Airborne Combat Engineer

Laser weapons are coming, eventually

SYLMAR, Calif., 27 April 2007. The U.S. Navy has awarded QPC Lasers Inc. (QPC) two contracts totaling $1 million to deliver high-energy laser engine prototypes for naval aviation directed-energy weapons applications.

The QPC laser prototypes are being developed for potential deployment onto naval aviation platforms and utilize QPC's patented and proprietary semiconductor laser technologies which are designed to achieve a 10x reduction of cost, size, and weight compared to conventional laser technology.

[M&AE]

Aegis passes test

At approximately 5:40 PM Eastern time yesterday, Lieutenant General Henry “Trey” Obering, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) director, announced the successful completion of the latest Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense “hit to kill” intercept flight test.

Conducted jointly with the U.S. Navy, the test involved the simultaneous engagements of a ballistic missile target and cruise missile target.Both targets were destroyed.

The combat team of the ship had just seconds to find, identify, make an evaluation and engage these two targets.

The test represents the Aegis system’s eighth successful ballistic missile intercept in 10 attempts, and the first intercept while simultaneously engaging an air threat.

[JEC, nowpublic] (see video)

Great, but how does it do against a supersonic, water-skimming missile?

Construction of 3rd LCS terminated

The Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter announced yesterday (April 12, 2007) terminated the construction of the third Littoral Combat Ship (LCS 3), after the Department of the Navy and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) failed to reach an agreement on the terms of a modified contract after the Navy realized that the cost of the first Lockheed ship would cost up to $375 million, far above the initial         projection of $220 million.

Lockheed Martin Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Stevens: "Our team is understandably frustrated that, having invested nearly three years of dedicated effort and significant corporate resources to bring LCS 1 to within 20 percent of completion, we will not have the opportunity  to apply lessons learned to a second ship"

[Defense Update]

We all know the cost of shipbuilding has shot through the roof, but why can't achievable estimates be made?

Why are we building mutiple versions of a ship whose concept is yet unproven, and which will not help us when the wars we're in?

Beware of Subs carrying Seals, Iran

Reports have emerged that the US Navy is upgrading its submarine base at the isolated tropical atoll Diego Garcia, which is formally British territory. [aerial images, over the years since 1979]

The base improvements will allow its new class of SSGN nuclear submarines to operate from Diego Garcia, which is potentially noteworthy. The tiny island group is situated in the middle of the Indian Ocean, giving the US and its allies access to various strategic maritime choke points such as the Straits of Hormuz – the entrance to the Gulf – and the pirate-plagued waters of the Bab-el-Mandeb at the foot of the Red Sea.

The rebuilt vessels can nowadays carry 66 elite special-forces frogmen [for up to 90 days], who will typically be Navy SEALs or possibly members of the new US Marines MARSOC outfit [in addition to up to 154 Tomahawk^®  or Tactical Tomahawk^®  land attack missiles]. The subs will have a "dry hangar", an underwater docking bay allowing the frogmen to deploy from their mother ship aboard SEAL Delivery Vehicles (SDVs), minisubs which can carry them in to enemy coastlines. [There have been problems with the minisubs, but they'll get them worked out.]

Being submarine-based, all these things can be used even against countries with fairly capable air forces and surface patrols. The presence of SSGN-type platforms in a theatre means that any large body of water connected to the sea suddenly becomes a danger, potentially full of heavily-armed SEALs or underwater robot platforms such as the Talisman [and Tomahawk missiles].

[The Register]

aerial view in the continuation

"Sizzler" threatens carriers

The U.S. Navy, after nearly six years of warnings from Pentagon testers, still lacks a plan for defending aircraft carriers against a supersonic Russian-built missile, according to current and former officials and Defense Department documents.                

The missile, known in the West as the ``Sizzler,'' has been deployed by China and may be purchased by Iran. Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England has given the Navy until April 29 to explain how it will counter the missile, according to a Pentagon budget document.         

Bloomberg

If true, this is SHOCKING. We have become very dependent upon carriers, and we've spent a fortune building them, and the planes they carry. We can't have them sunk within minutes of the start of a war.

Somebody closer to the Navy (Murdoc, Eaglespeak, others?): Please reassure us this is an exaggeration.

Lockheed Martin offered fixed price for LCS

“[Secretary] Winter is giving Lockheed Martin an offer they can’t refuse,” Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), chairman of the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces subcommittee, told The Hill.

In a press release, the Navy announced that it is going to lift a stop-work order on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) built by Lockheed, and that lifting the stop-work order is contingent upon the Navy and the company reaching an agreement on a renegotiated contract.

The Navy has said the first Lockheed LCS ship will cost between $350 million and $375 million, far above initial estimates of $220 million for each of the new ships.

The Hill]

Capt. Donald Babcock, the LCS program manager, was relieved of his duties on 30JAN07. [Defense News]

Mean boats help Phillipine Navy

MINDANAO ISLAND, Philippines — U.S. Navy Special Warfare sailors are helping the Philippine navy learn to control the waters around islands where they’re fighting Abu Sayyaf terrorists.

Special Warfare Combatant Craft crew and their MK V special operations craft and rigid inflatable boats have followed the Philippine navy on more than 4,000 “visit, board, search and seizures” since arriving in the Philippines in October, said Chief Petty Officer Michael Andre, a RIB detachment commander.

Andre said the heavily armed U.S. boats — with such weapons as twin .50 caliber machine guns, M-203 grenade launchers, shotguns and 9 mm pistols — stay a “safe distance” away as the Philippine sailors conduct their operations.

[Stars and Stripes]

Sounds awesome, except for the 9mm pistols.

Navy recon balloons may return

The US Navy is also experimenting with aerostats for communications relay, surveillance, and radar overwatch functions - and this has become a formal program.

[DID]

Some D-Day photos show blimps.

The Canadians are coming! The Canadians are coming!

In a $19 million training exercise, troops will stage an amphibious assault on a beach in North Carolina next week, with help from the U.S. navy.

The exercise is set for Nov. 16. Troops from Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment, the Van Doos, will storm ashore from the USS Gunston Hall, an American amphibious assault ship.

The troops will land on the beach at Camp Lejeune, N.C., home of the U.S. Marine Corps on the eastern seaboard.

Toronto Star, 09 NOV 2006

Think our Marines can handle them.

Tea will be served in the Mess Hall right after all the aggressors are rounded up.

Speaking of "light" carriers

Murdoc Online has posted about "light carriers" more than once. (He's obsessed with naval vessels like ACE is obsessed with big bore revolvers. One obsession is just as good or bad as the other, as long as neither does anything more than waste time better used elsewhere, I suppose.)

Which reminds one of this photo of the first Canadian aircraft carrier posted at Argghhh! quite some time ago.

Relatively speaking, it is light.

The DARPA concept of a huge aircraft carrier blimp was also intriguing, but has since been deflated.

The US had a "light" version of such a thing back at one time.