Have a good 4th!

Concept helicopter by Lufei Bi

The Mayaguez Incident. A warning to the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-Crisis Response Force.

Marines brag and chest thump about battles.

Its part of the DNA.  Its what we do.  We will kick your ass.  We will make you beg for your mommy.  We will win.

Its the Marine Corps way.

There is one battle that the Marine Corps doesn't talk about.  It was an adhoc mission, put together rapidly, depended on a scratch force of Marine, Navy and Air Force aviation.

And it failed badly.

Not only were we beaten, but we left men behind.  Men that were alive.

Men that were later executed by the enemy.

A quick history via Wikipedia.

At 06:12, the eight helicopters (five CH-53 Knifes and three HH-53 Jolly Greens) of the Koh Tang assault force approached the two Landing zones (LZs) on Koh Tang. At the West Beach, the first section of two CH-53 helicopters came in at 06:20 hours. The first helicopter; Knife 21, landed safely, but while offloading its Marines came under heavy automatic weapons fire, destroying an engine. It managed to take off, protected by suppressive fire from the second CH-53, Knife 22, and ditched 1.6 km offshore. Knife 22 was damaged so severely that it turned back with its Marines (including the Golf Company commander) still aboard escorted by Jolly Green 11 andJolly Green 12, and crash-landed in Trat Province on the Thai coast, where its passengers were picked up by Jolly Green 12 and returned to U Tapao.[55][56][57]
At 06:30, the CH-53s approaching the East Beach encountered intense automatic weapons and RPG fire from entrenched Khmer Rouge. Knife 31 was hit by two RPGs, which ignited its left fuel tank and ripped away the nose of the helicopter, it crashed in a fireball fifty meters offshore. A pilot, five Marines, and two Navy corpsmenwere killed in the crash, another Marine drowned swimming from the wreck, and three Marines were killed by gunfire trying to reach the beach. A tenth Marine died of his wounds while clinging to the burning wreckage. The surviving ten Marines and three Air Force crewmen were forced to swim for two hours before being picked up by the gig of the arriving Henry B. Wilson.[58] Among the Marine survivors was the battalion's Forward Air Controller, who used an Air Force survival radio while swimming to direct A-7 air strikes against the island until the battery failed. The second CH-53, Knife 23 was hit by an RPG which blew off the tail section and crash-landed on the East Beach, but it successfully offloaded its 20 Marines and crew of five. They set up a defensive perimeter and the Knife 23 copilot used his survival radio to call in airstrikes, but they would remain cut off from both reinforcements and rescue for twelve hours.[59][60]
Knife 32 was inbound to the East Beach when it was hit by an RPG and aborted its landing, instead heading out over the West Beach to the Knife 21 crash site where it dumped fuel and proceeded to rescue the three Knife 21 crewmen.[61] Two other sections of the first wave, consisting of the remaining four helicopters, were diverted from the East Beach to the West Beach and eventually landed all of their Marines between 06:30 and 07:00 hours, although the final insertion by Jolly Green 41 required support from an AC-130 Spectre gunship in order to penetrate the Khmer Rouge fire on its fifth attempt. Knife 32, Jolly Green 41 and Jolly Green 42 eventually landed 81 Marines on the West Beach under the command of the company Executive Officer, and Jolly Green 43 landed 29 Marines of the battalion command post and mortar platoon a kilometer to the southwest.[62] By 07:00 109 Marines and five Air Force crewmen were on Koh Tang, but in three isolated beach areas and in close contact with Khmer Rouge troops. The Marines at the northern end of West Beach attempted to move down the beach to link up with Col Austin's command element to the south, but was beaten back by heavy Khmer Rouge fire which killed LCPL Ashton Loney.[63] While isolated, the Marines were able to use their 81 mm mortars as fire support for their contingents and devised a makeshift communications network for controlling supporting air strikes by USAF A-7 and F-4 aircraft. It was decided that the platoon isolated on the East Beach should be extracted and following suppressive fire from an AC-130, Jolly Green 13 landed there at 08:15 amid a hail of machine gun fire, but it had landed some 100 m away from the Marines who were reluctant to risk running to the helicopter, and Jolly Green 13 took off with its fuel lines ruptured and made an emergency landing in Rayong, Thailand.[64][65]
Of the eight helicopters assaulting Koh Tang, three had been destroyed (Knife 21, Knife 23 and Knife 31) and four others damaged too severely to continue operations (Knife 22, Knife 32, Jolly Green 41 and Jolly Green 42) and of the helicopters used in the Mayaguez recapture Jolly Green 13 had been severely damaged in the East Beach rescue attempt.[64] This left only three helicopters (all HH-53s - Jolly Greens 11, 12 and 43) of the original eleven available to bring in the follow-up forces of BLT 2/9, so the 2 CH-53s (Knife 51 and 52) whose mission had been search and rescue — the last available helicopters — were reassigned to carry troops.[66] The five helicopters picked up 127 Marines of the second wave at U Tapao between 09:00 and 10:00 hours.[67] At 11:50 Knife 52, Knife 51 and Jolly Green 43 arrived over Koh Tang and prepared to land on the East Beach, as Knife 52 approached fire punctured its fuel tanks and the pilot aborted the landing and headed back to U-Tapao leaking fuel. Knife 51 and Jolly Green 43 also abandoned their landings and assumed a holding pattern.[68]

The above paragraphs just cover the assault portion of the events.  The article covers the planning, execution, extraction and aftermath.  It is one of the best written histories of the event (in abbreviated form) that I have ever read.

But in it lies the warning to the SPMAGTF-Crisis Response Force.

Each time they actually deploy, they could be flying into a Mayaguez Incident. This force is too light to fight and hold ground.  History tells us so.  Using this force to justify the V-22 is a bridge too far and will cost lives.

Professionals for the bad guys read history too.  If I can see the dangers then our opponents can see the opportunity for the destruction of a Marine Unit too.  I hope I'm wrong, but this could end badly...just like it did for an assault force many years ago.

Our foreign policy is confused at best, fucked up beyond all recognition at worst. Warnings from Egypt.

Thanks goes to Bob for pointing me to ZeroHedge Blog...it just got added to my must reads 

Note that the Obama Administration put out a message expressing concern that the government overthrew an elected government---even though the military acted at the behest of Egyptian scholars, Christians, the general public and even some Muslim fundamentalist.

I'm operating off instinct but I've cheered this development.  To see that the US government is taking an entirely different tack is telling. Either they support Muslim extremism, defend democratically elected governments no matter how much they veer from democratic rule, or they know something that the public doesn't.

I just don't know.  What I do know is that the Egyptian people are sending us warnings.

See all the pics at ZeroHedge by clicking here...

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.