Stunning video shows explosions just minutes ago at Beirut port pic.twitter.com/ZjltF0VcTr— Borzou Daragahi 🖊🗒 (@borzou) August 4, 2020
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Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi said on Sunday that they intend to reconsider procuring the V-22 Osprey aircraft from U.S. manufacturer Boeing.I find this hyper interesting.
Israel had decided several months ago not to purchase the aircraft due to budgetary restrictions.
The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey is a tiltrotor aircraft with both vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and short takeoff and landing (STOL) capabilities. Gantz, who during his tenure as IDF chief saw the United States and Israel reach an Osprey procurement deal, is an adamant supporter of purchasing the advanced aircraft.
In a meeting two weeks ago, Israel Hayom has learned, Gantz and Kochavi agreed to revisit the decision to scrap the Osprey deal. If Gantz’s position is indeed adopted, the Osprey would be part of a broader initiative to replace the IDF’s aging fleet of Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, which were first incorporated in the 1960s and 1970s.
Despite the air force’s efforts over the decades to preserve the quality of its CH-53 fleet, in 2019 the State Comptroller said in a report that keeping the aircraft operational beyond 2025 would put lives at risk.
That contest to replace the aging CH-53s is between the Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion, which is manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and the Boeing CH-47F Chinook. While the IDF hasn’t yet declared its preference, according to Israel Hayom the country’s defense establishment prefers the CH-53K due to its better performance.
The US Marine Corps (USMC) has retired 200 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, M88 armoured recovery vehicles, and armoured vehicle launched bridges, and is planning to transfer them over to the army.What should surprise and worry everyone is the speed at which this Commandant killed Tank Battalions across the Missile Marines. What should concern us all is his next steps.
Over the past few weeks, the USMC has been standing down various ground vehicles as part of Commandant General David Berger’s Force Design 2030 plan. On 6 July, for example, the service announced that the last tank assigned to 1st Tank Battalion had departed the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California.
The service is now consolidating the vehicles at a logistics base in Barstow, California, and recently announced that its Railhead Operations Group staff is now verifying that everything is in order before sending the vehicles on to army depots in Herlong, California, and Aniston, Alabama.
“We have Marines from several units here to assist with the offload, on load, and securement of the equipment,” Chad Hildebrandt, the railway operations supervisor for the logistics base, said in a 30 July announcement. The loaded cars will be stored on base until we have all tanks loaded and secured, then they will all ship out to the army at the same time”.
Earlier this year, Gen Berger unveiled his vision for how his service should be manned and operating by 2030 to compete with China and Russia. One of his ultimate goals is to design a smaller force that is more nimble to support naval expeditionary warfare operations, and to achieve this the service is funneling dollars away from legacy systems and towards modernised ones.
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MOSCOW, August 3. /TASS/. The production of tanks and fighting vehicles based on the latest Armata combat platform under a contract signed with Russia’s Defense Ministry several years ago is already underway, Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov told TASS on Monday.Did we talk about the Armata being tested in Syria? I seriously can't remember. Seems like something like that would be front of mind but it isn't. Did it perform well? I'm not really sure how good a workout it would get in that shit show that no one wants to leave but no one wants to win.
"Yes, the work is underway," the minister said, replying to a question about whether the production of these armored vehicles had begun in Russia.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko announced in August 2018 that a contract on 132 T-14 tanks and T-15 infantry fighting vehicles based on the Armata combat platform had been signed. He did not specify, though, when the document was inked. The deliveries of serial-produced Armata tanks to the Russian troops have not begun yet. Industry and Trade Minister Manturov said in April this year that the troops would get the first Armata tanks in 2021.
The Armata is a heavy tracked standardized platform serving as the basis to develop a main battle tank, an infantry fighting vehicle, an armored personnel carrier and some other armored vehicles.
The T-14 tank based on the Armata platform was shown to the public for the first time at Red Square’s Victory Day parade on May 9, 2015. The new combat vehicle features fully digitized equipment, an unmanned turret and an isolated armored capsule for the crew.
Russia’s state arms seller Rosoboronexport earlier announced that the T-14 tank and the T-15 infantry fighting vehicle based on the Armata combat platform would be demonstrated to potential foreign buyers at the Army-2020 international arms show in August.
The developers of the latest Russian T-14 Armata tank have resolved the problems with its engines and thermal imagers, Manturov said. "Yes, the problems with both the engines and the thermal imagers have been resolved. The engine generates the parameters and the technical characteristics that were laid out in the performance specifications upon its designing," he said.
"As for the thermal imagers, I can confidently say that we have a fully import-substituted Russian product that is made by Shvabe [holding]," the minister said.
The Armata’s trials in the troops are proceeding in accordance with the schedule, the minister said.
Russia is also preparing the Armata for export. As Manturov said in April, Russia plans to start work with Armata’s foreign customers in 2021 and has already received several prior requests. The tank has already been tested in Syria.
The party was winding down around 4 a.m. when the fight erupted. The crowd at a bar in northern Iraq — including Special Operations Marines, defense contractors and civilians — had been drinking and dancing for hours, ringing in the new year.Here.
A conversation between two Americans turned sour. A burly, bearded defense contractor speaking to a Navy corpsman screamed at least one profanity at him, witnesses later said. Bouncers ejected the contractor, an Army Special Forces veteran, who threatened to hurt the sailor when he came outside.
Bouncers told the sailor and two Marine friends to wait five minutes before leaving. But that did not de-escalate the situation.
The three men approached the contractor and his colleagues outside, and a brawl ensued. One of the Marines punched the contractor in the side of the head, and the contractor spun around and landed on the back of his head, suffering a nine-inch skull fracture, according to previously unreported military documents and security video reviewed by The Washington Post. He died a few days later, on Jan. 4, 2019.
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