Dirk Jan de Ridder. Another photographer's work you should check out.

Dirk's another one of those aviation photographers that's at the top of my list of guys who get it.  Check out his work at either his  Scramble or Flickr pages.

The Australian Navy gears up.

via News.com.au.

THE Royal Australian Navy has produced a secret $4 billion "wish list" that includes an aircraft carrier, an extra air warfare destroyer and long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles for its submarine fleet.
The RAN wants a third 26,000 tonne amphibious ship equipped with vertical take-off jet fighters, a fourth $2 billion air warfare destroyer and cruise missiles that could strike targets thousands of kilometres away.
The list comes at a time when the RAN can barely find enough sailors to crew its existing fleet.
It also coincides with a Federal Government push to save $1 billion a year in defence costs as well as a government-ordered White Paper which will set the spending priorities for the next two decades.
According to insiders, the Government was unimpressed by the RAN's push for more firepower at a time when the Government is aiming to slash spending.
"The navy is out of control," one defence source said.
It is understood that the wish list was the final straw in the tense relationship between the Government and Chief of Navy Vice-Admiral Russ Shalders - who will be replaced in July by Rear Admiral Russell Crane.
Admiral Shalders last year also pushed hard for an expensive US-designed destroyer, but lost out to the cheaper, Spanish option.
Taxpayers will spend more than $11 billion to provide the RAN with the two 26,000-tonne amphibious ships and three air-warfare destroyers equipped with 48 vertical launch missiles.
The two big ships, known as Landing Helicopter Docks, are designed for amphibious assaults and will be fitted with helicopters and be capable of carrying more than 1000 troops and heavy vehicles such as tanks and trucks.

The RAN wants a third ship to carry vertical take-off fighter jets.

Its last aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne, was decommissioned in 1982 before being sold for scrap.

The latest ships are 10m longer and 8m wider than the Melbourne and will be built in Spain and fitted out at the Tenix shipyard in Melbourne.

The Spanish navy will carry 30 Harrier jump jets aboard its similar ships.

They will each cost more than $1.7 billion. The fighters would cost about $100 million each. The destroyers will cost about $2 billion each, taking the total cost to more than $4 billion.
Tomahawk cruise missiles cost about $1 million each and can carry a 450kg conventional or 200 kiloton nuclear warhead more than 2500km.
In the past Australia has stayed away from long-range strike missiles for fear of triggering a regional arms race.
The wish list is what the RAN would like to see make up part of the White Paper process which will later this year provide a strategic blueprint for the defence of the nation for the next 20 years.
That process will direct new spending worth more than $50 billion over the next 10 years.

Lets read between the lines on this.

First there is no reason why the RAN can't operate F-35B's off their current ships.  Perhaps not as many as would be ideal but they will be able to.

Second, there is a definite trend going on here.  I've said it before (Aussie Digger disagreed) but I'll say it again.  The Australian Navy is inches away from creating a Marine Corps.

Last, this move to station Marines in the Northern Territories just adds to future interoperability.  The more the Aussies train, observe and work with US Marines the more obvious it will be that this is the glaring hole in their force capabilities.

But more than just a need for F-35's and a Marine Corps the Aussies are finally coming to grips with the cold hard facts that warfare in the Pacific demands a Navy and Marine team.  If you are to actually engage in expeditionary warfare over the vast distances that is the Pacific then you need ships, planes, Marines and subs.

Much to the chagrin of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal Australian Navy is starting to put it together...and unlike the Europeans, the Australians realize that they have a potential foe that is a peer --- not some backwater Middle Eastern or African dictator.

NOTE:
What was left off the list is the fact that the Pacific is seeing an alarming build up in military power.  The traditional powers...Japan, S.Korea and China are starting to see the minor power arm up rapidly.  Singapore is the Israel of the Pacific and might have the most technologically advanced force in the region.  Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines all see China and each other as threats---and left unsaid are the ancient animosities that course throughout the region.  The Pacific is a future powder keg.

AV-8B Harrier Pilot that participated in F-15 rescue mission in Libya is Aviator of the Year.

Maj. J. Eric Grunke, pictured here at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., April 24, has been named Marine Corps Aviator of the Year by the Marine Corps Aviation Association. The MCAA gives the award to the pilot who makes the most outstanding contribution to Marine aviation over that past year.

The action that earned him the award is below....

Whispering into his radio from a hiding place on the ground was Air Force Maj. Kenneth Harney. His Air Force F-15 Strike Eagle had just crashed in the open desert near the Libyan city of Benghazi.
The 26th MEU’s Marines aboard the USS Kearsarge launched a Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel, or TRAP, mission to rescue the pilot. Grunke was to provide close air support to protect the downed pilot until help arrived.

Due in part to his actions in Libya, particularly on that day, the Marine Corps Aviation Association named Grunke the Marine Aviator of the Year, recognizing him as the pilot who made the most outstanding contribution to Marine aviation over that past year.

Grunke’s contribution came in the form of a dynamic mission over a short amount of time where he dropped two 500-pound bombs on tactical vehicles pursuing the downed pilot and identified a suitable landing zone for the MV-22B Osprey that would make the pickup. Just about three hours prior to all of this, Grunke had been aboard the USS Kearsarge preparing for another night of enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya.

“We were preparing for another armed reconnaissance mission where we would go out and look for targets,” Grunke said. “Word started to filter in that, potentially, an F-15 had crashed. We weren’t sure why, whether it was enemy air fire or a malfunction or what, so we started to determine, okay we’re going to have to launch the TRAP package to go rescue the pilot and his [weapons systems officer] – it was a two-seat F-15E.”

The weapons systems officer, Air Force Capt. Tyler Stark, ejected with Harney as the jet went down but was quickly rescued by friendly rebel sympathizers. Harney, however, was on the run.

“The pilot … had hit the ground, he was alive, he was on his radio, he was trying to get away from up to five or six tactical vehicles [that were] pursuing after him, and he was just trying to get out of the open desert and away,” said Grunke.

The Marines aboard the USS Kearsarge launched the full TRAP package to rescue him – two AV-8B Harriers, two MV-22B Ospreys, and two CH-53E Super Stallions. A Marine Corps KC-130J Hercules joined the fight to provide aerial refueling.

“When we launch the TRAP, it’s an all or none kind of thing,” Grunke said.

Lt. Col. Shawn Hermley, who commanded the Harrier detachment assigned to the 26th MEU, said Grunke recently certified as an airborne forward air controller and was uniquely qualified to execute the rescue mission.

“I told him if we do this, I want you out there in the lead,” Hermley said.

After Grunke took off from the deck of the USS Kearsarge, he spoke to the command and control center and learned deadly force was authorized to protect the downed pilot.

He said that was all he needed to know, as his AV-8B Harrier was equipped with two 500-pound laser-guided bombs.
At the helm of the attack jet, speeding toward the Libyan desert en route to save a fellow service member from certain danger, Grunke switched over to the downed pilot’s radio frequency.

“I just start listening to gain an idea of what’s going on down there, and I can hear him, wind rustling and him whispering into his radio,” Grunke said. “At that point it all became real to me, listening to the guy whispering on the radio. This is no longer North Carolina, this is no longer practice – that’s really a guy down there scared for his life.”

Grunke arrived overhead and took over as on-scene commander, relieving an Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon. The downed pilot radioed that he was fleeing vehicles with searchlights. He could hear barking dogs and gunfire.

“Within five minutes of being on station, I’m able to get my targeting pod sensor on this pursuing vehicle,” Grunke said. “I tell the pilot, ‘Okay, I can see the guys … I’ve got two 500-pound bombs, do you need them?’ He says, ‘Yes, yes I do.’”

As he maneuvered to a point where he could release and guide the munitions to the pursuing vehicle, Grunke heard the airman make one more request.

“He comes up and actually crying on the radio he says, ‘tell my wife I love her.’ And again, just underlying the realness of the situation I said, ‘don’t worry, I’m going to have a bomb on the deck in one minute,’” Grunke said. “I released one bomb, and I’m able to guide it for 50 seconds or so, all the way to a direct impact.”

Hermley described Grunke’s attack on the vehicle as “impressive.” He said looking through the Harrier’s targeting pod is a lot like looking through a drinking straw.

“The dropping of the bomb isn’t the hard part, it’s an attack we do all the time,” Hermley said. “But he was going after a moving target, and one that was tracking toward his friendly. Any pilot in our detachment could drop a bomb, but doing it under pretty high stress circumstances, with that pilot talking to him, fearing for his life, [Grunke’s] actions on the TRAP were monumental.”

Grunke dropped one more bomb on another vehicle pursing the pilot, finally delivering the message to the assailants on the ground to leave Harney alone.

“At that point I gave my sole attention to trying to locate a suitable landing zone for the Ospreys that launched from the ship a few minutes after I did,” Grunke said.

Noticing a road not far from the creek bed where Harney was hiding, Grunke generated a coordinate for the location and passed it over the radio to the Osprey pilots.

The Osprey, complete with a rescue team of Recon Marines, landed less than 50 meters from the pilot’s hiding place.

“They found him very quickly, to the point where he just ran in the back of the aircraft as soon as it landed,” Hermley said. “The Marines barely even had the chance to get out.”

Grunke said he shook Harney’s hand back aboard the USS Kearsarge, making a great ending for an extraordinary mission.
Hermley said Grunke’s role in the TRAP mission was pivotal. He not only defended the downed pilot from aggressors, he provided invaluable reconnaissance to the rest of the rescue force.

“The hardest part of a mission like that is knowing where the survivor is, and in this instance he had moved about three miles,” Hermley said.

“Fortunately for us, every MEU practices a TRAP, because it’s a ballet. You’re working off of a moving platform – the boat, and you have to have everything moving at the right time,” Hermley said. “The key to the TRAP is ‘how fast can you execute it?’ We had assets airborne within the hour.”

Hermley said as Marines, and especially as part of a Marine Air-Ground Task Force aboard a MEU, everyone involved knows they have to react quickly to a mission they hadn’t planned on.

“[The Marine Corps Aviator of the Year award] was well deserved. The highlight for him was his performance and execution of that TRAP. He quite possibly saved that pilot’s life,” Hermley said. “But there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes as well. He was one of my best advisers; he worked a lot of long hours figuring out the best way to execute that mission in Libya.”

“It was obvious that we had made a huge difference in liberating this area specifically, a stark contrast from night one where [the Libyan people] were essentially under [Gadhafi’s] thumb. I could see visible results of what we did,” Grunke said. “Night one, [Gadhafi’s forces] were essentially on the footsteps of Benghazi. Night by night by night, we just continuously pushed this line back.”
Grunke described the operation in Libya as the chance of a lifetime for an AV-8B Harrier pilot.

“Pinnacle of my career, really, for an attack pilot to be the forward edge, the tip of the spear, to be operating from amphibious shipping; it was absolutely the pinnacle of what I’ve done so far,” Grunke said. “I am so privileged and humbled to be receiving this award, especially since it will be awarded as Marine aviation celebrates its centennial.”

Pretty cool huh?

10% Reduction in Marine Corps Personnel.

Wow.

Amos has sure brought change to the Marine Corps....Gays in the military, led talk about the Marine Corps needing to get back to the Sea (never thought we left), women in combat and now the biggest drawdown in Marine Corps end strength since the Vietnam War.

Be proud Amos.  Be proud.  I guess you were the man the President wanted.  You changed a wonderful institution and are in the process of making it something I don't recognize.

Outstanding....For you at dinner parties.  Your The Marines just end up getting screwed.

NOTE:

Don't you dare believe that the final number will be 182,000.  It will be 150,000.  Almost guaranteed. 

The ALMAR on Women in Combat Policy.

Check it out and read how carefully the guidance is laid out.

One thing annoys me to no end though...The survey...

Its pure bullshit and every Marine knows it.

If the Commandant wouldn't listen to his Marines on an issue as simple as roling sleeves what makes you think that he would give force to a no vote on Women in combat?

I guess it really doesn't matter.  This policy roll out has more to do with Obama's re-election strategy than it has to do with advancing women's rights.  Its clever and cunning.  If the Marine Corps fights the issue then he can over ride the military and dare Congress to stop him---he'll say that they're trying to continue its war on women...or the Marine Corps can lay down like a lap dog (which its doing) and he can brag to the liberals on both coasts and say how he's fighting for womens rights over the objections of women hating men.

Assignment of Women to Ground Combat Units

Commandant of the Marine Corps speech on the state of the Marines.

NOTE:

This is a long talk...but the first 5 minutes are telling.

The Commandant basically defends not only himself but the other Joint Chief's of Staff with regard to them doing their job.  He talks about dereliction of duty and how they are doing what's necessary in a joint environment.  My thought is wow.  So the other services are having issues with their leadership and where they're taking their services.  So its not just a Marine thing.  The next thought is that he protests too much.  Obviously the pin pricks are starting to hurt.

Good.  Grab some Makers Mark...pour a couple dozen shots and make it through the whine fest.

F-35 In-Flight Refueling with External Weapons

The F-35's latest drama..A labor dispute.

Wow.

I get the point that the union is trying to make.

Lockheed has been making record profits and they only want there share.

But damn it.  This could be the straw that breaks the camels back.  If they haven't thought about this carefully then the Dem's in the Senate could actual team up with that idiot McCain and make Sweetman/Cox and Air Power Australia (along with the other lackeys and hangers on) smile with glee.

This could kill the program.

Then not only will Lockheed Martin, the US Military and our allies but also the workers lose and lose big.

I hope I'm wrong but this is the wrong time to be pushing this issue.  Management and Labor are both idiots.

Management pushed, Labor pushed back and they're both about to get a big stick up the behind with a total lack of vaseline.