M2

🫡🫡🫡 to our USCG brothers!! ‘A Nightmare’: The Coast Guard’s Harrowing Flight to Camp Mystic I participated in a SAREX to certify crews in Texas in April, and was hoisted into a MH-65E Dolphin off a small island on Lake Houston just north of the McKay Bridge. Little did we know at the time that the Guadalupe floods in Ingram and Hunt three months would put these same crews to the test, and they (and others) rose to the challenge! God bless each and every one of them!

Legends!!

"The International Defensive Pistol Association, Inc. (IDPA), in response to numerous reports and videos, is immediately prohibiting the use of the SIG Sauer P320 in all of it’s variants from any competition or event under the name of IDPA. All other SIG Sauer models may be used in the division appropriate for their configuration. The goal of IDPA is safety first for our members, competitors, staff and spectators and all others associated with any IDPA event. While we have no direct knowledge of the potential technical defect of the weapon system, the volume of ranges, organizations and military units declaring a problem has made it too visible to deny. We will re-evaluate this decision in the future if new credible information emerges. We are aware that this decision will affect a limited number of competitors at the National Championship. Please understand that safety for all in the sport is paramount. For those affected, please contact he**@id**.com . Division changes for those affected will be allowed until August 8. “IDPA is committed to maintaining a fair, competitive, and inclusive environment for all shooters,” said IDPA President Joyce Wilson. “Banning a particular firearm is the last thing we ever want to do as an organization, but the safety of our members and potential spectators has to come first."

Technically no firearm is inherently safe, it's simply that some are "safer" than others based on their design, safety features and how they are handled. The most critical safety factor is the person handling the weapon. The Four Rules of Gun Safety dramatically reduce the risk but don't completely mitigate it. The circumstances of this uncommanded discharge in the CCIR were different from what is being shared in the press. It may be the initial reporting was wrong, or other factors are in play. It's posted on the BaseOps SIPRNET page (just search for 'BaseOps' on Intellipedia to find it). Details are CUI so do NOT post them here! Whether the P320/M17/M18 is faulty or not has yet to be determined, but at this point anyone who owns one should treat it exceptionally carefully until such time as the investigation is completed. Hopefully no more injuries or deaths will occur before that happens!

ADMIN NOTE: All posts concerning the SIG P320/M17/M18 have been moved to the Gun Talk thread as there was already an ongoing discussion there.

In their report, the Washington commission cited six incidents since 2021 with “uncommanded” discharges involving the M17 and M18. The M18 incidents were: In 2023, a Japanese security guard at Camp Foster, Okinawa, “rested their right hand lightly on the rotating cover of a weapon holster” when their M18 discharged. Also in 2023, at Camp Pendleton, California, an officer in the armory stopped at a clearing barrel to empty their M18. The officer pulled the pistol out of the holster while it was on safe and removed the magazine. A round discharged from the M18 into the clearing barrel. The officer was “sure that they never touched the trigger of the M18,” and had “ample weapons handling training,” according to the report. In 2022, a service member was preparing for his shift at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, when his M18 discharged at his home. He was taken to the hospital for a penetrating gunshot wound with the bullet still “lodged in his knee,” according to the incident report. With the M17, previous incidents included: A military police soldier at Fort Eustis, Virginia, in 2023 injured his foot after his pistol “inadvertently discharged” after making contact with another officer’s gun holster. The gun of an Army civilian attending a law enforcement course in 2020 at Leesville Police Range in Louisiana discharged while he drew the pistol from his holster. A service member attempting to holster his pistol in 2021 fired a round through his foot at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

Army, Marine Corps, Navy have no plan to stop using M18, M17 pistols The Army, Navy and Marine Corps are not planning to pause use of the M18 pistol as a primary, daily service sidearm for their troops, the services told Task & Purpose, even as units in the Air Force pull the weapon from service after an airman was killed when his M18 discharged last week. The Air Force owns close to 75% of the military’s inventory of roughly 165,000 M18 pistols, according to data provided by the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force and procurement documents from the Navy. Exact numbers of M17s currently in use were not immediately available. The Army and Marine Corps indicated in testing and evaluation documents that they intended to buy several hundred thousand of the handguns. A January 2017 contract announcement included a $580 million contract with Sig Sauer to replace the Army’s M9 by 2027. Officials from the Army, Navy and Marine Corps told Task & Purpose that those services have no plans to pause use of the weapons... Discharge issue discovered during Army testing The Department of Defense discovered unexpected discharge issues with the Sig Sauer handgun when the Army began operational testing for the M18 almost a decade ago. The service found that during drop testing with an empty primed cartridge inserted, the gun’s striker struck the round’s primer and caused a discharge. Army officials directed the company to correct the problem by implementing lightweight components in the trigger mechanism, according to a fiscal year 2017 operational test and evaluation report. Follow-on testing “validated” that the change “corrected the deficiency and the pistol no longer fired when dropped,” the report stated, adding that the new version with the changes was submitted for production. Sig Sauer conceded the early issues with the Army pistol, noting that testing “above and beyond” national, state, global military and law enforcement standards found that “after multiple drops, at certain angles and conditions, a potential discharge of the firearm may result when dropped.”

Ted Cruz looks to force changes to military flights near airports, after deadly airline crash Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz said Tuesday that he will introduce a bill that would force changes to the way the military uses helicopters around congested airports, including prohibiting the Army from turning off location-transmitting technologies such as the one under investigation as part of an inquiry into the January midair collision near Washington that killed 67 people. The technology Cruz’s bill seeks to mandate, known as ADS-B Out, was not transmitting on the helicopter involved in the disaster. The NTSB is still investigating whether the crew had switched off the technology — which allows air traffic controllers to see an aircraft’s speed, altitude and location — or if it was simply not operational. Its final report on the disaster’s causes isn’t expected until next year. “We should not tolerate special exceptions for military training flights operating in congested airspace, no matter the circumstances. Any aircraft flying near commercial traffic must fully adhere to safety standards,” Cruz said during a press conference debuting the bill. Cruz was accompanied by some of the family of those who died in the crash as well as officials investigating the catastrophe, including NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. The Army’s propensity to operate without the technology enabled for flights in the Washington area has drawn sharp scrutiny from Congress since the crash. At the time of the accident, the Army’s policy was to keep its helicopter transponders off during sensitive or classified missions with commander approval, according to Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, who testified at a March Senate hearing on the crash...

Kinda pointless article, other than the NTSB will start hearings on January's crash today... NTSB hearings will focus on fatal Army helicopter-passenger jet crash. Here’s what to know The National Transportation Safety Board will hold three days of hearings starting Wednesday on January’s midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter over the nation’s capital that killed 67 people. The goal: Pinpoint exactly what went wrong and what can be done to avoid similar midair crashes between passenger planes and military aircraft. The accident was the nation’s deadliest plane crash since November 2001. The hearings in Washington will involve NTSB board members, investigators and witnesses. Panels will focus on military helicopter routes in the Washington area, collision avoidance technology and training for air traffic controllers at Ronald Reagan National Airport, among other subjects...

"Some analysts suggest the pilot may have been avoiding birds that crossed the flight path, which could explain the sudden maneuver..." 🙃🙃 https://www.twz.com/air/spanish-f-a-18-hornet-seen-nearly-crashing-into-surf-during-beach-airshow Considering this Spanish Eurofighter incident last month, it's entirely possible!

I just read in the DAF A3 Daily Ops Update there was another negligent discharge involving a M18, but allegedly this one was due to user error. I will post a link on the BaseOps Intellipedia page on SIPRNET...

Sadly true. I love that area, and always said it would be the most likely place we'd live if we ever left Texas (which won't happen); but during my last TDYs there it became quite apparent the place was quickly turning blue...

Corrected. Same goes with Californians moving to Texas!

Air Force says B-52 crew wasn’t told of passenger jet before near-miss The crew of a B-52H Stratofortress that had a near-miss with a civilian airliner near Minot International Airport last Friday told air traffic control they were nearby, but were not informed a passenger jet was in the area, the Air Force said. The passenger jet, flight 3788 from SkyWest Airlines, was on approach to land at the Minot airport the evening of July 18 when it had to veer sharply to avoid the B-52. Both planes ultimately landed safely. A passenger took video of the pilot’s explanation of what happened afterwards, which was widely shared online...

The Army may want to rethink this, this article was released four days prior... Army’s Sig P320 Derived Pistols Will Remain Unchanged After Concerning FBI Report The U.S. Army is not taking any actions regarding its Sig Sauer M17 and M18 pistols based on the findings of a recently disclosed FBI report that has raised new concerns about the design’s ability to fire without the trigger being pulled. Sig has also refuted the results of the FBI’s initial evaluation, which it says the bureau was subsequently unable to reproduce using a mutually agreed-upon testing protocol. The new details from the FBI’s report have already sent a shockwave through the civilian firearms community in the United States, where confidence in P320-series pistols, a family that includes the M17 and M18, is already severely strained...

The DAF CCIR overview from the 21 Jul 25 A3 Daily Ops Update is on the BaseOps Intellipedia page on SIPRNET.

Thread revival 20+ years later!! 😁😁 Seagull smashes cockpit of £73m Spanish fighter jet The moment a seagull collided with a Spanish fighter jet and smashed through the cockpit was captured in an extraordinary photograph. The £73m warplane was performing in the Eurofighter display at San Javier Air Base on June 15 when it had a stroke of bad luck. The pilot landed and was unharmed. Aviation photographer Javier Alonso de Medina Salguero unwittingly captured the spectacle, only realizing when he checked his camera later on. Bird collisions with aircraft are a regular occurrence, with 13,000 reported annually in the US alone. But for a bird to shatter a pilot’s glass window, and for a photographer to capture the scene, is exceedingly rare.

Simply WTF?

Agreed, it should be taken seriously... BaseOps has a SIPRNET Intellipedia site, there's more info from the A3 Daily Brief on there for those who can access it.

Tim Kennedy Admits To Stolen Valor Tim Kennedy may be one of the most decorated military men to ever compete in mixed martial arts, but that didn’t stop him from making false claims about his awards over the years. Kennedy competed in MMA for a decade and a half, rising to become a middleweight contender in Strikeforce and then the UFC while still serving in the U.S. Army as a Special Forces sniper. He has a whole whack load of military medals for his service in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, including a Bronze Star. But he does not have a Bronze Star with Valor, and that’s a big issue. The unearned distinction got worked into his bio over the years until a number of current and former military members took issue with it. Kennedy has spent the last six months arguing it was due to mistakes other people made listing his credentials. “I do not have, nor have I ever claimed to have, a Bronze Star with V device,” he wrote in an Instagram post at the start of 2025. “I acknowledge that there are a handful of articles on the web, to include a third-party speech booking service that annotate that award. I did not realize those articles were out there, and I have taken immediate action to correct them.” But recently an interview popped up where he clearly claims to have a Bronze Star with Valor, and now Kennedy is apologizing... (Full article at title link)

Yep, corrected. With the floods, too many place names have been running through my brain. We were just in Dripping Springs on Monday going to Arlington...

We were just in Mineral Wells on Thursday! Not much left of Wolters other than the gate and the abandoned hospital... The Baker Hotel is under renovation, due to be reopened in a few years!