Rapid Fire 2011-09-13: France Buys More Panhard Armored Patrol Vehicles
- James Hasik looks at future options for the American super-carrier fleet, and delivers a preliminary cost analysis for various scenarios – including a scenario that involves halting the new CVN-21s after the 2nd-of-class CVN 79, mothballing 2 existing Nimitz Class boats, and dropping to 8 operational carriers.
- France orders 200 more of Panhard’s compact PVP armored patrol vehicles, to keep production going in 2012. Their 933 vehicle order from 2004 will end production in December 2011.
- Lockheed Martin submits its final CANES shipboard networking proposal to the US Navy. They’re competing with a Northrop Grumman team.
- A US military facility in Germany found cost savings by replacing its existing oil-fired water heaters with biomass/wood-chip equipment.
- The 1st Galileo GPS satellite lands in French Guiana, in preparation for its Oct 30/11 launch on board a Russian Soyuz rocket.
- NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called for more open US and European defense markets.
- Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduce legislation to make the Obama administration sell F-16C/Ds to Taiwan.
- Today’s video (embedded below): the Panel on Defense Financial Management and Auditability Reform’s hearing last week with the House Armed Services Committee. Among the issues is whether the branches (let alone DoD at large) are able to reconcile their books with the Department of Treasury. Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller Jamie M. Morin [PDF bio] says the USAF is now achieving 99.99% accuracy on its 1 million+ records/month ledger.
