US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Sea Dog

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Designing a Bomb a perishable skill?

Well this is why they are currently reorganizing nuclear forces into the Nuclear Global Strike Command. Some thought that the disbanding of Strategic Air Command, and the unifying of all nuclear forces into a single block would create these problems. They were right. Looks like the US military has woken up to the fact that this was not a good idea. In terms of designing new warheads, it has declined since the end of the Cold War. We know that. But the US ability to produce new warheads still exceeds the ability of other nations to do it. Despite that, it looks like they're addressing this concern now as well. Warhead Replacement is still on track.
 

crobato

Colonel
VIP Professional
F-15 pilot makes critique on Su-30MKI on Red Flag exercises.


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It does not appear the youtube video on the presentation is going to last since the others have been taken down.

Aviationweek however, seems to have caught on with the story.

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Excerpt.

"Against the much larger RCS Su-30MKI, the F-16s and F-15s won consistently during the first three days of air-to-air combat, he continues. However, that was the result of trying to immediately go into a post-stall, thrust-vectored turn when attacked. The turn then creates massive drag and the aircraft starts sinking and losing altitude. "It starts dropping so fast you don't have to go vertical [first]. The low-speed tail slide allowed the U.S. aircraft to dive from above and "get one chance to come down to shoot," the pilot says. "You go to guns and drill his brains out." The Su-30 is jamming your missiles so...you go to guns and drill his brains out."


Note also the following issues: the AL-31F's vulnerability of FOD, that the engines have to be returned to Russia for major repairs and overhaul; and the still grudging respect to the MiG-21 Bison.
 

Maggern

Junior Member
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Director of the Norwegian Institute for Strategic Studies doubts JSF will ever come into full production. Mainly because it is designed for a 1980s situation and has abilities the USAF really has no use for today. In addition to major cost overruns, the director doubts it will ever pass Congress. Especially with the financial problems of today.
 

Scratch

Captain
The latest Hawkeye has completed the operational assesment a few days ago.

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Advanced Hawkeye completes operational assessment

Northrop Grumman has completed the operational assessment (OA) phase of its E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne early-warning and control (AEW&C) flight-test programme, the company announced on 13 November.
The OA, which took place at Northrop Grumman East Coast Manufacturing and Flight Test Centre in St Augustine, Florida, brings the number of flight hours accumulated during the flight-test programme to over 600, with more than half involving in-flight radar testing. ...

And the F-35 has made it's first supersonic flight, at M1.05 I think, just the day before yesterday.
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
The latest Hawkeye has completed the operational assesment a few days ago.

And the F-35 has made it's first supersonic flight, at M1.05 I think, just the day before yesterday.

Amazing to think that the basic design of the E-2 airframe has been around since the early 60s and will go on strong far into the 21st century.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
sweet Revenge of the XM8

The U.S military's XM8 program was cancelled in fall 2005 after being suspended earlier in the year. In the Fall of 2007 the XM8 was compared to other firearms in a 'dust test.'The competition was based on two previous tests that were conducted in Summer 2006 and Summer 2007 before the latest test in the Fall of 2007. In the Summer 2007 test, M16 rifles and M4 carbines recorded a total of 307 stoppages. In the Fall 2007 test, the XM8 recorded only 127 stoppages in 60,000 total rounds while the M4 carbine had 882. The FN SCAR had 226 stoppages and the HK416 had 233. The difference between the XM8, HK416, and FN SCAR was not statistically significant when correcting for the less reliable STANAG magazine. The Army countered the controversy surrounding the M4 by stating, in essence, that troops are generally satisfied with the M4.

On November 13 2008 The Us Army held an invitation-only Industry Day, soliciting a potential future replacement for the M4 Carbine. Us Arms Makers pored in with Weapons. Makers Ranged From World Wide iron mongers like H&K, FNH and Sig American Makers Like Bushmaster and the Defending Colt Defence, New Contenders like barret, LWRC, Sabre Arms and Even Smith and Wesson! robinson and Superior patriot and Troy nomater they boiled down to Conventional lay out carbines of one of three options.
"Improved Upper Receivers","Piston Uppers" and New weapons

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Finn McCool

Captain
Registered Member
More than 160 US, NATO vehicles burned in Pakistan
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By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer – Sun Dec 7, 1:12 pm ET

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Militants torched 160 vehicles, including dozens of Humvees destined for U.S. and allied forces fighting in Afghanistan, in the boldest attack so far on the critical military supply line through Pakistan.
The American military said Sunday's raid on two transport terminals near the beleaguered Pakistani city of Peshawar would have "minimal" impact on anti-Taliban operations set to expand with the arrival of thousands more troops next year.
However, the attack feeds concern that insurgents are trying to choke the route through the famed Khyber Pass, which carries up to 70 percent of the supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan, and drive up the cost of the war.
It also dents faith in Pakistani authorities already under pressure from India and the U.S. to act on suspicion that the deadly terror attacks in Mumbai were orchestrated by Islamic extremists based in Pakistan.
The owner of one of the terminals hit Sunday denied government claims that security was boosted after an ambush last month in which bearded militants made off with a Humvee and later paraded it in triumph before journalists.
"We don't feel safe here at all," Kifayatullah Khan told The Associated Press. He predicted that most of his night watchmen would quit their jobs out of fear. "It is almost impossible for us to continue with this business."
The attack reduced a section of the walled Portward Logistic Terminal to a smoldering junkyard.
Khan said armed men flattened the gate before dawn with a rocket-propelled grenade, fatally shot a guard and set fire to 106 vehicles, including about 70 Humvees.
Humvees are thought to cost about $100,000 each, though the price varies widely depending on armor and other equipment, meaning Sunday's losses may exceed $10 million.
An Associated Press reporter who visited the depot saw six rows of destroyed Humvees and military trucks packed close together, some on flatbed trailers, all of them gutted and twisted by the flames.
Khan said shipping documents showed they were destined for U.S. forces and the Western-trained Afghan National Army.
The attackers fled after a brief exchange of fire with police, who arrived about 40 minutes later, he said.
Nine other guards who stood helplessly aside during the attack put the number of assailants at 300, Khan said. Police official Kashif Alam said there were only 30.
At the nearby Faisal depot, manager Shah Iran said 60 vehicles destined for Afghanistan as well as three Pakistani trucks were also burned.
The attacks were the latest in a series highlighting the vulnerability of the supply route to the spreading power of the Taliban in the border region, which is also considered a likely hiding place for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Vast quantities of supplies pass through Pakistan after being unloaded from ships at the Arabian sea port of Karachi. Some is routed through Quetta toward the Afghan city of Kandahar, but most flows through the Khyber Pass toward Kabul and the huge U.S. air base at Bagram.
The U.S. military in Afghanistan said in a statement that an unspecified number of its containers were destroyed but that their loss would have "minimal effect on our operations."
"It's militarily insignificant," U.S. spokeswoman Lt. Col. Rumi Nielsen-Green said. "You can't imagine the volume of supplies that come through there and elsewhere and other ways."
Still, NATO is seeking an alternative route through Central Asia, which it acknowledges is more expensive.
Pakistan halted traffic through the Khyber Pass for several days in November while it arranged for troops to guard the slow-moving convoys.
Shahedullah Baig, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Islamabad, insisted Sunday that the extra security covered the terminals.
"They are fully protected, but in this kind of situation such incidents happen," Baig said.
However, Khan, the depot manager, said that was untrue, and that there were only a handful of lightly armed police at the targeted terminals on Sunday afternoon.
Peshawar has seen a surge in violence in recent weeks, including the slaying of an American working on a U.S.-funded aid project. On Saturday, a car bomb detonated in a busy market area of the city, killing 29 people and injuring 100 more.
Mehmood Shah, a former chief of security in Pakistan's tribal badlands now working as a consultant, said militants appeared to have moved into the Khyber region from both sides of the border in recent months to put pressure on the supply route.
The terminals, like the route itself, could not be adequately protected by private security guards, he said.
"The government should have done it or the U.S. should have insisted that the government do it," he said.

160 destroyed vehicles is going to dent operational capability. This attack demonstrates that the supply route through Pakistan is no longer safe. That is going to have a massive effect on how the US prosecutes this war. Increasing security for the convoys can make this problem less severe, but if the militants in Pakistan really decide to go after American supply lines, which they increasingly are, there will be constant attrition and increasing costs, because Pakistan security forces cannot stop them, nor will they make more than a half-hearted effort. NATO needs to open a supply route through Russia. Pakistan is now totally integrated into the Afghan battlefield, you might as well call this the "Afghan-Pakistan War". All in all this is terrible strategic news for the United States, the battle has spread to a place we can't afford to lose in but can't afford/are not able to fight in either.
 

Pointblank

Senior Member
Somehow, I foresee the increasing demand for strategic airlift in the immediate future (ship large convoys to Turkey, then airlift to Afghanistan). Otherwise, an alternative route needs to be sought to diversify the routes.
 

optionsss

Junior Member
Military Jet Crashes in San Diego, Killing Two
By WILL CARLESS and SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: December 8, 2008

San Diego — An FA-18 Delta military aircraft crashed into a residential neighborhood here on Monday, igniting an intense fire that engulfed at least one house and two cars and killed two people on the ground, officials said. The crash, in the University City suburb of San Diego, occurred as the plane was preparing to land at Miramar Marine Air Station about two miles away, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The sole pilot successfully ejected from the aircraft and was transported to a local hospital in stable condition, said Staff Sgt. Leonard Langston, a public affairs officer at Miramar Station.

Fire raged in a neighborhood in the University City area in San Diego, Calif. after an FA-18 military jet crashed during a training exercise.

Witnesses said they heard two booms, the second louder than the first, as the plane corkscrewed to the ground trailing a plume of black smoke. The pilot, they said, ejected and parachuted to the ground, apparently landing in a local high school playing field.

Mayor Jerry Sanders said that fire officials had not identified the two people who died but that they were in a house where two children, a mother and a grandmother lived, The Associated Press reported..

The plane crashed in the middle of a residential street, three blocks away from University City High School, where Michael Nugent, 16, was having lunch with friends in the courtyard.

Mr. Nugent said he heard a "loud pop," and looked up in time to see the pilot eject from the spiraling fighter jet.

“I could see it was just going the wrong way, then we saw this giant mushroom cloud” of smoke, he said.

Donnie James, 43, had just stepped out of his house for a cigarette when he looked up and saw the plane in distress.

“It just started doing that thing out of Top Gun, the spinning thing. Then I heard the ejection -- boom! -- and I saw it spinning towards the ground.”

Sergeant Langston said that the aircraft had been returning from training exercises aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which is conducting maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean. The cause of the crash is under investigation, he said.

The Marine Corps Air Station Miramar is the base of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and is one of the largest military bases in southern California. It is home to some 10,000 Marines and was operated by the Navy until 1996. It was the base featured in the movie about Navy fighter pilots, “Top Gun.”

An F-18 crashed at Miramar in November 2006, but the pilot ejected safely. In 1995, a two-seat FA-18D Hornet that had taken off from Miramar slammed into a ridge during a snowstorm about 50 miles northwest of Santa Fe, killing both its occupants.

This is not good. I guess the pilot must did not have time to fly away from the residential area.
 

Pointblank

Senior Member
This is not good. I guess the pilot must did not have time to fly away from the residential area.

Apparently, the Hornet had a engine failure and was trying to get to Miramar for a emergency landing, but realized he would not make it, so he tried to ditch the airplane away from a residential area. It is too bad...
 
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