GenX Fighter Jets in DoD’s 2016 Budget
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The Pentagon budget includes prototype development in 2016 for successors to the F-35 and F-22 fighter jets, reports Breaking Defense.
Stars and Stripes says President Obama wants a $534 billion core DoD budget, a $38 billion hike.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert blames budget cuts begun in 2013 for dropping retention rates, particularly among strike fighter pilots, nuclear trained officers, SEALs, cyber warriors, and some sailors in information technology, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee, reports Navy Times.
Military retirement and health care benefits look a lot more civilian in a plan phasing out the current 20-year pension structure with a smaller, defined-benefit pension and retirement benefits similar to the 401(k)-style investment accounts familiar to workers in private industry. Congress created the commission to produce the plan, but, reports the Military Times, will be reluctant to adopt it.
The Senior Enlisted Continuation Board screened 7,017 eligible chiefs, senior chiefs and master chiefs and will force 161 to retire Aug. 31, reports Navy Times. The names will be available to command leaders Feb. 3.
The Senate votes Monday on a bill to help prevent suicides among military veterans. The bill is expected to pass. It was blocked from passage in December by former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) who has since retired, reports The Hill.
Thanks and farewell, President Obama to outgoing DefSec Chuck Hagel, in The Hill.
The next presidential aircraft will be a Boeing 747-8, announced acquisition chief Frank Kendall, reports Defense News.
Some weapon systems just don’t work. Rockets on 10-foot wheels with a barrel axle is one. The British Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development built it in 1943 and named it the Grand Panjandrum. Wired has video of one of the tests.
