As usual, this is all unconfirmed scuttlebutt and chatter. WYSIWYG.

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* The USA used 746 smart bombs and missiles in Afghanistan this past July. This indicates an escalation from June (572) and May (355).

* China may be missing a Type 39A/B Yuan class submarine. All of the boats for their other types are accounted for but one of the Yuan boats has been unaccounted for since it went deep off Bassett Shoal in mid-October. Chinese recovery and 'deep sea research' vessels have lingered in the area since October 22.

* Shia refugees are returning to Afghanistan from Iran partly due to the declining Iranian economy and partly due to improving conditions in Afghanistan.

* The US is upgrading 261 M1 tanks with the Israeli Active Protection System (APS). This defense system is particularly effective against the Russian Kornet anti-tank missile.

* Muslim violence in Thailand is decreasing from 2,061 attacks in 2010 to 489 incidents in 2017. Thai intelligence services are being credited with the results of a vigorous decade-long program to identify and neutralize Islamic militants.

* In July the USAF successfully tested their new Deployable Air Base System (DABS) to a civilian airfield in eastern Poland. The base was fully operational less than forty-eight hours after the land units departed from their staging point in Luxembourg.

* In western Iraq near the Syrian border a small Iranian military convoy was hit by an airstrike and destroyed with approximately twenty casualties. It is currently a mystery as to whose air force carried out the operation. Israel is a suspect.

That is all.

The DABS sounds like a really good idea. Especially with the likelihood of shit starting in places deemed unlikely in earlier times.

It does sound cool.