XBradTC

H/T FoxtrotAlpha

From the Whidbey News-Times–

Naval Air Station Whidbey Island is preparing to become the primary home on the West Coast for the Navy’s newest maritime patrol aircraft, the P-8A Poseidon.

The federal government is spending millions of dollars on construction on base as well as moving three P-3C Orion squadrons from Hawaii to Whidbey, consolidating operations with the four P-3 squadrons and one EP-3E squadron here.

Already, personnel from Hawaii and their families are arriving on Whidbey, and more are expected to arrive in the fall.

The Navy also is in the midst of transitioning from the aging P-3 turboprop to the P-8, a military version of the Boeing 737-800 built for sub-hunting, surveillance and surface ship attack.

Here’s a picture of NAS Whidbey circa 1943, with a ramp full of Lockheed PV-1 Venturas.

Dan Lamothe has an interesting post about the most recent Red Flag exercise held at Nellis Air Force Base last month.

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — U.S. military officers had just finished a mission in the Air Force’s premier exercise to train pilots for air-to-air combat, and something had gone wrong: Rank-and-file troops expected to carry out cyberattacks on enemy air defenses deviated from their plan without warning commanders and pilots.

The situation, described later by a few officers, created a “very excitable and heated” exchange during a post-mission debrief at the Air Force’s Red Flag training exercise, as it’s known, said Air Force Col. DeAnna Burt, a top commander at the exercise. U.S. troops carrying out cyber operations are expected to complete specific assignments, known as contracts. Doing so can create specific windows of time in which U.S. aircraft can attack while facing fewer threats, while deviating from that plan can put pilots at risk in an actual combat operation.

One of the interesting things to me, not really mentioned in the article, is the evolution of Red Flag. Red Flag, instituted after the Vietnam War, was originally designed to give a fighter wing a capstone training exercise, similar to an NTC rotation, that in essence was equivalent to the first 10 missions the wing might see in combat.  Statistically, the chances of getting shot down were much higher in the first 10 missions. If you got past that steep learning curve, your chances of survival went up dramatically. So, why not fly the first 10 in peacetime?

But in the ensuing 40 years, Red Flag has evolved to be a complex, joint and even unified exercise. And the focus has shifted somewhat from training the individual aircrews to instead training the leadership of an expeditionary force.

And aside from the training value, Red Flag has also become a sort of think tank, where new concepts and tactics can be tested. I mean, who knew the Air Force even had a Space Aggressor Squadron?

Read the whole thing.

WASHINGTON: Marines, turn off your iPhone and dig yourself a foxhole. That’s the Commandant’s message to young Marines, based on embarrassing experiences in recent exercises. As cheap drones and other surveillance technologies spread worldwide, said Gen. Robert Neller, US forces must re-learn how to hide — both physically and electronically — from increasingly tech-savvy adversaries.

“We’ve got to change the way we’re thinking….An adversary can see us just as we see them,” said Gen. Neller. “If you can be seen, you will be attacked.”

In particular, US field HQs have grown into notoriously large targets. In one exercise, Neller said, a Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters did almost everything right. They covered everything in camouflage netting — a largely lost art since 9/11 — and set up their radio antennas at a distance so a strike homing in on them wouldn’t hit the HQ itself. But old counterinsurgency habits die hard, and the Marines also put concertina wire around a key location. Seen from the air, the barbed wire glinted in the sun and made a shining circle, like a bull’s eye, around what it was supposed to protect.

“That was where the intel people where,” Neller said to laughter.

via breakingdefense.com

Watching Russian operations in Ukraine tells us that forces are increasingly vulnerable to targeting by non-traditional means, such as cheap drones and tracking personal electronics. And when targeted, those forces can quickly come under stupendous artillery storms.

Ukraine lost the better part of two tank battalions in 2014 when they massed for an attack. As soon as they were concentrated, the Russians simply pounded them into the dirt with a 10 minute barrage of tube and rocket artillery.

That type of threat is one US forces will increasingly face, either from Russian forces, or from the large number of countries that use Russian weapons and doctrine.

Be sure to read the entire article at this link, especially the last line.

Vietnam has discreetly fortified several of its islands in the disputed South China Sea with new mobile rocket launchers capable of striking China's runways and military installations across the vital trade route, according to Western officials.

Diplomats and military officers told Reuters that intelligence shows Hanoi has shipped the launchers from the Vietnamese mainland into position on five bases in the Spratly islands in recent months, a move likely to raise tensions with Beijing.

via www.reuters.com

The rockets are the Israeli "EXTRA" multiple launch rocket systems.

Which, it's interesting just how much cooperation there is between Vietnam and Israel.

That aside, the deployment (denied by Vietnam) of the system makes a lot of sense.

While the Chinese military presence in the Spratleys can coerce regional players in peacetime, raising tensions and always threatening escalation, the islands themselves are highly vulnerable should a shooting war erupt.

Mind you, the islands aren't the real threat. The real threat is that should Vietnam be forced to engage the islands, the PLA will then expand the war and actually attack Vietnam across their shared border, or impose a blockade on Haiphong (and what do you want to bet it wouldn't take them 8 years to make the decision to mine the harbor?).

Prior planning prevents piss poor performance.

1. No Warning Order

2.  No written Operations Order

3. No Commander’s Intent

4. No designated Main Effort

5. No priority of fires

6. No use of the Military Decision Making Process.

How can this battalion expect to achieve its objective?