US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

FORBIN said:

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But i have 16 Sea Sparrow or ESSM reloads by MK-29 in more 8 inside

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Last Oliver Hazard Perry Frigate USS Simpson Leaves Service, Marked for Foreign Sale

After 30 years of service the last Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate — USS Simpson (FFG-56) — ceremonially left U.S. Navy service Tuesday at Naval Station Mayport, Fla., according to the service.
Simpson’s departure from the service marks the end of the Perrys in the service making way for the roles to be filled by the new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).
Following the departure of the ship from the service, the ship is set to be put up for foreign military sale (FMS) after being towed to Philadelphia sometime next month, according to information from the service.

Simpson was best known as part of a three-ship surface action group (SAG) that was in turn part of Operation Praying Mantis — the retaliation mission following the near-sinking of frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) during the Iran-Iraq War in 1988.
Belknap-class cruiser USS Wainwright (CG-28), Knox-class frigate USS Bagley (FF-1069) and Simpson destroyed an oil-rig based surveillance post and sunk Iranian patrol boat Joshan,

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The ship departed for its final deployment to U.S. Southern Command in November to Europe and the Middle East and returned to Mayport in June.

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How Does OIR Stack Up?

As of Oct. 6, the US and partner nations had conducted 7,323 strikes against ISIS: 4,701 in Iraq and 2,622 in Syria, according to

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. Over one year, that averages out to about 13 strikes in Iraq and seven strikes in Syria each day.

By comparison, during the 42-day Desert Storm air campaign against Saddam Hussein in 1991, coalition fighters and bombers flew 48,224 strike sorties, or 1,100 a day. Twelve years later, the 31-day Iraqi Freedom air campaign averaged more than 800 offensive sorties a day.

Even the 1999 Kosovo campaign and the 2001 strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan dwarfed OIR's strikes launched. These air campaigns averaged 138 and 86 strike sorties a day, respectively.

This limited application of air power to destroy ISIS raises questions about the administration’s objectives, according to retired Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, former deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

“To what end it’s still unclear, particularly since the application of air power to date, while enormously precise and effective to the extent that it has been applied, the degree to which it has been applied is very, very, very limited relative to what the potential application of air power could be,” Deptula told Defense News. “So there’s a lot of confusion of just what are the US critical national security objectives that the application of force today has been aimed at.”

Deptula also pointed out that OIR is lead by an Army general: Lt. Gen. James Terry. This begs the question, he said, if the administration’s goal is to take out ISIS through the use of air power alone, why put an Army commander in charge of the air campaign?

The administration’s “anemic” action against ISIS has created a void in the region, one that Russia is all too happy to fill, Deptula said.

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Oct 12 Lockheed Martin Corp delivered only three of 44 interceptors for the THAAD missile defense system in fiscal year 2015 due to a seven-month halt in production caused by computer issues, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said.

The interceptors for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense program, which has an average budget of $800 million a year, are now expected to be delivered by September 2016, Rick Lehner, spokesman for the agency, said in an email to Reuters.

Such glitches typically result in lower award or incentive fees for contractors, but Lehner had no immediate comment on whether Lockheed's fees would be reduced.

Lockheed, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier, declined to comment on the financial impact of the delayed deliveries.

THAAD provides the U.S. military a land-based, mobile capability to defend against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, intercepting incoming missiles inside and outside the earth's atmosphere. Each launcher uses eight interceptors.

Lockheed spokeswoman Cheryl Amerine said the computer issue had been resolved and the revised delivery plan was met in June.

"Interceptor deliveries were delayed to allow time for a requested upgrade that further improved the mission computer and interceptor's performance," she said.

The program halted production of interceptors during missile segment testing after the mission computer's Static Random Access Memory - a new device on the computer's memory card - failed an acceptance procedure, Army Colonel Anthony Brown, THAAD program manager, said in a report released last week.

As of March, when that report was completed, the program had projected that Lockheed would deliver nine interceptors in the 2015 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. But Lehner said only three were actually delivered.

Brown said budget cuts also posed problems for the program, with funding for THAAD interceptors cut from 72 a year in fiscal 2011 to around 18 a year in fiscal 2017 and 2018, and 17 a year in 2019 and 2020.

As a result, the U.S. Army was unlikely to achieve its goal of receiving a full combat load of interceptors for a seventh unit and a preliminary load for an eighth unit by fiscal 2020, unless costs could be lowered by bundling orders, Brown said.

His report was part of the Pentagon's third annual report on the performance of its weapons acquisition system.

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