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As Pentagon adds dollars for missile defense, Raytheon pitches SM-3s as ICBM killers

After a series of North Korean ballistic-missile launches, President Donald Trump in August vowed his administration would boost funding for missile defense by “billions of dollars.”

Already in the midst of a ballistic missile defense review expected to wrap up by year-end, the Pentagon was directed to look at what could be done in the near term. The first results of president’s push are now visible, with Congress approving the transfer of $367 million from other programs to a number of missile defense efforts.

The transfers fund pursuit of a so-called “left-of-launch” capability to defeat mobile missiles while they are still on the ground—whether using a missile fired from a fighter, a ship-launched weapon or an attack by special forces. They also provide funding to start the effort of creating 20 new missile-defense silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, as well as for upgrades to a sea-based X-band radar and additional testing of the SM-3 Block 2A interceptor.

Raytheon has been pitching the latest Block 2A version of its SM-3 air-defense missile, which is being cooperatively developed by the U.S. and Japan to destroy medium- and intermediate-range missiles in space during the midcourse stage of their flight and is to be used against even longer-range missiles.

The enlarged, 21-in.-dia. missile already has the speed, range and altitude performance needed to defeat ICBMs. By design, the optical seeker developed for the SM-3 Block 2A’s enlarged hit-to-kill Kinetic Warhead is also the centerpiece of the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV). By 2022, it will begin replacing legacy kill vehicles on the new Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI) in Alaska.

The RKV is being developed by a

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-led industry consortium, including

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and Raytheon. Raytheon says that with a few software tweaks ported across from the RKV, the SM-3 Block 2A could be used against ICBM targets.

“On the RKV program, we’re developing algorithms to improve the performance capability of that sensor. It’s nothing more than software and firmware,” explains Rondell Wilson, Raytheon’s lead engineer for air and missile defense products. “That goes directly back into SM-3 Block 2A, and now you have an ICBM-killer capability.”

The SM-3 Block 2A will be the primary armament of the U.S.

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Ashore site being activated in Poland next year. Raytheon says similar land-based installations could be set up in Hawaii or on the U.S. East or West Coasts as a redundant second layer of defense against potential missile attacks.

If billions of additional dollars are unlocked for missile defense, Wilson says, the supersized SM-3 Block 2A and lower-altitude Block 1B would provide the greatest capability faster. “We can provide SM-3 Block 2A ashore as an under-layer capability for GBI, thereby maximizing the magazine depth of those high-value GBIs,” he says. “We can do that immediately.”

The SM-3 Block 2A is in testing and has already entered limited production. Raytheon’s principal supplier is Japan’s

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, which provides the second- and third-stage boosters and nose cone.

The missile has completed two successful flight tests, and it knocked out its first ballistic missile target in February. But the second intercept test, in June, failed, reportedly because a sailor on the USS John Paul Jones pressed the wrong button and the missile self-destructed after launch. “We know it wasn’t the interceptor,” Wilson says.

For threats within the atmosphere, Raytheon is also proposing land-based SM-6 interceptors for the Army. It is the U.S.’s longest-range air defense weapon, typically carried by Aegis-equipped guided-missile destroyers.

Dean Gehr, Raytheon’s director for the Land-Based Standard Missile, says the SM-6 has been demonstrated against aircraft, cruise missiles and even ships. It can also intercept missile warheads as they reenter the atmosphere and after any decoys have burned up.

“You’ve got a lot of capability in the SM-3 and SM-6, so why not bring that capability ashore?” Gehr says. “It already is ashore as part of Aegis Ashore, but bring it into a form factor where we can integrate it with existing Army systems, then you’ve got layered defense.”

Raytheon has proposed different launcher options for SM-6, such as the M1120 HEMTT Load-Handling system used with Lockheed Martin’s Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense (

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) system. Fire control for the Army could be provided by

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’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System.

Raytheon also wants the Pentagon to adopt its long-range radar systems, specifically the Thaad system’s X-band TPY-2 and the S-band SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar under development for the Navy.

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The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer is looking to shift oversight of the bulk of major defense programs back to the U.S. armed services, she said in her first public appearance since her confirmation.

In what would be a fundamental change for the Pentagon, Ellen Lord, former

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CEO and new head of the department’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) office, hopes to offload day-to-day management of most major defense acquisition programs from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), she said Oct. 12 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual symposium in Washington.

“Congress has been very, very clear in the National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] that they want to shift oversight of most programs back to the services, and I entirely agree with that,” Lord said, referring to the 2016 legislation that aimed to reform the Pentagon’s sluggish acquisition system. “I’m reviewing all the major defense programs right now and looking at transitioning the bulk of those back.”

However, joint programs that span multiple services such as the

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Joint Strike Fighter should be the exception, Lord noted.

“Where I think it makes sense to stay with [OSD] is where they are very joint, just like a corporation—when you have a major program it goes to the boss,” Lord explained. “They already have exceptionally high risk and high stakes; those are the programs that stay within AT&L.”

Lord already has delegated authority for some existing programs back to the services. And if programs currently managed by AT&L move to the service level, the people attached to those programs may move too, she told reporters after the presentation.

“Where we really want to see AT&L focusing is how to simplify the acquisition process,” Lord said. “There is an incredible amount of bureaucracy, just the way we make decisions and the time it takes, so we’re looking at paring that down.”

On the AT&L restructure directed by Congress in the 2017 NDAA, Lord said she is looking to balance the efforts spent on acquisition versus sustainment of major programs more effectively.

“We spend an incredible amount of time on the acquisition side and very little time on the sustainment side, but when we look at the life cycle of most of our programs it’s about 70% on the sustainment side,” Lord said. “We need to get that right.”

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AUSA 2017: Lakota readies for training takeover
As another

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is delivered to the US Army, the platform is now entering the final stages of fully replacing the

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as the service's principal helicopter trainer.

The 400th Lakota was delivered to the US Army in August of this year. Airbus Helicopters was

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and the first aircraft, albeit an off-the-shelf helicopter, was delivered in that same year.

‘The 400 deliveries have all been on time and on cost which is a pretty significant accomplishment in the defence world,' said Scott Tumpak, senior director of the Lakota programme at Airbus Helicopters.

‘With

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as well. Right now, we are fielding those aircraft to Fort Rucker for the training mission,’ he added.

On the training transition from the single-engine TH-67 Creek to the twin-engine Lakota, Tumpak said that the army is ‘flipping’ towards 75% usage of the Lakotas as the ramp up continues. This transition in earnest between aircraft is taking place this quarter, he said.

In relation to a twin-engine aircraft being a key training platform, Tumpak commented: ‘If we think about the US Army’s training missions with the current Lakota it's optimal for their training mission. The additional performance of this aircraft is not necessary. There are other US Army missions such as medevac, surveillance and reconnaissance.’

While there have been rumblings that the application of a twin-engine into the US Army’s fleet could make heavy work for training pilots, Airbus Helicopters noted that the aircraft helps the service especially as its active fleet are also twin-engine and have glass cockpits.

The Lakota’s predecessor is a single-engine aircraft with steam gauges and additional training was required to utilise twin-engine aircraft and glass cockpits. The Lakota now eliminates this step saving time and cost.

The primary training mission comprise almost half of the aircraft on the current requirement from the army. The mission emerged in 2014 as part of the army's Aviation Restructure Initiative. The manufacturer provides technical and parts support in this area.

This year Airbus Helicopters is hoping to continue the success of on time and on cost as it aims to complete delivery of 27 aircraft.

In relation to the breakdown of aircraft being delivered this has been based on the army’s demands and in some instances Tumpak said a batch of 55 aircraft were delivered to the service in the last 11 years.

More than 460,000 flight hours have been achieved across the Lakota fleet since 2006. Six aircraft are also operated by the Royal Thai Army and the US Navy have five aircraft at its test pilot school in Patuxent River.

Tumpak confirmed that there was a possibility of the Royal Thai Army taking on more aircraft but could not confirm further details at this stage. In addition, there are other militaries interested in the platform through the FMS route.

However, staying stateside, Tumpak commented that ‘the army has increased its own requirement and there’s appropriate funding through Congress. We are looking forward to a contract for a further 44 aircraft'.

The army requirement is up to 462 aircraft.

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US Stryker and Singaporean Terrex ICVs

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In what seems to be becoming a routine event, the Marine Corps has suspended flight operations, this time for CH-53E Super Stallions on Okinawa.

The 96-hour pause comes after a helicopter caught fire and made an emergency landing on Wednesday, Corps officials announced Thursday.

“We will conduct a thorough investigation working closely with aircrew and maintenance experts to determine the cause of the incident,” a III Marine Expeditionary Force news release says.

“We will continue to share information with the government of Japan as details become available, while understanding that the investigation must be protected and cannot be released until complete.”

On Wednesday, the helicopter was forced to land in a field outside Okinawa’s Northern Training Area, after which local first responders doused the fire. The crew was evacuated by the Air Force’s 33rd Rescue Squadron, said Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, III MEF commander.

“This is a regrettable incident, and after the investigation is complete, those with property damage as a result of this incident will be appropriately compensated,” Nicholson said in the news release.

Given that the cause of Wednesday’s mishap has not yet been determined, it makes sense for the Marines to suspend flight operations, said Jeffrey Hornung, a political scientist at RAND Corp. who specializes in Japanese security issues.

The U.S. and Japanese governments both understand that Okinawans are very concerned about Marine aircraft crashing, Hornung told Marine Corps Times.

“That said, I wouldn’t say that this suspension is any sort of reaction from sudden pressure being applied by politicians or civilian groups in Okinawa,” Hornung said. “Rather, I believe it demonstrates the U.S. Marines Corps being cognizant of the concerns of their Japanese hosts and a sincere desire to prevent any further recurrence that could threaten the lives of not only Japanese citizens in Okinawa, but U.S. service men and women operating that equipment every day.”

The operational pause has become common in Okinawa and elsewhere as Marine aviation has struggled with crashes and other types of mishaps.

Last year, III MEF suspended flight operations for AV-8B Harriers for two weeks following a Sept. 22 crash about 100 nautical miles east of Okinawa, and it suspended flight operations for MV-22B Ospreys for one week after an Osprey crashed in shallow water off Okinawa on Dec. 13.

Constant operations, budget cuts, delays in procuring new aircraft and other factors have all pushed Marine aviation into a crisis. A Marine aircraft has crashed every month since July, when a KC-130T crashed in Mississippi, killing 15 Marines and one sailor — the deadliest crash for Marine aviation since 2005. All 12 of the Corps’ KC-130Ts have remained grounded pending the crash investigation.

The following month, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller ordered all squadrons to suspend flight operations for 24 hours after an MV-22B Osprey crashed off Australia, killing three Marines.

The CH-53E fleet has faced the most serious readiness problems of all Marine Corps aircraft due to its age, its constant use in the Middle East and Southwest Asia since 2001 and a lack of spare parts. The Corps is in the process of repairing and refurbishing all 146 of its Super Stallions.

A major factor that has hurt readiness for all Marine Corps aircraft is that the Corps lost many experienced maintainers during the last drawdown, the head of Marine aviation at the time said in February.

“We let some people go that probably — if we had better insight into who we had out there and the qualifications of those Marines inside the maintenance departments of our flying units — you’d say: ‘These people can’t go,’” Lt. Gen. Jon Davis said.

Davis retired in July, just hours before the KC-130T crash. In a retirement letter released to the public, Davis wrote that five readiness reviews conducted since 2014 had found Marine aviation did not have enough highly skilled maintainers.

“I’ve learned as the Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation that it is the imperative to have high-quality, highly trained, motivated and incentivized Marines in the right qualification density to meet and exceed our readiness requirements,” Davis wrote.

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USS Ponce Decommissioned after 46 Years of Service

NORFOLK (NNS) -- Following more than 46 years of honorable naval service, the afloat forward staging base (interim) USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15) was decommissioned during a time-honored ceremony, Oct. 14.

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Ohio SSGN Naval Diplomacy 154 Tomahawk Block IV cruise missiles in silos + Squad Commandos SEAL, SSGN 727 Michigan

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Jura said:

not sure what to say
The U.S. Navy will start losing its largest surface combatants in 2020
13 hours ago

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The Navy’s oldest cruisers have a friend in Congress.

The influential head of the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee is calling on the Navy to enter its oldest 11 cruisers into a service-life extension program rather than retire them at the end of their 35-year hull life in the coming years.

Defense News recently reported that the Navy was planning to decommission the oldest 11 cruisers starting in 2020 at a rate of two per year. The newest 11 cruisers are currently being rotated through a lay-up and modernization program that will keep them in the fleet until the late 2030s.


“Instead of discussing the decommissioning of cruisers, we need to spend more time discussing the maintenance, modernization and service-life extension of all twenty-two cruisers,” said Virginia Republican Rep. Rob Wittman, the head of the HASC Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, in a statement to Defense News.

Wittman, who along with Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker is spearheading the effort in Congress to grow the fleet to 355 ships, said modernizing and refitting the oldest cruisers will help get the Navy to that number.

“These assets are vital in reaching our goal of a 355-ship Navy, and they are important assets in our Carrier Strike Group construct,” he said.

Wittman said that Naval Sea Systems Command is examining ways to get the ships through a service-life extension program.

Navy analysts broadly believe that decommissioning the oldest cruisers is a mistake, given the demand for ships equipped with their high-powered radars and biggest-in-the-fleet vertical launch system magazines. The cruisers come equipped with 122 VLS tubes, vice the destroyers which pack 96 tubes.

Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said entering the cruisers into a SLEP is the right idea, but along with that would have to come more careful use of the aging hulls.

“I think extending the service life of the cruisers is a good idea, as long as they are judicious about what they do with them moving forward,” Clark said. “Let’s not spend the money to overhaul them, then burn them up on low-end exercises or theater security cooperation missions.”

The Navy should put the older cruisers through hull, mechanical and electrical upgrades and save them for area air defense for carrier strike group operations instead, Clark argues. That would relieve the strain on the other cruisers and destroyers, which are in increasing demand as the ballistic missile defense mission becomes ever-more important.

The cruisers Bunker Hill and Mobile Bay will both be decommissioned in 2020 if current plans stand. Then Antietam and Leyte Gulf in 2021; San Jacinto and Lake Champlain in 2022; Philippine Sea and Princeton in 2024; Normandy and Monterey in 2025; and Chancellorsville in 2026.

The cruisers, which function as the air-defense commander in the carrier strike group, are commanded by full-bird captains and are the closest thing to a modern battleship in the Navy’s inventory.

The Navy is currently executing what’s known as the 2-4-6 plan, a compromise hashed out between Congress and the Navy to keep at least 11 cruisers in the fleet to run shotgun on the air defense of the 11 carriers in the fleet into the 2040s.

The 2-4-6 plan calls for two ships at a time to be sidelined for no longer than four years and that no more than six ships will be in this inactive status at one time.

According to the schedule obtained by Defense News, the last cruiser, the Cape St. George, would leave the fleet in 2038, with 40 years in active service, accounting for the four-plus years it will have spent in what’s known as “phased modernization.”

Some analysts worry about the loss of VLS tubes in the fleet, arguing that in a conflict with a near-peer competitor like Russia and China, ships need to have as many missiles as possible because potential adversaries will seek to overwhelm the Navy’s Aegis combat system and defenses with massed missile strikes. The strategy would be to make the escort ships run out of missiles to defend its aircraft carrier, then strike at the biggest weapon in the Navy’s arsenal.

A one-for-one swap of the 11 cruisers with new destroyers would reduce the Navy’s available VLS real estate by nearly 300 tubes. But what’s unclear is how, for example, the new Virginia Payload Module and a new guided-missile frigate program might offset the reduced number of cells currently being toted around by cruisers.

What is crystal clear is that there is no shortage of demand for the Navy’s VLS capability, especially as missions such as ballistic missile defense become increasingly important and put an ever-larger strain on the Navy’s surface ships.

The Navy has 34 ballistic missile defense-capable ships (32 if you subtract the two ships that are currently inoperable due to collisions over the summer). The Navy proposes to keep upgrading and extending the life of the destroyers in its inventory to cover its BMD missions, which can impact the Navy’s ability to use the ship in multiple roles because it has to stay in a certain location to ensure it can have a good shot at a ballistic missile shot by North Korea or Iran.

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