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April04, 2005 - News from Army-Guide.com >> |
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General Dynamics Awarded Defense Contracts Valued at $16 Million General Dynamics FALLS CHURCH, Va. - Three General Dynamics business units - General Dynamics Land Systems, Sterling Heights, Mich.; General Dynamics C4 Systems, Taunton, Mass.; and General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Suffolk, Va. - yesterday were awarded U.S. Department of Defense contracts worth more than $16 million. General Dynamics Land Systems was awarded a $6 million modification to a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract from the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., for systems technical support (STS) for the Abrams tank program. STS allows the change-out of obsolete parts and keeps the Abrams tanks current to their base configuration. The main objective of STS is to keep the tanks running at high operational readiness rates. Work under this contract will be performed at General Dynamics Land Systems headquarters in Sterling Heights, Mich., and is expected to be completed by July 31, 2006. This was a sole source contract initiated in November 2001. General Dynamics C4 Systems was awarded a $500,000 increment as part of a $140 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (initiated in January 2005) for cyclic and catastrophic overhaul of up to 300 Mobile Subscriber Equipment (MSE) Battlefield Communications Shelters. Work will be performed in Taunton, Mass., and is expected to be completed by March 30, 2010. The U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, Fort Monmouth, N.J., is the contracting activity. General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems was awarded a $10.3 million cost-plus-fixed-fee task order for services in support of the U.S. Joint Forces Command`s Joint Experimentation Program and Joint Futures Lab. Work will be performed in Suffolk, Va., and is expected to be completed by July 2005. The Fleet and Industrial Supply Center Norfolk Detachment Philadelphia is the contracting activity. This task order is part of a $479 million contract originally awarded in July 2004. General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, employs approximately 70,200 people worldwide and had 2004 revenue of $19.2 billion. The company is a market leader in mission-critical information systems and technologies; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and business aviation. DRS TECHNOLOGIES awarded $49 million contract to upgrade key targeting system of U.S. Army Bradley fighting vehicles Patricia M. Williamson patw@drs.com Parsippany, NJ, March 29 - DRS Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: DRS) announced today that it has received a contract valued at approximately $49 million to provide Improved Bradley Acquisition Subsystems (IBAS) for the U.S. Army??™s Bradley A3 vehicle program. The Bradley Fighting Vehicles are among the most formidable ground force capabilities in U.S. Army inventory and continue to be an integral part of the military??™s operations in Iraq. The IBAS enables vehicle gunners to detect, identify and engage tactical targets at dramatically greater operational ranges, increasing ground force survivability and target lethality. The contract was awarded to DRS by the Ground Systems Division of United Defense Industries, Inc. (NYSE: UDI), the prime contractor for the development and production of the Bradley. For this order, DRS will produce, test and provide support services for the IBAS, which includes the Target Acquisition Subsystem (TAS) and Missile Control Subsystem (MCS). This order also will include the new U.S. Army Block 1 B-Kit ??“ a Second Generation Forward Looking Infrared (SG FLIR) system developed as part of the Army??™s Horizontal Technology Integration (HTI) initiative. Work for this award will be accomplished by the company??™s DRS Optronics unit in Palm Bay, Florida. Product deliveries are expected to commence this October and conclude in July 2006. "This latest award underscores DRS??™s position as a major supplier to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle program and as a leading provider of fire control solutions to Army ground combat platforms," said Fred L. Marion, president of DRS??™s Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group. "This new contract supports our reputation as a proven, world-class fire control systems producer and highlights our customer??™s regard for our strong, long-term performance on this program. The leading edge sighting system technologies that are being incorporated in IBAS are critical to the Bradley A3, providing increased target acquisition performance, greater stand-off ranges and improved survivability for our ground forces. DRS remains committed to providing superior systems that play a crucial role in the digital battlefield." The Bradley A3 is the Army??™s most advanced, integrated digital ground system, providing outstanding survivability, mobility and lethality to soldiers in all types of close-combat urban scenarios or in open combat desert warfare. IBAS enhances lethality through automated ballistics solutions and target tracking software. Using Standard Advanced Dewar Assembly (SADA) II technology, IBAS incorporates the HTI Second Generation Block 1 B-Kit FLIR, direct view optics, dual-aided target tracking capability, eye-safe laser range finder capability, a daylight television, and a two-axis stabilized pointing head mirror assembly. Other IBAS system improvements include enhanced shoot-on-the-move capability for the Bradley 25mm gun. DRS Technologies, headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, provides leading edge products and services to defense, government intelligence and commercial customers. Focused on defense technology, DRS develops and manufactures a broad range of mission critical systems. The company employs 5,800 people worldwide. Study faults army vehicle use of transport in iraq puts troops at risk, internal report says R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post The Army has deployed a new troop transport vehicle in Iraq with many defects, putting troops there at unexpected risk from rocket-propelled grenades and raising questions about the vehicle's development and $11 billion cost, according to a detailed critique in a classified Army study obtained by The Washington Post. The vehicle is known as the Stryker, and 311 of the lightly armored, wheeled vehicles have been ferrying U.S. soldiers around northern Iraq since October 2003. The Army has been ebullient about the vehicle's success there, with Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, telling the House Armed Services Committee last month that "we're absolutely enthusiastic about what the Stryker has done." But the Army's Dec. 21 report, drawn from confidential interviews with operators of the vehicle in Iraq in the last quarter of 2004, lists a catalogue of complaints about the vehicle, including design flaws, inoperable gear and maintenance problems that are "getting worse not better." Although many soldiers in the field say they like the vehicle, the Army document, titled "Initial Impressions Report - Operations in Mosul, Iraq," makes clear that the vehicle's military performance has fallen short. The internal criticism of the vehicle appears likely to fuel new controversy over the Pentagon's decision in 2003 to deploy the Stryker brigade in Iraq just a few months after the end of major combat operations, before the vehicle had been rigorously tested for use across a full spectrum of combat. The report states, for example, that an armoring shield installed on Stryker vehicles to protect against unanticipated attacks by Iraqi insurgents using low-tech weapons works against half the grenades used to assault it. The shield, installed at a base in Kuwait, is so heavy that tire pressure must be checked three times daily. Nine tires a day are changed after failing, the report says; the Army told The Post the current figure is "11 tire and wheel assemblies daily." "The additional weight significantly impacts the handling and performance during the rainy season," says the report, which was prepared for the Center for Army Lessons Learned in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "Mud appeared to cause strain on the engine, the drive shaft and the differentials," none of which was designed to carry the added armor. Commanders' displays aboard the vehicles are poorly designed and do not work; none of the 100 display units in Iraq are being used because of "design and functionality shortfalls," the report states. The vehicle's computers are too slow and overheat in desert temperatures or freeze up at critical moments, such as "when large units are moving at high speeds simultaneously" and overwhelm its sensors. The main weapon system, a $157,000 grenade launcher, fails to hit targets when the vehicle is moving, contrary to its design, the report states. Its laser designator, zoom, sensors, stabilizer and rotating speed all need redesign; it does not work at night; and its console display is in black and white although "a typical warning is to watch for a certain color automobile," the report says. Some crews removed part of the launchers because they can swivel dangerously toward the squad leader's position. The vehicle's seat belts cannot be readily latched when troops are in their armored gear, a circumstance that contributed to the deaths of three soldiers in rollover accidents, according to the report. On the vehicle's outside, some crews have put sand-filled tin cans around a gunner's hatch that the report says is ill-protected. Eric Miller, senior defense investigator at the independent Project on Government Oversight, which obtained a copy of the internal Army report several weeks ago, said the critique shows that "the Pentagon hasn't yet learned that using the battlefield as a testing ground costs lives, not just spiraling dollars." Asked about the report, Army officials who direct the Stryker program said they are working to fix some flaws; they also said they were unaware of some of the defects identified in the critique. "We're very proud of the Stryker team," said Lt. Col. Frederick J. Gellert, chief of the Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Team Integration Branch in Washington, but "it hasn't been something that's problem-divorced." According to the latest Army figures, 17 soldiers in the Stryker combat brigade have died in Iraq in 157 bomb explosions, but no delineation is made for those who perished inside the vehicle and those who were standing outside it; an additional five soldiers have died in two rollovers. No current figure was provided for those who perished in grenade attacks, although one officer said he thought it was fewer than a handful. Neither the lessons-learned report nor more recent Army data state how many soldiers have been wounded while inside the vehicle. The report states that in one case, a soldier was struck by shrapnel that penetrated both the vehicle's armor and his own body armor; in another case, an entire crew escaped with minor injuries after a vehicle sustained nine grenade hits. The criticisms of the Stryker's first performance in combat seem likely to give new arguments to critics of the Army's decision in 1999 to move away from more heavily armored vehicles that move on metal tracks and embrace a generation of lighter, more comfortable vehicles operated at higher speed on rubber tires. Senior Army officers in Iraq, like those at the Pentagon, have been surprised by the intensity of hostilities there since mid-2003, and lately some officers have said they depend on heavy armor to protect their soldiers in urban warfare, even though tanks in Iraq have also suffered unexpected damage. But Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, the Army's director of force development, said that when he rode in the Stryker for the first time, he "marveled at how much nicer it was" than riding in a Bradley vehicle or an older troop transport, the M113, which he likened to being inside an aluminum trash can being beaten by a hammer. He said the Stryker was "amazingly smooth" and quiet by comparison. In a report completed at the time of deployment, the Pentagon's operational test and evaluation office rated the Stryker vehicles sent to Iraq "effective and survivable only with limitations for use in small-scale contingencies." Congressional auditors at the General Accounting Office in December 2003 said the first brigade "did not consistently demonstrate its capabilities, indicating both strengths and weaknesses." Independent groups and a loose-knit group of retired Army officers who dislike the Stryker vehicle have alleged that the Stryker's 2003 deployment was motivated partly by the desire of the Army and the manufacturer, General Dynamics, to build congressional support for buying additional brigades. But Speakes said that was nonsense and that the brigade was deployed in Iraq simply because the Army needed it. |
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April04, 2005 - News from Army-Guide.com >> |
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