June 26, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR
LONDON ― The British Ministry of Defence's Modernising Defence Programme, essentially a review of spending and capabilities, should start to see the light of day around the time of the July 11-12 NATO summit in Brussels.
British Prime Minister Theresa May could unveil the headline conclusions of the program at the summit, with the details to follow sometime in the future.
The fear is that without the government handing the military more money over the next decade, capabilities will be lost and procurement programs abandoned or delayed ― and in some instances, that is already happening.
The MoD has been battling for additional cash from the Treasury for months, but with the British government announcing June 18 plans to spend billions of pounds more on health over the next few years, the chances of defense getting any significant boost appears increasingly remote.
Instead the MoD will likely have to persevere with efficiency and other cuts to reduce a black hole in the 10-year equipment plan that the National Audit Office, the government's financial watchdog, said earlier this year could be unaffordable to the tune of between £4.9 billion and £20.8 billion (U.S. $5.7 billion and U.S. $24.1 billion).
The parliamentary Defence and Public Accounts committees are so worried about “severe“ budgetary pressures that they took the unusual step of jointly writing to the prime minister in early June to voice their concerns.
A June 18 report by the Defence Committee said that if the government wants to have the resources to keep the country safe, it “must begin moving the level of defence expenditure back towards 3% [from the current level of 2 percent] of GDP, as it was in the mid-1990s.”
October 30, 2024 | International, Land
A special feature of this partnership is the entirely European origin and value creation, which should result in various unmanned ground systems (UGS).
February 25, 2019 | International, Land, C4ISR
By: Jill Aitoro WASHINGTON — Raytheon will participate in a missile defense radar “sense-off” to test designs that could be included in the U.S. Army's Integrated Air and Missile Defense system under development. The Army announced plans for the sense-off in October, resetting the approach for the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS, program that has struggled to bring about a new radar for well over a decade. The sense-off is “separate and distinct” from contracts awarded to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin last fallto come up with design concepts for a new missile defense radar, according to Bob Kelly, Raytheon's director for integrated air and missile defense in the company's Integrated Defense Systems division, who spoke with reporters Thursday. According to an Oct. 29 notice posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website, the sense-off will take place this spring at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Each vendor with a radar will have roughly two weeks on the range to demonstrate capabilities. A down-select will happen by the end of the year. “We can meet the timeline for both the sense off and initial operational capability in fiscal year 2022,” Kelly said. However, it's unclear what this means for the prior technology development program. Kelly said that effort remains relevant, with the contract ongoing, but referred any further questions about its status to the Army. “Our developmental efforts — what we do for one, it serves the other as well,” he said. “We were both [Raytheon and Lockheed Martin] going to develop prototypes. But with the sense-off, we're doing it faster,” and with more competitors. The sense-off strategy accelerates the timeline by a couple of years, Kelly said. The other lingering question is whether the LTAMDS will include 360-degree coverage — a high priority for the Army, but seemingly one downsized in importance for the LTAMDS effort. “The threshold is not for a 360-degree radar,” Kelly said, adding that Raytheon's base design does include the capability. “We have a lot of scalability in our system, so if the Army decides they don't want [360-degree coverage], we can give them the opportunity in the future to upgrade.” The Raytheon-made Patriot air and missile defense radar was first fielded in the 1980s, and the Army attempted to replace the system with Lockheed Martin's Medium Extended Air Defense System through a co-development effort with Germany and Italy. But that program was canceled in the U.S. after closing out a proof-of-concept phase roughly six years ago. Since then, the Army has studied and debated how to replace the Patriot radar with one that has 360-degree detection capability, while Raytheon continues to upgrade its radar to keep pace with current threats. It is acknowledged that there will come a point where that radar will not be able to go up against future threats. “The Patriot remains exceptional” today, Kelly said. “LTAMDS is looking out beyond tomorrow.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/02/21/raytheon-will-participate-in-army-missile-defense-sense-off/
September 3, 2024 | International, Aerospace
The F-35 delivery delays due to upgrade problems have slowed down the Air Force's deployment of jets to England, among other consequences.