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April 6, 2022 | Information, Other Defence

National Defense Industrial Association gets new chief

The National Defense Industrial Association has named former Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist as its new president and CEO, the trade group announced Thursday.

https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2022/03/31/national-defense-industrial-association-gets-new-chief

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  • Canadian Surface Combatant

    December 4, 2017 | Information, Naval

    Canadian Surface Combatant

    Offering the most advanced and modern warship design with Canadian-developed combat and platform systems, BAE Systems, CAE, Lockheed Martin Canada, L3 Technologies, MDA, and Ultra Electronics Maritime Systems Inc. (Ultra) are partnering (on a non-exclusive basis) as Canada's Combat Ship Team for the Royal Canadian Navy's future fleet of Canadian Surface Combatants (CSC). http://canadascombatshipteam.com/canadian-suppliers/ https://twitter.com/CSCHomeTeam

  • Uncle Sam Wants YOU To Compete For Army Network Upgrade: CS 21

    August 28, 2019 | Information, Land

    Uncle Sam Wants YOU To Compete For Army Network Upgrade: CS 21

    By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. TECHNET AUGUSTA: No incumbent contractor should feel safe, and all comers should consider taking a shot, Army network modernization officials told me here. Even for its upgrade coming in the next few months– Capability Set 2021, aimed at infantry brigades — the service is still thrashing out which technologies to include, let alone who gets paid to build them. Subsequent biennial upgrades — Capability Set 23, CS 25, CS 27, and beyond — are even more in flux, by design, to leave room to add the latest tech. In fact, even an upgrade already being fielded to specialized communications units, the Expeditionary Signal Battalion – Enhanced (ESB-E) kit, is open to change. On the flipside, if the Army decides your product isn't ready for the upcoming upgrade cycle, or it just doesn't fit the available budget, you should still aim for the next upgrade, or the one after that. And you should take that shot ASAP, because the early work on those later upgrades has already begun. Gone are the days of a stately, deliberate, laborious acquisition process in which the Army would plan out the future in detail before going to industry. “We'd almost always guess wrong,” said Maj. Gen. David Bassett, the Program Executive Officer for Command , Control, & Communications – Tactical (PEO C3T). “Eventually we'd deliver yesterday's technology tomorrow.” That said, Bassett doesn't want to overcorrect by delivering tomorrow's technology today, before it's ready for the harsh conditions and high demands of erecting a wide-area wireless network in a war zone. “I know y'all won't believe this, but some of the things that vendors show me as mature, it turns out they're not,” Bassett snarked at the TechNet Augusta conference last week. “What we're not doing is holding up a Capability Set for any given technology. If it's ready, bring it to us. ... If it's not ready yet, look to a future Capability Set.” For any given product, he said, “we need you to help us understand ... whether you see that as something that's part of the network of '23, part of the network of '25, or whether it's something we really ought to be trying to add in to the network of '21 at the last minute.” Bassett has held industry “outreach sessions” recently in Nashville and Baltimore, with another this November in Austin. These are forums for the Army to solicit white paper proposals to solve specific problems and then award small demonstration contracts using Other Transaction Authority (OTA). Larger-scale procurement for Capability Set 21 should start in April, Bassett said. “The contracts, the logistics, the testing,” he said, “we're in the midst of that right now, so we can buy the network in '20, we can integrate and test it next summer, and we can deliver to brigades in '21.” Competition, Accelerated To test new network concepts and designs as fast as possible, the Army is using a lot of “stand-in” technology — that is, whatever is available, from existing contracts or inventory, that works well enough to run the test. But those stand-ins aren't necessarily, or even probably, the final products the Army plans to use, and their manufacturers don't have any incumbent advantage over other contenders. “Believe us when we say that we're not vendor locked and that we're going to open this up for a competitive environment in FY 20, after we decide what the final network architecture needs to be,” said Col. Garth Winterle, who works for Bassett as project manager for tactical radios. So the Army has two main messages for industry about Capability Set 2021, Winterle told me. “Be prepared for competitive procurement in FY 20,” he said, “[and] be open to providing information, including some stuff they may not share typically, like potential price points.” It's not just stand-in systems that are subject to competition and change, Winterle continued. It's also formal Programs Of Record with incumbent vendors, established contracts, and painstakingly negotiated budget lines. Even today, “all of my radio contracts are multi-vendor,” Winterle told me. That means one vendor on the contract may win the first lot of radios, but a different vendor may win the second — or the Army may bring in a new vendor that wasn't even in the initial award, all without having to redo the POR. “All Programs of Record are being compared to potential commercial systems as part of the experimentation, so if elements of [the existing] WIN-T architecture come up against new commercial that are more affordable or more affective...they have to participate in a run off,” Winterle said. “Gen. Bassett's been clear: There're no sacred cows.” Yes, large chunks of the current Warfighter Information Network – Tactical will remain in Army service for years to come, despite former Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley calling WIN-T inadequate for highly mobile high-tech war and truncating the program back in 2017. For all the Army's urgency about advancing, the service is just huge, so on any plausible budget it will take a decade to overhaul everything. The Army's target date for total modernization is 2028. But key pieces of WIN-T will be replaced much sooner, and some select units will be rid of it entirely in the near term. First up is the 50th Expeditionary Signal Battalion at Fort Bragg, which deploys teams worldwide to keep frontline units connected. The 50th ESB started turning in all its WIN-T kit this past October. Not only are all three companies within the battalion now using a new kit called ESB-Enhanced: Each company got a different version of the new equipment, which it field-tested, modified, and tested again. A council of generals approved proposed changes “at least every month,” said Col. Mark Parker, until recently the Army's capability manager for networks & services. Now, after about a dozen revisions in less than 12 months, the Army has a radically new ESB-E. That means not just new kit, but new personnel, training, organization — even a reorganized motor pool. The streamlined formation needs 18 percent fewer soldiers and half as many vehicles. It can deploy on commercial aircraft instead of heavy-duty Air Force transport — the basic network kit actually fits in the overhead bin — but it can provide communications to 60 percent more command posts. (48, up from 30). The final ESB-E design is due before the new Army Chief of Staff, Gen. James McConville, in October — a year after the first new kit was fielded — so he can decide whether to reorganize the other Expeditionary Signal Battalions across the Army on the new model. “Not all ESB-Es are going to look alike,” however, Parker told the conference. A battalion supporting the 18th Airborne Corps (as the 50th ESB-E does at Fort Bragg) might need parachute-qualified communications techs, while one supporting fast-moving armored divisions might need different ground vehicles to keep up. The Army also keeps hoping to add new technology to each ESB-E as it becomes available, Bassett told the conference. To 2028 & Beyond The way Army upgraded the Expeditionary Signal Battalion – Enhanced is preview of what it hopes to do across the force, Bassett said. That means streamlining or bypassing the traditional requirements process, and using existing contracts and authorities to get new tech to the troops fast — and then get their feedback to make it better in the next round. “We're a little late” with Capability Set 21, Bassett said frankly, because Congress didn't approve an Army request to reprogram already-appropriated funds to speed field-testing. But the Army was able to put the entire brigade architecture together in the laboratory — using stand-ins for the final product — and test it “end to end,” Winterle told me. That means sending realistic loads of both voice and data, based on real-world mission requirements, from tactical radios to satellite communications to US-based server farms. The next big step is to take the hardware into the field, with a full brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division to be field tested next year. While Bassett and his procurement professionals focus on Capability Set 21, the Army-wide Cross Functional Team for network modernization is already working on CS 23. While '21 is optimized for infantry units, '23 will take on medium-weight brigades of 8×8 armored Strykers and heavy brigades of M1 tanks and M2 Bradleys. These vehicles can carry a lot more hardware than infantry on foot, so they can field more powerful transmitters and larger antennas. But they'll really need that added power, because they can cover much more ground in a day and need to transmit signals over longer distances, without revealing their location to eavesdropping enemy electronic warfare units. By Capability Set '25, if not before, “we should be able to have constant communications where you can come up or drop off as required, depending on threat,” said the CFT's unified network lead, Col. Curtis Nowak. This ability to connect, get essential data, and then go dark to avoid detection is central to the Army's emerging concept of high-tech warfare, what's called Multi-Domain Operations. The Army's goal is to modernize the entire force to wage multi-domain operations by 2028. That's why the Army has already scheduled successive network upgrades in '21, '23, '25, and '27. But that's not the end, officials have made clear. “The reality is there will be a Capability Set '29,” Nowak told me. “We're no longer going to have a finish line.” https://breakingdefense.com/2019/08/uncle-sam-wants-you-to-compete-for-army-network-upgrade-cs-21/

  • AIA’s Fanning: Civil aviation’s nosedive endangers Pentagon supplies

    September 24, 2020 | Information,

    AIA’s Fanning: Civil aviation’s nosedive endangers Pentagon supplies

    Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― The Pentagon's shared supply chains with battered commercial aviation companies will suffer if Washington doesn't provide that sector with aid soon, the Aerospace Industries Association warned Wednesday. The trade group released its recovery plan for the broad aerospace and defense sector as Congress has begun a fierce Supreme Court replacement battle, shifting attention away from passing another stimulus package to defray the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. But AIA President and CEO Eric Fanning suggested some aviation companies have little time to wait. “If the commercial side doesn't get some relief, you are going to see companies in the supply chain go out of business, and that will impact the defense side,” Fanning said in a teleconference with reporters. “We're going to see bankruptcies, consolidation, closures in the supply chain, and she of them are single points of failure.” The defense subsector, declared essential at the pandemic's start, enjoys steady demand from the Pentagon, which has accelerated payments to prime contractors and directed stimulus funds toward its suppliers. However, sagging demand for commercial air travel will fuel a $100 billion revenue loss in the U.S. this year, Fanning said. AIA's analysis concluded another 220,0000 civil aviation jobs are at risk beyond 100,000 already lost. The study and its recommendations were prepared by Avascent, Boston Consulting Group, and McKinsey & Company, combined with input from AIA member companies. Beyond any federal aid, the civil aviation industry, the agency said, can highlight the steps it's taken to make air travel safer; increase communication between original equipment manufacturers, prime contractors, and suppliers, and support flexibility in the supply chain if private companies offer balance-sheet support and share inventory risk. The report called for stable Defense Department funding from Congress, but also said DoD can relieve stress on the industrial base by accelerating procurements of systems and services, with a focus on suppliers with notable commercial aerospace exposure. DoD can also keep making increased payments against ongoing contracts as they reach development and production milestones. AIA also continues to advocate for industry reimbursements for costs incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, as authorized by Section 3610 of the CARES Act. Defense officials have said they need roughly $10 billion, and that without added funding from Congress, the Pentagon would have to dip into modernization and readiness funds. AIA's call comes a day after key House progressives, Reps. Marc Pocan and Barbara Lee, demanded an investigation and public hearings into the use of economic stimulus funding for defense contractors, calling it a “Pentagon misuse of COVID funds.” The Pentagon, which reported its intent to Congress in May, refuted that characterization. When asked, Fanning said it was important for the Pentagon to shore up previously identified supply chain weaknesses that the pandemic might exacerbate. “This money was put into contracts, so the war fighter is getting something for that,” Fanning said. “But I think the important thing is the critical nature of this industrial base, not just to the nation's economy, which is the health and safety of American's citizens writ large, but also to our nation's security.” A larger obstacle to winning further aid for the sector is that Congress has deadlocked over continued stimulus funding overall. AIA's report proposed that the government establish an investment fund that would send government-backed capital to civil aerospace suppliers; subsidize the airlines' major maintenance, repair, and overhaul visits, and continue to payroll assistance to support employees. Fanning told reporters that AIA found bipartisan backing for the idea of a payroll cost-share program, but there has been no legislative vehicle behind it. “The real problem is there's no bill,” Fanning said. “Congress hasn't been able to come together with the administration and itself to get a bill in place.” https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/09/23/aias-fanning-civil-aviations-nosedive-endangers-pentagon-supplies/

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