Fallout 4 Concept Art...

Royal Marines @ Trident Juncture 2015...

Do you finally realize how fucking big the MV-22 is?

"Very exciting to have USMC OSPREYs onboard HMS OCEAN preparing for tonight’s amphibious assault during Exercise #TJ15." - RADM Tony Radakin, COM UKMARFOR

Drink it in boys and girls.  On deck with the MV-22's are CH-47's...not exactly small helicopters and they're absolutely DWARFED!

Now do you understand how fucking big the MV-22 is?

Now do you understand my concerns when it comes to helo-assaults into small landing zones and how the sheer size of this bird limits you to easily predicted LZ's?

Prediction.  MarineAir pushed to complete the MV-22 buy before the CH-53K came online for one reason.  It will be the go to helicopter for Marines...in many ways it will be superior.

BAE wins M109A7 contract...but is gun artillery dead?

via Press Release.

The U.S. Army awarded BAE Systems a contract option worth $245.3 million to complete the low-rate initial production (LRIP) of the M109A7 self-propelled howitzer and M992A3 ammunition carrier.
“The success of this program is directly attributable to the partnership between the Army and BAE Systems,” said Adam Zarfoss, director of Artillery and Bradley programs at BAE Systems. “We’ve worked as a team to bring this much needed enhanced combat capability to the soldier to address immediate needs while providing a platform that can support future growth as requirements evolve.”
The M109A7 program is a significant upgrade over the vehicle’s predecessor, the M109A6 Paladin Self-Propelled Howitzer. It uses the existing main armament and cab structure of the M109A6, but replaces the vehicle’s chassis structure with a new design that increases survivability and allows for the integration of Bradley common drive-train and suspension components. Additionally, the system leverages technologies developed under the Crusader and Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon programs such as a 600 volt on-board power generation, distribution and management system, coupled with high-voltage gun drive and projectile ramming systems.

Here.

I wonder.  There was a widely circulated report...a lessons learned from the Ukrainian War...that talked about a MLRS battalion destroying two Ukrainian Brigades in three minutes.

We saw the same thing in the first Gulf War.

Is gun artillery dead?  Instead of focusing on mortars should we be towing mini-rocket launchers behind our ITVs?

Complete a 80% lower with a jig and common home tools!

The horse is out the barn.  Knowledge is the most powerful thing that any person has and AR-15 know how is spreading.

Sometimes you do things because they're necessary, and sometimes you do things just because you can.  I don't know where this falls but its definitely something everyone should try.

Sidenote.  No registration necessary with a 80% lower.  We're heading into the last year of the Obama Administration with the threat of Hillary taking over....this golden age of AR-15's won't last forever (Republicans screwed themselves with the backdoor budget deal and the complaints about the debate is just to pacify the base).

#Bring Back Officer Fields? Students stage walkout?

via WISTV.com

Students at Spring Valley High School staged a brief walkout in support of school resource officer Ben Fields, the Richland County sheriff's deputy caught on camera slamming and dragging a student out of a desk earlier this week.

Hundreds of students walked out of class around 10 a.m. and into the school's atrium before school administrators returned the students to class.
Principal Jeff Temoney told the students none of them would be suspended if they returned to class.
"We've heard your voices, okay," Temoney said. "We appreciate you taking time to do this, but again, as you know, we always focus on teaching and learning, so let's head on back to class

Absolutely amazing.  Story here.

I am fucking speechless.

ISIS News....a quick round robin...

This is just a quick round robin of ISIS news from around the net....

via New York Times.

As Secretary of State John Kerry sat down here on Friday to push for a political settlement of the Syrian war, the immediate tension surrounded his dealings with the Russians and the Iranians.
But the bigger challenge may well be reconciling the Saudis and the Iranians, longtime rivals who have turned Syria into the main battlefield in a broadening proxy war for dominance in the Middle East.
They have more invested in the outcome than any of the other participants in the talks to end the conflict, now in its fifth year.
Until two weeks ago, the idea that Saudi Arabiaand Iran would sit at the same table was unthinkable. The Saudis outright refused, and the two countries have been accelerating an arms race to assure they prevail not only inSyria, but also in Yemen, Iraq and, less noticeably, in the street uprisings in Bahrain.

Here.  The Iranians and Saudis are headed to a major regional war.

via Reuters.

A Syrian rebel group which is part of a new U.S.-backed alliance that also includes the Kurdish YPG militia announced on Thursday plans for an imminent offensive against Islamic State militants in Raqqa province, the jihadists' stronghold in Syria.
U.S. Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said earlier this week the U.S.-led coalition would support local forces as they put pressure on Islamic State in Raqqa and in neighboring Iraq.
Washington has announced a shake-up of its support to the rebels battling the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, ending a program to train fighters outside Syria and instead providing weapons to groups under U.S.-vetted commanders. It has already dropped ammunition to rebels in the north, but has not specified which groups the aid was bound for.
The Raqqa Revolutionaries Front, which made the announcement in an online video statement, is one of several rebel groups that recently formed the alliance. The group said earlier this month U.S. weapons were on their way.

Here.  I had been calling for a focus on killing ISIS.  My thinking is that they're the lesser Satan.  Putin has been making the same argument and it seems that the US is "evolving" to that position.  Better late than never.

via LA Times.

A 24-year-old Syrian immigrant pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to the FBI about his links to the Islamic State terror group.
As part of a plea bargain with federal prosecutors in San Diego, Mohamad Saeed Kodaimati agreed to a prison sentence of eight years.
Saeed admitted that he went to Turkey from San Diego in late 2012 and then to Syria, where he met Islamic State and Al Nusra fighters. He was questioned by U.S. authorities in Ankara, Turkey, and then when he returned to San Diego in March.

Here.  And another story here.  ISIS is here.  Prediction.  Buy your guns, ammo and spare parts now.  When they hit its gonna be a price explosion and a run on them like you've never seen.

Mass Multi-National Parachute Drop @ Trident Juncture 2015..

Note:  Ok, this just got a bit interesting.  We've seen joint amphibious operations and now they toss in an airborne op?  This is the type of stuff we should be seeing from the 82nd and our MEU's on regular basis....especially in the Pacific.  It's past time to bring back the Rapid Deployment Force...money is drying up and dedicated units on alert status is the only responsible way to manage precious training funds.

Women in the Infantry...it was always a done deal...

Thanks to Lori for the link!

via Small Wars Journal.

Today I am privy to most of the plans that are currently in place to put women into combat arms. I have been told, again by acquaintances working at the Pentagon and at various headquarters around the US military, that all of the “experiments” that the services have been undergoing for some time now have been a sideshow. The decision had been made from the get-go. As one Female Engagement Team Program manager told many in Afghanistan in 2011, “the decision has already been made; we just need to talk about “the how” instead of “if”.”
This means that the Ranger School “experiment” was an experiment in name only. It was guaranteed from the beginning to graduate a woman and that graduation would be used as proof that the combat exclusion rule needed to go. This, of course, matches what every Army Command Sergeant Major (9) in 2011-2013 told me was said to them by high-level CSMs and General Officers while attending their pre-command courses: “women will be in combat arms and women will graduate Ranger School, if any of you has a problem with that, you need to get out of the military.” They reported that the Ranger Instructors at Ranger School were told the same thing.
This same message was a similar one that was being told to people who had friends who were Ranger Instructors. The message: “women will graduate, we will guarantee it, and so if you can’t handle that fact, you need to move on out of Ranger School.” When I personally talked to R.I.s I got rolled eyes and lots of depressing comments. “It’s turned political, sir,” they told me one morning at Fort Benning during the Maneuver Center Conference a few years ago. “We are being told to get on-board, or get out.”

Here.

Read it and weep.  Its just as I've said.  You can pencil whip a monkey thru a physics course if you want to....and now they're gonna do the same with women in combat arms.

The interesting part?  They just don't know how many guys will vote with their feet and how hard they're gonna make it to recruit from certain parts of the nation.

I hope liberals/hippies/feminist get real gung-ho real quick.  The recruiting crisis is gonna turn into a recruiting emergency....

Dirty little secret. Iran probably already has nukes...

Many thanks to Samar for the link!

via IDRW.org

Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has confirmed that his country received nuclear technology from Pakistan. The assertion, made in an interview published on Thursday, undermines Islamabad’s long-standing claims that its supply of technology and material to Iran, Libya and North Korea was the work of a rogue network run by the country’s former nuclear czar, Abdul Qadeeer Khan. In an interview published by website Iran’s Nuclear Hope, Rafsanjani says “Abdul Qadeer Khan believed that the Islamic world had to have a nuclear bomb… The Pakistanis agreed to help us somewhat”.
“We were at war, and we wanted to have such an option for the day our enemies wanted to use nuclear weapons. This was our state of mind,” said the former Iranian president. The AQ Khan network is suspected to have supplied Iran with designs for its P1-type aluminium-rotor centrifuges, during a visit the scientist made to its Bushehr nuclear facility in 1986, Later, in between 1994 and 1996, Iran received components for 500 centrifuges, a deal that was followed up with designs for the more advanced P2 centrifuges, which began operating from 2002. Iran admitted to International Atomic Energy Agency investigators that it had met thirteen times with what it described as “the clandestine supply network” between 1994 and 1999.

I might be making too much out of nothing, but its obvious (at least to me) that Iran probably already has nuclear weapons.

If Iran has a nuclear weapon...and everything I've read from open source materials indicates that they do....then the next question should be why haven't we seen more activity from Saudi Arabia to protect themselves from this threat?

And no, I'm not talking about defensive measures...I'm talking about obtaining a nuclear weapon themselves.

N. Korea is hurting for money and they've already built nuclear weapons.  So has Pakistan.  Is it beyond belief that Saudi Arabia doesn't need to develop weapons....it just goes to poor nations and buys them?

What if we've seen a failure of foreign policy that spans the from Carter until today?  What if we're living in a world where Saudi Arabia...a regime that is teetering on the brink of revolution... has nukes?  What if all the talk about preventing Iran from getting nukes is deception and the nuke deal is to integrate them into the "community of nations" so that its hoped they won't use them?

I'm not sure about any of this...but it doesn't look good.