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Army Targets Battle Damage and Orders More Armor-Kitted M-ATVs
The Army recently ordered 177 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicles with additional underbody armor kits from Oshkosh Defense to address the number of vehicles that have been damaged in the Afghan theater, according to the MRAP program office/.../Dakota Wood, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the M-ATV's armor order trend indicated that forces in Afghanistan continued to encounter improvised explosive devices that were getting more and more deadly. "I'm not surprised to hear that M-ATV's are needing supplemental armor," he wrote. "Military officials have been talking about the expected uptick in violence as the 'Spring fighting season' develops. U.S. forces would seem to be experiencing an increased level of IED attacks, with these attacks matching or exceeding the original capabilities of the M-ATVs sent over in the first wave or two."
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Satellite Firms See Opportunity in Pentagon
Commercial satellite and space firms are hoping the Pentagon’s increasingly tight budgets will translate into more business as military officials seek faster and cheaper options.
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Foot Patrols Boost IED Detection
Troops on foot patrol in Afghanistan are finding an increasing number of makeshift bombs before they explode, helping to defuse the effectiveness of the Taliban's No. 1 weapon, military data show.
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U.S. Drones vs China
After a decade of steady expansion, the Chinese military has made significant strides toward limiting the United States’ ability to deploy its own armed forces in the western Pacific. A combination of new submarines, long-range anti-ship missiles and heavily-armed jet fighters underpins what the Pentagon calls Beijing's ‘anti-access, area-denial’ strategy, aimed at keeping the warships of the US Seventh Fleet, based in Japan, out of the South China Sea. ‘Reversing the erosion of the Navy’s strike advantage will require investments in a new generation of capabilities to increase the range, persistence and survivability of carrier aircraft,’ Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C. think tank, posited in a September report. ‘Without such investments, US aircraft carriers will be locked into a concept of operations that is dependent on relatively benign, permissive operating conditions.’
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2nd Fleet Shutdown Raises Red Flags
A 2010 Pentagon-driven savings initiative prompted the Navy to recommend shutting down 2nd Fleet, which oversees the training and certification of East Coast units, and merging it with ever-growing Fleet Forces Command.
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Pentagon Weapons Buyer Quietly Visits California to Discuss Bomber Planes
Deep in the Mojave Desert, surrounded by tiers of barbed-wire fence, the nation's largest defense contractors work in secrecy designing and building the latest military aircraft at Air Force Plant 42.