Esper’s Convenient Lie. Argues the DoD isn’t at a good force structure for Russia/China not because of sequestration and focus on counterterrorism, but because DoD won’t divest from legacy systems. Here’s his Twitter thread: “The problem is when the rubber meets the road in spending … we’re locked in. We keep spending on the same legacy pieces of hardware.”
Air Force seeks a radical shift in how jets, missiles and satellites are designed. Roper wants to make digital engineering a requirement for companies to build major systems in the future. (Maybe with all the kudos Roper is giving Boeing for the T-7A, it is Boeing that quickly developed the NGAD demonstrator.)
Military and Security Developments Involving People’s Republic of China, 2020, Report to Congress. “The PRC has the largest navy in the world, with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships and submarines including over 130 major surface combatants. In comparison, the U.S. Navy’s battle force is approximately 293 ships as of early 2020.”
Jerry McGinn: Reshoring does not mean ‘Buy America’ only. “Norcross’ provision would require that 75 percent and then 100 percent of the Defense Department’s major acquisition programs be manufactured and sourced in the United States by 2021 and 2026, respectively.”
Advanced Battle Management System faces headwinds. Such BS criteria for oversight: “It is unclear how the costs of fully integrating elements of the ABMS family of systems will be accounted for through their lifecycles across multiple programs without simply being handed down as unfunded mandates to individual program managers,” the subcommittee added.
Army backs off idea to submit its own bid in Bradley replacement competition. Arg! I was really looking forward to seeing how that turned out. Only one company competed on the OMFV program. Breaking that down into competitive subsystem developments and having a systems engineering team work with the Army is a compelling model. “The Army plans to release a final RFP in December, which will results in the award of up to five contracts in June 2021.”
New F-16s will all be sold in a single base model configuration with a standardized price. Finally, right? “The development of the pricing, and the back and forth with the country on the pricing, and then the actual pricing when we deliver it to them in the form of an offer and acceptance letter, that takes a very long time.”
Prototyping using Other Transactions: Case studies for the acquisition community.
Pete Newell: Combat leaders go through hell to learn about risk. The acquisition corps should do the same. “Commit resources to recruit, grow, and retain experienced leaders who understand the battlefield, are technologically competent, and can manage risk like battlefield commanders and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs do. This includes creating places to practice where they will learn by failing before the risk of failure becomes too great.”
Space Development Agency praised as change agent in Pentagon procurement. “They did it months. It surprised the heck out of us.”… The agency plans to develop a constellation of small satellites in low orbits and have the first 20 satellites in orbit in two years at a price of about $15 million per satellite — a departure from the traditional model of acquiring large geostationary spacecraft that take years to produce and cost hundreds of millions of dollars apiece.
Space Force delegates acquisition authority to lower offices to speed up buying. Mostly about giving Head of Contracting Authority to Space Force, and reducing Space Force Pentagon officials from 1K to 600, but also, “New weapons and systems will carry an “e-” prefix before their names to signify their digital-first building process.”
Exclusive: CMMC board ousts chairman and other top member. “Board members splintered over the direction their volunteer organization was taking, with some threatening to quit at times. As early as July, a board member tried to file a motion for Schieber’s ouster.”
Controversial: How to formally file a complaint against DoD for CMMC issues. “No one is against volunteers starting their own business but everyone is against their deceptive marketing, lying and leveraging tactics for personal gain when this is a national security issue at stake.”
Podcast: Middle East Brief: The rise of Machines, AI and the future of air combat.
Strategies for Acquisition Agility: Approaches for speeding delivery of defense capabilities. “Agility depends not just on acquisition strategies and processes but also on an empowered workforce and on flexibility and trade-offs in requirements, budgeting, technology, and intelligence activities.”
China builds ‘exact replica’ of US’ stealth F-35 jets but PLAAF rejects the offer. “FC-31 didn’t even receive orders from the Chinese Air Force, even though it was primarily designed for use by the service.” I don’t know about exact replica, considering the FC-31 has two engines!
In its 4th revision to the SEC, Palantir tries to explain what the hell is going on. “It filed a confidential draft registration statement back in July. It filed an amendment. It filed another amendment. It filed its official S-1. Then an amendment, and an amendment, and an amendment, and an amendment. And it’s still not trading.”
AFRL debates number of weapons to be networked for Golden Horde. Flight demos for a network of precision glide bombs and decoys may not start in 2020 as planned.
Are analysts complicit in cost and schedule growth? “I showed that for 10 projects for which a cost risk analysis had been conducted, the actual cost was greater than the 90th percentile for 8 of the 10. The 90th percentile should capture 90% of the variation in the actual cost from that predicted.”
Scientific Freedom: The elixir of civilization. “Scientific Freedom outlines what needs to be done to restore the freedom that can transform scientific understanding.” Should be a good book, and an important idea to drill into the heads of defense leadership.
The Marine Corps will pay pilots up to $210,000 to hang onto its pilots. How about spending that to hang onto strong S&T talent, or management talent? Seems crazy, by the way, that the DoD has to spend that to keep pilots. Must be a declining culture and training time, because you’d think people would want to be aviators if they actually got to fly a lot.
An agile approach to budgeting for uncertain times. “Most planning and budgeting systems are designed to help senior executives predict, command, and control… In a world of unpredictable and accelerating change, long-term forecasts will be increasingly unreliable, and commanding people to stick to flawed plans will grow more dangerous.”
General Atomics unveils ‘ultra long endurance’ replacement for MQ-9 Reaper.
Space dominance requires taking technology and policy risks. “It will involve things like streamlining the over 60 offices responsible for elements of space policy, oversight and force structure to creating a new “Technology and Innovation Office” to sustain our competitive advantage.”
JAIC is working on new contract vehicles to buy AI. “The two FAR-based contracts will focus on data services and testing and evaluation services, according to the JAIC. The OTA-modeled contract will be set up to buy AI capabilities. JAIC set up the vehicles with assistance from the General Services Administration, the agency that has helped the center with its large purchases in the past.”
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