EUROPE

LAND

27 Feb 12. Cubic Corporation was awarded a new five-year contract to continue its support of force modernization in Lithuania. This U.S. funded Foreign Military Sales effort is a continuation of Cubic’s
constructive simulation and force modernization programs in Lithuania, with a primary task being the development of a modern Combat Training Center. (Source: Yahoo!/PRNewswire)

02 Mar 12. General Dynamics (GD) UK has selected the Green Hills
Software-developed Integrity real-time operating system (RTOS) as the primary operating system software for all mission-critical computers of the British Army’s Scout Specialist Vehicles (SV) programme. The company has also chosen Green Hills Software’s Multi integrated development environment (IDE) to build the application code for the Integrity system on all computer subsystems present inside the vehicle. The Scout vehicle’s four main electronic subsystems, each having its own display, will feature Integrity RTOS based Core i5 and Core i7 multicore architectures. The subsystems will be used by the driver, commander and gunner and will support all critical services including driving controls, defensive aids, navigation tools, ‘friend or foe’ recognition and visual displays, which will receive real-time feeds from up to seven surveillance cameras. Built on the velOSity microkernel, the Integrity RTOS is a secure, royalty-free operating system designed for use in embedded systems that require maximum reliability. The system uses hardware memory protection to isolate and protect itself and user tasks from incorrect operation caused by accidental errors or malicious tampering and has been used in several military jets including the US F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets. Featuring a powerful debugger, editor, code browser, configuration manager, and other tools into one integrated package, the Multi IDE uses C, C++ and EC++ compilers to generate codes for 32- and 64-bit processors. (Source: armytechnology.com)

01 Mar 12. Defence Business Services (DBS): Contract Award. The Defence Secretary announced (1 Mar 12) that Serco has been awarded the DBS Management Contract. Over its four-year duration, the value of the contract is “around £36m” and there is an option for the MoD to extend for an additional year.
Comment: DBS was formed on 4 Jul 11 and “provides a range of corporate services, including human resources, finance, information and vetting” to all areas of the MoD. Serco is to work with DBS “to transform the organisation into an efficient shared service centre” (whatever that may mean).

SEA

17 Feb 12. Belgium orders more REMUS 100s. The Belgian Navy has acquired an additional two REMUS (Remote Environmental Monitoring UnitS) 100 autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) from Kongsberg Maritime subsidiary Hydroid, taking its total inventory to three. The first unit was acquired in 2005 for evaluation purposes. REMUS 100s operate in very-shallow-water (VSW) areas and act as a detection system for underwater mines, improvised explosive devices and other ordnance. (Source: Jane’s, IDR)

AIR

27 Feb 12. Sagem (Safran group) signed a contract with SIMMAD, on behalf of the French Ministry of Defense, to provide in-service maintenance for the Sperwer SDTI tactical drone systems deployed by the French army. The contract covers all maintenance, repair and technical support services for systems in service with the army until 2014. It also includes an order with Robonic Oy, the Finnish subsidiary of Sagem, for two Kontio towed pneumatic catapult systems (type MC2555LLR). Lighter and smaller than the first-generation catapults, these units will reduce the system’s footprint, decrease operating costs, facilitate catapult operations, and increase the payload to extend the drone’s endurance.

USA

LAND

29 Feb 12. ATK was awarded a fourth contract option to produce 30mm PGU-15A/B cartridges for the U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Contracting Center (RIC