Yap

My most splendid campaign was that of March 20; not a single shot was fired.
Napoleon Bonaparte

WW2

     De Gaulle, 1942

De Gaulle had a totally Franco-centric view of everything. This included a supreme disdain for inconvenient facts, especially anything which might undermine the glory of France. Only de Gaulle could have written a history of the French army and manage to make no mention of the Battle of Waterloo.  
Antony Beevor, D-Day.

Though he was a complete pain in the ass, De Gaulle was the man France needed.  And he knew it.

My Pix

Cherry blossoms in High Park, May 5, 2013. 

Pix

I'm not sure if he's a hero, an idiot, or both.

Chancellorsville

Confederate dead at the stonewall outside Fredricksburg, May 1863. This was the same stonewall so bitterly contested in December 1982 during the battle of Fredricksburg.

In the first week of May, 1863, Robert E. Lee disregarded some basic rules of warfare to inflict a stunning defeat on the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville.  While the win was triumphant, it led to several bad things for Lee.  First was the loss of Stonewall Jackson, who died 150 years ago today on May 10, 1863.  Second was the confirmation to Lee that the Army of the Potomac was so inept that he could defeat them on any field at any time.  This attitude led to Pickett's charge at Gettysburg in July. 

Israel and Syria

Today the Israeli Air Force carried out a series of air strikes against Syrian military targets around Damascus.  The proximate reason was the impending transfer of new, better missiles from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.  They have done this twice before, on Friday they hit some targets around Damascus, and in January they hit a convoy near the Lebanese border carrying missiles to Hezbollah.  However, the target list (including a chemical weapons research facility) suggest the Israelis are trying to send a more complex message than simply no new weapons for Hezbollah.

Remember that Israel has only ever lost one war, and that was to Hezbollah in 2006.  Hezbollah remains the only nearby threat capable of inflicting politically significant damage on Israeli civilians. Right now, the worst case scenario for Israeli security is Hezbollah getting Syrian chemical weapons and the missile systems to deliver them.

The Israelis would probably like to stay out of the Syrian conflict entirely.  There is no military action they can take to ensure a palatable outcome. Obviously, there are no political or diplomatic tools they can use either.  That leaves Israel in a bind.  They can handle Assad, but he is an enabler of the Iran - Hezbollah alliance.  What would follow Assad is unknowable at this time.  Could be worse, could be better, will certainly be Islamist.  But won't be in Iran's pocket and probably won't facilitate Hezbollah. 

All in, it looks like a new regime would suit the Israelis.  But of course they cannot take sides.  Israeli support of the rebels would be the kiss of death and the rebels would reject Israeli help.  On the other hand, strategic developments have taken an unusual turn.  As far as Syria is concerned, Israeli and Saudi interests are starting to converge.  Both are lined up against Iranian influence in Syria and Lebanon.  Both would be better off with a Sunni ruled Syria.   Both would be happy with a severely crippled Hezbollah.  Neither is a military threat to the other.  Both are American allies.  I'm not expecting a nice meeting between King Abdullah and Netanyahu in East Jerusalem with lots of hugs and kisses.  But I wouldn't be surprised to find out they are cooperating under the table.

Finally, the chemical weapons are a wild card.  Its hard to divine the truth, but it looks like Assad has been using them in a limited fashion.  Trying to gain a tactical advantage without provoking international response.   This is one area where Israel gets a free pass.  They can bomb the shit out of Assad's chemical weapons capabilities and nobody will blame them. 

Its also worth noting that the Israeli raid shows yet again that the Syrian Air Force is utterly incapable of defending Syrian airspace. 

Yap

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. 
Voltaire

Russia

Yap

Madness is . . . an affliction which in war carries with it the advantage of SURPRISE.
Winston Churchill on the Ardennes Counter-Offensive, December 1944

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The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.  
Dostoyevsky

Arctic Sea Ice Coverage

    
  Made by: Andy Lee Robinson

A really nice data visualization of Arctic Sea Ice from 1979 - 2013.  Bonus that they used a circular layout that looks like the North Pole.  Also, the data is compelling.  That's a lot of ice gone in a very short period of time. 

Yap

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
Douglas Adams

Sunstone

A very determined group of researchers has found an example of the previously legendary Viking sunstone used for navigating while the sun was obscured by clouds or below the horizon.  The best and most concise article I've seen is this one at The Economist.  If there were a Nobel Prize for Archeology, this team would win it.

Stalingrad Map Project

Here is another map of the Battle of Stalingrad.  It shows dispositions on a divisional basis on November 18, 1942, the day before Operation Uranus.

I can't find a definitive document showing the Orders of Battle or unit locations.  This map is interpretive, synthesizing  information from the sources below. A spreadsheet with my complete Order of Battle is here.  SVG version of the file is available here.

Sources:

Books and Articles

Author	Title	Notes
Alexei V. Isaev	Stalingrad The Volga no land for us	Soviet forces and tanks
Antony Beevor	Stalingrad, The Fateful Siege	Most widely cited Order   of Battle
Wikipedia	Red Army order of battle at the Battle of Stalingrad	Useful
Wikipedia	Axis order of battle at the Battle of Stalingrad	Not particularly useful
Staldata	Staldata.com	Axis and Soviet Orders of Battle & force strength
Wolf Höpper	Against the Flood - Operation Uranus (I)	German tank numbers
Joel S. A. Hayward	Stopped At Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe And Hitler's Defeat In The East 1942-1943	Bases used for Airlift
Akhil Kadidal	Stalingrad Pocket	Really good maps and annotated photographs

Maps

Title	Source	Notes
OKH Situation Map Nov 18 42	WW2 Photos Maps	Axis forces locations   Fantastic Site! Jpg is here.
OKH Situation Map Nov 18 42 2	WW2 Photos Maps	Axis forces locations   Fantastic Site! Jpg is here.
S4231 Summary of combat operations in Stalingrad	Armchair General/RIIAWW2	Red Army locations  Excellent map
S4239 Operations in Stalingrad area	Armchair General/RIIAWW2	Red Army locations
S4251 Combat operations of the South-Western, Don and Stalingrad Fronts	Armchair General/RIIAWW2	Red Army locations

Notes:

• There are more units listed in the Order of Battle than appear on the map.  I didn't place any unit on the map unless I could find it in one of the source maps.
• In conflicts between locations on the OKH map and the Soviet maps, I used the Soviet map.   The Germans had not picked up the Uranus build-up, so the Soviets had much better intelligence at this time.
• I could find no information on the strength of the 8th Italian Army, or Soviet 6th and 3rd Guards Armies.
• Unit lines are thicker or thinner based on strength and density.  These are characterizations, not precise measurements. 
• Unit strengths are shown in the layers in the SVG version of the map.  These are based on the Order of Battle spreadsheet linked above.  The spreadsheet includes notes on the units shown on the map.
• The base map is derived from the OKH maps.  I do not know the map projection.
• Please feel free to comment on any inaccuracies!  You can help to make the map better.  I'm particularly interested in proper place-names.
• The license is Creative Commons, share alike, attribution, non-commercial.  You can do anything you like with the image except use it to make money, claim property rights over your derivative images, or not provide attribution.  I encourage anyone to use or change the map.  I do not consider classroom use commercial.  Like all my images, anyone who would like to use the image for commercial purposes should contact me and I can give you a custom license at a reasonable rate.

YAP

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.  
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

WW2

 
Stalin and Ribbentrop shake hands after the signing of the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact with the scary looking Shaposhnikov laughing it up in the background, Moscow, August 23, 1939.

Stalin died 60 years ago today.  He had a stroke in the night, and lay in a pool of urine on the cold floor of his dacha for hours until he was dead.  Beria made sure nobody went in to help him until it was too late.  Not that I'm expressing sympathy.  The world became a better place when he died.  My thoughts about Stalin in a previous article.

This is a revealing photograph, a rare instance of Stalin letting his guard down.  It shows a greedy wolf contemplating a huge meal.   In this case, the meal was Stalin's favorite: Poland.  Significantly, the photo exists because it was taken by a German photographer brought along to the signing by Ribbentrop.  A Soviet photographer would have destroyed the negative rather than risk showing the great leader in an unflattering light.

There is a continuing debate in Russia about what to think of Stalin.  Some praise him for his wartime leadership.  Others condemn him because of his ruthless terror.  Both are right, though I think his crimes far outweigh his achievements. He was, however, the essential man in World War II.  Had he lost his nerve in the summer and fall of 1941, the Germans would have won the war.

Edits for clarity. 

Update:
Stalin did actually lose his nerve in July.  As the enormity of his errors became clear to him, he left the Kremlin and hid out at his dacha for two weeks.  When a delegation came to ask him to return, he thought they had come to arrest him.  But he did go back to work, and by the end of July or early August, his nerve returned.  It never wavered again.

Also, looking at the photo, it occurs to me that Stalin is looking at Poland, and Ribbentrop is thinking, "You took the bait.  We will destroy you."

YAP

There are three teams with swear words in their name: Arsenal, Scunthorpe and Manchester Fucking United #notbitterhonest
Stephen Fry on Twitter today.

YAP

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.  
Friedrich Nietzsche

The Novel Coronavirus

    Peter Kohama/MCT/Landov, via NPR

There is a novel SARS-like Coronavirus stalking the Middle East.  There have been 10 identified cases since Summer 2012, five of them fatal.  So-far, there have been 5 cases in Saudi Arabia, 2 in Jordan, 2 in the UK (one of them Qatari) and 1 in Germany, also someone from Qatar.  It seems to spread from person to person, but with difficulty.  Scientists think the virus comes from bats.  There is some concern that a mutation might occur that makes the virus much more communicable.  One to keep an eye on.  You know, if you don't have something more immediate to worry about and you are tired of worrying about global warming and asteroids.

One odd thing is that the news outlet covering the outbreak most often is... The Toronto Star.  Not normally known for hard hitting science reporting.  But they have featured every new development on their (web) front page.  Way to go Star!

My Pix

    Icy twigs in Humber Bay Park East, Toronto.

Squid Update!

    That's a fucking big squid.

Yap

I loved when Bush came out and said, "We are losing the war against drugs." You know what that implies? There's a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it. 
Bill Hicks

My Pix

    Ice and snow at Humber Bay Park East, Toronto

Yap

War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts. 
Napoleon Bonaparte

Staals Staap Pleeze

Apparently a real screenshot from last night's Leaf's Hurricanes game.

WW2

    Photo by Georgi Velma T-34, Stalingrad February 1943.  That's the Univermag on the left.

The battle of Stalingrad ended 70 years ago today.  70ish years before that was the Paris Commune.  70ish years before that, Nelson was famously disobedient at Copenhagen.

Explain That Science

Yap

No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. 
Niels Bohr

Fun Facts To Know and Share

    Wrigley Field, Labour Day, 1988

The last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series (1908), the Ottoman Empire was still in existence. via Trivials

If someone had offered a bet that fall that a black man would be elected President before the Cubs won again, would you have taken it?

Stalingrad Map

      click image for big

Here is a data visualization showing Soviet and Axis deployments on November 18, 1942.  It illustrates the German Sixth Army's focus on the the city of Stalingrad, and the Soviet build-up on the more weakly held flanks south and west of the city.  The next day, the Soviets attacked with complete surprise.  From that day, it was downhill almost all the way to Berlin.  Thus November 18, 1942 was the high water mark for the Third Reich.

UGH!  The way the image is saved here makes it unreadable.  For a better version, I've uploaded it to Flickr.  Click on the image to go there.

YAP

There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell 'em. 
Yogi Berra

Yap

The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for love. 
Margaret Atwood

Crayons For Grownups

Heat Wave

Its a hot summer in Australia.  So hot that government meteorologists have had to add two new colours to the heat maps.  Previously, the scale stopped at 50 degrees.  Now it goes to 54 degrees.  The world is getting hotter.

Article is here.

Yap

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? 
J. B. Priestley

Yap

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. 
Niels Bohr