US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Navy stresses need for E-2D as costs grow said:

By Andrew Tilghman - Staff writer Navy times
Posted : Monday Jun 22, 2009 16:36:31 EDT

The E-2D Hawkeye is over budget, but the Navy needs it anyway, defense officials told Congress this month.

Since 2003, the E-2D program’s unit cost grew from $163 million to $204 million, a Navy spokesman said.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus sent a June 11 letter to lawmakers on Capitol Hill notifying them of the cost overruns. Congress requires defense officials to formally notify them if a program runs more than 25 percent over budget, a threshold known as a breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Act.

At the same time, defense officials said the aircraft program is essential to national security and the cost overruns are unavoidable, according to a June 11 letter to Congress from Ashton Carter, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

The Navy on June 15 approved the E-2D for low-rate initial production, according to the aircraft’s manufacturer, Northrop Grumman.

The new Hawkeye will have a completely redesigned interior with a new radar system and advanced missile-defense capabilities, according to Northrop Grumman. It is scheduled to begin the operational evaluation phase of the development in fiscal year 2012, the company said.

Click to expand...

Recon-improvement plan pays off for Corps said:

By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer Marine Corp times
Posted : Monday Jun 22, 2009 18:41:05 EDT

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — They endured countless hours of swimming and finning in the combat pool and then in the open, cold ocean.

They covered miles with heavy combat packs over steep hills and sandy beaches. They fought strong ocean currents and big swells to drive and navigate their rubber boats.

In this class of newly trained and longtime infantrymen, all dreaming of becoming reconnaissance Marines, many questioned whether they had the grit to complete the grueling course.

So they were especially proud to step onto the School of Infantry-West parade deck June 12 for graduation ceremonies from the Marine Corps’ Basic Reconnaissance Course, after nine weeks of training by Reconnaissance Training Company. The Marines survived the course and earned the coveted title and 0321 military occupational specialty of a recon Marine.

The high tempo at the course reflects some of the successes in the Corps’ effort to rebuild and reshape its reconnaissance community, positioning it for ongoing wars and future combat operations. Known simply as “Fix Recon,” the effort to grow and evolve the Corps’ capability has been ongoing for a decade, but it may be finally drawing to a close.

The men of Class 05-09 are the Corps’ newest group of trained reconnaissance Marines and soon will report to an active-duty or reserve recon unit. About 600 Marines, and a few dozen Navy corpsmen, will graduate from the course this year — roughly 120 Marines won’t make it — entering a community that has grown exponentially since the war in Afghanistan began.
Fixing recon

In 2001, the Corps had roughly 550 billets for reconnaissance Marines. Today, that number has tripled and keeps growing, with the fiscal 2009 requirement for active-duty units at about 2,038, said Maj. Brian Gilman, the 0321 occupational field manager at Plans, Policies and Operations branch in Washington.

He said that figure is expected to increase slightly by 2012 as part of an initiative aimed at the Corps’ force reconnaissance capabilities and units.

“Fix Recon” began with a 1999 directive by then-Commandant Gen. James L. Jones to look at equipment, manning, training and other issues. After Sept. 11, deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq followed, along with the birth of Marine Corps Special Operations Command and the Corps’ growth to 202,000.

“There has been a lot of changes since ‘Fix Recon’ happened,” Gilman said. “We’ve had to adjust to that.”

Continual deployments meant more demands on recon and concerns about capacity issues, he said. Standing up MarSOC, for instance, shifted 26 percent of those assets away from the Marine expeditionary forces.

High retention has helped keep the Corps rolling. New recruiting initiatives — such as an upcoming program beginning in October that gives new recon Marines five-year orders so they can spend more operational time with their unit — should buy even more time.

The recon community is shaping up. The “Fix Recon” initiative is in the third and final implementation phase, as officials work on an assessment of ground recon capabilities for the Marine air-ground task force, a study that looks at capabilities the Corps will need 10 years from now.

The Marine Requirements Oversight Council is expected to get the initial capabilities document in September, he added.
Consolidated training

The health of the recon community hinges greatly on pulling enough well-trained men into the recon pipeline. One big change began two years ago, when the Corps decided to merge the East Coast-based Amphibious Reconnaissance School and the West Coast-based BRC into a single course at Camp Pendleton, housed at SOI-West under its Advanced Infantry Training Battalion.

Centralizing training at one location meant operational recon battalions no longer had to recruit and screen future recon Marines, enabling them to focus on training, preparing and deploying platoons overseas.

“We took that burden off of them,” Gilman said.

The Corps now has a single training syllabus and, officials note, a more consistent training pipeline for all recon Marines — whether active duty or reserve, or filling a billet at division recon, Force reconnaissance companies or MarSOC’s special operations companies.

“Standardization of training was definitely one of those concerns,” Gilman said.

At Camp Pendleton, the recon growth is perhaps felt most at SOI-West, where its Recon Training Company will train and graduate eight classes this fiscal year and where instructors are preparing to ramp up with a ninth class in 2010. In mid-June, the company was “triple stacked,” with three classes on deck as Class 05-09 headed into its final week.

It’s usually busy, as new students wait to begin their class while others spend weeks or months with one of the platoons, preparing themselves to meet the tough physical fitness standards to successfully screen for the course.

Newly graduated Marines assigned the 0321 MOS report to their recon unit ready for follow-on individual and unit-level training ahead of deploying, a benefit their operational units appreciate, said Col. Brennan Byrne, who commands SOI-West.

“The guy gets to the unit a vetted recon Marine,” Byrne said. “We’ve increased the operational deployability numbers. He will be a full-up round.”

The recon training pipeline will likely be expanded to include a Recon Team Leaders Course, which SOI officials hope to begin this fall with four classes each fiscal year, and eventually other courses for unit leaders.

“We now have the opportunity to train the force as you wish to see the force,” Byrne said.
Standards remain tough

While the syllabus has been tweaked, Byrne said, the standards have not been reduced.

“We’ve actually increased standards in a number of areas,” he said. “We’re taking the approach that we are building the basic recon Marine, we are building the team leader, and we are building the unit leader.”

Students must score at least 225 on the Physical Fitness Test by training day 21, get at least a first-class water safety qualification to graduate, and meet the standard for a 1-kilometer ocean swim and 8-mile hikes with 50-pound packs, among other requirements.

About three-quarters of BRC students are entry level Marines — recent infantry school graduates — and about one-quarter are junior Marines, including corporals and sergeants from noninfantry MOSs. Handfuls of Navy corpsmen hoping to become amphibious reconnaissance corpsmen also attend.

BRC graduation rates now average about 80 percent, a big improvement from the roughly 50 percent who graduated from the courses years ago. Instructors and leaders give much credit to their local initiative — Marines Awaiting Recon Training, or MART — created to prepare and mentor Marines and sailors readying to join a new BRC class or those students recovering from an injury or illness.

Despite the name, “It’s not a basic skills set. It is an advanced skill set,” said Capt. James Richardson, Reconnaissance Training Company commander. “You expect more from a reconnaissance Marine.”

So the Marines — many are privates first class, instructors noted — soon find out that more is expected of them from the get-go.

“They are calling in live-fire mortars in this course,” Richardson said. “That’s unheard of. Most men in the infantry, they’re probably corporals or sergeants before they get this opportunity.”

The training isn’t for the faint of heart. Even the third phase, which includes operating boats in the surf zone, can be taxing, sending at least one student in each class to the corpsman or the hospital.

Recon Marines, Richardson notes, will have greater responsibilities. One day, that recon Marine will be a team leader briefing a Marine expeditionary unit commander.

“He is absolutely responsible for that mission,” said Capt. Bart Lambert, BRC officer-in-charge. “Preparing him for that, that’s the goal.”

So the company established MART Platoon so students can improve their fitness levels before beginning the course. It works — about 90 percent in MART graduate from the course.

The platoon can tailor the training to help students with anything, even tying knots, said Richardson, who calls its four instructors the “unsung heroes.”

Many students, said chief instructor Sgt. Lynn Westover, don’t have enough strength and endurance for the long runs with heavy packs and often struggle to swim with combat gear and fins longer than two kilometers. The water piece is a tough nut to crack, instructors say.

Several Marines said the extra MART training and mentoring are huge.

“The instructors got us into shape. ... They encourage you,” said Lance Cpl. Gary Manders, 19, who improved his swim during three months at MART and saw his PFT score jump from 220 to 276.

Lambert said that BRC classes have averaged 260 by the training day 21, and recent classes hit 275. Three students tallied course records in the run (17:05), crunches (160) and pull-ups (45), he added.

“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” Manders said. “I was weak in all areas, especially the water.”
THINK YOU’VE GOT WHAT IT TAKES?

Considering a move to reconnaissance? Here’s what you need to know:
Getting in the door

To obtain the coveted 0321 military occupational specialty, Marines must graduate from the Basic Recon Course, taught at the School of Infantry-West’s Recon Training Company, Camp Pendleton, Calif. To get there, you must be a U.S. citizen fluent in English and meet a handful of other requirements, including:

• Score 105 or higher on your General Technical test.

• Have completed Infantry Training Battalion course, for enlisted Marines.

• Have a 3rd Class swim qualification. (You will have to reach 1st Class by the end of Phase 1.)

• Score at least 200 on your physical fitness test. (You will need a first-class score of at least 225 during Phase 1.)

• Have normal color vision and good eyesight — at least 20/200.
Once you’re there

The nine-week BRC has three phases:

• Phase 1. Four weeks. Focuses on a wealth of individual skills, including swimming, finning, rucksack hiking, land navigation, helicopter rope suspension training, communications and supporting arms.

• Phase 2. Three weeks. Focuses on combat patrolling with a mix of classroom and field training, including a nine-day exercise in full mission profiles.

• Phase 3. Two weeks. Held in Coronado, Calif. Focuses on amphibious reconnaissance, boat operations and nautical navigation.

Where you’ll go

Recon billets at Marine operational units include:

• 1st Recon Battalion, 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton.

• Force Recon Company, 1st Recon Battalion.

• 2nd Recon Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

• Force Company, 2nd Recon Battalion.

• 3rd Recon Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, Okinawa, Japan.

• 4th Recon Battalion (reserve), San Antonio, Texas.

• 3rd Force Recon Company (reserve), Mobile, Ala.

• 4th Force Recon Company (reserve), Alameda, Calif.

• Marine Corps Special Operations Command.

Click to expand...

July a lousy month for NCO promotions said:

By Jim Tice - Staff writer army times
Posted : Monday Jun 22, 2009 16:33:22 EDT

NCO promotions will hit a slump of epic proportions in July with only 1,137 active component soldiers advancing to the ranks of sergeant through sergeant major.

The slowdown, which will drop promotions to only half the total for June, also a bad promotion month, comes at a time when the Army is grappling with a $2 billion budget shortfall, caused primarily by its faster-than-expected growth over the past year.

The monthly promotion plan announced in cutoff scores and senior NCO sequence numbers Monday slows promotions to a level not even seen during the post-Cold War drawdown of 1991-92, when NCO advancements routinely ran fewer than 2,000 per month, but never lower than 1,250.

The July plan calls for only five promotions to sergeant major, 24 to master sergeant, 130 to sergeant first class, 351 to staff sergeant and 500 to sergeant, for a total of 1,137.

By comparison, the July 2008 promotion plan authorized 32 promotions to sergeant major, 271 to master sergeant, 836 to sergeant first class, 1,166 to staff sergeant and 2,948 to sergeant, for a total of 5,253.

Click to expand...

Official: North Korean ship going to Myanmar said:

By Hyung-Jin Kim - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jun 22, 2009 14:52:43 EDT

SEOUL, South Korea — A North Korean-flagged ship under close watch in Asian waters is believed to be heading toward Myanmar carrying small-arms cargo banned under a new U.N. resolution, a South Korean intelligence official said Monday.

Still, analysts say a high seas interception — something North Korea has said it would consider an act of war — is unlikely.

The Kang Nam, accused of engaging in illicit trade in the past, is the first vessel monitored under the new sanctions designed to punish the North for its defiant nuclear test last month. The U.S. military began tracking the ship after it left a North Korean port on Wednesday on suspicion it was carrying illicit weapons.

A South Korean intelligence official said Monday that his agency believes the North Korean ship is carrying small weapons and is sailing toward the Myanmar city of Yangon.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing the sensitive nature of the information, said he could provide no further details.

Myanmar’s military government, which faces an arms embargo from the U.S. and the European Union, reportedly has bought weapons from North Korea in the past.

The Irrawaddy, an online magazine operated by independent exiled journalists from Myanmar, reported Monday that the North Korean ship would dock at the Thilawa port, some 20 miles south of Yangon, in the next few days.

The magazine cited an unidentified port official as saying that North Korean ships have docked there in the past. The magazine’s in-depth coverage of Myanmar has been generally reliable in the past.

South Korean television network YTN reported Sunday that the ship was steaming toward Myanmar but said the vessel appeared to carry missiles and related parts. The report cited an unidentified intelligence source in South Korea.

Kim Jin-moo, an analyst at Seoul’s state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said the North is believed to have sold guns, artillery and other small weapons to Myanmar but not missiles, which it has been accused of exporting to Iran and Syria.

The U.N. sanctions, which toughen an earlier arms embargo against North Korea, ban the country from exporting weapons and weapons-related material, meaning any weapons shipment to Myanmar would violate the resolution.

The Security Council resolution calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect North Korean vessels on the high seas “if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo” contains banned weapons or material to make them. But that requires approval from the North.

If the North refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel “to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities.”

North Korea, however, is unlikely to allow any inspection of its cargo, making an interception unlikely, said Hong Hyun-ik, an analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank outside Seoul.

A senior U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Friday that a Navy ship, the destroyer John S. McCain, is relatively close to the North Korean vessel but had no orders to intercept it. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Any chance for an armed skirmish between the two ships is low, analysts say, though the North Korean crew is possibly armed with rifles.

“It’s still a cargo ship. A cargo ship can’t confront a warship,” said Baek Seung-joo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been running high since the North’s May 25 nuclear test, with Pyongyang and Washington exchanging near-daily accusations against each other.

President Barack Obama assured Americans in an interview broadcast Monday that the U.S. is prepared for any move North Korea might make amid media reports that Pyongyang is planning a long-range missile test in early July.

“This administration — and our military — is fully prepared for any contingencies,” Obama said during an interview with CBS News’ “The Early Show.”

Still, ever defiant, North Korea declared itself a “proud nuclear power” and warned Monday that it would strike if provoked.

“As long as our country has become a proud nuclear power, the U.S. should take a correct look at whom it is dealing with,” the country’s main Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary. “It would be a grave mistake for the U.S. to think it can remain unhurt if it ignites the fuse of war on the Korean peninsula.”

Associated Press writer Grant Peck in Bangkok and Jae-soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.

Click to expand...

Colonel: Shared F-16s will speed aging said:

By Sam LaGrone - Staff writer air force times.
Posted : Monday Jun 22, 2009 17:12:26 EDT

Fighter planes assigned to the Air Force Reserve could be forced into retirement three years earlier if they are shared with the active force, the Air Force Reserve Command’s director of logistics said.

Speaking on a reserve modernization panel at the Defense Education Forum on Monday in Washington, D.C., Col. T. Glenn Davis said the strain of more flight hours and deployments could shorten the life of the F-16 Falcons to a 2017 retirement date.

The reserve has a combined total of 96 older A-10 and F-16 fighters in its inventory. The reserve already shares some F-16s with the active force, along with F-15s, A-10s and F-22s.

There are still no announced plans to field the F-35 Lighting II, the replacement for the F-16 and F-15, for the Air National Guard and reserve.

The panel, focused on the future of the Air Reserve, also discussed a shortfall in the operations and maintenance budget for Air Reserve aircraft.

Davis said the fiscal 2010 budget and future budget projections funded only 60 percent of programmed depot maintenance for the service’s 373 aircraft mix.

That level of funding “will not meet the needs of Air Force Reserve Command,” Davis said.

In terms of reserve manpower, Maj. Gen. Howard Thompson, deputy to the reserve commander, said the reserve was maintaining a steady stream of volunteers to serve in forward areas.

Thompson said of the 6,000 reservists deployed, 4,000 were volunteers.

“We think it’s sustainable,” said Thompson, who was standing in for Reserve Chief Lt. Gen. Charles E. Stenner Jr.

Stenner has said the reserve did not want to involuntarily deploy reservists, because maintaining a predictable deployment schedule for reservists puts less strain on employers and families.

Click to expand...

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Like natures best Self sealing valve every one has an opinion and every one thinks theres don't stink. for the record though a Lot of people think American weapons and equipment acquisition system is a sucking chest wound.
[Rant Free mode=on]











[Rant free mode Off]

Click to expand...

Army acquires rights to M4 said:

By Matthew Cox - Staff writer Army times.
Posted : Tuesday Jul 7, 2009 7:46:18 EDT

As of July 1, the Army has taken control of the design rights to the M4 carbine from its sole maker, Colt Defense LLC. Translation: With an uncertain budget looming, the service is free to give other gun companies a crack at a carbine contract.

The transition of ownership of the M4 technical data package marks the end of an era and Colt’s exclusive status as the only manufacturer of the M4 for the U.S. military for the past 15 years.

In late November, Army senior leadership announced the service’s intent to open a competition for a new carbine this fall in preparation for the June 30 expiration date of Colt’s hold on the M4 licensing agreement.

The Army is slated to finish fielding the last of its 473,000 M4 requirement some time next year.

Army weapons officials maintain that it’s good to have the option of inviting other gun companies to compete to make the M4 as it is now, if the need arises, said Col. Doug Tamilio, project manager for soldier weapons.

“We probably won’t do anything with it right now. ... We have what we need,” Tamilio said. “The good news is we will own it now; that gives us the flexibility to do what we need it to do.”

Small-arms companies waiting for the chance to compete for the Army’s next carbine view Colt’s loss of the M4 TDP as a new beginning for the industry and for soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Now that the sole-source era is over, we hope to see free and open competition of any interim or long-term solution for the service rifle or carbine for the American soldier,” said Jason Schauble, vice president of the military products division of Remington. “Now there is a chance to get something better in the hands of the soldier. Why not do it? If Colt wins again, God bless them.”

Colt officials didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

Some in the small-arms industry say Colt’s 15-year control over the M4 is a natural part of the gun-making business.

“If a company designs and develops a product, they don’t do that for fun; they have a whole factory of people to feed,” said George Kontis, who is now the vice president of business development for Knights Armament Company but has worked for multiple small-arms firms since 1967.

“This is not anything new in history. It has always happened this way,” he said.
The next competition

For now, the Army is planning to begin a competition in October that could produce a new carbine by sometime in 2012, but there are no guarantees, weapons officials maintain.

Before that can happen, the Army’s updated carbine requirement — the document that lays out what the service wants in the future weapon — still has to clear the senior Army leadership and win joint approval, he said.

Funding is another uncertainty, he said. The Army can’t begin the request for proposal process this year if the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill doesn’t include the start-up costs for the venture, Tamilio said.

“I don’t need a lot of money,” Tamilio said. “I think it’s less than $10 million for fiscal year 2010. ... It’s obviously tied into the president’s budget in 2010.”

Colt still owns the TDP for the M16 rifle, but its status as the sole supplier for the military ended in the late 1980s, when FN Manufacturing LLC won its first contract. The Army still uses versions of the M16, but stopped buying them when it decided to field M4s to all deploying combat units in 2006.

The M4 became the subject of congressional scrutiny in 2007 when lawmakers expressed concerned about whether soldiers had the best available weapon.

In November 2007, the weapon finished last in an Army reliability test against other carbines. The M4 suffered more stoppages than the combined number of jams by the other three competitors: the Heckler & Koch XM8; FNH USA’s Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle, or SCAR; and the H&K 416.

Army weapons officials agreed to perform the dust test after a July 2007 request by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Coburn took up the issue after a Feb. 26, 2007, Army Times report on moves by elite Army special operations units to ditch the M4 in favor of carbines they consider more reliable.

U.S. Special Operations Command decided to move away from the M4 in November 2004 when the command awarded a developmental contract to FN Herstal to develop its SCAR to replace its M4s and older M16s.

In November, gun makers from across the country attended an Army small-arms industry day in November designed to give weapons officials a look at what is available on the commercial market. There, Army Secretary Pete Geren announced that he had directed the Army’s Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga., to update the carbine requirement in preparation for a search for a replacement for the M4.

“If there are no significant issues, I think [the updated requirement] can move through” the Army validation process and receive the blessing of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, Tamilio said.

If that happens, the Army plans to release a draft request for proposal to the small-arms industry in October and a formal RFP early next year, weapons officials maintain.

The first round of testing will likely begin late next summer and last though summer 2011.

Once a weapon is selected in late fiscal 2011, weapons officials hope to have operational testing and a full rate-production decision by late summer in 2012, Tamilio said.

One of the most critical parts of this process will be the three to five months between the draft RFP and the release of the formal RFP, when the industry has the chance to digest and understand what the Army wants in a new carbine, he said.

“Those discussions we have with industry will be vital to getting the real RFP on the street and that should really make for a solid competition,” he said.

Click to expand...

McNamara said:

By Mike Feinsilber and Pete Yost - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jul 7, 2009 7:46:00 EDT

WASHINGTON — Robert S. McNamara, the brainy Pentagon chief who directed the escalation of the Vietnam War despite private doubts the war was winnable or worth fighting, died Monday at 93.

McNamara revealed his misgivings three decades after the American defeat that some called “McNamara’s war.”

“We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of our country. But we were wrong. We were terribly wrong,” McNamara told The Associated Press in 1995, the year his best-selling memoir appeared.

McNamara died at 5:30 a.m. at his home, his wife Diana told the AP. She said he had been in failing health for some time.

Closely identified with the war’s early years, McNamara was a forceful public optimist. He predicted that American intervention would enable the South Vietnamese, despite internal feuds, to stand by themselves “by the end of 1965.” The war ground on until 1975, with more than 58,000 U.S. deaths.

Lawyerly and a student of statistical analysis, McNamara was recruited to run the Pentagon by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 from the presidency of the Ford Motor Co. — where he and a group of colleagues had been known as the “whiz kids.”

He stayed in the defense post for seven years, longer than anyone else since the job’s creation in 1947. He left on the verge of a nervous breakdown and became president of the World Bank. In the new post, he threw himself into the intricacies of international development and argued that improving lives was a more promising path to peace than building up arms and armies.

McNamara was a distinctive figure, with frameless glasses and slicked-back hair. Anti-war critics ridiculed him as an out-of-touch technocrat and made much of the fact that his middle name was “Strange.” Simon and Garfunkel worked his name into a ditty about an overbearing government, and he once had to flee an appearance at Harvard through underground utility tunnels.

By the end of his Pentagon tenure, McNamara had come to doubt the value of widespread U.S. bombing, and he was fighting with his generals. President Lyndon Johnson lost faith or patience in him; McNamara would later write that he didn’t know if he quit or was fired.

In the Kennedy administration, McNamara was a key figure in both the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis 18 months later. The missile episode was the closest the world came to a nuclear confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, and historians have pointed to McNamara’s role in steering internal debate away from a U.S. airstrike.

Reticent, McNamara long resisted offers to give a detailed accounting of his role in Vietnam. His son, who had protested the war his father helped to run, once said it was not within McNamara’s “scope” to be reflective about the war.

McNamara’s eventual mea culpa won him admiration from some former opponents of the war. Others said it was not enough, and three decades too late.

“Where was he when we needed him?” a Boston Globe editorial asked.

Ted Sorensen, a speechwriter and adviser who worked with McNamara in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, said the criticism missed the mark.

“Most military chieftains — presidents or Cabinet members or otherwise — don’t admit error, ever,” Sorensen said. “At least Bob had the courage and commitment to truth to put out that he was wrong and why it was wrong so that we could all learn the lessons from that.”

“In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam” appeared in 1995. McNamara disclosed that by 1967 he had deep misgivings about Vietnam — by then he had lost faith in America’s capacity to prevail over guerrillas who had driven the French from the same jungle countryside.

Despite those doubts, he had continued to express public confidence that the application of enough American firepower would cause the Communists to make peace. In that period, the number of U.S. casualties — dead, missing and wounded — went from 7,466 to over 100,000.

McNamara wrote later that he and others had not asked five basic questions: “Was it true that the fall of South Vietnam would trigger the fall of all Southeast Asia? Would that constitute a grave threat to the West’s security? What kind of war — conventional or guerrilla — might develop? Could the U.S. win with its troops fighting alongside the South Vietnamese? Should the U.S. not know the answers to all these questions before deciding whether to commit troops?

He discussed similar themes in the 2003 documentary “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.” With the U.S. in the first year of the war in Iraq, it became a popular and timely art-house attraction and won the Oscar for best documentary feature.

McNamara served as the World Bank president for 12 years. He tripled its loans to developing countries and changed its emphasis from grandiose industrial projects to rural development before retiring in 1981.

He was born June 9, 1916, in San Francisco, son of the sales manager for a wholesale shoe company. At the University of California at Berkeley, he majored in mathematics, economics and philosophy.

As a professor at the Harvard Business School when World War II started, he helped train Army Air Corps officers in cost-effective statistical control. In 1943, he was commissioned an Army officer and joined a team of young officers who developed a new field of statistical control of supplies.

McNamara and his colleagues sold themselves to the Ford organization as a package and revitalized the company. The group became known as the “whiz kids” and McNamara was named the first Ford president who was not a descendant of Henry Ford.

A month later, the newly elected Kennedy invited McNamara, a registered Republican, to join his Cabinet. Taking the $25,000-a-year job cost McNamara $3 million in Ford stocks and options.

As defense chief, McNamara reshaped America’s armed forces for “flexible response” and away from the nuclear “massive retaliation” doctrine espoused by former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. He asserted civilian control of the Pentagon and applied cost-accounting techniques and computerized systems analysis to defense spending.

Early on, Kennedy regarded South Vietnam as an area threatened by Communist aggression and a proving ground for his new emphasis on counterinsurgency forces. A believer in the domino theory — that countries could fall to communism like a row of dominoes — Kennedy dispatched U.S. “advisers” to bolster the Saigon government. Their numbers surpassed 16,000 by the time of his assassination.

Following Kennedy’s death, President Johnson retained McNamara as “the best in the lot” of Kennedy Cabinet members and the man to keep Vietnam from falling as the war escalated.

At a Feb. 29, 1968, retirement ceremony, McNamara was overcome with emotion and could not speak. Johnson put an arm around his shoulder and led him from the room.

McNamara’s first wife, Margaret, whom he met in college, died of cancer in 1981; they had two daughters and a son. In 2004, at age 88, he married Italian-born widow Diana Masieri Byfield.

———

Associated Press Writers Glen Johnson in Boston and Warren Levinson in Washington contributed to this report.

Click to expand...

Force shakeup said:

Plan reshapes U.S. air power
By Erik Holmes - Staff writer air force times
Posted : Tuesday Jul 7, 2009 7:33:28 EDT

More than 10,000 airmen. Some 600 aircraft. Dozens of bases, wings, squadrons, training centers and depots.

All are affected by a sweeping force structure plan that, starting this fall, will reshape U.S. air power more than any initiative in decades.

The plan represents a dramatic shift away from fighter aircraft — the heart of the Air Force since Vietnam — and toward the Pentagon’s priorities of more robust intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; a greater focus on irregular warfare; more attention to the nuclear enterprise; and increasing emphasis on special operations forces.

“The Air Force has worked to achieve the proper balance across our personnel, infrastructure, readiness, and investment portfolios while fully committed to supporting overseas contingency operations,” reads the force structure announcement released June 26. “These ... changes enhance the Air Force’s ability to create, protect, and sustain all air and space forces across the full range of military operations ... [and] support new and emerging missions for the Air Force.”
Winners and losers

The core of the plan is the retirement of 254 fighter aircraft and the transfer of about 4,000 airmen’s billets from fighter units to ISR, unmanned aerial vehicle, nuclear, maintenance and special operations career fields. Some airmen will have to transfer bases or retrain for new career fields; others will be reassigned at their current locations. All told, more than 10,000 billets will be eliminated, added or shifted to a different base or unit.

For many of the Air Force’s 100 or so active-duty, Reserve and Guard bases, the plan offers something — good or bad.

The hardest hit is Hill Air Force Base, Utah, which will lose 24 F-16s and more than 700 active-duty airmen, 13 percent of its population. Luke Air Force, Ariz., will lose 10 percent of its airmen, and Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., is losing 48 of its 53 F-15Cs as the platform’s schoolhouse downsizes and relocates to the Air National Guard’s 173rd Fighter Wing at Kingsley Field, Ore.

The big winner is Barksdale Air Force Base, La., headquarters of the new Global Strike Command, which will control all of the service’s nuclear missions inside the United States. Nearly 750 airmen will be added to Barksdale’s population when the new major command stands up in September. Hurlburt Field, Fla., will add 435 airmen because of the focus on special operations. Beale Air Force Base, Calif., stands to gain 348 military personnel and 13 RQ-4B Global Hawks for the 9th Reconnaissance Wing as part of the growth of ISR capabilities.

Eight fighter squadrons are losing all or most of their aircraft, though not all the squadrons have been named and the Air Force did not respond when asked if squadrons losing their aircraft will be deactivated.

The eight squadrons and their locations, according to Air Force documents, are the 19th Fighter Squadron at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska; one squadron from the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.; the 58th Fighter Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.; two squadrons from the 325th Fighter Wing at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla.; the 188th Fighter Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.; one squadron from the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah; and the 71st Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Va.
A reality check

But whether the plan — broadly outlined in May by Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and strongly supported by Defense Secretary Robert Gates — will become a reality is another matter. Lawmakers in Congress are skeptical of the realignment, in part because they don’t want to see aircraft and jobs moved out of their home states.

The House Armed Services Committee inserted a provision in its version of the defense authorization bill that would bar the Air Force from executing the plan until it fully justifies the proposals to lawmakers. The Senate bill supports the plan, setting up a possible showdown when the two chambers convene later this year to work out the differences in their versions of the bill.

Mackenzie Eaglen, an Air Force expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, opposes the plan because it hurts U.S. air dominance by retiring fighters without buying enough new ones. She is calling on lawmakers to kill the proposal.

“Congress needs to assert its leadership over the budgetary process and ensure that appropriate steps are taken to acquire new and replacement fighters to meet the fighter gap and to continue American air superiority and dominance into the next decade,” she said. “The last time I checked the Constitution, the U.S. Congress gets the last word on the president’s budget submission. This [plan] is clearly [putting] the cart before the horse.”
What the future holds

The plan released by the Air Force covers only fiscal 2010, which starts Oct. 1, and does not take into account some upcoming moves that will affect bases and airmen.

Not included in the 2010 plan are about 400 airmen who will move to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, over the next 18 months for the stand-up of 24th Air Force, the new cyber organization; another 400 or so who will staff a new nuclear B-52 squadron, likely at Minot Air Force Base, N.D.; an undetermined number of airmen to fly and maintain the new MC-12 light reconnaissance aircraft; and a plus-up in acquisition career fields.

Also not included are most of the F-35s — and airmen tied to the Joint Strike Fighter program — that the Air Force will buy in the next five years. Hill Air Force Base will get back some of its lost personnel beginning in 2012 as one of the initial operational bed-down locations for the new stealth aircraft, and Eglin will gain airmen beyond 2010 as the primary maintenance and flight training site.

Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop is concerned about how Hill, which is in his district, will fare between when the F-16s leave and the F-35s show up.

“We should never remove a plane until we have a replacement ready to be used,” Bishop said in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune. “We are not there yet.”

Kadena Air Base, Japan, and Shaw Air Force Base and McEntire Air National Guard Base, both in South Carolina, also will be initial bed-down locations for the F-35.

Other bases — including Tyndall, which is losing its F-15s — remain in the running, and local officials and lawmakers are lobbying hard for the aircraft and the jobs they will bring.

A decision on future F-35 sites is not expected until sometime next year.

Click to expand...

Crew works to restore Carl Vinson said:

By Matthew Jones - The Virginian-Pilot via Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jul 7, 2009 15:14:29 EDT

NORFOLK, Va. — Question: What's harder than building an aircraft carrier from scratch?

Answer: Rebuilding one from the frame up after a quarter-century of constant, punishing use.

After 43 months at the shipyard in Newport News for its refueling and complex overhaul, the Carl Vinson is nearly ready to re-enter service.

"It's like taking a '57 Chevy and doing a frame-off restoration," said Capt. Ted Carter, the ship's commanding officer.

Aircraft carriers are built to last 50 years, with one major overhaul at about the halfway point. The Vinson, commissioned in 1982, is the third Nimitz-class carrier and the third to undergo the service.

The work involved nearly every piece of the ship. Crews from the carrier and Northrop Grumman Newport News refueled the Vinson's two reactors and upgraded the flight deck, catapults, combat and communications systems, and island.

They refurbished the propellers, propeller shafts and rudders, and the electrical distribution and propulsion plant systems. They replaced thousands of valves, pumps and piping components and painted the ship's 1,000-foot hull.

In the carrier's aft mess deck, Capt. Mike Ropiak, the ship's supply officer, said the overhaul gave the crew a chance to redesign the eating spaces, allowing for more food stations and shorter lines as the ship feeds thousands of sailors four meals a day. It also allowed for the installation of a new porcelain floor and flat-screen televisions.

In the medical ward, Cmdr. Christopher Lucas, the senior medical officer, showed off the ship's new seamless decking, which creates a more sanitary space. The ship now boasts technology, such as laparoscopic and ophthalmic scopes, which, combined with better communications links to shore, allow doctors to perform more procedures while under way.

During the overhaul, crews removed the entire top of the island — the tower on the flight deck where officers direct flight and ship operations — and replaced it with reconfigured spaces and a new mast to handle modern sensors.

On Thursday, Carter showed off the new primary flight control, which sits at the very top. The space now has larger and more numerous windows, giving the air boss and mini boss a 270-degree view of the flight deck below during air operations.

Carter attributed much of the overhaul's success to his crew, nearly all of whom have joined the ship during its time in Newport News. Of the nearly 3,000 sailors who entered the yard with the carrier in 2005, about 20 remain. This massive restaffing effort has been vital to establishing pride of ownership, Carter said.

"You don't replace the crew this totally ever again," he said. "They're like second-half-of-life plank owners."

The ship pulled into Newport News in November 2005, and work began under a $1.94 billion contract. The total cost of the overhaul is just over $3 billion, including materials and equipment purchased under previous contracts.

Carter took command of the carrier in the shipyard in October 2006, less than a year into the overhaul. He said his operational background as an F-4 and F-14 pilot with more than 1,800 carrier landings, including 80 on the Vinson itself, prepared him well for the work.

"I know what the end needed to look like," he said.

Unlike other crews who spend much of their tours deployed, Carter and his team instead have had to learn all about shipbuilding, testing and certification.

"At the end of the day, we're making sure the ship is operational," he said.

The overhaul took three months longer than scheduled. Some of this delay, Carter said, was because shipyard workers and resources were diverted to finishing the George H.W. Bush, the 10th and final Nimitz-class ship.

He added that, since the Vinson's crew was able to provide a portion of the manpower, the money the Navy saved on outside labor allowed the overhaul to stay within budget despite the delay.

The carrier returned last week from four days of sea trials. It is due to go out again this week before heading back to the shipyard for a four-month post-shakedown maintenance period.

The Vinson is expected to leave the shipyard for good in December. In February, it begins its return to the West Coast. It ultimately will be joined by Carrier Air Wing 17. Carter, however, will have moved on.

Last month, he was selected for the rank of rear admiral. On Tuesday, he will relinquish command of the Vinson. On Wednesday, he will become commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command's Joint Enabling Capabilities Command.

"It's certainly bittersweet," he said. "I'd like to stay a few more months."

But with the ship getting under way again next week, he said it's best to have the new commander aboard, ready for the next step.

"As much as I'd like to stay," he said, "it's the right time to go."

Click to expand...

daveman said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I'm still waiting for more inputs to count out the raptor.

Click to expand...

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer Jim Abrams, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 22, 12:11 am ET
WASHINGTON – The Senate voted Tuesday to halt production of the Air Force's missile-eluding F-22 Raptor fighter jets in a high-stakes showdown over President Barack Obama's efforts to shift defense spending to a new generation of smaller F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

The 58-40 vote reflected an all-out lobbying campaign by the administration, which had to overcome resistance from lawmakers confronted with the potential losses of defense-related jobs if the F-22 program was terminated.

"The president really needed to win this vote," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said. Levin said it was important not only on the merits of the planes but "in terms of changing the way we do business in Washington."

The top Republican on the committee, John McCain of Arizona, agreed that it was "a signal that we are not going to continue to build weapons systems with cost overruns which outlive their requirements for defending this nation."

Supporters of the program cited both the importance of the F-22 to U.S. security interests — pointing out that China and Russia are developing planes that can compete with it — and a need to protect aerospace jobs in a bad economy.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other Pentagon officials have determined that production of the F-22, which has not been used in Iraq and Afghanistan, should be stopped at 187 planes in order to focus on the F-35, which would also be available to the Navy and Marine Corps.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, countered that the F-35 is designed to supplement, not replace, the F-22, "the "NASCAR racer of this air dominance team." Supporters of the F-22 have put the number needed at anywhere from 250 to 380.

The defense bill has funds to build 30 F-35s. The plane is currently being produced in small numbers for testing purposes. The single-engine plane will eventually replace the venerable F-16 and the Air Force's aging fleet of A-10s. Its primary purpose is to attack targets on the ground.


The twin-engine F-22 Raptor is a jet the Air Force would use for air-to-air combat missions.

McCain said the voting margin of victory was "directly attributable" to Obama, his opponent in the last presidential election, and Gates, who has pushed for termination of the F-22 and other weapons systems he says have outlived their usefulness.

The vote removed $1.75 billion set aside in a $680 billion defense policy bill to build seven more F-22 Raptors, adding to the 187 stealth technology fighters already built or being built.

The Senate action also saved Obama from what could have been a political embarrassment. He had urged the Senate to strip out the money and threatened what would have been the first veto of his presidency if the F-22 money remained.

Immediately after the vote, Obama told reporters at the White House the Senate's decision would "better protect our troops."

White House officials said Vice President Joe Biden and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel lobbied senators, as did Gates.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that spending on the stealth fighter would "inhibit our ability to buy things we do need," including Gates' proposal to add 22,000 soldiers to the Army.

"I've never seen the White House lobby like they've lobbied on this issue," said Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, an F-22 supporter whose state would be hit hard by a production shutdown.

According to Lockheed Martin Corp., the main contractor for both planes, 25,000 people are directly employed in building the F-22, and an additional 70,000 have indirect links, particularly in Georgia, Texas and California.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., a strong backer of the program, said his state stood to lose 2,000 to 4,000 jobs if F-22 production ended.

Levin suggested that some workers might be shifted to F-35 production. "We have to find places for people who are losing their jobs," he said.

The House last month approved its version of the defense bill with a $369 million down payment for 12 additional F-22 fighters. The House Appropriations Committee last week endorsed that spending in drawing up its Pentagon budget for next year. It also approved $534 million for an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, another program that Obama, backed by the Pentagon, says is unwarranted and would subject the entire bill to a veto.

The defense bill authorizes $550 billion for defense programs and $130 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other anti-terrorist operations.

Click to expand...