• Full 2011 financial results: Textron saw growth at Bell, revenue decrease at Textron Systems. At $7.3B, Bell’s backlog has recovered from a reporting error announced by the company last quarter.

• Meanwhile General Dynamics generated $32.7B of revenue last year. It has potentially almost 3 years worth of revenue in backlog depending on how its indefinite quantity contracts pan out. Aerospace revenue grew but combat, marine and IT systems lost ground, translating into an almost flat topline for the prime contractor.

• Raytheon wrapped up 2011 with slightly lower revenue ($24.9B) but higher bookings ($25.2B) than the previous year. Its backlog rose by $700M to $35.3B though most of that growth is not appropriated yet.

• The RAND Arroyo Center is rather bullish on the potential for UAV logistics applications such as convoy overwatch and other surveillance tasks, but reminds decision makers that bandwidth is going to be critical. Note: the study doesn’t cover the use of UAS for Army resupply, separate research that General Dynamics was tasked with.

• According to the Guardian the British government is considering selling its RAF Norholt to possibly be converted into a satellite of the nearby Heathrow airport. Philip Hammond was Secretary of State for Transport before he replaced Liam Fox last October.

• The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) notes that defense budgets in Latin America have been growing faster than institutional transparency on policy, let alone on spending.

• BAE Systems and Caterpillar Inc. have signed a 20-year supply agreement to integrate the Cat CX family of transmissions into its HybriDrive parallel propulsion system, and use it to outfit and retrofit heavy trucks. It’s a civilian deal – but the same technologies can be used on military armored vehicles, and the civilian sector is pioneering this technology.

• The German Bundeswehr has a video covering the Boxer MRAV wheeled 8×8 APC’s 1st combat deployment to Afghanistan.

• The US Army is concerned about Facebook use. Yes, it can endanger lives, they say. People in the security community need to use it responsibly, and they have some tips.

M1126, post-IED

FP factory picks up work; DVH type details & decisions; DOT&E test report. (Jan 17/12)

The 8×8 wheeled Stryker armored vehicle is the backbone of the US Army’s 7 medium armored brigades, with an 8th on the way.

The 5th Stryker Brigade from Fort Lewis, WA was the first Stryker unit sent to Afghanistan, deployed in the summer of 2009 as part of a troop level increase. The brigade was equipped with 350 Stryker vehicles. In the first few months of deployment, they lost 21 soldiers, with 40 more wounded, to IED land mines. The losses prompted the Army to examine modifications to their Stryker vehicles, in order to make them more resistant to land mines. One result is the Stryker hull redesign, creating the v-hulled Stryker DVH…

• Strykers, Struck: The Afghan Experience & Response [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
  Continue Reading… »

Before: M109 & M992

$313M to finish EMD development phase. (Jan 17/12)

The USA’s M109 self-propelled 155mm howitzers were first introduced in 1962, as a form of armored mobile artillery that could stand up to the massed fire tactics of Soviet heavy artillery and rockets. They and their companion M992 Armored Ammunition Resupply Vehicles have been rebuilt and upgraded several times, most recently via the M109A6 Paladin upgrade.

In the meantime, the Army has re-learned a few home truths. Artillery arrives in seconds rather than minutes or hours, is never unavailable due to bad weather, and delivers a possible volume of explosive destruction that would otherwise require bombers and precision weapons worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Most combat casualties in the gunpowder age have come from artillery fire, and the US Army will need its mobile fleet for some time to come. So, too, will the many countries that have bought the M109 and still use it, unless BAE wishes to cede that market to South Korea’s modern K9/K10 system, or new concept candidates like the KMW/GDLS DONAR. What to do? Enter the Paladin Integrated Management (PIM) program:

• M109 Limitations & the M109A6 Paladin
• PIM: A New M109A6 Paladin [updated]
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

• 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.

Lebanese armed forces

Hezbollah takes over; US sending armed aircraft. (Jan 12/12)

The Lebanese Army’s own web site is blunt: “The assistance received from Syria, the USA, and other friendly countries has played a basic role in bridging the gap between needs and available means.”

A number of countries are stepping up to fill those gaps, left in a military ravaged by foreign occupation, a long and losing civil war, and the presence of Hizb’Allah – a foreign-backed private army in Lebanon, with superior firepower. The battle for influence in that country is multi-polar, with countries including the USA, France, and Saudi Arabia moving to counter Syria and Iran’s proxies, and countries like Russia working with independent agendas. The USA has been supplying a wide range of equipment from ammunition to armored vehicles, and is adding tanks, mini-UAVs, and even patrol boats to that list. Belgium has worked to sell some of its own tanks and APCs, France has offered help with Lebanon’s existing French equipment; and in April 2009, Russia went so far as to offer MiG-29 fighters, for free, from its own stocks.

What capabilities would these systems bring? How are those sales going? And how is Lebanon itself changing?

• UAVs, Tanks, and Planes
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

American M1A1

Tank shells and manufacturing assistance. (Nov 17/11)

In the modern era, Egypt was a Soviet client for a long time, and its arsenals still contain their share of Soviet weaponry. Military assistance relations took a sharp turn for the worse in the early 1970s, and the country has used the US military aid program that accompanied the 1979 Camp David Accords to replace much of that equipment with American items.

One of the most prominent replacements has occurred in Egypt’s fleet of main battle tanks. Some T-55 tanks survive as greatly-upgraded “Ramses II” machines, and a handful of T-80s were bought in the late 1990s, but American M60A3 Patton and M1 Abrams tanks now make up the vast majority of Egypt’s fleet. The country began a co-production program for M1 Abrams tanks in 1988, which involves kit assembly in Egypt but outsources sensitive functions like adding the M1’s special armor. By 2007, this program had produced 880 tanks, a total that will rise to 1,130 M1 tanks as the latest contracts are fulfilled. This gives Egypt one of the globe’s largest M1 fleets…

• The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank published a report [PDF] on the South China Sea, a potential hot zone because of its sea lanes and China’s increasingly assertive territorial claims driven by natural resources such as deepwater oil and gas. Just surveying these resources has been a source of tension between China and neighbors including Vietnam and the Philippines.

• IAI says: Our President is retiring. Oh, and by the way, we just made a $1.1 billion sale to an unnamed Asian country (Globes first reported it was India but later retracted). It reportedly includes aircraft (UAVs? G550 ISR? KC-767 MMTT?), missiles (ground strike, anti-ship or naval air defense), and intelligence technologies (very wide range).

• Fellow Israeli UAV firm Aeronautics DS now has 8 long-range Dominator XP UAVs in different stages of work, as the DA42-based UAV ramps up production in the wake of export clearances.

• Little Rock AFB, AR accepts the 4th of 5 C-130H Avionics Modernization Program test & evaluation transport aircraft, and the 1st modified by the USAF’s Warner Robins ALC.

• Christmas came for the Swiss, with delayed delivery of their initial AEV-3 Geniepanzer heavy armored engineering vehicles. The Dutch and Swedes will be glad that problems were ironed out over there.

• Airdrops by US troops over Afghanistan reached a record last year at almost 16M pounds (about 7,250 tonnes). They like their JPADS. The airdrop ramp-up started a few years ago.

• THE US Air Force has a quick review on the state of eye injury protection and post-injury care. See also from the Army: Combat eye protection | Vision conservation and readiness program [PDF].

• US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Jacob Lew will wrap-up the FY13 President Budget then replace William Daley as President Obama’s Chief of Staff.

Leopard 2A6M CAN
& LAV-III, Afghanistan

Order for Rheinmetall’s Buffalo ARVs. (Dec 20/10)

Canadian Forces took some of the lessons re-learned during Operation Medusa in Afghanistan, directly to heart. Canada’s DND:

“The heavily protected direct fire capability of a main battle tank is an invaluable tool in the arsenal of any military. The intensity of recent conflicts in Central Asia and the Middle East has shown western militaries that tanks provide protection that cannot be matched by more lightly armored wheeled vehicles…. [Canada’s existing Leopard C2/1A5] tanks have also provided the Canadian Forces (CF) with the capability to travel to locations that would otherwise be inaccessible to wheeled light armoured vehicles, including Taliban defensive positions.”

In October 2003, Canada was set to buy the Styker/LAV-III 105mm Mobile Gun System to replace its Leopard C2 tanks. By 2007, however, the lessons of war took Canada down a very different path – one that led them to renew the very tank fleet they were once intent on scrapping, while backing away from the wheeled vehicles that were once the cornerstone of the Canadian Army’s transformation plan. This updated article includes a full chronology for Canada’s new Leopard 2 tanks, adds information concerning DND’s exact plans and breakdowns for their new fleet, and discusses front-line experiences in Afghanistan…

• Why New Tanks Now?
• Choices, Choices: Leopard 2s For Canada
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

A Viking comes ashore

Swedish Vikings: FMV picks, buys BvS10 MkII. (Jan 5/12)

The BvS10 is the successor to the wildly popular Bv206, 11,000 of which have been sold to 40 countries around the world – including the USA (M978). Readers may have seen these vehicles elsewhere, too, as a number of Bv206s have post-military careers at ski resorts, in industries like mining and logging, etc. The new BvS-10 is larger and more heavily armored; it’s in use in Britain, France and the Netherlands as a key armored vehicle for their respective Marines, has been bought by Sweden, and is under evaluation elsewhere. International interest includes imitators: Singapore’s Bronco ATTC is a BVS10 competitor, and Finland and Norway have their own local Bv206 variants.

What makes this unusual-looking vehicle family and design so popular? They aren’t like Humvees or similar wheeled mainstays. They aren’t full armored personnel carriers, either – they’re armored, but Bv family vehicles can’t take the kind of punishment that a Bradley or LAV can absorb. Instead, the secret to their success lies in a remarkable all-terrain capability, and their ability to fill a rare and critical role: air-portable and amphibious infantry enhancement. These success factors are discussed below, along with contracts and key developments related to this vehicle family…

• The Bv Family of Vehicles [updated]
• Bv Family: Why So Popular?
• Bv Family: Performance in Afghanistan [updated]
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  Continue Reading… »

LAV-25 in combat

Arrowhead turrets for AH-64D attack helis. (Jan 5/11)

The Saudi National Guard is seeing a lot of investment lately. In July 2006, the Saudis formally tabled a multi-billion dollar request to buy LAV wheeled APCs and related equipment for its National Guard. When we talked to GDLS in October 2007, they expected to complete a deal some time in 2008, but it took until November 2009 before a contract emerged. A separate December 2009 purchase request would add substantial firepower punch for use against enemy armored vehicles – or urban warfare strongpoints. Additional investments can be expected to follow, and have, in areas as diverse as laser training equipment and helicopters.

Who is the SANG, and why are they a globally significant institution? A must-read article in the Tribune-Libanaise explains: