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The Navy Strategic Systems Program and the Department of Defense this week tested a conventional prompt strike capability that could one day be fielded from ballistic missile submarines.

The Pentagon’s

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, supplementing the comparable nuclear strike capability and serving as another deterrence effort.

Strategic Systems Program (SSP) Director Vice Adm. Terry Benedict said on Nov. 2 that “I’m very proud to report that at 0300 on Monday night SSP flew from Hawaii [Pacific Missile Range Facility] … the first conventional prompt strike missile for the United States Navy in the form factor that would eventually, could eventually be utilized if leadership chooses to do so in an Ohio-class tube. It’s a monumental achievement.”

The admiral spoke at the Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium in Arlington, Va. He credited his organization for, in addition to working on the nuclear weapons that support the Ohio-class boomers and their Columbia-class replacement in development now, “we have supported the OSD AT&L defense-wide account for technology demonstration, and on our first go out of the box a very successful flight of a conventional prompt strike maneuvering reentry body.”

The Ohio-class SSBNs today silently patrol the oceans carrying Trident II D5 sub-launched ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. Considered the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad – alongside Air Force bombers and ground-based silos – these subs on patrol are capable of launching a strike against any target on Earth. Given their reach and stealth, tying them into the conventional prompt strike network of capabilities would add another conventional tool for operational commanders around the world.

When asked about the test during a question and answer session, Benedict said he could not comment further and had to refer all questions to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (OUSD(AT&L)), which manages the conventional prompt strike capability.

Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Patrick Evans told USNI News today that “the Navy Strategic Systems Program (SSP), on behalf of the Department of Defense, conducted an Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike Flight Experiment-1 (CPS FE-1) test on Oct. 30, 2017, from Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii. The test collected data on hypersonic boost-glide technologies and test-range performance for long-range atmospheric flight. This data will be used by the Department of Defense to anchor ground testing, modeling, and simulation of hypersonic flight vehicle performance and is applicable to a range of possible Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) concepts.”

In addition to Navy and AT&L assets, the Missile Defense Agency participated in tracking and data collection activities, he added.

Evans added that AT&L “is investigating technologies and concepts that are potentially useful for developing intermediate-range conventional capabilities through modeling and simulation, ground tests, and flight test experiments. OUSD(AT&L) uses a national team, comprised of Navy, Army, Air Force, national research laboratories, and university affiliated research centers, to pursue technology development objectives. The Navy was assigned to lead the Flight Experiment 1 (FE-1).”

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Lockheed Martin, the main contractor on the US Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) program, has awarded BAE Systems a $40 million to begin production of its sensor technology for the missile.

BAE’s sensor suite enables the missile to seek and attack specific high-threat maritime targets within groups of ships, including those protected by sophisticated anti-aircraft systems.

The missile’s range, survivability, and lethality capabilities are designed to help warfighters more effectively conduct missions in denied environments from beyond the reach of return fire ― meeting a pressing need for both the US Navy and US Air Force.

LRASM is a next-generation, precision-guided stealth missile capable of semi-autonomously detecting and identifying targeted enemy ships. The precision routing and guidance technology of the sensor ― which doesn’t rely exclusively on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, networking links, or GPS navigation ― enables the missile to operate effectively in contested domains and all weather conditions, day or night.

“The production of our advanced sensor for LRASM is a testament to the strength of our technology and our ability to transition the capability from airframes to missiles,” said Joseph Mancini, LRASM program manager at BAE Systems. “Precision guidance and advanced electronics are areas where we have leading capabilities, and where we can provide warfighters with an advantage on the battlefield.”

As part of BAE Systems’ work with LRASM prime contractor Lockheed Martin, the company provided the sensor technology that supported a recent successful demonstration of the anti-ship missile. The launch demonstrates LRASM’s ability to address the Navy’s need for versatile, multi-platform precision munitions that enable distributed operations.

Work on the sensor technology will be conducted at BAE Systems’ facilities in Nashua, New Hampshire and Wayne, New Jersey.

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Jura said:

355-Ship Navy Could Take More Than Three Decades to Build, Acting Navy Under Secretary Says

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actually they're at risk of filling up the numbers with LCS PORK! Jul 10, 2017

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Does the Navy stand behind its requirement for a 355-ship fleet?

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer and Admiral John Richardson, the Chief of Naval Operations, certainly do. But Acting Undersecretary Thomas Dee, an Obama holdover, recently threw a wet blanket on the requirement, saying 355 ships is probably out of reach until the 2050s. In his comments, Mr. Dee took a line from the Rolling Stones, elaborating that “You can’t always get what you want.”

One would hope that senior Navy officials know the second part of that Rolling Stones refrain: “But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”

Yes, shipbuilding is a long process and a 355-ship fleet will not happen overnight. But Mr. Dee’s pessimism about the Navy’s own requirement is disappointing, when it is incumbent on the Navy to develop fleet buildup options within budget constraints.

These “current and likely future fiscal environments” were accounted for in the Navy’s 2016 Force Structure Assessment (FSA) of 355 ships. Otherwise, why not shoot for the 650 ships our Combatant Commanders actually need?

As the chairman of the Senate Seapower Subcommittee, I have no interest in mindless shipbuilding. I believe that our ability to project naval power requires a fleet that can cover all critical maritime regions and account for lengthy transit and maintenance cycles. As Admiral Richardson’s Future Navy white paper put it: “Numbers matter. The number of ships in the Navy’s fleet determines where we can be, and being there is a key to naval power.” The CNO also notes that we ought to achieve a 355-ship fleet in the 2020s, not the 2040s or 2050s. He is right. A 355-ship fleet should be our goal for the next decade.

The recent collisions involving the destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain further demonstrate the urgency of our fleet buildup. Although the demand for naval assets has increased substantially since 9/11, the supply of available ships has declined around 20 percent. Our fleet is nearly as small as it was before World War I, and it is fast approaching a “death spiral,” according to naval analysts Robert C. O’Brien and Jerry Hendrix. Increasingly overworked and damaged ships are placing an ever-greater strain on the remaining operational ships and the sailors who operate them. Unless we reverse this spiral, O’Brien and Hendrix argue, the nation can expect “more collisions, more injuries, and more deaths in the fleet.”

Congress has taken four steps this year to help lay a firm foundation for an aggressive, fiscally responsible naval buildup. First, the FY18 budget resolution passed by the Senate and the House allows base defense spending to climb to $640 billion. Because this number exceeds the spending caps set in law, I am hopeful that the budget resolution will help energize congressional efforts to raise the caps and provide short-term budget stability for the Navy.

Second, both the Senate and House versions of the 2018 defense authorization bill include the Wicker-Wittman SHIPS Act, which would establish the Navy’s 355-ship requirement as our national policy. Enactment of the SHIPS Act through the defense bill’s final conference report would send a strong signal that building up the fleet is an enduring priority.

Third, Congress has also supported — in both defense authorization bills — the multiyear procurement of Virginia-class attack submarines and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Multiyear procurement would stabilize the industrial base for those ships and generate billions in savings, which could then be plowed into more shipbuilding. For the past two decades, low-rate shipbuilding has eviscerated the supplier base and led to inefficient production schedules. A Navy analysis shows that our shipbuilding industrial base could construct 29 more ships than planned over the next seven years. In other words, our shipyards are up to the challenge.

Finally, I amended this year’s defense authorization bill to direct the Navy to go through its inventory and identify opportunities for extending a ship’s service life or reactivating a ship in the Ready Reserve. It is irresponsible to retire ships early or overlook reactivation opportunities if the benefits exceed the costs. The Navy is currently about 80 ships short of its minimum requirement. We cannot afford to be picky. We need to be creative.

Earlier this year, former Navy Secretary John Lehman testified in favor of the SHIPS Act and told my subcommittee that President Reagan “reaped 90 percent of the benefits of his rebuilding program … in the first year.” In the early ’80s, President Reagan, Congress and the Pentagon were serious about rebuilding the fleet. They made it clear to our allies and the Soviets that the American Navy was coming back in a big way. We can do the same today, but we all need to be on the same page.

We will never grow the fleet unless the Navy — and everyone in the Navy leadership — stands fully behind its own requirements. Indeed, they just might find they get what they need.

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ATLANTIC OCEAN (Nov. 1, 2017) The guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109) launches a SM-2 missile during a live-fire exercise. Jason Dunham is underway with the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group preparing for future operations

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The Pentagon Is Quietly Developing A Next Generation Long-Range Air-To-Air Missille

As the latest and likely the last major iteration of the AIM-120 AMRAAM, the D model, spreads throughout the services and America's allies' weapons caches, there has been great speculation as to what will come next, and real concern that the Pentagon has not moved fast enough or in a consistent enough manner to field a next generation long-range air-to-air missile. Now it appears that a new initiative has been quietly underway for two years now to do just that.

Our friend and Flightglobal.com Americas Bureau Chief Stephen Trimble posted

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identifying a obscure line-item under the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (the Pentagon's budget) called “emerging capabilities technology development." Trimble notes that this is usually attributed to small electronic warfare programs, not new air-to-air missile development. But in this case it included a program dubbed Long Range Engagement Weapon, or LREW for short

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Equation said:

For the US it's not (depending on one's opinion and views of course).

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The $1.2 trillion cost of modernizing the nation’s nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years has renewed debate about whether all of the Pentagon’s new programs are actually necessary. The Pentagon is in the midst of reviewing the U.S. nuclear weapons posture as it builds budgets for fiscal 2019 and beyond. In the meantime, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reviewed the cost of plans from 2017 to 2046 and found that while incrementally upgrading nuclear forces would cost about $400 billion, operating and sustaining the weapons will add another $800 billion to the bill. “That increase would occur at a time when total defense spending may be constrained by long-term fiscal pressures, and nuclear forces would have to compete with other defense priorities for funding,” the CBO reports.

The increase covers three decades of expenditures on a range of activities—including ballistic missile submarines and the nuclear missiles that ride on them, ICBMs, the B-21 bomber and a Long-Range Standoff weapon (LRSO) that it would carry, plus nuclear warheads, nuclear laboratories, and command, control, communications and early-warning systems.

Advocates of reining in U.S. nuclear forces are calling on President Donald Trump to take a fresh look at what programs are actually needed. Former Defense Secretary William Perry and Marine Gen. James Cartwright, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, wrote a letter to Trump Oct. 31. They would like him to end two programs the U.S. Air Force recently put under contract for technology maturation: the Ground-based Strategic Deterrent, which replaces current ICBMs, and the LRSO that would replace the existing Air-Launched Cruise Missile. “Forgoing a new generation of ICBMs and maintaining the current missiles instead would save $100 billion in production costs alone,” write Perry and Cartwright. “Even more importantly, our ICBMs are in danger of being launched in the case of another false alarm [we have experienced three to date], thereby starting a civilization-ending nuclear war by accident.”

Given ongoing tensions with North Korea and Russia, it might seem that the Pentagon would be keen to approve as much funding for nuclear weapons as possible. But nuclear posture reviews are complicated, detailed and do not always turn out the way an administration appears to lean. After then-President Barack Obama gave a speech calling for an end to nuclear weapons, his first nuclear posture review went on to affirm the need for a triad of nuclear delivery systems—in the air, on land and at sea.

So it is not at all clear where Trump’s review will wind up. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is on the record clearly defending the need for nuclear submarines, saying, “absolutely we will maintain it.” But when it comes to the LRSO, his response is more ambiguous. Mattis told reporters in September that the Air Force’s recent contract award was to maintain the weapon as an option. “It is not a decision yet,” he said. “That will come out of [the] nuclear posture review.”

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Lawmakers have prioritized tax cuts, and now there’s just one way left for the defense budget to recover.

The fiscal year 2018 budget endgame has begun, and it doesn’t look good for the Department of Defense. There have been hopeful signals all year. The Administration’s base budget request came in at $574.5 billion, $52 billion above the Budget Control Act caps. The House and Senate passed defense authorization bills that far exceeded that mark, and the House even passed an appropriations bill that provided $18 billion more than the request.

The casual observer is forgiven for thinking that any of these numbers are likely to be passed into law, but all the while the Budget Control Act has loomed, unflinching and unchanging, capping the defense budget at $522 billion. While that budget may sound huge (and it is), it is also too small to do everything the Defense Department is asked to do. It results in unmet readiness requirements, inadequate maintenance, and deferred investments. When the DoD accepts budget risk, they also risk mishaps and accidents, equipment failures, and they stretch their people to the limit. The bottom line is that when you ask the men and women of the U.S. military to do more with less, you’re adding significant risk to an already dangerous job.

All year there have been hopes that another budget deal would be struck, one that would increase funding levels above the BCA caps. Such deals have been struck before, each adjusting the budget caps for two years: one for 2014-15 and one for 2016-17.

It turns out that a budget deal has indeed been struck, but it left DoD out in the cold. The House and Senate just

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a concurrent budget resolution for fiscal year 2018, but they focused their negotiations on making sure they could pass a tax reform bill, and designated all of their budget flexibility toward that end. The defense budget was left at the BCA cap level: $52 billion below the budget request.

At the same time, the House and Senate Armed Services Committee have been diligently working toward completing their conference negotiations on the National Defense Authorization Act. Both the House and Senate versions of the defense policy bill presume their much higher budget figures, but if their final conference bill adds additional requirements for DoD (e.g. increased pay and benefits, higher troop levels) and the BCA caps are not changed, they will exacerbate the budget crunch, crowding out other programs and priorities that DoD requested within the smaller BCA budget level.

Even without BCA relief, there is still a ray of hope for DoD, and that’s the well-worn path of emergency spending: the Overseas Contingency Operations accounts in the defense budget. These accounts are largely used to pay for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, but also the related increased readiness and maintenance requirements that result from those operations. These accounts are not constrained by the budget caps, as Congress prudently concluded that budget discipline should not constrain the flexibility of commanders in the field.

Purists hate this idea. OMB Director Mulvaney has long advocated a more rigid approach to OCO funds, and others in the defense community fret that the definition of overseas contingency has been expanded simply to allow the Department to use these accounts to do an end-run around the budget caps.

Nonetheless, when the new Administration arrived and requested additional funds above the original fiscal year 2017 request, Congress used this tool and funded roughly half of that increase through the OCO account. Other emergency spending, such as hurricane relief, is also unconstrained by the budget caps.

Given the challenges DoD is encountering even with current funding, and the apparent inability (or unwillingness) of Congress to adjust the BCA caps, Congress should declare a Readiness Emergency and pass an appropriations bill with a significant increase in emergency spending, even if there is no direct connection to ongoing wars. A DoD Emergency Readiness Recovery Fund would allow Congress to increase DoD funding without painful rationalizations that tie every dollar to increases in support of current conflicts. In addition, if sufficient requirements were shifted from the base budget to an emergency fund, it would make room for other deferred priorities, such as increasing innovation and procurement accounts.

While the emergency spending route is not new, it is not a given. It still takes 60 votes in the Senate to bring an appropriations bill up for consideration, so Congress has to come to terms with the fact that in order to get buy-in for increased emergency spending at DoD, it will mean Democrats can demand increases to non-defense accounts as well. The appropriators can strike this deal, but only with the support of their leadership.

There is a limited amount of time left on the legislative calendar, and there’s really only one way left for the defense budget to recover from the budget resolution setback. Congress needs to expand the definition of emergency spending for DoD and fund some of the Democrats’ non-defense priorities. If they don’t, the Budget Control Act will continue to rule the day, and our military personnel won’t get the resources they need. That will only make their dangerous jobs even more so.

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Jura said:

May 28, 2017

Jura said:

real world Fear of DoD struggles grow, amid vacancy levels not seen for 50 years

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and now I read

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Jura said:

now obviously not news, but very interesting maps from 100 years ago:

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