Sunday, April 28, 2024
Key Issues Optical clocks Prototype funding SPAFORGEN
Jason Sherman is a reporter for Inside Defense. For more than two decades -- including stints with Defense News and Armed Forces Journal -- he has covered the Pentagon, defense industry, the military budget, weapon system acquisition and defense policy formulation as well as reporting on technology, business, and global arms trade. Jason has traveled to more than 40 countries, studied medieval history at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and lives in Brooklyn.
The Pentagon is preparing to launch a new competition for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles capable of stopping explosively formed penetrators, effectively opening the field to new manufacturers in a race for a piece of the possible $20 billion-plus blast-resistant vehicle program that since January has been limited to a handful of companies.
A high-level Pentagon panel avoided locking the Army into a long-term, and very expensive, commitment to acquire all of the entire 17,700 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles sought by commanders in Baghdad, opting instead to back aggressive near-term acquisition strategy coupled with periodic reviews of the situation in Iraq to curtail purchases as conditions permit.
The Pentagon today handed down what could be one of the last Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle production orders until October, awarding BAE Systems a $212 million production contract for 441 blast-resistant personnel carriers, a move that effectively sets up three manufacturers to build the bulk of the new armored fleet purchased to date.
One of the U.S. military's most senior officers is concerned that the intense focus on acquiring a new fleet of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles designed to protect against the blast effects of roadside bombs has created an unrealistic expectation that everyone who rides in one will be protected from a catastrophic hit.
Army inventors have fabricated and fielded a new armor kit that protects vehicles from the blast effects of explosively formed penetrators -- the armor-piercing roadside bombs used against U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to government officials and documents.
Pentagon leaders are expected to nail down the size of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program this week by validating an Army requirement for thousands of additional blast-proof vehicles, a move expected to generate a request to Congress for billions of additional dollars in the fiscal year 2008 supplemental request.
The Defense Department is preparing a $30.6 million security assistance package for Lebanon -- nearly triple the size of similar aid provided last year -- to enhance Beirut's armed forces, which for the past month have battled al-Qaeda-style extremists barricaded in a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli.
The Defense Department is considering diverting a portion of the 2,800 Mine Resistant Ambush vehicles ordered by the Marine Corps to the Army, a course correction that could provide blast-resistant vehicles to parts of Iraq where roadside bombs present the greatest threat to U.S. personnel, according to Pentagon officials.
The first round of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle testing is nearly complete, setting the stage for the Marine Corps to place orders for $2 billion worth of the blast-resistant vehicles with contract awards that could influence the landscape of the tactical wheeled industrial base, according to defense officials and financial analysts.
L-3 Communications and Italian aircraft maker Alenia Aeronautica today won the Army and Air Force Joint Cargo Aircraft program competition, securing a contract to build 78 aircraft over the next six years in a deal worth $2 billion, the Pentagon said in an announcement.
NEW YORK -- Bell Helicopter Textron has agreed to pay for some of the cost growth in the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program as part of its proposal to turn around the troubled development effort, which has suffered significant price increases and schedule delays, according to a company executive.
A key congressional defense committee has denied the Pentagon's request for funding to implement the recommendations of the Strategic Communications Execution Roadmap, a spin-off from last year's Quadrennial Defense Review and a priority of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Lawmakers are concerned that a recent Defense Department policy that blocks access to popular Internet social networking Web sites -- such as YouTube and MySpace -- could have negative effects on the morale of troops deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.
Army leaders are heading to Iraq and Kuwait on a mission to determine exactly how many Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles the service needs, an assessment that could propel the total size of the MRAP program well beyond 23,000 vehicles and the price tag north of $23 billion, according to defense sources.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has established a new high-level Pentagon task force to clear the bureaucratic underbrush and make sure the Defense Department moves as fast as it can to acquire and field a new fleet of blast-resistant vehicles to U.S. personnel in Iraq.
The Pentagon last week notified Congress of a possible sale to India of six C-130J aircraft that could be worth $1 billion in what would mark the largest military equipment deal between Washington and New Delhi since the two nations committed to expanding two-way defense trade in 2005.
The Marine Corps today announced the largest production contract to date for its growing fleet of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, awarding a $623 million deal to International Military and Government of Warrenville, IL, to build 1,200 blast-resistant vehicles over the next eight months.
The defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are pushing Congress to approve new legislative proposals designed to give the executive branch more tools to enhance foreign security forces' ability to conduct stability and counterterrorism operations, the latest move in a three-year campaign to win broader congressional support for a key administration policy goal.
An influential advisory panel to Defense Secretary Robert Gates will soon recommend the Pentagon protect critical domestic military installations by making them energy independent, a move intended to wean the U.S. military from America's electrical grid which the panel believes is vulnerable to terrorist attack and natural disaster.
Logisticians at U.S. Transportation Command are working alongside acquisition officials to ensure that when newly minted batches of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles roll off the factory floor, aircraft are on hand to rush the blast-protected vehicles, which offer improved protection against roadside bombs, to Iraq.