Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - December 04, 2020

On the same subject

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  June 25, 2019 | International, Land

  After delay, US Army clears Joint Light Tactical Vehicle for full-rate production

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has approved the Oshkosh-built Joint Light Tactical Vehicle's transition to full-rate production after a roughly six-month delay, according to a June 21 announcement. Full-rate production for the JLTV was pushed from an original schedule of December 2018 out to May this year due to a number of changes to the Humvee replacement. The Army decided to make a series of alterations as the result of soldier feedback, including a larger back window and the addition of a muffler. The approach was designed to minimize the cost and quantity of the vehicles that would need to be retrofitted, the vehicle's program office told Defense News at the time. The decision to delay the full-rate production did not stop the service from beginning to field 300 of the new vehicles to the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia, making it the first unit equipped with the vehicle in April 2019. “We are also grateful for soldier feedback on new features and enhancements,” Jeffrey White, the Army acquisition chief's principal deputy said in the Army announcement. “The Soldiers of the 1st ABCT, 3rd Infantry Division provided valuable input on enhancements such as increased situational awareness, reduction of system noise, a troop seat kit, and a companion JLTV trailer. Their assessments helped bring us all to a successful Full-Rate Production decision.” Oshkosh beat out Humvee-maker AM General and Lockheed Martin in 2015 to build the replacement for the Humvee for both the Army and the Marine Corps. The low-rate initial production, or LRIP, contract was worth $6.7 billion, and the entire program is estimated to be worth $30 billion through 2024. “Important insights from manufacturing and rigorous developmental and operational test during LRIP contributed to shaping the vehicle's current configuration,” George Mansfield, vice president and general manager of joint programs for Oshkosh Defense, said in a statement sent to Defense News. “The program remains on schedule and on budget, and ensures our troops have the protection, connection, and extreme off-road mobility they need today for current and future battlefields. The JLTV is the only light tactical vehicle being fielded today that can maneuver within combat formations,” he said. At the time of the LRIP award, a total of 49,100 JLTVs were planned for the Army, not including what the Marine Corps is planning to buy as well as a small number for the Air Force and Navy. The service cut its procurement of the JLTV in its fiscal 2020 budget request by 863 vehicles. The Army procured 3,393 vehicles in FY19 in LRIP but only plans to buy 2,530 vehicles in FY20. The Army originally planned in its FY19 request to buy 3,035 vehicles in FY20. It is unclear if more cuts will come for the JLTV. Army Secretary Mark Esper said at the time the FY20 budget rolled out that the vehicle was designed and procured in “the context of Afghanistan and Iraq,” and hence was just not as relevant anymore when applied to the fresh National Defense Strategy now guiding Army investment. “We are certainly cutting the total number” of JLTV procurement, Esper said. “I know that much. But whether it settles out, finals out right here, today, I can't tell you. In five years, I could maybe have a different number for you.” While the JLTV was designed for the counterinsurgency fight — a light vehicle with the protection to endure the blast of an improvised explosive device much like mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles — Oshkosh has used the JLTV's highly configurable design to increase firepower options on board a JLTV and to protect it from missile and rocket attacks. Over the past three years, it integrated remote weapon systems, a lightweight 30mm cannon paired with a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun, a Javelin integration kit, several .50-caliber machine guns, and a lightweight automatic chain gun, among other weapon systems. The IMI Iron Fist Active Protection System and Rafael's Trophy Light APShave both been integrated onto JLTVs for evaluation. And the Boeing Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense launcher, which was not selected by the Army for its interim SHORAD solution, was also integrated onto the JLTV to include an M3P .50-caliber machine gun, M299 launcher with four Longbow Hellfire missiles, a sensor suite, and a communications suite with the Thales VRC-111. Now that the Army has approved full-rate production for the JLTV, it is anticipated Foreign Military Sales prospects could begin more rapid materialization. Slovenia has already placed an order for a small number of JLTVs, and it's likely the United Kingdom as well as Lithuania will be future customers. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/06/21/after-delay-army-clears-joint-light-tactical-vehicle-for-full-rate-production/

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  August 19, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Market exposure in the Top 100: Defense, commercial aviation and much more

  By: Doug Berenson and Chris Higgins This year's Defense News Top 100 list of global defense companies coincides with a steep economic downturn created by COVID-19. Although the defense sector has faced pandemic-related business disruptions, it remains a safe haven, with most defense-oriented firms reporting only modest impact on revenues and profits. Seeing how diversified players rely on their defense units is of particular interest at a time when the commercial aviation market has all but collapsed. While many defense firms are bracing for stagnation in defense-spending growth, other markets could experience an extended downturn. Avascent drew on the Top 100 list to examine the broader mix of market exposure among firms comprising the global defense industrial base. We segmented company revenues across more than two dozen defense and commercial end markets. This analysis provides insight into how companies with defense business leverage exposure to other markets, either as a complement or as a hedge to their defense activities. One can think of defense companies in three categories: Defense/government pure-plays: Companies that focus overwhelmingly on military markets generate about 23 percent of the defense-oriented revenue on this year's list. To the extent these companies have revenue outside defense, it comes from close adjacencies in intelligence, civil space or others. Indeed, the top ranks of the Defense News Top 100 list includes numerous firms for whom defense and government comprise 85 percent or more of total revenue. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, LIG Nex1, and Huntington Ingalls Industries and many others fall in this category. BAE Systems and L3Harris maintain significant positions in the commercial aviation supply chain, but these activities represent a small portion of their total revenues. The unique demands of military and government markets — complex acquisition processes, challenging sales channels, burdensome regulatory compliance — has led many leading defense players to maximize their position across the defense product range. These frustratingly unique features of government customers have deterred many commercial technology firms from pursuing this space, a fact that the U.S. Department of Defense is struggling to reverse. Firms in this category have optimized their financial management, business development and other processes to the particular demands of government customers. Within government markets, the different economics that characterize the sale of products and services has increasingly led to the separation between these two distinct segments. Many of the market leaders in U.S. government services, including Leidos, Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI International, SAIC and others, feature a near-exclusive focus on government customers. A range of firms providing such services continue to find business with both the government and commercial clients, to be sure, including Bechtel, Jacobs, Babcock International and KBR, to list just a few on this year's Top 100 list. But companies with a significant focus on mission-oriented requirements have increasingly focused solely on government customers. Commercial and defense sectors: Nearly 60 percent of the defense revenue tracked in the Top 100 list comes from firms that compete in sectors that cross the defense-commercial divide. These include shipbuilders and automotive manufacturers, but the vast majority of firms serving both defense and commercial customers are focused on commercial aerospace. A range of firms recognize the unique complementarity between military and commercial aerospace technology in their business mix. Airframe primes like Boeing and Airbus are chief among these, sitting atop vast aerospace supply chains. But many other household names have sought opportunity in commercial aviation, either as airframe primes (General Dynamics via Gulfstream, Textron via Cessna) or as suppliers of avionics, structures, and other content. Because it calculates 2019 revenue, this year's Defense News list does not count Raytheon Technologies, which was created with the merger of Raytheon Company and United Technologies Corp. in April 2020. The new “RTX” would have pro forma 2019 revenue of about $43.4 billion in defense and $33.7 billion in commercial markets; this excludes Otis (elevators) and Carrier (air conditioners), which were spun off concomitant with the Raytheon-UTC merger. Many firms with heavy commercial market exposure now face unprecedented economic headwinds. Between March 1 and Aug. 1, 2020, stock prices for firms spanning defense and commercial aerospace declined by 33 percent, as global air travel nearly ground to a halt amid the coronavirus pandemic. By contrast, an index representing defense/government pure-plays has dropped by just 5 percent over the same period. Conglomerates were in the middle, declining about 16 percent. The silver lining, however, may be the ability of some companies to draw on defense-related cash flows to sustain commercial aerospace investment in preparation for an eventual upturn. Industrial conglomerates: Finally, there are firms with a foot squarely in defense but which also pursue markets far afield, in terms of customer types and market economics. About 18 percent of the defense revenue tracked in the Top 100 list is earned by firms with interests that have almost no technical or customer link with defense. Large Asian conglomerates — including China North Industries Group Corporation Limited, also known as NORINCO; Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries; and South Korea's Hanwha — top this category in total revenue. But several Western firms also follow this approach to varying degrees: Textron, Ball Corporation, Diehl Group and others combine widely disparate product lines in a holding company structure. With defense versus commercial valuations relatively high, there may be competing instincts in the boardrooms of these giants. On one hand, these companies may decide to reorient their portfolio more toward defense activities by exiting underperforming industrial businesses. On the other hand, firms could elect to use defense cashflows to support the broader corporation and position the company for an economic rebound. Trends to monitor While defense budgets could face downward pressure in much of the world, many U.S. contractors have good predictability through 2021 because of DoD outlays already in process. It is the wider commercial economy where the real uncertainty lies. This makes it hard to predict how many firms active in defense markets will fare over the next year, given the variety of other markets they serve. Over half the revenue earned by the Defense News Top 100 is generated from commercial sectors. Commercial aviation markets are likely to languish at pre-2019 levels through 2022 or later. The outlook for other commercial markets is more heterogeneous, but challenges exist across areas like shipbuilding, automotive, industrial equipment and energy. To the extent that countries pursue infrastructure-led stimulus, some of the more diversified companies may find pockets of sunshine amid the gloom. Doug Berenson is a managing director at Avascent, where Chris Higgins is a principal. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/08/17/market-exposure-in-the-top-100-defense-commercial-aviation-and-much-more/

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  September 25, 2024 | International, Land

  Fincantieri: works start on the first next-generation Offshore Patrol Vessel for the Italian Navy 24 September 2024

  This program, put in place to contribute to the modernization and renewal of the Italian Navy's units, envisages the construction of four vessels, with an option for additional two, with...