XBradTC

This is a few months old (hey, I can’t catch all the news every day) but a Douglas A-20 Havoc has finally been restored to airworthy condition.

A-20 First Flight from Lewis on Vimeo.

The A-20 was a damn fine looking plane. After all, Ed Heinemann designed her!

A hard working light bomber, she fit in between the medium bombers such as the B-25 and B-26, and the fighter bombers such as the P-38 and P-47.  Prime targets in Europe might include airfield and railroad marshaling yards, while service in the Pacific might see it raiding harbors to attack shipping, and of course, airfields.

The replacement for the A-20 arrived at the very tail end of World War II, another Heinemann design for Douglas, the A-26 Invader. Confusingly, after the Martin B-26 was retired from service, the A-26 was redesignated the B-26 (the Air Force did away temporarily with the “Attack” category of planes), though it was later re-redesignated as the A-26 again.

Ultra-elite Special Operations teams took part in the first-ever U.S. Army Special Operations Command International Urban Assault Challenge last week.

So when the U.S. needs an assault team to tackle a target in an urban setting … who is the best Special Operations Urban Assaulter we’ve got? This competition put the best to the test.

The ultra-intense challenge played out over four days at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The U.S. Army Special Forces Advanced Reconnaissance Target Analysis Exploitation Techniques Cadre devised and conducted the extremely tough competition.

The challenge was designed to give operators the chance to test their experience and weapons proficiency.

via www.foxnews.com

Bringing together teams from each of the Groups allows for some cross-pollenization of new ideas, while simultaneously ensuring everyone is on the same doctrinal page.

And it sounds like great fun.

WITH so many conflicts in the world, Nagorno-Karabakh gets little attention. The bloody fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the mountainous enclave this week was a reminder that it should. Tanks and artillery traded fire; at least 50 people were killed in four days. The spectre loomed of a wider war, one that could draw in Russia, Turkey and Iran. A ceasefire brokered in Moscow on April 5th appears to be holding for now. But it brought the two foes no closer to peace.

The fighting dates back to 1988, when Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenians attempted to secede from Azerbaijan. (At the time, both Armenia and Azerbaijan were republics of the Soviet Union.) As the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, the conflict grew into a full-scale war. By 1994 some 30,000 people were dead and Nagorno-Karabakh was under Armenian control. Russia, America and France brokered a ceasefire, but sporadic shooting continued. Rather than time healing old wounds, it deepened them.

via www.economist.com

That's a nasty little fight. And take a very close look at where Nagorno-Karabach is. There's a heck of a lot of instability in the region surrounding it.

The Navy’s ultra-versatile P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft has risen to all-star status both within the halls of the Pentagon and on the export market. It has been at the center of the search for MH370 and at the tip of the growing dispute over China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea. Now it has has made headlines once again, locating marooned men on a deserted island in the Pacific.

via foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com

With some very clear pics at the link. I think someone would have found these guys soon enough (they were only four miles from their home island) but it's nice to see the Navy getting a little positive press.

New Delhi: Notwithstanding international pressures India has secretly conducted the maiden test of its nuclear capable undersea ballistic missile, code named K-4, from homegrown submarine INS Arihant at an undisclosed location in the Bay of Bengal, reported Defence News.

via www.kolkata24x7.com

And with that, India joins a very exclusive club. USA, Russia, China, France and Great Britain are the only other nations that have SLBM capability.

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HMCS Vancouver recently became the first modernized Canadian frigate to successfully test surface-to-surface missiles against a shore-based target, utilizing the Harpoon Block II surface-to-surface missiles, according to the Royal Canadian Navy.

via ottawacitizen.com

I'll just note that the US Navy doesn't operate the Block II Harpoon with the land attack capability. I think we're still stuck in the Stone Age with the Block 1D.

A Navy officer assigned to a patrol and reconnaissance group has been charged in military court with two counts of espionage, punishable by the death penalty under certain conditions.

The lieutenant commander is being held at the brig in Chesapeake and appeared at the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing at Norfolk Naval Station on Friday, according to the Navy. The officer’s identity has not been released, and charge sheets detailing his alleged crimes were heavily redacted.

The charge sheets say the officer communicated secret information “relating to the national defense to representatives of a foreign government.” The documents do not specify what information was provided, when it was provided or which nation it was provided to.

via pilotonline.com

Oh dear.

But of course, Hillary can run a private email server with all of State Department's info on it, and not face any consequences.

WASHINGTON — The Air Force is moving forward with a key step in developing a dedicated close-air support plane to replace the A-10 Warthog, a top general said Thursday.

“My requirements guys are in the process of building a draft requirements document for a follow-on CAS airplane,” Lt. Gen. Mike Holmes, the deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, said. “It’s interesting work that at some point we’ll be able to talk with you a little bit more.”

via www.defensenews.com

One has a sneaking suspicion that Air Force is using the draft process to write a paper that will doom A/X to the staff process, whereupon the staff will then say that the F-35 will fill the bill well enough.

 It's easy to take salt for granted. Cheap and plentiful, it’s not the sort of the thing you expect to find mixed with the dregs of human existence, especially when you're seasoning a nice cut of meat. But salt in earlier centuries was not the same as the salt we have today. According to one account of French bay salt in 1746, it was “always mixed with dirt and nastiness which makes up a full seventh part.”

“The filth arises from putrefied human bodies, dead fish and the carcasses of animals,” the writer continued, “and from most immense quantities of different kinds of rotten weeds together with innumerable other unwholesome mixtures brought into the salines by the tide.”

via www.atlasobscura.com

Recreating a ship's ration from the 17th century is surprisingly difficult.

The U.S. military’s top commander in the Pacific is arguing behind closed doors for a more confrontational approach to counter and reverse China’s strategic gains in the South China Sea, appeals that have met resistance from the White House at nearly every turn.

Adm. Harry Harris is proposing a muscular U.S. response to China's island-building that may include launching aircraft and conducting military operations within 12 miles of these man-made islands, as part of an effort to stop what he has called the "Great Wall of Sand" before it extends within 140 miles from the Philippines' capital, sources say.

Harris and his U.S. Pacific Command have been waging a persistent campaign in public and in private over the past several months to raise the profile of China's land grab, accusing China outright in February of militarizing the South China Sea.

via www.navytimes.com

Is there anywhere the Obama administration hasn't caved or capitulated to our opponents?