24 août 2023 | International, Aérospatial
US Navy awards Sikorsky $2.7 billion for 35 CH-53K helicopters
The contract covers 12 lot 7 and 15 lot 8 aircraft for the U.S. Marine Corps, as well as eight aircraft for the Israeli Air Force.
11 février 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre
Here’s how many bombs the US plans to buy in the next year
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's fiscal 2021 budget request seeks to buy fewer munitions needed for the fights in Afghanistan and Iraq as it attempts to pivot towards investments in the kind of weapons that will be used in a high-end fight against China or Russia.
The DoD has requested $21.3 billion in munitions, including $6 billion for conventional ammunition, $4 billion for strategic missiles and $11.3 billion for tactical missiles. Munitions and missiles make up 8.8 percent of overall procurement in the budget request.
The department is pursuing a two-pronged approach, according to a budget summary provided by the Pentagon. The first is to make sure “U.S. worldwide munition inventories are sufficiently stocked” for ongoing needs. The second is to ensure “sufficient procurement of more advanced high-end weapon systems, which provide increases standoff, enhanced lethality and autonomous targeting for employment against near-peer threats in more contested environment.”
Examples of that kind of high-end munition includes the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), both of which have enhanced procurement in the budget request.
Major munitions buys in the budget include:
- 20,338 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) - $533 million. That is down 8,050 units from the FY20 enacted.
- 7,360 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) - $1.2 billion. That is down 1,163 units from FY20 enacted.
- 2,462 Small Diameter Bomb 1 (SDB 1) – $95.9 million. That is down 4,616 units from FY20 enacted.
- 1,490 Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II) - $432 million. That is down 197 units from FY20 enacted.
- 8,150 Hellfire missiles - $517 million. That is down 640 units from FY20 enacted.
- 601 AIM-9X sidewinders - $316.6 million. That is down 119 units from FY20 enacted.
- 125 Standard Missile-6 - $816 million. That is the same amount as purchased in FY20 enacted.
- 400 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) - $577 million. That is up 10 units from FY20 enacted.
- 53 Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) - $224 million. That is up 36 units from FY20 enacted.
The slowdown of procurement for munitions comes as the U.S. dropped 7,423 munitions onto Afghanistan in 2019 —the highest number of bombs released in nearly a decade.
“For munitions, we continue to carefully manage production and stockpiles," Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker said Monday. "The JADM stockpile is healthier due to our last four years of increased procurements. The SM-6 is being procured at the maximum rate of production, continuing a five-year, multi-year procurement contract.”
Keeping the munitions industrial base humming is important for the Pentagon. A May 2018 report identified major gaps in the munitions industrial base, warning that key components for America's weapons could disappear entirely if a small handful of suppliers were to close up shop.
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22 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
The F-35 jet might hit full-rate production more than a year late
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department will not clear the F-35 fighter jet for full-rate production this year, and it may even have to push that milestone as far as January 2021, the Pentagon's acquisition executive said Friday. The Pentagon had intended to make a full-rate production decision — also known as Milestone C — by the end of 2019. But because the Joint Simulation Environment continues to face delays in its own development, the Defense Department will have to defer that milestone by as many as 13 months, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord told reporters during a news conference. The Joint Simulation Environment, or JSE, is needed to conduct simulated evaluations of the F-35 in a range of high-threat scenarios. “We actually had signed out of the JPO [F-35 Joint Program Office] earlier this week a program deviation report that documented expected schedule threshold breach in the Milestone C full-rate production decision of up to 13 months,” Lord said. It is unclear whether the delay will cause an increase in program costs. Although the Defense Department already buys the F-35 in large numbers, the full-rate production decision is viewed as a major show of confidence in the program's maturity. During this time, the yearly production rate is set to skyrocket from the 91 jets manufactured by Lockheed Martin in 2018 to upward of 160 by 2023. But before Lord signs off on the production decision, the F-35 must complete operational testing, the results of which will be validated by Robert Behler, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation. The F-35's testing community intended to complete initial operational test and evaluation, or IOT&E, by this summer; however, the JSE is not yet complete. “We are not making as quick progress on the Joint Simulation Environment, integrating the F-35 into it. It is a critical portion of IOT&E. We work closely with Dr. Behler and DOT&E [[the office of the director of operational test and evaluation]. They are making excellent progress out on the range with the F-35, but we need to do the work in the Joint Simulation Environment,” Lord said. “We have collectively decided that we need the JSE [to be] absolutely correct before we proceed, so I will make some decisions about when that full-rate production decision will be made shortly," she added. Specifically, the Defense Department and F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin are lagging behind in integrating the "'F-35 In-A-Box” — the simulated model of the F-35 and its sensors and weapons — into the JSE, reported Military.com, which broke the news of the testing delay in September. Even before IO&TE formally started, the F-35 test community had noted the challenge of maintaining the planned schedule. The F-35 began operational tests in December 2018, three months after the originally scheduled start date in September. The program office maintained that its goal was to see the test phase finished by the summer of 2019. However, F-35 test director Air Force Col. Varun Puri documented concerns in a September 2018 presentation that the test phase could slip until September 2019, which could add budget pressure to the program. In a statement, Lockheed Martin expressed confidence in its ability to ramp up production over the next few years. “As Secretary Lord stated earlier today, the F-35 is performing exceptionally well for our customers and we continue to ramp up production, modernize the aircraft and improve sustainment performance,” the company said. “This year our goal is to deliver 131 aircraft and that is on track to grow to over 140 production aircraft deliveries next year. We are confident the full F-35 enterprise is prepared for full rate production and ready to meet growing customer demand.” https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/10/18/the-f-35-may-hit-full-rate-production-more-than-a-year-late/
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27 mars 2024 | International, Terrestre
UK lawmakers, defense chief clash over looming defense spending cuts
Politicians lament spending reductions during a war in Europe, while the government says the numbers are trending up.