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  • TDB: Chinese Hacker Complains About ‘Perverted’ American Military

    Oh good Lordy.  From our laugh-till-you-cry funny friends at The Duffel Blog.

    BEIJING, China — According to Chinese news agencies, the head of a People’s Liberation Army unit of military hackers is planning to file a formal complaint today with the United States Department of Defense after a number of what were called “disturbing” conversations with “American military perverts.”

    Senior Colonel Bo Wang of the People’s Glorious Facebook Battalion is one of thousands of Chinese military personnel who spend all-day attempting to infiltrate the social media profiles of US military and intelligence personnel with fake accounts.

    Once a target is identified, the hacker will create a false profile, usually of an attractive member of the opposite sex, and ‘friend’ the target.  Over time, a successful hacker can friend almost an entire unit and learn valuable information about military or intelligence plans.

    The problem, as Colonel Wang soon found out, is that the majority of his targets are young American servicemen, most of whom only agree to friend requests because they expect sexual favors at some point.

    The rest is definitely not safe for work.  Or most anything else.  But jee-ZUS is it funny!

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  • The Syrian Campaign

    https://twitter.com/PentagonPresSec/status/514225298447949825

    Well, there you go.

    Mind you, especially with the Tomahawk strikes, this looks like “wave 1” if you will, targeting those fixed or semi-fixed air defense, command and control, and troop concentrations our intelligence has been able to suss out. How well they’ve done in finding remunerative targets is unknown.

    Here’s the thing about airpower. It’s firepower without persistence. It has an incredible capability bring large amounts of destruction in a very short time. And it’s that short time that is the problem. It cannot maintain that level of pain for very long.

    Further, the return in investment in the use of airpower is highest against concentrated targets. Very quickly, any opponent that cannot challenge our dominance of the skies learns to disperse his assets. That vastly reduces the effectiveness of airstrikes. We’ve been trying to bomb deployed forces into submission since the Italian campaign. We’ve yet to succeed.

  • Book Review- Predator- The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution-Richard Whittle

    Review copy courtesy of Henry Holt and Company, the publishers.

    Richard Wittle, who has already published a history of the development of the MV-22 Osprey, just launched his newest book, Predator- The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution.

    Just over 300 pages long, the book does a good job of not focusing on extraneous technical details, but rather on the people who brought about the Predator program. Focusing on the development of the Predator from the early 1990s to its first uses as a Hellfire armed weapon system in Afghanistan in 2002, the story is rich with biography of the key players in the program.

    First we get to cheer the plucky underdog garage inventor. Then the complex machinations that brought investors in, while struggling to overcome deep seated apathy by the military.

    And once the military becomes involved, it’s a tale of a small team struggling to gain acceptance from the big boys, until a triumph of innovation makes a major splash.

    To me, the most frustrating part was the early operations in Afghanistan. One of the key lessons of Desert Storm was supposed to be the strength of decentralizing decision making to the operational level. And yet, the very first operations in Afghanistan involved the very upper echelons of command almost literally hovering over the shoulders of the man with a  finger on the trigger.

    Whittle’s writing is easy, and the book is only a touch over 300 pages, not counting the extensive notes.

    Easily recommended, 3-1/2 stars out of 5.

  • Navy Testing Norwegian Naval Strike Missile on LCS Next Week – USNI News

    Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is set to strap a Norwegian anti-ship missile to the deck of an Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship in an exploration of boosting the firepower of the LCS hulls.

    Next week, USS Coronado (LCS-4) will test fire a Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile off the coast of Southern California at the target ranges at Port Hueneme.

    “This demonstration is intended to test the capabilities of the Norwegian-made missile from a sea-based platform against a Mobile Ship Target (MST) and provide insights into the weapon’s stated capabilities of increased range and lethality,” according to a Thursday release from NAVSEA.

    via Navy Testing Norwegian Naval Strike Missile on LCS Next Week – USNI News.

    It’s about time. Ideally, if we’re forced to have 24 or 32 LCS in the fleet, they can be armed to take out more than a Boston Whaler.

    We’ve shared the NSM video before. What the heck, why not one more time.

    Further down in the article is this bit:

    NAVSEA told USNI News on Friday the test of the missile was not necessarily the start of a new acquisition program for the LCS Surface Warfare package or had a direct relation to the completed — but yet unrevealed — Small Surface Combatant (SSC) study.

    “The Navy views as an opportunity to test a future warfighting capability,” NAVSEA spokesman Matthew Leonard told USNI News on Friday.
    “There is currently no requirement for this capability.”

    They don’t mean that there’s not requirement for this capability. They mean there’s no requirement written down as one of the things to buy. That’s dumb, but can be changed. And one suspects that someone at NAVSEA is working very hard to write a requirement that, without saying “Norwegian Strike Missile” can only be filled by Norwegian Strike Missile.  And Kongsberg is probably working to establish a partnership for shared production or licensed production of the NSM here in the US.

     

  • Lightning Strikes

    Speaking of World’s Smallest Aircraft Carriers…

  • Load HEAT- Mary Elizabeth Winstead

    The reigning Scream Queen, Mary Elizabeth Winstead has enjoyed quite a successful career in the horror movie industry. Maybe not a household name, but it pays the bills. She’s easy on the eyes, and not a bad actress.

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  • The 1962 Fleet Review

    For centuries, heads of state would periodically review their fleets. In the age of sail, the line of battle was nearly always concentrated, and so, to view the entire fleet was not the greatest logistical challenge.

    By the early years of the 20th Century, the various naval powers of the world had evolved the Fleet Review to a major public relations exercise, almost on a scale of a World Exposition. The nation would flaunt its naval might. It was also an exercise in diplomacy, with friendly (and often not so friendly) foreign powers sending major units of their own fleets to observe and pay their respects. In addition to an excellent chance to show off your own fleet, it was a good opportunity to scope out the competition’s ships. Indeed, a good bit of the intelligence the US Navy gathered on Japanese warships before World War II was gathered simply by photographing them at various international reviews.

    The Fleet Review has pretty much passed into history. One of the last I know of was the 1962 review of the Atlantic Fleet by President John F. Kennedy.

    It was pretty much the ultimate in dog and pony shows. Give it a couple minutes to get going. You’ll see some serious airpower, and even better, you’ll get to see a Marine amphibious landing.  There’s quite a bit of live fire going on in the clip.

    Did you notice the Terrier missiles? Did you notice they missed the drone? Friedman, in his cruiser design history, tells us Kennedy was so disgusted by the miss that he personally ordered that USS Long Beach be refitted with a pair of 5”/38s.

    Also, that’s just about the only place I’ve seen contemporary footage of the LVTP-5 Amtrac.

    Finally, can you imagine the Secret Service letting the President get that close to all that live fire today?

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  • Are U.S. Soldiers Dying From Survivable Wounds? – WSJ

    In an unassuming building in suburban Washington, a team of military medical specialists spent six months poring over autopsies of 4,016 men and women who had died on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

    They read reports from the morgue at Dover Air Force Base, where bodies arrived in flag-draped coffins. They examined toxicology reports. They winced at gruesome photos of bullet wounds and shredded limbs. In each case, the doctors pieced together the evidence to determine the exact cause of death.

    Their conclusion would roil U.S. military medicine: Nearly a quarter of Americans killed in action over 10 years—almost 1,000 men and women—died of wounds they could potentially have survived. In nine out of 10 cases, troops bled to death from wounds that might have been stanched. In 8%, soldiers succumbed to airway damage that better care might have controlled. “Obviously one death or one bad outcome is too many, but there are a lot of them,” said one of the researchers, John Holcomb, a former commander of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research.

    The findings appeared in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery in 2012 to almost no public attention. But in military medical circles, they have fueled a behind-the-scenes controversy that rages to this day over whether American men and women are dying needlessly—and whether the Pentagon is doing enough to keep them alive.

    via Are U.S. Soldiers Dying From Survivable Wounds? – WSJ.

    A very disturbing article.

    Are some soldiers dying from survivable wounds?

    Of course.

    I suspect that the tactical situation in some incidents listed here had a direct influence on the outcome.  Rapid evacuation isn’t always possible. Or sometimes, your buddy simply can’t get to you to treat you. Or worse, no one realizes at first that you are wounded.

    Just since 2001, the military has made great strides in improving the immediate lifesaving care provided by buddy care, Combat Lifesaver care, medics, and evacuation teams, to say nothing of the advances in trauma medicine at frontline hospitals, and the expeditious evacuation of critically wounded to definitive care hospitals in Germany and the US.

    But there is always room for improvement. I suspect the percentage they quote is quite high. But the Army has a moral obligation to continue to strive to shrink that number.

  • The Dearth of Black Combat Leaders

    Last week, several papers carried stories about sociologists in the Army worried about the low percentage of black leaders, particularly at the battalion and brigade combat team level.

    U.S. Army sociologists are worried that a lack of black officers leading its combat troops will have detrimental effect on minorities and lead to fewer black officers in top leadership posts.

    “The issue exists. The leadership is aware of it,” Brig. Gen. Ronald Lewis told USA Today on Thursday. “The leadership does have an action plan in place. And it’s complicated.”

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    The paper also noted that of the 238 West Point graduates commissioned to be infantry officers in 2012, only seven were black. One of the Army’s plans for addressing the issue will be to put more emphasis on recruiting and mentoring minority officers.

    Let us set aside for the moment the question of whether the Army needs to have senior leadership ethnically proportionate to the population of either the Army or the nation at large.

    Why is it that there are so few black field grade commanders?

    Well, one author, writing under a pen name to avoid career suicide, addresses the topic.

    In trying to resolve this issue the Army has gone through excruciating efforts to recruit more black officers into the combat arms. The Army has not failed, but has not made much progress. Previously, while I was in a position to observe the branch assignments of one of the Army’s largest commissioning sources, it was apparent to me that there was little interest from the majority of minority men in going into the combat arms. In particular, black me were significantly underrepresented in the infantry, armor and field artillery branches. Correspondingly, the ADA, signal and logistics branches were overrepresented. As for explanations, none could be found.

    In a previous life I was in a position to observe the intake of initial-entry soldiers into the Army. It became apparent rapidly that minorities of all types and black soldiers, in particular, were underrepresented in combat arms. We instituted an analysis of why and obtained no cogent results. Often we asked members of high-school academia how we could get more black men to enlist for the combat arms. They had no answer. We asked them why they thought young black men were not coming into the combat arms and their best guess, and only a guess, was that the community was sending them to where they could best obtain a skill transferrable to civilian life. Being a member of rifle squad, an M1 tank gunner, or a gunner on an M198 crew did not transfer well to civilian life, according to them.

    Read the whole thing, and the comments.

    The skew in demographics is far less for senior NCOs. There’s plenty of black Command Sergeants Major. But even so, my anecdotal experience as  recruiter showed me that, while many young blacks were interested in service, they were mostly interested in improving their lot in life, via technical training in the service, or through the educational benefits. Many who did enlist in the combat arms did so mostly because low test scores precluded them from more skill oriented specialties.  Some of those soldiers found they enjoyed the combat arms, and decided to make a career of it. Many did their job for the term of their enlistment, and went on to use the GI Bill to pay for education. At any event, once they were in a unit, there wasn’t much to choose from between one soldier and another.  Was there racial tension in the units I served in? Some. Sometimes. But less than I see in the population as a whole.

    On the officer side, as Petronius Arbiter notes, not many blacks commissioning in the Army want to be in the combat arms, in spite of a great deal of effort to convince them to go Infantry.

    Combat Arms is the path to stars in the Army. It’s not the only path, but it is the most likely. But the journey from 2LT to GEN is a long one, and only a vanishingly small number of officers will rise that far. If you don’t start with a significant percentage of black officers in the combat arms, your chances of having any rise to the very top are miniscule. Not non-existent, just miniscule. That’s not racism. It’s statistics.

    The Army could simply force larger numbers of black officers to accept commissions in the Infantry or other combat arms branches. That is likely to have serious consequences in the officer management system on two fronts within just a few short years. First, the obvious one. It’s extremely likely that many young black  officers, forced into a branch they didn’t seek, will leave at the earliest possible opportunity. And do we really want combat leaders who don’t want to be combat leaders? Second, there are plenty of young officers who do want to be in combat arms, and fight like heck to get the crossed rifles of the Infantry. If we force black officers to take slots in the Infantry, obviously, some officers who had sought that branch will be forced elsewhere. And they too will likely seek to leave at the end of their obligation, rather than continue as career officers. Both groups would likely show as a dip in the numbers of mid grade officers in their respective branches. Given the difficulties the Army is already having in that group of grades in retaining quality officers, exacerbating the problem is not wise.

    Likely, the Army will stress diversity, attempt to increase recruiting among blacks (at an increased cost- lower propensity to join means higher recruiting costs), and, at worst, a unspoken quota system for those few black officers that do choose combat arms; in effect, if you’re black and breathing, you get promoted.

    Ironically, as mentioned in the comments at FP, there was a time when the Army virtually excluded black officers from the combat arms, even for black regiments. To be black and in the Army in World War II was one thing, to be black and in the combat arms in the Army in World War II was a source of great pride. And ultimately, I’d argue that it was one of the germs of the civil rights movement. A man who will fight and shed blood just as red as a white man’s was obviously as due respect and equal treatment as the rest of the population.

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  • Ship crews face litany of maintenance problems | Navy Times | navytimes.com

    But that seems easier said than done. Sailors said they are increasingly mired in the mess that routine maintenance has become. Even things that should be a quick hit — something as simple as laying non-skid surface on a frigate’s tiny O3 level weather deck — is burdened by paperwork, conflicting requirements and the lack of contract flexibility. Similarly, civilians said they have insufficient visibility of what is happening on ships to better assess maintenance issues.

    via Ship crews face litany of maintenance problems | Navy Times | navytimes.com.

    Paperwork is a huge part of any maintenance program. It simply has to be. If it wasn’t written down, it didn’t happen. Especially when you’re talking about a billion dollar asset that you expect to use for 30 years.

    But with so many things, sometimes, the process becomes the product. There’s a very strong pull in some maintenance programs to focus so much on ensuring the paperwork looks right, that actually making sure the physical plant is in good shape falls to the wayside.

    Couple that with the sclerotic contracting system that generates inefficiency, a virtual monopsony in ship repair, and a lack of skilled civilian workforce, and the Navy’s in deep trouble.

    Guess it’s time to roll out some more NKO training on SHARP and trafficking in persons. You know, the important stuff.