F-22, F-35 jets won’t hit Mattis’ readiness targets

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  February 27, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - February 25, 2020

  ARMY Palantir USG Inc., Palo Alto, California (W56KGY-20-D-0005); and BAE Systems Information and Electronic SYS INT INC, San Diego, California (W56KGY-20-D-0006), will compete for each order of the $823,263,105 firm-fixed-price contract to upgrade/replace components found in the Distributed Common Ground System-Army. 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 Feb. 24, 2027. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Herndon, Virginia, was awarded a $42,088,702 hybrid (cost-no-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-plus-incentive-fee, firm-fixed-price, fixed-price-incentive) modification (P00054) to contract (W58RGZ-17-C-0014) for contractor logistics support services for government-owned fixed-wing fleet performing Special Electronic Mission Aircraft missions. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work will be performed in Herndon, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 31, 2020. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $42,088,721 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity. Leidos Inc., Reston, Virginia, was awarded a $19,653,151 modification (P00023) to contract W52P1J-18-C-0002 to provide Class V munitions supply support for all ammunition stocks accounted for by 1st Sustainment Command (Theater) to U.S. military/government components, Department of Defense agencies, and, as required, coalition forces in the Central Command Area of Responsibility. Work will be performed in Kuwait City, Kuwait, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 28, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operation and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $19,653,151 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity. Unisys Corp. Federal Systems, Reston, Virginia, was awarded a $14,029,965 cost-no-fee, firm-fixed-price contract for an 18-month bridge to continue support for the Army Enterprise Service Desk. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Augusta, Georgia, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 25, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $14,029,965 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity (W52P1J-20-C-0010). A. WBE-CCI JV One LLC,* Itasca, Illinois, was awarded an $11,877,000 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of a pre-engineered metal hangar with conventional construction for adjacent support shop, administrative and non-destructive inspection testing spaces. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work will be performed in Klamath Falls, Oregon, with an estimated completion date of March 9, 2021. Fiscal 2018 military construction, Army National Guard funds in the amount of $11,877,000 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Property and Fiscal Office, Salem, Oregon, is the contracting activity (W50S8Z-20-C-0001). PAS MRO Inc.,* Irvine, California, was awarded a $9,787,000 firm-fixed-price contract to overhaul UH-60 tip caps. Bids were solicited via the internet with eight received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 25, 2025. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-20-D-0026). NAVY Deloitte Consulting LLP, Arlington, Virginia; Boston Consulting Group Federal Corp., Bethesda, Maryland; Whitney, Bradley & Brown Inc., Reston, Virginia; Mid-Atlantic Technical and Executive Consulting LLC,* Arlington, Virginia; and CACI Inc., Federal, Chantilly, Virginia, are awarded a cumulative not-to-exceed $249,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contracts for the Navy's System-Level Cost Analysis with Total Ownership Cost Analysis initiative. The competitive ordering period for both firm-fixed-price or cost-plus-fixed-fee type orders shall not exceed five years. Work will be performed at contractor and vendor facilities as determined on individual orders and is expected to be completed by February 2025. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount of $15,000 will be obligated at time of award to fulfill the minimum guarantees of the IDIQs and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with seven offers received. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N00024-20-D-2425, N00024-20-D-2431, N00024-20-D-2432, N00024-20-D-2433, and N00024-20-D-2434). BAE Systems Land & Armaments L.P., Sterling Heights, Michigan, is awarded a $113,548,696 modification to exercise options for the fixed-price-incentive (firm target) contract line item numbers 4001 and 4005 portions of a previously awarded contract (M67854-16-C-0006). This modification is for the purchase of 26 amphibious combat vehicles and other associated production costs. Work will be performed in York, Pennsylvania (60%), Aiken, South Carolina (15%), San Jose, California (15%), Sterling Heights, Michigan (5%), and Stafford, Virginia (5%), and is expected to be completed in April 2022. Fiscal 2020 procurement (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $113,548,696 will be obligated at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract was based on full and open competition with the solicitation publicized on the Federal Business Opportunities website with five offers received. The option contract line item numbers were included within that contract and are being exercised in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 52.217-7 option for increased quantity-separately priced line item. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Virginia, is the contracting activity (M67854-16-C-0006). Vertex Aerospace LLC, Madison, Mississippi, is awarded a $23,925,125 modification (P00005) to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, cost contract (N00421-19-D-0031). This modification exercises the option to provide contractor owned and operated aircraft to Navy fleet customers, foreign military sales customers, and contractors as well as Department of Defense and other government agencies in support of the Contracted Air Services (CAS) program. The CAS program provides airborne threat simulation capabilities to train shipboard and aircraft squadron weapon systems operators and aircrew on how to counter potential enemy electronic warfare and electronic attack operations in today's electronic combat environment. Work will be performed in Virginia Beach, Virginia (50%); Coronado, California (40%); and Kauai, Hawaii (10%), and is expected to be completed in February 2021. No funds are being obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. L3Harris Technologies Inc., Palm Bay, Florida, is being awarded a $14,693,123 modification to exercise priced options to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract issued by the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command. This modification increases the value of the basic contract by $14,693,123; the new total value is $61,180,747. This modification provides for the exercise of firm-fixed-price options for Commercial Broadband Satellite Program Unit Level Variant (ULV) hardware production units. ULV provides terminal-to-shore, space and terrestrial connectivity to significantly increase throughput for commercial satellite communication and provides redundancy for military satellite communications. Work will be performed in Palm Bay, Florida, and is expected to be completed by August 2020. Fiscal 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy), and fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $14,693,123 will be obligated at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. The Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N00039-14-C-0041). DCS Corp., Alexandria, Virginia, is awarded a $10,649,613 modification (P00027) to a previously awarded cost reimbursable, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00421-17-C-0043). This modification provides for the planning and execution of test efforts for aircraft and weapons components through a Milestone C decision to include developmental and operational test and evaluation efforts associated with modifications to existing commercial-off-the-shelf and non-developmental items, which require engineering, design, integration, test and evaluation. This modification also provides contractor services support in administration, engineering and management functions in support of the Naval Test Wing Atlantic, Naval Air Systems Command and the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland, and is expected to be completed in February 2021. Working capital (Navy) funds in the amount of $3,062,000 and fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $812,739 will be obligated at time of award, $812,739 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Progeny Systems Corp.,* Manassas, Virginia, is awarded a $9,913,382 cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order (N68335-20-F-0068) against basic ordering agreement (N68335-18-G-0039). This delivery order provides for continued maturation of the Expeditionary Mission Planning System. Work will be performed in Manassas, Virginia (65%) and Middletown, Virginia (35%), and is expected to be completed in February 2022. Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $9,100,000 will be obligated at time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, Lakehurst, New Jersey, is the contracting activity. Vigor Marine LLC, Portland, Oregon, is awarded a $9,329,088 firm-fixed-price contract for the maintenance, repair and preservation of Caisson Six. Work will be performed in Seattle, Washington, and is expected to be completed by December 2020. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount of $9,329,088 will be obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1) (only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements). The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility code 400, Bremerton, Washington, is the contracting activity (N4523A-20-C-1053). Raytheon Co., Missile Systems, Tucson, Arizona, was awarded a $7,992,944 cost plus fixed fee modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-17-C-5405) for design agent engineering and technical support services for the Phalanx Close-In Weapon System, SeaRAM, and Land-based Phalanx Weapon System. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed by January 2022. Fiscal 2020 weapon procurement (Navy) funding in the amount of $7,992,944 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. In accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1), this contract was not competitively procured; only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. Phalanx Close-In Weapon System is a fast-reaction terminal defense against low and high-flying, high-speed maneuvering anti-ship missile threats that have penetrated all other defenses. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington Navy Yard, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity. Awarded Feb. 24, 2020. The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is awarded a $7,373,400 firm-fixed-price delivery order (N00019-20-F-0573) against basic ordering agreement (N00019-16-G-0001). This delivery order procures 30 A1 G-Model kits and 66 A3 E-Model kits in support of F/A-18E/F and EA-18G modifications. Work will be performed in El Segundo, California (86%); St. Louis, Missouri (6%); San Antonio, Texas (6%); and Mesa, Arizona (2%), and is expected to be completed in October 2023. Fiscal 2019 ($3,701,400) and fiscal 2020 ($3,672,000) aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $7,373,400 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE Tapestry Solutions Inc., San Diego, California, has been awarded a $28,390,620 for F-15 mission planning software development and maintenance. This contract provides for the F-15 software development of the v6.1 Mission Planning Environment and supports the F-15 Organizational Flight Program Suite 9.1 through sustainment of the previously-fielded v5.0 Mission Planning Environment for the Air Force and foreign country specific releases for the foreign military sales (FMS) client nations as well as the in-test v6.0 Mission Planning Environment. The foreign military sales effort allows continued support to incorporate requirements to provide country specific versions of Air Force Mission Planning Environment updates in accordance with each country specific FMS Letters of Acceptance between the U.S. government and the foreign government. The Mission Planning Environment updates will be fielded outside the continental U.S. to the foreign military sales costumers with current Letters of Acceptance in place with the U.S. government. Work will be performed in Maryland Heights, Missouri, and is expected to be complete by July 31, 2023. This contract involves foreign military sales to Canada, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Korea and Qatar. Plans to include Japan and other countries are to be anticipated. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition. Fiscal 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 and include operations and maintenance and research and development funds in the amount of $387,876 are being obligated at the time of award. Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity (FA8730-20-C-0001). L3Harris Technologies Inc., Colorado Springs, Colorado, has been awarded a $22,990,454 cost reimbursement and cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for Transition-On and Ground Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance Upgrade Technical Maturation and Risk Reduction on the Maintenance of Space Situational Awareness Integrated Capabilities (MOSSAIC) acquisition. MOSSAIC will provide sustainment services for current and future ground-based Space Situational Awareness (SSA) sensors, SSA Command and Control systems, and Space Battle Management Command and Control capabilities in the Space and Missile System Center Space Domain Awareness Division Special Programs - Ground portfolio. Additionally, MOSSAIC provides for sustainment of and modernization of associated test and integration infrastructure capabilities supporting the Space Domain Awareness Division Special Programs - Ground portfolio. The MOSSAIC contract scope will also include modifications and upgrades for all MOSSAIC systems, it sustains or will sustain, to maintain operational performance and evolve system capabilities to meet new mission needs, as necessary. The location of performance is Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Dahlgren, Virginia. This awarded work is expected to be completed by Nov. 30, 2020. This award is a result of a competitive acquisition solicited on BetaSam and two offers were received. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $1,804,531 and fiscal 2020 research and development funds in the amount of $6,000,000 are being obligated at the time of award. The Space and Missile System Center Directorate of Contracting, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the contracting activity (FA8823-20-C-0004). Call Henry Inc., Titusville Florida, has been awarded a $10,096,797 predominantly fixed-price incentive modification (P00075) to previously awarded contract FA4610-18-C-0005, to exercise option year three. This modification provides management and support, maintenance and repair, operations, other services and minor alteration related to launch operations support. This modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $60,535,156. Work will be performed at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and is expected to be completed by June 30, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $3,200,000 will be obligated at the time of award. The 30th Contracting Squadron, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity. *Small business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2094196/source/GovDelivery/

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  July 31, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  The US Air Force’s top acquisition exec talks hypersonic prototypes and more

  By: Valerie Insinna FARNBOROUGH, England — Will Roper took the job of assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics in February, but he's likely better known for his prior gig as head of the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office. As the first-ever director of the new SCO, Roper drew attention for projects that used off-the-shelf tech to prototype new capabilities like swarming drones. Now he's turning his eye toward making sure the Air Force quickens the pace in which it acquires new weapons, focusing especially on prototyping as a method to push the service toward a solution on a faster timeline, he told Defense News in a July 16 interview at Farnborough Airshow. What current programs involve prototyping? We've got a whole set of programs that we're accelerating, and what I love about our acceleration is that there's no rhyme or reason to what type of program they are. Some of them are sustainment programs like putting a new engine on the B-52. Others are more traditional prototype efforts like hypersonics where we're doing an advanced weapon acceleration. Others are software, where we're accelerating F-22 software drops, our protected [satellite communications] delivery. The good news about this is it doesn't appear that there is [only] one type of program that's able to be accelerated. The difference is that we're not using traditional [Department of Defense] 5000 [acquisition principles]. Instead we're using the new authorities from Congress, and all they encourage us to do is to tailor the way that we acquire the system to the specific needs of what we're buying. And that sounds completely obvious. You ought to do something specific to the needs of what you're buying. But if you look at the 5000 process, which is traditional acquisition, it has more of a generic approach. And in that generic approach, there are a lot of steps that don't make sense for all systems. So we're just cutting those out, and that's where the acceleration is coming in. How are you prototyping new B-52 engines? Aren't there off-the-shelf systems already available? There are. That's what we want to use. The question is: How do you go out and do that acquisition? If you do it a traditional way, you'll spend years doing studies, [with] the government pretending it knows enough about those commercial engines to make a decision to pick one and go field it. If we were a company, we would know that we don't know enough about those engines without getting our hands dirty, without getting some grease on our hands and sleeves. So they would go out. They would downselect to a top set of vendors, have each one create a digital twin of their engine, do the digital representation of its integration on their aircraft, fly them off against each other, determine which one will give you the most fuel savings and then pick the engine based on the one that saves you the most money overall. By: Valerie Insinna So, a simulated flyoff? Exactly. So in the accelerated acquisition paradigm, which uses the 804 authority, we don't have to go the 5000 route of doing years of study. We can do it like a commercial company. And what I love about this example is that it's not just faster, it's about three-and-a-half to four years faster in total time. It's also better because we'll be making the decision with a lot more data than we would if we were staring at a wad of paper that was analysis but not actual simulation. This is an example of what tailoring means and what it gets you. This approach may not apply to other programs, but it makes a ton of sense for this one. So that's what we're developing right now, is buying a commercial engine the way a company would. Buying and integrating it the way a company would, not a military. What's the schedule? We're working the acquisition plan right now. I've approved it for one of our 804 accelerations, so we'll use the new authorities. I've given this guidance to the program office. Let's go do a digital twin flyoff the way that industry would, and I'm just letting them work the details before we approve and get started. But it's a great example; a digital twin flyoff is pretty cool. You wouldn't think putting a new engine on the B-52 would be a cool program. You would expect the hypersonics program would be where all the cool kids would go. But in my view, there's a lot of great engineering and great acquisition to be done in all programs, and what's been awesome about being in this job is I'm seeing innovation across the Air Force, not just in the high-tech programs you'd expect. The light-attack experiment is obviously one example where you're doing this prototyping and experimentation. Some in Congress want to give you money in fiscal 2019 to buy planes, but the Air Force hasn't even figured out whether to turn this into a program of record. Do you have the contractual authorities to make that happen? I think we can do it using new authorities that Congress gave us in the last National Defense Authorization Act. Light attack is a great example of being able to move into an authority called “middle-tier rapid procurement fielding.” The requirement is that it's something that you need to be able to buy off the shelf with only a little upfront development in six months total. And light attack is a great example of doing experiments to make sure that you understand the ability of existing planes to do a mission we need to do, and then moving into an acquisition decision which is based on buying a currently available product. I'm confident as we go through all of the light experiment data — we're doing that right now — that any of the options we look at, I'm confident none of them will be 100 percent perfect, but that's exactly what's wrong with acquisition today. We pursue 100 percent solutions until we get them. Light attack is a great example of realizing that we can get 90 to 95 percent today at a lower cost, and since we've gone out and flown before we bought, I think we have a much better chance of doing this acquisition with confidence, that what we give the operators will do the mission and be sufficient. By: Valerie Insinna You mentioned hypersonics as another area that involves prototyping. Can you say more about that? Hypersonics is an area that I'm very passionate about. I feel like we need to not fall behind any country in this domain. And it was an area, coming in from SCO, I really wanted to dive into these prototyping efforts and see is there anything that we can do to speed them up. And in fact, there is. This is another example of another program where the rapid authorities appear to make a big difference on how quickly you can go. But the big difference is really shifting the program so that it embraces the potential for failure. You saw this a lot from me at my last job. Failure is very much an option, and as a matter of fact, if we're going to fail and we do it early in a program, we've probably learned something valuable that we need to understand before progressing. Hypersonics is a program where I would expect us to get out and learn a lot as we test. So rather than taking time to ensure that your tests are checking the box of something you're confident you can do, you compress the schedule to go out and make the test focused on learning something. Just that difference in mindset takes years out of our hypersonics program. We're hoping to [get to initial operational capability] within three to four years, and all of that is due to doing it as an experimental test program vice a long compliance period. Are you speaking of the hypersonic weapons program that Lockheed Martin recently won? We just awarded a contract to Lockheed, and that will be the vehicle that we use to fund this. Are you relying on digital prototyping or physical demonstrators? It will be all [of them]. Hypersonics is a new regime for weaponry, so we very much want to have digital models that we believe. So getting in the wind tunnel so that we can go out and simulate flights before we do them. But because this is a pretty exotic domain of physics in terms of pressures and temperatures, we're going to need to get out and fly and test [real prototypes]. [Information technology is] very important that we're instrumenting our flight bodies so that we're collecting data. There's nothing that I'm telling you that's peculiar to this program — this is pretty common for any envelope-pushing program. I think the big difference in hypersonics now versus a couple of years ago is just shifting to a test focus and embracing the potential for failure as a spectacular learning event or whatever word you want to use as a good name for failure. It's a great failure of our English language that there's no word that means “good failure.” We say we need to embrace failure. We don't often do it because it still comes with a stigma, and that's one of the things I'm really hoping to do in this job. I'm looking for those people to take smart risks, to go out to be daring, and my job is going to be to give them top cover, applaud them and reward them when they do because we're going to need that across the Air Force if we're going to speed up. Can you give me a status update on T-X? On T-X, we're going through source selection, so we're hopeful we'll get through that — should be in the fall. The fall? We had been hearing summer. I guess, if September is summer — I guess September is technically summer. End of summer is still fair based on where we are now. With JSTARS, I understand the Air Force is still doing source selection as Congress figures out the path forward. Will it be ready to announce in short order if you are forced to move forward on the program? We're hoping that we can shift to the new [advanced battle management system] ABMS program because if we're going to deal with a contested environment, we are going to have to learn to take things that used to be integrated, complicated system that are high-value targets, and break them up into less contestable targets that can work together. I don't view that as particular to JSTARS; it's something we need to learn how to do writ large. I view it as an architecture challenge that the Air Force has to pick up if we're going to learn how to do distributed systems. I would like to be able to do it for JSTARS because I think it's a great candidate. If Congress does require us to do the recap, we're making sure that we have not dropped the ball on doing that. But we are hoping to be able to shift to the future concept. As an SCO director and former program manager, I would love to manage that program. I think there will be a lot of things to learn and tryn and it definitely needs to be a program where we embrace failure up front and prototype because there's going to be a lot of learning to do about how do you make things work together as a team. We get a sense of how commercial industry is solving it, and I imagine we can use a lot of their lessons learned, but probably not all of them. It sounds like the ABMS architecture is still being worked through as far as what will fit in that and how. I'd say it's an architecture at this point. And that's unusual for a program when, if you were in my job, you're getting tasked like, “I need a new airplane, I need a new sensor pod,” and you get a list of how well it has to perform. ABMS is more [like], you're given a mission and your can choose how to allocate the requirements for that mission across a system of systems. So it's not the mission requirements — you're doing the design requirements. And you can just imagine one designer saying: “I'm going to collect a lot of data from nose to the edge. I'm going to do a massive amount of processing at the middle.” I bet you'd get high performance that way, but you'd have huge communication challenges. Another designer might say: “I'm going to put my processing on the edges themselves, so I'm not dependent on getting to that central node.” You probably have more graceful degradation if you have one of those nodes taken out. But you might give up performance. This is a real architecture problem, and acquisition historically does not do architecture. When we need to build something, we don't allocate it across systems of systems. In the future, it looks like we're going to have to start doing that. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/farnborough/2018/07/27/the-us-air-forces-top-acquisition-exec-talks-hypersonic-prototypes-and-more/

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  October 26, 2023 | International, Aerospace

  Northrop Grumman lifts 2023 revenue outlook on weapons demand | Reuters

  U.S. defense company Northrop Grumman on Thursday raised its annual revenue target for the second time this year after its third-quarter earnings beat analysts' estimates helped by strong weapons demand.