F-35B BF-10 First Flight

Lockheed Martin test pilot Bill Gigliotti flew F-35B BF-10 (Navy Bureau Number 168061), on its inaugural flight on 15 March 2012 from NAS Fort Worth JRB

OH SHIT!!!!

MASSIVE HAT TIP TO JACKSON!!!

I couldn't believe this shit when I first saw it!

Marine Art.

Battle of Belleauwood

"I had just read Ernst Jünger's brutal World War I memoirs, 'Storm of
Steel', and was really inspired to do some imagery from that time
period. Naturally, I went looking for the Marine Corps' side of the
story and read up more on the Battle of Belleau Wood. Initially I
thought about doing this with traditional paints, but there's already
a lot of incredible paintings depicting Belleau Wood. So I did a
sketch in ink brush, which I then scanned and colored in Adobe
Photoshop. Although I do love doing drawings from real life, with this
image I deliberately took a more exaggeratedly stylized approach to
make something that looked like it could be a screencap from an
animated film about Belleau Wood."
(U.S. Marine Corps Artwork by Cpl. Reagan Lodge)

I'm really digging some of the art work that these guys are putting out.  Who knew but they even have a combat art school.  Cool.

Aviation

Sgt. Shawn P. Sales created this graphite and charcoal drawing on Strathmore Cold Press watercolor paper. The drawing was created as a training tool for an in-house class on how to create depth in a drawing.December 11, 2010
(U.S. Marine Corps Artwork by Sgt. Shawn P. Sales)

Rockets from Rooftops

Sgt. Shawn P. Sales created this ink and graphite drawing depicting a United States Marine Holding an AT4 weapon system. The drawing was created on 11X17 drawing paper to to gain Proficiencies in shading techniques. Oct .23 2011, Fort George G. Meade, MD.
(U.S. Marine Corps Artwork by Sgt. Shawn P. Sales)

Night Ops.

Jointness at a cost.

Check out this story from the Royal Navy...

Daring enjoys ‘truly amazing’ experience working with American carriers
21 March 2012

Britain’s most advanced warship, HMS Daring, has worked with two American aircraft carrier groups as her Gulf mission steps up a gear.
The new destroyer has been showing off her air defence and fighter control prowess with the USS Carl Vinson and Abraham Lincoln and their task groups.

On her maiden deployment, HMS Daring has worked with not one but two US Carrier Strike Groups – here the USS Carl Vinson, but also her sister Abraham Lincoln.
The Portsmouth-based warship – the first of six cutting-edge Type 45 destroyers – has been exercising with both 100,000-ton flattops as she integrates with our closest allies.
That integration has taken the form of swapping sailors with several American ships, notably cruisers USS Cape St George and Bunker Hill, as well as the two carriers, allowing the two navies to share expertise and ideas and forge good working relationships.

The Carl Vinson leads US Carrier Strike Group One, while the Lincoln is the flagship of Group Nine (there are 11 such groups in all, comprising one carrier, one cruiser, two destroyers, one hunter-killer submarine and a support ship, plus an air group of more than 60 jets, helicopters and pistol-engined aircraft).
The culmination of this effort was HMS Daring working fully with the Carl Vinson and her impressive air wing of fast jets.
The Sampson radar (the spiky spinning egg atop Daring’s main mast) and command and control system allow multiple targets to be tracked to ranges of up to hundreds of kilometres. That information is fed to the Aster missiles in the silo on the ship’s forecastle. 
With the Long Range Radar (the large black slab just forward of the ship’s hangar) it means Daring can track many thousands of air contacts giving her unprecedented surveillance of huge areas of air space.
Which means that she is a valuable asset for a US Carrier Strike Group providing such a comprehensive air picture of the complex Gulf airspace.
“Working with the US carriers and their air wings is the culmination of many months of training and hard work for the ship’s company,” explained Lt David Berry, one of two fighter controllers aboard Daring.

“For me, this is the pinnacle of my fighter controlling career and it is truly amazing to watch it all come together in this operational theatre. Taking control of F-18 Super Hornets in this busy operational environment is hugely rewarding.”

Daring is attached to the Combined Maritime Task Forces on a wide-ranging maritime security – tackling piracy, smuggling, people-trafficking, terrorism and other criminal activities – as well as working with Coalition and regional allies.
Daring’s not the only Royal Navy vessel to link up with a US carrier group. In the Arabian Sea – outside the Gulf – the Abraham Lincoln joined forces with Britain’s capital ship, HMS Westminster.
The Portsmouth-based frigate is also on a maritime security patrol of waters east of Suez while ‘Abe’ is conducting both that mission and supporting operations in Afghanistan, codenamed Enduring Freedom.

Awesome.

Another joint training exercise.

But the part about a Destroyer taking operational control of fighters struck me as odd.  Does the US Navy work this way?  Do our Aegis Destroyers take operational control of our fighter wings or is this a purely British way of doing business?

The issue is this.

If its how we do business then awesome.  Works for me.

If its not how we do business then being joint is STUPID!  Would I take a Marine Rifle Squad and deploy them in a way that's foreign to them?  No I wouldn't.  So if we don't hand operational control of our fighters to our own destroyers then why are we doing it with our good friends the Brits?

If we're going to be joint then we need to be able to slot a destroyer from the UK into one of our battle formations and have it operate to our standards...and vice versa once they get their carrier in the water. 

Changing tactics and operational models for the sake of being joint is just not worth the loss of efficiency.

But I wait to be corrected.

Exercise Sea Lion: Australia develops its amphibious force.

Australia once had amphibious ships.  

Now its developing an amphibious force.  

Below are pics of the HMAS Choules (former British Bay Class LPD) in action. 

The Afghan "Shooter" and multiple deployments.

Been catching bits and pieces of the news today and one thing they keep hitting on is multiple deployments.

This is a raw point.  Not for me but mainly for Soldiers.

A deployment is a different thing for different services, occupational specialties etc...

For a Special Ops member a deployment MIGHT be 3 months or less.

For a Marine it could be 6 to 9 months.

For a Soldier.

It could be a year...I've heard for some its been more than a year.

And then you have the style of your deployment.  Are you living in a war zone like you'd live if you were stateside?  Meaning are you on one of the big bases that have fast food restuaraunts, mall like PX's etc????

Or are you out in the boonies keeping fleas and ticks off your nut sack?  Ok, that might have been a little much but you get the idea.

So just a word to the news media.  Get a clue about what you're talking about before you start mouthing off.

Pic of the day.

1st Tank Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 6, M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks pass a Combat Logistics Battalion 4, 1st Marine Logistics Group (Forward), AMK31 Refueler on a combat logistics patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan, March 13. The combat logistics patrol supported counter-insurgency operations in the area.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Mark Stroud)

StrikeRazor

A thinly disguised hit piece.

I read an article this morning over at Information Dissemination and it touts the lethality of cruisers and destroyers over that of aircraft carriers.

Or so the author would like you to believe.

It is in essence an F-35 hit piece.  Read the whole thing but check this out.

Until I see a US Navy CVW with a fixed wing ASW platform or a legitimate carrier based tanker capability tested and fielded, I am going to find it very difficult to take the naval aviation community seriously when all threat analysis from every corner of the globe highlights submarines as the fastest growing threat to the maritime domain, and the tyranny of range as the greatest threat to naval forces in the Pacific. The Navy is spending about $50 million more on the JSF than the F-18 to get less range with a moderate increase in stealth. And the CVW will still be left with no fixed wing ASW and no organic tanking.

First.  Dude is wrong about the F-18 having better range than the F-35.  But he doesn't care because he's following the talking points of others who would play with numbers and juice such important details.  He talks about the F-35 having moderate stealth?  Exactly how the fuck did he arrive at that?

Second, he slams the carriers by stating that they're vulnerable to subs.  But if a carriers helicopter ASW's won't help out and he demands fixed wing ASW from carriers then his vaunted cruisers and destroyers are just as vulnerable.

Overall its a real hot debate the way that he framed it but it fails in so many areas its not even funny.  But this part has me scratching my head.

And btw, you'll still need the 4 major surface combatants to protect the carrier, just so the Navy can hit targets at greater cost and at a slower pace.

Don't they realize in that shop that if cruisers become the next capital ship then they'll be the ships in the fleet that need protecting.

Again, read the whole thing.  This is gonna be fun to watch...and laugh at.