Raw Intel

Americas Two F-15EXs that were delivered to the US Air Force have carried out the first operational test mission at Nellis Air Force Base. The evaluation involved F-15Cs and F-15Es as well. Running from October 18-25, the pilots were also evaluating the Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System while there. German company Rheinmetall will export a Lynx Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) Test Chassis to the United States of America from its factory in Redbank Queensland. The Lynx vehicle export order will be delivered to Rheinmetall in the United States supporting the business’s worldwide activities currently underway in the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle competi…

Americas Boeing won a $1.7 billion contract modification for Lot Six production of KC-46 aircraft, subscriptions and licenses, and G081 flat file. The contract modification provides for the exercise of an option for an additional quantity of 12 KC-46 aircraft, data, subscriptions and licenses, and G081 flat file being produced under the basic contract. According to Boeing, this is the sixth production lot of the tankers and is designed to bring new capabilities and operational flexibility to the Air Force and other customers. The KC-46 is a multirole tanker, designed to refuel allied and coalition military aircraft compatible with international aerial refueling procedures…

From a historical and military planning point of view, it is hard to understate the sea change this represents not just for NATO but for the nations’ involved. Finland will launch an immediate debate on joining NATO, Finnish officials said on Wednesday, as the country reconsiders its longtime stance outside the Western military alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Prime Minister Sanna Marin said that a decision would be made in coming weeks. “There are different perspectives to apply (for) NATO membership or not to apply and we have to analyze these very carefully,” she said at a news conference in Stockholm, according to Reuters. “But I think our process wil…

Americas Huntington Ingalls won a 41.7 million contract modification to exercise options for accomplishment of follow yard services for the DDG 51 Class destroyer program. The DDG 51 class guided missile destroyers are warships that provide multi-mission offensive and defensive capabilities. Destroyers can operate independently or as part of Carrier Strike Groups, Surface Action Groups, and Expeditionary Strike Groups. Work under the modification will take place in Mississippi, Washington DC and Maine. Estimated completion will be by April 2023. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics won a $23 million deal, which provides initial product support maintenance of the F-35 Lightning II…

Americas Northrop Grumman won a $15 million contract modification, which provides additional labor and material to incorporate production engineering change proposals that modify MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system production assets to an Integrated Functional Capability 4.0 multiple intelligence configuration for the Navy and the government of Australia. Work will take place in California, New York, North Dakotaand various locations within the continental. Expected completion will be in April 2025 The Air Force contracted Lockheed Martin with $450 million for Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) production support. The contract will provide lifecycle support …

Americas General Atomics won a $65.5 million order, which provides for the procurement, transportation, and installation of Ground Control Stations (GCSs), materials, support equipment, as well as associated training, engineering, non-recurring engineering, and integrated logistics support. Additionally, this order procures 18 mission kits, spares, ground support equipment, and communications gear for site setup in support of the operational capability of the Marine Air Ground Task Force Unmanned Aircraft System Expeditionary Medium Altitude Long Endurance MQ-9A Block 5 Reaper air vehicles and GCSs for the Navy. Work will take place in California. Expected completion will…

The legal system works at the speed of smell, but we are getting closer to what may be one of the most important civil rights cases to come in front of the Supreme Court in the last half century. There are new readers coming to CDRSalamander every day, so once again let me set the foundation. The cornerstones are rather simple but essential for our wondrously polyglot experimental republic to survive; persons deserve to be judged as individuals; individuals deserve equal opportunity; people deserve to be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin; no favor should be given to nor ill-favor placed on any person based on something they can do nothi…

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…

It is time to see what a few years of pressure on NATO nations to do better has done. There is good news, but also some storms on the horizon. I have graphs and pretty pictures over at USNIBlog. Come on by and see where your favorite NATO nation lies on Salamander's Grid. 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=BiWnsToqOIQ:GaAiY97Q4AA:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=BiWnsToqOIQ:GaAiY97Q4AA:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=BiWnsToqOIQ:GaAiY97Q4AA:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f…

Americas Boeing won a $13.6 million contract modification, which exercises an option to perform 24 modifications in support of the Increment Three Block One retrofit as well as the procurement, manufacture and assembly of 25 additional retrofit kits supporting engineering change five for existing P8-A Poseidon aircraft. The P-8A Poseidon is the US Navy’s maritime patrol aircraft. It is capable of broad-area, maritime and littoral operations, and is also successful at search and rescue. Work will take place in Washington. Expected completion date is in December 2023. An annual air exercise between South Korea and the United States kicked off secretly on November 1. The ex…

The last year has seen a growing bi-partisan consensus that the United States and the People's Republic of China are in competition to set the global order for the next century. After a year to firmly set in the minds of national security leaders on both sides of the aisle, we find ourselves at a moment when Congress and the Executive branch of government are both in the mood to strengthen our nation and expand job opportunities by opening the door for more spending. Why haven't we seen the logical connection between the two? To explain the importance of this moment in time is returning guest poster, Bryan McGrath. Bryan, over to you. In a speech in Pittsburgh Wed…

Americas Boeing won an $8 million modification, which exercises an option to provide cyber security services to support the physical security of the P-8 aircrew trainers and facilities, including cyber scanning and remediation, cyber security updates, and scheduled and unscheduled maintenance for the Navy. Work will take place in Missouri and California. Estimated completion will be in September 2023. Lockheed Martin is working with the US Department of Defense (DoD) to lift a delivery pause of F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) combat aircraft following the recent discovery of material from China. The F-35 program office has assessed that the Chinese alloy doe…

We should savor the victories when they come our way. Elections matter, and the average American does not want to have sectarianism, division, and hate injected in to their children using their money. As we've said here for 18-years, those promoting division based on race, creed, color, and other immutable characteristics have no place in a diverse 21st Century Republic. Elections mean things because for some reason, it can be hard to find leaders with the moral courage to do the right thing. Governor DeSantis on Tuesday announced a legislative proposal to eliminate programs, courses, and bureaucracies dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and critical rac…

How many ships can a US Army division afford to lose when crossing the Pacific? You know, the ships that will carry their equipment and munitions? Have we thought this through? I'm pondering over at USNIBlog. Come on over 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=QDpqhuD2OL0:cOjkkhf0Eiw:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=QDpqhuD2OL0:cOjkkhf0Eiw:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=QDpqhuD2OL0:cOjkkhf0Eiw:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=QDpqhuD2OL0…

One of the things that will get my eye twitching faster than about anything else is when someone responds to a question or concern with a, "Well, in our wargames ... " Bullshit. That may work for civilians or under-briefed lawmakers who lack the depth in military matters, but anyone who has run or been part of a wargame knows that you can design one to give you the outcomes you want. Planning assumptions etc ... it is all flexible. Wargames, done right, don't tell you the future, but they do help inform gaps in your OPLAN, thinking, or expectations of the enemy ... and shortfalls you might have. At the POLMIL level - where our most senior uniformed and civilian leaders l…

Americas An F-35B fighter assigned to US Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 (VMFAT-501) has crashed north of North Charleston. The mishap aircraft was part of a two-ship flight that took off from MCAS Beaufort. The second F-35B landed safely at Joint Base Charleston. Officials are now trying to find the F-35B that went down […]View the full article

Peace is the ultimate goal and is a wonderful thing – but what makes it so special is that peace is not the natural state of things for our species. If you are lucky, you might get a couple of decades of peace before the next conflict of significance. More than that is a blessing few get to enjoy. That is the human benefit of peace, but peace also has a heavy price. As eventually wars come, nations have to be ready for them. From the time the first band of men walked in to your valley, you heard the horses of the steppe archers in the distance, or the tank rumbled through your local gas station – war comes and demands you join it immediately. You go to war with the peopl…

After an absolutely dreadful decade long record failure of the most basic of all naval requirements - corrosion control - could our long navalist nightmare (at least this one) be coming to an end? As in most things, ignore the excuses and emotional responses (some of the worst, by serving naval officers of all things was, "It is just a sign of how hard we are working." - as if no navy ever worked harder than the <checks news feed> US Navy at peace) - watch what naval leadership is saying, and look with your own eyes at what you see. An interesting story from Mike Glenn over at The Washington Times this weekend is worth your time to read. It quotes some of our favori…

The long march through the institutions by the diversity commissariat may be shocking for those who just look at DOD, but if you really want a peek in to how bad it is, look around. Today, I would offer to you the foreign service sector. Think about all critical challenges facing our foreign service from Central Asia, to Europe, to the western Pacific, to Africa, to the Middle East ... and then look what they are spending their time on. Check out the July/August edition of The Foreign Service Journal. You can get the PDF here, but here are the critical issues our diplomats must focus on; - Asian Americans Can No Longer Be Silent, and Neither Should You: Generation…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $1.4 billion deal from the US Air Force for the C-130J mission sustainment support effort. This contract provides for contractor logistics support and sustainment of the C-130J aircraft fleet. The C-130J is equipped with a Honeywell dual-embedded global positioning system/inertial navigation system (GPS/INS), an enhanced traffic alerting and collision avoidance system (E-TCAS), a ground collision avoidance system, SKE2000 station keeping system, and an instrument landing system (ILS). Work will take place in Georgia. Expected completion date is January 31, 2032. General Dynamics won a $20 million contract modification to support Virginia an…