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The British Prime Minister’s Office has announced the decision to buy 9 Boeing P-8 maritime patrol aircraft. The Eurofighter fleet will be upgraded with AESA radars too.

Source: Alert 5 » Britain to buy 9 P-8s; upgrade Eurofighers with AESA radars – Military Aviation News

I’ll admit I was surprised when Jason forwarded this link to me. I had thought the British MPA program was dead. Instead, this makes Britain the second nation, after India, to choose the P-8. With a little luck, Boeing might make some further international sales.

Unfortunately, probably not many. Most nations that in the past bought the predecessor P-3 Orion will be able to get by using any of a number of slightly smaller, and much cheaper, MPA offered by companies like CASA.

Christmas is right around the corner, and rather than hang one of those boring old red stockings from the mantel, why not opt for one of these badass Tactical Christmas Stockings.

Source: Tactical Christmas Stocking | HiConsumption

Why, yes, I do accept gifts from my readers…

So, you’re a successful LA businessman, traveling to Israel. During a layover in Shannon, Ireland, you see some troops about to tuck into the brown bag lunch the Army provides. How do you show your appreciation for the US Army?

You offer up to $50 to pay for dinner. No, not $50 total. That’s $50 per troop. And there’s about 400 troops!

No citizen ever had to thank me or buy me dinner to make me take pride in my enlistment. But I’m proud to see a fellow American step up and put his money where his mouth is.

Maybe Pave Low John can give us the backstory on what happened.

Helicopter aerodynamics are… different from fixed wing aviation. Particularly near the ground. Weird stuff happens.

Also, don’t go running toward the crash.

We’re not huge fans of British singer Adele, but we have to admit, this was hilarious, and pretty sweet hearted.

We’ve posted recently about the Russian’s using their Tu-160 Blackjack bombers to attack targets in Syria. Now comes this bit:

Why fly all the way around Europe? Because they can. It is a not at all subtle way of reminding every country in Europe that they are in range of Russian striking power.

Oops. I accidentally took my Atlanta class cruiser into a Co-op Battle (where you fight AI instead of PVP). AI in WoW is not bad, but it’s still easier than PVP.

The Atlanta light cruiser mounted 16 5”/38 guns in eight twin gunhouses. Each tube has a rate of fire of about 15 rounds per minute. That means you can pump out a rather astonishing number of rounds. The only drawback is, the guns have a pretty short range, and not a lot of killing power. On the other hand, when you get a Kongo class battleship in range and he’s busying shooting at someone else, you can put some serious damage on him.

US servicemen held as Prisoners of War in the Vietnam War in North Vietnam were treated in an absolutely inhuman manner. The communist government maintained that they were illegal combatants, and as such, war criminals, and outside the protections of the Geneva Conventions. Sadly, many of our own citizens supported that view.

The US Air Force was well aware of the deplorable treatment of our POWs, and in 1970 proposed a raid on a small compound in the village of Son Tay to retrieve 61 POWs held there. Amazingly, the plan was allowed to proceed, and after months of training under the utmost security measures, on 21 November, Operation Kingpin launched.

56 Special Forces soldiers were landed at the compound, in an area that held an estimated 12,000 North Vietnamese soldiers within five miles.

Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese had recently moved the POWs held at Son Tay. It was a dry hole. On the plus side, the US only suffered two minor casualties.

And the raid had one salutorious effect that the planners probably didn’t anticipate. Fearful that other raids might snatch POWs from them (and don’t forget, the fate of our POWs was a major lever for the North Vietnamese in the ongoing peace talks), the North Vietnamese consolidated all the POWs at the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

Whereas previously the POWs were routinely held in solitary confinement, the large numbers in the Hoa Lo prison meant that wasn’t possible. The increased ability to communicate and care for one another vastly improved the morale of the POWs. The knowledge of the raid also sent a very strong signal to the POWs that the US would not abandon them.

We mentioned this the other day, that finally the Obama administration has loosened the rules of engagement just a touch to allow airpower to go after one of the most obvious target sets in Daesh controlled territory, the fuel tankers they use to sell oil on the black market.  Daesh controls roughly 1000 tankers. And in one night, two AC-130s and four A-10Cs were able to destroy 116 trucks.

Gee, maybe we should have tried that 15 months ago.