Combat is NOT the USMC's most important mission?!!!

via National Defense.

Until it can develop a long-range, speedy ship-to-shore connector, the Marine Corps is putting crisis response ahead of combat operations as its most important mission, a top Marine capabilities officer said July 15.
The service’s emphasis in the current fiscally constrained environment is “crisis response at the expense of combat operations,” Brig. Gen. William Mullen, chief of the capabilities development directorate at Marine Corps Combat Development Command, said at a forum hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
“If we absolutely had to do it, we would,” Mullen said. “But it would be a stretch. … The capabilities we need to do crisis response are not as robust as what we need to do major combat operations.”

Combat operations are no longer the Marine Corps most important mission.

Shut it down then.

If the HQMC does not value and believe that combat ops are the reason for our existence then its time to end the Marine Corps.

Nuff said. 

Major Zembiec "Warrior God" was a CIA ParaMilitary Operative?

via Washington Post.

In the foyer of the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters, there is a marble wall covered in stars. They are carved divots that represent those who have fallen in the service of the CIA. Below them, jutting out from the polished rock, is a black book entombed in a case of glass and steel. The book is a guide to the stars, giving the names of some of those who died and withholding the names of others.
On the pages of the CIA’s Book of Honor are 111 hand-drawn stars organized by the years those officers died. For 2007, there is a single, anonymous star.
It belongs to Marine Maj. Douglas Alexander Zembiec.
Long thought to be an active-duty Marine when he was killed in Baghdad, Zembiec was actually serving with the CIA’s paramilitary arm. While the CIA would not comment on whether Zembiec worked for the agency, former U.S. intelligence officials said in interviews that he died in an alley in Sadr City on May 11, 2007, as a member of the Special Activities Division’s Ground Branch.

Jesus.

I never knew he was in any way affiliated with the CIA.

All I do know is the guy should have had pure dee' stud tattooed on his forehead.

Want to know what an Officer of Marines should shoot for?  Want to know who he should attempt to model themselves after?  Look no further than Major Z.  The guy is a legend and for good reason. 

USMC confusion with regards to the AAV replacement.

via Seapower Magazine.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Marine Corps is assessing a variety of alternatives in moving Marines and their equipment and supplies ashore from ships, a capability needed in the full spectrum of warfare.
“We’re in a state of flux right now,” said BGen William F. Mullen III, director, Capabilities Development Directorate, Combat Development and Integration, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, in a July 15 discussion with Dr. Maren Leed, who holds the Harold Brown Chair in Defense Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Mullen said the Marine Corps needs capabilities for “disaster relief all the way to the high end [opposed amphibious landing], which we believe we won’t do but have to have the capability to do. If we don’t have the capability to do that, it limits your options.”
The only current connector with the capability to make opposed landing is the AAV7 Amphibious Assault Vehicle, first fielded in 1972. The utility landing craft (LCU), landing craft air cushion (LCAC) and its replacement, the LCAC 100-class ship-to-shore connector (SSC), and the Joint High-Speed Vessel (JHSV) are not designed to make opposed landings.
Mullen said some of the LCUs in service are 54 years old, and the Navy has just begun to develop a next-generation LCU.
The Marine Corps is developing the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) as a replacement for the AAV7. The service plans to procure a limited quantity at first “and then see what works,” Mullen said, noting that the service would incorporate needed improvements for subsequent production.
The ACV would be “designed more to operate as an MRAP [Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle]than a tracked vehicle,” Mullen said.
The Corps also is looking at a craft called the Ultra-Heavy Amphibious Connector, a vessel that can carry two-thirds of the load of an LCU at the speed of an LCAC. Also under consideration is the late-1980s concept HAVIC-15, the High-Speed Assault Vessel and Interdiction Craft, a sled designed to carry an armored vehicle ashore, after which the vehicle leaves the sled on the beach as it proceeds inland.
Mullen said the Corps is looking at an in-stream launch capability of the SSC from the well deck of an amphibious warfare ship. Such a capability would not be able to be incorporated in the SSC until the 10th production example, because of the advanced stage of its development.
Another concept being considered is fitting a ramp on the JHSVs to allow them to launch ACVs into the water.
Mullen stressed that the Marine Corps still needed all of the gray-hull amphibious warfare ships, with 38 required, 33 acceptable, but only 29 available.

This is totally unsat.

"And then see what works"?????  ARE YOU SHITTING ME!!!!

In times of severe budget pressure they're talking about procuring a vehicle and seeing what works?

Marine Corps procurement is broken.

Leadership is dazed and confused and have no idea what they want or what the Marine Corps needs.

I have been told that the MPC, what HQMC has relabeled the ACV 1.1, is going to be delayed and the decision will be tossed to the incoming Commandant.  That is the only solution.  Right now we have the gang that can't shoot straight running things.

Sidenote:  Anyone have any info on the HAVIC-15?  I can't find a bit of info on it.

Sidenote 1:  The USMC really needs to drop this "connector" talk.  The ACV/EFV/MPC are combat vehicles.  NOT CONNECTORS!

Pic of the day.

This artist concept shows NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, rolling to a launchpad at Kennedy Space Center at night. SLS will be the most powerful rocket in history, and the flexible, evolvable design of this advanced, heavy-lift launch vehicle will meet a variety of crew and cargo mission needs.

In addition to carrying the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, SLS will transfer important cargo, equipment and science experiments to deep space, providing the nation with a safe, affordable and sustainable means to expand our reach in the solar system. It will allow astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft to explore multiple deep-space destinations including an asteroid and ultimately Mars.

The world is burning news. Ukraine. Is this the first hybrid war?

via zik.com

July 15, 34 tanks, 34 self-propelled artillery guns and 2 armored personnel carriers moved from Luhansk to Donetsk. Their crews do not hide they are Russians, LB.ua reports, citing an eyewitness report.
“I saw two columns of armor passing through my native Perevalsk. The asphalt road was destroyed. They all refuel at petrol stations, saying they are Russians.
The armor with no identification marks penetrated Ukraine through the fields,” the eyewitness says.
Ukraine government believes Russia has started to escalate the war, sending more and more weapons through the border.
According to presidential administration deputy head Valery Chaly, the conflict looks more and more as a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I have no idea as to whether these are Russians or rebels.

What I do wonder about is if we're seeing the first truly hybrid war.

We're seeing rebels that can match a modern army on the battlefield, the inclusion of civilian fighters on both sides, a population caught in the middle and advanced weaponry used by all (note the Iraqi Army battle against ISIS also meets the definition of hybrid war too).

The only thing that might be missing is religious radicalism and a horde of refugees flooding into neighboring countries.

I'm more convinced than ever.

The Israeli-Hamas fight is small potatoes.  The fight that will change the world as we know it is happening in Europe and no one is paying attention. 

Sidenote- The definition of hybrid warfare (as I use it) via Wikipedia.

United States Marine Corps Lt. Col. Bill Nemeth’s defined hybrid warfare as “the contemporary form of guerrilla warfare” that “employs both modern technology and modern mobilization methods.”[4]
Nathan Freier of the Center for Strategic and International Studies was one of key people that originally defined hybrid warfare involving four threats: (1) traditional; (2) irregular; (3) catastrophic terrorism; and (4) disruptive, which exploit technology to counteract military superiority.[4]

F-35 News. What everyone is missing...

What people are missing.

SecDef Hagel is finally doing the hard thing.  I'm guessing but from my chair it looks like for the first time in his tenure he's gone against the wishes of Lockheed Martin, the USAF Chief of Staff and the Marine Corps Commandant as well as the Joint Program Office.

This leads to a lessons learned.

This program isn't as "too big to fail" as everyone believes.  That idea gets shit canned when the importance of the F-35's appearance at this airshow coupled with the hit it would take publicity wise is considered.

The Brits needed this puppy to show up, the Commandant of the Marine Corps needed this puppy to fly to Europe, Lockheed Martin desperately hoped that this would be the sales commercial to help them dominate the market and Hagel basically said fuck you.

What will happen now.

We can expect many to take the Singaporean way of doing things.  Call it a wait and see approach.  The Singaporeans won't buy a half baked airplane and will only seriously consider it once its been developed as a weapon of war...not as a test bed.

Sequestration...the elephant in the room.

Next year will be interesting.  The services have nothing else to cut and the US Navy in particular is having to forestall other more important projects just to keep the myth that they're interested in the F-35C going.  The need to replace the Ballistic Subs is the biggest issue affecting the Navy's ongoing participation in this program.  If sequestration continues then the pressure for them to drop out of the F-35 program will be too much to ignore any longer.  There is nothing else to cut.  The USMC has already eviscerated its Infantry Battalions, the USAF has already savaged its aircraft inventory.

The death spiral is here.

The plane has destroyed the defense budget, ruined many airforces and has left the US military in a terrible place.

I'll go on and say I told you so now.  You can thank me later.

Textron AirLand Scorpion & Beechcraft Texans Low Level...Photos by Pete Fletch via Flight Control.co.uk....

NOTE :  PHOTOS REMOVED BECAUSE PETE FLETCH IS A DICK AND TEXTRON IS A BULLSHIT ORGANIZATION.

F-35 News. They're cheating ....F-35 cleared to fly?!

via AOL

A Pentagon official told Defense News that the F-35 fighter fleet has been cleared by air worthiness authorities. A decision on attending the show has not been made but the official said DoD is “hopeful” it can make the trip.
A statement released by Rear Admiral John Kirby, Pentagon Press Secretary, confirmed the news.
“Yesterday the air worthiness authorities for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force approved the F-35 fleet to return to flight,” Kirby said in the statement. “This is a limited flight clearance that includes an engine inspection regimen and a restricted flight envelope which will remain in effect until the root cause of the June 23 engine mishap is identified and corrected.”
“We remain hopeful that the F-35 can make an appearance at the Farnborough airshow. This information is an encouraging step, but no final decision has been made at this time.”

What a load of shit!

A limited flight clearance?  How do you do a limited flight clearance on a trip that takes you from the US to Europe???

This whole program needs to be shot, mutilated and then hung at the gates of the Pentagon as a warning to the next bullshit artists that want to defraud the American people of their taxes.

Prediction.  Someone will die before this program is all said and done because they have reached the point of desperation.  Desperation leads to short cuts, short cuts lead to mistakes, mistakes lead to death.

General Dynamics ACV study extended...is this Dunford at work behind the scenes?

via UPI.

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich., July 14 (UPI) --The U.S. Marine Corps has extended a contract to General Dynamics Land Systems to continue development of a new amphibious combat vehicle, the company reports.
The extension is for five months and carries a monetary value of $7 million.
Work under the extension includes flexibility and modularity analysis of the vehicle requirements and concept refinement and experimentation planning.
General Dynamics Land Systems in 2012 and 2013 had funded its own internal testing to assess the performance of its hull design against the Marine Corps' mine blast requirements for the amphibious vehicle, providing an early assessment of the low-risk, mature and affordable ACV solution.
The Marines are to issue a request for proposals for new ACVs this year. The vehicles must be able to self-deploy from a ship at least 12 miles from shore and travel in water at a speed of at least 12 knots.

Something is going on.  What it is I just don't know.

From the outside looking in, I would guess that we're seeing the first fingerprints of General Dunford setting our armored house in order. Additionally have you heard anything about the industry day for the ACV 1.1?

I haven't.

So General Dynamics and I would assume BAE are going to continue to work on the ACV 1.2 till the end of the year.

Something is brewing.  We'll have better visibility if the Marine Personnel Carrier gets delayed....again....like I've been hearing but can't confirm.  Wouldn't it be ironic if this whole thing spins back to a simplified EFV?

F-35 News. Elements of Power Blog is back.

SMSgt Mac is back.  That's the good news.  The bad?

He is a bit more coarse than I ever can remember him.  Yeah I get on a soap box and rant, rave, spit and curse.  That's my MO.  Not so much Mac.

But in his latest he goes after David Axe with a vengeance.

Its really a shame.  I thought we had all graduated from those heady days of smack down arguments over at Aviation Week.

I guess not.

Personally, I consider this a good sign for my position of wanting the F-35 taken down to the river, held underwater till its feet stop moving and then sliced open to feed the catfish.

If Mac is reacting like this then we're definitely making headway and the supporters are feeling the heat.

UHAC B-Roll by Cpl. Matthew J. Bragg

I still remain unimpressed.  A high speed conventional landing craft would seem a cheaper and better solution...especially if they're sticking with this 200 miles off shore meme.

Which brings me to a serious question.

This has been worked on and supposedly their was a simpler solution that was under consideration but appears to have been discarded.

The LCU-R.

Why hasn't this concept gotten a fair hearing?

Blast from the past. First flight of the P6M Sea Plane...

All pics via Naval History & Heritage Command

July 14, 1955: 1st flight of jet-propelled Martin P6M seaplane

The world is burning news. Everyone is watching Israel while Ukraine is getting real...

via ITAR-TASS..

LUGANSK, July 15 /ITAR-TASS/. Militiamen of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) have killed about 100 Ukrainian army personnel, destroyed five tanks, two infantry combat vehicles, two armored personnel carriers and a mortar battery over the past 24 hours during a battle for the Lugansk Airport, the LPR press service reported Monday.
“In this way, the Lugansk residents have managed to keep airport blockade. The enemy retreated to positions occupied a day before. The localities of Rodakovo, Alexandrovka, Yubileyny remain under LPR army control,” the press service said.
Before noon on Monday, Lugansk was shelled by the Ukrainian military presumably from the Tyulpan heavy 240-millimeter mortar. Shells landed in an area of private houses, a house was completely destroyed and one person was wounded.
The LPR said 17 of its fighters are blocked in the area of the radar, the road leading there has been mined. Ukraine’s Air Force delivered an air strike on LPR army units near Lisichansk, no one was injured. Return fire shot down an aircraft, the pilot ejected. A Ukrainian Air Force transport plane was spotted closer to noon above the locality of Izvarino. It was also shot down by LPR army units.
The LPR press service said Ukraine’s armed forces opened fire at Lugansk’s southwestern neighborhood Mirny from Grad multiple launch rocket systems, causing casualties and destructions.

Read the entire story here.

If you cut the claims by both sides in half...personnel killed, vehicles destroyed and aircraft shot down....

Then one thing is obvious.

This conflict is MUCH bigger than the conflict going on between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Why it has faded from the front page is annoying to me.  Our news media, state dept and leaders are all infatuated with the "new" instead of what is the important.

The Middle East is trashed and while I personally believe that we should support Israel to the Nth degree, I also believe the Israelis can handle it.

The bigger threat to our economy ... by extension of preventing Europe from descending into a serious recession which would have knock on effects for us .. is the issues in the Ukraine.

This is getting ugly and no one is paying attention.

RimPac 2014. AAVs, HIMARS, & more UHAC pics...

Royal Marines Jungle Training in Ghana

A Royal Marine with 45 Commando pictured during jungle training on Exercise African Winds at the Jungle Warfare School, Ghana.
Exercise African Winds 2013 was a Dutch-led multi- national operation including the Dutch Marines, the US Marine Corps and the Royal Marines and currently taking place in Ghana. The Royal Marine element was made up from Whisky Company 45 Commando Unit.
The exercise is based on board the HMNLS Rotterdam and has already run a number of commando training packages in Senegal and Morroco.

Joe Dunford to inherit Marine Corps in flux ... MUST READ...

via Politico.

Many leathernecks might argue there’s no such thing as a bad day inside the United States Marine Corps — but even they might also admit there have been better times than this.
Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, nominated to become the 36th commandant of the Marines, is set to inherit the smallest of the Defense Department’s military services at a time when it’s getting even smaller. It’s trapped in a budgetary straitjacket imposed by Congress. And it’s struggling with goals as different as getting more women into frontline units and determining how to build a new amphibious vehicle.

When I read that first line my jaw dropped.

As I continued to read it hit me.  This article is in Politico and the disdain for Amos' leadership has even reached mainstream news organizations.

While I consider the push to get women into combat more politically correct bullshit that will end badly for someone's little girl, the emphasis on getting a replacement for the AAV was welcome.  Overall the article is fluff but its good fluff.

"Knock on the roof". The IDF's weird style of warfare...

The above vid shows the "knock on the roof" technique that the IDF has been employing lately.

I'm paraphrasing but it works a little like this.  First they attack the target with some type of inert munition that supposedly lets the bad guys know that they're going to get blasted in the next few minutes and then they're attacked with a real bomb or missile.

Are you fucking kidding me?

This is a weird way to conduct warfare.  Does the IDF have clear objectives?  If you have no clear objectives then you should not be launching missiles.  If your objective is "hearts and minds" or some other touchy feely nonsense then you should find some method other than warfare to achieve your goals.

This is how Israel will lose it all.  Once the IDF was serious.  Now?  I'm not so sure.

China caught stealing F-22, F-35 & C-17 tech...again.

Thanks for the link Steven!

via ARSTechnia.

According to the Justice Department, Su and the unknown hackers based in China started to collect data in 2009, and continued until 2013. The Justice Department claims that the group "gained remote access from China to information residing on the computer systems of U.S. companies including cleared defense contractors.” In an email Su sent, he said the aircraft data would help Chinese aircraft designers “stand easily on the giant’s shoulders,” and ""allow us to rapidly catch up with U.S. levels," NBC reported.

Yeah.

Multi-national defense firms with offices in other countries...even if they're allies, makes it easier to steal our defense secrets.

The more doors, the easier it is to find a way in....

Pic of the day...

F-35 News. CH-53K delayed first flight

I just realized something from this screen capture I got from the Sikorsky vid.  Do they single hook howitzers anymore?  That thing starts spinning and suddenly you have an expensive lawndart!

CH-53K first flight delayed.

Via Reuters...

(Reuters) - The first flight of the U.S. Marine Corp's new CH-53K heavy lift helicopter will likely be delayed until the first half of next year, instead of occurring by the end of this year as planned, the head of Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp, told Reuters on Sunday.
Sikorsky Aircraft President Mick Maurer said the delay was due to challenges in getting design changes to the transmission system and gear box into production since those parts take a long time to produce. (Editors note.  Really Sikorsky?  Seriously?  Are you guys really trying to feed us this bullshit??????)
He said he did not expect the delay in the first flight to affect the overall program.
"From a design standpoint, we're in great shape," Maurer said in an interview on the eve of the Farnborough air show. "It's just a question of getting it produced."
"First flight is a high visibility milestone, but in the whole scheme of things it's not as important as actually getting the testing done, and we're doing that."

Sorry.

I smell bullshit.  Sikorsky is a "can do" company.  This is the biggest project they have going right now and the CH-53K has gained interest from Israel and Germany.

If the USMC didn't ask for a delay then you can bet that the CEO of Sikorsky would be at workshop grinding on the necessary parts himself to meet the end of the year flight deadline.