Royal Marines.

Royal Marines Conducting Boarding Training With SA80 Rifles and Laser Light Modules

Pictured are Royal Marines from Fleet Protection Group (Scotland) (FPGRM)conducting boarding training on HMS Monmouth, to aid the Type 23 frigate during Counter Piracy Operations.

They are using 5.56mm SA80A2 assault rifles mounted with fixed Laser Light Modules (LLMs) which can be used in different formations including Infra-Red mode used in conjunction with a Night Vision Unit.

Royal Marines Conducting Boarding Training with Pistols

Pictured are Royal Marines from Fleet Protection Group (Scotland) (FPGRM)conducting boarding training on HMS Monmouth, to aid the Type 23 frigate during Counter Piracy Operations.

They are pictured using 9mm Browning pistols with torches.

Royal Marine from 42 Cdo Provides Security During Visit to Estonian Patrol Base

A Royal Marine from 42 Commando provides protection during a visit to the Estonian Patrol Base Wahid.An Estonian Armoured Patrol Vehice is pictured in the background.

Royal Marines from Lima Coy 42 Cdo on Patrol Near Na-e-Ali, Afghanistan

A Royal Marine patrol stops and awaits orders near Forward Operational Base Folad, Afghanistan.
The Marines from Lima Company 42 Commando were operating around the Nad-e-Ali district of Helmand Province.

"Sir, in the name of God, no sane man would have stood there and done what they did. They saved us all."

I heard this story...but not like the Lt. General tells it in this article.  This is just a snippet.  Read the whole thing.  Via the American Legion Magazine.

When I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, on April 22, 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 “The Walking Dead,” and 2/8, were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion was in the closing days of its deployment, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour.
Two Marines, Cpl. Jonathan Yale and Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, our allies in the fight against terrorists in Ramadi – known at the time as the most dangerous city on earth, and owned by al-Qaeda.
Yale was a dirt-poor mixed-race kid from Virginia, with a wife, a mother and a sister, who all lived with him and he supported. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines, they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple Americas exist simultaneously, depending on one’s race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, education level, economic status, or where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible, and because of this bond they were brothers as close – or closer – than if they were born of the same woman.
The mission orders they received from their sergeant squad leader, I’m sure, went something like this: “OK, take charge of this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?” I’m also sure Yale and Haerter rolled their eyes and said, in unison, something like, “Yes, sergeant,” with just enough attitude that made the point, without saying the words, “No kidding, sweetheart. We know what we’re doing.” They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry-control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.
A few minutes later, a large blue truck turned down the alleyway – perhaps 60 to 70 yards in length – and sped its way through the serpentine concrete Jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest 200 yards away, knocking down most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was caused by 2,000 pounds of explosive. Because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers in arms.
When I read the situation report a few hours after it happened, I called the regimental commander for details. Something about this struck me as different. We expect Marines, regardless of rank or MOS, to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different. The regimental commander had just returned from the site, and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event – just Iraqi police. If there was any chance of finding out what actually happened, and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I’d have to do it, because a combat award requires two eyewitnesses, and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.
I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police, all of whom told the same story. They all said, “We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing.”
The Iraqi police related that some of them also fired, and then, to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured, some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated, and with tears welling up, said, “They’d run like any normal man would to save his life.”
What he didn’t know until then, and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal. Choking past the emotion, he said, “Sir, in the name of God, no sane man would have stood there and done what they did. They saved us all.”
What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned after I submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras recorded some of the attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated. You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives.
I suppose it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. No time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: “Let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.”
It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time, the truck was halfway through the barriers and gaining speed. Here the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were, some running right past the Marines, who had three seconds left to live.
For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines firing their weapons nonstop.  The truck’s windshield explodes into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tear into the body of the son of a ***** trying to get past them to kill their brothers – American and Iraqi – bedded down in the barracks, totally unaware that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground.
Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder-width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could. They had only one second left to live, and I think they knew.
The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty. Those are the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight for you, and as amazing as this selfless act of sacrifice may seem, it is the norm.
In all the years I have been both enlisted and an officer of Marines, I have praised them and have chewed them out. I have promoted them and unceremoniously disciplined them. I have hung decorations on them and court-martialed them. I have visited them mangled and broken in military hospitals around the country, in lonely defensive positions across Iraq, and in brigs. I have known thousands of them over nearly 40 years, and I can tell you without hesitation or qualification that I never met one who would have run from his post that morning – who would have done anything other than to have stood there and died.
I have the name of the most recent hero, killed in Afghanistan a few hours ago, but I cannot share with you his name because a Marine officer and Navy chaplain have not yet executed their honored duty of notifying the next of kin. That family, right now, somewhere in America, is in the final minutes of blissful ignorance before their entire lives change forever. I know God will help them bear this inconceivable burden – a burden I am told by those who know that never goes away or even gets lighter – and help them find comfort in the fact that their son was doing exactly what he wanted to do, was doing it with the finest men on this earth, and for a cause that meant more to him than his life. The reality, however, is that it doesn’t matter if we are comforted, or if we accept it or not. It only matters that he did.
We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could bestow on man while he lives on this earth: freedom. We also believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious – our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen and Marines – to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can ever steal it away.
Rest assured that our America, this experiment in democracy begun over two centuries ago, will forever remain the land of the free and home of the brave so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down and kill those who would do us harm. God bless America, and semper fidelis.
Lt. Gen. John Kelly is senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Kelly delivered this speech to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on Nov. 13, 2010, four days after his son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed in action in Afghanistan.

If this doesn't bring at least a bit of mist to your eyes then you have no heart....

Hey Air Force. The debate is over. Buy AT-6's.

Yeah its pure propaganda.

Yeah its tugging at my protectionist, isolationist, America first heart strings.

Yeah its politically incorrect.

So what.

We protect the world, time to protect our manufacturing base.  USAF.  Buy American.

UK's Ministry of Defense is in for a rough ride.

When you have "main stream" military bloggers echoing whats been said on SNAFU! then you can only come to one realization.

We were right.

The next realization when it comes to the UK's Ministry of Defense is this.  You boys are about to have a very rough ride.

Read CDR Salamander's post here (Welcome back CDR...I thought for a minute that you had gone over to the dark side.  Nice to see you fighting on the side of truth, justice and the American way again!).

The point is...

On this side of the Atlantic....

With military bloggers that are well connected...

The UK's defense cuts are being seen as foolish....irresponsible....dangerous.

That's not the way a world power wants to be viewed.  

By either friends....or enemies.

Sikorsky Overview

EADS news you won't hear on Aviation Week.

via Aviation News.EU.

Airbus will not hold a demonstration of its A380 superjumbo at the Paris International Air Show after the wing-tip of its test aircraft was damaged in an incident Sunday, the company said.
“During ground maneuvers with the Airbus A380 flight test aircraft MSN 004, the aircraft’s right hand wing-tip touched a structure near the taxiway,” at Le Bourget airport on Sunday afternoon, Airbus said in a statement.
“Airbus experts are currently inspecting the aircraft, but it is already confirmed that the A380 MSN 004 will not perform the flying display at the Le Bourget Air Show 2011,” it said.
It was the second setback for Airbus ahead of the show, which starts Monday, after it announced earlier Sunday that its A400M military transport plane will not make any flight demonstrations because of a problem with its engines.
The A380 — the world’s largest passenger jet with capacity for up to 853 passengers — entered into service in 2007, breaking US rival Boeing’s more than three decades of dominance of the jumbo jet market with the 747.
Source: Airbus

How to land on an aircraft carrier without jump jets

Thanks for the link Phil!

Aviation Week. Advertising for EADS.

Ever wonder why Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and others have to have their own shops setup to advertise the latest offerings at the Paris Air Show?

Its because Aviation Week's Blog ARES is an advertising channel for EADS!  From what I can tell they started "broadcasting" from the show on the 18th.

Since then they've had 7 blog posts.  6 of them favorable to EADS.  One that had nothing to do with EADS (it was about a British company). 

That's why the boss at Aviation Week had to step in.  Looks like he has tons more work to do before he gets a fair and balanced shop over there.


UPDATE:

Aviation Week's coverage of the Paris Air Show is becoming all EADS all the time.  This is the latest post.  And you wonder why US firms are cautious when talking to Aviation Week?  Its got a slant on a jihad and its obvious to anyone watching!

New Chinese Stealth Fighter.

This country would copy the fillings in my teeth if they were online.

They can't innovate, have no imagination and would be a backwater country if it weren't for greedy capitalist.

We created our own monster.  Time to pull the plug on this Frankenstein.

Italian aircraft carrier in Libyan mission

If I were British, I'd be jealous, embarrassed, ashamed, depressed and wondering what my leadership was thinking...

Its not too late UK.

A400M...wishful thinking abounds.

Ole Bill wrote this for Aviation Week this morning...

US interest in the A400M is likely to emerge mid-decade, according to EADS North America CEO Sean O'Keefe.  At the company's pre-Paris media seminar, O'Keefe noted that the USAF is likely to retire its oldest C-5A heavy transports before 2020.

"That leaves a hole in the big airbase, heavy-payload role," O'Keefe points out, and Boeing C-17s will be pulled into that mission - opening up the need for new tactical airlifters. "At that point, we'll have a hot production line", O'Keefe says, "and there isn't going to be any new US program."

However, Airbus Military is not going to do any intensive marketing until the A400M completes testing and gains its commercial type certificate, due next year.

Damn this guy is wishing on a star.

Boeing is slow walking C-17 production with an eye toward the same future that EADS sees with the A400M.

And the A400M will face the same issues it faces today.

Smaller payload than the C-17.

Shorter ranged than the C-17.

Slower than the C-17.

Worldwide acceptance and service.

Costs just a few mill less than the C-17.

And thats looking at it today.  Looking into the future I can see the C-17 getting stretched....Uprated engines...improved avionics...increased fuel efficiency measures...better aircraft defense countermeasures...a dedicated Special Operations version...

The list is endless and this clown from EADS thinks he's going to bust into the US market with an inbetween airplane that isn't as good as the industry leader and costs about the same?

Whatever he's smoking, I recommend he stop.  And I hope this type thinking is drug induced...if he's sober then they need a new CEO.

NOTE:

The weirdest thing about the whole A400 saga is the fact that when they first designed it and brought it to market, it was suppose to be a C-130 killer.

Lockheed Martin got nervous----started designing XL C-130's....the USAF was even starting to make noise about it because it was suppose to be the perfect plane to go along with the Stryker Brigades....

And then two things happened.

1.  The Stryker gained weight.  Alot of weight.  C-17 airlift type weight.
2.  The cost point of the A400 expanded to enormous proportions.

Now I can imagine Boeing executives are sitting back watching EADS spin like tea leaves and laughing there asses off.  The standard EADS model of building 'in betweener' aircraft bit EADS.  They deserve it.

Sea Shadow off to the junk heap.

I wonder what, if anything, they learned from this ship.  Read the details at FoxNews.