US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

kwaigonegin said:

Not sure if there are still any with Baseline 5..

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Jura said:

"Syring said the Navy should have 36 Aegis BMD-equipped warships operational by the end of fiscal 2018 and 167 SM-3 IB missiles on hand."
to me, 167 missiles doesn't sound like too much but what do I know, anyway MDA Head Syring: Navy Ballistic Missile Defense Capabilities Steadily Improvingsource is USNI News

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The U.S. Navy conducted a failed ballistic missile intercept Wednesday with its SM-3 Block IIA off the coast of Hawaii.

The destroyer John Paul Jones, running the Navy’s top-of-the-line Aegis Baseline 9.C2 combat system, failed to intercept a medium-range ballistic missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Kauai, Hawaii.

The destroyer detected and tracked the target on the AN/SPY-1 phased array radar but was unable to intercept it. It was the second test of this latest iteration of the SM-3. The John Paul Jones successfully shot down a target in February with it. That test was the first intercept using Baseline 9.2C.

“Program officials will conduct an extensive analysis of the test data,” a news release for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said Thursday.

The test also marked the fourth flight test of the SM-3 Block IIA and the second time it was launched from a ship. John Paul Jones is the Navy's missile defense ship; it replaced the cruiser Lake Erie in 2014. Lake Erie was the test ship since 2000 and is currently on deployment in the Asia-Pacific region.

The missile is being developed by Raytheon and is a joint project between the U.S. and Japan, designed to counter rising missile threats from North Korea.

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SAIC’ amphibious combat vehicle launches out the back of USS Somerset (LPD-25) in the first-ever launch and recovery test of ACVs.

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Equation said:

How can old Woodland Battle Dress Uniforms cost that much?

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Jura said:

USNI News House’s 2018 Defense Bill Would Increase DDG, SSN Production Rates; Buy Carriers Every 3 Years

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...

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The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee says it’s not President Donald Trump’s fault his defense budget proposal is billions below what the military needs.

The commander in chief just doesn’t know better, in large part because he still hasn’t staffed up the Pentagon.

“I believe the president is very committed to rebuilding the military and repairing the damage,” Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, told reporters on Thursday. “I think our budget does a lot more of that than the one (the White House) sent over.”

On Friday, the House Armed Services Committee will formally unveil plans for a $640 billion base defense budget authorization for fiscal 2018, a figure that’s $37 billion above the military budget that Trump has repeatedly touted as the largest in American history and a dramatic rebuilding of the armed services.

The plan still faces numerous hurdles before becoming law, not the least of which are congressional spending caps that limit defense spending to $91 billion less than what House lawmakers are proposing.

But the House fund boost still represents a significant disconnect between what Trump’s Pentagon believes is needed to “make the military great again” and the much larger figure that members of Congress see as a realistic starting point.

Lawmakers are pushing for a higher military pay raise than Trump requested (2.4 percent vs. 2.1 percent), a larger Army than Trump proposed (10,000 active duty and 7,000 guardsmen and reservists), and more munitions and missile defense funding than Trump has planned.

When asked to reconcile the two plans, Thornberry blamed Trump’s inexperience, administration gridlock, and former President Barack Obama.

“What came up here … was really the Obama budget plus 3 percent, a lot of which was eaten up by our (end strength) increases last year,” he said. “But there wasn’t anyone at the Pentagon to make a real Trump budget request.”

Thornberry in recent months has lamented the slow pace of appointments to key military posts, a problem that Trump blames on “obstructionist Democrats” but many lawmakers attribute to the administration’s own inexperience and mistakes with the nomination process.

When the full Trump budget proposal reached Capitol Hill, only one of the three service secretaries had been confirmed, and Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson was on the job less than three weeks.

The armed services chairman described the White House budget proposal as largely an extension of Obama-era defense plans, which he strongly opposed as too small.

“You don’t have anybody in place, so what are you going to do? You’re going to send what you already had planned,” Thornberry said. “(Defense Secretary James) Mattis has said his intent is to do a security review and a variety of other things, but my point is that we can’t wait to fix things.”

When asked about Trump’s claims of a massive military budget, Thornberry said he has “no doubt” that Trump wants to properly fund the defense budget.

Thornberry’s committee is scheduled to mark up the authorization bill next Wednesday. He said the base budget number still could change before then, pending negotiations with other House leaders. House appropriators have discussed the possibility of a mid-point between the two figures, but have not yet offered a solution to how a $620 billion funding plan would get around the spending caps.

But he also made it clear that he believes the military budget number should not be much below his $640 billion target.

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Jura said:

Wednesday at 7:22 AM

... and now House poised to add billions to Trump's military budget

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U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry said he is "moving ahead" with plans to mark up the panel’s fiscal 2018 defense policy bill at roughly $705 billion — some $37 billion above the president’s request.

But the Texas Republican said he was open to lowering the amount if negotiations in Congress yield a budget deal that stabilizes defense funding over the next several years. For now, the House’s National Defense Authorization Act would approve $640 billion in the base budget and $65 billion in war funding, which is exempt from statutory budget caps.

“I think $640 [billion] is what we need to address the problems that have developed from [budget caps] and the tempo of operations,” Thornberry told reporters. “If I were to agree to a lower number, I would need some added stability to the out years. With the [2011 Budget Control Act], every year we are scrambling to avoid disaster, and meanwhile the problems keep mounting. There’s value if we can get away from this.”

As of Thursday, conversations were ongoing between the HASC, the House Budget Committee and the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. To adjust or do away with the Budget Control Act’s spending caps, which expire in 2022, would require Congress to change the law.

The House Budget Committee’s 2018 resolution would set defense spending at $621.5 billion, which is $72.5 billion above budget caps and $36.5 billion more than the previous year for defense. The panel would also cut nondefense spending to $511 billion, which is $5 billion below the caps.

The widely reported numbers were confirmed by House Budget Committee staff as a reflection of ongoing negotiations within the Republican conference. With just 30 legislative days on Congress' calendar before the end of the fiscal year, the committee has been under pressure to move ahead, with or without support from the full GOP conference.

The House Budget Committee’s defense number is halfway between the $603 billion in base defense funding President Donald Trump requested and the $640 billion sought by Thornberry and other pro-defense Republicans, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz.

Their figure surpasses budget caps by $91 billion, but Thornberry noted those caps do not apply to the authorization bill.

The powerful House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas, said in May that $603 billion for the 2018 defense appropriations bill would be "reasonable" and that $640 billion wouldn't be reached “unless something drops from heaven.”

"The House Authorization Committee, when it comes to the top-line, deals in aspirations, and the Appropriations Committee deals in reality," Sen. Richard Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat and the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said in response to a question about defense budget negotiations.

Democrats are needed to reach the 60-vote threshold in the Senate to ease budget caps, and they and others have objected to the Trump budget's plan to pay for defense increases with nondefense cuts.

Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments research fellow Katherine Blakeley noted that Congress has little time left to iron out a federal spending plan, with nominations and an ambitious GOP agenda that includes tax reform and a health care overhaul eating up the legislative calendar. “They’re trying to move with alacrity, but they’re facing down the clock,” she said.

The GOP strategy to pass spending measures is a big, open question, Blakeley said. For defense, it’s unclear whether Congress will hew to the Mattis budget request’s emphasis on research and development as well as and operations and maintenance — or upend it by seeking more procurement funding.

“Will they shift more money into O&M or will they try to grow the force — which Mattis says the Pentagon is not ready to do, and that they want to prepare to grow in fiscal '19,” Blakeley said. “How fast can the Army responsibly grow?”

Amid negotiations over the top line, Thornberry and committee aides had been tight-lipped this week on most numbers in the massive draft bill. That bill, with funding tables for specific acquisitions programs, is expected to be released Monday.

HASC subcommittees passed their sections of the House version of the 2018 NDAA this week ahead of the full committee’s markup session on June 28.

Language in the Seapower Subcommittee will recommend one additional destroyer, two littoral combat ships, one amphibious dock landing ship and one expeditionary support base, subpanel Chairman Rob Wittman, R-Va., said before it passed its section of the draft bill. The mark also recommends an additional advance procurement for aircraft carriers and attack submarines. As to aircraft, the subcommittee also recommended an expansion of KC-46As, C-130J variants, E-2Ds and P-8s.

The bill would also strike the requirement to send the Navy’s new Ford aircraft carrier into shock trials before its first deployment, a plan first mandated in the 2016 defense policy bill.

Before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee passed its portion, its chairman, Mike Rogers, R-Ala., recommended a $2 billion boost for the president’s request for American missile defense programs and $550 million more for Israeli missile defense programs.

Rogers defended the markup’s proposed reorganization of Air Force space programs, saying he was “outraged” Air Force leaders have pushed back.

The language would create a new military service responsible for national security in space: a Space Corps. It would be subordinate to the Air Force and U.S. Strategic Command, with a four-star leader in the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner, R-Ohio, said before his subcommittee passed its portion that it would fully authorize the Army’s $12.7 billion unfunded requirements list. If reflected in the final bill, it would grow the total force by 17,000 troops, increase munitions stockpiles, and further modernize both brigade combat teams and vertical lift capabilities.

The Emerging Threats Subcommittee, which oversees $68 billion in programs, would authorize $12.3 billion for U.S. Special Operations Command, and it aims to boost cyber capabilities. It would strengthen the Pentagon's cyber resiliency, build its workforce and boost training — and build partnerships in Asia to counter Chinese and North Korean aggression, and within NATO to counter Russian aggression.

The Readiness Subcommittee rejected the Pentagon’s request for a round of the politically unpopular Base Realignment and Closure process in 2021.

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Is 13 the Navy’s lucky number? That’s how many ships the House Armed Service Committee wants to buy in 2018, five more than

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, the seapower subcommittee announced this afternoon. The problem: no one knows where the money’s coming from.

The increase is part of a bipartisan push towards the

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the Navy says it needs to

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, a fleet the Navy itself says it can’t begin to build under Trump’s current budget plans.

HASC wants to add a

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, an

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, an

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vessel, and two

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to the Trump budget’s request for eight.

“It takes the necessary first big step down the road of getting to 355,” said House seapower chairman Rob Wittman this morning. “We can’t get there overnight,” he added, noting a

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it will tale 20-to-25 years.

This year, though, the great unanswered question is how to pay for those extra ships — or whether they can be bought at all. The ranking Democrat on the seapower subcommittee, Rep. Joe Courtney, told me frankly yesterday he’s never seen so much uncertainty about what the final budget will be.

“Not having a Budget Committee report out, even a suggestion” — he laughed — “is unprecedented in my time,” said Courtney, who’s been in Congress since

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. “The (GOP-led) Budget Committee has not given us a number to mark towards.”

Nor is there clarity from the House Appropriations Committee, the final authority which writes (or refuses to write) the checks for programs other committees authorizes, Courtney said: “Every time I talk to the (appropriations) members to find out what they’re marking to, it’s still very fluid.”

“The committee is marking towards a much larger number than $603 billion,” the amount Trump requested for defense, said Courtney. That said, he continued, “I think everyone understands (that HASC number) is not written in granite…. It’s not the final word.”

Both House Armed Services chairman

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and his Senate counterpart, John McCain, have said Trump’s $603 billion defense budget was

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from the beginning. (After rolling out the budget, the administration promised to add a ninth ship — an additional Littoral Combat Ship — but

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).

There’s also Advance Procurement (AP) to put down payments on

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and

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to be bought in subsequent years. Finally, the HASC mark authorizes multi-year block buys of up to 13 submarines and 15 destroyers over the next five years, as opposed to the original plan for 10 of each. Buying vessels wholesale this way should save 15 percent, the committee says.

How much this will all cost won’t be revealed until the committee publishes detailed tables tomorrow, but it’s clearly in the

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.

...

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Show Me The Money

“To pay for that, you’re going to go above Trump’s initial submission and that is contingent on a resolution on the overall budget,” Courtney told me. “Those programs are going to have to sweat it out until we get to some final direction from the appropriators. It’s going to come down to leadership….or we’re going to end up with a CR which doesn’t allow any of that to happen.”

(A

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is a stopgap funding measure passed in lieu of regular appropriations bills, which essentially tells government agencies to keep spending whatever they spent last year — with no leeway to ramp up new programs or cut back bad ones. CRs have become routine in recent years, often lasting months on end).

Ultimately, Congress needs to confront the spending caps set by the

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, aka sequestration, either by

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altogether — unlikely — or amending the caps for the next couple of years — as has already happened twice.

“It is possible,” Courtney said of a deal to lift the caps. “It’s going to be hard, (and) I wouldn’t put my house and car on it” — he laughed nervously — “but I don’t think it’s beyond imagination at this point that they’re going to have to figure out a way to lift the caps.”

Courtney means specifically lifting the caps on both defense and domestic spending by roughly equal amounts, which has been the Democratic position for years and was reflected in previous budget deals. “I don’t see any other way out,” Courtney said: The Trump budget’s alternative, offsetting every dollar added to defense with a dollar cut from domestic programs, is dead on arrival even for Republicans. “The notion that $603 billion is going to be paid for by a massive reduction in domestic spending has already gotten thumbs down from Republican appropriators,” he said, “and that’s going to create pressure on leadership.”

As

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, however, there’ll also be pressure to dial down defense to something below what HASC wants, while still above Trump’s $603 billion. What might that compromise figure be?

“I don’t want to bargain against myself or get too ahead of the process,” Courtney said, “(but) there’s going to be an ability to adjust if and when the time comes, (to ensure) that a final number is calculated that still preserves a lot of the growth in ships that our mark contains…. We’re just going to have to be smart about making adjustments.”

Where the final number lands is still up in the air, Courtney acknowledged, but there’s growing consensus in both parties for building towards the 355-ship fleet outlined in the Navy’s official

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. “The mark is really responding to the FSA and to

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accelerated shipbuilding plan,” Courtney said.

Just this morning, House seapower chairman Wittman, and his Senate counterpart, Roger Wicker, introduced a bill that would make the 355 figure an official policy objective. Wicker proudly noted all the members of the Senate seapower subcommittee, Republicans and Democrats, are already aboard as co-sponsors. Courtney is a co-sponsor of the House version.

Officially known as the SHIPS Act (an acronym too contrived to deserve explanation), the Wicker-Wittman bill is hardly a binding fiscal commitment. It merely states “It shall be the policy of the United States to have available, as soon as practicable, not fewer than 355 battle force ships, comprised of the optimal mix of platforms, with funding subject to the annual authorization of appropriation and the annual appropriation of funds.” (Emphasis ours). Nevertheless, the bill is a significant symbolic statement.

Wittman, of course, has proposed a specific fiscal commitment in his 13-ship bill.

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towards a bigger fleet as well. “It starts with repealing sequestration,” Wicker said this morning. “If you’re going to meet the threat, then we’re going to have to pay for this.”

Wicker will reveal his specific proposal with the rest of the Senate mark next week. Then the House and Senate bills must pass their respective chambers, be reconciled in Congress, and finally matched with actual spending commitments from the appropriators.

“Where it shakes out at the end of the day, I don’t think anybody can possibly predict with any certainty, (but) we are going to see bipartisan support for boosting the size of the fleet and boosting the overall size of the defense budget,” Courtney said. “The policy/strategic argument in terms of

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is winning.”

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