Polish officer at Bagram
memorial, Afghanistan
(click to view full)

Contracts at last for UAVs, Mi-17 helicopters. (Feb 25/10)

In August 2009, Polish Land Forces Commander Lt. Gen Waldemar Skrzypczak dropped a different kind of bomb when he resigned, after accusing defense bureaucrats in Warsaw of “serious incompetence” that was partly responsible for the deaths of Polish soldiers. As one might predict, those comments touched off promises of major equipment purchases, along with a political firestorm.

So, what has happened since?

• The General’s Broadside
• Aftermath: Contracts & Key Events [NEW]
  
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US Army HR training
(click to expand)

With over a half million US soldiers in uniform, the US Army has the formidable task of providing human resources (HR) services to all of them. To help with this massive HR requirement, the Army uses contractors.

The primary office that handles HR outsourcing is the Army’s HRsolutions Program Office launched in 2004. HRsolutions manages 4 competitively awarded HR contracts in the areas of studies and analysis, recruitment and retention, personnel services and support, and management and administrative support.

HRsolutions recently awarded 12 multiple-award indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contracts for the HR studies and analysis program, worth up to $1.3 billion in total, for the period 2010-2015. The office expects to award HR contracts in the other areas in the next few months.

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• US DoD to require vendors to meet tougher cybersecurity standards.

• Cyberattack simulation highlights infrastructure, leadership gaps. What keeps cybersecurity specialists up at night?

• Pentagon cites over 100 cyber breaches at US defense contractors and agencies.

• Pwnage: US Army calls in its best VBS2 gamers for a conference.

• Lockheed Martin may battle Babcock to acquire British defense firm VT Group.

• UK begins using new “Python” for mine clearance in Afghanistan, showcases CDE research projects.

• F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s development schedule to be delayed a year.

• US Army is developing a signal-processing interface to combine outputs from different radar systems.

• Navistar’s $750+ million contract to provide 1,050 more MaxxPro Dash vehicles is expected to restore 400 jobs to the company’s West Point, MS facility, following multiple layoffs in 2009 that had cut staffing to 120.

The Fleet and Industrial Supply Center Norfolk awarded 3 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contracts, worth up to $103.2 million, to provide decision support services for the Navy Personnel Research Studies and Technology Division of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS) in Millington, TN.

The BUPERS organization serves to provide administrative leadership, policy planning, and general oversight of the Naval Personnel Command. BUPERS’ Navy Personnel Research Studies and Technology Division conducts research and develops technologies to recruit, retain and manage Navy and Marine Corps personnel.

Each of the 3 contracts contains a 1-year base period with two 1-year option periods. The 3 contractors and their contracts are:

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Raytheon: C4ISR Future?
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As video communications is integrated into robots, soldiers, and UAVs, and network-centric warfare becomes the organizing principle of American warfighting, front-line demands for bandwidth are rising faster than the US military can add it. The Transformation Communications Satellite (TSAT) System is part of a larger effort by the US military to address that need, and close the gap.

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record – and TSAT is certainly significant. The final price tag on the entire program has been quoted at anywhere from $14-25 billion through 2016, including the satellites, the ground operations system, the satellite operations center and the cost of operations and maintenance. Lockheed Martin and Boeing each won over $600 million in risk reduction contracts to develop key TSAT SS satellite system technologies, and TSAT’s $2 billion TMOS ground-based network operations contract was already underway.

The TSAT constellation’s central role in next-generation US military infrastructure makes it worthy of in-depth treatment – but its survival was never assured. There was always a risk that outside events and incremental competitors could spell its end, just as they spelled the end of Motorola’s infamous Iridium project. This FOCUS article examines that possibility, even as it offers an overview of the US military’s vision for its communications infrastructure, how TSAT fits, the program’s challenges, and complete coverage of contracts and significant events. New additions are highlighted in green for your convenience.

The latest developments revolve around the end of the program. Despite a positive recent report from the GAO, key components of TMOS/TSAT are being canceled outright as part of the program’s planned termination…

• Key Background – Why TSAT Is Thought to be Necessary (i.e. continue reading…)
• Key Background – The Big Picture: TSAT and the Transformational Communications Architecture
• Briefing – What Is TSAT?
• Briefing – TMOS: TSAT’s Ground Component
• Briefing – TSAT: Issues & Decisions
• Briefing – The AEHF Alternative, and Lessons Learned for TSAT
• Briefing – TSAT: Program
• Analysis – TSAT’s Competitors – and Its Fate
• News – TSAT: Timeline and Ongoing Developments [updated]
• Appendix A – Additional Readings & Sources
  
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On March 31/09, The Australian ran a investigative feature titled “Our defenceless force,” and the related “Military not ready for war as fighter jets, choppers and submarines unfit for frontline.” The articles were more measured than their titles might suggest, but they listed a litany of reasons why:

“Across the entire ADF, an alarming amount of expensive military equipment is not in a suitable upgraded condition to be sent to war…. the legacy of project mismanagement and a Defence Department mindset that focuses more heavily on the defence force of tomorrow than on the force of today.”

One critical element of both today’s and tomorrow’s force is Australia’s submarine fleet. The 2009 White Paper aims to increase Australia’s fleet to 12 submarines, but current reports put the number of operational boats at…. 1.

• The Australian’s Report, and DID’s Coverage
• A Special Case: Australia’s Collins Class Submarines [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
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This animated Flash presentation has been making the rounds lately. It shows the structural changes to the American defense procurement process since 1971, as 14 waves of iterative reforms have changed the defense procurement process. It is also available from the Center for Public Integrity, in PPS Power Point format.

Despite these successive changes, the American defense procurement spiral of weapons whose generational replacement cost rises faster than inflation has continued apace. So, too, has the time required to design and field weapons systems, a fact that makes the tendency toward gold-plated or poorly-conceived requirements even worse. The result has been a spiral of shrinking force sizes despite equal or higher costs, a phenomenon that has become widespread around the world.

(click to watch)

IqAF King Air 350-ISR
(click to view full)

The Ottawa Citizen’s defense reporter David Pugliese reports that the US military is about to spend $100 million to upgrade the facilities at Kandahar, Afghanistan, in order to accommodate up to 26 aircraft for “Task Force ODIN” in Afghanistan. At first glance, this might seem like just another infrastructure play – unless one realizes that Task Force ODIN (Observe, Detect, Identify & Neutralize) may be the second-most underrated fusion of technology and operating tactics in America’s counter-insurgency arsenal.

Task Force ODIN was created on orders of Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army’s outgoing vice chief of staff. Its initial goal involved better ways of finding IED land mines, a need triggered by the limited numbers of USAF Predator UAVs in Iraq, and consequent refusal of many Army requests. Despite its small size (about 25 aircraft and 250 personnel) and cobbled-together nature, Task Force ODIN became a huge success. Operating from Camp Speicher near Tikrit, it expanded its focus to become a full surveillance/ strike effort in Iraq – one that ground commanders came to see as more precise than conventional air strikes, and less likely to cause collateral damage that would create problems for them. From its inception in July 2007 to June 2008, the effort reportedly killed more than 3,000 adversaries, and led to the capture of almost 150 insurgent leaders.

With Secretary of Defense Gates paying particular attention to improving ISR capabilities, replication in Afghanistan was inevitable. The coming construction at Kandahar marks the beginning of that effort…

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Dr. Conrad Crane
(click for profile)

The Scone Foundation Archivist of the Year Award is presented annually by The Scone Foundation to recognize an archivist who has made considerable contributions to his or her profession or who has provided significant support to scholars conducting research in history and biography. This year, the award has a military winner.

Dr. Conrad Crane’s title is Director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, following 26 years of military service that concluded with 9 years as Professor of History at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In 2003, he became Director of the Military History Institute – and also co-authored “Reconstructing Iraq,” which drew heavily on archival material relating to past military occupations throughout history. It predicted failure without early and adequate post-conflict planning, and warned that: “A force initially viewed as liberators can rapidly be relegated to the status of invaders should an unwelcome occupation continue for a prolonged time”. Dr. Crane’s contribution did not stop there, however. His West Point classmate Gen. David Petraeus has spoken of foreign occupation having a “half-life,” and in 2006 he asked his old colleague to be the lead author of the Counter Insurgency Field Manual for Iraq Forces [US Army release | Amazon.com].

Even this achievement is only part of Dr. Crane’s legacy. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson has praised Dr. Crane “for professionalizing one of the nation’s most priceless repositories of military records, and in making the U.S. Army’s Military History Institute more accessible to both scholars and curious citizens. He combines the best instincts of historian, archivist, and public servant.”

Col. John Boyd

“In the mid to late fifties, a fighter pilot could earn himself a quick forty bucks and perhaps a nice steak dinner in Vegas – not to mention everlasting renown, which is to fighter pilots what oxygen is to us lesser beings – by meeting over the Green Spot at thirty thousand feet and taking position just 500 feet behind an arrogant and unpleasant man with precisely zero air-to-air victories to his credit. From that perfect kill position, you would yell “Fight’s on!” and if that sitting duck in front of you was not on your tail with you in his gunsight in forty seconds flat then you would win the money, the dinner and best of all, the fame…. To be challenged in such a manner is an irresistible red flag to men like this, and certainly no less of one because the challenger was a rude, loud, irreverent braggart who had never been victorious in actual air-to-air combat. And yet that forty dollars went uncollected, uncollected for many years against scores of the best fighter pilots in the world.

That is more than luck. That is more than skill. That is more than tactics.”

The most important American military figure of the 20th century will not be named Eisenhower, or Patton, or even Marshall. Instead, that title is likely to belong to a man who never made it past Colonel. Yet John Boyd is justly credited with inspiring America’s victory over Iraq in Desert Storm, 5 years after his death. He continues to inspire a number of prominent figures in America’s military reform community, and in April 2008 US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates cited Boyd as an exemplar to officers in all services – someone who wanted to “accomplish something” more than he wanted to “be somebody” [Pentagon DefenseLINK | see video]. Who is this guy?

Worthwhile books have been written on that subject, but for a quicker set of takes, Bill Whittle (yes, Frank Whittle’s grandson) offers a compelling snapshot in “Pope John and the Supersonic Monastery.” Fast Company magazine’s “The Strategy of the Fighter Pilot” offers an accessible introduction from a business strategy standpoint. Readers can also get a flavor of the man himself by watching a short video excerpt of Boyd discussing doctrine, listening to audio of his “conceptual spiral” presentation [Quicktime], and reading transcripts. A copy of his “Patterns of Conflict” slides is also reproduced in Power Point, though people who know Boyd would be the first to tell you that his presentations went far beyond what was written on his slides – as good presentations ought.