US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) a contract totaling $57.8 million to overhaul and upgrade nine Phalanx Close-In Weapon Systems, and manufacture two SeaRAM anti-ship missile defense systems. The agreement also includes the purchase of 20 radar upgrade kits.

"Raytheon tailors our ship self-defense systems to meet our customers' requirements," said Rick Nelson, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems' Naval Weapon Systems product line. "Phalanx and SeaRAM are layered defense solutions that lead the world in scalable technology, while providing unparalleled protection."

Click to expand...

Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII) announced today that the company's seventh amphibious transport dock, Anchorage (LPD 23), returned Friday from successful builder's sea trials in the Gulf of Mexico. The ship is currently under construction at Ingalls' Avondale facility.

"The LPD 23 team just finished one of the most successful builder's trials of any LPD so far," said Doug Lounsberry, Ingalls' vice president and program manager, LPD 17 Program. "The ship demonstrated its quality through operational testing over the past four days, including propulsion, steering, navigation, communications and weapons. It took the dedication of thousands of craftsmen and women to get this ship to this state. We have a very short time until acceptance trials, and it will take the same dedication and determination to get us there with the high standards we have set for ourselves."

Click to expand...

Kittery, Maine — The Groton-based USS Miami nuclear-powered attack submarine caught fire at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard late Wednesday afternoon.

The fire, which began at around 5:45 p.m., was still burning early Thursday morning but shipyard spokesman Capt. Bryant Fuller said in a statement that the situation was improving.

The fire injured six people, including a firefighter. The shipyard said the injured people were treated and released. The firefighter suffered heat exhaustion.

Shipyard public affairs specialist Gary Hildreth told the Herald that the fire was in the forward compartment of the ship and all nonessential personnel were ordered to evacuate.

The submarine's reactor was not operating when the fire started and was not affected by the blaze, shipyard spokeswoman Bridget Church said.

Click to expand...

bd popeye said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The reactors are not threatened. the weapons were off loaded before the ship entered the shipyard.. the crew is normally quartered in barracks when in the shipyard.

Click to expand...

New Patrol Boat Coming for U.S. Navy
May. 24, 2012 - 04:14PM | By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

SAFE Boats International has won a competition to build a new class of patrol boats for the U.S. Navy’s Naval Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC), the company announced May 24.

The 85-foot-long Mark VI patrol boat is intended to expand the operating area of Navy patrol craft farther off shore, supplanting and replacing existing craft such as the 68-foot Mark IV and 34-foot Sea Ark patrol boats.
The $30.5 million SAFE Boat contract award is for five new patrol boats, with an option for a sixth — which, if exercised, would add another $6 million to the contract’s value.
Ultimately, the Navy intends to buy 48 Mark VIs.

[...]

The Mark VI boats will be built at a newly leased Large Craft Production Facility in Tacoma, Wash., SAFE Boats said in announcing the contract.
The company normally builds small craft at its facility in Bremerton, Wash., but the length of the Mark VI exceeds the capacity of the older yard.
The Tacoma facility will be able to build up to six Mark VIs at a time, the company said.

SAFE Boats’ Mark VI design, a variant of the company’s Archangel self-righting life boat, will have a waterline length of 78 feet. Powered by twin diesels and waterjets, it will have a range in excess of 600 nautical miles and be able to burn both marine grade diesel and JP-5 fuel. A Mark 38 25mm gun can be mounted forward.
In an interview earlier this month, Capt. James Hamblet, commodore of NECC’s new Coastal Riverine Force, said the boats would operate at speeds in excess of 35 knots with sprint speeds of 41 knots.
The Mark VI will have berthing and galley facilities to allow for extended missions, and shock mitigating seats will be fitted at crew work stations. The main cabin is reconfigurable to accommodate remotely operated vehicles, a medical triage area, or provide more shock-mitigated seating.

SAFE Boats also builds 25-foot Response Boat-Small and 33-foot Special Purpose Craft-Law Enforcement craft for the U.S. Coast Guard.

The first Mark VI boats are to be delivered in fiscal 2014.

Click to expand...

Scratch said:

The USN gets a new patrol boat in about two years. It's a nice looking vessel and will probably be a nice asset for drug interdiction or anti piracy patrols close to the shore.
In that regard, I think it would be a good idea to have a few of those carried in the well deck of an amphib, wich could act as a floating base for these patrol boats in an area of interest and thereby also provide organic air cover.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

SINGAPORE (AP) — The Pentagon will shift more Navy warships to the Asia-Pacific region over the next several years and by 2020, about 60 percent of the fleet will be assigned there as part of a new strategy to increase U.S. presence in Asia, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Saturday.

While noting it may take years to complete the transition, Panetta assured his audience at a security conference in Singapore that U.S. budget problems and cutbacks would not get in the way of changes. He said the Defense Department has money in the five-year budget plan to meet those goals.

Speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue conference, Panetta provided some of the first real details of the Pentagon's impending pivot to the Pacific.

"It will take years for these concepts, and many of the investments we are making, to be fully realized," Panetta said in remarks prepared for delivery at the conference. "But make no mistake, in a steady, deliberate and sustainable way, the United States military is rebalancing and brings enhanced capabilities to this vital region."

His promises, however, are likely to be met with skepticism from some nations that are aware of the coming budget cuts and have watched the U.S. send the bulk of its military might to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. The boost in ship presence could increase tensions with China, where leaders have said they are unhappy with any larger U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

A key area of dispute is the South China Sea, which China claims almost entirely as its own. But Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines also have territorial claims there. The U.S. has pressed for a diplomatic solution to the disagreements but has also made it clear that freedom of navigation is critical in the region.

Overall, however, Panetta tamped down his criticism of China, choosing instead to issue broad warnings about the use of force in the South China Sea to block access. He praised China and Taiwan for working to improve their relationship across the Taiwan Strait.

He said he is looking forward to visiting China later this year, adding that he wants to see the U.S. and China deepen their military ties, including on counterdrug programs and humanitarian aid.

Panetta acknowledged that some see the increased presence of the U.S. in the region as a direct challenge to China. But he rejected that view, saying that a greater U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific will benefit China and improve regional security.

The increased U.S. naval presence in the Pacific will allow the U.S. to boost the number and size of the military exercises in the region in the next few years and to plan for more port visits over a wider area, including the Indian Ocean. Last year, the U.S. military participated in 172 exercises in the region involving 24 counties.

Currently, the Navy has about 285 ships, with roughly half assigned to each coast, but that total may decline a bit as some ships are retired in the coming years and may not be replaced.

The current fleet includes 11 aircraft carriers, with six assigned to the Pacific. But those numbers are slated to go down later this year, dipping to 10 carriers, with five assigned to Pacific ports in San Diego, Washington state and Japan.( This reduction in the number of CVNs will last about two years. At that time CVN-78 will be commissioned.)

Panetta, however, said he intends to go back to having six carriers in the Pacific in the coming years. And he said the Pacific will also eventually host a majority of the Navy's cruisers, destroyers, submarines and littoral combat ships, which operate in close to shore.

Numbers, however, aren't everything. So Panetta assured the conference that the region will also get ships that have greater technological capabilities. He did not elaborate on what those might be, but he noted that the U.S. expects to deploy more enhanced and high-tech submarines and fighter aircraft, along with new electronic warfare and communications systems.

Panetta is on a nine-day trip across Asia, with planned stops in Vietnam and India.

Click to expand...

Igor said:

Looks like it's time for China to dramatically boost naval expansion since this is a direct threat.

It's a pity the US, which is in relative economic decline, and in the midst of spiraling government debt, is choosing direct confrontation with the world's only significant economic driver.

With the growing economic integration of east asia, this will put the regimes in Japan and South Korea in very difficult and politically unstable positions in the coming decades.

Click to expand...

The US is planning to move the majority of its warships to the Asia-Pacific region by 2020, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has revealed.

Click to expand...