Dutch can't afford last 3 F-35's due to exchange rate?

via NLTimes

Due to the high dollar rate, the Ministry of Defense may not have enough money to buy the last three of the 37 Joint Strike Fighter jets the government plans to purchase, State Secretary Barbara Visser of Defense wrote in a letter to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, ANP reports.

She wrote that there is "just not enough project budget" for the last three fighter jets, but does not seem to consider the problem definite yet, according to the news wire. "The decision on the order of these three remaining planes will be discussed in 2019", Visser wrote. "By that time I will inform the Kamer about this."

Last year the Court of Audit also warned that the purchase of the JSF jets, or F-35 as they're officially called, may be more expensive than expected due to fluctuations in the dollar exchange rate. These jets are the intended successors of the F-16s. 

Amazing.  They're talking exchange rate when the cost of building facilities for these airplanes is back breaking alone?

I consider this a weak excuse.

They lose airplanes off the order and supposedly the cost goes up (although the economics of this program defy anything taught in school)....so these 3 planes will add to the cost for others.

I've said death spiral before and the fanclub went batshit.  I stand by it.  They're using accounting gimmicks and illegality to keep the program alive but eventually you have to pay the piper.

Watch this space.  When he shows up you'll hear it here first.

VBM Centauro 8x8 of the Italian Army (pics)

We (meaning everyone on this blog) continues to leave out the VBM Centauro when talking about modern and capable 8x8's.

Why it doesn't get more attention is beyond me but the Italians are working the "family of vehicles" concept hard with this design and will probably field the largest motorized force in NATO in a few years.  With the move to the Centauro for the Army, replacing the AAV with probably the Iveco SuperAV in their amphibious forces, the Italians will be able to motor to any location in country and across Europe with ease.

I definitely need to dig into this vehicle in the near future.  On a side note I can't figure out why it isn't a better seller.

Open Comment Post. Dec 2, 2017...

"The Marine Corps Way Of War" Book Giveaway Winner!

Well we have a winner of the book giveaway I told you about a few days ago. The methodology was simple.  I searched the internet for a random name picker, landed on MiniWebTool.com Random Name Picker and entered everyone's name that responded to that blog post.

The "machine" picked Ryan The Red, so congrats to you bud!  We'll do it like this...Ryan has 72 hours to hit me in my blog e-mail and I'll forward your name and address to the publisher so you can get your book before Christmas.

Since this is a Marine Corps focused site we have to have a backup plan in case we don't get a response so if Ryan doesn't respond I'll inform our second place guy...Locum...that he has 72 hours. 

This was a good read and worth my time.  I hope the winner enjoys it too.  Thanks for participating guys and better luck next time.

Saab's image for the month of Dec.

Pretty formidable loadout.  Iris-T, Meteor and RBS-15...along with a long range fuel tank.  I think the coast is probably safe with these bubbas flying around.

Politics Talk. What game is Flynn playing?

Everyone has heard about Flynn cooperating with the Special Council.  What I can't figure is what game he's playing.

What do you do when you enter into a fight?

You size up your opponent.

If you have knowledge of his skills then you take that into account.

You note his experience level, motivation, mindset and other factors that could affect his determination/ability to win.

So when I take a look at Flynn I have to wonder.

Dude is an old skool spook.  He was Special Ops before it was cool.  He knows (or should know) what to do when talking to interrogators.  He was also an extremely capable and NOTED tactician.  On the strategic level he might have been lacking (and I wonder about that...was he so bad on the strategic level as the establishment said or did he have a different viewpoint that didn't support their ideas/goals?) but on the tactical level which in this context would be interviews with lawyers should have been easy for him.

I don't buy his fearing charges either.  I've been keeping up with the story and Flynn was guilty of what half of Washington DC is guilty of...being lobbyist for foreign govts!  Congress is already in the midst of rewritting those rules and K-Street is going crazy trying to file so that they're covered in case something breaks loose.

So he didn't fear the charges.  I don't think he feared for his son.  So what is the game?

I have a theory.

I think Flynn is gonna go fall guy before its all said and done.  I think we're about to see the Army version of Colonel North before it's all said and done.

Sometimes the courts work right...

via Independent.

The tears Barry Robert Baker Jr shed in court as he begged for mercy on Wednesday did nothing to change what the judge thought of him.

"You are a bully. You are a predator," said Judge William P Mahon, of the Court of Common Pleas in Chester County, Pennsylvania, according to the Daily Local News. "You are a coward. In 18 years on the bench I have never had such tangible evidence of someone's moral compass being so askew."

For his crimes - assault and fleeing authorities - the state generally recommends between three and 14 months in prison, with six months probation. But Baker, 29, of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to a total of three to six years behind bars.

If you ask the prosecutors or law enforcement in this county, Baker had it c
oming.

It all began in the early morning hours of May 10, in a brutal scene that spurred rage across the internet.

Baker and his friends were outside a 7-Eleven convenience store in West Chester at about 2:30 a.m. when a 22-year-old man with cerebral palsy parked his SUV. As the SUV-driver walked into the store, Baker started making fun of his disability, stumbling around to mock the way he walked, according to a news release from the Chester County District Attorney's Office. When the man came back out of the store, Baker continued to imitate the way he moved. Then, as the 22-year-old stood in front of his white SUV, Baker hit him with a sucker-punch.

Baker immediately fled, running around the corner of the store. Meanwhile, the man he punched put his hands to his nose, appearing stunned as his looked down at the blood dripping onto his hands.

Well deserved in my opinion!

Read the whole story.  The crime is horrible and although the sentence is tough he'll be out alot sooner because of good time rules.

What has me spinning is the effort he put into eluding the police.  Simply amazing.

I wonder.  Do prisoners take special care with those that assault the disabled like they do with those that prey on children?

I despise Nazis but this is becoming alarming...

via Yahoo News.

Tony Hovater, the Nazi sympathizer profiled by the New York Times over the weekend, revealed that it has since cost him his job and his house.

The 29-year-old New Carlisle, Ohio resident told The Washington Post that he, his wife and his brother-in-law had all been fired from the restaurant where they all worked, and that he had been forced to relocate due to financial reasons and concerns for his own safety.

“It’s not for the best to stay in a place that is now public information,” he told the paper. After the Times profile was published on Saturday, someone published Hovater’s address online. “We live alone. No one else is there to watch the house while I’m away.”

In a statement on Wednesday, 571 Grill & Draft House issued a statement saying it was unaware of Hovater’s political views and felt it necessary to terminate his employment when the restaurant became “swamped with phone calls and social media messages that are threatening and intimidating to both us and our employees.”

“We felt it necessary to fully sever the relationship with them in hopes to protect our 20 other employees from the verbal and social media threats being made from individuals all over the country, and as far as Australia. We neither encourage nor support any forms of hate within our establishment,” the statement said.

Story here. 

When the idiots marched in Charlottesville shouting "blood and soil" carrying torches at night I was pissed.  Going "Punisher" on them all was a favorite fantasy (and one I would never carry out).

I watched video of them isolating individual protesters and assaulting them, saw a young woman run down and even saw one of them fire a pistol in view of law enforcement with nothing being done.

Then it happened.

Internet geeks used some type of facial recognition, compared it to Facebook pages and these guys were being ruined one by one.

At first I thought awesome.  Couldn't happen to more deserving bastards.

That was then.  This is now.  Now I wonder.  Are we getting a bit carried away?

I don't like certain people.  I have that right, this is America.  I can think they're pond scum but they have the right to march (the violence they incited was wrong...they did incite violence too... and forget what Trump said, they aren't good people and forget the people that tried to defend them on this blog) and deliver messages that I find repulsive.

But to have protests morph into life altering events?  To be forced to move because you actually voice our opinion?  To lose your job? 

I don't know if that's right.

What makes this worse in my eyes is the DOUBLE standard that so many voiced.  Defend a violent protest in Charlottesville then get twisted into knots about a peaceful protest by NFL football players?  They pushed the idea that they were disrespecting the flag by taking a knee but ignoring the thought that the flag represents what gives them the right to protest?

Things are twisted and I don't have the answer, just a bunch of questions.  What do you guys think?  All I can do is remember the poem at the top of the page.

Are we seeing a budding Russo-Sino-US operation against N. Korea?

via Yahoo News

Russian marines have practiced landing operations at its border with North Korea, following Pyongyang’s controversial missile launch test this week, the military said. Russian naval infantry servicemen and the crews of Russia’s Pacific Fleet ships Admiral Nevelskoy and Peresvet, carried out a swift, amphibious charge on a beachhead in the Primorye region, Russia’s only one to border North Korea.

The cargo and staff boarded Admiral Nevelskoy at Desantnaya Bay and simulated the landing at the Klerk training range, both of which are in Primorye, Pacific Fleet spokesman Nikolay Voskresenskiy told state-run news agency RIA Novosti. Peresvet made its pickup elsewhere but also arrived in the area near Klerk.

This is pure speculation on my part so take it for what it's worth.

Do you remember talk earlier this year of the Chinese moving forces to the border of N. Korea?  We've all talked about the possibility of the Chinese cooperating with the US and even batted around the idea that we could see joint ground operations to secure nukes (the CJCS did say that the only way to be sure would involve ground ops).

The war prep that the US, Japan and S. Korea has been involved in is obvious even to a blind man and now we get news that Russian Marines are conducting landing exercises near N. Korea?

Is it beyond possible that we could see a Russo-Sino-US ground operation to secure the nukes in N. Korea when the balloon goes up?

Yeah I know Haley is making noise in the UN about how the Chinese need to step up but I view her as only posturing for higher office in the future and I don't think she's in step with the National Security establishment of the Trump Admin.

Why?

Because with the exception of bluster from Trump everyone else is low key, state constantly that negotiations are ongoing and meetings between Chinese and US officials are ongoing.

The other "clue" that I have is with the exception of the news media and Democrats (and only with regard to the past election), the anti-Russian hawks in the Republican party have quieted down tremendously.

Like I said, this is pure speculation but I wonder.

Open Comment Post. Dec 1, 2017