US Army Ramps Up TPQ-53 Counterfire Radars

AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder

Firefinder radars track the path of incoming shells, rockets, mortars, etc., and calculate the point they were fired from. They currently come in 2 versions. Raytheon’s TPQ-36 radar is specifically designed to counter medium range enemy weapon systems out to a range of 24 kilometers, while the TPQ-37 can locate longer-range systems, and even surface launched missiles, out to 50 kilometers. Michael Yon, embedded with 1-24 (“Deuce Four”) in Mosul, offered a first hand description of counter-battery radars’ effect on enemy tactics in 2005.

Better radar technologies offer a number of potential advantages for this role, including wider fields of view and less maintenance. Not to mention fewer disruptive, time-sucking false positives for deployed troops. In September 2006, Lockheed Martin began a contract to deliver their “Enhanced AN/TPQ-36″ (EQ-36) radars. Despite the close official name and designation, this was a wholly new radar system, from a different company. Orders have begun to accumulate, along with deployments – and, finally, a less confusing designation change to AN/TPQ-53.

Boldly Gone: The End for the USS Enterprise

The all-nuclear
Task Force One, 1964

There was a time when USS Enterprise was the most famous ship in the world. It still is, but these days, most people think of the fictional starship rather than the world’s first nuclear-powered carrier. The real USS Enterprise was commissioned in 1961, which means that its long career of service must soon draw to a close. In April 2008, a $453.3 million contract covered the ship’s Extended Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability for maintenance and upgrades – but reached over $660 million before all was said and done, and took 2 years.

That kept “the Big E” going for a couple more years, but it could only delay the inevitable. 2012 saw the ship’s last mission come to an end, and by 2014, USS Enterprise is scheduled to fade into history, to be replaced by the first ship [CVN 78] of the Gerald R. Ford Class. This time, there will be no reruns or syndication deals. When the end comes, plans and facilities for permanently decommissioning the ship and dealing with its A2W nuclear reactors will need to be ready.

Rapid Fire March 13, 2013: Senate to Sort out FY13 Budget Soon

• Chairman of the US House Budget Committee Paul Ryan submitted a new decade-long budget outline [PDF] that includes lower levels of defense spending than the one he issued last year, or the plan he supported as a vice presidential candidate. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said [PDF] it needed more time to process and assess such long-term budget projections because of recent tax code changes. The House’s baseline number for DoD in FY14, which this year oddly comes before the presidential request, comes at $560.2B.

• Yesterday the US Senate did not (yet) agree to start considering how to fund the federal government for the rest of FY13. Some prominent Republican senators wanted more time to read the 587-page bill (more than twice the size of HR 933, the house bill it is derived from). The subject will be on the floor again today. In the meantime, here is the CBO’s estimate [PDF] of the Senate’s version of the bill [PDF]. Sorting the current fiscal year’s finances before April 8, when the Administration will submit its FY14 request, would be a good idea.