Thread by @TrentTelenko

@Deptula_David
@DavidLarter
@mungusrising
@MarcusReports
@ForeignAffairs

1/ This is a tweet thread addressing two others on air vs. sea platform US Military roles and missions WRT the B-21.

https://twitter.com/DavidLarter/status/1314957040574509061

https://twitter.com/Deptula_David/status/1314779523926364162

2/ The issue of sea versus airpower goes back to the B-17 in the 1930's.

The B-17 simply could not replace seapower then anymore than the B-21 can in the 2020's.

This is an issue of medium and military roles in those mediums.

3/ Sea control requires 24/7 persistence and persistence at sea is measured largely by keeping sea water out of your hull.

Air persistence is measured by how long you can maintain powered thrust in an airframe.

Ships can sprint & drift...plus get towed.
harpgamer.com/harpforum/topi….

4/ Aircraft don't thrust & glide...if they have any choice in the matter.

5/ Air Force officers, trained & indoctrinated in a military profession & physical medium that lacks persistence, simply cannot value it as a part of another military service's missions in both war & peace.

For example:

A flying B-21 cannot board another plane to inspect it.

6/ A ship's crew of an optionally manned warship can board another ship in peacetime or war.

This is one of the reasons why a B-17 in the past or a B-21 now can only supplement sea power & not replace it in peacetime or war.

nara.getarchive.net/media/the-boar…

7/ It was the crew of HMS Petard that captured the Enigma machine of the U-559, not the air crew of an RAF Coastal Command B-24.

theguardian.com/world/2017/oct…

8/ A $500 million B-21 simply cannot accomplish many wartime sea control missions that a 500 ton drone warship costing 1/10 as much can.

Case in point --

Drone boat attack on the Saudi frigate al Madinah.

9/ As far as arguing the narrow wartime-only role of killing enemy ship tonnage, AKA the sea denial mission.

The WW2 data set from Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee Report — NAVEXOS P 468 — (JANAC) is poisoned by politics.

10/ The JANAC report drew a 'kill credit" line at 500 tons.

This meant USS Ward's kill of a Japanese Ko-hyoteki-class, two-man midget submarine at Pearl Harbor was stripped from the historical record.

It was under 500 tons and does not count.

11/ There was a great deal of armed naval vessel tonnage at 499 tons or less that was vitally important in WW2 that was arbitrarily removed by JANAC, if it was in the Pacific Theater.

The German F-Lighter is one example from North Africa.

rommelsriposte.com/2015/01/18/the…

12/ Barge and 'Sea Truck' traffic that were vital to Japanese logistics had their sunken tonnage in the South & Southwest Pacific removed from JANAC.

See:
Notes on Japanese logistics SWPA.
cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collec…

13/ JANAC was an inherently political document that was written to support the budget & promotion interests of the Marshall and King leadership cliques going into the WAR/Navy Department merger.

The King clique wanted to scrap the MTB fleet and shine the brass of the CV-fleet.

14/ Other victims inside the USN in terms of combat records were the USMC aviation, Fleet Air Wings, other USN small combatant like the LCI(G) and the submarine fleet.

This is the best source for USN Sub small ship kills.

amazon.com/Surface-Destro…

15/ The attached documents show the scale of JANAC small ship kill "robbed tonnage" from USMC aviation & Fleet Air Wings via CinCPac War Diary Aug 1945 & Naval Aviation Combat Statistics of World War 2.

16/ JANAC also impacted flag rank succession inside the soon to be independent USAF.

General Kenney had seniority on General Spaatz. By all rights he and not Hoyt Vandenberg should have been the first CoS of the USAF.

This is where JANAC came in.

17/ As Marshall appointed three and King appointed four of the seven members of the JANAC committee. Neither of who could in any way be considered friendly to affirming MacArthur’s wartime accomplishments, the Battle of the Bismark Sea got the "500 ton treatment."

See BoBS map:

18/ General Kenney, disputed the JANAC findings in his 1950 book “The MacArthur I Know,” stating that there was a barge convoy that merged with the troop convoy and many of the claims his pilots made were from that 2nd convoy purged by JANAC.

See Japanese Barge Routes 1943–44:

19/The logistical reality of the Japanese need to rapidly unload 41st Division's artillery park from the 8 freighters in the convoy argues in favor of General Kenney's account and not JANAC.

Freighters require lighterage in unimproved theaters.

See:
amazon.com/Japanese-Merch…

20/The gaming of JANAC was not limited to post-war careerism. It was front & center in The Operation Starvation B-29 mining of Japan.

The key decision made by the XXI Bomber Command when planning the campaign was “to select for sinking the larger ships of the enemy’s fleet.”

21/ There were more than 12,800 ships & boats below 500 tons displacement that could move men by 100’s without tripping an American sea mine. Gen. MacArthur needed a mine blockade to stop those vessels from moving troops successful Operation Olympic landing.

He didn't get one.

22/ This JANAC induced US Flag rank ignorance of the wartime logistical role of small coastal traffic echo's to the 21st century.

The Chinese development of 50kt armored car smuggling craft should be sending sky rockets of US military concern.

hisutton.com/Armored%20Stea…

23/ You don't even have to scale the craft up to MBT class lighterage. A 35 ton payload class Armored Stealth Boat (ASB) could move planning hull ZBD-05 infantry fighting vehicle and the ZTD-05 assault vehicles as well as the ZTQ-15 light tank.

24/24 So what does 200 odd 35-ton payload class ASB mean for China, Taiwan and the USA if they were designed for 1-way passage with a cloud of sea/air distraction drones dropping chaff, jamming and laying multispectral smoke?

JANAC's legacy is U.S. ignorance of that question.