Raw Intel

E-4B NAOC (click to view full) In December 2005, the U.S. Air Force awarded Boeing a contract as Product Support Integrator (PSI) for the USAF’s E-4 National Airborne Operations Center fleet. These 4 modified 747-200s were introduced in 1974, and serve as complete flying command posts for national and military authorities. As one might imagine, they are hardened to resist the side-effects of nuclear attack, such as electro-magnetic pulse effects. The 2005 contract was a 5-year, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract vehicle, with one 5-year option and a $2 billion cost cap. That’s a lot of money for a small fleet, but the E-4’s plays a military and civil role…

I'm not drinking my breakfast ... yet ... but I've read this twice and all I can think of is a need to say, "BINGO!" Booz Allen Hamilton, Norfolk, Va., is being awarded a not-to-exceed $20,000,000 modification to previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price pricing provisions contract (N00189-08-D-0022) to increase funded amount. The total contract value inclusive of all modifications is estimated at $184,103,663. The contract will provide leadership teams, providing expertise in change management, barrier identification and removal, and key enterprise performance metrics. The contractor will focus efforts on app…

Since the news broke, there have been a number of people working to use the sad news to try to reach out to troops/veterans that were at risk, as well as to educate about depression, stigma, and related issues. I could rant about ignorant posts and posters, but I'd rather focus on what's important: reaching out to those at risk, because if even one stops and thinks, and chooses not to follow... The new social media manager for Mission: VALOR, Army veteran Jennifer Wilkins Perminas, sent me a post yesterday that she wasn't satisfied with. I thought it bloody marvelous, and said so. Here's a small taste: His death brings me to a larger epidemic that I believe we need to dis…

NASA Photo Very late on the night of 20 July 1969 in a small home in the Appalachians, I watched as a figure moved down a ladder, and into history. On that night, mankind became a true spacefaring spieces as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the alien world that is our moon. To be honest, I don't really remember his exact words. Neil maintained that he said "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" and I will not dispute him on that. I also remember that our hosts, who were in many ways the grandparents I never had, remembered the night both for his step and for the fact that it was the latest they had ever stayed up in their lives. It was …

Our buddy Galrahn tweeted yesterday, For the fifth time in a week, a very serious defense person described Hagel to me in private as "an idiot" or "stupid." That is chilling. — Raymond Pritchett (@Galrahn) August 22, 2013 Not the first time I have heard that, but the guy was elected to quite a few offices. So, who am I to judge his IQ - though there are lots of brilliant idiots out there and very smart people who don't know squat about what they should - or know a lot of what is just wrong. SECDEF Hagel was hired for one reason; to preside over the more rapid decline of the US military so that the next President doesn't have enough to really do anything overseas - a…

CH-53K concept (click to view full) The U.S. Marines have a problem. They rely on their CH-53E Super Stallion medium-heavy lift helicopters to move troops, vehicles, and supplies off of their ships. But the helicopters are wearing out. Fast. The pace demanded by the Global War on Terror is relentless, and usage rates are 3 times normal. Attrition is taking its toll. Over the past few years, CH-53s have been recalled from “boneyard” storage at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ, in order to maintain fleet numbers in the face of recent losses and forced retirements. Now, there are no flyable spares left. Enter the Heavy Lift Replacement (HLR) program, now known as the CH-53…

AMDR testbed (click to view full) The US Navy’s Dual-Band Radar that equips its forthcoming Gerald R. Ford class super-carriers replaces several different radars with a single back-end. Merging Raytheon’s X-band SPY-3 with Lockheed Martin’s S-band VSR allows fewer radar antennas, faster response time, faster adaptation to new situations, one-step upgrades to the radar suite as a whole, and better utilization of the ship’s power, electronics, and bandwidth. Rather than using that existing Dual-Band Radar design in new surface combatant ships, however, the “Air and Missile Defense Radar” (AMDR) aims to fulfill DG-51 Flight III destroyer needs through a new competition fo…

The fact that operating fixed wing aircraft has a long and bloody learning curve is no news to readers here - but this stuff coming out of Chinese state media is interesting. Via our friend Wendell Minnick over at DefenseNews; In an unusual departure for mainland Chinese-language media, the Beijing-based Sina Military Network (SMN) criticized the capabilities of the carrier-borne J-15 Flying Shark as nothing more than a “flopping fish.†... What sounded more like a rant than analysis, SMN, on Sept. 23, reported the new J-15 was incapable of flying from the Liaoning with heavy weapons, “effectively crippling its attack range and firepower.†The fighter can take…

Presented for comment. Confirmed by multiple sources, this is the very latest from OMB to the DoD regarding aircraft carriers and FY13: The navy has proposed an additional 2-year schedule slip to its newest carrier, CVN79, which would extend the funding profile from the original 8 yrs to 12 yrs. The Navy would initiate the 4-yr construction process in FY15 after 8 years of advance procurement activities. Given the challenges of implementing the BCA caps, OMB allows the additional 2 year slip to CVN-79. However, the Navy should request authorization to commence regular CVN-79 construction in FY13 and continuing through FY18. The CVN-79 funding profile does not change,…

If you worry what kind of impact the money trouble in DC may have on the condition of the ships we are riding hard and leaving up wet, I invite you to spend some time with RDML Joe Carnevale, USN (Ret), Senior Defense Advisor for the Shipbuilders Council of America, presentation from 5 December 2012. I recommend slide 31 if you are in a hurry. View the full article

Latest updates: Battle for Oshkosh: Will FHTV re-bid copy FMTV mistake? THAAD on HEMTT (click to view full) In 2009, with its bridge buy of FMTV medium trucks in place, and initial awards for the potential JLTV Hummer replacement designs underway, the next order of business on the US Army’s agenda was a new Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles multi-year contract: FHTV-III. That multi-billion dollar FHTV-III contract has been awarded – not as a re-compete like FMTV, but as a single-source solicitation. Oshkosh has provided the core of this capability for over 20 yeas now. Its Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks (HEMTT) and their 13-ton payloads are the mainstay of …

Ummmm, yep. Rex just about nails it. In the main, the establishment American media abandoned its critical faculties during the Obama campaign — and it hasn’t reclaimed them since. Much of the Obama coverage was orchestrated sycophancy. They glided past his pretensions — when did a presidential candidate before “address the world†from the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin? They ignored his arrogance — “You’re likable enough, Hillary.†And they averted their eyes from his every gaffe — such as the admission that he didn’t speak “Austrian.†The media walked right past the decades-long association of Obama with the weird and racist pastor Jerem…

I've been in a grumpy, snarky mood all week - why stop now? I always thought that San Francisco was a bad place for Starfleet Headquarters - so Brussels is not bad by comparison. Look. NATO Headquarters Brussels. When Anders Fogh Rasmussen drives to his office in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels in the morning, he gazes longingly at a large construction site across the street. The site, where construction cranes jut into the sky, will eventually be the home of the new, 250,000-square-meter (2.7-million-square-foot) NATO headquarters. Price tag: more than a billion euros. In 28FEB13 Dollars - that comes to over $1.31 billion. That is a lot for an organization …

I am a little thrilled right now. I didn't think Romney was going to make the bold move, but he did and now we can have the battle for this country that we need. Paul Ryan is the right man to articulate the right case that Obama and the left have put this country on the wrong path. Romeny is a solid competent executive with a proven track record of making big things work. Ryan is a bright, young energetic guy who can argue the difficult issues in a positve and upbeat way. That is a combination tat can devastate Barack the incompetent and Biden the batshit. The VP debate should be called off now using the mercy rule. I am about to donate to a political campaign for the fir…

U.S. Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, receives a mountaintop brief from U.S. and Afghan special forces on Camp Morehead, Afghanistan, April 23, 2012. DOD photo by D. Myles Cullen View the full article

Click on this link (right click, save as) to see the actual signed memorandum by SecDef Hagel. Here is the text. Statement by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on the Distinguished Warfare Medal The Department of Defense announced on Feb. 13 the establishment of the Distinguished Warfare Medal to recognize the achievements of a small number of service men and women who have an especially direct and immediate impact on combat operations through the use of remotely piloted aircraft and cyber operations. I agree with my predecessor Leon Panetta that such recognition is justly warranted for these men and women and thank him for raising the level of awarenes…

Perhaps it is because I spent a lot of time as a JO playing around with the how, when, and to what degree we would nuke someone that nuclear weapons can sometimes be a cold subject. Especially at the tactical nuke level - it isn't the end of the world. Indeed, we trained to fight and win in a nuclear environment not that long ago. Along those lines, I think more people should get comfortable with Alex Wellerstein's NUKEMAP. From Davie Crocket to the Tsar Bomb - play dial-a-yield all you want. Want to know what a probably terrorist nuke of NYC would look like? Without pondering fallout .... build your own ... even your hometown if you wish. …

One of the core reasons more people have not joined the LCS bandwagon has been the ongoing contradictions and contrary sales points by its strongest advocates.Earlier this week we bounced the CNO's "not in harms way" off The Under's "LCS will be like Taffy 3" strange rally cry.Well - there is more to chew on that will help explain why LCS just cannot get traction. "If we needed a frigate, we would build a frigate." --- Undersecretary of the Navy Bob Work at the CATO forum: The Future of the U.S. Navy Surface Fleet. P 50 Section 2 of U.S. Navy Program Guide 2012 "Decommissioning of the remaining 26 FFGs is scheduled to occur prior to FY 2019. The LCS will repl…

Ummmm ... errrr .... DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY Boston Dynamics, Inc., Waltham, Mass., is being awarded a $10,882,438 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The contractor will develop and build a set of identical humanoid robot systems for use by performers in both phases of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Robotics Challenge Program. This effort will develop robotic platforms consisting of two legs, a torso, on board computing, two arms with hands, and a sensor head. The robots to be delivered to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will be distributed to the top software development teams based on the results of th…

While working on the orchard at my Dacha/bolthole this weekend, acreage so far off the grid I can't even get broadcast TV unless I get a 20' tower, I had a little revelation when thinking about a video I saw last week. What is one of the breathless reasons we seem to have disgorged so much intellectual, professional, political, and real capital on LCS over the last decade? What is the panic button ... ah yes; "the swarm." Sure, you hear MIW and ASW wishfull chattering of "make it work" about; but the swarm is the driver. The fear of a bunch of expendable guys in small expendable boats with unguided weapons or suicide packages attacking ships in relatively confin…