Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 269 (HMLA-269) is currently commanded by Lt. Col. Short and is a squadron consisting of the AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter and the UH-1Y Venom utility helicopter. They are known as the Gunrunners, and next door within the same hangar are the Warriors of Marine Light…
Two recent DefenceiQ conferences provided unique insights into the way ahead for air and sea power. The first conference with the International Fighter Conference 2020 and was held (virtually) on November 18 and 19, 2020. The second was held on December 1, 2020 and focused on the evolution of amphibious…
By Robbin Laird The International Fighter Conference 2020 provided insights with regard to the evolution of combat airpower, notably with regard to enablers and effectors, and pathways to shaping greater force integration and multi-domain warfighting capabilities. But to do what exactly? And how best to do it? The clear assumption…
By Robbin Laird The second strand of the International Fighter Conference 2020 was the question of the effectors which could be delivered by the evolution of air combat power, notably leveraging multi-domain capabilities. This strand was woven throughout the day and could be seen in a variety of ways, in…
By Robbin Laird The last two International Fighter Conferences, 2018 and 2019, where very different from this one. And I am not just referring to the virtual nature of the conference. This fighter conference was less about fighters than about the changing context of airpower in terms of what enables…
By Pierre Tran Paris - Five options for the architecture of a planned Future Combat Air System were handed over in September to the authorities, marking a major step toward definition and development of an ambitious European project, Bruno Fichefeux, head of FCAS at Airbus Defence & Space, said Dec.…
By Robbin Laird With the strategic shift from the land wars to full spectrum crisis management, the sea services face the challenge of prioritizing maneuver warfare at sea. But it is impossible to execute maneuver warfare at sea if you have no fuel, or go Winchester with regard to weapons.…
By Robbin Laird To the casual observer, the Super Stallion and the King Stallion look like the same aircraft. One of the challenges in understanding how different the CH-53K is from the CH-53E is the numbering part. If it were called CH-55 perhaps one would get the point that these…
