Magpul Glock Mags Pic via TACBlog.

Tips and tricks...

F-35 Weapons Loadout Pic

Compare this loadout to the legacy F/A-18 Hornet below...

If the USAF, USMC, Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin weren't being so obvious it would be funny.

They're scared shitless and are trying desperately to build momentum for the program going forward.  Unfortunately for them, too many people know the truth and won't be impressed by the first pic.  That is far from impressive and if I tossed in a few pics of what the Super Hornet, Rafale, Eurofighter or even SU-35 carries then it would look even worse than my comparison of the Hornet vs. F-35.

But I've finally hit on why the USMC is pushing the IOC so hard for this year.  Again, its all about budgets.  They're trying desperately to clear the train wreck that is the Marine Corps budget and the easiest way to do it is to get items off the table.  The F-35 is the most expensive so its going first.  They'll take a break from the MV-22 (and that's why getting the Navy, Israeli and Japanese buys were so important...they take the Marine Corps place in line) and focus all program dollars on that airplane.  That also explains why the CH-53K was again "slowed down" and the push to make the Marine Corps the seagoing 101st.

Reports have already stated that (as I suspected) the JLTV is going to be canceled and with the latest from Marine Corps officials you can look for the Marine Personnel Carrier to either be slow walked so much that it should be canceled (the defense industry won't take the project seriously...I think General Dynamics senses this) or they'll bite the bullet and take the public relations hit and do it outright.

This will be an interesting year.  Failure on all fronts is floating from the Pentagon. 

No chance for peace in Ukraine. This thing is going to continue to spiral.

OK.  I did not see this coming.  via Voice of America...

The European Parliament is accusing Russia of what it calls "acts of terrorism" in Ukraine.
Meeting in Brussels, the European Union legislative body passed a resolution condemning what it called Russia's "aggressive and expansionist policy" and "the acts of terrorism and criminal behavior" by Russian-backed rebels in east Ukraine.
Ukraine is observing a day of national mourning for 13 bus passengers killed in a rocket attack Tuesday south of the rebel-controlled city of Donetsk. Kyiv has accused rebels of firing the rocket; Moscow lays blame on Ukrainian troops.

The EU Parliament also urged maintaining sanctions against Russia unless it meets a number of conditions, including respecting the cease-fire agreed to last September, unconditionally withdrawing its troops and "illegal armed groups" from the region, exchanging prisoners, and restoring Ukraine’s control over its territory, including Crimea. The parliament said the sanctions should be broadened in the event of further Russian actions "destabilizing" Ukraine.
Pro-Russia separatists sit atop a tank at a checkpoint north of Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, Jan. 14, 2015.
Also Thursday, separatist officials said they had nearly recaptured all of the Donetsk airport after a months-long battle. But Ukraine's military says it continues to control part of the largely ruined facility.
The fighting in eastern Ukraine has recently intensified, particularly in and around the airport. Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Thursday that two servicemen had been killed and six wounded over the previous 24 hours.
Ukraine alleges massive Russian troop presence
Meanwhile, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, Oleksandr Turchynov says separatist forces in eastern Ukraine now number 36,000 troops, including 8,500 Russian military servicemen, and they are armed with 542 tanks, 990 armored fighting vehicles, 694 artillery systems and 57 anti-aircraft missile systems.
He also said that there are more than 52,000 Russian troops in a state of "full combat readiness" on the Ukrainian-Russian border, along with more than 300 tanks, 1,800 armored fighting vehicles, 750 artillery systems and up to 360 warplanes and attack helicopters.

Turchynov warned that "the renewal of hostilities by the enemy on a large scale," and with the participation of Russia's armed forces, could lead to what he called "a continental war on a large scale."

This thing in Ukraine is going to continue to spiral out of control and the chance for peace appears to be lost.

Get out the body bags.

I said Ukraine was going to get nasty.  That wasn't strong enough.  This thing is going to be filthy.  Is anyone seriously working to solve this problem?

Terrorist have misplayed their hand.

Federal Security forces in Europe are in a heightened state after the attack in Paris and now we see the first fruits of it.

Belgium is conducting operations, shots have been fired and terrorist killed.

Personally I think the terrorist misplayed their hand, underestimated Europe and confused the response to Russia with how they would be dealt with.

What do I mean?

Easy.  You could look at what could be called a tepid response to Russian aggression in Ukraine by the Europeans and make the knee jerk reaction that they would be weak in all security related areas.  I believe that's what the terrorist did.

They failed to take into account history.  They failed to acknowledge the amount of fear that they instilled by their barbarism and they failed to note how much surveillance goes on in modern Western society.  They basically did not understand that Russia is considered a rational actor and you can always negotiate with a civilized person or entity.

Islam has shown itself to be anything but civilized.

Europe is inching its way toward outright war with Islam.  It might not be said aloud, might not even be acknowledged publicly, but if Belgium is kicking ass as we speak then you know its about to get vicious in Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries.

Pass the popcorn.  We're about to see a history making fight in Europe...and the Russians will be on our side for this one.

Quote of the day...

"...You don't need ships if all you bring is infantry.."
Josh O (when talking about disaggregated MEUs and SPMAGTFCRs along with the idea of single deploying amphibious ships)

'Nuff said.

The USMC is breaking itself.

Disaggregated Amphibious Ready Groups are gonna need different ships.

Check this out from the Marine Corps Times...

To meet those challenges, the service could put a small special purpose MAGTF on the next generation LXR amphibious ship. While the ship — based on the hull of the Navy's current San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships — has space for two fewer landing craft air cushions, it has a much larger flight deck, O'Donnell said.
That provides more capability with air assets, which is significant he said, because Marine forces will be able to disaggregate for distributed operations.
That means it could be used as a "single deployer" floating on its own with a crisis response unit aboard. That closely mirrors comments made by Lt. Gen. Kenneth Glueck, commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, who said in September that in 2015 he would explore the possibility of placing crisis response units on Navy mobile landing platform ships.
It give Marines a faster response time when carrying out missions like the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in South Sudan, about a year ago, or the one in Libya in July. The Marines had to deploy from Móron, Spain. While they were able to successfully complete their missions, they had to fly long distances to do so.
Distributed operations, as implied by the theme of this year's symposium — Surface warfare: Distributed Lethality, Going on the Offensive — will define the Marine Corps' future.

We're gonna need different types of amphibious ships to make this concept work.

If we're talking about amphibious ships becoming single deployers then we need something like the Mistral and not the LXR.

The wing has won.

*  It just occurred to me that the MEU as we've known it is probably dead.  Infantry Battalions will simply be broken up to be farmed out to SPMAGTF's and mini MEUs aboard single deployer ships.  Someone said that the reason why the Marine Corps performed so well in the Korean War while the Army suffered is because they  formed adhoc combat teams that were not able to bring combined arms to the fray in the same way as USMC units.

Comparative Characteristics Of Main Battle Tanks (June 1973)

  Comparative Characteristics of Main Battle Tanks

F-35 News. It all comes back to cost.

When it comes to the F-35 I've focused on one issue and what it means to the USMC.

Cost.

Now we see the Pentagon still playing the "ramp up production to push down the cost curve" lie.  Check this out from Bloomberg.

-The Pentagon will request funding in fiscal 2016 to buy 57 F-35 jets made by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), two more than previously planned, according to two government officials.
The Defense Department’s previous five-year plan had projected buying 55 of the fighter jets during the year that begins Oct. 1, said the officials, who asked not to be identified before President Barack Obamasubmits his budget to Congress on Feb. 2.
If approved by lawmakers, the acquisition would mark a major increase for a program that’s experienced cuts amid tight defense budgets and setbacks in testing of the costliest U.S. weapons system. The Pentagon had requested 34 of the jets for the current year, and Congress increased that to 38.
The projected budget for 55 aircraft was $9 billion; the added cost for two more planes wasn’t immediately available.

I don't think it will work.  I don't see sequestration being eased or lifted. The author of this article summed things up perfectly at the end.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a September audit that the Pentagon continues to “develop and field the most costly weapons system program in history without knowing whether the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps can pay for it.”

The debate IS about costs.  No longer is the debate about whether stealth as presented in the F-35 is effective.  Its not about sensor fusion or whether the airplane can dog fight or if its even capable of delivering on the promised performance.  Its all about cost.

Can the Pentagon afford this airplane?

I don't think so.

When did Hollywood get weapons training?

I watched a streamed version of the movie John Wick last night...I'm going to go see American Sniper this weekend (I think it comes out this weekend) and one thing struck me.

When did Hollywood get weapons training?

I mean seriously!  There were a few over the top moments in the John Wick film but you could see that someone taught Reeves some things.  If what I've heard about American Sniper is true then Bradley Cooper got training too.

While I still believe Hollywood hates gun guys and the culture, we're seeing something fascinating and its going unnoticed.

They're actually working at getting it right.

Oh and a sidenote from the John Wick movie.  They emphasized integrating close quarters combat with actual hands on fighting.  We practice close quarters combat all the time, but we don't integrate actually fighting close with weapons in hand.  To the USMC's credit it does the best job currently with its MCMAP program but its still lacking.  Is close in combat mixing weapon and hands on lacking or am I offbase and missed a course that teaches it?

Aftermath of the Grad attack on a civilian bus video. (Not graphic but the squeamish should be careful)

Thanks to Shota for the vid.



Yeah.  This is going to spark reprisals.  More blood will definitely be spilled.

Modest Proposal. Treat computer geeks like the band!

I personally feel like the Marine Corps needs to leave the cyber warfare terrain to the US Navy when it comes to sea service participation, but since HQMC insists on setting up the unit I have a modest proposal.  Recruit the best possible candidates by treating cyber like we treat the band.  Check this out from Wikipedia...

The Marine Band recruits experienced musicians; members are selected through a rigorous audition procedure and must satisfy additional security and physical requirements to be eligible. Selected band members serve under a four-year contract as active dutyenlisted Marines and are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and physical standards. They are the only members of theUnited States Armed Forces not required to undergo recruit training and do not perform combat missions. Also, they are not assigned to any unit other than the Marine Band.
The band members start at the rank of Staff Sergeant, and wear rank insignia with a lyre replacing the normal crossed rifles. Commissioned officers are drawn from the band, although drum majors are career Marines and are selected from Fleet Marine Force bands, as they are responsible for the military development of the band's members.

What would we get?  We'd get computer geeks that have no interest in fighting but still want to be Marines and serve their country.

We would have to develop some type of assessment to see if they're good enough at their skill to warrant the privilege of wearing the uniform but if they have the skill then we can get them up to standards physically.

We could replace the crossed rifles with a computer keyboard or whatever you want to represent cyberwarfare and suddenly we have patriotic hackers in Marine uniform.

Admittedly this is a rough sketch but it works.  Now get it done and toss out the battlefield role for the units.  They can do it long distance like we do UAVs and have all these critters stationed at Quantico so we can have them in one place to keep an eye on them.

Donetsk is getting nasty.

via Yahoo News.

Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Eleven Ukrainian civilians were killed and nearly 20 injured when a long-range Grad rocket apparently fired by pro-Russian insurgents hit an intercity bus in the separatist east.
Local police said the rocket appeared to have gone astray after being aimed by the gunmen at a checkpoint set up by government soldiers on the main highway connecting the rebel stronghold of Donetsk with Ukraine's southeastern coast on the Sea of Azov.
The incident was the deadliest attack on civilians since the rival sides signed a much-maligned September 5 ceasefire that only partially stemmed the fighting and did little to resolve the insurgents' independence claims.
Tuesday's strike also damaged Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's efforts to set up a peace summit where his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin could personally sign a truce to try to end the ex-Soviet republic's nine-month war.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- the West's main mediator in Europe's deadliest conflict since the Balkan wars of the 1990s -- argues that such a meeting would be premature with violence still raging daily across Ukraine's Russian-speaking rust belt.
Diplomatic talks in Berlin on Monday confirmed that no summit would be held on the crisis in the short term.
Both Ukrainian military and regional police told AFP that the death toll from Tuesday's incident included seven women and four men.
The local administration said 17 others had been hospitalised near the town of Volnovakha, where the bus was hit 35 kilometres (22 miles) southwest of Donetsk.
Donetsk regional interior ministry department chief Vyacheslav Abroskin said the rocket appeared to have gone astray after being fired at a Ukrainian military checkpoint.
"It was a direct hit on an intercity bus," Abroskin told AFP by telephone.

I've been watching this thing brew for the past couple of weeks but haven't commented on it.

Now things have accidentally taken a turn for the worse.

There was a small sliver of a chance for peace.  Now?  After this this incident?  The violence will increase and so will atrocities.  The fighting around Donetsk is getting nasty.  It will get nastier before this is all over with.

PMAG D60 (60 round drum mag). Is this the mag the USMC's been looking for?

When I saw this all I could think is that Magpul did it again.

They created a MUST HAVE product that will have me THROWING my money at them.

Then I looked a little bit closer at the pic.  That's a H&K.  Could this be the mag that the USMC is looking for to finally make the M27 fit its intended role just a bit better?

The USMC's Marksmanship Unit should be looking at this poste haste!  I'm sure they could get early examples and testing at Quantico could begin immediately...or rather should begin.  This seems like a no brainer...for both the civilian and military markets.  Read about it here.

Tom Alfaro's art via Concept Ships Blog.

Note: Some of you guys need to get a serious grip. Its concept art. What does that mean? Its freaking Sci-Fi. Maybe its not "totally in line with standard engineering practices today! SO FREAKING WHAT! Can't you just enjoy the art instead of trying to tear down the idea and the artist? Personally you guys amaze me.

Center for International Policy Think Tank says the F-35 can be killed or rolled back!

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. He took the time to write an article for the Huffington Post that basically tracks with many of the things I've been saying. Check this out....

This is not to suggest that rolling back the F-35 will be easy, just that it is possible. There's no question that the Air Force brass are committed to the F-35 as the plane of the future, but that is not the case for the Navy -- in the short-term the service could do as well or better with upgraded F-18s while a workable alternative to the F-35 is developed. The A-10 attack plane is far better at close air support of troops than the F-35 will ever be, and there is a strong Congressional constituency in favor of keeping the A-10 over the objections of the Air Force. And as the price of the F-35 rises, there has been grumbling among allied nations involved in the program, with a number of them postponing or cutting their buys of the plane.

I hope you're paying attention to whats happening here.

First, Lockheed Martin, the Program Office and the DoD have lost control of the message with the F-35.  More and more Think Tanks are saying that the plane is a decent idea which has been executed poorly....and needs to be canned or drastically cut back.

More importantly they've identified that the US Navy is in SHOCK over the cost of the airplane and don't support it....And the reason for that shock is the thing that has me punching walls.  The plane is just too damn expensive and is ruining the budgets of not only the USMC but those of our allies as well.

Message control for the program has been lost.  More and more people are speaking out against the plane.  An alliance between Liberals, Deficit Hawks and people sincerely interested in preserving our nation's defense is finally starting to push back against this glowing example of Waste, Fraud and Abuse.

I couldn't be happier.

Interested in the Indian Military? Check out this YouTube Channel.

First things first.  Turn off the music and just watch the video.  Once the volume is down take note.  What surprised me?  That the HAL LCA looks better than I thought (definitely need to get up to speed on that project) and second, the Indians are upgrading the Jaguar Attack jet.  Want to talk about an original at rough field operations?  Want to talk about designed for operating just behind the forward edge and delivering great performance?  And the way it mounted its self defense missiles was just plain cool.

The channel is here.

Which brings me to the final issue I want to address.  If you know of a military, firearms, fitness or preparedness website that you think others might be interested in then drop me a line at Talk.To.SNAFU@Gmail.com or leave a comment below.

The world wide web is a big place and we've got to broaden our horizons.  For military websites I'm really interested in other than US or UK pages...it would help if they covered their own domestic military issues too (instead of being an offshored site that covers the US).

They're going to need a bunch more Marines.

via Stars and Stripes.

The U.S. military wants to establish a permanent presence of up to 3,000 Marines at a Spanish air base that now serves as a temporary host for a task force of crisis-response troops supporting U.S. Africa Command, a Spanish newspaper said.
In early December, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel issued a letter to Spanish authorities requesting permission to keep the Morón, Spain-based Marine quick-reaction force in the country, the newspaper El Pais reported last week.
According to the paper, the U.S. plan is to maintain a presence of roughly 850 Marines in Morón but allow for a surge of up to 3,000 troops in the event of a crisis.
The unit, a Marine Air-Ground Task Force focused on crisis response, formed in 2013 in the wake of the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. The team is mobilized periodically in connection with potential threats in Africa. The unit has supported U.S. evacuation efforts in South Sudan and Libya and has provided logistical support for U.S. anti-Ebola efforts in western Africa.

In March, the Defense Department announced it would boost its presence in Spain by adding more Marines to the MAGTF, which was slated to increase from 500 to 850 Marines.
The military’s current basing deal is expected to expire in April, which means a temporary extension could happen before a long-term basing agreement is reached, according to El Pais.

So we have our normal MEU deployments, UDP to Okinawa and now Australia...and now we're adding in Spain.  This is in addition to the Marines that will be sent to the new front in the war on terror in Iraq, FAST Company, MARSOC, Marine Security Guard Force, Recruiting, Drill Instructor Duty, Instructor Duty at SOI....How the hell is the Marine Corps going to supply enough people for all these taskings before the force burns out?

How can a force of approx 175,000 support this many deployments especially since the powers that be have been shedding Infantry Battalions the way a snake sheds its skin?

We're gonna need a bunch more Marines or else this isn't going to work.

Someone didn't think this through. 

Republic of Korea Army Mech pics.

NOTE:  Someone should really get up with Korean Army and tell them how NASTY those "watermarks" are on those pics.  I'll have to figure out something or else stop using them all together.  Its ruining fine work.

AK-74 goes boom!