Artist rendering of the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer. (Illustration: U.S. Navy)

December 23, 2011 Ben Freeman, National Security Fellow / Project On Government Oversight (POGO) – defpro.com

"The U.S. Navy destroyer program is at a crossroads," according to an Aviation Week Intelligence Network investigation by Mike Fabey. The Navy began its current course by deciding to forego further procurement of the next-generation DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyers in favor of resurrecting the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke production line and retrofitting it with a new radar system and enhanced ballistic missile defense.

It’s expected that a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, due out in January, will be critical of this decision. Naval analyst Norman Polmar tells Fabey that there’s a very good chance this will lead the Navy to buy more Zumwalts. But, many analysts are asking if this is the right decision.

WHICH SHIP SHOULD SAIL?

For myriad reasons, there is significant disagreement about which of these ships is the best option going forward.

First, there aren’t accurate estimates of the true procurement costs for either of these ships. The newest and most sophisticated version of the Burke destroyer, the Flight III, will cost significantly more than prior models because of all the upgrades and modifications the new ships require. As Aviation Week notes, the Congressional Budget Office claims that the Flight III’s will cost 25 percent more than the ships currently coming off of the restarted Burke production line, and “Navy figures put the price tag for the proposed vessels at $2.3 billion each.” The Flight III is set to be available in 2016. The Zumwalts are even more expensive. Aviation Week reports that “program officials say the production price is about $3.1 billion per ship.”

While the production price advantage goes to the Burkes, at least based upon current estimates, procuring them may be penny-wise, pound-foolish according to many experts and Navy personnel Fabey spoke with. Over the lifetime of these ships, the Zumwalts are expected to be far less costly to taxpayers because of significantly lower needs for fuel, manning, and maintenance. And, these savings are, purportedly, obtained without sacrificing firepower or capabilities.

Which raises a larger, second point: in terms of capability, the Zumwalt destroyers are vastly superior to the Burkes. According to the Aviation Week investigation, “The Zumwalts promise greater radar protection against most missile threats and more capability to launch Special Operations Forces and helicopters and a much greater ability to operate and survive in the littorals, where the Navy says most of its future missions will be.”

As the figure below* indicates, the Zumwalts can operate in coastal areas, like those in China and Iran, where the Burkes simply cannot go.

A big reason for this is that the Zumwalts appear 50 times smaller to radar than a Burke, according to Admiral (Ret.) Vernon Clark, former Chief Naval Officer, and other Navy officials.

The Zumwalts are intended to be able to perform like cruisers and even be used as command ships, which the Burkes weren’t designed to do, according to the Aviation Week investigation.

UNCERTAINTIES ABOUND

While these capabilities might seem beyond reproach, critics of the Zumwalt—which are numerous—rightly point out that the only thing the ship has proven is its potential. The first ship has yet to set sail. In fact, it isn’t even fully built yet. Thus, there is considerable uncertainty about whether the Zumwalt will actually be able to deliver these capabilities without suffering from the dramatic cost growth that has plagued other Navy procurements, like the littoral combat ship (LCS). Naval personnel told POGO that the plethora of problems discovered on the LCS during testing are symptomatic of a larger problem with the Navy’s quality assurance system, and this quality assurance deficiency will undoubtedly plague the Zumwalt as well. Until the Zumwalt begins testing, its true capabilities and costs will remain unknown.

The level of uncertainty surrounding the cost of the revamped Burkes is even greater because their design isn’t even complete. So, they too might not be delivered at cost, according to the Aviation Week investigation. John Young, former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, wrote in a letter to Congress that “the cost of a redesigned DDG 51 [Burke] very likely will be equal to or greater than that of a DDG 1000 [Zumwalt].” If this is true, opting for revamped Burke would yield the Navy a much less capable ship with higher operating costs and no initial cost savings.

SOLUTION?

These issues make it difficult to say what the best option is for the Navy. One of the only things we know with absolute certainty is that we need to know more. Thus, POGO recommends that the Navy conduct a true analysis of alternatives for its destroyer program, and then decide on the best path forward.

As the Congressional Research Service has noted, the Navy’s history of starting, stopping, and restarting fleet plans is costly and raises a question “as to whether there is adequate stability in Navy planning for acquisition of surface combatants.” In the current fiscal climate, neither the Navy, nor politicians with influence over it, have the luxury of wasting money through indecision. It’s time to set a course and sail it true.

(For notes and references, please visit the original site of this article at http://goo.gl/ZwHGf)

____

* Aviation Week cites Raytheon as a source for Figure 1. Raytheon is a prime contractor on the Zumwalt.

photo USMC

WARRENVILLE, Ill., Dec. 22 (UPI)

Employees of U.S. vehicle-maker Navistar Defense will continue in-theater support for MRAP vehicles in Afghanistan.

The Illinois company said a current field service support contract was renewed by the U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command and work will continue until December 2012.

The contract renewal is worth $134 million.

"I'm proud to say that Navistar will not sell a truck if we can't support it in theater," said Navistar Defense President Archie Massicotte. "Sustainment of our vehicles is key -- especially when vehicle lifecycles may run between 15 to 20 years.

"With our fleet of vehicles now growing beyond 32,000 trucks, fleet support will continue to be a critical piece of our business."

Navistar has more than 600 field service representatives in Afghanistan and the United States. In Afghanistan they tend Navistar's International MaxxPro Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. The vehicles for transporting troops feature modular armor, V-shaped hulls for deflecting blast effects of mines and improvised explosive devices.

source ravenaerostar.com

December 21, 2011 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: Raven Industries, Inc.; issued December 21, 2011)

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. --- Raven Industries Aerostar aided the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Vehicle Research Section on September 1, 2011 on achieving successful unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight tests for the Autonomous Deployment Demonstration (ADD) program.

The flight demonstration series, located at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Yuma, Arizona, consisted of eight high altitude balloon releases at altitudes of up to 57,000 feet. The balloon demonstration facilitated Close-In Cover Autonomous Disposable Aircraft (CICADA) vehicles to come to rest within 15 feet from their intended landing targets.

The ADD program equipped small UAV's with sensor payloads, launching them from balloons or aircraft. The ADD field trials successfully demonstrate that the CICADA can perform a precision delivery of a notional payload after being carried aloft by a hand-launched balloon.

"The ADD balloon support operation is very simple and well developed," said Mike Smith, Senior Aerospace Engineer at Aerostar International. "The preflight checks, balloon inflation, launch and tracking operations can be carried out by two people in one vehicle from almost any remote location." The balloon tracking system consists of a small radio frequency (RF) modem attached to a laptop computer.

Throughout the testing, the UAV package was lifted to altitude using hand-launched balloons manufactured and operated by Aerostar International. Aerostar's hand-launched balloons are decades proven, tactical polyethylene balloons which can be flown in two different modes, either as a sounding balloon or as a free-floating zero pressure balloon. They are used for communications, data relay, surveillance and intelligence.

The Tempest UAV, with two CICADA vehicles attached on wing-mounted pylons, was carried aloft by the balloon up to altitudes approaching 60,000 feet. The Tempest UAV was released from the balloon, autonomously executed a pull-up maneuver, and then carried the two CICADAs to a drop location. Each CICADA vehicle was then released from the mother-ship and autonomously flew to the preprogrammed target waypoint.

"Many remote sensors are currently hand emplaced," says Chris Bovais, NRL Vehicle Research Section Aeronautical Engineer and Flight Test Coordinator. "The CICADA allows for the low-cost delivery of multiple precision-located sensors without placing the warfighter in harm's way."

Aerostar's high altitude research balloons can carry payloads from just a few pounds up to 6,000 pounds and can reach altitudes up to 45 kilometers capable of sustaining altitude for several months.

"This capability, affordably and reliably getting high-cost, high-return sensors to the edge of the atmosphere is what Aerostar has been doing for NASA since the 1960s," said Lon Stroschein, Vice President and General Manager of Raven Aerostar. Aerostar's tactical hand-launched balloons are an industry best value, costing only a few thousand dollars, versus other UAV platforms that may cost hundreds of thousands to do similar work. "We appreciate that NRL takes the ease of use and affordability into consideration for such missions," Stroschein said.

Aerostar International, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Raven Industries, a U.S. manufacturer providing aerospace products, military products, tethered aerostats, protective wear, marine navigation products and custom inflatables to various markets. Raven Aerostar has been involved in lighter-than-air products since the 1950s. Today, Aerostar engineers and manufactures aerostats for military and non-military use.

MDA file photo of ABL 747-400F

Dec 21, 2011 By Amy Butler - AviationWeek.com

After nearly 16 years of development and more than $5 billion spent, culminating in a series of ballistic missile target engagements, the Pentagon has finally decided to mothball the Boeing-led 747-400F project known as the Airborne Laser.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is now looking toward a new generation of lasers that could operate on unmanned vehicles at very high altitudes owing to advancements in laser technology, power generation and beam control work made possible in part by the foundation laid in the ABL years.

The program was established by the U.S. Air Force in the 1990s with an aim of employing a multi-megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) to burn through the propulsion systems of boosting ballistic missile targets, sending the rockets and their potentially lethal payloads raining back down upon the area from which they were launched.

Despite finally shooting down its first target last year, ABL has cratered under the substantial funding required for its work, cost-prohibitive and improbable employment scenarios and, most recently, pressure on the Pentagon budget resulting from growing national debt.

Though ABL found itself on death row awaiting termination multiple times in the past decade, the industry team and MDA, which took over management of the program in 2001, managed to keep it alive. Finally, in February 2010, the ABL engaged and destroyed its first test target — a solid-rocket fueled Terrier Black Brant rocket. This was followed just more than a week later by another shootdown, this time of a liquid-fueled foreign missile target.

MDA Director Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly is now focused on a new generation of laser systems with “much denser capability or greater power lasers in smaller packages and operating at much higher altitudes,” he told a gathering hosted by the Huntsville, Ala., Chamber of Commerce Dec. 12. This, he says, will simplify future designs.

“We do believe we are very close … within a few years of having a prototype that will actually operate out of an unattended air vehicle at very high altitudes,” O’Reilly said. “We basically have a horse race going on between several different technologies [and] all of them are very promising.” He predicts that “we have that capability to achieves something with a very high-altitude UAV over this decade.”

Details of this project were not provided by MDA.

Advances since the start of ABL in electric-powered solid-state lasers, however, are likely where the future lies if scientists manage to solve the problem of generating enough power for the lasers to have operational benefit at significant ranges and fired from small, mobile platforms.

Retaining skills

Meanwhile, not all of ABL is lost or mothballed. Boeing has recommended that MDA retain 20 engineers and scientists versed in beam control/fire control, jitter and platform dynamics disciplines “to ensure transfer of knowledge and lessons to future high-power directed-energy programs.

With the official demise of ABL, Boeing’s position in the missile defense market is even more dependent on its precarious, and potentially short-term, control of the Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) ballistic missile shield program, which includes a global network of sensors and interceptors in Alaska and California.

MDA is competing the work, which has been exclusively handled by Boeing, and a source selection between Boeing/Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin/Raytheon is expected as soon as this month.

Given ABL’s end, if Boeing loses the GMD contract the company could find itself going from the prominent missile defense integrator in the U.S. to a mere supplier to its onetime rivals.

TUCSON, Ariz., Dec. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire

The Department of Defense awarded Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) two separate air-launched weapons contracts with a combined value of nearly $100 million.

    The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon an $84.3 million modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract to produce the Joint Standoff Weapon C-1.

    The U.S. Air Force awarded Raytheon a $15 million firm-fixed-price contract for production of the laser-guided Maverick missile.

Both contracts were announced by the Department of Defense on Dec. 19.

Dec 20, 2011 ASDNews Source : General Dynamics Corporation

FALLS CHURCH, Va. - General Dynamics yesterday completed its acquisition of Force Protection, Inc., a provider of blast- and ballistic-protected platforms that support the armed forces of the United States and its allies. The transaction, valued at approximately $360 million, was announced on November 7 and is expected to be accretive to General Dynamics' earnings in 2012.

Force Protection now becomes part of General Dynamics Land Systems. Force Protection's portfolio includes the Buffalo mine clearance vehicle, the Cougar Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) and the smaller Ocelot light patrol vehicle. These vehicles are designed specifically for reconnaissance and urban operations and to protect their occupants from land mines, hostile fire and improvised explosive devices. The company has delivered more than 3,000 vehicles under the U.S. military's MRAP vehicle program, and also provides its vehicles to foreign customers including the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence. Combined with General Dynamics Land Systems, the company will increase its global service network footprint to support the full vehicle fleet.

"Together with General Dynamics Land Systems' portfolio of wheeled tactical and combat vehicles and main battle tanks, this acquisition expands our ability to deliver vehicles that are core to our customer's force structure and their ability to fulfill their missions," said Mark C. Roualet, president of General Dynamics Land Systems. "This strengthens our ability to upgrade and modernize our vehicles to meet our customer's evolving needs."

General Dynamics Land Systems is a leading manufacturer of wheeled, tracked and amphibious combat vehicles, offering a spectrum of design, production and lifecycle support to customers worldwide. Its portfolio of vehicle platforms includes the Stryker wheeled combat vehicle, the Abrams main battle tank and the MRAP class of tactical vehicles. The company employs world-class manufacturing and systems-integration processes to develop vehicles designed to meet current and future ground-combat requirements.

With the addition of Force Protection, General Dynamics Land Systems now employs approximately 9,500 workers worldwide.

21.12.2011 Sergyi Way-  www.army-guide.com

The Rheinmetall Group of Dusseldorf, Germany, is to supply the Canadian armed forces with the state-of-the-art Büffel/Buffalo armoured recovery vehicle.

Rheinmetall secured this important contract in the face of stiff competition, underscoring the Group’s leading role in the world of heavyweight combat support vehicles. The order is worth around C$54.7 million (€40 million).

Rheinmetall has thus succeeded in winning another important contract in Canada as well as adding a new chapter to the Büffel/Buffalo ARV success story: Canada will be the eighth country to field the system.

The recently signed contract encompasses the manufacture and delivery of the tracked armoured vehicles as well as the provision of related training support. They will be equipped with the latest force protection features, making them more than a match for the kind of threats encountered in modern deployed operations, e.g. in Afghanistan.

Delivery of the armoured recovery vehicles is slated to take place in 2013-2014. The Canadian military are furnishing a number of Leopard 2 tank chassis from their inventory, which Rheinmetall will convert into Büffel/Buffalo ARVs. The project will be carried out in Germany at Rheinmetall’s Kiel and Kassel plants as well as in Canada in cooperation with its subsidiary Rheinmetall Canada and other Canadian companies.

Kiel is home to the Group’s competence centre for combat support vehicle R&D, while series production of tracked armoured vehicles takes place in Kassel. Rheinmetall Canada is currently engaged in a major programme to modernize and modify 42 Leopard main battle tanks which the Canadian military took over from the Dutch armed forces in 2007.

The Canadian Army has already been using the Büffel/Buffalo ARVs in Afghanistan since 2007. Drawn from the Bundeswehr inventory, Rheinmetall optimized the vehicles prior to deployment, fitting them with added force protection features. Both the Leopard 2 main battle tank and Büffel/Buffalo have performed extremely well in this highly challenging tactical environment, reliably protecting their crews from roadside bomb blasts, etc.

Known as the Bergepanzer 3 Büffel (BPz 3) in German, the Büffel/Buffalo ARV is based on the Leopard 2 chassis, and was jointly developed on behalf of the German and Dutch armies. It is designed for recovering disabled tanks as well as for conducting maintenance and repair work under field conditions. Thanks to a built-in crane, the Büffel/Buffalo is able to exchange a Leopard 2 powerpack or complete turret. Besides a powerful hydraulic crane system, this cutting edge ARV is equipped with a robust winch system and a combined dozer and stabilizing blade.

source Shepard Group

19 December 2011 - by the Shephard News Team

Lockheed Martin has announced that it has been awarded a contract by the US Air Force (USAF) to develop a new block upgrade for the C130J Super Hercules.  The contract, announced by Lockheed Martin on 19 December 2011, is worth $167 million to the company.

The C-130J fleet is currently flying with the Block 6.0 configuration, while the Block 7.0 configuration is in flight trials. This upgrade will be the Block 8.1 enhancement, and will contain both software and hardware capability expansion for installation on all US government C-130Js and C-130Js of operator countries that select the upgrade.

According to the company, the new Block 8.1 configuration will include items such as updated Identification Friend or Foe (IFF); TEMPEST compliance; Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast; a Communications, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management Data Link; an Enhanced Inter-Communication System; enhanced Approach and Landing Systems; Enhanced Diagnostics; and additional Covert Lighting.

C-130J aircraft are currently in production for the US Air Force and Marine Corps, Iraq, Israel, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Oman and Tunisia. C-130Js are also flown by Australia, Canada, Denmark, India, Italy, Norway, Qatar, the United Kingdom and the US Coast Guard.

CBP Air and Marine officers control and watch images taken by Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) of the CBP (Gerald Nino, CBP, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security)

20 December, 2011, RT.com

They say war is hell. Don’t believe it? Ask any of the US servicemen suffering from the battlefield blues, as a new study reveals that launching strikes overseas is overtly stressful, even from thousands of miles away from warzones.

According to new study released by the US Air Force, an overwhelming number of the pilots that command unmanned robotic drones from operation centers in America are suffering from intense stress, even if they are on the other side of the world from where their attacks are being carried out. With the US continuing drone strikes despite opposition from allies overseas such as Pakistan, the toll that the task of commanding the controversial crafts could be having on its pilots could be detrimental to the Department of Defense, who insists on pushing through with the program even with the end result including droves of dead civilians since the missions began.

When quizzed by Air Force personnel to gauge their level of stress on a scale of 0-to-10, with 10 representing the most stress, 46 percent of pilots commanding Reaper and Predator drones say that their stress level meets or exceeds a standing of 8 points, according to the new study.

Additionally among the findings is the fact that a smaller but significant number of pilots also suffer from what the Air Force describes as “clinical distress,” a condition which includes symptoms such as anxiety, depression and severe enough stress that job performance is impacted.

Despite soldiers being subjected to work that brings on these conditions, the Department of Defense continues drone usage all over the world, with 57 American-led drones being in international skies at any given moment. A report issued earlier this year out of Britain’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism put the number of civilian casualties carried out by American drones in Pakistan alone to be at 400 since US operations began there, and in just the few months that the US involved itself in the Libyan uprising, the American military dispatched almost 150 airstrikes with drones, despite Congress never declaring a war. While troops thousands of miles away dispatched drones and fired missiles into the land beneath Libyan skies, now it is being revealed that an overwhelming number of the pilots put in charge of such missions were suffering from conditions that could impact their job performance.

While the men and women that command the stealth aircraft are thousands of miles from the battlefields where bombs are dropped, the toll on their health can have consequences on Americans back home. Earlier this year RT reported that a computer virus made its way into the cockpits of drone aircraft dispatched from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada with pilots going weeks without being aware of it. Even more recently, the US managed to lose communication with two separate drones in a manner of two weeks, costing America upwards of not just $100 million in parts but a priceless toll on the nation’s security as Iranian authorities insist that they have decoded the top-secret technology onboard a recovered Sentinel RQ-170.

As a cyber war sprouts between American and Iranian intelligence, Tehran is becoming aware of an extremely exploitable target in the US military. The Pentagon says that almost 30 percent of its drone pilots suffer from the military calls “burn out.” In their own follow up on the report, National Public Radio reports that a large majority of the pilots say that they are not getting any counseling for their increasing stress.

Instead, the US is upping its drone operation. In the last decade the number of drones has grown from 50 to 7,000. At least half a dozen spy craft planes currently fly over America to conduct clandestine surveillance, and the FAA is working out plans to approve the drones for use among local law enforcement agencies.

December 19, 2011: STRATEGY PAGE

Has it really happened this time? Is the tank on its way out? For several decades, the main battle tank has been declared obsolete. Like the battleship, another weapon that depended on big guns and thick armor, the tank was seen as inevitably done in by faster, cheaper and more numerous weapons that could destroy it. The first modern battleship was launched in 1906, but in less than half a century, aircraft and submarines made the battleship obsolete, and none were built after 1945. The tank has lasted longer than that. First appearing in combat during World War I (1914-18), the tank became a decisive weapon during World War II (1939-45) and continued to dominate battlefields to the present. That's over 90 years, twice as long as the battleship. But the tank, like the battleship, also became too expensive and too vulnerable to cheaper weapons.

But there's another major factor that kept the tank going for so long; the Cold War arms race. Russia saw the tank as their principal land warfare weapon and produced over 100,000 of them after World War II. Russia introduced a new model every decade from 1945 to the 1990s. The World War II T-34 gave way to the T-54, then the T-62, the T-72, the T-80 and the T-90. The United States responded with the M-48, M-60 and M-1.

As the Arab-Israeli wars, and the 1991 Gulf War demonstrated, the American tanks in the hands of well-trained crews could handily defeat larger numbers of Russian tanks. In addition, the M-1, with its use of high tech sensors, composite armor and depleted uranium shells, set a new standard for tank design and effectiveness. The high price of the M-1, nearly five million dollars each, eventually proved to be a worthy investment. With Russia dropping out of the arms race when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and no one else willing, or able, to afford a tank to match the M-1, the end of the line has been reached. Well, a few nations could match the M-1 (Israel, Britain and Germany), but none of these were willing to build many of them, or come up with a radical new design that would keep the tank relevant on the modern battlefield.

The United States ended up with 7,000 M-1s when the Cold War ended. Most of the huge Russian tank force was left parked all over the place, with no cash available to operate or maintain them. Russia was selling off its best tanks for less than a million dollars each, but no one thought of these as anything more than targets in a battle with M-1s. The world will still have plenty of tanks for the next few decades, until the last of the 50,000 Cold War surplus Russian tanks rusts into uselessness. Russia recently decided to speed up that process, and scrap the last of its Cold War tanks. Russias new tanks are T-90s, an extensive upgrade of the Cold War era T-72. The T-90, on paper, is a match for the M-1, but the T-90 has not been in combat, with anyone, yet.

But why should the tank disappear now? Simply because the main reason for the tank was to provide a weapon that could battle its way past artillery fire and determined infantry (armed with machine-guns, and anti-tank weapons). With modern electronics, cheaper precision rockets and bombs can deliver the firepower and flexibility that only tanks could provide in the past. These new weapons are easier to use and maintain than tanks, which have always been complex and difficult to keep going. Just like admirals did the math and decided that submarines and aircraft were cheaper and more effective than battleships, generals the world over will consider their options and go with what they feel will work best. There won't be much choice. With few new tanks being built, and cheaper, more effective, weapons available.

There will have to be some battles to make the point. China and India are still building tanks, using technology far behind, and a lot cheaper than, the M-1. But with smarter and cheaper anti-tank weapons available (missiles, "smart mines" and air delivered robot tank killers like SADARM), it will only take one incident of the "cheap and smart" stuff beating up on a lot of tanks to make the point. Another telling sign is the lack of enthusiasm in America and Russia for designing a replacement for current tanks, at least not a replacement that features the "bigger gun and thicker armor" that has characterized tank development for the past 90 years.

Then again, it may be premature to write off the tank. For a weapon that has been dismissed as obsolete for decades, it still survives. True, there are a lot fewer tanks in use now (less than 50,000) than there were at the end of the Cold War (over 100,000). And the new ones being built are not sufficient to replace those that wear out each year. Less affluent nations will still find tanks useful against their own citizens, or equally poor neighbors who also have some tanks. The U.S. and its allies found out that the M-1, and similar Western tanks, very useful against irregulars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The math, however, is unavoidable. Unless a new arms race begins, the number of tanks in service will slowly decline year by year. Meanwhile, the number of "smart weapons" grows rapidly. The tank won't completely disappear soon, but never again will it be the key weapon for ground warfare.

December 19, 2011 Staff Sgt. Patrick Harrower / 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs / AFNS – defpro.com

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. | The new KC-10 cargo load training facility was officially opened at a ribbon cutting ceremony Dec. 16.

The structure is the first of its kind in the U.S. Air Force, as a facility for cargo load training on the KC-10 Extender did not exist before today. The building will allow Airmen to train on cargo loading without an aircraft.

Before the facility was built, personnel only had two methods of training; they would go on actual cargo missions or use scheduled static load training operations.

Static load training operations occur several times each month and require aircraft to be powered by an external power cart for several hours. The operation also takes an aircraft off of the maintenance schedule. The result was an increase in fuel costs to run the power cart and longer turn times for aircraft availability.

The new facility will not only alleviate the rising fuels costs, but will make more Travis aircraft available for real-world missions, officials said. The aircraft will no longer be dedicated to training several times per month or local flights scheduled for load training.

"A major benefit of having a dedicated facility like this one is that not only can boom operators train on how to load cargo, but security forces, the fire department and aerial port can perform egress and cargo load training here, too," said Tech. Sgt. James Cain, the 60th Operations Support Squadron's NCO in charge of the KC-10 wing boom operator training.

In addition to egress training, several aspects of academic training can take place completely in house. There are two classrooms for instructional training, a bay area for hands-on training and an outdoor cargo dock for pallet loading training.

The ability to perform so many functions of their training in one facility will also free up boom operators to acquire and maintain proficiency in training that does not require aircraft, officials said. With their days not being taken up with static training and flying local training missions, boom operators can maximize available time to complete small arms, chemical defense and similar mobility readiness training, Cain said.

In addition to training benefits, many positive byproducts are expected to come along with the new facility, officials said. These other benefits include a lightened load for aircraft scheduling; fewer training flights, meaning aircraft personnel can be focused on real-world missions; boom operators more easily meeting certification deadlines; always having a training facility available, which will increase mission effectiveness; and a reduction in general wear and tear on aircraft.

Leopard C2 Canadian Forces - photo USAF

December 18, 2011. David Pugliese - Defence Watch

As I wrote on the weekend in the Citizen, the Defence Department is looking to get rid of or sell off equipment as it tries to save money and free up funds for the purchase of new gear.

In May, Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson, the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, pointed out that Dan Ross, the Assistant Deputy Minster of Materiel, had been told to come up with a list by Dec. 1 of equipment that could be disposed of.

That plan is considered to be “essential to maintaining affordability” as it would “forecast future divestments” for the army, navy and air force, Donaldson wrote in the DND/CF business plan for the next coming years.

In addition, a directive sent out by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk in October notes that such an initiative is being driven by the need to free up money for the billions of dollars of proposed new equipment purchases. “Non-core legacy equipment and systems must be divested in order to provide the resources required for these new acquisitions,” he writes.

It’s doubtful the savings will come from any sales of old equipment (there are large quantities of surplus military equipment on the market), but instead savings will come from DND/the CF no longer have to store and support such equipment.

Mind you, some procurement specialists such as Alan Williams, the former ADM Mat, say that the real savings come from getting rid/selling off real estate, not used up equipment.

The Army had wanted to look at getting rid of the older Leopards and the RG-31. Whether that has happened or not is not clear as Defence Watch hasn’t yet obtained a copy of Ross’s list. (As you know the TAPV project, with its 500 vehicles, would replace the RG-31 and Coyote reconnaissance vehicle.)

But any thoughts out there on what should be put on the chopping block or what should be on Ross’s list?