Open Comment Post. April 1, 2017.

Blast from the past. Lockheed Martin ACV Candidate.

Note:  This is the vehicle that LM placed into the ACV competition after they stole the plans of the AMV/acquired the plans of the ACV/decided to go it alone after working with Patria.

However they came to designing this vehicle its obvious that they needed more time.  Little things like that jacked up troop door at the rear of the vehicle just don't make sense!  But overlooking the "roughness" of the design its apparent to me that if the contest dragged on a bit longer they could have made an extremely competitive vehicle.

It really was shortsighted of the management to throw away the partnership with Patria.  By teaming with Patria to win the ACV contest they would have gotten a solid footing in the armored vehicle market and its obvious that they had some engineering talent in house.  Now?  Now they're left on the outside looking in and while aviation is having its time in the sun that won't last.

Soon we will see the rise of armor (especially when new Chinese designs start popping up) and the likes of General Dynamics and BAE will rake in the money with new contracts to help the US gain parity.

40 Commando exercising in Belize (pics)

Politics Talk. The Russia Investigation took a strange turn.

Thanks to Moebius for the link!

via Hot Air.com

Fox News’ Adam Housley is reporting that sources within the intelligence community have confirmed some of what Rep. Devin Nunes told reporters last week about the unmasking of names in intelligence documents to embarrass the incoming Trump administration. Housley summarized the information he was given in a series of tweets Friday morning:

Read it here!

This is getting good.

MSNBC is reporting (once again) that the Obama administration spread secret material about the Trump campaign far and wide throughout the govt in an attempt to keep it from being buried.

Now?  Now we're seeing that all is not what they're saying (as if there was any doubt!).

According to Fox News the Obama admin used the intel agencies for political purposes.

In summation?  They tried to get Trump but it looks like they're gonna get themselves.  The likely outcome is that both sides let this drop before we see high ranking establishment figures from both parties in jail.

The F-35. FUBAR BUNDY!

Thanks to Jim for the link!

via POGO

When Lockheed Martin first won the contract 17 years ago, the F-35 was expected to begin operational testing in 2008. Once they failed to meet that, 2017 was supposed to be the big year for the start of the combat testing process. We now know that this process will almost certainly be delayed until 2019…and possibly 2020.

The first page of the DOT&E report lists 13 major unresolved problems with the F-35 that will prevent the program from proceeding to combat testing in August 2017. But you wouldn’t know any of that from the public comments made by officials in charge of the program. During testimony before a House Armed Services subcommittee in February, officials neglected to raise any of these issues with Congress even though the DOT&E report had been released less than a month earlier.

The scale of the challenge yet remaining with the F-35 is easily quantified in this year’s DOT&E analysis. According to the report, the F-35 still has 276 “Critical to Correct” deficiencies—these must be fixed before the development process ends because they could “lead to operational mission failures during IOT&E or combat.” Of the 276, 72 were listed as “priority 1,” which are service-critical flaws that would prevent the services from fielding the jets until they are fixed.
Much has already been made about the F-35’s shortcomings in combat, yet structural problems still remain with the basic airframe. An example of this is a failure of an attachment joint between the jet’s vertical tail and the airframe. This has been a persistent problem, as the shortcoming was discovered in the original design. Engineers discovered premature wear in a bushing used to reinforce the joint during early structural tests in 2010. The joint was redesigned and incorporated in new aircraft in 2014. In September 2016, inspectors discovered the redesigned joint had failed after only 250 hours of flight testing—far short of the 8,000 lifetime hours specified in the JSF contract.

Testing of the F-35’s mission systems continued falling behind schedule in 2016. Program managers identify and budget for baseline test points, or “discrete measurements of performance under specific flight test conditions.” These are used to determine whether the system is meeting the contract specifications. Testing teams also add non-baseline test points for various reasons to fully evaluate the entire system. Examples include adding test points to prepare for the later, more complicated tests, to re-test the system after software updates to make sure the new software didn’t alter earlier results, or “discovery test points,” which are added to identify the root cause of a problem found during other testing.

The program budgeted for 3,578 test points for the F-35’s mission systems for 2016. The test teams weren’t able to accomplish them all, finishing 3,041 while also adding 250 non-budgeted test points through the year.

Despite the slipping schedule, the F-35 program office has expressed a desire to skip many needed test points and to instead rely on testing data from previous flights—where the test aircraft used earlier software versions—as proof the upgraded system software works. But DOT&E warns that the newer software versions likely perform differently, rendering the earlier results moot. Program managers essentially want to declare the developmental testing process over and move on to operational testing, even though they haven’t finished all the necessary steps.

Full story here. 

I know the thinking of Marine Corps leadership.  Get it and once we get it, we'll fix it.  That worked with the Harrier, but won't with this airplane.

Add FUBAR BUNDY to your list of military acronyms.  It applies to the F-35 in spades.

Pic of the day. Battle of Hue City.

pic via Historium Tumblr Page.

A US Marine dragging a wounded Marine to cover during the battle for Hue, 1968.

Venezuela goes full dictatorship thanks to their Supreme Court...this will be our next military intervention!

via Slate.

Venezuela’s already beleaguered democracy was dealt a near-fatal blow Wednesday, when the country’s Supreme Court usurped what power remained in the democratically elected National Assembly, leaving President Nicolás Maduro with virtually unchecked authority. The country’s top court also overturned most of the decisions made by the legislature since the opposition party to Maduro’s government took control of the chamber in late 2015. "As long as the situation of contempt in the National Assembly continues, this constitutional chamber guarantees congressional functions will be exercised by this chamber or another chosen organ," the court said in its ruling.

The move comes after Maduro—the handpicked successor to President Hugo Chavez, who died in March 2013—and his party have slowly chipped away at the legitimacy and capacity of the legislature. In 2015, when the opposition democratically won control of the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, packed with Maduro loyalists, denied four representatives from taking office due to voting irregularities, keeping the opposition from a supermajority in the body. Over the legislature’s opposition, Maduro, backed by the Supreme Court, then declared emergency powers. As the bottom fell out of the country's economy and protests flared across the country, the court went on to strip the assembly of its budgeting power. More recently, Maduro and his allies have consolidated power, detained political prisoners without trial, suppressed protesters’ dissent, stifled the media, and postponed local elections.

Wow.

I hope SouthCom is paying attention.

This will be our next military intervention.  State Dept is occupied, the Pentagon is focused on Russia and the Middle East.  Intel agencies are looking inward.

Meanwhile Venezuela is teetering on the brink.

My guess is that this will go violent, the UN will go "we must save the children" and we'll end up leading several S. American countries to restore order to prevent a FLOOD of refugees heading North.

Open Comment Post. March 31, 2017.

Friday Funny. Alexa works for the CIA!

This meme has gone viral.  Just Google "Alexa works for the CIA" and you'll tons of people doing this.  The weird thing is that Amazon must monitor their customer questions because in the latest vids Alexa says no she does not work for the CIA, she works for Amazon.

Still.  Funny as hell and probably the next conspiracy theory that's all in likely based in fact.

Blast from the past. Vickers Valiant B.2, the most beautiful British bomber!

Via Apostles of Mercy Tumblr Page.

The only Vickers Valiant B.2 ever built, first flying 4 September 1953. Intended as a pathfinder in nuclear war, an obsolete role, this all black beast clocked 640 mph at sea-level. It was undoubtedly the most capable strategic bomber ever built in Britain.

She was supposedly adorned her unique gloss black scheme after Vickers chief test pilot saw the design, approved and exclaimed: “And paint the fucker black.”

Korean Coastal Missile - Spike NLOS on SandCat Carrier.

Thanks to Jonathan for the link!

The USMC's "Battles Won" Ad Campaign is a failure...

I've been more than disappointed in the "Battles Won" ad campaign.  I've been borderline furious.

They just don't sing.

The touchstones to the past are missing.  The call to challenge one's self is fleeting at best.

They're weak sauce.

The solution?  Fire the ad company and get back to basics.  Did you see the above vid?  Now compare that to what the US Army is putting out (below).



The funny, wall pounding, makes you want to bang your head on your desk?  We see this weak sauce the USMC is putting on TV while the Army shows its soldiers doing Marine shit!  The irony is amazing.  The change of position telling.  The pussification of the Marine Corps obvious.  It's just past 6am but I need to get a drink.