US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

please provide a link (I noticed some relatively recent changes in the USMC and don't want to spend my time on its history) thanks

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Jura said:

the info I sought immediately:

and

thanks TE!

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FORBIN said:

And me

And your Roger that 5/5

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• I didn't understand it (English is my third/fourth language)
• next time, quote me when referring to my post (at first I had missed your post)

FORBIN said:

Wait me for Orbat, TOE you know i love it from long time in more but not Dady hehe

15000 pers in general for a Division, ~ 10/20000+.

A Rgt do 3200 pers in 3 x Battalions/Bat of 950 with Rgt's HQ etc... in more.

A USMC Division about 18000 pers. big, USA have big Divisions especialy USMC coz much personnal for logistic for support combat units, it is a very rich country and from WWII have always that, many vehicles for this time, luxury means.

The 1st Division/West Coast in fact reinforced with Elts of 3rd Hawai/Japan get more, Inf and Art Rgt with 4 Bat ! about 23000 pers the more big Division in the World with the 1st Cavalry ~ 20000 pers.

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Jura said:

FORBIN this sounds as if you wanted me to acknowledge your post
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/us-military-news-reports-data-etc.t1547/page-544#post-395233
please take no offense, but

• I didn't understand it (English is my third/fourth language)
• next time, quote me when referring to my post (at first I had missed your post)

now, looking at your post again, what's "Dady" below? what do you mean by "luxury means" (I can't imagine any "luxury" related to serving in the USMC!)

actually, FORBIN, let's settle I'll give you two Likes, and let's leave it, OK?

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FORBIN said:

Ok 2 likes good deal ...

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Last month , the US Navy successfully tested the SeaRAM weapon system from an Arleigh Burke class (DDG 51) destroyer for the first time. During DIMDEX 2016 maritime defense exhibition held in Qatar last week, Navy Recognition sat down with the Program Director at Raytheon to learn more about SeaRAM.
...
Talking about the specific case of USS Porter, the Raytheon Program Manager said "We removed the Phalanx system and installed the SeaRAM system with Block II missiles. It gives us some enhanced improvements in terms of the layered defense. Phalanx is traditionally a close in, last layer of defense system and RAM extends that capability in terms of ship self defense".

Finally Gerard Hueber (Rear Admiral, USN, Retired), VP of Business Development for Naval and Area Mission Defense at Raytheon concluded by telling us "There has been a number of forums where senior US Navy leadership have addressed the SeaRAM capability as a defensive solution that contributes to the Navy's warfighting initiative of distributed lethality. The Navy has advertised opportunities across the force from combatants to logistics and auxiliary ships that the SeaRAM capability would add to the warfighting readiness of the fleet".

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Jura said:

Feb 26, 2016

and more
Air Force: Boeing Tanker Issue Could Delay Production Decision

source:

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Boeing’s grand plan to deliver 18 operational KC-46 Pegasus tankers in six months instead of fourteen has been labelled “optimistic” in a new report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Setbacks encountered during testing in 2014 and 2015 have already delayed the US government’s KC-46 low-rate production decision by nine months from August 2015 to May 2016. Now, the GAO reports that the five-month operational testing phase, which was due to begin in April, will now start in May 2017.

“Boeing will not be able to complete development activities until June 2018, five months later than required,” the congressional watchdog states in its annual appraisal of the KC-46 programme.

The GAO quotes government test officials who say that Boeing’s drive toward 18 aircraft to meet the contractual “required assets available” milestone is “optimistic” and carries four months of "schedule risk". That's not accounting for acknowledged troubles with boom refuelling the massive Boeing C-17 transport, which was meant to happen in January.

“If the air force exercises its options for production lots one and two, any future delays may affect Boeing’s ability to deliver all 18 operational aircraft by August 2017, but that risk is being measured in months rather than years,” the report states.

Those 18 aircraft were meant to include the four developmental aircraft, brought up to an operational standard, plus the first 14 low-rate production examples. Now, the 18 aircraft will include two of the original test aircraft and 16 production line examples, or two more than expected, GAO explains. Because those aircraft will now be delivered before operational testing is complete, Boeing will be financially responsible for any late design changes or fixes.

Boeing carries plenty of financial risk as it executes the remaining portion of the tanker development contract, which is a fixed-price deal that caps the US government’s liability at $4.9 billion. As of December 2015, Boeing and the USAF programme office “estimated that Boeing would incur additional costs to complete development of the aircraft of about $769 million and $1.4 billion, respectively”.

As well as stumping up the cash for overruns, Boeing is self-funding construction of the first batch of operational tankers in anticipation of government contracts for seven and 12 aircraft, respectively.

GAO notes that Boeing is also opening a second finishing centre, where it modifies 767-2C freighters into the military-standard KC-46 type.

For the government, at least, the cost of KC-46 development, production and associated military construction has come down 7%, or $3.5 billion, from $51.7 billion to $48.2 billion. The air force is buying 179 tankers as a first step toward replacing 455 Boeing KC-135 'Stratotankers', which average 55 years of age and are maintenance-intensive.

GAO notes that Boeing has resolved most issues encountered to date, and is moving past the unfortunate missteps that delayed the type's first flight from early to late 2015 and drove up costs.

There are still problems, however, with certifying the aircraft's centerline drogue system and wing aerial refueling pods.

Those key components should have been ready for Federal Aviation Administration certification in 2014, but won’t be certificated until “July 2017, over 3 years later” because the supplier didn't follow FAA processes during construction.

“To help mitigate schedule risk, Boeing obtained FAA approval in January 2016 to begin testing the KC-46 developmental aircraft without the two aerial refueling components being fully qualified," GAO says.

To date, Boeing has refuelled the F-16, F/A-18, AV-8B and has received fuel from a KC-10. It must still refuel the C-17 and A-10.

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Tiny inertial sensors based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are used in everyday devices such as cellphones, game controllers and unmanned quadcopters but lack the performance required for navigation applications.

Now

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has won a

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contract to develop a miniaturized navigation-grade inertial measurement unit (IMU) based on MEMS sensors, for use in precision-guided munitions in GPS-denied environments. The goal is to reduce cost, size, weight and power compared with current IMUs.

Today, high-value platforms such as aircraft use navigation-grade ring-laser gyro (RLG) and interferometric fiber-optic gyro (iFOG) inertial sensors, while MEMS-based tactical-grade IMUs are used in precision-guided weapons. MEMS sensors are produced using semiconductor manufacturing processes.

But current MEMS sensors can only inertially guide glide munitions with 10-meter (32-ft.) accuracy for roughly 30 sec., compared with up to 180 sec. for autonomous navigation using tactical-grade RLG or iFOG sensors, and cannot maintain sufficient accuracy for longer unless augmented by GPS.

Typically, IMUs with MEMS gyros have a bias drift of 10 deg./hr. or larger, compared with the 0.01 deg./hr. needed for navigation applications. This bias error translates into how long a system can maintain position or heading accuracy in the absence of GPS aiding.

The position accuracy of current MEMS IMUs drifts too fast to be useful for anything but flight durations of around a minute, Northrop says. So the predominant applications for MEMS IMUs are for attitude and position control where the gyro bias drift does not come into play.

Darpa’s Prigm:Ngimu program (for Precise Robust Inertial Guidance for Munitions—Navigation-Grade Inertial Measurement Unit) aims to produce a small MEMS IMU with a bias error of 0.01 deg./hr. and an angle random walk of 0.005 deg./root-hr., which is 3-4 orders of magnitude better than currently available systems, the company says.

“In particular, we are aiming to address the challenge of providing precise navigation for guided munitions, which operate in highly contested environments and have stringent requirements for minimized cost, size, weight and power consumption,” says Alex Fax, program director for advanced positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solutions at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems.

“We expect that our solution for making inertial navigation units smaller and lighter than ever before will make a huge difference, especially in GPS-denied environments,” he says.

Under the $6.27 million base contract, Northrop plans to demonstrate that its MEMS-based gyroscopes and accelerometers meet Darpa’s performance specifications. Additional contract options valued at $5.3 million cover testing of a prototype MEMS-based IMU, the LR-500.

Efforts such as Darpa’s Micro-PNT project have demonstrated laboratory-prototype MEMS inertial sensors with performance levels approaching navigation grade, but Northrop says significant development is required to consistently and reproducibly produce the sensors and integrate them into robust and deployable IMUs.

The next major milestone under Prigm:Ngimu is to start fabrication of the critical elements to verify their performance. “At the end of the first phase of the program, a clear demonstration of the gyroscope and accelerometer must be achieved,” states Northrop.

The potential for the Prigm:Ngimu is broader than guided munitions, the company says. Northrop envisions the small, lightweight, high-performance IMU finding multiple uses, such asnorth finding/gyrocompassing, precision pointing, unmanned vehicle and space applications.

“Given the anticipated performance, this particular technology has the potential to displace many of the lower-performing RLG- and iFOG-based systems in the future,” the company states.

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M-1 Abrams in the U.S. Marine Corps As of March 2016, the Marines had 445 M-1A1 tanks in service.12 The Marine version of the M-1A1 includes a Deep Water Fording Kit (DWFK), hardware to accommodate the Position Location Reporting System (PLRS), and additional tie-down points for storage on U.S. naval vessels.

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