Robert Beckhusen
War Is Boring
Austin, TX, United States
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Past articles by Robert:
China Is Muscling India Out of the Maldives
Two helicopters sit between Asia’s two great powers. India is fast approaching a deadline to withdraw HAL Dhruv utility helicopters from the Maldives, which appears to be the result of mounting pressure from China. While the helicopters may seem insignificant, a withdrawal would be another sign of India’s declining influence in... → Read More
Israel Has a Killer New Torpedo
Submarines and torpedoes are among the most closely-guarded and sensitive topics among navies. True to type, a recent announcement by the Israeli navy about the adoption of a new torpedo came with few details. But it appears to be an interesting torpedo — more advanced, with state-of-the-art technology. The Kaved... → Read More
The Russian Military Is Neglecting Its Eastern Flank
Ten years ago, the Russian military embarked on a series of major reforms intended to restructure, modernize and equip its forces for the 21st century. In more recent years, Russia has put those reforms to the test in two conflicts, in both cases successfully. The Russian military of today is... → Read More
Harvey Gann Ran Through a Gauntlet in Germany
On Jan. 30, 1944, a German Me-109 shot down turret gunner Harvey Gann’s B-24 Liberator over northern Italy. Gann was the sole survivor. He spent much of the rest of the war in a series of prisoner-of-war camps, surviving to recount his experiences in the memoir Escape I Must! My... → Read More
The Double-Barrel Battle Rifle Has Been Done Before
The Israeli company Silver Shadow recently attracted attention for its double-barreled AR-type rifle, the Gilboa DBR Snake. For the most part, it’s an AR, uses AR parts and fires the 5.56-millimeter AR round. Except that it has two separate barrels, two magazines and two ejection ports — with two triggers... → Read More
The BPsVI Is Keeping This Cold War Troop Taxi Relevant
The disproportionate destruction that even a low-yield nuclear detonation could inflict on advancing armies made it suicidal for the Soviets to mass ground forces in huge numbers. Instead, the Soviets would have to disperse their armies, but such a tactic would dilute the firepower they could bring to bear. The... → Read More
We Got a Closer Look at the Flying V-280 Valor
On June 18, 2018, Bell’s V-280 Valor prototype took off for its first public demonstration, six months after its first flight. It’s another, early glimpse at the tiltrotor aircraft that could one day replace a significant portion of the U.S. military’s UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, among other aircraft. The Valor,... → Read More
Ukraine’s T-84 Tanks Have Problems
Since 2016, a slate of European militaries and the United States have gathered their tanks at Germany’s Grafenwoehr Training Area to put their armored beasts to the test in a variety of tactical exercises. This is the Strong Europe Tank Challenge, and a NATO-oriented — although not exclusive — competitor... → Read More
Georgy Zhukov’s Close Call With Stalin’s Killers
Beginning in 1936, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin set about deliberately murdering 700,000 people in the Great Purge, an act of mass killing that “constituted a form of rule” unto itself, as Stalin biographer Stephen Kotkin explained. The armed forces were not spared. The purges swept through the officer corps, including... → Read More
This Aircraft Carrier Did Not Exist
This story originally appeared on Sept. 22, 2015. One of the strange little stories of World War II involves the aircraft carrier USS Robin, which didn’t really exist. There was a carrier that sailors called the Robin. She and her sailors were underneath U.S. Navy command, took part in American battles... → Read More
Coming Soon — Containerized Missiles on Russian Warships
Russia’s military spending cannot match the Kremlin’s ambitions. Western sanctions and low gas prices forced a 20-percent cut to the Russian military budget in 2017, bedeviling a host of military projects. However, Russia is looking at cheap and easy ways to equip its forces — particularly the navy — with... → Read More
Want to Increase Your Property Values? Try a Nuclear War
This story originally appeared on June 22, 2014. Ever wonder what nuclear Armageddon would do to real-estate prices? How hard would it be to buy a tank of gas if Houston, Texas were suddenly struck by an atom bomb? Which fallout shelter is the most cost-effective? All these questions and... → Read More
Separatists Named Their Rocket ‘Cheburashka’ to Troll Ukraine
Donetsk separatists are showing off a new rocket launcher. On May 22, 2018, the news outlet Donetsk 24 affiliated with the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic revealed the 217-millimeter Cheburashka multiple-rocket launcher in action near the town of Avdiivka. In the video, the launcher fires rockets which land — slowly —... → Read More
Sherman Tanks Battled Banzai Charges at Tarawa
This article was originally sponsored by Open Road Media on July 20, 2016. “Once inside, a man quickly found that you could not be claustrophobic and serve in a tank,” Oscar Gilbert and Romain Cansiere write in Tanks in Hell: A Marine Corps Tank Company on Tarawa. “In fact many infantrymen... → Read More
Chinese Robo-Boats Swarm the South China Sea
A video from late May 2018 shows a swarm of 56 small, unmanned boats operating in the South China Sea. While a rudimentary demonstration, it mirrors similar exercises performed by U.S. Navy boats practicing — semi-autonomously — to defend harbors and intercept incoming vessels. The Chinese robo-boats do not appear... → Read More
Turkish Helicopter Gunships Are Heading to Pakistan
Pakistan has been hunting for new attack helicopters to replace its aging American-made AH-1 Cobras. Now Turkey’s ruling party has confirmed that Islamabad has picked the T129 ATAK in what is the largest Turkish-Pakistani arms deal in history for 30 of the sleek, two-seat gunships. It’s also a loss —... → Read More
A Mass Murder at Sea Shocks the Guyanese Coast Guard
Caribbean piracy happens on a small scale, but a shocking mass murder of Guyanese fishermen off the Surinamese coast has left the small Guyanese military scrambling. On April 27, 2018, pirates attacked four Guyanese fishing boats and killed at least 15 people, with survivors reporting that pirates tied fishermen to... → Read More
How Russia’s Military Moves Around the World
When it comes to being air-mobile, the Russian military is second only to the U.S. military. According to the 2018 Military Balance Report, Russia fields 177 heavy to medium transport aircraft. This stands in contrast to America’s 658, China’s 84, France’s 46 and the United Kingdom’s 44. Russia’s transport fleet... → Read More
One of the World’s Oldest Military Ships Is Sailing Down a River in Brazil
There is something beautiful about old ships and the sheer mechanical ingenuity to keep them working. In the U.S. Navy, the average ship lifespan is currently 18.2 years, with 36 years being the generally accepted maximum service life, although some ships will sail longer. Globally, the average commercial ship is... → Read More
Slovakia’s Unusual Artillery Is Among the Most Advanced in the World
When the DANA began rolling off Czechoslovakian assembly lines in the late 1970s, there wasn’t much else like it. The enormous, 152-millimeter self-propelled howitzer had eight road wheels instead of tracks. Most mobile artillery pieces at that time were tracked, like tanks, and the DANA was the first gun its... → Read More