HENSOLDT delivers core components to Eurofighter/Typhoon self-protection system

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  25 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - October 22, 2018

  DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Loffredo Fresh Produce Co. Inc.,* Des Moines, Iowa (SPE300-19-DP-341; $9,000,000); and Greenberg Fruit Co.,* Omaha, Nebraska (SPE300-19-DS-731; $27,000,000), have each been awarded a firm-fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quality contract under solicitation SPE300-16-R-0042 for fresh fruits and vegetables. This was a competitive acquisition with two responses received. These are 54-month contracts with no option periods. Locations of performance are Iowa and Nebraska, with an April 22, 2023, performance completion date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and non-DoD schools and tribes. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 through 2023 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Contitech USA Inc., Fairlawn, Ohio, has been awarded a maximum $20,151,800 firm-fixed-price contract for M109 vehicle tracks. This is a one-year base contract with one-year option that is being exercised at time of award. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. Location of performance is Ohio, with a July 8, 2021, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 Army working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime, Warren, Michigan (SPRDL1-19-C-0022). Synergy Logistics Services LLC,** North Kansas City, Missouri, has been awarded a $17,754,019 hybrid fixed-price-incentive-firm, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for government-owned/contractor-operated warehouse and distribution operation services. This is a five-year task order contract with no option periods, inclusive of a three-month transition period. This is a small business set-aside with two responses received. Location of performance is Guam, with an Oct. 31, 2023, performance completion date. Using customer is Defense Logistics Agency. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 through 2023 defense working capital funds. In this ordering period, $2,864,945 will be obligated using fiscal 2019 funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Distribution, New Cumberland, Pennsylvania (SP3300-19-D-5001). National Industries for the Blind,*** Alexandria, Virginia, has been awarded a $13,144,298 modification (P00008) exercising the second option period of a one-year base contract (SPE1C1-17-D-B003) with four one-year option periods for the advanced combat helmet pad suspension system. This is a firm-fixed price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. Locations of performance are Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, with an Oct. 26, 2019, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 through 2020 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. NAVY Alliant Techsystems Operations (ATK), Northridge, California, is awarded $12,792,480 for modification P00007 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N68936-15-D-0019). This modification provides additional funding for the design and development studies and engineering services for rapid technology development of Orbital ATK products. Work will be performed in China Lake, California, and is expected to be completed in June 2020. No funds will be obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake, California, is the contracting activity. Railroad Construction Co. Inc., Paterson, New Jersey, is awarded a $9,095,206 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for maintenance and repair of railroad trackage services at the Naval Weapon Station, Earle and Naval Station Activity, Mechanicsburg. The work to be performed provides for, but is not limited to, all labor, management, supervision, tools, material, and equipment required to provide maintenance, repair, alteration, demolition and minor construction for installation trackage. The maximum dollar value including the base period and four option years is $48,933,014. Work will be performed in Colts Neck, New Jersey (63 percent); and Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania (37 percent). The term of the contract is not to exceed 60 months, with an expected completion date of October 2023. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $1,770,200 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with two proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N40085-19-D-9024). Colonna's Shipyard Inc.,* Norfolk, Virginia, is awarded a $7,966,158 firm-fixed-price contract for a 67-calendar day shipyard availability for the regular overhaul and dry docking of USNS Spearhead (T-EPF 1). Work will include furnishing general services for the ship; physical security at private contractor's facility; clean and gas-free tanks, voids, cofferdams and spaces, heater exchangers; structural inspection and weld repair; aluminum hull repair and structural repairs; support for main propulsion engine overhauls and support for generator overhauls; reduction gear maintenance; annual stern ramp maintenance; communication and navigation annuals; lifesaving equipment annuals; annual ride control maintenance; stern ramp control system and extension swap; tunnel paint expansion and underwater hull paint touch up; and docking and undocking of the vessel. The contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $9,162,956. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by Jan. 10, 2019. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $9,162,956 are obligated at the time of award. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured as a small business set-aside, with more than two companies solicited via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with three offers received, with two found to be in the competitive range. The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N3220519C6700). * Small business ** Woman-owned small business *** Mandatory source https://dod.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/1668500/

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  22 avril 2020 | International, C4ISR

  COVID-19: Army Futures Command Takes Wargames Online

  While the pandemic's halted field exercises, tabletop wargames can continue long-distance. The catch? Getting classified bandwidth so you can discuss specific military capabilities. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on April 21, 2020 at 7:31 AM WASHINGTON: With Pentagon travel restrictions now extended through June 30th, the Army's in-house futurists can't hold their usual face-to-face brainstorming sessions. So rather than delay their work for months, they're moving seminars and wargames online – but there's a tradeoff. The long-distance collaboration tools available so far aren't secure enough for classified data, which means some scenarios are off-limits. The COVID-19 coronavirus has halted some – but far from all – military training and experimentation. Army Futures Command in particular has had to cancel some high-priority field exercises to try out new tactics and technologies, but a lot of its work is thinking about the future, which you can do long-distance, one of its deputy commanders said in a video town hall last week. “We did have to cancel the Joint Warfighting Assessment [JWA] in Europe,” Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley said, “[but] a lot of the work we do in terms of developing concepts...is moving ahead without significant impact.” Wesley runs one of Army Futures Command's three major subunits, the internal thinktank now known as the Futures & Concepts Center (formerly ARCIC), which brainstorms, wargames, and writes about how conflict will change. Tabletop exercises (TTXs, in Army jargon) can move online. That will include the Futures & Concept Center's annual “capstone exercise” on the Army's concept for future warfare, Multi-Domain Operations, he said. It also included another MDO exercise that had been set to take place in May at the Army War College. Four-Star Orders The May wargame was particularly important because it was the kick-off for a study ordered by the four-star chief of Army Futures Command himself, Gen. John “Mike” Murray, one of Wesley's staff officers told me when I followed up. “We wanted to be able to return to Gen. Murray sooner versus later with initial findings,” Col. Chris Rogers told me, “then continue to experiment throughout the summer and the [fall].” The topic that Murray was so intent on? “It was focused specifically on addressing concerns that Gen. Murray had with calibrated force posture,” Rogers said. In layman's terms, that means what soldiers need to be where, with what equipment, at what time, to handle specific threats. In practice, “calibrated force posture” is a 3-D chess game with a few hundred thousand pieces. You have to figure out what kind of forces need to be forward-deployed on allied territory before a crisis starts, what they should do to deter potential adversaries, what warning you might have of an impending attack, what reinforcements you can send in time, how the adversary can stop those reinforcements, how you can stop the adversary from stopping you, and so on ad infinitum. To start tackling these questions, the plan had been to bring officers and civil servants together from all the Army's “schoolhouses” – the armor and infantry center at Fort Benning, the artillery center at Fort Still, the aviation center at Fort Rucker, and so on – for two weeks at the War College. The scenarios to be examined, focused on a particularly challenging region for military deployments: the vast expanses of the Pacific. Now, this wasn't going to be a wargame in the classic sense, with somber men pushing wooden blocks on big maps or icons battling each other on a big screen. No one can write the rules for a detailed simulation yet because the Army's still brainstorming solutions. Instead, such events are more like highly structured seminars, with teams splitting off to analyze particular aspects of the scenario and reporting back on possible plans, at which point they may get challenged with “well, what if the enemy does this?” But precisely because this wasn't a detailed simulation, the Army didn't need specialized software to run it long-distance – just standard online collaboration tools. (In this case, those tools were provided by DTIC, the Defense Technical Information Center). Rogers described the process as a “guided, threaded discussion.” As he explained it, it sounded a lot like an online discussion board, with moderators posting topics and participants posting replies and replies to replies back and forth. That's actually one of the longest-established applications of the Internet, dating back to the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) that predate the World Wide Web. Modern equivalents are much more sophisticated: You can post graphics like maps and operational diagrams, for instance, which are definitely useful for a military planner. But the systems available to Rogers & co. in May still had definite limits. Limiting Factor The biggest issue? “It's an unclassified network, so there are certain things that we lose,” Rogers told me, like the ranges of specific current and future weapons. The compromise the wargamers made is they'll restrict this first exercise to what's called the “competition phase.” That means everything that happens before – or hopefully instead of — the outbreak of a shooting war — the “conflict phase.” Not simulating actual battles might sound like a major handicap for military planners. But the Army has slowly and painfully come to realize that, while it's really, really good at planning combat operations (what it calls “kinetics”), it really needs to practice the strategic, political and propaganda maneuvering that goes on outside of combat (“non-kinetics”), because you can win every battle and still lose the war. Indeed, from Russia seizing Crimea without a shot to China quietly annexing large portions of the South China Sea, America's adversaries have proven highly capable of accomplishing military objectives without firing a shot. Now, military power still matters in the competition phase: Over all the shadow-boxing there looms the threat of force. But because the competition phase is about deterring war, not waging it, what matters is not the actual capabilities of your weapons, but what the enemy thinks your weapons can do. That, in turn, means you can brainstorm the competition phase in an unclassified discussion, using publicly available information, without ever getting into the classified details of what your weapons could really do when and if the shooting starts. “That's why we felt very comfortable with [changing] from a classified event to an unclassified event, [for] the first iteration,” Rogers told me. Likewise, instead of using classified scenarios depicting potential future crises, he said, they used real crises from recent history, where there's plenty of unclassified information, and then discussed different ways the US could have approached them. At some point, of course, the discussion will have to move on from the competition phase to conflict – from how you calibrate the posture of your forces to how those forces, once postured in the right place, would actually fight. Rogers & co. help to get into those classified details in the next major wargame, scheduled for August. August is after the Pentagon's travel ban expires – at least, in its current form. But given how unpredictable the pandemic has been so far, another extension is entirely possible, Rogers acknowledges, so he and his team are studying alternatives to a face-to-face event. As Lt. Gen. Wesley put it in his town hall: “The real issue is, how long does this last?” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/covid-19-army-futures-command-takes-wargames-online/

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  9 septembre 2019 | International, C4ISR

  Who should manage the Pentagon’s AI data? DARPA’s director has a suggestion.

  By: Jill Aitoro The Pentagon's needs one central hub to manage all of the data supporting artificial intelligence across the services — and the newly stood-up Joint Artificial Intelligence Center should be the entity to take that on, said Steve Walker, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA has funded foundational AI work for 56 years, now concentrating on what Walker calls third wave AI that focuses on human and machine interaction as well as building “trust and explainability” of the data, Walker said during a panel discussion at the Defense News Conference on Sept. 4. “Everybody should own it, but I think there's a real need in [the Department of Defense] to understand how to do what we call AI engineering,” he said. “We can do the foundational part, the research, but who's going to manage the data? Who's going to update the data as it changes? Who's going to update the algorithms as the data changes? "I know that the Joint AI Center has stood up in the department. I've encouraged them to take that on for all of DoD and all the services. I think that would be an excellent role for them.” Established in June 2018, the Joint AI Center is an effort to accelerate the Pentagon's adoption and integration of AI at scale. As a center of excellence, Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, JAIC's director, said the organization was intended to expand beyond product delivery to include “strategic engagement and policy, plans and analysis, and intelligence and more.” It's been billed as a clearing house for organizing the DoD's thinking and projects related to AI. That said, it's too soon to know whether JAIC will take Walker's advice and serve as a central manager of sorts for AI data; he did say leadership seemed “amenable” to the idea. A centralized hub for data could also ease efforts underway by agencies. The Air Force has people plugged in with the JAIC effort, as well as DARPA and academic institutions. The service is starting an AI accelerator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where members of the Air Force are embedding with the university's computer science and AI lab. “We're trying to make it real, to take some of what Dr. Walker and his team had been working on and turn it into something that our airmen out in the field can use across the spectrum,” said Gen. Stephen “Seve” Wilson, Air Force vice chief of staff. “Whether you're logistics, whether you're an operator, whether you're space. I would make it real.” At the end of the day, successful AI efforts are based on big data sets. Without that underlying data, the Pentagon is “building a house on sand,” said Juliana Vida, the chief technical adviser for the public sector at Splunk, Inc. “If you don't get the foundation right, the input into the machine-learning algorithm is not going to be complete. It's not going to be correct. Even though it's not cool and it doesn't go bang and it's not sexy, the data is the underlying piece to all of these other technologies,” Vida said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/09/06/who-should-control-the-pentagons-ai-data-darpas-director-has-a-suggestion/