US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jun. 13, 2014 - 12:16PM |

By Joe Gould
Staff report Army times
FILED UNDER
News
Military Technology
The Army is a step closer to fielding a shorter, lighter, more accurate and more reliable 7.62mm NATO compact semi-automatic sniper system.

The service on Thursday issued a solicitation for proposals to replace the M110 SASS. The acquisitions office, Project Manager Soldier Weapons, intends to field a sniper rifle that is easier to carry, handle and maneuver in close quarters combat.

Along with ergonomic and weight upgrades, the weapon is intended to have advanced coatings; improved optics; reduced felt recoil; enhanced suppressor performance; enhanced modular rail capabilities; an improved bipod, trigger, pistol grip, and buttstock.

The Army plans to award a contract worth up to $44.5 million, starting with 30 of the weapons for a two-year series of production and operational tests.

After testing, the Army would purchase the weapons themselves — up to 3,643 of them — and then a technical data package as well as the rights to modify and reproduce.

Companies seeking to compete would either offer a new system or a means to retrofit the existing M110 SASS.

The SASS can be lethal at 800 meters. The CSASS will have matched or better capability at a 36-inch length and nine pounds, 10 inches shorter and seven pounds lighter than the SASS.?

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FAST Marines, U.S. soldiers arrive at the U.S. Embassy compound in Iraq
Jun. 16, 2014 - 03:49PM |

By Gina Harkins and Andrew Tilghman
Staff writers Military times

The Pentagon has deployed about 100 troops — including more than 50 Marines attached to a Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team to the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, Iraq, to help protect diplomatic personnel and property.

Meanwhile, President Obama is considering miltiary action against the Islamic insurgents, who have seized vast swaths of northern Iraq and are moving south toward the capital. Several U.S. warships have moved into the Persian Gulf, where they provide “the commander in chief additional options to protect American citizens and interests in Iraq, should he choose to use them,” said Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, on Monday.

The arrival of FAST Marines and a contingent of U.S. soldiers on the ground in Iraq on Sunday marked the first operational deployment of U.S. troops there since the withdrawal of combat forces in December 2011. Pentagon officials declined to identify the Army unit deployed to Baghdad. The Marine platoon is based out of nearby Bahrain, and is tasked with protecting American personnel and property, said Master Sgt. William Price, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Central Command.

FAST Marines are the traditional go-to assets when U.S. embassies require reinforcement in times of crises. The Marine Corps has two more forward-deployed FAST elements in Spain and Japan.

“This is a temporary thing,” Kirby said Monday. “There is no intention that this is any kind of permanent plus up. They are there temporarily, to assist with some relocation of some personnel who work at the embassy. They are not engaged in ferrying to and fro anyone. No military aircraft … is being used to ferry these folks.”

On Monday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the amphibious transport dock Mesa Verde, part of the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, to enter the Persian Gulf. It joins the carrier George H. W. Bush, which Hagel ordered to enter the Gulf on Saturday.

The carrier brings F/A-18 Super Hornets that could provide air strike capability over Iraq. The Mesa Verde carries more Marines, all members of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, along with MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft that will be in standby in case the State Department needs support to completely evacuate the embassy in Baghdad.

Also entering the Persian Gulf Saturday was the guided-missile cruiser Philippine Sea and the guided-missile destroyer Truxtun. The ships carry Tomahawk missiles that could reach inland Iraq.

Insurgents with an al-Qaida-offshoot group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, appear to be approaching Baghdad from three sides: from Anbar province in the west, from Samara and Tikrit in the north, and also from northwestern Diyala province, which is within 50 miles of the capital. Reports suggest their advance has slowed since approaching Baghdad and moving into places with large Shiite populations.

While the ISIS force is not large — estimates suggest no more than several thousand personnel inside Iraq — the group’s stunning series of victories largely resulted from the widespread desertion of thousands of Iraqi security forces. An ISIS force of about 800 fighters reportedly routed two Iraqi Army divisions totaling about 30,000 troops in Mosul during a brief battle last week.

As the Iraqi troops have melted away, the ISIS force has seized some of its American-made military gear, including Humvees and possibly even some helicopters, according to photos released by ISIS forces. But U.S. military officials say it remains unclear how much weaponry the ISIS force took and what is operational impact might be.

For now, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is scheduled to remain open, but some staff will be temporarily relocated amid growing violence and instability in Iraq, according to a statement Sunday from Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman.

Kirby said the relocation of those personnel is being facilitated aboard commercial, charter and State Department aircraft. But the military has airlift assets “at the ready” should the State Department request them, he added.

The Marines’ ability to quickly deploy and enhance security at diplomatic posts is one of the service’s central missions since the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

When Congress demanded better protection of diplomatic facilities and personnel across the globe, the Marine Corps added 1,000 new embassy security guards. That included the creation of a new group called the Marine Security Augmentation Unit made up of teams of trained embassy guards. Those teams can be summoned directly by an ambassador if intelligence indicates the threat of an attack.

The Marine Corps also stood up a new crisis response force, made up of nearly 1,000 Marines. That unit is based in Europe, and is designed to respond to diplomatic crises in Africa. Plans call for a creation of similar crisis-response force in the Middle East.

The U.S. military withdrew its forces in 2011 in large part because the Iraqi government refused to grant U.S. troops legal immunity from prosecution in local Iraqi courts. Since 2011, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq has been capped at a few hundred uniformed personnel working at the embassy, and those troops have legal protections as embassy workers despite the lack of a formal Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq.

Kirby said Monday the additional troops sent into Iraq this weekend are not at risk legally. “I would expect that all the legal protections they need, they have,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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More U.S. troops to Iraq; Special Forces considered
Jun. 16, 2014 - 08:34PM |


By Julie Pace and Lara Jakes
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is urgently deploying several hundred armed troops in and around Iraq and considering sending an additional contingent of Special Forces soldiers as Baghdad struggles to repel a rampant insurgency, even as the White House insists anew that America will not be dragged into another war.

President Obama notified Congress Monday that up to 275 troops could be sent to Iraq to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the American Embassy in Baghdad. About 170 of those forces have already arrived and another 100 soldiers be on standby in a nearby country until they are needed, a U.S. official said.

While Obama has vowed to keep U.S. forces out of combat in Iraq, he said in his notification to Congress that the personnel moving into the region are equipped for direct fighting.

And separately, three U.S. officials said the White House was considering sending a contingent of Special Forces soldiers to Iraq. Their limited mission — which has not yet been approved — would focus on training and advising beleaguered Iraqi troops, many of whom have fled their posts across the nation’s north and west as the al-Qaida-inspired insurgency has advanced in the worst threat to the country since American troops left in 2011.

The moves come at the White House wrestles with an array of options for helping Iraq repel a Sunni Muslim insurgency that has captured large swaths of territory collaring Baghdad, the capital of the Shiite-led government. In a rare move, U.S. officials reached out to Iran Monday to discuss ways the long-time foes might help stop the militants known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The conversations took place on the sidelines of separate nuclear negotiations taking place in Vienna, Austria. U.S. officials quickly tamped down speculation that the discussion might include military coordination or consultation, though Secretary of State John Kerry said in an interview with Yahoo! News that the U.S. would “not rule out anything that would be constructive.”

Kerry stressed that any contacts with Iran would move “step-by-step.”

Taken together, the developments suggest a willingness by Obama to send Americans into a collapsing security situation in order to quell the brutal fighting in Iraq before it morphs into outright war.

The White House said the forces authorized for support and security will assist with the temporary relocation of some staff from the Baghdad embassy. The forces are entering Iraq with the consent of that country’s government, the White House said.

Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said the troops on standby could “provide airfield management, security, and logistics support, if required.” They could work with embassy security teams or operate as a stand-alone force as directed.

Officials would not say where the soldiers would be on standby, but It is likely they would be in Kuwait, which was a major basing ground for U.S. troops during the Iraq war.

If the U.S. were to deploy an additional team of Special Forces, the mission would almost certainly be small. One U.S. official said it could be up to 100 Special Forces soldiers. It also could be authorized only as an advising and training mission — meaning the soldiers would work closely with Iraqi forces that are fighting the insurgency but would not officially be considered as combat troops.

The White House would not confirm that special operations forces were under consideration. But spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said that while Obama would not send troops back into combat, “he has asked his national security team to prepare a range of other options that could help support Iraqi security forces.”

It’s not clear how quickly the Special Forces could arrive in Iraq. It’s also unknown whether they would remain in Baghdad or be sent to the nation’s north, where the Sunni Muslim insurgency has captured large swaths of territory collaring Baghdad, the capital of the Shiite-led government.

The troops would fall under the authority of the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad and would not be authorized to engage in combat, another U.S. official said. Their mission would be “non-operational training” of both regular and counter terrorism units, which the military has in the past interpreted to mean training on military bases, the official said.

However, all U.S. troops are allowed to defend themselves in Iraq if they are under attack.

The three U.S. officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the plans by name.

Obama made the end of the war in Iraq one of his signature campaign issues, and has touted the U.S. military withdrawal in December 2011 as one of his top foreign policy successes. But he has been caught over the past week between Iraqi officials pleading for help — as well as Republicans blaming him for the loss of a decade’s worth of gains in Iraq — and his anti-war Democratic political base, which is demanding that the U.S. stay out of the fight.

While the White House continues to review its options, Iran’s military leaders are starting to step into the beach.

The commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, was in Iraq on Monday and consulting with the government there on how to stave off insurgents’ gains. Iraqi security officials said the U.S. government was notified in advance of the visit by Soleimani, whose forces are a secretive branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that in the past has organized Shiite militias to target U.S. troops in Iraq and, more recently, was involved in helping Syria’s President Bashar Assad in his fight against Sunni rebels.

In fighting on Monday, the insurgents seized the strategic city of Tal Afar near the Syrian border, and an Iraqi army helicopter was shot down during clashes near the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad, killing the two-man crew, security officials said.

In the short term, the U.S. and Iran both want the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stabilized and the Sunni-led insurgency stopped. But in the long run, the United States would like to see an inclusive, representative democracy take hold in Iraq, while predominantly Shiite Iran is more focused on protecting Iraq’s Shiite population and bolstering its own position as a regional power against powerful Sunni Arab states in the Gulf.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said any discussion with Iran would concern ways that Iran could help press al-Maliki’s government to be more inclusive and treat all of Iraq’s religious and ethnic groups equally.

Any talks with Iran “would be to discuss the political component here and our interest in encouraging Iraqi leaders to act in a responsible, nonsectarian way,” she told reporters. “Certainly a discussion of that is something that we would be open to.”

AP writers Matthew Lee, Lolita Baldor and Ken Dilanian contributed to this report.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

before He suddenly remembered the embassy.

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Jura said:

that's cool:

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hope at some point somebody will put this on a warship

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Jeff Head said:

Raytheon already has stated that the Excalibur can fire from either the Mark 45 127mm naval gun fir the 5" projectile, or the 155mm AGS for the Zumwalts.

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Jeff Head said:

I have to believe they will eventually be used by both, given the latter varieties 40km range.

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