Analysis: UK defence spend hike will have to plug MoD’s fiscal black hole - Army Technology

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  June 22, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  Here’s the Philippine military’s wish list for its newly approved modernization phase

  By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia ― The Philippine government has confirmed that the second phase of its military modernization plan has been approved by President Rodrigo Duterte, clearing the way for the southeast Asian nation to replace some of its elderly and obsolete equipment. The confirmation by Philippine Department of National Defense spokesman Arsenio Andolong on Wednesday will now allow the country to implement sorely needed recapitalization of some of its equipment, the oldest of which dates back to World War II. Andolong also confirmed that the budget for the five-year Horizon 2 modernization program, which will run from 2018-2022, has been set at some 300 billion Philippine pesos (U.S. $5.6 billion). According to sources in the Philippines, this amount will be split into $890 million for the Army, $1.44 billion for the Navy and $2.61 billion for the Air Force, with the rest of the budget going to the military's General Headquarters and the government's arsenal. The list of equipment the Philippines is seeking to acquire under the Horizon 2 program includes multirole fighters, airlifters, maritime patrol aircraft and heavy lift helicopters for the Air Force, while the Army is seeking more artillery, light tanks and multiple rocket launchers. The budget for the Air Force includes an amount set aside for combat utility helicopters. A contract signed in February with the Canadian government for Bell 412 helicopters was canceled after Canadian politicians raised concerns about the Duterte administration's human rights record in its ongoing war on drugs. The Philippines is reportedly now seeking to acquire the helicopters through a commercial sale, while an alternative option of buying the South Korean Korea Aerospace Industires Surion helicopter has also been floated. The Navy's priority will be the acquisition of two corvettes and a similar number of multirole offshore patrol vessels. Other items on its wish list include more anti-submarine helicopters and amphibious assault vehicles, the latter for the country's Marine Corps. Andolong also confirmed that the Navy wants to acquire an unspecified number of submarines under Horizon 2. However, this could prove difficult under a limited budget and because the country's has no experience operating and sustaining a submarine capability. The Philippines, which is an archipelagic nation made up of more than 7,600 islands, faces a myriad security challenges ranging from disputes with China and other southeast Asian countries over the ownership of islands and features in the South China Sea, to ongoing insurgencies with communist guerrillas and Muslim separatists that includes Islamic State-linked militants. In May 2017, the latter seized control of the city of Marawi in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, leading to a five-month siege by government forces, which resulted in large parts of the city being badly damaged during operations to recapture it. During the operation, the United States, which has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines, provided intelligence and surveillance assistance to government forces with its manned and unmanned aircraft. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2018/06/21/heres-the-philippine-militarys-wish-list-for-its-newly-approved-modernization-phase/

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  March 1, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  The US Air Force doesn’t want F-15X. But it needs more fighter jets

  By: Valerie Insinna ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force wants more fighters. But it didn't necessarily want the F-15X, and it didn't intend to buy any in the upcoming fiscal 2020 budget, its top two leaders confirmed Thursday. “Our budget proposal that we initially submitted did not include additional fourth-generation aircraft,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters during a Feb. 28 roundtable at the Air Force Association's Air Warfare Symposium. Wilson's comments confirm reporting by Defense News and other outlets who have reported that the decision to buy new F-15X aircraft was essentially forced upon the Air Force. According to sources, the Pentagon's Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation Office was a key backer of the F-15X and was able to garner the support of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Asked by one reporter, point blank, whether the Air Force wanted new F-15s, Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein danced around the question. “We want to buy new airplanes,” Goldfein said. “We want to buy 72 aircraft a year,” Wilson added. Air Force leadership has confirmed that, as long as current budget plans don't change, it will request money for new F-15s in FY20. The service plans to purchase eight F-15X planes from Boeing in FY20, with an expected total buy of about 80 jets, Bloomberg reported Feb. 19. It's normal for the Pentagon to be intimately involved with each service's portion of the budget — and even to overrule service leadership and move funding around to better support the White House's aims — something that Wilson herself alluded to in her comments. “The Air Force and each of the services put in their budget proposals, given the top line that we've been allocated, and then there are further discussions that include the potential for some additional funds throughout that process,” she said. “It's not something that is an Air Force decision. Ultimately it's a Defense Department budget, and it goes into an overall presidential budget.” However, the potential F-15X buy has received increased scrutiny for a number of reasons. For one, Wilson has been vocal in dismissing reports that the Air Force had been considering purchasing an upgraded F-15. “We are currently 80 percent fourth-gen aircraft and 20 percent fifth-generation aircraft,” she told Defense News in September. "In any of the fights that we have been asked to plan for, more fifth-gen aircraft make a huge difference, and we think that getting to 50-50 means not buying new fourth-gen aircraft, it means continuing to increase the fifth generation.” Additionally, when Bloomberg broke the news that the Air Force would buy new F-15Xs in December, it reported that the decision was pushed by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive who has since become acting defense secretary. Shanahan's spokesman has rebutted those reports, stating that “any DoD programmatic decisions impacting Boeing were neither made nor influenced by Mr. Shanahan.” One official alluded to sustainment costs as being a critical factor in the decision to buy the F-15X over additional F-35 fighter jets. Boeing has not disclosed its proposed F-15X unit price, with numbers from $100 million to less than $80 million having been reported by various outlets. Gen. Mike Holmes, head of Air Combat Command, declined to comment on the cost per plane in a later roundtable, but said that some of the value of the F-15X proposal lays in the total ownership cost of the plane, especially when taking into account the expense of sustaining the F-35. “There's more to think about than just the acquisition cost. There's the cost to operate the airplane over time. There's the cost to transition at the installations where the airplanes are — does it require new military construction, does it require extensive retraining of the people and then how long does it take?” he said. “We're pretty confident to say that we can go cheaper getting 72 airplanes with a mix of fifth and fourth gen than we did if we did all fifth gen.” https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/air-warfare-symposium/2019/02/28/the-air-force-doesnt-want-f-15x-but-it-needs-more-fighter-jets/

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  February 24, 2024 | International, Naval

  Sub Boise will begin its overhaul nine years late, with $1.2B contract

  Submarine Boise will begin its maintenance overhaul — originally meant to start in fiscal 2016 — after the Navy awarded HII a $1.2 billion contract.