A bumper day for Woodstock war contracts

DIBBS tells us that October 19 saw 3 new DoD contracts issued to Rotron Inc:

• $7,573.20 for parts for AN/SPN-43, the Navy's marshalling air traffic control radar system used on all aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships.
• $2,559.75 for parts for Airborne Radar Sets made by Northrop Grumman's Norden Systems division.
• $11,839 for parts for something made by Lockheed Martin's Electronics and Surveillance Systems division.

DFAS Columbus...

... is the Pentagon agency that actually pays Rotron of Woodstock for many of its contracts, for example the contracts for Israel and for the Marines mentioned in recent posts. DLAS is the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, a twig of the DoD bureaucracy. Its website tells us that Rotron is one of more than 18,500 DoD contractors sharing more than 338,000 contracts [per year, presumably].

In the Woodstock weapons pipeline...

An upcoming Woodstock arms contract is for 4o fans for the AN/TPS-59, the U.S. Marines' tactical missile defense radar, made by Lockheed Martin, which has seen action in Operations Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and Enduring Freedom. On October 9 the Marine Corps issued a solicitation notice for these spare parts, stating that it intends to negotiate the contract with Woodstock's Rotron Inc which is the sole source.

"CRITICAL APPLICATION ITEM"

So says the small print on one of Rotron's latest DOD contracts, dated October 13, 2009. What is a Critical Application Item?
"Critical Application Item: An item that is essential to weapon system performance or operation, or the operating personnel as determined by the military Services (DLAI 3200.1). " -- DLA
Which weapon system(s) are these 11 fans (at $313.20 each) essential for? We don't know.

But we do know what another recent contract (50 fans at $1,848.60 each) is for: it's for the Raytheon AN/TSC-154 - SMART-T. What's that? It's a "MILSTAR satellite-compatible communications terminal mounted on a High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle."
Once again, communications at the heart of warfare -- with U.S. military domination of space as a corollary.

New weapons contract: Woodstock to Israeli Air Force

Rotron Inc. of Woodstock, N.Y. has a new contract (dated Oct 1, 2009) to supply 50 fans for "Government of Israel/Ministry of Defense/Chel Avir". Chel Avir is (a version of) the Hebrew name of the Israeli Air Force.

The contract, worth $27,712.50, is administered by the US Army and paid for by the US Defense Department (i.e. by US taxpayers), but the fans are to be shipped to Israel.

This is the first actual Rotron contract we've obtained that's explicitly for Israel, although we already knew from Rotron's own promotional material that they've supplied Merkava and IAI (Israel Aerospace Industries). Since most Rotron contracts don't wander into cyberspace where they can be found, it's highly likely that this is far from the first Israeli military sale for Rotron.

The fans are Rotron part number 011042. We haven't been able to find out what weapons system(s) they're for, but they're doubtless for Israeli warplanes ... quite likely F-16s or Apache helicopters, both of which were prominent in Israel's attack on Gaza in 2008-9.

The posting of the contract at
http://contracting.tacom.army.mil/confls/awd/W56HZV10P0019/0000.pdf has since been removed, but here's the top page and an inside page.