UPDATED 2:00 pm Tuesday with detailed 2015 budget figures WASHINGTON: The 2015 budget effectively kills the Army’s top priority weapons program, the 60-plus-ton Ground Combat Vehicle — as we’ve been predicting since November — but GCV did not die in vain, the Army’s acquisition chief insists. “We sacrificed the GCV” to save programs upgrading electronics… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Rep. Randy Forbes will, for now, deny that he is positioning himself for the coming battle for chairman of the biggest committee in Congress, House Armed Services, fondly known as the HASC. But Forbes, one of three committee members regularly mentioned as having a good shot at the job, is clearly beginning to position… Keep reading →

NEWSEUM: At first it looks like pure wishful thinking: The administration’s 2015 budget plan assumes the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration don’t go back into effect in 2016, when the stay of execution known as the Balanced Budget Act runs out. In fact, the Pentagon’s No. 2 official argued today, the administration is taking… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Lockheed React To Bogdan On ALIS. NEWSEUM: The key maintenance software program for the F-35, called ALIS, is “way behind,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, head of the program, said today. How far behind? “We are way behind. We are way behind.” Bogdan told a conference hosted by Credit Suisse and organized by Jim McAleese… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Every senior civilian leader and the Navy agree that America needs replacements for the Ohio-class nuclear missile submarines if our nuclear deterrent is to remain credible. But the SSBN-X, as the program is known, is at risk from the mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration, the influential head of CAPE, the Pentagon’s budget and… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The current fiscal crisis slams the entire military, keeping aircraft carriers in port and fighter pilots on the ground for lack of funds, but of all the services, said Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale today, “the Army has by far the worst problem.” That’s because the Army faces a unique triple-barreled budget problem, known with… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Sequestration and other Pentagon budget woes have been complicated by “neo-isolationists on the far left and far right, and members who are out of touch with what is going on in the world,” Sen. John McCain told several hundred journalists and defense industry officials today. America needs lawmakers “who understand we live in a… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Navy’s top admiral talked up cheap ships and high tech this morning, from laser weapons to a new double-decker version of the Mobile Landing Platform vessel (pictured above). Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said precious little about the rolling budget cuts called sequestration. He clearly preferred to emphasize a bold vision… Keep reading →