Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Norman Polmar, a defense analyst and noted author of numerous books on naval matters, are trading barbs over the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program. “I take strong exception to your rebuttal of my critique of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program, as ‘published’ by Fox On Line,” Polmar says in a Sept. 5 email to Mabus recently released by the author, whose work includes “The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet,” considered by many to be the informational bible of the nation’s naval force.
The Netherlands has finally decided to purchase the Joint Strike Fighter, but will buy fewer than half the number it originally envisioned. The Hague says it will now purchase 37 of the 85 Lockheed Martin F-35s it had intended to purchase when it first signed up with the program in 2002. It based the decision on the need to remain within the tight €4.5 billion ($6 billion) budget assigned for its F-16 Fighting Falcon replacement program and the €270 million annual operations budget for fighter types in the service’s inventory.
Russia is strengthening its presence in the Arctic Ocean in order to protect natural resources on its part of the Arctic Shelf and the Northern Sea Route.
Click here to view the pdf U.S. Navy Aircraft Procurement: Outyear Funding Shifts, 2014-2017Compares Outyear Funding Estimates from Fiscal 2013 Request With Fiscal 2014 Request Then-year dollars in millions. Descending sort on Outyear %change U.S.
U.S. military weapons systems and services acquisition will be slashed this decade across the armed services if the full effect of the 2011 budget law and its annual, widespread automatic budget cuts occur – as now expected.
LCS MODULES: The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman a $25.2 million contract for three additional Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) mission modules — two for surface warfare missions and one for mine countermeasures. Each mission package comprises a specific set of subsystems such as data processing equipment, vehicles and sensors, and others. Northrop Grumman has delivered two surface warfare mission modules and one mine countermeasures mission module for LCS so far.
While the U.S. Navy brass has been trumpeting the Chinese naval participation in the upcoming 2014 Pacifica Rim (Rimpac) exercises, others question the benefits of working so closely with a potential geopolitical maritime rival such as the People’s Liberation Army Navy (Plan). “The Plan’s potential participation at Rimpac near Hawaii has raised concerns in Congress and elsewhere,” says a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, “U.S.-China Military Contacts: Issues for Congress.”
The U.S. Air Force has been supporting development of the Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) with risk-reduction contracts in five key areas, the service’s former senior acquisition officer said at the Air Force Association show here Tuesday. Like other details of the program, the contracts have not been disclosed publicly.
The way to ensure the viability of the industrial base that makes U.S. defense procurement possible is to determine now what is most important to preserve for the future and start planning to achieve that objective, a defense scholar argues.
The cost of maintaining the U.S. Air Force’s aging T-38 fast jet trainer increases “steeply” in the outyears, but Air Force Gen. Edward Rice, who leads the training command, says the fleet is safe. The aging T-38 will remain in the fleet for an uncertain amount of time due to repeated delays in launching a replacement program called T-X. Rice says it is not yet known if the T-X effort will get support from the Air Force in its fiscal 2015 budget, which is being refined this fall. Delays have pushed the initial operational capability to around 2023.
Click here to view the pdf U.S. Navy Weapons Procurement: Outyear Funding Shifts, 2014-2017Compares Outyear Funding Estimates from Fiscal 2013 Request With Fiscal 2014 Request Then-year dollars in millions. Descending sort on Outyear %change. U.S.
Business jet maker Cessna, along with parent company Textron and partner AirLand Enterprises, has secretly developed its first modern military jet which is likely to be targeted at developing markets.
While the U.S. Navy may be considering truncating some Aegis Combat System missile tests, the nation is still sticking to the planned testing schedule, according to officials for Lockheed Martin, the system’s prime contractor.
Sequestration threatens to dilute the power and punch of U.S. Navy forces abroad and even the ability to reprogram funds will not be enough to guarantee the nation’s presence where and when needed abroad, says Rear Adm. John Kirby, chief of Navy information, in a recent blog.
MH-60R Seahawk helicopters recently joined the Carrier Air Wing (CVW) aboard CVN-73 USS George Washington as part of the “Saberhawks” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 77. The Saberhawks’ missions include conducting antisubmarine warfare, surface warfare, search and rescue, vertical replenishment, medical evacuation, naval surface fire support and communications relay.
Long in gestation and in endurance, Aurora Flight Sciences's Orion unmanned aircraft has made its first step towards demonstrating a 120-hr. flight at 20,000 ft. carrying a 1,000-lb. multi-sensor payload. (Photo: Aurora Flight Sciences)
SYRIAN EXPORTS: President Barack Obama on Sept. 16 authorized export of U.S. chemical weapons-related personal protective equipment and other aid to Syria for use by some opposition rebels, public-service workers and international organizations helping to account for Syria’s stockpile. “Select, vetted” rebels also will be able to receive defensive chemical weapons-related training. Like Iran and North Korea, Syria is one of the most restricted and usually off-limits recipient countries for U.S. exports.
