US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

the future of Growlers ...
US Air Force eyes next-gen electronic warfare, not Boeing jets

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A study that would determine if the Navy should acquire more Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft for a wider joint high-end war fighting requirements has been completed, Navy officials told USNI News on Wednesday.

The Growler study, now being reviewed as part of a larger electronic warfare evaluation led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, was led by the Navy with input from the other services.

“The study that we have going on right now is to determine — through a rigors analytical process — whether we have enough Growlers for the high-end joint war fight,” Rear Adm. Michael Manazir is director of air warfare on the staff of the chief of naval operations said following a Navy and Marine Corps aviation forum sponsored by the Navy League.
“We have enough Growlers to support Navy missions now with a 153 and what this study looks at is whether we should buy more for the joint fight.”

Now the study is percolating through the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and will move through the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) and will be used to inform the Fiscal Year 2017 budget due out next year, Manazir said.

Manazir’s comments come a day after the head of the U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command Gen. Herbert J. “Hawk” Carlisle said the Pentagon should focus on emerging electronic warfare capabilities in the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and the Air Force’s planned Long Range Strike Bomber (LSRB) rather than legacy airframes like the Growler.

“With a limited [budgetary total obligation authority], you’ve got to think hard about buying brand-new legacy airplanes versus next generation [ones] as we go forward,”

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.

Manazir responded to Carlisle’s comments saying the Growler would be able to cooperate with the emerging platforms.

“So the Growler is complimentary it’s power — with the Next Generation Jammer — is complimentary with all of the platforms you put into the air,” he said.
“Whether there is a [radio frequency] spectrum advantage in one area or another the Growler is going to be complimentary across the electromagnetic spectrum.”

The Growler is set to be an important node in the Navy’s emerging Naval Integrated Fire Control Counter Air (NIFC-CA) construct that will network together the aircraft and ships of the service’s carrier strike group.

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US Army Awards Contracts for FFV Designs
By Joe Gould2:23 p.m. EDT June 2, 2015

WASHINGTON — From the ashes of the US Army's canceled 70-ton ground combat vehicle, the Future Fighting Vehicle (FFV) program has begun to sprout — at least concepts for it.

The Army has awarded two contracts of more than $28 million each to BAE Systems Land and Armaments and General Dynamics Land Systems to develop design concepts for the FFV. The work is due Nov. 28, 2016.

The effort is meant to inform whether the Army will produce an entirely new vehicle or a potential replacement for the BAE-manufactured Bradley fighting vehicle, or lead to a third round of improvements for the Bradley.

The companies are to conduct trade studies, requirements analysis, and modeling and simulation, and assess technology capability and maturity to support each of three design concepts, according to an announcement Tuesday from General Dynamics.

BAE spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said the company's analysis aims to strike the right balance between payload, protection and performance.

"As the original equipment manufacturer for the Bradley fighting vehicle, we have a unique understanding of the requirements and user needs," Mitchell said. "Among our top considerations will be platform weight and program affordability as we balance overall performance."

In October, Brig. Gen. David Bassett, commander PEO Ground Combat Systems, said the FFV program was largely a science-and-technology development effort, meant to help the Army explore its options while it pursues various engineering-change proposals for its existing armored vehicles.

The program office is monitoring technology development at the Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center, searching for breakthrough armor technologies and other advancements. That includes an advanced combat engine, a modular active protection system and new hull manufacturing.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who runs the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) and is chief of "futures" for Training and Doctrine Command, told reporters in December that he was open to the idea that future vehicles could split the squad between vehicles if a nine-man vehicle would be unwieldy, particularly in urban operations.

The Army's other vehicle efforts include its pursuit of a Humvee replacement, the joint light tactical vehicle, and M113 infantry carrier replacement, the armored multipurpose vehicle, along with upgrades to the Abrams, Stryker and Paladin.

The Army has been testing a light vehicle at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that's designed to enable airborne troops to move quickly to an objective after they've parachuted in, which dovetails with the service's pre-solicitation activity on the ultralight combat vehicle and light reconnaissance vehicle.

On May 28, Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno said the service is exploring the needs for a vehicle that provides mobile protected firepower, an infantry fighting vehicle and a light tank, using 20 collaborative war-fighting challenges to identify capability gaps — with near-, mid- and long-term solutions.

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US Army To Expand Prepositioned Stocks
By Joe Gould9:27 p.m. EDT June 3, 2015

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COMMENTEMAILMORE
WASHINGTON — The US Army plans to expand prepositioned equipment next year for Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America, as it has in Europe — including gear for disaster relief and the special operations community, officials said.

The Army, which sees itself as stretched to respond to unforeseen global crises on a tight budget, would use the equipment to save the time and cost of shipping materiel when it deploys to hot spots.

"Prepositioning stocks is extending our capability to potential areas where they would be required for use, so the closer we can extend it to the tip of the spear, the easier it is for us to react as the president directs," said Lt. Gen. Gustave Perna, the Army's deputy chief of staff for logistics. "The whole globe is our responsibility, frankly, and we have to be globally responsive."

The plan began with the Army's ongoing placement of a full brigade's worth of heavy equipment, including tanks and other armored vehicles, in Germany. This European "activity set" is meant to be used by troops rotating into the region from the US, part of US efforts to reassure European allies with a series of exercises in the wake of Russian aggression

The president's proposed 2016 budget includes $51 million for the vehicle maintenance facility at Grafenwoehr Training Area.

The Army's prepositioned stocks are not new. Army Materiel Command (AMC) manages sites around the globe — in the US, Europe, Southwest Asia, Northeast Asia, and afloat in the Indian and Pacific oceans — with a coming addition in the US Southern Command area of operations.

Activity sets are generally smaller, scalable, unit-sized caches supporting theater-shaping and deterrence activities, operations, exercises, and regionally aligned forces. Draft plans have called for equipment to support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, as well as heavy armored vehicles.

To move a heavy force by air can take more than 20 days, but prepositioning sets of equipment can significantly reduce that time, said Maj. Gen. Steve Lyons, commander of Army Combined Arms Support Command and the sustainment school at Fort Lee, Virginia. The concept also acknowledges that geopolitics may not always support the kind of access it takes to move such a force.

"If I have to move the equipment, obviously, it's going to take a lot longer to generate combat capacity," Lyons said. "And if you're already there, you don't have to work through so many anti-access/area-denial issues. That's the whole purpose of positioning."

Army officials at a sustainment conference hosted by the Association of the US Army on Wednesday provided few specifics of the plan, as exact locations and timelines are still in talks, but confirmed Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno had recently approved the expansion in concept. In the process, the Defense Department's geographic combatant commands and Joint Staffs will have discretion over final plans.

AMC's deputy commanding general, Lt. Gen. Larry Wyche presented some details of the plan. Activity sets are being considered for Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and Bangladesh. South Korea would receive a route clearance package of equipment, US Southern Command will get humanitarian assistance and disaster relief sets, and additional resources would go to US Central Command, where Army logistics officials say they found Iraqi sustainment capacity much diminished since the 2007 US withdrawal.

For Pacific Command, an area of operations that covers half the globe, locations, costs and contents have been proposed, with a timeline of 2016 for the first fielding and 2017 for the second, according to Maj. Gen. Edward Dorman, commander of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command, based at Fort Shafter, Hawaii. Part of the effort involves carving out access agreements with host nations.

"[Odierno] has recognized that the types of capabilities we're looking at, for humanitarian assistance, disaster relief or port opening, are capabilities that can help in any kind of response, whether a natural disaster or contingency operations," Dorman said. "Now it's just a question of where we source it from, line it up with the money.

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Marine Ospreys Support Lightning Out at Sea

By Cpl. Anne Henry | U.S. Marine Corps
Thursday, June 4, 2015
As Marines and sailors have been working together to conduct an assessment of F-35B Lightning II integration into amphibious operations over the past two weeks, they are learning to overcome the challenges inherent in maintaining and resupplying one of the world's most advanced pieces of military technology while out at sea.

One key component of the F-35B Operational Trials, or OT-1, included assessing the maintenance and logistical measures necessary to keep the F-35B flying aboard a U.S. Navy amphibious vessel in standard sea conditions.

The F-35B engine power module found itself at center stage of the OT-1 supply and logistics capability assessment about sixty miles off the East Coast of the United States May 21.

The power module is the largest and most important part of the F-35B's engine. Weighing about 4,500 pounds, safely transporting this intricate piece of technology from a storage facility on a military base in the States, across ocean waters, and onto the deck of a pitching ship is no easy task. And it had never been done before.

"The power module is the core of the F-35B engine," said Michael Chotkowski, who is in charge of F-35B deployment integration with Pratt & Whitney. "The engine is broken down into five different modules: fan, augmenter, nozzle, gearbox and the power, which is the number one module."

Up until a few months ago, there was no way to transport replacement power modules to a ship, or damaged power modules from the ship to a repair facility. That was, until a system was put in place using an MV-22B Osprey, a shipping stand constructed with internal suspension, known as a "buck," and an overhead bridge crane aboard the ship to insert the power module into the plane.

"Pratt & Whitney had to design and build a shipping buck that could constrain and protect the power module when it is in the back of an MV-22B," said Jeff Ward, who is in charge of F-35B deployment integration with Headquarters Marine Corps. "The buck, which is the critical piece here, did not exist six months ago. It was created to hold and protect the power module while it is being transported."

The buck was designed as a portable casing to roll the power module onto and off the Osprey. It also serves to protect the power module in the back of an MV-22B Osprey as it flies across the open sea, where it is subjected to the standard movement and vibrations that are inherent in amphibious flight operations due to high winds and rough water.

"The buck has four solid steel posts and two tools on the front and on the back mount of the engine cases. This provides structural integrity," said Chotkowski. "It also has vibratory isolators built into it that are tuned to dampen out the frequencies that come from the MV-22B, and could do damage to the bearings in the power module."

Part one of the operation consisted of loading the power module onto a buck at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Next, an MV-22B Osprey from New River, North Carolina flew into Patuxent River to pick up the module and buck. Then the Osprey flew more than 60 miles out to the ship, touching down on the deck of USS Wasp, as it rolled with the waves. The team then wheeled the buck out of the Osprey and onto the deck of the ship, with just several inches of clearance on either side.

"The process of unloading the module from the MV-22B is very difficult, because even though the module outside of its container is smaller, it is still very large for the MV-22B," said David Myersm, who is a part of the cargo and special operations team with U.S. Naval Air Systems Command. "It took 16 straps to tie it down in the aircraft. Cargo in the MV-22B needs to be restrained in a specific manor, and it takes a lot of straps to hold down 9,000 pounds."

The next stage dealt with lowering the power module down to the ship's maintenance bay, and proving the ability to safely transfer the module from the shipping buck into an existing container. This was accomplished by personnel from Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 22.

"We had to show that we could use the Navy's overhead bridge crane [built into the ceiling of the hangar bay] to transfer the power module from the shipping buck to an existing container, where it can be stored for long term if necessary," said Chotkowski.

The demonstration proved to be successful, allowing for data to be drawn and lessons to be learned for future F-35B deployments aboard amphibious vessels.

"From this evolution, we know that we can now put a power module into an MV-22B and bring it out to an amphibious vessel," said Ward. "We can now resupply the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force in any environment by using the MV-22B. This is an important milestone for the program."

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

V22B proven for F135 transport.

Sailors and Marines remove a power module for the F-35B Lightning II aircraft from an MV-22 Osprey assault support aircraft aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1). Wasp is underway conducting the first phase of operational testing for the F-35B Lightning II aircraft.

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The Pentagon’s top acquisition official,

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, and the head of Air Force acquisition,

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, have just completed a review of

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“We looked at the design to make sure it’s at the level of maturity it’s supposed to be,” Kendall told me in an interview in his Pentagon office last evening (the selection of either the Boeing-Lockheed team or Northrop Grumman as the prime is expected before the end of summer).

Kendall also revealed for the first time that he is the Milestone Decision Authority for the program. That means that, while he doesn’t run it day to day, he is accountable for cost, schedule, and performance reporting to Congress and to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

The bomber will cost up to $25 billion for the bomber’s research and development costs, several budget experts believe. The Air Force plans to buy 100 aircraft and says the flyaway cost will be about $550 million per plane in 2010 dollars (that’s at least $600 million already).

The program is run by the

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. It reports directly to a board of directors chaired by Kendall. Board members include

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,

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, and LaPlante.

The undersecretary of acquisition, technology and logistics noted he couldn’t say very much “as it’s an open competition.” But he offered a few clear hints about what really matters in the companies’ overall approach to what many people are calling the B-3 bomber.

“We looked at the design to make sure it’s at the level of maturity it’s supposed to be,”Kendall said. Modularity is important because it “gives us a chance to change horse in the middle of the competition if we run into trouble.”

The acquisition guru has already made it clear that the Pentagon “will compete upgrades” of the program. That’s all clearly part of the Pentagon’s effort to keep the industrial base as resilient as possible and it may explain why Kendall keeps saying that industrial base issues will not be relevant to the decision of which company will build the bomber, at least for the first 100 planes.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, clearly with an eye on the classified program, includes language in its version (Sec. 235) of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act requiring that the Pentagon provide a report within six months of the bill’s final passage about

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of technology “critical” to the program. By sheer luck, I asked Kendall about the program’s TRL levels, as they are considered by many systems engineers to be at least good starting point for determine the risks to a program.

TRLs will not play a key role in assessing risk of the program, Kendall told me. “I look at the TRLs, but I spend more time on what the risk actually is. I think the department got a little fixated on that grade (of a TRL level), if you will.” Instead of just pickinga technology because it’s at TRL 6 or 7, he said, “you have to look at exactly what riskis and what you can about it to mitigate it.”

Here’s how he explained this approach. “Bill LaPlante would say, and I would agree: ‘Bureaucrats look at TRLs, and engineers look at what work has to be done.”

How serious is Congress about this report? It also requires a review of the Pentagon report by the Comptroller General, who heads the Government Accountability Office. So, while Kendall may not consider TRLs a fine enough tool to judge the B-3’s risk,

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.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

V22B proven for F135 transport.
View attachment 14492 View attachment 14491
Sailors and Marines remove a power module for the F-35B Lightning II aircraft from an MV-22 Osprey assault support aircraft aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1). Wasp is underway conducting the first phase of operational testing for the F-35B Lightning II aircraft. - See more at:

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FORBIN said:

F 135 do 559 cm long, we see only a part, one full enter in V-22 her Cargo Hold do :
Length: 24 feet, 4 inches (7.41m);
Width: 5 feet, 11 inches (1.80m);
Height: 6 feet (1.83m)

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Presumably about same size for C-2A.

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US Navy 6th Fleet said:

Seventeen NATO and partner nations will participate in the 43rd iteration of the multinational maritime exercise BALTOPS 2015 in Poland, Sweden, Germany, and throughout the Baltic Sea, June 5-20.

BALTOPS is an annually reoccurring multinational exercise designed to enhance flexibility and interoperability, as well as demonstrate resolve of allied and partner forces to defend the Baltic region.

"This exercise represents an important opportunity for our forces, as allies and partners, to enhance our ability to work together and strengthen capabilities required to maintain regional security. This exercise will be conducted in a truly joint environment, and I look forward to working with and learning from so many different nations and services." - Vice Adm. James Foggo III, commander, U.S. 6th Fleet and commander, Striking and Support Forces NATO

Approximately 5,600 ground, maritime and air forces from participating nations will conduct air defense, maritime interdiction, anti-subsurface warfare, and amphibious operations in a joint environment.

While BALTOPS remains a U.S.-led exercise, Commander, Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO) is responsible for executing this year's exercise.

BALTOPS is an exercise that brings together both NATO and non-NATO countries to increase interoperability in the spirit of the Partnership for Peace program.

A total of 49 ships, 61 aircraft, one submarine, and a combined landing force of 700 Swedish, Finnish, and U.S. troops are scheduled to participate.

Participants in #BALTOPS2015 include Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied, joint, and interagency partners, in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa.

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