The upper upgrade game is strong

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Dallas, Georgia-based DRD Tactical has announced they have been awarded a fixed quantity-fixed price contract for M4 uppers to a U.S. allied country in Asia. According to DRD, the undisclosed end user is upgrading their older M16 rifles with the company’s billet uppers, M-LOK compatible handguards, 14-inch M4 barrel, front and rear flip up sights, and carbine stock assembly kits.

If you ask me, they are likely headed to a country that rhymes with “Ilippines,” who has some 150,000~ 1970s-80s vintage M16A1s on hand and a serious issue with both local insurgents and curious neighbors looking to expand.

Weapons of Philippine Army Rangers during a rest in the 2017 Marawi, anti-ISIS campaign, including domestically made M16A1s and M14 given as U.S. aid

More in my column at Guns.com.

AR-15s, NASA edition

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Astronaut Ron Garan with a raygun prepared to defend Earth from an alien invasion. Just kidding, he is just holding NASA’s version of the sonic screwdriver

While there are no U.S. guns in space (that we know of) to secure their facilities nationwide, NASA contracts a variety of protective forces and maintains Emergency Response Teams while the agency’s Office of Inspector General has armed special agents who refer their findings from investigations to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

They also own and run a series of dedicated small arms ranges (for up to 7.62x51mm) to keep all of the above qualified and up to snuff.

With that, the country’s space agency just released a tender for some AR-15s, and it is written to pretty much be S&W M&P15s.

Now with Armornite!

More in my column at Guns.com.

Blackjack! Devils picking up $390M worth of extra drones

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The RQ-21A Blackjack, made by Boeing/Insitu is the Navy & Marine Corps’ Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS) program of record, currently flown by Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 and 2 (VMU-1 and VMU-2) supporting expeditionary operations worldwide. With a line-of-sight range of 55 miles, Blackjack has a 16+ hour endurance and is classified as a Group 3 (large) UAV.

Unarmed, the RQ-21A is an ISR platform with a max weight of about 130-pounds and a 16-foot wingspan and can launch and be recovered from a helicopter pad-sized area (or smaller).

Interestingly, the contract announced last week includes not only 63 more Blackjacks but 93 50-pound ScanEagle drones as well. Notably, ScanEagle has been used from vessels as small as 84-foot Mark VI patrol boats.

From DoD contracts:

Insitu Inc., Bingen, Washington, is awarded a $390,390,785 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for up to 63 RQ-21A attrition air vehicles for the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy. In addition, this contract provides for up to six RQ-21A unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) and up to 17 RQ-21A air vehicles for foreign military sales (FMS) customers, including the governments of Canada, Poland, and Oman. The contractor will also provide up to 93 ScanEagle UASs in various configurations. In addition, this contract provides for associated services, including training, test, and engineering, development of engineering change proposals, operations support, organizational level maintenance, field service representatives, land and ship surveys, hardware site activations, hardware installs, repairs and data. Work will be performed in Bingen, Washington (83%) and various locations inside the continental United States (CONUS) (5%) and outside CONUS (12%), and is expected to be completed in June 2022. Fiscal 2019 operation and maintenance (Navy), fiscal 2019 building partnership capacity, and FMS funds in the amount of $9,919,160 will be obligated at time of award, $9,519,160 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1). The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-19-D-0033).

The Trooper

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Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden poses with a British Pattern 1853 Cavalry Trooper’s Sword at the National Army Museum’s “Britain’s Greatest Battles” exhibit in March of 2013.

Source: National Army Museum  via Victorian Sword

Which of course, if you had a Trooper poster from the Maiden on your wall in the 1980s (like me) gives you a sense of nostalgia.

Photo bomb, equis edition

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You never know who is going to crash a photography session. Trying to get some shots of my G19X after a year of use for an upcoming publication and this strange looking puppy dog edged in.

Her name is Reno and she is a sweetheart…

Of course, *no horses were hurt in the production of this post.

Versailles at 100

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One hundred years ago today, the tragically flawed treaty was inked at the Paris Peace Conference between Germany and the Allies in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, ending the Great War as far as Berlin was concerned. The better part of the High Seas Fleet lay awash in Scapa Flow, scuttled just a week prior, and much of Germany’s western border regions were under Allied occupation. Meanwhile, Poland was flexing in the East and the Bolsheviks were within a year of winning the Russian Civil War.

The Versailles Treaty went into effect on January 10, 1920, and the ripples would be heard in 1939.

Stacking racks of heavily greased surrendered German Mauser 98 trophy rifles by the U.S. Army of Occupation. 12/22/1919. LOC 98 111-SC-67463

Saving the tin cans

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While there are something like 60 former U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels that are preserved from Pearl Harbor to Buffalo, New York, most are capital ships such as battleships or carriers, or submarines, with that latter well-liked as they have a small footprint, especially when talking about WWII smoke boats.

While they were commissioned in their hundreds, there are only about eight destroyers or destroyer escorts counted among these floating relics. Two of those are subject to newsworthy attention this week.

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, the Gearing-class destroyer USS Orleck (DD-886) has been hanging out since 2010. Awarded four battlestars in Korea, Orleck was transferred to Turkey in 1982, from whence she was saved in 2000 and became a floating exhibit in Orange, Texas for a decade before moving to Lake Chuck.

Now, it seems like Orleck could be on her third home since coming back to the States– Jax. The same group that was not able to get the ex-USS Adams is now trying to acquire the vessel and tow the 1945-vintage destroyer across the Gulf.

Meanwhile, the Fletcher-class destroyer, USS The Sullivans (DD-537), named after the five lost Sullivan brothers who perished on the cruiser USS Juneau in 1942, needs $2 million in emergency repairs to fix leaks in her hull and remove zebra mussels. Commissoned in 1943, she earned nine battle stars in WWII and went on to serve in Korea where she recived another two.

Last year, museum officials say they fixed 20 hull leaks and are currently working to close six more to prevent the Buffalo River from pouring into her hull.

The spirit of Lamb and Rader

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Over the dusty town of Naco in Mexico, two American mercenary aviators– Dean Ivan Lamb, in a Curtiss biplane and Phil Rader in a Christofferson pusher– flying for rival factions in that country’s revolution, decided to settle who had control of the sky through an impromptu handgun duel. Lamb reportedly circled to reload while resting his revolver inside his shirt while he retrieved spare cartridges from his belt and then stuck the wheelgun between his legs to feed the cylinder with one hand while keeping control of his aircraft with the other.

The duel ended without bloodshed, although distances between the two flying machines at the time was reportedly much less than 50 feet and it has been debated if the two, who were associates, simply put on a show for the benefit of their respective employers. Regardless, the date, often given as 30 November 1913, makes this action between the airborne soldiers of fortune the first recorded aerial combat and was only a decade after the Wright Brothers took to the clouds.

Fast forward to 2019 and you still have aerial mercenaries, such as Borys Reyes, a former Ecuadorian fighter jock, whose vintage (1978-79 model) French-made Dassault Mirage F1 strike fighter was shot down by Libyan National Army forces near al-Watiyah on 23 April.

Another F1 driver, a pilot flying for the rival Libyan Government of National Accord who was shot down by the LNA in May and was recently turned over, is 31-year-old Florida resident Jamie Sponaugle.

This guy.

A U.S. Air Force vet, Sponaugle was an enlisted man and later NCO who worked on a ground crew on active duty and in the Florida Air Guard for a total of 10 years while he picked up a private pilot’s license.

Not bad.

Of course, Sponaugle just spent six weeks as a GNA POW in Libya but he has one hell of a story to tell.

As for the official line: “We are always pleased to see Americans held captive overseas returned home to their friends and family,” Ambassador Robert O’Brien, President Trump’s envoy for hostage affairs, told media. “We appreciate his captors’ decision to release him. We also thank the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its role in resolving this case.”

What a difference 75 years makes

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Of note, this month is the 75th anniversary of Battle of the Philippine Sea that left three Japanese carriers and 600 irreplaceable pilots and crew of the IJN’s fleet air arm at the bottom of the Marianas.

That fact makes the below image of an American and Japanese flattop in joint operations recently something that Marc Mitscher/Ray Spruance and Jisaburō Ozawa/Kakuji Kakuta, the respective fleet commanders in that epic sea clash, would no doubt find poignant in a way.

SOUTH CHINA SEA (June 11, 2019) The Navy's forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), left, operates with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) helicopter destroyer JS Izumo (DDH 183), June 11, 2019. The ships, along with the JMSDF destroyers JS Murasame (DD 101) and JS Akebono (DD 108) conducted communication checks, tactical maneuvering drills and liaison officer exchanges, June 10-12, designed to address common maritime security priorities and enhance interoperability at sea. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of JMSDF/Released)

190611-N-AB123-0002 SOUTH CHINA SEA (June 11, 2019) The Navy’s forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) operates with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) helicopter destroyer JS Izumo (DDH 183), June 11, 2019. The ships, along with the JMSDF destroyers JS Murasame (DD 101) and JS Akebono (DD 108) conducted communication checks, tactical maneuvering drills and liaison officer exchanges, June 10-12, designed to address common maritime security priorities and enhance interoperability at sea. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of JMSDF/Released)

Be sure to get your Mighty Mo on

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Best $11 I ever spent at the U.S. Post Office.

Of note, these were officially unveiled in a joint presser with USPS and RADM Brian Fort, commander of Navy Region Hawaii/Commander, Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, during a ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, earlier this month on June 11.

The forever stamp celebrates the 75th anniversary of the commissioning of Missouri, who was commissioned June 11, 1944, and was the last Iowa-class (and final U.S.) battleship ever put into service.

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