US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

Apr 17, 2017

Jura said:

Mar 11, 2017

oops Lockheed Marine Helicopter Came With Unpublicized Cost Increase

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  • CH-53K decision memo shows 6.9 percent rise to $31 billion
  • Cost per copter increases to $138 million from $131 million

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now the usual

“[It’s not like] we’re sitting on our butts, just accepting that it’s going to cost this much. It’s like a war. We fight the war on cost every single day to get things at the best, absolute value for the taxpayer,”

inside Cost of US Marine Corps CH-53K helicopter program grows to $27.7B

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• Independent Pentagon office projects 4% increase per copter
• Navy office outlines cost-saving measures for King Stallion

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’s new King Stallion helicopter for the U.S. Marine Corps is likely to cost $144 million each, 4 percent more than projected by the service, and be ready to deploy a year later than planned, according to the Pentagon’s cost assessment office.

The estimate by the independent cost office is an increase from the Navy program office’s most recent projected “program acquisition unit cost” of $138.5 million per copter in a $31 billion program. It’s also a 25 percent increase from the initial goal of about $115 million established in late 2005 for the aircraft designed to haul heavy cargo.

The Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office also estimates a delay of about a year to May 2020 in the start of rigorous combat testing that must be completed before the aircraft can be approved for full-rate production -- the most profitable phase for Lockheed in what’s planned as a 200-aircraft program. The updated estimate was provided in a new report to Congress that was obtained by Bloomberg News.

The cost office also estimates that the helicopter won’t achieve its initial combat capability until December 2020, or a year later than the program’s estimate.

‘Lot of Money’
The new cost projection for the King Stallion may become a focus of congressional oversight when the Marine Corps’ fiscal 2018 budget is submitted to Congress. Representative Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on a House Armed Services subcommittee that oversees the copter program, already has questioned the King Stallion’s basic cost as “a heck of a lot of money.”

The aircraft, designated the CH-53K, will be capable of lifting 27,000 pounds (12,246 kilograms.) It will be the same size as its predecessor, the Super Stallion, but able to haul triple the cargo, according to Lockheed. On April 4, the Defense Department approved the CH-53K program entering low-rate production, authorizing production of the initial batch of 26 helicopters.

It’s not unusual for estimates by the cost office to be higher than projections by the office running a weapons program. The cost office uses a combination of historical data from comparable programs and actual performance to craft estimates that Pentagon officials can use as a first alert on whether the program office is being realistic.

The cost office also estimates the average aircraft procurement unit cost for the helicopter, which doesn’t include research and development, will end up at $111.2 million, or 5.6 percent more than the current program office estimate of $105.3 million.

Lockheed, Navy Responses
Lockheed spokesman Paul Jackson said the company is proud that the Pentagon “recently showed its confidence” by “approving the move to low rate initial production. We remain on track to achieve Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in 2019.”

Citing efforts to reduce the helicopter’s total acquisition cost, Jackson said Lockheed’s Sikorsky unit, Teamster Local 1150 and the state of Connecticut, where the helicopters will be assembled, “reached a major agreement last year that will improve the program’s production affordability by $220 million via tax exemptions and grants.” The union agreed to a contract cutting future employees’ salaries by 25 percent, according to the local Connecticut Post.

The “big” revenue potential for the King Stallion was the primary incentive for Lockheed’s $9 billion acquisition of the Sikorsky helicopter unit from United Technologies Corp. in 2015, Bruce Tanner, Lockheed’s chief financial officer, has said.

Navy program spokeswoman Kelly Burdick declined to discuss the new projection directly but said in an email that the Navy and Lockheed are “committed to reducing program costs over the life of the program.”

She said a Navy “Program Cost and Affordability Team” has already saved an estimated $750 million and projects it can save an additional $1.5 billion during the helicopter’s production and support phases. The program also is working with two potential international partners that may buy the CH-53K, which she said would “provide a significant cost decrease per unit, depending on the number of aircraft sold.”

The Navy also will attempt save money by avoiding “pass-through” costs charged by Sikorsky for handling orders to its subcontractors, she said. The program has decided to buy engines directly from the supplier,

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, “resulting in a 14% cost reduction during production for engines,” Burdick said.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

would have to have F22 in production and have to get congress to open Raptor to Export.

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Jura said:

Apr 26, 2017
and ... Lockheed's Helicopter Seen Costing More, Taking Longer
source:

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Since it's not always possible to deliver supplies to troops in dangerous regions by land or sea, the Pentagon uses steerable parachutes called Joint Precision Airdrop System or

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. They're expensive and difficult to retrieve, though, that's why the US Marines

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a much cheaper and more practical alternative: disposable glider drones that

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around $1,500 to $3,000 make. Their creator, Logistics Glider, build them out of plywood, household hardware and off-the-shelf electronics, yet they're capable of carrying up to 1,600 pounds for up to 74 nautical miles. That's thrice JPAD's range for a fraction of what the parachute system costs ($29,700).

Logistics Glider sought help from the University of California to develop the glider's autonomous brain, which takes over as soon as it's dropped from its carrier aircraft. Upon accomplishing its mission, the drone's wings and tail automatically snap off when it lands on the ground, perhaps to prevent enemies from copying the technology like what happened to the

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.

The Marines tested the gliders for 10 days, but they're keeping the results a secret. If they work as intended, they can be used not just to drop supplies to troops, but relief goods to disaster zones. Depending on their test results, the company might still change the way they work. It's even looking at the possibility of having the gliders drop small parachutes if that would make deliveries more accurate.

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Blackstone said:

If Japan will pay, then we could reduce some trade deficits.

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ahho said:

Gliders are back, well sort of and under testing. When I watched WW2 movies and documentaries showing gliders, it was quite an in-genius way of moving material without putting precious aircraft in harms ways. Now in modern times, it would be suicidal for large gliders to fly into enemy territory, but a cheap small drone like this can help para-troopers and marines with their supplies when they are behind enemy lines

US Marines test glider drones that drop supplies to troops

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Blackstone said:

It's a good idea to sell some Tomahawks to Japan, so they could protect themselves from hostile actors. Washington might also consider selling Tokyo a squadron of F-22s too. Like Trump said, if China wouldn't help us with North Korea, then America will do whatever necessary to protect its vital interests.

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MwRYum said:

In case you've forgotten, F-22A production line have shut down after the last delivery in 2012. It might be more realistic, to the Japanese at least, to get involve and accelerate their F-3 programme.

And if Trump was to be so bold, it'd be better to convince Beijing that the "Fat Boy Kim" is just too much a trouble to keep around, and need to be "get rid of". Trust me, in China that notion has been getting more and more traction in recent years. Dragging China into Korea again will make them halt progress - or even scale back - on many fronts, such as the contentious SCS region.

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The Antiship Mine Gets New Wings
Last used successfully in the Vietnam War, the the air-delivered antiship mine is making a comeback.

By Col. Mike “Starbaby” Pietrucha
May 10, 2017

On the morning of May 9, 1972, the USS Coral Sea catapulted a strike package of three A-6 Intruders and six A-7 Corsairs into the morning sky. The aerial campaign against North Vietnam, paused in 1968, had resumed five weeks before in response to the Easter Offensive. Task Force 77, then consisting of six carriers, had been flying combat missions against the North for more than a month, but this mission was different. Slung underneath the wings of the Intruders were 1,000-pound Mk-52 antiship mines. The Corsairs carried the smaller, 500-lb Mk-36. The large mines were destined for the inner channel of Haiphong’s busy harbor, with the smaller ones destined for the outer channel. Operation Pocket Money, the devastatingly effective naval blockade of North Vietnam was on.

When the U.S. Navy finally cleared the mines after the Paris Accords that ended the war, the sun set on the air delivered mine. The risk to the minelaying aircraft was too great, a point driven home by the Navy’s last aerial mining mission in 1991, which resulted in the loss of an A-6 and its crew.

That all changed in September 2016. During the biannual Valiant Shield exercise, the United States demonstrated a potentially devastating new mine capability – one that takes advantage of off-the-shelf precision capabilities added to antiship mines. For the first time, the Joint Force can lay a precision minefield in a single pass from any altitude – and can even do it from a distance. The Skipjack JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) variant and the smaller winged extended range Flounders have revolutionized American naval mining capabilities without an extensive and costly development program.

In an increasingly globalized world where the lifeblood of many nations flows via global shipping lanes, the potential for these weapons to cripple an adversary’s maritime transport capability offers an asymmetric advantage for U.S. Forces.

History

Sea mines are obviously an antiship weapon, but not necessarily an anti-warship weapon. In World War II, both the British and the United States had emplaced mines defensively, in order to inhibit U-Boat operations in Atlantic waters. The primary use of mine warfare in the Pacific War was offensive, placed to interdict harbors and chokepoints. The vast majority of mines were laid by land-based airpower, interdicting Japanese transport from Rangoon to Japanese home waters. Mines were even hauled over the Himalayas to be laid in the Yangtze River. They were a key part of a maritime interdiction effort that devastated the Japanese merchant marine and dismantled the seaborne flow of resources, starting years before the first B-29 reached the Japanese islands. In the closing months of the war, mines laid by aircraft accounted for more Japanese ships sunk or damaged than all other sources combined.

In Vietnam, mining was under consideration from 1964, but was regarded as too escalatory by policymakers in Washington. Admiral Thomas Moorer, as the chief of Naval Operations from 1967 to 1970 and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970-1974, had been among the officers advocating for mining to cut off military supplies in bulk where they entered Vietnam, rather than trying to interdict individual trucks and sampans downstream from their supply points. Indeed, Haiphong had been mined before – starting in November of 1942. Thirty years later, the Easter Offensive provided the impetus and President Richard Nixon authorized the operation.

The effect of Operation Pocket Money was substantial. At the time, 85 percent of all imports (including war materiel) and 100 percent of the oil needed by North Vietnam came through Haiphong harbor. After the mining effort started, the port was shut down to maritime traffic. Nothing larger than a fishing vessel left or entered the port until the United States swept the harbor after the Paris Accords. Air-delivered mines had shattered the sea-dependent supply line that North Vietnam relied on. Combined with the air interdiction efforts against Vietnamese rail transport in Linebacker I, Pocket Money arguably brought about the termination of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The key to Pocket Money’s success, like earlier mining efforts, was that antiship mining is effectively an anti-commerce operation. Contemplating offensive mine warfare as a method of sinking naval vessels is missing the boat – mistaking the tactical effects from the strategic implications. The object of aerial mining is to strangle an opponent’s economy, disrupt seaborne logistics, and constrain power projection. In an increasingly globalized world, the implications of this kind of denial strategy are monumental.

Enter the JDAM

Pocket Money was the last hurrah of the air-delivered antiship mine. While the United States maintained them in the inventory, their utility lapsed as the danger of flying predictable, low-level mining patterns increased. In World War II, B-29s laid bombs from as high as 30,000 feet, but their accuracy was poor and large numbers didn’t even land in the water. Without the mass of entire bomb groups dedicated to aerial mining, release altitudes shifted down to improve accuracy with a much more limited number of mines.

The last attempt to mine a seaway came during Desert Storm, when Jackal 404 (an A-6 Intruder) was lost attempting to mine the Um Qasr waterway on the third night of the war. The reason for this was the nature of mining deliveries. Aircraft have to slow down and go low to deliver mines – the first cluster of mines laid in Haiphong were dropped at 300 feet and 360 knots. Even then, the accuracy is low – placing a mine within hundreds of yards is accepted. To get a credible minefield, aircraft have to make multiple drops; timing and navigation are critical. Against an alerted adversary with the wherewithal to defend its own port facilities, minelaying is a suicide mission.

Enter the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). In Vietnam the U.S. mine inventory gravitated away from purpose-built mines to conversions of general-purpose bombs, called Quickstrike mines. Fuse a bomb body to detonate on impact, and it’s a bomb. Add a guidance kit and it’s a precision weapon. Equip that same bomb body with magnetic/seismic sensors where the fuse would go, and it’s a mine. If the Pentagon could equip a bomb with a precision kit, then it could do the same with a Quickstrike mine. So it did – Enhanced Quickstrike mines were brand new weapons assembled entirely from components already in the inventory.

The new Enhanced Quickstrike mines come in two flavors. The 2,000-lb version is the Quickstrike-J, which has the JDAM guidance kit attached and is commonly called the Skipjack. The 500-lb Quickstrike-ER version, called the Flounder, has both a JDAM-ER guidance kit and a pair of folding wings. They mirror the dimensions and weight of their JDAM siblings and have been dropped from the B-52, the B-1, and the F-18.

Using the JDAM kits completely changed the employment concept as well. Now rather than making multiple passes at low altitudes and slow airspeeds, the minelayer can employ weapons at the same tactical airspeeds and altitudes as the JDAM. To make the conversion even more attractive, all of the mines can be released in one go, and the minelaying aircraft does not even need to overfly the minefield. The Flounders, with their extended range wing kit, can be released from distances exceeding 40 miles away. In 1972, the initial minefield in Haiphong’s inner channel consisted of 12 mines delivered by three A-6As using visual navigation and stopwatches. An Air Force bomber aircraft can now potentially lay several similar minefields in a single pass, and do it from standoff distances.
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