Battalion Landing Team 2/6 splashes AAVs...Photos by Staff Sgt. Bobby Yarbrough

China's growing amphibious forces via Navy Matters Blog.

via NM

The other noteworthy aspect is that China is beginning to move from local assault capability to blue water, long range assaults. The Type 071 is a thoroughly modern and capable LPD, analogous to the Navy’s LPD-17 class. China is clearly looking further afield and looking to operate amphibious forces on an extended deployment basis.

Further, China is reportedly designing and building an LPH/LHA type vessel. This will cement China’s ability to conduct long range assaults and extended deployments.

ComNavOps is not a land combat expert by any means but China’s growing amphibious assault capability combined with their heavy armor emphasis in an assault means that someone is going to be facing a formidable assault force down the road, unlike the Marines who are heading down the path of light assault forces.

Here.

I guess I'm not the only one that's a bit alarmed by what he's seeing from the Red Dragon.

One thing is certain.  You'd don't build tremendous capability just to watch it sit on the shelf.  Sooner or later the Chinese will test these forces.  The only question is what country will be the proving ground.

The USMC must stop spinning the truth about the F-35.

via War is Boring.

According to an official Lockheed press release, personnel aboard the USS Wasp had to direct the pilots as they lifted off and touched back down.
This arrangement was necessary because the Distributed Aperture System — a complex set of cameras that allows the pilot to see in any direction on their helmet’s visor — doesn’t work yet. The headset also prevents pilots from wearing traditional night-vision goggles.
“This is about shoring up the F-35’s image,” Carr said. “Since exercises are generally the domain of fielded weapon systems, this is about advancing the perception that the F-35 is essentially ready to join the fleet.”

The USMC has a reputation that is the envy of the other services in the DoD and many other military arms around the world.

The F-35 is risking that hard won reputation.

We're coming up on an important date, not for the F-35, but for the integrity of the Commandant's office, Marine Aviation and the institution in general.

IF the F-35 is declared operationally capable.  IF they tell the citizens of this country that its ready for war...and its easily proven that it isn't.  Then they will have won a short term victory to lose it all.

"Absolutely, die in a ditch, we need this airplane."— CMC Gen. James F. Amos

The former Commandant is wrong.  No piece of hardware is worth the loss of trust that will result from lies.

A little Growler propaganda...

Boeing isn't going quietly into that night.  They're fighting tooth and nail to get the Growler front and center in the public's short attention span.

Exhibit number one?  This article from their in house publication "Frontier".

Of interest to some here, you really should check out an article by Combat Aircraft on the Super Hornet and Growler.  Somehow Boeing made it available without purchasing the mag.

The Super Hornet isn't done yet and the Navy will be buying more.  The real question is whether or not the Navy can convince the powers that be that they need to bail on the F-35.

Peninsula Express 15...Photos by Sgt. Justin Bopp

A U.S. Marine with the Offload Preparation Party aboard USNS 2nd Lt. John P. Bobo climbs down from the drivers hatch of an Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) to hand it off to another Marine during the MPF Offload of gear and equipment from the Bobo in Chinhae, South Korea, June 13, 2015 in support of Peninsula Express 15. Peninsula Express is one in a series of regularly-scheduled combined, small-unit, tactical training exercises that demonstrates continued dedication to the ROK-U.S. relationship, contributing to the security and stability of the Korean Peninsula and Asia-Pacific region.

Why is Thompson talking about the Amphibious Combat Vehicle now?

via Forbes.

Being America’s 911 force has taught the Marines to be flexible and adaptable, because there’s no way of knowing where the next crisis will occur, or what kind of response it will require. That’s why Marine leaders want to keep a third of their fighting forces deployed forward — overseas — at all times. But there are a few things the Marines must have to use those forces to maximum effect. They need warships configured to launch a landing force. They need aircraft such as the MV-22 Osprey that can fly far and fast, but land on a dime. And they need amphibious vehicles that can transit the last few miles of ocean, then rapidly transition to maneuver warfare on land.
That last item is beginning to look like the weak link in future plans for going ashore. The Marines have about a thousand amphibious tractors or “amtracs” designed to do the job, but they were first built in the 1970s, and despite numerous improvements are showing their age. Threats from enemies ashore are growing much faster than the ability of the vehicles to survive as they approach the beach at about eight miles per hour. Plans to develop a replacement vehicle that could plane at high speed on the water’s surface fell through — the program was canceled in 2011 — so now the Marines are stuck with a fleet of slow-moving museum pieces.

Here.

Why is he talking about the ACV now?

The deadline for submissions has passed and supposedly its in the hands of HQMC to do a downselect to two vehicles.  Coincidence?  I don't think so.  Thompson's backed by many in the defense industry and he does have access to military leadership so I get the sense that something is going on.

Exactly what, I just don't know.

World of Tanks...M-41 BullDog is a beast!

Got my Mastery Badge, first star (and close to my second) and have more than a couple of high caliber and scout duty badges.

This tank is a beast!

Baltops 2015 News. A Polish PTS-M sank?

via Defence 24.

According to Maj Michael Romanchuk of the General Command of the armed forces during exercises off the coast of today's Ustki, held as part of maneuvers BALTOPS 2015 there was the sinking of the floating transporter PTS-M.
During ćwiczebnego landing with the participation of approx. 700 soldiers came to the incident, during which sank amphibian PTS-M with two people on board. The soldiers were rescued, not suffered any damage. The vehicle sank at a distance of approx. 20 meters from the beach, returning aboard ORP "Lublin".
Crawler Transporters floating PTS-M is designed vehicles in the mid-60s of the last century in the Soviet Union, still are used in the Polish Army. They were repeatedly used for rescue operations, carried out with the participation of Polish Armed Forces in order to eliminate the effects of natural disasters, including floods.

Vehicles sink all the time.  That's not news.  What surprises me is that one sank during this large, multinational exercise.  Additionally the Poles seem hell bent on inducting more amphibious armored vehicles into its ranks.  I'll watch to see if this puts a damper on those ambitions.

One thing can't be denied.  The PTS-M has been a workhorse and is a logistical super star.

Is the USMC providing cover for the Royal Navy's carrier?

via Defense Aerospace.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The British government has been widely ridiculed for having invested billions of pounds to build two new, large aircraft carriers which, because of the widespread incompetence at ministerial and departmental levels, were not fitted with the “cats and tramps” needed to operate fast jets.
These ships are, basically large helicopter carriers fitted with “ski jumps” that allow them to operate STOVL fighters – in other words, only the Lockheed F-35B that the UK is acquiring at huge cost and in small numbers.
As the F-35 program is very much overdue, the Royal Navy faced the embarrassing prospect of operating its huge carriers – the largest ships it has ever bought – to carry transport helicopters.
By dangling the prospect that the ships might operate MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors, MoD clearly hopes to reduce the level of embarrassment, and give the ships some semblance of an air component until the F-35s arrive.
In the meantime, deploying US Marines and other Ospreys on HMS Ocean is another sign that, having sold off its Harriers to the very same Marine Corps, the Royal Navy is scrambling to find aircraft – in fact, anything but transport helicopters – to give its “flat-tops” a martial air, and to disguise the fact that successive UK governments have sunk billions of pounds to buy carriers with nothing to carry.

So the Brits are attempting to avoid the embarassment of sailing its carriers without F-35's for a couple of years and the USMC is throwing a lifeline by putting aboard a company of Marines in MV-22's so that it looks like a "new age" of cooperation.

Its all bullshit of course.

The USMC doesn't have an amphibious shipping shortfall!  The "ideal" is to be able to float 2.5 Marine Expeditionary Brigades in times of crisis.

DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY MARINES THAT IS????

We're talking about almost 40,000 Marines and equipment.  Thats more than two US Army Mechanized Divisions.  There is no way that the USMC would ever need to have that many people afloat for a forcible entry operation, and if we did then nuclear missiles are warming up in their silos!

I think Defense Aerospace is onto something.  This is simply more cover for the delayed F-35.

Is India moving toward an Armata MBT purchase?

via The Diplomat

Last week, the Indian Army released a global request for information (RFI) inviting responses by 31 July to develop a multi-purpose Future Ready Combat Vehicle (FRCV) in order to replace older license-built Soviet-era main-battle tanks (MBTs).
“The Indian Army is planning to design and develop a new generation, state-of-the-art combat vehicle platform for populating its armored fighting vehicle fleet in the coming decade. This vehicle, which will be called the future ready combat vehicle (FRCV), will form the base platform for the main battle tank which is planned to replace the existing T-72 tanks in the Armored Corps,” the RFI reads.
The Indian military envisions the FRCV system as a platform for as many as 11 different tracked vehicles, including light tracked, wheeled, bridge layer and trawl tanks, self-propelled howitzers (SPH), air defense guns, artillery observation post and engineering reconnaissance vehicles, and armored ambulances.

Here.

That RFI sure sounds alot like the Armata family of vehicles.  Additionally if the Russians offer the same type of package to India that they have with the PAK-FA, and the Brahmos anti-ship missile then we can expect this to happen rather quickly.

But why is India doing this?  My guess is that they've taken a look around the region/world and come to the conclusion that the current generation of tanks in service just don't stand up to the threat.  Specifically the Chinese tanks that are coming online.

The beat goes on.  The entire world is getting its armor house in order. We should do the same.