Current Events in the Americas

From Ares [excerpt]

Northrop unveils first MQ-4C Triton

Royal Navy's Flagship HMS Ocean Could Be Sold to Brazil (Defense Aerospace)

From DefenseNews U.S. Navy Drafting 'Naval Operational Concept' By christopher p. cavas Published: 21 Oct 19:34 EDT (23:34 GMT) Deploying U.S. naval forces must be more flexible, able to split up and re-form in different combinations as situations require. The fleet still needs 11 aircraft carriers to meet its missions but more amphibious ships are required to support new missions. The number of formal and informal maritime partnerships will continue to grow. Even when mine-hunting Littoral Combat Ships come into service, a gap will remain in the Navy's ability to combat the undersea threat. Ballistic missile defense is increasingly seen as a basic naval capabil…

From Flight Global DATE:25/06/09 SOURCE:Flight International Obama threatens vetoes on F-22, F136 decisions By Stephen Trimble The Obama administration has threatened to veto legislation that would extend production of the Lockheed Martin F-22 and continue funding the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternate engine at the expense of the Lockheed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The White House threat, delivered to Congress on 24 June, strikes back at a vote last week by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) that re-inserted funding for both programmes in the fiscal year 2010 defence authorisation bill, and draws a clear line in the sand against "earmarks" …

China's Next Move: A Naval Base in the South Atlantic? (Real Clear Defense)

From Aviation Week New Bomber To Focus Heavily On ISR Dec 17, 2009 By David A. Fulghum The U.S. Air Force’s ISR chief says a new bomber design will be more about intelligence gathering and non-kinetic weapons than about bombing. The arsenal of this “long-range, ISR/Strike” aircraft may eventually include directed energy and network attack, says Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Directed energy weapons under development by the Pentagon include a range of lasers and devices that produce pulses of high-power microwaves. Other non-kinetic capabilities include the attack of enemy sensors with…

From AOL Defense [excerpt]

Navy To Begin Arming Subs With Ship-Killer Missile (Breaking Defense)

U.S. House Panel: Cap DD(X) Buy at 2 DefenseNews At about $4 billion per ship, the U.S. Navy’s DD(X)/DG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer is just too expensive, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett said. So on April 2, the House subcommittee that Bartlett heads passed legislation to limit the program to just two ships. That means $2.6 billion for the 2007 defense budget to buy one ship and begin detailed designs for a second. But after that, no more. “That is my wish,” Bartlett explained after the unanimous vote by the House Armed Services projection forces subcommittee. [ MORE ]

Some 30 will be carried by a single F-16, with propeller and electric batteries: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/03/08/inside-the-secretive-pentagon-office-planning-skyborg-fighters-and-drone-swarms/ http://warisboring.com/articles/imagine-f-16s-deploying-swarms-of-tiny-drones/

From DefenseNews Canadian Government Hears Airlift Procurement Plan By DAVID PUGLIESE, VICTORIA, British Columbia Canada’s Defence Staff chief is hoping to convince the government to approve an airlift procurement plan that would see the purchase of new helicopters, tactical transport aircraft and search-and-rescue planes in one overall package. Gen. Rick Hillier briefed senior government ministers on the plan Nov. 14. The proposal would see the purchase of at least 50 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Defence Minister Bill Graham has confirmed he supports the plan. Graham hopes that getting government approval for three different aircraft programs all…

From Aviation Week Pentagon Eyes New Tanker RFP By August Jul 9, 2008 By Michael Bruno Boeing and a Northrop Grumman-EADS team will be able to re-bid wholly new proposals for the U.S. Air Force KC-X refueling tanker program, and the Pentagon's acquisition chief expects to choose a winner by the end of the year, officials said today. The defense secretary, Air Force secretary and Defense Department acquisition chief John Young told Pentagon reporters that the move is an attempt to provide a valid acquisition decision as quickly as possible while speeding toward delivery of the new aerial refuelers. Nevertheless, Young said the program's cost and initial opera…

From a NavWarGames post : If you live close enough, I'm sure all the Pooners would love some ceremony pictures More info on the Virginia class SSN (aka NSSN-Centurion) : http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/nssn.htm http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/docs/990100-nssn.htm Image courtesy of Wikipedia :

Pre-Commissioned ??? 10 January 2009 (nice photos): http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=109216 Also: http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=109171 But I only see an usual octuple Mk 29 (ssb) mount in the first place photos and not VLS, and I guess the "24 missiles ESSM" is the total, with reloads, in each mount. And the launching of ESSM from Mk 29 mount from CVN 74: http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=40222 I've replaced an Mk 29 mount with ESSM in my personal database in the entry 2367 Theodore Roosevelt And the doubts about her "pre-commission": http://www.smartbrief.com/news/aia/storyDe...33-B731892E1489 htt…

A couple of interesting articles about CBO reported lifecycle/fuel costs for the LCS ... First, from DefenseNews Report: Fuel Factors Less Than Price For LCS By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS Published: 28 Apr 2010 18:45 Fuel costs for the U.S. Navy's new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) are calculated by a new Congressional report to be about 11 percent of total life-cycle costs - far less than the 64 percent figure represented by the price to buy the ship. The relative insignificance of the fuel figure to the purchase price is at odds with claims by Alabama's Senate delegation that the Navy should give more weight to fuel efficiency in its pending choice of which LCS …

From DefenseNews [excerpt]

I don't plan on losing much sleep over this one: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-says-warships-sailing-towards-u-agency-214302042--finance.html

Bunker Hill class Cruise Modernization Program almost a complete failure https://news.usni.org/2024/12/17/gao-navy-wasted-1-84-billion-in-repairs-to-cruisers-cut-from-the-fleet

From Air Force Times Subsonic bomber wanted by 2018 By Gayle S. Putrich - Staff writer Posted : Monday May 21, 2007 6:50:45 EDT The Air Force may trade building a faster bomber in favor of building a bomber faster — even if it means lowering technological expectations for now. Expectations seem to have been dialed down from a supersonic, super-stealthy long-range bomber to a manned, subsonic aircraft with a range of 2,500 nautical miles. Sources say the service plans to buy only about 100 of the stop-gap planes while exploring other options for future bombers. As recently as last year, the Air Force planned a new bomber program between 2025 and 2037. But…