Streit Group comes out with the the Veran 6x6.

Above photos by Andre Forkert

A few things...

*IDEX isn't being covered by ANY major defense news source here in the US.  Pity.

*Streit Group is working hard to become a player in the armored vehicle market.  First their Jaguar MRAP type vehicle and now this?  Impressive. 

The sequester has everyone's attention in the US but the rest of the world still spins.  From the overseas coverage that I've seen IDEX is bigger than ever and major US firms ARE in attendance.

What has to be asked is why the stealth participation by defense firms?  Why the lack of coverage by US defense media?

What is the game?

Otokar Arma 8x8 pic...

I lost the e-mail of the guy who sent me this pic.  Sorry buddy but the pic is great.  Send more.

Sidenote:  I've got to get more info on that turret!

Gun confiscation bill in Missouri

Gun owners always said it was about confiscation and this news from Missouri proves it...

Missouri Democrats are trying to rid the state of assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines.
Democrats in the state House have proposed a bill that would force gun owners to either surrender or destroy weapons including semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines and semi-automatic pistols with a fixed magazine that can shoot more than 10 rounds before being reloaded.
Ammunition-feeding devices that can hold more than 10 rounds also would be banned. Owners also could send their weapons to another state instead of surrendering or destroying them and would have 90 days after the bill’s passage to make a decision.

It occurs to me that the Democrats might be sowing the seeds of their own mid term election slaughter.

Payroll taxes are biting.  Gas is at record highs.  Unemployment is still high.  Obamacare is going to give everyone sticker shock.  Sequestration is going to pummel an already weak economy....

Cameron hopes to shoot down Rafale deal.

via Indian Research Defense Wing...

British Prime Minister David Cameron will attempt to “steal” a six billion pound Indian defence contract from under the nose of French President Francois Hollande when he visits New Delhi this week, according to a media report.
“The Prime Minister will use a trip to India to try to persuade the New Delhi government to buy more than 100 Eurofighter jets after the French President left empty-handed this week,” the Daily Mail reported ahead of Cameron’s three-day official visit which begins from Monday. 
French contractor Dassault Aviation was chosen last year as the preferred bidder for the contract to supply Rafale jet fighters to the Indian Air Force under a USD 10-billion deal – a blow for the UK-German-Spanish-Italian consortium, which includes Britain’s BAE Systems, which builds the Eurofighter.
But Hollande’s hopes of signing a final contract came to nothing this week – despite him squeezing in a visit before Cameron. The French premier also failed to secure any major trade deals, the British paper claimed.
“That has sparked hopes in Downing Street that Mr Cameron can persuade the Indian authorities to rethink the deal and buy the Eurofighter instead,” it said.
“Officials made clear that the Prime Minister wants to steal a march on Mr Hollande, who has repeatedly clashed with Mr Cameron,” the paper said.
Cameron angered the French by offering to put out a “red carpet” for entrepreneurs fleeing Hollande’s new 75 per cent top rate of tax, while the French government retaliated with the same offer for British businessmen if the UK quits the EU in the referendum Cameron has offered.
Quoting a British government source, the Daily Mail said: “Hollande was in India this week and a deal has not been signed so we will want to find out from the Indians how their talks are progressing with the French.”

I've always found this fascinating.

In reality it should be the Brits, Germans, Italians and others pushing the Eurofighter but instead the UK stands alone in that role.

Additionally I wonder what this will do to British-French moves to forge closer military ties.  For the French they're one and the same and the Brits are moving down that same road.

This might turn messy before its all over.  I can't wait.

Unusual business...

John in Afghanistan...I need you to send me a e-mail.  I lost your addy and have been trying to contact you.

Want to learn knife defense? Listen to the Europe and Australia.

NOTE:  I don't know how many people are into MMA, firearms, self defense, lifting and the shooting sports.  Quite honestly in my opinion it all goes together...especially if you have an interest in military matters.  For those that are interested read on.  For those that aren't go on to the next post.

I picked this vid because the guy was talking about tactics instead of giving a quick one or two choreographed best case possible scenarios against an unmotivated attacker.

Every class I've been to stresses a couple of things.  First is to EXPECT to get cut.  Second is to give up your arms but protect your head, neck and core as much as possible.  Third, you will be attacked from ambush.

Another thing I liked about this video is the opening sequence where they show an attacker attempting to inflict maximum damage in minimum time.  Not hating on OPSGEAR...they're doing a service by giving out tips and tricks.  But compare their video to the one above.



Again, not hating but it leaves out...

* How dynamic an assault will be...

* How it will come seemingly out of no where...

* How injury is a given...many times to both the attacked (by the attacker) and the attacked (because his hand slips and he cuts himself in addition to any damage caused by the person in defense)

* How you're more likely to face multiple attackers due to the physicality required to conduct a successful knife attack.

Knife culture is here and its only going to get worse...especially in states that ban handguns.  Get ready for the possibilities.  Get off your ass, get in shape, get training and get more training.

India cancels AW101.

Check this out.

A day after the ministry of defence (MoD) stated that it had “initiated action for cancellation of contract for procurement of 12 AW101 helicopters for the use of VVIPs”, the ministry announced on Saturday that it was sending a senior official to Italy to ascertain the facts in the case.
An MoD release on Saturday stated: “MoD is deputing a senior joint secretary to Italy to gather as much evidence as possible relating to the allegations of corruption in the acquisition of 12 AW101 VVIP helicopters for the Indian Air Force. The official, A K Bal, will be leaving for Rome as early as on Monday.”
The legal action initiated by the MoD yesterday amounted to the issue of a showcause notice to AgustaWestland “seeking cancellation of contract and taking other actions as per the terms of the contract and the integrity pact.” The Anglo-Italian company has been given seven days to respond.
On Wednesday, the MoD had put all payments to AgustaWestland on hold. With the showcause notice on Friday, the MoD declared, “The operation of the contract has been put on hold”.

The article goes on to imply that this is all political.  It happened with the cancellation here in the US and it could happen in India.  I'll have to write people with better visibility on Indian procurement to get the take of people with more knowledge on the workings of the Indian government.

Marine Corps Recruiting Command content collection

Marines stationed aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune participated in the Marine Corps Recruiting Command content collection, Feb. 13. The content collection offered active duty Marines the opportunity to be a part of future recruiting and advertising campaigns for the Marine Corps through photo and video recruiting products

Police State USA. The next exhibit...

via Yahoo Sports.

Apparently Ohio State – and college football in general – isn’t very popular in the state of Tennessee.At least not with the police.Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni, 65, and her husband were driving home to Plano, Texas from Columbus after attending her mother-in-law’s funeral when a pair of black police SUV’s stopped the couple a few miles outside of Memphis.“Knowing I wasn’t speeding, I couldn’t imagine why,” Jonas-Boggioni told the Columbus Dispatch. “They were very serious. They had the body armor and the guns.”On the back of Jonas-Boggioni’s car was a Buckeye leaf decal, similar to the one players’ have on their helmets, and cops mistakenly thought it was marijuana leaf.Yes, really.“What are you doing with a marijuana sticker on your bumper?” one of the cops asked Jonas-Boggioni.
After trying to explain that the sticker was not a marijuana leaf and that she and her husband were not trafficking drugs cross-country, the police advised Jonas-Boggioni to remove the sticker as to not cause any more confusion.You know, just in case there were any other moronic drug cops out there that didn’t actually know what a marijuana leaf looked like.

Wow.

No justification, just a sticker.  I'm no longer surprised.

Tu-95's over Guam.

via Free Beacon.

The Russian Tu-95 Bear-H strategic bombers were equipped with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and were followed by U.S. jets as they circumnavigated Guam on Feb. 12 local time—hours before President Barack Obama’s state of the union address.
Air Force Capt. Kim Bender, a spokeswoman for the Pacific Air Force in Hawaii, confirmed the incident to the Washington Free Beacon and said Air Force F-15 jets based on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, “scrambled and responded to the aircraft.”
“The Tu-95s were intercepted and left the area in a northbound direction. No further actions occurred,” she said. Bender said no other details would be released “for operational security reasons.”

I would so love to know whether these were live or training munitions.  If they carried inert warheads on a practice mission that's one thing.  If these were live and it was a show of force then that's something else entirely.

The Marine Corps starts the propaganda to pave the way for women in the Infantry.

I'll tell ya what.  The propaganda value of this is interesting.  They're paving the way for women in the Infantry and this son of a bitch has the audacity to compare Rudy playing football with combat?

What bullshit!

Additionally, its obvious that grumbling is being heard.

The hollow force is coming.  Thanks Amos.  When you leave I'll celebrate.  When your boss leaves I'll celebrate again.

Oh and this hipster announcer.  I wonder how he's going over.  If he's considered 'cool' then the 'cool' kids need to reassess.

Patrolling Beirut

First F-35C Production Model Takes Flight

The first Lockheed Martin production model F-35C carrier variant, known as CF-6, raises its landing gear on takeoff on its first sortie, Feb. 14, 2013. Upon delivery later this year, the jet will be assigned to US Navy Fighter Attack Squadron 101 (VFA-101) at Eglin AFB, Florida. The unit will serve as the Fleet Replacement Squadron, training Navy F-35C pilots and maintainers. While CF-6 will be the first carrier variant jet assigned to Eglin, it will join a fleet of nine F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) jets and 13 F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) jets already on station.

CGI of J-20 refueling by boom...

via Chinese Military Review...

Modest Proposal. Cancel the MLP! Now!

You ever have one of those moments where the obvious suddenly dawns on you?  Well I did while looking for archived articles on the EFV's development.

One leg of ship to objective maneuver died with the EFV.

It can still be attained with aerial assets but the needed over the horizon, armored landing that the EFV was to provide is now no more.

In essence a decade of doctrinal planning got shit canned with the cancellation of that vehicle.  ts becoming a bit more clear why they struggled so mightily to keep it going now.

It was the backbone of how Marine Corps Theorist planned to fight future wars.

But to the issue at hand.  The MLP is part of that old planning.  My modest proposal is to cancel the remaining two ships.  Experiment with the one that we have at major exercises like Cobra Gold, and Bold Alligator 2 and work on soldifiying concepts with the gear that we will have in inventory with the current budget limitations that we know will strike...sequester or not.

I'm told that they're already under construction.  Too bad.  Perhaps a LSD replacement would have been a better use of ship yard space and money.

did we really need a ship to serve as a transfer point for vehicles from MPS ships to LCAC's or did we have something that could be used already in service????

31st MEU Completes Amphibious Assault Alongside Royal Thai Marines

Blast from the past. EFV info you didn't know.

Does the saga of the EFV make you want to pound walls?

Does the idea that the USMC wasted 24 years developing an armored vehicle only to get a big bill out of the whole thing upset you?

Does the thought that the US Navy can get an airplane (P-8) into service in a shorter time frame than it will take the Marine Corps to potentially get the Marine Personnel Carrier into service make you scratch your head in frustration?

Then saddle up to this old article from National Defense Magazine.  Just a tidbit, the link is here.

“It’s much easier to detune current capabilities than to start over,” said Michael Bolon, senior vice president of Navy and Marine Corps programs at General Dynamics Land Systems.

The company has asked the Marine Corps to give the program another chance and procure just 200 of the tanks, enough for two expeditionary brigades, and use leftover money to upgrade hundreds of current assault amphibious vehicles. Under this proposal, the EFV could enter production within two years and the government could avoid $184 million in cancellation costs, Bolon told reporters on Jan. 25.

The Defense Department already has spent more than $3 billion on the program, which recently saw the testing of four prototypes off the coast of California. The success of these experiments has General Dynamics saying it could shave millions from the unit cost of the EFV if the government were to keep the program.

Without changes, one EFV would cost the Marine Corps $17 million. Bolon said that General Dynamics has provided the Pentagon with modifications that could bring that per-unit cost down to less than $10 million. These savings would result from reducing speed and weapon capabilities and equipping the EFV with a simplified hydraulic system, Bolon said.

General Dynamics proposed a detuned EFV.

The Marine Corps had a chance to still win but for some reason (whether from the Pentagon or from inside the Marine Corps itself) chose not to pursue the option.

Excuse me.  I need a drink.

NOTE:  The Marine Corps did everything right in the approach to the EFV.  They developed doctrine first, then a concept of operations, then drew up requirements, put it out to industry and then selected General Dynamics to build the thing.  The problem came in the implementation.  We lacked a sense of urgency and did not monitor GD closely enough.  They (I'm making this assertion I have no proof) kept coming back with the "we're close" and because the capability was so desired the program muddled along.  The problem is the way that the Marine Corps does armored vehicle development.  It trudges along with a new vehicle coming along once every 50 or so years.  Consider the timeline of the LVT.  First developed prior to WW2 the first designs were modified and kept in service until the 1950's.  The next gen LVT-5's served from around the end of Korea over to the end of Vietnam.  The LVTP-7/AAV will serve until around 2020 or so.  I know you get tired but the comparison for the US Army is the M-44, M-75, M-113, M-114, Bradley, improved Bradley, Stryker, improved Stryker and soon the AMPV and the GCV.  The Army has a much more robust armored development system.  If we won't keep pace by developing new vehicles then purchases of new built designs of existing vehicles with modern upgrades should become standard operating procedure.

15th MEU Helo Company Light Strike Vehicle Training.

Marines with Weapons Platoon, Kilo Company, Battalion Landing Team 3/5, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, prepare for convoy operations with the company’s light strike vehicles, Feb. 11. The platoon practiced working with the unit’s light strike vehicles, or LSVs, during the unit’s sustainment training in Djibouti, designed to increase unit cohesion, practice the fundamentals of their trades and take advantage of a unique opportunity to train in a foreign country. The 15th MEU is deployed as part of the Peleliu Amphibious Ready Group as a U.S. Central Command theater reserve force, providing support for maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. John Robbart III/Released)

The Marine Personnel Carrier can do the job the LAV-25 was suppose to.

The 80's and the 90's was a golden time in Marine Corps leadership.

In succession we had General PX Kelly, General Gray, General Mundy, General Krulak, and General Jones.

These men assembled the equipment, developed the doctrine and re-established a warfighting ethos that serves us even today.

One of those pieces of equipment is the LAV-25.

In the early 1980's the Marine Corps is concerned about a conflict in the Middle East.  Not the small wars that we've been fighting but a major mechanized effort possibly involving the Soviet Union.  General Kelly was concerned that the Marine Corps would be at a severe disadvantage against a highly mechanized force and would not be able to maneuver against such an opponent because so many Marine Infantry Units were foot mobile, at best truck transported.

The LAV-25 was suppose to fill that gap by providing a degree of mobility to the Marine Corps...hence the name of the first units equipped with the LAV-25--- Light Armored Infantry Battalions.

The vehicle was armed with a 25mm gun in a turret that provided a overmatch capability against the threat vehicle at the time most likely to be encountered...the BMP.

The choice to mount a turret on the vehicle with a large cannon proved to change the entire concept of the vehicles employment.

IF the Marine Corps had chosen to equip the majority of the vehicles in the Light Armored Infantry Battalions with 50 caliber machineguns instead...say a ratio of 3 machine gun equipped LAV's for every 4 vehicles...then the Light Armored Infantry Battalions would have worked.  You would have been able to field Infantry Battalions that were mobile AND capable of conducting operations independently...consider it akin to the Army's Stryker Brigades but on a lighter scale (in essence the Marine Corps developed a pure Stryker Brigade Concept almost two decades before the Army tried to cobble parts to equal an MEU).

Instead we have an ultra light unit that operates somewhat like a Calvary unit but inside the sphere of the Marine Regiment (or Division) and not able to operate at speed because its tied to Infantry that is either truck or AAV mounted in a mechanized attack.

If the Marine Corps is again faced with a long range attack against a formidable foe then a repeat of the invasion of Iraq will again happen.  The Army will be in the lead, Marine units be pushed hard to keep up and Commanders will again face the drama of pushing men beyond exhaustion or to disagree and risk being replaced (In my opinion this is the one REAL mistake that Mattis ever made...he relieved a Commander for taking care of his troops in the attack...Google it I won't debate the issue)

The invasion of Iraq (Gulf War 2 for the kiddies) highlighted two serious problems with Marine Corps armor.  First the AAV was woefully inadequate and only BARELY able to do the job of being an APC.  Second, the LAV-25 was wonderful as a Calvary vehicle but the Marine Corps is able to gather information from other higher speed sources..most notably Marine Air...add UAV's to the mix and only someone asleep at the wheel would need to conduct recon by fire.

The Marine Corps is in a pickle.  One of three options are on the table.  Either develop an Amphibious Combat Vehicle, upgrade the AAV and/or buy the Marine Personnel Carrier.

MTVR.  The Corps true APC.

But additionally the Marine Corps is faced with the same problem that has plagued it since the 1980's.  It is unable to transport its infantry under armor in a capable APC/IFV.

The MTVR was pushed into that role and quite honestly it has been the workhorse for the Ground Combat Element but it needs to fulfill its original requirements, not serve as an adhoc APC.

I seriously question whether the AAV can be upgraded enough to make it survivable on a modern battlefield. I also question (unfortunately) whether the Amphibious Combat Vehicle will survive the coming budget mess.

That leaves the Marine Personnel Carrier.  The vehicles are ready now.  The Marine Corps should select the vehicle can that provide the best performance possible...not for river crossing but as a true APC.  If we continue to rehab AAV's while waiting on the ACV then we can still fulfill the forcible entry role.  The problem for the Infantry is that once they're feet dry they're foot mobile.  The AAV's go off to AAV land and they're rarely seen again.

Infantry are either walking or riding into battle in the back of a 7 ton truck.

That just won't do.

Watch this ... I dare you...

For those that are defending law enforcement in the Dorner case an update.  The Sheriff states that his guys did not burn down the structure.

I call bullshit on that and it appears that some are finally waking up and asking some questions.

Look at the world as it is, not as you wish it to be.  It will be more depressing but more realistic view of how things actually are. We call it normalcy bias.  You expect everything to be as it should and it keeps people from seeing things as they are...it can get you killed--in politics, economics and on the street/battlefield.

Now to the video. Remember this statement.  We're the "fill in the blank" we can do whatever we want...