* Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall is about to update the Better Buying Power (BBP) guidance issued by Ashton Carter two years ago. * Part of BBP relies on reviving "should cost" procurement methodology. The RAND Corporation looked into it and notes that such...
* LockgropBoetheon? Brett Lambert, deputy assistant secretary for defense industrial base policy, says the Pentagon would have to reconsider its opposition to any further consolidation among primes if sequestration is implemented. * DoD guidelines may allow UAV...
* EADS - a group partly owned by the French government - is miffed that the Aerospace Industries Association does not let them in. * Boeing sees potential for Arrow 3 sales beyond Israel, to countries including India, Singapore and South Korea. The program is...
The May 2008 IEEE spectrum magazine, in "The Hunt for the Kill Switch": "Feeding those dreams is the Pentagon's realization that it no longer controls who manufactures the components that go into its increasingly complex systems. A single plane like the DOD's next...
* EADS subsidiary Cassidian named COO Bernhard Gerwert as its new CEO. Gerwert, a 59-year old German, joined EADS in 2004 replaces Stefan Zoller who left the group. * What's new in China's Type 052D destroyers? This remains to some extent speculative, based on...
* SAIC announces it intends to split into two listed entities. The spin-off will focus on government and enterprise IT services, which they expect to be a $4B/year business. The bulk of SAIC's work on defense programs will stay in what they call the "solutions-focused...
Gyrocam on MRAP(click to view full) Gyrocam Systems, which was acquired by Lockheed Martin in 2009, has supplied a large number of 15" class gyro-stabilised VOSS(Vehicle Optics Sensor System) surveillance turrets to the US military, mostly for mounting on...
Smerch 9K58 firing(click to view full) In February 2006, IANS reported that India had finally signed a $500 million deal with Russia for SPLAV's Smerch-M BM 9K58 long-range 300mm multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS). SMERCH systems will offer a huge capability boost,...
* Rear Adm. Yin Zhuo from the Chinese Navy is convinced that talks of increased US missile defense in Asia are meant to trick his country, as well as India, into diverting funds from conventional weapons into budget-draining ballistic weapons that would not be used in...