Monday, May 20, 2024
Key Issues GAO on F-35 SLCM-N program office PrSM funding
Jason Sherman is a reporter for Inside Defense. For more than two decades -- including stints with Defense News and Armed Forces Journal -- he has covered the Pentagon, defense industry, the military budget, weapon system acquisition and defense policy formulation as well as reporting on technology, business, and global arms trade. Jason has traveled to more than 40 countries, studied medieval history at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and lives in Brooklyn.
Defense Department plans to beef up Guam's air and missile defenses is prompting the Army to contemplate development of an entirely new organization -- likely larger than a Patriot battery -- beginning as soon as fiscal year 2025 as part of the service's contribution to protecting the U.S. territory in the Western Pacific against advanced Chinese threats.
The Defense Department flew two dozen technology experiments in a pair of flight tests over the Atlantic Ocean last week as part of the U.S. military’s project to identify new capabilities to improve long-range hypersonic strike weapons as well as support development of defensive capabilities against such weapons.
The Army has formally approved for operational use on South Korea the software and hardware changes to its upper- and lower-tier missile defense weapon systems launched in 2017 in an effort to expand the coverage umbrella of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 systems.
The Defense Department’s new Missile Defense Review asserts modern air and missile threats pose “an expanding and accelerating risk” to the nation, its deployed forces, allies and partners -- and requires a special focus on sensor technology development to detect low-flying drones and hypersonic maneuvering weapons.
The Army is upending its acquisition strategy for Long Range Hypersonic Weapon ground equipment -- the vehicles and associated support gear needed for a second and third battery -- by looking to move from rapid-acquisition rules to traditional procurement regulations. (UPDATED)
The current domestic solid-rocket motor industrial base manufacturing capacity is insufficient to support U.S. military plans to field long-range hypersonic strike weapons in the middle of this decade, prompting the Pentagon to launch a new market research effort into the possibility of establishing an additional source.
The Air Force wants to develop a new variant of its next-generation cruise missile that will add new capabilities to its ability to strike enemy targets beyond the reach of adversary air defenses, announcing plans to award prime contractor Lockheed Martin a contract for a new version of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile.
The Defense Department is looking to help Lithuania buy long-range air surveillance radars as part of an effort to develop an integrated air and missile defense network for Baltic nations, announcing plans to buy three Lockheed Martin-built, road-mobile sensors days after 14 NATO defense ministers announced plans for a “European Sky Shield Initiative.”
Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies are vying to supply the U.S. military’s next-generation short-range interceptor, with all three companies submitting bids, due last week, in an expected multibillion-dollar competition to design and build the follow-on to the venerable Stinger missile -- a franchise with a four-decade run.
U.S. allies in Europe, Asia and the Pacific are eyeing the Army's Integrated Air and Missile Defense program -- specifically the IAMD Battle Command Systems (IBCS) -- with nations, including the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia, in discussion with the prime contractor and the U.S. government exploring potential foreign sales.
An influential Pentagon advisory panel has assessed it "is essential and feasible to quickly and affordably" field new domestic air defense capabilities to protect critical homeland targets -- both civilian and military -- against advanced Russian and Chinese threats.
The Pentagon has locked in a sensor architecture for the U.S. military's new counterair and missile defense system slated for Guam that will be composed of a newly minted Army radar and a land-based Navy variant of technology derived from a towering Space Force array that is due to become operational soon.
Army leaders considered and rejected a Navy gambit to put soldiers behind the consoles of Aegis Ashore, maintaining sailors are best suited to operate the land-based variant of the air and missile defense system -- originally deployed on the surface combatant fleet -- that is operational in Romania, slated for Poland and expected soon in a new form on Guam.
AM General is proposing a tank-killing light tactical vehicle at the Association of the U.S. Army annual convention -- offering a seminal example of how the Russia-Ukraine war is changing modern combat by outfitting a next-generation Humvee with a fleet of tube-launched, anti-armor loitering drones with a defensive suite to destroy enemy uncrewed air systems.
The Pentagon has delayed a high-stakes flight test of a long-range hypersonic weapon that was originally to be executed no later than last month, a change of plans that eats away at the timetable of a project with little schedule margin in the U.S. military's effort to field its first conventional hypersonic strike weapon by next September. (UPDATED)
The Air Force, in a rough estimate, believes the cost to re-engine the B-52 bomber fleet is about $11.7 billion, including $3.7 billion to develop and $8 billion to procure -- a figure not previously reported that will likely be refined next summer when the service formally launches the program.
The Army has staked out an $8 billion place in its modernization portfolio to buy nearly 4,000 rounds of the Precision Strike Missile, according to a report that details for the first time in a public document the program's full cost and scope.
The Defense Department has formally recalibrated the price tag for the Missile Defense System, dialing the total acquisition cost up to $226 billion, a $23 billion hike compared to the last formal accounting provided to Congress two years ago that doesn't necessarily reflect cost growth.
The Pentagon has set a formal cost estimate for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program of $188.8 billion, a tally that includes $95.8 billion to develop and procure a next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile fleet and $93 billion to operate and sustain the fleet across five decades.
The projected price tag for the Navy's next-generation aircraft carrier effort increased by more than $2 billion over the last two years, wiping out half of the savings the Ford-class program hoped to harvest though bundling the acquisition of a third-and-fourth warship.