By Debbie Gregory.

October 31st is the deadline for gear makers who want to respond to the Marine Corps Systems Command’s Request for Information (RFI) for new reliable magazine pouches that will fit the Corps’ new PMAG polymer magazines.

The Marine Corps switched to Magpul’s signature polymer Gen M3 PMag in 2017, but Marines have complained the new magazines don’t fit properly in their issued magazine pouches.

To be considered reliable, a magazine needs to feed as flawlessly as possible under normal and adverse conditions; it must be easy to maintain and clean; and it must resist damage due to rough handling, impacts, and other hazards of extreme use.

The Systems Command is looking to identify supplier sources for magazine pouches that will fit Magpul PMAGs as well as standard aluminum magazines for the M4 carbines and M16 rifles.

The baseplates on PMAGs are slightly larger than standard-issue aluminum magazines, which makes them difficult to fit in the current double and triple-stack magazine pouches. The newer Gen M3 design helps to mitigate fit problems.

In 2017, all four U.S. military services, U.S. SOCOM, and the U.S. Coast Guard either fully adopted or accepted the PMAG as their primary magazine offering.

If the contract is awarded, the order will be for 60,000 units, with a possibility of up to the maximum quantity of 500,000 magazine pouches.

For designs to be considered, they should:

• Allow the magazines to be smoothly drawn from the pouch with one hand.
• Be compatible with the current Pouch Attachment Ladder System for attachment to current load bearing equipment.
• Provide a retention mechanism that allows for the magazine to be retained during normal combat operations.
• Be configurable to allow for a single Marine to carry a minimum of six magazines on their person.
• Be lighter than the current M4/M16 double/single rifle magazine pouch for a double magazine design (T= 0.27lbs) or lighter than half the weight of the current M4/M16 double/single rifle magazine pouch if a single magazine design (T=0.14lbs).

By Debbie Gregory.

MilCloud 2.0, the Pentagon’s on-premise cloud, is gearing up to handle a great increase in the size of the data it hosts, and the Defense Department is looking for ways to get it there faster.

To that end, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is exploring the capabilities that currently exist to improve the migration of data and applications to MilCloud 2.0 by issuing a request for information (RFI) to industry seeking input on “rapid cloud migration.”

While the RFI, which was due by September 10th, does not constitute a solicitation, there is a possibilty that it could lead to one-on-one discussions with vendors.

MilCloud 2.0 went live earlier this year as part of a three-year, $500 million contract won by CSRA, which has since been purchased by defense contractor General Dynamics.

“We are looking at probably 2-3-4 times the increase of volume than we originally anticipated right off the bat, which is a good news thing. It shows there is a lot of demand for cloud capabilities inside the department,” said John Hale, DISA’s chief of enterprise applications.

The RFI states that MilCloud 2.0 “seeks migration solutions that can accurately duplicate the suite of servers used with an application from their current environment into a cloud environment built on Apache CloudStack technology and KVM hypervisor. The scope of duplication includes all applications used with the system, configuration of network and network security controls when proper APIs are exposed, and identification of interactions within the application system and to external systems when needed network traffic is made available for analysis.”

“What we are spending a lot of time on and where we are making investments now is how to strengthen our ties with off-premise commercial cloud providers, how we strengthen our security relationships with them and how we make sure that all of that works in a much better way,” said Hale. “As commercial cloud evolves, we expect our MilCloud 2.0 capability to evolve in-kind,” he added.