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The US Army has contracted General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GAASI) to start full-rate production (FRP) Lot 4 of the MQ-1C Gray Eagle medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

The contract, announced by the Department of Defense (DoD) on 23 June, covers 19 UAVs to be delivered to the army by 30 September 2018. Funds of USD121.35 million have been obligated.

In March, the DoD announced the granting of the Lot 3 production contract, also for 19 UAVs. Valued at USD132.7 million, this contract is due to be completed by 31 May 2017.
Based on the MQ-1 Predator, the Gray Eagle is currently the only MALE-class UAV operated by the US Army. Following its combat experience in Afghanistan, the Gray Eagle is being upgraded with a series of improvements that include a synthetic aperture radar/ground moving target indicator, an air data relay, a heavy fuel engine auto restart, a tactical automatic landing system, fuel jettison capability, datalink encryption, lightning protection, damage tolerance, and a traffic collision avoidance system.

The aircraft's range is set to be increased from 25 to 50 hours under the Improved Gray Eagle (IGE), first flight-tested in October 2013.

The US Army has a programme of record for 167 Gray Eagle aircraft, of which 127 have been delivered to date. One more production contract for 17 aircraft is set to be awarded in fiscal year 2016, with deliveries to be completed in fiscal year 2018.

Under current plans, each division will be equipped with a Gray Eagle company, consisting of a full-spectrum combat aviation brigade of 12 aircraft (or one Gray Eagle system).

FORBIN said:

The US Army has contracted General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GAASI) to start full-rate production (FRP) Lot 4 of the MQ-1C Gray Eagle medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

The contract, announced by the Department of Defense (DoD) on 23 June, covers 19 UAVs to be delivered to the army by 30 September 2018. Funds of USD121.35 million have been obligated.

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Yes, this was initially the MQ-1C Warrior, but was renamed the Gray Eagle when it went into service.

It is another evolution of the Predator which was MQ-1, then MQ-1B.

Here's the MQ-1C Gray Eagle:



General Atomics has been VERY successful with this airframe.

There is the:

MQ-1/B Predator of which about 360 are in service
MQ-1C Gray Eagle of which about 125 are in service
MQ-9 Reaper of which about 105 are in service.

That's about 590 of them in US service, and they are still building.

The Reaper (initially called Predator B) is a slightly larger and more powerful version of the predator.

This is why General Atomics has such great hopes for its Avenger (formerly called Predator C) which is a all new, bigger, faster, jet powered armed UAV.

Jura said:

Brumby, I've had a related discussion with Jeff ("about the number of BMD-capable ships needed") recently ... I don't want to quote Jeff here so you can look at my question(s)
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/us-military-news-thread.t1547/page-390#post-336354
(sorry if it's out of your interest)

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Let's put the issue in perspective. The original plan was for the existing 62 Burkes to get to Baseline 9 but funding for the 28 Flight I and II upgrade has been reduced to 2. This in effect means only 36 will be BMD capable (not counting new Burkes). Whether it is enough is subject to assumption of whether threat is from a rouge state or a near peer adversary.

Brumby said:

Let's put the issue in perspective. The original plan was for the existing 62 Burkes to get to Baseline 9 but funding for the 28 Flight I and II upgrade has been reduced to 2. This in effect means only 36 will be BMD capable (not counting new Burkes). Whether it is enough is subject to assumption of whether threat is from a rouge state or a near peer adversary.

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Yes...but the 63rd is already in the water, and nine more IIAs are to be built.

This means 46 BMD capable IIA vessels.

Then will come the Burke IIIs, which I presume will all be BMD capable, and there will be probably at least 20 of those.

So, it will take another 15 years, but at the end of that time there will be 66 BMD capable vessels.

Jeff Head said:

Yes...but the 63rd is already in the water, and nine more IIAs are to be built.

This means 46 BMD capable IIA vessels.

Then will come the Burke IIIs, which I presume will all be BMD capable, and there will be probably at least 20 of those.

So, it will take another 15 years, but at the end of that time there will be 66 BMD capable vessels.

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Unfortunately the numbers are expected to be insufficient to fight a high end conflict as per article which caught my attention a couple of months ago.

Additionally, short-term budget decisions made by the Navy to trim spending over the next five years will leave a significant portion of its destroyer fleet less capable than initially planned. Planned upgrades that would allow destroyers to fight ballistic missiles and aircraft at the same time have been scaled back in some cases, requiring two less capable ships to do the mission of one upgraded destroyer.

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For the U.S. Navy, the expansion of the global guided cruise missile capability has rendered key assumptions of the Fiscal Year 2012 force structure assessment (FSA) unrealistic — particularly around the numbers service’s fleet of guided missile cruisers and destroyers (CRUDES), USNI News has learned.

The FSA called for a total of 88 large surface combatants — the Navy’s generic reference to its CRUDES forces. In the event of a major high-end military conflict, the FSA theorized that number of large surface combatants would be adequate to provide long-range land strike and protection of high-value assets, like a nuclear carrier or a three-ship amphibious ready group (ARG), while at the same time leaving enough margin to handle other contingencies around the world.

Those assumptions were based on assigning five large surface combatants to each carrier strike group (CSG).

Those ships would be responsible for finding enemy submarines, tracking enemy surface ships, handling the air warfare protection for the carrier and tracking and destroying enemy ballistic missile threats.

However, with the plethora of new threats, the Navy is quietly mounting a new examination into the requirement for large surface combatants as part of the budget process for Fiscal Year 2017 — currently through a series of wargames.

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Brumby said:

Unfortunately the numbers are expected to be insufficient to fight a high end conflict as per article which caught my attention a couple of months ago.

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Brumby, right now we have 62 active (with 63 in the water and three more under construction) AEGIS DDGs. We also have 22 AEGIS CGs.

Right now there are 85 of the large surface combatants vessels in the water, with three building. That is the 88.

That is not, and will not be insufficient.

With the three building, it will meet the force totaal goal of 88. They will actually go higher over the next several years as more Burkes are built...up until the time they start decommissioning Ticos, and later, the intitial Burkes.

They never intended, to my knowledge, to have 100% of the fleet BMD capable.

They will have more than enough to have five such vessels per CBG. There will be eleven CBGs. At any one time, a maximum of eight...possibly nine, could be deployed, which would require 45 such vessels to be available. Even if all eleven were to be deployed (which with maintenance and RCOHs is not possible) that would require 55. We currently have 85 and more are building.

I went through the most recent posts here and it seems to me the "cornerstone" is:

Jeff Head said:

...

They will have more than enough to have five such vessels per CBG. ...

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as the article Brumby has quoted suggests "...
an potential expansion of the CSG from five guided missile ships to seven or eight.

The reason is, the Navy’s 2012 assumptions for a high-end war in the Western Pacific were based on a smaller numbers of less capable cruise weapons and ballistic missiles coming from fewer launching sites.

Those assumptions gave the CSG a narrower band in which it had to defend against attacks.

But as more and more-lethal guided weapons are becoming available globally, as well as platforms that could deploy them, the threat axis expands further around the strike group and requires more sensors and weapons to counter the missile threats — now not just from enemy installations on shore or fighters, but also from high speed guided weapons from surface ships and submarines ...

In addition, decisions to leave the two emerging Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) variants without a significant AAW capability also stresses the cruiser and destroyer fleets, since the LCS could not then help protect non-combatant ships like oilers and logistics ships in an escort role ..."

Jeff Head said:

Right now there are 85 of the large surface combatants vessels in the water, with three building. That is the 88.

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Assuming the baseline is 88 and taking account that each CBG requires 5 that basically results in :
CBG protection (11 X 5) = 55
Others = 33
Total = 88

With the increased threats, there are suggestions that a CBG might require 7-8 vessels for protection. This means an additional 22 or 33 vessels i.e. 110 to 121 compared to original baseline of 88. If you take the Battle Force table below and the projection, the number of vessels will peak in 2028 at 100.



The shortfall does not take into consideration the constant changing plans going on between the USN and Congress regarding the Tico's.

Jura said:

In addition, decisions to leave the two emerging Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) variants without a significant AAW capability also stresses the cruiser and destroyer fleets, since the LCS could not then help protect non-combatant ships like oilers and logistics ships in an escort role ..."

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Yep but the 20 last better armed with SSM and ESSM, the 32 first for missions less dangerous but all are decent ASW ships with eventually 2 MH-60R ofc have a towed sonar is better for hunt the submarines.

Brumby said:

Assuming the baseline is 88 and taking account that each CBG requires 5 that basically results in :
CBG protection (11 X 5) = 55
Others = 33
Total = 88

With the increased threats, there are suggestions that a CBG might require 7-8 vessels for protection. This means an additional 22 or 33 vessels i.e. 110 to 121 compared to original baseline of 88. If you take the Battle Force table below and the projection, the number of vessels will peak in 2028 at 100.

View attachment 15105
.

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At the height of the Cold War, the US did not have 7-8 missile shooters with each CBG. At that time the threat of regiments of Backfire and Bear bombers attacking a single CBG with very effective supersonic anti-shipping missiles was real, and AEGIS was far inferior at the time.

Having five AEGIS missile shooters per CBG is going to be a strong anti-air defense. Probably two CGs and 3 DDGs. My guess is they will add 2 x SSCs for ASW duties if necessary to build up the CBG at a future date...which would allow the missile shooters to maximize the air coverage on the various threat axis.

As to those SSC...it is becoming more and more clear that they simply have to have a 16 cell VLS that can have ESSMs loaded. I expect ultimately that this will not only be realized (because it already is obvious) but acted upon. This would be far cheaper and more cost effective than building a total of 120 large surface combatants. Those SSC could them provide the AAW coverage for transports and other types of task forces that stand into a lesser threat vulnerability.

And again, your numbers for the totals are not accurate in terms of realistic scenariois. At full surge, the US will be able to send eight...possibly nine CBG to sea. That keeps the numbers required for availability of the missile shooters at 40-45.

In the end, I expect once all of the IIA Burkes are built followed by all of the Flight III Burkes, the US will approach 100 total large surface combatants. But that will depend on the future conditions.

Right now, I am positive that 88 will be maintained.

As it is, this more detailed description of CBG defense is OFF Topic here. If it continues I will need to move it to another thread.