October 27, 2024 | International, Aerospace
Lockheed Martin Announces Successful Flight of First Bulgarian F-16 Block 70 Aircraft
Bulgaria will be the second European country to receive the F-16 Block 70.
September 25, 2018 | International, Naval
With a big cash infusion, Congress is all-in on the amphibious Navy
By: David B. Larter
WASHINGTON — Congress sent a message this year that it wants the Navy to build amphibious ships, and it's going to put up the money to do it.
Overall the Navy's shipbuilding account got a $2.2 billion boost over the $21.9 billion it asked for, but amphibs fared especially well in the deal.
The minibus spending bill that advanced out of the Senate and is headed to the House for its final vote funded $350 million for accelerated acquisition of the LPD-17 Flight II, a somewhat streamlined version of the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock. That move comes on the heels of the Navy awarding Huntington Ingalls Industries a $165.5 million contract for purchasing long-lead time materials in August.
The ship, which is destined to cost $1.64 billion for the first ship and $1.4 billion for each subsequent ship, will replace the old dock-landing ships designed to launch both helicopters and amphibious vehicles onto the beach.
But the spending spree on amphibs didn't stop with LPD-17 Flight II. Congress added three ship-to-shore connector craft for a total of eight in 2019, a $182.5 million plus-up over what the Navy requested. Congress also added $350 million for the advance procurement of Landing Helicopter Assault Ship 9, and added an expeditionary fast-transport ship (a fast ferry) to the budget for a total of $225 million.
The congressional largess toward amphibious shipbuilding is driven both by Congress' desire to push the Navy to a 355-ship fleet as fast as possible, and by the evolving role played by amphibious ships in the Navy's strategic thinking, said Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Clark, who worked on one of the Navy's recent studies to choose a composition of the future fleet, said the Navy is increasingly using the amphibs and their aircraft in combat roles and keeping the carriers in more blue water environments.
“They are using the amphibs more as front-line capital ships, with the carriers being more of a strategic force that you keep maybe not as close to the enemy shoreline,” he said.
Anti-access, area denial
This move is being driven by China and Russia, which have made the capability of long-range anti-ship strike from shore batteries a priority in order to keep the U.S. Navy's carriers at bay.
But to combat this dynamic, the Navy has increasingly looked to the Marine Corps and its amphibious force as a way to throw off the calculations of adversaries, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, said Dakota Wood, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and now analyst with The Heritage Foundation.
The thinking goes that the Marine Corps can slip into the range of Chinese missiles, land a force on a feature or island, and start fighting back with missiles and sensors of their own. This will force the Chinese to expend resources to address the Marine threat, creating opportunities for the Navy to use its hefty strike capabilities.
“A Marine landing force on an island or feature has to present a problem to the enemy that is credible — anti-ship cruise missiles, short-range air defense, a sensor node contributing to the air or surface picture,” Wood said. “It has to be able to thin out the enemy's fire power, sensor grid and attention span to give the Navy the chance to get inside the envelope, close and have an impact.”
Jobs
Congress is also worried about attracting and keeping shipyards in business and skilled workers in the shipyards to support a growing fleet. Pumping money into shipbuilding is the best way lawmakers know to do that.
“The plus-up is really across the board in shipbuilding,” said Clark, the CSBA analyst. “You look at the three littoral combat ships Congress is buying, two of which the Navy didn't ask for. They are buying as many attack subs as the industrial base can deliver, and they are pushing toward allowing the Navy to procure two carriers at once to get the economic order quantity there.”
But in the case of amphibs, Congress is doing something new by spending on advance procurement. Generally the Navy has purchased amphibious ships one at a time, without multiyear contracts or a lot of advanced procurement money, Clark said.
Even for a 13-ship class like the LPD-17 Flight I, the ships were purchased as the money became available.
Congress adding money to advance procurement is an attempt to save funds by creating a more regular rhythm for the way the service buys its destroyers, littoral combat ships and attack submarines, Clark said.
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January 22, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Britain orders Airbus H145 helos amid scramble to fix pilot shortage
By: Andrew Chuter LONDON — Rotary pilot and rear crew training capabilities for the British military have been given a lift with an order for additional Airbus helicopters in part of a wider boost to a package of improvements announced Jan. 21 by the Ministry of Defence. The £183 million (U.S. $238 million) deal will see Airbus supply four of its H145 helicopters to the rotary wing element of the U.K. Military Flying Training System program. UKMFTS is run by the Babcock-Lockheed Martin joint venture Ascent Flight Training Management in partnership with the MoD. Aside from the H145 helos, known in Britain as Jupiters, the MoD has funded the acquisition of another simulator, made by Canadian vendor CAE, and infrastructure improvements at Royal Air Force Shawbury, the headquarters of Britain's tri-service helicopter training effort. “The new H145 helicopters and simulator will enable students to learn how to fly a range of missions, covering expected scenarios on operational deployment. In addition, the H145s enable students to practice winching tasks and rear crew activities,” the MoD said in a statement announcing the deal. “It is part of a wider program to increase training capacity for UK military pilots overall, as part of the £3.2 billion UKMFTS program and helps address the increased demand for pilot training identified in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review,” the statement added. The helicopter element of MFTS currently operates 29 Airbus H135s for basic training, and three H145s for more advanced pilot training and particularly for rear crew work like winching. The H135 is known in Britain as the Juno. All four aircraft are expected to be delivered to the MFTS program by the end of this year. The more than doubling of the H145 fleet reflects the increasing number of rotary rear crew and pilots required by the British military. Crew shortages in fixed- and rotary-wing sectors have caused concern at the MoD, with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace saying late last year that fixing the problem is a top priority. To help meet demand, additional fixed-wing aircraft may also be added to a fleet that already includes T-6 Texans, Phenon multi-engine trainers and King Air rear crew trainers. https://www.defensenews.com/training-sim/2020/01/21/britain-orders-airbus-h145-helos-amid-scramble-to-fix-pilot-shortage/
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June 26, 2020 | International, Naval
Congress aims to strip funding for the US Navy’s next-gen large surface combatant
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy's interminable quest to design and field a next-generation large surface combatant is going back to the drawing board once again, a victim of the Pentagon's disorganization around this year's long-range shipbuilding plan, according to documents and a source familiar with the situation. The Senate Armed Services Committee stripped $60.4 million dollars from the Navy's proposed fiscal 2021 budget intended to be used for preliminary design work for the future large surface combatant, according to documents released by the committee. Instead, the money is being funneled into a land-based testing facility in Philadelphia that will work on the future combatant's power system, which is the raison d'être for the envisioned class, a source familiar with the deliberations told Defense News. The money for the large surface combatant design is one of the victims of the Pentagon's inability to produce an annual 30-year shipbuilding plan, an annual requirement that is intended to give Congress an idea of where the Navy wants to steer its fleet, the source said, adding that the large surface combatant was not in the five-year future years defense program which is submitted with the President's budget. The 30-year shipbuilding plan has been held up this year by the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the Pentagon struggles to come up with a fleet that more closely integrates the Navy and Marine Corps for the Pacific theater and incorporates a significant fleet of unmanned surface and subsurface systems. It's the latest setback in the effort to field next-generation surface combatants, which has seen more than 20 years of false starts and setbacks. The Navy initially intended to field a fleet of 21st Century cruisers and destroyers to replace the current Arleigh Burk-class DDGs and Ticonderoga-class cruisers. But the DDG-1000 program was truncated to just three hulls, and the so-called CG(X) cruiser was cancelled in 2010 at the beginning of the Obama Administration. Given the long lead times for new ship development, as much as a decade or more, the situation is becoming increasingly urgent for the U.S. Navy. Many of the cruisers have reached their effective service lives and the oldest Arleigh Burke-class ships are closing on 30 years of age, but the Navy is not currently planning a class-wide service-life extension program. For its next-generation large surface combatant, the Navy is looking to field a ship that uses the latest AEGIS combat system destined for its Flight III DDG, but with a hull and power system that has ample margin for integrating future systems such as lasers and rail guns, and with missile magazines able to haul larger hypersonic strike missiles. But according to the SASC, the Navy is way too early in the process to justify funding for design, especially when Congress doesn't know what the Navy's plans are for fielding it and when. “The committee lacks sufficient clarity on the Large Surface Combatant (LSC) capability requirements... to support the start of preliminary design for the LSC program or completion of the Capabilities Development Document,” according to a document released by the committee. The document also shows the SASC directing $75 million toward the Integrated Power and Energy Systems test facility in Philadelphia, known as the ITF, which a source said is where the heavy work of fielding a power system with plenty of margin for future weapons would be performed. That facility should be up and running by 2023, according to the documents. The FY21 NDAA is currently working its way through Congress and is not yet in its final form, meaning funding for large surface combatant design work could still be reinstated at some point in the process. Subsystem Development Congress has been increasingly agitated by the Navy's design-on-the-fly approach to fielding new capabilities, such as the littoral combat ship's mission modules or several of the key technologies that have been holding up the lead Ford-class carrier. In the view of lawmakers, the delays could be mitigated by taking a more cautious approach to developing new classes of systems, by maturing technologies ahead of launching into construction. For example, if the Advanced Weapons Elevators on Ford had been developed before the start of construction, there would not be a months-long delay in getting the carrier ready for deployment because the system would work before it was installed. To that end, Congress has been inserting itself heavily into the development of unmanned surface vessels, restricting funding for procurement until the Navy can produce a reliable system. In its markup of the 2021 NDAA, the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee called for restricting funding for procurement of any large unmanned surface vessels, or LUSV, until the Navy can certify it has worked out an appropriate hull and mechanical and electrical system, and that it can operate autonomously for 30 consecutive days. Furthermore, the Navy must demonstrate a reliable operating system and that any systems integrated into the platform — sonars, radars, etc. — are likewise functioning and reliable. In short, the language would mean the Navy could not spend procurement dollars on a large unmanned surface vessel until it has a working model, and it may not try to develop those technologies on the fly. The Defense Department has been championing a major shift away from large surface combatants, based on decisions by Defense Secretary Mark Esper that are in line with his in-house think tank, the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office. The Pentagon wants to focus on fielding more unmanned platforms with missile cells that can be more expendable in a fight and act as an external missile magazine for larger manned combatants with more exquisite sensors. But Congress has repeatedly balked at the idea because the Navy has yet to produce a concept of operations or a coherent public strategy to back up the investment plan. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/06/25/congress-aims-to-strip-funding-for-the-us-navys-next-generation-large-surface-combatant/