TACCOM 2019

Vincent J. Curtis

13 Sept 2019


TACCOM, in its 2019 version, is Canada’s largest gun show.  It brings together the world’s largest and most important gun manufacturers, equipment suppliers, Canada’s largest distributors, and allied businesses into one trade show.  If you’re a gun-guy, TACCOM 2019 is hog-heaven.

Yes, the usual suspects were there. Sig Sauer featured its P series of firearms, Glock, FN Herstal featured its FN509; and even Canik had a small display.  You touch, feel, and even dry fire some of these military style handguns.

Allied and related businesses also had substantial presences, like Durham Military Vehicles, and Hudson Supplies.  I’ll bet an LSVW hadn’t had such TLC than the one on display at the Durham booth.

Hudson was there to cultivate interest in its line of carry gear for which it is a master distributor: Tasmanian Tiger.  Hudson head honcho Marc “Buckleman” Beaudoin got his start marketing extremely tough and secure lock-unlock buckles for attaching MOLLE gear to each other.  And the buckles and tactical gear were certainly featured in his booth.  But the star of the show was the extraordinary array of the Tasmanian Tiger gear.

Tasmanian Tiger is a line of premium professional grade carry equipment for military, police, first responder, EMT, and generally people who have to carry heavy loads long distances.  Hikers and backpackers would find the line interesting to browse, and they could find something of use to them, so versatile, modular, and varied are the systems.  In Tiger you have carry systems all designed to work together no matter which pieces you mix and match.

The foundation of the carry system are the X1 and V2 frame systems.  The bare X1 frame reminded this writer of the legendary 1966 pattern pack frame with its bottom shelf-frame and tubular construction.  But this frame ran up to the shoulders.  It also had reinforcement bars that crossed into an X.  The X1 system is designed for bulky, heavy loads that are to be carried on the back for long distances and for a long time.  The frame is designed to stabilize and distribute the load.

The lumbar area is extremely well padded, as is the hip belt generally.  Well-padded shoulder straps ease the burden on the shoulders.  In addition, care has been taken to ensure good ventilation across the back.

The V2 frame is size adjustable and intended for medium to heavy loads.  It is designed as an inverted-V frame with fiberglass reinforcing bars.  Like the X1, the V2 frame comes well-padded in all the right places, and is extremely comfortable to wear.

Those are the bases of the systems.  The really interesting part is the wide variety of packs that attach to these frames.  They are all modular, MOLLE attachable, and made with weight-saving 700 cordura nylon. 

The TT series of packs range in size from nine to an incredible 100 litres.  There are the simple “Essential” packs, a 22 L, 25 L, 30 L, 37 L, combat and mission packs; a 25 L radio pack.  There’s a 45 L, 50 L, 75 L, 80 L pack, and the incredible 100 L range pack.  These packs come with internal and external division for mission specific applications.  Colours include black, olive, khaki, coyote, and multicam.

Then there’s vests and web gear designed to work with the packs.  These can carry plates, as well as a variety of pouches for rifle and pistol mags, cuffs, and loads of other stuff.

If you plan on carrying anything on your back, your front, or even the back of your front seat or headrest, you got to have a look at the Tasmanian Tiger line from Hudson Supply.  Military, police, EMT, or just a plain hiker or back packers like me there’s got to be something interesting to you.
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Trudeau promises gun ban

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Sept 2019


 The latest unwise promise from Justin Trudeau is that if re-elected he would ban “semi-automatic assault weapons” and allow municipalities to restrict or ban handguns. These promises are all constitutionally and legally dubious.  They certainly won’t achieve anything.

Since any weapon can be used to assault, I assume he means assault rifle.  A “semi-automatic assault rifle” is a contradiction in terms since the distinguishing feature of an assault rifle is that it is capable of fully-automatic fire.

As for municipalities being given legal authority by the Federal government, it is a pure play for Toronto votes and is constitutionally dubious.  The provincial governments have full authority over municipalities, and possess the power to block any by-law pretending to ban the possession and legal use of private property.

The recent TACCOM 2019 gun show in Toronto showed how useless any such an “assault” ban would be.  On display were irearms that are “assault-like” in character but are entirely unrestricted under current law.  The gun designers are smarter than Liberal gun-banners, and already have the solution to a Trudeau gun-ban ready for market.

A gun-ban will be met with massive non-compliance.  Is Trudeau prepared to create several million scoff-laws in Canada just for the sake of his progressive vanity?
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Climate Change as an Election Issue

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Sept 2019


What Canada can do about climate change will undoubtedly be an election issue, though it shouldn’t be.  Why it shouldn’t be can be explained with a few incontrovertible facts that even ardent believers cannot ignore.

Canada produces 1.5 percent of world CO2 emissions annually, of which Ontario contributes about a third.  If every car, factory, and person in Ontario were vaporized and the land returned to primordial forest, it would reduce Canada’s contribution from 1.5 to 1.0 percent.  That reduction of 0.5 percent is equivalent to reducing atmospheric CO2 content from 408 to 406 ppm.  That 2 ppm difference has no impact at all on CO2 induced climate change – if it exists.  The wildest hopes for the Trudeau carbon tax won’t cut Canada’s CO2 emissions by anywhere near a third.

So what are we talking about – tiny fractions of ppm in this election?  Seriously?

Canada’s contribution to world CO2 emissions is too small for anything we do to make a difference.  Talk of “what Canada can do so save the planet” is happy-talk, virtue-signalling.  It is playing on ignorance.

Serious people should speak of serious things, especially in an election.  Speaking of what Canada ought to do to affect climate change isn't serious.
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TRACTABLE

Vincent J. Curtis

4 June 2019

After the destruction of Worthington Force, an enraged Guy Simonds ordered GOC 4^th Canadian Armoured Division, George Kitching, to take Hill 195.  The division commander passed the order onto OC 10^th Brigade, J.C. Jefferson. who in turn passed it on to Lt-Col Dave Stewart, CO of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.  “I mentally wrote the Argylls off, as well as myself” recalled Stewart.

With the fate of the Black Watch on Verrières Ridge in mind, Stewart began his planning process with a map recce.  He found a concealed route through the German lines to well up the slope of the feature from an unexpected direction.  Bringing his scout platoon with him, Stewart reconnoitered the route, and dropped off members of the platoon as guides on the way back.  Stewart’s plan was to lead the Argylls in single file back along the route in darkness, infiltrate the German position, and occupy Hill 195 silently.  Routine sounds of battle would, hopefully, cover the sound of five hundred men tromping in the darkness and banging shovels into rifles.

Stepping of at midnight 10/11 August, the Argylls with “an almost incredible smoothness” occupied Hill 195.  The companies were deployed around the summit, and the troops began digging in by 04:30.  Over one hundred Germans occupying the feature were surprised and captured.  Stewart contrived to bring along a troop of 17 pdr anti-tank guns, and sited them to enfilade the most likely route of a tank assault.

Hill 195 was not a bald knob.  Located in the center of the German line, it had trees, scrub, hedges, and a wheat field for concealment.  It lacked much cover, and chalk bedrock lay less than two feet below the surface. Slit trenches were shallow.  When the sun came up and the Germans realized that Canadians held the dominant feature of their line, they tried to dislodge them with artillery and mortar fire.  When that didn’t work, tank and infantry assaults were launched from the direction Stewart expected.  The 17 pdrs left the tanks smoking wrecks, and machine guns made short work of the German infantry.  Canadian field artillery and Typhoons shot up an assembly area where heavy German tanks were massing.

With their main line of resistance breached, the Germans pulled back closer to Falaise.

Operation Tractable was launched on August 14.  It was another Simonds special.  This time, eight hundred Lancasters would bomb targets along the road from Hill 195 to Falaise.  Then, at noon, the 3^rd Infantry and 4^th Canadian Armoured Divisions, forming a main effort, would strike southwards cross-country two miles east of the road.  They would cross the Laison River, and bear down on Points 184, 115, and 159 north-east of Falaise. (The aerial bombardment savoured of a ruse, but the Germans weren’t fooled.  Captured documents told the Germans where the main effort was.)  A heavy smoke screen was used to impair the effectiveness of long range German anti-tank and machine gun fire. Of course, some of the bombs landed in Canadian and Polish lines and caused about four hundred casualties.  

Tractable was another heavy slog.  It took until the 16^th to push the six miles from east of Hill 195 into Falaise, and another two days to clear the town.  But taking Falaise was not enough to close the gap.  The places of real tactical significance were two small villages seven miles south east of Falaise: Trun and Chambois.  These were to be taken by 4^th Div and the 1^st Polish Armoured.  These two armoured divisions thrust south on August 16^th while Falaise was still being cleared.

Suddenly, a spark of generalship appeared.  The commander of the 1^st Polish, General Stanislaw Maczek, swung east and outflanked German defenses.  Then, he split his division into three battle groups, sending one in rear of Trun, one to Hill 262, and one to Chambois, all in the German rear.  Aided by the Poles, 4^th Div captured Trun on the 18^th.

The final drama was to occur at St. Lambert-sur-Dives and Hill 262, where the Canadians and the Poles would choke the gap closed.
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TOTALIZE

Vincent J. Curtis

19 May 2019

Operation Windsor saw the capture of Carpiquet village.  Next came Operation Charnwood (8-9 July 1944) which saw the capture of Carpiquet airfield and the town of Caen north of the Orne.  Then followed Operation Atlantic, which was run in conjunction with the notorious Operation Goodwood (18-19 July, 1944).  Atlantic saw the Canadians capture Caen south of the Orne and create the bridgehead necessary for an assault on the Verrières Ridge.

The battle for Verrières Ridge was a bloody nightmare for the Canadians, with a lack of coordination and a repetition of bad methods leading to over 2,500 casualties.  Operation Spring (25-27 July, 1944), which gained a toe-hold on a part of the ridge, was an especially notorious fiasco.

The American breakout in Operation Cobra suddenly made it possible to entrap the entire German army in France in a pocket southwest of Falaise, with the Canadians forming a pincer from the north.  Operation Totalize (7-11 August 1944) was Canadian II Corps commander Lieutenant General Guy Simonds’ plan to advance from Verrières Ridge to Falaise.

Montgomery considered Guy Simonds to be highly capable, and perhaps Canada’s best general.  That opinion saved Simonds’ career more than once, and Simonds returned the admiration by making himself physically resemble Monty.  Among his other failings, Simonds was a martinet who despised most of his subordinates, and not a few of his superiors, as barely competent. 

This attitude impaired his effectiveness as a general.  His leadership style stifled innovation and initiative other than his own.  For all his self-regard, Simonds still needed the enterprise of subordinates to exploit the opportunities his operations created.

The Germans developed blitzkrieg following their experience facing the Canadian Corps after Amiens.  The Canadians had dominated No Man’s Land with patrolling and trench raids, and German infiltration (Hutier) tactics are no different in fieldcraft from reconnaissance patrolling.  But the Canadians, interwar, never experimented with infiltration tactics, or trained as battlegroups.  By early August, 1944, it was obvious that Sherman tanks needed infantry help dealing with German anti-tank nests, among other deficiencies in tactical methods.

For Totalize, Simonds invented the Kangaroo armoured personnel carrier, which was made by “defrocking” a Priest self-propelled gun of its weapon, leaving room in the Sherman chassis for a section of men.  There was the help.

Totalize was a familiar set-piece battle but using bigger hammers, closer timing between blows, and other techniques of ancient renown.  Tactically, Totalize was a case of hi-diddle-diddle- straight up the middle, the middle being the Caen-Falaise road.  Heavy strategic bombers were would carpet bomb both sides of the highway south of the start-line.  Immediately upon completion of the air mission, artillery would open up and the first wave of tanks and APCs would drive south in a night attack, bypassing pockets of resistance along the way.  Tracers from Bofors 40 mm guns and target marking artillery shells were guides to direction.

Great innovations from Simonds, but then gremlins crept in to undermine the plan.  There was no radio comms with air.  Some bombs dropped on 3^rd Canadian Division HQ and wounded Major General Rod Keller.  Bombing the route of advance created a tank obstacle course which was run en mass at night by inexperienced APC drivers.  Simonds ordered a halt at noon on the 8^th to bring up the artillery after the first objectives were taken.  Given a respite, the Germans regrouped and a second dose of heavy bombing failed to destroy German counterattacking panzer groups.  Totalize stalled.

Trying to restore momentum, Simonds ordered Worthington Force to capture Hill 195.  The result was the most infamous event of Totalize.  An inexcusable navigation error had Worthington Force, a battlegroup consisting of the British Columbia Regiment and the Algonquins, seize Hill 140, seven kilometers from the assigned objective.  Unsupported by Canadian artillery or Typhoons, it was annihilated by a counterattack force of German Panther tanks.

Totalize culminated with the capture of Hill 195 on the 11th by a lone infantry regiment that infiltrated at night into the position.
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Who is Joseph Mifsud?

Vincent J. Curtis

24 July 2019

If you want to know who Joseph Mifsud is, check out my blog posting of December 31, 2017, entitled "How the Russian Inquiry Really Began."

It is located under the December 2017 postings of the blogspot.

You could have read it all here first, folks!
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America: Love it, or Leave it

Vincent J. Curtis

19 July 2019


The sentiment: ‘America; love it or leave it’ has been around since the founding of the country, even before the establishment of the Republic.  Southern Ontario – Quebec as it was known in 1784 – was settled by British Empire Loyalists.  The Loyalists were Americans who disagreed with the American Revolution and supported Britain.  When the revolution succeeded, the Loyalist left America.  However much they may have loved their homes, they left America on account of political differences.

And let’s not forget the Mohawks.  They left their traditional grounds in present-day New York State and moved onto the Haldimand Tract in 1785 for the same reason as the Loyalists.  The land they left was arguably more theirs than the colonists’.

Later came the American Civil War, in which the slave states seceded from the Union in order to protect their ‘peculiar institution.’

The sentiment of ‘love America or leave it’ has a long history.

But the high dudgeon presently in the media over a chant at a Trump rally has more to do with current politics than seriously considered views.  Lots of people hate Trump, and emotion colours our perception of things.  People who hate Trump naturally want to find ill in anything he does.

Those who follow these rallies will have noticed a prevalence of three beat chants, such as “U-S-A”, “Four-more-years,” and “Lock-her-up”.  A recent one has been a play upon a Democratic contender: “First, you have the Boot, and then ‘edge-edge.  Boot-edge-edge”  The crowds love participating in a Trump rally, which is why he routinely speaks before 25,000 in a hockey arena with several thousand more watching on giant screens outside.  It was entirely predictable that Trump would talk about “The Squad”, as the four freshmen Democratic congresswomen call themselves: Alexandrea Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Presseley.  (“Is she related to Elvis?” Trump playfully asked.) It was also entirely predictable, and it was predicted by one observer, that the crowd would boo and take up some chant at their mention.  In this case, it was “send-her-back” while Trump was speaking of Ilhan Omar, a refugee from Somalia.

These chants are playful things that add to the festivity of a Trump rally.  People expect to chant, and look for opportunities to do so.  Again, Trump haters are going to get all serious about how wicked such sentiments are.  But the spirit in which these sentiments are expressed are not as hard-edged as the Trump haters express their hatred of Trump.

On the merits of the chant, however, there is some seriousness to it.  Ilhan Omar owes America a lot, and she doesn’t show it.  She expresses no love for the country that took her in and afforded her a good life.  Omar’s family fled the civil war in Somalia and resided in a camp in Ethiopia.  America accepted her and a bunch more Somalian refugees and gave them a home in Minnesota.  Safe and nourished in America, she attended good American schools, where she got a real education - not like she would have got in Somalia.  She was elected first to the Minnesota State legislature, and then to Congress.  Her words, actions, and traditional Somali headgear betray the ultimate aim of her politics, and it isn’t to make America great again.

Given her evident disdain for the country that has given her a good life and success, her absence of gratitude, her failure to recognize any of the good qualities of the country that took her in, it is only natural that the ire of American nativists would get raised a little bit at her prospect.  Therein lies the edge to the chant, “send-her-back.”  Native-born Americans love America as it is.  There are literally thousands of people at the Mexican border who also love America as she is, and would love to replace Ilhan Omar as a citizen.  There is plenty of reason to think that Omar is seriously in the wrong.  There are good reasons to ask why she stays, but we know why.
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