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March 10, 2020 - Saab has received an order from the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence for a mid-life extension and support for the Arthur weapon locating system. The order value is 482 million SEK and was booked in Q4 2019. Arthur protects forces and civilians by providing warning of incoming fire and is also used for tasks including counterbattery missions and fire control. The mid-life extension will represent a major programme of obsolescence management by the insertion of modern technology, ensuring that this critical operational counter-fire capability can be sustained on a cost-effective basis through to its extended out-of-service date. “Our Arthur systems have contributed to protecting UK forces for more than 15 years. We look forward to continuing to strengthen the UK's weapon locating capability for years to come,” says Anders Carp, Senior Vice President and Head of Saab's business area Surveillance. Deliveries of the mid-life extension will take place between 2022 and 2023. The support contract covers 2020-2026. Saab will carry out the work in Gothenburg, Sweden, with support also taking place at 5th Regiment Royal Artillery's Marne Barracks in Catterick, UK. Arthur is known in the UK as the Mobile Artillery Monitoring Battlefield (MAMBA) radar. “MAMBA has long proven itself as a battle-winning capability, protecting civilians and troops on operations for many years. Our troops in Catterick will work alongside our counterparts at Saab to ensure this life-saving piece of equipment remains in service for the next six years”, says Jeremy Quin MP, the UK's Minister for Defence Procurement. The UK received the first Arthur systems from Saab in 2003, and the systems have supported operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. For further information, please contact: Saab Press Centre, +46 (0)734 180 018 presscentre@saabgroup.com www.saabgroup.com www.saabgroup.com/YouTube Follow us on twitter: @saab Saab serves the global market with world-leading products, services and solutions within military defence and civil security. Saab has operations and employees on all continents around the world. Through innovative, collaborative and pragmatic thinking, Saab develops, adopts and improves new technology to meet customers' changing needs. View source version on Saab: https://saabgroup.com/media/news-press/news/2020-03/saab-to-provide-mid-life-extension-for-uks-arthur-systems/

Mark Pomerleau The Pentagon hopes to have the first class of auditors to evaluate contractors' cybersecurity ready by April, a top Department of Defense official said March 5. The auditors will be responsible for certifying companies under the new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), which is a tiered cybersecurity framework that grades companies on a scale of one to five. A score of one designates basic hygiene and a five represents advanced hygiene. Currently, there are no auditors — known as Certified Third-Party Assessment Organizations (C3PAO) — as the accreditation board came about officially in January. “Our goal is to have, in late April, our pilot pathfinder on the training for the C3PAOs,” Katie Arrington, chief information security officer for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, said at an event hosted by DreamPort in Columbia, Maryland. The accreditation board is working on training the auditors and the accompanying training materials Arrington said just because there aren't any auditors already working doesn't mean companies shouldn't be getting ready. “You've got to get prepared for the audit,” she said. “You should be able to say ‘I think I've done my self assessment, I think I'm at this CMMC level.' Waiting for the audit to come in and then decide to get good or to get on track is not the way I would position my business.” If all goes according to plan, all new contracts in 2025 will feature the security requirements. Arrington also suggested that the framework has received interest outside the DoD. “Do I think that other federal agencies are getting on board? Yes they are. They're waiting for me to get through my pathfinder,” she said. She also referred to comments made by Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord, who explained nearly a dozen nations and international organizations are interested in adopting CMMC. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2020/03/09/the-pentagons-first-class-of-cybersecurity-auditors-is-almost-here/

By: Chiara Vercellone WASHINGTON — The United States was the largest exporter of major arms from 2015-2019, delivering 76 percent more materiel than runner-up Russia, according to a new study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank. The U.S. contributed about 35 percent of all the world's arms exports during that five-year time period, partly supported by the increased demand for American advanced military aircraft in Europe, Australia, Japan and Taiwan, said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at SIPRI. The study found that the U.S. provided major arms — defined by the think tank as air defense systems, armored vehicles, missiles and satellites, among other materiel — to 96 countries in those five years, with half of the weapons going to the Middle East. From 2015-2019, Russia's major arms exports decreased by 18 percent; France's increased by 72 percent, making it the third largest exporter; and Germany's increased by 17 percent, making it the fourth largest exporter. Worldwide arms exports rose nearly 6 percent in 2015-2019 from 2010-2014, and increased 20 percent from since 2005-2009, SIPRI said. Arm exports to countries in conflict in the Middle East increased by 61 percent in 2015-2019 compared to 2010-2014, the study showed. Saudi Arabia, the country to which the U.S. exported the most arms, was the largest importer globally in 2015-2019. The kingdom's imports increased 130 percent compared to the previous five-year period. Armored vehicles, trainer aircraft, missiles and guided bombs were among the leading arms purchased by the kingdom. Despite attempts in Congress to restrict arms exports to Saudi Arabia, the delivery of major arms, including 30 combat aircraft ordered in 2011, continued in 2019 as the U.S. provided 73% of Saudi Arabia's imports. In May, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration to push through an $8 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries for precision-guided bombs and related components. In July, he said blocking the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia would “weaken America's global competitiveness and damage the important relationship [the United States] share with [its] allies and partners.” U.S. arms exports to Europe and Africa increased by 45 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in 2015-2019. U.S. arms exports to Asia and the Oceania region decreased by 20 percent, as a result of fewer arms exports to India, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Since 2018, the U.S. has exported almost 100 major weapons to international organizations like the United Nations, the African Union and NATO, the report said, noting that Russia did not send weapons to these organizations. Among the top 10 arms exporters outside Europe and North America, Israel and South Korea showed the biggest increase in exports. Israeli arms exports increased by 77 percent in 2015-2019 — a record for the country, according to the study. South Korea, which showed a 143 percent increase during that same time period, more than doubled its number of export clients. https://www.defensenews.com/2020/03/09/who-were-the-largest-major-arms-exporters-in-the-last-5-years/

By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — In a move with sweeping consequences for the U.S. Navy's battle force, the service is canceling plans to add 10 years to the expected service lives of its stalwart destroyer fleet, a cost-savings measure that would almost certainly hamper plans to grow the size of the fleet. In written testimony submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Navy's Assistant Secretary for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts said performing service life extensions on Burkes designed to bring them up from 35-year hull lives to 45 years was not cost-effective. “Service life extensions can be targeted, physical changes to specific hulls to gain a few more years, or a class-wide extension based on engineering analysis,” the testimony read. “The Navy has evaluated the most effective balance between costs and capability to be removing the service life extension on the DDG 51 class.” The Navy's destroyers are the workhorses of the fleet, with sailors spending an average of one in every four days underway, the highest rate in the fleet, according a recent report from Defense News' sister publication Navy Times. The decision to ax the service life extensions for the Arleigh Burke class comes after years of assurances from Navy leaders that the destroyers would be modernized with an eye to growing the fleet over the coming decades. Navy leaders have offered assurances that the fiscal 2021 budget continues to grow the fleet despite its significant cuts to shipbuilding and existing force structure, but it is unclear how the fleet will continue to grow past the next five years if service life extensions on the earliest Burkes don't go forward right away. It would also seem to have significant impact on the current push from acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly to grow the fleet to 355 ships in a decade. In its FY20 30-year shipbuilding plan, the Navy said extending the lives of the Arleigh Burkes was an imperative to growing the fleet to a battle force of 355 ships. Instead, the cancellation of the service life extensions means that between 2026 and 2034, the Navy is slated to lose 27 destroyers from its battle force. Those losses would compound the impact of cutting 10 ships from the five-year projections in the FY21 budget, including five of the 12 proposed Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers from the FY20 budget and a Virginia-class attack submarine. The Defense Department has yet to submit its FY21 30-year shipbuilding plan, which means that it's impossible to tell how the Navy thinks these cuts would affect its total ship count in the years when it would lose Burkes at a rate of more than three per year. But the Burke retirements would begin in 2026 or 2027, years just after the service completed shedding 13 cruisers from its fleet, leaving just nine of the Navy's largest combatants in the fleet. In a statement, Capt. Danny Hernandez, spokesman for Geurts, said there are a lot of variables in getting the fleet to its goal of 355 ships, but that the Navy's top priority is keeping the recapitalization of its retiring Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines on track. “Like Navy leaders have stated during testimony, the tradeoffs were complex to get the right balance,” Hernandez said. Service lives According to a Naval Sea Systems Command document obtained by Defense News in 2018, the earliest Arleigh Burke destroyers — 27 so-called Flight I and early Flight II destroyers — have an expected hull life of 35 years. The lead ship, the Arleigh Burke, was commissioned in 1991, meaning its hull life is up in 2026. DDG-51 through DDG-78 — the Flight I destroyers — were commissioned between 1991 and 1999. Later models — Flight IIA — have 40-year hull lives. In 2018, then-Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Systems Vice Adm. Bill Merz told USNI News that there were distinct advantages to upgrading the entire class, and that instead of just a combat systems modernization aimed at boosting ballistic missile defense systems, the ships would get the full hull and mechanical upgrades that would extend the ships out to 45-year service lives. “This is an HM&E [hull, mechanical and electrical] extension, but every destroyer is already in the modernization pipeline, so every destroyer will be modernized,” Merz said. “The modernization they receive that's already programmed may carry them through. “Obviously the threat's going to get a vote on that, but one of the beauties is instead of doing an individual ship-by-ship extension and extending the entire class, now we have the visibility to actually plan for that. We can pace it, plan it, fund it efficiently instead of one-and-done, one-and-done, one-and-done. We can be a lot more deliberate about how we handle this class.” In testimony that year, Merz said ballistic missile defense was the biggest requirement driving the retention of the DDGs to 45 years. Compounded with cuts to the Flight III destroyers, it seems likely that the Navy by 2034 will have a significantly reduced ballistic missile defense capability with at least 32 fewer ballistic missile defense-capable destroyers in the fleet, if this budget is enacted. When asked during its FY21 budget rollout if cutting five Flight III DDGs corresponds to a reduction in demand for ballistic missile defense-capable ships, Navy budget director Rear Adm. Randy Crites told reporters it was a decision based “strictly [on] affordability.” The Navy has in recent years declared the Arleigh Burke hull design maxed out, with the Flight III being packed to the gunwales with power and cooling to support the inclusion of Raytheon's SPY-6 air and missile defense radar. Future combatants will have to accommodate more power generations and storage to support systems such as laser weapons and rail guns. The excess electrical power capacity in the Ford-class aircraft carrier, for example, is one of the main reasons the Navy considers the new class valuable even as aircraft carriers become more vulnerable to high-speed, anti-ship missiles. Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the cuts were a necessary step. Clark recently authored a study with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments that called for canceling the DDG service life extensions. “It's crazy to throw good money after bad for a bunch of ships you say you don't need,” Clark said. “I think the Navy is coming to grips with the fiscal realities; the unsustainable nature of their current plan; and the recognition it is going to have a need for fewer large surface combatants in the future and needs to husband its resources to build a larger fleet of smaller surface combatants. Those are going to be the bulk of the distributed force they intend to have.” https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/03/07/destroyers-left-behind-us-navy-cancels-plans-to-extend-service-lives-of-its-workhorse-ddgs/

AIR FORCE Digitized Schematic Solutions LLC, Warren, Michigan, has been awarded a $260,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for technical data support services. This contract provides for the sustainment of Air Force Materiel Command technical data by standardizing roles, processes and methodology. Work will be performed at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia; Hill Air Force Base, Utah; Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma; and Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. Work is expected to be complete by March 2025. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and 11 offers were received. Fiscal 2020 funds in the amount of $2,000 are being obligated at time of award. Air Force Sustainment Center, Robins Enterprise Contracting, Warner Robins, Georgia, is the contracting activity (FA8530-20-D-0002). The New Jersey Department of Human Services, Trenton, New Jersey, has been awarded a $57,806,700 firm-fixed-price contract for food service. This contract provides for full food service to the dining facilities on the Dix area of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JB MDL), New Jersey. Work will be performed at JB MDL, New Jersey, and is expected to be complete by April 30, 2021. This award was the result of a competitive acquisition and the award was made under the priority afforded under the Randolph-Sheppard Act. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance and overseas contingency funds will be obligated by individual task orders. The 87th Contracting Squadron, JB MDL, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (FA4484-20-D-0011). C. W. Roberts Contracting Inc., Tallahassee, Florida, has been awarded a not-to-exceed $49,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract provides for resurfacing, painting, removing, replacing/reinstallation, modifying, full depth reconstruction and new full depth construction of pavements (e.g. airfield, roadways, parking lots, sidewalks, etc.); ramp-downs; foundation walls and footings; curbing; parking bumpers; and traffic control devices. Work will be performed at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida; and Duke Field, Florida, and is expected to be complete by March 31, 2025. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and two offers were received. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $1,000 are being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Test Center, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity (FA2823-20-D-0003). Valiant Global Defense Services Inc., doing business as Valiant Integrated Services, San Diego, California, has been awarded a $30,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for research and development. This contract provides for the research, development, testing and evaluation of joint and coalition requirements for tools and technologies that allow for joint and combined planning and data interchange with U.S. coalition partners in multiple theaters of operation to maximize interoperability and mission effectiveness when combatting chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats. Work will be performed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii; and the Undersea Warfare Development Center, San Diego, California, and is expected to be complete by Sept. 6, 2027. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and one offer was received. Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $1,577,055 are being obligated on the initial task order; and fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $1,734,995 are being obligated on the second task order, at the time of award. Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright Research Site, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8650-20-D-6058). Raytheon Corp., Marlborough, Massachusetts, has been awarded a $26,148,084 modification (P00092), to previously awarded contract FA8705-14-C-0001. This modification provides for delta pricing B-Tables for added and deleted work for contract line item numbers 0004, 0005 and 0006 for Global Aircrew Strategic Network Terminal. Work will be performed in Largo, Florida, and is expected to be complete by October 2021. Fiscal 2019 procurement funds in the amount of $16,533,066 are being obligated at the time of award. This modification brings the total cumulative value of the contract to $366,523,499. Air Force Material Command, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity. ARMY The Boeing Co., Mesa, Arizona, was awarded a $191,858,915 cost-no-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price contract for post-production support services and warehouse management services for the United Kingdom AH-64E Apache helicopter fleet of 50 aircraft and three Longbow crew trainers. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2024. Fiscal 2020 Foreign Military Sales (United Kingdom) funds in the amount of $191,858,915 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-20-C-0014). Manhattan Construction Co., Arlington, Virginia, was awarded an $85,407,155 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of a new four-story, 201,000 square-foot general instruction building to support the U.S. Army War College. Bids were solicited via the internet with six received. Work will be performed in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, with an estimated completion date of March 29, 2023. Fiscal 2020 military construction, Army funds in the amount of $85,407,155 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W912DR-20-C-0007). NAVY Lockheed Martin Corp. and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, are awarded a not-to-exceed $173,164,400 modification to a previously awarded, fixed-price-incentive-firm-target advance acquisition contract (N00019-20-C-0009). Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas (30%); El Segundo, California (25%); Warton, United Kingdom (20%); Orlando, Florida (10%); Nashua, New Hampshire (5%); Cameri, Italy (5%); and Baltimore, Maryland (5%). This modification procures long lead materials, parts, components and support necessary to maintain on-time production and delivery of Lot 15 F-35 aircraft for the Navy, Marine Corps and government of Italy. Work is expected to be complete by December 2023. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $53,064,400; and non-Department of Defense participant funds in the amount of $120,100,000 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. Lockheed Martin Corp. Rotary and Mission Systems, Baltimore, Maryland, is awarded a $25,449,876 firm-fixed-price contract for Launch Sequencer (LSEQ) Mark (MK) 5 Mod production in support of the Vertical Launch System (VLS). The LSEQs are used in support of the VLS, which provides area and self-defense, anti-air warfare capabilities, counter-air and land attack cruise missile defense and surface and subsurface warfare capabilities. This contract involves Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to South Korea and Finland. Work will be performed in Oldsmar, Florida, and is expected to be completed by March 2021. This contract will provide for the manufacture, assembly, test and delivery of VLS LSEQ MK 5 Mod 2, Part Number 7104340-29. This contract includes options, which if exercised, will bring the cumulative value of this contract to $74,415,030. If all options are exercised, work will continue through March 2022. Fiscal 2017 and 2018 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2020 procurement defense wide (Navy); and fiscal 2020 FMS funding in the amount of $25,449,876 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with three offers received. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, Port Hueneme, California, is the contracting activity (N63394-20-C-0004). Lockheed Martin Corp., Baltimore, Maryland, is awarded a $22,436,852 letter contract for the integration, demonstration, testing and operation of the Layered Laser Defense (LLD) weapon system prototype onboard a Navy littoral combat ship while that vessel is underway. Work will be performed in Moorestown, New Jersey (30%); Baltimore, Maryland (25%); Sunnyvale, California (12%); Woodinville, Washington (10%); Manassas, Virginia (5%); Dallas, Texas (15%); San Diego, California (2%); and Santa Cruz, California (1%). Key areas of work to be performed include development of a prototype structure and enclosure to protect the LLD from ships motion and maritime environment in a mission module format; system integration and test with government-furnished equipment; platform integration and system operational verification and test; systems engineering; test planning; data collection and analysis support; and operational demonstration. Work is expected to be complete by July 2021. The total cumulative value of this contract is $22,436,852. The base period is $22,436,852 and no options are proposed. The action will be incrementally funded with an initial obligation of $11,218,426 utilizing fiscal 2019 research, development, and test and evaluation (Defense-wide) funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured under N00014-20-S-B001, “Long Range Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for Navy and Marine Corps Science & Technology.” Since proposals are received throughout the year under the long range BAA, the number of proposals received in response to the solicitation is unknown. The Office of Naval Research, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N00014-20-C-1003). DEFENSE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AGENCY General Dynamics Information Technology, Fairfax, Virginia, was awarded a firm-fixed-price task order, HC1013-20-F-0073, to support the Air Force Air Defense Communication Services (ADCS). The face value of this action is $7,171,537, funded by fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds. The total cumulative value of the order is $14,486,526. This task order was awarded under the competitively awarded, single-award blanket purchase agreement (HC1013-15-A-0004) against General Services Administration's Information Technology Schedule 70 contract for ADCS. The place of performance is throughout the continental U.S., as well as Alaska, Hawaii and Guam. The period of performance for this action is April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021. There are two, six-month option periods from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is the contracting activity. https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2106160/source/GovDelivery/

“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/

"Our fully networked C3 [Command, Control, & Communications] will look completely different" from current satellites and terminals, said OSD's Doug Schroeder. By THERESA HITCHENS SATELLITE 2020: The Pentagon wants industry ideas on how to craft a “fundamentally new architecture” for command, control and communications (C3) that will allow “any user using any terminal to connect to any other user using any other terminal,” says Doug Schroeder, who oversees the effort under the Office of Research and Engineering (R&E). This kind of omnipresent, all-service connectivity across land, sea, air, and space is essential for the Pentagon's rapidly evolving of future war, known as Joint-All Domain Operations. “Our Fully Networked C3 communications will look completely different. We have a new vision. We're crafting it with the help of industry,” he said. “We're relying on very heavily on industry, starting with this Broad Agency Announcement dated March 6,” which asks for companies to submit white papers in short order. According to Schroeder, the Space Development Agency (SDA) will be the funding authority. Vendors whose short, 10 to 15 page white papers are chosen will be invited at the end of April to a Pitch Day. Winners then will be given three months to develop a proposal; contracts for prototypes will be granted 24 months later. Speaking to a relatively sparse audience here at the annual commercial satellite industry conference, Satellite 2020 — which is underway despite the threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus — Schroeder stressed: “We are going to take our new direction from you.” The new strategy, called Fully Networked C3 (FNC3), is being spearheaded by R&E director Mike Griffin and his assistant director for FNC3, Michael Zatman. According to the BAA, the first issued under the effort, the new strategy is being designed to “enable the DoD to reliably communicate with all its tactical and strategic assets.” C3 is one of Griffin's Top Ten areas of technology innovation for which DoD is developing an agency-wide development strategy. Specifically, DoD now is looking for “Beyond-Line-Of-Site (BLOS) communications systems for airborne, surface, and subsurface systems that is [sic] compatible with both FNC3 enabled systems and legacy systems,” the BAA states. The BAA calls for White Papers to be submitted by March 30 for three different types of BLOS technologies: 1. Protected Radio Frequency (RF) BLOS Communications. 2. Multi-User/Multi-Point High-Data-Rate Laser Communications. 3. Communications with submerged assets. R&E intends to “develop, prototype, and demonstrate each innovative communications capability with the goal of transitioning the technologies into programs of record,” the BAA said. To ensure speedy results, DoD will use Other Transaction Authority (OTA) for prototyping (found under 10 U.S. Code § 2371b.) Much of the detail about the effort is contained in classified annexes. What we do know: Beyond-Line-Of-Sight communications relayed through satellites generally require equipping platforms — such as aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles — with high-throughput voice and data links, capabilities all of the services have expressed interest in. In particular, after years of little progress, Griffin has reinvigorated DoD interest in optical communications via laser links, in large part due to fears about Russian and Chinese RF jamming. Commercial industry has been rushing to develop optical links to enable satellite-to-satellite data transmission, and the Space Development Agency is interested in that capability for its so-called transport layer of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit. Radio-frequency communications with submarines when underwater are generally limited to terse text messages, transmitted at very low frequencies (three to 30 kilohertz) and extremely low frequencies (three to 300 hertz) and requiring very large antennas to receie them. Research work is ongoing at MIT on how to link traditional underwater sonar to airborne RF receivers, a methodology called Translational Acoustic-RF) communication. Research also is ongoing, including at MIT's Lincoln Lab, on using narrow-beam lasers to allow one underwater vehicle to communicate with another. BLOS communications can also be accomplished without using satellites. Alternative method include tropospheric scatter using microwave radiation, high frequency (HF) wireless, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) relays, and passive reflector systems. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/pentagon-seeks-new-satcom-tech-for-fully-networked-c3

By: Joe Gould and Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON ― The U.S. aerospace and defense sector is feeling the impact of the coronavirus, with companies limiting travel, defense trade events scuttled and contingency planning underway. As stocks fell sharply Monday on a combination of coronavirus fears and plunging oil prices, defense firms were girding for the worst and looking to the White House for guidance. The comments came days after spread of the coronavirus forced the weeklong closure of two F-35 related facilities in Italy and Japan―a sign the outbreak had begun to impact operations within the American defense industrial base. “The normal ways of doing business are definitely going to change,” said Aerospace Industries Association CEO Eric Fanning. “We're trying to get to the place where we're not reacting on a day-to-day basis to what's happening and getting in front of some of these things and maybe making some proactive decisions. But everyone is kind of looking to everyone else to take the lead on how to address this.” Lockheed, Raytheon and Honeywell were among dozens of companies that pulled out of last month's Singapore Air Show, which is typically the largest defense trade show in Asia―and SXSW, a show AIA participates in, was cancelled. The two offer a glimpse into how fears of corona virus could impact other defense trade shows and conferences. “It felt like a ghost town. It definitely was a strange experience,” Fanning said about the Singapore conference. While it's easy to overstate the importance of trade shows in cementing major deals, the deals announced at the shows are often worked out in advance, Fanning said. Still, the shows are still valuable for face-to-face networking between international defense officials and industry. As of Monday, the National Defense Industrial Association still planned to hold its Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Fla., this May. Its 2020 Pacific Operational Science and Technology Conference in Honolulu was ongoing this week, with more than 700 attendees, a spokeswoman said. At least one major defense firm, Boeing, has limited its employees to “business-essential” travel, and it has been rescheduling some events, reducing face-to-face meetings in favor of virtual meetings, enabling telecommuting when possible. “These measures are temporary and aimed to prevent the spread of the virus, shorten its impact and ensure the health and safety of our employees as well as the general public," a Boeing spokesman said. The virus has infected more than 110,000 people worldwide, and Italy on Sunday followed China's lead in quarantining a big swath of its country in hopes of corralling the spread. That sparked more fears in the financial markets that quarantines would snarl supply chains for companies even more than they already have. While COVID-19's long term impacts on the defense aerospace industry may take time to manifest, they could be complicated by the uncertainty of the financial market and ongoing trade wars with China, according to Fanning and others. “Supply chains are global, they're inter-related, they're incredibly complex. Having real good situational awareness into them is difficult to begin with, then you add any instability on top of it, it gets harder. And this definitely is added to that,” Fanning said. The new coronavirus is now spreading on every continent except Antarctica and hurting consumer spending, industrial production, and travel. As COVID-19 spreads around the world, many investors feel helpless in trying to estimate how much it will hurt the economy and corporate profits, and the easiest response to such uncertainty may be to get out. After initially taking an optimistic view on the virus — hoping that it would remain mostly in China and cause just a short-term disruption — investors are realizing they likely woefully underestimated it. On Monday, the Dow Jones U.S. Aerospace & Defense Index was down 26 percent over the last month, lagging the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was down 18 percent. “Defense should do relatively better [than consumer sectors], but it's not gonna be immune,” said Byron Callan, a policy research expert at Capital Alpha Partners. “It's gonna catch a mild fever where, you know, there are gonna be other parts of the U.S. economy that are gonna be in a critical situation." “Buy-America” regulations and other controls mean the U.S. defense industry's supply chains may be less susceptible to disruption than some consumer sectors, where reliance on China-made components is more widespread―and few, if any supply chains are as globally linked as the F-35's, said U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Defense and Aerospace Export Council's president, Keith Webster. “I would say in the U.S. defense sector's supply chain is less vulnerable than maybe a product in the commercial sector, but we'll have to see,” Webster said. “If this continues across the F-35 partner nations, with their industrial sharing, one could see an impact.” On the flip side, China's weeks-long factory closures could eventually see parallels in the U.S., if the virus is not quickly contained. White collar employees may be able to telecommute, but if skilled laborers are forced to stay home, that could mean problems for the primes and their lower-tier suppliers. “Are there parallels to China in the U.S.? We don't know,” Webster said. “The first step is containment, and the next step is mitigation. China went into mitigation very quickly, which is keeping everybody home. We're just beginning to see that thought process here.” Short of factory closings, factory workers staying home for school closures or to care for sick relatives could trigger work slow downs, particularly at the lower tiers of the supply chain, especially the ones that rely on smaller pools of workers. Those companies could suffer too if they rely on the commercial side of the aerospace sector, which is expected to be harder hit, Callan said. “You can see the ramifications on the pace of work, but it's not like the airline industry or the cruise ship industry where all of a sudden none of your customers show up,” Callan said, adding: “There could be a cascading effect from some commercial aerospace. Again, it's at very, very small level, but it's still a factor.” The Associated Press and Aaron Mehta contributed to this report. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/03/09/coronavirus-shaking-up-americas-defense-industry/

Program to fund deployment and evaluation of PATSCAN Platform, including its video fight detection module TORONTO, ON (March 9, 2020) – Patriot One Technologies Inc. (TSX: PAT) (OTCQX: PTOTF) (FRANKFURT: 0PL) (“Patriot One” or the “Company”), is pleased to announce it has been awarded a contract for the PATSCAN Multi-Sensor Covert Threat Detection Platform (the “PATSCAN Platform”) by Innovation Solutions Canada (ISC) for Correctional Service Canada (CSC). The contract will include the purchase, deployment and evaluation of the PATSCAN Platform, including the video fight and disturbance detection module. Deployment of the PATSCAN Platform will begin with Correctional Service Canada (CSC) in March 2020 at an undisclosed location. The contract from Innovative Solution Canada (ISC), was awarded to Patriot One for its PATSCAN Platform, with specific interest around the Video Object Recognition Software (VRS) solution for the detection of visible make-shift knives, cellphones, as well as disturbances and fights, all of which have been issues with correction facilities and their management teams. The Platform was evaluated and pre-qualified under the ISC's Testing Stream, formerly named the Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP). The Testing Stream helps connect Canadian innovators with federal government departments that are willing to test their innovation and provide innovators with valuable testing feedback. “We've been working with Innovative Solutions Canada Program, formerly BCIP, on this project, prior to being acquired by Patriot One in December 2018,” shared Dr. James Stewart, SVP Video Analytics at Patriot One. “We are excited to be part of the program to demonstrate our capabilities to not only detect concealed and visible threat objects with our PATSCAN Platform, but also help correctional facility management and guards quickly detect fights and disturbances that at times breakout between inmates.” Patriot One's business development and engineering teams have begun work with teams at ISC and Correctional Service Canada (CSC) on the production of the PATSCAN Platform, which will be delivered for installation and deployment at an undisclosed facility beginning March 2020. Following onsite testing and evaluation, Patriot One, and CSC will discuss the possibility of expanding the Platform deployment across Canada. Respectfully “Martin Cronin” Martin Cronin, CEO About Patriot One Technologies Inc. Patriot Ones' mission is to deliver innovative threat detection and counter-terrorism solutions for safer communities. Our PATSCAN™ Multi-Sensor Covert Threat Detection Platform provides a network of advanced sensor technologies with powerful next generation AI/machine learning software. The network can be covertly deployed from far perimeter to interiors across multiple weapons-restricted facilities. The PATSCAN™ platform identifies and reports threats wherever required; car park, building approach, employee & public entryways and inside the facilities. Each solution in the platform identifies weapons, related threats or disturbances for immediate security response. Our motto Deter, Detect and Defend is based on the belief that widespread use of the PATSCAN™ platform will act as an effective deterrent to diminish the epidemic of active threats around the globe. For more information, visit: www.patriot1tech.comor follow us on Twitter and Facebook. About Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) Innovative Solutions Canada helps Canadian innovators by funding R&D and testing prototypes in real-life settings. The program operates two streams with a combined funding of over $140 million dedicated to Canadian innovators who want to start, grow, and get to market. For further information, please contact: Patriot One Technologies Inquiries info@patriot1tech.com www.patriot1tech.com Investor Relations John Martin, Patriot One Technologies +1 (888) 728-1332 johnm@patriot1tech.com Media Contacts: Scott Ledingham, Patriot One Technologies +1-613-806-7135 scott@prmedianow.com Innovation Solutions Canada (ISED) Ottawa Headquarters Telephone: 343-291-1777 Business hours: 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m media relations team. CAUTIONARY DISCLAIMER STATEMENT: No securities exchange has reviewed nor accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to system sales, product development, licensing, commercialization and regulatory compliance issues and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as “will”, “may”, “should”, “anticipate”, “expects”,” believes”, and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include counterparty default and other risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulations. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements only as expressly required by applicable law. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. https://patriot1tech.com/corporate-news/patriot-one-secures-contract-for-correctional-service-canada-from-innovative-solutions-canada/