2nd Cav getting field time....

Love ya Cdr Salamander but you're wrong.

l.CDR Salamander has a blog entry in which he lauds Adm Harvey for finally going Sa..Going Sal means that you dispense with conventional wisdom, ignore politically correct speak, ignore group speak and plainly state the truth.

Unfortunately Admiral Harvey, while finally getting around to putting his cards on the table, is following a long line of military leaders that only get brave when return fire is impossible.

To be quite honest the last Flag Ranked Officer to show MORAL COURAGE was General Shinseki.

And Rummy fired him for it.

Forget the fact that the General Shinseki was right.  Forget the fact that he was later vindicated.  Forget the fact that he's done yeoman's work at the VA, getting that dysfunctional organization pointed in the right direction...remember that he was the last man to show courage when it could cost him.

Think about it.

Revolt of the generals...that Time Magazine story that revealed how much military leadership disagreed with Rummy.  How about the rumors that have been floating for years that suggested that leadership wanted a different direction from what the civilian overlords wanted

I'm just not buying it.  Cursing at the boss, shouting at the moon and saying whats on your mind while you're about to walk out the door isn't going CDR Salamander.

Its being cowardly.

Anyone can do a drive by and leave the scene before others can shoot back.

Today in history. The Battle of Goose Green.

An inexplicable victory by 2 Para.

I'm going to have to Google it but I recall something about them training for just this scenario and some of those lessons having directly affected this battle. 

On a similar but different subject.  If the Falklands happened today...with the Argentinians getting forces onto the islands...could the British retake them independently?

Kydex has officially jumped the shark.

Tactical beer holster via Mad Duo.

I got the above photo from Mad Duo's blog.  Read the article here.

This makes it official.  Kydex has jumped the shark.  The ironic thing is that once the craziness has died down, that's when we'll start seeing more practical applications...but for the time being we're stuck with this insanity.

Amazing.

General Tolley said it! Axe is vindicated.

Score one for the reporter.

Score zero for the brainless General who spoke out of turn.  This from David Axe's blog...

by DAVID AXE
Finally! Lt. Col. Jim Gregory called. This is what he said:

The bottom line is there are no U.S. boots in North Korea.
There is no attack on David Axe. I don’t want you to feel that’s what’s [Pentagon spokesman George Little] is doing.
We are in agreement that the words you heard came out of his [Brig. Gen. Neil Tolley's] mouth. I don’t believe what you wrote is inaccurate. … I heard him say those words.
They [U.S. Forces Korea] are waking up. I believe they are going to re-look [at their statement.] I can’t get into defending what U.S. Forces Korea said.
I get where you’re coming from. I heard the same words you heard. I don’t want you to be without a job. Hopefully you can hang tough. Everyone here is doing the best they can in the absence of a transcript. It is a bit of a mind-stretch. … The general may have said that and, in his mind, he was thinking hypothetically.

Wow.

They keep hiding behind the word hypothetically.

That's not much cover and darn near no concealment.

But to General Tolley.  Like was said in one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies (one of his lighter films)....Don't go away mad...just go away.

 

ScarFace moves on...

Marines with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367 pilot UH-1Y Venoms and AH-1W Super Cobras in formation over Camp Pendleton, Calif., May 22. The formation was during the last flight for the unit in the continental United States before they move to Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii this year. “The maneuver is centered around timing and execution,” said Sgt. Michael Eklund, a crew chief with HMLA-367. “The goal is to create equal spacing between aircraft coming in for landing.”
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Joshua Young)

Sidenote:
I wonder if we didn't miss an opportunity when it came time to decide on whether to upgrade the AH-1Z and UH-1Y's.  By that I mean we could have piggy backed on the Navy's buy of MH-60S', bought an armament kit and used in the attack and utility roles, meaning that we could have necked down to three rotary winged airframes...the MH-60S, the MV-22 and the CH-53K.  If nothing else the war in Afghanistan and Iraq have proven how useful small and medium helicopters are and with the advancements in guided 2.75 rockets we could have done more with less.
Just a thought.

The F-35, F/A-18 and reality being a bitch.

Have you ever listened to a critic of the F-35 program?  They will tell you over and over again that the F-18 can do the job of the F-35.  My response?



Well it looks like the blog "Why the F-35" drives a nail through that lie.  Check it out here, but a tidbit....

Critics have been constantly touting the idea that we don’t need the F-35 or its capabilities, but instead can get along just fine upgrading our legacy fighter fleet.
Reality, however, has a bad habit of intruding on such flights of fancy with the hard, cruel facts of life.

Read it all.  Another lie touted by Sweetman, Aviation Week and the rest of his cronies, Cox, Wheeler, Airpower Australia, that joker in Canada, a couple of IDIOTS in Australia etc...is once again trashed.  The F-18 and other teen fighters aren't good enough.  We need the F-35.

Reality is a bitch.

Damage Control and a flaky statement.

Yesterday I wrote about how David Axe reported that General Tolley of US Special Operations Command Korea stated that covert missions were being run into the North.

Today we have the spectacle of David Axe basically pulling his hair out because he reported what he heard.

DUDE!  STOP IT!

You reported what you heard and that's the end of the story.  Read about his account of things here.

Washington Times has the story on SOCOM trying to walk back the story.  Read it here but check out this tidbit.

TOKYO — The U.S. military on Tuesday denied a report that it has been sending commandos into North Korea to spy on underground military facilities, a mission that would violate the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War.
A U.S. military statement said that The Diplomat, an Asia-Pacific current affairs journal, had “taken great liberal license” with the comments attributed to a top U.S. general. According to The Diplomat, Brig. Gen. Neil H. Tolley, commander of special operations for United States Forces Korea, said at a conference last week that both U.S. and South Korean commandos parachute into the North to conduct reconnaissance on underground tunnels that are hidden from satellites.

What I find interesting is that the other reporters in the room are not denying the story that David put out.  More interesting is the fact that others that attended the briefing, military members, aren't being trotted out to help deny David's story.

My guess is this.

General Tolley has found himself in the back water regions of the war on terror and he's probably pissed.  He wanted to be seen as doing important, dangerous things against a lethal foe so he inflated what his forces are actually doing.

Don't get me wrong.  SOCOM is probably doing things the right way in Korea.  They're probably running ops in the North and probably getting intel on the ground.

The problem is that the general stepped out of his role as a quiet professional and wanted a bit of lime light.

They should punt him like a worn football.

A message from Lex's daughter.

Go over to Neptunus Lex to read a message from his daughter.

As jaded as I am it damn near brought a tear to my eye.

I sincerely wish them all the best.


Click here to go to the site.

The US has been running covert missions into N. Korea!

Thanks for the heads up JOE!

Wow.  If you want a better example of military stupidity then look no further than the Commanding Officer of Special Operations in S. Korea, General Tolley. via AFP.

WASHINGTON — US and South Korean special forces have been parachuting into North Korea to gather intelligence about underground military installations, a US officer has said in comments carried in US media.
Army Brigadier General Neil Tolley, commander of US special forces in South Korea, told a conference held in Florida last week that Pyongyang had built thousands of tunnels since the Korean war, The Diplomat reported.
"The entire tunnel infrastructure is hidden from our satellites," Tolley said, according to The Diplomat, a current affairs magazine. "So we send (South Korean) soldiers and US soldiers to the North to do special reconnaissance."
"After 50 years, we still don't know much about the capability and full extent" of the underground facilities," he said, in comments reported by the National Defense Industrial Association's magazine on its website.
Tolley said the commandos were sent in with minimal equipment to facilitate their movements and minimize the risk of detection by North Korean forces.
At least four of the tunnels built by Pyongyang go under the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea, Tolley said.
"We don't know how many we don't know about," he admitted.
Among the facilities identified are 20 air fields that are partially underground, and thousands of artillery positions.
In February, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that had built at least two new tunnels at a nuclear testing site, likely in preparation for a new test.

SOCOM has an operational security problem.

Too many in the head shed are talking.

I can't wait to hear the official explanation on this one.

Pic of the day. Israeli low level...

IDF fighter jets fly low and fast inside Ramon Crater in the Negev Desert.

Awesome pic and the camo works...the Iraeli's have been releasing quite a few pics of low level F-16 flights lately...almost as if they're telegraphing something.

Please tell me this is just poorly written.

This one  has me scratching my head.  Is this just poorly written?

via The Weekly Standard...

The White House announced today that First Lady Michelle Obama will sponsor the USS Illinois, the first all female submarine force. The newest submarine "is expected to join the fleet in late 2015," according to the White House.

If this is as it reads then when is the first all Gay, Straight, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian, Black, Jewish, Catholic etc...submarine force coming?

The worst thing we can do as a nation in general and as a military in particular is to subdivide itself.

Its happening and its not good.

This will end badly.

UPDATE:
The spineless bastard changed it up and didn't even note the correction.  Amazing.  If it was Huffington Post I could see that but I do expect better from the Weekly Standard.

The M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle. We chose the wrong round!

Hitting the usual war movies while barbecuing and I keep seeing the Browning Automatic Rifle in all these films and it got me to wondering.

Is the M27 IAR a good idea but wrapped in the wrong rifle round?

The M240 is a beast of a weapon on patrol and is often left behind because of it.  But imagine if you were able to lay down precision automatic rifle fire at the ranges that a 7.62mm round is capable of.

A new built Browning Automatic Rifle type weapon, married with modified C-Mags or Surefire 60 round mags all wrapped with the 7.62mm round could actually be a game changer.  Why this was never considered is beyond me...and if it was but got rejected makes me wonder why.

Modern materials should make it rather easy to get this weapon below the 15 pound mark (empty) and if it was also fired open bolt and had a heavy barrel we should get similar performance but with much greater hitting power than we are with the M27.

The Marine Corps should at least study the concept.

A must read about courageous JCS members.

SLD has a must read.

If you don't read anything else today, take a few minutes to go to their site and read the article on Lyndon Johnson and his Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Oh and while you're doing it compare the courage shown by those men with the members that have served since Bush Jr.'s first term all the way up to today.

Its downright chilling to see the similarities...or rather the lack of them.

Harpoon for LCS. The campaign continues.

The biggest complaint against the LCS is that it isn't a proper warship.  Its fast, but underarmed, under crewed and unable to take the fight to the enemy.

The more I look at the Harpoon missile system the more I'm convinced that it needs to be included in the weapons suite of the LCS.

In its standard form and its Stand off Land Attack Missile variant it would prove to be a game changer for the program.  Additionally with its light weight launch system it could easily fit on board the ship without compromising it in the slightest.

Read more about the Harpoon missile here, here and here.

NOTE:
If this missile system can be truck mounted then surely we can fit it aboard a 3000 ton warship!

UPDATE:
Tom informed me of a unique Australian solution to getting the Harpoon missile system aboard their Oliver Perry class frigates.  Even though the forward vertical launch cells are shallow, they simply allow the enclosure to protrude above deck.  Outstanding.  Now we can save development money for a missile for LCS and simply fill them with either Harpoon or SLAM-ER for use against warships or land targets.

This problem is solved.  Now if the Navy would get its head out of its rear end and implement it, we can move on to more pressing issues.  My bill is in the mail.

 

Chris Hayes...chump of the week.

Interesting and sad. 

Interesting because you could literally see him fishing for support while making this outrageous statement.  Interesting because he tried to moderate his words at the end when he found that support wasn't coming.  Sad because he has support but they were smart enough to avoid doing it on camera.

Chris Hayes...chump of the week

First trouble between the UK & Argentina, now UK & Spain. Rough times for the empire.

This vis BFBS.

Rising tensions between Britain and Spain over Gibraltar will be discussed tomorrow when the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, hosts talks in London with his Spanish counterpart.
It comes after weeks of stand-offs at sea involving Royal Navy and Defence Police vessels.
They have been scrambled regularly to prevent Spanish trawlers casting their nets inside the Rock's territorial waters.
Gibraltar's Chief Minister has described the incursions as a "carefully premeditated challenge to our indisputable sovereignty".
The Spanish police are demanding their government sends in its own warships to protect them against the Royal Navy.

Sidenote 1:
This is shaping up to be quite a challenging year for the Royal Navy in particular and the British version of our State Dept in general.  First the trouble between the UK and Argentina and now between the UK and Spain?  I would think that some type of alliance between Spain and Argentina would be unthinkable but stranger things have happened.  Additionally these disputes all revolve around natural resources...in this case fishing rights or potential oil leases.

Sidenote 2:
The Brits list the Archer class patrol boat as the smallest warship in the British Navy.  Spain also considers it a warship and wants to respond in kind.  The reason why this is interesting is because the Coastal Riverine Force is getting the Mark VI which is considered too small to get the job done or too compromised to do it well.  Compared to the Archer its a beast of a ship.  Perhaps more importantly the Mark VI compares favorably with the River Class OPV and is more heavily armed.  Interesting and Outstanding.

Finish the letter...Memorial Day 2012.

On this memorial day lets finish the letter.

By that I don't mean to imply that the different Memorial Day celebrations come up short.  I'm not saying that we've lost our way and totally commercialized a day that should be a commemoration of the sacrifice made by some.

Naw, what I'm saying is this.  When the summer season is in full effect and everyone is back to their daily grind, we should finish the letter.  Volunteer.  Donate.  Contribute in some way.

Some gave too much for one day to be enough.

The day NASA died.

NASA is the poster child for an agency whose best times appear to be in the past.

The decision made by some in the 70's to pursue a space shuttle instead of deep space exploration vehicle signalled an inward looking NASA and a NASA that failed to capture the imagination.  Now we have the wierdness that is upon us now.  We have a Democrat president that believes in big government for everything except the military and space travel, basically handing space travel over to private business.

Somehow, I really believe that he thought they would fail.

Big business wouldn't have that and won the day.

So now we won't have the embarrassing spectacle of US astronauts riding on Russian spacecraft.  But the future isn't any brighter...soon we'll have US astronauts riding on Google, IBM or Ford sponsored spacecraft.  This would be so funny if I wasn't seeing it with my own two eyes.

May 27, 2012.  The day that NASA died.

Read about Space X here.

31st MEU Marines navigate the Okinawa jungle