Category: Military

Saab Gripen Deal Pending Between Brazil and Argentina

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It appears that SAAB wasn’t kidding when they promised that the Brazilians could involve their defense industry more heavily with the Gripen than with competing platforms.

It appears that non only are the Brazilians going to manufacture their own fighters, but they will be manufacturing Gripens for Argentina as well:

Saab AB (SAABB) said it’s close to sealing a contract with Brazil that will secure 36 export orders valued at $4.5 billion for the Swedish company’s Gripen jet-fighter while establishing production in the South American country.

Negotiations on the deal are moving forward according to plan and the ambition is to reach an agreement “in the near future,” Saab said today in a statement.

Saab signed a memorandum of understanding with Embraer SA (EMBR3) in July granting the Brazilian planemaker a leading role in Gripen production tied to the signing of an order. According to that deal, Embraer will share joint responsibility for developing a two-seat version of the latest upgrade of the jet and lead marketing efforts to sell it in Latin America.

Partnering with Brazil could give the Gripen a new lease of life after the program suffered a blow in May when Swiss voters rejected a 3.1 billion franc ($3.3 billion) order for 22 fighters that had been awarded 2 1/2 years previously.

Saab, where third-quarter operating profit of 258 million kronor ($35 million) fell short of the 300 million kronor expected by analysts, is pushing the Gripen against rival offerings from companies including Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT:US), the No. 1 defense contractor, just as tighter military spending makes U.S. and European orders harder to come by.

Argentina Interest

A bridgehead in Brazil, where local firms may build as much as 80 percent of the Gripen E model and take on the bulk of development on the two-seat Gripen F, could open up sales to markets where defense budgets are under less pressure. A carrier version of the plane may be an option for Brazil, with Argentina, Ecuador and Mexico among possible export targets.

Brazil is already poised to discuss a possible deal to sell the Gripen to Argentina as part of a plan to boost aerospace cooperation, the defense ministry said this week, adding that terms could include some production component for its neighbor. Brazil’s own contract should be signed by December, it said.

Saab was chosen to fill Brazil’s F-X2 fighter requirement last December, fending off the Boeing Co. (BA:US) F/A-18 Super Hornet after allegations that the U.S. spied on President Dilma Rousseff. Paris-based Dassault Aviation SA (AM)’s Rafale also lost.

The Gripen is cheaper to own, and cheaper to operate than the competition, even platforms that are a half generation older like the F-16 and F-18.

If Saab can keep the line open until the true cost of the F-35 becomes clear to potential customers, and this is by no means a sure thing, they could have the Mirage III of this generation.

Justice Delayed………

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The 4 Blackwater mercenaries whose shooting spree killed 14 people in Baghdad’s Nisour Square have been found guilty of murder and other charges:

A federal jury in Washington convicted four Blackwater Worldwide guards Wednesday in the fatal shooting of 14 unarmed Iraqis, seven years after the American security contractors fired machine guns and grenades into a Baghdad traffic circle in one of the most ignominious chapters of the Iraq war.

The guilty verdicts on murder, manslaughter and gun charges marked a sweeping victory for prosecutors, who argued in an 11-week trial that the defendants fired recklessly and out of control in a botched security operation after one of them falsely claimed to believe the driver of an approaching vehicle was a car bomber. Jurors rejected the guards’ claims that they were acting in self-defense and were the target of incoming AK-47 gunfire.

Overall, defendants were charged with the deaths of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of 17 others at Baghdad’s Nisour Square shortly after noon Sept. 16, 2007. None of the victims was an insurgent.

“This verdict is a resounding affirmation of the commitment of the American people to the rule of law, even in times of war,” said Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. attorney for the District, whose office prosecuted the case. “I pray that this verdict will bring some sense of comfort to the survivors of that massacre.”

Fundamentally, the most depressing thing is the counterpoint at the end of the article, which notes that the Haditha Massacre, which involved US troops, was covered up by the military chain of command.

As the old saying goes, “Military justice is to justice as military music is to music.”

This is Just Plain Weird

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One of the passengers on doomed Malaysian Airlines was found wearing an oxygen mask:

Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans has said that one of the 298 people killed in the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine was found wearing an oxygen mask.

He indicated that not everybody on board had died instantly when the plane was hit by a missile.

An initial report said flight MH17 broke up in mid-air after being pierced by objects at high velocity.

………
The Dutch public prosecutor has confirmed that an oxygen mask was found, although a spokesman said it was around the passenger’s neck rather than their mouth. It had been secured with elastic and has been tested for DNA and fingerprints.

The plane had been flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on 17 July when it went down over rebel-held territory. Pro-Russian separatist leaders deny shooting it down with a missile.

Although 196 of the passengers were Dutch, the passenger with the oxygen mask was not, the prosecutor said on Thursday. Dutch media said the victim in question was an Australian and the family had been informed about the development.

Needless to say, the tinfoil hat crowd is going crazy over this.

I’m not sure if this means anything beyond some of the oxygen masks deploying before the plane broke up in mid air (confirmed from radar readings).

Still, this is f%$#ing weird.

We are Halfway to Boots on the Ground in Iraq

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We are now deploying attack helicopters to Iraq:

The United States sent attack helicopters into combat against Islamic State targets west of Baghdad on Sunday, the first time low-flying Army aircraft have been committed to fighting in an engagement that the Obama administration has promised would not include “boots on the ground.”

The U.S. Central Command, in a statement about U.S. activities against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, provided few specifics about the helicopters. But they were likely AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, which were deployed to Baghdad International Airport in June to provide protection for U.S. military and diplomatic facilities.

Until Sunday, U.S. airstrikes in Iraq have been limited to fast-moving Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft and drones. But the use of the relatively slow-flying helicopters represents an escalation of American military involvement and is a sign that the security situation in Iraq’s Anbar province is deteriorating. Last week, the Islamic State militants overran numerous Iraqi bases and towns and were becoming a widespread presence in Abu Ghraib, the last major town outside of Baghdad’s western suburbs.

Jeffrey White, a former senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who closely follows developments in Iraq, said the use of helicopter gunships by the United States means that U.S. troops effectively are now directly involved in ground battles.

(emphasis mine)

Note that, notwithstanding their design for damage resistance, Apaches have been taken down by small arms fire.

Add a few ZSUs (self propelled anti-aircraft artillery) to the mix, and we are going be have helicopters shot down, and either a very risky rescue mission or US troops held prisoner.

We are going to be back in ground combat sooner rather than later.

Barack Obama now owns the “stupid war” that he opposed in 2003.

Canada Defers F-35 Decision

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They have decided to rebuild and extend the life of their F-18 Hornets, and defer their decision on the F-35: (paid subscription required)

Canada’s conservative government, which has spent four years pushing for a noncompetitive purchase of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, announced at the end of September it would delay retirement of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Boeing CF-18A/B Hornets for up to five years, until 2025. Canada will, however, continue to support JSF.

 With an election due next year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears to have passed the Next-Generation Fighter Capability (NGFC) decision to the next administration, after reports in June that the announcement of a JSF buy was imminent. “Harper was poised to pull the trigger,” one industry source suggests, “but he backed away” following negative public and media reaction. An F-35 buy could have been portrayed as an attempt to foreclose options before the election, and a decision to conduct a competition would be seen as a capitulation, the source suggests. The latest announcement indicates intent to maintain RCAF strength without rushing the NGFC choice.

 The move is not a complete surprise. Lockheed Martin says it is “not news” and that planned Canadian JSF deliveries extend through 2025. (The schedule spanned 2017-22, based on late-2011 plans.) However, there are no programs under contract that support Hornet operations beyond 2020: L-3’s Military Aircraft Systems unit, which supports the Hornet airframe and systems for Canada, had no comment, and Canada’s Department of National Defense (DND) also declined to respond.

 The future of the NGFC depends on the pending election: A decisive Conservative win would favor the F-35, while opposition parties could move toward a competition or delay the entire program. A September report stating Canada had short-listed the F-35 and Super Hornet has been dismissed as inaccurate. “It will either be the F-35 or an open competition,” says a source associated with a potential NGFC competitor.

 The contentious next-gen fighter debate started when DND—then led by Peter MacKay—sought to bypass Canadian law that forbids sole-source procurements except under strictly defined circumstances. In 2008, the DND defined key NGFC requirements and concluded that two aircraft other than the JSF could meet them. But in 2010, to justify a sole-source JSF buy, DND issued a revised set of requirements that it claimed only JSF could meet.

 After a scathing report in 2012 by the auditor-general, the government stripped the DND of authority over the next-gen fighter, shifting authority to the Public Works Department for the acquisition. In February, an independent review panel validated the air force’s new process for evaluating four contenders: the F-35, the Boeing Super Hornet, the Dassault Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon.

I would argue that of those 4, the F-35 is the least well suited to their requirements, which is for domestic defense, operating at long ranges, over uninhibited land, where it was always better to lose AN engine than it is to lose THE engine.

The F-35 will cost more to purchase, and more to operate, than any other of the alternatives.

It’s low observability characteristics have no advantage in the interceptor role.

It is a closed system which makes it effectively impossible for Canada’s domestic defense establishment from qualifying new weapons on it.

The only advantage is that it generates “Poodle Points” with the US.

Poodle points can, of course, be cashed in for ……… Nothing at all.

Well, This is an Interesting Turn of Events

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The Japanese Self Defense Forces (JSDF) is looking to update their Soryu-class submarines, and the next batch will switch from an air-independent propulsion (AIP) system to using lithium ion batteries to replace the current lead acid technology:

Japan has decided to power its new batch of Soryu-class submarines with Lithium-ion batteries instead of air-independent propulsion (AIP) technology — a move that could raise eyebrows after similar types batteries were faulted for fires aboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

 However, experts brush aside those concerns and instead say this type of technological leap increases power and performance, while reducing maintenance. It also could make Japanese subs more marketable overseas.

 Yasushi Kojima, a spokesman for the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF), said the change would affect the next four remaining Soryu-class submarines in Japan’s 10-boat class.

………

 The existing Soryu-class diesel-electric submarines (16SS) use AIP technology based on Kockums Stirling engines license-built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries, allowing them to stay submerged for long periods. The engines power Sweden’s smaller Gotland-class submarines for up to two weeks at 5 knots.

 The current Soryu-class submarines are propelled by a large electric motor that has three power sources: diesel engines, the AIP engines and main storage batteries. Diesel engines, which require oxygen for combustion, power the boats on the surface or while snorkeling. The boats can snorkel for extended periods to limit their detectability while transiting submerged (only the snorkel mast is above the water) or for short periods to quickly recharge their batteries after operating underwater. The AIP engines — which burn small quantities of diesel fuel and liquid oxygen — are used for long-range underwater cruising at low speed, and to keep the batteries topped off. The batteries are used for ultra-quiet operation as well as high-speed underwater operations, which quickly depletes them.

 By shifting to Lithium-ion batteries, the new Soryus would retain their main propulsion diesels, but be equipped with more powerful and far lower maintenance batteries than lead-acid types widely in use.

LiIon batteries have at least 4x the energy density of lead-acid batteries, and I would assume that the spaces for the LOX tanks and Sterling engines would be changed to battery storage.

If you assume twice the volume of batteries, and 4x the energy density, it means that you could have about a 2 week undersea patrol before it would have to surface or use the snorkel.

I think that this might give an underwater patrol performance approaching that of the AIP system, with a much longer underwater dash range, and logistical issues would be simpler, as a tanking up the submarine with liquid oxygen is not something that can be done at sea or at a foreign port.

My (barely educated) guess is that this change is being considered because they expect their submarines to range further from their home ports in the future, and the ability to refuel at sea from Japanese or allied tenders would be an important part of this, and that they feel that losing some underwater endurance is worth this.

If this is indeed the case, it reflects a major change in the Japanese military posture.

Since the end of WWII, this sort of power projection has been an anathema to both the JSDF and the Japanese government.

Korea Hedges its Bets on the F-35

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There are still budget issues to be decided by the parliament, but the defense ministry has approved going forward on the KF-X fighter program:

South Korea’s proposed KF-X indigenous fighter program is now closer to being launched than at any time since it was proposed in the late 1990s, following conditional approval for full-scale development from the defense ministry.

The aircraft, which has been pushed by the ministry’s Agency for Defense Development (ADD) and would probably be built by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), must still overcome opposition from the finance ministry and some members of parliament.

If the KF-X survives while production of older European and U.S. aircraft winds down, then next decade it may be the only alternative to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning as a fighter engineered for compatibility with Western weapons and communications. The South Korean program also offers the most immediate sales prospects for Western manufacturers of fighter engines and equipment.

The ministry’s Defense Program Execution Committee, chaired by Defense Minister Han Minkoo, on Sept. 24 approved the basic plan for full-scale development of the KF-X starting in 2015. The committee required that the ministry’s Defense Acquisition Program Agency (DAPA) and the finance ministry agree on the total program cost. DAPA may not issue a request for proposals until it and the finance ministry have that agreement. The agency “cannot be optimistic about the result,” says the Yonhap news agency. The finance ministry habitually opposes costly defense programs or at least seeks delays.

Even if DAPA and the finance ministry agree, full-scale development cannot begin next year without funding authorized by parliament in the government budget due to be settled in December. Members of parliament often take a skeptical view of the defense ministry’s largest ambitions.

DAPA is trying to persuade the finance ministry that the KF-X can be developed for the 8.5 trillion won ($8.1 billion) estimated by an influential think tank, the Korea Institute of Defense Analysis. But the Naeil newspaper reports 8.5 trillion won would pay for an aircraft with only air-to-air capability. Air-to-ground capability would take a further 600 billion won and 4.5 years.

There is also the problem that 20% of the development cost is supposed to be borne by industry, including Lockheed Martin. The U.S. company agreed to support the KF-X technically in return for South Korea last year choosing the F-35A in the F-X Phase 3 fighter competition, but there is no sign that it will invest cash in it—nor should there be, since Lockheed Martin hardly wants to back a future competitor. Indonesia paid 20% of the KF-X pre-development costs and is expected to take the same share of full-scale development.

I think that one of the things that is driving this is that Korea has real doubts as to the affordability and effectiveness of the F-35, and wants to hedge their bets.

I’m also thinking that they are expecting to see a market for a less expensive aircraft built to western standards.

Oh Crap, the Balloon has Gone Up

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We are now bombing ISIS targets in Syria:

The United States stepped up its war against the Islamic State militant group, launching air strikes on targets in Syria for the first time.

The Pentagon press secretary, rear admiral John Kirby, confirmed that the US and allied nations sent fighter jets, bomber aircraft and Tomahawk missiles in an operation against Isis that he described as “ongoing”.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, indicated that Raqqa, a Syrian stronghold of Isis, was among the targets of the operation, which began in the early hours of Tuesday morning local time.

The first wave of strikes finished about 90 minutes later at around 10pm EDT (2am GMT), but the operation was expected to continue for several more hours,

Airstrikes against Isis targets in Iraq, which began on 7 August, now occur daily. Of Syria, the official said: “If we need to go daily, we will.”

The US was joined in the Syria operation by Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, an official said.

This will be going on for months before we see any meaningful impact in Iraq.

(Update)

It appears that F-22s were used in a combat role for the first time, which means one or two things:

  • The USAF is itching to show off their latest bling.
  • The Syrian Foreign Ministry’s claims that they were notified about the strikes (no link, I heard it on Maddow) is not true, and the F-22s were used because of their radar evading capabilities.

I’m pretty certain about the first point, and less so about the second.  Basic physics would have the F-22 more vulnerable to longer wave (VHF) radars than the B-2, which does not appear to have flown sortees, and the Syrians do have VHF radars.

Also, despite the USAF trying to kill the aircraft for the past 30+ years,  A-10s Warthog close support aircraft are being deployed to the Middle East. (So not a surprise)

Air Force TaliBaptist Leadership Caves Over Oath

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After spending nearly a month threatening people who refused to swear to God to reinlist, the USAF has reversed itself:

The Air Force has withdrawn a requirement that all airmen who take the oath of enlistment and officer appointment conclude with “so help me God,” the service announced Wednesday.

 The Air Force previously allowed airmen to omit those words, but removed that option in October based on its interpretation of 10 U.S.C. 502, 5 U.S.C. 3331 and Title 32, which contain the oaths of office. The Navy, Army and Marine Corps allow their service members to omit “so help me God,” spokesmen for all three services told Air Force Times last week.

 The Air Force sought a legal review of the rule by the Defense Department’s General Counsel on Sept. 9, five days after the American Humanist Association announced it was representing an unnamed atheist airman, stationed at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, who was denied reenlistment for refusing to say, or sign a form, stating “so help me God.”

 Monica Miller, an attorney with the AHA’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center said the association would give the Air Force until Sept. 19 to reverse course.

 On Tuesday, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said the service was “making the appropriate adjustments to ensure our Airmen’s rights are protected.”

“We take any instance in which Airmen report concerns regarding religious freedom seriously,” James said in the release announcing the change, which is effective immediately.

Translation: We never thought that anyone would notice our attempt to go all Taliban on the Air Force, and we are very sorry that we got caught.

Whichever General Officer signed off on this abomination should be fired, as in no pension.

Soldiers, Is That Our Answer to Everything?

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Obama is sending 3000 soldiers to Africa to deal with the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

Am I the only one who thinks that it might be a better idea to send doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and construction workers?

The Obama administration is ramping up its response to west Africa’s Ebola crisis, preparing to assign 3,000 US military personnel to the afflicted region to supply medical and logistical support to overwhelmed local healthcare systems and to boost the number of beds needed to isolate and treat victims of the epidemic.

Seriously? We need to send in the military to deal with an epidemic?

I am coming to believe that no one in Washington believes that any agency but the Pentagon can do anything, ever!

The Talibaptists Have Seized the USAF

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The Airforce is refusing to allow an athiest airman to reenlist unless he includes “Under God” in his oath:

An unnamed airman in the United States Air Force wants to continue to serve his country. Yet, the Air Force reportedly told him that his service is unwanted unless he swears an oath that concludes with the religious affirmation “so help me God.” According to the Air Force Times, the airman crossed out the words “so help me God” when he signed his reenlistment contract. He was subsequently told that he must either swear this religious oath or leave the service.

 In justifying this decision, an Air Force spokesperson pointed to a federal law, which requires “[e]ach person enlisting in an armed force” to take an oath that concludes with the four words this airman finds objectionable. He did agree to the other portions of the oath, which includes a promise to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me.”

This is clearly unconstitutional, as there is exhaustive judicial precedent saying that the government cannot coerce a person to profess belief, but this does not matter to the Air Force.

The US military in general, and USAF in particular, have been infiltrated by right wing Evangelicals looking to create an “Army of God”, and this is just an early consequence.

Here is the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s take on this is well worth reading as well.  In particular, they note that the legislation in question which the Air Force is siting to exclude this airman allows for a simple affirmation:

Regrettably, this truly horrific scenario is indeed the case within the United States Air Force (USAF). Just the other day, the USAF public affairs office at the Pentagon informed the world that “Reciting ‘So help me God’ in its official reenlistment and commissioning oaths is a statutory requirement under 10 U.S.C. §502“. In short, you had better repent and swear your oath to “God” or be gone. Interestingly, that just cited U.S. Code provision (which the Air Force is pathetically using to support its “sorry, our hands are tied” position of abject cowardice here) also makes it clear that armed forces members may “affirm”, in lieu of swearing, this enlistment or commissioning oath. When one “affirms” such an oath of office, there is NO need to “swear” to “God” to do so. Such is the very distinction between “swearing and affirming.” 10 U.S.C. §502 allows either to be done by the enlisting or commissioning Air Force member. The USAF’s transparent duplicity and specious motivations for basing its new decision to force service members to swear to God are dangerous, disingenuous and despicable.

Your mouth to ……… Well, you get the idea.

South Africa Unveils World’s Ugliest Warplane

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South Africa’s Paramount Group has announced that its Advanced High-performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft(AHRLAC) has entered flight test. It appears to occupy the niche for austere military and police reconnaissance. It is also really fugly:

South Africa’s Paramount Group announced on 13 August that its AHRLAC [advanced high-performance reconnaissance light aircraft] has entered flight testing; just shy of three years after launching the indigenous project.

“Unique-looking” is probably the nicest way to describe the prototype’s look, although we certainly do like the chosen camouflage scheme (squint a bit and it’s almost a mini OV-10 Bronco with Slovakia’s funky MiG-29 markings; or is that just me?).

It has gone from project launch to first flight fairly quickly, about 3 years, and there are reconnaissance and light strike versions, but it has a face only a mother could love.

Your Daily Dose of Eric Arthur Blair

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Also known as George Orwell

The US military has banned its personnel from accessing The Intercept website. You know, the place where Glenn Greenwald continues to publish Edward Snowden revelations:

The U.S. military is banning and blocking employees from visiting The Intercept in an apparent effort to censor news reports that contain leaked government secrets.

 According to multiple military sources, a notice has been circulated to units within the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps warning staff that they are prohibited from reading stories published by The Intercept on the grounds that they may contain classified information. The ban appears to apply to all employees—including those with top-secret security clearance—and is aimed at preventing classified information from being viewed on unclassified computer networks, even if it is freely available on the internet. Similar military-wide bans have been directed against news outlets in the past after leaks of classified information.

 A directive issued to military staff at one location last week, obtained by The Intercept, threatens that any employees caught viewing classified material in the public domain will face “long term security issues.” It suggests that the call to prohibit employees from viewing the website was made by senior officials over concerns about a “potential new leaker” of secret documents.

 The directive states:

We have received information from our higher headquarters regarding a potential new leaker of classified information. Although no formal validation has occurred, we thought it prudent to warn all employees and subordinate commands. Please do not go to any website entitled “The Intercept” for it may very well contain classified material.

 As a reminder to all personnel who have ever signed a non-disclosure agreement, we have an ongoing responsibility to protect classified material in all of its various forms. Viewing potentially classified material (even material already wrongfully released in the public domain) from unclassified equipment will cause you long term security issues. This is considered a security violation.

A military insider subject to the ban said that several employees expressed concerns after being told by commanders that it was “illegal and a violation of national security” to read publicly available news reports on The Intercept.

This is bullsh%$, of course.

It’s not unexpected, but it is still bullsh%$ none the less.

Your tax dollars at work.

JMR Demonstrators Downselected

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Valor


Defiant

Bell’s Tilt Rotor and the Sikorsky/Boeing coaxial rotor helo have been selected to produce the two Joint Multi Role technology demonstration (JMR TD) vehicles:

Bell Helicopter and Sikorsky/Boeing have been selected to build high-speed rotorcraft technology demonstrators for the U.S. Army. Both aircraft are scheduled to fly in 2017.

 Bell will build the 280-kt. V-280 Valor tiltrotor and Sikorsky/Boeing the 230 kt.-plus SB.1 Defiant rigid coaxial-rotor compound helicopter under the $217 million first phase of the Joint Multi Role technology demonstration (JMR TD).

 JMR TD is the precursor to the Army’s planned Future Vertical Lift Medium (FVL-M) program to replace the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter from the mid-2030s onward. Later an attack derivative could replace the Boeing AH-64 Apache and a marinized version of the Navy’s MH-60 Seahawk.

 The two other competitors for JMR TD Phase 1, small companies AVX Aircraft and Karem Aircraft, are expected to receive Army contracts for some level of continued technology development. AVX was proposing a 230-kt. coaxial-rotor compound and Karem a variable-speed tiltrotor.

Both demonstrators have about the same installed HP, around 3300 KW, which is about double that of the Black Hawk helicopter which they are slated to replace, though to be fair, the gross weight is about is about 35% more than the Black Hawk.

I’m inclined to go with the helicopter over the tilt rotor, because I like the idea of being able to autorotate if things go bad, and because the history of tilt-rotors is one of high costs, low reliability, and a large footprint, while coaxial helicopters have been in deployment (albeit Soviet/Russian deployment) for over 40 years.

Thoughts on Ferguson: Part 2: the Protests and the Police Response

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These are not peace officers, These are an implacably hostile occupying force.

This guy is eager to start shooting “animals”

First, and perhaps most telling, was the police officer caught on tape screamig, “Bring it, all you f%$#ing animals! Bring it!”

This is not just a cop who is ill trained to either handl a protest and defuse potential violence, this is someone who actively wants to shoot some people. (One does wonder which Cracker Jack box this guy got his badge out of)

Then, we have the comments by the Ferguson police chief, blaming the violence on “outside agitators,” which has historical echos to the comments of people like Birmingham’s infamous police commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor.

I think that it is fairly clear that both the Ferguson, and the St. Louis County PD have not covered themselves with glory, but a bigger issue is the increasing militarization of the police, and their increasing view of the general public as the enemy:

Michael Brown was shot dead by an officer from a police force of 53, serving a population of just 21,000. But the police response to a series of protests over his death has been something more akin to the deployment of an army in a miniature warzone.

 Ferguson police have deployed stun grenades, rubber bullets and what appear to be 40mm wooden baton rounds to quell the protests in a show of force that is a stark illustration of the militarization of police forces in the US.

 “I’m a soldier, I’m a military officer and I know when there’s a need for such thing, but I don’t think in a small town of 22,000 people you need up-armor vehicles,” Cristian Balan, a communications officer in the US army, who was not speaking on behalf of the US military, told the Guardian. “Even if there’s an active shooter – are you really going to use an up-armor vehicle? Do you really need it?”

Of course the don’t but the Pentagon is giving away their slightly older stuff for free, and they are fun toys.

The problem is that it makes things worse, not better:

“As we’ve seen in Ferguson, the militarization of policing tends to escalate the risk of violence to the communities,”said Kara Dansky, senior counsel with the ACLU’s Center for Justice and the prime author of its June 2014 report on the militarization of US police. “We think that historically, the police and the military have had different roles and that American neighborhoods aren’t war zones and police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies.”

 She said the trend of militarizing local police forces has continued over the past several decades and that communities of color bare the brunt of most military policing.

 Representative Hank Johnson, a house Democrat from Georgia, said on Thursday that he plans to introduce the “Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act”, which would end the department of defense’s military surplus program.

Your mouth to God’s ear, Representative Johnson.

I would also suggest that requiring on duty police to wear cameras at all time would help.  We know what happens when both the police, and the citizenry, become aware that there is monitoring of law enforcement interactions with the general populace:

.
In 2012, Rialto, a small city in California’s San Bernardino County, outfitted its police officers with small Body Cams to be worn at all times and record all working hours. The $900 cameras weighed 108 grams and were small enough to fit on each officer’s collar or sunglasses. They recorded full-color video for up to 12 hours, which was automatically uploaded at the end of each shift, where it could be held and analyzed in a central database.

 When researchers studied the effect of cameras on police behavior, the conclusions were striking. Within a year, the number of complaints filed against police officers in Rialto fell by 88 percent and “use of force” fell by 59 percent. “When you put a camera on a police officer, they tend to behave a little better, follow the rules a little better,” Chief William A. Farrar, the Rialto police chief, told the New York Times. “And if a citizen knows the officer is wearing a camera, chances are the citizen will behave a little better.”

The situation in Ferguson has gotten so bad that both liberal icon Elizabeth Warren, and Teabagger militant Justin Amash have condemned the overreaction of the police, and civil rights icon John Lewis has called for Barack Obama to federalize the National Guard and declaring martial law.

On the bright side, the local constabulary, both the Ferguson and the St. Louis county PD have been removed from command, and replaced by the state Highway Patrol, which has resulted in a lighter touch and less violence:

A wall of militarised police had blocked the centre of Ferguson, Missouri, this week, shooting teargas and rubber bullets at seething protesters who dared to show any defiance.

 On Thursday evening it melted away.

 A carnival-like demonstration filled the centre of the city after a new police chief given control of protests over the killing of an unarmed 18-year-old implemented a dramatic shift in tactics.

 Hundreds of people gathered at the same intersection in this northern suburb of St Louis that has been the epicentre of violent clashes with police in the previous days.

 But where the officers with assault rifles once stood, backed by armoured trucks topped with snipers’ nests, on Thursday there was almost no police presence.

 Car horns filled the air as people blew whistles and chanted “no justice, no peace” and “hands up, don’t shoot”, the slogan adopted in solidarity with Michael Brown, who according to witnesses was shot by a police officer as he fled a confrontation with his arms aloft on Saturday afternoon.

 The shift followed the installation of Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri state highway patrol as the effective commander on the ground, under orders earlier in the day from the state governor, Jay Nixon. His force replaced the St Louis county police in leading the operation

Gee, a simple rule, “Don’t be a savage and blindly unreasoning racist asshole,” appears to have defused much of the situation.

I think that the police forces in that part of Missouri rate a full deep dive investigation of their policies and actions by the Feds.

Zero tolerance, baby.

It Appears that the Kurdish Word for August is “Tet”

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The US government is now officially sending weapons dirctly to the Kurdish militias:

The U.S. government has begun to funnel weapons directly to Kurdish forces fighting Islamist militants in northern Iraq, U.S. officials said Monday, deepening American involvement in a conflict that the Obama administration had long sought to avoid.

The decision to arm the Kurds, via a covert channel established by the CIA, was made even as Pentagon officials acknowledged that recent U.S. airstrikes against the militants were having only a temporary deterrent effect and were unlikely to sap their will to fight.

“I in no way want to suggest that we have effectively contained, or that we are somehow breaking, the momentum of the threat,” said Army Lt. Gen. William C. Mayville Jr., the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In a reflection of the administration’s reluctance to fight another full-fledged war in Iraq, Mayville said there are no plans to expand the limited air campaign, which President Obama ordered last week to prevent the massacre of Iraqi minorities and to protect U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in the northern city of Irbil.

………

In addition to the airstrikes, U.S. military officials have said they are conducting 50 to 60 reconnaissance flights a day over Iraq to get a clearer picture of the refu­gee crisis and movements by Islamic State fighters.

When the Gulf of Tonkin incident happened, I was just two years old, so I don’t know what that was like, but I my gut is feeling disturbing echoes.

What happens when (and it is when, not if) the first US pilot is shot down?

When I called Obama Bush with a Tan, I may have been wrong.

Perhaps a better analogy is that of LBJ, only with out the commitment to either social justice or civil rights.

Someone Runs the Actual Cost of an F-35 JSF

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And the numbers are horrifying:

The F-35 is not just the most expensive warplane ever, it’s the most expensive weapons program ever. But to find out exactly how much a single F-35 costs, we analyzed the newest and most authoritative data.

 Here’s how much we’re paying.

 A single Air Force F-35A costs a whopping $148 million. One Marine Corps F-35B costs an unbelievable $251 million. A lone Navy F-35C costs a mind-boggling $337 million. Average the three models together, and a “generic” F-35 costs $178 million.

 It gets worse. These are just the production costs. Additional expenses for research, development, test and evaluation are not included. The dollars are 2015 dollars. This data was just released by the Senate Appropriations Committee in its report for the Pentagon’s 2015 appropriations bill.

Let’s go into the methodology for this article:

The methodology for calculating these F-35 unit costs is straightforward. Both the president’s budget and each of four congressional defense committees publish the amounts to be authorized or appropriated for each model of the F-35, including the number of aircraft to be bought.

 The rest is simple arithmetic: Divide the total dollars for each model by the quantity.

 ………

 There are just two things F-35 watchers need to be careful about.

 First, it’s necessary to add the funding from the previous year’s appropriation act to the procurement money the government allocated for 2015. This is “advance procurement” for 2015 spending, and pays for “long lead” components that take longer to acquire.

 Second, we have to add the cost of Navy and Air Force modifications.

 For the F-35, these costs are for fixing mistakes already found in the testing process. With the aircraft still in its initial testing, the modification costs to existing aircraft are very low. But the 2015 amounts for modifications are surrogates for what the costs for this year’s buy might be. If anything, this number can be an under-estimate.

 ………

 In a briefing delivered to reporters on June 9, F-35 developer Lockheed still advertised the cost of airplanes sans engines. Highly respected Aviation Week reported on July 22 that taxpayers put up $98 million for each F-35A in 2013.

 In reality, we actually paid $188 million.

 Some of these numbers are for the airframe only. In other cases, you get a “flyaway” cost. But in fact, those airplanes are incapable of operative flight. They lack the specialized tools, simulators, logistics computers—and much, much more—to make the airplane useable. They even lack the fuel to fly away.

 ………

 Here’s another curious fact. The unit costs of the Marines’ short-takeoff, vertical-landing B-model and the Navy’s aircraft-carrier-capable C-model are growing.

 The cost of an F-35B grew from $232 million in 2014 to a bulging $251 million by 2015. The cost of the Navy’s F35C grew from $273 million in 2014 to a wallet-busting $337 million by 2015.

 The quantity numbers for the F-35B have not changed, remaining at six per year. The number of F-35Cs to be produced has slipped from four to two, but surely learning processes on the F-35 line have not been going so far backward as to explain a 23 percent, $64 million per unit cost increase.
………

 Next time an advocate tells you what the current unit cost is for a program, ask: “What is Congress appropriating for them this year?” And, “How many are we buying?” Then get out your calculator. The result might surprise you.

At these prices, I cannot see how the United States can afford to buy this aircraft, much less the partners in the program, as well as other customers.

BTW, to run some numbers, the F-35A has an empty weight of 13,199 kg, the price of gold is $42.01/gram, and the price of silver is $0.64/gram.

Running the numbers then, a similar weight of gold would be $554 million, and for silver, it would $8.4 million.

So, it costs about 1/5 of its weight in gold, and pretty much every fighter since the F-4 Phantom II has cost more than its weight in silver.

That is kind of depressing.

Tinfoil Hat Time!

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Much to the delight of sky-watchers in Nevada, it appears that there is some major construction at Groom Lake (aka Area 51):

In the latest satellite imagery released to the public, dated June 30th (partial) and June 2nd (full), Area 51 continues to undergo changes, and one of them is significant in nature. This new construction project is of especially high interest, not just because of its physical size, but also because of its very peculiar location and timing.

 ………

 In 2007, the biggest addition in some time was added to the base’s southwest corner, hidden partially behind a giant dirt berm. This fairly massive and modern hangar was fitted-out with extensive office space and a pair of 175 foot doors, one on each side of the structure. The facility was clearly purpose-built for something, and that something, or some things, were not small in size. The width of the doors alone added to the mounting evidence that what was contained within was an asset, or assets, that were strategic in nature.

 ………

 At the time that this new structure was completed, it was thought to house a proof of concept demonstrator for the Next Generation Bomber (NGB) program and/or a deep penetrating and very stealthy High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) reconnaissance drone, basically an aircraft with similar capabilities as the RQ-4 Global Hawk but much more survivable and even more autonomous.

 ………

 With this background in mind, we now return to the new developments at Area 51. A new engine test cell located towards the northern part of the base appears to have been finalized since the last images were available, and there are some other small improvements that are noticeable around the sprawling installation, but the massive hangar being constructed far south of the aforementioned hangar built in 2007 is quite literally, a big deal.

 The location of this new structure, measuring about 225 feet across, is interesting as it is located right off the end of the runway, far south of the rest of the base. This location would keep it out of the immediate view of the general apron area, and would also allow for quick access to the runway, resulting in minimal taxi times.

 The fact that this new hangar will have doors on each side, evidenced by the taxiway emanating out from both sides of the structure, means that pre-flight checks, and possibly engine starts, could be executed while under the structure’s protective cover. This is beneficial when trying to avoid satellite flyovers.

 Although the times when flyovers occur are all known, and operations are planned around them accordingly, such planning is no guarantee that the aircraft will not experience problems while taxing, taking off or landing, thus leaving it exposed to prying eyes in low earth orbit. So having a hangar as close to where the aircraft launches and recovers is beneficial if that aircraft is of an especially sensitive nature.

I think that we can be reasonably certain that it’s directly connected to a specific project, I don’t think that the USAF builds massive hangars just to F%$# with aviation buffs.

My guess is that this is associated with the next generation bomber, the successor to the B-2, but that is just a wild-assed guess.

Japan Rolls Out Stealth Demonstrator

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It’s called the ATD-X Shinshin:

Japan has rolled out its ATD-X Shinshin fighter technology demonstrator, is considering buying more Lockheed MartinF-35s and will decide within four years whether it will develop its next combat aircraft alone or with a foreign partner.

 When the ATD-X was launched in 2007, Japan’s vision was to progress from its then-current fighter program, a heavily modified F-16, to independent development. Now, with a policy change allowing defense exports, the technology from the demonstrator may end up in aircraft that emerge from foreign production lines as well as from one in Japan.

 The single ATD-X aircraft, about the size of a Saab Gripen, is undergoing ground tests, says the defense ministry’s Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI), the sponsor of the program. TRDI is due to fly the ATD-X this year, beginning an evaluation program that will run until 2016. The aircraft has been built to demonstrate technologies—including stealth shaping, skin sensors and fly-by-light controls—that the ministry hopes to apply in its next fighter development program (AW&ST Aug. 6, 2007, p. 26).

 Official photographs taken on May 8 show the ATD-X on the apron outside a factory building of airframe builder Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) at the Komaki South plant in Nagoya. The airframe underwent static testing last year. The ATD-X will be powered by two 11,000-lb.-thrust IHI XF5-1 -engines.

 U.S. involvement in the program, probably peripheral, appears in TRDI’s budget statement for the fiscal year to March 31, 2014, which lists contracts signed with the U.S. Air Force in support of the program. One item, costing ¥114 million ($1.12 million), is for testing outside Japan. Another, for ¥760 million, is for unspecified training from the U.S. Air Force. Japanese authorities have not mentioned a plan to fly the ATD-X outside Japan. The U.S. clearly has refused to supply stealth technology for the ATD-X, since Japan sent a radar model of the intended design to France in 2005 for evaluation.

Not a surprise on the last bit.

The Pentagon is desperate to sell as many F-35s as possible, to drive down their price, but the basic mathematics of Stealth have been known for over 40 years, when the equations were published in a public Soviet academic journal, so the secret sauce ain’t so secret.

Of interest is that the Japanese also intend to use the Shinshin as a radar target to develop counter-steath techniques.

One function of the ATD-X is to serve as a radar target, supporting development of counter-stealth technology, because, TRDI has said, stealth aircraft are hard to simulate. In 2008, it hoped to use the ATD-X to validate the abilities of the FPS-5 radar, E-767 AWACS and Airboss infra-red turret to detect stealth aircraft. Six years later, it would not be surprising if other sensors have been added to the list.

The aircraft is clearly too small for internal carriage, which could be amelorated with stealthy pylons and pods, bu I don’t expect them to look into this at this stage, since they are doing this on the cheap:

The ATD-X appears to be costing ¥77.1 billion, including airframe and engine development and manufacturing, plus the flight-test program. Engine development cost ¥14.7 billion, basic design of the stealth configuration with thrust-vectoring control ¥13.4 billion and system integration ¥7 billion. TRDI spent ¥2.7 billion researching airframe structure suitable for the skin sensor. Manufacturing and flight testing is budgeted at ¥39.3 billion, but spending of ¥22.5 billion under that heading last year alone suggests that that figure will be exceeded.

Even so, Japan appears to be spending much less than half of the present-day value of what Britain and partners spent on airframe and engine technology demonstrator programs that preceded the Eurofighter Typhoon. Admittedly, those 1980s efforts resulted in full-scale equipment, whereas the ATD-X is probably half as big as the fighter for which it is laying groundwork.

Given that there are about 101 Yen to the dollar, the program looks to run less than $1 billion.

This is a lot more than the Have Blue ran in the 1970s, Wiki says $35 milion, but the ATD-X is far more capable than the Have Blue, and military procurement inflation is insane, in 1978, an F-16 sold for $3 million.

My guess is that tis is more than a hedge against F-35 costs.

They Will Destroy this Man

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The Miami Herald has discovered that a Navy nurse has refused to force feed the Guantanamo detainees:

In the first known rebellion against Guantánamo’s force-feeding policy, a Navy medical officer recently refused to continue managing tube-feedings of prison hunger strikers and was reassigned to “alternative duties.”

 A prison camp spokesman, Navy Capt. Tom Gresback, would not provide precise details but said Monday night that the episode had “no impact to medical support operations at the base.”

 “There was a recent instance of a medical provider not willing to carry out the enteral feeding of a detainee,” he said in an email. “The matter is in the hands of the individual’s leadership.”

 Word of the refusal reached the outside world last week in a call from prisoner Abu Wael Dhiab to attorney Cori Crider of the London-based legal defense group Reprieve. Dhiab, a hunger striker, described how a nurse in the Navy medical corps abruptly refused to “force-feed us” sometime before the Fourth of July — and disappeared from detention center duty.

(emphasis mine)

Needless to say, not only is this guy’s career over, you can be sure that the his command, and perhaps JAG Corps will go after him like the US Attorney went after Aaron Swartz, notwithstanding the declarations to the contrary made later in the article.

Guantanamo is an ethical black hole, our own little Abu Ghraib, our own little Gulag, and under those circumstances, they cannot allow people to assert a conscience objection, because would short circuit the cognitive dissonance that allows the facility to function..