US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

A synthetically guided Tomahawk cruise missile successfully hit its first moving maritime target Jan. 27 after being launched from the USS Kidd (DDG-100) near San Nicolas Island in California. The Tomahawk Block IV flight test demonstrated guidance capability when the missile in flight altered its course toward the moving target after receiving position updates from surveillance aircraft.

“This is a significant accomplishment,” said Capt. Joe Mauser, Tomahawk Weapons System (PMA-280) program manager. "It demonstrates the viability of long-range communications for position updates of moving targets. This success further demonstrates the existing capability of Tomahawk as a netted weapon, and in doing so, extends its reach beyond fixed and re-locatable points to moving targets.”

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Brumby said:

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USN comes up with a new plan to layup the Trico cruisers. The USN has this obsession of laying up perfectly capable vessels before the end of their useful on the back of some dubious cost savings plan that just doesn't add up as credible. In the previous episode with USS Port Royal, Congress queried the rationale and the repair numbers which were subsequently proven to be overinflated.

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The piece that doesn't make sense is that the SELP only cost about $200 million each to extend their useful life by about 15 years but somehow the Navy doesn't have the money to execute such a plan but instead is happy to spend $1.4 to $1.7 billion for a new Burke.

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navyreco said:

US Navy test shows Tomahawk cruise missile with synthetic guidance can hit moving targets at sea

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Brumby said:

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USN comes up with a new plan to layup the Trico cruisers. The USN has this obsession of laying up perfectly capable vessels before the end of their useful on the back of some dubious cost savings plan that just doesn't add up as credible.

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Northrop to design clean-sheet T-X trainer for USAF
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WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flightglobal.com
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Northrop

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has opted to design a brand new aircraft for the US Air Force’s T-X trainer programme rather than a modified version of the BAE Systems Hawk it had planned to pitch.

Northrop has delegated the design work to

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subsidiary, which is responsible for revolutionary aerospace innovations like the

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commercial space ship. Development of the new aircraft is apparently well along. Northrop says it will fly by the end of 2015.

“The Hawk is a tremendous airplane,” says Northrop spokesman Bryce McDevitt. “However we decided as a team to offer a new design as the US Air Force continued to mature their requirements.”

“The aircraft has been purpose designed for the Air Force” using advanced design and prototyping techniques, he says.

In July, Northrop took lead in offering an advanced version of BAE’s Hawk 128/T2 flown by the UK

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.

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and L-3 Link Simulation and training also were on board for that effort. Those relationships are not necessarily severed as a result of Northop’s unilateral move, McDevitt says. Discussions are ongoing as to whether BAE will provide the training system for the Scaled Composites-designed aircraft. L-3 will supply the ground-based training system.

“We are currently in discussion with BAE about putting their training system onto our aircraft,” McDevitt says. “BAE remains a strategic partner, as does L-3.”

T-X will replace the Northrop T-38C Talon, which the air force says will be insufficient to train pilots for fifth-generation aircraft like the Lockheed

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and

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. The T-38 entered service in 1961 and the airframes average 45 years old, the air force says.

The air force laid out a funding schedule for the advanced trainer replacement programme in its 2016 budget submission to Congress. The spending plan sets aside $11.4 million in fiscal 2016, then rises to $12 million in FY2017, $107 million in FY2018, $262 million in 2019 and $275 million in 2020.

A request for proposals is expected by the end of FY2016 with a milestone B engineering and manufacturing development contract award by fiscal 2018, according to air force budget documents.

The air force plans to buy up to 350 T-X trainers. Northrop’s move widens the already crowded field of contenders by at least one, depending on whether BAE decides to go it alone with Hawk.

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and Alenia

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are promoting a ‘T-100’ version of the latter’s M-346, while

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is offering the T-50 developed jointly with Korea Aerospace Industries.

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and Saab are teamed on an all-new trainer design.

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Marine officials mum on moving Ospreys to Iraq
By Hope Hodge Seck, Staff writer1:41 p.m. EST February 6, 2015

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Marine leaders are staying tight-lipped on the reported possibility of basing MV-22B Osprey aircraft in northern Iraq to assist with search and rescue capabilities in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.

U.S. defense officials on Friday announced plans to move more troops and aircraft into Iraq for the purpose of search and rescue.

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The move comes after a Jordanian pilot was captured and brutally executed by the Islamic State Group. The United Arab Emirates stopped air strikes over Syria in the wake of the pilot's capture.

Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Central Command, a 2,500 strong element of Marines operating in Iraq and around the Middle East, is the rumored option to provide aircraft for search-and-rescue missions for Operation Inherent Resolve. The unit includes a squadron of Ospreys, now based in Kuwait, that were tasked late last year to lead tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel (TRAP) missions for the entire U.S. Central Command theater of operations.

In a Feb. 5 interview with Marine Corps Times, Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford confirmed that mission set, but declined to describe current operations.

"Anything that we would do for TRAP in CENTCOM is part of the special purpose MAGTF that is there. So they have a squadron of V-22s, those are all available to the combatant commander," Dunford said. "What I can't tell you now is how many of those they said they want to preposition somewhere else."

Dunford added that the V-22 was a natural fit for the TRAP mission given its "speed, payload and range" — far exceeding that of many traditional rotor aircraft.

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Spokesmen for Marine Corps Central Command and for SP-MAGTF-CR-CC did not respond to Marine Corps Times inquiries about the reports.

One apparent sticking point in the decision to forward base search and rescue aircraft in Iraq has to do with the need to move in enough personnel to conduct maintenance and the logistics associated with upkeep. Multiple outlets quoted a U.S. defense official who cited "considerations other than flying distance" that played into decision-making. It's not clear how many personnel are part of the planned move.

The

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that the U.S. had initially considering moving V-22s into Turkey, but had received pushback from the country's government.

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US army seeks upgrades for Hellfire missile guidance system
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Source: Flightglobal.com
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The US Army has launched the bidding phase of a decade-old programme to replace the

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AGM-114 Hellfire missile with a new weapon featuring a dual-mode guidance system.

A request for proposals released on 2 February for the joint air-to-ground missile (JAGM) contract gives potential competitors Lockheed and Raytheon up to 60 days to submit bids to the army. The navy also plans to integrate JAGM onto the Marine Corps' Bell AH-1Z attack helicopters.

The programme seeks an upgrade to the guidance section of the Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire missile’s backend, which is comprised of the motor, warhead and associated electronics. Lockheed has committed to offering a dual-mode seeker, while Raytheon has not yet committed to competing for the contract.

"If we bid, we will offer a tri-mode seeker based on the hardware being proven today in small diameter bomb II (SBD) engineering, manufacturing and development," says Raytheon spokesman John Patterson.

Lockheed has courted the JAGM contract for a decade without the army biting on any of its proposals. Still the company has continued development of a JAGM offering it plans to propose in response to the recent RFP, says Frank St. John, vice-president of tactical missiles and combat manoeuvre systems.

Upgrades to the Hellfire’s seeker include an improved semi-active laser sensor for precision-strike and a fire-and-forget millimeter wave radar for moving targets in all-weather conditions, Lockheed says. Raytheon would offer a seeker that includes imaging infrared as a third sensor mode.

JAGM began in 2003 as the joint common missile (JCM). Raytheon, Lockheed and a

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/Northrop

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team vied for the contract to produce 77,000 JCMs that would have replaced the Raytheon AGM-65 Maverick and Hellfire.

The JCM programme was expected to undergo a four-year system development and demonstration phase beginning with a 2004 contract award to Lockheed Martin, but came to nothing. The army formally canceled JCM in 2007. Lockheed was subsequently awarded a continued technology development contract in 2012 to complete design, test and demonstration of its JAGM guidance section. That contract was renewed in 2013.

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asif iqbal said:

That's not always true

Older ships are very expensive to run and if they are being used for high mileage which they are then replacing them is cheaper over the lifetime of the unit

For example spares, running cost, crew survivability and new technology's all play a key role

Tico are very expensive to run and a new class Burke Flight III is a much more efficient platform so it does make sense to replace them

It's like me having a old car doing 25 mpg and a new one which does 50 mpg and if I'm doing 5,000 miles per month then after 5 years the new car will have paid for itself plus I will have a new car less chance of breakdowns and downtime and at the end of the day the car market will provide jobs too for people who build the car

So at the end of the day new platform is a new platform

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Jeff Head said:

This administration in particular continues to try and "save costs," on the back of perfectly good systems.

But it is not limited to them. The decommissioning of the Spruance class is another good example which was done as a part of the post Soviet Union "peace dividend," where numerous excellent platforms, particularly for ASW, were simply put away and most of them ended up as SINKEX exercises.

Having 22 Ticos, with the software and other upgrades available is a critical component of maintaining the depth necessary to assure not only CSG coverage, but other vital TFs as well. IMHO, they should do a SLEP on all 22 of them. At $200 million a piece, that would end up keeping 22 very critical vessels available for an additional 15 years for $4.4 billion, at the cost of delaying 3-4 Burkes. Keeping 22 Ticos vs. delaying 3-4 Burkes is an excellent tradeoff.

Currently, the existing House and Senate are questioning and holding up many such proposals of this administration.

A lot of this type of thing...which leans towards what we have seen in other nations over the last 20 years (ie. the UK, Italy, France, and others) where reducing numbers and relying almost solely on a perceived technological edge that is extrapolated from experiences of the last 3-4 decades where potential OPFOR capabilities reduced, is going to be decided for the US in the 2016 election.

It is very possible that an administration will come in that is closer to the existing majorities in the House and the Senate...in which case I would expect to see a lot of these tendencies to be pushed out the back door.

If, OTOH, an administration more closely aligned with the existing one is elected, I expect to see such tendencies and desires to continue with their appointed officials in the Defense Department and the various branches as we see now...albeit held up by the Congress.

Time will tell. But with the trend now for potential OPFOR capabilities to be increasing, I, of course am hoping for the former...meaning a change more aligned with the existing majorities in the House and Senate.

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asif iqbal said:

...

It's like me having a old car doing ...

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