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It’s about the most useful item the U.S. military has ever issued and has earned a soft spot in every servicemember’s heart for its versatility and the cozy comfort it delivers when Mother Nature turns against you.

But while the success of the elegant square of quilted heaven rests largely on its simplicity, it has recently received a much-needed update that’ll deepen a trooper’s smile.

Enter the Woobie 2.0.

Marines are now being issued the so-called “enhanced poncho liner,” which to most of those who’ve cuddled up to its synthetic-filled goodness will notice has a huge upgrade that many a servicemember has been clamoring for for years. The new version of the woobie keeps its various tie down points and parachute chord loops, but adds a heavy-duty reversible zipper to turn the thing into a no joke cammo cocoon.

via www.wearethemighty.com

I'm not really sure this was needed, but when it comes time to replace the current poncho liner here, I'll consider this.

Light Armored Vehicles executing a live fire exercise. Looks like great fun. Note how the barrel of the M242 25mm gun is fluted to provide more surface area for heat dissipation.

U.S. Marines with Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion conduct live-fire assault using LAV-25 (Light Armored Vehicle) in the country of Georgia. Filmed during exercise Agile Spirit 16, September 3-8, 2016.
Film Credits: Sgt Kirstin Merrimarahajara, Sgt Michelle Reif

Hey, if I have to spend 10 minutes writing an email to a friend about strategy (and 10 minutes reading about it!), I’m not going to let that go to waste. In reply to a friend’s email on the subject of Clausewitz and strategy, I had this to say:

As to the Center of Gravity, I’m reminded of the Transportation Plan argument of early 1944. The Army Air Force was thinking strategically, and clearly the most remunerative target for bombardment was oil production. Oil production was the center of gravity as far as they were concerned. No oil, no fighting.  But the problem was, they were thinking strategically in isolation. That is, what is the most remunerative target for bombers?

The real strategic thinkers understood that strategically, the Allied forces had to land in northern Europe and come to grips with the Wehrmacht and destroy it.

And the only way to do that was to land in Normandy. And to successfully secure a beachhead that would support such an offensive meant that enemy logistics had to be sufficiently disrupted that the Allies could build up their forces (on exterior lines of communication) than the Germans could on interior lines. And so the Transportation Plan won. And for over 60 years, the airpower guys have complained about attacking tactical (really, operational) level targets. But attacking tactical or operational targets to ensure fulfillment of a strategic objective is, in the end, good strategy. Because, in the end, the Wehrmacht was truly the German center of gravity. No Wehrmacht, no fighting.

Jeff Bezos was willing to write off the booster, as this was its fifth flight, and it was thought the exhaust from the escape system would overwhelm the booster’s guidance and navigation. In fact, the booster flew a completely nominal profile, and will instead be retired to a museum.

The Marine Corps is a unique organization. It’s infantry is very light, compared to US Army mechanized formations, yet its supporting arms are a huge slice of its manpower and budget. By design, because shipping space is so tight, the Marine units of a landing force don’t have a lot of organic firepower. They make up that shortfall by having a lot of dedicate fire support. A key component of that, dating all the way back to the 1920s, is Marine aviation. Where doctrinally an Army unit looks to its artillery for fire support, a Marine unit looks to its aviation. Close air support as we know it today was a Marine invention, and they are past masters at it.

Oh, and for all the love of the A-10, the Marines are quite happy to perform CAS without it.

Not a bad start to the day

A video posted by Ryan Chamberlain (@chamberlain41) on Sep 28, 2016 at 11:46am PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

Sorry, didn’t have a chance to narrate. I’ll upload another, longer, narrated video later.

The US Navy’s air defense Standard missile family evolved from the original Terrier/Tartar air defense missiles of the 1950s. And the Standard missile has been subject to a continuous series of improvements to the electronics, warhead, and motors. It’s kinda like George Washington’s hatchet- three new handles and two new blades since he owned it, but it’s still his old hatchet.

The latest production version of the Standard missile is the SM-6, or RIM-174 Extended Range Active Missile.

The SM-6 is fired from Aegis equipped DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyers, and CG-47 Ticonderoga class cruisers. Since their introduction to the fleet in the early 1980s, the main battery of Aegis ships has been the semi-active radar homing (SARH) SM-2 missile. A pencil beam radar aboard the ship called an illuminator tracks the target, and the SM-2 flies toward the reflected radar energy.

But the illuminator radar has a limited range, right about 90-100 nautical miles. And improvements in search radar, and more importantly, improvements in rocket motors, means the Standard Missile family can fly much further than that.

And so the US Navy and Raytheon got together and built an improved Standard missile. The M72 thrust vectored booster from the anti-ballistic missile SM-3 was added to increase range. And a variant of the active radar seeker from the AIM-120 air to air missile was placed in the nose.

In a typical engagement, the Aegis ship’s SPY-1 radar will track a target. When an SM-6 is launched, steering commands embedded in the radar signal from the SPY-1 will tell the missile’s autopilot the best course to steer for the future point of intercept. These steering commands are regularly updated until the missile is close enough to the target that it’s own active radar seeker can acquire the target. Once that happens, the SM-6 steers itself to intercept.

Of course, now the Navy found itself with a missile that had a longer range than the Aegis system. That opened up the possibility of Cooperative Engagement Capability. Previous datalink systems such as NTDS allowed ships in the network to share a common picture of air and surface contacts (known as tracks) but the resolution was rather poor. But newer datalinks, with greater bandwidth and the resolution provided by GPS, means that a sensor can provide fire control quality resolution to the network.

For instance, let us suppose that an E-2D Hawkeye is flying a surveillance patrol in support of a carrier battle group. It detects an inbound strike of enemy aircraft. The battle group’s own Combat Air Patrol is poorly positioned to intercept. The E-2D can, however, through its datalinks, enable an SM-6 shot at the target well before the battle group’s Aegis ships even paint the strike on their radars.

Just how far can SM-6 engage?*

Well, the Navy isn’t saying. It did, however, last week announce that they’ve made the longest ranged ever surface to air missile interception using an SM-6.

There’s a lot of speculation, but the range numbers tossed out most frequently are 200 to 250 nautical miles.

That means a ship operating off Boston harbor could engage targets over New York city. And that’s pretty impressive for a missile family that started with an effective range of about 15 miles.