$13.8M to French Firm for Umm Qasr Electrical Substation Equipment

VATECH Transmission and Distribution SA in Grenoble, France won a $13.8 million firm-fixed-price contract for Electrical Equipment for the New 132/133/11kV GIS Substation at the port of Umm Qasr, Iraq (W91GXY-06-C-0037). Work is expected to be completed by Jan. 24, 2007. There were an unknown number of bids solicited via the World Wide Web on June 28, 2005, and eight bids were received by the Joint Contracting Command in Baghdad.

$96.7M for Theory of Constraints & 6-Sigma Support in US Naval Aviation

The Avraham Y. Goldratt Institute in New Haven, CT won an estimated $96.7 million firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract to provide training, implementation, and sustainment support for Theory of Constraints, Lean practices, and Six Sigma within the Naval Aviation Enterprise. DID has covered the US Navy’s affinity for this approach.

What is Theory of Constraints, and why is it so powerful?

$28.1M for B-52 Avionics Midlife Improvement Program

B-52: Still going…

Lockheed Martin Corp. in Owego, NY received a $28.1 million firm-fixed price contract modification for the B-52 Avionics Midlife Improvement (AMI) Program. That’s a somewhat jaw-dropping term, given that the very last B-52 Stratofortress produced was delivered to the USAF in October 1962 – but the USAF presently intends to upgrade the BUFFs and keep them in service until at least 2030. Work on this contract will be complete by July 2008. The Headquarters Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker Air Force Base, OK issued the contract (FA8107-04-C-0010/P00007).

This AFFTC article describes the $260 million AMI program, and also explains some of the looming maintenance and supply problems facing the US B-52 fleet as a result of its age. See also this Military Aerospace Technology article. DID has described the larger problem of aging aircraft in the US military before, and also noted steps being taken to keep the similarly ancient and harder-used P-3 Orion fleet in the air.

UUV Swarms to Find Submarines?

Northrop Grumman’s Naval and Marine Systems Division in Annapolis, MD received a $17.6 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for development of anti-submarine warfare swarms of autonomous, networked unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) that could monitor an area. This contract includes three one-year options, which, if exercised, would bring the potential value of this contract to $44.7 million.

The Military Garage Door Blues

Do you live on or near a US military base? Do you have trouble with your automatic garage door opener? Is your neighbour muttering darkly about “the government”? Well, he may be right. The US military is the authorized user of the 380-399.9 MHz spectrum, and military radio systems like the new Land Mobile Radio system can easily drown out the weak signals of your garage door opener on similar wavelengths. MSNBC reports.

As a public service, we’ll add that recent MIT experiments with tinfoil hats have also noted critical vulnerabilities to common military spectrum wavelengths. Then again, they would say that, wouldn’t they?

$35.8M for Construction of Battalion Team Complex at Ft. Stewart

Small business qualifier Chugach Industries Inc. in Anchorage, AK received a sole source $35.8 million firm-fixed-price contract for Construction of a Battalion Team Complex-Modularity Temporary Facilities at Ft. Stewart, GA. The complex is expected to be complete by April 6, 2006. The U.S. Army Engineer District in Savannah, GA issued the contract (W912HN-06-C-0006).

Iranian Missiles: Correction

Pantsyr S1/ SA-19

Yesterday, DID ran a story covering the Iranian purchase of SA-15 missile systems from Russia. The above photo ran as a picture of the SA-15 launcher, and had been so featured at Warfare.RU.

In response Karol Ulc writes in from Poland to note that the above is actually a picture of a Russian Pantsyr anti-aircraft system (GlobalSecurity.org also refers to it as an SA-19), mounted on a Kamaz truck. He adds that the SA-15’s missiles are vertically launched from within the same vehicle that carries the two radars. Further research confirms that he is entirely correct on all counts. DID regrets the error.