The Roman "Art of Victory" by Publius Flavius Vegetius

via The Art Of Manliness

Sometime in the late 4th or early 5th century, as the late Roman Empire stumbled along in the twilight of its power, an author of whom almost nothing is known compiled a book on the art of war to present to the emperor.
Rome’s economy was soft, its politics corrupt, but what most concerned the author was the creeping disintegration of the one institution that at least kept those other two extant: the military.
Like the rest of Roman society, its once mighty fighting force had fallen victim to decadence. Whereas the army of the early empire had consisted of highly disciplined, well-trained Roman regulars, the standards of the legendary legionaries had fallen, as had their numbers; a much smaller standing army was now supplemented with auxiliary units composed of barbarian mercenaries.
Epitoma Rei Militaris (Epitome of Military Science) by Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus (known simply as Vegetius) was an attempt to get the emperor to remedy the military’s weaknesses before it was too late. “Epitome” here refers to a summary, as Vegetius’ work was not an entirely original composition, but rather a collection of “commentaries on the art of war abridged from authors of the highest repute.” The Epitome of Military Science collects the wisdom of Rome’s early military commanders on organization, equipment, arms, leadership, logistics, and more. The book contains both practical advice on how to recruit, train, and harden troops of excellence and courage, as well as pithy maxims on tactics and strategy. Vegetius said the work could be called a “Rule-Book of Battle” or the “Art of Victory.”

And then this.

 “For there is nothing stabler nor more fortunate or admirable than a State which has copious supplies of soldiers who are trained. For it is not fine raiment or stores of gold, silver and gems that bend out enemies to respect or support us; they are kept down solely by fear of our arms.”
“He who wants victory, let him train soldiers diligently. He who wishes a successful outcome, let him fight with strategy, not at random. No one dares challenge or harm one who he realizes will win if he fights.”

Gents, this one is a must read...there are no new issues, and we can look to history for solutions.  Check it out here. 

Blast from the past...F-35 clubbed like baby seals...

via Next Big Future.

2008 RAND Simulation
In Stillion and Perdue’s August 2008 war simulation, a massive Chinese air and naval force bore down on Beijing’s longtime rival Taiwan amid rising tensions in the western Pacific. A sudden Chinese missile barrage wiped out the tiny, outdated Taiwanese air force, leaving American jet fighters based in Japan and Guam to do battle with Beijing’s own planes and, hopefully, forestall a bloody invasion.
In the scenario, 72 Chinese jets patrolled the Taiwan Strait. Just 26 American warplanes — the survivors of a second missile barrage targeting their airfields — were able to intercept them, including 10 twin-engine F-22 stealth fighters that quickly fired off all their missiles.
That left 16 of the smaller, single-engine F-35s to do battle with the Chinese. As they began exchanging fire with the enemy jets within the mathematical models of the mock conflict, the results were shocking.
America’s newest stealth warplane and the planned mainstay of the future Air Force and the air arms of the Navy and Marine Corps, was no match for Chinese warplanes. Despite their vaunted ability to evade detection by radar, the JSFs were blown out of the sky. “The F-35 is double-inferior,” Stillion and Perdue moaned in their written summary of the war game, later leaked to the press.
The analysts railed against the new plane, which to be fair played only a small role in the overall simulation. “Inferior acceleration, inferior climb [rate], inferior sustained turn capability,” they wrote. “Also has lower top speed. Can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run.” Once missiles and guns had been fired and avoiding detection was no longer an option — in all but the first few seconds of combat, in other words — the F-35 was unable to keep pace with rival planes.
And partly as a result, the U.S. lost the simulated war. Hundreds of computer-code American air crew perished. Taiwan fell to the 1s and 0s representing Chinese troops in Stillion and Perdue’s virtual world. Nearly a century of American air superiority ended among the wreckage of simulated warplanes, scattered across the Pacific

US military leadership know a dirty secret that we've been talking about on the pages of SNAFU! for a couple of years now.  Yesterday I posted a story brought to our attention from one of my eagle eyed readers about a RAND assessment that in their scenarios the US could lose a major war.  That's the second assessment by RAND in a little less than a decade (I shutter at the thought of what the classified war games reveal).  The story above was the first open source admission of the truth, but a critical view of other readily available information tells the tale.

China has gained regional superiority in the Pacific.  It's no longer a question but a provable fact. 

Open Comment Post. Feb 28, 2017

Brad Nettles SAIC Terrex ACV photo gallery...

Brad Nettles has a very interesting photo gallery of the SAIC Terrex ACV.  Its a must see and can be viewed here.  Below is a sample.

Rand tells Congress that China might beat us...

Thanks to Nioble for the link!

via Rand

We also have not moved quickly enough to provide the capabilities and basing posture
needed to meet the manifold challenges posed by China’s rapidly modernizing armed
forces.
...
As a result, the United States now fields forces that are simultaneously
• larger than needed to fight a single major war
• failing to keep pace with the modernizing forces of great power adversaries
• poorly postured to meet key challenges in Europe and East Asia
• insufficiently trained and ready to get the most operational utility from many active
component units.
Put more starkly, our wargames and simulations suggest that U.S. forces could, under
plausible assumptions, lose the next war they are called upon to fight.

I've been shouting this from rooftops for  years.  Russia is a distraction.  China is the threat!

Open Comment Post. Feb 27, 2017

Burning issue?  ComNavOps (read his post here) touched on it but Trump blew it up today...Do we win wars any more?

Airbus to retrofit 26 Bundeswehr CH-53 helicopters

via AviTrader

Airbus Helicopters has received an order from the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) to retrofit 26 CH-53 heavy transport helicopters. This contract will cover obsolescence management for components that are no longer available on the market and will begin by replacing them with up-to-date parts. This retrofit will guarantee the helicopters’ operation until at least 2030. The process will start in 2017 and should be completed by 2022. Work will be carried out in Donauworth at Airbus Helicopters’ Military Support Center Germany.

A good stop gap till they buy CH-53K's!

Chinese quantum radar nullifies the F-35???

via news.com.au

The new sensor technology uses concepts on the edge of our scientific understanding.
And a Chinese state-owned technology group late last year declared it had mastered it.
The new technology had “important military application values” because it could identify aircraft and ships “invisible” to conventional radar systems, a press statement read.
Understanding that technology exposes its full potential.
A photon is a particle with wavelike properties that carries energy without mass. We usually hear of it in terms of light, but it is the basis of all electromagnetic radiation.
Where radar sends out a beam of photons as radio waves, quantum radar uses entangled photons.
Put simply, entangled photons are two separate photons that share a deep quantum link. The upshot is the photons mirror each other’s behaviour when one of them is influenced in some way.
In terms of radar, a crystal can be used to ‘split’ such entangled photons and cast one into the sky.
For a time at least, the twin photons retain their ‘spooky’ link — mirroring the same responses to the environment the other encounters.
It’s a quirk of quantum physics which strained the understanding of Albert Einstein when he grappled with the idea in the 1930s.
Quantum radar would send out bursts of photons while retaining their ‘pairs’. The changes in behaviour of the retained photon would then reveal what’s happening to the photon in the beam.
Ultimately, the point is the same: the entangled photons bounce back to a sensor which can then compute course, speed and size.
But the use of tangled photons has a second major benefit over radio waves.
It’s not likely to be jammed.

Then this.

And different materials affect protons in different ways.
Because of this, analysts say quantum radar could ultimately be capable of determining what an aircraft is made of — or even carrying.
At one level this would eliminate the effectiveness of decoys. At another, it could identify which aircraft — or missile — is carrying nuclear warheads.
And, unlike existing radar, their transmissions would not be detectable.
Any stealth aircraft would not know it had been ‘seen’.

Story here.  Is this even possible or fantasy island?  This would have benefits for ground forces if its real....we could literally look thru buildings (yeah I know that already exists) and vehicles with ease.  There would be nowhere to hide!

 

The Boxer & AMV vs LAV-25...size comparison...

Thanks to MicMac80 for the pics!

This is why we need bigger amphibs....has anyone worked out the logistics on these vehicles compared to legacy with regard to amphibs/MPS?  These new jack vehicles are huge!  There are tactical implications that also need to be explored!

Open Comment Post. Feb 26, 2017.

Iron Fist 2017 (pics)...by LCpl. Tyler Byther & Cpl. Alvin Pujols

Canadian Air Force @ Operation NUNALIVUT...pics by Sgt Jean-François Lauzé & PO2 Belinda Groves

KC-390 (pics)...

Pics courtesy of the Brazilian Air Force.

CH-53E takes on gas...pics by Lance Cpl. Koby Saunders

USMC has 77 MV-22 configurations.

via IHS Janes

There are too many US Marine Corps (USMC) Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft configurations and it is becoming problematic to keep the fleet flying and to ready its ever-expanding mission set, a service official told Jane's .
The USMC came to that conclusion during a recent 'independent readiness review' the service has been conducting on the aircraft, according to USMC spokesperson Captain Sarah Burns.
"Simply put, we need to have one configuration of the Osprey," Capt Burns told Jane's on 22 February. "Right now, we have about 77 and have a plan to tackle that issue and support our Osprey fleet."

The rest of the article is behind a paywall, but the uptake is clear.  The Corps operates on a "we'll fix it after we get it" philosophy.  That thinking served it well in the past but not so much today.

2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion Land to Shore Maneuvers....pics by Lance Cpl. Alexis Schneider

Open Comment Post. Feb 25, 2017

Improved Bradley showcased by BAE in Michigan...pics & story by Emilee Gorshe

Story here.

USAF wants to speed up 6th gen fighter program...

via National Defense.

The Air Force needs to more aggressively pursue a next-generation platform capable of penetrating deep into hostile airspace, the head of Air Combat Command said Feb. 24.

The primary focus now is on ramping up production of the F-35A joint strike fighter, a fifth-generation aircraft with stealth features and cutting-edge sensors. But the Air Force is already thinking about acquiring a sixth-generation “penetrating counter-air” capability, or PCA, that would have longer range and greater ability to outmatch the most sophisticated enemy air defense systems.

Service leaders aim to have this new technology in the fleet in the 2030s. “We should try to accelerate that left if at all possible,” Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle said at a breakfast with defense reporters in Washington, D.C.

The Air Force should procure more joint strike fighters than planned over the next five years and then pivot to a new system, he said.

“What I believe will happen is if we can increase the buy rate and continue to recapitalize our force with F-35s in the near term … then we can in the ‘20s look at that PCA,” he added. “We’ll be able to make a decision at that point where we’ll transition from [buying] more F-35s to a PCA, or we’ll transition to a different instantiation of the F-35” that is more advanced than the latest version.

The Air Force also needs a “penetrating electronic attack capability” that could potentially accompany the counter-air platform into enemy airspace, he said.

A sixth-generation system or family of systems might be unmanned and could be equipped with autonomous capabilities, he noted.

“There are things you can do with a penetrating platform that can probably use some unmanned [technology] … and would be either autonomous or semi-autonomous,” Carlisle said. “We’re looking at different ways to do that. But I do believe that there is some kind of platform that’s going to have to get an electronic [warfare] capability into the battlespace.”

The Air Force also needs to more rapidly acquire next-generation weapons for its newest aircraft, he said.

“We’re still flying with fourth-generation weapons on a fifth-generation platform,” he said. For F-22s, F-35s and a future penetrating counter-air system “we need weapons that are fifth- and sixth-gen that go with that.”

U.S. warplanes are not the only assets that are at risk from enemy air defenses, he noted. The weapons that they launch could also be destroyed.

“Not only does the airplane have to get into the theater to get to a range to deliver a weapon, but the weapon has to get to its target,” Carlisle said. “When you’re using fourth-generation weapons, the ability of the adversary to counter those weapons through a variety of means” is enhanced, he added. “You have to get something that can actually reach the target.”

There is alot going on in this story.  First he's basically admitting that the F-35 is not good enough.  The USAF is pushing for the new car smell and not seeking new capabilities.

Next he put that caveat on this whole thing by talking about a "new iteration" of the F-35.  We all know that's a lie.  The F-35 is constrained to a point that even getting current tech into the plane will be difficult.  Additionally its slow, doesn't go as far as desired and doesn't fly high enough to be the "penetrating counter air system" that the USAF is looking for.

Last the USAF is finally globbing onto the payload question.  Leadership knows it made a mistake.  They're gonna waste money on the F-35 while they try and get it right with the next plane.

Who should be worried?  Our allies that bought it.  The USAF will be able to course correct.  Our allies in A models not so much. 

UAE buys Rabdan (Otokar's Arma) 8x8...that isn't the news though!

via Janes.

The United Arab Emirates' (UAE's) military announced during the IDEX show in Abu Dhabi that it had ordered 400 8x8 vehicles from the local company Al-Jasoor, a joint venture between the Emirati company Heavy Vehicles industries (HVI) and the Turkish armoured vehicle manufacturer Otokar Land systems.

HVI is a subsidiary of Tawazun Holdings, an Emirati industrial development organisation.

Tawazun said in a statement that "the decision to purchase the vehicles was made following a thorough commercial/technical evaluation by Tawazun, the vehicle underwent an array of successful extensive all-terrain tests in the UAE."

The Rabdan 8x8 vehicle that was displayed on the Tawazun stand at IDEX is a development of the Otokar Arma 8x8 fitted with the turret from a BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle (IFV).

The specifications sheet provided by Tawazun said it has a minimum gross vehicle weight (GVW) of 28,000 kg with growth potential to 30,000 kg, compared to Arma 8x8's GVW of 24,000 kg. It said an amphibious capability will be standard on the IFV and optional on other variants.

I can't tell you how many e-mails and comments I've seen about this vehicle? What I can't figure out is why this is so thrilling to so many.  It's simply a locally produced Arma 8x8 from Turkey's Otokar armored vehicle manufacturer.

What should be news is that the UAE has such a mixed vehicle fleet and so many armored vehicles that they can't possibly use them all.  For a small military force they're playing with fire following their current procurement strategy.

How can they effectively keep up a decent parts supply chain much less capable trainers with so many different vehicles?  Even training to a decent standard would seem to be hobbled by having so many different vehicle types.

The news isn't that the UAE bought another 8x8.  The news is that they're continuing the insanity of buying every shiny toy they can lay their hands on.

Russia's PAK DA sounding more like an arsenal plane than a simple bomber...

via Sputnik.

Developers of the Russian new-generation strategic bomber, known as the Advanced Long-Range Aviation Complex (PAK DA), have defended the preliminary design of the project, according to Evgeniy Fedorov, scientific director of the Russian State Research Institute of Aviation Systems.
According to him, the Defense Ministry submitted very strict requirements for the new aircraft.
"The military mentioned everything they could, including a strategic bomber, an operative and tactic missile-carrying bomber and even a long-range interceptor capable of launching space vehicles," Fedorov told the Russian news agency RNS.

I'm guessing (limited knowledge here) that they're talking about the plane going thru what we would call a design review.

If they're just getting that done then they're slow walking the project.  But that isn't the big news.  The big news to me is that what they're describing is essentially an arsenal plane and not a simple bomber.

This had me thinking...are we seeing the evolution of the simple bomber into a multi-role airplane?  A bomb bay can obviously hold missiles.  If the bomber is designed to carry heavy bomb loads on pylons on the wings then you can certainly hang missiles there.

The bomber isn't dead it's evolving.

The next step is gonna be to use that bomb bay to hold the power system to operate lasers or even megawatt jammers that will completely blind the enemy.

The weird thing is that if lasers become a reality and power generation the key then the large size of the traditional bomber might see it flex into a more decisive anti-air role.  Instead of simply launching missiles at long range it could enter enemy airspace, destroying enemy ground launched anti-air missiles and knocking down their fighters for as long as they have power generation.

Things are evolving and the pace will probably pick up soon.

The Tankette (vid)

Thanks to Galvars for the link!

Open Comment Post. Feb 24, 2017

Marines Land on Senoor Beach for Exercise Sea Soldier.....pics by Gunnery Sgt. Robert Brown

An LCAC to land a handful of Marines?  Is this what we're gonna see with theExpeditionary Rifle Squad?  If so then we need to invest in small boats instead...this is a waste of resources...