Raw Intel

Many of our NATO allies have their own concerns in the Pacific independent of the USA's, with significant territorial possessions and economic interests from the African Indian Ocean coast to the Eastern Pacific. When they do good and responsible activities there, we get a nice secondary security benefit. France always seems to want to have an outsized presence on the international scene, and they are making a new play for more influence in the Indo-Pacific theater. We should welcome that. Via The Diplomat: Largely by virtue of its considerable strategic real estate in the mega-region, in the Pacific as well as the Indian Ocean, Paris is increasingly becoming the par…

Americas Northrop Grumman Systems won an $9 million deal for the manufacture of initiating propellant used on the MK48 heavyweight torpedo. This contract includes a three-year ordering period with no options. All work will be performed in Elkton, Maryland, and is expected to be completed by November 2025. Weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,203,980 will be issued for delivery order N00104-22-F-ZN01 that will be awarded concurrently with the contract and funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. In July 2017, Northrop was awarded a $50.1 million contract to manufacture 45 torpedo transducer array and nose shell assemblies for the heavyw…

Gateway Pundit has the letters and the scoop. Go check it out - apparently, Al Sharpton read Obama's original letter at the funeral for Heavy D. Over at IBD, an editorial that focuses on the issue: ...'I don't take these folks too seriously," President Obama recently told the Virginian-Pilot, referring to a group of former SEALs who formed the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc., to run ads attacking the leaking of details of the Osama bin Laden raid and other national secrets to further his reelection chances. Apparently the president doesn't take the sacrifice of Navy SEALs who've fallen in battle and the grief of their surviving families too seriously…

A very neat poster. Very neat. (click for larger) Where is one for the surface forces? View the full article

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $114.6 million modification to exercise an option for AEGIS Combat System Engineering Agent efforts for the design, development, integration, test and delivery of Advanced Capability Build 20. The Aegis Combat System is the Navy’s most modern surface combat system. It was designed as a complete system: the missile launching element, the computer programs, the radar and the displays are fully integrated to work together. This makes the Aegis system the first fully integrated combat system built to defend against advanced air and surface threats. The word “aegis” comes to use from classical mythology. Aegis is the name of the shield of the sk…

[From 40 Commando in Afghanistan in 2008...] For those that have ever met and/or partied with these guys know that this is what what you can usually expect... Christmas for the Commandos in Afghanistan was always going to be different - but no one could have predicted just how different. One minute they were singing carols at dusk beneath a mellow sun in the baked bare wasteland of Helmand province while wearing festive Santa hats, the next they were firing mortars after their Christmas Day service came under attack from the Taliban. So rapid was the reaction of Royal Marines of 40 Commando that within less than a minute of the first "contact" from the Taliban's machine g…

Americas Rolls Royce won a $9.3 million deal for Virginia Class submarine propulsors. The deal shall provide a maximum of seven Virginia Class propulsor rotor assemblies, scoop bar sets, and associated engineering support services. The Virginia Class attack submarine is the US Navy’s newest undersea warfare platform and incorporates the latest in stealth, intelligence gathering and weapons systems technology. Work will take place in Mississippi and Massachusetts. Expected completion will be by May 2025. Boeing won a $391.4 million deal for up to five CH-47F renew aircraft. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. The CH-47 is an American twin-engined, tand…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $172.4 million contract modification for procurement of spare hardware in association with Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target (PATRIOT) Advanced Capability (PAC-3) FY21 missiles and command and launch system. The PAC-3 serves as an endoatmospheric point defense system with a capability to intercept short-range tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and military aircraft. Unlike earlier Patriot missile defense systems, the PAC-3 interceptor relies on hit-to-kill technology whereby the interceptor uses kinetic energy to destroy its target on impact. Work will take place in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Texas and Massachuse…

What are the of economic, demographic, and political forces driving China through this decade? What direction is her growth heading and where will she find herself at the end of the decade? Are the forces in play likely to move her towards a more peaceful or a more militaristic stance? Using the recent article he co-authored with Gabriel Collins in Foreign Policy, A Dangerous Decade of Chinese Power is Here, as a starting point, returning to Midrats for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be Andrew S. Erickson. Andrew is a professor of strategy in the U.S. Naval War College's China Maritime Studies Institute and a visiting scholar in full-time residence at …

Americas Raytheon won a $340 million deal for mobile sensors operations and maintenance services of the Cobra King radar system. Cobra King is a mobile radar system, called an active electronic scanned array, of S- and X-band phased radars in use by the Air Force Technical Applications Center. It provides radar data to the Department of Defense’s strategic community, the Missile Defense Agency and other government agencies. Work will take place in Florida. Estimated completion date is October 31, 2031. SECO has successfully tested a new deck control device (DCD) to be used for controlling the MQ-25 on aircraft carrier flight decks. The device was successfully tested earl…

Decades of peace and relative stability in Europe is suddenly shattered as armies start to mobilize on a scale not seen since WWII. No, not 2022...but 1987. What is there to learn for today from what could have happened at the end of the Cold War? In addition to the above teaser questions, this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern with our guest Michael Cee we will dive in to the research, tools, wargaming, and art of creating alternative historical fiction about what may have happened with the wrong people in the wrong positions of power at the wrong time in the late 1980s. Michael is the creator and author of World War III 1987, a blog that takes a detailed look at a hypothetical…

Super Tucano Embraer’s EMB-314 Super Tucano trainer and light attack turboprop continues to rack up global orders, solidifying its position as the globe’s pre-eminent manned counter-insurgency aircraft. The latest order set of about $180 million expands the plane’s footprint into 3 African states: Angola, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. They join Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Indonesia as customers for this aircraft. The Super Tucano is known as the A-29 or ALX in Brazil, but abroad, it’s the EMB 314 successor to Embraer’s widely-used EMB 312 Tucano trainer. A-29 is better for marketing, though, and Embraer is trying to shift the designatio…

Americas The United States Air Force is reportedly ready to move forward with the second program aimed at renewing its fleet of aerial refuelers, formerly known under the codename KC-Y. Head of Air Mobility Command Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost indicated that the service will be moving forward with the bridge tanker KC-Y acquisition program. The competition will be full and open plus “non-developmental“, meaning it will be based on an existing, proven aircraft, according to an Air Mobility Command spokesperson. The Air Force is defining which capabilities it needs in its next tanker and how it will “immediately follow the existing KC-46A delivery timeline,” she said. KC-Y …

While the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier and her battlegroup heading east of Suez for a bit of showing the flag, with her Dutch and American friends along for comic relief, the Arabian sea the last week seemed to wake up. The chief of Israel’s armed forces spoke with his British counterpart on Sunday, the Israeli military said, after London accused Iran of carrying out an attack on an Israeli-managed ship off Oman last week that killed a Briton and a Romanian. Lieutenant-General Aviv Kohavi and Britain’s Staff General Nick Carter “discussed recent events in the region and common challenges faced by both countries,” said an Israeli military statement... In case…

Americas The US Air Force Research Laboratory has partnered with ThermAvant Technologies and Maxar Technologies to develop and deploy the next generation of spacecraft thermal control technology. The groundbreaking technology, Oscillating Heat Pipes (OHPs), provides lightweight and highly efficient temperature control on higher power yet smaller spacecraft. The OHP was recently launched in the second quarter of 2021 on a Maxar-built satellite. The United States conducted the launch of a precision sounding rocket on October 20 to accelerate the development of advanced hypersonic weapons. The High Operational Tempo for Hypersonics flight campaign was conducted by the Navy …

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $1.8 billion undefinitized contract action, which provides for the procurement of recurring logistics services for delivered F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter air systems in support of the Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, non-US Department of Defense (DOD) participants and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. Services to be provided include ground maintenance activities, action request resolution, depot activation activities, automatic logistics information system operations and maintenance, reliability, maintainability and health management implementation and support, supply chain management and activities to provide and support pilot…

Americas Huntington Ingalls won a $17.5 million deal to support maintenance and modernization on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) with special incentives to include ship alterations and propulsion plant maintenance during fiscal 2021 planned incremental availability at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. According to the Navy, it provides a wide range of flexible mission capabilities, to include maritime security operations, expeditionary power projection, forward naval presence, crisis response, sea control, deterrence, counter-terrorism, information operations, security cooperation and counter-proliferation. W…

Is our nation's military as poorly maintained and lacking in self-respect as we seem to be from Kabul to the high seas? What messages are we sending? I'm pondering a long standing critique of mine over at USNIBlog today ... something more important now than ever. Come on by and give it a read. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=JqG1mdM07lg:F-5p4aR4qRk:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=JqG1mdM07lg:F-5p4aR4qRk:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=JqG1mdM07lg:F-5p4aR4qRk:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feed…

Americas Oshkosh Defense and BAE Systems will deliver prototypes of the US Army’s next Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle, the companies announced. The National Advanced Mobility Consortium, which is an alliance of defense contractors and research organizations involved in providing the US government access to technology developers, narrowed its choice down to the two companies. BAE Systems announced that its Beowulf vehicles were chosen. According to a statement, the vehicle has a modular design and can be reconfigured for multiple missions, such as logistical support, disaster and humanitarian relief, search and rescue, and other missions as required. Oshkosh Defense’s pr…

Americas The US Marine Corps has acquired its first MQ-9 unmanned air vehicle (UAV) and assigned it to VMU-1. The transfer took place at MCAS Yuma, Arizona on August 30 and the aircraft is currently operated by the contractor. The US Navy has awarded BAE Systems a $26 million contract for Identification Friend-or-Foe (IFF) spares for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Under the contract, BAE Systems will provide Beamforming Networks (BFNs), an integral part of antenna control for the AN/APX-122A IFF Interrogator system, onboard the carrier-capable tactical aircraft. Middle East & Africa During the last few weeks, the US has removed its most advanced air defense sys…