Tuesday, January 31, 2012

What are we...as a Marine Corps doing?


Rant time.

For the first time in ten years (according to press releases) the Marine Corps is conducting a large scale amphibious exercise (Bold Alligator).

Meanwhile, we have Battalion Landing Teams (MEU's) doing exercises at Cobra Gold and Enhanced Mojave Viper.

All the work done to set the stage for mini-ARGs...distributed warfare and suddenly the powers that be have arrived at the point where Marine Expeditionary Brigade type training needs to be done!

For what purpose?

Why?

It hasn't been discussed publicly, the reasoning hasn't been explained...the thinking behind it hasn't been shared.

What in the name of Chesty is going on here!

The changing story regarding the USS Ponce.

The story of what the Navy SEALs will be doing with the USS Ponce keeps changing...first we have this from FoxNews reported a couple of days ago....

The U.S. Navy is working to place a 'mothership' for Special Operations Forces in the Middle East, Fox News confirms. 
The USS Ponce, which was most recently being used as a dock in the Mediterranean Sea for the Libyan operation, was scheduled to be decommissioned in December. Navy officials now tell Fox News that the ship will be transformed into a flotilla to be used by Navy SEALs
Then we have a comment made on the USNI blog by USNVO which stated this...
USNVO Says:
Just a thought. If you look at the RFP for the ship conversion, you immediately see several things.
1. This is not for SOF! Everything in the RFP points to supporting MIW. Helos, EOD, MCMs, MCM staffs.
2. Then ask, why would MCM in the Arabian Gulf suddenly get such a huge push? OK, that was too easy.
3. Following the logic, then you would want the ability to conduct MCM outside of land support since your potential opponent has a significant missile capability. So, you need a ship.
4. So why the PONCE? Need it now, needs MH-53 support capability, a well deck to support minesweeping sleds and EOD boats, and good Command and Control capability. So PONCE works where other options don’t, unless you want to give up a LHA or LHD?
4. Why now? Nothing sinister, I image a confluance of a variety of things are making it important now.
a. Changing world situation is focusing attention on MCM capability in the area of the SOH. With perhaps just a bit more emphasis than before.
b. Organic MCM and LCS hasn’t worked out quite like many people have hoped. So in order to support the dedicated MCM forces, you need support facilities.
c. The vulnerability of land bases to interdiction by missiles has increased and ballistic missile defense has not kept pace. Simply put, too many missiles not enough defensive missiles to cover everything yet.
So my thought is that financial priorities are changing due to the very real threat that we may need to conduct MCM operations in the Arabian Gulf and SOH in the very near future. The other cool features are nice, but the MCM support issue is the driver.
Why didn’t we do it before? Simply put, other priorities were seen to be more important. Nothing sinister, just different priorities were viewed as more important. So we end up with a stopgap with a future plan to procure a better ship down the road.
You play the percentages and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
 And then we have this from National Defense by Admiral Harvey...
But that will not be the focus of the USS Ponce, Adm. John Harvey told reporters in Washington Jan. 31.

“It is not the primary mission,” he said. “It’s not going over there as an alternate command ship. It’s not going over there as a special operating forces Death Star Galactica coming through the Gulf.”

The main purpose of what Harvey called the “afloat forward staging base interim” is to support mine sweeping operations and patrol combatant craft in the Persian Gulf, he said.

He called it an interim solution because the Navy may turn to its Mobile Landing Platform ships to perform the floating base role. The forthcoming budget will have details on the quantity and purpose of the MLPs and when they will be built, Harvey said.
Message discipline men.  Message discipline.

The USAF screws the Army...again.


The USAF screws the US Army once again.

Remember the C-27?  The Air Force wrested control of that program away from the Army based on the Key West accords...The Air Force stated that they could manage the program better and would see to Army inter-theater needs...then budget cuts hit and the Army is still without its airplane and the Air Force decided to mothball it.

But wait!  It gets worse!

The US Army is trying real hard to be a player in the new Pacific strategy and in order to be a player needs to get its troops to the scene as quickly as possible.  What does that require?  How about strategic airlift.  And what is the USAF also cutting?  C-5's and C-130's.  Not to mention the A-10's that are a close air support specialist.  Want to see the politically correct version of events?  Check this out from DoD Buzz...

As for the other aircraft the Air Force wants to go away, many of them are cargo planes. It plans to get rid of 27 C-5As, 65 C-130s and all of its C-27Js. They’ll probably end up with the A-10s, F-16 and F-15s in the Boneyard at Davis-Monthan AFB. Most of those aircraft could soon be harvested for parts, but Schwartz said airmen will protect the C-27s for now.
“Type-1000 storage is essentially recoverable storage,” he said. “You don’t use the airplanes for spare parts.  You don’t pick and choose and cherry– pick, which type-2000 storage allows you to do.  So obviously, type-1000 storage is more expensive.  It requires sort of ongoing surveillance and so on.  So that — the disposition is not final-final, but those are the options.”
My boy Elements of Power will disagree, and I can't wait to hear from him but if we're really talking about "jointness" then the USAF needs to get a bit more serious about its air lift responsibilities...oh and a second look at retiring the A-10 might be in order too.

Retired Navy Admiral (and carrier pilot) fully endorses the F-35.

BlackFive hits it out the park again...read it there but a tidbit...

Why does Stufflebeem so heavily tout the F-35?
But many fail to realize that the F-35C, with its data exchange and interoperability capabilities, will make the entire Carrier Strike Group (CSG) more capable, effective and lethal. Using similar methods in exercises like Red Flag, the F-22 Raptor made both air and ground units more effective by providing enhanced situational awareness of the battlespace; so will the F-35 provide better maritime awareness to the CSG including both Airwing assets as well as surface forces. The F-35C will make the CSG a better, more capable fighting centerpiece of American military power and force for good around the globe.
Very interesting.

If my memory is correct this is the first time I've heard full support for the F-35 from a high ranking Navy Officer (the flag ranks never actually retire). 

About time.

Just plain cool...different, but cool.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Marines face off with insurgents

Monday Mudballing...30 Jan 2012

I was reading this article from the Washington Post this morning and it has me thinking about a number of issues.

Dependents Overseas

The Army took the first hit but the tidbit from the referenced article has me wondering...
There are about 80,000 U.S. service members stationed in Europe, along with more than 200,000 family members and civilian employees.
The savings that will be realized by removing the overhead of dependents and civilian employees from overseas locations could and should be realized world wide by the US military.  It should be a USMC, USN and USAF imperative too.  That one move alone should save a tremendous amount of money.  Additionally it should allow bases to be consolidated or even shut down.  This is an obvious, uncontroversial move that should be implemented immediately.  Oh and I'm mainly looking at you USAF---shut down those European air bases!

US and European views of each other

This was predicatable but still eye opening...

In Washington, the long-held “vision of Europe is that there’s a bunch of reasonably rich countries, relatively lazy, and not standing up for American-initiated missions abroad as much as they should,” he said.
In contrast, Eide said, resentment and opposition to the U.S.-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan has reduced popular backing for NATO among many Western European countries. “NATO was identified simply as the organization that takes away our sons and daughters and sends them to faraway places to do nation-building in the desert.”
It won't happen but NATO is dead as an institution.  It is incapable of projecting power in a unified way and would be hard pressed to defend itself from a determined enemy.    We all focus on the equipment to fight wars but discount the will to fight.  I wonder if Europe still has the will (talking about its people, not its military) and they think that we're cowboys that gallop around the world imposing our will.  Like a bad marriage, we need a divorce.

Defense Budgets

Label this sad, but predictable...

U.S. and NATO officials fret that the cutbacks will further erode military weaknesses that were exposed during last year’s air war in Libya. Several European countries quickly ran out of munitions and had to order them on an emergency basis from Washington. European militaries also lacked capability to refuel their own planes or conduct adequate surveillance from the air.
“If there ever was a time in which the United States could always be counted on to fill the gaps that may emerge in European defense, that time is rapidly coming to an end,” Ivo Daalder, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, told reporters in Washington last month.
At the same time, Europe’s austere economic outlook is leading to a “further weakening of the core ability to defend ourselves,” said Norwegian Defense Minister Espen Barth Eide.
Oil-rich Norway is an exception to the trend; it is increasing its defense budget. But Europe’s overall economic woes are exacerbating existing tensions within NATO, Eide said in a recent speech at the Center for Security and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
We live in interesting times.

I can't wait to see how this turns out but if we suffer one more economic shock, I can see the US fully divesting itself of Europe, turning to the Pacific and not looking back.


Sunday, January 29, 2012

Check out this piece of shit SEAL "faker"...



via KitUp!

Listen to this bastard laugh when he talks about child rape.  A bullet to the back of the head would be too merciful!

24th MEU preps for final certification exercise.

All photos by Sgt. Richard Blumenstein




Resident Evil finally looks interesting.



My boy "Everyday No Days Off" Blogspot found this and it looks like Resident Evil is finally interesting.

Good graphics.

Interesting storyline (well I think it will be...fighting zombies and mutated zombies gets boring...another team to the fight adds spice)...

Might be a game worth buying when it comes out.