Here are the programs that made the biggest news over the past week:
Navy defends LCS in war game — Even though the decision to slash LCS buys has already been made, the Navy is still defending against criticism that the ship is not suited for deep-water operations. The Navy’s top surface warfare admiral said last week that the LCS showed in a recent war game that it was better able to operate in blue-water seas as part of a carrier battle group than previously anticipated,
we reported. The admiral said guided-missile destroyers were perfectly capable of providing air theater defense for the LCS as it does the work it is best at, such as anti-submarine warfare.
Pentagon: F/A-18 shutdown won’t hurt suppliers — The Defense Department seems to be trying its best to convince a skeptical Congress that a shutdown of the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G lines in 2016 wouldn’t be so bad after all. Reuters reported a senior defense official as saying that key suppliers wouldn’t be driven out of business by the shutdown — likely to be used as ammo in the coming debate with Congress over whether to keep production going. Meanwhile, the Navy put 22 EA-18Gs in its unfunded priority list submitted to Congress earlier this year, showing some tension between the sea service and Pentagon leadership.
Japan eyes F-35 maintenance hub — The F-35 program may expand its international footprint if Japan’s Defense Ministry has its say. The Ministry proposed last week that Japan host an F-35 maintenance hub somewhere in the Asia-Pacific region as part of a strategy to bolster its own defense industry, according to the Japan Times. Currently, the Komaki Minami Plant in Aichi Prefecture is seen as a prime candidate for the maintenance hub.
First PAC-3 production contract — The Army awarded Lockheed Martin a $610 million contract modification recently for the MIM-104 Patriot missile, marking the first production contract for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile segment enhancement, we reported last week. The modification includes 92 one-pack MSE missiles for the United States, as well as 50 launcher modification kits and equipment for Kuwait. This is a significant milestone for the program, which has been working for a while on an advance in the capabilities of the Patriot missile.