Weird. Never seen a contract move that fast ESPECIALLY FOR A SHIP!Navy Awards 5 Companies Light Amphibious Warship 'Concept Design' Contracts - USNI Newshttps://t.co/KdvU1t7tUY pic.twitter.com/IAU5PP4jW3
— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) June 17, 2021
I'm sorry for this lady's suffering but at least she is thankful for law enforcement and blames the person responsible for her grief...a very sad story but from pain comes knowledge.My Son laid on the floor of Brixton with his chest open in pools of his own blood dying, it was the Police @LambethMPS that tried to save his life. My Sons killer was another black boy that stabbed him coldly through the heart with A SWORD! We need to work Together! Keep Focus! pic.twitter.com/TJ3OILzDxQ
— Dwaynamics (@dwaynamics) June 17, 2021
Small arms fire control systems combine a laser range finder & ballistic computer in compact optical sight, drastically increasing first-round hit probability. Vortex's sight has been selected by the US Army for its NGSW rifle & is probably more important than the weapon itself. pic.twitter.com/LdDVX341RR
— Nicholas Drummond (@nicholadrummond) June 17, 2021
via Military Times.
Making his case before the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday for the Marine Corps' $47.86 billion budget request, Berger said he has reduced headquarters staffing by 15%, cut legacy systems and end strength, and has nothing left to draw from to fund programs and projects.
"We have wrung just about everything we can out of the Marine Corps internally," Berger said. "We're at the limits of what I can do."
The Marine Corps' budget request represents a 6.2% increase from fiscal 2021, even as the service plans to reduce the size of the active-duty force by 2,700, to 178,500 Marines.
So Berger's Folly gives us a smaller force.
Less capable force.
Only useful in the Pacific against the Chinese.
Yet he's requesting a 6.2% increase in monies? But wait it gets better!
The service also plans to invest in its new amphibious combat vehicle, buying 92 per year. It also plans to buy eight Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar, or GATOR, systems for $300 million.
As part of the planned cuts, the service will divest itself of some or all of its Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles as well as the M88A2 Hercules Recovery Vehicle and the vehicle-mounted Training Counter Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Device-Electronic Warfare (CREW) system, "since it no longer meets training objectives," according to budget documents.
The Marine Corps submitted a $3 billion list of its unfunded priorities to Congress this year, items that Berger said are needed to counter the "pacing threat" of China, which is rapidly building up its strategic forces.
The top wishes on the list include two types of anti-ship missiles, including 35 anti-ship Naval Strike Missiles for $57.8 million, and 48 Tactical Tomahawk long-range anti-ship and strike missiles for $96 million.
The list also includes two KC-130J aircraft for $197.7 million -- replacements for aircraft that were lost in 2018 in Japan and last year in California.
All this friction and chaos that's been brought to the Corps. All this talk about getting ready to fight the Chinese and how a "Littoral" Marine Corps (batshit stupid idea...this thing will go down in military history as the most batshit crazy thing any force has ever attempted) is what it will take to turn the tide on the high seas and all we get out of it is 82 missiles?
Let's fast forward this to its end state.
Let's say Berger can somehow magic his way to 1,000 missiles. Setup and operated remotely without putting any Marine in harms way while doing the same with sensors that can detect enemy ships and AI to run it all (with a human in the loop).
Do you think it would work then?
I don't. I think they'll be subjected to counter recon, will be located and will be micro fragmented into dust shortly after hostilities commence.
Read this propaganda piece here.
I don't know where this thing came from. I can't believe the brains in the Marine Corps actually thought this up.
It will fail.
The next Commandant will take his entire term trying to unwind this mess but it does lead us to a bigger issue and one that we will eventually have to attack.
The Marine Corps once was assumed to have it figured out at the Commandant level.
It was always assumed that the person in that chair had it right.
Not anymore and that's troubling.
Ever since Amos the Marine Corps has been on a losing streak when it came to Commandants. I don't know why it is but it is.
What happened?
What changed?
How can we have a string of such uninspiring, low confidence, untalented leadership all pushing transformative agendas that lead nowhere?
What is going on at Quantico and how is this stuff making it past the O-Club into actual funding?
Samuel J. Cox, DirectorNHHC June 2018PCF-19 was one of four Swift boats lost in combat during the Vietnam War (seven more were lost to heavy seas or severe weather, some after being transferred to the South Vietnamese navy). PCF-4 was destroyed by a command-detonated mine in February 1966 (four killed, two wounded). PCF-41 was damaged by heavy shore fire and a mine in May 1966 and abandoned (one killed, others wounded) and later deemed unsalvageable. In April 1969, PCF-43 came under recoilless-rifle and rocket fire, and was beached and burned when a cargo of explosives detonated (four killed). However, what sank PCF-19 remained lost in the fog of war for many years, although the initial court of inquiry assessed that it was the result of friendly fire from U.S. Air Force aircraft.After President Johnson unilaterally called a halt to U.S. bombing north of the 19th parallel on 31 March 1968, U.S. Navy aircraft from carriers on Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin and U.S. Air Force aircraft from bases in Thailand and South Vietnam continued to strike targets in North Vietnam, north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the 17th and 19th parallels. The result was a lot of aircraft crowded into a relatively confined area, with what some senior commanders at the time assessed as inadequate command and control.The North Vietnamese responded to the partial bombing halt (and “good will” gesture) by pulling surface-to-air missile batteries from the heavily defended Hanoi and Haiphong areas and moving them into the confined space where U.S. aircraft were still conducting strikes, making the southern part of North Vietnam even more dangerous. Throughout the spring of 1968, U.S. Marine Corps and other observers reported hovering lights at night flying just north of the DMZ and even out over water between North Vietnam and Tiger Island (which was held by the North Vietnamese). In typical American black-humor fashion, these contacts were frequently referred to as “UFOs.” Although the lights were presumed to be helicopters, daylight reconnaissance missions could find no trace of helicopters in the vicinity of the DMZ or on or near Tiger Island, nor was there any other intelligence indicative of North Vietnamese helicopter operations in that area, not to mention the obvious question: Why would they have their lights on?Various theories, such as thermal ducting, were postulated to try to explain why hovering lights could plainly be seen, but no helicopters could be found. At the time, North Vietnam had Soviet-supplied MI-4 Hound helicopters that could be equipped with rockets and machine guns, but they were used almost exclusively for urgent resupply missions along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. Some sources erroneously call them Hind helicopters, but that Soviet attack helicopter was still in development at the time. (I could find no reports of North Vietnamese helicopter attacks, other than the PCF-19 incident, although I can’t say I exhausted every possible source.) PCF-19 was definitely hit by something shortly after midnight on the night of 15/16 June 1968, and it was sudden, catastrophic, and a surprise.The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Point Dume reported seeing PCF-19 hit by two rockets from an unidentified source, and several hours later came under fire herself from an unidentified aircraft (the Wikipedia entry for Point Dume conflates this incident with the attack of the following night on HMAS Hobart (D-39) and USS Boston (CAG-1), as do other sources, and as did the court of inquiry.) Point Dume pulled two badly wounded survivors from PCF-19 from the water. The explosion and rapid sinking of of the Swift boat was also reported by the naval gunfire liaison officer at Alpha One, an observation post at the DMZ.
