Archive for May, 2009

Murdoc argued for a long time that one final servicing mission to the Space Telescope was important.

Atlantis and crew are on the pad waiting to go.

UPDATE: Liftoff.

Was white phosphorus used in Afghan battle?

Doctors voiced concern over “unusual” burns on Afghan villagers wounded in an already controversial U.S.-Taliban battle, and the country’s top human rights groups said Sunday it is investigating the possibility white phosphorus was used.

We’ll only hear about white phosphorus possibly being used by US or Israeli military forces about fifteen bazillion more times.

The American military denied using the incendiary in the battle in Farah province — which President Hamid Karzai has said killed 125 to 130 civilians — but left open the possibility that Taliban militants did. The U.S. says Taliban fighters have used white phosphorus, a spontaneously flammable material that leaves severe chemical burns on flesh, at least four times the last two years.

Oh, well never mind then. It’s only a story if it’s the good guys doing it. If the enemy does it, it’s probably because of our unfair foreign policy or Islamophobia or something. Whatever it is, we made them do it.

I also notice that Globalsecurity.com seems like it always gets mentioned in white phosphorus stories. And the napalm stories, too.

I’ll conclude with

Col. Greg Julian, the top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, said the U.S. did not use white phosphorus as a weapon in last week’s battle. The U.S. does use white phosphorous to illuminate the night sky, he said.

Julian noted that military officials believe that Taliban militants have used white phosphorus at least four times in Afghanistan in the past two years. “I don’t know if they (militants) had it out there or not, but it’s not out of the question,” he said.

A spokesman for the Taliban could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Emphasis Murdoc’s.

Boatswain Bobby Petree, a civilian mariner, fires a shot line to Military Sealift Command supply ship USNS Robert E. Peary (T-AKE 5) during an underway replenishment for the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20). Comfort received food and supplies along its route to the ship's third stop, Antigua and Barbuda, during Continuing Promise 2009 (CP09). CP09 combines U.S. military and interagency personnel, non-governmental organizations, civil service mariners, academic and partner nations to provide medical, dental, veterinary and engineering services afloat and ashore alongside host nation personnel. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jessica Snow/Released))

Gotta love the M14.

Iran helicopters strike Iraq Kurd villages
What could go wrong?

Irish soldiers in Chad banned from soccer and volleyball
Irish Soldiers serving with the UN in Chad are banned from playing soccer and volleyball because of the danger of injuries. This is good to see because we don’t want anyone…wait…WHAT?!?

Plug-In Hybrids: More Hype Than Hope?
The city of Seattle has more than 17,000 miles on a bunch of plug-n hybrids, but is only averaging 51 MPG so far. That’s pretty disappointing.

Britain To Remove Vector Vehicle From Afghan Operations
Admits it is too vulnerable.

‘As many as eight or nine assailants’
A large group staged a home invasion but ended up on the wrong side of gun.

F-35B passes key thrust test
Key vertical thrust test completed successfully.

First Navy JSF to be finished this summer
First F-35C will roll off the line soon.

Obama cuts target $465M GE-Rolls Royce engine
The F136 has been under constant attack for years. I fully expect that the F-35 is going to be an underperformer, and maybe the F136 alternative engine is a possible loophole to improve things. Or maybe it’s a just a huge money hole.

Pervert Clergy in Memphis
Ya know, if he were a Catholic priest, it would be national news. But, he’s not, so a local story it will remain.

Best Ranger kicks off at Benning
49 teams in the running.

Alternative fuel plans running on empty

The Air Force is by far the world’s largest customer of aviation fuel, spending about $6 billion a year on more than 3 billion gallons — nearly all of it from foreign sources.

However, I’ve noted previously that the USAF’s experimentation with coal-derived jet fuel cannot grow beyond the experimentation stage due to environmental standards passed in 2007.

A different program based on jet fuel from natural gas has also met resistance because of environmental concerns and also because it isn’t currently a money-maker for producers. Oil will have to be $120 to $140 a barrel for the synthetic production to be profitable, and apparently no one believes that prices will get back up there.

FWIW, Murdoc thinks it should be required that capability to produce this fuel in significant quantities be prepared, even if it isn’t run wide open. If we get to a point where we NEED this fuel to keep planes in the air, it will be too late to start building a plant.

Aviation Week: V-22 Faces Mission Capable Rates Issues

In addition to the availability rate concerns, Marine Ospreys seem to be too hard on LPD and LSD decks. They’re trying to address that by pointing the wings a little more forward.

No mention is made of the effect this has on payload for take-off.

The first painted P-8A Poseidon aircraft rolls out of the paint hangar at Boeing's (NYSE: BA) Renton, Wash., facility, displaying its new U.S. Navy livery. The aircraft, designated T-2, is the third of five test aircraft being assembled and tested as part of the System Development and Demonstration contract that Boeing received in 2004. The first test aircraft, T-1, which successfully completed the program?s first flight on April 25, will be painted in the same gray paint scheme later this summer. T-2 was painted in late April. The Navy plans to purchase 108 P-8A anti-submarine warfare aircraft to replace its fleet of P-3Cs. Initial operational capability is planned for 2013. The P-8A is built by a Boeing-led industry team that includes CFM International, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Spirit AeroSystems and GE Aviation. Boeing photo by Jim Anderson

The Poseidon’s first flight was last week.

UPDATE: Also, Australia signs a memorandum of understanding for cooperative development of the P-8A.

Group tries to stop Strykers from deploying

An anti-war group says 11 of its members were arrested trying to block Stryker military vehicles from Fort Lewis from being shipped to Afghanistan.

What I always find so ironic is that if the government or the military really acted like the protesters claim they do, we wouldn’t be reading about 11 members being arrested. The number would be “111″ instead of “11,” instead of “arrested,” it would be “disappeared” or “driven over,” and we wouldn’t be reading about it at all.

Given what I’ve seen and heard about these guys, it’s clear they’re just on the other side. I’m not questioning their patriotism, I’m claiming they are patriots for the bad guys.

See The Protester Pocket Universe for previous jackassery.

Fort Dix Terror Plotters Sentenced
When this first went down we had a few commenters here on MO carrying on about how these guys were basically harmless.

F-5s Forever!
Mike Burleson on the little guy.

The Peanut Farmer on Assault Weapons
Well, it’s more like “the peanut farmer on crack cocain,” but you know what Murdoc means…

F-20A Tigershark Home Page
The F-20 was the largest commercial military project ever attempted. Speaking of “commerical,” do you remember those television ads with Chuck Yeager and the F-20? What were those for? Batteries or something? Or was he actually advertising the plane in the TV spot?

Workers find message hidden in Auschwitz wall
Hand-written in pencil, the note bears the names and camp ID numbers of seven camp prisoners including four Poles and one Frenchman from Lyon

Pick 5 and Only 5
If you could only own 5 guns what would they be? (Also discussed at GunPundit)

Game Over: Konami cancels plan for ‘Six Days in Fallujah’
They were getting a lot of pressure.

Army tells Sikh officers to change appearance
It’s easy to say “get with the program” on this, but they claim they were assured it wouldn’t be a problem.

DD(X) Concept Art

This is a guest post by frequent MO commenter James.

The Navy’s ship designs are lessons in progressive futility

Originally, a ship’s main costs were in its armor and engines; crew costs were cheap. So in pre-Power Point land, the armor was scrapped as “unneeded” or “useless” and, above all, too expensive in an age of atomic weapons. So we lost the manufacturing base to build armored ships, but ships would be cheaper!

Then, the atom bombs did not fall. Somebody asked, “how will our ships defend themselves without armor?” And so the dream of walls of air came into being. The rattle of Power Point presentations proclaimed the era of situational awareness, missiles, and enhanced survivability through improved damage control and crew access would lead us to the promised land.

“We can defend our ships via improved situational awareness and active defenses!” cried the theoretical admirals. But alas! The walls of air proved to be immensely expensive. (And only worked when you turned them on [See USS Stark] and did not often work as well as hoped. [See HMS Sheffield] The dirty little secret of the walls of air is that they could be overwhelmed with little effort, yet hope was always around the corner – [See Aegis weapon system, see beam-forming radar....] So expensive were these walls of air that we could no longer afford to have a 600 hundred ship navy. So we had fewer ships with cheap hulls, somewhat fewer men, expensive engines and really expensive electronics. So we lost the manufacturing base to build ships, but our ships were theoretically much more capable!

Yet still, the voices cried, “how can we defend our ships since the walls of air will not?”

“We can defend our ships via stealth… and improved situational awareness and active defenses!” cried the theoretical admirals-turned-defense-contractor-lobbyists. And on came the DD(X) – while the ship costs as much as an aircraft carrier and less capable then ship it purported to replace, it would actually save money by reducing the crew size as everyone knows the real expense of ships is the crew! Now some would point out that stealth on a 700-foot ship with an X-band radar wielding radar guided missiles is an oxymoron, the theoretical admirals would have none of it and pushed the DD(X) ever on.

But disaster struck and the country ran out of money for the DD(X). So the theoretical admirals turned the LCS. It would be cheaper–we could build lots of them. Alas, since we only had two ship builders, we would have to let them both build the LCS and, to make things better, each LCS would have completely different designs.

And so the LCS was built for 500 million. [Two LCSs would cost the same as an Aegis cruiser without those pesky defense radars or weapon systems.] Alas many compromises had to be made. There was not enough money for walls of air, so the electronic defenses had to be cut. There was no ability to armor the ship since those companies when out of business years ago. Men were too expensive, so the crew was cut to the bone – but “smart ship” technology could fill the void. The miracle weapons of the era could not be used since there ship had not the electronics to support them. So there was only one thing to do – build really big engines so the LCS would run away!

Now the scourge of the sea has come back to haunt us–Pirates! What does our Navy say? We do not have the ability to suppress the pirate scourge. Not enough ships or men to do it.