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US bombers B-52, B-1 and B-2 united for the first time in Europe

In the past, the United States has already sent strategic B-52H Stratofortress, B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers to participate in NATO exercises in Europe. But these three types of aircraft had never before been deployed together on the Old Continent. It is now done.
Indeed, on June 9, the US Air Force announced the arrival of two stealth bombers B-2 Spirit in the United Kingdom. These aircraft took off from their base in Whiteman, Missouri, to join the Royal Air Force base in Fairford, England.

These two B-2 Spirit have joined the three B-52 Stratofortresses and three B-1B Lancer, sent to Europe to participate in the Baltops and Saber Strike exercises, conducted on the eastern flank of NATO.

However, the stealth bombers will not be involved in these maneuvers, their deployment, which must be brief, in a deterrent position provided for by the Alliance's reinsurance measures for the benefit of the Baltic and Pologn Russian intentions towards them.

Baltops, which began on 1 June in Szczecin, Poland, mobilizes air, sea and land assets from 14 countries. This year, it mobilizes 4,000 seafarers, 50 ships and submarines and more than 50 aircraft. Last year, the B-52H engaged in these maneuvers had dumped dummy mines.
It is probably within the scope of this exercise that a B-52H was intercepted this week by a Russian Su-27 Flanker

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Completed Nimitz carrier strike group deploys from San Diego

U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and destroyers USS Kidd (DDG 100) and USS Shoup united with other ships and units of their carrier strike group in San Diego to officially start their deployment on June 5.

USS Nimitz and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Kidd (DDG 100), and USS Shoup (DDG 86) departed their homeports of Naval Base Kitsap, Washington, and Naval Station Everett, on June 1.

Once in San Diego, they incorporated guided-missile destroyers USS Howard (DDG 83) and USS Pinckney (DDG 91), and the San Diego-based Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) to complete the carrier strike group.

The U.S. navy said this was a previously planned, routine deployment and not in response to any specific incident or regional event.

“This deployment is the culmination of months of intensive training and preparations,” said Rear Adm. Bill Byrne, commander, CSG 11. “The Nimitz Strike Group stands ready to respond to a wide variety of contingencies, be that a humanitarian disaster or a regional incident. We’re honored to be in this position to answer the nation’s call to duty.”

The strike group deployed with approximately 7,500 sailors and is focused on maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts.

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U.S. Marines based out of Norway, another Marine expeditionary unit operating from Sicily. U.S. submarines forward-deployed to Scotland, littoral combat ships in the Mediterranean. Supply ships, fleet oilers and amphibious ships armed with cruise missiles. A third aviation-centered assault ship. More networked connectivity.

Those are just some of the changes and enhancements proposed by the new iNavy concept – i for Improved Navy -- a set of force enhancements that, according to its proponents, can be implemented over the next five years to make the existing fleet more lethal and effective.

“It’s things we can do between 2017 and 2022 to improve our Navy, to improve our capabilities and to improve the size of the Navy in order to fill some of the gaps we have today. And to do so in a manner that doesn’t preclude us from doing things in the long term to ensure that we’ve got the Navy that we need in 2030, 2035,” said John Miller, a retired vice admiral who led the team that developed the concept.

The concept isn’t dependent on buying more ships, since it’s unlikely any new construction would enter service within five years. Rather, Miller said, the idea is to improve the overall readiness of the service as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“iNavy is a larger Navy. It’s a more lethal Navy. It’s a Navy that’s more forward-deployed and it’s a Navy that’s more ready. It’s those four attributes,” he said.

“We can’t just grow the Navy, that’s not the solution that’s going to meet all the demands we have,” Miller explained. “We really don’t have the money to do that and we don’t have the industrial capacity to just build a bigger Navy in a very short amount of time.

“Most of the Navy we’re going to have in 2022 is already with us. In fact, most of the Navy we’re going to have in 2030 is already with us, about seventy-five percent of it. So you have to look at other things we can do to get more out of the Navy we have.”

Working with the support of Tom Donnelly at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Miller, a former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, proposes moving a number of U.S.-based forces to forward-deployed locations, with a particular emphasis on beefing up the U.S. presence in Europe. Among the proposals is to establish a Mediterranean base for one of the two aviation-centered assault ships, America or Tripoli. The Mediterranean base would also support cruisers, destroyers and logistics efforts. He advocates an amphibious ready group (ARG) and associated Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) based in Sicily, similar to the ARG and MEU now forward-deployed to Japan.

Another new Mediterranean base would support littoral combat ships, and a U.S. submarine base would be established at Faslane, Scotland, already home to a British Royal Navy sub base.

The emphasis on more units in Europe, Miller said, is a reflection of recent rebalancing efforts to move more forces to the Pacific where, he said, “I think we’ve moved sufficient numbers.”

And forces based in Europe, he added, could move easily to other theaters when needed.

“Where we really see gaps of concern is in the Mediterranean and in the North Atlantic and an area of the Baltics,” Miller said. “Moving forces into the Mediterranean helps you in a couple of different places -- in the Mediterranean, in the North Atlantic and also in West Asia, because you’re closer to that part of the world. You could swing those forces into the Central Command area as a possibility or into the Indian Ocean as well.”

Miller would move more submarines to Guam, shortening the transit time to the Western Pacific or Indian Ocean theaters. He also proposes forward-deploying the other aviation assault ship to the Pacific, and advocates building a third aviation ship, not in current shipbuilding plans. He would beef up purchases of Marine Corps F-35B joint strike fighters to fill out the assault ship decks.

Miller’s iNavy also embraces distributed lethality concepts to get more firepower out of the fleet. All 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers would be retained and fully modernized, and the combat systems of all destroyers would be upgraded to Aegis Baseline 9, the current top-of-the-line standard. A key element would be to arm at least six San Antonio-class landing ship docks and six T-AKE dry cargo ammunition ships with vertical launch systems (VLS) able to launch cruise missiles. The ships also would receive cooperative engagement capabilities to allow more sophisticated warships to control the weapons. Miller’s concept also envisions returning all four Supply-class fast supply ships to Military Sealift Command service and providing them with VLS, and considers similar modifications to Kaiser-class fleet oilers.

Miller and his team conducted a series of four war games, running scenarios with and without iNavy concepts. In every scenario, the iNavy dramatically improved U.S. responses to regional threats.

“The more forward-deployed we are the more ready we are and the more capable we are of responding to crisis,” Miller said. “We need to be more forward-deployed than we are today. You have to have the numbers of ships and aircraft and you have to have sufficient lethality and be properly networked.”

Greater emphasis would be placed, he said, on expanding the Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) network, which links together weapons and sensors on a variety of different ships, aircraft and shore units.

“A NIFC-CA-configured strike group is one that’s easier to disaggregate and operate in different geographic areas while staying connected,” Miller said. “You have more synergy than if you don’t have a NIFC-CA-configured strike group. That’s mature technology and we’ve deployed it so we understand how it works. It’s just a matter of buying the kit and installing it.”

Miller is beginning to brief Navy brass on the concept, and an AEI report is forthcoming.

“All four of the concepts attributes are required,” Miller said. “It’s not just a bigger Navy or a more ready Navy or a more lethal Navy or more forward-deployed Navy. It’s all four of those attributes together.”

One analyst familiar with the iNavy concept is impressed.

“This was a very focused excursion into how we could do better with what we already have with modest adjustments in the next few years,” said Bryan McGrath, one of the co-authors of a recent fleet architecture study conducted by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “I was grateful to see that group of smart people had looked very hard at the near-term horizon. There are a world of things we can do in the next few years that are interesting and can have impact.”

But McGrath noted that “there’s a considerable amount of diplomacy to be done to make those things happen,” referring to the multiple forward-basing proposals. He also brought up another issue.

“There has to be a reason why, a sense of urgency, compelling reasons to force the Navy and Congress to make these adjustments,” McGrath observed. “But that compelling narrative has not been created, and no one is out preaching it. I know in my heart there is one.

“I think Admiral MIller’s team makes a very useful contribution that when a compelling narrative arrives that makes these things important, they will be useful first steps, and relatively straightforward to implement. But without that narrative it’s going to be difficult to pull off.”

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Jura said:

"Another new Mediterranean base would support littoral combat ships ..." does the author know Russian warships are armed (pretty heavily relative to their displacement), contrary to LCSs?

anyway How to fast-track to an improved Navy

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Jura said:

Feb 25, 2017
now
US Army anti-missile command system’s initial capability delayed four years

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America’s military has operated far too long without a truly integrated air and missile defense system and the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) is the best answer we’ve got. Congress needs to support the Army’s budget request for IBCS and AMD funding. For its part, the Army needs to re-evaluate its management approach.

IBCS will take us from stove-piped, stand-alone weapon systems to the integrated air and missile defense we require. IBCS’ open architecture and “any sensor-best shooter” construct is the objective our commanders must have to deal with the threats of today and tomorrow.

As Adm. Harry Harris, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, recently told Breaking Defense, “I want them to be able to deliver a missile on target, and I want them to be able to do it interchangeably. In other words, I want the Navy to be able to do the sensing and the Army to do the shooting, or the Army to do the sensing and the Navy to do the shooting.”

IBCS is only seven years into development and it has accomplished much. The Army needs to re-evaluate its management approach and ensure it is disciplined and establishes a block concept to manage emerging requirements. It needs to lock-in configurations prior to test and provide well-trained and experienced crews to execute the test and analyzes test results to determine root causes for shortcomings and to ensure they are scored and binned accurately. Finally, the Army needs to ensure its requirements are operationally based, realistic, and technologically feasible.

A disciplined approach sets the stage for sustained program success. Let’s discipline ourselves, focus on the next test, measure our advancement towards making improvements and fulfilling the objective of giving the warfighter a capability that will better protect our troops and allies abroad.’

The good news is IBCS’ three live fire tests and demonstrations have been resounding successes. It has demonstrated the ability to use any sensor to enable a shooter “without eyes on the target” to intercept at greater range. It has integrated Aegis data and other joint sensor data to improve combat identification, decision time, and defense effectiveness. IBCS will redefine air and missile defense weapon systems, how we employ them, and how we fight them – and give us greater capability, over greater battle space, than any of today’s weapons can.

But staying the course is hard when an early report finds fault. Leaders know that first reports are often inaccurate and, if you have a solid plan, the right course of action is to execute and adjust it after details become known and the situation is clearer.

The recent critical Office of the Director for Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) IBCS test report is but a single report, on a single test event. But, with further examination and thought, one might ask, “How were things evaluated, scored, and binned? What were the operational under-pinning of the requirements tested – not merely the metrics, but the operational rationale that justifies the metric? Are they technologically feasible today?”

The Army has accepted great risk in air and missile defense, as evidenced by its Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) force – its force structure was a bill payer for modularity and investment in SHORAD capability has been minimal.

The air and missile defense mission is and always has been one of the most challenging. Army systems have walked this trail before – who can forget THAAD’s lackluster early years? Zero for five before there was an intercept. We didn’t pull stakes on that program in 1999, but we did re-evaluate it and re-organize our approach, which led to success. Where would we be today if we’d cancelled that program?

The FAAD Ground Based Sensor was another program with a rocky start due to operational requirements plated in “un-attain-ium”. A single vendor responded to its request for proposal (RFP) and that sensor went through a horrendous test, where it performed poorly against threshold requirements of 95 percent and objective requirements of 99 percent.

A re-evaluation of the requirements and the application of operational logic, generated an RFP that seven vendors responded to and in a second test, the original vendor’s sensor decisively out performed all others. That sensor is today’s Sentinel radar.

The Army’s recent track record for program termination is also not reassuring, as it has abandoned programs which offered great promise and phenomenal operational capability, like JLENS or low risk, like SLAMRAAM. 

We don’t need to assess changing horses at this time, but we do need to evaluate how the program is being managed. With the Army as the IBCS Lead System Integrator, the Army owns it entirely. It’s not an easy job, especially for a new, novel technology like IBCS.

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VMA-311 conducts first APKWS live-fire training in Pacific

ABOARD USS BONHOMME RICHARD (LHD-6), Pacific Ocean – Marines with Marine Attack Squadron 311, currently attached to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 (Reinforced), conducted training with the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) for the first time in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region during live-fire training in the skies above the W-183 range training area, Okinawa, Japan, June 9, 2017.
VMA-311 pilots fly AV-8B Harrier jets – fixed-wing aircraft capable of operating from the flight decks of amphibious warfare vessels.

The Harriers launched from the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), the flagship of the Bonhomme Richard Expeditionary Strike Group. VMM-265 (Rein.) is the Aviation Combat Element of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is currently embarked aboard the ships of the BHR ESG for a routine patrol of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

The APKWS is a low-cost, laser-guided, modular system that attaches to unguided munitions. The APKWS gives Harrier pilots a lighter, precision air-to-ground attack option. Harrier pilots usually fire unguided rockets or drop unguided 500 pound bombs to destroy enemy threats, according to Capt. Paul M. Gucwa, a Harrier pilot with VMA-311.

“We took eight shots and hit the target with all eight, and every single one of them was perfect,” said Gucwa. “It worked completely as advertised. From bringing the system up from the bottom of the ship all the way to putting them on the target, it all went absolutely outstanding.”
Before mounting the weapons, VMA-311 aviation ordnance Marines pulled eight 2.75 inch rockets out of the BHR’s munitions magazines, where ordnance is stored when the ship is underway. They then affixed the APKWSs to a pair of Harriers before the pilots departed the BHR, said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Eric J. McCoy.

“It’s incredible to see the pilots come back with no ordnance after seeing my Marines out on the flight deck training and sweating under the sun,” said McCoy.

Throughout the training, aviation ordnance Marines worked alongside their Navy counterparts on the flight deck to prepare the AKPWS and to ensure safety for all involved. According to McCoy, refining the Navy-Marine Corps team was a supplementary goal of the exercise.
“Not only did we conduct this exercise to test VMA-311’s ability to tactically employ the weapon system, but also to test both VMA-311 and our Navy partners’ proficiency at supporting the ESG’s mission,” said McCoy.

The 31st MEU partners with the Navy’s Amphibious Squadron 11 to form the amphibious component of the BHR ESG. The 31st MEU and PHIBRON 11 combine to provide a cohesive blue-green team capable of accomplishing a variety of missions across the Indo-Asia-Pacific.

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