ROC-X – The solution to organic precision strike capabilities
At AUSA Global Force 2024, IAI will present integrated, AI-driven combat systems – both manned and unmanned – that are opening new opportunities on the battlefield.
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: The Pentagon’s top buyer is praying that Congress will only be three months late enacting a 2017 budget, instead of six. Frank Kendall’s frank comments made clear that on-time is off the table. Kendall’s got cause for concern. Just yesterday, the Senate failed for the third time to pass a defense funding…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
NAVAL STATION GREAT LAKES, ILL: As Russian cyber espionage heats up the presidential campaign, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said his Pentagon reforms will endure under the next president, whoever he or she may be. “These things that we’re doing, we the leadership collectively discuss them, invent them, so everybody understands why we’re doing these things,”…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Reforming the U.S. military’s acquisition system has been a hot issue since Congress replaced the Continental Army’s first Quartermaster General in 1777. Despite near-continuous efforts to reduce waste, accelerate schedules and control costs, these efforts have rarely achieved their intended results. According to a recent study by the Institute for Defense Analysis, growth in the…
By Bryan Clark and Mark Gunzinger
The House and Senate Armed Services committees are locked in an important battle to determine how much acquisition reform this year’s National Defense Authorization Act will embrace and what kinds of changes the Pentagon will be subject to. Sen. John McCain is pushing sweeping changes to how the Pentagon buys its weapons, including provisions that…
By Beth McGrath
WASHINGTON: Two major defense industry players have a suggestion for Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, whose Better Buying Power 3.0 plan includes a new requirement that companies get the Pentagon’s blessing for internal research and development (IRAD) spending. Back off. “I’m not sure there’s a lot of upside to a lot of DoD oversight of where…
By Richard Whittle
WASHINGTON: A plan to overhaul how the Pentagon buys services — a $155 billion annual business, bigger than weapons acquisitions — is now on the desk of the Defense Department’s top buyer. “It went to Frank Kendall this week,” Kenneth Brennan, deputy director of services acquisition for undersecretary Kendall, said. “He is the final signature” required to…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
New Army mounted system won’t play favorites when it comes to C5ISR, EW and A-PNT
The CMOSS Mounted Form Factor will facilitate tech insertion for new capabilities while co-existing with the Mounted Family of Computer Systems.
CAPITOL HILL: In a bold attempt to fix the Pentagon’s creaking system to develop and buy weapons, the Senate Armed Services Committee today introduced broad changes to who controls weapons programs and tried to encourage Silicon Valley and other non-defense industries to help maintain the country’s global technological and military dominance. This is the beginning of…
By Colin Clark
PENTAGON: For the third year in a row, Air Force weapon programs have busted their schedules, taking longer to field, this time adding another 112 months to the 29 major weapons programs that the service monitors. It’s a pattern. In 2012, schedule performance “continues to remain problematic and shows no signs of improvement.” In 2013,…
By Colin Clark
UPDATED: JSF JPO Details Each Variant Costs; Provides Other Details PENTAGON: The simple lead for this story would be: F-35 costs dropped almost 2 percent over the last year. But the real lead should be: after decades of botched programs, bloated budgets, technical screwups and long delays we may be seeing what Winston Churchill might…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: The overall cost for Pentagon’s weapons buying is at the lowest it’s been a decade, says the Government Accountability Office in its respected annual assessment of the military’s major programs. But that overall result, which might seem to cheer exponents of acquisition reform and of smaller Pentagon budgets, contains two smaller points well worth…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: Congressional reaction to the first tranche of proposed new acquisition laws from the Pentagon’s acquisition czar, Frank Kendall, is unenthusiastic. Kendall and Rep. Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, have separately worked on a range of legislative and policy acquisition fixes for much of the last year. We haven’t heard much from…
By Colin Clark
FALLS CHURCH: “I’m going to frame this discussion around the ‘three nots,’” assistant secretary of Defense Katrina McFarland said this morning. “Technological superiority is not assured, R&D is not a variable cost, and time is not recoverable.” “Sequestration for us is horrendous,” she told TechAmerica’s annual conference here. “Funding for the accounts that exercise our…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
[UPDATED with Hagel, Shaffer comments] NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: The four armed services only submitted their draft 2016 budgets to the Office of the Secretary of Defense “basically yesterday,” Undersecretary Frank Kendall said this morning — and he’s already “concerned.” As the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, Kendall sees worrying signs. With the automatic budget cuts known as…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Once again, America faces the prospect of a budget showdown come September. Defense companies are getting ready for the possible disruptions that attend. And, of course, Pentagon budgeteers, led by new Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, are rebuilding the fiscal 2018 request and preparing for disruption to the last of the 2017 spending. One of…
By Terry Marlow