Raw Intel

I wouldn't call this a "secret base" or that much of a surprise. China is secretly building a naval facility in Cambodia for the exclusive use of its military, with both countries denying that is the case and taking extraordinary measures to conceal the operation, Western officials said. The military presence will be on the northern portion of Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand, which is slated to be the site of a groundbreaking ceremony this week, according to the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. The establishment of a Chinese naval base in Cambodia — only its second such overseas outp…

Americas Raytheon won a $52 million delivery order for the improved Bradley acquisition system Commander’s Viewer Unit. The Bradley fighting vehicle system is manufactured by BAE Systems Land & Armaments (formerly United Defence) and includes the M2 infantry fighting vehicle and the M3 cavalry fighting vehicle. The new Improved Bradley Acquisition System (IBAS) Block 2 includes enhanced capabilities to improve operational efficiencies and lethality and provides life-cycle cost and reliability improvements. The most notable enhancement to IBAS is the high definition high resolution color imagery. The performance completion date is March 31, 2026. Using military service…

When you discover that you need to become a sea power in order to secure your nation and its people ... it can't happen over night. In 1520, the Danish king Kristian II mobilized his fleet and seized Stockholm, thus strengthening his position and control of commerce. In order to oust the Danes and decrease their dominance in the Baltic Sea, Sweden needed a fleet. King Gustav Vasa purchased ten ships equipped with weaponry and arms from Lübeck and they were delivered on 7 June 1522 at Slätbaken, close to Söderköping, and since then, this day has been recorded as the birth of the Swedish Navy. ...sometimes it takes two years and you have to outsource it ... but ever since …

Americas The United States intends to test-fire the Patriot air defense missile system in Palau on June 15, the island’s ambassador to Washington D.C. has disclosed. The 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery Regiment, from Okinawa will be deployed to Palau for this event. The firing is part of Exercise Valiant Shield which will involve Palau and Micronesia for the first time this year. The Patriot unit is to be deployed at Airai, according to Island Times. Laurel Technologies Partnership won an $12 million deal for production of Launch Control Unit (LCU) MK 235 Mod 17 and Mod 18 and associated components in support of the MK 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS). The LCUs a…

Along the spectrum from peacetime exercises to wartime combined operations, successfully integrating multinational forces is not a pick-up game. To do it right requires leaders and institutions years of practice, trust, and demonstrated ability. This is true of all military operations, but especially true when moving forces ashore during amphibious operations. In our constellation of allies, partners and friends along the shores of the Indo-Pacific theater, since 2015 the United States Marine Forces Pacific has led the multi-national Pacific Amphibious Leaders Symposium. Today we are going to dive in to not just the symposium itself to the broader topic of combined amphib…

This D-day anniversary I want to bring out a FbF I've run a few times over the years as it points out one of the hidden parts of the campaign that I want new readers to have a chance to read about. Most attention, rightfully, is paid to the beach and the move inland, but to enable that success, a lot of work was done at sea to keep the beach and seas open ... As the D-Day invasion was ongoing, the German Navy sortied what they could to try to drive the allies back across the channel. The most feared were the U-boats based in France. Please read the whole thing, but here is a nice summary of one of the under-told stories of WWII, Coastal Command. On night. One crew. Two…

Americas C4 Planning Solutions won a $236.7 million contract for the procurement of services to support Tactical Systems Support 3 (TSS-3). The TSS-3 contract will be used to issue task orders to provide professional engineering support services to provide US forces worldwide with continuous support of fielded tactical command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) programs of record to ensure that Marines can successfully set up and operate fielded C4I tactical systems. Work will take place in California, Japan, North Carolina, Germany, Washington DC and Louisiana. The period of performance for the base award is from June 23, 2022, through March 6, 20…

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v8lmDX5bgFc/UuHSen27fhI/AAAAAAAAH04/WUIUmhEfNQw/s1600/McGinty_JJ.jpg Paul Vitello has a nicely done obit in NYT of a quiet hero from the Vietnam War. Mr. McGinty, who joined the service in 1958 directly after high school, was a drill instructor at the Marine boot camp in Parris Island, S.C., and a brig officer at the Norfolk, Va., naval base before volunteering for duty in Vietnam in 1966. “I didn’t want to be earning my pay guarding a bunch of AWOL sailors,” he told Edwin F. Murphy, author of the 1987 book “Vietnam Medal of Honor Heroes.” Mr. McGinty led one of four platoons in Company K of the Third Battalion, Third Marine Division, during a…

Americas South-east Welding & Manufacturing won a $1.2 billion deal for complex repair, maintenance and modernization requirements of non-nuclear Navy Surface Combatant (CG, DDG, and AMPHIB) class ships homeported in or visiting San Diego, California, homeport. These efforts consist of Chief of Naval Operations-scheduled docking and non-docking; continuous maintenance; and emergent maintenance availabilities of Surface Combatant class ships to be performed in the San Diego, California, port. Delivery orders will be competitively awarded under these contracts, which are to be performed in San Diego, California. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, DC, is the cont…

The greatest tragedies from war, both directly and indirectly, are those that were clearly foreseen, knowable, or otherwise clear as day to anyone who wanted to see them. They did not happen in the shadows, they were allowed to happen because people with access to levers of power did not want to expend personal, professional, or real capital to take steps to prevent something that would be too horrible to think of should they come to pass. Little pain now to avoid great pain later is a more difficult concept to accept than it seems. The world in complicated. It is a human failing to not want to expend effort NOW to prevent something that will force harder effort in the fu…

Americas The Government of Canada has awarded Bell Textron Canada Limited (BTCL) of Mirabel, Quebec, a contract valued at nearly $800 million for the extension of the life of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s CH-146 Griffon helicopter fleet into the mid-2030s. The contract affects 85 helicopters. According to the contract, BTCL will modify the first 9 helicopters and then manage a competitive process to award subcontracts to suppliers to modify the remaining 76 helicopters. Lockheed Martin won a $34.7 million contract modification for the C-5 Super Galaxy Replacement Multi-Functional Control Display Program. The modification provides for engineering and technical services t…

I may have to add Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) to my list of navalist leaders of merit on The Hill. My first reaction was to be mad that I had not made this point first ... but I will gladly enjoy this exceptionally important point being made by a Senator to the CNO in such a public manner; Via Caitlin Kenney at Defense News; “I think this committee wants to make sure we're providing our warfighters with the necessary funding to ensure that the equipment they're using is adequately maintained. It's pretty basic,” Tester told Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations; and Gen. David Berger, Marine Corps commandant. “That means getting the necessary spare parts and safety equi…

C-5 Galaxy (click to view full) When it was introduced, back in 1970, the C-5 Galaxy was the largest plane in the world. It also has the highest operating cost of any US Air Force weapon system, owing to extremely high maintenance demands as well as poor fuel economy. Worse, availability rates routinely hover near 50%. To add insult to injury, the Russians not only built a bigger plane (the AN-124), they sold it off at the end of the Cold War to semi-private operators, turning it into a commercial success whose customer list now includes… NATO. Meanwhile, the USA still needs long-range, heavy load airlift. The AN-124’s commercial success may get its production line res…

Americas According to sources and an Army document viewed by Defense News, the Brazilian Army has written out requirements for its next eight-wheel drive armoured reconnaissance vehicle, after authorization for the service to buy up to 221 of the platforms, each armed with a 105mm or 120mm gun. The VBC Cav-MSR procurement attempt will take the role of the VBR-MR programme. The Army’s General Staff is currently waiting for permission to publish the rules and schedule for industry bids. According to Jane’s, Information and network technology specialists at the US Department of Defense (DoD) want to evaluate potential solutions to meet multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) requi…

The People's Republic of China isn't hiding anything. Their plan is right there for all to see. If you can't quite understand what I mean at the end of May of 2022, the North American treasure who is Cleo Pascal will show you and tell you the story; Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, every island can get up to 200 nautical miles off its coast as an EEZ in which it controls resources, say, fisheries. That means, for example, Pacific Island Country (PIC) Kiribati may have a population of around 120,000, but, with its EEZ, it covers as much of the planet as India. Now let’s colour in the EEZs of the countries being visited at the moment by China’s Foreign Minist…

Americas Raytheon won a $624.6 million contract modification for the procurement of Stinger missiles and associated equipment for the US Army. The Stinger missile is a lightweight, self-contained air defense system that can be rapidly deployed by ground troops. Its supersonic speed, agility and highly accurate guidance and control system give the weapon an operational edge against cruise missiles and all classes of aircraft. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of June 30, 2026. Northrop Grumman won a $13 million order, which provides for the procurement for depot maintenance for the TE-6B in-flight trainer airc…

Americas Lockheed Martin Aeronautics won a $97.5 million contract modification, which adds scope to procure Block 4 special tooling and test equipment in support of non-US Department of Defense (DOD) participants and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customer’s F-35 Lightning II delivery schedules. Work will take place in Texas, California, Orgeon, Tennesse, Israel, Michigan, Washington, Netherlands, Massachusetts and the UK. Expected completion is in December 2024. Lockheed Martin won a $10.5 million deal for logistics support labor for and a $10.5 million deal for product assurance basic labor for the PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 Missile Support Center post-production effo…

I am, generally, not all that taken in by large memorials to the fallen. Perhaps it is just me, but I find them cold, a bit off-putting, and many - but not all by any measure - seem to be more about something else than the memory of fathers, mothers, daughter, sons, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and friends who answered the call of their nation and never came back. Like the little neighborhood memorial back when I lived in Norfolk I've written about before, I find the smaller ones speak to me more - they have an intangible quality to them. For this Memorial Day weekend I'm reaching out of the USA and in to a lost world that is still remembered. Well off the beaten p…

There are some smart decisions being made by the Army when it comes to what the cool kids call “long range fires” (I don't care if they call in medium) … and the products are blue and gold. Via Sydney Freedberg at BreakingDefense; Instead of picking a single missile to be its thousand-mile Mid-Range Capability, the Army has chosen to mix two very different Navy weapons together in its prototype MRC unit: the new, supersonic, high-altitude SM-6 and the venerable, subsonic, low-flying Tomahawk. ... Lockheed Martin won the OTA contract, worth up to $339.4 million with all options, to integrate the two missiles – both built by Raytheon – into the Army fire control systems, v…

Americas Bell Boeing Joint Project Office won a $61.1 million contract modification, which adds scope to provide additional non-recurring engineering to support the production line incorporation of nacelle improvements for the CV-22 aircraft. Additionally, this modification exercises an option to procure 14 nacelle improvements kits in order to accelerate the CV-22 installation schedule, as well as procure an additional six brackets to support the kit installation. Work will take place in Texas and Pennsylvania. Estimated completion is in December 2025. L3Harris Technologies has been chosen by Tactical Air Support to upgrade the F-5AT. L3Harris will provide GH-4001 Elect…