Those Russian military advisors should really kick those Syrian forces' asses into attention. With some semblance of proper discipline and tactics, they could've had a much better situation than they are now in.

Their tactics are still shit though. How in hell do they park the tank on top of the rise there on full view of everybody? And where's the covering infantry? 

Those Russian military advisors should really kick those Syrian forces' asses into attention. With some semblance of proper discipline and tactics, they could've had a much better situation than they are now in.

Normally the TOW operators are quite far, up to 4km away. However in this case the speed of the TOW to the tank suggest the operator was less than 1km away. Even with covering infantry also, no one can scan 360° all the time.

"Joining these military exercises will be beneficial to improving the Chinese navy’s ability to contend with non-traditional security threats," said Wu Qian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Defense.

Why there's helicopters flying around? And I heard a sound of a number of jets and props flying into Subang this morning. New A-400 arrive?

Exercise Kocha Singa 2016.

Earlier today, our Chief of Army, BG Melvyn Ong and Royal Thai Army (RTA) Commander-in-Chief General, Teerachai Nakwanich co-officiated the closing ceremony of Exercise Kocha Singa 2016.

Our Chief shared, "Today, as we see the end of the exercise, again, it is a testimony of the good friendship and partnership between the Royal Thai Army and the Singapore Army. To that, I am very grateful for the hospitality, training, and support they have given to our troops."

The 18th series of the bilateral exercise, held in Thailand from 15 to 26 Feb, saw the participation of over 800 soldiers from the 40th Battalion, Singapore Armoured Regiment and Headquarters 8th Singapore Armoured Brigade, as well as the Royal Thai Army's (RTA) 1st Infantry Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment.

Those Russian military advisors should really kick those Syrian forces' asses into attention. With some semblance of proper discipline and tactics, they could've had a much better situation than they are now in.

Shortly after Russia deployed an air wing to western Syria in order to help save the embattled regime of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, Moscow asked the United States to supply rescue helicopters to keep watch over Russian aviators.

Gen. Charles Brown, the commander of Air Forces Central Command, recommended against helping because “the U.S. has just enough resources to take care of itself,” according to Everstine.

The Marines’ aircraft-recovery units flying in MV-22B tiltrotors can perform a rescue function, too, as can U.S. Special Operations Forces with their own H-47, H-60 and V-22 rotorcraft.

Despite claiming that its forces are in Syria to help defeat Islamic State — a goal that, in theory, Washington could get behind — in reality Russian air strikes frequently target U.S.-backed rebels and unarmed civilians.

The U.S. Air Force has given us our first glimpse of what will hopefully become American’s next stealth bomber. Originally designated the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), the aircraft will now be called the B-21. Why is this announcement today such a big deal? Because it’s as much about the B-21's struggle to even get built as it as about what it could mean for America’s defense apparatus.

These capabilities include advanced integrated air defense systems with long-range engagement capabilities able to target and shoot down aircraft from hundreds of miles away, as well as increasingly capable ballistic missiles that can put America’s fixed installations and even our carrier strike groups at risk throughout an entire region. A country with a strong AD/A2 capability has created an invisible fortress wall that can be pushed out thousands of miles from its territorial borders.

The B-21 will not only be a conventional and eventually a nuclear bomber in the traditional sense, but it will also have many other roles and capabilities. These will likely include working as a forward deployed sensor and communications node, a surveillance and electronic warfare platform, as well as potentially controlling drone swarms in the not so distant future. It could even have an unmanned capability one day.

The B-21 designation makes a lot of sense marketing-wise but may upset the most extreme military aviation aficionados out there. The “21" in B-21 is clearly there for marketing purposes, signifying that it is the bomber of the 21st century. It is also interesting that the first lot of production aircraft will include 21 units.

The B-21 designation deviates from the USAF’s modern bomber designation system that has included B-1 and B-2, with B-3 being the predicted designation for the LRS-B and the failed Next Generation Bomber and 2018 Bomber initiatives that came before it.

North Korea on Saturday boasted of a newly developed anti-tank weapon that its leader said was so powerful it could turn the most heavily armoured enemy tanks into "boiled pumpkin".

Pyongyang's state media said leader Kim Jong-Un had watched tests of the portable, laser-guided rocket and declared it had the "longest firing range in the world", and was "as accurate as a sniper's rifle".

"He noted with great satisfaction that even the special armoured tanks and cars of the enemies which boast their high manoeuvrability and striking power are no more than a boiled pumpkin before the anti-tank guided weapon", the KCNA news agency.

From the beginning of Syria's war, the regime of Bashar al-Assad, enabled by Iran and Russia, has run a very elaborate media war to portray itself as the victim of an international conspiracy

Assad is the only alternative to the terrorists, it says, so the West should support him

War criminal he might be, he will protect the minorities - his role in endangering them by starting a sectarian war against the Sunni majority and bolstering the takfiris within the insurgency to cannibalise all legitimate or engageable armed opposition, notwithstanding - and has no immediate plans to fly planes into Western skyscrapers

Assad's ground forces are made up of radically sectarian, foreign Shia jihadists under Iran's control, some of them Iraqis responsible for killing a quarter of the 4,000 US soldiers who fell in Mesopotamia

A central point of misinformation in both Sachs' and Kinzer's articles is that the US is hell-bent on overthrowing Assad

In 2011 and since, those interested in containing Iran were advocating the Assad regime's overthrow: Iran's gateway into the Arab world, its lifeline to the terrorist Hezbollah in Lebanon, and increasingly an Iranian vassal regime on NATO's doorstep. But in reality, US policy has been essentially the exact opposite

In December 2011, Obama told Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's then-prime minister whose relationship with Iranian intelligence goes back decades, "We have no intention to intervene militarily" in Syria. The regime's propaganda campaign basically worked. The US was expressing misgivings about the Syrian rebellion in terms reminiscent of regime talking points by early 2012 and shortly thereafter Assad's survival became part of a broader US policy realignment.

By respecting Iranian "equities" in the region and finding areas of common interest - such as fighting the Islamic State (even if such common interests are illusory) - Obama hoped to create an "equilibrium" that could police itself with minimal US involvement

Since the paper agreement was the thing the US wanted - rather than to verifiably disarm Iran - it meant that the leverage in the nuclear negotiations themselves was tilted toward Iran

To preserve the nuclear deal and Obama's concept of a new regional order, Syria was given to Iran as a sphere of influence. Iran was informed ahead of time when the US began airstrikes against IS, for example, and told Assad would not be a target - granting Assad a de facto US security guarantee

Within a month of Russia's intervention, 35,000 people had been displaced from just two villages in Aleppo and 120,000 or more in total had been displaced either directly by Russia's air strikes or by Russian air power enabling offensives by pro-regime forces

The liquidation of at least 11,000 prisoners held by the regime using torture and starvation has been revealed by the defector Caesar. Something like 200,000 more are held in regime detention in subhuman conditions

Later the regime would cause female captives to bleed to death by inserting rats into their vaginas.

Ukraine — It was wet and freezing cold inside: bare earth floor with a dozen mattresses scattered around it, unfinished tea in an aluminum mug, a few pieces of bread on a plate on top of a dark green wooden box with army ammunition; a bunch of muddy rubber boots by a pile of bags with sand, a soldier’s jacket drying on a nail in dim light. It could be a scene of the soldiers’ life in World War I, but it is modern times.

The truce between Kiev and Moscow is very shaky, the front line constantly moving back and forth, killing civilians and destroying their property in the crossfire

Almost every day and night, Ukrainian Armed Forces and Russia-backed rebels of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic exchange mortar fire, machine-gun fire, or launch grenades in each other’s directions; and both sides report each other’s truce violations.

“They have better uniforms than ours; we cannot see them through our night thermal vision optics. Their corrections of fire are more accurate, they must have had better optics on every gun,”

“Even if this war lasts for five more years, soldiers should know exactly how long they are supposed to spend on the front; they should receive the money promised by the state,”

Lifferth’s HB 420 is titled Unmanned Vehicle Amendments, and it wants to give public safety officials the authority to disable or destroy drones that get in the way of emergency response. As written, the authority is pretty narrow, with “acute emergency" defined as “a fire, a flood, extreme weather, a missing person situation, or a natural or man-made disaster that is expected to present an imminent threat to life or property, or to public health, safety, or welfare for more than 24 hours,” and “neutralize” spelled out as forcing termination by disabling or destroying the drone, interfering with it, or taking it over. This is broadly written, so counter-drones with nets, net guns, jamming tools, and maybe even eagles would count. As w

Lifferth’s bill specifies though, that drones have to be neutralized “in the most safe and practicable manner available; and (b) in a manner that causes as little damage or destruction as possible, in light of the circumstances, to the unmanned vehicle and other property.” So shooting them with actual bullets is an avenue of last resort. This is also, despite headlines, the case in a similar drone regulating bill from Utah State Senator Wayne A. Harper.

The M82 is a fearsome, fearsome gun. Chambering a bullet that looks more suited for light artillery than a rifle, the Light Fifty has an effective range of 1,800 meters, or about 1.1 miles. It's beloved by snipers across the world, and is currently used by armed forces in over 50 countries.

Tennessee, however, decided to go big or go home; it's named the .50 Cal Barrett M82 Rifle as its official state firearm. The state Senate approved a measure naming the hulking anti-materiel rifle 27 to 1 on Wednesday, in honor of the rifle being manufactured by Tennessee-based Barrett Firearms Manufacturing.

It’s no secret that the US government wanted to kill Fidel Castro many times over the years. But there’s a crazy story about a possible CIA assassination attempt that I’d never heard before: Giving Castro a diving suit that would be contaminated with tuberculosis.

From the National Security Archive:

But the most sinister episode came when a team of CIA officers decided that they could use Donovan’s unique access to Castro to assassinate the Cuban leader. The declassified CIA history mentions only in a footnote on page 137 that “at some point during Donovan’s negotiations with Castro“ several officials in the covert operations division “devised a plan to have Donovan be the unwitting purveyor of a diving suit and breathing apparatus, respectively contaminated with Madura foot fungus and tuberculosis bacteria, as a gift for Castro.“ The plot was shelved after Miskovsky alerted Donovan to secure the diving suit he had already obtained for Castro to prevent any tampering and contamination by the “executive action“ side of the CIA.

In the early 1960s, the US military drafted some terrifying ideas to invade Cuba under false pretenses. So it’s no surprise that the American military and intelligence establishment wanted Castro dead. But just when you think there aren’t any more stories to uncover about Cold War Cuba, you get one about CIA snorkels.

Ukraine is training a special unit to help Kiev retake Crimea, the country’s Interior Minister said, as President Poroshenko mulls building up its military along the peninsula’s borders. In Crimea, officials warn the “unlawful” invasion would be repelled.

“We have nothing. We need a new army, a new National Guard, a new police force. This is what the government of Ukraine is working on right now. We must restore all of this, and then, with enough will, Crimea will be ours,” Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s Interior Minister, told the Ukrainian 1+1 TV Channel, asserting, “I have no doubt of that.”

“The Defense Ministry and the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been told to submit proposals on a considerable buildup of Ukraine’s defense capabilities in the Kherson region and along the entire Black Sea coast,” the presidential press service said in a press release.

“If they are going to create armed battalions and so on, may they have a look at article 208 of the Russian Criminal Code and see the penalty (up to 15 years imprisonment). One cannot create illegal armed forces for seizing foreign territories. That is a crime,” Poklonskaya said, as cited by RIA Novosti.

Normally the TOW operators are quite far, up to 4km away. However in this case the speed of the TOW to the tank suggest the operator was less than 1km away. Even with covering infantry also, no one can scan 360° all the time.

You can see the Syrian army’s spanking new Russian T-90 tanks lined up in their new desert livery scarcely 100 miles from Isis’s Syrian “capital” of Raqqa.

There are new Russian-made trucks alongside them, and a lot of artillery and – surely Isis’s spies are supposed to see this – plenty of Syrian soldiers walking beside the perimeter wire beside Russian soldiers wearing floppy military hats against the sun, the kind they used in the old days in the summer heat of Afghanistan in the 1980s

There’s even a Russian general based at the Isriyah military base, making sure that Syrian tank crews receive the most efficient training on the T-90s

The Russian air force attacks Isis from the air; the Syrians, the Iranians, the Afghan Shia Muslims from north-eastern Afghanistan, the Iraqi Shias and several hundred Pakistani Shias must attack Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra on the ground

“The Syrians are low enough to see – the Russians, when they come, you never see them,” as one constant visitor to the war fronts put it with military simplicity. No wonder senior Russian officers are now also attached to the Syrian army command in Aleppo.  Vladimir Putin doesn’t do things by halves.

Syrian officers have been shown how the new T-90 anti-missile system causes rockets to veer off course only yards from the tanks when fired directly at them

In an army that has lost well over 60,000 dead in almost five years of hard fighting, Syria’s officers have suddenly discovered that the new Russian technology has coincided with a rapid lowering of their casualties

This may be one reason for the steady trickle of old “Free Syrian Army” deserters back to the ranks of the government forces, depleting even further David Cameron’s 70,000-strong army of “moderate” ghost soldiers

There have been 5,000 security personnel defections out of a total force of 28,000 police.

The Russians are in a unique position among Syrian ground forces; they can train the Syrians how to use the new tanks and then watch how the T-90s perform  without having to suffer any casualties themselves

The Russians, of course, find it far easier to train men to fight in cities or mountains – environments in which they themselves have fought – than in deserts

The offensives that retook the Shia villages of Nubl and Zahra last month were of great interest to the Russian military. For the first time, Syrian army Special Forces, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters operated together with Syrian tanks and helicopters, blasting their way through 20 miles of villages and open countryside in just eight days

In the eastern countryside, Colonel Suheil Hassan, the “Tiger” whom some of the Syrian military regard as their Rommel, has been heading north to end an Isis siege on a Syrian airbase

But few in the military have forgotten the chilling events of 2013, when retreating Syrians sought refuge with Kurdish forces after the battle for the Mineq airbase

Nusra agreed, but once the Kurds handed over the Syrian officers, the Islamist rebels – who had lost around 300 of their own men in the Mineq battle – at once killed all the Syrian officers the Kurds had given them, shooting them in the head

The commander of Syria’s Special Forces was killed in Idlib, and the commander of Syrian military intelligence in the east of the country was killed in Deir al-Zour. Major-General Mohsen Mahlouf died in battle near Palmyra. General Saleh, a close friend and colleague of Colonel “Tiger” Hassan, took on the suicide bombers of al-Qaeda in the Sheikh Najjar Industrial City outside Aleppo a year ago

These are hard men, many of whom trained in a Syrian military college whose front gate legend reads: “Welcome to the school of heroism, where the gods of war are made.”