Sep 29, 2011 16:28 UTC
SERE training
In late September 2011, SERE Solutions, Inc. in Spokane, WA received a $9.2 million firm-fixed-price contract for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (SERE) services. Work will be performed at Fairchild AFB, WA, and Lackland AFB, TX. The Air Education and Training Command CONS/LGCU at Randolph Air Force Base, TX, manages the contract (FA3002-06-D-0008, PO 0026). The contract number indicates that it has been going since FY 2006, but this is the first public DefenseLINK announcement.
SERE is no walk in the park. It’s designed to prepare more than 6,500 aircrew and “high risk of capture” DOD personnel to survive under any conditions. That includes arctic, desert, open ocean, jungle, mountain… and even captivity. Cdr. Frank “Spig” Wead describes his SERE experiences in detail, and its details explain why SERE became a news item in recent years: the use of “waterboarding” on all participating personnel. That same technique was used on a few senior al-Qaeda personnel, most notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but Cdr. Wead’s take on it was not universally shared by those who endured it in SERE school.
Sep 28, 2011 18:43 UTC
(click to enlarge)
In September 2010, Elbit Systems Ltd. announced a $280 million communications modernization contract from the Israeli Ministry of Defense. About $140 million will be invested in new communications equipment over the next 5 years, with the other $140 million paid over 20 years to upgrade and maintain existing systems. Per Israeli requirements, a key part of the project will be performed in a “development area” (here, the Southern Israeli city of Arad), as part of the Israeli Government’s policy to develop industries in the periphery. Elbit Systems.
Israel has been implementing its Tsayad/DAP next-generation communications system over the last few years, in order to enable its different military branches to communicate more easily. It is currently nearing the end of Phase 1, and Elbit is the main contractor. This is not formally part of DAP, but it is complementary. Elbit and its subsidiary Tadiran Communications offer a wide range of radios, military computers, satellite terminals, and even battlefield command and control systems to the global marketplace. While they may lack the size and heft of Harris or Thales, they compete aggressively across a very wide range of systems, and have received substantial foreign orders.
Sep 27, 2011 17:36 UTC
Latest updates: Contract for DDG 115, option for DDG 116.
In 2009, a deal was struck that shifted most DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class work to Bath Iron Works, in exchange for Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls shipyard taking over lead-yard responsibility for the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers, and receiving a greater share of orders for that ship type.
Bath Iron Works will still build some Arleigh Burke class ships, however, and will continue to receive contracts to that effect.
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Sep 26, 2011 15:12 UTC
Part-converted UH-60M
Sept 22/11: The US DSCA announces [PDF] the United Arab Emirates’ request to buy 500 AGM-114R3 Hellfire II missiles, plus containers, spare and repair parts, support and test equipment, repair and return support, training equipment and personnel training, and other U.S. Government and contractor support. The estimated cost is up to $65 million, and if a contract is negotiated, it will be with the Lockheed/Boeing Hellfire Systems LLC joint venture in Orlando, FL. Under Foreign Military Sales rules, the US military will act as the UAE’s agent, and the order will almost certainly be added to the USA’s existing umbrella contract.
The AGM-114R has a triple-threat warhead, which works against armored vehicles, fortified positions, and troops in the open. The UAE can deploy them on its modernized AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters, and also on its forthcoming UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters equipped with the Battlehawk kit.