Talisman Sabre 2015 Amphibious Landing Vid by Tech. Sgt. James Stewart

F-35 doubt spreads...Singapore upgrades its F-16's and Australia rules out F-35B's on the Canberra Class LHD...

Lost in the news of War is Boring's blockbuster on the F-35's piss poor performance in a mock dogfight against a 40 year old fighter is this...Singapore is upgrading its F-16's...via Defense Industry Daily...

Singapore’s Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) has released more information on its plans to upgrade the RSAF’s fleet of F-16C/D fighters. The upgrades will take place in phases from 2016 onward, with various capability enhancements planned. These include laser-designatedJDAM munitions, air-to-air weapons, datalink capability and helmet mounted displays, as well as an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system, as per a previous DSCA request . The AESA system is thought to be the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) system.

Everyone has been waiting to see what the practical, frugal, independent and technologically advanced Singapore Ministry of Defense would do with regard to the F-35.

An update this massive indicates a wait and see approach at the minimum and could signal dissatisfaction with the F-35's performance AND price.

Even worse for the program?  The idea of selling a few F-35B's (in addition to the F-35A's) to the Australians has been sent to Davey Jone's locker.  Eric Palmer Blog is where I first read about it and the story comes from Australia's Financial Review.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's proposal to put F-35 fighter jets on the Navy's two 27,000-tonne troop transport assault ships has been quietly dropped ahead of the government's defence white paper after it was found the ships would require extensive reworking and the project was too costly.
Mr Abbott asked defence planners in May last year to examine the possibility of putting up to 12 of the short-take-off and vertical-landing F-35 Bs on to the two ships – the largest in the Navy – which carry helicopters and are likely to be primarily used to transport troops and equipment to war or disaster zones.
The first of the assault ships was completed last year and commissioned into the Navy in November as HMAS Canberra.
But defence officials conceded to a Senate estimates committee late last year that the jump-jet proposal would involve extensive modifications to the ships, including new radar systems, instrument landing systems, heat-resistant decking, restructuring of fuel storage and fuel lines, and storage hangars.

There will be no extra batch of F-35's for Australia....they won't be able to use the excuse that its necessary in order to make the amphibious ships that they bought more effective AND they damn sure can't spin the numbers to justify the costs.

A bad week for the F-35 is starting to look like its quickly stretching into a bad month.

 

Defence Technology Review's July issue! Boxer down under is looking like a BEAST!

Defence Technology Review's July issue is out and this one is sizzling!  The coverage of the Boxer has me seeing it in a new light...unintended consequence of the Russian moves in Ukraine?  The German's seem to have "rekindled that armor excellence history" and is putting all their high tech into making what looks like a world class machine.

I really look forward to DTR's coverage of the other contestants...especially the BAE/SAAB/Thales AMV entrant.

The whole issue is worth a read but another article that caught my eye was the piece on the Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle and the age old debate between wheels or tracks.

Enough of my blabbering.  Check it out here.

G2mil's view of "smart cuts" to the US Army...

Note:  Herbert asked me to do it...and so have many others...so we're finally gonna take a look at G2mil's view of what "smart cuts" would look like....

20,000 - Eliminate 7th Army HQs and half of Army bases in Germany
The Army can close excess bases and excess headquarters in Germany and still retain 20,000 soldiers there, with two ground combat brigades in Europe, an aviation brigade, and its hospital and training facilities in Germany.
14,000 - Eliminate 8th Army HQs and close the Daegu complex
Eliminating outdated overhead in Korea (the 8th Army command and Daegu camps ) would allow 8000 non-combat soldier slots to be eliminated, along with some 6000 civilian positions. The Army could retain its current combat forces in Korea, even though the South Korean military is five times more powerful than North Korea.

I fully support this part.  Germany and S. Korea can stand on their own two feet.  Additionally I'm seeing way too much dependence on US command and control structures in Europe/NATO.  Where I part company is that I would instead realign basing for our forward deployed Army units.  Italy/Germany?  Out.  Poland/Romania in.

2500 - Eliminate Africa Command
This four-star command did not exist a decade ago, and has never made sense as it grew from a 200-man European Command planning cell into a 3000-man monstrosity with eleven Generals. As this article explains, it can merge back into the European Command or into the U.S. Navy/NATO command in Italy.

Totally agree with this.  AfriCom is nothing but command bloat.  Quite honestly I still don't see them doing any real work on that continent.  The Ebola outbreak?  Penny packets of troops that in reality only served as possible vectors of the disease back to Europe and the US.  Dealing with the exploding problem of terrorism on the continent?  All talk, no action.  Better to shutter the command then to play political correctness make believe.

Where I disagree?

Its not much.  Maybe a point or two.  Read his post here and let me know what you think.

And the hits keep coming...40,000 soldiers to be laid off...

via Free Beacon...

The U.S. Army plans to cut 40,000 troops over the next two years, USA Today reported Tuesday.
The move, which will have both domestic and foreign policy impacts, will be supplemented by layoffs of 17,000 Army civilian employees. The official announcement of the reduction plan will come sometime this week.
From USA Today:
Under the plan, the Army would have 450,000 soldiers by the end of the 2017 budget year. The reduction in troops and civilians is due to budget constraints, the Army asserts in a document obtained by USA Today.
Some of the cuts were expected. During the peak of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army swelled to about 570,000 soldiers to ensure that deployments could be limited to one year. After most troops came home from those wars, the Army planned to shrink.

Why is a Marine Corps centric blog raising the alarm bell about a cut to the US Army?

Easy.

An average Army division is between 15,000 to 20,000 troops (ball park).  A cut of this size equals TWO divisions.

The loss in combat power that this represents is INSANE!

But back to the Marine Corps.

Do you really believe that the line will be held at 176,000 or does my prediction of a fall to 150,000 seem more likely? 

F-35 counter propaganda war falters. Mainstream media picking up the story...

The Commandant tried to deliver the masculine version of the feminist passive aggressive rant of "the debate is over" with regard to the F-35.

I told ya before that it wasn't and this is further proof.  The mainstream media is picking up the story and the counter story/propaganda of the meme that the F-35 is a done deal is faltering.

First from the National Interest...

Instead, the F-35 is designed to be lethal at well beyond visual range through a combination of stealth, sensors, superior information processing and electronic warfare capability. There are reasons to wonder how effective the F-35’s bag of tricks will be into the future, especially as counterstealth systems evolve, and I’d like to see it carry more and longer-ranged weapons, But the trial back in January tells us precisely nothing about the effectiveness of the F-35 in the regime it was designed for.

Why do I highlight a conservative, pro defense mag article that generally shouts the same excuses we hear from the fanboys forum over at F-16.net?  Simple.  Its a direct copy of the story that first ran in the EXTREMELY pro F-35 think tank blog the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

When the best that your opponents can do is to simply parrot the weak arguments from the Pentagon and the F-35 program office then they're losing.

And losing badly.

But check this out from the Weekly Standard.  Oh and its another conservative, pro military but ANTI Govt waste mag...

At a total cost of more than a trillion dollars, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the most expensive weapons program in history. The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — not to mention the air forces and navies of more than a dozen U.S. allies — are counting on the Lockheed Martin plane to replace aircraft currently in service and take over a number of missions to include close air support and air superiority. The plane is supposed to be able to do it all. But last week, as David Axe reported in War Is Boring, a leaked report from a test pilot who recently flew an F-35 against an F-16 – a plane that first saw service in the 70s – in a series of mock aerial engagements called the JSF an inferior dogfighter.

The article is basically a copy and paste of the arguments being made by War is Boring blog and the whining, whimpering, crying statements being made by F-35 supporters.

Why is this significant?

Simple.

That cost issue.  The plane is suppose to be able to do it all and now we have quantifiable proof that it can't.

The White House, Pentagon and services are all involved in a silly dance of death.  The White House gets its social change and the Pentagon/services get this dog of an airplane in exchange.

But with papers like the Weekly Standard moving from a buy to neutral stance on supporting the airplane we're seeing critical mass arriving.

About fucking time.

Sidenote:  What is the Pentagon/Lockheed Martin propaganda campaign?  Well Lockheed Martin released about 20 photos of the F-35 operating from a Marine Air Station and the Pentagon let loose the photo below...supposedly to celebrate social media success...its so obvious though that the public affairs officer should be fired for stupidity.

GRAER (Brazilian Special Commando Police) Air Unit takes down bad guys...Is crime so bad its at insurgent levels in Brazil?

You don't find much on GRAER Special Commando Police Air Unit....I assume its just another one of the Gendarme type units that Brazil seems to like so much.  Below is a vid of the unit in action taking down a bad guy.  What has me wondering is the tactics being used.



To fire from a helicopter, even if you're employing a trained sniper, in a residential area with civilians out and about makes me wonder.

Is crime so bad in Brazil that it should be considered almost an insurgency?  We're seeing tactics being used that seem more appropriate in war zones than in a rapidly developing country.

French Defense Minister says ISIS now more than a terrorist group...they're a TERRORIST ARMY.

via Defense News.

The Islamic State militant group is no longer a terrorist group, but rather has morphed into a "terrorist army," the French minister of defence said Monday.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, speaking at the Pentagon, said that change means ISIL has to be fought on multiple fronts.
ISIL is often used as acronym for the Islamic State group.
"It is no longer a terrorist group. It has become a terrorist army, which has the capability to act as a classical army — they have demonstrated it — but also to have operations in urban areas and terroristic operations. They can do all three at the same time."

Here.

Interesting.

We're getting more truth from European defense officials about the current state of play with ISIS than we're getting from the White HOuse and Pentagon.

There really should be a rule....Never attempt to implement a strategy if you're worried more about your legacy than defeating the enemy.

Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III ....better than the F-4 Phantom & the son of a Mig Killer!

Everyone loves the F-4 Phantom.  It was developed (after many years and a rather lackluster aerial combat debut) into a decent multi-role airplane.

So what's my problem with it?

My problem is that the Navy/Marine Corps could have had a better plane...the Vought F8U Crusader III.

This airplane was lining up to be an absolute beast!  Check this out via Wikipedia...

The Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III was an aircraft developed by Chance Vought as a successor to the successful Vought F-8 Crusader program and as a competitor to the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.[1] Though based in spirit on the F8U-1 and F8U-2, and sharing the older aircraft's designation in the old Navy system, the two aircraft shared few parts.[1]

And then this...

In December 1955, the US Navy declared a competition for a Mach 2+ fleet defense interceptor. Fly-offs against the Crusader III's main competitor, the future McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, demonstrated that the Vought design had a definite advantage in maneuverability. John Konrad, Vought's chief test pilot, later stated that the Crusader III could fly circles around the Phantom II. Combat thrust-to-weight ratio (T/W ratio) was almost unity (0.97), while early F4H had only 0.87. However, the solitary pilot in the XF8U-3 was easily overwhelmed with the workload required to fly the intercept and fire Sparrows which required constant radar illumination from the firing aircraft, while the Phantom II had a dedicated radar intercept officer on board.[1]
In addition, with the perception that the age of the guns was over, the Phantom's considerably larger payload and the ability to perform air-to-ground as well as air-to-air missions, trumped Vought's fast but single-purposed fighter. For similar reasons, the Phantom would replace the Navy's F-8 Crusader as the primary daylight air superiority fighter in the Vietnam War, although it was originally introduced as a missile-armed interceptor to complement day fighters like the Crusader.[5]

I find it interesting that the Navy chose the F-4 over the Crusader.  In an age of single purpose airframes dotting the deck of its carriers....when a carrier air wing had over 100 plus aircraft compared to the 40-60 today (even though today's carriers are larger...and the aircraft carried then topped 70,000 pounds...the A-5 Vigilante)....to pick an inferior warplane based on the idea that air combat would only involve launching missiles beyond visual range seems silly, accepting unnecessary risk and being based on false assumptions....

Oh wait.  We're doing it again with the F-35!

The Crusader III was probably the last chance for the Navy to have an air superiority fighter on its deck instead of simply a fleet defense fighter!  I guess the old saying was true.... When you're out of F-8's you're out of fighters!

Stupid ideas...flawed assumptions...crazy risk....the story of the F-35 dogfight as taught by history....

via War is Boring...

The aerial dogfight was not supposed to happen. On May 20, 1967, eight U.S. Air Force F-4C fighters were patrolling over North Vietnam when they spotted as many as 15 enemy MiG-17 fighters a short distance away.
Fog and the MiGs’ low altitude had prevented the F-4s from detecting the North Vietnamese jets from farther away.
Diving to attack, the twin-engine F-4s fired a staggering 24 Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles, shooting down just four of the single-engine MiGs. The North Vietnamese jets reacted quickly, forming into a tight-turning “wagon wheel,” with each pilot watching the tail of the man in front of him.
As the heavy, twin-engine F-4s tried to out-turn the nimble, single-engine MiGs, a North Vietnamese pilot peppered one of the American planes with cannon fire, igniting it and forcing the two crewmen to eject.
“The turning ability of the MiG-17 is fantastic,” one F-4 flier recalled later. “It must be seen to be believed.”
But the Air Force had assumed that wouldn’t be a problem — that its then-brand-new twin-seat F-4s would never even get into a close-range dogfight. Instead, the F-4s — and other Air Force and Navy fighters — would always destroy their enemies from long range, using the Sparrow and other air-to-air missiles.
It was a flawed and dangerous assumption that got scores of American aviators shot down over Vietnam. But 49 years later, the Air Force is assuming the same thing … with regards to its new F-35 stealth fighter.

Here.

The failure to identify the Chinese as future enemies is a mistake.  Good enemies focus the mind, cause those that will face them on the battlefield to harden their bodies and resolve...cause leadership to dispense with nonsense and to laser beam on the idea of defeating the best that they can throw at us.

China's military leadership is doing all of the above.  Our's isn't.

Once I believed that our military leaders would not act stupidly, would do their absolute best to craft winning solutions AND would give us the best gear that the nation could afford to help defend the nation.

I no longer believe that.

One thing is certain though.  China's leaders are reading these articles and their scientists and strategist are working on solutions to negate the BVR advantage that the F-35 MIGHT have and force it into a close range dogfight.

What form will their efforts take?

I don't know.

We can probably assume that the electronic warfare fight will be something that we've never seen before.  We might see massed missile shoots at whatever bearing they think F-35's might be on with a second wave of fighters trying to zoom high and fast and dive down on the fleeing US fighters once they start making counter moves to avoid the missile barrage by the Chinese jets that

would have already turned for home while their comrades attempt to close.

We might even see the Chinese version of a large (meaning modified transport) missile truck that carries upwards of 30 odd missiles each.

We've seen stupid ideas, flawed assumptions and crazy risk before.  The reason why things were turned around is because of leaders like General Olds.

I don't see anyone with the tactical genius, courage or leadership qualities of General Olds in service today.