Shipping Giant Maersk Cuts Jobs as Profit Collapses. It’s Bad News for Global Trade.

By Jack Denton
BARRONS
Nov 03, 2023

A.P. Moller-Maersk  is undertaking significant job cuts after profit collapsed at the container shipping giant, a grim sign for global trade after last year’s boom.

Maersk (ticker: MAERSK A.DENMARK & MAERSK B.DENMARK) reported third-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda) of $1.9 billion on revenue of $12.1 billion on Friday. The results—with both metrics below estimates of analysts surveyed by FactSet—mark a sharp decline from the same period in 2022, when quarterly profit at Maersk was $10.9 billion on $22.8 billion in revenue.

“Our industry is facing a new normal with subdued demand, prices back in line with historical levels and inflationary pressure on our cost base,” said Vincent Clerc, Maersk’s CEO. “Since the summer, we have seen overcapacity across most regions triggering price drops and no noticeable uptick in ship recycling or idling.”

Shares in Maersk tumbled more than 12% in Copenhagen trading on Friday.

After a post-Covid shipping boom, a slowing global macroeconomic backdrop and shifting geopolitical dynamics—including protectionism and supply-chain adjustments—are pinching hard. As a dominant force in shipping, Maersk’s results are an excellent bellwether for global trade—and the forecast is gloomy.

Maersk now sees global container volumes falling 0.5% to 2% in 2023, albeit slightly better than its previous forecast, but has said it now expects its full-year results to be at the lower end of previously communicated ranges. The range for yearly underlying Ebitda remains $9.5 billion to $11 billion.

As it faces a pronounced slowdown, Maersk is taking dramatic cost-cutting measures, including shedding its workforce. The company has already reduced its head count from 110,000 in early 2023 to some 103,500, and announced Friday that it would cut a further 3,500 positions.

Charles Schwab lays off 5% to 6% of its workforce, or about 2,000 employees

Associated Press Finance
Thu, November 2, 2023 

Charles Schwab office in Oakland, Calif. Charles Schwab laid off about 5% to 6% of its workforce this week, as the financial services firm works to cut costs. The company had 35,900 employees at the end of September, according to Charles Schwab’s latest quarterly report — meaning that this week’s cuts could impact roughly 2,000 employees. 

(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)More


NEW YORK (AP) — Charles Schwab laid off about 5% to 6% of its workforce this week, according to a company spokesperson, as the financial services firm works to cut costs.

The company had 35,900 employees at the end of September, according to Charles Schwab's latest quarterly report — meaning this week's cuts could impact roughly 2,000 employees.

“These were hard but necessary steps to ensure Schwab remains highly competitive, with industry-leading levels of efficiency, well into the future," a Charles Schwab spokesperson said in a statement to The Associated Press Thursday. "They are decisions that impact very talented people personally, and we take that very seriously.”

Over the summer, Charles Schwab disclosed plans to cut jobs and close or downsize some corporate offices as part of restructuring efforts to reduce operating costs in the second half of this year and the start of 2024.

The Westlake, Texas-based company previously said it projected to achieve at least $500 million of incremental annual run-rate cost savings — while also incurring about $400 million to $500 million from expenses like employee compensation, benefits and facility exit costs.

For the third quarter of 2023, Charles Schwab posted a net income of $1.1 billion, down from $2.0 billion seen in the same period last year. Revenue was $4.6 billion for the quarter, down from $5.5 billion for the third quarter of 2022.

Charles Schwab shares are down about 34% year to date, but up 3% in Thursday morning trading.

Chinese EV Maker Nio to Cut 10% of Staff Positions and May Spin Off Businesses

Bloomberg News
Fri, November 3, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Nio Inc. said it is cutting jobs and and may spin off non-core businesses to reduce costs and improve efficiency, as the Chinese electric-vehicle maker falls way short of its sales targets and continues to post losses.

Shanghai-based Nio will cut 10% of staff positions in November, according to an internal letter signed by founder and Chief Executive Officer William Li seen Friday by Bloomberg News. “Duplicate” and “inefficient” roles will be eliminated, and project investment that won’t contribute to the company’s financial performance within three years will be deferred or cut, Li said.

The company’s US-traded stock rose as much as 3.2% in pre-market trading.

Once considered one of the brightest rising stars in China’s electric vehicle market, Nio has been falling badly short of its sales targets and continues to post losses. There were 26,763 full-time staff at the company at the end of 2022, according to its annual report. In addition to EVs, its businesses include battery and semiconductor research and development, as well as mobile phones.

The decision to trim employees and consider shuttering units reflects strains in China’s wider EV market, the biggest in the world, as increasingly dominant BYD Co. and the likes of Tesla Inc. squeeze out smaller players. A price war instigated by US-based Tesla a year ago amped up the pressure, with others following by slashing prices too in a race to attract customers as sales showed signs of slowing.

“This is a tough but necessary decision against fierce competition,” Li wrote in the letter. “Our journey is a marathon on a muddy track.”

The Chinese carmaker is in a fight for survival after intense competition in the nation’s automotive industry over the past two years. Li wrote that to “qualify for the next round of competition,” the company must reduce costs and ensure resources for critical business areas. He also apologized to the colleagues who will be affected by the adjustments, according to the letter.

Nio has a share of about 2.1% of the Chinese new-energy vehicle market, which includes hybrids, selling about 110,000 EVs in the first nine months of this year, well short of its annual target of 250,000 cars. By comparison, BYD sold over 165,000 fully electric cars in October alone, rising to 301,095 when including its hybrid sales.

Founded in 2014, Nio’s strategy includes splashy showrooms with exclusive lounge-like spaces called Nio Houses, where EV owners can get complimentary beverages and take social classes. Other membership-like benefits include free battery-swapping, charging and roadside assistance.

Nio has been scaling back those services as financial pressures mount. The automaker still hasn’t ever posted a profit, and last quarter suffered a bigger-than-expected loss of $800 million. Its market value has slumped to $13 billion from a peak of $99 billion in February 2021.

Nio’s gross margin dropped to as low as 1% in the second quarter as the price war intensified. In June, Nio raised $738.5 million from the Abu Dhabi government for a 7% stake in the company, and it has considered trying to bring in more funds. Bloomberg News reported in September that Nio had approached investors in the Middle East about raising a further $3 billion.

--With assistance from Ocean Hou.

(Updates with share move, details from company letter.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

THIRD WORLD U$A
More babies are dying in the US: Details on the troubling trend

Eduardo Cuevas
USA TODAY

Supreme Court abortion ruling could affect Black mortality rates

A teenage mom delivered a baby boy in fetal distress at 25 weeks gestation. Doctors tried to resuscitate the child – with ventilation, cardiac compressions, chest tubes and other methods – to no avail. The neonatologist later discovered that the mother had a previously undiagnosed case of syphilis.

The baby’s death at a Wisconsin hospital illustrates some the dangers babies face in their first year of life. It's also the type of scenario doctors are examining as they try to understand a grim new trend. For the first time in two decades, the number of U.S. infants who died in their first year of life is on the rise, according to provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics, or NCHS.

“We don’t live in a vacuum,” Dr. Dennis Costakos, director of neonatal and perinatal medicine at the Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin, told USA TODAY. “The health of the baby is often directly related to the health of the mother.”

Experts consider infant mortality a key indicator of overall population health. The latest federal statistics reflect a jump in the death rate for just one year, 2022; however, they raise concerns because the U.S. has also failed in other key population metrics: maternal mortality rate has increased and the average life expectancy is declining.

Black Maternal Health Week:Experts call out factors making pregnancy far less safe for Black people in America

Increases 'add up to general trend'

The NCHS report marks the first statistically significant increase in infant deaths since 2002. Before this report, the U.S. had seen a 22% decline in child deaths over 20 years, although the U.S. continually had higher infant death rates than other high-income countries.


The change in 2022 data represents a notable moment for public health officials: an increase to 5.6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with 5.44 in 2021.

“All of these increases, even the small increases, they all just add up to a general trend,” report author Danielle Ely, an NCHS health statistician, told USA TODAY.


The report used figures from the National Vital Statistics System of birth and death records across 50 states and the District of Columbia for children's first year of life. The provisional figures will be finalized in a report expected next spring. However, its authors decided to release the data early to provide a warning to healthcare providers and officials of the growing trend.

The figures also correspond with the child poverty rate doubling in 2022. Another factor for providers to consider: expanded Medicaid coverage that was available during the COVID-19 pandemic has been cut.

Keeping women and children in good health has to be a conscientious, proactive undertaking said Georgia Machell, interim president and CEO of the National WIC Association, a nonprofit that represents nutrition service provider agencies that implement the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for the Women, Infants and Children program.


“There needs to be investment in the safeguards in order to support families to reduce infant mortality,” Machell said.

Vaping and children:Tobacco use among high schoolers is going down, but increasing for middle schoolers, CDC says
Report details: what did researchers find?

The increase in 2022 infant deaths spanned several demographic groups, with some demographic groups being spared.

The largest statistical uptick in infant deaths was among babies born to Native American and non-Hispanic white women between 2021 and 2022 – for Indigenous infants, from 7.46 to 9.06 per 1,000 births, and for white infants, from 4.36 to 4.52. The infant death rate among children born to Black women climbed from 10.55 to 10.86. Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders also saw a small rise in infant deaths (from 7.76 to 8.5), as did Hispanic people (4.79 to 4.88), though deaths of infants born to Asian American women declined, from 3.69 to 3.5.

Additionally, there were rises in the death rates of babies born preterm – at less than 37 weeks gestation – as well as the rates of infants who died less than 28 days after birth, and those who died 28 days or more into their first year. There were small increases in death rates of babies of mothers 24 and younger and babies born to women 30 to 39. And there was a significant jump in deaths of babies born to mothers 25 to 29.

Among the 10 leading causes of death for babies, maternal complications and bacterial sepsis saw increases in mortalities, the report said.

These states saw biggest rise in infant mortality rates

The deaths were far higher in some regions of the country: Georgia, Iowa, Missouri and Texas saw significant increases in infant mortality rates.

Several of these states moved to restrict abortion access since the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, though experts warned it may be too soon to gauge any correlation between restricted access to reproductive healthcare and infant mortality.

“Any time we see it trending in the wrong direction, our alarm bells are going off,” said Dr. Allison Gemmill, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health and a demographer, in a phone interview.

Gemmill has forthcoming research suggesting there was a rise in infant and neonatal mortality in Texas after lawmakers in 2021 enacted Senate Bill 8, a law banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy.

Among high-income countries, the U.S. spends far more on healthcare, yet it has the highest infant and maternal death rate, a recent study from the Commonwealth Fund found. In the U.S., maternal mortality rates have jumped in recent years, particularly among Black and Native women. Black women had death rates nearly three as high as non-Hispanic white women.

The latest national figures are alarming for Dr. Ayman El-Mohandes, dean of the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, but he said it is far more alarming that the U.S. has been unable to significantly reduce its mortality rate below what it was in 2000, when 6.89 out of 1,000 births resulted in a baby dying in its first year. Since 2000, infant deaths in the U.S. only declined by one per 1,000 births.

The American infant mortality rate of 5.6 per 1,000 births is about three times as high as Norway's, which El-Mohandes said is notable.

“We need to know who we are comparing ourselves to,” El-Mohandes said, “and what infant mortality can look like.”

The U.S. has put spacecraft on Mars in the past two decades, El-Mohandes said. He hopes the country puts equal emphasis on reducing the number of babies who die before their first birthday.

Eduardo Cuevas covers health and breaking news for USA TODAY. He can be reached at EMCuevas1@usatoday.com.

Nobel-winner Gurnah: UK imperial literature was openly racist

Hugues HONORÉ
Fri, November 3, 2023

The British-Tanzanian author won the 2021 Nobel literature prize 

(JOEL SAGET)

Nobel-winning writer  says removing offensive words from the likes of Agatha Christie is "futile", but says Britain did produce openly racist literature during the last century of its empire.

The British-Tanzanian author won the 2021 Nobel Prize for books such as "Paradise" and "Memory of Departure" exploring Europe's colonial legacy.

He is also a professor of English and post-colonial literature at Britain's University of Kent.

Asked by AFP about the recent trend of publishers rewriting books by Christie, Roald Dahl and James Bond author Ian Fleming to remove racist and other possibly offensive words, Gurnah was ambivalent.

"Certainly as a scholar, I think it's a futile thing to do," he said.

"I suppose one of the reasons why they're doing it is that the publisher wants to make their product more respectable."

Ultimately, he said, "I think there are bigger issues in the world to worry about."

While the current culture wars focus on tweaks to celebrity writers and hysteria over "cancel culture", Gurnah is more interested in the much more extreme racism that appeared in British literature when its empire was under threat.

"There is a certain period during imperialism when the language used to describe the colonised became harsher and harsher," he said.

He cited a study linking this shift to the mutiny in India in 1857, an uprising that showed Britain it was unwanted and vulnerable, and which sparked a brutal crackdown on dissent.

"There's a kind of out-of-control rage with which the British responded," Gurnah said.

"This is also a turning point in the way the language changes... There is a period from the early and mid-19th century, right through the middle of the 20th century, when there was no self-consciousness about being racist, and using racist language," he added.

Gurnah's response has not been to call for revisions to the past -- though he admits it can be "very hard" to read the racist literature of this period.

Rather he looks to augment our understanding of this period with his work.

He spoke to AFP in Paris for the launch of the French translation of "Afterlives".

It tells the story of a young boy stolen from his parents by German colonial troops in East Africa.

"When an account is incomplete, because it is only seeing one side, you can add to that... that is my idea," said Gurnah.

hh/er/jh/db

CRYPTO CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

SafeMoon Executives Charged by SEC for Fraud and Money Laundering, Execs Arrested by DOJ

Davier M
Thu, November 2, 2023 

SafeMoon Executives Charged by SEC for Fraud and Money Laundering, Execs Arrested by DOJ

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged SafeMoon and its executives with "fraud and unregistered offering of crypto securities," alleging their involvement in a fraudulent operation that caused significant losses to investors.

The SEC statement mentioned that “instead of delivering profits, they wiped out billions in market capitalization, withdrew crypto assets worth more than $200 million from the project, and misappropriated investor funds for personal use.”

At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has revealed an indictment against SafeMoon creator Kyle Nagy, CEO John Karony, and CTO Thomas Smith, charging them with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.

Karony was detained in Provo, Utah, and Smith in Bethlehem, New Hampshire. Nagy is still missing.

The defendants are accused of deceiving SafeMoon investors about the availability of "locked" liquidity, as well as their personal ownership and trading of SafeMoon tokens, according to the DOJ indictment.

While SafeMoon's market value exceeded $8 billion, the DOJ claims that the executives fraudulently diverted and stole millions of dollars in locked liquidity for personal gain, including luxury vehicle purchases, real estate investments and personal expenses.

To conceal their involvement, SafeMoon officials allegedly employed sophisticated transaction routing and pseudonymous centralized exchange accounts.

SafeMoon is a well-known memecoin project in 2021, and gained the attention of investors by sharing 50% of transaction fees to token holders. It reached a peak price of $0.00338 in January 2022. However, the onset of the bear market and news of the DOJ indictment and SEC charges has resulted in a decline, with the price now at $0.00019.

Investigations by both the SEC and DOJ into SafeMoon are ongoing, and if the defendants are convicted, they could face a maximum prison sentence of 25 years.

SEC says SafeMoon executives withdrew $200 million from crypto project to spend on McLarens and luxury homes

Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
Wed, November 1, 2023 a

Photo Illustration by Fortune


The company behind SafeMoon promised astronomical returns, but instead the cryptocurrency imploded mid-flight. And now those behind the controls are facing the consequences.

In a Wednesday complaint, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the company behind the coin, SafeMoon LLC, along with creator Kyle Nagy, CEO John Karony, and CTO Thomas Smith, with violating securities laws in "a massive fraudulent scheme."

Although the defendants promised to steer the token “safely to the moon,” the SEC alleges that company leaders secretly took out more than $200 million in crypto assets from the project to pay for, among other things, McLaren cars, luxury homes, and extravagant travel.

The cryptocurrency accumulated a $5.7 billion market cap at its peak, following a more than 55,000% surge from March 12 to April 20, 2021. Things then quickly began to unravel when investors discovered that large portions of SafeMoon’s liquidity pool were never locked, sinking the token's price by 50%.

Nagy, according to the SEC, had promised investors that their funds were safely locked in SafeMoon’s liquidity pool, and that not even top executives could access them.

The complaint also alleges that Karony and Smith used misappropriated assets to buy large quantities of SafeMoon in an attempt to stabilize the token's price, and that Karony created a trading account to buy and sell tokens "to create the impression of market activity, a practice known as wash trading."

The defendants stand accused of violating the registration and anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

The SEC has stepped up its crypto enforcement actions this year despite criticism from industry players. In June, the agency sued the world’s biggest crypto exchange, Binance, and CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao for several alleged securities violations. The agency also sued U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

SCI-FI-TEK

Watch a Japanese research ship fire an electromagnetic railgun


Kelsey D. Atherton
Wed, November 1, 2023 

This striking image is from a high-speed camera used to photograph a US railgun in action in 2012. This Virginia-based railgun was funded by the Office of Naval Research.

On October 17, Japan’s military announced it had successfully test-fired a railgun on board a ship. The test was conducted by the Acquisition Technology and Logistics Agency, Japan’s rough DARPA analog, and it was carried out in conjunction with Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. The railgun is framed specifically as a protective measure: by firing high-speed bullets, the railgun is designed to stop incoming attacks through the air or on the sea.

Most bullets are fired by a chemical propellant—a sparked reaction that ignites the dense gunpowder of a shot, which rapidly expands into gasses that propel a bullet down a gun barrel at high speeds towards a target. It’s a durable design, one continuously tweaked and iterated upon for a full millennia. Railguns still aim to propel a bullet rapidly through the air, but instead of using an explosion to do it, railguns use electromagnetic force to pull and accelerate a metal slug at great speeds and long ranges.

Here’s what it looks like, as shared by the Acquisition Technology and Logistics Agency:

https://twitter.com/atla_kouhou_en/status/1714204202266919004

Japan’s military has planned for a railgun since at least 2015, with the goal of a ship-mounted weapon as part of the idea from the start. A 2016 demonstration of a railgun accelerated its projectile to a speed of 4,470 mph, or 5.8 times the speed of sound. That is hypersonic speed, or the range at which a new class of missiles in development by nations like the US, China, and Russia are designed to fly. By making a gun that can shoot projectiles that fly faster than hypersonic missiles fly, a railgun could possibly be a tool that can shoot down such weapons. A proposal for Japan’s 2023 defense budget explicitly refers to railguns as “capable of firing projectiles at high muzzle velocity in rapid succession to counter threats such as hypersonic missiles.”

“Starting in fiscal year 2022, we have been conducting research aimed at establishing the overall technology necessary for early practical realization of railguns, including rapid fire performance and stability during flight, which are important for the practical application of railguns,” a spokesperson from Acquisition Technology and Logistics Agency told Naval News. “At the same time, we have been carrying out demonstration tests aimed at further practical application, such as carrying a railgun on board and conducting actual offshore firing. The Ministry of Defense intends to steadily work towards the early practical use of railguns in order to accelerate the strengthening of Japan’s defense capabilities.”

For the test-firing, the railgun was mounted on the JS Asuka, an Asuka-class research ship that has been a testbed for missile and sensor technologies in the past. Janes reports that crucial details of the weapon, like muzzle velocity and projectile weight, are being kept confidential. In a 2018 test, a Japanese Acquisition Technology and Logistics Agency railgun fired a projectile at a speed of Mach 6.5.

In a March 2022 video from the Agency, the design of a 2020 prototype is discussed. Part of the concern expressed is that accelerating a projectile along a rail at these speeds can cause serious erosion, which damages the weapon and limits its continued and future utility. The prototype fired a 40mm projectile, at the same 4,470 mph (or Mach 5.8) speed as in the 2016 demonstration.

Railguns can potentially be powerful guns for ships, and they could be used to protect from incoming missiles as the Acquisition Technology and Logistics Agency expresses. Such high-exit velocities also allow the bullets themselves to function as offensive hypersonic weapons in their own right, powerful slugs slamming into far-away buildings or vehicles with tremendous kinetic force.

Before aircraft carriers, gunships with powerful cannons, ultimately known as battleships, were the dominant vessel for war at sea, with guns that could bombard inland as well as devastate foes at sea. Better long-range sensors, especially radar, and the far reach of planes launched from aircraft carriers during and after World War II, mean that from the Cold War to the present shipboard guns switched from a primary threat to more circumscribed weapons, with ship-launched cruise missiles taking over the role of inland bombardment. Railguns, with the promise of powerful long-range shots that can stop missiles, sink ships, and devastate coastal defenses, offer a path back to relevance for shipboard guns.

The United States Navy has continued to pursue the development of railguns, with the intent that a projectile fired from such could intercept incoming attacks, as well as reach targets as far away as 50 to 100 nautical miles. Part of the challenge is developing a projectile that can work in railguns, as well as from existing cannons on US Navy ships.

In the meantime, the continued development of railguns as a counter-hypersonic weapon should complicate how military planners think about missiles as the answer to ships and seaborne threats.

Watch a clip from 2022 of the railgun demonstration below:

https://youtu.be/fFXHV2lM_Ko?si=GnNYazn0PfaJHBJt\u0026t=464

A-10 Vs F-35 Close Air Support Flyoff Report Finally Emerges

LONG READ

Joseph Trevithick
Wed, November 1, 2023 

A heavily redacted copy of the final report on a controversial flyoff between the A-10 Warthog and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has finally been released.

A report on the controversial close air support-focused flyoff between the A-10C Warthog and F-35A Joint Strike Fighter that took place between 2018 and 2019 has finally emerged. The declassified review, which was only completed last year and has been essentially buried until now, is heavily redacted and raises more questions than it provides answers in many areas. However, it does still offer valuable details that have not previously been made public even as the U.S. Air Force looks to retire the last of the Warthogs no later than the end of the decade.

A US Air Force F-35A drops a 2,000-pound-class Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) during an evaluation in 2017 unrelated to the flyoff against the A-10. USAF

Project on Government Oversight (POGO), an independent nonprofit, obtained a declassified copy of the report via the Freedom of Information Act and litigation against the U.S. government and published it this week, along with its own analysis. The document, which was produced by the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation, or DOT&E, is dated February 2022. The comparative testing ran from April 2018 to March 2019. The flyoff was only conducted to meet a demand from Congress that had been included in the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2017 Fiscal Year.

An A-10 fires its famous 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger cannon during training. USAF

One of the things that is immediately unclear from this report is why it took nearly three years to produce this final product in the first place or why its core findings were never announced publicly or even distributed to stakeholder communities in the military. It is The War Zone's understanding that very few people had previously seen any portion of this document, or details from it, and that it was not provided to members of the A-10 community or F-35 communities. In essence, it has been effectively 'buried.'

The unredacted portions do contain a useful overview of how the flyoff was planned and ultimately conducted. The Joint Strike Fight Operational Test Team, or JOTT, led the comparative testing, which was conducted as part of the larger F-35 Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) process. All test sorties were staged from Edwards Air Force Base in California and consisted of mock missions conducted over ranges at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, also in California, as well as Yuma Proving Ground, an Army facility in neighboring Arizona.

The flyoff focused on the relative abilities of the A-10C and the F-35A to perform three distinct mission sets: close air support (CAS), airborne forward air control (FAC[A]), and combat search and rescue (CSAR). Unclassified official definitions of those mission sets from the reports are reproduced below.


DOD via FOIA/POGO

DOD via FOIA/POGO

DOD via FOIA/POGO

The ability of the A-10 and the F-35 to perform each of the three mission sets was judged on a variety of factors, but the report lists two critical metrics for each one. For CAS this was targeting time and engagement time. When it came to FAC(A) the focus was on brief generation time and correlation time. Lastly, coordination time and recovery time were the primary measures of performance with regard to CSAR. Unclassified definitions of these timing metrics are shown below.

DOD via FOIA/POGO

Test sorties were conducted under conditions meant to simulate "low-threat 'permissive' and medium-threat 'contested' environments," according to the report. "High-threat missions were not included in this comparison test because the F-35A, along with the F-35B and F-35C, is being thoroughly evaluated during F-35 IOT&E in high threat scenarios versus modern, dense SAM [surface-to-air missile] and fighter aircraft, missions for which the A-10C was not designed."

Specific details about what types of threats were presented during the low or medium-threat test sorties in the flyoff, or how they were represented, are limited in the unredacted sections of the report. It does say that the "contested environment scenarios included a limited set (in numbers and capabilities) of surface-to-air missile (SAM) threats, and no airborne threat[s]." There is also a mention of simulated shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, also known as man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). No mention at all is made in the unredacted portions of the report about electronic warfare threats, which are another major source of concern for the U.S. military, especially in future higher-end conflicts.

The U.S. military has multiple ways of simulating a diverse array of mock air defenses for testing and training purposes, including real examples of threat systems obtained through various means, high-fidelity mock-ups, and emitters designed to mimic various types of radiofrequency emissions.

A-10s and F-35s involved in the flyoff flew a combined total of 117 and a half flight hours across 69 sorties. A full breakdown of sorties and flight hours, as well as when and where those test runs occurred, across the three mission sets is seen below.

DOD via FOIA/POGO

Nowhere in the unredacted portions of the report is any definitive statement about whether the A-10 or the F-35 was deemed to be superior for conducting any of the three missions in either permissive or contested environments. The first bullet point in the executive summary, which might offer a broad general conclusion about the results of the flyoff, is entirely redacted.

"The F-35A was able to conduct all three missions in both low- and medium-threat environments," according to the report. In addition, the Joint Strike Fighters "often conducted suppression/destruction of threat air defense systems in contested environment to proceed in the assigned mission."

There is no similar unredacted statement about the A-10's overall adequacy to perform CAS, FAC(A), or CSAR missions.

A partially redacted section strongly indicates the flyoff concluded that more F-35 sorties than A-10 sorties would be needed to prosecute the same number of targets in permissive environments. This makes sense given the Warthog's substantially larger payload capacity. However, this portion of the report also notes that "the number of sorties necessary to complete the same mission objectives in contested environments would depend on air defense suppression plans."


A table listing various competitive capabilities between the F-35A and the A-10C at the time of the flyoff. DOD via FOIA/POGO


DOD via FOIA/POGO

The unredacted portions of the report also acknowledge significant limitations in the comparative testing that was conducted, and more can be inferred from other information provided.

For one, the flyoff team did not follow the approved test plan, did not fly all of the originally planned sorties, and did not ensure there were matching sorties for all test events that were conducted. All of the test sorties were supposed to be in matched pairs (one A-10 sortie and one F-35 sortie with as close to the same parameters and conditions as possible), the point of which was to provide equivalent data sets for analysis. As can be seen in the breakdown earlier in this piece, A-10s flew more CAS and FAC(A) sorties than F-35s did, and Warthogs had more total flying time during testing relating to those mission sets, as well as CSAR.

More details breakdowns of the test sorties across the three mission areas are provided below.

DOD via FOIA/POGO

DOD via FOIA/POGO

DOD via FOIA/POGO

"The comparison test was adequate to compare the mission effectiveness of each aircraft in a limited set of operationally-representative conditions, even though the test team did not conduct the test completely in accordance with the DOT&E-approved test plan," the report insists. "The data collected are sufficient to inform the conclusions in this report and fulfill the requirements of the NDAA."

"The sample sizes available for analysis provide sufficient data to draw the conclusions in this report," it adds. "The gaps do not detract from the value of the data for the measures used to compare the two aircraft."

No further justification for this is provided in the unredacted portions of the report.

In addition, the report acknowledges a lack of relevant specialized training requirements for F-35 pilots relating CAS, FAC(A), and CSAR mission sets at the time of the flyoff.

"To minimize the impact of this training shortfall on the comparison test, F-35A pilots previously qualified for FAC(A) and CSAR in the A-10 or other aircraft were used when possible, which was the ‘majority of the trials," according to the report. "Much of the F-35A pilot light hours were in aircraft other than the F-35A (primarily F-16 or A-10), while A-10C pilot light hours were primarily in the A-10."

An A-10 Warthog, at bottom left, flies together with, at top, left to right, an F-16C Viper, an F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, and an F-15E Strike eagle. USAF

It is worth noting here that making use of F-35 pilots with previous A-10 experience would seem to be a logical course of action that could also help preserve the specialized skill sets and knowledge base found in the A-10 community as those aircraft are retired. However, there are serious potential pitfalls in such a strategy, especially given the steps the Air Force is (or isn't) taking now.

"The common misconception between USAF leadership and we, the A-10C community, is that we are ready to die on the hill to keep the A-10 alive forever. The reality is quite the opposite," Patrick “BURT” Brown, an A-10 pilot and Air Force weapons officer, wrote in a piece earlier this year for The War Zone. "What we care about most is keeping the corporate knowledge of counter-land tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) alive regardless of the airframe. Presently, the threat of that knowledge dying off is very real given that the A-10C is being divested with no plan for follow on aircraft."

"Within the USAF, the A-10C community is the only one that still produces Forward Air Controllers (Airborne), known as FAC(A)s," Brown added. "This is a troubling data point not because FAC(A) missions have been on any recent Air Tasking Orders (ATOs), but because it signals that the USAF is willing to let that skill set die with the A-10C."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDc5NoQAD_A

"The skills learned and honed by practicing the FAC(A) mission set are invaluable in any counter-land operation. The F-35 could do this mission, but they don’t. The F-16 has done this mission, but they don’t today," he continued. "Between all the other high-end missions they must maintain proficiency in, CAS and other counter-land competencies are now relegated to 'just-in-time' training for the USAF’s multi-role fighter communities."

POGO's Dan Grazier has echoed many of these points, as well.

"The fight to save the A-10 has always been about preserving the institutional knowledge of the community rather than keeping one aircraft program flying," Grazier also told The War Zone. "That being said, the problem with making sure most of the F-35 pilots were A-10 veterans was that most F-35 pilots don't train for the attack role now."

"This was supposed to be an operational test," he added. "Operational testing is supposed to be done using the typical operator rather than specialized test pilots so you see how the aircraft being tested works in the hands of the people who will actually fly it in combat. That didn't happen in this case."

The A-10 seen here, serial number 80-0149, was sent to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona in April. USAF

The unredacted portions of the test report highlights a number of other areas where just how operationally representative the flyoff appears limited.

"The overall environment chosen by the test team for the comparison test was a simplified representation of typical combat environments," the report says. The use of relatively basic mock targets positioned in largely flat and open locales, even those meant to simulate enemies in built-up urban areas, is something that had already come up back in 2017 when the first details of the flyoff emerged, also through POGO. Concerns were raised even then about whether this could give F-35 pilots an unfair advantage given that the targets would be easier to spot, even from higher altitudes.

All Joint Strike Fighters have a built-in, but increasingly Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) that is based on technology now approaching two decades old. An Advanced EOTS is expected to be added to F-35s that receive the Block 4 upgrade package, but A-10Cs are flying now with more capable podded targeting systems. This means the level of detail in the targeting system video is inferior on the F-35 compared to the A-10C with updated targeting pods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbV9479GoB4

A-10s typically fly a very low altitudes, and are much slower than F-35s, both of which can be beneficial for finding and engaging threats that might be more concealed. A partially unredacted section also indicates that there might be added value in the Warthog's tactics when it comes to the employment of GPS-assisted precision-guided munitions.

"The test team did not record the slant range to the target with the generated coordinates, so ts effect cannot be directly assessed. Even so, tactics typically caused A-10C pilots to fly closer to the target than F-35A plots, which could explain some of the difference in the measured location errors," the report says, though the context is not entirely clear. "Target location error only affects the use of GPS-aided weapons. In any case, the location error is sufficient to cue another CAS aircraft's targeting pod."

The GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs seen loaded on this A-10 are among the GPS-assisted precision-guided munitions the aircraft can carry today. This is a relatively new addition to the Warthog's arsenal. USAF

The report also says "time-on-station can be a key contributor to the overall success of each of these mission areas [CAS, FAC(A), and CSAR]," another area in which the A-10 excels, at least in lower-threat environments.

Furthermore, despite being an evaluation of performance in missions directly related to personnel on the ground, "there were no live ground forces maneuvering or operating in conflict against each other on any mission, primarily due safety to range restrictions," according to the report. Only one day of testing, part of the CAS portion of the flyoff, involved the use of real, but inert ordnance, as well. In all other instances, the ordnance the A-10s and F-35s employed was entirely simulated.

The A-10 can be loaded with a much more diverse array of munitions and other stores, including multiple types of precision-guided missiles, rockets, and bombs, than any F-35 variant, on top of the Warthog's aforementioned greater payload capacity. A-10s can carry far more ammunition (up to 1,174 rounds) for their iconic 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger cannons. F-35As have a built-in 25mm GAU-22/A cannon feeding from a magazine with a maximum capacity of just 182 rounds. F-35B and C variants have no internal guns, but can be armed with a podded GAU-22/A with a smaller magazine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9rmAgHK-4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMd2gys1n8E

An unrelated section of the flyoff report also notes that F-35s cannot carry different ordnance on their underwing pylons and their internal weapon bays at the same time for unclear reasons. The use of those underwing stations also negates the Joint Strike Fighter's stealthy characteristics. The A-10 is well known for its ability to carry mixed ordnance loads on individual sorties, which offers more flexibility for engaging different kinds of targets.

This picture of an inverted A-10 highlights its ability to carry a wide array of different stores on a single mission. USAF

The report also highlights the limited ability of the F-35A, at least at that time, to communicate directly with personnel on the ground. Ostensibly to create an even playing field, voice communication was therefore utilized almost exclusively during the comparative testing.

This, in turn, appears to have put A-10C drivers at a disadvantage in some situations since they were not allowed to use their very capable digital communications capabilities while also lacking modern enhancements found on the Joint Strike Fighter that are designed to help reduce pilot workload.

"This limitation likely slowed down A-10C performance timelines in CAS and FAC(A) roles in comparison to the F-35A," the report notes.

Back in 2017, when reporting on the initial details about the flyoff from POGO, The War Zone had specifically highlighted the A-10C's extensive ground-support-focused communications capabilities, particularly the Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receiver (ROVER) system. ROVER, which has been continuously improved upon since it was first introduced in the early 2000s, allows equipped aircraft to pump sensor feeds straight to JTACs and other personnel down below in near real-time, significantly improving coordination.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuR99AZAbCM

The F-35 Joint Program Office has since taken steps to integrate a ROVER-like video data link onto the Joint Strike Fighter. However, it is not immediately clear how far that work progressed in recent years and how many, if any, F-35s now have this capability.

Inversely, "A-10C pilots reported a significantly lower workload than F-35A pilots in the task-intensive FAC(A) mission." The reasons for this are not clear from the unredacted sections of the report.

Regardless, an unredacted portion of the executive summary included a recommendation to "improve digital communications, video data link capability and interoperability with 4th generation aircraft," as well as "fix the F-35A gun" and "develop training programs to further improve F-35A effectiveness in these missions."

Accuracy issues with the F-35A's 25mm cannon, which persisted at least into 2020, are well known. That same year, it emerged that certain jets were experiencing worrisome cracking as a result of using the gun at all. The full extent to which this issue may have been mitigated since then is not immediately clear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJhTDzeMYkI

POGO says separate documents it has reviewed show that the Air Force still does not have CAS-focused or related specialized training requirements for its F-35A pilots and is not expected to put them in place in the coming year, either.

Altogether, "you can't really consider this [flyoff] as a close air support test because there weren't really any friendly troops. If the tests had been done at [U.S. Marine Corps Base] Twentynine Palms or the [U.S. Army's] NTC [National Training Center], the JOTT could have incorporated real maneuver units performing realistic combined arms scenarios," POGO's Grazier told The War Zone. "That would have greatly increased the rigor of the entire endeavor by making the pilots distinguish between friendly and enemy troops. At NTC, they could have incorporated Soviet-era equipment. The JOTT could have crafted scenarios where the role players on the ground worked to camouflage their positions."

In addition, "rather than observing actual hits or misses, officials judged the results based on cockpit video and self-reported outcomes by the pilots and participants on the ground," Grazier separately noted in his own separate analysis of the report. "This created an opportunity for officials to manipulate the results based on desired outcomes and operator bias."

Grazier further raises the point that it is very curious that unspecified "range safety restrictions" are repeatedly cited in the report as the reason why the scale and scope of the comparative testing were curtailed in many regards despite inert training munitions only being used in one day's worth of testing.

What type of inert muntions were utilized during flyoff is unknown. The picture here shows an A-10 dropping a string of small inert training bombs during unrelated training. USAF

It is worth pointing out here that the U.S. military's current definitions of CAS include missions wherein aircraft are directed to targets by controllers who do not have direct visual confirmation of them. In many ways, this seems to have been the primary type of CAS reflected in the flyoff.

This kind of 'remote' CAS often blurs the line between that mission set and interdiction, a technically different mission type that is more focused on engaging enemy forces before they reach friendly units. This is also a reality that predates the flyoff.

“It is sometimes the case that sorties tasked for [close air support] may wind up supporting strikes that look more like interdiction, or vice versa," a spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force's top command in the Middle East told this author back in 2015 specifically about A-10 strikes against ISIS in Syria.

A pair of A-10s in Iraq in 2007. USAF

This all may well speak to how the Air Force envisions providing CAS in a future conflict, especially to forces on the ground in high-threat environments. There are also potential pitfalls to relying on this kind of air support, as has been shown on multiple occasions, even with platforms more specifically suited to these kinds of missions.

In 2014, an Air Force B-1B bomber infamously killed five Army soldiers and an interpreter in a botched CAS strike during a firefight in Afghanistan. The incident was blamed in part on degraded communications and the inability of the bomber's targeting pod to see infrared strobe lights marking friendly positions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BL6oe335Bk

The following year, also in Afghanistan, one of the Air Force's AC-130U Spooky special operations gunships mistakenly destroyed a hospital operated by international nongovernmental organization Doctors Without Borders. That incident also stemmed in large part from a breakdown in communications between the gunship and controllers on the ground, the latter of whom were not in a position to see the actual intended target. A near real-time video link on the AC-130U was also notably non-functional at the time, preventing the crew from directly sharing imagery of what they were looking at before the strike was authorized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPdYjVYhhAk

"As someone who has a great deal of experience in combined arms training, I much prefer to have aviation support destroy targets before I can see them. That helps ground forces generate tempo in a running fight," POGO's Grazier, a retired Marine officer who served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, told The War Zone. "I have had aircraft drop close enough to my position to feel the effects of the blast. I've even had brass fall into my tank from a helicopter firing on a target as they flew overhead. I was glad they had trained to the most difficult and delicate scenario."

Without being able to see the full flyoff report it is hard to truly assess the results and the justifications for those conclusions. At the same time, it has long been hard to give the Air Force the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the A-10, an aircraft the service has been actively trying to rid itself of since it first entered service in the 1970s.

The War Zone has detailed the many known instances in the past of the Air Force deliberately hamstringing the A-10 fleet and manipulating data to present it in an especially poor light. It is also known the service buried a set of requirements it had drafted regarding a dedicated A-10 replacement.

It is no secret that the Air Force did not want to conduct the flyoff at all, with then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh publicly describing it as a "silly exercise." The Congressional mandate for comparative testing had come after a scandal in which another Air Force general had suggested to his subordinates that defending the A-10 to members of legislators was tantamount to treason. Before that, the Air Force had also suppressed a short official documentary that presented a very positive picture of the A-10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpCvySLGuOA

At the same time, it is increasingly hard to argue that the utility of the A-10, especially in higher-end conflicts, is steadily diminishing, despite the substantial upgrades it is still receiving. There are already growing questions about exactly how the U.S. military will conduct CSAR at all in high-threat environments where stealthy aircraft like the F-35 are expected to operate. The Air Force has notably truncated its purchase of HH-60W rescue helicopters for this reason and is now exploring various alternatives to traditional CSAR.

The comparative test report notes that A-10 and F-35 pilots involved in the flyoff repeatedly raised the idea of using F-35As to escort A-10Cs on CSAR missions. CSAR force packages have included fighter cover since before the Warthog entered service and this particular pairing could make good sense. Stealthy F-35As would be capable for neutralizing aerial threats and hostile air defenses in support of the mission, as well as just providing critical situation awareness, all thanks in no small part to their extensive sensor fusion and electronic warfare capabilities. Still, whether this would all be enough to adequately execute CSAR missions in a high-threat scenario is questionable and give the A-10s a decent chance of surviving is variably debatable, depending on the scenario.

The A-10 community is otherwise very actively looking for additional ways it can contribute in higher-end conflicts, including as launch platforms for decoys to help clear the way through enemy air defenses.

A pair of ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoys (MALD) on an A-10 during a fit check. Michigan ANG

All of this is becoming increasingly moot as the Air Force is now pushing ahead with plans to retire the entire A-10 fleet by 2030, if not before then. After years of pushback from Congress, lawmakers now look to be more inclined to finally let the Warthog go. Whether the contents of this report, which should be available to legislators in full, have any impact on their views remains to be seen.

In addition, U.S. Special Operations Command is now moving forward with its own plans to acquire dozens of dedicated light attack aircraft specifically to perform close air support, armed overwatch, and other related missions in permissive environments. Though the total number of OA-1K Sky Warden aircraft that are expected to eventually enter service will be much smaller than the size of the A-10 fleet currently, this could help make up for some of the resulting capability shortfalls.

The OA-1K Sky Warden. Air Tractor

A big question that remains is what the Air Force will or won't do in the end to preserve the institutional knowledge that the A-10 community has built up over the years.

"If the services are going to be stuck relying on the F-35 to fill the attack role, the best solution would be to assign an adequate number of squadrons to specialize entirely on the mission," POGO's Grazier told The War Zone. "HQ Air Force should transfer all transitioning A-10 pilots to those squadrons to concentrate their knowledge that they then pass on to the newly assigned attack pilots and issue appropriate Ready Aircrew Tasking Memorandums."

"That is not happening," he continued. "The Air Force isn't even pretending to train F-35 pilots for the role now so accumulated attack pilot knowledge will very rapidly evaporate."

We will have to wait and see whether or not more details about this flyoff might now begin to emerge with the final release of at least a portion of the final test report. Regardless, the A-10's career with the Air Force looks to be ever more firmly coming to an end.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

Las Vegas casino, hotel workers set strike deadline after talks stall

Thu, November 2, 2023 

MGM Resorts 

By Doyinsola Oladipo

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Some 35,000 Las Vegas hospitality workers are ready to walk off the job on Nov. 10 in a strike against casino and resort operators MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts if they do not have a labor contract by then, their unions said on Thursday.

The Culinary Workers and Bartenders Unions have been negotiating for about seven months, and 95% of their members voted at the end of September to authorize a citywide strike.

The strike would be the first for the unions since 1991 and mirrors activity in the entertainment and auto industries where employees are seeking better compensation and benefits to deal with the higher cost of living and a tight labor market, and comes as companies report record profits.

The Las Vegas unions, considered among the most powerful in the country, are demanding higher wages, stronger protections against new technology that may threaten jobs, a reduction in steep quotas for housekeepers and improved safety for workers.

The union said it has some agreements in place with the casinos. "Economically, the companies have made some movement but we are millions of dollars apart," Ted Pappageorge, Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer told reporters on a call.

MGM and Caesars did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Wynn declined to comment on the strike deadline.

"When we reach an agreement on the contract, it's going to be the largest increase that our employees have seen in the four decades since we started interacting with the Culinary Union," Caesars Entertainment CEO Thomas Reeg told investors on an earnings call on Tuesday.

The city is gearing up for major events in November including the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix which is expected to bring more than 100,000 tourists to the city.

Reeg said he could not say whether a new contract was "going to happen next week, a couple of weeks from now, or a month from now. But we are in dialogue constantly with the union and have further meetings this week."

The union said no additional big table negotiations are currently scheduled with the three casino operators, including Caesars.

(Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)

THE FALL OF THE BRITISH RAJ

600 sex toys and a diamond dog-collar – the last days of the Indian princes

Mick Brown
Wed, November 1, 2023 

The Maharajah of Indore (pictured) commissioned Le Corbusier to design a tubular chaise-longue cover in leopard skin - Samuel Bourne/Hulton Archive/Getty Images


On July 25 1947, nearly 100 rajas, maharajas, khans and nawabs, bedecked in bejewelled turbans, met in the Chamber of Princes in Delhi to ponder their future. India was beginning to burn with tens of thousands dying in the spreading sectarian violence between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

The 100 were just a fraction of the rulers of India’s 565 princely states, who under British paramountcy had ruled over nearly half of the country’s landmass and a third of its population. But now the time of reckoning had come. In three weeks, Britain would be withdrawing from India, leaving the princely rulers at the mercy of the newly constituted governments of India and Pakistan.

So begins this gripping history – exhaustively researched, and written with all the pace and tension of a thriller – of how the fate of the princely states would be determined in the face of independence and Partition. As one observer noted, the British had extended their Empire in India in “a fit of absent-mindedness”. Before independence the political map of India was “a jumble” of pinks representing British India and yellows representing the princely states of “Indian India”.


These states varied widely in size, from Hyderabad, with a population of some 16 million and an income rivalling that of Belgium, to the handkerchief-sized Bilbari with a population of just 27. While subject to British paramountcy, these mini-kingdoms enjoyed almost total autonomy, under the watchful eye of a British Resident, or political agent, their status ranked by a Ruritanian system, devised by the British, of gun salutes, ranging from 21 for the five largest states, down to nine. (The King Emperor was entitled to a 101-gun salute.)

Some rulers provided industry and infrastructure, others treated their people like feudal serfs. Extravagance was unbounded. Rolls Royces were two a rupee. The Maharajah of Indore commissioned Le Corbusier to design a tubular chaise-longue cover in leopard skin, while the Maharawal of Dungarpur travelled specially to Brighton to take lessons on how to do the foxtrot. The ruler of Junagadh, kept 3,000 dogs; his favourites had diamond-studded collars and a public holiday was declared when they mated. Gaekwar Pratap Singh of Baroda fired his salutes from a cannon made of solid gold.

Jawaharlal Nehru (pictured with Lord Mountbatten in 1946) complained about 'these puppet princes' - Alamy

From the moment the British announced their withdrawal from India, the days of the princely states were numbered. Jawaharlal Nehru, the incoming prime minister of India, was driven to distraction by the prospect of “these puppet princes setting themselves up as independent monarchs” following the British withdrawal.

But it was two government officials who shouldered the fiendishly complicated problem of Partition and integrating the princely states into the newly constituted Dominions of India and Pakistan, by a mixture of persuasion, threat and blatant strong-arming.

One was Vallabhbhai Patel, described as “a rough diamond in an iron casket”, and the most powerful man in the Congress party after Nehru. The other was VP Menon – a man with a penchant for “Savile Row suits, Cuban cigars and slate-blue Cadillacs”, who, locked away in a guesthouse with a bottle of whiskey and smoking his way through packets of cigarettes, drew up the blueprint giving both countries independence as members of the Commonwealth.

The offer that Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, had made to the princely states provided for their accession on just three conditions: defence, foreign affairs and communications would devolve to the new Dominions. But their internal affairs would be left untouched. They would even continue to receive honours and titles from the king. That did not reckon with the steely resolve of Patel and Menon. In the end virtually all of the princely states acceded almost unconditionally to the new India, and 10 to Pakistan.

'A rough diamond in an iron casket': Vallabhbhai Patel - World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Among these was the 17-gun-salute state of Bashawlpur, whose ruler Sadiq Muhammed Khan could trace his ancestry back to an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad and who, Zubrzycki writes, ruled with a mixture of “piety and perversion”. When the Pakistani army took over his palace they uncovered his collection of 600 sex toys, “some made of clay, some bought in England, some battery-operated”.

Some states continued in vain to dream of independence, some fought actively to resist accession. But as the journalist Ann Morrow wrote, the maharajas, khans and nawabs were “as vulnerable as the deer they had tied up between two lighted posts to be pounced on by a tiger at viceregal shoots”.

The Muslim majority state of Hyderabad was one of the last to hold out, eventually being brought to heel by military action by the Indian government resulting in the deaths of some 50,000 people (some estimates put the number at 200,000) with thousands more displaced. The territorial dispute between India and Pakistan would never be resolved, and has continued to fester to the present day.

It was Indihra Gandhi who as India’s third prime minister signed the states’ final death warrant. Gandhi harboured a pathological dislike for the princes, dating back to her hatred of a princess schoolmate, Gayatri Devi, who would spend her breaks surreptitiously smoking cigarettes behind the girls’ toilet block, while boasting of how she bagged her first leopard at 13. In 1971, Gandhi abolished the privy purses and privileges of the princely states, wiping out their remaining source of income and status at a stroke. She would later punish Devi by imprisoning her for violating currency laws, by not declaring £19 and a few Swiss francs found during a tax raid on one of her palaces.

Some royals proved more adaptable than others, entering politics with great success, while others saw their fortunes fade to nothing. Having once thrown banquets with battalions of servants and “monogrammed cigarettes for the ladies”, one maharajah was reduced to eating off a card-table in his crumbling palace. And spare a thought for Sawai Man Singh, the ruler of Jaipur, who was obliged not only to give up his railway and army, but also his Dakota aircraft that his wife used to fly to Delhi for her haircuts. One can only imagine how that went down.

Mick Brown’s latest book is The Nirvana Express: How the Search for Enlightenment Went West. Dethroned: The Downfall of India’s Princely States is published by Hurst