August 13, 2020 | International, Naval
By PAUL MCLEARYon August 12, 2020 at 4:04 PM
WASHINGTON: A top Navy official today tried to clarify a Pentagon information paper leaked last week which warned that “at least one” of the seven shipyards that churns out ships for the Navy could close unless Congress handed over billions more to the service.
As part of an $11 billion package the Pentagon is requesting from Congress to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the defense industry, the Navy is requesting $4.7 billion in part to ward off the chances “at least one” of the big seven shipyards shutting down. The paper, which has been delivered to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, also warned of over 100,000 lost jobs across shipyards and factories that make aircraft and other weapons for the military.
But the Navy's top acquisition executive told reporters today that the wording continued in the paper might leave too much out.
“The words could be taken out of context,” James Geurts said. “There probably should be the word ‘temporarily' in there.” If a shipyard started to see a significant portion of its workforce test positive for COVID, “we might have to temporarily close down the shipyard for a period of time until we got it under control. Not that we would have to shut down a shipyard permanently.”
The memo contains no such caveats, however. It flatly states a shipyard could close unless the Navy gets the funding boost.
Asked where the paper came from, and who it was intended for, DoD spokesman Christopher Sherwood told me via email the department “provided informational material to our oversight committees when asked about the impacts COVID-19 has had on the Defense Industrial Base and our suppliers.”
The Navy has gone to great lengths to help its shipyards weather the COVID storm, pumping $130 billion into its supplier base this year in upfront payments, spending that is 25% higher than at this point last year.
But some yards have experienced pain keeping to schedule, with uncertain futures ahead as the Navy looks to change its fleet mix in the coming years to better compete with China and Russia.
Mark Cancian, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, acknowledged that all Navy shipyards “have a backlog of work, including Bath Iron Works, which was the subject of speculation about closing.” Bath, already six months behind on building seven destroyers in dock, is stumbling to the conclusion of a six-week strike by 4,300 shipbuilders which will likely make those delays even longer.
Likewise, the Mississippi-based Austal is looking at the end of the road for its contract to build dozens of aluminum Littoral Combat Ships in a few years, which would likely mark the end of the Navy's interest in buying aluminum hulls. That shipyard “would be at more risk” Cancian said.
Neither shipyard is any worse off than the others due to COVID-related shutdowns, however, making the Pentagon's point that yards could shut and require COVID relief funds to keep going, an argument that finds few adherents.
There's little doubt COVID is slowing down both ship construction and repair, “but that doesn't mean the Navy doesn't need the ships anymore,” said Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute. “It just means everything takes longer, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the shipyards are going to close.”
Clark noted that while Bath is in a bad spot with delays to its destroyer work that will be compounded by the strike, the Navy still needs it to build destroyers in the future, since relying on Huntington Ingalls as the nation's only shipyard that can build the ships is too risky.
Add to that the likelihood that the Navy will move toward buying more numerous small cruisers, unmanned ships, and smaller platforms for Marines and away from small numbers of large destroyers and amphibious ships in the future, means there will be more contracts, and work to go around later this decade.
The service is still on track to deliver its much-delayed 30 year shipbuilding plan and force structure assessment this fall, in which several options like a new class of destroyers, a new class of smaller frigates, and smaller hospital ships will all likely find their way into the plans.
March 13, 2024 | International, Land
The Spanish government has commissioned Rheinmetall, the world's largest manufacturer of artillery ammunition, to supply a total of 94,200 155mm rounds.
July 16, 2019 | International, Land
By Matthew Cox Next year, the Army plans to have soldiers fire at targets using remote-controlled robotic vehicles as part of a three-phase effort to learn how autonomous combat vehicles can make small units more effective on the battlefield. During the operational test scheduled for next March at Fort Carson, Colorado, soldiers will operate from specially modified Bradley fighting vehicles known as Mission Enabler Technologies-Demonstrators, or MET-Ds, according to a recent Army news release.The tricked-out vehicles feature remote turrets for the 25mm main gun, 360-degree situational awareness cameras and enhanced crew stations with touch screens. The first phase of testing will include two MET-Ds and four robotic combat vehicles on M113 armored personnel carrier surrogate platforms. Each MET-D will have a driver and gunner, as well as four soldiers in its rear, who will conduct platoon-level maneuvers with two surrogate vehicles that fire 7.62mm machine guns, according to the release. "We've never had soldiers operate MET-Ds before," said David Centeno Jr., chief of the Emerging Capabilities Office at the Combat Capabilities Development Command's Ground Vehicle Systems Center. "We're asking them to utilize the vehicles in a way that's never been done before." One goal for the autonomous vehicles is to learn how to penetrate an adversary's anti-access/aerial denial capabilities without putting soldiers in danger. "You're exposing forces to enemy fire, whether that be artillery, direct fire," Centeno said. "So, we have to find ways to penetrate that bubble, attrit their systems and allow for freedom of air and ground maneuver. These platforms buy us some of that, by giving us standoff." In late fiscal 2021, phase two of the effort will have soldiers conduct experiments at the company level with six MET-Ds and the same M113 surrogates, as well as four light and four medium surrogate robotic combat vehicles (RCVs) provided by industry, the release states. "The intent of this is to see how an RCV light integrates into a light infantry formation and performs reconnaissance and security tasks, as well as supports dismounted infantry operations," Maj. Cory Wallace, robotic combat vehicle-lead for the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team, said in the release. Phase three is scheduled for fiscal 2023 and will add four medium and four heavy purpose-built RCVs to the mix, the release states. "This is not how we're used to fighting," Centeno said. "We're asking a lot. We're putting a lot of sensors, putting a lot of data in the hands of soldiers. We want to see how that impacts them. We want to see how it degrades or increases their performance." The family of RCVs includes three variants. Army officials envision the light version to be transportable by rotary wing. The medium variant would be able to fit onto a C-130 Hercules aircraft, and the heavy variant would fit onto a C-17 Globemaster aircraft, according to the release. Critics of the effort say it sounds very similar to the Army's failed Future Combat Systems (FCS), an ambitious effort to design a new fleet of lightweight manned and unmanned combat vehicles and other platforms designed to dominate future battlefields. Army officials have argued that the technology FCS depended on did not exist. The service spent billions on FCS, only to see it fail when then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates killed the 27-ton Manned Ground Vehicles portion of FCS in the 2010 budget while criticizing the advanced design as ill-suited to survive current battlefield threats. Army officials believe that the service's new Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) vehicle could influence the development of the heavy RCV, the release states. In December, the Army awarded MPF contracts to two firms to build 12 prototypes each and begin delivering them to the service in early 2020. The goal is to down-select to a winner by fiscal 2022 and begin fielding the first of 504 of these lightweight tanks sometime in fiscal 2025, officials say. The heavy RCV is being designed to provide the enemy-armor killing power of an MPF with even less armor since it doesn't have to protect soldiers, the release states "An RCV reduces risk," Wallace said. "It does so by expanding the geometry of the battlefield so that, before the threat makes contact with the first human element, it has to make contact with the robots. That, in turn, gives commanders additional space and time to make decisions." https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/15/soldiers-will-control-robotic-combat-vehicles-upcoming-test.html
February 22, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Officials in Tallinn have previously looked abroad when it comes to finding suppliers of high-tech weaponry.