SNAFU!

U.S. Army fires

Wow.

This short short vid makes me envious of the tremendous firepower the Army has at its disposal.

I know they were pushing the Marine Expeditionary Brigade concept real hard only a couple of years ago (seems to have fallen by the wayside...don't hear much about it lately) but I have yet to see any real deal exercises or wargaming with US Army units.

We practice all the time with foreign units but never with the guys just a few hundred miles away inside the continental United States. If nothing else I can see a strong case being made to regularly attach Army Air Defense and Artillery units to Marine forces. If for no other reason than to save money and not have to duplicate resources.

I don't think either service is too interested in that. Too bad. The Army would get wet but it would still be a win for them.

High rise fire in Brazil...they're snake bit...

I don't usually post on this type of thing but I've never seen JUST a fire collapse a high rise building before.

Quite honestly I've never seen one this fully engulfed before. Maybe my memory is bad but this seems unusual to me.

Between the Brazilian Army and Marines taking over to fight the drug traffickers in the favilas to this and it seems like Brazil is snake bit (won't even touch on their economic woes).

Watch the vid from the BBC of the collapse here.

Commando Helicopter Force trains in the rain (pic)...

via RNAS Yeovilton Instagram Page.

Rotor wash, rain and a slick rope. That should be interesting....

Indonesia's Kaplan (FNSS) Medium Tank to enter production soon...

Thanks to John for the link!

Story here.

Israeli Prime Minister talk on the Iran deal was obviously coordinated...

via Daily Caller.

A State Department official confirmed to the Free Beacon Monday evening that it is "aware of the information just released" by Israel and is "examining it carefully."

"The United States has reviewed many of the documents Israel has obtained relating to Iran’s nuclear weapons program," an official confirmed to the Free Beacon. "We assess that the documents that we have reviewed are authentic."

The State Department further confirmed that "new details in this information are consistent with a large body of evidence and intelligence the U.S. government has amassed over many years on Iran’s past clandestine nuclear weapons program," according to the official.

While the administration's analysis of the document cache is "ongoing," officials said they "agree with the Israelis that…. this information provides new and compelling details about Iran's past efforts to develop nuclear weapons deliverable by a Shahab-3 ballistic missile."

In addition, the new "information indicates plans for Iran’s nuclear weapons program included building five nuclear weapons," the official said. "It demonstrates once again that Iranian leaders have for years lied to the world and their own citizens when they claim Iran has never pursued nuclear weapons."

Story here.

If we were about getting medieval on Iran's nuclear program then I'd be all for a short sharp bombing/assassination campaign that destroyed sites and killed key personnel.

But I've seen this movie before and I know how it goes.

First we've gotten news that the Iranians are close to a nuclear weapon and that they have the means to deliver either to the US or our allies.

Then we're told that this extreme threat must be faced. Efforts are made to push thru UN resolutions. Most fail. Then we get a coalition of the willing probably composed of MAYBE the UK along with Saudi Arabia, other GCC states, and Israel...and then we posture before the fight begins.

The Iranian regime survives and we station about 35K troops in the region to "deter aggression".

Why am I so convinced that this whole thing is pre-scripted?

How do you go over that many documents and confirm them in an afternoon?

If this is real then this stuff had to have been pushed over to the US at the beginning of this year at least....

What I can't figure is that if they're true then why Macron and other EU leaders unaware of it. Are their intel services that inefficient?

This is kinda weird.

The Iranian nuke deal was NOT a favorite but it had the chance to take a wild card off the table while we dealt with other issues. With the happy talk coming out of N. Korea we had a chance to sort some things and tackle that issue at a time of our choosing.

Now?

Now we solve (potentially) one mess only to unravel another.

Nature is a bitch! Pics of a bird carrying a SHARK that's eating a fish!!!!!

Story here, pics below!!!!

Geez.

We can marvel at man's technological achievements but we can't begin to compare to how wild and wooly mother nature is.

We don't even know what kind of creatures are at the bottom of the ocean. We don't even know what creatures exist that we haven't discovered...but we do know what we do know.

Mother nature is a bitch!

Yesterday it was Whip Spiders. Today it's this batshit crazy circle of life...Just plain wow.

Defence Technology puts the wraps on the CRV contest...

Just getting to my inbox and behold I see that Defense Technology put the wraps on the CRV contest. Yep. The new edition is coming out soon but if you're like me and you've been scrambled all month, this is worth your time to circle back around and read. Check it out here.

The Slow, Sad Decline of the British Military

via Defense Aerospace.

Britain’s military should be growing. It’s not. The Royal Air Force celebrated its 100th birthday last week with a gala program at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. No one does pomp better than the British, but the presence of the Queen’s Colour Squadron had a larger purpose: to solemnize the reformation of 617 Squadron, the famous Dambusters, now flying the stealthy F-35.

Those 16 fighter jets are among the best in the world. Given how few planes the RAF has, they’d better be. As a nation, Brexit Britain is stepping out of the shadow of the EU. But as a military power, it’s stepped into the shade.

The defense of a nation is about a lot of things. But ultimately, it takes money. One of Britain’s proudest boasts is that it’s one of the few members of NATO to meet the alliance’s target of spending a minimum of 2 percent of GDP on defense. By NATO’s figures, the U.K. spent 2.12 percent in 2017, more than any other member of NATO except Greece and the United States. But NATO’s accounting includes military pensions as defense spending. An alternative estimate, by the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies, found that Britain missed NATO’s minimum target in 2017 for the second year in a row—this time, by over $1 billion.

The rot set in years ago. As far back as 1998, in the second year of Tony Blair’s Labour government, a review of Britain’s defenses acknowledged that “the so-called ‘peace dividend’ from the ending of the Cold War has already been taken.” Yet while he waged wars in the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Blair continued to cut the defense budget, which fell from 3.5 percent of GDP in 1996 to 2.3 percent in 2007.

That was lower than at any point in the 20th century except 1930, 1932, and 1933—the depths of the Great Depression.

Story here.

Things are good for the moment but bad in the future for the US defense budget...

Things have been horrible for the Brits since Tony Blair.

I would have never guessed. They've done some remarkable things on a shoestring but it's bound to catch up with them...sooner or later it's inevitable...