New Bomber to Focus Heavily on ISR
Intel/Strike bomber?

Radar Mast for Varyag
Pictures at China Defense Blog.

Bigger Bang For IFVs
British Warriors upgrading to 40mm cannon.

GAO Details Army FMTV Fail
Flawed competition for Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles.

Russia Navy to continue work with Bulava missile
That thing has been a total disaster. Murdoc is crying his eyes out.

Win The War, Don’t Set A Timetable
Sarah Palin responds to Obama’s speech via Facebook

Space station of the sea
If Murdoc can’t get a retired aircraft carrier for his HQ, he’d settle for this.

Sidewinder Ground Missile
AIM-9X to do ground targets too?

Boeing 787 Dreamliner Finally Gets Off the Ground
About time.

Oof! Greenpeace Pwned
Zap.

Pentagon signals minor changes to tanker rules
Tweaking things to keep the bidders happy. Don’t hold your breath.

Haven’t seen a lot of pictures of the Stryker MGS:

Afghan children gather around a M1128 Stryker Mobile Gun System at the Maiwand District in Hutal, Afghanistan, Dec. 12.

Afghan national policemen pass out candy while standing on a M1128 Stryker Mobile Gun System to children at the Maiwand District in Hutal, Afghanistan, Dec. 12.

More photos at DVIDS.

Meanwhile, the Army should have all the Strykers painted desert tan in time to deploy them to a forest somewhere.

A MQ-1 Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle launches for a night flight mission over southeastern Iraq, July 29, 2009. The aircraft serves in a surveillance and reconnaissance role but is also capable of firing two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. Photo by Airman 1st Class Tony Ritter

Insurgents intercepted drone spy videos

Insurgents in Iraq have hacked into live video feeds from Predator drones, a key weapon in a Pentagon spy system that serves as the military’s eyes in the sky for surveillance and intelligence collection.

Though militants could see the video, there is no evidence they were able to jam the electronic signals from the unmanned aerial craft or take control of the vehicles, a senior defense official said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence issues.

Obtaining the video feeds can provide insurgents with critical information about what the military may be targeting, including buildings, roads and other facilities.

There have been reports of this previously, but this might be the first time its been officially acknowledged.

The fix has been to encrypt the feeds. Is it just Murdoc, or was it totally insane to not encrypt them in the first place.

Been so busy that I somehow missed this article by Noah Shachtman in Wired.

While the debate rages in Washington, the Marines on the ground are mostly on their own. Even with Paz’s squad being attacked from three sides, a bombing run is not automatic. The Marines not only have to prove that civilians won’t be hurt, they also must guarantee that the bombs won’t so much as scratch civilian homes.

Back at Echo’s schoolhouse headquarters, Faucett stares at an aerial view of Moba Khan on his tablet computer. He sees a problem: The building Paz has identified as the sniper’s perch is next to several farmhouses.

Here’s a past quote from General McChrystal that Shachtman points out:

“We must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories — but suffering strategic defeats — by causing civilian casualties”

Yes, we absolutely must avoid that. But we also need to avoid the trap of trying to win strategic victories with an endless series of tactical stalemates.

And now the best way to make sure your house doesn’t get bombed is to invite in some Taliban fighters. Where’s the strategic victory in that?

Go read the story. Lots of good info.

Afghanistan was tough enough the way it was. Every new ROE directive makes it tougher. At some point (possibly a point in the past) victory is going to look damn near impossible. Again, I wonder if that’s not the ultimate goal.

Read it at Michael Yon

A key point:

First, let’s talk about understanding “the borders.” They are fictitious. The “borders” that describe the “country” of Afghanistan have trivial effect on the enemy, but the borders (without quotes) greatly affect Pakistan and the Coalition. The AfPak frontier will be sealed the day frogs stop croaking. We complain that Pakistan should help, but they can’t do much. We haven’t secured the Tex-Mex border. Many Afghans are migratory in the way that we see Mexican laborers in the United States. Only instead of just picking corn, some will pick corn and supplement their income by planting a bomb. For some, it’s just business, like being a hired gun in Iraq or Afghanistan. Lots of normal people will do those jobs.

Go read the whole thing.

Explosive ordnance disposal technicians are using remote controlled machines to help detect and defuse improvised explosive devices. Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jhi Scott

Some photos of working on a Talon in Iraq here.

Australian release:

DEFENCE MEDIA ALERT
MSPA 427/09

Wednesday, 9 December 2009

F-111 FLYPAST TO MARK AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE ACADEMY GRADUATION PARADE

WHAT: Flypast by an F-111 strike aircraft during the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) Graduation Parade.

WHERE: ADFA, Northcott Drive, Canberra ACT.
WHEN: 10:20am Thursday, 10 December 2009.

Background:
An F-111 strike aircraft from Number 6 Squadron, will fly over the Australian Defence Force Academy on Thursday, 10 December 2009, as young graduating officers from Navy, Army and Air Force participate in their final Academy parade before continuing on the next stage of their military careers.

The aircraft will approach ADFA from the east at a height of 500 feet, and will pass over the Graduation Parade at 10:20am, local time.

F-111s will be retired from the Royal Australian Air Force in December 2010 when their replacement – the F/A-18F Super Hornet – becomes operational.

Hope they get the full treatment:

An air-to-air right side view of an F-111 aircraft trailing flames during a demonstration for Open House '83. Photographer's Name: Harrison Location: EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE Date Shot: 10/30/1983

The F-111 has never really been considered a “great” plane, and it had its share of problems over the years. And though the USAF has other options that can perform the missions that the Aardvark used to, I’ve always thought the F-111 was a perfect fit for Australia and don’t see how F-18s, with a far smaller combat radius, can really fill its shoes Down Under.

There are a lot of familiar images from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Here is one of them:

The wrecked destroyers USS Downes (DD-375) and USS Cassin (DD-372) in Drydock One at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, soon after the end of the Japanese air attack. Cassin has capsized against Downes. USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) is astern, occupying the rest of the drydock. The torpedo-damaged cruiser USS Helena (CL-50) is in the right distance, beyond the crane. Visible in the center distance is the capsized USS Oklahoma (BB-37), with USS Maryland (BB-46) alongside. Smoke is from the sunken and burning USS Arizona (BB-39), out of view behind Pennsylvania. USS California (BB-44) is partially visible at the extreme left. This image has been attributed to Navy Photographer's Mate Harold Fawcett. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, National Archives Collection.

Those who don’t know or haven’t looked closely might not notice that there are two destroyers in front of the battleship. The drydock had been dry when the attack began, but after raging fires began setting off ammunition aboard the destroyers, it was flooded in an attempt to douse the flames. Cassin slipped from her blocks and rolled against Downes.

Both ships were 1500-ton Mahan-class ships and had been commissioned in the mid-30s.

Here’s another image, taken from near where the two men in the first photo are standing at the head of the dock. The men on the Downes surveying the damage give a great sense of scale:

In Drydock Number One at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard on 7 December 1941, immediatly following the Japanese attack. Both ships had been severely damaged by bomb hits and the resulting fires. In the background, also in Drydock Number One, is USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), which had received relatively light damage in the raid. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, NHHC Collection.

Notice the man in white uniform crawling on the Cassin, just behind the partially submerged #2 turret.

Here’s a shot from the rear of the destroyers:
Read the rest of this entry »

McChrystal: The 2011 timetable isn’t set in stone; Obama: Actually, it is

Apparently a little disagreement on how hard that July 2011 date to start withdrawal from Afghanistan is. (Of course, “starting” the withdrawal in July 2011 leaves all sorts of timetables possible.)

A commenter on the earlier Surging to Retreat post brought ups something Murdoc hadn’t considered:

I suspect he figures that in 2011, the R’s will control both the House and the Senate, so he won’t be able to start a withdrawal even if he actually wanted to.

This could be right, but there could be even more to it. Here are two possibilities that he might be thinking:

• Dems keep control in 2010 and war goes badly: Obama can bring the boys home and look like a hero. If things don’t improve much by mid-2011, probably not a lot of people will be up for staying the course, anyway. This could win him the 2012 election.
• Dems lose control in 2010 and war goes badly: If GOP is for staying the course [and the troops stay in the fight], Obama can just blame them for breaking his promise to bring the boys home. This could win him the 2012 election and put the Dems back in control of Congress.

Both of these options could pay off big time for him and the Dems in 2012.

The problems begin, though, if the war actually goes well:

• Dems lose control in 2010 and war goes well: Unless the GOP calls for withdrawal (unlikely) he can simply change his mind to stay the course. After all, it was his “surge” that’s winning the war. This may not have a real big impact on the 2012 elections, but if anyone benefits politically it will probably be the pro-victory GOP. They might even be able to say “Since 30,000 more troops have started winning the war, maybe the requested 40,000 would have won it by now.“
• Dems keep control in 2010 and war goes well: This is the nightmare scenario for Obama. What if he wants to bring the boys home to look like a hero, and he has the Congress to do it, but the little people (voters) insist on winning? Does he declare victory prematurely and bring them home anyway? New media won’t make that easy to pull off. Does he stay the course? Dem Congress and voters might have a collective aneurysm. Probably just best to hope that the war goes badly.

Right now, both of the scenarios that involve the Dems keeping control of Congress in 2010 look unlikely. But there’s a lot of time left on the clock. Plus, they have the benefit of being able to run against the Republicans. If Congress was high school football, the GOP Senate would be on everyone’s schedule for Homecoming.

Obviously, there are a lot of factors in play and my simplistic options leave a lot to be desired. But suddenly the simultaneous “surge” and declaration of the war’s end date make a lot more sense to Murdoc the cynical.

I’m working weird hours this week, and haven’t had a lot of time to dig into the big master plan unveiled by President Obama last night.

The 30,000 additional troops, while not all that McChrystal requested, will certainly be welcome if used properly.

Not sure why it took so long to make what appears to be a wishy-washy decision. Isn’t this the sort of thing that could have been fired from the hip the day after McChrystal’s number became known?

But this whole idea of winding down the war by July 2011 seems to be something dreamed up in la-la land. If you’re just going to pick a date on a calendar and say that’s when the war’s going to be over, why not pick next week? Either fight to win or don’t fight.

Hopefully, he’s just lying to buy time with his supporters who want to declare defeat right now. If giving timelines like this can keep the natives quiet, maybe it’s the best we can hope for from Obama right now. But it’s going to give the enemy the idea that he can win by waiting us out.

Here’s what I wrote in January 2007 about the “surge” that President Bush was to announce that night. (Remember how bad things in Iraq looked in late 2006.):

I’m not 100% certain that the supposed move to deploy an additional 21,500 US troops to Iraq is the best move, but it will work if

A) They are there to play offense
B) The Iraqi Army also plays a lot of offense

If we’re sending more troops to play peacekeeper, it’s a bad move that will merely put more of our men and women in the cross-hairs.

However, if we’re sending these troops to take the fight to the insurgents and anti-government militias, 21,000 could do the trick.

In many ways and for a lot of reasons, Afghanistan is not Iraq. As bad as Iraq looked at the beginning of 2007, there was a solid new military coming into its own and an acceptable end state that could be envisioned. In Afghanistan, the new military and police forces are, to put it delicately, mostly crap. And there is really no happy ending condition that we can work toward. There is only a “slightly less shitty condition” than the current condition.

Obama spoke some about the Pakistan issue, but there’s a long way to go before that mess starts to look acceptable.

The 2007 Iraq “surge” consisted of a lot more than just adding a few troops. And I think that some of the success that was found was due to the fact that the enemy (including Sadr), hoping to see us “wind down” the campaign after the Democrats surged to power in the 2006 Congressional elections, were shocked to learn that the exact opposite was going to happen. I’ve got to think that at least some of them just gave up at that point, figuring that no matter what happened, the US was there ’til the end. They thought they had waited Bush out, and instead learned that more troops were on the way.

By talking about deadlines in Afghanistan, we just gave that away. And it should make people question how serious Obama really is about any sort of long-term success in Afghanistan. And if he’s not that serious, people should be terrified that he’s sending more troops today.

Again, a wishy-washy try-to-please-everyone compromise like this should not have taken months to come up with. This looks more like the sort of thing that a few neighbors whip up in a coffee shop one morning when planning a block-wide garage sale for the following weekend.

We’ll see.

UPDATE: Here’s a good collection of links regarding the speech and plan at Instapundit.

UPDATE 2: McCain Press Release: ‘Success is the Real Exit Strategy.’