Watched a nice video of VFA-211 Checkertails on my old boat................ of course they were East Coast at the time......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CnNPoa5KLIHere's Inside the Navy for the Week of 20 Feb 2017
NAVY EXPECTS INITIAL REQUIREMENT FOR FUTURE SURFACE COMBATANT BY JULY
The Navy has determined three types of vessels it would develop as part of future surface combatant programs, and the service expects to complete the initial capabilities document for the family of vessels by July, according to officials.
The Navy finished a capabilities based assessment last October, and the study concluded that the future surface combatant would come in a family of three types of ship -- large surface combatants, small surface combatants and unmanned integrated
capabilities, according to Capt. Chris Sweeney, deputy for Aegis BMD and destroyer programs at the Navy's surface warfare directorate (N96).
The service is planning to conduct a war game examining the notional ships within the context of future fleet architectures this June, Sweeney said during a Feb. 15 panel discussion at an American Society of Naval Engineers conference in Arlington, VA.
The Navy then plans to finalize the future surface combatant initial capabilities document this July, according to Sweeney. In the Defense Department's acquisition process, the ICD documents the need for a system or set of systems to fill a specific
capability gap.
Sweeney said the Navy would then conduct an analysis of alternatives for each of the three groups before making a material development decision in early 2018.
A key part of informing requirements and development of the future surface combatant platforms will be a developmental surface squadron the Navy plans to establish within the next few years, Sweeney told reporters following the panel discussion. The
squadron will be based in San Diego, CA, and could involve a range of available ships and capabilities such as unmanned vessels, the Littoral Combat Ship and the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer.
"We really think the developmental squadron piece, it's key for us as we go forward with the future surface combatant," Sweeney said. He added that the squadron isn't funded yet and will likely be included in the Navy's five-year spending plan for fiscal
year 2019.
The future surface combatants are expected to first replace the Navy's Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, both of which will begin retiring in the mid-2030s. The program will also eventually replace the Navy's Littoral Combat
Ships.
Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, the head of Naval Sea Systems Command, pointed to the time line for retiring cruisers and destroyers as the reason to move forward on the future surface combatant.
"We've got a time frame here and we've got to work our way through systematically what we're going to do," Moore told reporters following a separate presentation at the Feb. 15 conference. "We're going to have to make some decisions here before
2020 about what this thing is going to look like."
The three-star also emphasized the importance of taking into account past lessons learned about pursuing too many new technologies in newly designed ships.
NAVSEA will have a hand in helping the chief of naval operations' office shape the future surface combatant requirements through its engineering directorate. Steve Wynn, future ship and force architecture director for the NAVSEA engineering directorate,
said his office is "advising" OPNAV on different aspects of the requirements.
Wynn highlighted how unmanned platforms will play a much greater role in the future surface force.
"We're looking at a much greater emphasis on unmanned platforms," he said during the Feb. 15 panel discussion.
Medium-sized unmanned surface vessels (USV) are considered viable unmanned integrated capabilities under the envisioned future surface combatant capabilities, according to Capt. Jonathan Rucker, program manager for unmanned maritime systems at
the program executive office for LCS.
The Office of Naval Research is expected to gain ownership of a medium-sized USV later this year. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency developed the "Sea Hunter" as a medium-sized USV capable of autonomously tracking submarines. The
technology will officially transition into ONR's portfolio this April, Rucker said, and the Navy will further develop concepts of operation for the medium-sized USV.
But the unmanned integrated capabilities portion of the future surface combatant program is still open-ended, and it could also include aerial and undersea platforms, not just surface vessels, according to Sweeney.
"We're not at the platform level yet, but we have a lot to learn in the unmanned space, and we want to bring this all together in integrated combat systems," he said. -- Justin Doubleday
NAVY SHIPBUILDING COMMAND BEGINS PREPARING FOR 355-SHIP BUILD-UP
As they wait for Congress and the Trump administration to sort out the messy details of funding the federal government, officials at Naval Sea Systems command are quietly planning for building toward the president's goal of a larger Navy.
The command, which oversees both the building of new ships and systems as well as ship and submarine maintenance, will need a larger work force to support building toward 355 ships, multiple officials stressed last week at an American Society of
Naval Engineers conference in Arlington, VA. The command currently employs approximately 70,000 civilians and 5,300 active-duty military personnel, according to a Navy spokeswoman.
Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, the head of NAVSEA, highlighted how the service will need a larger engineering directorate.
"If we're going to get to 355 ships, we're probably going to need more," Moore said during a Feb. 15 address at the conference. He said the Navy is in "an age of electric ships" that necessitates the service has the requisite engineering talent to design,
build and maintain ships that run on complex power systems, such as the Zumwalt-class destroyer's electric drive system.
Rear Adm. William Galinis, the program executive officer for ships, said NAVSEA's contracting directorate is also short-staffed.
"Within SEA-02, our contracting team, right now they have more work than they have people for today," he said during a Feb. 16 panel discussion. "We start talking about adding more contracts, we're going to need to take a little bit different approach
on how we do that."
The Navy's most immediate priority, however, is making sure its current fleet of 278 ships is maintained. Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran told lawmakers the Navy will first put any additional funds it receives in fiscal year 2017 toward
maintenance availability.
Moore said the Navy needs to make sure the capacity at its four public shipyards and the private shipyards is appropriate for maintaining a larger Navy.
"I think you're going to see a fair and open discussion about what the size of the naval shipyards should be, what the size of the private sector industrial base needs to be, to get the work done that we need to do on the ships going forward," Moore
said.
Allison Stiller, the acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said on Feb. 16 that the FY-17 budget supplemental will be delivered to Congress "in a matter of days" and is being crafted to "address readiness
challenges that all the services have been facing."
The FY-18 budget, meanwhile, will be submitted to Congress in early May, Stiller said. That budget is being built "to address fleet priorities," but also to reflect the "priorities of the new administration," according to Stiller. Noting that while building a larger
fleet will require more funding, Stiller said the Budget Control Act and its defense spending caps are still the law.
"This puts tremendous pressure on budget development and while we hear rumblings of relief we cannot let up our focus on program affordability and cost control," Stiller said. "That needs to be part of our DNA."
The best route for the Navy to build toward 355 ships is to increase production rates of ship classes that are already under construction, according to Moore.
"The best way to get 355 is to continue the hot production lines that we currently have," he said.
Many of the increases may come in Galinis' portfolio at PEO Ships. The program executive office oversees production of Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers and amphibious transport ships. Both of those ship types saw sharp increases under the
goals set in the Navy's new force structure assessment released last December.
The capacity at the three yards that produce those ships -- Ingalls Shipbuilding, Bath Iron Works and General Dynamics NASSCO -- exists to support a ramp in production, according to Galinis. But he said there may be less capability at some suppliers of
key shipboard components, like A/C plants, major hydraulics and electrical components.
"I don't see anything that significantly worries me at this point, but it's just something that as we start drilling down into those smaller companies that we need to just be mindful of, because they don't have the surge capacity that some of the bigger
companies have," Galinis said.
He said his office has also begun examining how it could process acquisition documents and contracts more efficiently to better support an increase in ship procurement.
"The budget right now is still certainly in a state of flux," Galinis said. "But the teams within the PEO have already started to develop the right documentation so we're kind of spring-loaded, if you will, if we do get the green light to go ahead and press
forward with that." -- Justin Doubleday
NAVY BEGINS ASSESSING TRIDENT II D5 FLEET BALLISTIC MISSILE REPLACEMENT
The Navy is beginning to assess what would replace the Trident II D5 fleet ballistic missile because the Columbia-class submarine will outlast the munition, according to the service.
Vice Adm. Terry Benedict, strategic systems program director, told Inside the Navy Feb. 15 after his presentation at an industry conference in Arlington, VA, that Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley green lighted Benedict's office to begin an early
conceptual phase on a fleet ballistic missile replacement. Stackley is currently serving as acting Navy secretary.
"It's something that we have to face at some point in the future," Benedict said. "There's still a large time band on when that might be. It's appropriate to start thinking about that now, start asking ourselves questions, start looking at the early upfront
onsets as well as threats and any additional requirements."
Benedict envisions either a new missile -- dubbed the "D6" possibly -- or a second life extension program for the Trident II D5.
Capt. Doug Williams, missile program manager, said Feb. 15 during an American Society of Naval Engineers conference in Arlington, VA, the Navy must decide if "form, fit, function" is the right approach for the fleet ballistic missile replacement. Form, fit,
function was the service's mantra for the Trident II D5.
"As we start to think through what comes next, absolutely, form, fit, function will get reviewed but it may not be the right choice, it may not be the right trade," Williams said. "There may be something else we can do or we can modify our own architecture
and subsystem for."
Williams stressed it is imperative the fleet ballistic missile replacement have comparable "demonstrated performance" because it is the anchor for the Columbia-class sub. This is why the Navy could go from 24 missile tubes with the Ohio-class ballistic
missile submarine to only 16 missile tubes with Columbia, Williams said. -- Lee Hudson
THORNBERRY WORRIES MATTIS IS 'ALONE' IN EFFORT TO INCREASE DEFENSE SPENDING
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) said last week he is worried that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis might be unknowingly steered in the wrong budgetary direction by former Obama administration officials at the Pentagon,
who, Thornberry asserts, have spent the past several years denying the existence of readiness problems and fighting congressional efforts to increase defense spending.
"I think the problem is it's Secretary Mattis alone right now," Thornberry told reporters Feb. 16.
"You have a number of people acting, some people appointees and others from the Obama administration and they're the ones who have been trying to deny there was a problem," he continued.
Thornberry said the Defense Department officials and staffers in question were "well intentioned people, patriotic Americans," but added: "It's hard for any of us to turn 180 degrees and march in the opposite direction when we've been marching in one
direction all this time."
Thornberry's concerns follow a congressional hearing last week with the military vice chiefs, who told the committee alarming stories about readiness gaps. For instance, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Daniel Allyn said only three of the service's 58 brigade
combat teams were ready to "fight tonight" if called. Meanwhile, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. William Moran said "time is running out" to address the "readiness debt that will take years to pay down."
Mattis has placed Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work, an Obama administration holdover, in charge of DOD's budget review.
Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Work has Mattis' total confidence.
Work "plays an important role in working with the services to develop our budget inputs, and he does so in accordance with the guidance and direction of Secretary Mattis," Davis said.
"The budget submissions that DOD makes to the President will come from Secretary Mattis. They will reflect his thinking, and his priorities, which are to rebuild combat readiness of America's military, while being faithful stewards of every taxpayer dollar we
spend on defense." McCord weighs in Former Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord, who left his job at the start of the Trump administration and has yet to be replaced, told Inside Defense in an interview that he does not believe there is a readiness crisis.
"Using words like 'crisis' are probably helpful if you're trying to say this is an emergency that requires me to pay for it," he said. "Are there issues that more money could help? Of course."
McCord said the vice chiefs' examples, however, were mostly a function of the 2011 Budget Control Act -- which constrained defense spending -- and lawmakers' inability to pass regular appropriations bills without stopgap spending measures, or
continuing resolutions.
"We never once said the BCA is a good answer," he said. "We were always up there asking for 5 percent more a year above the BCA." McCord said the problems identified by the service chiefs are more complicated than a simple lack of funds.
"You need time," he said. "But there's still a problem of what is my rationale for why I need to pay for this stuff? If you could say there was a crisis, then that's a great reason. I think that's a stretch. You have certain parts of the force stressed from that
and I don't know anyone would disagree that there's degradation of full-spectrum readiness. But it's really rare to find a readiness problem that can be addressed just with money."
New FY-17 supplemental deadline?
A Jan. 24 department-wide memo from Mattis states the Pentagon will submit a fiscal year 2017 supplemental budget request. But Thornberry said though "that was the plan at one point," he and other lawmakers have urged the Pentagon to send that
request directly to Congress on March 1. "My understanding is that the target date for us getting the supplemental is March 1," he said. "The fiscal year is marching ahead and so to have any hope of spending the money efficiently, we'll need to get it
done quickly. We have encouraged them to get that to us by March 1 and we have got a pretty positive response." A Pentagon spokesman was unable to immediately confirm the deadline had changed or if OMB would receive the budget request before
Congress or simultaneously. Reports vary on the size of the supplemental, but Thornberry has said it should at least include $15 billion in proposed spending on new weapons that was jettisoned from the FY-17 National Defense Authorization Act.
However, sources indicate the supplemental could be as much as $40 billion.
McCord said the "wish list" Trump's transition team was working with was approximately $40 billion, but the former comptroller stressed that the military services would be unable to efficiently spend any more than $20 billion in FY-17.
"I think $20 billion is probably reasonable," he said. "I heard the wish list was basically double that. My former staff is certainly aware that you can't execute that money in the amount of time left in the fiscal year."
But, McCord said, congressional appropriators could agree to provide DOD the money for a period of several years, rather than the remainder of the fiscal year.
"The appropriators could say you've got three years . . . to buy airplanes and five years to buy ships," he said. "It's technically a budget amendment, not a supplemental, so there's no reason to hold back the life of the money."
Mulvaney coming aboard
Meanwhile, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) was confirmed Feb. 16 as the next chief of OMB, though he was opposed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) because of his "poor record on defense spending."
As a member of the House, Mulvaney repeatedly supported proposed cuts to defense budgets and voted to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
Thornberry and McCain, however, have said they plan to work to increase the Pentagon base budget to $640 billion in FY-18, or $90 billion above the cap mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act.
Thornberry said he was confident Mulvaney would carry out whatever defense increase President Trump proposes.
"I think [Mulvaney] was good in describing that his responsibilities as budget director are different form his responsibilities as a congressman," Thornberry said. "I've had brief conversations with him and I think he is committed to carrying out the
president's promise to rebuild the military."
Thornberry said he was more concerned about Pentagon officials who have spent the past year or more denying the existence of readiness problems.
"I am concerned that to fix these problems it's going to take more money, and yet a lot of the folks who are coming up with the budget to fix them are the same people who have been fighting every step of the way against our efforts to fix these
problems," he said. "There are some folks over in the building who have been there through the whole time they have been fighting against us and they're the ones coming up with the next budget. I'm concerned about where that's headed." -- Tony
Bertuca
BALLISTIC MISSILE TEST
An Ohio-class submarine successfully launched four Trident II D5 missiles during a three-day period last week, according to the Navy. The flights, part of a Follow-on Commander's Evaluation Test, were completed on Feb. 19. The missiles were all unarmed
and never flew over land, according to the service. "The primary objective of an FCET is to obtain, under operationally representative conditions, valid reliability, accuracy, and performance of the missile system for use by the head of Strategic Command
and the Joint Chiefs of Staff," the Navy explained in its statement. The Trident missiles are one part of the United States' nuclear triad.
NAVY ANALYZES HOW TO DISPOSE OF FIRST NUCLEAR-POWERED AIRCRAFT CARRIER
The Navy is still analyzing how to dispose of the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN-65) once the inactivation work is complete in August by Newport News Shipbuilding, according to an official.
Capt. John Markowicz, in-service carrier program manager, said Feb. 15 during a panel at an American Society of Naval Engineers conference in Arlington, VA, the Enterprise started inactivation in 2012 and the contract is still being worked at Newport
News. The service is aiming for the defueling work to wrap up in August so that the George Washington (CVN-73) can come in for a refueling and a complex overhaul.
The Navy has not decided the next steps once the defueling complete. The service reached out to industry and is analyzing various options that include giving the Enterprise to a partial recycler or to a full ship commercial recycling company, he said.
If the Navy chose to go the partial recycling route, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington would take the propulsion section of the ship and dispose of it, according to Markowicz.
Inside the Navy reported in August the service released a request for information to see which companies are interested on disposing of low-level radioactive waste from CVN-65.
The Navy will provide the vendor waterborne delivery of a floating center section of the ship containing the reactor plants to the contractor's chosen site. The RFI notes all work must be performed in the United States.
After CVN-65 was inactivated at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, the ship was to be towed to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington. There the ship would be dismantled and the Navy would begin to dispose of the eight reactor compartment
packages at a Department of Energy site in Hanford, WA, Naval Sea Systems Command spokeswoman Colleen O'Rourke wrote in an Aug. 18 email to ITN.
"As the Navy began detailed planning to implement this course of action, it became clear that the program of record discussed above would have a significant impact on the ability for PSNS&IMF to carry out its existing workload of supporting active
nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and submarine maintenance," according to O'Rourke.
The Navy decided that complete recycling of CVN-65 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard is not an effective use of the limited resources available, such as the manpower and dry dock space the strategy requires. Also, commercial recycling portions of the ship
can potentially provide cost savings of the overall ship disposal effort, she wrote.
"With that in mind, the Navy issued a Request for Information on Aug. 1, 2016 as a way to gather basic information from all potential sources who may be interested in dismantling and disposing of CVN-65's reactor compartments," O'Rourke wrote. "The
Navy will ensure the selected approach to the recycling and reactor compartment disposal of CVN-65 is executable, environmentally safe, and is the most effective use of resources to best support the Navy and the nation's national security mission." --
Lee Hudson
DOD IS TESTING F-35C NOSE GEAR FIX, HOPES TO HAVE RESULTS BY MARCH
The Pentagon is testing a fix to the F-35C's nose gear at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Lakehurst, NJ, and hopes to have results in March, according to the F-35 program executive officer.
Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, told reporters Feb. 16 after a House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee hearing that the fix the government is testing revolves around the aircraft's "pull back mechanism."
"We pull back really hard and that compresses the [landing gear] strut and causes oscillations" on the F-35C carrier variant when it takes off an aircraft carrier, Bogdan said.
During testing at Lakehurst, the team is determining whether some of the tension can be reduced and still have enough energy for the jet to takeoff from the flight deck, he said.
"They're doing multiple tests out there to figure what the range of the pullback capability is and [with] that we're going to figure out if that can reduce the oscillations," Bogdan said.
The fix will most likely not be tested at sea until an operational test period this summer, he added.
Inside the Navy first reported the Pentagon established a "red team" last September to investigate issues with the F-35C's nose gear and the team recommended that if initial steps to fix the problem fail, the nose gear should be redesigned. -- Lee
Hudson
HII CEO: MAJOR SHIPBUILDING INCREASE WOULD REQUIRE 'HARD WORK'
The chief executive of shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls said Feb. 16 that growing the Navy's fleet to the level President Trump has advocated would not be "a light switch that you just turn on."
Speaking to analysts during a morning call, Mike Petters said significantly expanding the fleet would require "a few budget cycles" to even get started.
"None of this is a light switch that you just turn on and you start building 350 ships this summer," he said.
"In order to get to those rates . . . they'll need to continue to produce the ships that we're already producing -- as opposed to go off on a whole new design program and design a new fleet," Petters added. "I think you'll see mature programs get
expanded."
Petters stressed that the process would require multiple steps.
"There's a lot of hard work to do," he said. "No. 1: We've got to get through the [fiscal year 20]17 bill -- we're in a [continuing resolution] right now. No. 2: We've got to figure out what the heck we're going to do with sequestraion . . . and get that
legislatively resolved. And then No. 3: the impact of [the Ohio Replacement Program] in shipbuilding in general. If you're ramping up budgets, maybe that problem that we've been talking about goes away, but, until you do that, it's still the No. 1 issue out
there."
Petters also told analysts that Huntington Ingalls would be able to meet the government's demand.
"We'll be ready before they can get the money appropriated," he said. "We'll be ready once we start to see the process begin to churn. We'll have the workforce ready, we'll have the facilities ready, and we don't see that as an issue for the build-up."
However, he said the company's 5,000 suppliers could create a challenge.
"If I thought there were a risk in the process, I think it's probably in the supply chain," Petters added. "How do you get those folks to ramp up their production in order to support us? At the end of the day, if we don't have the equipment from the
suppliers to build on time, that ends up impacting the ships."
Petters acknowledged that ships are long-term purchases that wouldn't necessarily come to fruition in the next four years, but said there are steps that could be taken now.
"For instance, let's buy two aircraft carriers at a time, instead of one. . . . The next multiyear [contract] for destroyers, maybe let's go to three per year instead of two per year," he said. "Another immediate thing that could happen is accelerate the LX(R)
[amphibious ship replacement] program. All of those things . . . don't result in ships that would be delivered in the next four years or so, but all of those things would be clear signals that we're actually going to go and do this build-up."
Huntington Ingalls last week also reported sales in 2016 hit $7.1 billion, up just shy of 1 percent from 2015. The contractor's profit reached $573 million, up nearly 42 percent from the prior year.
The company saw bolstered sales in its newly formed technical solutions group, which was created after the company acquired Camber late last year. The unit reported sales for the year of $691 million, up about 12 percent from the prior year.
In 2015, the business reported a $113 million loss, but this year, it generated $8 million in profit. Huntington Ingalls noted that 2015's loss included more than $100 million in write-down charges. -- Marjorie Censer
HII EXECUTIVE SAYS COMPANY WILL CONTINUE TO PURSUE AVONDALE COSTS
Huntington Ingalls confirmed last week it is still wrangling with the Navy over whether it can recover costs associated with closing its Avondale, LA, facility.
During a Feb. 16 call with analysts, Chris Kastner, the contractor's chief financial officer, said the government's contracting officer has denied the company's claim.
According to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the claim was rejected "on the purported basis that the Company had not adequately shown savings and other benefits that would accrue to the U.S. Government from the closing of
Avondale and consolidation of Ingalls Shipbuilding to the Pascagoula[,MS,] facility."
"While we are continuing discussions with the contracting officer, we will also pursue our claim under the Contract Disputes Act," Kastner said. "We remain confident that our claimed cost is allowable and allocable, and the resolution will be in accordance
with our cost recovery expectations."
Huntington Ingalls ceased shipbuilding operations at Avondale in late 2014. The company has estimated its "net restructuring and shutdown costs" as $276 million, according to the SEC filing. -- Marjorie Censer
BOGDAN: 'BETTER DEALS' ON PRODUCTION CONTRACTS COULD AID DEVELOPMENT COSTS
The head of the F-35 joint program office told lawmakers last week he is 'confident' he won't be asking lawmakers for more money to complete development, stating that favorable future negotiations could free up funds to mitigate additional costs.
The program and prime contractor Lockheed Martin are currently negotiating production Lot 11, which F-35 Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan told lawmakers will be worth upwards of $10 billion for 120 jets. The Defense Department
reached a handshake deal with Lockheed early this month on a Lot 10 contract to buy 90 jets at a unit cost of about $94.6 million for the F-35A variant. President Trump has touted the lower cost-per-jet as a result of his involvement in negotiations, but
the unit cost has been on a downward trajectory for several years and is part of a broad affordability effort agreed upon by the government and Lockheed.
News of the Lot 10 deal came several months after DOD awarded Lockheed a unilateral contract for the ninth production lot -- a move that disappointed the company, but yielded a 5.5 percent per-jet savings for the F-35A variant.
Bogdan stated that continued negotiation successes for the government could help alleviate strain in other areas of the program.
"If we can negotiate better deals for the price of those airplanes, then that money that I save in negotiating is money that I will turn to the services and turn to the department and ask: What would you like me to do with that?" Bogdan said.
Bogdan's statement came during a Feb. 16 House Armed Services tactical air and land subcommittee hearing in response to a question from Ranking Member Niki Tsongas (D-MA), who questioned Bogdan's confidence in the JPO's estimate that it would
cost an additional $532 million to complete the program's development phase. The Pentagon's cost assessment and program evaluation office estimates that figure at more than $1 billion.
"I would just like to ask how confident you are that you won't be coming back here in the next round and again, suddenly, the numbers have moved?" Tsongas asked. "How confident are you?"
Bogdan said he is "very confident" and claimed that because he and his team know the program, their estimates are "very accurate."
"I have my comptroller, and my contracting folks, and my engineers doing a bottoms-up review every year on how much money we need to finish the program," he said.
Bogdan told reporters after the hearing that he's not sure why CAPE's estimate is so much higher than the JPO's, but guesses that the office may have made its assumptions based on the program's past performance.
"I do not know where their billion-dollar number came from," he said. "I would suspect it came from projecting how poorly we performed in flight test in the 2B, 3i realm, and just straight-lining what they see to be done without giving the JPO or industry
credit for doing a whole lot better now than we were three or four years ago."
Within the $532 million the JPO has identified as necessary to complete system development and demonstration, Bogdan said $265 million comes from requirements added to the program and from funds shifted from the program by the Defense
Department that were never returned. As a result, the JPO pegs the true overrun at $267 million, Bogdan told reporters in December. -- Lee Hudson
NAVY AIMS TO BEGIN SEA TRIALS FOR NEXT-GENERATION AIRCRAFT CARRIER IN MARCH
The Navy plans to conduct sea trials for the next-generation aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) in March and the program office is in the midst of certifying the vessel is safe operating at sea.
Ye-Ling Wang, deputy program manager for future aircraft carriers, said Feb. 15 during a panel at an American Society of Naval Engineers conference in Arlington, VA, her team is making sure the various systems, the material condition of the ship, and the
crew are ready for sea trials.
For example, the program office is going through a lengthy navigation certification process, she said.
After completing sea trials the Navy should accept delivery of the first-in-class aircraft in April, Wang said. Inside the Navy has previously reported an April 2017 delivery is 13 months later than the original schedule.
Capt. John Markowicz, in-service carriers program manager, said during the same Feb. 15 panel that this past summer he stood up a team to assess how Naval Sea Systems Command could deliver carrier maintenance availabilities on time.
"For the first time in my time here as the program manager we have implemented weekly, if not daily reviews of maintenance availabilities," he said.
The team suggested NAVSEA headquarters should implement the contracting process earlier. Markowicz said ideally this would take place 30 months before a maintenance availability was slated to start.
Another area of improvement is for the service to forecast material it needs to buy for the maintenance period and purchase it early, he said. -- Lee Hudson
MARINE CORPS SEEKING INFO ON SMALL, AIR-LAUNCHED DRONES
The Marine Corps is researching whether it could buy small, air-launched drones as part of an urgent need the service has for long-range fires and reconnaissance.
The Marine Corps and Naval Air Systems Command are asking for industry's input on an "Air Launched Small Unmanned Aircraft System (SUAS)" capable of providing intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, according to a Jan. 11 request for
information. The system should be "rugged, lightweight and ready to use as delivered with minimal logistic, training and support requirements," the RFI states.
The small drones would be launched out of a C-130 aircraft or V-22 Osprey, according to the posting. It says the systems don't have to be recovered on the launch platform, but they do need to be "capable of terminating flight in a designated location"
The systems should be able to provide full motion video and still imagery from electro-optical and infrared sensors, according to the RFI. The drones should be controllable from a launching platform, such as a common launch tube, as well as from a ground
station, the posting explains.
In a Feb. 15 email, Lt. Col. Noah Spataro, unmanned aerial systems capabilities integration and requirements officer at the Marine Corps' Combat Development Command, explained the need for the air-launched systems.
"The Marine Corps currently lacks persistent fires and operational observation of an objective and landing zone at distances the MV-22 is able to respond," Spataro wrote. "Although future programs aim to address these capability gaps . . . the only
alternative mixed solution is an air launched option."
The service wants small drones that can "reconnoiter landing zones" ahead of a crisis response force when other ISR assets are far away or unavailable, Spataro explained. The effort is an "urgent universal needs statement" and any acquisition would
be "structured to field limited quantities to support this unique need," he continued.
"The timing for an urgent need is largely based on mature capabilities that can be quickly procured while costs are dependent on available solutions," he wrote. "The USMC is still in the research phase of this urgent need as no simple air launched
solutions are readily available to fill the entire persistent fires and reconnaissance gap."
Inside the Navy reported last year that the Marine Corps was interested in testing out the Office of Naval Research's Low-Coast UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) as an air-launched system from MV-22 Ospreys. The technology was built to be launched
from ships.
There have been some "prime demonstrations" of launching a single UAS out the back of a V-22 Osprey in the past, according to Col. George Rowell, commanding officer of Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron One (VMX-1). But the Marines
are most intrigued by the idea of air-delivering a team of drones.
"I think the swarming technology is what really interests us collectively and being able to air-launch a swarming UAS technology . . . I think has a lot of merit and a lot of capability that we would like to explore," Rowell said in an Aug. 9 interview. -- Justin
Doubleday
ZUMWALT HEADED BACK TO SEA TO START COMBAT SYSTEMS ACTIVATION
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/dd21/dd213.htmlThe first of the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers is expected to head out to sea soon to light off its radar, as well as to test out fixes made to the ship's propulsion system, according to the Navy.
The Zumwalt (DDG-1000) will get underway this week off the West coast, according to Navy spokesman Cmdr. John Perkins. The ship was initially planned to get underway last week, but Perkins told Inside the Navy that inclement weather entering San
Diego, CA, where the Zumwalt is based, was curtailing shipping operations in the area.
The at-sea period will be used to light off and begin testing the ship's multifunction radar, according to Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, the head of Naval Sea Systems command, The ship was delivered to the Navy last year without its full suite of combat and
mission systems, and acceptance trials were limited to hull, mechanical and electrical system testing.
"It's not a full-fledged combat system, but on DDG-1000, we're going to go out, we're going to turn systems on, we're going to gather some information and then come back in," Moore told reporters following a Feb. 15 panel discussion at an American
Society of Naval Engineers conference in Arlington, VA.
Moore said the underway period will also be used to test out fixes made to the ship's lube oil chillers. Problems with the chillers, which are a part of the ship's propulsion system, caused the Zumwalt to break down as it sailed through the Panama Canal in
December.
"We've made some fixes," Moore said. "We think we've fixed the design issues there. We haven't come through everything, but we want to go out and run it around for a couple days."
After the at-sea testing, the Zumwalt will return to San Diego to begin a six-month, post-shakedown availability, according to Moore. The Navy will complete any engineering work needed to completely repair the ship's propulsion system issues, the
three-star said.
The Navy initially intended for the Zumwalt-class to replace its Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers. But the Defense Department truncated the program to just three ships due to the high costs of the next-generation vessels. The final two ships
in the Zumwalt class are under construction at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, ME.
Moore said he expects the Zumwalt class to be used similarly to the Navy's Seawolf-class submarines. The Navy only produced three Seawolf-class subs, but the service used lessons learned on the expensive program to make better decisions on the
Virginia-class submarine program, now considered one of the most stable and effective Navy shipbuilding programs.
"I think you're going to find something very very similar on DDG-1000," Moore said. "We're going to learn about the ship and platform, and the combatant commanders are going to be glad to have it. And then we're going to learn about some of the new
technologies we have on that and we're going to roll that into the future surface combatant going forward." -- Justin Doubleday
DARPA RELEASES BAA FOR OFFENSIVE SWARMING TECHNOLOGIES
The Pentagon's advanced research arm is seeking industry's input to develop an architecture to enhance offensive swarming tactics with an eye for how this could help in challenging urban environments, according to a new broad agency announcement.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, in its Feb. 15 BAA, states that the goal of the OFFensive Swarm Enabled Tactics, or OFFSET, program is to "advance and accelerate elements" of enabling swarm technologies, with a focus on swarm
autonomy and human-swarm teaming components.
"Swarm size (the number of elements in the swarm) has often been the prevailing (albeit limiting) consideration when identifying advantages of swarm technologies," according to the announcement. "The underlying premise of the OFFSET program is that
the potential of swarm systems has yet to be fully explored and realized."
Tactics that look at collaborations between humans and the swarm, as well as "heterogeneity in the swarm's composition," can be a boon to efforts, DARPA wrote.
This technology could also be a potential game-changer for challenging urban environments, where missions "must often be conducted in areas where knowledge, access, and/or control of factors like infrastructure, supply chains, local conditions and
potential threats are severely limited," according to the announcement.
"OFFSET seeks revolutionary capabilities to assert and maintain superiority of the urban operating environment, both in the air and on the ground," the announcement states.
DARPA is interested in using more than 250 collaborating systems, such as for an operation that takes place over eight city blocks for six hours.
"If successful, OFFSET will produce an advanced swarm system, comprising a demonstrated swarm software architecture with implementation of swarm tactics and advanced swarm interfaces; a physical swarm system testbed for substantive
experimentation and operationalization; and a robust developer and user community for enduring engagement in the advancement of swarm system capabilities," according to the announcement.
This program is designed to help develop both the "technological trade spaces of swarm systems design," as well as "the scalability of manned-unmanned teaming constructs, test and evaluation for autonomous systems, and open system architectures
for distributed, networked capabilities," according to the announcement.
Abstracts are due March 1, and proposals for the swarm systems integrators are due April 3. DARPA intends to award up to two swarm systems integrators for a total of $14 million. The agency could also release calls for related swarm sprinter proposals
within the next year. -- Jordana Mishory
MATTIS SEEKS TO CALM WATERS IN THE WAKE OF FLYNN RESIGNATION
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, whose primary public role in the fledgling Trump administration has been the reassurance of foreign allies, stands to benefit from the exit of Michael Flynn, the president's former national security adviser, who the White House
said was forced from his job by the president after an "erosion" of trust stemming from statements he made about a wiretapped conversation with Russian officials.
Mattis, who was on a plane to Belgium for a NATO conference when news broke that Trump had asked for Flynn's resignation after only 24 days on the job, told traveling press the situation would not affect the Defense Department.
"Frankly, this has no impact," Mattis said. "Here's the bottom line, ladies and gentlemen: I'm brought in to be the secretary of defense. I give the president advice on the use of military force."
Mark Cancian, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, however, thinks Flynn's resignation will likely boost Mattis' political capital with the White House because he is now perceived to be the administration's leading voice
on national security matters -- something the secretary could use to get his desired personnel in place at the Pentagon.
"This is a good thing for Mattis," he told Inside Defense. "You can't get up there and say 'It's really bad for the president, but it's really good for me.' You can't say that. But I think it will help him."
Cancian, referencing recent media reports, said Mattis has been "in this argument with the White House" over personnel that has brought many of the Pentagon's functions to a halt.
"Maybe this is a hope as much as it is a forecast, but maybe the White House will now take more seriously the need for technocrats," Cancian said. "They clearly need to reduce the temperature and reduce the noise and the one way to do that is to sort
of get a lot of bland technocrats in there."
And, according to several published reports, the rumored front-runner to succeed Flynn is retired Vice Adm. Bob Harward, who served as Mattis' deputy when the defense secretary was chief of U.S. Central Command.
"This would be a tremendous help to Mattis in that Harward is not connected with the politicals, whereas Flynn was very connected with the politicals," Cancian said.
Meanwhile, former defense secretaries from the Obama administration have publicly complained about micromanagement of DOD from the National Security Council and Flynn's ouster could give Mattis an opportunity to reverse that trend.
Someone like Harward, Cancian said, could serve as "a coordinator as opposed to Flynn who wanted to make himself an independent player."
For instance, it was Flynn who publicly put Iran "on notice" Feb. 1, while Mattis was on the way to Asia to meet with allies in South Korea and Japan.
"This gives Mattis more running room," Cancian said.Perception of a 'steady hand'
Democrats pounced and Republicans voiced concern when news of Flynn's resignation hit Capitol Hill on Feb. 14, but Mattis and the Pentagon remained above the fray. In fact, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ), who said
Flynn's departure was "a troubling indication of the dysfunction of the current national security apparatus," added, however, that he "especially" looked forward to working with Mattis "to defend the nation and support our military servicemembers."
Kathleen Hicks, a defense analyst at CSIS who previously served in DOD as principal deputy under secretary for policy, told Inside Defense that Mattis' presence would reassure not just foreign allies, but American national security officials amid the drama
and chaos radiating from the White House.
"Every administration has changes in dynamics and personalities as it evolves," she said. "This White House is seeing them faster and perhaps more pervasively, however, than any in memory. Secretary Mattis's steady hand has been reassuring to allies
and friends of the United States, as well as to the U.S. defense community, and will be an important source of strength and stability through the unpredictable twists and turns marking this presidency." -- Tony Bertuca
ALIGNING WITH TRUMP PRIORITIES, AIA TOUTS TRADE BALANCE AND JOBS
In an oblique appeal to the Trump administration, the Aerospace Industries Association is touting a "record trade surplus of $90 billion in 2016" and continued support of the U.S. manufacturing sector.
The new administration has signaled interest in the defense industrial base's potential to drive U.S. job growth and has shown antipathy for foreign trade deficits.
"Aerospace and defense exports directly support 1.7 million U.S. jobs in our industry and indirectly support an additional 1.1 million jobs across the broader U.S. economy," AIA said in a statement accompanying a quarterly report on A&D exports.
"The industry also continued its fifth year of outperforming the national trade average, growing by 2.2 percent year-over-year compared to -3.3 percent for exports of all other U.S. goods," the industry group added.
While A&D trade is "winning for America, contributing positively to our trade balance and creating high-skill high-paying jobs, competitors are growing their share of the global market far faster," AIA said.
In December, AIA CEO David Melcher said he was still figuring out how to engage with the Trump administration on behalf of aerospace and defense companies after the then-president-elect used his Twitter account to blast Boeing about the cost of
replacing Air Force One. "This is a relatively new phenomenon," Melcher said. "I know the right answer is not going to be: Tweet back." Instead, Melcher encouraged defense companies to try to understand Trump's potential policy plans.
"Don't look at the head or the eye of the person you're trying to tackle -- look at the belt buckle," he said. "Where the belt buckle goes is where they're going to go. I think all our companies ought to be looking for the belt buckles and figuring what's the
right way engage this and not overreact to any one particular [instance]."Now in office, Trump has made clear through his interactions with Lockheed Martin over the F-35 that he prioritizes cutting the cost of weapon programs and boosting U.S.
manufacturing.
And AIA in its new report says increasing exports remains a key priority for U.S. aerospace and defense companies. "Through greater industry-government coordination and trade policies like security cooperation enterprise reform and restoring full
functionality to the Export-Import Bank, our industry can increase its potential to create jobs and contribute to America's economic growth," the association says.
The Export-Import Bank subsidizes American exporters, but has been partially paralyzed for more than a year by GOP lawmakers who want to shut it down over concerns about crony capitalism. Trump has yet to announce his position on the issue.
Meanwhile, the U.S. defense industry generated $21 billion in foreign exports in 2015, about the same level as the previous year.
Defense companies in 2015 exported $15 billion in military aerospace products, with the aircraft and missile sectors accounting for $3.6 billion and $2.7 billion respectively, according to AIA.
AIA states that military non-aerospace exports totaled $5.6 billion, with $735 million coming from armored vehicles, $1.2 billion from "armored vehicle and weapon parts," and $1.8 billion from "other equipment and materials."
The commercial side of the aerospace business far surpassed defense, accounting for $121.7 billion in foreign exports in 2015. -- Tony Bertuca
CBO PEGS COST OF NUCLEAR FORCES AT $400B OVER NEXT DECADE
It will cost $400 billion over the next 10 years to operate, maintain and modernize U.S. nuclear forces, an average of $40 billion annually, according to a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office.
"Over the next two decades, essentially all of those nuclear delivery systems and weapons would have to be refurbished or replaced with new systems to continue operating," the Feb. 14 CBO report states. "Consequently, the Congress will need to
make decisions about what nuclear forces the United States should field in the future and thus about the extent to which the nation will pursue nuclear modernization plans."
CBO also provided a breakdown for how the money will be spent by the Defense and Energy departments: DOD and DOE are slated to spend $189 billion on the three legs of the nuclear triad -- nuclear submarines, ICBMs and long-range bombers; $9
billion for tactical nuclear delivery systems and weapons, which includes DOD funding for tactical aircraft to deliver nuclear weapons over shorter ranges and DOE funds for activities related to the warheads that those aircraft carry; $87 billion for DOE's
nuclear weapons laboratories; and $58 billion for DOD's command, control, communications and early-warning systems.
The remaining $56 billion of the 10-year total represents CBO's "estimate of additional costs that would be incurred over the 2017-2026 period if the costs for those nuclear programs exceeded planned amounts at roughly the same rates that costs for
similar programs have grown in the past," according to the report.
Pentagon officials have long warned Congress that the price tag for nuclear modernization was in danger of crowding out other national security priorities unless additional funding is provided.
Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter made a case for modernizing the nuclear triad in September, noting DOD's budget request included $19 billion for the nuclear enterprise as part of the total $108 billion DOD plans to invest over the next five years to
sustain and recapitalize the nuclear force.
"The fact is, most of our nuclear weapon delivery systems have already been extended decades beyond their original expected service lives," he said in a Sept. 26 speech at Minot Air Force Base, ND. "It's really a choice between replacing them or losing
them." The Pentagon has also called on the Defense Science Board to analyze the looming affordability challenge posed by recapitalizing the nuclear triad, specifically focusing on existing modernization plans and force mix.
"The Defense Department is confronting the problem of the need to recapitalize the strategic deterrent. This financial burden is on the order of $10 [billion] to $15 billion per year starting in about 2022," Frank Kendall, the former Pentagon acquisition
chief, wrote in a Nov. 14, 2016, memo to the DSB. Nuclear forces will account for a total of 6 percent of the total 10-year budget outlined by DOD and DOE in their fiscal year 2017 budget requests, though CBO estimates that, on an annual basis, that
percentage is projected to rise from 5 percent in 2017 to slightly less than 7 percent in 2026.
The latest 10-year total is 15 percent higher than CBO's most recent previous estimate (January 2015), which pegged the cost of nuclear forces at $348 billion between 2015 and 2024.
"Most of the increase in the total estimated cost of nuclear forces reflects the fact that the current estimate spans a 10-year period that begins and ends two years later than the 2015 estimate and thus includes two later years of development in nuclear
modernization programs," according to CBO. -- Tony Bertuca
SOCOM CHIEF: COMMAND'S REVIEW OF FORCES HAS GONE THROUGH STAFFING
U.S. Special Operations Command has staffed a review looking at its forces and any gaps that exist, according to the head of SOCOM.
Speaking at a Feb. 14 special operations and low intensity conflict conference in Bethesda, MD, SOCOM chief Gen. Raymond Thomas said the combatant command has already "worked through staffing some of [its] priority requests" concerning areas to
"fix the force" and fill in any gaps.
"With every new administration there's concern for how well our military has or has not been maintained," Thomas said. "We've been asked to take a look at that pretty closely."
Thomas noted that he appreciates the chance to consider ways to enhance special operations forces.
President Trump promised to provide SOCOM and U.S. Central Command "beautiful new equipment" during a Feb. 6 visit to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL.
"We're going to be loading it up with beautiful new planes and beautiful new equipment," Trump said. "You have been lacking a little equipment. We are going to load it up. You are going to get a lot of equipment. Believe me."
During his speech, Trump thanked the men and women serving in the armed forces and noted that those serving at CENTCOM and SOCOM "shed [their] blood across the continents and the oceans." Trump said his administration would always honor their
sacrifice and ensure that they "have the tools, equipment, resources, training and supplies you need to get the job done."
Thomas noted this week that the key takeaway from the president's visit was Trump's "profound statement of support" for special operations forces.
Last month, Trump called for a 30-day Pentagon readiness review, signing a memo that directs Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to assess readiness conditions "with respect to prosecuting the fight against [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], other
forms of radical Islamic terror, and all existing threats; executing operational plans against near peer competitors and regional challengers; and supporting long-term presidential goals."
Meanwhile, Thomas said the command is "eager to leverage" technologies to help go through the reams of data being gathered.
"We find ourselves drowning in data from our platforms," Thomas said. "We must figure out how to exploit deep learning to mitigate the thousands of man hours expanded on sorting the wheat from the chaff." -- Jordana
BOGDAN PROVIDES PUBLIC ACCOUNT OF PHONE CALLS WITH TRUMP, BOEING CHIEF
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' directive to review the Joint Strike Fighter program stems from a pair of phone calls then-President-elect Donald Trump had in January with F-35 Joint Program Office director Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the senior Air Force
officer told lawmakers.
Bogdan told the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee during a Feb. 16 hearing about the unusual calls -- including one where Trump had Dennis Muilenberg, chief executive officer of Boeing, F-35 prime contractor Lockheed
Martin's rival fighter aircraft maker -- on the line.
The Air Force general said Trump called him directly on Jan. 9 and then again Jan. 17 with Muilenburg, elaborating on a Bloomberg report which first disclosed the phone calls.
In December, Trump criticized the F-35 program costs and announced via Twitter that he had asked Boeing to draft a proposal for F/A-18E/F Super Hornets that would be "comparable" to F-35s, ostensibly a gambit to pressure Lockheed Martin to reduce
Joint Strike Fighter costs.
"It is important to understand that the discussions we had were all pre-decisional, there were no decisions made during those conversations," Bogdan told lawmakers.
What did the F-35 director make of calls from the in-coming president? "It was my belief that President-elect Trump at the time was attempting to gain more information about the F-35 and its affordability; trying to gain mor
