Guns are (apparently) very sexy!

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... sexy enough to not even need a chick for success!

A few days ago, on 23rd, I blogged about the first heavy calibre machinegun. This particular model isn't well-documented in the WWW or in books, and I blogged about it simply because I like to point out neglected or underestimated stuff.

The blog post wasn't the normal gun documentation, though. I attempted to put the gun in context and point out how important it could have been.

This blog post followed a period of increased visitor activity which was likely caused by a few links and an improved rate of blogging on my part.

Then happened the unexpected (yes, it was still unexpected despite all my previous experiences); the machine gun text plus a link to it at the Firearms Blog pushed this blog beyond 1,000 visitors in a day for the very first time (previous record was 991). In fact, it even reached 1,065 and 1,105 visitors on two days in a row.

It's incredibly frustrating. There are so many blogs and websites about hardware around, and it' really no wonder: That's what almost the whole audience seems to want. Trying to be smart, uncover some background stuff, tactics & operational art, military history - these topics don't have remotely the same attention as simple guns, guns, guns.

If you want to start a MilBlog with many visitors simply focus on guns, tanks, aircraft, ships and bigger guns. It's a foolproof plan.

Sven Ortmann
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My three real topics

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Months ago introduced labels and added them even to older posts. Two dozen different labels characterise the blog's texts now. Actually, that's way too much.

The blog is - and always has been - about only three big topics - all else being mere fillers, such as humour.

These topics are

(I)

The creeping introduction of domestic spying and additional authority powers over citizens in Germany.

I gave a vote to the FDP last time and was rewarded with Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger as Germany's new secretary of justice. She's our most reliable civil liberties bulwark and stopped the despicable trends once in office again.

(II)

Own thoughts on military theory, about solving military problems with as much smart thinking as possible in order to minimise the need for brute force.

Sometime in late 2009 I decided to hold back the real diamonds for a possible book publication in a few years. The blog gets only hints about a theoretical work that began patchy and is growing into a large mosaic where astonishingly much fits and comes together.

(III)

Pushing against the widespread attitude in several Western countries where the military is still considered not only as a tool of national policy, but as a promising one for offensive use.

This problem is rooted in history, traditions, myths - and lack or rational thinking. Some nations have actually made big leaps backward on these topics and became much more belligerent in the last generation.

Their belligerence is illegal because they signed and ratified (thus giving law-like weight) treaties such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, Charter of the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty. All of them banned the threat and use of force for anything but defence.

The huge wealth of mankind's history documentation also suggests that wars extremely rarely paid off for a country or tribe. Most often even supposedly "won" wars gave a net benefit only the tiny share of the "winning" people. Nevertheless, millions of people are ready to say that they want an expeditionary military (costing billions to hundreds of billions extra per year) for the mere "potential" that's supposedly in the threat and aggressive use of force.

The Western civilisation has to address the herculean task of ending this foolishness. We might end up with a Third World War after all if we refuse to learn from mankind's history.

Sven Ortmann

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365 days - 195k pageviews

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The Flagcounter gadget was added on 21 June 2009, one year ago. It counted 195k pageviews*.

195k pageviews is a quite impressive figure in my opinion. The blog was almost entirely hidden from view before late 2008, after all.

Next step: Make it 195k a month. ;-)

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German blogs are rare, German MilBlogs are even more rare and German blogs in English language are ... well, I know only two or three.

I'd love to see a few more blogs like mine in German, English or French. The MilBlog scene is too much dominated by American and French blogs in my opinion. They've got the language advantage (maybe there's a great MilBlog in Hungarian, but who could know about it?).

The British MilBlogs are often critique blogs with a strong focus on UK affairs. It's a bit strange why the UK bloggers don't cover stories from the whole Commonwealth. British TV and newspapers seem to have a raised interest in Commonwealth-wide affairs in comparison to foreign ones.

The American MilBlogs are often either too hardware-centric for my taste, or rabid and respectless right wing or a very few so-called "liberal" blogs. American MilBlogs in a wider sense do also include the more than 95% "I (or my husband) was in Iraq" MilBlogs.

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It's not exactly an advantage in the modern German society to have a strong interest in military affairs - especially not so if you've already left the payroll of the Bundeswehr years ago. I do like to compare it to an interest in firefighting:

Nobody wants buildings to burn, everybody despises arsonists, yet you want a well-equipped, quick, effective and relatively safe firefighting reaction once a building is burning. Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I believe that even though most buildings are quite well-protected against fire, there are arsonists, buildings will burn, our firefighter department will be called. I do also believe that it's not going to be as good as it could be - it will even be worse than in earlier actions.

I blog with some interest in military affairs and civil liberties, and I do so with a conviction that Western armies are as ill-prepared for modern, full warfare as they were in 1913. Many people told me about their agreement with this view, and some were even more pessimistic.

Maybe I'm wrong and much more is fine than it seems to me - fine. Great. I'd love to be wrong on that one.

On the other hand - maybe I'm not that wrong. In that case, why not inspire some thinking with own thinking?

This is why I'd like to see more blogs like mine. I am cocky enough to assume that mine is an inspiration to some readers; that it raises the interest in different interpretations, in weak spots, in historical best practice examples. Many more blogs like that could probably have an advantageous combined effect.

Military theory is today being treated as a state secret in Germany (as if that secrecy had worked aginst the Reds). It wasn't always like that. Germany had a huge amount of published military theory discussions, articles and books prior to WWI. That activity wasn't enough to prevent the disasters of 1914-1918, but it had a very positive net effect nevertheless; a very competent officer corps. I'm not willing to say that the U.S. army officer corps is very competent (in comparison to other NATO officer corps), but they still have an open discussion culture on military theory. That was a bit restricted after 2001 when some branch journals (infantry, armor) were pulled from public view (as if that would enable secrecy...ridiculous).

Nevertheless, such a look beyond one's own nose can tell us that a more public military theory discussion in Germany would not equal treason. Our few military journals (to be found only in in the biggest press shops) do not need to be on the level of industrial propaganda, modeller and airsoft journals.

Sven Ortmann

P.S.: Statcounter counted 175k in the same period, now I want to see their CEOs in a boxing ring. ;-)
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