US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

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The USN is providing disaster relief to the Philippines.

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Sailors, Marines Arrive in Manila to Participate in Relief Efforts
Story Number: NNS091005-07
Release Date: 10/5/2009 8:43:00 AM

By Lt. David Shark, USS Denver Amphibious Task Group Public Affairs
MANILA, Philippines (NNS) -- The USS Denver (LPD 9) Amphibious Task Group (ATG), along with the embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), arrived in Manila Oct. 4 to assist the government of the Philippines in their relief efforts in the wake of Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma.

Approximately 2,900 Sailors and Marines, along with trucks, helicopters and landing craft arrived on the dock-landing ships USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) and USS Tortuga (LSD 46).

The amphibious transport dock Denver offloaded Marines from the 31st MEU and their equipment Oct. 2 and continued on to Indonesia to participate in Indonesia's relief efforts, following a recent series of powerful earthquakes in the country.

"Amphibious Task Groups are designed to be flexible," said Capt. Donald A. Schmieley, commander of Amphibious Squadron 11. "The combination of technology, personnel and experience that the ATG/MEU team brings with it is well-suited for missions like this."

Denver ATG was previously scheduled to visit the Philippines for PHIBLEX, an amphibious landing exercise conducted with the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Denver ATG is forward deployed to Sasebo, Japan. The group reports to Commander, Amphibious Force 7th Fleet, Rear Adm. Richard Landolt, who is headquartered in Okinawa, Japan.

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Ford carrier has as a requirement to achieve 160 sorties per day, for a prolongued period of time. Yet, as we know there are sorties and then there are sorties. While there were exercises with which USN tried to prove their carriers could offer sortie raties upward of 200, in reality those were made with very short flights, not applicable in real world scenarios. Gulf war, on the other hand, showed over a wide range of carriers that even with refueling and resupply of carriers every 3-4 days, prolongued real world sorties averaged around 100 sorties a day. Ford class carrier should be happy to achieve 130 sorties for a prolongued period of time. While that is nothing to sniff at, USAF still gets double that figure for the same mission. Granted, USAF cant really choose its bases and airfields, which makes the carriers priceless.

Granted, USAF cant really choose its bases and airfields, which makes the carriers priceless.

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And when operating from those airbases the USAF does not have to worry re-spotting(moving) aircraft in a confined space. Remember the US attack on Lybia in June 1986? The USAF F-111 could not over fly Europe from the UK..No permission was needed for the USN. The USS Coral Sea & America were already on station.

An aircraft carrier is 4.5 acres of bad assery..They are as you stated..priceless...

This news is already almost 4 weeks old, but it was never put here and I think it's rather important
The first LRIP batch of the SM-6 has been ordered. Aegis will be expanded by an active homing long range engagement capability. The SM-6 will apparently also include cooperative engagement capabilities.



Raytheon scores first LRIP award for SM-6 missile

Richard Scott Friday, 11 September, 2009

Raytheon Missile Systems has received a first Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command for the US Navy’s next-generation Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) extended range anti-air warfare (AAW) missile.

The USD93.8 million contract includes the production of 19 SM-6 All Up Rounds and 20 instrumentation kits, plus the delivery of spare parts and missile containers. Delivery will begin in early 2011.

SM-6 is intended to provide a capability to interdict overland cruise missile threats over-the-horizon, as well as retaining full capability against the most demanding maritime threats.

Leveraging US Navy investment in the Aegis Weapon System, Co-operative Engagement Capability and airborne early-warning systems, which will be upgraded in concert with missile development, it will support a fully integrated extended-range AAW detect-to-engage capability for Aegis ships and future combatants.

Raytheon was awarded a USD440 million System Development and Demonstration (SDD) contract for the SM-6 Block I missile in September 2004. The SDD phase includes the design, development, fabrication, assembly, integration, test and delivery of flight and non-flight assets.

Marrying the airframe and propulsion from the SM-2 Block IV missile and a seeker/guidance system drawing on technology from across Raytheon’s guided weapon product line – the active radar seeker is an uplift of the existing AIM-120 AMRAAM seeker – SM-6 is in essence a net-enabled effector able to capitalise on target cues coming from either the launch ship or a remote sensor (airborne, seabased or land-based).

Operational modes include command midcourse guidance, inertial midcourse, semi-active homing and active homing – the missile will utilise both Standard Missile and AMRAAM signal processing and guidance and control capabilities, enabling the use of both active and semi-active modes. The active mode eliminates the need for a shipborne illuminator, providing for a high stream raid capability.

This Fiscal Year 2009 production award is the first in the series of planned LRIP awards for SM-6. A further two LRIP buys are planned before the missile transitions into full-rate production.

With little announcement, Anderson AFB finally held their airshow with the Thunderbirds participating.

General Petraeus has revealed that he is undergoing treatment for prostrate cancer. Prayers for him and for everyone who is fighting a battle with cancer.

:coffee::coffee::coffee:

US weapons failed during deadly Taliban attack

In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips’ M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn’t work either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a “critical moment” during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

Despite the military’s insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times.

A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a town near Wanat. There’s no immediate evidence of weapons failures at Kamdesh, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American forces stretched thin by the demands of war.

Army Col. Wayne Shanks, a military spokesman in Afghanistan, said a review of the battle at Kamdesh is under way. “It is too early to make any assumptions regarding what did or didn’t work correctly,” he said.

Complaints about the weapons the troops carry, especially the M4, aren’t new. Army officials say that when properly cleaned and maintained, the M4 is a quality weapon that can pump out more than 3,000 rounds before any failures occur.

The M4 is a shorter, lighter version of the M16, which made its debut during the Vietnam war. Roughly 500,000 M4s are in service, making it the rifle troops on the front lines trust with their lives.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a leading critic of the M4, said Thursday the Army needs to move quickly to acquire a combat rifle suited for the extreme conditions U.S. troops are fighting in.

U.S. special operations forces, with their own acquisition budget and the latitude to buy gear the other military branches can’t, already are replacing their M4s with a new rifle.

“The M4 has served us well but it’s not as good as it needs to be,” Coburn said.

Battlefield surveys show that nearly 90 percent of soldiers are satisfied with their M4s, according to Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, head of the Army office that buys soldier gear. Still, the rifle is continually being improved to make it even more reliable and lethal.

Fuller said he’s received no official reports of flawed weapons performance at Wanat. “Until it showed up in the news, I was surprised to hear about all this,” he said.

The study by Douglas Cubbison of the Army Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., hasn’t been publicly released. Copies of the study have been leaked to news organizations and are circulating on the Internet.

Cubbison’s study is based on an earlier Army investigation and interviews with soldiers who survived the attack at Wanat. He describes a well-coordinated attack by a highly skilled enemy that unleashed a withering barrage with AK-47 automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

The soldiers said their weapons were meticulously cared for and routinely inspected by commanders. But still the weapons had breakdowns, especially when the rifles were on full automatic, which allows hundreds of bullets to be fired a minute.

The platoon-sized unit of U.S. soldiers and about two dozen Afghan troops was shooting back with such intensity the barrels on their weapons turned white hot. The high rate of fire appears to have put a number of weapons out of commission, even though the guns are tested and built to operate in extreme conditions.

Cpl. Jonathan Ayers and Spc. Chris McKaig were firing their M4s from a position the soldiers called the “Crow’s Nest.” The pair would pop up together from cover, fire half a dozen rounds and then drop back down.

On one of these trips up, Ayers was killed instantly by an enemy round. McKaig soon had problems with his M4, which carries a 30-round magazine.

“My weapon was overheating,” McKaig said, according to Cubbison’s report. “I had shot about 12 magazines by this point already and it had only been about a half hour or so into the fight. I couldn’t charge my weapon and put another round in because it was too hot, so I got mad and threw my weapon down.”

The soldiers also had trouble with their M249 machine guns, a larger weapon than the M4 that can shoot up to 750 rounds per minute.

Cpl. Jason Bogar fired approximately 600 rounds from his M-249 before the weapon overheated and jammed the weapon.

Bogar was killed during the firefight, but no one saw how he died, according to the report.

Malfunctioning weapons is never good.. Never ever...

I'm not trying to minimize the loss of life on the US side however >>During the two major battles that occurred that day it is seldom mentioned that the Taliban took very heavy losses. In addition the base was not over run nor did the US forces retreat. The base is now abandoned. It was set to be abandoned before the attack occupied.

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Official: More Than 100 Taliban Militants Killed in Afghanistan Clashes

Sunday, October 12, 2008

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Taliban militants launched a surprise attack on a key southern Afghan town, sparking a battle that killed some 60 insurgents, an Afghan official said Sunday. A second clash in the same region killed another 40 militants.

Taliban fighters used rockets and other heavy weapons to attack Afghan forces on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, said Daud Ahmadi, the spokesman for Helmand's governor.

Militants attacked the city from three sides starting just after midnight and were pushed back only after a battle that involved airstrikes, Ahmadi said. Rockets landed in different parts of the city but there were no civilian casualties, he said.

Authorities recovered the bodies of 41 Taliban fighters on the city's outskirts, from where the attack was launched, he said. He estimated the bodies of another 20 fighters were taken from the battle site by the militants, citing intelligence reports.

British forces are responsible for protecting the area around Lashkar Gah.

In a second battle in Helmand province, Afghan and international troops retook the Nad Ali district center — which had been held by militants — during a three-day fight, Ahmadi said. That battle, which also involved airstrikes, ended Saturday, Ahmadi said.

Afghan police and soldiers were now in control of the district center. There were no casualties among Afghan or NATO troops, Ahmadi said.

Ahmadi's death tolls could not be verified independently. Journalists are not able to travel to remote and dangerous battle sites. Afghan officials have been known to exaggerate death tolls in the past.

The NATO-led force said it was aware of fighting in Helmand but could not provide any information.

Helmand province is the largest drug producing area in the world and the region alone accounts for more than half of Afghanistan's production of opium poppies. More than 90 percent of the world's opium is produced in Afghanistan and up to $100 million of the trade's profits are used to finance the Taliban insurgency.

Insurgency related violence has killed more than 4,700 people — mostly militants — this year, according to an Associated Press count of figures from Western and Afghan officials.

A roadside bomb, meanwhile, struck a civilian vehicle traveling in the Shamulzai district of Zabul province on Sunday, killing five people, said Ghulab Shah Alikheil, a provincial official.

Alikheil blamed Taliban militants for planting the bomb.

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By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. troops abandoned a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine American soldiers this week and insurgents briefly overran the area, officials said Wednesday, underlining the difficulties faced by forces in the border region.

Militants seized the village of Wanat in Nuristan province after driving out the handful of Afghan police left behind to defend government offices, Afghan officials said. Fifty more officers were deployed Wednesday and soon regained control, said Ghoolam Farouq, a senior provincial police official.

Sunday's attack by some 200 militants armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars was the deadliest for the U.S. military in Afghanistan in three years. Rebels fought their way into the newly established base, wounding another 15 Americans and suffering heavy casualties of their own, before the defenders and warplanes could drive them back.

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Astronomers clash with US air force over laser rules

"Could astronomers accidentally blind Earth-observing satellites? That seems to be the worry of the US air force, which restricts the use of lasers pointed at the sky to help focus telescopes. But some astronomers warn they will miss key observations under the rules, which have tightened in recent years."

Read the rest on the link.

Totoro said:

Ford carrier has as a requirement to achieve 160 sorties per day, for a prolongued period of time. Yet, as we know there are sorties and then there are sorties. While there were exercises with which USN tried to prove their carriers could offer sortie raties upward of 200, in reality those were made with very short flights, not applicable in real world scenarios. Gulf war, on the other hand, showed over a wide range of carriers that even with refueling and resupply of carriers every 3-4 days, prolongued real world sorties averaged around 100 sorties a day. Ford class carrier should be happy to achieve 130 sorties for a prolongued period of time. While that is nothing to sniff at, USAF still gets double that figure for the same mission. Granted, USAF cant really choose its bases and airfields, which makes the carriers priceless.

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Interesting point. The sortie length in the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been unusually long, some lasting as long as ten hours aloft with multiple in flight refuelings from USAF tankers. This is not what the Ford's sortie rate is based on. The nature of the next big war will determine whether or not short duration or long duration sorties are the norm. In a naval war, or a CVBG defending itself against sustained attack, I would bet on more numerous, shorter range sorties without USAF tanker support.

I find this bit very interesting.

Note this Android is not about robots but Google's new Android mobile OS, now going around in smartphones everywhere. I'm not that completely surprised with this development since Android is being chosen as the crux of both location based services (Google Maps, Streets, Latitude) and Augmented Reality development, both of which appear used in RATS. Augmented Reality is now commercial with a few Android apps already, such as Layar and an app on Toronto's traffic system. The industry calls Augmented Reality, cyborg or Terminator vision.


Raytheon Sends Android To Battlefield
Elizabeth Woyke, 10.19.09, 07:40 PM EDT
The defense contractor is the latest--and perhaps least likely--convert to Google's mobile platform.



"Using Android software tools, Raytheon ( RTN - news - people ) engineers built a basic application for military personnel that combines maps with a buddy list. Raytheon calls the entire framework the Raytheon Android Tactical System, or RATS for short. Mark Bigham, a vice president of business development in Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems unit, says the company selected Android because its open-source nature made developing applications easy.

Every part of RATS is tailored for use on a battlefield. A soldier could make an unmanned plane a "buddy," for instance, and track its progress on a map using his phone. He could then access streaming video from the plane, giving him a bird's eye view of the area. Soldiers could also use the buddy list to trace the locations of other members of their squad.

Some RATS services stress a fast connection to the Department of Defense's Internet-like data network. This would enable a soldier on a mission to take a picture of a suspect and send the image to military headquarters for identification. RATS includes some lightweight encryption to ensure that outsiders can't intercept the images or video or hack into the phone's buddy list.

Eventually, RATS devices could double as biometric scanners. A small device could snap on top of the phone's camera and capture fingerprints, says Bigham. The photos could then be sent to an off-site facility for processing.

Most of these features have been incorporated into the basic RATS application, which Raytheon says took more than two years to build. The company expects to finalize contracts and deploy RATS in the next month or two. Bigham says the Department of Defense has expressed interest at "a very senior level" and believes that other government groups, such as the Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies may sign on, too."

Read the rest of the article for the link.