Friday, January 25, 2019
Marines want amphibs armed for the coming fight...
via USNI News.
In this type of warfare, Coffman argued while speaking to reporters after his speech, a three-ship Amphibious Ready Group and the accompanying Marine Expeditionary Unit will not be sufficient. No longer can “three amphibious ships and a commodore and a colonel can move around and get it done.” Rather, he said, the Navy and Marine Corps need to become more proficient in operating larger Expeditionary Strike Groups with Marine Expeditionary Brigades that can sustain themselves for longer fights, and in fighting alongside carrier strike groups as part of a large Expeditionary Strike Force.Story here.
Lt. Gen. Brian Beaudreault, deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for plans, policies and operations, expressed a similar sentiment during his speech at the SNA event, noting that the ARG of today will not be sufficient for a future fight.
In his mind, the solution is either alternate ship formations that bring in destroyers or cruisers to help protect the amphibious ships and their embarked Marines, or upgrades to the amphibs themselves to allow for organic self-protection.
Wow! I should be getting paid for consulting work by the Marine Corps! How many times have I shouted on these pages that we need a "Reinforced MEU" by adding another amphibious ship to the package!
But the General is getting this wrong.
He's playing outside his lane. Why do we (Marines) keep insisting on telling the Navy what ships to build? Navy Matters has a MUST READ that lays out his thoughts on the matter (here) but suffice it to say we're in complete agreement.
As for the part about operating in Marine Expeditionary Brigades? I thought that was more a "command and control" function. Didn't they exercise bringing a couple of MEUs together to form a "Brigade (-)"?
But back to the issue at hand. Do you know the last time that I can remember the Marine Corps demanded that a ship be built? I'm NOT talking about standard amphibs.
Yeah that's right. This abomination that you see below...
Yeah. The Expeditionary Transfer Dock. I'll never forget what I heard the Skipper of one of these ships say. To paraphrase (and this is while he was on exercise), "we're still figuring out how to use it"!
You heard my gripe now hear my solution.
The budget is what the budget is. The Marine Corps isn't in a position to dictate ship building to the Navy. Adding Vertical Launch Cells or whatever to our amphibs isn't going to get us much except to make them even higher value targets in a peer vs peer fight.
Working to get more escorts is probably the way to go...fewer Destroyers sailing solo and more assigned to shadow the Gators. Additionally we should rationalize the ESD. We have a total of 5 on order. Two should be the LCAC Carriers. Modifications should be relatively minor. Instead of doing at sea transfers from amphib to ESD and then onto LCAC for our gear they would be pure landing craft carriers.
As for the other three? They should all be brought up to the ESD Variant Class. The modifications I would recommend is to remove the facilities at the bow of the ship and reclaim that deck space. These ships would NOT sail alone but would serve as lilly pads for excess aircraft for big deck amphibs or LPDs. If hangar/maintenance facilities are a must have then it would require more modification and we would revert to the original style that was first thought of long ago. The lower deck would get "walls" to waterproof it and we would add an elevator so aircraft could be lowered to be worked on.
I think modifying these ships would be an easier sell to the Navy than demanding that we do another design change and add missiles to the amphibs.
One thing is certain.
The budget situation requires cooperation, not requests or demands. Decreased budgets are baked into the cake (even if Trump backed down on the idea). The money is gone. We've got to get smarter!
Thursday, January 24, 2019
V-280 just hit 280 knots true airspeed!!!!
My God! I want an order!
Let's see...about 100 for SOCOM, another 200 for the USMC (paint them Marine Grey and get them in the air), another 100 for USAF Special Ops/Pararescue and finally let's give about 500 to the US Coast Guard.
That's a good start!
Oh, story here.
Israeli Minister of Intelligence declared that Israel is now in “an open confrontation with Iran”…
Thanks to AL Z for the link!
via Drudge Report.
We always knew that this was coming. We always knew that there would eventually be a war between Israel and Iran, but we had hoped that it could be put off for as long as possible. Well, now it appears that time may have run out. The exchange of missiles between the IDF and Iranian forces based in Syria on Sunday represented a major escalation of a conflict that has been simmering at a low level for months. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pledging to continue to “strike at the Iranian entrenchment in Syria”, and on the other side the Iranians and the Syrians have changed the rules of the engagement to allow for a military response against Israel every time Israel strikes targets inside Syria. What this means is that there are going to be more missiles going back and forth, and it seems inevitable that both sides will eventually cross the point of no return.Wow.
And even now, we may be dangerously close to that line. In the aftermath of the missile exchange on Sunday, the Israeli Minister of Intelligence declared that Israel is now in “an open confrontation with Iran”…
Yisrael Katz, Israel’s Minister of Intelligence, later told Galatz that the policy for taking on Iran in Syria had changed and that the Jewish state was now in “open confrontation” with Iran.
“This is an open confrontation with Iran. When we need to step it up, we’ll step it up,” Katz said while again adding that Israel would not allow the continuing Iranian entrenchment in Syria.
But the Iranians are not going anywhere, and they do not intend to back down at all. So Israel will continue to strike the area in and around the airport in Damascus, and the Syrians are threatening to hit Ben Gurion Airport in return…
Syria’s United Nations envoy called on the world body’s Security Council to take measures against Israel’s continued assault on Syrian territories, as reported by the Syrian news agency Sana, wondering whether it would take a Syrian attack on Tel Aviv Airport to draw the council’s attention.
“Does drawing the attention of the war-makers in this Council require us to exercise our legitimate right to self-defense and respond to Israeli aggression on Damascus International Airport by responding in the same way on Tel Aviv Airport?” the Syrian envoy, Dr. Bashar Al-Ja’afari, asked.
If Ben Gurion gets hit, we will immediately see fireworks in the Middle East like we haven’t seen in decades.
And the Iranians fully expect such a conflict to break out. In fact, earlier this week the commander of Iran’s air force boldly declared that his forces “are fully ready and impatient to confront the Zionist regime and eliminate it from the Earth”…
The head of Iran’s air force said on Monday the country was ready to fight Israel and destroy it.
Speaking to the Young Journalist Club, a website supervised by state television, Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh said: “The young people in the air force are fully ready and impatient to confront the Zionist regime and eliminate it from the Earth.”
The Iranians fully mean what they are saying. They absolutely hate Israel with a passion and they will not stop until it no longer exists.
Last month, another top Iranian official made it exceedingly clear what Iran intends to do…
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Deputy Commander for Cultural and Social Affairs, said in a December 28 interview with the Iraqi television network Al-Nujaba that the “Islamic revolution in Iran will not back down” from the goal of “wiping out” the Jewish state.
And he went on to add that he plans to personally raise a flag over the city of Jerusalem once they conquer it…
He vowed to take part in that effort. “We were, we are, and we will continue to be the soldiers of Imam Khamenei,” he said, “until our last breath and until the last drop of our blood. I myself will hoist the flag of the Islamic Revolution in Jerusalem, Allah willing.”
Are you starting to understand why war between Israel and Iran is inevitable?
Iran is run by a bunch of nutjobs that all believe that they have a religious duty to wipe Israel off the face of the planet. They think about this every day when they wake up, and they are still thinking about it every day when they go to sleep.
And if Israel and Iran go to war, guess who else will almost certainly enter the conflict?
President Trump has pledged to do whatever it takes to defend the nation of Israel, and it was recently revealed that at one point the White House actually asked the Pentagon to draw up a plan for bombing Iran.
Of course the Russians are already allied with Iran and their forces are already in Syria, and so they could easily be dragged into the conflict on the other side.
What we are talking about is an apocalyptic scenario which could easily lead to the outbreak of World War 3.
But we have gotten this far without a major regional war erupting in the Middle East, and hopefully cooler heads will prevail and things will calm down in the days ahead.
Because war is truly a horrible thing, and nobody should want to see a conflict erupt in which millions of people could potentially die.
I consider the readers of this blog to be some of the most informed people on the planet when it comes to military affairs. We all have our own "specialties" but when we put our collective heads together we cover most of the spectrum.
But riddle me this.
How many of you knew that the Israeli strike in Syria was aimed at the Quds Force? Ok, then how many of you heard that the Israeli Minister Of Intelligence made the statement that they're in open confrontation with Iran?
How many knew that (I learned this after a quick check of Israeli papers) that even from an untrained eye the Israelis appear to be prepping their population for strikes? One last one. How many knew that Israel has recently moved Iron Dome sites to new locations...new Iron Dome complexes, not simply moving those that already exist?
Additional reading here.
The proxy war looks to be giving way to the main event. Israel, the GCC (what's left of it) and possibly the US (don't know if it'll be directly or just in support) against Iran, Syria and possibly Russia (don't know if it'll be directly or just in support). Note that I don't list Turkey or Iraq because I believe they'll sit this one out. One additional note. Syria has seen new diplomatic missions open from a variety of Arab states. This thing, if it happens, will be messy as hell. We've seen regional war in terms of Israel vs the Arab league but that was in a confined (relatively) area. This regional war, if it happens, could stretch from Iran, across Saudi Arabia, with overflights of Iraq, to Syria, Israel and Lebanon with Jordan/Kuwait possibly targeted too.
Just plain wow.
Navy Lookout Twitter Page made a chilling statement...
We are taking 8 years to build the first Type 26 frigate, and then delivering one every 18 months - 2 years.— NavyLookout (@NavyLookout) January 24, 2019
BTW China is building almost the equivalent of the entire Royal Navy every year...https://t.co/M5pR2IJnmK pic.twitter.com/ttQj5PanEY
Navy Lookout said it in passing but its a chilling statement. "BTW China is building almost the equivalent of the entire Royal Navy every year..."
Think about that!
1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division conduct a Combined Arms Live Fire Exercise at the end of exercise Combined Resolve XI ....Video by Gertrud Zach
Caption:
U.S. Soldiers with 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade
Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division conduct a Combined Arms Live Fire Exercise at the end of exercise Combined Resolve XI at the 7th Army Training
Command's Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Jan. 23, 2019. Combined
Resolve XI is the final exercise in 1/1 CD's rotation in support of Atlantic
Resolve in Europe, which evaluates the interoperability of U.S Forces with
their NATO allies and partners.
Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum participate to the Operation Liaison Reconnaissance Team (OLRT) driving training
Call it personal bias but I am always amazed at how these vehicles with their tiny engines are able to somehow, someway get up hills in some pretty rough conditions. Unimpressive ground clearance. Pathetic power. Weak torque. But they still get the job done.
Now will someone till me what an "operation liaison recon team" does?
25 more AH-1Z's for the USMC...
via FlightGlobal.
The US Marine Corps has ordered 25 additional Bell AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters for $439.5 million.Story here.
The helicopters are part of production Lot 16, the Department of Defense said in a notice on 18 January. Naval Air Systems Command is contracting the aircraft on behalf of the USMC.
Some 60% of the work on the attack helicopters will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas and the rest will be done in Amarillo, Texas. The lot is expected to be completed in January 2022.
Something is wrong. Either the AH-1Z is crazy expensive or they're ordering something "extra" that somehow escaped the recent Army order. What am I talking about? The US Army just placed an order for 22 AH-64E's at almost half the price (gotta find the article that talked about the purchase).
How can that be? I thought for sure the AH-1Z was 99% of what the AH-64E was, yet completely compatible for shipboard use ... in other words a bargain.
But let's put a pin in that and hope the extras make this seem more reasonable and talk about the elephant in the room.
The budget trainwreck.
How are they gonna climb out of it when we can't finish any buys? We have the looming F-35 purchase (unless this signals that it's gonna be cut), the CH-53K, the ACV...you know the cast of characters...as things stand the budget is gonna be trashed for the foreseeable future.
Photos purportedly of an Algerian Super Hind MK III.
Pics via Robert Lee Twitter Page!
I always wondered why they didn't just do a massive weight loss project for this helicopter and make it a world beater. Remove the troop carriage, put the armor in a few practical places, lighten it up and then sit back and watch it fly.
As things stand it just looks awesome. The last pic is just plain mean looking! I like.
I always wondered why they didn't just do a massive weight loss project for this helicopter and make it a world beater. Remove the troop carriage, put the armor in a few practical places, lighten it up and then sit back and watch it fly.
As things stand it just looks awesome. The last pic is just plain mean looking! I like.
Article – The Battle of Marawi: Small Team Lessons Learned For the Close Fight.
Thanks to Donno for the link!
This is some of the most vicious sustained combat that you'll never hear about. Quite honestly I haven't done the amount of reading on the subject that I should but from what little I have done its remarkable. The courage under fire is undeniable. The performance of the Philippine Army/Marines is MUCH better than I expected and I'm still waiting to hear the role that US Special Forces/Marine Special Ops/Navy SEALs and others played in support of them.
But the after action and lessons learned.
That's what I've been waiting for.
The COVE did an article on the subject that is worth your time. Check it out here.
This is some of the most vicious sustained combat that you'll never hear about. Quite honestly I haven't done the amount of reading on the subject that I should but from what little I have done its remarkable. The courage under fire is undeniable. The performance of the Philippine Army/Marines is MUCH better than I expected and I'm still waiting to hear the role that US Special Forces/Marine Special Ops/Navy SEALs and others played in support of them.
But the after action and lessons learned.
That's what I've been waiting for.
The COVE did an article on the subject that is worth your time. Check it out here.
Russian Shock UAV “Hunter”
Note. The above pics are from BMachine Tumblr Page. I saw the pics posted on the blog yesterday by S300V4 and others but did not comment. Apparently its something new out of the land of the bear (Russia) and although he labeled it as a UAV Hunter I have no idea what its gonna be for. I guess we wait and see...or wait for an open source to tell us.
Next Gen Tank Gun? How about 140mm!
Thanks to John John Slade for the link!
via Janes.
Nexter has fit a 140 mm gun on a Leclerc main battle tank (MBT) to gather data for the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) programme to replace it and the Leopard 2, Jane's learned at the International Armoured Vehicles (IAV) 2019 conference held in London on 21-24 January.Wow.
This is understood to be the first time that a 140 mm gun has been successfully integrated onto a 50-tonne MBT and conducted over 200 firings. It is expected to provide a 70% increase in firepower over a NATO standard 120 mm gun.
Nexter has resurrected past efforts to develop a 140 mm main weapon to establish which firepower solutions are best suited to meet the MGCS requirement.
I've been waiting for armor development to pick up pace but this is craziness. The Chinese have supposedly tested a 140mm gun and now Nexter is showing that it can do it too.
Where does this lead us?
I can't help but think that IF 140mm guns become the standard then not only are we gonna see the weight of MBTs increase but the desperation to knock them out.
Everything will spiral.
I would expect rotary UAVs to proliferate. Not the small ones but AH-1Z sized. Could we see an effort at making A-10's unmanned so they could go out and hunt these behemoths before they get in range of friendly forces?
Additionally I think armor will have to increase. The idea of a tank approaching 100 tons won't be considered insane anymore. Neither will the idea of an IFV knocking on the door of the "old" MBT weights. I'm talking about IFVs hitting 70 tons and no one batting an eyelash.
I wonder if there is another way. Rail guns on MBTs? From what I understand its about energy generation so that's probably a no go. Hypervelocity guns like the 60mm that the Israelis once placed on Shermans? I don't know if anyone has worked on the tech since then. A rebirth of a modernized LOSAT? Yeah I could see that. But! We'd have to package it much differently than we did previously.
This should be interesting.
I've been critical of the unmanned vehicle theorists. The reason is that we've seen that it could work for the longest time but the military never bit. From the Crusher to the Terramax, if we wanted it we could have had it.
It seems like a future battlefield will be so lethal that we might start off manned and end up unmanned just because of the carnage.
Exciting and a bit concerning. The future will be a sight to behold.
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Uh-Oh...Looks like the USAF is gonna have to update it's paint scheme for their aggressor squadron based on the SU-57 pattern...
Remember the post I did on the new paint scheme for the USAF aggressor squadrons that is based on the SU-57 pattern paint (here). Well it looks like they're already gonna have to update it!
Thanks to S300v4 for the pics.
French LHAs change name from Command & Projection (BPC) to Armored Aircraft Carrier (CPA) and Amphibious Helicopter Carrier (PHA)
[#QUIZ ⚠️] RT + follow et tirage au sort pour gagner un #kit #Marine 🎁— Marine nationale (@MarineNationale) January 23, 2019
Les Bâtiments de projection et de commandement (BPC) changent d'appellation ! Le fer de lance des opérations amphibies est désormais le :
1⃣ Cuirassé porte-aéronefs (CPA)
2⃣ Porte-hélicoptères amphibie (PHA) pic.twitter.com/W9iIaGTT32
Hmm. Ok. Wonder what's driving this change. Seems a little like the old SecNav's nonsense has spread to the French.
45 Commando actually think they have a chance? Those poor bastards!
Good luck to the 45th of foot. Be audacious and cunning... https://t.co/WE0yvP3hlI— 40 Commando (@40commando) January 22, 2019
This should be interesting! The title was clickbait. The reality is that I hope both groups get some good, intense training in. Next time bring in the USAF, a couple of Navy Fighter Squadrons, an Army Brigade with attached Aviation...hell make this thing huge and add RAF squadrons, a few from the Fleet Air Arm too and pick your British Army outfit, can't leave out the National Guard, Coast Guard and SOCOM.
Make this thing extend (for the live fire) across 29 Palms and NTC and incorporate Red Flag into it just for giggles.
Too big?
Nope.
We fight big. Stop playing at interoperability and actually conduct fewer but more intense training involving a variety of units from different nations, services etc....that is the answer instead of a hodgepodge of tiny exercises.
Naval News is reporting on a new Landing Craft for the French Navy. Follow these guys!
.@CNIM_Group to Deliver 14 new EDA-S Landing Craft for the @MarineNationale #amphibiouswarfare https://t.co/KpZI3e3pzv pic.twitter.com/3TZM5lQo7Q— Naval News (@navalnewscom) January 21, 2019
Naval News from the same guys that brought you Army Recognition. Follow them! I am!
Found this vid...
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