Japanese Advanced Stealth Fighters

The Japanese will fly an advanced stealth fighter prototype by the end of this year.

Expeditionary Force 21 is close to ending amphibious assault.

via Breaking Defense.

With current technology, “a few good men” can get ashore from more than 65 miles out. That’s enough Marines to rescue some US citizens, reinforce an embassy, or hit a key target and get out, but not enough to seize and hold ground. It would be less an amphibious assault and “more of a raid,” King told me.
Putting this first small force ashore doesn’t necessarily require blowing holes in the enemy’s layered defenses, just disrupting it at key times and places through stealth airstrikes or cyber attack. “[E.g.] for this eight-hour window, I can fly this route — I don’t need to keep it open all day, I need to create a window of opportunity to put that company ashore,” King said. “Once they’re ashore, they’ll wreak havoc.”
The force would probably a single company of a hundred-plus Marines slipping ashore from a boat or flying in on a V-22 aircraft. But while the Marines are developing “internally transportable vehicles” that can fit inside a V-22, most of the Marines in such a company-sized force would still have to walk, which limits both their maneuvers and their ability to carry heavy weapons.
“65 to 100 miles out….there’s no way we do an entire amphibious landing from that type of distance,” Brig. Gen. Mullen told the Sea-Air-Space conference when I raised the question. “It’s not possible, it’s not feasible, we can’t go do a build-up at an operationally relevant pace.”

I've tried to be diplomatic but that's not working so a little wall to wall counseling is in order.

What the fuck is HQMC and the little group of pussy generals thinking????

They keep talking about the anti-access threat.  They continuously talk about ships being vulnerable to anti-ship missiles and act as if the MV-22 is bullet proof.

Its not.

Its vulnerable to small arms fire, RPGs, and Man Pads.  If the enemy has the architecture to keep our ships at bay then it will also have the resources necessary to make MV-22 scrap metal.

THEY AREN'T THINKING ANYMORE.  THEY'RE SIMPLY PUSHING BULLSHIT CONCEPTS.

We need new leadership to save the Marine Corps.  Not from the enemy but from substandard leaders. 

Mosquito family of Light Tracked Vehicles

Thanks for the article Jonathan!

via Shepard Media.

Belarus company Monitor-Service has used the Defence Services Asia (DSA) exhibition in Kuala Lumpur to introduce its Mosquito family of Light Tracked Vehicles (LTVs) to ASEAN defence forces.
Speaking to Shephard at the show, Velery Grebenschikov, director of Monitor-Services, said the Mosquito LTV platform, completed three months prior to DSA, was designed to challenge the ex-Soviet MTLB light tracked vehicle.
‘We are trying to contact customers from Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries in this region. The Mosquito is completely new and being displayed for the first time at DSA,’ said Grebenschikov.

He explained the company had been negotiating with representatives from the Malaysian Armour Department during the course of DSA, although no contracts have been signed as yet.
The Belarus Special Forces had previously purchased 18 Mosquito 768s, the smallest of the family of vehicles.
The Mosquito LTV comes in three hull sizes including small (8.9-tons), medium (9.8-tons) and large (11.6-tons), in six-road wheel ‘open-top’, six-road wheel ‘enclosed’, and seven-road wheel ‘enclosed’ configurations.
All Mosquito LTVs are powered by a six-cylinder, four-stroke diesel engine that puts out 220kW at 2600 RPM. The vehicles are bulletproof and can be uparmoured upon request.
The small, open top LTVs can be armed with air defence systems and deployed for tactical reconnaissance, patrolling and force protection duties. Enclosed versions have reinforced weapon systems.

Medium-class Mosquitos are intended as support and recovery vehicles, as opposed to weapons platforms, as well as carrying out load transport duties, air defence and combat search and rescue.

Meh. 

Naval Aviation Vision 2014-2025

  Naval Aviation Vision

Expect this to change.

The USMC cannot afford an air arm that is unique inside the Department of Defense, consumes so much of its budget and delivers so little.

I consider this "vision" and EF21 to actually be dead on arrival.  The current Commandant has 6 months left on his watch (I'm counting down and will be popping corks when he leaves) and its standard procedure to roll out plans of this type no later than halfway thru your term so that the concept can be implemented or if not completed, well on its way.

This aviation vision and EF21 are actually hedges against cuts in aviation and legacy building.  Both efforts will fail.

American vs. American.

Yeah.

This was dicier than I thought.  When the citizenry no longer respect the laws that are passed by their "representatives" then you have one of the ingredients for a civil war.

The bigger problem?

You now have people in the Sovereign Citizen, Prepper Community and Militia Movement all activated and agitating.

When, not if there is a next "Bundy Ranch" and the call goes out, you can expect thousands (as in several) of people to show up armed and ready for a fight.

This is not going to end well.  An incident will occur.  Its inevitable.

Japanese Future Stealth Fighter Force vid (propaganda).

Thanks for the link Andrew!!

Elite Ukrainian Units performing poorly...

Thanks for the link Paralus!

via Yahoo.com

KRAMATORSK/SLAVIANSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - Separatists flew the Russian flag on armored vehicles taken from the Ukrainian army on Wednesday, humiliating a Kiev government operation to recapture eastern towns controlled by pro-Moscow partisans.
Six armored personnel carriers were driven into the rebel-held town of Slaviansk to waves and shouts of "Russia! Russia!". It was not immediately clear whether they had been captured by rebels or handed over to them by Ukrainian deserters.
Another 15 armored troop carriers full of paratroops were surrounded and halted by a pro-Russian crowd at a town near an airbase. They were allowed to retreat only after the soldiers handed the firing pins from their rifles to a rebel commander.
The military setback leaves Kiev looking weak on the eve of a peace conference on Thursday, when its foreign minister will meet his Russian, U.S. and European counterparts in Geneva.
Moscow has responded to the overthrow of its ally Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich in February by announcing its right to intervene militarily to protect Russian speakers across the former Soviet Union, a new doctrine that has overturned decades of post-Cold War diplomacy.

During the Cold War, Soviet and Soviet Bloc forces that were Airborne, or Naval Infantry were designated as "Guards" units. This indicated that they were the most politically reliable, elite and given the most dangerous or politically sensitive missions.

To see a Company's worth of APCs stopped by a crowd and then to have themselves DISARMED by a rebel commander tells me everything I need to know.

Eastern Ukraine is gone.

Its the new Western border of Russia.