Raw Intel

Americas The US Air Force announced that two F-35A Lightning II aircraft recently released B61-12 Joint Test Assemblies, or JTAs, during the F-35A’s first Full Weapon System Demonstration, completing the final flight test exercise of the nuclear design certification process. The 422nd and 59th Test and Evaluation Squadrons led Air Combat Command’s portion of the test effort, with Airmen from the 57th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, 926th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and Bolt Aircraft Maintenance Unit leading all maintenance efforts. Thales has unveiled a new ground-based multi-mission radar with simultaneous ground and low-level air surveillance, providing early UAV dete…

If you think Critical Race Theory in high schools is of questionable utility, then you will love what has come to the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen. With the CNO endorsing one of the most high-profile race essentialists, Kendi, to the Navy at large there are no guardrails to the most divisive, and in many ways racist ideas from being brought into all levels of our Navy. You can call it “racial essentialism,” CRT, or just plain racism … but what we’ve tried to warn everyone about for over a decade and a half is here with bells on. There is bad news, and there is good news. First, the bad news; do you know who Claudia Rankine is? Neither did I until a little birdie…

If a nation is at peace where do you draw the line from a risk management point of view if you should meet a scheduled underway period? Where is a good example of when to decide it is just best to stay pierside? I think we have a good example from an unexpected ally. Details over at USNIBlog. 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=6hc7TIVQ-RY:YREjStQHk6I:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=6hc7TIVQ-RY:YREjStQHk6I:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=6hc7TIVQ-RY:YREjStQHk6I:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.…

Americas Northrop Grumman won a $8.4 million delivery order for support of the E2-D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft program avionics flight management computers. The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye (AHE) is the newest variant of the E-2 aircraft platform. In December 2020, Northrop Grumman was awarded a $13.1 million order to provide new computers and displays for the E2-D Hawkeye. The new contract is a 42-month contract with no option periods. Work will take place in California. Estimated completion date is February 5, 2025. Boeing won a $26.8 million delivery order for F/A-18 aircraft spare parts, according to the Defense Department. Work will take place in Missouri. Estimated complet…

Americas Lockheed Martin won an $80 million contract modification to exercise options for littoral combat ship class design services and integrated data and product model environment support. According to the Defense Department, The US Navy plans to build a fleet of 33 literal combat ocean going warships that are also capable of operating in shallow coastal waters. Work will take place in New Jersey, Washington DC and Wisconsin. Estimated completion will be by October 2022. The US Military Sealift Command announced it has tested the new BQM-177A Sub-Sonic Aerial Target (SSAT) in the Western Pacific. Testing took place from September 9-10 using USNS Alan Shepard (T-AKE 3)…

This really is an amazing video if you have a historically focused mind. Fresh from her modifications to fly F-35B, the Izumo is bringing the Japanese Navy back in the carrier business again … with some friends via United States Marine Corps F-35B. The Japanese will be buying 42 F-35B and maybe more, so soon we will see the Izumo and her sister ships with the first Japanese fixed wing airwing at sea since the end of the Second World War. I’d like more, faster – along with the South Koreans … and if we could get the Australians to play at some point that would be nice too … but this is all good news for navalists in the West. Though not a “Western” nation, Japan is part o…

Two of the greatest self-inflicted institutional failures of the USN in the last half-century were Tailhook 91 and Fat Leonard. They decimated a generation of leaders and the hard-won service reputation with the American people and their elected representatives that we are still trying to climb out of. While Tailhook 91’s failure was mostly in the response of senior uniformed and civilian leadership to the political pressure by feeding their young to Vaal hoping to save their own skins, Fat Leonard exposed a greater, more dangerous rot that tied in all the worst features of human nature; greed, lust, envy, and addiction. As much of Fat Leonard was avoidable if there were…

Americas General Electric Aviation won a $131.6 million deal for the repair, upgrade or replacement; inventory management; and required supply response times of two T-700 engine components in support of the Navy’s H-60 Seahawk and the Marine Corp’s AH-1 Cobra helicopters. The Navy sought the services from a single vendor in accordance with defense acquisition regulations and will use its annual working capital funds when issuing delivery orders. Work will take place in Massachusetts and Kansas. Estimated completion will be by September 2026. The US Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory recently purchased several SMASH 2000 fire control systems , through its Rapid Capabilit…

Americas Rolls Royce won a $9.3 million deal for Virginia Class submarine propulsors. The deal shall provide a maximum of seven Virginia Class propulsor rotor assemblies, scoop bar sets, and associated engineering support services. The Virginia Class attack submarine is the US Navy’s newest undersea warfare platform and incorporates the latest in stealth, intelligence gathering and weapons systems technology. Work will take place in Mississippi and Massachusetts. Expected completion will be by May 2025. Boeing won a $391.4 million deal for up to five CH-47F renew aircraft. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. The CH-47 is an American twin-engined, tand…

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NLg2ZXHl-t0/VgW9PDfSLPI/AAAAAAAAKVw/nnjeWpJd_pI/s320/0541430.jpgWe should always have a USS SIMS. History shows that every warship must be able to defend itself. It must be able to fight hurt. It must be able to have sufficient people for damage control. There is no "safe area" at sea. You can make a mistake - and so can the enemy. There is not time out. There is no do over. Your nation has been at war for only a few months. You are part of a hobbled together, but powerful battlegroup set to blunt the spear of the enemy who has been marching forward without rest. You have prepared yourself and your ship for this from day one. There is a pro…

Once again we are faced with two options: 1) the CNO is fighting as best he can to slow roll the forces of hate and division that are trying to turn his service in to an organization beset by strife, division, and sectarianism by saying the right words to keep the worst at bay while waiting for the tides to shift or; 2) the CNO is a true believer, more woke than woke – and he is going to drag everyone down with him. I am open to either option – or perhaps a 3rd “useful idiot” – but the CNO is not an idiot. He is a smart, hardworking, and talented man. As such, we must default to 1 or 2. Things are leaning towards 2. “My goal is to put the Navy in a place over the next 2…

Americas General Electric won a $483.1 million contract, which procures spare F414 engines and various spare engine modules in support of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler production aircraft. Boeing announced the delivery of the first two operational F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets in the Block III configuration to the US Navy on September 27. The service will use these aircraft to help complete an ongoing test and evaluation program for these updates, as well as support the development of new tactics, techniques, and procedures to go with them. Work will take place in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Kentucky, Canada, Germany and North Carolina. Es…

Have you been less than pleased by the squishy use of words the last few months by our senior leadership when it comes to what we all saw transpire in Afghanistan? Well, it has been a burr in my saddle for months. At today's House Armed Services Committee meeting on Afghanistan, I just had about enough. Come on over to USNIBlog where I whip out the dictionary and a little family history on the topic. 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=ReWD3xSmy04:wMR9x5_xam8:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=ReWD3xSmy04:wMR9x5_xam8…

Americas Boeing won a $17.3 million contract modification for the US and United Kingdom to provide Strategic Weapon System Trident II (D5) Inertial Navigation equipment technical engineering support services. The Trident II D5 fleet ballistic missile (FBM) is a three-stage, solid-propellant, inertial-guided ballistic missile. In September 2021 the US Navy test-fired two unarmed Trident II missiles off the coast of Cape Canaveral, dubbing the launches a successful test of the operational readiness of the weapons system. Work will take place in California, Ohio, Washington, New York, Virginia, Georgia, Florida and Scotland. Estimated completion date is September 30, 2022. …

Americas Boeing won a $3.5 billion deal for the C-17 Globemaster III Sustainment Program. The contract will provide support and sustainment services to the government product support manager/product support integrator for the C-17 weapon system. The contract involves Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, NATO Airlift Management Program Office, India, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Support includes: program management; sustaining logistics; material and equipment management; sustaining engineering; quality assurance; depot level aircraft maintenance and modifications; F117 propulsion system management; long-term sustainment plannin…

Will someone please save us from our experts? Question everyone. Defer to no one. If you have learned nothing the last two decades, at least know this; our elite aren’t. Our best institutions do not produce the best product. Credentialism is the last refuge of the incompetent. You have to assume these are well meaning people, but building off of yesterday’s post – let this week be a lesson to everyone that our self-selecting elites are like the Bourbons, “They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” I’m not sure I can do more but quote from the latest article in FP by By Charli Carpenter, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and director of Huma…

Americas Boeing won a $16 million deal for spare parts in support of the AH-64 Apache weapon system. The Apache is a twin-engined army attack helicopter. The Apache attack helicopter can be equipped with air-to-air missiles (Stinger, AIM-9 Sidewinder, Mistral and Sidearm) and the advanced precision kill weapon system (APKWS), formerly known as Hydra, family of guided and unguided 70mm rockets. Boeing won a $158.3 million contract modification for VC-25B Spares Phase 1 – Long Lead Parts. This contract modification is for the VC-25B initial spares with a production lead time of greater than 12 months that are required for the initial support period, which is the first 18 m…

Air Force One (click to view full) The USA’s fleet of 2 “VC-25” 747-200 derivatives is unique in several respects. It’s more popularly known as the latest incarnation of the “Air Force One” fleet that transports the President of the United States around the world, though the planes themselves only acquire the “Air Force One” call sign when the President is on board. The VC-25 can also serve as a secondary command post, thanks to a suite of advanced communications and electronics gear that’s both highly encrypted, and protected from the Electro-Magnetic Pulse effects of nuclear detonations. The 89th Airlift Wing operates them from Andrews AFB, MD. During the Cold War, i…

We’ve all seen it; those who promote, protect, and mentor the “deep select” Golden Boy become personally – and professionally – invested in their success. Not content to give them opportunities to succeed or fail on their own, when things do not turn out a perfect as the CV and as those mentors promised they would, the wounded instead make excuses, defend, and deflect any criticism of The Chosen One. Though years and decades pass, they still treat grown men on the edge of middle age as if they are still that promising young staffer they once were – poised for greatness at some point in the future. They never really achieve regular success, but give you the appearance tha…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $14.8 million contract modification, which is adding scope to provide depot level repair capabilities for the F-35 gun system in support of F-35 Lightning II low-rate initial production Lot 11 aircraft for the Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, and non-US Department of Defense (DOD) participants. F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter (JSF) is a stealthy, supersonic multirole fighter developed by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company for the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and programme partners from the NATO and US allies. Work will take place in Varmint, Texas and Maine. Expected completion will be in November 2024. AAR Services won a $14.2…