Patriot system
(click for explanation)

The USA’s MIM-104 Phased Array Tracking Radar Intercept On Target (PATRIOT) anti-air missile system offers an advanced backbone for medium-range air defense, and short-range ballistic missile defense, to America and its allies. This article covers domestic and foreign purchase requests and contracts for Patriot systems. It also compiles information about the engineering service contracts that upgrade these systems, ensure that they continue to work, and integrate them with wider command and defense systems.

The Patriot missile franchise’s future appears assured. At present, 12 nations have chosen it as a key component of their air and missile defense systems: the USA, Germany, Greece, Japan, Israel, Kuwait, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan and the UAE. Poland, Qatar, and Turkey have all indicated varying levels of interest, and some existing customers are looking to upgrade their systems.

• The Patriot Missile Family
• Patriot Engineering Services Contracts, FY 2004 – Present
• The USA’s Patriot Programs
• Other Patriot-Related Contracts & Events, FY 2006 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
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• The USA is reportedly resuming some weapon sales to Bahrain, which were suspended in October 2011 after Bahrain and Saudi Arabia crushed civil unrest in that country. The weapons reportedly include air-to-air missile and ammunition, but not HMMWVs or anti-tank missiles. Bahrain is the home base for the US Navy’s 5th Fleet.

• The Long War journal says that 2 of the 17 documents released following the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden indicate that “al Qaeda has a much larger footprint in Pakistan than US officials have claimed.”

• Indonesia is purchasing 37 BMP-3F Series 2 amphibious tanks from Russia for $114M, to be delivered next year.
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SM-2 Launch, DDG-77
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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)
• 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
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P-8A Poseidon

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 [updated]
  • Numbers & Basing
  • P-8A Industrial Partners
• 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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B-2 drops JDAM

Precision bombing has been a significant military goal since the invention of the Norden bomb sight in the 1920s, but its application remained elusive. Over 30 years later, in Vietnam, the destruction of a single target could require 300 bombs, which meant sending an appropriate number of fighters or bombers into harm’s way to deliver them. Even the 1991 Desert Storm war with Iraq featured unguided munitions for the most part; the US Air Force did use some laser and TV-guided weapons like Paveway bombs and Maverick missiles, but they were very expensive and only effective in good weather. If precision bombing was finally to become a reality throughout the Air Force, a new approach would be needed. The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) became that alternative, an engine of military transformation that was also a model of procurement transformation.

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record. This DID FOCUS Article looks at the transformational history of the JDAM GPS-guided bomb program, the ongoing efforts to bring its capabilities up to and beyond the level of dual-mode guidance kits like Israel’s Spice and Raytheon’s Enhanced Paveway, and the contracts issued under the JDAM program since its inception:

• JDAM: A Timely History of Transformation
• JDAM: Program & Variants [updated]
• JDAM: Contracts and Key Events, 1996 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
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KC-135: Old as the hills…

DID’s FOCUS articles cover major weapons acquisition programs – and no program is more important to the USAF than its aerial tanker fleet renewal. In January 2007, the big question was whether there would be a competition for the USA’s KC-X proposal, covering 175 production aircraft and 4 test platforms. The total cost for this first phase alone will exceed $25 billion, but America’s aerial tanker fleet demands new planes to replace its KC-135s, whose most recent new delivery was in 1965. Otherwise, unpredictable age or fatigue issues, like the ones that grounded its F-15A-D fighters in 2008, could ground its aerial tankers – and with them, a substantial slice of the USA’s total airpower.

KC-Y and KC-Z contracts may follow in subsequent decades, in order to replace all 530 (195 active; ANG 251; Reserve 84) active tankers, as well as the USAF’s 59 heavy KC-10 tankers that were delivered from 1979-1987. Then again, fiscal and demographic realities may mean that the 179 plane KC-X buy is “it” for the USAF. Either way, the stakes were huge for all concerned.

In the end, it was Team Boeing’s KC-767 NexGen/ KC-46A (767 derivative) vs. EADS North America’s KC-45A (Airbus KC-30/A330-200 derivative), both within the Pentagon and in the halls of Congress. The financial and employment stakes guaranteed a huge political fight no matter which side won. A fight that ended up sinking, and restarting, the entire program, after Airbus won in February 2008. Three years later, Boeing won the recompete. Now, it has to deliver.

• KC-X: The Program
  • The KC-X Competitions
  • The KC-46A Development Phase
  • The KC-46A Production Phase
• Boeing’s KC-46A, and Its Team [updated]
• KC-X RFP: Contracts & Key Developments [updated]
• Appendix A: KC-X RFP v2.0 – The New Structure
• Appendix B: The Contenders and The Cargo Factor – KC-30B, KC-767… KC-777?
• Appendix C: Airbus KC-30/ KC-45A Team
• Additional Readings
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Sen. Leahy’s [D-VT] worked in the mid-2000s to keep the Hydra 70mm rocket family alive through special appropriations, just in time for the Hydras’ potential on the battlefield to rise again. The key was the addition of low-cost precision guidance, which would expand the number of precision weapons carried by helicopters, aircraft, and even UAVs.

Over the last few years, the US Army’s 2nd attempt at an APKWS 70mm guided rocket had a near-death experience, before righting the program with Navy funding. Meanwhile, private development efforts from Lockheed Martin, Thales TDA, and a raft of international partnerships involving major defense firms and partners in Korea, the UAE, Canada/Norway, and Israel are introducing new competitors into the precision-guided rocket space. This DID FOCUS article covers the most prominent competitors within the guided rocket trend. Their products will sit between full anti-armor missiles like Hellfire, TOW, and Brimstone, and an emerging class of ultra-small precision attack weapons like Northrop Grumman’s Viper Strike, Raytheon’s Griffin, etc.

• APKWS II: To be, or not to be…
• Lockheed Martin: Is this a DAGR I see before me…? [updated]
• LOGIR: ”...the heavenly-harnessed team/ Begins his golden progress in the east…”
• Raytheon and the UAE: “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie…”
• Other Entries: “Come unto these yellow sands….” [updated]
• Additional Readings
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• The US House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee quickly approved – behind closed doors – its markup for the FY13 funding bill. Today the Armed Services Committee is starting longer, more difficult discussions, but they will happen in the open [video]. More details in our ongoing coverage of the 2013 NDAA.

• With the release of its 2013 budget, Australia confirmed its delaying of the acquisition of 12 F-35s and other programs as well as some cancellations and early C-130H aircraft retirements. Major capital investments are reduced by AUS $664M. More materiel acquisition details in this PDF.

• According to The Telegraph the UK Ministry of Defence is about to announce that they will revert their decision to buy F-35Cs to choose instead F-35Bs STOVL, which would confirm earlier press reports.
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CH-53K concept
c. Sikorsky

The U.S. Marines have a problem. They rely on their CH-53E Super Stallion medium-heavy lift helicopters to move troops, vehicles, and supplies off of their ships. But the helicopters are wearing out. Fast. The pace demanded by the Global War on Terror is relentless, and usage rates are 3 times normal. Attrition is taking its toll. Over the past few years, CH-53s have been recalled from “boneyard” storage at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ, in order to maintain fleet numbers in the face of recent losses and forced retirements. Now, there are no flyable spares left.

Enter the Heavy Lift Replacement (HLR) program, also known as the CH-53X. It was given the formal designation CH-53K in April 2006, and aims to offer notable performance improvements in a similar-looking package. The question is whether its service entry delay to 2018 will come too late to offset a serious decline in Marine aviation:

• The HLR Program Lifts Off
• The CH-53X / CH-53K
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
• Appendix A: Flying Between Scylla and Charbydis: Navigating The Political Shoals (April 2006)
• Appendix B: Interesting Ideas: The CH-53X Skycrane Concept

• New think tank papers on Asian security in China’s lengthening shadow: China and Iran [RAND], Defending the Philippines [CNAS, PDF].

• The Washington Times looks at the size of the Pentagon’s civilian workforce which seems to move only in one direction.

• The latest CrossTalk features a series of articles on how to get the speed that comes with agile software development while retaining a healthy level of stability over the long run.
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