July 3, 2018 | International, Naval
By: Nigel Pittaway
MELBOURNE, Australia ― Australia will acquire nine high-end anti-submarine warfare frigates from the end of the next decade under a deal with BAE Systems worth AU$35 billion (U.S. $26 billion).
The announcement was formally made Friday at the ASC shipyard in Osborne, South Australia, by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Defence Marise Payne and Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne.
A version of BAE Systems' City-class Type 26 ASW frigate, now under construction for the British Royal Navy, will be acquired under Australia's SEA 5000 Phase 1 project, also known as the Future Frigate Project.
Referred to as the Global Combat Ship―Australia, or GCS-A, during the competition, the design will be known as the Hunter-class in Royal Australian Navy service and will replace the Navy's existing Anzac-class frigates.
There has been speculation in the media that the decision to go with BAE may be driven, in part, by Australia's desire to secure strong terms with the U.K. as it negotiates a series of new trade agreements after Britain leaves the European Union.
Payne noted Friday that the GCS-A design was selected because it was the most capable ASW platform.
“This is a decision entirely based on capability, the best capability to equip the Navy in anti-submarine warfare,” she said.
Regardless, news of BAE's win was welcomed in the United Kingdom, with Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson referring to it as the “biggest maritime defence deal of the decade.”
“This £20 billion ‘deal of the decade' demonstrates how British defence plays a huge role in creating jobs and prosperity and is ‘Global Britain' in action,” he commented on social media. “Great to see our military and industrial links strengthen with Australia.”
The ships will be built by ASC Shipbuilding in South Australia, using local workers and Australian steel, under the Turnbull government's continuous naval shipbuilding program.
“What we are doing here is announcing our commitment to build the nine Future Frigates,” Prime Minister Turnbull said. “The Hunter-class frigates will be the most advanced anti-submarine warships in the world.”
The Hunter-class frigates will be equipped with CEA Technologies-built CEAFAR phased array radar currently fitted to the Navy's post-anti-ship missile defense Anzac frigates, together with Lockheed Martin's Aegis combat system and an interface provided by Saab Australia.
The Aegis combat system was mandated for all of Australia's major surface combatants by the Turnbull government in October 2017.
The GCS-A design was selected in preference to Fincantieri's Australian FREMM, dubbed FREMM-A, a variant of the ASW-optimized FREMM frigate now in service with the Italian Navy; and the F-5000 from Navantia, based on an evolution of the Royal Australian Navy's Hobart-class air warfare destroyer, which in turn is a derivative of the Spanish Navy's F-100 Álvaro de Bazán class.
An ASW capability was the highest priority for the Royal Australian Navy, according to Chief of Navy Vice Adm. Tim Barrett.
“I spoke as recently as last night to the First Sea Lord, my equivalent in the [British] Royal Navy, and I am assured by his comments on just how successful this platform will be as the world's most advanced anti-submarine warfare frigate,” he said Friday.
The first steel is due to be cut on prototyping activities for the build at Osborne in late 2020, with full production following in 2022. The first ship of the class will be delivered to the Royal Australian Navy in the late 2020s.
Under the deal, the government-owned shipbuilder ASC will become a subsidiary of BAE Systems during the build, with the government retaining a sovereign share in the entity. The shipyard will revert to government ownership at the end of the project.
Turnbull said the arrangement ensures BAE Systems is fully responsible and accountable for the delivery of the frigates, noting that Australia retains the intellectual property and a highly skilled workforce at the end of the program.
“My expectation is that the next generation of frigates that comes after the ones we're about to start building at ASC will be designed and built in Australia,” he said.
BAE System's global maritime systems business development director, Nigel Stewart, told Defense News that he welcomes the build strategy.
“We were really pleased with that as an outcome because ASC has great capability. We always wanted to use the workforce, but this allows us to join ASC and BAE together much earlier, and we think that will be really positive,” he said.
Stewart said the plan was for the Hunter-class build to follow the Type 26 activity in the U.K. by around five years, which will serve to de-risk the Australian program. BAE is due to deliver the first ship, HMS Glasgow, to the British Royal Navy in 2025, with entry into service in the 2027 time frame.
“We cut steel for the first Type 26 in the U.K. in June 2017, and we'll cut steel for full production of the Hunter class in South Australia in 2022,” he said. “We'll run at an 18-month drumbeat in the U.K., and somewhere between 18 months and two years in Australia. That will keep a five-year gap, which is almost perfect. You are de-risking the Australian program in the U.K. and you don't get the obsolescence issues you would if there was a longer gap, so it's a really good program overlap.”
In other news Friday, the Turnbull government announced it will set up a AU$670 million training and capability center for the Hunter-class frigates in Western Australia.
Known as Ship Zero, the initiative will be established at HMAS Stirling, the Navy's Fleet Base West, at the shipbuilding facility in Henderson. Much of the training traditionally performed at sea will be transferred into the land-based facility.
The capital works project will be considered by the Australian Parliament early next year, and construction is expected to commence in 2019.
November 28, 2023 | International, Land
The agency conducted a series of demonstrations from Nov. 21 to 27, transmitting signals from satellites in low Earth orbit to a ground-based test site.
October 4, 2018 | International, Aerospace
By: Jon Gambrell and Gerry Shih, The Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — High above Yemen's rebel-held city of Hodeida, a drone controlled by Emirati forces hovered as an SUV carrying a top Shiite Houthi rebel official turned onto a small street and stopped, waiting for another vehicle in its convoy to catch up. Seconds later, the SUV exploded in flames, killing Saleh al-Samad, a top political figure. The drone that fired that missile in April was not one of the many American aircraft that have been buzzing across the skies of Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. It was Chinese. Across the Middle East, countries locked out of purchasing U.S.-made drones due to rules over excessive civilian casualties are being wooed by Chinese arms dealers, who are world's main distributor of armed drones. "The Chinese product now doesn't lack technology, it only lacks market share," said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military analyst and former lecturer at the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force University of Engineering. "And the United States restricting its arms exports is precisely what gives China a great opportunity." The sales are helping expand Chinese influence across a region vital to American security interests. "It's a hedging strategy and the Chinese will look to benefit from that," said Douglas Barrie, an airpower specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "I think the Chinese are far less liable to be swayed by concerns over civilian casualties," he said. At the start of the year, a satellite passing over southern Saudi Arabia photographed U.S.-made surveillance drones at an airfield, alongside Chinese-manufactured armed ones. According to the Center for the Study of the Drone at New York's Bard College, that was the first documented example of the two drone systems being used in the war in Yemen. The country has emerged as a "sort of a testing ground for these strike-capable drones," said Dan Gettinger, the co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone. "There's a rapid turnaround from delivery to deployment." U.S. drones were first used in Yemen to kill suspected al-Qaida militants in 2002. One of the biggest Chinese exports is the Cai-Hong, or Rainbow, series made by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., or CASC, the largest contractor for the Chinese space program. CASC's CH-4 and CH-5 models are on a par with San Diego-based General Atomics' Predator and Reaper drones, and much cheaper. Independent analysts say the Chinese models lag behind their American counterparts but the technology is good enough to justify the price tag, which might be half or less. A CASC executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists, said cutting-edge U.S. models like Boeing Co.'s Stingray, introduced this year for the U.S. Navy, still hold a technological advantage. And while price is an advantage, so too is a more relaxed attitude toward how drones are used, said Ulrike Franke, an expert on drones and policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations Since 2014, China has sold more than 30 CH-4's to countries including Saudi Arabia and Iraq in deals worth over $700 million, according to CASC. Ten countries are currently in negotiations to purchase the CH-4, according to the firm. Last year, China sold to the UAE the Wing Loong II, an armed unmanned aerial vehicle roughly equivalent to the American MQ-9 Reaper. "In recent years, all types of drones have proven their value and importance through a high degree of use in warfare, and the military has noticed," said the top CASC executive. "Many countries are now speeding up the development for these weapons systems, including China." During President Xi Jinping's five years in power, China has stepped up spending on stealth fighters and aircraft carriers for its own military, while boosting sales of advanced equipment such as attack submarines to close allies like Pakistan. China still lags behind the U.S., Russia, France, and Germany in total arms sales but it's catching up. Chinese arms exports rose by 38 percent between 2008-12 and 2013-17, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks the global arms trade. Mounting criticism over the rising civilian death toll in Yemen prompted the U.S. to impose restrictions on drone sales, forcing foreign countries to go through the U.S. government to buy armed drones, including those with laser-guidance systems. The Washington-based New America Foundation estimates more than 240 drone strikes in Yemen have killed more than 1,300 people, including at least 111 civilians. But with China's drone sales booming, there's growing pressure from U.S. arms makers to remove restrictions to let them catch up. After some U.S. lawmakers urged President Donald Trump to loosen controls and let General Atomics sell its armed Reapers to Jordan and the UAE, the administration on April 19 permitted U.S. manufacturers to directly market and sell drones, including armed versions. The government must still approve and license the sales, which are also contingent on human rights and proliferation reviews and congressional authorization. General Atomics did not respond to a request for comment. China doesn't routinely announce arms sales like the U.S. and others, but a review of drone spottings gives some indication of who its customers are. In Iraq in October 2015, the country's then-defense minister inspected a CH-4 drone at an air base in the city of Kut. Chinese armed drones have been operating at Jordan's Zarqa Airport, at an air base in Pakistan and from bases in Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula and near its border with Libya, according to satellite photos analyzed by the Center for the Study of the Drone. Satellite photographs taken of a mysterious air base in the United Arab Emirates' deep south — a desert area known as the Empty Quarter — appear to show three Wing Loong IIs, IHS Jane's Defense Weekly reported in January. Two CH-4s were spotted by satellite alongside surveillance-only Predators purchased by the UAE at Jizan Regional Airport in southern Saudi Arabia, near the kingdom's border with Yemen, according to the Center for the Study of the Drone. Outside of the Mideast, Nigeria has used Chinese armed drones against the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. Shih reported from Beijing. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/10/03/chinese-armed-drones-now-flying-over-mideast-battlefields-heres-why-theyre-gaining-on-us-drones/
August 7, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
NAVY Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems, Moorestown, New Jersey, was awarded a $65,283,976 fixed-price-incentive and firm-fixed-price contract for fiscal 2020 Aegis modernization, new construction of guided missile destroyers and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) production requirements. This contract combines purchases for the Navy (96.9%); the Kingdom of Spain (2.3%); and the government of Japan (0.8%), under the FMS program. Work will be performed in Moorestown, New Jersey (70%); Clearwater, Florida (29%); and Owego, New York (1%). This procurement covers the production and delivery of multi-mission signal processor equipment sets; Aegis Combat System support equipment; and electronic equipment fluid coolers and kill assessment system 5.1 equipment. This contract action also provides MK 6 Mod 0 equipment for the government of Japan and the Kingdom of Spain FMS requirements. Work is expected to be completed by November 2024. Fiscal 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy); fiscal 2020 defense-wide procurement; and FMS case funding in the amount of $65,283,976 will be obligated at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. In accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1) and (c)(4), this contract was not competitively procured (only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements). The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. (Awarded July 31, 2020) Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is awarded a $20,630,000 not-to-exceed, cost-plus-fixed-fee, undefinitized order (N00019-20-F-0078) against previously issued basic ordering agreement N00019-19-G-0008. This order procures various materials required for the 30P05 capability upgrade to all fielded pilot and maintenance training systems in support of the F-35 Program for the Navy, Marines, Air Force, non-Department of Defense (DOD) participants and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. Work will be performed in Orlando, Florida (95%); and Fort Worth, Texas (5%), and is expected to be completed by December 2021. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $7,620,000; non-DOD participant funds in the amount of $1,310,000; and FMS funds in the amount of $1,385,000 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. ARMY Korte Construction Co., St. Louis, Missouri, was awarded a $34,420,210 firm-fixed-price contract to design and construct a two-story 72,140 square-foot Joint Simulation Environment facility at Edwards Air Force Base. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work will be performed at Edwards AFB, California, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 31, 2022. Fiscal 2020 military construction (defense-wide) funds in the amount of $34,420,210 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles, California, is the contracting activity (W912PL-20-C-0030). Iron Mountain Solutions Inc.,* Huntsville, Alabama, was awarded a $15,541,629 modification (000148) to contract W31P4Q-17-A-0001 for technical support for the Utility Helicopter Project Office. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 8, 2021. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Army); operations and maintenance (Army); research, development, test and evaluation (Army); other procurement (Army); and Foreign Military Sales (United Arab Emirates) funds in the amount of $15,541,629 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE Rockwell Collins Inc., Collins Aerospace, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has been awarded a $14,000,000 firm-fixed-price modification (P00007) to contract FA8102-16-D-0005 for services and supplies in support of modernization, expansion and depot-level contractor logistic support. The contractor will provide support for Scope Command's High Frequency Global Communications System in support of Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard requirements. Work will be performed in Richardson, Texas, and is expected to be completed Aug. 30, 2021. This option exercise is the result of a sole-source acquisition. The estimated cumulative contract value is $70,000,000. No funds are being obligated at the time of the award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, is the contracting activity. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado, has been awarded a $9,682,027 contract for the Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) Call 002 Vendor Flexibility effort. This contract seeks to establish the ability to communicate with Air Force platforms via multiple commercial space internet constellations using common user terminal hardware elements. Work will be performed in Westminster, Colorado, and is expected to be completed April 17, 2022. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition under the DEUCSI Advanced Research Announcement Call 002. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $4,536,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8650-20-C-9320). *Small Business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2303639/source/GovDelivery/