The U.S. Army's new Light Tank

 I don't know about the "Light Tank" system, It has to have the ability to kill the MBT of our enemies and I'm not sure that the 105 mm has the ability to penetrate the new reactive armor on the tanks that the Russians and Chinese are fielding unless they have specialized ammo for that gun and that will add to the cost and complexity of the logistic support. The light tank will be easier to deploy with the combat teams and getting lifted with air assets than the 70 ton M1A2 Abrams. 

    I got this article off "The SandBoxx

Michael Peck | June 30, 2022

The U.S. Army has selected the Griffin II as its first new tank since the Cold War.

But will the new platform give the Army a lightweight but heavily armed vehicle that can support the infantry? Or like the history of light tanks suggests, it will be a liability on the battlefield? That depends on how you view the future of tanks – and the weapons that destroy them.

At the least, America buying a new tank is notable. The backbone of the Army’s armored fleet – the M1 Abrams – dates back to the late 1970s. Although much upgraded since then, it is essentially the same vehicle that was designed to take on waves of Soviet tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap.

The Army awarded a $1.1-billion contract to General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) for the new vehicle. GDLS’s Griffin II design weighs 40 tons – about half the weight of a 70-ton M1A2 Abrams – and has a four-person crew. It has a 105-millimeter cannon, rather than the 120-millimeter gun found in Western main battle tanks like the M-1, Germany’s Leopard 2, and Israel’s Merkava 4.

The new tank borrows much from the M1A2, including its fire control system and a turret that resembles that of the Abrams.

The new tank is part of the Army’s Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) program, which aims to develop a tank to bolster Infantry Brigade Combat Teams and allow for better destruction of enemy tanks and bunkers. The two contenders for the award were GDLS and its Griffin II – whose chassis is based on the Austro-Spanish ASCOD armored vehicle — and BAE, whose design traced back to the 1980s-proposed M8 Buford.

“GDLS offered a new, lightweight chassis with a high-performance power pack and an advanced suspension, combined with a turret featuring the latest version of the fire control system found in the Abrams main battle tank,” noted Defense News.

The Army plans to buy 504 light tanks by 2035, as part of a program that may eventually total $17 billion in procurement and sustainment costs, according to Army officials.

The disadvantages of light tanks

French Renault FT tanks operated by the US Army in France. The light tanks had a crew of only two and were mass-produced during World War I. (Wikimedia Commons)

Tanks should support infantry. In fact, that’s why the tank was invented back in the First World War, as a means to destroy the machine guns and barbed wire that had decimated infantry attacking across No Man’s Land. But tanks, like battleships, are compromises between three requirements: firepower, protection, and mobility. You can favor one or perhaps two of those factors, but only at the cost of the third.

And the Army’s MPF light tank sacrifices protection, given that it weighs only 40 tons. Even if it mounts an Active Protection System to shoot down incoming anti-tank rockets, the tank would seem likely to have protection closer to an infantry fighting vehicle like the M2 Bradley than a main battle tank like the Abrams.

Then there is the troubled history of the light tank concept. The major powers all used light tanks in World War II. The tanks included the U.S. M3 and M5 Stuart, the German Panzerkampfwagen I, and the Soviet T-70. They had smaller cannons and lighter armor, but they were cheaper to build than medium and heavy tanks.

The problem was that in combat, they often faced heavier enemy tanks. During the disastrous Battle of Kasserine Pass in February 1943, the M5 found itself outmatched by heavier, better-armed, and better-armored German PzKpfw III and IV tanks and anti-tank guns. General Patton “issued a directive that light tanks were only to be used for reconnaissance and flank security in view of their weakness in dealing with current German tanks and anti-tank guns,” notes author Steven Zaloga in his book on the Stuart tank. Against heavy German Tiger and Panther tanks, the results could be imagined.

Related: Could the Panther tank once again be seen in Europe?

The M5A1 light tank. Here the crew has added logs to the chassis to increase the vehicle’s protection. (The Museum of American Armor)

By 1944, the U.S. Army had concluded that the “poor armor protection of the M5A1 resulted in a higher rate of crew casualties than in medium tanks, with a medium tank crew having about a one-in-five chance of becoming a casualty when their tank was knocked out, compared to a one-in-three chance in light tanks,” according to Zaloga.

The Stuart was eventually replaced by the somewhat more successful M24 Chaffee, some of which were air-dropped to the doomed French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. After World War II came the infamous M551 Sheridan, an air-droppable light tank built out of aluminum and armed with a powerful 152-millimeter cannon that could fire Shillelagh infrared-guided anti-tank missile. Deployed to Vietnam in 1969, the recoil of the gun was so hard that it knocked out the vehicle’s electronics.

This doesn’t mean that the new Griffin II light tank will be unsuccessful. But U.S. tanks already face a variety of deadly threats, including new Chinese and Russian tanks such as Russia’s T-14 Armata, as well as anti-tank missiles, long-range artillery, and missile-armed drones that have proved devastating in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Some experts are already writing obituaries for the tank. That’s premature because there is no substitute for a vehicle that combines firepower, protection, and mobility. Yet, it does suggest that the modern battlefield is a heavy burden for a light tank.

 

China Test a New Surface to Air Missile with good mid air hit probabilities....and we learn Proper Pronouns.

 We are in deep trouble, China is positioning herself as the preeminent power for the 21st century, they have been spending a lot of money upgrading their military with the debt we have financed them with all the crap we have bought from them. They are expecting a conflict with the United States in the next 20 years and they want to be ready, or sooner when they decide to seize Taiwan because we are bound by treaty to defend the Taiwanese in case the Red Chinese attack. 

      And what are we doing....Making sure that the proper pronouns are used...

 Proper etiquette as ordained by Official U.S. Navy sources....Just in time for Pride Month.   

   If I sound like I'm picking on the Squids, I'm not, they are just the most visible symbol..for the moment, all the services have this problems...even the vaunted Marines.

    The U.S.Army are having a lot of problems meeting "Recruiting" goals, The reasons giving come from the lack of physical conditioning of the recruits, to lack of interest, I'm sure that after being programmed since grade school to hate the United States, encouraging Citizens to sign up to defend her is kinda hard I suppose. so blame your liberal school systems...but by Gaia, the kids will know the proper pronouns as to not misidentify the 57 different genders...or something like that.

    It will take 20 years to erase the rot from our Military institutions, if we get that much time before China gets froggy and jumps.

 

                                   Chinese H-9 surface-to-air missile launcher

DOHA, Qatar—China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has performed a ballistic-missile defense (BMD) test, hitting a missile in its mid-course phase. 

China’s Ministry of National Defense says “the test reached its desired objective” and was of a defensive nature—not aimed at any particular country. 

The June 19 test would be China sixth of the BMD, following ones in 2010, 2013, 2014, 2018 and 2021. All tests were mid-course missile intercepts, with the exception of the 2014 test, for which no details were provided.

While the PLA did not reveal which missile interceptor was used, it is highly possible that it was the HQ-19. Based on the H-9 surface-to-air missile, the HQ-19 uses a dual-purpose exosphere kinetic-kill vehicle for ballistic-missile and satellite targets and has an estimated range between 1,000 km (621 mi.) and 3,000 km. It is often compared to the U.S Terminal High Altitude Area Defense BMD system. 

China conducted its first anti-satellite test in 2007, destroying a 750-kg (1,650-lb.) satellite using a multistage solid-fuel missile tipped with a kinetic-kill vehicle. 

Given the maturity of China mid-course BMD, the next steps would be the development and validation of terminal-stage BMD and finally integrating such technology into its massive Type-055 missile destroyers, giving the PLA greater standoff missile-defense capability.

 

"Where the Cold War Started"

 I saw this surfing the web, it is a different take, I thought the Cold war really started over Berlin with Stalin trying to cut off the city and force the allies to leave, although Sir Winston did say that the "Iron Curtain" was falling on Europe in his 1946 speech, but the Americans didn't really realize it until 1948.  Before then, we were in our postwar glow and the fastest demobilization in history, the Armies and Navies that defeated the Axis powers were "Demobbed" as they say and the equipment scrapped. Stalin was thinking postwar before the war was over and he played Roosevelt like a fiddle and he then snowed Truman, although I think Truman didn't buy the "Grandfather Russia" act that Stalin was running" unlike Roosevelt, Just my 0.02.

Here is a "Warsaw Uprising" blogpost I did 4 years ago, it explains a lot about the uprising.

 

                                    Monument to the Warsaw Uprising

Where the Cold War Began

Thoughts in and around geopolitics.

By

George Friedman

-

June 24, 2022

I stood on a balcony in Warsaw this past week to gaze at the Vistula River. The Vistula runs wide and deep, the guardian of Warsaw from the east. Poland has seen existential threats from all directions. In the 20th century, the danger came from Germany to the west and from Russia to the east. Poland was once an empire, but for much of its recent history, it has been a victim. And the Vistula is where we must remember an episode that may not have resulted in the most Polish deaths but that nonetheless exemplifies the brutality and betrayal that was visited upon the country not so long ago.

In 1945, Germany was collapsing. A quasi-government in Poland called the Lublin Committee was emerging from the ashes, preparing to build a free Polish government and allow Poland to take control of its destiny. The future of Poland had been discussed extensively at the meetings of the big three – Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Roosevelt and Churchill favored the Lublin Committee. Stalin was appalled. For Stalin, a pro-Soviet or at least a Soviet-controlled Poland was essential. Then as today, the Russian objective was strategic depth. Moscow had nearly fallen to the Germans, saved only by winter and distance. Controlling Poland was a simple matter of safety. Moscow therefore wanted the Lublin Committee replaced by a communist government under Russian control.

Roosevelt and Churchill opposed this, but they had a different sense of Stalin and how to handle him. Churchill saw Stalin as the moral and strategic danger to their plan to spread liberal democracy to the east. Roosevelt believed that whatever Stalin might be, he had to be persuaded that the Lublin Committee would not pose a threat to Russia. Roosevelt believed deeply in the power of personal relations to the point that it might overwhelm geopolitical imperatives. I don’t think he was naive, but he believed Stalin had the upper hand militarily and that the only viable option was trying to convince him that the U.S. and Britain had no bad intentions. What was benign to them was a mortal threat to Stalin. Even so, Stalin indicated vaguely that the Lublin Committee would be respected.

During World War II, as the Russians approached Warsaw from the east, the Polish Home Army, a resistance force inside Warsaw, rose up against the Germans. At this moment, Stalin halted the Russian advance. His explanation was that Russian forces needed to regroup and be resupplied. Warsaw was Stalin’s for the taking. Some reorganization might have been needed, but the Russian army stopped for weeks. The Germans carried out the slaughter they were famous for, decimating the Home Army and allowing Russia to enter Warsaw as the only force capable of governing. The Lublin Committee was brushed aside, and a communist party subservient to Russia was imposed, remaining in power until the Soviet Union fell. In other words, Stalin stopped to give Hitler time to slaughter Stalin’s Polish enemies, and once completed, Stalin advanced into a devastated city.

This is where the Cold War began. Stalin did not trust Churchill or Roosevelt. In his view, Russia paid the price for crushing Hitler – in spite of the fact that he had allied with Hitler to invade and divide Poland in 1939. Roosevelt believed he could forge personal trust with Stalin to avoid conflict, which was perhaps the only course possible since a Western military insertion into Poland was impossible. The deep doubts about Russia were frozen into a long-term distrust and created 46 years of conflict.

When I stepped out on that balcony in Warsaw, a cocktail in hand, I did not know that this was the river behind which Stalin halted, and to my rear was the city where he welcomed Hitler’s slaughter of the Poles. I saw a deep and deceptively calm river but could not see the blood that had been spilled to assure Russia’s strategic depth. The irony was that I was in Warsaw to address the strategic challenge posed in 2022 by Russia in Ukraine, the massive Polish effort to sustain the Ukrainian resistance, and my own country’s presence in Poland, supplying weapons to Ukraine and with the 82nd airborne deployed.

Russia continues to seek strategic depth all these years later, and continues the contest it began on the banks of the Vistula. Russia lost Poland, and now it’s fighting a war to take hold of Ukraine. It no longer has a Germany to do its dirty work. But it is important we remember the manner in which Russia pursues imperatives: What Moscow must have generates its operating principles. It cannot give up the search for strategic depth, nor can it obtain it without the ruthlessness reality demands. But history has a great sense of humor and demands patience. How much patience Ukraine can muster is, of course, unclear. How many times Russia must play the same game is even more so.

 

Interesting Few Days

First off, for those that don't know, I am a chemtrail Technician at a major carrier, I will not mention which one, I kinda like the anonymity if y'all know what I mean, I kinda like my job and don't want to get fired.   Well there have been flight cancellations..

       We have been working a lot of overtime to keep our airplanes in the air, if a plane is grounded for maintenance reasons, it is because there is something unsafe either with the plane, or something with the passenger emergency equipment.  There are a few hard and fast things that will ground a plane, we take our job seriously to give the carrier and the flying public as safe a plane as we can make it.  That being said, there have been a lot of cancellations, some have been to maintenance, but a lot of them have been to staffing shortages, from the pilots on down.  To get a pilots or as we call them "The Skyking" rating in a first world airline and nation is not easy, and it isn't supposed to be, the responsibility that a pilot has is daunting.  That being said, a lot of older pilots did take a "Package" during covid and retired, that took a lot of experience out of the system.  This effect also went for others like Ground Support and Maintenance, we lost a lot of experience that retired and walked out of the doors.  There was already a looming shortfall before Covid hit, statistically speaking where I work at, 1 out of 3 maintenance personnel were eligible to retire in the next five years, and we know this was coming so we had already been working with the various tech schools in the area to replace people.  But it takes an average of 5 years to get someone spooled up to our processes and how we do things and commercial aviation is a lot different than General Aviation, which the schools focus more on.  It also didn't help that certain airlines fired their personnel that refused to get the Vaxx due to the "Vaxx Mandates".  And the .gov fired employees that refused to get the Vaxx, I was talking to one of the TSA guys that I talk to when I do my Honor Guard missions and he had told me that 40% of the TSA refused to get the VAXX and they were slated for termination after Thanksgiving, but were giving a  temporary reprieve through the holidays but after the holidays, they were canned, and that was done throughout the civil service.   That being said a lot of the airlines are saying that "FAA Staffing Shortages at Key Hubs" are causing ripple effects through the system.  With us, our load factors are running exceedingly high, and if we have any disruptions, it causes problems.

 The Supreme Court made a couple of landmark rulings late last week and the repercussions are still falling.

  Needless the Democrats are a bit upset, crying, raging, meltdowns, hysterical shrieking, crying, howling   miffed shall we say.

      First off the SCOTUS released a major ruling that basically destroyed the "May Issue" that certain leftie states were using to keep people from getting a CCW permit.  The "May Issue" basically said that you had to justify your need to carry a pistol outside the home to a government official, and for some reason, only the well connected, the politicians, Donk Donors, entertainers, and so forth were able to get a permit after a "donation" to a democratic politicians PAC. The regular Joe six pack, the tradesman, the small business owner, the single parent...well they were screwed.  This was a two tiered justice process, one for the connected...another for the rest of us.  This has the huge potential of eclipsing Heller as a major win for the 2nd amendment. Well the democrats are a bit miffed about that.....

  Until Roe vs Wade was overturned......then it was the apocalypse...for the left.  Remember Roe Vs Wade is the center of their being, the zeitgeist of being a modern leftist.  I personally viewed it as a persons choice, we are endowed by our creator to choose, the only creatures on this planet with that ability.  As long as it ain't my DNA or my money, their business.  Personally, I wouldn't "do an abortion" or support it.  But it is a persons choice to do so.  What lost the "Normies" was when the left took the original and kept pushing past the first trimester into the 3rd trimester, and this horrified the "Normies" who couldn't understand the fascination with the left with killing kids.  And what it is that they use it as a form of birth control. "Hey instead of a condom or a pill, lets scrape the cells", that was the attitude and they kept pushing.

We not only went from "Abortion should be safe and rare!", from Clinton yet, to "Abortion at any time for any reason at any stage of pregnancy!" Plus the "Anyone who doesn't agree hates women. If they're women, they're either slaves of the patriarchy-" etc., and you'd think the leftists would at least understand just how badly being called those various things was going to piss off women on the other side.

      We have the other side screaming racial slurs at Clarence Thomas, having riots, throwing temper tantrums, and basically being obnoxious  and the best part is that the voters can see the people wanting abortions in all their glory being assholes and dicks , yep voters love them self entitled white liberal women talking out of their asses. gonna score a lot of points and sway a lot of opinions.

   

  

   And we have the  dictator er Premier of Canada offer Abortions to all who cross the border....Wow how forward thinking...of him....Honoring a women's right to choose what happens to her body.....except she has to be vaxxed.....Say what?    the inconsistency is amusing if it wasn't so sad and tone deaf.

https://t.co/nOWO4OM1ry

    Here is a Tiktok video that explains the "Normies" position pretty well.

     Now the Left is all enraged, they are having "Mostly Peaceful Protest", but in blue cities...they want to try that crap in "Flyover country",  but  the police, city council and DA aren't friendly to that kind of action.   

      This is what they believe in their blue enclaves when they talk amongst themselves.  they view us with disdain.  This was my response to that thread...

It seems kinda foolish there ...sport....you do realize that those rural people have a lot of guns and a DA that isn't friendly towards your cause like that big city where you came from....the outcome might be a bit different than you imagined.....just food for thought

  .

  All I know that the Summer of 2022 will rival the Summer of 2020 as the "Summer of Love" at the rate it is going and the people are not blinded by the media like they were in 2020, and they are pissed and feel like they were taken advantage of

 

    

Monday Music "You Got a Friend in Me" By Randy Newman (Toy Story Edition)

 I have been super busy, between the nights and overtime, I am finding it difficult to find time to post. I will touch on it a bit on Tuesday's post

 I am continuing my Disney Singalong Bugaloo themed music....Yes it is a bit twisted, but the chances of the "alphabet boi's having kids are pretty slim because they reproduce by asexual reproduction...Or reproduction without sex.

 

           Saw this meme and *rescued it from farcebook*, why? because I am a humanitarian, that's why.

I am continuing my string of "bugaloo" songs.  This discussion was started in the "Monster Hunter Nation, Hunters Unite", back in November of 2019? it is a Facebook group with enthusiast of the ILOH "International Lord of Hate" A.K.A Larry Correia.  We were talking about what song would we use if we looked out of our window or glanced at our security camera and saw this.....

 

One of the alphabet bois lining up to take down your house...What would be your "Valhalla" song and you would set it up to play as you load up magazines set up the Tannerite Rover, turn on the water irrigation system and fill it with gasoline instead of water and prepare yourself.

 I figured it would scar the alphabet boys if they come busting in and hearing a song about people having a good time and standing up for themselves and having a song that their kid sing over and over again would be a good psyop as it  playing Loud and Proud will scar the Alphabet Boi's as they force the stack through the door.

    

"You've Got a Friend in Me" is a song by Randy Newman. Used as the theme song for the 1995 Disney/Pixar animated film Toy Story, it has since become a major musical component for its sequels, Toy Story 2 (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010) and Toy Story 4 (2019) as well as a musical leitmotif throughout the whole Toy Story franchise. The song was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, but lost both to "Colors of the Wind" from Disney's Pocahontas.

Like many other Disney theme songs, "You've Got a Friend in Me" has been covered numerous times. Cover versions featured in the first three Toy Story films include a duet with Newman and Lyle Lovett in Toy Story; a diagetic instance by Tom Hanks, a version by Robert Goulet and an instrumental by Tom Scott in Toy Story 2, and a Spanish language version by the Gipsy Kings in Toy Story 3. 

 

 

The song is played during the opening credits for Toy Story, Toy Story 3, and Toy Story 4, establishing the importance of Woody and Andy in the first film and the importance of all his toys in the third and fourth. Toy Story 3 also uses it for irony and dramatic effect, as the opening credits harken back to the first film and the song abruptly fades out with "And as the years go by, our friendship will never die", before showing that Andy's remaining toys in the present day are boxed up and unused. When they were unused, Andy was 17 years old. In Toy Story 4, the song is heard during the opening montage, that features Andy playing with Woody, giving him to Bonnie as a teenager, and Bonnie playing with him, but soon starting to neglect him.

In two sequels, the song is listened to by the characters as part of the story, as cover versions done at the end of the film for thematic reasons: at the end of Toy Story 2, the character Wheezy starts to sing it to the other toys in the style of Frank Sinatra; during the end credits of Toy Story 3, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie (now a couple) perform a pasodoble to a Spanish version of the song, deliberately played by Jessie to get Buzz to dance.

The most significant use of the song was in the third act of Toy Story 2, where an episode of Woody's Roundup (the 1950s puppet show he was based on) shows the puppet Woody singing the song, directed at the young audience and featuring a small child hugging the puppet. Woody sees this and has an epiphany, realizing that his mission as a toy is to be there for a child. (In-universe, the song was presumably written for Woody's Roundup.)

The Woody's Roundup version was performed by Tom Hanks, with acoustic guitar backing; Wheezy's version was sung by Robert Goulet (though the character was voiced by Joe Ranft); and the Spanish version, "You've Got a Friend in Me (Para el Buzz Español)", was performed by the Gipsy Kings.