Friday, August 04, 2023

With Force Design 2030 is Marine Infantry now Combat Support?

 I ask the above question seriously.

Think about it.  The incoming Commandant is maintaining course. He's full speed ahead with Force Design 2030.  Stating it simply without all the professor talk, Marine Infantry is now all about conducting recon/counter recon (In extremis I would think...these units are suppose to be undetected), and perform sea denial operations.

That means that unmanned JLTVs firing Tomahawk missiles along with HIMARs take center stage in the Ground Combat Element.

We've seen Force Design 2030 rolled out beyond the Pacific too so the job remains the same.

I've said it before but it bears repeating.  The ground element is all about "sensing and making sense".  It's not about closing with the enemy.  Missile artillery is the weapon/system of choice.

So having said all that is Marine Infantry combat support now?

Talisman Sabre 23. How is this working? Everyone is practicing amphibious operations & the USMC is doing sea denial?

Note. I don't even know what they're doing anymore. They keep talking about amphibious operations but the USMC is all about sea control/denial. So is that how its playing out? Everyone is doing amphibious ops while the USMC is off in a corner doing its own thing? None of the media being put out by ANYONE makes it clear what the fuck is going on down there.

UK Intel is blaming shrubbery on Ukraine's poor performance during their counter offensive...

 

When the spin masters resort to this kind of idiocy then you know the wheels are coming off....

HIMARS Live Fire Certification at Fort McCoy (Why aren't we working on the next gen?)

Note. Why aren't we working on a Himars 2.0 right now? I'm talking several versions too! How about a launcher that has the same number of missiles that fits on a MTVR or Army 5-ton as on the tracked version? How about a MLRS that can be based off the JLTV? Why not a few robotic types that can be airlifted by KAMAX UAV and dropped on a spot, monitored electronically and can fire on demand? We seem mighty comfortable with current development instead of moving on with the next gen.

Open Comment Post. 4 Aug 23

Videos of testing of the “NURSE” logistics platform

 

Ukraine has me puzzled. I saw a vid showing the "two" Ukraines. One showed images of women twerking in a club and the other showed dudes on the battlefield hoping for another sunrise. I don't get it. At this point in the war I would think that we would see a full civilian/military mobilization for war. Of course you're always gonna have a party scene but when you're conscripted 60 year olds and mentally retarded to feed the meat grinder I would think that the "party" would be alot more muted. This brings me to the defense sector. The above vid is work that is being done by a Ukrainian company. Ok. But why aren't they working on stuff that can be used NOW in this war and not aimed at keeping up with foreign markets. If you're building unmanned ground vehicles then you have the tooling to repair vehicles that have been busted up. I have a problem with the prioritization I'm seeing.

Thursday, August 03, 2023

Mojave UAS completes its first-ever dirt takeoff and landing tests on an unimproved desert strip near El Mirage, California.

 

Things continue to sizzle in Africa

I have to believe or rather hope that someone is YELLING at the administration from the Pentagon that the last place they want to send US forces to fight is Africa. Whether we're helping the French and other European nations or not, this is NOT a place we want to get entangled in.

My fear is that they won't listen.

That the French will bully Biden into fighting their fight for them and we'll end up hip deep in Africa.

You think Afghanistan was bad?

Wait till we wade hip deep into Central Africa.

In Africa, Wagner will do the Special Forces "force multiplier" thing, we will be facing a hybrid force of terrorist and conventional forces while at the same time battling ISIS, other terrorist and trying to do the humanitarian mission thing.

This will be bad if Biden misplays things.

U.S. Army’s newest combat vehicle: the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV).

 

“Olympics” of Pacific-based exercises, the event has a build-up phase that’s also very Army-centric.

 via Army Times

The 3rd Multidomain Task Force, activated in September 2022 out of Fort Shafter, Hawaii, saw its first operational deployment in Talisman Sabre, an exercise in its 10th biennial iteration as a joint U.S.-Australian Pacific theater exercise that has grown to include 13 nations and more than 30,000 troops.

&

 The 1st Multidomain Task Force was the first such formation for the Army and was activated in 2017. That unit also conducted the first long-range deployment of the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon over 3,100 miles from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington to Cape Canaveral, Florida, according to an Army release. The 2nd Multidomain Task Force is based out of Europe.

These task forces knit together a range of domains and capabilities that the Army is relying on to fight its first new doctrine, Multi-Domain Operations, in more than 40 years as it shifts the force to the multi-domain operations way of fighting.

Those domains and capabilities include “theater-specific units that employ long-range precision effects, including cyber, electronic warfare, intelligence and long-range fires,” according to an Army release. Within the task force the multidomain effects battalion serves as the “targeting brain” of the force, Flynn said.

“It is creating the interoperability needed with our allies and partners and it is also creating opportunities for the joint force to improve our joint cueing, joint targeting, joint collection and our joint ability to sense, move and communicate, and see, sense and understand what’s actually happening in the environment,” Flynn told Army Times.

Here

The US Army is about to drink the Marine Corps' milkshake.  They're gonna do everything the Marine Littoral Regiment does except do it bigger. 

HQMC labored hard, Berger wrecked the Corps and all they did was lose combat power, and force the Marines into a one theater, one enemy capability.

Polish-supplied KTO Rosomak-M1 APC in Ukrainian service

The Rosomak is in Ukrainian service. If things were as they are supposed to be I would be able to get a good assessment of how the Rosomak stacks up against the Stryker in terms of mobility, firepower, etc...Things are not normal though. The Stryker has been horribly used and I expect the same for the Rosomak.

I don't know who made the "go" decision for this offensive but they might have made the biggest blunder of the war.

Ukraine wasn't ready.  The US/NATO/EU hadn't properly prepped the supply chain for their success and no one accounted for internal corruption & incompetence.

Long story short?

This thing was doomed from the start.

The Ukrainian offensive just can't gain any traction

3 American fighters were killed in Ukraine

Zelensky looks small, angry, out of place and in over his head.

This dude's time in the sunshine is rapidly coming to an end. I don't know who his script writers are but its way past time for him to dump the Army fatigues and get his scrawny ass in a suit. That little angry man look he's putting on ain't fooling anyone. He's in over his head and everyone around him looks like they're tired of his bullshit. God knows I am. History books will not be kind to the little comedian.

Republicans are in net opposition to funding Ukraine

 

If you've been following what's going on in cities with the fight for resources (money) then you knew this would happen. Leadership will eventually HAVE TO turn their attention to issues within our OWN country or risk losing it all (if they're not already too late). Kingdoms crumble from outside forces or WITHIN! I fully expected a resource war in Africa. Should have looked closer to home. Make no mistake. The Republican party is just the canary in the coal mine but soon enough the Dems will look at Ukraine and wonder why all that money isn't being spent here.

Apparently cruise missiles are getting thru and hitting Odesa region

Cdr Salamander made a post yesterday which hit on the number of munitions we have ready to go day one in a war. It seems like after a year of fighting Ukraine is running out of anti-air missiles. The Shahed is NOT a high tech weapon. Its not fast. It is getting thru. I have to wonder if our anti-air doctrine is jaded to the point of irrelevance. The battlefield is covered. High value targets are covered. Everything in between isn't. A big gap exists when it comes to value vs value, which we're on the losing end of. A 1/2 million dollar missile to take out a ten thousand dollar drone is terrible economics. We're back to the kill the archer thing but that means we have to kill the enemy anti-air quick.

TLDR?

Do we still have Wild Weasel squadrons?  If not can we reform them quickly to kill enemy anti-air so we can take out their drone launchers?  With the disaster of the Scud hunt decades ago, could we even find them quickly enough to make a difference?

Contract has officially been signed for 90 (+35 in addition as optional) C2 Arietes, heavily upgraded C1 Arietes

Open Comment Post. 3 Aug 23

Wednesday, August 02, 2023

Ukraine is admitting (slowly) that their counter offensive has failed.

WTF? The used US tactics in their assault against Russian fortifications? I saw no indication of that! NONE! The US/NATO/EU was so busy training line units that they forgot to get the Brigade/Battalion Commanders trained up. This thing has been jacked up from the assault and everything I'm seeing is indicating that they're starting the prep to let the Western public know that the counter offensive has failed.