Many Tactical Retailer readers deal with the U.S. government on a regular basis, providing either goods or services through a variety of contract vehicles. Others like to keep track of what the government is buying in order to anticipate market trends. Lately, the Department of Defense has been employing a different method to field equipment that should be of interest to all.
As part of the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress granted Section 804 authority to the military to facilitate rapid fielding. As the National Defense Strategy pivots from insurgency warfare to the possibility of theater war against a peer competitor who is similarly equipped to the United States, the military needed to quickly select and field new capabilities in order to maintain a decisive edge against larger, well-trained and better equipped foes.
Section 804 authority is referred to as “Middle Tier Acquisition” and focuses on delivering capability in a period of between two and five years. It is also not subject to the somewhat laborious Joint Capabilities Integration Development System (JCIDS) governed by DOD Directive 5000.01 “Defense Acquisition System.”
To be sure, the military is accepting increased risk by using Section 804 authority. However, many of the established processes used in the Defense Acquisition System are still observed in the more abbreviated Middle Tier Acquisition.
This new approach utilizes two acquisition pathways: (1) Rapid Fielding and (2) Rapid Prototyping. It does this by streamlining the testing and deployment of prototypes or upgrading existing systems with already proven technology.
RAPID FIELDING
Use proven technologies to field production quantities of new or upgraded systems with minimal development required. The objectives are:
- Begin production within six months.
- Complete fielding within five years of an approved requirement.
RAPID PROTOTYPING
Use innovative technology to rapidly develop fieldable prototypes to demonstrate new capabilities, meet emerging military needs. The objectives are:
- Field a prototype that can be demonstrated in an operational environment.
- Provide for residual operational capability within five years of an approved requirement.
In addition to a compressed acquisition cycle, standard, boilerplate contracts are replaced by Other Transactional Authorities (OTA). These were created to give DoD the flexibility necessary to adopt and incorporate business practices that reflect commercial industry standards and best practices into its award instruments. Each of these agreements is custom based on the companies and type of work involved, but they require a minimum of at least one nontraditional Defense Contractor participating to a significant extent in the project or a cost sharing arrangement requiring that at least one-third of the cost of the OTA come from non-Federal sources. This is where a lot of smaller companies get involved.
Nowhere are we seeing the impact more than in the area of lethality. As an example of rapid fielding, the Army solicited industry, conducted an evaluation and selected a new Sub Compact Weapon in less than 12 months. More than a dozen producers of firearms participated with the majority being small businesses that do not normally do business with the U.S. military. The field was quickly narrowed to six companies and their wares underwent a short, but intense test and evaluation phase.
Based on those events, the Swiss made, 9mm Brugger and Thomet APC9K SCW will be issued to Military Police Personal Security Details for commanders and key personnel who are deemed High Risk Personnel. The Army plans to field up to 1,000 of the SCWs, which offer greater lethality than pistols, but are more concealable than rifles.
On the Rapid Prototyping front, there’s a significant project currently underway that will determine the replacement for the M4A1 Carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. The Next Generation Squad Weapons Prototype Opportunity Notice is full steam ahead, with 16 vendor submissions already whittled down to three. Currently, AAI Textron, General Dynamics OTS and Sig Sauer are each competing their versions of a Carbine, Automatic Rifle and special ammunition that utilizes a 6.8mm projectile provided by the government. The ammo will need to perform similar to a .270 WSM cartridge but with a 20 percent weight savings over current ammunition. While SIG is using a case made from steel and brass and GD has partnered with True Velocity to introduce an innovative polymer case design, the most far out ammo technology is Textron’s Polymer Case, Telescoping round that encases both projectile and propellant in the case.
The Army plans to choose one or more of the weapon systems next year to move forward into final development with a planned fielding beginning in 2022.
Because of the relative short period of performance associated with a Middle Tier Acquisition you won’t see complicated major systems such as tanks, ships or aircraft purchased this way; they’re just too intricate and require increased testing and oversight.
On the other hand, Middle Tier Acquisition offers the services an opportunity to rapidly select and field proven technologies to fill capability gaps. These programs are a boon to small, nontraditional contractors, but when the opportunity knocks, it won’t be there for long, so be prepared to answer quickly. B&T was ready for the Sub Compact Weapon program and won. Now, the sky is the limit for them here in the U.S.
