Current Events in the Americas

Venezuelan president's health deteriorates (Jane's)

Navy Wants 28 More Tomahawks on Virginia-Class Submarines

From Navy Times October 04, 2006 Carrier George H.W. Bush to be christened Saturday By William H. McMichael Staff writer NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — President George W. Bush will deliver the principal address at the christening of the aircraft carrier bearing the name of his father, President George H.W. Bush, during a Saturday ceremony at the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard. The former president, his wife Barbara and their daughter, Doro Bush Koch, will attend the event. Koch, who serves as the ship’s sponsor, will perform the time-honored tradition of breaking a bottle of wine across the bow to formally christen the ship. George H.W. Bush, the nation’s…

From Flight International DATE:30/04/07 SOURCE:Flightglobal.com Northrop Grumman rolls out E2-D Advanced Hawkeye By Graham Warwick Northrop Grumman has rolled out the first E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, the latest version of the US Navy’s carrier-based airborne early warning aircraft. The first of two test aircraft was revealed at Northrop’s St Augustine, Florida plant. While externally similar to today’s E-2C, the E-2D has a new Lockheed Martin APY-9 radar with an L-3 Randtron rotodome antenna that combines mechanical rotation with electronic scanning. This provides 360º coverage while allowing operators to focus the radar on areas of interest. The E-2D also …

From Flight International DATE: 01/10/07 SOURCE: Flight International Bomb test flameout nearly crashes F-22 By Stephen Trimble A key new weapon for the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor has started a new series of tests despite a recent in-flight crash scare. The Boeing GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) began separation tests on the F-22 in early September after more than a year of sometimes difficult work to integrate the weapon in the weapons bay and carry out airborne captive carry tests, Maj Jack Fischer, a USAF test pilot, told the Society of Experimental Test Pilots' annual convention. Flight tests so far have produced a few in-flight problems, inclu…

A South American Arms Race? Friday, Dec. 21, 2007 By ANDREW DOWNIE/SAO PAULO Time First it was Venezuela, spending $4 billion on Russian fighter planes, Kalashnikovs and perhaps even submarines. Then it was Brazil, in August announcing a 53% increase in its military budget for 2008, the biggest such increase in more than a decade. The competition is still in the early stages but when two of Latin America's nouveau riche oil powers start splashing out on weapons, alarm bells ring over an arms race. Related Articles Indeed, Chavez's spending spree has given Brazil's long-dormant arms industry a bit of a political kick-start. Says Brazilian Senator Jose Sarney, a …

From DefenseNews U.S. Navy's ERGM May Face Cancellation By william matthews Published: 20 Mar 15:55 EDT (11:55 GMT) For more than a dozen years the U.S. Navy has waited as Raytheon struggled to build a reliable rocket-powered munition to be fired from 5-inch guns on ships. After repeated test failures, years of delays and rising costs, the Navy may be ready to cancel the program. A Raytheon official acknowledged March 20 there were "many rumors swirling around" the fate of its Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM) program, including the possibility that it will be canceled. A Navy official would not comment on the program's fate. The end for ERGM, if…

Red Alert: The Growing Threat to US Aircraft Carriers (CNAS, pdf)

From Aviation Week's ARES Blog DARPA/ONR Launch Long-range Anti-ship Missile Demonstrator Posted by Graham Warwick at 6/17/2008 9:05 AM CDT After years of neglect, the US is looking to get back into the anti-ship missile business. DARPA and the Office of Naval Research have kicked off a joint effort "to rapidly demonstrate a ship-launched standoff anti-ship strike weapon". The Long Range Anti-Ship Missile Demonstration program aims to flight test a prototype within three years of contract award. The problem is the US doesn't have a long-range anti-ship missile - and the countries it considers potential enemies do. Boeing's Harpoon is subsonic and can fly abou…

From Air Force Times Final mission for venerable MH-53 By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer Posted : Wednesday Oct 1, 2008 15:54:37 EDT Born from a helicopter designed to pluck aircrews out of the jungles of Vietnam, the MH-53 Pave Low will die just like it was born — in combat. The storied heavy-lift helicopter was to fly its last mission Sept. 30 in Iraq. Details on when and where the last flight happened are minimal since it likely carried special operators to assault an enemy target, said Maj. Derrick Stamos, 20th Special Operations Squadron assistant director of operations. The Air Force has gradually phased out the Pave Low after service leaders d…

An image of the enlarged Virginia-class Block V SSN on page 32 of the report, with a characteristic "hump" in the elongated section abaft the sail, probably with the new 4xVPM (Virginia Payload Module, each capable of 7 cruise missile-size weapons, for a grand total of forty (12 previously fore the sail+28 in the 4xVPM) weapons in VLS): https://news.usni.org/2016/11/03/document-report-congress-virginia-class-submarine-program-5-2

Shock tactics to destroy torpedoes 06 October 2005 NewScientist.com news service Paul Marks THE US navy wants to protect its warships with a system that will destroy incoming torpedoes by firing massive underwater shock waves at them. The ships would be equipped with arrays of 360 transducers each 1 metre square - effectively big flat-panel loudspeakers - running along either side of the hull below the waterline. When the ship's sonar detects an incoming torpedo, the transducers simultaneously fire an acoustic shock wave of such intensity that the torpedo either detonates early or is disabled by the pulse's crushing force, according to the Defence Advanced R…

Marines experience Brit style on ‘Lusty’ By Vago Muradian - Staff writer Posted : Monday Aug 6, 2007 5:36:26 EDT ABOARD THE HMS ILLUSTRIOUS — What’s the definition of heaven if you’re a Marine Harrier pilot? Why, spending two weeks on one of Britain’s aircraft carriers, of course. “What’s not to like? The flying’s awesome, the food and quarters are great, and you can get a drink at the end of the day,” said Maj. Stephan “Poppy” Bradicich, the executive officer of Marine Attack Squadron 542 who helped plan the unprecedented embarkation of 16 Harriers and 200 Marines aboard HMS Illustrious, known as “Lusty” to its crew. Slideshow Aboard the HMS Illustrious…

From Air Force Times The Pentagon’s top budget official told the Air Force this week to hold off spending $497 million in fiscal 2009 to begin shutting down the F-22 production line and spend it instead on repairing F-15s, two-thirds of which are grounded. USA Today reported that Pentagon Comptroller Tina Jonas informed Air Force leaders of the change in a memo this week. An Air Force official, speaking on background, confirmed Friday that the service has been directed by the Pentagon to reprogram the funds, but the official did not immediately have further details. More than 400 F-15s remain grounded after the Nov. 2 crash of an F-15C, but the Air Force h…

From Aviation Week GAO Sustains Boeing Tanker Protest Jun 18, 2008 By Michael Bruno Congressional auditors today handed Boeing some salvation and sided with the U.S. behemoth's protest against a U.S. Air Force award over an aerial refueling tanker to an international team led by Northrop Grumman and EADS. The Government Accountability Office, in citing several problems with the USAF's decision-making process, called for the embattled armed service to re-open talks with the competing industry teams and then make a new source selection. "Our review of the record led us to conclude that the Air Force had made a number of significant errors that could have a…

From Jane's Briefing: Russia deepens relationship with Brazil By Guy Anderson 17 May 2010 Russia and Brazil are reported to be discussing the sale of an unspecified number of air defence systems to the Latin American state: a deal that says much about Moscow's current strategy in international defence markets and the potential for Western firms to find themselves competing head to head with Russia to a greater degree than in previous years. Russian state information service RIA Novosti reported on 14 May that the sale of systems – potentially Tor platforms although this has yet to be agreed – was under discussion, together with a series of other accords rela…

The Shocking Strategy That Dooms the LCS (Next Navy blog)

From Jane's Defence Weekly DoD group seeks to give autonomy to armed drones By Stephen Trimble JDW Americas Bureau Chief Washington, DC A proposal, unveiled publicly in September but never before publicised, would give "armed autonomous systems" the authority to shoot to destroy hostile weapon systems but not suspected combatants. Accordingly, any people killed or injured in the attack would be considered the collateral damage of a successful strike on a legitimate target. "If you stop and think about what this is, it really is a new paradigm for conducting warfare," John S Canning, a chief engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center and one of the authors …

The May 2007 issue of Air Force Magazine contains the annual USAF Almanac 2007, which is a collection of PDF documents detailing the US Air Force in facts and figures, its organizational structure (including reserve components), and USAF installations worldwide. Its a great source, especially for database work and PBEM/MBX wargaming. You can find it here.

From Defense Aerospace Air Force Command Pre-Selects Candidates for F-X2 Project (Source: Brazilian Ministry of Defence; issued Oct. 1, 2008) (Issued in Portuguese; unofficial translation by defense-aerospace.com) The Air Force Command has announced that, as specified in the plan for the renewal of the combat aircraft fleet of the Força Aérea Brasileira (FAB), it has completed an initial step in the selection process of new multirole fighters. The Management Committee of the Project F-X2 (CGPF-X2), instituted on May 15, 2008, led the evaluation studies of the preselected aircraft (Boeing F-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, Lockheed Ma…