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bd popeye said:

Jura I agree with you 100%.

This situation was reprehensible. Simply reprehensible. This all boils down to extremely poor leadership aboard Fitzgerald.

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Jura said:

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7. Navy mulls frigate choices

sounds like I'll make it or break with the FFG(X) cancellation prediction Oct 30, 2018
LOL!

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There’s a growing sense of impatience among Capitol Hill legislators over the Navy’s pace for selecting a future frigate (FFG(X)) program design, the new chairman of the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee said on Wednesday.

The Navy is considering five possible frigate designs, and Congress is eagerly awaiting a decision, Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), said while speaking at the 2019 Surface Navy Association Symposium.

“I think there’s frustration about the fact that it keeps getting sort of pushed back and delayed,” Courtney said of the Navy’s future frigate program.

Several years ago, the Navy planned to modify one of the two littoral combat ship variants into a frigate design, according to

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. Under this plan, former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter directed the Navy to purchase the first of 12 frigates during Fiscal Year 2020.

At the time, the Navy planned to field a fleet of 40 small surface combatants, according to the CRS report. The Navy has since revised its plan and now intends to build a fleet of 52 small surface combatants, according to a 2018

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.

However, with the LCS program winding down – the 31st and final planned LCS contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin on Tuesday – there’s been a constant concern among the shipbuilding industry and legislators that hot small surface combatant production lines could go cold if the Navy delays settling on a frigate design.

The Navy, Congress and shipbuilders all want to quickly transition from LCS production to frigate production in FY 2020 without a break.

“I understand the importance to these yards to try to maintain the industrial base, but we really need to get moving in terms of the frigate program,” Courtney said. “If there’s going to be another request for a delay, it is going to be frankly a bit of a headache for us this year,” Courtney said.

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Jura said:

back again at Dec 31, 2018
, after
Rep. Courtney Frustrated With Pace of Frigate Program

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Air Force Brat said:

How do you spell P-O-R-K Joe? Congressman Courtney ...

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Jura said:

Austal Further Improves its Frigate Design to Better Match Latest FFG(X) Requirements

16 Jan 2019

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:

now they didn't put the slant launchers in the water as Apr 10, 2017
= improved game-changer

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The U.S. Navy is moving toward settling on an approach for

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, moving away from a single common hull for five missions.

The sealift fleet, which is

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in capacity due to the ships all reaching or exceeding their hull life according to the U.S. Army, is what the U.S. would use to transport up to 90 percent of Army and U.S. Marine Corps gear in the event of a major conflict overseas.

The program, known as the Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-Mission Platform, was envisioned as we way to recapitalize the country’s surge sealift force and replace other auxiliary ships such as hospital ships and submarine tenders with a common hull form.

But the Navy found after studies last year that one hull simply wasn’t going to work for all the disparate functions the Navy was looking to fulfill with the platform. Now, the Navy thinks it has a better answer: Two platforms.

“We started out thinking it was going to be one hull … but what we found from our own examination and from industry feedback is that these missions fall into two basic categories,” said Capt. Scot Searles, the strategic and theater sealift program manager, in a brief at the annual Surface Navy Association’s national symposium.

“One is a very volume-intensive category where you need large volume inside the ship – that’s the sealift mission where you are trying to carry a lot of Marine and Army cargo. The other bucket it falls into is the people-intensive mission. When you talk about a hospital ship or a submarine tender, those are people-intensive, and we found we didn’t need as much internal volume. It could be a smaller ship but needed more berthing capability.”

The Navy released a request for information this week for industry studies that they hope to award in March that will validate the approach, Searles said.

“We believe it’s going to be two hulls, but that’s still a great savings over designing five hulls,” he said.

Congress wants the Navy to start ordering hulls by 2023 to deliver by 2026, something the Navy told Congress in a report last year could be done if it ponies up the cash.

The most urgent need in the surge sealift fleet is the ready reserve force, a fleet of ships run by the Maritime Administration that are in reduced operating status and spend most of their time in port on standby waiting to be activated in case of a national emergency.

Searles said the plan would be to bring the newly constructed auxiliary sealift ships online and use them as maritime prepositioning ships, then take the current prepositioning ships – which still have plenty of life left in the hull – and move them into the ready reserve force. Prepositioning ships are operated by Military Sealift Command and deploy forward with logistics and equipment that can be used in a crisis on short notice.

Developing the new ships will take anywhere from three-to-five years, Searles said, and in the meantime the Navy plans to buy used ships off the open market and modify them for DoD use. They will also extend the lives of the current ships in the sealift force to the best of their ability.

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In February, the Army sent a letter to Congress saying that the country’s organic sealift capacity would fall below the level required to move the Army’s equipment by 2024 if the Navy did not act fast.

“Without proactive recapitalization of the Organic Surge Sealift Fleet, the Army will face unacceptable risk in force projection capability beginning in 2024,” the document said, adding that the advanced age of the current fleet adds further risk to the equation.

“By 2034, 70% of the organic fleet will be over 60 years old — well past its economic useful life; further degrading the Army’s ability to deploy forces,” the document reads.

The Army’s G-4 also alluded to then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ readiness push, adding that even the most prepared forces wouldn’t matter if they can’t reach the front line.

“Shortfalls in sealift capacity undermine the effectiveness of US conventional deterrence as even a fully-resourced and trained force has limited deterrent value if an adversary believes they can achieve their strategic objective in the window of opportunity before American land forces arrive,” the paper reads. “The Army’s ability to project military power influences adversaries’ risk calculations.”

The document reflects the Army’s growing impatience with the Navy’s efforts to recapitalize its surge sealift ships, which are composed of a series of roll-on/roll-off ships and other special-purpose vessels operated by Military Sealift Command and the Maritime Administration.

And Capitol Hill shares the Army’s view, according to two HASC staffers, who spoke to Defense News last year on condition of anonymity.

The Navy, which is responsible for recapitalizing the surge sealift force, put forward a budget in 2019 that called for about $242 million over the next five years, the bulk of which would go toward designing and developing a new platform that will replace the current vessels.

HASC lawmakers considered that amount of funding not enough to make any serious inroads on recapitalization, and certainly not enough to forestall the critical shortfall identified in the information paper, the staffers said.

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Jura said:

Sep 5, 2018
now inside
Pentagon to boost laser investments for missile defense

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:

"Griffin declined to comment on the status of the long-awaited

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, now expected no earlier than December."

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Jura said:

Nov 17, 2018
and

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Pentagon Unveils Missile Defense Review, Urging Investment in New System
1/17/2019

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Jura said:

Today at 9:42 AM
more:

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The Arctic will become increasingly crowded in the coming years, and the US navy;'s Second Fleet is making it a priority to get up there more often.

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A stalwart of the Cold War, the

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will become operational by early next year, the fleet’s deputy commander announced Wednesday.

Speaking at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium in Arlington, Virginia, Rear Adm.

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said that it’s been built from scratch to remain relevant in the 21st century.

“We are moving out rapidly to build a 2nd Fleet that is fit for it’s purpose, but more importantly fit for it’s time,” Mustin said. “Put simply, 2nd Fleet will focus on forward operations and the employment of forces in the Atlantic.”

The fleet will oversee the training of Navy forces on the East Coast as they prep for deployment, and will also serve as the maneuver element for the Navy across the vast Atlantic Ocean.

“The largest difference between the old and new 2nd Fleet is the balance between

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,” Mustin said. “The new 2nd Fleet will be postured to support the employment of forces, whether that’s on the western side of the Atlantic, the eastern side of the Atlantic, or up in the Arctic.”

Fleet Forces Command will continue to administer

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operating on the East Coast. It also will control commands in the early stages of their training for overseas deployments.

Second Fleet will take over when the individual commands within a

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or

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reach the integrated phase of their training. That’s when they’re on the cusp of waging high-end fights, shortly before their pre-deployment Composite Unit Training Exercise, or “

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.”

“This is an important distinction from the prior 2nd Fleet,” Mustin said, because it “aligns us with all the numbered fleets based

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.”

To reach full operational capacity, 2nd Fleet’s staff is rapidly expanding, Mustin said. He was the 18th staffer to report in, but by March there will be 85 serving the command and “that number will continue on a glide slope that is increasing rapidly,” he added.

In order to avoid a bloated bureaucracy, Mustin said the command will lean on Fleet Forces whenever they can while "recruiting the best and the brightest and looking for a staff that will be lean, agile and expeditionary.”

“We are growing every day. We are growing rapidly, but we are less focused on the actual number of our staff and far more interested in the efficient building of production capacity and capability to get us to be a fully functioning command,” he said.

Second Fleet will be expeditionary, Mustin predicted, with a small team operating forward from a command ship or at an austere shore location in communication with the “home guard in Norfolk.”

And many of those staffers will be friends from allied and partner nations, serving as fully-integrated experts and not as liaison officers, Mustin said. Expect more reservists, and not merely as “in case of emergency, break glass” substitutes, he added.

The idea is to rotate reservists through the fleet on a continuous basis, standing watch alongside their active-duty peers, with traditional boundaries redefined to allow reservists to keep current in their duties, Mustin said.

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SlothmanAllen said:

I think it is staggering. I don't think reprehensible even begins to describe such conditions. Imagine how little those aboard that ship must care about the performance of their job to operate in such conditions. This speaks to a staggering level of dysfunction with the United States Navy. I cannot believe such poor leadership, training, maintenance, etc can exist isolated aboard one ship. I think the level of incompetence is mind blowing, like I don't even have the words to describe what those conditions are. It's like something from a horror story.

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