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Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
On Tomahawk, LRASM, and Beyond

Posted on InsideDefense.com: March 31, 2014

Top Navy officials suggested last week that the Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile has reached the end of its shelf life, and efforts are underway to develop a replacement weapon with more sophisticated capabilities.

"These missiles have a shelf life . . . how much further can this missile grow?" Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told Inside the Navy after a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on March 27. "I mean, it's been around since I was a junior officer. That's a long time. I think it's time to look for a new missile."

The Navy's fiscal year 2015 budget proposal zeroes out planned purchases of Tomahawks after FY-15, "suspending" the production of one of Raytheon's franchise products as well as one of the Pentagon's most recognized weapons, ITN reported on March 21. Meanwhile, the budget proposal pledges $360 million to begin work on a replacement "next-generation land-attack weapon" starting in FY-15.

In response to questions from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on the decision, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told the committee that the current arsenal of about 4,000 Tomahawks is sufficient to support projected fleet requirements.

The Navy is conducting an analysis of alternatives to develop a follow-on weapon "expeditiously," Mabus said, adding that "we certainly, absolutely don't want, don't need a gap between the Tomahawk and the next weapon."

Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Sean Stackley also emphasized the Navy's need to develop a more capable missile after a House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee hearing last week.

"What we need to be doing is moving our investment to the increased capability," Stackley told reporters after the March 26 hearing. "We've got to actually get a leap ahead in terms of capability . . . this thing we are calling the next generation land attack weapon."

The Navy will "revisit the question of whether the time is right to cease production of Tomahawks" in FY-16 and beyond, Stackley told the subcommittee.

Officials did not provide details about what a next-generation land-attack weapon (NGLAW) would look like, but Stackley said during the hearing that advances to the Navy's cruise missile line include demonstration and testing an air-launched Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM).

The Pentagon recently announced its decision to designate Lockheed Martin's LRASM to be Increment 1 of the Navy's Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) capability, a requirement for an air-launched anti-ship missile to replace the Boeing-built Harpoon missile in response to an urgent need from U.S. Pacific Command. This decision scuttled long-standing Navy plans to conduct a competition for a new weapon to fill its OASuW capability gap.

The Navy plans to update the analysis of alternatives for a second increment, Navy spokeswoman Cmdr. Thurraya Kent told ITN in an email last week. Surface- and air-launched material solutions will be assessed, she said.

This second increment will be "100 percent competition," Stackley told reporters after the March 26 hearing.

If the Increment 2 is surface-launched, Lockheed Martin would likely compete a vertical-launch version of LRASM, which is currently in development. According to documents submitted along with the FY-15 budget proposal, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has plans in FY-14 to perform a controlled test vehicle flight of LRASM from the vertical launching system.

Although neither Defense Department nor industry officials would confirm any further tests, Lockheed has said that it is planning two DARPA-funded surface-launch demonstrations with a LRASM vertically launched from the Desert Ship at White Sands Missile Range, NM, one in August and one in October, ITN reported on Jan. 27.

Stackley emphasized after the March 26 hearing that Tomahawk/NGLAW and OASuW are separate programs. OASuW weapons are used to attack mobile maritime targets, he noted, which is not a capability the Tomahawk has today.

When asked after the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on March 27 if the NGLAW would be informed by a vertical-launch version of LRASM, Greenert responded: "It's way too early to say."

However, he acknowledged that the speed of that weapon "will certainly be a contributor" to the new missile.

"But when you go hypersonic you know, you are limiting other aspects, how intelligent can the missile be, do we want loitering versus speed," Greenert said, adding that the analysis of alternatives will look at these details.

In the meantime, the Navy is currently working to re-certify and upgrade the current inventory of Tomahawks, Greenert told ITN. This will keep the production line "warm," so in the event of an urgent need the Navy could start building the missiles again.

"So we do have a hedge and that hedge will go on for five, six years I think," Greenert said.

The Navy will begin to re-certify the missiles in FY-19, Stackley told the House seapower and projection forces subcommittee on March 26, noting the potential gap between FY-16 -- when Tomahawks are zeroed out of the budget -- and the FY-19 re-certification. The Navy is working with Raytheon to mitigate any potential risks from this gap to the industrial base, he said.

"There is a fairly healthy [research and development] stream going toward Tomahawks for those modifications that we need for the missile," he added.

Modernization of the Tomahawks includes installing a brand-new digital radio, Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources (N8), told the subcommittee during that same hearing. This upgrade will allow combatant commanders to re-target the aircraft and will provide for more reliable communication

"Tomahawks are amazing things, but they were also built when I was a junior officer," Mulloy said. "And we've modernized them, but we need to keep thinking about the future."
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
I wish I had been there :)

LCS War Game Focuses On Blue Water, Anti-Sub, Anti-Ship Capabilities

Posted on InsideDefense.com: April 1, 2014

In a war game meant to probe the concept of operations for the Littoral Combat Ship last week, the Navy focused primarily on the anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare capabilities of the ship class in the open ocean, according to a Navy official.

The war game, which was executed at the Naval War College, included 125 participants across the Navy and the other services and involved threats the service could face in the mid-2020s, Rear Adm. Tom Rowden, the Navy's surface warfare director (N96), told reporters on a conference call today.

"My initial impressions are that with respect to the Littoral Combat Ship, I think that it is going to play much more significantly in the open water than perhaps than we had previously opined," Rowden said of the war game findings. "I was amazed at the amount of problems that we caused for the folks that we were going against when we paired that ship with a guided missile destroyer, gave it air cover and matched those two ASW capabilities."

According to Rowden, the war game yielded over 800 pages of notes and surveys taken by participants, which will be included in an analysis of the war game expected to last "for about the next two months."

"I anticipate that we will have a report out from the Naval War College sometime around the middle to the latter part of May," he said.

The war game was played with both LCS variants -- Freedom and Independence -- in their current configurations. The findings showed different advantages for each variant.

"The Independence class has a little bit longer legs and had a tendency to be more advantageous . . . in the open-ocean ASW fight and the [Freedom class] seemed to be more advantageous with respect to some of the closer-in work that we were doing with respect to the beach," Rowden said. "I think that both ships played very well in the execution of the war game."

In addition to the LCS, the war game featured a number of other weapons systems for the mid-2020s scenario, including DDG-51 destroyers, F-35Cs, E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes, MH-60 Romeos and Sierras as well as P-8As and Virginia-class attack submarines.

While the war game focused on the ASW and ASuW missions for the LCS, the service is working on a third mission for the ship with the mine countermeasures mission package. But Rowden said the blue water scenario used for the war game and the ship's ability to maneuver around mines made the countermeasures mission less of a priority.

"When we started opening up into a more of a blue water scenario, the threat for mines had a tendency to decrease, at least as played by our notional enemy," he told reporters. "If you know where mines are, you can drive around them and if you're not constrained to a specific area that you have to drive through, you can just mark the location of the mines and drive around them."

As the mission package on the ship is able to "pretty rapidly identify" the location of mines, it enables the ship to move around the mines, "mark them and then go back and clear them at time of our choosing," Rowden explained. "So when you kind of open up the space, you have the ability to really address the mine issue in a very different way than we would have to address the same in the Straight of Hormuz."

"What that did was that allowed us to put more of the mine capability in reserve and allowed us to play more of the anti-submarine and ASUW capability, which seemed to be much more important for the phases that we executed," he added.

As the Navy faces a lot of questions about the LCS program, with the Pentagon directing the halt of contract negotiations for LCS at 32 of 52 planned ships, the prevailing questions about the ship class have involved its ability to meet its requirements.

In particular, in a late February directive to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel outlined what he called his "considerable reservations" about whether LCS is what the Navy will need over the next few decades, asking the service to focus on survivability and lethality requirements for a future small surface combatant.

During the conference call with reporters today, Rowden said that the war game "found some very interesting things about survivability of the ship." These findings included increased survivability when the ships' capabilities were leveraged along with those of guided missile destroyers. The two ships working together proved to be beneficial in a number of ways, Rowden said.

"We saw significant return on that development of that concept of operation in order to be able to a) hunt submarines and b) to ensure the survivability of the ships," he told reporters.

In addition, the war game showed that the Navy can leverage the "very shallow draft associated with these ships" and spread out the Littoral Combat Ships along the coastline. "We were [able] to disperse the ships and we were able to really move them in along the coast to make targeting on these ships much more difficult and present a much larger problem to the enemy," he said.

On top of that, bringing in Littoral Combat Ships with anti-submarine warfare packages gave the destroyers more freedom to complete other missions, Rowden said.

"That freed up a number of our higher-end ships, specifically guided missile destroyers . . . because that ASW capability provided a significant boost for the ASW threat and it allowed our multi-mission DDGs to go up and do other things with the strike group commander," he said.

I wonder what ASuW were used by LCS during this war-game.
 
TerraN_EmpirE

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Pentagon Pushes Better F-35 Reliability
By Bill Sweetman
Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology

March 31, 2014
Credit: USAF Maj. Karen Roganov
Increases in the production rate of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be deferred if the contractors fail to correct problems with the aircraft and its support systems, JSF program office director Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan told the House Armed Services Committee on March 26.

“Additional progress must be demonstrated before awarding a contract for higher production rates,” Bogdan says, in four areas: software development; reliability, “which is not growing at an acceptable rate”; the poorly performing Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS); and “closure of previously identified design issues.” Lot 9 of low-rate initial production, for which an advance procurement contract has just been awarded, will include incentives based on “strong, event-based performance criteria.”

Bogdan repeated a threat to strip Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney of their status as “product support integrators” (PSI), responsible for the bulk of F-35 sustainment activities, describing them as “interim PSIs” and saying their performance on initial performance-based support contracts will determine whether they “assume this role on a more permanent basis.”

These moves reflect concern about F-35 reliability, ALIS and operational costs. The Government Accountability Office's latest JSF report, also released last week, cites government estimates that F-35 operations and support (O&S) costs could “surpass the average cost of legacy aircraft by 40% or more, when original estimates indicated that the F-35 would cost less.” The GAO adds that reliability improvements will be necessary to control O&S costs, which are “directly correlated to weapon system reliability,” and that the picture is unlikely to improve “without a focused, aggressive and well-resourced effort.”

At Aviation Week's Defense Technology & Requirements conference this month, Bogdan said JSF reliability was “woefully below the curve” compared with projected reliability at the current level of flight hours. “Parts we did not think were going to break are breaking quicker than we thought,” he said, characterizing the problem as a “monumental fix—we are not going to see results quickly. But if we do not get it right, the availability will plummet and the O&S costs will skyrocket.”

A “readiness cell” within the program is reviewing reliability problems, Bogdan said, in order to set priorities for remedial action. “We are looking at the 20 parts that fail most often, the Top 50 that take too long to fix and the 20 parts that cost the most when they come off.” The goal is to increase F-35 availability to greater than 60% by 2015.

Another reliability-related issue concerns diagnostic and prognostic systems. “We assumed that the aircraft would be smart, and that ALIS would be smart, but neither is very smart today,” said Bogdan, describing the systems as “dumb and dumber . . . the aircraft tells you that things are wrong when they are not, and forgets to tell you about things that are wrong.”

Bogdan expressed confidence that the problems would be fixed in time for service entry, but for now the program is developing workarounds that allow the aircraft to fly when ALIS gives erroneous error signals.

The JSF program office is more optimistic than the GAO or the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation DOT&E concerning the impact of software delays on initial operational capability (IOC) dates. By last January, the GAO states, the program had verified only half as much of the Block 2B software—the Marine Corps IOC standard—as planned, 13% versus 27%. The GAO endorses the DOT&E's estimate of up to 13 months' delay in delivering Block 2B.

However, Bogdan said there is “very little risk” to delivering 2B. “We are tracking 206 individual capabilities within the software. Today 80 percent have been verified as good to go. We have 20 percent [remaining],” he said. “We have two more increments this summer before we finish flight-testing at the end of the year. My assessment is that we are within 30 days of completing Block 2B on time.”

The process of modifying the Marine Corps' early-production F-35Bs to IOC configuration “is the long pole in the tent right now,” Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle, deputy commandant for Marine Corps aviation, told the committee. Vice Adm. Paul Grosklags, the Navy's top acquisition official, pointed out: “We need aircraft for flight-test and aircraft for pilot training, and the same aircraft have to be modified to the IOC configuration.” It is a matter of prioritizing the work required, he added.

The GAO report also raises a longer-term concern about the ability of the service customers to sustain the program as planned. The projected cost has been stable since its 2012 restructuring, the GAO states, but it warns that the total acquisition cost—averaging $12.6 billion per year through 2037, with several years above $15 billion—“does not appear to be achievable in the current fiscal environment,” consuming one-quarter of the Pentagon's major acquisition funds over its lifetime.
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Suitcase-sized capability keeps coalition network running during retrograde
April 1, 2014

By Amy Walker, PEO C3T
Army.mil: Science and Technology News



FORT DIX, N.J. (April 1, 2014) -- As U.S. and coalition forces draw down in Afghanistan and take most of their communications infrastructure with them, a new capability the size of a suitcase will enable Soldiers to connect to the coalition network from anywhere on the planet.

Fitting into a single handheld transit case for rapid mobility, this satellite network communications kit, known as the Global Rapid Response Information Package, or GRRIP, provides secure, beyond-line-of-sight voice, video and data communications without the need for local network infrastructure.

"Lessons learned from the drawdown in Iraq taught us that as networks get disassembled, mistakes can happen; things can go down when you weren't expecting them to," said Lt. Col. Leonard Newman, product manager for the Army's Product Manager Satellite Communications, or PdM SATCOM, which is assigned to Project Manager WIN-T. "This solution has the potential to solve many of those problems and increase the expeditionary nature of the Army for future missions in remote areas or involving coalition forces."

The Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System, or CENTRIXS - International Security Assistance Force network, or CX-I, is the U.S. branch of the coalition network used in Operation Enduring Freedom. To support operations during the drawdown of forces in this region, a new CX-I enclave located at the WIN-T Satellite Network Operations Center at Fort Dix, N.J., went live in late March, ensuring frontline troops can access the coalition network anytime, anywhere utilizing the GRRIP.

Previous to this effort, the CX-I network gateway and terminals in Afghanistan were provided by a private contractor, but that contract is due to end shortly and the company's infrastructure is being taken down. The Army's new CX-I enclave will ensure operations continue in Afghanistan without skipping a beat. Utilizing GRRIPs, Soldiers can now draw coalition network services over satellite transport from the CX-I enclave at the Fort Dix SNOC, instead of the contractor facilities in Afghanistan. Not only does this solution provide continuity of operations, but it is expected to save approximately $900,000 a year by consolidating the Afghanistan Network Operations Center and all of the associated services into the WIN-T SNOC, leveraging the existing network and services.

The PdM SATCOM team completed this intensive effort in four months, from the time it received funding, to the full approved operation of the new CX-I enclave at the SNOC. This included the testing, configuration and fielding of all the GRRIP "kits."

"Afghanistan could shut down completely and with the GRRIP kit, users will still be able to connect to the coalition network and operations can continue seamlessly," said Jim Sawall, PdM SATCOM's assistant PdM for the Commercial Satellite Terminal Program and GRRIP project lead.

GRRIPs are small enough to fit in the overhead bin of an airplane, and can be set up and on the air in less than five minutes. They provide network communications and access to mission command applications, as well as supporting calls-for-fire and MedEvac requests. They provide secure and non-secure communications to forces operating in austere and demanding environments such as embedded training teams and other small units that do not have access to the network equipment and infrastructure of established forward operating bases. This commercial-off-the-shelf terminal is designed for small teams entering locations where the infrastructure has either been dismantled, destroyed or hasn't been built up yet, and is perfect for first responder communications.

"When you're working in a coalition environment, which we are in Afghanistan, you need communications to be up and running to coordinate command and control operations," Sawall said. "From a wartime risk mitigation perspective, GRRIP will keep operations going even if the network infrastructure in remote areas has been destroyed."

This version of GRRIP is designed to enable small teams to gain access to CX-I. From a broader scope both WIN-T Increment 1, the Army's at-the-halt tactical communications network backbone, and WIN-T Increment 2, which provides advanced network services on-the-move, have assets in Afghanistan that are connected to CX-I. As U.S. forces draw down, these WIN-T network assets will return to the U.S. Other capabilities managed by PdM SATCOM along with the GRRIP will help fill that network gap, such as Secure Internet Protocol Router/Non-secure Internet Protocol Access Pointm ground satellite terminals, which are used at the company echelon and small combat outposts; and Deployable Ku-band Earth Terminals, which support larger hub locations for long haul transport both intra- and inter-theater. Together with the GRRIP, these capabilities will pick up the remaining load and help support enduring forces as WIN-T assets are returned to the states, said Pat DeGroodt, deputy product manager for PdM WIN-T Increment 2.

If needed, depending upon mission requirements, GRIPPs can also be reconfigured for use on SIPR, NIPR or CX--Korea networks. Whichever configuration is utilized, GRRIP capabilities fall in line with the Army priorities to provide a rapidly deployable, expeditionary and capable force. This solution provides critical communication anywhere in the world in less than five minutes with absolutely no reconfiguration required

"GRRIP allows you to keep that connection wherever you go," Newman said. "You don't need an infrastructure; you don't need a building; as long as you have this kit with you, you have connection to CENTRIX-I."
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Another U.S. ship to sail for Black Sea
Apr. 2, 2014 - 02:53PM | 0 Comments


By Andrew Tilghman
Staff writer Army times
FILED UNDER
As tens of thousands of Russian troops remain along Ukraine’s eastern border, the Pentagon is sending an additional Navy ship to the Black Sea and will station 175 additional Marines in Romania along the Black Sea Coast, a defense official said Wednesday.

The Navy ship will be the first to enter the Black Sea since the destroyer Truxtun left March 21. It will arrive within the next few days to conduct joint exercises with U.S allies in the region, a Defense Department spokesman, Army Col. Steve Warren, said.

“This is to effort to reassure our allies of our steadfast commitment to the region,” Warren told reporters Wednesday.

He declined to say which specific vessel or type of vessel the Navy will send.

It is the latest response in the U.S. European Command region to Russian aggression, which began with a ground invasion of the Crimea peninsula in March. For more than two weeks, the Russian military has deployed tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine, implicitly threatening further incursions into the former Soviet Republic.

In the next several days, 175 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., will deploy to a Romanian military base along the Black Sea Coast. They will join a group of 300 Marines that has been there for years as part of the “Black Sea Rotational Force” at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, known to U.S forces as “M-K” near the coastal city of Constanza.

The U.S. military this week received permission from the Romanian government to increase the number of troops there to 600.

Warren said the additional Marines’ deployment and rising cap on troops in Romania was planned several months ago and is not directly linked to the renewed tension with Russia.

The additional 175 Marines will technically be a part of the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force based in Moron, Spain. Typically the SP-MAGTF is deployed in support of U.S. Africa Command.

The top U.S. commander in Europe cut short a visit to Washington and returned to Brussels on Friday to address rising tensions over Russia’s potential ground invasion of eastern Ukraine.

Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, chief of U.S. European Command and supreme allied commander in Europe, was scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill this week about how the Pentagon’s budget proposal will affect EUCOM.

Instead, he was attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers Tuesday and Wednesday, where Russia’s invasion of the Crimean peninsula and military buildup along its western border will be the center of discussions.

Immediately following the Russian ground invasion, EUCOM moved 12 Air Force F-16 fighters, along with 200 U.S. support personnel, to Lask Air Base in Poland. Officials say that move is temporary but have provided no end date.

EUCOM also moved six more F-16s to support the “air policing mission” in the Baltic region, which includes three former Soviet states that are now NATO partner counties.

But within the command today, broader military options are limited. About 67,000 U.S. troops are in Europe, a fraction of the massive Cold War-era force of more than 350,000 personnel.
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White House: U.S. 'stands ready to help' Chile after earthquake
Apr. 2, 2014 - 02:09PM |


By Jeff Schogol
Staff writer Army times

The U.S. government is prepared to help Chile if it asks for assistance in the wake of Monday’s massive earthquake and tsunami that have left at least five people dead, a White House official said.

The U.S. Geological Survey is reporting the earthquake registered a magnitude 8.2. The quake and tsunamis happened over night, so there has been limited information so far about the extent of the damage and loss of life. The Chilean government has declared the affected area to be a disaster zone.

“We stand with our Chilean partners in the aftermath of the earthquake, and extend our sympathies and condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives,” National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Lalley said in an email Wednesday to Military Times. “The United States stands ready to help. We have long partnered with Chileans on disaster preparedness and response. Our disaster experts in Chile have been and will remain in close touch with Chilean authorities.”

As of Wednesday morning, the Chilean government had not requested any U.S. assistance, said Lt. Cmdr. Ron Flanders, a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command.

SOUTHCOM was in charge of relief efforts in Haiti after a Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake caused widespread damage there and killed an estimated 230,000 people. At its peak, the relief mission in Haiti involved 22,268 troops, 23 U.S. Navy ships, 10 Coast Guard ships, 264 fixed-wing aircraft and 57 helicopters, according to SOUTHCOM’s website.
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More on the MRAP issue
Pakistan, Afghanistan, India all want leftover U.S. MRAPs
Apr. 1, 2014 - 06:00AM |


By Jeff Schogol
Staff Writer
FILED UNDER
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Military Technology
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U.S. says seeking buyers for old military equipment
Dunford: U.S. will not give Pakistan MRAPs from Afghanistan
The U.S. military has more Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles in Afghanistan that it can bring home — and Afghanistan, India and Pakistan are locked in a three-way competition for them, a former senior defense official said.

“Those people in U.S. government who want to support the Pakistani counterinsurgency say we should give [MRAPs] to them; the people who are concerned about the future of Afghanistan, the people who are principally concerned about India say we shouldn’t give [MRAPs] to them,” said David Sedney. “What we’re actually going to do is not clear.”

MRAPs initially were fielded in Iraq to protect troops from roadside bombs after insurgents discovered that the undersides of up-armored Humvees were vulnerable to buried explosives.

Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates made building the MRAPs and getting the vehicles downrange a top priority, even though he understood the vehicles were designed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, not necessarily in future conflicts, said Sedney, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia from 2009 to 2013.

Now the U.S. military has thousands of MRAPs in Afghanistan that neither the Army nor Marine Corps want, Sedney said. Since the U.S. government has considered MRAPs too sophisticated for the Afghan military to use, it has been shipping some vehicles back to the U.S. while destroying others that have battle damage, Sedney told Military Times on Tuesday.

But some members of Congress have objected to destroying the costly vehicles, he said. Meanwhile, the companies that build MRAPs — and the lawmakers that represent states where the vehicles are built — want to encourage other countries to use MRAPs because building spare parts for the vehicles is a “lucrative business.”

Pakistan has said it wants a lot of MRAPs and some U.S. government officials think the vehicles could help the Paksitanis fight their own insurgents, Sedney said.

“As soon as the Indians even got hint of this, they became upset because they said, ‘Hey look, these MRAPs, they’re of limited utility in the worst areas of Pakistan but they could be really useful in an offensive action [by Pakistan] against India,’” Sedney said. “The Indian government started lobbying against MRAPs to Pakistan.”

Afghan officials also were concerned that the Pakistanis could use MRAPs against them, and Afghan military leaders felt many of their troops who were killed by roadside bombs in 2013 could have survived if they had been in MRAPs, he said.

“The Afghans realized that and they said, ‘Wait a second ... you’re saying that we have to absorb much higher casualties than you ever were willing to? Why don’t you give us the MRAPS?’ But of course, they didn’t have the money.”

Last week, U.S. Forces Afghanistan issued a statement that it has no plans to provide Pakistan with excess MRAPs used in Afghanistan. The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan then issued a statement on Monday saying the U.S. government is considering Pakistan’s request for excess military equipment.

That prompted the State Department to release a statement on Monday clarifying that while the U.S. government is considering giving military equipment to Pakistan, none of it would come directly from Afghanistan.

“To be clear, the United States has not refused Pakistan’s request regarding EDA [excess defense articles] sourced from the worldwide pool (to include any request that might involve MRAPs),” according to the statement. “The United States continues to assist Pakistan through many security cooperation programs to build partnership capacity, including through the provision of worldwide available EDA.

“U.S. military equipment leaving overland from Afghanistan through Pakistan or via the Northern Distribution Network is part of the overall process of removing equipment as our forces draw down in Afghanistan. We have not and do not intend to transfer this equipment to the governments neighboring Afghanistan.”
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Source: Pakistan already has U.S.-made MRAPs, new deal in works
Apr. 2, 2014 - 03:45PM |


By Paul McLeary

WASHINGTON — While controversy swirls over reports that Pakistan may receive some of the excess Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles that the United States has sitting in Afghanistan, American and Pakistani officials are on the verge of completing a deal to send new and excess MRAPs to Islamabad, sister publication Defense News has learned.

The 160 vehicles, all of which would be the MaxxPro MRAP variant made by U.S. manufacturer Navistar, would be a mix of new builds and some from U.S. Army prepositioned stocks in Kuwait, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who is not authorized to speak for attribution.

While no formal notification of the deal has yet been sent to Congress since the last stages of the vetting process are still being completed, the official expected a notification to head to Capitol Hill by the end of this month.

The spat over the potential MRAP sale began in March when the Washington Post reported that the United States was considering giving Pakistan some MRAPs that the U.S. didn’t want to pay to ship home once the mission in Afghanistan draws to a close. The report came at the same time as Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, commander of the coalition and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, said there are more than 1,200 excess MRAPs in country.

For a while, U.S. forces were literally shredding to bits the hulking MRAP infantry carriers that it doesn’t want to pay to bring home, but Dunford has since put a halt to that program while final decisions on the ultimate fate of the fleet are being made.

The holdup on the deal for the 160 MRAPs centers around a congressionally mandated human rights vetting process that all U.S. foreign training and equipping programs must undergo.

Known as the “Leahey Amendment” after the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahey of Vermont, the law stipulates that U.S. forces cannot train or equip foreign military or police units that have been accused of human rights abuses.

The 160 MRAPs would be split among the branches of the Pakistani armed forces. Although specific army and air force units have been identified and vetted, the Pakistani Navy has yet to submit all of the required information, according to the official.

While it hasn’t been reported previously, the Pakistani armed forces have already been supplied with 22 MRAPs — 20 MaxxPro’s along with two “haulers” to move them if damaged — under a now-canceled State Department program known as the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund. The vehicles were drawn out of the U.S. Army’s existing stock in Kuwait.

The fund was axed in the U.S. government’s fiscal 2014 budget.

The State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad have been tying themselves in rhetorical knots over the past week trying to explain the situation over the potential MRAP transfer, all without giving specifics or mentioning the MRAPs already sent to Pakistan or the deal currently in the works.

On March 31, the Islamabad embassy issued a statement confirming that Pakistan has requested “a variety of Excess Defense Articles (EDA). The U.S. is currently reviewing Pakistan’s request.” In what appears to be a nod to the pending deal, the embassy added that “if approved, this EDA is likely to be sourced from U.S. stock outside Afghanistan.”

The State Department weighs EDA requests on a “case-by-case basis taking into consideration a range of factors including the need of potential recipients, regional security dynamics, how the recipient nations intend to use the equipment and the ability of an EDA recipient to sustain the equipment,” the embassy said.
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Suspected Fort Hood shooter dead; situation ongoing

(CNN) -- A suspected shooter at Fort Hood, Texas, is dead, but the situation is still considered an active scene, multiple U.S. officials told CNN on Wednesday.

The Army installation, in an evening statement, said it had an initial report that a shooter was dead, "but this is unconfirmed."

"The injured personnel are being transported to Carl R. Darnall Medical Center and other local hospitals. Numerous law enforcement agencies are in support and on the scene. The number of injured are not confirmed at this time," it said.

Fort Hood's official Twitter feed asked that all personnel on post shelter in place. Sirens were going off.

President Barack Obama has been briefed on the incident and will continue to receive updates, according to a White House press pool report. He was expected to make a statement Wednesday evening. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also was monitoring the situation.

Sheriff's deputies from Bell County and state troopers are assisting by securing the area around the post, according to Bell County Sheriff's Lt. Donnie Adams.

Authorities in the town of Killeen, just outside the gates, are also standing by to help, said Mayor Dan Corbin.

"It is unclear what is going on right now," Corbin said. "We have been in touch with appropriate personnel, we are standing by with our police and ambulances, if needed. We are very concerned. Fort Hood is always there for us and we want to be there for them."

He continued: "They are used to dealing with combat situations, and I'm sure they are very capable of handling this."

Police in nearby Waco advised those on post to stay away from windows and to keep doors closed and locked.

"Injuries are being reported. Be AWARE!! If you are in the Ft. Hood Post area there is an on-going active shooter," the department tweeted.

Deke Jones, with Scott & White Memorial Hospital, told CNN his facility was receiving patients.

"I don't have a number," he said.

On November 5, 2009, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood, killing 13 people and injuring 32.

He shot fellow soldiers at the processing center. Prosecutors maintained that the American-born Muslim underwent a progressive radicalization that led to the massacre at the base.

Hasan allegedly picked that day because it was when the units he was scheduled to deploy with to Afghanistan were scheduled to go through the processing center.

The former Army psychiatrist was convicted of premeditated murder, and a military jury recommended that Hasan be put to death.
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thunderchief

thunderchief

Senior Member
Suspect identified as Spc.Ivan Lopez, apparently it is not terrorist attack (or so they claim) :

At least 4 killed in shooting at Fort Hood; gunman among dead

FORT HOOD, Texas - A soldier opened fire Wednesday at Fort Hood, killing three people and wounding several others before taking his own life, law enforcement sources told CBS News.

The incident occurred Wednesday afternoon at Fort Hood, the site of a notorious 2009 mass shooting.

Law enforcement sources said four people were killed, including the gunman, who died of a self-inflicted wound. Authorities said 11 other people were wounded, some of them seriously.

Sources told CBS News the shooter had been identified as 34-year-old soldier Ivan Lopez. A source said the violence apparently stemmed from some sort of soldier dispute. ....
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Jeff Head

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thunderchief said:
Suspect identified as Spc.Ivan Lopez, apparently it is not terrorist attack (or so they claim) :



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Been following this all night.

At first blush it looks like a mental health issue and we will just see what all the mitigating factors are.

IMHO, they should have armed personnel in each duty section. Make them the Sr. NCO on duty at the time, or two or three and rotate the armed watch within the group. They have to end the idea of the entire base, outside of the MPs, being a free fire zone for whomever goes rogue, for whatever reason.

Hasan is going to get death...and he richly deserves it. He was an abject traitor. This guy did the deed to himself.


Condolonsces and heart felt prayers for the dead, and their family, friends, and loved one.
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
Posted on InsideDefense.com: April 2, 2014

The Navy's unfunded priority list, which was sent to Congress on Tuesday, does not include funding in fiscal year 2015 for the aircraft carrier George Washington's refueling and complex overhaul.

Navy officials had told Inside the Navy that the list, a response to a February request from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA), would include $796 million for the FY-15 portion of the CVN-73 restoration, which includes refueling as well as associated carrier strike group structure costs.

"I have not included specific funding in FY 2015 for the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN-73)'s refueling overhaul," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert wrote in a letter -- dated March 31 -- that accompanied the list, which was obtained by ITN.

Greenert wrote that the decision to refuel or inactive the carrier depends on the "fiscal outlook" in FY-16 and beyond, and whether the Pentagon will be forced to undergo another round of sequestration cuts.

"This unfunded transcends FY 2015 -- it is a Future Year Defense Program (FYDP) requirement. Retaining this aircraft carrier would require $7 billion across our FYDP," Greenert wrote. "Thus the decision to refuel or inactivate CVN 73 is dependent upon the fiscal outlook in FY- 2016 and beyond, and whether we will be forced to return to sequestration levels."

The carrier RCOH and its inclusion in the unfunded priority list has been the subject of discussion for several weeks, a Navy official told ITN. Solely addressing the refueling costs in FY-15 would have handcuffed the Navy to the rest of the refueling bill, the official said.

The list does include $2.1 billion to procure 22 additional EA-18G Growler aircraft, as ITN reported on March 14.

The additional Growlers "would enhance Navy' s ability to support the Joint Tactical Airborne
Electronic Attack (AEA) capability," the list states. "Ongoing analysis by [the Defense Department] and the DoN indicate a larger squadron size is needed to maximize the AEA capabilities and reduce risk in a Joint major contingency operation."

The additional aircraft would allow the Navy to increase the size of its carrier air wing electronic attack squadrons from five to seven aircraft, reducing the warfighting risk in the Joint Force's ability to operate in future complex electromagnetic anti-area access-denial environments, the letter states.

The list also includes $1.1 billion to re-phase the procurement of P-8A Poseidon Maritime Surveillance aircraft. The money would restore eight aircraft to the buy in FY-15, bringing the total purchase to 16. In the Navy's FY-15 budget request, the P-8A buy was cut in half from what was anticipated in the FY-14 budget request.

The Navy would then buy nine aircraft in FY-16, 13 in FY-17, 11 in FY-18 and seven in FY-19, according to the list. The total number of P-8As procured across the FYDP would still be 56.

The Pentagon included funding for an additional eight P-8A aircraft in the Opportunity, Growth and Security Initiative, a separate White House-led spending effort, ITN reported on March 14. These aircraft are needed to meet the Navy's warfighting requirement for the program, Lt. Rob Myers told ITN earlier this month.

The list also includes money to increase activity at depot maintenance facilities to accelerate recovery from sequestration, improve the operational availability of fleet aircraft and enable the Navy to meet the "mandated capital investment of 6 percent across all shipyards and depots," Greenert wrote in the letter.

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U.S. to skip China fleet review after Japan shunned

(Reuters) - The United States is scrapping plans for a Navy ship to join a fleet review in China after key ally, Japan, was not invited, U.S. officials said on Thursday, in a move that came just ahead of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's trip to Japan and China.

The United States had been invited to participate in the fleet review - essentially a parade of ships - as part of activities linked to the Western Pacific Naval Symposium, which is being held this month in Qingdao, an eastern port city.

The United States will still participate in the naval symposium and will observe the review, one official said.

"We're not going to put a ship in the actual parade. We'll observe the parade," the U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding the decision was taken last week and came after a request by ally Japan.

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told a news conference on Friday that Japan would take part in the regularly held naval symposium but confirmed that it had not been invited to the fleet review.

"Japan is responding calmly but it is unfortunate that China took such approach," he said.

The U.S. decision was another sign of troubled Sino-Japanese ties, chilled by a territorial dispute over a group of East China Sea islets.

It also shows the tricky balancing act facing Hagel over the next week as he moves to reassure Tokyo of Washington's commitment to its security while seeking better ties with Beijing. Hagel leaves on Friday on a trip to Japan, China and Mongolia.

China's territorial disputes with its neighbors were front and center for Hagel as he hosted talks in Hawaii with defense ministers from Southeast Asian nations, grappling with assertive Chinese military moves in the South China Sea.

"I told the ministers that the United States is increasingly concerned about the instability arising from the territorial disputes in the South China Sea," Hagel said at a news conference, calling for all sides to avoid resorting to the "threat of force, or intimidation, or coercion."

The U.S. State Department has accused China's coastguard of harassment of Philippine vessels and called its attempt on Saturday to block a Philippine resupply mission to the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed atoll, provocative and destabilizing.

Earlier on Thursday, Daniel Russel, President Barack Obama's diplomatic point man for East Asia, said that while the United States did not take a position on rival territorial claims in East Asia, China should be in no doubt about Washington's resolve to defend its allies if necessary.

Hagel said he would speak candidly and directly with officials from China when he travels to Beijing next week and would encourage "responsible behavior."

"The South China Sea, East China Sea - we have differences there. We talk about those differences," Hagel said as he wrapped up three days of informal talks with ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The ASEAN meeting as well as other steps to enhance the U.S. military's posture in the Asia-Pacific have been viewed suspiciously by Beijing, which is hiking military spending. But Hagel rejected the idea that such moves were to counter China.

"This visit was not a visit to contain China," Hagel said.

"This area represents tremendous opportunities. The three largest economies in the world are here in the Asia-Pacific - China, Japan and the United States."

Hagel said he would encourage China to follow international norms and looked forward to a chance to "sit down, close the door, and talk very clearly and directly to our friends."

"And I consider the Chinese as friends. We have differences. We are competitors. We disagree in areas. But we're certainly not enemies," Hagel said. "We're doing a lot of things together where we can find some common interests."

U.S. President Barack Obama is due to visit Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines from April 22.
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bd popeye

bd popeye

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TOKYO (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered a two-pronged warning to Asia Pacific nations Sunday, announcing that the U.S. will send two additional ballistic missile destroyers to Japan to counter the North Korean threat, and saying China must better respect its neighbors.

In unusually forceful remarks about China, Hagel drew a direct line between Russia's takeover of Ukraine's Crimea region and the ongoing territorial disputes between China, Japan and others over remote islands in the East China Sea.

"I think we're seeing some clear evidence of a lack of respect and intimidation and coercion in Europe today with what the Russians have done with Ukraine," Hagel told reporters after a meeting with Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera. "We must be very careful and we must be very clear, all nations of the world, that in the 21st century this will not stand, you cannot go around the world and redefine boundaries and violate territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations by force, coercion and intimidation whether it's in small islands in the Pacific or large nations in Europe."

Hagel, who will travel to China later this week, called the Asian nation a "great power," and added, "with this power comes new and wider responsibilities as to how you use that power, how you employ that military power."

He said he will talk to the Chinese about having respect for their neighbors, and said, "coercion, intimidation is a very deadly thing that leads only to conflict. All nations, all people deserve respect no matter how large or how small."

Still, he said he looks forward to having an honest, straightforward dialogue with the Chinese to talk about ways the two nations and their militaries can work better together.

The two additional ships would bring the total to seven U.S. ballistic missile defense warships in Japan, and it continues U.S. efforts to increase its focus on the Asia Pacific.

The ships serve as both defensive and offensive weapons. They carry sophisticated systems that can track missile launches, and their SM-3 missiles can zero in on and take out short- to medium-range missiles that might be fired at U.S. or allied nations. They can also carry Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be launched from sea and hit high-value targets or enemy weapons systems from afar, without risking pilots or aircraft.

The ships are just the latest move in America's effort to beef up Japan's defenses. Last October, the U.S. and Japan agreed to broad plans to expand their defense alliance, including the decision to position a second early warning radar there by the end of this year. There is one in northern Japan and the second one would be designed to provide better missile defense coverage in the event of a North Korean attack.
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