The F-35's cost is destroying Western Air Forces...

This is a must read people!  Stephen Bryen  A tidbit...

For Israel, there are other considerable gains in buying the F-15SE. It is an evolution of an aircraft already in inventory, which means all the logistics and support systems are already in place. Pilots are already well trained on the platform and have experience in combat, meaning that the capabilities of the plane are well known. And the F-15SE costs less than half of what the F-35 costs, meaning that Israel can get much more punch for the buck than the F-35 offers. Indeed, the F-35’s main contribution to air forces around the world is that it is so unaffordable it will shrink every air force that buys it. This must cause delight in Moscow as well as Beijing.

Cost is the real achilles heel of this program.

Happy Birthday Marine Corps!

Happy Birthday Marine Corps!  240 years of ass kicking excellence...its been a helluva run!

Don't let political correctness, feminist, reformist, and the other camp followers ruin you!  Stay just the way you are!

Armenia vs Azerbaijan. Is the most unnoticed dispute about to turn into a full fledged war?

via Azernews.az

The Azerbaijani army will soon prove its superiority over Armenia, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov said on November 9.
Hasanov attended a National Flag Day celebration in one of the military units on the frontline, the ministry reported.
Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov met with members of the Armed Forces serving in the trenches on the frontline and highlighted orders from President Ilham Aliyev.
"The army is being rapidly developed, thanks to President Aliyev’s attention and care,” he said. “Some achievements were made in this area. As a result of measures conducted on the frontline, a large number of the enemy was killed, and they were destroyed psychologically. The enthusiasm of our servicemen frightens Armenia. Azerbaijani servicemen are ready to expel Armenian forces from our territories. We have prepared all possibilities for this."
The minister also stressed the necessity to do everything possible "to hasten the day when the occupied territories will be released and the flag of Azerbaijan will fly there."

Here.

I've been watching this thing simmer between these two countries for years.  There have been occasional clashes but I thought it more a case of rivalry run amok rather than the possibility of them actual going full bore.

I might have been wrong.

This sounds like a speech to prep the people for coming war.  This just moved up on my ranking of possible hotspots.

Syrian Army T-55 Tank Crew survive TOW Anti-Tank Missile hit...

Thanks to InfoInfantrie for the link!



Good hit.  Secondary explosion.  Crew survives?  What happened here? 

Saudi Arabia/GCC shift forces from the ISIS fight over to Yemen?

via Sputnik.

Heralded by the Obama administration for their role, "flying side by side with American fighter jets in the campaign's early days as an important show of solidarity against the Islamic State," these allies, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan, have since "shifted most of their aircraft" to fight the fledgling Houthi government which took power in Yemen last September.

Ok.  You know my stance on getting information from a variety of sources and then SIFTING through it to sort the truth from the propaganda....but if this is true....if Saudi Arabia/GCC are shifting their airpower from the fight against ISIS to the conflict in Yemen then we need to ask some very serious questions.

Why do they view the Yemen fight as more important?  Why do they consider the threat from ISIS to be "lesser" considering all the geo-political implications of them being successful?  Or to boil this all down...WHAT THE FUCK!

Yeah.  We need independent confirmation of this.  Then we need an explanation (if its true) from the Western Govts (from the US, UK, France, German, Poland...the entire EU since they're being affected by the refugees flooding into their nations).

P-8I Anti-Submarine Aircraft Combat Simulation Vid

Swedish Special Operations Group conducts ops on the Gotland Islands...

Many thanks to Petter for the link (all pics via forsvarsmakten.se)!

Is it just me or does Special Ops worldwide look exactly the same.  I wonder what will happen when these groups clash, using the same tactics, same equipment etc...

STORM SHADOW Successfully Released from a Eurofighter TYPHOON via Military Technology Magazine.

Story here.

There are two pieces of tech that the US should immediately buy from Europe.  The Meteor and Storm Shadow missiles. That is if we're serious about the possibility of warfare against an advanced, competent nation state.

Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work admits the filthy truth about the F-35...

via DoD press release...

“We believe and we say it over and over,” he added, “this fifth-gen fighter, [even though] it can't out-turn an F-16 or … go as fast, we are absolutely confident that F-35 will be a war winner … because it is using the machine to help the human make better decisions.”

Now.  Only now do we get the filthy truth about the F-35.  It will not equal legacy airplanes in performance.  It will be at a SEVERE disadvantage to threat aircraft across its flight spectrum.

IT WILL DEPEND ON SENSORS TO SURVIVE IN COMBAT!

Think about that.  Our enemies are certainly aware of this.  They are undoubtedly working on systems to negate this (extremely negligible) so called trump card. 

I can't wait for the fanboys to try and defend this!  Sensors can be degraded. For our entire air superiority doctrine to rest on a slow, non-turning, low flying pig of an airplane that only has sensors as its reason for being seems extremely foolish.

Sidenote:  Does this have shades of airpower theory from the 50's and 60's?  Guns are irrelevant because we'll have missiles that can do all the work?  Flash forward to 2015 and suddenly a fighters speed, maneuverability and flying height is irrelevant because we have sensor fusion!  Simply amazing.

Slow motion video of Stryker Mobile Gun Systems & T-72 Main Battle Tanks on exercise.

I keep failing to remember how compact the T-72 is.  Ditto with how huge the Stryker MGS is in comparison.

This is another of those back of the brain, hope leadership has it right, thoughts about how our armored vehicles are designed and optimized to be IED resistant instead of biased toward conventional combat.

The ideal IFV/APC for conventional combat looks totally different from one that's aimed at peacekeeping/insurgency/nation building.

I hope this doesn't come back to bite.