Talk:USNS Howard O. Lorenzen

Operations and sustainment
"Operations and sustainment" basically refers to who's budget pays for the operation and yearly upkeep. For whatever reason, the USN's budget included the line item for the Cobra Judy Replacement, which funded the R&D and construction of Howard O. Lorenzen up to the USAF acceptance / handover in August 2014. At least that's how I read that sentence. It probably should have been a USAF line item all along, but the way the defense budget works, things get a bit complicated. --Dual Freq (talk) 01:46, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

"These funds were used to establish a program to replace the aging COBRA JUDY radar, a sea-borne system that contributes to verifying the START Treaty and characterizing foreign ballistic missile systems, as well as a Program Office, and enable the United States to acquire a replacement several months early, saving about a year in development time and hedging against a gap in collection coverage. Cobra Judy Replacement was transferred from the Air Force to the Navy, per an Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Milestone A Acquisition Decision Memorandum dated 6 August 2002." --Dual Freq (talk) 01:46, 10 May 2015 (UTC)