In mid-September 2011, Alutiiq 3SG, LLC in Anchorage, AK received a $289.9 million cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity multiple award small business contract for “global business support.” Alutiiq isn’t what most people would call a small business, but the rules for Alaska Native Corporations allow for manipulation, using holding companies and subsidiaries that can still qualify.
Work involves a wide range of temporary support services…
In September 2011, Elbit Systems announced a 4-year, $40 million Israeli contract for its Soltam Systems Ltd. subsidiary’s “Cardom” (Eng. “Hatchet”) 120mm mortar systems. Built around Soltam’s 120mm recoil mortar system, Cardom can be fitted to any medium armored vehicle, offering advanced fire control, navigation, and automatic aiming/pointing capabilities. The USA uses it in wheeled M1129 Stryker MC APCs, for instance, though many elements can also be found in M1064 variants of the tracked M113.
Israel has used Keshet (Eng. “Bow”) M113 tracked APC(armored personnel carrier) variants as their Cardom platform, since the system was deployed with the Nahal Infantry Brigade in 2007. The recent arrival of precision 120mm mortar shells, such as IAI’s Fireball, or ATK’s APMI, adds precision to the 120mm mortar’s traditional virtues of simplicity and low cost. That’s especially important for armies who want to use mortar fire in urban combat, but wish to limit civilian casualties.
W.M. Robots, LLC in Colmar, PA already supplies their Vallon GmbH subsidiary’s hand-held mine detectors to the US military, and in September 2011 they added a $9.6 million firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract from the government of Afghanistan, plus options that could bring the cumulative value to $12.4 million. Afghanistan is clearly moving to beef up their mine-detection and removal capabilities; September also saw a buy of MMP-30 robots for these roles.
Work will be performed in Colmar, PA, and is expected to be complete by September 2012. $7.9 million will expire at the end of the current fiscal year, on Sept 30/11. As this is a Foreign Military Sales program buy, the US military is acting as Afghanistan’s agent. This contract was synopsized as a sole-source buy, therefore, and is managed by the US Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division in Indian Head, MD (N00174-11-D-0015).
MBDA gets an order from the RAF to replenish its stock of Brimstone missiles, which have been depleted by fighting in Libya. Brimstones can be fired from fighter jets, unlike Lockheed’s Hellfire family of missiles. The USA’s JAGM program would field Brimstone’s only real competitor, and one of the designs is based in part on Brimstone technology.
The Hill is quoting USAF Secretary Michael Donley as saying that the OSD is about to give special guidance to the services on how to interact with Congress wrt coming defense cuts. Usual Defense Fiscal Guidance is sent by DoD to the services in April, and this year the services were scheduled to send their budget justification material back to OSD and OMB by September 3rd. Donley also made a long list of what not to cut. We are as surprised as you are.
But Benjamin Friedman (Cato Institute) and Caitlin Talmadge (George Washington University) are asking: what defense cuts?
The US GAO reviews again the DoD’s progress in implementing the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 (WSARA) and recommends to assess the Developmental Test and Evaluation (DT&E) office’s resources and influence. GAO is concerned by staffing issues for systems engineers because of budget cuts and insourcing policy. The DT&E office was created in May 2009 and currently has 63 authorized people for a portfolio of 250 programs. It is headed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Edward R. Greer since March 2010.
US Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is questioning NASA over its awarding of a no-bid government contract to an Alaska Native Corporation (ANC). The SBA Inspector General looked into ANC sole-source awards in 2009.
Andrew Tilghman of the Military Times talks about military retirement costs in the video embedded below:
