US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
First point Spencer is an Officer in the Naval reserve ergo he could be ordered to Afganistan.
Second point Defense Secretary Mattis has become something of a Chuck Norris figure with Jokes making him far larger than life. However any Marine General with the nickname Mad dog is likely to have a bit of a temper
Third however is this is such a spin based story that it's hard to justify as news.
 
Aug 30, 2018
since I've now read it, I post
In Pentagon Briefing, Mattis, Dunford Defend U.S. Support of War in Yemen
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When asked about the proposal by former Blackwater owner Eric Prince to let private security forces take over the Afghanistan mission, Mattis said: “When Americans put their nation’s credibility on the line, privatizing probably is not a good idea.”
and now a long one, but interesting, the Pentagon still spending $1b weekly per "war operations" etc.:
Here’s the blueprint for Erik Prince’s $5 billion plan to privatize the Afghanistan war
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Bad news for SAIC.
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Armatec supplied Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) in Virginia with armour kits to be applied to the Marine Corps’ assault amphibious vehicle (AAV) personnel carrier.

The Marines cancelled that order as it has decided to stop re-armouring older vehicles and focus instead on buying new, replacement ones, called the amphibious combat vehicle (ACV), said Manny Pacheco, spokesperson for Marine Corps land systems in Virginia.

“We have decided to cancel that program. We decided to focus on modernizing rather than investing in legacy systems,” said Pacheco. “The ACV has performed much better.”“The decision had nothing to do with the armour or the vehicle, but it was strategic. We want to focus on modernization and this is a 40-year-old system.”
despite his claim of nothing to do with the vehicle it's self the AAV-SU had come under fire due to some issues like the inability of the troop commander in full combat gear to move from his seat to the troop compartment without exiting on to the roof. There were also issues of decreased service life on parts.

So what happens now? The existing AAV7A1 Will continue in service for some time with the USMC, South Korea Japan and others. But more and more the USMC will transition to the BAE ACV.
Speaking of which.
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The ACV is intended to replace aging amphibious assault vehicles. The Marine Corps wants a platform that can carry seaborne troops onto the beach and then operate ashore.

Increment 1.1 will consist of 204 personnel vehicles. Increment 1.2 is expected to consist of approximately 490 platforms to include personnel, command and control, recovery and gun variants.

“We have hit every milestone and every knowledge point that was levied upon the program ... and we hit them on schedule,” Col. Kirk Mullins, program manager for advanced amphibious assault in program executive office land systems, told National Defense in an interview....
The first iterations of ACV will have a remote weapon station that can carry a .50 caliber machine gun or a Mk 19 automatic grenade launcher. The service is looking at potentially adding a 30 mm cannon to increase lethality, Mullins said
the armament of the first iterations will be fairly close of that on a AAV7A1 but the second version gets more interesting. That could mean either a M230LF set up on a CROWS or even better a Mk44 Bushmanster II variant.
Swift said BAE will unveil a model of a new variant at the Modern Day Marine conference in September. “We’re kind of looking at what we can do in regards for lethality,” he said. Swift declined to elaborate. ...

The Marine Corps is also looking to add active protection systems to thwart enemy projectiles.

“We’re working and aligned hand in hand with the U.S. Army to see if we can realize some of that” on the ACV, Angelo said. “We are committed to that capability.
of course it's not all sunshine and lollipops.
Observers of the program have noted that the amphibious combat vehicle is unable to swim long distances, which creates operational challenges against adversaries with anti-access weapons.

“If you’re needing to operate farther away from shore to enhance force protection for your amphibious fleet, you’ve got to have some means of getting your landing force from those ships across a lot of water,” Wood said. “ACV is not going to do that.”

The vehicles will have to be transported via a ship-to-shore connector such as a hovercraft or landing craft utility ship, he said
 
“This obsession with how many ships we have is horribly misplaced,” Smith said.

hey, that's basically what I was thinking until that point while reading
New Navy Force Structure Assessment, 2018 Elections Could Change the Path to 355-Ship Fleet
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but likely because of a different reason than that Representative, and the reason is filling up the USN numbers with LCSs and Zumwalts
 
Apr 26, 2018
... Army now:
‘Cost matters’ for US Army’s Future Vertical Lift aircraft buy, says vice chief
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related:
Army's Cold War-Era Apache Gunship Will Fly 30 More Years, General Says
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The U.S. Army has no current plans to replace its Cold-War era
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Apache, a still-lethal attack helicopter that the service plans to fly into combat for at least another three decades, according to the head of Army aviation.

"Right now, it's an incredibly capable aircraft that we know we are going to be flying well into the 40s," Maj. Gen. William Gayler, who commands the Army's Aviation Center of Excellence and
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, Alabama, told an audience Wednesday at the Association of the United States Army's Aviation Hot Topic event.

Gayler's comments on the future of the AH-64 offer a new perspective on the
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. FVL is the third priority under the Army's bold new modernization plan, and until now Army leaders have focused on talking about the program's goals of building a new long-range assault aircraft to replace the
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and an armed reconnaissance aircraft -- leaving the future of the AH-64 an open question.

Senior Army leaders continually hammer away that the service's modernization vision is to begin fielding a new fleet of combat platforms and aircraft by 2028 that will replace the Cold War "Big Five:" the
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tank,
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fighting vehicle, Black Hawk, Apache and
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air defense system.

"Does it mean you now have to have a replacement for the AH-64? I would say somewhere in the future, absolutely, 64s will no longer be in the inventory, just like [
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] Hueys are no longer in the inventory ... they have a lifespan," Gayler said. "But the timing of what replaces it and the affordability what replaces it has yet to be seen."

The new armed reconnaissance aircraft, or ARA, is designed to take on a burden that AH-64 has long shouldered, Gayler said.

"What that armed reconnaissance aircraft is designed to do is replace an AH-64 used as a reconnaissance and security platform in an armed reconnaissance squadron," Gayler said. "That aircraft was not designed to do that, therefore that's why we are pursuing something does it optimized for that mission."

For the long range assault aircraft, the Army selected two firms to develop demonstrators in 2014. Textron Inc.'s Bell Helicopter created the V-280 Valor, which completed its first test flight in December. Sikorsky, part of Lockheed Martin Corp., and Boeing Co. built the SB>1 Defiant, a medium-lift chopper based on Sikorsky's X2 coaxial design.

The FVL family will also include an advanced unmanned aerial system to deliver targeting data to long range precision fires and launch electronic attacks on enemy radar systems.

Future Vertical Lift is competing with five other modernization priorities: long-range precision fires, next-generation combat vehicle, a mobile network, air and missile defense and soldier lethality.

To be successful, Army aviation leaders have to focus on "what you can afford to do and prioritize where you have greatest need," Gayler said, pointing to the ARA and "long range assault aircraft."

"That Apache is still very, very capable ... made more capable by the armed reconnaissance aircraft that complements it and the long range assault aircraft that further enables it to be successful," Gayler said.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Apr 26, 2018related:
Army's Cold War-Era Apache Gunship Will Fly 30 More Years, General Says
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I don't know why this is news. First FVL is just entering the demo stage. It's going to take a few years of trials to hammer out which moves to the actual prototype stage. Second it will then take time to build full prototypes but that's only the transport version. The scout has yet to actually be nailed down. And the Attack versions is still concept. For the FVL move to low rate production with transition training even being optimistic about it. Earliest IOC is late 2020s, but then consider the huge fleet of choppers in invantrory. Also the army just bought the AH64E Apache Guardian and has plans for upgrades. It's going to take time to move from IOC to fill rate and transition. So yeah
30 years. I mean that's 15 years to iron out FVL into a combat ready machine and another 15 to build up numbers for operations.
 
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