US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

And in a timely contribution to this discussion the CRS released An important item is note this is a DoD initiative, not a service initiative although the program is folded under NGAD as CCA. Not much production progress so far

Replicator, unveiled on August 28, 2023, is a Department of Defense (DOD) initiative, led by DOD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), to field thousands of uncrewed systems by August 2025.

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There isn't a Production Baseline, a production contract nor even funds to proceed into production

A key issue facing Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify DOD’s funding requests for Replicator, and whether Congress has adequate information about Replicator to assess its merits and conduct effective oversight of the initiative.

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As a reminder, DoD's FY25 funding begins this October ... unless Congress continues its precedent of Continuing Resolutions which according to law don't enable release of funds for new initiatives.

While the USN is stumbling with building and repairing ships, the Starlink/Starshield Sailor Edge Afloat and Ashore (SEA2) seems to be proceeding rapidly It's not clear where PMW170 is getting the funding but it's likely out of someone's O&M,N account. No signs of a Program of Record being stood up and so far it seems to be an ad hoc initiative started by the Abraham Lincoln's CSO. Maybe the services want to keep this goodie out of DoD's hands. You can trade your missile numbers back and forth but I believe SEA2 will provide significant improvements on training, logistics and even tactical operations.

Jilin-1 caught a little something over Edwards AFB

Great article on the challenges facing Ingall's in ramping up production output, specifically surrounding hiring and retaining workers with only small starting wages.

Navy officials and shipyard executives will often remark about the challenge of hiring someone to do manual labor in a shipyard when an air conditioned convenience store or gas station can offer the same paycheck, at least initially. The reality of that challenge comes into focus when walking through Ingalls on a sunny day in the middle of the Mississippi summer where the heat was intense, even several hours before midday.

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“It used to be that there was a big gap between manufacturing wages and other wages in any other industry,” Wilkinson said. “Now you’ve got service industry wages — you can go down and be an attendant at

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for the same as an entry wage at a shipyard.”

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Sounds like they need to start paying their workers some actual money.

In the 1970s and 1980s, when the

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, Ingalls’ shipyard boasted up to 25,000 workers. Today, the yard employs closer to 11,300 people.

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!!!! I know technology and automation blah blah blah, but that is a massively smaller workforce! I sure bet you would see a massive increase in destroyer output if they had employee numbers like they did back then.

At Ingalls, the sprawling campus, roughly 800 acres in total, has plenty of capacity for new work, but every new project requires a bigger workforce to sustain it. And the challenges to ramping their workforce up — from competing industries to competing shipyards — have only grown since the 1970s and 1980s when this Mississippi yard saw 25,000 workers constructing the storied 500- and 600-ship US Navy fleets of that era. Currently, the Navy’s fleet is struggling to break 300 ships.

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No wonder they are building at such a slow rate compared to the past. They have less than half the work force they used to and that is with just hiring 4,000 people last year.

SlothmanAllen said:

No wonder they are building at such a slow rate compared to the past. They have less than half the work force they used to and that is with just hiring 4,000 people last year.

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Lack of imagination. You can do more work with less people, but this requires investment and good leadership.

More importantly I think is their issues with hiring and training people. There is plenty of money in the defense industry. The inability to maintian wage competitiveness with other industries is indicative of poor C-Sec leadership. Also, it's not just about the money. Workers will take lower wages if they know that there is a solid upward trajectroy and a career path.

On the other hand, the Navy needs to have competitive bidding and create more competitive shipyards. Ingalls is lazy because they really don't have that much competition.

US Navy Notifies Congress of Pending $11.5B, 4-Ship Amphibious Warship Deal​

The Navy is preparing to award an estimated $11.5 billion multi-ship deal to build four amphibious warships, according to a copy of a Tuesday Navy notification to Congress reviewed by USNI News.

According to the Aug. 14 notification, the Department of the Navy will purchase three San Antonio class Flight II amphibious warships and a Flight I America-class big deck amphibious warship starting in Fiscal Year 2025 to 2027 as part of a “multi-ship procurement,” authorized as part of the FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

“The ships procured as part of this contract will support amphibious assault, special operations, and expeditionary warfare missions of U.S. Marines, moving Marines into theater and supporting humanitarian and contingency missions on short notice,” reads the notification from Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro.

“This amphibious MSP award demonstrates the Navy’s commitment to maintaining 31 amphibious warfare ships and prudence with taxpayer funds.”

USS Idaho, Virginia class submarine launched​

General Dynamics Electric Boat launched the latest attack submarine last week, Naval Sea Systems Command announced.

The future USS Idaho (SSN-799) was launched from the Connecticut shipyard into the Thames River on Aug. 6, according to the release. The attack boat will now be pier side for final outfitting ahead of delivery to the Navy.

Pentagon reveals 5 more funded RDER projects, including a top Marine priority​

The Pentagon’s has successfully transitioned at least seven technology projects to the services so far, from high-altitude balloons to underwater communications, including five that were not previously linked to the high-speed acquisition effort.

AndrewS said:

Cruise missiles with a 500 mile (800km) range and with a target cost of $150K each.
Assuming the US can do this, we can expect the Chinese to come up with something similar, and for less money.

The US is currently buying 90K GMLRS rockets over the next 5 years, which are much shorter ranged and not suitable for the Western Pacific.
Each rocket costs $220K so that's $20 Billion in total

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If China were to only spend half of that money ($10 Billion), that would buy 66K of those ($150K) cruise missiles.

Can you imagine how the strategic balance will change in the Western Pacific? If launched from trucks on mainland China:

1. Okinawa will be under sustained air-sea blockade and becomes non-viable for any sort of operations
2. A somewhat larger version with a 700 mile range can cover all of the Japanese Home Islands. A similar air-sea blockade and continuous attacks on Japanese bases would occur as well.

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China can probably churn out a few million shahed-type drones in a few months and since they dont really need 2-3k km range, these could be shorter ranged, fast enough and with lower rcs to be troublesome to something like gepard...again the tyranny of distance for US and China's home turf advantage would be such that China could wreck economically anyone in the region who wishes to insert themselves in middle of any hot conflict.

phrozenflame said:

China can probably churn out a few million shahed-type drones in a few months and since they dont really need 2-3k km range, these could be shorter ranged, fast enough and with lower rcs to be troublesome to something like gepard...again the tyranny of distance for US and China's home turf advantage would be such that China could wreck economically anyone in the region who wishes to insert themselves in middle of any hot conflict.

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A few million Shaheed in a few months is overkill I think.

There is the CCTV7 newsreel on Youtube where the journalists visit a factory with capacity for 1000 cruise missiles per day.
If they do that, you would expect at least another 2000 Shaheed per day as well, as they are complementary and the Shaheed are so much cheaper, but still useful.

After 3 months, that would be 100K cruise missiles and another 200K Shaheed. That should be way more than enough to overwhelm SAM defences.

Then there's whatever other missiles and glide bombs are used.

I previously got a ballpark figure of 10K aimpoints for Taiwan, about 20K for South Korea, then 40K for Japan.

So 300K cruise missiles should be more than enough?

AndrewS said:

A few million Shaheed in a few months is overkill I think.

There is the CCTV7 newsreel on Youtube where the journalists visit a factory with capacity for 1000 cruise missiles per day.
If they do that, you would expect at least another 2000 Shaheed per day as well, as they are complementary and the Shaheed are so much cheaper, but still useful.

After 3 months, that would be 100K cruise missiles and another 200K Shaheed. That should be way more than enough to overwhelm SAM defences.

Then there's whatever other missiles and glide bombs are used.

I previously got a ballpark figure of 10K aimpoints for Taiwan, about 20K for South Korea, then 40K for Japan.

So 300K cruise missiles should be more than enough?

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I think combined between them there would be high-hundreds of anti-air def between land, navy and sea defense + you need stock from getting things 'repaired'. Also we've seen in Ukraine, SHORADS, missile/ammo based can be effective against 1st gen Shaheds and current gen slow flying cruise missiles.