We're running a story in our headlines at Military.com this morning on alleged security breaches with BAE Systems (a major subcontractor to Lockheed Martin...) on the JSF program.
I received a full rebuttal today from a contact over at BAE and I wanted to share it with you in full:
The DoD IG explicitly found no instances of unauthorized access to classified or export control information on the JSF program. We strongly disagree with the IG's suggestion that nonetheless,such information may have been compromised in some unidentified way by unauthorized access at BAE Systems. There is no basis whatsoever for that conclusion.
BAE Systems takes very seriously their obligation to protect classified and export controlled information and has a compliance program that reflects the highest of standards. BAE Systems has a long and proven track record of safeguarding sensitive information entrusted to it.
BAE Systems also strongly disagrees with the suggestion that we did not perform required audits and fully comply with our Special Security Agreement. That suggestion is simply false.
BAE Systems previously requested a meeting with the DoD IG to resolve what appears to us to be a misunderstanding of the underlying facts.
Most of the Pentagon's weapon systems cost much more than they should, are built much more slowly than they could be and the entire system needs fundamental reform.
Those were the conclusions of most lawmakers and one senior defense acquisition expert at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in Washington earlier this week.
Perhaps most damning, senior staff member Michael Sullivan from the Government Accountability Office told lawmakers that the system had not really been any better or worse when he started investigating defense procurement in 1986, though he conceded there were some recent small signs of improvement.
The hearing's poster child for botched Pentagon buying was a $13.2 billion Marine Corps program called the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. The program for the updated AAV started in 1996 when the Marines issued a contract to General Dynamics. Initially, the program won plaudits for its innovative management and it passed through the program definition and risk reduction phase in mid-2001. Then things began to fall apart. The Marines issued a contract for the next phase of the program which was supposed to cost $712 million but quickly rose by the end of 2006 to an estimated $1.2 billion.
The modernized amtrac, according to a report prepared for the Oversight Committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), weighed too much to carry combat-ready Marines and still go as fast as it should. It operated only four-and-half hours before requiring major maintenance instead of the planned 47 hours. It was so loud that Marines could not speak to each other and had to wear ear plugs.
Originally, the Pentagon planned to buy 1,025 Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles for $8.4 billion. Now the military plans to buy 593 for $13.2 billion. Costs per vehicle, according to the committee's report, have increased 168 percent and production has slipped eight years.
But the Marines' EFV was certainly not alone in being a botched acquisition, Sullivan told the committee. His testimony noted that not one of the 72 weapons programs his office reviewed used "the best practices standards for mature technologies, stable design and mature production processes…" He told the committee that "acquisition problems will likely persist until DoD provides a better foundation for buying the right things, the right way." Right now, the military promises it can do too much, and underestimates how much weapons will cost.
The stakes are enormous. The Defense Department plans to spend $900 billion over the next five years on developing and buying weapons. Current programs are usually 21 months late in getting initial capabilities to the soldiers, Marines and airmen who need them. That is five months later than an analysis done in 2000 indicated, according to Sullivan's prepared testimony. Almost 45 percent of the Pentagon's major acquisition programs are paying more than 25 percent more per system than originally planned, compared to 37 percent of programs in 2000.
The biggest problems Sullivan found in his examination of defense spending were: requirements that grew and grew and grew; turnover of program managers that raised issues of "continuity and accountability;" too much responsibility in the hands of companies for work that used to be done by government officials; and difficulty overseeing the increasingly complex job of software development.
The two Pentagon officials at the hearing conceded there was room for improvement but insisted the system is not broken and is actually beginning to improve.
James Finley, deputy undersecretary of Defense for acquisition and technology, said that when he underwent Senate confirmation many people believed the process was broken. After his first 90 days in office he concluded they were wrong. "We needed to add discipline to the process and ensure that the basic blocking and tackling in executing the acquisition process was done correctly," he testified.
Senior Pentagon leaders developed a three-year plan and is 26 months into implementing that plan. It includes greater focus on the beginning of a program to make sure prototypes are used to get a better handle on performance, cost, how to build the system and how long it will take to build, Finley said. The Pentagon has cut the paperwork for reviews by half and has standardized red, yellow and green indicators for cost, schedule and performance. There is greater focus on program stability - keeping funding steady and limiting turnover of key personnel -- and the Pentagon created earned value management system "trip wires" to help identify problems on a monthly basis, Finley said.
-- Colin Clark
Aerospace Group Sees Looming Budget Battle
Defense industry advocates seem to see budget cuts coming and they're trying to get out of the way.
The Aerospace Industries Association on Tuesday called on policy makers to start thinking about defense spending -- and consider ways to make sure weapons purchases don't get pushed aside. Operating costs and personnel are getting more expensive, the big trade group said, and the next administration will also face a host of other budget pressures. But that won't stop the Pentagon's airplanes and helicopters from getting older, or ease the need to replace them, the group said.
"Our country's current path for military aerospace modernization is not viable," AIA's new defense modernization manifesto said. "As part of adequately funding national defense, DoD needs to increase annual procurement spending to a steady state range of $120 billion–150 billion, in constant dollars, simply to modernize an aging, increasingly obsolete and potentially vulnerable force."
The trade group said Congress needs to keep passing emergency spending bills, so that war costs don't make modernization unaffordable. It also called for the next administration to give a little extra thought to the defense budget, so that weapons buying won't fall to the bottom of the priority heap as military support costs rise.
"By 2013, over a 25-year period, the operations and support element of the budget will have more than doubled — faster than the growth in the defense budget itself. In contrast, investment will increase by slightly more than 50 percent, well below the growth path of the general budget.
These trends suggest an ongoing, permanent change in composition of the defense budget," the trade group said. "Continuing this trend beyond current projections will make it even more difficult for defense planners to adequately resource the investment spending upon which our military superiority and technological edge depends."
-- Rebecca Christie
Iraq MOD Gets its Trucks
It ain't sexy, but this is how you build an army.
Here's a list of the latest trucks the Iraqi army bought as part of its foreign military sales activities (from Multi-National Security Transition Command):
This Foreign Military Sales delivery included logistical support equipment such as 4 BREM tracked recovery vehicles, 47 x 2,000 liter water trailers, 66 x 5-ton cargo trucks, and 175 x 1-ton cargo trailers. This equipment is valued in excess of $11.4 million.
The delivery of the 19 x Shop Equipment Contact Maintenance Humvees, procured through the Iraqi Security Forces Fund, are valued in excess of $3.2 million. These vehicles will increase the capacity of the Iraqi army to repair vehicles and equipment.
This equipment and materiel will be issued to Iraqi Army units throughout the country as new units are generated and to replace any losses that have occurred in their efforts to secure the country.
What's the weakest link in the Iraqi army? Combat support and logistics. These trucks will go a long way to relieving some of that pressure on coalition forces.
-- Christian
Fighter Mafia Alumns on the Defense Budget
Today, America spends more on defense than at any time since the end of World War II, based on the Pentagon's own official budget data. The previous high point in post-World War II defense spending was 1952 - during the Korean War - at $589 billion in today's dollars. The Pentagon's budget request for the current fiscal year totals $670 billion, or a substantial 14 percent above the previous high water mark.
U.S. defense spending is now also larger than the rest of the world - combined. The CIA's 2007 Word Fact Book estimates all other nations to spend about $400 billion on defense. That amount is for not just our potential opponents, whoever they might be; that's the entire rest of the world.
We are told we must worry about China and Russia and prepare against them; something we should really lose sleep over is how they can be such a major concern - to those who point them out as looming threats - with defense budgets of just $81 billion and $21 billion, respectively, according to the CIA.
A similar basis for worrying is why the Pentagon's budget has trended up over the decades, while its forces have been shrinking. Today, we have the smallest defense inventory since 1946. For example, with a spending level considerably higher than in 1985 when the Cold War raged and after Ronald Reagan increased the Defense Department's budget, we have now 10 active Army divisions, not the 17 we had in 1985; less than 300 naval combatants - compared to 542 in 1985, and we have just over 12 active Air Force tactical air wings, not 25.
A major reason is incompetence.
According to the "scorecard" of the Office of Management and Budget on how well U.S. agencies are run, the Pentagon has ranked among the worst since the ratings began. By bad management, don't think of just "waste, fraud, and abuse" and incompetent book-keeping - the measures OMB uses. Add to those the incessant decisions in the Pentagon and Congress that favor bureaucratic and selfish interests, rather than the needs of war. Those latter factors provide most of the explanation for why the Pentagon budget delivers less for more.
Consider just one example; the Air Force's F-22 fighter aircraft. It began in the early 1980s as the Air Force's solution to maintaining air superiority over the Soviet Union during the Cold War. However, a lot of history unfolded between the "Raptor's" conception back then and the Air Force's announcement on December 12, 2007 that after more than two decades of development the F-22 had finally reached "full operational capability," meaning that it was ready to go to war.
There is, however, no war for it to go to. While there are, of course, two very real ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, the F-22 is yet to fly a single sortie over the skies of either country. Nor has the Air Force announced any intention to send the F-22 to either theater.
The Air Force is quite right to keep the F-22 far away from those conflicts. The airplane is irrelevant to both, since its primary mission - to shoot down enemy aircraft - is useless against our opponents - al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other insurgents - who have no air force and don't want one. Worse, if the F-22 were it to appear in those theaters, it would almost certainly harm our war efforts. It is not just that its huge logistics tail would strain our already overstretched support forces in both theaters.
But also, the F-22 has operating limitations. While it can carry two medium sized bombs to attack ground targets, it is a capability so modest our opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan might not even notice. It would also be ungracious to compare the F-22 to the ridiculously cheap, simple A-10 close air support aircraft that is built specifically for the ground support role and that has been indispensable for supporting soldiers in combat in both wars. It would be even more bad-mannered to point out that each A-10 can deliver per day eight times, or more, the payload that an F-22 can.
More to the point, the F-22 would be counter-productive. Data from Afghanistan indicate that U.S. and allied forces may have killed more innocent civilians than the enemy has in the past year, and from Iraq we read report after report of civilians killed as a result of US action. A major part of those "collateral" civilian casualties come from aircraft flying too fast and too high to positively identify exactly what they are guiding their munitions to. As such, the F-22 is too "thin-skinned" to endure ground fire, even from assault rifles, and it is too expensive to risk flying close enough to the ground to identify targets. In a form of conflict where winning over the civilian population is key to success, F-22 participation - along with that of other high flying, high speed aircraft - may help the enemy more than us.
By keeping the F-22 at its US bases, the Air Force is doing our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan a great favor.
Counter-productivity in 21st century warfare notwithstanding, the F-22's advocates would leap to argue that in its intended role - shooting down enemy fighters - it is unsurpassed.
Let's pretend for the moment that there exists, or will soon, an enemy air force for which the F-22 would be relevant. How, then, could the F-22 help?
We contend that as an individual performer in real world air-to-air combat, the F-22 is a huge disappointment. The Air Force vociferously disagrees - based on its hypothesis that air wars can be fought and won by long range, radar-controlled missiles fired at enemies you cannot see or visually - that is, reliably - identify. This "beyond-visual-range," radar-missile hypothesis has been tested in real world combat, and it has failed repeatedly. If ever the F-22 finds itself in an air war against a serious opponent, all of us will find out who is right.
Here, we will focus on three issues about which there can be little argument and that explain how the F-22 contributes mightily to our shrinking, less ready-to-fight forces, while bringing vastly increased cost.
Force Size: Back in the 1980s, the U.S. Air Force planned to buy 750 F-22s to fight the Soviet air force. For development and procurement, Congress is generously providing $65.3 billion, a huge sum. However, because no stakeholder was interested in exercising discipline over the design, weight, and cost of each F-22, that $65.3 billion will only buy 184 aircraft, not enough to be a real threat to any major opposing air power.
Moreover, given the need to maintain a training base in the US and considering the demonstrated daily sortie rate of similarly complex aircraft already in our inventory, the Air Force will be lucky to be able to fly 60 F-22 sorties per day at the start of an overseas conflict against a major opponent. That number will shrink as inevitable combat attrition and maintenance down-time take their toll. The force size that the F-22 program generates is simply too puny to register against the major air threat the F-22 advocates hypothesize.
Pilot Skill: Unfortunately, we can expect that same tiny F-22 force to attrite all too rapidly in combat for the simple reason that the Air Force no longer adequately supports pilot training. F-22 pilots get only ten to twelve hours of flight training per month. When we provided 20 to 25 hours per month to train pilots for Vietnam, our pilots complained - rightly - it was inadequate. At the height of their prowess in the 1960s and '70s, the Israelis gave their fighter pilots 40 to 50 hours of flight training per month.
The history of air warfare shows all too clearly that the most important determinant of who wins and who dies in an aerial dogfight is pilot skill, not aircraft performance. Because they have raided pilot training accounts to feed increasingly voracious procurement programs (such as the F-22), Congress and the Air Force have virtually guaranteed high pilot losses for us in any hypothesized, large scale air war.
If the advocates of more air power for the U.S. were serious about winning and saving American pilots lives, they would double, then triple, the amount of money available for pilot flight training before spending a single penny on new aircraft. Revealing its real priorities, in help pay for the pork it added to the 2008 DOD appropriations act, Congress cut air force training by $400 million.
Unit Cost: The current plan to buy 184 F-22s for $65.3 billion calculates to $354.9 million per aircraft. The Air Force contends that such a calculation is unfair; it distributes the cost of all prior testing and development equally to every aircraft. The Air Force would rather use a calculation for prospective purchases - what it calls "flyaway" cost, which considers the development costs to have been sunk and that the only cost that should count now is the cost-to-go. Various estimates are circulating in the Pentagon to buy an additional 198 F-22s at a "flyaway" cost that varies from $176.8 million to $216.3 million per copy. (Even at the lower range, it would still make these new F-22s the most expensive fighter aircraft ever bought by any nation - except for, of course, earlier F-22s.)
The F-22's cost history makes it painfully obvious that we should consider the higher end of the currently advertised cost band to be a cost floor for any new purchase. At every stage, the F-22 has cost more than promised. For example, when Lockheed and the Air Force were pushing a three year contract to buy 60 aircraft now being delivered, "fact sheets" and lobbying materials widely distributed on Capitol Hill were promising a "flyaway" price of $130 million per aircraft; instead, Congress was required to actually appropriate approximately $180 million per copy. (In 1986, the Air Force originally promised a "flyaway" cost of $35 million.)
Time has not been kind to the F-22; neither to its costs, nor to its relevance. Even in the wars the F-22 advocates postulate against a Chinese or Russian air force, the F-22 is deeply flawed, and its ultimate impact is to degrade our most important assets in the air, our pilots and their skill.
The most prominent mission that Lockheed and the Air Force are currently pushing to buy more F-22s is demonstrated in recent newspaper articles and advertisements. Nowhere do these talk about a dangerous new air threat that explains the need for more F-22s. Instead, they focus on the 44 states that will receive corporate spending and jobs. Put another way, it is Congress' lust for pork and the perverted thinking that jobs and profits should drive defense spending, not the threat, that is driving the campaign to buy more F-22s.
The overall defense budget is stuffed to the gills with similar examples. Budget-inflating, war-irrelevant, dubious-performing, and pork-ridden examples in the other military services include the Navy's DDG-1000 destroyer, the Army's Future Combat System, and the Marines Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. In fact, such programs are now the norm; it is the war-relevant, cost-effective ones that are scarce to the point of extinction.
There should be no doubt how we got to where we are.
-- Winslow Wheeler, Pierre Sprey, and James Stevenson
(Editor's note: Pierre Sprey was one of three designers who conceived and shaped the F-16; he also led the technical side of the US Air Force's A-10 design concept team. James Stevenson is former editor of the Navy Fighter Weapons School's Topgun Journal and author of The Pentagon Paradox and The $5 Billion Misunderstanding about the Navy's F-18 and A-12. Winslow Wheeler is the director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information in Washington. Previously, he worked for four U.S. senators from both political parties and the Government Accountability Office on national security issues.)
Lockheed, Boeing to Team Up on Bomber
Our man Bob Cox at the Fort-Worth Star Telegram passes the following:
Lockheed Martin and Boeing will announce Friday that they will team up to "perform studies and system development" for a next generation long range bomber the Air Force wants to develop.
Bob also asks a fair question:
If the No. 1 and No. 2 defense contractors are teaming up, who is going to be the competition? Northrop Grumman perhaps?
-- Ward
Lockheed in Young's Crosshairs over Prez Helo
Here's a tip for the defense industry: If the Pentagon's top weapons buyer calls you in for a Saturday meeting, it's probably not to kick back and watch college hoops on one of the myriad high-def screens around the E-Ring.
A multibillion-dollar Lockheed Martin Corp. contract to build a new fleet of Marine One helicopters for use by the president is in trouble, despite the company's efforts to keep the prestigious program on track.
According to people familiar with the situation, John Young, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, called for an unusual Saturday meeting with senior Lockheed officials to discuss the company's attempts at building 28 highly modified helicopters for White House use.
The contract, which started out at an estimated cost of $6.1 billion, has been plagued by early delays and engineering challenges, which would result in the program's running billions of dollars over budget if the Navy continues on its present course.
According to a senior Navy acquisitions official, the Navy commissioned three studies during the past year to examine potential alternatives. Canceling or severely cutting back the program are among the possible options being considered, say people familiar with the situation. In addition, officials have been looking at the possibility of asking United Technologies Corp.'s Sikorsky helicopter unit to step in with a version of its S-92 helicopter, which is the successor to the chopper that ferries the president on short trips. Versions of the S-92 are currently being used to carry a handful of foreign leaders, including the president of South Korea.
"There probably is no alternative that you could imagine that's not under consideration," said a senior Navy acquisitions official. Winning the plum contract in 2005 to build the Marine One fleet was a coup for Lockheed, which has been seeking in recent years to expand its defense business beyond its traditional core of building fighter jets and missiles.
Lockheed and its European partner, Finmeccanica SA's AgustaWestland, defeated incumbent Sikorsky, which had been the favorite to win.
A Lockheed Martin spokesman said the company continues to "look at options with the Navy on how to proceed with the program."
In December, the Navy ordered the Bethesda, Md., defense giant to stop work on the second portion of the contract, which called for Lockheed to build 23 of the 28 helicopters, citing budget issues. Work continues on the initial batch of five helicopters, which would enter service in 2009. The second batch of helicopters is slated to be more sophisticated and capable than the first five.
"We have now recognized based on the first three years of executing the program...that it's going to take more time and money" than originally anticipated to complete the second group of helicopters, the acquisitions official said.
Lockheed and the Navy have been haggling for months about hundreds of design changes that the Navy has required since the contract was awarded. Many of the changes have been technically challenging and have resulted in adding performance-robbing weight to the helicopter. Officials acknowledge that costs have ballooned, but they say it's impossible to put an accurate figure on them until the program is restructured.
Young's reputation as a detail-oriented, no-nonsense administrator preceeded him into the AT&L position where he relieved Mike Wynne who in turn took over as Secretary of the Air Force. (Seems sort of incestuous, doesn't it?) In general, that's good for taxpayers, bad for sloppy defense firms.
(Gouge: NC)
-- Ward
Boeing Back in CSAR-X Ring to Take Another Swing
As previously reported here, last February the GAO recommended that the Air Force reopen discussions and request revised proposals. This action followed protests by Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defense company, and United Technologies' Sikorsky unit. The rival companies said the Air Force didn't uniformly apply the criteria used to evaluate the three bids. Boeing's order for 141 HH-47 helicopters, a variant of its twin-rotor Chinook family, was picked to replace Sikorsky's Pave Hawk aircraft. The award was put on hold during the GAO review, commonly known as "Amendment Five."
Today Yesterday Boeing announced that they had submitted a revised proposal in response to Amendment Five. "Our focus has remained on providing the Air Force a low-risk, date-certain, best value offering that meets or exceeds all customer performance requirements," said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. "With its superior range, payload and speed, we are confident the HH-47 will provide the customer with an aircraft that can best perform the mission of reliably bringing downed flight crews safely home."
No word yet from the competition. Rest assured they won't roll over without a fight. We'll keep you posted.
In case you all didn't catch this, the Pentagon released its latest Selected Acquisition Report data on pricey defense programs that are likely to bust costs.
You'll find some likely suspects on the list, including the much-maligned Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, Excalibur shell, the EA-18G Growler and the ever-struggling WIN-T.
Take a look:
ARH (Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter) – The SAR was submitted to report a unit cost increase of approximately 20% higher than the current baseline estimate, which resulted in a “significant” Nunn-McCurdy breach. Program costs increased $1,009.1 million (+18.7%) from $5,390.2 million to $6,399.3 million, due primarily to an increase in airframe manufacturing labor and material costs (+$345.5 million), higher System Development and Demonstration (SDD) costs (+$290.9 million), and implementation of an upgrade to the main rotor system (+205.5 million).
Excalibur – The SAR was submitted to rebaseline the report from a Development to a Production estimate following approval of Low Rate Initial Production (Milestone C) for the Increment Ia-2 in July 2007. Program costs increased $161.6 million (+7.0%) from $2,302.8 million to $2,464.4 million, due primarily to additional funding to support a higher Army Cost Position for the revised Acquisition Program Baseline approved at Milestone C.
WIN-T (Warfighter Information Network-Tactical) Increment 1 – This is the initial SAR for WIN-T Increment 1 program. Following a Nunn-McCurdy breach certification in June 2007 that restructured the original WIN-T program, the WIN-T Increment 1 program (formerly Joint Network Node (JNN)) was initiated in October 2007.
Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 2 – This is the initial SAR for the WIN-T Increment 2 program. Following a Nunn-McCurdy breach certification in June 2007 that restructured the original WIN-T program, the WIN-T Increment 2 program (Initial Networking on the Move) was initiated in October 2007.
EA-18G – The SAR was submitted to rebaseline the report from a Development to a Production estimate following approval of Low Rate Initial Production (Milestone C) in July 2007. Program costs increased $321.5 million (+3.8%) from $8,368.0 million to $8,689.5 million, due primarily to a quantity increase of five aircraft from 80 to 85 aircraft.
RMS (Remote Minehunting System) – The SAR was submitted to report schedule delays of more than six months. That is, Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL) slipped 15 months from June 2007 to September 2008, because the only Navy platform capable of performing RMS OPEVAL (DDG-96) is unavailable due to the ship’s deployment schedule. There were no cost changes reported.
C-5 RERP (Reliability Enhancement and Reengining Program) – The SAR was submitted to report a unit cost increase of more than 25% to the current baseline estimate and more than 50% to the original baseline, which resulted in a “critical” Nunn-McCurdy breach. Program costs increased $6,168.3 million (+54.4%) from $11,337.9 million to $17,506.2 million, due primarily to a revised program estimate based on an analysis of prime contractor production proposal data, System Development and Demonstration (SDD) actuals, and commercial pricing data.
EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) – This will be the final SAR submission for the EELV program, because the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics placed the program into sustainment and removed it from the active Major Defense Acquisition Program (MDAP) list. There were no cost changes reported.
MPS (Mission Planning System) – The SAR was submitted to report schedule delays of more than six months. Specifically, the start of System Development and Demonstration (SDD) (Milestone B) for Increment IV slipped 10 months from February 2006 to December 2007. Program costs decreased $7.0 million (-0.4%) from $1,589.5 million to $1,582.5 million, due primarily to a revised estimate to complete development.
Breaking News from the front page of Military.com:
A senior Navy official said Thursday one of General Dynamics Corp. next-generation combat ships has been canceled after efforts to control costs failed.
After more than a month of extensive talks, neither the Navy nor Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics could agree on a restructured contract that contained cost overruns in a way that was acceptable to both parties.
"They were above the numbers we were willing to accept," Navy Adm. Charles Goddard, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.
This is the second ship that the Navy has canceled on the so-called Littoral Combat Ship program. In April, the Navy terminated Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp.'s second ship after costs on the first ship soared to at least $350 million from an initial price of $270 million.
The Navy declined to specify how much costs on the General Dynamics ship has exceeded initial estimates, but said the cost difference is comparable to Lockheed's.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - When the Pentagon's research arm first called for innovators to design and race a self-driving car to make warfare safer, a ragtag bunch of garage tinkerers, computer geeks and even high school students answered.
No one won the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's inaugural contest in 2004. An encore the following year produced five robots that crossed the finish line, and a team from Stanford University drove away with the $2 million prize.
If yesteryear's contests evoked the Wild West, with teams working in the open desert on a shoestring budget, this year's is modern: The field is more savvy, the terrain is urban and corporate sponsors and public relations machines have entered the fray.
"They've become like NASCAR teams with multiple sponsors and stickers on everything," said Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who has followed the DARPA competitions. "It shows that it's becoming big business."
This morning DoD attempted some damage control on the Saudi arms deal by releasing an Armed Forces Press Service article that suggests the most recent agreement is nothing more than regional business as usual.
Here's an excerpt from the article: "Saudi Arabia, the biggest buyer in this recent arms package, has been a close ally of the United States for decades, a senior defense official said on background. (Ward note: I love it when officials speak "on background" when talking to government scribes.) 'They have been in important partner in the war on terror. They have been especially effective in going after al Qaeda,' he said.
"That's not to say, he emphasized, that the Saudis or anyone else in the region is 'doing all the things we would like them to do' and can't contribute more toward regional stability.
"'But they are doing some things that are very important to us,' he said. 'And I think that, plus the long-term relationship and the key role Saudi Arabia plays in all these other issues ... are a manifestation of why the kind of long-term relationship represented by the arms deal is important.'"
Of course, the justification of "regional stability" is the ethical high ground of foreign military sales. On a more utilitarian level are the elements of commerce . . . commerce that affects the leviathan that is the American defense industry.
Across the Potomac from the official halls of power is Rosslyn, a grouping of high-rises perched above the Capitol like hawks in a tree bordering a farmer's field. On these high-rises are names like "Boeing" and "Northrup Grumman." And inside the buildings are the offices of those whose employment hinges on whether or not they are able to seal the deal for their employer. Often the deal involves FMS.
The efforts of the defense industry are muted if not stymied by the "do-gooders" at the Department of Defense who care about things like "technology transfer" to nations less friendly than, say, Saudi Arabia. Nations like . . . Japan.
That's right. We recently told Japan that we won't sell them F-22s . . . at least not right now. Why? Because, as Aviation Week reported recently, "Japanese leaks several months ago of secret data about the Aegis naval anti-aircraft and anti-missile system. A Japanese naval officer married to a Chinese woman was found in March with a computer disk containing the data about Aegis, another extremely sensitive system."
And is Lockheed-Martin, the company that manufactures the F-22, happy about the decision? No. Why? Because they are trying like hell to get the unit cost of the Raptor down below $200-plus million and to do that they need to make a lot more of them.
So what is Japan's response to this dissing: They are going to produce their own "stealth technology demonstrator." (Now we've gone and done it. Remember what they did when we refused to sell them tube radios and Ford Torinos?)
Then there's the Joint Strike Fighter, an airplane with it's future firmly staked in FMS. Eight foreign countries have placed orders for the next-gen aircraft, which makes it a tough proposition for Congress to mess with when the budget comes around (although they have messed with it in the past).
And while everything seems koom-buy-yaa between the partner nations at places like the Paris Air Show, there exists a tension below the surface: Foreign buyers ask themselves, "How does my JSF differ from the American JSF?" It is well known that FMS versions of the F-4, F-14 (Iran), F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 were never as advanced as their U.S. counterparts.
But foreign nations have never been as involved in the development of an aircraft as they are with JSF - a fact that at once relieves and heightens the tension between parties. Foreign countries fear that their visibility into the program is at some level an illusion. They know there's no way the Pentagon is going to allow American companies to give away the farm.
Meanwhile the Black Market poises itself for action . . . but we'll save that for another post.
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but my greatest fears about how the defense industry operates are being realized these days by developments surrounding the Joint Strike Fighter's power plant(s).
When you have an airplane that is already wrestling with a flyaway unit cost that is well above program estimates ($80 million versus $65 million), more than a year behind the developmental test schedule for the Navy variant, and increasingly overweight the notion of an "alternative engine" just reeks of - dare I say it - pork.
Aviation Week reports the following: "The House Appropriations defense subcommittee added $480 million to the Joint Strike Fighter research and development account to fund continued work on the alternate engine for the F-35. The Pentagon argued against funding the alternate engine for fear it would reduce the focus and resources necessary for the program of record. Lawmakers also add $200 million to the development account to address 'unfunded information assurance requirements' driven by Defense Dept. policy updates, the committee's report says."
Hmmmm . . . so Pentagon doesn't want the alternative engine but lawmakers are shoving down their throats anyway. How can that be? Don't congressmen get all teary-eyed when they talk about how they support the troops?
Well, let's take a look at how this particular game is played - which happens to be a nice window into how the defense game is too often played overall.
Representative Jean Schmidt, the hawkish Republican from the Ohio district that hosts a General Electric engine manufacturing plant has once again re-inserted the alternative engine funding line into the defense budget. At the same time, Rolls-Royce, the alternative engine co-manufacturer, is calling in a couple of markers on the Hill. First, Rolls-Royce is a British company run by British people who have influence over Parliament whose members want some love because of their support for the Iraq War. Second, Rolls-Royce jumped the gun and built a huge JSF engine manufacturing facility at their plant outside of Indianapolis and the company's lobby arm is executing a full court press to ensure that the American taxpayer pays for it (instead of Rolls-Royce shareholders).
And while - as a former Tomcat guy - I'm not overwhelmed by engines made by Pratt and Whitney, I have to believe that company is capable of making an engine that'll work over the JSF's service life.
The scariest part is all of this is being conducted in plain sight. Will GE and R-R get their way in an environment that is funding a war that costs $12 billion a month? Stay tuned . . .
(Photo: F-136 being tested in STOVL mode at the GE facility in Ohio.)
(Gouge: NC)
(Updated July 31 at 0016Z.) CBS News is adding Ted Kennedy to the pork list with a report that suggests he is trying to bring JSF jobs to the GE plant in Lynn, Mass. And check out our favorite editor Christian in this news clip.
For months, Defense Tech has been keeping a close eye on developments over the issue of F-14 Tomcat spare parts. There’s fear that Iran could get its hands on enough aftermarket material to keep its aging Tomcats alive for years – posing a threat to U.S. naval interests in the Persian Gulf.
One of the country’s best-sourced aviation industry analysts – a man with whom I’ve worked at previous publications – has put together an informative narrative on the nefarious world of backroom deals and bureaucratic incompetence that permeates the jet parts aftermarket.
Iran's aerospace industry and intelligence services then embarked on what has become a nearly three-decade shell game of trying to find ways to covertly or illegally procure parts for the F-14. Not surprisingly, incidents of spares "disappearing" from storehouses at Subic Base in the Philippines and other Navy installations worldwide became regular occurrences.
Numerous middlemen operating from shadowy front companies ordered parts for the Iranian Tomcats.Some of these fronts have ended up in the U.S. courts over the years, but the Iranians have had far more successes than failures in getting their hands on what they need. During Iran's air show last year--27 years after the embargo was first imposed--several Iranian aerospace enterprises openly displayed overhauled components for the F-14 that they manage to keep acquiring parts for up to this day.
Rueben Johnson pulls no punches in his article, published in this week’s Weekly Standard, making the Defense Logistics Agency look particularly bad. He demonstrates that the Iranian parts rope-a-dope has had the unintended effect of hamstringing legitimate foreign weapons and parts makers wanting to do business with the United States.
In one publicized incident, the paperwork from an Iranian agent for illegally purchased F-14 parts passed under the DLA's nose, but the parts were then seized by Customs agents before they could be shipped to Iran. The spares were sent back to DLA, which, instead of putting them under guard, promptly sold them to another middleman working on behalf of the Iranians. The fact that these spare parts were now identified as being on Iran's wish list should have warranted some extra scrutiny when a second buyer came looking for them. What's more, the Customs Service evidence tags from the first seizure were still attached to these items--they were literally red-flagged--which makes the act of selling them to a second Iranian agent inexcusable.
This all stands in stark contrast to the bureaucratic zeal with which the U.S. government controls military technology flowing into the United States. Try importing foreign military spare parts and other materiel from foreign nations into the United States, and U.S. government oversight suddenly becomes ruthlessly efficient.
U.S. companies that operate as Foreign Materiel Acquisition (FMA) agents currently purchase millions of dollars' worth of foreign military hardware and spare parts each year. Some items are used for training U.S. forces, while others are used to equip the newly established and coalition-trained security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In every one of these sales, there are reams of paperwork--including end-user certificates, copies of the company's U.S. government-issued license that permits it to trade in armaments--all of which must be properly authenticated, notarized, and signed by government officials on both sides.
So the answer is to simply destroy all the F-14s in the bone yard, essentially eliminating the spare parts issue for good? Way to sweep the issue right off the table, USG...
-- Christian
Are You Up to the CNR Challenge?
For those of you who might not have what it takes to make it on American Idol, the Navy has stepped in to help make your dreams come true.
The Chief of Naval Research has $1 million in cold hard cash to dole out to companies who have new and actionable ideas in certain areas of naval technology that can help boost the effectiveness of the force.
Companies with ideas the Navy can use will be offered the opportunity to meet face-to-face with Navy officials during a technology conference in Washington, D.C., that kicks off July 30.
The Navy is interested in the following technology areas:
Power and Energy
Operational Environments
Maritime Domain Awareness
Asymmetric and Irregular Warfare
Information, Analysis, and Communication
Power Projection
Assure Access and Hold at Risk
Distributed Operations
Naval Warfighter Performance and Protection
Survivability and SelfDefense
Platform Mobility
Fleet/Force Sustainment
Affordability, Maintainability, and Reliability
Last year, the Navy garnered over 50 “CNR Challenge” submissions, awarding research money to five of them.
A representative project is the Pegasus self-charging unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) for persistent littoral antisubmarine warfare from Nekton Research LLC. The Pegasus concept is an autonomous self-recharging underwater vehicle with capabilities for persistent wide-area surveillance that can operate against currents and in very shallow and riverine environments. It recharges itself by
extracting energy from microbially active sediments on the sea bottom. This enables it to act as a recharging station for other unmanned underwater vehicles or to rise again into the water column to conduct surveillance…
…Presented by the National Defense Industrial Association with technical support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the 2007 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference will provide key insights into the Navy and Marine Corps drive to enable revolutionary Naval operational concepts that meet the challenges of the 21st Century through strategic investment in science and technology. Special emphasis will be placed on power and energy for the fleet and force. Attendees from industry, academia, and government will be informed of the direction, emphasis, and scope of the Department of the Navy’s investment in science and technology and how to conduct business activities with the Naval Research Enterprise.
So, shipmates, do you have what it takes to meet the “CNR Challenge”?
The V-22 may not have made it to the Paris Air Show this year, but it's little cousin did, performing an impressive demo for the crowd each day. The Bell Augusta 609 (pictured) is designed to be the business variant of the tiltrotor line. Think of it as half Citation, half Jet Ranger. It's a great idea that could change everything in commuter travel if it proves itself.
But like its big brother the Osprey, the BA-609 has taken longer than expected to get to market. In fact, a search of the web produced this sanguine industry release from the Paris Air Show . . . 1997 version:
Paris Air Show-Le Bourget, France, June 15, 1997 -- The Bell Boeing joint venture today announced sales of its new Bell Boeing 609 civil tiltrotor aircraft, slated for delivery beginning in 2001. Twenty-one buyers have placed deposits to date for 29 of the world’s first civil tiltrotor aircraft, matching the venture’s expectations for the nine-passenger tiltrotor. The announcement was made today at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget, France.
Okay, so the 609 is no longer a Bell-Boeing product. And okay, so 2001 came and went without any 609s being delivered . . . as did the next six years after that. That doesn't mean it's ceased to be a cool idea.
Here's a video showing the 609 in action around Bell's factory (with music by Crystal Method for you House/Trance/Acid fans):
AP is reporting that Airbus secured "huge" orders on the opening day of the Paris Air Show being held this week. According to the report "Airbus stole the spotlight from rival Boeing . . . announcing deals worth around $43 billion."
The article also mentions that while Airbus may have won the first round of the air show competition, they have a long way to go to regain the lead in the "traditional transatlantic rivalry." To date Boeing has received 584 orders for the 787 Dreamliner while Airbus has only received 105 orders for the A350 (including 92 orders yesterday - 80 from Qatar and 12 from Kuwait).
A more accurate tally will emerge at the Paris Air Show today as Boeing is predicted to announce additional Dreamliner sales during their press conference.
The world of commercial airline sales may seem far removed from the war in Iraq, but Boeing's fate here can be viewed as a barometer for foreign sentiment toward the U.S. And you can bet that a high opportunity cost to Boeing in that regard will play itself out in political arenas, including the 2008 Presidential race.
We'll keep you posted as the week goes on.
(Photo: A350 cockpit)
-- Ward
The Low, Low Price of $49.9 Million . . .
Aviation Week is reporting the following:
"Boeing is offering the Navy what one Pentagon source calls a 'tempting' deal for an all-time-low flyaway price of $49.9 million for new F/A-18E/F Super Hornets. The cost is guaranteed for a third multi-year buy of 170 aircraft, but this is nearly double the Navy's stated commitment for 92 more. Still, the deal 'is going to be pretty tough for the Navy to turn down,' says a Pentagon official.
"The proposal comes as Defense Dept. leaders worry that the cost of Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter will continue to grow. The Navy has told Congress it has a shortfall of 50 fighters, due in part to two factors--an accelerated burn rate of fighter hours combined with decreased projections of the design life of existing aircraft. Boeing could begin delivering the first aircraft from this deal two years after the award date. The offer would carry the production line to 2013; current work ends in 2009."
Damn, what a steal. How is Boeing going to make ends meet? (I'll bet they're scrimping on food at the Paris Air Show chalets.) Although I swore I'd never be caught dead in a Hornet (wouldn't fly an airplane that didn't have a front seat), at that price I might just have to get a couple for me and the missus.
The Army has awarded a huge contract for its new improved outer tactical vest body armor to Specialty Defense Systems – a division of the Armor Holdings conglomerate – and Point Blank Body Armor.
The Specialty Defense order calls for 155,000 vests - with the Point Blank order totaling about 75,000 vests, the Army said.
Army officials added that the first unit to receive the new and improved vests will be the Fort Lewis, Wash.-based 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Division – with a fielding goal for all troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We’ve already taken a pretty good look at the new Army vest – which basically takes advantage of technical improvements on configuration, coverage, fit and weight since the first Interceptor vest was fielded. It was a move long in coming, and some argue a smarter choice than the Marine Corps’ Modular Tactical Vest.
What many might view as disturbing, however, is the Army’s continued use of Pompano Beach, Fla.-based Point Blank to manufacture its life-saving vests.
It is inarguable that PBBA has been embroiled in deep controversy over the past two years. Expanding sharply from a small armor company that primarily supplied law enforcement personnel, the company’s founder raised shareholder worries by throwing money around like it was growing on trees. A sharp drop in the stock’s price built on investor frustrations and called into question the company’s management.
Despite a forceful defense of its manufacturing and quality control practices, the Marine Corps was compelled to recall thousands of its vests from the field due to the rejection of manufactured lots that weren’t up to snuff. More recalls of Point Blank Interceptor vests followed later in 2005.
Then, the company’s COO, Sandra Hatfield, was indicted for inflating profit reports in 2006, along with the chief financial officer, Dawn Schlegel.
Then, former Army Forces Command chief, Lt. Gen. Larry Ellis, stepped in to save the company, leading PBBA to the new Army contract.
The Army would not provide price information for the new IOTV, but a news report shows Point Blank garnered a $53 million for their 75,000 IOTV order.
Maybe PBBA has truly shaped up its act and can be trusted with millions of taxpayer dollars – and with the lives of Soldiers who will be wearing the IOTV. But its track record of alleged financial improprieties and vest recalls should cause any government agency pause – especially as the escalating war over Dragon Skin and the Army’s Interceptor vest focuses more attention on the body armor debate.
Statement from Lockheed Martin CSAR-X spokesman Greg Caires:
Lockheed Martin has submitted a pre-award protest to the Government Accountability Office because we believe the Air Force’s amended CSAR-X RFP does not comply with the corrective action recommended by the GAO earlier this year.
We understand the urgent need for new CSAR aircraft and believe that a broader reevaluation of bids, consistent with the GAO's recommendation, will result in an outcome that would better serve our nation's warfighters.
We remain committed to providing America’s warfighters with the best CSAR helicopter system, at the Air Force’s original IOC date of September 2012, and at a price significantly less than our competitors.
Rescue Chopper Rumble
The struggling CSAR-X program continues to muddle through its legal challenges and contract re-bidding. Others have covered this story in much greater depth than we have here at Defense Tech, but as issues pop up, we’ll update readers on the latest tid bits.
One such issue emerged today after reading an outstanding feature story in the Washington Post on the rescue of SEAL Petty Officer 1st Class Marcus Luttrell who survived a June 2005 Taliban ambush that wiped out the rest of his team.
Buried deep in the story is this passage:
Planners first considered sending a Chinook to get Luttrell, while Peterson's HH-60 would wait five miles away to evacuate casualties. But the smaller HH-60, the planners concluded, could navigate the turns approaching Sabray more easily than a lumbering Chinook.
So in one of the highest-profile rescues of the Afghan war, Air Force PJs opted for the smaller, nimbler HH-60 to pluck Luttrell out of a remote village ringed by Taliban guerrillas. Yet the Air Force picked a variant of the twin-rotor Chinook to replace its fleet of HH-60 Pave Hawks.
A few days ago, DT got word of a letter to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) written by a former AFSOC commander wondering why the Army picked the heavy-lift CH-47 to replace the medium-lift Pave Hawk.
It is my understanding that the HH-47 was awarded the contract largely on the basis of its advantage over the US101 and S92 in range and payload. That is to utterly miss the point of combat rescue. First, unrefueled range is a non-issue in the age of helicopter air-to-air refueling.
Second, above and beyond the ability to carry a basic crew, defensive armament, limited armor protection, and a reasonable number of survivors—which all three contenders can do—payload is not a critical issue for a CSAR helicopter and never has been. The HH-47's advantage in payload is a direct reflection of its size, and size is a liability not an advantage.
…wrote Dr. John F. Guilmartin, Jr., a distinguished Air Force rescue pilot and AFSOC commander.
The HH-47's liabilities extend beyond size and lack of agility. It has more violent rotor downwash than the other contenders, a reflection of its weight and tandem rotor design. Partly in consequence, it is far more susceptible to brownout (a lethal condition in which pilots lose visual contact with the ground during landing or takeoff due to dust and dirt blown aloft by rotorwash). The combination of violent downwash and interaction between the counter-rotating columns of descending air from its two lifting rotors make it a poor platform for rescue hoist operations, the bread and butter of sea rescue and overland combat aircrew recovery. It has a significantly higher vibration level than the other contenders, a matter of serious concern in terms of crew fatigue. The fields of fire of its defensive armament are significantly more constricted than those of the other contenders. Its aural signature is significantly greater, affording the enemy more warning on low altitude ingress. Lastly, it requires a much larger landing zone than the other contenders, seriously constricting its use in urban areas and from shipboard (the thought of having had to conduct the Saigon evacuation, in which I participated, with H-47s is truly frightening).
…Guilmartin added.
Sources tell DT Guilmartin may have something here. Most observers were astonished that the 47 was picked over the Lockheed Martin/Augusta-Westland US101 and the Pratt-Whitney/Sikorsky S-92. But others saw the writing on the wall.
I’m not sure what happened with CSAR-X, but the scuttlebutt has it that General Brown and the Army C-47 lobby got to the USAF—perhaps a quid pro quo for LCA, for Predator orbits, who knows. But, it was a very, very odd selection and choice. You should see the pictures of C-47 brownout compared to the other two, both of which have specific rotor designs that cause a “doughnut” of clear ground around the chopper that would actually help a rescue by obscuring the helo and the downed pilot from the enemy if they were close-by.
…The C-47 decision seems odd, because somehow the old C-47 mafia (including Brown) somehow got their way at the 11th hour (the C-47 wasn’t even a competitor until late, which also has an aroma about it).
Another AFSOC veteran tells DT:
I think the bigger issue is who flies helos? If the Army flies them then we should expect that they will be misused and shot down more often. Simple matter of different cultures, training and what kind of competency the crew has…
…If we really transform, who needs CSAR. It will be done by UAVs.
And on the UAV issue, our first source adds…
UAVs were proposed for CSAR in Vietnam - the Navy’s drone anti-submarine helicopter (DASH) which flew operationally from destroyers and frigates from about 1964 to 1971. The last of the DASH test articles made its final flight recently. They were great little machines and the Navy grossly mismanaged their operational employment, and they were replaced in the 1970s by LAMPS (now the SH-60 Mark III Seahawk).
Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin continue to fight the Air Force on its choice, blasting the service for its tepid “revision” of the request for proposals mandated by the Government Accountability Office.
It’s unclear when and how this will all shake out. While the momentum seems to favor the Boeing bird, the two competitors aren’t giving up quite yet.
Five years ago, Boeing got caught pushing the 767 in a controversial $23 billion sweetheart lease deal with the Air Force that landed its execs in jail. Since then, Boeing has been on the loosing end in sales to four U.S. allies which bought aerial tankers. Great Britain, United Arab Emirates, Australia and soon to be announced Saudi Arabia all went with the newer KC-30 built by Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co.
Boeing inked deals with Japan and Italy but has yet to deliver. Italy has been waiting for more than two years and counting. And Japan has imposed fees and angrily waits as Boeing struggles to get the tanker fully certified by the FAA.
That’s proving harder than Boeing publicly admits. Problems include flight control software integration and debugging (very serious), and an environmental control system (minor). Others concern communications, not being able to fly long distances on only one engine and night refueling glitches. All keep the aircraft grounded.
And a new wrinkle popped up at Boeing’s recent investor conference. After hearing about yet more Japan and Italian tanker set backs – problems with the refueling boom camera, and hang ups with wing pod gas hoses – J.P. Morgan warned these performance issues and delays may “count against” Boeing in the $40 billion competition against EADS and U.S. partner Northrop Grumman to replace the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of existing tankers. It’s the biggest procurement program in years.
Since past performance is a top criterion of the selection process, the Air Force no doubt is wringing its hands. And Boeing continues to stub its toe and raise eyebrows inside the Pentagon. At the end of May, Boeing got caught embellishing some tanker facts. It said the 767 could take off fully loaded in 7,000 feet of runway. In reality, according to Boeing’s own clarification, it needs 8,000 feet to get airborne.
The art of fact-shading doesn’t stop there. Boeing says its tanker program will create 44,000 new jobs. The truth? Regardless of who wins, the program will create 25,000 new jobs, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The straight facts are not hard to come by. The KC-30 is newer and more technologically sophisticated than the Boeing 767. The KC-30 carries 20 percent more gas (or 45,000 more pounds), more passengers, including aero-medical evacuation patients, nearly double the cargo pallets, is more fuel efficient, and can land fully loaded at 838 runways worldwide—nearly 300 more than the Boeing 767.
Military planers like the fact that the KC-30 multi-platform tanker could lighten the load of the Air Force’s C-17 cargo hauler, letting it move the heavy equipment it was designated for. Others think a straight tanker, like Boeing’s 767, despite its limitations, is best for the service.
But what about Boeing’s current snafus on the Japan and Italian tankers? Is this not a red flag of problems and risk the Air Force should worry about? Boeing says these contracts serve as “risk mitigation” programs for the big U.S. Air Force deal. In other words, our allies in Tokyo and Rome are guinea pigs.
Had the Pentagon gone with the original lease deal – and paid Boeing $250 million per plane or more than twice today’s purchase price – the Air Force would be the guinea pig. The same problems that plague the 767 in Japan and Italy would have left the Air Force without an operational tanker today.
That head-spinning fact is not lost on the pilots who require a tanker that can get airborne anytime to refuel military aircraft supporting troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and hot spots around the world.
(Gouge: BV)
-- Ward
Night Vision Blowback?
Part of America’s counterinsurgency strategy is the wholesale rebuilding of native armed forces. Some have argued that supplying the new armies with antiquated weapons such as the AK-47 demeans them – that instead they should be supplied with modern weaponry, such as the M4, to take advantage of both its increased accuracy and its “western” appearance.
Better to make them feel like a modern military in hopes that they’ll act like one.
But a new contract solicitation takes this philosophy a step further. According to FedBizOps, the Pentagon is seeking vendors to satisfy a requirement to supply the Afghan army “commando” force with night vision equipment.
The solicitation calls for “Generation II” goggles. Most US special operators and pilots wear the most advanced GenIV and even some combined IR/I2 NODs.
While it seems like a good idea to equip America’s new allies with the most modern equipment available – to make them more effective in our absence and to help forge a Western esprit – doling out NVGs to Afghan soldiers, no matter how down-market they are, risks some blowback.
How much blood and treasure have been spent to locate all the old Stinger missiles supplied by the CIA to the Soviet-fighting Mujahaddin in the 1980s? And what will happen when a take-down raid on Taliban or AQ holdouts nets some of those NODs we just supplied to the Afghan “special” forces?
One of the American military’s strongest advantages in ground combat is its ownership of the night. IR markers, glint tape and IR illuminators are key to nighttime fighting for US forces. If the NVG technology intended for our Afghan allies falls into the wrong hands, that advantage will quickly turn into a major vulnerability.
With procurement bottlenecks worse than ever and R&D dollars shrinking in the face of an increasingly expensive war without end, a new trend is emerging: Smaller organizations with the savvy to act as middlemen in order to get the right stuff to warfighters in time for it to actually matter.
Defense experts like Edward "Otto" Pernotto have the potential to make a difference because they understand how to exploit the system in effective ways. Otto recently launched Excalibur R&D, LLC, which he calls a "small business focused on providing rapid, innovative, and collaborative national security solutions."
"We cannot continue to throw money at huge military programs that in many ways are breaking the bank of this country," Otto said during a discussion with DT at the recent Milblogging conference in DC. "We need to do things smarter and quicker."
During our discussion Otto offered a number of examples of the sort of "low hanging fruit" that the current DoD procurement system is incapable of dealing with. Among his initiatives is an attack variant of the H-47 that he claims can be fielded for around $5 million per copy. He also submits that his plan would get these aircraft to the battle in months, not years.
"From the initial thoughts for this rapid response team, my thinking on the subject has evolved," Otto said. "I have watched with great fascination the evolving nature of the Internet and certain collective activities that have gone on. I'm convinced those sorts of activities are the way of the future."
Whether Otto and others like him are tilting at windmills or not remains to be seen, but this much is obvious (and heartening): Those who really care about the heath of America's forces aren't waiting around for the machine to fix itself.
A newly-elected Ohio congresswomanannounced May 2 that the House Armed Services Committee’s Air and Land Forces Subcommittee had restored funding for the Joint Strike Fighter “alternate engine” program.
Every year, the Pentagon zeros out funding for the costly earmark, and each year lawmakers representing districts that have a vested interest re-insert the cash.
It would be one thing if the pork could swim around the bloated defense bill as an eight-figure vote-getter, losing itself in a myriad of such programs inserted into the bill without a Pentagon request. But the alternate engine program is on a nearly half-billion dollar life support system that sucks a chunk of funds away from needs the Air Force claims are more urgent.
How many more MRAP vehicles could the Pentagon buy to protect forces in Iraq with the $480 million Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) says will result in “lower acquisition costs; reduced development and operational risk; and long term savings in life cycle costs?”
That’s right - at about $1 million a pop, the Army and Marine Corps could use that money to buy nearly 500 of the IED-resistant vehicles. Not to mention how that money could be put to use in the Air Force’s $17 billion unfunded priorities list – like A-10 upgrades ($37 million) and force protection equipment for Airmen ($250 million).
And there has been no good case made to justify that continuing to fund the development of GE’s F136 engine for the F-35 Lightning II JSF will somehow reduce life cycle costs and be “in the interest of the America taxpayer.” What evidence is there that the Pratt and Whitney engine isn’t any good and that another engine is needed?
General Electric Aviation is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.
With the F-35 program nearing IOC, you’d think this line of reasoning would have played out. But yet again, lawmakers in the House have agreed to keep the “alternate engine” program alive, bucking the Air Force in one area the service has continually vowed to save money.
"General Electric has worked tirelessly to develop the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, I am very pleased the Committee continued to authorize this program, important to both our national security and the greater Cincinnati economy," Congresswoman Schmidt said.
"Today is another good day for Cincinnati," Schmidt concluded.
