Rapid Fire 2011-05-27: DoD Infrastructure Costs in Asia

* Cartwright’s rumored x-out for the pending Pentagon Chief of Staff slot is likely to have wide implications for future Pentagon buys. Even as it raises questions about the nature and origins of the whisper campaign that covertly works to do him in. * “The [US] Department of Defense (DOD) is currently conducting the largest transformation of military posture in the Pacific region since the end of World War II.” But the GAO says that the Pentagon is significantly understating costs to transform facilities and infrastructure in Asia. Costs that will run in the tens of billions. * Northrop Grumman spinoff Huntington Ingalls Industries provides a slew of shipbuilding updates. Updating their LPD-17 amphibious ship progress, moving the USS Theodore Roosevelt out of RCOH drydock, and moving a 945-ton superlift section in place for the first-of-class Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier. * Key defense firm you’ve never heard of: Blackbird Technologies. Short version: their stuff helps track people. Specific people. * The first steel is cut for the HMS Prince of Wales, the second of the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. Due to lower build-in costs, the future HMS Prince of Wales is likely to be the only […]