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“Music is saving me,” said Freeman, and the venue hails from a program called Guardian Encore. Learn more about it here.
The post Guardian Encore gives veterans a chance to open up through music appeared first on Sandboxx.
US Soldiers in an M1 Abrams tank compete in the Strong Europe Tank Challenge at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany, in June 2018. The US Army will enhance 34 of its Abrams MBTs to the System Enhancement Package (SEP) v3 configuration if its FY 2024 budget request is enacted. (US Army )
If enacted, the US Army’s budget request would cut ground vehicles out of enduring programmes and reinvest in procurement and research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) for newer programmes, according to budget documents released on 13 March.
A CH-53K King Stallion performs aerial refuelling trials in 2020. (Lockheed Martin)
The US Navy (USN) in its fiscal year (FY) 2024 budget requested USD17.3 billion to purchase 88 aircraft and helicopters, including spare parts, support equipment, and facilities.
The USN intends to spend USD4.9 billion dollars to procure Lockheed Martin F-35s. USD2.3 billion is meant to purchase 16 F-35Bs, the vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft flown by the US Marine Corps (USMC). The F-35Bs will replace Boeing AV-8Bs and F/A-18C/Ds. Another USD2.
In 1942, a Navy ship sunk in New York and the government recruited the mafia to protect the port from the Axis. But was that what really happened?
The post Operation Underworld – Did the mafia help the Navy during WWII or was there something sinister at play? appeared first on Sandboxx.
The U.S. is at increased risk of a firepower gap with China as U.S. production of explosives and propellants declines and China’s increases.
This month, Forbes reported that China had surpassed the United States in developing new types of explosives, particularly its version of CL-20, an explosive developed in the 1980s that is 40% more powerful than RDX or the HMX and has widely used in American munitions since World War II.
In 2011, China reportedly conducted tests of an explosive similar to CL-20, and since then, the country has been producing the explosive in large quantities.
The US Navy’s proposed fiscal year 2024 budget includes funding for Ford-class aircraft carrier John F Kennedy. (Michael Fabey)
The US Navy (USN) fiscal year (FY) 2024 budget request includes USD3.9 billion for Ford-class aircraft carrier construction and Nimitz-class Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH) life extension work, according to USN and Pentagon budget documents released 13 March.
The FY 2024 request represents a decrease of about USD462.8 million compared to last year’s funding, documents show.
The proposed FY 2024 spending plan includes USD2.
The Russian Ministry of Defense published a video through its account on the VK social network on Saturday, March 11, which shows the destruction of the first Stormer HVM (high-velocity missile) anti-aircraft defense system supplied by the UK, using Lancet-3 loitering ammunition.
According to reports, this is the first time Russia has publicly claimed responsibility for losing a Ukrainian Stormer HVM Starstreak air defense vehicle. Britain has given Kyiv its Stormer HVM. In 2022, Ukraine received at least six of these anti-aircraft systems.
HII
As part of its trilateral defense initiative aimed at Beijing called AUKUS, the U.S., U.K., and Australia on Monday officially unveiled long-rumored plans to create an Australian nuclear-powered submarine force.
The three-phase deal, designed to counter growing Chinese military dominance in the region, calls for U.S. and U.K. nuclear-powered submarines to visit Australia on a rotational basis as early as 2027, according to senior U.S. administration officials who spoke to reporters, including from The War Zone, on Sunday.
Improving the GMD system has been a top priority for MDA. However, the effort suffered a major setback after a new kill vehicle programme was terminated. That programme was replaced by the NGI. (MDA)
The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is requesting about USD3.076 billion to improve its strategic missile defence system, known as the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), including funding to develop a new Next Generation Interceptor (NGI).
Last year, MDA received USD2.618 billion for strategic missile defence.
THAAD is intended to engage targets both inside and outside the earth’s atmosphere. (US Missile Defense Agency)
The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has requested USD484.7 million for the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) programme in fiscal year (FY 2024).
This funding would integrate the THAAD capability into the US Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) and continue development of an 8th THAAD battery, according to the agency’s budget documents, published on 13 March.
The Army’s fiscal 2024 budget proposal includes substantial funding aimed at helping the service up its digital game.
The spending blueprint for accelerating digital transformation was based on reviews of the force’s capability portfolios, Undersecretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo said during a briefing with reporters at the Pentagon on Monday when the budget was rolled out.
Finally, this week, specifics of the type of submarine fleet Australia plans to acquire as a result of the AUKUS deal became public. Initial indications indicate that many Australians, Britons, and Americans will be pleased with the proposed overhaul of Australia’s submarine force and, by extension, the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) force position.
Australia may acquire foreign-built nuclear submarines in the 2030s and eventually build its own global force of lethal attack ships.
The Department of Defense’s fiscal 2024 budget includes U.S. Cyber Command’s first-ever full budget request as it assumes full budget authorities and resources for the cyber mission force.
While no topline budget or number has been released or announced by the command or DOD, budget documents released by the Pentagon detail Cybercom’s operations and maintenance budget request of $332.6 million for its headquarters, a procurement budget request of $129 million and a research, development, test and evaluation budget request of $1.1 billion.
The DOD as a whole is committing $13.
U.S. Air Force Airmen monitor computers in support of the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) Onramp 2, Sept 2, 2020 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. (Department of Defense)
The US Department of Defense (DoD) is seeking a USD1.7 billion increase in proposed funding for command, control, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) accounts for fiscal year (FY) 2024.
The USD14.5 billion requested for C4ISR coffers in FY 2024, compared to the department’s USD12.
AMARG
The U.S. Air Force’s 2024 Fiscal Year budget request includes plans to divest 310 aircraft, while acquiring just 95 new ones. The service is looking to make substantial new investments in next-generation capabilities and argues that it needs to keep retiring old platforms to free up resources in support of these critical modernization efforts.
The total proposed Fiscal Year 2024 budget for the Department of the Air Force, which includes the U.S. Space Force, is 215.1 billion, excluding so-called “pass-through” funding.
According to official Iranian media, military cooperation between Iran and Russia has reached a new level with the conclusion of a contract for Iran to purchase Russian-made Sukhoi Su-35 fighters.
Air Force Hit by Sanctions Iran’s aging fleet of planes has struggled to get spare parts needed to keep its fighters in the air. During the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Tehran announced that it had begun looking for “countries to acquire fighter jets” to rebuild its fleet.
Photo by Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The fighting that has followed Russia’s full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has provided no shortage of throwbacks to the warfare of the bygone ages. On the technology side, we’ve seen ancient machine guns wheeled out and balloons make a return to combat, while the conditions that have been encountered in the east of the country, especially, have at times resembled World War One trench warfare, with all the attendant mud and brutality.
The UK will have committed as much in the value of military support to Ukraine from 2022-2024 as it aims to increase defence spending over the next 24 months, with an expectation that Kyiv will have received assistance valued at £4.6bn by the end of the coming financial year.
Setting out the new Integrated Review (IR) refresh on 13 March, the UK Government stated that UK military support to Ukraine was valued at £2.3bn in 2022/23, with a commitment to maintain ‘at least the same level of support in 2023/24’.
The US Navy’s proposed FY 2024 budget requests funding for two Virginia-class attack submarines. (US Navy)
The US Navy (USN) is requesting about USD48.1 billion for shipbuilding and marine systems in its fiscal year (FY) 2024 budget proposal, released on 13 March.
The largest single category, by amount, for that request is USD18.6 billion for submarine combatants, according to budget documents released that day.
Anchoring that request is the USD10.8 billion being proposed for the acquisition of two Virginia-class attack submarines (SSN 774s), or about USD3.
The US Navy’s FY 2024 budget request includes the first Columbia-class submarine acquisition. (US Navy)
The US Navy (USN) department is requesting about USD255.8 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2024, or about 4.5% more than the USD244.7 billion in funding enacted for FY 2023, according to navy officials and budget documents released on 13 March.
The navy department’s total FY 2024 request includes about USD53.2 billion for the US Marine Corps (USMC) and USD202.5 billion for the USN, compared with USD51.9 billion enacted in FY 2023 for the USMC and USD192.9 billion for the navy.
(U.S Air Force photo by 1st Lt Savanah Bray)
The U.S. Air Force’s proposed budget for the 2024 Fiscal Year includes a request for funds to buy 24 more F-15EX Eagle II fighter jets. This would bring the total planned fleet size up to 104 aircraft. Last year, the service had proposed purchasing just 80 Eagle IIs, down from the original plan to acquire at least 144 of them. The War Zone just recently highlighted how a fleet of only 80 F-15EXs would make little practical sense.
After years of trying to identify and neutralize disinformation, now SOCOM wants to spy on audiences by monitoring internet devices.
The post US Special Operations Command wants to use “deep fakes” as a weapon, but that could create problems appeared first on Sandboxx.
Representatives from the Dutch Armed Forces addressed the Future Soldier Technology (FST) conference on 8 March, where they conveyed a formidable challenge that the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) currently face.
The Netherlands currently has twenty years’ worth of outdated solider equipment. This problem is symptomatic of the need for a new culture to introduce innovation in their supply chains.
This strategy will allow the DMO to acquire and deliver the best equipment for the readiness and operations of their dismounted soldiers.
Troops Administering and Receiving Covid Vaccine
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While the government’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for U.S. troops is no longer in effect, the Pentagon sent a letter to lawmakers recently saying that it could still remove as many as 16,000 unvaccinated troops from service.
Military forces of the US and Oman have successfully taken part in a bilateral crisis-response exercise named Invincible Sentry 2023.
The recurring exercise, held annually, aims to train the participating personnel on responses to crises.
It is sponsored by the US Central Command (CENTCOM) and conducted with a different partner country within CENTCOM’s area of responsibility.
The Omani and US military personnel carried out their training events at locations and military training areas that were selected by the Omani Government.
The U.S. military is asking lawmakers for billions of dollars next year to advance its artificial intelligence and networking capabilities as it moves to become a faster-moving and more interconnected force.
The Pentagon wants AI capabilities to enable better decision-making and enhance the capabilities of its unmanned platforms and other systems. It has already established a Chief Digital and AI Office to help spread the technology across the department. Earlier this year it updated its autonomous weapons policy.
The Air Force is asking Congress for about half-a-billion dollars in fiscal 2024 to begin a highly anticipated new drone program aimed at acquiring “collaborative combat aircraft” that could team with manned fighter jets and other platforms.
The $522 million requested research, development, test and evaluation funding for the CCA initiative would go toward three lines of effort: platform development, autonomy development, and standing up an “experimental operations unit” to explore operating concepts., Maj. Gen.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Chafee (DDG 90) launches a Block V Tomahawk, the weapon’s newest variant, during a three day missile exercise on Nov. 30, 2020. (Ens. Sean Ianno/U.S. Navy).
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underscored that the U.S. military would need an astronomical amount of ordnance in a war against a near-peer adversary, so the Pentagon has devoted $30.6 billion of its proposed $842 billion budget for the 2024 fiscal year specifically for tactical missiles and other munitions.
That would represent a $5.
Cooperation with the U.S. Navy was critical to the production of Top Gun and its sequel, Top Gun: Maverick. Without support from the Navy, neither film would have been as successful as they are. To that end, actor Tom Cruise and producer Jerry Bruckheimer were both named Honorary Naval Aviators in 2020. In 2023, Cruise and lead crew from Top Gun: Maverick visited the USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) during the carrier’s deployment for an onboard screening of the hit sequel.
Hannah Waddingham sings for sailors during a meet-and-greet aboard the USS George H.W. Bush (U.S.
Navy families, if you’re new to the fleet, you might have some questions about Fleet and Family Services. Be prepared to have your mind blown because FFSC can help you with just about every aspect of your Navy life!
The Fleet and Family Support Center (FFSC) offers numerous helpful resources to Naval personnel and their families. If you live a military lifestyle, you have some unique needs, responsibilities, and challenges. Fortunately, the support center is around to help. Here are just a few of the services that FFSC has to offer:
Information and Referral
Resources, resources, resources.
“Tell me you’ve never seen my face before.”
According to Citadel’s official description: “Eight years ago, Citadel fell. The independent global spy agency — tasked to uphold the safety and security of all people — was destroyed by operatives of Manticore, a powerful syndicate manipulating the world from the shadows. With Citadel’s fall, elite agents Mason Kane (Richard Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) had their memories wiped as they narrowly escaped with their lives.
Thinking about joining the newest branch of the military? The Space Force brings lots of exciting new opportunities to future Guardians, and a few familiar career paths, too. You might be thinking that space is a whole different ballgame, but don’t worry. There are still plenty of familiar career paths available. So, if you’re into cutting-edge technology and innovation, the Space Force might just be the perfect fit for you.
Defectors fleeing North Korea are a topic of international concern. They must either pass through the heavily-armed and mined demilitarized zone at the border with South Korea, or make the perilous trek across North Korea’s Tumen River border with China, also heavily patrolled by North Korean troops.
Once in China, North Korean defectors face hard choices. They must cross a massive desert to Mongolia, frozen Siberian emptiness to Russia, or attempt to make their way to South Korea through China, where Chinese police will be searching to send them back to North Korea.
From “permanent teenager” Seth Rogen comes the new animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem featuring modern touches like a digital palette reminiscent of your favorite Procreate art and teens-with-tech.
Here’s the official synopsis: After years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts.
Heading to Fort Sill? If you are, prepare yourself for wide open skies and the perpetual echo of artillery. You probably already know you’re in for hot summers and icy winters. But you might not know that this southern Oklahoma post was built during the Indian Wars. That means it’s now considered a National Landmark and there’s history everywhere you turn. If you’re stationed here, there are lots of historical and outdoor activities to enjoy. Many of them are great for the whole family.
Fort Sill’s official name is the Fort Sill Fires Center of Excellence (FCoF).
Senior Chief Britt Kelly Slabinski is a retired member of the United States Navy who earned a Medal of Honor for his courageous action during Operation Enduring Freedom. He played an important role in the Battle of Takur Ghar, which received widespread media coverage in May 2002. He also participated in the rescue mission to recover Army PFC Jessica Lynch.
Background
Senior Chief Slabinski was born in Northhampton, Massachusetts, on December 1, 1969. He learned responsibility and teamwork at a young age, becoming an Eagle Scout as a teenager.
The 155 mm/39 calibre M777 ultra lightweight howitzer, displayed above undergoing trials with the UK Army, has a maximum range of 24.7 km using unassisted rounds and a sustained rate of fire of 2 rds/min. India and the US are exploring the development of a 155 mm/52 calibre M777 with an extended range. (BAE Systems Landsystems UK)
India and the US are exploring the development of an extended-range, longer barrel variant of the M777 155 mm/39 calibre ultra lightweight howitzer (ULH), manufacturer BAE Systems told Janes.
It has been 383 days since the Russian invasion began. On Monday, the Ukrainian military is still defending Bakhmut. Situation in Bakhmut Despite a push inside Bakhmut, the Russian forces have failed to capture the town. In the past few days, the Russian military and Wagner Group private military company managed to capture significant swaths […]
The post Ukraine clings on Bakhmut as Russian advance stalls appeared first on Sandboxx.
The UK Government has launched the 2023 Integrated Review Refresh (IR23) that will provide an additional £5bn of funds to support the British Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) operations.
The same was confirmed by the UK Prime Minister’s Office in a media statement on 13 March.
An upgraded version of the 2021 Integrated Review, IR23 aims to strengthen the country’s capabilities to meet the growing global defence and security challenges.
Image by Christian Colen
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Saturday evening, CDM’s network in Georgia, reporting for our paper on the ground — The Georgia Record — began reporting a massive wave of MAGA wins across the major counties in the state during the GOP convention cycle. The old corrupt GOP (RINO) guard was being removed from power by overwhelming political firepower at the local level.
Someone didn’t like our reporting.
The first F-16 Block 70 Fighting Falcon for Bahrain was rolled out on 10 March. (Lockheed Martin)
Lockheed Martin rolled out the first F-16 Block 70 Fighting Falcon for Bahrain during a ceremony at the company’s Greenville production facility in South Carolina on 10 March.
The twin-seat F-16D was the first of 16 jets destined for the Royal Bahraini Air Force (RBAF), and also the first F-16 to be built at Greenville since production of the type was transferred from Fort Worth, Texas, in 2019.
The RAAF’s new MQ-4C Triton unit (9 SQN) will operate across two locations – at RAAF Base Tindal and at RAAF Base Edinburgh. The two airbases are separated by a distance of over 2,300 km. In this photograph, the RAAF’s first Triton is shown with the insignia of 9 SQN. (Northrop Grumman)
Australia has said that it will re-form a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) squadron to operate the country’s MQ-4C Triton fleet, which is scheduled to be delivered from 2024.
Chris Gordon, Air & Space Forces Magazine
AURORA, Colo.—The B-21 Raider will be the “future backbone of the bomber fleet,” the head of Air Force Global Strike Command Gen….
Loren Thompson, RCDefense
Albon, DNews
WASHINGTON — The Navy and Marine Corps’ budget would grow by more than $11 billion next year, the most of any of the military services, under the Biden administration’s new…
Dmitry Flipoff, CIMSEC
Massed Fires – A Core Tactic of Distributed Warfighting
A core tactic that operationalizes the concept of concentrating effects without…
Bloomberg
The Pentagon’s $170 billion procurement request for the new fiscal year focuses on replacing munitions supplied to Ukraine as well as well as weapons like long-range missiles,…
Understand the impact of the Ukraine conflict from a cross-sector perspective with the Global Data Executive Briefing: Ukraine Conflict
The Norwegian Government has confirmed it will supply a total of two National Advanced Surface-To-Air Missile System (NASAMS) firing units to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The new weapon systems will be delivered in cooperation with the US.
The systems are expected to act as crucial infrastructure for the Ukrainian soldiers in defending their country against the missile attacks of the Russian military forces.
This month the Biden administration released its National Cybersecurity Strategy, ending months of speculation about its contents. The document focuses on public-private collaboration, which is unsurprising given that the private sector owns and operates most of the internet. Because it calls for stronger regulations, the issue of public-private relations has already received a lot of […]
The post The Liberal Cyber Order appeared first on War on the Rocks.
There may be more unknown details of relevance to the Chinese J-20 5th generation stealth fighter than there are known specifics, but the People’s Liberation Army has been writing about its J-20 in various aspects for many years, so there are a handful of key relevant observations to make about the extent of the threat it may pose.
J-20: To what extent is it a threat?
At first glance, US Congressional reports and Pentagon trials have deemed the stealthy airframe to be what might be called a “transparent” copy of 5th-generation US stealth technology.
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