Raw Intel

USAF Gets Upgraded 105mm For The AC-130 Gunship | Arrow-3 Successfully Flight Tested | Saab To Deliver New Camouflage System To French DGA Americas Rockwell Collins won a $32.4 million deal for the manufacture of ballistic signal transmission devices and canopy severance assemblies in support of the egress system of the V22 aircraft. The V-22 Osprey is a joint-service, medium-lift, multimission tilt-rotor aircraft. The aircraft operates as a helicopter when taking off and landing vertically. The nacelles rotate 90° forward once airborne, converting the aircraft into a turboprop aircraft. Work will take place in Iowa. Fiscal 2022 procurement of aircraft (Navy) funds; FMS …

The slow building crisis in Ukraine is reaching a point of critical mass. I think a decision point in coming in mid-Feb. I'm pondering in more detail over at USNIBlog. Come by and give it a read. 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=w36yEhAGqR0:RrHkwzuF_HQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=w36yEhAGqR0:RrHkwzuF_HQ:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=w36yEhAGqR0:RrHkwzuF_HQ:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=w36yEhAGqR0:RrHkwzuF_HQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo View the full article

Americas General Dynamics Electric Boat won an $11.5 million contract modification to support the Virginia Class Common Weapon Launcher (CWL) technology insertion advanced processor build efforts for all variants. The Virginia Class submarine is the Navy’s latest fast-attack submarine and is capable of targeting, controlling, and launching MK 48 torpedoes and Tomahawk land-attack missiles (TLAMs). Work will take place in Connecticut. Estimated completion will be by September 20, 2022. The US Navy awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a $22.2 million deal for additional labor hours for smart start maintenance, repair, and modernization efforts in support of the USS Hartf…

Americas The Pentagon’s blue-sky research agency recently announced that it selected 10 organizations to develop enhanced, less bulky night vision goggles to keep the crimp out of servicemembers’ necks. And so they can see better at night. The program, dubbed Enhanced Night Vision in Eyeglass Form (ENVision), will be divided to solve those problems in two separate technical areas. The five organizations selected in the first technical area will try to reduce the size and volume of night vision goggles. The Netherlands will base its soon-to-be received MQ-9A Reaper medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles in the Caribbean region. The Royal Netherlands Air F…

With the growing tensions on the Russian-Ukrainian border (and Belorussian while we are at it) when Midrats regular Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg writes something, you need to pay attention. He recently co-authored an article with Michael Kofman at the Washington Post titled, "Here’s what we know about Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine." What is the nature of Russia’s military buildup? And how long can Russia keep its forces in these forward positions? Our research on Russia’s military capabilities offers some clues. This is a solid snapshot and quick read of what the Ukrainians are facing. Russian forces near Ukraine total at most 60 battalion tactical groups (BTGs), alon…

Americas General Electric won a $12 million deal for maintenance and overhaul of the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. The UH-60 Blackhawk is a multi-mission medium lift helicopter. The primary mission of the Blackhawk helicopter is as a troop carrier and logistical support aircraft. The helicopter can also be configured to carry out medical evacuation, command-and-control, search-and-rescue, armed escort, electronic warfare and executive transport missions. Estimated completion date is January 14, 2027. The Air Force awarded L-3 Communications Integrated Systems a $24 million deal for C-130H program depot maintenance. The deal provides for the services required to complete C-…

At last week’s SNA, an initial concept for DDG(X) was put up on a slide for all to see; Don’t get too excited though; ...the hull form shown in the concept image is not representative of the ship and that the service has not settled on a specific design yet. ...The program office isn’t committed to a specific hull design but presented a swept, angular, bulbous bow design reminiscent of an Arleigh Burke rather than the tumblehome, wave-piercing design of the Zumwalts. “We haven’t actually locked down the hull form, yet. That’s a concept,” Connelly said, referring to the concept drawing the office presented. “It is one of the many options still in play. … We as the de…

Americas The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will soon start testing unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) on par with human-piloted vehicles being built under the Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program. The DARPA RACER program will develop and demonstrate autonomy technologies that enable unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to maneuver in unstructured off-road terrain at the limit of the vehicle’s mechanical systems and at, or beyond, human-driven speeds and efficiencies. The US Space Development Agency is planning to deploy 144 transport layer satellites and 28 tracking satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO) by 2024 to detect mane…

Five presidents from both political parties oversaw the two decade debacle in Afghanistan that ended in the national humiliation at the end of August 2021 at the airport in Kabul where we retreated under fire following a negotiated surrender - leaving up to a thousand Americans behind and untold thousands of Afghan nationals who fought with us to their fate as the Taliban returned to the power we took from them in 2001. People in the executive branch, Department of Defense, Department of State, Congress, media, and the well credentialed chatterati said they were "shocked," "surprised," and otherwise unprepared for what unfolded. Should they have been, or was this the inev…

What is duty, duty to yourself, those who work for you, your mission, those who gave you your mission, and the purpose the mission was created? How do you rack and stack these priorities? Once again, my mind went to the story of T.E. Lawrence; The next morning, 23 May, the party left Khabra` Abu Ajaj and rode northeast by north to a group of wells of `Arfajah, whereby they aimed at entering the lower Wadi Sirhan, passing over a vast, flat, empty, no-man’s land which was called Bisayt [Biseita] meaning a carpet. In the evening they came to the top of a sand ridge named Ja`ala [Jaala] and slept there peacefully. According to the maps to be mentioned later, this is exactly …

A few quick items of good news where we have some strong messaging coming out. First a report of SECNAV making the right stand against a weak organization;China’s increasingly muscular efforts to isolate Taiwan internationally have paid off in Washington after a foreign naval association caved in to Chinese pressure and reversed course on letting Taiwanese officers join the group. Several people familiar with the dispute said the Washington-based Naval Attachés Association rescinded an invitation for Taiwan to join the group, which includes officers from American allies, after China strongly objected.What did SECNAV Del Toro do?The US navy has banned officers from attendi…

Americas A US Navy MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter made a crash landing in coastal Virginia. The incident took place shortly before 11:30 am on January 12. Virginia State Police said the aircraft hit several trees on the way down. The MH-60S was assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 26, based out of Naval Station Norfolk, roughly 30 miles southeast of Smithfield. Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Ingalls Shipbuilding division achieved the Aegis light-off milestone on the US Navy’s first Flight III Arleigh Burke Class guided missile destroyer Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125). The Flight III upgrade incorporates a number of design modifications that collectively provide signif…

Americas The Pentagon has assigned BAE Systems to produce and install a new airborne high frequency radio to replace the AN/ARC-190 on various types of aircraft. The press release says approximately 2,500 radios will be installed on Air Force’s HC-130J, KC-135, C-130H, C-130J, C-17, C-5, B-1, B-52, and E4-B, as well as the Navy’s E6-B, the Marine Corps’ KC-130J, and the Coast Guard’s C-130 and C-130J. BAE Systems will be tasked to install 2,000 radios. The US Army is moving a step towards developing a new wheeled 155 mm howitzer and is asking companies to participate in a multi-year assessment that could lead to the design of a new weapon system. The US Army Contracting …

Any nation facing the Russians and are facing great odds usually look at two modern wars - the Polish-Soviet War of 1918-1921 and the Winter War of 1939 when plucky Finland held their own against the Soviet Union. Are there things Ukraine can learn from the Winter War? Over at USNIBlog, I think there is ... but it isn't tactical. Come on by and give it a read. 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=B3j6hXig1P8:GX0Q93banng:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=B3j6hXig1P8:GX0Q93banng:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/…

Both the Freedom and Independence Class LCS have been - if we are to be polite - suboptimal in both utility and performance. We've documented that for the better part of 17-years and that record is all available at the LCS tag, so no need to rehash the whole sordid thing again. Well ... maybe just a little bit. Of course we should have adopted Plan Salamander as outlined over 11-yrs ago, but we have what we have. Smart people with hard jobs given enough Sailor sweat and seabags of cash have managed to get the Independence Class to contribute to the presence mission in WESTPAC, but as outlined in Megan Eckstein's latest at Defense News, Freedom remains the more troublesome…

Americas United States Force in South Korea, is being outfitted with newest AH-64 Version 6 (V6) helicopter. “The upgraded aircraft integrates modern technology for both the aviator and maintainers in our battalion,” Capt. Timothy Luchs, D Company commander, said. “For our maintainers, the new systems onboard allows them better diagnostic capability and decreases the downtime of the aircraft. While for the aviator, AH-64E provides an overall increased situational awareness with an upgraded sensor suite, level 4 manned-unmanned teaming, and an upgraded drive system which is a vast improvement over the Delta variant of the model.” The US Air Force is passing targeting info…

Americas Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Ingalls Shipbuilding division launched the amphibious transport dock Richard M. McCool Jr. (LPD 29) being built for the US Navy. Richard M. McCool Jr., the 13th LPD in the San Antonio class of amphibious assault force ships, will support US amphibious assault, special operations and expeditionary warfare missions through the first half of the 21st century. The Argentinian Ministry of Defense has approved the purchase of two Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopters for the Argentinian Navy. The Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King (company designation S-61) is an American twin-engined anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopter designed and built by …

Thought I would start out this week doing what I forgot to do last week - review the top posts from 2021. I looked over the unique visits at both the OG home at blogspot and the parallel universe over at substack (so places where readers' IT managers block blogger.com can see it) and this is what seemed to get the most interest via sharing and being picked up by large follower accounts. What does this tell us? I'm not sure, but I think it reflects a larger concern and feeling many people have that those we have trusted with the stewardship of our nation's military are not doing a good job. That and everyone is still fascinated by the Japanese Navy. What will 2022 be most …

Americas Bell Boeing won a $1.6 billion deal for the repair, replacement, required availability, configuration management, and inventory management for supply support for 228 MV-22B (Marine); CMV-22 (Navy); and CV-22 (Air Force) Osprey aircraft components. The V-22 Osprey is a family of multi-mission, tiltrotor military aircraft with both vertical as well as short takeoff and landing capabilities. It is designed to combine the functionality of a conventional helicopter with the long-range, high-speed cruise performance of a turboprop aircraft. Work will take place e in Texas and Pennsylvania. Estimated completion will be by December 2026. Peraton Inc., a company that pro…

We're going to kick out Midrats' 13th year with someone who has been with us from the start, best friend to the show Dr. Claude Berube! If you care about American history in general, and US Navy history in particular, you won't want to miss a minute of this Sunday's show. Claude will be with us for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss his latest and 4th non-fiction book, On Wide Seas: The US Navy in the Jacksonian Era, just released by University of Alabama Press. Claude earned his PhD in Military History from the King's College, London and holds two master's from Northeastern and the Naval War College. In his 30-year career, he has worked as a defense …