British Army MLRS on exercise at Otterburn.... Pics Cpl Jamie Peters

Sidenote; The US Army Chief is concerned about falling UK defense spending.  He stated...

"In the past we would have a British army division working alongside an American division.
"Now it might be a British brigade inside an American division, or even a British battalion inside an American brigade.
"We have to adjust our programme to make sure we are all able to see that we can still work together."
He described Britain's role as a key US ally as "about having a partner that has very close values and the same goals as we do".
"As we look at threats around the world, these are global issues and we need to have multinational solutions," he said.

This is interesting.  If the "Big O" is correct then an ally will become a protectorate.  I'm interested to see what British Military Bloggers have to say about this development.

Ukraine News. Poland mobilizes...

Thanks to John for the link!

via Defense24

Polish MoD specifies the fact that the proposition regarding the preparation service is targeted at the persons who are aged 18 to 50, and who have not been serving in the Armed Forces earlier. These persons would be volunteers. At the same time, members of the reserve forces may also report themselves for duty. They would be requested to take part in relevant training exercises.
Reserve soldiers (privates younger than 50 years old and non-commissioned officers and officers – up to 60 years old), who have no mobilisation assignment, will be assigned to a proper unit and will be asked to participate in a training programme, in line with their military speciality. Reserve soldiers who are duly assigned will be sent to their mother-units.

Wow.

John was kind enough to provide this link where I talked about this before. Many people wrote it off as propaganda because the source for the news was Russia Times.  Seems like its real enough.

What should surprise everyone is how wide a net they're casting.  The US and EU in general might not be taking the Ukrainian war seriously, but Poland is...dead serious.

Chinese economic news you won't hear on mainstream shows.

via Reuters

Weakness in China's vast manufacturing sector, aggravated by high real borrowing costs and weak demand, appears to have driven the central bank to accelerate the pace of monetary easing to ward off deflation in the world's second-largest economy.
Cuts to benchmark lending and deposit rates, announced by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) on Saturday evening, pre-empted official data released on Sunday that showed a second consecutive month of shrinking manufacturing activity for February.
While economists had been predicting further easing to support the struggling economy, some were surprised that the PBOC made its move just days before China's national legislature will meet to set the official economic growth target for 2015.
"This rate cut signals policymakers' willingness to take further action to ease financing conditions in an effort to maintain stable growth," wrote Nomura analysts' in research note that said the cut had come sooner than predicted. "It also suggests that growth may have slowed sharper than we expected."

A buddy of mine chides me all the time about my saying that the world economy is no acting rationally.

I present this as another indication of some type of tomfoolery going on.  China's manufacturing sector slowed down, their bank cut rates and yet we see the stock market reach new highs?  Additionally we're seeing the price of gas start to creep back up?

ISIS, Ukraine, Libya, Africa, a weak US market, weak European market, unexplainable moves in energy prices, a weak home sector....

The world is upside down people.  Do what you will but please manage your assets with both eyes open.  Nothing makes sense anymore and if I didn't know better I'd believe that the entire game is rigged to do only one thing.

To separate you from your money.

Merkava IV Main Battle Tanks on the Golan Heights.

Kfir Brigade's Commanders Train in the Golan Heights
The commanders of the Kfir Brigade trained in the Golan Heights with the Armored Corps and the Combat Engineering Corps.

Los Angeles Police Chief says shooting justified...body cameras worn.

via Washington Post

A homeless man who was shot and killed by police over the weekend in downtown Los Angeles had “forcibly grabbed” an officer’s gun, the Los Angeles police chief said during a Monday night news conference.
Chief Charlie Beck told reporters the man was a suspect in a potential robbery and, when officers approached him, he “repeatedly refused to comply with officers’ demands and then began to fight with them.”

Read the entire story here.

When law enforcement is wrong.  Body slam them in the press.  When they're right.  Have the moral certitude to say so.

This shooting was justified and I could see that from the video tape that was released.  So should everyone else.

Sidenote:  Remember the story about the FBI Director stating that we had terrorism cases in all 50 states?  I went to the FBI and DHS website, and one thing everyone is forgetting.  Terrorism is more widely defined today than at anytime in recent memory.  What am I looking for?  The incident in Nevada hasn't been in the news and the people that pointed weapons at Federal Law Enforcement have never been arrested.  Additionally the Sovereign Citizen movement was just classified as a domestic terrorist group.  Its on my radar and I anticipate action to be taken against those involved in that incident soon.

Chinese Army gains two new Aviation Regiments.

Pic via China Defense Blog

American and Chinese forces will meet in battle.  I consider that an almost unavoidable inevitability.  But while I consider them a potential foe, I can't help but be impressed by how they're methodically building there forces.

The latest news from the Rising Dragon?  The Chinese Army gains two new Aviation Regiments (Army).  Read about it here (more pics too).

Buffalo rams car.

How do you explain this to your insurance company?

Wow. The US Army is really inventive.

via Soldier Systems.



Wow.

Just feed female soldiers a mixture of Tren, Test, and Winstrol and make the change complete.  Then you won't need a FUD!

Ground Self-Defense Force public relations

Must read from Navy Matters.

Navy Matters has a must read about the state of Marine Corps amphibious assault vehicle development.

Read it here.

What has me punching walls?  The USMC is about to "down select" to two vendors for the ACV 1.1 project (GOD PLEASE CHANGE THE NAME BACK TO MARINE PERSONNEL CARRIER!) and while its nice to see movement, the fact remains that all these vehicles are off the shelf and will not represent state of the art within a few short years without upgrades.

Additionally as NM pointed out, after all the pain and struggle with the EFV we're back to a water speed for our ACV 1.1 that will mirror what we had during WW2 when AMTRACs were hitting the beach in the Pacific.

We have got to do better.