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Broken: The American Shipbuilding Crisis

by Bill Buppert | Aug 22, 2024 | Blog

USS The Sullivans sinking in New York in 2022. Over the decades, the destroyers have fallen into various states of disrepair. In April 2022, The Sullivans suffered a hull breach and partially sank at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park in Buffalo, New York. The vessel had previously been observed taking on water. Despite undergoing repairs in the immediate aftermath of the sinking, additional work is required to make The Sullivans safe.

The US can’t build ships that work.

The US can’t build ships that don’t work in volume.

The USS The Sullivans (DD-537) above is one the WWII Fletcher-class ships serving as a museum that started sinking due to poor maintenance.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) announced $10 million in funding to support preservation efforts for both The Sullivans and the Gato-class submarine USS Croaker (SS-246). The Buffalo and Erie Naval & Military Park will spearhead restoration efforts for both vessels, with the promised government funds covering approximately half of the expected $21 million that’ll be required.

These are museum ships and not naval ships of the line in current employment. Not only does the US Navy still have significant maintenance and refit problems for ships in the fleet but an existential crisis in shipbuilding capability.

Now the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has issued a scathing indictment of the Navy’s lack of ability to see its promises through for recapitalizing and struggling to reach the mythical 355 ship Navy with a current keel complement of 287 (it has been under 300 since August 2003). The august navalists have even floated the idea of a 381 ship Navy which is impossible. The Arleigh Burke class from 1991 was the last successful surface ship introduced by the US Navy and all the rest have been abject failures to include the Little Crappy Ships that are being retired five years into their thirty “service life”.

The CRS report may be one of the most succinct and concise indictments of decaying shipbuilding in the US to come out in years.

I read the CRS reports so you don’t have to.

The Navy fell below 300 battle force ships (the types of ships that count toward the quoted size of the Navy) in August 2003 and has generally remained between 270 and 300 battle force ships since then. As of May 28, 2024, the Navy included 296 battle force ships.

The Navy projects that 10 new ships will be delivered to the fleet in FY2025. The Navy’s FY2025 budget proposes retiring 19 existing ships in FY2025, including 10 ships that would be retired before reaching the ends of their expected service lives. As a result, the Navy projects that, under the Navy’s proposed FY2025 budget, the total number of ships in the Navy would decline by a net 9 ships during FY2025, from 296 ships at the start of FY2025 to 287 ships at the end of FY2025. The Navy’s budget submission projects that during the period FY2025-FY2029 (i.e., the years of the FY2025 Future Years Defense Plan [FYDP]), the Navy would include 287, 283, 280, 286, and 291 ships, respectively. Under the Navy’s FY2025 30-year (FY2025-FY2054) shipbuilding plan, the fleet would grow to more than 300 ships in FY2032 and reach a total of more than 381 ships in FY2042.

The math is impossible to do from here to there. On April 2, 2024, the Navy announced significant projected delays in several of its shipbuilding programs.

For press reports about the Navy’s announcement, see, for example: Megan Eckstein, “US Navy Ship Programs Face Years-Long Delays amid Labor, Supply Woes,” Defense News, April 2, 2024; Justin Katz, “Navy Lays Out Major Shipbuilding Delays, in Rare Public Accounting,” Breaking Defense, April 2, 2024; Nick Wilson, “Navy Shipbuilding
Review Details Delays across Submarine and Ship Acquisition Portfolio,” Inside Defense, April 2, 2024; Cal Biesecker, “Navy Confirms Delays In Shipbuilding Programs As Part Of Ongoing Review,” Defense Daily, April 3, 2024; Chris Panella, “As It Looks to Keep Its Edge over Rivals, the US Navy’s Biggest Shipbuilding Projects Are Delayed by Years, New Review Finds,” Business Insider, April 3, 2024; Joe Saballa, “US Navy Review Exposes Major Shipbuilding Delays in Nine Key Programs,” Defense Post, April 3, 2024; Thomas Black, “US Navy Shipbuilding Has Fallen Dangerously Behind,” Bloomberg, April 17, 2024; Lauren Frias, “See the 10 Types of New US Navy Warships Plagued by Shipbuilding Delays,” Business Insider, April 17, 2024; Steve Cohen, “Almost All Navy Shipbuilding Is Hopelessly Behind Schedule,” The Hill, May 2, 2024.

Shipbuilding delays are not only informed by a lack of dockyards but consistent delays in promised delivery.

The Committee notes the findings of the Navy’s 45-day Shipbuilding Review found significant delays to several critical shipbuilding programs. Notably, the review’s findings
revealed 12–16 months delay in lead boat construction of the Columbia-class submarine, 24–36 months delay in Virginia-class submarine construction, 18–26 months delay in delivering the third Ford-class carrier, and at least 3 years delay in the lead Constellation- class frigate. Recognizing the importance of fleet capacity in power projection and the Chief of Naval Operations’ new force-level goal of 381 ships, the Committee is increasingly concerned by the long-term impacts of these delays.

What makes these delays even more diabolical is that the Navy has consistently accepted ships that aren’t capable of achieving an operational status as warships on the line. It took five years for the ill-fated Zumwalt-class to bother firing a missile from its VLS in testing and the Ford-class carrier is still plagued by problems reliably launching and retrieving aircraft including the problem-ridden F35B/C aircraft which are humming along at a 30% operational readiness rate.

[T]he total number of battle force ships in the Navy reached a late-Cold War peak of 568 at the end of FY1987 and began declining thereafter.73 The Navy fell below 300
battle force ships in August 2003 and remained below 300 ships for the next 16 years. The Navy briefly returned to a level of 300 ships in early July 2020, for the first time in almost 17 years, subsequently fell back below 300 ships, reached 300 ships again briefly during periods in August and September 2022, and as of May 28, 2024, included 296 battle force ships [Ed: 287 ships at the end of FY2025].

The bottom line is that the shipbuilding capacity in the US (even using foreign shipbuilding assets) can’t cash the checks the US Navy is trying to cash.

No one has lost their job.

No one.

It’s time for sober defense officials to take a pause and completely reassess what a future US Navy looks like.

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/RL32665.pdf

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Surprise! Ukrainian Aid is Mismanaged

by Bill Buppert | Aug 21, 2024 | Blog

One discovers that war-making by the West after WWII around the world started to see a trend that Smedley Butler would knowingly nod at as the sophisticated money-laundering complex to provide weapons and assistance in hundreds of conflicts.The tracking and auditing of these weapons transfers have not always been up to the standards one would expect responsible providers and agencies to employ to provision arms and assistance.

Well, the latest GAO report is out and the findings are not pretty and I think they underestimate the graft and criminality not only in the end use delivery in the Ukraine but where those weapons end up if not employed by the Ukraine forces and sold on the black or illicit markets (basically un-monitored & tracked exchanges or grants). Some savvy Western journalist can make their bones by forming a forensic investigation team that digs up where the money has gone, where the weapons have gone and where the weapons are showing up around the world. They can also try to discover how much money actually leaves the VA-DC corridor when transfers or grants to foreign military forces of legacy weapons and systems.

The imminent corruption possible in these transactions is huge because ultimately combat losses of donated item is an inevitable conclusion which can be fabricated to cover the tracks for illicit transfers o weapons and system to third party buyers.

As a matter of fact, it would be interesting to see how these weapons transfer programs have historically performed.

But on to the GAO report, I read these so you don’t have to.

The theme of all these recommendations is accountability for government funds and weapons allocations which one would think would be an actionable offense but you rarely see government officials held to account but then again, I would love for my readers to let me know who was fired or held accountable for the loss of American conflicts since 1945. What is curious is that these recommendations are made because the law as Congress and the executive function in the US declare by statute has been broken and no one is held accountable.

If the private sector did this with non-weapons modalities, they would be held criminally liable by the usual suspects at the DOJ.

My recommendation is if any violations occur at any process juncture, the transfer is frozen and the parties examined. But don’t expect that to happen. This is performative but nothing will change.

The U.S. and more than thirty international donors have provided security assistance to the government of Ukraine in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Among international donors, 25 European countries collectively pledged over $73 billion in security assistance to Ukraine as of April 30, 2024. For many of these countries, the pledges are equivalent to a significant percentage of their GDP and defense budgets.

The Departments of Defense (DOD) and State (State) have coordinated within the U.S. government and with foreign donors to develop and execute donation strategies to collectively address Ukraine’s needs. The agencies generally facilitate international donations of defense articles in three ways: 1) authorizing foreign donors to transfer U.S.-origin defense articles to Ukraine; 2) providing logistical support services, such as equipment delivery and maintenance; and 3) incentivizing donations by providing foreign military financing (FMF) to replenish defense articles donated to Ukraine. Of the $72 billion of U.S. security assistance, $6.33 billion is obligated for FMF. State has allocated FMF to 10 European countries that pledged security assistance to Ukraine.

That’s 73 billion dollars pledged.

To date [9 August 2024], we have provided more than $55.4 billion in military assistance since Russia launched its premeditated, unprovoked, and brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and approximately $58.2 billion in military assistance since Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

This is probably a low ball figure.

At least 30 countries have pledged over $148 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022. This includes $2 billion worth of defense items of U.S. origin—such as missiles and ammunition—that foreign donors requested to transfer to Ukraine.

The State Department approves these transfers, and the Defense Department is required to monitor the items.

However, State hasn’t consistently shared approval information with DOD and neither DOD nor State verify the delivery of these transfers. DOD can’t effectively monitor these items. We recommended ways to improve information sharing and monitoring.

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-24-106745.pdf

It’s worse than you think with simply this snapshot:

Between February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and last June, the U.S. sent the beleaguered country $1.69 billion dollars worth of weapons that require a stringent form of tracking called enhanced end-use monitoring. Most such weapons are missiles, including anti-aircraft Stingers and anti-tank Javelins. Such monitoring includes tracking when the weapons are expended or lost.

The inspector general’s investigators found that U.S. officials did not keep weapons tracking databases updated in a timely manner due to a host of problems, including under-staffing, security concerns, a failure to communicate across multiple federal organizations, and Ukraine occasionally providing information too slowly.

https://www.defenseone.com/business/2024/08/us-still-needs-improve-monitoring-arms-sent-ukraine-gao-finds/398950/

Would it be too hard to have a meta-database that tracks this?

Bottom line: no one knows the total money sent nor accounted for the weapons and aid sent remaining in Ukraine proper.

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“Breed More” They Demand

by Kym Robinson | Aug 21, 2024 | Blog

“Breed! Have more babies!” demands the technocrats on social media, the conservatives even, the religious zealots, even some socialists and naturally the incels who want the State to mandate wives. Apparently humanity needs to constantly swell, to grow in it’s population. To expand across the globe. In the last century the world’s population exploded beyond the billions, previously humanity was in the millions. Despite war, ideology and famines that wiped out millions, the human race kept on keeping on. Now, because there are declines apparently we need billions more babies otherwise humanity may fall from existence.

Mental health, welfare dependency and so on is also on the increase. National debts and the normalisation of mortgage everything is so widespread that it seems weird to not actually be in debt. The cost of living in the “affluent” nations is getting to the point that basically one must work in government, corporate sectors or be on benefits, or both or have side and above and down hustles. Just to get by. It seems everyone is living at the expense of one another, climbing over each others finances and borrowing. Or investing with borrowed money into bubbles. Capitalism is blamed by the communist affiliates and then those who advocate capitalism blame the State. Whatever it it, it’s not a free market so maybe a version of capitalism that requires the State and central banking is to blame.

So people seem less inclined to have babies. Many who have children moan about how hard it is being a parent, some in fact become professional parents. The State pays for them do be a parent. Others demand that employers pay for them to be a parent to have paid leave. Ones own nest egg, a violation of human entitlements. Then schools have parenting as a subject so that teachers and curriculum complicate what humanity had clearly done for generations, making it an academic and gradable act. Children, and adults for that matter are infantalised. The world has to be bubble wrapped, sanitised, and made G rated so that little Babyface can remain a protected little child and all the big bad realities of life are kept away. Professionals insist on their importance in each child’s lives, with needles, before and after and during school care they lean into regulations to make sure parents comply.

Near anyone can make a baby, it seems few can have a family. The conservatives and incels blame feminism and in the past the anti-alcohol religious types blamed abusive drunk men. Kids navigate broken homes, fifty-fifty care or see a parent once a week on the weekends, or every second weekend depending on what is negotiated. Some parents are absent, they just blow and go. Others never wanted a partner when they had little Babyface, so they go into partnership with the government. Co-parenting with the State. People tease girls that have “daddy issues”, men even use it as a disparaging term and yet never condemn the daddy who caused it. Women complain that males now want a Mummy, a cook, a maid someone to watch them play video games even though both bring income in. ‘But he bread winner cos he be man’ so the manosphere grifters explain in between affiliate marketing and crypto lectures. Step dad’s are called “cucks” and gay parents are viewed as “pedos”, it’s better single mothers stay single and children remain un-adopted.

The children of Asia, those whose parents worked themselves to death, are becoming less inclined to breed. The salary men of Japan and those who survived the “One Child” policies of China, where girls were undesired have parented children who are wary of being like their parents. In China female infants were abandoned and left to die, so that parents could have a boy. The youth generations ask, “what’s the point?” Japan is a nation of debt, described as living in the “year 2000”, from 1970 to now. China and Korea seem much the same, children must study, get good government or corporate jobs. Work hard, make money. Make money…make more money…security is in money. Make it, go into debt to make more money or buy things to make more money. Oh yeah, don’t forget to breed.

And so here we are with lonely generations. People not wanting to date or unable to. Youth not interested in having kids or not more than the two point three required to “grow” the nation state. Nazi Germany would give breeding medals to mothers who bred large numbers of offspring. The Nazi State needed workers and soldiers. The youth see their parents struggling, are schooled on the profession of parenting, parents moan about how hard it is being one, each child is raised as though it’s allergic to life itself, helicopter parents and paternal government have monetised, regulated and professionalised what was once love. Love, doesn’t matter for those who insist we all need to breed. I wonder why some are now wary to be bred?

Love is not an ideal, it’s not material construct, autistic tech bro’s can’t speculate on it’s value and it doesn’t make for a cool skin in whatever game is trending and it’s not an NFT, remember them. Instead it’s a relationship. If one is to have a child, breeding and being insisted upon to breed becomes a frightening dystopian circus or at worse it hearkens back to fascist or communist ideology where humans are needed as workers. Good little proletariat children. And, as some have so blatantly implied, children are an investment. They will take care of you. Think about that, breeding life so that it may take care of you when you age. Perhaps those advocating for the creation of life need to understand that there is more to life that servitude, investments or even biological gene spreading. Netflix has already done a special on that “hero” of the cause.

Maybe the problem isn’t that those who are reluctant to have kids are being selfish or infected by some feminist ideology. Rather those who claim one must or should have kids are panic mongering and insisting on it for selfish reasons themselves. The collectivist absurdity of it all has not created a community, it’s alienated aspects and expects others to work harder and to become beholden to others lifestyle choices. It’s not voluntary and communal. It’s parasitic and dependent. Hardly a grand role model for life. Those who claim to champion the culture war have failed to see the dark reflection in the mirror, set an example, be the good person, lover, parent or child. It starts at home. But alas like everything now, it’s a political issue and incentives will rise so that people breed for tax breaks or bonuses. Those who see a child as more than financial will be punished or remain child free.

There are social media groups for parents who share their regrets in being a parent. They discuss the pressures to breed, to have a family. Some hate their kids. Just as kids may hate a parent or parents. Apathy or hate within a family is almost normal. Complaining and outwardly denigrating child or parent frequent for some. Those who believe in a deity will claim that is what’s lacking. More faith, more belief. Being a loving person doesn’t require the fear of god. It turns out not everyone wants or should be a parent or simply have not felt secure in life or their relationship to take on that responsibility, to build a family.

Breed, or don’t, it’s up to you. Good people are valuable. They are more than just cum and eggs. More people for the sake of it, doesn’t lead to better people but people for the sake of making people. In the end a lot of the advocates for the breed more crowd, seem to use their family as a prop or assume every relationship should be the same or simply don’t even consider love being a factor in having a family at all. There is more to a woman than her eggs, she is not mandated or obligated to be bred. Just as there is more to a man than his seed. If either are not inspired to have kids, then it may say more about others than it does them. As Rodney Dangerfield once said, “the best thing about kids is making them,” so have fun and breed but there is more to creating life than providing genetic matter. The world doesn’t necessarily need more people, just better loving ones. That love starts in your own home.

August, 2024

The Emperor Has No Clothes: Stealth Technology is Sexy and Useless

by Bill Buppert | Aug 20, 2024 | Blog

f117

On 27 March 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a Yugoslav Army unit (3rd Battalion of the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade, which was under the leadership of Colonel Zoltán Dani) shot down an F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft of the United States Air Force by firing a S-125 Neva/Pechora surface-to-air missile. It was the first ever shootdown of a stealth technology airplane. The F-117, which entered service with the U.S. Air Force in 1983 was the first operational aircraft to be designed using stealth technology; by comparison, the Yugoslav air defenses were considered relatively obsolete. The F-117 fleet was officially retired on April 22, 2008.

Innovative tactics and leaders who know what they are about can take ancient weapons to destroy “state of the art” weapons systems and platforms such as the use of ancient pike tactics at Stirling Bridge to slaughter the English King’s modern heavy horse on 11 September 1297 in Scotland or the English victory against the French at Agincourt on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin’s Day). During WWII, the Russian-Finnish War in 1939-40 set a David versus Goliath fight that saw a very lop-sided body-count for the Russians fighting the tiny Finnish forces.

Stealth is very expensive and puts tremendous constraints on the utility of the the platform employing it. In the calculus of war, its use diminishes over time. Yet another exemplar of the adage that complexity and sophistication doesn’t always yield martial advantage. The stealth capability has been oversold on shaky science in the art of war.

In a fight with peer and near-peer adversaries, the stealth advantage is negligible.

It is overpriced and the enemy always gets a vote.

Designed in the 1950s, its short-range and fragile design made the SA-3 (S-125 Neva/Pechora) obsolete and relegated to second-tier militaries by the time of the Kosovo War. Yet, COL Zoltan was innovative and experienced.

As Col. Zelko approached his target, Zoltan ordered his radar on for 20 seconds, but couldn’t find the stealthy aircraft. Knowing the F-117 would be out of range within a minute, he ordered it back on for 20 seconds. He and his men desperately tried to find the nearly invisible aircraft as the seconds ticked by. As the clock hit zero his men, dejected, knew they had to begin the process of relocating. Instead, Zoltan, against his previous guidance, ordered the radar on for a third time – Zoltan knew the escort aircraft hadn’t taken off, and therefore wasn’t in danger of a HARM missile strike.

At 2015 local time, Zoltan found Col. Zelko just as he was releasing his bombs since, as Col. Zelko’s weapons bay doors were open, for several seconds he was no longer invisible to radar [Ed: increased radar cross section to make the stealth characteristics null]. Zoltan immediately ordered two missile launches and maintained the radar lock even after the doors closed.

Less than a minute later, Col. Zelko spotted the missiles.

“They were moving at three times the speed of sound, so there wasn’t much time to react,” he said. “I felt the first one go right over me, so close that it rocked the aircraft. Then I opened my eyes and turned my head, and there was the other missile. The impact was violent. I was at negative seven Gs. My body was being pulled out of the seat upward toward the canopy. As I strained to reach the ejection handles, one thought crossed my mind: This is really, really, really bad.”

F-35 pilot explains how an F-117 was shot down in 1999

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High on State Power: The Tragic Death of Matthew Perry and the Evil of the War on Drugs

by John Weeks | Aug 19, 2024 | Blog

On Oct. 28, 2023, beloved actor Matthew Perry was found dead in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home. Cause of death was ruled “acute effects of ketamine” and subsequent drowning. It was a tragic end, made more poignant by the fact that Perry had survived addictions to alcohol and opioids. He had written a book about it, and he was inspiring others to get help.

Last week, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that five people had been charged in connection with Perry’s death. Once again, the state demonstrated how much of a monster it is and how deeply evil its War on Drugs is.

According to a DOJ press release entitled “Five Defendants, Including Two Doctors, Charged in Connection with Actor Matthew Perry’s Fatal Drug Overdose Last Year,”:

“‘Today we announce charges brought against the five individuals who, together, are responsible for the death of Matthew Perry,’ said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. ‘We allege each of the defendants played a key role in his death by falsely prescribing, selling, or injecting the ketamine that caused Matthew Perry’s tragic death. Matthew Perry’s journey began with unscrupulous doctors who abused their position of trust because they saw him as a payday, to street dealers who gave him ketamine in unmarked vials. Every day, the DEA works tirelessly with our federal, state, and local partners to protect the public and to hold accountable those that distribute deadly and dangerous drugs – whether they are local drug traffickers or doctors who violate their sworn oath to care for patients.’”

The press release also said:

“‘These defendants cared more about profiting off of Mr. Perry than caring for his well-being,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada. ‘Drug dealers selling dangerous substances are gambling with other people’s lives over greed. This case, along with our many other prosecutions of drug-dealers who cause death, send a clear message that we will hold drug-dealers accountable for the deaths they cause.’”

If the press release is truthful (and we should always be suspicious of government press releases), the five people who preyed on Perry’s history of addiction and depression (which the ketamine was supposed to help) are absolute monsters. They are as malevolent and selfish as the government wants to portray them. But the real monster in this story is the government itself.

Look, many (maybe even all) of the government officials who investigated Perry’s overdose death and uncovered the diabolical conspirators profiting off of his suffering are no doubt people you and I would view as good. You know, they have a terrible job, but they’re good folk. One or two of them might be psychopaths, sure, but probably most of them are decent cats. But the state, a corporate agent that is a vast network of corporate agents, might as well be Satan himself.

The state has shaped the structure of our society for decades. And not for the better. Drug prohibition is a perfect example. The history of drug prohibition is one disaster after another. Alcohol prohibition during the 1920s and 1930s is a famous example, but all government drug prohibition has been catastrophic.

One result has been the emergence of increasingly dangerous street drugs, the state-empowerment of pharmaceutical companies and a culture in which it is cool and rebellious to take drugs with no quality control.

Ketamine was created by the pharmaceutical industry in the 1960s and get this, one of its early uses was as a battlefield anesthetic during the Vietnam War. Imagine how many yachts were purchased off that sweet, little military-industrial complex gig.

So, here’s Perry, being preyed on (allegedly) by a state-sanctioned pharmaceutical industry and state-licensed doctors when a free market in medicine would certainly have generated better drug treatments for depression. And then what does the state do? Demonize everyone except the state, subtly scapegoat capitalism along with the profit motive and get a big publicity splash. Another chance to remind us why we need them.

Sig P320/M17/18: MILSPEC is Overrated

by Bill Buppert | Aug 19, 2024 | Blog

sigp320

A negligent discharge (ND) in a weapon is when the operator strokes the trigger that results in the firing of the weapon. In my time, the lion’s share of these are NDs but actual mechanical (unintentional, accidental or “uncommanded”) discharges were rare and then the SIG-Sauer P320 arrives and now it becomes the Accidental Discharge (AD) king in the SIG pistol. NDs are a training issue and AD is a mechanical issue that causes it to fire.

SIG settled two cases out of court but Robert Zimmerman just prevailed in winning a court case that may start the train on finally resolving this. I suspect this happened with an early serial number. Most likely a drop-safe problem of an early model which may be fixed now.

Forgotten Weapons is a blog and YouTube channel started in 2011 by firearms specialist Ian McCallum (Gun Jesus!). I consider Ian the final word on all things weapons in the West, he discovered in this video that the problems are more nuanced and may be more operator-centric than not.

Sig even issued a Safety Bulletin in 2023. They make the claim this affects only light bearing lights and that is simply not the case. Occam’s Razor tells us the best solution is to fix all the affected models, freeze production, engineer a solution and recommence manufacturing. If you produce a gun with rails that accommodate a light and there are a rash of ND/ADs, then recommend to all customers to stop or cease producing light bearing pistols until you fix it instead, Sig for the most part is stonewalling and claiming the problem doesn’t exist. Although I do suspect the problem is solved for new manufacture pistols.

The pistol became very popular when the military adopted it because people who have not been in the military assume that the military adoption of a tool makes it desirable. Those in the military know better than this but the mystique remains.

SIG has produced some terrific weapons in the past. One of my bucket list guns for me is a SIG P210.

The SIG Sauer M17 and M18 are service pistols derived from the SIG Sauer P320 in use with the United States Armed Forces. On January 19, 2017, the United States Army announced that a customized version of SIG Sauer’s P320 had won the Army’s XM17 Modular Handgun System competition. The full-sized model was designated the M17, and the shorter length carry model, the M18. Unfortunately, Glock lost the contract which is the superior handgun by a mile. We Glock folk did get a bonus by getting access to what may be a one the best models ever in the 19X.

t48 t44

I happen to think for a variety of reasons Glock was sandbagged in the adoption process by the military much like the rigged trial to adopt the M14 (T44) over the FN-FAL (T48) & AR10 (BRN10A) in the 1950s. The FAL was adopted by over 90+ countries, the M14 by about 30. The M14 remained in service for seven years (1957-64) as the primary rifle for the US armed forces before being replaced by the Stoner design in the 1960s. In 1969, the M16A1 replaced the M14 rifle to become the US military’s standard service rifle. The M14’s service in the Army was cut short when Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered a halt on production of the rifle on 23 January 1963, after more than one million had been manufactured. That story is a post for another day.

Despite the Coprophile Media insisting the negligent/accidental discharges are not mechanical but user neglect, the SIG corporation does offer a volunteer upgrade program to address this mechanical issue in earlier models. This begs the question, why not make that a standard improvement on all follow-on manufacturing? Maybe they did, I don’t know.

For me, the number one way to carry and ensure ND and AD issues don’t occur is training & everyday usage and to ensure whatever holster configuration you use covers the trigger completely. Don’t use any holster that doesn’t achieve this rather simple end-state.This prevents anything accidentally getting in the trigger guard to action the trigger.

There will be a historian in the future who will examine this whole acquisition debacle and get to the bottom of it. I remain a Glock pistol user exclusively.

If I leave you with one thing, it is this: don’t think a military endorsement of a weapons system means it is worthwhile for your use.

YMMV.

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Merrick Garland Should Start His Crusade Against White Supremacists By Re-Opening the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing Case

by Richard Booth | Aug 18, 2024 | Blog

Given the recent stories about Merrick Garland’s experience at the helm of the Oklahoma City bombing prosecution and his own comments about prosecuting white supremacists should he be made Attorney General, I have some questions about Garland’s handling of the OKC bombing case.

My questions:

At an April 27, 1995 Preliminary Hearing, why did you “object” when defense attorneys noted that your witness, FBI agent Jon Hersley, testified that the Ryder truck carried “passengers” — plural? Your objection was overruled, and your witness confirmed that Timothy McVeigh was seated in the Ryder truck with another individual. Who is that individual?
At the April 27, 1995 Preliminary Hearing, why did you “object” when attorneys asked your witness the names of those FBI agents tasked with reviewing the surveillance camera footage of the bombing?
You once said “we did everything we could to find every person who was involved.” If that’s true, then how do you explain the fact that every eyewitness you touted at the April 27th 1995 preliminary hearing never testified at the federal trials? Why didn’t these witnesses get to tell a jury what they saw? Why is it that the man seen with Timothy McVeigh in the Ryder truck has never been identified?

If Merrick Garland is truly dedicated to prosecuting dangerous white supremacists then he can show it by reopening the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing case and identifying and prosecuting Timothy McVeigh’s accomplices. I would not be alone in calling for the case to be re-opened. Danny Coulson, the FBI on-scene commander for the Oklahoma bomb site, agrees. In 2004, Coulson told John Solomon of the Associated Press that there are “some unanswered questions here. A lot of things happened that were inappropriate,” Coulson said. “I think it needs to be reopened, but I don’t think it should be reopened by the FBI. It needs to be a special investigator, a lawyer, totally independent. He needs to have subpoena power and the ability to use a grand jury.”

Danny Defenbaugh, then the retired chief of the FBI’s OKBOMB investigation agreed: “If I were still in the bureau, the investigation would be reopened” said Defenbaugh, commenting on new evidence that came to light almost a decade after the bombing. ”If the evidence is still there, then it should be checked out.”

Garland can kick off this effort by compelling the FBI to produce the surveillance camera footage that shows two men exiting the Ryder truck, and he can finish by apologizing for letting dangerous white supremacists get away with it for the last 25 years.

Bang for Your Buck: Breaking the Bank to Upgrade the Nuclear Arsenal (Part II)

by Bill Buppert | Aug 16, 2024 | Blog

reentry of unarmed minuteman iii icbms demonstrate afgsc mission

These recently cleared photos of the reentry of an unarmed Minuteman III ICBM, sent by the team at the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site demonstrate the accuracy of the unarmed ICBM test launch earlier this month, 2,300 miles west-southwest of Hawaii on Kwajalein Atoll, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Each test launch reiterates the safe, secure, and effective capability of the land-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad.

(U.S. Army photo by Amy Hansen)

In Part I, I discussed and critiqued an overview of the new efforts to update the US nuclear arsenal.

Here, we’ll chat (again) about the Sentinel which is the improved replacement for the aging Minuteman III ICBM and it is already in trouble with the schedule sliding to the right and the costs increasing (surprise). The first test flight has slipped from 2025 to 2026. It will continue to slip if history is a judge. The complexity of the Sentinel program has been emphasized by the Secretary of the Air Force, who characterized it as “struggling” with “unknown unknowns.” Acknowledged as one of the most extensive and complex endeavors ever undertaken, the program faces significant hurdles.The Sentinel is the first fully software enable missile unlike the other ICBMs.

The Minuteman III program began in the early 1960s, with the first operational missiles entering service in 1970. At the time, the projected service life of these weapons was just 10 years, meaning the Minuteman III arsenal was slated to be replaced starting in 1980. And here we are looking at a rickety life expansion for the Minuteman III that won’t conceivably be replaced by the Sentinel until the 2030s (maybe).

My forecast: the Sentinel program will be an unmitigated disaster with mission assurance problems plaguing it from manufacturing to deployment that will be late in delivery and costly beyond measure.

That breach mandated that the Air Force and OSD identify the root causes of a program price jump of 37 percent to a new total of over $130 billion and to probe a potential two-year delay to the missile’s planned initial operational capability, previously pegged for 2029.

In the addition, the concurrent development of a new submarine launched ICBM capability is experiencing similar conflicts and delays. The risk of staging this development at the same time risks increasing gaps in coverage for ICBM delivery from the respective modalities.

Highlighting the estimated cost of the Navy’s Columbia submarine program, whose pricetag for 12 subs would be roughly equal to the revised cost of the Sentinel program, the Northrop official argued that Sentinel is a “relatively affordable” piece of the nuclear triad.

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/sentinel-icbms-first-flight-test-slips-to-2026-air-force/

Significantly, the program has faced substantial cost overruns, exceeding initial projections by at least 37%. Initially estimated at $118 million per missile in 2020, the acquisition unit cost has now surged to approximately $162 million.

Furthermore, staffing shortages, supply chain disruptions, and software difficulties have been highlighted by the Government Accountability Office. These issues are anticipated to extend the rollout of the program beyond the initially planned 2029 time-frame to a revised estimate between April and June 2030.

The Sentinel: U.S. $100 Billion ICBM Project

The program to replace America’s aging nuclear ICBM arsenal, known as the LGM-35A Sentinel, is already projected to go at least 81 percent over budget, which represents tens of billions of dollars in anticipated cost overruns. Yet, despite the program’s ballooning expenses, the Pentagon has reaffirmed its commitment to the effort, calling its continuation, “essential to national security.”

To many outside of the Defense apparatus, the Sentinel ICBM program may seem unnecessary. After all, the United States already maintains a standing arsenal of more than 400 nuclear-armed Minuteman III ICBMs, each of which can deliver its nuclear payload to targets more than 8,000 miles away, traveling at speeds over Mach 23. These weapons lay in wait, housed in hardened underground silos spanning Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota, and represent only the land-based portion of America’s traditional nuclear triad.

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While the Air Force’s 2014 [Rand] analysis concluded that modernizing the Minuteman III would cost just as much as replacing them, the Rand study presciently argued that a replacement ballistic missile system “will likely cost almost twice (and perhaps even three times) as much as incremental modernization and sustainment of the MM III system.”

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As part of ensuring the land-based leg of the nuclear triad is ready and capable of responding to attack, the United States usually conducts four to five ICBM test launches per year. If the U.S. continued this pace of testing, it would run out of extra weapons to launch by 2035, forcing it to either halt test launches indefinitely or start shaving operational weapons off the inventory to be used for these tests.

https://www.sandboxx.us/news/everything-you-need-to-know-about-americas-struggle-to-replace-its-aging-icbm-arsenal/

And those test launches are neither cheap nor efficient.

The nuclear weapons landscape on Earth right now: