Acquisition headlines

SecNav Modly wants to reduce spending over 5 years by $40 billion to pump shipbuilding and readiness. Here’s how ComNavOps would go about it. Includes Zumwalts, LCS, Ford, Admirals/staff, F-35s and shore side manning.

Latest Milestone for Boeing: It’s Worth Less Than Lockheed Martin. Boeing’s current market cap is just $53.6 bn at the time of writing. Year-to-date, stock price is down 71.5 percent. Lockheed’s market cap is a cool $82 bn, down just 27 percent.

USD(A&S) Ellen Lord statement on misleading cybersecurity certification information. Hustlers promising to certify you for CMMC. Lord: “To be clear, there are no third-party entities at this time who are capable of providing a CMMC certification that will be accepted by the Department.”

Mobilization today might look more like WWI than WWII (James Hasik): “The American “mobilization”—really a surge of production through existing factories—was insufficient to arm them. Consequently, most of the AEF fought with French tanks, artillery, and airplanes. I might call that an efficient division of responsibility, but the sting of industrial failure lingered.”

Launch of China’s new Long March 7A ends in failure.A slice: “It modular design means it shares common engines with other new, cryogenic Long March vehicles. Depending on the cause of the anomaly, the failure could impact upcoming missions… China appears committed to conducting more than 40 launches across 2020, despite the outbreak.”

Pentagon declares defense contractors ‘critical infrastructure,’ must continue work.SOF Space, Cyber Space and Electromagnetic Spectrum Rapid Capabilities Assessment (RCA) Event. 27 April – 01 May 2020

Sending in the cavalry: How the Defense Production Act can assist during the COVID-19 crisis. A slice: President Trump invoked the DPA yesterday to prioritize contracts and orders to meet national defense and emergency preparedness program requirements, specifically in the “areas of health and medical resources needed to respond to the spread of COVID-19, including personal protective equipment and ventilators…”

F-35 ALIS open deficiencies grow to 4,700 over past two years. Finally, a pivot by Dec. 2022: “In the long run, Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) plan to scrap ALIS and replace it with the Operational Data Integrated Network (ODIN).” That’s a cloud-native platform. Hopefully won’t have the same data-rights problems.

A Defense Management Reform Agenda for the Next Administration. Eight priority areas, starting with our friend the PPBE process. Here’s Peter Levine: “The most important step that the next secretary could take—beyond making sure that senior civilian positions are filled with capable, Senate-confirmed presidential appointees—is to strengthen the joint, mission-focused planning, programming, and budgeting process. In the Pentagon, policy is driven by money, and visionary leadership has little impact without control over the financial levers that establish priorities and shape the force.”

Attacks on DOD Networks Soar as Telework Inflicts ‘Unprecedented’ Loads. “As such, we’re taking actions of shutting down YouTube, effective tonight.”