Why would the USAF be collecting specimens of Russian body fluids?

Thanks to Cynical for the link!

via ZeroHedge.

A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised members of Russia’s human rights council by informing them that some shadowy entity - possibly with ties to the United States - had been collecting biological tissues from Russians from different ethnic groups, the group responsible for harvesting the tissue has revealed itself.

While some initially discounted Putin's remars as another loony conspiracy theory, as it turns out, he was right: The group responsible for the tissue collection was none other than the US Air Force, proving that yet another conspiracy theory has become a conspiracy fact.

A representative for the US Air Force Education and Training Command explained to Russia Today that the choice of the Russian population was not intentional, and is related to research the Air Force is conducting on the human musculoskeletal system.

Eyebrows were first raised in July when the AETC issued a tender seeking to acquire samples of ribonucleic acid and synovial fluid from Russians, adding that all samples (12 RNA and 27 synovial fluid) “shall be collected from Russia and must be Caucasian.” The Air Force said it wouldn’t collect samples from Ukrainians, but didn’t specify why.

Story here. 

AETC is taking the blame on this?  I don't believe that for a second!  The real question, the million dollar question is WHY!  Why would an element (cause we don't know who the real perpetrators are) of the US govt do this?

You want a real indication of warlike intent?  Let the N. Koreans get caught doing the same to us and you'd have to read about 10 days worth of blog posts about how we should launch relentless airstrikes till we can build a McDonalds on the DMZ without resistance.

This thing reeks!

This is what future Chinese air power will look like. pic via AllAboutMilitary192781 Tumblr Page.

J-20s and J-11s.

One on one I still believe our airmen can win the day. But I don't believe the fight will be one on one.  I am concerned about China's manufacturing might. We're already seeing it with the high rate of production when it comes to their Navy and turning up the volume on aircraft and armor will be child's play.

Additionally while they are hardly innovative they are excellent at "acquiring" (I actually mean stealing) technology that they find useful thru whatever means necessary.

In short we'll be fighting an enemy that is just a tad less sophisticated but not markedly so, with a numbers advantage that will simply engage us in a war of contrition attrition (thanks to a reader for the correction, I'm obviously brain dead this morning)...a war we can't win.

Don't think about China gear in a one on one matchup.  Think about China outnumbering us in aircraft, ships, tanks and troops.  Think about them being just a step behind us in tech.  And finally think about our forces being stretched around the globe attempting to fulfill too many missions.

My prediction?  Marine Corps and Army ground officers better start studying Guadalcanal.  My bet is that in the near future, more than one unit will be left far out on a short limb.

F-35 deliveries were halted and we're just hearing about it now?

via Reuters

The Pentagon halted shipments of Lockheed Martin Corp’s F-35 fighter jets for 30 days this fall after it discovered corrosion around fasteners and a fix was devised, the Pentagon and Lockheed said on Wednesday.

.........

“While the issue was being evaluated, all F-35 deliveries to our customers were temporarily suspended by the F-35 Joint Program Office from Sept. 21 - Oct. 20 while we determined the corrective action plan,” Lockheed said in a statement.

Story here. 

Wow.

Aren't they suppose to be at the stage where they're able to push down the cost because they now know how to build the plane?

The most transparent program in history is anything but.

The F-35 is like the Walking Dead TV show.  It was great in the beginning but it's been terrible after the first few years.

Side note:  Watch the UK.  Theresa May has lost her majority, her defense minister and strong loyalist has resigned and everyone is expecting rates to rise today because a recession is expected in the country and their version of the Fed has NO bullets to fire to kick start things unless they do something now.  What does all this have to do with the F-35?  Expect the Pound to fall even more in value to the Dollar which will raise the price of the plane to the UK at a time when the public will DEMAND a decrease in defense spending.

UK Defense Minister resigns after getting caught up in the Weinstein mess...the social implications worry me...

via Reuters.

British defense minister Michael Fallon quit on Wednesday saying his conduct had fallen below the high standards demanded of his position, the first resignation in a sexual harassment scandal in parliament.

Prime Minister Theresa May, weakened after losing her parliamentary majority in a June election, loses a loyalist at a time when she is trying to break a deadlock in talks to leave the European Union. Fallon was described by sources in her ruling Conservative Party as a political “Rottweiler”.

His was the first high-profile resignation after a growing number of allegations of inappropriate behavior have been made against ministers and lawmakers, fueled by sex abuse allegations against Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Story here. 

Jesus. 

I thought Tailhook was bad.  I thought the Marine Corps Facebook scandal took scalps of guys that were caught unaware.

This Weinstein fueled mess is taking it to a new level!

This thing is spiraling in ways that is beginning to make me pause.  I don't know what these guys did.  I don't know if they're actually all guilty or if some of the women are simply piling on to get 15 minutes of fame but the sheer number of Hollywood A listers means that this is going to change things.

This isn't hitting some Marine, some Naval Aviator or another part of the unwashed masses.

This is hitting the elite!

Even the news media is taking their lumps on this thing.  The NPR editor resigned today and Mark Halperin one of the rising stars on MSNBC got blasted too.

The number of actors and directors accused is becoming almost legion.

But as bad as this is I wonder what comes next.  This dirty laundry got aired in public and you can bet that some of those that got named will be looking for their pound of flesh.

Could we be seeing the "collapse" of the assumed superiority of those that thought themselves our betters?

I can only hope but I have to wonder about the 13 year old boys that are just getting interested in girls have waiting for them in the future.  Will it come down to being so careful that written agreements are made before even casual conversation is attempted?  Will it have the opposite effect of women being viewed only as sex objects and only "bad girls" are deemed safe enough to even talk to?

You might think that I'm blowing the social implications of this out of proportion but I really think that we're gonna see a "male pushback" in some way.  Not this generation of males but the next.

1st Battalion the Irish Guards conducting a live firing exercise in the Belize Jungle...pic by Sergeant Rupert Frere RLC (winner in the 2017 Army Photographic Competition)

Wow! Marine Colonel calls for the "permanent" SPMAGTF to go away and return to the MEU concept!

via DOD Buzz.

After completing a seven-month deployment earlier this month, the commanding officer of the Marine Corps crisis response force for Africa has a recommendation for the brass: repurpose the task force and return a shipboard Marine expeditionary unit to the Mediterranean.

At a deployment debrief near Washington, D.C., Salene said the three-ship MEU was simply a better fit to meet the region’s needs and widely varied range of potential missions.

“A special purpose [Marine air-ground task force] is not designed to be something in perpetuity,” said Col. Sean Salene, commanding officer for Special Purpose MAGTF-Crisis Response-Africa. “It doesn’t have the same capabilities and capacities as the MEU/ [Amphibious Ready Group] team. Reestablishing that presence in the Mediterranean as a more capable, larger-capacity force, we think would work better to meet all the demands that are out there.”

Story here. 

GOOD GOD!

Either this Colonel has ran out of fucks to give or he's the most brilliant strategist of the age!

Do you get the ramifications of what he's saying?

*  SPMAGTF-CR is an AVIATION CENTRIC formation!  That is suppose to be the future of the Marine Corps and this guy (I'm reading into his words) is saying that not only is it incapable of performing the missions asked of it, but that its very creation was an abomination!

*  Additionally he's calling for a renewed EMPHASIS on the COMPLETE Marine Air-Ground Task Force!  By stating that the SPMAGTF-CR is not as capable as an MEU reinforces the statement above.

Wow!

This dude either guaranteed himself a star or he's ready to sit on that plot of land he bought in Montana (he's got a cowboy name so I figure he needs some of that "big sky" country).

Either way I wish him well.  We need alot more like him!

Marines fire mortars as part of Exercise Bold Alligator .... pics by Pfc. Nicholas Guevara

Awesome system but.....we really need a breech loaded system cause watching the munchkins step on crates to reach the muzzle is not only painful to watch but slow.  We need Dragon Fire!

Dawn Blitz 17 HIMARS ... video by Sgt. Logan Block (nice exercise but it wasn't as big a deal as we thought)

Caption from the vid...

U.S. Marines with 5th Battalion, 11th Marines, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit, set up and launch a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) aboard the USS Anchorage (LPD 23) during Dawn Blitz 2017, Oct. 22, 2017. Dawn Blitz allows the amphibious force to integrate the HIMARS into the exercise to validate a capability with platforms not traditionally used at the Marine Expeditionary Brigade/Expeditionary Strike Group level. 

I've been chewing on this awhile and my initial happiness with this move has been tempered.

WTF am I talking about?  Remember this pic from Defense Tech that had us all going goofy back in 2010 (article here)?

Yeah.  We just experimented with a concept that the Chinese Marine Corps were doing almost a decade ago to "validate" the concept.

I don't recall my reaction at the time but looking at it now I wonder.  This is an extremely poor way of delivering fires.  You better have calm seas, a totally deconflicted sea space to perform this op in (God forbid if some hot dog pilot pops over the horizon or some missile boat skipper gets a wild hair and your arty/MLRS is lashed to your deck!) and if you're gonna actually put steel on target you better be working some good voodoo with your math unless the ship is at anchor.

The reality is stark...and simple.

We're trying to make it work with the resources we have, and despite spending a fortune on defense we still have a basic capability gap.

We don't have proper naval guns to deliver the weight of fire needed in this day and age if we were to ever cross swords with a peer threat.

What we need is a proper battleship for the 21st century and the Zumwalt while a decent attempt won't get it done.

Luckily for us planners have already crunched the numbers on this.  Remember the document outlining future "wishes" for the force?  On one of the slides was a requirement for what is essentially a Landing Ship Medium (Rocket), which is what you see above.

Long short?

The demonstration was nice but the action is with the budget and the Navy. Will they give the Marine Corp another toy after getting burned with the Zumwalt, the Mobile Landing Platform, the F-35, being coerced into using the MV-22 for carrier onboard delivery and being begged for space aboard the space constrained LCS to deliver Marines?

I'm not sure.  You can push goodwill too far and the Navy has bent over backwards to put into service ships and planes that we have to "figure out what we're gonna do with them, after we get them".

173rd Airborne Brigade via Army Flickr Page, pic by Paolo Bovo

Paratroopers assigned to 173rd Airborne Brigade, prepares to land after exiting a U.S. Air Force 86th Air Wing C-130 Hercules aircraft, during exercise September Heat at Rivolto Italian Air Force Base, Udine Italy, Sept. 26, 2017. The 173rd Airborne Brigade is the U.S. Army Contingency Response Force in Europe, capable of projecting ready forces anywhere in the U.S. European, Africa or Central Commands' areas of responsibility.

Hmm.  In light of the incident with the Special Forces team just a few weeks ago, is it smart to have your "contingency force" stationed in Italy especially considering the size of Africa?

Let's be honest.  Europe is NOT in need of an airborne unit from the US.  They can neither deter or prevent a mythical invasion by the Russians.  Seems like it would make nothing but sense to station them in Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.  It would suck for the paratroopers (I saw a Pizza Hut on a map of the base so maybe it wouldn't be so bad!) but it would put them ALOT closer to the action if they're ever needed.

Open Comment Post. Nov 2, 2017