Russia’s S-300 surface-to-air missile upgrade back in 2010 was so good, they opted to rebadge it the S-400. It has also gone under the names SA-21, Triumf and S-300PMU-3. It has been the object of much diplomatic hand-wringing as western nations have pleaded, begged, cajoled, threatened and otherwise attempted to prevent Russia from selling these to certain countries. China has apparently purchased six battalions of the systems, which means 48 launch vehicles. Interestingly, the battalions are reputedly priced at $500 million per, pricing them roughly on par with the U.S.’s Patriot, although the annual cost of ownership is likely to be much less.
Asia
As China tries to stand up a carrier group, thousands of novel technologies need to be adopted by the PLA Navy. One more checkbox ticked off is the refueling pods, eight years in the making, blatantly copied from the Russian UPAZ-1A, they’ve now been tested and approved for use. The “ski jump” tip of China’s first carrier allows for a shorter run at the expense of significantly limiting a fighter’s gross weight, making a fully armed fighter launchable only with a partial fuel tank.
Europe
A report indicates the Finnish Army is having difficulty keeping its NH90s in the air.
Americas
The Inspector General concluded that the Navy and Marines spent $220 million in IT services that they awarded with no or limited competition. The report, issued just before the weekend, indicated that those awards did properly follow FAR requirements.
A Californian firm will pay the U.S. back $2 million to settle charges that it inflated costs for remote control military aircraft.
Unlike other western nations, Germany’s public has been interested and concerned about Saudi Arabia’s record on suppressing minorities and women, as well as lending help to organizations affiliated with violent extremism. With four out of five Germans indicating that the country should disallow arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the Merkel administration announced they would do just that. Germany had about $400 million in arms sales to Saudi Arabia in 2013, and rumor had it a $2.5 billion Euro request for submarines.
Asia
A U.S. Naval Warfare College professor indicated that China’s anti-ship weapons are essentially succeeding in providing an umbrella of area denial against the world’s most powerful navies.
Australia sent over its first pilot to become trained (and, eventually, a trainer) on the F-35. The island nation is to receive 72 of the aircraft.
New Zealand is reportedly looking at replacing its aging C-130 heavy lift planes with C-17s.
Europe
Searching for ways to reassure allies – and show umbrage to a misbehaving Russia – the U.S. is making a show of looking to base equipment such as tanks in Eastern Europe. Heavy equipment could be in place by as early as the end of 2015.
U.S.
SpaceX has said it will call off the legal dogs on the Air Force. SpaceX sued after the Air Force bundled up a great number of future space launches and pre-contracted for the services without letting SpaceX bid. In an odd sort of settlement, SpaceX will drop its suit, and in return, the Air Force will add more launches that will not necessarily go to the Boeing-Lockheed-led United Launch Alliance consortium. When asked directly this morning an Air Force representative said that there was not a specific number of launches attached to that settlement. The Air Force has also agreed to work toward getting SpaceX certified for launches, although it is unclear if that last aspect is actually part of the settlement, as it is something that wouldn’t be properly withheld. When asked, the Air Force referred back to the single-paragraph statement. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk previously accused an Air Force official of seeking employment from the bidders during the process, an offer SpaceX had refused. That accusation made news at the time (May 2014) partly because of the significance of the contract size, but primarily because it is fairly rare for a contractor to speak of such alleged behavior publicly.
The Navy will reportedly show off its long-awaited rail gun at a D.C. conference on the 4th .
The perennial process of the Pentagon asking for BRAC authority to realistically have a chance at needed base closures has begun, with Congress expected to, again, decline the request for fear of home district hand wringing. The European closures recently announced had the convenient feature of happening in districts where people cannot vote for congressional candidates. Some seem to read that those foreign closures give the Pentagon added moral authority to pursue a domestic closure analysis, but this relationship seems strained.
Australia’s first F-35 trainee, Squadron Leader Andrew Jackson, will soon be due in Florida to start his studies. Below, is a Lockheed video describing the simulators and other tools available for the program.
The Pentagon’s Defense Business Bureau, an advisory group designed to give private sector expertise to senior leaders, announced its global analysis of DoD practices found potential savings of about $25 billion per year, to be squeezed mostly out of logistics, procurement, property management, HR, and healthcare, in that order.
The savings presume a capacity for the military to create ongoing and cumulative productivity increases – as does the private sector, generally. While the rather top-down analysis is likely to seem far fetched to military professionals, it does starkly compare behaviors in the private sector that differ, and that have resulted in vast, cumulative efficiencies.
When it comes to specifics, speaks generally about four areas of recommendations: renegotiating contracts; cutting the workforce; IT modernization and the catch-all business process re-engineering.
DoD contractors will be interested to see the nature of the target painted on their piece of budget pie. The DDB hopes to realize $9 to $18 billion in savings per year by saving 10-25 percent of contract spending. How they hope to do that? “More rigorous” negotiations; contract aggregation for economies of scale; a push for greater productivity in labor contracts; and the elimination of gold plating requirements.
Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work charged the DDB with producing the report back in October in an effort to gauge the scope of changes that would help modernize the whole of the defense enterprise.
The report doesn’t break too much ground in terms of tactics recommended, as previous reports have largely enumerated the various savings the DDB hopes the military will recognize.
A Mexican drug operation appears to have operationalized cross-border drug smuggling with helicopter drones. One device – what appears to be a DJI SPreadwings S900 Multi-rotor System, which retails for $1,400 – fell into a Tijuana parking lot after being loaded with six pounds of meth. The wire services and newspapers are indicating that it was overloaded at that weight, but the S900 has an all-up weight of 15 pounds. The weakness of the system is a battery that lasts 18 minutes at hover, which may explain why the device fell short of the border. Interestingly, it appears to be a similar model to the one used in Quebec to deliver contraband tobacco into a prison yard. Among other agencies, the FAA might not appreciate the unlicensed commercial aviation activity; provided the local police officials report it. Homeland Security also has drones to theoretically interdict drugs, but that program costs $12,000 per flight hour, which is one reason why some people would like to take those toys away from them.
U.S.
With U.S. Commerce Department commercial satellite image resolution limits being somewhat lifted starting in February, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is moving to exploit what is expected to be a flood of additional imagery resources with quicker update frequencies. The move shows a new willingness to look to commercial alternatives, which are proving very significantly cheaper than military-run satellite projects.
The Army will again delay the release of the formal RFP for a new service pistol to replace the M9 Beretta, which is widely regarded as insufficiently powerful, among other weaknesses. Beretta and the Army cooperated to head this effort off with an M9A3 revision. Army Times reports that Beretta suggested the RFP could be improved.
Submarine detection may be getting easier with new big data tools that can handle distributed sensors, but there are also evolving commercial technologies that might be able to be exploited to hide them better.
Some in Congress are concerned that an Air Force general may have attempted to illegally suppress information flowing to Congress regarding that service branch’s efforts to retire the A-10 – a widely derided decision. The Air Force’s long-running ambivalence regarding the A-10 was in part a product of the fact that the A-10’s primary mission has been in support of other service branches’s ground forces. That ambivalence has turned to contempt as zero-sum budget considerations – exacerbated by Sequestration – made the A-10 an obstacle to programs that the Air Force holds as more central missions.
Of the many differences that come with operating with V-22 Osprey’s, the sternum-shuddering noise is just one. Defense Industry Daily staff have been overflown by V-22s in training evolutions, and can report that there is quite a difference in noise profile, to say the least. As the Marines start training in Prescott, AZ, they are fielding numerous complaints. Said an airport operations technician taking phone calls, “People are saying their houses are shaking.”
The Littoral Combat Ship, it can be said, did not fare well in the recent weapons systems testing report. USNI gives a rundown of some of the more egregious failures so far. It is known that it has a bit of a glass jaw when it comes to things like armor and fighting, but it even had trouble successfully anchoring over seabeds of sand and shells.
Today’s Video
DJI, a recreational drone manufacturer, and likely the maker of the drug smuggling drone found in a Tijuana parking lot (see above), makes the S900 drone, which costs roughly $25 per flight hour versus the DHS drug interdiction drone program which has, so far cost about $12,000 per flight hour. DJI also, incidentally, makes YouTube videos with much better production values. Given the extra-recreational uses referred to above, the video is certainly ripe for spoofing.
In 2006, the Turkish SSM procurement agency issued a request for information (RFI) for 4 more diesel-electric submarines. That RFI became an RFP for 6 diesel-electric submarines with air-independent propulsion systems, to replace older boats like Turkey’s U209-based Preveze and Atilay classes.
DID covers the competition, and adds some quick background re: the Turkish Navy’s existing fleet, where its rival Greece stands, and contract developments regarding their new “Cerbe Class”. Turkey has a signed multi-billion Euro contract for HDW’s U214 subs… and are about to add a revolutionary new weapon.
It may yet be a decade or two before the U.S. has an appetite for another “generation” increment for its fighters, but Boeing and Northrop Grumman are hungry now. Northrop is touting its new design teams dedicated to generating capabilities for the Navy and Air Forces future wish lists. The little information about their initial efforts indicate that it is oddly close to Boeing’s own requirements appetizer, which sported a flying wing design and preceded Northrop’s announcement by more than a year.
The flying wing focus may be a product of these airframes being quite similar to existing development work done for stealth fighter UAV programs, which have featured the more stealthy wing designs.
After seeing how chummy the service branches became in creating a joint strike fighter, Northrop is bowing to current service desires and employing two independent teams to ensure that both the Navy and Air Force can dream big without design compromises.
Some F/A-XX work was generated back in April 2012, when the Navy asked contractors for information about F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and Growler replacements – an early indication that the F-35 was not going to be all things to all services.
One interesting feature, at least in Boeing’s theoretical offering, is that the fighter can be flown by wire – still a politically charged feature in several ways. Pilots have been skeptical of unmanned fighters, such as the UCAS-D/N-UCAS/UCLASS program. The subsequent UCLASS project has been watered down by the Navy, with its role limited to surveillance type activities it is thought in order to preserve the more kinetic jobs for manned aircraft like the F/A-XX.
Military bases are often home to environmental disasters, and mitigation costs are significant enough today that it exerts a real and behavior-changing influence on the U.S. military. But the liabilities are not considered “strict liabilities” as federal Superfund sites are, which means generally that the military can be held liable only if it failed to abide by requirements of the day. Such was the case when a federal judge dismissed a case against the Army regarding Fort Detrick TCE pollution.
U.S.
The Pentagon’s director of operational testing indicated that the Littoral Combat Ship’s mine detection packages fail to so far to meet the Navy’s minimum requirements. In addition to operator inexperience, the failure was chalked up in part to software and integration issues. The Navy was hoping for a green light by September 2015. He also indicated that changes announced last month to a later tranche of 20 future ships, to be built after the first 32, wouldn’t change the likelihood of loss if an LCS were to be so unfortunate as to actually get into a fight.
The ever-even-keeled Congressional Research Service published a report over the holidays giving the current status of China’s naval improvements, which are substantial. The quality of its ships and training increased dramatically, making a gross numbers analysis less informative. Its weaknesses remain lack of integration with other service branches, lack of experience and lack of long-range deployment sustainability.
The General Accountability Office found that the Office of Secretary of Defense and other very high level pentagon offices do not have a rational, iterative assessment process for determining their staffing needs and structures. The upshot: “DOD and the military services have undertaken reviews to reduce headquarters but these budget-driven efforts have not been the result of systematic determinations of personnel needs.” The GAO, an arm of Congress, made only two mentions of Sequestration, both in footnotes.
GE Aviation won up to $325 million in additional funds in January 2015 to work on an adaptive cycle engine under phase three of the Versatile affordable advanced turbine engines (VAATE) program that preceded ADVENT.
In part due to sanctions on Russia, Kalashnikov will produce the eponymous assault rifles in the U.S., according to TASS
Europe
Brazil hopes to reinstate a mid-air refueling capacity after having retired its KC-137s. Final contract negotiations have been delayed, with one of the 767 conversions being handled by IAI, and another two by domestic firm TAP.
Today’s Video
This is a three year old video of the ADVENT program. It may be revolutionary for jet engines, but it would be nice if GE could up its game in green screen production values:
The Government Accountability Office, fielding a protest by a would-be contractor who couldn’t find a solicitation due to a certain field not having been filled out in the FedBizOpps database, sided with the Veterans Administration in holding that it is the vendors responsibility to use all search mechanisms at their disposal. The case turned on whether or not the VA should have filled out which states would be the “place of performance.” The upshot: FedBizOpps and other databases are unlikely to be allowed to be used as additional surface area from which protests can be launched.
Asia
Even as U.S. procurement Tsar Frank Kendall’s press is still wet regarding his trip to India to shore up defense procurement relationships with the subcontinent, Russia is parading – literally – their relationship with India, featuring the BrahMos self-propelled missile launcher. With India’s administration turnover, the two powers are again wooing the not-terribly-aligned nation as though the world were divided into two spheres of power. Unlike the more symbolic efforts of the U.S., the Russians’ have been substantive.
Some People & Some Robots (click to see clearly)
In addition to updating and replenishing major defense systems, Russia is taking pains to express to the world that it is putting resources into new defense tech.
Iran is again signaling its intent to maintain force projection capabilities with its navy. Somalian pirate patrols have been a handy mission for justifying and exercising its warships.
Iraq has been successful in securing a commitment for nine Mirage 2000 fighters from the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is also reported to be procuring a couple dozen Super Tucanos for Iraq in a deal that is not quite settled. The Iraqi administration has been passing that hat of late, with Canada and others trying to contribute to the stability of the ISIS-fighting country.
U.S.
As the FAA realizes it is sitting below a bursting dam of civilian drone demand – fueled by the twin inexorable trends of severe price reductions in hobbyist camera drones and vast improvements in the simplicity of operations – it is attempting to turn to local law enforcement to help it patrol the unpatrollable. Meanwhile, defense contract drone manufacturers salivate.
Today’s Video
With the Super Tucano line in the news, here is a U.S.-assisted downing of an alleged drug trafficker’s plane in Columbia with video of an A-27 Super Tucano firing on a light plane:
In March 2010 the Navy awarded an $83 million contract for e-CASS development, production and testing. The AN/USM-636(V) Consolidated Automated Support System (CASS) is the US Navy’s standard automatic test equipment family. It provides intermediate, depot and factory level support, both ashore and afloat, for testing all Navy electronics, from aircraft to ships and submarines.
CASS has been around since 1990, and it’s time for an upgrade. The Navy is planning to replace the existing 5 CASS mainframe systems with the next-generation electronic CASS (e-CASS) system. US Naval aviation currently uses 713 CASS stations for testing of aircraft electronics. CASS is also used at the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) and in 9 foreign countries. As of early 2012 events appear to proceed according to plan.
In January 2015, Lockheed delivered the first automated testing station to be installed on the U.S. Navy’s carriers.
Russian development of a new cruise missile and submarine forays into NATO waters have elicited complaints from Washington Russia has violated a key arms control agreement (the INF Treaty), and could cause the U.S. to redeploy cruise missiles in Europe. Russia has been feeding concerns with the re-introduction of nuclear missile trains and a new export cruise missile that can fit hidden in a shipping container.
Europe
War Is Boring doesn’t buy the Russian chest beating regarding their increased naval activity, principally because they too are facing major ship retirement trends.
Russia ended, as expected, the program where the U.S. helped arrange and fund the dismantling of Russian nuclear weapons and sub reactors. Assurances that the work will continue have been met with skepticism.
A poll conducted by French newspaper La Tribune shows a good majority of the French support the sale of two expeditionary warfare ships to Russia. The two ships’ delivery has been famously delayed due to the optics of appearing to support Russia’s capacity to conduct operations such as its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. For their part, the poll respondents’ reasons for support appear to be more about domestic jobs than geopolitical considerations.
Friction between Turkey and western allies continues as the NATO member denies access to air bases for targeting ISIS. Turkey deems the U.S. and other western nations’ tolerance of Syria’s Assad an egregious misalignment of priorities.
Poland is to acquire three new submarines, although the timeframe is slipping. A key consideration in vendor selection is the independence that would be granted to Poland in the use of ballistic missiles provided. France has already publicly stated it wouldn’t put any restrictions on Poland if it were to select the DCNS-built Scorpène submarines.
Meanwhile, Saab and Dutch shipbuilder Damen Shipyards Group are looking to work together to meet expected international market needs for submarine replacements.
Today’s Video
Russia’s largest – and somewhat impractical – nuclear test from 1961: the Tsar Bomba:
