We have two more resignations of senior staff at the USAF, Ken Miller, special assistant for Air Force acquisition, and William Anderson, USAF logistics chief.
I think that the military in general, USAF specifically, need adult supervision to ensure that their procurement does not become too incompetent, and that their interactions with other services are too hostile, and this is blowback from Rumsfeld not giving a damn about this.
You may recall that I wrote about lobbyist friend of former Congressman Curt Weldon Cecelia Grimes, who dumped her Blackberry in the trash at a at an Arbys.
Well, now she has pled guilty on destruction of evidence, and faces as much as 20 years in the slam.
The fact that she has pled out implies some sort of deal, and I think that Kurt, who currently spends his days trying to cut shady deals on Russian military equipment, is going down.
At this level of development, allowing non-pilot technicians to fly drones is a good idea.
Of course, the other services are already doing this, and the former head of the UAV program had his blue clad ass canned over not supplying enough coverage, which probably has a lot to do with it.
For a while, at least.
The plan called CONPLAN 8022, was withdrawn by U.S. Strategic Command.
My guess is that this is the lame duck effect yet again, thank God.
Well we have Izvestia claiming that Russian bomber crews were surveying sites in Cuba for suitability, and we have a Russian defense ministry spokesman denying the reports.
My guess would be that there are no plans, but someone in the Russian establishment wants there to be some.
It looks like the worm is finally turning on the antedeluvian Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy of the US Military,with Congress looking at changing the law.
Of course, Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, a right wing group, claims that it will drive away too many allegedly straight soldiers, but honestly this is not likely to be the case, and as the people most likely to leave are those who are attempting to make the US military an explicitly Evangelical Christian institution, it’s a net win for everyone.
We get needed skilled soldiers, and the religious whack-jobs who are creating a religiously hostile institution in contravention of good military order.
Fidel Castro wrote an online column saying that, “Raul did very well keeping a dignified silence.”
Both Russia and Cuba have everything to gain from ambiguity, and so I think that they will continue to be ambiguous.
That’s part of Teddy Roosevelt’s idea behind the hole “talk softly” foreign relations.
I would note that the rumor is not about a permanent base, just a refueling base, but that would still give NORAD fits.
The thing that is depressing though is what looks likely to be admitted in the trial, including statements made under the influence of, “sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and sexual humiliation”, because these actions could be seen as, “rationally related to good order and discipline.”
Maybe, if the warders in the prison were members of Stalin’s NKVD. Otherwise, this has nothing to do with “good order and discipline”.
SecDef Robert Gates is said that increasing militarization of foreign policy is something that he has to push back against at a speech a week ago at U.S. Global Leadership Council.
I think that this is an explicit refutation of Rumsfeld, and his attempts to make the Pentagon the decision authority on all levels, particularly in Iraq, where the State Department and other civilian agencies were explicitly cut out of any decision making, or even consultation.
I believe that Gates is right, but I do not believe that he will get much traction on this in this administration, particularly given the given the trajectory of U.S. Africa command (Africom):
Africom is slated to begin operations in September. It marks the Pentagon’s first centralized operation for Africa, like the Defense Dept. now has, for example, Eucom for Europe or Centcom for the Middle East. The Pentagon, though, has envisioned using Africom as more than a military command. It is designed to help build U.S. soft power in Africa, through what it calls “active security” missions — like building schools and digging wells.
(Matt Mahurin) To many African political leaders, this sounds a lot like an imperialist enterprise. They say Africom’s “active security” will result in the construction of military bases across the continent in order to interfere with sovereign political systems — and access the region’s oil reserves. Currently, the Pentagon has only one African base, at Dijbouti in the perpetually unstable, resource-poor Horn of Africa.
Which appears to be moving in exactly the opposite direction.
Because his statement condemning a withdrawal timetable is right out of the Republican spin machine, and is clearly an attempt to influence the election.
Obama needs to make a clear statement that such a role is inappropriate for an active duty officer, particularly a general.
It ain’t just the Department of Justice that will need to be de-Bushified in 2009.
Telescoping rounds have always theoretically been a very useful concept: Put the round and ammunition completely within the case, with the space not taken up by the round being filled with propellant:
The idea is that when the round is fired, the ignition charge kicks the round into the barrel.
The round is more compact shorter, and the full cylindrical shape is packs more efficiently.
The devil has always been in the detail, and people have been working on this for about 30 years, and the folks at BAE Systems have apparently worked out the kinks on a 40mm autocannon:
It feeds through the trunnion, the pivot point for elevation, and then rotates 90 degrees to be inline with the barrel. This means that the feed point never moves relative to the turret, you don’t have to deal with flexible feeds.
In any case, the telescoping round allows more propellant and more explosive charge in the round, so the performance for BAE’s MTIP 2 (Manned Turret Integration Program 2) has a punch equivalent to a 50mm round, but the cannon is about the size of a 30mm cannon.
Pretty neat, and even neater is where they got their feed concepts:
The cylindrical rounds also pack more efficiently and are easier to handle, which is where the brewery comes in: BAE Systems designers visited a local brewery to gather ideas for automated storage systems and conveyors that would be used in the turret’s autoloader.
Beer, it does a cannon good.
Basically, it comes down to the alternatives being too damn expensive or too politically restricted, and the additional payload/range/performance of the upgraded Gripen making it quite competitive, particularly with the option of an AESA radar.
This quote is intertesting to me:
[Robert] Kemp [senior vice president for international sales & marketing at Gripen International] says many potential F-35 customers were uncomfortable with the “You’re either with us or against us” approach to fighter sales. He claimed that growing dissatisfaction with technology transfer, workshare and offsets, coupled with F-35 cost escalation and slipping timescales have led “more and more JSF customers coming to talk to us about a replacement for JSF”.
It’s one of the concerns I have about the F-35 is that it appears to have a closed nature, and if a competitor to Lockheed-Martin’s weapons systems wants to get certified, I think that there are doubts about how cooperative LM will be.
I would also direct you toward Bill Sweetman’s snippets of an interview with Mr. Kemp:
“Schedule. So many governments have been grossly embarrassed by programs that run years late.” (Consider the Australian Seasprites and Canada’s CH-148 Cyclone.) Kemp points out that the last major Gripen program, the C/D update, came in on time and cost.
“Price.” Kemp continues. “If it works and you can deliver it, the price – including operational cost – is extremely important.” International politics are less important than they used to be, Kemp says, but domestic issues are more so. (It was the activism of coalition partners that forced the Netherlands government to re-evaluate its choice of the JSF.)
Close air support (CAS) missions are becoming more crucial as time goes on, particularly in countries which have supported operations in the Middle East. “The guys commanding those operational units were the ones who got promoted, and their influence and experience will be more important.”
I still think that the sales folks at SAAB are delusional about having a shot at winning in the Netherlands, because the Cloggies have spent too much money on the JSF already, but the basic sales strategy of, “On time and on budget,” seems to me very sound.
Below are pictures of the F-22 dropping the 250 lb Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) drop at supersonic speed. This is actually a unique and valuable capability.
It’s a guided weapon, so there is some body lift generated, so if they drop the weapon at above 60,000 feet and supersonic speed, you could strike something 50+ miles away.
There are, however standoff weapons that equal this capability, though the round would be more expensive, but the plane cheaper.
H/t World Wide War Pigs.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has now released its report on the propaganda and misinformation on the Jessica Lynch rescue and the Pat Tillman death, and it basically comes down to Omertà, the Mafia code of silence:
“A near universal lack of recall” by Bush administration officials has thwarted a congressional investigation into whether the administration deliberately misrepresented the details of the friendly fire death of former NFL player Patrick Tillman in Afghanistan and the capture of Jessica Lynch in the first days of the Iraq invasion.
In a report released Monday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform expressed skepticism about the widespread lack of memory of the two events, which were the subject of widespread media coverage and can be counted among the best known incidents of the wars.
About Tillman’s death, “The committee interviewed several senior White House officials, including Communications Director Dan Bartlett, Press Secretary Scott McClellan and chief speech writer Michael Gerson,” the committee said. “Not a single person could recall when he heard about the fratricide or what he did in response.”
I hope that at some point someone there cuts a deal with prosecutors, because a bunch of these folks should be spending the next decade or so in prison.
Bill Sweetman has in interesting insight into the corporate culture of Sukhoi.
The founder of the design bureau was not a member of the Communist party, and the deisgn bureau seemed to be routinely outmaneuvered in the Soviet era by the MiG deisgn bureau, Artem Mikgoyan was brother of senior politician Anastas Mikoyan, and Tupolev design bureau, which was always very tied in politically.
As a result, the Sukhoi design bureau is unlikely to be amenable to partnerships with its rivals, and tends to look outside the country for such deals, as evidenced with its recent work with India on the PAK-FA.
I know nothing of the accuracy of the source, but if Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has made this statement publicly, we need to pack our bags and be out in the next few months.
I will note that Juan Cole has reported that Sistani has made similar statements in private to Iraqi leaders in private, so there is some confirmation on his position.
Well, we have found another American hero, Army Spc. Jeremy Hall, Atheist, who has experienced a systematic program of harassment and threats since choosing this path.
He has now filed suit, without any claim to financial damages, to stop this:
His sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety.
In March, Hall filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others. In the suit, Hall claims his rights to religious freedom under the First Amendment were violated and suggests that the United States military has become a Christian organization.
“I think it’s utterly and totally wrong. Unconstitutional,” Hall said.
Hall said there is a pattern of discrimination against non-Christians in the military.
Lets make this clear, the bigotry against him is contrary to the good discipline and order of the military, and should have consequences, but it won’t, because over the past 30 years, a number of organizations, such as the Christian Embassy and the Officers’ Christian Fellowship, have successfully infiltrated the military with the goal of creating an “Army of God” (Arabic translation: Hezbollah).
Honestly, I believe that many of the people doing this are laying the groundwork for an Evangelical Christian coup, and should removed from the military immediately.
It seems that it happens every month, and when I say, “That’s it there is no way it could get any worse,” and each time I am wrong.
Now, they are using the Cuba embargo and anti-Terror regulations to prevent the Guantánamo Bay defense attorneys from being paid or reimbursed for expenses.
Note that these guys are billing at $250/hour when their normal rate would be north of $500 an hour, but they aren’t even getting that:
When U.S. law groups announced in April that they were hiring the nation’s top criminal defense lawyers to defend alleged al Qaeda terrorists at the war court here, one executive called the lawyers “The A Team.”
Now, they’re the No-Pay Team.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has pledged to cover costs of civilian lawyers defending alleged arch-terrorists, is in a struggle with the U.S. Treasury Department over a permit to pay $250-an-hour fees and other expenses to attorneys who have been shuttling to this remote U.S. Navy base from as far as Boise, Idaho.
….
I can do nothing but look at the screen with an expression on my face resembling that of a cow that just stepped on its own udder.
The judge ruled that officially sanctioned brutality, even when it does not rise to the level of a crime against humanity, is sufficient to merit refugee status:
…..
While the immigration board concluded that some of the alleged conduct by the U.S military included a “disturbing level of brutality,” it said the conduct did not meet the definition of a war crime or a crime against humanity.
Barnes said the board erred “by concluding that refugee protection for military deserters and evaders is only available where the conduct objected to amounts to a war crime, a crime against peace or a crime against humanity.”
Citing a case from the U.S. Federal Court of Appeal, Barnes said officially condoned military misconduct could still support a refugee claim, even if it falls short of a war crime.
“The authorities indicate that military action which systematically degrades, abuses or humiliates either combatants or non-combatants is capable of supporting a refugee claim where that is the proven reason for refusing to serve,” Barnes wrote.
Barnes said the board imposed a legal standard that was “too restrictive” on Key, who lives in Saskatchewan.
Key’s lawyer, Jeffry House, said the ruling expands a soldier’s right to refuse military service.
…..
(emphasis mine)
They broke this man, the story mentions debilitating nightmares, and I’m sure that an examination would find more evidence of damage, and they wanted to send him back.
For us as a society, what should bother us is the broken men who go back to Iraq, and then, one day, they come home, because this will come home with them.
But SecDef Bob Gates shot the idea down.*
Gates was right. The F-22 would be as useful in Iraq as tits on a bull.
There is no sophisticated air defense system, no opposing air power, and the aircraft need to get as low as possible in order to minimize collateral damage.
My guess is that the USAF wanted to deploy some Raptors in order to pitch them to Congress as “combat proben”, and Gates was having none of that.
When you also consider the fact that Iran would undoubtedly consider the F-22 being in theater as a prelude to a sneak attack, it would further destabilize the region.
*Pun completely intended.