Rapid Fire 2010-06-01: Information Superiority

• US to help South Korea plug gaps in naval defense.

• UK coalition government announces new defense ministers.

• Project H-XBR: Eurocopter, Brazil open Brazilian center of excellence, hold first EC725 test flight.

• DoD’s Operationally Responsive Space Office launches satellite data-gathering payload built in a week.

• RAND: Study examines how the US can use information superiority against insurgents.

• US Army begins BRAC-mandated move of its Armor School and 180 M1 Abrams tanks to Fort Benning, GA, from Fort Knox, TN.

• Curtiss-Wright to pay $19 million in cash for Hybricon, a maker of electronic subcomponents for the US military.

Holographic Sights for SOCOM M4s

M4 SOPMOD

L-3 Communications subsidiary EOTech, Inc. in Ann Arbor, MI received a $25 million sole-source, firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract, to provide their optical sighting system for U.S. Special Operations Command’s M4A1 carbines. Work will be performed in Ann Arbor, MI and is expected to be complete by May 2015. $262,636 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year, on Sept 30/10. The US Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division in Crane, IN manages this contract (N00164-10-D-JN68).

EOTech HWS

EOTech offers a unique technology, thanks to its Holographic Weapon Sight. The firm says that their night-vision compatible sight combines ranging and aiming in one image, which is not affected by problems like mud on the sight, or even a cracked sight window. This simple simulator demonstrates the basic sight picture.

Memorial Day 2010

Honor & Reflect
(click to view cartoon)

Monday, May 31st is Memorial Day in the USA. DID honors those who have given all of their tomorrows in American military service; we will not be publishing.

Readers are urged to peruse the US Department of Defense’s Memorial Day features, including this message from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. They are also reminded that in America, the Memorial Day moment of silence takes place at 3:00 pm.

Rapid Fire 2010-05-28: Integrated Circuit Speed

• South Korean Navy conducts anti-submarine warfare drills off west coast as tensions run high over North Korea’s sinking of ROKS Cheonan (PCC-772), a Pohang-class patrol combat corvette. South Korean ambassador to the US ponders the aftermath. [PDF]

• University of Pittsburgh gets $12 million contract to develop regenerative medical procedures for injured US military personnel.

• Rust never sleeps. As the F-22A fighter fleet found out recently.

Sen. Tom Coburn: America’s Fiscal Defense Crisis

Sen. Tom Coburn

Guest article by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK

This memorandum describes what I believe are serious problems in our defense budget and some ideas to address them. I appreciate that some of these thoughts are controversial – even to the point that I have some reluctance in suggesting them. However, if we are to fulfill our mandate, we must make some difficult choices, not just recommend that others do so. In other cases, such as exacting financial accountability from the Department of Defense, I believe we all can agree. Indeed, without our adopting controversial, but vitally important, ideas, I fear we cannot achieve our mandate.

Despite the sacrifice, heroism, and professionalism that our military personnel have shown in Iraq and Afghanistan, America’s defenses have been decaying, despite – perhaps even because of – increasing budgets. The ongoing corrosion and growing expense have been with us for decades, and span numerous presidents and political parties. Our Commission affords us an opportunity to start some very late due diligence on national defense spending. If these reforms are taken without the usual forms of compromise that always seem to occur – and prevailing practices that corrode our defenses are truly discarded – a stronger American military will result.

Rapid Fire: 2010-05-27

• US Congressional Budget Office’s Analysis of the Navy’s FY 2011 Shipbuilding Plan: Not. Affordable.

• The German defense minister aims to cut EUR 1 billion per year in defense spending, including closing small military facilities. Germany currently spends less than 1.5% of GDP on defense; NATO members’ commitment is 2%.

• US Navy unveils Preferred Supplier Program to offer more favorable terms and financial incentives to government contractors who demonstrate good performance.

• The UK government discloses that it has 225 warheads in its nuclear arsenal.

• US DARPA tasks Lockheed Martin to develop high-tech rifle-scope attachment that adjusts to targets at ranges from 3 – 600 meters.

• USAF Electronic Systems Center working with DeVenCI (Defense Venture Catalyst Initiative) to solve difficult problems in 18 specific areas.

• German physicists developing a quantum interface between light and atoms, which has obvious implications for quantum crypto and quantum computing.

• Upgraded UK Army Lynx Mk9A helicopters arrive in Afghanistan via C-17 transports.

• US Marines deploying communications innovations during African Lion 2010 exercises in Morocco.

• US Navy publicly “reaffirms commitment” to 680 F-35Cs, with deployment by December 2016; while US Marines make their draft F-35B basing plans public.

• Citi Investment Research analyst upgrades General Dynamics stock because shares have fallen below value. Wonder how Citi stock is doing?

• CSC snags $25 million contract to support the US Navy’s ONE-NET network that provides communications to the US fleet bases and stations overseas.

Rapid Fire 2010-05-26: GD EB’s North Kingstown Facility

• Russian-built plants in Venezuela’s Aragua state will produce Kalashnikov AK-103 assault rifles and over 50 million 7.62-mm rounds for the rifle per year.

• In 2011 Russia expects to unveil new model of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, the AK-200, based on the AK-74M but with a 60-round magazine capacity.

• General Dynamics’ Electric Boat expects to hire 450 additional workers at its North Kingstown, RI facility over the next 5 years and invest $55 million in new infrastructure as part of an expansion of the Virginia-class nuclear submarine program.

• General Dynamics IT gets $146.2 million, 3-year contract to consolidate US DoD’s IT infrastructure in the Washington, DC area to a facility in Alexandria, VA as part of BRAC implementation.

• Secure entry: BAE Systems gets $95 million order to install and maintain automated security systems to control access to US Army bases.

• United Technologies’ Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne snags a $20.3 million contract to design, develop and test a high-performance liquid upper-stage propulsion system that will support early intercept capabilities for MDA’s Ballistic Missile Defense System.

Arms of CALI Provide US Navy with a Helping Hand

Modern navies run on computers. Unfortunately, computers don’t last nearly as long as ships, something that’s both a hardware and a software problem. The computer console over there might be up to operating key systems on a billion-dollar warship, but a casual observer might be forgiven for wondering if it would be up to the task of running Pong. Behind that computer, an array of wiring and other mechanical components snake through the ship. They, too, have finite lifespans, but the networks they carry are vital. On top of it all, software systems run key programs, and tie various networks together. Some of those programs must change or be re-created when hardware shifts, while others change when new software replaces them.

All this has to be managed, and warships worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been retired early because their electronics upgrades were seen as too costly. Hence recent pushes toward open-architecture computing on many modern navy ships, built with commercial rather than military-proprietary components. Hence, also, programs like the US Navy’s future CANES (Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services), designed to streamline and update shipboard networks, to improve interoperability across the fleet.

What to do until CANES? Enter the Common Afloat Local Area Network Infrastructure (CALI) effort:

Head in the Clouds: DoD Turns to Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing Diagram

The term “cloud computing” has been floating around the commercial IT sector for a number of years. It describes how large-scale computer infrastructure can tap the power of the Internet to perform complex tasks. Cloud computing allows organizations to save money and increase flexibility by using shared IT resources, such as applications, storage devices, and servers.

The DoD wants to tap into those benefits. In May 5/09 testimony [pdf] before a US House panel, Pentagon cybersecurity official Robert Lentz offered the following prediction about the benefits of cloud computing for DoD:

“A cloud is…an ideal place from which to make capabilities available to the whole enterprise. While, in the DoD, we have encountered challenges moving towards a service-oriented architecture (SOA), in the private sector, companies like Google and Salesforce are basing their business models on an insatiable public hunger for software and applications as a service. Emulating their delivery mechanisms within our own private cloud may be key to how we realize the true potential of net-centricity.”

This article examines the development of cloud computing and how DoD is tapping into that technology for its computer networks, as well as the challenges faced by DoD in its effort:

• Cloud Computing: The Basics
  
• Service with a Smile: Cloud Service Types
  
• DISA’s RACE to the Cloud
  
• There’s an App for That: DoD’s Storefront
  
• Storm Clouds Ahead: Top Security Threats
  
• Weather Forecast: Partly Cloudy
  
• Additional Readings and Sources
  

Rapid Fire 2010-05-25: South Korea’s Defense Reform 2020

• North Korea’s sinking of the ROKS Cheonan is causing South Korea to rethink its planned Defense Reform 2020 restructuring and procurement program. Among other changes the Navy could see a shift toward more FFX type light patrol frigates.

• US Army’s next generation Ground Combat Vehicle IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle) attracting teams & bids. GDLS with Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and MTU Detroit Diesel; BAE Systems with Northrop Grumman; and Future Combat Systems leads Boeing and SAIC with Germany’s KMW.

• Orders in Afghanistan: no HMMWVs off-base, only MRAPs. Similar orders were issued in Iraq, at the height of the fighting.