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Delivery of the Army’s controversial Warfighter Information Network-Tactical system will come to a halt in order to reboot the service’s entire tactical network so that it can operate against threats emerging on the battlefield.

The Army took to the Hill both on the House and Senate side in recent weeks to make a case to shuffle roughly half a billion in funds from the WIN-T program, as well as a few other key network components, and funnel the money into capabilities that will deliver a more survivable, mobile and hardened tactical network.

The House Armed Services Committee’s Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday to question Army officials over its new plans for the network, with Chairman Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, expressing deep skepticism the Army was going to get it right this time.

He added he was perplexed as to what changed so dramatically between May — when the budget request was released making the case for nearly a half billion for WIN-T — and now with the Army wanting to curb WIN-T and spend its money elsewhere.

Ranking Member Rep. Niki Tsongas added she believed the Army plan was “half-baked” and “overly optimistic” and said she needed to see a much clearer way forward before she could support funding the proposed changes to the network strategy.

The service is in a race to adapt its weapons systems and operational equipment to go up against peer adversaries after spending 15 years in Iraq and Afghanistan where it didn’t have to worry about having its network and communications systems detected and jammed and where the repercussions of being seen on the electromagnetic spectrum weren’t assured destruction.

As the Army looks to the possibility of having to fight against peer adversaries, particularly as Russia continues to behave aggressively and unpredictably on the Eastern European flank, it is having to rethink how it fights and the tactical network, as it is today, doesn’t make the cut.

So Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley ordered a complete review of the tactical network, which determined, to no surprise, that the network had vulnerabilities and that there was a gap between the rate at which the service was able to modernize the network and the pace of threats emerging from peer adversaries, according to a summary of the network review obtained by Defense News.

The Army’s strategy now is to rapidly fix the network by taking funds from the portions of the network that are not working and realigning money to address capability gaps. Also moving forward, the service will establish a new way to quickly procure new technology, breaking free of the normal acquisition process that is so slow, by the time technology makes it into warfighters’ hands in the field, it’s considered old.

The service identified, in its review, that it needs a new path for command post capability to ensure they are survivable and mobile. The Army also recognizes it needs to take steps to integrate the tactical internet into a unified layer at upper and lower echelons, which will increase survivability against electronic warfare attacks.

Additionally, the Army will deliver a common operating environment through a unified mission command suite of systems and applications and will improve joint interoperability through solutions starting in fiscal year 2018.

Programs taking an immediate hit in order to free up the cash in FY-18 — a total of $544.9M — to meet the Army’s network goals are the Mid-Tier Network Vehicular Radio (MNVR) and the legacy Command Post of the Future (CPOF).

Some industry sources believe the HMS Manpack radio, which has a vehicular-configured version, could be used to fill the MNVR requirement.

The Army also plans to halt WIN-T Increment 2 at the end of FY-18, but certain elements and capabilities of the overall WIN-T program will be used and fielded to some formations through FY-21.

Over the past year, WIN-T — the backbone of the Army’s tactical network — has been under fire by some lawmakers and praised by others. The House Armed Services Committee proposed faster fielding of WIN-T Inc. 2 while the Senate Armed Services Committee, this year in its policy bill, annihilated WIN-T Inc. 2 funding, cutting $448 million from the program. The move has been seen by some as a mechanism to provoke the Army to make dramatic changes to that aspect of its network.

The Army, however, wants to ensure it gets that $448 million, but not for WIN-T.

The service provides little detail on how it will reinvest $545 million in FY-18 taken from tactical network programs not aligned with its new modernization approach, but states it will reinvest $413.8 million in programs that meet operational needs to “fight tonight,” according to the document, and $131.1 million toward an “adapt-and-buy” modernization approach.

Continuing across the FY-19 through -23 time frame, the Army will put a stop to another $2.3 billion in investments in tactical network programs that don’t meet the new approach, reinvesting in future capabilities to improve systems and its adapt-and-buy modernization approach.

Immediately, the Army plans to take $114 million in FY-17 funding and procure approximately six Brigade Combat Teams worth of Tactical Communications Node-Lite (TCN-Lite) — essentially WIN-T on a Humvee — and the Network Operations and Security Center-Lite (NOSC-L) — both tested at the Network Integration Evaluation this summer with good feedback from the unit conducting the evaluation.

WIN-T’s fielding began nearly 16 years ago and is currently fielded to nearly 97 percent of the Army and the reserves, therefore, critical WIN-T capability will still be used, according to the document.

For instance, the WIN-T systems that work at-the-halt provide an IP-based network that the Army sees a need for into the future.

WIN-T Inc 2. fielding to active Infantry Brigade Combat Teams and Stryker BCTs will be finished in FY-21 and will enter sustainment and Armored BCTs and Army National Guard units will keep WIN-T Inc. 1 and transition to sustainment once fielding is complete.

The WIN-T elements that are here to stay will be improved through efforts to reduce system complexity, hardening it against cyber threats and redesigning it to increase mobility.

Rep. Tom O’Halleran said he felt the network strategy was more of a concept than a plan and asked Army representatives at the hearing when Congress could expect to see a real plan showing a clear way forward.


Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford, the Army’s chief information officer, said, “What we owe back to you ... is the details of an execution plan. What we have laid out for you to date is the recognition is that we’ve got a real problem in our formations in our army today.

He added the reason the Army is moving so rapidly to fix the network’s problems is because it needs to be able to “fight tonight” and the current capability doesn’t get the job done.

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A V-22 has gone down in Syria, injuring two service member sometime on Thursday, a defense official confirmed to USNI News on Friday.

The V-22 that was operating in support of the ongoing Operation Inherent Resolve mission against ISIS forces suffered a “hard landing,” according to the official.

The downing resulted in non-life-threatening injuries to two unidentified service member. Other press reports indicate the aircraft was operating from a coalition ground base and was destroyed following the hard landing.

“The two were evaluated for non-life threatening injuries and quickly transported to a medical treatment facility, where they were seen and released,” read a Friday release from U.S. Central Command.
“The other passengers and crew on the aircraft were uninjured, and no other casualties were reported on the ground.”

The official would not identify the variant or the service to which the V-22 was attached.

While the V-22 is most closely associated with the Marine Corps, the Air Force operates a special operations variant of the aircraft in limited numbers — the CV-22.

The Pentagon has operated ground forces in Syria including Marine and Army artillery units as well as unspecified special operations forces in the country.

The following is the complete statement from U.S. Central Command.

Two U.S. service members were injured after a Coalition aircraft executed a hard landing early morning Sept. 29 in the Middle East.

The two were evaluated for non-life threatening injuries and quickly transported to a medical treatment facility, where they were seen and released.

The other passengers and crew on the aircraft were uninjured, and no other casualties were reported on the ground.

The cause of the incident is being investigated by the Coalition.

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Jura said:

I now read
Bath Iron Works Awarded Second Flight III Destroyer In Two Ship Contract Modification

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but they don't say how much are the modifications; it appears there's a ceiling of about three point six bil for the construction of four ships by BIW, which applies here:

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(June 03, 2013

CONTRACTS

NAVY

the second paragraph)

LOL but don't quote me

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Textron unit acquires 63 Mirage F1
As Textron Airborne Solutions pursues the US Air Force’s lucrative adversary air (ADAIR) contract, the company earlier this month acquired 63 Dassault Mirage F1s, ATAC chief executive Jeffrey Parker tells FlightGlobal.

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FORBIN said:

And Mirage F1 i have more détails soon i think formers F1CT or CR ?

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We have one Alpha Jet Sqn ( 16 birds ) for these mission as UK have one with Hawks so poor for have true fighters
More seriously 2 F-22 Wings have one T-38 Sqn good idea cheaper, the 3th to Elmendorf train with Agressors Sqn to Eielson, T-38 used also for B-2 and U-2 crew.

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USS Ponce Returns to Homeport

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Jura said:

most recently V-22 Osprey Suffers ‘Hard Landing’ in Syria, Two Service Members Injured

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Two service members were injured and a US Marine Corps MV-22 was destroyed after a hard landing early Friday in Syria. The two service members were evaluated for injuries and taken to a treatment facility, where they were released, US Central Command said in a statement. The other passengers and crew were not injured. The crash was not caused by enemy fire. The aircraft could not be salvaged and was left inoperable, a defense official told CNN. It was the second time an MV-22 was destroyed after a hard landing in the Middle East this year. In January, a US airstrike destroyed an MV-22 that crashed in Yemen during a special operations raid.

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The Trump administration’s ongoing

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(NPR) offers an opportunity to fundamentally reshape US nuclear policy, experts in deterrence and arms control said at a Task Force 21-Minot event in Washington, D.C., Thursday. In response to a newly complex strategic threat environment, the US needs to shift away from a primary goal of nonproliferation toward a top priority of cultivating nuclear power for strategic deterrence, said Frank Miller, principal at the Scowcroft Group, and Robert Joseph, senior scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy.

The most recent NPR, completed by the Obama administration in 2010, was “explicit about its objective,” Joseph said, and its “first priority is nonproliferation.” In that NPR, Russia is “described more as a partner than a threat,” China is “not mentioned” at all, and the threat of a North Korean ICBM attack against the US homeland is considered unrealistic, Joseph said.

The 2010 NPR also considers it “acceptable for Russia to have a larger nuclear force” than the US, and it establishes a US policy of “no new nuclear capabilities,” Joseph said.

But “much has changed in the past seven years,” Joseph said, and the strategic threat around the world is “much more complex and dangerous.” For one, Russia has “vastly superior theater nuclear forces,” he said. This means that Russia has developed new, low-yield nuclear weapons and has conducted exercises to explore their tactical deployment, according to Miller.

As a result, the US has “deterrent gaps” in its strategic policy, Joseph said, that need to be addressed in the NPR. The administration’s process marks “an opportunity … to turn the current situation around dramatically,” Miller said. The goal should be to “restore nuclear deterrence as the first priority of our nuclear policy,” Joseph said.

“We need to explore some new capabilities” as well, Miller insisted, including a focus on low-yield nuclear weapons and enhancing nuclear command and control infrastructure. To do so, he said, “is easily affordable.” Estimates show that total spending on nuclear forces at the height of the current modernization effort would represent “seven percent of all defense spending,” Miller said.

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Farewell C-5A
The USAF’s last C-5A Galaxy departed Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts, en route to Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, on September 7. Serial 70-0461 will be placed in storage with the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) alongside 56 Galaxies that have been delivered to the Tucson base since 2011.

The Galaxy had seen more than 44 years of service and flown more than 22,500 flight hours.

The first operational C-5A was delivered to the USAF’s Military Airlift Command in June 1970. By 1973 the service had received 81 C-5As but a shortfall in airlift aircraft resulted in a restart of the production line and between January 1986 and March 1989, 50 improved C-5Bs were delivered.

Although the service planned to replace the avionics on the 126-aircraft fleet with a modern digital cockpit, between 2002 and 2012 27 C-5As, 50 C-5Bs and two C-5Cs were updated under the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP).

Development of the Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program (RERP) began in late 2001. Like the AMP, the original plans called for upgrading more than 120 C-5s under the RERP including one C-5A and two C-5Bs that served as prototypes.

The program, which is being carried out by Lockheed Martin at its Marietta, Georgia, facility replaces the aircraft’s TF39 turbofans with the General Electric F138-GE-100 (CF6-80C2) engines that provide a 22 per cent increase in power. The RERP also provides more than 50 improvements to the aircraft’s structure and systems, adds a more powerful auxiliary power unit and installs the Northrop Grumman AN/AAQ-24 Large Aircraft Infra-Red Countermeasures (LAIRCM) system. Ultimately changes to the airlift fleet resulted in the decision to retire the C-5A fleet and to scale back the program. When the project is completed in 2018, one C-5A, 49 C-5Bs and two C-5Cs will have been upgraded to C-5M configuration. C-5Ms are currently operational with two active-duty USAF squadrons and shared with a pair of AFRC associate squadrons. Another AFRC is in the process of transitioning to the C-5M and a second continues to operate the service’s few remaining C-5Bs. Through September 2016, Lockheed Martin had delivered 38 upgraded C-5Ms and 11 aircraft were undergoing modification. Once modified the C-5Cs are known as a C-5M Space Cargo Modified (SCM). The two C-5Cs had been previously modified to transport USAF and NASA space program cargo.

The contractor expects to induct the final Galaxy into the modification line in early 2017 with the final delivery following in Spring 2018.

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