Saturday, March 18, 2017
ST Kinetics tosses its hat in the ring for the US Army's Mobile Protected Firepower Vehicle
via Monch.com
At 2017 AUSA Global Force, ST Kinetics is offering its Next Gen Armored Fighting Vehicle (NGAFV) to the US Army for the service's Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF). In concept, the MPF is seen as a highly mobile vehicle that is able to accompany and support Infantry Brigade Combat Teams, and aid reconnaissance-in-force missions. The MPF will be a fully tracked armored vehicle light and small enough to negotiate urban areas, and traverse poor roads and bridges in underdeveloped regions of the globe.
Although still in the early stages, the US Army hopes to field an MPF vehicle by the mid-2020s.
The NGAFV has been developed by ST Kinetics and its demonstrator includes the company's HMX3000 fully automatic transmission and CMI's COCKERILL 3000 series turret.
Fully digitised and with the option of drive by wire, the NGAFV is to replace the Singapore Armed Forces' M113A ULTRAs.
Next Generation Fighter gets massive budget boost. What does Trump know that our allies don't?
Thanks to Anthony 256 for the link!
via Popular Mechanics
With the F-35 barely out the front door, the U.S. military is already trying to figure out what America's next-generation fighter jet will look like. The U.S. Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program is conducting research and development work that will ultimately lead to an air superiority fighter to take the place of the F-22. The program is due for a large increase in funding, as the Trump administration suggested an eight-fold increase for the NGAD program, up to $168 million from just $21 million.Interesting.
The request comes in the form of the White House's supplemental budget plan for 2017. As Aviation Week points out, the full increase is highly unlikely to be approved as it would require lifting Budget Control Act (BCA) caps, something that takes 60 votes in the Senate. Still, the request for such a sharp increase indicates that the White House will be pumping more resources into the NGAD program, and the Air Force will likely move forward with the program more quickly than anticipated.
This is one of two things...or even both.
1. The F-35 has been in development for almost 20 years. It is the natural course of events for the next generation fighter to be under development now...IF THE F-35 HAD ENTERED SERVICE AS SCHEDULED! Under a normal growth plan we should already be on F-35E, F-35F, F-35G etc...but we're still stuck at take off.
2. The F-35 could be the Turkey that I believe it to be and the President/Pentagon is acting to try and get the next gen model into service asap so that we MIGHT have a chance to maintain air superiority.
3. It could also be both!
Regardless, this is telling. The funny thing is that the allies will be paying attention. What does Trump know that the allies don't? Trump has an attitude of America first (which I agree with 100%), so would he sell the allies planes knowing that the US needs something better?
Friday, March 17, 2017
US Army shows Laser equipped Stryker ICV!
via UPI
U.S. Army personnel demonstrated combat capabilities using a Stryker armored vehicle integrated with a MEHEL laser weapon.
The weapon tested was the MEHEL 2.0, an upgraded version of the original 2kW device. The newer variant is able to produce 5kW beams.
The demonstration was conducted by a team of members from the Army Space and Missile Defense Command and the Army Forces Strategic Command. During the event, the laser-equipped Stryker showcased its ability to defend against unmanned aircraft systems.
"The purpose of the JIDO UAS Hard-Kill Challenge was to assess and look at technology... to do a 'hard-kill' shoot down of Group 1 [unmanned aircraft systems] and inform decision-makers on the current state of technology and how it can deal with single and multiple targets," demonstration lead Adam Aberle explained in a press release.
Aberle went on to praise the platform's successful performance in repelling UAV threats, and discussed how the test revealed system limitations as a result of the MEHEL's upgrade from a 2kW to a 5kW capability.
"We learned from the event, and we have plans to correct those deficiencies for future activities," he added. "We learned the 5kW laser was able to defeat the targets. We were able to verify and show that we could put a radar and a laser on a platform so it could self-cue to targets and that was very successful."
Boxer CRV undergoing testing in Australian outback...(pics)
Forgive the gaudy watermark on these pics. I'm searching for some that don't have it so you can add them to your files.
Build your own Royal Air Force via Hush Kit Blog...
Hush Kit Blog had a think tank bubba "build" the Royal Air Force (pre-BREXIT) and the choices seem a bit odd to me. Check it out here and let me know what you think.
Preview? Dude wants to re-engine Rafale M's and build the Queen Elizabeth class with cats/traps. According to the blog the Sea Typhoon was a non-starter and would result in a sluggish and slow airplane. Who knew! Anyway check it out.
Houthi Rebels shoot down a Saudi Attack Helicopter...
Thanks to Overwatch DVA for the link!
via SouthFront
Houthi forces have shot down an Apache helicopter belonging to Saudi Arabia in the Yemeni province of Hudaydah, the pro-Houthi al-Masirah television network reported.Not surprising. Quite honestly I'm surprised we haven't seen more of this. Which makes me spin back to the Marine Corps' aviation centric concept. Remember the helo raid by Army AH-64s at the start of the 2nd Gulf War? Those birds got chewed up and if I recall that unit was basically rendered combat ineffective till they could get replacement helicopters in.
The incident allegedly took place in the Hudaydah’s Bayt al-Faqih district on March 16.
On January 25, Houthi forces downed another Apache helicopter belonging to the Saudi-led coalition in the Dhubab district of the province of Ta’izz.
The crash of the MV-22 during the raid in Yemen and the turn back of the SEAL reinforcement in Central Africa also come to mind.
Even terrorists are taking not of our reliance on helicopters/tilt rotors. Switching from landing 2/3rds of the landing force by air instead of sea will bring a whole new set of issues that I don't think anyone is realistically looking at. If they have anti-ship missiles that will keep us 100 miles out to sea then they will have anti-air missiles that will shred our helicopters/tilt rotors almost as soon as they leave deck!
You want to combat "the female perception" problem in the military? Make sure it's earned!
via Navy Matters Blog.
You disrespect people you have no respect for.Go here to read the whole thing.
Take a moment and absorb the utter simplicity and truth in that. In fact, say it again. You disrespect people you have no respect for.
Why don’t service personnel - Marine, Navy, or whoever - respect women? Again, the answer is blindingly obvious. It’s because they aren’t held to the same standard of performance. No one respects another who is accorded preferential treatment. No one respects another who is given benefits without earning them. I’m not even going to bother to recite the entire litany of reduced standards that women are accorded but the men see it on a daily basis. Whether it’s reduced physical training standards, preferential selection for assignments or promotions, retries at training that are not generally accorded men (Kara Hultgreen, for example, or ranger training), unofficial quotas that allow women preferential assignments, benefits that men can’t enjoy (pregnancy reduced duties and leave), or any of the hundreds of other daily biases that favor women, the net result of all that preferential treatment is what grows the resentment that leads to the disrespect the men display towards the women.
Navy Matters is onto something that no one wants to talk about. A common perception is that women in the military and particularly the Marine Corps slide by. The feeling has intensified since the push to integrate women into combat arms. Remember the tests that Corps ran? Do you remember the outcome?
via LA Times 2015
Lengthy experiment studying women during combat skills tests found that all-male units performed better than mixed-gender ones in most tactical areas and that women suffered more injuries than men, the Marine Corps reported this week.This study signaled to Marines that it wasn't about combat performance but was about a social experiment.
One measure showed that the musculoskeletal injury rate for women was 40.5%, compared with 18.8% for men.
So what did the Marine Corps/Pentagon leadership do? They took the study and threw it in the trash and pushed on with the plan!
There is now talk from leadership about not lowering standards but the idea is that women are going to be pushed into combat roles. The dirty secret? Ask any cop or firefighter. Women don't have the physical strength to handle the more intense roles that those jobs entail.
I know this post will be controversial and many will hate me for it but its the truth. If you're a cop and you and your partner are hookin and jabbin with some idiot hopped up on crack or meth and your partner can't handle the physical confrontation then someone could get killed. The same applies to combat on spades.
So with its own study the Marine Corps is saying that women are more vulnerable to skeletal injuries and perform poorly on combat skills tests but that they will be integrated into these units anyway.
What did the Marine Corps say about this truth? via San Diego Tribune.
The assessment states that integrating female troops into the ground combat arms will add some risk of reduced performance in combat, as well as cost (Editor's note..that's code for lost lives and/or permanent injury). “While this risk can be mitigated by various methods to address failure rates, injuries, and ability to perform the mission, the bottom line is that the physiological differences between males and females will likely always be evident to some extent,” it says.So what does this have to do with the "picture scandal" and the issue of military culture with regard to females in uniform?
Make sure they earn it. Make sure they face the same shit details, shit work, shit life. No protection or favoritism by Officers/SNCOs. Have someone that can verify that "female problems" are real and not a reason to skate. Make sure that men and women are treated fairly in every way.That will allow women to get the respect that they want.
General "Chappie" James set the blueprint that we need to get back to. Check it out below.
The solution to the pic scandal and the culture women face in the military? In the Marine Corps its simple.
We need a back to basics movement Corps wide. Treat everyone the same. No one skates. No one gets by. No one gets any slack. Every swinging dick and ovary gets treated the same.
Open Comment Post. March 17, 2017
Housekeeping.
The comments section is getting out of hand. I understand and respect strong opinions. That's a good thing. When good information is being lost in the mix because of silliness then that's not so good.
Clean up the comments. I issued a warning and deleted a whole slew of them but that doesn't seem to have done the trick. Ban hammer is next so knock it off.
Last but not least stay on topic. Unless I delve into politics then keep it military, fitness, guns etc but keep it between those lines. If you do need to wander off that's cool but limit that discussion to these "open comment posts".
That is all.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Senate Intel Chiefs refute Trump's wiretap claim....My take. UPDATED!!!
By now you've heard that in a joint statement the Dem and Rep Senate Intel Chiefs refuted Trump's wiretap claim.
I call bullshit.
It's been 12 days since these allegations were first made. If this was a simple matter of just saying no then it could have been done in a few days at most. The FBI Director could have told the gang of 8 this from the start. But what did we see yesterday? The FBI Director gave a brief and the Senators walk out with grave looks on their faces.
I don't know what's going on but this isn't as cut and dry as the Trump haters would have us believe.
If you have an explanation for the bureaucratic delay in simply giving the American people a simple yes or no on this issue then I'm all ears. But for now I'm convinced that there is MUCH more to this story than we're being told.
UPDATE! I just read (and not listened) to the statement from the Senators. The wording is that neither before or after the election there is no evidence that the Trump Tower was under surveillance. NOTICE THEY DID NOT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN!!!! They have gotten on Trump for NOT using precise language and these critters were VERY precise in their verbiage! They talked about Trump Tower but NOT THE CAMPAIGN!!!
via Bloomberg.
I call bullshit.
It's been 12 days since these allegations were first made. If this was a simple matter of just saying no then it could have been done in a few days at most. The FBI Director could have told the gang of 8 this from the start. But what did we see yesterday? The FBI Director gave a brief and the Senators walk out with grave looks on their faces.
I don't know what's going on but this isn't as cut and dry as the Trump haters would have us believe.
If you have an explanation for the bureaucratic delay in simply giving the American people a simple yes or no on this issue then I'm all ears. But for now I'm convinced that there is MUCH more to this story than we're being told.
UPDATE! I just read (and not listened) to the statement from the Senators. The wording is that neither before or after the election there is no evidence that the Trump Tower was under surveillance. NOTICE THEY DID NOT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN!!!! They have gotten on Trump for NOT using precise language and these critters were VERY precise in their verbiage! They talked about Trump Tower but NOT THE CAMPAIGN!!!
via Bloomberg.
“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016," the panel’s chairman, Richard Burr of North Carolina, and vice chairman, Mark Warner of Virginia, said in a joint statement Thursday.
Just a reminder. M1 Tank Test Bed!
Check the specs boys! Nothing is new under the sun! We had an Armata - like tank too, but never pulled the trigger! Did you guys forget about the M1 Tank Test Bed????
Bonus Coverage! Below is a pic of the Falcon turret mounted on a Challenger MBT chassis made and sold by KADBB! Same concept but no one has bit on it yet! On a personal note, long time followers of mine will note that this was a subject that Sean Meade over at Aviation Week let me publish on his site. His encouragement helped me to start this blog. I wonder how he's doing?
What is my point? The concept that the Armata is following has been out there a while now. The difference is that the Russians had the courage to see a concept and pull the trigger on it. We have tons of "blasts from the past" that would serve us well today. We just haven't followed thru.
The Pentagon is planning for a mega city fight? They're out of their minds!
Thanks to Filippo for the link!
The above image is from Oryx Blog. I don't know how Filippo found it but this is a must follow photo essay on hillbilly armor in the fight in Syria and a general overview of urban fighting. Check it out here.
When I saw this pic the first thing I thought is what a meat grinder that is. The next thought is that the Pentagon is crazy to be planning a fight in a mega city if a relatively small Middle East city looks like this!
I've flippantly said that you could send entire Divisions into mega cities and they'd become "lost". Not lost as not having their bearings but lost as in not knowing what happened to them.
I can actually see a 15,000 man Army Light Infantry Division being gobbled up never to be heard from again.
The next thing that occurred to me is this. How are you gonna fight armor in this can of environment? You would wear out your combat engineers before you even went a mile into a mess like this! How is your air support gonna provide fires in this mess? I'm not even talking about massive skyscrapers that you would find in a major city! Simply multi-story buildings would render them ineffective. Same applies to artillery. Maybe mortars could be of some help....but I have my doubts.
A mega city fight? The Pentagon is on crack!
Side note: We're working hard on counter UAV technology but I'm wondering if we're gonna see Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devises showing up around the world on various battlefields and eventually on city streets in the west. Below is a pick of an IFV converted to VBIED use and all I can think of is Oklahoma City or the truck attacks in France and Germany. What if they had used big rigs to crash into the lower floors and set off their bombs? When will some terrorist get the bright idea to use an armored car or fashion hillbilly armor onto a big rig and load it full of fertilizer bombs to take out a school or mall? I don't have a very active imagination so if I can think of this trash then so can the bad guys.
 |
| An image of Deir ez-Zor's devastated city centre |
When I saw this pic the first thing I thought is what a meat grinder that is. The next thought is that the Pentagon is crazy to be planning a fight in a mega city if a relatively small Middle East city looks like this!
I've flippantly said that you could send entire Divisions into mega cities and they'd become "lost". Not lost as not having their bearings but lost as in not knowing what happened to them.
I can actually see a 15,000 man Army Light Infantry Division being gobbled up never to be heard from again.
The next thing that occurred to me is this. How are you gonna fight armor in this can of environment? You would wear out your combat engineers before you even went a mile into a mess like this! How is your air support gonna provide fires in this mess? I'm not even talking about massive skyscrapers that you would find in a major city! Simply multi-story buildings would render them ineffective. Same applies to artillery. Maybe mortars could be of some help....but I have my doubts.
A mega city fight? The Pentagon is on crack!
Side note: We're working hard on counter UAV technology but I'm wondering if we're gonna see Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devises showing up around the world on various battlefields and eventually on city streets in the west. Below is a pick of an IFV converted to VBIED use and all I can think of is Oklahoma City or the truck attacks in France and Germany. What if they had used big rigs to crash into the lower floors and set off their bombs? When will some terrorist get the bright idea to use an armored car or fashion hillbilly armor onto a big rig and load it full of fertilizer bombs to take out a school or mall? I don't have a very active imagination so if I can think of this trash then so can the bad guys.
Pic of the day. Armata MBT in the wild! Updated!
Thanks to s300v4 for the link!
The Armata MBT is a good looking vehicle but I really expected it to be lower profile. That turret almost looks large enough to be manned. I don't know if anyone has done a size comparison but it seems that by going with a big gun RWS and an armored capsule for the crew, the size of their vehicles have actually increased (we know that to be true from pics during the last May Day Parade). Have the Russians added that much more armor to their new tank?
Note: It just occurred to me. Could this turret be optionally manned? From reading the comments, it seems that the Russians would have to know the dangers of a blind and dumb crew if all the electronics were knocked out. It would only make sense to have the option to man the turret if things went bad due to combat action or a simple malfunction. Just a thought.
The Armata MBT is a good looking vehicle but I really expected it to be lower profile. That turret almost looks large enough to be manned. I don't know if anyone has done a size comparison but it seems that by going with a big gun RWS and an armored capsule for the crew, the size of their vehicles have actually increased (we know that to be true from pics during the last May Day Parade). Have the Russians added that much more armor to their new tank?
Note: It just occurred to me. Could this turret be optionally manned? From reading the comments, it seems that the Russians would have to know the dangers of a blind and dumb crew if all the electronics were knocked out. It would only make sense to have the option to man the turret if things went bad due to combat action or a simple malfunction. Just a thought.
BAE Systems AMV35 creeping through scrub
Everyone talks about how big the Boxer is but the AMV ain't exactly small either! Never realized how big it is.
A recap of election night USA...Thursday Funny (at least to me!)
You lived thru a significant moment in US history. Dewey beats Truman pales in comparison! Even better is the reaction from the news media. A reader from Canada always asks who do I trust when it comes to news. I always tell him no one. That the Main Stream Media is biased. Of course since he's liberal beyond description he scoffs at that notion.
The above video shows how wrong he is. Take a few minutes to check it out and laugh at the idiocy, and marvel at the drama queens.
2nd Cavalry Regiment with UK Army's Mustang Squadron - Light Dragoons @ Troop Validation Exercise
This is for my British Army experts. What role does the Jackal fill? I thought it was only for long range patrol for Special Ops forces but even general purpose forces are using it? Is the Fox Hound already being sidelined? Is this the vehicle of the future for them? Side note. It's kinda big isn't it?
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