New NDAA amendment would add two more F-15EXs for Air Guard in 2025

On the same subject

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  September 18, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  Netherlands signs letter of acceptance for $1.2 billion Apache helicopter upgrade

  Officials from the Netherlands signed a letter of offer and acceptance to proceed with a $1.2 billion (€878 million) upgrade of the Dutch fleet of AH-64D Apache helicopters with the United States. State Secretary of Defence for the Netherlands, Barbara Visser and U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency Principal Director for Security Assistance Michèle Hizon signed the letter at Gilze-Rijen Air Base on Friday, September 14, the DSCA said. The agreement was first announced in February when the U.S. State Department approved the upgrade of 28 Dutch AH-64D Apache attack helicopters to the AH-64E configuration for an estimated cost of $1.191 billion. The principal contractors are Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The Netherlands received its last Apache delivery in 2002 and the helicopters have become technically and operationally out of date after 20 years of service. The first aircraft will be modernized beginning in 2021 and the first modernized Apaches will be reintroduced to the fleet by mid-2022, according to the U.S. Embassy in the Netherlands. “Reinforcing the armed forces is in full swing. This contract signing is a good example of this. Our operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Mali have demonstrated the importance of Apaches,” Visser said on Friday. With this modernization our Apaches remain the versatile combat helicopters that our armed forces need.” Also on Friday, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the Netherlands would pull its F-16 fighter jets from the Islamic State mission in Iraq and Syria by the end of the year. A handful of Dutch special forces will stay in the country to continue training Iraqi forces, while a further 20 military and civil experts will remain part of NATO's capacity-building mission in Iraq, which focuses “on the strengthening of the Iraqi security sector,” the government said. In June, the Dutch defense ministry said that the Netherlands would end its troop contribution to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali next May. Those troops will be sent to Afghanistan to “extend and intensify” the Dutch contribution to NATO's Resolute Support mission, according to the ministry. https://thedefensepost.com/2018/09/17/netherlands-apache-helicopter-upgrade-letter/

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  July 12, 2023 | International, Aerospace

  Scholz: Germany won't deliver Eurofighters to S.Arabia in near future

  Germany will not deliver Eurofighter combat aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the near future, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday, after a newspaper quoted a government document as linking any such move to an end of the war in Yemen.

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  June 26, 2019 | International, Other Defence

  This wearable Marine tech can boost human performance and track physiological status

  By: Shawn Snow No, it's not going to turn you into Marvel's Iron Man or Captain America, but you might run a better PFT or have fewer fitness-related injuries. The Corps is on the hunt for new wearable gear with biosensing technology that can boost human performance and help build a more lethal battlefield force. On Monday, the Corps posted a request for information to the government's business opportunities website to glean information from industry leaders on available tech to address the Corps' focus on human performance augmentation. The Corps is looking at a number of possibilities from T-shirts, watches, wristbands or chest straps with embedded biosensing technology that can link to and download performance and physiological information to a database. The new biosensing tech will afford battlefield commanders information about the “physiological status and readiness” of Marines, according to the RFI. The new tech will also help commanders to "tailor conditioning and operational training in order to minimize injuries and optimize strength building and overall operational performance,” the posting reads. But with any new tech — especially gear that can track, collect, store and upload data — comes with various operational security, or OPSEC, concerns. In August 2018, the Defense Department banned the use of Fitbits and other fitness tracking devices for troops deployed overseas following data firm Strava's posting of a heat map that revealed the location and details of a number of U.S. bases and military outposts. “The rapidly evolving market of devices, applications and services with geolocation capabilities presents a significant risk to the Department of Defense personnel on and off duty, and to our military operations globally,” then-Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Robert Manning III, said in a command release. Manny Pacheco, a spokesman with Marine Corps Systems Command, told Marine Corps Times that there are “OPSEC concerns with any effort” to procure new gear for Marines and that the Corps will look for “ways to mitigate those concerns.” “In this particular case we are just looking at technologies for potential future use and will address the OPSEC issues as they arise,” Pacheco said about the RFI for the new wearable tech. The Corps listed human performance augmentation as a key focus area headed into 2020. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2019/06/25/this-wearable-marine-tech-can-boost-human-performance-and-track-physiological-status/