Carrier Navy. The undetected threat. Now enter the J-20's.

The story continues.  And remember this is just fiction.  It occurs at a future time (say 5 to 20 years from now) with the idea that US defense spending will at best remain static, at worse decline.

So with that cleared up. 

Now enter the J-20's...or I should say the J-20's will be leading the fight against our Carrier Battle Group in this scenario.

A two ship formation of J-20's flew ahead of the main force of SU-27 fighters to locate and provide targeting information.  The Chinese are nothing but thorough. The J-20's on the surveillance mission are really redundant.  They have purposefully placed their space station in orbit to remain over the Pacific ocean.  Chinese Astronauts wear two hats.  Scientist and Military Intel Specialist.  They have been keeping tabs  on the US carrier since it left Pearl Harbor.  Additionally they have a constellation of spy sats that are equipped with one mission in mind.  Maritime surveillance.

The J-20's are the vanguard of a group of 40 others that are headed to the CBG.

The mission.

Destroy the Escorts.

The good news for the Chinese and the bad news for our guys is this.  The Chinese have been eating our lunch for years.  Not only do they have a network of spies inside both our defense industry and government  but they have also penetrated our computer systems.

Because of this the Chinese have improved the coatings on the J-20.  When we developed stealth pods to carry missiles externally on the F-35 and F-22, the Chinese simply helped themselves to the information that we labored to produce.

The J-20 fly high and fast.  They've been vectored by sats and the space station.  Once they've located the prey they relay that information to the follow on strikers.

The strike J-20's benefiting from the improvements follow the same flight path.  The Burke's pick up intermittent reflections and fighters are scrambled just in case. 

Now that the CBG has been located the Recon J-20's pull back.  Its up to the strikers now.  They're coming head on to the Burke's providing cover and since the J-20's frontal cross section is where this airplane is stealthiest they never pick them up.

The J-20's launch at distance...mere minutes before the other parts of the strike package let off.

The Burke's are good...but the Chinese only have to be lucky.

This was a heavy escort group.  It had 10 Burke's assigned to the CBG.

After the J-20's are finished only 5 remain.  The opening salvo of this mythical conflict cost the US 1500 sailors dead, 900 wounded and recovered and 400 missing.

This is the beginning of a very bad day for our carrier.

LEMV First Flight

Breaking! Aerial release of weapons from F-35!

From the Fraternal Order of United States Marines.

This is much more like it!  Wish more Marine Generals talked this way!

C-130XJ Super Hercules & SC-130J “Sea Herc”

Artist’s rendition of the newly “expandable” C-130XJ aircraft, which takes advantage of the exceptional operational capabilities of the baseline C-130J Super Hercules. The aircraft is offered at a reduced price based on a combination of uninstalled line replaceable units and the configuration return to the legacy C-130 cargo handling system.

Artist’s rendition of the latest variant of the C-130J, the Sea Herc. The SC-130J will redefine maritime reconnaissance and patrol.

Carrier Navy. Threat Personified. Chinese Subs.

On October 26, 2006, a Chinese Song class submarine is said to have "popped up" and "surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected" within 5 nautical miles (9 km) of the carrier USS Kitty Hawk while she was operating in the Pacific Ocean

The series continues despite some catcalls from the cheap seats.

You would think that after a regiment of SU-27's and Fast Attack Missile Boats, that the carrier in our mythical exercise would begin to catch a break.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

In 2006 a Chinese Song Class Sub was able to pop up virtually in the center of a Carrier Battle Group.  The stunning thing.  She was undetected.  This points to another weakness in the carrier force.  The lack of a proper fast flying anti-sub asset.  The Anti-Sub Helos do good work in restricted waters but over open ocean and a fast moving carrier force it becomes a bit of an issue.  You say well no problem we have P-8's coming online and P-3's right?  Well not so fast.  They'll be searching for Boomers and attempting to sweep  the area ahead of the fleet.  Quiet diesel subs will still be an issue.

In this scenario they would seek to lay in wait and pop up for quick shots on the carrier group.  The hope would be to cut reaction down to mere seconds...almost too quick for automatic systems to react, definitely too quick for the officers on the bridge to give the order to fire.

On a sidenote, the British experience in the Falklands must be taken into account too.  Many have talked about decoys and what they would do to incoming missiles.  The Brits found that decoyed missiles sometimes hit other ships in your task force.  Additionally if the attack by the subs is timed to coincide with the attacks by the fighters and fast attack boats you can bump up the number of missiles going after our carrier in this mythical incident to 1200.

1200 missiles going after a carrier in a max effort attack.  Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles still have to be included (I can tell you now I'm thinking at least 5 per carrier) and bombers and a few stealth aircraft.

This is gonna get good.

New Zealand SWAT conducts helo-assault during raid on dot com house!

via Tactical Life.

Wow.

A heliborne assault to go after a dot com guy?  A coordinated ground force follow on force?  I wonder what they would do against some of our drug dealers!  And I thought US police were militarized! 

Task Force Jaguar. Chinook & Merlin aircraft

Absolute Beauty.

One of the most beautiful airplanes ever made. 

Upping the ante. Tossing in Chinese surface forces against a US Carrier.

I've been gentle with those that believe that the status quo for the US Navy's carriers is ok.

Time to end the nonsense and slap the dogshit out of those that think that we're ready to deal with a max effort being tossed at our nation's pride.

So with that, lets put into this mix a small surface combatant.  The Chinese version of our streetfighter concept the Houbei Class Fast Attack Craft.  Specs are from Wiki.

General characteristics
Displacement:	220 long tons (224 t) full load
Length:	42.6 m (139 ft 9 in)
Beam:	12.2 m (40 ft 0 in)
Draught:	1.5 m (4 ft 11 in)
Propulsion:	2 diesel engines @ 6,865 hp (5,119 kW) with 4 waterjet propulsors by MARI
Speed:	36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph)
Complement:	12[2]
Sensors and processing systems:	Surface search radar: 1 Type 362 Navigational radar: 1 Electro-optics: HEOS 300
Armament:	• Anti-ship missiles: 8 C-801/802/803 in friction stir welded aluminium missile launch containers[3] or • Land-attack missiles: 8 Hongniao missile-2 long range land attack cruise missiles.[4] • Surface-to-air missiles: FLS-1 surface-to-air launcher with 12 QW class MANPAD missiles • 1 × licensed copy of KBP AO-18 6-barrel 30 mm gun (AK-630) by ZEERI
Notes:	Details remain speculative

Can't find an estimated range for the boat but it doesn't have to range far.  Its missiles will make up for any short legs it might have and 36 knots is'nt anything to sneeze at.

Speaking of missiles.

8 anti-ship missiles per ship.  If we can expect the Chinese to modernize and upgrade the current fit then those vaunted one missile carrier killers can be expected in the near future...but even wthout them, the Chinese have 89 of these boats at 8 missiles a piece which puts another 700 plus missiles into the air combined with the 400 that were launched by our mythical SU-27's in this exercise.

1100 plus missiles and we only have two systems involved.  A couple of Regiments of SU-27's and some fast attack missile boats.

We still aren't including subs, bombers, J-20's or J-10's.  We also haven't added any friction to the equation by having mines being laid in the area, the threat of anti-ship ballistic missiles, hacking or space warfare aimed at taking out communication relays and ISR assets.

1100 anti-ship missiles are streaking toward one of our carriers in this mythical exercise and the heavy hitters haven't even shown up yet.

Do you think our carriers could withstand this attack?

UPDATE:

Because Aussie Digger is being an asshole, let me fast forward this little series.  But first let me say that it was suppose to build up to including Xian Bombers, subs, and a mythical regiment of J-20's and J-10's.  The whole point of it was to say that instead of building a navy to fight in the littorals the US Navy has a responsibility to continue to build towards winning the blue water fight.  In light of that fact which I hoped to illustrate over the course of a few more posts, I was saying that the naval equivalent of land based counter insurgency (littoral warfare) is past its sell by date and by extension the LCS too.  Thanks Aussie Digger and Company for ruining what was building to be an enjoyable little exercise.  Hope you're happy.

Marine Amphibious Assault Vehicles Storm Kaneohe Bay Beach

StrikeHold on Leapfest 2012.

Go to the StrikeHold website for more photos of this international paratrooper event.

24th MEU: Tanks live-fire training

Photos by Cpl. Michael Petersheim

Hmmm. Marine Personnel Carrier let down.

I expected clarity.  But instead we got this.

Posted on InsideDefense.com: August 8, 2012

The Marine Corps has selected four teams to build prototypes of the Marine Personnel Carrier, and the contracts are worth about $3.5 million each, according to a source familiar with the program.

The service will award the contracts sometime this week to a BAE Systems-led team, a team led by Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Land Systems as well as a team headed up by Science Applications International Corp.

The prototypes will help inform a capability development document, and the Marine Corps is meeting with each team to go over program milestones, according to the source. MPC's primary mission will be to navigate rivers and waterways, and it is meant to be both a wheeled vehicle and robust swimmer.

The systems demonstration and studies portion include a water performance evaluation, limited survivability evaluations or blast tests, a human factors and stowage capacity study and a study with industry to see how much of the vehicle will be built in the United States.

It is uncertain how the MPC will fit into the Marine Corps' amphibious capability plan. During an April Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee hearing, panel Chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) was critical about procuring both the MPC and an Amphibious Combat Vehicle since the two missions are similar, although the ACV is a tracked vehicle and the MPC is a wheeled vehicle. The service recently wrapped up an ACV analysis of alternatives, but the results are not yet public.

Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, deputy commandant for combat development and integration, defended the need for both the MPC and ACV during the subcommittee hearing. He said the MPC makes sense from both an affordability and flexibility perspective.

"It is different, but it also mitigates some risk," he said. "If you lose a vehicle, you don't lose an entire squad." -- Lee Hudson

I REALLY EXPECTED MORE.

I expected this to clarify things.

This is weak sauce.  Quite honestly I expected it to be between BAE/Iveco and Lockheed Martin/Patria.

To have the Terrex and LAV Demonstrator still in the running makes me wonder if the Corps isn't buying time for other options to play out.

I really have to wonder if the Marine Corps isn't just jerking manufacturers around.

More later.  I'm honestly too stunned to know exactly what to think.

UPDATE:
Congrats to the selectees...I guess.

The Ugly American and the US Navy in the Pacific.

CDR Salamander has a post on how disgraceful looking the LCS is.  Read the article at his house but he not only has a point but it goes to another issue.  The Ugly Americans are going to be the messy Americans too. 

Unless you've been to an Asian nation you don't realize how seriously cleanliness is taken. 

Oh and consider this.  The LCS is going to be based in Singapore!  The most hyper clean city state in the world and we're sending these visual garbage haulers there!  Amazing. 

"A Good Bunch of Blokes" says Aussie soldier

This "running to the sound of chaos" is a bastardization of "running to the sound of gunfire" that was once the catch phrase.

I don't know why the Marine Corps decided to make the saying politically correct but its annoying.  And no.  Its not the same.

Task Force Jaguar: focus on the Lynx

I'm really digging this series on the different aircraft of the British Task Force Jaguar.  Pretty awesome.

The video that started it all.

The art of the tactical carbine is the video that started it all.

To be quite honest this is the video that jump started MAGPUL and the entire industry.  Don't get me wrong.  The market was already humming along but this kick started it into over drive and this is when we saw the explosion in shooting courses, AR accessories etc.

Leadership. Are you a Sam or Courtney?

Many thanks to Paralus for reminding me of this!

I found a down and dirty article that covers the "are you a Sam or Courtney" dilema of leadership.  Its on a USAF website (surprising to me, but did you know that the USAF has one of the best, if not the best library on military leadership?).  Go there for the whole thing but a snippet...

Some discussions often start with the questions, "Are you a Sam on that issue or a Courtney?" or, "is that person acting like Sam or Courtney?" Sam Damon and Courtney Massengale are Army officers portrayed in Anton Myrer's novel "Once An Eagle." The stories of these two officers contain themes worth exploring: heroism, good versus evil, ethics and morality, corruption of power, career over family, devotion to country, and unchecked ambition. Charles Krulak, former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, said this story "has more to teach about leadership...than a score of modern-day management texts. It is the primer that lays out, through the lives of its two main characters, lessons on how and how not to lead."

As a member of the military, our focus is often on what a military member does as opposed to what we actually are, or should be. Both officers are aggressive, educated and devote countless hours to studying their profession. Both serve in America's wars from World War I through Vietnam and are successful. Both officers rise to general officer rank and are given multiple command opportunities. However, the two officers differ in their approach to leadership.

Read the whole thing its a very short summation, but consider this.  No matter what station in life you hold you're in a leadership position...even if you're just leading yourself.  Are you a Sam or Courtney?

The 600 pound Gorilla in the room. General McChrystal and Ganjgal.

Do a quick Google search of the Battle at Ganjgal.

If you click the link above it'll take you to a Wikipedia page that gives a quick and dirty rundown of the events that day.

But the 600 pound Gorilla in the room is the commander of US forces in Afghanistan at the time.  General Stanley McChrystal.

If a Commander issues orders that place their forces in a position where it adds to the friction instead of lessening it then something is wrong.  If their orders lead to the loss of life then its a sign of failed leadership.

Rules of engagement led to the loss of an Embedded Training Team.  No one is talking about that.  Letters of reprimand is the most severe punishment handed out that day.

Think about it.  5 American servicemember died that day.  The punishment for allowing that to happen was a letter of reprimand.

Marines died that day and the Commandant of the Marine Corps or the Sgt Major of the Marine Corps weren't punching walls and calling ISAF Headquarter to ask WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON.

Only an Army Captain had the balls to do that.  His reward?  They lost his Medal Of Honor recommendation that came from General Allen that investigated the tragedy.  Read about this steaming pile of bullshit here.

Long story short.  Our military leadership is failing at every turn.  The Pentagon needs an enema.