US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

wow,
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump make surprise visit to Iraq

Updated 3:15 PM ET, Wed December 26, 2018

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

VL Asroc and Essm would be options for a VLS system. The Navy like it or not chose not to include such.

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Jura said:

wait,
Navy Awards Austal USA Contracts for LCS 36 and 38
Posted: December 17, 2018 1:04 PM

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really?!

now used google to find

“The award of LCS 36 and 38 will mean that Austal has a forward order book of a further ten ships to deliver in a continuous production program that now extends out to 2025.”

inside
US Navy orders additional two littoral combat ships from Austal

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Jura said:

Q: What’s in the near future for LCS? Is that the only deployment scheduled for 2017?

A: That is correct.

Q: You don’t have another LCS deployment scheduled for 2017?

A: No, I don’t think so.

says who?! Vice Admiral Thomas S. Rowden
Commander Naval Surface Force

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in January 8, 2017 Interview: Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, Commander, US Naval Forces

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Jura said:

for the SDF record (and for the US Senate), inside
Navy, Marine Leadership Looking at LPD Flight II Missiles, Additional Virginia-class Buys

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:
... Richardson continued.
“We have 24 deployments planned between ‘19 and ‘24, and so really ‘18 is a reset year to get maintenance and manning in place so that we can deploy these in a sustainable fashion.”

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Jura said:

in addition to
Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) Today at 10:28 AM


I ask you if what you've described is good news, really, Jeff?

the first LCS has been in commission for ten years and you're praising what? awarding a contract for AShMs NOW?!

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Jeff Head said:

Yes.

It should have happenede years ago. But the previous admin, and even those in the admin prior to it, did not have a plan for making these vessels combat capable.

Now they will be, and it is clear that they will have decnt weapons. That is a good thing.

Clearly, as we have discussed for years, it should have happened years and years ago...but it is happning now and will extend into the follow on classes. As I said, all of that is good, even if it is tardy.

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Jura said:

wait,
Navy Awards Austal USA Contracts for LCS 36 and 38
Posted: December 17, 2018 1:04 PM

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really?!

now used google to find

“The award of LCS 36 and 38 will mean that Austal has a forward order book of a further ten ships to deliver in a continuous production program that now extends out to 2025.”

inside
US Navy orders additional two littoral combat ships from Austal

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Jura said:

thought I wouldn't repost the Kremlin stuff anymore, but now I will:
Борисов: испытания комплекса "Авангард" доказали его способность разгоняться до 27 Махов

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:
Official: Russian Weapon 27 Times Faster than Speed of Sound

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The

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has put development of hypersonic weapons on its acquisition wish list even as Russian President Vladimir Putin

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and planned deployment in 2019 of "invincible" nuclear-armed versions that can fly at more than 20 times the speed of sound.

Under his plan, released Dec. 17, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson listed the Navy's intention to "develop and field an offensive hypersonic weapon by 2025" as a top priority.

The

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also has put a

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, reflecting the increasing concerns of the Pentagon that Russia and China have taken the lead on a technology that potentially poses the threat of making

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.

In April, the Air Force awarded a contract to develop a prototype hypersonic cruise missile, or the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon.

Officials have been candid in acknowledging that the U.S. is likely playing catch-up to Russia and China in the development of hypersonics.

In a roundtable discussion with reporters last January, Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "We have lost our technical advantage in hypersonics," but "we haven't lost the hypersonics fight."

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is working with the Air Force on the joint Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) program to perfect hypersonic weaponry.

In the boost-glide system, a rocket accelerates the payload to speeds many times the speed of sound. The payload then separates from the rocket and glides unpowered to the target.

Putin has boasted that the Russian hypersonics weapon, in addition to its high speeds, which limit the warning time for defenses, can also change directions in flight, thereby thwarting tracking.

On Wednesday, Putin oversaw the test launch of the "Avangard" hypersonics weapon from a silo in the Dombarovsky missile base in the southern Ural Mountains.

Only the missile launch was shown by Russian state television, but Russian officials claimed that the hypersonic payload successfully hit a target on the Kura shooting range on the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia, more than 3,000 miles away.

Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov told Russian state television that the test's success showed that Russia now has a hypersonic weapon that "essentially makes missile defenses useless."

Putin and other Russian officials increasingly have claimed that new weapons in Russia's arsenal can easily get past U.S. defenses, particularly as the U.S.

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from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

In his State of the Union speech last March,

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a nuclear-propelled underwater drone, nuclear cruise missile and high-powered combat laser. Putin said the "hypersonic" nuclear cruise missile could be launched from a bomber and evade any existing defenses.

The hypersonic cruise missile "flies at a speed 20 times the speed of sound," he said, "and it can maneuver thousands of kilometers up and down and right to left. It's like science fiction."

The Navy's push for a hypersonic weapon was included in Richardson's

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, intended to "guide our behaviors and investments this year and in the years to come." He said that specifics "will be reflected in our annual budget documents."

The Design 2.0 plan reflects the concerns of the 2018 National Defense Strategy in stating that "China and Russia are deploying all elements of their national power to achieve their global ambitions. In addition, our competitors have been studying our methods over the past 20 years.

In many cases, they are gaining a competitive advantage and exploiting our vulnerabilities."

To counter the threat, Richardson listed a number of ASAP capabilities and programs that the Navy needs to acquire or put in operation more quickly.

Among those priorities are acquiring the Columbia-class replacements for the

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ballistic submarines; awarding the Future Frigate contract by 2020; building up the 2nd Fleet to full operational capability in 2019; and awarding contracts by 2025 for a new family of underwater unmanned vehicles.

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Jura said:

now noticed
Ultrafast anti-ship missiles offered for sale

Updated: 2018-12-25 09:17

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Jura said:

so,
With Mattis leaving the Pentagon, is Dunford next to go?

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Jura said:

inside
CNO Richardson Expects that New Acquisition Models Will Field Ships, Advanced Weapons ‘ASAP’

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:

"Richardson’s document outlines many new acquisition programs in a short period of time – four surface ship classes by 2023, unmanned underwater vehicles as well as laser and hypersonic weapons by 2025 – but he said that the timelines are aggressive but well thought-out and analyzed.

“These aren’t just sort of random dates thought up on a late night. It was pretty carefully coordinated; each of these has been assessed and said, okay, well that’s aggressive but we can get there,” Richardson said."

I'll be watching, Admiral, Sir

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Next September will be the four-year mark for Adm. John Richardson’s stint as

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.

And while officials have been mum on the nominee to become the Navy’s next top officer, the norm has been a four-year tour.

The only four-star to last longer than four in the 21st century was Adm. Vernon E. Clark, who held the post from July 2000 to July 2005, becoming the longest-serving CNO since Adm. Arleigh Burke helmed the Navy between 1955 and 1961.

That’s led to growing speculation about Navy Secretary Richard Spencer’s pick as Richardson’s replacement in 2019.

Richardson and his predecessor, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, were career submariners, as is Adm. James Caldwell, currently the head of Naval Reactors, and Adm. James Foggo III, who has led naval forces in Europe and Africa, plus NATO’s Joint Force Command Naples, since 2017.

Four-star aviators include Adm. Bill Moran, who has served as Vice Chief of Naval Operations since 2016, and Adm. Adm. John Aquilino.

But Aquilino became the 36th commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in May and was soon joined in Hawaii by Adm. Phil Davidson, a surface warfare officer, at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

Davidson was replaced at U.S. Fleet Forces Command by fellow SWO Adm. Christopher Grady.

The most recent four-star switch occurred on Nov. 26, when Adm. Craig Faller relieved Adm. Kurt W. Tidd as commander of U.S. Southern Command.

Tidd holds the titles of both “Old salt” and “Old Goat” — the oldest serving SWO and the longest-serving graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

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The Navy retired the last of its workhorse Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates in 2015, hoping to replace them with littoral combat ships.

But the LCS program got mired in cost overruns, delays and a fickle Congress that bought more hulls than the Navy wanted, sometimes without the high-tech guts that go into them.

Concerns within the Navy and on Capitol Hill about the future of the LCS have helped to drive the Pentagon to buy up to 20 new frigates, beginning in 2020.

There are five finalists competing to build

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, using designs from existing warships — Austal USA in Alabama; Huntington Ingalls Industries in Mississippi; Lockheed Martin in Baltimore; a joint venture between Italy’s Fincantieri and Wisconsin’s Marinette Marine; and another tying General Dynamics/Bath Iron Works to Spanish shipbuilder Navantia.

Austal is expected to base its design on the Independence-class LCS and Lockheed Martin on its Freedom-class LCS, HII on its Legend-class National Security Cutter, Fincantieri on its FREMM multi-purpose frigate and Bath Iron Works on Navantia’s Álvaro de Bazán-class F100 Frigate.

The Navy hopes to select a winner in 2019, but the Congressional Research Service wants lawmakers and the admirals to first fix some problems with the FFG(X) program.

In

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, CRS urged them to identify the capability gaps and mission needs the new warships are supposed to address and then decide if they’re the right vessels for the jobs.

They also must determine if they’ll end LCS procurement in 2019 and shift to the frigates, or keep buying both vessels.

Should they use a “clean-sheet” design that starts from scratch or lean on “parent” vessels like the LCS that already have been built?

How much space should be built into the frigates to add new technologies and systems as they’re developed, perhaps decades from now?

And how does a new frigate program affect Navy plans to buy more guided-missile destroyers or rehab the aging Ticonderoga-class cruisers?

Those sound like questions that must be answered in 2019.

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