Army

F3EA Inc.,* Savannah, Georgia, was awarded a $245,000,000 hybrid (cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-sharing, and firm-fixed-price) contract for special operations forces requirements analysis, prototyping, training, operations and rehearsal IV. Bids were solicited via the internet with 10 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of January 14, 2027. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Orlando, Florida, is the contracting activity (W900KK-20-D-0005). *Small Business

The U.S. Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center and the U.S. Army Next Generation Combat Vehicles Cross Functional Team intends to award an other transaction agreement to QinetiQ North America to build four light and to Textron to build four medium Robotic Combat Vehicles (RCVs).

Clarksburg, Maryland-based Robotic Research LLC, which specializes in autonomous and robotic technologies, will be supplying the company's warfighter localization sensors, known as WarLoc, to the U.S. Army Product Manager - Sets, Kits Outfits and Tools (PM-SKOT) under a $16.5 million contract. The company will deliver the WarLoc systems to equip four U.S. Army Brigade Combat Teams deployed in various locations. The solution provides advanced localization and positioning data in GPS-denied environments, and can be mounted on footwear, for use in ​underground facilities, inside of buildings and in mega-cities, the company reports. The procuring organization, PM SKOT, reports to the U.S.

Palantir USG Inc., Palo Alto, California, was awarded an $110,814,893 other transaction agreement contract for numerous databases across the Army enterprise integrated on one platform. One bid was solicited via the internet with one bid received. Work will be performed in Washington, District of Columbia, with an estimated completion date of December 15, 2023. Fiscal year 2020 operations and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $32,545,300 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (W15QKN-20-9-P001

The Army is two years into its aggressive front to modernize and shift to be a more agile, lethal force, moving away from counterinsurgency warfare. One of the service’s major priorities as part of that modernization effort is to create an integrated tactical network that can support soldiers fighting anywhere at anytime against near-peer adversaries in a contested environment, explained Maj. Gen.

Arlington, Virginia-based Advanced Concepts and Technologies International, LLC* announced December 2 that the company had secured a $50 million, five-year contract to provide enterprise resource planning functional support to the Army's Financial Management Command. The company, known as ACT I, will assist with the command's General Fund Enterprise Business System. ACT I will support interfacing and reporting systems, including sales and distribution; materials management; accounts payable; cost management; financials; funds management; plant maintenance; project systems; and the Financial Management Business Intelligence reporting system.

The U.S. Army is committing to the multidomain operations (MDO) concept with a $700 million budget plan for fiscal years 2021-2025. The investment includes cyber, cloud and information warfare.

“Multidomain operations is our fighting concept, and it serves as the foundation of the Army Modernization Strategy. The MDO is how the Army supports the joint force in the rapid and continuous integration across all domains of warfare—land, sea, air, space and cyberspace—to ultimately deter, and win the fight should deterrence fail,” Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told the audience at the Association of the United States Army annual conference in Washington, D.C.

Advanced manufacturing techniques could inject innovation into the defense industry, suggested Bruce Jette, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.

“We have a problem with the industrial base, particularly for the defense industry,” Jette told the audience at the Association of the United States Army annual conference in Washington, D.C. He added that the industrial base still conjures images of “large, smoking cauldrons of steel” because “that’s what we drove them to.”

Jette further noted that the industrial base “has some gaps in it because we haven’t been producing large equipment systems in a long time.”

The identification verification tools that easily work at the corner bank to access cash or online to pay a bill don't work as easily on the battlefield, where the simple action of pulling a card out of a pocket is clumsy at best and impossible at worst. To address this challenge in harsh environments, the U.S. Army is introducing tokens that can be incorporated into wearables as small as bracelets or dog tags.