BvS10 Beowulf Brochure.

  BvS10 Beowulf Brochure

The European Army Project...

via The Trumpet...

The Dutch Army is made up of three brigades, plus support staff and Special Forces. On June 12, one of those brigades, the 11th Airmobile, officially joined the German Army.
This was the first time ever that European country has handed part of its army over to another country. “Never before has a state renounced this elementary and integral part of its sovereignty,” wrote Die Welt’s political editor, Thorsten Jungholt.
“The hour has come, finally, for concrete steps towards a European Army.”
 Now, Germany is making it clear that this was not an isolated event. Instead, it is a pattern Germany intends to follow as it absorbs more units from foreign militaries. “Germany is driving the European Army Project” was the title of Jungholt’s Die Welt article.

And then this from the Welt.de (Google translate or another service required..unless you read German)..

However, the Chairman of the Defence Committee points out that the sovereignty transfer to other nations in the long term should remain two­way street: even Germany must be prepared to assume his soldiers the command of its partners. If the army now talking about cooperation with Poland, "then we should signal a willingness, even an association from Germany to insinuate a Polish Division". The same applies to the cooperation with the Dutch, for the Bartels already has a specific project in mind: "Germany should think about whether we really need to build amphibious capabilities in the Navy." Thus, the German Navy is currently planning even the procurement of two socalled "Joint Support Ships", costing per ship: around 400 million euros. Danes and British have such vessels already," said Bartels. "So it is logical to apply the model of military cooperation in this area

Do you get the force of connection here.

This is another play to cut defense spending while claiming to enhance combat capability.

Considering the border crisis I find it hard to believe that this will go anywhere but the US should cheer the effort.  A European Army will finally kill NATO.  We can then turn our attention to the Pacific full force and leave Europe to the Europeans.

Brit WarBirds...

BvS10 Beowulf

DSEI shows the US military losing respect among enemies and allies alike...

Check this out from Defense One...

There was political theater and a few one-liners, as the panel remained cordial and the admirals were all smiles during handshakes before and after. But the tension was real and the messages direct.
“The South China Sea, as the name indicated, is a sea area. It belongs to China,” said Vice Adm. Yuan Yubai, who commands the North Sea Fleet for the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
Yubai said China is working with theU.S. military on a code of conduct for aircraft encounters, which he hoped would help avoid conflict among the five nations with claims in the South China Sea.
“I believe after this code of conduct is successfully passed, all the neighboring countries around this area will have good communication with each other whenever such unexpected encounters occur,” Yuba said.

That's a Chinese Admiral speaking there....sitting next to a US Navy Admiral.  Just plain wow.  But check this out. from Defense One too, but this time talking about US Army helicopter modernization plans....

In a blunt address to a room of global helicopter experts, Lt. Gen. Alexander Schnitger said the two primary designs being evaluated by the Army are not ambitious enough and could fall far short of what NATO needs to win a war.
“Sure, requirements call for a helicopter that is twice as fast and can fly twice as far as the current generation, but both solutions are based on ’80s technology, refreshed a little bit,” Schnitger said at the DSEI global security conference.

A fucking Royal Netherlands Air Force Officer has the audacity to criticize a US Army program when his nation can't even match the Army's reserve force?

Simply amazing.

We're witnessing something dangerous here.  Our enemies don't fear us and our allies don't respect us.

We need to fix this asap.

Lockheed Martin unveils its TR-X

Above you see the LM proposal to replace both the U-2 and the Global Hawk.  I find that interesting.  The Global Hawk has barely entered service and already planning is underway to replace it.  Has a critical flaw in its concept been discovered?  Is the USAF so worried about operations even in uncontested airspace that a stealth UAV is necessary?

We're being told something with this initiative (LM wouldn't be proposing something if they didn't see a market for it) but I'm not sure what.

DOT&E report shows that the Marines/Defense Reporters lied about the operational test aboard the WASP...

Thanks to Eric Palmer Blog for the link!

via War is Boring Blog...

The Marine Corps named this demonstration “Operational Test One,” but it turns out it wasn’t actually an operational test, “in either a formal or an informal sense of the term.” To count as an operational test, conditions should closely match realistic combat conditions.
But DOT&E found the demonstration “did not — and could not — demonstrate that Block 2B F-35B is operationally effective or suitable for use in any type of limited combat operation, or that it was ready for real-world operational deployments, given the way the event was structured.”

A faulty test?  Who would have thought...wait...damn near anyone with brain cells...it gets better though.  Remember all the glowing reports we got from Defense Reporters and the Assistant Commandant about how great everything was going?...

Maintainers aboard the ship had their hands full during the test. One aircraft lost a “turkey feather” retaining pin in the engine when the plane first landed aboard the ship. This rendered the aircraft Not Mission Capable (NMC), an acronym which is repeated over and over again in the report.

But what did the Assistant Commandant for Aviation say about IOC?

“A lot of people said, or had conjecture, that the Marines, me, were just going to declare IOC regardless. You have 10 jets, you’re going to declare,” he said.
“We have a very stringent requirement for what the airplanes are able to do, and we were hell-bent on measuring and making sure we had what we said we were going to have in order to declare initial operating capability.”

Seems like we were right when we said that the F-35 was gonna be pencil whipped into service.  The F-35 wasn't ready for sea trials, isn't ready for combat and the Assistant Commandant for Aviation lacks integrity.

Does belief in a weapon system and what it MIGHT deliver in the future excuse lies, deception and spinning in the present?  Maybe if you're a politician but not if you're a Marine.

Read the War is Boring story here. 

SgtMajor Lehew comes out swinging on the females in the Infantry debate.

Thanks to William for the link!

Good God.  This is the kinda integrity, grit and courage I've been calling for but....just plain wow.  The incoming that this Marine is about to receive is gonna make combat look like the good ole' days.  A few tidbits from his letter to the editor...

Ok, been silent long enough on this. I have been a part of this process from the beginning and I am just going to put it out there. The Secretary of the Navy is way off base on this and to say the things he is saying is is flat out counter to the interests of national security and is unfair to the women who participated in this study. We selected our best women for this test unit, selected our most mature female leaders as well. The men (me included) were the most progressive and open minded that you could get. The commander of this unit was a seasoned and successful infantryman. The XO of this unit was as good as they get, so good the USMC made her the CO of the Officer candidate school.

Right off the bat he body slams the issue about "substandard" personnel participating in this study.  I figured as much because the leadership of the Corps at the time (Amos) desperately wanted this to succeed.  But it gets better...

This was as stacked as a unit could get with the best Marines to give it a 100 percent success rate as we possibly could. End result? The best women in The GCEITF as a group in regard to infantry operations were equal or below in most all cases to the lowest 5 percent of men as a group in this test study. They are slower on all accounts in almost every technical and tactical aspect and physically weaker in every aspect across the range of military operations. SECNAV has stated that he has made his mind up even before the release of these results and that the USMC test unit will not change his mind on anything.

I have never seen this before.  Its part of the creed to call bullshit on bullshit leadership but SgtMajor Lehew put the SecNav in his sights and from my chair he hit a bullseye.  Don't leave.  It gets better still...

Make no mistake. In this realm, you want your fastest, most fit, most physical and most lethal person you can possibly put on the battlefield to overwhelm the enemy's ability to counter what you are throwing at them and in every test case, that person has turned out to be a man. There is nothing gender biased about this, it is what it is.

Read it all here.

I don't know how to contact SgtMajor Lehew, but send a prayer, good vibes...whatever your belief system allows his way.  The fire he's going to receive is gonna be intense and he's gonna need a "band of brothers" backing him up.

Russia Next Generation Nuclear Aircraft Carrier Concept

Russia has closed the gap on A2/AD.

via Breaking Defense...

“The advantage that we had from the air I can honestly say is shrinking,” Gen. Frank Gorencsaid, “not only from with respect to the aircraft that they’re producing, but the more alarming thing is their ability to create anti-access/area denied [zones] that are very well defended” by batteries of ground-based anti-aircraft missiles.

Then this...

“Some of the array that’s in Kaliningrad extends into Poland today. That’s a fact,” he said. In other words, launchers on Russian soil can hit targets in NATO airspace. In fact, Gorenc has said in the past that a third of Polish airspace is in the Russians’ range.
“Up to this point, we have talked about anti-access/area denial with respect to the Pacific problem, but what I’m telling you is this is not just a Pacific problem, ” Gorenc said. “It’s as significant in Europe as it is anywhere else on the planet.”

Story here. 

A few things pop out to me.  We're finally hearing a US general basically confirm what the people over at Air Power Australia have been saying.  Obviously the S-300/400/500 is a beast.  Remember my scenario where MV-22's are shot down as they lift off the deck of our amphibs?  Seems as if that wasn't too far fetched now.

Next.  Russian launchers reach that far into Polish/NATO airspace?  The USAF has to start taking electronic warfare seriously if this is true....indeed NATO as a whole needs to be buying EA-18's (or a similar airplane) like their lives depend on it.

Last.  I wonder why we're getting this assessment now.  Is it to save the F-35?  Is it part of the internal pentagon budget battle so that the USAF continues to get the lion's share of money?  Is it an effort to scare the Congress into upsizing the defense budget?  I don't know but the timing is suspicious to me.