Argentina to buy surplus F-16 jets from Denmark

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  6 août 2021 | International, Aérospatial

  Scientists Launch Privately Funded Hunt For Unidentified Space Objects | Aviation Week Network

  The Galileo Project was established to scout unidentified aerial phenomena following Pentagon report.

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  2 novembre 2020 | International, Naval

  American shipbuilding: An anchor for economic and national security

  By: Peter Navarro “Don't give up the ship!” These were Capt. James Lawrence's dying words defending the USS Chesapeake during the War of 1812. Over 200 years later, the United States Navy and America's critical shipbuilding industry are issuing the same cry from shipyards across our nation. Here is a simple truth: A true renaissance of America's shipbuilding industry will require a large-scale overhaul and new strategy before it can churn out the ships we urgently need to maintain our status as the greatest maritime power in world history. In the first year of his “Peace through Strength” administration, President Donald Trump made a 355-ship Navy the official national policy by signing the 2018 Defense Authorization Act. Currently, however, we are asking too few ships to do too much while many vessels are decades old and severely backlogged for critical repairs. This egregiously long queue is an open invitation to foreign adversaries, who are displaying increasingly aggressive postures and rapidly expanding their own naval capabilities. Today, only seven shipyards across the country are capable of constructing large or deep-draft Navy vessels. More subtly, each yard has become specialized to build a specific warship, whether it be a nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarine or an Independence-class littoral combat ship. This specialization, while optimal for workforce training and infrastructure investments at specific yards, makes them remarkably vulnerable when there is a downturn in government contracts or the private market contracts. Foreign competitors such as China anchor their shipyards in tens of billions of mercantilist and predatory government subsidies every year. Unable to compete with such foreign subsidization, the American shipbuilding industry has lost 75,000 jobs — a decline of over 40 percent. For every shipbuilding job in America, three indirect jobs are supported. We have therefore allowed predatory foreign markets to steal approximately 300,000 good-paying American jobs — the population of St. Louis, Missouri. Our strategic and economic adversaries know the importance of shipbuilding. To understand the dangers, consider this: From 2010 to 2018, the Chinese Communist Party has provided over $130 billion in shipping and shipbuilding subsidies. Now, it controls the world's second-largest commercial fleet by gross tons, and constructs one-third of the world's ships. If Pax Americana is to continue, we must live up to the maxim of former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and 26th President Teddy Roosevelt: “A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guarantee of peace.” Restoring investment in shipbuilding will leave a wake of prosperity for our economic security and send waves of strength for our national security. Expansion in capacity and capabilities of our shipyards will again incentivize commercial shipbuilding, increasing industry efficiency and creating competition, eventually lowering the overall cost of production. This must be our policy goal. If we commit to a revitalization of our shipyards, in just a few years, scores of vessels could again make maiden voyages from American yards built at the hands of thousands of American steelworkers, pipefitters, welders and electricians — a renaissance of one of our nation's most integral industries. This would mean thousands of new jobs in Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and throughout the Gulf Coast. This means secure waters around Greenland, the Bering Strait and the South China Sea as well as the straits of Bab el-Mandeb, Malacca and Hormuz. While the 296-ship fleet of the U.S. Navy is still the most powerful in the world, Communist China's People's Liberation Army Navy is now sailing approximately 350 warships and counting. Some estimates say Communist China's Navy could be as large as 450 ships by 2030 — and it's not just China that is a cause for concern. While the Chinese Communist Party militarizes the South China Sea, Russia — which will assume chairmanship of the Arctic Council in May 2021 — has been quietly rebuilding its Arctic fleet. This is a region that will be of critical importance in the years to come as northern shipping lanes open and natural resources make themselves available. As it stands now, the U.S. Navy can't effectively access these waters, as it lacks the ice-hardened warships to do so. Our shipbuilding industry was once a bulwark of American manufacturing, but decades of neglect, ambivalence to predatory foreign markets and sequestration have caused it to take on water. If we don't begin patching the holes now, it won't be just an industry that sinks. It may well be our economic and national security, as we will be unable to protect the world's sea lanes — the arteries of commerce and veins of national defense. While our enemies argue American manufacturing and might is on the decline, we repeat the battle cry of Capt. John Paul Jones: “I have not yet begun to fight!” Peter Navarro is the assistant to the president and director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy within the White House. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/10/30/american-shipbuilding-an-anchor-for-economic-and-national-security/

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  19 août 2019 | International, Naval

  Questions about US Navy attack sub program linger as contract negotiations drag

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy is months behind schedule getting its latest batch of Virginia-class attack subs under contract, and no resolution appears imminent — leading to mounting concerns that delays on the Virginia will affect the Navy's top acquisition priority, the Columbia-class submarine. The contract for the 10-ship Block V Virginia-class attack submarine was supposed to be signed in April, but Navy and industry sources say that there has been a lot of talk and little agreement between the service and the two shipbuilders, General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Newport News. Intended to integrate acoustic upgrades and an 84-foot section for additional strike missile tubes, the delayed contract for the Block V Virginias have instead turned into just the latest warning sign that all is not well in Virginia-land, as schedules have slipped and at least one of the builders is now bleeding profits. Furthermore, it's unclear what the Navy's buying profile for Block V will be, which is subject to both contract negotiations and Congressional action on the fiscal year 2020 budget. The anxiety over Virginia delays, however, are less about Virginia, which is still a strong performing program — especially when compared with other programs such as the Ford-class carrier — but are more driven by the potential for compounding issues bleeding over into the Columbia-class. Both submarines will be drawing on the same workforce and supplier base, which is already showing signs of strain. The Navy says the delays are part of ongoing negotiations and that the schedule should not be affected further since the Navy has already contracted for long-lead time materials, but with the first Columbia expected to be ordered in 2021, the service is facing the reality that it lacks a clear idea of the future of the Virginia program when it is preparing to launch Columbia. The delays center on the integration of the Virginia payload module and just how many the Navy intends to buy. Until this year, the public plan was for Virginia Block V to be a 10-ship class, where the first boat would integrate the acoustic upgrades but the follow-on boats would all integrate the VPM, which is designed to triple the Virginia's Tomahawk payload capacity to 40 per hull. When the Pentagon's 2020 budget request dropped in March, the plan changed, with the total buy expanded to 11 hulls with eight VPM boats. But according to sources who spoke to Defense News, the builder was laying the groundwork for the original plan, which the Navy had already purchased long-lead material toward. The confusion over just how many VPMs the Navy intends to buy has been a major sticking point in the negotiations, with sources telling Defense News that the number of VPMs could still end up as either eight or seven, or potentially even fewer. Complicating matters further is that Congress has yet to weigh in on the fate of the 11th Block V boat, which would mean buying three Virginia's in one year, and some on Capitol Hill have voiced skepticism that the industrial base can support that The Navy's top acquisition official, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Acquisition and Development James Geurts, is working toward a solution that will balance the needs of the Navy and the needs of the builders, his spokesman said. Geurts "continues to work closely with the program team and industry on negotiating a Block V Multi-Year procurement contract that will be affordable, executable and supports the industrial base,” said Capt. Danny Hernandez. “He wants to ensure we are maximizing the use of taxpayer dollars while at the same time striving for an acceptable level of design and program risk. “Additionally, during this period, the Navy is continuing to fund the shipbuilder for long lead time materials and pre-construction efforts to ensure submarine work continues at the shipyards and with the supplier base.” ‘Worst of Both Worlds' With uncertainty looming about the future of the Virginia class, questions remain about whether that will bleed into Columbia, creating schedule risk that Navy leaders have said for years was untenable. Congress has sought to ease the strain on the supplier base by offering money to help smaller vendors expand to meet demand. And in March, Geurts announced that he was standing up a new program executive officer for Columbia, citing the need to be proactive with any problems that might arise from the competing demands on the industrial base. “These yards are integrated,” defense analyst Dan Goure, a former Bush Administration official who now works for The Lexington Institute, said in an April interview. “When you start messing with the other program on a short-notice basis, you risk the yards being able to deliver on time and at cost for multiple programs. “In a sense you risk the worst of both worlds: You risk further perturbations in the Virginia class, and at the same time risk not being able to get Columbia out on time.” Both General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls said in earnings calls they expect the Block V contract to be signed by the end of the year. Delays The setbacks seem to be compounding for the Virginia program. Welding issues on missile tubes destined for the Virginia Payload Module and the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program have eaten into the schedule margin for both programs. And issues with the supplier base as well as the labor force have caused schedule delays. Industry sources who spoke to Defense News said growing the Virginia-class program from one submarine per year to two submarines per year, which started with the budget in FY11, has put increasing strain on a diminished submarine supplier base, which has put pressure on schedules as the shipyards wait for parts. Huntington Ingalls has dropped 23 percent of its profit margin on the Virginia-class program, according to a second-quarter earnings report analyzed by defense business analyst Jim McAleese. In an earnings call, Huntington Ingalls executives seemed to blame the drop on the schedule delays. Two sources familiar with the issue said profit loss stemmed from labor force issues that resulted from a year-long delay in the Navy contracting for the carrier George Washington's mid-life refueling and overhaul. The delay caused Ingalls to lay off about 1,200 employees, which drew off workforce from the Virginia program because of labor union rules that say that the most recent hires must be laid off first. Those rules forced Huntington Ingalls Industries to lay off workers who were working on the Virginia program, who in turn were then snapped up by other yards; Huntington Ingalls Industries then had to train new employees for the Virginia work. Defense News reported in March that class-wide, Virginia is looking at four-to-seven month delays for delivery, which drives up labor costs. Huntington Ingalls Industries chief financial officer Chris Kastner said on the call that getting the Virginia program back on schedule is a top priority. “Especially when you're a in a serial production line like we are with the Virginia-class,” Kastner said. “If you start to have issues with schedule it does start to affect the synchronization of the line. “We've been working pretty hard to reset that this year, given kind of where we started last year fourth quarter and we made great progress on that." https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/08/16/questions-about-us-navy-attack-sub-program-linger-as-contract-negotiations-drag/