The Air Force anticipates completing the divestiture of its AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missile inventory in Fiscal 2013 and finishing the drawdown of the Air Launched Cruise Missile fleet to 528 units two years earlier, Maj. Gen. Richard E. Webber, told the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee March 12 in written testimony. Webber, assistant deputy chief for Air, Space and Information Operations, Plans and Requirements, said USAF is currently removing from service, demilitarizing and destroying ACMs at a rate of six per month, and excess ALCM missile bodies at a rate of 12 per month. The Air Force is carrying out of the work per an October 2006 Office of the Secretary of Defense directive to restructure the nation’s nuclear cruise missiles force, including consolidation of the remaining ACLMs at Minot AFB, N.D. They are expected to remain in service through at least 2020 and possibly as long as 2030, Webber said. Raytheon has proposed using ACMs to host a new bunker buster warhead that it has developed.
The nation needs a better-coordinated policy for dealing with unmanned aerial systems that threaten domestic bases, Air Force vice chief of staff Gen. James C. Slife told a panel of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He and Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William LaPlante co-chair a panel looking at counter-UAS…