US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

interestingly, The Marines Are Harvesting JLTV Parts from Old Humvees
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The
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' long-awaited
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is expected to start hitting the fleet next year, but not all of its parts will be fresh off the assembly line.

A harvesting effort is underway to salvage
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parts that can be fitted onto the
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. The strategy has long been part of the plan as the service phases out the unpopular Humvee for the JLTV, a faster vehicle with better armor to protect Marines from roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.

The move could save the Corps more than $100 million, according to a service news release.

All JLTVs will have radios, antennas and other communications equipment taken from Humvees. Two JLTV variants will also be equipped with elements of Humvees' Gunner's Protection Kits -- transparent armor gun shields that protect gunners when they stand in the vehicles.

The heavy-guns carrier variant of the JLTV will be equipped with Marine Corps Transparent Armor Gun Shields taken from Humvees. The Improved TOW Gunner's Protection Kits -- which can be armed with tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided missiles -- will be added to the close-combat weapons carrier variant.

"It's our responsibility ... to be good stewards of taxpayer money, so if we have equipment that is in good condition, we should go ahead and use it," Kevin Marion, a logistics management specialist in Infantry Weapons, said in the release.

The Corps plans to purchase nearly 10,000 JLTVs in coming years. The
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Department's 2019 budget
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for $607 million to purchase more than 1,642 of the vehicles.

Marines at the Schools of Infantry in North Carolina and California, officers at The Basic School in Virginia, and Motor Transport Maintenance Instructional Company in North Carolina will be the first to receive the JLTV in the spring. The vehicles are expected to reach the operating forces starting next summer.

Marine Corps field-service representatives will continue equipping JLTVs with the Gunner's Protection Kits even after the first crop enters the fleet. As the vehicles are fielded, the parts will be harvested and installed and the vehicles returned to their units, according to the release.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Congress could limit funding for Marine Corps’ M27 rifle purchases
By:
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  2 days ago
Congress has taken another step to follow through on a threat to limit money for the Marine Corps to keep buying the
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.

Back in April, draft language for the then-proposed
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out of the House of Representatives subcommittee on Tactical Air Land in the House Armed Services Committee looked to limit the funding.

Subcommittee members wanted to “withhold” 20 percent of funding for
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until they get more information from Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller on the service’s small arms programs.

Well, it’s in the version of the $716 billion defense policy bill that is expected to be voted on by the House this week and by the Senate in August.

Congress members want Neller to lay out the Corps’ “near-term and long-term modernization strategies for small arms weapon systems of the Marine Corps.”

They especially want the four-star to detail how the small arms plan will align with the Small Arms Ammunition Configuration Study that the Army completed last year.

The SAAC study was a service wide, multiyear study led by the Army to analyze the use and needs of near-term and long-term small arms and ammo needs.

Though the study has not been publicly released sources indicate that it calls for an intermediate caliber ammunition for carbines and machine guns.

That caliber will likely fall in the 6 mm range. Current work on the Army’s Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle program to replace the existing 5.56 mm light machine gun Squad Automatic Weapon has included requirements that use the Army-created 6.8 mm round.

Special operations programs have also begun a program to replace certain 7.62 mm sniper support rifles with a 6.5 mm variant.

The M27 is a 5.56 mm rifle.

Rather than wait for the new machine gun and follow on carbine and rifle, which may not be fielded for at least another two to four years, Neller began fielding of the M27 to Marine infantry units in 2017, after initial equipping began in 2008.

The Marines have fielded 6,500 M27s as of March, with plans to procure nearly 15,000 of the Heckler & Koch rifles.

Marine commanders took some heat at a March hearing when members of Congress questioned why they decided to go with a sole source contract. The cost, according to an April Marine Corps press release, came in at $1,300 per weapon system and support equipment.
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There are two parts two this as to why Congress may be putting this under the micro scope.
First there is a huge amount of performance and mission Overlap between the HK M27 and the M4A1. Congress doesn't like to see that the DOD is buying two systems that do the exact same thing.

Second, Congress is hearing from the Army that the 5.56mm may not be future proof, if that is the case why would the Marines be buying a "Improved system". and Can this "System" future proof the 5.56mm removing the need for the Army Next gen squad weapon programs.
 
May 18, 2018
some time ago
Jun 13, 2015

deciding about 100 billions for the boomers ...
Congressmen: Ohio Replacement Might Now Have Much-Needed Stability in Funding

source:
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now
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The Navy is moving ahead with its Ohio replacement submarines, and is using a little-noticed budgetary gimmick to pay for some of it.
source:
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while
The US Navy’s Columbia class submarines could squeeze General Dynamics’ profits
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The Navy’s new ballistic missile submarine is likely to squeeze
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’ profit margins, the company’s top executive told analysts this week on its quarterly earnings call.

General Dynamics, which owns Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, usually sees eight-to-10 percent margins on its boats. But GD chief executive Phebe Novakovic told investors and analysts on its quarterly earnings those margins will be under pressure as they move from just constructing Virginia-class attack submarines to
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, the first new ballistic missile submarine in decades.

“As we ramp up on Columbia, we will see some margin compression quite naturally because that will be cost-plus work,” Novakovic said.

“And given the long duration of the shipbuilding contracts and the shipbuilding process itself for any one of these single submarines, that margin compression can [last] for a while, offset of course by increased improvements in our Virginia class performance which we have historically shown.”

The first Columbia-class boat will start construction in 2020, Novakovic said, and said the company would have more clarity on just how much margin they can eek out of Columbia and Virginia in future years within the next year or two.

Last September, General Dynamics was awarded a $5.1 billion detailed design contract for Columbia, which is destined to replace the Ohio-class ballistic missile subs. The acquisition is slated to cost about $128 billion.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report in December saying the Navy was underplaying the technology risk involved in Columbia and risked significant cost growth in the program as it ironed out the kinks.

The first Columbia is slated to make a patrol in 2031.
 

timepass

Brigadier
US army program about to converts abrams tanks into Robot Tanks

US-Army-Program-about-to-Converts-Tanks-into-%E2%80%98Robot%E2%80%99-Tanks.jpg


An obscure equipment kit under development with the United States Army holds the potential to turn any tank into a “robot” tank, Warrior Maven has reported.

“A kit of hardware and software can be installed into different ground platforms to increase the level of autonomy,” an Army engineer told the news outlet for a story published July 25. While the exact program remains somewhat ambiguous, Warrior Maven noted that the latest development follows the Army’s effort to produce “leader-follower” algorithms that inform unmanned tactical vehicles to follow manned vehicles around a battlefield.

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timepass

Brigadier
MH-60M and MH-47G from 4th Bn., 160th SOAR (A) ‘Nightstalker’ and a North American B-25 Mitchell participated in a historic flyover to celebrate the history and advancements in Army Aviation..

37883081_2063261110669861_6155395030950346752_n.jpg
 

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
MH-60M and MH-47G from 4th Bn., 160th SOAR (A) ‘Nightstalker’ and a North American B-25 Mitchell participated in a historic flyover to celebrate the history and advancements in Army Aviation..

@timepass That's now the fourth or fifth post within a few hours not fitting to the topic - which is NEWS - and not anything random ... this particular one is from 2015 (
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) ... WARNING !!!!!
 
Jul 19, 2018
Feb 27, 2018
while now Boeing gets Air Force One contract — and next-gen Air Force Ones to get a new paint job
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and Air Force Formalizes $3.9 Billion Air Force One Deal with Boeing
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The U.S.
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last week awarded Boeing Co. the latest in a series of contracts to deliver two new
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aircraft to the service by 2024.

The
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it awarded the company a $3.9 billion firm-fixed-price contract for the two completed Air Force One replacement aircraft. The negotiated cost -- agreed upon by Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and President Donald Trump in February -- would save taxpayers more than $1.4 billion, the service said in a release.
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The contract gives Boeing the authority to "design, modify, test, certify and deliver two presidential, mission-ready aircraft," the Air Force said.

In 2016,
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to begin preliminary work on the VC-25A Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization program, better known as PAR. No amount was disclosed.

According to a fiscal 2019 Defense Department budget proposal, the Pentagon estimated it had already spent $1 billion for two airframes, along with engineering work. The Air Force expected to spend $2.9 billion between 2019 and 2023,
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.

The two 747-8s were originally ordered for the Russian airline company Transaero in 2013,
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. Boeing never delivered the jets to the now-defunct airline and instead put them in storage.

While the Air Force has a firm-fixed-price contract, which locks in a price and puts the company on the hook for cost overruns, Boeing is also expected to receive an additional no-bid contract, which could be worth millions, to sustain the aircraft for at least five years,
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.

The news of the contract comes as Trump is
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for the aircraft. He said he wants to change the current paint scheme, which dates back to the Kennedy era, to a more patriotic look.

"Boeing gave us a good deal. And we were able to take that," Trump said in a recent interview with CBS. "But I said, 'I wonder if we should use the same baby blue colors?' And we're not."

He continued, "Red, white and blue. Air Force One is going to be incredible. It's gonna be the top of the line, the top in the world. And it's gonna be red, white and blue, which I think is appropriate."
 

Iron Man

Major
Registered Member
Maybe a stupid question but what other large vessels have such a torpedo protection system?
All large vessels like carriers and amphibs will have a "torpedo protection system", by which Intrepid apparently means the particular arrangement of below-waterline compartments on the sides of these ships such that they store fuel and water in bulkheads along the outer edges of the ship and make it more resistant to damage from a torpedo:

ng_SS-31-graphic-10-06-06-F.jpg


An actual torpedo protection system would be something like this CAT system now being deployed aboard Nimitz class carriers as they come in for refit:

130515-N-JE709_500.jpg
VMIWJD1S.jpg
 
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