• [Update] The US DOD released its FY13 budget request.

• Budget killer? With TRICARE costs spiraling, pharmacists and lawmakers are calling attention to the fact that the proposed merger of the USA’s only 2 national “pharmacy benefit managers” would not be good for TRICARE costs. If the merger is allowed by the FTC, it will be one more reason to push TRICARE recipients toward mail-order for drugs.

• In the UK’s House of Commons’ Major Projects Report 2011:

We welcome the Department’s better performance in controlling project-level cost increases, but remain concerned that total costs of the top 15 projects continue to rise for other reasons each year. Projects approved since 2002 have shown significantly lower overall cost growth than those approved before this date and since 2008 there has been no overall cost increase from project-specific technical issues. However, in 2010-11 the forecast costs to complete the 15 largest defence projects still increased by £466 million overall [DID: about $735M], and the Department continues to struggle to live within its means.

A note on variables that a Department cannot control: macro-economic factors such as exchange rate changes accounted for 38% of the 2010-2011 increase. Meanwhile the National Audit Office (NAO) reviewed the way the Ministry of Defence is handling reductions in the size of its workforce.

• The RAND Corporation researched ways to reduce attrition in US Air Force training programs, which they believe could produce significant savings.

• The GAO finds DOD’s reporting of the costs involved in operating and supporting major programs to be lacking with a number of inconsistencies and under-reported amounts.

• DARPA is organizing a Proposers’ Day on Feb. 21 in Arlington, VA, to present its High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS) whose goal is to secure embedded computer system software.
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• The USAF wants to follow in the US Army’s “Land Warrior” wearable computing vest footsteps. That may not be such a great idea. Then again, riding with gear is different than walking and carrying it.

• US Army’s next-generation CIRCM effort to protect helicopters against enemy missiles moves ahead. Note that this won’t help against unguided RPG rockets, which have caused the high-profile helicopter losses in Afghanistan.

• James Hasik weighs in on the Navistar-Oshkosh merger debate, and industry pricing power.

• Reuters reports that Textron is another company that might see some corporate action, though divestiture of some of its parts seems more likely than an outright merger. But such talk about the conglomerate is not new and remains speculative.

• US signs memo with Britain to help them rebuild aircraft carrier capability, after the long hiatus that will follow the recent shelving of their Harriers and carriers.

• Wideband Global Satcom F4, the 1st Block II bird, flew to Florida aboard a C-5 transport plane in November, and is set to launch on Jan 19/12 aboard a Delta IV EELV rocket.

• DARPA’s Extended Solids program is organizing a workshop next month to present its goals and attract researchers. First they would like to identify high pressure material phases of molecular compounds that feature interesting (from a DoD perspective) structural, energetic or functional properties. But perhaps more importantly they’re interested in fabrication processes that don’t require ultrahigh pressure and thus can scale at an acceptable cost. And of course the material has to remain in a stable state under ambient temperature and pressure.

• American logisticians have increased use of the Northern Distribution Network and raised stock levels to mitigate the impact of Pakistan’s closing of border crossings. They had to adapt after Karachi’s port was backed up earlier this month. Of course this is not cost neutral, but military logistics is all about resilience to events such as port closures that can’t be predicted but can be planned against.

• The US Defense Logistics Agency has worked on making its DLAD acquisition directive more user friendly and is now making it available in HTML and PDF formats.

• President Obama will attend today’s Pentagon briefing on strategic adjustments that will lead to a 10+% reduction in the number of ground troops (presumably from peak levels): NYT | Reuters | C-Span stream (to start live at 10:50am ET).

• The UK’s defence secretary Philip Hammond will meet his American counterpart Leon Panetta later today. Hammond’s take: “today the debt crisis should be considered the greatest strategic threat to the future security of our nations. The fact is, in this era of austerity… not even the United States can afford the astronomical resource commitment required to deal with every threat from every source.”

• Boeing confirmed it’s going to close its Wichita plant in Kansas by the end of 2013. Some of the 2,000+ jobs will be moved to sites in the states of California, Oklahoma and Washington; others will be cut. Congressman Mike Pompeo is fuming while Tom Cole and Rick Larsen are obviously more upbeat.

• Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) chief Marion Blakey: “At this point we see all of the oxygen in the room being absorbed by the presidential debates. We want to be part of that oxygen, if you will.” (WSJ)

• The British MoD is using balls of rubber strengthened with Kevlar to deliver fuel by helicopter or transport aircraft. Known as the Mk 5 Air Portable Fuel Containers and manufactured by GKN Aerospace, they weight 2 tonnes (4,400 pounds) when full. See a short video at the bottom of this entry. Now, wouldn’t this make sense slung under a K-Max?

• Vincent Manzo, a research analyst at the National Defense University asks [PDF]: where do space and cyberspace fit in questions of deterrence and escalation in cross-domain operations?

• DARPA scientists have found that using an antibiotic and a protein together is more effective to fight radiation than when used separately. Well, at least for mice, but the potential for human application seems promising.

• Gunther Krauter, the general secretary of Austria’s (left wing) Social Democrats (SPO), said the country should sell its Eurofighter jets. Though they belong to the same political party that’s currently leading the government, such as sale is not on the agenda of defence Minister Norbert Darabos, so he was not thrilled by Krauter’s unexpected suggestion: Austrian Independent | Austrian Times. Austria does plan to sell many of its tanks; another contentious issue is Darabos’ support for ending conscription (Germany did so last year, France too in the late 90’s/early 00’s). The right wing People’s Party (OVP), the junior member in an obviously uneasy coalition, had its spokesman call the SPO (in German) the Unsicherheitspartei (the “non-security party”). Surely there must be a 19-letter word for “ouch” in German.
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A160T carries
1,000 pounds

Recent years have seen a variety of unmanned helicopter options introduced into the market. Boeing’s entry lays a breathtaking challenge before the field: what could the military do with a helicopter-like, autonomously-flown UAV with a range of 2,500 nautical miles and endurance of 16-24 hours, carrying a payload of 1,000-2,500 pounds, and doing it all more quietly than conventional helicopters? For that matter, imagine what disaster relief officials could do with something that had all the positive search characteristics of a helicopter, but much longer endurance.

Enter the A160 Hummingbird Warrior (YMQ-18), which was snapped up in one of Boeing’s corporate acquisition deals. It uses a very unconventional rotor technology, and Boeing’s Phantom Works division continues to develop it as a revolutionary technology demonstrator and future UAV platform. With the Navy’s VTUAV locked up by the Northrop Grumman MQ-8B Fire Scout, Boeing’s sales options may seem thin. Their platform’s capabilities may interest US Special Operations Command and the Department of Homeland Security, and exceptional performance gains will always create market opportunities in the civil and military space. At least, Boeing hopes so:

• The A160T Hummingbird
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources [updated]
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Taking on the Cyber Enemy

DARPA’s programs. (Nov 8/11)

In response to the growing threats to US military and civilian networks, the Pentagon has unveiling its first formal cyber strategy.

This follows a series of events over the last few years that have escalated cyber attacks against networks and infrastructure to warlike events. For example, an unidentified foreign national penetrated the internal networks of the Department of Defense (DoD) with an infected thumbdrive in 2008. In 2009, a virus known as Stuxnet, suspected of being the product of Israeli-US government collaboration, shutdown an Iranian nuclear power plant. And in 2011, defense contractor Lockheed Martin suffered a major cyber attack that was suspected of being carried out by the Chinese government.

While the Pentagon has struggled to combat these threats, it has also had to fight some within its own ranks, as well as other agencies, for authority in cyberspace. This article focuses on the growing cyber threat to US military and civilian infrastructure and the efforts being made by the Pentagon to deal with these threats.

• Stuxnet and Beyond
• The China Connection
• The Best Defense is Offense
• Attribution: The Devil’s in the Details
• Cyber Turf Wars
• Integration Efforts
• Future War
• Key Contacts
• Additional Reading
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Johnny 5

It’s 2020. A US soldier sits down with a village sheikh, with an unusual robot in tow. The sheikh greets him courteously, respectfully, in flowing Arabic. At the appropriate time, the robot offers the same speech in English. The soldier nods, speaks, and gives a command, whereupon the robot offers dependable translation that’s even customized to the local dialect. Offshore, an intelligence analyst sorts through a combination of intercepted emails, recorded cell phone conversations, and document archives, looking for patterns and connections. She’s not fluent in Arabic, but the same technology used by the soldier is providing usable translations for her searches – asking her questions as needed, and helped by embedded clarifications and tags.

Thanks to a 2003 DARPA program, The world got to know Siri, the show-stealing component of Apple’s iPhone 4S. DARPA’s 2011 BOLT program aims to take the next step, from a silicon intermediary between man and machine to an intermediary between people. Even as it also provides a powerful back-end translation system for traditional intelligence tasks. It’s one of a family of ongoing translation research efforts, all aiming to solve a persistent and expensive problem for the US military.

• Trash into Gold: DARPA has a Phoenix Program to recycle satellites for parts.

• One of the ship blocks for Britain’s new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier had a fire. It’s out, and doesn’t appear to have done any significant damage, or hurt anyone.

• The RAND Corporation reviewed US Navy major defense acquisition programs (MDAPs) and the unique challenges they face.

• An F-4 training jet crashed in Turkey, killing its 2 pilots.

• A federal grand jury in Texas has indicted 3 people in a $6.5M fraud investigation involving subcontracts to a fake company used to overcharge the USAF for engineering services.

• The US GAO reports its findings on the state of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) and Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), says: “Because of its own workforce struggles, DCAA has lagged in completing a number of [contractor business systems] audits and is currently focusing on other high priority areas. GAO found, however, that DCMA contracting officers maintained their determination of many contractor business systems as adequate despite the fact that the systems had not been audited in a number of years – in many cases well beyond the time frames outlined in DCAA guidance.”

• The US Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive published a report to Congress on foreign spies stealing US economic secrets in cyberspace [PDF].

• US Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member John McCain (R-AZ) and Appropriations Committee member Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sent a letter asking the Secretary of Defense to describe what specific measures DoD would have to enact if the super committee doesn’t reach an agreement.

• The Jacksonville Daily News in North Carolina has a look at projected workloads at Fleet Readiness Center (FCR) East, with or without JSF work.

• Quick look in the video below at how MRAPs and M-ATVs are maintained in Bagram AF, Afghanistan:
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• The Institute for the Study of War offers a good snapshot of the Libyan revolution and operations by the numbers. This week Libya was also on the mind of the UK’s House of Commons Defence Committee in a Q&A session with the Minister for the Armed Forces, and France’s Assemblée Nationale in one of several hearings [in French] focused on the 2012 budget. One outcome: Britain and France’s navies plan a major joint exercise next year.

• According to the Washington Post the US Air Force is now flying armed UAVs out of the Arba Minch airport in Ethi­o­pia.

• DAPRA has a $50K prize set aside for the team coming with a way to “unshred” documents. 12/02/11 update: solved!

• Project Manager Soldier Sensors and Laser’s (PM SSL) logistics team won the US Army Acquisitions Excellence “Transforming the Way We Do Business Award” FY11 earlier this month because it came up with a system to improve inventory accountability.

• Mantech to buy IT provider Worldwide Information Network Systems, Inc. for $90M in cash.

• The US Defense Science Board researched early intercept (EI) ballistic missile defense feasibility [PDF] and found that “EI in and of itself is not a useful objective for missile defense [...] Intercept prior to the potential deployment of multiple warheads or penetration aids [...] requires Herculean effort and is not realistically achievable”. But this doesn’t necessarily undermine regional missile defense plans, if they don’t rely too much on EI.

• US DoD undersecretary for personnel and readiness Clifford L. Stanley resigned. DoD’s Inspector General was investigating allegations of incompetence and waste sent by anonymous Pentagon employees last summer. JoAnn Rooney, Stanley’s principal deputy since last June, will take his job on an acting basis in 2 weeks and until a replacement is formally announced.

• The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) compares the emerging Democratic and Republican positions within the Super Committee.

• US Congressman Todd Akin (R-MO) asks [PDF] the Secretary of Defense to look into how the infamously bankrupt Solyndra LLC was selected as a finalist for a contract via the Defense Venture Catalyst Initiative (DeVenCI). Note that in the end Solyndra did not get a DoD contract award.

• The Readiness Subcommittee in the US House of Representatives held a hearing yesterday on the effects of “austerity” on readiness with witnesses from the 4 services. Exec summary: budget cuts affect readiness. 1st video embedded at the bottom of this entry.

• Another HASC hearing took place to review the state of DoD ERP systems. In its testimony the GAO highlights schedule slippages, cost increases and functionality gaps.

• The 2nd video below shows a quick glimpse of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s work on micro-UAVs looking like birds or even insects.
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The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Tactical Technology Office has 3 major focus areas. Advanced Platforms does a lot of work in robotics, from load carriers that walk like a dog (LS3) to UAVs designed to stay up for months (Vulture). They also do work in areas like hypersonic vehicles, however, and helicopter rotors that work better by changing their shape. Advanced Space Systems deals with programs like MOIRE flat-lens surveillance, and F6 fractional/clustered satellites. Advanced Weapons Systems covers projects like the naval LRASM missile, the Triple Target Terminator missile for fighters, or guided small-caliber sniper rounds (EXACTO).

In October 2011, US Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) Atlantic in Charleston, SC issued a multiple-award contract for FY 2012, whose options could drive it to $150 million, and extend work through FY 2014.