BREAKING: Today, #Russia MOD has asked #Iran to provide access to #IRIAF's 3rd Tactical Fighter Base in #Hamedan to deploy its heavy bombers (probably Tu-22 or Tu-95), Il-78 tankers & use it as refuelling point for fighter jets which are planned to be deployed to #Syria soon! pic.twitter.com/6idZ1twVHe— Babak Taghvaee (@BabakTaghvaee) April 10, 2018
— Military Advisor (@miladvisor) April 10, 2018
Last week, the U.S. military experienced three air crashes in the space of two days. On April 3, the U.S. Marine Corps lost a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter in the U.S. as well as an AV-8B Harrier jet in Djibouti. Four Marines were killed in the CH-53E crash while the pilot of the AV-8B managed to eject and was reported to be in a stable condition in Camp Lemonnier's medical facility. Those incidents were swiftly followed by the crash of an F-16 in Nevada operated by The Thunderbirds, the U.S. Air Force's flight demonstration team. Unfortunately, the pilot died in the crash.Story here.
The spate of deadly accidents raises questions about whether U.S. military airpower is in the midst of a crisis. Since the beginning of March alone, 14 service members have been killed in crashes. The deadliest of those incidents occurred when an Air Force HH-60 helicopter collided with power lines in western Iraq, killing seven airmen. Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mac Thornberry, released a statement on Saturday saying that the "readiness of the military is at crisis point". When asked about the situation in a recent Pentagon briefing, however, Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said that he is not prepared to characterize the crashes as evidence of a "wave" or "crisis", saying that each incident will be investigated.
How many times have I said it? Before you build a ship you spell out a concept of operations (CONOPS). Well, the Navy has violated that simple requirement yet again and now we’re seeing the Navy flounder yet again, trying to figure out how to use a ship. This time it’s the Afloat Forward Staging Base, USNS Lewis B. Puller, which is replacing the USS Ponce – yes, I know, the Navy is resorting to another of their gimmicks to try to make the size of the fleet appear larger by commissioning the Puller into the Navy instead of residing in the Military Sealift Command where all other similar ships and, in fact, its sister ship reside. That aside …Story here.
The floundering is highlighted in what was, no doubt, intended to be a celebratory article on the USNI News website (1) about the arrival of Puller to the 5th Fleet. Read the following snippets and you’ll get a sense that the Navy has a ship with no pre-defined role and is desperately searching for something it can do. The ship’s Captain appears to have been tasked with trying to “sell” the ship to the rest of the Navy/Marines and find something for it to do.
The Marine Corps is nearing a decision on whether BAE Systems or SAIC will build its new Amphibious Combat Vehicle, having just wrapped up operational tests of prototypes a week ago.Story here.
The Marine Corps is still on track to make an award for low-rate initial production to one of the companies in the June time frame.
All government testing of the prototypes concluded the first week of December and the Marine Corps issued its request for proposals the first week in January. Operational tests also began concurrently, John Swift, BAE Systems’ ACV program manager, told Defense News in an interview just ahead of Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference.
Government testing included land reliability testing, survivability and blast testing and water testing — both ship launch and recovery as well as surf transit.
Operational evaluations included seven prototypes each from both SAIC and BAE Systems, six participated and one spare was kept for backup.
The first month of operational testing took place at Twentynine Palms Base in California, where Marines ran through a variety of tactical missions with the vehicles. And the following month, the vehicles went to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, where it performed littoral penetrations, surf operations and a portion on land, according to Swift.
Over the course of the two-month time period — or roughly 10 weeks — the vehicles accrued almost 4,000 miles and over 1,500 mission hours, “which is unbelievable,” Swift said.
The operational tests validated “the robustness of our design,” Swift said, pointing back to the mileage and hours logged, adding, “that is phenomenal.”
BAE Systems’ partnered with Italian company Iveco Defense Vehicles to build its ACV offering.
The Marine Corps awarded both BAE and SAIC roughly $100 million each in December 2015 to build 16 prototypes for the service to test.
The Marines plan to field 204 of the vehicles by 2020. The total value of the contract with all options exercised is expected to amount to about $1.2 billion.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a tough crackdown on knives Sunday as the city reels from a spike in stabbings that have led its number of homicides to top New York City's for two straight months.Story here.
He tweeted: “No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife. Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law.”
The tweet also included an action plan to boost police power and prevent future violence.
London has seen more than 50 homicides already in 2018.
Most of the city’s murder victims have been stabbed to death, as guns are tightly restricted in Britain and shootings are relatively rare.
If the bloody trend continues, London will far surpass the 130 murders in 2017 and reach a number not seen since the early 2000s.
A post from the Saker blog, I copy paste almost the whole thing, it is of great interest I believe.This whole war has been a setup and batshit stupid. ISIS should have been crushed in days not years.
"I just spend about 2 hour listening to a TV debate of Russian experts about what to do about the USA. Here are a few interesting interesting points.
1)..the only way to stop this is to deliberately bring the world right up to the point were a full-scale US-Russian war was imminent or even locally started. They said that it was fundamentally wrong for Russia to reply with just words against Western actions.
...
3) Another interesting conclusion was th at the only really question for Russia is whether Russia would be better off delaying this maximal crisis or accelerating the events and making everything happen sooner. There was no consensus on that.
4) Next, there was an consensus view that pleading, reasoning, asking for fairness or justice, or even for common sense, was futile. The Russian view is simple: the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been hopelessly zombified.
5) There was also a broad consensus that th e US elites are not taking Russia seriously and that the current Russian diplomatic efforts are futile (especially towards the UK). The only way to change that would be with very harsh measures, including diplomatic and military ones. ..
6) To my amazement, the notion that Russia might have to sink a few USN ships or use Kalibers on US forces in the Middle-East was viewed as a real, maybe inevitable, option. Really – nobody objected.
http://thesaker.is/listening-to-russian-experts-short-report-about-the-mood-on-russian-prime-time-tv/
