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now I read
Trump budget fails to live up to ‘historic’ defense promises, analysts say
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"While the budget request features $54 billion for defense above the Budget Control Act (BCA) caps in place for FY18, that’s only $19 billion more than was planned for this year by the Obama administration." so just the link here
 
Yesterday at 8:38 PM
what's the connection between Reality and Intent
...
?
Saudi Arabia Announces Intent to Buy Surface Combatants, P-8 Aircraft
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well "...
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... are a necessary step on the way to a contract, though they do not commit either side to a final sale."
What Really Matters in Trump’s $110B Saudi Arms Package
It’s still a lot of talk and no final sales, but long-stalled deals worth billions just got moving again.
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U.S. and Saudi officials cobbled together a $110 billion arms package in just two weeks — lightspeed by government standards — so President Donald Trump could announce the deal last Saturday in Riyadh. Now government officials and defense firms are scrambling to understand what’s actually included in the package, what’s new about it, and what comes next.

It’s not clear, for example, when or whether any of the individual deals that make up the eye-popping total will translate into actual revenue for the U.S. manufacturers. The package includes $23.7 billion in weapons approved for export by the Obama administration but were never actually purchased by the Saudis. Dating to 2013, those seven deals include four combat ships, CH-47 Chinook helicopters, and Abrams
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, according to a Defense Security Cooperation Agency
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.

Still, the agreements signed by Trump and Saudi officials over the weekend include
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, or LOAs, for those seven deals. Such letters are a necessary step on the way to a contract, though they do not commit either side to a final sale. A DCSA
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puts it this way: “The LOA becomes an agreement when the customer accepts the case by signing it and providing the payment specified in the LOA.”

Most of the seven deals had been on hold simply because the Saudis had not moved ahead with the purchases. But one sale, of
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, had been approved by the Obama administration but then halted “out of fear that they would be used to
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.” The Trump administration has lifted the hold, the New York Times
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.

The $110 billion package also includes the proposed purchase of 150 Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopters, a “direct commercial sale” not managed by the Pentagon. Sikorsky’s parent, Lockheed Martin, has been
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manufacturing Black Hawk helicopters in Saudi Arabia for more than a year.

Items that are new to the list include the THAAD
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, also made by Lockheed, and Boeing P-8 surveillance planes.

“When completed, it will be the largest single arms deal in American history,” said Vice Adm. Joseph Rixey, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arm of the Pentagon that oversees foreign sales.

Rixey, who spoke to reporters last Friday, said the deal offered a “threat-based security operation package” that “provides full-spectrum capabilities.” He said he negotiated the deal with Ahmed Al-Khatib, advisor to the Saudi Defense Ministry and Head of Delegation for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Lockheed, Raytheon, and Boeing all released statements touting the deals, but said they are still awaiting details from the U.S. government, sources said.

The deal can be expected to support jobs in both the seller and buyer nations. Defense industry sources expect the bulk of the manufacturing of these weapons to be done in the U.S., yet with much final assembly or finishing work to be done in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is just one of several countries that want to expand their role in arms manufacturing. In the past, Middle Eastern allies simply wanted American-made weapons. Now they want more, mandating so type of manufacturing locally as well as technology transfer. Saudi has touted
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, a plan that calls for making half of the kingdom’s weapons locally.

U.S. firms have been expanding their Middle East presence in recent years, opening local offices and setting up offset companies. When U.S. defense spending shrank during the Obama administration, American companies
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to this and other regions to investors and reporters.

“With more than 50 years of experience as a trusted government and industry partner with the Kingdom, our presence in the country is focused on supporting economic diversification and the realization of the national objectives defined in the Saudi Vision 2030 development plan, through the deployment of technological solutions that promote long-term growth,” Lockheed
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on the Saudi section of its corporate website.

But now with a president who has pushed “
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” policies has publicly attacked U.S. firms for moving jobs overseas, defense companies are
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when touting expansion overseas.

“Once fully realized, the programs in this announcement will support more than 18,000 highly skilled jobs in the U.S. and thousands of jobs in Saudi Arabia as part of maintaining and modernizing these platforms over the next 30 years,” Lockheed said in a
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.

For its part, Raytheon
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the creation of Raytheon Arabia, a Saudi entity that will be owned by the Massachusetts-based firm. “These programs will positively impact Saudi and U.S. economies including job creation,” its statement said.

Many top executives from American defense firms — including Lockheed’s Marillyn Hewson and Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg —
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for a CEO summit that coincided with Trump’s Saudi visit.

Here’s a list of the companies and weapons involved in the $110 billion deal:

Lockheed Martin (The firm says its share of the potential total is $28 billion.)
  • THAAD missile defense system
  • Four Multi-Mission Surface Combatant Ships
  • 150 S-70 Black Hawk helicopters
  • Radars systems, tactical aircraft and surveillance systems

Boeing

  • Chinook helicopters
  • Guided weapons
  • P-8 surveillance planes
  • Sustainment work
  • Saudi Rotorcraft Support Company
  • Maybe: 16 widebody commercial jetliners

Raytheon

  • Air defense systems
  • Smart munitions
  • C4I systems
  • Cybersecurity for defense systems

General Dynamics

  • Abrams tanks

Unidentified Weapons

  • Light close-air-support aircraft
  • Transport aircraft
  • Armored personnel carriers
  • Patrol boats
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Navy's Next-Generation Jammer is Designed to Enable Stealth Technology and Counter Modern Chinese & Russian Air Defenses
1ce18e0.jpg

SCOUT WARRIOR
Yesterday at 10:41 PM

The Navy's Next-Generation Jammer, to be ready by 2021, is designed to jam multiple radars at the same time and defeat future high-tech enemy air defenses. Developers say it could increase the effectiveness of stealth technology.

The Navy is engineering a new, more powerful, high-tech electronic warfare Next-Generation Jammer technology designed to allow strike aircraft and stealth bombers to destroy enemy targets without being detected by modern surface-to-air missile defenses.

While radar warning receivers are purely defensive technologies, the NGJ is configured with offensive jamming capabilities in support of stealth bombers and strike aircraft such as an F/A-18 Super Hornet or F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The jammer is intended to preemptively jam enemy radars and protect aircraft by preventing air defenses from engaging.

“With surface-to-air missile systems, we want to deny that track an engagement opportunity. We try to work with the aircraft to jam“The whole idea is to get the enemy air defense systems from seeing the strike package. It does not matter what type of aircraft we are protecting. Our mission is to suppress enemy air defenses and allow the mission to continue. This is not just designed to allow the aircraft to survive but also allow it to continue the mission - deliver ordnance and return home,” Cmdr. Ernest Winston, Electronic Attack Requirements Officer, told Scout Warrior in an interview last year.

The NGJ could be particularly helpful when it comes to protecting fighter aircraft and stealth platforms like the B-2 bomber, now-in-development B-21 and the F-35 multi-role stealth fighter. The technology is designed to block, jam, thwart or “blind” enemy radar systems such as ground-based integrated air defenses – so as to allow attack aircraft to enter a target area, conduct strikes and then safely exit.

This is useful in today’s modern environment because radar-evading stealth configurations, by themselves, are no longer as dominant or effective against current and emerging air-defense technologies.

Today’s modern air defenses, such as the Russian-made S-300 and multi-function S-400 surface-to-air missiles, are increasingly able to detect stealth aircraft at longer distances and on a wider range of frequencies. Today’s most cutting edge systems, and those being engineered for the future, use much faster computer processors, use more digital technology and network more to one another.

The NGJ is engineered to jam and defeat both surveillance radar technology which can alert defenses that an enemy aircraft is in the area as well as higher-frequency “engagement” radar which allow air defenses to target, track and destroy attacking aircraft.

“The target engagement radar or control radar has a very narrow scope, so enemy defenses are trying to search the sky. We are making enemies search the sky looking through a soda straw. When the only aperture of the world is through a soda straw, we can force them into a very narrow scope so they will never see aircraft going in to deliver ordnance,” Winston said.

Winston would not elaborate on whether the NGJ’s offensive strike capabilities would allow it to offensively attack enemy radio communications, antennas or other kinds of electronic signals.

“It can jam anything that emits or receives and RF frequency in the frequency range of NGJ -- it could jam anything that is RF capable,” he explained.

NGJ consists of two 15-foot long PODs beneath the EA-18G Growler aircraft designed to emit radar-jamming electronic signals; one jammer goes on each side of the aircraft. Radar technology sends an electromagnetic ping forward, bouncing it off objects before analyzing the return signal to determine a target's location, size, shape and speed...etc. However, if the electromagnetic signal is interfered with, thwarted or "jammed" in some way, the system is then unable to detect the objects, or target, in the same way.

“It is able to jam multiple frequencies at the same time -- more quickly and more efficiently,” he said.

The emerging system uses a high-powered radar technology called Active Electronic Scanned Array, or AESA.

“It will be the only AESA-based carrier offensive electronic attack jamming pod it DoD. What it is really going to bring to the fleet is increased power, increased flexibility and more capacity to jam more radars at one time,” Winston added.

The NGJ, slated to be operational by 2021, is intended to replace the existing ALQ 99 electronic warfare jammer currently on Navy Growler aircraft.

The new jammer is designed to interfere with ground-and-air based threats such as enemy air defenses trying to get a missile "lock" on a target.

One of the drawbacks to ALQ 99 is that it was initially designed 40-years ago and is challenged to keep up with modern threats and digital threats with phased array radars, increased power, increased processing and more advanced wave forms, Winston explained.

The Next-Generation Jammer is being engineered with what’s called “open architecture,” meaning it is built with open computing software and hardware standards such that it can quickly integrate new technologies as threats emerge.

rtn_219844.jpg

Raytheon

For example, threat libraries or data-bases incorporated into a radar warning receiver can inform pilots of specific threats such as enemy fighter aircraft or air defenses. If new adversary aircraft become operational, the system can be upgraded to incorporate that information.

“We use threat libraries in our receivers as well as our jammers to be able to jam the new threat radars. As new threats emerge, we will be able to devise new jamming techniques. Those are programmable through the mission planning system through the mission planning system of the EA-18G Growler,” Winston explained.

boeing_ea-18g.jpg

Boeing
“Multi-function radars become much more difficult because you have a single radar source that is doing almost everything with phased array capability. However, with the increased power of the next-generation jammer we can go after those,” Winston said.

“It is a constant cat and mouse game between the shooter and the strike aircraft. We develop stealth and they develop counter-stealth technologies. We then counter it with increased jamming capabilities.”

The U.S. Navy previously awarded Raytheon Company a $1 billion sole source contract for Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) for Increment 1 of the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ), the advanced electronic attack technology that combines high-powered, agile, beam-jamming techniques with cutting-edge, solid-state electronics,” a Raytheon statement said.

Raytheon will deliver 15 Engineering Development Model pods for mission systems testing and qualification, and 14 aeromechanical pods for airworthiness certification.

121121kujpz9vrqv9vw57v.jpg

The NGJ contract also covers designing and delivering simulators and prime hardware to government labs and support for flight testing and government system integration, Raytheon officials said.

Overall, the Navy plans to buy as many as 135 sets of NGJs for the Growler. At the same time, Winston did say it is possible that the NGJ will be integrated onto other aircraft in the future.

"This is a significant milestone for electronic warfare," said Rick Yuse, president of Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. "NGJ is a smart pod that provides today's most advanced electronic attack technology, one that can easily be adapted to changing threat environments. That level of sophistication provides our warfighters with the technological advantage required to successfully prosecute their mission and return home safely."
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now I read New Raytheon Radar Showcases Reliability, 360-Degree Capability
Raytheon Co.’s newest integrated air and missile defense radar has been busy since its debut at the 2016 Winter AUSA tradeshow. The gallium nitride-powered Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) proposed upgrade to the Patriot Air and Missile Defense has surpassed more than 1,000 hours of operation in just over a year, which is half the time of a typical testing program, the company said in a release on May 23.

During the course of the 1,000 hours, Raytheon’s GaN-based AESA prototype radar routinely demonstrated 360-degree capability by working together with a second GaN-based AESA antenna that was pointed in a different direction. As targets flew out of one array’s field of view and into another, the two arrays seamlessly passed information back and forth, tracking the target continuously. The main array also detected and tracked tactically maneuvering fighter jets and thousands of other aircraft.

“Raytheon’s GaN technology is backed by 19 years of research and $300 million in investment, while our competitors are either new to the market or primarily build GaN for commercial applications,” said Ralph Acaba vice president of Integrated Air and Missile Defense at Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems business. “When national security is on the line you want highly reliable, proven technology that is certified by the U.S. Department of Defense for use in military radars.”

Raytheon’s GaN-based AESA radar will work with the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System and other open architectures. It maintains compatibility with the current Patriot Engagement Control Station and full interoperability with NATO systems.

A number of current and expected future Patriot Air and Missile Defense System partner nations in Europe and Asia have expressed interest in acquiring GaN-based AESA. Poland submitted a Letter of Request for GaN-based AESA Patriot on March 31. Raytheon’s GaN-based AESA technology also meets Germany’s requirements for the German Taktisches Luftverteidigungssystem, or TLVS, tactical air and missile defense system.
source:
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FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Set to Answer Lingering Navy Acquisition Questions

Since the last Pentagon budget request 15 months ago there’s been a presidential election, a seven-month continuing resolution, a supplemental spending bill, promises from the new administration for a military spending spree, vows from inside the Pentagon to rebuild readiness and multiple studies looking at what a future naval fleet should look like.

In the churn leading up to this week’s release of the Fiscal Year 2018 budget request to Congress, questions still remain on the Navy’s acquisition and readiness plans. The following is a list of important policy and acquisition issues that Navy officials have declined to comment on but have assured USNI News and the public that answers would be found in the budget request.

...

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Feb 8, 2017
Sep 20, 2016
I've been following A-10 "saga" ... the last one Aug 5, 2016

now U.S. Air Force Secretary: Service May Delay A-10 Retirement

source:
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and here's an update:
The famed 'Warthog' will stick around until at least 2021
source:
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the latest is inside
Stayin’ alive: No retirement in sight for the A-10 and U-2
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Rumors of the A-10 and U-2’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

As of the fiscal year 2018 president’s budget request, there are no plans to retire either famed the A-10 Warthog or the venerable U-2 spy plane, Air Force officials said Tuesday.

“The world has changed, so we’re trying to maintain capacity and capability,” said Maj. Gen. James Martin, the Air Force’s deputy assistant secretary for budget. “Regarding the U-2, we plan to keep that platform well into the future. … There is not a retirement date [set] for the U-2 in this budget.”

After the briefing, an Air Force spokeswoman confirmed that the A-10’s retirement had also been pushed off indefinitely.

Budget overview documents show that the service intends to fully fund the entire fleet of 283 A-10s, while also “extend[ing] the service of the U-2.” The RQ-4 Global Hawk, the long-endurance unmanned aircraft planned to replace the U-2, will also continue undergoing sensor upgrades.

The decision is a major victory for Congress, which repeatedly thwarted attempts by the service to retire the A-10 and U-2 as well as advocates for both platforms in the U.S. Air National Guard and Air Force veteran communities.

Martin said that when the fiscal 2015 budget was unveiled in February 2014, the budgetary caps would have forced the Air Force to use some of its aging weapons programs as billpayers, and as such the Air Force called for the divestment of its U-2 fleet. A similar financial climate led the Air Force to call for the retirement of the Global Hawk in FY2014.

Ultimately, the service has come to the conclusion that it cannot continue its current operational pace without both the U-2 and Global Hawk, Martin continued.

The A-10 was engaged in a similar, yet even more high-profile budget battle that has extended since FY2015, but the deferred retirement of the Warthog is no surprise. In February, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told reporters that the service had absconded plans to begin mothballing its first A-10s in 2018.

“We’re going to keep them until 2021, and then as a discussion that we’ll have with [Defense] Secretary [Jim] Mattis and the department and the review over all of our budgets, that is what will determine the way ahead,” he said then.
 
here's the news about ... sea-marvels ... from the Navy budget chief, Rear Adm. Brian Luther: “We are not submitting an amendment (to the budget) for a second LCS…. I have not been directed to create or submit a second budget submission.”
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FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Real world :confused:
It is always often the same with these politicians words, words and always words :rolleyes:

But more fighters.
 
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