Netherlands Apache Attack Helicopter Air to Air Pics by Jimmy van Drunen!

Iran marks "Sacred Defense Week" (video)

Story here.

Besides goose stepping soldiers what did we see?  How about a new ballistic missile with a 2000 mile range capable of carrying multiple reentry vehicles? via Press TV.

The ballistic missile, which has a range of 2000 kilometers, is capable of carrying multiple warheads, said Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Division.

"As it was observed, the missile has become smaller in size and more tactical and it will be operational in the near future," he told reporters on the sidelines of the parades.

Is it just me or does it seem like the Iranians are just doing it backwards.

Let's make some assumptions.

1.  Let's assume that they are EXTREMELY close to being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

2.  Let's assume that they have confidence in that weapon working properly.

3.  Wouldn't it make sense that if they were able to get a treaty with the West that they would pivot toward missile tech because they've already accomplished the goal that the sanctions were designed to halt?

I am more convinced than ever that the Iranians played the Obama Admin like a fiddle.

Turkey to deploy troops inside Idlib ...did the Kurds get checkmated?

via Press TV.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims his country will deploy troops to Syria’s Idlib region as part of the Astana agreement with Iran and Russia on “de-escalation zones.”

Erdogan said in a Thursday interview with Reuters, “Under the agreement, Russians are maintaining security outside Idlib and Turkey will maintain the security inside Idlib region.”

Turkey, Russia and Iran act as guarantor states in the Syria peace process which has been underway between the Syrian government and the armed opposition in the Kazakh capital, Astana, since January.

In the latest round of the Astana talks last week, the three sides agreed on the details of a fourth de-escalation zone in Syria’s Idlib Province. In a joint statement, the trio said they had agreed “to allocate” their forces to patrol the zone covering Idlib and parts of the neighboring provinces of Latakia, Hama and Aleppo regions.

Story here. 

Geez.  I hadn't heard of the Astana Agreement!  Didn't even know that Russia, Iran, and Turkey were talking.

How did they throw peace talks, and essentially a partition of Syria without the US being involved?

Even more stunning is this.

Everyone is all atwitter about the Kurdish referendum.  But if this is true then they've been checkmated before the vote even took place.

How did we miss this?

Note.  One of you guys will do it but save your idiocy.  I monitor the comments and NOT one person has ever referred to the Astana Agreements in the comments section!  I readily admit that this caught me flat footed.

2nd AAB prepares for Bold Alligator .... pics by Cpl. Ashley Lawson

Brazil's army sent to help quell shootouts in Rio favela (PICS)

Thanks to Mauricio for the links!

via Channel News Asia.

Hundreds of Brazilian soldiers came to the aid of Rio de Janeiro police Friday (Sep 22) after heavily armed drug traffickers rampaged through the country's most heavily populated favela, spraying bullets and terrifying locals.

Intense exchanges between police and criminals began early morning inside the Rocinha favela, where approximately 70,000 people live in a teeming cluster of small houses on hillsides overlooking wealthy western Rio.
Amateur footage broadcast on Globo television showed men with a variety of rifles and pistols firing volley after volley in a densely built-up area.

A bus was set ablaze near a major road tunnel underneath the favela, and the main highway was temporarily shut down by police, causing traffic snarls on one of the city's main east-west arteries.
Gunshots could be heard from inside Rocinha and black smoke rose from the upper section.

As the situation spun out of control, Defense Minister Raul Jungmann agreed to pleas from civilian authorities for help, ordering 950 troops onto the streets, as well as 10 armored personnel carriers.

The troops were assigned to securing perimeters, rather than going directly into the favela, where AFP journalists saw elite SWAT police in camouflage moving through the narrow streets.

"We will help to secure the region, control traffic and control airspace, with the goal of freeing up police units to do more specifically police work," General Mauro Sinott told journalists.

Nervous residents refused to give interviews, although several described themselves as "hostages" of the violence. One woman said she'd not seen anything as bad in 43 years living there.

Story here. 

Additional articles HERE, HERE and HERE.

If the USMC, SOCOM, and others really want to fight in cities then they need to hop on an airplane, forget all about the hookers (the women are stunningly beautiful in Brazil) and get sweaty, nasty and dirty with BOPE/Brazilian Army/Marine Corps.

They need to attend one of these sweeps and drink it in.

You want to know what a fight in a mega city will look like?  Check out their sweeps into the favelas.

The sad thing is that a fight in a mega city will look ten times worse and require thousands more troops.

I ask people to consider how mega cities are setup.

EVERYONE focuses on the scenic part of those cities.  EVERYONE looks at the tourists or "rich" areas.

They seem to forget that in every major city there are masses of people that live outside the "beautiful" sections.  Yeah.  You will roll thru the rich part of the city with no problem.  Your vehicles will fit nicely down wide streets and you'll have nicely manicured lawns to setup your sat dishes.

When you get to the rough side of town that all goes away.

The streets get narrow, people are living MUCH closer to each other, instead of cheerful waves from the well off your troops will be greeted with molotov cocktails, rocks and weapons fire.

And that's before you get to the bad guys.

What planners are forgetting is that in many places the criminal element is the govt and people depend on them for their livelihood because the system has failed them.  Add wartime scenarios to that list and you might be chasing their version of Robin Hood.

You want to have a real discussion about a fight in a megacity?  I'm game but let's be honest about it.

Sic Semper Tyrannus on the Russian Federation...

via Sic Semper Tyrannus...

SANCTIONS. According to the UN rapporteur, sanctions and counter-sanctions cost the EU US$3.2 billion a month; the Russian economy has lost US$55 billion in total. He calculates the total cost to both at US$155 billion. In short, he agrees that Europe has been hit much harder than Russia and certainly much more than the USA. Perhaps that was the real point: Washington's "overriding strategic objective the prevention of a German-Russian alliance". NOTE: I would really love an explanation of how a figure of 3.2 for the EU, and 55 for Russia equals 155 for both.  Any ideas gents?

 AMERICA-HYSTERICA. All the reasons why the Russia-election-interference story is bunkum. Not least of which is the remarkable inactivity of the FBI: for example "The FBI has never questioned Assange [he confirms that] or Murray" and neither has it ever looked at the DNC servers. Nonetheless, every time you think the hysteria has gone as far as it can, it goes a bit farther: Morgan Freeland joins the circus. Bershidsky trashes the latest nonsense. One can hope that it's finally jumped the shark.

His article is here. 

I see an opportunity with Russia.  Many agree.  But something is going on in Syria that is outside the fight with ISIS.

What that is I can't be sure, but one thing is apparent.  The short term goal of "molding" the Middle East is jeopardizing our bigger security threat...China.

Exercise Bright Star is back...

via Defense.gov

“Bright Star is an excellent opportunity to improve our ability to partner at the operational level and identify best practices in countering asymmetric threats,” Mott said. “I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity to work with [our Egyptian partners] as we collectively learn from and share valuable lessons with each other throughout this exercise.”

Bright Star was last held in 2009 with more than 15 countries and 15,000 participants. 

Story here. 

Wow.

The US military is conducting more exercises and have a MUCH higher op tempo than they did when both wars were raging full blast in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I can't explain it.

It makes no sense.

But for some reason the combatant commanders are insatiable and no one has the balls to tell them no. The tail truly is waging the dog and you're seeing one of the reasons why we will lose the coming war with China.

We're exhausting the force playing war games instead of doing REAL HARD work of training to get better.

Aussie Defence Spokesman say Australia's 72 F-35's will be the most potent warplanes in the world...

via News.Com.AU

Australia has at least two F-35s that will likely require many millions being sunk into reconstruction and upgrade before they are fully capable of fighting on the front line.

Or they could be restricted to limited training roles, reducing the number of the incredibly expensive aircraft available for active duty.
Or they could be handed to pilots expected to fly into combat with the software and hardware equivalent of one arm tied behind their back.

A spokesman for the Defence Minister has rejected any suggestions Australia’s F35s won’t be combat ready.

Australia does not possess any F-35A Lightning II Block 2B variants,” he said.
“Both of our planes were updated more than a year ago. The Australian F-35 is currently operating a much newer software package, the Block 3i. This is similar to the types of planes operating in South Korean military exercises a few weeks ago.

“The Australian fighters cannot be compared directly to the experiences of the United States Air Force. Australia’s 72 Joint Strike Fighters will be the most potent warfighting planes in the world.”

But the US Marines F-35B ‘jump jet’ variants being operated in South Korea are also not yet fully operational. Their “Initial Operational Capability (IOC)” status means they are flying under restricted parameters and with limited sensor integration and weapons loads.
And they face the same - if not more - costly hurdles to bring them up to “Full Operational Capability” as their air force F-35A siblings.

Story here. 

Uh...ok.

Congress Is Trying to Give the F-35 a Pass for All Its Problems...that block buy is a timebomb!

via National Interest.

Both the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act  authorizes a block buy of 440 F-35s through a procurement process called “Economic Order Quantity,” even though the planes are still being developed and the testing necessary to prove they are operationally effective won’t be completed for years. Until that testing is done, all the American people will get for their money is a pile of parts for an unproven prototype.

The Defense Department has a variety of tools to purchase in bulk, with varying levels of cost controls. As we wrote previously, purchasing F-35s through a normal economic order quantity rather than a multiyear procurement would have allowed the department to avoid legal requirements established for multiyear procurements to demonstrate they were achieving cost savings.

Effectively, the language proposed by the department would have been a blank check. Instead, both the House and Senate bills included a modicum of restraint to the economic order quantity by modifying it with a requirement for the department to obtain an independent certification of cost savings and minimal risk of major design changes.

The problem, of course, is that even the Pentagon admits that costs for the program are going up, not down. The program is also entering its most complex stage of development and testing, particularly when it comes to the software essential for these planes to be effective in combat, which will likely involve expensive fixes.

Story here. 

This is a must read.

Bronco 3 ready for production...

via IHS Janes.

Singapore Technologies (ST) Kinetics has completed development of its latest Bronco 3 all-terrain tracked carrier (ATTC) and is ready to start production once a launch order has been secured, the company’s chief marketing officer Winston Toh has told Jane’s .

The original Bronco, now referred as Bronco 1, was developed to meet the operational requirements of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) with over 45 variants now deployed, most of these being fully amphibious. No production figures have been released but Jane’s understands that at least 730 have been built for the SAF.

To meet an urgent UK Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) a new model was developed that is today called the Bronco 2, or Warthog in British Army service, with 115 built for deployment in Afghanistan to replace the Swedish BAE Systems Hagglunds BvS 10 ATTC.

The Warthog has a higher level of ballistic and mine protection but is not amphibious as this was not a UK requirement.

Further development resulted in the Bronco New Generation (Bronco NG) technology demonstrator, which benefited from ST Kinetics’ experience with the Bronco 1 and 2 programmes.

This resulted in the latest Bronco 3 ATTC of which two pre-production vehicles have been built by the company for potential customer demonstrations. The final design will be the baseline for all future production vehicles.

Bronco 3 is powered by a MTU diesel developing 325 hp coupled to an Allison 6-speed automatic transmission with Soucy International composite rubber tracks (CRT).

Ya know if the aviation/SOCOM mafia gets their way and everything the Marine Corps has needs to be air lift capable then this might where they go to solve the protected mobility ashore issue.

This Myanmar situation is hard to get a handle on...

via Reuters

The United States wants Myanmar to take urgent action to end violence in Rakhine state, where a military offensive has created a crisis that could jeopardize its economic and political transition, a U.S. official said on Friday.

Bangladesh and aid organizations are struggling to help 422,000 Rohingya Muslims who have arrived since Aug. 25, when attacks by Rohingya militants triggered a Myanmar crackdown that the United Nations has branded ethnic cleansing.

A senior U.N. official said an estimated $200 million would be needed to help the refugees in Bangladesh for six months. Aid workers fear a humanitarian crisis is also unfolding in Rakhine state, though Myanmar has restricted access.

“We think, urgently, actions need to be taken to stop this violence and facilitate humanitarian assistance, lower the rhetoric, lower the tension and ... start doing the hard work to solve the longer-standing problems,” U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy told reporters.
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced a barrage of international criticism over the plight of the Rohingya, for not speaking out more forcefully against the violence or doing more to rein in security forces over which she has little power.

Story here. 

What isn't the news media telling you?

That the Myanmar Military has been subjected to months of terror attacks by the Rohingya.  That the Rohingya sheltered terrorists in their midsts.  That the Rohingya weren't citizens of that country.

And finally that some thought that this action was an indicator of ISIS in Myanmar.

So it's difficult for me to get a handle on this situation.

Asia IS NOT the Middle East.  Terrorists will be dealt with in a much more brutal fashion.  It's tolerated elsewhere on the planet but they will get medieval in Asia!

In my mind this isn't a refugee issue alone.  It's also a terror problem which makes this kinda hard.

Curse Myanmar all you want but this response was predictable to anyone that has visibility on the region.

Is the Russian vs US clash in Syria all about oil fields in Syria?

Thanks to Лейба for the link!

I stated something bad had happened in Syria and the fact that the Russians and Americans met face to face to deconflict the area s telling. Drink that in. This isn't about the air forces but the ground troops.

The American Soldier quoted stated that "they wanted to make sure they weren't shooting at each other".  Someone must have either gotten hit, came close or verified that they had each other in weapon sights.

Earlier this week Russian MP's were surrounded and thanks to a max effort by Russian Air they were able to repel the attack.

But something much bigger is going on.

The Russian Air Force has been buzzing about like crazy the past week.  Russians subs have launched missiles.  Russian Special Ops are hopping around Syria like rabbits in mating season.

The opposition is moving at an increased pace too.

It's like the race to Berlin, this time in the desert.

So what is the goal?

What piece of land is everyone trying to seize?

My readers think its the oil field highlighted above.  Personally I don't know but thanks to them for the idea and info. This thing is winding down.  We could be seeing new lines drawn on the map.