It's That Time of Year

Thats right, its time to endlessly haggle over money for welfare, earmarks, Defense and those other things, all that equals = FY 2012 Federal Budget! I could go on and on about all the money being wasted on projects like, testing the effects of cocaine on monkeys, or expanding an airport in the middle on nowhere in Pennsylvania (incidentally the airport is in the deceased John "King of Earmarks" Murtha's district). But, alas this blog talks about defense not politics. So, where was I? Oh, yes the FY 2012 defense budget, well the DoD (short for the Department of Defense) is asking for roughly $553 billion dollars ($553,000,000,0000) for fiscal year 2012. Here is some of the procurement budget that the DoD is asking for:

The F-35 program gets roughly 9.5 billion dollars for 32 F-35's, variant makeup for the purchase is as follows, 19 F-35A's (the Air Force variant), 6 F-35B's (the Marine Corps variant, which has more problems than parts and needs to be canceled) and 7 F-35C's (the Navy variant).

The Air Forces new bomber program gets 2 billion dollars for, obviously the bomber and the sustainment of the Minuteman III ICBMs and modernizing the Navy's Trident D5 SLBMs (which both desperately need to be replaced). 

The Air Force is also requesting 2 billion dollars for modernizing F-15 radar systems.

The Air Force is requesting 1.1 billion dollars for 48 MQ-9 Reaper drones and 36 MQ-1C Grey Eagle drones. 

The Air Force wants 307 million dollars for a new high speed trainer.

The Air Force is also requesting 1.3 billion dollars for satellites and heavy lift vehicles

The Navy gets 1.1 billion dollars for research on its new SSBN(X) class of submarines.

The Navy also asking for money for extending production of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet through 2014 with an injection of 2 and a half billion dollars to buy 28 more Super Hornets, and the Navy also is asking for more money to buy F/A-18G Growlers.

The Navy also is requesting money as follows:

5 billion dollars for 2 Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines, 2.1 billion dollars for DDG-51 AEGIS destroyers, 1.5 billion dollars for AEGIS ballistic missile defense, 2.3 billion dollars for Littoral Combat Ship purchases, 1.9 billion dollars for a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, 2 billion dollars for America-class amphibious assault ships, 426 million dollars for the Mobile Landing Platform.

The Army is requesting 800 million dollars for the development of a new family of armored vehicles, and 200 million is going to developing the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.

Other budgets highlights are 877.1 million dollars for the KC-X program, purchases of 10 HC/MC-130Js, 1 C-130J, 9 C-27s, 6 CV-22s (one is coming from the war budget), 9 Light Attack Armed Reconnaissance aircraft, 4 HH-60G Pave Hawks (one is coming from the war budget), 2 Common Vertical Lift Support Program, 63.1 million dollars for purchasing C-5 Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program (RERP) kits, refueling and overhaul of the USS Abraham Lincoln CVN-72, and finally the budget allows for the advance procurement of CVN-72 of the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers.

Remember, this is most of the procurement budget which does not includes the war budget, health care costs and everything else, this is just part of the procurement budget. 

  

With Love, from Islamabad

Well maybe not that much, but apparently on February 10th, Pakistan test launched a nuclear capable cruise missile, the equivalent of an early model BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. Pakistan claims that the missile designated the HATF-7 Babur, has a range of around 600km (373mi), enough to reach a good deal of India. At the same time Defense News reports that Pakistan is stepping up production of nuclear materials and increasing its nuclear arsenal, and building at least two new nuclear reactors. What ever Pakistan is doing with its nukes, India will most likely assume the worst, and go on a military buying spree, increasing the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft purchase, maybe buy the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye for a new Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft, improve India's missile defense systems, just naming a few.  

Chengdu J-20: Carrier Killer?

Yesterday The DEW Line had an interesting article from a Russian magazine speculating that perhaps instead of a fighter the J-20 might perhaps be a "Carrier Killer". This theory would fit with how the J-20 is designed, because the J-20 is optimized for long range, subsonic speeds to Mach 1.6 and has a large amount of room inside for anti-ship cruise missiles.
 Another reason this might fit is the fact the Chengdu's rival Shenyang Aircraft Corporation has yet to come out with a stealth fighter design. This would also fit in that Shenyang produced and produces most of China's indigenous fighter aircraft. Aviation Week had an interesting piece about this, that speculates about some of the other Chinese stealth designs coming down the pipe.
  If the J-20 is designed for the anti-ship role this fits with China's paranoia when it comes to American aircraft carriers. Especially with the recent development of the DF-21D (CSS-5 Mod-4) and cruise missiles like the C-803 (YJ-83).



Photo Credit: Wikipedia

1967 & '73 All Over Again

As everyone has probably heard, extremely large and somewhat violent protests have rocked Egypt demanding Egyptian president Hosni Mubaracks resignation, and demanding a democratic form of government. What is puzzling is that the vast majority of Egypt's population is Muslim, and Muslims generally want Sharia Law which has almost no rights for women and is similar to an oligarch. An oligarch is form of government in which most of power in the country is concentrated in a small group of leaders, similar to what the Egyptians already have. The difference is the behind these protests is the Muslim Brotherhood which is a radical Muslim terrorist group which is believed to have some connections to Al-Qaeda and have some responsibility for the assassination of the former Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha in 1948. But, the main reason the Muslim Brotherhood is leading these protests is that in 1978 Anwar El Sadat signed the Camp David Accords leading to a cold peace between Egypt and Israel for the past 33 years. Now the Muslim Brotherhood wishes to reignite the millenia long war between the Arab people and the Israelis. If and when it does come to war between the Arabs and the Jews, the Jews will odds 50 to 1 smash any Egyptian attack anywhere on their border with Egypt.

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Welcome, one and all!

6 o'clock High is dedicated to the Men and Women serving the United States around the world from Afghanistan to Qatar. 6 o'clock High's mission is to provide high quality military news everyday, all year, 24/7 without the jargon and techno-speak, so come back everyday for breaking military and the occasional political stories.

Thanks,

Matt

Update: I have changed the blog's name as you can see to General Quarters.

Matt