MBITR on 101st in Iraq
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Tactical radios are one of the quiet lifelines of the battlefield. They can also be be a very quiet pain in the nether regions. After-action reviews by US troops in Iraq have cited lack of compatibility among available communications systems, creating pressure to modernize. Yet the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program that was intended to ensure this modernization has been plagued by inflated requirements, system delays, cost issues, and restructuring. What to do?

Fortunately, industry is providing interim answers that offer a bridge from the previous SINCGARS systems to the next-generation JTRS. Thales Communications’ AN/PRC-148 MBITR hand-held is the hand-held radio for USSOCOM, the most widely fielded multi-band portable radio in the US armed services, and is in use by many NATO Special Forces thanks to its small size, software-based structure, and excellent interoperability. The PRC-148 JEM version is JTRS-certified, and a vehicle-mounted VRC-111 component is also available as one of the radio’s expansion options. A recently-purchased JEM version even adds initial JTRS compatibility and software-based upgradeability. Rival Harris Corp. has not been idle; its larger Falcon III PRC-152-C/ VRC-110 system sports similar software-based JTRS upgradeability and ceritifications, and has received orders of its own.

In response, the US military is moving to consolidate its tactical radio purchases across participating services, in order to reduce unit costs. These 2 firms will now compete for delivery orders under the Consolidated Interim Single Channel Handheld Radio (CISCHR) program – orders that could total over $9 billion if all options are exercised. In recent news, Thales is incorporating a new waveform, and Harris is announcing a new order…

• The Radio Systems (i.e. Continue reading…)
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
  Continue Reading… »

Cat 307C

Anything that is used, wears out. With civil infrastructure projects in high demand in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world, America’s military construction equipment is seeing a lot of wear. Combat engineering is a critical competency for counterinsurgency and peacekeeping operations in particular, especially if good tactical principles are being followed with forward-based units embedded among the civilian population, key checkpoints set up and fortified, et. al.

Caterpillar, Inc., Peoria, IL recently received a $20 million firm-fixed price contract for a service life extension program (SLEP) for selected Caterpillar construction equipment. Work will be performed at Caterpillar dealers stateside and overseas, and is expected to be complete by Dec 8/09. One bid was solicited on Dec 8/08 by US Army TACOM in Warren, MI (DAAE07-01-D-T030).

A similar contract was issued to Caterpillar Defense and Federal Products in February 2007, within this same contract vehicle. It was described as a delivery order amount of $22.5 million as part of a $143.2 million firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-fixed-fee SLEP contract initiated on Aug 7/2000.

Small business qualifier Sound & Sea Technology, Inc. in Lynnwood, WA received $5.9 million under a previously awarded cost-plus-award-fee contract (N62473-06-D-3005) to exercise option year 4 for engineering and technical services in support of the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center (NFESC), Ocean Facilities Department in Port Hueneme, CA. The current total contract amount after exercise of this option will be $28.5 million. Work will be performed at various installations under NFESC’s area of responsibility worldwide, and is expected to be complete in April 2009. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, Specialty Center Contracts Core in Port Hueneme, CA issued the contract.

Work to be performed provides for ocean engineering services. This category includes project planning and execution of sub-sea cable projects including shore landings, seafloor engineering, ocean work platform support, underwater construction tool development, offshore structure and buoy projects, marine power systems, heavy load handling engineering, and harbor and waterside security projects.

JLENS Concept
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The proliferation of cruise missiles and associated components, combined with a falling technology curve for biological, chemical, or even nuclear agents, is creating longer-term hazards on a whole new scale. Intelligence agencies and analysts believe the threat of U.S. cities coming under cruise missile attack from ships off the coast is real, sophisticated and evolving. Meanwhile, the July-August 2005 issue of Air Defense Artillery Magazine discusses experiences in Operation Iraqi Freedom which showed that even conventional cruise missiles could have important tactical uses in the hands of a determined enemy.

Aerial sensors are preferred against low-flying cruise missiles, because they lack the range/horizon limitations of ground-based systems. The bad news is that keeping planes in the air all the time is very expensive, and the aircraft themselves aren’t cheap. The primary challenge for theater and national cruise missile defense, therefore, is the development of a reliable, affordable, long-flying look-down platform to detect, track and identify incoming missiles and support over-the-horizon engagements in a timely manner. Hence JLENS.

This is DID’s FOCUS Article covering the JLENS system, from key capabilities to program structure to ongoing procurements. Per DID practice, new materials will be highlighted in green type. The most recent news is a successful review milestone…

• The JLENS System: This is Not Your Grandpa’s Barrage Balloon
• JLENS: The Program
• JLENS: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources

C-17 vs. AN-124
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The long-range C-17 Globemaster III heavy transport aircraft remains the backbone of US Air Mobility Command inter-theater transport around the world, and its ability to operate from shorter and rougher runways has made it especially useful during the Global War on Terror. Recent buys by Australia, Britain, and Canada have broadened the plane’s its global use. Now NATO, who has relied on the SALIS arrangement and its leased super-giant AN-124s from Russia, is looking to buy and own 3-4 C-17s as NATO pooled assets with multinational crews. Participating countries will receive allocated flight hours relative to their participation (a Dutch MinDef release says they expect 500 flight hours per year for EUR 10-15 million per year over 30 years), and thus far they include: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United States.

This order will not materially change the coming shut-down of C-17 production, but it does look like the inauguration of a pool that will fill a gaping hole in Europe’s defense capabilities – its complete lack of heavy airlift. This article will cover NATO C-17 acquisition program, including its structure and ongoing announcements. Program is actually a misnomer so far. There has been talk, and spending bills are being introduced in some countries, but nothing resembling firm contracts yet, despite an originally-planned in-service date of late 2007. While Denmark has dropped out, Finland appears to be dropping in, and Latvia is now on board…

• The NATO C-17 Pool
• Contracts, Notifications & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
  Continue Reading… »

NLOS-C CTD, Yuma
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The USA’s $160+ billion Future Combat Systems faced a mild restructuring in February 2007, and in July 2007, work began on Phase 1 spinouts to the active force. In order to speed replacement of the M109 mobile howitzers, some members of Congress had been pushing to speed up fielding of the M1203 NLOS-C 155mm mobile howitzer as a replacement for the USA’s aging M109s, even if this meant breaking Future Combat Systems’ unitary acquisition model by making NLOS-C a separate program. That didn’t happen, thanks in part to FCS critic Senator McCain’s [R-AZ] interesting intervention, but the message was clear.

Unfortunately, even NLOS-C will break the C-130’s 20-ton cargo weight limit by a considerable margin (estimate: 27 tons, which works well in an Airbus A400M but not the C-130J Hercules). As such, FCS’ armored vehicle core is unlikely to ever deliver its most important touted benefit: deployability. On the other hand, NLOS-C does offer new and fully modern mobile howitzers, an aim that has clear Congressional support. As such, the FCS program is making the NLOS-C the lead example for FCS’ tracked Manned Ground Vehicle (MGV) family.

With long-lead production orders beginning to arrive, this will be DID’s Spotlight article covering the NLOS-C…

• The XM1203 NLOS-C [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
  Continue Reading… »

Link 16 Display
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Jam-resistant Link-16 radios automatically exchange battlefield information – particularly locations of friendly and enemy aircraft, ships and ground forces – among themselves in a long-range, line-of-sight network. For example, air surveillance tracking data from an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft can be instantly shared with fighter aircraft and air defense units. More than a dozen countries have installed Link 16 terminals on over 19 different land, sea, and air platforms, making it an interoperability success story.

While recent advancements may make AESA radars the future transmitters of choice, Link 16 is the current standard. The Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Low Volume Terminals (MIDS LVTs) were developed by a multinational consortium to provide Link 16 capability at a lower weight, volume and cost than the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS). This DID focus article describes the program, and covers international contracts associated with it. It will be updated and backfilled as time goes on. The latest award is a pair of multinational delivery orders…

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ScanEagle UAV
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Boeing has had field representatives in theater for a couple of years now to support and operate the Boeing/Insitu ScanEagle UAV from ships and ashore, receiving high praise and a fairly regular stream of contracts like this one from the USA and Australia. ScanEagle was developed to track dolphins and tuna from fishing boats, but its characteristics (low infrastructure launch and recovery, small size, long endurance, automated flight patterns) have turned out to be very good for battlefield surveillance. ScanEagles have flown more than 4,600 sorties and 50,000 flight hours, including 34,000 hours with the MEF. It has also been adapted to a number of specialty roles from sniper locator, to bio-warfgare agent detection.

March 28/08: The Boeing Co. in St. Louis, MO received an $8.4 million modification to a previously awarded, firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-05-C-0045) to provide persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) services supporting the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s Operation Enduring Freedom surge detachment.

Work will be performed in Afghanistan (90%) and St. Louis, MO (10%) and is expected to be complete in October 2008. All contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, MD issued the contract.

The US military’s JTRS program began in the late 1990s as an attempt to unify its underlying communications infrastructure. The idea was to create a family of radios for troops, vehicles, ships, et. al. that all shared a similar underlying architecture, could use Internet Protocol for data, and was a “software-defined” platform that relied on software rather than hardware to handle communication protocols. This would eliminate the Iraqi war phenomenon of multiple radios in each vehicle, in order to let the troops inside talk to various services et. al. It would also make the equipment far more “future proof,” by allowing in-place upgrades to extend compatibility with American and foreign systems, add new communications waveforms, et. al.

The program was visionary – and very ambitious. Ongoing requirements creep was thrown into the mix, and the result was major delays and cost overruns that eventually led to the complete restructuring of the program. Contracts. The part of the program that aimed to create radios for aircraft and ships has seen development contracts issued to Team Boeing (Boeing, BBN Technologies, Harris, L-3 Communications, Milcom Systems Corporation, Northrop Grumman, Rockwell Collins) and to Team Lockheed (Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon) back in 2004, with an extension in 2006 that brought the totals to about $75 million each.

We now have a winner, subject to the usual caveats concerning possible contract award protests…

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Bruce Willis missed…
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Kirkland AFB, NM recently gave the University of Hawaii of Honolulu, Hawaii a modified contract for $8 million for the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (PanSTARRS) multi-year program. The initial effort to develop and deploy a telescope data management system was awarded via a Grant to the University of Hawaii (considered a Minority Institute) and “as the various phases progressed, the Air Force determined that a Cooperative Agreement would be the more appropriate instrument as now we would be substantially involved.” At this time all $8 million has been committed (FA9451-06-2-0338, P00002).

PanSTARRS will address numerous science applications ranging from the structure of the Solar System to the properties of the Universe of the largest scales. It will be able to detect and catalog large numbers of earth-orbit crossing asteroids, or near earth objects (NEO) that present a potential threat to mankind. That last component to the mission is especially intriguing, as there is a long history of partial efforts in this direction within the US and elsewhere. So, where does this award fit in?

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