MiG-29K, parked

Even a small Russian buy of MiG fighters is significant news these days. At one time, if Russian fighters were being sold around the world, the default assumption was that they were Mikoyan Gurevich machines. Now, RAC MiG’s flagship product seems to be withering on the vine, and the firm has lost key competitions to produce Russia’s next-generation fighter and next-generation trainer. India has become MiG’s most important customer, and intends to operate their MiG-29 fleet until 2025 at least. The long term danger is that India may become the MiG-29 family’s sole significant user. Which would make them the maintenance base’s key support source, and the sole source for upgrade investments.

Fortunately for India, Russia is throwing its partner a lifeline of sorts. India had been the only buyer of the carrier-capable MiG-29K STOBAR (Short Take-Off, But Assisted Recovery), but Russia has reviewed its own needs. They decided that the MiG-29K had a long-term role in Russian naval aviation as well…

RFA Bayleaf, 1982-2011

Britain’s Military Afloat Reach and Sustainability (MARS) program was begun in 2002, and aimed to buy up to 11 supply ships for the Royal Navy’s Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Unfortunately, all the project could produce was studies, MoD planning delays, and slow progress. In 2007, MARS was broken up into a series of smaller buys, with an initial focus on the critical state of the RFA’s fuel carriers. Even that effort ran into delays, but the last 3 years have seen Britain’s Royal Fleet Auxiliary retire 3 of its 4 Leaf Class replenishment oilers. Another 3 of its remaining 5 oilers were commissioned in 1984 or earlier, and their single-hull design no longer complies with MARPOL regulations for fuel-carrying ships.

Replacements are urgently needed, in order to keep the Royal Navy supplied around the world. In February 2012, Britain finally placed a MARS order for 4 oilers, which will measure over 200m long and around 37,000t apiece. It has been expected for some time that these ships would not be built in Britain, and that has held true…

• The US Air Force is setting aside its Afghanistan Light Air Support contract to Sierra Nevada before the litigation initiated by Hawker Beechcraft even completes its course: “Since the acquisition is still in litigation, I can only say that the Air Force Senior Acquisition Executive, David Van Buren, is not satisfied with the quality of the documentation supporting the award decision.” Obviously Hawker Beechcraft supports that decision while Embraer is scratching their head, while Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz is fuming. In the end it’s one more contentious foreign procurement from the USAF. But the big bucks for trade dispute lawyers are in the Boeing vs. Airbus row. “You are subsidized. No, YOU are subsidized.”

• More on ITAR/DDTC’s handling of brokering and freight forwarders: weblog posts from Customs Law, Export Law.

• Things to know about recently-published DFARS Contractor Business Systems rules.
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Seafox Mk.II

Rising tensions in the Persian Gulf, coupling increasingly bellicose actions by Iran with pointed American warnings, have left international navies thinking hard about how to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for oil traffic. Naval mines, which can be laid by submarines or boats, remain one of the most difficult and inconvenient threats to counter. That was true during the last set of armed clashes between the USA and Iran in the 1980s. It remains true, and the USA has weakened its position by retiring its modern Osprey Class minehunter ships. Some are available for reactivation in an emergency, but their place was supposed to be taken by the MH-60S helicopter’s Airborne Mine Counter-Measures (AMCM) system.

The USA is looking to bolster its defenses in the Straits, but AMCM isn’t quite ready yet. That leaves them looking elsewhere for urgent operational buys. While countries like China counter mines using unmanned ships, the US Navy is turning toward a widely-bought German UUV…

M1117 @ Yaqubi.AF

The M1117 armored car is already in use in Afghanistan, with the US Army (esp. Military Police) and with Bulgarian forces. Its combined .50 cal/ 40mm grenade turret offers more firepower than a Humvee, and its shape and construction offer more protection from land mine blasts, albeit less than full MRAP vehicles. Now, Afghanistan is ordering them itself.

In June 2012, Textron Marine & Land Systems finally described the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle (ASV) variants being provided to Afghanistan via the Foreign Military Sale protocols, and funded externally via Afghan Security Forces Funds. The ANA will receive the standard ASV, the stretched ICV/Armored Personnel Carrier, command and control, ambulance, engineering, maintenance, mortar, and reconnaissance versions. Orders include…

Saab concept

The European nEUROn project joins Britain’s Taranis UCAV, Russia’s MiG SKAT, Boeing’s X-45 Phantom Ray, and the US Navy’s X-47 UCAS-D program as unmanned aircraft projects with fighter-substitution potential.

Multinational projects are often fraught affairs, and Europe’s stealth Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) had its own close calls. In November 2005, a Forecast International report on the future UAV market saw political trouble coming for the proposed 6-nation nEUROn project, unless the partner nations could get their act together and agree. In the end, the project got rolling with committed funding of EUR 535 million and counting, and the French DGA (Délégation Générale pour l’Armement) procurement agency acting as the program executive. This FOCUS article covers the Neuron program’s 3-fold goals, envisioned platform, program structure and schedule, and ongoing contracts and developments:

• Neuron: The Aircraft
• Neuron: The Program [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings and Sources
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E-4B NAOC

In December 2005, the U.S. Air Force awarded Boeing a contract as Product Support Integrator (PSI) for the USAF’s E-4 National Airborne Operations Center fleet. These four 747-200 derivatives were introduced in 1974, and serve as complete flying command posts for national and military authorities. As one might imagine, they are hardened to resist the side-effects of nuclear attack, such as electro-magnetic pulse effects.

The 2005 contract was a 5-year, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract vehicle, with one 5-year option and a $2 billion cost cap. It continues a long history of support from Boeing…

• The E-4B and Its Update Team
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
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• No less than four congressional hearings are scheduled today to review the FY13 Pentagon budget. See our full schedule. Opposition to base closures continues with this letter [PDF] written by Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) and co-signed by 41 other members of Congress. Meanwhile representatives from districts with a small defense footprint can afford to sound virtuous about cuts.

• The US Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) published the public comments [PDF] they received in response to proposed amendments [PDF] to ITAR Part 129 on brokering licensing and activities. The British Export Group for Aerospace and Defence (EGAD) captured well the pushback expressed by many other parties against the overreach that the proposed changes would translate into:
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Somewhere, over
the rainbow…

Nuclear reactors save a lot of diesel fuel on huge ships like aircraft carriers, but until the new Gerald R. Ford-class carriers arrive, there’s a catch. Mid-way through the ships’ 50-year life, the nuclear reactor needs to be refueled. The resulting “Refueling and Complex OverHaul” (RCOH) is a long, complex, potentially hazardous, and very expensive process, which also includes widespread upgrades throughout the ship. Anyone who has ever done home renovations knows that the opportunity to make upgrades can be nearly irresistible in these situations, and in truth, this stage in the carrier’s life is an excellent time for that kind of work.

The USS Abraham Lincoln [CVN 72] was built by Northrop Grumman’s Newport News sector. Commissioned on Nov 11/1989 and homeported in Everett, WA, CVN 72 is expected to remain in service until 2039. As it approaches its mid-life stage, however, its mid-life upgrade and reactor refueling likewise approaches. Its counterpart USS Carl Vinson [CVN 70] completed its RCOH at the end of 2009, and USS Theodore Roosevelt’s [CVN 71] is underway. Beginning in 2013, CVN 72 will become the 6th American carrier to undergo this procedure:

• The RCOH Process [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings [updated]
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• Israel Aerospace Industries inks a $1.6B deal with Azerbaijan involving UAVs and missile defense systems.

• The French DGA procurement agency released its 2011 activity report [PDF, in French]. Urgent operational purchase requests vastly decreased to just 20 million Euros ($27M). Support to foreign sales was sustained: DGA reckons French export bookings for 2011 amounted to 6.5 billion Euros (~$8.7B).

• The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) updated its estimate of armament sales by contractor to reflect 2010 sales that turned out at about the same level as 2009. Their Top 100 list is topped by Lockheed Martin, BAE, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.
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