November 13, 2019 | International, Aerospace
By: Sebastian Sprenger
BERLIN — Airbus expects an updated industry solicitation for Germany's multibillion-dollar Tornado replacement program, for which the company will offer an electronic attack-capable Eurofighter.
Wolfgang Gammel, the head of combat aircraft business development, said he learned about the impending update during conversations with Defence Ministry officials.
A ministerial spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the official line that an announcement about the acquisition program is expected in the first quarter of 2020 and that Berlin is looking to quickly replace its aging Tornado fleet.
The requirement for an electronic attack capability was absent from the original request for information when competitors placed their bids in the spring of 2018, Gammel told reporters Tuesday at the International Fighter Conference, a gathering of senior air force and industry leaders in Berlin.
After Lockheed Martin and its F-35 were eliminated early this year, that left only the Eurofighter and Boeing's F-18 Growler in the race.
An updated RFI presumably would reopen the competition between the remaining bidders as the acquisition process plays out anew on the question of electronic attack capabilities. Such a move would all but certainly result in a sizable delay, as German officials have been trying to be especially thorough in seeing the program through.
Airbus said introducing so-called escort jammer pods to the Eurofighter fleet, to be carried under the belly or the wings of the aircraft, would require little effort because the proposed integration strategy is meant to piggyback on upgrade efforts already on the books.
Complicating a pick between the Eurofighter and the F-18 is the requirement that Germany must keep a contingent of aircraft capable of carrying U.S. nuclear bombs under NATO's nuclear doctrine. That seemed to give Boeing's offering an advantage, German paper Süddeutsche Zeitung claimed in a report last month.
For its part, the F-18 is known for its ability to counter enemy air defenses, an area where Airbus now seeks to lay down its own marker.
August 21, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security
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July 16, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: Andrew Chuter LONDON – Britain's Ministry of Defence has signed a deal with General Atomics for the first three Protector remotely piloted air vehicles destined to equip the Royal Air Force with a replacement for its Reaper drone force. A £65 million (U.S. $80 million) contract for three Protectors, the British version of the MQ-9B SkyGuardian was announced by Defence Secretary Ben Wallace during a virtual air power conference held by the RAF July 15. Protector will fly further, hit harder and, crucially, be able to fly in unsegregated civilian airspace compared with the Reaper vehicles widely used by the British in Afghanistan and the Middle East over the last several years. Three ground stations and other associated support equipment are also included in an initial deal that will see the first vehicle delivered to the British next year. The initial vehicle will remain in the United States for test and evaluation until 2023, ahead of deploying to its UK base at RAF Waddington, eastern England. Able to fly for up to 40 hours Protector is expected to enter service in 2024. The aircraft will be armed with MBDA's Brimstone missile and Raytheon UK's Paveway IV precision-guided bomb, enhanced data links and detect-and-avoid technology. The deal for Protector production includes an option on a further purchase of 13 drones. A contract firming up the options is planned for April next year. An MoD spokesperson denied that breaking up the order into two parts was related to balancing the over-stretched budget for this year. The cost of purchasing the remaining drones is put at around £180 million, or $230 million. The MoD spokesperson said consideration is also being given to an additional acquisition of drones over and above the 16 vehicles already envisaged. A total force of more than 20 Protectors was envisaged in the Conservative government's 2015 strategic defence and security review. Now, the final numbers will likely be subject to the outcome of an integrated defense, foreign policy and security review now underway by the Conservatives. Many people here think the already cash-strapped MoD will be a post-Covid-19 target for capability cuts as the government shifts its emphasis on defense equipment spending away from more conventional technologies into areas like space, cyber and artificial intelligence. Protector has already been a victim of MoD financial pressures. Sir Simon Bollom, the CEO of the Defence Equipment and Support arm of the MoD, alluded to the difficulties saying in an MoD statement his organization had "overcome considerable challenges" to keep the program on track. The vehicle was originally slated to enter service with the RAF in 2018 but that was then put back until 2021 before the new date was agreed. In announcing the deal defence secretary Ben Wallace said, „Protector will provide the RAF with vast global reach, meeting the UK's defense and security needs for decades to come, and provide another increase to the unmanned inventory for the armed forces.“ https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/07/15/uk-orders-first-three-protector-drones-from-general-atomics/
June 4, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security
Andrew Eversden A federal watchdog found that poor planning by the Department of Defense has blurred the department's understanding of the risks and costs associated with upgrading the system that routes internet traffic across the globe, known as Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). According to a June 1 report from the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon needs to improve its transition planning for the most recent effort, which began in April 2017. The DoD has tried twice previously to implement IPv6 in 2003 and 2010, but stopped those transitions after identifying security risks and lacking adequately trained personnel. The problem for the DoD is that IPv4, the IP management system the DoD uses, is running out of address space. IPv4 only has room for 4.3 billion addresses. In contrast, IPv6, created in the 1990s, provides about 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (undecillion) IP addresses. The Defense Department owns approximately 300 million IP addresses with about 59.8 million unused and planned for use by future DoD components. The department estimates it will run out of its unused IP addresses by 2030. The department's IPv6 implementation plan from early 2019 listed 35 actions needed to switch over from IPv4. Eighteen of those steps were scheduled to be completed by March 2020. The report said six of the 18 tasks were completed on time. Upgrading to IPv6 would increase connectivity, add security, improve the warfighter's connection and communications on the battlefield, and preserve interoperability with allied systems, the GAO wrote. The watchdog found that the department was not compliant with several IPv6 transition requirements from the White House's Office of Management and Budget. The DoD hasn't completed a cost estimate, developed a risk analysis or finished an inventory of IP compliant devices, the report said. Pentagon officials told the GAO that they knew their time frame for the transition was “optimistic," adding that they thought the pace was reasonable "until they started performing the work,” the GAO wrote. “Without an inventory, a cost estimate, or a risk analysis, DOD significantly reduced the probability that it could have developed a realistic transition schedule,” the GAO wrote. “Addressing these basic planning requirements would supply DOD with needed information that would enable the department to develop realistic, detailed, and informed transition plans and time frames.” The Department did meet OMB's requirement to name an official to lead and coordinate the agency planning. But because the Pentagon failed to complete the other three OMB requirements. the move is at risk. “Without an inventory, a cost estimate, or a risk analysis, DOD's plans have a high degree of uncertainty about the magnitude of work involved, the level of resources required, and the extent and nature of threats, including cybersecurity risks,” the GAO wrote. Among the DoD's goals it did complete are several IPv6 training programs, information sharing opportunities and a program management office. The GAO recommended that Defense Secretary Mark Esper direct the DoD chief information officer to complete an inventory of IP-compliant devices, develop a cost estimate and perform a risk analysis. The DoD agreed that it needed to develop a cost estimate and risk analysis but didn't concur that it needed to inventory devices, citing new guidance from OMB and calling an inventory “impractical” because of the department's size. “The lack of an inventory is problematic due to the role that it should play in developing transition requirements,” the GAO wrote. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2020/06/02/watchdog-says-pentagon-needs-better-planning-for-ip-update-17-years-after-first-attempt/