F-35B BF-18 First Flight

Lockheed Martin test pilot Al Norman flew F-35B BF-18 (US Navy Bureau Number 168314) on its inaugural flight on 8 August 2012 from NAS Fort Worth JRB, Texas.

31st MEU Helicopter Company raids urban combat facility

Our Afghan Allies killed 3 MORE NATO Troops.

Geez.

How many of our guys have to get shot, blown up and killed/injured in that God forsaken country?

Fuck Afghanistan.

Check this out from CNN.

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A man in civilian clothing opened fire on a base shared with Afghan forces, killing three NATO troops, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force said Saturday.

Soldiers detained the gunman shortly after the shooting Friday night, said Maj. Martyn Crighton of the ISAF Joint Command.

ISAF believes the accused gunman was a civilian employee on the base, though the shooting is still under investigation, he said.

The international coalition did not release the nationalities of the soldiers and details about the shooting, including the location.

It was the second shooting Friday targeting NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Yeah.

If its starting to blur together, the timeline goes like this.

A Command SGTMajor and the people with him were killed in a suicide bombing early this week.  Then you had 3 SOCOM personnel lured to a lunch and shot dead...and now you have the shooting on a base.

I'm being profane and redundant.

FUCK AFGHANISTAN.  Time to go.

UTAS Shotgun. Its real and for sale!

When I first saw this shotgun all I could say to myself was "hmm pretty good for vaporware...we'll never see it for sale."

I was wrong.  Last night while I was surfing the web trying to find good prices on a thousand rounds of 9mm ammo (Lucky Gunner still has the best prices), I happened across the Atlantic Firearms website and what did I see?  The UTAS Shotgun for $1200.00!  Amazing!

Blast from the past. Ithacus VTVL SSTO Troop Carrier (1966)

Meet the original Starship Trooper Concept.  The Ithacus Troop Carrier!

What's interesting and slightly amusing are the concept photos that show it being deployed from an aircraft carrier!  Why they would need to move an suborbital vehicle around by carrier is beyond me but I'm assuming it had to do with increasing time to target....either way though it would be one wild ride.  Astronaut wings instead of jump wings would have to be issued.  Info from Astronautix.

American SSTO VTOVL orbital launch vehicle. An adaptation of Phillip Bono's enormous ROMBUS plug-nozzle semi-single-stage-orbit launch vehicle as a 1,200 soldier intercontinental troop transport!! The recoverable vehicle would re-enter, using its actively-cooled plug nozzle as a heat shield.
Douglas also proposed a military VTVL SSTO for transporting troops and cargo -- the "Ithacus." The Ithacus plan was apparently inspired by general Wallace M. Greene, who proposed a rapid-strike batallion of 1200 soldiers. These "rocket commandos" would have been deployed by an intercontinental rocket so the need for overseas US Army bases might be greatly reduced. The gigantic 6400-tonne "Ithacus Sr." was supposed to serve this strategic need.
The basic configuration was very similar to ROMBUS, i.e. eight hydrogen drop tanks + rocket-powered vertical landing using a plug-nozzle aerospike engine. The landed weight would have been about 500t. One of the biggest problem was returning the 64m tall vehicle back to the launch site… Self-ferry was out of the question since the rocket would have produced a liftoff thrust of 80200KN -- way too high without a custom-built launch pad with sound suppression, water cooling etc.. Shorter "hops" of a few hundred kilometers would however have been possible so the plan was to fly the partially fueled vehicle to a coastal harbor. Ithacus Sr. would be transported by a Saturn-type "crawler" onto a barge for return to the United States.
The smaller "Ithacus Jr." version would have had an intercontinental cargo capability of 33.5t or 260 soldiers. Douglas proposed to launch two Ithacus Jr. vehicles from an Enterprise-class nuclear aircraft carrier, which also would have produced liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellant from seawater. Power for the electrolysis process would have been taken from the carrier's nuclear reactor: 112MW would have been required to produce 1150t of oxygen and 164t of hydrogen from 1470t of water. The rocketships would be stored inside hangars. One Ithacus Jr. would serve as a troop carrier while the other would deploy unmanned cargo to the same military site. The Ithacus Jr. vehicles would land 600 meters apart to deploy a fully armed group of 260 soldiers.
LEO Payload: 450,000 kg (990,000 lb) to a 185 km orbit at 28.00 degrees.
AKA: Ithacus Senior.
Status: Study 1966.
Gross mass: 6,363,000 kg (14,028,000 lb).
Payload: 450,000 kg (990,000 lb).
Height: 64.00 m (209.00 ft).
Diameter: 24.00 m (78.00 ft).
Thrust: 80,230.00 kN (18,036,420 lbf).
Apogee: 185 km (114 mi).

Contractors model...fantastic plastic modelling site states that they will be selling a model of this concept this fall...plastic modellers...they're doing as much to save aviation history as the Smithsonian!

Vengeance in Afghanistan

Carrier Navy. A bad day gets worse. Here come the heavies!

The current issue of the USNI Proceedings (1) reports that China has reached a deal to license-produce Tu-22M Backfire bombers.  The arrangement will initially result in 36 bombers which is regimental strength from the old Soviet days and was believed to be the amount needed to defeat a US Navy carrier group...via Navy Matters Blog

36 Backfire Bombers.

Old word tech updated with modern weapons.

The Chinese are launching a MAX EFFORT strike to take out one of our carriers.  We've seen a couple of Regiments of SU-27 (family) Strike Fighters...we've seen Fast Attack Missile boats...we've seen subs...and we've seen the J-20's.

But if there is any airplane that should chill the blood of the Commander of a Carrier Battle Group, it should be a Backfire Bomber loaded with the latest anti-ship missiles produced by the Russian military.

That's exactly what's headed toward our mythical fleet in the Pacific.  They've been shrugging off body blows all day.  They've seen almost half their escorts taken down by those irritating J-20's that seemed to be going after them(!) instead of the carrier...and now we have the march of the mega predator of sea strike.

F-22's have been scrambled and the Air Force has instructed the pilots to shake the planes apart if they have to but to get to the scene as soon as possible.  Same goes for the train of Tankers that will be needed to refuel them.  The carrier has put up every airplane it has and is trying to work out a refueling schedule.  Full missile loadouts are being carried by the F-18's so while they have an impressive load out of 12 AIM-120D's apiece they don't have any extra space for spare gas....F-35's are also roaring to the area to do their part and a couple of America Class LHA's are making rooster tails in the water trying to get to the location.

But its too late.

The Backfire Bombers launch at distance.

The remaining escorts knock down half the incoming missiles.

The airwing along with the early arriving F-22's knock down another quarter

Only 5 missiles hit.  But they hit at the waterline and between the blasts from the missiles, the secondary explosion from munitions carried onboard and the lack of training in damage control, its obvious in 5 minutes that all is lost.

Our carrier sailed into dangerous waters.  It poked the dragon and the dragon bit back.

4000 Sailors are missing and presumed dead.

The pride of a nation sits at the bottom of the Pacific.

The President's popularity rating plumments, the Secretary of Defense resigns, as does the Secretary of State.

The war has just begun but we're already behind the 8-ball.

NOTE:

The point of all this (as I've said before) is to illustrate what I see as the composition of the Carrier Battle Group being outdated.  Tommorrow I will post how this battle should have gone with a robust Air-Sea and LAND battle integrated into planning...how a LHA acting as a Sea Control Ship could have made a difference, why we should disperse F-22 basing and why the USN should get fully onboard stealth and electronic attack.  Oh and finally why the LCS should be terminated post haste and replaced with an anti-air frigate.

3 US Marines (MARSOC) killed.

Some points...

1.  MARSOC and the Marine Corps are hesitant to identify these "soldiers" as Marines.  Why?
2.  Green on Blue attacks are becoming accepted.  No outrage.  No headlines.  Just another uncomfortable fact of life.
3.  SOCOM is going to have an interesting time once the Conventional forces leave.  They will be tested like never before.
4.  SOCOM has to somehow get back onboard the training mission.  Every unit involved is Raider first, trainer somewhere down the line.  This is going to be a hard slug culturally...especially with the SOCOM Commander being from the Raiding not Training camp.