Lawmakers aim to deep-six Pentagon wish lists. (Roll Call) “These wish lists have become the Pentagon’s primary tool to boost an already excessive top line, and these budget games need to stop,” [Sen.] Warren told CQ Roll Call.
- To supporters of the lists, they inform lawmakers about priorities that should be funded if Congress can find the funds. To critics, the lists effectively expand each year’s defense budget request in an unacceptable way that nondefense programs do not.
- The bills would not be acted on this year but are instead viewed by supporters as a message to the Pentagon and Congress ahead of the fiscal 2024 budget cycle.
- Congress typically funds most of the defense UPLs — and then adds still more money for additional projects. In fiscal 2022, Congress added $58 billion the Pentagon did not request for a variety of programs.
New protein-based armor material can withstand supersonic impacts. (New Atlas) “The researchers also say these materials have the potential to absorb the kinetic energy from bullets and shrapnel better than current armor materials made of ceramics and fiber-reinforced composites. Integrating the materials into next-generation armor could therefore make them lighter, longer lasting, and offer better protection against blunt trauma.”
- … the team’s novel material proved capable of absorbing impacts from projectiles traveling at 1.5 km (0.93 miles) per second, deep in supersonic speed territory which begins at Mach 1 – around 343 m (1,125 ft) per second. The team notes this is much faster than the projectiles you’d expect from a firearm which travel from 0.4 to 1 km (0.24 to 0.62 miles) per second.
Virginia attack boat program stalled over tomahawk, hypersonic missile insurance rift. (USNI News) “For decades, the Navy financially indemnified General Dynamics Electric Boat against a Tomahawk accident on its submarines under an “unusually high risk” provision born from the service’s nuclear ballistic missile program… [General Dynamics] has told the Navy it’s unable to obtain adequate insurance to meet the risk of an explosive accident that could result in billions of dollars in damages.”
- Advanced procurement contracts for two of the Navy’s Block V Virginia-class attack submarines have been stalled for 10 months.
- The Navy also denied a similar request from Lockheed Martin to indemnify the company from liability should an accident occur with the under-development Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missile.
How Frank Gehry delivers on time and on budget. (Harvard Business Review) “Frank Gehry’s long struggle to create the Walt Disney Concert Hall taught him something fundamental. Control was indispensable. He had to have it, and keep it, from beginning to end.”
- “Sometimes he produces something for the client that they don’t realize they want because [he] listens so well.”
- Starting with the Golden Fish sculpture designed for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, digital models have been key to all of Gehry’s designs, long before anyone came up with the term “digital twin.”
- The proof is there were no change orders, and that’s a pretty unheard-of result for a 76-story tower.
- [Unlike Frank Gehry’s projects,] 99.5% of large projects failed to deliver as promised.
Navy’s digital horizon exercise showcases the power of mesh networks, AI. (Defense news) “A top takeaway for the commodore is “the importance of the mesh network, which is the main mover for the data — not only to collect the data to power the machine learning and AI tools, but also to control the unmanned systems.”
- Mesh networks, made up of multiple points called “nodes,” are wireless radio devices that communicate with one another, creating an overlapping “mesh” that needs no central hub and allows for quick and efficient data routing.
- The exercise, which kicked off Nov. 23 and runs through Dec. 15, includes 17 industry partners bringing 15 different unmanned systems, 10 of which are being operated in 5th Fleet for the first time, the Navy said in a statement.
US Air Force launches 1st operational hypersonic missile. (Space.com) “The successful ARRW test was conducted on Friday (Dec. 9) in a training range off the coast of California, according to a USAF statement(opens in new tab) released Monday.”
- “Following the ARRW’s separation from the aircraft, it reached hypersonic speeds greater than five times the speed of sound, completed its flight path and detonated in the terminal area. Indications show that all objectives were met.”
- “The ARRW team successfully designed and tested an air-launched hypersonic missile in five years.”
US Army ponders radio as a service to keep communications up to date. (C4ISRNET) “[Starting in Q4 FY23] … the service contracts with a vendor who provides “a minimal number of radios for training,” centrally stores or leases radios for operations and would “upgrade software as required.””
- The Russia-Ukraine war has proven the need for more-insulated networks as well as the dangers posed by indiscriminate cell phone use to relay battlefield information
- The Army has some 350,000 radios — a stockpile too massive to quickly and cost-effectively modernize.
- “It is ironic to me that we would actually come up with any IT program where we think we’re going to be fielding the same capability for decades.”
HII boss sees mission tech business growing faster than shipbuilding. (Defense News) “… inflation is going to make it “potentially a challenge getting new ships under contract.” The question will be whether there’s “enough funding to support the price.””
- The company last year acquired Alion for $1.65 billion, adding more than 3,200 employees. In 2016, the company had picked up Camber, including 1,700 employees.
First Anduril prototype ‘ghost shark’ drone sub delivered to Aussies 3 months early. (Breaking Defense) “As part of the rollout, the $140 million system — the first of three submarines under contract for the Aussies — was also given an official name [Ghost Shark, in a nod to Ghost Bat UAV].”
- the Department of Defence was able “to go from the first conversation to a signed contract of sale within 161 days.
- The prototype shown can, the company said in a statement, “autonomously conduct missions for up to 10 days along the seafloor at up to 6,000 meters deep.”
- Anduril’s modular, software-driven approach means “we can reprogram mid-mission and switch payloads in and out.
- On top of showing off the prototype, to be used for testing and concept definition, Rear Adm. Peter Quinn made clear the still-to-come larger, schoolbus-sized system may carry warheads.
CAEs must provide congress their naughty and nice list. (MITRE AiDA) Pete Modigliani: “In the FY22 NDAA bill, Sec. 806, Congress wants DoD’s Component Acquisition Executives (CAEs) to tell Congress each year which five major defense acquisition programs (MDAPs) they are most proud of and which five they are most disappointed in.”
- For the MDAPs that are still in development, some of the performance criteria should be: Time to Initial Operational Capability (IOC)/Full Operational Capability; Return on Investment – Potential Mission Impact; Responsiveness and Scalability; Contractor Performance; Operational Test Assessments.
- Criteria That I Would Not Recommend: Cost, Schedule, Performance against their Acquisition Program Baseline (APB); Budget; Politics.
Sun Tzu, competition with China and the art of acquisition. (Breaking Defense) “Twenty acquisition experts argue that the US can’t beat China at its own centralized, top-down game – but we can harness American innovation in new ways.”
- Don’t confuse means with ends. Above all, metrics should not be driven by what we can easily measure – like the proverbial drunk looking for his keys under the lamppost.
- Ensure economic objectives are integrated into our acquisition strategy and operations.
- Integrate differing views of portfolio management. Last year, the Pentagon shifted from a program-centric approach to a portfolio-based approach to acquisition.
NCMA, DIU announce partnership to scale agile acquisition tools to Department, USG. (DIU) ““Over the past 6 years, DIU has refined our process around our Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO), providing new capabilities to the DoD at speed,” said Cherissa Tamayori, DIU’s director of acquisition. NCMA and DIU will co-develop and share content on best practices for the DoD and U.S. government contracting communities, specifically stemming from DIU and its use of the Other Transaction (OT) authority.”
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