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  August 10, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  USAF Stages ARRW Captive-Carry Test, Merges DARPA Payload

  Steve Trimble A U.S. Air Force B-52H on Aug. 8 completed the second and final instrumented measurement vehicle test flight of the Lockheed Martin AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), and the Air Force announced the payload for a previously separate risk-reduction program will be merged into the ARRW flight-test vehicles. The latest trial by the 419th Flight Test Sqdn. (FLTS) at Edwards AFB, California, confirmed that the Navy's sea-range ground stations at Point Mugu, California, can receive transmissions of telemetry and GPS data from the instrumented measurement vehicle, the Air Force said in an Aug. 8 news release. The second test appears to clear the Air Force to move forward with a series of powered test flights of the AGM-183A, beginning with a booster flight test before year-end. “The entire team is excited to take the next step and begin energetic flight test of our first air-launched hypersonic weapons,” said Lt. Col. Michael Jungquist, commander of the 419th FLTS and director of the Global Power Bomber Combined Test Force. The statement indicates that the Air Force has made a fundamental change to the original test plan for the Defense Department's only development program air-launched hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). When the Air Force launched the ARRW program in 2017, service officials expected to leverage flight-test data from the Tactical Boost-Glide (TBG) program, which is funded jointly by DARPA and the Air Force. The TBG and ARRW were expected to use a similar, if not identical, high lift-to-drag-ratio HGV. DARPA planned to complete flight tests of the TBG in 2019, so the performance data could be used to inform any changes necessary for ARRW, which completed the critical design review in February 2020. The Air Force now acknowledges for the first time that DARPA has previously completed two captive-carry tests of the TBG demonstration system. Instead of continuing a separate series of flight tests, the TBG demonstration system “will be integrated into the ARRW payload,” the Air Force said. “We are in a competition and must remain diligent in our efforts to stay ahead of our adversaries, who are vigorously pursuing similar weapon systems,” said Gen. Arnold Bunch, head of the Air Force Materiel Command. It is not clear when the TBG captive-carry tests were staged, but the Aug. 8 event comes 416 days after the 419th FLTS completed a captive-carry test of the first instrumented measurement vehicle for the AGM-183A. For the second test on Aug. 8, the Air Force loaded both AGM-183A captive-carry vehicles onto the inboard pylon of the left wing of a B-52 nicknamed “Dragon's Inferno.”
 Unlike the white-painted, first instrumented test vehicle, the second captive-carry version of the AGM-183A emerged in an operational, two-tone gray scheme, with the nose section painted a few shades darker than the booster section. The second instrumented measurement vehicle also was adorned with a new logo, featuring a skeletal figure firing an arrow over two Latin words, “celeri responsio,” which means “rapid response.” The Air Force plans to fire the AGM-183A at the most heavily guarded targets, using the weapon's agility at hypersonic speed to evade missile defenses. The Air Force expects to field the first four AGM-183As by the end of fiscal 2022. The booster tests this year and next year will be followed by flight tests of the all-up round, including the release of the TBG-derived HGV payload, starting in October 2021. “This capability will directly support our warfighters. Hypersonic weapons further enable the U.S. to hold any target at risk in any environment anywhere,” said Gen. Tim Ray, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/usaf-stages-arrw-captive-carry-test-merges-darpa-payload

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  November 19, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  NATO official warns EU force would be ‘unwise’

  By: Joe Gould HALIFAX, Canada — A top uniformed NATO official warned Friday the European Union army concept endorsed by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would be “duplicative” and “unwise.” In an interview at the Halifax International Security Forum, UK Air Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, pointed to NATO's strength as a single set of forces, with a unique command and control network and planning process. “It's not rhetoric based. It's real planning based on real data,” Peach said. “And therefore, why would you wish to duplicate or replicate the strengths of an existing strong alliance.” The comments came after Merkel on Tuesday floated the idea of a “real, true European army,” to compliment NATO during a speech before a session of the European Parliament. Those remarks virtually echoed Macron's call a week earlier, in an interview with Europe 1. U.S. President Donald Trump called Macron's comments “very insulting” in a spate of Twitter posts as the two held a meeting last week in Paris. Trump himself has tested the strained bonds with some of America's closest allies by pressuring NATO allies to rely less on the U.S. and dedicate a greater percentage of their gross domestic products to defense. On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg alluded the proposal of a European force at a NATO conference in Berlin, saying he welcomed, “increased EU efforts on defense, because I think that can actually help to strengthen NATO.” European allied militaries can act without the U.S. so long as they use NATO command structures, Stoltenberg said. “It will be not a wise decision by all those nations who are members of both NATO and the European Union to start to have two sets of command structures, or duplicate what NATO is doing,” Stoltenberg said. On Friday, Peach referred to Stoltenberg's remarks, saying, “Of course, as chairman of the military committee, I agree with [Stoltenberg]. It's unwise to duplicate.” Peach emphasized that NATO has a, “single set of forces, and in our processes, those forces are trained, and assured and certified by NATO.” At the conference, Peach had a broader message that the alliance's 29 members member remain committed to it — and that it is adapting with the times. “Throughout the history of the alliance there have been inevitable tussles about how to go forward,” Peach said. “But throughout as a military alliance, we have adapted our command and control structure, responded to new challenges, embraced new members and continued to adapt to new types of warfare and new threats.” Separately, Finland and Norway intend to launch diplomatic discussions with Moscow over suspected GPS signal-jamming by Russia's military, which overlapped with NATO's Trident Juncture exercises, the largest maneuvers in the High North since the end of the Cold War. Peach on Friday would not confirm the interference took place, but called the principle of freedom of navigation, “very, very important, both to NATO and the International community.” “Freedom of navigation is not just freedom of navigation at sea, so we need to analyze claims with data. And anything that interrupts freedom of navigation is important to be reported," he said. How to manage and operate within the electromagnetic spectrum are important topics that deserve more attention, he said. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/11/17/nato-official-warns-eu-force-would-be-unwise/

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  August 4, 2020 | International, Land

  Pandemic lengthens delay in US Army’s M113 vehicle replacement program

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The coronavirus pandemic has caused another delay for the U.S. Army's plagued M113 replacement program, which has struggled with manufacturing problems as the BAE Systems-made Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle entered low-rate initial production, according to the company's second quarter fiscal 2020 earnings briefing released last week. The company had to delay delivery of the first LRIP vehicles by roughly four to six months, moving delivery from March to July. But as BAE prepared to move ahead on delivery, the pandemic hit, bringing with it another delay of roughly a month, which pushed the vehicles' delivery date to August. The AMPV program entered LRIP in January 2019, but the program office indicated last year that delivery of the first vehicles would be delayed by two months and the completion of production qualification testing would be delayed by seven months due to tooling and assembly line challenges at BAE's facility in York, Pennsylvania. Because of the issues, the Army's AMPV budget request in FY21 showed the program took a hit. The service indicated it would buy 32 vehicles instead of the 143 planned for the fiscal year, and the program's budget was cut from $445 million to $193 million. The Army and BAE developed “a production approach that would allow us to incorporate efficiencies during LRIP that modernize manufacturing and increase the overall throughput of the program,” Amanda Niswonger, a BAE spokeswoman, told Defense News in an Aug. 3 statement. “This included installing new technology and processes such as robotic welding, digital X-ray, and advanced machining. And we worked closely with the Army to update and refine manufacturing processes to incorporate the most modern weld and inspection technology,” she said. “These changes had an impact on our delivery timeline which was not reflected in the original delivery schedule, but continues to meet the Army's fielding schedule.” The service and BAE had formalized the schedule change just as COVID-19 hit the U.S., which affected a large number of manufacturing facilities and supply chains globally. “We have worked tirelessly to mitigate the impacts from COVID-19 with our employees, supply network, and customer base to keep our manufacturing sites operational and continue to receive parts as needed,” Niswonger said. “Unfortunately we could not overcome all the challenges and our first delivery has slipped one month.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/08/03/pandemic-causes-latest-delay-in-us-armys-m113-replacement-program/