March 30, 2012 By J.D. Leipold / Army News Service – defpro.com

WASHINGTON | The Army G-8 addressed the status of the service's top modernization portfolios, ground combat vehicle, aviation and the network and reiterated the number-one priority would remain Soldier protection.

Speaking to members of the Association of the U.S. Army at its March Institute of Land Warfare breakfast, Lt. Gen. Robert P. Lennox first grabbed the audience's attention by debunking what he called some of the myths of Army modernization.

ARMY MYTHS

The biggest myth, Lennox said, was the perception the Army had lived "high on the hog and now it's time to do something else with your money."

"I just want to remind folks that it wasn't long ago that we were living in the Army of 2001," he said. "And, in that Army we had a $56 billion shortfall or 2001 holes in the yard. Life wasn't good in the Guard and the Reserve and it wasn't so good in the active force.

"It's taken Congress, industry and Army leadership to get where we are today and that's something important not to forget," he continued, adding that leadership responded to the needs of Soldiers in a flexible way, in an inflexible situation.

The second myth is the belief that the Army can't acquire anything. He cited a number of successes, including the Stryker Double-V Hull which just two years ago didn't exist. It was a concept of industry that brought the idea to service leadership because of the number of casualties the Army was taking, Lennox said.

"We took the idea to Army leadership and to the Hill and got support everywhere we went and today, Soldiers are driving the Stryker Double-V Hull in combat," he said. "There have been 40 times, as of about a week ago, that Soldiers have been hit resulting in three significant casualties. Before that, every vehicle, every hit was catastrophic.

"It's an example of what can happen when industry, leadership, Congress and the Office of the Secretary of Defense all come together and make those things happen with our Soldiers in mind," Lennox added.

Lennox said the final myth is that America's whole strategy has shifted to anti-access/aerial denial and that there's no role for the Army in that; let's just invest in the Navy and Air Force.

"It's not to say we don't need to invest in the Navy and Air Force, there are a lot of reasons to do that, but I'm here to talk about what if we get it wrong (by not investing in the Army)," he said, reminding the audience that after World War II, the country focused on nuclear war with the Soviet Union where the U.S. wouldn't need a ground Army anymore.

"What did we get but a conventional war in Korea and after Korea we still had the threat of a strategic nuclear war with tactical nukes, and what did we get but protracted counter-insurgency in Vietnam," Lennox said.

"After Vietnam we had to be posed for the big fight in the central European plains against Warsaw Pact forces, but what did we get but Desert Storm," he continued. "Thankfully, the work and preparation we did for that fight in Europe helped us in Desert Storm and we were successful. Then after the Gulf War, we were going to fight conventional wars with rogue states; we were going to fight two wars at the same time. We did get that, one major unconventional war in Afghanistan and a protracted counter-insurgency fight in Iraq."

"The bottom line is we always get it wrong. We predict the future to give us an idea, guidance in our decision-making and investments, but we get it wrong," he added. "We can't afford to get it wrong. We have to make sure that at least in the area of modernization, we cannot afford to be wrong."

TODAY & FUTURE ARMY MODERNIZATION

In research, development and acquisition accounts the Army has gone from a fiscal year 2012 budget of $26 billion down to a fiscal year 2013 budget of $24.3 billion, which effectively canceled eight programs. The Army went from lowest priority and worked up, delaying or restructuring 89 other programs while protecting 10 priority programs.

"We built our priorities, we funded our priorities and we've stuck with our priorities," said Lennox. "Protecting Soldiers as they fight is the number-one priority."

The general again cited the Stryker Double-V, the latest improved mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, known as MRAPs, nine changes to body armor, three new sniper weapons, the M4A1, which is about to be fielded and has three additional improvements over the M4, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, light-weight crew-served weapons, precision munitions and up-armored, medium and heavy trucks.

GROUND COMBAT VEHICLE PORTFOLIO

Presently the Army's number-one motorized priority remains the Ground Combat Vehicle, or GCV, which leadership continues to evaluate. Aside from cost, current requirements are that it have growth potential, be capable of carrying a squad of nine and be built within seven years.

Lennox said the Army's search for a GCV includes assessing developmental vehicles as well as non-developmental vehicles, or those already in use by other countries such as Sweden, Israel and Germany.

The GCVs are intended to replace the fleet of M113 tracked armored personnel carriers which were first introduced in Vietnam in 1962. Lennox said the M113 had played an enormous role in a number of different formations, mostly in the heavy brigade combat team as a command and control vehicle. The Army expects analysis complete by summer, he said.

"We have a number of possible replacements, turret-less Bradley, take the turret off and you get some exciting aspects," he said. "I've given the PM (program manager) a target of about a million a copy. That's our goal, to keep the price of this vehicle down and give us the best you can at that price."

He added that the Abrams M1A2 and the Bradley non-IFV are the "best two tanks in the world, but need upgrading. Lennox said both will receive upgrades that include network integration as well as improved electronics, armor and suspensions.

The Stryker will also be upgraded as will the Paladin PIM which is on-track to replace the M109A6 howitzers.

AVIATION MODERNIZATION

Moving to the aviation portfolio, Lennox said the Army would be "touching every single aviation platform" which includes cockpit and sensor upgrades to the Kiowa Warrior OH-58.

Every aspect from providing the LUH (light utility helicopter) for Guard and Reserve use in a homeland defense role to improvements in the Apache AH-64 Block III Longbow and the CH-47F Chinook will be touched, Lennox said.

Lennox said the Army was also improving on each of the unmanned aerial systems.

"The Shadow workhorse is a huge contributor on the battlefield today," he said. "When you talk to any brigade commander, he'll tell you they love the Shadow -- just need five or 10 more of that capability so there's a constant demand for them."

Gray Eagle will also be rolling out, Lennox said, and will serve as an update to the highly regarded Predator. It can cover everything from wide-area intelligence reconnaissance to convoy and improvised-explosive-device detection and defeat, close air support, communications and weapons delivery.

NETWORK INTEGRATION

With regard to the network, Lennox said the Army has converged onto a single path that's more affordable than what was to be the "revolutionary" Future Combat Systems network back in 2008 and 2009.

The Warfighter Information Network Tactical serves as the backbone to the network and brings command and control down to the company level. Lennox said increment two gives the Army the first battle command on-the-move capability. A spring Network Integration Evaluation to test the system will be conducted at Fort Bliss, Texas, he said.

The Joint Tactical Radio System, or JTRS, is already in use by the 75th Rangers, said Lennox, adding that he's hearing good things about the system. JTRS includes a man-packable system, the rifleman radio, NET Warrior systems and serves as a replacement for the Ground Mobile Radio, or GMR. The new JTRS system is now termed the Mid-Tier Networking Vehicle Radio or MNVR.

Lennox concluded that most changes will be "incremental improvements that the Army was not looking for revolutionary change."

Lennox has been nominated to serve as the DOD principal deputy director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation.

The conceptual design of the USAF's Three-Dimensional

Expeditionary Long-Range radar. Photo: Hanscom Air Force Base

30 March 2012 airforce-technology.com

The US Air Force's (USAF) Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar (3DELRR) programme will proceed with a revised acquisition strategy, 3DELRR programme manager lieutenant colonel Brian McDonald has revealed.

McDonald said the acquisition strategy has been revised in the wake of the US budget crisis and a combination of several other factors.

"We modified the strategy to further leverage competition to look at needed capability, different approaches to delivering that capability and doing so in the most affordable manner," McDonald added.

The final request for proposal (RFP) for the $108m contract is expected to be released in May 2012, followed by a contract award in August 2012.

"This acquisition strategy is our response. Now, we need strong industry performance to offer the most affordable solution that provides this needed capability to our warfighters," said McDonald.

McDonald said the revised strategy includes a minimum of three full and open competitions to reach full operational capability.

The 3DELRR Program Office, which had been planning to award a single contract prior to Milestone B, will now use the lowest price technically acceptable approach for 3DELRR source selection.

The service will now award up to three contracts for Technology Development (TD) phase, in response to competitive prototyping up to Milestone B, as encouraged by the then acting undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics John Young in the September 2007 memorandum.

In addition, fixed price contracts, including firm fixed-price and/or fixed-price incentive firm, are planned for the Pre-Engineering and Manufacturing Development (Pre-EMD), EMD, and low rate initial production phases, which earlier followed cost plus incentive fee approach.

McDonald said the service is also planning to issue a latest revision of 3DELRR requirements, focusing on early examination of cost versus capability trade-offs, against which successful bidders would produce their preliminary designs.

Designed to replace the USAF's existing AN/TPS-75 radar, the 3DELRR will be the principal long-range, ground-based sensor for detecting, identifying, tracking, and reporting aircraft and missiles in support of theatre commanders.

March 30, 2012 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued March 29, 2012)

Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $664,400,703 cost-plus-incentive-fee and cost-plus-fixed-fee modification contract for sustainment activities for the F-22 air vehicle for calendar year 2012.

The locations of the performance are Marietta, Ga.; Fort Worth, Texas; Palmdale, Calif.; and Seattle, Wash. Work is to be completed by Dec. 31, 2012.

ASC/WWUK, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8611-08-C-2897 P00119).

(EDITOR’S NOTE: It is noteworthy that these “sustainment activities” are to take place at a considerable distance from any F-22 base, which means the sustainment is more industrial than operational.

Also, given that the US Air Force fleet of operational F-22s currently stands at about 150 aircraft, the average sustainment cost works out to $4.4 million a year per aircraft.

This is in addition to normal operations and maintenance costs, and to the regular upgrades needed to bring the aircraft to their intended capability levels.

For example, the latest upgrade package, Increment 3.1, cost $8 billion to implement.)

March 30, 2012 defpro.com

DARPA to engage Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Data Visualization communities to develop “big data” analytics and usability solutions for warfighters

Warfighters’ missions rely on a virtual net of sensors and communications systems for greater battlefield awareness than at any time in history. At the same time, demands for actionable information have spiked as warfighters at every level—whether at the planning table or on patrol—are called upon to make well-informed decisions. To maximize mission effectiveness and enhance national security, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is now challenged to more efficiently fuse, analyze and disseminate the massive volumes of data this network produces.

Current DoD systems and processes for handling and analyzing information cannot be efficiently or effectively scaled to meet this challenge. The volume and characteristics of the data, and the range of applications for data analysis, require a fundamentally new approach to data science, analysis and incorporation into mission planning on timelines consistent with operational tempo.

“The sheer volume of information creates a background clutter…,” said DARPA Acting Director, Kaigham J. Gabriel. “Let me put this in some context. The Atlantic Ocean is roughly 350 million cubic kilometers in volume, or nearly 100 billion, billon gallons of water. If each gallon of water represented a byte or character, the Atlantic Ocean would be able to store, just barely, all the data generated by the world in 2010. Looking for a specific message or page in a document would be the equivalent of searching the Atlantic Ocean for a single 55-gallon drum barrel.”

Recognizing the challenges presented by this volume of data, DARPA began the XDATA program to develop computational techniques and software tools for processing and analyzing the vast amount of mission-oriented information for Defense activities. As part of this exploration, XDATA aims to address the need for scalable algorithms for processing and visualization of imperfect and incomplete data. And because of the variety of DoD users, XDATA anticipates creation of human-computer interaction tools that could be easily customized for different missions.

To enable large scale data processing in a wide range of potential settings, XDATA plans to release open-source software toolkits to enable collaboration among the applied mathematics, computer science and data visualization communities.

“It's a great time to leverage recent commercial and academic advances in processing large amounts of data for analysis,” said Chris White, DARPA program manager. “We are calling on all technical communities with expertise in this area to help us ensure our men and women in uniform have the benefit of the best information we can provide.”

To increase awareness of the XDATA program and attract potential researchers, DARPA is planning a Proposers’ Day workshop for April 2012. This workshop will introduce the research community to the effort, explain the mechanics of a DARPA research program, and encourage collaborative arrangements among potential performers. The meeting is in support of the XDATA Broad Agency Announcement. More information regarding both is available here: http://go.usa.gov/Et7.

The XDATA program was announced on March 29, 2012, by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Coordination Office for Networking and Information Technology Research and Development as part of President Barack Obama’s “Big Data” initiative. DARPA’s XDATA program supports a whole-of-government effort to coordinate management of big data technology and better use the volumes of data collected by federal agencies.

Photo: USAF

Mar 29, 2012 By Jen DiMascio - aerospace daily and defense report

Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk Block 30 may have a shot at escaping U.S. Air Force plans to place it in storage.

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, says he will recommend continuing funding for the high-flying unmanned aircraft. “That may prevail, at least in the House defense subcommittee.”

According to Moran, the “taxpayer is best served” by the Global Hawk, as compared to the U-2 intelligence-gathering aircraft, which the Air Force wants to continue using.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and Secretary Mike Donley have said using the U-2 would yield $2.5 billion in savings over five years. Schwartz has said the U-2’s electro-optic/infrared sensor and signal capabilities are better, and that reliability on the Global Hawk is an issue.

But Moran and others on the House subcommittee have argued that it is a waste to have turned out so many aircraft only to let them gather dust.

“I think it’s wrong to mothball 18 of them in the desert ... [the Global Hawk] represents the future,” Moran says, adding that the Air Force’s decision to continue to operate U-2 aircraft “largely represents the past.”

With the coming retirement of Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Moran will be a viable candidate to lead Democrats on the defense spending subcommittee.

Mar 29, 2012 By Jen DiMascio - AviationWeek.com

Washington - The cost of the Pentagon’s largest weapon system continues to grow, as a Pentagon official contends that the increases are being brought under control.

According to a Pentagon report delivered to Congress March 29, the cost of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is inching higher, rising 4.3% to $395.7 billion in the last year. That Pentagon report was delivered the same day that the Government Accountability Office pointed out that cost growth on the JSF makes up more than half of the cost increases of the Pentagon’s largest 96 programs. It represents 21% of the overall portfolio.

The Pentagon has re-approved the program to start low-rate production, a decision that was pulled back after breeching congressional cost targets in June 2010. Cost increases were driven by slower production in the U.S. and abroad and higher-than-planned labor costs.

The cost of the Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine is also up, growing 9.7% to $63.8 billion primarily because of an increase in spare parts.

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s acting acquisition chief, has set a new baseline for the program, and pushed back full-rate production by two years to 2019.

Going forward, software development and the cost of sustainment remain ongoing focus areas, notes the Selected Acquisition Report (SAR). The report also describes challenges with integration and development of software increments. During the next year, the program will undergo a business case analysis and the program is implementing new ways to lower sustainment costs that Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter last year predicted would exceed $1 trillion.

In his confirmation hearing to formally become Carter’s replacement as acquisition chief, Kendall told senators that he believes the cost of the JSF is “beginning to get under control.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) warned the Pentagon that letting negotiations drag on for the next set of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters could compromise fiscal 2013 funding. Lawmakers have reduced funding for the F-35 program in the past, citing delays in prior contract negotiations, Cornyn said last week. And the fifth lot of advanced fighter jets, for which money was appropriated a year ago, is still not on contract, he said.

Kendall, nominated to become the Pentagon’s next acquisition chief, said the Defense Department has an undefinitized contract for the fifth lot of advanced fighter jets and is working to negotiate a final price. The Pentagon hopes to streamline the negotiating process for the next two lots of aircraft, he said during his nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Cornyn replied that the program needs better clarity. “Since we put all of our eggs in the F-35 basket … we’d better take care of the basket,” Cornyn said.

Mar 29, 2012 By Gary Sheftick / US Army - ASDNews

The military services expect to unveil performance specifications this summer for a new joint vertical-lift aircraft, Maj. Gen. William T. Crosby told congressmen.

Crosby, director of the Army's Program Executive Office Aviation, testified Tuesday afternoon to the House Armed Services Committee, subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces at a hearing on rotorcraft modernization programs. His counterparts from the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force also testified.

Crosby said a consortium, which includes industry partners, has been working with the military on ideas for a joint vertical-lift aircraft. Two demonstrator aircraft have been developed, wind-tunnel tests have been conducted and other studies completed.

A joint attack-utility variant is the first aircraft the military will invest in under the program, Crosby said.

"Some people are saying it's going to be rotary-wing. We don't know that…" Crosby said. "It may be a tilt-rotor of some sort that we're going to go to. But based on the wind-tunnel studies and the demonstrators that we've done and the input of this team, including the consortium, we hope to have a deliverable this summer of a specification that will guide us toward what the next step will be that we're going after."

The effort to design a next-generation aircraft has been called the Joint Multi-Role program. This Army-led program has included input from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, all military services, including the Coast Guard, Special Operations Command, NASA, and others.

Those involved envision the aircraft having vastly improved avionics, electronics, range, speed, propulsion, survivability, altitudes and payload capacity. Some have said it should be able to sustain speeds in excess of 170 knots, have an overall combat range greater than 800 kilometers and be able to hover with a full combat load at altitudes of 6,000 feet in 95-degree heat.

Under questions about industry reps being included in the consortium planning the aircraft, Crosby defended this partnership, stating the consortium has been primarily a technology advisory panel. "There was no commitment to award contracts of scope or anything like that," Crosby said. "What we were trying to preclude is duplication, where we had a bunch of people going after the same technologies.

"The other thing is, we in the government, we don't do a lot of development, cutting-edge development. Our partners in industry, that's what they do. So we wanted to bring them on to look at these enabling technologies we needed to go to the future, to prevent us from going down a 'rat hole' and getting after something that really wasn't achievable."

Modernization is more of a challenge today because technology is turning over so fast, Crosby said. As science and technology dollars become tighter, the Army may rely more on consortiums to help develop new technologies for its future aircraft, he inferred.

A future vertical-lift study will soon be released to provide a way ahead for aviation modernization, Crosby said. "It lays out a roadmap for all of us services together looking forward. It identifies kind of a scalable architecture of rotary-wing or future vertical lift platforms."

Another program Crosby cited as showing a lot of potential is the Improved Turbine Engine Program, or ITEP. This program's objective is to develop technologies for a 3,000-horespower engine that reduces fuel consumption for the AH-64 Apache and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

"What a great capability," Crosby said of the ITEP tech demonstrators. He said they were demonstrating "all of the improvements that we're asking for," including a 30-percent increase in power and a 25-percent decrease in fuel.

The Improved Turbine Engine Program is expected to come out of its science and technology phase this summer, Crosby said, adding that the Army intends to continue carrying two vendors for the program if budget realities permit.

(Information on the vision for the next-generation helicopter was obtained from Kris Osborn, an advisor to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.)

28.03.2012 Sergyi Way- army-guide.com

Navistar Defense, LLC today announced it has submitted a bid to compete for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program. The company will bid with a variant of its International® Saratoga™ light tactical vehicle, which Navistar launched in October after conducting its own automotive and blast testing.

Channeling Navistar's commercial background, the Saratoga was originally designed to target a gap in the light tactical vehicle market. Its flexible platform is derived from an integration strategy that allows the company to rapidly develop new vehicle variants to meet different customer needs while keeping investment costs low.

"We made a significant investment in developing the Saratoga on our own nickel because that's what we do commercially – it is part of our DNA," said Archie Massicotte, president, Navistar Defense. "The Saratoga is a solid design and now that we have seen the requirements of the JLTV migrate toward our vehicle capabilities, we are in a position to modify the Saratoga to fit those requirements."

The Saratoga light tactical vehicle has a high degree of commonality with fielded vehicles and incorporates Navistar's automotive and manufacturing expertise. The company has also designed and tested its own proprietary survivability solution for the vehicle, which considers material mix, vehicle structure and hull shape.

28.03.2012 Lockheed Martin- army-guide.com

DALLAS -- Lockheed Martin Mar. 27 submitted a proposal for a substantially lighter and more affordable Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) for the next phase of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps competition.

The Lockheed Martin team optimized its Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) design for production while maintaining the proven force protection, mobility, transportability and reliability of the earlier Technology Demonstration (TD) model.

"Our improvements removed hundreds of pounds of weight from our TD design, which was already proven in helicopter lift tests," said Scott Greene, vice president of ground vehicles at Lockheed Martin's Missiles and Fire Control business. "With more than 160,000 combined testing miles behind us, we've demonstrated our JLTV can reliably meet protection standards of many existing mine-resistant vehicles in combat today. This vehicle is ready to meet our customers' needs with lower-cost materials at full-rate production."

Throughout 2010 and 2011, the team took lessons learned from JLTV's extensive testing and applied them to an evolved design. The team accomplished this through digital engineering analysis, virtual design builds, component tests and physical stress testing.

"Our EMD design lowers the cost of each vehicle, and not just through economies of scale," said Kathryn Hasse, Lockheed Martin's JLTV program director. "We have incorporated more affordable materials and reduced exotic metals such as titanium. This was accomplished while maintaining the significant blast protection and vehicle capability already demonstrated."

BAE Systems, a Lockheed Martin JLTV team member, helped develop the production process verified by the virtual design build. The team benefits from BAE Systems' expertise in advanced armor solutions and production facilities for high volume assembly.

Formed in 2005, the core Lockheed Martin-led JLTV team includes the tactical wheeled vehicles team at BAE Systems in Sealy, Texas, complemented by numerous Tier 1 automotive suppliers, including: Cummins Engine, Allison Transmission, Bosch, Meritor Defense, Lotus Engineering, L3 Combat Propulsion Systems and Vehma International of America.

Mar 29, 2012 By Corrie MacLaggan (Reuters) - AviationWeek.com

WASHINGTON - House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner asked President Barack Obama on Wednesday to state clearly and publicly whether he planned any concessions to Russia on the U.S. missile defense program.

Boehner, in a letter to Obama that was released to the media, said he was alarmed by Obama’s overheard remarks assuring Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday that he would have “more flexibility” to deal with contentious arms control issues after the Nov. 6 presidential elections.

Obama and Medvedev were attending a nuclear security summit in Seoul and were unaware their conversation was being picked up by microphones as reporters were led into the room.

“Given the specter you have raised of shifting positions, it would be appropriate that you state publicly and clearly that no unilateral concessions will be made to the Russians, before or after the election,” Boehner, a Republican, wrote to Democrat Obama.

Boehner said it was “troubling that you would suggest to Russian leaders that their reckless ambition would be rewarded with greater ‘flexibility.’”

If Obama is planning concessions on missile defense, Boehner said, the president should report them and consult “immediately” with the appropriate committees in Congress.

Obama’s remarks had been pounced on earlier by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who called them troubling and said Russia was “our number one geopolitical foe.” But Boehner had refused to criticize Obama while the president was still out of the United States. Obama returned on Tuesday evening.

Another senior Republican, former presidential candidate John McCain, also took aim at Obama on Wednesday for the comments to Medvedev, saying Obama was “playing fast and loose with national security.” McCain, a senator, lost the White House to Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

March 29, 2012 generaldynamics.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), recently delivered 85 MK19 40mm grenade machine guns to the U.S. Army under the company’s latest contract award for the weapon.

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products was awarded an $8.7 million order for more than 650 MK19 weapons in September 2011. The September award extended an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for MK19 weapons that was initially awarded to General Dynamics in 2008. The latest order brings the total contract value to date to more than $90 million. General Dynamics has delivered more than 40,000 MK19 guns since 1987.

“Over the past quarter century, the MK19 has been the single most-highly fielded 40mm grenade machine gun in the world,” said Steve Elgin, vice president and general manager of armament systems for General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products. “The weapon's popularity is the result of its high reliability and the vast logistical support as the U.S. Government's standard issue grenade machine gun.”

The MK19 is primarily used by dismounted infantry personnel or is mounted on light armored vehicles. The weapon is capable of firing up to 400 rounds per minute and has a maximum range of more than 2,200 yards.

Production work for the MK19 is performed at General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products’ Saco, Maine, facility using the existing workforce of approximately 400 people. Program management is performed in Saco with support from the company’s Williston, Vt.-based Technology Center. Final deliveries on the September award will be completed in February 2013.

29 March 2012 naval-technology.com

The US Navy has submitted its 30-year shipbuilding plan for 2013-2042 to Congress, projecting a drop in the number of ships as the Navy eyes a smaller fleet.

Chief of Naval Operations admiral Jonathan Greenert had earlier been quoted by Reuters as saying that the new review aimed to translate the Pentagon's new military strategy into concrete requirements for the number of ships, planes and people the Navy needs to carry out its missions by 2020.

The 30-year plan is divided into three major parts, near term, mid-term and far-term with each term being provided with an annual shipbuilding budget.

The near term is defined by the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) of 2013-2017 and a second FYDP from 2018 to 2022 with a budget allocation of $15.1bn on annual shipbuilding.

The mid-term planning period ranges from 2023 to 2032, wherein the annual shipbuilding budget rises to $19.5bn due to the SSBN(X) Ohio replacement programme.

The far-term planning begins in 2033 and has a $15.9bn budget per year while the overall 30-year plan annual service projects to $16.8bn per year, including Navy and National Defense Sealift Fund ships.

The report assumed that shipbuilding funding will rise from fiscal 2018 and will continue through 2032, during which all major vessels will be retired leaving the Navy able to prevent cost overruns.

"If any of these assumptions prove to be faulty, future shipbuilding plans will include fewer ships and battle force inventory levels will change, inevitably falling below 300 ships," the report warned.

As per the plan, the future fleet may include 12-14 ballistic missile submarines, 11 nuclear-power aircraft carriers, 48 attack submarines and zero to four cruise missile submarines.

The fleet may also include about 90 large surface combatants, 55 small surface combatants, 32 amphibious landing ships, 29 logistics ships, and 33 support vessels.

The Navy's current fleet of 282 ships is expected to be around 300 ships by 2019, and is also seeking 55 new lighter, more agile coastal warships to meet mission requirements in the coming years.