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Carrier Strike Group Returns from Unusual Deployment: No Middle East Ops

The return of the USS John C. Stennis carrier strike group (CSG) this week to ports on the U.S. West Coast was like any other of dozens of other carrier deployments from the United States in recent decades, except for one thing: the CSG had not deployed to the Middle East in support of U.S. Central Command. And unlike the vast majority of deployments since 9/11, it did not launch aircraft into combat.

The Stennis CSG deployed on Jan. 15 and operated in the Western Pacific — including 60 days in the South China Sea, according to an Aug. 10 Navy release — Indian Ocean and the eastern Pacific, participating in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise off Hawaii.

During the Vietnam War, every West Coast carrier and some East Coast carriers deployed to the Tonkin Gulf for combat operations with the Seventh Fleet. Others deployed to the Mediterranean Sea for operations with the U.S. Sixth Fleet. The pattern began to shift when Iranian revolutionaries seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Carrier deployments to the North Arabian Sea and later the Persian Gulf became routine and eventually the major portion of a carrier’s deployment.

Carrier aircraft flew combat operations against Iranian vessels in Operation Praying Mantis in 1988. Operation Desert Storm in 1991 brought carriers into combat operations launched from the Persian Gulf. Carriers flew missions over Iraq in the decade of Operation Southern Watch and on occasion flew strikes there, as in 1998’s Operation Desert Fox. With 9/11 came Operation Enduring Freedom with carrier strikes in Afghanistan and strikes in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Those operations have been succeeded by others that have required often required carrier strikes, including the current Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria.

For the carrier forward-deployed to Japan, however, the pattern has differed for almost two decades. Since the late 1990s, the Japan-based carrier has rarely ventured away from the Western Pacific, once to support Operation Enduring Freedom’s launch of special operations forces into Afghanistan. The tethering of a carrier to the Western Pacific, currently USS Ronald Reagan, reflects the U.S. commitment to protect U.S. and allied interests in the region.

With the shift in national defense strategy to the re-emphasize the Asia-Pacific region, and with the tensions with China over its construction of bases on shoals in the South China Sea, deployments like the one John C. Stennis just completed may become more frequent. Ronald Reagan cannot be at sea 365 days per year.

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Jura said:

Jul 20, 2016

now More Problems Ahead for Long-Delayed KC-46 Refueler

source:

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After more than a decade of missteps by the Pentagon, the Air Force and

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, the airborne tanker program today took a major step forward as the KC-46 passed Milestone C.

“

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is ready to take the next step,” Gen. Dave Goldfein, Air Force Chief of Staff, says in a statement announcing the approval of Low Rate Initial Production. “Our Air Force and Boeing team stepped up to meet the recent challenges.”

This means the first two Low Rate Initial Production lots for 19 planes will be announced within the next 30 days. The deal, including parts, is worth $2.8 billion. Some 18 planes are set for delivery by early 2018.

“The KC-46 program has made significant strides in moving the Air Force toward the modernization needed in our strategic tanker fleet,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James says in a statement.

Boeing had to refuel an F-16, C-17, and A-10 using the boom, and and a Harrier and F/A-18 using both the hose and drogue systems. The KC-46 also got refueled by a KC-10.

After a host of problems, the tanker most recently had trouble refueling C-17s because of high axial loads. Just before the Farnborough Air Show, Boeing installed hydraulic pressure relief valves to lighten the pressure. Test proved the system worked and Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics OK’d Milestone C after reviewing all the data.

Next up? Federal Aviation Administration and military certification flight testing.

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Jura said:

Jun 1, 2016

(the sentence I put in boldface back then:
"What many may have forgotten is that Boeing won the deeply troubled tanker competition because it offered a lower price and promised that technical risk was low, so cost overruns and schedule delays were unlikely.")

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KC-46 Tanker Cleared for Production

The KC-46A Pegasus tanker has been cleared for production, a major step forward for the Boeing-led design.

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s acquisition head, declared the program has successfully cleared Milestone C review late Friday.

Those tests were delayed, however, after the discovery that the KC-46 boom struggled to deliver fuel to heavier aircraft such as the C-17. While Boeing was able to design a bypass to help better regulate the fuel flow, that problem contributed to a delay that pushed a Milestone C decision from June to August, and the delivery of the first 18 certified tankers to the Air Force from August 2017 to January 2018.

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Aegis Ashore Poland Installation Contract Awarded to Lockheed Martin

The Missile Defense Agency has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to install the Navy’s Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System (AAMDS) at the service’s second land-based site in Europe.

The Aug. 9 contract, valued at $36.4 million, calls for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training to install, integrate and test the Aegis Ashore system in a deckhouse and deckhouse support building at the AAMDS site being built in Redzikowo, Poland. Many of the system components currently are under production. The work is expected to be completed by December 2018.
Ground was broken May 13 for the site — which will become a Naval Support Activity and the second AAMDS — the day after the first site, the Naval Support Facility Deveselu, Romania, received its operational certification and formally was declared operational.

The AAMDS site being built in Poland is Phase III of the Phased Adaptive Approach initiative to provide an umbrella of missile defense for Europe. It will feature Aegis BMD 5.1 software and the Raytheon-built Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block 1B and IIA missiles. The site in Romania, which is Phase II, features Aegis BMD 5.0 software and is armed with SM-3 Block IB missiles.

The Aegis Ashore structures are equipped with the same phased-array SPY-1 radars and Aegis Combat Systems as are installed on many of the Navy’s guided-missile destroyers.

“We’re working alongside our Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy partners so Sailors who protect the U.S. and its allies have the most advanced defense system available to address evolving ballistic missile threats,” Brendan Scanlon, director, Lockheed Martin Aegis Ashore programs, said in an Aug. 10 release. “We are proud to extend the shield of Aegis to another site ashore.”

Phase 1 of the Phased Adaptive Approach was the deployment of four Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers to Rota, Spain, for rotational patrols in the Mediterranean. These ships also are capable of anti-submarine, anti-surface and anti-air warfare missions.

Lockheed Martin “is building on the lessons learned from the successes of Aegis Ashore,” a company spokeswoman said in the release. “For example, Lockheed Martin is partnering with the Navy to look for ways to complete modernizations faster in the future and build the ships with modernization in mind at the time of construction. This would ultimately reduce the time a ship is out of service for modernization.”

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