And so it begins. In the last 24 hours we have gotten our first tranche of Ukrainians fleeing the destruction over there. I lucked out. My family had managed to get out with their medical records, no significant trauma (other than having their home taken) and a friend here who spoke English. One of my colleagues had a family who, when asked about medical records, replied “They blew up the clinic where they were, then they blew up our home. We have nothing.” Another family only got out only after the 11 yo daughter was gang-raped. This at a time when the availability of mental health resources is extremely limited, and these kids (and their parents) need it more than most. I frown on anything that smacks of dehumanizing other people, but goddam how can human beings do this to other human beings? Especially to children? Not academic, not theoretical but infuriating.
Not sure I would say “smoothly”, but we have had over 15 years or so of the term “military contractor” being used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places. Just the new nomenclature.
I remember how both terms were in use during the Iraq war and that some people were shocked when they learned that they were used to refer to the same thing.
Mercenaries are evil, money-grabbing bastards who fight for them, military contractors are responsible, hard-working gentlefolk who protect us. /s
These, in the days when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and the earth’s foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
–A.E. Housman, Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
Housman, though, was talking of the professional soldiers of the British Army in 1914, as opposed to German conscripts.
The British rhetorics are getting on my nerves. Can Bojo the Wonderhound and his Miss Truss just STFU, please?
Mercenaries are loyal to a profit motive, and will change their tactics, their willingness to abide by the laws of war or even sides if they can make more money.
And some PMCs will swear up and down that this time things will be different.
This short book from National Defense University Press may help.
There is no expert consensus on who exactly is a “mercenary.” Those in the industry, their clients, and some outside experts spurn the “M” word owing to the associated stigma, and give these private-sector fighters new labels: private military contractors, private security companies, private military companies, private security/military companies, private military firms, military service providers, operational contractors, and contingency contractors. Since the emergence of this new warrior class in the 1990s, volumes of academic ink have been spilt on differentiating them from mercenaries.
However, such labels are little more than euphemism. Expert definitions fail to endure because they defy the obvious: If you have the skillsets to be a “private military contractor,” then you can work as a “mercenary,” too. There is no shining line between these categories, and it all depends on the individual warrior’s will and market circumstances. Academic typologies overcomplicate an already complex problem, helping no one. Accordingly, this analysis will use these myriad labels interchangeably with “mercenary.”
In simplest terms, a mercenary is an armed civilian paid to do military operations in a foreign conflict zone. For example, civilians conducting direct actions or training troops in foreign conflict zones are mercenaries because they are per- forming uniquely military functions. Federal Express, a courier company, delivering a parcel to Kabul during the Afghanistan War is not a mercenary firm because logistical supply is not an exclusively military task. Only privatized military tasks earn the label “mercenary.”
Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today
so, it’s only a matter of time before Polish aircraft engage Russian counterparts.
Do you think that Russian fighters are going to enter Polish or Slovakian airspace?
all the flag emojis confused me, sorry.
I asked a US Army tank guy about this one. He said yes, it’s known. Yes, it’s a weird design, from our perspective. But it has advantages that the Russians like. It’s not a “flaw,” it’s a choice of sacrificing one thing [quick to build new ones, easily available ammo, quick reloading, a few other things] for some others [surivability]. The Russians have known about this, too, long before Iraq. They choose to continue it.
The flaw might be fixed in the T-14, which has been acquired in limited quantities as a parade vehicle.
Apparently Russian tanks use auto loaders, and US M1 tanks do not. They also cannot shoot on the move; the Abrams can. So there are also other massive disadvantages that could be corrected.
While the Iraqi Army had older Soviet tanks, they were completely outclassed by the Abrams. IIRC not a single Abrams was lost to enemy fire, while they destroyed hundreds of Iraqi tanks.
Though I’d assume SOME of the newer Russian tanks could score kills, I think the Abrams is still likely a better tank. (And the US uses them correctly with infantry support to keep guys with RPGs away from them.
This seems to be a poorly sourced and badly written article.
Yes the turret can “pop off” but the force of the explosion would kill the crew anyway. Why someone would imagine the crew surviving is beyond me. Tank rounds do not act like big bullets. A sabot round enters the turret at supersonic speeds and the overpressure wave will wipe out any crew. Often there isnt even a visible explosion.
An M1A1/ M1A2 has 46 rounds, 40 in the hull behind the blast doors, and six in the hull. If a round enters the magazine there are doors on the top of the turret which allow the explosion to blast out there, keeping the crew safe.
Yeah, it’s not just the technological edge, though. It’s the survivability. The LTC I spoke to said that he has had four Abrams blown out from under him in Iraq 2. He said they all were hardly recognizable as tanks (just “twisted hunks of metal”). But everyone walked away. Some with long-term damage, but all alive. Russians tanks are not designed with survivability as a priority.
And, as you probably know, a depleted uranium round, a super-sabot, won’t explode at all. The overpressure “liquifies” the humans inside.
We’re really awful about how good we are at slaughtering each other.
Explosively formed penetrators aren’t easily defended against!
