December 12, 2022 | International, Naval, C4ISR
Thales’s MTWAN operates at the critical core of the RAN’s maritime communication systems integration and implementation
April 14, 2022 | International, Aerospace
As government and commercial customers push for more hybrid, resilient satellite constellations, companies are expanding their production capacity and diversifying their products to respond to those needs.
January 18, 2021 | International, Aerospace
Greek lawmakers have approved a $14 billion five-year military modernization plan including purchase of Rafale jets, first of which it would receive around mid-2021. Athens is expected to sign the $3.04 billion deal for Rafale jets with French manufacturer Dassault Aviation later this month. It would cover delivery of 12 jets previously used by the French Air Force and 6 new ones. A dozen of the ordered fighters for the Hellenic Air Force would reportedly be upgraded to the latest F3R standard featuring Talios (TArgeting Long-range Identification Optronic System) new-generation laser designator pod. First of the ordered jets would arrive in the country in the first half of this year while the remaining will be delivered over the next two years. In September, a team from French MBDA reportedly went to Greece to discuss the supply of missiles and other munitions for the Rafales. The fighter can be armed with state-of-the-art missiles such as Meteor, Mica NG and SCALP. The introduction of the fully equipped Rafale would help the Greek air force to confront Turkey's air and naval force that is protecting its hydrocarbon prospecting vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean. Under its modernization plan, Greece wants to buy new helicopters, drones, frigates and upgrade its existing F-16 fighters. https://www.defenseworld.net/news/28779#.YAXP--hKiUk
June 21, 2019 | International, Naval
BY C. TODD LOPEZ Rebuilding "strategic momentum" and growing advantages in the maritime domain are challenges Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson addressed in "A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, Version 2.0," which updated a 2016 document. At an annual meeting of the American Society of Naval Engineers today in Washington, Richardson said meeting those challenges is a "human problem" that must be met, in part by naval engineers. His plan for how the Navy will maintain maritime superiority relies in part on three aspects of agility. "With the joint force, we will restore agility — conceptual, geographic, and technological — to impose cost[s] on our adversaries across the competition-conflict spectrum," the report reads. For engineers, Richardson focused on their contribution to technological agility. "The technological landscape is changing so fast across all of technology," Richardson said. "It's really fueled by this information revolution that we are in the middle of right now. And so as we think about the Navy as a learning engine in and of itself, restoring these technical agilities is really important. We do need to move at pace." For comparison, the admiral referred back to Dec. 8, 1941 — a day after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. It was then, Richardson said, that the Navy began a quick transition from battleship-based tactics to aircraft carriers and aerial battles. He said the switch in strategy wasn't a surprise for the Navy, because it had been researching and engineering for that possibility for years. "We had been 20 years into naval aviation," he said. "This was not just something that we did as a pickup team on Dec. 8. We had been putting investments in with folks like [Joseph] Reeves and [William] Moffett and all those pioneers of naval aviation. We had evidence. A lot of experimentation, a lot of engineering that had gone into that." Now, Richardson said, the Navy must again have that kind of experimentation, engineering and prototyping to ready it for the next conflict — and it must get on that mission quickly to stay ahead of adversaries. "We do not want to be the second navy on the water with these decisive technologies: the directed energy, unmanned, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc., you name it," he said. "That's the great challenge now: to get out, start prototyping, get at this pace, plus evidence ... to yield a relevant Navy that is ready to defend America from attack and protect our interests around the world." The admiral said that a knee-jerk reaction might be to cite Defense Department acquisition regulations, like DOD 5000, for inhibiting the type of rapid development, engineering and research he thinks will be needed to maintain maritime dominance. But he said that's not entirely correct. "I think a new set of rules would help," he said. "But this is, I think, a human problem at the end of the day. If we are all biased for action, if we all lean into this, we will get it done. There is nothing that will prohibit us or inhibit us from getting that done if we are all leaning in." https://www.defense.gov/explore/story/Article/1882567/naval-engineers-must-lean-in-to-advance-technological-agility/