Mil-Tech

General Dynamics Awarded $48 Million by U.S. Army for Reactive Armor Side Skirt Tiles

The U.S. Army, Army Contracting Command, Joint Munitions and Lethality, in Picatinny, N.J., has awarded General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products an order valued at approximately $48 million to produce reactive armor side skirt tiles for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle System. Deliveries are expected to begin in February 2011 and be completed in September 2011. General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products is a business unit of General Dynamics.

The reactive armor system is composed of tiles that fasten to the exterior of a vehicle, allowing it to better withstand direct hits from a variety of anti-armor munitions.

Production work will be performed at the General Dynamics facility in McHenry, Miss., and the program will be managed from General Dynamics’ Burlington Technology Center in Vermont. A strategic partner, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., Ordnance and Protection Division, will share the production workload in Haifa, Israel.

“Our reactive armor technology adds a valuable level of vehicle protection against shaped-charge threats and explosively-formed projectiles,” said Russ Klein, vice president and general manager of weapon systems for General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products. “Designed specifically for the U.S. Army’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle, reactive armor prevents severe damage to combat vehicles in Iraq, and more importantly saves lives.”

In addition to manufacturing the reactive armor tiles for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, General Dynamics provides complete assembly, integration and storage capabilities for the U.S. Army’s reactive armor tile program.

$20M Order from NAVSEA Keeps iRobot Corp Thriving

Following better-than-expected results for the second quarter of 2010, leading robotics company iRobot Corp. continues its strong performance for this year, this time by winning a $20.3 million contract for battle-tested robots from the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). The order, a standalone contract, is for 125 PackBot Man Transportable Robotic System (MTRS) robots. The deal also includes spare parts and repair services if needed.

The PackBot MTRS robot’s predecessor, the highly-succesful iRobot 510 PackBot, is one of the most popular battlefield robots in the world today. They are deployed in war-ravaged areas including Iraq and Afghanistan, and are used in hazardous missions primarily to search for and neutralize hidden explosives. These robots have proven their reliability in deactivating car bombs, roadside bombs, and improvised explosive devices or IEDs.

Robots, said iRobot President for Government and Industrial Robots Division Joe Dryer, have long shown their worth on the battlefield. With roadside bombs and similar devices continuing to pose danger in Iraq and Afghanistan, he emphasizes the need for “outfitting our troops with tools to ensure they stay as safe as possible.”

“The iRobot PackBot is saving lives, and we are honored to be providing this technology to the military“, Dryer adds.

It can be recalled that just last month, iRobot also received an order for 94 units of Small Unmanned Ground Vehicles or SUGVs as part of a $14.6 million contract with the US Army.

To date, iRobot Corp has filled orders for more than 3,500 unmanned ground vehicles from both the military and public safety organizations.

BAE Systems Hit By Defence Cuts

Orders for BAE’s F-35 fighter planes are likely to be reduced in a time of military budget restraints.

BAE Systems, the biggest manufacturing company in Britain, was dealt a major blow today when the government awarded the first phase of a £4bn contract to build new armoured cars for the British army to America’s General Dynamics. The move jeopardises the future of the firm’s armaments factory in Newcastle and 600 jobs.

The deal is for armoured reconnaissance vehicles to replace Britain’s ageing Scimitars – seen as vulnerable to roadside bombs – using better protection and with added firepower.

General Dynamics had previously said 10,500 UK jobs would be safeguarded or created over the 10-year deal, if it won the contract, and Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, made the point that the US group’s bid contained 73% UK content within the supply chain and the assembly, integration and test facilities at the company’s Defence Support Group at Donnington.

For BAE, which spent £50m over five years developing a contender for the deal, based on upgrading its existing CV90 tank, these are dog days as it faces swingeing defence spending cuts by the US and British governments in the wake of the global banking crisis.

Big-budget US projects have already been axed as the Obama administration curbs military spending, which doubled during the Bush years. Among them are the costly F-22 fighter plane, a new communications satellite, shipbuilding programmes and missile development. Further job losses are inevitable. As BAE derives half its £20bn of annual revenue from the US, this is unwelcome news.

Britain is also gearing up for big cuts, with both of the main political parties preparing to slash defence spending by up to £10bn after the election in May.
Analysts anticipate cuts to the BAE Harrier and Tornado fighter jet fleet, an early phasing out of Nimrod MR2 reconnaissance aircraft, and a reduction in orders for the new US F-35 fighters. Such ruthless cost-cutting means BAE could lose tens of millions in revenue.

“BAE faces a challenging period as government seeks to rein in public spending,” stated Peter Felstead, of Jane’s Defence Weekly. “Plans for new aircraft carriers, warplanes and ships are vulnerable at a time when there is cross-party consensus that military spending is too extravagant.”

The difficult backdrop has not been lost on the City: BAE’s share price is down 20% over 18 months and Goldman Sachs has published a note claiming BAE’s earnings could stagnate until the middle of this decade.

According to Goldman Sachs’ defence analyst David Perry, profits at BAE’s land division look set to halve by 2012 after the US cut funding for several vehicle programmes. Perry said he expected news about the F-35 to get worse. The programme leader, Lockheed, warned recently that it would share the burden among partners, including BAE, after the Pentagon withheld $614m (£410m) in performance fees.

Ed Steed, an analyst at Execution Noble, said BAE was not well positioned to withstand an era of reduced defence spending as it was heavily exposed to so-called platform products: “Big-ticket items such as ships, aircraft and submarines, where the spotlight tends to fall during a defence review.”

“Projects where BAE is involved such as F-35 and Typhoon are far advanced but governments around the world are likely to reduce planned orders or abandon plans to place new [orders] at a time of budgetary restraint,” he informed.

BAE has also suffered a number of setbacks on a second front: competition for new weapons contracts. Today’s news that it had lost the armoured car contract follows last year’s failure to win the $281m US government contract for armoured battlefield vehicles. That deal was clinched at the eleventh hour by its Wisconsin-based rival Oshkosh Defense and was the first time that BAE has suffered a major contract loss in North America since it launched the last phase of its US expansion strategy two years ago. BAE is now the fourth-biggest defence contractor in the US market.

To hedge against uncertainty in the US and UK, BAE is expanding in India, Australia and Saudi Arabia, where defence spending is expected to rise; and it aims to boost its presence in niche product areas such as cyber-security and unmanned aircraft.

When the company’s results were announced in February, Ian King, chief executive, informed he expected combat aircraft to take over from land vehicles as the main driver of growth. He expects land systems to fall 30% by 2012, following contract setbacks, and because of retrenchment as the US and Britain withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Howard Wheeldon, a strategist at BGC Partners, said he remained positive about BAE. “It is a past master at being able to adapt to changed circumstances. These may be worrying times but the company is well positioned, as it has a diversified product portfolio and international interests,” he informed.

Analysts at Exane BNP Paribas expect “a flat performance over the next couple of years” but note that about 30% of BAE’s income depends on maintenance and support programmes for projects that still have many years to run.

BAE rebutted suggestions that it faces a rocky period ahead, saying: “We have a large order book and programmes such as Typhoon continue to deliver a strong performance. During the year, £3bn of new support contracts were awarded.

“In the US, our high-technology capabilities within our electronics, intelligence and support business continue to be in demand.”

BAE is also battling an image problem, after US and UK bribery and corruption inquiries ended with it paying £255m in fines to the US department of justice (DoJ) after admitting to irregularities over the sale of fighter planes to Saudi Arabia and eastern Europe.

In a court filing, the DoJ claimed that BAE transferred millions to Swiss bank accounts controlled by an agent, with a high probability that a payment would go to a Saudi Arabian official in a position of influence. In the past, there have been allegations that BAE had a £60m slush fund to underpin the Saudi al-Yamamah arms contract, which has been worth £43bn over the past 20 years. BAE has denied the allegations.

In Britain, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) dropped an investigation into BAE’s Saudi business after intervention by the Blair government in 2006. But the company must pay £30m after agreeing to plead guilty to a lesser offence of failing to keep accurate accounting records for its activities in Tanzania.

Although the UK National Audit Office investigated al-Yamamah, the conclusions are shrouded in secrecy. The Ministry of Defence informed: “The report remains sensitive. Disclosure would harm both international relations and the UK’s commercial interests.” Anti-armaments campaigners have accused the government of a cover-up.

King has tried to draw a line under the corruption investigations by stating: “The company regrets and accepts full responsibility for past shortcomings. The firm has systematically enhanced its compliance policies and processes.”

Francis Tusa, of Defence Analysis, informed: “If you ask people what they think of defence companies, they would be extremely cynical and assume that dodgy stuff is going on all the time. Of course, that doesn’t make it right.”

Rita Clifton, chair of the branding agency Interbrand, informed: “No one expects a defence company to be a hearts-and-flowers organisation. Customers are primarily concerned about product quality and service but reputation can be a factor when potential clients are shopping around in a highly competitive marketplace. And image matters in the wider public and political arena. BAE cannot afford to rest on its laurels.”

Conference Showcases Surveillance Technology

Massive helium-filled blimps known as “aerostats” have been a fixture in the skies over the Texas-Mexico border since at least the early 1990s.

Authorities use them to deliver long-term surveillance of illegal immigration and drug-trafficking.

A new company is marketing a smaller, more mobile version of the giant blimps that would mimic the surveillance capability of unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the predator drones used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Overhead Communications unveiled its fleet of aerostats at the Texas Homeland Security Conference at the Convention Center in downtown San Antonio on Wednesday.

Overhead Communications was one of 5,000 representatives of law enforcement, transportation and cyber security officials that attended the conference, which concludes today.

The gathering is a chance for law enforcement agencies to share ideas about border security, terrorism and emergency management, according to officials from the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

But it also was a forum for defense contractors and inventors to showcase the latest in law enforcement gadgetry, such as license plate-recognition technology systems, pickups retrofitted with machine guns and Kevlar siding designed to better withstand the impact of an improvised explosive device.

Officials at the year-old Houston company see their blimps — which can be equipped with a communications network that includes radio, video cameras and Wi-Fi — as a cheaper alternative to satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance systems. Overhead Communications’ aerostats top off at around $3 million while predator drones have a $4.5 million price tag, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a research group in Alexandria, Va.

“The Texas border is 1,500 miles long, and 80 percent of it is without communication,” stated Rob Campbell, vice president for business development at Overhead Communications. “We can come into an area with nothing and re-establish communications and put a hi-def video camera with infrared capability 2,000 feet in the air for weeks at a time.”

Drones, on the other hand, are only able to stay in the air for around 20 hours before needing to be refueled.

The aerostats developed by Overhead Communications are the latest in a series of ideas from companies looking for new ways to alleviate communication obstacles that often compound emergency-response efforts during natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, Campbell said.

He said his company’s aerostats, which can be deployed in minutes from the back of a pickup, also would be useful for authorities needing to monitor crowded public events such as the Super Bowl from above or for firefighters who wanted to use an infrared camera to pinpoint the best place to attack a blaze.

“Say Hurricane Ike blows down your communication towers,” he informed. “Emergency responders will have to rely on mobile command systems with 40-foot towers.

“If I can take those same systems and put them 500 feet in the air, you can see for 27 miles in every direction and communicate in an area the size of San Antonio.”

General Dynamics Awarded $154 Million to Help U.S. Army's Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care

General Dynamics Information Technology, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), has been awarded a task order to support the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office, Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS), Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care (MC4) Product Management Office (PMO). The task order is valued at $154 million over five years if all options are exercised.

General Dynamics will provide the full spectrum of pre-deployment, deployment, on-site, re-deployment and garrison support to MC4 PMO system activities at as well as worldwide training events, including combat areas and contingency operations use. General Dynamics also provides on-the-ground support for Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom with fielding, training and sustainment of MC4 medical information systems for tactical medical forces that have been deployed to serve warfighters.

“General Dynamics is proud of our partnership with the MC4 PMO for the past five years,” informed Zannie Smith, senior vice president of General Dynamics Information Technology’s Army Solutions Division. “We will continue to support MC4′s vision for improved tactical healthcare and better decision making through the power of information technology. Our in-depth experience and thorough understanding of the program and its requirements enable us to promote, maintain and enhance the health and readiness of military personnel.”

MC4 integrates, fields and supports a comprehensive medical information system, enabling lifelong electronic medical records, streamlined medical logistics and enhanced situational awareness for Army tactical forces. Since 2003, MC4 has fielded 35,000 systems to combat support hospitals and deployable medical assets with the Army, Air Force, Navy and Army Special Operations Forces in 14 countries. More than 44,000 users, commanders and systems administrators have been trained through the program on how to use and support the system.

As a trusted systems integrator for more than 50 years, General Dynamics Information Technology delivers information technology (IT), systems engineering, professional services and simulation and training to customers in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, health, federal civilian government and commercial sectors. With approximately 17,000 professionals worldwide, the company manages large-scale, mission-critical IT programs providing IT services and enterprise solutions. More information about General Dynamics Information Technology is available at www.gdit.com.

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, employs approximately 91,700 people worldwide. The company is a market leader in business aviation; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and information systems and technologies. More information about the company is available on the Internet at www.generaldynamics.com.

Clifton-Based Defense Contractor Has Plans

Christopher C. Bernhardt, president of Clifton-based ITT Electronic Systems, makes no bones about what makes his company’s cash registers ring.

“We are a country at war,” he stated on a recent afternoon at the company’s 13-acre headquarters. “And we are a company that serves customers with products that save lives. That’s the way it’s been since Sept. 12, 2001.”

Whether business will continue at the current pace, however, is a cause for concern to ITT, which makes electromagnetic-based products, from state-of-the-art military radios to missile detection systems and aircraft precision landing equipment.

With the Iraq war slowing, the long-term future of the Afghan war uncertain and the military changing its priorities, ITT and other military contractors are increasingly looking to find new revenue streams.

Two weeks ago, ITT’s White Plains, N.Y.-based parent, ITT Corp., announced a major restructuring of its defense business, which is now under way, consolidating seven company divisions into three and boosting the prominence of the Clifton office, which now heads the largest of the three divisions.

Bernhardt said the move is designed to adapt to the new economic and military environment. Seventy-five percent of the company’s revenue — about $2.7 billion after the restructuring — comes from military contracts, he informed.

“As people think about the downturn in defense,” he stated, “the leaders of my operation get paid to look out four, five, six years and say, ‘Where are my customers going, where is our market going and how do we reposition the business?’ ”

“My goal is to further diversify the portfolio, to offset and mitigate the eventual decline of the Department of Defense,” he said. “And that’s what we are doing.”

To that end, the company is looking to foreign governments for business and trying to retool its products for civilian use, such as using surveillance equipment for anti-narcotics efforts and tiny electromagnetic wave emitters to slow the spread of brain cancer.

David Fishering, a California-based defense industry analyst, said most top defense companies are making moves similar to ITT, either through reorganizing and restructuring or cost cutting.

Yet the extent of future defense cuts and their impact on contractors is unclear, said Bernard Finel, senior fellow at the American Security Project, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Although U.S. military expenditures in Iraq are declining, they are increasing in Afghanistan at a faster rate, so a decline in direct war spending is not imminent, Finel informed.

That’s good news for contractors who supply the kind of day-to-day equipment needed to wage war — ammunition, fuel and food, he said. But funding cuts to longer-term programs such as a recently cut search-and-rescue helicopter system would hurt suppliers to those sectors, he stated.

“These are not companies that have the ability to diversify significantly,” Finel informed. “They are trying to find out which programs are durable and which ones are not, and they are trying to consolidate where they can.”

ITT’s restructuring came after eight years of steady growth, organically and through an acquisition, said Bernhardt, who joined the company as president in June 2001.

Company revenue, about $100 million at the time, has grown by double digits annually ever since, company officials said. That’s boosted the company’s Clifton workforce from 300 to 1,350. The company, which was known as ITT Avionics until 2005, expects to hire at least 100 engineers this year.

A key part of the company’s revenue in that period came from an electronic system designed to intercept and confuse radio-guided missiles heading toward military aircraft, said spokesman John C. Dench.

Yet until 2006, the company got no part of the federal funds used to wage the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, Bernhardt said. That changed, he said, after he visited wounded soldiers, many with limbs blown off and severe disfigurement, at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., in 2006.

“What took my breath away was that, to the man and woman, I said, Would you do this again?’ and to a man they said, ‘yes,’ ” Bernhardt said. “I said to myself, there has got to be something ITT can do with our technology.”

He formed a team to study how ITT’s technology could be used to stop improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, one of the biggest threats to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bombs, which are often left in the path of passing troops, are detonated by a radio-based device such as a cellphone or an electronic garage opener.

ITT developed a device to “jam” the signal before detonation, and acquired New York-based EDO Corp., which made similar technology, in 2007 for $1.7 billion. ITT has now shipped 21,000 anti-IED units, generating revenue of $1.6 billion, Dench informed.

The company’s new strategy is designed to broaden the market for such military products by expanding relationships with existing customers like the governments of Oman, Brazil and Chile and find new ones.

Some company products designed for military use are already employed in the private sector. ITT satellites used in Global Positioning Systems, which were developed to help military units keep their bearings, are also used to guide citizens armed with consumer GPS units, company officials say.

And ITT is working with New York-based NovoCure, which has a plan before the Food and Drug Administration to use tiny sensors to generate electromagnetic waves that would stop cancer cells splitting and slow the spread of cancer in the brain and other organs, Dench said.

The sensors, originally developed to detect threats to military ships and submarines, would be made by ITT if the FDA approves the plan, he said.

Bernhardt says the company is harnessing the same instincts and skills that fueled its growth.
“Part of the success of any company is about what inspires employees to do great things,” he said. “This company is all about innovation. Innovation is all about ideas, and people who generate ideas are people who are inspired.”

That’s the main reason the company does not expect to move, especially to a cheaper out-of-state location, even though the Clifton campus is reaching maximum capacity.

Instead, the company opened a Bloomfield facility at the end of last year to allow the expansion of the GPS business, he said.

“When you have built a business that is as deep technically as this, from people who are from the area, it’s very hard to replicate that in another area without taking a phenomenal risk,” Bernhardt said, adding that New Jersey residents don’t like to leave the state.

“You are just not going to take talent like this and resurrect it in New Mexico,” he said. “It’s not going to happen.”

U.S. Army Awarded General Dynamics With $33 Million Order for Bradley Fighting Vehicle Reactive Armor

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products has been awarded an order of approximately $33 million to produce reactive armor tile sets for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle by the U.S. Army Contracting Command in Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. Deliveries are expected to begin in June 2010. General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products is a business unit of General Dynamics ( GD).

Work will be performed at the General Dynamics’ facility in McHenry, Miss., and deliveries are expected to be completed in November 2010. The program will be managed from General Dynamics’ Burlington Technology Center in Vermont. The order is an extension of a contract awarded in 2006. A strategic partner, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., Ordnance and Protection Division, will share the production workload in Haifa, Israel.

General Dynamics’ reactive armor system is composed of tiles that fasten to the exterior of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, allowing it to better withstand direct hits from a variety of anti-armor munitions.

“Our reactive armor package is a light-weight solution that can defeat full-scale, shape-charge threats of modern, long-range anti-tank missiles,” informed Russ Klein, vice president and general manager of weapon systems for General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products. “Our team in McHenry is proud to produce reactive armor tiles that save lives and prevent severe damage to combat vehicles in Iraq.”

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, located in Charlotte, N.C., delivers a broad range of system solutions for military and commercial applications. The company designs, develops and produces high-performance weapon and armament systems, defensive armor, countermeasure systems and aerospace composite solutions, as well as off-road axle and suspension systems. It is also a leading U.S. producer of biological and chemical detection systems. More information about General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products can be found on the Internet at www.gdatp.com.

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Va., employs approximately 92,300 people worldwide. The company is a market leader in business aviation; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and information systems and technologies. More information about General Dynamics is available online at www.generaldynamics.com.

URS awarded $316 million in defense contracts

Engineering and construction company URS Corp. said Tuesday it has been awarded four new Department of Defense contracts worth $316 million over five years.

URS will receive $140 million as part of an Army tire repair program in Iraq; $103 million to maintain Army aircraft; $46 million to inspect and maintain U.S. Army vehicles and equipment in South Korea; and $27 million to support the Radar Technologies Division of a U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind.

Shares of San Francisco-based URS fell 30 cents to $46.07 in midday trading Thursday.

Elbit Systems of America Awarded $8.2M Contract for Helmet Display and Tracker System (HDTS) for U.S. Marine Corps AH-1W

Elbit Systems of America, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Elbit Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: ESLT) announced receipt of contracts from the United States Marine Corps (USMC) for Elbit Systems of America Helmet Display and Tracker System (HDTS) for the USMC AH-1W Attack Helicopter. The contract effort covers the development of retrofit kits to incorporate HDTS into the AH-1W helicopter. Elbit Systems of America will be assisted in this program by subcontractors Elbit Systems Ltd. Aerospace Division as well as Service Support Associates Inc. Elbit Systems of America was chosen based upon the previously successful 1st flight of HDTS on the USMC AH-1W in November 2007 at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.

The program is valued at $8.2 million and is to be performed through 2010. Award of a contract for HDTS production kits and installation is expected in September 2010.

The HDTS system provides significant increases in situational awareness and safety by allowing pilots to fly “head out of the cockpit” during day and night operations and combines it with Other Pilot Line of Sight (OPLOS) information. This information further increases crew situational awareness and effectiveness, while reducing workload. The system is based on the proven Elbit Systems ANVIS/HUD(R) which has been in use by U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marines and U.S. Air Force rotary wing pilots since the mid- 1990′s. The system is installed on most of the U.S. utility and cargo helicopter fleet platforms, including the UH-60L, CH-53E, CH-47D, CH-46E, UH-1N, V-22 and others, and has seen extensive operational use in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In combination with OPLOS and weapons aiming and targeting information, the HDTS will provide US Marine Corps helicopter pilots with flight data symbology 24 hours a day, utilizing new, light-weight flat panel displays superimposed over helmet mounted night vision goggles for the night, and the Day HUD for day display of relevant flight symbology.

Soldier rewrites standard in satellite reliability

CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar — Sgt. Jeffrey Yauch, from Plover, Wis., adheres to the old Army conviction: leave it better than you found it. During a one-year deployment, the 1st Cavalry Division soldier wrote detailed technical standard operation procedures for tactical satellite hubs employing the military’s latest communications technology.

Yauch’s painstaking labors led to an unprecedented 99-percent satellite reliability rate, according to signal reports at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar. Tactical environment uptimes typically range between 90 and 95 percent, according to Chief Warrant Officer Scott Gray, 1st Cavalry Division Special Troops Battalion network technician chief.

“Our team set a new standard for maintaining a tactical satellite hub,” said Gray, who then commended the entire unit for supporting communication requirements for over 230,000 combat patrols in Iraq this year.

The 1st Cavalry Division, a rapidly deployable armored division based at Fort Hood, Texas, assumed duties as the Multi-National Division – Baghdad headquarters in January. While the main body moved into Iraq, Yauch and 18 other Soldiers formed a tactical satellite hub at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar, located on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula.

The team of Soldiers inherited a critical mission: set up and maintain a robust satellite hub at the Qatar base. Warfighters throughout Iraq would depend on their signal integrity for a variety of audiovisual services, such as telecommunications, video teleconferences and network access. Unfortunately, specific instructions about fielding the Army’s most recent equipment didn’t exist. Yauch resolved to fix that discrepancy, as the Soldiers went to work.

“I basically took a quick-reference manual and turned it into a 40-page TSOP,” said Yauch. He documented satellite positions, database creation, network maintenance procedures – all the best configurations for signal strength and fidelity in a deployed location. He crammed hours of troubleshooting into a clean how-to format.

“The hardest part was dummying it all down,” said Yauch. “It needed to be simple … so anyone with a basic knowledge of satellite communications could comprehend it.” Aside from understanding suitable implementation methods, reliable uptimes require operators who care for their equipment, he said.

The tactical satellite document has been disseminated throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It’s a step-by-step guide on everything from setting up to maintaining,” said Sgt. Andrew Haase, 1st Armored Division satellite communications operator. The 1st Armored Division will relieve the 1st Cavalry Division at MND-B next month. “We’ve been using it to set up here,” referring to an ongoing relief-in-place transition in Qatar.

source > TMCnet.com