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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
more inside Marine Corps announces sweeping changes to ground-combat forces
Published: May 15, 2018
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Well Marine Rifle Squads have been bigger than Army ones for a long time. The Army goes with a 9 man squad the Marines now 13 but sometimes as large as 18 but now 12. a 12 man squad would be easier to move in ACV 8x8.
Now the Marines are saying that the move to a Infantry M27 is a step up in fire power which is partially true but only when compared to the M16A2/M16A4 and M4 as issued to the Marines but a step back compared to M16 and M16A1.
. You see back in the 1980's the Marines designed the M16A2 as a "Improvement" for the M16 series. At that point in time the M16A1 and M16 were the Standard issue rifle of the US DOD. The Marines decided that they wanted to change the Sighting system for the M16. Well they were at it they made changes to the upper and lower recevers, moved to a longer buttstock, the double round handguard shell and changed from the Full auto trigger group to the 3 round burst group. Safe, semi and 3 round. This model became the M16A2.
The Army later ( early 90's) modified this with a telescopic stock, short barrel, short gas system ( more or off the CAR 15) with added feed ramps and a changed buffer set into the basis for the XM4 carbine, Socom stepped in, asked for a flat top upper receiver with M1913 rails and a modified gas block/ front sight post. The Army agreed and The M4 Carbine was created with SOCOM changing the Trigger group back to full auto for the M4A1.
There was also a Short lived M16A3 which was a A2 with the full auto group for Navy Seabees.
Eventually someone made the M16A4 by taking the A2 putting the flat top upper on it and the M4 front sight post.
then things go shook up when the US went to a major long term war or two.
M4A1 Carbines suffered for Socom because they were wearing out faster then expected. This was mostly Socom's own Fault though as they were using the same rifles in combat as training so by the time they hit the field they were pretty worn out. It didn't help that they were doing mag dumps from barrels designed more for weight reduction then high heat. The Want of Optics spread across the board so Flat tops had to be adopted and troops now with more experience complained about the poor nature of the 3 round burst trigger group. basically you have 4 trigger pull weights in one trigger as the Trigger cycles to operate the weapon.
all of this and increased foot matching by the infantry as well as increased use in vehicles in Urban made the Army and Marines re evaluate all there thinking for rifles.

Both the Army and Marines first jumped to adopt the M16A4 then the Army moved to the M4 Carbine Flirted with the XM8 until they killed it and currently the M4A1 with the same heavy barrel as socom. currently planing a improved M4A1 followed by the Eventual Next Generation Squad Weapons.
The Marines moved to the M16A4 then the M4 but then looked at the M249 as the trouble spot. M249 has been on the trouble list for both the Army and Marines due to reliability and weight. The Marines decided that instead of a new LMG, they would adopt a Automatic rifle, The Idea being to adopt a system that offered the accuracy of a M16 with the heat and high round count tolerance of a LMG in a weapon with lower weight than the M249.
This was originally supposed to be a dedicated Automatic Rifle that would fire from a Open bolt on full auto and closed bolt on semi but that was dropped. The End result adopted in 2007 was the M27 a modified HK416 rifle with a full auto trigger group but lacking any higher capacity then a M4 magazine even with the PMAG. moving the M249 back to the Weapons support element this means that the USMC infantry formation effectively has no LMG but instead that all members of the Squad are armed with a weapon that although Automatic is still just an infantry rifle. farther more despite being adopted in 2007 and now being moved as the main rifle in 2018 every part of the rifle dates back to 2004.
The Optic that comes standard with the M27 is the Acog TA11 a 3.5x35mm fixed power with back up mini dot, This is odd as the Marines themselves standardized on the Trijicon Acog TA31 a 4x32mm fixed power as there Rifle combat optic. Farther more it comes standard with a harris bipod and fixed foregrip. Well the Foregrip is not odd, the Harris Bipod is that's a bipod normally found on Sniper rifles it's a precision tool yet being used by general infantry. The Quad rail is the same rail as the HK416 unchanged from 2002. Now on the Plus side for this the M320 grenade launcher module and the HK416 were designed side by side and the launcher can quick mount to the 416 rail, but on the down with a loaded magazine the M27 is 10 pounds the M320 is over 3 pounds meaning almost 14 pounds of rifle.
The M38 which is the "DMR" version is little more than the M27 save that the 3.5x optic has been replaced with a Leopuld Mark 4 MR/T 2.5-8x36mm variable power scope not a bad scope but it dates from 2002 when it was taken off the Mk 12 SPRs that might not seem a big deal but Optics change a lot in 10 years.
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I mean the Mk 13 mod 7 is also not new having been in Socom service before the Marines but it only dates back to maybe 2014.
 
I was wondering if this:
f677f240d7aba0fbd74b322fbd575e14-1.jpg

(I'll retype, just in case it didn't show, "Equipping every Marine with an automatic weapon equates to a 300 percent increase in firepower.")

is a spin of some kind, or you perceive it as quote unquote truth
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
I was wondering if this:
(I'll retype, just in case it didn't show, "Equipping every Marine with an automatic weapon equates to a 300 percent increase in firepower.")
is a spin of some kind, or you perceive it as quote unquote truth
My personal opinion on this is.... not quite spin but close to it. I would say Questionable. they have removed a dedicated high capacity suppression system and moved the whole of the Squad to the Same weapon with the same limitations. With range only equal to that of a 5.56x45mm. I mean basically all they could have gotten there "Resuilts" by kitting out the whole Squad with M4A1 heavy barreled carbines as opposed to changing rifles and they are seriously trying to focus on volume of weapons vs Quality of fire support.
 
My personal opinion on this is.... not quite spin but close to it. I would say Questionable. they have removed a dedicated high capacity suppression system and moved the whole of the Squad to the Same weapon with the same limitations. With range only equal to that of a 5.56x45mm. I mean basically all they could have gotten there "Resuilts" by kitting out the whole Squad with M4A1 heavy barreled carbines as opposed to changing rifles and they are seriously trying to focus on volume of weapons vs Quality of fire support.
f677f240d7aba0fbd74b322fbd575e14-1.jpg

looked like a poor commercial to me
 
Navy now
CNO: ‘Dynamic Force Employment’ Could Allow More High-End Training for Strike Groups
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As the Navy looks at shaking up its deployment patterns to become more responsive to world events and more unpredictable to adversaries, one key benefit may be more time available for high-end training closer to home.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson has been stumping for the idea of dynamic force employment, which ties in nicely with
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to “be strategically predictable, but operationally unpredictable.”

Navy deployments tend to be governed by a 36-month Optimized Fleet Response Plan cycle of maintenance, training, a regularly scheduled seven-month deployment and then about 15 months of being ready to surge forward if needed or maintain readiness at home. However, Richardson said this week he believes OFRP and dynamic force employment are complementary ideas rather than opposing ones, noting that OFRP creates ready forces and he’s simply looking to use that readiness in new ways.

“What we’re talking about is, once that readiness is generated, what do we do with that naval force? So I see it as being very complementary to the OFRP, injecting dynamic maneuver to naval forces at sea. I think these two are not in conflict at all,” he told reporters aboard USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) at sea on Monday.

If OFRP was already generating ready naval forces, Richardson is now interested in using dynamic force employment to create more naval power with those forces.

“If you think about all the ways you could increase the power of the Navy, it’s not necessarily going forward, disaggregating the strike group and doing those sorts of operations,” he told USNI News later in the day on Monday.
“Maybe we increase naval power by bringing the strike group back a little early and we do high-end strike-group-on-strike-group exercises or training like that, and then you really kind of enter a, I’m trying out some things that are really on the cutting edge of naval warfare. And then the strike group pulls in and they get a little time with their families, time to go to schools, that sort of thing, and then maybe they surge forward – so you’re not gone for that long period of time, maybe you can do a little maintenance, and so we see there’s opportunities.”

The Navy has conducted several multi-strike-group operations in recent years, though not all have been able to operate at the high-end of warfighting. Three carrier strike groups met in the Sea of Japan in November, but USNI News reported they were
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due to being so close to Chinese forces.

“It’s an aspect of the security environment that it’s getting harder to do things without being observed, no matter where you are. So we’re going to have to be clever about that,” Richardson told USNI News.

If trained and certified carrier strike groups were to spend less time disaggregated overseas providing presence and working with allies and partners on lower-end operations, and instead devoted more time to training together to advance warfare tactics, Richardson argued, that would contribute to increasing naval power.

“What about dual strike group operations on the same team? What about strike group operations opposing? And maybe as the (French aircraft carrier), Charles de Gaulle strike group comes up to speed (after its maintenance availability ends this summer), when we’re over in 6th Fleet or something we work them into the routine as well. So just a lot of opportunities there.”

Asked about second and third order effects of the shift in how forces deploy – what it means for sailors’ families, what it means for ship maintenance and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers’ fuel consumption to potentially take more trips across the ocean but spend less time on station – Richardson said those considerations would be monitored as the Navy learns more about how the fleet can support new deployment patterns.

“The logistics and the fuel consumption and all that stuff will have to be measured as we do that so that we don’t overextend ourselves in that regard, but I think there’s a lot of good that will come out of it,” he said.

The CNO said his hope is not to upend how the Navy trains and prepares for deployment, but rather “to restore even more maneuver, restore that dynamism that has honestly become a little bit predictable. We kind of deploy in a very predictable schedule, we go to a predictable place and we come back in a predictable time. And so we’re going to try to stir that up a little bit so we’re not to easy to figure out.”

Richardson also said on Monday that the standup of U.S. 2nd Fleet – and the
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– would bring its own set of opportunities for operational innovation with allies.

“I would imagine that we’ll get a fair amount of allied liaison officers on the (2nd) Fleet staff as well,” he said when asked how 2nd Fleet would compare to the other numbered fleets around the globe.
“A lot of people have already approached me as seeing it as an opportunity so that as we – our 6th Fleet is the forward fleet in Naples, and they do a lot of working with our European partners with deployed assets – here we can potentially do a little bit more on the training and experimentation end of business with our allies. So it really I think opens up some opportunities.”

Richardson argued soon after taking over as chief of naval operations that the Navy was facing a
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. He has since discussed the role of a
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, and more recently highlighted
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.

When the Pentagon released the National Defense Strategy in January, the same themes were present.

“Be strategically predictable, but operationally unpredictable,” the strategy dictates.
“Deterring or defeating long-term strategic competitors is a fundamentally different challenge than the regional adversaries that were the focus of previous strategies. Our strength and integrated actions with allies will demonstrate our commitment to deterring aggression, but our dynamic force employment, military posture, and operations must introduce unpredictability to adversary decision-makers. With our allies and partners, we will challenge competitors by maneuvering them into unfavorable positions, frustrating their efforts, precluding their options while expanding our own, and forcing them to confront conflict under adverse conditions.”

Defense Secretary James
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that “we are also changing our forces’ posture to prioritize readiness for warfighting in major combat, making us strategically predictable for our allies and operationally unpredictable for any adversary.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph
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that “in addition to investing in capabilities to increase the lethality of the force, the Department is developing concepts to maximize the effectiveness and agility of the force we have today. For example, the National Defense Strategy directs the Joint Force to ‘introduce unpredictability to adversary decision-makers’ through Dynamic Force Employment. Dynamic Force Employment allows us to develop a wide range of proactive, scalable options and quickly deploy forces for emerging requirements while maintaining readiness to respond to contingencies.”
 
Jan 7, 2018
Jeff, I'm at loss about the Zumwalts

...

I think they should've axed the 1001 and 1002, too, and left just the 1000 as a Technology Demonstrator with the DBR put on (awful price tag, then, I know LOL! but the money for the project are gone anyway); of course they didn't, so ...
... At Bath, a destroyer’s keel is laid more than a year behind schedule
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The Navy on Monday marked the ceremonial keel laying of the future destroyer Daniel K. Inouye at Bath Iron Works, Maine,
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that is already more than a year behind schedule.

Inouye, named for the Medal of Honor recipient and long-time Democratic senator from Hawaii, was originally slated to deliver in October of this year, according to 2015 Navy budget documents. But since then the schedule has slipped 18 months, putting Bath well behind its competitor
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in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The Navy awarded two ships in June 2013 as part of the DDG restart first kicked off in 2011 with DDG-113, the John Finn. The contracts gave DDG-117, the future Paul Ignatius, to Ingalls and DDG-118, the Inouye, to Bath Iron Works.

Ingalls is currently slated to deliver Ignatius in October, about nine months later than originally projected in the Navy’s 2015 budget documents, according to the Navy’s 2019 budget submission. But Inouye isn’t slated to be delivered until April 2020, according to an April report in the Honolulu Star Advertiser, a full 18 months later than its original planned delivery from the 2015 budget submission.

A January briefing on the DDG program delivered at Surface Navy Association put Paul Ignatius at 85 percent complete to Inouye’s 42 percent.

The delays highlight the lingering struggles at Bath Iron Works to adjust to a major realignment at the shipyard after the Navy truncated the Zumwalt class to just three ships, down from an originally planned 32, as well as restarting the DDG program there after being dormant for nearly a decade. For its part, General Dynamics says the delays have stabilized and the shipyard is in a better place moving forward.

The Navy says the lengthy delay in Inouye’s construction was mutually agreed upon between General Dynamics, Bath’s parent company, and the program office as Bath devoted resources to finishing the DDG-1000 ships, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reported in April.

The Navy and Bath Iron Works in late 2016 mutually agreed on ship schedule adjustments to better sequence the Zumwalt class and accommodate the DDG restart ships, the Advertiser reported, attributing the inputs to DDG 51 program manager Capt. Casey Moton.

The long delay in delivering Inouye highlights the difficulty inherent in resurrecting a dormant program, said Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“It gives you a sense of how difficult it is to restart a program after being shut down for a long time,” Clark said. “Now, seven years on might be a little extreme, and maybe you could infer some management issues from that as compared with Huntington Ingalls. But it also highlights a lack of surge volume at Bath in their workforce and in the shipyard itself.”

Bath made alterations to its shipyard to build the now greatly diminished Zumwalt class and had to make personnel decisions geared toward a ship that is very different from the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, Clark said. Getting the yard realigned and rehiring workers to build Burkes was a big muscle movement that contributed to construction delays, Clark said.

Bath also has fewer workers than Ingalls (Roughly 5,500 in Bath to Ingalls’ 11,500) which means they likely have more flexibility to move workers around, Clark said.

In an April earnings call, General Dynamics top executive Phebe Novakovic told analysts that Bath is “working down its learning curve on the restart DDG-51s.”
the Zumwalts are game changers indeed!
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Nov 16, 2017
and now I skimmed over
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lasers on Strykers etc.:
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" One of the most pressing examples is the M2 Bradley, a heavily armed and armored troop carrier that’s run out of electrical power and horsepower to handle further upgrades. Esper has consistently described the Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle initiative as a Bradley replacement,"
If there is a real trouble spot vehicle in the US Army right now that needs attention It's the Bradley. No matter what the Army wants to do to the Bradley it needs a Overhaul or replacement.
When they started looking to add Hard kill APS systems and started trailing systems. They could mount them easily on the Abrams. On Styker there was a 6 month delay as the APS builder needed to sort there radar and software, On the Bradley there was a 8 month delay most of it was upgrading the electrical and power generation from the Bradley. The protection upgrades out paced the suspension and power upgrades. The Leathality is lagging and it's not able to haul a US Army 9 man squad.
 
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