Thousands of civilians fled their communities in Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao early Friday after heavily armed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) were sighted in the village of Kitango, an Army official said.This sounds like a "cordon and sweep" operation.
Capt. Joann Petinglay, 6th ID spokesperson, said elements of the 45th Infantry Battalion are now engaged in a running gunbattle with BIFF forces, led by a certain Commander Kadafi in Barangay Maytumaig, Datu Saudi Unsay.
Portions of the highway between Crossing Salbo, Datu Saudi Ampatuan to the town hall of Datu Unsay town, were closed.
The firefight started at 9:30 a.m. in Sitio Kuwari, Barangay Maitumaig, Datu Unsay, Maguindanao.
Evacuation continues.
“There was massive evacuation of civilians,” Petinglay said adding that before the encounter between Army and the BIFF, thousands of civlians have already evacuated anticipating armed skirmishes.
Heavy fighting is taking place between the towns of Datu Saudi Ampatuan and Datu Unsay Ampatuan, specifically near the road.
The road from Dalican, Datu Odin Sinsuat until Shariff Aguak town, both in Maguindanao, have been closed to traffic as Army and BIFF are poised to engage in shooting war, a commuter told Radyo Bida Koronadal.
Armored personnel carriers and artillery have been positioned beside the highway as the clash site was only a few kilometers away from the road network.
The Philippine military is up to its neck dealing with insurgents. The turn to the Pacific will bring no relief from endless combat it seems. Besides the Philippines you should keep an eye on Thailand and Indonesia for "activity against the government".
That's absolutely what they are trying to frame it as, you've even heard it here when certain people have claimed that too much money has been spent, we don't have ready replacements, or that too many allies and foreign governments are relying on this program for us to abandon it.
ReplyDeleteOf course, that is all a bunch of crap and apparently none of those commenters know what LRiP is, but that's beside the point. They are definitely playing the idea that abandoning the program will hurt more than continuing with it. How they square that view against the harm caused by fully adopting and fielding an inferior, cost ineffective, and tactically/operationally useless airplane that will screw with our defense for years to come is beyond me.
Funny. A UK need? Because SDB isn't very useful for Marine ops. SDBs had a try at close air support (THE real need for Marine Air) in Iraq. Even after a software fix, the SDB (dropped from F-15Es) took too long from release to get to short event drops. The SDB is made for long range for doing anything else BUT CAS. Tell the guy on the ground the weapon has been released and to keep your heads down. 5 minutes later it still hasn't hit (because ...of the wing kit). For the USMC and F-35B, low-collateral and or a weapon with less danger close issues already exists. And much cheaper than an SDB. Some years ago the Navy put in a requirement to take the BLU-111 (Navy Mk82 set to Navy safety specs) and take out a portion of the explosive filler and put in some inert filler for ballast. This gave you a 500lb class weapon with a much smaller explosion (with the same flight characteristics of the original design--PGM kitted or not). Certainly you can't carry as many of these as SDBs but the point is you need a sub-1-minute fly-time weapon kitted to Paveway, dual-mode Enhanced Paveway, JDAM or Laser-JDAM (L-JDAM). So using this leaves the USMC with no real problems above as they shouldn't be doing missions the SDB was made for anyway. ---BLU-126/B – Designed following a U.S. Navy request to lower collateral damage in air strikes. Delivery of this type started in March of 2007. Also known as the Low Collateral Damage Bomb (LCDB), it is a BLU-111 with a smaller explosive charge. Non-explosive filler is added to retain the weight of the BLU-111 so as to give it the same trajectory when dropped. --- Little Bang – p.38, Aviation Week & Space Technology-January 29, 2007
ReplyDelete''JSF program has been
ReplyDeleteaware of the issue for some time and expects to award Lockheed a
contract later this year to complete the design changes'' LOL
I really enjoy how the JSF program people always say:"we have known about this problem for years" like that's supposed to reassure us! Don't worry, it's on our laundry list of things to fix, it's a minor one so it will be corrected by FY22 and Block4! So, what about all the 100s of previous models? No SDB for you!
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder what else they are not telling us.
ReplyDeleteI think that LZuni would make a better CAS weapon than an SDB (1 or 2) primarily due to time-2-target & accuracy and having more than twice the warhead of a Hellfire missile. The F-35B could also easily carry 16 of them externally too.
ReplyDeleteIn the spirit of time-2 target, how soon before we start seeing boosted Paveways ala AASM?
Speaking of AASM, they are UAI which means that the F-35 could use them starting in Block 4 if they wanted to.
As for SDB2 and the bay size of the F-35B, several things come to mind:
1. The SDB2 will not be part of the code for the F-35 until Blk4 anyways, so there is no loss of capability.
2. The USN added a requirement to the SDN program for a dual-voltage BRU-61 (main reason why the SDB for the F-35B/C slipped to Blk4).
3. The fix is just a bracket and a hydraulic line, easily upgraded during the Blk4 upgrade process.
4. The design of the F-35B bay was set in stone long before the SDB2 development even started. Who's to say that this was not Raytheon's fault to begin with?
"1. The SDB2 will not be part of the code for the F-35 until Blk4 anyways, so there is no loss of capability."
ReplyDeleteNo loss of capability, my ass! Block 4 was originally advertised to be operational by 2017! Block 4 was the originally marketed variant being promoted to allies (and partners) such as Norway as replacements for their timely recapitalization schedule!
But now... Block 4 is IOC in 2022-2023!! Sorry, but that's a slight 4-6 year capability gap and demand for allies to keep their geriatric old jets still flying, albeit with restricted envelopes and reduced credibility/reliability. Not good timing (security wise) for such a flawed and miscalculated TACAIR recap course.
16x LZUNI on a USMC F-18E /ASH would be operational sooner and far less cheaper compared w/ F-35B!
ReplyDeleteThink.
Let alone, an USMC F-18E/ASH-lite (incremental pathway) could operate from USN Carriers, could launch JSOW, HARM and game-changing Mavericks... all with a lower cost per flight hour and a longer un-refueled combat radius too!!
It's too big a failure not to terminate.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 program has had eight lots of low-rate initial production and plans more of them, which will be many more than planned because the development program has taken much longer than planned. According to the Defense Acquisition Glossary LRIP is primarily intended "to provide production or production-representative articles for Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E)." It is not intended to provide systems for in-service operation.
ReplyDeleteLow-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) -- The first part of the Production and Deployment (P&D) phase. LRIP is intended to result in completion of manufacturing development in order to ensure adequate and efficient manufacturing capability and to produce the minimum quantity necessary to provide production or production-representative articles for Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E); establish an initial production base for the system; and permit an orderly increase in the production rate for the system, sufficient to lead to Full-Rate Production (FRP) upon successful completion of operational (and live-fire, where applicable) testing.
This is all set out in law and regulations to try to prevent the problems previously experienced by fielding untested systems.
Exactly, they have indeed exceeded any original production plans. But still, the lengthened LRiP processes have limited production, even with them trying to move up the IOC, instead of having 2,500 we have a couple hundred. This is still the perfect time to cancel this over-bloated, program as opposed to spending billions more on largely useless aircraft.
ReplyDeleteAny plane that can fire the ZUNI today can fire the LZUNI today so that's really not the issue.
ReplyDeletebtw, Not only is ASH vaporware, the USMC would NEVER buy it because they can't use it in the role that the F-35B will play, ie LHA/D and austere ops. Even if the ASH went IOC tomorrow the USMC would not buy it. It's a non-starter.
I think you need to go back and read the comments as we are only talking about this very small and minor issue of a bracket and hose fix that will not be needed until 2022. Even then it only effects a single bomb in the F-35B variant only that has to wait till 2022 to use the bomb anyways.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 has plenty of other genuine issues to deal with and things to complain about, you don't need to make stuff up.