Raw Intel

So, the day after the election, what does the USCG really want its officers performance evaluated on? Of course. Para 3 covers it. R 041533 NOV 20 FM COMDT COGARD WASHINGTON DC//CG-1// TO ALCOAST UNCLAS //N01000// ALCOAST 399/20 COMDTNOTE 1000 SUBJ: GUIDANCE FOR TARGETED MID-TERM COUNSELING FOR OFFICERS A. Officer Accessions, Evaluations, and Promotions, COMDTINST M1000.3 (series) B. COMDT COGARD WASHINGTON DC 041026 NOV 20/ACN 129/20 C. COMDT’s Guidance to Officer Boards and Panels D. COMDT COGARD WASHINGTON DC 251640 JUN 20/ALCOAST 252/20 1. All reported on officers (ROOs) must receive mid-term counseling as required by REF (A) and as updated by REF (B).…

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…

Americas Northrop Grumman won an $11.4 million contract modification for the exercise of Options Two, Three and Four of the Minuteman III Launch Control Center Block Upgrade production program. The LGM-30G Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, is an element of the nation’s strategic deterrent forces under the control of the Air Force Global Strike Command. Work will take place in Utah. Estimated completion date is July 17, 2023. The US Marine Corps is now able to download data from an airborne RQ-4 unmanned aerial vehicle after verifying the capability during a field exercise held at Bouge, North Carolina last month. The 2nd Intelligence Battalion of the…

There was a little incident a month ago that kept coming back in to my mind. My guess is that my subconscious was bothered, as it is on a usual basis, that the article did not come with a map. You might recall the story ... one in a long list of similar stories; Russia says one of its warships caught and chased off a US Navy destroyer after it entered territorial waters in the Sea of Japan on Tuesday. Moscow accused the USS John S McCain of travelling 2km (1.2 miles) across its maritime border in Peter the Great Gulf and says it threatened to ram the ship. The US warship then left the area, according to Russia. However, the US Navy denied any wrongdoing and sa…

You know about The Long Game, you know about comparative shipbuilding numbers between the USN and the PLAN ... but have you seen the pictures? Behold the graphs I've put over at USNIBlog. Regulars here will not be shocked ... but if anyone tells you all is well in WESTPAC, they are fools or think you are one. Check it out. 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=DPbEJ2TsanA:utLp9GvKxP8:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=DPbEJ2TsanA:utLp9GvKxP8:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=DPbEJ2TsanA:ut…

Americas General Electric won a $101.5 million contract modification, which procures 21 T408-GE-400 turboshaft engines and associated engine, programmatic and logistics services in support of CH-53K King Stallion Lot Five low rate initial production aircraft. The King Stallion is the premier heavy-lift helicopter ever built by the United States government. It is an all-new heavy-lift helicopter that will expand the fleet’s ability to move more material more rapidly. That power comes from three new General Electric T-408 engines, which are more powerful and more fuel efficient than the T-64 engines currently outfitted on the CH-53E. The T408 gives the CH-53K helicopter the…

Americas According to a statement, the US Army awarded FLIR Systems a $15.4 million contract to procure Black Hornet 3 palm-sized unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The army has placed several orders for the Black Hornet 3 totalling more than $85 million, FLIR Systems said. These include the first order, a $2.6 million contract awarded in 2018. US Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee on May 7 that his service now has more F-35As compared to the A-10, F-15C/D and F-15E fleet. With 283 jets delivered, the fleet of stealth fighters is second only to the F-16. Middle East & Africa Israel’s army said that it ha…

Americas Raytheon Missiles Won a $239.1 million contract modification for StormBreaker (SDBII, GBU-53/B) production Lot 6. Designed to address critical troop needs, the StormBreaker can detect, track, and destroy stationary or moving targets with high-precision and stand-off range during the day and at night in all-weather conditions. The GBU-53/B, originally known as the Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II), has a tri-mode guidance system able to find targets using imaging infrared or millimeter-wave radar, or using semi-active laser homing to hit a designated aimpoint. Depending on the altitude of the launching aircraft, the weapon can also glide up to 69 miles on its own us…

Americas Bell Boeing won a maximum $36.5 million contract modification to extend the period of performance for delivery of V-22 spare consumable and depot-level repairable parts. The V-22 Osprey is a joint-service, medium-lift, multimission tilt-rotor aircraft developed by Boeing and Bell Helicopters. Boeing is responsible for the fuselage, landing gear, avionics, electrical and hydraulic systems, performance and flying qualities. The aircraft operates as a helicopter when taking off and landing vertically. The nacelles rotate 90° forward once airborne, converting the aircraft into a turboprop aircraft. Work will take place in Maryland, Texas and Pennsylvania. Estimated c…

Americas Raytheon won a $235.6 million deal for the production and delivery of the Silent Knight Radar in support of US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) requirements. The Silent Knight radar is designed to be outfitted on the MH-47G Chinook and MH-60M Blackhawk helicopters, MC-130 transports and CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. The Silent Knight is built for safe navigation through low altitudes at night or in bad weather. In June 2019 Raytheon was awarded a $96.6 million contract for the initial production of the Silent Knight system for Special Operations Command. Work will take place in McKinney and Forest, Mississippi. Estimated completion will be by July 2025. …

The U.S. Army has awarded software firm Palantir a $10 billion enterprise agreement aimed at consolidating and expanding its role across multiple defense programs involving artificial intelligence, data integration, and digital battlefield systems. The firm-fixed-price contract was issued on July 31 by Army Contracting Command at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, under solicitation number W519TC-25-D-0039. The […] The post Palantir wins $10B U.S. Army AI contract first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

BZ to our Coast Guard friends. There is a lot of good here in this message. The master message is, "tell our story." Simple but powerful. Having Chiefs - every Chief - helping bring in new people sounds like it should be happening already, but it isn't. Telling "our" story should be a given, but it isn't. All the services are having trouble recruiting, and no small measure of the problem is that our senior leadership from CJCS on down spent a bit too much time the last few years playing socio-political games and telling the public the military is full of racists, sexists, and rapists to a degree that we don't have time to spend telling the great story that represents 99.…

Americas Lockheed Martin Missiles won a $101.3 million contract modification for procurement of Hellfire missiles and containers. Hellfire is an air-to-ground, laser guided, subsonic missile with significant anti-tank capacity. It can also be used as an air-to-air weapon against helicopters or slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft. It has also been fielded on surface platforms in the surface-to-surface and surface-to-air roles. Work will take place in Florida. Estimated completion date is September 30, 2024. Northrop Grumman won a $28.7 million contract modification, which provides for the procurement of one additional G/ATOR system for the Air Force. The G/ATOR program is man…

Americas The US Navy deployed the MQ-8C Fire Scout next generation ship-based autonomous helicopter system operationally on December 14, 2021. Deployed with Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 22, Detachment 5 (HSC-22 DET 5) aboard USS Milwaukee (LCS-5), Fire Scout provides greater organic intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting (ISR&T) capabilities for the US Navy, manufacturer of the UAV said in a statement. The US Federal Trade Commission has sued to block Lockheed Martin Corporation’s $4.4 billion proposed vertical acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc, the last independent US supplier of missile propulsion systems. The FTC will file a compla…

Americas The US Naval Research Laboratory has demonstrated that its electric unmanned aerial vehicle dubbed Hybrid Tiger can stay airborne for 24 hours using multiple power sources. “The flight was effectively a performance test in worst-case conditions: temperatures falling below zero degrees Celsius, winds gusting to 20 knots, and relatively little solar energy as we approached the solar solstice Dec. 21,” Richard Stroman, one of engineers involved in the testing, said. Daytime power come from solar panels integrated onto the wings and high-pressure hydrogen fuel tank and fuel cell system provides nighttime power. The drone also had algorithms in its flight control soft…

Americas Sikorsky won a $116.5 million deal for maintenance and overhaul of the Black Hawk main rotor blade. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. The UH-60 Black Hawk, developed by Sikorsky, has been operational in the US Army since 1978. In April 2001, the US Army approved an upgrade programme for more than 1,500 Black Hawks to UH-60M. The UH-60M features new wide chord composite spar main rotor blades, strengthened fuselage and advanced infrared suppression. Estimated completion date for this contract is August 15, 2026. Integral Aerospace won a $10 million contract for the repair of two parts associated with the 650 gallon fuel tanks in support of t…

I found two things curious about the response to this news over the weekend; China is looking to create its first permanent military presence on the Atlantic Ocean, on the coast of the small African nation Equatorial Guinea, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal based on classified U.S. intelligence. Though officials did not describe China's plans in detail, they said China's presence on Africa's Atlantic coast would enhance the possible threat to the U.S., as it would give Chinese warships a place to rearm and refit opposite the East Coast, the Journal reported. Gen. Stephen Townsend, who serves as commander of U.S. Africa Command, told the Senate in April …

Americas Boeing won a $12.8 million order, which provides for the rework, repair, and overhaul of 16 Harpoon capsules and six all-up round encapsulated Harpoon missiles for the Navy. Work will be performed in St. Charles, Missouri; and Burnley, Lancashire, England, and is expected to be completed in September 2024. The Florida-based 125th Fighter Wing […]View the full article

Americas The US Navy plans to mount a high-powered microwave-based counter-air defense system prototype on one of its vessels in 2026. The Meteor will be the navy’s first high-powered microwave (HPM) project to counter targets such as drones and anti-ship missiles, USNI News wrote, citing the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget documents. The US Army and the US […]View the full article

Americas Boeing won an $11.6 million contract modification, which adds scope for engineering services in support of Next Generation Jammer software development. Next Generation Jammer, an external jamming pod, will address advanced and emerging threats alike, as well as the growing numbers of threats. NGJ uses the latest digital, software-based and Active Electronically Scanned Array technologies and will provide enhanced airborne electronic attack capabilities to disrupt and degrade enemy air defense and ground communication systems. Work will take place in St. Louis, Missouri. Expected completion will be in December 2021. The first Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demons…