Defence`s Feeds

American LAV-105 Fire Support Vehicle

Raytheon has received a $249m contract from the US Marine Corps (USMC) Logistics Command to refurbish USMC's vehicles, as part of its Secondary Reparable (SECREP) programme.

The US Navy took delivery of first Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer, BWXT won $3.1bn contract to provide naval nuclear reactor components and fuel and MBDA receives £411m contract to develop new missile for UK’s F-35B jets. Naval-technology.com…

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Americas

• Lockheed Martin has announced that one of the company’s test pilot’s has made the first flight of the T-50A that is configured to compete in the US Air Force T-X competition. Equipped with a 5th generation cockpit, the aircraft is billed as the only one being offered that meets all of the USAF’s Advanced Pilot Trainer (APT) program requirements. LM is co-developing the aircraft with South Korean firm Korea Aerospace Industries.

• Setbacks to the KC-46A tanker program have been compounded as Boeing has admitted that a software solution to fix the load issues on the flying boom was not robust enough and the company will have to modify the hardware itself. The plane was initially aiming to have a low-production order to deliver 18 tankers by next August. Issues arose during refueling trials with larger aircraft such as the C-17 military transporters which caused unacceptable stress loads along the axis of the boom.

• NG Imaging Systems has been awarded an $81 million contract for sniper engineering and manufacturing development as well as low-rate initial production of a family of weapons sights. The contract marks the first clip-on thermal weapon sight specifically developed and fielded for the sniper community by the Army. Completion and delivery is expected for June 2021.

• The US Army has successfully fired Lockheed Martin’s multi-mode Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) from a UAV for the first time. Testing was conducted on an MQ-1C Gray Eagle at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. The Gray Eagle test was the seventh flight test for the JAGM missile. The missile was previously tested on Apache attack helicopters and Marine Corps Cobra helicopters.

Europe

• Slovakia’s Ministry of Defense has rejected an offer from the Swedish government on a lease agreement for Saab Gripen fighters. Under the provisions of the deal, Slovakia would have seen Stockholm lease six JAS 39Cs and two JAS 39Ds for an undisclosed price for a total of 1,200 flight hours per year. However, since elections in March saw a change of government including the Slovak National Party, the new prime minister Robert Fico has praised the capabilities of the MiG-29 aircraft.

• Following its northern neighbor Romania, Bulgaria looks set to modernize its air force with surplus F-16s supplied by Portugal. The Portuguese Ministry of National Defense reports that a request for information has been filed by the government in Sofia for nine of the aircraft to be modernized. Any deal would result in F-16s supplied by the US government under its Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program or aircraft of allied nations that are replacing the type with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.

Asia Pacific

• Discussions are under way between Japan and Thailand’s military governments for the potential purchase of Kawasaki P-1 maritime patrol plane and the ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious aircraft which could pave the way for both government’s to become limited defense partners. The defense equipment contract that needs to be signed for any deal to follow through is being seen by some commentators as an effective wedge by Japan to block the continuation of cooperation between Bangkok and region rival China.

• After the relaxing of the decades long arms embargo on Vietnam, Hanoi doesn’t seem to be rushing after US arms just yet. It’s been reported that negotiations have begun with the Indonesian government over the purchase of CN-295 transport aircraft – an Airbus C-295 license-built by Indonesian Aerospace. Indonesia’s Vice President Jusuf Kalla made the announcement, saying the sales proposal was discussed with Vietnam’s deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Today’s Video

• Rare footage of North Korean Mi-2 helicopter firing anti-tank guide missiles:

JAGM infographic
(click to view full)

The AGM-114 Hellfire missile remains a mainstay for the US military and its allies around the world, and efforts to replace it have repeatedly stalled. The Joint Common Missile (JCM) was meant to offer new guidance options, and use on fast jets as well as helicopters and UAVs. It performed well, but was canceled. It returned from the procurement dead as JAGM, a program that has undergone several major changes within itself. While other air forces field fast-jet solutions like MBDA’s Brimstone, JAGM will initially be limited to helicopters and UAVs, as a dual-mode guidance upgrade to current model Hellfire missiles.

The JAGM Program JAGM Missile Increments Hellfire II: what’s next?
(click to view full)

Oddly, the problems faced by Hellfire’s JCM and JAGM successors have been largely unrelated to cost or to performance. Rather, the programs kept getting cut to pay for other things. The Hellfires were seen as good enough to equip American helicopters and large UAVs like the Predator. To compete, new entrants had to fit into a new category. Smaller guided 70mm rockets gained a foothold because more of them could be carried in the same space, while small multi-mode glide bombs found a niche by being launched from the back ramps of cargo aircraft. JAGM was a straight substitute, and that wasn’t interesting enough.

After enough JCM/JAGM missile program cancellations and resurrections to make even Lazarus give up, the US Army looked at its Hellfire stocks, and realized that they’d need something new anyway. In response, they decided to try squaring this circle using an incremental approach, one focused on replacing the most at-risk AGM-114L radar-guided missiles first.

Initial. The JAGM Continued Technology Development phase now aims to create dual-mode laser/radar guidance sections that can equip existing Hellfire II missiles. Essentially, JAGM Increment 1 would create a Hellfire III missile with dual-mode guidance, matched to the AGM-114R’s multi-role warhead and rocket. Initial Army platforms would include the AH-64E Apache attack helicopter, and MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAV. The USMC’s initial platforms will be the AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter and KC-130J Harvest Hawk armed tanker/ transport, for integration by FY 2019.

JAGM Increment 2. Intends to increase the maximum range to 12 km, and move to the full tri-mode seeker with semi-active laser, Imaging Infrared (IIR), and millimeter wave radar guidance modes. If Raytheon bids, they’d be offering the tri-mode seeker in Increment 1 as well.

JAGM Increment 3. This is the original JAGM concept, more or less. It would have a maximum range of 16 km that would likely force a new rocket motor, alongside other redesigns for carriage and launch from helicopters or fast jets. Initial fixed-wing platforms would include the USMC’s AV-8B Harrier and F-35B Lightning II STOVL fighters, but there’s no set schedule. The earliest F-35 integration slot involves Block 4 fighters, whose software isn’t likely to be ready before 2021-2023.

Timeline & Budgets

If JAGM can be delivered to the required cost targets, it may add the originally-planned tri-mode (imaging infrared + semi-active laser + millimeter wave radar) guidance set, and Increments 2 & 3 may revive interest in new rocket motor technology that would eventually allow safe launches from fighter jets. Those kinds of advances sit beyond the current timeline.

Budgets to date have included:

Scope and Scale F-16 fires Maverick

If the US Army and Navy have total current program numbers for JAGM, they aren’t disclosing them in recent documents. We do know that JAGM’s scope is much reduced, but it could still expand again.

The original Joint Common Missile (JCM) was seen as the next-generation, multi-purpose, air-to-ground precision missile that will replace AGM-114 Hellfire family, AGM-65 Maverick family, and airborne xGM-71 TOW missiles with a single weapon usable by the airplanes, helicopters and UAVs of the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. It was also being considered for use on some ground vehicles, and had naval potential. The original JCM had a goal of 54,000 missiles.

JAGM was revised lower, and a 2010 GAO document estimated the total 20-year program cost at about $6.4 billion: $1.64 billion for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation; and $4.74 billion to build 33,853 missiles. As of November 2011, the totals had reached $6.88 billion for 35,422 missiles.

Then the FY13 budget came in, grinding the program to a near halt as the Navy left. The program was restructured, and the USMC returned to the program in time for the FY15 budget submission, but the program’s scope has been reduced further.

Part of the reason involves fewer platforms. “Increment 1 & 2” versions of JAGM can’t replace the Mavericks on fixed-wing jets. Until at least 2019, the missiles will be limited to US Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, USMC AH-1Z attack helicopters, US Army MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAVs, and USMC KC-130J Harvest Hawk armed tanker/transports.

SDB-II

Meanwhile, the US Navy and USAF have a substitute. The Navy expects to follow the AGM-65 Mavericks on its jets with small GBU-53 SDB-II glide bombs, carrying a tri-mode IIR/laser/MMW radar seeker that may yet see derivative use in JAGM. The USAF will be doing likewise, instead of turning to JAGM or to similar missiles like MBDA’s Brimstone.

US Navy MH-60s can expect eventual JAGM integration, since AGM-114 Hellfire deliveries are set to end in 2017. Farther into the future, the USMC wants to equip its AV-8B and F-35B fighters with JAGM Increment 3. Note, however, that there’s no set schedule for missile upgrades. On the export front, if JAGM is added to F-35Bs, it will be competing with the MBDA Brimstone and SPEAR missiles that Britain plans to integrate into its own F-35B fleet.

Other opportunities exist. Vehicle-mounted options for Hellfire-class missiles are springing up, but competition from dedicated anti-armor weapons like the shorter-range Javelin, MMP, and Spike, or the longer range Spike-NLOS, will be fierce. Naval options may be even more promising for fire-and-forget missiles, where JAGM could replace the AGM-114L Hellfire on the USA’s Littoral Combat ships, or fit out other vessels who need a deadly fire-and-forget counter to small boat swarms. In that arena, MBDA’s laser/radar guided Brimstone and Raytheon’s GPS/laser/IIR guided Griffin C will be its main competitors.

Competition: MBDA’s Brimstone/ SPEAR Brimstones on GR4s
(click to view full)

While the JCM/ JAGM program has churned specifications and burned time, a different program has already produced an interesting competitor with many of the same specifications, and some of the flexibility.

AGM-114P/R Hellfire missiles are now qualified for use at high-altitudes on UAVs like the MQ-9 Reaper, but they aren’t a solution for fixed-wing jets, and range limitations make Hellfire dangerous to use against even short-range air defenses. MBDA’s Brimstone 2 solves those problems.

The Brimstone’s first combat use came in 2011 over Libya, where its man-in-the-loop option and attack profiles made it one of the few weapons that NATO commanders could use to attack enemy armor in urban areas. It has been integrated with Britain’s Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 strike aircraft and Harrier GR9 jump-jets, and is slated to add the Eurofighter Typhoon to that list. F-35 integration was scheduled for F-35B Block 3 in 2018, but overall F-35 development problems look set to push the British effort back to Block 4 in 2021-2023.

SPEAR

With combat credentials and a significant head start, MBDA can be expected to make more market inroads.

Nor is MBDA resting on its technical laurels. Their SPEAR project for Britain’s Complex Weapons program aims to take the Brimstone’s warhead and guidance, and mount it on a larger missile with a range of 75 – 100 km. SPEAR will be mounted in multiples on external hardpoints, or carried inside the weapons bay of Britain’s forthcoming F-35Bs.

Contracts and Key Events

The JAGM program will be managed by the U.S. Army’s Aviation and Missile Command in Redstone Arsenal, AL.

FY 2016

USMC back in the program; Raytheon out of CTD; Brimstone for MQ-9 Reaper UAVs? JAGM Inc 1
(click to view full)

June 6/16: The US Army has successfully fired Lockheed Martin’s multi-mode Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) from a UAV for the first time. Testing was conducted on an MQ-1C Gray Eagle at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. The Gray Eagle test was the seventh flight test for the JAGM missile. The missile was previously tested on Apache attack helicopters and Marine Corps Cobra helicopters.

April 15/16: The Redstone Test Center is playing host to the engineering and development phase of the Joint Air to Ground Missile (JAGM). So far, the missile completed tests on its guidance section which included captive flight testing, tower testing, and environmental testing. The JAGM will now enter the Product Qualification Test (PQT) phase which will see the weapon carried on the Grey Eagle unmanned aerial system (UAS) and AH-64 Apache helicopter for flight testing.

FY 2013 – 2015

USMC back in the program; Raytheon out of CTD; Brimstone for MQ-9 Reaper UAVs?

Aug 3/15: Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $66.4 million contract to further develop the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) for the Army and Navy. The company submitted its bid for the program in April and successfully test fired two JAGMs in mid-July. The JAGM is intended to replace AGM-114 Hellfire, AGM-65 Maverick and BGM-71 TOW missiles currently in service.

July 14/15: Lockheed Martin reported on Monday that the company has successfully tested two Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles (JAGM) during recent testing over Elgin AFB in Florida. The company is bidding for its missile to win the Army’s JAGM competition, delivering its proposal in April.

Nov 3/14: USMC Plan. The USMC’s Aviation Plan to 2030 deals with weapons as well. JAGM is mentioned, and its 3 planned increments are fully outlined. Under current plans, JAGM Increment 1 will begin integration with AH-1Z attack helicopters in 2015, and will achieve Initial Operational Capability on the AH-1Z and on KC-130J Harvest Hawk armed tanker/ transport planes in 2019.

Beyond 2019, the USMC plans to field JAGM Increment 3 on the AV-8B Harrier II and F-35C Lightning II. Note that the earliest available integration slot for the F-35 would involve Block 4 software, around 2021-2023. Britain, is likely to add its competing Brimstone missile to the F-35B in Block 4, after original plans to feature it in Block 3 fell through. Sources: USMC, Marine Aviation Plan 2015 [PDF].

Oct 13/14: Lockheed Martin is preparing its expected JAGM bid with the current dual-mode laser/radar seeker, following successful tests.

Raytheon, whose solution was dropped at the same time as JAGM dropped to a dual-guidance mode because of funding shortfalls (q.v. July 18/13), is deciding whether to bid at all. If they do bid, they’re going to stick to their original plan and use the same tri-mode laser/IIR/radar seeker from the GBU-53 Small Diameter Bomb II. It’s a reasonable hedge against perceived risk, offering more capability for the same dollars. Of course, the level of perceived risk could be far more even if both designs had been funded through development.

Given the likely scope of future JAGM orders, and the tiny fraction of the procurement budget involved in JAGM development, there’s a legitimate policy question here re: the responsibility of the Pentagon to promote competitive tenders for significant weapon systems. Sources: Aviation Week, “Lockheed Martin Preparing JAGM Bid; Raytheon Unsure”.

May 13/14: FBO.gov, “14–JAGM ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING DEVELOPMENT”:

“The U.S. Army Contracting Command – Redstone (ACC-R) intends to issue a Draft Request for Proposal (DRFP), W31P4Q-14-R-0107, for the purpose of supporting a full and open competitive procurement to fulfill the requirements for the Joint Air to Ground Missile (JAGM) Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase with options for Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP)…. The JAMS project office plans to host a Pre-proposal Industry Day sometime in the June 2014 timeframe to present general unclassified information on the U.S. Army’s projected procurement strategy of the JAGM and the Army’s vision…”

March 4-11/14: Budgets. The US military slowly files its budget documents, detailing planned spending from FY 2014 – 2019. According to those documents, AGM-114 Hellfire orders stop in FY 2015 (USAF), and the last Hellfires will be delivered in April 2017. The Army’s documentation says nothing about JAGM production, except that the Milestone C decision for low-rate production is expected in Q2 FY17:

“The Army has depended on Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding to replenish [AGM-114] stocks since FY 2008. The Army continues to evaluate the transition strategy from HELLFIRE to Joint Air to Ground Missile (JAGM).”

Meanwhile, Navy documents indicate that they’re back in the program. They show JAGM integration on AH-1Z helicopters beginning in FY15, and orders beginning in FY19. JAGM will be re-using most of the AGM-114R Hellfire, which is already integrated on the AH-1Z, but Navy helicopters are used to the video interface that JAGM won’t have, and don’t typically carry fire-control radars. So, some changes will be necessary.

Feb 20/14: Lockheed Martin announces that its JAGM dual-mode guidance section has flown on a Hellfire missile and hit a moving laser-designated target. The missile was fired from 6km during an internally funded flight test at Eglin AFB, FL. Essentially, the missile acted like a normal Hellfire. Tests of the seeker in dual-mode are coming.

In a briefing, Lockheed Martin gives JAGM’s range as 8 km, whether launched low or high with its boost-only motor. The M299 launcher interface has a few changes from the basic Hellfire, and hews to the radar-guided AGM-114L Hellfire Longbow missile’s serial interface instead of a video interface. Otherwise, JAGM is basically an AGM-114R Hellfire missile with a new guidance section. System qualification is expected in Q4 2014, and JAGM will be integrated with the Army’s AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAVs. Sources: LMCO, “Lockheed Martin Demonstrates JAGM Dual-Mode Guidance Section in Recent Flight Test” | JAGM Media Briefing with LMCO VP Tactical Missiles/Combat Maneuver Systems Frank St. John.

July 18/13: LMCO only. IHS Jane’s, “US Army to move ahead with Lockheed Martin JAGM”:

“The US Army will not award Raytheon Missile Systems a contract for the remainder of the Technology Development (TD) phase of the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM)…. [but will] continue to execute the Lockheed Martin contract through the remainder of the TD phase, US Army Colonel James Romero, the project manager for the Joint Attack Munitions Systems, told IHS Jane’s during a 17 July interview at the Pentagon.

“A [$36 million] funding shortfall was the primary catalyst for the decision,” Col Romero said.”

JAGM is also being scaled back to a dual-mode MMW radar/ laser seeker at first. Raytheon and Boeing’s tri-mode guidance solution is already developed for the SDB-II bomb, so they remain in a position to compete for JAGM production orders if the US military wants to hold a competitive buy when the time comes.

TD now Lockheed Martin only

May 3/13: Brimstone for Reapers? With JAGM fielding still some way off, if ever, the USAF’s 645th Aeronautical Systems Group rapid acquisition office is reportedly interested in adding MBDA’s longer-range, dual laser/ MW radar guided Brimstone missile to the MQ-9’s arsenal. It’s real attraction is a ‘man in the loop’ feature that lets the firing aircraft abort an attack after launch, or correct a missile that locks on the wrong target. In Libya, those characteristics reportedly made it one of the few weapons NATO commanders could use to hit enemy armored vehicles in urban areas.

Brimstone already serves on RAF Tornado GR4 strike jets, and was an option for Britain’s Harrier GR9s before the entire fleet was sold to the US Marines. With Britain’s MQ-9s deployed, they’ve reportedly asked for tests using USAF MQ-9s, and also hope to interest American armed services in the weapon. Defense News | Defense Update.

April 10/13: FY 2014 Budget. The President releases a proposed budget at last, the latest in modern memory. The Senate and House were already working on budgets in his absence, but the Pentagon’s submission is actually important to proceedings going forward. See ongoing DID coverage. For JAGM, there isn’t a lot of near-term funding, and there are a lot of milestones to hit on the way to funding it as a Hellfire upgrade beginning around 2017. Budget figures to 2018 are compiled above.

R/B JAGM pre-test
(click to view full)

Dec 11/12: CTD. Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, AZ receives a “$10 million” firm-fixed-price contract for JAGM’s continued technology development. Work will be performed in Tucson, AZ with an estimated completion date of March 31/13. One bid was solicited, with 1 bid received (W31P4Q-13-C-0080). It appears to have taken longer than expected (vid. Aug 17/12 entry), but Raytheon has its CTD contract.

Raytheon’s Dec 3/12 release places the total value of both CTD phases at $65 million, just like Lockheed Martin. During the next 4 months, Raytheon will update its design and complete a delta (design changes) Preliminary Design Review. During the next 24 months, the team will focus on a Critical Design Review, guidance section qualification and testing, and delivery of JAGM guidance sections. The CTD phase will culminate with the US Army integrating Raytheon JAGM guidance sections to Hellfire missiles. Based on current schedules, Raytheon’s SDB II tri-mode seeker will be in its 2nd year of production by the time JAGM CTD concludes.

JAGM CTD contract

FY 2012

Lockheed Martin CTD. Navy out. LMCO on JAGM
click for video

Aug 17/12: CTD. Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control in Orlando, FL announces a $64 million extended technology development contract from the US Army, in order to keep the JAGM program one notch above dead. The Pentagon follows with an Aug 27/12 announcement for $32 million to continue developing the seeker & guidance unit, but “50% award announcements” are common, and Lockheed Martin’s figure remains authoritative.

Work will be performed in Orlando, FL, with an estimated completion date of Nov 28/14. Two bids were solicited, with 2 bids received (W31P4Q-12-C-0003).

Observant readers may notice that $64 million is about half of the $127 million the GAO was talking about for FY 2012 (vid. March 29/12 entry). Raytheon’s head of JAGM business development, J.R. Smith, says that their own CTD contract is currently in negotiation, and expected within the next several weeks.

JAGM CTD contract

May 31/12: A March 2012 presolicitation from the US Navy for JAGM integration on F/A-18E/F aircraft may have sent mixed signals, but its cancellation confirms the Navy’s intent.

March 29/12: GAO report. In its 2012 Selected Weapons Program assessment report, the GAO underlines the uncertain nature of JAGM’s future – not quite cancelled but close. It notes that Hellfires have been working well in theater, weakening the case for an expensive replacement.

According to the GAO, $127M in funding for the current fiscal year will allow a 27-month extension of the technology development phase to hopefully address affordability issues and reduce risk. The Pentagon’s comptroller sizes up the savings from stalling on JAGM at $300M in FY2013 and a total of $1.6B over the FYDP.

March 20/12: I’m Still Alive. Frank Kendall, undersecretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics, signs an Acquisition Decision Memorandum, granting new life to the JAGM program. Meanwhile, the Army has produced a JAGM affordability study, and provided it to the 2 teams. Can JAGM rise again, perhaps as the Joint Effects Strike Unified Sensors missile?

Raytheon’s head of JAGM business development, J.R. Smith, says that he believes there’s about $300 million in prior-year funding left over from FY 2011-12, which can be used to keep the program running. If this feels like a rerun, that’s because it is, as the Dec 30/05 entry shows. AOL Defense.

ADM survival

Feb 2012: Navy out. In the FY2013 Presidential Request, the US Navy estimates it is a “manageable risk to terminate the Navy’s and USMC’s investment in the JAGM program,” choosing to invest instead in SDB II and continued Hellfire procurement.

Unless this decision changes, it makes JAGM an Army-only program. DID therefore humbly suggests rebranding the program as AAGM, or possibly AAHAAGMM given the “living dead” JCM/JAGM history so far.

Navy/USMC out

FY 2011

Analysis of Alternatives. Industry tests. Raytheon/ Boeing JAGM
(click to view full)

Aug 2011: JAGM AoA. The program office submits its Analysis of Alternatives, defending JAGM as a cost-effective solution. They will probably have to fight hard to make that case.

June 7/11: Testing. Lockheed Martin touts company-funded trials of a JAGM seeker mounted in a Sabreliner 60 executive jet flying at 20,000 feet, which was used to track small, fast naval targets in the Gulf of Mexico near Eglin AFB, FL. Targets included a Revenge Advanced Composites (RAC) state-of-the-art, low-signature, high-speed patrol craft performing evasive maneuvers.

The test was designed to highlight robust mid-wave infrared performance, fixed wing performance, high humidity performance, effectiveness against a challenging low-signature target, and EMD readiness – since captive flight isn’t required until the next stage.

June 6/11: Bids in. Deadline day for the JAGM RFP, and both Team Lockheed and Team Raytheon submit their bids. A single contract award for the program’s Engineering & Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase is expected during Q4 (summer) 2011. Lockheed Martin | Raytheon.

RFP bids

May 2/11: Testing. The Raytheon/ Boeing team follows up their Oct 23/10 firing, and completes the series of government-funded JAGM tests. The latest firing uses the new rocket motor, but only after subjecting it to thermal cycling from -45F to 160F degrees.

The test was whether the new motor would still work after 5-20 cycles of that treatment. It did, and Raytheon VP Advanced Missiles and Unmanned Systems Bob Francois gets to point out that “Every single test of the Raytheon-Boeing JAGM has been an unqualified success, even those using EMD motors.”

April 13/11: The US Army Aviation and Missile Command issues its JAGM Engineering and Manufacturing (EMD) and Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) Request for Proposals. The scope of the JAGM EMD contract will be to “complete all major component and subsystem critical design reviews (CDRs), a system-level CDR, component and subsystem testing, design verification testing, engineering development tests and production prove-out tests on the six threshold JAGM platforms.” In addition to the EMD requirements, the RFP calls for 3 fixed-price LRIP production lot options, as well as 2 fixed-priced advance procurement clauses for long lead time components.

Lockheed Martin’s team and the Raytheon-Boeing team both formally announce their intent to bid; at this point,a contract is expected in Q3 of FY 2011.

EMD/LRIP RFP

March 21/11: Test equipment. US NAWCWD announces its intent to hand WINTEC, Inc. of Walton Beach, FL a contract for 5 M299/310 Launcher and Missile Emulator (LME) systems, Part Number JLE00010-4. The LMEs are existing Special Test Equipment used to support the integration, test, and verification of Launchers and missiles at the MIL-STD-1760 interface to host platforms. The LMEs have traditionally been used for AGM-114 Hellfires, but new launcher models/simulations and missile model/simulations have been added, to support the JAGM program objectives for planned laboratory and platform integration testing.

The sole source award is being done in accordance with FAR 6.302-1. Anticipated award is May 2011.

March 7/11: US FedBizOpps notice #N00019-09-P2-PC041:

“The Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) intends to issue a Cost Plus Fixed Fee Order under NAVAIR Basic Ordering Agreement (BOA) N00019-11-G-0001 for the engineering services of hardware integration analysis, wind tunnel tests, ground tests, flight test planning, aircraft/weapon system integration and instrumentation, ground and flight test technology support, data reduction, documentation, and reporting requirements for integration of the Prototype Joint Air to Ground Missile (JAGM) Systems on F/A-18E/F aircraft. NAVAIR intends to negotiate this Order on a sole source basis with McDonnell Douglas Corporation (MDC), A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of the Boeing Company, St. Louis, MO 63166-0516. MDC is the sole designer, developer, manufacturer and supplier of the F/A-18 Weapon System and MDC is the only known source capable of performing this effort within the required time frame.”

Feb 8/11: JAGM pre-solicitation #W31P4Q-11-Q-0006 issued:

“The Government plans to issue separate Request For Quotations (RFQ) W31P4Q-11-Q-0006 and RFQ) W31P4Q-11-Q-0007 to Lockheed Martin Missile Systems and Raytheon Missile Systems repectively [sic] to provide input, advice, and recommendations regarding JAGM System Engineering integrated product team activities… Solicitation from any other source is not feasible because only the recommendations and input from the two existing JAGM TD prime contractors Lockheed Martin Missile Systems and Raytheon Missile Systems can fulfill Government needs.”

Jan 3/11: Testing. Lockheed Martin has had some issues with its JAGM design so far, but continues to push to get where they want to be by the time a winner is picked. They announce successful flight tests aboard a Super Hornet from Oct 5/10 – Nov 2/10. This was a test of the missiles’ ability to handle conditions at various altitudes and speeds, as well as a test of the aerodynamic consequences of mounting the Lockheed Martin/ Marvin engineering JAGM triple rail at various points, with various load-outs.

Oct 23/10: Testing – rocket. A Raytheon/Boeing funded test fires a JAGM prototype equipped with the new Boeing-ATK rocket motor, which would be used on their production missile. The test is successful in collecting data to update the missile’s flight and simulation software, and allows the team to advance to engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) and a Preliminary Design Review.

This is the team’s 6th missile test, and the 3rd privately-funded test. All tests to date have met their objectives. Raytheon.

Oct 15/10: Testing. DoD Buzz reports that Raytheon isn’t using a production version of the JAGM missile in its firing tests, just the seeker. Raytheon replies that the tests’ terms are aimed at the seeker, and do not require production-ready missiles. DoD Buzz must concede the point:

“Here is what the RFP says: “The fly-off missile prototypes will represent PDR(Preliminary Design Review) level configurations using a Warhead Replacement Telemetry Unit. It will include a series of Tactical Missile Air-gun and/or Rail Test Firings with a Warhead integrated into a non-functional Tactical Missile to gain insight into Warhead /Fuze functioning.”

Lockheed Martin says that their JAGM test missiles have all been production ready configurations – but that will only help them in the short term if failings in their test firings are traceable to their missile design, rather than their seekers. Meanwhile, Raytheon & Boeing will continue component and higher-level testing of their missile design.

FY 2010

Preliminary Design Review. JAGM test (loud!)
click to play video

Sept 10/10: Testing fail. DoD Buzz reports that the cause of Lockheed Martin’s missile failure in its second test-firing was a bracket that holds one of the rocket motors. Unfortunately, they’re going to have to delve into more root cause analysis, because…

“The day before the deadline for official government testing, Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air To Ground Missile prototype missed the target, leaving the defense giant with two misses out of three in the competition for the $5 billion program. Raytheon struck the target on its third test, a company source said, giving them their third successful shot of three.”

That doesn’t end the team’s chances, it just means that further firing tests would have to come out of Lockheed Martin’s pocket, as the team moves toward its final submission model. Given the huge future stakes involved, there’s no doubt that Lockheed Martin will finance any tests required.

Sept 1/10: Testing. Raytheon announces success in the 2nd of 3 government-sponsored JAGM firings. Their missile used its uncooled imaging infrared (IIR) guidance system to hit an armored vehicle target at 4 kilometers/ 2.5 miles. During the most recent test, all three guidance systems operated simultaneously and provided telemetry data that enabled engineers to conduct further analysis of the weapon. The test is significant, because Lockheed Martin’s matching test was an overshoot, and Raytheon’s uncooled IIR sensor s generally seen as a tradeoff between lower cost and maintenance, in exchange for lower performance.

This is actually the Boeing/Raytheon team’s 4th test firing, as the team funded 2 of its own tests in April 2010.

Aug 16/10: Lockheed PDR. Lockheed Martin and teammates Marvin Engineering and Aerojet announce successful JAGM component and system Preliminary Design Reviews (PDRs). The team completed PDRs on Aerojet’s JAGM propulsion solution, which uses Roxel UK’s minimum-smoke propellant grain, and on launchers that included the U.S. Navy’s quad-missile helicopter (AH-1Z, MH-60R) and tri-missile fixed-wing (F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet) launchers. The team continues to increase the severity of environmental testing in preparation for engineering manufacturing development. Lockheed Martin.

Aug 9/10: SDB-II win. Raytheon wins the SDB-II competition against Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and cites its tri-mode seeker as a key reason. It remains to be seen whether their use of the same seeker for JAGM proves helpful.

Aug 6/10: Testing. DoD Buzz gets information from Lockheed and Raytheon concerning their manufacturer-financed test shots to date.

To date, Lockheed Martin has had 2 flight readiness checks in June & July. A Lockheed-funded check had a pre-launch malfunction. A government-funded check failed when range instruments malfunctioned, but that missile was later used on Aug 2/10 for a successful test shot at White Sands Missile Range, NM. The Aug 2/10 laser-guided shot tested the tri-mode seeker, but used the laser for targeting, and scored a direct hit from 16km. An Aug 3/10 IIR test against a tank target at 4km led to an overshoot. Team Lockheed says they’re confident they’ll have their 3 successful tests by the deadline.

Raytheon paid for 2 missile test shots in April 2010 to see if they were on the right path, and met their objectives. Their next test shot on June 23/10 tested the tri-mode seeker, but used the laser for targeting, and scored a direct ht from 16km. A 4th test shot is scheduled for Aug 13/10.

July 26/10: Testing. The Raytheon-Boeing team announces that their JAGM design has successfully completed the 1st of 3 government-sponsored firings, using its laser guidance system to hit an 8×8-foot target board from a distance of 10 miles/ 16 km. All 3 guidance modes were used during the flight for telemetry data, but the laser was used to final targeting. This is actually the 3rd test firing of their design, following 2 company funded tests in April 2010.

May 5/10: Testing. Raytheon announces that their partnership has completed wind tunnel testing of the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile from the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet.

May 5/10: Testing. Lockheed Martin announces a successful end to JAGM wind tunnel tests involving the Navy’s F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet jet fighter.

The more than 200 hours of initial high-speed flying qualities wind tunnel tests were conducted at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA. The goal was to ensure minimal changes to the fighter’s handling characteristics with the missiles on board. After that, tests moved to 150 hours of work at the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) wind tunnel in Tullahoma, TN. Those tests further refined the structural requirements of the launcher and JAGM, and included safe launch and separation tests involving Lockheed Martin and Marvin Engineering’s triple-rail JAGM launcher. A final set of tests at the Boeing Vertol wind tunnel in Philadelphia, PA, demonstrated and validated low-speed flight characteristics of the Super Hornet when loaded with JAGM.

April 20/10: Testing. Raytheon/Boeing team announce the 1st successful test of its Joint Air-to-Ground Missile at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The weapon, fired from a ground-based rotary-wing launcher, reportedly performed a series of pre-programmed maneuvers and flew to a predesignated location, validating the flight control software and Brimstone airframe. Raytheon-Boeing release

April 13/10: Testing. Lockheed Martin concludes a series of static, tower-based and captive-carry flight tests of its tri-mode JAGM seeker in a limited dirty battlefield/countermeasure rich environment at Redstone Arsenal, AL. The seeker was tested against both active and passive countermeasure systems including white and red phosphorous, fog oil, smoke, millimeter wave chaff, flares, camouflage netting and mobile camouflage systems.

This test series was preceded by an array of successful captive-carry tests conducted by Lockheed Martin in clean, non-dirty-battlefield flight environments, during both favorable and adverse weather conditions including sun, rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow. Hady Mourad, JAGM program director at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said that “the seeker performed precisely as designed.” Lockheed Martin release.

April 6/10: Testing – rocket. Lockheed Martin announces successful extreme temperature tests for its proposed JAGM rocket motor, developed in conjunction with Gencorp’s subsidiary Aerojet. The final completed tests were a series of cold temperature missile motor firings were conducted in Camden, AR, using the same rocket motor design planned for the tactical missile, with a composite motor case, with the system conditioned to -65F degrees in order to simulate high-altitude conditions.

The partners describe these tests as a “breakthrough,” which may not be an exaggeration. The rocket is one of the program’s most challenging technologies, because it has to do several things at once: smokeless/ low-smoke launch and flight, operation over a wide range of temperatures from searing deserts to extreme cold at fighter-jet altitudes, and a high enough turn-down ratio (flow variance from boost to sustain) to give the missile its required performance and range. The Raytheon/Boeing team is also working on this area, but their partner is ATK. Joint release: Lockheed Martin | Aerojet.

March 31/10: Testing. Lockheed Martin announces successful initial tests on the multi-mode seeker for its JAGM contender, demonstrating all of the sensor modes simultaneously. Program officials also recently held Kaizen events, or Structured Improvement Activity (SIA), to streamline the manufacturing process at Lockheed Martin’s seeker and electronics production facilities in Ocala, FL; and Troy, AL.

The Lockheed Team is a bit behind their competitors at this point. Upcoming captive-carry testing will verify performance in a flight environment, with thermal and vibration performance, and electromagnetic interference testing slated for later in 2010. Lockheed Martin release.

March 30/10: GAO Report. The US GAO audit office delivers its 8th annual “Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs report. With respect to the JAGM program, the GAO document is more an official fact sheet than an analysis, given the program’s early stages. Data from that document has been incorporated into this article.

The GAO adds that the program must also complete a “postpreliminary design review assessment” before it can be certified to enter engineering and manufacturing development.

Jan 29/10: Testing. Raytheon and Boeing announce the end of their captive flight tests for the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile competition, which test the missile’s ability to pick up targets, guidance, and ability to handle the stresses created by its platforms and their flight environments. The next step would be guided test shots.

Oct 6/09: Testing. Raytheon and Boeing announce that they’ve completed a series of captive-carry flight tests of their tri-mode JAGM seeker, within the same size dimensions as their planned JAGM missile. By demonstrating that the seeker fits, and will not be affected by the buffeting associated with carriage on a fast-moving aircraft, the way is clear for installation in prototype missiles and use in live firings.

Raytheon’s next-generation tri-mode seeker leverages technology used on their Small Diameter Bomb II (where Boeing is their main competitor) and the NLOS-LS/NETFIRES improved Precision Attack Missile.

FY 2009

TD contracts. Lockheed JAGM concept
(click to view full)

May 13/09: TD. Boeing subsidiary McDonnell Douglas Corp. in St. Louis, MO received a $7.4 million time and material delivery order against a previously issued Basic Ordering Agreement (N00019-05-G-0026) for wind tunnel testing of JAGM prototypes on their F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

Work will be performed in St. Louis, MO (92%); and Philadelphia, PA (8%), and is expected to be complete in March 2011. About $5.8 million in contract funds will expire on Sept 30/09, at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, MD will manage this contract.

Oct 8/08: TD. Lockheed Martin announces and details its JAGM team.

Oct 2/08: TD. The US military announces the initial contracts under the JAGM program, within each contracting team’s limit per earlier entries. Bids were solicited via the Web, and 2 bids were received by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command in Redstone Arsenal, AL.

Raytheon Co. in Tucson, AZ receives an $18.7 million fixed price incentive firm target contract, for 27 months of technology development for the Joint Air Ground Missile Program. Work will be performed in St. Louis, MO (Boeing) and Tucson, AZ (Raytheon) with an estimated completion date of Dec 31/10 (W31P4Q-08-C-A789).

Lockheed Martin Corp. in Orlando, FL received an $18.7 million fixed price incentive firm target contract, for 27 months of technology development for the Joint Air Ground Missile Program. Work will be performed in Orlando, FL; Ocala, FL; and Troy, AL, with an estimated completion date of Dec 31/10 (W31P4Q-08-C-A123).

FY 2008

Raytheon/Boeing and Lockheed Martin Technology Development. Boeing JCM
(click to view full)

Sept 22/08: The Raytheon / Boeing team announces a 27-month, $125 million Technology Development contract for the JAGM program. The contract funds a program to develop and fire 3 prototype missiles with fully integrated tri-mode seekers.

Sept 18/08: Lockheed Martin announces that it has won a 27-month, $122 million competitive risk-reduction phase for the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) system. Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control VP Rick Edwards:

“Our extensive risk-reduction tests have significantly mitigated risk on the three critical subsystems [seeker, warhead, rocket motor], our software and simulations are mature and proven, and we have made significant strides in developing low-risk platform integration solutions.”

See also the Orlando Sentinel: “Lockheed’s $122M missile contract could create 200 jobs in Orlando area.”

JAGM TD contracts

April 14/08: Competition. Raytheon Company and Boeing announce a teaming agreement to pursue the U.S. Army-U.S. Navy Joint Air to Ground Missile program, which has an intended in-service date of 2016. Raytheon will be the prime contractor within the team, and the move is significant in that Boeing will not be teamed up with Northrop Grumman this time around.

Raytheon makes existing TOW and Maverick missiles, and the team-up with Boeing creates commonality on a different level: integration with the manufacturer of many USAF and Navy aircraft, an area that Lockheed Martin covers on its own. Boeing is also part of the MBDA-led team that developed the Brimstone missile, Britain’s answer to the JCM program. Raytheon release.

Feb/March 2008: JAGM RFP. JAGM RFP re-issued, for May 19/08 turn-in.

Up to FY 2007

Program start. JCM terminated. JCM

Sept 26/07: Jane’s Missiles & Rockets reports that:

“A new Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) programme is expected to become the successor of the Lockheed Martin AGM-169 Joint Common Missile (JCM) programme. As with the JCM, the JAGM is to be a multiservice weapon able to replace all versions of the Lockheed Martin Hellfire, Raytheon Maverick and Raytheon TOW missiles that currently equip fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles in US service…”

September 2007: Original JAGM RFP rescinded.

June 17/07: Original draft of JAGM RFP issue.

June 15/07: JCM Terminated. Official termination of the Joint Common Missile program.

Feb 21/07: The Lexington Institute think-tank wades into the controversy with “Joint Common Missile: Why Argue With Success?“:

“Here’s a fantasy. Imagine three military services agreed on the need for a versatile air-to-ground missile that could precisely destroy a wide range of elusive targets — everything from camouflaged armored vehicles to terrorist speedboats. Imagine they found a low-cost design that could do those things day or night, good weather or bad, even when enemies were trying to jam the missile. Imagine the services selected a company that developed the missile on time and on cost, meeting all of its performance objectives. And imagine the missile was fielded expeditiously, replacing four cold-war missiles with an easy-to-maintain round that saved military lives while minimizing unintended damage.

You’d have to be pretty naive to believe the Pentagon’s dysfunctional acquisition system could deliver all that, wouldn’t you? That’s right, you would — because the military actually has a program matching that description, and senior officials have been trying to kill it for two years. Why? Well, nobody really knows why…”

Jan 26/07: Inside Defense, “Pentagon OKs Funding For Hellfire Replacement Effort”:

“The Pentagon comptroller has directed the Army and Navy to pony up $68.5 million to fund missile research and development in an account that could be used to revive the Joint Common Missile — or something like it — more than two years after the Office of the Secretary of Defense moved to terminate the program…”

Dec 30/05: Inside Defense reports that when US House and Senate conferees reconciled the details of the FY 2006 defense appropriations bill, they restored $30 million to the Army-led JCM program to continue the missile’s development ($26 million in research, development, test and evaluation funding from the Army, and $4 million from the Navy).

They have also required a report by Jan 30/06 explaining how the Pentagon plans to fill the future gaps created by the missile’s demise, and a cost analysis of continuation vs. termination and buying existing missiles. Depending on what that study says, the JCM program could rise again.

Appendix A: The JAGM Missile – Original Concept Technical Desires & Challenges Lockheed’s UAV pitch
click to play video

The stakes have always been very big for the JCM/JAGM. Pentagon planners expected that standardization from the TOW, Hellfire, and Maverick families of missiles to 1 variant of JAGM would keep maintenance and supply costs lower. Integration with the F-35 fighter family was possible in future, and so were international contracts if the missile makes it through development to become a program of record. In industrial terms, that made JAGM the last big American missile competition for some time. So the stakes were huge, the genesis was long, and progress remains slow because of budgetary pressure.

The US military was looking for a missile that’s about 110 Lbs, 70″ long, and 7″ in diameter, with a range of 0.5 – 16 km when fired from helicopters, and 2 – 28 km if fired from fixed wing aircraft. The seeker would be multi-mode: active designation via semi-active laser or millimeter wave radar will duplicate all Hellfire variants in a single variant, and a passive imaging infrared option would add additional insurance and versatility.

On the seeker side, the program isn’t actually breaking a lot of new technical ground. The various seeker modes requested (laser, IIR, radar) have all been implemented on other missiles, and Raytheon’s GBU-53 Small Diameter Bomb II has already pioneered an accepted tri-mode seeker. Performance enhancements are always possible, but this will be a matter of refinement and integration, rather than groundbreaking development.

Instead, the big challenges involved the missile and its propulsion system, which was envisioned as a single rocket motor solution to be used on all platforms. That meant it had to have minimum smoke, in order to avoid smoke inhalation by by helicopter engines or easy tracking of the missile’s origin. It would also need to handle a much wider temperature range than Hellfire, from the hottest desert sun beating down to nap-of-the-earth helicopters to the Antarctic-class temperatures at high fighter jet altitudes. Just to make things interesting, it also had to meet the Navy’s unique requirements for insensitive munitions, in order to be safe enough for use in naval combat.

After meeting all of those requirement, it had to deliver the requested missile range, which is almost 2x the advertised range for its AGM-114 Hellfire predecessor when fired from a similar platform. The ability to fire from fast jets would extend that range even further, which is extremely important against defended targets.

If the US military could get all that, it would have an extremely valuable weapon system.

The Road Less Taken – JCM/JAGM’s Program History Brimstone from Tornado
(click to view full)

In May 2004, Lockheed Martin was picked over Raytheon and a Boeing-Northrop Grumman team to conduct the Joint Common Missile’s (JCM) 4-year system development and demonstration (SDD) phase, which was to be worth as much as $1.6 billion. The long-term U.S. production estimate of 54,000 missiles would have brought the program to $5 billion, and the United Kingdom had expressed interest in the new weapon and participated in the development process.

The JCM program had made heavy use of modeling & simulation in its early phases, and was the first missile program ever to reach a Milestone B decision without conducting a live test. Subsequent live tests, including live fire tests against simulated urban targets, were also successful.

The missile reported less success on the budget front, however. In 2005, the Pentagon cut the Joint Common Missile (JCM) program in order to fund operations in Iraq. Canceling the Army-led JCM was estimated to save about $2.4 billion over the next 6 years ($928 million Army, $1.5 billion Navy). This triggered a counter-campaign by Congressional representatives, and created a controversy over the future of the program that never really went away. In June 2007, JCM was formally cancelled.

The UK ended up developing its own system. In November 1996, the UK had given MBDA the Brimstone contract, in order to create a fire-and-forget anti-armor missile that could be fired by fast jets as well as helicopters. Brimstone uses inertial guidance plus millimeter-wave radar, and has a terrain following mode as well. In October 2003, a successful series of test firings were carried out, and the missile entered service with the RAF in March 2005.

The Lazarus Missile: JAGM

JAGM schedule in 2009
(click for cutaway)

The need for a capability similar to the JCM remained clear even to the Pentagon, and so the U.S. Department of Defense’s Program Budget Decision (PBD) No. 753 directed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to commission a study for a very similar weapon system in time for the 2008 budget review. Meanwhile, the Alabama Congressional delegation and other members of Congress kept lobbying to keep something like JAGM going. It still made a great deal of sense, the program hadn’t suffered from cost overruns or major technical difficulties, and Britain’s fielding of the Brimstone missile offered external validation.

The original JCM requirements were really designed for the RAH-66 Comanche scout helicopter, however, and they were written before the Army’s Future Combat Systems mega-program. The new Joint Air-Ground Missile (JAGM) competition updated those requirements, and attempted to re-start the competition in 2008 under a new competitive approach, and with the planned number of missiles lowered to around 34,500. Pentagon acquisition czar Young introduced a prototyping requirement for JAGM as part of a wider-ranging set of acquisition reforms, hence the September 2008 Technology Development contracts to 2 teams.

By fall 2010, the JAGM program had wrapped up in a 27 month “risk reduction” development phase, leading up to a competitive flyoff between the 2 contractor teams. Program Management Reviews were held in Q2 of FY 2009, and a Milestone B decision that would begin full-scale System Design and Development for the winner was planned for Q1 of FY 2011 (November 2010). That deadline slipped, and for a while the next phase seemed likely to start at the end of Q4 2011 instead.

Instead, the program stalled again, and became an Army-only effort in 2012. A Continued Technology Development phase will carry it to 2014, at which point JAGM technologies may begin showing up in the next generation of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.

JAGM: Original Plans & Platforms TOW 2B missile
(click for cutaway)

Under the original plan, JAGM would begin supplementing – and eventually replacing – Lockheed Martin’s GM-114 Hellfire family of missiles on the Army’s AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, its scout helicopters, and its MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAVs. The Navy would make the same substitution on their new MH-60R/S Seahawk helicopters, and US Navy and USMC F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets would carry them in place of Raytheon’s AGM-65 Maverick missile. The Marines’ AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter would carry them in place of Hellfire missiles, or Raytheon’s xGM-71 TOW family.

Platform integration would occur during the 48-month Engineering & Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase, and 2016 would have marked Initial Operational Capability (IOC) on USMC AH-1Z Viper and Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, as well as Navy F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets. IOC on the Army’s MQ-1C Predator-family Gray Eagle UAV, and the Navy’s MH-60R helicopter, was expected in FY 2017. This second wave of platform integrations would begin during the EMD phase, but continue into Low-Rate Initial Production.

The roster of platforms had a lot of expansion potential, since Hellfire missiles are already slated for a wide array of future UAVs, including the MQ-8 Fire Scout and A160 Hummingbird. Hellfires are even equipping some C-130J Hercules transport aircraft, thanks to modular quick-fit programs like Harvest Hawk. Existing foreign helicopters like the UAE’s AH-60M Battlehawks, French Tiger HAD, and Australia’s Tiger ARH helicopters would be another JAGM opportunity, alongside air force jet fighters like the F-15 Strike Eagle, F-16 Falcon, JAS-39 Gripen, etc. that have been qualified with AGM-65 Mavericks. Suitability for naval use, and extended range compared to existing Hellfires, could even make a full JAGM round a potential replacement for existing Griffin-B missiles on board patrol boats, and on the Littoral Combat Ship.

JAGM’s backers hope that success as a front-end bolt-on will eventually lead to contracts that would improve the missile as well, and restore the missile’s original concept.

The challenge is cost.

A role as a Maverick missile replacement is fairly straightforward, but the real volume and money is found in TOW and Hellfire replacement orders. Unfortunately, that’s also where the specifications for JAGM are significantly more challenging than the missiles they’d replace. A JAGM that’s more expensive than TOW or Hellfire won’t be a bargain for the US military, and would have a harder time selling abroad into the large helicopter and UAV markets.

Appendix B: JAGM’s Competing Industrial Teams Team Lockheed History repeats.

After JAGM rose from the dead, previous JCM incumbent Lockheed Martin came back with a team, in order to compete against the Raytheon/ Boeing team. In Team Lockheed’s design, The JAGM’s body and tri-mode sensors built on the existing body designs and sensors from Lockheed Martin’s AGM-114 Hellfire missile family, with its options of Hellfire II semi-active laser or millimeter wave Hellfire Longbow missiles. They also build on the cooled sensors used by the Lockheed/Raytheon Javelin imaging infrared (IIR) missile to add extra fire-and-forget insurance. Lockheed Martin will also push to leverage its incumbent status for both the current Hellfire missile family, and the M299 missile launcher that equips most helicopters.

Seeker improvements beyond the tri-mode features include extended range, “safing” that would allow carrier landings with live weapons instead of forcing planes to jettison their loads, and greater “fire and forget” capability. A single insensitive-munition rocket motor provides the required propulsion. Once it reaches the target, a multi-purpose warhead similar to the Hellfire II’s packs a shaped-charge designed to defeat the most advanced armored threats, along with a blast fragmentation capability to defeat ships, buildings, and bunkers with a two-phase warhead punch.

Team Lockheed included:

• LM Missiles and Fire Control (lead integrator, tri-mode seeker)
  
• Honeywell in Minneapolis, MN (inertial measurement unit)
  
• L3 in Cincinnati, OH (focal plane array infrared detector)
  
• EMS technologies in Atlanta, GA (millimeter wave antenna)

The following firms were also included, but aren’t likely to have much of a role under the new program structure:

• Aerojet in Camden, AK (rocket motor)
  
• Alliant Techsystems in Woodland Hills, CA (aircraft integration)
  
• General Dynamics OTS in Niceville, FL (multi-purpose warhead)
  
• Roxel in Summerfield, UK (propellant)
  
• Marvin Engineering in Inglewood, CA (JAGM launchers)
  
• Moog in Aurora, NY (control fin actuators)
  
• and Perkin Elmer in Miamisburg, OH (warhead firing module).

Raytheon & Boeing Boeing JCM on F-18
(click to view full)

Raytheon and Boeing are working with rocket-maker ATK on their own offering, which leverages a variety of existing technologies. Some algorithms from Raytheon’s XM1111 Medium Range Munition guided tank shell were helpful, and the tri-mode laser/radar/ uncooled imaging infrared seeker would leverage Raytheon’s existing Common Tri-Mode Seeker (CTMS) program. For the full JAGM offering, MBDA and Boeing’s Brimstone missile is already designed and tested for use on fast jets like the Harrier, Tornado, and Eurofighter. It would serve as the body. The challenging specs for a new rocket motor would be addressed by ATK.

Raytheon’s uncooled infrared seeker currently offers less resolution than Lockheed’s cooled seeker, but it’s more reliable, lighter, and cheaper to maintain. The CTMS is already part of the NETFIRES NLOS-LS PAM, and helped Raytheon win the GBU-53 Small Diameter Bomb Phase II competition – against Boeing, no less – in 2010.

Despite all of this re-use, component assembly wasn’t the team’s focus. Raytheon’s Senior Business Development Manager Michael Riley flew AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters for 10 years. “What this is, is not a missile program,” he says. “It’s an integration program,” because that’s where many of the costs and challenges typically lie. To make this point, he drew a whiteboard picture of the Apache and of the F-18 during a planning session. “Who builds the helicopter? The black boxes that go in it? Who builds the fighter? Who performs missile integration for these platforms? Is there anything else I need to tell you?” The answer to these questions was “Boeing,” and discussions soon brought the firms together under a common vision.

Chief Engineers Emil Davidoff and Andy Hinsdale saw the F/A-18 Hornet as the toughest integration engineering problem, because of the conditions it faces: -65C temperature at altitude, shock, vibration and impact from carrier landings, plus supersonic buffeting underwing. All for a missile that was supposed to be similar in size and weight to the Hellfire, but with 2x range, a tri-mode seeker, and a similar cost target.

Even so, the most difficult challenges in these kinds of efforts are not technical, but human. “Coopetition” between firms that are competing on related projects is a difficult process at the best of times, and can feel like an arranged marriage even when it succeeds. Trust-building over time, a firewall between co-operating and competing teams, and other standard measures are always useful; but they do not guarantee success.

In business, as in rocket motors, there is such a thing as chemistry. The relationship between Chief Engineers Davidoff and Hinsdale has been part of that, and so has a joint belief that this competition is ideally suited for their partnership. Win or lose, therefore, the JAGM partnership between Raytheon and Boeing is flourishing, and may have long-term effects. Before the verdict on their main effort has even been rendered, both teams have said that they are looking for synergies in other areas, and other programs.

JAGM’s 2012 program shifts have changed the competition, so that integration is no longer the overriding focus it once was. Fortunately, the Raytheon/Boeing Team made a number of technical decisions that will keep them in the game.

So far, the team has managed “good enough” performance that has tested successfully and met specifications. They believe their uncooled infrared technology’s cost advantage could become important, and that fixed-price GBU-53 SDB-II orders will raise seeker and guidance production volumes to a level that can meet the Army’s new cost targets. Raytheon’s head of JAGM business development, J.R. Smith, notes that by the time the JAGM CTD phase is done in 2014, their SDB-II will be 75% of the way through Engineering & Manufacturing Development, with 2 years of production underway.

Raytheon remains partnered with AH-64 manufacturer Boeing, and has told DID that they still consider ATK to be a team member, even though their rocket motor isn’t currently a priority for the US military.

Additional Readings & Sources

DID thanks the personnel at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson for their time and cooperation in clarifying their JAGM bid.

Background: Missiles

• Defence-Update.com: JCM – Joint Common Missile.

• GlobalSecurity.org: Joint Common Missile.

• Boeing All Systems Go Magazine (Vol. 1 #6, 2003) – The Next Generation Weapon: Joint Common Missile.

• Lockheed Martin – JAGM. 2011 snapshot. See also Feb 20/2014 media briefing [PDF].

• Raytheon – Joint Air-to-Ground Missile. It’s interesting to look at this 2009 snapshot, then fast-forward to 2011 and 2013 snapshots.

• Boeing – Brimstone Precision Guided Missile. Britain’s answer to the JCM’s demise; development was led by MBDA. Brimstone’s missile body was initially part of the Boeing/Raytheon team’s JAGM bid, when it was an entirely new missile.

• MBDA – Brimstone. The current version offers dual-mode laser and millimeter-wave radar guidance, just like the forthcoming JAGM Increment 1. Unlike JAGM, it can be fired from jet fighters.

News & Views

• DoD Buzz (Aug 6/10) – Last $5B Tac Missile Competition.

• AFCEA Signal (June 2009) – Multipurpose Missile Program Accelerates.

• Lexington Institute (Feb 21/07) – Joint Common Missile: Why Argue With Success?

• Huntsville Times (Mar 24/05) – Battle stepped up to save Redstone missile project.

• Spacewar.com (Mar 17/05) – Lockheed Martin Joint Common Missile Destroys Urban Targets.

• Aerospace Daily & Defense Report (Jan 05/05) – Joint Common Missile’s Demise Spurs ‘Capability Needs’ Study.

• Battle Command, Simulation & Experimentation Directorate (July 30/03) – SMART Lessons Learned Case Summary.

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) shipyard has laid the keel of the US Navy's future Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, USS Delbert D Black (DDG 119), marking the start of construction on the vessel.

The US Navy's Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman (CVN 75) strike group has conducted combat sorties from the Mediterranean Sea in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) in Iraq and Syria against ISIS.

French shipyard DCNS has delivered the first Mistral-class landing helo dock (LHD) helicopter carrier to the Ministry of Defence of the Arab Republic of Egypt.

The TUTAP commission established by President Ghani following massive protests recently decided in favour of the Salang route for a north-south power line. The commission ruled further that Bamyan should get its own 220KV power line by 2019. This is a balanced solution in the midst of crisis, meant to temper ethnic tensions that arose from speculation and political manipulation on the original routing of the power line. Some members of the protest movement have accepted the decision but still question whether it will be implemented; others continue to mobilise. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica and Thomas Ruttig report from Bamyan, with contributions from Ali Yawar Adili, on the issue of the power supply to the province, the national power grid, regional electrical power sharing and the spectrum of opinions throughout the province.   

Electricity-related protests are not a new phenomenon in Bamyan. Civil society activists from Afghanistan’s central highlands organised the first protest in 2009. Esmail Zaki, Coordinator of the Civil Society and Human Rights Network for the Central Region, told AAN that the first protest was held under banners depicting typical Hazarajat shrubs with the slogan, “Please save me.” Bamyan is not connected to a national grid and activists have warned of an inevitable environmental catastrophe should local people be forced to continue using scarce vegetation, such as shrubs and bushes, in a region already prone to erosion, as their basic source of fuel. Therefore, the protests not only reflected a genuine ‘desire for electricity’ but also concerns for the local environment. However, he said, development needs got mixed up with political demands, and “the people who claim they are the leaders of these [May 2016 TUTAP] protests are the same people we were protesting against in 2009.”

Civil society networks in Bamyan province began to protest in 2009 because the province still had no reliable electricity supply, almost a decade into what was supposed to have been a reconstruction-oriented international intervention, that had brought in large amounts of investment. A 2011 Afghan government survey (1) found that “animal dung was the most common source of energy for cooking in Bamyan,” with 45.5 percent of households using it for this purpose, followed by straw, shrubs or grass and wood. In three out of five households, domestic solar power panels usually attached to the roof of a house were most commonly used for heating and lighting.

Dung cakes (chalma) are still widely used in rural areas of Bamyan, here stored in a cave. Photo: Thomas Ruttig.

This situation changed for the better in January 2014, when a New Zealand-financed multi-million off-grid solar power project went online. (New Zealand led the Bamyan Provincial Reconstruction Team until April 2013 and the country continues to finance development projects in the province). With a 1 MW output, this is one of the largest off-grid solar systems in the world (for facts and figures about it see here). It originally supplied clean electricity 24 hours a day to 2,500 of the 3,500 households in Bamyan (with around 33,000 people, according to official Afghan data), businesses and government buildings, including schools and hospitals, in Bamyan’s New City and the towns of Haiderabad and Mulla Ghulam districts. The Norwegian government extended the system for an additional number of households in 2015.

However, while the off-grid solar panels are now providing a basic power supply to the provincial centre, it is still the only source of much-needed electricity to the province. AAN observed, while in Bamyan city, that electricity is not in fact available 24 hours a day; instead it runs from 6.00am to 11.00am and from 6.00pm to 11.00pm. A number of communities in and around the city still lack power (some people, mainly Tajiks and IDPs, still live in caves to the west of Bamyan city); and in the province’s outlying districts, the situation is, of course, much worse.

Many people in Bamyan city complain about how expensive solar electricity is. While Kabul citizens pay 2 Afghanis for 1kV, in Bamyan the price is 16 Afghanis. In September 2015, Ghulam Haidar Sadiqi, the director of Da Afghanistan Bresha Sherkat (DABS), the state-owned electricity company, said that a provincial committee had fixed the rates because of the high maintenance costs of the solar power system and its losses, including damaged batteries and solar panels.

In 2016, Zaki’s civil society network organised five TUTAP-related protests. The protesters demanded that the route of a planned high voltage 500 kV transmission power line, linking the north of Afghanistan to the south, pass through Bamyan instead of the Salang Pass, as previously decided by the Karzai government in December 2013. They based their demands on statements by Hazara political party leaders in Kabul who referred to a study by a German consulting firm that seemed to favour the Bamyan route. In fact, however, the final decision was always to be taken by the Afghan government.

The first of the renewed protests was organised in January 2016 when the network first learned about the TUTAP line not being routed through Bamyan province. During one of the protests, participants placed a giant alekain, a regionally popular kerosene (hurricane) lamp, on a pedestal in the middle of one of the city’s main squares, an artistic reminder for passers-by of the electricity issue. The alekain had also been chosen as the symbol of the TUTAP protest movement organised from Kabul (see an earlier AAN dispatch here). The protesters vowed to take the memorial down only when Bamyan’s electricity problems had been solved, and various representatives among local authorities and the provincial council, who had initially supported the protests, told AAN they did not mind the lamp staying.

The commission’s recommendations and findings

On 15 May 2016, Ghani established the national commission (known to the public as the TUTAP Commission) for reviewing the power line project; he particularly tasked its members to review the cabinet decision of 30 April 2016 to route the north-south power transmission line through the Salang Pass. Ghani also suspended the ongoing procurement process for the companies that would construct the power line. The establishment of the commission, the day before the large protests in Kabul and Bamyan of 16 May 2016 that had already been announced, was intended to preempt the protests, but they were held anyway.

The latest protest took place on 29 May 2016 in the provincial capital, but only 60 people – mainly women – gathered at ‘lamp square,’ to reiterate their demand that the main TUTAP power line be routed through Bamyan. It was a protest against the TUTAP power line commission’s ruling made in favour of the Salang route five days earlier on 24 May 2016. Many protesters, not aware of the 2013 decision, saw the commission’s decision in favour of the route through the non-Hazara Salang region as discrimination against the Hazara population.

The commission’s report presented a balanced solution meant to calm the ethnic tensions that had flared up in Kabul and the central region. The fact that the body was looking at an already approved and financed project, however, left little room for manoeuvre, as changes would have required relaunching the entire project, with new surveys, environmental studies and project documents, delaying the implementation considerably. (2)

The commission, led by Dr Muhammad Humayun Qayumi (an engineer and professor who currently serves as the president’s chief adviser on infrastructure and technology and is the head of the influential Development Council established by Ghani), originally comprised of 13 members. It initially included six Hazaras of different political backgrounds (some also put the Ismaili leader’s son Mansur Naderi, Minister for Urban Development, in this group which would have given the majority of seven) to give the ethnic group that constituted the bulk of the protesters a significant voice.

The six Hazara members appointed by Ghani were:

• Ahmad Behzad, MP from Herat, one of the protest leaders and in the group of those 31 MPs currently boycotting parliament (see this AAN analysis);
• Barna Karimi, a former deputy chief of staff during President Hamed Karzai’s administration, former deputy minister for policy with the Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG) and Afghan Ambassador to Canada in 2012 and 2013; in 2015, he was Ghani’s first nominee for the post of Minister of Telecommunications but his nomination was rejected by parliament;
• Abdul Qayum Sajadi, a Ghazni MP in the Wolesi Jirga, founder of a Kabul-based think-tank, the Afghan Centre for Strategic Studies as well as editor-in-chief of Fajr-e Omid monthly and Guftaman-e Now, an academic quarterly journal;
• Assadullah Sadati, an MP from Daikundi province and chief editor of Musharekat weekly of Hezb-e Wahdat Islami-ye Mardom led by Khalili; he is also a member of the Enlightening Movement’s leadership council;
• Ustad Muhammad Akbari, a former mujahedin leader from Bamyan and the founder of Hezb-e-Wahdat-e Melli-ye Islami, MP for Bamyan; (3)
• Engineer Muhammad Nasir Ahmadi, CEO and founder of the company Omran Holding Group since 2004, a Hazara originally from Uruzgan.

The other members appointed were former jihadi commander and MP from Parwan, Haji Almas Zahed, a Jamiati; the second deputy speaker of the Meshrano Jirga, Hasibullah Kalimzai, a Pashtun from Maidan Wardak province; two current ministers (Sayed Sadat Mansur Naderi, for urban development, son of the Baghlan Ismaili community leader; and Minister of Economy Abdul Sattar Murad, another Jamiati); Deputy Head of the National Security Council, Faizullah Zaki, an Uzbek close to Jombesh leader General Dostum; and finally former finance minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, now Afghan ambassador to Pakistan. It was Zakhilwal who had signed the grant agreement with ADB for the power line project via the Salang route in December 2013 on behalf of the Afghan government (more on this later).

However, from among Ghani’s Hazara appointees, only Karimi accepted. Behzad, Sajadi, Sadati, Akbari and Ahmadi refused to attend the commission’s meetings. Behzad said their movement would continue to protest. Thus, the commission was reshuffled again on 18 May 2016, as published on the official Facebook page of Vice President Danesh’s office. In their places, three other Hazaras or Shia were appointed, bringing the number of commissioners down to 11. The three new ones were:

• Humayun Rasa, Minister of Trade and Industries, a Bayat, a subgroup of the Hazara;
• Mahmud Balegh, Minister of Public Works, a Hazara from Daikundi, associated with Khalili and Danesh; and
• Sayyed Muhammad Hassan Sharifi, a Hazara MP from Sarepul, affiliated with Mohaqqeq.

The commission came to the following decision, in a 12-page report (the full text is available here, in Dari):

In order to protect the important interests of the country, in order to ensure national unity and the stability of Afghanistan, for the sake of preventing ethnic and regional tensions and confrontation due to a fait accompli and the fact that all technical and procurement phases of the 500 KV power transmission project from the north to the south through Salang route have been completed over the last two and half years and considering the findings of the National Commission after reviewing the relevant documents, the procurement phase of the project [via Salang Pass] should be resumed.

The plan to provide electricity to Bamyan province through a 220 KV power transmission line from Poshta-ye-Sorkh [a power sub-station in Jabal-us-Saraj district of Parwan province, built with Indian government support and inaugurated in January 2016] cannot meet the strategic needs to develop a national power network in the country and the Commission recommends that the 220 KV power transmission line project (double circuit) with the capacity to carry 300 megawatts from Doshi [district of Baghlan] to the central region, which has the capability of providing electricity to all central provinces, be implemented…

According to the commission, a power distribution grid in Bamyan province should provide electricity to at least 20,000 families by November 2019. The commission also suggested that when “the thermal power station in Eshpushta of Bamyan is constructed, a 500 KV power transmission line from Eshpushta to Arghandi [should] be constructed. The budget for this project should be prepared by the Ministry of Finance and submitted to parliament during the national budget’s 1395 (2016/2017) mid-year review.”

The power line to Bamyan was a compromise to cater to the Bamyanis’ demand for electricity, as well as the related development which they hoped would come with it.

Following the commission’s decision, Ghani issued a decree (available in Dari here and a summary in English here), which reiterates the commission’s wording, although in a different order, putting Bamyan’s future plans first, while the Salang route resumption comes second.

A glimpse into the past: the consultants’ report and the ADB loan

The German consulting company Fichtner, which has a monopoly on energy sector consultancies in Afghanistan (the company is used by the German Development Bank KfW, the Asia Development Bank and USAID), developed the country’s Power Sector Master Plan in May 2013. The 450-page document was in fact a desk study conducted from Fichtner’s home office in Stuttgart (see the letter from Fichtner to DABS dated 1 February 2016, published here by Pajhwok), in which the company discusses the optimum solution for the north-south power connection, which is a part of TUTAP.

In its executive summary, the 2013 desk study’s Master Plan favoured the Bamyan route over the Salang Pass:

For the additional Hindu Kush crossing it is recommended to use the so- called Bamyan route for a new transmission line on 500 kV level. The Bamyan route will avoid the narrow space and difficulties along the Salang Pass, will allow connecting further generation by coal fired power plants along the route and will secure power supply of Kabul and south Afghanistan by using a separate route. (4)

It was not until after May 2013 that Fichtner carried out a field survey in Afghanistan regarding the north-south power line (see this letter from Fichtner to DABS dated 1 February 2016). The results of this walk-through survey combined with satellite imagery showed that the Salang Pass route was feasible, contrary to Fichtner’s findings in the desk review study. Following Fichtner’s field research in 2013, the parties involved, namely DABS, ADB and the Ministry of Energy and Water decided that the Salang Pass corridor would be used to construct the 500kV line between Dasht-e Alwan (near Pul-e Khumri) to Kabul province (Arghandeh, to the west of the capital).

In December 2013, the ADB approved a 99 million US dollars grant to the Afghan government for the construction of the north-south power transmission line from Pul-e Khumri to Kabul. The money came from the US and Japan. The project documentation was finalised and the grant agreement signed on 14 December 2013 by then-Minister of Finance Zakhilwal and the representative of ADB. The publicly available project documentation clearly indicates that the Salang Pass was chosen in 2013. It did not fail to mention the challenges posed by the Salang route, which became part of the Hazara leaders’ arguments in favour of the Bamyan route. (5) However, when the debate about the route re-surfaced in January 2016, none of the political leaders, who outspokenly pointed to discrimination, mentioned the project documentation that had been available online in three languages: Dari, Pashto and English.

This, along with ex-minister Zakhilwal’s involvement, the man who signed the controversial agreement and who was appointed a member of the commission tasked to review the project, became another cause for suspicion among the Hazara leaders. Zakhilwal, however, maintained neutrality by not signing the final report of the TUTAP commission.

During the 2014 election year, the project lay dormant. The following year, however, the procurement process for the company (or companies) that will construct the line began. (The government had already taken a decision, but had not yet issued a contract or made it public, as future developments blocked this process.)

This went smoothly until January 2016 when Second Vice President Muhammad Sarwar Danesh wrote a letter, first to President Ghani and then to the Ministry of Energy and Water (MoEW) and DABS, to raise his concerns about the routing of the TUTAP via the Salang. The letter came at the moment the procurement documents were sent to the national procurement commission, established by Ghani, for its approval. At this point, the ADB had also signed off on the documents, confirming that procurement was in line with the agreed standards of the grant agreement.

It is unclear why Danesh – who, as acting higher education minister was in the cabinet from 2010 to 2014 – and other Hazara leaders had not come up with these complaints in 2013. More intriguingly, Karim Khalili, then-Vice President of Afghanistan, did not complain in 2013, but he helped mobilise opposition to the TUTAP decision in 2016. The saga culminated in the Great Monday protest that was held on 16 May 2016 and was reported on in detail by AAN.

Fichtner writes a letter

Earlier this year, the German consultants from Fichtner felt compelled – after some Afghan lobbying in Stuttgart, as AAN heard from within the development community – to interfere in the matter, now favouring the Salang route in its 1 February 2016 letter to DABS. Among the reasons given was that the line via Bamyan would cost an additional 35 million US dollars and that the project might be delayed by approximately two years, the time required for designing and tendering the new route, if it was indeed routed through Bamyan. Fichtner also pointed out that the new route might delay the implementation of power purchases and sales related to the electricity agreement with Turkmenistan signed in May 2015. According to this agreement, Turkmenistan would increase the volume of exported electricity to Afghanistan four-fold between 2018 and 2027.

Additionally, Fichtner argued that the provision of power to the southern provinces of Kandahar, Khost and Ghazni (in a parallel project financed by USAID which would link power lines from Kabul to the South) might also be deferred by two to three years.

It also seems that the company did not understand – or ignored –the fragile ethnic balance in the country and had rushed into unnecessarily hasty conclusions on the routing of the power lines, first in its 2013 master plan and then again with the 2016 letter.

Why would one want a high voltage power line?

While the early 2009 Bamyan protests reflected genuine popular demands for electricity in a province where there was no power supply at all at the time, the latest protests, although bigger, have become more politicised and convoluted. It is thus becoming more difficult to differentiate between honest calls for community development and political manipulation.

AAN recently visited Bamyan’s provincial centre to discuss the TUTAP power line with a number of interlocutors: civil society representatives, political party and provincial council representatives, the provincial governor and Bamyan University representatives. This range offered different interpretations of the issue, but more significantly it pointed out the growing polarisation in public opinion regarding the TUTAP power line.

One end of the spectrum, opinions were firm that the TUTAP line through Bamyan was a must, explaining that “originally we wanted electricity, now we want equality.” Many at this end of the spectrum, at least for those communities far from Kabul, saw the “non-transparent” changing of the routes from Bamyan to the Salang as “discrimination” against the Hazara or entire central highlands community. Those who used the former version often referred to “hundreds” of years of discrimination of their particular ethno-religious groups by the (Pashtun-dominated) centre; a trend that, they said, continued under both post-Taleban presidents. Some even used the word “fascist.”

Those who spoke about the highlands community in general included both Hazaras and Tajiks, who dominated Bamyan city up until the mid-1990s. In Bamyan city, inter-ethnic relations are complicated by land conflicts. In the Tajik-majority districts of Kahmard and Saighan, memories of warlord atrocities and the desecration of Sunni mosques from the mid-1990s factional wars are still fresh.

Those at the other end of the spectrum were more moderate and supported the TUTAP commission’s decision. They included members of Mohaqqeq’s wing of Hezb-e Wahdat, who had initially participated in the protests in both Kabul and Bamyan, and of smaller (predominantly) non-Hazara parties in Bamyan, including Jamiat-e Islami, Harakat-e Islami (Anwari) and Ensejam-e Melli led by Karzai ally Sadeq Modaber.

Amin Joya, the Dean of Bamyan University, summarised the issue for AAN with a rhetorical question: “The issues here are mixed up. Is what people need the cables, or do they need the electricity?” He also pointed out the environmental issues related to the TUTAP power line, that had figured in the original 2009 protests, and the industrialisation many hope would come with it. He said: “If Bamyan is to be industrialised, that would be a disaster for the country; five rivers have their sources in these mountains”, pointing out that large mining projects would drain local water resources and possibly pollute the rivers, with effects far beyond Hazarajat.

Zaki, from the local civil society, said that local political parties had joined the electricity protests organised by his network and other groups, not the other way around. He also said that although they were optimistic about the commission’s decision, “we don’t believe in it.”

Muhammad Mahdi, a member of Akbari’s Hezb-e-Wahdat wing from Bamyan said “We want a guarantee that we will get electricity. If they do not start work in one month, we will start demonstrations again.” This sentiment was echoed by local representative of Jamiat-e-Islami. Both Jamiat-e-Islami and Mahdi’s Hezb faction are members of a new Justice Council of Political Parties in Bamyan that stands against what it calls “the almost complete political domination of Khalili’s Hezb-e-Wahdat in the province.”

According to Ghani’s decree, the planning of the power line to Bamyan should start in June 2016. Tahir Zohair, the provincial governor of Bamyan, told AAN that they had not yet received any official paperwork from Kabul, but he was hopeful it would come soon. Others, like Mahdi, have less trust in the government.

Kabul arguments

In the capital, there seems to be a disagreement between the civil society part of Jombesh-e Roshnayi (the Enlightening Movement) and its political party affiliates. The statement of the movement from 27 May 2016 suggests that the movement is losing width. “Those who separated from the ranks of the people in this advocacy and justice-seeking struggle and stood by the government will also be unveiled when necessary”, the statement said, in a not entirely veiled nod at party leader Mohaqqeq and Vice President Danesh, who accepted the TUTAP commission’s ‘anti-Bamyan’ decision. Gul Amir Naimi, representative of Mohaqqeq’s Hezb-e-Wahdat in Bamyan, told AAN that there are now two protest movements on TUTAP in Afghanistan.

The Enlightening Movement’s statement was issued on the day a smaller protest was held in Kabul, on 27 May 2016. Hasht-e-Sobh daily put the number of participants in the gathering in the “hundreds,” while Assadullah Sadati, one of the prospective TUTAP commission members who boycotted it and who participated in the protest gathering, reported “thousands” of participants in a post on his Facebook page. BBC Persian also reported on the gathering but gave no numbers of protesters and added  that despite the new protests by the Enlightening Movement, a number of leaders, including Deputy CEO Mohaqqeq and Vice President Danesh had accepted the government’s decision and called on the protestors to cease and wait for the project to be implemented.

Two days later, on 29 May 2016, the People’s High Council issued another statement. Firstly, it thanked the people of Kabul for participating in the second gathering and called on “the supporters of the Enlightening Movement and all justice-seekers of the country in Kabul and provinces to resort to indefinite civil resistances.” As one possible means of such resistance it mentioned the “refusal to pay the electricity bills to the traitorous Breshna Sherkat.”

This call, in particular, was met with criticism even by some of those otherwise sympathetic with the movement. Social media activists said that over the years, powerful and corrupt government officials had not paid for their electricity, and this call was an (indirect) endorsement of their misdeeds. One said that while certain officials had power (both kinds) and would not be harmed, poor people in Dasht-e Barchi or Khairkhana or Shah Shahid who refused to pay their bills would have their electricity cut off.

Zaki Daryabi, a social media activist who also runs Ettilaat-e Roz (News of the Day) newspaper wrote: “The Enlightening Movement may call on the people to refuse to pay their electricity bill. [But then] the government will ask Breshna to cut off their electricity.”

A lack of transparency and ethnic politics

Deputy Minister for Energy and Water Amanullah Ghaleb warned on 24 May 2016 to 1TV that ethnic aspects should not influence national projects. But the north-south transmission route became an issue of ethnic politics anyway. In the letter Vice President Danesh sent to Ghani in January 2016, he stated in rather moderate words that the central region had frequently demanded justice from the government, as well as more consideration for its general development needs. Mohaqqeq, in a Facebook post on 12 January, upped the ante by saying that what Danesh had mentioned in his letter was the result of “discriminatory tendencies of former [government] officials,” indirectly pointing to people in the Karzai administration. The “discrimination” (tab’iz) word was then picked up by a broad segment of the May 2016 protesters in Kabul and political activists in Bamyan.

This directly relates to memories of the century-long, pre-war history of discrimination against the Hazaras in a Pashtun-dominated state. These memories still make many Hazaras suspicious of any central government, particularly if led by Pashtuns. These feelings were exacerbated by the lack of transparency in parts of the TUTAP decision-making process (putting project documents on the internet does not suffice in the Afghan context), the shifting position of the German consulting firm, the fact that the New Zealand-sponsored solar grid in Bamyan only started functioning in 2014. Add to this, more generally, the lack of performance by the National Unity Government (see latest AAN analysis), particularly in the socio-economic sphere, as well as the continuing government efforts to reconcile with armed insurgents groups that many Hazaras see as an attempt to strengthen the Pashtun part of the Kabul centre, as recently reflected in the initialling of the agreement with Hezb-e Islami (AAN analysis here). Several interlocutors in Bamyan told AAN that, in the past, the province received development aid only because people raised their voices and protested. Ustad Ebtehaj, the professor of Persian literature at the University of Bamyan and a member of Khalili’s faction of Hezb, told AAN: “All the projects that Bamyan has received have been approved because we, the people, created the pressure.”

This atmosphere has turned the TUTAP issue into a fertile playground for manipulation and ethnicisation. Various Hazara political leaders have used it to re-position themselves vis-à-vis the government and the emerging opposition circles. Some protests leaders resorted to the ‘discrimination argument’ and many protesters followed them. This, in turn, created a backlash from within other ethnic groups – there have now also been demonstrations in favour of the Salang route in several Pashtun-majority provinces (see for example here, in Khost) – and has the potential to escalate if not contained.

Speeding up the implementation of the TUTAP-related power-line between Doshi and Bamyan, and other development projects in the Hazarajat and equally deprived areas elsewhere in the country, would be the best way to address these tensions. Not least as the government has repeatedly emphasised, starting from president Ghani’s inaugural speech in 2014, that it favours a “balanced” development of the county.

 

(1) The Socio-Demographic and Economic Survey of Bamyan, that was conducted by the Afghan Central Statistics Organisation in 2011, found that “animal dung was the most common source of energy for cooking in Bamyan, with 45.5 percent of households in this province using it as their fuel for cooking. (…) Straw, shrubs or grass and wood were also commonly used. The former was used by 26.3 percent of households in Bamyan, while wood, by 13.4 percent. Liquefied petroleum gas was used by only 6.4 percent of households, and coal/lignite, by 2.1 percent. The remaining 6.0 percent used other types of fuel such as electricity, kerosene, charcoal, and agricultural crop residue.”

Regarding energy used for heating and lighting the survey found that domestically produced solar power (through individual, small solar panels usually attached to the roof of a household) was most commonly used. “Solar power was the leading source of energy for lighting among households in Bamyan Province. Three in every five households in this province were using solar power for lighting. Electricity was used by 21.0 percent of households, and kerosene lamp by 15.1 percent. The other 2.6 percent used other sources for lighting such as gas lamp and candle. Households that did not use any fuel for lighting made up 0.1 percent,” the survey established.

During recent field research in Bamyan province, AAN observed in the villages and districts close to the provincial centre that the use of domestic solar panels and dried dung ‘cakes’ (so-called chalma) continues to prevail.

(2) The project, called the “Afghanistan: North-South Power Transmission Enhancement Project,” formerly “Power Distribution Project” (for project documentation see here), was approved in 2013. The Salang line is only one of ten projects that will contribute to TUTAP, which is a business cooperation framework and political initiative between Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, rather than simply a power transmission project.

TUTAP, that was agreed by participating countries to the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC), will connect the Uzbek, Tajik, Turkmen, Afghan and Pakistani electricity grids through unification of the Afghan grid. TUTAP is part of the Central Asian South Asian Regional Electricity Market (CASAREM), which includes other power sharing initiatives such as CASA-1000 and the TAPI gas pipeline.

The focus of the CASA-1000 project is on Pakistan. This World Bank supported project consists of an electricity transmission line that will go from a hydroelectric power station in Kyrgyzstan, through Tajikistan and Afghanistan, with the aim of providing Pakistan with electricity. The hydroelectric power station in Kyrgyzstan produces superfluous energy for five months of the year, mainly during the summer, which is when Pakistan suffers from a substantive lack of energy. Initially, CASA 1000 was supposed to provide electricity to Afghanistan as well, but as there is currently a lack of funding to build the necessary substations in Afghanistan, the country will only benefit from charging for the electricity transmission through its territory (in the range of tens of millions of US dollars). Afghanistan will also benefit from selling land for the towers for the CASA-1000 power line, and eventually some benefit may come from employment on the construction sites.

(3) The formerly united, Hazara-dominated Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami-ye Afghanistan (Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan) has split into various factions, including those of former Vice President Muhammad Karim Khalili, current deputy CEO Muhammad Mohaqqeq and Muhammad Akbari. Khalili’s wing continues to use the original name, while the other groups added mardom (people) or melli (national).

(4) The coal-fired power stations, mentioned in the 2013 Power Sector Master Plan, are linked to other large Afghan projects that have stalled, including the development of the copper mine in Mes-e Ainak in Logar province and of the iron-ore deposits at the Hajigak Pass in Bamyan (see further AAN analyses here, here and here.

(5) For details, see the environmental study available here that includes the flora and fauna, and particularly the avian population along the Salang route, which is a major route of bird migration (here), and its vulnerability to the impact of the planned power lines.

 

Ukrainian Antonov An-225 Strategic Airlifter

SAB will be attending the seventh International Trade Fair for Automation and Mechatronics in Munich from 21-24 June 2016.

Twenty-five experts in Counter Improvised Explosive Devices (C-IED) matters participated in a workshop held in Soesterberg (The Netherlands) from 24-26 May 2016.

The workshop - the first of its kind organised under the Joint Deployable Exploitation and Analysis Laboratory (JDEAL) framework - attracted participants from across Europe (Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Romania, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden), from the United States as well as from the Centre of Excellence for C-IED. Discussions focused on JDEAL and on current and future trends in exploitation.

Attendees agreed that the JDEAL was crucial for the technical exploitation of IED incidents (analysis of events, scenes, components and materials) in order to gain valuable technical and tactical information on such threats and identify supply chains.

The briefings and discussions covered diverse but inter-linked topics, ranging from hybrid warfare through JDEAL potential support to common terminology and deployable capability concepts. Presentations were notably delivered by representatives from the Centre of Excellence C-IED, the EDA, NATO Headquarters, the Netherlands Forensic Institute, French munitions and explosive specialists, the Dutch Armed Forces as well as by US experts.  Participants also had the opportunity to visit the 1st JDEAL deployable capability (which is now fully operational) and to follow a guided tour of the JDEAL training facility in Soesterberg.

The main takeaways of the workshop were summarized by JDEAL Commander, Major Geert Jan Verkoeijen, as follows: 

• now that JDEAL has been delivered and the first deployable capability is operational, it should be used to a maximum for the benefit of the community. Given that the impact of IEDs on missions and operations continues to be significant, Member States are encouraged to deploy JDEAL in operations and to continue to prioritize joint training capabilities;
• JDEAL should become as visible as possible and be considered both a strategic and rapid reaction asset for decision-makers;
• there is an urgent need for agreeing on a common C-IED terminology to be used by all stakeholders.   

Francisco Cifuentes, the European Defence Agency (EDA) Project Officer for C-IED, welcomed the fact that the event had allowed to open new lines of communication and networking among experts which will certainly prove useful for the further development of the JDEAL project.

2016 promises to be a particularly busy year for the JDEAL deployable capability. In July, the laboratory will be sent to Spain to take part in multinational exercise "Interdict", followed, in August, by exercise Bison Counter 2016 in Sweden. The laboratory will be staffed by experts from all its contributing Member States as well as by observers from other stakeholders.

 

More information:

• JDEAL: ready for deployment (Feb.2016)
• Project page: Joint Deployable Exploitation and Analysis Laboratory (JDEAL)

Four EDA participating Member States - Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, The Netherlands - as well as Norway have agreed to develop a joint project to enhance the European capabilities in the area of energetic materials.

 

Energetic materials are a class of material with high amount of stored chemical energy that can be released. These materials are commonly used in military applications, such as explosives, pyrotechnic compositions, propellants and fuels.

The new research project builds on acquired expertise from the previous EDA Formulation and Production of New Energetic Materials (FPNEM) project in the framework of the Agency’s capability technology group dealing with ammunition technologies (CapTech AMMO).

Under the lead of Sweden, experts will develop mutual awareness and knowledge of selected future energetic materials, production methods for critical components including raw materials, and small scale evaluation methods.

The project was named Energetic Materials towards an Enhanced European Capability (EMTEEC) and kicked-off during a meeting at the Swedish Defence Research Agency on 19/20 May; it will run over 4 years. France also participated in the kick-off meeting as an observer as discussions about the country joining the project are ongoing.

 

More information:

• Project page: Research & Technology

• European Network of National Authorities on Ammunition (ENNSA)

Around 30 experts from EU Member States and defence research institutes as well as industry representatives participated in an EDA workshop on ammunition technologies which was hosted by The Netherlands in Utrecht (25/26 May).

Over two days, participants discussed topics relating to energetic materials and missiles & munitions technologies as well as the possibility to launch common R&T activities on areas like 3D printing of energetic materials, extended range munitions and open architecture for missiles and munitions. Participants also had the opportunity to visit the laboratories of The Netherlands’ Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) where energetic materials and materials’ resistance to projectiles and blasts are tested and developed.

The operational conclusions of the workshop will be further developed in the remit of the EDA CapTech “Ammunition Technologies”.

 

More information:

• Research & Technoloy

• European Network of National Authorities on Ammunition (ENNSA)

As the EU prepares to launch its Global Strategy, it remains beset with internal problems. But it is the perception and attitudes of external actors which will, to a large extent, determine the success of the strategy. What do non-Europeans think of the EU’s current and future role in the world?

The post Eurocentrism and the Global Strategy: how do others perceive the EU’s role in the world? appeared first on European Geostrategy.

Key Points Lockheed Martin has completed an initial test flight of a modernised T-50A The aircraft was developed jointly with Korean Aerospace Industries for USAF's T-X trainer programme Lockheed Martin completed a first test flight of a modernised T-50A that it developed jointly with Korea

Key Points The Philippine Navy has officially inducted its largest vessel to-date Platform will significantly improve the service's transportation and HADR capabilities The Philippine Navy (PN) has commissioned its first 123 m strategic sealift vessel (SSV), the PN's naval public affairs office

The US State Department has approved the sale of SM-2 Block IIIB Standard surface-to-air missiles, equipment, and support to Australia, costing an estimated USD301 million, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) disclosed on 31 May. The DSCA said the sale included up to 80 RIM-66M-09

Americas

• The US Navy has decommissioned all of its aging low-pressure chambers as it waits for new normobaric hypoxia chambers to be built. The older chambers were first commissioned in 1947 and can no longer be repaired. For now, aviators will rely on the Reduced Oxygen Breathing Device for hypoxia training.

Middle East North Africa

• Egypt has taken over the first of its new Mistral-class helicopter carriers in a ceremony in the French city of Toulouse. The country’s Defense Minister Sedki Sobhi was in attendance with his French counterpart with the vessel to be named after Egypt’s famous strong-man President Gamal Abdel-Nasser.

• Piaggio has confirmed that it has lost its P.1HH Hammerhead UAV prototype after it took off from Trapani airport on May 31. The crash will be a setback for the UAV’s flight-test program and an investigation is currently being mounted. An order for eight of the drones was placed by the UAE in March of this year.

Europe

• Despite the mounting delays, Germany is to keep true to its commitment to the A400M program. The government is, however, looking at acquiring other transport planes since the aircraft cannot land at small airports. Germany has taken umbridge with Airbus’s delays over the last few months, with German parliamentary and military sources indicating that the German air force was looking at potentially acquiring up to 10 C-130J aircraft built by Lockheed Martin.

• RIA Novosti reports that Russian Aerospace Forces are flight testing the forward-swept wing SR-10 jet trainer in the Moscow Region. According to its manufacturer, one of the benefits of the aircraft is that it’s more economically feasible for training pilots with the sophistication of a fighter. The plane will be an alternative to the Yak-130.

• MQ-9 UAVs operated by the Italian Air Force are to be fitted with General Atomics integrated Rafael RecceLite reconnaissance pod. Flight testing will be carried out in early 2017 at Amendola Air Base, Italy. The company believes that the adoption of the system “could lead to similar efforts with other NATO customers that operate MQ-9.”

Asia Pacific

• Russian Helicopters are to provide Kazakhstan with a number of Mi-35M attack helicopters scheduled for delivery for the end of this year. The helicopters will replace the Mi-24s that Kazakhstan currently operates and which are the basis for the Mi-35M. Russian manufacturers are presenting the new Mi-35M at the KADEX-2016 international military equipment exhibition which is currently running in the Kazakh capital Astana until June 5.

Today’s Video

• The SR-10: