SNAFU!

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

DCNS - SMX 3.0 Stealth Submarine Combat Simulation

Brazilian Super Tucanos in the attack..(pics)

Why does Davis still have a job and is he risking USMC pilots lives to push the F-35?

via Defense Tech.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the F-35 program executive officer, told reporters Monday at the program’s offices in Arlington, Virginia, that the Oct. 27 mishap occurred when a bracket that held electrical wires in the weapons bay came loose, allowing the wires to chafe and come into contact with hydraulic lines, causing the fire.
Military.com broke the news about the fire, which caused at least $2 million in damage, according to Naval Safety Center estimates. An F-35B from Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, a 20-plane fleet replacement squadron for the Marine Corps based in Beaufort, South Carolina, was involved in the mishap.
“The good news is, we knew what it was,” Bogdan said. “When knew about this problem long before that, and all of our airplanes were being retrofitted with a new bracket.”
The F-35B that caught fire had not yet received the replacement bracket, he said, but had been inspected as part of a stopgap regiment designed to prevent mishaps. Prior to the flight, Bogdan said, the bracket had seemed to be holding.
“We inspected, it looked fine, and it just didn’t look fine in the air,” he said.

Ok, so we learn that the F-35 program office and the Deputy Commandant for Aviation knew about the danger of a weapons bay fire with the F-35.

Instead of grounding the aircraft till the fixes were fielded he instead went full speed ahead? Check this part out...

In the wake of the fire, the Marine Corps opted not to ground any aircraft or pause flight operations. Officials did, however, update the inspection regimen to make assessment of the faulty brackets more rigorous, Bogdan said.
Bogdan acknowledged it was a risk to fly the F-35Bs that had not yet received the bracket retrofit, but said it was one of many risks that come with operating the aircraft.
“Military airplanes all have risk,” he said. “This plane is like no other and yes, there are acknowledged risks, and that would be one of them. Until we fix that bracket, every airplane of the B-model that doesn’t have that bracket is going to have to be inspected, and hopefully that bracket remains in place when it’s flying.”
It’s not yet clear when the retrofit process will be complete or how many aircraft still need the new equipment.

So the head of Marine Aviation was aware that he was ordering Marines to fly airplanes where there was a risk of weapons bay fire. Additionally instead of pushing for a faster replacement of the bracket he instead pushed for increased inspection ... after it was demonstrated that the previous inspection regimen failed?

This guy is a danger to the Marines that he commands. He is ordering pilots to fly aircraft that HAVE DEMONSTRATED that they're unsafe, he refuses to order a safety stand down till the problem is corrected and the SON OF BITCH STILL HAS HIS JOB!

Marine Air has a problem and that problem is named General Davis, Deputy Commandant for Aviation.

Open Comment Post. Dec 20, 2016.

Monday, December 19, 2016

1st BN, 111th Aviation Regiment does deck qualifications aboard HMS Ocean...Photos by Army Sgt. 1st Class Suzanne Ringle

What does the Pentagon need to do? Instead of this emphasis on "jointness" and "interoperability" we need clearly defined Roles and Missions for our forces! The USMC is trying to operate from the land (in the form of the abomination known as the SPMAGTF-CR...what a joke of a freaking force package!) and the US Army is headed to sea.

Question. How come everytime the US Army does deck qualifications they're aboard empty ships? Where is the HMS Ocean's air wing?

Hey people! We're seeing a coordinated, multi-national terrorist attack in motion....

Question. How many of you were paying attention to the news yesterday? How many of you are aware of the terror attack in Jordan? You didn't know about it? Well check this shit out...via New York Times.

Gunmen involved in a rare terrorist attack in Jordan on Sunday had a large cache of weapons, explosives and suicide vests in the apartment where they had been living, the country’s interior minister said on Monday.
The discovery of the cache suggested that the men were preparing for multiple deadly attacks.
The gunmen killed 10 people and injured 34 more on Sunday; seven of the dead were Jordanian security officers. The police said they had captured and killed four gunmen. It was not clear if that accounted for all of the attackers, or if more might have been involved.
The Jordanian security services were visible everywhere on Monday in and around Karak, the town where the attack took place, and at an ancient Crusader castle there where the gunmen tried to take refuge.
The violence began when a landlord in the southern town of Qatraneh heard an explosion coming from an apartment in his building. The landlord, who spoke on the condition that he not be named for his safety, said that when he knocked on the door, the tenants told him there had been a gas explosion.
He did not believe them, he said, and called the police to tell them that there was a smell of explosives, of weapon residue and of something burning.
The police demanded entry to search the apartment but were met with gunfire, according to a statement from the public security department. One police officer was killed there, according to the interior minister, Salameh Hammad.
The gunmen fled the scene, the police and the landlord said. They traveled to the ruins of the Karak Crusader castle, a historic site about 30 miles away that is popular with tourists, where they attacked an adjacent police station and then hid in the ruins, firing on police and civilians.
One of the three civilians killed there was a Canadian tourist, identified by Canadian news outlets as Linda Vatcher, a retired teacher from Newfoundland; her son David was injured in the attack. Two Jordanian civilians were killed, the authorities said; their names were not released. It was not immediately clear whether the three civilians died inside or outside the castle.
Mr. Hammad told reporters on Monday that three police officers were killed when the gunmen fired on the security post at the entrance to the castle. He said the police were still working to secure the scene and investigate.

Story here.

That my friends is one terror cell conducting a terror attack in multiple locations and successfully engaging the nation's security forces in gunbattles and winning to a certain degree. These might be amateurs but they were highly motivated amateurs.

Next on the hit parade was Yemen. via Aljazeera (here).

ISIL has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that left up to 49 Yemeni soldiers dead at a military base in Aden, a week after a similar attack that also killed dozens of troops in the southern port city.
Military officials and medics told the AFP news agency early on Sunday that the suicide bomber detonated his explosives as a group of soldiers were gathering to collect their salaries at the al-Solban base in the city's northeast.

Of course you already know about the assassination of the Russian ambassador and the maniac who drove a big rig thru a shopping area in Berlin...but what about the madness in Zurich? Check this out via Fox News (here)

A black-clad gunman entered the prayer hall of a mosque frequented by Somali immigrants in central Zurich and opened fire Monday evening, injuring three people, authorities said.
The suspect was still at large early Tuesday and police were investigating a possible connection between the shooting and the discovery of a corpse at nearby Gessner bridge over the Sihl River, Zurich police spokesman Marco Bisa said.
Authorities weren't considering the attack as terrorism, he said. Police also said it was too early to determine whether there might be any link to an incident in Berlin also on Monday, where a truck rammed into a Christmas market, killing at least nine people.
Police and ambulances swarmed to the scene in a central Zurich neighborhood known for trendy cafes and the city's red-light district.
"The unknown person fired several shots and fled from the building," Bisa told reporters near the mosque, which was cordoned off by police. "The shooting took place inside a prayer room with several people in it. Two victims were severely injured."

Why do I include this last incident in the terrorism "march" around the world? Because entering ANY place of worship to attack those attending the service is terrorism. What I don't know is if this is extreme right wing or ISIS inspired but the results will be the same.

Increased tension in that country.

What is the takeaway from all this? Security Forces are behind the eight ball when it comes to dealing with terrorism. They are quite efficient at catching the suspects AFTER the deed is done but that's cold comfort for the victims of these rabid animals.

The West is being forced into a situation of curtailing rights that we've all taken for granted to safeguard their populations OR doing as we've always done (for example targeting Italians when the Mafia was a problem, Haitians/Jamaicans when their drug gangs were going wild, Red Necks when moonshining was running rampants, and various demographics to deal with Skin Heads, Crips/Bloods etc...) and specifically target segments of the population or stay the course and chase down the bad guys after they've taken several dozen lives.

Oh and have you noticed something? I'm eyeballing this and it appears that the average terror attack is getting deadlier. After we solved the hijacking issue (after 9/11...sorta...we've still see what a crazy pilot can do) they've mostly turned to these ground based ops but the death toll looks to be going up. From my seat they're averaging at least 15 if not more killed per attack (assuming they're not going after a high value target like the Russian ambassador).

We're losing the war and your President is playing golf...and the tally for terror attacks so far this week is 5...in 5 different countries.

Dead terrorist/assassin

The body of Turkish riot police officer Mevlut Mert Altıntas, 22, who shot to death the Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov, after Turkish especial forces took him down.

Dead terrorist/assassin.

Simply a thing of beauty.

Terror attack in Berlin

More to come.

General Hisao Tani executed

General Hisao Tani, the man who oversaw the Nanking Massacre, was executed on 26 April 1947 after being found guilty of war crimes by the war tribunal set up by Chiang Kai-shek. Poetically, at least in the eyes of the tribunal, Hisao Tani’s executioner was a Chinese veteran who survived the Battle of Nanking

The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890,[4] near Wounded Knee Creek (Lakota: Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála) on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota.
The previous day, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside intercepted Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them 5 miles (8.0 km) westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they made camp. The remainder of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James W. Forsyth, arrived and surrounded the encampment. The regiment was supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns.[5]
On the morning of December 29, the troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota. One version of events claims that during the process of disarming the Lakota, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle, claiming he had paid a lot for it.[6] A scuffle over the rifle ensued and by the time it was over, more than 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota had been killed and 51 were wounded (4 men and 47 women and children, some of whom died later); some estimates placed the number of dead at 300.[1] Twenty-five soldiers also died, and 39 were wounded (6 of the wounded later died).[7] At least twenty soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor.[8] In 2001, the National Congress of American Indians passed two resolutions condemning the awards and called on the U.S. government to rescind them.[9] The site of the battlefield has been designated a National Historic Landmark.[4] In 1990, both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a resolution formally expressing "deep regret" for the massacre.[10]