National Guard wish list would restore fighters cut from FY25 budget

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  6 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  US Air Force gets ready for decision on commercial aerial-refueling services

  By: Valerie Insinna ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force will know by the end of this month whether it will kick-start a competition for aerial-refueling services, the head of Air Mobility Command told Defense News. The service is in the final stages of a feasibility study that is evaluating whether the Air Force should buy commercial tanking services to support day-to-day needs for training and testing, said Gen. Maryanne Miller in an exclusive Feb. 28 interview. “The interest is high on the commercial side. The commercial companies who are considering this are really waiting to see the feasibility study, which will be completed in March,” she said. “The interest is high on the outside. I talked to a few vendors yesterday that was asking me when the study is going to be done. We're all waiting for that.” The study will help the Air Force determine whether it is cost-effective to use commercial aerial-refueling services as well as help set parameters on how a contract could be structured. However, Miller said, industry-operated tankers would not conduct combat or other overseas operations, and instead would be used exclusively for tasks in the continental United States such as augmenting training or for test and evaluation missions that AMC does not always have the capacity to fill. AMC believes its requirement will amount to about 6,000 hours per year, although the study could influence that number. Currently 14 companies have indicated interest in competing for the opportunity, she said. If the service decides to move forward with a competition, it believes it will be able to move from a contract award to an initial operating capability using a few aircraft in about a year, Miller said. “I love the idea. I hope the feasibility proves positive for us. That way we can get our requirements out there, we can start receiving proposals and then work that process as defined. We're optimistic,” she said. “That would be exciting to relieve some of the tension and stress on our force.” Getting Congress to agree to fund aerial-refueling services could be a hard sell, especially as the service considers paring back some of its own capacity. To free up funds for other priorities, the Air Force proposed retiring 16 KC-10s and 13 KC-135s in fiscal 2021. However, the idea has come under fire from U.S. Transportation Command — which has sought funds to buy back 23 of those tankers — as well as lawmakers who question whether the Air Force would be taking on too much near-term risk. But Miller contended that having the flexibility of commercial aerial-refueling services could relieve pressures on the military's own tankers, filling the gap for U.S. missions when there is high demand abroad. “It really just relieves and fills that market of the service missions we just don't get to today. Some of that is readiness-related,” she said. It also could have a positive impact for acquisition programs, as there will be more aerial-refueling resources available for test and evaluation, allowing test points to be completed more quickly and efficiently, and let the Air Force ensure it doesn't wear out its legacy KC-135s too quickly. “Having one more option is just really, really important.” https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/03/05/the-us-air-force-is-getting-ready-to-make-a-decision-about-commercial-aerial-refueling-services/

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  9 octobre 2019 | International, Terrestre

  Who Will Build 651 Parachuting Trucks For The Army?

  By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. WASHINGTON: Three very different teams are vying to build the Army's Infantry Squad Vehicle, a truck tough enough to parachute out of an airplane and then drive away cross-country with nine heavily armed infantrymen. By Nov. 13th, each team owes the Army two vehicles for testing, with the winner getting a contract for 651 ISVs next year. Let's meet the players. The Oshkosh-Flyer team is the closest thing to an incumbent in the competition. The Army had earlier picked the Flyer-72 as an interim air-droppable transport, the A-GMV, and Flyer is offering an upgraded version for the follow-on program, ISV. Actual mass production will be done by Oshkosh, which makes a host of Army trucks — most prominently, the beefed-up successor to the Humvee, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), which the Army and Marine Corps plan to buy over 50,000 of in the coming decades. What's more, Oshkosh plans to build the 5,000-pound ISV on the same assembly line as all its other vehicles, from the 14,000-lb JLTV to 10-ton FMTV dump trucks. (The earlier version of the Flyer-72 was mass-produced by General Dynamics). The ISV will be the lightest vehicle on the Oshkosh line, VP George Mansfield told me, but the company is confident it can build the air-droppable trucks more affordably than Flyer could — and at least as well. In fact, Mansfield said, he expects the Oshkosh-built version to be more reliable. That's in part because of Oshkosh's manufacturing expertise — it won the JLTV contract in large part because its offering broke down less than half as often as uparmored Humvees — and in part because of Flyer's extensive field experience with the earlier versions built for the Army and Special Operation Command. As a team, Mansfield told me, “we've learned a lot about reliability, we've learned a lot about life-cycle cost, that now we can take here at Oshkosh with our extensive knowledge of all the other product lines we sell to the Army.” Polaris and SAIC both have plenty of defense experience. Polaris's DAGOR did lose the earlier A-GMV contest to Flyer, but numerous DAGOR variants are in widespread service with Special Operations Command, the 82nd Airborne Division (shown in the video above), Canada, and other foreign customers the company can't disclose. “The DAGOR is already certified” — by the Army itself — “for all of the transport requirements that the Army is looking for, whether that's internal air transport, sling-load transport, or air-drop,” Polaris VP Jed Leonard told me. And each of those prior customers required tweaks to the platform or special mission equipment — heavy weapons, sensors, radios — that the DAGOR could easily accommodate. Integrating such high-tech kit is SAIC's core competency. While not a manufacturer itself, SAIC has done decades of integration work for the military, most extensively on the MRAP program, fitting other companies' vehicles with the sophisticated electronics that turn a truck into a weapons system. It also provides extensive maintenance and other support worldwide. The two companies have worked together on and off, on small projects, for years, as various customers bought Polaris vehicles and then asked SAIC to equip them for specific military missions. But the current partnership is a big step up for both. The odd man out is GM Defense, which giant General Motors created — in a sense, re-created — not quite two years ago after selling off most of its defense programs back in 2003. GM Defense president David Albritton just came aboard a year ago and has spent much of his time working with “Mother GM” on potential joint projects and spin-offs, from self-driving car technology to hydrogen fuel cells, he told me in an interview. “I'm not reporting any revenues at this point,” he said, although GM Defense does already have some contracts he can't disclose. GM's offering is the only contender without a prior track record in the military. But their ISV is derived from the Chevrolet Colorado, of which US customers have bought more than 100,000 a year of since 2016, giving GM staggering efficiencies of scale no competitor can match. Specifically, the GM ISV a beefed-up, militarized version of the Colorado's offroad racing variant, the ZR2, with which it shares 70 percent of the same parts — parts that are available from Chevy dealers worldwide. GM builds over 10,000 ZR2s a year: a rounding error for General Motors but a megaprogram for the Army. GM's scale advantage is not just in production and parts. It's also in engineering. The company spends over $7 billion a year on R&D, Albritton told me, and its ISV offering includes advanced suspension systems like jounce shocks and dynamic spooling. GM's challenge is overcoming its inexperience in the defense sector — especially, proving it can integrate military electronics onto its civilian-derived vehicle. LRPF: Long-Range Precision Fires. NGCV: Next-Generation Combat Vehicle. FVL: Future Vertical Lift. AMD: Air & Missile Defense. SL: Soldier Lethality. SOURCE: US Army. (Click to expand) The Big Picture Overall, ISV is an especially interesting competition because none of the contenders is a classic defense prime: Oshkosh and Polaris both have lots of civilian customers alongside their extensive military business. Flyer is a subunit of a modest aerospace and defense components-builder called Marvin Group. SAIC is a systems engineering and service firm rather than a traditional Original Equipment Manufacturer. And GM of course is one of the biggest civilian manufacturers in the country. “We make upwards of nine million cars a year,” Albritton told me, each put together out of roughly 30,000 different parts. Compare and contrast the Army's Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program, which is de facto down to a single competitor — defense industry stalwart General Dynamics (which bought GM's previous defense business back in 2003). ISV shows the kind of variety that the Army wants to encourage and needs to infuse innovation and competition into its programs. Yes, at 651 trucks — at least, in the initial 2020 contract — this is a modest program in both size and technological ambition. It's easily overshadowed by the hypersonic missiles, high-speed aircraft, and robotic tanks of the Army's Big Six priorities. By contrast, for the predecessor competition (the one Flyer won) back in 2015, we ran eight stories in three months because there was so little else the cash-strapped and acquisition challenged Army was buying at the time. But the Infantry Squad Vehicle is still an important piece of the larger Army puzzle. The Army's infantry brigades — especially its 82nd Airborne parachutists — are its most strategically deployable units, easily packed into aircraft and flown around the world overnight, while heavy armored forces cram two tanks into one C-17 or, more often, go by ship. But once the infantry arrives, it moves on foot. (Although we bet everyone in the 82nd remembers being called a “speed bump” in this Defense Science Board study.) The idea of ISV is a troop transport light enough to be air-dropped or, more often, delivered by helicopter. That way, the troops can land a long distance from their target — specifically, far enough their transport planes or helicopters aren't shot down by anti-aircraft missiles — and then advance quickly overnight before attacking on foot at dawn. We expect to see all three competing vehicles on the show floor at the Association of the US Army megaconference next week. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/10/who-will-build-651-of-the-armys-parachuting-truck/

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  14 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - June 13, 2019

  NAVY Resource Management Concepts Inc.,* Lexington Park, Maryland, is awarded a $101,231,753 cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-reimbursable, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract provides for information technology engineering and management services for aircraft, avionics, and weapons system requirements in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division's Integrated Battlespace Simulation and Test Department (AD 5.4). Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland (71 percent); Orlando, Florida (7 percent); San Diego, California (6 percent); Jacksonville, Florida (6 percent); Point Mugu, California (5 percent); and Cherry Point, North Carolina (5 percent), and is expected to be completed in July 2023. No funds are being obligated at time of award, funds will be obligated on individual task orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposals as a 100 percent small business set-aside; two offers were received. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00421-19-D-0065). Harper Construction Co. Inc., San Diego, California, is awarded $56,127,477 for firm-fixed-price task order N6247317F4705 under a previously awarded multiple award construction contract (N62473-16-D-1881) for construction of a maintenance hangar, maintenance shop and administrative building at Marine Corps Air Station, Yuma, Arizona. The work to be performed provides for the construction of three facilities in support of project P612 which includes a maintenance hangar, maintenance shop, and an administrative building. Associated work at all three sites includes, but is not limited to, testing and abatement for hazardous materials, demolition/disposal, site grading/prep, utility infrastructure work and relocation of aircraft point-of-service power, repair and install of airfield and other paving, optional photovoltaic system at the hangar site, testing, commissioning, and all incidental related work necessary to provide complete and usable facilities. The task order also contains one unexercised option, which if exercised would increase the cumulative task order value to $56,826,414. Work will be performed in Yuma, Arizona, and is expected to be completed by April 2022. Fiscal 2017 military construction (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $56,127,477 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Four proposals were received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity. Multi-MAC JV,* Yuma, Arizona, is awarded a maximum amount $50,000,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity architect-engineering contract for compliance with air emission regulations, Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act regulations, greenhouse gas and all other environmental media regulations to support Navy, Marine Corps, and other Department of Defense installations and federal agencies worldwide. No task orders are being issued at this time. All work on this contract will be performed at various Navy and Marine Corps facilities and other government facilities within the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic area of responsibility including, but not limited to, California (45 percent); Virginia (15 percent); North Carolina (15 percent); Florida (5 percent); Maryland (5 percent); Washington (5 percent); Georgia (5 percent); and Europe Africa Southwest Asia (5 percent). The term of the contract is not to exceed 60 months with an expected completion date of June 2024. Fiscal 2019 operation and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $10,000 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Future task orders will be primarily funded by operation and maintenance (Navy). This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with three proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N62470-19-D-4010). Technical Data Analysis Inc.,* Falls Church, Virginia, is awarded a $37,735,874 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to provide engineering and technical support services for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Air Vehicle Department. Engineering and technical support services for this effort shall include analysis, development, and integration of warfare systems, aircraft structural life surveillance, service life assessments and service life extensions in support of various Navy and Marine Corps platforms. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland, and is expected to be completed in August 2024. No funds will be obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was a small business set-aside, competitively procured via an electronic request for proposal; one offer was received. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00421-19-D-0069). Raytheon Co., Goleta, California, is awarded a $32,977,260 firm-fixed-price contract to conduct a demonstration of existing technologies (DET) in support of the Dual Band Decoy Program. This DET will demonstrate expanded capabilities of the Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures AN/ALE-55 Fiber Optic Towed Decoy and AN/ALE-50 Advanced Airborne Expendable Decoy used on the F/A-18E/F aircraft. Work will be performed in Goleta, California, and is expected to be completed in September 2021. Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $12,000,000 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via a broad agency announcement, with three offers received. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N0001919C1026). Cape Environmental Management Inc.,* Honolulu, Hawaii, is awarded $13,611,247 for cost-plus-award-fee task order N6274219F0129 under a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N62742-16-D-1807) for implementation of remedial alternatives to address sediments contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls and metals at the Pearl Harbor sediment site. The selected remedies to be implemented will include placement of a thin-layer of clean material for enhanced natural recovery (ENR) and treatment of contaminated sediment with activated carbon amendment material in under-pier areas where dredging or other active remedies are impracticable. The remedy action also includes pre-ENR dredging of sediment where necessary, to provide sufficient clearance below the authorized maintenance dredging elevation for the placement of clean material for ENR. Work will be performed in Oahu, Hawaii, and is expected to be completed by June 2022. Fiscal 2019 environmental restoration (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $13,611,247 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One proposal was received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, is the contracting activity. WR Systems, Fairfax, Virginia, is awarded a $10,918,406 cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the production, engineering, technical and logistical services associated with delivery and technical support of the AN/SPA-25H Indicator Group. These systems support surface ships and are the standard data and distribution system from radar sensors to navigational and tactical displays. Additionally, the Navy has a need to procure durable and reliable state-of the-art switchboards, decoders, converters, switches and upgrades, for existing AN/SPA-25G and AN/SPA-25H installations. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia (90 percent); and various Navy shipyards (10 percent), and is expected to be completed by May 2024. Fiscal 2018 and 2019 other procurement (Navy); and fiscal 2016 and 2017 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $2,335,439 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured on the basis of full and open competition via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with four offers received. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, Dahlgren, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N0017819D4505). ARMY Baker Jacobs JV, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was awarded a $46,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for architect-engineer services. Bids were solicited via the internet with nine received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of June 12, 2024. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Kentucky, is the contracting activity (W912QR-19-D-0030). CGI Federal Inc., Fairfax, Virginia, was awarded a $34,414,693 modification (P00049) to contract W911S0-15-C-0004 for Operational and Environment Core functions support services. Work will be performed in Fort Eustis, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 9, 2020. Fiscal 2190 operations and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $23,000,000 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Mission and Installation Contracting Command, Fort Eustis, Virginia, is the contracting activity. TiER1 Performance Solutions LLC,* was awarded a $19,000,000 hybrid (cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price) contract for research and development. Bids were solicited via the internet with 63 received. Work locations and funds will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of June 13, 2024. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W911NF-19-D-0002). Oshkosh Defense LLC, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, was awarded a $17,335,100 hybrid (cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price) contract for re-baselining the current production configuration and the procurement of capability enhancements to Government Furnished M1070A1 Heavy Equipment Transporters. One bid was solicited with one received. Work will be performed in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with an estimated completion date of July 31, 2020. Fiscal 2019 other procurement, Army funds in the amount of $17,355,100 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W56HZV-15-D-0031). Avion Solutions Inc.,* Huntsville, Alabama, was awarded a $15,189,965 modification (0002 18) to Foreign Military Sales (Afghanistan, Bahrain, Croatia, Egypt, Jordan, Latvia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Sweden, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates) contract W31P4Q-15-A-0029 for logistics support services. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama, with an estimated completion date of June 16, 2020. Fiscal 2019 Foreign Military Sales; other procurement, Army; operations and maintenance, Army; and research, development, test, and evaluation funds in the amount of $15,189,965 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. GTA Containers Inc.,* South Bend, Indiana, was awarded a $14,706,913 firm-fixed-price contract for procurement of collapsible fabric tanks. Two bids were solicited with two bids received. Work will be performed in South Bend, Indiana, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 6, 2022. Fiscal 2019 Army working capital funds in the amount of $14,706,913 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W56HZV-19-F-0409). Goodrich Corp., Brea, California, was awarded a $12,634,182 firm-fixed-price contract for maintenance and overhaul of the Hoist, Internal Rescue. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of June 10, 2024. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-19-D-0037). Oxford Federal LLC, Sheridan, Wyoming, was awarded a $7,762,098 firm-fixed-price Foreign Military Sales (Israel) contract for Site 13900. Six bids were solicited with three bids received. Work will be performed in Tel Aviv, Israel, with an estimated completion date of July 31, 2020. Fiscal 2019 Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $7,762,098 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wiesbaden, Germany, is the contracting activity (W912GB-19-F-0111). CORRECTION: A contract announced on June 12, 2019, for IBM Corp., Bethesda, Maryland (W912DY-19-F-0396), for $9,500,000 incorrectly identified the purpose of the contract. The contract is for the Department Of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Program, Technology Insertion, Army Research Laboratory, Order 17 - Containerized Machine Learning System. All other information in the announcement was correct. U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND The Boeing Co., Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, was awarded a $30,778,000 firm-fixed-price type delivery order (H92241-19-F-0091) under an existing contract (W91215-16-G-0001) to procure components and parts in support of MH-47G rotary wing aircraft. This action is required to satisfy an urgent need to sustain U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) heavy assault, rotary wing aircraft, to mitigate the impact of the MH-47G aircraft availability in light of increased SOF operational demands and to procure H-47 long-range, rotary wing aircraft under foreign military sales acquisition procedures for the United Kingdom. Fiscal 2019 Aircraft Procurement, Army funds in the amount of $20,778,000 and no-year Foreign Military Spending funding from the United Kingdom in the amount of $10,000,000 shall be obligated at time of award for the acquisition of long-lead components and parts in support of the MH-47G Block II Production Program. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The majority of the work will be performed in Ridley Park. U.S. Special Operations Command Headquarters, Tampa, Florida, is the contracting activity. DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Sea Box,* Cinnaminson, New Jersey, has been awarded a maximum $7,364,845 firm-fixed-price contract for TRICON containers. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(2) and 41 U.S. Code 3304(A)(2), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-2(a)(2). This is a one-year base contract with no option periods. Location of performance is New Jersey, with Dec. 31, 2019, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime, Warren, Michigan (SPRD11-19-C-0220). *Small business https://dod.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/1875427/source/GovDelivery/