US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

wondering what's their profit margin on ever-increasing Ford cost, I now read
Huntington Ingalls Awaiting Commitment from Navy Before Ramping Up Workforce
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The Navy and many lawmakers want a massive increase in Navy spending but haven’t yet put forward a plan to start ramping up spending – and one shipbuilding executive said he wouldn’t feel comfortable investing in a larger workforce until certain signs of Navy commitment appear in the budget.

Mike Petters, president and CEO of Huntington Ingalls Industries, told USNI News last week that his company is already investing $1.5 billion in technologies and processes that can “reset our efficiency and our competitiveness,” but to support a ramp-up to 355 ships his yard would need to expand its workforce. And he’s not ready to do that just yet.

“There’s a lot of things that have to happen if we decide we’re going to invest against that. Some of it is, you’ve got to get rid of sequestration. You’ve got to get to some kind of normal order on the Hill,” he said.
“But you can do some programmatic things that make sense right now: you could change the way you buy aircraft carriers. When we built up the last time we bought them two at a time, so let’s buy them two at a time again. You wouldn’t see that for a decade or so, but the point is making those decisions now would then create the confidence to go invest in that ramp-up.

“To get to the numbers they’re talking about, I think you’ve got to build stuff you’re already building. You expand the rate of production for submarines and destroyers, and I think you can do that, and if you make the decision to do that in the next multiyear procurements that happen, that will create the investment profile that you need,” he continued.
“And then I think around amphibs and auxiliaries, you can make commitments – like in the amphib case, you can accelerate the LX(R) to take advantage of the production line that’s there. For auxiliaries you’ve got production lines that are mature, let’s take advantage of those production lines. And if you do those things, you can efficiently, actually, build up the size of the fleet.”

HII is well situated to support the early stages of a fleet expansion, given the company’s role in the three main ship classes being targeted for early production rate increases: HII is the sole builder of amphibious warships today at its Ingalls Shipbuilding yard, Ingalls is one of two yards building Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and its Newport News Shipbuilding yard works alongside General Dynamics’ Electric Boat shipyard to co-produce Virginia-class attack submarines.

Petters said he was confident the two yards had the physical space to accommodate higher paces of production for these three classes, or to take on new work.

“The issue is not about footprint, the issue is about workforce,” he said.
“We can go and get the tooling and the work site, the job site, we can do all that a whole lot faster than the government can actually appropriate the funds to go do that, or make decisions to go do that. The question is, can you create the workforce fast enough? And we’re actually pretty good at that, but it’s not something you just start late; you’ve got to start early on that. So that’s kind of the way we think about it, as we start to see some of these programmatic decisions being made, then you go and start creating the workforce to go make it happen, which adds to the efficiency and makes it cheaper.”

The Navy is still awaiting a supplemental budget to add funding to the current fiscal year – potentially as much as $40 billion across the Defense Department – but much of that is likely to support maintenance, modernization and operations for current platforms. But the Fiscal Year 2018 budget, expected to be sent from the White House to Congress in early May, could contain some of the signs that Petters said might spur some hiring at his yards.

“The two-ship buys for carriers, increasing volumes of submarines and destroyers, accelerating the amphibs: those things are in the realm of the possible right now, and those would be very overt, direct signals that would be, not just to our level of the industry, but it would also start to give us the latitude to go and start incentivizing our supply chain to keep up and provide the stuff we need from them,” he said.

As for the investments already being made, Petters said “we’re investing into the [Ohio Replacement Program, or Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine] program. We’re investing into the things we learned as we went through the construction of the Ford (aircraft carrier), we’re making some investments in those areas that are going to drive cost out of the Ford (class). And a billion and a half dollars kind of runs the whole gamut.”

Among the technologies being leveraged is a “smart shipyard” idea that would connect employees all around the yard via wireless internet and tablets, and allow them to do their work based on 3D “digital blueprints” instead of traditional 2D drawings. Since
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, the future Enterprise (CVN-80), would be the first paperless ship, and Newport News Shipbuilding president
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, Petters said the company has been hard at work testing out their ideas.

“We keep running pilots and demonstrators to the workforce, saying, this is how this could work and give us some feedback as to whether that makes sense or not,” Petters said.
“It’s all been very very positive for us, and we’re continuing to be excited about the future.”

This type of digital work environment could generate 15-percent cost savings on Enterprise, Mulherin said last year.
 
interestingly, according to Maj. Gen. David Bassett, program executive officer, Ground Combat Systems, “Those systems today are nearly shovel-ready.” ... so let's wait and see:
Army to Give M1 Tank New Ammo, Active Protection System
With the promise of increased defense spending,
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officials are planning a major upgrade for the
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as the start of a sweeping effort to modernize the armored vehicles in the service’s heavy brigades.

The initial package of upgrades currently in test will enable to M1 to fire the Advanced Multipurpose, or AMP, round, which can be programmed to deliver devastating effects such as airburst on enemy targets, said Maj. Gen. David Bassett, program executive officer, Ground Combat Systems.

“It’s a dramatic advancement in lethality; it replaces a bunch of rounds with only two,” Bassett said at the Lexington Institute’s Army Rapid Equipping Forum on Capitol Hill on Monday. “When we are done, we are going to have the AMP round and the Sabot.”

Ground Combat System officials have also just finished an armored protection system, or APS, upgrade to an M1 that will soon go into testing, Bassett said.

“We now have upgrades for every single platform in the [armored brigade combat team] just about ready to go — an upgraded Bradley, and upgraded Abrams, an upgraded howitzer and a replacement for the M113, something we have waited for an awful lot of years,” Bassett said. “Those systems today are nearly shovel-ready.”

The Lexington Institute’s forum coincided with President Donald Trump outlining his fiscal 2018 budget priorities, pledging to
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, a roughly 10 percent increase across the services.

Some of the forum’s attendees said the Army needs to do a lot more than just modernize its fleet of Cold War-era armored platforms.

“Sequestration and the Budget Control Act have forced the Army to pursue this incremental modernization plan,” said retired Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, director of the Heritage Foundation. “Meanwhile, our adversaries continue to produce revolutionary designs for tanks, antitank guided missiles, personnel carriers, fire support and air defense systems.”

Russia, a country with a gross domestic product lower than Brazil, managed to design the new T14 tank “with fully-integrated reactive armor, fully-integrated active protection system and an automated turret,” Spoehr said.

Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute agreed, saying, “If the Russians invaded Eastern Europe tomorrow, the U.S. Army would be overrun.

“Americans spend very little money on their Army,” added Thompson, who then made some budgetary spending comparisons.

The federal budget under the Obama administration was $4.1 trillion and will likely grow under President Trump, he said, calculating that the federal government spends about $11 billion a day.

Thompson then said that the Army’s $22.6 billion request for modernization is worth just two days of federal spending.

The Trump administration plans to increase defense spending by cutting other parts of the federal government. To do this, Congress will have to repeal the Budget Control Act, which has imposed damaging cuts to all areas of the federal government.

“The path to removing the Budget Control Act and taking off the risks of sequestration is cloudy,” Spoehr said. “We don’t know how we get to 60 votes in the Senate to repeal the Budget Control Act.”

Spoehr called Trump’s pledge to spend an additional $54 billion on defense spending “a significant increase to what had been previously planned.”

“The president had made national defense a national priority,” he said.

Bassett agreed that the Army needs to make plans to replace the current armored vehicle fleet with modern designs, but said “you develop a strategy for the resources that you have.”

“I think we have a responsibility to upgrade the ABCT formation. Getting the M113 out of the inventory is a big deal for us, but also continuing to add capabilities to Abrams and Bradley,” Bassett said, referring to the Armored Multipurpose Vehicle that will replace the Vietnam War-era M113 armored personnel carrier.

“We are looking at active protection systems right now across the formation.”

APS technology is designed to give a combat vehicle the capability to shoot down incoming missiles, but the Army has been reluctant to trust it because of the danger it presents to dismounted soldiers.

“I am going to tell you right now that we are going to eventually have to ask the service — and I think the chief is very ready to do this — to accept some shortcomings,” Bassett said. “There are going to be some angles that may not work now.

“We can talk about the risks to soldiers around the vehicle, but it needs to be in context to the risks to soldiers both in the vehicle and near the vehicle when an antitank guided missile hits it.”
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FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
86 helicopters and 2,200 men: 10th Combat Aviation Brigade arrives in Europe

I had pointed out in my posts on the European deployment of the 3rd ABCT (Armored Brigade Combat Team) of Fort Carson that it would be reinforced by an aviation brigade from the 10th mountain division.
The equipment of this brigade is currently arriving in Europe (photos DoD). On February 22, four Apache AH-64s arrived at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. They were disembarked from two C-5M Galaxy Air Mobility Command. These Apache belong to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Regiment of Fort Bliss, Texas, deployed as a reinforcement to the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade.

They are part of the helicopter reinforcement planned for Operation Atlantic Resolve. A total of 86 aircraft are expected: 12 CH-47 Chinook, 38 UH-60 Black Hawk, 24 AH-64 and 12 Medevac helicopters. 2,200 soldiers are added to the 3,500 of the 3rd ABCT.

12 Chinook and 37 Black Hawk were transported by sea to Bremerhaven (Germany) and they won Nordholz. Eight Black Hawks destined for Romania are en route by sea; The Black Hawks destined for Latvia will be routed through C-17.

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US .jpg
 
Jun 2, 2016
...
M109A7 is slated for full rate in february ...
it's March of 2017 now :)

anyway
There's a decades-long modernization lag for Army combat vehicles
A years-long period of reduced modernization budgets has caused a major lag -- potentially up to 30 years for some rides -- in upgrading the Army's combat vehicles, the Army general in charge of the fleet said.

“I can tell you right now the level of investment in my portfolio is unacceptably low,” Maj. Gen. David Bassett said Monday at a Lexington Institute forum on Army rapid acquisition.

The current investment has only allowed the service to make very capable upgrades to its fleet -- which would require “decades to touch all of our armored brigade combat team formations,” Bassett said.

The Army is only able to modernize one brigade of Stryker combat vehicles every three years from a flat-bottomed hull to a double-V hull structure, which is more resistant to under-belly explosions set off by improvised explosive devices. The service is only able to upgrade its oldest Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Abrams tanks, Bassett added.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that it will take 30 years to touch the entire formation,” he said. “The idea we would keep one configuration steady for 30 years is laughable, that is not what we are going to do.”

The Army is prioritizing incremental upgrades to what it has in the inventory rather procuring a vehicle to replace a vehicle, like the now-defunct Ground Combat Vehicle would have replaced the Bradley, Bassett explained. GCV was canceled as the program became unaffordable and was downgraded to study project several years ago.

“We chase things we can’t catch and we exhaust ourselves and our resources trying to achieve certain technology thresholds rather than fielding capable systems sooner and better,” he said.

The Army is replacing the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier with the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle. BAE Systems is delivering the first of the new vehicles to replace the 1960s-era vehicles that can no longer keep pace with the M1 Abrams and the M2/M3 Bradley vehicles resident in ABCTs.

But aside from that, the Army is upgrading the M1 Abrams, the M777 Howitzer and Strykers. “Those systems today are nearly shovel ready and, so, ready for production dollars,” Bassett said.

With Stryker, the Army “pretty much found ways to bending that acquisition bureaucracy to our will and clearing it out of the way, clearing it entirely out of the way,” Bassett said, referring to a program to urgently up-gun the vehicle with a 30mm cannon for the 2nd Cavalry Regiment based in Europe. The Army plans to field the vehicle to the unit in 2018 and has already delivered the first vehicle within 15 months.

Bassett noted that in the past, the Army might have held fielding the vehicle until it could add airburst munition capability, for instance, but this time the service decided to move forward with a 30mm cannon with the possibility of adding airburst munition capability later, rather than letting that desired capability hold up the process.

The Stryker will also get additional protection when flat-bottomed hull variants are converted to double-v hulls as part of an engineering change proposal, which also includes a more powerful engines and transmission as well as an updated in-vehicle network.

The Army is also installing an interim capability to upgrade the Howitzer’s handling quality but has pushed back extending the range of the cannon because the service “realized until we get the automotive portion in place, getting at the cannon wasn’t going to do us much good, so we broke it into two pieces,” Bassett said. The increased cannon range will be incorporated in the next incremental upgrade, he added.

Bassett said the Abrams tank is still the most lethal, protected and capable main battle tank “on the planet,” but the Army will make it “better” with improved optics, munitions, an auxiliary power unit and modernized electronics.

Additionally, the Army is planning to rapidly add active protection systems to its combat vehicles with mature solutions.

Upgrading existing systems using mature and ready technology is going to come into play a lot more, especially with a focus on rapid acquisition, according to Bassett.

“I have no desire to develop the next UCV -- the Unaffordable Combat Vehicle,” he said, adding affordability needs to be factored into procurement plans early.

“I think there are starting to be a number of success stories where the Army and industry and the Marine Corps can point to non-developmental-like acquisitions that have been successful,” and which leave room to close capability gaps later down the road, Mark Signorelli, BAE Systems’ vice president of combat vehicles, said at the Lexington forum.

But Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army three-star general, who is the director for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation, noted, at the same event, that while the other services are in the midst of developing new classes of ships and aircraft, the Army has “no new classes of anything.”

He argued if the service wants to move beyond just upgrading technologies and platforms introduced in the 1980s -- or even earlier in some cases -- it needs to try to get out of a “vicious catch-22” where the typical requirement to start a new development and procurement program is the promise of funding. The Pentagon doesn’t normally approve new-start programs unless there’s funding and Congress can’t fund a program that doesn’t exist, Spoehr said.

The Army has a track record of "coloring in the lines," he said, adding the Army didn't even ask for anything new in its 2018 wish list.

Therefore, the Army needs to be more proactive and make public plans, concepts and requirements for future platforms and systems -- even without a promise of investment -- in order to gain support in funding from Congress and technological insights from industry, he said.
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now I read
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It’s time to build up
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against limited attacks from
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and
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, leading experts gingerly suggest in a forthcoming study. While we can’t stop an all-out nuclear barrage, they say, we can and should reduce the temptation for Moscow or Beijing to risk a small strike. Such
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are an important part of modern Russian military doctrine in particular, which prescribes them as a way to quickly end a losing conventional war — a technique incongruously called “escalate to deescalate.”

None of the contributors to Missile Defense and Defeat is proposing a
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. They don’t think it’s feasible, affordable, or even desirable, since just trying to build one would undermine the Mutually Assured Destruction that has kept the nuclear peace for 70 years. But as China and Russia grow both more capable and more confrontational, several of the authors argue, we need to break the taboo on discussing any kind of missile defense against great powers. A congressionally chartered review now underway in the Pentagon is a great place to start.

“The reemergence of a belligerent Russia with the largest missile inventory in the world… presents an existential threat to the United States and its allies,” writes
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, former director of the
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. “We must use this inflection point to build the next generation of missile defense needed, not only to meet the rogue nation threat (i.e. North Korea and Iran), but also the threats posed by Russia and China as well.”

In particular, “it is time for America to prioritize homeland cruise missile defense,” writes former MDA deputy director
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. Historically, missile defense has focused on ballistic missiles flying high and fast;
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are lower, slower, and a distinctly different problem. “The threat to the U.S. homeland from cruise missiles, predominantly from China and Russia, is increasing at an alarming rate,” writes Todorov, and “the use of these weapons in such scenarios has been part of Russia’s publicized doctrine for years.”

Co-author
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, a senior member of Strategic Command’s Senior Advisory Group, is especially concerned about threats to
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. While the Nixon Administration’s Safeguard system was meant to keep our capacity to retaliate intact through a Russian first strike, he writes, we’ve largely ignored active defenses for our ICBMs since, relying on purely passive defenses like hardened silos. While Payne says stopping a large-scale Russia or Chinese attack would require
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, he’s more optimistic about what he calls “a ‘thin’ missile defense to protect against limited missile threats or attacks from any origin, including Russia and China.”

Likewise, “(while) the United States should not seek homeland missile defense against Russia and China,” writes Lawrence Livermore’s
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, “the protection against limited ballistic missile strikes (should) be extended to protection against limited cruise missile strikes on the homeland.” Particularly in Europe, where
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are officially only aimed at Iran, Roberts writes, “the objective (is) taking Russia’s ‘cheap shots’ at the alliance off the table (–) that is, Russia’s use of a very small number of strikes, with the threat of more to come, to persuade NATO not to act militarily to secure an interest (–) as opposed to the large-scale strikes of which Russia is also capable.”

Lead author and collection editor
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, missile defense director at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, is actually more cautious than his four co-authors in discussing defense against the Russian threat. But even he recommends beefing up missile defenses with, for example, interceptors fired from non-descript cargo containers, intermingled with empty decoys in a gigantic shell game: That, he told me with satisfaction, “will drive the Russians bananas.”

None of these ideas is about creating a perfect defense, Karako emphasized. “This isn’t about any sort of bubble,” he said. “It’s about raising the threshold” — making a limited strike less likely to succeed, and therefore less tempting.

The venue in which Karako & co. hope these out-of-the-box ideas get discussed is the “review of the missile defeat capability, policy, and strategy of the United States” ordered by the
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and due back to Congress by Jan. 31st, 2018. Unlike the last such study, which was narrowly couched as a Ballistic Missile Defense Review, this Missile Defeat Review explicitly includes cruise missile threats, new dangers such as hypersonic weapons, cooperation with allies, and “left of launch” solutions such as blowing up the enemy missiles on the launchpad (a way to “defeat” that’s not “defense). “It’s not just about ballistics any more, and (the) legislative mandate is pretty up front about that,” Karako told me.

What’s more, rather than just tasking the policy wonks in the Office of the Secretary of Defense to conduct the study, Congress specifically ordered the
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to participate as well this time, which Karako expects will give the new review a “much more operational flavor.” This is the kind of comprehensive review, Karako said, that then Navy and Army chiefs Jonathan Greenert and Ray Odierno called for in their “
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” saying the current approach to missile defense was “
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.”
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I didn't know Air Force to Retire Iconic Predator Drone
As the
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moves to an all
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remotely piloted combat aircraft fleet, it will officially retire the
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in 2018, the
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.

To prepare, some units — such as the 20th Attack Squadron at
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— will halt flight operations July 1.

“Right now, the plan is to stop flying the MQ-1 in 2018, and that means we need to get transitioned this year,” the 20th Attack Squadron commander, identified only as Lt. Col. James, said in a release. “As part of that, we are going to stop flying the MQ-1 completely by July 1, 2017. We will gradually stand up our number of combat lines on the MQ-9 so by the end of the year we are only an MQ-9 squadron.”

The Air Force has 93 Reapers and 150 Predators in its inventory. Both aircraft are made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of San Diego.

Moving from the MQ-1 — which proved itself as a strike and surveillance platform early on in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been in service for more than 20 years — to the larger MQ-9 streamlines the force, according to the 432nd Operations Group commander, identified as Col. Joseph in the release.

“Having a single aircraft buys more flexibility, simplifies training and logistics, and gives our people more [career progression] opportunities,” Joseph said. “I can’t move my people in between squadrons without paying the penalty of having to train them on another aircraft.”

The 432nd, at
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is an all RPA combat air patrol unit.

In addition to technological advances with the Reaper, Joseph said there has been an increased desire for more eyes-on-target and RPA support.

The service has been working to increase the number of combat air patrols, or CAPs, from 60 to 70. The additional 10 CAPS would be “Air Force owned but contractor operated” and be added by the end of fiscal 2018, Air Force spokeswoman Erika Yepsen told Military.com on Tuesday.

Additionally, the Air Force said that while the MQ-1 — first designated as the RQ-1 — and “the crews who flew them proved their weapons proficiency, it was never originally designed to carry weapons, resulting in a limited … payload. The demand for more attack capabilities exceeded the MQ-1’s design,” the release said.

“In the case of the MQ-1, I think we wanted more out of it, but we were at a physical stop on the airplane and needed a new one,” Joseph said.

The MQ-9 has a payload of 3,750 pounds, and carries a combination of
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missiles, GBU-12 Paveway II and GBU-38
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, according to the Air Force.

While also armed with Hellfires, the MQ-1 can carry only 450 pounds in munitions.

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, will host a new MQ-9 Reaper group, the service said last month, but only for mission control elements.

In September, the Air Force announced eight potential bases to host new drone units in preparation for the transition. The service is conducting additional environmental studies at
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;
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, also in Florida;
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; and Shaw AFB to host a full MQ-9 wing, as well as a maintenance group and operations support personnel, the service said.

The Air Force has not yet decided on the location for the remotely piloted aircraft units.
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678679386/12 is 57 mil (rounded)

Contracts
Press Operations

Release No: CR-037-17
Feb. 27, 2017

NAVY

"The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded a $678,679,386 fixed-price, incentive-firm target contract for the procurement of seven Lot 40 EA-18G aircraft and associated airborne electronic attack kits and five F/A-18E aircraft. Work will be performed in El Segundo, California (43 percent); St. Louis, Missouri (20 percent); Bethpage, New York (15 percent); Fort Worth, Texas (2 percent); Mesa, Arizona (1 percent); Torrance, California (1 percent); Ontario, Canada (1 percent); Greenlawn, New York (1 percent); Vandalia, Ohio (1 percent); Irvine, California (1 percent); Bloomington, Minnesota (1 percent); and various locations within the U.S. (13 percent), and is expected to be completed in February 2019. Fiscal 2016 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $678,679,386 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-17-C-0003)."
 
contains like gossip but it's quite interesting
As Trump's national security adviser, McMaster still wears his Army uniform. Why that matters
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National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster continues to wear his Army uniform for at least some official duties while assigned to the Trump White House, an apparent break from other senior military officers who've served as high-profile political appointees while remaining on active duty, and one that could raise questions as he looks to shape policy and advocate the president's agenda.

"So far he has worn his uniform and worn civilian clothes," a White House official told Military Times. "I don't think he's decided to do exclusively one or the other." The official declined to address follow-up questions, including whether the president has expressed an opinion on the matter. Trump, whose fondness for military leaders is evident in his selections for several key posts within his administration,
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, mindful of the image it conveys.

But in McMaster's case, the choice to wear military garb holds deeper meaning. On Tuesday, the three-star general wore his blue service uniform during a White House meeting with Egypt's foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry. Setting such a precedence, observers say, could cause confusion or even skepticism among world leaders and others in Washington who may regard the uniform as a military symbol, and wonder whether McMaster represents the administration or the Pentagon — and precisely where he falls in the chain of command. It could also be exploited by Trump's critics as a possible attempt by the general to isolate or distance himself, at least in appearance, from what's been a rough start to the presidency.

"The 'uniform of the day' in the diplomatic and economic and homeland community is the coat and tie," said Arnold Punaro, a retired two-star general who served in the Marine Corps Reserve until 2003. Punaro, who emphasized his "enthusiastic" support for McMaster, spent 23 years working in Congress. That time included his tenure as staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee, which in 1987 fast-tracked approval for the last senior military officer to remain on active duty and retain his rank as national security adviser: then-Lt. Gen. Colin Powell.

McMaster's work "coordinating, leading, integrating all aspects of national security is mostly with the coat-and-tie world, and the military [personnel] that are detailed to the National Security Council wear a coat and tie," he added. "So to avoid confusion and misperceptions, I would recommend the coat and tie except in the most exceptional circumstances when military protocol is appropriate, such as a promotion or retirement ceremony or honoring a fallen comrade."

McMaster took the job after Trump
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, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. The president's first choice to succeed Flynn, retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward,
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, citing family reasons. McMaster officially began his duties as national security adviser on Feb. 21, the White House official said, though
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on whether to let him retain his rank while in this role.

Powell, who was a three-star Army general while serving as President Reagan's national security adviser, routinely wore a business suit during public appearances and while carrying out official White House duties. John Poindexter, a three-star Navy admiral who preceded Powell, did so as well.

Several national security experts and lawmakers have praised Trump's choice of McMaster, a respected commander and gifted military strategist. Like others on Trump's national security team, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, both retired four-star Marines, McMaster is viewed as someone unafraid of speaking truth to power. His relative lack of experience operating in politicized Washington is about the only shortcoming that's been cited.

It remains to be seen how McMaster will adapt to such an environment, one many military officers consider a dystopia that's in some ways more unpredictable and unforgiving than combat. Navigating the Trump White House is seen as another matter, with some observers questioning how much access — and influence — McMaster will have.

In an unprecedented move announced weeks ago, the president installed his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, on the National Security Council's Principals Committee. Moreover, as
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, the general does not yet have "walk-in privileges" while the president is working in the Oval Office. Bannon and other senior advisers reportedly do.

Nevertheless, it appears that McMaster has taken steps to restore trust and confidence among National Security Council staff. On the one hand, some were unhappy with Flynn as their boss. On the other, many were rattled by his unceremonious departure, which occurred in mid-February under a cloud of suspicion after it was learned he had misled senior administration officials about his contact with a Russian envoy.

McMaster is said to have the respect and admiration of Mattis, who has proven to be a force in his own right early in the administration, sometimes contradicting controversial statements made by the president. He also successfully argued against calls to re-establish the so-called "black sites" overseas where U.S. counter-terrorism officials conducted abusive interrogations.

At the Pentagon, a spokesman for Mattis declined to say whether the defense secretary lobbied Trump on McMaster's behalf. He noted, though, that the pair have enjoyed a "strong working relationship" dating to the 1990s. And when it comes to issues deemed politically sensitive, each seems to speak in more measured tones than the president and some of his other advisers.

Managing such relationships will be important, especially as the National Security Council debates, refines and executes the president's objectives. Neither McMaster as national security adviser nor Gen. Joseph Dunford as Joint Chiefs chairman fall within the chain of command extending from Trump to Mattis and on to the military's combatant commanders, said Punaro. So McMaster does not have the authority to give them orders or anyone else in the Pentagon. Likewise, Punaro said, Mattis and Dunford can't tell McMaster what to do, even though he remains on active duty.

Still, within the military hierarchy, McMaster, 54, is subordinate to Mattis, 66, and Dunford, 61, also a four-star Marine. The same could be said with respect to Kelly, 66, even though he is retired and leading an unaffiliated federal agency. In all three instances, it would be customary for those junior in rank to demonstrate the proper respect such stature affords — use of the title "sir," for example. The dynamic between McMaster and Dunford could be particularly noteworthy, especially if the former continues to wear his military uniform while conducting White House business.

"There's a delicacy to that, in having a three-star chairing a meeting when four-stars are at the table," said Peter Feaver, who worked on the National Security Council under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. "But the right three-star and the right four-star can overcome it."

Powell is seen as the ideal example of an active-duty officer serving as national security adviser, Feaver said. After leaving the White House, Powell went on to pick up a fourth star and become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After he retired from the military, the general became Bush's secretary of state, a post he occupied for four years. Poindexter, by contrast, became a central figure in
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scandal. He was demoted in rank and nearly sent to prison.

Still another interesting case study is Robert McFarlane, whom Poindexter replaced as national security adviser. When Reagan picked McFarlane for the job in 1983, the retired Marine lieutenant colonel was just 46 years old but already had extensive exposure to Washington and its competing power centers. He’d worked in the White House, at the Pentagon and the State Department, and had ample familiarity networking with Congress. A range of experience — for better or for worse — that McMaster does not possess.

But like McMaster, McFarlane was younger than many of those in prominent positions within the national security apparatus, and he came to the job with impressive academic credentials and having first been to war. He completed two tours in Vietnam, earning two valor awards for bravery. But guiding effective national security strategy presents unique challenges compared to leading troops in combat. McFarlane struggled to cement his relationship with the president, a drawback
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as one of the contributing factors that allowed Iran-Contra to spiral out of control.

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