July 25, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Australia said on Monday it would spend A$9.8 billion ($6.60 billion) to buy 20 new Super Hercules military transport aircraft, ahead of a visit later this week by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
August 20, 2018 | International, Aerospace
TEL AVIV—Rafael is not giving up on its goal of becoming a manufacturer of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), with plans to resume talks to buy Israeli UAS maker Aeronautics and evaluate other options as ... http://aviationweek.com/defense/rafael-not-giving-uas-ambitions
October 21, 2020 | International, Land, Security
Already fielded in Sweden — and mounted on a Volvo truck — BAE's 155 mm Archer will compete in a US Army “shoot off” early next year. SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. WASHINGTON: The Army is seeking a self-propelled replacement for its venerable towed artillery pieces. The old ones can't keep up with mechanized Stryker units and lack armor protection. BAE Systems says its Archer armored howitzer is the quickest cannon on the draw — a life-or-death factor in fast-moving future combats. The US is experimenting intensely in how to speed the process from detecting a potential target to sending accurate target coordinates to a specific gun. Once Archer receives such target coordinates, it can come to a stop and open fire within 20 seconds, said Henrik Knape, a BAE exec based in Sweden, where the gun is already in service. Within two minutes from that first shot, Knape went on, the truck-mounted 155mm howitzer can fire another five to seven rounds, get back underway, and put 500 meters (a third of a mile) between itself and the location it fired from. That's a long enough distance in a short enough time that retaliatory fire from the enemy's artillery is probably going to miss. Even for an advanced adversary (pronounce that “Russia”), which uses specialized counter-battery radars to track the trajectory of incoming rounds and calculate the precise position of the unit firing them, it will take multiple minutes to bring its own guns or drones to bear. In US operations, the time from detecting a target to firing on it is typically “tens of minutes.” Experimental artificial-intelligence systems can cut that to tens of seconds, but those are years from being battle ready. Archer has other advantages as well, Knape and his US-based colleague Chris King told a small group of reporters: It's been in Swedish service since 2016, with the Defense Ministry asking Parliament to fund another 24 guns, so it's already extensively field-tested. It's armored against shrapnel and small arms, in case the enemy does get close. Its long barrel – 52 calibers, a third longer than the standard US howitzer – gives it extended range, comparable to the tracked ERCA howitzer entering service with US armored units in 2023. That gun is already qualified in US testing to fire precision-guided projectiles like Raytheon's Excalibur and BAE's own BONUS. And it's mounted on a six-wheel-drive, articulated Volvo chassis with enough cross-country mobility to keep up with the Army's 8×8 Strykers, which currently have only towed guns to accompany them.There are smaller wheeled artillery vehicles on the market than Archer, which doesn't fit on the standard C-130 turboprop transport, Knape and King acknowledged. (We check out a Humvee-mounted 105 mm cannon here).But none of them, they argue, has Archer's combination of firepower, protection, and quickness. The secret to that speed is automation, BAE says. While the US Army's current systems – both towed howitzers and the armored M109 Paladin – still rely largely on human muscle to manhandle heavy shells into the gun, Archer has a built-in autoloader. While well-trained human crews can actually fire faster than autoloaders for brief periods, the mechanical systems don't get tired or injured, and they allow for a much smaller gun crew. Archer can theoretically operate with a single soldier aboard, although it's designed for a crew of three – all of whom can stay inside the armored cabin while the weapon fires and reloads.https://breakingdefense.com/2020/10/bae-offers-truck-mounted-howitzer-for-army-stryker-units/
February 6, 2019 | International, Aerospace
The U.S. Army has selected GE Aviation's T901-GE-900 engine for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase of the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP), the U.S. Army's endeavor to re-engine its Boeing AH-64 Apaches and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks. “We are honored to be chosen by the Army to continue powering their Black Hawks and Apaches for decades to come,” said Tony Mathis, president and CEO of GE Aviation's military business. “We've invested in the resources and infrastructure to execute immediately, and our team is ready to get to work on delivering the improved capabilities of the T901 to the warfighter.” GE has powered Black Hawks and Apaches for the past four decades with its T700 engine, racking up more than 100 million flight hours of combat-proven experience. Through continuous upgrades and technology advancements, GE has doubled the power of derivative engines in the T700 family over its lifetime and reduced its cost to the government by 50 percent. GE carried over the benefits of the T700 engine's single-spool core architecture, ensuring that the T901 engine is ready to continue delivering combat readiness to the warfighter over the next four decades. The T901's single-spool core design is the key to its low cost, growth, reliability, maintainability and reduced life-cycle costs. The full modularity of the T901's single-spool core provides the Army with superior fix-forward maintainability. Combat units can swap out modular parts of the engine in the field and travel with fewer full-sized spare engines, simplifying logistical footprints and supply lines. The fully modular design also offers superior growth potential at a lower cost through incremental improvements to engine modules, a significant advantage to meet the Army's FVL requirements. The U.S. Army is also expecting the ITEP engine to meet Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft requirements for Future Vertical Lift (FVL). GE has invested $9 billion in maturing technologies applicable to the T901 and more than $300 million to develop and test turboshaft-specific technologies. Additionally, GE has invested more than $10 billion in their supply chain over the past decade, including eight new facilities, ten plant expansions and one-and-a-half million square feet of new, advanced manufacturing space in the U.S. This robust, first-in-class supply chain stands ready to deliver T901 engines to the Army. https://www.verticalmag.com/press-releases/u-s-army-selects-ges-t901-engine-for-itep/