That was a terrible, ugly incident and the perp should be executed IMHO.
But, to say that the news in all of the services is like this today is a gross exaggeration and something I will not let pass without comment.
Actually I Was using
Today literally that day all four services had an airing of dirty laundry; the Marines Had Rape charges the navy had a report released on Sexual assaults, the air force i think was looking into murders.
ff
Army Times said:
Concerns raised about new Army cannon
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Mar 23, 2009 11:06:43 EDT
OKLAHOMA CITY — A new Army cannon that’s partly being assembled in southwest Oklahoma is being rushed into the field prematurely, congressional auditors said.
The Government Accountability Office said the cannons are being produced years before key elements are ready, The Oklahoman reported from its Washington bureau.
The cannons are part of the Army’s Future Combat System and part of the assembly work is being done in Elgin just outside Fort Sill.
The GAO said production on the cannon is beginning five years before decisions are made about key components of the Future Combat System.
The Future Combat System is a $159 billion Army program to transform into a lighter, more mobile force.
If the other manned ground vehicles that will be part of the Future Combat System don’t match up with the early cannons, “costly rework of the cannons may be necessary if they will ever be used for other than training purposes,” the GAO, which is Congress’ investigative arm, said in a report.
A House Armed Services subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Thursday about progress being made on the Future Combat System.
There are eight prototypes of the self-propelled cannon being evaluated at the Army Evaluation Task Force at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Twelve to 18 cannons are scheduled to be produced at a cost of about $500 million in the next three years and assigned to a battalion at Fort Bliss.
Paul Mehney, an Army spokesman for the Future Combat System, said the prototypes and the first cannons to be fielded will provide valuable information and testing results for the rest of the program.
Sen. Jim Inhofe and Rep. Tom Cole have touted the new cannons as replacements for the aging Paladin system used by artillery units at Fort Sill.
too some people Any Spending on new Army vehicles is a bad thing and yet in this economy such projects generate Jobs and keep the US where she should be the spear tip of liberty
Also Army times said:
Sniper range may hit 1,200 meters soon
Plan: M24 chambered for .300 Win Mag
By Matthew Cox - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 23, 2009 11:07:01 EDT
Army snipers could soon have a weapon capable of killing enemy fighters out to 1,200 meters, which is 400 meters beyond the range of the current-issue sniper rifle.
Program Executive Office Soldier is working on a plan to outfit units that need their snipers to shoot out to 1,200 meters with a modified M24 sniper rifle chambered for the .300 Winchester Magnum.
The Army began replacing the bolt-action M24 with the M110 Semiautomatic Sniper System in late 2007 to give snipers a rapid-fire weapon for engaging multiple targets in urban areas. Both rifles are chambered for 7.62mm NATO ammunition and have an effective range of about 800 meters.
Many in the sniper community disliked the decision, arguing that the M24’s simple bolt-action design has fewer moving parts and is more accurate than a more complex semi-auto design.
The complaints prompted 25th Infantry Division officials in Hawaii to write an Operational Needs Statement last summer that involved sending their M24s to the gun’s maker, Remington Arms Co. in Madison, N.C., to be retrofitted to .300 Win Mag instead of turning them in to the Army.
PEO Soldier Commander Brig. Gen Peter Fuller said he will support the request as a short-term solution for giving the Army a longer range sniper rifle.
“We are supporting units that are asking for modified M24s in .300 Win Mag,” if they have an operational needs statement for such a capability, Fuller recently told Army Times.
Both the Army and Marine Corps are working a long-range sniper rifle designed to kill an enemy from as far out as 1,800 meters.
Both services use versions of a .50-caliber sniper rifle that is effective out to 2,500 meters, but the 30-pound weapon is mainly intended to destroy large nonhuman targets such as light-skinned vehicles.
“We realize there is a gap in between those two, 800 to 2,500 meters,” Fuller said, cautioning that this is a short-term fix.
“Do you want to have a program of record or do you want to keep pushing things into gaps? There are a lot of vendors out there,” he said. “How do you ensure you have a fair and open competition to make sure the best opportunity comes forward and not just one because we did an operational needs statement?”
The caliber upgrade for the M24 is not a new concept. Special operations units such as the 75th Ranger Regiment have been shooting M24s chambered in .300 Win Mag since the late 1990s.
The 25th ID’s upgrade effort involves sending the existing M24s to Remington, where they will be fitted with a new barrel, a new bolt face, a special folding stock and a more powerful optic. Each upgrade would cost about $4,000, Remington officials have estimated. Standard M24s cost about $6,700.
It’s still unclear how the modifications will be handled, Fuller said.
“When units have their own unique systems, how do you maintain that across the Army?” he asked. “We have to think through this; at some point, musical chairs are going to stop and you are not going to be able to do your own thing.”
funny thing Remington also makes a special version of the M24 in.338 LM that would more then increase the range and If properly set up could even be as compact too carry via a folding stock. and for the record the .300SM mod was actually built in from the Start as M24 Rifles use a bolt Sized too load the round where marine Rifles use one for .308 and smaller.
[QUOTE="Inside the new, longer Red Flag"']
Combat exercise resculpted to more resemble look of war
By Erik Holmes - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 23, 2009 15:46:53 EDT
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — Taxiing toward the Nellis Air Force Base runway on a morning in early March was one of the most impressive gatherings of combat aircraft in the world. In numbers and sophistication, the procession taking off that day was more than a match for the most potent enemy threat.
But the aircraft hurtling down the runway weren’t pointed at Tehran or Pyongyang, and it wasn’t war — they were pointed toward the casinos of the Las Vegas Strip and it was just another day at Red Flag.
Yet, something significant was happening. The nearly 100 aircraft from 21 bases in three nations — 30 more aircraft than last year — were testing the most far-reaching changes in the combat exercise’s more-than-30-year history.
The exercise expanded from two weeks to three weeks for the first time, and instead of a series of primarily air-to-air sorties, planners reshaped Red Flag into a simulated air campaign that more closely mirrors how a real war would unfold. Stealth aircraft were sent in first to defeat the most advanced threats, and then legacy aircraft were dispatched to destroy easier targets and support troops on the ground.
“This exercise was different because ... day one was the most advanced threat,” said Lt. Col. Paul Johnson, Red Flag’s director of operations. “We always advertise that we’re going to crawl, run and then walk. Well, this one we started with running. We tried to make it more realistic in that respect.”
Red Flag officials said the trial that ran Feb. 23 to March 14 was largely successful, but no decisions have been made on whether the new format will become permanent. More time and more aircraft mean more money, and the added costs have to be weighed against the benefits. Air Combat Command will make the final decision, but officials did not say when.
Several pilots who flew in the exercise said the extra week, campaign format and greater number of participants provided better training overall.
Lt. Col. Adrian “Elmo” Spain, an F-22 pilot and commander of the 94th Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Va., said the new Red Flag offers more opportunities for different airframes to practice together, which is particularly important for a relatively new aircraft such as the Raptor.
“We wanted to integrate more fully with people we would see in those particular missions, [so] we don’t go into war with false expectations from each other,” Spain said.
That’s the kind of training only Red Flag can provide, said Flying Officer Jasper “Reps” McCaldin, an F-111 pilot with the Royal Australian Air Force.
“I’m one of the youngest ... pilots we’ve got here, so for me just integrating into that large-force employment [and] having the threats out there on the range at Red Flag [are] just invaluable,” McCaldin said. “You’ll never get anything like that anywhere else in the world.”
Three-part war
The new Red Flag, as before, is conducted at the 12,000-square-mile Nevada Test and Training Range north of Las Vegas. It is divided into three parts running about a week each.
First is the global strike portion, which had never been done at Red Flag. Global strike is what strategists refer to as “kicking down the door” — knocking out the most dangerous surface-to-air missiles and other defenses with your most survivable, stealthy aircraft.
“You take down the critical parts of that air defense system,” Johnson said. “You take those out with the low-observable assets, and now you’ve created a more permissive environment for the less stealthy aircraft to go in and do their jobs.”
A global strike package ideally involves F-22s and B-2 bombers with support from tankers, Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft and RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance birds.
Red Flag planners weren’t able to get a B-2 for the latest exercise; instead, a single F-22 stood in to act as a B-2 and flew a simulated bombing mission. The substitution worked reasonably well, Johnson said, but the global strike scenario was diminished by not having the real-life mission planning the B-2 personnel would have brought.
The second week is similar to a traditional large-force exercise. F-22s were joined by less survivable aircraft such as C- and E-model F-15s, F-16s, Australian F-111s and British F-3 Tornadoes.
The friendly, or blue, force, air-to-air fighters — F-22s, F-15Cs and F-3s — try to shoot down the F-15C and F-16 aggressor aircraft flown by the 64th and 65th Aggressor squadrons at Nellis.
Aggressor pilots study intelligence reports about foreign countries’ air forces and operate their own aircraft, missiles and radars to emulate the most advanced threats fielded by nations such as Russia and China. There are also surface-to-air missile sites on the ground that blue forces must detect and destroy.
“That’s what guys expect when they come out here for Red Flag,” said Capt. Shayne Sullivan, an F-16 aggressor pilot and weapons assistant director of operations with the 64th Aggressor Squadron. “They want to get trained against the most advanced threat.”
After the blue air-to-air fighters have suppressed the aggressor threat, F-15E, F-16 and F-111 strike aircraft penetrate the enemy’s airspace and attack ground targets ranging from vehicle convoys to SAM sites. Then the strike aircraft egress the area under the protection of the remaining air-to-air fighters.
This phase of Red Flag also involves C-130s, which practice dropping cargo and troops behind enemy lines.
The large-force exercise is far more complex, intense and valuable than what aircrews typically get at their home bases, said Capt. Matt “Bam” Mayer, an F-15E weapon systems officer with the 389th Fighter Squadron at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho.
“The air space here is ... bigger, [but] it can get pretty small when you put 100 airplanes in one piece of sky,” Mayer said. “It’s like a big traffic jam out there. ... Staying on top of your game and making sure you don’t hit anybody and they don’t hit you would probably be one of the more challenging things.”
The final week of the retooled Red Flag is dedicated to close-air support — the most common mission flown by fighter and attack pilots in Iraq and Afghanistan — and combat search-and-rescue.
While CAS and CSAR have played a role in Red Flag for years, they have never been the sole focus of a separate segment of the exercise.
In the CAS scenarios, joint terminal attack controllers were dropped into enemy territory to call in airstrikes from A-10s. On the CSAR side, personnel were dropped and then located and rescued by HH-60 helicopters.
After all missions — whether global strike, traditional Red Flag, or CAS and CSAR — aircrews are thoroughly debriefed. They review tapes from their heads-up displays and watch a replay of the mission on the Nellis Air Combat Training System, which shows the location and actions of all aircraft. Pilots receive instruction on what they did right, what they did wrong and how to avoid being killed in the future.
“Those lessons will be learned here and not on the first day of combat,” Johnson said.
More time for Raptors
Spain, the F-22 pilot, has participated in several Red Flags, but this was his first flying the Raptor.
It was the fourth time F-22s have participated in the exercise, but this time they had two full weeks of flying time and could fly both global strike and traditional air-to-air missions. Spain said this experience is critical in helping pilots practice and refine the way they fly the fifth-generation jets.
“We wanted as much as they could give us so we can really validate the [tactics, techniques and procedures] and see where we aren’t as good as we want to be,” he said.
The Raptors’ advanced radars make them extremely proficient at defeating enemy aircraft, and they usually kill F-15Cs and F-16s with ease.
One of the main goals in bringing the F-22s to Red Flag, Spain said, is to practice operating them in conjunction with other aircraft — a necessary strategy in any future war since the Air Force will not have enough F-22s to rely on them alone.
And the Raptor’s much-touted avionics suite gathers a tremendous amount of situational awareness data that pilots must learn to analyze and share with other aircraft.
“We have to manage that data,” Spain said, “and we have to manage it in a way that allows us to get if off our jet and out of our mouths so the rest of the participants can benefit.”
Neither Sullivan nor Johnson — who also flies as an aggressor — would say whether a stealthy F-22 has been killed at Red Flag, but Johnson won’t discount the possibility and wouldn’t mind the chance.
“If you get the F-22 where you can see it visually with your eyeballs, anything can happen,” he said. “As a red air guy who flies with the aggressors, it’s not quite as fun when you can’t see the dude and you’re being called dead.”[/QUOTE]
I Just finished a good book on one of the special parts that the USAF used too bring too Red flag the 4477th Red Eagles America's Force of Mig Aggressors they actualy used too Fly real Migs in red flag, the respectable Mig 17's the venerable Mig 21's and the disgusting Mig 23's
