My name is Navin Joy and I'm a Neutron hacker. I contribute code to the networking VPP project. For those of you who do not know what that is, it is a Neutron ML2 mechanism driver project that works with the VPP switching platform. So I've been working on that for several months and close to a year right now. Worked on security groups, role-based access controls and VxLan technology implementation over there. So today I'll be presenting to you about securing open-stack networking, some strategies and based on my experience, what I've learned. So here's the agenda. We will review some basic security strategies and we will look at the various services that interact with Neutron and its components and try to understand those because understanding those interactions will really help us secure them. And network security domains. We will examine a network architecture for Neutron, a typical deployment architecture and understand the various segmentation mechanisms and the security zones that we will look at. Then we will also look at some considerations for designing networks. What is R-back, role-based access control and how it is implemented in Neutron. Then we'll look at security groups and some spoof mitigation strategies. Then the role of quotas as a cloud or network administrator, how can you leverage that? Then we'll look at some of the checklists and go through some of the items that we have seen to summarize and finally conclude our talk. So primarily when you review security strategies, the overarching security strategy is the defense in depth strategy. That is going to be a primary strategy for securing our network. The idea here is that you use a series of defensive mechanisms and you protect your network in such a way that if a single mechanism were to fail, you still have other mechanisms in your network available to toward an attack. So you protect each and every service component, communication channel and the API access. You design your network security in layers, not just looking at the perimeter alone. Perimeter is one of the best defenses, but it is not the only one because there are so many attackers with such a wide variety of attack methods that no single component can successfully protect all the components of your network. Leverage, role-based access control and domains. So what a role-based access control and domain will look at keystone domains for those of you in the networking area that are not quite familiar with the keystone domain concept. So we will restrict access to project resources based on roles, we will look at how to do that in Neutron. Then we will look at again strategies to harden Neutron service components, which is to patch any reported vulnerabilities. So one area where you can look at all the vulnerabilities reported is in this URL. Also proper service configuration, such as service owner, file permissions, et cetera, critical. So if you don't really have to run your agent or distributed service as a root, think about it. I see a lot of that happening all the time. People just start up an agent as a root, even though a root privilege is not really necessary. Then evaluate the security impact of using a certain tenant network type. So in Neutron, as you know, you have the concept of a tenant network type that you can assign or allocate as an administrator to tenants. You have various options. You can do flat, VLAN, VXLAN, or GRE. But especially if you do flat, which I've seen for very simple deployments is that you just have one broadcast domain and all your tenant virtual machines or projects are in that broadcast domain. So you have to be aware of the fact that there could be ARP spoofing going on there in that one large broadcast domain. And you'll have to have a strategy for mitigating that. So limiting resources available to projects. So especially when you're looking at self-service networks, your users now have the ability to create, update, and destroy, basically crud on your network resources. So if you don't enforce CODAS as a cloud administrator, you may be surprised very often by a huge uptick in the sudden usage and that could cause some outages in your network. So ensure that CODAS are set to limit network resources and we will look at the capabilities provided by Neutron for doing that. Finally, isolating network access. So there are two ways to isolate. One is the basic network segmentation that we'll look at into the various networking, VLANs, management, APN, external, and data. Then besides that, you'll have to understand the security domains concept to control the interaction to networking services. And also use Neutron security groups and anti spoofing filters to protect project instances. So this is like a high level strategy of what we will go more in depth in this presentation. So this diagram shows the various components and the communication channel within Neutron. At the center you have Neutron server and the APIs. And then you have the clients talking to the Neutron server which are typically Horizon, CLI, and API. Then you have the ML2 plugin, the Neutron. That plugin interacts with the various distributed agents in your network. Typically through RabbitMQ or an AMQP mechanism. You have the L3 agent responsible for routing and floating IPs and this will typically be running on your network node. And this L3 agent will also be attached to your AMQP service. Then you have a DHCP agent that is responsible for DHCP. Also you will be typically running this on your network node. For redundancy, you can pretty much run multiple copies of DHCP agents. Then you have the ML2 plugin agent that is responsible for actually working with the mechanism itself, the switch. So the way it works is the ML2 plugin sends a message via RPC through the AMQP layer. And the ML2 plugin agent on the compute node will then pick up that message and then start binding the port for NOVA. So that is one flow. So if you look at the other interaction with other services, Neutron server talks via REST to Keystone and NOVA. So from a security standpoint, the domains is a concept of providing the same security controls to all the components within that domain. So you have in this case, the management domain and the external domain, two domains here. And then you have identified all the components that communicate between them and then restrict their communication to those components only. For instance, there is no real need for a tenant to connect to the management domain. I'll talk about the network architecture in the next slide where we will show, I will show you the exact network topology, the various network segments and how to classify those into domains. So also one more key piece here is that we use the ETCD key value store for messaging between the, from the plugin to the distributed agents on the compute node. So you'll have all of these components will have to be secure. Basic idea is that if the service offers it, ensure that the components connect via SSL into the queue, into HCD layer and so on. So this is a standard architecture for any Neutron deployment. It includes a Cloud Controller host, a network node and optionally an SDN node if you're using SDN in your network and a number of compute nodes and a horizon dashboard node. So you can see that all of these nodes are connected to a management network and called as a management security domain. The primary purpose of this management network is to enable these components, the controller to network to compute and all the flow that we saw in the previous slide to happen basically. So when Neutron essentially or the ML2 plugin driver makes a call to notify the plugin agent on the compute node, that traffic will go through the management network. Similarly when NOVA makes a call to Neutron to bind a port for an instance on a certain network, that call goes through this management network. So it is important to identify all the nodes that are in this management network and isolate that communication to one security level, which means that only these components should be allowed to communicate and maybe a few authorized segments in your network that are responsible for management communication. Maybe the network administrator or a cloud administrator segment. Then you have the data network, which is the tenant security domain. So when you create a tenant VM and you have let's say the various tenant network types that you saw, the topology of this data network shown will vary depending upon the tenant network type that you have chosen. If you choose a flat network, it's going to be just one broadcast domain. If you choose, let's say VLAN, that's going to be a VLAN segmented network. The basic idea here is that all the tenant networks are going to be connected basically to this data network here and the tenant instances are going to be applied to this network and they, when those instances communicate to the external network, that traffic is going to go from the compute node, traversing through that network to the network node and then get routed by that Q router namespace and then, you know, net it out to the external network. There are other, there's a VXLAN network which is basically an overlay network. So this network has to be isolated for tenants to communicate. There is, you know, you have to have the necessary security mechanisms out there that those networks don't talk into the management network. Then you have the external network that is used for floating IPs and external internet access and so on which is directly accessible from the internet. So this is essentially in the public security domain and you have, of course, the API network for, this is for the purpose of making API calls and it's also most likely from the internet you may want to expose it. So typically both of those are in the same security domains. So by creating these security domains and by analyzing your network, you are able to enforce those controls appropriately and then restrict who talks to these devices and these nodes in these security domains. So what are some of the networking considerations? So one is that evaluate your network design for providing self-service tenant networks because users now have the ability to create, update and destroy virtual network resources and it's important that if you're a cloud architect or an operator, you evaluate the various design use cases in providing users that ability. For instance, you have to consider the pros and cons for supporting various tenant network types. And as I discussed earlier, especially the flat network is one single layer two network without any segmentation and may not be suitable for any production deployment. If you're using VLANs, VLANs are limited to 4,094 networks and the V switch on each compute node is attached to a VLAN trunk port. So you'll have to look at the number of VLANs that you want to support and allocate to tenant networks and then plan your code allocation appropriately. Otherwise, you may have, you may run into this, you may run out of VLANs, causing some denial of service issues for your tenants. So for all practical purposes, if you are planning to use a self-service tenant network or planning to implement that, your options would primarily be VXLAN, GRE being another option. So the idea here is that you take a layer two packet, encapsulate inside layer three, and then deliver it to the target node, where it is de-capsulated and sent to the local bridge domain. So it's very stable because it is, the layer two packets are encapsulated. When two machines communicate across two compute nodes, you are encapsulating the packets in IP and using the IP routing to deliver that packet. However, it is difficult to monitor and support, and theoretically you have, I would say infinite kind of scalable, 16 million typical support, but you can't really go anywhere close to it. Your switches will run out of IDs for allocation. Another thing to consider is you'll have to investigate the maturity and security features of pluggable virtual network services that you plan to use. So Neutron offers the ML2 plugin architecture, which is a blessing, but at the same time it could be a problem. If you don't plan ahead of time and think about all the ML2 drivers that you plan to use, that one services that they plan to use, are they really stable, are they mature, are they secure, and things like that. So you'll have to carefully consider the various pluggable components that you plan to use. And if possible, leverage layer 3 routing and NAT for tenant VMs, that provide per tenant routing and floating IPs. Essentially the layer 3 router provides NAT network address translation, hiding tenant private IPs behind the router. And you can also allocate floating IPs to tenants and then use security groups to control the inbound traffic to those tenant instances. So this is a much more secure way of providing tenant networks. Some of you may know the next is a tap as a service. Neutron extension is available. I've played with some of this. So it allows you to mirror traffic from several ports into one port. And that mirror session is also capable of spanning across compute and network nodes. So if you are a network admin or a cloud admin, this is a very nice tool for you to debug problems. And if you are a security admin, you may want to leverage these APIs to gain visibility into monitoring network traffic and for security analytics. Messaging layer, we spoke briefly about this. Messaging queue, which I'm talking about RabbitMQ and HCD key value store, if you use that for your messaging, which we do in our project. So message queue should only accept incoming connections from the management network. So there is no real requirement to keep it wide open and allow the tenants to connect to it. Encrypt all connections, client connections to the messaging layer using SSL and TLS. So basically you configure your neutron services, which includes the ML2 driver and all the distributed L3 agents, the ML2 plugin agent and so on, to talk to this queue using HTTPS. Both RabbitMQ and ETCD support that mechanism. You know, you can speak HTTPS. It's not a very complex way of implementing. If you decide to use self-service certificate generation, you can, RabbitMQ and HCD itself can generate certificates for your client. So it's much easier to roll out certificates in that way and secure your client communications. So you don't really have to run an independent TLS deployment in that case, which is going to be a more very complex endeavor. Also you have to secure peer-to-peer inter cluster communication. So this is if you have multiple RabbitMQ nodes or multiple HCD nodes, you want to secure that using HTTPS as well. So additional layers of security we have implemented. Some of these password authentication is supported by both RabbitMQ and ETCD and client authentication. If you already have a certificate authority in place, you can distribute certificates to your clients and then have those certificates authenticated, which is really a very high security, but more complex to implement. So this is a basic concept in Keystone domains. I just wanted to put it in there because as network and cloud admins who are focused on the networking area may not know some of the capabilities of Keystone domains. It is a new resource that is offered in the Keystone V3 API.  So we know that a project owns is networking, compute, and storage resources. And the project and users can now be grouped into a container called domain. So you can think of a domain as a grouping of projects and a project as a grouping of your resources. So some high-level container. And the advantage here is that earlier on without these domains, when you create an admin user, he used to be given complete privileges. He was considered a cloud admin, which is not the intended thing in real use case. You just want that admin that you create to be a project admin or an admin for a collection of projects. So the domains essentially make leverage that, make that happen.  So again, this ties into the concept of the principle of least privilege and security, which means that a person shouldn't have any more privilege than what he really needs to get his job done. So that is a foundational principle where prior to domains, it was like you just had one domain administrator for all the projects. So networking allows you to secure API access using RBAC, excuse me. Now what is RBAC for the beginners is, RBAC is basically defining roles and granting access based on roles to individuals in an organization. There is a role that does not need a password to be set. It's just an entity that you create in Keystone. And what that role does is it merely defines your access rights. And Neutron has a policy engine. And that policy engine has a configuration file called policy.json. And within this policy file, you basically specify based on the role what API access that particular user has. So that's a basic idea. So when I have another slide to go into the details of this, but these role based access control policy definitions are necessary to maintain your network security, availability and overall cloud security, tying back into the principle of least privilege that we discussed earlier. How does RBAC work? So Keystone allows you to create these role entities. And once you create these role entities, you just go to Keystone, it's just a one line entity. Just create a role, no password. It creates an entity. And once you create that, you can assign those roles to user project or group project pairs for a basic. Keystone allows other assignments as well, which I'm not discussing here. And Neutron uses this information, role information from Keystone to authorize user requests by reading entries from policy.json file, which we discussed earlier. It is a file that specifies policies to rule mappings. And the idea is that when a user makes an API request, it triggers a policy. It's like when somebody makes v2.0 slash routers, it triggers a policy that you're specified for, or when somebody sends a post request, excuse me, to v2.0 slash policies, interpreted as a create router request, right? So you have a create router policy, and then you specify an action. So we'll see in the next slide. And then the request, the API request is only permitted if the rule permits that particular action on that policy. So it's an example of a Neutron RBAC policy. So we have an API action or a policy called delete subnet, and we have defined a role called network admin, or you can also define a rule called admin or owner. What it means is that if the API user has his, if his authenticated token, the API user's authenticated token has the role network admin. Okay, or if it is permitted by the rule admin or owner, he's allowed to delete that subnet. That's what it means. For creating the router, you're saying that the API user has to be authenticated to Keystone and should have the role admin. And then the admin or owner rule, again maps to role or project IDs. So what it means is that you can only perform this action in the context of your project. So ETCD is a key value store that is becoming very popular right now because it allows you to create these keys and values and exchange those messages between the various components of Neutron by using ETCD watch mechanisms. RBAC support is also available in ETCD. So if you're using it, try to leverage RBAC. So you can define a role in ETCD using the role add. And then once a role is defined, it can be granted to various parts of the key space, the same concept. You define a role and you've granted to various parts of what you want, the areas that you want, that particular API user to have access to. So the below command grants read access to all keys prefixed with networking VPP. So you can grant that role that you created to a path in the key value store. And then you can prefix it. This is what we use for our networking VPP project. And then you can say you have read access to all the keys in this particular, anything that is prefixed with networking VPP. And then you can grant roles to users using the ETCD CTL user grant command. Security groups. So the security groups in Neutron functions like virtual firewall at the Neutron port level, that's an important thing to understand. That's, it's better to visualize that in that way. It is not at the instance level, whereas NOVA security groups were at the instance level where all the instance ports had the same security group. So if you're using NOVA disabled NOVA security groups and configure NOVA to proxy, all security groups calls to Neutron. So you can do this by setting the firewall driver in NOVA to NOVA word firewall NOVA firewall driver and the API set to Neutron. The advantage, another advantage of using Neutron security groups is that it enables traffic filtering for both ingress and egress traffic. Whereas in NOVA it allowed for filtering ingress traffic only. So the way to visualize a security group is that it is just a container of permit rules. So there are no deny rules in there. It's just permit, it's like if you're a firewall admin it requires a little different way to think about it. You can only put in permit rules and these rules are stateful. So which means that if you permit traffic outbound you don't need an explicit rule to permit the response traffic and the other way around. So the rules are pretty flexible. I mean, they're pretty rich rules. I mean, you can filter several types of IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP, any protocol port can also filter on remote security group ID, remote IP prefix and so on. Since these rules are just permit rules, if the order of the rules in that security group doesn't really matter because just permit. Anything that you don't permit is just denied. So you can just remove any rule and add it's very flexible in that way. Unlike a firewall rule where you'll think about the order. You don't have to worry about the order at all with security groups. And another feature is that the rules can be updated at instance runtime and neutron will implement that. So mitigating spoofing. Yeah, so neutron implements fortunately anti-spoofing on all ports by default. But then it gives you an extension called port security extension for administrators to control that. So enable, make sure that that port security is enabled on all neutron ports and networks. What it does is when you enable it, neutron, when you, by default, every time, regardless of whether you program security groups or not, when you create a neutron port and bind that port to an instance, neutron will implement several anti-spoofing rules that will prevent spoofing activities by project instances. Nobody can spoof a DHCP server or run a router for traffic or send ICMP v6.  So you don't have to worry about that. Just make sure that you don't turn port security off unless you really need to. If there is a situation in which you will have to turn it on, turn it off, which is if you're running a VNF or a router that you really want to run a load balance or something that is going to forward packets and you really want to disable port security. And neutron also provides APIs to update a port security, port security of a port, and it should only be available to admins, which is also taken care of in its default implementation. Quotas. So as an administrator, you can limit the number of networking resources available to projects. It's a very basic thing, but a lot of people forget to do that. Quotas protect networking services. As a cloud administrator, you may, if you don't implement Quotas, you may be surprised by unforeseen spikes in resource usage at nighttime. So just make sure that you have set your Quotas properly. And when a project consumes all of its allocated resources, the resource becomes unavailable. So if you have a project that you have allocated 10 networks and they're limited to that, so especially if you're using VLAN-based networking, this is an important thing to set and manage in the sense that you have to control the Quotas, how many projects I have, I've set so many Quotas, my limit is 4,000 or so VLANs, so how many can I go before I need to start a fresh deployment? You're limited by that, so you have to do some planning. Quotas help you to do all of those planning. In Neutron, Quotas can be set for network, sports, basic resources, subnet, security group, security group rule, and also for routers and floating IPs as well. These are also precious resources, especially your floating IPs, they consume a routable IP. So Neutron provides two options for setting Quotas. One option is to set the same Quota, the default, across all projects, using in the Neutron.con, set it and forget about it, or you can also set per project Quota limit using an API extension. So Neutron also enables that, which is Quota set command is also there. You can use that to update Quotas on a project by project basis. So we have seen several security mechanisms, so I just wanted to refresh your memory and put together a security checklist. So first is, we looked at whether all interactions with the networking service have been isolated into security domains. Security domains means similar security controls, I mean the same level of control for all the nodes in that domain. So if you're using an ML2 mechanism driver, does it mitigate orbs poofing? This is something that you may want to investigate. Have you considered the pros and cons of supporting various tenant networking types? Are you using flat? If so, have you mitigated orbs poofing? Are you using VLANs? If so, have you planned your Quotas properly? VXLAN, again, troubleshooting and things like that, have you taken care of that? Have you hardened all Neutron service components? We saw several Neutron service components, the API server, the messaging layer, the communication to that messaging layer have to be TLS. Then are using Neutron security groups and enabled port security? Again, all communications are using SSL encryption. Have you implemented RBAC using the concept of least privilege? Identify the API actions and who can do what? Now, if you're using any new service, a new component, have you investigated the maturity and security features available of that pluggable component that you're using? And finally, are you leveraging Quotas to limit project resources? If you specify a minus one, it is unlimited resources, so that means it is going to be, that you'll have to be very careful for your Quotas. So in conclusion, in this session, I've tried to simplify a lot of complex concepts. We reviewed several approaches to secure OpenStack networking and I've tried my best to elucidate complex concepts. And I hope you found them useful. You can follow me on Twitter and pretty much that concludes our talk. Thank you so much for coming. Yes, questions? So we recently built OpenStack and tried to follow some of the networking in it and run into all the bits and pieces and everything. And I have to say, it's a bit, I mean, it was pretty arcane to follow. We eventually deconstructed it. There's some information out there in the web and so on. But trying to follow a packet as it goes into Linux Bridge, first of all, for IP tables, for the policy deployment, then into OBS and the OBS switching, the VX LAN and so on the transport and then out to a router, perhaps it was there. And then to another tenant. Are you aware of any tools that help virtualize all of this so that you can pick up traffic at specific points? Because you wouldn't know if, you could have an denial of service attack occurring on one OBS, you wouldn't even know it. Right, right. So what I do is I use tap as a service, if you have used it. Tap as a service. What it allows you to do is TAP. TAP, tap, tap as a service. So it is a neutron extension where basically if in the real world without, you know, neutron, the way that you go about doing in the physical world is that you create a mirror port, right?  So that's exactly what the tap as a service will allow you to do. Yeah. So you can just mirror ports, whatever you want, monitor traffic, restrict, you know, if you feel that there is a denial of service attack going on in some compute nodes, you can mirror traffic across compute nodes and then have a single view of what's going on. Okay, thank you. And if you have additional, you know, analyzers, network analyzers that can capture and display these packets, you know, it'll be much more helpful than TCP dump. Yeah, of course, like wire shark. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you can use that as a very nice tool. Yeah, okay. Thanks for the sharing. So I have a question about when you mentioned flat network, maybe it has some security concerns, but I'm not quite understanding. So if you have a security group and you have a port security, so after spoofing is already considered, so what are the risks? Right, so it depends on the actual mechanism driver that you're using. If you're using an open V-switch mechanism driver and a lot of new mechanism drivers provide that capability by default, there is a setting there saying ARPS spoofing, right? And then they do that now. So ensure that that is turned on. And then if you're using open V-switch, you're protected, but a lot of pluggable mechanism drivers don't have such features. So you may want to investigate that to see whether that is supported. Okay, thanks. Any other questions? Thank you.


Hey everybody, it's Billy. Welcome to Comic-GadenTV. We're all geek things collide I am doing the Funko collection this week And I decided to do it go with something that doesn't get that much love which are the rock candy figurines Which are by Funko Hey guys, welcome back to Comic-GadenTV. We're all geek culture collides if you're new to the channel Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on future videos Now a lot of people see these they just they don't like them because they're not the pop vinyls or not The bobbleheads, but I think a lot of them are really cool looking First up we have the rock candy back girl. I like this bag roll this version of that girl I do like when she had the purple outfit, but my sister-in-law got me this one for Christmas And I really like this bad girl. They did a good job looks like they did the little other boots They did Batman's helmet right there his little cow on the boots, which is really cool He got the gloves right He even got barbers red hair. Oh Yes, this is Barbara Gordon by the way for those of you who spoil alert that don't know anything about Batman They could have done a better pose, but this is really cool like the little shy girl statue at But each one of the statues also has its own base play and they are painting the putt to get out of the package but it's These things would be pretty cool like on your office desk or At home or wherever you would like to display your statues Next up we have the GameStop exclusive enchantress This one is modeled after the Suicide Squad movie, which I think they did a really good really good job with the figure I wasn't too happy with the movie. I like that Harley finally got a shot at it But that was about the only good thing from the movie that I liked But they did a really good job on this figurine. They even got down to her little Toe ring That she wore the movie in her bracelet her tattoos Given the long hair, which is really cool instead of a cape like they do with most of them got the bone in her hair But like with the bad girl, this is a really cool display piece even if you don't know anything about comic books and you just like Egyptian or stuff like that. It's still just really cool is to have on your desk And finally we have Harley Quinn cell Okay, Harley Quinn the love interest of the Joker. This is her animated series costume It's not her classic mallet, but it is a mallet But this one is really cool because with the feet They had these little pegs out here. This one actually has a peg for the hammer So it's just not flopping around all willy-dilly But this is really cool. It's got Diamonds on the ends the red diamonds and you got the black diamonds here And they did a really good job with this to the figure self. They wish I didn't go with a different Smile for her. I said this little Half smirk, I don't really like that and I'm not really sure what her eyes are supposed to be looking at but Look like one's looking straight and the other one's looking off to the left But it's still really cool the figurine Like I said, these things would mean the rock candies if you're not big in the funko or you don't collect anything These things would just be cool To display just on a desk somewhere or like and you're like I said in your office They all come with their own little bases.  I honestly think that the rock candies are Underrated because some of them are really cool. They put a lot of detail into them They can't use the same model well, they can use the same Model for some of the figures but as you can tell each one the modeling is different Because she has her head on this side. It hardly has her this way and then her hands are open not even on her hips So each for each one is different. So They put a lot of work into these and I always like I said, I believe they're underrated But make sure to put your comments below hit that like button subscribe button and stay tuned for next week Stay cool


Play clock down to 15 seconds Motion pranks three to the right one to the left Here's Ritter pressure coming Flushed from the pocket to the right Ritter gonna throw it up trying to come back Touches it touchdown Atlanta. Holy smokes What an unbelievable story Bernhardt is and a tremendous athlete Bernhardt makes the play He's a Florida kid triple option quarterback in high school, you know, it makes his way to Maryland as a lacrosse player and Broke records over there. I think he's the all-time points leader after after he finished at Maryland He goes to Ferris State and plays quarterback as a triple option quarterback there as well Bernie's been a we want to call it a pleasant surprise But when you when you know what the kid is and how he's wired and where he's from And and all the things that we just talked about like it doesn't surprise you know That he's that he's come along as fast as he has You know it goes back to my dad. I'm just being a football coach. He was pretty dry-humored But tough on us He had a you know tough upbringing losing his dad actually early in his life So he was living on his his own for a bit But you know just being tough on me and my brothers and making sure you know We had our priorities taken care of Football was definitely the first Where dad was involved that's what we were doing if we were outside playing football You wanted to be outside playing football kind of your your tag-along little brother is most probably people would think about So I wasn't playing lacrosse. I was doing football when I wasn't doing football lacrosse When he got to high school the ability for him to kind of Do what he was kind of doing on a high school field and there's definitely something there more than just kind of your normal You know high school football player or athlete per se Again from an early age was kind of a good athlete and you know like most play places like I was put the best athlete a quarterback Right and and again growing up. He was ironically enough huge like Michael Vick fan and you know Even then he kind of had some Shiftiness to him and and all that kind of stuff. So he had a great career I mean probably if not, you know one of the best to do it at our high school In terms of what he you know team standpoint and just an individual standpoint able to kind of accomplish A little bit later. I really wasn't thinking about playing football some of the military academies again We ran the triple option. So Had some opportunity to do that and then Do the lacrosse route obviously decided to go lacrosse route He walked into you know a top-notch you know lacrosse program in the country and kind of worked his way up to being a midfielder He was an attackman in high school the really Veteran group mentors and just day-by-day. I mean you're not really looking too far ahead Just trying to get a little bit better each day And getting we had a great group of seniors and you know just watch them You know how they carry themselves on and off the field kind of was a you know a big part to success and they end up 2017 winning the national championship which ended up 42 year drought for University of Maryland You know every year kind of just continue to get better and better He kind of has the individual success and kind of break some records at Maryland which You know to him is you know just is what it is But it is very impressive especially at a place like like Maryland and obviously he goes on to kind of win The tour time which you know as most people are learning is like the heisman of of college lacrosse. I love the game but I Made some of my best friends there continue to talk to him daily You know as the relationships that I've built you know in my time there You kind of really didn't really tell us too much. I mean you can kind of Bits and pieces kind of pick some things apart and figure there's something going on But when he ended up telling us obviously it you know hits pretty hard And then you know see him in the in the conditions he was in You know that was definitely the hardest thing You know since his passing you know you see all these people kind of come out And you know tell stories of the impact he had on their lives and all these things and then when you reflect in the reason Why we like being in sports and coaching isn't necessarily because of that It's because of the relationships that have come through it and we were able to see that through our dad He just kind of had that it factor that some people kind of do and you know Some people kind of don't but he definitely had it. I wasn't sure I wanted to do after Maryland After his passing I just kind of felt like yeah, this is kind of the route You know, I kind of want to pursue this and at least you know finish this you know going into 20 You know gonna be his senior year We're winding into that fall You know, that's kind of where the whole football thing started. I just kind of sent out some emails They got back in touch with me coach coach Anise over there actually called me Obviously said he was interested and showed you know kind of what their culture was about what they you know brought as you know As a team I think in that January Site unseen never even been to Ferris State didn't had a looking up on a map He committed them told coach Anise he was gonna come so that's kind of how we Tell he ended up at Ferris State when I got there They're already a great team, you know with coach Anise being there And you could see you know what he was building and what he had built So and he said they had they had a great team before I got there going into his first game at Ferris State I think it was about five minutes before the game that coach Anise told him that he was gonna be the starting quarterback It's a great feeling it was probably more. I mean it was it was awesome family is there You know you finally kind of saw him smile when they won the championship because to him that was the most important thing We had some seven-year guys that came back And kind of look look on their faces, you know to finally, you know get the get the championship So it was really cool to see you know how happy they were And during that season coach Smith brought his name up and coach follows every sport that there is you know Basketball lacrosse you name it and and and Bernie's name was always come up because he's the you know this great lacrosse player who's playing football at Ferris State and and he asked the bottom during the season and We made sure our area scout was on it and After that season he went and worked out at Maryland as his pro day So we went and watched that made sure we were there to attend it and he worked out as a As a wide-out and so that's kind of where the process started that way They were talking to me and said hey, maybe there's some them some interest here and Yeah, maybe I'll you know give it a shot When you watch as lacrosse tape it's it's impressive. He's a gifted player gifted hands, you know instinct spatial awareness So you watch that you know and and you're trying to make it okay? Well, what about football wise well when we watch him as a quarterback at Ferris State triple option quarterback You're seeing the same thing now You get the ball in your hands and you're running and you're making guys miss and those types of things and you start Peace and everything together Super super excited honestly, you know to have someone you know reach out and do that It's obviously means a lot and show their interest. So it was definitely definitely a great feeling There was no huge like Climactic moment or you know anything like that, you know definitely some congratulations and proud of you know for those things But every time he gets to one of those points he it's He's just already moving on from the thought process to like okay. This is just the beginning like now The work is kind of just starting which is just Jared He's come a long way switching positions playing wide-out for the first time coming to our mini camp From where he was at as at mini camp to where he's at now is it's light years away And that's because of I think just his overall athletic Ability and playing other sports and having that feel just trying to get better each day But also just trying to be a good teammate Again and that just comes with you know come to do your job every day China You know help your teammates get better, you know for Jared We know he has great intangibles and all those things like he's our brother or you know You know all those things but sometimes people don't get that opportunity to show those and hopefully that they've seen that and I think they Have you know otherwise like I tell him like you know if they didn't think you could be doing some of these things Like they wouldn't they wouldn't give you the chance So you know you just kind of kind of keep believing in yourself because they obviously see something too There are other players on this team that are playing really well, what's the kid's name Jared Bernhardt Bernhardt Yeah, this kid's gonna make the team guys if you're telling me he doesn't I gotta ask the reason why he's popping He's making plays Mike. He's catching balls.  No How quickly he's improved from pro day Mini camp OTA's training camp to the game You know I'm saying like it was you just saw it coming you saw it coming you saw it coming and and the kid works at it It's him. He's got a great demeanor about him walking around the building very serious. You know, I love that about it Jared Bernhardt makes this team. I like it.  So again, just probably a bunch of different emotions for his first opportunity ever To have the opportunity to dress in his first opportunity that he ever could that kind of was like Well, like that's pretty like I was like breathtaking, you know, I was like wow like this is it Like this is real now, you know, so like when I go now and sit in the stadium and it's like his first NFL game And you know, he's a better person than he is an athlete and he's a pretty good athlete


Seems like a tale of two covatches Hey guys, this is my review for altered carbon season one This was a show that was just released on Netflix It in fact if I'm correct is the most expensive Netflix television series ever made this was actually made out in Vancouver I know a few people who worked on it and The hype for this within the Vancouver film scene was huge the amount of talk about it This the aesthetic the world-building aspect of this show was huge They were calling this the Game of Thrones killer or that's what Netflix is trying to do They tried that with Marco Polo. It didn't work that well. It may end it got cancelled But there's nothing that Netflix has had aside for maybe stranger things house of cards are the oranges of the new black That has come close Even at all close to the absolute fandom that is game of thrones and that's what altered carbon tried to do Does it succeed? Does it fail? Let's get into it first off. I will say the world-building is fantastic It's as though Blade Runner took place in a game of thrones universe with titties and blood everywhere. There is so much Mature visual imagery. There's so much world-building There's so much in fact that there's actually too much because while we're seeing all these visual aspects and these Cool little trinkets and odds and ends and throughout the universe and how things work on earth We are getting so much Exposition that it's flying past us faster than a Christopher Nolan movie and there's too much of it to be gained What the whole idea of the show is there's stacks the idea that once you die As long as you aren't shot in the neck the back of the neck where the stack goes like USB chip You are able to pass your consciousness into a new sleeve a.k.a a body I don't know why though. I don't know what I'm referencing, but I kept on calling them skins But what it is about is Takeshi Kovach who is a former terrorist Allen Boy freedom fighter who was brought back from 250 years of being dead to investigate the murder of a Meth which is the meaning for a extremely rich and mortal which is a basically a person who has never died actual real death they just kept on passing on their consciousness to a new body and What we see is a mass of cultural divide between the less fortunate the extreme poor and then the Mests who basically are gods. They're living gods because they don't die and they can answer people's prayers Are their wishes if they wish to but usually they're just rich assholes and that's the thing that keeps on coming back This is a theme that is constant throughout the entire movie It's an obvious play on the 1% and blah blah blah and all that stuff the main character of Joel Kineman is actually not too bad I like Joel Kineman Even though some people say he can't act his way out of a wet paper bag And I've never seen him in the killing, but I have liked some of his work in the past So as a main character he is pretty good He's got definitely the noir feeling down with the cigarettes the drinking the narration just the character He's pretty cool. I actually do like him even though. He is written quite badly at times as For how the show starts it pulls you in if anything is just cool to watch Sometimes you're gonna kind of roll your eyes at the dialogue or that what the characters choices are But you will constantly be entertained with just how interesting the whole universe and the story is and I will say right up until episode 8 You're in it. You're in it for a good long time. It's definitely a binge watching a binge worthy show The fourth episode is by far the best one with the idea of virtual torture is really creepy really wicked however Coming into the conclusion episode 9 and episode 10 ruin it. They absolutely Destroy the credibility of the show.  This is Completely unfounded It keeps on repeating itself and it turns into this really by the numbers cliche Action piece and it's not that interesting I will say there's maybe one or two moments throughout these two episodes But the show's credibility takes a fucking tank and the final two episodes and I was really let down with a resolution However leading up to that resolution was it was a really cool time. I admit It's a very binge worthy show as I've said The aesthetic is really cool. The characters themselves are quite interesting as well as the action Actually, that's something I should say is the action is fantastic And I'll definitely have to say that I enjoyed all of the scenes with the original Takeshi Kovach played by Will Lune, who is actually the voice of the main character from sleeping dice right when he speaks You're like, hey, it's that guy. I liked all of his past Elements the idea of what an envoy is his relationships with Falconer and there's a lot of elements that Really work and it makes you want to know more about the world However, there are a lot of stereotypes and a lot of cliches that keep coming up Which kind of ruin it from going into really good storytelling, but the world building will keep you there That's something I cannot Deny is the world building will keep you in this and just how cool it is to watch. It's a really cool show Up until the end However through it's several issues here and there and just kind of I feel the muddledness of the characters and just their Final motivations and just the ending the last episode is just awful. It's just bad It kind of ruins the experience for me, but I still will recommend it You guys have definitely got to watch this just for how exceptional this was this is a pretty big feat for Vancouver filmmaking in terms of television. This was Made by Skydance television studios, which just opened in Vancouver a few years ago And this is their first major project So it's really cool to see Something this big being made in Vancouver and it's really cool and everyone who worked on it should be proud Just for having worked on this show in terms of a storytelling perspective though You won't and like it as much as other things like I'd much rather watch Blade Runner anything else over this I don't know if I could watch it again, and I don't know if I'll come back For the second season. I might just watch a few episodes, but then in the end I'll probably be pulled in But it's just I'm not gonna come back for the story I'll come back for what they can do with at the aesthetic and just the visuals of the show But I'm probably not gonna come back for the story if that's my first choice So in the end I'm gonna give the first season of altered carbon a 4 out of 7. I think it was cool I just don't think it's really that well written anyways guys I hope you enjoyed this review if you like it leave a like down below And if you're interested in more maybe hit subscribe by the way guys I want to mention this too I'm gonna be interviewing my work friend Natalie Katrina Lazaros. Sorry if I've said that wrong Natalie She is the star of a Winnipeg made film called talent, and it just premiered in Winnipeg It's part of the Canada telefilm sort of Slycho showcase thing that's going on right there I haven't seen the movie yet and apparently you can only see it in Winnipeg right now, but once it does go Well not international Around the country of Canada. I will definitely see it and review it But I'm gonna be having her on my radio show on Thursday night at 8 p.m. Pacific time on www.civl.ca So make sure to check it out. It's gonna be a real good time We're gonna talk about the movie just her career and just anything else that comes up anyways guys I hope you enjoyed this review, and I'll see you guys next time


It's an honour to be here. I am something of a groupie for the Naval War College, and I remember as a research scholar the only problem was the Admiral President had changed and for about 15 months the President always wondered what on earth I was doing because for 15 months I was able to do that most unusual of naval officer things and actually do and literally do my own thing studying the history of South and Southeast Asian navies. Now let me start with a story because it's a what I'm going to talk about is the clash of emergent communications technology and the Royal Navy but actually the Naval Cultural Command in the First World War but I want to tell a little story sort of as a metaphor because actually it's about how command doesn't work if you haven't got the idea of the tactical offensive right and this is a true story about an Admiral and the little old lady and the little old lady's mastery of the tactical offensive. Admiral Sir Charles Little was the Chief Naval Personnel and the Royal Navy in the early part of World War II. He was a Submariner not surprisingly he was six foot four and a big bloke. Now he was at Paddington Station in London without his staff to meet his wife who's coming up from the West Country and he was early and of course it being wartime with the train she was late so he's standing there he's a four-star Admiral he's in full naval uniform because it's during the war and he's six foot four so he's obviously an impressive figure. He's quite happy to be standing there by himself because nobody's disturbing him so he's just in a quiet reverie waiting sort of 10 or 15 minutes for his wife's train when suddenly he feels a sharp prod in the small of his back and an imperious voice says you there my man and he turns around and there is the quintessential little old lady. Lognets five foot high the whole bit and she looks at him and says which platform is the train to Oxford going from my man and he looks at her and looks up at the billboards and goes platform 10 man and she says good now take my bags and come come with me. Well he looks at the little old lady and it's wartime and she does have two large bags with her and there are not many porters around and he does have 10 to 15 minutes to spare and he's been well brought up so he says certainly ma'am picks up the bags and goes with her to platform 10 and as they approach the train he says which class are you traveling ma'am and she looks at him and says first of course yes ma'am and she says when they arrive at a first-class carriage he says she says now you can help help me in certainly ma'am so opens the door helps her in she says now put my bags up at the rack above yes ma'am puts the bags up he steps back and says is there anything else you need and she says oh yes could you get my steamer rug out of that bag so undoes the bag gets the rug out closes the bag spreads the rug over her knees and says no is there anything else you need and the little old lady says now yes you've done everything I asked you that's good now I must give you a tip and never goes no no no no no no that's quite a right and then she opens her bag pulls out her purse and hands six months to him she says of course I must give you a tip it's not as if you're a midshipman so now today marks for me a stage and a personal journey as a midshipman in my last year at university I embarked upon the writing of a study of the opening of the Great War at sea in the North Sea it was a book called the kingships were at sea which was published when I was qualifying as a principal warfare officer or TAO equivalent in my mid-20s now despite its mistakes I remain proud of that book but even though the analysis within it had already been profoundly affected by my sea services a junior officer including time serving the Royal Navy in the North Sea when I discovered that it was a lot more complicated than I thought my perspective has changed a lot further over more than 30 years now three things in particular have contributed to this firstly the products of an increasingly sophisticated approach to the naval history of the period before 1914 these tackle subjects critical to understanding the operational record and they're also marked by recognition of the complexity of the problems that navies faced in an era of extraordinary change and they're also based on a much more comprehensive use of the archives than was before possible the nature of history of historiography has changed because of digital photography there's no question in my mind but second over the years despite this new work I developed an uncomfortable feeling than in some areas our actual understanding was diminishing with the passing of the last veterans we moved in some ways further from such understanding than when I started writing in 1978 there've been many areas of illumination but in fact we no longer comprehend much of the way in which ships were worked and fought in 1914-18 indeed the interest in the Napoleon in the Apollo in the sorry Nelsonic era and the combination of extensive research historically informed fiction and the operation of replicas as well as continuing square rigged sail training have meant that our knowledge of what was happening on board the victory and her sisters in 1805 is greater than that for iron duke and the Grand Fleet in 1914 we could take victory a constitution to see and we would know how to sail them we know enough about the weapons technology that I reckon we could probably put together a crew in a couple of months you could not do that for a coal burning dreadnought like the iron duke or like the Texas was now the deficiency of understanding becomes even more apparent comparing naval history with that of land forces particularly on the Western Front army historians continue to debate but there is now a body of work which has profoundly changed our view of the land war dispel the myth of lions led by donkeys and above all conveyed the complexity of the environment and the learning curves that all concerned had to follow for the war at sea understanding of the conflict is still much less complete the third factor I'll be frank I grew up I gained insights by service around the world and increasingly responsible appointments now one insight in particular caused me to look at 1914 with different eyes I'm old enough not only to have been taught to navigate out of sight of land without artificial age such as radio beacons and satellites but to have had to do so for extended periods weeks I'm also old enough to have had to operate computerized combat systems and data links between ships and aircraft before the era of the global positioning system the truth is they didn't work very well the difference which GPS makes in maintaining a share a shared frame of reference with other units is so profound that when people talk of the recent revolution and military affairs I always think first and primarily of GPS it was comprehending just how important and just how much it changed things that this new shared certainty a position made me realize not only how difficult must have been the problems that the navigators and commanders of 1914 faced in knowing where they were and where others were in relation to them but also how vital their solutions were in determining operational success or failure so all this changed my outlook on the first world war I realized the truth of the comment in the official narrative of the battle of Jutland that determining just what did happen and why is more of the nature of a complicated complicated mosaic or or puzzle picture whose composition requires a great deal of knowledge skill and patience how much can only be known by those who tried it what it seemed important to me 30 years ago no longer appeared so significant but elements which I barely recognized in my original analysis now look fundamental to understanding what happened in 1914 I became less critical of some errors and more of others now we're inclined to consider the Fisher era as a continuum from Jackie Fisher's accession as first sea lord in 1904 but in reality the pace of development not only accelerated but became truly multi-dimensional only after about 1910 just as the great reformer went into into his first retirement we only have to look at what was happening with submarines the first diesel powered British submarine really didn't demonstrate its capability until 1910 that's the year it was first trialing wireless wireless and he started to be systematically fitted to submarines in 1912 and 1913 and by the way the Germans are not as advanced to the British except the diesels work better aircraft this is only two years before 1914 but the pressures were intensifying in the years immediately before 1914 and I believe that those involved were struggling to learn a new language of naval operations and warfare with an incomplete dictionary and very little grammar now my key argument today is that the Royal Navy of the Great War had lost to a great extent but without at first realizing the culture of the tactical offensive which had been epitomized by Nelson in person and in writing by his declaration on the eve of Trafalgar that nothing in battle is certain and that something must be left to chance now I want to explain not only what I think was some of the causes the Royal Navy's lack of aggression but also the way in which the service recovered what it had lost a recovered a recovery triumphantly and consciously demonstrated the battle of the River Plate in 1939 when three more lightly armed cruisers took on and literally neutralized the German armoured ship Admiral Graf Spade why this subject well I've often been struck by the aphorism that history may not repeat itself but it does sometimes rhyme I believe that there are rhymes between the present and a century ago rhymes which make me think that we might also be experiencing cultural and systemic changes which threaten our military effectiveness particularly our ability to manage and exploit ambiguity and uncertainty two particular rhymes of 2016 with 1916 are apparent to me one is that the ever greater reliance upon networks and the instantaneous exchange of information in what have since the end of the Cold War been largely uncontested electronic environments may have created what I call a virtual unreality and with it an expectation that higher command will always be accessible not only to give direction but to be consulted thus our people at sea complain they're being micro managed which is probably true but at the same time they are reluctant to do anything without first clearing it with their seniors they would rather ask permission than seek forgiveness the second rhyme is that our approach to workplace health and safety and to risk management or rather the process fixated procedures which seem inevitably associated with them might well be affecting to our detriment our operational outlook language and decision making systems are both important elements in determining and creating culture and it seems to me that much of the language and at least some of the processes that we're using these days might be creating a culture that's not risk management that is risk avoidance so as I talk I asked that you listen for these rhymes now the Royal Navy finished the Great War with a strong sense of missed opportunities Admiral Sir David Beatty sought to console the men of the Grand Fleet in the wake of the German surrender the aim might have been achieved but he ate as all eight to give them another dose of what we had attended intended for them and I've just been reading the first person account of an American naval officer who said that he just felt ashamed about the whole thing for the German Navy no matter that the British the Britain had won the war the Royal Navy had not managed to give the high-sea fleet the dose it had intended now some of that disappointment was unreasonable Nicholas Rogers spoken of the Navy's fixation contrary to all its history on the decisive battle and that it would somehow inevitably occur as the Navy should well have known the weaker high seas fleet would never rationally seek action except in the most favorable circumstances just as the Grand Fleet would never rationally allow itself to be embroiled in the killing ground of the inner Heligoland bite in which the Germans had done most of their pre-war exercises but much of the disappointment was justified time after time commanders had failed to exploit the fleeting opportunities which are the only opportunities ever offered at sea and time after time enemy forces had escaped when they might have been engaged there were several factors for this first were over simple comparisons of military strength this came about from a combination of the mathematical approach involved a much gunnery work with what could be called a war game mentality and this is a copy of a war game played on board SMS Magdeburg which was captured by the Russians with a large number of other documents when the ship ran aground of Odin's home light in 1914 but these games are based on two little real experience of the interaction of the emerging capabilities with conditions at sea ships recorded points for their weapons armor and speed and the games adjudicated according to who had the great air fighting power and theoretical resistance when in range given that they were predicted hitting rates the heavier and longer range weapons inevitably won and this method of methodology extended to exercises at sea too many was set piece closer to a chess match than the uncertainties of operating within complete information they were conducted for limited periods little consideration was given to the vagaries of visibility or surprise they were conducted at scale down speeds to save fuel the annual grand maneuvers effectively the only free play simulations still have many of these limitations if an umpire assessed that you got within range for more heavily armed opponent you were judged as out of action David Beatty experienced this in 1913 his battlecruiser was ruled as having been put out of action by an opposition squadron despite having been in sight for only a few minutes he bitterly resented the umpire's decision and if there were an element of ego as there always was with David Beatty in his contesting the ruling it is clear that Beatty recognized this approach militator against risk taking against the imagined deployment of forces and against taking a more sophisticated approach to maneuvering and the use of firepower had there been more realistic exercises which included more live firings the Royal Navy might have better understood the difference between the results of a war game and what was really going to happen at sea but that it did not reach this point was not because people were complacent or entirely misguided for the pace of technological change was so fast in the years immediately before the war that learning how to use it all was a problem arguably impossible to solve in the time available before August 1914 we also need to appreciate just how financially restricted the Royal Navy was money had to be found for the new 15 inch gun battleships and oil firing and at sea training amongst other things took a heavy hit you have only to read the intense admiralty demands for improved fuel economy in the fleet to understand this I will add as a side note that the Germans had even less money as I said almost all tactical exercises were conducted at scale down speeds this allowed the correct relative movement of ship types but was in no way preparation for the challenges of combat in such circumstances more than 50 pound sterling for heavy shell and a thousand pounds for practice torpedo and nearly as much for a practice mine both of which could all too easily be lost it should not be surprising that the true capabilities of the new weapons and thus the techniques needed to deal with them should go unexamined what was also not properly appreciated in set piece largely visually conducted exercises was the problem of radio because the full conceptual and practical difficulties associated with its use really only became apparent in the grand maneuvers and these were neither frequent law nor long enough to fully make the point to all who needed to understand it the Royal Navy was entering the era of over the horizon warfare but had yet to comprehend that fact in full this would have serious implications the Royal Navy had what I would call a bipolar culture of command it was a by polarity perhaps at its most extreme at the beginning of the 20th century Andrew Gordon has written an extraordinary book called the rules the game examining the failures at Jutland he presents a compelling picture the way that an over controlling approach to tactics and maneuvers created a system of operating a fleet at sea which was incapable of controlling events under the actual stress of combat his thesis the conflict between what he turned the regulators who wanted to control the members of every unit all the time and the rat catches is a persuasive one but I want to take a slightly different tack for by their nature navies arguably are always schizophrenic in nature and they're going always to be schizophrenic if ships are in company then the culture is one of obedience to allow the admiral to coordinate his or her force to achieve the operational intent I would argue that this is still the case because it generally works and disobedience by subordinate in your vicinity such as Nelson's apparent disobedience to the battle of capes and Vincent in 1797 is the sort of exception that proves the rule tight control by the way is generally more effective if it has achieved by ensuring prior understanding of the admiral's intent rather than frequent signaling nevertheless I've been an admiral and if I can see you you do what I tell you but some of the problems the British would be caused by more than the tight control of formations at sea because a source of obsessive compulsive outlook extended much more widely than that it actually extended to control of everything following the flagship movements and routines was compulsory if the flagship ed bedding so did you if the flagship spread ordering so did you if the flagship declared a make and mend an afternoon off so did you this sort of thing continued for decades day after day in every fleet or squadron when assembled creating not so much what has been called a culture of senior officer veneration but one I would call a culture of the senior officer present and I think there's a distinction because this idea of presence making the difference is important because there was another part to this naval split personality if officers were detached out of visual contact before radio they were expected to use their initiative and they did just as they'd done during the Napoleonic Wars during the century the Pax Britannica such enterprise was consistently demonstrated creating an expectation summed up by the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston's declaration that if he had a problem he'd send a naval officer but the difficulty with radio in this new over-the-horizon situation was that created its own virtual unreality the term I've already mentioned in our own context a virtual unreality that a Navy which worked by the senior officer present was all too ready to immerse itself within the potential wireless to allow remote coordination of widely separated forces was appreciated almost from the first in fact a naval officer was actually as much an inventor of the wireless as Marconi just as the potential of the telegraph cable have been recognized in the 19th century the Abnerty is one of the earliest enthusiastic adopters of the use of telegraph communications before 1914 the Abnerty made heroic efforts to develop what can only be called network-enabled warfare with an Abnerty war room is the operational command center but radios had problems of range reception wavelength mutual interference and reliability while there difficulties with security the time taken to encrypt and decrypt signals and above all with a combined true and relative areas of navigation which meant that the pool of errors was often very much greater than the prevailing visibility particularly in the North Sea where the average visibility is between three and eight miles and is often less so even if you are told where the enemy was and in which direction he was heading there was no guarantee or even probability that you would find him these slides make the point particularly this one whoops concerning the fact that the two B pencil draw on the chart is often greater than the visibility there was at least partial awareness of the problems we tend in 2014 to think of communications something practically instantaneous but it was clear to most in the Navy who are working on this problem a century ago that it was not even after the invention of radio an expert in 1906 estimated that the effective speed of visual signaling rarely exceeded two and a half miles per minute think about it and was often slower the early experience of radio showed that its problems even when ciphers were not in use in other words when you're doing plain language meant that its effective speed was often not much better and sometimes very much worse and the greater the distance it does seem the greater the delay even if that relative speed is increasing further more neither the language nor the concepts for communication by radio existed this was at the root of many of the Navy's problems and why Army observers of naval maneuvers had very good reason to criticize even if they were not always sufficiently alert to the inherent differences between the services staff work particularly in logistics which is fundamentally different one senior observer noted that the preparation of orders is not understood in the Navy making all allowance for the general differences inherent to the two services and what he's really trying to explain is that what the Navy had yet to do was to develop a system for coordinating remote formations in a tactical environment something with which the Army had been struggling for more than a century and from an in fact for which they'd invented the staff officer there were thus key aspects of understanding to be resolved this is really important you've got to understand this before radio all tactical reporting at sea is visual this meant that absolute positional errors didn't matter because basically what you're talking about is the horizon or a very low multiple of it what a commander was interested in is what the enemy bore and in what direction the enemy was steaming because that gave you a course to close you could approximate everything else out and it's still true at sea if you could see a ship it's actually bearing and bearing movement that really matters you sort of got the range implicit a remote report required not only more precision and the greater the distance the more important precision was and just to get you back to that problem and navigation a very experienced World War one navigator who'd been navigating a squadron of the Grand Fleet for basically the whole war said he never knew where he was within five miles after eight hours okay and by the way just reading the captain of the Milius's enthusiastic report of the navigation by stars that his ensigns were doing with the merchant Marine cadets I was quite struck by the fact that he was saying I was within four miles but also the report required much more information because all your scout has to tell you there enemy bears this steering that that's enough the first British radio format for an enemy contact report did not include either the enemy or the reporting unit's position because conceptually it just hadn't worked through so the concept furthermore the concept and the practice of having a tactical plot in other words where all the movements are placed down so that you can actually make decisions in near real time took years to work out the British do seem to have invented at first I get the impression the American Navy by the way was about 12 months behind the Germans don't seem to have ever got it but it took a long time to get something that worked in terms of giving information to the fleet commander for remote tact tactical decision-making by the way my view is it didn't really work until we got GPS but that's another story but the virtual unreality came in the fact that many commanders began to behave as though their remote senior officer always knew more than they did sometimes in direct contradiction of what they themselves were seeing during the grand maneuvers there were multiple instances of officers failing to act on their own initiative because they thought that higher authority somehow knew more than they did too many were in short in the culture of the senior officer present so the fleet was in for a shock when the war began now the deficiencies for this combination of reasons became rapidly apparent in 1914 the most notorious incident was when rear Admiral Trubidge commanding the Mediterranean arm and cruiser squadron decided not to engage the battlecruiser Gerben and her consort the light cruiser Breslau because he believed them a superior force due to the battlecruiser's higher speed and heavier gun gun armament he had ambiguous instructions but was finally persuaded by the advice of his flag captain the gunnery specialist convinced that the Gerben will be able to pick off the weaker and slower British ships one by one given the disastrous losses of British armored cruisers at Jutland two years later he had a point but it's also true the Trubidge could have divided his forces he was between Gobern and where Gobern wanted to be in Turkey put them either side of Gobern's intended track and forced the German to turn away and divide her firework trying to keep out of range he also had a light cruiser and two destroyers in company as well now any kind of severe damage to the Gobern even a very heavy British loss would nullified her strategic value might well have meant the Turkey never entered the war think about that as a strategic consequence of a tactical decision but what isn't generally known by the way is that one of the destroyer captains was Lieutenant Commander by the name of Andrew Brown Cunningham I have a view that this incident marked him for life he can't talk about it in his memoirs he gives it one line but you read the line and you get a sense this is not a happy person about what happened now his decision caused outrage in the service at Trubidge's decision he was court-martialed but acquitted which caused further outrage the former First-Sea Lord Prince Louie Battenberg summed up the feelings of many complaining of that amazing court-martial which laid down that a British officer was justified in declining action unless in overwhelming superiority so as to ensure that I shall suffer the minimum damage shades of Nelson ironically the tragedy of Coronel in October 1914 at which the armoured cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth were destroyed by a superior German force may have in part come about because the Admiral Christopher Craddock thought he had no alternative but to engage in the light of Trubidge's failure but incidents in the North Sea only confirmed the problem in late 1914 the Germans send two light cruisers to attack the British destroyer patrols one the Strahlsund came into contact with the first destroyer flotilla lead by the light cruiser Fearless the jet the destroyers recognized the German for what she was a light cruiser but the British flotilla commander in the Fearless mistook Strahlsund for the much more powerful armoured cruiser York and turned his force away to search for heavy support the destroyers who had identified the Strahlsund were furious the navigator one noted and I quote him that they were virtually throwing things at the Fearless and protested and what the diaries called a tirade of signals but their flotilla commander would still have been mistaken in withdrawing even if the ship were the York he had a whole destroyer flotilla with them by making a multi-pronged dash at the German he would have rapidly created a situation beyond the slower single units capacity to control as it was his recognition that the ship was not the York came too late and the Strahlsund which ironically was made deeply suspicious by the immediacy of the British withdrawal that she was being led into a trap made her escape to such tactical failures must be added the failures of the virtual unreality during the Scarborough raid of December 1914 when the German battlecruisers bombarded British ports a mistakenly addressed signal from David Beatty caused his light cruiser Commodore William Goddner a good enough shown here with his flagship the Southampton to break off action with German light cruisers and withdraw to find the flagship line this was a completely mistaken decision he may have believed that's what he'd been told to do but he had only informed Beatty by this point that he was in contact with one enemy ship by the time he received the order to withdraw he was fighting three and if you're fighting three German light cruisers you're fighting the main scouting force of the enemy's battle cruiser formation this fact should have made it blindingly clear that Beatty signal could not have been made with a full understanding of the situation and therefore should not have been obeyed the British forces lost contact with the Germans in the worsening conditions there was only one fleeting opportunity when in the midst of squalls and mist HMS Orion flagship of the second division of the second battle squadron cited a German light cruiser but the rear admiral concerns to Robert Arbuthnot refused his flag captain's plea to open fire with the response no not until the vice admiral signals open fire the fact that the flagship the King George the fifth could not see the enemy at this point in what was pretty poor visibility made this restraint equally mistaken I don't propose to discuss the 1916 battler Jutland in detail my concern is not with the overall policy of the Grand Fleet's commander Admiral Jellica in being cautious with his battle line even if this became the center of much of the later debate but amidst all the controversies it is clear that there was also a practical universal unease about clear failures of reporting of initiative and aggression during the night when the Germans pass through the rear elements of the Grand Fleet and made their escape whether or not the way that he led and trained the Grand Fleet was a factor my view that it is Jellica himself was busy it was bitterly disappointed by the lack of enterprise displayed by a number of admirals and ship captains a disappointment with that was part of his later admonition against the virtual unreality as he said never think that the CNC sees what you see now those problems were really summed up by an officer who's a captain in 1918 who wrote the Royal Navy in the First World War had an insufficient insistence on the imperative need of really coming to grips so what happened after 1918 well it's true much to say there was an immediate revolution but the sense one gains of in is of increasingly well coordinated efforts to improve which gained momentum as the 1920s gave way to the 30s this was partly possible because of a generally well managed naval staff but the increasing influence of officers who had direct experience their seniors failures was very important and I think such experience matters I have to say reading and looking at all this although a lot of the people I'm going to talk about did extraordinary things in very high command positions in the war it may be the most important contribution you can make as a combat veteran is training up the people who are going to be the junior ones next time around what certainly would have helped I think was that there was a much clearer understanding of the British Empire's strategic situation its global commitments and thus the Navy's role to site Nicholas Roger again it resulted in a recognition that Britain had few if any unsatisfied requirements and that the strategic defensive was its natural approach but being on the strategic defensive does not mean you don't have to take the tactical offensive now there are a number of other strands of effort a vital element was the selection of officers for senior seagoing rank the reductions of peace gave the Admiralty a priceless advantage by comparison with expansion the pre-war era it could be highly selective the weight given to prove an initiative was clearly considerable and the advantage this gave to former submariners and destroyer captains was obvious the promotions to flag rank bear this out those device admiral on the active list between 34 and 36 show it happened of 15 officers nine had been awarded the distinguished service order the nearest American equivalent as the Navy cross of these three had earned it in submarine command and three in destroyers rear admirals of the same seniority tell a similar story four submarin and four destroyed DSOs out of a total of 28 officers 12 of whom had the award now this age group I will admit is particularly significant because it's worth noting that a 32 year old lieutenant commander in 1914 could be a 42 year old captain in 24 and a 52 year old rear admiral in 1934 and this age group included Andrew Cunningham James Somerville Bertram Ramsey and Max Horton to name only four no matter how brilliant the specialist officer nor how significant their staff or ship service all were placed under a microscope the key testing ground seems to be in big ship command let me emphasize that much more was expected than demonstrated extreme bravery people such as Gordon Campbell who was the Q ship the mystery ship guy World War One who had a Victoria Cross and two distinguished service orders did not get promoted to Admiral on the active list the desire to improve the officer call was not confined to its upper levels an important stream of activity was improving the initiative and self-reliance of junior officers through changes in the regime of education and training and a very good book based in his thesis been published by surgeon rear admiral Mike Farquas and Roberts quite recently another factor was the realization that the Royal Navy would not necessarily enjoy technological superiority of its opponents even with an ever-thickening veil of secrecy it became apparent that the Japanese were spending large amounts to modernize their battle fleet more than the British could afford it was already clear that the Americans were doing so this place to premium on identifying tactics which would minimize British disadvantages and was why not just because the experience of Jutland the British spent so much time between the wars improving their night fighting techniques the creation of a tactical school was a key innovation this by the way is the Australian floor and I thought you'd be pleased to see there's an American officer it established a much better balance between calculations of hit probabilities and the development of tactics which would confuse the enemy and create opportunities for well-handled forces smoke screens adaptive formations and evasive maneuvering with just a few of the techniques there was a healthy dialogue including the regular progress a publication of progress in tactics with the results of exercises and trials to be fair the interwar Navy had the priceless advantage of time which had not been available before 1914 but there was a sophistication which had not been present before risk taking in battle tactics was accompanied by a willingness to take physical risks with ships and I believe this was vital officers such as Chatfield William Fisher Cunningham and Somerville all contributed and the wider attitude being engendered was summed up by Admiral Fisher's response to Captain Philip Vines Frank admission of fault in a birthing accident Vine who became an admiral of the fleet in later years said I was told to be more careful in future but the commander-in-chief added a paragraph in the sense that it liked the manner of the confession because Vine had said it was my fault Fisher himself put his money where his mouth was by forcing a night action by the Mediterranean fleet on the home fleet during the 1934 maneuvers and when you're bringing battleships in the dark within 2,000 yards of each other in formation at high speed in bad weather you're taking some risks Andrew Cunningham was not alone when he made his assertions after a collision between two of his destroyers that broken eggs were inevitable in making an omelette this insistence on seizing the moment was not only applied to exercises during the Spanish Civil War the Italians secretly supported the nationalist fascist cause by dispatching submarines to attack shipping their efforts were not very accurate they were certainly less than discriminating in 1937 when one attacked the destroyer Havoc the captain's signal for instructions his apparently less than aggressive response was immediately addressed by the flag officer who was running the operation Admiral Somerville since Havoc had not immediately retaliated Somerville ordered the destroyer to pursue the hunt with the utmost energy and try to make up your outstanding lack of initiative now I've been an admiral I've sent this sort of signal quite often you send it Dell text commanding officer only special cipher with the idea that the only person apart from the actual you know in fact the captain's had to break it himself he's the only person who will read it we'll know that's completely untrue that in fact if you send a signal like this it will be round the fleet in a nanosecond and it's like for British shooting Admiral Bing as Voltaire said to you know to encourage the others you get the message out in my view Somerville is sending a message now they didn't catch the submarine but the captain personally must have got the message he was in destroyers for most of World War two and finished it with a distinguished service order and a second award and a distinguished service cross and a second award now there were misdirections whatever benefits of games for ship spirit whoops and for individual fitness and alertness their excessive claims about the relationship between sport and fighting instincts and perhaps too much effort devoted to competitive intership sport as opposed to encouraging healthy group activity safety did sometimes still exert too strong an influence night operations by submarines were almost non-existent and restrictions on their interaction with surface forces created tactical unreality but to be fair the consequences of any submarine accident were likely to be much greater than all but the most serious of surface encounters and in fact the British lost quite a number of submarines to accident between the wars I also don't claim there was unanimity on the subject of command and control it is quite clear that there was a fissure over the management of fleets and the role of fleet staffs much commentary particularly in relation to the celebrated falling out between Admiral Sir Roger Backhouse the commander in chief and then rear Admiral Bertrand Ramsey his chief of staff has been given to the problem of overcentralization within staffs and the commanders who attempted to do too much themselves but an equal problem arguably one that has dogged the Royal Navy incessantly in the years since and which still bedevils other navies and I won't name any names was that of overcentralization into staffs and the misemployment of such staffs and uncreated work particularly that of minding the individual business of worked up ships rather than thinking about operations and war however by 1939 the Royal Navy had successfully learned most of the lessons needed to achieve effective remote coordination of operations at sea and take the tactical offensive I want to recognize here Admiral Sir Dudley Pound who commanded the Mediterranean between 1936 and 1939 and went on to be first sea Lord Pound has his faults of over control and overcentralization but I think his reputation has been diminished unfairly by the difficulties he faced in dealing with Winston Churchill who repeatedly demonstrated in 1940 and after that although he had been the cause of some of the problems in 1914 he had not learnt the same lessons of operational command Pound himself had been determined to instill a culture of enterprise for him the unforgivable sin a naval officer could commit was a failure to make a decision and act even Philip Byron of Altmark fame commented on Pound's leaning towards dangerous maneuvers with head-on close-quarter approaches and line of bearing intersections of columns by an emphasize the pound ordered these maneuvers to be executed before it was possible to calculate a solution captains just had to make a judgment and trust to be able to adjust the situation as it evolved pound was desperately anxious that commanders at sea would not hesitate to make such judgments and this was his way of ensuring it thus when three British cruisers under Commodore Henry Howard encountered the graph spay off the river plate in October 1939 the British had set the conditions for the encounter Howard had considered and gamed imaginatively the problem and knew what to do like Waterloo it was a damn nice thing the nearest-run thing you've ever seen in your life not everything went well for the British the Exeter was very nearly sunk and the Ajax and Achilles likely to lucky to escape relatively unharmed but the graph space suffered critical damage and was driven into harbour from which you'd only emerge to be scuttled one small but significant subtext is the Admiral Pound monitoring events from Whitehall and company with Churchill had to devote much effort to restrain his political master from sending directive signals on this occasion he was successful in the wake of the action Pound wrote to Howard to praise him for his achievement and to declare that he had set the standard for the war to come a matter which he felt was a great importance and indeed there are other letters between the four stars in operational command saying exactly the same thing Pound emphasized not only that Howard had acted correctly but that he would have been right to engage the graph spay even if his entire force was sunk in doing so Howard himself believed that the battle had indeed succeeded in restoring the balance and he was also conscious of this if you look at his papers but what is equally to the point so did the rest of the Navy so let me finish with an Australian element in the Mediterranean 1940 Captain John Collins one of the first graduates the Royal Australian Naval College and a product of service and training in both the RAN and the Royal Navy decided on his own initiative to reposition his ship the Australian light cruiser Sydney by nearly 100 miles keeping radio silence to maintain surprise the result was the rescue of a group of embattled British destroyers and the destruction of the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Collione it's the exchange with Admiral Cunningham the fleet commander after Sydney got back to harbour that's significant on both sides when asked what made him move as he did by the commander-in-chief Collins jokingly replied providence guided me sir to which Cunningham said well in future you can continue to take your orders from Providence so I think the balance had been restored the question I put is how well balanced are we today thank you very much


I have really enjoyed myself here at Functional Conf. There's a shocking number of people that I actually know from talking to them online that I've just never actually had a chance to interact with in person, that this is a good opportunity to reach out and put names to faces or to nicknames that I've encountered through interacting with them, either through GitHub patches or talking to them on IRC. So this has been wonderful.