Colombian Cub.

Another Joe Copalman special.  Check out his flickr page here.

Mechanized Amphibious Raid Training.

Photos by Cpl. Joshua Young

CTruk Avenger

via THINKDEFENCE.



On a sidenote.  Littoral Warfare is in hindsight the naval version of counter insurgency.  Blue water assets can handle any littoral issue.  We need to focus on building a survivable blue water fleet.  Green/brown water ops can be adapted to by Marine/Army/Navy units on the fly.

Sailor in pain...

Tongue in cheek guys...relax.

Lance Cpl. Zachary Chivell, from ground combat element, Security Cooperation Task Force Africa Partnership Station 2012, grapples with a sailor from Riverine Squadron 3, Detachment 2, while conducting Marine Corps Martial Arts Program training aboard the USS Fort McHenry, July 17, 2012. The MCMAP training was conducted in order to continue the Marines' required training while deployed.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Joshua Hines)

Holographic sights on pistols in SOCOM?

Its been said that a unit(s) in SOCOM are running holographic sights on their pistols.  Can anyone identify that unit?  Photos are floating all over the net showing these guys loadouts so I'd prefer some type of imagery that shows these guys either training with or in Afghanistan or some other hotspot with the sights on their weapons.  if you have that proof hit me up in the comments or in my e-mail. 

UPDATE:  The more I think about this the more I'm calling BS on it.  You have to mill the slide out in order to make the sight fit.  You have to install supressor sights on the pistol and then you have to retrain the person to fire the weapon in a new way.  The easiest part of the whole thing is the training.  the most doubtful about it is the milling of the slide and the number of rounds that are put down range.  As much as these guys shoot the chances of slides cracking HAS to increase.  Additionally I know of NO marksmanship unit (Army or Marines) that are using these guns.  I'm more convinced than ever that this is a competition/class trend and not one that's really catching on in the military.  But prove me wrong and send me the evidence.

Carrier Navy. Meet your enemy.

All photos from Air Power Australia.  Yeah I know.  But they have the best info on the web when it comes to threat weaponry.  I disagree with their conclusions but can't doubt the work and research done to compile this info.  Go here for more.

Click on the pic to expand it but what should capture your attention are the supersonic anti-ship missiles.  The Sunburn is impressive but so is the Indian/Russian Brahmos.  The spread of these missiles should cause as much alarm as nuclear weapons.  Imagine if terrorist were able to acquire one or two of these missiles and launch them at our carriers while they're going through the Suez canal? 

Notice the load out of SSN-N-27's.  I excluded Bear type aircraft from my 'carrier' sinking post but if I included them in the scenario then the numbers get much worse for the defending side.

I did an earlier post on how vulnerable our carriers are to high speed anti-ship missiles.  You have to go to Air Power Australia for a detailed overview but rest assured.

OUR CARRIERS ARE VULNERABLE.

Our close in weapon systems are for lack of a better word...a joke and a morale booster.  Even if a Rolling Air Frame Missile gets a hit on one then the damage done from the wreckage and the fuel will cripple ships systems and possibly cause injuries or deaths.

Our defenses are not up to the task of defeating some of the missiles coming online.

UPDATE:
Paralus made a comment that I just have to push up here....

 Even with directed energy weapons, a weapon systems would have to be able to quickly detect, track, target and destroy in a very short period of time (seconds) to keep from being overwhelmed by missile swarm attacks.

What if the Chinese J20 is supposed to be a Chinese version of a SU-34 Fullback? A couple hundred of J20s each launching one or two ASCMs would be scary.

Everyone and everything I've read has the J-20 as being a large fighter or an interceptor aimed at taking out AWACs.  What if its sole purpose in life is to have enough range and enough stealth to get close as is safely possible using that stealth to launch supersonic anti-ship missiles at our carriers?  A stealth airplane that has one primary mission.  Maritime strike against our carriers.  Calling Chief of Naval Operations...its time to wake up!

Israeli Air Assault Exercise.

How many guys can you slam into a UH-60?  Take it out the seats and have people sitting on the floor its got to be over 20?

FNSS Pence RWS Turret.

The FNSS Pence (its being marketed as the CLAW internationally) is a private venture that's getting quite a bit of attention.

Luckily FNSS is one of the few organizations that is responsive to all bloggers so the following information was provided to me.

CLAW is suitable for installation on a wide range of tracked and wheeled armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs), either as original equipment or to enhance the firepower of older platforms. One of the advantages of the remote turrets with respect to conventional turrets is the elimination of the turret basket. This affords more space within the fighting compartment, while the remote turret requires but a minimum level of ballistic protection with the most of the relevant weight fraction being rather devoted to enhancing protection to the fighting compartment.

The prototype is armed with Rheinmetall Italy's stabilised 25 mm KBA dual-feed cannon, which is provided with 210 rounds of ready-use ammunition. The empty cartridge cases are ejected outside the turret. The KBA cannon has a maximum cyclic rate of fire of 600 rds/min and the gunner can select single-shot or burst modes of fire. While the prototype Claw is armed with the 25 mm KBA cannon, a number of other weapons could be installed in this turret, including the ATK 25 mm M242 and 30 mm Mk 44 cannon or the Mauser 30 mm MK 30-2 with its air-bursting munition capability.

A 7.62 mm MG3 machine gun (MG) is mounted coaxially with the KBA cannon on the right-hand side of the RCT and is provided with 600 rounds of ready-use ammunition. The gun is electromechanically cocked from the user interfacen within the hull.

A key feature of Claw is that ammunition for both of these weapons can be reloaded from within the platform under full armour protection.

Turret traverse is all-electric through 360 degrees, with weapon elevation from -10 degrees to +50 degrees.

The electro-optics (EO) and fire-control system (FCS) have been developed by Aselsan and are integrated into the left side of the forward part of the turret.

A meteorological sensor is mounted on the turret roof towards the rear and feeds information to the FCS, which has a full ballistic computation capability.

The dual-axis stabilised EO package includes a thermal camera with wide and narrow fields of view, a day camera and a laser rangefinder. This enables the platform to engage targets in most weather conditions with a high first-round hit probability.

The autocannon is electronically slaved to the sight and an automatic target tracker is fitted as standard. An independent commander's sight on the roof to provide a hunter/killer capability is offered as an option.

The weapons are laid onto the target by the gunner from within the hull of the platform using a flat-panel display with controllers for left and right hand. This display could also be used to provide images from cameras mounted around the vehicle as well as information from a battle management system.

So any speculation that this was a cooperative build with Rheinmetall was incorrect.

This is a privately funded project and it appears to be one of the better designs out there.  I can't wait to see video of it firing but if looks indicate effectiveness then this is a winner.