US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Independence work now ?
There were problems of hull corrosion and turbines.

1 LCS squadron get how many LCS ?

The problems with Independence appeared to be solved. She's operating out of San Diego.

I have no knowledge of the first LCS squadron.

bd popeye said:

The problems with Independence appeared to be solved. She's operating out of San Diego.

I have no knowledge of the first LCS squadron.

Click to expand...

And those fixes are built into the Coronado and all succeeding ships.

I will have to look into the LCS squadron size. I wold guess 4, 6, or 8 vessels, but do not know.

Stars and Stripes said:

SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — Navy officials boarded the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard to relieve Capt. Daniel Dusek of his command Wednesday as an investigation into a bribery scandal involving prostitutes and luxury travel ensnared another high-ranking officer.

Expeditionary Strike Group Seven commander Rear Adm. Hugh Wetherald cited a loss of confidence in Dusek’s ability to command in relieving him of his duties, Navy officials said. Dusek, who had not been charged with a crime, is under investigation by the Justice Department in the alleged bribery scandal, which broke last month and appears to be expanding, Navy officials said.

The investigation has focused on an alleged scheme to swap classified ship information for luxury travel and prostitutes, and has led to the arrests of a former commanding officer of the USS Mustin, an NCIS agent and the head of Singapore-based defense contractor Glenn Defense Marine Asia, or GDMA, which has been providing support services for more than 25 years.

“After careful consideration, Adm. Wetherald determined the investigation negatively affected Dusek’s leadership ability and was a distraction to the command mission,” according to a Navy statement released shortly after Dusek’s dismissal.

Dusek did not respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday. He has been temporarily assigned to Expeditionary Strike Group Seven and has been replaced by the ship’s executive officer, Capt. Murray Tynch III, Navy officials said.

The crew of the Bonhomme Richard Amphibious Ready Group’s flagship was briefed on the situation, according to strike group spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Brian Wierzbicki. Dusek did not protest his dismissal and the transition occurred “honorably.”

The scandal broke last month when the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Diego announced the arrest of Cmdr. Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz, a captain-select who commanded Mustin and later served as deputy operations officer aboard the USS Blue Ridge for the Yokosuka-based U.S. 7th Fleet, as well as Naval Criminal Investigative Service supervisory agent John Bertrand Beliveau II and GDMA’s Leonard Glenn Francis.

Click to expand...

Sickening if proven true...and some very big careers being deep-sized over it.

Many rumors say LCS class can be stopped at twenty four units. USN unhappy and LCS are too weakly armed for their price.

If this happens, one new Frigate class ? more Burke ?

And with sequestration for 2014 which seems very likely, about 10 % of defense budget, this new order are possible ?

USAF deploy one detachment of 3 RQ-4 Global Hawk to Japan in the next 12 months.

a interesting interview with a former assistant secnav Seth Cropsey regarding the future and past of the US navy and the rise of the Chinese sea dragon we call the PLAN. The interview is centered around the man's new book titled Mayday: The decline of American sea supremacy.
the interviewer is my favorite radio show host Mr. John Batchelor, who is broadcast from WABC New York, New York he covers a broad spectrum of topics late night from defense to political to space to science.

USNS Montford Point

World Maritime News said:

The Navy’s first-in-class mobile landing platform, USNS Montford Point (MLP 1), successfully has completed final contract trials.

Final contract trials (FCT) are the final in-depth examination of a newly constructed ship while still under warranty to the shipbuilder. FCT are conducted by the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) to ensure the ship meets Navy standards and requirements and are the first trials involving the crew.

“These trials evaluated Montford Point’s material readiness for subsequent operations, helping expand the Department of Navy’s capability for large-scale logistics movements,” said Capt. Henry Stevens, Strategic and Theater Sealift program manager for Program Executive Office Ships. “These successful trials support a new level of operational flexibility for critical asset infrastructure for the fleet.”

Constructed by General Dynamics-NASSCO, Montford Point was named in honor of the 20,000 African-American Marine recruits who trained at Montford Point Camp, N.C., from 1942 to 1949. Their service prompted President Harry Truman to sign an executive order ending segregation in the U.S. military.

FCT evaluated the material condition and performance of the ship’s major systems. While underway, the ship’s crew successfully demonstrated a variety of systems including main propulsion, navigation, deck, engineering and ship control systems.

Montford Point is a highly flexible ship supporting the transfer of light and heavy vehicles and equipment at sea. Leveraging float-on/float-off technology, Montford Point is able to partially submerge to facilitate cargo movement. At 785 feet long, MLP 1 has 25,000 square feet of vehicle and equipment stowage space.

Montford Point will now conduct a series of post-delivery test and trials leading up to its post-shakedown availability in 2014. MLP 2, the future USNS John Glenn, and MLP 3, the future USNS Lewis B. Puller, are currently under construction at NASSCO.

Click to expand...

These will be really nice vessels and will give the US Navy and US Marines a lot more flexability for support of amphibious operations and disaster relief. Each will have a core capability that supports their vehicle staging area, side port ramp, large mooring fenders and up to three landing craft air cushioned vessel lanes for docking and launching up to three LCACs. They are meant to support landing operations after the initial landings are made and when threat levels reduce, freeing up the LHD and LPD vessles to move on.

Four are planned. They have over 25,000 ft vehicle storage space. displace 34,000 tons, are 765 feet long, and are being built by NASSCO...taking only about nine months to build.

More pork barrel crap from the government.



New Air Force cargo planes fly straight into mothballs
Published October 07, 2013FoxNews.com

There's nothing wrong with the C-27J, it's just that the Pentagon doesn't want it given budget constraints.
The Pentagon is sending $50 million cargo planes straight from the assembly line to mothballs because it has no use for them, yet it still hasn’t stopped ordering the aircraft, according to a report.

A dozen nearly new Italian-built C-27J Spartans have been shipped to an Air Force facility in Arizona dubbed “the boneyard,” and five more currently under construction are likely headed for the same fate, according to an investigation by the Dayton Daily News. The Air Force has spent $567 million on 21 of the planes since 2007, according to purchasing officials at Dayton’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Of those, 16 have been delivered – with almost all sent directly to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, where some 4,400 aircraft and 13 aerospace vehicles, with a total value of more than $35 billion, sit unused.

The C-27J has the unique capability of taking off and landing on crude runways, Ethan Rosenkranz, national security analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, told the newspaper. But with sequestration dictating Pentagon cuts, the planes were deemed a luxury it couldn't afford.

“When they start discarding these programs, it's wasteful,” he said.

The planes are built by Rome-based Alenia Aermacchi, under what was initially a $2 billion contract, though that was scaled back.

Local politics appear to have played a role in the planes continued manufacture, according to the newspaper. Ohio's senators, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Rob Portman, were both defenders of the C-27J when 800 jobs and a mission at Mansfield Air National Guard Base depended on it. Brown urged the military in a 2011 letter to purchase up to 42 of the aircraft, saying too few planes "will weaken our national and homeland defense." Congress pulled the plug on the broader expenditure.

But canceling orders for planes already being built is not feasible -- even if they are not needed, according to Air Force spokesman Darryl Mayer.

"They are too near completion for a termination to be cost effective and other government agencies have requested the aircraft," Mayer told the paper.

kwaigonegin said:

More pork barrel crap from the government.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

"There's nothing wrong with the C-27".

Click to expand...

Actually...from the US Air Force perspective, and from a mission requirement perspective, there is. Read on.

kwaigonegin said:

The Pentagon doesn't want it given budget constraints.

The Pentagon is sending $50 million cargo planes straight from the assembly line to mothballs because it has no use for them, yet it still hasn’t stopped ordering the aircraft, according to a report.

But canceling orders for planes already being built is not feasible -- even if they are not needed, according to Air Force spokesman Darryl Mayer.

"They are too near completion for a termination to be cost effective and other government agencies have requested the aircraft," Mayer told the paper.

Click to expand...

Actually, this report does not speak to the real issues for the C-27 removal. it really had nothing to do with the shutdown and their placement in the boneyard was not a result of it. In fact, it predates it significantly.

Here is a short history of the C-27 bid and how it came to be.

In 2005 the U.S. Army had identified the need to replace the C-23 Sherpa medium lift aircraft. That aircraft's performance was simply not suited for the hot, high terrain of Southwest Asia. Alenia Aeronautica offered the C-27 into the resulting competition to address this issue.

Lockheed Martin chose to offer the C-130J in 2006 as a contender in the same U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) competition. Alenia Aeronautica first paired with L-3 Communications to form the Global Military Aircraft Systems (GMAS) joint venture to market the C-27. Later, Boeing joined Alenia and L-3 Communications as a GMAS team member.

The C-27 completed the U.S. Department of Defense's Early User Survey evaluations by November 2006, flying 26 hours and surpassing all the JCA program requirements. The GMAS team announced that the C-27 would be assembled at a facility at Cecil Field, Duval County, Florida.

The final selection of the JCA came on 13 June 2007, when the Pentagon selected the C-27 as its Joint Cargo Aircraft. A contract worth US$2.04 billion was awarded to the L-3 Communications team for 78 C-27s along with training and support on 13 June 2007. At that time, the U.S. Army had requirement for up to 75 aircraft in the Army National Guard; the Air Force had a requirement for up to 70 aircraft in the Air Force Special Operations Command and the Air National Guard.

On 22 June 2007, the award of the JCA contract to the Alenia C-27 was formally protested. On 27 September 2007, the GAO announced that it had denied the protest, thereby allowing the Pentagon to go ahead with the C-27 procurement. The first flight of a U.S. C-27 occurred on 17 June 2008. The United States military officially received its first C-27 on 25 September 2008...over five years ago. In September 2008 L-3 Link officially began classes at the Georgia Army National Guard Flight Facility, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia for C-27 training. In April 2009, the U.S. Army had accepted deliveries of two aircraft and had 11 more on order. A proposal in May 2009 was made to have the U.S. Army/Army National Guard relinquish all of its aircraft to the U.S. Air Force, primarily the Air National Guard, with a reduction to 38 aircraft. This led the DoD to give total control of the US's C-27Js to the USAF in December 2009.

By July 2010, the U.S. Air National Guard had received four C-27s and began using them for testing and training. The purchase of all 38 Spartans was anticipated with initial operational capability expected by October 2010. The U.S. Air Force planned the C-27's first combat deployment for summer 2011.

In August 2011, two C-27 aircraft flown by Air National Guard personnel began operations at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan. From August to December 2011, the C-27s of the 179th Airlift Wing transported some 400 tons of cargo, and over 6,900 passengers in more than 900 missions.

However, and nonetheless, by early 2012, the USAF moved to cancel the program entirely. On 26 January 2012, the U.S. Department of Defense announced plans to remove all 38 C-27s on order from the U.S. Air Force's inventory because it was determined that over the long haul, their niche capabilities would too expensive. It was announced that the C-27's duties were to be taken by the U.S. Air Force's C-130s.

In February 2012, Alenia warned that it would not provide support for C-27s resold by the United States.

Then, in March 2012, it was reported that the U.S. Coast Guard was considering taking over the aircraft from the U.S. Air Force.

On 23 March 2012, the U.S. Air Force announced that it would cut all C-27s from its inventory in fiscal year 2013 after determining that its per-aircraft lifecycle costs are higher than those of C-130J aircraft performing the same combat resupply mission. In July 2012 the entire fleet was grounded due to a flight control system failure.

By early 2013, the USAF was continuing to shut down the program. At that time, over 9 months ago, newly built C-27Js were being sent directly to the Davis–Monthan Air Force Base boneyard. This was to make room for C-130s. The Coast Guard and other civil, or allied services will be able to bid on and take up these aircraft as desired.

So, the shutdown had nothing to do with this...it had been started almost a year ago for the reasons listed. Overall life time costs, maintenance costs, the C-130J being able to do the mission, etc. Now they are available for others to pick them up and use them.