First award listed in the Pentagon’s Tuesday contract announcements is a cool half-billion to buy something Battleland has never heard of, to a company Battleland has never heard of:
The company is run by a special-ops vet, who conveniently has set up shop in Tampa, home of the U.S. Special Operations Command. Wouldn’t it be …
There have been times since 9/11 when there have been as many contractors working for the U.S. military in the war zones as U.S. troops. It’s one way to keep the troop count down.
The Air Force is seeking contractors to “launch” MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones all around the world, according to a “pre-proposal …
“When measured from their first full estimates, which have been put in place over a number of years, the growth in total acquisition cost for these [major defense acquisition] programs is $447 billion, or 40 percent.”
Defense procurement is like the tides. Waves of reform are followed by waves of profligacy. Repeat, war infinitum. Take the Next-Generation Bomber, for example. We were just getting used to it, even calling it, almost affectionately, the ”Next-Gen Bomber” when the Air Force pronounced it dead two years ago.
But – surprise! …
The House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces held an oversight hearing on air combat programs Tuesday. The first panel focused on the F-35 fighter—at $380 billion, the Defense …
The Department of Defense Inspector General’s March newsletter contains this nugget:
Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) Quality Assurance Assessment. The objective of this assessment is to assess the quality management system for the Joint Strike Fighter procured by DoD from Lockheed Martin Corporation. The assessments will be performed
…
“Responsibilities encompass habitat maintenance measures such as grass mowing by hand and by machine, shrub removal by hand and by forest mill, excavation of small puddles with swamp land excavator and underwater reed mowing with amphibian TRUXOR machine.”
Amazing first item (click on it to enlarge) atop the Pentagon’s Monday contract list. First of all, you can’t figure out just what it is we’re buying, but nothing new there:
…an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price, multiple award contract for engineering and prototyping integration, …
Second of five parts (part one here)
Because of Reaper’s nature, unit-cost estimates can be tricky. Various media reports cite a per-unit cost from $4 million to $5 million. They are quite incorrect.
Because they are …
