Armor: Chinese Stryker Brigade

Critical information on the development, task, purpose and implementation of the Chinese ZBL-09. Read the original at Strategy Page. -NCS China has begun organizing its first combined arms brigade based on the American experience with brigades equipped largely with the Stryker wheeled armored vehicle. This comes 17 years after the Americans introduced the Stryker but…

Armor: Chinese Stryker Brigade — American Partisan

Meanwhile in South Africa…

Gimme Hope, Joanna!

 

South Africa Today is what happens when Communist Black Militancy is left unchecked due to Political Correctness and general apathy and laziness.

America, we need to stop sitting on our hands and get off our ass and take ACTION.

The Time for talking has passed.

Stay Alert, Armed and Dangerous!

 

The Surveillance State: DIVA Software

From the Archives, 2016.

When Martial Law begins steam-rolling in these larger cities across the CONUS, this is just one of the tools Uncle Sam will unleash to either arrest or plant “protesters” (ie Domestic Terrorist).

Considering how technology like this grows and sharpens itself exponentially, it would behoove the martial citizen to consider how something like this can be abused and in turn, circumvented when the time comes.

The program is called Deep Intermodal Video Analytics—or DIVA—and it seeks to locate shooters and terrorists before they strike.

The intelligence community is working on amping up people-recognition power to spot, in live videos, shooters and potential terrorists before they have a chance to attack.

Part of the problem with current video surveillance techniques is the difficulty of recognizing objects and people, simultaneously, in real-time.

But Deep Intermodal Video Analytics, or DIVA, a research project out of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, will attempt to automatically detect suspicious activities, with the help of live video pouring in through multiple camera feeds.

ODNI’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency is gathering academics and private sector experts for a July 12 “Proposers’ Day,” in anticipation of releasing a work solicitation.

“The DIVA program will produce a common framework and software prototype for activity detection, person/object detection and recognition across a multicamera network,”IARPA officials said in a synopsis of the project published June 3. “The impact will be the development of tools for forensic analysis, as well as real-time alerting for user-defined threat scenarios.”

In other words, the tech would scour incoming video surveillance and body-camera imagery from areas of interest for people and objects who could present a threat, or individuals and items that might have been involved in a past crime.

This is the type of video-recognition system that might have been used for identifying would-be suicide bombers before the Paris and Brussels attacks, some video analytics experts say.

Privacy laws in the United States and Europe differ, so it is unclear whether such activity-recognition software would have been legal to use on video around the time of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Nextgov has contacted ODNI for comment.

Read the Remainder at Defense One

On War: Understanding the Importance of Doctrine

Doctrine is an important topic in warfighting, and perhaps the most important area for an intelligence officer to understand. Doctrine defined is The guiding principles that an adversary uses to plan and execute his operations. When we understand adversary doctrine, we’re better informed about what he might do in the future because we understand what…

via On War: Understanding the Importance of Doctrine — American Partisan

Learning from Insurgent Tactics: The Vehicle as a Weapon

From the Archives, 2015

Armored Van used in Attack on Dallas PD 6/13. Bought on Ebay for $8K

The attack on Dallas PD this past Saturday by a man in an armored van represents a variation on a tactic that has not been seen since the DC Sniper Murders in 2002, where a man and his young accomplice, using a Chevy Caprice sedan and turning the trunk into a “mobile” sniper hide, killed 10 people and critically wounded three others. The two concepts, an Armored Wagon or Van and the Mobile Sniper Hide, have at their core, basically the same concept: To Use a vehicle as a platform for a shooter or shooters to engage civilians and law enforcement, attempting to kill as many as possible. The differences lay in HOW these methods are applied.

The Mobile Sniper Hide (MSH) is a covert weapon, meaning it’s strength lies in NOT being detected, as the shooter engages targets both quietly and quickly as possible, keeping the location of the shooter (and shot) both hid (in the DC Sniper Case, by shooting from the car’s trunk through a small hole). The Armored Wagon on the other hand, OVERTLY engages targets (through gun ports), purposely drawing fire as it rolls on, ie like the Dallas PD attack recently.

The critical keys to remember if the AV concept is to work effectively, is that the engine block must be further bullet proofed (a .50 Caliber round took out the engine block) the tires must be run flats and reserve fuel bladders added.  If the engine or tires get disabled, or you run out of gas at a critical juncture, you are no longer mobile and have no egress options available; you are dead in the water, literally.

As far as the two concepts go, the Mobile Sniper Hide is a much more effective tool for the lone or small unit of of Guerilla fighters who live in a civilian population that is not controlled by military forces. Less attention is drawn to the vehicle as a whole, making it easier to hit and run (in reference to the One Shot Sniper Method discussed in the book Fry the Brain by John West.)

If history is studied, armored vans (or improvised fighting vehicles) work well in WAR zones, where both the VOLUME of fire coming OUT of the vehicle and the expectation of SUPPORT (from other vehicles and infantry) can be expected to be large. The downside of course is ANTI–Tank and Vehicle weapons such as Mines, IED’s, RPG’s, Javelins and Grenade Launchers. The evolution of the IFV is an interesting study for the CO. Although I typically steer away from Wiki-Pedia, their entry on this subject is quite extensive and for the most part, correct. Read it HERE.

Another element of the insurgents use of vehicles to achieve a desired aim can be seen currently with the situation in Iraq where a large number of American Humvees that had been given to the Iraqi Security Forces were stolen by ISIS and turned into VBIED’s (Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Devices). Read that story HERE. 

VBIED’s (or car bombs) have been a technique that has seen widespread use by insurgents and terrorist alike. Some of the worst attacks (as far a total number killed) have occurred on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. However, if you ask any American with a sense of history, they will tell you by far, the two attacks that are seared into their memory are The 1993 World Trade Center Bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, both car bomb attacks.

In 2010, a car bomb was detected and diffused in New York’s Times Square, thanks to some street vendors who were paying attention. Just another example of why AWARENESS is our first and primary weapon in self-defense.

 

Bibliography and Suggested Reading

• Fry the Brain by John West

• Buda’s Wagon by Mike Davis

• Bandit Country by Toby Harnden

• Days of Rage by Bryan Burrough

 

Stay Alert, Stay Armed and Stay Dangerous!