US - USS MISSISSIPPI COMMISSIONING: Gov. Bryant visiting Pascagoula Monday to announce plans

The USS Mississippi submarine is seen during its christening in Groton, Conn., in December. The sub will be commissioned, the final event before a vessel goes into service, in Pascagoula in June.

PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- Mayor Robbie Maxwell plans to welcome Gov. Phil Bryant to town on Monday for a press conference to formally announce details of the USS Mississippi submarine commissioning, which was recently moved from Gulfport to Pascagoula and is set for June 2.

The press event is scheduled to be held on Pascagoula's emerging riverfront, across from where the USS Mississippi will be situated at the Port of Pascagoula on the river's west bank during the commissioning.

"This is a big deal, and unlike anything that has happened here in a long, long time," Maxwell said. "Many warships have been built here but we have never commissioned one here, at least in my time here."

Maxwell added that the fact that USS Mississippi is a submarine carries added mystique, and that it will "carry Mississippi's name all over the world" for 40 years. He said he hopes that officials from across the coast and throughout the state will attend and share in the city's very special day.

Commissioning is the final event in the life of a military ship while it is being built, marking its acceptance into the armed forces. Preceding it are the launch, christening, crew arrival and delivery.

Accompanied by galas, tours and other events, a commissioning typically draws thousands of people. It is considered a great honor for the city, county and state in which it is held.

"We fully expect that as many as 5,000 people will attend," said Jerry St. Pé, former Ingalls Shipbuilding president and chairman of the Host City Committee. Besides members of the public, attendees will include crewmembers and their families, and high-ranking U.S. Navy and Department of Defense officials, he said.

Commissionings are invitation-only, but members of the public may receive invitations from the Navy upon request.

The Navy pays for the ceremony itself, while donations pay for receptions, gifts and special celebrations. The fundraising effort by the USS Mississippi Commissioning Committee will be discussed during Monday's press conference, according to the city of Pascagoula.

The Meridian Navy League is heading up that effort.

Maxwell said the governor has already been very proactive about the effort's ambitious $300,000 goal.

"With the help of folks like the governor, it makes it (fundraising) a little bit easier," Maxwell said. "This is not something that has just been done on paper. The governor and others involved have been hands-on for the past two weeks.

"(Bryant) wants to come down and get his boots on the ground and be involved in every aspect of this," Maxwell said. "And we're absolutely delighted that he feels that way."

Australia - Saving $20 billion on a simpler submarine

THE navy could save taxpayers between $11 billion and $20 billion if it was given the "must have" not the "nice to have" option for its future submarine.

According to figures released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) the cost of the 12 boats to replace six Collins Class subs could be as high as $36 billion, as required in the latest Defence White Paper. ASPI strategic analyst Andrew Davies said no conventionally powered submarine had ever come close to providing the capability the navy requires from the next generation boat.

"It has most of the characteristics of a nuclear-powered submarine," he said.

"It has a suite of capabilities that have never been combined into a conventionally powered submarine."

An "air independent" conventionally powered submarine of about 4000 tonnes would cost about $3 billion compared with $2 billion for a "must have" option, $1.5 billion for an upgraded Collins class vessel and $1 billion for an off-the-shelf European one.

US - Pentagon sees savings in block buying of V-22 Osprey

WASHINGTON - The Defense Department will realize “substantial savings” from further five-year purchases of weaponry, including the V-22 Osprey from Textron Inc. and Boeing Co., the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer told Congress.

Frank Kendall, the department’s acting undersecretary for acquisition, wrote lawmakers yesterday that additional block contracts for the Marine Corps’ V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, the Navy’s Virginia-class attack submarine and DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer and the Army’s CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter meet criteria established by law.

Kendall’s letter is a first step required before congressional review and the eventual signing of contracts. Multiyear commitments are seldom canceled because the Pentagon would have to pay substantial termination fees to contractors and would face opposition from congressional champions of the systems being scrapped.

Bulk contracts also let companies buy parts in advance, with savings passed on to the Pentagon, and maintain a stable workforce. Kendall’s letters outlined initial expected savings derived from the Pentagon’s cost-analysis unit.

The biggest savings over annual purchases would be $4.4 billion, or 14 percent, for nine Virgina-class submarines bought between 2014 and 2018 from Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. of Newport News, Va., and General Dynamics Corp.’s Groton, Conn,-based Electric Boat unit. Annual purchases would cost as much as $31 billion in contracts for the vessels, radar and sonar.

Nine Destroyers

Bulk contract purchases of nine new missile-defense capable DDG-51 destroyers built by Huntington and General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works, of Bath, Maine, would save $1.5 billion, or 9 percent, over an estimated $17.7 billion in annual contracts.

The Navy wants to buy 98 additional V-22s from the joint venture of Textron’s Fort Worth, Texas-based Bell Helicopter unit and Boeing’s Philadelphia aircraft unit. Kendall found a block purchase would save at least $852 million, or 12 percent, over $7.35 billion in annual buys.

Kendall certified a savings of at least $373 million, or 10 percent, for bulk purchases of 155 new and upgraded Boeing CH-47F helicopters through 2017.

Canada - Senator Pamela Wallin: Canada needs submarines

Hoisting exercise to the HMCS Corner Brook with the HMCS Halifax standing guard.

Columnist John Ivison suggests that to save money, Canada should end the Navy’s submarine program and get rid of our four subs. He cites their well-known teething problems as justification. I’d point out that those problems are now almost behind us. To end the program now would be a big mistake.

I’m with Vice-Admiral Maddison, who said, “For a G8 nation, a NATO country like Canada, a country that continues to lead internationally and aspires to lead even more, I would consider that [cancellation of the program] to be a critical loss of a fundamental capability and a very difficult one to regenerate at a future date.” Submarines provide Canada the ability to add to our knowledge of what’s happening at sea, a way of moving around without being noticed and, if fighting breaks out, a unique strike capability in support of Canadian or allied forces.

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Most importantly, Canada has the longest coastline in the world. We need to be able patrol it and to guard our three enormous ocean approaches — quietly and unseen. As well, 90% of the world’s trade moves on ships. Canada is heavily reliant on maritime trade, especially through sensitive narrow waterways like the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca. Some of that trade is threatened by piracy, a growing concern for all trading nations, especially off Africa’s east coast where pirates now range all the way east to India. These are not the charmingly rakish pirates that Hollywood portrays — they are brutal, ruthless criminals. Canada, as a maritime nation, needs to know what’s going on in all domains, including underwater, and to be able to fight back.

It is true that our submarines can’t operate under ice. Very few nations have the very costly nuclear-powered subs that can do that. But ours can certainly patrol at the ice margins, in open waters among the islands during navigation season, and monitor for activity at Arctic choke points. In fact, HMCS Corner Brook deployed to the Arctic twice over the past four years during Operation Nanook.

In support of his proposal to end the sub program, Mr. Ivison notes that Denmark scrapped her submarines years ago. What he leaves out is that more than 40 other nations operate more than 450 submarines worldwide. Those numbers are growing as more countries aspire to operate underwater. And we’re not talking just big, powerful countries like the United States and China. Singapore, Peru, the Netherlands and Iran are just a few of the nations who operate in the undersea realm.

Even the world’s drug cartels have submarines now, to smuggle cocaine — one reason why Colombia is doubling its military’s sub fleet. Why do so many nations, big and small, operate submarines? Because they make sense. As Vice-Admiral Maddison puts it, “the best counter to a submarine is a submarine.”

Here’s the situation with our subs. HMCS Victoria has been doing sea trials. Next week she will test fire her heavyweight torpedoes. By year’s end she will be in a state of high readiness on the west coast. On the east coast, HMCS Windsor will be in the water in two or three months and deployable in early 2013. The Chicoutimi will be in the water later next year. The Corner Brook, meantime, is in deep maintenance.

The so-called “steady state” plan is to keep one high-readiness sub on each coast, one in normal readiness while the fourth undergoes deep maintenance. The commander of the Navy says this steady state will be achieved by the end of 2013.

Vice-Admiral Maddison has it right when he says that there are two unique strategic capabilities in the Canadian Forces — our special forces, and our submariners. Canada needs submarines. Canada has submarines. Canada should keep its submarines.

Senator Wallin is chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.

US - Attack submarine arrives at Maine shipyard for maintenance and upgrade work

KITTERY, Maine — The USS Miami attack submarine has arrived at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for maintenance and upgrade work.

The 360-foot Los Angeles-class submarine and its crew of 13 arrived Thursday at the shipyard in Kittery, where it will remain for about 20 months.

The submarine recently completed a five-month deployment in Europe, with port calls in Norway, Scotland, England and Spain.

The Miami was commissioned in 1990 and is home-ported in New London, Conn.

Australia - SA in box seat to win billion-dollar defence contracts

THE national race to snare work in the planned multi-billion-dollar submarine program has largely been won by South Australia, the state's Treasurer claimed in parliament yesterday.

Jack Snelling, who also is South Australian Defence Industry Minister, said in recent weeks he had met with senior leaders in defence, including the federal Defence Minister Stephen Smith, to secure "early opportunities" arising out of the Future Submarine Project.

The planned 12 new submarines are set to be built in South Australia but the other states, particularly Victoria, had hoped to benefit through companies providing key components and infrastructure.

But Mr Snelling said federal Labor and other defence leaders understood that South Australia was "primed to capture a significant share of this work".

"Over recent weeks, I have personally met with senior leaders in defence to reinforce South Australia's focus on securing early opportunities arising out of the future submarine project, including promoting South Australia as the logical home for project design and complementary facilities, such as the proposed submarine propulsion land based facility," Mr Snelling told parliament.

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"Under Defence's current plans, the commonwealth will spend up to $250 billion over the next 20 years on acquiring and sustaining new ships and submarines, an enormous opportunity by any measure.

"South Australia is committed to supporting defence with this ambitious target.

"We are primed to capture a significant share of this work with our highly skilled workforce, state-of-the-art infrastructure and experienced maritime industry."

Mr Snelling said during his meeting with Mr Smith, the Minister had reinforced the federal government's commitment to acquiring 12 new submarines to be consolidated in South Australia over the next 30 years.