US Army getting 18 M109A7 self propelled howitzers...

The M109A7 program is a significant upgrade over the vehicle’s predecessor, the M109A6 Paladin Self-Propelled Howitzer, restoring space, weight, and power-cooling, while providing growth potential for emerging technologies. The design includes a Bradley-common chassis, engine, transmission, suspension, steering system, and improved survivability, while leveraging technologies developed during the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon program such as a 600 volt on-board power system. The state-of-the-art “digital-backbone” and power generation capability provides significant growth potential for future payloads as well as accommodating existing battlefield network requirements.

Did you notice what the Army is doing here?  Slowly but surely they're settling on the Bradley chassis as the base platform for their tracked family of vehicles.

Its subtle and could point to where armor is going.  If a future medium tank is built using the Bradley chassis then its a huge win for the Army.

What the FUCK! Call of Duty!!! Updated.

Thanks Dima for pointing this out to me!

This shit has me high and to the right.

I don't know what the game developers over at Call of Duty are smoking but they need be throat punched, followed by a steel toed boot to the 'nads and then taken out back and having the living shit beat out of them.

You don't play with this.

You don't have the fucking right.

The CoD bastards need to get a clue.  Yeah.  Its a game, but this shit is fucking disrespectful....they crossed the line big time.

Update:  As usual, my readers say it better than I ever could...

Movies are storytelling. Games are interaction. Having a movie or a game cutscene with military funeral is one thing. "Press F to pay respects" is basically treating a military funeral like a minigame. Like "Press F to enter the vehicle", "Press F to use the machinegun turret". You dont turn a funeral into some minigame. I myself am just an ex-IDF MP, and this just feels...wrong...
 Dima, a frequent commenter on this blog 

It just doesn't feel wrong.  It is wrong.  The whole world can disagree but I don't care.  This time the world needs to move, not me.

SEAL community finally tones down its act.

via Daily Beast.

He speaks with wistful bitterness of how in the aftermath of No Easy Day’s publication, he reached out to that SEAL Team 6 commander who fashioned the fake headstone to explain that he’d never intended to put out anything that would endanger his teammates.
The Navy captain responded to the text from Bissonnette with the words, “Delete me.”
Ahead of the publication of his latest book, the current head of all Navy SEALs, Rear Adm. Brian Losey, repeated that sentiment in a letter to the community that seemed timed for Bissonnette’s 60 Minutes appearance this weekend—and the advertised appearance of a SEAL who calls himself “The Shooter” who is slated to appear talking about the raid on Fox News later this month.
“A critical tenant of our ethos is ‘I do not advertise the nature of my work nor seek recognition for my actions,’” says the letter obtained by The Daily Beast, signed by both Losey and the SEAL Force Master Chief M.L. Magaraci.
“Violators of our ethos are neither teammates in good standing, nor teammates who represent Naval Special Warfare. We do not abide willful or selfish disregard for our core values in return for public notoriety and financial gain, which only diminishes otherwise honorable service.”
The letter goes on to say “All members exposed to classified information have a duty to protect this information, regardless of what may be reflected in the media, accurately or otherwise,” and finishes by saying the command will seek judicial consequences against those who “willfully violate the law and place our teammates, our families and potential future operations at risk.”

I find this fascinating.

Early on I was slamming the way that the SEALs all seemed to be attention seekers.  I compared how working with Green Berets was a painless, enjoyable experience (well as enjoyable as an op can be) ... How Rangers were just confused Marines and how Navy SEALs always came off as too cool for school.

When the former Top SEAL and SOCOM Commander McRaven was doing his "around the world tour" and then was confronted by a retired US Army Green Beret General, who admonished him for being in the public eye so much...while a room full of reporters laughed at the weathered old snake eater, my stomach turned.

Now we have this.

The SEAL Community has turned on one of their own because he published a book on the Bin Laden raid.

I wonder what made this one book too many?  I wonder why it suddenly became an organization that works in the shadows?  I wonder what happened to have them finally get the message that an old, retired, two star snake eater was trying to get across to them.

I don't know what happened or why, but it really looks like the SEAL community is toning down its act.

Should service be required for citizenship?

The issue is debated in the movie cut above but the book is a far better and deeper dive into the issue.

Should service be required for citizenship?

I'm calling it. Africa is going to be a battlefield...the rush for resources has started.

via Shepherd of the Gurneys...

Now, a representative of MSF/DWB is saying there are more dead just in Sierra Leone, than the current reported total of Ebola deaths worldwide.
(For reference, Sierra Leone currently reports 1500 deaths, and the world total is 13,703.)
Barcelona (AFP) - Ebola has wiped out whole villages in Sierra Leone and may have caused many more deaths than the nearly 5,000 official global toll, a senior coordinator of the medical aid group MSF said Friday.
Rony Zachariah of Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said after visiting Sierra Leone that the Ebola figures were "under-reported", in an interview with AFP on the sidelines of a medical conference in Barcelona.
"The situation is catastrophic. There are several villages and communities that have been basically wiped out. In one of the villages I went to, there were 40 inhabitants and 39 died," he said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) published revised figures on Friday showing 4,951 people have died of Ebola and there was a total of 13,567 reported cases.
"The WHO says there is a correction factor of 2.5, so maybe it is 2.5 times higher and maybe that is not far from the truth. It could be 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000," said Zachariah.
He stressed that "whole communities have disappeared but many of them are not in the statistics. The situation on the ground is actually much worse.""Whole communities have disappeared..."
We're not going to stop Ebola over there. The possibility is long past. That option is toast. And very shortly, the afflicted countries will be too.

Do you get the force of connection here?

Consider.  The UK sent a force to Sierra Leone.  We have heard jack squat from them since their arrival.

Consider.  The US has sent the 101st to Liberia.  We have heard jack squat from them.

If we're seeing this type of stuff from open source materials then those in charge have much better visibility.  Remember.  Our UN Representative just left that region and is now back.

I'm calling it.  Africa is going to be a battlefield.  A disease has removed the thorny issue of what to do with the indigenous people and now the race for resources is on.

The only question is whether China feels confident enough to stop a power play by the US and Western European powers.

One Marine for 11 million illegals?

via AP

A Mexican judge ordered the immediate release of a jailed U.S. Marine veteran who spent eight months behind bars for crossing the border with loaded guns.
The judge on Friday called for retired Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi (Tah-mor-EE-si) to be freed because of his mental state and did not make a determination on the illegal arms charges against the Afghanistan veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a Mexican official who had knowledge of the ruling but was not authorized to give his name.

This is hard.

A Marine is freed and while I'm happy about that I can't cheer.  Why?  Because I get the sense...and no I can't prove it...but I get the sense that this was a move that was made purely for political expediency.

How would it look to grant 11 million (or more) illegal aliens amnesty while one of our own was being held on trumped up charges?

Just like the Bergdahl trade, I think we might have paid too high a price.

Lockheed Martin Havoc. Did they uparmor the thing?

I was re-watching some of the vids put out by the vehicle manufacturers competing for the MPC/ACV/ACV 1.1 (or whatever HQMC is calling the thing these days) and I noticed that extra armor has been applied to the Havoc.

In the swim portion of the vid I caught onto the changes in the swim vane and I guess I was so focused on that portion of the vid that I missed the obvious.

Interesting.

Sidenote.  Real nice how they put an AAV turret on this beast.  The Yat-Yas boys must be happy as hell.  They get easier cross training and almost a plug and play option for crew members if its adopted.  Very nicely done LM MFC.