WANTED: stuff like this…

US Army initiatives. (Jan 18/12)

On July 25/06 Al-Anbar commander and U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer submitted an MNF-W priority 1 request. It pointed to the hazards inherent in American supply lines, and noted that many of the supply convoys on Iraq’s roads (up to 70%, by some reports) were carrying fuel. Much of that fuel wasn’t even for vehicles, but for diesel generators used to generate power at US bases. That is still true, and Afghanistan has even more daunting logistics. By some estimates, shipping each gallon of fuel to Afghanistan requires 7 gallons of fuel for transport.

A number of Pentagon projects use alternative energy at various installations, but Zilmer’s request is believed to have been the first formal request from a front-line commander. Not to mention the first formal request that acknowledges the security dimension of alternative energy sources, in response to the growth of “systempunkt” terrorism and the non-linear battlefield. It has not been the last.

• The Need on the Ground
• Options and Considerations
• Contracts and Key Developments [updated]
• Additional Readings
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• According to Bloomberg the FY13 President Budget submission date has been postponed from Feb. 6 to Feb. 13. Meanwhile House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is suggesting to chip at sequestration one year at a time if rolling back the whole 10 years proves too much of a hurdle.

• Sen. Claire McCaskill [D-MO] is pushing for FAA commercial certification of a civilian “BC-17” heavy transport aircraft. DoD Buzz doesn’t seem to understand that there’s a significant global market for outside cargo delivery, and that the C-17’s short takeoff & landing capabilities could be useful to industries like mining, that operate in austere locations with smaller airstrips.

• US Army installations get together to share progress toward “NetZero” energy & waste goals.

• The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) looks at [PDF] the tax revenue implications of defense acquisition choices and finds that “the tax revenues are significant; they can yield to the Exchequer [DID: i.e. Treasury] over a third of the value of the contract.”

• France just bought [in French] 29 small Cobra Mk2 robots from Eca Robotics in Toulon, for use in finding and detonating land mines.

• US SOCOM’s 75th Ranger Regiment deploys to Afghanistan with GD’s AN/PRC-154 JTRS HMS Rifleman Radio, and Android-based Itronix GD300 wearable computers.

• Even a dying satellite has lessons to teach. GPS-IIA satellite SVN-30 is doing just that for the USAF.

• The US National Weather Services’ Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is now operational at the NWS Omaha Weather Forecast Office, the 1st of 135 forecast sites to upgrade. It’s a Raytheon system.

Into that good night

Oxygen sensor install, as USAF looks for answers; 2011 test reports. (Jan 20/12)

The 5th-generation F-22A Raptor fighter program has been the subject of fierce controversy, with advocates and detractors aplenty. On the one hand, the aircraft offers full stealth, revolutionary radar and sensor capabilities, dual air-air and air-ground SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) excellence, the ability to cruise above Mach 1 without afterburners, thrust-vectoring super-maneuverability… and a ridiculously lopsided kill record in exercises against the best American fighters.

On the other hand, critics charge that it’s too expensive, too limited, and cripples the USAF’s overall force structure. Meanwhile, close American allies like Australia, Japan and Israel, and other allies like Korea, were pressing the USA to abandon its “no export” policy. Most already fly F-15s, but several were interested in an export version of the F-22 in order to help them deal with advanced – and advancing – Russian-designed aircraft, air-to-air missiles, and surface-to-air missile systems. That would have broadened the F-22 fleet in several important ways, but the US political system would not or could not respond.

This DID FOCUS Article covers both sides of the F-22 controversies in the USA and abroad, and tracks ongoing contracts. It has been restored to full public access, as the F-22 program of record winds down to its end…

• The F-22 Raptor: Key Capabilities
  • Raptor, Redux: Upgrading the Fleet
• The F-22 Raptor: Criticisms & Controversies
• F-22 Raptor: Program
• F-22 Raptor: Key Events
  • Events: 2010-2012 [updated]
  • Events: 2006-2009
  • Events: Pre-2006
• F-22 Raptor: Contracts & Production
  • FY 2010-2012 [updated]
  • FY 2006-2009
  • Pre-FY 2006
• Additional Readings & Sources: Key Components, Program, Official Reports, Controversies & Events
  Continue Reading… »

• President Obama’s campaign donors at Lightsquared still have a big problem with GPS interference, according to the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee, and the American FAA. The company didn’t mince words in its reaction: “the process used [...] was rigged by manufacturers of GPS receivers and government end users to produce bogus results”. Yeah, those evil FAA types, who want to be able to use GPS for civil aviation.

• France successfully launches [in French] its 4 Elisa project SIGINT/ESM micro-satellites, as a Soyuz rocket lifts of from French Guiana to place them in their 700 km orbit.

• Israel signs defense cooperation accords with Bulgaria. They’ve had military relations for some time, and Israel is an important defense supplier, but their record isn’t perfect.

• French naval personnel recently got an up-close evaluation of the MV-22 Osprey, aboard USS Bataan [LHD 5]. Even if they don’t buy it, it’s a step toward possible joint operations involving French ships.

• EADS’ executive succession is predictably political; CEO Gallois is asking for patience. Meanwhile, they’re still looking to the USA for possible defense growth.

• Russia gets another A-50U AWACS aircraft. It’s based on the same IL-76 airframe as India’s new A-50EI AWACS, but uses Russian radars and systems instead of Israeli technology. It will go well with their planned modernization of 60 MiG-31 Foxhound interceptor and C2 planes to MiG-31BM status.

• The Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff released the Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) [PDF] to describe how to gain operational access against modern Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) means.

• US Congressman Maurice Hinchey [D-NY-22] who sits on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense will retire at the end of this Congress.

• Lockheed Martin is shedding 90 electronics systems jobs in Maryland while CSC will lay off 114 people in Ohio.

• Adm. John C. Harvey, Jr. Commander, Fleet Forces Command in the US Navy wants his officers to know their ships and how they evolve: recommended video from last week’s SNA National Symposium.

• Construction of a solar farm has started at the Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) on the huge China Lake site in California.

• Lack of sleep makes you hungry. Something that serving military members had long suspected, now has scientific backing.

• Researchers at the San Antonio Military Medical Center think they have an E-75 vaccine targeting HER2/neu, that can reduce recurrence of breast & prostrate cancers. Big breakthrough? “Let’s test a vaccine for early-stage cancer on non-terminal patients!”

• Is Indonesia buying used Dutch Leopard 2 tanks? Don’t ask Indonesia’s Parliament, they don’t know.

• Sikorsky announces 35 suppliers for its S-97 Raider compound helicopter, a scout and special forces design based on its X2 technology. It’s competing to be the US Army’s next armed scout helicopter, but an “OH-58F” upgrade remains the bettor’s pick.

• Greece’s budget problems don’t change the country’s military needs. Meeting those needs retains fairly broad support there, while making their creditors equally happy.

• The latest US GAO reports on the DOD: how to increase competition in procurements that use the national security exception; Arctic capabilities. Note that the GAO recently redesigned their website for the better, these report pages are significantly more legible than in the past.

• Consultancy ICF International studied the potential for solar energy generation on DOD bases in California and Nevada and found that there’s plenty of usable space suitable for solar development, to the tune of 25,000 acres (10,000 hectares). Edwards AFB and Fort Irwin are the 2 sites with the largest potential. PDF report.

• The US National Center for Telehealth and Technology (T2) has launched a LinkedIn group for military mental health professionals.

• At an August 2011 DISA event, VMWare’s CEO discussed cloud computing and its implications for security, among other things.

• A French Mirage and a Saudi F-15 collided during a joint exercise in Saudi Arabia. The 3 pilots ejected safely.

• Australia’s Defence Department reviews undertaken in the last couple of years have tallied up to more than $20M, according to the Advertiser.

RN CVF Concept

Vigilance radar pod for AEW?; American EMALS for CVF; Commons PAC report. (Dec 21/11)

Britain’s 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) announced a big leap forward for the Royal Navy: plans to replace the current set of 3 Invincible Class 22,000t escort carriers with 2 larger, more capable Future Aircraft Carrier (CVF) ships that could operate a more powerful force. These new carriers would be joint-service platforms, operating F-35B (now F-35C) aircraft, plus helicopters and UAVs from all 3 services. Roles could include ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance), force projection and logistics support, close air support, anti-submarine/ anti-surface naval warfare, and land attack.

The scale of the CVF effort relative to Britain’s past experiences means that the program structure is rather complex. It has passed through several stages already, and is being run and conducted within an industrial alliance framework. There is also a parallel international framework, involving cooperation with France on its PA2 carrier as a derivative of the CVF design. This DID FOCUS article covers that structure and framework, ongoing developments, and the ships themselves as they round toward final design, construction, and fielding…

• The CVF Queen Elizabeth Class [updated]
• Program Team: The Aircraft Carrier Alliance [updated]
• The CVF Program: Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Other CVF-Related Contracts and Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
• Appendix A: CVF Program Management
  Continue Reading… »

• A recent Finmeccanica DRS release about a $691 million sub-contract for submarine parts was wrong; the figure is apparently $400 million. More details to come later.

• India’s defense minister, meanwhile, talks about 9 more C-130Js – but the DSCA request was for only 6.

• Well, this is an interesting point of view: “It is perhaps time for the Indian majors like Tata, L&T and Mahindra Defence and indeed the Indian Government/DPSUs to invest in American and European defence companies.” After all, the hostile takeover of Arcelor by Mittal in 2006 was rocky but eventually went through to form the largest steel maker in the world. Who would have thought that possible when the roots of the European Union are found in a steel and coal common market and the French state owned Usinor-Sacilor as late as 1995? That said India is currently stalling on allowing foreign direct investment in retail so globalization is not quite complete just yet.

• TASC and its 15 partners wins a $133 million NASA contract [PDF] for software verification and validation. Projects since 2005 have included instrument flight software, launch vehicles, navigation systems and ground system legacy integration.

• US Navy SEAL “Naval Special Warfare Group Four” is being recognized for its… business process improvement.

• Researchers at the Center for Corrosion Science & Engineering (CCSE) within the Naval Research Laboratory have developed a cheaper way to inspect the exterior coating of ships by using digital cameras and custom-made software. They expect to shorten the workload by a factor of 6 vs. the existing visual inspection process.

• Members of the US House and Senate have been working in conference on the Defense Authorization bill all week and hope to have it ready to send to the President next week. Among the points under discussion: whether to transfer the MC-12 program, and the ongoing VA vs. FL CVN homeporting contention. Another budget issue: sticking to what the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget is supposed to be about.

• Should the US develop a counter-UAV doctrine? Maybe other countries already have one…

• “All your drone r belong to us”: Bad day for Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks. Iran shows pictures of an intact RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone, which it says it hacked into and forced to land in western Iran. The Iranian regime’s lie detector scores are measured using the Richter Scale, but the drone is curiously intact. Partly because the US couldn’t bring itself to strike & destroy it. Video after the jump:
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• The US Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) approved (26-0) for a 2nd time the FY12 defense authorization bill, to reflect cuts originating in the Budget Control Act. Summary of the proposed additional cuts. Meanwhile the current continuing resolution expires in 2 days so Congress is set to vote this week on extending temporary funding until mid-December, and the Supercommittee has 7 days left. It’s time to get serious instead of goldwatching, missing the point, or considering resorting to blatant accounting tricks.

• The SASC also reviewed security issues in Iraq with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Martin Dempsey. Video embedded below after the cut; quick highlights.

• The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says it wants to hold contractors accountable. The GAO however is not convinced by all the claims of savings made by government agencies following recent cost-control OMB directives.

• RAND’s Arroyo Center studied 60 years of US Army outlays and where its budget might go in the near future, while Harvey M. Sapolsky, in answer to the Decker-Wagner Army Acquisition Review [PDF], curiously argues that Army acquisition is both not broken and not fixed.

• USMC helicopter programs may be threatened by F-35 costs, at least in terms of delivery rates.

• Speaking of the US Marines, some are going to be based in Darwin in Northern Territory, Australia.

• Can the approaches that take the twinkle out of stars for astronomers put the zap into lasers for the military? Boeing and SAIC think so, as the USA’s HEL-JTO issues a Phase II contract for a High Power Adaptive Optic system.

• The T-AKE ship Medgar Evers, named after the slain Mississippi civil right leader, is christened by his widow.

• Could the processes behind Apple’s big operational advantage help your company?

• The US Army finds commercial smartphones less brittle than expected, and pretty useful too.

• Britain is weighting its options to dispose of old nuclear subs. See 2nd video below:
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• Lockheed Martin and Raytheon plan to compete with incumbent BAE for the US Army’s Design, Development, Demonstration & Integration (D3I) space and missile defense program. The D3I RFP should be released soon, meanwhile the Concepts and Operations for Space and Missile Defense Integration Capabilities (COSMIC) contracts awarded in 2006 to BAE and Quantum Research International have been extended until September 2012. D3I may eventually amount to more than $5B spread among several vendors. Part of the delay is explained by the merger of D3I and Army SMD Technology, Experimentation, Research, Operations, Implementation, and Development (ASTEROID). D3I will be open to other services and agencies beside the Army.

• The sources sought page for the Ground Mobility Vehicle (GMV) 1.1 requirement has been amended with Q&As several times in October, including today. CCR validation required to read the updates. Today’s GMVs are Humvees that are more rugged than usual for use by special forces. A known contender is the GD OTS/Flyer Defense’s Flyer. The final RFP has been delayed a bit and is expected within a few months, with production planned to start in FY14 with an eventual FRP of about 200 vehicles a year, according to a presentation [PDF] made earlier this year by Michael Ellis, Deputy Program Manager, Family of Special Operations Vehicles (FoSOV).

• Another competition that’s busy at the pre-RFP stage is the pre-solicitation for the M153 Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station (CROWS). LTC Thomas Ryan, Product Manager Crew Served Weapons, says more than 50 companies attended the pre-solicitation conference earlier this month.

• With the commissioning of PCU California (SSN 781), the 8th VA-class submarine, the class now amounts to 15% of the US attack submarine force. US Navy | story behind the ship’s logo | Bubblehead blog.

• US Air Force Maj. Gen. Ronnie D. Hawkins Jr. has been promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and now heads the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). Hawkins comes back to DISA where he was a vice director until last July. He was for less than 4 months the Deputy Director Command, Control, Communications and Computer Systems (C4), Joint Staff at the Pentagon.

• The US Army’s move to enterprise email continues and reaches Fort Rucker, AL this week. Note that people affected by the migration will have a new email address, though their current address should continue to work for a while.

• Martin Wright, chief executive of the Northwest Aerospace Alliance (NWAA) in England tells its members they should refocus on civilian projects.

• Australian minehunter HMAS Gascoyne found a wreck of what the Royal Australian Navy thinks is a WWII Japanese submarine. More underwater imagery here.

• Video below of Boston Dynamics’ PETMAN anthropomorphic robot showing a rather good sense of balance (see also Boston Globe coverage):
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• After 15 years of pile-up, rising metal prices and clever thinking turned 30 million pounds of scrap at Thule AB, Greenland, into a full site cleanup plus $1 million.

• Boeing has returned another E-4B national command and control aircraft to the USAF, after regularly scheduled maintenance found unexpected issues. That’s not uncommon in aging aircraft.

• The UAE takes delivery of its 4th C-17 heavy airlifter. The last 2 will follow in 2012.

• US federal authorities have arrested 2 Army Corps contracting officers and 2 executives from EyakTek, an Alaska Native Corporation (ANC) with an office in Virginia. It’s not the first ANC to reach way beyond its state borders. According to the Washington Post the 4 individuals are charged with conspiracy, bribery and unlawful kickback.

• The NYT published a recap of Tyler Hicks’ decade of photographing in Afghanistan and reports that the Taliban’s attacks are evolving.

• Vote-O-Rama. The US House of Representatives approved a continued resolution for federal funding until Nov. 18. This is a short timeframe considering many FY12 spending bills have yet to be passed. Case in point, the National Defense Authorization Act has not been brought to the Senate floor yet despite going through the Appropriations Committee in mid-September. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) objects to detainee provisions.

• From an exception, such temporary, beyond-the-deadline stopgap measures have become the rule in the US Congress. To that effect, the Senate Budget Committee held a hearing yesterday on how to improve budgeting. Among discussed solutions: moving to a biannual budget.

• The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) published a report [PDF] that is bound to make the rounds. It starts from the premise that budget constraints are going to drive America’s defense strategy, and not the other way around. While the authors think the country should continue to pursue its post-WWII “global engagement” strategy, they believe the means to that end will have to change. They prioritize the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean, while engagement in Europe, Africa and Latin America should be more limited. This translates into emphasizing naval and air forces over ground troops. The 4 budget scenarios in this report all would consider canceling or delaying major Army/Marines programs (GCV, JLTV, JTRS) and they would reinvest into older platforms (DDG-51, F/A-18 E/Fs, F-16s) over new ones (LCS, F-35). New investments would be channeled towards unmanned aerial, ground and submersible vehicles.

• Video below of yesterday’s House Armed Services Committee’s hearing offering the perspectives from former service chiefs on national security long-term trends:
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