Lockheed Martin delivered the 14th new-build MC-130J special-mission aircraft to Air Force Special Operations Command. Aircraft 5713 departed the company’s manufacturing plant in Marietta, Ga., on Jan 9 for Cannon AFB, N.M., according to a company release on that same day. Cannon is the beddown site for these new MC-130Js, dubbed Commando IIs, which AFSOC intends to utilize for missions such as refueling of other special-mission platforms in flight, covertly inserting and extracting special forces, and resupplying them. The previous MC-130J arrived at Cannon last month. There are 27 MC-130Js on order thus far for AFSOC.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…