76 Classic Ford Bronco for $184,000?

Truck found here.

Don't get me wrong...this is one good looking rig but for that price?  Only if I'm using your money or I win the lottery!

What is the rationale for the CH-53K? Could a navalized MH-47 do the job?

Honest question.

What is the rationale for the CH-53K?  How can the USMC justify the purchase of a helicopter that costs over 135 mil per copy?

Unless a case can be made that the CH-53K is absolutely essential and that a navalized MH-47 couldn't do the job (or at least most of the job) then how can it be justified?

I have yet to even read a justification for the numbers being sought (200).

Maybe the CH-53K is absolutely essential to future Marine Corps operations. Maybe only the CH-53K can meet the needs of the Marine Corps. But if we're going to ask the public to swallow a price tag that large then the case needs to be made why a unique platform is needed instead of going with a cheaper option modified to meet the needs of the Marine Corps.

Consider the following...

1.  The CH-47 comes from the factory sealed against dust and water.  Water landings are part of the certification (or were) process.

2.  Other forces use the CH-47 from amphibious ships.

3.  SOCOM/US Army CH-47s are frequent visitors to US Navy ships.

4.  From the outside looking in safety features for deck and aircrew would be the major modifications.  Folding rotors, corrosion resistance, mods to allow air crew passengers escape from the airplane over water and of course mods to its electronics.

In short it should be an engineering challenge, not a show stopper.

Just a reminder of why this is a burning issue.  Via Bloomberg....

Lockheed Marine Helicopter Came With Unpublicized Cost Increase
The Pentagon’s approval for the Marine Corps to start buying Lockheed Martin Corp.’s new heavy lift helicopter came with a hidden surprise: the projected total acquisition cost for the King Stallion program has increased 6.9 percent to $31 billion.

The updated estimate was provided in an April 4 decision memo by James MacStravic, the Pentagon’s acting weapons buyer, that authorized production of the initial batch of 26 helicopters. The memo, labeled “For Official Use Only,” was obtained by Bloomberg News.

The estimate for the total acquisition cost -- which includes everything from research to purchase of the aircraft, including spare parts -- climbed to $31 billion from about $29 billion that the Navy reported in March 2016. No aircraft were added beyond the 200 planned.

Likewise, the “program acquisition unit cost” estimate, with everything included, increased to $138.5 million per copter from $131.2 million as of August 2016. The latest projection is a 20 percent increase from the initial goal of about $115 million established in late 2005, according to data in the memo.

How much longer can the USMC be considered viable...how long will we be considered a value to the taxpayer with gear that costs this much? 

German OV-10 night time glamour shots...

If this airplane was a female I'd lust after her!  So damn sexy!

Ft Stewart is on crack. LITERALLY!

via Popular Military

Authorities arrested several soldiers at Fort Stewart on Tuesday. The soldiers are believed to have used, had or involved in the sale of cocaine.

Officials at the base were reluctant to speak with Popular Military, only offering a small statement in a press release.

“We dedicate resources and work closely with our local law enforcement partners to identify and suppress illegal drug use in our ranks,” Maj. Gen. James Rainey, senior commander of Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield, said in a news release.

An anonymous source at the base told Popular Military that sixty four soldiers from the 3-15 Infantry Battalion and the 1-30 Infantry Battalion are involved.  It is not clear how many of them have been arrested.  The source said the soldier at the top of the drug ring had ties to a known drug cartel.

The Liberty County Sheriff’s Office arrested Pvt. First Class Mario Figueroa on drug trafficking charges, according to Maj. Jeff Hein of the LCSO Drug Task Force.  The arrest was the result of a 90-day investigation by LCSO, Fort Stewart’s Criminal Investigation Division and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

This story is real.  Not a gag.  You can also find it here. 

The US Army is following current DoD practice of saying practically nothing about this except for a terse press release but good God!  This is the kinda shit my old man talked about during the post Vietnam era in the Army!

A soldier with ties to a drug cartel?

I think its past time to get serious about proper screening of service members.  SEALs and now an Army Infantry Battalion is caught up in illegal drugs?

Too many years at war is destroying our military.  As the Romans once said...It's time to bring our boys back from the frontier.

Blast from the recent past. Terrex 3 (pics)

Note:  I was going over comments and someone remarked that the USMC should automatically go with the BAE SuperAV.  The reasoning?  They thought that the US shouldn't buy an armored vehicle from Singapore.  That annoyed me.  ST Kinetics are solid!  Singapore produces some great engineers and the only reason why the vehicle didn't make it to the downselect is because of some jacked up procurement decisions that rated it "not off the shelf".

When it comes to the ACV contest I'm agnostic.  If we wind up with the Terrex I won't shed a tear and will still pop open the bottle of Jack!

Even if the F-35 works (and it won't) the AIM-120D will let it down....

Yesterday I did a post about a retired USMC Major defending the F-35's dogfighting ability.  In short he stated that if the plane got into a dogfight then they're doing it wrong.  A tidbit from that blog post.

"If you try to fight it like a fighter, it isn’t. You’re going to have terrible results," Flatley said of the F-35. Like any new weapons system, the F-35 takes some getting used to. In 2015, F-35 pilots were pulled from other fighters and introduced to a plane that fundamentally reimagined aerial warfare. A learning curve had to be covered.

Unlike dogfighters from World War II, the F-35 mainly focuses on flying undetected while using its array of fused sensors to paint a clear picture of the threat environment for miles out and to engage with targets before they're ever seen.

The Major's talking point has turned into a plea from the Program Office.  Those marvelous sensors they're bragging about?  Simply AESA radar setups that almost everyone has.

But ignoring the usual F-35 furball, the conversation quickly turned to the F-35's long sword...the AIM-120D.

Supposedly the F-35 would use its stealth to remain undetected and launch its AIM-120D's at distance.  But the AIM-120D is already seen as lacking and because of the long delay/tremendous cost of the F-35, planners doesn't have a follow on missile in the pipeline.  Check this out from National Interest, May 16, 2016...

The Navy is currently working on software upgrades to enhance the missile’s resistance to enemy jamming, Stoneman said. The service has also added a home-on-jam capability to help deal with some of the advance jamming capability that is being fielded by potential adversaries, Stoneman said.

Those potential foes include Russia and China, whose jammers pose a huge challenge for the AMRAAM. Stoneman said it would take more than one missile to counter the new Russian and Chinese jammers—instead it would take a system-of-systems approach.

Meanwhile, an industry source told me that the United States needs a new air-to-air missile to take full advantage of the range of the new Active Electronically Scanned Array radars found onboard aircraft like F-22, F-35 and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The radars can track targets far before they are in missile range—and moreover—American missiles are grossly outraged by new Chinese weapons like the PL-15. Even some of the newest U.S. industry developments don’t match the estimated range of the Chinese weapon. However, the source did note that American estimates of the last alleged Chinese super weapons, the PL-12, were grossly overblown.

How long has this problem been known?  How about since 2014...or at least publicly discussed since then!  Check this out from Defense Tech Feb 18, 2014....

 The AIM-120 is an advanced medium-range air-to-air missile and America’s premiere air-to-air weapon in the fleet. The latest model, the D-model, can fly Mach 4 with a range of about 180 kilometers or about 97 nautical miles. William Gigliotti, Lockheed Martin’s lead test pilot at the Fort Worth site, said he wants to see that range extended to take advantage of the advanced radars inside the F-22 and F-35.

He highlighted the recent advances made by the Chinese and the range of their missile defenses and fighter aircraft.

“When we war game it out, that’s the Achilles heel of the U.S. fighter fleet,” Gigliotti said referring to the AIM-120 at a F-35 panel session at a Navy conference here. Two other Navy F-35 pilots and one Marine Corps F-35 aviator, who also sat on the panel, agreed with Gigliotti.

Gigliotti didn’t challenge the U.S. military to develop an improved variant. He instead challenged the defense industry to start developing one now.

Of course, the Air Force and Navy are in the last stages of operational testing for the AIM-120 D model. Most aircraft are equipped with the AIM-120C3-C7 variants.

Operational testing on the D-model was delayed when the Pentagon halted the program in 2009 to allow Raytheon, the lead contractor, to address four performance and reliability deficiencies. The program was restarted in 2012, but was then again delayed because of sequestration funding levels.

Besides the F-35 and the F-22, the AIM-120 is also carried by the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 along with other fighters.

Why are they hollering for more range for the AIM-120 when it's being carried by a stealth fighter that they're saying shouldn't get involved in dog fighting?

Is it because the current range of the AIM-120 is insufficient?

I could be wrong but from what I've been able to piece together (and I am so far from being an expert on this corrections are welcomed) it's because of the operating altitude of the F-35.

On an air-to-air mission with a radius of 200 n miles, no external fuel tanks but the same missile load and a requirement to accelerate from Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.8 at 30,000 ft, the F-35 was shown coming second last. With a requirement involving the same acceleration and the aircraft tasked for a 600 n mile 'out and back' mission, Mazanowski said the F-35 was "nothing stellar but certainly not an underperformer in this category".

The specs on this plane keep changing and this quote is from Live Science 2009.  I searched for additional articles but couldn't find any.  The point I'm trying to make is that everything I've read indicates that the optimized operating altitude for the F-35 is about 35K feet.  The same altitude as most airliners.  Its optimized speed is about the same as a 777 high subsonic.

What does this have to do with the AIM-120D?  Below is an image from X-planes.org.

What are you seeing? The fact that the lower you are at missile launch the shorter the range of your missile.  If you give the AIM-120D a rough range of 100 miles but you're launching at 30 to 35K feet then you're probably gonna knock off a 1/3rd of that range.  The super high flying, super cruising F-22 will get every ounce of that distance but not the F-35 at its optimized cruise height/speed.

So long story short?

Even if the F-35 works (and it won't) then the AIM-120D will let it down. The only real answer is to bite the bullet and buy Meteor missiles while we develop a follow on...not for the F-35 but for our legacy jets.

Open Comment Post. April 19, 2017.

GAO recommends ACV production decision slip to 2019...via Inside Defense.

via Inside Defense (behind paywall...but they're offering a one month free trial).

In the same report, GAO recommends the Pentagon postpone ACV Increment 1.1's production decision until early fiscal year 2019 to reduce concurrency between testing and production.

Weatherington wrote that the Pentagon disagreed because the concurrency is considered low-risk. The Marine Corps plans for an ACV milestone C decision in the third quarter of FY-18, according to the Pentagon's response.

"The significant risks to the Marine Corps fielding schedule and impacts to the overall Marine Corps GVTVS that would result from delaying the ACV fielding decision, will impact the Marine Corps sequential modernization and affordability across the Future Years Defense Plan," Weatherington wrote.

Wow.

They've been slow walking this program and the GAO recommends they delay the decision till 2019?  That ugly word "concurrency" rears its ugly head again?

The sad part?

The GAO has been the gatekeepers.  I don't know if I trust military leadership anymore (fuck it...I don't...they've been shown to be liars) and stuff like this comes down to a matter of trust.

We were lied to with regard to the MV-22, the F-35, CH-53K and the LCS. Why should we trust them on this issue?  They recently lied to Congress and the representatives of the people sit on their hands instead of having fried Marine Corps General on a plate for supper (misled them on the costs of the CH-53K even though they knew at the time that the helicopter was even MORE expensive than they told them).

It's a shame but that's what its boiled down to.  Either you believe the GAO or you believe the Pentagon.  

S-97 RAIDER™: The Next Big Thing in Army Aviation

Thanks to Razvan for the link!



What is going on with this helicopters layout?  Is some of the machinery inside the fuselage?  It's dimensions seem off....like it's a bit fatter than it should be for the number of troops carried.

US Marine Corps Major (retired) tries to defend the F-35's poor dogfighting ability...

So on Business Insider an retired USMC Major tried and fails (horribly) to defend the F-35's lackluster performance in the dogfighting role.  Read the entire article here but a couple of tidbits...

The F-35 Joint Strike Figher represents the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps' vision for the future of combat aviation, but a damning 2015 report detailed how the F-35 had lost in dogfights with F-16s and F-15s — the very planes it was intended to replace.

Essentially it came down to energy management in the early days of the F-35's testing, according to the report.

During a dogfight, jets have to manage extreme amounts of kinetic energy while making pinpoint turns and maneuvers.

With smaller wings than some legacy fighters and an inferior thrust-to-weight ratio, the early F-35 pilots found it nearly impossible to engage with F-16s.

The report has since become a talking point for detractors of the F-35 program who say it's too expensive and not capable.

But according to retired US Marine Corps Maj. Dan Flatley, who helped design the training syllabus for F-35 dogfights, the F-35's lackluster performance against legacy jets had more to do with old habits of the pilots and a weapons system in its infancy rather than anything wrong with the F-35 concept itself.

"When you first get in the F-35 and try to fight it visually, you immediately go back to everything you knew in your legacy fighter," Flatley told Business Insider in a phone interview.

Then this...

 "If you try to fight it like a fighter, it isn’t. You’re going to have terrible results," Flatley said of the F-35. Like any new weapons system, the F-35 takes some getting used to. In 2015, F-35 pilots were pulled from other fighters and introduced to a plane that fundamentally reimagined aerial warfare. A learning curve had to be covered.

Unlike dogfighters from World War II, the F-35 mainly focuses on flying undetected while using its array of fused sensors to paint a clear picture of the threat environment for miles out and to engage with targets before they're ever seen.

As exciting as dogfights are, it's been decades since a US jet engaged an enemy in a turning dogfight, and the F-35's design reflects that new reality.

"If I went out and fought an F/A-18 on day one I’d get destroyed," said Flatley. "But if you do what the jet is really good at, you can do things those other jets wouldn’t dream of."

I took entire passages and not snippets of the conversation that the BI author posted.

Having said that, does this sound like the airplane the US should depend on for future air superiority?  To quote the good Major.

"If I went out and fought an F/A-18 on day one I’d get destroyed," said Flatley.

Well said Major!  Extremely well said!

US Army tests Hunter, Killer platform

Thanks to Jonathan for the link!

via Shepard Media.

Two new vehicles called the Hunter and Killer were tested during the 2017 Maneuver Fires Integrated Experiment (MFIX) at Fort Sill, the US Army announced on 13 April.

The dune buggy-like vehicles - based on the same platform - are designed to travel through various types of terrain, as well as track aircraft, and perform three-dimensional fires targeting. While still in the very early stages of development, the idea for the vehicles is to operate with high levels of autonomy, supporting the increasing range of operations undertaken by forward observers, from gathering intelligence and performing precision fires to countering enemy UAS. The idea is to make the vehicles highly deployable, including being capable of airdrop from helicopters.

As the vehicles are modular by design, developers can acquire pieces from other systems and merge them on a single platform. The aim is to make parts interchangeable.

The Hunter and Killer vehicles are designed to perform cross-domain functions. For land, the Hunter platform could call precision fires in an automated fashion and air soldiers could use the platform to communicate with an aircraft for support. When performing for maritime, a forward observer could call for an attack from a ship to a target.

The Killer platform would offer the ability to fight in the cyber and space domains. A soldier could request a cyber-call to disrupt communications between an UAS and its operator. The soldiers would also be able to call on space-based capabilities.

Scott Patton, science and technology strategist for the US Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center battlefield operating systems suites team, said: 'We want to see how we can automate the software to reduce the task-saturation of the soldier.

'We want to reduce their workload. We want soldiers just to be forward observers. If they have to get into these other domains, they can do it for a minute or two, let the software do the thinking for them, and then they go back to their domain.'

Wow.

Is it just me or does the entire US military ground force seem to be shifting to a focus on calling for fires instead of being able to engage in close combat with the enemy?

This is gonna be a problem.  History tells us it won't work.  Doesn't anyone remember the lessons of the Vietnam War?

We tried this during that conflict and the Vietnamese/Viet Cong learned to "hug" US forces to keep from being subjected to our fires at that time!  The enemy will do the same in future conflict if we keep going in this direction.

Mark my words.  Company Landing Teams/Expeditionary Rifle Squads WILL BE isolated, cutoff and destroyed in place unless leadership does some realistic planning.  They won't and we'll see body bags...lots of body bags. 

Steve Stephens aka Facebook Killer is dead. Good!

The Steve Stephens aka Facebook Killer is dead.  According to my twitter feed he died after a short chase by Penn State Police.

While he had the balls to gun down a helpless old man, he lacked the courage to face men that were trained to deal with his sick ass.

He committed suicide instead.

My take?  This sick, deranged animal that walked on two feet is dead and I couldn't be happier.