Russian Armor Parade. We get a few more views of new armor...

Major Hat Tip to Defense Blog!



If you take the time to watch the complete video then you get a few more views of the new armor coming online.

That tracked IFV seems to have broken with Russian design history and is going to be larger, better armored (at least is appears) and if I'm not mistaken I saw a swim vane at the front.

The wheeled IFV...well I just don't know.  All wheeled IFVs generally look alike although it does look remarkably like the SUPERAV from certain angles.

When is the unveiling again?

Sidenote:  You do know we're on the cusp of an armor race don't you?  Just like the T-64/T-72 sent shockwaves thru NATO, this new Russian armor will shake the Marine Corps and Army out of its lax attitude with regard to its AFV development.  The Russians are about to do what I couldn't.  Highlight the need for modern armor for our forces.

Y-20 Long Range Strategic Heavy Transportation Aircraft vid...

Is it just me or does it seem like the Chinese Corporations are starting to feel a bit more "confident"?

They're smelling weakness in the West and while they'll never say it out loud, their videos are saying it for them.

Think Defence Blog is at the Acceptance Stage w/regard to decreased UK defense spending...

via Think Defence...

I enjoy talking about defence priorities as much as the next man but a couple of nights ago I thought maybe we should stop arguing about slivers of a percentage point get back to some first principles and think out aloud whether the UK would actually benefit from less defence spending than more or even the same.
Now this might seem completely insane in light of the current belligerence from Russian and Islamic civil war across large parts of the Middle East and Africa but what threats do they actually pose, I mean really. What would be lost because of a perceived lack of prestige and influence derived from our world famous fifth largest defence budget in the world?
If we look back at what advantages accrued from our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq it is hard to put a great deal of value in the benefits column, the costs are pretty clear and service personnel and their families will be paying the price for decades to come. It might be easy to be wise after the event but looking back is supposed to support the learning of lessons. Keeping ones noses out of other peoples business might seem like some to be moral cowardice but others might see the same as prudent, wise and considered behaviour.

I think we can easily say that TD is at the acceptance stage of the Kubler-Ross model of grieving.

But what does this mean for US policy?

Easy.

I'm tired of us paying the bill so that others can slash their defenses.  If Think Defense wants to blame the US for its internal woes with regard to its defense spending then awesome.

The US response should be to close every base in that soggy country, exclude them from our nuclear trident program, bar them from using our cruise missiles and let them bow out of the F-35 program (I especially like the last one).

I mean seriously...the French don't even whine as much as the Brits do these days.

Let's just ease their pain and our own and be happy for the past partnerships and head in different directions.

24th MEU's message to its FaceBook fans...

Thank God for the Marine Expeditionary Units!  Do you want to see Marines that still get it?  Look no further than the MEU's (uh not the Navy side...I'm still reeling from that LtCmdr leading a yoga exercise...and who authorized that PT gear...I actually saw a squid in some kinda pinkish v-neck top -- I won't call it a shirt---and tights...click here...he's in the bottom right corner..)

Do you camp? Check out this house in a trailer!

All pics via Australia 4WD Action.

Well its virtually a "house" in a trailer.

I wonder if this has any military applications?  I still wonder about those SPMAGTF-CR's but if you could build a command center that was tow-able by an ITV then you'd be cooking with gas (assuming that the trailer is MV-22 transportable).

The US is being assaulted by new/old types of illnesses.

via NPR

This time last year, a painful new virus was knocking on our doorstep. Travelers were bringing chikungunya to the U.S. And eventually, the mosquito-borne virus set up shop in Florida.
Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says another nasty pathogen is hitching a ride to the U.S. with travelers: multidrug-resistant Shigella.

Read it here.

Crampy rectal pain? No thank you!  Vomiting? Ok...I don't like it but its standard fare for food poisoning.

Bloody or MUCUS laced diarrhea?

AH HELL NO!

Does it seem like the US is the target of a sustained biological attack?  Measles out of no where.  The disease that was attacking and killing children from the crib to about 16.  Ebola.  And now this?

Strong borders do more than keep out illegals.

Strong borders safeguard the health of a nation.

This makes me ask "why God"...

via Daily Mirror

A brave teenager who defied one of the world's rarest genetic conditions has passed away at the age of 17.
Hayley Okines, who had the premature ageing disease progeria, was told she would not live past the age of 13.But she pushed on with life courageously and at the age of 14 published her autobiography, called Old Before my Time.
However, despite pioneering drug treatment in the US that gave her a new lease of life, she was unable to conquer the disease.
Her mother Kerry Okines posted on Facebook tonight: "My baby girl has gone somewhere better. She took her last breath in my arms at 9.39pm x."

I look at madmen like the German airplane pilot, beasts in Nigeria killing Christians, savages in ISIS doing the same, despots in Iran and at least the blame can laid at the feet of man.

If our society had any fortitude we could solve those problems in a couple of years.

But this disease?

Why God?

Rest in peace little girl. 

Quick Hit. The Nuke Deal "probably will fail talk" was just a psyops campaign...

Everyone got played.

I followed the news on the Iranian nuke talks closely.  I was monitoring tv news, State Dept tweets, John Kerry tweets, trending topics etc...

I watched CNN, Fox News and MSNBC so that I could get a conservative, liberal and MORE liberal view of things.

We all were told that the talks were breaking down and things didn't look good.

Then suddenly, out of no where we get news that they've arrived at a tough "historic" deal?

Bullshit.

They played everyone.  Froze the field.  They achieved their mission.  No one was ready when the deal was announced and now the White House has the stage to itself for Fri, Sat and Sun before opponents of the deal can gather themselves and point out the faults of the thing.

They did an old fashioned psyops game on us and we fell for it.

THE REALLY SAD PART?  We shouldn't be played by our own govt.

Hardcore Navy PT!

via TacBlog.

PACIFIC OCEAN (March 3, 2015) Lt. Cmdr. Edwin Berrios-Ortiz leads a power yoga class in the Seaside Gym aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2). Essex is underway conducting an amphibious squadron and Marine expeditionary unit Integration training exercise with Amphibious Squadron (PHIBRON) 3 and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (15th MEU) in preparation for an upcoming deployment. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sean P. Gallagher/Released 

OH MY GOD!

Don't laugh.  Don't make a joke.  The new American military.  They might not win on the battlefield but they can "Yoga" their ass off!

Is the Greek economic crisis the end of NATO...

Peter at Bayou Man Blog has been on it lately.  Check this out...

Greece could not plausibly remain in Nato if ejected from EMU in acrimonious circumstances. It would drift into the Russian orbit, where Hungary’s Viktor Orban already lies. The southeastern flank of Europe’s security system would fall apart.
. . .
Mr Tsipras is now playing the Russian card with an icy ruthlessness, more or less threatening to veto fresh EU measures against the Kremlin as the old set expires. “We disagree with sanctions. The new European security architecture must include Russia,” he told the TASS news agency.
He offered to turn Greece into a strategic bridge, linking the two Orthodox nations. “Russian-Greek relations have very deep roots in history,” he said, hitting all the right notes before his trip to Moscow next week.

Read the whole thing at his house. 

We're potentially looking at the collapse of the EU...or at least a major restructuring...and the destruction of NATO as we know it?  Consider what a Russian naval base or basing rights for their airplanes on the southern tip of Europe would mean for the alliance!

Putin isn't even trying any more.  Destiny is lining up for him now.