Open Comment Post. Debate Talk. Oct 20, 2016.

I'm sitting here in awe.  Trump could so easily have won the election if he had stuck to the issues of illegal immigration, bad trade deals, jobs, offshoring by corporations etc...

Unfortunately that was beyond his capabilities.  He forgot that this wasn't about him but IS about the people.  He made this a "Me" instead of "We" election.

As expected the mainstream media played up the irrelevant and we have a criminal about to win the Presidency (not the first time either....just the most obvious).

The never Trump people on these pages (I know who you are no matter how much you deny it) and the Republican Party should worry though.  Something evil is about to be unleashed.  If Trump was bad then how much worse will the next person be?  Do you think that Rubio, Cruz or Bush have a chance to win the nomination in the Republican party four years from now?  We're gonna see another Trump but this time it'll be a smarter version, more calculating, less arrogant (publicly) and willing to play the media game.

They won and Trump made it easy, but in the end they will lose....we will all lose.

Pic of the day. German Puma Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

M-ATV Assault.

Thanks to Kinetics for the link!

Website here.

I don't know what we're really seeing here.  Looks like a slightly modded version of the Special Forces model with an emphasis on carrying an Army Infantry Squad.  Didn't know that was a requirement.

You were worried about them going after guns? Forget that they're already planning tax increases!

Watching Morning Joe and Sen Warner from Virginia was on.  Guess what he recommended?  A carbon tax and some type of value added tax!

I thought it was gonna be a play for gun control but I was wrong.  They're about to hit the US with some of the most intense taxes seen in decades.  Do you realize how hard a carbon and VAT tax will hit the US consumer?

We are so screwed!

People will cheer Hillary's election until the pain hits.  We've been watching the wrong thing and now everyone is about to pay.  Literally!

Chaos and food lines in Venezuela. Tragedy next door.

The pics above are from Enrique262 Tumblr Page.  He mostly covers armor and other military subjects on his page, but he also tells the story of what's going on inside Venezuela.

You want to know where your next migration issue will come from?  Yeah Venezuela.

I don't know what Southern Command is doing.  I don't know if they're monitoring the situation and have offered assistance but its been rejected or not.  The same applies to USAID (they're a bunch of useless fucks...that organization is a waste of taxpayer money).

The issue is simple though.  They're standing in lines miles long just to get basic food items.  If we don't help them in their country then they'll be heading to ours.  This is one time when targeted foreign assistance is a smart thing.

What's left in those WikiLeaks that has Washington spooked?

via AP

Ecuador's government acknowledged on Tuesday that it cut off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's internet access at its embassy in London after the whistleblowing site published a trove of damaging emails from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
The foreign ministry said that while it stands by its 2012 decision to grant Assange asylum based on legitimate concerns he faces political persecution, it respects other nations' sovereignty and doesn't interfere or support any candidate in foreign elections.
"The decision to make this information public is the exclusive responsibility of the WikiLeaks organization," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The recognition of the reprimand comes less than 24 hours after WikiLeaks tweeted that Ecuador had cut off Assange's access to the Internet on Saturday after the publication of Clinton's speeches to Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs.

In follow-up messages posted Tuesday, the group claimed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had personally intervened to ask Ecuador to stop Assange from publishing documents about Clinton. Citing "multiple US sources," WikiLeaks said the request was made on the sidelines of a visit by Kerry and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa last month to Colombia to show their support for a peace deal with leftist rebels.

Ya know what I find amazing from the document dump from Wikileaks?  No one has denied that the information is true.  They're playing lawyer, doing spin jobs but no one is saying that they're fabricated.

Massive anti-US protest outside our embassy in the Philippines.

Well this is getting interesting.  I thought that only the Philippine President had a problem with the alliance with the US, but it seems that anti-US feelings run strong in that country.

Awesome.

Cut ties now and save money!  On a more serious note though, it makes no sense to force an alliance on anyone.  If their people are against it then why should we force it?

In my opinion it's past time to cut ties with "sunshine" friends and limit our foreign entanglements.  Let the Aussies and Japanese deal with them.

Open Comment Post. Oct 19, 2016.

Thinking about food porn and the news that the Navy is unsure that their ship was actually targeted.  Just wow.  And remember the Houthis are a low tech force...what happens when they're faced with sophisticated jamming/countermeasures and missile swarms?

Anyway what's on your mind?

Mi-28N destroys large ISIS convoy (vid)

Thanks to Info Infantry for the link!



I'm assuming this is a Russian vid and they say that it shows the destruction of an ISIS convoy, but to my eyes it looks like they caught the vehicles at a laager point.

What I'm curious about is the type of munition used.  It almost looks like they're shooting 2.75mm rockets but those were hitting with precision.  Do the Russians have laser guided rockets now?  They're just entering US and allied service.  I didn't even think they were working on that tech.

Medieval Warfare. Polish Winged Hussars

Major Hat Tip to Pinturasdeguerra Tumblr Page

Wow.  Winged Hussars?  I looked at this post several times and finally Googled it because I thought it was just some type of fan fiction that the Medieval Warfare guys sometimes push.  You know the type...Knights in gleaming armor fighting giants or 6 knights holding off 2000 fighters at the gates of Jerusalem.  But no.  These crazy Polish bastards actually attached wings to their armor and played beserker in combat.

I've always dismissed Medieval Warfare as being uninteresting and overly romanticized.  Maybe I need to take a second look.  This shit is fascinating!

Oh and for those that still doubt, below is a piece of armor that is displayed in a Polish museum (don't ask me which one) showing how it looked in real life.

Why the Queen Elizabeth flexing between carrier and LHA is a bad idea.

via STRN

The RN is currently developing its concept of operations for the QEC with a broad definition of their purpose called Carrier-Enabled Power Projection (CEPP). CEPP offers four main capabilities – Carrier Strike, Littoral Manoeuvre, Humanitarian Assistance and Defence Diplomacy. The carrier strike role is what the QEC were originally designed for but the requirement to perform the littoral manoeuvre/LPH role has been added and then expanded during their construction. HMS Queen Elizabeth will go to sea without the full modifications for the role and will be occupied working up and operating as a strike carrier with the F-35, at least for most of her first commission. She could be expected to enter major refit around 2025 when she will be modified. HMS Prince of Wales is being constructed with these modifications from the outset, essentially internal changes to accommodation, equipment storage and access for the embarked military force. F-35 trials will be conducted with HMS PoW in 2020/21 but she may then be configured and tested in the LPH role soon after.

READ THIS ARTICLE! 

The USMC is facing the same issues with the America Class LHA (when did we start calling them L-class carriers?).  Davis is talking about leaving the ground combat element on the dock and sailing with only F-35s.  What that will do to Marine Corps combat power ashore is anyone's guess but he put forward the idea with NO pushback.

Save The Royal Navy saved its venom for British planning but a closer look at USMC plans would show the same issues.

Scuttlebutt? US Army Special Forces Commander killed in push to Mosul?

Thanks to Overwatch DVA for the link!

via Farsnews.

TEHRAN (FNA)- A commander of the US Army Special Forces deployed in Northern Raqqa was killed by unknown assailants, local sources disclosed on Monday.

"The commander of the US Special Forces in Tal Abyadh was shot in the head and killed by unknown assailants," the Arabic-language Sham Times said.
The Arab media outlet said the death of the unnamed commander is leading to chaos among the US-backed Kurdish forces.
"The Command Center of the US military forces in Northern Raqqa and the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) have launched joint probe into the incident," they added.
Kurdish sources said Saturday that the US Army has deployed nearly 300 fresh forces in Northern Raqqa near the border with Turkey.
"120 US army soldiers have been deployed in North of Tal Abyadh. Also 60 other soldiers have been dispatched to a base near the village of Shabadeq close to a road towards the town of Salouk," the sources said.
"The Shabadeq base is a camp to train the Kurdish fighters for war against the ISIL terrorists in the Eastern battlefields of Raqqa up to the Northern banks of the Euphrates River," the sources added.
"In the meantime, over 100 US soldiers have entered Ein Issa via an illegally-established US army base in the village of Kharab Isq to coordinate Kurdish fighters' operations and meanwhile guard the US political officials who have been dispatched to Syria to form a new coalition, allegedly for the capture of Raqqa," the sources said.

I don't know what to make of this stuff.  Remember a little while ago when Fars reported Special Ops personnel injured in Syria and we got nothing from the Pentagon?  We didn't get a denial, confirmation or even an acknowledgement that the question was asked.

Now we have this report and I'm expecting more of the same.

Special Ops is Special Ops.  Guy might be killed in combat and the story given to the public is that it was a training accident.  Shot in the head turns into a horrible parachute accident.

Fog of war stuff I guess.  The truth?  We'll never know.  We ain't there.