Latest update (Feb 6/12)

KRI Cakra
(click to view larger)

Indonesia sites astride one of the world’s most critical submarine chokepoints. A large share of global trade must pass through the critical Straits of Malacca, and the shallow littoral waters around the Indonesian archipelago. That makes for excellent submarine hunting grounds, but Indonesia has only 2 “Cakra Class”/ U209 submarines in its own fleet, relying instead on frigates, corvettes, and fast attack craft.

South Korea’s Daewoo, which has experience building U209s for South Korea, has been contracted for Cakra Class submarine upgrades. Even so, submarine pressure hulls have inflexible limits on their safe lifetime, due to repeated hydraulic squeezing from ascending and descending. The Indonesians have expressed serious interest in buying 3-6 replacement submarines since 2007, with French, German, Russian, South Korean, and even Turkish shipyards in the rumored mix. Other priorities shoved the sub purchase aside, but a growing economy and military interest have finally revived it…

• Contending Designs [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings [updated]
  Continue Reading… »

P-8A Poseidon

1st full sim & WTT delivered; $227M for certification. (Feb 1/2)

Maritime surveillance and patrol is becoming more and more important, but the USA’s P-3 Orion fleet is falling apart. The P-8A emerged from the ashes of the P-7 Long Range Air ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) Capable Aircraft program that was begun in 1988. That program originally envisaged an improved P-3, but cost overruns, slow progress, and interest in opening the competition to commercial designs, led to the P-7’s cancellation for default in 1990. The successor MMA program was begun in March 2000, and Boeing beat Lockheed’s “Orion 21” with a design based on their ubiquitous 737 passenger jet.

Filling the P-3 Orion’s shoes is certainly no easy task. What missions will the new P-8A Poseidon face? What do we know about the platform, the project team, and ongoing developments? Will the P-3’s level of global customer coverage give its successor a comparable level of export opportunities? Australia and India have already signed on, but has the larger market shifted in the interim?

• P-8A Poseidon: Platform & Capabilities
  • The P-8’s BAMS Companion: Kicking It Up a Notch
• P-8A Poseidon: History & Program
  • US Program Budgets
  • Numbers & Basing
  • P-8A Industrial Partners [updated]
• P-8A Poseidon: Contracts & Events [updated]
• News & Analysis: India’s Interest, and Broader Export Potential
• Additional Readings & Sources
• Additional Readings & Sources: News & Updates
  Continue Reading… »

• The RAND Corporation researched ways to reduce attrition in US Air Force training programs, which they believe could produce significant savings.

• The GAO finds DOD’s reporting of the costs involved in operating and supporting major programs to be lacking with a number of inconsistencies and under-reported amounts.

• DARPA is organizing a Proposers’ Day on Feb. 21 in Arlington, VA, to present its High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS) whose goal is to secure embedded computer system software.

• A&P and Thales Australia are partnered to bid on long-term support of HMAS Choules, the RAN’s newest amphibious ship.

• 1st French Army NH90 TTH “Caiman” unveiled [in French].

• Fighting base realignment is guaranteed work for lobbyists. What’s less guaranteed are the chances that a bill introduced by Senate Republicans to partially undo sequestration gets traction with Democrats.

• CACI International’s revenue grew by 12% to $973M for its second FY12 quarter. Funded backlog at the end of 2011 was stable at $2.19B out of an $8B total. Meanwhile Harris Corporation had a flat second quarter at $1.45B in sales, with an increase in exports to compensate for lower US sales.

• US Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz released a short whitepaper [PDF] outlining its priorities and choices within forthcoming budget constraints. It states: “More than 280 aircraft have been identified [...] for elimination [...] over the next five years. This includes 123 fighters (102 A-10s and 21 older F-16s), 133 mobility aircraft (27 C-5As, 65 C-130s, 20 KC-135s, and 21 C-27s), and 30 select ISR systems (18 RQ-4 Block 30s, 11 RC-26s, and one E-8 damaged beyond repair)”

• The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission had hearings last week on what China’s quest for global resources – water, fossil fuel, mineral, fish – means for the United States. Transcripts | Video.

• Andrew Davies from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) thinks it is unlikely that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) will make a big rebasing effort to the country’s north. ASPI also released an economic and strategic analysis [PDF] pondering whether Australia should build warships.

• The Canadian Forces updated their casualty statistics covering their presence in Afghanistan from April 2002 to December 31, 2011.

• The US House Committee on Foreign Affairs will have its second hearing on “Export Controls, Arms Sales, and Reform: Balancing U.S. Interests” next Tuesday, Feb. 7, 10am. Marion Blakey, President & CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and Mikel Williams, CEO if DDi, will testify. The ADS trade association in the UK is concerned about the potential impact of ITAR changes on its members.

• US $1.3B military aid to Egypt is in jeopardy.

• India’s DRDO: We liked the Bollywood movie ‘3 Idiots’ so much, we bought its Netra UAV...

• Skills you didn’t know you needed as an helicopter maintenance engineer: black widow live capture.

RAAF C-130J-30, flares

$180M in contracts from USA, Norway. (Jan 31/12)

The C-130 Hercules remains one of the longest-running aerospace manufacturing programs of all time. Since 1956, over 40 models and variants have served as the tactical airlift backbone for over 50 nations. The C-130J looks similar, but the number of changes almost make it a new aircraft. Those changes also created issues; the program has been the focus of a great deal of controversy in America – and even of a full program restructuring in 2006. Some early concerns from critics were put to rest when the C-130J demonstrated in-theater performance on the front lines that represented a major improvement over its C-130E/H predecessors. A valid follow-on question might be: does it break the bottleneck limitations that have hobbled a number of multi-billion dollar US Army vehicle development programs?

C-130J customers now include Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, India, Israel, Iraq, Italy, Kuwait, Norway, Oman, Qatar, South Korea, Tunisia, and the United States. American C-130J purchases are taking place under both annual budgets and supplemental wartime funding, in order to replace tactical transport and special forces fleets that are flying old aircraft and in dire need of major repairs. This DID FOCUS Article describes the C-130J, examines the bottleneck issue, covers global developments for the C-130J program, and looks at present and emerging competitors…

• The (Private) Labors of Hercules: the C-130J
• The C-130J and the 20-ton Bottleneck
• Turbulent Flight: The C-130J Program
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources, incl. emerging competitors & Special Operations requirements
  Continue Reading… »

Ultra APV demonstrator

DOTE testing reveals vehicle & requirements flaws; Budget commitment to JLTVs; JLTV EMD RFP. (Jan 30/12)

In an age of non-linear warfare, where front lines are nebulous at best and non-existent at worst, one of the biggest casualties is… the concept of unprotected rear echelon vehicles, designed with the idea that they’d never see serious combat. That imperative is being driven home on 2 fronts. One front is operational. The other front is buying trends.

These trends, and their design imperatives, found their way into the USA’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program, which aims to replace many of the US military’s 120,000 or so Humvees. The US military’s goal is a 7-10 ton vehicle that’s lighter than its MRAPs and easier to transport aboard ship, while offering substantially better protection ad durability than existing up-armored Humvees. They’d also like a vehicle that can address front-line issues like power generation, in order to recharge all of the batteries troops require for electronic gadgets like night sights, GPS devices, etc.

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record. JLTV certainly qualifies, though its future remains cloudy. That’s partly due to expected spending cutbacks, and partly due to the possible presence of “good enough” substitutes…

• JLTV: Program & Risks
  • The JLTV Family of Vehicles
  • JLTV: Goals and Constraints
  • JLTV: To Be, or Not to Be?
• JLTV: Participants and Platforms [updated]
• JLTV: Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
• Appendix A: Phase 1 Technology Development’s Losing Teams
  Continue Reading… »

Austal MRV/JHSV concept

Hawaii Superferries to supplement JHSV; Cut to program. (Jan 26/12)

When moving whole units, shipping is always the cheaper, higher-capacity option. Speed and port access are the issue, but what if getting there was faster, and full-service ports weren’t necessary? After Australia led the way by using what amounted to fast car ferries for military operations, the US Army and Navy picked up the idea themselves. Both services leased Incat TSV/HSV wave-piercing catamaran ship designs, while the Marines’ charged ahead with very successful use of Austal’s Westpac Express high-speed catamaran. These Australian-designed ships all give commanders the ability to roll on a company with full gear and equipment (or roll on a full infantry battalion if used only as a troop transport), haul it intra-theater distances at 38 knots, then move their shallow draft safely into austere ports to roll them off.

Their successful use, and continued success on operations, attracted favorable comment and notice from all services. So favorable that the experiments have led to a $3+ billion program called the Joint High Speed Vessel. These designs may even have uses beyond simple ferrying and transport.

• The US Military’s HSV/TSV Experience
• The JHSV Ships
• The JHSV Program [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  Continue Reading… »

ScanEagle launch

USMC contract; RQ-21 replacement draws closer. (Jan 25/12)

ScanEagle’s base Insight UAV platform was originally developed by Washington state’s Insitu, Inc. to track dolphins and tuna from fishing boats, in order to ensure that the fish you buy in supermarkets is “dolphin-safe”. It turns out that the same characteristics needed by fishing boats (able to handle the-water environment, low infrastructure launch and recovery, small size, 20-hour long endurance, automated flight patterns) are equally important for naval operations from larger vessels, and for battlefield surveillance. A partnership with Boeing took ScanEagle to market in those fields, and the design has carved out a market-leading position in its niche.

This article covers recent developments with the ScanEagle UAV system, which is quickly evolving into a mainstay with the US Navy and its allies. Incumbency doesn’t last long in the fast-changing world of UAVs, however. The RQ-21 Integrator, also from Insitu, is getting set to push the ScanEagle aside…

• The ScanEagle Family [updated]
• Contracts and Key Events: 2008 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

SM-2 Launch, DDG-77
(click to view larger)

SDACS R&D; Testing reports on SM-3, SM-6. (Jan 19/12)

Variants of the SM-2 Standard missile are the USA’s primary fleet defense anti-air weapon, and serve with 13 navies worldwide. The most common variant is the RIM-66K-L/ SM-2 Standard Block IIIB, which entered service in 1998. The Standard family extends far beyond the SM-2 missile, however; several nations still use the SM-1, the SM-3 is rising to international prominence as a missile defense weapon, and the SM-6 program is on track to supplement the SM-2. These missiles are designed to be paired with the AEGIS radar and combat system, but can be employed independently by ships with older or newer radar systems.

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record. This article covers each variant in the Standard missile family, plus several years worth of American and Foreign Military Sales requests and contracts and key events; and offers the budgetary, technical, and geopolitical background that can help put all that in context.

• The Standard Missile Naval Defense Family: Missiles and Plans (SM-1 to SM-6) [updated]
• The Standard Missile Naval Defense Family: Budgets
• The Standard Missile Naval Defense Family: US Contracts & Events, FY 2006 – Present [updated]
• The Standard Missile Naval Defense Family: Exports & Related Key Events, CY 2005 – Present
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

Bridge to the future?

Kokoda report published – objectivity, conclusions, seriousness all questioned. (Jan 19/12)

In its 2009 White Paper, Australia’s Department of Defence and Labor Party government looked at the progress being made in anti-shipping surveillance-strike complexes, and the need to defend large sea lanes, and dropped something of a surprise. They proposed increasing Australia’s submarine fleet to 12 boats by 2030-2040, all of which would be successors to Australia’s a current fleet of advanced Collins class submarines.

The Collins class was designed with the strong cooperation of ThyssenKrupp’s Swedish Kockums subsidiary, and built in Australia by state-owned ASC. The class has encountered a number of issues, including significant difficulties with its combat systems, issues with acoustic signature, major cost growth to A$ 5+ billion, and schedule slippage. Worse still, reports indicated that the RAN can only staff 2 of its 6 submarines put a huge crimp in the fleet’s usefulness. High-level attention led to 29 recommendations aimed at improving conditions and staffing on Australia’s submarines, and those are now being implemented. Their long term effect remains to be seen. So, too, does the nature of Australia’s SEA 1000 future submarine project – and its eventual cost…

• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings [updated]
  Continue Reading… »