DoD Buzz

JSF Nails STOVL and Hovers

Colin Clark — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:01:35 +0000

UPDATED: HIll Aide Says LockMar Has "long way to go to demonstrate max load bring back vertical landing." In a move that couldn’t be much better timed, the F-35B successfully executed a short take off and a landing, as well as a hover. Lockheed Martin said the tests "confirmed predictions of the jet’s vertical thrust, stability and control in hovering flight."

More F-16s Little Help To Taiwan

Greg Grant — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:45:56 +0000

Last week, Taiwan stepped up pressure on the Obama administration to sell it new, upgraded F-16s, something this administration, like the Bush administration before it, refuses to do. The latest Taiwanese move came from its defense ministry, which released a report saying that China’s continued modernization of its fighter fleet has shifted the cross-strait military balance decidedly in China’s favor. But a RAND report finds the addition of a few dozen upgraded F-16s would have little to no impact on the cross-strait balance. In fact, RAND found that in the event of a Chinese attack, “the air war for Taiwan could essentially be over before much of the Blue air force has even fired a shot.”

Pressure Builds for More Hornets; Multi-Year OK Likely

Colin Clark — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:17:20 +0000

Congressional pressure on the Pentagon to buy more F/A-18 E/Fs and use multi-year authority continues to build, with Sen. Kit Bond being the latest to leap on the bandwagon at today's Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing.Bond sent a St. Patrick's Day letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates urging use of the multi-year authority. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the Navy believes Boeing's February proposal for a multi-year deal meets the "threshold" for a minimum 10 percent savings. A decision should be forthcoming in a few weeks, "sometime in April," he said.

Keep Your Rosaries Off My Deterrence

Kingston Reif — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:23:36 +0000

Arms control elicits strong emotions and sparks great debates. In that tradition, Kingston Reif and Travis Sharp offer a rebuttal to the recent commentary we ran from the folks at the Heritage Foundation. Here's the take of two dedicated arms control advocates. In their recent commentary on DoD Buzz (“Will START Talks Go MAD,”), the Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring and Helle Dale recycle a snake oil sales pitch that first emerged at the dawn of the Atomic Age. The illusion is that the awesome destructiveness of nuclear weapons can somehow be neutralized by a panacea—in this case impenetrable missile defenses.

Petraeus Denies CENTCOM Land Grab

Greg Grant — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:08:42 +0000

CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus shot down reports that he had recommended to the Obama administration that the Palestinian territories be included in his command's area of operations. Although, he did say that the Arab-Israeli conflict sets the "strategic context" in which American soldiers operate in the larger Arab world and he has done what he can to move the peace process forward.

LCS Scores Drug Hits

Greg Grant — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:29:10 +0000

The Navy’s first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS 1) has been quick out of the slips to score some major public relations points by seizing a few tons of cocaine on its first operational deployment in the Caribbean. The fast, maneuverable LCS will excel at such "naval constabulary" operations, writes the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment’s Martin Murphy, in a new white paper; the new ship will act as the "light cavalry" for the surface Navy.

Black Cyber Ops on Rise

Kevin Coleman — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:35:47 +0000

Black-Cyber-Operations have become all too common, launching highly sophisticated cyber actions against their targets that go undetected for months or years. Russia began developing black-cyber-ops teams as far back as the early 1990s. But Russia is not the only military with these capabilities. A Chinese black-ops team is credited with the design and execution of the “Titan Rain” initiative that long went unchecked and undetected deep inside the U.S. Department of Defense networks.

EADS Tanker Rises Again?

Colin Clark — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:01:18 +0000

The tanker competition has grown so baroque that it's easy to sometimes wonder what's real and what's delusion. The latest twist is that EADS and some of Europe's governments are reportedly lobbying for a deadline extension on when tanker bids can be submitted. Boeing's brethren on Capitol Hill, sensing a possible threat to $35 billion for the company that means so much to their states, swung into action with little delay. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said any, "Delay is unacceptable."

Army’s New Mod Plan Under Fire

Greg Grant — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:39:06 +0000

When SecDef Gates cancelled the Army’s FCS program last year, the service’s flagship modernization effort didn’t really stop, it just got a name change and a bit of reorganization. This week, GAO highlighted reliability problems that continue to plague a number of the FCS remnants, saying the Army and OSD prematurely approved low rate production of new technologies.

Tanker’s First Big Test For ATL

Robbin Laird — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:04:18 +0000

The Obama Pentagon proclaims it's commitment to reformed acquisition and greater competition. Robbin Laird, international defense consultant who advised the Air Force on the last tanker competition, argues in this commentary that Northrop's decision to pull out of the KC-X competition will pose a basic test of the administration's commitment and it's ability to oversee a major program.

JSF Costs Rocket 50 Percent

Colin Clark — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:14:27 +0000

The Pentagon will tell Congress that the Joint Strike Fighter is roughly 50 percent more expensive than it was in 2002 and will breach the Nunn-McCurdy cost limits "in a few days," Pentagon acquisition czar Ash Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Carter told the committee the cost increases were "unacceptable." The Pentagon has "to wrestle this back into some realistic box." Unit costs will climb from $50.2 million to as much as $95 million a copy, Christine Fox, director for Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, said in her testimony.

JSF Faces Fire Risk: Head Tester

Colin Clark — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:17:43 +0000

The Pentagon’s head of operational testing and evaluation is "concerned" that a recent decision to remove fuses and fire extinguishers from the Joint Strike Fighter program means more planes may be lost to enemy fire and may increase the risk from fires resulting from fuel leaks and related risks. Michael Gilmore said in written testimony prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee that the program recent removal of "shutoff fuses for engine fueldraulics lines, coupled with the prior removal of dry bay fire extinguishers, has increased the likelihood of aircraft combat losses from ballistic threat induced fires.

China Drives AirSea Battle

Greg Grant — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:31:01 +0000

The 2010 QDR directed the Air Force and Navy to jointly develop the concept to “guide the development of future capabilities needed for effective power projection operations.” Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has been thinking through just such a concept for the last two decades and has a new paper out titled “Why AirSea Battle?” that lays out the case for why its needed.

McCain Says Single Tanker Bid OK

Colin Clark — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:59:37 +0000

UPDATED: Sarkozy To Press Obama On Tanker Today's headline in The Hill tells the story: "McCain Endorses Pentagon Process On Tanker Bid As Legitimate." My colleague Roxana Tiron asked McCain for his views and the story says he told her that he "was not worried about Boeing, the only competitor left for the contract." Meanwhile, EU officials warned against American protectionism in the wake of Northrop's decision to pull out of the $35 billion deal.

Afghan MRAP Ready Rates High

Colin Clark — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:31:52 +0000

While the Marines don't like the difficult maintenance required for MRAPs, their top operations officer says the service is keeping them rolling and relying on the ungainly trucks to get them to the fight. The MRAPs and their smaller, more mobile cousins, the M-ATVs, are a "big plus, really performing well," in the Afghanistan fight, Brig. Gen. David H. Berger, operations director Marine Corps HQ. They are sustaining readiness levels of 92 or 93 percent, he added.

SASC Should Drill Carter On JSF

Winslow Wheeler — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:01:37 +0000

Veteran Senate defense budget expert and analyst at the Center for Defense Information, Winslow Wheeler, penned the following commentary about the Senate Armed Service Committee's Thursday hearing on the F-35. He wants to know why the Joint Estimating Team has not been invited to testify and how Pentagon acquisition czar Ash Carter can believe the JSF faces no fundamental problems, among other things.

Northrop Drops Tanker Bid

Colin Clark — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:09:25 +0000

UPDATED: DepSecDef Lynn Says U.S. 'Disappointed' By NG Decision More than eight years since Boeing first tried to supply new airborne tankers to the Defense Department, the company appears to have finally won the tanker competition. Northrop Grumman announced today that it will not bid on the KC-X tanker and it will not file a protest that might delay the program any further The announcement came from the top. "We reached this conclusion based on the structure of the source selection methodology defined in the RFP, which clearly favors Boeing’s smaller refueling tanker and does not provide adequate value recognition of the added capability of a larger tanker, precluding us from any competitive opportunity," said CEO Wes Bush.

CG Memo Sparks Hill Worries

Colin Clark — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:43:37 +0000

The incoming Coast Guard commandant has penned a remarkably honest and sometimes disturbing memo saying the service was "forced to make asset reduction decisions" in the 2011 budget without "full appreciation" of the operational impact they would have. Vice Adm. R. J. Papp's memo has stirred considerable concern on Capitol Hill that the Coast Guard is making a major long-term mistake by cutting 1,100 uniformed personnel in 2011 and planning to reduce some of its missions.

US Refrains From Cluster Ban

Bryant Jordan — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:13:12 +0000

After a two-year effort, an international ban on the use of cluster bombs will go into effect on Aug. 1. And, just as it did with the landmark landmine ban, the United States refused to sign the treaty and has no plans to scrap its inventory of cluster bombs. But the world's sole superpower may find it more difficult to use them thanks to European allies who agreed to the ban last month.

Army Wants Tough GCV Battle

Greg Grant — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:47:56 +0000

Army officials say they want to open up the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) competition to any company that builds combat vehicles, not just BAE and General Dynamics. They are hoping other builders can gain entry into the niche armored fighting vehicle market, said GCV PM Col. Bryan McVeigh. He also laid out the requirements for the new vehicle.