Fourth of five parts (see one, two or three)
Predator purchases ended in 2009, with a total of 248 being bought by the Air Force.[1] Reaper purchases started in 2002, rose from four per year in 2004 to 48 per year in 2011, …
BattlelandWeapons
BattlelandWeapons
2.07
BattlelandKorea
NoKo Déjà Vu
The State Department declared Wednesday that Pyongyang has changed its stripes and agreed to suspend its nuclear activities and halt nuclear and long-range missile tests. If true, this is good news for the world and the North …
BattlelandMilitary Mental Health
Military Migraines
Combat gets blamed for all sorts of ills. Some are obvious, like physical wounds. Others are less visible, and range from traumatic brain injury to post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, “deployment to southwest Asia” – that would be Afghanistan and/or Iraq –apparently also triggers headaches.
“Factors that appeared to be …
BattlelandMilitary
A Bright Shining Line
Those of us of a certain sell-by date recall John Paul Vann’s searing tale of Vietnam in Neil Sheehan’s A Bright Shining Lie.
The title resonates in light of recent screw-ups by the U.S. military, with the addition of one …
BattlelandAir Force
“Other Than That, How Was Your Flight?”
Training for war – flying a jet fighter at low altitudes, for example – can be an unforgiving business. That’s the bottom line from an F-15 crash last October 24 in Nevada. The pilot wasn’t badly hurt, but the $32 million plane was totaled.
Accident investigators said they were unable to determine the cause of the crash, …
BattlelandWeapons
3. Finding the Right Targets
BattlelandAfghanistan
The Nearly $1 Million-a-Year Soldier
The Pentagon’s top bean-counter was ready when a senator asked him a simple question Tuesday: how much does it cost to keep a single American soldier in Afghanistan for a year? “Right now,” Robert Hale, the Pentagon comptroller responded, “about $850,000 per soldier.”
That’s akin to the $400-per-gallon cost of fuel, and $30-per-gallon …
“Good Morning, Afghanistan!”
“Responsibilities encompass habitat maintenance measures such as grass mowing by hand and by machine, shrub removal by hand and by forest mill, excavation of small puddles with swamp land excavator and underwater reed mowing with amphibian TRUXOR machine.”
BattlelandAfghanistan
Second U.S. Troop Killed in Afghan Interior Ministry ID’d
Army National Guard Major Robert J. Marchanti II, 48, was a former elementary-school gym teacher just outside Baltimore. He and Air Force Lt. Col. John Darin Loftis were working inside a small room at the National Police Coordination Center in the Afghan interior ministry Saturday afternoon when a ministry driver entered and killed …
BattlelandProcurement
Some Pentagon Acquisition Successes: Yes, They Do Happen
Problems within the defense acquisition business are widely known and thoroughly documented, so the last thing I want to write is yet another article highlighting yet another failure. Been there, done that. Fortunately, there is …
BattlelandMilitary Spending
Budget Gap
Amazing first item (click on it to enlarge) atop the Pentagon’s Monday contract list. First of all, you can’t figure out just what it is we’re buying, but nothing new there:
…an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price, multiple award contract for engineering and prototyping integration, …