Rapid Fire 2011-11-08: Why Nunn-McCurdy Cost Breaches Happen
- We wish there were more elected officials like Rep. Walter Jones [R-NC-3], who has spent 10 years trying to clear the names of 2 pilots involved in a fatal MV-22 Osprey crash. Why didn’t H.Res. 698 (111th) get out of committee?
- RAND Corporation analyzed the root causes behind Nunn-McCurdy cost breaches for the following MDAPs: Zumwalt, JSF, Apache, and WGS. See also DOT&E’s presentation [PDF] from last August on the very same topic, and The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s just-released report on managing risk in defense projects.
- POGO has more details on the failed IT modernization contract at Andrews AFB that led the US Air Force to ask for the debarment of 3 contractors.
- The Heritage Foundation, the Lowy Institute for International Policy, and the Observer Research Foundation think tanks jointly made the case for US-Australia-India cooperation defense cooperation.
- First battalion of UH-72A Security & Support variant helicopters enter service with the US military.
- The crew of the Taiwanese fishing vessel Chin Yi Wen takes back their boat from about 6 Somali pirates, then contacts the UKMTO naval task force. Seems some of the sailors were veterans of the Vietnam War. 3 sailors injured, and the pirates, uh, “fell into the sea” and haven’t been found. Last week German frigate FGS Köln sank 2 pirate fishing boats and captured several people.
- TKMS Blohm + Voss holds a keel-laying ceremony for Germany’s first F125 expeditionary frigate.
- 3 soldiers of the Welsh Cavalry on a patrol in Nahr-e Saraj, Afghanistan got out of their recently-rehulled Scimitar Mk2 almost unfazed after an IED blast. The 1st video below shows what these tracked vehicles look like.
- The 2nd video below shows the US Navy’s Deep Submergence Unit (DSU) using a pressurized rescue module to practice a submarine rescue with their Chilean peers:
