US Marines rush to field two air defense systems amid global threats

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  January 17, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - January 16, 2019

  ARMY Caddell Construction Co. (DE) LLC., Montgomery, Alabama, was awarded a $143,514,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the construction of an airmen training complex dormitory, a dining and classroom facility, supporting facilities, a free standing equipment building, a weapons cleaning pavilion, running track, exercise pads and parking lots. Bids were solicited via the internet with two received. Work will be performed in San Antonio, Texas, with an estimated completion date of June 8, 2021. Fiscal 2019 military construction funds in the amount of $143,514,000 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth, Texas, is the contracting activity (W9126G-19-C-0001). IICON Construction Group LLC,* Colorado Springs, Colorado, was awarded a $15,179,720 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of a National Guard readiness center. Bids were solicited via the internet with five received. Work will be performed in Fort Carson, Colorado, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 31, 2020. Fiscal 2017 military construction funds in the amount of $15,179,720 were obligated at the time of the award. National Guard Bureau, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (W912LC-19-C-0001). CORRECTION: The contract announced on Jan. 15, 2019, for $474,084,062 to BAE Systems Land & Armaments LP, York, Pennsylvania, has not been awarded. No award date has been determined at this time. DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Puerto Rico Apparel Manufacturing (PRAMA) Corp.,** Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, has been awarded a maximum $11,648,229 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for various types of coats and trousers. This was a competitive acquisition with seven responses received. This is a one-year base contract with four one-year option periods. Location of performance is Puerto Rico, with a Jan. 10, 2024, estimated performance completion date. Using military services are Army and Air Force. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 through 2024 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE1C1-19-D-1127). Alamo Strategic Manufacturing,*** San Antonio, Texas, has been awarded a maximum $8,550,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-quantity contract for knee and elbow pads. This was a competitive acquisition with two responses received. This is a one-year base contract with two one-year option periods. Locations of performance are Texas and Puerto Rico, with a Jan. 30, 2020, performance completion date. Using military services are Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 through 2020 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (SPE1C1-19-D-1122). NAVY Gilbane Federal, Concord, California, is awarded a $10,966,383 firm-fixed-price modification to previously awarded contract (N39430-15-D-1634) to decrease the value of the contract for the cleaning, inspection and repair of Fuel Storage Tanks 305, 307, and 308 at Defense Fuel Support Point (DFSP) Tsurumi, Japan. Work on Tanks 305, 307, and 308 is being removed from the contract due to contractor performance problems. After award of this modification, the total cumulative contract value will be $6,426,985. Work will be performed in Tsurumi, Japan, and is expected to be completed by March 2019. Fiscal 2016 defense working capital (Defense Logistics Agency) contract funds in the amount of $10,966,383 are de-obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center, Port Hueneme, California, is the contracting activity. Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Co., Stratford, Connecticut, is awarded $7,026,164 for cost-plus-fixed-fee modification P00017 to a previously awarded fixed-price-incentive-firm/cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-16-C-0048). This modification provides for Automated Logistics Environment software maintenance operating systems and obsolescence avoidance in support of the low rate initial production CH-53K aircraft. The work will be performed in Stratford, Connecticut, and is expected to be completed in October 2021. Fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $7,026,164 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. *Small Business **Economically disadvantaged women-owned small business in historically underutilized business zones ***Small disadvantaged business https://dod.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/1733689/source/GovDelivery/

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  June 3, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Pentagon taps $688 million in coronavirus aid for defense industry

  By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― The Pentagon plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in coronavirus relief funding to support vulnerable manufacturers of submarine torpedo tubes, aircraft engine parts and hardened microelectronics that were hit by closures or other effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The $688 million defense-industrial base fund is just one category within the $10.5 billion the Department of Defense received from Congress' $2.1 trillion CARES Act package. The department submitted its 54-page spending plan to Congress on Friday amid pressure from lawmakers after DoD had spent only 23 percent of that money weeks after it was signed into law in late March. The Pentagon has thus far obligated $167 million of the $1 billion Congress granted under the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law that the president recently invoked, to have industry produce key items such as N95 respirator masks and swabs needed for coronavirus testing, ventilators and other items. Under the same law, the Pentagon's spending plan says it would use $688 million to address impacts to the defense-industrial base caused by COVID-19, "by directly offsetting financial distress in the DIB and providing investments to regions most severely impacted to sustain essential domestic industrial base capabilities and spur local job creation.” The plan calls for $171 million for the aircraft propulsion industrial base; $150 million for shipbuilding and submarine launch tubes; $150 million for the space launch industrial base; $80 million for the microelectronics base; $62 million for body armor suppliers; and $40 million for high-temperature materials used in hypersonic weapons. The priorities likely overlap with vulnerable industrial base areas previously identified by the Pentagon's assessment last year, said Wesley Hallman, the National Defense Industrial Association's senior vice president of strategy and policy . “It makes sense given what's going on now economically to ― under the [coronavirus aid] legislation ― reinforce some of the critical vulnerabilities that were identified in that report,” Hallman said. The Pentagon plans $171 million to sustain and preserve the aircraft propulsion industrial base, as many military aviation suppliers have been hard hit from the commercial side by coronavirus travel restrictions. Some would preserve an "essential workforce through support to sustained operations at key repair facility and stabilizing sub-vendors essential to a healthy propulsion industrial base,” according to the department. What that means is the DoD may have to absorb some of suppliers' overhead costs to keep vital suppliers in business, said Teal Group aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia. “Commercial aviation is in the worst crisis it's ever faced, and aviation propulsion aftermarket is the single part of the industry most hit by COVID-19,” Aboulafia said. “It could be [that] if there's a part like a combustor, DoD could be saying: ‘What do you need by way of guaranteed orders to keep that line open?' ” The department, which relies on a vulnerable network of suppliers for parts for the venerable TF33 engine, hopes to “support initiatives to certify and approve new parts sources for” the engine and “catalyze the sub-tier vendor base and mitigate risk of sub-tier vendors exiting the propulsion business.” Pratt & Whitney hasn't made the TF33 in more than 40 years, but it's still used by the B-52 bomber, and no replacement is due for years. The DoD also planned $150 million for the shipbuilding industrial base in areas such as castings, forgings and submarine launch equipment, as well as to support continuous production of essential components such as missile tubes. (Shipbuilding overall has contracted over the last decade, and there were only four suppliers with the capability to manufacture large, complex, single-pour aluminum and magnesium sand castings, according to the DoD's 2019 industrial capabilities report to Congress.) The CEO of Virginia-based military contractor BWXT, Rex Geveden, said on an earnings call last year that the company ― which makes missile tubes for the Columbia-class submarine ― was mulling an exit from the missile tube business. The Navy and its Naval Sea Systems Command, he said, were seeking more than one supplier, adding: “We're not interested in the future orders unless we do have a way to make money on these orders.” The DoD planned another $150 million to maintain a competitive space launch industrial base. DoD relies on a small pool of companies to launch satellites into orbit, but there are numerous companies of all sizes that support those launches, and the DoD has sought to reintroduce more competition over the enterprise in recent years. The department would also spend $80 million to support several critical suppliers of radiation-hardened microelectronics ― products vital to DoD but with limited commercial applications. The funding would “protect the domestic capacity to ensure radiation hardened microelectronics testing capability, and key subcompacts such as substrates and wafer, are available for DoD weapon systems," according to the spending plan. The $40 million would protect suppliers of high-temperature materials used in potentially game-changing hypersonic weapons. “An expanded, sustainable domestic production capability for hypersonic systems is essential to the Department achieving its modernization priorities,” the plan states. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/06/02/688m-in-covid-aid-helping-defense-firms-per-dod-plan/

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  August 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Army missile defense battle command system takes out cruise missile threats in major test

  By: Jen Judson   16 hours ago WASHINGTON — The Army's once-problem-plagued air-and-missile defense battle command system took out two cruise missile threat targets nearly simultaneously using Patriot missiles in a major live fire event Aug. 13, according to service officials in charge of the effort. The cruise missiles flew at a low-altitude, maneuvering through a mountain range. The Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) took real-time data from Patriot and Sentinel radars and tracked the threat. IBCS sent engagement options to air defenders on the ground and two Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles controlled by IBCS intercepted both threats. The success of the limited user test for IBCS, which began several weeks ago in the New Mexico desert, is like “night and day,” compared to a previous attempt in 2016, Brig. Gen. Brian Gibson, who is in charge of Army air-and-missile defense modernization, told Defense News during its Space and Missile Defense Symposium Debrief event Aug. 5. “We didn't even get through phase one,” which lasted “just days,” in the first limited user test, Gibson said. Space and Missile Defense Command Commander Lt. Gen. Dan Karbler had overseen the Army Test and Evaluation Command during the first IBCS limited user test and told reporters Aug. 5 that during the first attempt “the system performance was so unstable, we really couldn't even get it started. We couldn't collect any good data. There was multiple software challenges within the system just to try to get it into the network. So it was a very, very difficult endeavor and so, honestly, couldn't pass LUT and there was a lot of work to do.” Due to those problems and the Army's new plans to expand IBCS capability to tie to any sensor or any shooter on the battlefield delayed the entire program by roughly four years. The live fire marks the first time an entire operational battalion was involved in an IBCS test along with multiple sensors, shooters and mission command platforms, making it the most complex test the system has seen to date, Gibson told reporters Aug. 13 shortly after the test event. The cruise missile targets were defeated by PAC-3 missiles coming from entirely separate launchers at the same battery site, Col. Phil Rottenborn, IBCS project manager within the Army's Program Executive Office Missiles and Space, said. IBCS also made it possible to move Sentinel radars more forward on the battlefield, providing more time to track the target, which allowed the commander on the ground to engage a single interceptor per target, said Col. Tony Behrens, Army capability manager and director of the Army Air & Missile Defense Command. Typically, two interceptors, one following the other, are deployed against a single missile target in case the first misses. With IBCS, the Army will be able to use fewer interceptors in engagements, Behrens said. The system was also challenged by electronic attack during the live fire where one of the seven integrated fire control network relays was taken out of the mix by a jammer. The system was able to operate and defeat challenging target sets through debris even with a relay removed from the game. The Army will conduct another live fire test next week with senior officials attending, a presence that will up the ante. IBCS will go up against both a cruise missile and a ballistic missile during that event, according to Army Futures Command Commander Gen. Mike Murray. Once the limited user test wraps up in mid-September, the Army will need to go through “terabytes, lots and lots of data” over the following three months, Murray said. The service will then go before a production decision board, currently scheduled for Nov. 20. And if IBCS is approved to move forward, the service will conduct an Initial Operational Test and Evaluation of the system in a year. The Army plans to equip its first unit with IBCS — the same battalion executing the LUT — in fiscal 2022. IBCS will not only serve as the brains of the Army's future Integrated Air-and-Missile Defense System, but will also be the command-and-control system for its future Integrated Fire Protection Capability that will defend against rockets, artillery and mortars as well as cruise missile and unmanned aircraft threats. And IBCS is likely to play an integral part in the next generation program called Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), which is expected to provide an information architecture across all services and domains for warfare. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2020/08/13/army-missile-defense-battle-command-system-takes-out-cruise-missile-threats-in-major-test/