Ops Brief 131: Daily Drop - 26 Feb 2026 - Warrant Officer Bonus “Bidding" & Mobility Crisis

Ones ready? Ones ready! Go! You kept me like I'm crazy, but I don't care anyway. I'm just really doing what I got to do, and I got no plan to quit. So I just gotta keep rocking, and you know that's what it is. Every shot that I do not take, I am guaranteed to miss. So I better grab that rifle and start lining up the hits. hey everybody welcome back to the ones ready podcast this is your daily drop for the 26th of february brought to you by tastygames.com if you go to tastygames.com you will get a chance to purchase some creatine gummies they make them for adults they make them for kids they make them for women. They also make special gummies just for women. And then nootropics, which you guys already know because I always talk about it. The nootropics are badass. As somebody who can't take, you know, like Ritalin and Adderall and stuff like that, these nootropics are the next best thing. So check them out. Tastygains.com. All right. Kicking things off with the army. Warrant Officer Retention Bonus Auction. We talked about this yesterday, but the army is shifting from a fixed retention bonus to an auction-style system in which senior warrant officers bid for their own bonuses. I still want to know how this is going to work out, but they're changing it in hope to retain highly specialized technical experts while controlling costs amid intense competition for talent. And it's supposed to represent a market-driven approach for personnel management. Interesting to see how it turns out. I mean, none of these programs are actually fantastic and work flawlessly And a lot of times the people who should be getting promoted and or bonuses often don So yeah we see how it goes Next, adaptation to Ukrainian armored warfare lessons. The army is incorporating lessons from Ukraine's evolving armored battlefield into its own training and doctrine. Cavalry scouts now combine traditional skills with extensive simulator time piloting drones. This ensures the force remains relevant in drone-saturated combined arms environments. Yeah, dude, if you guys aren't tracking the amount of lessons learned and the amount of tech upgrades that have happened because of the Ukrainian conflict over there, I mean, the drones is un-freaking-real. All right, next, revamp of electronic warfare acquisition. As part of the broader reorganization, the Army is overhauling how it acquires electronic warfare and signals intelligence systems. The changes are designed to speed delivery of critical capabilities to operational units and supports multi-domain operations against peer adversaries. Cool. Anything that increases the speed of acquisitions is a good thing. So hopefully this works out. But anything the Army touches really is foobard anyway. uh navy new commander for submarine force atlantic the navy installed a new commander for submarine force atlantic one of its two primary submarine commands known for collectively as the silent service the transition was marked in an official navy release and it maintains leadership continuity for undersea warfare forces oh silent service next anti-ship strike rehearsal with b2 bomber navy fighters teamed with an air force b2 stealth bomber in an integrated anti-ship strike exercise off the coast of california the drills tested long-range air-to-air missiles and stealth bomber capabilities against maritime targets if you guys in the navy people in the navy and the air force can tell you this targeting things in open ocean and in the water is extremely difficult. The same munitions in the same way that we target things using those munitions on land and in mountainous mountainous terrain does not necessarily work when it you know in the ocean or open ocean kind of thing So that is definitely something that I'm happy that we are working on, especially as a joint force, because it is a solvable problem, but it is a lot different than what we've been doing over the last however many years blowing stuff up on the ground. all right uh nothing from the Marine Corps the Air Force though before you know the Air Force if you guys are interested in some elite level instructorship mentorship training and you're interested in joining the Air Force Special Welfare Pipeline or any of the pipelines or you just want to get better we have a operator training summit coming up in Nashville it's an amazing facility I mean I can't I can't speak about it highly enough highly speak about enough, however you want to say that. Phenomenal. There's no age requirement for it. You can be 16 and show up as long as you get your parents to sign the waiver. And then there are no prerequisites. You don't have to have an IFT or anything like that. This is a baseline foundations level course. You can register at OperatorTradingSemite.com. All right, Air Force. Mobility aircraft modernization concerns. The Air Force's top mobility commander stated the service is woefully behind on replacing aging air transport tankers airport sorry air transports and tankers he is advocating for earlier fielding than the current late 2030s timeline this addresses strategic airlift shortfalls for global operations yeah uh let's see how long is the kc-135 been flying around a very very long time and it just got extended i think they're saying 2065 and then i believe I saw something the other day that said, expect the C-17 lifespan to be until 2075. That's bonkers. Now those things are incredibly capable. They're amazing aircraft, just like the C-130, which will definitely still be flying by that time. Um, because they're just bad-ass aircraft, but dude, we absolutely have an aging fleet. And the fact that it takes forever to get a new plane out the door because they are such a complicated machine and all the bureaucratic BS that happens with acquisitions and building stuff. Like, it's not great. We need to be for Team America. We need to get this stuff out there quickly. Next equal benefits push for reservists and guardsmen The Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard are advocating excuse me advancing policies and pending legislation to equalize status and benefits with active duty members when serving in identical missions The effort closes longstanding gaps in pay benefits and support It aims to improve readiness and retention across components you would think that equal benefits was a thing for reservists and guardmen in active duty that's kind of weird that that's actually a thing uh all right next uh space force sorry people are texting me right now it's just popping up as i'm trying to read this and it's it's i gotta get it out of the way um space force pause on vulcan rocket launches the United States Space Force paused all military launches on United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket while investigating a recent anomaly. Officials indicated resolution could take many months, and this affects scheduled national security space missions. That's extremely unfortunate, but better to hold it off than launching one of these things than to go bad. All right, nothing for the Coast Guard. Secretary of Defense. This is going to be the last one for today just because I'm on a timeline and I got to run. So here's the last thing from the Secretary of Defense. Appeal on Senator Mark Kelly's punishment. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is appealing a federal judge's order that blocks punishment of the Democratic Senator Mark Kelly for participating in a video urging troops to resist unlawful orders. The filing continues to the legal dispute over military speech limits. Man, I'm here to tell you, if that was me or anybody else that made those comments, and I'm in the same boat as Mark Kelly, right? I'm retired. I am still under UCMJ, Uniform Code and Military Adjustment. If I say the things that he did, you better believe that my ass would get rolled up. I'm just saying, just because you're a sinner doesn't mean, does not mean that you can't freaking, it's just, anyway, appreciate you guys joining. Don't forget to like, subscribe, hit that notification bell, and we'll see you tomorrow. See ya!