US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

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Naval Today said:

The guided-missile destroyer USS Bulkeley (DDG 84) flexed its self-defense capabilities against four simulated fast inshore attack craft during composite training unit exercise (COMPTUEX), Sept. 2.

Bulkeley’s crew, the “Wolfpack”, led by Commanding Officer Cmdr. Jesse Espe, is underway for a monthlong composite training unit exercise consisting of various training events based on real-world situations that deployed units may encounter.

During the training, three high speed maneuverable surface targets repeatedly sped inbound toward Bulkeley, trying to provoke an incident.

Following the probing exercise, two training evaluators on jet skis approached Bulkeley at a high rate of speed, brandishing simulated weapons. Bulkeley’s small caliber action team simulated warning shots. When this proved ineffective, Bulkeley simulated engaging the targets, neutralizing them.

Having completed the training evolution, Bulkeley continued the monthlong exercise.

For Bulkeley, this is the final milestone training event prior to its scheduled deployment this fall with the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group.

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Naval Today said:

The USS Carney (DDG 64) departed her homeport of Mayport, Florida, Sept. 6 on her way to Rota, Spain, as the final of four Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers to be forward deployed to Spain.

To enhance the security of the European region, Carney will join USS Donald Cook (DDG 75), USS Ross (DDG 71), and USS Porter (DDG 78) who have already made the transition to Spain.

These multi-mission ships perform a myriad of tasks including NATO missile defense, the full spectrum of maritime security operations, bi-lateral and multi-lateral training exercises, and other NATO operations and deployments.

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Chief of US Naval Research said:

They’re using it every single day. Sailors — not contractors or engineers — perform basic maintenance, training on the Xbox-style controls, destroying practice targets such as drones, and sensors on suspicious ships and aircraft, and using the laser’s sophisticated optics as a sort of super-telescope.

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Jura said:

... the story goes on with
Bidders Submit Designs for New U.S. Air Force Bomber
...

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It was the question of the day: Mr. Secretary, can you elaborate on the

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?

The Pentagon plans to buy 80 to 100 of the

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— most details of which remain classified.

A Boeing employee asked the question after a short speech by

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here to prime the pump of the

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well that senior Pentagon leaders bemoan is increasingly dry. Boeing leads one of two teams competing quietly but furiously to win

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for a while. But the final decision as to whether the Boeing-Lockheed team or Northrop Grumman — the incumbent by dint of its work on the B-2 — is

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.

“Thats something we didn’t talk about today,” Carter said, noting that he did not want to tilt the competition one way or another.

But Carter, who lunched with young tech high fliers at a DARPA conference after leaving Boeing’s Phantom Works, was briefed through the morning by Boeing employees on a range of black and white programs other than the bomber.

Carter is here to continue pressing his effort to encourage high tech firms, most of whom don’t do business with the Defense Department, to work more closely with the Pentagon and help the US military maintain its technological edge. The

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?” — is being held explicitly to attract non-traditional defense innovators to consider working with the military

A senior defense official told us that roughly half of the 1,500 registered attendees are people who

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.

After being greeted with a wave of woo hoos and a standing ovation (something that defense secretaries rarely attract outside of a military base), Secretary Carter delivered his keynote speech to the conference, noting that he came here in hopes of encouraging them. Innovation, he told them, is “happening in traditional defense companies like the one here in St. Louis, Boeing, that I visited today. And in some areas of technology, it’s happening most quickly in commercial start-ups and in non-defense companies. DoD has to tap into that stream of

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, and it has to do so much more quickly – that’s why a conference like this one is so important to the Defense Department.”

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Naval Today said:

The guided missile destroyer USS Russell (DDG 59) is scheduled to depart Naval Base San Diego, Sept. 9 on an independent deployment to the Western Pacific Ocean and Middle East.

Prior to proceeding on deployment Russell will participate in an independent deployer certification exercise (IDCERTEX). The exercise provides a multi-ship environment to train and certify independent deployers in surface warfare, air defense, maritime interception operations, command and control/information warfare, command, control, computers and combat systems intelligence, and mine warfare.

While deployed to the U.S. 5th and 7th Fleet areas of operations, the ship and crew of more than 300 Sailors, assigned to Destroyer Squadron Two Three (DESRON 23), will conduct presence operations and goodwill activities with partner nations.

Russell is a multi-mission ship with anti-air warfare, anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare surface combatant capabilities; designed to operate independently or with an associated strike group.

The ship is homeported in San Diego and is part of Naval Surface Forces and U.S. 3rd Fleet.

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The Aviationist said:

On Sept. 7, the first

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, made its very first flight from Cameri airbase.

The aircraft, designated AL-1, is the first of eight aircraft currently being assembled at the

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, in northwestern Italy. The FACO will assemble F-35As and

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s for the Italian Air Force and Navy, and build F-35As for the

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.

The 5th generation multirole aircraft was given the low-visibility roundel and markings of the Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force), as well as the 32° Stormo (Wing) emblem and code “32-01.”

During the flight, that lasted about 1,5 hours, the F-35A was escorted by a

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.

The first F-35A is expected to be delivered to the Italian Air Force by the end of the year.

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Grunt life: Marines dish on the Corps' women in combat experiment
By Hope Hodge Seck, Staff writer10:42 a.m. EDT September 7, 2015

Lance Cpl. Callahan Brown kept losing her tentmates.

The 20-year-old Marine had spent months in co-ed training at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, before moving west to Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, for a series of combat assessments in grimy field conditions — the closest any female Marine has been permitted to get to infantry life and training.

She watched as the number of women involved in the experiment dwindled by the day.

"I was stressing out because all my girlfriends started getting hurt," Brown told Marine Corps Times. "They're all getting this common injury from hips. I was waiting to feel something in my hips and I never did."

Brown was one of just two women left standing in the pair of infantry-trained rifleman platoons at the end of the nine-month-long experiment, she and other members of her unit said. Most of the other women in those two platoons had been dropped or temporarily sidelined with light duty due to injury.

Lance Cpl. Callahan Brown talks with a fellow Marine with the Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Force after an infantry assessment at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif. Brown was one of two female Marines with infantry platoons who remained at the end of the months-long experiment. (Photo: Mike Morones/Staff)


While Marine officials declined to provide any figures on the makeup of the units, it has been reported that there were roughly two dozen women in the infantry company when the task force activated.

Marine officials are expected to make data and findings collected from the task force experiment public in coming weeks. Ahead of official results, however, male and female participants told Marine Corps Times that only a small number of female volunteers proved capable of taking on the more physically demanding combat jobs. And some volunteers reported perceived unequal treatment that broke down unit cohesion and fostered resentment between male and female counterparts.

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"The Marines created a battalion of 100 female and 300 male volunteers. During the past year, they trained in North Carolina and California, taking part in realistic combat exercises.

"All-male squads, the study found, performed better than mixed gender units across the board. The males were more accurate hitting targets, faster at climbing over obstacles, better at avoiding injuries.

"The Marine study says its main focus is maximum combat effectiveness, because it means fewer casualties. The Marines have not said whether the study's results will lead them to ask for a waiver that bars women from ground combat jobs.

"Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he hopes to open all combat jobs to women."

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