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Jura said:

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I of course know the plan is to build thousands of F-35s, but I'm saying there're always options, so I'm not buying any 'too big to fail' ...

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The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program is the military’s largest aircraft development program. The F-35 is a stealthy aircraft—one that is difficult for adversaries to detect by radar and other air defense sensors. The objective of the program is to produce three versions of that aircraft: the conventional takeoff F-35A for the Air Force, the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B for the Marine Corps, and the carrier-based F-35C for the Navy. Through 2016, 285 F-35s had been purchased for the U.S. military: 178 F-35As, 71 F-35Bs, and 36 F‑35Cs. Current plans call for purchasing 2,158 more F‑35s through 2038. The Department of Defense (DoD) has estimated that the remaining cost of those purchases, including the cost to complete development, will amount to $265 billion (in nominal dollars). The Marine Corps and the Air Force declared their versions of the F-35 operational in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The Navy expects to declare its version operational by 2019.

Under this option, DoD would halt further production of the F-35 and instead purchase the most advanced versions of older, nonstealthy fighter aircraft that are still in production: the F-16 Fighting Falcon for the Air Force and the F/A-18 Super Hornet for the Navy and Marine Corps. The services would operate the F-35s that have already been purchased. By the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, the option would reduce the need for discretionary budget authority by $29 billion from 2018 through 2026 if the F-16s and F/A-18s were purchased on the same schedule as that currently in place for the F-35s. Outlays would decrease by $23 billion over that period. Additional savings would accrue from 2027 through 2038 if F-16s and F/A-18s were purchased instead of the F-35s that are scheduled to be purchased in those later years. However, the Navy and Air Force are both planning to develop entirely new aircraft with fighter-like capabilities to be fielded in the 2030s and might choose to replace some planned F-35s with those aircraft instead.

An advantage of this option is that it would reduce the cost of replacing DoD’s older fighter aircraft while still providing new F-16s and F/A-18s with improved capabilities—including modern radar, precision weapons, and digital communications—that would be able to defeat most of the threats that the United States is likely to face in the coming years. The F-35s that have already been purchased would augment the stealthy B-2 bombers and F-22 fighters that are currently in the force, improving the services’ ability to operate against adversaries equipped with advanced air defense systems. The military has successfully operated a mix of stealthy and non-stealthy aircraft since the advent of the F-117 stealth fighter in the 1980s.

A disadvantage of this option is that a force consisting of a mix of stealthy and nonstealthy aircraft would be less flexible against advanced enemy air defense systems. An inability to neutralize such defenses in the early stages of a conflict might preclude the use of F-16s and F/A-18s, effectively reducing the number of fighters that the United States would have at its disposal. Another disadvantage is that the services would have to continue to operate more types of aircraft instead of concentrating on a smaller number of types. For example, F-16s would remain in the Air Force’s inventory longer than currently planned, and the Marine Corps might need to field new F/A-18s to augment its F-35Bs. Depending on how expensive it was to operate the F-35, the added costs of maintaining mixed fleets of fighters for a longer period could offset some of the savings under this option.

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BAE Systems rolls out first Amphibious Combat Vehicle 1.1 to U.S. Marine Corps

BAE Systems rolled out the first of 16 Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) 1.1 prototypes to the U.S. Marine Corps in a ceremony today at the company’s York, Pennsylvania facility.
BAE Systems’

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is a fully amphibious, ship-launchable and ship-recoverable 8x8 wheeled combat vehicle.

“BAE Systems has a long-standing legacy of supporting the Marine Corps’ amphibious mission,” said John Swift, the company’s director for the ACV 1.1 program. “That expertise, coupled with the hard work of our dedicated ACV team, has allowed us to deliver the first of these vehicles ahead of schedule.”

BAE Systems’ solution for ACV 1.1 leverages an existing platform provided by Iveco Defence Vehicles. It is highly effective at sea when compared to any other amphibious vehicle in production today, providing superior land mobility and state-of-the-art systems survivability.

“As the Marine Corps begins testing we are confident that the capabilities of these vehicles will be proven,” Swift said.

The BAE Systems solution balances the Marine Corps’ demands for an affordable, production-ready platform with added designs for increased force protection, water and land mobility, lethality, transportability, and survivability.

BAE Systems’ ACV 1.1 is equipped with a robust 700HP engine, providing a significant power increase over the Assault Amphibious Vehicle currently operated by the Marine Corps. The vehicle excels in all-terrain mobility and has a suspended interior seat structure for 13 embarked Marines, blast protected positions for an additional crew of three, and improved survivability and force protection over currently fielded systems.

The Marine Corps awarded BAE Systems a $103.7 million contract for the Engineering, Manufacturing, and Development (EMD) phase of the ACV 1.1 program in November 2015, one of two EMD contracts issued. During this phase, the company is producing 16 prototypes that will be tested by the Marine Corps starting in the first quarter of 2017.

BAE Systems has long been

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across multiple domains and has more than 70 years of experience designing and building amphibious vehicles. The company is also a leading provider of combat vehicles, having produced more than 100,000 systems for customers worldwide. Iveco Defence Vehicles brings additional proven experience, having designed and built more than 30,000 multi-purpose, protected, and armored military vehicles in service today.

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CH-53E Super Stallion sling loading a HUMVEE while aerial refueling from a KC-130T Hercules

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Tuesday’s MV-22 Osprey crash off the coast of Okinawa occurred while the crew was conducting an aerial refueling operation at night and damaged the aircraft, with the crew choosing to land the aircraft in the water instead of risking flying over civilian homes on the Japanese island, the commanding general of III Marine Expeditionary Force said in a press conference.

Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson said in a press conference today that the rotorcraft was conducting aerial refueling operations over the sea when the rotor blades struck the refueling line, damaging the aircraft.

“After the aircraft was unhooking, it was shaking violently,” Nicholson said of the Osprey from Marine Aircraft Group 36, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing.
“The pilot made a decision to not fly over Okinawan homes and families. He made a conscious decision to try to reach Camp Schwab and land in the shallow water to protect his crew and the people of Okinawa.”

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that the landing in shallow water, described as more than five miles off the east coast of the island, was a “preventative” measure.

During the landing in rocky shallow waters, the aircraft broke apart, with Associated Press photos showing the aircraft sitting in the water with the wings broken apart from the body of the plane.

As a precaution, Nicholson temporarily halted all MV-22 flight operations under Marine Forces Japan until he is “satisfied that we have reviewed our checklists and safety of flight procedures.”

Still, during the press conference he praised the crew’s decision to put the aircraft in the water instead of risk lives onshore.

“

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, I’m very proud of the decision he made not to try to get to Futenma, not to try to get to Kadena, but to try to get to shore and try to land as close to the beach as possible,” he said.
“An incredible decision under very very difficult circumstances.”

Tensions are still high on Okinawa about Marine Corps aircraft flying in and around the island – particularly newer, bigger and louder platforms such as the V-22 and the F-35B that will arrive in Japan next year. Nicholson made clear during his press conference that the training for Marines and with their Japanese partners is important and will continue in a safe manner.

“We do everything we can to ensure safety of flight, well trained crews and solid performance by our Ospreys – never never endanger the citizens and people of Okinawa,” he said.
“

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that there is risk and danger in training at night in good weather and bad weather, but that that training is necessary and that that training is important for our two countries.”

The Osprey’s five crew members were rescued by the U.S. Air Force’s 33rd and 31st Rescue Squadrons and transported to the Camp Foster Naval Hospital in the southwestern part of the island. Three have been released and the other two remain in the hospital for observation.

“I want to thank the Japan Coast Guard for their quick response as well as the Okinawan Police for their support in securing the site,” Nicholson said at the press conference.

An initial salvage survey at the location is underway to determine the most viable platform and method of recovery for the aircraft while also protecting the local environment, Nicholson said.

The Marine Corps is investigating the mishap and stated it would not release additional details about the cause until the investigation is complete.

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FORBIN said:

First time not tracked USMC before had LVTP-5, 7 modified in AAV-.. after and yet during WW 2 all a family also tracked.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

mean looking machineView attachment 34671
Note the swim vain/ extra armor on the nose and taller stance then the SUPERAV. although it lacks a cannon at this point in time it may down the line get a turret with a 30mm

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Launched in April, the intelligence community's 10-year, $600 million Amazon-built infrastructure project is already producing results.

The

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delivered two and a half years ago by Amazon Web Services to the CIA continues to pay dividends for the intelligence community.

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—a

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—is exponentially reducing the time it takes to bring new software into the IC.

“This is a game-changer for us,” CIA Chief Information Officer John Edwards told Nextgov. “Things that used to take us months take us minutes.”

For the 17 agencies that comprise the IC, time is critical. Before AWS launched the IC Marketplace for the CIA in April, it could take “nine to 12 months to bring in a new application,” Edwards said.

The classified marketplace for applications is similar to

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. Applications required market surveys, a contract or purchasing vehicle, and testing time. The process left analysts and data scientists waiting—and generally using outdated technologies compared to leading industry counterparts.

“We’d spend tens of millions of dollars and still be six or seven years behind where everyone else is in the commercial world,” Edwards said. “These guys are driving us to operate at their speed. We need to not act like the government, but more like commercial [companies], and operate at the speed of mission and not the speed of government.”

A recent demonstration of the IC Marketplace to the CIA’s top three officials left them impressed, Edwards said. In less than 3 minutes, an analyst sat down, downloaded a DevOps workspace and application from the marketplace and populated the environment with data. That kind of speed matters in national security.

The marketplace allows analysts, data scientists and developers to quickly select tools for specific problems or use the

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from AWS’ public marketplace. Software licensing typically precludes this kind of agility—

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as costing the government billions—with acquisition officials handcuffed by costly upfront agreements. No agency wants to be left short on licenses, so acquisition officials sometimes overestimate how many to purchase, potentially resulting in overspending millions of dollars.

Users can spin up approved applications in the C2S cloud to deal with specific mission needs, and if they don’t work, “blow up that instance and download another application,” Edwards said.

The intelligence agency is only billed for storage and compute used, which skirts the problematic nature of estimating how many licenses of a software product to purchase. That frees up analysts and others to “play” around in the C2S environment, testing applications and preparing for whatever mission needs might arise.

“Once you have that [application], it works with my mission data, and it solves a problem,” Edwards said. “I can lease that for as long as I want, and use for as little or long as I want to. I can buy exactly what I need, for exactly as long as I need it.”

Edwards

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in saying the cloud infrastructure opened the doors to software offerings from startups and other companies that previously felt the government too burdensome a customer to pursue. Companies are busting down the virtual door trying to get their offerings before the CIA now because there’s an easy way for them to do it.

That’s also one of the big challenges, Edwards said. While AWS’ public marketplace has 3,500 commercial applications, the IC Marketplace only has 72. Both AWS and the IC vet applications, looking for things like foreign ownership in companies. Edwards said while the CIA is “tweaking the process to make it faster,” resource hurdles exist.

“Some of that is resources, and we’ll apply more to processes, but you can only do so much,” Edwards said.

Nonetheless, 200 applications are in the IC Marketplace pipeline at some stage of vetting, prioritized “based on their bang for the buck” to the IC. The CIA is striving for commercial parity, but it’s only interested in applications “with relevance to the intelligence community,” Edwards said. That means big data, analytics and geospatial applications have the inside track.

Transactions are handled by the IC Marketplace, and the IC pays through the original 10-year C2S contract, initially valued at $600 million for a classified cloud computing infrastructure. Because that contract has options for additional services like the IC Marketplace, it’s likely the value will increase over time.

Edwards said the C2S contract is “not so much about savings of dollars, but more about the impact to mission.” He estimated there would indeed be dollar savings over time—by less use of costly internal data centers, for example—but said the CIA’s partnership with AWS better positions itself to deal with the fiscal realities of today.

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, mission demand has increased, so innovation that improves agility and speed-to-market are very real ways the CIA is trying to balance between those stark realities.

“As demand goes up and budgets go down, we’re still meeting mission demand,” Edwards said. “It’s allowing us to absolutely operate within those two lines.”

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Jura said:

found these in Internet (from Germany most recently), made me wonder (without checking wiki hahaha) what hit a Stryker should withstand?? 40mm? more?

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Basic armor of the Stryker APC protects the front arc against 14.5-mm rounds. All-round protection is against 7.62-mm NATO ball rounds

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