Current Events in the Americas

From DefenseTech [excerpt]

FY 2013 Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System (PDF)

From Navy Times December 14, 2006 Attack sub Rickover to be inactivated today By William H. McMichael Staff writer Crew members of the Los Angeles-class submarine Hyman G. Rickover prepare to tie up Oct. 11 at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., after the boat’s final deployment. Rickover will be inactivated today. — MCSN Kelvin Edwards / Navy NORFOLK NAVAL STATION, Va. — The 22-year-old attack submarine Hyman G. Rickover will be inactivated Thursday during a ceremony at its home port of Norfolk Naval Station, the Atlantic Fleet Submarine Force announced. The ship’s sponsor and widow of the late Adm. Rickover, retired Cmdr. Eleonore Rickover, will attend the 1 …

From Aviation Week Pentagon Revives Standoff Missile May 2, 2008 Bettina H. Chavanne The Pentagon certified a critical need for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) program May 2, following the program's breach of Nunn-McCurdy acquisition law. John Young, Pentagon acquisition chief, certified a restructured JASSM program in four categories, affirming that the program is essential to national security; there are no alternatives to the program that would provide "equal or greater military capability" for less money; new estimates for procurement are "reasonable" and the management structure for JASSM acquisition is "adequate" to manage and control…

Apparantly the Port Royal is stuck on a reef. Story here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,489590,00.html

From National Defense

News from CNN, 18 February 2005 Experts: New submarine can tap fiber-optic cables The USS Jimmy Carter, set to join the nation's submarine fleet Saturday, will have some special capabilities, intelligence experts say: It will be able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them. ... More here: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/18/submarine...s.ap/index.html

From Navy Times January 04, 2006 Reagan begins first operational deployment By Gidget Fuentes Times staff writer CORONADO, Calif. — As scores of relatives and friends looked on, huddled in the morning chill, the nuclear carrier Ronald Reagan pulled from the pier Wednesday and began its first operational deployment. The carrier, named for the 39th president, actor and former California governor, carried 5,000 Navy officers and sailors as it left San Diego Bay to begin its first operational cruise and lead an 6,500-member strike group to the Western Pacific and certain combat duty in the Persian Gulf. The 1,092-foot-long carrier — whose innovations includ…

From Aviation Week F-35A Makes First Flight By Ed Phillips/Aviation Week & Space Technology 12/15/2006 05:40:41 PM The first production Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II flew Dec. 15, initiating a six-year, 12,000-hour flight test program involving 15-20 airplanes. Company officials say the 32-min. flight, which originated and terminated at Lockheed Martin facilities at NAS Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, went as planned. "The Lightning II performed beautifully," said Jon Beesley, F-35 chief test pilot. After takeoff Beesley flew the airplane to an altitude of 15,000 ft. and performed a series of maneuvers to check handling qualities and throttle respons…

From AviationWeek Navy Details New Super Hornet Capabilities By David A. Fulghum With Douglas Barrie in London. The U.S. Navy's "Advanced Super Hornet" will tie together an electronic attack system with a powerful new radar that would allow the aircraft to find, deceive and, perhaps, disable sophisticated, radar-guided air-to-air, surface-to-air and cruise missiles. Moreover, it could do so at ranges greater than that of new U.S. air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. Silence about these key features of the Super Hornet's advanced radar and integrated sensor package is being broken by U.S. Navy and aerospace industry officials just as the President's budget f…

From Flight Global [excerpt]

How I suspected and reflected in these two historical scenarios, the US destroyers were operating for years alone and vulnerable, as confirmed in this USNI new report, but the procedure will be changed, and in near term we should count with three destroyers surface action groups: http://news.usni.org/2016/01/13/a-year-into-distributed-lethality-navy-nears-fielding-improved-weapons-deploying-surface-action-group http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2016-01/we-are-headed-right-direction Historical scenario featuring USS Ross (DDG 71) operating alone: http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?/files/file/904-new-battle-of-sinop-23-december-2015-alternate-history-s…

From DefenseNews The Congressional Electronic Warfare (EW) Working Group says U.S. Air Force plans to use the B-52 as a stand-off jammer — the B-52 SOJ — may be dropped to save money, a move the organization calls a major mistake. “Given the clear need for a robust airborne electronic attack capability, it’s alarming to hear that the B-52 SOJ may be given the ax in the forthcoming Quadrennial Defense Review, especially without a clear alternative to substitute the capability that the B-52 SOJ would bring to the table,” the working group said in a late December briefing statement. The working group was established by Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., to study U.S. military…

From Marine Corps Times Navy: Super Hornet rep for problems untrue Corps may be responsible for bad rap By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer Posted : Sunday Jun 17, 2007 9:09:10 EDT NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — Inside Naval Air Systems Command headquarters at this southern Maryland base, Navy program officials for the F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighter program have heard the stories circulating in the Pentagon. Their aircraft, the stories go, can’t carry certain weapons, can’t fly high enough, can’t go fast enough. Design problems such as wing flutter plague the plane and — perhaps worst of all — parts that will wear out fast enough to severely…

From Aviation Week ARES Blog F-22 intercepting Tu-95 Bear near the Aleutians in November 2007 F-22 dropping external fuel tanks (pylons and all)

Interesting article on future B-21 Raider probable high altitude capabilities: http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14919/the-b-21s-three-decade-old-shape-hints-at-new-high-altitude-capabilities

2018 Nuclear Posture Review (pdf)

No More U.S. Battleships? "For the first time since the 1890s, the U.S. Navy soon could be without a battleship," Defense News says. The Senate, in its version of the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill, authorizes the Navy to dispose of the battleship Wisconsin and transfer it to the state of Virginia. And a provision in the House version of the defense bill would transfer the battleship Iowa to the Port of Stockton, Calif. Only two battleships remain in Navy custody: the Wisconsin, berthed at Nauticus maritime center in downtown Norfolk, Va., and the Iowa, moored in a mothball fleet at Suisun Bay, Calif. Per an agreement dating from the 1990s between the…

Let's hope that they haven't forgotten those hard-won lessons. USAF Re-activating Aggressor Squadron Source: US Air Force Jan. 6, 2006 eDefense The US Air Force (USAF) will reactivate the 65th Aggressor Squadron at Nellis AFB, NV, on Jan. 12. In a letter to airmen, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, USAF chief of staff, cited the history of the unit as “legendary” and said the aggressors will “directly contribute to the combat capability of our airmen.” “The 65th and other aggressor units will provide realistic adversary training in air, space, and information operations that make us even better,” General Moseley said. “Their training will keep us in…

A great read, lots of different things here. http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/how-to-win-in-a-dogfight-stories-from-a-pilot-who-flew-1682723379