Rapid Fire 2012-01-11: Consolidate or Divest?

• The USAF wants to follow in the US Army’s “Land Warrior” wearable computing vest footsteps. That may not be such a great idea. Then again, riding with gear is different than walking and carrying it.

• US Army’s next-generation CIRCM effort to protect helicopters against enemy missiles moves ahead. Note that this won’t help against unguided RPG rockets, which have caused the high-profile helicopter losses in Afghanistan.

• James Hasik weighs in on the Navistar-Oshkosh merger debate, and industry pricing power.

• Reuters reports that Textron is another company that might see some corporate action, though divestiture of some of its parts seems more likely than an outright merger. But such talk about the conglomerate is not new and remains speculative.

• US signs memo with Britain to help them rebuild aircraft carrier capability, after the long hiatus that will follow the recent shelving of their Harriers and carriers.

• Wideband Global Satcom F4, the 1st Block II bird, flew to Florida aboard a C-5 transport plane in November, and is set to launch on Jan 19/12 aboard a Delta IV EELV rocket.

• DARPA’s Extended Solids program is organizing a workshop next month to present its goals and attract researchers. First they would like to identify high pressure material phases of molecular compounds that feature interesting (from a DoD perspective) structural, energetic or functional properties. But perhaps more importantly they’re interested in fabrication processes that don’t require ultrahigh pressure and thus can scale at an acceptable cost. And of course the material has to remain in a stable state under ambient temperature and pressure.

• American logisticians have increased use of the Northern Distribution Network and raised stock levels to mitigate the impact of Pakistan’s closing of border crossings. They had to adapt after Karachi’s port was backed up earlier this month. Of course this is not cost neutral, but military logistics is all about resilience to events such as port closures that can’t be predicted but can be planned against.

• The US Defense Logistics Agency has worked on making its DLAD acquisition directive more user friendly and is now making it available in HTML and PDF formats.