US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

technically Afghanistan is not desert more forest. It's transitional depending on altitude and geography you have arborial you have arid you have alpine terrain. You can rapidly go from very dry to very wet. You can go from cold to baking.
Additionally I covered other reasons for cost. But if you want to ride the 28 million dollar waste it's a.drop in the bucket compared to the ABU,ACU and NWU of the services.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

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The Spin on this is thick as a milkshake.

1. Although Spec4ce Afghan Forest is labeled as a forest pattern it's actually intended more for night operations.
2. ...

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

First auto correct kicked in and changed more to nor.
Well Jura I don't know what to tell you. I could point out that US forces deployed to Afghanistan as well as other NATO troops deployed there moved to multicam patterns, a set that neither fits Desert or Woodland environments entirely but sits between the two.
I could also point out. That the US Army tried all those patterns they own for Afghanistan and found them wanting, and choose a proprietary pattern from a comercial vendor and compecompetitor of Hyperstealth.
And the Army only changed again, after there attempts at buying out the rights to that pattern were priced in a manor that was more than they were willing to spend. So they moved to a inferior generation that Natick partially owned the IP for

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For years, the Afghan army has tried to emulate U.S. forces. Who knew this imitation would extend to the reckless procurement of ineffective and ridiculous camo patterns?

For the past decade, the United States has spent about $28 million on woodland cammies for Afghan soldiers. This pattern boldly stands out in the vast majority of Afghan environs. In other words, the U.S. has been funding uniforms that make Afghan troops sharp-dressed targets.

This woodland design was approved without proper testing, according to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Instead, the HyperStealth Spec4ce Forest camouflage was picked seemingly on the whim of then-Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak. He found the pattern while Internet surfing.

Not mincing words, Inspector General John Sopko told USA Today the decision was “just simply stupid.”

Not only an ineffective pattern, it was also costly. The U.S. has rights to a number of patterns the Afghans could have used. Instead, we as taxpayers are paying a premium on the proprietary HyperStealth pattern, with an estimated markup of 40 percent, the inspector general reports.

It’s only the latest in a long stream of wasteful spending Sopko’s team has identified in Afghanistan. America’s longest war has cost about $117 billion since 2002.
When the uniform news broke, American civilians were perplexed — how could the Defense Department agree to fund such wasteful, ineffective uniforms? Sadly, anybody who has worn camo in the past 15 years is used to it. The services have spent billions in recent years to develop and field nearly a dozen camo designs for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.
This expensive exercise has led to numerous blunders to include:

• Sailors at sea wearing
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  — making them the butt of way too many “don’t fall overboard” jokes.

• Soldiers wearing the
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  for years, a uniform that couldn’t conceal them in Iraq or Afghanistan.

• The Air Force spending years developing its distinctive “tiger-stripe” uniform, duds that were determined unfit for combat in 2010.

Moving forward, the inspector general recommends a cost-benefit analysis and switching the Afghan camo to a pattern for which the U.S. already has rights. This could save taxpayers $70 million.

DoD needs to expedite a solution. The status quo is just too expensive and embarrassing.

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The Marine Corps’ Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) is testing both of its mission software sets this summer ahead of fielding and initial operational capability (IOC) early next year, the program office told USNI News.

G/ATOR’s Block 1, which conducts air defense and air surveillance missions, had been in testing at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on the eastern shore of Virginia since May and is now set to begin more challenging testing at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. G/ATOR Block 2, which conducts a “ground weapon locating radar mission” to help artillery units locate the source of enemy fires, is in early tests now and will begin formal developmental tests in September.

The Marine Corps has accepted delivery of three G/ATOR units and will accept three more this calendar year.

The first G/ATOR system was delivered in February and began testing at Wallops Island in May, “basically re-verifying that the success we had with the [engineering development model] was recreated with the actual production systems,” deputy program manager Roy Barnhill told USNI News on June 22.

In addition to ensuring interoperability with the Marines’ Composite Tracking Network, “we flew aircraft at the radar, we did all sorts of … tactically significant air profiles, where aircraft fly tactically relevant profiles at the radar, where you have multiple aircraft flying at the radar and they’re executing weave patterns to try to trick the tracker,” Barnhill said.
“The tracker had excellent performance. That was one of the first things I heard when I did a site visit two weeks ago: this tracker is the best that they’ve ever seen.”

The G/ATOR system has been moved to North Carolina, where it will participate in a demonstration with the Marines’ new

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before beginning even more challenging testing at Cherry Point’s Atlantic Field.

“At Wallops Island we basically verified that the radar does operate the way we want it to and it sees things at the ranges we want to see, and it sees through challenging radar environments the way we want it to. At Cherry Point we’re going to be doing different things like flying targets at it that we’ve never flown before, military [unmanned aerial systems]; we’re going to be doing some cybersecurity testing, and more of the CAC2S testing.”

At the conclusion of testing, the first and third G/ATOR systems that delivered will be sent to the fleet – to Marine Air Control Squadron (MACS-1) at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona and to MACS-2 at Cherry Point – who will participate in an operational assessment led by Marine Corps Operational Test and Evaluation Activity. The results of that assessment will inform Marine Corps leadership’s decision to declare initial operational ability, which is expected around February 2018, Barnhill said.

G/ATOR Block 2 software allows for ground weapon tracking – primarily to identify the source of enemy rockets, artillery and mortars, but also to track Marines’ outgoing artillery during training events. The contract for Block 2 software was only awarded in August 2015, compared to the original contract for the G/ATOR hardware and Block 1 software back in 2007. Barnhill called G/ATOR Block 2 one of the most successful software development efforts he had ever seen and said the progress so far had surpassed his expectations.

Ahead of the Block 2 delivery date in August and a developmental test called DT1D in September, builder Northrop Grumman is conducting a series of tests this summer to reduce risk. One, a Performance Qualification Test, runs the Block 2 software through the second G/ATOR system that delivered to make sure the hardware and software are fully compatible.

That G/ATOR system is being sent to Yuma this week to begin contractor-led testing, where hundreds of rounds will be fired at G/ATOR for the radar to track, ahead of government-led tests from September through late November. Any issues discovered during this contractor-led testing will be sent back to the engineers to be fixed before government developmental tests, but Barnhill said even an early version of the software had been quite impressive.

“This has been one of the most successful software development efforts I have ever seen. We took initial software that Northrop Grumman developed back in November out to the field, and that was in my opinion a tremendous success,” he said.
“I had very low expectations for that initial prototype software that we were going to be testing after only basically 12 months of development working, and I was amazed at the results, it was very positive. We had some warts and scabs where we weren’t doing some things exactly how we’d want to; we’ve been working on those warts and scabs for the past nine months, so I think we’re right where we need to be with G/ATOR Block 2 software development.”

After that developmental test would come the operational assessment and fielding, with an IOC decision expected in the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2018.

Barnhill said the G/ATOR hardware was developed with multiple software-based missions in mind, and that open design is what has allowed concurrent work to take place on Block 1 and Block 2 software testing and fielding.

“The enabler on that is the common hardware solution,” he said.
“We worked on the common hardware solution for a long time, and as we went through there, as we crossed each milestone, we periodically revisited the question from an engineering standpoint, ‘have we preserved the capability to execute these other missions,’ every time we tweaked the hardware solution. So it’s been a very comprehensive, deliberate effort to make sure we preserve our capability to add functionality as we move forward.”

Another mission set, an air traffic control mission called Block 4, is in the G/ATOR program’s requirements but has not yet been funded.

The six systems the Marine Corps will accept this year will complete the first low-rate initial production (LRIP) contract. A second LRIP contract that uses a new semiconductor – an upgrade from gallium arsenide (GaAs) to gallium nitride (GaN) technology that Barnhill said would achieve greater reliability and lifecycle cost savings – is due to deliver by September 2018 but is on track to deliver early. A full-rate production decision is expected in 2019, he said.

The Marine Corps currently plans to buy 17 G/ATOR systems for the Block 1 mission and 28 for the Block 2 mission.

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M777-A2 Howitzer in the early morning in Syria, June 3, 2017. U.S. Marine Corps

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Jura said:

Today at 4:23 PM
and now USNI News House Defense Bill Pushing For $640B In Base Budget; Would Trade Lower Top Line For Long-Term Budget Stability

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The House Armed Services defense policy bill unveiled its $696.5 billion defense policy bill on Monday, which reflects an emerging deal among House Republican leaders but falls short what pro-defense lawmakers sought.

The committee’s draft 2018 National Defense Authorization Act would OK $28.5 billion more than President Trump’s defense request but $8.5 billion less than what HASC Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said last week the bill would likely be. The committee plans to begin its markup of the bill on Wednesday.

The HASC proposal is one of several floated on Capitol Hill that blow past the $549 billion budget cap for base defense budgets. That means they all would need Congress to change the law to ease the Budget Control Act—and that requires support from Senate Democrats. House Republicans are seeking $511 for non-defense programs, which taken with the defense numbers floating, are likely to trigger a confrontation with Democrats in both chambers.

“They need 60 votes in the Senate to raise the budget caps, and without that the base defense budget will be stuck at $549 billion,” Harrison said of Republicans. “The real question is what are Republicans willing to give Democrats in the way of non-defense spending to get the increases in defense being proposed?”

The HASC bill's top-line includes $621.5 billion in base-budget dollars and $75 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operations wartime account, or OCO, which is exempt from budget caps. The HASC draft bill hews to the House Budget Committee number.

Thornberry told reporters last week he would move ahead with a $705 billion bill, with $640 billion in base dollars and $65 billion in OCO—but cautioned negotiations were ongoing with the House budget and appropriations committees.

By Friday, reportedly Thornberry forged a deal with House Budget Committee for the lower number. The deal includes five percent increases for the defense budget for each of the next three years, according to sources with knowledge of the deal.

Senior HASC aides speaking with the press on Monday declined to say what was cut from the NDAA to reach the lower top-line.

The House Appropriations Committee is set this week to consider a $658.1 billion defense bill, which contains $584.2 billion in base funding and $73.9 billion in OCO.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s total is reportedly $700 billion, with$640 billion in base funding and $60 billion in OCO.

The HASC proposal unveiled Monday would add 17 Lockheed Martin-made F-35 fighter jets above the Trump request for a total of 70; It adds 8 Boeing-made Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets for a total of 22, and it adds 6 P-8A Poseidon aircraft for a total of 13.

For Navy shipbuilding programs, the bill adds one more DDG-51 for a total of three destroyers; it adds two littoral combat ships for a total of three, and it adds an unrequested expeditionary sea base.

For the Army, it adds 17,000 Army troops, and upgrades 29 more Abrams tanks and 33 more Bradley fighting vehicles, among other hardware.

The proposal funds a 2.4 percent pay raise for troops, above the 2.1 percent pay raise Trump requested.

The chairman’s mark also shifts the European Deterrence Initiative, previously known as the European Reassurance Initiative, from OCO to the base budget. The bill also requires DoD to provide a four-year plan for the fund.

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The House Armed Services Committee will propose $631.5 billion in funding for defense, HASC staff told reporters this afternoon. That is about 1.4 percent less than the

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HASC chairman

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and his Senate counterpart John McCain campaigned for, but it’s also 4.7 percent above President Trump’s request for $603 billion, which both legislators

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.

(Both HASC and the administration provide another $65 billion for war funding, aka Overseas Contingency Operations or OCO funds. To add to the confusion, $10 billion of Thornberry’s $631.5 billion for base-budget needs is actually labeled OCO, purely as a technicality to evade Budget Control Act caps).

In short, it’s a

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. It’s not a bad one for defense hawks, since the budget hawks came more than halfway. The question is, will it hold?

How fluid the numbers have become was underscored by HASC’s own trouble scheduling the briefing, originally set for Friday and then repeatedly pushed back, rumor has it, to give more time for negotiations.

“Some of those negotiations are still ongoing,” said the HASC staffer. “The budget committee is waiting to mark up.”

The House appropriations subcommittee on defense (HAC-D), meanwhile, voted

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for the base budget, plus $73.9 billion in OCO. Ultimately, it’s the appropriators that make the final decision on what gets funded or not. HASC staff were quick to point out HAC-D doesn’t have exactly the same jurisdiction they do — for example, HASC votes funding on the nuclear weapons activities of the Energy Department, while HAC-D does not — so it’s normal for the HAC-D total would be lower.

To make life even more exciting, all of these numbers violate the

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, which sets strict caps on both defense and non-defense spending. Members of both parties revile the BCA and have in the past managed to make short-term compromises, lifting the caps for a couple of years at a time, but

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.

There’s a big missing piece of this grand bargain, warned one of the capital’s leading budget analysts,

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of the

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. “While it’s interesting that Republicans seem to have hammered out a compromise among themselves, the compromise that ultimately matters is the one they negotiate with Democrats in the Senate to get the 60 votes needed to raise the BCA budget caps,” Harrison told me. “Without that, the marks by the (House) authorizers and appropriators don’t mean much.”

“I’m not nearly as dismissive as Todd on this one,” said

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, a former GOP Hill staffer now with the

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. “This is a major step forward for the GOP. Defense versus deficit hawks have been divided for the past decade. But the tide has clearly shifted in favor of defense hawks, who have the votes to get what they want after being outnumbered for years.”

“While this is all funny money until there is a deal to amend or repeal the Budget Control Act, it is significant for a variety of reasons,” Eaglen told me:

1. It shows the GOP is not at war with itself and can find a compromise between the two factions.
2. “It helps Leadership get a budget, which they need for tax reform.
3. “Congress is showing they’re fed up with the status quo. And as you can see from
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   , President Trump’s budget is really just a more muscular status quo. Congress is also focusing much of the additional money on procurement, which is what’s needed for a more balanced defense portfolio. A lot of this will stick no matter how appropriations get resolved for FY 2018.
4. “This strengthens Leadership’s hands when they go to negotiate that BCA deal sometime later this year.
5. “The Republican consensus that defense needs to grow and by a number significantly higher than President Trump has proposed also indicates that if there’s a deal to amend BCA, it will be more than the Band-Aids of the past for the Pentagon.”
   

Thornberry had said previously he’d be willing to compromise on the $640 billion figure if he got assurances of long-term stability for defense funding — a deal that guaranteed adequate funding beyond the current year. “What the chairman said last week absolutely still holds,” a staffer said. “He wouldn’t have put out the mark at this level if he wasn’t comfortable about the

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of these discussions. (It) reflects the chairman’s optimism that we will see real growth.”

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The House Armed Services Committee released its

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this evening, in a bill that spends billions more than the Navy had asked for on five additional ships and more than two dozen additional aircraft.

The bill spends $623.8 billion on base budget items, including $10 billion of base budget items paid for in the Overseas Contingency Operations fund – short of the $640 billion HASC chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) had hoped to spend but still nearly $50 billion above the Trump Administration’s request. It spends $695.9 billion total, including OCO funds for operations abroad.

That higher spending level is apparent throughout the Navy’s funding section. A special shipbuilding and conversion section within the “Procurement for Overseas Contingency Operations for Base Requirements” section – used to get around the congressionally imposed spending caps stemming from the 2011 Budget Control Act – adds five new ships beyond what the Navy had asked for: two Littoral Combat Ships, to bring the Navy to three; one Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, to bring the Navy to three; funding for an LPD-30 amphibious transport dock, which would bring the program to 14 ships in the class ahead of its transition to the LX(R) dock landing ship replacement; and an Expeditionary Sea Base ship for which the Marines and the geographic combatant commanders have expressed great interest.

That OCO-for-base-requirements pot of shipbuilding money would also provide $200 million for advance procurement of aircraft carrier CVN-81, $45 million in advance procurement for the DDG program, $100 million for LX(R) advance procurement, and $312 million for five additional Ship to Shore Connectors beyond the Navy’s request for three.

“In keeping with the President’s pledge to grow the fleet, the Chairman’s mark adds an additional five ships including an additional Arleigh Burke class destroyer, two Littoral Combat Ships, a Puller-class Expeditionary Support Base, and a San Antonio class Amphibious Landing Platform,”

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.
“The Chairman also supports advance procurement for aircraft carriers and attack submarines. This is in addition to the eight ships that were requested by the Administration and takes advantage of hot production lines to deliver the right capabilities at the lowest cost to the taxpayers.

The bill would also authorize the Navy to buy 22 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, compared to the Navy’s request for 14; 10 V-22 Ospreys, compared to the request for six; 13 P-8A Poseidon aircraft, compared to the request for seven; 27 AH-1Z attack helicopters, compared to the 22 requested; and six KC-130J tanker and transport planes, compared to the two requested. For the Defense Department as a whole, the bill authorizes 87 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, compared to the request for 70 across the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

The

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and had many plus-ups for the Navy too, including two additional LCSs and the ESB. It provided funding for 24 Super Hornets, seven P-8A Poseidon aircraft, and six Ship to Shore Connectors, among other programs the committee chose to boost above Navy-requested spending levels. The HAC-D is marking up its defense bill this evening in a closed session.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is also working on its subcommittee and full committee bills this week, largely in closed sessions.

The HASC will mark up this bill on Wednesday in an open session that typically lasts well past midnight.

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