Chinese Marines are now off the coast of Syria.

Massive thanks to Alexander over at Naval History Twitter/Blog...

Ok.  If this is true then its settled.  Our guys in the State Dept are rookies and the Chinese and Russians played us like a fiddle.  Check this out from Debka Files...

A Chinese landing craft with 1,000 marines for Syria – reports DEBKAfile September 6, 2013, 12:31 PM (GMT+02:00)
Western naval sources reported Friday that a Chinese landing craft, the Jinggangshan, with a 1,000-strong marine battalion had reached the Red Sea en route for the Mediterranean off Syria.  According to DEBKAfile, Beijing has already deployed a number of warships opposite Syria in secret. If the latest report is confirmed, this will be the largest Chinese deployment in the Middle East in its naval history.

Uh.

Wow.

If I didn't know better I'd think that they were preparing to block our strikes or inhibit our operations. They're drinking our milkshake.

Terrex Marine Personnel Carrier during Swim Testing...

Better late than never????

Blast from the past. Old Skool REFORGER (Return of Forces to Germany) pics.

If you knew what this is just by looking then you're good.  For everyone else its a ground launched cruise missile setup.

USS Inchon sailing in...Marines had a reinforcement role in the North in case of war in Europe.

M-60A2.  Great idea, poor execution.  That turret looks painful.

F-35. We're approaching critical mass.

via The Hill Blog.

“Round up the usual suspects” deadpans Claude Rains as the police chief in the classic movie Casablanca.  The same happens when Washington experts propose budget cuts at the Pentagon.
Because it is a large international program with a large price tag, the first to be dragged through the door by critics is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.  For example, some respected analysts suggest cutting the program in half, from 2,450 F-35s for the U.S. to about 1,200 F-35s.  Others propose ending the F-35 program entirely.

This is scary and wrong.  Deep cuts to F-35 will leave the U.S. (and allies) ill-prepared for future contingencies.

And then this....

They’re right.  Yet chatter about deep cuts to the F-35 continues even as the program has stabilized and production costs are coming down.  It’s alarming because it suggests Pentagon leaders still have not fully connected with taxpayers and lawmakers as to why and how the F-35 is vital to national security.

This article is written by Rebecca Grant.

One of the biggest cheerleaders the F-35 has.  

This article tells us something if we're willing to look between the lines...and we don't even have to look carefully.  Check out what she said...

"...some respected analysts suggest cutting the program in half...others propose ending the F-35 program entirely...."

The she goes on to say this...

....chatter about deep cuts to the F-35 continues even  as the program has stabilized...

She is basically telling us that Think Tanks in Washington, DC are actively passing along studies to lawmakers telling them what I've been yelling at the top of my lungs for the last month or so.

The F-35 is devouring the defense budget in general and the Marine Corps budget in particular. 

We're reaching critical mass.  You want the F-35?  Then you lose your tank manufacturing capability.  You want the F-35?  Then your ship building industry will be curtailed....you'll be lucky to have even one shipyard.  You want the F-35?  Then you're going to slash the Army and Marine Corps beyond pre-Iraq/Afghanistan manning levels.

But the biggest oh shit moment for F-35 fans is a little fact that is being ignored.  The cost spiral has already hit.  Canada and the Netherlands are purchasing the number of F-35s that they can afford--which means they're buying fewer than originally planned.

If you add all this together, a plane that is crazy expensive, a plane that is causing cuts to other programs and a plane that is causing other parts of the defense sector to shrink to a size that might not be salvageable then you have only one possible outcome.

Congress is going to take this program down to the river and hold it under until it stops kicking.

Pantsir S1 via TechnoDefensa.BR

Disarmament by F-35? By Giovanni de Briganti

Only under threat of cancellation do we begin to see a bit of urgency from Lockheed Martin and the Program Office.  Its too little, too late.  This airplane is destroying Defense budgets worldwide.

Note:  I've stated repeatedly that the F-35 is gobbling up the Marine Corps budget and that many much needed programs (like the MPC) are being sacrificed on the altar of that airplane.  I've also stated that other nations are being forced to do the same.  Fortunately it appears that many are waking up to that fact.  Marines are now asking if the F-35 is worth the cost.  

via Defense Aerospace.com

PARIS --- The latest round of Dutch defense cuts is an apt illustration of how defense readiness across NATO is being damaged by government insistence on procuring the F-35 fighter at whatever cost, despite its recurring delays and very serious technical faults and design shortcomings.

Two prospective buyers, Canada and the Netherlands, have established firm price caps on their F-35 acquisition budgets to prevent cost blow-outs, but because costs continue to increase, the number of aircraft they will be able to buy is being constantly reduced. This also reduces their military usefulness, as the fewer the aircraft, the lower their overall operational effectiveness.

The Netherlands are an apt illustration of the dangers of such an approach. It was originally due to buy 85 F-35s, but successive Dutch governments have reduced this number to 58, which, as the Algemene Rekenkamer (AR), the independent state auditor, concluded in its Oct. 25, 2013 report, are not even enough to fulfill Dutch commitments to NATO. Nonetheless, the F-35 program will absorb half the defense ministry’s total capital expenditure budget for six years, starving other programs of funding.

The current Dutch government now simply plans to buy as many aircraft as it can with its €4 billion budget – fewer than 40, the Rekenkamer estimated. But even to afford this reduced number, it must cut most other defense spending.

The latest round of cuts, reported Sept. 5, is worth €330 million, and will entail the sale of a logistics support ship which is still being built, the scrapping of an entire Army battalion and the mothballing of six or seven more F-16 fighters.

The situation is broadly similar in Canada, where the government has placed a price cap of $8.9 billion on its F-35 acquisition budget, without being able to say how many aircraft this will buy. Yet, it is gradually becoming apparent that cuts in other parts of the defense budget will be needed to protect F-35 funding, and an Aug. 13 report in the National Post was headlined “F-35 purchase may force Conservatives to chop infantry battalion from cash-strapped military.”

And it’s really no different in the United States. Under the pressure of sequestration, the Pentagon will have to choose between a “much smaller force” or a decade-long “holiday” from modernizing its weapon systems, to quote defense secretary Chuck Hagel.

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon acquisitions chief, has already indicated that the F-35 program, and a few other top priority programs, will be protected from further cuts, but this means that “remaining programs in the procurement account would have to be cut even more than the 16% average reduction for the whole [acquisition] account,” as the Lexington Institute’s Lauren B. Thompson recently noted.

In the United States as in the Netherlands and Canada, the F-35 is soaking up much of the available acquisition funding, at the expense of other programs or activities that will have to be stretched out or cut altogether. One example is the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program, which Defense News reported Sept. 2 may be cut from 52 to 24, and others are still emerging.

On current trends, the US Air Force one day will fly only F-35s, KC-46 tankers and the future Global Strike bomber, along with a few – by then elderly - F-22s. This will be a stunning loss of capability compared to the large and diversified combat fleet it operates today, but that is their choice, made by elected representatives and, indirectly, approved by voters.

But there is no reason for US allies to display the same stubborn insistence on buying the overpriced and underperforming F-35. This has already put some allies onto the slippery slope where they must sacrifice other programs to pay for ever-lower numbers of F-35s. Italy, for example, has already said it will reduce its F-35 off-take from 130 to 90 or fewer, while the UK is currently committed to buying 48, instead of the 150+ it originally planned, although it ultimately intends to buy more.

If current, short-sighted policies continue, these governments – whether in Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway or other countries – will wake up one day and realize they have forsaken their entire military capabilities to pay for a squadron or two of F-35s they cannot afford to fly.

This is one time misery does NOT enjoy company.

Western defenses are being raped.

The F-35 is moving from being an expensive boondoggle to being a threat to national security in the free world.

V-22. We've seen a refueler. Is an AEW variant next?

A while ago JeffHead wrote a page where he covered what he would like to see in future US military tech  in order to counter a rising, technologically capable China.  Read it here (well worth the time).  He predicted the refueling variant of the V-22 and proposed an anti-sub version.  But the type that would probably fit in with the new "Aviation Centric" Marine Corps is his other proposal.  An AEW variant.  Advantages?  The Brits would be more than interested.  Disadvantage?  Once again, cost.  I have no idea what HQMC thinking is.  If past is prologue though, it wouldn't be a stretch to see this being pushed in the near future.

Additional Reading...
UK Armed Forces Commentary..
Navy Matters..
Trishul Group..

NOTE:  Alexander asked/stated..."The first step toward the America becoming a carrier"?  My thinking is no.  More like Majors Thiele and Rubenstein prediction coming true.

Unless arrested, this trend will continue until ultimately the only difference between Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force aircraft and pilots will be the word “Marines” stenciled on the bird. At that point, budget pressures are likely to lead to the end of Marine fixed-wing aviation.

13th MEU, Boat Company. Photo by Cpl. Matthew Callahan

Marines with Alpha Company, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, make landing in F470 Zodiac Combat Rubber Raid Craft on Pyramid Rock Beach, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Aug. 30, 2013. The boat company secured the beach, allowing follow-on forces to conduct an amphibious assault. The battalion is attached to the 13th MEU on a deployment to the Pacific.

SD-10A Sky Dragon Medium Range Anti-Air Missile System via Chinese Military Review.

Note:  Another Chinese Advanced Missile System.  With all the phased array radars littering the landscape we'll run out of missiles to defeat them before we get a clean battle field to go after the targets they're protecting.   If you're not a China watcher you're late.

Crashed MV-22 pic goes viral. (Image and text via Military Blogging.com)

Image via Reddit / Keggerss

The photo of a crashed Marine Osprey with a Marine sitting nearby drinking a Rip-it and smoking a cigarette has received over one million views online in less than 24 hours.

A caption alongside the viral pic reads, "One horrible day for me in Afghanistan."

Reddit user named "Keggerss" posted the photo.

The story of what happened was told in the comments by Keggerss. 

“Just so everyone knows I was a passenger not the pilot.
Story Time. Now everyone forgive me im typing this out on my mobile. This was roughly halfway through my deployment. My unit had been doing helo raids and helo inserts for months before this happened. So everyone was somewhat used to getting rained on by hydraulic fluid which shoots from everywhere when these things fly. Somehow you convince yourself that cant be a bad thing. So we departed our FOB late night the plane was operating as nomal we had a 45 minute flight. The crew Chief looked back and gave us the 5 minutes till landing. The osprey is going in for its lading everything is still ok. Now when these land there props rotate and make a loud pop, This time though it was deafining you knew something was wrong it felt like the osprey was having a seizure. Its pitch black you cant tell how far you are from the ground then it hits. My body was instantly in pain. As you can see in the picture we landed on a ledge and it pinned the rear hatch of the bird closed. We had to exit out of the right door gunners exit. Everybody on the plane was instantly ordered to get into a defensive position. Mortars started coming in about 10 minutes afterwards. This is just a gold mine for the Taliban and a nightmare for us Marines. There were still other Ospreys around when this happened so what did the pilots of this bird do? They jumped on another Osprey and rode back to the FOB. Meanwhile we had to protect there plane. I always figured this was one of those things like a captain goes down with his ship. A convoy from a FOB came out and dismantled this plane and loaded it up on trucks and hauled it back roughly a week later. Sorry for how horribly typed this is! Anymore questions just let me know. P. S. RIP IT SHOULD OBVIOUSLY ENDORSE ME

EDIT : For everyone in the comments who is military bashing. Wait for it. I don't care! I am just doing my job. For everyone throwing support my way I greatly appreciate it!”

Comments left by users have reached nearly 2,000.

You can read the discussion thread and see the original photo here on Reddit.

We can do COIN and Nation Building (sort of)...but can we do Combined Arms?

The above video shows the Chinese Type 99 MBT operating on their high desert.  I have yet to read a good intelligence assessment on it or any other piece of Chinese armor.  What I have seen are years old productions that link Chinese to Russian gear and gives the impression that they're the same.  I highly doubt that.

But the bigger question should be this.  We CAN do COIN and Nation Building (what do you think Afghanistan is?) but can we do Combine Arms?

I'd love to see an Army Brigade or/and a Marine Corps Battalion deploy to Ft Irwin and go up against their OPFOR (do they still exist?).  If they're still around and if they're still good and if they've modernized and are now using Chinese tactics (do we even have visibility on Chinese tactics????) then it might be at best a close call...at worse an ass whipping for our guys.

We definitely need to get up to speed.

OV-10 In Perspective

Quote. "Another act of cowardice by the Commandant."

via Washington Times.

The Marine Corps has suddenly dropped criminal charges against an officer in the infamous Taliban urination video case, heading off what promised to be an embarrassing pre-trial hearing for the commandant on Wednesday.
Defense attorneys for Capt. James V. Clement had won a judge’s order, over objections from Marine prosecutors, for two staff attorneys to testify in open court about how senior commanders had interfered in the case to get a guilty verdict.
The lawyers also were seeking to question Gen. James Amos, the commandant, and wanted access to his private emails.
But the criminal case ended Friday when Lt. Gen. Kenneth J. Glueck, who heads Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va., and was overseeing the prosecution, filed a brief court paper withdrawing the charges.
John Dowd, Capt. Clement’s principal defense counsel, had accused the commandant of engineering the largest case of unlawful command influence in the Corps‘ history.
“The withdrawal of the charges was another act of cowardice by the the commandant, his counsel and the the Judge Advocate Division of [Marine Corps headquarters] to cover up the worst case of unlawful command influence in the history of the Marine Corps, which was beginning next Wednesday to be uncovered in a hearing before the Chief Judge … on several motions to compel discovery,” Mr. Dowd said Saturday.

Uh.

Wow.

"The withdrawal of the charges was another act of cowardice by the Commandant..."

Power doesn't corrupt.  It reveals a corrupt character.  The Marine Corps needs to ask itself how it produced a General Officer (that would eventually rise to become Commandant) that is so lacking in so many areas.

If Amos was simply incompetent, he'd be an embarrassment.  But he's more than that.  He's morally bankrupt, has engaged in criminal behavior and exhibits traits that are undesirable in a Marine Officer, much less the Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Amos MUST GO.

Syrian Rebels accused of gas use by the UN. The White House just shat itself.

Thanks to Andrew for the link...

via the Telegraph.

"According to the testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas," del Ponte, a former war crimes prosecutor, said in an interview with Swiss radio late on Sunday.

"We still have to deepen our investigation, verify and confirm (the findings) through new witness testimony, but according to what we have established so far, it is at the moment opponents of the regime who are using sarin gas," she added.

She stressed that the UN commission of inquiry on Syria, which she is a part of, had far from finished its investigation.

Turkish authorities are carrying out blood tests on Syrians who have fled the fighting at home to determine if they have been victims of chemical weapons, a medical source said Monday.

"Samples have been taken from people wounded in Syria who have been transported to Turkey," the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that the results were not yet known.

Read it all here.

Question?  Why are we getting in the middle of this TRIBAL, SECTARIAN, RELIGIOUS, PROXY WAR again?

You say for the children?  Because its who we are?  In defense of international norms?

I say Bullshit.

We're getting involved in this war because the President might be  nicknamed "no drama" Obama, but for some reason he goes from crisis to crisis.  Many that he causes himself.

The internal Marine battle over eroding air support typified by the F-35 acquisition. UPDATE:

Many thanks to USMC 0802 for the article!

Pay attention gents.  You might consider me an outlier, but when conversations happen inside my gun club among buddies that's one thing.  When they get away from the club and onto the pages of the Marine Gazette, its time to sit up and pay attention.  Check this out....

It is therefore ironic that in the A–10 the Air Force possesses a better close-support aircraft than any in the Marine Corps Fixed-wing Marine air faces a fight for its existence, although that may not yet be apparent. Commonality of aircraft (the F–35), technology, and “jointness” are leading Marine air ever further into JFACC (read: Air Force) orbit. Unless arrested, this trend will continue until ultimately the only difference between Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force aircraft and pilots will be the word “Marines” stenciled on the bird. At that point, budget pressures are likely to lead to the end of Marine fixed-wing aviation.

 And this....

For the price of 8 F–35s, we could field over 100 modern A–29 Super Tucano light air support aircraft. Each up-armored and already combat-proven A–29 is capable of providing longer-endurance armed overwatch in greater numbers from more austere airfields than current or future fixed-wing Marine aircraft.

There is a pushback brewing in the Marine Corps over the F-35.

Many talk about it in terms of its performance while doing a deep strike, fleet defense or combat air patrol mission.

Marines are interested in it to perform only one real job.  Close Air Support.  And in that role the airplane is lacking.

IF we get a GRUNT Commandant.  IF he has the balls to take on the establishment and do whats in the best interest of OUR Marine Corps then the F-35B will be canceled.  We'll make do with the AV-8B till we can get better and we'll get our house in order.

Anything else will lead to failure.  Read the entire Marine Gazette article here. 

UPDATE:  For those that insist that the US has invested too much money into the F-35, and that there is no off ramp to the program I say bullshit.  The off ramp is Simpson-Bowles and as things sit right now, the Republicans and the DoD will jump at the chance to get its savings in place.  It would be less than what we're seeing with unfettered sequester.  The only things that would have to be placed on the altar?  The F-35 and the V-22.  I could live with that.

Lockheed Martin is ballsy as hell!

The Lockheed Martin Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike, or UCLASS, concept leverages technologies and lessons learned from F-35C, RQ-170 Sentinel, and other operational systems to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission capability.

The F-35 is limping along.  Numbers are being fuzzed, the tailhook isn't working and they have the nerve to think about the unmanned aircraft competition for the Navy?

That's ballsy as hell.

Lockheed Martin would do well to remember the A-12.  One day it was bullet proof and the Navy/USMC was pushing it hard.  The next Cheney killed it.

The A-12 I did terminate. It was not an easy decision to make because it's an important requirement that we're trying to fulfill. But no one could tell me how much the program was going to cost, even just through the full scale development phase, or when it would be available. And data that had been presented at one point a few months ago turned out to be invalid and inaccurate."
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, 1991.

This fall.  History will repeat.

Conventional Truths via AM.

I won't spoil it by posting one word of it here.  Click this link and read it at his house.

Can you identify this weapon sight Security Forces uses? Update. Identified.

What is the weapon sight this Security Forces Airman using?  I've seen some Aimpoints that appear similar but I just don't know.  If you have REAL knowledge hit me up.

Med Fleet Deployment Graphic via PostSkriptum Blog

Its getting crowded.

Oh and these are the overt deployments.  I wonder what "secret" assets are being moved?

Information Dissemination is wrong about Army Aviation at sea.

via ID.

Count me among those who see this as training that will be used in theater for action one day.
In the 1980s the US Army deployed small special forces helicopters on US vessels in dealing with Iran during the Tanker War. Those Army helicopters did very well against small boat combat, and it is worth the effort to put Apache's into that role today to see what Navy needs to do to support it.
Over the last decade there have been a number of sea base proposals that never panned out. One of the proposals I was always particularly found of was developing the capability to field the 101st Airborne division from a Sea Base. I'd like to think this activity helps the Army clarify what needs to be done in support of that eventual capability.

Yeah.  Operations at sea are fun until the first mishap occurs.

Go to Information Dissemination website to read the whole article to get a flavor of where he's coming from.

I think we're still in the embryonic stage of all this.  Consider.

*  Riverine is struggling to find its footing.  Every time it seems to settle on a concept of operations it finds itself drifting into Naval Special Warfare turf...especially Special Boat Team territory.
*  Marine Aviation should be looking for every chance possible to guard its turf.  They better be anyway (not their fault Amos has put the wing in a terrible position).  Every mission set that can be accomplished by the MV-22, AH-1Z and UH-1Y better be one where Marine Aviation is fighting to get that slot.
*  Naval Aviation should be looking for every chance possible to guard its turf.  If Naval Rotorcraft want to be seen as more than simply a supply service to do shuttle runs between ships then it better get into the littoral fight in a big way.
*  Naval Unmanned Rotary Aircraft are going to be taking up deck space.  FireScout B or C will be taking up deckspace, flying longer missions and hitting as hard as their manned brethren   Additionally for the space of two Fire Scout B's you can get one MH-60?  Yeah.  Some smart boy in the Surface Navy is going to do the math.  

Long story short.

It might make a pretty picture, and everyone might be fired up about the image it presents but its waaaay different from what we'll actually see in a combat zone.