HG S2 (Intel Bot)

Americas General Dynamics won a $26 million contract modification for Abrams systems technical support. The M1 Abrams is a third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense and named for General Creighton Abrams. Work will take place in Michigan. Estimated completion date is September 30, 2025. Piedmont Propulsion won an $11.6 million deal for maintenance and overhaul of the UH-60 Helicopter rotor hub. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter is the US Army’s primary medium-lift utility transport and air assault aircraft. It is a twin-engined medium-lift utility helicopter. Estimated completion date is August 26, 2027. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order. Middle East & Africa Following the recent visit of US Major General Todd Wasmund to Morocco, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has reported on a possible new arms sale to Rabat. Included in this current cooperation would be Morocco’s purchase of wireless tactical and ground control systems at an estimated cost of $141.1 million. Morocco has requested to buy six Multifunctional Information Distribution System Joint Tactical Radio Systems (MIDS-JTRS). Also included in the proposed deal are KY-100M Narrowband/Wideband Terminals; KIV-78 and KIV-77 Cryptographic Appliques; AN/PYQ-10 Simple Key Loader (SKL); additional secure communications, cryptographic devices, and precision navigation equipment as well as spares and training. Europe Dollars will start flowing toward Poland’s long-planned purchase of tanks, as the US Army taps General Dynamics Land Systems to make 250 Abrams in the newest configuration, the company announced. The $1.148 billion contract — awarded in late July, according to the Army — will get Poland new features in communications, firepower and armor for its future Abrams fleet, per an Aug. 25 company statement. Asia-Pacific Australia’s attempt to replace the troubled MRH90 Taipan helicopter with the UH-60M has taken another step forward after the US government approved the potential Foreign Military Sale on August 25. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in Transmittal No 22-51 that the proposed sale “will replace Australia’s current multi-role helicopter fleet with a more reliable and proven system.” In its justification to buy the UH-60M to replace the MRH90, former Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said last year that the “performance of the MRH90 Taipan has been an ongoing and well-documented concern for Defence and there has been a significant effort at great expense to try to remediate those issues.” Collins Aerospace has successfully completed the first flight test of a new variant of its MS-110 Multispectral Airborne Reconnaissance system. The press release says the test was carried for an undisclosed international customer, which could be Taiwan. The island had announced last year that it procure six MS-110 reconnaissance pods for its F-16 fleet. Today’s Video WATCH: 10 Facts about New Gigantic $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier Make It Indispensable View the full article

The India/Burma theater is mostly forgotten by those who study WWII. In a quick skim, many will at least read a bit about Imphal ... but what about the Battle of Kohima? Here's just a brief taste ... read the whole thing and the links to more detail. What an incredible battle by a combined force. First posted in March of 2017. View the full article

"What fresh he11 hath Sal brought this week?" you ask almost every Thursday. Oh my dear, sweet summer child ... there is always a fresh he11 on this septic isle of a topic. There are Collateral Duties ... and then there are Collateral Duties. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy - just imagine being "that guy." Almost as bad are having to sit and listen to "that guy." While you are reading the below pull quotes - actually you should read the whole "Solicitation: Become a Certified Diversity and Inclusion Change Agent" article - I want you to ponder the hours and money invested Coast Guard wide to do this. It isn't like the USCG cadre is big and overmanned (if one is still allowed to use this term)...but the USCG must feed Vaal, I guess; A group of certified Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) change agents are currently operating throughout the Coast Guard, and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (CG-127) is looking for more folks to join the team. Wonderful ... these guys again. Oh yeah ... "Change Agent." Always fun to ask these people, "Oh, you're a Change Agent. You would like to change from what to what? Details please." Afterwards, pray for their souls. During group training sessions, change agents expand people’s understanding of what diversity, inclusion, and equity mean by demystifying concepts such as privilege, oppression, identity, and intersectionality. They also coach leaders on embodying inclusive, aware, and empowering behaviors, and create safe spaces to discuss topics of race, ethnicity, class, gender, disability, and more. Drah di ned um, oh, oh, oh, Schau, schau, der Kommissar geht um, oh, oh, oh. You should laugh along with me because we told everyone starting over a decade and a half ago that all these quaint fevers from academia - once loosed and unopposed in the uniformed services - would metastasize and manifest themselves as the supported, not the supporting effort. “By having these important, complex conversations, a supportive, respectful work environment is fostered, which leads to higher performance and wellness,” said Hope Balamani, chief of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (CG-127). “Teams with high-levels of trust are correlated with greater ability to understand, plan, program, and fulfill mission requirements, even in the face of emerging threats. Trust is developed in empowering environments where people truly feel they belong and change agents can help grow these empowering environments,” Balamani said. Never in human history has trust been improved by dividing people in to competing sectarian groups based on characteristics the individuals can do nothing about, then explaining to them that they are in conflict, and that there will by rewards and preferences given out - along with punishments - based on self-identified membership in these waring sectarian groups. Change agents are a cornerstone of the Diversity and Inclusion Education and Awareness Program (DIEAP). After completing a six-month program, these agents provide diversity and inclusion (D&I) training sessions to members at the unit level as well as one-on-one coaching services to commanding officers, officers-in-charge, and program managers. Two pages. Even the Red Guards blush in admiration at this effort in self-criticism and professed admiration for The Party's Platform. The new cohort of change agents must participate in ten days of training; successfully demonstrate D&I training facilitation and a DIEAP service elevator pitch, and complete a six-month, mostly self-paced practicum that includes six mentor coaching hours, 16 peer coaching hours, nine virtual labs, and a writing assignment (500-word reflective essay). Six months. OK Shipmate, how many hours is this taking away from your assigned billet's responsibilities? Who is doing your work for you? If no one is, then is your command over-staffed? Can we get some savings then? Time for a manpower review? I think so. D&I Change Agent collateral duty assignment performance expectations include the following: Facilitate D&I Training Sessions (at minimum four sessions per calendar year). Conduct D&I Empowerment Coaching sessions (at minimum three sessions per calendar year). Support activities for unit leaders and LDACs (upon request). Review, be familiar with, and comply with all published guidance from Office of Diversity and Inclusion (CG-127) and the DIEAP. Complete reports and course evaluations requested by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (CG-127) and DIEAP. Now, take the collective workhours throughout the USCG from each change agent's duties at each of their commands, not just the change agent, but everyone who has to participate in these activities. Put a dollar figure on that. Better yet, make the USCG put a dollar figure on that. Oh, and show your work. View the full article

Americas Dyncorp International won a $30.3 million modification, which exercises an option to extend services to provide continued organizational level aircraft maintenance and logistics support for aircrew systems and subsystems, search and rescue equipment, and support equipment for the P-3 Orion, C-130 Hercules, F/A-18 Hornet, E/A-18 Growler, AV-8B Harrier II, H-60 Seahawk, and E-2D Hawkeye aircraft in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) Naval Test Wing Pacific. Work will take place in California, Hawaii, Florida, New Mexico and Maryland. Estimated completion will be in April 2023. A recent US Army Futures Command live-flight demonstration of a solar-powered, stratospheric unmanned aerial system (UAS) could play into service-led efforts to extend intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as enable new long-range, beyond-line-of-sight communications programmes. Officials from the command’s Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing/Space (APNT/Space) Cross-Functional Team conductedan over two-month flight test of the Airbus-built Zephyr 8 ultra-long-endurance UAS, launched from the service’s Yuma Proving Ground experimentation facility in Arizona. Middle East & Africa The Iranian army launched a major nation-wide, two-day drone drill on Wednesday morning, using nearly 150 drones of various types, and including all four army branches as well as the Iranian air force. “These joint drills of the drones at the level of the four forces of the army and the joint air defense headquarters will take place for the first time, in the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, from the south to the east, west, north and center of the country,” Rear Admiral Habibullah Sayyari, the Coordinating Assistant to the Commander of the Iranian Army, was quoted in the Tehran Times. Europe Britain is to supply a further package of weapons to Ukraine, including target-spotting micro-drones, outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced during a surprise visit to Kyiv. Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24 saw Johnson reveal the planned delivery of unmanned surveillance systems, anti-tank loitering missiles and other equipment, adding to a long list of weapons contributed by the British government since Russia invaded its neighbor six months ago. Asia-Pacific South Korea scrambled F-16s after Russian Tu-95 bombers entered the Korea Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ) on August 23. Although South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) did not identify the type and number of aircraft, Russia’s Sputnik confirmed it was the Tu-95 and the planes flew over the Sea of Japan. An improved version of the Cai Hong 4 (Rainbow 4, or CH-4) armed reconnaissance medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (MALE UAV) equipped with an indigenously manufactured heavy fuel engine (HFE) has completed its maiden flight, its manufacturer China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced. According to company specifications, the Lark HFE is a liquid-cooled engine with a dry weight of 98kg and includes features such as a high-pressure common-rail (HPCR) fuel system, full-authority digital electronic control (FADEC), and a mean time before overhaul rating of 2,000 hours. Today’s Video WATCH: The world record go-getters – Zephyr Solar powered UAS View the full article

Americas Oshkosh Defense won a $22.6 million deal to exercise available options to support the fielding of Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, packaged and installed kits, and trailers. Work will take place in Wisconsin. Estimated completion date is September 30, 2024. The US Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, is the contracting activity. The Chilean Air Force has inducted into service two Boeing E-3D Sentry airborne early warning Mk 1 (AEW1) aircraft from the UK Royal Air Force. The two operational Airborne Warning And Control System (AWACS) aircraft were acquired along with a third aircraft to be used for spares, earlier in 2022. Middle East & Africa The US Coast Guard has received its last two of six Sentinel-class fast response cutters (FRC), rounding out the 5th Fleet stationed in Bahrain. The latest vessels were commissioned as USCGC John Scheuerman (WPC 1146) and USCGC Clarence Sutphin Jr. (WPC 1147) in February and April 2022. Each vessel measures 154 feet (47 meters) and is equipped with improved surveillance, advanced communication systems, and reconnaissance equipment. Europe Germany will supply legacy Leopard 2 tanks to Slovakia in exchange for that country sending Soviet-era fighting vehicles to Ukraine’s aid, the Defense Ministry in Berlin announced. The deal is one of several “ring swaps,” as German defense officials call them, in the making with Eastern European governments since the spring, following Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. Slovakian and German officials signed an agreement August 23 approving the delivery of 15 Leopard 2 tanks in the A4 configuration to Bratislava. The US will provide Ukraine with new air defense systems, counter-drone systems, radars, artillery systems and munitions as part of a $2.98 billion package US President Joe Biden announced Wednesday. The defense materiel falls under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the Pentagon to contract with industry for it, apart from billions in equipment it has sent Ukraine from its stockpiles. It’s the single largest tranche since Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine six months ago. Asia-Pacific USFI Inc. won a maximum 320 million contract for full-line food distribution. Location of performance is Korea. August 23, 2027 is the ordering period end date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2022 through 2027 defense working capital funds. The contracting agency is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Today’s Video WATCH: Chile receives two donated E-3D Sentry planes from the UK View the full article

British E-3 Sentry (click to view full) Britain’s E-3D Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) is based on Boeing’s 707 family, and its ability to see and direct air operations within hundreds of miles provides vital strategic support. Since its introduction in 1992, the RAF’s fleet of 7 E-3s has been used in every major UK military operation, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. That availability depends on effective maintenance, and the UK MoD has a new approach. It’s meant to give them more flyable planes, while costing less money. The new Sentry Whole Life Support Program (WLSP) began in August 2005, when Northrop Grumman won a 20-year, GBP 665 million (then $1.2 billion) contract. Under that contract, NGC’s team is providing aircraft maintenance and design-engineering support services through 2025, in order to improve availability and reduce overall ownership costs. As is typical of recent British contracts, the government has chosen a public-private partnership founded on an unusual military combination: fixed base costs, and guaranteed time in-service percentages for the planes. The Contract & Industry Team RAF E-3, side (click to view full) Northrop Grumman was selected as the Preferred Bidder by the UK Ministry of Defence in July 2004, and deal was concluded just over a year later, in August 2005. The contract is a fixed-price contract for the first 5 years, and the remaining 15 years of the contract are a target-cost incentive-fee structure that shares any savings below the targeted cost. The contract is fully funded for the entire 20-year term, and when it was signed, the participants believed that the Sentry Whole Life Support Programme would reduce the cost of supporting Britain’s E-3s by 12-20% over its 20-year run. There was some basis for that optimism, as the BAE Systems CS&S’ GBP 75 million NISC (Nimrod Integrated Support Contract), availability of the Nimrod MR2 fleet was up by 40%, while support costs were down by 8%. The Minister for Defence Procurement at the time, Lord Drayson, said that: “Effectively the new contract will halve the number of aircraft in the support hangar… This contract is also good news for the British taxpayer as it will reduce the cost of supporting Sentry by over 12% – saving GBP 90 million – whilst creating over 50 jobs here in Lincolnshire.” Industry Team These kinds of contracts need a close partnership between the Ministry of Defence and the industry team, especially for an essential platform like the E-3, which ranges far and wide. Most of the jobs supported will be at Northrop Grumman, but not all. This innovative fleet availability contract makes Northrop Grumman responsible for all aircraft scheduled maintenance including the provision of spares world-wide, design authority services and management of the aircraft structural integrity work, technical publications and a training service for all Sentry maintenance personnel. Northrop Grumman also provides the radar and in-service support for the E-3D’s radar, and is the systems integrator for the replacement mission system. To accomplish these goals, and meet mission targets, NGC is drawing on its experience with the US Air Force’s Total System Support Responsibility Program for their 707-based E-8C Joint STARS ground surveillance aircraft’s . NGC’s Integrated Systems sector has engineering-support responsibility and design authority for the Sentry Whole Life Support Programme. Their Electronic Systems sector will provide radar expertise, while their Space Technology sector contributes sophisticated, interactive, electronic technical manuals and support. British companies BAE Systems and FR Aviation in Bournemouth, plus the UK division of AAR Corp. based in Mitcham, will operate as sub-contractors, and create over 50 jobs based at RAF Waddington. BAE Systems share of the total contract is expected to be worth close to GBP 100 million (USD $178.7 million) over the life of the program. Their role will be to provide depth maintenance, ground maintenance training and on-line technical information. Within the contract, BAE Systems is also responsible for the construction of a new hangar annex within the grounds of RAF Waddington, which is being built to co-locate the 150 person service team. BAE Systems Customer Solutions & Support (CS&S) military air business will be applying the experience from their Nimrod MR2 maritime surveillance aircraft and VC-10 transport/tanker integrated support contracts. Technical information will be delivered through the CS&S Integrated Asset Management (IAM) service, which is also being used for Nimrod MR2 and Tornado fighter support and upgrade contracts. The IAM service uses CS&S’s trilogiView technical browser, which has already been chosen for 26 other UK MOD programmes, and by Lockheed Martin for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. FR Aviation Services, a subsidiary of Cobham plc’s Flight Operations and Services Group, will be the maintenance provider on E-3D under a partnering agreement with CS&S. This latter agreement is based on the relationship that FR Aviation Services and CS&S developed while supporting the Nimrod fleet at RAF Kinloss. UK E-3D RAF E-3 (click to view full) August 25/22: Chile The Chilean Air Force has inducted into service two Boeing E-3D Sentry airborne early warning Mk 1 (AEW1) aircraft from the UK Royal Air Force. The two operational Airborne Warning And Control System (AWACS) aircraft were acquired along with a third aircraft to be used for spares, earlier in 2022. May 2/14: IFF. Northrop Grumman announces that they’ve added Mode S to the E-3D fleet’s Identification Friend or Foe system, as part of the WSLP (q.v. Nov 12/10). Mode S is a civil signal that assigns each plane its own individual “squawk”. The ICAO has certain requirements for flying in civil airspace (a.k.a. “controlled airspace”), and Northrop Grumman had to figure out how to improve the onboard avionics without a complete mission computer replacement. It took a little while, but it’s done now. Sources: NGC, “Northrop Grumman Delivers Mode S Upgrade for the UK’s Sentry E-3D AWACS Mission System”. June 2/13: Avionics. Northrop Grumman announces a 3-year, $17 million contract to design, develop, integrate, test and support a Fuel Quantity Indicator System (FQIS) on the RAF’s E-3Ds, as a task within the WLSP umbrella contract. Group Capt. Adam Northcote-Wright describes this as “a significant safety enhancement,” and the release reads like a new system. That’s not the case. We talked to Northrop Grumman about this, and they confirmed that this is an upgrade to existing fuel gauge systems. Work will be carried out at RAF Waddington, UK, as well as at Northrop Grumman’s US facilities in Herndon, VA, and Melbourne, FL. NGC. April 25/12: Oked. All of Britain’s E-3Ds are cleared to fly again. Presumably, the structural cracks were repaired, and no others were found. Defence Management. April 19/12: Cracked up. The RAF has suspended E-3D flights unless they’re essential, after technicians found cracks in 2 planes where the structure supports the rotating radar. Technically, this only involves “non-operational routine flying,” and the rest of the fleet appears to be free of the fault. Caution is best when dealing with old planes, however, and there’s no planned date yet for resumption of routine flying. Conversations with Northrop Grumman are surely part of those decisions. Defence Management | Flight International | The Sun. Partial flight suspension Feb 21/12: Repaired in USA. Northrop Grumman finishes repairs to a U.K. E-3D’s cracked wing spar, which was fixed in the USA at the company’s Lake Charles Maintenance and Modification Center. That’s a first for the UK E-3 fleet, but that facility had a lot of experience with similar issues among the USA’s E-8Cs, and delivered the fix ahead of schedule. Northrop Grumman. Nov 12/10: IFF upgrade. Northrop Grumman announces a 3-year, $64 million contract modification to design and develop the Mode S upgrade to the identification friend or foe interrogator system for the Royal Air Force’s Sentry E-3D AWACs aircraft. The contract modification was awarded under Northrop Grumman’s Sentry E-3D Whole Life Support Programme. Northrop Grumman said that this is the largest modification it has carried out to date for the Sentry aircraft fleet. The work will be performed at RAF Waddington, UK, as well as at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Herndon, VA; Warner Robins, GA; and Melbourne, FL. Sept 16/09: Tough fix. The E-2D damaged in a December 2007 accident is ready to return to the fleet – but the GBP 3.5 million repair wasn’t easy. Keith Monslow, the Joint Sentry Support team’s operations manager, says in the UK MoD’s Desider article: “It was the worst possible place to strike the aircraft – in the fuel gallery. The whole area was covered in fuel, which soaked right the way through to the lower lobe, contaminating the electrics. Opening up the aircraft to inspect the damage just made it worse. Fuel covered all the electrical areas. And some of the items needed in the repair aren’t even made any more so we knew we would be hunting all over the world for places to fabricate them.” Sentry ZH106 required complete gutting of its electrical systems, 25 miles/ 40 km of new cabling, and around 2,200 new parts, all of which had to be performed with very careful attention to the aircraft’s balance as items were inserted and removed. There was also a bit of help from a nearby earthquake, which actually solved an ongoing problem with the aircraft. UK MoD. Oct 22/08: ADRS update. Northrop Grumman announces a 3-year, $16 million contract modification to develop and install a replacement accident data recording system (ADRS) for the Sentry E-3D AWACS aircraft based at RAF Waddington. The contract modification was awarded under the company’s Sentry E-3D Whole Life Support Programme. The company will remove the existing ADRS and replace it with a solid state ADRS and will update the aircraft and training manuals and perform overall management and system engineering for the new ADRS. The ADRS includes a new aircraft data and cockpit voice recording unit, a backup cockpit voice recording unit and an emergency locator transmitter unit for each aircraft. In addition, an accident investigation kit and ground replay stations will be provided. T he work will be carried out at RAF Waddington, UK, as well as at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Herndon, VA; Warner Robins, GA; and Melbourne, FL. Aug 1/08: Flight International reports that the Royal Air Force has decided against mothballing 2 of its 7 E-3D Sentry AWACS planes, and will instead look to cut costs and hours flown by reducing the number of aircrews assigned to the type. The RAF reportedly decided that mothballing the aircraft was a more expensive option in the long run. The UK MoD is also considering an upgrade to the aircrafts’ computers, displays, and mission system, using open-architecture electronics bought off the shelf. The upgrades would be an additional budget item, but one of the ancillary benefits would be slightly lower through-life support costs. Dec 21/07: Windy! So, what happens when unanticipated repair expenses hit the fleet? A pair of E-3Ds were apparently damaged when ground equipment items were not sufficiently secured, and high winds reportedly sent them crashing into an E-3D on the tarmac. A second aircraft reportedly received a glancing blow. Now Northrop Grumman Corporation has announced a contract from the UK Ministry of Defence’s Sentry Integrated Project Team for the repairs. The NGC release refers to a contract issued under the existing Sentry E-3D Whole Life Support Programme (WLSP), though the contract itself sounds like a contract modification within the existing program. The repair will involve the replacement of 4 aircraft frame structural elements, which were crushed, and a major aircraft skin. In addition, a fuel system gallery and main electrical distribution panel were damaged. “[Northrop Grumman’s team] will deliver to challenging time, performance and cost targets, with the aircraft due to be returned to service with the RAF in November 2008… The structural aspects of the repair and the electrical elements represent a considerable challenge, primarily due to the lack of availability of structural and other components that will necessitate significant manufacturing effort.” Aug 11/05: Contract. The GBP 665 million deal is announced. It’s a fixed-price contract for the first 5 years, and the remaining 15 years of the contract are a target-cost incentive-fee structure that shares any savings below the targeted cost. The contract is fully funded for the entire 20-year term, and when it was signed, the participants believed that the Sentry Whole Life Support Programme would reduce the cost of supporting Britain’s E-3s by 12-20% over its 20-year run. UK’s Defence Logistics Organisation | Northrop Grumman | BAE Systems. WLSP contract View the full article

British E-3 Sentry (click to view full) Britain’s E-3D Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) is based on Boeing’s 707 family, and its ability to see and direct air operations within hundreds of miles provides vital strategic support. Since its introduction in 1992, the RAF’s fleet of 7 E-3s has been used in every major UK military operation, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. That availability depends on effective maintenance, and the UK MoD has a new approach. It’s meant to give them more flyable planes, while costing less money. The new Sentry Whole Life Support Program (WLSP) began in August 2005, when Northrop Grumman won a 20-year, GBP 665 million (then $1.2 billion) contract. Under that contract, NGC’s team is providing aircraft maintenance and design-engineering support services through 2025, in order to improve availability and reduce overall ownership costs. As is typical of recent British contracts, the government has chosen a public-private partnership founded on an unusual military combination: fixed base costs, and guaranteed time in-service percentages for the planes. The Contract & Industry Team RAF E-3, side (click to view full) Northrop Grumman was selected as the Preferred Bidder by the UK Ministry of Defence in July 2004, and deal was concluded just over a year later, in August 2005. The contract is a fixed-price contract for the first 5 years, and the remaining 15 years of the contract are a target-cost incentive-fee structure that shares any savings below the targeted cost. The contract is fully funded for the entire 20-year term, and when it was signed, the participants believed that the Sentry Whole Life Support Programme would reduce the cost of supporting Britain’s E-3s by 12-20% over its 20-year run. There was some basis for that optimism, as the BAE Systems CS&S’ GBP 75 million NISC (Nimrod Integrated Support Contract), availability of the Nimrod MR2 fleet was up by 40%, while support costs were down by 8%. The Minister for Defence Procurement at the time, Lord Drayson, said that: “Effectively the new contract will halve the number of aircraft in the support hangar… This contract is also good news for the British taxpayer as it will reduce the cost of supporting Sentry by over 12% – saving GBP 90 million – whilst creating over 50 jobs here in Lincolnshire.” Industry Team These kinds of contracts need a close partnership between the Ministry of Defence and the industry team, especially for an essential platform like the E-3, which ranges far and wide. Most of the jobs supported will be at Northrop Grumman, but not all. This innovative fleet availability contract makes Northrop Grumman responsible for all aircraft scheduled maintenance including the provision of spares world-wide, design authority services and management of the aircraft structural integrity work, technical publications and a training service for all Sentry maintenance personnel. Northrop Grumman also provides the radar and in-service support for the E-3D’s radar, and is the systems integrator for the replacement mission system. To accomplish these goals, and meet mission targets, NGC is drawing on its experience with the US Air Force’s Total System Support Responsibility Program for their 707-based E-8C Joint STARS ground surveillance aircraft’s . NGC’s Integrated Systems sector has engineering-support responsibility and design authority for the Sentry Whole Life Support Programme. Their Electronic Systems sector will provide radar expertise, while their Space Technology sector contributes sophisticated, interactive, electronic technical manuals and support. British companies BAE Systems and FR Aviation in Bournemouth, plus the UK division of AAR Corp. based in Mitcham, will operate as sub-contractors, and create over 50 jobs based at RAF Waddington. BAE Systems share of the total contract is expected to be worth close to GBP 100 million (USD $178.7 million) over the life of the program. Their role will be to provide depth maintenance, ground maintenance training and on-line technical information. Within the contract, BAE Systems is also responsible for the construction of a new hangar annex within the grounds of RAF Waddington, which is being built to co-locate the 150 person service team. BAE Systems Customer Solutions & Support (CS&S) military air business will be applying the experience from their Nimrod MR2 maritime surveillance aircraft and VC-10 transport/tanker integrated support contracts. Technical information will be delivered through the CS&S Integrated Asset Management (IAM) service, which is also being used for Nimrod MR2 and Tornado fighter support and upgrade contracts. The IAM service uses CS&S’s trilogiView technical browser, which has already been chosen for 26 other UK MOD programmes, and by Lockheed Martin for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. FR Aviation Services, a subsidiary of Cobham plc’s Flight Operations and Services Group, will be the maintenance provider on E-3D under a partnering agreement with CS&S. This latter agreement is based on the relationship that FR Aviation Services and CS&S developed while supporting the Nimrod fleet at RAF Kinloss. UK E-3D RAF E-3 (click to view full) August 25/22: Chile The Chilean Air Force has inducted into service two Boeing E-3D Sentry airborne early warning Mk 1 (AEW1) aircraft from the UK Royal Air Force. The two operational Airborne Warning And Control System (AWACS) aircraft were acquired along with a third aircraft to be used for spares, earlier in 2022. May 2/14: IFF. Northrop Grumman announces that they’ve added Mode S to the E-3D fleet’s Identification Friend or Foe system, as part of the WSLP (q.v. Nov 12/10). Mode S is a civil signal that assigns each plane its own individual “squawk”. The ICAO has certain requirements for flying in civil airspace (a.k.a. “controlled airspace”), and Northrop Grumman had to figure out how to improve the onboard avionics without a complete mission computer replacement. It took a little while, but it’s done now. Sources: NGC, “Northrop Grumman Delivers Mode S Upgrade for the UK’s Sentry E-3D AWACS Mission System”. June 2/13: Avionics. Northrop Grumman announces a 3-year, $17 million contract to design, develop, integrate, test and support a Fuel Quantity Indicator System (FQIS) on the RAF’s E-3Ds, as a task within the WLSP umbrella contract. Group Capt. Adam Northcote-Wright describes this as “a significant safety enhancement,” and the release reads like a new system. That’s not the case. We talked to Northrop Grumman about this, and they confirmed that this is an upgrade to existing fuel gauge systems. Work will be carried out at RAF Waddington, UK, as well as at Northrop Grumman’s US facilities in Herndon, VA, and Melbourne, FL. NGC. April 25/12: Oked. All of Britain’s E-3Ds are cleared to fly again. Presumably, the structural cracks were repaired, and no others were found. Defence Management. April 19/12: Cracked up. The RAF has suspended E-3D flights unless they’re essential, after technicians found cracks in 2 planes where the structure supports the rotating radar. Technically, this only involves “non-operational routine flying,” and the rest of the fleet appears to be free of the fault. Caution is best when dealing with old planes, however, and there’s no planned date yet for resumption of routine flying. Conversations with Northrop Grumman are surely part of those decisions. Defence Management | Flight International | The Sun. Partial flight suspension Feb 21/12: Repaired in USA. Northrop Grumman finishes repairs to a U.K. E-3D’s cracked wing spar, which was fixed in the USA at the company’s Lake Charles Maintenance and Modification Center. That’s a first for the UK E-3 fleet, but that facility had a lot of experience with similar issues among the USA’s E-8Cs, and delivered the fix ahead of schedule. Northrop Grumman. Nov 12/10: IFF upgrade. Northrop Grumman announces a 3-year, $64 million contract modification to design and develop the Mode S upgrade to the identification friend or foe interrogator system for the Royal Air Force’s Sentry E-3D AWACs aircraft. The contract modification was awarded under Northrop Grumman’s Sentry E-3D Whole Life Support Programme. Northrop Grumman said that this is the largest modification it has carried out to date for the Sentry aircraft fleet. The work will be performed at RAF Waddington, UK, as well as at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Herndon, VA; Warner Robins, GA; and Melbourne, FL. Sept 16/09: Tough fix. The E-2D damaged in a December 2007 accident is ready to return to the fleet – but the GBP 3.5 million repair wasn’t easy. Keith Monslow, the Joint Sentry Support team’s operations manager, says in the UK MoD’s Desider article: “It was the worst possible place to strike the aircraft – in the fuel gallery. The whole area was covered in fuel, which soaked right the way through to the lower lobe, contaminating the electrics. Opening up the aircraft to inspect the damage just made it worse. Fuel covered all the electrical areas. And some of the items needed in the repair aren’t even made any more so we knew we would be hunting all over the world for places to fabricate them.” Sentry ZH106 required complete gutting of its electrical systems, 25 miles/ 40 km of new cabling, and around 2,200 new parts, all of which had to be performed with very careful attention to the aircraft’s balance as items were inserted and removed. There was also a bit of help from a nearby earthquake, which actually solved an ongoing problem with the aircraft. UK MoD. Oct 22/08: ADRS update. Northrop Grumman announces a 3-year, $16 million contract modification to develop and install a replacement accident data recording system (ADRS) for the Sentry E-3D AWACS aircraft based at RAF Waddington. The contract modification was awarded under the company’s Sentry E-3D Whole Life Support Programme. The company will remove the existing ADRS and replace it with a solid state ADRS and will update the aircraft and training manuals and perform overall management and system engineering for the new ADRS. The ADRS includes a new aircraft data and cockpit voice recording unit, a backup cockpit voice recording unit and an emergency locator transmitter unit for each aircraft. In addition, an accident investigation kit and ground replay stations will be provided. T he work will be carried out at RAF Waddington, UK, as well as at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Herndon, VA; Warner Robins, GA; and Melbourne, FL. Aug 1/08: Flight International reports that the Royal Air Force has decided against mothballing 2 of its 7 E-3D Sentry AWACS planes, and will instead look to cut costs and hours flown by reducing the number of aircrews assigned to the type. The RAF reportedly decided that mothballing the aircraft was a more expensive option in the long run. The UK MoD is also considering an upgrade to the aircrafts’ computers, displays, and mission system, using open-architecture electronics bought off the shelf. The upgrades would be an additional budget item, but one of the ancillary benefits would be slightly lower through-life support costs. Dec 21/07: Windy! So, what happens when unanticipated repair expenses hit the fleet? A pair of E-3Ds were apparently damaged when ground equipment items were not sufficiently secured, and high winds reportedly sent them crashing into an E-3D on the tarmac. A second aircraft reportedly received a glancing blow. Now Northrop Grumman Corporation has announced a contract from the UK Ministry of Defence’s Sentry Integrated Project Team for the repairs. The NGC release refers to a contract issued under the existing Sentry E-3D Whole Life Support Programme (WLSP), though the contract itself sounds like a contract modification within the existing program. The repair will involve the replacement of 4 aircraft frame structural elements, which were crushed, and a major aircraft skin. In addition, a fuel system gallery and main electrical distribution panel were damaged. “[Northrop Grumman’s team] will deliver to challenging time, performance and cost targets, with the aircraft due to be returned to service with the RAF in November 2008… The structural aspects of the repair and the electrical elements represent a considerable challenge, primarily due to the lack of availability of structural and other components that will necessitate significant manufacturing effort.” Aug 11/05: Contract. The GBP 665 million deal is announced. It’s a fixed-price contract for the first 5 years, and the remaining 15 years of the contract are a target-cost incentive-fee structure that shares any savings below the targeted cost. The contract is fully funded for the entire 20-year term, and when it was signed, the participants believed that the Sentry Whole Life Support Programme would reduce the cost of supporting Britain’s E-3s by 12-20% over its 20-year run. UK’s Defence Logistics Organisation | Northrop Grumman | BAE Systems. WLSP contract View the full article

By Edward Farley Aldrich, Guilford, CT: Stackpole Books, (2022). Reviewed by Ed Calouro When he first set out to write The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration That Won World War II, author Edward Farley Aldrich did not plan to write a dual biography. His original intention was to focus on the five years Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and US Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, worked side-by-side in the War Department. While undertaking his extensive research on these two major World War II leaders, Aldrich concluded their stories could not properly be told without also describing their upbringing, education, and early careers. Their early lives strongly influenced the leaders that they became. The result is this splendid joint biography, which provides insightful revelations about how Stimson and Marshall played major roles in ensuring American victory in World War II. Aldrich is not a trained historian, though he conducts research and writes like one. He is an international commodity banker who was bitten by the history bug. For fifty years, he pursued his love of the subject, and this book is the culmination of his efforts. The Partnership is clearly grounded in the appropriate primary sources, such as Stimson’s diary, his autobiography, and General Marshall’s papers, his multi-volume biography by Forrest Pogue, and many others. The twenty-two pages of endnotes testify to the wide-ranging research as do the six pages of sources, which include recent scholarship. The Partnership is divided into four parts. The first, entitled “Training,” provides background information about Stimson and Marshall before they took on their wartime posts. Parts two to four: “Preparing,” “Fighting,” and “Finishing,” deal with the five years the Secretary of War and Army Chief of Staff led the War Department and is the focus of the book. An epilogue looks at Stimson and Marshall’s post-World War II years. The former went into retirement in 1945. General Marshall, despite desiring a well-deserved retirement, answered President Harry S. Truman’s repeated calls for him to lead a delegation to China, become Secretary of State, and then head the relatively new Defense Department. With one notable exception, General Marshall was finally able to retire in 1951. General Marshall became the Army chief of staff on 1 September 1939, ironically, on the same date World War II began. Republican Henry Stimson was sworn in as secretary of war on 10 July 1940, shortly after the fall of France. They worked in adjoining offices, where the connecting door was intentionally left open by mutual agreement. This was done so they could know what the other was doing and thereby better coordinate their efforts. They oversaw the U.S. Army and much of the overall war effort until Stimson’s retirement on 21 September 1945, his seventy-eighth birthday. Their primary responsibility for the first seventeen months working together was to prepare the U.S. Army and the country for war. When Marshall became chief of staff, there were only 170,000 soldiers in the U.S. Army, and it ranked seventeenth behind Romania’s land forces. They had a herculean task since the army faced shortages of almost every type of equipment. Furthermore, Marshall and Stimson had to make these preparations while not upsetting the isolationists in Congress. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed all that. One of General Marshall’s fixed goals during the first three full years of the war was to get a second front opened to help take pressure off the Soviet army in the east. In this, he was fully supported by Secretary Stimson. At almost every wartime conference, Marshall pushed for a cross-channel invasion, but the British successfully delayed this dangerous undertaking until mid-1944. In focusing on their five years together, Aldrich has not written a hagiography of Stimson and Marshall. Rather, The Partnership is a balanced account which assesses strengths and weaknesses, accomplishments, and faults and failures. The author gives General Marshall and Secretary Stimson major credit for America’s victory. Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill called General Marshall “the organizer of victory,” but Aldrich wrote that Stimson also deserved a good deal of the credit. Stimson focused on civilian affairs, while Marshall oversaw military matters. Marshall’s two primary responsibilities were to prepare the US Army for war and to advise President Roosevelt on strategy. Stimson and Marshall most often were in general agreement, though Aldrich notes the rare times they had significant differences. One of Secretary Stimson’s major achievements was to recognize talent. His most important appointees were: Robert Patterson, John McCloy, Robert Lovett, Harvey Bundy, and George Harrison. Likewise, General Marshall had an eye for good leaders. His most noteworthy appointees were Generals “Hap” Arnold, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Lesley McNair, and Brehon Somervell to name just a few. Both Stimson and Marshall thought it was important to find good men, put them in the correct position, and then let them do their jobs. The author cites General Marshall’s insistence on unity of command for each theater of the war (with the exception of the Pacific front, largely so as to accommodate General Douglas MacArthur). As one might expect, the US Navy does not get much coverage here. The admiral who gets the most space is Ernest J. King, Marshall’s fellow Joint Chiefs of Staff member. Marshall admired the irascible admiral because he was a fighter, but while his managing the friction between the U.S. Army and Navy was among Marshall’s greatest accomplishments; his having to mediate between General MacArthur’s demands and Admiral King’s recalcitrance was taxing. Readers may be disappointed to not find here the reasons why the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark, was shunted to Europe in March 1942, while Marshall retained his post. On the surface, Stark and Marshall appeared to be equally culpable for not keeping their respective Pearl Harbor subordinates better informed. The author levels his strongest criticism at Stimson’s support for the internment of approximately 110,000 Japanese-Americans starting in 1942. Equally damning is the fact the internees were generally held until FDR was reelected in November 1944, well after the US Army reported there was no military justification to continue to detain them. Aldrich terms this a “discreditable episode” which damaged both President Roosevelt’s and Stimson’s legacies (p. 278). General Marshall was taken to task in a 1944 Army report and a postwar Congressional investigation for his failure to keep General Walter Short in Pearl Harbor better informed of the threat posed by the Japanese. Both men have been criticized for their advocacy of a cross-Channel invasion of France in 1942 and 1943. Most historians think the prerequisites were not in place before 1944. Yale University Professor Paul Kennedy, in his recently published Victory at Sea, added his voice to this chorus. Aldrich’s airing of these criticisms is evidence of the fair and balanced account presented in The Partnership. Even readers well versed in World War II history will benefit from reading this fine dual biography of two of the most noteworthy American wartime leaders. Almost everyone will find themselves educated about how much these two men contributed to American and Allied victory. Winston Churchill said General Marshall was “the single greatest figure produced by the war” (p.8). Stimson called Marshall “‛the finest soldier I have ever known.’” (p.1). Aldrich has admirably succeeded in bringing Stimson’s and Marshall’s joint accomplishments into the historical limelight. Ed Calouro is a freelance writer and adjunct instructor in the History Department at Rhode Island College. Edward “Ted” Aldrich is an international banker and commodity specialist. He and his wife, Susie, have three children and live in Westport, Connecticut. The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration That Won World War II. By Edward Farley Aldrich (Guilford, CT: 2022) The post The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration That Won World War II first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation. View the full article

It is amazing that our nation - one so reliant on ocean trade and whose energy security is so reliant on the arctic - should have such a quote about it as below. This came out in February...but came up in my digging around on a related topic. The nation's first sea-going heavy icebreaker in more than 45 years will be named Sentinel -- a nod to its predecessors as well as future missions in the polar regions, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz said Thursday. We have been at peace at sea for so long, unchallenged for so long, I think we have forgotten what is needed to fight a sustained war at sea. Ships cannot be built overnight. Industrial capacity can take years to build and once lost may takes decades to have capacity at scale. The intellectual capital from welders to designers take generations to build and must be maintained or you will re-baseline yourself to almost zero. As we've covered before, it isn't just new construction, it is maintenance as well. For decades we have let the accountants bleed our industry pale to bare subsistence. The service is in the midst of its largest ship recapitalization effort in decades, replacing its medium endurance cutters with 25 360-foot Offshore Patrol Cutters and planning to build three medium icebreakers, known as Arctic Security Cutters. In the past decade, it has commissioned nine of 11 planned National Security Cutters and built dozens of Fast Response Cutters. It also plans to build a variety of ships known as Waterways Commerce Cutters. Schultz said that despite the delay in delivery of the Sentinel, the service will have no gaps in its ability to provide support in the polar regions and plans to keep the Polar Star running for several years after delivery of the first Polar Security Cutter. Polar Star, he said, may be "tired and old," but "we'll keep it a couple of years" until delivery of the second heavy icebreaker because "quite frankly, we need the capacity." We need to establish a slightly less efficient - but infinitely more effective and geographically diverse - maritime industrial infrastructure. Remember, nothing is more expensive than losing a war or surrendering your lines of communication to domination by a hostile power. View the full article

I know everyone is busy and all ... but you need to keep an eye on the usual problem areas. You would think one war in Europe at a time would be enough, but you should never underestimate the Serbs. As with most of us who were on active duty in the 1990s, I have more than a passing interest in the former Yugoslavia - and invested my quota of effort in its wars. Later in my career I later served in NATO with Slovenes, Croatians, and N. Macedonians. I've vacationed a few times in Slovenia and Croatia. One of my daughters has studied, twice, in Serbia. I keep an eye on it ... and thankfully so are some smart people in The Pentagon. The Balkans is always on the edge and has been for centuries, so it is only natural that now and then it bubbles over. You may have missed with all the other news that the frozen conflict in Kosovo was throwing sparks again. That is why on Friday I tilted my head a bit with this announcement; Two U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress aircraft assigned to the 23rd Bomb Squadron currently operating out of RAF Fairford, United Kingdom, will conduct low approach flyovers over Southeastern Europe scheduled on August 22. The purpose of each flyover is to demonstrate U.S. commitment and assurance to NATO Allies and partners located in Southeastern Europe. Additionally, this will provide citizens an opportunity to take photos, videos, and enjoy the aircraft flying overhead. That told me that the Balkans desk has run their concerns up the chain and whatever they briefed was enough to greenlight a not insignificant display. Sure enough, off it went Monday; A pair of U.S. Air Force B52 strategic bombers on Monday flew low over the Croatian resort of Dubrovnik and three other NATO-member states in the region as a sign of support amid the Russian aggression in Ukraine. In addition to the walled Croatian tourist resort of Dubrovnik, the aircraft flew over the government headquarters in Skopje, North Macedonia, the downtown Skanderbeg Square in the Albanian capital, Tirana, and up the Adriatic coast of Montenegro. The Balkans and the Adriatic Sea have lately seen increased military, intelligence and propaganda activity by Moscow, which considers the region of its strategic interest because of its access to the Mediterranean. Serbia is about Russia's last friend in Europe and make no mistake ... the Serbs do not consider borders settled anywhere - they are just waiting for the moment to be ripe. This too came out yesterday; Serbia’s president called on NATO on Sunday to “do their job” in Kosovo or he says Serbia itself will move to protect its minority in the breakaway province. The fiery televised address to his nation by President Aleksandar Vucic followed the collapse of political talks between Serbian and Kosovo leaders earlier this week mediated by the European Union in Brussels. Serbia, along with its allies Russia and China, has refused to recognize Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence. A NATO-led intervention in 1999 ended the war between Serbian forces and separatists in Kosovo and stopped Belgrade’s bloody crackdown against Kosovo's majority Albanians. The EU has overseen years of unsuccessful talks to normalize their ties, saying that’s one of the main preconditions for Kosovo and Serbia’s eventual membership in the 27-nation bloc. “We have nowhere to go, we are cornered,” Vucic said. “We will save our people from persecution and pogroms, if NATO does not want to do it.” The successor states of the Serbian dominated Yugoslavia were Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. Bosnia itself is a spot-welded confederation of Bosnian Muslims, Croatian Catholics, and Orthodox Serbians who all have a blood feud against each other. It was, is, and will be a mess. In the three decades after the wheels came off Yugoslavia, we now find Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia all inside NATO. How may Americans know they are obligated to throw the bodies of their children in to an eventual Balkan bloodbath? Not many, I guess. So, the intel is such that we feel the need to throw a B-52 brushback pitch against the Serbians. The Serbians. At moments like this, I always seem to remember the words of German Field Marshal August von Mackensen; You are going into a fight against a new enemy who is dangerous, tough, brave and sharp. You are going to the Serbian front, to Serbia, and Serbs are the people who love their freedom and who are willing to fight for it to their last. 2022. What a year. Pray for peace. View the full article

Americas The Saturn Arch Quick Reaction Capability (QRC) aircraft has flown its final mission in support of the U.S. Army Central Command (CENTCOM) on July 31. The Saturn Arch aerial surveillance program was initiated by the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization (JIDO) to detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs) using hyperspectral, electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR), and high-resolution imagery (HRI) sensors. Since the program was transitioned to the Army in 2012, it has grown to a fleet of 10 aircraft. Lockheed Martin has integrated the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) on guided-missile destroyer USS Preble (DDG 88). The company announced on August 18 that the 60+ kW-class high energy laser with integrated optical-dazzler has been delivered to the sailing branch. A photo from the US Navy shows the HELIOS installed on the position in front of the ship’s bridge. This Phalanx CIWS occupy this spot on other destroyers of the same class. Middle East & Africa BAE Systems officially delivered its first Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to the Qatar Armed Forces (QAF) during a roll-out ceremony at the company’s facility in Warton, UK. The Typhoon aircraft was delivered on schedule and will be transported from the UK to Doha later this month. BAE Systems and the UK see the delivery as a “significant milestone” under Qatar’s $5.08 billion program to acquire Eurofighter jets and Hawk advanced jet trainers. Europe According to Jane’s, a prototype armed version of the Vrabac (Sparrow) small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was unveiled during a display of domestic defence equipment held by the Serbian Armed Forces at the Military Academy in Belgrade. Speaking at the event on August 15, Nenad Miloradovi?, assistant minister of defence for material resources in the Serbian Ministry of Defense, told attendees that the armed Vrabac can carry up to six grenades that have an effective range of five metres, and a delayed-action fuze that triggers once the grenade rebounds to a height of 1.5 m after initial impact. According to Defense News, the Turkish government has delivered 50 used mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles to the Ukrainian military. The delivery of the Kirpi vehicles was the result of a government agreement, rather than a deal between Ukraine and BMC, which makes the Kirpi, according to a government official. Asia-Pacific Japan is considering the deployment of more than 1,000 long-range cruise missiles to increase its ability to counter growing regional threats from China, local newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Sunday. The country plans to upgrade its existing surface-to-ship missiles to extend their range from 100 kilometers (62 miles) to about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), which would be enough to reach Chinese coastal areas as well as North Korea, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources. Today’s Video WATCH: Ukraine receives Kirpi MRAP vehicles from Turkiye View the full article

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 favorite people and opens with a quote from April that seemed to run under my radar. The Navy’s top admiral has acknowledged how crucial the anti-rust campaign is for the service, militarily and aesthetically. “Appearance is important. You’ve got to look sharp,” Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, said in April at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We’re the world’s premier navy, [and] we’ve got to look like it.” I think the boss sent a signal. Where was this top cover a few years ago when David Larter, Chris Cavas, your humble blogg'r, and scores of others were beating a drum over this HUGE problem? Well, a different story for a different day I guess ... but the pressure perhaps in some way helped move the needle. You can't change things overnight in such areas, but the April comment by the CNO (a careful man not prone too often - Kendi aside - of getting over his skis) starts to fold in to two other things I've noticed this summer. First was reports from people whose opinion I respect like Alessio Patalano (whose photos are used in this post with his permission) on the condition of our DDG during RIMPAC this summer. As you can find documented in the links earlier, we have not always done our best in high profile appearances. Nice change. Second was the fun article on the 26-year old USS Benfold's (DDG 65) new enthusiasm - and success - it putting her in to proper shape. There was some carping from the cheap seats about, "Why are you asking for a BZ for doing what you are supposed to do anyway ... " but not from me. Yes, it shouldn't be news, but it is - and that means it is helping to set a "new" "old" standard ... as such it should be praised and encouraged. However, it is one ship and we can't overuse its example. We have a few hundred ships ... we should have more than one to point to. That is why I cringed a bit in the article here;The Navy denies neglecting shipboard preservation. Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesman for the commander of naval surface forces in the Pacific, said the command’s crews devote “considerable time and energy” to balancing operational requirements and maintenance needs of their warships. “We take a methodical approach to preserving our ships, synchronizing efforts with other maintenance requirements to ensure ships are ready and fully mission-capable,” Cmdr. Abrahamson said in a statement to The Washington Times. “We address these preservation challenges quickly at sea, after ships return to port, and during maintenance phases.” Cmdr. Abrahamson pointed to the example of the USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer whose captain created a full-time maintenance group focused on preventing external shipboard corrosion, even while at sea. “The team is hands-on busting rust, priming or painting every day except Sunday,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Polk, who is part of the Benfold restoration team. “Every week, we conduct a job review board and discuss upcoming jobs.”No show ponies. This was a lost opportunity. The record is clear that, yes, for well over a decade our Navy did neglect the material condition of our fleet. Do I need to point again to how we showed our stern to Kiel? That was only three years ago. We really need to stop spinning. There is nothing wrong with saying we are fixing a - pun intended - soft spot in our approach to preservation. I don't know who is setting the standards for our PAO's, but we do not help the reputation of those in uniform by sounding like the worst White House press briefing spin. Yes, everything Abrahamson says is true ... but in context - no offense intended Arlo - it comes out slimy. There is a reason this is an important topic. It matters. In the article, Jerry Hendrix summarizes nicely;“It’s having an impact on our standing in the world. That’s something the Navy really needs to come to grips with,” he said. “Influence is greatly tied to perception. If the perception is that your ships look terrible, that’s the perception of the country: ‘Our fleet is old and it’s tired and that we as a nation are old and tired and appear run down.’”That is rock-solid correct. Another CAPT., USN (Ret.), Carl Schuster of HPU, speaks a simple truth that needs to be repeated - it seems - every day until people are sick of hearing it;“If you’re not willing to maintain the ship and preserve the hull and superstructure, what else are you ignoring in terms of maintenance?” he asked. “What else are they not taking care of?”This is backed up by CMDCM Thomasson of the Benfold who states what used to be a universal, but sadly to many ears, seems "new." Master Chief knows ... and always knew;Navy Command Master Chief Andrew Thomasson, the senior enlisted sailor aboard the USS Benfold, said his sailors take great pride in the condition of their ship. “When a ship looks pristine, new and looking her best, our enemies hesitate to mess with us because when we’re looking our best, we obviously must be performing at our best,” he said. “And just the opposite when we look dirty and rusty. When a ship is looking her best, just look at it as saving lives.”As we have called for over the last decade, we need to prioritize material condition. We need a reset. We need to deploy less, increase at sea manning, and allocate resources until we get a better balance. For two decades we have refused to say no, and the fleet has suffered. Could we already be in the early phases of a renaissance in the neglected areas of material condition? Perhaps. I hope so. View the full article

Americas BAE Systems won a $13.5 million order, which provides for the ALR-56M radar warning receiver, C-130J Block Cycle F, operational flight program and mission data file generation updates and system services. Work will take place in Totowa, New Jersey. Expected completion date will be August 16, 2024. Raytheon won an $11.2 million contract modification for Total Ship Computing Environment Lab hardware for modernization/technical refresh and Conventional Prompt Strike to support DDG 1000 Class combat system activation, sustainment and modernization. Work will take place in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Expected completion will be by November 2023. Middle East & Africa The US Army awarded Versar Inc. a $7.6 million deal for fire and electric safety assessments. Bids were solicited via the internet with seven received. Work will take place in Kuwait. Estimated completion date is March 31, 2025. Europe Apparently, Cyprus has inked an agreement with Israel to acquire the latter’s Iron Dome air defense system, the Cyprus edition of the Kathimerini daily has reported. The exact number of systems being acquired was not disclosed, however. It will be used to defend the island against Turkish drones in particular. Kathimerini says Chief of the National Guard Lt. Gen. Demokritos Zervakis had a close up look at the Iron Dome during a visit to Israel this March. The US on Friday announced it will send a slew of new weapons to Ukraine as part of a $775 million package, including new drones, armored vehicles and artillery. The shipments indicate that Washington and Kyiv expect hard fighting on the ground in the coming weeks. For the first time, the US is sending 15 ScanEagle surveillance drones to help the Ukrainians spot and correct the precision artillery and rocket strikes that have taken a toll on Russian forces in recent weeks. Asia-Pacific The US and South Korea have begun their biggest joint military drills in years – a show of force that is expected to raise tensions with an increasingly hostile North Korea. The exercises, known as Ulchi Freedom Shield, are being seen as a sign of the allies’ determination to restore large-scale training after they had cancelled some regular drills and scaled down others to facilitate nuclear talks, and because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Today’s Video WATCH: Cyprus reportedly strikes deal to purchase Israel’s Iron Dome system View the full article

Americas Pacific Shipyards International won a $17.2 million contract modification for the accomplishment of post shakedown availability (PSA). The PSA is for one Arleigh Burke Class guided missile destroyer (DDG 120). The USS Carl M. Levin is the 70th destroyer overall for the class. Work will take place in Hawaii. Expected. Completion will be by September 2023. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, DC, is the contracting activity. Lockheed Martin Space won a $11 million deal for long-lead time material and the labor, planning, and scheduling necessary to support the fiscal 2023 Trident II (D5) missile production schedule. The contract award also benefits a Foreign Military Sale to the United Kingdom. Fiscal 2022 weapons procurement (Navy) in the amount of $9,7 million will be obligated on this award. Work will take place in Florida. Estimated completion date will be September 30, 2027. Middle East & Africa Israel’s Elbit Systems has received two contracts to upgrade main battle tanks (MBTs) for an international customer valued at $240 million. The first contract, worth $60 million, requires the firm to complete the work within two years. The second contract, for $180 million, requires the upgrades over a period of four years. According to the deal, the Israel-based company will also provide advanced electronic suites to modernize the vehicles. Europe Austria’as new army chief of staff Rudolf Striedinger wants to invest in air defense as well as new tanks. New jets additionally to the country’s Eurofighters cold be a possibility, according to Striedinger. He is counting on a higher budget and also wants to strengthen the militia. Striedinger has yet to be inaugurated as the army’s new chef of staff. The Czech Republic will receive six second-hand AH-1Z and two UH-1Y helicopters from the United States. The European nation will only have to pay for the costs of transfer and modifications done to the rotorcraft. It had placed an order for four AH-1Z and eight UH-1Y helicopters and those aircraft are due to be delivered starting next year. It was previously reported that Czech wants to buy additional helicopters from Bell after Russia attacked Ukraine. The country had also donated its Mi-24 attack helicopters to Ukraine, creating an operational gap. Asia-Pacific An exclusive news report by Yomiuri Shimbun says the Japanese government is considering having over 1,000 of its long-range cruise missile that is under development. These missiles will be stationed from the Nansei Islands to Kyushu, with the aim of bridging the “missile gap” with China. The missile will be based on the improve Type 12 anti-ship missile and could enter service in FY 2024. Today’s Video WATCH: AH-1Z Viper Super Charged Air Assault Helicopter View the full article

The Russo-Ukrainian War of the last six months is reminding everyone - I hope - that war in a large measure does not change. Yes, some new technologies and ideas comes in that no one appreciates the value of until proven on the field of battle, some established technologies and ideas no longer work, and that process of integrating battlefield lessons often determines who gets better results over time. At the end of the day, it is taking ground, keeping ground, and positioning yourself for more. Thinking of that reminded me of a FbF from 4.5yrs ago that I thought I would bring back this week. One of the enduring characteristics of WWI was the amount of blood that was shed over and over and over for such small bits of land. So it was again in March of 2015; French Commander-in-Chief General Joffre considered it vital that the Allied forces should take every advantage of their growing numbers and strength on the Western Front, both to relieve German pressure on Russia and if possible break through in France. British commander Sir John French agreed and pressed the BEF to adopt an offensive posture after the months of defence in sodden trenches. Joffre planned to reduce the great bulge into France punched by the German advance in 1914, by attacking at the extreme points in Artois and the Champagne. In particular, if the lateral railways in the plain of Douai could be recaptured, the Germans would be forced to evacuate large areas of the ground they had gained. This belief formed the plan that created most of the 1915 actions in the British sector. The attack at Neuve Chapelle was an entirely British affair – the French saying that until extra British divisions could relieve them at Ypres, they had insufficient troops in the area to either extend of support the action.It is one thing to see the map of a battle as you see in the upper right hand part of the page - but here is a bird's eye view of the battlefield today. Driving through this now, it is an incredibly beautiful part of Europe - not the hellscape it was. Neuve Chapelle village lies on the road between Bethune, Fleurbaix and Armentieres, near its junction with the Estaires – La Bassee road. The front lines ran parallel with the Bethune-Armentieres road, a little way to the east of the village. Behind the German line is the Bois de Biez. The ground here is flat and cut by many small drainage ditches. A mile ahead of the British was a long ridge – Aubers Ridge – barely 20 feet higher than the surrounding area but giving an observation advantage. ... The attack was undertaken by Sir Douglas Haig’s First Army, with Rawlinson’s IV Corps on the left and Willcock’s Indian Corps on the right, squeezing out a German salient that included the village itself. The battle opened with a 35 minute bombardment of the front line, then 30 minutes on the village and reserve positions. The bombardment, for weight of shell fired per yard of enemy front, was the heaviest that would be fired until 1917. ... Three infantry brigades were ordered to advance quickly as soon as the barrage lifted from the front line at 8.05am. The Gharwal Brigade of the Indian Corps advanced successfully, with the exception of the 1/39th Gharwal Rifles on the extreme right that went astray and plunged into defences untouched by the bombardment, suffering large losses. The 25th and 23rd Brigades of the 8th Division made good progress against the village. There were delays in sending further orders and reinforcements forward, but by nightfall the village had been captured, and the advanced units were in places as far forward as the Layes brook.As was often the case in WWI - this 1915 battle was an experiment that hopefully informed future tactics. The price for this little wedge of land?Casualties The British losses in the four attacking Divisions were 544 officers and 11,108 other ranks killed, wounded and missing. German losses are estimated at a similar figure of 12,000, which included 1,687 prisoners....and the lessons? It demonstrated that it was quite possible to break into the enemy positions – but also showed that this kind of success was not easily turned into breaking through them. The main lessons of Neuve Chapelle were that the artillery bombardment was too light to suppress the enemy defences; there were too few good artillery observation points; the reserves were too few to follow up success quickly; command communications took too long and the means of communicating were too vulnerable. One important lesson was perhaps not fully understood: the sheer weight of bombardment was a telling factor. Similar efforts in 1915 and 1916 would fall far short of its destructive power. History tells us that we will again see larger-scale, heavy-casualty, nation-exhausting wars again. We are actually overdue for one. Like the decades of relative peace that followed Napoleon, so we too have enjoyed a long peace after the Cold War. Human nature and habits are unchanged. This will come again, but when? Next week, next year, next decade? Where? No one really knows, but what we can know is that it will most likely be a surprise. It will not be a short war. It will not be an easy war, and the world that comes after will be a foreign world than that existed before some nation's best and brightest thought they could control events. Oh, and speaking of lessons, LongLongTrail forgot this one that History got. We'll see this again too; The slowness and inaccuracy of communication between the front lines and the corps headquarters—the army had no wireless technology, and telephone lines at the front were usually cut or destroyed by enemy fire during battle—caused Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Rawlinson, the corps commander, to order a fresh advance when support troops were unprepared. In the confusion, some artillery even opened fire on friendly infantry. By the late afternoon, forward units were attacking without adequate artillery support or effective coordination, in failing light, against a hardening German defense. ... ... it (was) incredibly difficult for commanders on both sides to know where and when to effectively deploy their reserve troops. General John Charteris, director of military intelligence under British commander Alexander Haig, took another sobering lesson from the battle, writing that “England will have to accustom herself to far greater losses than those of Neuve Chapelle before we finally crush the German army.”View the full article

Americas Rolls-Royce won a $1 billion deal, which provides intermediate, depot-level maintenance and related logistics support for approximately 210 in-service T-45 F405-RR-401 Adour engines in support of the US Navy. Work will take place in. Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Maryland. Estimated completion will be in July 2027. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has successfully integrated the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 E-Series turboprop engine on the MQ-9B. “Integrating their PT6 E-Series engine onto our MQ-9B SkyGuardian® aircraft offers an alternate option for future customers that includes a 33 percent increase in power, dual channel electronic propeller and engine control system, as well as all the benefits of the PT6 engine family,” said GA-ASI President David R. Alexander. The MQ-9B is currently powered by the Honeywell TPE331 but the PT6 is a more popular engine that can be found on the PC-7, PC-21, King Air and T-6 II Middle East & Africa According to Jane’s, the first four sites for Saudi Arabia’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems are expected to be completed by the end of 2026 and all seven by April 2028. A Request For Proposal by the US Army gave the estimate completion date for a storage facility for THAAD ballistic missile interceptions at Al Kharj as January 2025. The THAAD terminal (formerly theatre) high-altitude area defence missile system is an easily transportable defensive weapon system. It uses hit-to-kill technology whereby kinetic energy destroys the incoming warhead. The Biden administration on Tuesday stopped short of threatening additional penalties following reports Turkey plans to receive the second batch of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. Turkey initially purchased the S-400 in 2017, plunging its relationship with the U.S. into crisis. As a result of the deal, the Trump administration expelled Turkey from the F-35 program. Europe The German Air Force has sent a fleet of aircraft around the world for its first-ever deployment to the Indo-Pacific region, a move meant to demonstrate its operational capability during two regional exercises and to show solidarity with its allies there. Six Eurofighter jets — painted with the flags of Germany, Singapore, Australia, South Korea, and Japan — left Neuburg Air Base Monday afternoon followed by four A400M multirole aircraft, and three A330 multirole tanker transport aircraft. Asia-Pacific he United States and South Korea will begin their biggest combined military training in years next week in the face of an increasingly aggressive North Korea, which has been ramping up weapons tests and threats of nuclear conflict against Seoul and Washington, the South Korean military said Tuesday. Today’s Video WATCH: THAAD Overview View the full article

What the RAF was doing is not new. What the RAF was doing is not isolated to the United Kingdom. Via SkyNews this is what broke earlier this week. (NB: first reports and all - as you will read downpost); The head of RAF recruitment has resigned in protest at an "effective pause" on offering jobs to white male recruits in favour of women and ethnic minorities, defence sources have claimed. The senior female officer apparently handed in her notice in recent days amid concerns that any such restrictions on hiring, however temporary and limited, could undermine the fighting strength of the Royal Air Force (RAF), the sources said. Official racial discrimination is wrong. It does not matter who the group being discriminated against is. They said the service was attempting to hit "impossible" diversity targets. The defence sources accused Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, the head of the RAF, of appearing willing to compromise UK security at a time of growing threats from Russia and China in pursuit of albeit important goals such as improving diversity and inclusion. The diversity industry is not about equal opportunity. It is not about making organizations better or stronger. It is about job security, grievance mongering, and power. At least the UK seems, at the moment, to have civilian leaders at least say the right things; The recruitment claims prompted a response from Rishi Sunak, one of the two contenders vying to be the UK's next prime minister. A spokesperson for the Sunak leadership campaign said: "The only thing that should matter in recruitment is the content of your character, not your sex or the colour of your skin. "That the Ministry of Defence would allow Britain's security to potentially be put at risk by a drive for so-called 'diversity' is not only disgraceful, it is dangerous." However, as we know here, the commissariat does not care. They have their advocates, their levers of power, and they know they can lie without worry. What is going to happen? Fire them? LOLOLOL... An RAF spokesperson disputed the allegations. "There is no pause in Royal Air Force recruitment and no new policy with regards to meeting in-year recruitment requirements," the spokesperson said. "Royal Air Force commanders will not shy away from the challenges we face building a service that attracts and recruits talent from every part of the UK workforce. "As with the Royal Navy and British Army, we are doing everything we can to encourage recruiting from under-represented groups and ensure we have a diverse workforce. "The Royal Air Force has a well-earned reputation for operational excellence that is founded on the quality of all our people. We will always seek to recruit the best talent available to us". Word salad that does nothing but up the ante...and of course they are lying to you ... as they can't even get their story straight; ...responding to questions from Sky News on the issue, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: "Operational effectiveness is of paramount importance and no one is lowering the standards to join the Royal Air Force. The RAF recruits for many professions and, like the rest of the armed forces, is determined to be a force that reflects the society it serves to protect." In the end, as on this side of the pond, the uniformed leadership are either true believers or broken souls. To effectively fight back against institutional discrimination the diversity bullies are pushing, you need new leaders who are immune to name calling, and a different set of incentives and disincentives for the mushy middle. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the armed forces, used his first public speech in-post last December to stress the importance of striving for better diversity. He said this was not "about wokefulness. It is about woefulness. The woefulness of too few women. The woefulness of not reflecting the ethnic, religious and cognitive diversity of our nation." The MOD has announced it aims to increase the ratio of female recruits coming into the armed forces in general to 30% by 2030 from around 12%. The RAF - which was the first of the services to open all roles to women and already has the highest ratio of females - is aiming to go further. It wants the ratio of female air force recruits to hit 40% by the end of the decade - more than double the current level. The target for ethnic minorities is to reach 20% of all air force recruits within the same timeframe, up from around 10%. Yet the RAF must also hire enough people in the right trades to meet its "operational inflow requirements" - the number of new personnel needed to ensure the service can carry out the full range of tasks it has been given to help keep the UK and its allies safe. Clearly they are as lacking over in the Mother Country as they are here. Today, two days after the above report ... the RAF officially replied. Ahem. The boss of RAF recruitment has said she is 'unashamed' of the force's diversity targets, amid claims that it has effectively paused its recruitment of white men. Air Vice-Marshal Maria Byford, chief of staff personnel and air secretary, said that recruiting more women and ethnic minorities would result in 'a better service in the long run'. This is amazingly not satire; Air Vice-Marshal Byford, one of the most senior ranking women in the military, told The Times that she had 'slowed down' recruitment processes for all candidates after failing to meet diversity targets. She said: 'I want the best people. So I need the best people to join to achieve the best they can during their service career and we get... what we need from an operational capability perspective. 'And if I can include more women and more people from different backgrounds in that, I think I have a better service in the long run. It's ok. It's not you. Go ahead and re-read that again. Diagram the sentences if you need to. No shame. 'We are unashamed about doing that because I think that's a good thing.' At present, RAF candidates can be put forward for training immediately after they meet the requirements of the 'first past the post' type-system, rather than being merited on how well they perform in certain stages of the process. The Vice-Marshal, who has served in the force for more than 30 years, said the RAF will look at how to use 'positive action' legally so recruits who have passed the basic requirements to join the force can be selected on merit as well as their gender and ethnicity. She confirmed that women could be picked over men if they were underrepresented in that role and they had met the required standards. Notice she says, "think" a lot? That is a subjective qualifier...because the objective data simply do not tell you that. I am sure the UK's data is similar to ours, well hidden in Millington and elsewhere. As we have referenced before, the facts do not give you that answer. You can "think" and "feel" all you want - but the facts are facts. There has been a fierce backlash to the recruitment from former military personnel as well as politicians, who have claimed that the recruitment pause 'is an example of pandering to political correctness'. Former health secretary Sajid Javid said it would be 'complete nonsense' if the RAF has paused recruitment of white males. He told Sky News: 'I don't think any organisation, whether it's the RAF or any other public or private organisation, should be recruiting on the basis of one's race. ...but what is anyone going to do about it? Well, we have words at least. It is a start; Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander in Afghanistan, said: 'This idea of diversity now dominates the thinking of senior leaders in all of the Armed Forces. 'They have become seized by the need for political correctness over the need for combat effectiveness and that could be damaging to our national defences. 'This is an example of pandering to political correctness; the diverse make-up of the Army is important but it's definitely not the most important.' At the very end, you can find the heart of the issue here that needs to be fleshed out; Conservative MP and member of the Commons defence committee Richard Drax – also a former Army officer – said that while he supported more women and ethnic minorities joining the Armed Forces, he was 'nervous of any discrimination'. He said: 'Although I have been assured there has been no lowering of standards, I suspect that the RAF is manipulating the quota figure. 'There is a surplus of people trying to join the force therefore they are without doubt discriminating.' I guess I'm the one to do it, so here we go. In an all volunteer force in a nation of people with free will, you cannot force the metrics to work while maintaining standards. You simply cannot unless you make aggressive actions based on preferential treatment or exceptions towards favored groups or worse - discrimination - against disfavored groups. Besides the cancerous sectarianism of such systems in the zero-sum game that is accessions, it creates a perpetual problem down the career path that - by design - will do nothing but ensure an ongoing crisis that will demand more diversity commissars and greater discrimination. The only way to get lower represented numbers in play without doing truly obnoxious actions like, "$20,000 enlistment bonus for self-identified ethnic group-A; $2,000 for group-B; nothing for group-C," you will have to lower objective entry standards for your "preferred" group. Here is how that dynamic works - and why such sectarianism must be opposed at all levels. Having watched this intake-bias in practice, what develops is cohort performance deviation that manifests itself later in everything from time to qualify in your warfare specialty and advanced qualifications, to competitive rankings, to promotion (when only performance is measured). If you desire all groups to be the same to make the metrics look good on a PPT slide, further pressure for additional preference/quotas must be forced on the system. It gets worse over time and more obvious. If you believe that objective success criteria (education, standardized tests, etc) are indicators of future success, the process goes like this. First let's break a recruitment population in to three "Cohorts," and then inside these groups let's divide them in to performance quartiles where the 1st quartile has the highest objective criteria scoring, and the 4th the lowest. For demonstration purposes, we will break these up geographically, by US States; - In Cohort-A (let's call them people born in Kentucky) you have "too many" of in the service based on the US population. You simply must have fewer of them, but darn it - the people from the Bluegrass State simply love serving their nation, the bastards, and keep signing up. Break them up in to the four quartiles we outlined above. Best in the 1st, "most challenged" in the 4th. - In Cohort-B (let's call these people born in Tennessee) you "don't have enough of. " It seems that the Volunteer State simply is not volunteering enough. Must be the strong market in Nashville or something. They are divided in to quartiles as Kentuckians are. - In Cohort-C you have your control group. Cohort-C is a random collection of people from all 50 states, including those born in KY and TN. They are also broken in to quartiles. Now we need to recruit for 1QFY23 coming up in six weeks. In your control group, Cohort-C - as you only want the best - you do what is best for your organization; you do not hire from the 4th quartile. They don't get an offer letter. It just so happens that to meet your intake requirements quartiles 1-3 will get you that number, so all three are given offers. Over time the best will work things out in competition with each other down the career path. Some 1st quartile will fail, some 3rd quartile will rise to the top, but as you have decades of hard data on this, you know that the 1st quartile will as a group have much better qualification times, rankings, promotion rates, and job performance than the 2nd. The 2nd over the 3rd, etc. Your objective criteria are, on average, very good determinations of success. Then you have the problem with your boss and his PPT slides. There is a problem with Kentuckians and Tennesseans. States must be represented in equal proportion to the nation as a whole. You have too many Kentuckians and too few Tennesseans. If you had your way, you would do the same thing with the good people from KY and TN that you did with Cohort-C. You really don't want the 4th quartile of either and - because you trust decades of experience with your objective criteria performance predictors - you'd refuse to send them an offer for employment. However, to make the boss's PPT metrics work, you have to decrease the number of Kentuckians. The only way to do this is to not make any offers for those in the 3rd quartile of Kentuckians. Problem solved there. However, that still does not give you enough Tennesseans. As you can't force any more to come in, the only option you have is to dig into the top of Tennessee's 4th quartile to get the numbers to make metrics where you want them to make the boss happy with his PPT. Your problem is solved. As for following problems down the road where your outflow is another's inflow, well, hope for the best. Not your problem. Not reflected on your FITREP. That is how you get your "entering metrics" to work ... but it has an echo effect down the road. Let's now look at the three cohorts' average odds for professional success looks. Cohort-C is right in the middle with the average score. Kentucky has only 1st and 2nd quartile quality people in the service. Their average is significantly higher than any other Cohort. Tennessee's service members not only includes 3rd Quartile, but a non-zero number of 4th quartile personnel. Their objective scoring on criteria for success relative to the other cohorts is much lower. This will manifest itself down the career path. On average, Tennesseans will qualify slower, be of less utility for shorter periods of time in their jobs as a result. As such they will be competitively ranked lower and promote at lower rates unless external efforts are made to adjust the numbers to meet certain "goals." Of course, that is exactly what will - and what does - happen. As things go down the road, Cohort-C looks at people from Kentucky as a bunch of rockstars and wonders what, exactly, is wrong with people from Tennessee. It seems that more issues come from people with a Tennessee drivers license than anyone else. The people from Kentucky start to think they are special and the people from Tennessee start to think there is something either wrong with them or the system. An unfortunate byproduct of this activity is that 1st and 2nd quartile members from Tennessee - even though they are just as good as 1st and 2nd quartile members from Kentucky and the rest of the nation, will be assumed to be lower performers because such objective difference are not just readily seen --- the organization is well aware of the special considerations given to people who just happened to be born in Tennessee. That is the long term insidious nature of forcing quotas in this system. Instead of supporting equality, it forces a system of advantages and disadvantages based on sectarian lines. No nation, and unquestionably no military, has ever been successful promoting such divisions among its people. None. H/t Deborah Haynes. View the full article

Americas Tyonek Global Services won an $11 million deal for the B?1B Advanced Digital Test Station. The B-1B Lancer, also known as “The Bone”, is the US Air Force long-range strategic bomber developed by Rockwell International, now Boeing Defense And Space Group. The deal provides contractor logistics support services. Work will be performed in Warner Robins, Georgia, and is expected to be completed by August 7, 2027. Sierra Nevada won a $9.6 million contract modification, which provides for the integration of a temporary Line of Sight Data Link-16 capability on HC-130J aircraft using portions of the Airborne Mission Networking. Work will take place in Colorado, Arizona, Georgia, Florida and California. Estimated completion date is October 15. 2023. Middle East & Africa VSE Corp. won an $86 million deal for Foreign Military Sales supportability follow-on technical support to provide eligible foreign navies access to a broad range of life cycle support, systems upgrades, systems integration, and other related efforts associated with the transfer and acquisition, operation, and maintenance of naval vessels and systems within their inventory. This ceiling increase is necessary to support an urgent sole source delivery order to VSE Corp. to provide material and labor in support of overhaul, maintenance, and repair of the Egyptian Navy long range maintenance plan schedule for four Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates (FFG-7 class ships), four fast missile crafts, and two mine hunter coastals. Estimated completion will be by March 2023. Europe The Yomiuri Shimbun says that Britain and Japan have decided that their next-generation fighter aircraft will share a common airframe and that the development plans are in final stages. The Japanese newspaper based its information on anonymous government sources. It says both countries’ requirements are nearly identical for their next fighter. It will lead to production efficiency and reduce costs. Italy might become a partner with defense giant Leonardo producing the jet’s radar with Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Babcock International has started a post-life extension (LIFEX) on the UK’s Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigate HMS Argyll at Babcock Devonport’s Facility. It is the first Type 23 to begin its post-LIFEX upkeep, adopting a new innovative approach to re-certification at the Frigate Support Centre (FSC). Babcock will be overhauling key equipment and carrying out design changes for new capabilities such as communications upgrades and mixed crewing. Asia-Pacific The Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) officially inducted a Dornier 228 maritime patrol aircraft into service at SLAF Base Katunayake on August 15. The aircraft is donated to Sri Lanka by India and the High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka attended the ceremony as well. Today’s Video WATCH: Slovak MiG-29 in action, part 12, go around and landing in pair by sunset and at night View the full article

So, how is your week going? The Navy wants to shed 39 ships in Fiscal Year 2023, with the first ship set to depart on Halloween. The list, which includes five guided-missile cruisers Armed neutrality is a good thing - it keeps an enemy at bay. Being hostile while you are actively disarming yourself? That is begging for a whoop'n. Inaction. Inattention. Slavish devotion to process. Entitlement. Distracted leadership. That is how we got here – a destination we slid to this century on a carpet of happy-talk, half-truths, and aspirational time-buying. First, let’s start with a statement that I could have made myself. Via David Sharp at AP; Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations, defended the proposal that emphasizes long-range weapons and modern warships, while shedding other ships ill equipped to face current threats. “We need a ready, capable, lethal force more than we need a bigger force that’s less ready, less lethal, and less capable,” he said Monday at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space symposium in Maryland. I would always want three effective warships as opposed to five worn out, worm-ridden with unpublished CASREPS, partially manned and maintained Command at Sea billets … but it didn’t have to be this way; this was a choice. Anyway, this is just another way to say, "Divest to Invest" which is a kinder-gentler version of "Do More With Less" etc that we've all seen before. We should have five warships - and need eight - but we don’t – and we are barely through the first 5th of The Terrible 20s. We did not get here by accident or by the action of external forces - but by decisions the Navy made. No one is allowed to be surprised. We are a dozen years past the announcement of “The Terrible 20s.” So the structural challenges of this decade were known a few PCS cycles before they began to manifest themselves in spades. Generations of leadership have been happy to let their Sailors be worked down to the bone in undermanned, rusty, poorly maintained ships on extended deployments with ships only partially mission capable. Little effort was made to promote either a replacement for Goldwater-Nichols, push back against the Ottoman-effective “Joint” requirements. Less effort was made to bring the critical importance of sea power has in enabling the standard of living and place in the world of the American people enjoy to the ears of the American people. We lost an entire generation of naval developments with programs like CG(X) that failed to launch, programs like DDG-1000 that failed to transition, and programs like LCS who exist only to mock our claim to be the world’s premier naval power. In some areas, we aren’t even that anymore. No. As we covered earlier this month, the Navalist institutions have failed their moment and we are drifting rudderless into a minefield while those with the charter to provide and maintain a navy remain at their cocktail parties reminding each other how wonderful and influential they are, and in a potlatchesque onomastic orgy of feather-nesting – the future be damned. We have wallowed in failure so long, we have forgotten how we got there. How about a little Front Porch unintended call-out? Some detractors proclaimed littoral combat ships to be the Navy’s “Little Crappy Ship,” but that’s not fair, said defense analyst Loren Thompson. “It’s not a little crappy ship. It does what it was supposed to do. What it was supposed to do isn’t enough for the kind of threats that we face today,” said Thompson, from the Lexington Institute. In the Navy’s defense, threats shifted swiftly from the Cold War to the war on terror to the current Great Power Competition in which Russia and China are asserting themselves, he said. If you have to bring out Loren to defend you, you've lost the LCS argument. I mean, really people. As was even mentioned early on in this article, LCS was designed for a post-Cold War threat. This reads as satire, but it is serious as people think it is informed, objective opinion quoted in the article. It isn't. If we can't speak truth, we sail in a sea of lies and feast on a layer of error on top of error. Enough of that rant, I am probably losing you ... let us behold the spawn of The Terrible 20s. There are three stories here, all different, and all damning to the leadership of our Navy the last quarter century … but mostly the leadership of the first decade of this century. They begat the child the present leadership is having to raise – and still tell us what a great baby-daddy they are. First let’s look at the list from NAVADMIN 181/22. The three stories are the neglected unsexy but important, the worn out, and the snake-bit. 1. The Unsexy but Important: The USNS ships range from 8 (Glenn) to 50 (Gordon/Gilliland) years old with an average of 36.2 years. Most should have been replaced years ago, but ... well ... you know. As a side note, if anyone knows the background on the T-ESD going away so young, let us know in the comments. I can't find anything. 2. Worn out: The SSN were both ~36-yrs old, the CG averaged 35 years old, and the LSD 33 years old. The way we use our fleet units, if after 30-yrs you can't replace them 1-for-1 then that is your fault. The PC's are 28 years old on average ... way beyond what those wee ships should be. Is the CNO right about these? Sure ... but don't say, "... less ready, less lethal, and less capable." - just be honest and say, "...worn out, unrepairable, and too dangerous to ask Sailors to go to war in." Be clear and direct. Be at least as blunt as we were defending the writings of Kendi. 3. Snake-bit: the Little Crappy Ship is little, crappy, and should probably be called a hulk. Average age here is 4.7 years, the youngest just 2 years. No one has been held to account. No one. If you are new to the LCS debacle of think the Front Porch is taking too much credit, well...here is almost 2-decades of commentary here on LCS. We were right from the start. Something useful is being made with the Independence Class with more money and fewer expectations, but what an opportunity cost this misadventure has consumed. In what has been a bad decade for the US Navy’s relationship with Congress – and an exceptionally bad year when our senior leadership expended what was left of institutional good will defending racial essentialism – it appears that the powers that be insist it wants to pick a fight with the organization that feeds them. That is just picking a fight. I'm all about picking fights, but this isn't the right one. U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Virginia, was more blunt, tweeting that it “sucks” to be decommissioning so many ships, especially newer ones. “The Navy owes a public apology to American taxpayers for wasting tens of billions of dollars on ships they now say serve no purpose,” she said. Rep. Lauria (D-VA), the surface-nuke that she is – knows what time it is – and can mock the lame and weak as only a surface nuke can. So, add this to your folder of affirmative failures of vision and verve. U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Virginia, suggested the ship cuts were “grossly irresponsible” when the U.S. Navy has dipped from 318 ships to 297, while the Chinese fleet has grown from 210 to 360 ships over the past two decades. Milley said it's important to focus on the Navy's capabilities rather than the size of its fleet. “I would bias towards capability rather than just sheer numbers,” he said. Milley doesn't know the difference between a MK-41 and a SeaRAM. What happened to "distributed lethality?" Nothing to the concept, it just seems that our leadership lacks the ability to have a sustained baseline strategy that lasts longer than a FITREP cycle and instead invents new buzzwords to chase around like a catnip addled kitty after a laser pointer. That and it is shamed by the empty piers LCS, DDG-1000, and CG(X) begat our already cursed decade of decline. The 2020s were going to be hard whatever we did, but by our collective action, we have made it worse. The US Navy has earned a long, painful, and distinguished period of oversight from Congress that will hopefully result in a wholesale rebuild of our shipbuilding people, process, and procedures. If not, well ... the US Navy and the nation it serves had a good century in the sun. A hoot while it lasted. What follows will not be a hoot. View the full article

By Mark Harris; Helion, Warwick, UK, (2021). Reviewed By Capt. Richard Dick, USN (Ret.) Harwich Submarines in the Great War is the detailed story of the 1914 British overseas submarine campaign. “Detailed” really does not do the author justice. Mark Harris’s research is little short of astonishing. He has plumbed British, German, and French archives, the papers of Adm. Roger Keyes, RN (Commodore in Charge, Submarine Service, 1912-1914), and the British and German official histories to tell the story, in depth, of every British offensive submarine patrol in the North Sea in 1914 (and the 1914 Baltic patrols) from the outbreak of war in August through the end of the year. He has reconstructed and drawn corrected charts for each patrol. He discusses every British senior officer connected with the campaign, every submarine commanding officer (including relevant comments from their fitness reports), many subordinate officers in the more than 20 British (and one French) submarine wardrooms, and key crew members of each vessel. Harris focuses on the men but includes more than enough of the technical characteristics and details to enable the reader to understand the constraints, capabilities, and weaknesses of these, the first British submarines to be used in combat outside U.K. coastal waters. At the outbreak of war, the Royal Navy concentrated its newest and most capable submarines, the D and E classes, at Harwich on the North Sea as the 8th Submarine Flotilla. The flotilla was part of the Royal Navy Submarine Service, under the command of then-Commodore Roger J.B. Keyes. The E Class would become the most famous British submarines of the war, thanks largely to the exploits of two of Keyes’ commanding officers, Lt. Cdr. Max Horton and Lt. Cdr. Martin Naismith. The E class boat was crewed by three officers and about 27 enlisted men. On the surface, diesel engines propelled it at a maximum speed of 15 knots for about 2600 miles. Submerged, battery-powered electric motors could take the boat up to about 65 miles at 5 knots. Armament consisted of four to five 18-inch torpedo tubes (one or two in the bow, one in the stern, and one each firing athwartships to port and starboard) and 8-10 weapons (the vessels carried no deck gun). E Class units were being fitted during 1914 with radio (good to about 50 miles). The 181 foot submarine was divided into three or four watertight compartments and could submerge to a design maximum depth of 100 feet (although boats exceeded this on several occasions). The only effective sensor system was visual detection, either from lookouts on the surface or through the mediocre periscope when submerged. By December 1914, E Class units were operating at sea up to 18 days. Food was generally canned, monotonous, and often served cold, since the oven and hotplate consumed precious battery power submerged. Crews spent much time on the surface, often in the teeth of North Sea winter gales that smashed bridge screens and sometimes bent bow planes. Harris describes meticulously the people, doctrine, and training of the submarine force. He acknowledges that in 1914 the 8th Flotilla sank few German ships (the scout cruiser SMS Hela and the torpedo boat destroyer S-116) while losing three of its own units. However, he highlights the real achievement of the 1914 campaign– by December, the major surface units of the German High Sea Fleet had been largely confined to port and most of their at-sea training had been shifted to the Baltic. Fear of British submarines largely drove these changes. While the major units could and did deploy for fleet actions, they had vacated the North Sea for routine operations. Harris is a prodigious researcher and an effective (if not thrilling) writer. He has illustrated the book with a number of excellent photographs and his own very good charts. Harwich Submarines is apparently his first book; hopefully his subsequent work will live up to the very high standards he has set in this work. Captain Dick is a retired submariner; he also served over 29 years in the defense intelligence community. Mark Harris is a military historian who studies World War I naval matters. He previously worked in the financial services sector, but now focuses his historical research on sifting new nuggets from familiar archives and memoirs. Harwich Submarines in the Great War: The First Submarine Campaign of the Royal Navy in 1914. By Mark Harris (Warwick, UK: 2021). The post Harwich Submarines in the Great War: The First Submarine Campaign of the Royal Navy in 1914 first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation. View the full article

The “Out Years” is fantasy. It is a place where people wishcast the future they want. Let’s take a quick look at this gem from the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for FY 2007. How'd that work out for us? From that report looking forward nine years to 2016, it shows us having spent money on building in that time period … what exactly? Seven (7) DD(X), aka DDG-1000, and six (6) CG(X). Yeah … so be careful trusting these documents. That is why I simply refuse to listen to anyone’s pontifications on 2040 or 2045. Come on people. It’s insulting. Let’s stick with that template of 9-years above, it's bad enough. From today that window would get us to 2031. Depending on who you talk to, that is either in the center or slightly right of center of the period expected to be the time of greatest danger with conflict over Taiwan with the People’s Republic of China. It also plays well with the issues we raised with the Hudson Institute’s Bryan Clark on Midrats last Sunday. As men smarter than me have said, there are no magic beans. By the end of the decade there will be no “new” deployable program that will be able to change the fight west of Wake except on the margins in year-1 of any war. We will fight, +/-, at the end of the decade with what we have displacing water and making shadows on the ramp today. There are things that we have right now – at or near IOC – that may, if given the proper resources and focus, be significant additions to our combat power by the end of the decade. I’d point you to Sunday’s Midrats for a series of platforms and capabilities that fit that bill, but today I want to focus on one that really got my attention – mostly because it is a historically proven force multiplier, engines. Throughout aviation history marginal existing aircraft were made good, and good aircraft made great simply by updating engines. In recent history, two example stand out. First the USAF re-engined its KC-135s; The re-engined tanker, designated either the KC-135R or KC-135T, can offload 50 percent more fuel, is 25 percent more fuel efficient, costs 25 percent less to operate and is 96 percent quieter than the KC-135A. On the Navy side of the house, there was the re-engined F-14; Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. went on to say the TF30 engine “in the F-14 is probably the worst engine-airplane mismatch we have had in many years. The TF30 engine is just a terrible engine and has accounted for 28.2 percent of all F14 crashes.” … In 1987, F-14s began receiving new engines in the General Electric F110, which offered more thrust and eliminated many of the reliability problems associated with the TF30. These improved F-14Bs and the subsequent F-14Ds were very much the Tomcat of Top Gun fame, and as a result, you’ll often find Tomcat fans dismissing the TF30’s woes as a problem specific to the F-14A in the early days of operation. See the pattern? What does this have to do with any future conflict with China? The self-inflicted vulnerability of our airwing and its well-known retreat from range with a deck full of short-legged strike fighters with no organic tanking (sorry, buddy tanking does not count) needs to be fixed at sea or balanced ashore. While there is a chance to get a fair number of deployable unmanned tankers by the end of the decade, that is about the only thing we have on the horizon. Mindless dithering, entitlement, and sloth means our new carrier capable aircraft won’t be ready for the fight. What do we have that, possibly, might be able to help ashore for the USAF aircraft we will need beyond the finite number of heavy bombers and the delicate inventory of stand-off weapons they carry? Though there are questions if it could be installed in the USN’s F-35C due to space constraints with the tailhook, and unquestionably can’t fit in the F-35B … for the land-based F-35A an engine replacement via the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP) could provide a 25-30% increase in range. Pratt & Whitney is testing its new XA101 Adaptive Engine Transition Program powerplant and expects to conclude testing its two examples by the end of next year, company military engines division president Matthew Bromberg revealed in an interview. He expects that two-thirds of the technology developed from AETP could find its way into earlier engines now flying with the Air Force. The company is “thrilled” to have two options available for the Air Force and F-35 partners to choose from for an upgrade to the fighter’s propulsion system, Bromberg said. GE Aviation has developed the XA100 AETP engine as a competitor to Pratt & Whitney’s version. Testing of “our first new fighter engine in 30 years … was successful,” Bromberg said. The first XA101 and its twin will shuttle back and forth between Pratt & Whitney’s facilities and the Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Center in Tullahoma, Tenn., for the next year or so, generating more data. The Air Force and F-35 Joint Program Office will use the data to help decide whether the F-35 should get an all-new powerplant—one of the AETP engines—or take Pratt & Whitney up on its offer of an enhanced version of the F135 engine already in the F-35 fighter. Pratt & Whitney succeeded in achieving the AETP’s goals, which were to obtain 10 percent improvement in thrust and 25 percent improvements in both fuel efficiency and thermal management, Bromberg said. “We know we can do that,” he said. Range and endurance is a primary driver for any conflict in the Pacific. If we need more range inside 5-10 year window, AETP is one of the few ways I can see it happening. I can think of fewer programs ready to go that seem more critical if the USAF is going to be able to join the fray in a manner we need them to. The timeline is tight, but take what you can get. Time is short … and so is the range of our aircraft. All hail the F-35D. View the full article

Americas A new F-35A was delivered to Edwards Air Force Base on August 1 for assignment with the 461st Flight Test Squadron (FLTS). It is the first of six F-35As that the squadron and the F-35 Lightning II Integrated Test Force will use to test the Technical Refresh 3 and Block 4 configurations. For all three variants of the F-35, the 461 FLTS is the lead developmental flight test unit for sensors, weapons, and software. BAE Systems Land & Armaments won an $88 million contract for Amphibious Combat Vehicles (ACV). The total cumulative face value of the contract is $1,910,796,347. This contract modification procures labor and material for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle Mission Role Variant Medium Caliber Cannon (ACV-30) for post-critical design review design and development, production representative test vehicles, and support for test activities. Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Virginia, is the contracting activity. Work will take place in California, Maryland, Norway, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, California, Minnesota, Michigan, Phoenix, New Mexico, Italy and Mississippi. Estimated completion date is July 2025. Middle East & Africa Vertex Aerospace won a $62.8 million deal, which provides for organizational level and authorized intermediate level aircraft maintenance, logistics support, and limited repair of common support equipment for three KC-130J aircraft for the government of Kuwait. Kuwait flies its three KC-130Js on a mix of transport and tanker missions. Work will take place in Kuwait and Mississippi. Expected completion will be in August 2027. Europe Slovakia’s Minister of Defence has refuted media reports that the country’s MiG-29 fighters have been transferred to Ukraine. “Our MiG-29 fighters are not in Ukraine. This is false information. They are still at Slia?,” Jaroslav Na? was quoted as saying. He added that an official retirement ceremony for the MiG-29s will be held on Aug. 27 at the Slovak International Air Festival. Asia-Pacific Philippine officials are considering a US offer to provide heavy-lift helicopters like its widely used Chinooks after Manila scrapped a deal to buy military choppers from Russia due to fears of Western sanctions, the Philippine ambassador to Washington said Monday. Then-President Rodrigo Duterte approved the cancellation of the signed deal to buy 16 Russian Mi-17 helicopters due to concerns over possible Western sanctions, which could hamper fast bank transfers of the income Filipino workers send home from the U.S. and other Western countries, Ambassador Jose Romualdez said. About 100 aircraft and 2500 military personnel from 17 nations will arrive in Australia’s Northern Territory in mid-August to commence Exercise Pitch Black 2022. The German Air Force is set to travel to Australia to make its debut in the country’s multi-national exercise, marking the first time the German and Australian forces have trained together. Today’s Video WATCH: Slovak MiG-29 in action, part 12, go around and landing in pair by sunset and at night View the full article

To build the Navy we need, the one thing we have to get right is - and this seems obvious - to successfully build ships. A lot of them. Easy to type, hard to do. While we have had many well-documented troubles this century, we also have some notable successes that give hope we can do it right when we want to. Returning today with another top-shelf guest post, Bryan McGrath picks up the conversation with a reminder of what we did get right, and what we need to do with that institutional capital. Bryan, over to you. When a “Murderers Row” of Navalists (Hendrix, Salamander, Work) all take to the interwebs within the same week to opine on the recent pathologies of American naval shipbuilding, one is forced to take note. As I toil and scribble in the same lanes as these fellows, I feel called to add my thoughts to the mix, some of which track well with theirs, some of which are not well-aligned, and some of which touch on issues their essays chose not to address. Their flurry of essays provides occasion to reflect upon the state of naval shipbuilding in the United States. With China’s naval expansion proceeding at an alarming pace and multiple studies converging on the finding that the U.S. Navy is too small, America must build more warships. This need is complicated by recent, well-documented descriptions of delays, cost overruns, and technical failures, raising questions about whether the United States is up to the task. This essay asserts that it is, but only if tough lessons are implemented, sufficient resources are applied, common sense is embraced, and political will is demonstrated. Some of this my esteemed colleagues touch on, some they do not. The Acquisition Kluge The first thing to consider before we bend any steel or take to the computer-aided design software is that the acquisition of Navy warships exists within a complicated cauldron of interlocking systems and stakeholders to include executive branch policy making, legislative branch resourcing, Department of Defense/Navy budgetary prioritization and strategy-making, and industrial base concerns, to name only a few. There are no silver bullets, there are no magic beans. The act of acquiring warships is hard, and countless trade-offs among and within these systems are a feature, not a bug. This complex kluge creates numerous perverse incentives among the stakeholders. At the national level, we are unable to make coherent grand strategy, and so what kind of and how big a Navy we need devolves to slight deviations from the Navy we have, even when that Navy is patently insufficient. When the Navy does seek to develop a new class of ship, it consistently understates both the cost of the first in class and the life-cycle costs that it will incur. Why? Because everyone involved has an interest in keeping “sticker shock” from derailing the acquisition, including Congress. Better to get the program up and operating and ask for more money later than to drive away interest in a program due to its expense. Compounding this kabuki is the problem of immature designs, and much of the blame here belongs in the Pentagon. Whether one points to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s “transformational” edicts to both the FORD Class CVN program and the DDX program (now the DDG 1000) resulting in the parallel integration of numerous immature technologies, or the similarly “transformational” decision to provide potential LCS vendors with “performance specifications” rather than “design specifications” (resulting in brittle supply chains and the introduction of one-of-a-kind and unproven technology in main propulsion USS ZUMWALT (DDG 1000) and combat systems), the pathologies of all three programs (CVN, DDG 1000, and LCS) are in part the result of immature designs incorporating unready, untested, and unsupported technology. Additionally, as part of the post-Cold War move to favor “efficiency” (over effectiveness), the Navy’s own technical community was dramatically down-sized, resulting in a situation in which it attempted—under pressure from OSD and from its own questionable decision-making—to oversee the development of increasingly complex warships with unfamiliar technology utilizing a workforce that was not up to the task. This was a recipe for failure, and three ship classes suffered as a result. Is All the News Bad? Reading the thoughts of my friends Jerry Hendrix, Bob Work, and Commander Salamander on the turmoil in naval shipbuilding of the past two decades provides a depressing but incomplete picture of the status of American warship building. The United States is at this moment, building several classes of ships that are the envy of the world-- effectively and efficiently--to include the VIRGINIA Class attack submarine, the ARLEIGH BURKE Class destroyer, and two classes of large amphibious ships (LPD and LHA). The Navy and the Congress possess such confidence in these ships that they are routinely acquired in batches, rather than with individual contracts for each hull. What is the difference in these ships and the three (CVN, DDG 1000, LCS) discussed earlier? The simple answer is that they are mature programs with generally stable designs. The ship pictured below at its recent commissioning ceremony--USS FORT LAUDERDALE (LPD 28)—is the beneficiary of years of construction experience and what the industry calls “learning”. More efficient processes are created, early design problems are overcome, and real costs decline the longer a production line remains open. The VIRGINIA Class SSN, DDG51 class, and the LPD 17 class all had early problems to overcome, but the Navy and the shipyards—with considerable oversight from Congress—worked those problems out and put the programs on a steady course. As of this writing, it appears that similar conditions are prevailing in the construction of follow-on FORD Class CVN’s. The point here is that America CAN build ships; it builds GREAT ships. But given the pace of China’s Navy buildup and the considerable number of new and newly modernized ships in the pipeline, how can the Navy and other stakeholders in the acquisition process behave differently to achieve positive results earlier rather than later? What Is to Be Done? In his recent guidance to the Navy’s Surface Forces called “The Competitive Edge”, VADM Roy Kitchener USN (Commander U.S. Naval Forces) identified ten “new or modernized platforms” that will join the fleet or be in construction over the next ten years. Those platforms are: ZUMWALT-Class Destroyers (DDG 1000) with Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS)ARLEIGH BURKE Class Guided Missile Destroyers (Flight III)ARLEIGH BURKE Class Guided Missile Destroyers (Flight IIA Modernization)LCS Lethality and Survivability UpgradeCONSTELLATION-Class Guided Missile Frigate (FFG 62)Light Amphibious Warship (LAW)Medium Unmanned Surface Vessels (MUSV)Large Unmanned Surface Vessels (LUSV)SAN ANTONIO Class Amphibious Transport Dock (LPD 17 Flight II)Next Generation Guided Missile Destroyers (DDG (X)) This is a considerable amount of complexity entering the fleet in the next decade, and unless lessons from the past twenty years of frustration are implemented among all the various stakeholders, that frustration will continue. Here are several suggested focus areas: Design Maturity. Civilian and uniformed leadership of the Navy should be required by Congress to certify design maturity and maturity of new technologies prior to proceeding to construction. Concurrency must be avoided at all costs, and new capabilities should be developed and proven in land-based test facilities PRIOR to introduction. Exceptions would include corrections of obvious mistakes, and changes to ships that are built at wider intervals (like aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships). Of note, well into the Biden Administration’s second year, the Navy does not have a Senate confirmed Assistant Secretary for Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASN RDA), nor has one been nominated. Additionally, Congress must play a constructive role here by providing funding for design and testing to support Navy acquisition timelines and for additional land-based test capacity (an unsung Congressional achievement of late). These funds are often harvested and re-applied elsewhere, which causes acquisition delays (at best) and at worst—contributes to design immaturity as the Navy rushes to meet production schedules. The best of all cases from a Congressional oversight standpoint is to provide the design and testing resources when they are requested but to relentlessly hold the line on construction until satisfied of design and technology maturity. Long lead-time material must be closely managed to ensure availability. Requirements Discipline. When and if this country becomes serious enough about force structure to seat a Senate-confirmed official at ASN RDA, that individual must be utterly ruthless in shooting down the good idea fairy, even if that fairy appears in khaki with several stars on the collar. Multiple iterations of mature designs should be constructed to reap pricing benefits, with (as stated above) changes and capabilities proved and binned awaiting a new “tranche” of ships into which they will be integrated. A Virtuous Cycle of Stability and Investment. There is, within the latest Navy 30 Year Shipbuilding Plan, discussion of industrial base concerns in both the surface and submarine shipbuilding narratives, with no less an authority than the CNO casting doubt. Building multiple VIRGINIA Class SSN’s and the COLUMBIA Class SSBN simultaneously will surely flex the submarine industrial base, but the suggestion that there is not additional capacity in the surface industrial base is misplaced (although skilled workforce issues impact shipbuilding as much as most other industrial concerns). Where there are serious problems is within the supply chain, as tier 2 and 3 suppliers exit their businesses in response to inconsistent demand signals from the Navy. This inconsistency is important to the entire industry, as publicly held businesses must answer to shareholders who would (rightly) question capital investments driven by the behavior of their monopsonic partner. Leverage Hot Production Lines. Both tier 1 shipyards (HII and Bath Iron Works) are transitioning to the Flight III DDG line of ARLEIGH BURKE Destroyers—HII from building Flight II’s, and BIW from building DDG 1000’s. The first hull at HII is nearing completion, and the first at BIW is under construction. Hot production lines also exist in the LPD 17 program and the LHA program. The Navy should plan to and budget for AT LEAST 2 SSN’s a year (in addition to the required SSBN program), 2 large surface combatants a year, 1 LPD 17 every other year, 1 LHA every four years and 1 CVN every five years. USS FORT LAUDERDALE (LPD 28) For those hearkening back to paragraph three where I stated “…what kind of and how big a Navy we need devolves to slight deviations from the Navy we have…”, be advised that what I suggest above is just a part—a large part, but just a part—of the building program we need. We (the kluge cited earlier) have dithered long enough on unmanned platforms on and under the ocean, and the dearth of new Medium USV acquisitions in the President’s FY23 budget is concerning. A third of the 2045 fleet is to be unmanned, and if we hope to get there, we need to start bending metal, much of which will be done at more modestly sized yards. And then there is the new frigate. Compete the CONSTELLATION Class As Soon As Possible. It is difficult to see in the Navy’s plans a desire to bring on a second yard to build the CONSTELLATION Class frigate any time soon. Whether this is an architecture decision, a resource decision, or a risk decision is not known to me, but it is logical to assume that if the Navy is to grow larger in the coming years, more of these ships must be built. The design chosen by the Navy—while based upon a successful European hull—is considerably different from the parent design, in no small measure due to requirements for survivability driven by NAVSEA. Those requirements are often seen as onerous, but one important fact distinguishes STARK, SAMUEL B ROBERTS, PRINCETON, TRIPOLI, MCCAIN, and FITZGERALD from MOSKVA, and that is that only one of these ships went to the bottom. That the yard chosen to build CONSTELLATION has never built a ship of this size and complexity before is even more reason to expeditiously compete the design among the other building yards, both to get to at least four hulls per year and a means of backstopping production risk. Some would caution against this path, citing the need for the Navy and its shipbuilding partner to “learn” from the first hull. While there is indeed learning to be done, there is precedent worth considering in the transition from building CG 47’s to DDG 51’s. Bath Iron Works won the contract for the ARLEIGH BURKE, and Ingalls began construction on BARRY two years after ARLEIGH BURKE construction began, with the yards competing on hulls and multi-year procurements ever since. Like I said earlier, shipbuilding is hard. But it is harder when costs are consistently and predictably under-estimated (I’m no math major, but there seems to be a fudge factor suggested here), when the key policy and oversight positions are not filled, when construction begins before plans are ready, when considerable changes are made from hull to hull without discipline and testing, and when there are dramatic swings in shipbuilding plans that frustrate coherent capital investing. The nation needs a larger Navy; it needs more of the same and it needs more of different. It needs capacity and capability. It needs more and more predictable resources. More than anything else though, it needs this country’s national security decision making elite to walk away from any notion that the Navy the nation needs can be had on the cheap, that other instruments of government can make up for what the Navy does every day around the world, and that we can “technology” our way out of the seapower deficit we are in. Winter is coming. Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC. He has clients in government and industry. His public writing and speaking represents his own opinions. View the full article

Americas Bath Iron Works won a $35.4 million contract modification for lead yard support effort for the DDG-51 Class Guided Missile Destroyer program. Work will take place in Maine. Estimated completion will be in June 2023. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, DC, is the contracting activity. General Dynamics won a $59.8 million modification for multiple items used in the Abrams Main Battle Tank, Stryker Family of Vehicles, Light Armored Vehicle Family of Vehicles, Cougar, Buffalo and RG-31. The M1 Abrams is a third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense and named for General Creighton Abrams. Work will take place in Florida. Estimated completion date is July 29, 2029. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime, Columbus, Ohio. Middle East & Africa The German defense ministry said Friday it had suspended most of its operations in Mali after the local military-led government denied flyover rights to a UN peacekeeping mission. “The Malian government has once again refused to give flyover rights to a flight planned today” for the rotation of personnel on the ground, a ministry spokesman said at a regular press conference. In response, Germany had decided to “suspend until further notice the operations of our reconnaissance forces and CH-53 (helicopter) transport flights.” Europe In an interview with Finnish daily Iltalehti, Estonia’s Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur says his country will integrate its coastal anti-ship missile system with Finland. This will create a choke point for Russian warships in the Gulf of Finland. The widest point of the gulf is 120km and the narrowest is just 52km. The Blue Spear anti-ship missile has been ordered by Estonia and it has a range of 290km. Finland currently deploys the MTO 85M, which is the Saab RBS 15 anti-ship missile. The Hellenic Air Force will soon send a letter of request (LOR) to the United States for the upgrade of 38 F-16C/D Block 50 fighters to the V variant. These fighters will be upgraded at Nea Anchialos Air Base while two Greek F-16s have completed their upgrade to the F-16V standard and will soon be used to train pilots. Older F-16 Block 30s that are in Greek inventory will not undergo the upgrade process. Asia-Pacific The Australian Department of Defence unveiled the Bushmaster electric protected military vehicle (ePMV) reflecting an effort, it said, to ensure the Australian Army is ‘future ready’. The prototype was showcased on August 10 at the Chief of Army Symposium, a three-day event in Adelaide. The vehicle was developed by the Australian Army’s Robotic and Autonomous Systems Implementation & Coordination Office (RICO), working in collaboration with an Australian company, 3ME Technology, which specialises in lithium-ion battery systems for mining and military vehicles, and the DoD’s Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG). Today’s Video WATCH: Here is The New Generation of High-Tech, Heavily Armed DDG 51 Flight III Destroyers View the full article

All it takes is a quick look at a map or a quick read of history to understand that any conflict in the Western Pacific will be dominated by naval forces, logistics, control of the air, and the ability to sustain all three. Extending our conversation on Midrats this summer about the challenge from China, this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern returning to Midrats will be our guest Bryan Clark, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at Hudson Institute. The starting point for our discussion will be the report he co-authored with Timothy Walton, Regaining the High Ground Against China: A Plan to Achieve US Naval Aviation Superiority This Decade. Before joining Hudson Institute, Bryan Clark was a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) where he led studies for the Department of Defense Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Defense Advanced Research Products Agency on new technologies and the future of warfare. Prior to joining CSBA in 2013, Mr. Clark was special assistant to the chief of naval operations and director of his Commander’s Action Group, where he led development of Navy strategy and implemented new initiatives in electromagnetic spectrum operations, undersea warfare, expeditionary operations, and personnel and readiness management. Mr. Clark served in the Navy headquarters staff from 2004 to 2011, leading studies in the Assessment Division and participating in the 2006 and 2010 Quadrennial Defense Reviews. Prior to retiring from the Navy in 2008, Mr. Clark was an enlisted and officer submariner, serving in afloat and ashore submarine operational and training assignments, including tours as chief engineer and operations officer at the Navy’s Nuclear Power Training Unit. Join us live if you can, but it not, you can get the show later by subscribing to the podcast. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here. You can find us on almost all your most popular podcast aggregators as well. View the full article