CV32

Nice article on the B-1B Lancer ... The Bone is back ... and from the article, a link to a pretty cool video:

I don't think it is currently possible, but certainly something for the wish list. Not at all. Though we're limited by the current model, we do have lofty ambitions and its always useful to brainstorm about the possibilities.

Yep, the F-22 and JSF. The problem with the F-117 in a SEAD/DEAD role is its relatively small, split internal weapons bay with single hardpoints, limiting it to just two of anything, iirc. That and the relatively poor kinematic energy it would be able to impart to the missile.

Drool ... From Flight International DATE: 28/04/08 SOURCE: Flightglobal.com Raytheon lifts veil on ramjet-powered HARM By Stephen Trimble Raytheon today unveiled a new concept for revolutionizing the accuracy, range, speed and perhaps even the mission of the quarter-century-old AGM-88 high-speed anti-radiation missile (HARM). The concept replaces the AGM-88’s dual-thrust rocket motor with a dramatically more powerful ramjet engine. Guidance is also upgraded with satellite-based navigation, fiber-optic gyroscopes and new software. The new weapon could boost Raytheon’s competitive fortunes against a US Navy-sponsored upgrade: the Alliant Techsystems AGM-88E advanced anti-radiation guidance missile (AARGM). The improvements may also help the US Air Force cope with the increasing sophistication and range of integrated air defence systems, as well as attack time critical targets with an ultra-high-speed, precision-guided missile. Raytheon has set a high bar for success on the project. The company’s goal is to design the 25.4cm (10in)- diameter missile to fit inside the internal weapons bay of any strike aircraft in the US Air Force fleet, as well as an on any outboard stations, says Jeff Wadsworth, Raytheon’s programme director for HARM. Integrating the ramjet removes the mid-body wings of the missile and adds a tail-kit that includes a narrower set of four control fins. “The tail is not nearly as large as the mid-body wings and we believe that let’s us carry it internally in new US aircraft that have internal weapons bays,” Wadsworth said.

Lesson: Don't switch database versions between your saved games.

Mmmm, not, but we can simulate it with short range of the chaff/flare/ecm, I suppose. i.e., 1,5-3 n.m., or so. That's possible, though it does turn the chaff/flare into an 'offensive' jamming weapon within that range envelope. Acceptable side effect, perhaps.

I didn't see much action during the game, having been tasked to occupy Leon Ridge (away from the fighting). The fog of war between friendly units was nice to see. I had no idea how Brains' tanks were doing but it sounded like quite the exchange of fire over there. A look at the revealed map afterward seemed to show Red forces in disarray, at least.

I don't have Crosby in my hockey pool, so have at him!

Yes, it'd be nice to be able to simulate all of the various little intricacies and terminology of offboard soft kill expendables: confusion, dump mode seduction, centroid mode seduction, distraction, range gate pull off, walk off, bloom time, etc, etc. Unfortunately, we cannot (as yet) model the ability to launch chaff/flare or decoy expendables in any 'standoff' fashion, i.e. launch them away from the ship. Likewise, we cannot create 'ghost' targets. The present model is rudimentary; it simply reduces the hit probability percentage of an attacking weapon. Knowing your background, Hoydie17, I'd appreciate and welcome your commentary on this in particular and, of course, the subject in general.

Expansion of No.9 in the list.

See Ethics & International Affairs It is Philip Coyle, after all, so we shouldn't be surprised by his conclusions, but ouchie!

Montreal vs Philadelphia series.

From New York Times April 25, 2008 Lesson on How Not to Build a Navy Ship By PHILIP TAUBMAN With the crack of a Champagne bottle against its bow, the newly minted Navy warship, bedecked with bunting, slid sideways into the Menominee River in Wisconsin with a titanic splash. Moments before the launching on Sept. 23, 2006, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chief of naval operations, told the festive crowd of shipbuilders, politicians and Navy brass assembled at the Marinette Marine shipyard, “Just a little more than three years ago, she was just an idea; now Freedom stands before us.” Not quite. The ship — the first of a new class of versatile, high-speed combat vessels designed to operate in coastal waters — was indeed bobbing in the river, just four months after the promised launching date. But it was far from finished. In fact, the ship floats there still, work continuing day and night. A project heralded as the dawning of an innovative, low-cost era in Navy shipbuilding has turned into a case study of how not to build a combat ship. The bill for the ship, being built by Lockheed Martin, has soared to $531 million, more than double the original, and by some calculations could be $100 million more. With an alternate General Dynamics prototype similarly struggling at an Alabama shipyard, the Navy last year temporarily suspended the entire program. The program’s tribulations speak to what military experts say are profound shortcomings in the Pentagon’s acquisitions system. Even as spending on new projects has risen to its highest point since the Reagan years, being over budget and behind schedule have become the norm: a recent Government Accountability Office audit found that 95 projects — warships, helicopters and satellites — were delayed 21 months on average and cost 26 percent more than initially projected, a bill of $295 billion. In a narrow sense, the troubled birth of the coastal ships was rooted in the Navy’s misbegotten faith in a feat of maritime alchemy: building a hardened warship by adapting the design of a high-speed commercial ferry. As Representative Gene Taylor, the Mississippi Democrat who leads the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces, put it, “Thinking these ships could be built to commercial specs was a dumb move.” Behind the numbers in the Accountability Office study, experts say, is a dynamic of mutually re-enforcing deficiencies: ever-changing Pentagon design requirements; unrealistic cost estimates and production schedules abetted by companies eager to win contracts, and a fondness for commercial technologies that often, as with the ferry concept, prove unsuitable for specialized military projects. At the same time, a policy of letting contractors take the lead in managing weapons programs has coincided with an acute shortage of government engineers trained to oversee these increasingly complex enterprises. The coastal ships — called littoral combat ships — are especially important to the Navy, which has struggled to retain a central role in American military operations after the cold war. In part, they are a response to the Navy’s own Sept. 11 moment, which came in October 2000, when two terrorists in a bomb-laden rubber dinghy rammed the destroyer Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39 more. An examination of the littoral combat ships by The New York Times, including interviews with many of the principal Navy and industry officials involved, found that the project was hobbled from the outset by the Navy’s zeal to build the ships as fast and inexpensively as possible and the contractors’ desire — driven by competitive pressures — to stay on schedule, even as the ferry designs proved impractical and construction problems multiplied. In their haste to get the ships into the water, the Navy and contractors redesigned and built them at the same time — akin to building an office tower while reworking the blueprints. To meet its deadline, Lockheed abandoned the normal sequence of shipbuilding steps: instead of largely finishing sections and then assembling the ship, much of the work was left to be done after the ship was welded together. That slowed construction and vastly drove up costs. “It’s not good to be building as you’re designing,” said Vice Adm. Paul E. Sullivan, commander of the Navy branch that supervises shipbuilding. A Lockheed executive vice president, Christopher E. Kubasik, said, “We have acknowledged all along our shared responsibility for challenges encountered in the design and construction of the littoral combat ship, which are similar to those typically experienced with first-in-class vessels, including the competing LCS design.” Mr. Kubasik said the company was working toward “realistic cost goals for subsequent ships.” General Dynamics declined to comment. Despite the problems, the Navy secretary, Donald C. Winter, and other top Navy officials say they remain committed to building 55 of the ships, once a steady, fixed-price production run can be assured. Even at about $500 million apiece, Navy officials add, the coastal ships would be a bargain compared with most Navy combat vessels. Still, throughout the military-industrial world, the program is seen as a cautionary tale, especially for a Navy whose 30-year shipbuilding strategy calls for building scores of warships — including aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines — to bolster an aging fleet. “The littoral combat ship is an imaginative answer to emerging military requirements, but it has the most fouled-up acquisition strategy I have ever seen in a major military program,” said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a policy research center. A New Mantra Traditionally the Navy had disdained small combat ships as a major component of the fleet. But strategists came to fear that the “David and Goliath” phenomenon underlined by the attack on the Cole, what they call asymmetric warfare, would only grow in the years ahead. “We needed to figure out how to asymmetric the asymmetric guys,” recalled Adm. Vern Clark, who championed the ships as chief of naval operations from 2000 to 2005. To Navy planners, a ship designed for coastal combat could neutralize hostile submarines, surface warships, mines and terrorist speedboats, clearing the way for other combat ships to operate in offshore waters and support combat ashore. The Navy first publicly declared its intention to build the ship on Nov. 1, 2001. In those days, the Pentagon’s defining procurement mantra was “Faster, Better, Cheaper.” From the first, the coastal ships’ defining characteristic was speed. The first model was to be delivered no more than six years after conceptual planning began, half the normal time. Construction was to take two years, instead of the usual four or five. The Navy also wanted ships that could travel fast, better than 40 knots. And they needed to be easily outfitted with different weapons and surveillance systems. A removable package of mine-sweeping equipment, for instance, could be replaced with a package of special-operations gear used by a Seal team. Each ship would carry an uncommonly small crew, about 40 sailors. Compared with a $2 billion destroyer or a $7 billion to $9 billion aircraft carrier, the new ships would be produced at the cut rate of $220 million apiece, not including weapons packages. In short, the accelerated, cost-conscious acquisition plan — promoted as a new shipbuilding paradigm to help the Navy rebuild the fleet — appeared to be exactly the kind of transformational thinking that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his top civilian aides favored as they moved into the Pentagon in 2001. It was quickly approved. A Plan, Then It Changes Another idea that had taken hold was that the Pentagon should break free from cumbersome, gold-plated acquisition programs by taking advantage of commercially available technologies. With that in mind, Lockheed and General Dynamics proposed different high-speed ferry models as the template, and in 2004, the Navy selected the two companies to compete for the business. The model for the Freedom was a ferry built in Italy. An Australian ferry was the model for the General Dynamics prototype, named Independence. Lockheed had virtually no shipbuilding experience. But in keeping with a Pentagon policy that called for letting big military contractors run complex projects with minimal government supervision, the Navy made the companies primarily responsible for all phases of development — from concept studies to detailed design and construction. In theory, the contractors’ business and technological acumen would save taxpayer dollars. But the Navy agreed to reimburse the companies for cost overruns rather than setting a fixed price, leaving little incentive to hold down costs. To compensate for its lack of experience, Lockheed joined with the naval architecture firm of Gibbs & Cox and two shipyards, Marinette Marine, and Bollinger in Louisiana. The Lockheed proposal called for a steel single-hull ship 378 feet long and 57 feet wide. It would have a spacious flight deck and space for two helicopters, a stern ramp and side door near the waterline for launching and recovering small boats, and large interior compartments that could be quickly reconfigured for different weapons systems. But as Lockheed and the Navy were completing contract negotiations in 2004, the rules changed drastically. Commercial ferry standards, the Navy determined, would not do. The underlying principle behind the decision, Admiral Sullivan said, was that the new ships had to be able to “hang tough in a storm and take some battle damage and still survive long enough” for the crew to be rescued. A military expert said the Navy had badly miscalculated. “They were eager to take advantage of commercial practices and the lower cost of buying off the shelf, but they did a lousy job of understanding the war-fighting requirements,” said the military expert, who asked not be named because he was involved with the program. “It was like, ‘You mean you want to put wheels on that car?’ ” Adm. Gary Roughead, the current chief of naval operations, said: “We had thought that the commercial variant would not be that far away from what we needed. I’ll tell you, that was underestimated.” At the same time, the Navy realized the time had come to modernize its shipbuilding code. The resulting Naval Vessel Rules in many ways trumped the idea that the new ships could draw extensively on commercial ferry designs. The new rules called for a water-mist fire extinguishing system instead of the commercial sprinkler system normally found on a ferry, forcing the shipyard to order new pipes, high-pressure nozzles and other equipment. Other revised requirements included heavy-duty power cables and reinforced crew compartments. Ultimately, there were nearly 600 significant engineering changes affecting nearly all parts of the ship, according to the Navy. The Navy and Lockheed agree that the Navy described the new rules as they were being developed, and that it increased the budget to accommodate some design changes. Even so, both parties acknowledge they badly underestimated the consequences. “Once the rules were issued, it took us a year to fully understand how they would impact the project,” said Craig R. Quigley, a Lockheed spokesman. By then, early 2005, the ship was already under construction at Marinette. The Setbacks Begin Building a ship requires precision sequencing, as sections are built and outfitted in large manufacturing halls, then moved to a towering building where they are welded together to create a ship. This system allows workers ample space, light and access to heavy construction tools as they build each section, called a ship module, and outfit it with pipes, cables, insulation and other equipment, and apply coats of paint. Getting the modules as complete as possible before assembly is critical because it becomes far more difficult to work in the cramped quarters of a ship. Marinette’s general manager, Richard T. McCreary, said it costs roughly six times more to outfit a module aboard a ship than standing free. Normally, the Marinette yard prefers to get modules 85 percent to 90 percent completed before they are transported to the ship erection building. In the case of the Freedom, with its repeated design alterations, better than half of the 39 sections fell well short of that goal. The risks seemed obvious, yet neither the Navy nor the shipyard was willing to reconsider the timetable. Rear Adm. Charles S. Hamilton II, one of the Navy officers with lead responsibility for the project, said he had given Navy officials several opportunities to slow down the project. “The clear signal from all quarters was, ‘Hamilton, I want that ship in the water, and I want it out there now,’ ” he recalled in an interview. Admiral Hamilton left the Navy last year. He now works at Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm. At Lockheed, executives say they feared that slowing down construction would put them at a disadvantage in their battle to win the contract over General Dynamics. Yet if the project was troubled, the Navy’s oversight at Marinette was less than robust. Because of staffing reductions, the Navy office responsible for supervising shipbuilding initially dispatched no one full time to Wisconsin. Even after a team arrived, it failed to appreciate the severity of problems. “We had very junior people on site,” Admiral Sullivan said. Construction was also hampered by steel shortages: the lower levels of the hull required the same low-alloy steel the Pentagon was buying to strengthen the armor on Humvees in Iraq. The most wrenching setback came in autumn 2005, when a key gear for the propulsion system was cut incorrectly, forcing a 27-week delay in ship construction. Rick Kennedy, a spokesman for G.E. Aviation, the General Electric division that produced the gear, said a machinist had misread a drawing; G.E. absorbed the additional cost. Shipbuilders usually start with the engine space, which contains the most machinery, then build around it. Because of the gear problem, Mr. McCreary said, “We did just the opposite.” Joe North, who manages the project for Lockheed, said in an interview at the shipyard that he initially thought the yard could work around the problems, that design work would eventually catch up with construction. Looking back, Mr. North said, “it was death by a thousand cuts.” ‘It Got Oversold’ With work nearly finished and the Menominee River ice gone, Lockheed plans to take the Freedom to sea trials in Lake Michigan this spring and hopes to deliver it to the Navy late this year. The competing General Dynamics ship, an aluminum trimaran considerably bigger than the Lockheed model, is to be launched on Saturday in Alabama. Even though General Dynamics had more time to digest the Navy’s design changes before starting construction, its ship ran into many of the same problems and delays as Lockheed’s. The price tag also more than doubled. Last year, the Navy temporarily put the entire program on hold when it terminated contracts for more ships because it could not reach agreement with the two companies on a fixed price. While the financial gap was not great, Navy and industry officials said, the Navy, hammered by Congress for its handling of the project, wanted to demonstrate its determination to hold down the price for future ships. Congress has set a spending cap of $460 million per ship, excluding weapons packages. Once the Navy evaluates the two prototypes, it can select one or order a mixed fleet. While it could opt for a different approach, military experts say that seems unlikely, given the need for the new ships and the money and effort already expended. The Navy recently restarted the program, inviting the two companies to submit fixed-price proposals for three additional ships. Lockheed, still hoping to win the entire prize, said the problems encountered with the Freedom would not be repeated, now that the company has a finished design. “It will be great, the next time around,” said Mr. North, the program manager. “Lead ships are truly hard.” Navy and industry officials say blame for the program’s rocky early history has to be shared. “It’s easy to lay all the blame at the foot of the government, and the Navy was naïve, but the companies bear some of the responsibility,” said a senior industry official who asked not to be identified because of his involvement in the project. “They were playing the game to get the contract, not owning up about all the issues until well into the game, hoping to make some recovery downstream.” Mr. McCreary, the Marinette general manager, said that while the shipyard might not have fully mastered the Navy’s accounting system, it had given the Navy frequent progress reports showing problems mounting. Mr. Winter, the Navy secretary, complained that the Navy bureaucracy had failed to alert him to rising costs. The Pentagon, he said, was bedazzled by the idea of saving money and time with commercial technologies. “It got oversold,” he said. “The concept was just abused.” He lamented the Pentagon’s eroding expertise in systems engineering — managing complex new projects to ensure that goals are achievable and affordable — and faulted the notion that industry could best manage ambitious development projects. “Quite frankly, industry is not good at doing this,” he said. Recently, Mr. Winter said, he instituted new procedures to ensure tighter supervision of all shipbuilding projects. He says he is confident that the coastal-ships program will produce a fleet of fine, affordable vessels. But as he contemplates the Navy’s long-range rebuilding plans, he says he stands behind a scorching critique that he delivered at a convention in Washington last year: “If we do not figure out how to establish credibility in our shipbuilding programs and plans, and restore confidence in our ability to deliver on our commitments, we cannot expect Congress or the nation to provide us with the resources we so urgently need.”

Just had a quick look at this one, and I have to say, I'm impressed. Looks very good, Richard! More feedback when I have had a chance to play it.

Now that I've begun adding electronic warfare systems to aircraft in more detail, like the Rafale's Spectra, I'll adjust the RCS upward.

The CIA video report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7366235.stm

Good to hear.

Very interesting pics of the alleged Syrian nuclear site here: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,30944,00.html

From Marine Corps Times Corps weighs gunship firepower options By Trista Talton - Staff writer Posted : Thursday Apr 24, 2008 21:21:53 EDT JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — More brains. More brawn. Now, maybe, firepower. With their digitally upgraded cockpits and larger load capacity, the Marine Corps’ growing fleet of KC-130J Super Hercules refuelers has been hailed as a major step up from its predecessors. But the question of whether these aerial gas stations should be outfitted with weapons systems is a concept still on the drawing board. A brief obtained by Marine Corps Times highlights various ways the KC-130J can be outfitted with firepower. Written by a major in the Weapons Requirements Branch of the Corps’ aviation department in response to a request for information from Commandant Gen. James Conway, the briefing also includes details about the Corps’ plans to scrap consolidated pilot training with the Air Force. The author of the briefing could not be reached for comment by press time. Adding firepower The AC-130J, Lockheed Martin’s offering as an upgrade to the AC-130 gunship, has “tremendous firepower,” the brief says. The problem is that these aircraft cost too much, according to the briefing. One AC-130J squadron of 12 aircraft would cost the same as three Marine Aerial Refueler squadrons equipped with 15 aircraft each. Instead, the Corps could opt to equip its KC-130Js with a roll-on/roll-off platform that would allow the aircraft to continue conducting aerial refueling missions. There are several options, including rail launched weapons, such as the Hellfire air-to-ground missile system, small diameter bombs and the AGM-65 Maverick, an air-to-surface guided missile. Another choice could be internal, tube-launched weapons that would be “dropped from inside of the fuselage through pressurized holes in the floor of the aircraft.” And there’s the door deployed 30mm Bushmaster cannon, which is being used on the AC-130U, according to the brief. Unguided munitions would require adding intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance — ISR systems — such as the Targeting Sight System, a multi-sensor electro-optical/infrared fire control system designed to identify and laser targets. The briefing states that Lockheed Martin could roll out a KC-130J demonstrating such firepower in a little more than a year, if the request is made. But the Corps’ KC-130Js are not closer to being outfitted with a weapons system, Maj. Eric Dent, an aviation spokesman at Marine Corps headquarters, said in an e-mail response to questions about the brief. “As with all of our programs, we evaluate all possible technological options to ensure that our Marines are provided the most effective warfighting capabilities,” he said. The Corps originally had plans to put new KC-130J pilots through interservice training with the Air Force. Pilot training was to begin in October at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., home of the largest C-130 fleet in the world. But a closer look at costs associated with the training prompted Marine officials to take another route and use Marine Corps pilot training instead. Training at the Corps’ KC-130J Advanced Training Unit is more than $2 million cheaper a year and offers a shorter training schedule. Dent said the head of the Corps’ Inter-Service Branch at Quantico, Va., has informed his Air Force counterpart of the Corps’ decision. “The official notification will go into the system in May 2008,” he said. The Corps plans to continue loadmaster and maintenance training at Little Rock, Dent said. Marine maintenance students will begin collocated training at the Air Force base in October 2009, allowing Marines to use their curriculum and instructors while using Air Force high-tech maintenance devices, Dent said. By the numbers Because the KC-130J’s technology allows for all of its training to be conducted in a simulator, Dent said, the Corps’ fleet reserve replacement squadron was deactivated. Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Training Squadron 253, based at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., was the training ground for the Corps KC-130 pilots before it was deactivated in September 2005. “This facilitated the redistribution of FRS aircraft and personnel to the active-duty fleet in order to increase our ability to support aerial refueling and assault support requirements,” Dent said. The move meant an increase of three additional aircraft per squadron. The Corps has five KC-130 squadrons — three active-duty and two Reserve. Additional aircraft in these squadrons requires extra personnel, including 18 maintenance Marines per squadron, six crew chiefs and six loadmasters per squadron, and 11 additional pilots per squadron. The Corps currently has 29 KC-130Js and plans to begin transitioning the reserve squadrons, which have 28 KC-130Ts, around 2012.

From DefenseNews U.S. Charges North Korea-Syria Nuclear Link By OLIVIER KNOX, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Published: 24 Apr 15:54 EDT (11:54 GMT) WASHINGTON - The White House and the CIA told key lawmakers in secret April 24 that North Korea helped Syria build a nuclear reactor at a site destroyed by an Israeli raid in September, officials said. Washington also took its case to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), alleging that Damascus violated its obligations under the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a U.S. official said. In Congress, top U.S. officials laid out the charges - which Syria flatly denied - behind closed doors in a video presentation that includes photographs of the facility, a top U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. Another U.S. official, who also requested not to be named, said the reactor could have produced plutonium, potentially to feed nuclear weapons, but was destroyed before it ever began to operate. Syria denounced the charges, with its ambassador to the United States pointedly linking the supposed U.S. evidence to Washington's weapons-of-mass-destruction case for invading Iraq. The allegations were certain to roil six-country diplomatic efforts to get North Korea to come clean on its nuclear and proliferation activities and abandon its atomic ambitions in return for diplomatic and economic rewards. They could also have dramatic repercussions for Syria, an ally of Iran, and a frequent target of fierce U.S. criticisms over its influence in Lebanon and charges of letting Islamist fighters into Iraq. The briefing highlighted "a serious proliferation issue both in the Middle East and the country that may be involved in Asia," Rep. Pete Hoekstra said. And he said Pyongyang had answer the U.S. allegations before it could be removed from a blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism. "We would expect to have good, clear, verifiable information from the countries that are involved before steps like that would be taken by the administration," Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters. White House officials declined to discuss the impact of the revelations on the North Korean diplomacy, or to restate President George W. Bush's repeated warnings that he viewed any such activities by North Korea as "a grave threat" with ominous "consequences." They also sidestepped questions on whether the alleged activities needed to be included in a formal "declaration" that North Korea had been due to provide by December 31, 2007, but is still the subject of hard-fought negotiations. Bush, who is eager for a final resolution of the nuclear crisis before he leaves office in January 2009, was not expected to comment publicly, and the White House offered only spare information. "There are (Capitol) Hill briefings ongoing today regarding the North Korean-Syria matter that you've been reading about in the newspapers," said spokeswoman Dana Perino, who promised a formal statement later in the day. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and CIA chief Michael Hayden were seen going into a joint meeting of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the first of several key panels expected to be briefed. "In regards to a videotape, I'll let the intelligence community talk about that," said Perino, in reference to news reports about the centerpiece of the briefings. A U.S. official, requesting anonymity, told AFP: "There are still photographs of the facility as part of the video, but it's a video presentation, like a Powerpoint presentation. It's not a video of the facility." The New York Times and The Washington Post had earlier cited unnamed senior U.S. officials saying a video showing North Koreans inside the Syrian reactor would be shown at the hearings. The Syrian reactor is said to appear to be identical in design to a North Korean reactor at Yongbyon. The April 24 briefings come after months of questions over an Israeli airstrike in September on a mystery target widely reported to have been a fledgling nuclear site.

From DefenseNews U.S. Navy To Stand Up New 4th Fleet By mark d. faram Published: 24 Apr 13:33 EDT (09:33 GMT) The U.S. Navy will create a 4th Fleet headquartered at Naval Station Mayport, Fla., and will tap a two-star SEAL officer to lead it, according to a Pentagon announcement April 24. Rear Adm. Joseph Kernan, head of Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, Calif., has been chosen to command the new fleet. Kernan will take control of both 4th Fleet and the current Naval Forces Southern Command, the Navy component of U.S. Southern Command. The command will oversee maritime operations in Central and South American waters, and is similar to the command structure of 5th Fleet, which is also Naval Forces Central Command. "I am thrilled that the secretary of the Navy and [Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead] have chosen to stand up the 4th Fleet, with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean," said Adm. James Stavridis, commander of the Miami-based SouthCom, the organization set to benefit most from the new numbered fleet. "While I am clearly a joint commander in every sense, as an admiral, I am personally very pleased and proud to see the Navy stand up an organization like 4th Fleet to operate with partner nations in the region." Stavridis said the Navy needs 4th Fleet in order to operate at a higher level than NavSouth does now. That extra layer of support, he said, "would allow a much better and more concerted response to problem sets that range from hurricanes to medical diplomacy to counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism kinds of operations. Speed is very important in all those scenarios." The fleet, he said, will be focused on preventing and responding to mass migration of refugees, as has happened in the past in Haiti and Cuba, as well as interdicting the flow of illegal drugs and partnering with countries throughout the region. "We will also seek to build the ability of the 4th Fleet to work with interagency partners like U.S. Department of State, [u.S. Agency for International Development] and Department of Homeland Security," he said. Numbered fleet commanders have an official role in allocating training and resources. Stavridis said the move would result in a "small increase" in billets on the current Mayport staff, though he did not have specifics. The extra layer of command also increases the stature of the Navy commander in U.S. Southern Command - a joint command - by adding what Stavridis calls an "appropriate counterpart" to 12th Air Force and 6th Army. "I am likewise thrilled with the choice of a Navy SEAL for this important and expeditionary job," Stavridis said "He is the right officer for the challenging tasks in the region, and additionally has a strong sense of theater security cooperation and interaction with our partner nations." Although he's a SEAL, Kernan isn't a stranger to the conventional fleet. As a junior officer, he served aboard the cruiser Horne. Stavridis said anti-drug operations, humanitarian and cooperative training missions are expected to be the new command's primary engagements. "One particularly important mission for the 4th Fleet will be medical diplomacy, as exemplified by the voyage last summer of [the hospital ship] Comfort, which conducted nearly 400,000 patient encounters during a four-month cruise to 12 countries in the region," Stavridis said. This year, the amphibious assault ships Boxer and Kearsarge will "return on similar missions in the region this summer," he said, "all under the aegis of 4th Fleet." When 4th Fleet stands up, it will actually be a reconstitution of a previous command. The Navy created 4th Fleet in March 1943 to oversee patrols of the South Atlantic for submarines and other enemy vessels. The command lasted until 1950, when it was absorbed into 2nd Fleet in Norfolk, Va.

Habs 4 Flyers 3 in OT. Nerve wrackingly close, but we'll take it.

Definitely not. ID numbers should be assigned automatically when you choose the weapon type. The ID number might not appear right away until you have filled in a number of fields, but weapon type will determine the ID number. Odd. I assume you've went back and double checked that the names are there in the DB. Also, make sure there are no other ships in your scenario that share the same name, because you can only use the same name once, regardless of ship type or class. Beyond that, I'd expect some other error is happening behind the scenes.

Yes, the APG-77 entry in the HCDB is much older than the APG-79, and so needs some adjustment. Hehe, some think so, some do not.

Its unlikely that you exceeded the maximum allowable number of individual weapon types. Chances are you built a missile (or other weapon) in a numerical range that was meant for other weapon types. For example, in any database, the next empty weapon slot will be for a "Nuclear" weapon. You don't use that slot (unless you're building a Nuke, of course), but skip to the next available slot. Have you been doing that?