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Washington - The US Defence Department's budget request released on Monday would boost funding for research, development and procurement of weapons by 13% to $190bn in fiscal 2016, including nearly $11bn for the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet.
Following is a list of key programmes and funding levels proposed for the fiscal 2016 year, which begins October 1. All measures must still be approved by Congress.
The budget requested:
- $10.6bn in funding to pay for 57 Lockheed F-35 fighter jets.
- $3.4bn for 16 P-8 maritime surveillance planes built by Boeing.
- $1.3bn for 5 E-2D battle management aircraft built by Northrop Grumman Corporation.
- $3bn for continued development of Boeing's KC-46A refuelling planes, or tankers.
- $1.2bn for a new bomber for the US Air Force, which plans to announce a winner soon in a competition that puts Northrop against a Boeing-Lockheed team.
- $1.4bn for continued work by General Dynamics Corporation and Northrop on a replacement for the aging Ohio-class submarines that carry nuclear weapons.
- $11.6bn for nine new ships, including smaller coastal warships built by Lockheed and Australia's Austal , an aircraft carrier being built by Huntington Ingalls Industries, and other submarines and ships built by General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls.
- $1.6bn to improve the reliability of the interceptors used in the Ground-based Missile Defence system managed by Boeing.
- $4.5bn in various US Army aviation programmes.
- $821m for procurement of more MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft built by privately-held General Atomics.
- $5.5bn for cybersecurity programmes which are expected to benefit Lockheed, General Dynamics, Northrop and Raytheon, among others.
- Accelerates by two years the development of a new Long Range Stand-Off Weapon to be used on the new bomber.
Research focus
The Pentagon budget plan would boost funding for research and development (R&D) programmes by 6.3% to $69.8bn, a move welcomed by industry, which has long urged the Pentagon to keep investing in longer-term projects.
The funding will pay for work on high-speed strike weapons, a new initiative to start work on a sixth-generation fighter, a railgun weapon that can fire a low-cost projectile at seven times the speed of sound, as well as improved navigation and timing equipment, and high energy lasers.
Programme cuts
- The budget again seeks to retire the popular A-10 close air support aircraft for savings of $382m, a move sure to meet strong resistance in Congress, which rejected a similar proposal last year.
- It proposes $87m in additional savings by scaling back the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon built by Raytheon.
