Raw Intel

Americas Vertex Aerospace won an $8.7 million contract modification, which adds scope to provide intermediate-level maintenance and repair services and logistics support for the T-45 aircraft and T-45 support equipment in support of the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department for Chief of Naval Air Training aircraft, tenant activities, and transient aircraft. Work will take place in Texas, Florida and Mississippi. Expected completion is in September 2022. The Boeing-made KC-46A Pegasus multirole tanker has been given the green light to refuel all versions of F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. Gen. Mike Minihan, commander of Air Mobility Command, approved a third Interim Ca…

15-months later, we have a lot more information from the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) ... and none of it is going to make you feel better. I am of the "responsibility of command" school, but if you don't feel and smell a larger story here, you aren't paying attention. More, along with links to the Command Investigation, are over at USNBlog. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=nqUlw-LvaTU:8nYxI3l1WTM:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=nqUlw-LvaTU:8nYxI3l1WTM:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/b…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $79.9 million contract modification to definitize the task order for the fire control components development and flight test support for Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, PATRIOT advanced capability and PAC-3 missile segment enhancement integration with lower tier air and missile defense sensor. Work will take place in Texas. Estimated completion date is December 31, 2023. Safran has opened a second assembly line at their facility in Grand Prairie, Texas, for the Arriel 2E engine. The first assembled and tested Arriel 2E engines have been delivered to Airbus. These engines power the UH-72B delivered to the US Army as…

You must have some sympathy for the Ukrainian people. They have simply had a nightmarish century. In WWI and the following Russian Civil War, the slaughter on their soil was almost unimaginable. Once under the Soviet yoke, they then had a genocide via starvation. Then WWII came with the Germans and Soviets slaughtering each other on top of the Ukrainians in a manner that made WWI look like a skirmish. In the post-WWII era they had a few decades of peace, then decay, and the whole post-Soviet cultural apocalypse that comes with disaggregating empires. The Russians – who see Ukraine as rightfully belonging under their sphere of influence – will not give them rest. The Ukr…

Simply a superb interview with General Anthony Zinni, USA (Ret) by Mie Augier and Major Sean F. X. Barrett, USMC over at CIMSEC. What is so impressive about it is the the focus of the interview - wargaming. There are few things more misunderstood, abused, and poorly done than wargaming. Done incorrectly, either by incompetence or malice, it can lead to the death of millions and the destruction of nations. No, that isn't an exaggeration. Let's pull a few quotes that grabbed my attention; I think gaming was more valuable at the lower levels, at the tactical level, maybe lower operational level. ... As you go higher up, I found there was too much in the way of service po…

Americas General Dynamics won a $269 million contract for lead yard support and development studies and design efforts related to Virginia Class submarines. The Virginia Class new attack submarine is an advanced stealth multimission nuclear-powered submarine for deep ocean anti-submarine warfare and shallow water operations. Work will take place in North Carolina and Virginia. Estimated completion date is October 16, 2022. Boeing won a $14.5 million contract modification, which adds scope to provide test and engineering support necessary to complete the development of the Next Gen Jammer-Mid Band system in support of the phased replacement of the AN/ALQ-99 Tactical Jammi…

Afghanistan is a land locked nation, but in the USA’s two-decade presence in that country, her Navy was there from the beginning to end serving along with her sister services. Many are familiar with the untold number of Individual Augmentation (IA) assignments Navy active duty and reserve component personnel filled, Navy Corpsmen serving with USMC units, and even SeaBee deployments to Afghanistan, but there were other units with a large US Navy presence, a few of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT). This Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern we’re going to take a snapshot of this part of the Afghanistan conflict from its high-water mark - 2010 and 2011 - with our guests Captain…

Americas The US Navy’s Amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown (LSD 42) arrived in San Diego October 15, after a decade of forward-deployed service in the Indo-Pacific region operating out of Japan. Germantown sailed from San Diego on January 5, 2011, replacing USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49). USS Rushmore (LSD 47) will replace Germantown later this year. The US Army’s Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) has completed its longest flight to date, exceeding maximum threshold, at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB), California, on Wednesday. This marks the fifth consecutive successful flight test for the missile. Middle East & Africa Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) will o…

Barely six-weeks old, our retreat and national humiliation in Afghanistan for many of us has been I wrote the below almost exactly six years ago when we left a base that in my professional swan song, I had a lot invested in. Yep, that's my picture to here put as a reference point in time in late '08/early '09. Intersting to read how my feelings were in 2014 almost a warm-up for the feelings I continue to have about what we did to the effort as a whole in AFG. I'm still not fully settled on the issue. Anyway, if you are so inclined, join me in a quick return to OCT 2014. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ErLLFCOOnLU/VFNtzLmfaCI/AAAAAAAAI0k/dH0yHFqt6Vk/s320/IMGP1114.JPGI will be,…

Americas Swedish company has opened a new 100,000-square-foot production facility in West Lafayette, Indiana, to build T-7A Red Hawks. The Boeing-Saab team is producing the new advanced trainer for the US Air Force, with Saab providing the aft section to Boeing’s forward fuselage. Currently the aft section is built at Saab’s factory in Linköping, Sweden, then shipped to the United States. Raytheon has presented GhostEye MR, a new medium-range radar for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS. GhostEye MR was displayed at the Association of the US Army’s annual meeting and exhibition, held last week. Middle East & Africa In the first bilateral …

After a summer where more and more people’s eyes have been opened to the divisive, sectarian, and even racist nature of Critical Race Theory and have risen in opposition to it and similar race-essentialist world view in to our schools, the next logical step is how people feel about it becoming an essential part of taxpayer supported public education. As we’ve discussed it in detail here, we know there is a problem in the US Navy where the Chief of Naval Operations has enthusiastically supported the works of one of the most high-profile advocates of the most cancerous forms of Critical Race Theory, Ibram X. Kendi. With that top cover, it was only a matter of time until its…

Want to get a more wholistic view of what is and what is not worth the investment of strategic effort, sacrifice, and investment? Follow the money. Pondering a great graphic over at USNIBlog. Come by and puzz'l your nogg'n with me for a bit. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=M3Aa8mHvcmI:w4kkIfL0PHE:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=M3Aa8mHvcmI:w4kkIfL0PHE:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=M3Aa8mHvcmI:w4kkIfL0PHE:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=M3Aa8mHvcmI:w4kkI…

Americas The Vanilla unmanned aircraft system has set a new world record for unrefueled, internal combustion endurance of an unmanned aircraft on October 2. The drone took off from Edwards Air Force Base and flew for 8 days, 50 minutes, and 47 seconds. The distance covered was 12,200 miles. The Vanilla is designed as a cost-effective, airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform that can be launched immediately to provide persistent coverage. The US Army wants to perform a test launch of its Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, later today, with the goal of seeing just how far the Lockheed Martin-made weapon can go. The launch is planned from Vandenberg …

Americas The F-15E has a new bunker buster added to its arsenal, the GBU-72 Advanced 5K Penetrator. The new weapon was tested at the Eglin Air Force Base range by the 96th Test Wing. A joint-direct-attack-munition (JDAM) tail kit from a GBU-31 was modified so that it would fit and guide the 5,000-pound weapon. The first weapons load, flight and release took place on July 23. The Strike Eagle’s existing bunker busting weapon is the laser-guided GBU-28. According to Defense News, the US Army and Lockheed Martin have worked out a way to accelerate the delivery of the latest variant of Sentinel air and missile defense radar by six months. At the AUSA 2021 annual conference o…

We've spent a long time here and on Midrats discussing the almost criminal neglect of the "unsexy but important" parts of our maritime national security infrastructure by our uniformed and civilian leadership over the last three decades. It goes beyond the wholesale destruction of our base, shipyard, and repair facilities. Over and above our under-resourced auxiliaries from ice breakers to command ships. We have a moribund merchant marine, almost non-existent war reserve, and our repair facilities are so incredibly delicate they cannot meet the well planned peace time repairs, much less any realistic wartime requirements. And yet ... we continue to mindless drift in histo…

Americas General Atomics together with the US Army ist working on developing a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) for the Multi-Domain Operations-capable Gray Eagle Extended Range (GE-ER) Unmanned Aircraft System. Incorporating MOSA on GE-ER Increment 2 spans the entire system, including the aircraft and the Command and Control software suite. The implementation of MOSA will provide multiple new standards for C2, Future Airborne Capability Environment, Open Mission Systems, Universal Armament Interface (UAI), as well as further segregating the Flight/Mission systems’ hardware and software. The US Army’s 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command (94th AAMDC) is deployin…

“Divest to Invest” is the lie a declining power tells itself when temporary leaders decide to shrug the hard work today to enable a more secure tomorrow, in order to have a comfortable and pleasant tour for themselves today – forcing others to have to play catch up later. It is that, or it is just plain wrong. We’ve seen this play before in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it failed so well last time, it is back again. The Terrible 20s does not have to happen, but it is. Decline is a choice, and one we seem to be making … but it is reversible if a nation and its leaders have the will to stand athwart the declinist drive and yell, “Stop!”. While it is easy to become fr…

From the fleet parked off Long Beach, to the already forgotten Afghanistan, to the particular aspirational desires of the latest 30-year Shipbuilding Plan - and whatever else comes across then quarterdeck - Eagle One and Sal are back LIVE for an October maritime and national security discussion.As with all free for alls, the chat room will be open as will the studio phone lines … come join us this Sunday starting at 5pm Eastern. Join us live if you can and roll in with your preferred topic in the chat room or call the switchboard number right here on the showpage. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main…

Americas During a ceremony held on October 6 at the Pennsylvania National Guard’s Eastern Army National Guard Aviation Training Site, the US Army unveiled the newest variant of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, the UH-60V. As part of their preparation for beginning instruction, EAATS instructor pilots have been training on six UH-60Vs they received from the Utility Helicopter Program Office in July. General Dynamics won a $482.1 million contract modification for lead yard support and development studies and design efforts related to Virginia Class submarines. The Virginia Class new attack submarine is an advanced stealth multimission nuclear-powered submarine for deep oce…

You were born to immigrant parents. At home you spoke a different language than outside the home. A language that in your adulthood would – by simply speaking it – be a source of hate. You were part of a small religious minority. You were smart though, and resourceful. You excelled in academics and were an accomplished engineer. You did dearly love your country and while in college decided to help serve it by joining what we would call the Army National Guard. By the end of three decades, people – peers, subordinates, historians and Field Marshalls alike - would say things like this about you; "a great bullock of a man... though his manners were pleasant and his behavio…