September 23, 2020 | International, Aerospace
LONDON – Britain is poised to cut an order for Boeing E-7 Wedgetails, with the airborne early warning and control aircraft possibly becoming the first confirmed victim of the government's upcoming integrated defense review.
Negotiations between Boeing and the Ministry of Defence have been underway since mid-summer over a possible reduction in Wedgetail numbers from five to three, or possibly four, aircraft as part of a wider cost-cutting exercise.
Newspapers here have recently been full of leaks about possible capability cuts and delays to equipment like armored vehicles, artillery, surface warships and support ships and fighter aircraft.
All of the leaks have been brushed off by the MoD as speculation, even though some of the leaks were likely inspired by the MoD itself to test the waters of political and public acceptability.
This time, though, the response from the MoD was different. Replying to a tweet in The Times Sept. 22 an MoD spokesperson pretty much confirmed the cuts were under consideration.
“We regularly discuss equipment programs with our partners, particularly when it comes to making savings and cutting costs, where appropriate,” they said.
A Boeing spokesperson in London said the company “doesn't comment on commercial matters.”
Defense consultant Howard Wheeldon of Wheeldon Strategic Advisory said leaving the RAF with just three Wedgetails would leave the UK seriously short of aerial command-and-control and situational awareness capability.
“Personally, I regard this as little short of insanity. ... To guarantee 27/7 capability requires that the UK has a minimum of five airframes. Potentially reducing the number to three would have very serious consequences and if this really has already been decided it needs to be reconsidered very quickly. Assured 24/7 AWACS capability is not just an option – it is an absolute necessity,” said Wheeldon.
A potential reduction in Wedgetail numbers is not the only ISTAR capability cut in the cards.
The RAF remains on track to take out of service next year its Raytheon-supplied Sentinel battlefield surveillance aircraft.
In early 2019 the MoD controversially signed a deal worth £1.5 billion – without a competition – to supply five of the Wedgetail airborne early warning aircraft to the RAF with deliveries starting in 2023 and the final platform being handed over in 2025.
The aircraft will replace the RAFs increasingly ancient Sentry E-3D's, whose capability has been limited by under-investment going back years.
The deal with Boeing was meant to restore high-quality airborne early warning to the RAF by the mid 2020s.
Last year the company signed a deal with STS Aviation to modify the 737NG commercial aircraft used for Wedgetail to an AEW configuration at a hangar on Birmingham airport in England.
Early work on stripping out two second-hand airliners has already got underway in the US ahead of the aircraft being transferred to the UK where the modification effort will create jobs.
Wedgetail is not operated by the US military but has secured Australia, Turkey and South Korea as export customers. Much of the equipment for the RAF aircraft are due to be supplied by Australian industry.
The move to reduce Wedgetail numbers comes as the government moves closer to taking the wraps off what it has promised to be a “fundamental” review of British defense, security, foreign policy and overseas development.
Led by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his chief advisor Dominic Cummings, the review is looking at pivoting defense away from conventional sunset capabilities to more sunrise technologies in areas like space, artificial intelligence, cyber and undersea warfare.
The trouble is Britain's Brexit- and Covid-19-battered economy is unlikely to find much, if anything, in the way of additional resources for an MoD which already has significant funding issues.
To make room for costly future technology programs the armed services are going to have to make sacrifices elsewhere.
The procurement process is likely to be in Cummings cross hairs along with conventional capabilities like main battle tanks and army personnel numbers. When the review is published, possibly around mid-November, it's likely to be a bloody affair.
One industry executive here, who asked not to be named, said he thought the outcome was likely to be worse than the 2010 strategic defense and security review, which stripped out capabilities like aircraft carriers, fast jets, maritime patrol aircraft and personnel.
Wheeldon said by now nobody should imagine the integrated defense review is about building Britain's defense capabilities, but quite the reverse.
“If anyone really is still under the illusion that the underlying intention behind the 2020 ‘Integrated Review' process – that of forming a soundly based long-term strategic decision making process of where the UK wants to be in the future, why and what defense and security capability will be required to meet those ambitions – let them now understand that the reality is that what eventually emerges will primarily have been about further cutting of UK defense capability at a time when others, including our adversaries and would-be enemies, are increasing their expenditure in the sector.”
July 17, 2023 | International, Land
Germany is confident it will have the best equipped army division amongst European NATO allies in 2025, Army Chief Alfons Mais told Reuters, as countries are scrambling to gear up their troops in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
October 27, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR
CEO Taiclet wants a leading role as U.S. and allied militaries build out their next-gen mobile networks. Marcus Weisgerber Commercial partnerships will be key as Lockheed Martin seeks to help U.S. and allied militaries move to 5G networking — and diversify its offerings beyond fighter jets and missiles, its CEO said in an interview this week. “I think, an imperative that we Lockheed Martin, and frankly the defense industrial base, partner with [the] commercial industry to accelerate the benefits of what I call 21st-century technologies into the defense [industrial] base, and into our national defense,” Jim Taiclet said in an Oct. 20 interview after his company's 3rd-quarter earnings call. A former telecom executive, Taiclet took the reins at the world's largest defense contractor in June amid an increased push by the Pentagon leaders to better connect the military's weapons, regardless of manufacturer, so they can more quickly share information on the battlefield. The Air Force alone plans to spend at least $9 billion over the next five years connecting its weapons through an initiative known as Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control. The Pentagon is conducting increasingly ambitious experiments with 5G wireless technology, which promises to link weapons with such high data-transfer rates that military commanders will be able to make decisions faster and with more information. “We're interested in operationalizing the technical capabilities of 5G waveforms and technology software and hardware to improve our defense products and our defense products' performance in an interrelated way,” Taiclet said Tuesday on the company's third-quarter earning call with Wall Street analysts. The Pentagon has been increasingly embracing commercial firms like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft as the military shifts to the cloud. It's also been on a half-decade push to get more commercial tech firms to embrace defense work, which has been a bumpy relationship at times. Taiclet said the company would pursue partnerships not just in 5G, but also artificial intelligence, edge computing, autonomy, and additive manufacturing. “I think there's some incredible runway or open space there for us to be a leader in bringing some of those companies and some of those technology leaders in partnership with us,” Taiclet said in the interview. He raised the prospect of forming alliances or licensing commercial technology from telecom firms like Qualcomm, NextCom or Nokia. He also said the company could form joint ventures with commercial tech firms. It could include buying companies too. “We're just gonna open our aperture wider,” Taiclet said. “And we also want to get more active and mission systems too. So, we'll see what's available in that space as well ... closer to the home base here. I think there's a lot of optionality for us going forward.” On the earnings call, Taiclet also suggested Lockheed could offer “networking as a service, more of a subscription model” to the military. “Then we do the upgrades and the comm layer and make sure we tie it all together, just like you experience on your cellphone subscription,” he said. You don't know all the pieces that go into it. So every morning when you turn it on, it works and it works with the latest applications, and it works with the latest technology. “Those are the kinds of things we're going to explore,” he said. “It will take a little bit longer to get there, but we're positioning ourselves to do that as well.” https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/10/lockheed-seeks-commercial-tie-ups-chase-5g-work/169566/
May 15, 2024 | International, Security