Globalization in Danger, G-20 Double Down on a Defense

via Washington Post.

"After many years of sub-par growth in industrialized economies, and increasingly also in emerging markets, G-20 leaders are recognizing the risks of social cleavages and their potentially harmful economic consequences," said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong. "More inclusive growth, protecting society’s most vulnerable, will increasingly be woven into economic policy."

If you wonder  how Bernie and Trump could win (yeah, Bernie should have won but the Dems cheated) and why Brexit could happen then read this article.

G-20 leaders are talking about "the risks of social cleavages".  That should alarm the fuck out of every security force in the West. But I bet they aren't paying attention.

Many economists are predicting a "new" recession either late this year or early next.  That will add to the societal pressures.

2016 has been bad but 2017 will probably be just as bad or worse.

Last Flight Of The CH-53G In Germany

More pics here!

British troops told to scrub Facebook of info they're in the military. ISIS offensive intensifies!

Thanks to Joe for the link!

via The Sun

BRITISH soldiers have been told to “scrub” their Facebook and Twitter pages of evidence they serve to avoid being targeted by nutcase jihadists, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.
Worrying new guidance was issued to troops at mega-bases in Bulford, Tidworth and Larkhill, Wiltshire, where 14,000 soldiers are garrisoned.
After a spate of terror attacks in France and Germany rocked Europe, Top Brass are determined not to see another Lee Rigby-style attack on a British hero by anyone inspired by the Munich or Nice attacks.
Troops are also warned to run in pairs off base after two Middle Eastern men armed with a blade tried to bundle an RAF airman into the back of a van in a feared abduction attempt this week.

Here. 

Initiative.  The terrorist have it and European Security Forces are trying to catch up.  They won't succeed as long as they're being reactive.  This message to service members is beyond weak.  To even a "semi" trained eye you can spot an active duty serviceman from the general population at a glance.

This order is nothing but feel good nonsense.

Europe is fucked.

Bomb goes off in Germany. ISIS offensive picks up speed. UPDATED! SUICIDE BOMBING?????

Thanks to Joey Joe-Joe Junior Shabadoo for the news!

via Gateway Pundit.

Google Translation from the original German report:
“The explosion in the Ansbacher downtown was not a gas explosion, but was caused by an explosive device. This said Ansbach Mayor Carda Seidel told journalists. It is still unclear how many explosions have existed. Whether it concerned a stop and who lit the explosive device, is not yet known. The explosion occurred in front of a wine bar in the Pfarrstraße, before the inlet into the hippodrome. There the Ansbach Open will take place at the time, a three-day music festival that attracts many visitors. The concert was canceled, some 2,500 visitors left the venue. Police had initially spoken of a “restaurant explosion.”

The news media and govts will not be able to continue to fool the people with talk of "carry on your lives or the terrorists win".  The Germans are going to have to take proactive steps to stop these attacks or their economy will freeze up.

Make no mistake about it.  ISIS is conducting an offensive against the West and its picking up speed. 

UPDATE!  Thanks to TigerMeet2016 for this link!  The authorities are thinking that this was a suicide bombing!

Crazy thought. Is Putin saving American democracy?

via CNN

Her stewardship of the DNC has been under fire through most of the presidential primary process, but her removal from the convention stage comes following the release of nearly 20,000 emails.
One email appears to show DNC staffers asking how they can reference Sanders' faith to weaken him in the eyes of Southern voters. Another seems to depict an attorney advising the committee on how to defend Hillary Clinton against an accusation by the Sanders campaign of not living up to a joint fundraising agreement.

Just Google the DNC wikileaks and you can find tons of info on this story.  My question is simple.

Is Putin saving American democracy?

Think about this.  The Hillary campaign attacked Putin for trying to influence the American electoral process but all the Russian (supposedly) hackers did was put a little sunshine to the backroom maneuvering by the DNC.

This is the biggest story about our electoral process in decades and everyone is letting it get swept under the rug.  Wasserman's resignation is not good enough. What we're seeing is a new smoky back room.  The difference?  You have new faces in it...not just white guys that own property.  We're truly living in Animal Farm.

Syrian Refugee hacks Pregnant Woman to death in Germany

Thanks to William for the link!

via Daily Mail.

A Syrian refugee wielding a machete has killed a pregnant woman and injured a man and another woman in Germany before being arrested by police after he was run over by a man driving a BMW.
The attack happened in the south western city of Reutlingen near a doner kebab stand in a bus station at Listplatz Square.

German media have been reporting that the motive for the attack in the city south of Stuttgart was unclear.

The ISIS offensive continues and Western leaders want to double down in the number of refugees brought into our countries. A backlash is now inevitable.

J-20 is a low observable F-111? via HushKit Blog

via HK

What year do you expect the J-20 to enter service and how will it compare to Western fighters in terms of capability and technology level?


I expect the J-20 to start entering squadron service for IOC around 2020, with deliveries continuing at a fairly impressive rate throughout the 2020s. The J-20 will almost certainly fall short of the F-22 and F-35 in terms of all-aspect stealth and sensor fusion-enabled situational awareness, but will carry a more impressive internal payload and will have significantly greater unrefuelled range which will serve it well in the Pacific. Essentially, the J-20 will present the US and its allies in the region with a long ranged, heavily armed and difficult to track strike fighter-bomber threat. I would suggest its closest Western conceptual analogue would be a low-observable F-111.

Read the entire article.  I don't agree with many of the guys conclusions but its always good to hear another opinion (my biggest critique is that its all conventional wisdom...any so called defense expert would say the same...even though they were wrong when it came to how long it would take China and Russia to build stealth fighters).

Having said all that, I have two things.

1.  A low observable F-111?  Do you get the force of connection with that statement?  Combine the J-20 with the missiles that are soon to enter service with the Chinese and you have an EXTREMELY formidable platform that DOESN'T NEED the same type of stealth that we're trying to put on the F-35.

2.  Does anyone but me get the impression that the J-20 is the shiny toy that's dangled in front of the defense media and the real future threat might be the J-31 that we never hear about?

In the end it doesn't matter.  We'll find out in due time.

When the Mighty AH-64 went from being hunter to prey. A Blast From The Past.

Those that can't remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Check this out from Daily News, 2003.

A formidable fleet of U.S. Apache Longbow assault helicopters was transformed from hunters to prey yesterday by a savage barrage of anti-aircraft fire.
One of the choppers was downed by the withering groundfire and its crew captured by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.
The formation of 32 assault helicopters was operating near Karbala, about 50 miles southwest of Baghdad, when it was caught in the maelstrom of groundfire that left the pilots who escaped "somewhat stunned" by the fierce resistance.
"It was all they could do to defend themselves," said CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul, an embedded reporter. "They were unable to achieve many of their objectives. . . . They had to return fire and get out of the situation."
"Most of the time they spent in that battle zone, they were defending themselves and trying to get out alive," he said.
One pilot said he encountered a "hornet's nest, a barrage of anti-aircraft fire," while another said he had one of his engines knocked out by a rocket-propelled grenade. The aircraft dropped 15 to 20 feet, but he was able to regain control and return to Kuwait on its remaining engine, the second pilot said.

The opposing force in this action was the Republican Guard Medina Division.  Note that they had no advanced anti-aircraft missiles, no networking and used RPGs and cannon fire to basically take apart the attack helicopter portion of a Combat Aviation Brigade.

I find the part about the Iraqis setting up an ambush mystifying....they were blinded....how could they develop intel that the 3rd ID was about to launch an Apache raid?

Regardless, the lesson is clear (although I need to read the after action and official history of this battle)...rotary winged aviation is vulnerable...against advanced networked air defense systems they're sitting ducks.
.
NOTE:  What does this fight have to do with what we're doing today?  Its about looking at the way that our enemies actually fight...not how we script them or rather WANT them to fight us!  Look at a typical Russian Motorized Rifle Brigade.  Unlike what you'll see in the US Army or Marine Corps they
have a FORMIDABLE anti-air capability built in.  While our air arms are fighting for air superiority we won't be getting that vaunted air support and they'll be contributing to the air battle in ways that our air commanders won't appreciate.  If we're in the defense (this also irks me...the US way of war has us totally offensive...no one is looking at the nightmare scenario of our ground forces having to fight in the defense anymore!) then we can expect our air assets to be challenged from the moment they cross the forward edge.  There are lessons here but no one is paying attention.

Haaretz calls the F-35 "one of the weirdest and least successful projects ever"

via Haaretz.

The Joint Strike Fighter F-35 is not only the most expensive plane in history. It’s also one of the weirdest and least successful projects ever by the U.S. military-industrial complex.
Its development cost more than $400 billion and went years over schedule. Worst of all, many doubt not only the need for it but its actual capabilities. A Pentagon report published six months ago casts doubt on its performance and the incentives its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, was given to fix its flaws.
Meanwhile, the Israeli political system is preoccupied with U.S. military aid – a topic presented as being of the utmost political and economic importance. Supporters and detractors on both the left and right paint a simplistic picture of Israel generally looking for as much as possible, while the United States uses the aid as a bargaining chip to advance its interests in the Middle East.

And this.

Does Israel really need F-35s? How much will it really cost the Israeli taxpayer? What are its real abilities? Does the IAF need the huge number of planes ordered, which is greater than the number of jets that all our enemies together, real and imaginary, could field? Doesn’t the advance in drone technology – pilotless aircraft – demand that vast investment by Israel in piloted planes be reduced?
Nobody seems to be looking at these questions. The Stealth may be expensive, superfluous and half-baked. But in one area it has proved itself beyond doubt: in its ability to evade serious public debate on its price and usefulness.

Story here.

British soldiers on the eve of the Somme via Great War Tumblr Page.

My mind always takes me to weird places.

I look at the pics above (and others that I've posted...I might be repeating myself) and wonder if these guys knew that the morning they woke up that it would be there last on earth.

Do you get a "feeling" in the pit of your stomach that this is the last day?  Do you have some kind of premonition, maybe unrecognizable at the time, that everything is about to go sideways?

Doesn't matter and I guess we all find out on that last day.  Back on track.  Want to know what industrial size slaughter looks like?  Want to know what incompetence by General Officers that makes what we've seen from our current generation of leaders look like the rebirth of Chesty?

Then do a little reading on the Battle of the Somme.  The fighting is so outrageous that it seems like a bit of dystopian sci-fi.

China unveils world’s largest amphibious aircraft AG600

Thanks to MicMac80 for the link!



Just wow.  The Chinese instead of heading on a tangent of "rebranding" vehicles and coming up with nonsensical concepts that bring no value to their forces are instead taking a look at the past to deal with problems today.

Some of the same problems that the USN/USMC faced and they're coming up with the same solutions that our greats did.  Remember the R3Y Tradewind?  Consider this the Chinese version.

USN/USMC appears to be abandoning surface assault capability.

I thought that with the momentum in the ACV program that we were finally seeing two things happen at once.  Surface assault would be revitalized and we were taking the first steps at getting our armor house in order.

CoffeeJoeJava poured a ton of salt on my hopes though.  Check out his comment...

I can hardly get excited about any vehicle the Marine Corps decides to acquire that does not at least advance the capabilities "generationally" than does the current vehicle. What does this thing bring in advanced capabilities? Does it "swim" faster than current model? Does it swim from further out than the current model? Does it hold more troops than the current model? No. It seems they are buying a vehicle that suits the last war again, not something that advances the current narrative of “25 miles off shore” or anything else for that matter.
Right now, all I see is another vehicle that needs a ride to a drop off point for it to swim ashore from 1-5 miles out. Another burden for our very limited "shore connectors" to have to move to shore. Our “connectors” have enough work getting the “King” (Arty) to join the fight, let alone load up some amphibious vehicles and run them to a point to launch them so they can finish the run to shore.
With the "big deck" on the horizon (25 miles) the LCACs have a 30 minute transit (one way load and sea state dependent) 10-15 minutes on the beach to offload, then a 25-30 min transit back to the ship for another load, 20-30 min to load and start over. And one LCAC at a time during the re-load period unless you are driving over one to the other. A total run will take just short of 2 hours for each load. With a big deck amphib fully loaded, we are talking 12-14 loads (no break bulk), not including the 3 pre-boats. Of course none of the LCACs land until the Beach Party is ashore to set up t he LZ’s.
According to a presentation made by CAPT Gearney in 2012 "The USN inventory of LCACs will continue to fall, as the SLEP LCACs are retired, until 2023 when the inventory will reach a low of 40 SLEP LCACs and SSC LCAC-100s. The inventory will remain at 40 until 2026 when the production of SSC LCAC-100s will begin to outnumber the retirement of SLEP LCACs. Current projections foresee the inventory rising to 60 SSC LCAC-100s in 2031 and 72 SSC LCAC-100s on 2034.(1)" That means that in 2023, we are down to 40 LCAC's to support these things....and everything else going ashore since the workhorse LCU-1600's are falling out.
The replacement for the LCU 1600 is "The Navy is doing preliminary design work on its Landing Craft Utility (LCU) replacement now to begin construction within about three years, in time to support one-for-one replacement on the surface connectors in 2022.(2)" Which ship is going to sacrifice well deck space for these? Four LCAC in a Wasp class LHD, four in a LSD (with false beach not installed), 2 in a LPD (San Antonio class). But with LCU's: 2 in Wasp class, 2 in LSD, 1 in LPD. And NONE in the two ship “America” class.
What the Corps needs is a vehicle that can swim fast, is heavily armed (30mm), and can carry troops to the beach from the advertised 25 mile standoff distance. Anything else is useles s.
(1)http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2012e...(2) https://news.usni.org/2015/04/...

I need to chew on this.

The implications are stark.  If CoffeeJoeJava is right (and I believe he is...I mean hell he gave you links!) then we're seeing the Marine Corps abandoning surface assault.  Still trying to understand what this means for the future of the Marine Corps but its not good.

My initial reaction is that the Marine Corps is going away from its roots of being the best combined arms force in the world and heading toward being a light infantry ground force supported with expensive aircraft.  In my opinion that is not a winning formula.