Afghan 7000 series
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The U.S. Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command recently awarded Navistar Defense a follow-on contract to provide medium tactical trucks and spare parts to the Afghanistan National Police, Afghan National Army and the Iraqi Ministry of Defense.

Under the multi-year, $1.283 billion contract, Navistar will supply 7,072 vehicles based on their severe service International 7000 Series truck. The order will include General Troop Transporter, POL (petroleum, oil and lubricant), water tankers, wreckers and hazardous material truck variants. In addition, Navistar will supply all required spare parts necessary to support several years of scheduled maintenance. Approximately half of the 2008 order will be delivered during the first year of the contract, with nearly 1,000 units expected to be delivered in FY 2008 (i.e. before Oct 1/08).

MV 7000 as tanker
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This award follows a $430 million contract, 2,900 vehicle contract awarded in 2005, bringing the overall total to $1.71 billion and 9,972 trucks. Navistar release. Note that the International 7000 truck chassis is also the basis of the blast-resistant MaxxPro 4×4 patrol vehicle, which is currently the lead vehicle in the USA’s 15,000+ vehicle MRAP (Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected) program.

“I Serve With HSV-2!”
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“UAVs, Blimps, and HSV-2, Oh My!” offered a look at the USA’s fast catamaran transports, from the Bollinger/Incat ships Joint Venture, Spearhead & Swift to Austal’s Westpac Express. All offer the ability to move whole battalions and their accompanying supplies considerably faster than normal sealift, and at much less effort and expense than airlift. HSV-X1 Joint Venture ended its US military charter in July 2005, and TSV-1X Spearhead now serves as the passenger ferry T&T Spirit for the government of Trinidad & Tobago. Austal’s Westpac Express has been chartered for another 1-5 year period.

The unfortunately named* HSV-2 Swift is also returning to US service as the USA prepares to begin building JHSV ships, but this time Swift appears to be under new ownership. Sealift, Inc. in Oyster Bay, NY received a $21.9 million firm-fixed-price contract for the 12-month charter of the U.S.-flagged, contractor-operated HSV Swift. The contract contains 4 options, which include 3 12-month options and an 11-month option, which would bring the total contract value to $93.1 million. The ship will be operated worldwide in support of U.S. Fleet Forces Command and the war on terrorism. The charter will also see Swift used to test emerging operational concepts such as seabasing and the Global Fleet Station, which had also been true during previous charter periods.

Work will be performed worldwide, and is expected to be complete in September 2009 (August 2013 with options). Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured with more than 80 proposals solicited and 1 offer received by the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command in Washington, D.C. (N00033-08-C-3315).

Totem Ocean Trailer Express, Inc. in Federal Way, WA won a $7.9 million firm-fixed-price contract to charter the Ponce class self-sustaining, roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) vesselSS Westward Venture, a U.S.-flagged and U.S.-built, contractor-owned ship. The 6-month charter also includes a 6-month option that would extend the contract to a year, and bring the total contract value to $15.8 million. To see where in the world the SS Westward Venture is at the moment, click this handy web page.

Work will be performed primarily between the U.S. East Coast and the Persian Gulf, in support of the war on terrorism and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), and is expected to be complete in May 2008 (November 2008 with option). SS Westward Venture has already been used in this role for some time. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website and the Military Sealift Command’s website, with more than 80 proposals solicited and 3 offers received by The U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command in Washington, D.C.

In late September 2007, US Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base, IL issued a slew of indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price contracts for “International Airlift Services” to various commercial carriers. The total value of these contracts has a higher ceiling of just over $3 billion in 2007, compared to $2.32 billion in 2006 and $2.29 billion in 2005.

The 2007 contract also appeared to bring far more consortia into the fold, as opposed to the 2006 and 2005 awards. The way these awards work is that each contractor submits a bid, and the US military allocates awards according to each bid’s scope and competitiveness.

Recent developments include an additional award to Lynden…

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C-212, hot & high
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Blackwater, USA subsidiary Presidential Airways, Inc. of Moyock, NC uses the EADS-CASA 212 transport aircraft for its work, which is short-haul supply flights in and out of remote locations – including combat zones. Hopefully, they will be able to address some of the issues US combat commanders have raised re: the need for transport aircraft that can use smaller runways, and land closer to zones of operations.

The firm has received a few contracts from the US government for these services, covering a number of Central Asian countries. The latest contract is a bit different, as it involves helicopters…

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Maxxpro, USNS Pililaau
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On Dec 19/07, the US Defense Department announced that they expected to reach their goal of 1,500 blast-resistant MRAP vehicles delivered into theater, reaching 1,525 by year’s end. Most initial deliveries were handled by C-17, C-5, and even leased Russian AN-124 aircraft, but the far greater capacity of sealift began to tip the balance as manufacturing capacity and deliveries ramped up.

The ancillary equipment installers at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command center at Charleston, SC had been a bottleneck in the process for a while, but improvements in their workflow have eased that situation.

Exactly how much progress has been made on all fronts can be measured by the fact that as of April 9/08, over 5,200 MRAP vehicles have been delivered to the U.S. Central Command area of operations. Deliveries by sea began outsripping deliveries by air in March 2008. By the end of June 2008 all future MRAP vehicles being shipped by sea. Sealift’s huge increase in capacity comes at the expense of speed, but the number of vehicles already available in theater has reduced the urgency of adding the 3-8 vehicles that an expensive airlifter trip can carry. This will free up the USA’s overworked air transport fleet for other uses.

EPLS
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Good car owners take their vehicle in for maintenance after a certain number of months, or a certain number of miles, whichever comes first. Depending on the vehicle’s age and mileage, the dealer’s mechanic will have a list of standard systems to check and/or replace. It’s the same for the military, with the added pressure that vehicle breakdowns in a combat zone are not acceptable. So the inspections and rebuilds take place regularly, and it’s considered better to replace a working part with a new one than risk problems later. Unless, of course, land vehicles included the same sort of proactive diagnostics (“prognostics”) that are making their way into aircraft and helicopters. Maintenance could then take place only when necessary, keeping a higher percentage of vehicles in service, saving some money, and creating faster turnaround time for real problems.

That’s the aim of the US Marine Corps’ Embedded Platform Logistics System….

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T-AKE Construction
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The entire T-AKE dry cargo/ ammunition ship program could have a total value of as much as $6.2 billion in exchange for 14 ships, as the US looks to modernize its supply ship fleet. Indeed, the House Armed Services Committee recently put together an FY 2008 budget that added $456 million for another T-AKE ship – though this figure would not cover all of the internal systems et. al. that must be added to make it operational.

How do T-AKE ships fit into US naval operations? What ships do they replace? What’s the tie-in to US civilian industrial capacity? How were environmental standards built into their design? And what contracts have been issued for T-AKE ships to date? DID has answers in this FOCUS Article; recent updates tinclude the mystery of the disappearing shipbuilding appropriation, and the launch of USNS Amelia Earhart…

• T-AKE Ships: Mission & Capabilities
• T-AKE Ships: The Civilian Industry Angle
• T-AKE Ships & the Environment
• T-AKE Ships: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
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C-23B Sherpa
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DID’s coverage of the WALRUS super-heavy cargo airship’s cancellation noted complaints from combat commanders that C-130s were not able to get equipment close enough to the front lines due to short airfield restrictions. Delays in buying a small cargo aircraft to fill that role, replace aging C-23 Sherpas et. al., and ferry troops, supplies, and/or small vehicles within a theater of operations were making that problem worse. “The JCA Program: Key West Sabotage?” looked at the different levels of urgency and priority in the US Army and US Air Force and the resulting Congressional SNAFUs, and covered early-stage developments leading up to the award.

JCA could be worth up to $6 billion before all is said and done, and the finalists were a familiar duo. After EADS-CASA’s CN-235 and a shortened version of Lockheed Martin’s C-130J were disqualified for failing to meet requirements, JCA became yet another international competition between EADS-CASA’s C-295M vs. Alenia’s C-27J. The decision was expected in March 2007, but it seems we now have a clear winner: the C-27J team. Oddly, we can’t quite tell yet how much they’ve won – and if you thought the joint decision and contract announcement would end the inter-service and Congressional politicking, think again. So, what are the USAF’s requested studies, and the Congressional Research Service, saying now?...

• Canned Feud: The Transport of Seville vs. the Spartan Salesmen
• Hello, My Baby, Hello, My Honey…
• A Great Big Bunch Of You: Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Stop, Look, and Hasten: Additional Readings
  
  Continue Reading… »

Savi Technology, Inc. of Mountain View, CA, which became a Lockheed Martin subsidiary in an May 2006 acquisition, recently received time and ceiling extension to its US military RFID contract. The firm has provided RFID solutions to the DoD for more than a decade, and helped build the DoD’s RF In-Transit Visibility (ITV) network, which spans more than 45 countries and tracks military supplies through 4,000 sites. The current RFID II contract was initially awarded in January 2003, and this is the 2nd contract extension and 3rd ceiling increase that Savi has received. This latest modification extend its period to Jan 31/09, and its ceiling is increased by about $60 million to $483 million.

Think of RFID as wireless bar codes that don’t need to be swiped individually. Savi’s products include active RFID asset tags, data rich high performance tags, sensor tags that monitor security and environmental conditions, related fixed and mobile readers, as well as fully integrated site and enterprise software products that enable customers to track shipments worldwide. The US military has invested heavily in RFID for its supply chain; recent years have begun to feature positive results, as well as the creation of an RFID solutions center near Wright-Patterson AFB, OH.

These contract amendments were made by the U.S. Army’s Information Technology, E-Commerce and Commercial Contracting Center (ITEC4), and the executive agent for the DoD is the office of the Product Manager, Joint-Automatic Identification Technology. In addition to the US DoD, this Lockheed Martin group provides RFID solutions for NATO, and defense forces in the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, et. al. One of its current foci building interoperable RFID-based networks for allies, enabling them to improve the management of consignments for multi-national, joint-force operations – something USJFCOM has also been working hard to achieve. See Lockheed Martin release.