and a glass of cold milk.”
- “The American sailor behind the serving line, irritated by the delay, gestured impatiently at the ice cream station. You want chocolate or vanilla? The question made no sense. Ice cream didn’t exist on warships. Ice cream required refrigeration that combat vessels couldn’t spare. Yet here, on America’s most battle hardened carrier, enemy prisoners were being offered a choice of frozen desserts.”
- “That moment his understanding of the war, of America, of everything began to crumble. Across the Pacific War, approximately 35,000 Japanese military personnel would experience American naval captivity and witness abundance that shattered everything they believed about their enemy’s weakness.”
- “They discovered carriers where enlisted sailors ate better than Japanese admirals, where machinery produced fresh water from seawater in unlimited quantities.”
- “These encounters with American naval logistics would demolish the spiritual foundations of Japanese military ideology more thoroughly than any defeat in battle.”
- “While Japanese sailors subsisted on rice balls and pickled vegetables, American crews consumed 4,100 calories daily of varied fresh foods.
- “While Japanese carriers hand-pumped aviation fuel, American ships automated everything.”
- “Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, mastermind of Pearl Harbor, who later became a Christian minister in America, documented his 1945 rescue experience aboard the USS Missouri.” They gave him coffee with cream and sugar and apologized for being out of donuts “while Japanese forces were eating leather belts.”
- “The Imperial Japanese Navy’s own reports captured after the war showed that by 1944, enlisted sailors received approximately 1,400 calories daily.”
- “Vitamin deficiency was endemic. Beri beri, scurvy, and night blindness plagued crews.”
- “Japanese prisoners watched American damage control parties, exhausted from fighting fires and flooding, receive ice cream sundaes as battle rations. The cognitive dissonance was overwhelming. Their nation, fighting for its existence, couldn’t provide basic nutrition to forces. The enemy, supposedly decadent and weak, gave ice cream to sailors during combat.”
- “The laundry facilities stunned Japanese prisoners accustomed to washing clothes in seawater. American carriers had industrial washing machines, dryers, and pressing equipment. Enlisted sailors received clean uniforms twice weekly.”
- “The evaporators on USS Enterprise could produce 140,000 gallons of fresh water daily. More than the entire Japanese carrier force could produce combined.”
- “Japanese naval medicine focused on returning wounded to duty regardless of condition. American sick bays treated enemies with the same advanced care as their own sailors. Operating theaters on carriers had X-ray machines, blood banks, surgical equipment matching shore hospitals. Antibiotics, particularly penicillin seemed like magic to Japanese medical personnel who watched infected wounds heal in days instead of killing in weeks.”
- “Japanese ships limped back to homeland ports for any significant repair. American vessels fixed themselves while underway. Floating dry docks, repair ships, and carrier machine shops could manufacture replacement parts, rebuild engines, and fabricate entirely new equipment. USS Enterprises machine shop could produce any part smaller than an airplane engine.
- “The welding shop operated continuously.The electrical shop rewired systems while the ship fought.”
- “When kamikaze attacks intensified in 1945, Japanese pilots who survived crashes witnessed American damage control superiority firsthand. Ryuji Nagatsuka, rescued after his damaged Zero ditched near USS Randolph, watched the carrier’s crew repair kamikaze damage while conducting flight operations. They had foam that stopped fires instantly. Pumps that removed water faster than it entered. Metal plates that sealed holes while we watched. Teams worked with choreographed precision. No shouting, no confusion.They fixed in hours what would have sunk Japanese carriers.”
- But always they get back to the food: “Bakeries produced 15,000 loaves of bread daily. Butcher shops processed whole beef carcasses stored in freezers larger than Japanese submarines. Ice machines produced tons of ice daily for food preservation and drinks. The galley on USS Enterprise used more electricity than entire Japanese destroyers.”
- “Seaman First Class Hiroshi Nakamura, imprisoned aboard USS Saratoga, wrote in a hidden diary, ‘The Americans celebrated their Christmas while we attacked them. Every sailor received presents from organizations at home. Cigarettes, candy, books, razors. The mess hall was decorated with paper and lights. They sang songs and played music. They were happy. We were starving and dying for the emperor while our enemies celebrated with abundance. This was when I knew Japan had already lost.”
The takeaway: Logistics wins wars.