WASHINGTON: America’s Pacific partners are building up their amphibious forces, but they can’t storm a beach against a high-tech adversary like China. Even the most advanced allies — Australia, Japan, and South Korea — would need US support for a raid against a well-armed terrorist group, especially in command & control, logistics, and helicopters, reports the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.New Army mounted system won’t play favorites when it comes to C5ISR, EW and A-PNT
The CMOSS Mounted Form Factor will facilitate tech insertion for new capabilities while co-existing with the Mounted Family of Computer Systems.
OVER THE MALACCA STRAIT: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his host, Singaporean Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen, made a stark and clear statement to China before the Shangri-La summit began, boarding America’s preeminent sub-hunting and surveillance plane, the P-8 Poseidon. “How do you like this aircraft?” asked Carter as they boarded the P-8. “I love this…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
SINGAPORE: In his speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue here, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter laid out a cautious and carefully crafted vision for security in Asia. Carter called for an “inclusive (and) principled security network,” one that would try to include China and encourage it to abide by international law, rather than seeking to confront and…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
ABOARD SECDEF1: The US will remain steadfast in the face of Chinese complaints as it builds its Pacific coalition, Defense Secretary Ash Carter made clear to reporters en route to the Shangri-la summit in Singapore. Carter and his staff already are looking past the secretary’s speech here on Saturday to two potential flashpoints this summer: First,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Marine Corps chose BAE and SAIC from a field of five competitors to build competing prototypes for the long-awaited Amphibious Combat Vehicle. BAE, a dominant player in tracked armored vehicles, had teamed with Italian armsmaker Iveco to offer a variant of the Italians’ wheeled SuperAV. SAIC, best known as a consulting firm, offered a variant of the Singaporean Terrex.…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
UPDATED: Adds Pratt & Whitney Responses To Bogdan; Adds Lockheed Statement Correction (April 18 at 10:55 am) CRYSTAL CITY: Pratt & Whitney got a public drubbing from the sharp-tongued head of the F-35 fighter program, Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, when the Pentagon released a new cost estimate for the military’s biggest weapons program. “Pratt’s not meeting their…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. and Colin Clark
Modernizing our supply chain is a national security imperative
Closing supply chain gaps in innovating technology will reposition the industrial base to be a strategic source of value.
UPDATED with US Navy response WASHINGTON: Some spectacular glitches marred the first overseas deployment of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship, including an electrical failure that left the USS Freedom “briefly” dead in the water. Now Breaking Defense has obtained an unpublished Government Accountability Office study of Freedom‘s Singapore deployment that raises more serious questions about…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
UPDATED: Lockheed React To Bogdan On ALIS. NEWSEUM: The key maintenance software program for the F-35, called ALIS, is “way behind,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, head of the program, said today. How far behind? “We are way behind. We are way behind.” Bogdan told a conference hosted by Credit Suisse and organized by Jim McAleese…
By Colin Clark
PORTSMOUTH, VA: For decades, America’s Pacific strategy has focused on the northeast corner of that vast theater, with major forces and bases in Korea and Japan. But as economies boom and tensions rise in Southeast Asia, the Pentagon has played catch-up, deploying more forces to Australia, Singapore, and Guam. At a conference here last week, the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The American who leads the leading edge of our sword in the Pacific — the Air Force — worries that China‘s sometimes “aggressive approach” in using its fighters, bombers and ships to signal its territorial claims across the Pacific creates “the potential” for a serious incident in the region. But Air Force Gen. Herb…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: Talk about timing. As Congress gears up to grill Navy officials on the much-criticized Littoral Combat Ship program, the fleet’s first LCS suffered yet another power outage that “briefly” shut down its engines near Singapore, where the USS Freedom recently deployed for its first foreign tour. [Click here for the Navy’s detailed official explanations].…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Watch the F-35B, the Marines’ fighter of choice, execute a very cool maneuver in this video, taking off straight up into the sky. While very cool, this is not something the Joint Strike Fighter is actually expected to do very often. For one thing, it requires enormous amounts of fuel. Instead, the B model is…
By Colin Clark
CAPITOL HILL: Navy Secretary Ray Mabus talked up the controversial Littoral Combat Ship days before departing for Asia to visit the first LCS, USS Freedom, which recently arrived in Singapore (sporting a sniffy camo paint job). Freedom has been bedeviled by cost overruns, delays, and manufacturing defects, with a new problem, seawater contamination in lubricant…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
One does not build military aircraft to fly at air shows. It is fun to see the planes, to visit static displays and to talk with manufacturers and users. But the reality of what a plane can do is only seen in battle and advanced training, where operators, maintainers and leaders in real world combat…
By Robbin Laird