US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jeff Head said:

This is ridiculous reporting, and less than candid comments by the political appointees..

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Brumby said:

I believe the article itself is rather dated. It is close to seven years old and if the contents are read today it looks to be out of place.

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A weeklong summit on the close-air support (CAS) mission did not lead to any major decisions about a next-generation replacement for the A-10, the head of Air Combat Command told reporters March 6.

However, the service will continue to look into options for what Gen. Hawk Carlisle referred to as an "A-X" system, including the possibility of choosing an existing plane like the Textron Scorpion jet to fill gaps in the "low-end" CAS realm.

"There wasn't anything definitive, other than we will continue to think about it and plan for it and see what that would look like," Carlisle said.

Carlisle first brought up the potential for a new, CAS specific follow-on to the A-10 last month at the Air Force Association's annual conference in Orlando, Florida.

The Air Force is attempting to retire the A-10 as a cost-saving measure, something that has launched vociferous opposition from both the CAS community and members of Congress. Part of the argument the service is trying to make is that the CAS mission will be performed more and more by the F-35 joint strike fighter.

Because the F-35 is still coming online, Carlisle indicated an A-X design is not coming anytime soon.

Asked whether an A-10 follow-on could come in the next decade, Carlisle said: "I don't know. There are other initiatives out there. I just don't think we're that far yet. I don't think we know."

And because the world environment is so fluid, he noted that designing a new system now could lead to future gaps.

"The F-35, as we are getting later models, will be the primary CAS platform in a very dangerous, highly contested environment, but we don't know what is going to happen next," Carlisle said. "We may need more capacity at the low end… there may be an inflection point where we have to get greater capacity at lower cost. So that may be the next platform."

One option would be to look at lower-end jets that are currently available on the market for CAS in lightly-contested environments, much like the A-10 has been operating in over Afghanistan and Iraq.

Asked about Textron's new Scorpion jet as a potential fill-in for that role, Carlisle replied: "It could. It could."

"That's not something that's outside the realm," he said. "It may be. We have gone out and looked at other platforms to see if they could meet the low-end CAS capacity at a reasonable cost-per-flying-hour, and we've looked at it and done some research. We're keeping our eyes open."

The Scorpion, unveiled in Sept. 2013, has drawn positive reviews from the aviation world, but has yet to land a launch customer. Textron officials have made no secret of a desire to land the US Air Force in some capacity, pushing hard to fill requirements for the Air National Guard and offering up a variation of the Scorpion jet for the T-X trainer competition.

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Jura said:

CAS news:
Carlisle: No Decisions on A-10 Follow On

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The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt will leave Virginia on Monday in a voyage that will eventually bring the nuclear flattop to its new home in San Diego.

The Roosevelt’s departure is the first move in a three-part maneuver that will take the San Diego-based carrier Ronald Reagan to Japan and the flattop George Washington, now based in Japan, to a shipyard in Virginia.

The Roosevelt sails with four other ships for a standard at least six-month deployment to the Arabian and Mediterranean seas.

At the end of that tour, in late fall, the carrier will come to San Diego as its new home port.

The Reagan, nearing the end of a maintenance period, is expected to leave San Diego in late summer.

The George Washington is scheduled to leave its home of Yokosuka, Japan, headed for San Diego in late summer. By late fall, it should arrive at Newport News, Va., where it will undergo a roughly five-year refueling process for its nuclear power plant.

Making Navy history, a large group of Reagan sailors will serve on all three carriers in the coming year. They’ll take ownership of the George Washington for what’s been described as a “short cruise,” then switch to the Roosevelt.

Some wags on the San Diego carrier have created a logo for the occasion, calling the group the “Three Presidents Crew.”

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The

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received the largest boost of any of the services in the Pentagon's 2016 budget proposal announced Monday as the Navy looks to buy two new

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, refuel the George Washington aircraft carrier and offer increased sea pay to its sailors, amongst other initiatives.

The Navy's 2016 budget request asks for $10 billion more than last year to

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for increases in shipbuilding, research, operations and maintenance, readiness and personnel. Overall, the Navy's budget proposal is $160.9 billion.

"Across the full scope of the request there was a strong focus on innovation and reform," said Adm. William Lescher, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Budget.

Sailors would receive an across the board 1.3 percent pay raise like the rest of the U.S. military under the proposed budget as well as extra money for increases in sea pay, critical skills pay and hardship duty pay for sailors on extended deployments.

Alongside the increased funding for Navy and

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personnel -- which jumped from $43 billion to $46 billion this year, the Navy budget also includes an increase in operation and maintenance funds.

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Jura said:

CAS news:
Carlisle: No Decisions on A-10 Follow On

source:

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The Air Force plans to set up new squadrons of F-15Es and F-16s with a specific focus on close air support for ground troops — a role now primarily done by the A-10 that the Air Force wants to retire.

Gen. Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, briefed reporters on the plan Friday, following a week-long Pentagon summit of top Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy leaders on the future of the close air support.


While key lawmakers oppose the service's plan to retire the A-10 fleet, and service officials maintain the Air Force will be able to fly support to ground troops using its other aircraft.

"We will always do close air support," Carlisle said. "We have always been committed to it."

A-10 pilots train extensively on close air support and work with joint terminal attack controllers, who direct combat aircraft involved in close air support. and the service needs to work to "maintain the culture," Carlisle said.

"We want to take those aviators, and have designated, predominantly close air support squadrons in F-15s and F-16s," Carlisle said.

The knowledge base is already moving to other aircraft, Carlisle said. So far, one third of F-35 pilots at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, came from the A-10

There is no timeline for squadrons, but it is one of several steps that Air Combat Command is tasked with following this week's summit, which focused on how the mission will evolve if the Air Force is allowed to retire the A-10 and how capability gaps will be addressed in future conflicts.

The command will set up a "close air support integration group" to focus on training and integration with other services. The group, expected to form at Nellis, will include aircraft, possibly 12 F-16s, and representatives from special operations, the Army and Marine Corps, to operate together with "the intent on continuing to get better at the close air support mission set."

One shortfall that the service needs to address is the undermanned and stressed career field of tactical air control party airmen, the enlisted specialists who call in airstrikes while embedded with Army and Marine units. The service does not have enough airmen certified as joint terminal attack controllers, and with the high deploy-dwell ratio, "it's hard to get the right training," Carlisle said.

To address this, the service is exploring using contracted pilots to train with joint terminal attack controllers to keep them certified and current. The service could also use contractor aircraft, but Air Force pilots, to help both aviators and ground airmen stay trained.

The meeting this week included Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford, Navy staff director Vice Adm. Scott Swift, and Gen. Frank Grass, the head of the National Guard Bureau. Air Force leadersrepeatedly said the meeting had been in planning for a while and does not directly relate to the pressure the service faces from congressional leadership about the push to retire the A-10.

The Air Force wants to keep flying the Warthog as long as it can, as long as it has the funding, but the service will need to move on, Carlisle said.

"There's only so much you can get out of that airplane," Carlisle said. "Those airplanes are gonna wear out. They've been worked very, very hard. They've done incredible things for us. But eventually that platform is going to age out."

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