In 2006 it appeared that recent purchases by Australia, Canada, Britain, and possibly others would not be enough to sustain C-17 production much beyond 2008, when the end of US orders was scheduled to close the line. The line ended up lasting rather longer than that, thanks to a combination of American orders that brought the plane close to its original production targets, and expended interest abroad.
In September 2013, however, Boeing confirmed that they were closing the C-17 production line. The final date is now mid-2015. After that, Airbus’ A400M and Russia’s IL-476 will compete as the only in-production intratheater military transports on the market.
The US Army’s $150-300 billion Future Combat Systems program has many dimensions, from UAVs to missiles to land vehicles. One of the most important dimensions, however, is its network and IT elements.
DefenseTech notes that FCS lead systems integrator SAIC is advertising for a Future Combat Systems Deputy CIO. “Minimum of 15 years experience in both classified and unclassified enterprise information management” required, along with “a minimum of 8 years of relevant and recent project management office (PMO) experience under a U.S. Government contract.”
The Monster.com posting adds that “proficiency with Microsoft products and common office software applications” is another requirement. Given Microsoft’s security record and the importance of the network element to FCS’ combat capabilities, we hope they mean Word, Excel, Power Point, and Visio.
All military technologies have their teething periods, and especially advanced examples often have longer ones. The SBX X-band radar offers a quantum leap in capabilities, and can even be floated into position in order to perform its missile-tracking function.
As our June 2005 article noted, the SBX was scheduled to arrive in Adak, Alaska by late December 2005. It remains at Hawaii, however, owing to a number of issues and glitches that have yet to be fully worked out. POGO offers a summary of those issues, via a link to a Chicago Tribune article an a leaked “For Official Use Only” document it was based upon entitled “SBX-1 Operational Suitability and Viability Assessment.”
New-build airframes and equipment pools will keep the existing UH-1Ns in service on the front lines until they can be replaced, and cost curve and fixed price commitments have stabilized things on the contract front. DID’s previous article noted other issues as well, and we will continue to cover this program as it develops.
The USA’s troubled Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program was meant to be a centerpiece of US military transformation that would enable units to communicate seamlessly via equipment that would use software-defined electronics to “translate” different communications waveforms. JTRS was scheduled to be part of many new US systems, from updated MIDS/Link 16 terminals in aircraft to remote control of the NETFIRES “missile in a box” to a key role in the $100+ billion Future Combat Systems program. Etc. Etc. Instead, the program went through many tribulations.
The resulting technical difficulties were formidable, made more so by rising requirements demands from the US military. Eventually, the difficulties forced delays that affected combat commanders, led to rising costs, and finally created a breakdown. Boeing’s Cluster 1 program was put on notice for potential cancellation in April 2005, and subsequent reports have predicted that JTRS would be scaled back or even broken up entirely.
It now appears that the predictions of a scaled back restructuring were correct…
DID has covered the US military’s RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance UAVs, which can cruise at 65,000 feet for 32 hours and cover thousands of miles in the process. Forecast International notes that 7 Global Hawks have been delivered, 17 are in various stages of production, at least 2 have been lost in crashes, and 2 more are on loan to the Navy for experiments. Over 5,400 combat hours have been flown, and foreign interest is also high. NATO is looking at Global Hawk as part of its AGS battlefield surveillance project in combination with a JSTARS-like Arbus 319, and there has even been talk of setting up a multinational “Pacific Pool” of Global Hawks along similar lines to NATO’s E-3 AWACS program. As the Pentagon looks to retire its U-2 fleet, this UAV’s operational role and importance will only increase.
DID discusses a $60 million contract that was just issued for the RQ-B Global Hawk, whose 131-foot wingspan and larger size give it an extra 5,00 pounds of payload capacity vs. the 116-foot A model. We also point to a National Defense Magazine article that raises questions about the program’s costs and accounting.
DID has covered the USA’s $120+ billion Future Combat Systems program before, and recently noted questions regarding its survivability in urban warfare. Now the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued Report #GAO-06-478T (Defense Acquisitions: Business Case and Business Arrangements Key for Future Combat System’s Success). The key paragraph from the abstract reads:
“There are a number of compelling aspects of the FCS program, and it is hard to argue with the program’s goals. However, the elements of a sound business case for such an acquisition program – firm requirements, mature technologies, a knowledge-based acquisition strategy, a realistic cost estimate and sufficient funding – are not yet present. FCS began product development prematurely in 2003. Since then, the Army has made several changes to improve its approach for acquiring FCS. Yet, today, the program remains a long way from having the level of knowledge it should have had before starting product development. FCS has all the markers for risks that would be difficult to accept for any single system, much less a complex, multi-system effort. These challenges are even more daunting in the case of FCS not only because there are so many of them but because FCS represents a new concept of operations that is predicated on technological breakthroughs. Thus, technical problems, which accompany immaturity, not only pose traditional risks to cost, schedule, and performance; they pose risks to the new fighting concepts envisioned by the Army.
Many decisions can be anticipated that will involve trade-offs the Government will make in the program. Facts of life, like technologies not working out, reductions in available funds, and changes in performance parameters, must be anticipated. It is important, therefore, that the business arrangements for carrying out the FCS program – primarily in the nature of the development contract and in the lead system integrator (LSI) approach – preserve the government’s ability to adjust course as dictated by these facts of life. At this point, the $8 billion to be spent on the program through fiscal year 2006 is a small portion of the $200 billion total. DOD needs to guard against letting the buildup in investment limit its decision making flexibility as essential knowledge regarding FCS becomes available. As the details of the Army’s new FCS contract are worked out and its relationship with the LSI evolves, it will be important to ensure that the basis for making additional funding commitments is transparent. Accordingly, markers for gauging knowledge must be clear, incentives must be aligned with demonstrating such knowledge, and provisions must be made for the Army to change course if the program progresses differently than planned.”
Science Applications International Corp. in San Diego, CA received a $33 million indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract with a cost-plus-fixed-fee pricing arrangement in support of maritime and coastal/ littoral area surveillance technologies. The contract covers program configuration management, technical services, systems engineering, algorithm development, hardware and software development, material analysis, data processing, testing, repair, installation, deployment, recovery, and analysis Work will be performed in San Diego, CA and is expected to be complete by January 2011. This contract was competitively procured via the SPAWAR e-commerce central website with one proposal received by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego, CA (N66001-06-D-5021).
The US Navy has awarded a 10-year, cost plus award fee/award term contract with a potential dollar figure of $159 million to Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. in Bethpage, NY. Northrop Grumman will serve as mission package integrator for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Mission Modules program. The FY 2006 portion of the contract award is $4.5 million.
The integrator’s role is to as a system-engineering partner responsible for bringing the systems and technologies of the mission modules together, and act as a conduit for technology to be harnessed and incorporated into the LCS seaframe and mission module architectures. They will work closely with the government’s Mission Package Integration Laboratory at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City, FL, strengthening the production team that is slated deliver the first mission packages in Fiscal Year (FY) 2007.
Mission modules are integrated packages of mission-specific equipment that can be swapped in and out of the LCS. The ships will initially draw upon modules for Mine Warfare (MIW), Anti-submarine Warfare (ASW) and Surface Warfare (SUW).
DID has covered Australia’s 3-ship, A$ 6 billion (USD $4.5 billion) SEA 4000 Air Warfare Destroyer program in some depth before. The project continues to move forward, with Australia placing an A$ 1 billion (USD $750 million) pre-order for key components of the AEGIS Combat System and setting up an Alliance Principals’ Council for the program.
The AEGIS system components are being procured despite the fact that the SEA 4000 destroyer does not yet have a finalized ship design.
