US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

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Naval Today said:

Sailors aboard USS Zumwalt, the U.S. Navy’s next-generation stealth destroyer, found a fault in the ship’s engineering plant while the ship was in Norfolk, navy officials told to USNI News.

Zumwalt was conducting weapons testing and training en route to its San Diego homeport when the engineering casualty was discovered.

“The crew discovered the casualty after detecting a seawater leak in the propulsion motor drive lube oil auxiliary system for one of the ship’s shafts. The built-in redundancy of the ship’s propulsion plant allows this first-in-class ship to operate with multiple engine configurations. However, it was determined that the repairs should be completed in port prior to the ship transiting to sea,” the U.S. Navy told USNI News.

The issue might take up to two weeks to be fixed, it was further said.

It is not clear whether the engineering casualty will set back Zumwalt’s commissioning ceremony that was scheduled for October 15 in Baltimore. Following the commissioning, Zumwalt is set to continue its transit to San Diego where it will enter a post delivery availability and mission systems activation and is expected to be integrated into the fleet in 2018 following test and evaluation.

The lead ship in the class, USS Zumwalt is the first U.S. Navy combatant surface ship to utilize an integrated power system (IPS) to provide electric power for propulsion and ship services. According to the Navy, the new system generates approximately 78 megawatts of power.

Zumwalt is also larger than the current U.S. Navy destroyers measuring 610 feet in length and 80.7 in width. In comparison, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are 505 ft long and 66 ft wide.

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Equation said:

What if there's a stealth external fuel tanks attached onto the B-21? That way one doesn't have to design and build a whole new stealth aircraft just for refueling and radar role only.

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The U.S. Army Is Designing Its First New Grenade in 40 Years

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For the first time in more than four decades years, the U.S. Army is working to field a new hand grenade. Designed for both offensive and defensive use, the new Enhanced Tactical Multi-Purpose (ET-MP) hand grenade is meant to be a safer and more versatile handheld bomb for close combat situations.

Hand grenades are traditionally divided into two categories: offensive and defensive grenades. Defensive grenades are used against attacking enemy forces and usually have bodies made of steel notched to explode into deadly metal shrapnel-think the grooves on the iconic Mk. 2 "pineapple" grenade from World War II. Offensive hand grenades typically have smaller explosions to prevent them from harming advancing friendly troops. They kill or wound by concussive force.

For decades, the U.S. Army has used different grenades to fulfill offensive and defensive requirements. On the offensive side, things have been lagging for a while. The

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grenade was retired in 1975 after it was realized that the body of the grenade contained between 17 to 50 percent

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, a toxic cancer-causing mineral that left debris on domestic training grounds. Its absence left the baseball-shaped M67 defensive fragmentation grenade as the U.S. Army's sole lethal hand grenade.

Now, army engineers at

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in New Jersey are working the Enhanced Tactical Multi-Purpose (ET-MP) grenade, which will use electronic controls to bring hand grenades into the 21st century. The result will be a safer-for the user anyway-and yet more lethal grenade for the enemies for America's combat infantrymen.

The ET-MP will be multipurpose, allowing the user to tailor it for offensive or defensive missions. In the offensive role, it will be a concussive grenade using explosive blast effects to take out enemy troops. In the defensive role, the ET-MP's body will fragment into shards of metal, killing and wounding out to a greater distance.

The new grenade will also have a new electronic fuzing system, allowing the user to choose a precise detonation time. Unlike the current M67, which detonates four to five seconds after the safety lever is released, the ET-MP's detonation time can now be chosen down to the millisecond. Until it's armed, the grenade will not be able to detonate.

Another feature of the ET-MP was designed for southpaws. Left-handed users arm and throw the M67 while

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. The new grenade will have ambidextrous controls, allowing both left and right-handed users to be trained exactly the same way.

Development of the ET-MP began in 2013, after input from Army and Marine Corps troops. The grenade received just just $1.1 million in funding for 2017. Picatinny Arsenal hopes to have the new grenade in the field by 2020.

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Carlisle: Don’t Restart the F-22 Line

The cost of restarting the F-22 production line outweighs the benefits, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Hawk Carlisle, said Wednesday at

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. He noted the F-22 components would need to be upgraded if the line was restarted, an effort that would cost time and money. “If we looked at those costs versus what we wouldn’t be able to do, i.e., keeping up the F-35 line or moving to what is next in a

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…outweighs the time and amount of money you would spend to reopen an F-22 line,” he said. Carlisle said he sees

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of the F-35s as high as possible as the most important part of the program so the service

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.

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FORBIN said:

JSTARS replacement, Bombardier Global 6000
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Congressional language in the 2017 National Defense Authorisation Act would force the US Air Force to pursue a fixed-price engineering, development and manufacturing contract for the joint surveillance target attack radar system (JSTARS) recapitalisation effort, and delay initial operational capability of the new fleet by about a year, top USAF acquisition officials say this week.

The Senate is pushing for a fixed-price contract for the JSTARS replacement, which the USAF has said will provide an existing battle management command and control capability. By contrast, US Senator John McCain has railed against cost-plus contracts for the engineering, manufacturing and development (EMD) phase of the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber, and language from his committee questions the need for a similar acquisition strategy for the JSTARS effort.

The USAF would prefer a hybrid approach with a majority of fixed-price portions in the EMD phase and some cost portions, Darlene Costello, principal deputy assistant Secretary of the USAF, tells reporters Wednesday.

“So a generic statement saying it must be a firm fixed price contract for EMD is a challenge for us,” she says.

While the USAF and members of Congress are discussing the strategy, the JSTARS request for proposals is on hold, Costello says. If the Senate forces a fixed-price contract, it would trigger a three- to sixth-month delay as the USAF revises the RFP, Costello says. Rather than meet the 2024 IOC date, the programme could move back a year.

The USAF is not looking for a major leap in technology at this point, but the service does expect that new radar technology will deliver more advanced capabilities to the replacement aircraft, Costello says. Still, the request should leave some flexibility for future advancements, according to Lt Gen Arnold Bunch, military deputy for the assistant secretary of the air force for acquisition.

“The RFP tells the contractors we are expecting an open mission system that will give us the flexibility that we need to go to and do a jump to other capabilities,” he says.

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Naval Today said:

The 2016 iteration of the U.S.-only exercise Valiant Shield concluded on the U.S. island territory Guam, September 23.

18,000 personnel and more than 180 aircraft from the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, and nine surface ships came together on Guam and around the Marianas Island Range Complex for the biennial field training exercise.

The drill included a carrier strike group, an expeditionary strike group, a Marine Air-Ground Task Force, and Air Force aggressor and bomber squadrons.

With a focus on integrated joint training among U.S. forces that increases participants’ ability to plan, communicate and conduct complex maritime operations, this was the sixth exercise in the Valiant Shield series that began in 2006.

One of the many sea-based Valiant Shield scenarios was a live-fire sink exercise.

Sailors, Airmen and Marines tested their proficiency in tactics, targeting and live firing against a surface target at sea when they sank the decommissioned USS Rentz (FFG 46) in waters 30,000 feet deep, 220 nautical miles northeast of Guam.

“This exercise provided an important opportunity for realistic at-sea training with live ordnance, in a blue-water environment,” said U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Brian S. Hurley, the U.S. Pacific Fleet Valiant Shield exercise lead. “This event refined our ability to work together seamlessly as a joint force to achieve a very specific training objective.”

Environmental stewardship was a top priority throughout all operations and scenarios of Valiant Shield.

The U.S. Navy environmental coordinators cancelled a Navy and Marine Corps beach landing scheduled for Sept. 19 on the island of Tinian. The Sailors and Marines were to land at Chulu Beach on the northwest side of Tinian, less than one kilometer (0.62 miles) from North Field, but cancelled the landing due to the discovery of an endangered turtle species nesting.

Also on Sept. 13, the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps teamed up in the Northern Marianas region to unleash a new capability, the Quickstrike-J and the Quickstrike-ER.

During the demonstration, B-1B bombers from the 337th Operational Test Squadron and F/A-18 aircraft from the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing integrated Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb guidance with existing Quickstrike capabilities by placing 12 inert Quickstrike-J precision maritime mines and four inert Quickstrike-ER standoff, precision maritime mines in a drop zone west of the Farallon de Medinilla bombing range.

Additionally, both the Navy and Marine Corps conducted a mechanized raid on Naval Base Guam Reserve Craft Beach. It was the first amphibious assault during a Valiant Shield exercise.

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