March 28, 2024

Military Readiness Concerns Grow

military readiness

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River Morning Coffee logoeconomic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

Department of Defense reports 4th death as infection rate continues to climb, reports Military Times.

The COVID-19 outbreak on Navy warship Coronado could herald a readiness crisis across the US military, reports Defense News. Acting NavSec Thomas Modly acknowledged the Navy is facing a proportionally larger outbreak than the other services. At the start of the week, 144 sailors had tested positive for the coronavius, seven requiring hospitalization.

The Navy cannot afford to slow pilot training amid the COVID-19 pandemic, reports USNI News. New aviation students continue through the training pipeline. Where social distancing practices cannot be instituted, such as in aircraft cockpits, equipment is frequently cleaned.

USS Theodore Roosevelt captain pleads for individual quarantine sites as COVID-19 cases multiply, reports Military Times. “Sailors do not need to die,” Roosevelt’s commanding officer Capt. Brett Crozier, wrote to military leaders.

The US military furloughed roughly half the 9,000-strong Korean workforce staffing US military bases in South Korea, reports NPR. The unprecedented layoffs without pay were triggered by an impasse on how much South Korea must pay of the cost for stationing some 28,500 American troops there. The furloughs complicate the more than a dozen cases of coronavirus infection, in the US Forces Korea including troops, dependents, and contractors, reports Stars and Stripes.

 

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The military’s plan to cut 18,000 medical staff should be shelved during pandemic, the Military Officers Association of America says. Military.com reports the association joining calls in Congress for the Pentagon to scrap or at least postpone plans to cut staff at military hospitals and for retirees to retain their access to those facilities during the epidemic. The planned 18,000 cuts include 4,000 from the Air Force, 7,000 from Army, and 5,000 from the Navy.  Dozens of Military Treatment Facilities would be downsized as well, with access limited to active duty personnel.

Air Force Academy Class of 2020 will graduate early on April 18 over COVID-19 concerns, reports Air Force Times, about a month ahead of the originally planned May 28 graduation date at Falcon Stadium. Suicide is suspected as the cause of death of two cadets who were to have graduated this year, reports Stars and Stripes. Seniors had been largely isolated to single-person rooms while taking online classes since the academy’s roughly 3,000 underclassmen were sent home about two weeks ago. Since the suicides, cadets are again allowed to have roommates. The Air Force recorded a record number of suicide deaths in 2019.

United Nations urges cease-fire in Afghanistan amid COVID-19 concerns, reports Military Times, to ensure delivery of humanitarian aid throughout the country.

Global airline business has never had it so bad, reports CBS Miami. Airlines could lose a quarter trillion dollars in revenue in 2020.

Army Gen. Stephen Lyons, head of US Transportation Command, says military leaders worry about the health of commercial airlines and those repercussions on the civil reserve air fleet, reports Defense One. TRANSCOM uses 25 cargo and passenger airlines from a civil reserve to augment its own military transports. Airlines that are part of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet ferry troops and cargo around the world; some are already suffering crippling losses in passenger travel.

NASA and Japan each add an astronaut to SpaceX’s first operational Crew Dragon flight, reports Space.com. NASA’s Shannon Walker and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi join the crew. The four-member crew also includes NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover Jr. The quartet’s mission will be scheduled after SpaceX’s first-ever crewed mission carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to and from the ISS and scheduled to launch in mid- to late May.

The Army Combat Fitness Test rollout is suspended until further notice over COVID-19, reports Army Times. Gym closures across installations, squad-level PT, and strict adherence to social distancing guidelines make large gatherings for even the current Army Physical Fitness Test impractical.

Oshkosh Defense wins $346 million contract to modernize US Army’s heavy tactical vehicles, reports Defense News. Upgrading heavy tactical trucks aligns with the service’s need to support operations across multiple domains against near-peer adversaries.

Contracts:

International Business Machines Corp., Reston, Virginia, was awarded a $23,569,218 modification (CC0652) to contract W91QUZ-06-D-0010 for supporting a logistics data analysis center. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2020. US Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

Monkton Inc., Vienna, Virginia, has been awarded a $500,000,000 hybrid firm-fixed-price, cost-reimbursable, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the commercialization of mobile strategy. This contract provides for the technology and support necessary to enable the Department of Defense to rapidly design, develop and deploy mission enabling solutions to uniformed active duty members, reservist and civil servants that operate at the tactical edge. Work will be performed in Tysons, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by Oct. 1, 2025. This award is the result of a Small Business Innovation Research (SIBR) Program and is a Phase III award directly born from Monkton Inc.’s SBIR Phase I award. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $633,000 will be obligated at the time of award. Headquarters US Space Force, Enterprise Solutions Directorate, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, is the contracting activity (FA2595-20-D-0001).

The Boeing Co., St Louis, Missouri, has been awarded an $11,083,286 firm-fixed-price-contract modification (P00037) to contract FA8621-16-C-6397 for F-15C and F-15E Mission Training Centers (MTC) services on contractor furnished, high-fidelity simulation equipment. Contractor will provide the simulation capability to train pilots and weapons system operators for F-15C and F-15E aircraft platforms. Work will be performed at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base (AFB), North Carolina; Mountain Home AFB, Idaho; Langley AFB, Virginia; Kadena Air Base, Japan; and Royal Air Force, Lakenheath, England, and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31 2020. This award is a result of a sole-source acquisition and fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $11,083,286 will be obligated at the time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity.

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Aerospace Systems, Melbourne, Florida, is awarded $404,000,638 for a modification (P00013) to previously awarded, fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract N00019-18-C-1037. Work will be performed in St. Augustine, Florida (22%); Liverpool, New York (18%); Melbourne, Florida (15%); Indianapolis, Indiana (6%); Menlo Park, California (4%); El Segundo, California (3%); Aire-sur-l’Adour, France (3%); Rolling Meadows, Illinois (2%); Greenlawn, New York (2%); Woodland Hills, California (1%); Edgewood, New York (1%); Owego, New York (1%); Falls Church, Virginia (1%); Marlboro, Massachusetts (1%); Beavercreek, Ohio (1%); Windsor Locks, Connecticut (1%); Independence, Ohio (1%); and various locations within the continental US (17%). This modification exercises contract options for non-recurring engineering and software support activities as well as product support for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye (AHE) full rate production (FRP).  In addition, this modification procures two E-2D AHE aircraft, one each in FRP Lots 8 and 9.  Work is expected to be complete by March 2025. Fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $22,925,831; and fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $381,074,807 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

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