Analysis: Lockheed-Airbus face lengthening odds in U.S. tanker re-run

On the same subject

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  July 23, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  La bataille du futur avion de chasse de l'armée suisse a démarré

  La Suisse a lancé début juillet l'appel d'offres pour les nouveaux avions de combat. Les constructeurs Boeing, Airbus, Dassault, Saab et Lockheed Martin redoublent déjà d'efforts pour convaincre la Confédération. Cinq jets doivent être évalués: le Gripen E suédois (Saab), le Rafale français (Dassault), l'Eurofighter allemand (Airbus), et côté américain, le successeur du FA-18, le Super Hornet de Boeing, et le F-35A de Lockheed-Martin. Les constructeurs pourront soumettre leur offre à Armasuisse d'ici la fin janvier 2019. En Suède, l'opération de séduction a démarré à Linköping, petite ville de 150'000 habitants et capitale du Gripen. La localité est habituée aux rugissements du chasseur et au secret défense. Alors qu'il n'était qu'un projet en 2014, le Gripen E de Saab a désormais 30 heures de vols à son compteur. "Le Gripen E mûrit très vite", explique Rustan Nicander, responsable du marché suisse chez Saab. "Le Brésil et la Suède sont déjà clients, avant que la Suisse ne décide d'acheter l'appareil. Ce sera donc un appareil très mûr quand la Suisse fera son choix." Convaincre les politiques et l'industrie Pour remporter à nouveau l'appel d'offres, le constructeur suédois tente de rassurer, tout en misant sur son réseau. "Nous avions déjà remporté la dernière évaluation il y a quelques années", rappelle Jonas Hjelm, responsable des affaires aéronautiques. "Je pense que nous apportons cette fois un ensemble encore plus cohérent." Les performances du futur appareil ne constitueront pas le seul critère pour la Suisse. L'ultra-moderne F-35A américain n'a par exemple plus grand chose à prouver. L'entreprise américaine sait donc qu'elle doit aussi convaincre la politique et l'industrie. "Tous les pays qui ont acheté le F-35 ont eu un retour économique et industriel", affirme Yung A. Le, responsable de l'Europe du Nord chez Lockheed Martin. "Ce ne sera pas différent pour la Suisse. Nous avons des collaborateurs qui rencontrent l'industrie en Suisse romande, chez les Alémaniques et les italophones afin de mieux comprendre le tissu industriel." Après le travail de l'industrie, celui de la diplomatie Les entreprises étrangères avec lesquelles des contrats seront signés devront compenser 100% de la valeur des contrats par des affaires en Suisse. Discrète, la filiale allemande d'Airbus privilégie depuis son bureau bernois les coulisses aux grandes campagnes de communication pour vendre son Eurofighter. "Nous ne sommes pas nouveaux en Suisse, nous y avons déjà des contrats avec l'industrie, mais il faut que nous les développions davantage pour atteindre les besoins demandés", indique le Dr. Alexander-Long Vinh, responsable de cette campagne chez Airbus. Après le travail de l'industrie viendra celui de la diplomatie. Ce sera au gouvernement de chaque constructeur de transmettre une offre à la Suisse. Des tests au sol et en vol seront menés dans le pays entre mai et juillet 2019. Un deuxième appel d'offre pour les jets sera mené en novembre 2019 et les réponses sont attendues pour fin mai 2020. Le choix des modèles devrait tomber vers fin 2020. Le Parlement puis le peuple devraient pouvoir se prononcer sur la facture. Loïs Siggen-Lopez/tmun https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/9717782-la-bataille-du-futur-avion-de-chasse-de-l-armee-suisse-a-demarre.html

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  May 21, 2020 | International, Naval

  A fleeting advantage: No time to lose for US Navy’s unmanned ambitions

  By: Rear Adm. Nevin Carr (ret.) There has been no shortage of debate lately about the future size and shape of the U.S. Navy in an era of great power competition. Through the fog of competing priorities, fiscal constraints and a growing list of force architecture studies, one thing seems certain: The future Navy will include autonomous ships in some form. These vessels (it's not even clear they'll be called “ships”) will not replace the Navy's highly capable combatants, but they will extend their fighting horizons and deepen their magazines to increase combat power. There is an urgent need to build trust before the Navy can safely and effectively integrate this emerging technology. While the debate rages in Washington, the Navy's autonomous workhorse, Sea Hunter, is quietly approaching four years and 30,000 miles of underway experimentation and risk reduction. More than half of those miles have been sailed under autonomous self-control. As with any new technology, lessons are learned along the way. Navy Assistant Secretary James Geurts put it best: To embrace innovation, we must “learn fast and act fast,” to “press the boundaries” and “expect failure” with appropriate judgement and measured risk. Interestingly, many of the lessons with Sea Hunter have involved issues related to basic components like filters, switches and sensors that were not originally designed for autonomous operation. Meanwhile, the underlying autonomy has proven to be remarkably resilient and mature. The good news is that these lessons present solvable challenges. No magic is required. Last year, the Navy sent Sea Hunter from San Diego, California, to Hawaii and back as part of a major fleet exercise. There were lessons learned along the way, but by the return transit, Sea Hunter made the entire 2,000-mile voyage untouched over nine days. This was a major success, and prompted the Navy to plan for a similar event in 2020. That exercise, unfortunately, had to be scaled back due to the impacts of COVID-19. With $200 million and four years invested, the Navy is well down a learning curve that is building the trust necessary to underpin fleet integration of unmanned surface vessels, or USV. This head start is precious and must not be wasted. While USVs are not yet ready for complex roles in close proximity with maneuvering ships, they will soon be ready to fulfill independent missions. By taking a “crawl-walk-run” approach, the Navy can realize operational benefits in the near term while continuing to mature the technology and spiral in increasingly complex behaviors. USV technology is maturing rapidly. Ironically, the main obstacles are not technological. Despite some in the Navy leaning forward, they're largely cultural and programmatic. “Optional manning,” for example, might provide a level of comfort for developers, but the real effect is to increase cost, consume precious space and soften the imperative for pursuing fully autonomous capability. Consider what the Global Hawk or Triton UAVs would look like today, and how many would exist, if the services had insisted they be “optionally manned.” Minimal or optional manning makes sense if weapons are involved, for security and maintenance, but surveillance and reconnaissance USVs will need to optimize every inch and every dollar so they can be fielded in sufficient numbers as the eyes and ears of the fleet. The late Navy captain, Wayne Hughes, wrote that victory at sea often goes to the one who can “fire effectively first.” Unmanned surface vessels can help the fleet do just that. The U.S. Navy has a precious head start, and we should press that advantage by putting near-term capability to sea, while steadily maturing and incorporating more complex behaviors in stride. There's no time to lose. Retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Nevin Carr currently serves as the Navy strategic account executive and vice president at Leidos. He previously held the position of chief of naval research in the service. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/05/15/a-fleeting-advantage-no-time-to-lose-for-us-navys-unmanned-ambitions

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  November 22, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Opinion: How The 2020 Election Is Likely To Affect Defense

  By Byron Callan Unlike in the U.S. health care or energy sectors, it is so far hard to discern much of a stock market reaction for the defense sector in the run-up to the 2020 U.S. election. There has not been the equivalent of issues such as Medicare for all or fracking that has grabbed the attention of defense investors. That might be because defense and security issues have been absent from the debates so far, and Democratic candidates have put forth few detailed defense and foreign policy plans and proposals. It is way too soon to act with conviction on the potential outcomes of the 2020 election and their implications for defense. Polls can and will change. The likely Democratic presidential candidate may not be known until April, when most of the primaries are completed, or July 2020, when the party holds its convention. And it remains to be seen how that candidate will fare against President Donald Trump, presuming he is not removed from office. Still, leaders at defense companies and analysts have to assess potential outcomes and what they may entail for 2021 and beyond. The current consensus is that there likely will be split-party control of Congress and the White House in 2021-22. The House probably will remain in Democratic control, but the Republicans may retain a slim majority in the Senate, given the number of “safe” seats they will defend. Democrats might sweep in, but they are very unlikely to gain a 60-seat majority, and it is arguable that if they do not, the chamber will vote to do away with cloture, which gives the minority party in the Senate power to shape and channel legislation. This alone should temper expectations that there will be radical changes for defense. Moreover, the day after the 2020 election, both parties will have their eyes on the 2022 election, when 12 Democratic and 22 Republican seats will be contested. If Trump is reelected, the simplest path forward will be to conclude that current defense policies will remain in place. Congress has not been willing to approve the deep nondefense discretionary cuts the administration has proposed for 2017-19, and it is not clear what would change this posture in 2021-22. Barring a major change in the global security outlook, U.S. defense spending may thus remain hemmed in by debt/deficit concerns and demands for parity in increases of nondefense spending. Trump is likely to continue to browbeat allies in Europe and Asia to spend more on defense. The Pentagon will push ahead with its current major modernization and technology priorities, including artificial intelligence, directed energy and hypersonics, and there should be some continuity with civilian leadership at the Pentagon. However, the global security outlook may be the biggest variable for the sector to assess. Iran has not shown any readiness to bow to U.S. “maximum pressure,” and North Korea has not denuclearized. How Russia and China respond to the prospects of another four years of Trump also has to be weighed. NATO and other alliances also may be under more stress. And inevitably, there are likely to be new security issues in the early 2020s that are not top of mind or even conceivable today. There are a range of defense views and perspectives among the leading Democratic candidates. The views of the two most progressive candidates—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—could be viewed as potentially the most disruptive for defense. Warren, in particular, has emphasized her view of “agency capture” by major U.S. contractors, and her health care plan is to be paid for in part by a $798 billion cut to defense spending over 10 years, though the baseline of those cuts has not been stipulated. If a progressive candidate appears to do well in the Democratic nomination process and in polling against Trump, however, it will be useful to recall the congressional dynamic noted above. Congress could act as a firewall against steeper cuts and sweeping change. Equally, it is useful to recall that what candidates promise is not always what they do once they are in office. A more moderate, centrist Democratic candidate such as former Vice President Joe Biden or South Bend, Illinois, Mayor Pete Buttigieg may appear benign for defense and will very likely face the same geopolitical security challenges that Trump could face. If there is a shift back toward a U.S. promotion of democracy and human rights, that could affect recent international defense export patterns and raise tensions with China, Russia and other autocratic regimes. Probably, there will be a bigger debate over nuclear strategic forces modernization, the role of technology in defense and whether it can deliver credible military capability and deterrence at lower cost. Even if U.S. defense spending evidences little real growth in the early 2020s, these factors could be the most important for contractors to navigate. https://aviationweek.com/defense/opinion-how-2020-election-likely-affect-defense