Defense Speak Interpreted

December 06, 2022

Defense Speak Interpreted: SWaPing Nanosatellites for Defense Systems

When I say “SWaP,” you might be thinking: A swap for what? What’s in the trade? SWaP, in fact, is a common term in the defense community, and it stands for size, weight, and power_—the holy grail of technical performance for defense systems. Size determines what can be loaded into the weapon system volume, which is especially important when rocket propulsion is involved—whether within the atmosphere (i.e., missiles) or in space. Weight is important regardless of the type of system we’re talking about, be it missiles or artillery or rocket launchers. Finally, power refers to the energy needed for continuous operation of the weapon; this is a major consideration for battery-operated systems, such as communication or computation modules.

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December 21, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: Who Won the Project Convergence War Game—Evil Chaos or JADC2?

I know you have been on the edge of your seats since my Defense Speaks September column, “What Does Convergence Mean to Defense?” or back to my February column, “So, What’s a JADC2?” While I tackled some other government defense topics, I realize I have left you hanging concerning the big interservice war game maneuvers, Project Convergence (PC), which tested out the information connection described in the JADC2 effort. I know, I know, you thought after my “Son of JEDI” description of a cloud-based information flow, that all service branches would soon be coordinated and talking to each other smoothly.

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November 09, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: What Happened to Our Defense JEDI?

When I last wrote about the Defense’s JEDI program (not JEDI knight) back in June, we had high hopes for its success. JEDI stands for Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure and is the backbone cloud computer system for Defense to tie the service branches together. To refresh your memory, Defense issued a $10 billion-plus contract to Microsoft for the massive cloud software effort, and Amazon appealed the award. When I wrote my June column, Defense had vowed to see the contract appeal though and grant the contract to Microsoft.

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October 12, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: The ‘Trouble’ With Obsolescence

How could a simple word like obsolescence stir up so much trouble within the Defense Department? Obsolescence is defined as the process of becoming obsolete or the condition of being nearly obsolete. Dennis Fritz explains its connection to Defense.

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September 14, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: What Does Convergence Mean to Defense?

How can a simple term like “convergence” be confusing, even at the Department of Defense and the U.S. Army? Webster’s dictionary defines convergence as “1. The act of converging and especially moving toward union or uniformity,” and “4. The merging of distinct technologies, industries, or devices into a unified whole.”

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August 10, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: Decoding the Military’s COCOM

Have you ever followed Defense activities around the world and been confused by terms like CENTCOM or SOUTHCOM? Who’s in charge of worldwide Defense activities—just “a big guy at the top” or regional commanders? How do Army, Navy, and Air Force stay coordinated around the world in various geographies?

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July 13, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: POM—Explaining the Process for Defense Budgeting

Anyone hanging around Defense programs will have surely heard of the term “POM.” Most of the connotations I have heard say that if you have a POM or will get “POM’d,” your program is “skating on solid ice.” That led me to infer that if you were in the POM, your program was established. But why and how?

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June 08, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: The U.S. Has a Space Force—JEDI Knights Next?

Does the U.S. Department of Defense's JEDI contract mean it's going into a Star Wars production? Sorry, no Stephen Spielberg this time. Sorting out the good guys and bad guys in this cloud computing scenario.

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May 11, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: Defense on Legacy Weapons Systems

As “Defense Speak Interpreted” readers have surmised, the weapons systems of yesterday, today, and tomorrow are under review, both with President Biden and with the Congress now in control by Democrats. But “weapons systems of yesterday”? In the fast-paced consumer electronics world, “legacy” never comes up.

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April 06, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: Industrial Base Evaluation

So, what is an “industrial base” to the Defense Department? And wouldn’t we expect a “battle plan” from Defense, not an “industrial strategy”? We want to review the Defense Industrial Strategy in the January, 2021 Report to Congress from the Acquisition and Sustainment section of the Department of Defense.

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February 09, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: So, What’s a JADC2?

The term JADC2 was prevalent in the late 2020 debate about the National Defense Authorization Act. It is a new way defense is using electronics to shape battle strategy. JADC2 is Defense Speak for “Joint All Domain Command and Control.” Sounds impressive, doesn’t it, but what does that mean?

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January 15, 2021

Defense Speak Interpreted: Your Best Friend is a Skyborg?

Suddenly the term “Skyborg” is popping up in Air Force publications, and if you are an Air Force pilot, your future best friend may be a Skyborg. To understand the concept behind the term Skyborg, we need a bit of weapons strategy for the Air Force.

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December 15, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: What’s a VITA?

Ever wonder how military electronics users could swap out circuit cards rapidly and keep their defense systems running? What about a “hot swap” of a circuit card that was questionable? How would defense depots keep enough unique circuit cards on hand to maintain the various systems in times of heavy use? The Department of Defense started to worry about those issues over 30 years ago and has helped private industry develop a highly sophisticated set of standards for circuit card input/output (I/O) to make quick change possible.

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November 10, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: Intel Is Now Making a ‘SHIP’

Perhaps you recently saw that Intel was awarded a contract for a SHIP by the U.S. Department of Defense. However, this one will not float on the water since SHIP stands for state-of-the-art heterogeneous integration prototype. Denny Fritz explains.

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October 13, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: Rad-Hard Electronics

Have you ever seen electronics described as “rad-hard,” or radiation-hardened, and wondered what that meant and how that was done? Did you like me just assume that “rad-hard” and “expensive” were synonymous? Did you think that this was a Defense Department term since they deal with nuclear weapons? Denny Fritz explores this and more.

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September 22, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: The Defense Innovation Unit

Many of Denny Fritz's columns are about new defense technologies and innovations, but what about an organization with “innovation” in its name? Here, he describes the history and purpose of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), as well as some of its programs.

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August 25, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: Unpacking the NDAA

What is this NDAA stuff you keep hearing on the national news all the time, and why is it important to PCBs? Denny Fritz explains what is going on with the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes programs and lays out the priorities and policies for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

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July 14, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: DMEA

A June 17 article announced a supply chain award of $10.7 billion to eight defense companies for semiconductors. Dennis Fritz explains how the Defense Microelectronics Agency (DMEA) administers this contract and keeps the technology secure.

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June 16, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: C4ISR

Only the U.S. Defense Department would lump together seven concepts—command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance—into a single acronym: C4ISR. Denny Fritz explains how C4ISR has been called the “nervous system” of the military.

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May 12, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: What’s an RCV, and What Do Electronics Have to Do With It?

In "Defense Speak," RCV does not stand for ranked-choice voting, a remote control vehicle, a riot control vehicle, or a refuse collection vehicle, although the second one is close; it stands for a remote combat vehicle. Denny Fritz explores this concept and its defense applications.

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April 14, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: Why Is Defense Hyper Over Hypersonics?

Perhaps you have noticed that the term “hypersonics” is now a buzz phrase in a big part of the Department of Defense research effort. What does hypersonic mean, and why is so much work needed in this weapons field? Dennis Fritz explains.

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March 24, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: Be Prepared for CMMC

If you are a current or future Defense Department contractor or subcontractor, you need to be prepared for the next cybersecurity requirements coming online during 2020. This is the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, or CMMC, in Defense speak. Dennis Fritz explains how there will be five levels of cybersecurity requirements for various amounts of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) you handle, with increasing requirements from one (least) to five (most).

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February 25, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: The Missile Defense Agency

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has its roots in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), known as 'Star Wars' in the 1980s as proposed by President Ronald Reagan. In this column, Denny Fritz provides an overview of how the MDA operates and describes types of missiles and phases.

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January 14, 2020

Defense Speak Interpreted: What in the World Is MINSEC?

The Defense program designated MINSEC (Microelectronics Innovation for National Security and Economic Competitiveness) is probably one that you have never heard of but will likely gather more headlines in the future. Dennis Fritz explains.

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December 10, 2019

Defense Speak Interpreted: The Continuing Resolution

The topic of the continuing resolution (CR) has been sneaking past other hot Washington topics, such as impeachment, candidate debates, and why the Redskins are so bad. Dennis Fritz provides an update concerning a CR and the 2020 fiscal year.

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November 12, 2019

Defense Speak Interpreted: Executive Agent

After reading my previous column, you may have realized that electronics packaging technology development came from the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana. One of its core responsibilities is the assignment of “executive agent” for PCBs and electronic interconnects. But what is this “executive agent” thing, frequently shortened to EA? Dennis Fritz explains.

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October 29, 2019

Defense Speak Interpreted: PCB-related OTAs from NAVSEA Crane

In my previous column, I described how Other Transaction Authority (OTA) projects were speeding up the development of new technology for the Defense Department. Much of this improvement has to do with the speed of contracting and the less restrictive selection and payment process involved. Specifically, I would like to call out projects under the National Security Technology Accelerator (NSTXL).

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September 19, 2019

Defense Speak Interpreted: Other Transaction Authority

DIU grants contracts under a joint OTA and a parallel process called commercial solutions opening. Most of the five DIU focus areas depend on electronics: artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy, cyber, human systems, and space. At the end of 2018, DIU had funded 104 contracts with a total value of $354 million and brought in 87 non-traditional DoD vendors, including 43 contracting with DoD for the first time.

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January 29, 2019

Defense Speak Interpreted: DARPA ERI

DARPA ERI stands for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Electronics Resurgence Initiative. This tongue-twisting acronym is the latest Department of Defense (DoD) effort to catch up and surpass world semiconductor technology for the secure IC chips needed by advanced defense electronics systems.

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December 18, 2018

Defense Speak Interpreted: PERM—Pb-free Electronics Risk Management

In this column, we explore PERM—the Pb-free Electronics Risk Management Consortium. No, the group members do not all have curly hair! The name was chosen around 2008 by a group of engineers from aerospace, defense, and harsh environment (ADHE) organizations.

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October 18, 2018

Defense Speak Interpreted: Defense Electronic Supply Chain Issues

On October 5, 2018, the Department of Defense (DoD) highlighted issues with the release of the 146-page report “Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States” from President Donald J. Trump

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