• On the 10th anniversary of the attacks that came as the first shots in the current war with al-Qaeda and its allies, see: Pentagon mini-site | Britain’s PM | Canadian MND statement | French PM (video).

• The Long War Journal asks: How many al Qaeda fighters are in Afghanistan again? The numbers don’t seem to add.

• Meanwhile, ISVG points out that “open-source information indicates that while the United States and its allies have been highly effective at killing or capturing high-level members of [al Qaeda Central], the central leadership of [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] remains largely intact.”

• At WIRED’s Danger Room, David Axe chronicles 10 (American) military jobs that barely existed on Sept 10, 2001 – but do now.

• The US military’s 1st JHSV catamaran is launched and christened at Austal’s Mobile, AL shipyard. Meanwhile, the Austal-built USS Independence Littoral Combat Ship has finished repairs for its corrosion issues, and steamed into St. Petersburg.

• India’s 5th stretched C-130J special operations transport flies out to AFS Hindan.

• Boeing is cooperating with Dalhaousie University in Halifax, NS, Canada, as part of its required industrial offsets for sales of C-17A Globemaster heavy aerial transports, CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, and ScanEagle UAVs. Foci include advanced materials development, engineering graphics on mobile electronics, and visual and text analytics.

• House Armed Services Committee hearings coming up this week: The Future of National Defense and the U.S. Military Ten Years After 9/11 (today), Organizational Challenges in Achieving Sound Financial Management and Audit Readiness and Sustaining GPS for National Security (both on 9/15/11).

• Ronald O’Rourke at the Congressional Research Service releases the latest version of “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress”, based on information in the proposed FY12 budget, the Navy’s 30-year plan and CBO’s costing of it. Older versions are available for free thanks to Open CRS.

• Andrew S. Erickson of the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) gave a book lecture at the Naval War College museum on Chinese aerospace power and maritime roles. 1-hour video embedded below:
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M240L

FN Manufacturing, LLC in Columbia, SC received a $28.1 million firm-fixed-price contract for 3,053 of their M240L 7.62mm general purpose machine guns. Work will be performed in Columbia, SC, with an estimated completion date of Sept 30/12. One bid was solicited with one bid accepted by the U.S. Army Contracting Command in Picatinny Arsenal, NJ (W15QKN-09-C-0108).

The M240 is widely used within NATO, and aside from a few carrying annoyances, it’s a good gun: reliable, with good accuracy and rate of fire. It can be mounted on vehicles and helicopters, or carried on foot, and the gun is convertible between these modes. The M240 has moved into a more central role with US forces in Afghanistan, where engagements often take place at 300+ meter ranges. At those ranges, the platoon’s M240 GPMGs and 7.62mm designated marksman rifles may be the only truly effective guns they have. Fortunately, the M240L improves on the M240B by using titanium alloy in key sections, with a chrome carbo-nitride coating to resist galling, and a ceramic-based top coat. The result? Same gun, but at 22.3 pounds/ 10.1 kg, it weighs 5 pounds/ 2.27 kg less. At about $9,200 a pop, they aren’t cheap. Still, when you’re humping your M240L over 5,000+ foot total elevation changes in the course of a day, at medium to high altitudes, it feels like money well spent.

Titanium

May 25/11: Small disadvantaged business qualifier Universal Technical Resource Services in Cherry Hill, NJ wins a $9.6 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to support the Pentagon’s Titanium Extraction, Mining and Process Engineering Research Program. The effort builds on earlier commitments from the firm in evaluating alternatives to the standard Kroll method, which reduces titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) with magnesium to form titanium.

Titanium’s strength and lightness have created a wide range of military applications. It’s found in modern infantry jock straps, is used extensively in the USAF’s top-end F-22A Raptor fighters, and gives M777 ultra-light 155mm howitzers their lightness. It has also become a critical resource for civilian aerospace companies like Boeing and EADS. The flip side is that it’s expensive to produce, and difficult to work with. The goal of the Pentagon’s TEMPER program is to identify and develop new extraction and mining technologies that will reduce cost of titanium and other strategic metals. It might also give key US producers an edge, which is important to the Pentagon because of the politically-charged 1973 Berry Amendment’s restrictions.

Work will be performed in Butte, MT, and Mount Laurel, NJ, with an estimated completion date of May 23/13. The bid was solicited through a Broad Agency Announcement, with 7 bids received by the U.S. Army Contracting Command in Picatinny Arsenal, NJ (W15QKN-11-C-0143). It should not be surprising to note that TEMPER is just one of a number of efforts the US government has funded in this area.

• A new report [PDF] from the unaligned CSBA think tank states that “the growth and proliferation of anti-access/area-denial capabilities, together with short-range guided munitions, have the potential to bring the era of the aircraft carrier to an end, obviate the ability of short-range, tactical U.S. air power to operate from forward bases, and substantially raise the difficulties and costs of moving heavy ground forces into overseas theaters, much less sustaining them once there.” 

• The IISS use the first day of the Shangri-La Dialogue to unveil its latest study of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

• Canada sends out mixed messages regarding negotiations for overseas bases.

• Boeing delivers 2 more F100-powered F-15Ks to Daegu AB in South Korea. That makes 10 planes, from the 21-plane F-X-2 batch.

• Nanotechnology advances may lead to the transformation of combat fatigues and and bulky equipment into lightweight do-it-all battle uniforms.

• Mexico’s drug wars driving armored car maker Texas Armoring Corporation’s rapid growth.

FRES-U finalists:
There can be… none?

Many of Britain’s army vehicles are old and worn, and the necessities of hard service on the battlefield are only accelerating that wear. The multi-billion pound “Future Rapid Effects System” (FRES) aims to recapitalize the core of Britain’s armored vehicle fleet over the next decade or more, filling many of the same medium armor roles as the Stryker Family of armored wheeled vehicles and/or the Future Combat Systems’ Manned Ground Vehicle family. Current estimates indicate a potential requirement for over 3,700 FRES vehicles, including utility and reconnaissance variants. Even so, one should be cautioned that actual numbers bought usually fall short of intended figures for early-stage defense programs.

The FRES program was spawned by the UK’s withdrawal from the German-Dutch-UK Boxer MRAV modular wheeled APC program, in order to develop a more deployable vehicle that fit Britain’s exact requirements. Those initial requirements were challenging, however, and experience in Iraq and Afghanistan led to decisions that changed a number of requirements. In the end, GD MOWAG’s Piranha V won the utility vehicle competition. FRES-U is not the end of the competition, however, or the contracts. In fact, FRES-U had the winning bidder’s preferred status revoked; that entire phase will now take a back seat to the FRS-SV scout version:

• FRES: The Program
• FRES: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
• Appendix 1 – The British Army’s Armored Vehicle Fleet, late 2006
• Appendix 2 – A New Procurement Approach: System House Challenges
• Appendix 3 – FRES: Key Challenges for the Contractors
• Appendix 4 – FRES Experiments: Electronic Architecture Contracts
• Appendix 5 – FRES Experiments: Vehicle-Related Contracts
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Tarian close-up

MoU with ST Kinetics. (Sept 14/11)

Working with Britain’s Ministry of Defense, a transatlantic firm named AmSafe has come up with a novel solution to anti-tank rockets: fabric panels mounted on the sides of trucks and armored vehicles. Now, that concept has been extended to a “Quickshield” fabric net that serves as a quick, front-line patch for damaged cage armors.

To address the front-line threat posed by Rocket Propelled Grenades like the popular RPG-7, BAE’s LROD Cage Armorsteel “cage armors” have been used, as well as BAE’s much lighter aluminum solution. AmSafe’s broader Tarian (Welsh for “shield”) solution has been deployed by British forces, remains in development for new vehicle types, and offers several advantages over cage armor. Not least of which is a 50% weight savings over aluminum, and 85% savings over steel cage options…

• The RPG-7 Problem, and Solutions
• Tarian: Development and Performance
• Tarian: Next Steps [updated]
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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• Obama administration’s fiscal year 2012 budget [PDF] boosts defense spending by $22 billion over FY 2010 appropriations, to $671 billion, while projecting $78 billion in “savings” through 2016. [Update: 2013 request.]

• Russia’s armed forces rely on aging equipment, lack transport capability, and suffer from manpower shortages, according to a NATO report cited in a leaked US diplomatic cable.

• Which is true now, and even Russian analysts agree. But Moscow is increasing spending, and roughly doubled annual arms exports from 2005-2010. Meanwhile, Germany’s Rheinmetall is about to build an Army training center in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

• Ceradyne’s new Enhanced Combat Helmet may be twice the price, but it looks like a 70% plus increase in head protection over the current American ACH design, with a new ability to stop close rifle shots. The USA plans to buy 200,000 ECH helmets, beginning in the fall of 2011.

• Canada’s DND freezes benefits for deployed soldiers and next-of-kin, but isn’t moving to end double-dipping by senior officers. Not exactly leadership.

• You can find it in those deployed ranks, though. Kudos to Canadian Master Corporal Shawn Grove, who taught himself Pashto and became a big asset to the Afghan campaign, without any help from his military.

• UK soldiers get new lightweight ration packs for troops on patrol under a GPB 140 million contract with Purple Food Services.

• Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush backs easing of high-tech export controls.

• Israel’s IAI looks to work with Bombardier as well as Gulfstream, unveiling a maritime surveillance Dash-8 mockup at Aero India 2011, and considering Airborne Early Warning planes based on Bombardier’s Global Express jets.

• 2 Thai F-16s crash during Cobra Gold 2011. The pilots are safe, and the country’s F-16 upgrade program should be unaffected.

• General Dynamics snags $9.3 million task order to perform network systems integration for the Marine Corps Systems Command under the $9 billion NETCENTS contract vehicle.

• Recent WikiLeaks revelations re: Saudi Arabia have reignited the peak oil debate. Joe Lazarro says we may or may not have hit peak oil, but we can say goodbye to cheap oil.

• Afghan poppy production down by half, creating heroin shortages on Britain’s streets. Pity. That pleospora papaveracea sure is potent. Nothing like having a lot of Taliban foreigners traipsing through the poppy fields, to ensure that outbreaks spread…

• Closing the barn door: DoD tightens information security controls in the wake of WikiLeaks data breach.

• Pentagon chief Gates seeks to trim US military health care costs, which total $50 billion per year. TRICARE has a number of serious problems, which must be solved to keep the service sustainable, and avoid gutting the future defense procurement budget.

• Cybersecurity Down Under: BAE Systems acquires Australian cybersecurity firm stratsec.net for A$24 million.

• Israel’s armor firm Plasan and Britain’s Q-Flo collaborate on TorTech Nano Fibers Ltd., a joint venture to produce carbon nanotube fibers.

• Research and Markets: The 100 largest contractors account for 70% of US government contract spending.

• MBDA/Eurosam’s SAMP/T air defense system uses Aster-30 missile, Arabel radar for Europe’s first ballistic missile interception. SAMP/T entered French service in October 2010.

• Raytheon gets $43 million delivery order to supply 57 Common Sensor Payload electro-optical and sensor systems to the US Army.

• L-3 gets $24.1 million contract to supply flight trainers for F/A-18C fighters to Kuwait.

• USMC Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly’s Nov 13/10 speech to the Semper Fi Society [HTML | PDF], 4 days after his son, 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly, was killed in action in Afghanistan during his 3rd combat tour with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. It’s the men behind the weapons…

• 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics winner Andre Geim explains why graphene is the stuff of the future. DARPA agrees, and so does the Pentagon’s MURI.

• A US NAVAIR PMA-202 employee shares her experiences deploying to Iraq.

• US government contractors will face more scrutiny re: their plans for including small business subcontractors in contracts.

• “China to conquer world arms market with poor quality rip-offs” complains Pravda, who says the new Type 41 Yuan Class submarine is actually a Kilo Class ripoff, after Russia sold the type to China. Gee, that has never happened before…

• Pentagon’s cyber warriors prepare to defend US civilian infrastructure, as Washington, DC-based defense contractors expand their cybersecurity offerings.

• Aviation Week reports that both Lockheed Martin and elements in the USAF are re-thinking the decision to terminate full C-5M RERP upgrades for the C-5A fleet – and even looking at placing some retired C-5As in the civilian market. At 55% mission readiness rates, though… read “Saving the Galaxy: The C-5 AMP/RERP Program” for more background.

• First C-130J-30 Special Forces transport for India takes wing.

• US Marines’ new AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter successfully completes Operational Evaluation.

• USS Harry S. Truman and FS Charles De Gaulle conduct joint exercises, including cross-carrier landings and a Rafale engine swap-out on the Truman.

• It’s Official: US, China defense heads will meet in Vietnam next week despite tensions over Taiwan arms sales.

• Odyssey Systems in Wakefield, MA racks up $36.4 million in consulting work for the US Air Force Space Command as part of the $450 million Contract for Space and Missile Capabilities.

• Kratos to sell $24.6 million in stock to pay for the $45 million purchase of Henry Bros Electronics, a provider of surveillance, thermal imaging, radar, and biometric technologies.

• BAE Systems gets $7 million order to supply armor kits for the US Army’s M915A5 military line haul tractors manufactured by Daimler Trucks.

Initial Boeing concept

Phase 2 contract for Boeing/ QinetiQ’s SolarEagle. (Sept 15/10)

In April 2008, 3 teams received Phase 1 contracts to begin developing develop a radical new aircraft, under a US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program known as “Vulture.” DARPA’s goals for Vulture are not trivial: 5 years on station with a 450kg/ 1,000lb payload, 5kW of onboard power, and sufficient loiter speed to stay on station for 99% of the time against winds encountered at 60,000-90,000 feet.

So, what is the significance of a platform like that, who is competing, and what is happening now? Well, Phase 1 is done, and Phase 2 has been awarded.

• The Potential, and the Process
• The Designers & The Designs
• Contracts and Related Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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