US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan rely on the timely delivery of supplies and equipment to carry out their missions. One of the primary movers of heavy military equipment to that area of the world is the large medium-speed roll-on/ roll-off ship (LMSR) operated by the US Navy’s Military Sealift Command.
These ships need to head out at a moment’s notice. They require operation and maintenance support to keep them in top shape, ready to deliver supplies in theater when needed. To provide this support, the Navy awards large contracts to private companies…
When you think of military healthcare, you might picture MASH doctors performing surgery on wounded soldiers. Or you might picture a US soldier injured by an IED being rehabilitated in a hospital state-side.
You probably don’t think of computers, networks and Web sites. But modern healthcare, whether military or civilian, depends on information technology for all of the advanced medical technology to work together seamlessly.
To procure military IT, the US Department of Defense developed a contract vehicle called the Defense Medical Information Systems/Systems Integration, Design, Development, Operations and Maintenance Services (D/SIDDOMS 3) contract. Just rolls off the tongue, don’t it.
While hardly Shakespeare, the contract vehicle enables US military services and the US Department of Veterans Affairs to buy medical IT equipment and services through task orders from a group of eager contractors operating under an $8 billion contract ceiling…
US military commanders in the field want information and they want it now. The more information they can gather on enemy positions and movement, and the faster they can get it, the more chance of success they will have.
But there are so many information sources available to the commander, it is hard to sort through it all. That’s where the Distributed Ground System-Army (DCGS-A) comes in. The DCGS-A integrates intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) data within a single system to streamline the US Army’s ability to process and disseminate the data to commanders in the field.
Recently, Textron unit Overwatch received a contract, worth up to $48.5 million, to develop and maintain the DCGS-A Application Framework (DAF), the DAF Software Development Kit (SDK), and major system components such as the Tactical Entity Database, messaging/ interoperability, and visualization/ analysis tools…
Close air support remains an especially live issue on the modern battlefield, and it is once again affecting procurement discussions in Britain. “Field Report: British British GR7 Harrier IIs in Afghanistan” addressed the positive benefits of Britain’s Harrier force in theater. A 2006 controversy over their performance in the wake of a soldier’s email deserves equal attention, and has broader implications. In September 2006, newspaper reports described a leaked email from a British Major serving in Afghanistan, who created a tempest when he said that:
“Twice I have had Harriers in support when c/s on the ground have been in heavy contact, on one occasion trying to break clean. A female harrier pilot ‘couldn’t identify the target’, fired 2 phosphorous rockets that just missed our own compound so that we thought they were incoming RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), and then strafed our perimeter missing the enemy by 200 metres.”
Nor is that all. He reportedly added that “the US air force had been fantastic”, and “I would take an A-10 over Eurofighter any day.” The UK MoD responded at the time. Now, it seems that the controversy described back in 2006 is influencing procurement recommendations from the very top…
