L-3 Communications subsidiary EOTech, Inc. in Ann Arbor, MI received a $25 million sole-source, firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract, to provide their optical sighting system for U.S. Special Operations Command’s M4A1 carbines. Work will be performed in Ann Arbor, MI and is expected to be complete by May 2015. $262,636 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year, on Sept 30/10. The US Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division in Crane, IN manages this contract (N00164-10-D-JN68).
EOTech HWS
EOTech offers a unique technology, thanks to its Holographic Weapon Sight. The firm says that their night-vision compatible sight combines ranging and aiming in one image, which is not affected by problems like mud on the sight, or even a cracked sight window. This simple simulator demonstrates the basic sight picture.
Monday, May 31st is Memorial Day in the USA. DID honors those who have given all of their tomorrows in American military service; we will not be publishing.
This memorandum describes what I believe are serious problems in our defense budget and some ideas to address them. I appreciate that some of these thoughts are controversial – even to the point that I have some reluctance in suggesting them. However, if we are to fulfill our mandate, we must make some difficult choices, not just recommend that others do so. In other cases, such as exacting financial accountability from the Department of Defense, I believe we all can agree. Indeed, without our adopting controversial, but vitally important, ideas, I fear we cannot achieve our mandate.
Despite the sacrifice, heroism, and professionalism that our military personnel have shown in Iraq and Afghanistan, America’s defenses have been decaying, despite – perhaps even because of – increasing budgets. The ongoing corrosion and growing expense have been with us for decades, and span numerous presidents and political parties. Our Commission affords us an opportunity to start some very late due diligence on national defense spending. If these reforms are taken without the usual forms of compromise that always seem to occur – and prevailing practices that corrode our defenses are truly discarded – a stronger American military will result.
US Congressional Budget Office’s Analysis of the Navy’s FY 2011 Shipbuilding Plan: Not. Affordable.
The German defense minister aims to cut EUR 1 billion per year in defense spending, including closing small military facilities. Germany currently spends less than 1.5% of GDP on defense; NATO members’ commitment is 2%.
US Navy unveils Preferred Supplier Program to offer more favorable terms and financial incentives to government contractors who demonstrate good performance.
General Dynamics IT gets $146.2 million, 3-year contract to consolidate US DoD’s IT infrastructure in the Washington, DC area to a facility in Alexandria, VA as part of BRAC implementation.
Secure entry: BAE Systems gets $95 million order to install and maintain automated security systems to control access to US Army bases.
United Technologies’ Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne snags a $20.3 million contract to design, develop and test a high-performance liquid upper-stage propulsion system that will support early intercept capabilities for MDA’s Ballistic Missile Defense System.
Modern navies run on computers. Unfortunately, computers don’t last nearly as long as ships, something that’s both a hardware and a software problem. The computer console over there might be up to operating key systems on a billion-dollar warship, but a casual observer might be forgiven for wondering if it would be up to the task of running Pong. Behind that computer, an array of wiring and other mechanical components snake through the ship. They, too, have finite lifespans, but the networks they carry are vital. On top of it all, software systems run key programs, and tie various networks together. Some of those programs must change or be re-created when hardware shifts, while others change when new software replaces them.
All this has to be managed, and warships worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been retired early because their electronics upgrades were seen as too costly. Hence recent pushes toward open-architecture computing on many modern navy ships, built with commercial rather than military-proprietary components. Hence, also, programs like the US Navy’s future CANES (Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services), designed to streamline and update shipboard networks, to improve interoperability across the fleet.
What to do until CANES? Enter the Common Afloat Local Area Network Infrastructure (CALI) effort:
The term “cloud computing” has been floating around the commercial IT sector for a number of years. It describes how large-scale computer infrastructure can tap the power of the Internet to perform complex tasks. Cloud computing allows organizations to save money and increase flexibility by using shared IT resources, such as applications, storage devices, and servers.
The DoD wants to tap into those benefits. In May 5/09 testimony [pdf] before a US House panel, Pentagon cybersecurity official Robert Lentz offered the following prediction about the benefits of cloud computing for DoD:
“A cloud is…an ideal place from which to make capabilities available to the whole enterprise. While, in the DoD, we have encountered challenges moving towards a service-oriented architecture (SOA), in the private sector, companies like Google and Salesforce are basing their business models on an insatiable public hunger for software and applications as a service. Emulating their delivery mechanisms within our own private cloud may be key to how we realize the true potential of net-centricity.”
This article examines the development of cloud computing and how DoD is tapping into that technology for its computer networks, as well as the challenges faced by DoD in its effort:
