Problems with the Littoral Combat Ship program and basic lack of communication between Navy bureaucrats have left the service paying millions of dollars to store dozens of Sikorsky MH-60R helicopters it has no immediate need for. The service has tried to offer a silver lining by saying it will now use the excess choppers to help extend the service life of the two fleets overall by spacing out flight hours across more airframes, but it's not clear how much money it will actually recoup in the process.

The Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General became aware of the glut of helicopters during a review of available U.S. Navy and Marine Corps backup aircraft, part of a general push throughout the U.S. military to assess the readiness of aviation units in particular. The same report, which the watchdog published in January 2019, determined that neither service had adequate numbers of F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets or T-45 Goshawk jet trainers to meet operational and training demands, which is hardly surprising given the mountain of existing reporting on the dismal readiness of units equipped with these aircraft. It also criticized the Marines for a lack of oversight of similar backup stocks of armored and other ground vehicles, which may have resulted in wasted funds.

But the case of the MH-60Rs, in particular, the watchdog's findings are especially notable. They not only highlight the often-painful rigidity of U.S. military bureaucracy, but also underscore the reality of second-order impacts of years-long problems with the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program.

The LCS program includes two distinct classes of ships, Lockheed Martin’s Freedom-class and Austal USA’s Independence-class. Both types of vessel are capable of carrying an MH-60R helicopter, which is primarily intended to support anti-submarine and general sea control missions. The MH-60R is the latest evolution of the Sikorsky SH-60 Sea Hawk, which is itself a navalized derivative of the UH-60 Black Hawk.

These helicopters can also support boarding operations and special operations forces missions. In recent years, they have also taken on an increasing close-in defense role against potential attacks from small unmanned aircraft and swarms of small boats. They're also set to gain an electronic warfare role with the integration of the Advanced Offboard Electronic Warfare (AOEW) pod, which you can read about more here.

Back in 2007, the Navy still expected to ultimately purchase 55 LCSs of both classes, despite the fact that cost overruns and other issues were already threatening the program at that time. In turn, the service subsequently determined how many MH-60Rs it would need to buy based on the expectation that it would need sufficient helicopters to support that total LCS fleet.

In 2012, the Navy MH-60 program office agreed to purchase at least 120 of these helicopters as part of a joint-service contract. Two years later, the Navy cut back plans for the LCS program from 55 ships to just 32. It no longer needed all 120 of the helicopters, but Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) determined it would cost more to cancel the deal than to just buy the remaining choppers anyways.

This situation has only gotten worse given the persistent changes to the LCS delivery schedule and plans for the fleet overall. At the time the Pentagon's inspector general put its report together, the Navy's target date to get the last of these ships was October 2023, but it's not clear if that will come to pass. "The need for these helicopters will continue to be delayed if the LCS delivery schedule is delayed beyond October 2023," the review warned.

Compounding matters, the Navy inexplicably does not have a formal requirement for divisions within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations to inform each other of changes to their programs that could have impacts on related procurement. As such, the Director, Air Warfare, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, “did not receive notification of changes in the Littoral Combat Ship’s (LCS) quantity and schedule delays,” according to the Pentagon’s top watchdog.

“If … divisions communicate in a timely manner about a dependent weapon system’s quantity changes and delivery status, program office officials could attempt to decrease procurement quantities and extend the delivery period or delay procurement to avoid paying storage and preservation fees for weapon systems that may not be needed,” the report continued. Unsurprisingly, the Pentagon’s Inspector General’s Office has recommended that the Navy ensure there is sufficient communication in the future to do everything possible to avoid similar over-spending in the future.

It’s not clear if this particular case how avoidable the situation was in the end, though. The Navy had agreed to the purchase MH-60Rs based on a 55-ship fleet of LCSs two years before that LCS procurement plan changed. The service did rightly decide against pursuing any additional optional purchases under the same contract.

However, by the same measure, the Navy locked itself into a long-lead arrangement for the MH-60Rs, which apparently has severe cancelation penalties, based on LCS program at a time when its future was already in question due to serious delays and cost overruns. In addition, in spite of this reality, at no point in the nearly seven years between when the Navy ordered the first LCS and when it agreed to the deal with Sikorsky did bureaucrats reassess its total helicopter requirements.

Regardless, what this all means, though is that as of July 2018, the Navy had a requirement for a total of 206 MH-60Rs for operational and training requirements, as well as 29 backup helicopters that it could rotate into service when other choppers to had to go in for major maintenance or were otherwise out of commission. But the service presently has 270 of the R models, 35 more than it says it needs.

As of 2018, the flyaway cost of every new MH-60R the Navy purchased was around $34 million. This means the 35 excess helicopters had cost the service at least nearly $1.2 billion, money that it could have spent on any number of other priorities in the interim.

On top of that, while, the Navy says it has found a need for one more MH-60R, but will still have to pay to store all of the remaining 34 aircraft at least through the 2020 Fiscal Year at a total cost of more than $1 million each year in total. The service will have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more annually for routine maintenance and other services to ensure these helicopters retain their operational status. This doesn't account for any upgrades to their systems they might need to keep them relevant in the meantime, either.

To try and recoup some of the costs, the Navy now plans to “rotate these excess … helicopters with operational helicopters every 2 to 3 years to reduce the accumulated flight hours across the fleet,” according to the Inspector General’s report. By doing this, the Navy expects to extend the overall service life of the MH-60R fleet out to 2042, years beyond its initial projections, but it remains to be seen whether the service will actually be flying any of the helicopters that long.

The service, as well as the Marine Corps, is investigating new, unmanned platforms that will be able to take over many of the MH-60R's roles and otherwise fundamentally change the character of shipboard rotary wing operations. The same ships that presently carry the helicopters already increasingly bring along MQ-8B Fire Scout drone helicopters, too, and the Navy is continuing to develop the much more capable MQ-8C.

The service has made it a requirement for its future guided missile frigates, presently referred to as FFG(X)s, to both the MH-60R and the MQ-8C, which might offer another avenue for finding a use for the extra helicopters. The Navy expects to buy 20 FFG(X)s through the 2030 Fiscal Year, which equates to almost as many LCSs that it cut from previous budgets.

Unfortunately, it will take some time for those ships to enter service, which will still leave the Navy without any firm demand for the excess MH-60Rs for years to come. By the time the FFG(X)s begin regular operations, the push toward unmanned rotary wing systems may be even more pronounced, as well, limiting demand for manned helicopters.

Depending on how its own requirements evolve, the Navy might be able to divest some or all of the extra helicopters and sell them to allies and partners. The Royal Australian Navy and Royal Danish Air Force have already received the type. Sikorsky, now part of Lockheed Martin, is also in the process of delivering additional examples to Saudi Arabia.

If nothing else, the Navy’s over-purchase of MH-60Rs is a prime example of how the problems with the LCS program continue to have a costly rippled effect throughout the service. It will certainly be a teachable moment in how changes in one program can have serious cascading impacts on other related procurement plans.

It might also offer valuable lessons in how to squeeze the most value out of any such debacle in the future, too. But any after-the-fact efforts to soften the blow don't change the fact that the Navy put itself in an inflexible position and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars up front without any guarantee it will ever see a meaningful return on that investment.

At a time when the services continually say they are doing the best to find costs savings and maximize value to the taxpayers, dozens of MH-60Rs sitting idle due to the failures of the LCS program shows that the U.S. military as a whole still has a long way to go in improving their spending habits.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

The Chinese government has approved plans for a massive undersea surveillance network in both the East and South China Seas. Officially intended to primarily monitor environmental changes, state officials acknowledge the systems will have “national defense” applications, which could include tracking the movements of foreign submarines.

The plan includes a number of unspecified sensors on the ocean floor, connected via optical cables to a central processing and monitoring facility in Shanghai. The devices will be able to provide “real-time, high-definition, multiple interface, and three-dimensional observations,” according to state-run outlet CCTV.

“China is an ocean power; it should have done more in oceanic studies in the past,” Jian Zhimin, dean of the School of Marine and Earth Sciences at Tongji University in Shanghai, told CCTV. “An ocean power must be able to go to the high seas and go global.”

Ostensibly, the network forms a “laboratory” in which researchers can study climate change and maritime phenomena, Jian added. Additional reports suggested that this equipment would be calibrated to gather chemical, biological, and geological data. But the national security implications are hard to miss.

The underwater system could be useful for “other sectors, such as mining, mapping or ocean rights protection, and national defense in addition to scientific research,” Zhou Huaiyang, a professor in Tongji’s School of Marine and Earth Sciences, explained to CCTV. “We hope different governmental departments can work together to work out stricter regulations and measures on the protection of these undersea facilities, so as to ensure the long-term operation of this system.”

It is possible that Zhou’s reference to “national defense” referred to the preservation, exploration, and exploitation of natural resources for China’s benefit. The East and South China Seas may contain untapped reserves of oil, natural gas, and valuable minerals, as well as just being important sources of fish and other edible marine animals.

However, it seems much more likely the network’s defensive function would have to do with monitoring foreign military movements, especially of submarines. Earlier in May 2017, IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that the state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation had presented details of a massive “Underwater Great Wall Project” for the People’s Army Liberation Navy (PLAN) during a public exhibition the previous year. That proposal sounds extremely similar to the one CCTV announced in size and scope if not necessarily stated function.

During the Cold War, the United States maintained a similar system to guard itself against Soviet submarines, known as the Sound Surveillance System, or SOSUS, which employed groups of ultra-sensitive hydrophone listening devices along the seabed . As a result of espionage, the U.S. Navy was ultimately forces to employ a combination of fixed sensor arrays, surface ships towing sonar, and processing stations ashore, known as the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS). But even decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, elements of the system remain in use or available in a crisis.

A similar Chinese system in the East and south China Seas would be essential for Beijing to enforce its claim to almost in their entirety of both bodies of water. Nearly every one of the country’s neighbors, as well as major international maritime nations, disputes China’s dominion over these regions. Many, such as the United States, actively challenge the country’s position by sailing through or flying over the area.

By 2015, “China demonstrated a willingness to tolerate higher levels of tension in the pursuit of its interests, especially in pursuit of its territorial claims in the East and South China Sea; however, China still seeks to avoid direct and explicit conflict with the United States,” the Pentagon noted in an annual public report to Congress on Chinese military developments. “In the near-term, China is using coercive tactics short of armed conflict, such as the use of law enforcement vessels to enforce maritime claims, to advance their interests in ways that are calculated to fall below the threshold of provoking conflict.”

Most visibly, since 2014, the Chinese government has been actively turning at least eight previously uninhabitable reefs and shoals into man-made islands able to support military outposts. The operations at locations such as Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi Reefs in the South China Sea have airstrips able to support fighter jets and heavier aircraft, apparent radars and launch sites that could accommodate surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles for local defense, and other facilities. In March 2017, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that commercial satellite imagery suggested these military sites were close to fully operational. The Washington, D.C. think tank created an interactive map to go along with their report, showing Chinese aircraft, missiles, and radars provide extensive coverage throughout the South China Sea.

Satellite imagery shows that Chinese defense on its islands are nearly complete.https://t.co/tWZ69XZTof

— CSIS (@CSIS) May 28, 2017

For China, these bases are important fixed “territory” it can point to when defending its claims and as part of legal arguments it makes in front of international bodies. Similarly, it has enacted an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East Sea as another method of attempting to enforce its position. Within this zone, the country argues it can restrict foreign military movements and even dictate civilian flight paths, with any organization needing to coordinate air travel with Chinese officials. There are reports that China may be considering declaring a similar zone over the whole of the South China Sea, something its new islands could help monitor. At sea, Chinese authorities have made similar pronouncements about their control over international waters in both the South China and East Seas.

In both regions, to reinforce the country’s claims of absolute ownership, Chinese aircraft and warships have repeatedly harassed foreign civilian and military activities. The United States has responded with regular aerial and naval patrols to challenge this assertion. And though both countries might want to avoid an actual skirmish, tensions have often run high during these missions. Chinese fighter jets routinely buzz American patrol and surveillance aircraft. In May 2017, two People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) fighters performed “unsafe and unprofessional” maneuvers near a WC-135 Constant Phoenix spy plane, which collects air samples looking for evidence of nuclear tests, in international air space over the South China Sea, according to the U.S. Navy.

The China’s navy, various other maritime security forces, and the People's Armed Forces Maritime Militia – popularly known as “Little Blue Men” – all similarly shadow American warships as they move through the area during what the Pentagon pointedly refers to as “Freedom of Navigation Operations” (FONOPS). Rarely do the two sides ever truly meet. In a rare incident in May 2016, PLAAF jets scrambled from the airstrip on Fiery Cross Reef in response to the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS William P. Lawrence’s trip through the area. More flagrantly, on Dec. 15, 2016, a Chinese ship snatched a U.S. Navy underwater glider, a type of drone the service uses for underwater mapping and research activities, right out of the water and sailed away. Within a week, China had returned the Slocum glider without any real explanation of why they seized the unclassified vehicle in the first place.

But what the Chinese military hasn’t been able to do is challenge the U.S. Navy’s submarines, or those from other developed nations that patrol the East and South China seas, such as Japan and Australia. Able to operate for protracted periods under the waves, subs have an innate deterrent capability and could easily be a hidden threat to China’s man-made naval outposts during a crisis. The undersea vessels could also spy on those bases without Chinese forces being able to necessarily respond.

In February 2017, Chinese state media announced planned changes to the country’s maritime safety statute, which would require submarines to sail on the surface with a national flag displayed when passing through regions such as the South China Sea, while reporting to Chinese maritime security organizations. Chinese officials expected the changes to take effect in 2020. "As a sovereign State and the biggest coastal State in, for example, the South China Sea, China is entitled to adjust its maritime laws as needed, which will also promote peace and stable development in the waters," Wang Xiaopeng, a maritime expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the state-operated newspaper Global Times. But, in addition to violating the most basic spirit of international maritime law, this would be difficult if not impossible for China to enforce at present.

Though the PLAN has spent considerable effort in improving its own “silent service,” submarines remains a relatively small portion of the country’s naval arm. As of 2016, China had approximately 56 attack and guided missile submarines, but a significant number of those are old Cold War designs or smaller coastal defense types, according to that year’s edition of The International Institute for Strategic Studies’ The Military Balance. The United States operates a similarly sized fleet, but one entirely comprised of long-range, ocean-going, nuclear-powered vessels. In addition, the U.S. military boasts more than twice as many nuclear-armed ballistic missile subs, not including four doing duty as cruise-missile boats. So, instead, the Chinese military would have to devote significant surface ships and aircraft just to hunt for foreign subs violating its new regulations.

An underwater surveillance net able to detect and track submarines traveling in and out of an area could dramatically change the calculus for world navies operating in the East and South China Seas, as well as potentially improving China’s negotiating position. The country has been undeterred by unfavorable determinations on its claims from international tribunals, insisting that it has the right to settle any disagreements directly with the affected parties.

Of course the new capability won’t come cheap. Official estimates are that the underwater project will cost approximately $2 billion Yuan – $300 million at the official, likely undervalued exchange rate – and take at least five years to complete. It’s not clear whether or not this will be the final total for the complete network that covers all of the East Sea and South China Sea, or just one initial portion covering a specific area.

What is clear is that China seems intent on challenging the ability of foreign navies to sail through bodies of water it considers to be part of its national territory, even under the surface.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

A couple of donut shop owners in Colorado had to make an interesting call to their insurance company Monday morning.

In a report by Steamboat Today, Moose Watch Cafe owners Todd and Kim Robertson of Steamboat Springs, Colorado woke up earlier this week to find a bear attempting to break into the Ford Focus they use to make donut deliveries. According to Kim Robertson, there weren't even any donuts in the car at the time, but "it always reeks of doughnuts in there."

That didn't stop the bear from tearing off the Focus's rear bumper though. Reportedly, the bear also left a paw print on the car before leaving, probably to continue his quest for sweet pastries.

When police officer John McCartin arrived on the scene (because he was called, not because he smelled donuts as well), he remarked, "I guess if anyone is an expert about this, it's us."

McCartin went on to acknowledge that a strong donut aroma was indeed noticeable even while standing around outside the Robertson's Ford.

Since the incident, Moose Watch Cafe has introduced bear claw-shaped treats in honor of the pastry-craving animal. As for the Focus, we're sure insurance will have it sorted out posthaste and the Robertsons can go back to shuffling around delicious ring-shaped snacks on the streets of Steamboat Springs. (In the future, I personally recommend investing in multiple cans of Ozium.)

It’s no secret that American special operations forces have been actively hunting members of Islamic State’s franchise in Afghanistan, known as ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K. But official details about a raid in 2017 show that the Afghanistan government’s most elite unit, the shadowy Ktah Khas battalion, has been fighting alongside U.S. troops during the campaign.

On the night of April 26, 2017, helicopters inserted a combined force of American special operators, including U.S. Army Rangers, and Afghan commandos into the Mohmand Valley in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province. A firefight ensued that lasted into the early hours of April 27, 2017.

"U.S. Special Operations forces killed several senior ISIS-K leaders along with about 35 ISIS operatives, which should significantly degrade ISIS-K operations and help to destroy the ISIS-K affiliate that's there," U.S. Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on April 28, 2017. The night raid specifically targeted the group’s self-described emir, Abdul Hasib.

On May 7, 2017, top American command in Afghanistan announced Hasib had died in the raid. Two Rangers from the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment also died during the battle, possibly as a result of friendly fire. U.S. officials subsequently said they had launched a formal investigation into the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

The terrorist leader had orchestrated a complex assault on the Sardar Daud Khan National Military Hospital in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on March 8, 2017. Wearing the uniforms of hospital employees, the attackers massacred more than 30 people and wounded dozens more, including doctors, other staff, and patients.

“This successful joint operation is another important step in our relentless campaign to defeat ISIS-K in 2017,” U.S. Army General John Nicholson, head of all American troops, said after his command announced Hasib’s death. “This is the second ISIS-K emir we have killed in nine months, along with dozens of their leaders and hundreds of their fighters.”

An American air strike killed the previous ISIS-K emir, Hafiz Saeed Khan, in July 2016. In late 2014, Khan and his fighters split from the Pakistani Tehrik-e Taliban and swore allegiance to ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The group was also the target of an aerial attack on April 13, 2017, in which a U.S. Air Force MC-130 special operations transport dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Burst (MOAB) bomb for the first time in combat. That spectacular mission appeared to be in retaliation for the death another Ranger during operations in Nangarhar earlier in the month.

In addition, Nicholson took time to praise the Afghan troops who participated in the operation. And in a rare acknowledgement, the press release named the unit involved as the secretive and obscure Ktah Khas.

Referred to variously as the Afghan Special Security Forces, the Afghan Special Unit, the Kteh Khas, the 1st Ktah Khas, the Ktah Khas Unit, or simply by the abbreviation KKA, the unit is the Afghanistan’s analogue to the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). The name is a phrase in the Dari language that literally translates to something along the lines of “to touch success,” but is often treated as simply meaning “special force” or “special unit.”

Sometime in 2009, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense established the unit with help from members of the 75th Ranger Regiment to assist the Americans on kill or capture missions, according to Leigh Neville’s 2015 book Special Forces in the War on Terror. Army Rangers were among the forces assigned to JSOC task force in the country, known at least for a time as Task Force 3-10, which had the job of tracking and neutralizing specific terrorists and militants.

Initially, U.S. commanders referred to the elite Afghan forces euphemistically as the “Afghan Partner Unit,” or APU. This generic terminology allowed them to talk about the unit without necessarily giving away details of its existence or the secretive American elements it was supporting. For instance, in 2010, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) released a statement about an “Afghan-international security force,” which included an “Afghan partner unit” that had killed and wounded a number of insurgents while pursuing a Taliban sub-commander in Nimroz Province. This was likely the work of American special operators and the Ktah Khas.

In 2011, more details about the force had begun to leak out.” Little has been publicly revealed about this unit, but in Senate testimony former JSOC commander [U.S. Navy] Admiral William McRaven described it as an Afghan special operations unit ‘…that went on target with the JSOC forces forward to ensure that we had an Afghan that was, if you will, going through the door first, that was making first contact with the locals, in order to make sure that we kind of protected the culturally sensitive issues or items that were on target,’” the November 2011 edition of West Point’s CTC Sentinel magazine explained.

On March 21, 2012, more information emerged when U.S. Central Command released redacted copies of the documents associated with the investigation into the shootdown of a CH-47D Chinook known as Extortion 17. More than seven months earlier, Taliban fighters had knocked out the helicopter as it brought it a reaction force of U.S. Navy SEALs during a night raid to kill or capture Qari Tahir, one of the group's leaders, in the Tangi Valley in Afghanistan's Wardak Province. Interviews and other records noted that "APU" members had been part of the mission, touching off conspiracy theories that they alerted the militants to the operation.

By 2013, the battalion, by then known publicly as the Ktah Khas, had more than 1,200 personnel, including members of the Afghan National Police and the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s main intelligence service. These individuals “give it unique law enforcement and intelligence capabilities,” a Pentagon review of activities during that year noted.

On top of that, the unit had previously added a group of elite female troops, first known as the Family Support Platoon (FSP) and then renamed the Female Tactical Platoon (FTP). “A concept based on the successes of the U.S. CST [Cultural Support Team] program, FSPs were developed to accompany Ktah Khas Afghan Strike Forces on missions and, working in conjunction with their CST counterparts, safeguard and interact with the women and children encountered during the conduct of special operations,” another U.S. report explained.

As of 2015, the battalion reportedly consisted of three strike companies, a military intelligence company, a training company, the FTP, and various logistics and other support elements. In December 2015, U.S. Central Command also denied in full the author’s Freedom of Information Act request for U.S. Forces Afghanistan records relating to the unit’s mission and structure.

By then, though largely unknown, the Ktah Khas had established itself as a capable partner in Afghanistan for America’s most elite special operations forces. “Many of the most dangerous insurgents currently held in Afghan prisons were captured or detained by the KKA,” the Pentagon’s 2013 report declared. In December 2015, unspecified Afghan forces, possibly the Ktah Khas, had freed 60 prisoners from the Taliban in the Now Zad District of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, according to Vice News. The next month, the battalion rescued nearly 60 more individuals in Helmand’s Nahr-e-Saraj District.

Unfortunately, in spite of these successes, the force suffered from many of the problems that continued to plague the bulk of Afghanistan’s military and police. The Ktah Khas “are highly effective, but also highly dependent on U.S. counterterrorism forces (e.g., for intelligence, targeting, and air transportation),” according to an independent assessment of the Afghan National Security Forces that CNA Analysis and Solutions conducted for the Pentagon in 2014. “Significantly increasing the ranks of the elite Ktah Khas counterterrorism force is likely infeasible without lowering its recruiting standards.”

In January 2015, the unit had reportedly planned and an executed its first ever independent airmobile assault, using helicopters form the Special Mission Wing of the Afghan National Army’s Special Operations Command. However, the availability rates of the Afghan military’s Mi-17 helicopter fleet have long been a major cause for concern, and the country’s special operations elements have repeatedly poached both choppers and crews from the regular Air Force to meet operational demands.

The April 2017 raid into Nangarhar would seem to show that the Ktah Khas remains capable of operating with American forces, but is still dependent on support from the main U.S. special operations task force in Afghanistan. It’s not clear when that situation might change. Since President Barack Obama began drawing down American troops in the country in 2011, Afghanistan’s military and its elite forces in particular, have been under increasing strain.

U.S. Army Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, then head of the ISAF Joint Command, told reporters on Nov. 5, 2014 that the Afghan National Security Forces’ casualty rate was “not sustainable.” In October 2016, The Washington Post reported that the Afghan National Army’s Commando Kandaks – elite light infantry battalions assigned to the country’s special operations command – were performing conventional day-to-day missions. In March 2017, Reuters reported officials in Kabul and their American advisors wanted to expand the country’s special operations contingents to a total of 17,000 troops, adding that these specialized forces were responsible for approximately 70 percent of all combat operations.

Then, in May 2017, there were reports that President Donald Trump and his administration were considering boosting American forces in the war-torn country in the face of a resurgent Taliban and continued difficulties in improving the quality of Afghan security forces. The proposal reportedly included a surge of at least 3,000 more U.S. troops into the country. The month before, a contingent of 300 Marines had returned to Helmand Province, where the Corps had previously run operations until 2014, to take over a vital advisory project.

Regardless, until Afghanistan’s regular forces become more capable, the country’s elite units – including the Ktah Khas – are likely to remain out front on operations against groups like the Taliban and ISIS-K.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

This U.S. military has suffered its first combat death in Somalia since 1993. The incident follows news, which The War Zone previously reported on, that American commanders in the region have expanded authorization to go after terrorists and that regular troops were heading to the country to train local forces.

On May 4, 2017, U.s. Africa Command announced in a statement that an unspecified U.S. service member died while on a joint operation with Somali National Army forces against Al Shabaab terrorists near the town of Barii, approximately 40 miles west of the capital Moghadishu. The press release offered no details about the nature of the mission or the units involved. U.S. military officials, speaking on and off the record to various news outlets, later confirmed that the American who died was a U.S. Navy SEAL and that Al Shabaab had wounded two other individuals, also presumed to be SEALs, during the operation.

"We do not believe there has been a case where a U.S. service member has been killed in combat action in Somalia since the incident there in 1993," Patrick Barnes, an AFRICOM spokesman, told The Associated Press. Between Oct. 3 and 4, 1993, militiamen in Mogadishu killed 18 American troops and wounded more than 70 others in the aftermath of an U.S. mission to seize senior militants allied with warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Author Mark Bowden later immortalized the battle in his book Black Hawk Down, a term that has become synonymous with the event. The War Zone's own deep analysis of America’s experiences in Somalia and activities in the country since the 9/11 terrorist attacks touches in part on this incident.

Since Al Shabaab appeared in Somalia in 2006, the United States has been battling the group and supporting African Union troops doing the same in the war-torn country. In 2012, the organization announced that it had formally joined the umbrella of the global Al Qaeda terrorist network.

“Al-Shabaab presents a threat to Americans and American interests,” AFRICOM added in its statement. “Al Shabaab is an affiliate of the terrorist group al-Qaeda, which has murdered Americans; radicalizes and recruits terrorists and fighters in the United States; and attempts to conduct and inspire attacks against Americans, our allies and our interests around the world, including here at home.”

In many ways, the May 2017 raid near Barii was reportedly similar to the Black Hawk Down mission more than two decades prior. Helicopters carrying American special operations forces and Somali National Army troops descended on an Al Shabaab safe house in the village of Dare Salaam to kill or capture militants who had been planning attacks on government security forces and their international partners, an unnamed Somali intelligence official explained to AP.

When the force arrived, the terrorists responded and a firefight broke out, leading to the casualties. It is unclear how many, if any, of the Al Shabaab targets died as a result of the combined attack. Afterwards, the group’s media arm, the Shahada News Agency, issued its own statement, saying the militants had killed or wounded “a number” of U.S. and Somalia government troops.

Of course, this is hardly the first time American and other foreign special operations forces have conducted raids against Al Shabaab. In addition, the terrorist group has been able to thwart a number of them in the past. In January 2013, the militants prevented elite French troops from rescuing intelligence agent Denis Allex, murdering him afterwards in retaliation for the attack. Later that year, Navy SEALs had to abort a raid near Barawe after an intense firefight. There are reports that British and Jordanian special operators may also be involved in the country.

But the latest mission came shortly after President Donald Trump and his administration approved new, broader authorities for American commanders in the country. Though it did not mention raids specifically, the policy changes gave the U.S. military additional latitude to conduct air and artillery strikes in support of African Union peacekeepers and Somalia’s military.

"This authority is consistent with our approach of developing capable Somali security forces and supporting regional partners in their efforts to combat al-Shabaab,” Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, wrote in statement on March 30, 2017. “Somali and AMISOM forces have already achieved significant success in recapturing territory from al-Shabaab, and additional U.S. support will help them increase pressure on al-Shabaab and reduce the risk to our partner forces when they conduct operations.”

Then, in April 2017, The Intercept obtained a letter from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance that sought updated information about where “humanitarian and development organizations” were operating within Somalia. The need for this information, which would help the U.S. military try and avoid civilian casualties, seemed like a potential prelude to American strikes on Al Shabaab members. However, the Pentagon stringently denied it had carried out any targeted attacks in the country since January 2017, including reports of a suspected drone strike on or about April 14, 2017.

With the African Union planning to end its mission in the country in 2020 and start pulling out troops as early as 2018, there is an impetus to get the Somali National Army and the rest of the country’s security forces onto more secure footing broadly. So, on April 2, 2017, approximately 40 soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division deployed to Somalia for the more mundane task of training local troops in logistics operations.

Be sure to check out our interactive google map of American military facilities across in Africa, including sites in Somalia

In the past, the Pentagon and the State Department had conducted much of that training outside of the country at sites in neighboring countries such as Djibouti and Kenya, likely to keep American personnel and contractors shielded from Al Shabaab attacks. Despite major U.S. and African Union-supported offensives – the latest of which Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed announced in March 2017 – the terrorists remain willing and able to carry out deadly attacks in heavily patrolled areas, such as Mogadishu itself. On Jan. 25, 2017, militants launched a complex attack on the Dayah Hotel, a popular meeting place for Somali government officials and foreigners, including journalists.

For obvious security reasons, in an Email to The War Zone, AFRICOM would not specify where the troops from 101st were staying, saying only that they would be working at a “Somali military facility located near the Mogadishu International Airport.” In January 2017, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) posted a contracting notice on the U.S. government’s main contracting website, FedBizOpps, regarding the pre-positioning of fuel across Africa. The associated documents included a plan for deliveries of 800 gallons of unleaded gasoline per month to a site listed as “Mogadishu International Airport Training Area 6.”

AFRICOM declined not confirm whether this site was related to the new American training mission. Since October 2013, the Pentagon has also maintained a small Military Coordination Cell in the country too coordinate American support for local and African Union forces, nominally operating from in or around the country’s airport.

It goes without saying that if the Trump administration continues with its apparent push to have more U.S. forces on the ground in the country conducting a combination of direct action, advisory, and basic training missions, there will be a similarly increased risk of additional casualties. Regardless of their exact positions, Somalia remains a dangerous locale in general.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

We all know the classic Martini Racing liveries. A bright white, red, or silver base color, adorned with red and blue stripes and the Martini & Rossi vermouth logo. As far as iconic liveries go, it's up there with the likes of Gulf Racing, Scuderia Ferrari, and John Player. It has appeared on cars of many makes, such as Porsche's endurance racing cars, the Formula One cars of Brabham, Lotus, and Williams, and of course, their unforgettable Lancia partnership during the golden age of rally: the Group B era. Their liveries appeared on the 037 and Delta S4, and after the abolition of Group B, on their Group A car, the Delta Integrale.

The car in this video is both a continuation of the Lancia and Martini partnership...and at the same time, it isn't, because it's a home-built prototype car, and it is in no way officially affiliated with Lancia or Martini. Hence, there is no Martini logo on the car, despite the livery being an undeniable replica of the Martini design. The car itself is not a Lancia, but it uses a number of Lancia parts that define it, notably the engine and the grill.

The owner YouTube channel that uploaded the video of this car, 19Bozzy92, stated, "it seems to be powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine, to which a supercharger has been added." They speculate it is from a variant of the Lancia Thema or Delta, though probably not a late model of either car, as the modern Thema is based on a Chrysler 300, and the modern Delta is actually a Fiat. The engine, though, in spite of its curious twincharged setup (in which both a supercharger and turbocharger are used to gain the advantages of both systems) are not the feature any of us will spend the most time staring at.

No, most of us will spend time staring at that hideous grill. I am struggling not to do a Hail Mary every time I see the front of this little monstrosity. It makes me wonder if it would dissolve if holy water were spritzed over its face. The mustache-esque grill resembles that of the cars in A Car's Life, a knockoff of Disney Pixar's Cars.

Okay, I'll stop being mean to this car now. After all, the biggest rule of comedy is to never punch down.

While body counts are not a particularly useful metric of a military operation’s success, they can be a good indicator of how intense things have been on the ground. So, if the official tally is accurate, the U.S.-led special operations task force fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which includes America’s shadowy Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), foreign partners, and private contractors, has had a massive and potentially lopsided impact on the mission.

On April 14, 2017, members of Special Operations Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve’s (SOJTF-OIR) headquarters element received new, distinctive unit patches at a ceremony at an undisclosed location somewhere in “Southwest Asia.” Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), the overarching U.S.-run force battling ISIS, which oversees SOJTF-OIR, released a number of pictures of the event.

Though they were full of small, interesting details – like the presence of both U.S. Army and Marine Corps special operators, along with British and Turkish officers – the most eye-opening information was in the caption. “Since its establishment, SOJTF-OIR has liberated over 45,000 square [kilometers] previously held by ISIS and has killed over 21,00 [sic; 21,000] ISIS militants," the text read.

Sometime afterwards, CJTF-OIR quietly deleted this information from the pictures. However, in an Email to The War Zone, one of command’s public affairs officers confirmed the figure and the apparent typo.

“SOJTF-OIR since its inception has greatly contributed to the degradation of the enemy, ISIS,” the media office added. “The…number is an estimate. Body count is not the focus of the coalition's efforts. It is the ultimate defeat of this barbaric and inhuman enemy, ISIS.”

Though not the focus of their activities, SOJTF-OIR’s kill count is both massive and accounts for a huge proportion of the total figure across the entire American-led coalition. As of April 2017, CJTF-OIR estimated it had killed approximately 70,000 ISIS fighters since 2014. This means that SOJTF-OIR – and possibly its predecessor organizations – has been responsible for around 30 percent of all dead terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

Yet, the special operations forces do not receive nearly the same amount of attention as the air war, or even the increasing use of conventional artillery. Of course, we don’t know whether SOJTF-OIR counts terrorists who died in air or artillery strikes its personnel called in among the task force’s final count. But after digging into the available information, along with various documents The War Zone obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), we can share a more complete picture of the intelligence-driven campaign focused on killing the terrorist group’s leader and attacking other high value targets.

The most obvious, but least visible part of this effort has been the work of a JSOC task force. Publicly referred to as the “Expeditionary Targeting Force” (ETF) in 2015, these elite forces were going to Iraq and might even cross the border for missions into Syria, according to then Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.

“Special operators will, over time, be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture ISIL leaders,” he explained to lawmakers in a statement on Dec. 1, 2015, using another acronym for Islamic State. “That creates a virtuous cycle of better intelligence, which generates more targets, more raids and more momentum.”

As the Pentagon described it, this concept seemed very similar to the controversial special operations forces-led push against Al Qaeda in Iraq – the predecessor to ISIS – and other terrorists during the American-led occupation of the country between 2003 and 2011. This plan is often described as the brain child of Army General Stanley McChrystal, who commanded a JSOC task force in Iraq until he took over as head of the super-secretive command in September 2003.

"It’s a tool that we introduced as part of our – the accelerated operations to conduct raids of various kinds, seizing places and people, freeing hostages and prisoners of ISIL, and making it such that ISIL has to fear that anywhere, anytime, it may be struck," Carter added during a public briefing at the Pentagon on Feb. 29, 2016. "The only thing I’ll say is the ETF is in position, it is having an effect and operating, and I expect it to be a very effective part of our acceleration campaign. I don’t have any more on that.”

Though Carter didn’t explicitly say JSOC was leading the force, he did admit elements of the command were operating in the region during a press conference with his French counterpart, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, on Oct. 25, 2016. “We have put our Joint Special Operations Command in the lead of countering ISIL's external operations,” he declared, using another term for ISIS. “And we have already achieved very significant results both in reducing the flow of foreign fighters and removing ISIL leaders from the battlefield.”

Thanks to FOIA, the War Zone has obtained a more in depth view of these operations from the U.S. Army’s official report on the crash of a mysterious spy plane with the civilian registration code – N6351V – and paint job to match crashed into a field outside the town of Kawrgosk in northern Iraq on March 5, 2016. Though accident report is both heavily redacted and significantly abridged to begin with for operational security reasons, the formal review confirmed the aircraft was supporting JSOC’s forces.

The formal chain of custody starts with U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM), the service’s top manager for aircraft of all types. Then it moves down through Program Manager-Fixed Wing (PM-FW) and Program Manager-Sensors-Aerial Intelligence (PM-SAI) and finally to U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). At the very end, JSOC is listed as the “organization involved” at the time of the incident.

Despite the sensitive nature of the mission, the Army’s protocols required an investigation into the Class A accident, meaning the incident either caused more than $2 million in damage to the plane or someone died. In this instance, thankfully, there were no fatalities, but the crash totaled the aircraft.

“The accident aircraft was…assigned to a task force (TF) located at Erbil International Airport, Erbil, Iraq,” Army investigators explained in their narrative. “The accident aircrew was scheduled to conduct their standard mission in the local area, which was captured on the TF's flight schedule.”

The results of the investigation itself were inconclusive. Both of the engines on the modified King Air 300-series failed after smoke suddenly began filling the cockpit. After finding evidence of debris inside, the Army sent the two PT6A turboprop engines to the Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) facility at Bridgeport, West Virginia for further analysis. Investigators forwarded fuel and oil samples to a military laboratory for separate tests, which did not turn up any dangerous impurities.

“The number one engine forward gearbox housing fractured from the engine combustion housing, revealing extensive internal damage to the gearbox planetary gears. Removal of the exhaust stacks revealed extensive internal combustion housing and power turbine damage. The number one engine chip detector revealed a copious amount of metallic debris,” the investigators found when they began to inspect the wreckage at a controlled hangar at Erbil Airport. “The number two engine did not reveal any notable damage.”

But the details about the aircraft itself are particularly interesting, illuminating how JSOC is operating in Iraq and Syria, as well as procedures it might apply to operations globally. Though an official document describes it as an MC-12W Liberty aircraft, we now know that N6351V was actually a government-owned, contractor-operated Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (MARSS).

This aerial-intelligence system includes day- and night-vision cameras, a combination laser range-finder and designator, as well as signals intelligence (SIGINT) equipment to find and monitor enemy communications. In 2009, the Army had initially hired contractors to fly this same gear in various aircraft, including both King Air 200- and 300-series planes and larger Bombardier Dash-7s.

The MARSS went to Afghanistan to form the basis for the service’s Task Force Observe, Detect, Identify, and Neutralize-Enhanced (ODIN-E), which was primarily hunting for militants planting roadside bombs. ODIN-E built on the concept the original Task Force ODIN pioneered in Iraq. According a separate FOIA request, the Army said it had bought N6351V outright, along with a second MARSS aircraft with the registration N8007U, sometime between 2013 and 2014. A table from July 2015 noted both aircraft, along with eight other King Air 300-based aerial spooks, were all situated at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia. The decision to collocate these two JSOC aircraft with the other planes, all of which shared many of the same basic airframe and engine components, would have eased maintenance requirements and kept them obscured from the Army’s own fleet.

In addition, fuel and oil purity tests from Corpus Christi Army Depot attached to the main incident report suggested that JSOC may swap these registrations between aircraft to help conceal their activities. In his 2015 book on JSOC, Relentless Strike, journalist and author Sean Naylor talks extensively about the command’s use of “covered air,” which involves elements “whose personnel and aircraft operate under cover.” The War Zone has already written an extensive look at what we know of the U.S. military's most secretive aviation elements.

In this case, the review included historical sampling data for N6351V from August 2014 to March 2016. The last three entries listed “N166BA” as the so-called “End-Item Serial Number” or EISN. In 2016, plane spotters repeatedly tracked this aircraft, as well as a second apparent Beechcraft King Air 300 spy plane with the registration N80BZ, over Iraq using websites like FlightRadar24.com. To persistently track Islamic State fighters and the movements of particular targets for long periods of time in order to build a so-called pattern of life,” JSOC would definitely need more than just one aircraft.

Over Mosul #Iraq
US Army BE30 #N166BA https://t.co/TfosZHyb8u pic.twitter.com/qaLIFJh10E

— CivMilAir ? (@CivMilAir) June 12, 2016

Intel gathering over Mosul #Iraq #N80BZ & #N166BA https://t.co/t13iOw8cbw pic.twitter.com/YvXrXgpmkh

— CivMilAir ? (@CivMilAir) June 28, 2016

It is also possible the Army for some reason intentionally or accidentally combined the fuel and oil testing history for both at some point or that when the service purchased the airframe itself that it changed the serial. A picture of N166BA from 2009 does show a similar aircraft to N6351V, but in an overall gray paint scheme.

To persistently track Islamic State fighters and the movements of particular targets for long periods of time in order to build a so-called pattern of life, JSOC would need more than just one aircraft. An Army table from July 2015 included N6351V and what could be another contractor-operated MARSS – N8007U – along with eight other King Air 300-based aerial spooks, all situated at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia. The decision to collocate these two JSOC aircraft with the other planes, all of which shared many of the same basic airframe and engine components, would have eased maintenance requirements and kept them obscured from the Army’s own fleet.

Regardless of the origins of the aircraft itself, and just how many JSOC actually has under its control, the most interesting detail about N6351V from the accident report may be its crew. Of the four crew members, only one was actually a member of the U.S. military. This U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant acted as the aircraft’s “tactical systems operator” manning the SIGINT system. Censors redacted this individual’s name and there is no mention of their unit, but they could have been assigned to JSOC from Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) or one of the Corps’ three obscure communications-grabbing radio battalions.

The remaining individuals on the plane – the pilot, co-pilot, and full-motion video specialist – were all contract employees from ASKII Technology, Inc. Not surprisingly, on its website, this New Jersey-headquartered firm proudly declares past support for SOCOM, Task Force ODIN, and the Multi Sensor Aerial Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (MAISR) program, which supplied contractor support for Task Force ODIN-E.

Shortly after the crash, on March 23, 2016, elite troops, likely from the ETF, killed Islamic State's then number two leader, Rahman Mustafa Qaduli, during a raid in Syria. On April 6, 2017, another such special operation in Syria resulted in the death of Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, an ethnic Uzbek foreign fighter who the Pentagon described as a "close associate" of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.

It is important to note that we don’t know the exact relationship between JSOC’s elements in Iraq and Syria and the over-arching SOJTF-OIR. In Afghanistan, a similarly unspecified “task force” tasked with targeted strikes against terrorists in that country is at least nominally part of the larger Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan (SOJTF-A).

On top of that, even before Carter revealed the Expeditionary Targeting Force, there was already evidence the U.S. military was looking to start a more specialized campaign against ISIS. In July 2014, U.S. and Jordanian special operations forces tried and failed to rescue two dozen hostages from ISIS. Afterwards, the terrorists publicly beheaded a number of them, including Americas James Foley, Steve Sotloff, and Peter Kassig. Later that year, elite troops also failed in another rescue mission to free American humanitarian Kayla Mueller, who the brutal militants had forced to "marry" their leader Baghdadi and became a sex slave. She died in captivity in February 2015.

When it came to direct against against terrorist leaders, according to a summary table of civilian casualty allegations, at least one A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft attacked a high value individual codenamed “ANDERS MESA” on or about April 12, 2015 near Hawija, Iraq. In May 2015, a ground raid in Syria, reportedly involving Delta Force and the British Special Air Service (SAS), killed then-ISIS deputy commander Abu Sayyaf and led to the capture of the militant's wife, Umm Sayyaf. The two had reportedly held Mueller captive at one point.

“HVI [high value individual] strikes have killed approximately 70 senior and mid-level leaders since the beginning of May,” Army Col. Steve Warren, then the main spokesman for CJTF-OIR, told reporters on Oct. 13, 2015. “That equates to one HVI killed every two days.”

Then, on Oct. 22, 2015, Army Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler died during a combined raid with Kurdish commandos on a terrorist prison camp near the town of Hawija in northern Iraq. It later emerged that Wheeler had been a member of Delta Force, which works exclusively as a force provider for JSOC operations.

By 2014, the Pentagon had already created larger, multi-national special operations task forces for both fronts – Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Iraq (CJSOTF-I) and Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Syria (CJSOTF-S) – as well. When SOJTF-OIR stood up, the Pentagon dictated that its commander be dual-hatted as the head of the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force-Syria (CJIATF-S), effectively bringing the entire special operations enterprise pointed at ISIS under the guidance of a single individual.

While the primary job of these forces has been and continues to be training and advising local forces in both countries, these activities have brought American special operators closer and closer to the front lines. As already noted, it could be here that SOJTF-OIR has scored most of its kills by calling in air strikes and artillery fire during grueling battles for critical cities, such as Mosul, which was ISIS’ de facto capital in Iraq.

Some of the aerial attacks could conceivably have come from within the task force itself. In its Email to The War Zone, CJTF-OIR’s media office confirmed the existence of a Joint Special Operations Air Component within the unit, though they declined to specify what types or how many aircraft it had on hand. MH-60M and MH-47G helicopters from the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), as well as at least one of the U.S. Air Force’s 27th Special Operations Wing’s AC-130W Stinger II gunships, have appeared in publicly available images and video clips. Some of the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones zipping around Iraq and Syria could have come from other Air Force special operations squadrons. In addition, the service's CV-22 Ospreys have joined Marine MV-22s to shuttle elite forces around.

The MH-60Ms can carry miniguns, 2.75” rockets and Hellfire missiles. Pentagon data suggested the 160th SOAR fired a significant number of the rockets, which could include laser-guided Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System-II (APKWS-II) variants, in both Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan. Similarly, for a period in 2016, SOCOM reported special operations units around the world were firing an average of two AGM-176 Griffin missiles, which have laser- and GPS-guidance, every day.

The AC-130W, MQ-1 and MQ-9 can all carry these small weapons. The Stinger II also has a 30mm cannon and can carry Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) glide bombs, while the Predators and Reapers can lob Hellfires and GBU-12 laser-guided bombs, as well. All of these weapons could be potent in targeted strikes or while the aircraft were providing close air support for specialized missions, such as the raid on Al Tabqa Dam near the Syrian city of Raqqa. There might be heretofore unseen weapons in the mix, too.

There’s always the possibility elite American troops, including snipers, could have claimed even more ISIS fighters with small arms and light weapons as they advance alongside Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish forces. And despite the willingness of President Donald Trump’s administration to send more conventional troops to the region, these special operations missions will likely remain a critical part of the broad campaign against the terrorist organization. After Trump’s election victory in November 2016, President Barack Obama had already reportedly expanded JSOC’s worldwide authorities to go after militants.

Prolly US NSW in #MosulOffensive MC Black matches recent pictures, neat Mk13 (Mod5/7/8?), Spuhr mount, PEQ-15 and RULR. Old HTC radio pouch? pic.twitter.com/LV011fJ5PD

— Abraxas Spa (@AbraxasSpa) March 17, 2017

Trump’s Defense Secretary James Mattis has taken his own hard line against ISIS. In February, he gave the White House a new plan on how to break the terrorists in Iraq and Syria, as well as elsewhere around the world. "It is a plan to rapidly defeat ISIS," Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesperson, said during a briefing on Feb. 28, 2017.

However, Mattis has also expressed his general distaste for body counts. “For many years, we have not been calculating the results of warfare by simply quantifying the number of enemy killed,” he told reporters as he toured American military operations throughout the Middle East in April 2017. “You don’t want to start calculating things, as far as what matters, in the crude terms of battle casualties.” )

But whether SOJTF-OIR’s estimated kills are a useful metric, or not, it does make one thing clear, the Pentagon’s revised strategy for defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria continues to rely heavily on special operators hunting down relatively small terrorist groups or even going after specific individuals.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

This is a short and simple project that anyone with an old car should probably consider. A friend suggested a pair of LED headlights, and I decided to give them a shot. I'd always sort of considered them overkill and perhaps a bit overpriced, but I found a set of American-made Sylvania-branded assemblies on Amazon for just $157 per side and pulled the trigger to give them a shot. With almost 40% less strain on the battery and charging system as an added benefit, the bright lights seem to be worth the cash outlay so far.

I have a big road trip coming up next week, and at least some of that will take place after dark. If these new bulbs help keep me out of trouble on that trip, then I'll consider it a good investment. With my old headlights, the danger was really with oncoming traffic. With modern cars headlights being bright enough to give me a bit of night blindness, they would overpower my headlights and I couldn't see what was on my half of the road at night, and that would last for a split second even after the car had passed. As I mentioned in my road trip piece last week, my 912E and I almost came to a physical dispute with a pack of deer on the highway, because my old headlights were dim and driving at highway speeds at night was overdriving the distance you could see with those sealed beam bulbs. Bullet bitten, let's see what these do.

I waited until after dark to get started on the project so I could do this comparison. The picture above is the light profile of the old sealed beam lights.

This style of headlight is known as a "sugar scoop" for the giant chrome trim ring. That ring comes off with just one screw at the bottom.

The standard 7" round headlight bulb sits inside an aiming mechanism and is held in by a secondary ring that is fastened by three screws. I didn't adjust anything when installing these, as the beams of my headlights seem to be aimed properly, just too dim.

From this point, the new LED assembly just pops in and fastens up the same way the old one came out.

The Sylvania unit I used has a plastic cover that sticks out just a bit from the base, making it sit just a bit further out than the old unit. With this sugar scoop style housing, though, you barely notice.

I waited until sunrise to take this picture of the final result. It doesn't look too bad if you ask me. It's not the prettiest assembly I've ever seen, and it looks just slightly out of place on this old Porsche, but the benefits outweigh the downsides. If you don't believe me, just check out that video at the top of the page.

While I've only driven with these headlights at relatively slow speed for about five minutes, I'll be getting a lot of use out of them in the coming days, and I'm pretty well convinced that they'll do really well. While these headlights are about ten times as expensive as a standard sealed beam might be, it's worth the extra money if it prevents me from getting into a head on collision with an Armadillo as I roll through Texas.

The self-driving car industry is blowin’ it.

The definitions of self-driving—from ADAS to SAE automation levels to the inconsistent nomenclature used by the media—are a semantic disaster concealing a vast opportunity. There is no doubt increasing automation will make driving safer, but the safest possible implementation is one that maximizes human capabilities rather than treating them like a cancer.

Automakers are missing the biggest opportunity to profit from saving lives on what is likely to be a long, gentle ascent to Level 4. It requires tossing the insufficient logic behind L2/L3 semi-autonomy and probably even Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and deploying the same hardware and software being developed for L4 as a way to augment human driving.

Though augmented driving represents a clear break from the current crop of semi-autonomous systems, it’s not without precedent. Aircraft are being transformed by automation just as profoundly as cars, but because there is no impetus to move toward pilotless airliners, flight automation systems have been developed to enhance rather than replace human pilots. By following the example set by the commercial aviation sector, automakers can replace the risks inherent to semi-autonomy with the comprehensive assistance of augmented driving.

The Problem is the Transition Gap

Virtually all criticism of Semi-Autonomy focuses on transitions, meaning the length and nature of the control handoff from the system to a human operator.

Transitions are not the problem.

The flaw in Semi-Autonomous driving is inherent: it temporarily substitutes rather than comprehensively assists. The more it improves, the more human skills decline. Even as it improves, every “failure” is attributed to technology rather than human ignorance of it. Its perceived limitations discourage rather than encourage adoption of any form of automation, including future iterations decreasingly skilled drivers will need most, like L4.

Even if someone could “perfect” transitions the overall safety of partial automation will always remain hostage to the atrophying skills of humans in the loop. As Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger stated in an interview about automation, driver’s education is “a national disgrace.” Human driving skills — especially in the United States — have never been great, and the recent spikein American road deaths suggests they are in decline well in advance of automation’s rise. If semi-autonomous systems continue to focus on replacing these skills rather than enhancing them, they will contribute to the very problem they are supposed to solve.

The “transition gap” between declining skills and rising automation will always exist, as untrained humans will always place more faith in technology (and their skills) than warranted. This gap is inherent to semi-autonomy because it is totally binary: it is on, or it is off. That such systems are safer than the average human driver when engaged makes commercializing them a moral imperative, but since they can never improve as quickly as human skill declines, and since the only solution offered by current thinking is L4, they will remain a conceptual dead end, a snake of safety technology eating its own tail until L4 magically becomes ubiquitous at some future date.

That’s nowhere near the best we can do using all the technologies developed along the way.

The Most Important Lesson of Aviation Has Been Ignored

What is Augmented Driving? It’s the synthesis of concepts pioneered in commercial aviation but so far ignored in automotive. What few examples automakers have tried to follow have been limited to infrastructure and protocols impossible to duplicate on the ground in the near or mid-term, like traffic control and ubiquitous communications/location broadcasting.

Augmented Driving ditches the pipe dreams of V2V and V2I by using technology already in place — like drive-by-wire and the increasingly commoditized radars and cameras already part of ADAS/L2 — and adds the higher-resolution GPS and LIDAR-based maps (almost) everyone will build or buy on the way to L4.

The core of Augmented Driving is a car-based implementation of aviation safety systems called Flight Envelope Protections. Airbus and Boeing have been debating and refining these systems for nearly 40 years. That everyone in self-driving research isn’t intimately familiar with them is a disgrace.

What are Flight Envelope Protections? Here’s the wiki:

“...A human machine interfaceextension of an aircraft’s controlsystem that prevents the pilot of an aircraft from making control commands that would force the aircraft to exceed its structural and aerodynamic operating limits. It is used in some form in all modern commercial fly-by-wire aircraft. Its advantage is that it restricts pilots in emergency situations so they can react quickly without endangering the safety of their aircraft.”

Boeing and Airbus differ over the optimal implementation of Envelope Protections. An Airbus will not allow a pilot to exceed certain bank, roll and pitch angles, regardless of input. A Boeing will, but with deterrent haptic feedback that should shame automotive engineers into retirement. Either type of aircraft, flown properly by a trained pilot, is unlikely to bump up against the protections. An untrained, incompetent or drunk pilot, say, equivalent to most drivers on the road today? Envelope protections are their safety net.

Why don’t we have Driving Envelope Protections (DEP)? We do, in the form of ADAS, but they’re relatively primitive. They exist in the form of Anti-Lock Brakes, Traction Control, Stability Control, and Evasive Steering Assistancesystems, but their intervention is inconsistent and largely invisible to — and misunderstood by — drivers. They are poorly or rarely integrated with peer technologieseven within state-of-the-art ADAS suites like that in the 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class.

Why should drivers be able to panic steer into a wall clearly indicated by their car’s radar sensors? Or steer into a lane where their Blind Spot Monitoring system has identified a truck?

If we can’t guarantee an improvement in driver training outside of car, let’s move it inside by more closely integrating guardrail technologies with the human driving experience, improving both. Let’s gamify driving in a way that encourages and rewards safer driving, building trust between generations raised on analog driving and the technology that can save them from their own mistakes until L4 arrives.

Driving Envelope Protections Are The Future

No one wants to own a connected Porsche 911 capped at the speed limit for safety, but I would love to own an augmented, very-difficult-to-crash 911 that makes me a safer driver in all conditions, at any speed.

Sound crazy? Here’s what Sully had to say about automation vs augmentation:

“It would be much better — at least at a conceptual level — for humans to have more direct engagement with the operation, and technology to provide guardrails to prevent us from making egregious errors, and to monitor our performance. That would be, in terms of our inherent abilities and limitations, a much better way to go.”

All the pieces of real DEP are falling into place. Add high-resolution maps to ADAS, make driver monitoring systems and hands-on-wheel intervals mandatory, add windshield-mounted Augmented Reality/Head-Up-Displays to improve situational awareness, and you have the L2/3 we need, a system where people will remain sufficiently engaged to resolve edge cases binary L2/3 cannot. Drive well and — like aviation protections — DEP will remain completely invisible. Drive poorly and DEP will catch you.

How precisely would DEP work? What about the UI and UX? That’s for future pieces, but here’s my humorous take on how it might work in a 2036 Porsche 911.

Alex Roy is founder of Geotegic Consulting and the Human Driving Association; editor-at-large at The Drive; host of The Autonocast; co-host of /DRIVE on NBC Sports; and author of The Driver. He has set numerous endurance driving records, including the infamous Cannonball Run record. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram..

The F-117 continues to be one of the most intriguing aircraft ever built, even nearly a decade after it was retired, and close to 30 years after it was originally unveiled to the public. From the Nighthawk's "cloaking device" to its "toxic death" paint job, it seem like some of the most interesting aspects of the F-117's story are the small bits that have largely gone unreported. Maybe one of the most obscure and enigmatic details of the "Black Jet" is an elusive component called the Radar Locating System (RLS). For an aircraft that survives on its stealthy shape and coatings, these flip-down antenna arrays seem to deviate drastically from the F-117's modus operandi. But then again, the impetus for their existence may make more sense than not—that is if they really existed at all.

The F-117's Radar Locating System consists (as far as we know) of a pair of small planar antenna farms located under the aircraft's wings, about ten feet from the wing roots, near their leading edges. The idea behind the system seems to have been that the F-117 pilot, who would normally retract all the jet's antennas when moving into hostile territory to minimize its radar reflectivity, could activate the system and its antennas would pop down into the airstream. Once deployed, they would work as a radar homing and warning receiver (RHWR), not only notifying the pilot of the an enemy radar's presence and type, but also its direction and maybe even its general location.

Based on some accounts, the RLS seems to have been more about using the F-117 for the destruction of enemy air defenses (DEAD) role than just avoiding enemy emitters, and was possibly part of a program that aimed to see the F-117 dynamically go after radar and SAM sites as a secondary mission set. Based on the information available, it may have also had a recording function and could have given the aircraft a secondary signals intelligence collection capability as well.

The picture above is credited to James Goodall—if you don't own James's books, make sure to buy them, and a new one on nuclear fast attack subs is coming out this summer. It is a rare photo of this elusive system. According to one source, the array appears to be set up for spiral omni-directional electronic support measures (ESM) antennas, roughly 50mm in diameter, which are typical for 0.2-18GHZ surveillance coverage, and they can be specifically tuned to different bands. Because of their wide spacing on each side of the jet's wings, the two sensor blocks/arrays coupled with the forward motion of the jet would provide direction finding ability. In other words, at least the threat emitter's bearing could be identified, and possibly its range. This would be especially useful for finding and attacking newer road-mobile SAM systems like the S-300 and SA-11 that were emerging at the same time the F-117 was operating under high secrecy in the Nevada desert.

Today some of the most powerful capabilities that a combat aircraft possesses, especially the stealth kind like the F-22 and F-35, are their abilities to detect, classify and geolocate threat emitters and other components of an enemy's integrated air defense systems (IADS). This is done via antennas placed all around the aircraft, under its stealthy skin. These conformal arrays are tied to high-speed computers that use interferometry, a large threat library, and other methods to give pilots—and even other aircraft connected via data-link within the battlespace—a real time tactical "picture" of the electronic order of battle around them. RLS seems like a very early and somewhat poorly conceived attempt to give the F-117 a fraction of this capability. Because conformal arrays and their composite coverings were not available at the time, the flip-down method was likely used.

The likely problem with the system was that it drastically increased the F-117's radar cross section when in use, as its flip-down antennas compromised the jet's smooth ventral surface. This is an especially bad attribute when it comes to maintaining a very low radar cross section for the critical forward hemisphere of the aircraft. The likely result was the F-117's radar signature bloomed drastically when the RLS was activated. As such, the system would not only blow the Nighthawk's cover, but it would also turn it into a target. Not just that, but it would have only offered a "snapshot" of the electronic threat environment around the F-117 at any given time. That's because the system would need to be retracted quickly, or it would turn the jet into a sitting duck while operating in enemy airspace.

By most accounts, it seems that the system was either just part of a test series, or was only used for a very limited amount of time operationally, and how many jets it was installed on remains an unknown—that is if it ever existed at all.

Some veteran F-117 maintainers seem to remember the quirky RLS trap doors pretty well. They even have mentioned that they were known to sag, which would not only hurt the jet's stealth capabilities, but on dark nights that often were prime operations time for F-117 missions, partially opened RLS doors could be a hazard for maintainers foreheads.

Not just that, but the RLS is prominently featured in the F-117's "Dash One" operating manual. It is not only mentioned, and its abandoned control panel identified, but its location is also shown clearly in a diagram of the jet. You can see the mentions below, and the entire manual is available online here.

It has been noted that by 2006, the system was not listed in official hazard and crash responders documents which are posted online here. The diagram showing the RLS doors are still there, but it does not identify it as being something that is accessible like the rest of the aircraft's retractable antenna, so it seems as if the doors were permanently sealed or filled-in at some point in time. This could have occurred during a depot overhaul or upgrade.

While we have a picture, written and first hand accounts of the Radar Locator System, it seems that its existence is still highly doubted by some—including the man that largely oversaw the development of the jet—senior Skunk Works engineer and F-117 program manager Alan Brown.

I chatted at length with Mr. Brown about the F-117 and this obscure, and let's face it, mysterious feature. He was as puzzled as I was. After sending him the picture of it, he was kind enough to respond with his conclusions:

"This picture doesn’t look like anything that was ever put on a F-117A airplane, and as such I am inclined to discount the story entirely. The only possibility to my mind is that the USAF made the modification themselves without Lockheed’s knowledge, but that itself is impossible for me to believe, knowing how well we followed up with the airplane in the field. Lockheed Skunk Works always had a cradle-to-grave philosophy in terms of follow-up with its products in service."

Mr. Brown was even nice enough to contact his successor as F-117 program manager, Sherm Mullin, to see what his thoughts were about the RLS enigma. His reply was just about the same as Mr. Brown's, stating that "it was never put on the F-117, period." Although he did mention that it could have been a concept from a study that occurred from 1984 to 1985 that apparently went off the rails conceptually and was disbanded with prejudice as a result.

During roughly that same time period it is known, although not well documented publicly, that the F-117 was tested with some fairly elaborate modifications. This supposedly included a handful of sensor systems in addition to the jet's stock Infrared Acquisition And Designation System (IRADS). We know that a passive electronically scanned array (PESA) radar was flown on one F-117 in a specially-built radome fitted on the Nighthawk's iconic wedge-like nose. Maybe RLS was one of the other mods that was deemed successful, and was accommodated for in some F-117s built, but never fully installed.

Still, you would think that even something as useless as an empty-flip down antenna array would be well known by the F-117s top engineers and program managers.

So there you have it, the obscure mystery of the F-117's funky little flip-down Radar Locator System. For a jet that was made famous for its work during Desert Storm, it is really amazing that we are still finding new peculiarities of its design and genesis to discuss. Then again, the jet was so exotic for its time and its deep classification added massively to its murky lore—not to mention it has off-the-charts techno-sinister looks—that really it is mystery personified. The fact that it is still flying, and we are still wondering as to its applications, even after it left front line service almost a decade ago, goes to show you that the F-117 is a mystery machine at heart that just won't die.

Contact the author: tyler@thedrive.com

In order to make vehicle infotainment life easier for Mercedes-Benz drivers, the brand has opted to add Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa into all 2016 and 2017 Mercedes-Benz vehicles. This means owners can interact, start and ready their vehicle while still in their home. As you can see in the video below, the home concierge devices will transfer their abilities into the car, but only to an extent. Both Google Assistant and Alexa will send prompts to the Mercedes-Benz infotainment system, but owners can not interact with Google Assistant or Alexa from inside their car—they can only click yes or no.

Although these digital helpers are a welcomed addition to the modern infotainment system, they could potentially be viewed as an additional distraction. If Alexa or Google Assistant could become a substitute for convoluted and distracting infotainment systems, then the automotive world might be finally moving in the right direction. However, the video makes it look like the installation of these programs just add one more feature to the system.

When people hear “distracted driving,” the average Joe generally thinks of cellphone use, applying make-up, eating, or pretty much the use of anything not attached to their vehicle. However, distracted driving can also be the use of anything on the dashboard or center console that requires you to take your eyes off the road to use. If Mercedes-Benz and other manufacturers continue with Alexa and Google Assistant, The Drive hopes they will consider allowing voice commands from the driver to further reduce distracted driving incidents.

Ever wanted to build a classic Porsche engine without the mess? If so, you’re in luck today—and you don’t even have to make a big financial investment. Franzis sells a super accurate 1:4 scale model of the 2.0-liter flat six from the original air-cooled Porsche 911.

The model comes with about 280 components, including a transparent engine casing, a full exhaust system, LED spark plugs, a real distributor, and timing “chains” (which are actually belts). You even get little head gaskets, which are completely unnecessary, since there’s no oil. When you’re done putting it together, you can run the engine on battery power and see exactly what goes on inside a real flat-six. (My favorite part is the little speaker that makes an authentic boxer engine sound when the motor is running.)

Detailed directions and a ton of screws are included. There’s no glue needed, and the only tool required to put the whole thing together is a screwdriver. Assembling this model is much cheaper, much cleaner, and probably more fun than constructing a real Porsche motor.

It’s recommended for ages 10 and up, but we have a feeling that most people who buy this are much older than 10. If there’s a kid in your life with a budding Porsche obsession or just an interest in engineering, this would be a perfect gift. Otherwise, if you’ve always wanted a working model Porsche engine on your mantle, here’s your opportunity. Now, all we need is the rest of a 911 in 1:4 size.

Check out this hypnotic video of this model being built by Flat Six Fanatics.

?General Motors recently reported an $8.1 billion net profit for 2018, marking a major turnaround from the year prior. But not all of the Detroit automaker's 2018 financial results were so positive. GM's Cruise autonomous-driving division lost $728 million, or 19 percent more than in 2017, according to the automaker.

GM purchased Cruise in 2016 with the aim of commercializing self-driving cars—but that hasn't happened yet. Aside from a deal with DoorDash to use prototype autonomous cars as delivery vehicles, Cruise is still firmly in research and development mode. That means GM will likely need to continue pumping money into Cruise, without the division having any real options to earn revenue.

Cruise has, however, attracted investments from major outside parties. In 2018, it secured deals with Honda and SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate that is also a major investor in Uber.

GM also indicated that it would redirect more funds to autonomous-driving tech after making major cuts to staff, production facilities, and its existing vehicle lineup. In a major vote of confidence in Cruise, GM appointed Dan Ammann as the division's new CEO in November 2018. Ammann, who replaced Cruise co-founder Kyle Vogt as CEO, was previously president of GM and played a crucial role in helping the automaker recover from its bankruptcy.

The announcement of GM's 2018 financial results comes as the automaker lays off 4,250 workers, part of a larger restructuring effort that will include the elimination of 15 percent of the salaried workforce and 25 percent of executives. GM previously announced that it would shut down five North American factories, including four in the United States and one in Canada.

The Honda Civic routinely ranks as America's most stolen car each year, something an Alabama man learned in sharp relief when a crew of thieves attempted to nab his ride as it was left idling at a gas station last week. Thankfully, they were unsuccessful, and now security footage from the building shows exactly what went wrong: the car had a manual transmission.

According to Fox 10 News, the owner left his 1995 Honda Civic unlocked and running in a parking spot at the gas station outside Mobile when he ran into the convenience store. Less than a minute later, the quartet of ne'er-do-wells showed up in their own SUV; spotting the opportunity, two of them immediately hopped out to steal the innocent Honda.

We're not sure how they managed to get behind the wheel without realizing that it had a stick shift, or that none of them actually knew how to operate one. Whatever the case, the security footage shows the blue Honda sitting in its spot, distinctly not moving as the irate owner comes dashing out to confront the thieves. Or are they simply trespassers at this point?

Regardless, you can see the owner actually attempt to yank one of them out of the driver's seat before the car lurches forward a few feet. That's as far as they'll get—while the owner runs back into the store to grab his phone, the pair give up and sprint away. Meanwhile, their accomplices in the SUV are too slow to drive off, giving the owner a chance to record their license plate and faces.

The Mobile County Sheriff's Office arrested two of the suspects, Dustin Roberson and Blake Lawrence, and have reportedly issued warrants for the remaining two. Detectives say Lawrence is also a suspect in the attempted robbery of another gas station that same day, which ended with the cashier ignoring his "homemade weapon" and Lawrence buying a six-pack of beer.

Sounds like an accurate character profile for a man who would try to steal a manual transmission car without knowing how to drive one.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation released chilling video of a school bus driver being shot in an apparent road rage incident. The footage, which was made available to the public on Wednesday, was captured from a nearby traffic camera and outlines the incident from the moment of the shooting up until police arrive.

During a snowstorm on Tuesday, cars can be seen traversing a snow-covered highway near downtown Minneapolis at a slow pace. Unexpectedly, a Toyota stops in the left-most lane of traffic and a man dressed in a security guard uniform exits his vehicle and begins walking on the shoulder towards a school bus.

The situation soon escalated as the man, identified by police at the time of the incident as 31-year-old Kenneth Lilly, can be seen holding a pistol and firing several shots towards the front of the bus. Lilly then continues to the passenger-side of the vehicle and fires several more times.

VIDEO: Man Shoots School Bus Driver On I-35W In Minneapolis
As cars crept along, a Toyota pulled over in front of a pickup truck & a school bus. That is when the driver 31-year-old Kenneth Lilly, got out & immediately started shootinghttps://t.co/mjD4fQkcfY pic.twitter.com/jzkRlJQN5g

— (((M?nz•Ri?))) (@R35I5T) February 7, 2019

Lilly then begins to pace back and forth and makes a call on his cell phone. Several individuals nearby phoned into 911 and reported the gunman to authorities, leading police to arrive at the scene in under a minute and take the suspect into custody without incident.

The 78-year-old victim, whose name has not been released, was struck in the head and taken to a local hospital where they would undergo surgery for non-life-threatening injuries. A single child was also being shuttled at the time of the shooting but was not harmed.

“Preliminary investigation is that there was a motor vehicle crash that occurred and an altercation or dispute of some sort happened resulting in gunfire,” said Minneapolis Police Spokesperson John Elder in a statement to local news. “This raises immense concern on so many levels. The fact that someone is shooting into a school bus, the fact that you’re on a freeway where you have vehicles that are literally stranded because of the weather. You don’t have a clear back drop for any of these round. This is mind numbing."

People who customize their rides will look to the manufacturer for parts and ideas. If you own a FCA vehicle, that means Mopar. The brand offers a full lineup of all sorts of goodies—everything from floor mats to Hellcats—for your vehicle. To show off some goodies for the new Ram Heavy Duty, FCA’s in-house tuning arm is showing off an accessorized 2019 Ram 2500 at the Chicago Auto Show.

The Mopar-modified truck has more than 170 products on it, including a Ram Bar, LED off-road lights, and a clever bed step. All of those are available to order. But the truck doesn't stop there, since it has some conceptual components on it, too. Those include beadlock wheels, off-road rock rails, and a spare tire carrier.

Those last bits, while concepts now, would look absolutely killer on a production truck. They're similar, actually, to the parts we saw on the badass Ram Rebel TRX concept a few years back; a truck that Ram has said is going to put into production.

The modified truck started life as a 2019 Ram 2500 Heavy Duty Big Horn, painted in the factory Blue Streak production color.

“The Mopar-modified Ram 2500 Heavy Duty on display at the Chicago Auto Show is the latest example of our commitment to offering owners a full product line to choose from right at launch of FCA US LLC vehicles,” said Steve Beahm, FCA head of parts and service and passenger car brands. “Whether it’s for the trail, the street, or the worksite, Mopar will have more than 170 parts and accessories that provide a path to enhanced capability for the new 2019 Ram Heavy Duty.”

Going with Mopar means you're getting OEM-grade aftermarket parts. Since they're both under the same umbrella, Ram and Mopar spent tens of thousands of hours developing these products. Mopar also has access to factory-exclusive data—stuff other that aftermarket companies would kill to have—to ensure quality components. Also, these parts can be ordered from the dealer (not the concept parts, obviously) and rolled right into your vehicle financing.

The majority of the Mopar accessories are available at launch of the 2019 Heavy Duty, which will be a little bit later this year.

Having your vehicle stolen isn't a typical experience. Moreover, having your vehicle stolen every single night and then returned voluntarily in the same condition that it left is pretty much unheard of, at least until now. An elderly Texas woman discovered that someone was doing just that with her van after several clues lead both her and the police to discover the truth.

Beverly Havard of Houston felt something was awry after noticing that the miles on her van's odometer were being racked up at an alarming rate. As the days passed by, she began to find that other small details began to change. One day, Havard discovered that her seat had been re-position, and another day the mirrors had been adjusted.

"Somebody's driving my car and bringing it back,” said Havard, "I know I'm not crazy."

As it turns out, she was right. Texas police discovered that a man was using Havard's mobility-adapted van to commit crimes in surrounding neighborhoods. On several occasions, the suspect would reportedly hijack the woman's automobile overnight and use it as a getaway car when looting nearby homes and vehicles.

After receiving surveillance footage of the van involved in the crimes, police eventually discovered Michael Armando Lopez with Havard's vehicle. During an attempted traffic stop, Lopez reportedly attempted to flee and lost control of the van, crashing it into a pole.

The Havards are now on hard times due to the alleged thief's last stand with police. Beverly says that the van Lopez crashed was specifically adapted to transport her husband Rick, who is disabled and wheelchair bound.

"I had to cancel his doctor's appointment," she said. "I hope he's satisfied that he took advantage of an elderly person that's very sick and that can't be transported to go anywhere."

Being set in a city that isn't as quite grabby as New York or Los Angeles and coming just a couple weeks after Detroit, the Chicago Auto Show may not be on your radar as an event that delivers big automotive debuts. Perhaps it should, though, because McCormick Place in 2019 played host to a couple of brand new sedans as well as special editions of two already-well-liked sportier machines. In no particular order, here are the five hottest cars from this year's show in the Windy City.

2019 Volkswagen Jetta GLI

Volkswagen has blessed its Jetta compact sedan with 228 horsepower, independent sport suspension, a limited-slip diff, and some snazzy red trim to make the GLI. Often seen as a neglected, frumpier middle child in VW's performance lineup, the GLI's biggest hurdle will likely continue to be overcoming the envy-inducing amounts of attention its iconic, Golf-based GTI brethren gets among sport compact enthusiasts.

2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary Edition

"It's time to move out of our basement and settle down like a big boy," is what the MX-5 Miata's parents would say if the MX-5 Miata, er, had parents. Yes, Mazda's acclaimed roadster is celebrating the big 3-0 this year but thankfully, it isn't trading in any of the fun it had in its younger years for an office job, a mortgage, or a stable partner. Instead, it threw on an orange suit, Rays shoes, and had a party for 3,000 of its most hardcore fans.

2020 Toyota Tacoma

While it may not look much different than the 2019 model year, the newest Toyota Tacoma is quite fresh when it comes to tech. Inside, the truck's multimedia infotainment has received a major upgrade that now offers Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and Amazon Alexa. Previously you had to spring nearly $50K to get that kind of equipment in a Tacoma by opting for the TRD Pro. If you do go in that direction, however, the top-o'-the-line model features Multi Terrain Mode which incorporates exterior camera views to show what's in front of, behind, and beside your pickup when offroading.

Oh, and you can still get it with a manual, too.

2020 Subaru Legacy

Subaru's midsize sedan is all-new for 2020 and brings with it an 11.6-inch vertical touchscreen as well as the model's first turbo in years. Par for the Subaru course, the new Legacy comes with all-wheel drive and a Boxer engine. Aesthetically, it sort of looks like a 2020 Camry from an alternate reality in which Toyota never found its pulse. Let's move on to the mid-engined Italian two-seater, shall we?

2020 Alfa Romeo 4C Spider Italia

At just 15 units, the special edition 4C Spider Italia is, technically speaking, the most exclusive car on this list. The privilege of owning one—with its Italia-only blue paint and green-white-and-red badges in and out—will set you back $5,000 more than a regular 4C Spider. Whether or not it's worth the premium is up to you, honestly, considering the Italia gets zero performance or equipment upgrades. Thankfully for Alfa Romeo, it only has to sell 15 of 'em to call it "mission accomplished."

It's not hard to argue that the F-150 and Mustang, respectively, are the heart and soul of Ford's lineup. The Mustang serves the latter, a manifestation of the spirit of the Detroit-based carmaker's 100-plus years of bringing freedom and speed to the masses; the F-150 is the former, its colossal sales serving as the pump that keeps life-giving money flowing even as it serves the needs and desires of millions of Americans, earning FoMoCo a place of honor in the owners' own hearts.

But the Mustang and F-150 share a few other characteristics beyond the cursive-script badge on their noses. Both come with two doors and rear-wheel-drive—at least, in the case of cheaper F-Series trucks. As of the 2019 model year, they both offer a 5.0-liter naturally aspirated V-8 and a 10-speed automatic transmission on the options list. And, as of the 2019 calendar year, you can buy supercharged versions of both packing north of 700 horsepower from Lebanon Ford Performance of Lebanon, Ohio. More specifically: You can now buy a supercharged F-150 packing as much as 725 horsepower for as little as $39,995.

“We’ve built a handful of supercharged trucks in the past,” Josh Hipp, performance director at Lebanon Ford Performance, told The Drive. “[But] this will be the first time we’re targeting people who want to buy a supercharged truck...and take it home.”

As with LFP's bargain blown Mustangs, that eye-catching price applies under very specific circumstances. In the case of the F-150s, Hipp said, that $39,995 pricetag applies to a two-wheel-drive 2019 Ford F-150 XL with a regular cab, the shorter 6.5-foot bed, and the XL Sport Appearance package. Should you want your supercharged F-Series with some of the options that make today's pickup trucks so versatile (and expensive), you'll have to pay a little more. That said, Hipp said the shop will be more than happy to throw your choice of blower under the hood of any 5.0-liter-powered F-150 you buy or bring in.

“I fully expect most people to go to a four-wheel-drive, or a crew cab,” he said.

Buyers can choose from a trio of different superchargers for their money: a Roush R2650 that dials up power at the crank to a claimed 650 hp and 610 pound-feet of torque; a ProCharger Stage II with P1X head unit upgrade that makes 650 ponies; and a 2.9-liter monster of a Whipple that cranks out the headline-making 725 hp, along with 675 lb-ft. (Those seeking security from their supercharged truck builds, take note—the Roush unit comes with a three-year/36,000-mile warranty as standard, while the same warranty will cost you an extra $995 on the other two units.)

And, like LFP's Mustangs, that's it. The five-bucks-less-than-$40K figure is for a straightforward power grab; no added performance mods, just a whole bunch of forced-induction power. Should you want more from your F-150, though, the dealership says it'll be happy to work with you to add on other go-fast goodies—from a performance suspension to sticky drag-ready radials. And that's not as uncommon as some might think.

“I’ve seen trucks already into the nines on the track,” Hipp said.

According to Hipp, Lebanon Ford opened the order books for its supercharged F-150s on February 1st, and the company already has multiple orders in the works. Between the work and the line, buyers should expect it to take about four to six weeks for LFP to turn the truck around. Should you want the $39,995 model, however, Hipp says you can expect to wait a little longer; considering the rarity of 2WD regular cab XL F-150s with the Sport Appearance Package floating around dealer lots, any of those bargain-basement models will likely need to be special-ordered from Ford, adding another eight to 10 weeks to the wait.

Oh, and one more thing: Don't call it a Lightning. While other dealerships and custom shops have been slapping together sport trucks designed as homages and tributes to Ford's 360-hp sport truck of the late Nineties (and its less-beloved 240-hp predecessor), Hipp says LFP is explicitly avoiding attempts to cash in on the nostalgia for the supercharged Stepside. If you want to slap SVT decals on the bed of your 725-hp F-150, you'll have to do that yourself.

Of the numerous companies developing autonomous driving tech, Aurora Innovation is one of the low-key players. However, the startup will likely attract much more attention now, thanks to an infusion of cash from Amazon.

The online retail giant's Sequoia investment arm led a $530 million Series B funding round, Aurora Innovation announced in a blog post. Shell Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Geodesic also joined.

Aurora Innovation is notable primarily for its leadership. It was founded in 2016 by Chris Urmson, who led Google's self-driving car project before it became Waymo. The executive team also includes Drew Bagnell, previously of Uber's Advanced Technologies Center, and Sterling Anderson, the former head of Tesla's Autopilot development program.

So far, Aurora Innovation has made deals with Hyundai and Volkswagen, as well as Byton, a Chinese startup that is trying to emulate the success of Tesla with electric cars. It's unclear what Amazon's interest in a self-driving car startup might be, but the company has expressed interest in alternative ways to deliver its packages, such as drones.

Several companies are experimenting with autonomous delivery vehicles. Ford has deals with Domino's and Postmates to run pilot programs using its prototype self-driving cars as delivery vehicles. General Motors' Cruise Automation division has a deal with DoorDash to do food deliveries. Startup Nuro is developing a purpose-built autonomous delivery vehicle, and is currently operating a pilot grocery delivery service with test mules. Walmart plans to launch a similar service with a different startup, Udelv. Will Amazon be the next company to join the fray?