Wow Lt. isn't that special! How about leading Marines instead of playing patty cake?

Will someone in Headquarters Marine Corps spare us the sight of an of Officer of Marines playing patty cake?

If she can't find something better to do with her time then its time for a serious reduction in force.  Guys in Afghanistan are fighting and dying and this officer is playing.

Amazing!

Army Operating Concept.

Well I definitely haven't been paying enough attention to the Army Guys lately. 

The decision about the GCV was telegraphed for months...the Army Chief of Staff himself was expressing doubt about the weight of the vehicle and I still don't believe that they'll get it across the finish line, but perhaps more interesting is this new Army Operating Concept.

Security Stabilization Operations?

Give me a break.  Its a new name for a Three Block War.  But the ball busting part of this whole thing is how they've settled on the 2016-2028 timeline.

Didn't I once see something like an Army 2020???? 

Regardless its here for you to read ...

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You guys rock!

You guys are the best.  Once again, readers here have clued us in to information before the rest of the web has picked up on it.

I could point to more than a couple of issues but the latest is the ongoing saga with the Kel-Tec PMR-30.

We've been looking at the slow delivery of this firearm to the market place for a while but now it seems that the dedicated firearms blogs are noticing...the "Firearm Blog"...is one of the best and they have finally keyed in on this.  Read it here.

Again, you guys rock.  Thanks.

Singapore's answer to the LPD as mini-LHD.

I posted yesterday that the idea of using LPD's as mini-LHD's has merit.  Well my friends Leesa and Marcase were a bit skeptical.

Fair enough.

But the main area of disagreement dealt with the limited space for aviation and in particular the limited areas for aviation maintenance.

My rebuttal comes in the form of what Singapore is doing with their LPD.  Below you'll see a sales brochure (yeah I know a Sales Brochure) but the point is this...there is plenty of space...on the San Antonio class the space is evident and on the older LSD's and LPD's the space has been made available with the use of removable hangars.

If we're going to do distributed operations.  If we're going to have mini-ARGs then this is something that must be done.

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SAAB Networked Enabled Capability.

Leopard 2A7+

KMW has been pretty busy lately.  Not to the level of BAE (which really might be from the fact that BAE is a collection of companies and not one single entity) but they've been busy none-the-less.

Still this latest offering is curious.

Over the years we've seen the super long barreled Leopard 2A6, and the Peace Support Operations Leopard.  With the 2A7+ we see them returning to the PSO variant, dropping the long barrel, adding machineguns and bolt on armor and the now common dozer blade.

I'm not sure if this is really qualifies for a new model designation or not.  It seems to be more inline with what the US Army did a couple of years ago with its TUSK upgrade. 

Leopard 2A7+ Specifications (From the KMW Website)
Weight	67.5 t
Length (gun at 12 o'clock)	10.97 m
Width	4.00 m
Height (turret roof)	2.64 m
Engine power	1,100 kW (1,500 hp)
Maximum speed	72 km/h
Cruising range	450 km
Armament	120 mm / L55 smoothbore  cannon and 12.7 mm MG  oder 40 mm granade launcher  7.62 mm coaxial MG

Time to dust off Galrahn's list of Amphibious Ops.

Galrahn of Information Dissemination wrote a piece for USNI Blog that detailed the amphibious operations that the Marine Corps has conducted since the 90's.

With so many actually taking the SecDef's threat seriously its time to take a look at this again.  Read it here and here.

LSD's and LPD's as Mini- Carriers.

The above photo is another example of the tremendous amount of aviation that even an ancient LSD can carry.

Perhaps this is the best kept secret in the Navy.  LSD's and LPD's can (in a high density operation) almost rival the first Iwo Jima Class LHA's in the number of helicopters they can carry.


The mini-ARG concept can work but it will require a careful balancing of assets and the LPD-17 class should be the centerpiece of the effort.

With this in mind it might make sense to re-class the LHD and especially the USS America Class LHA's as Amphibious Assault Carriers, limit our buy of them and fill them only with F-35s.

Imagine an amphibious fleet of 4 America Class Amphibious Assault Carriers with the balance of the ships being LPDs and LSDs.  You could have reinforced companies all over the place and a forward presence that the Navy has been clamoring for.

Protection could be an issue but a Burke Class destroy to accompany each Mini-ARG should be sufficient for operations other than war.

I think I've hit on something.