US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Actually Jeff there was a recent report that might change that.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

If accurate then the navy is thinking of replacing block VII with a new SSN (X) which would be more like the Sea Wolf class. The remaining cruise missile capacity to be spread across a Columbia class SSGN derivative.
somehow, somewhat related is
Navy Plans For 'Large Payload Subs' Based On New Columbia Class To Take On SSGN Role And More

November 9, 2018
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 
noted
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
DARPA asks for counter-hypersonic weapons proposals

  • 09 November, 2018
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is asking companies to submit ideas for counter-hypersonic weapons as part of its Glide Breaker programme.

The Glide Breaker programme aims to rapidly develop a low-cost enabling technology critical for an advanced interceptor capable of defeating manoeuvring hypersonic vehicles in the upper atmosphere, according to a 6 November online broad agency announcement by DARPA. Key aspects of the Glide Breaker programme are classified, the notice says.

Proposals are due 21 December 2018 and DARPA plans to make a single award, though additional awards are possible pending funding availability. After a proposal has been selected, the winner will execute a series of systems and design reviews throughout 2019 and 2020, with the aim of completing a test in late 2020, DARPA says.

The Glide Breaker programme may request proposals for separate and additional technology development work through a separate announcement in the mid-fiscal year 2019, subject to DARPA’s discretion and funding availability, the notice says.

DARPA’s pursuit of counter weapons comes as the race to develop hypersonic vehicles between the USA, China and Russia continues to speed up. In August, China reportedly conducted the first flight of an unmanned hypersonic test vehicle, Starry Sky 2, reaching speeds of Mach 5.5 for more than six minutes, and topping off at M6. During the flight the vehicle climbed to an altitude of about 98,000ft and completed several manoeuvres.

For its part, the US Air Force is aiming for a 2020 initial operational capability for its Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW), an air-breathing, ram-jet-powered cruise missile being developed by Lockheed Missiles and Space for $928 million. The USAF also awarded a separate $780 million contract to Lockheed Missiles and Fire Control in 2017 to develop the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), a boost glide hypersonic system, which uses a rocket to accelerate its payload to high speeds, before the payload separates from the rocket and glides unpowered to its destination at up to M20.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
this one you mean:
U.S. Navy Wants Aggressor Submarine Unit To Mimic Russian and Chinese Subs In Training
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

?



LOL at a squadron with no subs (not an exact quote)
Well Jura unlike the air wing it's hard to justify buying a small number of Subs or surface ships just for training against.
The best option I can think of would be three fold. First borrow a LA Class boat. The Block I 688 is retired block II has some time and block III longer. These boats are roughly on par with the latest Russian SSN assembly a crew of experienced hands and use that as a Red Sub. Obviously though that only handles one part lease from an Allie a SSP type like we did the Gotland and use of a smaller but large UUV like the Echo Voyager. That unmanned sub is roughly the same size as North Korean and Iranian subs and is already a AIP.
 
Monday at 7:35 AM
I still recall discussions at Fox News (if to deploy to the border) from the time I had lived in the US, which was in 2001 and 02;

at first glance it sounded like an outrage to have "permeable" borders with Terrorists potentially coming,

but from what I figured, there wouldn't have been enough Illegals to for example pick up apples for less-than-minimal wage, so

LOL no big tasty apple for a quarter,

and of course enough Lobbyists to keep this going

(not sure if it's changed since then)
and now noticed
Camp Pendleton Marines Join Federal Mission at U.S.-Mexico Border
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 
Oct 10, 2018
Monday at 7:52 PM
ahem
‘You’re on your own’: US sealift can’t count on US Navy escorts in the next big war, forcing changes
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
related:
US Army warns of crippling sealift shortfalls during wartime
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The U.S. Army is pushing Congress to act on a
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
that will create “unacceptable risk in force projection” within the next five years if the Navy doesn’t act quickly, according to a document from the Army’s G-4 logistics shop obtained by Defense News.

In response to a committee inquiry, the Army in February sent a warning to the House Armed Services Committee in an information paper noting the nation’s surge sealift capacity — which would be responsible for transporting up to 90 percent of Army and Marine Corps equipment in the event of a major war — would fall below its requirement by 2024.

“Without proactive recapitalization of the Organic Surge Sealift Fleet, the Army will face unacceptable risk in
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
beginning in 2024,” the document said, adding that the advanced age of the current fleet adds further risk to the equation.

“By 2034, 70% of the organic fleet will be over 60 years old — well past its economic useful life; further degrading the Army’s ability to deploy forces,” the document reads.

The Army’s G-4 also alluded to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ readiness push, adding that even the most prepared forces wouldn’t matter if they can’t reach the front line.

“Shortfalls in sealift capacity undermine the effectiveness of US conventional deterrence as even a fully-resourced and trained force has limited deterrent value if an adversary believes they can achieve their strategic objective in the window of opportunity before American land forces arrive,” the paper reads. “The Army’s ability to project military power influences adversaries’ risk calculations.”

The document reflects the Army’s growing impatience with the Navy’s efforts to recapitalize its surge sealift ships, which are composed of a series of roll-on/roll-off ships and other special-purpose vessels operated by Military Sealift Command and the Maritime Administration. And Capitol Hill shares the Army’s view, according to two HASC staffers, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Navy, which is responsible for recapitalizing the surge sealift force, put forward a budget in 2019 that called for about $242 million over the next five years, the bulk of which would go toward designing and developing a new platform that will replace the current vessels. HASC lawmakers considered that amount of funding not enough to make any serious inroads on recapitalization, and certainly not enough to forestall the critical shortfall identified in the information paper, the staffers said.

A crisis

The Army’s warning dovetails with a Navy report from earlier in the year that detailed a full-blown crisis and collapse in the surge sealift capacity by the late 2020s if it does not move quickly to recapitalize.

The sealift fleet is composed of 26 Military Sealift Command pre-positioning ships, 46 ships in the Ready Reserve Force and 15 command-owned roll-on/roll-off surge force ships. Many of the roll-on/roll-off ships are steam-operated, and the obsolete equipment is causing significant personnel issues in the pool of qualified civilian mariners needed to operate them.

To offset the coming crisis, the Navy and the Maritime Administration came up with a three-pronged approach, according to the service’s March report: buy used ships off the open market and retrofit them for Defense Department purposes; buy a new class of ship known as the Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-Mission Platform, or CHAMP, if the concept is practical; and perform service-life extensions on ships the Navy thinks could benefit from the servicing.

The Navy is planning 31 service-life extensions across the Maritime Administration and Military Sealift Command surge fleet, according to the report. But that would mean those ships will be 60 years old when they decommission, a service life that comes with a whole basket of issues, the report said.

“Extending service life of vessels is a temporary mitigation as the fleet’s average age will continue to increase,” the report reads. “This exacerbates the challenge of maintaining older vessels with obsolete equipment and scarce spare parts.”

The Government Accountability Office has documented increasing costs and decreasing availability among surge sealift ships.

Congress and the Navy are, in fact, moving toward the plan to buy several used ships off the market and retrofit them for use by the Defense Department. Lawmakers also want the Navy to submit plans for the CHAMP, which will be at least 10 hulls.

But now the Navy is reportedly raising questions about the feasibility of its own concept.

"What we've figured out is that mission set is very broad," Capt. Scot Searles, strategic sealift and theater sealift program manager, said at a recent expeditionary warfare conference, Inside Defense reported.

“The missions the Navy wants CHAMP to address include strategic sealift, aviation intermediate maintenance support, medical services, command and control, and submarine tending. We have some early returns from some of the investigations we’ve done so far that [say] a single hull doesn’t make sense, and so we want to make sure we’re investigating and not trying to predisposition the answer," Searles added.

But if CHAMP isn’t the answer, the Navy must find a solution soon, according to the Army paper. To the land forces, it’s a matter of maintaining credibility as a deterrent force.

“Power projection, and the ability to rapidly deploy, is the US military’s operational center of gravity and is arguably the most crucial military advantage of the United States,” the paper reads. “Strategic sealift is the Army’s primary means of power projection and 90% of the Army’s unit equipment moves by strategic sealift.
 
quote of the day (
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
):

Coffman described the ships’ usefulness to combatant commanders as a multiplication problem: “capacity times capability times readiness equals lethality.”

“It’s multiplication, not addition – so if you have a zero in any one of these categories, you end up with a big fat nothing,” he said, while speaking at a Hudson Institute on Nov. 9.
 
Top