Lockheed Martin To Partner With Multiple European Companies On F-16 Training Center In Romania

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  November 5, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  After Hurricane Michael, the Air Force moved Tyndall AFB’s contracting data to the cloud

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — After Hurricane Michael ravaged Tyndall Air Force Base in October, airmen took on an unusual mission: recovering the servers base officials used to write, release and award contracts. Reclaiming those servers — which contain data and contract vehicles used by Tyndall's two contracting squadrons to order everything for the base from supplies for the base to spare parts for aircraft — was a relatively minor victory when compared to the larger devastation faced by the installation. But the mission was an important one in that it allowed remaining base personnel to manage contracts in the wake of the disaster, Air Force officials told Defense News. “Obviously, the base is devastated ... but it's clear that there were open, existing contracts whether that was for simple things like cutting the lawn or delivering food to the chow hall on base,” said Richard Aldridge, the Air Force's program executive officer for business and enterprise systems. “Someone has got to either terminate them, or put them on pause or make sure vendors are getting paid for work that they had already done before the contract.” In the days after the hurricane, airmen from Gunter Annex in Alabama worked with the state's civil air patrol to fly into the Florida panhandle, obtain Tyndall's servers and transport them back to Maxwell Air Force Base, where Gunter is located. Then, the service transferred data from the legacy contract writing system into a new cloud-based system called CON-IT, short for Contracting Information Technology. The servers from Tyndall weren't necessary for base officials to use CON-IT, said Mike Allen, the Air Force's CON-IT program manager. But without them, contract officers would be left with no digital record of past contracts, and would be forced to draw up new contracts for mundane goods and services that would normally be bought through indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts that allow for multiple orders. "We were then able to migrate [the data from the servers] into CON-IT so that existing [indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity contracts] or ordering vehicles were available to them, and all of their existing contracts would be available to work with,” said Allen. “They weren't starting from a blank piece of paper.” And moving to a cloud-based environment means that Tyndall's contracting data will no longer be vulnerable to future disasters, Aldridge added. “It's ubiquitous; it doesn't matter where you are, you can access it,” he said. Allen and Aldridge said the program office was able to transition Tyndall's data and train users on the new system, but were unable to provide details on how Tyndall's contracting officers had since used the new system. The plan is to move all of the Air Force's current contract data from existing legacy systems to CON-IT by the end of 2019. The system, built by and originally developed by Appian for use by the Defense Information Systems Agency, has deployed to 1,100 users in 30 locations so far, Allen said. CON-IT will replace three legacy systems: the standard procurement system that supports operational users; ConWrite, which supports the weapon system acquisition and research and development; and the automated contract preparation system for logistics contracts. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/11/02/after-hurricane-michael-the-air-force-moved-tyndall-afbs-contracting-data-to-the-cloud

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  March 10, 2020 | International, Naval

  Navy Needs Bigger Budget Than Other Services: Rep. Wittman

  “You can have the greatest brigade combat team in the world," Rep. Wittman said, "but if they can't get to the fight because we don't have a robust ready reserve fleet, that's pretty shortsighted.” By PAUL MCLEARY ]WASHINGTON: A prominent lawmaker waded into the inter-service money wars today by calling for the Navy receiving a larger share of the budget than the other branches of the armed forces. The Army, Rep. Rob Wittman emphasized, can't even deploy abroad without the Navy's help. “We need to look at the one-third, one-third, one-third allocation of defense dollars to all the different service branches,” said Wittman, the top Republican on the Democratic-controlled House Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee. (The actual allocation is a bit trickier than that, but it's close). “No offense in any way, shape, or form to the other service branches, but we're going to need capability in certain areas and we're going to need those at a faster pace than in other areas.” Wittman represents the shipbuilding powerhouse of Virginia — home to massive naval bases and Newport News Shipbuilding, which makes all the nation's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and half its nuclear submarines. He appeared at the Hudson Institute today alongside Rep. Joe Courtney, who chairs the subcommittee and who represents Connecticut, where the other half of the nation's nuclear subs are built at Electric Boat. But it wasn't any of these high-tech, high-cost warships that Wittman singled out today. Instead, the congressman was referring to the major shortfalls in allocating money to modernize the nation's sealift fleet, humble but essential transports. A recent exercise showed the sealift fleet would be unable to haul military equipment overseas quickly in the event of a national security emergency. The snap drill found that of the 33 ships activated, only 22 were ready enough to leave port, according to a December paper from US Transportation Command. Shifting more money to the Navy would be a tough sell in Congress, with its hundreds of parochial interests, but Courtney added that his committee might take up the sealift shortage in its markup of the 2021 budget request in a few weeks, a move that could have wide-ranging implications for the Navy's budget. Wittman didn't lay out plans for shifting money to the Navy, but said “a great example” of why sealift needs to be a priority is “you can have the greatest brigade combat team in the world, you can have the greatest Stryker brigade in the world, but if they can't get to the fight because we don't have a robust ready reserve fleet, that's pretty shortsighted.” Splitting the budget roughly in thirds between the services “is not letting the strategy drive the budget, it's letting the budget drive the strategy,” added, which “creates a strategic vulnerability.” Wittman's comments come in the wake of a earlier dust-up between the services over their share of the budget, after Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday told a navy conference in January “we need more money,” in order to modernize. Budgeting as usual, he said, which means “a one-third, one-third, one-third cut, does not reflect the strategy,” laid in in 2019's National Defense Strategy, Gilday said. “It isn't necessarily aligned with where we need to go against the pacing threat that we face.” The Navy is in many ways faced with the trickiest path to modernizing among all the branches of the military. Even as the service continues to struggle to get ships out of repair availabilities on time, it has also committed to building a new class of aircraft carriers, and has to overhaul its Virginia-class submarines. On top of all that comes the biggest-ticket item — a new class of nuclear-powered submarines about to begin construction, which will eat up over 30 percent of Gilday's budget in a few years. The first of the 12 Columbia subs is scheduled to begin construction in 2021 and enter service in 2031. Once completed they'll carry a staggering 70 percent of the country's nuclear arsenal. To clear space, and the chart a path toward a planned 355-ship fleet, the Navy is scrambling. Last week, plans leaked of Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly's intent to stand up a Future Carrier 2030 Task Force, which will take six months to study how carriers stack up against new generations of stealthy submarines and long-range precision weapons being fielded by China and Russia. The study likely won't be ready until after Defense Secretary Mark Esper wraps up his assessment of the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan and its new force structure assessment, however. Esper took control over both studies last month. The Navy is also looking to speed up the acquisition of a new class of 20 frigates, which would be a relative bargain of about $900 each if the service can stick to its plans and things work out the way they envision. In an attempt to clear some budgetary space for all of this, Modly has kicked off a new ‘Stem to Stern' review of back office functions to try and wrong more money out of existing accounts, which he's hoping to find about $8 billion a year in savings. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/navy-needs-bigger-budget-than-other-services-rep-wittman/

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  April 8, 2024 | International, Land

  Rheinmetall to supply Japan with its first fleet of autonomous vehicles

  Rheinmetall will deliver three Mission Master SP vehicles to Japan in January 2025. The Mission Master SP will be the first autonomous vehicle to be tested by the Japanese army.