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Whiskey 5 – Ammo To Go

Monday, October 7th, 2024

Who:

For the last 20 years, Ammo To Go has been the go-to online ammo retailer, trusted by hunters and gatherers nationwide for fast, easy and reliable ammo shopping. Why should you care?

Because it’s easy to fake online credibility. Dozens of online ammo retailers claim to have inventory in stock, promise timely delivery, or keep your personal information sacred, but if you go on reddit, you’ll quickly find many disgruntled customers out hundreds of dollars trying to buy ammo from internet ri? ra?, that end up arguing with foreign customer service agents, who get paid pennies on the dollar just to respond 30 times with “I understand.”

What

At Ammo To Go we actually understand. We hunt. We shoot. We reply to emails from customers raving about our delivery times. We go to expos. We buy too much ammo, and then we complain that we don’t have enough. Why does all that matter? Because we solve pain points for customers that we ourselves experience. Not sure if we have the caliber you’re looking for? We probably have it. We stock 200+ calibers. Except .21 Sharps. That’s a strange one. We deploy countless man hours and sometimes thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars to deliver the most up to date ballistics testing data for our readers and customers. We even publish all that data on our blog, free of charge.

When

Typically 2-3 days. If it arrives on day 4, sue your mailman.

Where

Your house. Make sure you’re there to receive it. We’re not in the business of arming porch pirates.

Why

Why? Because varmints need shootin’. Game needs huntin’. And people need protectin’.

ammunitiontogo.com

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Whiskey-5: Safariland CADRE

Wednesday, September 25th, 2024

Whiskey-5 is a recurring Solider Systems Daily feature that asks “Who, What, Where, When, and Why” of the industry. It is intended to give you a more in-depth look at those manufacturers, trainers and individuals that make our industry unique. We have found that these basic five (5) questions are the most basic keys to understanding. Past Whiskey-5s have included such industry heavyweights as Primary Arms, Black Triangle, Kryptek, HyperStealth and even Tactical Fanboy. Today, we’ll be sharing an overview of the Safariland CADRE program.

WHO:

The Safariland CADRE program was a new evolution from the original Team Safariland. In 1985, Team Safariland was launched as one of the first corporate-sponsored competitive shooting teams. Safariland forged a team of some of the top competition professionals in the industry. These individuals promoted and competed with Safariland products in various competitions, including USPSA, 3 Gun, Steel Challenge, and more. As time evolved, so did the concept of a team of professionals representing and supported by Safariland. Hence, the CADRE program was born.

Members of the Cadre include such SMEs as:

Kyle Morgan of Blu Bearing Solutions
Dan Brokos of Lead Faucet Tactical
Rich Graham of Full Spectrum Warrior
Rick Crawley of Achilles Heel Tactical
Blayr Drumm, fitness consultant and Tactical Games competitor

WHAT:

What does CADRE mean?

“CADRE- A selected group of specially trained and skilled individuals for one specific purpose or mission.”

That definition is completely dialed in on Safariland’s Cadre program. Safariland’s mission is to save lives. These SMEs provide training, insight, advice, philosophy, and innumerable other benefits based on the experience and expertise gained from an extraordinary collection of backgrounds.

Rick Crawley working tactics around a vehicle.

Kyle Morgan walking the line while shooters reface their targets.

WHEN:

Founded in 2021, Safariland established a new approach to “brand ambassadorship.” Following the legacy of Team Safariland, the CADRE Member program was developed. This program would bring new life and unmatched experience and skill to Safariland’s mission.

Rich Graham working some combatives.

WHERE:

Our CADRE members come from all over the country. They are law enforcement professionals, military veterans, tactical instructors, and hard-core competitors. Formal classes, less formal courses, and symposiums are available in a wide range of venues.

Dan Brokos of Lead Faucet Tactical making it look easy.

WHY:

The program itself is in direct support of Safariland’s mantra and mission: “Together, we save lives.” Why else?

Why these particular SMEs? It’s fundamentally an expression of Safariland’s trust in their ability to bring hard and soft skill instruction to our customers as well as their first-hand knowledge of (and trust in) Safariland products in the field.

Blayr Drumm making them Watch Her Win.

Our CADRE team brings years of experience utilizing our equipment in life-threatening situations, sharing that expertise with their students, peers, and our product development team. CADRE members embody Safariland’s core beliefs and help us with that mission.

Learn more about the Safariland Cadre.

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Whiskey 5: Bullet Vault

Thursday, May 2nd, 2024

Whiskey 5 is a recurring Soldier Systems Daily feature that asks “Who, What, When, Where, and Why” of industry leaders, manufacturers and instructors — to let you hear how they describe themselves. It’s intended to give you a close
and thorough look at some of the people that make our industry unique. We’ve found these basic 5 questions to be the basic keys to understanding. Past Whiskey-5s have included businesses from Adventure Operations Group to Zulu Nylon Gear and many, many fine organizations between.

Today, we’ll be sharing an overview of Bullet Vault.

Who

Clay Tippins and a small group of solid, like-minded people run Bullet Vault. One of those folks is a longtime gun industry peer
Nate Treadway (now a Bullet Vault strategic advisor). Others are part of the same group of investors that owns Lone Wolf and
Primary Weapons System (PWS). Tippins is a Naval Special Warfare veteran, self-professed economics geek, and technology
developer. Some of you will remember him from his run for the office of Governor in Georgia a few years back.

Bullet Vault is an ammo subscription business that offers far more expansive services than you might think. Bullet Vault has built the foundation to evolve into a collateralized transaction engine backed by a physical 9mm 115-grain FMJ bullet.

1 “BulletReserve” = 1 physical 9mm bullet in the warehouse.

(L to R) Clay Tippins, Trigger, and Nate Treadway. The giant on the far right is Tip, Clay’s son.

Let’s back up and explain – particularly the collateralized part of this.

Once upon a time, the $USD was backed by gold specie. The British pound (£/GBP) has that name because it was backed by a
pound of silver. The precious metals Bullet Vault deals in include a number of other, more Second Amendment-based metals, including brass, lead, steel, and more in the form of physical 9mm bullets

Bullet Vault uses proprietary blockchain technology to issue and track bullet reserves. Every token minted on the blockchain has a real thing – a 9mm bullet – behind it. Want to start putting away a few hundred rounds of ammunition each month? That’s the subscription service.

Want to gift the monetary value of your BulletReserves to someone else at Bullet Vault? Transfer some of your reserves to their account.

Are you buying bullets instead of investing in gold and silver? Sell a few cases back to Bullet Vault seamlessly within the platform. Or…have us ship you some of your reserves from the warehouse. Then, meet up with some of your buddies and go have a range day.

Just don’t plan on using whatever you sell back or trade away as further investment or collateral. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. The logic and function of the software track unallocated bullets (which are the tokenized assets), allowing them to be used as a one-for-one, 100% collateralized allocation.

In real time.

When

Although the idea that became Bullet Vault was born back in 2019 (over a fire at a hunt camp), the site and app have only
been active for a few months. There were years of research, banking studies, and software development in the beginning,
then more of the same when Tippins realized that just establishing his own bank (his original idea) would not be enough
to complete his mission.

The challenge is processing. There has to be a way to conduct the transaction.

That has become increasingly problematic over the last several years as credit card companies, Paypal, and others have slowly begun to slow or even forbid Second Amendment-related commerce.

That already alarming trend has been worsening for years, and for Tippins and Treadway, it became more personal shortly after
the purchase of Lone Wolf Arms.

“The first Wednesday I owned Lone Wolf,” Bullet Vault Chairman Clay Tippins says, “my CFO called and said, hey, got bad news for you. We’re going to lose card processing within the next week.”

That event was a catalyst—not the only catalyst, but an extremely significant one—as you’ll learn below in Why.

Where

Bullet Vault’s “Head Shed” is in several remote locations, but the Tippins live in Georgia, and their current warehouse is in Idaho. As we add locations, we will achieve redundancy and potentially reduce costs.

Next up will be Montana, a location that could offer some initial benefit to those buyers who wish to store ammunition long-term. Montana is one of just five (5) states that don’t (currently) charge sales tax on ammunition.

Bullet Vault customers who want to “ship and shoot” must still pay appropriate state and local taxes. Warehouses in other states, possibly Oregon, Georgia, Delaware, or New Hampshire, are likely in the near future.

Why

BULLET VAULT WAS ESTABLISHED TO SUPPORT THE FREEDOM TO DO COMMERCE.

Financial institutions refuse to do business with 2A industry businesses. Credit card companies won’t process charges for gun-related purchases. Social media platforms, including YouTube, penalize or cancel those who violate (or even might have
violated) a fairly ambiguous set of ‘community standards.’

Tippins explains:

“The problem is the transactions. That’s the…Achilles Heel of the Second Amendment. It’s the jugular. If they can’t legislate guns out of existence, they’re gonna try to do it other ways. They’ll make insurance expensive, they’re gonna cut us off from credit card processing and banking services, and from social media. The ability to do commerce is the lifeblood of the world. We need commerce not just as an industry but as a people.”

In many of those latter cases, consistent enforcement limited to their own rules is dubious at best. It’s the same with many
crowd-backing mechanisms like Patreon, GoFundMe, and the like.

Bank Vault was with difficulty, able to switch from Bank of America-backed anti-gun credit card processors before we suffered
irreparable financial damage, but it was a near thing.

In Tippins’s own words, it scared the shit out of him. It also made him mad. So, he decided to do something about it. That something was, after dialing things in more than a little, Bullet Vault.

Specifically, taking a bullet subscription service and making it an engine for collateralized trade.

In addition to being a handy way to use dollar-cost averaging to stash away ammunition at a good price, of course!

We evolved from a bank-focused mission to one of collateralized trade because of the need for transactions. It doesn’t help much to have lots of money in your account if there’s no way to use it electronically. Cash is nice, but in today’s age, it is impractical except for incidental daily use.

If Tippins and the Bank Vault crew have our way, eventually, people will use Bullet Vault to swipe or check out instead of Amex, MasterCard, or Paypal.

Bullet Vault FAQ

• A BulletReserve is the digital representation of a single 115gr FMJ 9mm made-in-the-USA bullet in a new brass
case; each Reserve is backed, one for one, by a physical bullet.

• Bullet Vault currently charges a 6% sales tax on Reserves at the time of purchase. That’s Idaho’s state sales tax. No
subsequent tax is currently charged when the user decides to have their ammo shipped.

• Applicable taxes on future ammunition purchased in other states, i.e., Montana and others, will be determined when a
user “withdraws” it by having it shipped; that amount will be based on the user’s ship-to location.

• There is no storage fee for the first year following a user’s purchase of Bullet Reserves. After the first year, an as-yet-undetermined (but guaranteed to be minor) fee will be charged.

• Bullet Vault cannot currently perform services in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Rhode Island. We are working to expand services into
currently restricted parts of the lower 48. Some states require ammo to be shipped to an FFL location.

• Clay Tippins has never been in a SEAL movie. He hasn’t written a novel or a memoir. But he did run for Georgia
governor once, and he still has great hair.

Hit us with questions, concerns, or comments below, and we’ll try to answer quickly (or at least update our FAQ).

Bullet Vault is online at https://bulletvault.com/.

Connect with us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bullet.vault/

Subscribe to the BulletVAult channel on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/@bulletvault

Posted in Ammo, Industry, Whiskey 5 | 8 Comments »

Whiskey 5 – Man Lift USA

Tuesday, April 30th, 2024

Who:

Man Lift USA designs and manufactures specialty aerial access and material handling solutions. We have been providing lift and access equipment for the most unique, hazardous, and challenging environments since 2000.

Our material handling equipment is designed to boost productivity and ensure safety in demanding work environments. We offer a range of products such as boom lifts, scissor lifts, material lifts, and mobile cranes to develop tailor-made solutions for your facilities, aircraft, ship, or rocket construction and maintenance.

What:

Our flagship products are our Explosion Proof (EX) rated articulating boom and scissor lifts. However, we also offerseveral other electric, electrically insulated, Track-Driven, and more traditional Material Handling Equipment (MHE) solutionsfor customers in addition to our EX rated line of products.

Man Lift USA’s equipment is recognized as the gold standard and utilized extensively across the aerospace, shipbuilding, chemical, and construction industries in addition to aircraft maintenance, facilities maintenance, painting, fuel cell work, or any environment where explosion hazards may exist. Our EX rated lifts meet and exceed safety requirements working in and around enclosed spaces, ordinance, paint vapors, or volatile fuels and chemicals.

Our lifts have longer run times between charging cycles than the competition and offer essential options such as aircraftprotection kits, collision protection kits, omnidirectional steering, and vertical access platform accessories as well.

When:

In business since 2000 Man Lift has a long and storied history serving the following customers:

Where:

Headquartered in Shelby North Carlonia Man Lift is proudly made in the USA and services military and commercial customers both domestically and internationally.

Why:

Quality: Our equipment is built to last and work flawlessly in the most demanding environments. We use only the highest-quality materials and components in our systems and conductrigorous quality control checks to ensure that every product meets our exacting standards for safety and performance.

Safety: We have an enduring commitment to safety, and it shows in everything we do. We understand the imperative to prioritize safety at every stage of the process–from the design, manufacture and testing of our equipment, to routinemaintenance and service. We are laser-focused on safety and meet or exceed all industry standards.

Customer Service: At Man Lift USA we believe that exceptional customer service is the key to building lasting relationships with our clients. Our team of customer service representatives are dedicated to providing timely and personalized support to ensure that your needs are always met.

Tailored Solutions: From aviation to construction, we understand the requirements and have the expertise to provide solutions tailored to your specific needs. Whether you require a custom platform size, lifting capacity, mobility capability or safety feature, our team of experts will work with you to design and manufacture the perfect solution.

Industry Expertise: Our team has decades of experience working across a wide range of industries. We are experts and operators with experience that spans the breadth of industries from aerospace to manufacturing in both defense and commercial arenas. We understand the required standards and unique challenges that different industries face and can provide the solution to help you improve safety and productivity in your environment.

For sales inquiries or additional information please contact:

James@manliftusa.com

Billy@manliftusa.com

www.manliftusa.com

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Whiskey 5 – LandTrust

Tuesday, February 6th, 2024

Who

LandTrust was founded in 2019 and is the nation’s leading land-sharing marketplace for DIY hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation access on private land (think ‘Airbnb for outdoor rec’). Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, LandTrust is rapidly becoming the go-to company for landowners looking to share their land, and recreators looking for private land to do a myriad of outdoor activities.

What

For Department of Defense units and personnel, LandTrust provides an innovative new way to access rural private lands for conducting training exercises (individual and/or collective) without having to jump through the hoops of training on public lands. LandTrust’s platform makes searching for and discovering private land, connecting with landowners, and booking land for training as easy as booking an Airbnb/VRBO.

Additionally, for Service Members who love the outdoors but have limited time to plan and scout new areas, LandTrust is an invaluable resource for finding new places to hunt, fish, etc. around the country.

When

Nic De Castro (pictured above) founded LandTrust in 2019 in Montana. In 2021 the company began to expand into new markets, hiring employees in Nebraska, Kansas, and North Dakota.

Where

Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, LandTrust currently has approximately 1.5M acres of land across 40 states and is adding tens of thousands of acres weekly. Properties listed on LandTrust include a large variety of terrain, from mountains and thick timber to open plains and grasslands, predominantly west of the Mississippi River. Some property owners offer known and unknown distance range options; with appropriate coordination, other options like this could be made available for training.

Why

The majority of LandTrust’s landowner hosts are multigenerational farm and ranch families with a strong sense of patriotism. Many would love to host military members and units for CONUS-based training exercises or other outdoor activities. This affords leaders throughout the DoD a potential pool of previously unutilized training locations. LandTrust’s inventory of properties provides planners with any type of terrain and environment to meet their desired end-state for training.

Additionally, by using LandTrust to find and book private land for training exercises, military units will help support America’s multigenerational farm and ranch families, who are the backbone of our nation.

If you’re interested in learning more about how your unit can leverage LandTrust for future training opportunities, please call us at (406) 709-8450, let us know what type of training and/or the type of land you’re looking for, and we’ll be happy to help coordinate with the right landowners behind the scenes. One of our team members is retired Army Special Forces with extensive experience in exercise planning and can assist in developing options based on your training needs and requirements.

Posted in Whiskey 5 | 2 Comments »

Whiskey 5 – Eagle Eye Innovations

Monday, September 25th, 2023

Who?

Eagle Eye Innovations (EEI) was founded in 2013 by Sion Roberts, an ex-sensor operator for the MQ-9 Reaper in the Royal Air Force (RAF), delivering Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) training. EEI quickly became a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Recognised Assessment Entities (RAE) delivering accredited training services to the UK market, and is now one of the longest running RAEs.

The company has since grown significantly over the last 5 years, including increasing its ownership and Directorship with key experience to help grow the company beyond its roots. In addition, the team is now 35 strong, with plans to grow further in Q4 2023, and boasts over 550 years of military experience and over 50,000hrs instructing and operating Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms across the Air, Land, and Maritime domains, including exquisite platforms such as the RAFs MQ-9 Reaper.

Currently, EEI operates across 5 core departments (see below); Training Academy, Technical Services, Defence & Security, Special Projects, and EEI Asset Protection Solutions (EEI-APS), with a key to success being that they do not make RPAS / drones. Rather, EEI specialises in supporting customers through requirement definition, procurement support, integration, training, and operational services; ensuring the customer procures the correct system for their needs and realises its full capability.

What?

Being system agnostic, EEI provides services across all classes of RPAS, regardless of size, weight, and complexity, to the commercial and defence sectors globally. The trusted, equipment independent nature of the organisation has grown a position of trust acting as the ‘customer friend’ in a rapidly developing technology space, and has become a ‘one-stop-shop’ for RPAS support solutions for many commercial and defence customers globally.

EEIs vision is to enable safe RPAS operations for the world, leveraging high-end, ex-military expertise to assist customers from all walks of life to access and operate ground breaking RPAS technology to enhance their services or operations, safely.

Key to EEIs capability is being able to work closely with customers to understand ‘why’ or ‘how’ RPAS/drones can be of benefit across any industry, developing key equipment requirements, putting output before equipment. This model enables a more informed procurement decision and invariably mitigates spiralling program costs compared to less informed equipment procurement decisions.

Beyond requirement analysis and procurement support, EEIs industry leading training analysis, development, build and delivery services in the RPAS sector are at the heart of the organisations vision. Regularly, customers across commercial and defence sectors engage with EEI having experienced inferior training elsewhere due to the quality of product, delivery, and after sales support. Indeed, EEI services go well beyond training, supporting customers with integration services, Test and Evaluation (T&E) of new and novel technology, operational support through direct support to customer operations or delivering operations on behalf of the customer, and Research & Development (R&D) to help identify emerging gaps and opportunities for the technology within the global marketplace. A new and novel application of this technology is its use in lifesaving off the UK shores. EEI has teamed with the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) to ensure our coastal lifeguards are trained to utilise RPAS/drones to increase the likelihood of survival for those individuals that find themselves in distress at sea.

One of the newest areas of EEI is the Special Projects department. This team offers partners a discreet operationally focussed framework with appropriate security safeguards. Special projects are geared to understand and support the RPAS needs of other private and public entities in complex environments that fall outside of our traditional offerings wherever their operations occur around the world.

When?

The EEI journey began with the conception of the company on the 31st of July 2013, delivering groundbreaking monthly RPAS training courses to the UK market at the beginning of 2014.

In late 2018, Alex Kasperczyk (Director of Business Development) and Dominic Smith (Director of Operations) left the RAF to invest into EEI, which enabled the next stage of growth for the organisation and expanded the scope of its services into the defence sector. EEI now delivers its suite of services to all three Services and a large percentage of UK Emergency Services.

In 2021, EEI teamed with Jordan Crowns’ Crown Consulting organisation to develop a roadmap to delivering assured and effective security enhanced with the use of RPAS. This resulted in Crown Consulting being absorbed into EEI to create EEI Asset Protection Solutions (EEI-APS) that now delivers domestic security to high profile private clients and large-scale events, international crisis and risk management services to a variety of clients, and organic support to EEI to enable expeditionary RPAS services into complex or hostile environments.

In September 2023, EEI will be launching EEI Europe in Malta at the Maltese Air Show. Building on successes and growth over the last decade, this strategically important step will give access to new markets and customers around Europe, and further afield, as the organisations continues to drive towards its vision.

Where?

Headquartered in Lincoln, UK, EEI has supported clients as far a field as Australia, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Launching EEI Europe from Malta will enable a more global reach for the organisation, give the ability to work closely with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) following BREXIT, and provide a launch pad for support to customers beyond Europe.

EEI has several pre-established flight sites across the UK to support customer training wherever they may be, with the intent to grow this overseas with the establishment of EEI Europe. The ‘jewel in the crown’ being the EEI Centre of Excellence (CoE); a private 300m grass airstrip less then 10mins from the EEI HQ in Lincoln.

Why?

As RPAS/drone technology becomes more accessible for all customers globally, the use cases become more complex, and the technology itself accelerates into new, untested capability areas daily, the importance of safe RPAS operations becomes increasingly critical to ensure its succeeds and thrives alongside traditional aviation.

Recent examples in the UK have seen commercial RPAS/drone operators having received legal action against them for using their technology in an unsafe manner or in a restricted environment. To mitigate this, education is key and EEI aim to be at the heart of this now and into the future.

In an ever-growing and saturated market such as the RPAS equipment industry, it’s important for an organisation like EEI can independently support clients with the development of appropriate, efficient, and safe solutions that provide operational and economic advantage.

For more information visit our website www.eeinnovationsltd.com or email info@eeinnovationsltd.com

Posted in International, UAS, Whiskey 5 | Comments Off on Whiskey 5 – Eagle Eye Innovations

Whiskey 5 – Intraloop

Thursday, May 5th, 2022

Who:

We are a Team of veterans, engineers, designers, and business professionals which was founded and grew out of a need to fix a system that wasted human and material resources and ultimately let servicemen and women down.

We wanted to solve key pain points and began with the question, “How can we unlock the complexities of human insight and use this information to make better products?”

The system in which we operate has inherent flaws that makes it challenging to achieve desired outcomes. Having been there, we knew that the voice of the end user, the individual who deeply understands what they need, should be heard. We also knew the problem existed and persisted at every level, from military operator in the field, to congressmen and women stewarding our nation’s resources, from the consumer to the board room.

What:

Our motto is “Humans Before Hardware”. Intraloop is returning to software’s original promise: solving problems in the physical world. We’re starting with the DoD because America’s competitive advantage comes from building the right things for our national security – better, faster, cheaper.

At the heart of what we do is connecting organizations and communities and giving them the tools and ability to make informed decisions that move the needle.

We’ve created a platform that includes:

-The ability to collaborate across end user communities and organizational administrators.

-Various engagement techniques that gather quantitative and qualitative data in novel ways.

-An admin dashboard that turns end user interactions into faster, data-driven decisions.

By bringing user concerns to the forefront, it reshapes the process and allows for early engagement on products and services. The system is focused on human-centered product design and decision grade analytics which empowers organizations to have a greater impact and increases buy-in at all levels.

Where:

Our platform goes where you go. It can be deployed anywhere, with both Commercial and Government/Defense partners.

When:

The time is now. There’s a clear signal that this is needed and it’s coming in from many directions.

In the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s memo for ‘Software Modernization’ published in February 2022, the document emphasized the following themes:

Speed Innovation into the Hands of the Warfighter – “The Department must evolve and innovate smartly, leveraging industry, academic, and scientific communities to drive toward technical solutions of mutual benefit, to establish creative relationships through agreements, and to foster experimentation.”

Empower the Broader Workforce as Contributors to Technology – “Developers are not the only ones who can impact software modernization. From infrastructure managers to operators, the entire workforce has the opportunity to help evolve technology. The entire workforce must understand their role in delivering software and find ways to streamline processes, push for automation, and better leverage technology.”

Testing & Acquisition – “As software plays a more significant role in weapons platforms and mission capabilities, robust software testing must be integrated into delivery pipelines and account for end-to-end mission thread evaluations.”

We see a shifting world order with the current conflict in Ukraine resulting in increased defense spending across Europe. The question arises on how to best use that money. We must offer ways to accelerate readiness while saving costs.

Why:

There’s a problem that needs fixing. In a 2019 Government Accountability Office report, it was reported that out of the top 20 major defense acquisition programs (MDAPs), the government went $628 bn over budget in the last 5 years. Part of the reason this happened is that they don’t have the tools to gather and rapidly analyze robust user generated data.

When you speak to operators, it’s clear that their needs aren’t being met. There is simply no means to send that signal in a meaningful way. What’s more, acquisition officials lack the necessary data to make better, faster decisions.

Time is a precious resource and more “traditional” ways of conducting research is time and labor intensive and the data isn’t always easily tied to decisions.

Software should support the people. We allow for rapid data collection and analysis to happen in a fraction of the time, in an intuitive way. The result is data that is easy to digest and leads to decisions, but also reduce waste as well as the human and material cost. We feel this is an important goal because it is how we maintain both our military and industrial edge against global adversaries.

intraloop.io

Posted in Veterans, Whiskey 5 | 9 Comments »

Whiskey 5 – DNS Alpha

Friday, February 4th, 2022

WHO

Development Never Stops Alpha: A team that combines specialists in clothing technology, with those from the Military.

Marcel Geser is the head of the development team. In recent years he has been the man that leading outdoor clothing manufacturers have turned to when their in-house development team could not solve a task. For this he has won ISPO and ECO awards.

Tim Vetter is the contact person for government and the military. He was involved in logistics for the German Special Operations Forces and later the managing director of the most innovative manufacturer of tactical equipment in Germany.

Together they form the backbone of DNS Alpha.

WHAT

Their collective mission is to provide the most demanding end-users on the planet with the best clothing possible.

As a licensed partner of Gore-Tex, Cordura and Outlast, DNS Alpha is able to offer highly specialized fabrics. When no suitable fabrics are available, we develop them with our partners. Examples of those are an elastic FR fabric and the toughest merino quality on the market.

In the DNS Alpha clothing system, all layers are perfectly coordinated. So your size is always your size.

DNS Alpha works in constant close contact with their end-users. This already includes highly specialized units where materials and design are tailored to their specific needs.

Also, having our own sample production capability in Germany makes it possible to react quickly to feedback, and to produce new prototypes, custom-made products and small series in short timeframes that our customers demand and need.

WHERE

DNS Alpha currently operates from three locations:
the head office is in Switzerland, and both, the design studio and sales office that is currently responsible for Europe and the Middle East, are located in and near Munich, Germany.
DNS Alpha works with selected manufacturers, primarily in Europe for its current production. And is currently looking at several production facilities beyond that, such as in the USA to offer all clients production where they want it.

DNS Alpha is currently available through a worldwide network of dealers which can be found HERE.

The companies in the network have many years of experience in selling high end Military, Law Enforcement and Outdoor brands to their respective end-users.

WHEN

The DNS Alpha team not only has over a decade of cooperation with the leading brands in the outdoor industry behind them, but also military experience, ranging from personal deployments to working with end-users on innovation and procurement. With each project, new experiences were gained and further technologies developed. Over this period, DNS Alpha has evolved and created innovations that are years ahead of its competitors.

WHY

DNS Alpha knows from experience that every task and mission brings with it special requirements in terms of the cut of an item, and the materials used. The solution starts with using the right materials, and then tailoring that to the intended use. When a material that fits the use does not exist, DNS Alpha is in the position to make that material, together with our partners. We believe that material and product development should come from the same source to create real meaningful innovations.

Anyone who has tried and tested a DNS Alpha product will notice the difference compared to all others.

Development Never Stops

Posted in Clothing, Industry, International, Whiskey 5 | 4 Comments »