French Army head Schill talks force modernization, Ukraine war lessons

On the same subject

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  June 2, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Bell 360 Invictus Attack and Reconnaissance Aircraft

  Bell 360 Invictus is a new attack and reconnaissance helicopter being developed by Bell Textron to deliver improved lethality, survivability, and extended range for army aviation. The advanced helicopter is being offered for the US Army's Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) programme, which mainly aims to replace the army's AH-65 Apache and OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters. The rotorcraft will offer security and situational awareness in the battlefield upon completion of its government flight test evaluation in 2023. It will serve as an affordable, lethal and sustainable solution, while delivering next generation performance. Bell 360 Invictus development Bell was contracted under other transaction authority for prototype (OTAP) agreement to design a vertical lift aircraft with advanced performance capabilities to face asymmetric threats in multi-domain operations, in April 2019. In September 2019, Bell Textron entered a partnership agreement with Collins Aerospace Systems for avionics hardware and software incorporating cyber-hardened and enhanced digital solutions. Collins Aerospace will also offer model-based systems engineering (MBSE) tools and processes to integrate mission avionics into the Bell 360 Invictus aircraft. The attack and reconnaissance helicopter was unveiled at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) National Conference held in Washington DC in October 2019. In March 2020, Bell Textron was selected to continue its work on US Army's FARA programme, after almost a 12-month design and risk-reduction work. Bell Textron preferred Triumph Systems & Support for the supply of hydraulic components for the Bell 360 Invictus aircraft in May 2020. Design and features of Bell 360 Invictus The rotorcraft's design will be based on Bell 525 Relentless aircraft, which will feature hydraulic pump and reservoir assemblies. The robust, articulated rotor, lift-sharing wing and optimised tail rotor ensure effective attack and reconnaissance operations in both urban and rural areas. The helicopter will accommodate a pilot and a gunner. The lift-sharing wing of the aircraft will mainly reduce rotor lift demand during forward flight and will offer high-speed manoeuvrability without a complex propulsion and drive system. A digital toolkit aboard will help in reducing hundreds of man hours and downstream costs. The advanced digital flight control system will further offer an enhanced flight operations. The helicopter will be fitted with state-of-the-art sensors and air-launched effects to improve situational awareness and lethality across all domains. The modular open systems approach (MOSA) digital backbone will allow plug and play capability, while the platform will be compliant with future airborne capability environment (FACE). The digital fly-by-wire flight control system of the rotorcraft will be upgradeable throughout its life cycle. 3D digital twin will serve as a common data source as it helps in monitoring survivability and supporting test scenarios for evolving battlefield technology. Bell 360 Invictus weapon systems The payload capacity of the aircraft will be approximately 635kg (1,400lb) and the helicopter can carry internal and external weapons payloads. The aircraft will be armed with an integrated munitions launcher and a 20mm cannon and will have the capability to support air-launched effects. It can also accommodate future weapons and current inventory of munitions. Engine and performance Bell 360 Invictus will be powered by General Electric's T901 turbo-shaft engine, which will serve as the main power unit. The Pratt & Whitney Canada PW207D1 engine aboard the rotorcraft will act as a supplemental power unit delivering power for ground maintenance and system checks. It will also enhance cruise airspeed, dash speed, hover payload and autorotative performance. The helicopter will be able to fly at a maximum cruise speed of 180k and offer a range of approximately 135nm with more than 90 minutes of time on station. The main rotor will have high flapping capability ensuring high-speed flight. It will achieve hover out of ground effect (HOGE) of 4k/95F. https://www.army-technology.com/projects/bell-360-invictus/

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  September 10, 2023 | International, Naval

  North Korea unveils first tactical, nuclear-armed submarine | Reuters

  North Korea has launched its first operational "tactical nuclear attack submarine" and assigned it to the fleet that patrols the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan, state media said on Friday.

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  December 26, 2019 | International, Naval

  Pentagon proposes big cuts to US Navy destroyer construction, retiring 13 cruisers

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON – The Department of Defense has sent a plan to the White House that would cut the construction of more than 40 percent of its planed Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyers in in fiscal years 2021 through 2025. In total, the proposal would cut five of the 12 DDGs planned through the so-called future years defense program, or FYDP. In total, the plan would cut about $9.4 billion, or 8 percent, out of the total shipbuilding budget, according to a memo from the White House's Office of Management and Budget to the Defense Department obtained by Defense News. The memo also outlined plans to accelerate the decommissioning cruisers, cutting the total number of Ticonderoga-class cruisers in the fleet down to nine by 2025, from a planned 13 in last year's budget. The Pentagon's plan would actually shrink the size of the fleet from today's fleet of 293 ships to 287 ships, the memo said, which stands in contrast to the Navy's goal of 355 ships. The 355 ship goal was also made national policy in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. The memo comes on the heels of a wave of rhetoric from the Navy and the highest levels of the Trump Administration that the goal remains 350-plus ships, and the memo directs the Pentagon to submit a “resource-informed” plan to get to 355 ships, though its unclear how that direction might affect the Navy's calculus with regards to destroyer construction. The document gives the Navy a degree of wiggle-room to try and redefine what counts as a ship. “OMB directs DOD to submit a resource-informed plan to achieve a 355-ship combined fleet, including manned and unmanned ships, by 2030,” the memo reads. “In addition to a programmatic plan through the FYDP and projected ship counts through 2030, DOD shall submit a legislative proposal to redefine a battleforce ship to include unmanned ships, complete with clearly defined capability and performance thresholds to define a ship's inclusion in the overall battleforce ship count.” Destroyers are built by General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Maine and by Huntington Ingalls in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Each destroyer costs an average of $1.82 billion based on the Navy's 2020 budget submission, according to the Congressional Research Service. A Trump Administration official who spoke on background said the Navy's proposed plan to shrink the fleet is being driven primary from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and that OMB is strongly behind the President's goal of 355 ship. “OMB strongly supports 355 [ships] and is working with the Navy on it,” the official said. “OSD seems to be the most opposed to it.” A Navy spokesman declined to comment on the contents of the memo, saying it was related to a budget still in development and was “pre-decisional.” The military has a policy of refusing to comment on budget matters before they've been submitted to congress. The fate of the cruisers has been a nearly annual fight on Capitol Hill, as the Navy has tried desperately to divest themselves of the troublesome class, though this year's proposed cancellation of six cruiser modernization plans did not make a stir on the Hill. The cruisers themselves are the largest surface combatants in the Navy's inventory but have become increasingly difficult to maintain. Cruisers have 26 more vertical launch system, or VLS, cells per hull than their Arleigh Burke Flight IIA destroyer counterparts, and 32 more than the Flight I Burkes. Cruisers act as the lead air defense ship in a carrier strike group but as they have aged, the fleet has managed everything from cracking hulls to aging pipes and mechanical systems. The ships' SPY-1 radars have also been difficult to maintain, as components age and need constant attention from technicians. Last year, the Navy proposed canceling the modernization of Bunker Hill, Mobile Bay, Antietam, Leyte Gulf, San Jacinto and Lake Champlain in 2021 and 2022. The new proposal would accelerate the decommissioning of the Monterey. Vella Gulf and Port Royal to 2022, which would cut between three and seven years off each of their planned lives. The plan would also advance the decommissioning of the Shiloh to 2024, three years earlier that previously planned. The service's past efforts to shed the cruisers to save money repeatedly drew the ire of former House Armed Services Committee sea power subcommittee Chairman Randy Forbes, R-Va., who didn't trust the Navy to keep the ships in service and therefore wrote clear language into several National Defense Authorization Act bills prohibiting the move. The Navy ultimately agreed to the so-called 2-4-6 plan in 2015, which allowed the service to lay up to two cruisers a year, for no more than four years and allow no more than six of the ships to undergo modernization at any one time. 'Making a Case' The 2030 deadline for 355 ships as mentioned in the OMB memo was first laid out earlier this month by acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly in a speech at USNI's Defense Forum. “[Three hundred and fifty-five ships] is stated as national policy,” Modly told an audience on Dec. 5. “It was also the president's goal during the election. We have a goal of 355, we don't have a plan for 355. We need to have a plan, and if it's not 355, what's it going to be and what's it going to look like? “We ought to be lobbying for that and making a case for it and arguing in the halls of the Pentagon for a bigger share of the budget if that's what is required,” The speech was followed by the President's National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien at the Reagan National Defense Forum saying that Trump was serious when he committed to a 350-ship Navy. “When President Trump says a 350-ship Navy, he means a 350-ship Navy, and not decades from now,” O'Brien said. Bryan McGrath, a retired destroyer captain and analyst with the defense consultancy The Ferrybridge Group, said the plan to reduce the size of the fleet is a sign that the Defense Department isn't willing to put the resources required toward growing the fleet. “If what you are reporting is true, this is a sign of the tension between the grand desires for a much larger fleet and the modest resources being applied to the problem,” McGrath said. “There simply is no way to grow the fleet as it is currently architected while maintaining the current fleet at a high state of readiness with the given resources." McGrath said if 355 is still the goal, the Pentagon has to either dramatically restructure the fleet to switch out large surface combatants such as cruisers and destroyers with smaller, less expensive ships, or it has to change what's counted as a ship – both moves that have been signaled by the Navy in recent years. “This is why it's so hard to grow a Navy,” McGrath said. “You have to decide it's a national priority, you have to devote a lot of resources and you have to do it over a period of years. None of that has happened.” Dan Gouré , an analyst with the Arlington-based think tank The Lexington Institute and former Bush Administration Pentagon official, said trading existing force structure for unproven technologies such as unmanned ships that may pan out down the road is a classic Pentagon trap that rarely pans out. “It sends a bit of a chill up my spine to hear that the Navy may be considering cutting a bird in the hand for a theoretical eagle down the road,” Goure said. “That almost never works. I've been doing this long enough, 40 years of this, tell me when that's ever really worked.” https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/12/24/pentagon-proposes-big-cuts-to-us-navy-destroyer-construction-retiring-13-cruisers/