Rapid Fire 2011-05-27: DoD Infrastructure Costs in Asia

• Cartwright’s rumored x-out for the pending Pentagon Chief of Staff slot is likely to have wide implications for future Pentagon buys. Even as it raises questions about the nature and origins of the whisper campaign that covertly works to do him in.

• “The [US] Department of Defense (DOD) is currently conducting the largest transformation of military posture in the Pacific region since the end of World War II.” But the GAO says that the Pentagon is significantly understating costs to transform facilities and infrastructure in Asia. Costs that will run in the tens of billions.

• Northrop Grumman spinoff Huntington Ingalls Industries provides a slew of shipbuilding updates. Updating their LPD-17 amphibious ship progress, moving the USS Theodore Roosevelt out of RCOH drydock, and moving a 945-ton superlift section in place for the first-of-class Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier.

• Key defense firm you’ve never heard of: Blackbird Technologies. Short version: their stuff helps track people. Specific people.

• The first steel is cut for the HMS Prince of Wales, the second of the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. Due to lower build-in costs, the future HMS Prince of Wales is likely to be the only catapult-equipped, fully operational British carrier.

• Harris gets US Navy contract worth up to $59.7 million to supply the KIK-11 tactical key loader with the Sierra II cyptographic module to encrypt communications between military radios.

• Up to $15 million to Advanced Technology International for support of the US Navy’s National Shipbuilding Research Program, which works to improve efficiency in building, operating and repairing Navy ships.

• Israeli UAV maker Aeronautics is busy. They’ve received Missile Technology Control Regime compliant export clearance for their long-range Dominator XR UAV (co-marketed by Boeing), begun development work on a 5,000 kg jet-powered UAV that can fly in civil airspace, and opened a factory in Spain to make Orbiter 2 & 3 mini-UAVs.

GFAS/WeaponWatch to Protect US Apache Helicopters

Apaches head out
(click for full view)

May 25/11: Radiance Technologies, Inc. in Huntsville, AL receives an $8.8 million sole-source, firm-fixed-price contract from the US Army. They’ll produce the hardware needed to equip a full battalion of AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters with “the Ground Fire Acquisition System special mission kits.” Radiance seems to have a product that fits:

“Employing a powerful infrared camera and high-speed 5th generation data processing technology, WeaponWatch recognizes and analyzes in real time the heat signatures of fired weapons. WeaponWatch’s speed and accuracy make it possible to detect and respond to enemy weapon fire – by alerting soldiers, by communicating the type and location of the weapon, even by returning fire – before the sound of the enemy weapon reaches the sensor.”

That would certainly make it very dangerous to fire on equipped Apaches. Work will be performed in Huntsville, AL, with an estimated completion date of May 20/12. One bid was solicited by the U.S. Army in Fort Eustis, VA, with 1 bid received (W911W6-11-C-0043).