The House Armed Services Committee released a report Sept. 26 that says if the defense budget is cut any further, we’ll return to the military of “the post-Vietnam Carter era of the late 1970s” and have another Desert One debacle.

no less than three investigations into the conduct of the DoD and “military analysts” prompted by hyperbolic media coverage from the New York Times found that there was no misconduct with special briefings given to former military officers who offered their take on military operations on cable and radio news shows.

The Marines say they’ll use elements from the Air Force and Navy’s much-discussed new strategy in a major amphibious exercise.

The Pentagon and the White House are sending slightly different messages about the factors that will determine how many U.S. troops leave Afghanistan.

Our colleague Christian Lowe is embedded with U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA: In one of the most conspicuous shifts in policy since the war in Afghanistan began, local Army commanders have ordered that Soldiers must be in heavily-armored IED-resistant vehicles when leaving the confines of any base in eastern Afghanistan. Up-armored Humvees, the go-to patrol truck for troops here since 2001, have been relegated to driving within forward operating bases or were donated to the Afghan army and police.

Our colleague Christian Lowe is embedded with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and sends us this dispatch from FOB Salerno near the city of Khost in eastern Afghanistan.

American troops fighting along the Pakistan border have shifted their emphasis from interdicting insurgent forces flowing through the porous border to hunting down enemy elements as they lay up and refit in towns nearby. The job of patrolling the border is increasingly being put at the feet of the Afghan Border Police. But American units believe that the border police are in some cases outgunned, patrolling around in unarmored pickups with nothing more than AK-47s and pistols.

Congressman John Murtha, one of the most powerful and influential Democratic lawmakers on defense issues in the House for more than three decades, died today in Arlington, Va., at the age of 77. For the last two years, Murtha had served as the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, which determines where and how much of the Pentagon’s money is spent. In his position as the chairman and earlier as the ranking member of the so-called HAC-D, Murtha steered hundreds of millions of dollars to defense programs in his district, prompting accusations of sweet-heart deals and influence peddling.

The Air Force looks as if it has punted the establishment of a COIN Wing (though we’ll see when the authorization process starts) based on its budget submission yesterday. Air Force budget officials said the so-​​called “light attack aircraft” would not have any significant funding until the 2012 submission, where the service will allot $172 million for the so-​​called COIN plane.

If you were hoping that shear thickening fluids, carbon nanotubes and lightweight flexible armor was just around the corner, you’ll need to put those hopes on hold and keep reading your sci-​​fi books. Despite the US and allied militaries’ best efforts to lighten one of the biggest culprits of a trooper’s heavy load, armor manufacturers are having a hard time making quantum leaps in increased protection and weight savings.

PM SSL Overview 2009 from PEO Soldier on Vimeo.

Please join us at DoD Buzz sister site Defense Tech for a live blog event as Amb. Karl Eikenberry and Gen. Stanley McChrystal spar with House lawmakers over Afghanistan strategy, the wisdom of a 30,000 troop surge and how this will all end. We’ll be starting the online chat promptly at 0930 EST and hosting it over at www​.defensetech​.org. Hope you’ll join us.

An Army report on the Wanat battle shows that the small arms used in the battle showed significant levels of failure, malfunctioning and jamming “at high cyclic rates of fire.” The weapons include the M4 and SAW. It documents M4s fouling, and one instance where an M4 fouled and the Soldier picked up a SAW and that jammed as well.