March 21, 2024 | International, Land
UK teams with McLaren Formula 1 racers with eye on electrifying fleet
On the battlefield, electric vehicles provide more efficient fleets and reduce the need to resupply them with fuel.
July 22, 2020 | International, Naval
WASHINGTON - General Dynamics will continue providing engineering support for the U.S. Navy's Knifefish, an unmanned undersea mine hunter, as the service looks to increase testing and evaluation before entering full-rate production..
The Navy issued a $13.6 million contract modification to General Dynamics for continued engineering support for Knifefish on July 20, just as the original $9.2 million contract issued last July was set to expire. Work is now expected to be completed in September 2021. The contract extension will support test and evaluation, engineering change proposal development and upgrade initiatives.
The Knifefish is a medium-class unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) designed to be deployed from a littoral combat ship to detect bottom, volume and buried mines underwater. The two unmanned vehicles that comprise the Knifefish system use low-frequency broadband sonar and automated target recognition software to find mines and help their host ship steer clear. The program achieved its Milestone C authorization in August 2019, and the Navy issued the company a $44.6 million contract to prime contractor General Dynamics to begin low initial rate production of five Knifefish systems.
The Navy has previously stated that it plans to purchase 30 Knifefish systems in total.
https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2020/07/21/navy-issues-14m-more-for-continued-knifefish-testing/
March 21, 2024 | International, Land
On the battlefield, electric vehicles provide more efficient fleets and reduce the need to resupply them with fuel.
July 16, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Dans une tribune publiée dans le quotidien belge Le Soir et intitulée « L'UE ne peut pas sacrifier son budget de défense commune », des parlementaires nationaux et européens demandent de faire de la sécurité des citoyens et de la défense de l'Union une des priorités de la discussion budgétaire européenne. De précédentes négociations ont en effet conduit à une réduction substantielle, du Fonds européen de Défense (passé de 13 milliards d'euros sur 7 ans selon le projet de la Commission à quelque 6 milliards suite aux premières négociations de l'automne 2019 et à 8 milliards aujourd'hui) et du projet de mobilité militaire (passé de 6,5 milliards sur 7 ans à 1,5 milliard aujourd'hui), rappellent-ils. « La pression sur les dépenses de défense européenne sera cependant encore plus forte demain dans un contexte, où les thèmes de résilience, sécurité sanitaire ou sécurité humaine attireront plus facilement les dépenses publiques. Qu'en sera-t-il alors de notre avenir ? », demandent ces parlementaires. Le Soir du 13 juillet 2020 - Le Monde du 13 juillet 2020
August 7, 2019 | International, Naval
By: David B. Larter and Joe Gould WASHINGTON — The new chief of naval operations, Adm. Michael Gilday, was confirmed quickly by the Senate last week, but lawmakers made clear that the cost and growing vulnerability of aircraft carriers to ever-faster and evasive missiles will be among the issues he's expected to tackle when he officially takes the reins. The Navy's main force projection tool, the carrier, became a punching bag for several lawmakers at Gilday's confirmation hearing, as they alternately raised the threat posed by Chinese and Russian hypersonic missiles and berated the Navy's future top admiral for the significant delays and cost overruns associated with the new carrier Gerald R. Ford. At one point during the July 31 hearing, the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., told Gilday the Navy's arrogance on the carrier “ought to be criminal.” Later on, longtime friend of the Navy Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, warned that hypersonic missiles were a “nightmare weapon” that threatened to make carriers obsolete. And while the lawmakers differed on the future of aircraft carriers and their long-term viability, the hearing left no doubt that Gilday, a career surface warfare officer, has his work cut out for him in proving he can guide the service toward a more stable future for the Navy's most expensive and strategically invaluable assets. To be clear, Inhofe does not oppose carriers, and he has publicly reminded multiple Trump administration officials of the Navy's legal requirement to maintain 11 of them. Inhofe was in the bipartisan chorus of lawmakers who opposed Pentagon plans to cut costs by decommissioning the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman before the administration scuttledthose plans this year. When it comes to the Ford program, Inhofe plans to keep the Navy on a short leash and pressed Gilday to commit that he would work to prevent the kind of widespread “first-in-class” issues that have plagued the Ford. It's an issue with some urgency behind it, as the Navy prepares to tackle the new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine for nuclear deterrent patrols, as well as a next-generation frigate, new classes of unmanned warships and a new large surface combatant. “The Navy entered into this contract in 2008, which, combined with other contracts, have ballooned the cost of the ship more than $13 billion without understanding the technical risks, the costs or the schedules, and you know this ought to be criminal,” Inhofe said. The Navy had taken a gamble integrating immature dual-band radar, catapult, arresting gear and weapons elevators, and Inhofe expressed displeasure with the result. Tackling the first-in-class issue will be a priority, Gilday said. “I commit to that and complete transparency as well as taking what we learn from the Ford and ensuring that we don't commit those same mistakes again in the Columbia class and other ships that we need to field in the next few years,” Gilday told Inhofe. ‘Sitting ducks' As for rising threats to the carrier, King believes hypersonic missiles are an existential threat to the Navy and urged Gilday to take the issue head on. “Every aircraft carrier that we own can disappear in a coordinated attack,” King said. “And it is a matter of minutes. Murmansk, [Russia], to the Norwegian Sea is 12 minutes at 6,000 miles an hour. “So I hope you will take back a sense of urgency to the Navy and to the research capacity and to the private sector that this has to be an urgent priority because otherwise we are creating a vulnerability that could in itself lead to instability.” In an interview with Defense News, King said the speed at which the Russians and Chinese are fielding the capability worries him. “My concern is that we are a number of years away from having that capacity, and our adversaries are within a year of deployment,” he said. “And that creates a dangerous gap, in my view. This represents a qualitative gap in offensive warfare that history tells we better figure out how to deal with, or it will mitigate our ... advantage.” King, who represents the state where half the Navy's destroyers are produced, also said he's concerned about the long-term viability of aircraft carriers in a world with hypersonic missiles. “I think it does raise a question of the role of the aircraft carrier if we cannot figure a way to counter this capability,” he said. “I don't want indefensible, $12 billion sitting ducks out there. I'm not prepared to say the carrier is obsolete, but I say that this weapon undermines the viability of the carrier.” Inhofe, in response to another senator's questions about carrier obsolescence, said he disagrees carriers are becoming obsolete, but that he's concerned about the cost. But the threats to the carrier are mounting, experts say. With the advent of ground-launched hypersonic missiles, it's a matter of time before air-launched hypersonic missiles present a nearly insurmountable threat, barring a significant development to counter them. “I think what King's comments reflect is that he sees the vulnerability of the aircraft carrier only getting worse,” said Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “Specifically, maybe not so much these kind of boost-glide weapons, but its more about cruise missiles that are hypersonic — air-launched perhaps. “Then you are talking about something that is relatively inexpensive and could be delivered in large numbers, and that would be a bigger deal because missile defenses are not necessarily built for hypersonic weapons. “So we'll have to find a way to deal with this new challenge, or we'll have to rethink how we do things.” https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/08/06/with-mounting-questions-about-cost-and-survivability-a-shifting-political-landscape-for-us-aircraft-carriers/