June 23, 2022 | International, Aerospace
August 12, 2020 | International, Naval
US Navy commissions another Littoral Combat Ship amid renewed push to fix the program
By: David B. Larter
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy Saturday commissioned its latest littoral combat ship amid a top-level push to fix the ship's nagging reliability issues and forge a path to make the small surface combatants useful in the years ahead.
The monohull Freedom-variant LCS St. Louis was commissioned at a private event in its namesake city, the 22nd LCS and 10th Freedom variant to join the fleet. There will be 35 LCS in the fleet once all are commissioned.
Change is in the wind for LCS once again, which has already seen several shakeups to its system. A high-level effort is underway to address problems with its complicated drive train built for high speeds that have limited the ships availability for tasking as well as to finally field its long-delayed mission packages. Mission packages will make the ships either a surface warfare hull, a mine hunter or an antisubmarine ship.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday told Defense News in a July 16 interview that he was preparing to increase LCS deployments by two-and-a-half times over the next two years to finally shake out how to best employ the ships, as well as develop a plan to finally field the mine and ASW mission modules.
“There are things in the near term that I have to deliver, that I'm putting heat on now, and one of them is LCS,” Gilday said. “One part is sustainability and reliability. We know enough about that platform and the problems that we have that plague us with regard to reliability and sustainability, and I need them resolved.
“That requires a campaign plan to get after it and have it reviewed by me frequently enough so that I can be sighted on it. Those platforms have been around since 2008 — we need to get on with it.
Experts who spoke to Defense News in July said the Navy would most likely need to accept less capability than they had planned for the ships to have if the service is to get the most out of the ships.
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February 13, 2020 | International, Land
BAE York Plant Problems Trigger Big Army Cuts
The Army's slashed its 2021 buys of the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) and upgraded Paladin PIM howitzer to give the factory time to make fixes, particularly to quality control. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. PENTAGON: Two of the three armored fighting vehicle programs being built by BAE System's factory in York, Pennsylvania have been slashed in the 2021 budget. While the Marine Corps continues to ramp up production of its eight-wheeled Amphibious Combat Vehicle, from 56 ACVs in 2020 to 72 in '21, that increase is swamped by Army cuts to two tracked vehicles, both derived from BAE's iconic but aging M2 Bradley: Production of the turretless utility variant of the Bradley, the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV), will plummet from 121 in the 2020 budget to just 32 in '21, recovering to 168 in '22. Production of the upgraded M109A7 PIM version of the Paladin artillery vehicle, which uses the Bradley suspension and drive train, will fall from 96 vehicles (48 howitzers and 48 ammo carriers) to 60, recovering to 88 in '22. Those 2022 figures are a forecast in the five-year budget plan, however, not a formal request to Congress, and they might change. “Once you start to get that production line facilitized — and again it's not going to be one of those things you figure out in a couple months — it's going to be an iterative every-year look at what's the right rate [and] what's the most effective and efficient way to run that line,” deputy assistant secretary John Daniels told reporters yesterday. The Army had already reduced production of both BAE vehicles in its 2020 request last year – along with over 180 other programs – as it ruthlessly scrubbed its current programs for savings it could reinvest in higher-priority, higher-tech weapons for future wars with Russia or China. But BAE's York plant has also had trouble keeping up both quality-control standards – notably for welding armored hulls – and production rates as it tried to expand its tooling and its workforce to meet Army demand, attracting the personal attention of then-Army Secretary Mark Esper. Raytheon's Naval Strike Missile Gallery The Naval Strike Missile is a long-range, precision strike weapon that seeks and destroys enemy ships at distances greater than 100 nautical miles. Learn More. “Part of the problem was “getting the production facility right-sized,” Daniels said, “[and] there were some additional unforeseen issues in the industrial base” – presumably a reference to the quality control issues. So the Army decided to “slow the production curve to get a little bit of time to get a better vehicle,” he said. “It would delay it by about six months.” We've asked BAE Systems for comment and will update this story as soon as they get back to us. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/02/bae-york-plant-problems-trigger-big-army-cuts
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December 14, 2024 | International, C4ISR
Freeland’s FES likely to focus on border security, tariffs and economy, say insiders
“I don’t think that the coffers are overflowing with extra funds for extra spending, but I think because of president-elect Trump’s comments and the tariff threats and the comments regarding the border, we’re going to see…actual spending that probably wasn’t planned for enhanced enhanced border pressures,” said former Liberal staffer Stevie O’Brien.