Fusing an Alliance.

This article reports that Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. are joining forces for the multibillion-dollar U.S. Air Force (USAF) Small-Diameter Bomb (SDB) Increment II competition, although the new-found relationship had a muddled debut. Lockheed had protested Boeing's earlier SDB win after a USAF procurement official admitted bias toward the company. The team would have an edge on the competition because it will base its proposal on the bomb kit already developed by Boeing under the SDB Increment I contract with the USAF. The addition for the second increment will be Lockheed Martin's tri-mode seeker, which is under development for the Army's Joint Common Missile program and ahead of the competition in terms of federally funded testing milestones. In August, USAF announced it would conduct a new competition for SDB Increment II, a 250-lb.-class bomb that would destroy mobile targets in bad weather.