Wednesday, September 19, 2018
MV-22's forever?
via Fox News.
The Marine Corps is accelerating a massive modernization and readiness overhaul of its MV-22 Osprey to upgrade sensors, add weapons, sustain the fleet and broaden the mission scope -- as part of an effort to extend the life of the aircraft to 2060.Story here.
While first emerging nearly two decades ago, the Osprey tiltrotor aircraft has seen an unprecedented uptick in deployments, mission scope and operational tempo.
As a result, Corps developers explain that the aircraft has, to a large extent, had trouble keeping pace with needed modernization and readiness enhancements. This challenge has been greatly exacerbated by a major increase in Combatant Commander requests for Ospreys, particularly since 2007, Corps officials say.
“The quality of maintenance training curricula, maturation, and standardization has not kept pace with readiness requirements. Current maintenance manning levels are unable to support demands for labor The current V-22 sustainment system cannot realize improved and sustained aircraft readiness / availability without significant change,” the Corps writes in its 2018 Marine Aviation Plan published earlier this year. “Depot-level maintenance cannot keep up with demand.
Given this scenario, the Corps is implementing key provisions of its Common Configuration, Readiness and Modernization (CC-RAM) Plan which, according to a Marine Corps spokesperson, is “designed to achieve a common configuration and improve readiness to a minimum of 75-percent mission capable rate across the fleet.”
Corps officials said the idea with Osprey modernization and sustainment is to build upon the lift, speed and versatility of the aircraft’s tiltrotor technology and give the platform more performance characteristics in the future. This includes arming the Osprey with rockets, missiles or some kind of new weapons capability to support its escort mission in hostile or high-threat environments.
How do we read between the lines on this one?
Not really sure.
I have an issue with arming a transport with offensive weapons. Why? Because it decreases the number of Marines, beans or bullets that can be brought forward. Add in the latest electronics, and of course ARMOR to help the bird take a hit or two and we might be down to transporting only one squad aboard our medium helicopter!
But put that aside.
Why would officials today make such a pronouncement? Why would they declare for future leaders that today's tilt rotor will fly till 2060? The CH-46 had an incredibly long service life but its successor had been planned for many years before it retired. The CH-53A-D could even be said to have been even more capable but no pronouncements were made with its service life either.
Quite honestly the idea of officials stating how long a particular piece of gear will remain in the inventory is something entirely new. We haven't seen that done before (in the Marine Corps...the USAF has always had silly season with that kind of thing...not even the Navy that have long serving ships do this type thing!).
I think we're looking at a mess that needs to be fixed and justification for the cost is being rolled out.
I don't have a problem with the work. The fleet needs to be rationalized. I get that. What irks (if I'm right) is the propaganda. We don't need sensationalism, chest thumping and statements that aren't supportable.
The public deserves some hardcore honesty from it's Marines.
How about this.
We rapidly procured MV-22's to sustain the line and to try and drive down costs. Modifications were made while it was in production and now we need to get them to the same standard. The effort will cost X amount of dollars but we believe it will be a more effective airplane and could possibly save the taxpayer money and more importantly Marine lives on future battlefield. We don't know how long this thing will serve but we've got to get our aviation house in order and this is one of the steps along the way.
Is that so hard HQMC?
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Surface launched Brimstone? I didn't even know that was a thing!
via IHS Janes
MBDA is proposing a palletised surface-launched salvo-fire adaptation of its Brimstone air-to-surface missile to address a Polish Armaments Inspectorate requirement for a stand-off anti-armour capability.Uh wow.
The proposal is part of an evolved MBDA missile package competing for two current Armaments Inspectorate anti-armour acquisition programmes – ‘Pustelnik’ and ‘Karabela’ – to equip the Polish Territorial Defence Forces (Wojska Obrony Terytorialnej – [WOT]) and Polish Army.
Pustelnik provides for a 1.4 km minimum range easy-to-use light anti-armour weapon for the WOT; for this requirement MBDA is offering the Enforcer (KFK) disposable shoulder-launched guided weapon system.
Karabela is effectively a two-tier programme to equip both the WOT and regular Polish Army. The ‘lower’ tier provides for the acquisition of a 4 km range anti-tank guided missile weapon – for vehicle-mounted and dismounted applications – to replace/supplement the in-service Spike LR, and for which MBDA is offering the Missile Moyenne Port?e (MMP); the ‘upper’ tier stipulates an 8 km–10 km anti-armour weapon to equip multiple platforms, including surface-launched, helicopter-launched ‘Kruk’ platforms, light combat aircraft and fast jets: MBDA is offering a Brimstone solution across all platforms.
A palletized system, filled to the brim with Brimstone missiles? Yes please!
I didn't even know this was a thing! Want to bust up a horde of armor cresting the ridge 10 km away? Don't have air cover and must rely what you have on hand?
Sounds like a ready made solution. If you could somehow plug this into the fires network, couple this with artillery fire and you have the enemy in full blown chaos mode.
Kinda hard to continue the attack when you see vehicles blowing up all around you...I would think you'd want to un-ass your ride ricky ticky quick!
Russian IL-20 lost over Syria. Chaotic does not describe that fight...
via Sputnik.
The Russian Hmeymim airbase had lost contact with the crew of the Russian Il-20 military aircraft late on Monday during the attack of four Israeli F-16 aircraft on Syrian targets in the province of Latakia.Story here.
"Our reconnaissance Il-20 aircraft with a crew of 15 on board was carrying out a reconnaissance mission over the Idlib de-escalation zone to determine the locations of storage and collection of unmanned aerial vehicles that fly out of the zone and strike different areas of Syria," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated at a meeting with senior military commanders.
Israeli F-16 jets attacked Syria under the cover of the Russian Il-20, assuming that the Syrian air defense forces would not act in this direction, Shoigu said.
"Without warning, more precisely, with a minute beforehand, Israel's informed us of a strike they were planning to conduct; they informed us that they were striking objects in Syria. And then they attacked," the defense minister stated.
He stressed that the Russian Il-20 was shot down "as a result of the response from the Syrian air defense systems to the Israeli forces’ attack."
Hmmm.
The Russians have a point on this one. The Israeli's have a habit of attacking under the nose of operations being carried out by others. Do I have a problem with it? Actually no. Seems pretty smart from a tactical perspective.
Strategically though?
Accidents can happen as we see here.
Blame can be placed on the wrong party potentially escalating things.
Syria is annoying on several fronts. The fiction of fighting for freedom of the Syrian people has died...as a matter of fact I consider that lie to be a deliberate information campaign launched by our own govt directed at the members of the public most apt to support our military.
Trade routes? Yeah that's more like it, but I fail to see the gain in this mess. We're trying to do thru force of arms what China is doing diplomatically (and tossing around about the same amount of money without the loss of lives) without setting the entire region on fire.
Sidenote: One day we have to talk about how weak and feeble our State Dept has been for DECADES now. The US has forgotten how to conduct diplomacy...
The only thing that's certain is that Syria is a chaotic battlefield, that Turkey/Russia/Syria/Iran have already setup a "semi partition" of that country that they can all agree on, and finally we have somehow fallen into the weird position of SUPPORTING freaking ISIS.
Syria is fucked beyond description and it appears that our strategy has failed once again...as tragic as this shoot down is, they're still achieving their goals.
1st Kostrad Infantry Division - Indonesia Leopard 2RI Main Battle Tanks
Can't lie.
I'm becoming a bit fascinated with the Indonesian Army. They have a pretty vibrant presence on social media and it ain't fluff either! It's all hardware, all the time.
It's probably just a phase but at least for the next week or two expect to see alot more of their stuff on these pages.
Oh and about the video. Made for Hollywood stuff but I like getting a bit of the local flavor of the place even if its "made for television" and "put your best foot forward" stuff.
USMC ground side of the house. Weight gain, size increase and fewer numbers...are we making the right decisions?
Have you taken the time to look at the Marine Corps' ground portfolio? Have you checked out how it will look in the near future? How about crunched the numbers of vehicles compared to what we had in the legacy fleet?
If you did then a few things would become apparent...
* The fleet might be more capable, but there will be far fewer of them in the past. Do we have the numbers to make up for attrition? Both in combat, training, accidents, etc...?
* The fleet will be MUCH larger than legacy vehicles of the past. Again they'll be more capable and survivable (especially in the case of the ACV) but they will be big buggers. The JLTV dwarfs the Humvee. The MTVR makes the 5-ton look like a toy. The ACV looks like a pro weightlifter beside the neophyte AAV. Not a problem you say? The natural evolution of vehicles you say? Well guess what hasn't evolved in size? Our amphibious shipping! We're operating with a fleet that has basically the same deck space as the ships of the past. When it comes to our amphibs we have the same capabilities (well with increased aviation handling) in the same old box.
So what am I getting to here?
I like the direction we're going. But I wonder if we're on the right course with numbers purchased and if we might need to freeze the LPD(X) and reassess with a bigger vehicle deck instead of focusing on aviation.
I am fearful that ground mobility is being sacrificed for the strategic mobility that air will give us to get across the beach.
We're so focused on entry that the actual maneuver to and thru the battlespace is being ignored.
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