Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - October 17, 2018

On the same subject

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  April 29, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Back hard-hit businesses? Experts press EU to instead boost defense spending

  By: Tom Kington ROME — Defense experts are concerned that Europe's newfound commitment to joint defense spending may be cast aside as the European Union diverts cash into economies hammered by the coronavirus lockdown. The scenario was discussed in a webinar hosted by Italy's IAI think tank on April 8. And last week, Polish and German experts wrote of the risk that the fledgling European Defence Fund will be savagely cut. Then on April 27, eight experts issued an appeal to EU policymakers, arguing that rather than cutting defense funds to free up money to support hard-hit businesses, they should do the opposite and beef up defense spending. With so many high-tech jobs in the defense industry, “specific support for this sector will be needed to mitigate the economic crisis' effects and preserve the long-term future of Europe,” wrote the experts, who hail from Spain, Italy, the U.K., France and Lithuania. According to the letter, the EU plans to pack its 2021-2027 budget with measures to limit a recession some economists believe will follow the pandemic. Economists have also warned such a recession would dwarf the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. “Undoubtedly it will focus on critical sectors such as health or energy. We believe that the defence sector should be included in such critical sectors and that a revised version of the [budget] should be the opportunity to reassert a truly ambitious budget for the European Defence Fund,” the experts wrote. Apart from shoring up defense jobs, feeding the European Defence Fund would help defend the EU as threats grow, they wrote. “Indeed, COVID-19 will not stop or mitigate the ongoing worsening of the international security environment threatening European security and interests. On the contrary, it is likely to make the world more unstable and more insecure,” they added. Defense spending had been slashed after 2008, the experts said, and faces a similar fate now, just as “Europe is trying to develop next-generation fighter aircraft, main battle tanks, frigates and other capabilities such as unmanned systems crucial for its military and technological edge.” Cutting budgets would not only increase Europe's dependency on “third states” but would “significantly hinder the credibility of European nations as military partners, notably within NATO,” they added. Prior to the spread of coronavirus, pressure had grown inside the EU to halve the €13 billion (U.S. $14 billion) planned for the European Defence Fund during 2021-2027. Now, the EU should halt any plans to cut the fund and instead increase it, the experts wrote. “As Europe gradually emerges from the pandemic, there [cannot be a] secure ‘new normal' without a solid European defence,” they concluded. The letter's release coincided with a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute that found total global military spending rose 3.6 percent in 2019 to $1.917 trillion — marking the largest annual growth in spending since 2010. The think tank report also found that U.S. spending grew by 5.3 percent to a total of $732 billion in 2019, at 38 percent of the global total. The increase alone in U.S. spending was roughly equal to the entire budget of Germany. The European country's military spending rose by 10 percent last year to $49.3 billion, which the think tank said was the largest increase in spending among the top 15 military spenders in 2019. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/04/27/back-hard-hit-businesses-experts-press-eu-to-instead-boost-defense-spending/

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  June 11, 2019 | International, Land, Security

  Active protection systems demo hits dead end for Stryker, Army evaluating next steps

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — After evaluating two active protection systems in a demonstration late last fall and determining neither were the right fit for the Stryker, the Army is now evaluating how to protect one of its critical combat vehicle. “Unfortunately for Stryker, we have not found a system that is suitable for the platform,” Col. Glenn Dean, Stryker project manager told Defense News in a June 7 interview. The Army has found interim APS for both its Abrams tank and Bradley infantry fighting vehicle but has struggled to find one for Stryker. The service has moved quickly to field combat vehicle protection against rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank guided missiles while it develops a future system. The service originally considered Herndon,Virginia-based Artis Corporation's Iron Curtain APS for Stryker, but decided in August 2018not to move forward in fielding it to Stryker units. In an effort to expand its search for an appropriate system, the Army then decided to host a demonstration in late fall last year of two additional systems: Rafael's Trophy VPS and Rheinmetall's Active Defense Systems. Signs the demonstration wasn't proving fruitful cropped up in March, when the service said they'd need extra time — an entire year — to evaluate options for Stryker. Dean said the Army was hoping they'd see promise in one of the systems at the end of the demonstration and be able to carry it through more complex characterization for better evaluation in order to make a decision. But as the demonstration wrapped up, the Army decided neither would work. “Both Rheinmetall and the medium-weight Trophy, both have maturity challenges, but the bottom line is that they turned out to not be a suitable fit for Stryker,” Dean said. “We did see some potential in systems,” Dean said, adding, “it is our desire to continue to evaluate them further so we can understand them at a greater level of detail.” Neither system received the same level of testing as Rafael's Trophy on Abrams, IMI's Iron Fist on Bradley or Iron Curtain, Dean said, and the systems could end up being the right fit for some future effort to outfit other vehicles such as the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle program's Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, Mobile Protected Firepower and the Armored Multipurpose Vehicle, “none of which we have identified APS solutions for yet,” Dean said. Through continued evaluation “maybe we will eventually learn something that brings us back to Stryker,” he added. Unlike Bradley and Abrams, Stryker is a relatively light-weight platform, Dean said. “It has challenges in its space, weight and power integration. It has proven difficult for us to find a system that is entirely suitable for integration.” And while no operational APS system evaluated so far seems to work for Stryker, the Army is still looking into ways to protect it as its value on the battlefield only increases with the addition of bigger guns and more expensive weapon systems. Under the Vehicle Protection System (VPS) program office, the Army is working on reactive armor improvements focused on Bradley and AMPV, but that could be of particular value for Stryker, Dean said. The Army's laser warning program that is tied to the Modular Active Protection System (MAPS) program could also contribute to Stryker protection. MAPS is a system under development with the Army featuring a common controller into which hard-kill and soft-kill protection can be plugged. And the Army will be conducting a demonstration with layered hard-kill and soft-kill protection capability later this year as part of culminating exercise for its MAPS program, according to Dean. “The soft-kill may ultimately prove to be particularly well suited for Stryker,” Dean said. Those soft-kill systems are jammers and smoke systems that help obscure and tend to take up relatively little space and are less expensive then hard-kill APS that require the reloading of countermeasures. The service is also studying what it may need for a future APS and plans to initiate a program in the late part of the next fiscal year, which could also be an opportunity to develop something more suitable for Stryker, according to Dean. While the Army does have plans to protect its combat vehicles from rockets and missiles, in a June 6 letter sent to Army Secretary Mark Esper, a group of 13 House lawmakers expressed concern the service isn't doing enough to outfit its current fleet with APS and asked the Army to explain why it hadn't requested any further funding for APS upgrades in the budget According to Dean, for Abrams and Bradley, “we are resourced to meet the requirements that we have on an urgent basis to outfit a limited number of brigades. We are doing analysis right now to support development programs of record in active protection.” He added, “What we are buying is not the end of APS activity, but it is the urgent requirements we have been given.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/06/10/active-protection-systems-demo-hits-dead-end-for-stryker-army-evaluating-next-steps/

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  June 26, 2018 | International, Land

  Tank makers steel themselves for Europe’s next big land-weapon contest

  Sebastian Sprenger PARIS ― European manufacturers of armored vehicles are jockeying for position in what looks to be the most expensive land program for the continent in decades. The industry activity follows plans by France and Germany, reiterated this month, to build a Main Ground Combat System that would replace the current fleet of Leopard 2 and Leclerc tanks. While conceived as a two-country project for now, the hope is to develop a weapon that other European land forces will also pick up. Details remain murky about exactly what the new vehicles must be able to do, though the job description includes something about manned-unmanned teaming. Perhaps that's why officials chose an amorphous name for the project, as it could be anything from a nimble, autonomous fighter to the type of human-driven steel beast of today's armies. The target date for introducing the new platform is set at 2035, and Germany has picked up the lead role for the project both on the government and the industry side. KNDS, the Franco-German joint venture of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter, put the program on the radar of visitors of the Eurosatory trade show in Paris earlier this month. The companies mated the chassis of a Leopard 2 tank to a Leclerc turret ― and voila, a European Main Battle Tank was born. Company officials stressed that the hybrid behemoth is only a stepping stone on the way toward a full-blown European tank offering under the Main Ground Combat System banner. But the product might interest Eastern European nations looking to divest their Russian legacy fleets for a good-enough, Western-made tank that ― presumably ― doesn't break the bank. The marriage of KMW and Nexter saves the two companies from having to compete against one another for the next-generation tank. It also creates the appearance that Paris' and Berlin's love for a future tank is happily echoed by their industries. “Let's assume we wouldn't have joined forces,” said Frank Haun, the CEO of KMW. Both he and his Nexter counterpart, Stephane Mayer, would have had to lobby their respective governments for a purely national solution, pulling the old argument of keeping jobs in the country, Haun said. The two companies hailed an announcement last week about a new Franco-German deal aimed at examining possible program options for the future tank. “The Letter Of Intent signed yesterday is a significant step forward in the defense cooperation between the two countries and in Europe,” reads a June 20 statement. “This close cooperation was the key motivation for the foundation of KNDS in 2015, where Nexter and KMW cooperate as national system houses for land systems.” But the binational industry team is far from the only game in town. Take Rheinmetall, for example, which is KMW's partner in the Leopard program. Company executives at the Paris weapons expo were tight-lipped about their strategy toward the Main Ground Combat System, or MGCS. But it's probably a safe bet to presume the Düsseldorf, Germany-based firm won't cede a market of tens of billions of dollars without a fight. “Come back and see me in December in Unterlüß,” Ben Hudson, head of the company's vehicle systems division, told Defense News during an interview in Paris. He was referring to a small German town one hour south of Hamburg where Rheinmetall runs a manufacturing plant. Hudson declined to say more about what the company would roll out at that time. “I can't mention it just yet,” he said. “Expect more surprises in the future. We're already working on some other things in the secret laboratories of Rheinmetall.” Either way, officials were eager to note that KNDS, despite its industrial alignment alongside the two governments in charge, is only one bidder in a field that has to fully emerge. “I think there is still a lot of water to flow under the bridge on this program, as it is only in its early days. However, with the technology in the Rheinmetall Group, we have a significant interest in playing a key role in MGCS,” Hudson said. He argued that developing the next-generation tank must begin with considering the “threat” out there, namely the Russian T-14 and T-15 tanks, which are based on a common chassis dubbed Armata. Those vehicles' characteristics, or at least what is known about them, dictate “high lethality” be built into the future European tank, according to Hudson. “How do you defeat a tank that has four active defense systems on it?” he asked. And then there is General Dynamics European Land Systems, the Old World's offspring of the U.S. maker of the Abrams tank and Stryker vehicle. The company is careful to note its European roots: a consolidated mishmash of formerly independent armored-vehicle makers from across the continent. Manuel Lineros, vice president of engineering, told Defense News that the company's Ascot vehicle will be the GDELS offering for the European next-gen tank. Advertised for its mobility and weighing in at roughly 45 tons, the tracked vehicle falls in the class of infantry fighting vehicles, putting it one notch below the heaviest battle tank category. “I understand the battlefield has changed,” Lineros said in an interview at Eurosatory. “We have to abandon the ideas of a combat vehicle versus a classic main battle tank. Everything is so mixed up now.” Whatever the Ascot lacks in sheer mass against projectiles aimed at its shell could be compensated with an active protection system and the ability to move quickly on the battlefield, argued Lineros. “We have to be flexible in this way of interpreting the requirements.” That includes defending against drone swarms, which could become the peer-to-peer equivalent of improvised explosive devices designed to rip open the underbellies of vehicles, he said. Unlike the recent countermine vehicle architecture, that type of aerial threat could mean the top surface of future vehicles will be a weak point requiring special protection, he added. Though adding armor plates remains the industry's first instinct in responding to new threats, Lineros said there is a limit to what he called an “addiction” to steel. “More and more we'll be moving out of this sport.” https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/eurosatory/2018/06/25/tank-makers-steel-themselves-for-europes-next-big-land-weapon-contest/