Nato orders AT4 anti-armour weapons from Saab

On the same subject

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  September 12, 2023 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  Britain to produce drone strategy by year’s end

  This the latest in a rash of strategy documents recently produced by the country focused on the land, air and sea domains of warfare.

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  March 10, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Pentagon Seeks New SatCom Tech For ‘Fully Networked C3’

  "Our fully networked C3 [Command, Control, & Communications] will look completely different" from current satellites and terminals, said OSD's Doug Schroeder. By THERESA HITCHENS SATELLITE 2020: The Pentagon wants industry ideas on how to craft a “fundamentally new architecture” for command, control and communications (C3) that will allow “any user using any terminal to connect to any other user using any other terminal,” says Doug Schroeder, who oversees the effort under the Office of Research and Engineering (R&E). This kind of omnipresent, all-service connectivity across land, sea, air, and space is essential for the Pentagon's rapidly evolving of future war, known as Joint-All Domain Operations. “Our Fully Networked C3 communications will look completely different. We have a new vision. We're crafting it with the help of industry,” he said. “We're relying on very heavily on industry, starting with this Broad Agency Announcement dated March 6,” which asks for companies to submit white papers in short order. According to Schroeder, the Space Development Agency (SDA) will be the funding authority. Vendors whose short, 10 to 15 page white papers are chosen will be invited at the end of April to a Pitch Day. Winners then will be given three months to develop a proposal; contracts for prototypes will be granted 24 months later. Speaking to a relatively sparse audience here at the annual commercial satellite industry conference, Satellite 2020 — which is underway despite the threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus — Schroeder stressed: “We are going to take our new direction from you.” The new strategy, called Fully Networked C3 (FNC3), is being spearheaded by R&E director Mike Griffin and his assistant director for FNC3, Michael Zatman. According to the BAA, the first issued under the effort, the new strategy is being designed to “enable the DoD to reliably communicate with all its tactical and strategic assets.” C3 is one of Griffin's Top Ten areas of technology innovation for which DoD is developing an agency-wide development strategy. Specifically, DoD now is looking for “Beyond-Line-Of-Site (BLOS) communications systems for airborne, surface, and subsurface systems that is [sic] compatible with both FNC3 enabled systems and legacy systems,” the BAA states. The BAA calls for White Papers to be submitted by March 30 for three different types of BLOS technologies: 1. Protected Radio Frequency (RF) BLOS Communications. 2. Multi-User/Multi-Point High-Data-Rate Laser Communications. 3. Communications with submerged assets. R&E intends to “develop, prototype, and demonstrate each innovative communications capability with the goal of transitioning the technologies into programs of record,” the BAA said. To ensure speedy results, DoD will use Other Transaction Authority (OTA) for prototyping (found under 10 U.S. Code § 2371b.) Much of the detail about the effort is contained in classified annexes. What we do know: Beyond-Line-Of-Sight communications relayed through satellites generally require equipping platforms — such as aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles — with high-throughput voice and data links, capabilities all of the services have expressed interest in. In particular, after years of little progress, Griffin has reinvigorated DoD interest in optical communications via laser links, in large part due to fears about Russian and Chinese RF jamming. Commercial industry has been rushing to develop optical links to enable satellite-to-satellite data transmission, and the Space Development Agency is interested in that capability for its so-called transport layer of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit. Radio-frequency communications with submarines when underwater are generally limited to terse text messages, transmitted at very low frequencies (three to 30 kilohertz) and extremely low frequencies (three to 300 hertz) and requiring very large antennas to receie them. Research work is ongoing at MIT on how to link traditional underwater sonar to airborne RF receivers, a methodology called Translational Acoustic-RF) communication. Research also is ongoing, including at MIT's Lincoln Lab, on using narrow-beam lasers to allow one underwater vehicle to communicate with another. BLOS communications can also be accomplished without using satellites. Alternative method include tropospheric scatter using microwave radiation, high frequency (HF) wireless, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) relays, and passive reflector systems. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/pentagon-seeks-new-satcom-tech-for-fully-networked-c3

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  August 1, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  India to spend $1 billion on advanced air defense system from US

  By: Vivek Raghuvanshi NEW DELHI — India has quietly approved a plan to the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System-II through a government-to government deal with United States. The moves comes before September 6 “2+2 dialogue” between defense and foreign ministers of India and United States here to bolster bilateral defense and strategic partnership. The apex defense procurement body, Defense Acquisition Council, headed by Defense Minister Nirmarla Sitaraman, has approved the buy of hte NASAMS-II, manufactured by Kongsberg and Raytheon, at more than $1 billion, a Ministry of Defense official confirmed. The new system will replace India's aging Russian Pechora air defense systems that protect strategic assets and locations, said an Indian air force official. If this program is approved by the U.S., the deal will be expedited through foreign military sales. India is expected to issue the letter of request by end of this year. IAF official noted that NASAMS-II will have to be modified to India specific requirements and will integrated with the service's integrated command & control system. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2018/07/31/india-to-spend-1-billion-on-advanced-air-defense-system-from-us/