Raw Intel

Americas Canadian government documents have disclosed that Lockheed Martin is required to deliver nine F-35s to Canada by December 1, 2027. The last aircraft will have to be delivered before December 31, 2031. The Liberal government plans to purchase 88 U.S.-built F-35s as part of a project expected to cost taxpayers between $15 billion and $19 billion. Critics of the purchase have noted, however, the full lifecycle cost for the planes is estimated at $77 billion. According to Defense News, Argentina has kicked-started the process for procuring four Boeing-made CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters from the US. Aimed at fulfilling a requirement first issued in 2011, the h…

Deer hunters who own their own land and hunt it for years on end know a fun little detail few others know. Deer trails are a constant, regardless of what is happening on the land. They remain on their track for ... well ... perhaps centuries. You can have a deer trail you've hunted in second growth forest and then have either timber harvest or fire remove all the trees on that parcel. Even though the land is barren, the deer will use the same trail, only slightly modified if an obstacle like an old fallen tree is gone, but besides that, the track remains unchanged. As the now barren land transitions over time from forbs, to scrub, to brush, and back to forest over a decad…

Americas Northrop Grumman Systems won a $20.5 million contract modification, which provides additional labor and material to incorporate production engineering change proposals that modify MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system production assets (B13-B15) to an Integrated Functional Capability 4.0 multiple intelligence configuration for the Navy. Work will take place in California, Virginia, New York, Utah, Wisconsin, North Dakota and various other locations within the continental US. Expected completion is in April 2023. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. The US Air Force will swap the A-10 mission computer with a new on…

As a mercantile republic - that is our natural state, don't forget that - our ultimate power is not our military. It is the byproduct of our system of government and the values we like to believe our nation was founded on. It is something that for too long was taken for granted. Yes, there is much ruin in a nation, and the substance of that ruin is the hard work of generations that came before. Work to build a stable society, a vibrant economy where people who work hard are rewarded with the fruits of their labor. As secure society where people can plan their lives and that of their children in the knowledge that threats both foreign and domestic will be kept at bay. Almo…

Americas Northrop Grumman Systems won a $458 million deal for fiscal 2022-2026 shipyard field operations, program management, systems engineering, documentation, logistics and hardware production activities in support of the Columbia and Dreadnought Fleet Ballistic Missile Program. The contract action contains option line items. Work will take in California, Washington, Florida, Maryland, Georgia and the UK. Work will take place in November 30, 2027. Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems won a $62 million deal for fiscal 2022 AEGIS modernization, DDG new construction, and Frigate new construction production requirements. Work will take in New Jersey and Florida. Est…

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kcH8VE_NEvU/U__5GZlYeuI/AAAAAAAAImQ/bUmQEYfEGI4/s320/horba1.jpgWhen do you accept defeat? When do you allow your morale to be beaten down? Think you have an excuse to complain about things in your military career that are beyond your control? Really? Years ago Pawel sent me a link to one of the many unsung (at least in the Anglosphere) heroes from Poland who fought on the Western front. I've always had a soft spot for their story, but we've discussed them here mostly in their ground component support. Simply an amazing story of so many who fought for their nation only see it liberated from one occupier to be handed to another. Those who survive…

Americas The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) published a request for information on June 14 seeking industry feedback on a concept to wirelessly recharge unmanned air vehicles using a high-powered laser mounted on an external pod. Agency officials want industry feedback on the possibility of retrofitting aerial refueling aircraft like the Air Force’s KC-46 and KC-135 with “an underwing power beaming pod” to wirelessly recharge a fleet of unmanned aerial systems. The benefits of having drones recharge their batteries in mid-air include extended range and having small energy storage capacities. The installation of AN/APG-83 radars on 72 Air National Guard…

Under the prior Democratic administration, we saw seabags full of personal and institutional capital - not to mention a lot of actual capital - expended on the farcical "Great Green Fleet." As it is with all non-value added political vanity projects (remember "Lean-In Circles"), the Navy doesn't keep them across administrations because they are just foolish and wasteful in addition to being just domestic policy objectives and personal positioning on the Navy's dime. With the Biden Administration, the Gaia cult has returned and sadly the present SECNAV feels that he needs to make another run with the same talking points supporting a neo-pagan doomsday cult that has been wa…

Americas Northrop Grumman won a $15 million contract modification, which provides additional labor and material to incorporate production engineering change proposals that modify MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system production assets to an Integrated Functional Capability 4.0 multiple intelligence configuration for the Navy and the government of Australia. Work will take place in California, New York, North Dakotaand various locations within the continental. Expected completion will be in April 2025 The Air Force contracted Lockheed Martin with $450 million for Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) production support. The contract will provide lifecycle support …

Bofors Archer system (click to view full) BAE Systems Bofors’ Archer is a light, air-portable, and highly automated 155/52 light mobile artillery system. Archer began as a Swedish project, administered by their FMV procurement agency. Funding was provided for system development and some initial production, but the project’s future had been shadowed by anemic Swedish defense budgets. In May 2007, however, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with Norway’s FLO procurement agency, which evolved into a joint production venture. Just as initial production moved the Archer system from concept to imminent reality, however, Norway left the program. Why? The Archer Syste…

For a decade and a half here we have yelled, begged, pleaded for Continental European NATO - especially Germany - to rise to the challenge of the 21st Century and pull their fair share of the load to keep peace in Europe. I have warned even longer IRL until it has become tiresome that they do not realize that the American public is just one election away from shrugging being Europe's security blanket. Everything regresses to the mean, and at our heart we are a mercantile republic, not an empire. WWII and the Cold War warped the nature of our relationship with Europe, and the force of regressing back to our natural state will bring us back across the Atlantic and looking t…

Americas Raytheon proposed an upgrade to the main sensor of the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). The company is offering the GhostEye MR radar for the air defense missile system. “With the addition of GhostEye MR, we extend battlespace coverage to the full kinematic envelope, or reachable area, of the AMRAAM?ER effector,” said Lindsay Viana, director of ground?based air defense on Raytheon Missiles & Defense’s Requirements and Capabilities team. Defense News reports that Lockheed Martin is evaluating how its Joint Air-to-Ground Missile can be configured for mobile, short-range air defense. “It’s a concept we have. We think it will have applic…

JAGM infographic (click to view full) The AGM-114 Hellfire missile remains a mainstay for the US military and its allies around the world, and efforts to replace it have repeatedly stalled. The Joint Common Missile (JCM) was meant to offer new guidance options, and use on fast jets as well as helicopters and UAVs. It performed well, but was canceled. It returned from the procurement dead as JAGM, a program that has undergone several major changes within itself. While other air forces field fast-jet solutions like MBDA’s Brimstone, JAGM will initially be limited to helicopters and UAVs, as a dual-mode guidance upgrade to current model Hellfire missiles. The JAGM Pro…

Even though it shouldn’t be necessary, I guess I should start this out by saying I actually support think tanks. I have a whole gaggle of acquaintances and friends who are associated with this think tank or another. They can produce good work – and even though some have clear biases in either their mission or their people – there is good value to read from smart people you disagree with on issues of substance. As long as you know they may or may not be objective – that is fine. As always, a serious read of contrary opinion will either by the strength of their argument make you reassess your previously held position, or by the weakness of their argument, further reinforce …

Americas Lockheed Martin won a $53.1 million modification, which adds scope for non-recurring engineering, delivery and installation of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Pilot Training and Maintainer Training technical refresh hardware. Work will take place in Florida and Texas. Estimated completion date is January 2025. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. The aerospace firms of Korea Aerospace Industries and Lockheed Martin have inked a “Teaming Agreement” on June 9 to jointly design, produce and promote an improved model of FA-50 in order to compete in the US market. The US Air Force and the US Navy plan to introduce about 280 …

Americas L3Harris won a maximum $13 million firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for Army Chinook CH-47 helicopter spare parts production and repair. The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is a tandem rotor helicopter. This is a five-year base contract with one five-year option period. Performance completion date is June 8, 2027. Northrop Grumman Systems won a $40.7 million order, which provides Full Scale Fatigue Test (FSFT) and Effects of Defects (EoD) for the Triton MQ-4C unmanned aircraft system, to include testing, analyzing, and documenting the results of both the FSFT and EoD test, as well as identifying post-test activities in…

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9GgO7_AJaPY/Uz6Ta8stBsI/AAAAAAAAIF0/BmY1-pVg-Qo/s1600/DentonwithA6.jpgWhen you honor a great man's passing, use the time to measure yourself against the man at his best. If in his shoes, what would you have done? How would history and the man in the mirror evaluate your actions? It is a little more than eight years since one of the greats passed. Jeremiah Denton, the Vietnam War POW who has died at age 89, uttered one of the great statements of defiance in American history. In 1965, he was shot down in his A-6 during a bombing run over North Vietnam. He became a captive for more than seven years and endured an unimaginable regime of torture, hu…

About the only institution I hold is more contempt than the UN in so far as its inability to do anything well related to its core mission is probably the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Over at the National Interest, Ramon Marks just about gives me an aneurism. How does one start here? I don't have much whitespace in my calendar today, so let me just pull this jewel out. The West is going to have to figure out how to resolve the Russo-Ukrainian War while simultaneously bringing lasting stability to Ukraine and Europe without pushing a paranoid Russia further into China’s arms. A Congress of Vienna-type approach could be an option under the mu…

Americas General Dynamics won a $133.2 million deal for MK80 series general purpose tritonal bomb components. The Mark 80 series are the primary US GP bombs. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island, Illinois, is the contracting activity. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of December 31, 2023. Boeing won a $30,7 million modification, which exercises an option to procure 63 Distributed Targeting Processor – Networked (DTP-N) B-kits (32 for the Navy and 31 for the government of Australia); and 56 DTP-N A1-kits (32 for the Navy and 24 for the government of Australia), as well as DTP-N cyber security support data de…

Americas Bath Iron Works won a $54.6 million contract modification to exercise options for accomplishment of lead yard support for the DDG 51 class guided missile destroyer program. The DDG 51 class guided missile destroyers are warships that provide multi-mission offensive and defensive capabilities. The majority of work will take place in Maine. Estimated completion will be by June 2023. Vice Adm. John B. Mustin, chief of US Navy Reserve, told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Defense subcommittee that the Reserve’s number one equipment priority is to buy the C-130J to replace the aging C-130T. The Reserve now operates 19 C-130Ts and 11 KC-130Ts in five fleet logis…