Current Events in the Americas

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.

CV32: cough ... South Atlantic battleset ... cough From BBC [excerpt]

US Navy on track for high-altitude P-8A weapon (Flight Global)

From Defense Aerospace Air Force Strategic Plan Released (Source: US Air Force; issued Oct. 5, 2006) WASHINGTON --- The Air Force Strategic Plan 2006 - 2008 has been released and now is available online, announced Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne and Air Force Chief of Staff General T. Michael Moseley in a joint letter. The plan articulates the Air Force mission. "The Air Force Strategic Plan embodies how we will defend the nation against current and emerging threats," the letter said. "It demonstrates scalable choices, not limited by distance or time. Our strategic choices -- what we choose to prioritize, our actions in support of our prioriti…

Lots of great pics of modern aircraft and a few warbirds too, at this Ares link.

From DefenseNews U.S. Delays Missile Launch over Canadian Safety Concerns By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, OTTAWA The United States has agreed to delay a missile launch planned for next week after Canada voiced concerns that rocket debris could fall on offshore oil platforms, Defense Minister Bill Graham said April 7. The U.S. Defense Department’s decision was taken after Newfoundland Prime Minister Danny Williams ordered the evacuation of hundreds of oil workers in his Atlantic coast province ahead of the launch, planned for April 11. Canada “strongly urged” the United States to postpone the launch due to concerns that debris from the Titan IV rocket, which was …

Miami Herald March 30, 2006 U.S. Defends Its Naval Exercise Amid talk by President Hugo Chávez of a planned attack, the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela said a naval exercise in the Caribbean was no cause for concern. By Associated Press CARACAS (AP) -- The U.S. ambassador to Venezuela downplayed the planned deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier for naval exercises in the Caribbean amid claims by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez that his nation must prepare for a possible U.S. invasion. The Doral-based U.S. Southern Command this week announced that the USS George Washington -- along with a destroyer, cruiser, frigate and a 60-plane air wing -- would cond…

From Flight Global USAF sets 2013 entry for extended-range JASSM By John Croft The US Air Force says it will be ready to deploy the extended-range version of its Lockheed Martin-built AGM-158 joint air-to-surface stand-off missile (JASSM) in the second half of 2013. Using larger fuel tanks and a more efficient Williams International F107-WR-105 turbofan engine, rather than the Teledyne CAE J402-CA-100 turbojet, the JASSM ER (AGM-158B) will have a range of more than 926km (500nm), up from 370km for the original missile. The AGM-158 entered service in 1999 and has not been used in combat to date. Lockheed in April rolled out the 1,000th JASSM round from its…

Initially Upbeat USAF Budget Request Turns Dour Long Term (Aviation Week) U.S. Navy Budget Takes $10.7 Billion Sequestration Hit (Aviation Week) DoD 2014 Request is $52B Over Spending Caps (DefenseNews) The Army Has It Worst 2.0: Readiness Shortchanged $13.7 Billion (AOL Defense)

New Warship’s Big Guns Have No Bullets (DefenseNews)

Industry has big hopes for Fire Scout UAV By Zachary M. Peterson - Staff writer Posted : Thursday Aug 9, 2007 8:14:18 EDT The “flexibility” of the Northrop Grumman-built Fire Scout unmanned helicopter could see its mission sets expanded in the future from surface warfare, antisubmarine warfare and mine warfare to include special operations, humanitarian relief and other missions, an industry official said he hopes. The MQ-8B Fire Scout vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned aerial vehicle is being designed to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ships’ three mission modules, designed for surface warfare, anti…

Find NavyTime article here. No more enemy combatants, no more combat operations, what next...back to a kinder and gentler term forward deployed forces. It's ok though, we were in MEU's and on ARG's and were no less dangerous. Amphibs, warships split up by new plan By Philip Ewing - Staff writer Posted : Monday Apr 20, 2009 10:49:18 EDT The Navy is breaking up the deployments of amphibious ships and surface combatants formerly known as expeditionary strike groups, part of a top-down review that could have far-reaching consequences for how sailors and Marines spend time at sea. For the past six years, ESGs paired a big-deck amphib and two small-d…

From 4GWAR blog [excerpt]

X-47B UCAS-D conducts first land-based catapult shot (Flight Global)

From Defense Aerospace Pentagon Contract Announcement (Source: US Department of Defense; issued Oct. 14, 2005) General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, is being awarded a $223,262,430 cost-plus-award-fee/incentive-fee modification to exercise an option under previously awarded contract (N00024-03-C-2310) for detail design and construction of one Flight 0 Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The LCS will be a networked, agile, and high-speed surface combatant with versatile war-fighting capabilities, optimized for littoral missions. Work will be performed in Mobile, Ala. (50 percent), Pittsfield, Mass. (33 percent), Bath, Maine (15 percent), and Baltimore…

From Air Force Magazine, October 2007 issue October 2007 , Vol. 90, No. 10 The Navy plans to build many more flattops, and they won’t be “Gary Hart carriers.” Seven New Carriers (Maybe) By Otto Kreisher Today’s Navy leaders are in a bind. With the size of the fleet at 277 warships, and with a stated requirement for 313, the service faces a broad, long-term, and expensive shipbuilding task. Senior officers are struggling to find the money, with no assurance of success. In the midst of all this, however, there is at least one certainty. Navy leadership is staunchly committed to buying many more big-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers—the most powerf…

From Air Force Times Raptor has first encounter with Russians By Erik Holmes - Staff writer Posted : Thursday Dec 27, 2007 20:46:10 EST The F-22 Raptor, the Air Force’s newest operational fighter jet, had its first encounter with Russian bombers off the coast of Alaska on Thanksgiving Day. Two Raptors from the 90th Fighter Squadron at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, scrambled to identify and escort two Russian Bear-H bombers as they approached Alaskan airspace Nov. 22, said Maj. Allen Herritage, a spokesman for the Alaska region of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD. It marked the first time a Raptor has intercepted unknown aircraft…

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2014/01/29/navy-set-to-accept-first-virginia-class-block-iii-submarine/ (DOD Buzz)