POMPANO
BEACH, Fla. — Point Blank Enterprises Inc. has been awarded a $215.9 million
body armor contract by the Marine Corps Systems Command, the company announced
in a June 24 release.

The Marine
Corps Low Intensity Threat Environment (LITE) body armor insert is a new small-arms
protective insert that is designed to improve the survivability and mobility of
Marines by maximizing ballistic protection at a reduced weight.

“Reducing
Marine burden by providing innovative and lightweight armor solutions along
with our high-quality manufacturing capabilities is our expertise,” said Brian
Kopan, Point Blank’s senior vice president of engineering and technology. “Whether
we are designing armor systems for vehicles or individual protection equipment,
our mission is always focused on saving the life of those that protect us.”

For more than 43 years,
Point Blank Enterprises has provided products and designs engineered to
maximize ballistic protection. Point Blank has shipped body armor solutions to U.S.
servicemen and women, law enforcement, corrections officers, federal agents and
other national and international customers.

WASHINGTON —
A disciplined set of practices by the U.S. Navy’s frigate program office
enabled the planned acquisition timeline for the new ship to be shortened by
six years over what a new warship normally might have taken.

Regan Campbell, program manager for the FFG(X) guided-missile frigate
program, speaking June 20 in Washington at the Technology, Systems and Ships
Symposium of the American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE), said the practices
wouldn’t necessarily work in all acquisitions but the frigate program became a
proving ground for early engagement with industry and setting clear
requirements.

Campbell said the program office leveraged previous analyses of
alternatives to accelerate the process and set the stage for clear shipbuilder
requirements. The requirement for bidders to use a parent ship design as a
basis for their proposals greatly shortened the timeline, avoiding the need for
a “clean-sheet” design. A parallel requirements evaluation process instead of a
serial process also saved some time.

By design, the frigate will make use of command mature
government-furnished equipment (GFE), particularly weapons, sensors and combat
systems that already have been developed but will contribute to cost savings by
being common with systems on other classes of ships.

Use of GFE, Campbell said, “allows us to shorten our combat systems
integration time.”

Early engagement with industry also saved time and produced ideas for
the program. Campbell said the Frigate Affordability Board received more than
350 ideas to modify the ship specifications and the Capabilities Definition
Document.

“We accepted over 60% of the industry ideas,” Campbell said.

The Navy released the Request for Proposals for the FFG(X) on June 20.

Four companies are expected to submit bids for the FFG(X) program:
Huntington Ingalls, Fincantieri Marine, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and
Austal USA. The builder of the Freedom-class littoral combat ship, Lockheed
Martin, participated in the program until recently but dropped out. The competition
is open to other bidders that can meet the requirements.

WASHINGTON
— Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer has announced the newest towing, salvage
and rescue ship will be named Cherokee Nation in honor of the service and
contributions the Cherokee people have made to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps,
the secretary’s public affairs office said in a June 21 release.

“It is my
privilege to announce that the many Cherokee Nation citizens who’ve served
throughout the years will be remembered with the highest honor a secretary of
the Navy can bestow, the naming of a ship,” Spencer said.

This is
the fifth U.S. ship to be named in honor of the Cherokee people.

“The Cherokee Nation is extremely honored that the U.S. Navy is recognizing our tribal nation and the generations of Cherokee men and women who have bravely and humbly sacrificed for our freedom today,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker said.

“Our
Cherokee people have contributed in every major battle and war ever fought in
this country and continue to serve in the armed forces in some of the highest
rates per ethnicity. Cherokees are a strong, resilient people, and we are
privileged to have a U.S. ship at sea that reflects both our country and
tribe’s history and values.”

Gulf
Island Shipyards was awarded a $64.8 million contract option for the detail
design and construction of the new Ship, which will be based on existing
commercial towing offshore vessel designs and will replace the current T-ATF
166 and T-ARS 50 class ships in service with the U.S. Military Sealift Command.
The Cherokee Nation is the second ship in the new class of towing, salvage and rescue
ships and will be designated T-ATS 7.

The contract
includes options for potentially six additional vessels, and each additional
ship will be named in honor of prominent Native Americans or Native American
tribes.

The T-ATS
will serve as open ocean towing vessels and will additionally support salvage operations and submarine rescue missions. The ship will be
built at the company’s shipyard in Houma, Louisiana, and is expected to be
completed in July 2021.

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The U.S. Marine Corps has awarded BAE Systems a contract to develop two
variants of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) and manufacture one of them.

Marine Corps
Systems Command has awarded “a not-to-exceed [$67 million] modification for
firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the development of
engineering drawings, manufacture and test support for three [ACV] command-and-control
Mission Role Variants (MRVs) and the development of engineering drawings for
the ACV medium-caliber-cannon MRV,” according to a Defense Department release.

BAE Systems
is building the ACV for the Marine Corps as an amphibious troop carrier to
replace the four-decade-old Assault Amphibious Vehicle. The AAV7 is fielded in
several variants, and the Corps plans to field the ACV in variants as well.

The
command-and-control (C2) MRV will be the first variant of the ACV. The C2
variant will be designed for a commander and staff and equipped with computer
displays and communications systems to enable the commander to maintain
situational awareness of the battlefield.

A variant
with a medium-caliber gun atop the ACV will follow.

Work is
expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2022.

WASHINGTON
— Bruce Jette, assistant secretary of the U.S. Army for acquisition, logistics
and technology, on June 20 approved the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV)
program’s transition into full-rate production, the Army Program Executive
Office for Combat Support and Combat Service Support announced in a release.

The
approval follows an Army decision in December to begin fielding the new
platform with the Army’s 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart,
Georgia, in April. The 1-3 ID became the Army’s first unit equipped with JLTVs
in April after receiving more than 300 vehicles.

Fieldings
to the Ordnance School, Fort Lee, Virginia, the 84th Training Command, Fort
McCoy, Wisconsin, the Marine Corps’ School of Infantry-West at Camp Pendleton,
California, as well as the Marine School of Infantry-East, Camp Lejeune, North
Carolina, have also been completed.

“Thanks
to tremendous teamwork across two services on requirements, resources, program
management, testing and other areas, this is a great modernization success story.
JLTV shows how teams focused on stable requirements, mature technologies and
the right incentives can deliver meaningful capability advancements in a
cost-conscious way,” said Jeffrey White, Jette’s principal deputy.

The JLTV
family of vehicles is designed to restore payload and performance that were
traded from light tactical vehicles to add protection in recent conflict,
giving commanders an improved protected mobility solution and the first vehicle
purpose-built for modern battlefield networks.

“Getting
an improved capability into the hands of Soldiers and Marines has been our
team’s driving focus throughout this program,” said Michael Sprang, project
manager, Joint Program Office, Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.

“We
are also grateful for Soldier feedback on new features and enhancements,” Sprang
continued. “The Soldiers of the 1st ABCT, 3rd Infantry Division provided
valuable input on enhancements such as increased situational awareness,
reduction of system noise, a troop seat kit, and a companion JLTV trailer.
Their assessments helped bring us all to a successful Full-Rate Production
decision.”

The JLTV
program remains on schedule and on budget to replace a significant portion of
the Army’s High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle fleet. The JLTV comes in
two variants and four mission package configurations: general purpose, close combat
weapons carrier, heavy guns carrier and a utility vehicle. The U.S. Navy and
Air Force also plan to field JLTVs in much smaller quantities.

“The full-rate production decision is a key
milestone for the JLTV program, closing out the low-rate initial production
(LRIP) phase, which began in 2015, George
Mansfield, vice president and general manager of joint programs for Oshkosh
Defense, said in a June 21 statement. “Important insights from
manufacturing and rigorous developmental and operational test during LRIP
contributed to shaping the vehicle’s current configuration. The program remains
on schedule and on budget and ensures our troops have the protection,
connection and extreme off-road mobility they need today for current and future
battlefields. The JLTV is the only light tactical vehicle being fielded today
that can maneuver within combat formations.”

WASHINGTON —
The Navy’s top officer told a gathering of naval engineers and industry
officials that being technologically ready for war is not something that can be
achieved overnight but is the result of diligent experimentation and keeping
pace with one’s adversary.

“The technological landscape is changing so fast, across all of
technology, really fueled by this information revolution that we’re in the
middle of right now,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson said,
speaking June 20 in Washington at the Technology, Systems and Ships Symposium
of the American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE).

“We really do
need to move apace, but what we rely on — groups like naval engineers and ASNE
— is to make sure that as we do that we move forward not on hope, not on
magazine articles, not on predictions, but move forward based on solid
engineering.

“This is the
challenge. We’ve got to move forward on an evidence-based approach.”

Technological agility was a quality Richardson stressed as necessary to
keep up with evolving threats.

Richardson said that the supremacy of U.S. naval aviation after
the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor crippled the U.S. battleships
was not a rapid development but the result of 20 years of innovation and hard
work by the fleet and such visionaries as Rear Adm. William Moffett and Adm.
Joseph Mason Reeves.

“This was not something we did as a pick-up team on Dec. 8,” Richardson
said. “We had evidence, a lot of experimentation, a lot of engineering going
into that, so that force [naval aviation] was truly ready to take on that new
mission, that new role, and it wasn’t just a pick-up thing overnight.”

“This is the way we have to move forward,” he said. “We have to continue
to get out there, experiment, prototype, get that evidence that these new
technologies are ready to carry on and take on the responsibility for the
security of our nation.

“And we have to do that at pace. We do not want to be the second Navy
armed with these decisive technologies — directed energy, unmanned, machine
learning, artificial intelligence, etc. … This is a human challenge at the end
of the day.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy RQ-4A Block 10 Global Hawk
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) shot down June 19 by Iranian forces was destroyed
by a surface-to-air missile of indigenous Iranian design and manufacture.

The Global Hawk was downed by a missile system the
Iranians call the Third of Khordad, which was
first unveiled in Iran in 2014. The system’s missile has a range of 75
kilometers and can intercept targets at an altitude of up to 81,000 feet,
higher than the 60,000-foot ceiling of the Global Hawk.

One
former Navy electronic countermeasures officer described the Third of Khordad
as a knock-off of the Russian-designed BUK-M1 (NATO code name SA-11 Gadfly) missile
system.

In a June 20 release, U.S. Central Command spokesman
Cmdr. Bill Urban said the RQ-4A was shot down “while operating in international airspace over the Strait of
Hormuz at approximately 11:35 p.m. GMT on June 19, 2019. Iranian reports that
the aircraft was over Iran are false. This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S.
surveillance asset in international airspace.”

Iran claimed the UAV had violated Iranian airspace.

The incident occurred a few days after Iranian forces
fired a missile at a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper UAV near the Strait of Hormuz and damaged
two oil tankers with limpet mines. Last month, four tankers were damaged by
explosives believed to be limpet mines.

The Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Block 10 Global Hawk
high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAV also is known as the BAMS-D (Broad-Area
Maritime Surveillance-Demonstration) system. Urban said the RQ-4A “provides
real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions over vast
ocean and coastal regions.”

The Navy has deployed the RQ-4A to Southwest Asia since 2009 as a
component of the Broad-Area Maritime Surveillance-Demonstration (BAMS-D)
program. Five RQ-4As were acquired from the U.S. Air Force and were based at
Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, and operated by a detachment of
Patrol Reconnaissance Wing 11. The detachment keeps at least one RQ-4A in the
rotation to a base in the Persian Gulf region. One was lost in a mishap in
Maryland in June 2012.

The Navy and Northrop Grumman have been developing a
Global Hawk derivative, the MQ-4C Triton, to meet the Navy’s HALE requirements.
Unmanned Patrol Squadron 19 is scheduled to send a two-aircraft detachment to
Guam this year for the Triton’s Early Operational Capability deployment. The
deployment had been delayed a year following the gear-up landing of one of the
squadron’s MQ-4Cs in September 2018.

According to news reports, one MQ-4C recently had been
deployed to Southwest Asia as part of the U.S. buildup of forces in response to
Iranian hostile acts. The deployment initially led to some erroneous reports
that the downed UAV was an MQ-4C.

NORFOLK, Va. — The U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard
panelists that participated in the Sea Service Update panel June 20 at the Navy
League National Convention prepared remarks focused on a multitude of recent
document releases such as the National Defense Strategy, the National Military
Strategy and the Coast Guard Arctic Strategic Outlook.

Remarks also focused on readiness; the importance of
remaining forward-deployed; and many other probable talking points, but it was
a host of questions fielded by longtime local defense reporter Mike Gooding
that elicited perhaps the most interesting insights into how the services are
preparing for the future.

Gooding touched on the government shutdown early this year,
which saw the unprecedented scenario of the Coast Guard working without pay. He
also asked panelists their thoughts on the Budget Control Act of 2011 that many
expected would be short-lived but instead has brought with it sequestration
threats for nearly a decade. Gooding wondered how the services were preparing
to weather the upcoming storm of another likely continuing resolution in
September — a process where the services would remain funded at their current
levels regardless of shifting program needs.

Coast Guard Adm. Scott Buschman, the Atlantic Area commander,
conveyed how many organizations, including the Navy League, stepped up to
ensure the Coast Guard had extra support during the shutdown, but panelists
made clear how untenable that situation would be in the future.

“I hope that doesn’t happen again because it was a very
stressful time for our women and men,” Buschman said, a sentiment echoed by Navy
Vice Adm. Bruce Lindsey, deputy commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command. “We
should never, ever do that again,” Lindsey added.

As for dealing with continuing resolutions, Lindsey said he wanted
to see more flexibility.

U.S. Fleet Forces manages a $12 billion annual budget. “It
would be really nice if [Fleet Forces Commander] Adm. Grady had the authority
to move less than 5% of the total operating budget without having to approach
Congress,” he said. That would amount to $480 million — a substantial amount to
make a difference. Grady “needs that authority,” Lindsey said.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Mark Brilakis, commander of Forces
Command, said stability in resources is critical to managing programs in the
pipeline.

“A budget’s a budget. Congress appropriates money and … you
have a problem trying to push dollars around. I’ve had to cancel exercises this
year because we don’t have the funds to complete the schedule,” Brilakis said.

He predicted there would be a continuing resolution this
fall based on his years of experience.

“The sequester was a bad law, and everyone thought it’d get
fixed,” Brilakis said.

Gooding also brought up a recent Government Accountability
Office report that came out this week, identifying that 46 of 79 Defense Department
installations are at risk to a rise in sea levels.

Brilakis said there’s a reason so much DoD land is under
threat — the Pentagon bought marginal land on purpose because it was
inexpensive. When Hurricane Florence hit Camp Lejeune, North Carolina last
summer, it dumped 36 inches of rain, and many buildings there still have tarps
on them and no air conditioning.

“We’re not going to replace buildings where we had them
before,” he said.

Brilakis also said that Parris Island, South Carolina, is
“no longer tenable” — despite the generations that have trained there. “We have
to start making historic decisions.”

Buschman’s forces are on the front lines of climate issues,
with two historic hurricane seasons in recent memory. He said the Coast Guard must
make tough decisions recapitalizing ships and instead use that money to repair critical
infrastructure issues after storms. When the Coast Guard is rebuilding, the
service is factoring in resilience so when the next big one hits, infrastructure
can take the punch.

Lindsey concurred with the infrastructure challenges climate
change could bring, stating he didn’t want the United States to have to face
scenarios like the recent widespread power
outages in South America, which could affect banking and other critical
services.

“A lot of people think this is an issue with global warming.
It’s a critical infrastructure issue,” he said.

SAN JUAN,
Puerto Rico — The Coast Guard Cutter Donald Horsley (WPC-1117) repatriated 11
Dominican migrants to a Dominican navy patrol vessel June 19 in waters just off
Samana, Dominican Republic, following the interdiction of an illegal migrant
voyage in the Mona Passage, the Coast Guard 7th District said in a release.

The
interdiction is the result of ongoing efforts in support of Operation Unified
Resolve, Operation Caribbean Guard and the Caribbean Border Interagency Group
(CBIG). Since October 2018, the Coast Guard and CBIG partner federal and state
agencies have interdicted over 1,523 migrants at sea near Puerto Rico and the
U.S. Islands.

During a
routine patrol June 17, the crew of patrolling Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry
maritime patrol aircraft detected a 20-foot fiberglass migrant boat transiting
towards Puerto Rico, about 20 nautical miles north northeast of Punta Cana,
Dominican Republic.

Coast Guard
watchstanders in Sector San Juan diverted the cutter Donald Horsley to interdict
the suspect vessel. Upon arriving on scene, the Donald Horsley crew stopped the
blue and white makeshift boat with 11 migrants onboard, nine men and two women,
who claimed Dominican nationality. Horsley crew members proceeded to embark all
the migrants from the makeshift boat that was taking on water and in danger of
sinking.

“I am proud
of my crew for saving 11 people from a small, grossly overloaded boat traveling
in very dangerous sea conditions,” said Lt. Christopher Martin, commanding
officer of the Donald Horsley. “Crossing the Mona Passage is an extremely
dangerous journey, especially in the case of illegal voyages, in which migrants
risk their lives by trusting smugglers who transport them in inhumane
conditions on boats that are not safe to navigate and do not have any safety
equipment on board.”

Once aboard a
Coast Guard cutter, all migrants receive food, water, shelter and basic medical
attention.

The cutter
Donald Horsley is a 154-foot fast-response cutter homeported in San Juan,
Puerto Rico.

WASHINGTON —
The admiral in charge of building the Navy’s surface ships said the
construction programs are tracking well and that the service is gearing up for
some new platforms, including unmanned surface ships.

“We are in an era of stable design,” said Rear Adm. William Galinis, program executive officer for ships, speaking June 18 in Washington at the Technology, Systems and Ships Symposium of the American Society of Naval Engineers. “As we look forward, on the surface side, some new opportunities are on the horizon.”

Galinis was referring to stable designs such as the Arleigh Burke DDG 51 Flight IIA and III programs, the San Antonio-class LPD 17 program, the Tripoli LHA 7 — which will have full capability for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — and the Virginia-class attack submarine.

Ship programs
on the horizon he mentioned are the new FFG(X) guided-missile frigate, the
Large Surface Combatant, and unmanned surface vessels.

Galinis said
the Large Surface Combatant is likely to benefit from lessons learned through
the DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer program.

“We’re
learning a ton off of that platform,” he said, noting the integrated power
system and low-observable signature of the ship, among other aspects, and that
signature requirements “really does drive up cost.”

He said that
use of mature technology will keep cost down on the Large Surface Combatant.

“Not to predispose anything, but I think in the end, you know, it’s
probably going to look a lot more like DDG 1000 than DDG 51 if I had to say
so,” Galinis said, noting that a lot of work remained to be done.

He also praised the use in shipbuilding of land-based
test sites, which, he said, “buy us a lot once we get into construction.”

Also speaking
with Galinis was Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, the chief engineer and deputy chief of
staff for ship design, integration and naval engineering at Naval Sea Systems
Command.

Selby sees
the new classes of ships coming in the next era of shipbuilding as an
“opportunity for us to reset on the way we do business at NAVSEA.”

He stressed
that the Navy needs to build up its talent base in ship design and engineering
as development proceeds on new classes of ships and submarines and needs to
space the workload so that the work force can be sustained as ship design work
comes and goes.