Raw Intel

Americas Boeing won a $24.5 million contract for C-17 Globemaster III Global Enhancements. This contract provides for studies and quick reaction tasks, integrated software and hardware upgrades, and other required services. Work will be performed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and is expected to be completed by December 1, 2031. This contract was a sole source acquisition. The US Navy has awarded Raytheon a $736-million contract to produce AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles in the upgraded Block II variant. The latest variant features enhanced hardware for improved performance and long-term reliability. Work will be carried out at various locations across the US and is e…

Our Navy needs a 4th USS Aaron Ward. Read all of this and tell me this isn't a name that needs to be active in our fleet. We also need a ship named after her CO, Adam Sanders. I'll just stick with the citations: The Presidential Unit Citation for Aaron Ward reads as follows: For extraordinary heroism in action as a Picket Ship on Radar Picket Station during a coordinated attack by approximately 25 Japanese aircraft near Okinawa on 3 May 1945. Shooting down two kamikazes which approached in determined suicide dives, the USS AARON WARD was struck by a bomb from a third plane as she fought to destroy this attacker before it crashed into the superstructure and spra…

Watching our great Anglosphere partner New Zealand continue to debase herself in the face of the communist Chinese government should be as frustrating and disappointing to all free, liberty minded people as it is to me. Sophie Richardson puts the New Zealand government on report; New Zealand has signed on to a number of key initiatives led by other countries criticising the Chinese government’s ... Yet these remarks tend to be in the passive voice, sending a mixed message of wanting to criticise without irking Beijing. That squeamishness is reflected in other recent policies and remarks, including Labour’s peculiar position in the parliamentary debate over whether t…

Americas L3Harris won a $85 million deal for Small Form Factor Weapons Attritable Radio Multi-Mode (SWARMM) Family 1 (SF1) radio products and services. Fiscal 2023 research and development funds (Navy) in the amount of $1,000,000 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Work […]View the full article

On paper and in theory, one would think that a nation who love-hates NATO only slightly less than she love-hates the USA, and is always looking for an opportunity to - now that the UK yeet'd itself out of the EU - nudge Germany out of the way so she can be seen as THE leader of Europe, would take the lead in supporting Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Of course, I'm talking about France; If France wants to lead Europe to a new era of military self-reliance, how come its contribution to the war effort in Ukraine is so small? That is the awkward question being posed by some of the country's top strategic thinkers, who are pushing President Emmanuel Macron to make an urg…

It appears that the Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN was correct last night – the Russians have declared war on Ukraine. As we are still inside the first 12-hrs of the invasion, there is a lot we simply do not know, but things are clear that this will not be a focused invasion simply to secure all the territory of the breakaway parts of eastern Ukraine. No, this is something much larger. There is a lot of bad and confusing OSNIT going on, but one thing is clear, northwest of the capital Kyiv, Russian airmobile forces coming from Belorussia have seized and are attempting to maintain control of Hostomel and the Antonov International Airport (GML) there. That is a clear si…

Americas L3 Communications Integrated Mission Systems won an $18.9 million contract, which provides non-recurring engineering and material to develop and qualify the degraded visual environment helmet mounted display and processor capability for integration into the Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey aircraft. The MV-22 Osprey’s mission for the US Marine Corps is the transportation of troops, equipment, and supplies from ships and land bases for combat assault and assault support. Work will take place in Texas, Illinois, California and Alabama. Expected completion will be in December 2024. The Brazilian Air Force (FAB) has announced a decision to reduce the number of KC-390 tran…

Americas Triumph Gear System won a $24.3 million contract action for the repair of the pylon conversion actuator used on the V-22 aircraft. 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. All work will be performed in Park City, Utah, and is expected to be completed by August 2023. Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity. Data from the F-15 Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System was analy…

Americas The US Air Force decided to relocate the AC-130J Ghostrider Formal Training Unit from Hurlburt Field, Florida to Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. This is done so that the Air Force Special Operations Command to realign its training mission under Air Education and Training Command and consolidate AC-130 initial and mission qualification training at Kirtland AFB. According to the service, the AC-130J is a highly modified C-130J capable of extremely accurate navigation due to the fully integrated navigation systems with dual inertial navigation systems and global positioning system. The US Air Force announced on November 20 that it has selected Maxwell Air Forc…

I don't know who lead it will be or what crisis will cause it, but at some point we will realize that the golden calf idol of a procurement process we seem to think is a god is not only false, it is evil. An entire generation going or two of acquisition professionals have grown up in a system that consistently fails the nation. It doesn't have to be this inefficient or this ineffective, but it is. Latest datapoint is the overthinking and self-doubt is the replacement for the Super Hornet. We have individuals who know what needs to be done - and if they had their way we would be a long way down the road to a modern fighter to replaced the butched-up 1970s runner-up th…

If you look around in certain corners of the world, you can find little things that make you give a double-take. For instance, why is there a statue of an American General in a WWI uniform in the same park as a monument to the Soviet Red Army? Have you ever heard of Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz, USA? Probably not. What did he do that would warrant such a statue in such a location? On August 11, 1919, General Bandholtz arrived in Budapest as one of four generals (English, French, Italian, American) to become the Inter-Allied Control Commission for Hungary, primarily to supervise the disengagement of Romanian troops from Hungary. He became famous when, on the night…

It's been a couple of years since we visited Peter Zeihan, and two weeks ago he posted a video that just pulls it all together to make a solid point about the pivot point the Russo-Ukrainian war is ... at least for the Russians. The Ukrainian economic and demographic numbers are a nightmare on their own, but let's put that struggling people to the side for a moment and look at the Russians. As interesting and informative are the tactical level efforts and changing "supply convoy" of the day pictures, the real interesting and informative to ponder are the larger movements in play; economics, geography, and demographics. The real frightening part is at the end as it cover…

Americas Sikorsky won a $30.7 million contract modification by the US Navy, which increases the scope to procure 681 spare parts for the CH-53K low-rate initial production configuration aircraft. The CH-53K King Stallion is a large cargo helicopter designed to replace the Marine Corps fleet of CH-53E heavy-lift helicopters to help move Marines and their equipment from ships offshore onto attack beaches. The CH-53K is a general redesign of the CH-53E. Work will take place in Connecticut, France, Washington, Canada, Florida, West Virginia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Georgia. Estimated completion date will be in December 2026. The Navy awarded General Atomi…

Take a moment and think about all that is going on in the world from the South China Sea, to Afghanistan, to the Sahel, to the Russian near abroad. Think about the challenges military members and their families face on a daily basis with record deployments, caring for kids in a COVID environment, take your pick. I now want you to think about what you want the scarce time available in each mortal's 24-hr day invested in by the following people: Deputy Secretary of Defense; Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; The Secretaries of the Military Departments, Military Service Chiefs, and the OSD Principal Staff Assistants. What if we had it a weekly meeting called the …

China’s Ministry of National Defense said Chinese and Emirati air forces have completed the “Falcon Shield-2025” joint air exercise in the United Arab Emirates, marking the first time the People’s Liberation Army Air Force deployed several frontline aircraft types to the Gulf state for combined training. According to a briefing held on December 25, Senior […]View the full article

Are you comfortable with that phrase? You should be. If not, head on over to my extended commentary at USNIBlog and get religion. 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=vKWi0m6i3CE:a7JNG-rUGgQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=vKWi0m6i3CE:a7JNG-rUGgQ:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=vKWi0m6i3CE:a7JNG-rUGgQ:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=vKWi0m6i3CE:a7JNG-rUGgQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/FAFV/~4/vKWi0m6i3CEView the full article

Just a quick note today as the paying gig is only letting me pop in and out of my alter ego's life. A friend posted the below from Janes' this AM from behind their paywall. I've had some well informed readers reach out to me after I posted it over on twitter to ask, roughly, "But I keep seeing how the Russians are screwing up the basics of fuel, food, bad comms and chaos." Well, yes - that is all true. I am also sure that this is not going as smooth as the Russian General Staff briefed Putin how things would go. The fact remains though that the Russians are making gains. Slower and uglier than they thought, but they are making gains. The Ukrainians are putting up a pluc…

Civilization, we are being reminded in Ukraine, is paper thin. Because so much of war in Europe that we have seen is in black and white of very grainy color, in the last few decades – even with the collapse of Yugoslavia as a reminder – we have forgotten how fast all can fall apart. Heck, few under 30 even have memories of the Yugoslavian collapse, so two generations have no memory that, in a week – you are living in a history you did not ask for. You are the young girl, dog under one arm and cat under another, escaping from an advancing army on foot through ruins just a bit ago were just part of your neighborhood. In Ukraine, we see objectively poorer, but normal modern…

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 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…