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December 22, 2020 | International, Land

General Dynamics to build upgraded Abrams tanks in $4.62B contract

By

Ed Adamczyk

Dec. 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army will purchase the latest iteration of the M1 Abrams tank in a $4.62 billion contract with General Dynamics, the Defense Department announced.

The battle tank, regarded by many as the world's best, first entered service in 1980.

The newest version, known as the M1A2C or the M1A2 SEPV3, includes a variety of improvements, notably a gunner's sight and commander's sight for increased lethality and a 120mm cannon.

It also has an ammunition datalink to fire improved rounds, 12 batteries for longer silent watch, reinforced armor, a jammer to counter radio-activated improvised explosive devices, replaceable modules for easier maintenance and other features.

The tank "provides the lethality, survivability and fightability necessary to defeat advanced threats well into the future," an Army statement said. "The Abrams tank is the Army's primary ground combat system."

At 71.2 tons, it is regarded as the most reliable Abrams tank ever produced, and the platform for future modernizations.

The Army intends to field over 2,100 M1AC tanks through its Abrams Upgrade Program and the eight-year, single-bid contract with General Dynamics Land Systems.

The Defense Department did not disclose the number of new tanks to be delivered in its announcement, but noted a completion date of 2028.

More than 10,000 Abrams tanks have been built since 1980, and are included in the equipment of the armies of Australia, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2020/12/21/General-Dynamics-to-build-upgraded-Abrams-tanks-in-462B-contract/5371608568868/

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  • This training tool could be the answer to stop mass cyberattacks

    July 9, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

    This training tool could be the answer to stop mass cyberattacks

    Mark Pomerleau At air bases across Europe, networks are under attack. Malicious hackers have gained access to sensitive systems, information, controls and critical infrastructure. But cyber operators from U.S. Cyber Command, in concert with Five Eyes partners, have been called in to thwart these attempts in real time. This was the main scenario for this year's capstone cyber training exercise put on by Cyber Command, Cyber Flag 20-2. The exercise, which took place June 15-26 and was exclusively defensive in nature, saw more than 500 participants and 17 teams participating from five countries across nine time zones, and it included America's National Guard, the U.S. Energy Department and the Five Eyes alliance — Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. Australia, however, did not participate during this iteration. Officials told reporters this week that the purpose of Cyber Flag 20-2 was to continue building the community of defensive cyber operations and to improve the overall capability of the Five Eyes countries to defend against cyber aggressors. The drill involved teams defending IT and operational security networks against a live, opposing force trying to disrupt, deny and degrade the air bases' operations. The networks under attack were industrial control systems simulated to generate network traffic for an aviation fuel farm, power grid, air traffic control radars and electronic access control systems. The attacks came in the form of malware that targeted devices responsible for fuel and power. But the unique aspect of this year's exercise, as C4ISRNET previously reported, was the use of a new remote cyber training tool called the Persistent Cyber Training Environment. PCTE is an online client that allows Cyber Command's cyber warriors, as well as partner nations, to log on from anywhere in the world to conduct individual or collective cyber training as well as mission rehearsal, which to date had not existed for the cyber force as it does for physical troops. The program is run by the Army on behalf of the joint cyber force. The platform not only allowed the exercise to continue as planned amid the coronavirus pandemic, but it enabled collaboration and simultaneous training across the world. A new way to train Officials say PCTE is providing Cyber Command with an entirely new way to train cyber forces, which previously was difficult given a lack of infrastructure and the time needed to set up ranges and scenarios. It also allows Cyber Command and military units to conduct more frequent training. Cyber Flag typically was Cyber Command's largest and only holistic tactical training event, held annually during June. For units, aside from Cyber Flag, there were no other ways to stay sharp on their skills unless they built their own environments. Now, Cyber Command plans to hold more exercises, with Cyber Flag 20-3 occurring in the fall. “The delivery of the Persistent Cyber Training Environment absolutely allows us to increase the frequency and the complexity of exercises that are conducted by the command itself,” Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger, director of exercises and training at Cyber Command, told reporters. “Going forward, I would expect you to see a series of exercises throughout the year where we are reaching out to the different teams to test their capabilities or to focus on specific issues that are of concern or interest to us. “Going forward, we're going to get the benefits of both those distributed exercises along with increasingly complex exercises as PCTE is instantiated across both the secret network and the top-secret network.” Scenarios and environments can be stored, saved, reused and modified if needed in the system for later exercises. Smaller units will also be able to leverage these scenarios to practice whenever needed. The PCTE virtual environment for this year's exercise included 25 interconnected ranges of more than 3,000 virtual machines — a high-fidelity network that simulated and emulated open internet traffic with more than 4,000 static websites that store and share data. The simulated air base networks created in PCTE had fully configured Windows active directory domains with over 100 nodes running more than 10 types of major operating systems, along with 35 simulated user control workstations actively surfing the internet and using Microsoft Office products to access, create and transfer files. Moreover, officials also explained PCTE can be integrated into larger, multi-combatant command-type exercises to simulate the cyber effects, such as Global Lightning and its companion Cyber Lightning. Global Lightning is an annual global exercise run by Strategic Command to test integration across several geographic and functional combatant commands. Cyber Lightning is Cyber Command's portion to the exercise. “We think that is the next evolution of the Persistent Cyber Training Environment and how we take to the tier 1 exercises, incorporate cyber effects. They're no longer white-carded,” Col. Tanya Trout, Cyber Command's PCTE director and acting director of the Joint Cyber Training Enterprise, told reporters. White carding involves telling exercise participants that a certain action has occurred. This was typical of cyber effects, given it was difficult to realistically simulate them, which diminished the training value in exercises because participants didn't experience the full breadth of these actions. Now, these activities can play a real role in exercises increasing the overall fidelity of training across the joint force and continuity of all operations of warfare. The system will also be able to be used for mission rehearsals. A Cyber Command official said the force can input prior operations, such as those used against the Islamic State group, to train against. Additionally, they'll be able to upload to the platform malware discovered in operations. The PCTE program office, which is in the prototyping phase despite delivering the first portion to Cyber Command in February 2020, also learned valuable lessons in Cyber Flag. Officials said the two-week exercise provided the program office with six months' worth of data it can use to make significant improvements. Prior to the February delivery, the program office leveraged several smaller-scale training events at the unit level to incrementally increase capabilities and scalability as well as help geographically dispersed teams prepare for tier 1 exercises like Cyber Flag. Overall, officials are happy with how the system performed in its first tier 1 exercise, pointing to little to no latency issues, though there were periodic improvement tickets. “What we found through the rapid development and use of the Persistent Cyber Training Environment is that we really have a unique capability to move forward with,” Mauger said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/dod/cybercom/2020/06/25/this-training-tool-could-be-the-answer-to-stop-mass-cyberattacks

  • General Dynamics Mission Systems Awarded $883 Million Contract to Modernize U.S. Army Training Programs

    February 12, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Land

    General Dynamics Mission Systems Awarded $883 Million Contract to Modernize U.S. Army Training Programs

    Fairfax, Va., February 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - General Dynamics Mission Systems announced today it was awarded a contract for the Army Consolidated Product Line Management Plus (CPM Plus) Program from the Army Contracting Command in Orlando, Florida. CPM Plus is an eight year, single-award, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity, cost-plus fixed-fee/firm-fixed price contract with a ceiling of $883 million. Executing the contract will improve the Army's individual and collective expeditionary training systems at unit home stations and the major Combat Training Centers, including Military Operations on Urban Terrain training sites, live fire and digital ranges and additional training facilities located worldwide. "Modernizing the training experience is one of the Army's six modernization priorities," said Chris Brady, president of General Dynamics Mission Systems. "This award increases the viability, relevancy, and alignment of the Army's current live training systems while bridging to the future Synthetic Training Environment that will be delivered to soldiers worldwide." General Dynamics will focus primarily on the extensive Live Training Transformation (LT2) Product Line, the Common Training Instrumentation Architecture, and the Live Training Engagement Composition for the Project Manager for Soldier Training portfolio within the Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation. The operational focus will be implemented through an agile, capabilities-based organization to evolve the LT2 Family of Training Systems. The intent is to reduce total ownership cost and operational complexity, to increase technology agility and concurrency, and to enable enhanced Soldier training effectiveness. General Dynamics' expanded seamless Product Line Engineering approach will build upon the Project Manager for Soldier Training's investments to extend product line governance, processes and tools supporting new training domains such as Virtual Training Systems and the Synthetic Training Environment. CPM Plus is a follow-on contract to CPM Next, which was awarded to General Dynamics in 2015. General Dynamics Mission Systems is a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD). More information about General Dynamics Mission Systems is available at gdmissionsystems.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/general-dynamics-mission-systems-awarded-883-million-contract-to-modernize-us-army-training-programs-301003154.html SOURCE General Dynamics Mission Systems

  • Lockheed, Boeing Got Half of $2.3 Billion in Pentagon Virus Cash

    July 23, 2020 | International, Aerospace

    Lockheed, Boeing Got Half of $2.3 Billion in Pentagon Virus Cash

    By Anthony Capaccio Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. received about half of an initial $2.3 billion in increased, accelerated payments the Pentagon provided contractors to help companies' cash flows after the Covid-19 pandemic erupted in the U.S. The initial infusion was included in $13 billion in regular, periodic progress payments paid to the companies, according to newly released defense figures. Lockheed Martin initially received $685 million while Boeing got $670 million, according to a Pentagon statement to Bloomberg News In a separate statement, Lockheed Martin said that modifications to existing contracts resulted in additional accelerated payments to the company, increasing its total received to $1.1 billion by June 30, “all of which we have flowed down to our supply base.” Lockheed and Boeing are the top two U.S. defense contractors, so they were expected to get the biggest share of the funds. Other companies receiving the accelerated payments include: Raytheon Technologies Corp.: $410 million L3 Harris Technologies Inc.: $74 million The Boeing/Lockheed United Launch Alliance LLC: $70 million Northrop Grumman Corp.: $70 million Another $321 million went to other companies. The companies are benefiting from a policy the Pentagon announced in March, just as the pandemic was building in the U.S., that provided for faster, and bigger, payments to companies. The move was intended to guarantee that critical national security contracts -- including the production of key weapons systems and supplies -- weren't interrupted by companies having problems accessing cash or credit. The extra funding would ensure production lines were able to stay open. The Defense Department's move meant that larger firms could get as much as 90% of their payments for contracts in progress, up from 80% previously. For smaller businesses, which might be more susceptible to virus impacts, the rate rose to 95% from 90%. As the initial funds were identified, the Pentagon “worked with each of the major primes to ensure that they were identifying at risk companies in their supply chain and flowing down payments to those companies, as well as all companies doing work for the prime,” said the statement. The major contractors “have been flowing down payments, in some cases more than the payments received from DOD,” it said. Pentagon officials initially estimated in March about $3 billion would be paid but that number included a potential $700 million payment on a long-standing contract that further analysis deemed was not necessary. In addition to the accelerated progress payments, the Air Force in April released to Boeing $882 million withheld from the company over current deficiencies with its KC-46 military tanker program as part of Covid-19 relief efforts. After the program was announced, Senator Elizabeth Warren, who serves on the Armed Services Committee, expressed concern about its oversight. In particular, the Massachusetts Democrat questioned whether companies might try to divert the increased payments for stock buybacks, dividends or executive pay. Pentagon Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord in a May 15 letter to Warren said that hasn't been the case. “Companies do not divert payments for incurred costs to share buybacks, dividends or executive salaries because contractors must have already incurred costs before they receive the increased progress payments,” Lord wrote. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/lockheed-boeing-got-half-of-2-3-billion-in-pentagon-virus-cash

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