Austria converts Pandur vehicles into air defence systems with Sky Ranger

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  September 28, 2020 | International, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Air Force awards laser-armed RADBO contract to Parsons

  Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has awarded a nearly $40 million contract to Parsons to produce ground vehicles that can clear mines or unexploded ordnance from airfields — using a laser. The package covers the procurement of 13 Recovery of Airbase Denied by Ordnance (RADBO) vehicles, as well as three spares. The system is made up of a Cougar MRAP, Parsons' three-kilowatt ZEUS laser weapon, and an arm assembly that can move debris or other objects out of the way. The idea behind the RADBO is to allow airmen to clear threats from current or future airfields – hardly the laser warfare capability sought by Pentagon planners for decades, but still a potentially important step, as it represents the first DoD ground-based laser system to be ordered into full production. The service awarded Parsons the sole-source contract on Sept. 23. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Ala., with a completion date of Sept. 2023. According to a 2018 video from the Air Force's Installation and Mission Support Center, the majority of development work on the RADBO design was done at the Army's Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville. Parsons claims the ZEUS design can hit targets “more than 300 meters away from the vehicle and is powerful enough to detonate small submunitions from cluster bombs, land mines, general purposed bombs and thick-cased artillery rounds,” per a company announcement. “This is Parsons innovation: delivering a game changing warfighting product,” Hector Cuevas, Parsons executive vice president of missile defense and C5ISR, said in a statement. “We're proud to partner with the Air Force in deploying this critical force protection and mission enabling technology that will greatly increase safe and effective explosive ordnance disposal operations.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/industry/2020/09/25/air-force-awards-laser-armed-radbo-contract-to-parsons/

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  July 11, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - July 10, 2019

  NAVY Wyle Laboratories Inc.,* Huntsville, Alabama, is being awarded an $81,220,643 cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-reimbursable, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract provides for certified and qualified operational contractor support services aircrew to support mission essential testing and evaluation of all manned air vehicles under the operational responsibility of the Naval Test Wing Atlantic/Pacific squadrons. Work will be performed at the Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River, Maryland (94%); NAS Pt. Mugu, California (5%); and NAS China Lake, California (1%), and is expected to be completed in September 2024. No funds are being obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on individual task orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposals; two offers were received. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00421-19-D-0071). CCI Construction Services LLC,* Honolulu, Hawaii (N62478-16-D-4012); Dawson Federal Inc.,* Honolulu, Hawaii (N62478-16-D-4014); and TKH-ASI LLC,* Kahului, Hawaii (N62478-16-D-4016), are being awarded a $75,000,000 firm-fixed-price modification to increase the maximum dollar value of an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multiple award design-build/design-bid-build construction contract for construction projects located primarily within the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Hawaii area of operations (AO). The work to be performed provides for, but is not limited to labor, supervision, tools, materials and equipment necessary to perform new construction, repair, alteration and related demolition of existing infrastructure based on design-build, or design-bid-build (full plans and specifications) for infrastructure within the state of Hawaii. After award of this modification, the total cumulative contract value will be $320,000,000. No task orders are being issued at this time. Work will be performed at various Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and miscellaneous federal and other facilities in the NAVFAC Hawaii AO. Work is expected to be completed by June 2021. No funds will be obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on individual task orders as they are issued. Task orders will be primarily funded by operations and maintenance (Navy); and Navy working capital funds. NAVFAC Hawaii, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is the contracting activity. (Awarded July 9, 2019) Paradigm Mechanical Corp.,* Lemon Grove, California, is being awarded an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a maximum amount of $49,000,000 for plumbing, heating, and air conditioning construction alterations, renovations and repair projects at Naval Air Weapons Station, China Lake; Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms; Marine Corps Logistics Base, Barstow; and Mountain Warfare Training Center, Bridgeport. Projects will be primarily design-bid-build (fully designed) task orders with minimal design effort (e.g. shop drawings). Projects may include, but are not limited to, alterations, repairs, and construction of plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning system installation projects. Work will be performed in China Lake, California (25%); Twentynine Palms, California (25%); Barstow, California (25%); and Bridgeport, California (25%). The term of the contract is not to exceed 60 months with an expected completion date of July 2024. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance, (Navy) (O&M, N) contract funds in the amount of $5,000 are being obligated at time of this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Future task orders will be primarily funded by O&M, N. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website with one proposal received. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N62473-19-D-2602). R.C. Construction Co. Inc., Greenwood, Mississippi, is being awarded a $33,116,313 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of range improvements and modernization located at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. This project constructs a new rifle range in the same location as the existing Hue City Range. This range will meet applicable Marine Corps requirements for known distance (KD) ranges as set forth in MIL HDBK 1027.3B, range facilities and miscellaneous training facilities other than buildings, and Marine Corps Orders (MCO) 3570.1C, 3550.9, and 3574.2L. Range support buildings to be constructed include target storage, control house and toilet facilities. All facilities will be concrete or reinforced concrete masonry unit structures with stucco exterior and concrete slab on grade. A target-area berm, retaining walls, safety sidewalls, a safety tunnel and 600-yard range berm will be constructed, and sidewalls with acoustic insulation will also be included. Earth berm structures include a behind-the-target bullet impact berm with side and rear retaining walls as appropriate with flat lead mining equipment maintenance surfaces. Built-in equipment will include the target system benches, target numbers and relocated target lifters, flagpoles and firing line benches. Special costs include post construction award services and geospatial mapping and survey. Work will be performed in Parris Island, South Carolina, and is expected to be completed by August 2021. Fiscal 2019 military construction, (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $28,326,200 are being obligated at time of this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website with three proposals received. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N40085-19-C-9017). The Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, is being awarded a $17,777,245 firm-fixed-price contract to procure 114 High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile command launch computers to include two pre-production units, one first article test unit and 111 production units in support of the Navy. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed in October 2021. Working capital (Navy); and fiscal 2017, 2018 and 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $17,777,245 will be obligated at time of award, $6,243,087 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-19-C-0026). Diversified Maintenance Systems Inc.,* Sandy, Utah, is being awarded a not-to-exceed the amount of $15,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for commercial and institutional building construction alterations, renovations and repair projects at Naval Weapons Station, Seal Beach. Projects will be primarily design-bid-build (fully designed) task orders with minimal design effort (e.g. shop drawings). Projects may include, but are not limited to, alterations, repairs and construction of administration buildings, maintenance/repair facilities, aircraft control towers, hangars, fire stations, office buildings, laboratories, dining facilities and related structures. Work will be performed in Seal Beach, California. The term of the contract is not to exceed 60 months with an expected completion date of July 2024. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance, (Navy) (O&M, N) contract funds in the amount of $5,000 are being obligated at time of this and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Future task orders will be primarily funded by O&M, N. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website with 13 proposals received. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N62473-19-D-2621). ARMY Amherst Madison Inc., Charleston, West Virginia (W91237-19-D-0019); and Mi-De-Con Inc.,* Ironton, Ohio (W91237-19-D-0020), will compete for each order of the $49,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for small construction projects. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of July 9, 2024. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Huntington, West Virginia, is the contracting activity. Burns & McDonnell Engineering Co. Inc., Kansas City, Missouri, was awarded a $49,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for architect and engineering services. Bids were solicited via the internet with six received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of July 9, 2024. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W91278-19-D-0032). Specialized Materials and Chemicals LLC, Brigham City, Utah, was awarded a $38,600,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the procurement of ammonium Perchlorate. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of July 9, 2022. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity (W52P1J-19-D-3021). Walga Ross Group 2 JV,* Topeka, Kansas, was awarded a $21,808,640 firm-fixed-price contract for the construction of the South Access Control Point for the Fort Bliss Replacement Hospital at Fort Bliss, Texas. Bids were solicited via the internet with two received. Work will be performed in El Paso, Texas, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 8, 2020. Fiscal 2018 military construction funds in the amount of $21,808,640 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth, Texas, is the contracting activity (W9126G-19-C-0032). Seatrax Inc.,* Houston, Texas, was awarded a $15,098,156 firm-fixed-price contract for a new floating crane to perform the duty cycle bank grading work in support of the revetment mission on the Mississippi River. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Houston, Texas, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2021. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance, civil funds in the amount of $15,098,156 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S Army Corps of Engineers, Memphis, Tennessee, is the contracting activity (W912EQ-19-C-0007). Walga Ross Group 2 JV,* Topeka, Kansas, was awarded a $12,219,560 firm-fixed-price contract for the construction of the North Access Control Point for the Fort Bliss Replacement Hospital at Fort Bliss, Texas. Bids were solicited via the internet with two received. Work will be performed in El Paso, Texas, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 8, 2020. Fiscal 2018 military construction funds in the amount of $21,808,640 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth, Texas, is the contracting activity (W9126G-19-C-0031). AIR FORCE Nomlaki Technologies, Sacramento, California, has been awarded a $10,402,000 firm-fixed-price contract for repairing four bridges. This contract provides demolition and disposal of all debris of four reinforced concrete bridges at Beale Air Force Base, in accordance with all local city ordinances, state and federal regulations and design and construction of a bridge system (up to four bridges) to cross the four waterways and replace the original bridges. Work will be performed at Beale AFB, California, and is expected to be completed by Oct. 24, 2020. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $10,402,000 are being obligated at the time of award. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition with five offers received. The 9th Contracting Squadron, Beale AFB, Marysville, California, is the contracting activity (FA4686-19-C-A004). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Goodrich Corp., Rome, New York, has been awarded a maximum $9,148,161 firm‐fixed‐price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite‐quantity contract for ball bearing units. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(2) from Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302‐1. This is a five-year contract with no option periods. Location of performance is New York, with a July 30, 2024, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 through 2024 Army working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (SPRRA1‐19‐D‐0077). *Small business https://dod.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/1901092/source/GovDelivery/

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  September 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Inside Project Convergence: How the US Army is preparing for war in the next decade

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is in the midst of conducting what Army Futures Command Commander Gen. Mike Murray is calling “this generation's digital Louisiana Maneuvers” in the Arizona desert, as the service aims to bring key technologies together designed to fight across air, land, sea, space and cyber. The famed Louisiana Maneuvers, a series of mock battles during World War II, were designed to figure out how the United States could use its existing technology to fight in a fundamentally different way against the German military's airplanes, radios and tanks. “It was a combination of those three technologies and how the Germans put it together to execute what we call Blitzkrieg" that was “fundamentally different” than any of the capabilities the Allied forces, to include the U.S., brought to the battlefield, Murray told Defense News in an exclusive interview. In 2020, there are three key technologies that when paired together in novel ways can provide a strong advantage against possible conflict with near-peer adversaries, according to Murray: artificial intelligence, autonomy and robotics in the air and on the ground. “To make those three work in a digital environment, you have to have an underlying robust and resilient network,” Murray said, “and you have to have a data architecture and the data and the talent to put all that together.” Enter Project Convergence, the Army's weekslong “campaign of learning” to bring together the weapons and capabilities it envisions fighting with in the 2030s and beyond in a seamlessly networked environment. The capstone event began in the middle of August and will wrap up September 18 amid the global coronavirus pandemic. Murray reported there has been only one isolated case of COVID-19 at Yuma and that person was quickly isolated without the disease spreading. The effort aims to bring in as many capabilities across the Army's six modernization priorities as possible and put them through maneuvers that service's new Multidomain Operations (MDO) warfighting concept lays out. The service is particularly focused on three key phases of MDO at Project Convergence: Penetrating and neutralizing enemy long-range systems, contesting enemy maneuver forces from operational and strategic distances Disintegrating the enemy's anti-access and area denial (A2AD) systems taking out enemy long- and short-range systems while conducting independent maneuver and deception operations Exploiting freedom to maneuver to defeat enemy objectives and forces. “Convergence is one of the tenets,” Murray said. “The ability to converge effects across all five warfighting domains (air, land, sea, cyber and space) and we're really taking that tenant and putting it together in the dirt live and bringing multiple things together... and the key thing is here is being able to act faster than any opponent in the future.” Murray also discussed Convergence as part of the 2020 Defense News Conference. Getting the upper hand To act faster, the Army has moved a system called Firestorm out of a science and technology effort from Picatinny Arsenal's armaments center and into the exercise. Firestorm is being developed as the brain that connects the sensors on the battlefield to the right shooter through the appropriate command and control node, Murray explained. “I firmly believe on a future battlefield, the commander that can see first, understand first, decide first and the act first will have a distinct advantage and will ultimately win any future battle,” Murray said, “so that's this learning experience year to year.” While Project Convergence will have surrogate capability this year representing its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, as well as the Extended Range Cannon Artillery system, more and more technologies across the Army's modernization priorities will be brought in in subsequent years. The Army, this year, is also using available Air-Launched Effects (ALE) as well as a surrogate system called Titan — at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington State — that will process targeting information from ground and air autonomous vehicles using artificial intelligence. Titan is managed by the Army's Multidomain Task Force's Intelligence, Information, Cyber, Electronic Warfare and Space (I2CEWS) battalion. The system will pass targeting information to a fire control element sitting at Yuma. The service is also experimenting with space sensing capabilities this year and bringing it all together using new network architecture. “The network is a huge piece of this and so we are building out mesh networks, communications between the air in terms of Gray Eagle [unmanned aircraft system] and ALE and [Future Vertical Lift] surrogates to the ground.” The hope from the first year is to walk away with conclusions about whether technology currently being developed works, Murray said. “Can we actually link multiple sensors and shooters right? In this case, it's not a huge number. It's less than a handful,” he said, “but the ability for Firestorm to figure out the right shooter against the right target is one of the key things we're driving and then can we do this in near-real time.” During National Training Center rotations, “it takes a while to clear fires,” Murray said. “So what is that order of magnitude we can do this faster, to see faster and really put rounds on target faster.” Early intel out of Project Convergence is that Firestorm has already shown “great success” and “the ability to put lethal effects on a target much, much, much faster than we do right now in an order of magnitude that is at least 10 times faster,” Murray said, “but we still have a ways to go.” Spiraling in capability Project Convergence this year came together quickly, Murray said. The inspiration came from an AI-focused effort through the Army's Next-Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) modernization outfit dubbed Project Quarterback, which paired automated target recognition with future combat vehicles. Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, who is in charge of the NGCV cross-functional team, discussed what he was doing with Murray over the winter, with the latter saying “It just occurred to me, it should have occurred to me a long time ago. It is so much bigger than that.” The Army is already wrapping up its plans for Project Convergence in 2021 and setting its sites on what is possible in 2022, according to Murray. While the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), the command and control system for the Army's future air-and-missile defense system, was tied up in Limited User Test this year, the service is looking for a way to integrate that into the effort next year. IBCS will be going through its Initial Operational Test and Evaluation at that time, but Murray said he is hopeful there is a way to bring the integral capability of the system to the event. Another test of the Precision Strike Munition (PrSM) will also be executed during the event next year. The missile had three successful test shots this calendar year. And while the exercise this year had roughly 500 people at Yuma this year, most of those are data collectors, Murray said. The exercise represents a platoon-sized operation, but in 2021, Murray said he intends to bring in an operational headquarters element to drive the learning in terms of how “we organize and how we fight the capability in the future.” Ideally, the Army would involve one of the MDTF units, but due to conflicts in schedule this year it wasn't possible to bring them into the event, so the service is working with U.S. Army Forces Command to incorporate MDTF participation. Next year will also bring in joint participation. While the Air Force will be present at Project Convergence this year, the Army plans to use the F-35 fighter into the architecture. Joint participation is critical to developing Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), which is the joint warfighting doctrine now in development of which MDO as a concept is a part. “Convergence is our contribution to an all-domain command-and-control,” Murray emphasized, “and it is not in conflict with what the Air Force is doing with JADC2 and the [Air-Battle Management System].” In 2022, Murray said the plan is to bring coalition partners and so far the United Kingdom has committed to participation and Australia will also likely sign on to attend. “We've been very open-kimono in terms of the technology that we're bringing and there's been a lot of crosstalk between the three nations,” he added. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/defense-news-conference/2020/09/10/army-conducting-digital-louisiana-maneuvers-in-arizona-desert/