Open Comment Post. 20 Feb 2019

New Chinese infantry fighting vehicle at IDEX-2019

Note!  This thing is crazy.  Either the Chinese are trolling the hell outta us or they've gone mad.  Maybe my estimates are off...way off, but take a look at the pics and tell me if you're seeing what I am....

Continued!  Let's start at the front of this vehicle.  Either this thing is the most heavily armored tracked IFV planned, has an engine that can power an oil tanker or they have a HUGE amount of dead space up front.  How do I arrive at that?  Check out what I assume to be the drivers position just in front of the turret!  It's almost at the halfway point of the vehicle!  If this thing is to scale then it's monstrous.

Next take a look at the turret.  Then check out the caption that came with the pics (below)...

Until in the form of layout. Armament - 100 mm + 30 mm + 7.62 type turret of the BMP-3 and remote 2 installation type German Marder at the stern. The fighting compartment is similar to the same on BD-04A.

Again, I'm assuming that Chinese model makers build to scale.  That's a BMP turret riding on this thing.  By my crude estimates that makes this vehicle appear to be bigger than even their MBTs.  Probably bigger than even the Namer.

But wait it gets better! Check out the middle pic.  The caption says Marder style machine guns in the back.  Ok.  But again look at the scale!  50 cals?

If we're not getting trolled then the Chinese are about to build what the US Army wanted to...the 80 ton GCV.

Would they dare?

Is it possible I'm right?

What do you guys think?

2nd Tank Battalion Gunnery....pics by Lance Cpl. Ursula Smith

No F-35's for Turkey?

via AhavalNews.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed a spending bill that blocks the transfer of the country's F-35 new generation fighter jets to Turkey.

According to spending bill signed by Trump on Friday, delivery of the jets to Turkey will be blocked until the U.S. Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense submit an update to the report regarding the purchase of Turkey of the S–400 missile defense system from the Russian Federation.

In earlier report to the Congress, Pentagon said Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile systems could result in Ankara’s potential expulsion from the F-35 program, as well as affecting its acquisition of other weapons including Boeing Co. ’s CH-47F Chinook helicopter and Lockheed’s F-16 fighter and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

Story here. 

Hmm.  Definitely need to wait to see how this plays out.

The US Navy and Boeing receive permission to offer Finland the E/A-18G for the HX fighter program...

via Naval News.

Boeing and the U.S. Navy have received U.S. Department of Defense approval to offer the EA-18G Growler to Finland. Previously only Australia had been authorized to purchase the airborne electronic attack (AEA) aircraft.
-------------------------------------------------

An F/A-18 variant, the Growler is the world’s most advanced AEA platform and the only one in production today. It’s capable of disrupting, deceiving or denying a broad range of military electronic systems including radar and communication systems.

Story here.

This is interesting.  I never even considered the E/A-18G for the Finnish Air Force.  I wonder if they have a different view of future warfare than the rest of the Europeans?

Canada is trying to put lipstick on a tired bird...

Just wow.

Wonder how long Canada will be able to keep these planes in the air even with these upgrades changes.

At second glance these aren't major at all.  Small tweaks at the edges.

Suddenly I feel a bit of sympathy for the Canadian Air Force.  They're spunky but their leadership refuses to support them.  Whether new build Gripens or Typhoons or Super Hornets or even the F-35s...a decision needs to be made. 

Indecisiveness is NOT a desirable trait.

Today US Marines landed on Iwo Jima and suffered 6,800 casualties before seizing the island....

Today in 1945, US Marines land on Iwo Jima. 6,800 Americans are killed in the five-week campaign to secure the island. Japan's losses are higher with 18,000 dead. pic.twitter.com/FiVwxmEC2n

— Military History Now (@MilHistNow) February 18, 2019

Everyone talks peer vs peer warfare.

But has anyone thought about the butchers bill?  In WW2 US Marines could sustain 6,800 casualties over the course of just over a month and remain a coherent fighting force.

The public was NOT happy about the casualties but still supported the war.

If the same happened today would the American people still support the fight?  Could the US Army, US Marines, US Navy (I don't include the US Air Force because by the very nature of modern warfare unless a base was hit they wouldn't incur such losses) still function?

That's the loss of two Army Infantry Brigades.  Two Marine Expeditionary Units.  One Carrier plus a couple of escorts.

My point?

We need to think long and hard.  The American people must be educated about the cost of a future fight now.  Additionally politicians need to be made aware of the issues with fighting a peer opponent.

Can we win against a foe like China?

Yes.

But it will take more than tech, skilled warriors and courage on the battlefield.

It'll take conviction, a sense of purpose, a willingness to do the hard thing and see it through.

That's what I wonder about.  That's why I think any fight against a peer opponent MUST be framed as a fight for national survival.

Open Comment Post. 19 Feb 2019

Too Funny....Hoda Muthana 'deeply regrets' joining Isis and wants to return home

via Guardian.

An American woman captured by Kurdish forces after fleeing the last pocket of land controlled by Islamic State says she “deeply regrets” travelling to Syria to join the terror group and has pleaded to be allowed to return to her family in Alabama.

Agonising hunt by US father for children trapped in Isis enclave
 Read more
Once one of Isis’s most prominent online agitators who took to social media to call for the blood of Americans to be spilled, Hoda Muthana, 24, claims to have made a “big mistake” when she left the US four years ago and says she was brainwashed into doing so online.

Speaking from al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria, while her 18-month-old son played at her feet, Muthana said she misunderstood her faith, and that friends she had at the time believed they were following Islamic tenets when they aligned themselves to Isis.

“We were basically in the time of ignorance […] and then became jihadi, if you like to describe it that way,” she said. “I thought I was doing things correctly for the sake of God.”

Story here. 

Everyone has an "oh shit" moment.  Some are comedy gold.  Some are life altering.  Some demand punishment to the strongest degree possible.

This woman covered all the bases.

My opinion?

She shouldn't be allowed to return home.  I don't know the law book definition of treason but to join a terrorist organization that beheads its victims, to aid them in going on social media to call for the blood of Americans and then to want to return?

Not only no but hell no.

From LAV-25 to LAV-A2 and now LAV-A3?

via Defense Blog.

General Dynamics Land Systems – Canada (GDLS-C), a subsidiary of General Dynamics, has been awarded a $37.2 million (USD) contract to deliver 60 hardware kits for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) Reset Program.

According to a company’s statement, the hardware kit addresses key obsolescence and readiness issues and consists of a modern powerpack, driveline system, driver’s instrument panel and a new turret slip ring.

The fully integrated kits will be procured by General Dynamics and delivered to the Marine Corps for installation at Marine Corps Production Plants.

The enhancements are designed to extend the service life of the LAV into the 2030s.

Embedded in their original design, LAVs combine speed, maneuverability and firepower to perform a variety of functions, including security, command and control, reconnaissance and assault. The first LAVs were initially fielded in 1983.

Active light armored reconnaissance battalions will be the first units to receive the upgraded vehicles, which will become LAV A3s.

Just wow. 

Don't get this.  I thought they just upgraded to the LAV-A2 designation just a few years ago and now its on to LAV-A3?

Israel Eitan IFV in the Golan Heights (pics)...

Pics via Caesar's Twitter Page!  Follow this guy!

Drink it in boys and girls.  This is the best, top dawg, numero uno eight wheeled IFV in existence.  Ogden and Nicholas are Boxer fans but only because they haven't taken a good look at this ride.

I don't know how the Israelis do it but once again they've raised the bar when it comes to armored warfare.

AMRAAM-ER missile closer to production

via Press Release.

Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) successfully completed more than 1,700 rigorous wind tunnel tests on the newest, extended-range variant of the combat-proven AMRAAM® air-to-air missile. Testing is a major step in the missile's qualification for integration with the NASAMS™ surface-based system.

The AMRAAM-ER missile is a ground-launched weapon that will intercept targets at longer distances and higher altitudes. The missile's bigger rocket motor and smarter flight control algorithms give it a boost in range.

"During these tests, we put AMRAAM-ER through a full range of potential flight conditions to validate the missile's future performance on the battlefield," said Kim Ernzen, Raytheon Air Warfare Systems vice president. "Raytheon is developing this missile to enhance ground-based air defense for our customers worldwide."

Raytheon engineers will now analyze data from the wind tunnel test runs to verify and update the AMRAAM-ER missile's aerodynamic models to maximize its performance.

Royal Marines (40 Commando) train in Belize jungle

This is when you would pay good money for a nice dry solid piece of ground...bet that place crawls...story here.

About Swedish Pilots & Aircraft....

Thanks to CARGO for the link!

via CollectorAir.co.UK

Squadron exchanges were a regular occurrence at Coltishall,
and while on 41 Mike participated in a particularly interesting one
with F6 wing of the Swedish Air Force at Karlsborg, flying the AJ37
Viggen. Right from the start, he and his colleagues realised that much
was exceptional about the way the Swedes trained and operated, not
least considering that the majority of the pilots were effectively doing
national service. ‘When you looked at the people who were flying the
aeroplanes, I thought that we could learn from this, definitely. The
guy who flew me was a Honda 500cc works motorcycle rider; they
had rally drivers, go-kart racers, all kinds of things. These weren’t
people with good degrees in underwater basket-weaving, these were
people who were recruited to fly the Viggen. ‘The first to go up in the Viggen was our boss, Hilton Moses. I
remember going out with him to the aeroplane and seeing him laughing and smiling, and then seeing him getting out and coming back to
the crewroom looking like he’d just been put through some kind of
crazy combination between a fairground ride and a washing machine.
Then I went flying in the afternoon, and it changed my life.
‘They would fly around at Mach 0.95, 650kt give or take a bit, and
they trained at 10m. We flew through firebreaks in trees, we flew all
over northern Sweden at 30ft, and we never went below 600kt. All of
this, I should add, was done under about a 150 to 200ft overcast with
no breaks. In the RAF, anybody who wanted to get old would not have
flown in that weather. After about 40 minutes, we pulled up into cloud,
and the pilot then flew a 4-degree hands-off approach with his hands on
his head into a remote airstrip, landed, reversed into a parking bay, did
an engine-running refuel without any communication with the people
on the ground except hand signals, taxied out and took off in the direction that we’d landed in. Wind
direction just wasn’t factored.
Then we did some approaches
onto roadways, flying at 15 or
20ft to clear the cars and warn
them that there were going
to be some aeroplane movements before doing practice
approaches. And the aerobatics
beggared belief.
‘The next day, it was time
to take the Swedish pilots flying
in the Jaguar. I was at a bit of a
loss as t o how I was going to
explain to this guy that we
flew at 420kt when they flew
at 620kt. So I decided that the
way ahead was to leave the
part-throttle reheat in, accelerate to 620kt and then give
him the aeroplane. That’s what
I did — I took off, and gave
him control at 620kt and about
150ft. He pushed the nose
down, took the Jaguar down to
30ft and proceeded to fly it at
about 30 to 40ft and 600kt-plus quite happily. It knocked all the myths
about who’s got the best aeroplanes, who’s got the best-trained pilots
and so on. The Swedish Air Force had aeroplanes that were light years
ahead of anything the RAF had, or was going to get, or has got now,
and their pilots were in a totally different league to us. This was not
just an individual — I flew with three of them, and all three were like
that. Each of them was able to fly the Jaguar faster and lower from the
back seat than I cou ld from the front seat.
‘After that experience, I didn’t think that I would be able to cope
with continuing in the Jaguar

Here. 

Simply amazing.  It's definitely an eye opener to read stuff like this.  Impressive.

Open Comment Post. 18 Feb 2019

Let's put a pin in this "the A330 was a symptom of NIH"...and NIH altogether!

This issue has been bugging the hell outta me.  It flared up today in a discussion about the A330.

Trust me.  I only followed this story on the edges but I have read enough commentary from guys that DO know this subject well and THIS WAS NOT A CASE OF NOT INVENTED HERE!

That type thinking needs to be banished forever.  To recap.  The USAF wrote a solicitation for a next gen tanker.  AirBus along with their paid trolls littered the airways with talk about how it would apply great synergy with our allies.

Boeing looked fried.  It was damn near obvious that the USAF wanted the AirBus Tanker.

But a funny thing happened.

The A330 MRTT was too big for the solicitation!  As a matter of fact it was another one of those tweener aircraft that AirBus specializes in.  Bigger than the KC-135 it was replacing, but smaller (slightly) than the DC-10 that this program wasn't covering.

Long short?

The USAF rigged their competition and selected AirBus.  The airplane didn't fit any of the specs they laid out but they selected it anyway.  Boeing protested and won.  The USAF tried to rewrite the solicitation but gave up cause they would have let the cat out of the bag that they were going for a European solution.

Personally I don't care.

Why?

Because European corporations always build plants in the US to build gear for the US market.  That Glock I love?  Built in Smyrna, GA.  The ACV?  Iveco teamed with BAE-USA (yeah...for BAE to get into the US market they had to establish a STANDALONE entity!) to design and build the thing.

The weird thing about the ACV?  Totally different from the vehicle IVECO first developed.  It could almost be said that its a cousin of the original but its definitely different.

So what does this have to do with anything?

It's simple.

The US will buy gear from anywhere if the need is there.  The problem for foreign firms?  We have a VERY ROBUST defense industry, and we support our defense forces.  We spend money and this is the piggy bank everyone wants a piece of. 

Either your shit is good enough or it ain't but it IS NOT the US taxpayers responsibility to fund corporations in other countries.

For my European and Asian friends that don't like it?  Well write your representatives to have them buy only home built gear.  Want to take it a step further?  Then have your boys only use gear designed and built in your home countries.  I personally don't care.

We (the US) are a gun culture.  We are a warrior people.  Until the social engineers get done trying to mess with us, we will always be a leader when it comes to warfare.  On a personal and global scale.

F-35 to get a 16 BILLION DOLLAR software patch in Block 4...

via National Interest.

Over eight million lines of code have already gone into the F-35’s highly sophisticated networked computers, and Lockheed’s proprietary ALIS logistics system ties F-35 maintenance and repair activities directly to the company. However, early production Block I and II F-35s were delivered at full price lacking software for full combat capability. Only with the Block IIIF model entering service in 2019 will fully combat capable F-35s enter service.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is planning a major patch for F-35 software and hardware called Block 4 that will add or fix fifty-three capabilities—including nine capabilities planned to be in Block IIIF, but which were deferred due to implementation challenges. These include major performance upgrades and new weapons integration, as well as bug fixes and minor performance improvements.

And because this is the F-35 we’re talking about it, it’s also the most expensive patch ever. An earlier GAO cost estimate of $3.9 billion for Block 4 implementation was revealed to have quadrupled to $16 billion in hearing in March 2018: $10.8 billion for development and testing, and $5.4 billion for procurement of the upgrades. And according to an analysis on Defense-Aerospace, even $16 billion is likely inadequate.

Meanwhile, though the Pentagon has begun outlaying hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for Block 4 development, it doesn’t have the funding to pay for it all—even though foreign F-35 partners are on the hook to pay $3.7 billion in development costs, whether or not they procure Block 4.

Story here.

No commentary on this one.  I'll just leave that right there for you to see and discuss.

Breaking! French Intel Center attacked in Syria...news blackout, US forces secure perimeter...

Thanks to Vodkar for the link!

via Strategic 51 Blog.

Despite a total blackout on information and military censorship, a member of the Syrian Kurdish political-administrative body confirmed yesterday a bomb attack on Tuesday, February 12, 2019, the headquarters of military intelligence French and a branch of the DGSE (Directorate General of External Security) in the city of Raqqa by attributing it to Daesh.

The explosion, heard for miles around and felt as far as the US forward stations, destroyed the entire building occupied by the French services. MSF forces rushed to the scene to rescue the wounded.

US forces would have secured the perimeter of the attack and blocked access to what remains of the complex.

Story here. 

Just plain wow.

This is why I love ALL my readers from around the world.  Being able to grab different news sources.  More grainy pics at the site but we've got to see if this is real.

Notional F-22C Super Raptor looks good..but how much longer can they fly - will they soon number below 50?

First.  The Notional F-22C Super Raptor (is it a concept) looks good.  The performance seems eye watering and its weapons load, range and speed seems custom designed for war in the Pacific.  That's the good.

Second.  Take all the memes we've heard about 4th gen fighters and then add to them because there is NO new build F-22's.  How much longer can we keep them flying?  How expensive will it be to keep them flying even if we're able to somehow make it work?

Last.  We're gonna have to carefully monitor these planes.  Even being gentle with them we're probably looking at a not too distant reality of just a portion remaining in "go to war" shape.  Maybe 50?

Love the F-35.  Hate the F-35.  Doesn't matter.  We need to start that crash program for a 6th gen fighter now.

Open Comment Post. 17 Feb 2019