US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

An E-2D Advanced Hawkeye capable of aerial refueling landed at Naval Station Norfolk Sept. 9, officially marking the arrival of this upgraded aircraft to the fleet, Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic Public Affairs said in a Sept. 12 release.

“This is an important day for naval aviation as we continue to increase our capabilities and maintain our competitive edge in the skies,” said Rear Adm. Roy Kelley, commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic, “This capability will extend the endurance of Hawkeyes, increasing the Navy’s battlespace awareness and integrated fire control – both from the air and the sea.”

The aerial-refueling-capable E-2D joined the “Greyhawks” of Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 120.

“Aerial refueling capability is a game-changer for the E-2D community and future operations in the high-end fight,” said Cmdr. Scott Wastak, VAW-120 commanding officer. “We will now begin to train instructor pilots and refuel with several different Navy and Air Force tanker aircraft, including F/A-18s.”

VAW-120 is only the first step in rolling out this new capability. The Navy will transition two operational fleet squadrons to aerial refueling capable E-2Ds by 2020.

VAW-120 is a Fleet Replacement Squadron attached to Airborne Command & Control and Logistics Wing commanded by Capt. Matthew Duffy. Its mission it to train naval aviators, naval flight officers, Navy aircrewmen and qualified maintainers to safely and effectively operate E-2 and C-2 aircraft.

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When Apple debuted its revolutionary iPad in 2010, the company made a decision that would have profound effects on technology development. Apple wisely chose to have an open-door policy for all kinds of apps, unleashing the creative brilliance of companies large and small to build everything from Google Earth to Skype.

The genius of today’s tablet and smartphone technology is that they are portable newspapers, shopping carts, TVs and many other things. The engineering and business lessons are important for the military. For too many decades we have purchased weapons that could not be further removed from the iPad and today’s ever-evolving, interconnected tech world.

Metaphorically speaking, the military services have been in the hardware-buying business for too long. For decades we have purchased weapons that all too often do not communicate with one another, are expensive to maintain and are difficult to update with new technology. In the future, we must shift our focus from buying hardware to buying software and “apps.”

Here’s why. Future success on the battlefield will be closely linked to rapidly processing information in space, in the air, and on land, sea and cyberspace. The military term for this is “multidomain operations,” and it is all about creating a force that has the best “apps” to quickly fuse data and give commanders the critical edge in decision-making. Think of a much more sophisticated and robust version of the navigational apps Waze and Google Maps that could provide commanders with real-time information about the whereabouts of the enemy, from space to under the ocean.

The old Pentagon business model, which has relied on defense contractors producing large quantities of ships, airplanes and tanks over a period of decades, served us well for a long time. But that same model, in which companies often owned the intellectual property rights and held long-term contracts to maintain those weapons, will not be flexible enough for us to compete with China and Russia in the future.

In order to build the networks that we need to deter and defeat future adversaries, we will need to fundamentally change the way we purchase weapons. For decades, defense contractors have made substantial profits on the back end of weapons sales, typically by owning the intellectual property rights and doing much of what we call weapon sustainment, or upkeep.

Altering this model will require the Pentagon and industry to work together to find a way for firms to remain profitable as they return flexibility in weapons upgrades to the military.

Future wars will be won by the side with the most relevant apps and a network to link all its weapons. One of our most important goals is helping to figure out how to build the connective network we will need to win future wars. And we must make such network development enticing and profitable to American industry.

History might hold some clues. In the 1950s, at the dawn of the nuclear age, the United States built an integrated air defense network called SAGE, or Semi-Automatic Ground Environment. The network consisted of mammoth computers that would quickly fuse information to provide a common picture of a nuclear missile and bomber attack from the Soviet Union. Anyone who has seen the movies “

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” or “

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” is familiar with the early-warning images generated by SAGE showing the precise details of an attack in progress.

Today, it might be possible to build a modern version of SAGE that could harness the power of a commercial technology revolution that has given us affordable space access, quantum computing and big data. If past is prologue, I believe we can and must do this.

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The U.S. Marine Corps has been

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, Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO) and the overarching Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment, for the past couple years.

With the Navy now all-in on its related Distributed Maritime Operations concept – and with a

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focused on acquisition and training on supporting EABO and LOCE operations – U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is investing in exercises this year that test out the naval force’s ability to distribute its people across large swaths of land and sea – and its ability to bring the firepower, logistics and sustainment, and sea control needed to be successful despite the challenges of operating as small units far from the conveniences of a consolidated strike group at sea or land base ashore.

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and Wasp Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) last month demonstrated two long-range expeditionary capabilities that provide a glimpse into how future warfighting could be conducted in littoral areas such as the South China Sea or the Baltic Sea.

A pair of Marine Corps press releases published this week make these two maneuvers seem relatively straightforward, but they are in fact

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. Back in

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the most basic aspects of EABO: they conducted a series of raids ashore, moving from location to location without ever setting up a large footprint, and practicing camouflaging their aircraft in the field to reduce their chances of being detected before moving to the next location.

EABO-related efforts have grown in sophistication, from

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to support sea control to incorporating the new F-35B

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.

Last month’s pair of expeditionary demonstrations took previous efforts and expanded on them. Rather than setting up a forward arming and refueling point (FARP) for the F-35B, which can land and take off vertically in austere locations, the Marines set up a FARP for a KC-130 transport plane. And rather than use HIMARS to support one amphibious movement, they conducted multi-island seizures and power-projection efforts.

Here’s how the Marines did it:

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Jura said:

from real world (quoting
Taliban Attack 2nd Afghan City as US Envoy Says Deal Is Near

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)
:

"... U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad ... appeared determined to move forward on a deal that plans the withdrawal of some 14,000 remaining U.S. troops in exchange for Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan will not be used as a launch pad for global attacks."

Jesus Christ!

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Wuraid Khan said:

China & USA Military Comparison 2019.

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• Post comparison threads or posts.