Sunday, November 20, 2011

11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's maritime raid force participate in a live fire exercise

All photos by Cpl. Chad Pulliam

Cpl. Nathan M. Sleeman, a squad leader with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's maritime raid force, fires at targets while participating in a live fire exercise here Nov. 19. After additional training, the force will embark the amphibious transport dock New Orleans for a seven-month deployment to the Western Pacific and Middle East regions.

Lance Cpl. Armando F. Leal, left, provides security while Petty Officer 3rd Class Brian J. Klindt, right, moves through brush during a live fire exercise here Nov. 19. Klindt and Leal serve with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's maritime raid force. After additional training, the force will embark the amphibious transport dock New Orleans for a seven-month deployment to the Western Pacific and Middle East regions.

Marines with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's maritime raid force participate in a live fire exercise here Nov. 19. After additional training, the force will embark the amphibious transport dock New Orleans for a seven-month deployment to the Western Pacific and Middle East regions.

AV-8B Harrier takes off from USS Makin Island

All photos by Cpl. Gene A. Ainsworth III

An AV-8B Harrier with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's aviation combat element, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 (Reinforced), takes off from USS Makin Island here Nov. 20 for a joint air-to-air training exercise with the Hawaiian Air National Guard’s 19th Fight Squadron. The training exposes pilots to different tactics, and the capabilities and limitations of different aircraft, said Capt. John D. Dirk, a Harrier pilot with HMM-268 (Rein.) Dirk, is a 31-year-old Fort Worth, Texas native. The unit embarked USS Makin Island, USS New Orleans and USS Pearl Harbor in San Diego Nov. 14 to begin a seven-month deployment through the Western Pacific and Middle East regions.

New Wars Blogspot's ship & aircraft costs...

Mike's New Wars Blogspot will never die...at least if I have anything to do with it.  If you don't go over there to look at some of his articles and see how far ahead of the curve he is then I recommend you do so!  Anyway, check out these stats that he acquired....

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS (VSTOL, CTOL)
Cavour CVH (Italy)-$2 billion
Charles de Gaulle (France)-$3.7 billion
CVN-78 Gerald R Ford-$13.5 billion
Queen Elizabeth (UK)-$3.7 billion
George HW Bush-$6.26 billion
Hyuga DDH (Japan)-$1.06 billion
Vikrant (India)-$762 million
Much more at his website.  You can check it out here.

AH-1Z porn...






Saturday, November 19, 2011

Navantia's Amphibious Shipping Portfolio...

UPDATE:  I posted this without giving credit to Ferran.  Thanks buddy.  You and a few others are keeping a big hole in what I'm trying to do from showing up...and that would be developments overseas.  Thanks again.

JCI_en_v2

Friday, November 18, 2011

"Deliverance" type murder/attempted murder in Ohio...

Taking a break from regularly scheduled military stuff to bring you this wild ass story...Check this out from the Columbus Dispatch...oh and read the whole thing...

CALDWELL, Ohio — He lay in the woods for seven hours, with an elbow shattered by an assailant’s bullet.
Lost, covered in his own blood and unsure if the men who hunted him were still nearby, a man from South Carolina hid in the forested hills outside Caldwell until after dark on Nov. 6. Deciding it was safe, he then made a painful 2-mile journey to the nearest farmhouse to call for help.
Investigators say he was the lucky one.
On Tuesday, they found the body of a man buried in a shallow grave near the site where the other man was attacked.
By surviving his ordeal two weeks ago in Noble County, the victim, whose name authorities haven’t released, helped uncover an elaborate scheme by at least two men to lure people with the promise of work from across the country to Ohio. Authorities say the real plan was to rob and kill them.
Two suspects were taken into custody Wednesday after an investigation by a bevy of federal, state and county agencies.
The Akron Beacon-Journal reported last night that the suspects are a 16-year-old Stow-Munroe Falls High School student in Ohio and a 52-year-old Akron man. Their names had not been released.
The adult was being held in the Summit County Jail in Akron on multiple counts related to prostitution, the newspaper said. His bond was set at $1 million.
The juvenile had not yet been charged.
Noble County Sheriff Stephen Hannum said the investigation began when an officer was called to a lonely farmhouse near Fulda, about 100 miles east of Columbus, on a report of a man with a gunshot wound.
According to the victim:
He had come to Noble County after responding to a Craigslist advertisement for a job on a 688-acre cattle farm. Because he would be living at the farm, he was told to bring all of his belongings.
The victim met two men for breakfast in Marietta and then followed them in his own vehicle to Caldwell. He left his truck there, joining the men in their vehicle to complete the trip to the farm. Instead, the men pulled over on Don Warner Road, a gravel country path that winds through the hills on the eastern edge of the county.
The men said they would need to complete the trip on foot because the road ahead was impassable, so the man and one of his assailants got out of the truck and began walking through the woods. That’s when the man heard what he thought was the sound of a gun being cocked.
He looked and saw the other man had a handgun pointed at his head.
The victim was able to deflect the barrel and start running, but not before the other man shot him in the elbow. The assailant continued shooting at the victim as he ran, but the man was able to escape into the woods.
“He said he saw the house all lit up and thought it looked like a friendly place,” said a woman who answered the door yesterday at the residence where the man sought help. She would not give her name because she said she was still shaken by the incident.
Things like that just don’t happen in this tiny community of about two dozen houses that straddle Fulda Road near the almost 200-year-old St. Mary’s of the Immaculate Conception Church.
She said the man rang the doorbell and beat on the door until she answered, and that his shirt and pants were covered in dried blood. The man told her what had happened and said he was afraid the men were going to steal his truck and the all-terrain vehicle and motorcycle that he had brought from South Carolina.
The man was treated at the house by paramedics and eventually taken to a hospital in Akron, where he underwent reconstructive surgery on his arm.
Then, on Nov. 11, the sheriff’s office received a call from a woman in Boston who was concerned about her twin brother, who had gone missing after responding to a similar ad. The brother, who lived in Florida, had last been seen in Parkersburg, W.Va., on Oct. 22.
Hannum said his office called in help from the FBI, the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service and a laundry list of other agencies to assist with the hunt.
On Monday, they found a shallow grave that investigators think was intended for the man who escaped on Nov. 6. On Tuesday, they found a second grave near the first, only this time containing the body of a man they think was killed by the same two assailants.
Authorities have not identified the man yet or determined how he died. The Licking County coroner’s office is handling the autopsy.
Hannum said yesterday that there’s no evidence that there are more victims, but he would not rule out that there could be more people involved in the scheme than the two arrested.
The two suspects in the case were arrested in Summit County. Hannum would say only that they were not Noble County residents, but at least one was familiar with the area. The land where the graves were dug is owned by a nearby coal mine and often leased for hunting.
Hannum said authorities think the motive was simple greed. Property belonging to the victims already has been recovered by investigators.
Fred Alverson, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Columbus, said that the FBI has been assisting the Noble County sheriff’s office on the case.
“We’re reviewing the information provided by the FBI,” Alverson said.
Dispatch reporter Kathy Lynn Gray contributed to this story.

24th MEU on the mechanized raid course.

All photos by Sgt. Richard Blumenstein

Marines with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, hold security while preparing to depart after conducting a simulated raid during the Mechanized Raid Course, at Landing Zone Hawk, Nov. 15. The Mechanized Raid Course took place Nov. 7-18 to prepare the Marines and sailors of Alpha Company and the Assault Amphibian Vehicle Platoon for their upcoming deployment as part of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit's Battalion Landing Team.

Marines with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment , in Assault Amphibious Vehicles, return from conducting a simulated raid during the Mechanized Raid Course, at Landing Zone Hawk, Nov. 15. The Mechanized Raid Course took place Nov. 7-18 to prepare the Marines and sailors of Alpha Company and the Assault Amphibian Vehicle Platoon for their upcoming deployment as part of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit's Battalion Landing Team.

Marines with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment , in Assault Amphibious Vehicles, return from conducting a simulated raid during the Mechanized Raid Course, at Landing Zone Hawk, Nov. 15. The Mechanized Raid Course took place Nov. 7-18 to prepare the Marines and sailors of Alpha Company and the Assault Amphibian Vehicle Platoon for their upcoming deployment as part of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit's Battalion Landing Team.

Marines with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment return, exit Assault Amphibious Vehicles, before conducting a simulated raid during the Mechanized Raid Course, at Davis Airfield, Nov. 17. The Mechanized Raid Course took place Nov. 7-18 to prepare the Marines and sailors of Alpha Company and the Assault Amphibian Vehicle Platoon for their upcoming deployment as part of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit's Battalion Landing Team.

AH-1Z doing auto rotation and the MV-22 doing barrel roll vids...





Is it my imagination or did the landing gear on the AH-1Z get compressed quite a bit in the auto rotation vid?

How deep will the Marines cut personnel?

via National Defense Magazine.
Former Secretary Robert Gates before his departure gave his approval to the 186,800 number, “but that was before everything began to unravel financially,” Amos said.

“My sense is that we’re probably going to go lower than that. I can’t tell you how much lower because that decision has not been made yet,” he added. “We are going to come down well below 186,800,” he said. “I think we’re going to be OK. I think we will still be able to do what our nation expects of us.”

However, there will be a reduction in capacity, which he described as “depth on the bench.”  If there are simultaneous events occurring in three parts of the world that the Marine Corps normally would respond to, it may mean it could only carry out operations in two of them, he added.
Read the whole thing but that makes me wonder a couple of things...

1.  Are we going to see a couple of battalions case their colors?

2.  How are you going to plus size the Marine Special Forces and reduce the number of Marines at the same time?

3.  How low can we go?  Is 150,000 the number he's talking or God forbid could it be even lower????


Totally depressing news.  You're going to have some outstanding Marines forced out and some ass kissers are going to be retained.  The Commandant needs to fix the selection board process ASAP.

11th MEU Air Combat Element..

A CH-53E Super Stallion, with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's aviation combat element, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 (Reinforced), lands aboard USS Makin Island Nov. 17. The unit embarked USS Makin Island, USS New Orleans and USS Pearl Harbor in San Diego Nov. 14 to begin a seven-month deployment through the western Pacific and Middle East regions.  Photo by Staff Sgt. Chance Haworth
Marines serving with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's aviation combat element, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 (Reinforced), prepare an AH-1Z Super Cobra for take off aboard USS Makin Island Nov. 17. The unit embarked USS Makin Island, USS New Orleans and USS Pearl Harbor in San Diego Nov. 14 to begin a seven-month deployment through the western Pacific and Middle East regions.  Photo by Cpl. Gene A. Ainsworth III
An AH-1Z Super Cobra, with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's aviation combat element, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 (Reinforced), takes off from USS Makin Island Nov. 17. The unit embarked USS Makin Island, USS New Orleans and USS Pearl Harbor in San Diego Nov. 14 to begin a seven-month deployment through the western Pacific and Middle East regions. Photo by Cpl. Gene A. Ainsworth III
An AH-1Z Super Cobra, with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's aviation combat element, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 (Reinforced), takes off from USS Makin Island Nov. 17. The unit embarked USS Makin Island, USS New Orleans and USS Pearl Harbor in San Diego Nov. 14 to begin a seven-month deployment through the western Pacific and Middle East regions.  Photo by Cpl. Gene A. Ainsworth III
A CH-53E Super Stallion with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 (Reinforced) lands Nov. 17. The squadron is the aviation combat element for the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which embarked USS Makin Island, USS New Orleans and USS Pearl Harbor in San Diego Nov. 14, beginning a seven-month deployment to the western Pacific and Middle East regions. Photo by Staff Sgt. Chance Haworth

Flight Deck Operations

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Keel Laid for First DDG 1000 Destroyer

Via US Navy..
BATH, Maine (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy laid the keel for its first Zumwalt-class destroyer (DDG 1000), Nov. 17, at General Dynamics-Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine.

While keel laying was once traditionally the formal recognition of the start of the ship's construction, today's advanced modular shipbuilding allows fabrication of the ship to begin months before. However, the keel laying continues to symbolically recognize the joining of the ship's components and the ceremonial beginning of the ship.

"Keel laying is just the first of many important milestones and events in bringing Zumwalt to life," said Capt. Jim Downey, DDG 1000 program manager, Program Executive Office, Ships. "With the outstanding team we have assembled, I look forward to building on the superb progress we've achieved to date and delivering this extremely capable warship to the Fleet."

The lead ship and class are named in honor of former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo R. "Bud" Zumwalt Jr., who served as chief of naval operations from 1970-1974. The ship's co-sponsors, Ann Zumwalt, Mouzetta Zumwalt-Weathers, and Lt.Col. James G. Zumwalt symbolically authenticated the keel with a plate displaying the initials of all four children of the ship's namesake, including eldest son, the late-Elmo R. Zumwalt III.

Construction began on DDG 1000 in February 2009, and the Navy and its industry partners have worked to mature the ship's design and ready their industrial facilities to build this advanced surface combatant. Zumwalt is currently more than 60 percent complete and scheduled to deliver in fiscal year 2014. Construction on the second ship of the class, Michael Moonsoor (DDG 1001), began March 2010.

Designed for sustained operations in the littorals and land attack, the multi-mission DDG 1000 will provide independent forward presence and deterrence, support special operations forces, and operate as an integral part of joint and combined expeditionary forces. This warship integrates numerous critical technologies, systems, and principles into a complete warfighting system. These include employment of optimal manning through human systems integration, improved quality of life, low operations and support costs, multi-spectral signature reduction, balanced warfighting design, survivability, and adaptability.
Looks like the Marine Corps gets it naval gunnery after all.

Great news...no this is beyond good news.  While the other services are focused on what might come to pass in the budget battles ahead, the Navy and Marine Corps are getting ships into service at an accelerated rate.

Good news indeed.