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I wrote up an interview I did last week with Col. Bryan McVeigh, program manager for the Army’s new Ground Combat Vehicle program on companion site DOD Buzz and wanted to post it here for DT readers. I asked McVeigh why the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) request for proposal was held up by the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer Ashton Carter. Carter and his senior staff wanted to make sure that the Army was truly opening up competition for the GCV and that was made clear in the RFP, said McVeigh. The GCV acquisition program “is focused on competition,” with up to three contractors selected for the technology development phase. The Army hasn’t kept two builders going head-to-head through early development since the Abrams main battle tank program, McVeigh said. The Army wants companies other than armored vehicle builders BAE and General Dynamics to pitch proposals. “We want to be able to look at other American companies to allow them to break into this niche market. This isn’t just MGV warmed over. I just don’t want one or two companies that were deep in MGV have a competitive advantage in this,” he said. Read the rest of this entry » March 9th, 2010 | Armor, Big Army, Uncategorized | 14 Comments » 
By Kevin Coleman Defense Tech Chief Cyber War Correspondent If you read recent comments by White House Cyber Security Coordinator Howard Schmidt, that’s the conclusion you might draw. The web posting titled “Howard Schmidt Dismisses Cyber War Fears” has left many asking — does the left hand know what the right hand is saying? Troubling Comments in the post: Schmidt, in a face-to-face interview with GovInfoSecurity.com, said the federal government and the private businesses that control 85 percent of the nation’s critical IT infrastructure are better positioned than ever to fend off massive digital assaults. Well, I guess that could be true; however, that could leave many to believe we have an appropriate level of defense, are safe and we need not invest in cyber defense. These are two points with which I strongly disagree. Schmidt questioned whether such an event as a cyber war can exist. “A cyber war is just something that we can’t define,” he said. “I don’t even know (how a) cyber war would benefit anybody.” How about the benefits a terrorist organization would gain by misadjusting the computerized supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) controls on a water treatment facility and making people ill. That would cause a fair amount of disruption and case fear throughout the nation. That being said, given Schmidt’s comments questioning if a cyber war could exist – next I expect he will want to cancel Cyber Command! Read the rest of this entry » March 8th, 2010 | Cyber-warfare | 20 Comments » 
Big news week for the F-35. As my colleague Colin Clark reported over at DOD Buzz, Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale came out and said the obvious: “If there is cost growth, I think we will just have to reduce the buy.” Hale made those comments at this week’s annual Precision Strike Conference. Will there be cost growth? Yes. Air Force Secretary Mike Donley confirmed the program is headed for a Nunn-McCurdy cost growth breach. And, as Pentagon acquisition history shows over and over as weapons costs grow, the number bought drops. So now it becomes a question of how big a price tag. Colin quotes a congressional aide: “You are looking at least $112 million JSFs, with estimates as high as $137 million – average unit procurement costs.” The Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, Ashton Carter, issued an acquisition decision memorandum slipping full rate F-35 production by 13 months to late 2015 (although Bill Sweetman at Aires blog says 2016 is more likely). A congressional aide emailed Colin: “A 13-month slip seems very optimistic when press reports today suggest they are already at least 11 months behind the 2008 schedule. How did they get from the JET 30-month slip to 13? Maybe I’m too cynical, but this seems overly optimistic. The phrase ‘lipstick on a pig’ comes to mind. The JSF is still an ugly, stinking pig,”
Carter held an unusual conference call with reporters to try and reassure the world everything will be okay. Colin reporting again: “First, we now have a realistic plan going forward, not a blindly optimistic one but not a fatalistic one either,” Carter said during the conference call. The government, working with Lockheed, was able to “reduce the slip in development from 30 months to 13 months,” Carter said.
Worried about all these ominous reports on the program’s status, F-35 supporter Sen. John McCain asked Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to schedule a hearing next week to get some clarity on what’s going on here. Wouldn’t we all like to know what’s going on with the Pentagon’s costliest weapons program. Hopefully next week’s hearings will provide some answers. Read the rest of this entry » March 5th, 2010 | F-35 Watch | 46 Comments » 
My colleague Christian Lowe over at Kit Up reached out to Maj. Tom Ehrhart, the author of the paper on infantry small arms in Afghanistan we’ve been discussing on the site and that has been creating a lot of buzz in Army and special ops circles. Ehrhart, who is over in Iraq, was good enough to write back and give an update on his own research and the response his paper has been getting. What he had to say about infantry tactics in Afghanistan and what led him to research and write the paper I found particularly illuminating. “In discussions with veterans of Afghanistan, I realized that we had another deficiency in training in that we only trained to 300m and our equipment limited us to that distance as well. Engagements were coming beyond this distance and instead of relying on our own ability to finish the fight, we called in supporting fire. Since this wasn’t always available or allowed due to political restrictions, we were more dependent on our own ability to finish the fight. In this case, why weren’t we effective? Was it an equipment limitation, training issue, a facility limitation or just outdated doctrine? This led to another series of questions, such as why do we use the 300m popup course and when did we start? What did we do before then? How did our ancestors train to shoot to distance? This led to the questions about the history of the 5.56 and the M16/M4. I think the history aspect of the paper is interesting for the modern infantrymen to see what his lineage is. While equipment limitations seem to be what most people grasp on to, I still maintain that you must first be able to hit the target. Equipment is secondary to training.”
Go check out Christian’s write up for more. – Greg March 4th, 2010 | Ammo and Munitions, Big Army | 26 Comments » 
Interesting reports out of China on projected defense spending: only a 7.5 percent increase, the smallest in two decades, according to Chinese officials. The NYT reports that Chinese budget documents peg 2010 defense spending at $78 billion, an increase of $5.4 billion over last year’s defense budget. Now, there has always been much debate over the veracity of Chinese defense spending claims and various sources put the annual amounts considerably higher than Beijing’s official figures. That same NYT article says this year is the first time in 21 years that the rate of defense spending has fallen below double digits. Spending had risen an average of 12.9 percent annually from 1996 to 2008. China is investing mightily in its own domestic stimulus package that has so far gotten the country through the recent economic turmoil in amazingly good shape. China’s economy grew at around 10 percent last year. Like most centrally planned economies, when the Chinese want to stimulate demand they do it through massive infrastructure projects, the colossal Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River being a good example. China is spending billions on its high speed rail network, highways, airports, housing, etc. All of which is to say that the slowed rate of defense spending increase, may be a one-off phenomenon. – Greg March 4th, 2010 | Eye on China, Uncategorized | 17 Comments » 
On a conference call earlier this week with Army Maj. Gen. Keith Walker, the service’s Future Force Integration Directorate Commander, I asked him about the crappy performance of the Non Line-of-Sight Launch System’s (NLOS-LS) Precision Attack Missile. The not very precise missile only went two for six in recent limited user live fire tests out at White Sands; the hits only came when it used its laser designator instead of the infrared seeker, which is kind of cheating (laser designated rounds have been around for a long time). Walker, who is in charge of getting all of the former bits and pieces of technology that fell out of the FCS cancellation integrated into the future force, was none too pleased about the NLOS-LS tests; he was there to witness the misses first hand. “It’s a significant impact, obviously,” he said. I asked Walker how much patience the Army has with Raytheon’s missile builders. “It depends on what went wrong, if it’s a matter of the switch was set to A instead of B, then that’s just turning the switch. It’s likely at this point in the evaluation that it’s a bit more complicated than that.” The Army lacks an “easily deployable guided missile system,” he said, but, there is a cost versus benefit issue with the NLOS-LS; the missiles reportedly cost $466,000 a piece. Once the guidance malfunction is identified, then “we can figure out what it would take to fix it. Then the Army’s got the decision: Okay, do we modify the program? Do we cancel the program? Or do we continue?” The Army is having a tough time even figuring out how the NLOS-LS would fit into its precision fires world because it has yet to perform as advertised, he said. March 3rd, 2010 | Big Army, Missiles | 26 Comments » 
Via Stephen Trimble over at the DEW Line blog, is this post from defense analyst James Hasik who makes the case for killing the F-35. As we’ve learned is the cause of most human errors, Gates made his decision to go all-in on the F-35 on the basis of incomplete information, Hasik writes. Now, the F-35 is not justly hugely over budget but development is over a year behind schedule and slowing. Hasik points to cost as the most obvious F-35 vulnerability. After an eight year absence, deficit hawks have returned to Washington and their budget cutting knives are out. “Any bipartisan commission for balancing the federal budget, as announced just last month, will not be able to avoid recommending military spending cuts, and the JSF is simply the unavoidably biggest part of the investment accounts,” he writes. The F-35 also faces a tough road ahead with the program’s overseas partners who see their own fiscal houses sagging under ominous debt loads. It’s when Hasik’s analysis ventures into back of the envelope net assessment territory that I find it most compelling. He contends that the F-35 is not militarily vital. “Several years ago, I asked the head of strategy at a European aircraft manufacturer why his company had no obvious plans for a fighter beyond the current model. “All our customers,” he said, “have enough fighters for chasing Cessnas for the next fifty years.” The next generation of unmanned strike aircraft is alluring, but the air sovereignty mission is just not so compelling today. For frankly, there’s just no threat anywhere that calls for such a huge fleet of land-based fighter aircraft.”
Read the rest of this entry » March 3rd, 2010 | F-35 Watch | 78 Comments » We’re barely halfway through the week, but I don’t think anybody is going to top AvWeek’s inimitable Bill Sweetman on the F-35 program: “Remember this distinction: The Donner Party was on track. They were not on schedule.” March 3rd, 2010 | F-35 Watch, Uncategorized | 4 Comments » 
So that paper we linked to and wrote about yesterday, Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer, is generating some major heat, particularly down at Special Operations Command (SOCOM), we learned today. The paper, written by a student at the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) at Leavenworth, that’s the one for the Army’s best and brightest officers, says the infantry’s standard small arm (the M-4 rifle) cannot engage the enemy in Afghanistan where most firefights occur past 300 meters. This is due to an ineffective round, the 5.56mm, and inadequate training. The paper was written last fall, but has really been making the rounds just in the past few weeks. I brought the paper up this morning during a roundtable discussion at the Pentagon with the folks from Program Executive Office – Soldier. Col. Doug Tamilio, program manager for Soldier weapons lethality (this guys weapons knowledge is unreal), said it was a very good paper, although he thought some of the conclusions were a bit out of context. Tamilio has made it mandatory reading for his shop, particularly after spending a few days down at SOCOM and hearing the splash the paper has made there. “He’s right, the fight in Afghanistan is longer… But you’ve got to go back to where soldiers are today. Can a soldier engage beyond 300 meters accurately? The answer is probably not.” Most soldiers coming out of basic training can’t shoot expertly, except for the few sharpshooters. “It takes a while to become an expert at shooting at ranges beyond 300 meters,” he said. But PEO Soldier is focused on equipping, not so much training. So what is PEO Soldier giving the infantry to take back that half kilometer? To begin with the 7.62mm M-14 Enhanced Battle Rifle (EBR), a modern version of the venerable M14 rifle, Tamilio said. Long a favorite of Navy SEALS and other special ops units, the Army is now distributing two EBR 14s per rifle squad to get more range and lethality. Soldier feedback so far has been very positive, he said. A team is in Afghanistan right now collecting feedback from soldiers and putting together a report to brief to Congress. Read the rest of this entry » March 2nd, 2010 | Afghan Update, Ammo and Munitions, Big Army | 103 Comments » 
I was on a reporter’s conference call yesterday with Army Maj. Gen. Keith Walker, the service’s Future Force Integration Directorate Commander, who discussed Army modernization post FCS. I asked him about new Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) Infantry Fighting Vehicle and how he sees it fitting into the future force. The GCV is intended to replace the Bradley, he said, and will also be used as a battlefield medical vehicle. The number one priority of the GCV, according to what’s written in the initial capabilities document and the capability development document, he said, is to provide armored protection to the soldier, particularly against IEDs. Close behind it is mobility. “The MRAP is not mobile off the roads… protect the individual soldier, having a mobile off-road capability and having it networked… are the three [priorities] that come to mind.” I asked him about GCV strategic mobility, which back in the day was the main goal of the FCS manned ground vehicles (seen above in an artists rendering), to be light enough to fly full brigades to distant battlefields. To be useful in a place like Afghanistan the GCV would have to be lighter than the 30 ton Bradley which is too heavy to fly there in any real numbers. “We would hope that it would be lighter [than a Bradley], but there are some mathematics here. To survive an IED you’ve got to heavy up,” Walker said. The Army’s goal is to build an off-road mobile, heavily armored infantry fighting vehicle, but build it in such a way that it can be made lighter over time. Hence, the modularity concept that figures so prominently in GCV design. Read the rest of this entry » March 2nd, 2010 | Armor, Big Army | 24 Comments » | |
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