RetroWarTHINK006: Lying USMC NOT as Clever as they Brag--they Degrade into FOOTSTUPID from Small, Fast Boats--Ancient Amphibious Horse Cavalry Far More Mobile!
So its ZERO surprise the loud-mouthed, ignoramus USMC fangirls know not that hundreds of years before them, mankind has had AMPHIBIOUS landing ships to include those for horse Cavalry--Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs) before there were even self-propelled, tracked, armored tanks--invented of course by military genius Sir Winston Churchill to break the WW1 trench deadlock--horizontal siege engines. Before the Industrial Age in 1900, "horsepower" was supplied by--you guessed it--horses. Armored, mobile, war wagons drawn by horses were used as DRAGOONS in the 1400s by the clever Protestant military genius, Zizka:
https://1sttac.blogspot.com/2020/03/woodgavins-genius-hussite-armored.html
It's also no surprise in WW2--or was this just WW1, 2nd round?--Churchill again innovated by created LSTs to transport tanks across oceans but not stop at a friendly port--but direct deliver them onto enemy-held beaches?
What is surprising and possibly FATAL to America is the DISinformation Age (2000-present) we live in where objective reality doesn't result in lessons learned but lesson LIES to defy that the Emperor has no clothes--he's wearing a dress blues marching band uniform thus says the computer mouse & keyboard. While USMC Commandant has courageously concluded that packing thousands of marine men/women into TIN CAN amphibious ships is untenable in our Precision Directed Munition (PDM) Age first realized by General Geiger in 1946--his solution to Small Fast Boat (SFB) beach-deliver immobile FOOTSTUPID marines to coast watch for enemy ships is also untenable on land where on top of PDMs, there are devastating Terrain Firepower Saturation (TFS) effects that no amount of WW1-style Khe Sanh entrenching can withstand.
ex-Green Beret SFB Raid EPIC FAILS in Venezuela
https://jamesbondisreal.blogspot.com/2020/05/fail-epic-fail-sfbs-defeated-off-coast.html
CAVALRY and DRAGOONS--tracked-mobile, mounted armored forces must come ashore that are dispersed, travel unpredictably away from roads/trails and can advance in the face of enemy fires are not a nice-to-have but the only way to survive & win.
https://1sttac.blogspot.com/2020/05/futurewarthink-007-simon-says-do-it.html
Burrowing deeper and deeper into the ground becoming modern-day fortress troops--(-) negative vertical forts as British General Sir Francis Tucker envisioned in The Pattern of War in 1947 and our LTG James Gavin anticipated in Airborne Warfare that same year and our current age in 1958's War & Peace in the Space Age will not work any better than the Maginot Line forts did lacking mobile maneuver forces to prevent Eban Emael-like destruction.
combatreform.org/airbornewarfare.htm
combatreform.org/warandpeaceinthespaceage.htm
Consider the genius of the 4th Crusaders to hit hard & fast by ships quickly-delivering horse Cavalry which could have been upgraded to include the MAIN BODY also mobile like the Mongols' horse archers or Zizka's war wagons.
https://www.geni.com/projects/Fourth-Crusade-1202-1204/12170
Boniface and the other leaders sent envoys to Venice, Genoa, and other city-states to negotiate a contract for transport to Egypt, the object of their crusade; one of the envoys was the future historian Geoffrey of Villehardouin. Genoa was uninterested, but in March 1201 negotiations were opened with Venice, which agreed to transport 33,500 crusaders, a very ambitious number. This agreement required a full year of preparation on the part of the Venetians to build numerous ships and train the Sailors who would man them, all the while curtailing the city's commercial activities. The crusading army was expected to comprise 4,500 knights (as well as 4,500 horses), 9,000 squires, and 20,000 foot-Soldiers.
However, there were dissenters; led by Reynold of Montmirail, those who refused to take part in the scheme to attack Christiandom's greatest city sailed on to Syria. The remaining fleet of 60 war galleys, 100 horse transports, and 50 large transports (the entire fleet was manned by 10,000 Venetian oarsmen and marines) sailed in late April 1203. In addition, 300 siege engines were brought along on board the fleet. Hearing of their decision, the Pope hedged and issued an order against any more attacks on Christians unless they were actively hindering the Crusader cause, but failed to condemn the scheme outright.
To take the city by force, the crusaders first needed to cross the Bosphorus. About 200 ships, horse transports and galleys would undertake to deliver the crusading army across the narrow strait, where Alexios III had lined up the Byzantine army in battle formation along the shore, north of the suburb of Galata. The Crusaders' knights charged straight out of the horse transports, and the Byzantine army fled south.
The Crusaders followed south, and attacked the Tower of Galata, which held the northern end of the massive chain that blocked access to the Golden Horn. As they laid siege to the Tower, the Byzantines counterattacked with some initial success. However, when the Crusaders rallied and the Byzantines retreated to the Tower, the Crusaders were able to follow the soldiers through the Gate, and took the Tower. The Golden Horn now lay open to the Crusaders, and the Venetian fleet entered. The Crusaders sailed alongside Constantinople with 10 galleys to display the would-be Alexios IV, but from the walls of the city the Byzantines taunted the puzzled crusaders, who had been led to believe that the citizens would rise up to welcome young pretender Alexios as a liberator.
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OBSERVATIONS
4th Crusade Horse Transports: Ancient Landing Ships Tanks (LSTs)
Ramps
Stalls
Horses hung to isolate from ship pitching
Oared not sailing ships
Shallow draft intended to amphibious assault Egypt
https://books.google.com/books?id=0NpWFGvA5VQC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=4th+crusade+horse+transport&source=bl&ots=Zq9ocZcblO&sig=ACfU3U1i37IUhMZU_Yg3hKuwi3T_gH8EAg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjtsIrYp6bpAhUOS6wKHR3eDLUQ6AEwDHoECBIQAQ#v=onepage&q=4th%20crusade%20horse%20transport&f=false
The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople
By Donald E. Queller, Thomas F. Madden 1999
Page 70, Chapter 5
They were transported in individual box stalls, each horse suspended by leather straps so that its feet barely touched the deck. They were thus protected against
https://books.google.com/books?id=Lo0jCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=4th+crusade+horse+transport&source=bl&ots=VOu89731cW&sig=ACfU3U1PHTSwYSbGq2-g86a6RuiD1mAgiQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjtsIrYp6bpAhUOS6wKHR3eDLUQ6AEwDnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=4th%20crusade%20horse%20transport&f=false
Maritime Studies in the Wake of the Byzantine Shipwreck at Yassiada, Turkey
edited by Deborah N Carlson, Justin Leidwanger, Sarah M. Kampbell
Page 176
Amphibious horse cavalry assaults possible from 1169 by oared horse transport ships
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Horse_transports_in_the_Middle_Ages
The oared tarida was able to be loaded and unloaded directly on a beach, using doors as loading ramps.[2] In 1174 an Italo-Norman force attacked Alexandria with 1,500 horses transported on 36 tarides.[3] Detailed specifications for thirteenth century tarides exist, showing they could carry 20-30 horses. In Angevin tarides, horses were stalled in threes, supported by canvas slings. Genoese tarides in 1246 carried 150 water butts containing 39,750 litres in total.[4]
Sailing transports, known as usciere in Italian (French huissiers; Latin usserii), were also built. These had two decks and could carry up to 100 horses. The horses were loaded through openings in the hull, which were then sealed for the voyage. Venetian usciere built for Louis IX in 1268 were 25.76m long, had a beam of 6.1m, had two decks and two masts.[5]
Adapting a ship for horse transportation required the installation of stalls of wood or hurdles. Detailed records of the fitting of an English fleet of 1340 show the creation of 418 hurdles, 413 iron rings and staples, canvas mangers and the creation of four gangways for loading 30 ft long by 5 wide. Similar records from 1338 show 47 ships were equipped with 134 tuns to carry water for horses.[11] Whether English vessels used canvas slings to support the horses like contemporary Mediterranean practice is uncertain. Military historian Michael Prestwich speculates they did [12] and he is supported by naval historian Ian Friel, who believes that the references to canvas mangers referred to above should actually be translated as canvas slings.[13]
Lessons for Today?
Today's TIN CAN U.S. Navy is obsolete.
We need a new ARMORED Navy that can evade hits by speed/small size that can take some hits--like the 300-foot WW2 LST--but twice as fast. On top, a flush flight deck with 12 degree ski jump ramps and retracting superstructure at the stern. These Fast LSTs (FLSTs) can spit-out M113A4/5/6 Super Gavin light tanks beyond enemy Anti-Ship Missile (ASM) ranges by way of CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift helicopters escorted by F-35B jump jet fighter-bombers and folding-wing seaplane fighters like the SeaWolf Amphibian both armed with PDMs. The stern landing ramp can be used as the bow ramp to direct deliver to beaches if no seamines/obstacles are present or spit out our own SFB swarms with ASMs to out-swarm enemies with coastal home field advantage.
The FLST owned and operate jointly by the USN and U.S. ARMY Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore (JLOTS) units have vertical Launch Systems to fire ASMs, SAMs and ASW PDMs--they are WARSHIPS--not bureaucratic floating airfields ready-to-explode with combustibles packed with port-of-call hedonists who are COVID19 magnets.
They are Armored Amphibious Aircraft Battle Cruisers (AAABCs) the first of which we can build by upgrading all of our heavily-armored Iowa class battleships with stern ski jump flight decks.
combatreform.org/battleships.htm
https://1sttac.blogspot.com/2020/04/emergency-bbg-21-recall-iowa.html
If the narrow-minded Crusaders could figure out how to do OPERATIONAL MANEUVER, so can we today.
IF we have the will to find the way. Which means LEARNING from LOSING--sorry, the late, great NFL Coach Don Shula ("Nothing good comes from losing") ! Tell that to the Wright brothers who figured out the airplane from "losing" ie; trial & error.
Until we do, we have lots of LOSING in store for us.
Airborne!
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