Rapid Fire: 2010-02-04

• Littoral Combat Ship: program updates.

• A British green paper calls for enhanced military cooperation between the UK and France. Industry says: what about R&D?

• India orders BEL’s Akash medium range surface-to-air missile systems.

• India issues turboprop trainer RFP, after instructors reportedly refused to fly HPT-32s.

• Up to 8 UAVs reported operating in Waziristan, Pakistan strike.

• Indian P-8i sea control aircraft may add air-air surveillance.

• Frost & Sullivan: Traditional defense contractors will lose market share to “disruptive companies” that offer “good enough” products at cheaper prices.

• China is threatening to sanction US companies that are involved in the US $6.45 billion weapons sale to Taiwan. Real, or a bluff?

• US Defense Secretary Gates warns Congress that if it makes substantial cuts to the administration’s budget request, the US military will have to “sacrifice” force structure and capabilities.

• USA’s coming rotorcraft crunch?

• US DISA awards Unisys a $187 million contract to provide mainframe computer capacity for USAF logistics.

• Who’s right on the US carrier fighter gap? Defense Secretary Gates or the Navy?

• Raytheon receives a $170 million foreign military sales order to produce AGM-65D and AGM-65G2 infrared-guided Maverick air-to-surface missiles for the UAE.

• Maritime laser clears 2 US design reviews.

• Thales wins 5-year training support sub-contract for Australia’s E-737 Wedgetail AWACS {DII}, 5-year avionics support sub-contract for France’s Rafale fighters.

• The US Navy stands up its new Fleet Cyber Command to oversee the service’s cyberspace operations. Google attacks termed a “wake up call” by DNI.

• Draper Lab gets $131.1 million contract to upgrade the guidance systems on the Trident II D5 missile.

Raytheon Gets $170M Order for UAE AGM-65 Maverick Missiles

AGM-65D Fired From F-16

Raytheon received a $170 million foreign military sales contract from the USAF to produce AGM-65D and AGM-65G2 infrared-guided Maverick air-to-surface missiles for the UAE.

AGM-65 rose to prominence during Desert Storm, when many of TV’s missile-eye views of air strikes came from Mavericks. The missile is produced in 3 versions: TV-guided, imaging infrared (IIR) guided, and laser-guided.

This contract is for infrared-guided missiles, which are effective at night or in bad weather. They can be fired from the UAE’s fleet of F-16 fighter jets, as well as 24 other types of aircraft…

Mainframe Computing: Not Sexy, But Essential to US DoD IT

Unisys Clearpath Server

While it might be more thrilling to imagine US Special Operations Forces getting critical intelligence about enemy movements through a laptop computer in the field, the bread and butter of US Department of Defense IT are mainframe computers. They have the computing power necessary to process the huge amount of information generated by the sprawling DoD bureaucracy.

One of the major suppliers of mainframe computers to the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is Unisys. Since 1983, Unisys has been providing mainframe computer capacity for US Air Force logistics through DISA, the DoD agency that provides command, control and computing capabilities to the US services, other DoD agencies, and coalition partners.

On Feb 3/10, Unisys announced that it received a renewal of its contract to provide mainframe computer processing capacity and support services to DISA in support of USAF logistics and Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) financial activities. The contract is worth an estimated $187 million over 5 years.