UK's Ministry of Defence refuses to disclose how much the F-35 costs!

via The Telegraph

he Government’s failure to disclose how much Britain’s new stealth jets will cost is unacceptable and risks undermining public confidence in the programme, MPs are warning.

The multi-billion pound scheme to buy F-35 Lightning II jump jets is the UK’s second largest weapons programme, but the MOD has refused to tell Parliament how much they will cost.

A Commons defence select committee report has said the MOD’s response is “wholly unacceptable” and demanded six monthly updates on the programme to buy the Lockheed Martin jets.
Julian Lewis MP, chairman of the committee said: “There has been an unacceptable lack of transparency from the MoD and Lockheed Martin which risks undermining public confidence in the programme.

“F-35 is a major investment for the UK and we want it to succeed for the good of this country’s security.

"However, it is precisely because this project is so important that it must be subjected to the closest possible scrutiny.”

MOD officials repeatedly failed to give the committee the full cost of each aircraft, including spares, upgrades and retrofits.

Story here. 

Read it and weep F-35 fanboys.

While the US Dept of Defense can play games with the costs of the F-35 with budget tricks and tout jobs in the UK its a bit more complicated.

They have a robust defense media.

Instead of lawyers debating various legalism to get the plane across the finish line, in the UK they have accountants that are ready to pour over every line in the budget.

In short?

Wave the flag, trot out a few pilots and generals (to impress the ladies and the idiots that are dazzled by stars and images of Tom Cruise in Top Gun), and play with the numbers a bit (along with a huge dose of paid off Congress Critters) and you could sell bricks as a hypersonic airplane and many would still believe.

In the UK?

Not so fucking much.  Add the foul mood (that I didn't see coming) because of Brexit and the belt tightening that is resulting from that move and it is entirely possible that the F-35 buy that the UK had programmed will indeed be cut from 138 down to 48.

F 18 Fighters Encounter With UFO....

I absolutely love the conversation they're having in this vid.  I'd be uttering MANY more expletives but the gist of it would be the same.  What the fuck are we looking at!!!!!

They'll figure out what this is and they'll either tell us or they won't.  UFOs making a comeback?  Who could have figured that?

Open Comment Post. Dec 19, 2017

French and U.S. vessels support Alligator Dagger off coast of Djibouti

China just pulled off the most successful foreign policy act in Africa in decades...and no one is noticing...

via The New York Times.

As the line of Chinese-made armored vehicles rumbled into Harare last month, Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old dictator, Robert Mugabe, must have wondered what happened to the “all-weather friendship” Beijing always said they shared. For nearly four decades, Mugabe had been one of China’s staunchest allies. His “Look East” policy signaled Africa’s economic shift away from the West toward the rising superpower. Yet as the bloodless coup against him unfolded, Beijing offered no words of support or sympathy. Instead, there was silence — until afterward, when President Xi Jinping of China rushed to congratulate Mugabe’s successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The circumstances surrounding the end of Mugabe’s 37-year reign are the stuff of spy novels: a high-level meeting in Beijing four days earlier, the armed showdown at Harare airport, the old dictator’s last-ditch attempt to assert his authority. But the episode also tells a tale of China’s evolving relationship with the world it is shaping through loans, trade and investments. In an era when the United States seems to be on the retreat — notice the absence of Americans from this story — it can be easy to shrug off China’s advance as another instance of its rapid, ineluctable expansion. But the fall of Mugabe, a charismatic despot who drove his economy to ruin, shows how Beijing is learning to navigate, very carefully, through turbulent transitions in places where it has deep economic ties, sometimes decades old, and how countries bend to the arc of China’s gravity.

Story here. 

This is the most ominous development for the US in more than a decade.  As horrific as 9/11 was...as tragic as all the deaths and wasted treasure in the middle east is...as worrying as N. Korea's and Iran's push for nuclear weapons are....

China solving the "soft power" problem is what will threaten US supremacy into the future (along with their massive military buildup).

It's down played in the story but China just accomplished an internal coup.

Think about it like this.  Let's say country X has both Chinese and US military bases on its shores (not hard to imagine...but let's play the game).  China uses its soft power in ways we can't right now (because they haven't wasted money in the middle east for over 20 years, don't have to worry about rebuilding infrastructure at home because they've always done it and don't have citizens crying for more because the Chinese have a cultural belief that they owe the state as much as the state owes them) by buidling roads, bridges etc in that country.

China sees the US attempting to prop up country X's current ruler with increased arms sales.

China sees all this, meets with a junior officer or two on their base, a coup is started and the leader that we had been backing is removed.  One year later the lease is called on our base and we're ejected while China falls in on the stuff that we built...to include the McDonald's that they reflag into the Chinese version and operate as normal.

China has solved the puzzle and we better get harder faster or we're gonna be roadkill.

Bundy called Bureau Of Land Management Agents thugs at his standoff...appears he was right...

via The Daily Caller.

The investigation’s report, made by BLM Special Agent Larry Wooten and addressed to the Department of Justice, was publicized last week after Washington state Rep. Matt Shea posted it on his Facebook page, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Wooten’s 18-page report discussed some of what he witnessed during his three-year investigation, such as a BLM agent’s “kill list” featuring people who had committed suicide while under investigation by the agency, BLM agents and officials referring to the Bundys as “retards” and “douche bags,” agents bragging about “grinding” a Bundy family member’s face into gravel, and lead prosecutor and Nevada’s acting U.S. Attorney Steve Myhre’s “preferred ignorance” of investigation details that would benefit the Bundys’ defense case.

Former Special Agent Dan Love, who was in charge of impounding Cliven Bundy’s cattle in 2014, conducted “the most intrusive, oppressive, large scale and militaristic trespass cattle impound possible” against Bundy’s ranch against the direction of the U.S. attorney’s office, according to Wooten. The Bundys’ defense strategy accuses the BLM of using overly-aggressive and threatening tactics.

Story here.

I am stunned.

When this kicked off I thought that we saw a bunch of reactionaries running to deal with a non-issue.  For more than a minute I bought into the meme being pushed by the media.

I didn't know this though.

Poor, simple Cliven Bundy....unable to communicate in the way favored by the modern media...relying on fellow citizens to defend his lively hood had a point.

He got targeted and its obvious that for some reason the govt decided to make an example of him (or should I say elements of the govt?).

Bundy called Bureau Of Land Management Agents thugs and the internal report seems to prove him right.

Just plain wow.

Bell V280 First Flight Video...

Thanks to Ogden for the link!

JUST IN: Bell V-280 Valor first flight footage! This milestone represents exceptional progress on the V-280 development program and brings @bellhelicopter one step closer to creating the next generation of vertical lift aircraft for the U.S. military.

A post shared by Bell Helicopter 🚁 (@bellhelicopter) on Dec 18, 2017 at 2:22pm PST

Maybe.

Just maybe this is the way to make tilt rotors work the way we want.  If it does and if we see V-22 type speed with better performance into and out of the LZ then this would be a war winner.

Open Comment Post. Dec 18, 2017

Russia BRM-3K Armoured Reconnaissance Vehicle With 57mm Autocannon Firing Tests

This will come off as a whine, but how big will they go with IFV guns?  Do you remember the last "medium" caliber experiment?  The last one I recall is with the Expeditionary Light Tank by AAI Corp.

Before that the only people that played with them were the Israelis with their 60mm Hypervelocity Gun mounted on Sherman's (supposedly it was capable of penetrating T-55's...not sure if I believe that).

The new "big gun mediums" are a fad for a reason I can't latch onto.  We haven't seen a radical increase in IFV armor, you get less stowed kills, they're still ineffective against MBTs, they don't flex well into the anti-air role and for fire support/suppression they aren't the first tool in the box that anyone would reach for.

So why?

Infantry Unit Leaders Course.....video by Lance Cpl. Noah Rudash