U.S. ARMY Lockheed Martin Corp., Liverpool, N.Y., was awarded a $206,884,461 modification (P0010) to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (W15P7T-12-C-C015) to procure AN/TPQ-53 Radar Systems and corresponding spare parts. The cumulative total face value of this contract is $605,052,337. Work will be performed in Syracuse, N.Y. A combination of fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2013 Procurement funds are being obligated on this award. The Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is the contracting activity.
SILVER LINING: Could another continuing resolution of current appropriations be a good thing for the Pentagon and its industrial base? “Our view remains that like fiscal 2013, the full $52 billion [sequestration] cut could be reduced as another continuing resolution and muddle-through on the debt ceiling won’t leave the [Defense Department] enough time to implement a full $52 billion reduction,” say Capital Alpha Partners analysts.
LONDON — With its U.S. business in the throes of sequestration, Lockheed Martin is ramping up its efforts to increase its share of the international aerospace and defense market. As a result, the company is forming a new subsidiary, Lockheed Martin International (LMI), which will be charged with pushing the company’s products to the global market.
As the U.S. rushes to arm and train Afghan security forces ahead of the West’s pullout of major combat forces next year, a new inspector general report has found Afghan air forces to be woefully unprepared and is recommending halting two related U.S. aircraft acquisitions.
The U.S. Navy awarded Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services (HPES) a firm-fixed-price award fee contract for the Next Generation Enterprise Network (Ngen) on June 27. The base amount of the award is about $321.7 million. There are four one-year options, which if exercised gives the contract a potential overall value of $3.5 billion through June 2018.
While Somalia coast pirate attacks are still dropping, the number of West African-area incidents is rising and other attacks around the globe continue, say those who track such crimes. The persistence of pirates and the threat of other attacks by maritime terrorists and similar risks makes it even more imperative for worldwide navies to continue patrols, the pirate-trackers say.
LONDON — The German government has made the unusual decision to publish data relating to UAV losses. The data, published on June 27, relates to losses of German UAVs from the hand-launched EMT Aladin up to the Northrop Grumman Euro Hawk, of which Germany has one aircraft, following the cancellation of the program by the government in May due to concerns over the costs of certifying it to fly in civil airspace.
FRENCH REAPER: The U.S. has offered to sell France 16 MQ-9 Reaper UAVs along with ground control stations, parts and logistics support worth an estimated $1.5 billion, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The agency notified Congress of the potential sale of the General Atomics-made UAVs June 27, saying the sale would “enhance the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance of the French military in support of national, NATO, United Nation-mandated and other coalition operations.”
The U.S. Navy says the Jan. 17 grounding of the ex-USS Guardian minesweeper in Philippine waters was a “tragic mishap” in a recent report that cites failures of ship leadership and crew leading up to the accident. “USS Guardian leadership and watch teams failed to adhere to prudent, safe, and sound navigation principles which would have alerted them to approaching dangers with sufficient time to take mitigating action,” Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, writes in the report.
There is little doubt what is behind the U.S. military’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific. “The Asia-Pacific is important to us because of our treaties,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert, U.S. chief of naval operations, said last month during the International Maritime and Defense Exhibition (Imdex) Asia 2013. “It is important to our past and to our future.”
While the Pentagon has made strides in improving its past-performance assessments of contractors, the department still has a problem getting the work done on time, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says. “DOD (Defense Department) faces challenges completing assessments on time,” GAO says, noting in its June 27 report that more than half the assessments continue to be late.
Across Eastern Europe, governments are trying to modernize their militaries in the face of the economic downturn afflicting their trading partners to the west. For years, countries like Romania and Bulgaria have remained heavily reliant on the Soviet era-built fighters and aircraft handed to them during the 1970s and '80s. And while most were keen to join NATO, the real focus has been on entering the European Union to benefit from the investment that membership brings. Air arm modernization has been put on the back burner, at least until now.
The wing spar for the U.S. Air Force's KC-46A tanker, traditionally the first piece for major assembly in a new aircraft, was loaded into a tooling jig at Boeing's widebody factory in Everett, Wash., on June 26, kicking off a manufacturing process that should see aircraft rollout in January and a first flight next June.
The U.S. military is close to finalizing a new set of rules of engagement (RoE) for cyberwarfare, and for responses to attacks it will likely reflect the homeland defense regime set up after 9/11, according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We now have a playbook for cyber,” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey told a Brookings Institution audience here June 27. “And we have forces allocated to the mission.”
As the U.S. Marine Corps starts to withdraw from Afghanistan, there is a greater emphasis on getting its equipment out of the country and back to the U.S. than there was during the withdrawal from Iraq. When leaving Iraq, Marines were shifting much of their equipment and gear to repurpose in Afghanistan. But now sequestration is making the service concentrate more on getting its goods back home for repairs and upgrades, says Gen. James Amos, Corps commandant.
LONDON — The U.K. Royal Air Force is working with BAE Systems to increase the service intervals on its Eurofighter Typhoons. BAE says the changes, which will see Typhoons serviced every 500 flight hours rather than the current 400 hr., will make the aircraft more available for frontline operations. It will also save around £100 million ($153 million) once all the aircraft have entered operation.
