US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

This could be interesting, from an acquisition requirements point-of-view

Companies proposing a solution also have to “discuss the mission planning software that will be made available with the submitted platform.” That software should be “intuitive and integrate other first- and third-party platforms.”

The DIU noted that offerings will be assessed for their ability to “on the order of hours, integrate third-party software and hardware components (including payloads) in a modular, warm-swappable manner.”

Offerings must also use open hardware and software interfaces “that allow for seamless integration of third-party systems.”

The DIU isn’t interested in an intellectual property negotiation. It won’t accept any “proprietary interfaces, message formatting or hardware” requiring vendor licensing.

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These requirements will be an intellectual property, data rights and trademark challenge for any vendor considering an offer. The DIU teases with

“follow-on production contract or transaction will be available for use by one or more organizations in the Department of Defense and, as a result, the magnitude of the follow-on production contract or agreement could be significantly larger than that of the prototype” agreement.

Any prototype “Other Transaction” deal may result “in the award of a follow-on production contract or transaction without the use of competitive procedures,” DIU said.

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Other Transaction Authority procurements are fairly rare and it's likely the services would use that limited authority for higher-priority service-specific interests. Therefore any follow-on production would be competitive or limited sole source. I'm looking forward to what A&SF reports at the end of this month.

Like I said above the Navy's 6th generation fighter ain't got a future Let's see, with that $400M decision you could have a known Virginia-class submarine of your own or a fantasy fighter the Air Force will fight you for...

The USCG and therefore the USN cede the Arctic to Russia and China (apologies if this report has been linked before) The following quotes are from

Most significantly, little progress has been made on finalizing the vessel’s design over the past several years. According to the CBO as of July 2024 the vessel’s design remains at only 59 percent complete...CBO report estimates cost overruns for the procurement of three PSC at $5.1 billion, 60 percent above the Coast Guard latest estimates

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And the reasons for this situation are the same as the Navy's

The delays are a symptom of naval construction in the U.S. generally, the report states.

“The shipyards that built the Polar Star and the Healy have closed, and no existing shipyard in the United States has built a heavy polar icebreaker since before 1970.”

Yards face difficulties hiring new qualified workers and retaining the existing workforce.

“A generation of longtime senior shipyard workers have retired or will soon be retiring. As a result, the workforces in many of those yards are, overall, less experienced than they were in the past,” the CBO concludes.

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Sam Eckholm posted this video on the F-35B on his YouTube channel. The video isn't really a hard hitting or deep technical dive into the F-35 and its varients, but you do get some interviews with the pilots. Most importantly to me, you get a look of excellent 4K footage of the F-35B in flight and in the hanger.


He has other videos like this on his channel. Again, its nothing super technical but you get some good footage of various US military aircraft in high quality with good production values which is somewhat hard to come by.

For example, this one on the USS Sterett contains some great footage of the CIC.