15 March 2025

An Air Defense Robot

Featuring a short-range air defense (SHORAD) payload integrated for the first time on a robotic vehicle, this variant of the Tracked Robot 10-ton (TRX) technology demonstrator is the latest innovation within Land Systems’ counter-Uncrewed Aerial Systems (c-UAS) family of vehicles. The TRX SHORAD is designed to bring a new dimension of combat power in SHORAD battalions and provides autonomy within a tiered, layered air defense. The modular TRX supports Army objectives for a Robotic Combat Vehicle with a flatbed design that integrates any payload and has a class-leading payload-to-chassis ratio of 1:1.

This unmanned ground system, from General Dynamics Land Systems, features a 30mm cannon and Stinger missiles to provide short ranged air defense against drones, helicopters, and low altitude aircraft, without putting soldiers in harm's way. 

14 March 2025

Intratheater Airlift

The Airbus A400M military transport is superior in basically every way to the C-130, including having twice the cargo capacity (which, for example, allows it to carry lighter armored vehicles) and having a shorter takeoff distance, while only costing modestly more per plane. 

The Economics Of Having Kids

A nice piece looks at the economic impact of having kids on a woman's career earnings and how that impacts decisions to have kids. I'll review it in more depth if time permits.

10 March 2025

Pro-Gun Sentiment Is Religious Not Just Rational

An important subset of gun owners view gun ownership as a magical or religious thing, rather than just a rational means of securing certain ends like personal security.
Gun culture is properly measured by a population's emotional and symbolic attachment to guns and not by rates of gun ownership. Using data from the Baylor Religion Survey (wave 6), we find that nearly all gun owners feel that guns provide them with a physical sense of security (Gun Security), but a distinct and crucial sub-set of owners express an additional and strong attachment to their weapons (Gun Sanctity). Gun Sanctity measures the extent to which owners think their guns make them more patriotic, respected, in control, and valued by their family and community. We propose that Gun Sanctity is a form of quasi-religious or magical thinking in which an object is imbued with unseen powers. 
To assess this proposal, we look at the extent to which gun ownership, Gun Security, and Gun Sanctity are related to traditional religion and various forms of magical thinking, namely, (a) conspiratorialism, (b) the belief that prayer can fix financial and health problems, and (c) support for Christian Statism, a form of American theocracy. We find that Gun Sanctity is highly predictive of different forms of magical thinking but is often unrelated to more traditional religious practices and beliefs.
Paul Froese, Ruiqian Li, and F. Carson Mencken, "The sacred gun: the religious and magical elements of America's gun culture", Politics and Religion, First View (February 27, 2025). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048324000312

09 March 2025

Personal Reflections

* This year I'm going to be a sag wagon husband, taking my wife to her Horsetooth Half-Marathon in Fort Collins in April (one of the most difficult half-marathons there is, due to extreme elevation changes in the course) and to the New York City Marathon in November. As I write this post, my wife is doing an 18.5 mile training run for the 13.1 mile Horsetooth race.

* This year, our house which we bought twenty-five years ago turns 100 years old. We've been generally good stewards of it. Its fair market value is more than triple what it was when bought it. But our twenty-five year old swamp cooler is due to be replaced, so we'll do that this spring. I'll be getting bids next week. We're suffering from renovation and repair fatigue, however, after several major projects, so we may pause that, apart from landscaping (to eventually kill the lawn and replace a badly weather damaged back patio gazebo), for a while.

* We could find ways to pay off our small mortgage faster than it is scheduled to be paid off with increased principal payments, if we felt an urgent need to do so. But why waste an ability to borrow money at a 3.625% fixed rate with tax deductible interest that helps our credit rating, while inflation eats away at the inflation adjusted value of the loan principal every year? The money that would be used to pay off the loan can be invested instead for better returns, even in very safe bond investments (or even if it were in high return FDIC guaranteed CDs).

* We've received our compost bin as part of a new City of Denver program that has finally come into being. It takes a little getting used to in daily life to split waste into three categories instead of two and we've thrown out some waste that should be composted. But, we'll get the hang of it. The City also didn't pick it up the first time we put it out on a collection day for some reason.

* In contrast, we've pretty much gotten used to the new policy of having to bring reusable bags to the grocery store or pay a 10 cents per disposable bag tax on that formerly free service.

* One of my two cars has been unofficially the kids car for a long time, but this year, we will officially be a one car household as title to our kid's car is passed down to the next generation. 

* My Nissan Juke will hit 60,000 miles right around the tenth anniversary of purchasing it this year and is in pretty much perfect condition, except for some cosmetic hail damage that we don't plan on fixing. 

* The only thing the Juke lacks that I would actively like to have is a blind spot detector. I wonder how hard it is to add one on an aftermarket basis. 

* If I drove in the mountains more, I'd get snow tires, as the Juke is otherwise a perfect snow car. But I don't drive in the mountains all that much, and Denver doesn't get enough snow to justify snow tires, in lieu of all weather tires with a decent tread.

* My plan is to replace my Juke with an EV (not a Tesla) sometime after the next generation of far superior solid state batteries enter the market, the Trump tariffs have been repealed, and the national charging network is better, perhaps five to ten years from now. This will require emptying the garage (which currently has so much stuff stored there that there is no room for a car), moving the garage stuff to a new backyard shed, and installing an EV vehicle charger (which Denver's building codes now require in new garages, I've heard). The new EV could very well end up being my last car. 

* Incidentally, even though Nissan sells decent enough EVs, it's looking like there's a good chance that Nissan won't exist anymore by the time my next car purchase rolls around. The company is in dire straights, and a contemplated merger with Honda has apparently fallen through.

* Also vaguely car related, I have dropped SiriusXM, which my car is equipped to receive. I almost always listen to Spotify using Bluetooth to my cell phone instead when I'm out and about, and don't drive enough in places with no cell phone access to justify keeping it. 

* My generation has seen vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, iPods, videocassettes, large format video disks, DVDs, 5.25" floppy disks, 3.5" floppy disks, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, hard drives with actual disks in them, and analog broadcast television all come and go (we were too young to really experience 8-track tapes). We have seen digital broadcast television, digital radio, dead tree format newspapers and magazines, large movie theaters, satellite TV (first with large dishes and then with smaller ones), short wave radio, land line phones, pay phones, pagers, slow speed intercity passenger rail, paper checks, personal letters, "dumb" Blackberries and flip phones, and home yogurt makers, lose their shine too. Denmark's Post Office is discontinuing letter delivery at the end of this year and taking away all of its post boxes. Analog FM and AM radio are also just dying a slow and gradual death (especially AM radio). Wrist watches used to be a daily necessity and are now jewelry and a fitness tracking device. Vinyl records are actually coming back, but it's a niche thing that probably won't get big. We saw supersonic commercial flight come and go, but it looks like it will return soon, beyond a niche. So, seeing satellite radio start to lose its relevance too isn't all that shocking.

The story of AM radio over the last 50 years has been a transition from being the dominant form of audio entertainment for all age groups to being almost non-existent to the youngest demographic groups. Among persons aged 12–24, AM accounts for only 4% of listening, while FM accounts for 96%. Among persons aged 25–34, AM accounts for only 9% of listening, while FM accounts for 91%. The median age of listeners to the AM band is 57 years old, a full generation older than the median age of FM listeners.

From a 2009 Federal Communication Commission report (via Wikipedia). A person who was a median aged AM radio listener in 2009 is now 73 years old. Baby Boomers are between the ages of 61 and 79 in the year 2025. As of 2024, the average AM and FM radio listener combined is 57 years old, and 62% of all AM and FM radio listeners combined are 55 years old or older. AM/FM radio formats that were historically mostly AM like talk radio and religious programming, have the oldest listeners (although Spanish language radio formats which were also historically AM dominated have younger than average listeners, and country music formats are only a little older than that).

* I've also decide not to renew my digital Washington Post subscription this month, even though I've read it regularly since college, because the editorial interference of Jeff Bezos in the paper is undermining the quality of the product. I'll probably remove it from the sidebar of this blog as well.

* Today is the start of daylight savings time. I would eliminate it and have standard time all year round if I could. There is nothing wrong with changing the time that businesses and governments open and close during the course of the year if particular businesses and governments want to change that on a seasonal basis.

* My new office, across the street from Shotgun Willies, is so far a success. At a recent deposition I hosted there, that went smoothy from a logistics perspective, opposing counsel and her paralegal were plotting and scheming about how to get a coffee maker a nice as mine for themselves.

* Evidencing my progressing older age, I got a colonoscopy last month. It went fine and I don't have cancer, but it isn't something that I'm looking forward to the next time it is scheduled, a few years from now. The pre-procedure purging is harrowing.

* In very positive news, they are on the brink of introducing a new and affordable screening test for pancreatic cancer, which was the main cause of death of my father, his brother, and two of my not related by blood aunts. If there is a genetic risk factor, my brother and I probably have it, and we will probably live to benefit from this screening test. In even more positive news, they are close to being able to provide a pancreatic cancer "vaccine" that would prevent some subtypes of pancreatic cancer, although this isn't quite as imminent.

* It is a relief that both of our children have finished college, secured good jobs in the tech sector, established themselves in their own apartments, and found good relationships with significant others. 

* It would be nice if they could buy homes for themselves, but the housing market is the toughest for buyers that it has been in at least thirty-years right now, due to a surge in mortgage interest rates, while home prices mostly remain sticky at prices established when mortgage interest rates (and hence home affordability) were half what they are now.

* We've very much enjoyed being able to see our children's significant others this year. We'd welcome their upgrades to official son-in-law and daughter-in-law status, but that's up to the kids to decide. We are proud of the progress that our daughter's boyfriend has made toward becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst®, and are excited about our son's girlfriend's first half-marathon in the District of Columbia next weekend that she is just finishing her training to prepare to run.

* My official running competitions have been limited to 1 mile fun runs and 0.5 km races with donuts at the half-way mark. 

* I'm more ambivalent about my daughter's new dog, Oakley, because, as most people who know me are aware, I'm not a dog person. But, I'm learning to tolerate him.

* Both my nephew and the daughter of a dear friend of the family are applying to colleges this year. They have gotten out all of their applications, and have received acceptances and rejections from some schools so far. Even if none of them remaining responses are acceptances, they each have decent options. Over the next month or so, they'll each hear from some remaining schools that haven't given them an answer so far and they'll make their big decisions. For different reasons, neither will be going to schools in red states.

* Next year will be senior year for both of my nieces, so we'll get to watch the process of them deciding what to do after high school again next year as well, from front row seats. My brother and his wife will probably move to a different home in the Boston metro area once they become empty nesters.

* On July 3, 2025, less than four months from now, this blog will be 20 years old.

07 March 2025

Non-Verbal Vocabularies

The average person understands the meaning of sounds beyond words that are part of a formal language.

Some of the sounds as modern 21st century person in the U.S. knows are the sounds that a crosswalk makes, the sound that the microwave makes when it's done, the sound that their alarm clock (these days, often on a phone) makes, the sounds that their phone makes when its ringing and when text messages arrive (and the sounds that the phones of other people they spend time around make), the sound that the dryer makes when its done, the sound of the oven time and the oven fan, the sound that the heat makes in the house when it turns on, the sound of the car running, emergency siren sounds for fire and police, the sound of a bicycle chime, the sound of a doorbell in homes that have one, the sound of your computer turning on, the sound that the fire alarm makes when it activates and when its battery is low, and so on.

People in different eras had different non-verbal vocabularies. They could diagnose more about a car from the sounds it made. They knew the sounds of a clock tower and the meaning of various bugle calls. Before that people knew the sounds of a gas light and of steam powered vehicles and knew far more horse related sounds. Before that extensive vocabularies of bird calls and forest sounds were more common.

It isn't clear to me that there are scholars who systemically catalog this, or references that do. My intuition is that the total size of a typical person's non-verbal vocabulary has been pretty constant over time, but that the content of that vocabulary has changed considerably and repeatedly over the last several centuries.

06 March 2025

Rocket Cargo

Rocket Cargo is a United States Space Force program run through the Air Force Research Laboratory for suborbital spaceflight rocket-delivered cargo involving point-to-point space travel. The program is to develop the capability to rapidly send cargo anywhere in the world on a rocket. It would involve reusable rockets that can perform propulsive landings on a variety of landing sites, to deliver a C-17's worth of cargo [anywhere in the world] in an hour. The program was discussed in 2020 and announced in 2021, with a budget allocation request for Fiscal Year 2022.
From Wikipedia.

A C-17 worth of cargo is about 100 short tons, and delivering that much cargo at hypersonic speeds is indeed impressive if you can make it work consistently.

This program for which SpaceX (an Elon Musk company) is the contractor is apparently still alive and kicking, with a recent federal register notice setting aside Johnston Atoll, an island about 860 miles southwest of Honolulu that is part of U.S. territory as a test landing site. Ten landings per year over four years at planned at two different landing pads on the atoll.

Nailing the landing is challenging, however, and rocket science, in general, tends to involve lots of fiery failures, as Space X has just demonstrated today:
Nearly two months after an explosion sent flaming debris raining down on the Turks and Caicos, SpaceX launched another mammoth Starship rocket but lost contact minutes into the test flight.

It is roughly a $100 million R&D program at this point. 

A Built From Scratch To Be Fully Autonomous U.S. Navy Drone Ship

While it is still experimental, a prototype 180 foot long, 240 ton, U.S. Navy drone ship, built from the bottom up to be a drone rather than retrofitted from a manned vessel, would operate without human involvement for up to a year, could refuel autonomously, and would carry 4 naval missiles, while a larger version would carry 16 of them. The prototype has now been launched for sea trials. 

It would be interesting to know just how much larger an equivalent manned vessel would be.

Serco launched the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s No Manning Required Ship program medium unmanned surface vessel prototype, USX-1 Defiant, at Nichols Brothers Boat Builders shipyard last month in preparation for a series of trials that aim to bring a cost-effective USV to the U.S. Navy.

From the design’s outset, the 180-foot-long, 240-ton vessel was designed without considering human habitation or protection features. According to DARPA, the NOMARS program “intends to demonstrate significant advantages,” including at-sea reliability, hydrodynamic efficiency, and stealthy features.

“The NOMARS program aims to challenge the traditional naval architecture model, designing a seaframe (the ship without mission systems) from the ground up with no provision, allowance, or expectation for humans on board,” stated the DARPA release.

Serco was selected to construct the demonstrator by DARPA over Leidos Gibbs and Cox in 2022. The program, originally launched in 2020, looks to design a Medium USV with unprecedented reliability and availability.

Ryan Maatta, a Marine Engineer Manager with Serco overseeing the NOMARS project, told Naval News at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium that the program’s key features include a 90% reliability at sea for a year and an autonomous refueling capability. USVs Mariner and Ranger demonstrated SERCO’s refueling capability in a test last September. Maatta also confirmed that Defiant would undergo two months of sea trials before “a very large and extensive demonstration of the vessel and its capabilities.” 
The DARPA NOMARS program has successfully launched the USX-1 Defiant, a 180’, 240-metric ton medium unmanned surface vessel designed to revolutionize autonomous operations at sea. DARPA Photo 
While the USV’s deck was covered by a tarp in photos released by DARPA, Serco’s concept models include one BAE Adaptable Deck Launcher and a container. The company’s Large USV concept, which Maatta described as the Second World War-era destroyer escort of the future, comes equipped with four Adaptable Deck Launchers for a complement of 16 strike-length Mark 41 missile cells.

Defiant is unique in this regard, as previously tested USVs such as Nomad and Ranger were retrofitted offshore vessels converted for autonomous operations. Sailors were embarked on the U.S. Navy’s Ghost Fleet Overlord during its 2023 Indo-Pacific voyage to ensure systems ran accordingly. Maatha highlighted that the removal of berths, galleys, and other facilities provides a “much larger payload fraction” on Defiant.

AbramsX Proposal Improved But Is The Tank Concept Itself Obsolete?

Why would anyone use tanks anymore in this drone-era? It's like hunting on a turtle.

- A random comment on Facebook

Background

The U.S. Army's main battle tank, the M1 Abrams, currently in version M1A2 SEPv.3 is the heaviest tank in currently service, at 73.6 tons, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high. The current version costs $24 million each. (An SEPv.4 upgrade has been cancelled by the Army).

The heaviest tank that was ever mass produced beyond a few prototypes was Nazi Germany's 79 short ton Jagdtiger. Only Israel's 65 ton Merkava tank (which is also more advanced, mostly due to its Trophy active protection system) is more heavily armored. 

The M1 Abrams has a 120 mm main gun and carries 42 tank rounds (of several types) that have a range of about 2.5 miles. It has advanced sights with night vision features and friend or foe identifiers to prevent friendly fire. It also has a 0.50 caliber machine gun and two 7.62 caliber machine guns, which are now remotely operated. It has a crew of four and is manually reloaded. 

Its 504.4 gallon fuel tank gives this tracked vehicle with an impressive ability to handle off road obstacles a range of 265 miles on road, where it has a peak speed of 42 miles per hour, and a range of 93-124 miles off road, where it has a peak speed of 25 miles per hour. It can also ferry itself (very slowly for fairly short distances) across water from an amphibious warship ship or landing craft to shore, or across rivers. 

Due to its size, only one can be carried on a C-17 and only two can be carried on a C-5. Mostly, it is deployed by ship and train. But it is too heavy for many European rail bridges, and for many road bridges in much of the world. Its width, weight, and the limited range of motion of its main gun have made it unattractive in old cities with narrow streets and in places with tight mountain passes. 

The original version of it, introduced in 1980, was 60 tons and cost $4.3 million each ($10.7 million in 2023 dollars), had a 105mm main gun and carried 55 tank rounds, and had machine guns operated by semi-exposed personnel. It represented a state of the art improvement over its World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War era predecessors, with its fresh design, in multiple respects, like its powerful 1500 horsepower turbine engine.

About 10,300 of them have been built, both for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps (8,100 delivered), and nine U.S. allies. Currently, it is in service with:

* the U.S. Army (2,640 - 40 M1A1 SA; 1,500 M1A2 SEPv2; 600 M1A2 SEPv3 with another 2000 in the boneyard); the U.S. Marine Corps has transferred its 450 M1s to the U.S. Army, 

* Australia (59), 

* Egypt (1,130), 

* Iraq (101 including one in its Popular Mobilization Force militia), 

* Kuwait (218), 

* Morocco (222), 

* Poland (116), 

* Saudi Arabia (575), 

* Taiwan (40), and 

* Ukraine (12 with another 19 lost in the current war). 

Bahrain and Romania have ordered but not yet received them. In addition the Islamic State managed to acquire 9 of them and Hezbollah has 1 of them.

The M1 has also been used as a starting point for several specialized variants including an armored recovery vehicle (basically a tow truck for tanks), a couple versions of land mine clearing vehicles, and a couple of versions of vehicles to deploy assault bridges over trenches and rivers. Other variants such as a bulldozer variant, a battle command post version, an air defense version, and one with an oversized main gun, never made it out of prototype stage.

Beyond the M1 Abrams

A lot has happened in 45 years, and we've learned at lot from using it in combat from the Persian Gulf War to the Ukraine War. So, the U.S. Army has been looking for a replacement and successor to it.

The U.S. Army has already introduced the tank that the Army insists is not a tank, called the M10 Booker Mobile Protected Firepower, a 42-46 ton medium tank with a 105mm main gain, in addition to a 0.50 caliber and a 7.62 caliber machine gun intended for infantry support rather than for use as a full fledged main battle tank, with armor lighter than the M1 Abrams, but heavier than any other armored vehicle in U.S. military service. But this is not a successor to the M1.

The move to replace the M1 has had several false starts over the last decade or two, and one of the most advanced proposals is the Abrams X, which is still in the design phase. This project recently had a major conceptual change to its design, mostly in response to recent developments in armored warfare in Israel and in Ukraine. 

The original Abrams X introduced in 2022 already had an autoloader for its main gun, reducing the crew from four to three, and repositioned the crew to keep them further away from the main gun turret which is the tank's most vulnerable point. It also has a lighter 120mm main gun. It also had a 30mm remotely operated cannon (based upon the AH-64 attack helicopter's cannon) in lieu of machine guns. And, it had hybrid power that allowed it to operate in silent mode on battery packs for short periods of time (primarily in a stationary "silent watch" state) and reduced fuel consumption by 50%. And, it would have 360º thermal sights, addressing the limited visibility in the existing M1 Abrams that can allow infantry to sneak up on it and attack it. The total Abrams X weight was supposed to be 60 tons.

AbramsX. Image Credit: Screenshot.

There have also been other changes in the current version:

* The 30mm cannon has advanced smart round that can better penetrate medium weight armor, detonate over trenches that can't be struck directly, and explode in the proximity of drones that aren't directly hit.

* It has the Israeli Merkava tank's Trophy active protection system that detects and intercepts incoming anti-tank rockets, missiles, and suicide drones with a small kinetic energy projectile that detonates them before they hits the tank.

* It has four Switchblade 300 loitering suicide drones, which are remotely operated from the tank, have a range of six miles or fifteen minutes, and "an explosive payload derived from the Javelin missile warhead." This allows it to strike targets previously beyond the 2.5 mile range of its main gun, such as anti-tank missile positions and mortar positions.

Ideally, an Abrams X would also be upgraded to have an ISR spy drone in its unit (or better yet, integrally to the tank itself, with an optional jamming proof fiber optic cord) that could transmit images to it that would warn it of threats that its thermal sensors and sights can't see, a bit like a periscope.

Analysis

The reconceptualized Abrams X is a significant improvement over the M1 Abrams, or the earlier versions of this proposal. 

But it still isn't clear that its great weight and size, slow speed because it is tracked, and other inherent problems with the tank concept, justify this upgrade, in lieu of a more fundamental departure from the tank concept, in light of the stunning failure of tanks in the Ukraine War, and other issues with the tank concept that have been revealed in almost every conflict in which the M1 Abrams has been deployed or considered since then. 

The U.S. Marine Corps has made the bolder move to abandon tanks entirely.

Even With Improvements Tanks Are Problematic

What problems remain?

1. Any tracked vehicle is much slower on road than a wheeled vehicle. Yet, since the Humvee was introduced in 1985, it has been clear that it is possible to make wheeled vehicles that can go anywhere that a tracked vehicle can go (which was the design requirement for the Humvee). Wheeled vehicles are a bit slower off road than a tracked vehicle, but 45 years of experience in the field has demonstrated that tracked vehicles are actually used off road, when employed in wars, quite infrequently. Tracked vehicles also still struggle in mud. And, tracked vehicles can be more easily disabled by disabling a single track than a 6x6 or 8x8 vehicle can be, since that requires disabling multiple wheels.

2. Tracked vehicles are much less fuel efficient than wheeled vehicles, even when hybrid power (which at least helps). Reduced fuel efficiency need more insecure logistics support, to provide fuel. Fuel tankers generally aren't armored, which is a dire problem in an era when battlefields often no longer have "front lines" behind which unarmored vehicles are safe. Fuel tanks also aren't tracked or equipped for difficult off-road terrain, which means that the entire unit including its logistics support can't cross terrain that only tracked vehicles can cross. (An alternative to deal with the fuel logistics problem would be to look into so called "nuclear batteries", which are powered with radioactive decay of non-uranium, non-plutonium isotopes like thorium.)

3. Slow speed means that a unit with tracked vehicles have to be transported long distances by ship or rail or a flatbed transport, unless absolutely necessary. And, again, those tracked vehicle transports are unarmored and vulnerable, in an era where battlefields don't have safe spaces behind the front lines, and the transports can't go to all of the places that the tracked vehicles themselves can go. It is also much easier to disrupt a rail line or a port big enough to off load tracked vehicles than to disrupt a road in a way that an armored vehicle can't easily go around. This limitation isn't a big concern is you are a geographically small country like Israel or Taiwan or Kuwait planning to employer your tanks domestically against foreign invaders or insurgents. But it is a huge issue for a country like the United States which would almost always be fighting wars in which tanks might be used on an expeditionary basis.

4. Slow speeds mean that in a "fight or flight" situation, the tank can't flee. It has to fight, which is a huge problem if your opposition has greater range anti-tank weapons than the range of your offensive weapons. Conversely, faster opponents with wheeled vehicles can quickly flee from you to beyond the range of your main gun or direct fire cannon, if they are near the edge of your range when they notice your tank. Carrying armed drones helps, but isn't a perfect solution. Any military should be embarrassed to have major offensive systems that can be outrun by a Smart car or a trail motorcycle.

5. Wide vehicles like the M1 Abrams and Abrams X still struggle in the narrow streets of historic cities and villages, on narrow mountain passes, and on narrow roads in dense forests and jungles. Creating barriers that narrower civilian vehicles and narrower military vehicles can pass through, but a wide tank can't, is fairly easy to do if you are preparing to defend against a tank assault.

6. Even at 60 tons, the Abrams X is still very heavy. You can still only transport one in a C-17, or two in a C-5 that requires a more improved airfield. This is still too heavy for most bridges over canyons and rivers in most of the world that are designed to only handle traffic as heavy as commercial tractor-trailers and their loads. This is still too heavy for trains transporting them to the theater of battle to carry them over rail bridges in much of the world. This still limits how many of them can be carried on a landing craft from an amphibious ship. For example, a U.S. Marine Corps Landing Craft Air Cushioned (LCAC), which entered service in 1986, can carry only 60 tons at regular weight and only up to 75 tons if deliberately overloaded in a way that degrades their performance. Just ordinarily driving one over ordinary civilian roads will often damage the road if it isn't built up to the most modern and robust standards, harming good will with the local population. Delivering tanks to an emerging conflict by ship, rail, and flat bed truck, rather than medium or heavy airlift, can take many weeks by which time the armor may be too little, too late. And, medium or heavy airlift capacity is scarce and still requires at least a fairly decent sized improvised air field.

The U.S. 45 "Brookport bridge" over the Ohio River.

7. Its great weight also makes it easy to make traps for them by basically building a covered basement or trench that other vehicles can drive over, but that would collapse under a tank's weight, leaving it in a pit. Driving such a heavy tank into the first floor of a building with lower floors presents the same problem.

8. The Abrams X, like the M1 Abrams and the vast majority of other modern tanks, can only aim their main guns so many degrees up or down. This means that the main guns can't be used against adversaries on high ground such as the higher stories of a tall building in urban combat, or the top of a canyon when the tank is driving on a road through the bottom of the canyon (which is a common road design in places where have canyons). It also limits the use of the main gun against drones, helicopters, and close air support aircraft, in an improved anti-air role. The armed drones of the Abrams X and its 30 mm cannon help deal with this, but are an imperfect solution. The 53 ton Russian Terminator armored vehicle was designed to address the heavy losses that Russian tanks took from these kinds of tactics fighting insurgents in the Caucuses:

This vehicle was designed for supporting tanks and other AFVs in urban areas. The BMPT is unofficially named the "Terminator" by the manufacturers. It is heavily armed and armored to survive in urban combat. The AFV is armed with four 9M120 Ataka missile launchers, two 30 mm 2A42 autocannons, two AG-17D grenade launchers, and one coaxial 7.62 mm PKTM machine gun. The BMPT is built on the chassis of the widely used T-72 main battle tank. . . . 
Combat experience during the lengthy war [with Russia in Afghanistan] revealed that infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) like the BMP-1 and BMP-2 cannot fully deal with infantry, despite the BMP-2's high gun elevation. Although main battle tanks (MBTs) possessed a high amount of firepower, the limited elevation and depression angles of the main gun made them easy targets in mountainous and urban terrain. It was evident that a new vehicle concept was needed. . . . The main requirements for this new machine were to possess large firepower, high angles of elevation and depression, and protection equivalent to that of an MBT. An additional requirement that was meant to supplement the latter was enhanced protection from close-range hand-held RPGs.

The need for such a vehicle became even more evident during the First Chechen War. When using conventional armor during urban engagements, Russian forces suffered heavy losses in manpower and equipment, including the destruction of an entire mechanized brigade during the First Battle of Grozny. While these losses cannot be entirely blamed on technology, it became clear that a dedicated anti-personnel fighting vehicle would provide valuable assistance in an urban environment. Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were used as a temporary solution in Chechnya. However, these vehicles were not well-armored and did not possess the obstacle-clearing capabilities of an MBT.

9. The main gun of a tank, conceptually, is primarily for accurately striking other tanks at relatively close range. In practice, however, less than 5% of tanks are destroyed by other tanks in modern warfare. These days, a tank's main gun is basically a solution looking for a problem. Tactically, tanks are no longer the main kind of anti-tank weapon, several other options are higher up the list including anti-tank missiles and rockets (from dismounted infantry, Humvees, helicopters, drones, or close air support aircraft), close air support cannons, anti-tank mines and IEDs, and artillery. Anti-tank missiles are just as good at destroying an enemy tank, have longer range, and even with their launching systems are much lighter than a tank's main gun and shell. Anti-tank missiles cost more than a tank shell, and one would typically carry fewer of them than the 42 shells that an M1 Abrams does, but given the pretty modest number of tank on tank engagements, the cost difference isn't huge and is balanced by not having to spend immense amounts of money on a heavy armored vehicle to carry the main gun. 

10. The main gun of a tank has also been justified as a way to penetrate fortifications like bunkers in support of infantry. But, bunker busting recoilless rifles (i.e. bazookas), or anti-tank missiles used against a bunker, are likewise much less heavy than a tank's main gun and are comparably effective against all but the heaviest bunkers, which can be dealt with using heavier missiles and bombs, delivered by helicopters, drones, aircraft, or just long range cruise missiles launched from land batteries or naval ships. There isn't a great demonstrated need for bunker busting that a 120mm main gun can address, but an 84mm recoilless rifle, or suicide drone, cannot, in actual combat situations. A 120mm tank round can bust through 8-12 inches of reinforced concrete (see also here) with three tank shells, a 105mm tank round can probably penetrate a little bit less. A 30 mm cannon round can break through four inches of steel (and concrete and steel are roughly comparable in the difficulty of penetrating them). An 84mm recoilless rifle can penetrate up to 16 inches of armor or concrete at ranges of 500 yards or more, but requires far less weight and bulk and the main gun of a tank, and the full 2.5 mile range of a tank's main gun is rarely necessary for bunker busting.

11. The M1 Abrams, the Abrams X, and almost all other modern tanks lack any kind of air defense capability, although the Abrams X will at least have Trophy active self-defenses which can intercept income shells and suicide drones. This means that they have to rely mostly on other air defense capabilities in their unit to respond to helicopters, close air support aircraft, and drones. Relying on dismounted infantry with MANPADs or specialized anti-aircraft vehicles in the unit is a workable response to attacks from a small number of armed helicopters, close air support aircraft, or large drones pretending to be helicopters or CAS aircraft. But, it is a less workable solution to attacks by large swarms of small armed drones and suicide drones.

12. It isn't clear that either the M1 Abrams or the Abrams X have the v-shaped hulls that help minimize damage from anti-tank land mines and IEDs, unlike most modern armored wheeled vehicles.

Filling The Tank Gap

There is a place for some level of armor protection in modern warfare. Armor much less robust than an M1 Abrams tank is entirely adequate to make a vehicle and its occupants almost completely impervious to small arms fire up to about 0.50 caliber (12.7 mm) rounds and indirect hits from shrapnel (including the remnants in income shells defeated by active defense systems like Trophy). It might even make sense in some "high end" applications to seek armor that can defend against 20mm-40mm cannon rounds and grenades.

Likewise, MRAPs were found to be desirable, because some form a mine resistance, at least against basic IEDs, is necessary even in "low end" counterinsurgency conflicts. 

The Iraq War clearly demonstrated the problem with using unarmored, flat bottomed Humvees in places where its occupants were likely to be exposed to small arms fire and IEDs from insurgents.

But it has also been clear continuously from the Gulf War, and even more emphatically in the Ukraine War, that no amount of passive armor on a tank can protect it from anti-tank missiles, or direct hit from an anti-tank shell from another tank, or a direct hit from an artillery round or a drone delivering one (although the armor can increase that odds that the crew survives while the tank is lost).

The weight to offensive power ratio heavily favors weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile and the 84mm recoilless rifle over a main tank gun for tasks like destroying armored vehicles and busting bunkers. These need to replace the main guns of tanks.

Armor has its place, but only to a point. If an adversary has military grade anti-tank weapons and/or air power from close air support aircraft, guided bombs, armed helicopters, or armed drones, tanks are highly vulnerable targets at a severe disadvantage.

Not every adversary has those capabilities, and when the adversary does not, armored vehicles have a place. But armor beyond what is necessary to defeat small arms and shrapnel is mostly a waste, and attempting to have enough armor to defeat a direct hit from a tank shell or artillery shell is futile.

Likewise, there is virtually no situation where tracks rather than wheels make sense for military vehicles, and even if there is, it is a very niche situation best dealt with using a small number of specialized vehicles made this for particular purpose, and spread across every kind of vehicle in a given military unit since the less capable vehicle in the unit governs what the unit can do.

At some point, lasers might address the air defense, drone defense, and active defense shortcomings of tanks, and we're close to that point, but it isn't clear that we are there quite yet.

It is possible to use weapons lighter than a main tank gun, armor only sufficient for the circumstances where it can't be defeated anyway, and wheels (basically with moderately armored wheeled missile tanks), to greatly reduce the weight (and size) of ground combat vehicles used instead of tanks, and the logistics of deploying them and then fueling them in the field makes reducing weight highly desirable.

The Sweet Spots For Weight and Size

Making armored vehicles less wide than the 12 feet of an Abrams tank, probably down to the 8.5 feet of a semi-truck makes sense, because that is what roads, bridges, and tunnels all over the world are designed to manage, for missions like urban warfare and deployment in mountainous and heavily forested areas.

There are basically some sweet spots with regard to weight for military planners. 

Vehicles 19 tons or less, like the Stryker and the HIMARs system (and historically the 17 ton M551 Sheridan light tank), can be delivered by a C-130 (and if its is even lighter, by military heavy lift helicopters, Ospreys, or future transport drones), with four of them per C-17 airlift load, eight per C-5 airlift load, and two on an intermediate size European airlift transport. This is also approximately the weight of a standard tractor-trailer or shipping container with its load.

At 15 tons or less, like the 11 ton joint light tactical vehicle (JLTV), you can carry five in a C-17 airlift load and ten in a C-5 airlift load. The heaviest airlift possible for a heavy lift helicopter is 16 tons for the heaviest lift helicopters (a CH-53 Stallion), 8 tons for the next heaviest lift helicopter (a CH-47 Chinook), and 10 tons for an Osprey tilt rotor aircraft.

For systems of 20-25 tons, you can't use a C-130 or helicopter, but can fit carry three in a C-17 or six in a C-5, or one on an intermediate size European airlift transport.

Two vehicles more than 25 tons but 38 tons or less (like the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle) can be delivered per C-17 airlift load or LCAC load (and four of  them can be delivered per C-5 airlift load), and one of them can be delivered some intermediate sized European Airbus made airlift aircraft, which are between a C-130 and C-17 in size. 

Getting even the heaviest military vehicles at least down to 38 tons each, and getting many military vehicles lighter than that, if at all possible, is imperative to an expeditionary military force like that of the United States. Historical and present examples of military vehicles in this size class are recapped in this post.

A Footnote On Howitzers and Mobile Mortar Systems

While traditional howitzers (cannon artillery) were important in the early days of the Ukraine War and are still receiving fairly heavy use there, it still makes sense to replace them with guided missiles and drones.

Their range is quite limited (rarely more than 24 miles without basically guided missile rounds). Their accuracy is poor (which undermines the benefits of the low cost of artillery shells relative to missiles, and isn't that cost competitive with the FPV suicide drones used in Ukraine). And, the artillery launchers are expensive, heavy and slow. Howitzers have been destroyed at rates comparable to tanks in the Ukraine war.

Artillery missiles and suicide drones just make more sense.

Mobile mortar systems make even less sense, even though they are much more sophisticated than they used to be. They back less of a punch, they can't be used too close the way that direct fire main tank guns can, and their range and accuracy is much more poor than that of conventional howitzers let alone missiles or drones. Yet, these systems are expensive and heavy relative to the firepower that they deliver. There are small niches where they can be competitive with traditional canon artillery, and mortar shells can be cheap, but they aren't competitive with suicide drones in cost or weight. 

Perhaps small infantry mortars have a limited place as a simple and light stopgap, but otherwise, a full transition makes more sense if you are starting from scratch. 

05 March 2025

Half The Story

Too much crime reporting is like this story. It regurgitates a police department's press release, but makes no effort to provide context or understanding for why an incident like this happened, even when it is quite atypical and doesn't fit into the usual mold, when even fairly minimal actual reporting could provide much more insight to readers.

An ambush murder in broad daylight on a public street involving seven perpetrators is rare, and one in which five of the suspects were women is even more rare. A murder in which all of the seven suspects and at least one of the two victims is black, in mostly white first ring suburb of Denver, like Lakewood, is also atypical.

The final suspect in the ambush killing of a pregnant woman was arrested Tuesday evening in Aurora.

Isaac Amir Pierrie, 24, was arrested on suspicion of first degree murder and attempted first degree murder in connection to the 2023 homicide, according to a post on X from the Lakewood Police Department. He had been on the run for more than two years.

Melanie Massay was shot and killed in an ambush around 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 28, 2023, in the 1300 block of Zephyr Street. Her unborn child also died. A man was also shot during the attack but lived.

Pierrie is the last of seven suspects arrested in Massay’s killing. Monte Hayes, ReaAsia Hollins, DaJanah Abrams, Jrayla Taylor, Trinity Walker and Jaliyah Burks all were previously arrested in connection to the shooting.

From the Denver Post. The linked previous story in the current story provided only a little more detail:

“In a lot of cases like this we have to keep the investigations quiet, especially in a situation where we have seven suspects,” said John Romero, spokesperson for Lakewood Police Department. “It was in the best interest of the investigation and the family to hold back on some of the information until now.”

Lakewood officers responded to reports of a gunshot wound victim around 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 28 [2023], Romero said.

When they arrived at the scene, officers found Massay’s body and a second victim who had been shot in the back, Romero said. The second gunshot victim survived.

Police issued arrest warrants for the seven people suspected in Massay’s death in January and have arrested five, according to Romero.

Isaac Pierrie, 23, and Jaliyah Burks, 19, are wanted on suspicion of first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault, according to court records.

Burks is a 5-foot-2-inch, Black woman weighing about 110 pounds with black hair and brown eyes, Romero said. A description was not available for Pierre, but photos released by the police department in Thursday’s crime alert show the 23-year-old is a Black man with black hair and brown eyes.

A Facebook post from the Lakewood police has pictures of the suspects and the victim who was killed, but not her male companion who survived.

 

Almost by definition a group of seven people participating in an ambush murder with guns is some sort of gang activity. But, was the pregnant woman killed the real target, or just unfortunately in the proximity of a man who was the real target.

Were they part of the rival gang? Were the killers seeking retribution for betrayal in a drug deal or snitching? Was this a matter of claimed infidelity? Was she a human trafficking victim?

The arrest warrants were issued in January of 2024, more than ten months after the shooting. Five were arrested within a few weeks (and possibly much sooner), two more took longer. 

How were the seven suspects identified? Did the man who survived identify them? Once one person caught and turned against his or her co-conspirators? Was their surveillance cam video? Was there a police informant in their gang?

If this story is typical, readers of the paper will never know, because the paper won't every follow up on the case with that level of detail. The convictions and sentences might be reported, and perhaps the male victim will be identified eventually, but what was really going on will never be disclosed, even if the narrative was laid out in one or more public trials.

The problem isn't so much that the story is reported before more complete information is available. This is an unavoidable problem with almost every breaking news story in TV news, radio news, newspapers, and online new media. But, in a better world, there would be in depth follow up eventually.

Greater depth and a quest for a deeper understanding is what distinguishes a great media source, like the New York Times, from a merely mediocre one, like the Denver Post, that rarely even tries to get beyond the press releases from law enforcement.

The obituary for the woman killed provides at least a little context:

Melanie Massay

September 10, 2001 — February 28, 2023
Lakewood, CO

Services are private, those who show up uninvited will be ARRESTED.

Melanie Amanda Massay was born to her parents, Chataca Moneque Brown and Wayne Anthony Massay. She was third child born to Chataca and was raised with her 3 siblings. As a child, Melanie LOVED cereal. When she had a delicious serving, her lips would instantly roll. She was a very entertaining young lady who enjoyed hanging out with friends, having fun and making others laugh. One of her fondest memories as achild included beating up her brother and sisters. She was cute but bossy and had expensive taste.

Melanie attended Central High School. Her graduation is March 24th, 2023, in her honor, baby Honesty will receive her graduation certificate with nana Chataca Brown at New Legacy Charter School. She gained employment as a medical assistant at Hope Senior Living where she gained her nursing certificate, furthering her medical career.

In 2021, Melanie was blessed with a beautiful baby girl named, Honesty Lorain Dior Massay. She truly embraced motherhood. They enjoyed many moments together including going to the water park, going to firework shows, and even to Disney on Ice.

Melanie was a spiritual woman who took her relationship with the Holy Spirit seriously. She was guided in her spirituality by her mother who taught her the value of being in tune with the Holy Spirit.

In her free time, Melanie enjoyed hanging out with her bestfriend, Lashay, they supported each other in every way possible. Lashay enjoyed learning about Melanie’s heritage because, both Creole Afro Indian and Guyanese. In addition, Melanie enjoyed going shopping with her mother and baby girl, Honesty.

Chataca, Melanie’s mother reminisces on many wonderful moments that she has had with her daughter. This is a very challenging time for her but she is looking forward to taking care of baby girl, Honesty and giving her all the support that she needs as she grows. Chataca knows that one day, they will meet again.

Melanie passed away on February 28, 2023, those left to cherish her memory include her daughter, Honesty Lorain Dior Massay; her mother, Chataca Moneque Brown; her father, Wayne Anthony Massay; her 3 siblings, cousins and friends.
Honesty was three years old. Melanie apparently knew something was up the day before. Her mother said that: “In her phone, she kept saying, ‘I’m so scared. I feel like I’m going to die,'” Brown said. “The next day, my daughter’s life was taken.” Melanie's mother, Ms. Brown, is about 44 year olds and apparently lives in Aurora, Colorado.

A three minute TV news spot shows the scene and the deceased woman's mother (and disclosed that the deceased woman was pregnant with twins). It also discloses that the deceased woman knew some of the suspects and was a childhood friend of one of them. 

Melanie apparently didn't finish high school at her public high school in Aurora but was enrolled in a charter school devoted to meeting the needs of teen parents to eventually earn it. She apparently had two half siblings through her mother whom she grew up with. Her father probably also lived in Aurora.

19 year old Jaliyah Burks turned herself in on March 7, 2024, more than a year after the shooting, a couple of months after the warrant for her arrest was issued, and almost a year ago. In 2021, Burks was apparently on the women's basketball team at Newman International Academy in Cedar Hill, Texas, where she was a high school senior, and went to prom (although it is conceivable that this is a different person with the same name).

The other five suspects, arrested before she turned herself in, like the woman who was killed, were also young adults in the same general age range of my children and my nephew:

Monte Hayes, 23, ReaAsia Hollins, 20, DaJanah Abrams, 25, Jrayla Taylor, 22, and Trinity Walker, 18

Monte Hayes may have played basketball for an Englewood High School team, as the age and location are about right and the name is a match.

DaJanah Abrams is apparently currently being held in the Broomfield County jail. Someone of the same name who is about the right age was a dietician who lived in Houston, Texas and went to three different colleges in Lousiana.

Hollins was booked on January 25, 2024 at the Jefferson County jail. She was registered as an unaffiliated voter residing at 1705 N. Franklin Street #301, Denver, Colorado 80218 (very close to my old office). I've probably seen in her passing driving home from work.

Jrayla Taylor was booked on January 23, 2024 at the Jefferson County Jail. She was registered to vote as a Democrat at 18948 E. Mercer Drive, Aurora, Colorado 80013. She has a couple of short YouTube videos posted of kids dancing in a bedroom. 

Trinity Walker is a much more common name, making it harder to connect information separate from the crime to her, and may not have been old enough to register to vote at the time of the crime.

A booking photo of Isaac, the last suspect arrested, in Aurora, after two years on the run, shows a tattoo peeping out on his chest, although its meaning is unclear:


Fox News 31 reported that:
Massay’s mother, Chataca Brown, told FOX31’s Alliyah Sims last year that Massay thought the people involved were friends. . . . 
“I fed these children,” Brown said then. “My daughter housed one that was homeless. All the while, they were plotting to ambush my pregnant daughter.”

Shortly after Massay was dropped off at her home, there was gunfire. Her mother said bullets hit the young woman in the back of the head and leg. She tried defending herself.

“Melanie shot that one bullet,” Brown said. “One of the guys actually had two guns and ambushed my daughter. Just shot my daughter to death.” . . .

Lakewood police said the Aurora Police Department, U.S. Marshals, the Department of Corrections, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement assisted in arresting Pierrie.

Apparently, Melanie was armed and fired back in self-defense at the time of the killing, and apparently the last person arrested was not a U.S. citizen. 

Melanie was apparently either a first or second generation immigrant from the South American country immediately adjacent to Venezuela.

All of the suspects face very serious charges and very long prison terms.

But even with a through search of available information, there are lots of gaps in the story.

Quote Of The Day

Why would anyone use tanks anymore in this drone-era? 
It's like hunting on a turtle.

From a random FB comment. 

SCOTUS Profoundly Expanded POTUS Power Without Even Briefing The Issue

Trump's power grab and destruction of democracy were facilitated by a willful and pro-active far-right conservative move by SCOTUS without even being briefed.
This paper assesses the impact of Trump v. United States on the American presidency. It argues that the rulings on presidential immunity that have received so much attention and criticism are not the consequential element of the opinion. Rather, the consequential element concerns the Court’s novel and expansive account of the president’s exclusive removal power and the president’s exclusive power of investigation and prosecution. This paper shows why these rulings were novel and carefully considers their potentially very broad implications. These implications are beginning to be seen in some of the presidential power assertions of the early second Trump administration, but the possible implications go far beyond what we have seen thus far. The paper shows that none of the Court’s novel rulings on the president’s exclusive removal power and exclusive power of investigation and prosecution were briefed or addressed by the courts below or briefed or discussed at oral argument by either party in the Supreme Court. The Court addressed massively important issues of first impression about the nature and scope of presidential power in a short time frame and basically without any outside assistance.
Goldsmith, Jack Landman, "The Presidency After Trump v. United States" (March 02, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5162059 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5162059

03 March 2025

The Ukraine War Has Become A Drone War

Drones, not the big, heavy artillery that the war was once known for, inflict about 70 percent of all Russian and Ukrainian casualties, said Roman Kostenko, the chairman of the defense and intelligence committee in Ukraine’s Parliament. In some battles, they cause even more — up to 80 percent of deaths and injuries, commanders say....
Of the 31 highly sophisticated Abrams tanks that the United States provided Ukraine in 2023, 19 have been destroyed, disabled or captured, with many incapacitated by drones, senior Ukrainian officials said. Nearly all of the others have been taken off the front lines, they added.
From the New York Times.

01 March 2025

Republicans Still Stupid

Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican in the U.S. House representing the 13th Congressional District in Florida (basically suburban Tampa), will be leading a new committee re-examining the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 (61 years and 3 months ago). 

She is a member of the Congressional Freedom Caucus (a far right Republican caucus) and the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Caucus." 

She served in the Air Force and then the Air National Guard for a combined five years as an "airfield management specialist", earned a bachelor's of science degree in biology at the University of West Florida after finishing her service (no honors are mentioned in her biography, she her grades probably weren't all the great), modeled in 2013 in Sport Illustrated's online site, and briefly worked as a cocktail waitress in a gentleman's club, later appeared as a swimsuit model in Maxim magazine in 2014, and then worked in various conservative political posts until she was elected to Congress in 2022, on her third attempt to be elected to this office. 

She married before being elected and gave birth to her son the summer after she first took office. She considers herself to be a Messianic Jewish Christian, like her father. She started to identify as Hispanic and took her grandmother's surname "Luna" in 2019, a year after joining a Hispanic outreach post for a conservative political group (in a 2015 filing she had identified herself as non-Hispanic white, even though both of her parents have at least partial Mexican origins). She wrote a book in 2018 about her special operations soldier husband, and another more general political manifesto in 2021. She grew up in Southern California. Her parents never married or lived together, her father was a drug addict, her mother, who an elementary school teacher and homemaker who married a man other than her father when she was nine, but her mom divorced four years later. She has a brother and a sister.

While this might have its place as an academic exercise for a panel of university historians, possibly updated with new information, the Warren Commission already produced a voluminous report on the matter in 1964, and this will do nothing to improve the lot of the people of our fine country. 

Anyone newly found to be culpable in the incident is dead by now, and an inquiry led by a 35 year old Republican Congresswoman who doesn't even realize how long ago this way, and whose parents are probably even too young to remember the assassination, if they were even born yet, is just utterly incapable of credibly expanding our understanding of this event.

The really embarrassing part, though, which shows just how utterly unqualified, ignorant, and over her head this 35 year old is with even this very junior assignment, is that she told members of the press in a press conference, that she wants to interview JFK's attending physicians and the members of the Warren Commission about the incident.

How is she going to manage that when all of those people are dead? 

How many people with any meaningful connection to this event who are living haven't succumbed to dementia and are otherwise healthy enough to share anything meaningful that hasn't already been covered in reports and interviews already?

Someone who was 25 years old in 1963, when it happened, is now 87 years old, and any attending physician who would have treated the President in Dallas, Texas in 1963, would have been at least 25 years old then to be even a medical resident at the relevant hospital at the time. And, let's not kid ourselves. You don't assign a first year resident to try to save the popular young President of the United States from a gunshot wound. You give that task to the most seasoned physician you have available, who would be considerably older right now, even if he were alive (very few women were doctors handling ER and trauma cases in 1963 in Texas). A first year resident would have no meaningful first hand knowledge of JFK's injuries.

All seven members of the Warren commission, its general counsel, ten of its fourteen junior lawyers, and ten of its twelve staff member are dead.

There only people connected to the Warren Commission who are still alive are four junior lawyers for the Commission, and two people who were on the Commission's staff at the time. The youngest of them, a junior staff member, turns 85 years old this year. The other junior staff member turns 88 years old this year. The oldest of those still living, a junior lawyer for the commission, turns 96 years old this year. All of the other junior lawyers will turn at least 91 years old this year.

Gary Hart, a former Democratic U.S. Senator from Colorado, Presidential candidate in 1988, and diplomat, who is currently 88 years old and was 26 years old at the time of the assassination, is the only one of the eleven people who served on the Church Committee in 1975-1976 who is still living, although probably a few more of the people who were on the staff of that committee are also still living. He too has already told us everything he had to say about this assassination.

In addition to more than one official commission/committee investigation, there have been dozens of film and fictional accounts of the event, and many non-fiction and documentary treatments of it. What more is there left to say?

If classified documents related to the assassination exist and are now being declassified, just release them and let the media or the Congressional Research Service do this job without diverting the precious time of members of Congress who have no relevant expertise to conduct this investigation anyway.

Also, how hard is it to assign one of your staffers (members of Congress have budgets to pay for quite a few of them in addition to unpaid interns) to look up some of the relevant facts on Wikipedia, and to do some math, before you tell the press what your approach to leading this committee will involve?

I don't expect every 35 year old woman on the street to know when JFK died, or how many years ago that was. 

But, if you a member of Congress, who has a college degree, who is going to be leading a renewed Congressional inquiry into the assassination, and are holding a press conference about how you plan to go about doing that, we have a right to expect that you have done your most basic homework and know more about the event than the average person.