Thursday, January 23, 2025
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 has tapped several Army and Marine Corps modernization accounts to amass nearly $500 million for the rapid purchase of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, which promise improved protection against roadside bombs.
Bell Helicopter Textron will try to salvage its role as prime contractor for the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program today, meeting with Army acquisition officials to address Pentagon concerns about cost growth and schedule delays.
Army budget officials are crafting plans for additional rounds of "severe" spending restrictions to be executed if the fiscal year 2007 emergency supplemental spending bill is delayed into the summer, according to an internal service document obtained by InsideDefense.com.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has approved a raft of new reforms designed to improve governance of the massive military bureaucracy by recalibrating how the Pentagon charts its strategic direction, sets priorities for future weapon system investments, and manages development of new combat capabilities.
The Joint Staff is exempting the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program from fulfilling a handful of criteria that new weapon system programs normally must fulfill in a bid to support the rapid acquisition and fielding of the new armored vehicle fleet.
The Defense Department has directed officials managing the development of three next-generation weapon system programs to consider energy efficiency as a key part of their designs, a significant step that could pave the way for economic fuel consumption to play a prominent role in planning for future U.S. combat capabilities.
The Defense Department should undertake a high-level review of U.S. military capabilities required to respond to the consequences of global climate change, in particular the ability to react to natural disasters stemming from extreme weather and pandemic disease.
The Marine Corps is looking for a few good private-sector logisticians to chaperone newly minted Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles from factory assembly lines to the Iraqi frontlines as part of an effort to rapidly field the new armored fleet.
The Army and Marine Corps are set to provide a day of VIP briefings for key congressional staff members at Aberdeen Test Center in Maryland, demonstrating for them how the military is testing new armored vehicles that promise to provide improved protection against roadside bombs to personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An influential Pentagon advisory panel has recommended an array of organizational changes, technology investments and policy reviews to strengthen U.S. military identity verification capabilities of both friendly and enemy forces using biometric technologies.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff have warned lawmakers that any delay in funding continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could impair U.S. forces' ability to prepare to deploy and compromise future readiness and "strategic agility."
The first batch of armored trucks ordered under the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program are being wired for combat radios and outfitted with counter-IED jammers and other gear in preparation for quick shipment to Marines in Iraq as soon as the end of this month, according to defense officials and documents. IEDs are improvised explosive devices, low-tech weapons that are the scourge of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Marine Corps is considering terminating the contract of an armored vehicle manufacturer vying for a piece of the $8.4 billion Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program after the company -- General Purpose Vehicles of New Haven, MI -- said it will need up to five additional months to produce a prototype.
The Pentagon is seeking legal authority from Congress to participate in a multinational effort to purchase up to four C-17 cargo aircraft for a small European-based strategic airlift fleet.
The Pentagon's acquisition executive has commissioned the Defense Science Board to conduct a second examination of U.S. military options for improving defense against improvised explosive devices.
The Defense Department's best efforts to prevent the cost of new weapon systems from skyrocketing "have not had a material effect" and the "status quo is both unacceptable and unsustainable," according to David Walker, the U.S. comptroller general.
The Air Force has launched a pair of campaigns -- one aimed at its foreign counterparts and another at state and territorial governors -- designed to refine its final requirements for a Joint Cargo Aircraft in a bid to expand the base of support for the fledgling program domestically and around the world.
Army weapons testers in the Maryland woods today are kicking off a six-week evaluation of prototype armored vehicles -- including punishing rounds of blast and ballistics tests -- that are expected to influence major contract awards this summer for the manufacture of a new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) fleet.
The Senate this afternoon began debate on its version of a fiscal year 2007 emergency supplemental spending package that includes $24.5 billion in new equipment for U.S. forces operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Air Force and Navy have determined that each will require more Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles than previously thought, adding new momentum to the Marine Corps and Army effort to rapidly field a new vehicle fleet to Iraq and Afghanistan that is optimized to protect personnel against roadside bombs.