The Department of Defense (DOD) should kill a number of high-profile and controversial weapons programs since they are obsolete or fiscally unwise, according to a new report by a Democratic-oriented think tank.

Saying the military priorities of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration policymakers are wrong, the Center for American Progress (CAP) issued its own version of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) ahead of the public release of the official QDR set for Feb. 6.

Mandated by Congress, the QDR is an every-four-years, top-to-bottom assessment of U.S. military needs and capabilities aimed at driving defense strategy for decades.

Presenters at the roll-out of the alternative QDR said they were offering the document—its creation led by CAP senior fellow and former Reagan-era Pentagon official Lawrence Korb— to start a debate over the QDR and the future of the military.

"In the four and a half years since the last QDR, we've seen U.S. ground forces stretched beyond capacity, development of weapon systems that don't match today's threats and an outdated nuclear force doctrine," said John Podesta, CAP president and former White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration.

The CAP QDR would increase the size of the Army by at least 86,000 active-duty troops, invest "substantial resources" to recapitalize and modernize U.S. forces and support a variety of ongoing procurement and acquisition programs.

But it would kill several others, including the F/A-22 Raptor fighter jets, the Virginia Class submarine, DD(X) next-generation destroyer, V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and C-130J transport plane.

"The Raptor is arguably the most unnecessary weapon system currently being built by the Pentagon," the CAP QDR said. Originally designed to counter Soviet fighters that never were built, the cost of the Raptor program has grown as the number of aircraft to be procured has fallen, the CAP document noted.

"Just a year ago, the Air Force said it could purchase 279 Raptors for $72 billion, or about $258 million per aircraft," it said. "At the current time, the Pentagon says it can buy 181 planes for $61 billion. Assuming no further cost growth, this will mean spending about $337 million for each unnecessary plane, almost an $80 million increase in the unit cost in just one year."

The performance of current-generation fighters in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan indicate the Air Force can maintain air superiority quickly and easily, the CAP QDR said.

Canceling Raptor now would save $15.3 billion and leave the Air Force with about 100 Raptors, enough to counter a future near-peer competitor like China if need be, the CAP document said.

Likewise, Virginia Class subs were built to combat next-generation Soviet subs that never were built, CAP said.

In building Virginia Class boats, the Navy plans to send the current Los Angeles Class subs to an early retirement, the document said. "However, not only is the Virginia class submarine cost-ineffective, but it fails to provide significant new capabilities beyond those of the Los Angeles class," it said.

The DD(X) next-generation destroyer is sized more for open-ocean combat against another naval power rather than providing fire support to coastal areas, the CAP QDR said. Also, program costs have ballooned, it added. However, the DD(X) would be able to project fire power far inland. Eventually, electric rail guns might hurl shells hundreds of miles inland, with precision.

The planned Littoral Combat Ship, at about $200 million per vessel, is better suited to operations ashore, the document said.

The V-22 Osprey has resulted in cost growth and accidents that caused multiple fatalities, the CAP QDR noted. "Under current plans, the Pentagon intends to buy 458 Ospreys at a cost of more than $110 million per aircraft. This assumes that the Pentagon can get costs under control and solve the technical problems," the document said.

"Even if this unlikely scenario comes to pass, the Osprey will only be marginally more capable than existing helicopters in terms of speed range and payload, yet cost at least five times as much."

Defenders of the Osprey say it can fly twice as fast as a conventional helicopter, with a far longer range and heavier payload, and perform better at high altitudes.

DOD has spent $2.6 billion to buy 50 C- 130J aircraft but none have met commercial contract specifications, the CAP QDR said. The transport has 168 specific problems that could cause injury or death to those aboard, and cannot perform missions in combat zones, the document said. It can only be used for training, it said.

"Moreover, the older C-130 Hercules model aircraft enjoy an excellent reputation as an aircraft capable of performing missions similar to those assigned to the C-130J."

By contrast, the CAP QDR praises a variety of other weapons platforms, including unmanned aerial vehicles, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and the B-2 bomber. Its authors would expand the B-2 fleet by 15 aircraft so as to enhance U.S. long-range precision strike.

(From the Center for American Progress website, www.americanprogress.org.) “The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all. We work to find progressive and pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems and develop policy proposals that foster a government that is ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ Every day we challenge conservative thinking that undermines the bedrock American values of liberty, community and shared responsibility.”

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Lieberman presses for higher Sub production

Senator Hopes To Enlist Virginia Delegation In Fight For More Boats

By Anthony Cronin, New London Day, 24 Jan 06

Groton -- U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman said Monday that he is calling on the influential Virginia congressional delegation to join his Connecticut colleagues in pushing for funding for two Virginia-class submarines a year, saying the current rate of just one a year is a threat to national security and the nation's submarine industrial base.

Lieberman, who met with Electric Boat officials and union leaders, said he also has met with the nation's new Navy secretary, Donald C. Winter, about ramping up submarine production and that he was impressed with Winter's open mind on issues affecting the nation's two submarine builders, Groton-based Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard in Virginia.

“I hope we can make him an advocate (of additional sub construction),” Lieberman said at the shipyard.

Lieberman is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which Virginia Sen. John W. Warner Jr. is the chairman. Lieberman said the state's congressional delegation is working to form an alliance with Warner, EB and union shipyard officials, as well as Newport News officials, to push for more Virginia-class production.

“We're sailing together,” he said of efforts to enlist Warner and Virginia's congressional delegation in the fight for more submarines.

EB and Newport News currently produce the equivalent of one Virginia-class submarine a year. The Navy is calling for financing two Virginia-class attack submarines in the fiscal 2012 budget, but Lieberman and the rest of the state's delegation are calling for seed money for the ramping up of production in fiscal year 2007, with full funding for two subs a year in fiscal 2009.

The new submarines carry a price tag of about $2.4 billion each and offer next-generation technology for warfare, tactical, covert and special operations uses.

“This is not just critical for Electric Boat, it's critical to national security,” Lieberman said.

Lieberman also called on the Navy to have the Groton shipyard perform routine maintenance on the submarines homeported there. Currently, such work is done by shipyard workers from the Navy-owned Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, who travel to the Groton docks to do the work, a practice that Lieberman said doesn't make sense.

Lieberman also took issue with the Navy's decision to award future submarine-related repair and maintenance work to its four government-owned shipyards, including the Portsmouth yard and its yard in Norfolk, Va.

Navy officials have said that after the current bids it receives from EB for extensive repair jobs on both the USS Toledo and the USS Miami, it will award the diminishing number of future repair-related jobs to its public yards, rather than private yards such as EB, which is owned by the Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics.

Such developments have prompted EB to announce it will trim its overall work force of about 11,500 workers by between 1,900 and 2,400 workers this year through attrition, retirements and layoffs.

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Our view: Lieberman right to call for more sub production

Norwich Bulletin, 25 Jan 06

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., has a suggestion that would help national defense and the economies of at least three states: The Navy should call for two Virginia-class submarines to be built each year.

Lieberman visited submarine-builder Electric Boat in Groton Monday. There, he met with EB officials and union leaders. He already has met with new Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter, who Lieberman described as having an open mind on increased submarine production.

Building two Virginia-class subs per year would double the workload for EB and the Newport News, Va., shipyard. Each of those companies now combine forces to turn out one sub per year at a cost of $2.4 billion. EB has a facility in North Kingstown, R.I., that shares work with its Groton shipyard.

Lieberman is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee of which Sen. John Warner of Virginia is chairman.

Lieberman said the state's congressional delegation is working to gather the support of EB and union officials, Warner and the Virginia congressional delegation, and Newport News shipbuilding officials to call for increased sub production.

The Navy wants two Virginia-class subs in the fiscal 2012 budget, but Lieberman wants to step up production immediately, in fiscal 2007, with full funding in place by 2009.

No one can say for certain the optimum number of submarines required for national defense. But it is reasonable to say that more are needed.

Lieberman is doing exactly that, as he assembles the right people to carry that message to the Pentagon.

We applaud his effort and wish him success.

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Layoffs At EB Heading Into The First Round

169 MDA members will be first to get notices at Groton shipyard

By Anthony Cronin, New London Day, 25 Jan 06

Groton -- Electric Boat will deliver layoff notices to 169 members of the Marine Draftsmen's Association next week as part of the first round of work-force reductions that could affect as many as 2,400 shipyard employees this year.

EB has notified its work force of some 11,500 people that because of continued declines in submarine maintenance and repair work, along with a dearth of sub-related design work, it will reduce its ranks through attrition, retirements and layoffs by between 1,900 and 2,400 workers.

John Worobey Jr., president of the MDA union, said the company notified him this week that the layoff notices to specific union workers will be distributed Monday. The effective date of the layoffs will be March 31. The MDA, which is Local 571 of the United Auto Workers union, employs a variety of union workers in administrative, technical and design-related work.

Worobey said his union, along with the Metal Trades Council, which represents mostly construction-related union workers at the shipyard, is working with local, regional and state officials to get career training services to those workers affected by the upcoming layoffs.

Robert H. Nardone, EB's vice president of human resources and administration, said the shipyard gave Worobey notice of the layoffs Monday, a week before the shipyard will notify his membership. Worobey said the early notification was part of a contractual agreement between his union and the shipyard.

“The company will comment further on the situation after the workers have received the notices,” Nardone said.

Worobey said the layoffs will affect employees doing mechanical, structural, electrical and design work, as well as technical aides, system-designer testers and system-support technicians at the shipyard. EB employs about 8,500 people at its Groton shipyard and an additional 2,000 at its shipyard in Quonset Point, R.I. The MDA represents about 1,700 union workers at EB.

“You can be assured that the officers (of the MDA) will continue with their efforts of lobbying for new work through continuous contact with the congressional delegation in Washington, D.C.,” Worobey told his workers in a memo circulated in the shipyard Tuesday.

Both the Connecticut and Rhode Island congressional delegations have been pushing for support for the construction of two Virginia-class submarines a year. Currently, EB teams with the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard in Virginia to produce the equivalent of a submarine a year.

The Navy's schedule calls for that production to increase to two of the advanced attack submarines in fiscal 2012, but the delegations are pushing for advanced procurement money, or seed money, for the ramping up of production in fiscal year 2007, with two subs produced annually by fiscal year 2009.

Worobey said his union workers have been anxious about the looming layoffs, recognizing that some are inevitable given the lack of construction and design work occurring at the shipyard's main facilities in Groton and Quonset Point.

But he said this nation's submarine industrial base will be crippled if it allows skilled submarine designers to continue losing their jobs, since it is a skill that takes years to fully develop and cannot be easily replaced in the event the nation were to suddenly boost submarine production.

“There's nobody for us to turn to if we run into this problem in the future,” Worobey said, adding that England's submarine design force was allowed to atrophy after the end of the Cold War, leading to problems when that country began to rebuild its submarine fleet.

Worobey said he has testimony sitting on his desk from the late Adm. Hyman Rickover, considered the father of the nuclear Navy, who warned Congress in 1968 about the decline of submarine designers at that time and the profound impact on the nation's industrial base.

U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, said the layoffs of the MDA workers were the result of this nation's “short-sighted shipbuilding and maintenance policies.”

Simmons said he is working with the Navy's new secretary, Donald C. Winter, “on reversing these losses and making those old policies a thing of the past.” Simmons has been pushing hard for the Navy to allow EB to broaden its base of business by bidding on the troubled mini-submarine program for the Navy's SEAL commandos as well as the building of eight diesel submarines for Taiwan. Simmons, along with U.S. Sens. Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman, both Connecticut Democrats, also is pushing the Navy to direct future submarine maintenance and repairs to EB, work the Navy wants to transfer to its government-owned yards.

Lieberman said he was disappointed that EB was forced to make the first round of job cuts.

“I will do whatever I can to help these workers land on their feet,” he said, “and to try and prevent EB from losing any more jobs.”

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Groton shipyard to lay off 169 workers

By Ray Hackett, Norwich Bulletin, 25 Jan 06

GROTON -- One hundred sixty-nine Electric Boat workers will receive layoff notices Monday.

Marine Draftsmen's Association President John Worobey confirmed Tuesday the union has been notified of the layoffs. Worobey said he told the 1,700 members of the union the notices would be coming and the job classifications affected. But he did not identify anyone on the list. The union will spend the rest of the week checking seniority to ensure the list is correct.

"They don't let me go and tell them when they're getting raises," he said. "So I'm not going to be the one to tell someone they're about to lose their jobs. That's the company's job."

The layoffs have been determined by job classification, based on the company's projected workload for the coming year. Within those classifications, seniority will determine who is laid off.

It was not clear Tuesday whether the 169 notices going out Monday are all the layoffs planned for the first quarter of 2006. EB President John Casey said last month as many as 1,900 to 2,400 workers could be laid off this year.

"It's not going to be pretty, I'm afraid," John LeVangie of Norwich, a 38-year EB employee, said of the layoffs. "People are not happy about any of it."

LeVangie said the Monday's layoffs will not directly affect him because he is in a different union, but he said it's still a blow to the whole work force.

Joseph Lushefski of Nanticoke, Pa., who was laid off from EB in 1992, said if the workers are like he was, they are holding on to hope still.

"You don't know when it's going to happen, you just hope they get a contract or something changes," Lushefski said. "You're kind of in denial."

Lushefski, who had worked at EB for 10 years as a welder and mechanic, said when he got the word, he was devastated.

"There's a lot going on in your head. It's like, no this can't be true," Lushefski said. "For me it was a lot of uncertainty. That's your job. That's your livelihood."

The initial wave of layoffs is slightly larger than Casey indicated at the Dec. 8 meeting when he identified 140 MDA employees and 10 salaried employees who would be laid off this quarter. EB spokesman Robert Hamilton said Tuesday Casey indicated those 150 were "known," but the final number was still being determined at that point.

Monday, however, Casey said future layoffs projected for this year could change if the company is successful in obtaining two new Navy contracts for repairs and maintenance work on the USS Miami and USS Toledo.

"It might be appropriate to update that situation in a couple of weeks," he said Monday.

Of Monday's layoff notices, EB officials would only says notice has been given to the union as required by contract.

"The company will comment further on the situation after the workers have received the notices," said Robert H. Nardone, vice president of human resources and administration.

Designers and draftsmen were targeted for the initial round of layoffs because, for the first time in 50 years, EB has no contract to design a new generation of submarines. In his December briefing to legislators, Casey cited the Navy's decision no longer to use EB for maintenance work and a new construction schedule of one submarine a year as reasons for the layoffs. Projected layoffs for the remainder of the year will be company wide.

Worobey and Metal Trades Council President Ken De La Cruz are scheduled to meet with company officials this morning for an update. In the afternoon, both men will meet with representatives from the Bozrah-based Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board to set up the transition programs.

"The first priority is to retain the skills," investment board Executive Director John Beauregard said.

Within days of the Dec. 8 announcement, Beauregard contacted chambers of commerce and the Southeastern Connecticut Enterprise Region, who made their members and other businesses aware of potential employees with specific skills.

"The next step is to coordinate with EB officials, their human resources people and set up the programs and the training to assist these workers in getting new jobs," he said.

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DARPA seeks supercavitation submarine

United Press International, 24 Jan 06

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking for a really fast, really small submarine.

It's also seeking a major breakthrough in physics: making supercavitation actually work on a large scale.

Supercavitation refers to a process of displacing water around a submerged vessel so that it travels in a gaseous or vaporous cavity. Theoretically, that can be done either by propelling a blunt-nosed vessel at a very high speed -- its nose forces the water out of the way -- or by injecting gas into a partially developed cavity, according to DARPA.

The U.S. Navy has experimented with the technology, as have the Russians, but no one has mastered maneuverability and control for larger vessels at such high speeds.

The Russians have a supercavitation rocket-propelled torpedo called Shkval which can travel at 230 miles per hour. It attains that speed by producing a thin envelope of bubbles all over its skin. Because the metal is not in contact with the water, drag is significantly reduced and the high speed is possible.

"The ability to generate and maintain the large cavity needed for this scale vehicle has never been demonstrated, nor has a control system for maneuvering the vehicle," DARPA states.

DARPA envisions an eight-foot diameter craft that would carry a small unit -- presumably Navy SEALS -- or high-value cargo quickly through coastal waters.

The military is also interested in the possibility of supercavitation for bunker-busting missiles.

February 1 is the deadline for responses to a solicitation for the Underwater Express Program.

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Indonesia mulls submarine purchase

Forbes, 25 Jan 06

JAKARTA (AFX) - Indonesia is considering buying submarines from Russia, South Korea and China under a plan to acquire 12 of them before 2024, the navy said.

'We have received offers from several countries, including Russia. If we can buy them at cheaper prices, why not? We don't want to depend on one country,' said navy spokesman First Admiral Malik Yusuf.

South Korea and China have also made similar offers, he said.

Yusuf said Indonesia's capability to defend its waters remain weak due to a lack of submarines, frigates and corvettes. The navy currently operates two German-made submarines.

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New SA submarine malfunctions during training

Business Day, 25 January 2006

A SOUTH AFRICAN National Defence Force submarine experienced a malfunction during training in Norwegian waters yesterday, the SANDF said.

Submarine S101 was conducting sea training in Norwegian waters with a German Navy team onboard in preparation for return to SA when a technical malfunction occurred, Rear Admiral Rusty Higgs said today.

Nobody was injured and the S101 - known by its serial number until it is named - was travelling to Kiel in Germany for further information to be gathered.

"At this stage we do not have the picture yet... it’s a little bit too early," Higgs told Sapa.

"We were told that there was a technical malfunction and in the spirit of the people’s navy we are keeping people in the picture," he said.

It is not know whether the boat’s mid-February voyage to SA will still take place.

The submarine - one of three type 209 submarines commissioned from Germany - was symbolically handed over to Defence Minister Mosioua Lekota in November and had been in training in the deep Norwegian waters.

The three boats replace the obsolete Daphne class submarines, the last of which was taken out of service in November 2003.

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