Raw Intel

Americas DRS Laurel Technologies won an $11.4 million deal for Ship Self Defense System (SSDS) Technical Insertion 2016 (TI-16) hardware production and engineering services. Work will take place in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Expected completion date is in April 2023. This contract was competitively procured via the System for Award Management website, with four offers received. Tech Ord, a division of AMTEC Corp., won a $35 million contract for the BBU-35A/B impulse cartridge. This contract provides an impulse cartridge comprised of a cylindrical aluminum case containing a firing electrode, bridge-wire, and propellant. Work will take place in Clear Lake, South Dakota and G…

If you want to get past the press releases, spin, and general garbage takes about who is doing what to help Ukraine, the Kiel Institute should be one of your first stops. Their Ukraine Support Tracker is heavy on facts and light on what you don't need. If like me you like to see the dataset, they've posted it in the raw or a smoother form. They are doing this right. I especially like how they break out aid as a percentage of GDP, the Salamander Approved™ way that smaller nations show they are giving a fair-share effort. Dig in to the data. Talk is talk; action is action; money speaks. Remember. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds…

Sunday evening, the first pics came out of the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship, the Slava Class cruiser Moskva. As we know this Monday AM ... this is her. No photoshop or spoof. If you need to brush up on your RECCE: Good news here is that as you can see in the green rectangle above, the life rafts have been deployed. As there were almost 500 Sailors assigned to her, that may be a secondary indication, along with the good weather, that those not killed on impact or in the following fire and secondaries were most likely able to get off the ship and as such, loss of life less. More to follow on that I hope. I'm sorry, I don't care what nation's flag they fly under; once…

Americas Huntington Ingalls won a 41.7 million contract modification to exercise options for accomplishment of follow yard services for the DDG 51 Class destroyer program. The DDG 51 class guided missile destroyers are warships that provide multi-mission offensive and defensive capabilities. Destroyers can operate independently or as part of Carrier Strike Groups, Surface Action Groups, and Expeditionary Strike Groups. Work under the modification will take place in Mississippi, Washington DC and Maine. Estimated completion will be by April 2023. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics won a $23 million deal, which provides initial product support maintenance of the F-35 Lightning II…

Americas Toyon Research won a $11.7 million contract modification, which procures the following AN/ALQ-231(V) Intrepid Tiger (IT II) Family of Systems production hardware: 24 (V) 4 maintenance stands; 18 (V) 4 radio frequency (RF) coupler sets (aft); 18 (V) 4 RF coupler sets (forward); seven IT II V3 direction finding array RF coupler sets; and seven IT II V3 RF couplers. Additionally, this contract provides engineering support to include life cycle and incidental engineering support as well as analyses, development, integration, test, documentation, repair/maintenance, and engineering test support for the Electronic Warfare Center and Electronic Attack communications jam…

Service selection. Warfare speciality. Rating/MOS. When you sign your name on the bottom line, except for certain circumstances, you really don't know where the "needs of the service" will take you. You fill out your wish list and hope for the best. We all know someone who wasn't all that excited about what their service had in store for them. I had a peer who came from a family of fighter pilots. He didn't pass the pilot physical for eye reasons, so wound up on the naval flight officer pipeline. This was when we still had A-6 and F-14, and that is where he thought he would save face. Where did the Navy decided he was needed? E-2. He cried. He then didn't tell anyone for…

Americas The US Air Force (USAF) has told Congress it could use additional dollars for more F-35 Lightning II fighters, hypersonic weapons testing, and munitions if the funds are available in fiscal year (FY) 2023, according to the service’s unfunded priority list. The service said it could use an additional $921 million to buy seven more Lockheed Martin F-35A conventional variant fighters to add to its official request for 33 fighters. Balfour Beatty Construction LLC won a $697.8 million deal or design and construction of East Campus Building #4 and a 1,186,000 square-foot parking structure at Fort Meade. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work wi…

As we watch another war wage in Europe fueled to a large degree by ethnic hatred and division, we find again people who are trying to promote the same cancerous mindset in our wonderfully diverse nation and Navy. One of the primary ways to inflame sectarian tensions is to encourage separation while at the same time instituting a series of preferences and punishments - unequal treatment - based on what group you are defined as. In the zero sum game that is promotion and desirable billets that impacts income and career prospects - that's just accelerant. The Diversity Bullies' diktat makes you disconnect your critical thinking skills. The fear that the commissariat has in…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $13 million contract modification under the previously awarded Aegis Weapon Systems contract HQ085121C0002. This in scope modification increases the ceiling on Contract Line Item Number (CLIN) 0012. This CLIN and contract modification will be incrementally funded at time of award. Work will take place in New Jersey. Estimated completion is October 31, 2022. Boeing won a $10.8 million modification, which exercises options to procure 359 Primary Bleed Air Pressure Regulator (PBAR) valves in support of the Environmental Control System PBAR and Shut Off Valve Improvement modifications to the F/A-18 E/F and EA-18G aircraft. Work will take place …

From a historical and military planning point of view, it is hard to understate the sea change this represents not just for NATO but for the nations’ involved. Finland will launch an immediate debate on joining NATO, Finnish officials said on Wednesday, as the country reconsiders its longtime stance outside the Western military alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Prime Minister Sanna Marin said that a decision would be made in coming weeks. “There are different perspectives to apply (for) NATO membership or not to apply and we have to analyze these very carefully,” she said at a news conference in Stockholm, according to Reuters. “But I think our process wil…

Elite failure. I guess this is German week, but so be it, they're in the news. For those who follow me on twitter, you are familiar with the #WeNeedNewElites hashtag. I started using it as a reference point on the American issue with the serial elite failures that are putting our nation at strategic risk, but it applies throughout the West. The problem is dangerous to our collective security with our allies, especially Germany. More than anything else, Germany just frustrates me. Maybe I'm the problem as I expect more from her than she seems to want to give. I feel like a track coach who has a promising athlete that is so racked with self-doubt, conflicting priorities, a…

Americas Leidos won a $12.5 million contract modification for the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory Autonomous Littoral Connector (ALC) project. The ALC project integrates autonomy onto connectors (vessels) to deliver equipment, fuel or supplies from ship-to-shore and throughout the littoral environment; improves autonomous beaching, well deck ops, payload integration; conducts an Amphibious Assault Direction System spiral; and adds autonomous navigation to multiple vessels. This modification provides for the execution of Option 7, Contract Line Item Number 0015, for an additional vessel (AV) and design, build and test of AV #1. Work will take place in Virginia and is e…

MiG-29SMT (click to view full) RIA Novosti reports that Russia is buying another 16 MiG-29SMT multi-role fighters, in order to help keep MiG-related technical expertise and infrastructure active until 2016. In August 2013, Russia’s VVS was forced to postpone its planned $1.1 billion MiG-35 buy from state-owned United Aircraft Corp. The new fighter just wasn’t ready, but MiG is a bit squeezed these days. Its main sources of work include carrier-based MiG-29K orders from Russian naval aviation (AVFR) and India, and ongoing upgrades to India’s land-based MiG-29 fleet. Other potential customers could add new orders, including a likely Serbian buy, but Russia needs more figh…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $74 million contract modification for the production of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ground equipment to support the US government. Under this contract modification, Lockheed Martin will provide six launchers, THAAD Fire Control and Communication (TFCC), and associated Peculiar Support Equipment (PSE) under firm-fixed-price and fixed-price incentive (firm target) contract line items. The THAAD terminal (formerly theatre) high-altitude area defense missile system is an easily transportable defensive weapon system to protect against hostile incoming threats, such as tactical and theatre ballistic missiles, at ranges of 200km a…

Unloved logistics ... when you ignore her, she will let you stew until you need her, and then she will let you panic in flop-sweat. The Cult of Efficiency ... it make you feel smart at peace - but at war she will put you at strategic risk and deal you the unnecessary death of untold number of your people. As war comes again at scale in Europe, you have to hope that for our friends, the good people in hard jobs are quick learners and are in institutions/nations that are equally able to adjust. Germany is the key for continental NATO. Geographically, economically, and demographically - you cannot avoid that fact. While the political will and the money that follows it are an…

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $261.4 million contract modification, which increases scope for the procurement of long lead-time materials, parts, components, and efforts for the production of nine Lot 17 F-35C aircraft for the Navy, 13 Lot 17 F-35A aircraft and two Lot 17 F-35B aircraft for non-US Department of Defense participants. Work will take place in Texas, California, Maryland and Japan. Estimated completion is in May 2026. Boeing won a $55.5 million deal in support of the KC-46 program. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 US Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. Boeing will deliver the entire KC-46 tanker fl…

For over 11-years, once a year or so today’s guest has joined us on Midrats to discuss the latest military and national security developments with Russia. With the war waging in Ukraine and in the processing to transitioning to a new phase, there couldn’t be a better time to hear from Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg who will be with us for the full hour Sunday from 5-6 PM Eastern in a wide ranging discussion about the buildup to war, and the important takeaways so far. Dmitry is an expert on security issues in the former Soviet Union, Russian military reform, Russian foreign policy, and ethnic politics and identity. His recent research topics include decision-making processes in the…

Great men cannot do great things without a great staff. Educated people know who Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton is, but who knows who Frank Worsley is? Anyone who has been responsible for navigation should; When the wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance was found nearly 10,000 feet below the surface of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea in March 2022, it was located just 4 miles from its last known position, as recorded by the Endurance’s captain and navigator, Frank Worsley, in November 1915. At the bottom of the world. No GPS, just math, the stars, and a bit of instinct ... and any hope of survival was riding on you. When the Endurance was crushed, the crew had to get themse…

Americas The US Air Force’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron has started to paint their WC-130J Hurricane Hunters back to the original shiny gray paint scheme and the first repainted aircraft returned back to Keesler Air Force Base on April 5. “Prior to 2007, the squadron’s aircraft all had glossy gray paint, which was used on weather reconnaissance aircraft, primarily for its durability, longevity, and efficiency,” said Lt. Col. Erik Olson, 53rd WRS director of operations. Martin Defense Group LLC won a $15 million deal for the development of an Amphibious Vehicle for Unmanned Surface Mobility (AVUSM). This contract provides for technology development and maturation…

Still wondering exactly what "Integrated Deterrence" means? Do you feel comfortable understanding the different deterrence schools of punishment vs. denial? If strategy and resources are aligned, does that necessarily make the results themselves "good?" You're going to know all the above better than most of the people you'll see trying to discuss them after reading today's guest post by our friend Bryan McGrath, returning here to ring the school bell. Simply superb and worth reading twice. Bryan, over to you. There are few more pitiful creatures than seapower/maritime strategists (I will use these phrases interchangeably, pedants be damned), a group of thinkers and advoc…