BAF C-130B

The Bangladesh Air Force currently flies 4 ancient C-130B Hercules medium transports, bought second-hand from the USAF. A May 2012 DSCA request [PDF] would replace them with 4 merely old C-130E Hercules medium transports, bought second-hand from the USAF. The 4 Lockheed Martin C-130Es would be provided for free as Excess Defense Articles (EDA), along with 20 T56AA Rolls-Royce engines. If a contract is signed, Bangladesh gets these items, but would pay up to $180 million for an overhaul to full flight condition and many safe airframe hours, plus modifications and in-service support. it would also include delivery to Bangladesh, repair and return, spare and repair parts, support equipment, tools and test equipment, technical data and publications, training, and other forms of US government and contractor support. That contractor will be determined by competitive bids, since there are a number of companies offering “like-new” C-130 refurbishment services.

The DSCA request cites “Bangladesh’s significant contributions to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations,” which is true. It also mentions “operations to counter violent extremist organizations,” alluding to Bangladesh’s creeping Islamization, which sparked a recent coup attempt. Finally, it cites the C-130s’ potential role in humanitarian aid missions, many of which take place at home. Huge swathes of Bangladesh’s population live near sea level or on river flood plains, even as deforestation in other countries and seasonal monsoons create frequent floods. As one might imagine, this combination is less than ideal for Bangladesh. When roads flood out, the BAF’s C-130s and AN-32s can be a useful way to move supplies to helicopter-friendly distribution points.

USAF F-16s, FAP MiG-29S
and Mirage 2000DP

Peru’s 12 Mirage 2000s and 18 MiG-29s form the backbone of its current multi-role fighter fleet, alongside old SU-22 strike fighters and specialized SU-25 close air support jets. The Mirages were bought from France in 1985, while the MiG-29s arrived via a disastrous 1995 deal with Belarus. Fortunately, Peru patched things up with Russia, and RAC MiG agreed to provide service and support. In 2008, a contract began to maintain and modernize that fleet to the multi-role MiG-29SMT standard. In 2009, Dassault began working with Peru on a comprehensive inspection of the Mirage fleet, coupled with some electronics modernization. A more comprehensive set of upgrades to all of its “Mirage 2000P/DP” fighters remains an option for the future.

These purchases have been expensive, and a number of observers have questioned their usefulness against more pressing security concerns, like Peru’s fanatical Marxist Sendero Luminoso (“Shining Path”) guerrillas. On the other hand, the FAP still remembers the 1995 Canepa War with Ecuador, and its Russian fighters are stationed very close to that border, at Chiclayo and Talara. Its Mirage 2000s sit at La Joya near Bolivia and Chile; the 3 countries have a minor 3-way maritime borders dispute, and residual tensions with Chile have been a very long-running theme in Peru. This article covers Peru’s ongoing efforts to maintain and improve its core fighter fleet.

Type 26 concept

Britain’s “Future Surface Combatant” program is slated to replace the existing fleet of Type 22 Broadsword Class and Type 23 Duke Class frigates with 2 new ship classes. Outside attention often focuses on big-ticket ships like aircraft carriers, submarines, and advanced destroyers – but the frigate is the real backbone of most modern navies.

Lord Nelson loved his HMS Victory and her fellow first-rate ships of the line, but he asked the admiralty for more cruisers because he knew their versatile value as the “eyes of the fleet.” Modern multi-role frigates that can engage threats on the water, under water, and in the air fill that same role today, protecting other navy ships or undertaking independent action away from their task group. The Type 26 multi-role frigate will have to fill that niche – but first, its requirements and design must be defined.

• Britain’s Future Surface Combatants
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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Despite China’s ominous military buildup across the strait, key weapons sales of P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, Patriot PAC-3 missiles, and diesel-electric submarines to Taiwan had been sabotaged by Taiwanese politics for years – in some cases, since 1997. The KMT party’s flip-flops and determined stalling tactics eventually created a crisis in US-Taiwan relations, which finally soured to the point that the USA refused a Taiwanese request for F-16C/D aircraft.

That seems to have brought things to a head. Most of the budget and political issues were eventually sorted out, and after a long delay, some major elements of Taiwan’s requested modernization program appear to be moving forward: P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, UH-60M helicopters, Patriot missile upgrades; and requests for AH-64D attack helicopters, E-2 Hawkeye AWACS planes, minehunting ships, and missiles for defense against aircraft, ships, and tanks. These are must-have capabilities when facing a Chinese government that has vowed to take the country by force, and which is building an extensive submarine fleet, a large array of ballistic missiles, an upgraded fighter fleet, and a number of amphibious-capable divisions. Chinese pressure continues to stall some of Taiwan’s most important upgrades, including diesel-electric submarines, and new American fighter jets. Meanwhile, other purchases from abroad continue:

• Tracking the Programs: Patient Progress & Stalled Sales
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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Tony Stark approves

In May 2012, Boeing in Huntsville, AL received an $83 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, for “engineering services in support of the Avenger weapon system.” Work will be performed in Huntsville, AL until March 31/15. One bid was solicited, with 1 bid received by US Army Contracting Command in Redstone Arsenal, AL (W31P4Q-12-C-0117).

Boeing informs DID that deliveries from their new-build production line ended in 2009, but existing systems still need support. The firm has continued to invest in the Avenger turret, however, privately developing and testing an Avenger Adaptive Force Protection System variant that can mix and match its weapons. Instead of being restricted to a .50 caliber machine gun and twin 4-packs of FIM-92 Stinger missiles, AFPS uses a 25mm cannon in the center, while its 2 stations can each mount a variety of packages: a Stinger 4-pack, twin AIM-9X Sidewinder anti-aircraft missiles, an AGM-114 Hellfire ant-tank missile, a laser-guided 70mm rocket pod, or even a high-power laser module. Recent DSCA requests for the Avenger system have included Chile (2009), Oman (2011) and the UAE (2008), and the April 2012 US SIGIR report [PDF] indicates that Iraq intends to file a formal request soon.

F-15S & weapons

In August 2010, reports surfaced in the Wall Street Journal that Saudi Arabia was negotiating a $30-60 billion arms package with the USA. The reported deal was said to involve another 84 F-15 Strike Eagles to replace the Kingdom’s Tornado strike aircraft and/or F-15A-D fighters, about 132 UH-60 Black Hawk utility and AH-64 attack helicopters, and armaments to equip them.

Since the deal didn’t even reach the official DSCA request stage until October 2010, details were still hazy at best. The reports did tie in to a number of events and deals that have been covered in previous years, however, and some details and key questions have emerged over time in reports, and in the DSCA’s filings. This article looks at those requests, their tie-ins, the issues that are part of these potential deals, and related follow-on requests. As is often the case with DSCA announcements, years can pass between the requests and the signed contracts, but these contracts have started to roll in…

• Purchases & Progress: The Dashboard
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
• Appendix A: Rumors, Questions & Competitors
  • Wings of Eagles – Which F-15s?
  • What’s the Buzz – Helicopters
  • Foreign Affairs: Considerations and Competitors
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XM-7 Spider System

The 2004 National Landmine Policy directed the Pentagon to end the use of persistent landmines after 2010, and introduce self-destructing and self-deactivating alternatives. The XM-7 Spider is the successor to the Matrix system deployed in Iraq, and part of the USA’s Non-Self-Destructing Anti-Personnel Landmine Alternatives (NSD-A) program.

Spider is more of a “remote explosive device” than a typical lay-and-forget land mine. It’s detonated by soldier command, and that soldier can even load non-lethal canisters if the mission calls for it. Unlike conventional land mines, the XM-7 Spider always has a known location, so it can be safely and easily recovered and re-deployed. If that isn’t possible for some reason, XM-7 units deactivate after a set time period, so they won’t become a future threat. It sounds good, and its capabilities are badly needed in places like remote fire bases, and along Korea’s dangerous DMZ. Unfortunately, the program has run into difficulties and delays.

• Anatomy of a Spider
• The XM-7 Spider Program
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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M3A3 Bradley CFV: Charge!

In the 1970s, middle eastern wars demonstrated that tanks without infantry screens were vulnerable to infantry with anti-tank missiles. Unfortunately, armored personnel carriers were easy prey for enemy tanks, and sometimes had trouble just keeping up with friendly tanks like America’s 60+ ton, 50+ mph M1 Abrams. In response, the Americans rethought the armored personnel carrier, taking a page from the Soviet book. They created a more heavily armored, faster “Infantry Fighting Vehicle” named after WW2 General Omar “the soldier’s general” Bradley, and gave it an offensive punch of its own. M2/M3 tracked, armored IFVs can carry infantry – but they also have 25mm Bushmaster cannons, networked targeting sensors, and even TOW anti-armor or Stinger anti-aircraft missiles at their disposal.

Bradley puts on wear

Even well-serviced vehicles must suffer the pangs of age and wear, however, and the pace of electronics breakthroughs is far faster than the Army’s vehicle replacement cycle. The US Army plans to keep its Bradley fleet for some time to come, and new technologies have made it wise to upgrade part of that fleet while renewing the vehicles. Hence the remanufacture program, which complements the restore-only RESET programs.

This free-to-view DII Spotlight article explains the differences between the Bradley variants involved, details the re-manufacture process, offers additional research sources, and covers associated contracts from FY 1999 to the present.

• Bradley Variants and Sub-Variants: A Quick Guide
• Bradley Remanufacture Program: Details & Contracts, FY 1999 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
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B-2 drops JDAM

Precision bombing has been a significant military goal since the invention of the Norden bomb sight in the 1920s, but its application remained elusive. Over 30 years later, in Vietnam, the destruction of a single target could require 300 bombs, which meant sending an appropriate number of fighters or bombers into harm’s way to deliver them. Even the 1991 Desert Storm war with Iraq featured unguided munitions for the most part; the US Air Force did use some laser and TV-guided weapons like Paveway bombs and Maverick missiles, but they were very expensive and only effective in good weather. If precision bombing was finally to become a reality throughout the Air Force, a new approach would be needed. The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) became that alternative, an engine of military transformation that was also a model of procurement transformation.

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record. This DID FOCUS Article looks at the transformational history of the JDAM GPS-guided bomb program, the ongoing efforts to bring its capabilities up to and beyond the level of dual-mode guidance kits like Israel’s Spice and Raytheon’s Enhanced Paveway, and the contracts issued under the JDAM program since its inception:

• JDAM: A Timely History of Transformation
• JDAM: Program & Variants [updated]
• JDAM: Contracts and Key Events, 1996 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
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CC-130 over BC

The US military has been coming to the realization that its aging aircraft fleet will begin posing serious challenges in the coming years. Canada is experiencing similar problems. In 2005, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier said that:

“Our [CC-130 E/H] Hercules fleet right now is rapidly going downhill. We know that three years and a little bit more than that, the fleet starts to become almost completely inoperational and we will have to stop supporting operations – or else, not be able to start them.”

This Spotlight article offers additional details regarding the Canadian CC-130 recapitalization program, and the thinking behind it; some background that points up the parallels between the issues faced by the Canadians, and the experiences of other air services; and some insight into why the buy took so long, after the C-130J was declared Canada’s preferred choice in an “expedited” process. Canada has begun using the new planes on operations, and is preparing to accept the last “CC-130J.” This will shift its focus to issues of long-term support costs.

• The Transports and the Damage Done: Issues With the Fleet
  • Live Rust: What To Do Until the New Planes Arrive?
• Comes a Time: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Appendix A – Someday: Facing the Future, At Last?
  • Bite the Bullet: Canada’s Procurement Approach and Process
  • Are You Ready for the Country: Possible Competitors C-130J, C-130M, A400M… IL-76?
• Walk On: Additional Readings & Sources
  Continue Reading… »