Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson has said the U.S. Navy should advance rapid prototyping and experimentation efforts in its fleet of ships in an effort to immediately address risks amid budget concerns and complex security environment, USNI News reported Thursday.

Sam LaGrone and Megan Eckstein write Richardson told USNI News in an interview that the Navy is in talks with the office of defense secretary, Congress and industry to expedite the prototyping process for technology platforms as well as respect the oversight responsibilities of each agency.

He also plans to draft an instructional document to explain the service branch’s rapid prototyping approach, according to the report.

Sailors have provided the military branch with novel concepts through various programs, such as the Tactical Advancements for the Next Generation forum and “innovation jams,” Richardson told USNI News.

He also mentioned the studies launched by the service branch, Mitre Corp. and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis on a new fleet design as well as the Navy’s plan to increase surface ships’ offensive capabilities.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Jesse Wilson Jr., commander of Carrier Strike Group 10, has been assigned to a new role as director of the assessment division (N81) at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and CNO Adm. John Richardson announced Wilson’s new assignment in a Defense Department release published Friday.

Wilson will oversee the organization that works to assess naval resources and warfare requirements as well as integrates assessment results into the Investment Balance Review.

He served as a commanding officer of USS Higgins and led the ship during a six-month deployment with the USS Nimitz carrier strike group as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom in the western Pacific.

He took command tours at sea for the USS Nimitz CSG, Destroyer Squadron 23 and the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s annual humanitarian and civil assistance mission to Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Wilson also previously worked as the 27th company officer at the U.S. Naval Academy, joint warfighting analyst on the Joint Staff’s force structure, resources and assessments division (J8), campaign analyst at the OPNAV N81 assessment division, interim deputy director of the 21st Century Sailor Office, executive assistant to the chief of naval operations and director of the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein has highlighted more time home for both training and family as among his priorities to help augment training for pilots, Air Force Times reported Sunday.

Goldfein said modern day pilots receive nearly half the home-station training that he said he received when he flew F-16s, Phillip Swarts reports.

“On average I would go to three flag exercises a year, plus I would do a rotation with the National Training Center, with the Army, and that would be a normal battle rhythm,” Goldfein said Wednesday in a briefing at the Pentagon, according to the report.

“Today’s pilot, based on the size of the force, the age of the force, and continuing op tempo demand in Central Command, is getting about half of that,” he said.

The Air Force seeks to increase overall size of the force, remove extra responsibilities and expand training squadrons in order to minimize the strain on pilots and their support squadrons, Swarts reports.

Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has called on India to boost military aid for the Middle Eastern nation in support of Western sanctions against Russia, Defense News reported Thursday.

Vivek Raghuvanshi writes Nicholson has met with Ajit Doval, India’s national security adviser, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, foreign secretary, and Mohan Kumar, defense secretary, to discuss a paucity of spares received by Afghan forces of Russian-made weaponry.

“Due to sanctions on Russia, it’s difficult to acquire supplies of spare parts for Russian military platforms, because much of the money is given to Afghanistan by donors who have sanctions against Russia in place,” said Nicholson.

The report noted India has transferred four Russian-made Mi-25 attack helicopters to Afghanistan’s air force to mark the first transfer of military equipment to the country.

The U.S. Navy‘s Littoral Combat Ship program has conducted a blast and fire test on a full-scale Independence-variant LCS replicate at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center to evaluate the overall survivability of the platform during combat.

The Multi-Compartment Surrogate replicate underwent destructive tests that involved charges placed in several of the ship’s compartments and controlled fires, the U.S. Navy said Friday.

The Navy collected data to evaluate the ship’s failure threshold of blast-induced structural ruptures, reaction to overpressures and the effects of fire on its aluminum structure.

The Navy will use the data as a reference benchmark for computer simulations, as well as to support the Live-Fire Test and Evaluation and LFT&E Modeling and Simulation/Survivability analysis.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s National Counterintelligence and Security Center has unveiled a video that seeks to inform public and private entities on foreign risks facing the industry’s supply chain.

ODNI said Thursday it released the video at a supply chain risk management conference as part of NCSC’s efforts to aid the government and industry in supply chain risk mitigation.

“Our adversaries are trying to figure out what U.S. industry—whether telecom or defense—will be doing three years from now,” said NCSC Director Bill Evanina.

“That is why NCSC and the ODNI are trying to find creative ways to help U.S. industry protect its supply chain and thereby help protect America,” Evanina added.

ODNI noted supply chains face threats from the use of globally-sourced commercial information and technologies to develop systems and services.

Risks can also affect end users through products and services that may feature defective, counterfeit or tampered parts, ODNI said.

NCSC also aims to brief government and industry partners on threats; develop an SCRM blueprint for executive branch agencies and organizations; and create a publicly available online course that will inform interested entities on supply chain risk mitigation.

https://youtu.be/oj5iD0D7JsY

The U.S. Army Materiel Command’s Anniston Army Depot has awarded a utility energy service contract that clinched the service branch’s $1 billion mark in energy savings performance contracts.

The Army said Thursday the contract will help Anniston run operations and support the depot’s readiness efforts as well as the service branch’s response to President Barack Obama’s challenge for all federal agencies to achieve a total $4 billion in investments before the end of 2016.

“These contracts are important to the Army … Federal agencies like the Army can leverage their utility budgets and take the steps essential to enhancing resiliency, achieving cost savings, and improving operations and maintenance,” said Katherine Hammack, Army assistant secretary for installations, energy and environment.

The $20 million contract, the service branch’s 127th ESPC award, pushed the total budget allotted to individual contracts and task orders to $1.015 billion which represents 68 percent of the Defense Department‘s efforts to respond to the president’s challenge.

These energy usage contracts collectively equate to an approximate of 12.7 trillion British thermal unit energy savings annually which can power almost 350,000 average U.S. households per year.

The service branch added that private investors use their own funds for modernization and implementation of energy and water efficiency strategies as well as renewable energy systems on Army installations that the service branch will return through part of the utility cost savings achieved from the projects.