Open Comment Post. Feb 11, 2017

Patria AMV Product Family

Thanks to Dragon for the link!



Wow, Patria actually did it.  They made the Patria AMV 28A capable of swimming from ship to shore.  According to this vid it can handle sea state 3 which is better than what many other supposedly amphibious vehicle can do (looking at you K21).

Flotation armor might be the biggest thing to hit in decades...the main problem is that it adds so much volume to vehicles.  Regardless this is a pretty good glimpse into what Patria will be offering customers.

The 30mm Stryker vehicle will be known as the, Dragoon!

Thanks to Ghostmourn for the vid!

Caption from the vid...

The Stryker Family of Vehicles is built on a common chassis, each with a different Mission Equipment Package. There are 18 variants: 11 flat-bottom variants that include the Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV), Infantry Carrier Vehicle Dragoon (ICVD) Mobile Gun System (MGS), Reconnaissance Vehicle (RV), Mortar Carrier (MC), Commander’s Vehicle (CV), Fire Support Vehicle (FSV), Engineer Squad Vehicle (ESV), Medical Evacuation Vehicle (MEV), Anti-tank Guided Missile (ATGM) Vehicle and Nuclear Biological Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicle (NBCRV); and seven Double-V-Hull (DVH) variants for the following: ICV, CV, MEV, MC, ATGM, FSV and ESV.
The 30 mm cannon was integrated on the Stryker ICV platform to meet emerging operational requirements and to improve lethality. The upgraded Stryker vehicle will be known as the, Dragoon, the name of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. With the further integration of Engineering Change Proposal 1 providing greater horsepower and electrical output, along with a more robust suspension and in-vehicle network, the Stryker will be an even more capable platform. 

Once again while the Marine Corps talks, the US Army is getting shit into the field.

Italy's Defense-Industry Chief finally understands the F-35 ponzi scheme and he's pissed!

Thanks to Gerald for the link!

via Defense News.

Guido Crosetto, the head of Italian aerospace and defense industry association AIAD, said the U.S. “had not honored promises” made since Italy joined the program, hurting Italian firms as well as threatening the livelihood of Italy’s fledgling F-35 maintenance center.
In June 2002, Italy became a Level 2 JSF partner by committing to invest $1 billion in the program’s system development and demonstration stage.
Rome currently plans to buy 90 aircraft. In return, Italy was told its workshare would likely reach around 65 percent of its investment. “Today we are at less than 20 percent,” said Crosetto.
Crosetto, who was a government defense ministry undersecretary between 2008 and 2011, said if Italy falls behind on F-35 workshare, political consequences would follow.
“Back then, I staked my reputation in parliament by talking about the jobs and technology Italy would gain through choosing the F-35 program,” he said. “How easy will it be to defend these choices in parliament now?” 

Interesting. Seems like someone is not happy.

Blast from the past. Katyn Forest Massacre..

Nazi Propaganda Poster on the Katyn Massacre

What is the Katyn Massacre?  Check this out via Wikipedia...

The Katyn massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyńska, mord katyński, "Katyń crime"; Russian: Катынский расстрел Katynskij rasstrel, "Katyn shooting") was a series of mass executions of Polish nationals carried out by the NKVD ("People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs", a Soviet secret police organisation) in April and May 1940. Though the killings took place at several different locations, the massacre is named after the Katyn Forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered.
The massacre was prompted by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all captive members of the Polish officer corps, dated 5 March 1940, approved by the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, including its leader, Joseph Stalin. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000.[1] The victims were executed in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons, and elsewhere. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, another 6,000 were police officers, and the rest were arrested Polish intelligentsia that the Soviets deemed to be "intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials, and priests".[1]
The government of Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943. When the London-based Polish government-in-exile asked for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross, Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with it. The USSR claimed that the victims had been murdered by the Nazis in 1941 and continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it officially acknowledged and condemned the perpetration of the killings by the NKVD, as well as the subsequent cover-up by the Soviet government.[1][2][3][a]
An investigation conducted by the office of the Prosecutors General of the Soviet Union (1990–1991) and the Russian Federation (1991–2004) confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres but refused to classify this action as a war crime or an act of genocide. The investigation was closed on the grounds that the perpetrators of the atrocity were already dead, and since the Russian government would not classify the dead as victims of the Great Purge, formal posthumous rehabilitation was deemed inapplicable.[4]
In November 2010, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for having personally ordered the massacre

USMC SWITCHING TO INFANTRY AUTOMATIC RIFLES???? DUMPING THE M4!!!!!

If this is true then this FUCKING HUGE!  This gets my blood pumping...read about it here.

I thought that experimental Battalion was bullshit but DAMN they actually trialled this (they gave every swinging dick an M27 to see how it would work)!  This is righteous!  Ok.  I'm starting to cheer a bit.  Make the move to the M27 and dump the M4?  Dump the ITV and get the Regiments the Polaris?  Yeah...I'm liking this alot..

LAV 6.0 glamour shot!

Thanks to Costas TT for the pic!

T-90MS Main Battle Tank Testing In Kuwait

Is the EU on the verge of breaking up?

Note.  This isn't a normal story for a military blog but this has far reaching implications.  I think it's important.

via Business Insider.

Today, neither prosperity nor peace is guaranteed through EU membership. The days of European politicians promising prosperity through integration ended with the 2008 financial crisis. The refugee crisis and terrorist attacks in Europe have threatened to disrupt peace. The EU couldn’t effectively address either crisis and citizens started questioning whether membership was worth the cost.
With public discontent growing, populism and nationalism are on the rise. Anti-establishment, populist parties have won seats not only in national parliaments, but also in the European Parliament. A number of the politicians from these parties represent countries that have experienced severe effects from the economic crisis—such as Italy, Greece, and Spain—or countries that have seen a dramatic rise in Euroskepticism in the last few years—such as the United Kingdom.
Draghi’s response to the Italian MEPs’ question marked one of the first instances in which a European authority acknowledged parameters for leaving the bloc. In fact, the European treaty does not have a provision detailing how a member would exit the eurozone, and this is not a mere oversight.
The monetary union was considered irrevocable and irreversible. When the Maastricht Treaty was signed, member states thought it was inconceivable that any country would want to withdraw from the eurozone.

From the same article...

 In December 2016, two Italian members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the populist Europe of Nations and Freedom groups asked the European Central Bank (ECB) in a letter to explain the “widening balance divergences between individual countries [in the eurozone] since the 2008 crisis.”
They also asked the ECB “how the balances would, technically, be settled, especially those in net debtor countries, should a Member State participating in the system decide to quit the single currency.”
This is the first time MEPs have asked about what leaving the eurozone would look like. ECB President Mario Draghi replied in a letter to the two politicians on January 19. He said in part, “if a country were to leave the Eurosystem, its national central bank’s claims on or liabilities to the ECB would need to be settled in full.”
For the Italians, this issue has more to do with national politics than the EU. Italy will hold general elections in 2017 or 2018. Its internal debate regarding EU membership will be central to its dialogue with the EU. The power dynamics between the two entities will continue to unfold throughout the year.

I wonder if the Pentagon has looked at how the EU dissolving will affect the NATO alliance and their approach to Russia.

This alliance won't make it to 2020....two, maybe three more countries will leave.  Things are getting spicy.

US Army moves forward on next generation Main Battle Tank round...

via UPI

Orbital ATK is to complete development of the next-generation 120mm multipurpose round for Abrams tanks.
The 30-month development and qualification deliverable award from the U.S. Army is worth $45 million. It includes three options for initial and full-rate production that could bring the total contract value to $119 million.
"Our development of advanced ammunition types provides combat overmatch for the soldier," said Dan Olson, vice president and general manager for Orbital ATK's Armament Systems Division of the Defense Systems Group. "When fielded, AMP will greatly improve the Abrams' main-gun ammunition capabilities by closing the ATGM (anti-tank guided missile) and wall breach capability gaps."
The AMP round consolidates four existing 120mm rounds -- for defeating bunkers or light armored vehicles, for example -- thus reducing the logistics burden.
Orbital ATK said that with the new round a gunner will use the tank's fire control system to program the AMP fuze for a specific operational mode.

Pretty damn cool.  Even more it appears that the US Army is serious about making incremental improvements to the Abrams to keep it competitive.  This is really exciting news.  Tanks will once again move back to their traditional role of Infantry Support.  The USMC should be first in line for this upgrade...especially considering how we employ our tanks.

With a little help from our friends we might be able to preserve the ground combat element in the USMC. 

The UK has NO working attack subs.

Thanks to Overwatch DVA for the link!

via Daily Mail.

The Royal Navy’s fleet of attack submarines are all currently out of action – and Ministry of Defence chiefs are said to have kept it a secret from the Prime Minister.
Britain’s seven ‘hunter-killer’ vessels are understood to be ‘non-operational’, with five understood to be undergoing maintenance.
It is believed the HMS Astute, commissioned in 2010, is the only one currently at sea although she is still ‘weeks away’ from active service following a tune-up.
According to The Sun, it is the first time in decades Britain does not have an attack submarine on stand-by to respond to threats.
Sources said the Navy’s three Astute-class vessels – built by BAE Systems - are ‘beset by problems’ despite costing around £1.2billion each.
The others currently in service are the HMS Ambush - which is being repaired after crashing into a tanker off Gibraltar in 2016, and HMS Artful.
A Whitehall source told the paper: ‘No one is being honest about the scandal.’
All seven submarines are nuclear powered and are used to patrol trade routes ‘under threat from Iran’ and keep tabs on Russian action in the Atlantic.

Is it just me or do the Brits seem a bit unsteady as our supposed number one ally?

Just kidding.

It seems like NATO as a whole is horribly broken.  The only countries that seem to have a properly functioning military establishment are the former Soviet bloc nations and for the most part they're small.

Something is seriously wrong with military procurement/maintenance in the West.  Major reform in most countries is desperately needed and it might be time to break up the major defense firms. 

Open Comment Post. Feb 10, 2017

The Navy's cry of poverty is embarrassing!

via DoD Buzz.

If the Pentagon must contend with a year-long continuing resolution that keeps funding levels flat — or if Congress can’t pass a supplemental defense budget this fiscal year — two of the Navy’s 10 carrier air wings will go dark, and two more will be reduced to bare minimum capacity, the service’s number two officer told lawmakers Wednesday.
At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on readiness, the service vice chiefs urged the panel to fund force strength increases and warned of the dire consequences of leaving sequestration budget cuts in place.
Adm. Bill Moran, vice chief of naval operations, said the impact for the Navy would be immediate: Two carrier air wings would cease operations entirely, and two would operate at that “tactical hard deck” of 11 flight hours per pilot per month, the minimum allowable for safety.
In addition, he said, 14 ship maintenance availabilities, including one submarine availability, would be pushed into fiscal 2018. This is particularly troubling, he noted, as the next fiscal year faces the prospect of spending caps known as sequestration.
“I’m about to go to the Naval Academy to welcome the newest selectees for naval aviation,” Moran told the committee. “I would hate to tell them they are not going to be able to train to be pilots for a while if we go to a year-long CR. Without training … something else has to give.”
Following the hearing, Moran told Military.com that the air wings facing shutdown without a budget solution had been identified based on length of time to next deployment, but said he would allow the relevant fleet commander to name them publicly if it came to that.
“It doesn’t mean that everybody stops,” he said. “But some of our pilot training squadrons would have to reduce their throughput. That’s going to cause a problem — a bubble, if you will — in the system that goes through.”

Story here. 

This has gone beyond a simple tale of woe.  This is embarrassing and brings into question who the service chiefs owe their allegiance.

Things didn't get this bad in the 20 odd days that Trump has been in office.  So that leaves one of three possibilities....

1.  Either the Obama administration was able to impose a gag order on the Pentagon that was so effective that career flag officers ignored their oath to the nation and followed orders to not tell Congress how bad things were or...

2.  This is a blatant grab for funding or...

3.  Both one and two.

Something is off here.  Congress went along with gimmicks used by the Pentagon to plus up their budget by taking funds from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The cuts were extreme (I guess) but no where close to what we've experienced historically when wars have wound down.

I see this as a failure in strategy.

The Pentagon is failing to take advantage of what should be a slowdown in ops-tempo with things winding down (supposedly) in Iraq and Afghanistan.  One of the problems with Marine Aviation is that they're not getting a break to repair/maintain aircraft and rest personnel but they're actually UPPING the the number of deployments.

Part of the problem is that the strategy is broken....risk has been assumed to "modernize" and because of that the force is breaking.

Giving the services more money won't solve the problem.  Not only is procurement broken but so is our strategy of forward deployment....pushing forces forward and ignoring maintenance, puts our men and equipment in a perpetual, quasi state of war.

Long short?  We can't maintain our pace of operations no matter how much we spend.  We'll either break our machines or push hard chargers out of the service or both.

Indonesian Army Leopard 2RI MBTs Live Firing Exercise (pics)

Thanks to DWI for the link!

I'm just repeating a question that was brought up by a reader.  Does Indonesia have a more formidable and balanced armor force than Australia?  I really think it can be argued that they do.

That's stunning.  If you take the US out of the equation and just pit Australia against Indonesia in a mythical fight would you really bet on Australia winning?

I don't know but it would make for a fascinating wargame!  The weird thing?  It appears that Indonesia holds a clear advantage in all areas except MAYBE aviation and that's assuming the F-35 performs EVERY BIT as well as we're being told.

New Chinese Heavy IFV?

Thanks to Costas TT for the pic!!!

JESUS!  I've been predicting that its about time for the Chinese to start producing their next gen IFVs and if this pic is any indication then they're about to reach parity with Western designs.

Could this be the Chinese "Kurganets-25"?

If it is then our Bradley will probably be matched at best and if this fuzzy pic is any indication then I'm betting its mounting at least a 30mm and probably larger main gun.

Our leadership has failed us.

Armor still counts and we're falling behind in the armor race.

The really sad thing?  The USMC has delayed in putting the ACV into service and that "off the shelf" design will probably be obsolete before we even get it to full operational capability.  

Tyler takes on the F-35's kill ratio at Red Flag. MUST READ!

Thanks to Mark for the link!

via The Drive.

The problem is that the limited amount of information we have from an air exercise that produces hoards of data really does not give an accurate picture of what the F-35 contributed, or how their performance compared to that of other platforms. The 15:1 kill ratio in particular is nebulous, because it seems this may be skewed in terms of what data it actually includes. Kill ratios attributed to a platform naturally make us think of direct engagements with enemy aircraft, but Red Flag is a highly integrated air battle, one that always uses the latest data-link fusing gateways and other force-multipliers. It remains unclear whether the stated kill ratio is strictly attributable to the F-35, or if it includes the actions of other coalition aircraft, particularly F-22s, while the F-35 is merely present.
In other words, did one F-35 die per 15 enemy aircraft killed strictly by the F-35’s own hand, or did those enemy aircraft die while the F-35 was merely involved in the battle? The F-22As from the 27th FS were integrated into this Red Flag, as were APG-63V3 AESA radar toting F-15Cs from the 159th FS. The UK brought their highly capable Typhoon FGR4 to the exercise as well, and these are just the high-end air superiority players; other fighters, including F-16s, were also present. That’s a lot of counter-air capability in the air at one time, all with various advantages and disadvantages, feeding their data into one common fused data-link picture. In addition, they were assisted by an armada of support aircraft, including the most capable jamming and information, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms in the world. 

This puts things into perspective!  Well done Tyler! The must read story is here!

Commandant's message to the force.

I really want to like this guy but I just don't know.  I wish he would talk and explain his thinking...where he sees the fight going etc.

A year ago he gave a talk at a think tank and mentioned the need to seize ports and since then nothing.  It's hard to be supportive when you don't know the rationale for the decisions being made.

That's the terrible legacy Amos gave us.  He destroyed the trust.  I'll send another e-mail to his office to see if he's willing to answer some very basic questions but hope is not high.

F-35 destroys enemy aircraft 15-1 at Red Flag? That means its ready now right!

Everyone is trumpeting the news that the F-35 performed so well at Red Flag that it trounced simulated enemy forces 15-1 in aerial combat and decimated simulated enemy ground defenses (supposedly it was against first line simulated defenses too).

If that's the case then this plane is ready for combat operations now!  No need for further development and its ready for Full Operational Capability right?

Wrong!

The fact is that they could tell us the plane flew to the moon on pixie dust, we couldn't prove otherwise.  I suspect that the plane's capabilities in this exercise were themselves SIMULATED!  In other words they fought it with stuff that it's suppose to have in 2020, not with what it has today.

ITS NO LONGER ABOUT PRICE, ITS ABOUT CAPABILITIES! 

Qatar Leopard 2A7+ Main Battle Tanks Training Exercise

So tiny Qatar operates the most advanced version of the Leopard MBT?  God I hope they send it to Yemen so we can see how it performs.  The interesting thing?  I'm not sure but I don't think the Germans differentiate between export models and those for NATO.  If we see Leopard MBT's burning its not because they're detuned...

DEVELOPING! Russian jet kills three Turkish soldiers in Syria

Thanks to William for the link!

Thanks to Drinas for finding this pic of the impact area...

via...

Istanbul (DPA) -- A Russian jet conducting anti-Islamic State
airstrikes mistakenly hit a building housing Turkish soldiers in
northern Syria on Thursday, killing three and injuring 11, the
Turkish army said in a statement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone with
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who offered his condolences,
the statement added.
Turkey launched a cross border operation in Syria in August, but
its offensive has stalled around al-Bab, in northern Syria, where
Islamic State is putting up heavy resistance. Ten soldiers were
killed in the past two days, local media had earlier reported.
Turkey and its rebel allies now share a frontline with Syrian
government forces and loyalist militias near al-Bab. Damascus,
which is backed by Russia, sees the Turkish military control over
nearly 2,000 square kilometres in Syria as an occupation.

Interesting.  I wonder what the Turk reaction will be.  I'm sure there is more to this than meets the eye but I have no theories.

One thing appears certain though.  Turkey will have limits placed on how much Syrian territory they're allowed to annex.