Polish F-16C,
air display

F-16C/D Block 52 aircraft serve as the backbone of Poland’s air force. In February 2012, the USA’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced [PDF] Poland’s official request for F-16 weapons, as well as a 5 year fleet support contract that includes associated equipment, parts, and training. They will be bought using the USA’s Foreign Military Sales process, and the cost of the requested equipment could be up to $447 million.

If a contract is negotiated after the 15-day FMS wait period for NATO members, the prime contractors are listed as Raytheon in Tucson, AZ and Waltham, MA; Boeing in St. Charles, MO; McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in McAlester, OK; and United Technologies Corporation in Hartford, CT. The specific request includes…

EL/M-2032

In February 2012, IAI revealed that it has secured a $150 million contract for its EL/M-2032 fighter radar, from an unnamed customer. A Globes report places the customer within Asia.

The EL/M-2032 can be delivered in different sizes, and equips a number of different aircraft. It has been fitted to F-16s, including Israel’s own fleet. It has also been used to upgrade V/STOL Sea Harriers, F-5E/F Tiger light fighters, and F-4 Phantom, Kfir C10s, and Jaguar strike fighters around the world; and was recently picked for South Korea’s TA-50 and India Tejas lightweight fighters. So the question is, who’s the customer?

F-15K Poster: apropos?

The ROKAF (Republic of Korea Air Force) originally planned to buy 120 advanced, high-end fighters as its next-generation platform, in order to replace its existing fleet of F-4 Phantom IIs and other aircraft. So far, it has bought 60 fighters in 2 phases. Back in 2002, the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) selected the F-15K advanced derivative of the F-15E Strike Eagle for its Next Generation Fighter Program, and bought 40. In 2008, a 2nd contract was signed for 20 more F-15ks, with slight modifications.

Now the 3rd phase looms, and the question is whether it will be a variant of their existing fleet, or something new. While the DAPA procurement agency dreamed of developing their own “5th generation” aircraft for Phase 3, reality eventually had its say. Now, foreign manufacturers are offering the ROKAF a number of options…

• F-X to KF-X: The ROKAF’s Best-Laid Plans… [updated]
  • The ROKAF’s F-X-2
  • F-X-3 and KF-X
  • Stealth, and the F-X-3 competitors
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings, News & Events
• Appendix A: Original F-X-2 Candidates
• Appendix B: Which SU-35?
  Continue Reading… »

RAFO F-16Cs w. CFTs

Oman is location on the eastern Arabian peninsula next to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and across from Persia. It remains a very strategic country, controlling the Strait of Hormuz’s western bank, and providing an overwatch position for both the entrance to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean near Africa. The Royal Air Force of Oman (al-Quwwat al-Jawwiya al-Sultanat Oman) currently flies 12 F-16 Block 50 fighters: 8 F-16Cs and 4 F-16Ds, whose delivery began in 2005. They complement the RAFO’s 18 Jaguar strike aircraft, and 11 single-seat subsonic Hawk 203 light fighters. Sultan Qaboos’ air force is looking to replace its aging Jaguars, and has made inquiries about buying 4+ generation fighters like Eurofighters or even JAS-39 Gripens for this purpose.

A formal DSCA request for 18 more F-16s raised the possibility of a different approach, and that has now become a firm contract. But BAE just received an RFP for its Eurofighter…

• The Sultanate of Oman’s History, and its Fighter Fleet
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
  Continue Reading… »

• Todd Harrison at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) reviews options [PDF] for DOD to handle sequestration. “If this downturn in defense spending is like previous downturns, the FY 2013 budget projection the administration is about to release may prove to be highly optimistic.”

• The US Senate Armed Service Committee’s (SASC) most important hearing this month will take place on Feb. 14 to get started with the FY13 budget and get briefed on the latest FYPD 5-year plans. The March schedule is set to receive testimony by department between March 1st and March 20.

• US Senators representing Alaska Mark Begich [D, SASC member] and Lisa Murkowski [R-] introduced legislation (S. 2073) seeking to prohibit the Air Force from moving an F-16 squadron from Eielson AFB to Elmendorf and wrote to Secretary of Defense Panetta.

• There’s often talk of friction between DOTE (DOD’s Operational Test and Evaluation) and the acquisition community. Case in point of people apparently talking past each other: how can you really assess a whole ship or submarine’s sustainment metrics before launching the lead ship at sea? DOTE wants more data upfront during the IOT&E initial phase while this acquisition officer argues they should settle for modeling and analysis until FOT&E follow-ups.

• We missed this last month: The US Navy’s 2012 update of its naval aviation vision [PDF]. For reference: NAE 2010 [PDF].

• Navistar Defense, Indigen Armor and SAIC are teaming up to bid on the Ground Mobility Vehicle 1.1 (GMV 1.1) program.

• John J. “Jack” Evans [PDF] has been assigned as deputy director, naval warfare (NW) within DOD Acquisition. He was previously PEO submarines at the Naval Sea Systems Command. Darlene J. Costello, Principal Director Strategic and Tactical Systems (S&TS) was also wearing the NW hat until now.

• Robert S. “Steve” Miller is Hawker Beechcraft’s new CEO. Very recently the president of their defense division retired.

• The Canadian Foreign Policy Journal published a special issue [paid content] on the F-35 with headlines that include: “costly mistake”, “Strategically superfluous, unacceptably overpriced.” Please do tell how you really feel.

Latest update (Feb 6/12)

Basic Nuclear Propulsion
(click to expand)

This DII Spotlight article covers American nuclear propulsion industrial base contracts since the beginning of FY 2006. The USA has had an all-nuclear submarine fleet for over 50 years, a policy that dates back to the visionary Admiral Hyman Rickover. On the surface, America’s aircraft carriers became an all-nuclear fleet with the retirement of the USS Kitty Hawk [CV 63], and FY 2008-09 spending legislation pushed the US Navy to use nuclear power in its future CG (X) cruisers and new amphibious ship classes. At present, however, carriers are the only nuclear-powered American surface ships on the drawing board.

The civilian nuclear sector has seen major advances over the last 2 decades, and so has the military sector. The commitment to a nuclear fleet includes funding for those technical advances, as well as work to maintain both the reactors on board American ships, and the industrial base that supports them. This DID Spotlight article covers those efforts:

• Nuclear Naval Propulsion Around the World
• American Contracts (FY 2006 – Present) [updated]
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

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… »

Latest update (Feb 6/12)

LHA-R/NAAS Concept

Modern U.S. Navy Amphibious Assault Ships project power and maintain presence by serving as the cornerstone of the Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) / Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG). LHA/LHD are a key element of the Seapower 21 doctrine pillars of Sea Strike and Sea Basing, transporting, launching, and landing elements of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) via a combination of LCAC hovercraft, amphibious transports and vehicles, helicopters, and aircraft.

Designed to project power and maintain presence, LHA-Replacement (LHA-R, aka. LH-X and now the America Class) large deck amphibious assault ships will replace the LHA-1 Tarawa Class. They are based on the more modern LHD Wasp Class design, but initial ships will remove the LHD’s landing craft and well deck. While its LHA/LHD predecessors were amphibious assault ships with a secondary aviation element, it’s fair to describe the LHA-R (now New Amphibious Assault Ship) as escort carriers with a secondary amphibious assault role.

• America Class Ships: 21st Century Escort Carriers [updated]
• The LHA-R Program [updated]
• America Class: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

Latest update (Feb 7/12)

“Grand Slam”

During the Second World War, attacking heavily protected targets like U-boat pens and protected “V-weapon” facilities was a key challenge. Enter a brilliant British engineer named Barnes Wallis, fresh off the dam-busting “Upkeep” bouncing bomb. His next trick was a 12,000 pound weapon called the “Tallboy,” a streamlined, spin-stabilized bomb with a claimed terminal velocity of Mach 1 when dropped from 20,000 feet. That mass, carrying 5,200 pounds of Torpex D1 explosive, made a crater 80 feet deep x 100 feet across when it hit. By 1945, Wallis’ next “Earthquake bomb” was in production – the 22,000 pound “Grand Slam.” His creations made short work of U-boat pens.

These bombs went out of fashion with the advent of nuclear weapons, but if you wait long enough, fashion comes around again. Enter the USA’s new Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). Despite additional funding, and October promises of accelerated deployment, the MOP did not arrive by mid-2010, as planned. Development continues, however, and fielding draws closer:

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

• Recently-confirmed US defense acquisition Under Secretary Frank Kendall (pending Senate approval) discussed with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) the implications of DOD’s strategic guidance and what’s coming for FY13. He confirmed he is aiming for continuity from his predecessor and former boss Ashton Carter’s Better Buying Power, and spoke with candor about contracting schemes such as concurrency or fixed-price awards going in and out of fashion at the Pentagon with equal fervor. But it doesn’t seem to matter much whether low-rate initial production is done on a cost-plus or fixed-price basis. In the end, what does really work? On the sign out of Kendall’s door: “In God we trust; all others must bring data.” Audio | PDF transcript.

• Some acquisition requests are more urgent than others. Dealing with pressing operational requirements is what the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell (JRAC) does within DOD, as well as some offices within the services such as the Army’s PEO-C3T.

• While Frank Kendall was calling F-35 concurrency “acquisition malpractice”, Carl Levin [D-MI] and John MCain [R-AZ] – respectively Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) – sent a letter [PDF] to the Secretary of Defense questioning his decision to take the F-35B off probation. Along with 13 other questions, they want to know whether there are dissenting voices within DOD that might have been ignored to reach that decision. From a much more tactical perspective, the F-35s grounded because of defective parachutes are flying again [PDF] now that the issue has been sorted out.

• The Office of the US Secretary of Defense Comparative Testing Office (CTO) has made a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to declare its intention to fund a number of innovative technologies in the tactical realm, from aircrew protection to non-lethal weapons to munition improvements and more. FBO | CTO templates.

• Airlift provider Global Aviation Holdings Inc. is filing for Chapter 11. Press release | WSJ.

• There are rumors that the BAE/Dassault Telemos UAV will be picked for a GBP 1 billion joint British-French program. Unsourced and unconfirmed.

• The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command is running a survey to get feedback from soldiers about the Improved Physical Fitness Uniform (IPFU), while the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command is to evaluate bioelectric bandages. This looks less painful than it sounds.