Rapid Fire 2011-04-01: Mobile Counter IED

• Huntington Ingalls Industries begins trading on New York Stock Exchange after Northrop Grumman completes the $6.7 billion spinoff of shipbuilding subsidiary.

• UK military’s antiquated information systems for logistics supply chain management have resulted in delays of supplies to front-line troops, says UK National Audit Office.

• China’s National Defense in 2010 white paper stresses “defensive” nature of military buildup, criticizes US for selling weapons to Taiwan. Criticism of Chinese weapon sales to rogue regimes like Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Sudan, et. al. is mysteriously absent.

• House Armed Services Committee chairman warns that NATO might have to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya for a decade. Would it?

• The global military communications market reached $15.9 billion in 2010, according to Visiongain report.

• NATO plans to deploy mobile counter-IED labs by the end of year.

• AAR snags $27 million order to supply specialized shelters to the US Army’s Standard Automotive Tool Set program.

• Pratt & Whitney secures $6.8 million USAF contract extension to maintain the F100-PW-220E engines powering the Italian Air Force’s F-16 fighter jets. Intended as temporary gap-fillers, those F-16s are currently seeing action over Libya.

Djibouti, Africa: Base Operations Contracting

Djibouti & region

Djibouti is an important base for western navies, the French Foreign Legion, and the US Marines. It sits in a very strategic location, at the entrance to the Red Sea and astride the passage from the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal. This has made it a key base for strike aircraft, UAVs, and troops, as well as a key hub from the new AFRICOM. Maintaining and operating that base takes work, of course. The US Navy’s Seabees have done excellent work there, and the base is being used as a testing ground for containerized renewable power options.

In the modern era, however, military construction teams are not the only ones involved in keeping the base running. Contractors are also involved. The base operations services contract was competitively procured via the NAVFAC e-solicitation website, with 6 proposals received by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Europe and Southwest Asia in Naples, Italy (N33191-07-D-0207). The winner was:

MARSS & More: Quasi-Civilian Spy Plane Services On the Front Lines

Latest updates[?]: $50M to AirScan in Iraq.

RC-7B “Crazy Hawk”

The US military has planes like F-22A stealth fighters that make a lot of news. It also has planes that make very little news, even though they play key roles in a number of conflicts around the world. One example is the RC-7B/EO-5B “Crazy Hawk”/ Airborne Reconnaissance Low aircraft, which use their short-field takeoff capabilities and array of imaging, signals collection, and radar sensors to monitor developments on the ground. The RC-7B made the news briefly in 1999 when one went down in Colombia, and again when the US military had to cancel the $8 billion ACS (Aerial Common Sensor) replacement program in 2006 and start over in 2008. Meanwhile, the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq is well suited to planes like the Dash-7 derived RC-7Bs.

ACS’ cancellation, delay, and restructuring have left the Navy pursuing its own independent program. The US Army’s RC-12N Guardrail electronic intelligence aircraft are being refurbished to keep them current and in service until the ACS arrives. And the RC-7B fleet continues to receive additional help, via a parallel program called MARSS. It’s part of a trend that involves putting private ISR(Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance) planes on the front lines.