New M-ATVs ready to deploy to Afghanistan

M-ATV by Oshkosh Defense

The new light-weight MRAP-type vehicles will be deployed beginning next month:

The vehicles have a blast-resistant V-shaped hull and are designed to provide MRAP-level protection for troops while offering more mobility than existing MRAPs, which can weigh between 32,000 and 45,000 pounds when empty. The new vehicles are smaller and weigh less than 25,000 pounds, making them more useful in Afghanistan’s uneven, rural terrain.

The initial MRAP deliveries will be made about three months after Army Tank-Automotive and Armament Command signed a $1.05 billion contract with Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense to supply 2,244 vehicles. Since then, the requirement for M-ATVs has tripled to 6,644 vehicles, and contracts have been awarded for 4,321, with additional buys expected soon, Irwin said.

USS Missouri heading to shipyard for makeover

The 65-year-old ship is in good shape, but it still needs to go to Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard for repairs because rust is protruding from peeling paint in areas and the teak wood deck is warped and bent in others.

The ship’s exterior is due to be sanded down and repainted in a $15 million overhaul paid for by memorial reserve funds and a Department of Defense grant.

“Rust never sleeps as they say,” said Michael Carr, the memorial’s president. “It’s a big job. It has to be done.”

Meanwhile, self-guided iPod tours of Missouri are now available.

Museum installs big guns

On Monday, two cannons, once part of the mighty USS Pennsylvania battleship, finally pointed skyward near the entrance to the Pennsylvania Military Museum.

The historic 14-inch barrels had been on pallets since arriving by truck May 20 from the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va. For 64 years, the guns rested in a scrapyard until the museum, once the Navy agreed to loan them, raised more than $40,000 to bring them to Boalsburg.

The guns been removed in 1945 when new ones were installed on the ship.

Japanese battleship Ise from 1945 ONI drawing:

Drawing of Japanese battleship Ise as seen in US Office of Naval Intelligence publication ONI-222-J dated Jun 1945

After the loss of six carriers at the Battle of Midway in June, 1942, Ise had her two rear 14″ turrets removed and a flight hanger installed as seen in this drawing. Aircraft could be launched but not directly recovered, though the plans called for float planes as part of her force which could be brought back aboard after water landings.

No combat flight ops were ever conducted by the Ise and she was sunk in 1945.

In service since 1970, the amphibious transport dock USS Nashville (LPD 13) ends her service today.

Nashville was featured on MO when she was involved with testing the Fire Scout UAV. Here’s a photo posted in 2006:

RQ-8A Fire Scout during autonomous landing and take-off tests with the amphibious transport dock ship USS Nashville (LPD 13) in 2006.

The Captain Pike bit is so wrong and so funny. Via Instapundit.

Got a heads up from a reader on this:

Posted an earlier one here.

A Japanese soldier ground guides a Type 90 tank into place during a live-fire range at Yakima Training Center, Wash., Sept. 15. The Soldiers were conducting a number of training events at YTC throughout September during the annual Exercise Rising Thunder. Photo by Sgt. Stephen Proctor

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A few days back I posted a YouTube of a Pittsburgh protester being snatch and grabbed by some clowns in BDUs and dismissed it as a poorly-produced hoax:

I’d had a few comments and emails claiming it was for real, but I hadn’t been able to find anything derfinitive online until a reader sent Murdoc a heads up:

Statement from G-20 Joint Information Center to College Politico: The individuals involved in the 9/24/2009 arrest which has appeared online are law enforcement officers from a multi-agency tactical response team assigned to the security operations for the G20. It is not unusual for tactical team members to wear camouflaged fatigues. The type of fatigues the officers wear designates their unit affiliation. Prior to the arrest, the officers observed this subject vandalizing a local business. Due to the hostile nature of the crowd, officer safety and the safety of the person under arrest, the subject was immediately removed from the area.

So these are guys from a G-20 “tactical response team.” Personally, given the shennanigans that these anarchists pull at every G-20 and WTO meeting, maybe they really do need a “tactical response team.” But to arrest a vandal by nabbing him in broad daylight? They just recruited a thousand more protesters for the next meeting.

Suddenly, everyone who should be dismissing these protesters as the anarchist goons that they are has reason to despise the authorities the goons are fighting.

But it wasn’t the military or even the local PD.

I’d be curious to know who mans this “tactical response team.” Guys that couldn’t get in at Blackwater and DynCorp?

Girl: What are all these cops doing here?
Guy: Oh, there was a bomb threat.
Girl: That’s not good, we should get out of here.
Guy: If bomb threats make you nervous, than the terrorists have already won.
–7th Ave & 27th St

From Overheard in New York.

Tigerhawk:

A few clowns shout at a “tea party” and the media starts worrying about the resurgent Klan, but the left literally attacks the police at the G20 protests and nobody says anything.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE: LOL! Get a load of this video forwarded to MO by a reader:

Nice surplus store BDUs.

UPDATE 2: More info on this HERE. Apparently these BDU guys are some sort of G-20 “tactical response team” and the guy they nabbed was accused of vandalism. Not military or police. Probably cheap contractors.

White House Regroups on Guantanamo

Even before the inauguration, President Obama’s top advisers settled on a course of action they were counseled against: announcing that they would close the facility within one year. Today, officials are acknowledging that they will be hard-pressed to meet that goal.

The White House has faltered in part because of the legal, political and diplomatic complexities involved in determining what to do with more than 200 terrorism suspects at the prison.

Duh. All these idiots in the press and running for office and voting for hope and change went on and on and on about this. Close it down. How hard can it be?

Well, it ain’t easy.

I like this part:

[White House Counsel Gregory B.] Craig said Thursday that some of his early assumptions were based on miscalculations, in part because Bush administration officials and senior Republicans in Congress had spoken publicly about closing the facility. “I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives,” he said.

Ah. So it’s Bush’s fault that this rube didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

Speaking of rubes, I wonder how all the Obama voters are feeling about this.