Saturday, December 7, 2024
Key Issues MQ-25 Stingray USSF pLEO spending cap JLTV funding
Tony Bertuca is chief editor of Inside the Pentagon, the flagship publication of InsideDefense, where he focuses on defense budget and acquisition policy. He previously worked for the Sun-Times News Group in his hometown of Chicago, IL, and at the New Hampshire Union Leader in Manchester, NH. Tony has also served as managing editor of Inside the Army. He has a master's degree in journalism from Boston University.
Congressional defense committees are still debating a variety of issues related to the Pentagon's fleet of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, despite the fact no further purchases are expected from the Army or Marine Corps and both services plan to divest huge numbers of the vehicles.
The Defense Acquisition Board is slated to consider approving the launch of the Army's Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle program on July 1, though the service is proceeding carefully and closely monitoring cost projections, according to officials with knowledge of the schedule.
The House Appropriations defense subcommittee has denied or curtailed a host of Defense Department requests to transfer funding from Army vehicle programs to pay warfighting bills accumulated in Afghanistan, according to congressional documents.
The Army, citing fiscal limitations, will not be awarding a new contract for the Individual Carbine and is ending the competition, according to a statement released today.
The House Armed Services Committee's fiscal year 2014 defense authorization bill would limit funding for the Stryker combat vehicle until the Army addresses issues with $900 million in unused spare parts.
While the Army has repeatedly said it does not want to spend any more money on Abrams tanks, more than 120 members of the House have sent a letter to Army Secretary John McHugh asking that the service pump additional funding into upgrading the tanks for the National Guard, but not in fiscal year 2014.
Army Test and Evaluation Command is set to furlough 4,400 civilian employees, throwing a wrench into the schedules and budgets of a host of programs, according to an ATEC statement.
As U.S. Special Operations Command mulls an impending contract award for a new fleet of Ground Mobility Vehicles, an Ohio-based company has announced a blanket purchase agreement with the Defense Department to begin transforming standard pickup trucks into tactical vehicles for SOCOM.
The Army has pegged several major acquisition programs for budget transfers to help pay warfighting bills accumulated in Afghanistan in fiscal year 2013, with the Apache helicopter, the Warfighter Information Network Tactical system and armored trucks being among the biggest bill-payers, according to a draft Pentagon reprogramming request obtained by InsideDefense.com.
Army Secretary John McHugh said today that the service expects to receive the lion's share of the Defense Department's upcoming multibillion-budget reprogramming request headed to Congress, but cautioned that the service would still face a significant deficit.
Army and Navy officials who participated in a roundtable discussion last week that mulled the future of Army forces in the Asia Pacific all agreed on the same basic point: the United States should not create a second Marine Corps.
The Army has awarded General Dynamics Land Systems and BAE Systems contracts totaling $340 million to extend the technology development phase of the Ground Combat Vehicle by six months, according to a Defense Department notice.
The Army is seeking $130 billion in base budget funding for fiscal year 2014 -- $5 billion less than requested in FY-13, according to internal budget documents obtained by InsideDefense.com.
Oshkosh Corp. announced today that its defense division will be laying off nearly 1,000 workers this summer due to expected decreases in military vehicle sales.
The Congressional Budget Office, in a new report on alternatives to the Army's Ground Combat Vehicle program, concludes that every option open to the service -- buying off-the-shelf vehicles from foreign allies, upgrading Bradley infantry carriers and killing the GCV altogether -- is less risky and more affordable than the Army's current path.
The Army has released a draft request for proposals outlining a new acquisition strategy for the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle that calls for proceeding with a single engineering and manufacturing development contract as a cost-saving measure.
The Army in June will launch a pilot capability portfolio review process centered on eliminating infantry brigade combat team redundancies, a departure from previous reviews' focus on mission areas like precision fires or intelligence, according a senior service leader.
The Army has drafted a new equipment modernization strategy focused on developing "versatile, tailorable, yet affordable and cost-effective" capabilities for a time of fiscal austerity.
Army leaders have sent out a service-wide message urging soldiers and civilians to remain focused on their missions and preserve their “espirt de corps” despite the $18 billion fiscal crisis barreling toward them.