There were some complaints about photos when we recently showed Veteran-owned small business Eighth Order’s Gray label line of dress shirts. They listened and shot new ones. Here they are.
Order yours at www.eighthorder.com.
Eighth Order Updated Photos
February 17th, 2020Osprey New Vanguard 282 – Combat Vehicles of Russia’s Special Forces
February 17th, 2020The upcoming “Combat Vehicles of Russia’s Special Forces” from Osprey Publications will feature Spetznaz, Airborne, arctic and interior troops vehicles. It is written by Professor Mark Galeotti.
These books are always excellent general references and I recommend them for any library.
Russian SOF are being outfitted with a combination of armored vehicles and light all terrain vehicles for mobility regardless of the environ they’ll be operating in.
The contents give you an idea of what will be covered.
Introduction
The Spetsnaz: Whatever They Need
The Airborne Troops: By Air and Land
The Naval Infantry: Finding Their Sea Legs
Specialised Forces: War and Peacekeeping
Security Forces: Hurricanes And Punishers
Prospects For The Future
Further Reading
Index
It seems they have changed recently the cover, with the new version seen above. This title is expected to be released on May 26, 2020.
Let’s Get At It
February 17th, 2020Who can identify the kit in this clip?
“The Survivalist” Book Series by Jerry Ahern
February 17th, 2020Author Jerry Ahern’s “The Survivalist” series was his longest running at 29 volumes*. Set during the height of a Cold War turned hot, ex-CIA Operative Dr John Thomas Rourke uses his survival skills to keep himself and family alive after a Nuclear War.
Dr Rourke is joined by his wife Sarah, son Michael, and daughter Annie. He also relies on right hand man Paul Rubenstein and KGB Officer-turned-traitor-to-the-Soviet-cause Major Natalia Tiemerovna who falls in love with Dr Rourke.
Eventually, the series takes on a science fiction vibe as our heroes are flung into the future after a long period in suspended animation as the earth heals itself after a massive conflagration. Amazingly, other societies also survived in underground cities. Once revived, the Rourkes take on all comers until they eventually defeat the last of the Soviet regime.
Growing up in the 80s, there was a certain ensemble of impending doom and survivalism sustained a great deal of interest. Just consider the popularity still to this day of the movie “Red Dawn”. Pulp fiction was the icing on the cake.
Perhaps the most compelling draw of “The Survivalist” series was author Ahern’s attention to detail in equipment. The hero was always outfitted the same way and depended his life on his equipment. It’s really no wonder, considering Ahern owned the Detonics USA company.
Rourke carried:
Twin stainless steel Detonics .45 Combat Master 1911 handguns complete with Pachmayr grips in an Alessi shoulder rig with a Milt Sparks 6-pack leather magazine pouch for backup ammo.
This image from Wikipedia is of a Detonics Combat Master and is not customized like the models Rourke carried.
But those two sidearms aren’t enough. He supplments them with a 6″ .357 Colt Python revolver which was Mag-na-ported and incorporates a Metalife chrome finish and once again, Pachmayr grips. It is carried in a Ranger leather flapped holster and accompanied by Safariland Speedloaders.
As a backup piece, Rourke secreted a 2″ Colt Lawman revolver in .357, in the small of his back. Everything was mounted to a Ranger leather belt which adorned his Levi’s jeans.
If all of that firepower wasn’t enough, he toted a Colt CAR-15 with a carrying handle mounted Colt 3x scope. For taking out longrange targets, Rourke had a Steyr-Mannlicher SSG rifle.
However, his greatest weapon may well have been his famous “double TaeKwon-Do kick” to this extremity or that of his enemy of the moment.
He was never without his Black Chrome AG Russell Sting 1A boot knife in the top of his combat boots. Aviator sunglasses adorned his face. His watch was a Black-faced Rolex Sub-mariner wristwatch and he used a Zippo cigarette lighter to light his wver present cigarello which he kept in the pocket of his Blue Chambray shirt.
Supplies such as freeze dried meals and Bushnell 8×30 armoured binoculars were carried in the top-of-the-line-for-its-time Lowe Alpine LOCO backpack.
Occasionally, Rourke would use other weapons and items such as a Colt Government Mark IV 1911 and Kel-Lite flashlight. Rourke always rode a Harley-Davidson low-rider but walked, rode horses, drove trucks, and even flew planes, when needed.
Interestingly, his buddy Paul Rubenstein whom he met up with the night of the war, adopted a Browning Hi-Power and WW II MP-40 submachine which he referred to as a “Schmeisser”, after taking them off of a biker gang in a firefight. Ironic, considering Rubenstein is Jewish.
*As an author, Jerry Ahern was assisted by his wife until his death in 2012. The series was continued for a time after Ahern stopped writing it, up to volume 35. Furthermore, a French publisher produced at least 51 books based on “The Survivalist” series.
Wanted: Ideas on Space Force Members’ Name, Ranks
February 16th, 2020ARLINGTON, Va. (AFNS) — The U.S. Space Force is looking for feedback from U.S. military space professionals on what Space Force members should be called – similar to how the Air Force refers to its members as ‘Airmen’ or the Army refers to its members as ‘Soldiers’.
Given the significance a name has to the identity and culture of an organization, the Space Force is taking a deliberate approach to ensure Space Force member titles and ranks appropriately convey the nature of the newest Armed Forces branch and the domain in which it operates.
Toward that end, Space Force officials are soliciting ideas related to Space Force ranks, names for operational units and what Space Force members should be called collectively. They are especially interested in soliciting ideas from those currently assigned to the U.S. Space Force or those who expect to be members of the Space Force in the future.
Air Force Common Access Card holders with access to Air Force Portal should submit their ideas online by Feb. 24 through the IdeaScale website at usaf.ideascalegov.com/a/ideas/recent/campaigns/122. Space Force officials will also be reaching out to the Army, Navy and Marine Corps space communities to offer military space professionals in other services the opportunity to submit ideas.
“As we continue to forge the Space Force into a lean, agile and forward-looking 21st century warfighting branch, we want to provide space professionals the opportunity to influence what the members of our new service will be called,” said Lt. Gen. DT Thompson, U.S. Space Force vice commander. “The decisions we make today will shape the Space Force for decades to come, so we want to ensure those who will serve in the Space Force have a say when it comes to important organizational and cultural identity considerations.”
Officials emphasized several guidelines respondents must consider when submitting ideas. For example, proposals must be gender-neutral, distinctive and should emphasize a future-oriented military force. In addition, submissions cannot violate copyrights, infringe on trademarks or other intellectual property rights, or be proprietary. Any submission falling into those categories will not be considered. Submissions must also be in good taste.
Once the submission deadline closes, a panel of Space Force officials will review inputs along with other feedback received from various sources to help inform a final decision on the new Space Force member moniker. That decision, which will be made by senior Space Force leaders, will be announced publicly at a future date to be determined.
By Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
SCUBAPRO SUNDAY – Buoyancy
February 16th, 2020Buoyancy is key to a lot of things when diving. It helps make the dive easier in a lot of ways. When using a closed-circuit rig (CCR) it keeps you from rocketing to the surface, it prevents you from dropping to the bottom when you stop to fix your gear or “Dräger” talk/ yelling at your dive buddy.
The two keys to buoyancy: balance and breathing
The two significant factors in achieving neutral buoyancy.
• 1st Wear the right amount of weight for the dive. This will differ depending on the thickness of your wetsuit/ dry suit and gear you are wearing, also water type fresh or salt.
• 2nd Breathing slowly and evenly, so you do not have too much air in your breathing bag. If diving a CCR
Steps to help maintain buoyancy
Pre-dive preparation
Buoyancy control begins, with the pre-dive preparation. As you pick what to wear for a dive. Double-check to make sure nothing has changed that could affect buoyancy. A new wetsuit is more buoyant than an older one and will need more weight. A new suit has more inherent buoyancy at first because diving, especially deep diving simply bursts its bubbles. Make sure you look at any new gear compared to the old version. Gear is always being updated with new buckles or martial so when you switch from old to new make sure you know what the buoyancy is with the new stuff. Check the weights on a scale; often there is variation between claimed and actual weight. If diving open circuit, remember cylinders are negatively buoyant when full and less negative when empty.
Do a buoyancy check
Here is the best way to do a proper buoyancy check. With your lungs half-full, you should float at eye level with no air in your BC. If you are diving open circuit, remember the average cylinder loses about 5 pounds as it empties. So, you might have to add about 5 pounds to your weight if you have done your buoyancy check with a full tank.
Keep a log
Keeping a log of what gear, you have worn, what the temperature was and the type of water (salt/fresh /brackish). What equipment you used, how much lead you carried, your body weighs and whether you seemed too heavy or light. Knowing the weight of the gear that you used on the dive will help. Make sure you understand that if you are going to remove something during the dive you need to account for that on the return trip home. If you plan ahead by recording in training what you used it will help when you have to do it the next time.
Saltwater VS Freshwater
If most of your diving is done in the ocean, then ballast calculations should be done in the ocean. Jumping in the pool to check your ballast will get you close, but it won’t be 100% correct. If you switch back and forth, you’ll need to adjust your ballast. Be prepared to add weight if needed sometimes it’s nice to have a weight belt with extra pouches just in case or maybe just an empty pouch on a gear belt will help. But still try and keep the weight evenly distributed.
Buoyancy, Trim, Position, and Breathing
The secret to buoyancy control, begins with fine-tuning your weighting. How much lead you put into your pouches or have on your weight belt. If you are carrying just the right amount of weight, you will only have to put a little air in your BC. That means less drag and more efficient finning. Less BC inflation also means less buoyancy shift with depth, so you’ll have to make fewer adjustments. There are many tricks, but buoyancy control is the fundamental skill. Precise control of your buoyancy is what enables you to hover motionless and fin through the water, at any depth. You should not have to use your hands at all or stirring up mud or silt from the bottom by always moving your feet. In addition to using the right amount of weight, make sure you are correctly balanced to optimize your position under water.
Keeping a more horizontal position makes you more hydrodynamic. Distribute the weight as uniformly as possible from side to side; you should never notice that you put on more weight on one side while diving. You must also consider the weight of your dive gear and any other additional gear you might be wearing. I.E gun belt or special gear. Make sure it is balanced on your body and it doesn’t shift when you are diving. The lower you wear your dive rig can cause a tendency to push the diver forward (upside down) in the water, so the placement of weight towards the back can help reverse this position, especially on the surface. Make sure any dive weight you put on can be easily removed in an emergency.
The factors that affect your buoyancy besides ballast weight are BC inflation, your trim, exposure suit, depth and breathing control. Your ballast weight and your trim are the only two factors that, once you’ve selected them, stay put. Ballast is the amount of weight it takes to keep you neutral in the water. Trim is about the position of your body weight relative to the position of your weight. Sometime when diving a rebreather you can tape lead washers on it to help with your trip.
There is one more thing to understand that will help with your buoyancy. It is controlling your breathing. Make sure you maintain proper breathing. Take relaxed breaths this will allow you to maintain control over your buoyancy.
To determine the amount of weight you need, you can take your body weight, the diving suit you are going to use, the weight of your equipment and the environment you are diving in salt or fresh water. If you use about 10 percent of your body weight, that is a good starting point for a full 5 mm or more and for a 3 mm suit, use 5 percent of your body weight.
Dry suits and thick neoprene suits require more ballast to counteract the increased buoyancy of those suits in comparison with the thinnest. Body composition (the muscular density, for example) will also influence the necessary weight. Remember fat floats, muscle sinks.
Remember to calculate for everything you are going to do and wear on your dive. If you are doing a long dive and plan to leave or remove something half way thru your dive. Say doing a ship attack, and you are taking limpets off. Plan for the whole dive. To check your buoyancy get into water deep enough to stay in an upright position, without treading and releasing all air from the vest. Inhale, in a normally, the surface of the water must be at the level of your eyes. When you exhale, you should sink until water covers your head and inhale again, you should emerge once again until the level of the eyes. Adjust your weight in small increments about 1 pound at a time. You can use a weight with snap link on it or just a weight with some 550 cord on it. Make sure you don’t just put all the weight you are adding to one side. Try and use this time to even yourself out and set your trim also. I have also seen people tap lead washers to the front of their Dräger to help even them out.
Once you get your ballast weight and trim dialed in, you will be ahead of about 75% of all divers toward perfect buoyancy control. Now you can fine-tune your BC inflation to compensate for the very predictable changes due to breathing down your tank and changing depth.
Lastly, there are advanced classes that you can take that focus on advanced skills like this. This may seem like a lot of work, but it will help make diving a lot better and make you more efficient at it.
Army Modernizes Its Biometric Processing Capabilities
February 16th, 2020ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — U.S. Army Soldiers patrolling critical checkpoints overseas will have an improved biometrics tool to help identify persons of interest in real time.
Army Futures Command’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center has developed and delivered software that will enable Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (PEO IEW&S) to modernize the Army’s 20-year-old biometric processing capabilities.
The Biometrics Automated Toolset — Army (BAT-A) is a handheld device used by deployed Soldiers to collect, process and reference biometric identity information — such as iris, fingerprint and facial images — during force protection screenings.
With the system deployed to U.S. joint forces around the world and more than one million entries saved in the DoD’s Automated Biometrics Identification System, it is important to migrate BAT-A to a database that will meet the government’s new electronic biometric transmission specifications, explained Brian D. Likens, product lead for the Biometrics Collection Capability at PEO IEW&S’ Project Manager Department of Defense Biometrics (PM DoD Biometrics).
“We asked the C5ISR Center to make the database more efficient and useful for tomorrow’s Soldier. To do this, they restructured the data to comply with future standards and modern architecture practices,” Likens said.
The new database software architecture will improve the overall speed and functionality of the tool so Soldiers can access better filtered information, noted Will Daddario, a software engineer with the C5ISR Center.
“In the past, superfluous information had the ability to make its way up and into the BAT-A database. That will not happen anymore. You are now going to have a database with improved integrity that will be easier to use,” Daddario said.
The architecture will also make future software development work easier.
“Previously, all database relationships were performed by the application. Our new database has all of these relationships built in, so when you make a change in one area, it propagates through the whole database,” Daddario said.
The C5ISR Center delivered a data conversion tool with the architecture and plans to deliver data migration and filter tools in Fiscal Year 2021 before helping the PM migrate the data. The Center is also slated to support PM DoD Biometrics throughout the development of the Next Generation Biometric Collection Capability.
“The need for accurate and timely data is vital to the protection of our warfighters in support of Multi-Domain Operations. This updated database will make it more efficient for warfighters to collect, identify and neutralize the enemy,” said Col. Senodja “Frank” Sundiata-Walker, project manager for PM DoD Biometrics.
By Douglas Scott
