France: Armée de l'air : le général Lavigne dévoile son plan de vol

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  August 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  India announces ban on 101 imported arms. Who benefits, and who loses out?

  By: Vivek Raghuvanshi NEW DELHI — To bolster self-reliance for its defense industrial base, India on Sunday released a list of 101 weapons and platforms that will be banned from import over the next seven years. The list incorporates major armaments such as artillery guns, assault rifles, corvettes, sonar systems, transport aircraft, ammunition, radars, conventional diesel-electric submarines, communication satellites and shipborne cruise missiles. In announcing the move, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh called it “a big step toward self-reliance in defense production in accordance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat,' ” or “Self-Reliant India.” Singh added the decision will bring with it a great opportunity for the local defense industry to manufacture the items on the negative list by using domestic design and development capabilities. “The embargo on imports is planned to be progressively implemented between 2020 to 2024,” the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. “The aim behind the promulgation of the list is to appraise the Indian defense industry about the anticipated requirements of the [Indian] armed forces so that they are better prepared to realize the goal of indigenization.” The items on the list, worth a total of $53.4 billion, are to be manufactured in India, with local companies as prime contractors. Of these, about $17.3 billion will be either Army or Air Force programs, and defense contracts worth $18.6 billion will be meant for naval programs. The MoD said these orders will be placed with domestic companies within the next five to seven years. The domestic industry will now stand a better chance to compete among itself and cater to local demand, an MoD official told Defense News. “Foreign-origin technology transfer will be key. However, the Indian companies will be in the driver's seat,” the official said. Domestic private companies have welcomed the government's move, but some defense experts doubt change will come. Baba Kalyani, chairman of Bharat Forge Limited, said this decision is a strategic step that will “propel the Self-Reliant India narrative and bolster the Indian defense equipment-manufacturing industry.” He added that the growth of the domestic sector will lead to self-reliance, reduced expenditure on imports, the saving of foreign currency, job creation and the revival of consumption, and that it will get India closer to its goal of a $5 trillion economy. Jayant Patil, senior executive vice president of India's largest private defense company Larsen & Toubro, said the defense policy reforms will provide long-term visibility, which he said is needed to drive investment. In contract, Vivek Rae, a former MoD chief of acquisitions, said the “gradual ban on imports of 101 weapons and platforms signals the strong intent of government to boost domestic defense production. However, some of these items are already made or assembled in India, and import content is also high. Therefore, business as usual will continue unless more orders are given to the private sector and import content reduced.” Rae also noted the cost of items manufactured or assembled locally tends to be higher than the cost of imported items. The quality of locally produced materiel is also a concern for Rae. The embargo may not adversely affect foreign original equipment manufacturers, as they can continue involvement in MoD acquisition programs, either by way of direct product orders or through technology transfer or collaboration with the Indian companies, in respect to items not covered by the list, according to Amit Cowshish, a former financial adviser for acquisition at the MoD. It doesn't matter whether an embargoed item is made by a joint venture or any other entity, so long as it is designed and developed in India, Cowshish added. Indeed, an MoD official confirmed that foreign original equipment manufacturers now can set up joint ventures with a majority control up to 74 percent. The ventures would be considered Indian companies and thus be eligible for manufacturing the embargoed items, the official explained. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/08/13/india-announces-ban-on-101-imported-arms-who-benefits-and-who-loses-out/

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  July 10, 2018 | International, Naval

  Has the US Navy thought this new frigate through? New report raises questions.

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Navy is rapidly moving toward procuring the first hull in its new class of frigate in 2020, but a new report is raising questions about whether the Navy has done detailed analysis about what it needs out of the ship before barging ahead. The Navy may not have done an adequate job of analyzing gaps and capabilities shortfalls before it set itself on a fast-track to buying the so-called FFG(X) as an adaptation from a parent design, said influential Navy analyst Ron O'Rourke in a new Congressional Research Service report. In essence, the CRS report questions whether the Navy looked at what capabilities the service already has in the fleet, what capabilities it's missing and whether the FFG(X) is the optimal solution to address any identified shortfalls. O'Rourke suggests Congress push the Navy on “whether procuring a new class of FFGs is the best or most promising general approach for addressing the identified capability gaps and mission needs, and whether the Navy has performed a formal, rigorous analysis of this issue, as opposed to relying solely on subjective judgments of Navy or [Defense Department] leaders.” ““Subjective judgments, though helpful, can overlook counter-intuitive results regarding the best or most promising general approach,” the report reads. “Potential alternative general approaches for addressing identified capability gaps and mission needs in this instance include (to cite a few possibilities) modified LCSs, FFs, destroyers, aircraft, unmanned vehicles, or some combination of these platforms.” The Navy is looking to adapt its FFG(X) from an existing design such as Fincantieri's FREMM, one of the two existing littoral combat ships or the Coast Guard's national security cutter as a means of getting updated capabilities into a small surface combatant and into the fleet quickly. A better approach, O'Rourke suggests, would be to make a formal, rigorous analysis of alternatives to its current course. Failure to do so has led to a series of setbacks with the Navy's current small surface combatant program, the LCS. “The Navy did not perform a formal, rigorous analysis of this kind prior to announcing the start of the LCS program in November 2001, and this can be viewed as a root cause of much of the debate and controversy that attended the LCS program, and of the program's ultimate restructurings in February 2014 and December 2015,” O'Rourke writes. O'Rourke further suggests the Navy is relying too much on subjective opinions of Navy and Defense Department leaders, instead of a legitimate analysis. And indeed, the Navy has made rapid acquisition of the new ship the hallmark of the program. “Subjective judgments can be helpful, particularly in terms of capturing knowledge and experience that is not easily reduced to numbers, in taking advantage of the ‘wisdom of the crowd,‘ and in coming to conclusions and making decisions quickly,” O'Rourke argues. “On the other hand, a process that relies heavily on subjective judgments can be vulnerable to group-think, can overlook counter-intuitive results regarding capability gaps and mission needs, and, depending on the leaders involved, can emphasize those leaders' understanding of the Navy's needs.” Read the full report here. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/07/09/has-the-us-navy-thought-this-new-frigate-through-new-report-raises-questions/

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  October 1, 2024 | International, Aerospace

  RTX's Pratt & Whitney awarded F135 Engine Core Upgrade contract

  The ECU also provides power and cooling for Block 4 and beyond capabilities for all three variants of the F-35 global enterprise.