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Normally it behooves the services to stay detached from the political sphere. But if Congress doesn’t pass a defense budget this year, and instead simply keeps operating under a continuing resolution, the services are  going to run out of money next month.

It’s bad enough that the Army felt compelled to post a news release on its actual web site.

WASHINGTON (Army News Service) — Right now, the U.S. Army is operating on a "continuing resolution" for its funding. That’s not a real budget, not one that plans can be laid out against, and it’s a situation that if it continues will mean that Army training will cease sometime this summer.
"Funding under a continuing resolution for a year will result in a dramatic decrease in training, starting next month, in May," said Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Mark A. Milley. "By July 15, all Army training will cease, except those units deploying to Afghanistan or Iraq."
With the exception of those units who are scheduled to go into combat operations, Milley told lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday that combat training center rotations would stop if the Army doesn’t get a budget.
What will also stop, he said, is Basic Combat Training — the training that turns young civilian Americans into Soldiers.
Milley pointed to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, as an example. That location is one of four where the Army conducts BCT for new Soldiers. Other locations include Fort Sill, Oklahoma; Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; and Fort Benning, Georgia.
"At Fort Jackson alone, on an annual basis, we train — we recruit and bring in to Basic Combat Training — the equivalent of the British Army, every year," Milley said.

And it isn’t just the Army. All services will essentially have to cease all training operations.

And given the parlous state of readiness throughout the forces, any suspension of training operations will simply dig that hole oh so much deeper.

We’re not a hollow force right now, but we’re not nearly as robust and resilient as we  like to think we are.

One wonders how much things have changed, and how much remains the same.

Watch the awesome secondary batteries of the Tier VIII German battleship wreak havoc.

In August of 1974, I was living at NAS Whidbey Island. One advantage of living there was that the air station had an annual  air show, and the Blue Angels, already in the area for Seattle’s SeaFest, were routinely available to perform at the air show.

Switching from the F-4 Phantom to the petite A-4 Skyhawk in 1973, mostly to save on fuel costs, the Blue Angels the rock stars of Naval Aviation in those days. And for my money, the A-4 was the prettiest plane the Blues have ever flown. While it lacks the speed and raw power of the  preceding F-4, and succeeding F-18, its fabulous roll rate, and trim, neat outline make it the best airshow plane ever.

As it happens, at the time, my  dad was serving as CO of NAS Whidbey. Not unsurprisingly, this came with a few perks. For instance, just after the airshow, the skipper of the Blue Angels, then CDR Tony Less paid a courtesy call on dad. And of course, I got to have a pic taken with him!

Tony Less would retire as a Vice Admiral. I’d get my ass kicked for wearing Sears Toughskins jeans.

Gneisenau goes one on one with New Mexico. Pro-tip, the New Mexico should have tried to keep it at stand-off range. He’s got more guns, a terrible secondary battery, and looks like he forgot about the torpedoes.

No bomb design has been as much maligned or otherwise disparaged as the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon. Detonated in August 1953, the bomb, officially tested under the name RDS-6s but usually known as Sloika or “layer cake” (the name Andrei Sakharov coined for it), was nothing to sneeze at. Shown in figure 1 and able to be dropped from aircraft, it released the explosive equivalent, or yield, of almost half a megaton of TNT. The result was a blazing fireball with 20 times the power of the bomb that leveled Nagasaki, Japan.

via physicstoday.scitation.org

A very interesting look at the development of thermonuclear weapons in the Soviet Union.

Just  a brief overview of the IGE for new players.

The Montana isn’t usually known as a close in slugger, but between a cyclone reducing visibility, and some poor play by my opponents, I had a chance to rack up some pretty good numbers.

Almost since Beechcraft started producing light twin turboprops, all the US services have been operating them as utility aircraft, trainers, and as intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance platforms.

The latest variant to be fielded is the US Army’s MC-12S. Based on the Beechcraft Super King Air 350 ER, the planes are used to provide both full motion day/night video surveillance and a significant electronic intelligence collection capability in low threat airspaces. Due to funding and development issues, the actual mission equipment varies across the fleet. The end state desired is known as Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System – Multi-Intelligence (EMARSS-M). Some of the airframes are modified MC-12W Liberty recon birds turned over from the US Air Force recently. The Air Force used their full motion video capability in support of Task Force ODIN, a counter IED operation. While they retain that capability in Army service, they can simultaneously conduct ELINT operations.

Another variant of the MC-12S carries a synthetic aperture radar with Moving Target Indicator capability known as the AN/ZPY-5 VADER, or Vehicle And Dismount Exploitation Radar. Basically, it’s a radar sensitive enough to track individuals on foot.

In March of 2016, a Beech Super King Air crashed in Iraq. Interestingly, it was in civilian markings, with a civilian registry. But it was also quite clearly modified for some sort of ISR role, and the registration clearly showed it belonged to the US Army. Exactly what it’s mission was is unknown.

Now, the MC-12S and its variants aren’t a secret. But nobody likes to go into too much detail of what they do, how they do it, and where and  when they do it.  But they will show off a little bit.

Don’t like where you’re spawned? Drive across the entire map. Don’t like planes spotting you? Sink the carriers!