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Brigadier
The US Should Seize Its Chance to Help Shape a Key Ally’s Capabilities

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"Less than three years ago, the UK’s defense strategy seemed well in hand. For the military, the 2015 Strategic Defense and Security Review promised – if not blue skies ahead, then at least relief from the cuts that resulted from the global financial crisis. But just a little over six months after the document was published, the wheels began to fall off.

The UK has a long history of underfunding defense plans, and the 2015 review turned out to be no different. Its own failings were compounded by the pound’s post-Brexit vote crash, which increased the price of foreign equipment, including the U.S.-made P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and F-35B Lightning II fighter. Ultimately, the military faced a budget shortfall of around $27 billion over the next decade – no small sum against Britain’s core annual defense spending of roughly $50 billion. That gap, plus the need to update the country’s posture to reflect changed strategic circumstances, led to a new review, which has evolved into the Modernizing Defense Program."

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Brigadier
The Air Force wants up to 1,000 retired pilots and airmen to come back to fix its manpower crisis..

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"The Air Force is expanding its Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty Program to allow up to 1,000 retired rated officers to return to active duty as part of the service's effort to address the large and protracted shortage of pilots that has been deemed a "quiet crisis" by Air Force leadership.

The Air Force said in a release on Wednesday that retired officers with pilot, combat systems, and air-battle-manager specialty codes "are encouraged to apply for the Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty Program to help alleviate manning shortages within the Air Force rated community."

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Brigadier
US Navy officially inducts Triton UAV into service

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The US Navy (USN) has officially commenced operations of its Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton Broad Area Maritime System (BAMS) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), it was announced on 1 June.

A ceremony to formally induct the high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAV into service with Unmanned Patrol Squadron (VUP)-19 – the navy’s first unmanned patrol squadron – was held the previous day at Naval Base Ventura County in Point Mugu, California.

VP-19 now has two Triton UAVs, which are housed in specially constructed to facilities designed to accommodate their nearly 40 m wingspans. With this milestone, VP-19 will undertake training and trials ahead of the platform’s inaugural overseas deployment, which will be to the Pacific island of Guam later this year. For this and later deployments, the Triton will operate in concert with the manned Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime multimission aircraft.

The MQ-4C Triton has been developed from the Block 30 RQ-4N naval variant of the RQ-4 Global Hawk HALE UAV to provide the USN with a persistent maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability in support of a full range of military operations. Designed for high-altitude, long-endurance ISR tasks, the Triton has a range of about 2,000 n miles and, with an endurance of 24 hours, will be able to cover more than 2.7 million sq miles in a single mission. Its payload primarily comprises the AN/ZPY-3 multifunction active-sensor radar.

The USN has established the infrastructure to train its Triton operators at Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville in Florida. Operators undergo training under the supervision of Patrol Squadron (VP) 30 at the 11,600 m2 Integrated Test Center (ITC), which is also used for the training of P-8A Poseidon and P-3 Orion crews.
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
Apr 19, 2018
Jura said:
Mar 20, 2018

now Air Force awards nearly $1 billion contract for a hypersonic cruise missile
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and this is interesting:
Lack of funds causes USAF to skip hypersonic cruise missile competition

04 June, 2018
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The US Air Force skipped a more extensive competition for its nearly $1 billion hypersonic cruise missile development contract due to lack of available funds to pay multiple sources to develop alternative prototypes, according to a newly-released government document.

The move is a departure from normal Department of Defense policy on most advanced weapons development programmes.

Denver-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems won the indefinite-delivery and indefinite quantity award worth up to $928 million to develop a hypersonic cruise missile in April 2018.

The USAF anticipates requesting only a limited number of air-launched hypersonic missiles from Lockheed and plans no further competitions to produce alternative versions of the weapon from other manufacturers, according to a justification and approval for other than full competition document posted online 4 June 2018. The service said it did not have the funding necessary to pay for a competition of multiple sources through the engineering and manufacturing development phase.

The USAF is planning to encourage competition among possible component suppliers for the hypersonic conventional strike weapon through the use of standard interfaces, however.

The USAF is accelerating its efforts to develop hypersonic weapons and aircraft in light of advances and investments made in hypersonic technology by China and Russia. The difficulty in defending against hypersonic weapons has pushed the Pentagon into an arms race. Developing hypersonic weapons is the “highest technical priority” for the US military, said Michael Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, in March 2018.

The justification and approval document was produced in October 2017 before the USAF awarded Lockheed Martin Space the hypersonic missile. The document, a redacted version which was later made public, provided reasoning for the government’s plan to grant a single company the only contract for designing, developing and integrating an air launched hypersonic missile.

Lockheed Martin Space is contracted to provide programmatic, engineering and systems engineering work leading to a successful critical design review within 24 months after the award. The firm is to provide engineering and manufacturing development work to support Early Operational Capability by 2022.

The USAF received statements of capability from 12 companies after soliciting interest in developing a hypersonic missile in June 2017. The hypersonic conventional strike weapon programme office deemed only five of the potential bidders to be viable vendors: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Missile Systems and Orbital ATK.

Ultimately, only four of the five viable vendors submitted bids, of which Lockheed Martin Space was chosen as the award winner.
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TerraN_EmpirE

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
fortunately no Casualties but a deeply troubled individual
Company commander steals armored vehicle from National Guard base, police say
By: Denise Lavoie, The Associated Press   7 hours ago
armored personnel carrier from a Virginia base and leading police on a more than 60-mile (100-kilometer) chase was driving under the influence of drugs, police said Wednesday.

Joshua Philip Yabut, 29, of Richmond, was charged with eluding police and unauthorized use of a vehicle, the Virginia National Guard said in a news release.

The vehicle, which drives on tracks like a tank, was stolen Tuesday evening from Fort Pickett in Blackstone. Police chased it for about two hours at speeds as high as 40 mph (65 kph) before the driver stopped and surrendered near Richmond City Hall, Virginia State Police said.


Parker Slaybaugh@ParkerSlay89


This is INSANE! Someone has hijacked a “Tank-like” vehicle from Fort Pickett and just drove it by our apartment! This is on Broad Street in the Fan.

9:39 PM - Jun 5, 2018

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The Guard said the personnel carrier was driven away during routine training at Fort Pickett and has been returned to the base. The vehicle wasn’t equipped with any weapons, but Yabut had his personal weapon with him without any ammunition, the Guard said.

Police said an investigation is ongoing and declined to comment on a motive for stealing the vehicle, but said Yabut was under the influence of drugs when he was arrested.

The Guard said Yabut is a first lieutenant assigned as company commander of the 276th Engineer Battalion and has more than 11 years of service. He deployed to Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009 with the Illinois National Guard.

This undated image provided by Richmond City Sheriff's Office shows Joshua Yabut. Yabut, a soldier who was chased by police for more than 60 miles after he stole an armored personnel carrier from a National Guard base was driving under the influence of drugs, Virginia State Police said Wednesday, June 6, 2018. (Richmond City Sheriff's Office via AP)
This undated image provided by Richmond City Sheriff's Office shows Joshua Yabut. Yabut, a soldier who was chased by police for more than 60 miles after he stole an armored personnel carrier from a National Guard base was driving under the influence of drugs, Virginia State Police said Wednesday, June 6, 2018. (Richmond City Sheriff's Office via AP)
“We are extremely grateful that there were no injuries as a result of this incident, and we appreciate the great work of the Virginia State Police, Richmond Police Department and other law enforcement and first responders who safely brought this situation to a close,” Maj. Gen. Timothy P. Williams, the adjutant general of Virginia, said in a statement.

Williams said the Guard has started an internal investigation and “will determine appropriate actions once the investigation is complete.”

Michael Finneran, a spokesman for the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, said Yabut worked there in a civilian job in the office of the chief information officer from 2014-2017.

Yabut also previously worked as a developer for ZenCash, the cryptocurrency company said in a statement Wednesday.



Yabut was a developer in the project’s early stages, and he “intentionally made public a method” of attacking the system, which was a “vulnerability” that he coded in, according to the statement.

Emergency personnel surround a National Guard military vehicle stolen from Fort Pickett, Va., on June 5, 2018. Police said they arrested a soldier who stole the armored personnel carrier after chasing him for more than 60 miles. (Grace Hollars/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)
Emergency personnel surround a National Guard military vehicle stolen from Fort Pickett, Va., on June 5, 2018. Police said they arrested a soldier who stole the armored personnel carrier after chasing him for more than 60 miles. (Grace Hollars/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)
Representatives of the company, which said in the statement that it had mitigated the vulnerability, didn’t immediately respond to further questions from The Associated Press.

Yabut was being held at the Richmond jail. Attempts to reach his defense attorney or family members who could comment on his behalf were not successful.

Yabut seemed to foreshadow the theft and chase in Twitter posts Tuesday. Hours before the vehicle drove off the base, an account confirmed by the Guard as Yabut’s tweeted a Wikipedia entry about the M113 armored personnel carrier, which is similar to the M577 vehicle police chased, and a screenshot of a map around the area where the vehicle eventually stopped.

Minutes after police began their pursuit shortly before 8 p.m., Yabut posted a photo and video of himself in what appears to be the stolen vehicle.

He wrote a series of odd tweets Tuesday, including: “where is this damn water buffalo” ″all i wanna do is get an anime wife” and “wow I think I just discovered a large illegal spy operation in the us government.”

In February, Yabut filed papers to run as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Tim Kaine.

Associated Press writer Sarah Rankin contributed to this report.
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The Vehicle he stole is an M577 which is not a tank but a Command post vehicle based off the M113, It's been in service since the 1960's and is fairly light and like all M113 is intended as an APC. They are unarmed.
Reports are that the Individual had a Sidearm presumably an M9 but no ammo.
 
P

PanAsian

Major
TerraN_EmpirE said:
fortunately no Casualties but a deeply troubled individual
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The Vehicle he stole is an M577 which is not a tank but a Command post vehicle based off the M113, It's been in service since the 1960's and is fairly light and like all M113 is intended as an APC. They are unarmed.
Reports are that the Individual had a Sidearm presumably an M9 but no ammo.
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Bizarre!
 
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