In September 2006, EADS Defence & Security Systems Spain received a EUR 24.5 million contract for the system design and development of the “COMbatiente FUTuro” (COMFUT) program. EADS-DS Spain will lead a group of Spanish sub-contractors including Elint, Fedur, GMV, Iturri and Tecnobit in the first round. Their team will design and develop COMFUT, then provide the Spanish Army with prototypes to equip 3 suqads (36 soldiers) over a 3-year period ending in 2009. If the tests and evaluations go well, the Spanish Ministry of Defence could acquire up to 7,000 COMFUT sets in the future… but all of the standard caveats and issues re: the global “Future Soldier” trend still apply, and the EDA is raising new concerns about lack of interoperability between the various country projects.
DID is once again grateful to Spanish reader Pedro Lucio for his assistance in obtaining details regarding the COMFUT program’s history, components, areas of research, et. al. The latest news includes a contract to ITT…
How do you train militaries and public agencies for the challenges and scale of nuclear, chemical, or biological (NBC) attacks or outbreaks, without creating unacceptable levels of disruption in society’s daily workings during the exercise? The US military has similar scope and space problems for other military exercises. Its solution is a combination of live training, virtual simulators et. al., and “constructive” environments. That last piece of the puzzle integrates the live and virtual efforts in an imaginary world, and provides status reports to commanders.
Right now, the “live virtual constructive” training environment for NBC operations appears to be falling short of its goals. To fix this, Cubic Applications, Inc. in Lacey, WA received a not-to-exceed $16.3 million cost-plus-fix-fee contract. They will provide investigative research and analysis, explore emerging technologies, and develop proof-of-concept/ prototype solutions to the shortfalls in realistic Nuclear, Chemical and Biological training. The goal is to create “a single, more realistic operational and training environment for the Live Virtual Constructive.”
Work will be performed in Shalimar, FL and is expected to be complete in May 2011. Contract funds in the amount of $2 million will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via a Broad Agency Announcement, with 1 offer received by The Naval Air Warfare Center, Training Systems Division in Orlando, FL (N61339-08-C-0024).
