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
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Javelin, firing

Retrofit and support contracts to USA, UAE, Australia. (Jan 17/12)

The Javelin missile system aimed to solve 2 key problems experienced by American forces. One was a series of disastrous experiences in Vietnam, trying to use 66mm M72 LAW rockets against old Soviet tanks. A number of replacement options like the Mk 153 SMAW and the AT4/M136 spun out of that effort in the 1980s, but it wasn’t until electronics had miniaturized for several more cycles that it became possible to solve the next big problem: the need for soldiers to remain exposed to enemy fire while guiding anti-tank missiles to their targets.

Javelin solves both of those problems at once, offering a heavy fire-and-forget missile that will reliably destroy any enemy armored vehicle, and many fortifications as well. While armored threats are less pressing these days, the need to destroy fortified outposts and rooms in buildings remains. Indeed, one of the lessons from both sides of the 2006 war in Lebanon has been the infantry’s use of guided missiles as a form of precision artillery fire. Javelin isn’t an ideal candidate for that latter role, due to its high cost-per-unit; nevertheless, it has often been used this way. Its performance in Iraq has revealed a clear niche on both low and high intensity battlefields, and led to rising popularity with American and international clients…

• The Javelin Anti-Tank Guided Missile System
• Javelin ATGM: The Program
• Javelin ATGM: Reports from the Front
• Javelin: Contracts & Key Events, 2004 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
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Military grade robots may have swarmed into war theaters as a US “Army of the Grand Robotic”, but the ingenuity and charity of hobbyists still has a place on America’s front lines. In the 2000s front-line troops started using remote-controlled toys then US military made a big push to investigate and destroy suspected land mines using military-grade robots instead.

Americans are a tinkering lot by nature. The remote-controlled toy trucks that some troops were already using to nudge suspicious packages, are a classic example. They work even better with a weatherproof wireless camera on board, for looking under vehicles. Which is what software engineer Ernest Fessenden of Rochester, MN put together for his deployed brother, Chris, with the help of a local store called Everything Hobby….

Leopard 2A6M CAN
& LAV-III, Afghanistan

Order for Rheinmetall’s Buffalo ARVs. (Dec 20/10)

Canadian Forces took some of the lessons re-learned during Operation Medusa in Afghanistan, directly to heart. Canada’s DND:

“The heavily protected direct fire capability of a main battle tank is an invaluable tool in the arsenal of any military. The intensity of recent conflicts in Central Asia and the Middle East has shown western militaries that tanks provide protection that cannot be matched by more lightly armored wheeled vehicles…. [Canada’s existing Leopard C2/1A5] tanks have also provided the Canadian Forces (CF) with the capability to travel to locations that would otherwise be inaccessible to wheeled light armoured vehicles, including Taliban defensive positions.”

In October 2003, Canada was set to buy the Styker/LAV-III 105mm Mobile Gun System to replace its Leopard C2 tanks. By 2007, however, the lessons of war took Canada down a very different path – one that led them to renew the very tank fleet they were once intent on scrapping, while backing away from the wheeled vehicles that were once the cornerstone of the Canadian Army’s transformation plan. This updated article includes a full chronology for Canada’s new Leopard 2 tanks, adds information concerning DND’s exact plans and breakdowns for their new fleet, and discusses front-line experiences in Afghanistan…

• Why New Tanks Now?
• Choices, Choices: Leopard 2s For Canada
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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• Is the FY12 defense authorization bill loaded with earmarks even though it’s not supposed to? We’ll see what actually comes out of conference in the final text of the bill sometime this week, possibly later today.

• Lockheed Martin hopes to conclude F-35 LRIP lot 5 negotiations with the Pentagon by early next year, within a $4B fixed-price-incentive (firm target) (FPIF) modification to a previously awarded advance acquisition contract (N00019-10-C-0002) announced by the government last Friday.

• General Dynamics’ CEO Jay Johnson is ready for more acquisitions.

• The Defense Acquisition University replaced the old Performance Based Logistics (PBL) with the Product Support Management (PSM) toolkit.

• US Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Commander (NAWCAD) gave its team and innovation awards last week. Among the recipients, the team in charge of the successful first launch of an F/A-18E using EMALS; the team that completed qualification testing of a 50/50 JP-5 biofuel blend for use in naval aircraft; and the people that got the USMC its first unmanned cargo helos.

• France’s NH90 “Caiman” NFH naval helicopter enters service [in French], will begin deploying on Horizon Class frigates in spring 2012.

• Boeing’s GISP/GSP support partnership with C-17 heavy transport jet operators around the world is recognized with an award.

• My Bell 407, or Yours? BAE Systems has joined with the Bell Helicopter veterans at AVX to offer a super-fast Bell 407/206L derived compound helicopter UAV as the US Navy’s MRMUAS. Their biggest competition will be Northrop Grumman/Bell’s MQ-8C Fire-X, a more straightforward Bell 407 derivative.

• Don’t mind me, I’m just the user. Driven mostly by political pressure, defense offsets have grown to 130 countries for an estimated $100B/year.

• Russia is likely to continue renewing its aging materiel, at least if oil prices remain high and Putin gets, as widely expected, the presidency back. They’ll have finished scrapping their T-64 tanks by the end of the year.

• The Military Logistics Forum reviewed the effectiveness of current ground vehicle RESET/RECAP programs.

• Right steps, wrong order. Tech. Sgt. Joshua Lopez realized the Technical Order Data (TOD) he was following to test the rail launcher that mounts an AIM-9 Sidewinder on an F-22 could lead to damage of the launcher’s $14K detent assembly. Rather than just go through an informal workaround he submitted a request to reorder the TOD and got rewarded for it.

• What gets measured gets improved. RAND surveyed troops using the Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) Warfighters’ Forum (SWfF StrykerNet), a private website made to help them get ready for deployment. The non-profit found the site’s users satisfied with the service, but recommends among other things to implement some form of tracking/analytics to better assess usage of future similar warfighting communities. This would require caution re: confidentiality but in this day and age barely any private actor would consider deploying a new web service without some level of embedded analytics.

• US DoD Systems Engineering aka DASD (SE) and the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) announced their 2011 award winners: Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense (AIAMD), Chinook CH-47F Multi-Year I, Advanced Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robotic System (AEODRS), CH-53K Heavy Lift Replacement Helicopter (HLR) and Enterprise Business Systems.

• World of Malcraft. USAF issued an official statement with more details on the type of malware recently found on ground control stations at Creech AFB: “more of a nuisance than an operational threat.” More serious is the lack of internal transparency on this issue. In an interesting parallel, the head of cyber security at Raytheon UK warns that if you choose to sell to Taiwan, you will be under constant attack from the large continental country across the strait. This requires organization-wide mobilization and response.

• F-35 by numbers. Well, maybe not the kind of numbers you had in mind: 1,300 subcontractors, 130,000 jobs in 47 states, and a Congressional Caucus approved [PDF] on September 14 that already has 40 members, according to the AP. The caucus is co-chaired by Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-TX 12, member of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee) who clashed with Senator McCain (R-AZ) last month on F-35 funding. According to the Sunlight Foundation, Lockheed Martin (employees + PAC) was Granger’s #2 campaign finance contributor for 2009-2010.

• Details might finally emerge today at a US House Armed Services Committee (HASC) hearing on where budget cuts might be made, a question carefully dodged so far. Freshly-appointed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey will testify, and they’re not fans of cuts themselves. A group of 65 House Democrats sent a letter [PDF] to the deficit supercommittee urging it to find savings in nuclear weapons, while conservative think thank Heritage Foundation argues in favor of missile defense. Finally, in case you had any doubts about how they feel, HASC Republicans made the video clip below and chairman of Military Personnel Subcommittee Joe Wilson (R-SC) wrote this op ed:
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B-52H: to 2030?

BAE contract; Rust never sleeps. (Sept 26/11)

The current US Air Force fleet, whose planes are more than 23 years old on average, is the oldest in USAF history. It won’t keep that title for very long. Many transport aircraft and aerial refueling tankers are more than 40 years old – and under current plans, some may be as many as 70-80 years old before they retire. Since the price for next-generation planes has risen faster than inflation, average aircraft age will climb even if the US military gets every plane it asks for in its future plans. Nor is the USA the only country facing this problem.

As this dynamic plays out and average age continues to rise, addressing the issues related to aging aircraft becomes more and more important in order to maintain acceptable force numbers, readiness levels, and aircraft maintainability; avoid squeezing out recapitalization budgets; handle personnel turnover that becomes more and more damaging; and keep maintenance costs in line, despite new technical problems that will present unforeseen difficulties. Like F-15 fighters that are under flight restrictions due to structural fatigue concerns – or grounded entirely.

The biggest contracts aren’t always the ones deserving of the most attention. Enter the USA’s Joint Council on Aging Aircraft (JCAA), and initiatives like the Navy’s ASLS. Enter, too, DID’s Spotlight article. It seeks to place the situation and its effects in perspective, via background, contracts, and a research trove of articles that tap the expertise and observations of outside parties and senior sources within the US military…

• The JCAA
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Aging Aircraft: Some Additional Readings [updated]
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MTRS: TALON IV

Dragon Runner 10 mini-bot unveiled; $22M iRobot contract; E-IBCT’s SUGV 320 hits the rocks – more MTRS? (Sept 7/11)

In 2005 children’s toys were being used by American soldiers on the front lines, to help them look for roadside bombs. It would appear that someone took notice, because there has since been a flurry of activity on the robotic explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) front. The The Man Transportable Robotic System program took off, and its military ground robots began making a difference long before protected MRAP vehicles began to arrive in numbers.

The Academy-award winning movie “The Hurt Locker” made bomb disposal famous, but the reality of it involves far more robots, and far fewer wearable bomb suits. MTRS robots are the larger, heavy duty options for Explosives Ordnance Disposal technicians, though smaller options are also in service. So, what exactly is the MTRS program?

• MTRS: Why Send A Man to Do A Robot’s Job?
• MTRS: Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• MTRS’ Mini-Mes: MARCbot & BomBot
• MTRS Additional Readings & Sources [updated]
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Strong’s JPADS,
Afghanistan

Ultralight JPADS contract awarded. (March 17/11)

The dilemma for airdropping supplies has always been a stark one. High-altitude airdrops often go badly astray and become useless or even counter-productive. Low-level paradrops face significant dangers from enemy fire, and reduce delivery range. Can this dilemma be broken?

A new advanced concept technology demonstration shows promise, and is being pursued by U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center at Natick, the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command (USAF AMC), the U.S. Army Project Manager Force Sustainment and Support, and industry. The idea? Use the same GPS-guidance that enables precision strikes from JDAM bombs, coupled with software that acts as a flight control system for parachutes. JPADS (the Joint Precision Air-Drop System) has been combat-tested successfully in Iraq and Afghanistan, after moving beyond the test stage in the USA… and elsewhere.

• JPADS Systems
• The JPADS Program & History
• JPADS: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
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3 firms added to 5-year SITEC multiple-award contract. (July 14/11)

US Special Operations Command (US SOCOM) has been extremely busy since Sept 11/01. That is creating corresponding demands on their support infrastructure, much of which is contracted. SOCOM is famous for having a practical, results-oriented, “get it done now” approach to contracting, which creates more freedom for contractors but also means a certain degree of added pressure. Much like the lives of SOCOM’s operators.

The L-3 Communications conglomerate does a lot of work with US SOCOM, and this article covers a few of those key contracts. Their Joint Operations Group’s profile describes the nature of their work with SOCOM – and it is extensive: