January 25, 2013. David Pugliese - Defence Watch

There was lots of discussion about the Integrated Soldier System Project or ISSP on Thursday among those in the defence community.

A number of sources are saying that Public Works and Government Services Canada rejected all the bids from companies for the project to outfit soldiers with a futuristic system of sensors that would better allow them to communicate and find their way on the battlefield. I reported that on Defence Watch and in today’s Citizen.

Public Works was and is still refusing to comment (reporters started asking questions Wednesday/Thursday on this topic).

They are expected to release their statement on Friday.

Here is one explanation of what happened from a Defence Watch reader:

“PWGSC is applying the rules of the procurement to the letter!

The RFP was to award the contract to a winning bidder, who would then have 9 months and $7.2M (deemed Cycle 1) to “certify” their system to the RFP technical requirements. If the winning contractor could not certify their system in the 9 month period, the winning contractor would be terminated and the Runner Up Contractor would be awarded the contract.

But, if the winning bidder did complete the system certification in the budget and timeframe, then the winning bidder would then be awarded the production and in-service support contract (deemed Cycle 2).

 Because 4 of the 5 bidders were deemed non-compliant, PWGSC played hard ball and will state that they could not execute the original procurement strategy with a winning bidder and a runner up, waiting in the wings for the winning bidder to stumble. I think the words PWGSC will use will be “Procurement Irregularity”

Now Defence Watch received another version from someone else close to the procurement who noted that there were indeed problems with supporting documentation for a number of bids. Those problems were not just mere paperwork problems, they add, but major issues with documentation. So thus, the bids were not accepted. It was all about protecting taxpayers and following the procurement process as it should have been followed, that individual noted.

The $316 million Integrated Soldier System Project or ISSP was set to announce in December the winning firm.

ISSP would provide equipment not only to allow troops to track each other as they move throughout the battlefield, but feed communications and targeting information into their helmets or to a small personal data device they would each carry.

The other concern is that – if ISSP has to be restarted – then it might not get back on track.

The government is keen to cut costs and even if this project is delayed further that would still save money.

Les réservistes du 34e Groupe Brigade, basée à

Montréal et du 35e, basée à Québec, s'avance pour "

prendre contact avec l'ennemi" (Photo 34 GBC)

24/01/2013 par Jacques N. Godbout- 45enord.ca

Après 18 mois d’essai et de rétroaction des utilisateurs opérationnels, la production des uniformes de combat améliorés destinés aux militaires canadiens vient d’être entamée et les premiers nouveaux uniformes seront bientôt distribués, annonce cette semaine l’Armée canadienne.

Les militaires en déploiement seront les premiers à recevoir les uniformes, et la priorité sera accordée aux tailles faisant l’objet d’une pénurie critique dans les Forces canadiennes. La production et la distribution seront étalées de façon à permettre à l’Armée d’évaluer et d’adapter les uniformes sur une longue période.

Le ministère de la Défense avait déjà fait savoir l’automne dernier qu’un contrat avait été attribué pour l’acquisition d’uniformes de combat améliorés, ce qui serait le changement le plus radical pour l’uniforme de combat depuis les années 1970.

Les améliorations, comprennent plus de vingt changements qui procureront, assure-t-on, un confort accru, une protection renforcée et une meilleure intégration avec l’équipement de protection individuelle, ce qui permettra aux militaires d’être plus efficaces à l’entraînement et dans l’exécution de leurs tâches en déploiement.

Voici  un récapitulatif des principaux changements:

• des poches et des fermetures éclair plates, permettant d’éviter les points de pression.
• un col flexible de style chinois;
• des genouillères souples intégrées;
• des poches et des fermetures éclair plates, permettant d’éviter les points de pression;
• un dos extensible, pour une amplitude de mouvements accrue;
• un tour de taille flexible, pour un meilleur ajustement.

«Les uniformes s’harmonisent mieux avec le reste de l’équipement de combat, tout en offrant un meilleur confort et une plus grande souplesse pour l’adaptation à l’environnement dans lequel les militaires sont déployés», indique le major Stéphane Dufour, de la section des besoins des systèmes du soldat, au sein de la Direction – Besoins en ressources terrestres.

Les genouillères souples intégrées, par exemple, procureront une protection à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur d’un véhicule, tandis que les poches de poitrine plates permettront d’éviter les points de pression avec le port de la veste de protection balistique et de la veste pare-éclats.

En outre, l’uniforme de combat amélioré aura un col flexible de style chinois et, bien sûr, les uniformes continueront d’arborer le caractéristique dessin de camouflage canadien qui permet aux militaires de se fondre dans l’environnement de campagne.

Et, pendant que se fera la production et la distribution du nouvel uniforme, le processus d’amélioration se poursuivra aussi: «L’idée est d’acheter des uniformes de façon régulière, mais en petite quantité, pour que nous puissions les améliorer chaque fois, au lieu de les acheter tous en même temps et de les garder tels quels pendant 20 ans. En procédant à l’acquisition en lot, nous pourrons apporter des améliorations en fonction des commentaires que nous recevrons», explique le major Dufour.

Au départ, 45 000 uniformes arborant le dessin de camouflage canadien pour régions boisées tempérées seront fabriqués par l’entreprise de Winnipeg Peerless Garments, à un coût évalué à 8,5 millions $, et le contrat comprend une option pour la confection de pantalons et de vestes additionnels avec ce dessin ou le dessin de camouflage canadien pour régions arides, selon les besoins.

À lire aussi:

Un uniforme de combat amélioré pour les Forces canadiennes >>

Jan 24, 2013 ASDNews Source : General Dynamics Corporation

General Dynamics Electric Boat has received an $11.5 million contract modification from the U.S. Navy to provide on-board repair parts for Virginia-class submarines. Electric Boat is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD).

The modification was exercised under the $14 billion contract awarded to Electric Boat in December 2008 for the construction of eight Virginia-class submarines, and has a potential value of $85 million.

January 24, 2013. David Pugliese - Defence Watch

Yet another military equipment procurement project has gone off the rails with the government rejecting all the bids from companies to outfit soldiers with a futuristic system of sensors to better allow them to communicate and find their way on the battlefield.

The $316 million project called the Integrated Soldier System Project or ISSP was set to announce in December the firm that had been selected for the first phase of the program. But all bids have been rejected and the project will now be restarted from scratch.

As of Thursday the various bidding companies had not been contacted by the government.

The Defence Department and Public Works have not commented yet. Public Works hopes to issue a statement sometime today.

1/24/2013 Strategy Page

U.S. Army soldiers from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division scans the desert area from an M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle during Decisive Action rotation 13-03, Jan. 19, 2013, at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif. Decisive Action rotations are geared toward an adaptive enemy in a complex environment. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Eric M. Garland II)

Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the U.S. Navy's top

officer, warns that the budget crisis threatens

the fleet's ability to continue deploying strike

groups.

Jan. 24, 2013 - By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS – Defense News

Increasingly alarmed by the inability of Congress to pass a spending bill or avoid sequestration, the military service chiefs are providing more details about what will happen if lawmakers don’t take action.

For the U.S. Navy, the rising crescendo of warnings now hits at the heart of the fleet’s activities — the deployed carrier strike groups (CSGs) and amphibious ready groups (ARGs) that project naval power around the world, and that underpin U.S. military activities in the Middle East and the Pacific.

Should sequestration strike after March 1, warns Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, the fleet will be forced to stop “nearly all non-deployed operations,” a move “which will ultimately prevent CSGs and ARGs from deploying.”

Operations in the Middle East and Pacific regions will be further reduced, Greenert said, and while training will continue for the next two carrier groups to deploy this year, starting in October “we will likely not have trained replacements for our deployed units.”

Cancellation of training exercises alone could create a lengthy gap in deployed strike groups.

“Once we shut down our sustainment training it will take our ships and squadrons about nine months to conduct the maintenance and training needed to be certified to deploy again,” Greenert said.

The stark warnings came in an internal message sent Jan. 24 by Greenert to Navy flag officers and senior executives. A copy of the message was obtained by Defense News.

Greenert provided more details about a number of cost-cutting moves the Navy is making and could make, a follow-up to messages earlier this month from Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Greenert and his fellow service chiefs.

Those missives to Congress and the fleet noted that a year-long continuing resolution (CR) will leave the Navy with a $4.6 billion shortfall in operations and maintenance (OMN) requirements for the remainder of fiscal 2013.

Should sequestration hit on March 1, Mabus said on Jan. 17, the service would need to find another $4.6 billion in OMN funds, in addition to the $4.6 billion year-long CR shortfall.

Service chiefs have stressed that personnel pay and benefits are protected from the current budget crisis, but just about anything else is open to cuts.

In the face of a threatened year-long CR, Greenert said that, “starting now,” a number of moves are being made. They include:

• Overhauls to about 30 of the fleet’s 187 surface ships will be cancelled. The work affects most of the overhauls to be done at commercial shipyards between April and September.

• While overhauls will continue at the four Navy-owned “public shipyards,” nearly 10 percent of the government shipyard workforce — more than 3,000 employees — will be reduced through termination of temporary employees and implementing a civilian hiring freeze.

• Depot-level maintenance on about 250 aircraft scheduled between April and September will be cancelled.

• Spending on base operating support is being reduced, and service officials are advised to plan to cancel repair and modernization of nearly all piers, runways and buildings through September.

• Information technology support is being cut, non-mission-essential conferences are cancelled, and travel will be severely limited.

The reductions are intended to be reversible, Greenert said, and will continue until a spending bill is passed or Congress reprograms money into the OMN accounts.

“But some of these things, you can defer it, but you can’t reverse it,” said a Navy official.

“We’re just climbing out of a period of reduced funding, and the path ahead was beginning to look positive,” the official said, referring to improved maintenance accounts.

“But without that expected spending bill … everybody’s got to plan, but you can’t do it if you don’t have the money.”

The full text of Greenert’s message:

Subject: Navy's Budget Situation

Admirals and Senior Executives,

As part of my regular updates to you, I wanted to keep you informed of Navy's budget situation. We have budget shortfalls today because we are funded under a Continuing Resolution (CR) and may have significant additional budget reductions starting in March because of sequestration. My most immediate concern is to our Operation & Maintenance (OMN) account.

We are operating today with a reduced budget because the CR funds us at FY12 base budget levels. These levels are inadequate for our needs in FY13, falling $3.2B short of our planned OMN budget. Due to another $1.4B of unplanned growth, operating under a CR for the entire fiscal year leaves us about $4.6 billion below our OMN requirements in FY13.

Additionally, the CR provides only limited ability to transfer funds from investment accounts to OMN to cover our shortfalls. Because of this, we need to cut back on ops and maintenance to get our spending rate down where it needs to be to remain within the controls of a yearlong CR.

We are making the following reductions, starting now, to ensure we can fund ongoing deployments and other mission-critical activities.

These reductions are intended to be reversible and will continue until a spending bill is passed or we receive authority from Congress to reprogram money from investment accounts into operations and maintenance:

• Plan to cancel the majority of surface ship maintenance availabilities at private shipyards between April and September. This will affect about 30 of our 187 surface ships. We will preserve most availabilities at our public shipyards, but expect throughput to be reduced due to civilian personnel actions that are discussed below.

• Plan to cancel all aircraft depot maintenance from April to September, affecting about 250 aircraft.

• Reduce spending on base operating support and plan to cancel repair and modernization of nearly all piers, runways, buildings and other facilities through Sep 2013.

• Terminate temporary employees and implement a civilian hiring freeze. This will reduce our shipyard workforce by more than 3,000 — almost 10 percent of the workforce (mostly in shipyards and base operating support).

• Reduce overhead by cutting IT support, cancelling non-mission-essential conferences, and severely limiting travel.

These steps come at a price. Much like putting off an oil change because you can't afford the $20 service, we save in the short term, but shorten the car's life and add to the backlog of work for later.

If sequestration comes on March 1, we will have an additional $4B OMN reduction for FY13. This will require more aggressive actions unless we gain authority to move investment funds into OMN. These actions include:

• Stop nearly all non-deployed operations for training and exercises, which will ultimately prevent CSGs and ARGs from deploying.

• Further reduce deployed operations in the Middle East and Pacific.

• We will retain some CSG training for late FY13 deployers (Nimitz and George H.W. Bush CSGs), but in FY14 we will likely not have trained replacements for our deployed units.

Our fleet commanders are studying this issue closely, and we will preserve as much maintenance and training as possible throughout FY13 and into FY14. However, once we shut down our sustainment training it will take our ships and squadrons about 9 months to conduct the maintenance and training needed to be certified to deploy again.

I appreciate your continued support on this pressing issue and I will continue to keep you informed. If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask.

All the best,

Jon

24 janvier 2013 Romandie.com (AFP)

WASHINGTON - L'armée américaine a officiellement levé jeudi l'interdiction faite aux femmes de prendre part aux combats, a indiqué le secrétaire à la Défense, Leon Panetta, qui doit bientôt quitter son poste.

Les femmes ont montré un grand courage et un grand sacrifice sur ou hors des champs de bataille. Elles ont contribué de manière sans précédente à la mission de l'armée et ont prouvé leur capacité à servir dans un nombre de plus en plus grand de missions, a souligné le ministre dans un communiqué.

L'objectif du département (à la Défense), en abrogeant cette règle, est de s'assurer que les missions soient accomplies par les personnes les mieux qualifiées et les plus capables, indépendamment de leur sexe, a ajouté M. Panetta.

La décision du ministre a été prise sur recommandation des chefs des différents corps de l'armée, qui ont conclu à l'unanimité qu'il était temps désormais d'avancer avec l'objectif d'intégrer les femmes dans le plus grand nombre possible de secteurs professionnels, a-t-il rapporté.

M. Panetta s'exprimera également jeudi lors d'une conférence de presse avec le plus haut gradé américain, le général Martin Dempsey, chef d'état-major interarmées.

Les chefs d'état-major auront jusqu'à janvier 2016 pour soulever des exceptions à la nouvelle règle.

Un haut responsable de la Défense, sous couvert d'anonymat, a précisé à l'AFP que cette question n'avait pas provoqué de débat au sein de l'état-major et que les chefs militaires étaient davantage concentrés sur sa mise en oeuvre pour que les règles au combat, y compris en matière de condition physique, soient respectées.

Cette décision de l'armée américaine entérine un état de fait en Irak et en afghanistan où il n'y a pas de lignes de front claires et où les femmes ont déjà versé le prix du sang.

Depuis une règle instituée en 1994, les femmes, au nombre de 204.714 dans l'armée (hors réserve et garde nationale), soit 14,5% des effectifs, n'étaient pas censées servir au combat.

Fin novembre, un groupe de femmes militaires américaines avait déposé plainte contre l'Etat fédéral, reprochant aux autorités de leur interdire de participer à des opérations de combat, un règlement daté qu'elles jugent discriminatoire.

24 janvier 2013 Romandie.com (AFP)

WASHINGTON - Le sénateur américain John Kerry, nommé secrétaire d'Etat par le président Barack Obama, a affirmé jeudi lors de son audition de confirmation devant le Sénat que la diplomatie américaine ne se cantonnait pas au déploiement de soldats et de drones à l'étranger.

La politique étrangère américaine ne se définit pas seulement par les drones et les déploiements de soldats, a déclaré M. Kerry devant la commission des Affaires étrangères du Sénat.

Faisant écho au discours du président Obama lundi lors de sa prestation de serment publique, M. Kerry a également déclaré que la question vitale du changement climatique devait être une priorité de la diplomatie américaine.

Le sénateur démocrate a aussi martelé que Washington ferait tout pour que l'Iran n'ait jamais la bombe atomique.

Le président l'a dit de manière définitive: nous ferons tout ce que nous devons faire pour empêcher l'Iran d'obtenir l'arme nucléaire. Je le répète ici aujourd'hui: notre politique n'est pas d'endiguer mais de prévenir et l'heure tourne, a déclaré M. Kerry.

Les grandes puissances et Israël soupçonnent l'Iran de vouloir se doter de l'arme atomique sous couvert de son programme nucléaire civil, ce que Téhéran nie.

La communauté internationale, Etats-Unis en tête, privilégient une stratégie à double voie avec l'Iran, mêlant des sanctions économiques et des négociations diplomatiques.

Le président Obama l'a affirmé et réaffirmé, il préfère une solution diplomatique et je travaillerai pour donner à la diplomatie toutes les chances de réussir. Mais personne ne doit se tromper sur notre détermination à réduire la menace nucléaire, a encore déclaré M. Kerry.

Le président Obama avait nommé fin décembre John Kerry pour prendre la succession de Hillary Clinton à la tête du département d'Etat, saluant en lui un candidat parfait pour diriger la diplomatie de la première puissance mondiale.

M. Kerry, 69 ans, ancien candidat malheureux du parti démocrate à la présidentielle de 2004 contre George W. Bush, dirigeait depuis quatre ans la prestigieuse commission des Affaires étrangères au Sénat, celle-là même qui l'auditionne avant que le Sénat n'approuve dans les prochains jours sa nomination.

Le prototype baptisé Dragon Dream a réussi les

premiers tests. Crédit: Aeros Corp

23/01/2013 Par Véronique Guillermard - LeFigaro.fr

VIDÉO - Aeros Corp a réussi les premiers tests de décollage vertical de son aérostat, dont la vocation première sera militaire.

L'avenir du transport aérien civil et militaire est-il en train de s'écrire dans une ancienne base aérienne des Marines à Tustin, au sud de la Californie? Oui, si on en croît Aeros Corp et le Pentagone qui a signé avec la société californienne un contrat d'études de 50 millions de dollars en 2005, pour développer un prototype de véhicule de transport hybride capable de transporter jusqu'à 500 tonnes de matériels à la vitesse de 220 km/h et de couvrir un rayon d'action de 12.000 miles nautiques (21.600 km). L'engin devra également être capable de se poser partout au plus près des bases militaires et des troupes engagées sur un théâtre d'opérations.

Aeros Corp, dont Igor Pasternak est le PDG ainsi que l'ingénieur en chef, a développé un prototype du futur appareil de la gamme Aeroscraft. Baptisé Dragon Dream, c'est un engin de forme ovoïde applatie et «bas sur pattes» qui serait né de l'union improbable entre un dirigeable, un avion cargo et un hélicoptère. Comme l'avion, il peut transporter des charges qu'un hélico ne peut soulever et, grâce au décollage et à l'atterrissage vertical, il peut, comme un hélicoptère, se poser partout et n'a pas besoin de routes ou d'infrastructures aéroportuaires. Et comme un dirigeable, il devrait consommer un tiers de carburant de moins qu'un avion de transport classique, selon ses concepteurs. Pour le diriger correctement, ce qui est un des défis pour un appareil gonflé à l'hélium, Aeros a développé un système de lest (ballast) novateur qui comprime et rejette l'hélium de l'appareil à l'intérieur de compartiments spéciaux.

photo USAF

Jan. 23, 2013 by Dave Majumdar – FG

Washington DC - The US Navy's Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) cannot award Bell-Boeing a second multi-year production contact for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor until a 2013 defence appropriations bill is signed into law.

"An agreement between the program and industry was reached for MYPII [multi-year procurement II] in 2012," NAVAIR says. "The awarding of the MYPII contract is contingent upon approval of the National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] and the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2013. The NDAA was signed by the President January 2. We expect the multi-year deal to be complete when the President signs the Department of Defense Appropriations Act."

NAVAIR says an initial contract was put into place in December, 2011, to purchase long lead items to build production Lot 17 aircraft. That contract was amended on 28 December, 2012, to complete the purchase of materials and labor for those machines. The MYPII contract calls for the production of 99 aircraft.

"We anticipate that this contract will be further amended to become the 'whole' MYPII and will cover all of the material and labor for V-22 Lots 17-21, for the years 2013-2017," NAVAIR says. "We expect this to occur in the first quarter of 2013."

Despite NAVAIR's optimism, there is little indication that the US Congress will pass an appropriations bill anytime soon. The US government is currently operating under a so-called continuing resolution until 27 March, which provides the same level of funding as the fiscal year 2012 budget. It is very unusual for a continuing resolution to run this long into a fiscal year, says Todd Harrison, a budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

But if Congress and the Obama Administration cannot reach a budget deal by 1 March, the Congressional sequestration maneuver would go into effect. Sequestration was originally expected to go into effect on 2 January, but was averted by a last minute temporary deal that was reached before the New Year. The maneuver would automatically cut the US defence budget by 10% on top of the effects of the continuing resolution.

Without a fiscal year 2013 budget, many defence programmes are running into problems with contract awards. "It makes it very difficult," Harrison says.

Unless a programme maintains the same level of funding as the year before, ramping up funding is very problematic under a continuing resolution. New start programmes are all but dead in the water.

The present uncertainty also severely impacts planning for the President's fiscal year 2014 budget proposal, which was expected to be released during the early part of February. Harrison says that there have been indications which suggest that could be delayed into March or even April.

January 23, 2013: Strategy Page

Last year the U.S. Navy has decided to put its new "Littoral Combat Ship" (LCS) into mass production. This year one of the three LCSs in service will get its first tour in a combat zone (counter-piracy duty around the Straits of Malacca). This ship, and others currently in service, will take turns serving six month tours, and will be based in Singapore.

Meanwhile these ships still have lots of teething problems to deal with. The 57mm and 30mm guns have some reliability and accuracy problems. The original mine-hunting equipment meant for the LCS ships is not yet available, and may not be for a few more years. There are also doubts about the ability of the small crew to handle battle damage adequately. All this is pretty normal for a new class of ship. But the navy leadership has grown less able to tolerate criticism over the last few decades and this “breaking in” business is more painful to the brass than it needs to be.

Navy officials have been warning their subordinates to not provide the media with anything that could be used to make the LCS look bad. For example, there was an unresolved issue with stability and maneuverability in the LCS (monohull) 1 design. This is not unusual and American destroyer designs have varied considerably in their stability and maneuverability characteristics. New designs, especially for a new type of ship, are inherently risky. Project managers know that the media is always looking for bad news for that is the really profitable news. That sort of thing can also be leveraged into accusations that project managers are trying to deceive Congress and perpetuate a fraud on the taxpayer. These accusations rarely pan out but they are a lucrative source of advertising revenues to the news media that can get exciting stories going and keep them going for a while. The rather less exciting reality is that the LCS is just another new warship design. The real story is the growing inability of American shipbuilders to construct warships competently. That story gets kicked around from time to time but never seems to gain any traction.

The LCS has long been a good source of bad news and potentially explosive revelations. In the last year the LCS design has been found to have structural and other flaws. The first LCS, the monohull USS Freedom, has suffered four major problems since it entered service five years ago. The latest one is a leak in a propeller shaft seal, which caused some minor flooding. Despite this, Freedom was able to get back to port under its own power. Two years ago cracks in the hull as long as 17 cm (6.5 inches) were discovered and the water-jet propulsion system broke down as well. Three years ago one of the gas turbine engines broke down.

The most serious problem is in the USS Independence, a radical trimaran design. It seems that a "dissimilar metals" situation arose when salt water, the aluminum hull, and some other metals got into close proximity with each other and extensive corrosion resulted. Aluminum hulls tend to corrode more than steel but the problem became so bad with the USS Independence that, 18 months after entering service, it was sent into dry dock for corrosion repairs and design changes to eliminate the problem.

Cracks, corrosion, and equipment breakdowns are common in new warship designs especially designs that are radically different (like the broad trimaran shape of the USS Independence). Usually, these problems can be fixed but there's always the risk that the new design will be seriously flawed, requiring extensive rework and a halt in building more ships of that class. So far, the U.S. Navy has not wavered in the face of potential design and construction flaws.

This is all part of the expected years of uncertainty and experimentation as this radical new combat ship design seeks to find out what works, to what degree, and what doesn't. There is some nervousness about all this. The U.S. Navy has not introduced a radical new design for nearly a century. The last such new design was the aircraft carrier, which required two decades of experimentation and a major war to nail down what worked. Even the nuclear submarines of the late 1950s and early 60s were evolutionary compared to what the LCS is trying to do.

In the last seven years two different LCS designs were built and put into service. Problems were encountered. The much smaller crew required some changes in how a crew ran a ship and how many sailors and civilians were required back on land to support a LCS at sea. It was found that the interchangeable mission modules take far longer (2-3 days instead of 2-3 hours) to replace. The LCS has still not seen combat and the navy wants the first violent encounter to be successful or at least not disastrous. It is expected that there will be surprises, which is about all that can be guaranteed at this point.

The navy shocked many three years ago by choosing both designs and requesting that the fifty or so LCS ships be split between the two very different looking ships. Nine are on order or under construction, in addition to the two conventional hull and one trimaran type in service. While both ships look quite different (one is a traditional monohull while the other is a broader trimaran), they both share many common elements. One of the most important of these is the highly automated design and smaller crew. Both ships have accommodations for only 75 personnel. Normally, a ship of this size would have a crew of about 200. The basic LCS crew is 40, with the other 35 berths occupied by operators of special equipment.

The LCS crews are also modularized so that specialized teams can be swapped in to operate specific modules. Thus about 40 percent of the ship is empty, with a large cargo hold into which the mission package gear is inserted (and then removed, along with the package crew, when it is no longer assigned to that ship). Thus the LCS has two crews when underway, the "ship" crew and the mission package crew. The captain of the ship crew is in charge and the officer commanding the mission package is simply the officer in charge of the largest equipment system on board. There are a variety of interchangeable modules (e.g., air defense, underwater warfare, special operations, surface attack, etc.), which allow the ships to be quickly reconfigured for various specialized missions. Crews will also be modularized so that specialized teams can be swapped in to operate specific modules. The design and crew requirements for these modules is still a work in progress but also shows a need for more people or more automation.

So far, the heavy workload has not hurt morale. The small crew means that everyone knows everyone and it is standard for people to handle a number of different jobs. Even officers pitch in for any task that needs to be done. This kind of overworked enthusiasm is actually typical of smaller naval craft. These included World War II era PT boats, with crews of up to 17, and current minesweepers (with crews similar to an LCS) and larger patrol boats. There's also the "new" factor. In addition to being new ships there is a new design and lots of new tech. This gets people pumped. But the experience with the LCS has to be used to develop changes that will make these ships viable for the long haul.

The two different LCS designs are from Lockheed-Martin (monohull) and General Dynamics (trimaran). The first LCS, the monohull USS Freedom, completed its sea trials and acceptance inspections three years ago. The ship did very well, with far fewer (about 90 percent fewer) problems (or "material deficiencies") than is usual with the first warship in a class. USS Independence (LCS-2) was laid down by General Dynamics in late 2005, and commissioned in January 2010. Corrosion and hull cracks were expected eventually but appeared much earlier than anticipated.

Both LCS designs were supposed to be for ships displacing 2,500 tons, with a full load draft of under 3.3 meters (ten feet), permitting access to very shallow "green" and even "brown" coastal and riverine waters where most naval operations have taken place in the past generation. Top speed was expected to be over 80 kilometers with a range of 2,700 kilometers. Basic endurance is 21 days and final displacement was closer to 3,000 tons. During World War II this was the typical displacement for a destroyer.

LCS is currently armed with a 57mm gun, four 12.7mm machine-guns, two 30mm autocannon, and a 21 cell SeaRam system for aircraft and missile defense. The RAM (RIM-116 "Rolling Air Frame") missiles replace Phalanx autocannon. SeaRAM has a longer range (7.5 kilometers) than the Phalanx (two kilometers). Two year ago the navy decided to equip LCS with a surface launched version of the Griffin air-to-surface missile. The Griffin is an alternative to the Hellfire II, which weighs 48.2 kg (106 pounds) and carries a 9 kg (20 pound) warhead and has a range of 8,000 meters. In contrast, the Griffin weighs only 16 kg (35 pounds), with a 5.9 kg (13 pound) warhead which is larger, in proportion to its size, than the one carried by the larger Hellfire missile. Griffin has pop-out wings, allowing it to glide, and thus has a longer range (15 kilometers) than Hellfire. UAVs can carry more of the smaller missiles, typically two of them in place of one Hellfire. The surface-launched Griffin weighs about twice as much as the air launched version because of the addition of a rocket to get it into the air, after which it can glide to the target. An LCS can also carry two MH-60 helicopters and a MQ-8 helicopter UAV (that can be armed with Griffin).

The navy hoped to have between 50 and 60 LCSs by 2014-18, at a cost of $460 million (after the first five) each. The USS Freedom ended up costing nearly $670 million, about twice what the first ship in the class was supposed to have cost. The navy believes it has the cost down to under $450 million each as mass production begins. The first trimaran type cost $810 million.

Jan. 23, 2013 - By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS – Defense news

While a review of the digital navigation charts (DNC) used by a U.S. Navy minesweeper that grounded last week in the Philippines found one additional error, the charts were declared safe Wednesday by the Navy’s top navigator.

“Ships should continue to confidently navigate with DNC, using all standard safe seamanship and navigation practices,” Rear Adm. John White, navigator of the Navy, said in messages sent Jan. 23 to Navy ships, commands and flag officers.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), creator of the charts, conducted “a comprehensive analysis of all DNC libraries,” White said in the message, and confirmed the error in the location of the Tubattaha Reef in the western Philippines, which the minesweeper Guardian struck in the early hours of Jan. 17.

The NGA reported earlier the location of the reef on the DNC charts was about eight nautical miles away from its true location.

“Additional significant errors” — up to four nautical miles — were found along the southwest coast of Chile, White reported in his messages. Those errors, he wrote, “are reflected on DNC and paper charts. NGA has issued warnings on those errors to all mariners.”

The two inaccuracies “are the only known significant errors in the entire DNC portfolio of over 3,700 libraries,” White wrote.

“No chart is infallible, but NGA’s DNC remains the most accurate chart portfolio available.”

The errors that were found came from the LANDSAT satellite survey images used to “geo-rectify” the digital charts, White wrote.

“Navy will be a key participant in a follow-on review of NGA’s procedures to ensure the products and services associated with nautical charting continue to be safe and accurate,” White said in the messages.

“I share NGA’s high confidence that these errors are isolated, and that DNCs are overall safe for navigation.”

Salvage Surveys Conducted

The Guardian remains hard on the reef in the Sulu Sea, a Navy official said Thursday morning local time, but shows no signs of additional damage. No signs of a fuel leak have been observed, the official said.

Salvage teams on Wednesday rigged hoses and lines for removing the ship’s fuel and “conducted a satisfactory defueling test, but have not commenced defueling yet,” the official said.

Waves in the area continue at about four-to-six feet, with isolated showers, and salvage teams are “working in pockets of isolated better weather to do these operations.” Teams are getting on and off the ship via small boats.

The U.S. destroyer Mustin has returned to the scene, with Rear Adm. Thomas Carney, commander of Logistics Group Western Pacific in Singapore, as the on-scene commander.

The salvage teams “are working through a number of environmental response plans,” the Navy official said and, in the next 24 hours, will “continue hydrographic survey and salvage planning.

Heavy lift cranes and other salvage and environmental containment equipment are en route from Singapore, but not expected to arrive for another week, the official added.

All of the Guardian’s 79 crewmembers were taken off the ship on the evening of Jan. 17, and 69 sailors are now returning to their home port of Sasebo, Japan, on board the Navy oiler Rappahannock.

A ten-member “command element” from the Guardian remains on the scene, the Navy official said.

While Filipino organizations are not taking part in the salvage operations, they are actively monitoring the wreck scene, which is on a coral reef in a protected environmental zone.

The U.S., the Navy official said, remains in constant communication with the Filipinos, and “continues to keep the Philippine coast guard and government informed of our actions.”

24 janvier 2013 Guysen International News

L'interdiction faite aux femmes enrôlées dans les forces armées américaines de servir dans des unités combattantes va être levér par le secrétaire à la Défense sortant Leon Panetta, ont annoncé mercredi les autorités.