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Back in 2008 David Mortimer presented his findings on Australian defence procurement having identified five principal areas of concern.

The UK Defence Reform Bill - which is intended to lead to legislation to reform both single-source procurement practices and the structure of the Defence Equipment & Support procurement body.

Poor management is by far the biggest cause of huge cost overruns in the Defense Department's major weapons programs, Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall writes in a new 126-page assessment.

The report notes that the time required to acquire next-generation capabilities is often longer than the strategic threat and technology cycles these capabilities are meant to address.

Included in the Pentagon's acquisition performance report is the following excerpt from an article by Col. Mark F. Cancian illustrates these larger external debates.

BMT has announced its latest contract with the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV).

SeeByte have announced that the Predator ROV will now be fully integrated with SeeByte's market-leading SeeTrack CoPilot software.

The full version of Defence Week Premium no.260 of 4 July 2013 can be downloaded here as a PDF. A separate PDF of the latest Defence tenders can also be downloaded here.

The final keel block for the future Air Warfare Destroyer, Hobart, has been successfully lifted into place by the AWD Alliance in Adelaide.

The past week in politics has been turbulent to say the least. Both Defence stalwarts on the Labor side of the house, Defence Minister Stephen Smith and former Defence Materiel Minister Greg Combet, will not be standing at the next election.

In a statement to Parliament last week Defence Minister Stephen Smith described the general purpose and functions of the Australian-based defence facilities operated jointly with the US, and the Full Knowledge and Concurrence principles under which they operate.

The US Navy's Lockheed Martin-built second mobile user objective system (MUOS) satellite is due for launch aboard the Atlas V launch vehicle July 19, 2013.

Watpac Construction Pty Ltd has been awarded the head contract for Defence's Base Infrastructure Works project.

While the US Army and the USMC bicker over the future of the JLTV program, further to our June 20 report on Oshkosh's JLTV demo, we now learn that of the two other JLTV EMD phase contenders, AM General has completed integration trials while Lockheed Martin has completed production of their final vehicle for the US Army and Marine Corps' multi-billion dollar JLTV program.

Supacat has signed a MoU with Navistar Defence to deliver collaborative future support to the UK Ministry of Defence's protected mobility vehicle fleet at the recent Defence Vehicle Dynamics 2013 exhibition in Bedford, UK.