US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

​

World Maritime News said:

The amphibious assault ship America (LHA 6) returned to Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding division Friday following successful acceptance sea trials in the Gulf of Mexico. Ingalls’ test and trials team successfully demonstrated more than 220 test events to the U.S. Navy’s board of inspection and survey (INSURV).

“It was a proud three days at sea, and America proved she is a quality ship,” said LHA 6 Program Manager George Jones. “The LHA 6 team’s tireless and diligent effort paid off as our scores from INSURV indicated. We will continue this effort over the next several weeks to have LHA 6 ready for the sailors and Marines who will man her as part of the U.S. Navy fleet.”

During acceptance trials, America performed all required sea trial evolutions, including the operation of the hybrid gas turbine/electric-drive propulsion system. Other tests included anchor handling, steering demonstration, flight deck operations, and combat systems’ evaluations.

“The Ingalls/Navy team did an outstanding job in presenting the ship to the Board of Inspection and Survey,” said Richard Schenk, Ingalls’ vice president, test and trials. “It is a tribute to all involved in proving the capabilities of such a large and complex ship.”

When America enters the fleet, she will be the flagship of an Expeditionary Strike Group, strategically positioning Marine Expeditionary Units ashore across a full spectrum of missions, including humanitarian, disaster relief, maritime security, antipiracy and other operations while providing air support for ground forces.

America-class ships are 844 feet long and 106 feet wide and displace 44,971 long tons. The gas-turbine propulsion system will drive the ships in excess of 20 knots. They will accommodate a crew of 1,059 (65 officers) and 1,687 troops. The America-class will be capable of carrying a Marine Expeditionary Unit, including Marine helicopters, MV‐22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and F‐35B Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.

The newest class has an increased aviation capacity to include an enlarged hangar deck, realignment and expansion of the aviation maintenance facilities, a significant increase in available stowage for parts and support equipment, and increased aviation fuel capacity.

Click to expand...

Sniper upgrade: Accuracy-boosting scope kit to be delivered this month
Feb. 2, 2014 - 06:00AM | Comments

The XactSystem combines a rifle with a networked tracking scope, guided trigger, tag button and precision ammunition in a closed-loop system. (TrackingPoint)

By Lance M. Bacon
Staff writer Army times
FILED UNDER
News
Military Technology

How it works
The closed-loop system includes a Networked Tracking Scope and semi-electronic guided trigger. Here’s how it works:
■ The shooter lases the target with the push of a button located at his trigger finger. He doesn’t have to dial in all of the dope.
■ A computer calculates 16 variables to include spin drift of the bullet, barometric pressure, temperature and magnus effect. It immediately generates a ballistic solution and places a targeting dot on the screen.
■ The shooter does not look directly at the target. He instead looks at a small display screen in the scope, which is hard-wired into a semi-electronic trigger.
■ The shooter squeezes that trigger as he aligns the aiming dot with the targeting dot. A solenoid keeps the weapon from firing until the aiming dot hits the designated target point. But once they touch … BAM! Shot out.
This takes human-induced errors such as trigger jerk and jitters out of the equation.
■ After shooting a few rounds for familiarity, the whole cycle can be done in a matter of two seconds.
■ Windage is the one thing the scope doesn’t calculate. Predominant wind speed and direction is shown on the display and adjustments are easily made with the push of a button — one press compensates for one-half mph.
​

The Army is testing a fire control system that turns an average shooter into a deadly sniper in a matter of minutes.

The service recently bought six XactSystem precision-guided firearm kits. Each will be calibrated to the XM-2010 sniper rifle and the M248 Mod 1 rounds, which are standard-issue .300 Winchester Magnum.

Rifles will be delivered by month’s end, said John Lupher, CEO of TrackingPoint.

School-trained snipers at various locations will spend up to four weeks testing functionality and effectiveness. The goal is to determine whether fire control systems enhance individual capabilities, said Lt. Col. Shawn Lucas, program manager for individual weapons at PEO Soldier.

“I can only squeeze so much more performance out of a rifle,” Lucas said. “Only so much more performance out of a bullet. I can only train a soldier so much. I have finite resources and time.

“However, for a relatively small investment, I can make a significant increase in probability of hit and overall effectiveness by making an investment in advanced fire control.”

Don’t expect the technology to remain exclusive to snipers if all goes well. Lucas said the Army is looking at advanced fire control for machine guns, carbines and the M320 grenade launcher.

TrackingPoint’s technology is well ahead of the field, Lucas said. Company officials put first-round hit probability in excess of 80 percent at 1,200 meters and upward of 98 percent at 800 meters. They call a 500-yard shot “easy” and consider 300 yards to be point-blank.

And variants can be mounted on weapons to include the M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System and the individual carbine. This gives soldiers first-shot probability at the weapon’s maximum effective range, substantially increasing lethality and standoff distances down to the squad level.

And shots are not confined to point targets. A processor inside the scope can track moving targets up to 10 mph. The computer calculates offset and lead and, like the point target, the shooter simply places the aiming dot on the targeting dot and squeezes the trigger.

The digital scope makes the difference. It has a 110mm telephoto lens and a 14-megapixel image sensor streaming at 54 frames per second. It ranges from 6x to 35x. Unlike most scopes, the capture begins at the longer length to keep the picture clear no matter the distance.

The tracking scope also offers a number of features that come in handy downrange. It can:

■ Hard-line secure communications

■ Live-stream secure video to Android and iOS smart phones and tablets.

■ Tie in to integrated dismounted soldier situational awareness systems such as Nett Warrior.

■ Designate or identify blue and red forces.

■ Conduct target handoff from a drone.

■ Provide 10-digit grid of a target.

The scope also can be used as a laser designator.​

The purchase was part of the Army’s Soldier Enhancement Program, in which soldiers, units and industry submit ideas on ways to increase effectiveness. The program uses the “buy, try, decide” method. If purchased, program managers have up to 18 months to test and evaluate.

TrackingPoint’s fire control system was one of 26 items approved in the most recent SEP session. Several types of optics, a low-velocity 40mm round and the “throw-bot” also made the cut.

The civilian XactSystem costs $22,500 to $27,000, depending on version, but that cost includes the custom Surgeon rifle the Army doesn’t need. The final cost is not yet known, and no one likes to talk dollars before a deal is made.

A civilian version of the XM-2010 runs about $17,000.

“It is exciting and certainly gratifying to see that we can help these guys out, and help provide added capability to the average soldier,” Lupher said. “The Army has a lot of highly trained snipers, but this allows designated marksmen and lesser trained troops to be able to shoot long distances accurately. That’s huge.”

Click to expand...

TerraN_EmpirE said:

[video=youtube_share;YD9utBMQ4SU]http://youtu.be/YD9utBMQ4SU[/video]

A fare fight... Never

Click to expand...

TerraN_EmpirE said:

So guy's here's a question for you.
"When the US Army tests it's Anti Ballistic missile system where do they launch the target missile from?

The Answer is Tripoli?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

Pentagon Budget Request Features Prototype Boost
By Michael Bruno
Source: Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

February 06, 2014
Credit: NORTHROP GRUMMAN
The U.S. Defense Department’s upcoming fiscal 2015 budget request and long-term spending blueprint will lay out a unique and significant allocation of funds toward weapons systems prototypes and research and development (R&D) efforts, according to an official.

Elana Broitman, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial base policy, declined to provide details when asked at the Cowen and Co. conference here Feb. 5. But she told the investor conference that there will be a recognizable spurt of pilot programs, prototypes and other efforts that aim to maintain the military’s technological edge and keep industry’s design teams and engineers together.

For the first time in a Pentagon budget-crafting process, the industrial policy office was asked for recommendations by the Deputy’s Management Action Group – the deputy defense secretary’s budget-crafting advisory group – for funding suggestions, and they were approved as part of the Pentagon request.

The recommendations revolved around industrial base issues “where we needed to put funds from some big programs to some very small programs or else we were going to have a real industrial base hole.

“We want to preserve those niche capabilities, and we want to do more to help those companies,” she added. Among technologies of interest she noted were those related to the military’s Asia-Pacific “pivot,” outer space and cyber.

The Pentagon will invest in weapons in the “very beginning” of the average 15-year product development life cycle, and the department wants to motivate companies to pony up their own independent R&D around the same.

“We are doubling down on trying to prototype programs, to experiment with prototypes, and in a couple of cases, keep R&D going so we can follow strategies that have been used in the past,” Broitman said.

Since last year, Broitman and her boss, Pentagon acquisition czar Frank Kendall, have been highlighting the legacy of Defense Secretary Bill Perry, who after the Vietnam War as then-head of defense research and engineering, fenced off funds for numerous R&D efforts that led to today’s weapons, including stealth fighters and unmanned aircraft. Kendall has been saying publicly that defense officials are beginning to become sensitive to China and Russia’s increasing pace of technological development, and that with U.S. systems taking decades to develop and field, they want to take a similar strategy. “A lot of our force today rests on those investments,” she said. “We want to be in a position where when budgets go up – and they will eventually – that we are going to have something innovative to purchase, and this [prototype effort] gets us really, directly to the industrial base, which is our other concern,” she said.

Still, Broitman, and Kendall previously, have acknowledged that many or even most of those investments did not make it into production.

Broitman also addressed the Pentagon’s policy regarding industry mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and reiterated that the implicit ban on prime contractors consolidating will continue. But with mid-tier and third-tier companies – many of which provide niche technologies or supplies – showing lower profits, higher debt leverage and “a lot of concern,” the department will look to both using its own funds or allowing M&A to help make sure the goods remain available.

“We’re going to commit to looking at every case on its merits,” Broitman said.

Moreover, while traditional U.S. defense M&A was weighed with an eye toward maintaining enough domestic competition, the Pentagon increasingly will consider global competition in its approval calculations. In other words, more domestic consolidation could occur through the supply chain because the Pentagon feels there is a foreign provider it considers reliable and trusted enough to provide comparison. Also, foreign buyers will not necessarily be turned away. “We’re not against transnational transactions at all,” she said.

Click to expand...

Raytheon continues developing persistent close air support technology
By: JON HEMMERDINGERWASHINGTON DC00:05 05 Feb 2014
Raytheon is beginning work on the third phase of a multi-year project to develop a persistent close air support (PCAS) system to give ground troops faster and more accurate air support.

The company announced on 4 February that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has exercised an option allowing it to begin the work, which is worth $25.5 million over 18 months.

The announcement comes many months after the phase three work was actually awarded, in the third quarter of 2013.

Phase three involves conducting a series of flight tests and performing live-fire demonstrations of the technology, which is aimed at allowing ground troops to better coordinate air support from multiple aircraft types, and to greatly reduce strike times, the company says.

"PCAS software could enable ground troops to receive close air support sooner by improving coordination among [ground-based] controllers, airborne sensors and weapons," says Raytheon. "PCAS is designed to improve human-machine interfaces for both ground and air personnel by inserting autonomous algorithms in the decision chain, and digitally sending shared situational awareness messages."

Raytheon, which did not respond to a request for more information, is serving as systems integrator for the technology, and is working with partners Rockwell Collins, General Electric, BAE Systems and 5-D Systems.

The PCAS project, launched by DARPA in 2010 with a budget of $82 million over three years, aims to significantly advance the close air support function, which the agency says has changed little since the First World War. Today, the process typically involves paper maps and verbal communications between soldiers and pilots in the air, DARPA says. Often, strikes can take 1h to carry out.

PCAS was originally developed to work with the US Air Force's Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt combat support aircraft, but DARPA set out to integrate the technology with other manned and unmanned aircraft.

As envisioned, a PCAS system would allow ground soldiers called joint terminal attack controllers and airmen to share "real time situational awareness and weapons systems data," DARPA says. Ground agents would be able to identify multiple targets simultaneously and, working with air crews, select the most-appropriate precision-guided weapon and authorise a strike.

DARPA's goal is to decrease response times to no more than 6min.

The system is intended to work in poor weather, where it would continue to allow the military to strike stationary and moving targets using smaller, more precise munitions, DARPA says.

As currently designed, the system includes a "PCAS-air" component comprised of an internal navigation system and a weapon and engagement management system. Those computers use algorithms to recommend weapons and best routes to targets. The airborne system is designed to coordinate fire with a "PCAS-ground" system.

DARPA says it has already sent 500 tablet computers with PCAS-ground software to Afghanistan, where they were tested by ground units.

Phase one work included a review of technology, demonstration of concepts and development of target-designation technology, says DARPA.

The second phase was aimed at completing the system's design, demonstrating the ground system and ensuring the air system could be installed on multiple aircraft types at minimal cost.

Click to expand...

Northrop to position for future bomber work as LRS-B progresses
By: JON HEMMERDINGERWASHINGTON DC08:25 04 Feb 2014
Northrop Grumman says it has interest in continuing to provide the US Air Force with bomber aircraft, an indication that the company remains a potential bidder to build the service’s next-generation long-range strike bomber (LRS-B) fleet.
“Clearly we have a strong legacy in the business of providing bombers to the United States Air Force,” Northrop’s chief executive Wesley Bush said during the company’s fourth quarter 2013 earnings call on 30 January. “And I think our shareholders should count on us to do the things that we think are appropriate to continue to position our company for the long term there.”

Bush declined to comment further, and the company did not respond to a request for more information.

But Mark Gunzinger, senior fellow at the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says the comments hint that Northrop intends to spend money to develop some of the new technology the bomber programme will require.

“I would expect they continue to invest in technologies needed for that kind of a programme and other advanced aircraft programmes, including future unmanned aircraft,” says Gunzinger.

Such technology could include advanced stealth design, new mission management systems and systems that allow aircraft to operate with greater autonomy, he says.

“Those are all key technologies that an aerospace company would invest in to be able to develop a combat aircraft in the future, either manned or unmanned,” Gunzinger adds.

Although Northrop has not officially announced that it will compete for the at least $100 billion programme, the company, which makes the B-2 stealth bomber, is seen as a prime competitor. If it enters the competition, it will compete against a Boeing/Lockheed Martin team. Those two companies initially partnered to build a next-generation bomber in 2008 but cancelled that relationship in 2010.

Boeing, which has built bombers including the B-17, B-29, B-47 and B-52, announced in October 2013 that it had again agreed to work with Lockheed on the LRS-B project.

The USAF declines to provide any updates on the programme's progress, but the project is slated to receive $359 million in funding in the US government’s fiscal year 2014 budget, according to budget documents. The sum is $20 million less than the Department of Defense requested for LRS-B this fiscal year, and the air force adds that progress also depends on funding in FY2015.

The USAF has said it intends to acquire between 80 and 100 LRS-B aircraft and has targeted the mid-2020s as an operational timeframe.

Though details of the programme remain classified, the service has said its acquisition strategy emphasises the use of proven technologies, which would help keep costs down by minimising development of new avionics, engine and airframe technology.

Click to expand...

Lockheed launches civilian version of C-130J
By: JON HEMMERDINGERWASHINGTON DC14:18 05 Feb 2014
Lockheed Martin has launched an updated civilian version of its C-130J Super Hercules transport, and expects to receive its first order from a customer later this year.
On 4 February, the Bethesda, Maryland-based company announced that it had kicked off the certification process on 21 January 2014, when it filed a notification letter with the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Lockheed says the LM-100J Super Hercules should achieve its first flight in 2017. The company expects to receive FAA certification by 2018, following a one-year flight test programme, and plans to deliver the first example that same year.

The timing comes amid a period of spending cuts by the C-130J's primary US military customers, making the new civilian LM-100J an attractive source of potential non-military Super Hercules revenue, says the company. "This would give us stability in [the Super Hercules] production programme and supply chain," Lockheed says, adding that the new aircraft meshes with a broader effort to diversify revenue.


The company hopes the aircraft, which will have a base price of around $65 million, will follow the success of its predecessor, the civilian L-100 Hercules. Lockheed sold roughly 115 of those aircraft, which were based on the first-generation C-130, between 1964 and 1992. Now, however, many L-100s are approaching the end of their life cycles, sparking demand for new civilian freighters, it says.

"We see a natural progression of being able to recapitalise those fleets with an aircraft [that has] better reliability, better capability [and] better maintainability, safety and performance," Lockheed tells Flightglobal.

The LM-100J is modelled after the latest-generation C-130J Super Hercules, which has been in production since the early 1990s. Unlike previous updates to the C-130, Lockheed says it took a "revolutionary approach" with the J model, giving it digital avionics and making a series of design changes to improve performance and reduce operating costs.

"All of those concepts are flowing to the LM-100J," Lockheed says.When it first developed the original C-130J, it also received a type certificate for a civilian version. But primary customers were militaries, and Lockheed says it lost the civilian certificate as the aircraft's military avionics, communications and navigation equipment evolved.

Described by the company as a "civil multi-purpose air freighter," the new LM-100J will have modern avionics and a "digital back end" system with a loadmaster computer station that will assist with loading and weight and balance. The cargo compartment will be 4.6m (15ft) longer than the L-100, providing space for two additional pallets, and the aircraft will be able to carry 33% more payload on a 2,500nm (4,630km) flight, says Lockheed.

The LM-100J, which has the ability to fly 2,200nm with a 18,200kg (40,000lb) payload, has about 50% more range than the L-100, according to Lockheed. Its top speed will be 355kt (657km/h); 10% faster than its predecessor. In addition, the LM-100J will be operated by two flight crew (instead of three for the L-100), will burn 15% less fuel and have maintenance costs that are 35% less, the airframer says.

LM-100Js will be built at Lockheed's Marietta, Georgia-facility and will be powered by four Rolls-Royce AE2100D turboprops, which will provide 30% more power than the L-100's Allison T-56 powerplants, the company says.

Lockheed estimates it can sell 75 to 100 LM-100J's over 20 years, a level of demand similar to that for the original L-100. Though the company declines to name prospective customers, it says oil, gas and mineral exploration companies are interested. Such companies must transport heavy equipment like generators and earth moving equipment to remote outposts not linked to railways or roads. They need rugged aircraft that can operate from "austere", unpaved runways, says Lockheed.

The LM-100J will help bring stability to the Super Hercules programme, as the US government trims its defence budget, says Lockheed. In fiscal year 2014, the US Navy will receive $69 million for procurement of tanker-variant KC-130Js; almost half of the $134 million the service requested, according to budget documents. Likewise, the US Air Force requested $1.4 billion but will receive $1.3 billion for the procurement of C-130Js, including special-mission MC-130Js and search and rescue HC-130Js. Additional defence funding cuts are possible for the next fiscal year.

"[The LM-100J] adds another capability towards the Hercules portfolio that hasn't existed in a while," Lockheed says. "It looks really promising."

Click to expand...

MwRYum said:

Only the weak will ever demand a fair fight, fight is never fair, especially when being second is being dead.

Click to expand...

TerraN_EmpirE said:

It's good to see a ol'girl getting a second life.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

7.62 NATO AR10 derivitive with Tracking point

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

AR15 derivitive with tracking point

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Remington 2020 Trackingpoint remington joint venture with .223 Varmenter

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Tracking point XactSystem tactical rifle chambered in .300 WM or .338LM

Click to expand...

Equation said:

It's time for the US to adapt a "bull pup" rifle.

Click to expand...