John Boyd and the development of EM theory
Boyd is, however, a controversial figure. Among USAF officers, Boyd is either loved or hated. Hammond’s introduction refers to him as ‘legendary,’ ‘a great original […]
Month: April 2019
Acquisition Headlines
“Very small differences can have very large impacts [on radar cross section], the most visible part on the A10 was the blades inside the turbine, […]
Ship maintenance required some legal creativity under CRs
Here’s the Navy getting “legally creative” with contracts to keep ship maintenance on track back in 2017: The Navy has gotten creative in dealing with […]
Why does US defense industry fail in “normal” times?
Here is Fredric Scherer discussing why the US defense industry seemed to perform so well in urgent programs of the 1940s and 50s, and so […]
Rumbles on the Columbia-class submarine
Current Navy plans call for construction on the first of 12 Columbia-class nuclear-armed submarines to begin in 2021, with an overall price tag of $128 billion. But […]
Bruce Gudmundsson on learning by decision-forcing cases
Bruce Gudmundsson joins me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss the great work he is doing down in Quantico putting together case studies on […]
Opportunity cost of the Air Force’s inventory
The U.S. must balance current exigencies with future requirements. Any single-focus approach bears a huge opportunity cost… Operating the smallest, oldest, and least ready […]
Battista on the ill-conceived OMB Circular A-109
We join an interesting conversation between Mr. Battista, a Pentagon watchdog and test advocate, and Representative Sheley. They are discussing the recent roll-out of OMB […]
Acquisition Headlines
Recommended article on the Littoral Combat Ship. Here’s a good bit: “Cracks, corrosion, and equipment breakdowns are common in new warship designs, especially designs that […]
David Packard’s impact on defense acquisition
This paper contends that the study of David Packard, the co-founder of electronics firm giant Hewlett-Packard and one of the founding fathers of Silicon Valley, […]
Effects of performance management systems
The unfortunate results of imposing management control systems on contractors was that they then felt obligated to operate two systems in parallel. The contractors used […]
What profits should we be willing to pay defense firms?
One of the long-standing problems has been the fact that the government tends to pay profit as a percentage of cost. If a contractor is […]
Palantir DCGS-A update
Looks like good news for Palantir trying to break into the defense industry. Silicon Valley-based Palantir, who sued the U.S. Army several years ago over the service’s […]
Do defense firms tax the US government?
A good deal of the defense business in your State is conducted by conglomerates. That is another problem. Frequently a conglomerate means the pooling of […]
Cost growth and profitability are hard to pin down
The analysis on the correlation between the lead branch of military service responsible for MDAPs and cost growth patterns reveals that programs led by the […]