[P44]

Comandante demitido do porta-aviões Roosevelt recebe o aplauso da tripulação ao abandonar o navio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=ayaLwHW-244&feature=emb_logo

[Cabeça de Martelo]

"The Department of Defense has authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and the other two in January 2015, which have been circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017. The U.S. Navy previously acknowledged that these videos circulating in the public domain were indeed Navy videos. After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena. DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos. The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as "unidentified." The released videos can be found at the Naval Air Systems Command FOIA Reading Room:
https://www.navair.navy.mil/foia/documents

[NVF]

Fincantieri Wins $795M Contract for Navy Frigate Program

https://news.usni.org/2020/04/30/fincantieri-wins-795m-contract-for-navy-frigate-program

The Navy awarded a $795-million contract to Fincantieri to begin building a new class of guided-missile frigates, in the first new major shipbuilding program the service has started in more than a decade, the Navy announced today.

Fincantieri beat out what was originally four other competitors, who were asked by the Navy to take a mature parent design and evolve it to meet the Navy’s needs for potential high-end warfare. Fincantieri, which will build its frigate at its Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin, based its FFG(X) design on the FREMM multi-mission frigate already operated by the French and Italian navies.

The detail design and construction contract covers one ship in the current Fiscal Year 2020 and options for as many as nine more ships, for a total value of $5.58 billion if all options are exercised.

“The Navy’s Guided-Missile Frigate (FFG(X)) will be an important part of our future fleet,” Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday said in a Navy statement.
“FFG(X) is the evolution of the Navy’s Small Surface Combatant with increased lethality, survivability, and improved capability to support the National Defense Strategy across the full range of military operations. It will no doubt help us conduct distributed maritime operations more effectively, and improve our ability to fight both in contested blue-water and littoral environments.”

“I am very proud of the hard work from the requirements, acquisition, and shipbuilder teams that participated in the full and open competition, enabling the Navy to make this important decision today,” James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said in the statement.
“Throughout this process, the government team and our industry partners have all executed with a sense of urgency and discipline, delivering this contract award three months ahead of schedule. The team’s intense focus on cost, acquisition, and technical rigor, enabled the government to deliver the best value for our taxpayers as we deliver a highly capable next generation frigate to our warfighters.”

“When we began this journey nearly two years ago it was with the belief that there was a place for new ideas, new platforms and new partners in an already talented U.S. shipbuilding industry,” Fincantieri Marine Group CEO Dario Deste said in a statement. “Today’s announcement validates that thinking.”

The Navy has spoken about its frigate program as the model of how it would like to approach ship acquisition in the future. By bringing together a FFG Requirements Evaluation Team (RET) that included the acquisition community, resource sponsors, the budget community, fleet representatives, technologists in and out of government and both shipbuilders and others in industry, the Navy was able to figure out early on how it might balance capability with cost. The service has said this approach shaved six years off the program, compared to what it might have looked like under more traditional approaches.

Navy leadership in 2017 determined that a new frigate program was needed beyond what could be modified on the Littoral Combat Ship program, which had been the sole small combatant in future fleet plans. The frigate would be more lethal and survivable than an LCS, they said, and the service stood up the FFG RET. Based on the RET’s work, the service approved top-level requirements in October 2017 and kicked off a conceptual design phase that spanned 16 months and included five industry teams. With confidence that industry would be able to meet the requirements, the Navy then validated its capability development document in February 2019, and the request for proposals for the detail design and construction contract was released in June.

The Navy also sped up the process and reduced risk to the program by relying heavily on government-furnished equipment, ensuring the frigate would use existing systems already fielded on other surface combatants in the fleet. These systems include an Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR), Baseline 10 Aegis Combat System, Mk 41 Vertical Launch System, and other communications and defensive systems with hot production lines and proven performance in the fleet. This not only speeds up the frigate design and construction effort but also has benefits for the cost of procuring these as GFE, maintaining a common inventory of spare parts and training sailors to operate the same system across multiple ship classes.

“Many of the things that tend to trip up lead ships, we took proactive steps and lessons learned to retire the risk there. Every lead ship is hard, I’m not denying that, but I think we set ourselves up really well for success on this program,” Program Executive Officer for Unmanned and Small Combatants Rear Adm. Casey Moton told reporters in a Thursday evening press briefing on the contract award.

Geurts, the Navy acquisition chief, said during the media call that “all this was done with an intense focus on cost, acquisition and technical rigor so that we got the best value for our warfighter and the taxpayer.” He added that the ability to rapidly improve the production line to bring the cost per ship down was part of the selection criteria, and “I think you’re going to see an aggressive cost curve, particularly on the shipbuilder side.”

There will be some opportunity to lower costs on the GFE side, too, he said. On the radar, for instance, the frigate’s EASR will be based on the SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar that Raytheon designed for the Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyer configuration. Geurts said that both programs could benefit as Raytheon’s production line matures to support both radars.

“Our goal in the Navy again is to maximize commonality of these combat systems software and hardware across the fleet. That helps us not only from a cost perspective but helps us in training, maintenance, sustainability,” he said, adding that it will also mean timely updates to capability in the future as defense contractors upgrade the Aegis Combat System or the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP), for example.

Going forward, the detail design phase will begin immediately, and construction will begin no later than April 2022. The first ship of the class – still yet to be named, despite an effort by outgoing Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly to name the frigates the Agility class – will deliver by 2026 and reach initial operational capability by 2030. The lead ship will cost $1.281 billion, with $795 million of that covering the shipbuilder’s detail design and construction costs and the rest covering the GFE, including the combat systems, radar, launchers, command and control systems, decoys and more.

For the rest of the class, the total ship cost – contractor costs and GFE – has dropped. The Navy previously said it was aiming for an average cost of ships 2 through 20 of $800 million in constant year 2018 dollars, with a requirement to stay below $950 million in CY 2018 dollars. Now the service has the average follow-on cost pegged at $781 million in constant year dollars.

Geurts said the Navy has not committed to an acquisition strategy for frigates beyond these first 10. Shipbuilding and acquisition plans call for a class of 20, but the Navy is increasingly interested in a small combatant that will be more capable than today’s LCSs and can relieve destroyers of many of their missions around the globe, serve as convoy escorts, and provide more high-end presence in more places as part of the distributed maritime operations concept. Once the final of these first 10 frigates is awarded, likely in FY 2025, the Navy could award another 10 to Fincantieri, or it could choose to bring in a second yard to build the same ship and increase the frigate’s footprint in the fleet even faster. Under the contract, the Navy has rights to the technical data package for the ship and could compete the program down the road.

In selecting between the four remaining competitors – Fincantieri and its FREMM design; Austal USA, which builds the Independence-class LCSs; General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Navantia, who builds the F100-class frigates for the Spanish Navy; Huntington Ingalls Industries, who has not revealed details of its bid – the Navy was balancing cost with non-cost factors to get to a best value. Design and design maturity were weighted equal to performance and the ability of the ship to meet the Navy’s warfighting needs as outlined in the National Defense Strategy and other documents. Schedule, production approach and facilities were weighted lower, with data rights being the lowest-weighted non-cost factor. The Navy was not looking for a straight price shoot-out but instead wanted the companies to compete for the best capability for the best value. Lockheed Martin, who builds the Freedom-variant LCS at Fincantieri’s shipyard in Wisconsin, had been part of the group of five in the conceptual design phase but dropped out of the competition.

Fincantieri previously told USNI News that the company had spent about $180 million to upgrade its Wisconsin yard and planned to spend another $80 to $100 million if it won the competition so that it could reach a two-a-year production rate. If the Navy chose to build three or four a year, as some have suggested, a second yard would likely have to be brought into the program.

It is unclear what will happen at the other yards that did not win the competition. Bath Iron Works is wrapping up its work on the Zumwalt-class destroyer program but is one of two yards that build the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and has a healthy backlog of work on DDGs. Ingalls Shipbuilding has the other half of the DDG program, as well as amphibious ships. Austal USA, though, is nearing the end of its contracted work on the LCS program and its Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport (EPF) ships. The company has been trying to pitch the EPF to serve as an ambulance ship or other auxiliary, but the Navy is still early in deciding what it wants its common auxiliary hull, called CHAMP, to look like.

Bath Iron Works said in a statement that “BIW’s FFG(X) team — including Raytheon, Navantia and our supplier base — produced an exceptional concept design and put forward the best bid possible. We look forward to the Navy’s debrief to us. We will continue to focus our energy on meeting the needs of the U.S. Navy by delivering Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002) and the 11 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers we currently have under contract. The DDG-51 is a proven design that has shown its ability to evolve and deliver increased capabilities to the fleet. We look forward to seeing our workforce prove that they can deliver these ships on schedule and oversee the maintenance and modernization of destroyers currently deployed in the fleet.”

What is clear, though, is the role the frigate will play in the surface navy. Vice Adm. Jim Kilby, the deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities (OPNAV N9), said during the media call that the FREMM-based frigate design had significant margin to grow as the threat picture evolves in the coming years and the Navy matures new technologies to deal with those threats.

The frigate must be able to accommodate one manned helicopter and one unmanned air vehicle, he said, but the margin built into the design will allow the frigate to operate the full range of manned and unmanned vertical lift aviation, to support the wide range of missions the frigate will be expected to conduct. He also noted that the ship currently has vertical launch missile tubes as part of its defense package, but the ship has the space and power to take on laser weapons in the future to provide point defense, freeing up those VLS tubes for offensive weaponry instead.

“This frigate, though it’s classified as a small surface combatant, really falls nicely in between our small surface combatants and our large surface combatants, and I see it doing multiple things,” Kilby said.
“This is going to be a real workhorse for the United States Navy supporting distributed maritime operations in the future. So we are super excited about this ship, and I can’t think of a better asset to a strike group or strike group commander to give them the flexibility to do what we need to do in the future.”

Fincantieri FFG(X) Design based on the FREMM. Fincantieri Image

[Vitor Santos]

Por tempo achava que a F100 iria ganhar essa concorrência. Mas, ao analisar a proposta da Fincantieri ( FREMM ) à US Navy, nada deixa a dever aos demais participantes desse certame.

Será uma bela vitrine para a indústria naval italiana. A Fincantieri se consolida de vez no seleto grupo formado por estaleiros da Espanha, Países Baixos, Alemanha e Reino Unido (a meu ver, juntamente com os franceses, a vanguarda europeia de construtores navais). 

[P44]

USN-RN Barents Sea naval group challenged by Russian live-fire exercises

Bruce Jones, London - Jane's Navy International
07 May 2020


The Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced it will be conducting live-fire exercises in the Arctic Barents Sea just as a US-UK naval group has re-entered the area to train there for the first time in 30 years. The group is being shadowed by the Russian Navy.

The Royal Navy (RN) announced on 4 May that it had started cold-weather training with the US Navy (USN) in the Barents Sea, which borders Murmansk and Russia's nuclear submarine bases on the Kola Peninsula. The USN also gave advance notification of the visit to Russia's MoD. The key training objectives of the exercise involve anti-submarine warfare (ASW), replenishment at sea (RAS) between US and UK vessels, and geolocation, in addition to familiarisation with the harsh conditions within the Arctic Circle.


https://www.janes.com/article/96026/usn-rn-barents-sea-naval-group-challenged-by-russian-live-fire-exercises

....


Engraçado que até parece pelo título que os Russos é que estão a fazer exercicios ao largo da Califórnia...e assim se manipula a informação   

[goldfinger]

Increible....a los 2 días de ganar el contrato....

EEUU calcula ahora que sus fragatas FFG(X) pueden costarle un 56% más

Los 795 millones por los que la filial de Fincantieri en Estados Unidos Marinette Marine diseñará y construirá la primera fragata del programa FFG(X) se antojaron para muchos como un precio demasiado bajo para un proyecto de este tipo, cuando se dio a conocer el ganador el primer día de este mes. Un informe del Servicio de Investigación del Congreso de Estados Unidos (CRS, por sus siglas en inglés), con fecha de última actualización del 4 de mayo, ha revelado el alto riesgo que existe de que el programa acabe incrementando hasta un 56% su coste previsto. El trabajo no apunta explícitamente al diseño italiano, al que sí recoge como ganador del programa, sino que se refiere a un peligro que acecha de origen a este plan, y que justifica con el comportamiento en los gastos asociados a proyectos de buques similares.

De partida, el precio de la primera nave rozará los 1.300 millones de dólares, una vez que se hayan incorporado al buque distintos equipos que el gobierno norteamericano instalará en él, como la variante del radar AN/SPY-6 que ya se emplean en los destructores de la clase Arleigh Burke. A partir de esta primera unidad, el resto de barcos, como ha venido informando Infodefensa.com, conllevarán un coste aproximado de 800 millones por cada uno (el contrato contempla la opción de otras nueve fragatas, y se espera que el programa al completa ascienda a 20).

De acuerdo con el citado informe, la Marina de Guerra de Estados Unidos (US Navy) estima un gasto de 940 millones por cada una de las 20 naves previstas en total. Sin embargo, el estudio corrige hasta los 1.470 millones la cifra real que prevé que se puede acabar pagando, lo que supone un incremento del 56%. “Buques del mismo tipo general y complejidad que se construyen bajo condiciones de producción similares tienden a tener costos similares por peso y, en consecuencia, costos unitarios de adquisición que son más o más menos proporcional a sus desplazamientos”.

El CRS compara el diseño de la nueva fragata, basado en los buques franco-italianos Fremm, de 7.400 toneladas de desplazamiento, con el de los destructores Arleigh Burke, de 9.700 toneladas y con un coste que ronda los 1.900 millones de dólares.

Cuestión de tamaño
 

Curiosamente, como apunta la agencia de noticias financieras Bloomberg, el menor tamaño de los buques de combate litoral (LCS, por sus siglas en inglés) que encargó la US Navy hace unos años truncó el programa, porque no podían ir lo suficiente armados y resultaban vulnerables; mientras que en el caso de las FFG(X) vuelve a ser en parte el tamaño el que pueda llevar a un significativo aumento de sus costes, en este caso porque son más grandes.

El objetivo del programa FFG(X) es dotar a la fuerza naval norteamericana de un nuevo modelo de fragata con capacidad para operar ante cualquier escenario en apoyo a las unidades de ataque y en operaciones asociadas de la flota.

Ese primer barco, que es sobre el que hace unos días se reveló el nombre del diseño ganador, debería estar concluido y entregado en julio de 2026. Si no se producen contratiempos, en abril de 2021 se encargará una segunda unidad, que deberá entregarse cinco años y medio después.Destructores de la clase Arleigh Burke. Foto: US Navy

Además de Fincantiri, otros tres candidaturas mantenían opciones para construir el nuevo buque: Austal USA, que optaba con desarrollo derivado del LCS de la clase Independence; Bath Iron Works, propiedad de General Dynamics, que competía con el diseño del buque español F-100, desarrollado por Navantia, y Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), que había presentado un diseño a partir de los guardacostas de la clase Legend. Otro quinto candidato, Lockheed Martin también había mantenido sus opciones al FFG(X) hasta hace poco más de un año, cuando decidió retirarse del concurso aduciendo dificultades para adaptar a tiempo el diseño de sus buques LCS de la clase Freedom a los requisitos del programa. En todo caso, Lockheed Martin, que es la mayor compañía de defensa del mundo, mantuvo su apuesta por dotar al ganador de sistemas de gestión de combate y otros equipos adicionales, como los lanzadores verticales Mk-41.

 

[goldfinger]

La US Navy estudia incorporar el nuevo “display” de la tecnológica española Tecnobit en sus F-18

La US Navy estudia incorporar los “displays” de cabina de la tecnológica española Tecnobit-Grupo Oesía a sus F-18 operativos en los portaaviones. Entre sus planes se encuentra la posibilidad de abordar la renovación de entre 150 y 300 cabinas de los aviones F-18, similares a los que se han renovado en la flota española gracias a la colaboración del Ejército del Aire español. Uno de los proveedores de Tecnobit-Grupo Oesía es estadounidense, un hecho que podría facilitar la operación.

Invitada por el Ejército del Aire una delegación de “marines” estadounidense visitó España a principios del mes de marzo, manteniendo reuniones y visitando las bases del Ejército del Aire en Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid) y Albacete.

Además, visitaron la fábrica que Tecnobit-Grupo Oesía tiene en la localidad de Valdepeñas (Ciudad Real) para conocer, de primera mano, las instalaciones en las que se desarrollan los nuevos “displays” de los cazas F-18 del Ejército del Aire español, según fuentes conocedoras de la visita.

 


El jefe de Estado Mayor del Ejército del Aire, el general Javier Salto, recibe el primer display para una cabina del F.18 español de manos de Luis Furnells, presidente de Tecnobit-Grupo Oesía, el 26 de noviembre de 2018
 

Fuentes de Tecnobit-Grupo Oesía confirman que “en efecto hace dos meses tuvimos el honor de recibir la visita conjunta del Ejercito del Aire de España y de la US Navy, y pudimos mostrarles nuestras capacidades y el trabajo realizado para los displays de nuestro ejército. Si surgiera la oportunidad futura, sería un orgullo poder aspirar a colaborar también con los marines”.

Otro factor a favor de la empresa española es su condición de proveedor para el gigante estadounidense Lockheed Martin en la construcción de helicópteros.

El Ejército del Aire, a través de un contrato internacional de la OTAN, eligió a esta empresa para renovar renovar sus cabinas: en total, el contrato por 15 millones de euros estipula la producción de 182 “displays”, que terminarán de instalarse este año en los F-18 del Ejército del Aire tras una primera entrega en 2018.

ABC

[HSMW]

[Lusitano89]

[P44]

Zumwalt

[mafets]

Fonte: Eyes of the fleet

Saudações

[mafets]

CVN 79 ..JFK in DryDock ..a day before the water came in ...

Fonte: Eyes of the Fleet

Cumprimentos

[P44]

[NVF]

Não tem a complexidade de um UAVision ou um TEKEVER, mas parece ser uma boa compra no mercado de usados.

Navy buys two used MQ-9A Reaper drones

https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2020/06/24/navy-buys-two-used-mq-9a-reapers/

The Navy has purchased its first two MQ-9A Reaper drones, awarding General Atomics Aeronautical Systems nearly $27 million on June 22 for the unmanned air systems and associated ground control equipment.

The MQ-9A Reaper is a multimission, medium-altitude, long-endurance aircraft that is remotely piloted. According to the June 22 contract announcement, the Reapers will be used for intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance missions as well as persistent strike efforts.

The contract procures two MQ-9A Reapers, one dual-control mobile ground control station, one modular data center and one mobile ground control station.

This is the first time the Navy has purchased Reapers, but it’s already been using the unmanned aircraft overseas.

According to fiscal 2020 fiscal 2021 budget documents, the two MQ-9A aircraft the Navy is purchasing have been used by the Marine Corps in a contractor-operated, contractor-owned arrangement since September 2018 to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to Task Force Southwest in Afghanistan. Because they are used, the Reapers will cost less than brand-new systems. The FY21 budget request estimates the cost of each system as being just under $12 million.

Work is expected to be completed by December 2020.

The U.S. Navy has purchased two MQ-9A Reaper systems it's been using in Afghanistan since 2018. (U.S. Air Force)

[P44]