US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Apr 13, 2019
since I've now read it, I post
General: Marines Need Family of Next-Gen Ship-to-Shore Connectors
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and
Textron Ship-to-Shore Connector Production Contract Expected Later This Year
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Textron executives expect by the end of 2019 to win a production contract for the Navy’s much-anticipated new Ship-to-Shore Connector.

The first SSC is about halfway through builder’s trials, and delivery to the Navy is expected by the end of summer, said Scott Donnelly, Textron’s chief executive. Donnelly was speaking to analysts during a conference call Wednesday morning to discuss the company’s financial results from its recently completed second quarter.

Production of the rest of Textron’s initial developmental units is also progressing as planned, Donnelly said. The company is currently negotiating with the Navy a contract that will take the program from development to production. Textron first started developing the vessel in 2012.

“We’re in negotiations; I expect we’ll get that under contract in the third, fourth quarter latest,” Donnelly said.

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, when Donnelly spoke with analysts, it wasn’t clear how soon the Navy would be committing to a contract. At the time, Donnelly said the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget request didn’t include any funding for the program.

During the April call, Donnelly explained the Navy wanted to see progress with the program before committing more money. The Navy had already awarded Textron contracts to purchase long-lead-time materials.

“I don’t think there is anything sinister here,” Donnelly said during the April call. “It’s just the Navy’s perspective was, you guys have a whole bunch of craft that are already appropriated in 2017, 2018, 2019. We’ve got to get those under contract and get going here before we add on additional appropriated volumes.”

Textron’s Ship-to-Shore Connector looks like the existing Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) currently used by the Navy and Marine Corps to deliver personnel and equipment ashore. However, Textron’s new vessel has a fly-by-wire control system, a new drive and propulsion system and more powerful engines,
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. Textron’s vessel is built with fewer parts, which is supposed to make manufacturing and maintenance easier.

According to service budget documents, the Navy requested two Ship-to-Shore Connectors for $128 million in the FY 2017 budget, three for $212 million in the FY 2018 budget and five craft for $325 million in the FY 2019 budget.

Since the April call, the House put $84.8 million in its version of the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act for SSCs. The Senate authorized $40.4 million. A conference committee will determine the final funding level.

As the program moves from being in a developmental stage to being in production, Donnelly said analysts would quickly see results reflected in Textron’s financial reports.

“You will see the impact of that as it starts to ramp up and generate revenue, where it will be a 2020 story,” Donnelly said.
 
New Commandant Berger Sheds 38-Amphib Requirement in Quest to Modernize USMC for High-End Fight
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a long one, but was worth reading (who else would now read like three 15" screens of text though LOL)
 
Saturday at 10:36 AM
Thursday at 6:21 AM... later
Trump to Nominate Vice Adm. Mike Gilday to Lead Navy
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and
Vice. Adm. Mike Gilday Formally Nominated to be Next CNO
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President Donald Trump officially nominated Vice Adm. Mike Gilday to be the 32nd Chief of Naval Operations on July 17, according to a Senate notification reviewed by USNI News.

Gilday, a career surface warfare officer and a 1985 U.S. Naval Academy graduate, will replace outgoing CNO Adm. John Richardson, who is bound by law to step down from the position by Sept. 17.

Gilday, currently the director of the Joint Staff, was selected to become CNO when Adm. Bill Moran, who had recently been confirmed to become CNO, instead decided to retire shortly before he was scheduled to take over from Richardson.

Moran’s decision comes as the Navy is investigating an ongoing professional relationship he maintained via email with a now-former public affairs officer who was accused of mistreating multiple women at a 2016 holiday party. USNI News understands the content of the emails were not concerning, but the relationship was enough for Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer to question Moran’s judgment.

The selection of Gilday, the former commander of U.S. 10th Fleet and the Navy’s cyber arm, meant Trump bypassed seven sitting four-star admirals. Such a move happens rarely. In 1970, then-Vice Adm. Elmo Zumwalt was nominated to be CNO was the last time sitting four-stars were passed-over.

Gilday’s sea duty includes commanding Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Higgins (DDG-76) and USS Benfold (DDG-65), Destroyer Squadron 7 and Carrier Strike Group 8 aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69).

Gilday also served as director of operations for NATO’s Joint Force Command Lisbon, as chief of staff for Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO, director of operations for U.S. Cyber Command. He also previously served as the executive assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as a naval aide to the White House.
hadn't heard of
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
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So according to this report, the USMC attachment of the USS Boxer used the Lightweight Marine Air Defense Integrated System LMADIS
This system is not some gold plated set up.
Basically it starts with a Polaris MRZR. Think of a Gulf cart exposed to the same Gamma radiation of the Hulk, and very very angry.

On the roll cage (because for this kind of vehicle the word “Roof” just sounds weak.)
Is mounted 4 compact AESA radar array. About the size of a large box fan. The PRS 42 Air Surveillance Radar a of the shelf product from RADA of Israel.
They scan the sky along with an electro optical turret, and a Radio Frequency scanner.
To “attack” the system uses a Modi Jammer Originally developed to kill IEDs.

They rolled these on to the deck of the Boxer and chained it down. This method has been in use for a couple years now as a cheap yet effective way to add anti drone ability to the LHA and LHD.
When the Iranians started buzzing the Boxer apparently the Marines decided to put it to the acid test. Jamming the drone’s remote system.
 
Dec 31, 2018
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7. Navy mulls frigate choices


sounds like I'll make it or break with the FFG(X) cancellation prediction Oct 30, 2018
LOL!
now
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The Navy is looking to get a new class of frigates in the water as soon as possible, but the budget wrangling between Congress and the White House might mean that gets put on hold.

If lawmakers can’t patch together a big budget deal to avoid a debt default and hold off billions in automatic spending cuts across the government, the Navy’s new frigate program could wind up being punted down the road, putting the service’s goal of a 355-ship fleet in jeopardy.

The Navy — which continues
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with readiness and maintenance issues — has moved quickly on its FFG(X) program in an effort to get the new class of ships into the water and make up for some of the deficiencies of the Littoral Combat Ship, which lacks both the offensive and defensive capabilities needed to meet the Pentagon’s new effort to confront China and Russia.

Congressman Rob Wittman said in an emailed statement that any delay in the FFG(X) program “would be absolutely unacceptable and is yet another example of how harmful CRs are for our military.” He pointed out that fiscal 2019 “was the first time in decades our service members received funding on time and the result has been a stronger military. I have constantly heard from top military leaders that CRs not only waste money, but are a broken promise and one more chip away at our service members’ ability to survive.”

But with the two houses of Congress bitterly divided and an unclear path forward on defense spending, there’s a possibility that a full year continuing resolution could throw a wrench into those plans.

“If you’ve got a full year CR that’s the worst case scenario,” one congressional staffer told me.

The FFG(X)
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a contract award in 2020. Under a full year CR, that would have to be pushed back until 2021 — at the earliest. A three-month CR, which has been handed down before by Congress, wouldn’t be likely to affect the program’s schedule, because the Navy plans to award a contract in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021.

While that award date might be an accident, it also could reflect lessons learned at the Pentagon over how to work through — or around — Capitol Hill’s inability to pass budgets on time.

One way to mitigate a CR “is to not schedule critical contracting actions in the first part of a fiscal year,” a second congressional staffer told me. “DoD has learned that a CR is a possibility, so they try to schedule critical contracting actions away from the first quarter of the fiscal year. But by doing this you’re running a risk of sending a message to Congress that it’s OK to have a CR because the DoD has figured out how to live with them.”

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, presumptive Defense Secretary Mark Esper outlined the impact of CRs. “Every day that a CR continues is one less day we can invest in future capabilities and technologies,” he said, “and we’re stuck funding legacy technologies and legacy equipment.”

Just last month, the Navy released an RFP to industry to submit designs for the first of 20 guided-missile frigates. The first to be procured would be in 2020, and funded at a rate of two per year between 2021 and 2029. The first ship is slated to cost $1.2 billion, with the remaining 19 hulls coming in at about $900 million each.

That compressed schedule is possible, the Navy says, because it’s asking shipbuilders to use existing hull designs and mature technologies in their proposals, setting up a situation where a foreign-designed ship could be chosen, while still being built in the United States.

At the moment, four industry teams are competing for the FFG(X) program, including two that plan to build at shipyards that have been churning out Littoral Combat Ships (which the frigate is slated in part to replace.) Four companies have said they would submit bids for the contract award expected to take place next July: Austal, Fincantieri/Marinette Marine, General Dynamics, and Huntington Ingalls.

The plan is for the FFG(X) to play a variety of roles from hunting submarines and mines to providing air defense and strike capabilities that are beyond the scope of the Littoral Combat Ship, whose production has been sharply curtailed. The new frigates, according to Navy plans, will sport at least 32 Mark 41 Vertical Launch System capable of firing SM 2 Block IIIC surface-to-air missiles, Tomahawk and Evolved SeaSparrow Missiles.

The Navy also wants its shipmakers to: build in space, weight and cooling for eight to 16 Naval Strike Missiles, which have a range of 100 nautical miles; carry an MH-60R Seahawk helicopter and an MQ-8C Firescout drone; house a 150-kilowatt laser some day.

The frigate will almost certainly be larger than LCS variants. It will also be more heavily armored and survivable so it can better cope with more advanced Chinese and Russian ships and surface attack weapons. The FFG(X) is also being designed to operate either independently or within a carrier strike group, while acting as a distributed node in a sensor network.

How soon all that happens is bound up with the larger budget battles happening in Washington.
it's
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So according to this report, the USMC attachment of the USS Boxer used the Lightweight Marine Air Defense Integrated System LMADIS
This system is not some gold plated set up.
Basically it starts with a Polaris MRZR. Think of a Gulf cart exposed to the same Gamma radiation of the Hulk, and very very angry.

On the roll cage (because for this kind of vehicle the word “Roof” just sounds weak.)
Is mounted 4 compact AESA radar array. About the size of a large box fan. The PRS 42 Air Surveillance Radar a of the shelf product from RADA of Israel.
They scan the sky along with an electro optical turret, and a Radio Frequency scanner.
To “attack” the system uses a Modi Jammer Originally developed to kill IEDs.

They rolled these on to the deck of the Boxer and chained it down. This method has been in use for a couple years now as a cheap yet effective way to add anti drone ability to the LHA and LHD.
When the Iranians started buzzing the Boxer apparently the Marines decided to put it to the acid test. Jamming the drone’s remote system.
it's supposedly a cool story: it's made to a major news server here

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  • 6:59 [related to Africa soccer cup finals]
  • 6:51
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  • ...
I guess that's what's massively read (by people with smart phones on the subway etc.)
 
Last edited:
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So according to this report, the USMC attachment of the USS Boxer used the Lightweight Marine Air Defense Integrated System LMADIS
This system is not some gold plated set up.
Basically it starts with a Polaris MRZR. Think of a Gulf cart exposed to the same Gamma radiation of the Hulk, and very very angry.

On the roll cage (because for this kind of vehicle the word “Roof” just sounds weak.)
Is mounted 4 compact AESA radar array. About the size of a large box fan. The PRS 42 Air Surveillance Radar a of the shelf product from RADA of Israel.
They scan the sky along with an electro optical turret, and a Radio Frequency scanner.
To “attack” the system uses a Modi Jammer Originally developed to kill IEDs.

They rolled these on to the deck of the Boxer and chained it down. This method has been in use for a couple years now as a cheap yet effective way to add anti drone ability to the LHA and LHD.
When the Iranians started buzzing the Boxer apparently the Marines decided to put it to the acid test. Jamming the drone’s remote system.
footage:
 
Marines Took Out Iranian Drone for the Cost of a Tank of Gas
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inside they use "MATIS" instead of "LMATIS" to commemorate a former SecDef? LOL

anyway I'd be interested to see the Pentagon's footage of quote unquote downing
 
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