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July 25, 2023 | International, Other Defence

BAE Systems unveils $1.9 billion economic impact of ground vehicle and weapon systems network

Through operations at its 12 sites, BAE Systems’ ground vehicle, amphibious vehicle and weapon systems product lines contributed to local families and economies by providing more than 5,000 jobs and...

https://www.epicos.com/article/768974/bae-systems-unveils-19-billion-economic-impact-ground-vehicle-and-weapon-systems

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  • Hypersonic weapons could give the B-1 bomber a new lease on life

    September 18, 2019 | International, Aerospace

    Hypersonic weapons could give the B-1 bomber a new lease on life

    By: Aaron Mehta NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — It's been a rough stretch for the U.S. Air Force's fleet of 62 B-1B Lancer bombers, with a pair of fleet shutdowns over safety concerns and the confirmation of plans to start retiring the plane as the new B-21 comes online, even as the much older B-52 remains in service. But speaking at the Air Force Association's annual conference Monday, Gen. Timothy Ray, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command, seemed to throw his support behind keeping the B-1 around for quite some time. In fact, in Ray's mind, the B-1′s capabilities might expand. Several times throughout the speech, Ray emphasized that while the B-21 is slowly spinning up, he can't afford to lose any capability. Indeed, Ray seemed to posture toward keeping the B-1 over the long term, according to John Venable, a senior defense fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former F-16 command pilot. “One of the major takeaways [from the speech] is that the B-1 is not going to go away nearly as soon as people thought,” Venable said, “and that's a good thing.” Under the Air Force's stated goal of 386 squadrons, the service's force mix requirement is about 225 bombers. The service currently has 156, Ray said, and even with the B-21 coming online sometime in the 2020s, planned retirements to the B-1 and B-2 would keep the bomber force under 200. Ray's belief in the B-1 spans from two broad assessments. First, freed from the heavy workload of B-1s performing regular close-air support activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fleet will experience less wear and tear, and hence survive longer than projected. “We're just flying the airplane in a way we shouldn't have been flying it, and we did for far too long. The good news is we're resetting that entire team,” Ray said. “What we thought was a very sizable load of structural issues” ended up being a “fraction” of issues to deal with, he added. Those structural issues have become particularly visible in the last 16 months, with the entire B-1 fleet grounded twice for mechanical issues. In June 2018, the fleet was grounded for two weeks following the discovery of an issue with the Lancer's ejection seat; in March 2019, another ejection seat issue grounded the fleet for almost a month. Members of Congress have since expressed serious concerns about the B-1's readiness rates, a number that was just more than 50 percent in 2018. Ray expressed optimism about the mechanical issues, saying that any fallout from the ejection seat shutdowns will be completed by the end of October, which is “must faster” than the service predicted. The second reason Ray believes there's still life in the B-1? The idea that there are modifications to the Lancer that would add new capabilities relevant in an era of great power competition. In August, the Air Force held a demonstration of how the B-1 could be modified to incorporate four to eight new hypersonic weapons by shifting the bulkhead forward from a bomb bay on the aircraft, increasing the size inside the plane from 180 inches to 269 inches. That change allows the loading of a Conventional Rotary Launcher, the same system used inside the B-52, onto the B-1. According to an Air Force release, first reported by Military.com, the bulkhead change is temporary, giving the B-1 flexibility based on its mission. Overall, the internal bay could be expanded from 24 to 40 weapons, per the service. In addition, the testers proved new racks could be attached to hardpoints on the wings. “The conversation we're having now is how we take that bomb bay [and] put four potentially eight large hypersonic weapons on there,” Ray said. “Certainly, the ability to put more JASSM-ER [Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range] or LRASM [Long Range Anti-Ship Missile] externally on the hardpoints as we open those up. So there's a lot more we can do.” Said Venable: “I think it's a great idea. Increasing our bomber force end strength, we're not going to get there just by buying B-21[s] and retiring the B-1s.” “Adding a new rotary [launcher that] he was talking about, just behind the bulkhead of the cockpit of the B-1, freeing up the pylons to actually manifest more longer-range weapons and give it a greater penetrating strike capability — those are great takeaways from this particular event,” the analyst added. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/air-force-association/2019/09/17/global-strike-head-makes-case-of-b-1-survival/

  • The Tech Companies That Are Eager to Sell AI to the Pentagon

    November 14, 2018 | International, C4ISR

    The Tech Companies That Are Eager to Sell AI to the Pentagon

    BY DAVE GERSHGORN The Pentagon's AI shopping list is similar to a Silicon Valley company's: fast data organization, predictive maintenance, and mitigation for threats. While Silicon Valley workers continue to protest their employers selling artificial intelligence products to the US military, the US military is still looking to spend money on AI. The Army Research Lab, the Project Maven team, and the USDepartment of Defense's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center will host technology companies later this month in Maryland, where the government will view private demonstrations. According to federal contracting data (free login required for the full list), large tech companies such as Intel, IBM, GE, Oracle, as well as defense company Raytheon, have expressed interest in showing off their AI for the military. Absent from the list are AI giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, though the DoD has not responded to an inquiry as to whether the available contracting data is the complete list of attending organizations. The DoD's needs aren't too different from those of a Silicon Valley tech company, though the technology is unlikely to be used in a food delivery app or search engine. The military is looking for help organizing and standardizing its data, tools to create AIalgorithms, and infrastructure to test and deploy those algorithms. Some of the military's uses are similar to commercial applications for AI, like predictive maintenance and translation, though other use cases include analyzing drone footage and “force protection,” which means mitigating potential threats to the military. Project Maven, in particular, is focused on tech that autonomously extracts information from still or moving imagery. Smaller, more specialized tech firms from outside of Silicon Valley are also vying for government contracts. Descartes Labs, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze satellite imagery, is planning to attend the industry day and give a demo. Descartes Labs' government programs director, Steven Truitt, tells Quartz the company plans to discuss a super-computing platform for the intelligence community and “defense information awareness missions.” A competitor, Orbital Insight, has also indicated interest in the event. Of the 42 businesses interested in attending the event, six are owned by veterans, according to the contracting documents. John Merrihew, VP government solutions at AI contractor Veloxiti, says his military experience puts him in a different category of tech company than Silicon Valley. “I'm an Army retiree after 24 years and a half-dozen combat tours, so I have an obligation to [provide this technology],” Merrihew told Quartz. “I'm not a guy out on the west coast who's made a lot of money like Google. All of my engineers have security clearances, so we're pretty bought in on trying to help the military in this area.” https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/11/tech-companies-are-eager-sell-ai-pentagon/152800/

  • Britain's BAE Systems wins $8.8 bln contract to continue operating Tennessee ammo plant | Reuters

    December 12, 2023 | International, Land

    Britain's BAE Systems wins $8.8 bln contract to continue operating Tennessee ammo plant | Reuters

    Britain's BAE Systems has won an $8.8 billion contract to maintain and operate a U.S. Army ammunition plant in Tennessee, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) said on Tuesday.

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