Milstack Saturday (29 March 2025)
The best of what I read, watched, or listened to in the past week
Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed the absence of editions of Milstack Monthly for January, February, and March of 2025. This lacuna owes its existence to the replacement of monthly aggregators with seasonal ones. Thus, please keep your eyes peeled for Milstack Quarterly (Winter 2025).
In the course of doing some fact checking on for a piece I was writing about siege howitzers in the Second Anglo-Boer War, I ran into the episode of the British Battles Podcast that dealt with the battle fought at Paardeberg in February of 1900.1 From there, I discovered that John MacKenzie, who wrote and recorded that tale, has produced many more programs of its ilk. So, if movies like Zulu and The Man Who Would Be King fire up your boilers, you’ll love this series. (You’ll also enjoy the parent blog of the podcast, BritishBattles.com.)2
‘Permission to sperg, Sir!’
‘Denied. I know you’re going to complain about the confounding of the the five-inch howitzers of the Royal Field Artillery and the six-inch howitzers of the Royal Garrison Artillery. And yes, I know there’s a big difference between a 50-pound shell and one that weights 122 pounds. But folks don’t listen to podcasts for such details. That’s what The Tactical Notebook is for’.
Recently, while making the ‘mix tape’ (so to speak) for an automotive anabasis I encountered How Russia Knocked Out Ukraine from Kursk.3 Produced and presented by the poster-child for pop-culture punctuated commentary on contemporary conflict, this 41-minute video devotes more than ten minutes to the infiltration of Russian commandos through an underground tunnel that ran for 15 kilometers. (For those who prefer Freedom Units, that’s 9.3 miles.)
Watching this splendid video inspired me to revisit the splendid work that John Spencer does on the subject of subterranean operations in recent conflicts. (If new to this cornucopia of hypogean information, you will want to start with Underground Warfare 101.)4
‘Are you using a thesaurus again?’
‘Yes, Sir. It’s an indispensable tool for supply-side linguistics.’
In A Thought Experiment on Taiwan: The Consequences of Peace, Ben Duval of The Bazaar of War reminds us that preparing for conflicts that fail to materialize shapes the way we fight wars that actually take place.
At Modern Wargaming, JG uses models to showcase the essential features of armored fighting vehicles, and, in doing so, resurrects memories of many happy hours that I spent with a red sable brush and bottles of Testor’s enamel.
Note on Links
My experiment with the use of superscripted acronyms to warn readers about the provenance of links has convinced me to try another approach. Thus, the links that appear in the text of this article will take you to pieces published somewhere in the wide and wonderful world of Substack. Links to material hosted on other sites appear only in footnotes.
For more in the way of Milstack goodness …
To subscribe, share, or support:
Podcast on the Battle of Paardeberg (Podbean)
Underground Warfare 101 (Modern War Institute)