Aéronautique et spatial : dans un contexte d’incertitude, le militaire s’en sort mieux

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  September 28, 2018 | International, Naval

  Navy Awards Ingalls 6 Destroyers, Bath Iron Works 4 in Multiyear Deal; Ingalls to Build Both 2018 Ships

  By: Megan Eckstein The Navy awarded six of its next Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to Ingalls Shipbuilding and four to General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, in a combined $9-billion purchase right at the end of the fiscal year. The two companies had been competing for work in a five-year multiyear procurement (MYP) deal that would cover at least 10 Flight III destroyers. The contracts span Fiscals Years 2018 – which ends on Sunday – through 2022. “These contract awards are further evidence of the Navy's continued delivery of lethal capacity to the nation with a sense of urgency while ensuring best value for the taxpayer,” Navy acquisition chief James Geurts said in a Navy news release. “The Navy saved $700 million for these 10 ships by using multiyear procurement contracts rather than a single year contracting approach. We also have options for an additional five DDG 51s to enable us to continue to accelerate delivery of the outstanding DDG 51 Flight III capabilities to our Naval force. We executed this competition on a quick timeline that reflects the urgency in which the Navy and our industry partners are operating to ensure we meet the demands of the National Defense Strategy.” Ingalls Industries' contract is worth $5.1 billion and covers two ships in FY 2018 and one a year in FY 2019 through 2022. It also includes options for additional ships, which may be subject to a future competition with BIW. Bath Iron Works' contract is valued at $3.9 billion and covers one ship a year in 2019 through 2022 – and none in the short-term in 2018. According to the Navy statement, “each shipbuilder's contract contains options for additional ships in FY18/19/20/21/22, providing the Navy and/or Congress flexibility to increase DDG 51 build rates above the 10 MYP ships in the Navy's FY 2018 budget request, if appropriated.” Lawmakers in the House and Senate armed services committees have pushed for faster acquisition of the destroyers, and in the FY 2018 National Defense Authorization Act they authorized the Navy to enter into a multiyear procurement contract with the two builders for as many as 15 destroyers – three a year, compared to the previous shipbuilding rate of two a year. The lawmakers on the appropriations committees only provided money to buy two ships in 2018, but they did fund three DDGs in the 2019 spending bill, which the Senate passed last week and the House passed this week. It is unclear if that third ship in FY 2019 would have to be competitively awarded or if the Navy would be allowed to select a shipyard based on schedule, performance or other factors – the contract announcement notes the options “may” be subject to a competitive process. Program officials had been mum during the competition on their acquisition strategy and how to handle options for additional ships. All the ships covered under this pair of contracts is for the Flight III configuration, which is built around the powerful AN/SPY-6(v) Air and Missile Defense Radar. “This procurement will efficiently provide Integrated Air and Missile Defense capability for our future fleet while strengthening our critical shipbuilding and defense industrial base,” DDG-51 program manager Capt. Casey Moton said in the news release. “The Navy is proud to be working alongside the dedicated shipbuilders at BIW and Ingalls to continue to deliver these warships to the fleet.” Moton told USNI News in a December 2017 interview that the contracts would be structured in such a way that additional ships – beyond the previous two-a-year rate – could be added easily if the Navy deemed it a priority in its spending request or if lawmakers wanted to add in more funding. With this contract award, the two shipyards – who, for a time after the production line had restarted remained neck-and-neck on contract awards and deliveries – will further diverge. Ingalls Shipbuilding was awarded a contract in June 2017 to begin work on its first Flight III ship, DDG-125. Two months later, Bath Iron Works was awarded a contract that would have the yard build DDG-126 with a Flight III configuration but DDG-127 in the older Flight IIA design, like the rest of the ships in the previous multiyear procurement contract. Though Navy and congressional officials would not comment while the competition was occurring, Bath Iron Works had been challenged to balance the Arleigh Burke-class program and the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer program. Keeping DDG-127 – which Congress incrementally funded in FY 2016 and 2016 – at the Flight IIA design would help ease the yard into Flight III production. The yard will not be building any new destroyers in FY 2018, according to the contract announcement, whereas Ingalls will take on two Flight III ships. https://news.usni.org/2018/09/27/navy-awards-ingalls-6-destroyers-bath-iron-works-4-in-multiyear-deal-ingalls-to-build-both-fy-2018-ships

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  April 2, 2020 | International, Naval

  Navy Rushes Shipbuilding Deals To Keep Yards Going In Pandemic

  “We're gonna have to brave the storm together, especially some of the smaller suppliers,” said Lucas Hicks, vice president of new construction aircraft carrier programs. By PAUL MCLEARY WASHINGTON: The Navy is rushing to award several major shipbuilding contracts several months early to keep shipbuilders on the job and save smaller suppliers in danger of going out of business amid the wider manufacturing halt cause by the coronavirus crisis. The biggest is a contract to build the next San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, (LPD 31) which serves as a jumping-off point for Marines heading ashore. The push to accelerate work is part of a wide-ranging effort to buttress the shipbuilding industry and the thousands of small suppliers that make parts for the Navy. The Navy's top acquisition official, James Geurts, told reporters Wednesday morning the Navy is worried about the effect the state and local shutdowns could have on its shipbuilding and repair efforts. “It's a national emergency and this is critical national infrastructure,” so the issue is, “how do we orient quickly to get at this aggressively and try not to be reactive in nature.” Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi is currently building the USS Richard M. McCool (LPD 29) and Harrisburg (LPD 30), and would be in line to start work on the next ship in the class. The Navy is also pushing to move forward the award for a landing craft program that was slated to kick off later this year. Funding for the new LPD was approved in the 2020 NDAA defense policy bill which authorized $525 million for the LPD Flight II program. Any breaks in the build and repair schedule would throw the Navy's planned deployments out of whack but also could be devastating to the thousands of small businesses across the country that literally provide the nuts and bolts that make the complex machinery that powers the fleet. “Nobody right now is in the position to float gaps,” Geurts said. His staff has done a detailed analysis of the Navy's industrial base. They are looking for ways to help the smaller companies not only through moving forward orders, but also finding money for research and development that would help small, innovative companies. “I hear stories of second-, third- and fourth-tier suppliers that were worried about going out of business, worried about how they would keep paying their salaries, and our ability to move and accelerate work into the defense base and then have that be pushed out to the suppliers is absolutely critical, because if they're not there it won't matter when we're ready to recover,” Geurts said. Geurts is gathering all of the large shipbuilders and shipyard owners several times a week to check on the status of the workforce and what problems they see coming if the current crisis continues. At the center of these worries is the nation's largest shipbuilder, Huntington Ingalls, which is the only company that builds both Nimitz and Ford-class aircraft carriers, in addition to sharing work on Virginia-class submarines with Electric Boat. The company has taken steps to attempt to apply social distancing at its shipyards, and has staggered shifts to accommodate workers who might now need to work different hours, company officials say. In an interview earlier this week, several Huntington executives told me they've reached out to over 2,000 suppliers in 48 of the 50 US states, and are working to speed up and push contracts as far down the supply chain as possible to keep these small businesses running. “We're gonna have to brave the storm together and especially some of the smaller suppliers,” said Lucas Hicks, vice president of new construction aircraft carrier programs. “We need their products today, but we also need them in 90 days, so we want to help them brave the storm,” he added. “We've actually changed some payment terms on some of our supplier contracts to try to make sure that we can front them what they need to stay afloat. We're doing some creative stuff to try and help them be able to weather the storm.” The company hasn't seen any reduction in parts received yet, but acknowledges that the situation changes on a daily basis, as different parts of the country feel the pain of local shutdowns in different ways. Lucas said Huntington does not anticipate it will stop work, but is allowing employees the option of working from home and providing liberal leave to others. Eventually all of this “will have an impact,” especially if the shutdowns are prolonged. “At some point, if it extends for months and months at the rate we're on, it would have an impact but it's too early to tell.” Geurts appears to see things the same way. The crisis and its downstream effects is “going to have both a time dimension and geography dimension, and so it will remain a fluid situation,” when it comes to how much the defense industry, and the navy, are affected, Geurts said. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/navy-rushes-shipbuilding-deals-to-keep-yards-going-in-panddemic

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  April 24, 2024 | International, Security

  Polish leaders plan to talk things out on nuclear weapons

  NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance has no plans to alter its nuclear posture to include atomic weapons in Poland.