December 20, 2023 | International, Land
Lockheed Martin preps souped-up HIMARS demo for Germany
The company plans to offer to the Bundeswehr a launcher capable of carrying double the rocket load.
September 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Lockheed-Boeing Battle Heats Up as USAF Looks to Buy F-15EX
The F-35 maker is fighting to keep its monopoly on the Air Force's fighter-jet shopping list.
While it's not unusual for companies to battle one another for weapons deals, these fights often occur behind the scenes, as lobbyists and executives spar inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.
But the fight over whether the U.S. Air Force should buy one or two types of $80 million fighter jets is spilling into the public view, in the pages of the trade press and in think tank reports. Air Force leaders say they need both the F-35 Lightning II, the newest fighter in the U.S. military arsenal, and the F-15EX, the latest version of the twin-engine jet first flown in 1972.
Early last year, Lockheed began to fight back against Boeing's reappearance on the service's tactical-jet shopping list.The battle became a war in July when the Air Force placed a $1.2 billion order for eight jets and said it might spend up to $23 billion to buy up to 144 new F-15s in the coming years.
It's rare for a conservative think tank to explicitly call for canceling defense programs; typically, they argue for increasing defense spending and buying more weapons. But the influential Heritage Foundation has consistently urged the Air Force not to buy the F-15EX.
“I'm just kind of surprised by the broadsides that have been occurring lately,” Jeff Shockey, vice president of global sales and marketing for Boeing Defense, Space & Security and Boeing Global Services' government services portfolio, said in an interview Friday.
The stakes are also higher now as defense spending has flattened and not expected to grow in the coming years. The latest attacks on the F-15 come as Congress is reviewing the fiscal 2021 defense spending and policy bills.
J.V. Venable, a retired Air Force F-16 pilot who is a senior research fellow at Heritage, compared the F-15EX to antiquated dial-up internet. “In deciding to fund the acquisition of the F-15EX, Congress has chosen the dial-up option,” he argued in Defense One last month. “When the Air Force signs that contract, it will be stuck with already-dated equipment for the next 30 years.”
This week, the Mitchell Institute, the Air Force Association's internal think tank, published a report that argues the F-15EX “ may address immediate shortfalls, but it ultimately fails to anticipate or prepare for a much more demanding future combat environment.”
More than a decade ago, as the F-35 struggled with a long list of development problems and cost overruns, Boeing and its surrogates pushed Air Force leaders to consider buying new F-15s or even Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets. Now as the service prepares to buy new F-15s for the first time in nearly two decades, the script has flipped.
The Air Force appears to have been persuaded by arguments that the F-15 is cheaper to fly than the F-35, and can more easily accept new applications and weapons.
But Lockheed is firing back with arguments that the fifth-generation F-35 has stealth, weapons, sensors, and data capabilities that make it a far superior choice.
“We believe the F-35 is a superior platform,” said Michele Evans, the president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, in an interview Thursday. "With its fifth-[generation] capabilities, we believe it brings capabilities that other platforms can't.”
The F-15EX is intended to replace F-15C Eagles, planes that are largely flown by the Air National Guard for homeland defense. The F-15C is considered an air superiority fighter — meaning it's fine-tuned for air-to-air combat — and cannot strike ground targets. But the Air Force also flies the ground-pounding F-15E Strike Eagle, of which the F-15EX is a modernized derivative.
“The F-35 and [F-15]EX are very complementary to one another,” Shockey said. “They do very different mission sets.”
Evans, who oversees Lockheed's combat aircraft projects, said she does not view the F-15EX as a threat to the F-35.
“I certainly respect the Air Force, that they've made a decision to procure the F-15EX and we're going to continue to make sure that we're driving upgrades and capabilities into the F-35 to keep it competitive and keep it the platform of choice for the U.S. Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps and our partner and [foreign military sales] nations,” she said.
On the same subject
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October 5, 2023 | International, Land
Germany has no plans at moment to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine - Bild | Reuters
Germany currently has no plans to supply Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles because they are not comparable to missiles provided by France and Britain, Bild newspaper reported on Wednesday.
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July 31, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
UK defense exports set new record in 2018
By: Andrew Chuter LONDON — Sales of Typhoon jets to Qatar and F-35 related components to the U.S. were largely behind a record breaking year which saw British defense exports in 2018 reach £14 billion, according to new figures released July 30 by the Department for International Trade(DIT). Export sales rose by £5 billion compared with 2017, boosting the British into second place in terms of global defense exports and pushing Russia and France into third and fourth place, respectively, for the year. The DIT report illustrates how reliant Britain is on Middle East partners like Saudi Arabia and Qatar for its high performing exports business. The report shows that close to 80 percent of all British defense exports came from the region last year. Anti-arms campaigners in Britain are currently mounting a challenge against the legality of some previous defense exports to the Saudis. Over the last ten years, the Middle East, North America and Europe have provided the biggest markets for the British, in that order. The figures were provided by the DIT's defense and security arm, known as the Defence and Security Organisation (DSO). According to the DSO, the British took an estimated 19 percent share of the defense export market for 2018, compared with 14 percent by Russia and 9 percent by France. As is the case every year, the U.S. arms industry continued to dominate the world market, with DSO figures putting the Americans in control of 40 percent of a global export market, at $100 billion for 2018, according to the government department. The vast majority of British defense exports are from the air market sector. Around 96 percent of export sales last year were generated from defense aerospace, with the Typhoon sales to Qatar and an accompanying deal to purchase Brimstone missiles a major driver in Britain's good year. The other major factor is the ramp up in the supply of items for the F-35 production line. Britain is the biggest overseas partner on the F-35 build program with BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce among a number of important suppliers. This lack of diversification is a concern for London. France, for example, may not have done as well as the British last year overall, but a number of defense industry sectors contributed to what turned out to be a good performance. French exports rose to €9.1 billion, a 30 percent rise from 2017. It's biggest customers last year were Qatar, including Rafale fighter jets and NH-90 helicopters; Belgium, with Griffon and Jaguar armored vehicles; Saudi Arabia, including patrol vessels; and Spain, for NH-90 helicopters. “It is worth noting that the portfolios of major competitors to the UK, such as the USA and France, appear slightly less unbalanced than the UK's, and therefore, these supplier nations are less exposed to sector fluctuation,” noted the DIT report. The good news for the UK: this year should go some way to redressing the balance between the British export sectors. The major maritime success of the Type 26 anti-submarine frigate, selected by both Australia and Canada, should starting appearing in the export data for 2019. Security equipment exports also continued to grow last year, the DIT reported, rising 7.2 percent from 2017 and crossing the £5 billion barrier. Almost half the exports went to Europe, with the North American market accounting for 18 percent of the sales. Cyber accounted for roughly 40 percent of those exports. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/07/30/uk-defense-exports-set-new-record-in-2018/