In 2004, I was a boot (translation: brand new) first lieutenant in 1st Battalion, 7th Marines at a retransmission site in the middle of nowhere, al-Qa’im, Iraq. I heard a sudden explosion and small-arms fire two kilometers away. The battalion radio net burst with chatter, with someone saying there were three casualties: two urgent surgicals (send help quickly!) and one routine (no rush to provide aid). Someone in the operating center asked about the status of the routine casualty, and the radio crackled with the kind of transmission that changes everything.
Browsing: All news
Category Added in a WPeMatico Campaign
Editor’s note: This is the ninth article in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. The special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.In September 2010, after a Chinese fishing trawler captain was detained near the Senkaku Islands, Beijing halted rare-earth exports to Japan. The embargo lasted weeks. China showed, on a U.S.
The post The Exclusion Of Tomorrow’s Defenders appeared first on Armed Forces Press.
A growing body of reports has indicated that the Bohai Shipyard in the Chinese city of Huludao has launched the first Type 095 class nuclear powered attack submarine, marking a major milestone on the modernisation of the People’s Liberation Army Navy as the first of a large fleet of planned third generation submarines. The Type 095 class is intended to succeed and significantly outperform the earlier Type 093 class ships that currently form the backbone of the nuclear powered combat fleet.
The Russian Aerospace Forces have received a new batch of Su-35S long range air superiority fighters from the state run United Aircraft Corporation, as sustained wartime efforts to expand production have allowed for significantly higher delivery rates. The fighter type has increasingly formed the backbone of the Russian combat fleet, with continued deliveries since the aircraft’s service entry in 2014 now bringing estimated numbers to over 150 aircraft.
U.S. forces carried out attacks on multiple Iranian targets along the Persian Gulf Monday night, in what U.S. Central Command called “self-defense strikes.”
“U.S. forces conducted self-defense strikes in southern Iran today to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces,” CENTCOM spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins said in a statement. “Targets included missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to emplace mines. U.S. Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire.
Summary and Key Points: NASA received an SR-71 Blackbird in the 1970s despite being officially prohibited from possessing the strategic reconnaissance variant. To conceal the jet, the agency disguised it as a YF-12A interceptor and assigned it a fake tail number — 60-6937 — that actually belonged to a classified Lockheed A-12 whose existence remained secret until 1982.
-The primary visual difference between the two aircraft was the nose shape and forward chine configuration.
-The jet was eventually returned to the Air Force.
Japan’s Soryu-class diesel-electric attack submarine achieves something once considered impossible for non-nuclear boats: weeks of submerged operation without surfacing. The Kockums Stirling AIP engine, licensed from Sweden, burns diesel fuel with liquid oxygen to generate power without breaching the surface. Later Soryu models replaced lead-acid batteries with lithium-ion systems, increasing speed, endurance, and stealth simultaneously.
HMS Vanguard was laid down in 1941 and commissioned on August 9, 1946 — after the war she was built for had already ended. At 814 feet, 30 knots, and armed with 97 guns, including four twin 15-inch main turrets, she was the largest and most capable battleship the Royal Navy ever produced. She never fired those guns in anger. The Cold War made her obsolete before she could prove herself. In 1960, just before decommissioning, she was used to film interior scenes for “Sink the Bismarck.” Two years later, she was scrapped at Faslane.
Summary and Key Points: Seven weeks after the Soviet Union dissolved, a Russian Sierra-class submarine designated K-276 Crab surfaced directly beneath the USS Baton Rouge in the Barents Sea, striking the American Los Angeles-class attack submarine from below. Both boats returned to port under their own power. The Russian crew painted a victory star on their sail.
-The USS Baton Rouge was quietly decommissioned in 1995 — the first Los Angeles-class ever retired — with analysts attributing its early exit to pressure-hull damage the Navy never publicly acknowledged.