Brahmos "Extended Range"...an almost 400 mile supersonic anti-ship missile!

via Live Fist.

Two major BrahMos tests coming this summer. Things kicks off in March with a long-awaited ‘extended range’ test of a 450km range variant of the supersonic cruise missile, the fastest in its class in the world. BrahMos, whose range was earlier limited by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) has now been opened up beyond its 290km range to upwards of 450km. Livefist can confirm that an even longer range final ‘ER’ variant, out to 600km, will be tested next year. The BrahMos ER will be tested from an Army land launcher and will follow a protocol launch without any of the major maneouvers the missile is capable of.

Story here. 

We're gonna have to think about ship survivability.  What standard do we need to allow a ship to take a hit and stay in the fight?  Remember what the Exocet did to a Brit ship when it hit but didn't explode and the missile fuel did the job?  What will a missile doing Mach3 do to a modern warship on pure kinetic energy alone?

The next war at sea will be one for the ages.

Open Comment Post. Feb 19, 2017...a little housekeeping...

A little housekeeping gents...

1.  I setup these "open comment posts" so that the other blog topics can stay on target.  Don't cloud them up by posting the odd thing on them.  Keep the common areas clean!

2.  I'm seeing a slightly disturbing trend.  Commenters come from all over the world here and I'm damn proud of that fact.  English is often a second language so the grammar Nazi BS and demanding exactitude when its quite clear what they're trying to say is starting to grate.  If you don't understand what's being said in a comment then ask for clarification.  If you're being an ass then stop.

3.  News for the blog.  I'm communicating with the White House to try and become credentialed!  The military blog rumor mill says that the current Admin is extremely interested to reaching out beyond the traditional MSM.  I'm geeked.  That will open up doors you can't imagine.

Nothing Follows.  So what's on your mind?

Sunday Funny! USAF gets no love...

The Army, Navy and Marine Corps can't agree on anything...except making fun of the Air Force! 

F-18XT set to take a big bite out of the Navy F-35 order! President's chief of staff seen with Boeing brochure!

via DoD Buzz

President Donald Trump on Friday announced he’s considering a “big order” of advanced Super Hornet fighter jets designated F/A-18XT and made by Boeing Co.
“We are looking seriously at a big order,” he told the audience at Boeing’s South Carolina facility during the unveiling of the company’s 787 Dreamliner. “Do you care if we use the F-18 Super Hornets?”
The comments came less than a month after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered a review of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, a fourth-generation fighter, as a potential lower-cost alternative to the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, the carrier version of a fifth-generation fighter made by Lockheed Martin Corp.
The remarks also came a day after Robert Harward, a retired vice admiral and former Navy SEAL who went on to become an executive at Lockheed, declined an offer to succeed Michael Flynn as national security adviser.
According to White House pool reports from the Trump event, Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, was spotted holding a brochure for the “F/A-18 XT.” The XT is the Advanced Super Hornet, or the Block III fighter jet concept for the Navy, a Boeing spokesman confirmed to Military.com.
“While Boeing demonstrated advanced Super Hornet capabilities in flight in 2013, the package of upgrades has evolved to best complement F-35, EA-18G and E-2D as they will be operating together in the air wing well into the 2040s,” Boeing said in a description of the XT/Block III aircraft.
Boeing developed the Block III jet concept to “address the strike fighter shortfall as well as to ensure the air wing has the capabilities needed to win in the 2020s and beyond,” the description said.
The new variant will feature an enhanced network capability to allow large amounts of data on and off the airplane, which would increase the ability to receive targeting information from aircraft like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, EA-18G Growler and the E-2D Hawkeye, according to Boeing.

Story here. 

Interesting.  Time to explore the "death spiral".  Remember the F-35C is the most EXPENSIVE version!

To keep the cost per airplane low, you need to build and sell a lot of planes. But if the plane in question is delayed or new planes needed immediately, governments cut orders to buy planes available now to fulfill that need. That pushes up the cost per plane, leading to more cancellations, pushing up the cost, leading to more cancellations. And so on.

We are inches away from the F-35C being the first version of the F-35 to be canned!

Sidenote:  Notice the emphasis for the Navy is on networking.  Remember Greenert...everything a sensor, everything a shooter....also remember his other mantra...payloads over platforms...the Super Hornet is perfectly placed to carry the load until the F/A-XX hits deck in a little over a decade!  Lockheed took too damn long and failed to have a corporate sense of urgency.  Now its too late!

Are we developing better ties with Russia on the sly?

De-confliction of air ops w/Russia continue. Today they conducted ops in vicinity of #Raqqah. So did @CJTF-OIR.

— OIR Spokesman (@OIRSpox) February 17, 2017

After seeing the above tweet about "deconflicting" the battlespace with Russia, I'm left wondering if we're not developing better ties with Russia on the sly.  During the Obama Admin we saw US and Russian fighters almost getting into furballs over Syria, now they seem to almost be on the verge of conducting joint operations.

What I find puzzling is that just yesterday Mattis talked about us NOT being able to work with Russia and then spokesman in the region releases this tweet?

Extremely curious.

Battle of Iwo Jima | 72nd Anniversary

J-20 in flight...

This airplane is a beautiful beast!

Deep strike/anti-ship platform?  Long range missile carrier?

It's got to be approaching F-111 size and I would bet its range inches toward equalling that old warhorse.  Regardless, I like the look.  F-35 fanboys will talk about this airplane being dogfood in comparison but I don't think so.

The Chinese have a winner on their hands.

Side note.  Doesn't this airplane look like something Kelly would have designed?

Meet the guy who won a Medal of Honor and KP duty in one week....

Maynard “Snuffy” Smith

via War History Online.

The First Mission
On May 1, 1943, now Staff Sergeant Smith climbed into the ball gun turret of his B-17 and headed out for France. The target was a series of U-Boat pens near Saint-Nazaire which was a heavily defended location with the nickname “flak city.”
Despite its reputation, at least one group of bombers arrived on target and met little resistance from the German forces.
Dropping their bombs and heading for home, the crew of Smith’s B-17 felt they had made it. Unfortunately, the lead plane made a navigational error, and while he believed they were heading for England, he was leading the group straight to the heavily fortified city of Brest, France.
As the group began to descend from the clouds, they were met by a welcoming party of German fighters and intense anti-aircraft fire. Smith’s bomber was instantly hit. Enemy fire ripped through the plane’s fuel tanks causing a massive fire to erupt in the middle of the fuselage. Their communications system went down, the oxygen system was destroyed, and the power to Smith’s ball turret was knocked out.
With the fire raging, three of the crew members decided it was time to bail out. They parachuted over the channel never to be heard from again.
Smith, on the other hand, leaped into action. He tended to the wounded crew as the pilots attempted to navigate the plane home. However, German fighters were still riddling the plane with bullets, and the fire continued to rage threatening to melt the fuselage. They were a long way from home and Smith spent the next 90 minutes treating the wounded, manning the machine gun, and fighting the fire.

Full story here! 

Open Comment Post. Feb 18, 2017

Burning issue for today.

How deep is the Deep State?  

FNSS Kaplan-NGAFV & Kaplan-10 Features/Variants (vids)

Thanks to Dwi for the vids!

AESA Radar on an Air to Air Missile??? The Ukrainians have done it!!!

Thanks to the little birdy that landed on my window sill for the pic!

Drink it in boys and girls.  The Ukrainians have done it.  An AESA on an air to air and air to ground missile?  I thought it was just talk and they couldn't get it done.

How big a deal is this actually?  I have no fucking idea.

I'm sitting back watching the geeks talk about it while the couple of war dawgs in the group (thank God for geeks that get muddy & speak english) break it down for me.

More to come!

Nope.  No more to come.  The discussion is embargoed and I can't share their findings/speculation.  Too bad.  Its fascinating as fuck!  Small hint. What we all thought was tech held in the hands of a few is appearing in the hands of the country I think is our greatest threat.  F-35 clubbed like baby seals?  On a good day.  More like F-35's will be clubbed like SLEEPING baby seals.

USMC wants F-35's faster than planned...USAF wants to take it slow. Who's right?

Thanks to Eric for the link!

Remember this article from Defense News a week or so ago?

"We have the infrastructure in place,” said Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, deputy commandant for aviation. "Bottom line is we've had a very anemic ramp, so we've been holding onto the older airplanes longer. If asked by the American people to get the airplanes faster, I guarantee we'd put them into play very, very quickly. 
“We'd transition squadrons faster is what we'd do,” he said, adding that if the service were allowed to purchase 37 B-variants a year, it would be able to retire its legacy F/A-18 Hornet and Harrier planes by 2026. 

But now we hear this from USAF officials, also from Defense News.

 “If we were to procure at higher than planned rates” over the next five years, “the Air Force would have to retrofit aircraft already delivered to the fleet with Block 4 hardware and software modifications,” he said in written testimony delivered Thursday to the House Armed Services Committee. 
“Once Block 4 delivers” beginning in 2021, “we should examine the option of accelerating the F-35A program above the current procurement rate to meet the 5th generation requirements necessary to balance the Air Force ability to fulfill national security objectives.”

Stunning isn't it.

The "against" crowd in the F-35 debate have just been given an additional point of attack.  How much will those retrofits cost?  Obviously its a deal breaker or the USAF wouldn't be balking at it and would push ahead with trying to get as many F-35's built as possible.

I wonder.

Has something happened in the background that we missed with regard to the F-35's capabilities?  Notice that we're hearing this after the Red Flag exercise.

I've been told (I have no knowledge of how those exercises work) that the first week is the "easy" week and gives everyone a chance to get their sea legs.  That's the week we were told where the F-35 got its 15-1 kill ratio.  We never heard a peep about the rest of the exercise.  I wonder if things didn't go as well if when the heat was turned up.

Regardless.  It looks like the plane that was suppose to be the golden boy for lower F-35 costs (yep the F-35A) isn't going to see an increased push down on that cost curve.