Saturday, May 25, 2024

Wow. Now even S. Korea is playing with drone swarms. Are we keeping up?

 

China put out a video where they put up hundreds of drones in a swarm. Now the S. Koreans. If I missed let me know but I haven't seen a vid from the US doing the same. Haven't seen it from our European allies either. Are we keeping up or just watching our competitors doing the damn thing? Remember industrial power too. S. Korea is a manufacturing powerhouse. China? Most definitely. I have seen no indications that show our defense sector has geared up and is ready to produce at scale for a peer war. We talk all this shit but we're doing nothing. I always thought that this interoperability talking point was a holdover from the war on terror. I see its part of the planning but the idiots in the Pentagon fail to realize the obvious. All these partner nations will sit out a fight between the US and China. They'll watch it carefully but they won't take a side. The Pacific just ain't built that way. Too many generational issues that have yet to be resolved. Even Japan and S. Korea have threatened to cross swords so them joining a fight will be "problematic". The US lion is roaring but the teeth behind that roar are dull. The best we can do is hope to bluff....or push the nuclear option. Either way if the shooting starts we lose. Too many alliances, too many commitments, too little military, non-existant public support for new adventures and weak/feckless leadership in Washington. Yeah. We're fucked.
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Open Comment Post. 25 May 24

 


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Do we need to re-evaluate how we rank Infantry Fighting Vehicles?

 

The Bradley is a superstar in the Ukraine/Russia fight.

Not one armor expert I follow saw that coming.  I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!

The much aligned and criticized Bradley IFV is doing the work.

We're not hearing much about the other IFVs (one thing we must consider is the propaganda behind this whole thing and Ukraine's desire for MORE OF EVERY DAMN THING from the US), but with that warning is it time to re-evaluate how we rank IFVs?

Could it be that the old armored triangle still applies?  That mobility and firepower along with armor still hold weight?

Everyone is going to wheels but in Ukraine tracks are still king.  The ground just has too many issues outside of a short time in the summer for clear running of wheeled vehicles.

We saw an old 25mm chain gun do work on an MBT.  Not a kill but enough to render it combat ineffective.  Oh and that's without utilizing one of its anti-tank missiles that American Soldiers would definitely dial up against any MBT they ran across.

I don't know.  I do know that many of our assumptions about what kind of armor we needed for the future are being challenged right before our eyes and no one is debating what we're seeing and how that applies to our procurement.

Battlefield data, versus procurement momentum vs the desire to grab more cash for certain critters in power.

Is all that conspiring to wreck us in the next war?  I'm not sure.

What I do know is that it would be nice to slip the Ukrainians a few Booker M10s to see how they do in combat.  Did the US Army get that one right?  

I propose sliding them into a Ukrainian light infantry unit, paratroopers or Marines and see how it performs.  If we're gonna break the bank and endanger our own security by emptying our supply shelves then the least we should get back is some much needed data to test our assumptions going into the future.
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Friday, May 24, 2024

The evening parade that is supposed to "put the band back together" is sold out...

 

I am anxiously awaiting the results of the Chowder Society's meeting with the Commandant. According to the CMC this parade is when he puts the band back together. I wonder. The fight has been public. Is this when they agree to all nod and play nice and take it behind doors?

If so then I'll be extremely disappointed.

Force Design 2030 was radical in the extreme.

It went so far out towards left field that its orbiting Pluto.  The idea that the United States Marine Corps is gonna shed everything and become a stand in force is repulsive and stupid.

If the vocal critics with stars on their shoulders play ball with the CMC then its truly over....but I am seriously concerned that its exactly what we'll see.
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MARSOC has a robot dawg? So do the Chinese....

 

I no longer worry about the Chinese copying our shit. Our allies do it too. No big deal. What I do worry about is their industrial capacity AND how willing they are to roll shit out, see if it works and then either move forward or scrap it. We just can't afford to do it. Correction. We've developed a bureaucracy that makes its living by keeping weapon systems in testing for decades. In the 50's we rolled out fighter after fighter after fight like it was candy. Same with armored vehicles. Most didn't make it but they served as seeds for the future. That's what the Chinese are doing now and something we are currently incapable of doing.

Our current structure is not designed to win wars.

Its built to make money.

The two are NOT compatible.
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WTF did I miss?

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/yVMAlozRPzY?si=sUoxRBfbyI6bG9Zy

Sorry guys but this is one of those YouTube shorts and I can't embed the video.

The implication is that you have US troops (soldiers, not Marines) on JLOTS firing into Gaza?

WHAT THE FUCK DID I MISS?  IS THIS REAL OR CLICK BAIT????
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HIRAIN: joint training for the future fight

 
Make this make sense. You're gonna fly in your "security forces" to secure an airfield or landing strip. Then you're gonna fly in a HIMARS or two. Next you offload them (not a quick process...especially when if detected you're dead). Drive them to their launch positions. Fire off your missiles. Load them back up (remember you've fired your wad....they know you're there...this is for the high end fight right?). You take off. You pull back your perimeter security. They load up and fly off.

Whoever is pushing this shit needs to be drug tested, face a mental evaluation or both.

They luv it though and I can't see why.

Someone explain it to me please.
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Open Comments Post. 24 My 24

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Thursday, May 23, 2024

The M10 Booker Combat Vehicle.

 

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3rd Bn., 4th Marines patrols through infantry immersion trainer

 

U.S. Marine Corps amphibious combat vehicles attached to Battalion Landing Team 1/5, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, splash from the amphibious dock landing ship USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) to conduct a waterborne gunnery live-fire range during Exercise Balikatan 24 at Oyster Bay, Philippines, May 4, 2024. BK 24 is an annual exercise between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and U.S. military designed to strengthen bilateral interoperability, capabilities, trust, and cooperation built over decades of shared experiences. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Lance Cpl. Peyton Kahle and Sgt. Patrick Katz)

They look like infantry, they move like infantry but the mission set under Force Design 2030 is the same as USAF Security Forces.

They're guards for bases.

In the case of the USMC, the infantry is now relegated to guarding EABOs.  To say it plainly they guard refueling points (probably for UAVs) and missile sites.

Full stop.

The Commandant is full speed ahead with FD2030.  So be it but let's be real.  Instead of training with host nation forces they probably should be learning the skill set of USAF Security Forces.

 

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Late Open Comment Post. 23 May 24

I've been surprisingly busy the past week or so. Apologies for the lack of blog posts but ya'll get the deal. Off this weekend so its lifting, a range trip and catching up on the blog. Good weekend hopefully...
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Tuesday, May 21, 2024

That attempted coup in Congo is getting BATSHIT CRAZY!

 

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Monday, May 20, 2024

The Story Before The Story via Compass Points

 Note.  CoffeeJoeJava turned me onto Compass Points and if I haven't said it on the blog, let me do it now.  CHECK OUT COMPASS POINTS!  Anyway the debate continues on Force Design 2030 (no rebranding allowed) and they touch on some of the background discussions that were had.  This is a blast from the past but it shows that discussions around "force design" have always raged.  The difference between now and then?  Radical change would be allowed IF IT COULD BE DEFENDED!  That's why its been incremental.  The human side of warfare is eternal.  Getting up within breath smelling range against a man that you know is trying to hurt you is eternal.  It clears the mind and things become simple.  Extremely lethal yes, but also very simple.  You win you live, you lose you die.  Back on task.  Check this out...

Back in 1996 a Marine named John Sayen had his own ideas about how the Marine battalion should be changed. He and a friend carefully assembled his idea for a new Marine battalion and gained an appointment with a senior Marine General Officer. The General listened with interest to the brief by John Sayen and his friend. When they finished their brief, which was thorough and professional, the General said to them, “Gentlemen, I need to hear the story before the story."


The officers were puzzled. Story before the story? What was that? 


The General explained when he came into the Marine Corps there was a weapons company in the infantry battalion but later it was disestablished, only to return after the Vietnam War.  He also related how the rifle companies in the battalion had 60-mm mortars when he enlisted in the 1950s but the Corps removed them before the Vietnam War, only to return them during that war and then remove them after the war and now, they were back again.


Instead of making quick decisions with only a surface understanding of all that has gone before, it is better to take time to discover the "story before the story." Understanding the “story before the story” prevents costly mistakes. The General concluded by asking the officers to go study the story before the story about the history of the Marine infantry battalion so they could provide a deeper context for their ideas.


Years went by and the General never heard from the officers. Then, several years after the General's retirement, out of the blue, he received a email from John Sayen.  Sayen, who by then had retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, reminded the General of the briefing and his tasking about the "story before the story."  John explained that neither he nor his associate were able to find funding for a study and their regular duties precluded undertaking the effort themselves.  However, he decided to conduct the study using his own resources and on his own time, which he continued into retirement.


John said that early on he found he was unable to gain a complete picture of the Marine infantry battalion without considering the influence US Army infantry battalions as they changed over time.  John further said that eventually he found he needed to study American infantry from the colonial period to the present.  He shared the results of his efforts in a document of hundreds of pages with diagrams and descriptions of every infantry unit that had ever existed in the American military.  It was an extraordinary piece of work.


Sadly, John died without seeing his extraordinary study of the American infantry battalion in print.  There is some good news, however, John’s brother gave the online Tactical Notebook permission to serialize the study -- see link below.

Here 

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Stick your pole in any hole and you're gonna catch bugs....some lethal

If you hit this street trash then you're hard up. Get back on your meds and seek help.
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They link Ukraine with Taiwan but when asked why they hit you with platitudes...I don't get it. WHAT IS THE LINKAGE!

Don't know if anyone has seen the old vids or read the old newspapers but when Vietnam was raging and the American people were tired of the nonsense, the comeback was that if Vietnam fell to the Communist that we'd see a domino effect all over the world. Didn't happen. But fast forward and now they're trying with Ukraine. WHAT IS THE LINKAGE! MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!
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Sunday, May 19, 2024

Open Comment Post. 19 May 24

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Amazing. The Americans being held hostage by Hamas Terrorists are forgotten. SOME Americans are instead protesting for the terrorists. Make it make sense.

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I feel a fucked up week coming up. You need this Sunday Funny...

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Iranian President's helicopter is down?

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Saturday, May 18, 2024

Hamas fighter was dead on his feet. FAFO

 

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