Rumor Of New MRAP Contracts For Afghanistan May Bouy Navistar

February 4, 2010 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: BAE Systems, Business Line, Companies, Department of Defense, Events, Force Protection, Navistar, Oshkosh Truck Corp, Services, logistics, production program

An internal memo from within the Department of Defense some how leaked out. It states that in support of the U.S. operations in Afghanistan a further 2,500 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles will be required. Over the last two years the focus of acquisition for these kind of vehicles has been the Oshkosh produced MRAP-AT which was the result of the MRAP-All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) contest. The MRAP-ATV requirements were for a lighter, more maneuverable vehicle able to operate better in Afghanistan’s rough terrain.

Navistar was unable to win the MRAP-ATV contest and have missed out on the several hundred million dollars worth of orders for those vehicles. If the memo is correct an order for over one thousand of their MRAP type vehicles for use in Afghanistan will be welcome. The U.S. military has spent a great deal on MRAPs to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last five years. They now possess significant numbers of them and will use them for several years to come. There will be little need to buy more of them and this will affect Navistar, BAE Systems and Force Protection all who ramped up production to meet demand.

Tags: bae systems, hundred million, internal memo, mine resistant ambush protected mrap vehicles, Navistar, oshkosh, rough terrain, significant numbers, terrain vehicle, type vehicles

Lockheed Martin Ramping Up For JSF Production Illustrates Industrial Base Concerns

December 7, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: BNET

Because of the decision to accelerate the JSF production Alcoa Aluminum will have to invest over a hundred million dollars in refurbishing a...

Tags: alcoa, alcoa aluminum, BNET Government Industry, hundred million, million dollars

Unitech to be Purchased by Lockheed

January 5, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Acquisitions, Business Line, Events, Florida, IT, Lockheed Martin, Unitech, training

Lockheed Martin has agreed to buy Unitech sometime this year. Unitech is a smallish simulation producing company located in the Orlando area. The Orlando Sentinel reports that a deal to buy the company was worked out recently. Unitech complements the work that Lockheed has done in the simulation area in Orlando for years. The company has earnings of around $140 million, and it is common in these types of deals for private companies to pay about one year’s earnings for it. Many smaller defense contractors grow from one or two contracts to a size of between one to two hundred million and are then bought by another company. Larger companies buy them to gain work or expertise in a discipline or area that they might not have.

Tags: Contract Awards, defense contractors, discipline, Earnings, hundred million, larger companies, Lockheed Martin, orlando area, orlando sentinel, private companies, producing company, simulation area, unitech

Future Combat Systems (FCS) technology acceleration good to Arizona

July 25, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Arizona, Boeing, DARPA, Department of Defense, Restructuring, SBIR, SMDC, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, development program

This article describes the economic effect of the Army decision to begin pushing components of the multi-system Future Combat System (FCS) out-the-door faster. Due to this decision several hundred million dollars are flowing to Arizona companies earlier then originally planned by the Army. The two systems with the most effect are the non-line of sight missile system that uses a box launcher with integrated fire control and several unmanned systems. The Army benefits two ways by this type of decision; first, they get needed technology upgrades into the field earlier; and secondly they get testing under real world conditions.