Russia’s SHERP ATV...I WANT ONE!!!!

via Truck Yeah.

Breaking! Rioting in Hong Kong?!!?!?!

Not much info but there is some serious unrest in Hong Kong.  Its the Lunar New Year so I don't know if that's playing a part but the Chinese Riot Police look like they're getting their asses handed to them!

Death Spiral is here for the F-35...New plan calls for 37 fewer than planned!

via Star Telegraph

While the budget documents emphasize continued procurement of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet, the rampup in purchases would be slowed a bit over the next five years. From fiscal 2017 through 2020, the Pentagon’s new five-year plan calls for buying 299 aircraft, 37 fewer than previously planned, with the major increase in orders not coming until the projected purchase of 105 fighter jets in fiscal 2021.
The proposed budget calls for 63 F-35s in fiscal 2017, down from 66 as earlier projected; 70 in 2018 instead of 88; 80 in 2019 versus 90; and 86 jets in 2020, down from 92, according to Pentagon figures obtained by Bloomberg News.

This is how death spirals start!

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article59299098.html#storylink=cpy

Follow the money...The USMC budget indicates it wants to be a sea going 101st

It might be time for the Marines to dump the Eagle, Globe and Anchor and instead issue "Air Assault" wings with table salt (the bubba's at Ft Campbell get it...they won't like it but they get it).

Check this out from National Defense Magazine.

The Marine Corps' largest procurement effort continues to be the F-35B joint strike fighter program. In fiscal year 2016 the service received funding for 15 short takeoff and vertical landing variants. For 2017, the Marine Corps is asking for 16 F-35Bs. The multi-role strike fighter will replace the Marine Corps' aging fleet of McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II aircraft and the F/A-18 Hornet A/B/C/D variants.

The rotary wing aircraft request saw some decreases in numbers over 2016. The Marine Corps requested 16 MV-22B Ospreys, three fewer than it received in 2016. The fiscal year 2017 base budget supports the procurement of 24 AH-1Z attack and UH-1Y utility helicopters, five fewer than the service received in last year's budget.

However, the Marines will begin procuring the new CH-53K King Stallion in 2017. The heavy-lift cargo helicopter will replace the Marine Corps' CH-53E Super Stallion, which first entered the fleet in 1980. The first two low-rate initial production aircraft are slated for fiscal year 2017, which is consistent with the previous budget. The service still plans to procure four of the helicopters in fiscal year 2018, seven in 2019, 13 in 2020 and 14 in 2021.

Then this...

In the 2017 budget request, the Marine Corps is also asking for $787 million for research, development, test and evaluation. That money will go toward the service's amphibious combat vehicle program, which is aiming to build a new fighting vehicle to replace the service's aging fleet of amphibious assault vehicles. The program has been structured to provide a phased, incremental capability. The fiscal year 2017 budget will support the engineering, manufacturing and developments contracts that were awarded to BAE Systems and SAIC in November. This funding will include the delivery of 32 test vehicles, test and evaluation activities and associated program support, said the budget report.

How does that break down?  2.03 billion for the F-35's alone.  Aviation projects are being pushed forward and ground modernization is being pushed further and further to the right.  Marine Corps ground equipment is already past obsolete.

If we go by the budget (you spend money on what you consider important) it indicates that HQMC is trying to "transform" the Marine Corps into a seagoing 101st.

CH-53K | The King Stallion...IOC in 2019...so why are we still pushing the ACV to the right?

The Marine Corps just released this video to show how "awesome" the CH-53K will be.  Ok.  But consider this from Biz Journal...

The ACV will be the next generation vehicle in the Marine Corps’ fleet. The AAV SU will be in operation until 2035, and after that will be replaced with the 8x8-wheeled ACV.

That's right.  They're planning on US Marines riding into combat in vehicles that are older than their grandparents!  That's roughly the equivalent of today's
Marines going to war inside the Korea Era LVT-3C!

It's past time to get our armor house in order.  Push the ACV forward (or accelerate the AAV SU project), make the hard decision on the future of Marine Tanks (either upgrade to US Army standard or transition to an amphibious mobile gun, first with AAVs then with the ACV...amphibious tanks need to make a comeback!), figure out how the MEU is going to float all these vehicles that are much heavier than legacy.  Do work HQMC!

Is a SPMAGTF-CR operating in Jordan? Photo by Cpl. Akeel Austin

U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Austin Miranda, mortarman, with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion 7th Marine Regiment, Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command (SPMAGTF-CR-CC), loads a 60mm mortar round during exercise Eager Centaur in an undisclosed location, Southwest Asia, Feb. 2, 2016. Eager Centaur is conducted to complete initial joint terminal attack controller training and exercise the MAGTF Fire Support Coordination Center, to include combined arms live fire tactics, techniques and procedures.

Interesting.  The Brits just did a snap exercise to move troops to Jordan and now we see a SPMAGTF-CR at an undisclosed location in the Central Command's area of responsibility.

I'm betting they're in Jordan.  The question is why.  I don't believe for one second that the Obama administration is stupid enough to introduce US ground troops into Syria, so is this a bluff?  It's weak as water if it is.  A SPMAGTF wouldn't last three days in the type of combat that we're seeing in Syria.

Oh and make no mistake, we've seen our forces in Kuwait, Iraq, UAE etc...without the "undisclosed location" tag being applied.  They're sending a message but to who?

Remaining Militiamen at the Oregon standoff are losing it...

via Chicago Tribune..

e last four occupiers of an Oregon wildlife refuge have posted a series of defiant videos in which one of them calls FBI agents losers, shows a defensive perimeter they have built and takes a joyride in a government vehicle.
The videos were posted Sunday on a YouTube channel called Defend Your Base, which the armed group has been using to give live updates. The holdouts are among 16 people charged with conspiracy to interfere with federal workers in the armed standoff over federal land policy that has surpassed five weeks.
In one of the new videos, occupier David Fry says the FBI told him he faces additional charges because of defensive barricades the four have built.

They're playing mind games with these guys and they're crumbling like stale cookies.  Do you hear the guy rambling and talking silly?  They aren't serious at all.  The FBI is dealing with children!

I once thought these guys were hardcore but they're soft as butter left in the sun.....worse for the militia movement is the fact that the FBI is allowing these videos to be released to the public.  The Militia Movement is being killed and the guys in the standoff don't even realize that they're being used to make it happen.

Congrats FBI.  You've mastered Human Terrain Theory, penetration of social networks, and proven that dismantling domestic anti-govt groups is something you're skilled at.

BAE Systems AMV35 during live firing test @ Hagglunds factory (pics)

Aleppo is about to fall. Why is it not seen as good news?

via Washington Post.

Over the past week, forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad havenearly encircled the city of Aleppo, once the war-torn country's most populous urban center. By doing so, they have effectively cut off all vital routes of supply from Turkey to the rebel-held areas of the city.
On Monday, Syrian government forces seized the northern town of Kfeen, not far from the border with Turkey. The offensive has prompted fears of a new refugee exodus, as well as the real risk that Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital during peacetime, will fall, marking perhaps the greatest victory for Assad since the 2011 rebellion against his rule first began.

Then check this out...

Should Aleppo fall to the regime, it will mark a real turning point in the conflict. As Sly reported last week, the rebel takeover of the city in 2012 had come at a moment when many observers were confident Assad's demise was inevitable. Now, a fractured rebellion will have to soldier on against the odds, probably with the more fundamentalist, Islamist factions leading the fight.
Moreover, world powers — and presumably also the Assad regime — will still want to vanquish the Islamic State, the extremist group that has dominated global headlines since its dramatic rise two years ago and controls territory in Iraq and Syria.
"This is not the end of the war, but could be the beginning of the end, with Assad, Russia, Hezbollah, and Iran as the biggest winners,” Patrick Megahan, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Bloomberg News.

And then finally this...

"Syria is now the Obama administration’s shame, a debacle of such dimensions that it may overshadow the president’s domestic achievements," Cohen concludes.

Aleppo.

The burial ground of the Obama Administration's Middle East policy....but otherwise the beginning of good news if you want the region to at least temporarily stabilize.

Besides.  Haliburton is gonna make a killing rebuilding . 

BAE Systems AMV35 ready to go

Thanks to Galvars for the link!!!

Rand joins the band! Says that we need to prepare to fight conventional style forces with heavier weapons!

via TribLive

After more than a decade of fighting lightly armed, irregular forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. forces face an increasing likelihood of combating more organized foes with heavier arms, a Defense analyst said.
The next enemy could be a hybrid group such as the Islamic State or Hezbollah with effective anti-aircraft and anti-tank weaponry, or a “state” group such as Russian separatists in the Balkans armed with tanks and long-range rocket artillery, said David E. Johnson, a retired Army colonel and senior researcher with RAND Corporation.
“We haven't actually fought these kinds of units since Vietnam,” he said. “We haven't fought something like Russia since World War II.”
In a recent RAND report, “The Challenges of the ‘Now' and Their Implications for the U.S. Army,” Johnson identifies several areas such as artillery in which the United States has fallen behind Russia and China. The Russian long-range rocket artillery has greater reach than the U.S. version.
Though it's unlikely the Army would end up in a direct conflict with Russian or Chinese forces, it likely will face groups with their weaponry, he said.

Interesting.

It seems that what I've been screaming about for over two years is slowly turning into conventional wisdom.

Nice.  But will HQMC pivot toward restoring the USMC combined arms team in time...or will we be stuck with this disjointed, tilted and ineffective bias toward aviation?

Don't listen to Neller or any of the talking heads at HQMC.  Watch the budget.  Spending requests will tell us all we need to know.

So you want to allow women in combat but the draft is a step too far???

So both bush and rubio favor a draft for women??? crazy

— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) February 7, 2016

Yep https://t.co/ffk5ykLFgR

— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) February 7, 2016

And of course the National Review had to write an article about Women and the draft...

Indeed, the idea of female draft registration is so bad that one wonders if the service chiefs aren’t engaged in a bit of public trolling. After all, the Marines were steadfast opponents of mixed-gender combat units, and it’s startling to see their apparent quick and enthusiastic endorsement of female registration. Perhaps they actually seek to slow or reverse the cultural transformation of the military by immediately taking that transformation to its logical extreme. If so, then they are playing a dangerous game. Feminists have shown that there is no “logical extreme” when one seeks to transform core American institutions.

To the National Review and to Lowry I say fuck you.  Where were you bastards when this debate was going on?  You were being all nice and polite at parties saying the politically correct thing.  Now that its dawned on you that one day your daughter or granddaughter might get caught up in this nonsense, only now do you speak.

This is too funny.  I look forward to the future pain that a few...a very few women...have imposed on future mothers, daughters and sisters.  You will be cursed and I will enjoy your embarrassment.