Near miss! via Forças Terrestres Blog.

Yeah!  That's an anti-tank missile barely missing the open hatch of that T-55 tank that decides to take up a firing position on top of a hill!  God must love idiots because this crew lived to fight another day.  Who teaches armor tactics in the rebel camp?  Whoever it is they need to be fired.  Watch the vid below to see the whole thing, but pay special attention at the 1:13 mark.  That's when you can actually see the action.  You'll also see these bastards back up ricky tick quick!

A pissed off Officer on Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

via Precision Rifle Enthusiast from Matt Meyers US Army.

This is beyond awesome.  Its classic.

Noob! A video showing a Negligent Discharge via The Bang Switch Blog.

Tilt-Wing Gunship Concept Art by RadoJavor

AFSOC makes a push for Search and Rescue. Congress pushes back.

Conventional Wisdom has it that SOCOM is the darling of the DoD.  It appears that conventional wisdom is wrong.  via Defense News.

A group of six US senators and three House members are expressing concerns to senior Pentagon leadership of an internal Air Force proposal to change the way it performs the combat search-and-rescue mission, calling the plan on the table unsuitable from a budgetary and operational standpoint.
While the move has not been finalized within the Air Force, the lawmakers criticized Air Force Special Operations Command’s proposal to absorb the CSAR mission from Air Combat Command and use a mix of Bell-Boeing CV-22 Ospreys and Sikorsky HH-60 helicopters. The mission is currently conducted by ACC using only HH-60 Pave Hawks.
AFSOC officials say the move, first reported by Defense News, could save the Air Force billions of dollars in the long term, a claim dismissed by the senators who said the plan “does not appear economically sound.”
Instead the Senators, in a June 26 letter to Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, call on the service to continue with Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) program, an effort to replace the CSAR current fleet of HH-60G Pave Hawks.

I'm looking forward to watching the fight between the regular forces and SOCOM.  SOCOM has morphed into something more than simple elite forces designed for special missions.  They've become another branch of the military and either they're reigned in and downsized so that they're special again, or you sit back and give them a seat on the Joint Chiefs.

Guarani Wheeled Amphibious Fighting Vehicle goes to the "Center for Instruction"

via F.J.Brazil.

The Center for Instruction Armored "General Walter Smith" (CIBld) received on June 26, its first Vehicle Armored Personnel Carrier - Medium on Wheels Guarani, developed based on one of the seven strategic projects of the Brazilian Army, in partnership Iveco now Brazil.
The Guarani is an armored personnel carrier, amphibious, able to carry up to 11 soldiers. It has protective anti - mines under the wheels, bucket seats and harness, also has safety belt 5 tips. Its ballistic protection shield is composed of shots of 7.62 mm and shrapnel artillery 155 mm.

I'm sitting on a hilltop beating the hell out of this drum...but the Brazilian's have selected designed a new wheeled amphibious vehicle and got it into production in less time than it took the USMC to get either an AAV replacement or a Marine Personnel Carrier together.

And you wonder why I think Amos should go?

Ilyushin Il-102 in flight vid

About Egypt. Update!

UPDATE:  The Muslim Brotherhood has been canned by the military.  Good job.  I'm amazed that we heard basically nothing from Sec Of State Kerry during this crisis.  Our foreign policy team is garbage.

Don't miss the real story in Egypt and the real reason why its scares the daylights out of the other Middle Eastern Countries and even some Western ones....

Its all about the economy.

The people don't give a rats ass about democracy.  They don't care about international politics.  They do care about earning enough money to feed their family and provide for their well being.

We're seeing globalization unraveling.

China is in a funk, the US and Europe has suffered stagnation...and even the BRIC countries have slowed down so much that we saw flare ups in Brazil.

If the Federal Reserve can keep things in check through monetary policy here in the US and the European Central Bank can do the same for greater Europe then all will be well.

Don't bet on it though.

Pre-Production TAPV is headed to Canadian Army.

On July 1, the first Tactical Armoured Patrol Vehicle (TAPV) pre-production vehicle shipped to Aberdeen Test Center. The vehicle is part of the Qualification Program for TAPV. During the next eight months the vehicle will be used to qualify those requirements not covered in the Request for Proposal (RFP) submission. The vehicle was cleared to ship after the team passed the Test Readiness Review and Test Supportability Requirement Verification Review. Over the next month, the remaining five pre-production vehicles and the blast surrogate will be delivered. Once delivered the Reliability Maintainability Durability and Availability program will begin. This program, over eight months, puts the vehicles through simulated missions, driving 200,000 Km. After final testing is complete, full rate production will start for our Canadian customer.

And the Canadian Army does what the Marine Corps couldn't.  They setup a list of requirements for the manufacturers to meet, they test the submitted vehicles and then they select a winner and get the vehicle into production.

Maybe we need to send some of our people from the AAV program office up North to get schooled on the process?

Snowden HAS to have something even he doesn't realize the importance of.

via SkyNews.

The Bolivian President's plane was diverted after France and Portugal refused to let it cross their airspace over "unfounded suspicions" whistleblower Edward Snowden was on board, the country has claimed.
Evo Morales' flight made an unscheduled stop in the Austrian capital Vienna while returning home from Moscow.
Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca told reporters that Portugal and France had abruptly cancelled air permits.
"They say it was due to technical issues, but after getting explanations from some authorities we found that there appeared to be some unfounded suspicions that Mr Snowden was on the plane," he said.

Read it all at SkyNews but I put forward the theory that Snowden is more than just "an enemy of the state" and that the reaction by our security agencies indicate that he MUST have some information that is so inflammatory that they would risk abusing diplomatic protocol and relations with our S. American neighbors to get it back.

It should have been a no brainer.  The Russians put out the story that Snowden is on the Bolivian President's airplane to judge US and Western European reaction...And what do we do?  We react exactly as planned.  We setback relations between the US and any small country, any idea that we respect and treat countries fairly is shit canned and we're left looking like rookies/incompetent.

The FSB played us like chumps.

We walked right into it and look like fools.

And we still don't have Snowden.

I'll say it again for effect.  I don't know what Snowden has but he must have some world shaking info in those computers that the powers that be don't want getting out.  By the reactions of officials we could eventually see something powerful enough to bring down an administration.

Just sayin.

Blast from the Soviet past. The IL-102.

via English Russia.

Isn't this lovely. SPMAGTF-Crisis Response on alert.

Forgive me for not being all a-flutter.  Via Stars and Stripes.

WASHINGTON — About 500 crisis-response Marines who recently deployed to Italy and Spain are positioned to respond to the brewing chaos in Egypt.
Pentagon spokesman George Little wouldn’t speak about Egypt or the U.S. Embassy in Cairo specifically, but said the military was postured for response in that region in particular.
“We have taken steps to ensure our military is ready to respond to a range of contingencies,” he said.
Egypt is edging towards collapse as protests swell and time runs out on the Egyptian army’s 48-hour ultimatum issued Monday, that President Mohamed Morsi forge a compromise with the opposition or face military intervention. Increasingly violent protesters raging against the democratically elected president and his Muslim Brotherhood-led government have demanded that he step down from office.
The U.S. Embassy in Cairo has been closed since Sunday, according to a notice posted on its website.
In early May as Egypt grew more fractious, U.S. Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., arrived at Moron Air Base in Spain, as part of a Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response team. Some of the Marines have since moved temporarily to Naval Air Station, Sigonella, Sicily. The task force will respond to emergencies across North and West Africa.
“The reason we are here is to provide a scalable force to respond to unexpected crisis,” Maj. Zane Crawford, the operations officer of the unit, said in a USMC news story in May. “We can rapidly deploy to support missions, such as embassy reinforcement, tactical recovery of aircraft, and personnel and noncombatant evacuation operations.”
Citing unnamed sources, CNN reported last week that the Marines have been told to be ready to be airborne in 60 minutes after deployment orders, but Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, wouldn’t confirm, saying the military doesn’t comment on specific readiness postures.
The move comes after the military, along with the White House, endured heavy criticism for not responding quickly enough to the deadly attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, last year. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in the attack.

This is such a dubious concept that I'm amazed that its being allowed to go forward.

What good is a Company Plus of Marines in an Embassy Reinforcement mission?  This Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force lacks all the supporting elements that are the hallmark of a MAGTF and its an abomination that is asking to fly into trouble and then beg to be rescued.  Its a fantasy, masquerading as a plan, relying on hope to carry it to victory.  

PS.  Want another bigger kick in the pants?  Remember those SPMAGTF-Africa's that we have started deploying to train and conduct partnership missions with African countries?  They have been training to conduct adhoc embassy reinforcement missions too.  So now we have the MEU, SPMAGTF-Crisis Response and SPMAGTF-Africa all lined up to do embassy reinforcement missions (Oh and lets not forget that the 26th MEU has been sailing around looking for trouble to get into...if they weren't sent steaming toward Egypt then I seriously doubt how serious the crisis really is).  We haven't even started to count what the US Army is doing or SOCOM...you can bet the Ranger Regiments would want in on this action.  The point is that the weak spot isn't forces, its in the decision making cycle.  Leadership currently is unable to make a decision absent almost absolute certainty of success.  Maybe that's a result of the political climate---doesn't matter, what does matter is that we're designating/creating forces to deal with a problem that exists at the policy maker level, not at the operating forces.

Textron/Granite's Survivable Combat Tactical Vehicle...the JLTV killer

An outstanding mini-history of the SCTV can be found on this facebook page.

General James "Bulldog" Conway was a fan of the concept.

The DrawDown has officially begun.

Marine Corps Blog (Official) has the politically correct version and a link to the MARADMIN.  Read it here.

What's the deal?

The Marine Corps is officially putting out a request to its enlisted Marines offering them early outs.

Hmm sounds good!

Yeah, if you're LCpl Schmuck-a-telli that hates the Corps then this is music to your ears.

So why is SNAFU! being a drama queen on this?

Because it won't stop with this.  This is only the beginning.  These things follow a natural progression (I've seen it before), first you have early outs.  Then you have separations for the good of the Corps (can be characterized as honorable or other than) and then it turns into a pure numbers game.  It will flow up and you're going to see some hard core, hard charging Marines with multiple combat deployments and plenty of combat experience getting sent packing.

So what does the future hold?

Sadly, you're going to see a bunch of pissed off Marines in the near future.  They gave every ounce of being to this organization and they will be sent away with a see ya, have a good one.  I still believe the Marines will drop to 150,000 boat spaces before its all said and done.

Sidenote:  This has been going on with the Officer side of the house for a few months now.  People that want out are bailing like there is no tomorrow.  Good officers are leaving for corporate America.  The USMC will regret not being more selective.  They'll regret it and pay for it.  

Pumping them out like a pez dispenser. F-35B BF-29 First Flight

Do you get the feeling that HQMC and Lockheed are getting the idea that the rest of the Marine Corps is waking up to the fact that the F-35 is costing us much more than we ever thought?  I do.  It appears to me that complaints about the sorry state of Marine armor is finally getting a hearing.  I can't wait to see how this all plays out.  Which is more important...armored protection for our ground forces or a new toy to participate in Air - Sea battle far away from supporting Marine Infantry in the advance or defense.  The answer will be telling.

Guy films police, police make flimsy arrest, dog gets shot.

Idiotic police decide to shoot dog after they make a flimsy arrest of a man for filming them.  Total bullshit.

Textron and Granite win contract for Humvee upgrade.

via Press Release.

NEW ORLEANS – JULY 2, 2013 – Textron Marine & Land Systems (TM&LS), an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced today that it has been awarded a $3.29 million firm-fixed price contract from the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command for work on the Modernized Expanded Capacity Vehicle Survivability (MECV-S) system. TM&LS is teaming with Granite Tactical Vehicles to deliver innovative crew protection and vehicle survivability enhancements for the Army’s HMMWV vehicles. The program’s follow-on potential is for work on up to 5,750 vehicles.
The Army is seeking technical solutions to address current and future threats to its HMMWV tactical vehicle fleet through the use of scalable armor technologies. The TM&LS/Granite team will install its MECV-S protection system, a production-ready Technology Readiness Level 8 system, on two government-furnished HMMWVs and deliver them this summer to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. for Improvised Explosive Device testing. Computer Aided Design models also will be submitted for analysis.
“Our TM&LS/Granite MECV-S solution would replace the current HMMWV crew compartment in a one-for-one exchange. It offers vehicle occupants an armored monocoque V-hull protective capsule and restores the vehicle’s tactical mobility with proven components,” explains TM&LS Senior Vice President and General Manager Tom Walmsley.

This practically seals it for me.  The JLTV WILL BE CANNED.  The fact that the Army is sponsoring this award tells me all I need to know.  An upgraded Humvee will be the ride for the near term and "we might revisit" the JLTV concept in the future.

Good. 

Hasik wants Army Strykers...I say follow the lead of the Brazilian Marines and go after M113's!

Thanks for the article Jonathan...

What happens when a service that has a history of fighting for its very existence suddenly starts making stupid decisions and ties itself to a single airframe to the exclusion of all else?

Its enemies smell blood in the water and like sharks getting gobbled up by seals, you have the hunter being turned into the hunted.

James Hasik is the latest bunny that suddenly has claws and fangs because of Marine Corps ineptitude (just joking...I don't know the guy but the part about a vicious bunny just seemed to fit).  Check this out (read the article here).

As separately announced this week by General Odierno, the Army will be cutting a whole Stryker brigade by 2017. Contrasting the service’s plans to add a third line battalion to its remaining tank and infantry brigades, however, the remaining seven Stryker formations already have that third battalion. Some 300 Strykers will soon be excess. So why not save the MPC program by moving a few hundred armored cars from the Army to the Navy Department? It’s not as through the Marine Corps wouldn’t know what to do with an 8x8 from General Dynamics. True, the Stryker doesn’t carry that outsized 13-man squad to which the Marines are so attached, but in this business, no one is going to get everything he wants for a long time. The “reinforced” squad planned for the EFV was 17 men, so split the squad between two vehicles. Don’t have doctrine for that? Write some. You’re Marines: adapt, adjust, overcome. The vehicles are there. In a few years, transferring them and bringing them into the force would just take some bureaucratic initiative. 

Hasik is talking about the real issue with the MPC and using basic off the shelf vehicles.  They don't fit with Marine Corps doctrine.  The M113 carries 13 so it accomplishes the basic mission.

Using upgrades provided by IMI and BAE the M113 becomes automotively reliable and simple to fix, it has increased buoyancy and it has the agility and speed to keep up with the M1 Abrams going cross country.

Last but not least its cheaper than the Strykers and would serve as a true interim vehicle without disrupting Marine Corps plans to develop the Amphibious Combat Vehicle.

Make no mistake about it.  Once the Marine Corps steps one foot inside the Stryker then you're going to see pressure applied to make that the defacto MPC/ACV replacement.  Its not suitable for either role and should NOT be pursued.

Old Corps vs New Corps from Sgt Grit.

If this is true then the F-35 is a bigger clusterfuck than the EFV ever was...

If this report is true then the F-35 is a bigger clusterfuck than the EFV EVER was.

I find it interesting that the USMC was able to unceremoniously cancel a armor program at the cusp of its success and start all over again but is unable to do so when it comes to an aviation project.

Come to think of it, the USMC did the same thing with the Marine Personnel Carrier Program.  Once BAE and Lockheed Martin finally showed that they had capable wheeled, amphibious combat vehicles that met blast specifications they canceled the program.

Something stinks in the Commandant's office.  We have a Commandant in charge of aviation and an Assistant Commandant in charge of aviation.  How about we get a Commandant for the Infantry/Ground Combat Element?

Amos has to go.  Read the story of the F-35's woes here.