NEW YORK: The Pentagon official who oversees the defense industrial base told Wall Street investors this morning that the upcoming defense budget will include funding for weapons prototypes. And Elana Broitman, deputy assistant defense secretary for manufacturing and industrial base policy (DASD industrial base to most Pentagon wonks), cautioned that the absence of lawmakers with military… Keep reading →

The American military-industrial complex used to lead the world in high technology. Now it struggles to keep up with private-sector breakthroughs in computing and other commercial technologies, from iPhones to 3D printing, that any adversary can buy to use against us. Even in military-unique technologies like precision-guided missiles and electronic warfare, experts in and out of… Keep reading →

The battle to build the Army’s portable radios has seen more than its share of skullduggery over the last two years. A 2-star general rebuked a contractor in public. Established vendors General Dynamics and Rockwell Collins lobbied Congress to keep potential competitors out. Rochester, NY-based Harris, the up and coming upstart, throws sharp elbows in… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Acquisition reform. It almost makes you feel good to hear those words. They connote improvement, reason and good government. But the more acquisition reform America gets from Congress and the Pentagon, it seems, the less return we get on each dollar we spend. Estimates of the cost of government oversight of Pentagon acquisition range… Keep reading →

COMDEF: After decades without a significant new rotocraft technology, the head of Pentagon buying says he’s going to try and fund a new initiative to move helicopters and their brethren like the V-22 ahead. It won’t be easy. “Anything is going to be very hard to squeeze into the budget,” Kendall told reporters during a… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: By combing through the assumptions — some of them deeply questionable — undergirding the Defense Department’s official cost estimates for the F-35B and refining them, the Marines say the plane should cost 16.6 percent less per flight hour than the current estimate. Since the F-35B is the most expensive plane to operate, lowering these… Keep reading →

Yesterday, at a subcommittee hearing attended by just half a dozen Senators, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer made a blunt admission: The military’s most expensive program, the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, has been hacked and the stolen data used by America’s adversaries. Under Secretary Frank Kendall didn’t say by whom, but the answer is… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The Pentagon’s most expensive conventional weapon program emerged largely unscathed from perhaps its most intensive review before the crucial congressional subcommittee that controls military funding. As over budget and behind schedule as the $391 billion, 2,443-plane F-35 program has fallen since initial promises of a low-cost, multi-service Joint Strike Fighter, two high-powered panels… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Acquisition experts agree that accurate cost estimates can be devilishly difficult to get right. The Pentagon’s top cost estimator, Christine Fox, says current cost estimates are often accurate within several percentage points. That’s impressive, but on programs measured in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, a few percentage points can mean a… Keep reading →

NEW YORK: “It is utterly unconscionable — utterly unconscionable — that Congress will allow sequestration to go on.” Those are the words of Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s head of acquisition, speaking to an audience of several hundred New York financial types. Kendall is just back from a trip to Afghanistan and he had heard from… Keep reading →