Female Ranger Candidate dropped after getting impregnated during the course?????

Thanks to PitchBlackUniverse for the link!

via SOFREP.

Several sources reached out to SOFREP this week to report that a female student was discovered to be pregnant while attending Ranger School. The pregnancy is reportedly the result of intercourse with a male student that took place prior to the two beginning Ranger School at Fort Benning at Camp Darby which is the first of the three phase course, the other two being Mountain Phase in Dahlonega, Georgia and Florida Phase at Eglin Air Force Base. The pregnancy was not discovered until mountain phase.

The male student is currently continuing the course, while the female student had to be released and will hopefully have another chance to attend at a later date.

Story here. 

Ok.  I've never been but from talking to a few Marines that have (admittedly old news now), Ranger School was a kick in the pants ontop of being pretty fucking filthy.

To let the birds and the bees have party time during the Ranger course indicates a toughness that I could never match, or two VERY DISGUSTING individuals.

I can't decide which.

As far as the actual pregnancy thing?

Happens aboard ship all the time.  Guess it migrating to the foxhole was inevitable...but Ranger School?

I can't quite wrap my head around that.

Is the Q Course next?

Open Comment Post. 21 June 2018

What do we get with the ACV 1.1? Is it worth it?

The decision was made with no fanfare.  No rollout of the vehicle.  No presentation of the ride to the Marine Corps in a formal setting.

Almost in a sigh of relief the Marines selected the BAE/IVECO offering as its new ACV 1.1 (for the love of all that's holy will someone PLEASE rename this thing...ACV 1.1 needs to be abandoned like its an infectious disease!).

But the questions remain.

What do we get with the ACV 1.1?

Is it worth it?

Thinking long and hard I think the answer is simple.  We got a modern APC that is far more comparable to its land counterparts than anything we've ever had in our history.  The addition of a large caliber cannon will give the Marine Corps something that it has NEVER had.

A truly capable infantry fighting vehicle...or rather amphibious infantry fighting vehicle!

But what about its swim capability.  Its no advance over what we have now you say.

To that I say fine.  That's right I'm good with it.  We labored long and hard but can't quite crack the egg.  From my seat the SLED concept looks like the best bet but we'll make do with LCAC for long distance work and I'm still waiting to see what Mullen does with the in-stream launches from various ships.

What many fail to understand is that while the "sea part" is important, the "land part" is just as important and is where the ACV 1.1 will show itself to be yards ahead of the AAV.

Is it worth it though.

Do we get enough with the ACV 1.1 to justify the expense compared to just upgrading the AAV?

I say yes.

Even with the survivability upgrade from my chair the AAV will probably still be inadequate.  You can bet body parts that additional armor will be applied to the ACV 1.1 that will practically transform it into a heavy APC (hopefully that armor will be flotation) but flat bottoms can't get past the IED/anti-vehicle mine.

We all get wrapped around the axle because the current wars are ours.

Ask a vet from WW2, Vietnam or Korea and they'll tell you that in everything from nation state conflicts to insurgencies anti-vehicle mines have been a feature.  Ask a Ukrainian and he'll tell you that along with steel rain the Russians applied generous portions of anti-vehicle mines to the mix.

Long story short?

If we're actually talking about getting ready for a peer/near peer vs peer fight then the Marine Corps really had no choice but to get a more capable APC that will hopefully develop into an IFV.

The BAE/IVECO offering offers the chance of relatively easy and hopefully inexpensive upgrades into the future.

Yes.

The program has been slow walked. 

Yes.

The vacillation that we saw with the former Commandant was infuriating beyond description.

Yes.

It's water speed is no great improvement.

But is it the right vehicle for this time?  Will it give our Corps the kind of armored protection that we need when facing future opponents?  Will this be the most capable Amphibious Combat Vehicle on the planet?

As we sit tonight?

Yes.

The ACV is worth it.  It sucked getting here but in the end it worked out.

Aviation Porn. Wing Loong II

Italian Defense Force Centauro II MGS 120/105

🇮🇹video del nuovissimo Centauro II MGS 120/105. Spero vi piaccia! 🇬🇧video of the brand new Centauro II MGS 120/105. Hope you’ll enjoy! ---------------------------------- #italiandefenceforces #italianspecialforces#specialunits#colmoschin#comsubin#incursori#operatorsgonnaoperate#militaryforlife#forzespeciali#specialforces#infantry#operatorasfuck#paratrooers#army#navy#alpini#tacticalshit#soldiers#airborne#frogmen#military#counterterrorism#militaryporn#military_worldwide#esercitoitaliano#Dailycombat#warzoneinc

A post shared by Italian Military Power (@italiandefenceforces) on Jun 20, 2018 at 7:36am PDT

Knight's new 5.56mm LAMG enters LRIP

Story here.

Thales Defense RAPIDFire...

Platinum Ren 2018

F-35 mistake jets to be built till 2023...early buyers are guaranteeing expensive upgrades to achieve basic combat capability...

via Defense Aerospace.

Three-quarters of all the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters delivered to foreign customers until 2023 are obsolete and will require major retrofits before they can deliver their promised performance.

An analysis of F-35 contracts awarded to date shows that fully 343 – or 74% -- of the 460 export F-35s that Lockheed is to deliver until end 2024 will be in the current, obsolete Low-Rate Initial Production configuration.

These 343 aircraft are limited both in terms of operational capabilities and of the weapons they can use. They are, and will remain, obsolete because their software is incomplete and because their sensors – designed over 20 years ago – have been overtaken by several generations electronics progress.

Lockheed and the F-35 Joint Program Office have quietly decided that all of the planned sensor and avionics upgrades needed to bring the F-35 to full capability will be deferred until 2023, when the first Full-Rate Production (FRP) aircraft (Lot 15) will begin to roll off the production lines.

All this, however, is a best-case scenario, and assumes that the F-35 will pass its Initial Operational Test & Evaluation (IOT&E). Due to be completed in 2019 or 2020, IOT&E will allow the Pentagon to take the (Milestone C) decision to launch Full-Rate Production (FRP).

If it doesn’t – and the GAO reported on June 5 that “As of January 2018, the F-35 program had 966 open deficiencies, of which 111 category 1 (critical)” – then all bets are off, and the program will have to undergo a major restructuring. 

If the above isn't bad enough then put down your beverage.  I'm trying to save you a monitor...

 These new sensors are crucial for the F-35 to achieve the capabilities it was designed to deliver, but which are still not available today, after 17 years of development. Lockheed says, for example, that the new DAS will have five times the reliability and twice the performance of the current system, despite being 45% cheaper to buy and 50% cheaper to operate.

However, Lot 15 deliveries will only begin in early 2023 and, meanwhile, deliveries will continue with the current electronics and sensors. 

Story here.

The implications are clear.

It's obvious that the avionics package that delivers the "sparkling" sensor fusion that is NOW the lynchpin of the F-35's combat performance is obsolete across the board.

What wasn't said is that even with the upgrades after 2023 the F-35 is playing a dangerous game of catchup.  Everytime they gain capabilities that put them on par with what's in pods under the wings of jets flying today they're still behind because upgrades to those systems will not wait for the F-35.

It still gets worse though.

Ever wonder why Singapore is waiting?  The USN?  There are sound economic reasons for it. 

The upgrades will be costly.

Who's gonna take big hits?  Check out the chart below....

Australia is gonna get gut punched.  Denmark slammed.  Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, S. Korea (in a big way) and the UK are all taking donkey punches to the nutts!

I wonder about Japan, and Israel because they do so much work on their own and will be using their own "gear" to a large extent in the airplane.

Especially on the part of the Israeli Air Force we could actually be seeing a kind of hybrid airplane that has the form of the F-35 but is internally very different.

But what about the USMC?

I fear for the Corps.  We're trying to get beyond the trainwreck but this will ensure continuing funding problems with the F-35 gobbling up the budget for at least another generation.

They got the plane across the finish line but at what price to Marine Aviation?

The funny thing is that they're gonna bring balance by destroying what they sought to make supreme.  By their incompetence we're headed back to a balanced air ground combat task force because of necessity, not planning.

Space Porn. Another day at the office.

"Space was our office yesterday. #EVA51," said International Space Station astronaut Ricky Arnold on Friday, the day after his latest spacewalk during which he upgraded cameras on the orbital platform. 

Arnold and Station Commander Drew Feustel completed the sixth spacewalk at the station this year, which lasted lasting 6 hours, 49 minutes. The two astronauts installed new high-definition cameras that will provide enhanced views during the final phase of approach and docking of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner commercial crew spacecraft that will soon begin launching from American soil.

The idea of a space force might be a bit too soon but to think that we've kept pace is foolish.

When was the last time that the US sent a man into space from our own soil? When was the last time that an American astronaut went into space atop a US and NOT a Russian rocket?

We're behind and all the cool pics from NASA can't change that fact.

Let's not even try and guess what the Russians or Chinese are doing in secret...the X-37 might be cool but we aren't the only ones I'll guarantee you that!