Ramjet Shells Could Triple Artillery Range

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  January 24, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Change of plans: Seoul decides to start from scratch with helo competition

  By: Jeff Jeong SEOUL — It looked like Italy's aerospace group Leonardo was going to be an easy winner for South Korea's second batch of anti-submarine helicopters. The procurement program would seek 12 more AW-159 “Wildcat” helicopters, with no other competitors for the $840 million program. But the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, or DAPA, threw a curveball, deciding to accept a U.S. proposal for alternate option and to begin the competitive bidding process from the scratch. The plan for the maritime operational helicopter, or MOH, was originally to sign a direct commercial deal with a foreign helicopter maker, with three bidders — Leonardo, Lockheed Martin and NH Industries — showing interest. The two latter contenders failed to submit their proposals by the Oct. 31 deadline, leaving Leonardo seemingly as the only remaining bidder. According to sources from DAPA, however, the U.S. government in November sent a letter of price and availability of Lockheed Martin's MH-60R Seahawk, causing South Korea's arms procurement officials o rethink the acquisition approach. “We've decided to consider the U.S. FMS option,” DAPA spokesman Park Jung-eun told Defense News. “We're going to weigh in on both options of commercial and FMS contracts.” As dictated by acquisition regulation, two successive failed biddings mean that the agency can make a private contract with a sole bidder, but that's not mandatory. The agency is expected to issue a renewed request for proposals as early as March, according to DAPA officials. Leonardo would be a direct buy, while the Sikorsky bid would be a foreign military sale. Leonardo said in a statement that it would still pursue the South Korean naval helicopter program “in a fair and transparent manner.” A Leonardo spokesman said the AW-159 is optimized for the Korean theater of operations, pointing to an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for detecting North Korea's coastal weapon system and a missile firing range that is more than three times longer than Seahawk. “We do not really know about the details of the U.S. Navy's latest proposal,” a Lockheed Martin communications official said, declining to elaborate. “After an RFP is issued, we could be able to discuss with the service.” Pundits here expressed different reactions to the renewed MOH bidding process. Shin In-kyun, head of Korea Defense Network, a Seoul-based private defense think tank, said it's a better opportunity to acquire state-of-the-art naval helicopters with better performances. “The Seahawk is estimated to be more expensive by 20 to 30 percent than the Wildcat, but the former has performances about two times better than the latter,” said Shin. “The unit price of the MH-60R could be lowered through the FMS, as the U.S. and Indian Navies are also said to be procuring more than 40 MH-60Rs.” Shin Jong-woo, a senior analyst at the Korea Defense & Security Forum, said an FMS deal may not guarantee economic benefit for South Korea. “You give up offset programs should an FMS deal be made,” he said. “I'm not really sure how much the unit cost of the MH-60R could be lowered. If lowered, we may have to lose some optional functions of the helicopter.” Moreover, a possible MH-60R selection will bring more work to change the designs of warships, he added. “The Navy's existing warships, including the KDX-III Aegis destroyer, are not able to accommodate the MH-60R, so it's inevitable to change the design should the American helicopter be chosen.” The South Korean Navy currently operates eight AW-159s acquired under a 2012 deal. The helicopters fly missions aboard KDX-series destroyers and Incheon-class guided-missile frigates. The service plans to commission at least 12 more new frigates fitted with a flight deck and a hangar that can accommodate one Lynx helicopter. https://www.defensenews.com/2019/01/23/change-of-plans-seoul-decides-to-start-from-scratch-with-helo-competition

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  June 8, 2020 | International, Land

  U.S. Army Flickr Page Inadvertently Reveals New Hypersonic Weapon Concept

  Steve Trimble A new hypersonic weapon concept has emerged inadvertently on a social media page managed by U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy that describes a Mach 5-plus projectile with the ability to penetrate into defended airspace and dispense a multi-role loitering air system over a target area. The concept—labeled as the Vintage Racer Loitering Weapon System—reveals a solution to an operational problem for the Army: When high-speed munitions, such as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), enter service with the ability to strike targets thousands of kilometers away, how will the Army find the most elusive targets, such as road-mobile launchers for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) or radars for air defense batteries? The Vintage Racer concept, as revealed so far, suggests it may be possible to launch a hypersonic projectile into a general area without knowing the specific location of the target. As it reaches the target area, the projectile may be able to dispense a loitering air system, which is then uses its own sensors to find and identify the target. If the loitering system also carries a warhead, it may be able to strike the target by itself or transmit the target coordinates to another weapon. Once the existence of the Vintage Racer concept appeared, a Russian expert on military-political affairs noted such an idea has been discussed as a possibility within the hypersonic weapon community. “The fear is that [this] hypersonic ‘something' might reach the patrol area of road-mobile ICBM launchers [after] penetrating any possible air and missile defense, and then dispense loitering submunitions that will find launchers in the forests,” said Dmitry Stefanovitch, an expert at the Moscow-based Russian International Affairs Council. Only the broadest information about the Vintage Racer weapon is visible on the briefing paper describing the concept. The image appears in an album of photos from the Association of the U.S. Army convention posted to McCarthy's Flickr account last October. Most of the pictures from the event show McCarthy meeting attendees, giving speeches and receiving informal, standing pitches from industry officials in the exhibit hall. One picture shows McCarthy standing at a table across from an unidentified industry official in the exhibit hall. The table is covered with multiple objects, including a General Atomics press release, what appears to be a model of the LRHW and a rifled barrel of a 155mm artillery gun with a hole burned through the object. The table also is covered with at least four sheets of briefing papers, of which three are not visible. The only visible paper, which is partly obscured by McCarthy's right hand, is headlined “Vintage Racer - Loitering Weapon System (LWS) Overview.” The paper includes six main bullet points, which read “Hypersonic Ingress,” “Survivable,” “Time Over Target,” “Multi-role,” “Modular payload,” and “Cost Imposition Strategy.” Ten sub-bullets are also visible on the page, but the letters are not readable. At the bottom of the page, a tag line highlighted in yellow is partly obscured by McCarthy's hand, but the visible portion reads: “Long Range, Rapid Ingress.” A vague reference to Vintage Racer previously appeared in Defense Department budget justification documents released in February, but went unnoticed. Under a line item owned by the Office of Secretary of Defense for a “quick reaction fund,” Vintage Racer is described as a “recent success story.” “The project successfully validated aerodynamic design with wind tunnel testing and integrated a guidance subsystem for targeted kinetic effects before culminating in a fiscal 2019 flight test. Documentation and prototype technologies transitioned to the U.S. Army for additional development and follow-on acquisition activities,” according to budget documents. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/sensors-electronic-warfare/us-army-flickr-page-inadvertently-reveals-new-hypersonic

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  October 7, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Boeing’s F-18 jet may have a leg up in Germany over Eurofighter

  By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — The race between Boeing's F-18 jet and the Airbus Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to replace Germany's Tornado fighter-bombers has tilted toward the American plane, according to a German media report. That is after German defense officials received information from the Pentagon about the time needed to certify the Eurofighter to carry nuclear weapons, according to an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Getting the Eurofighter approved for that mission would take between three and five years longer than the F-18, which is considered a nuclear weapons-capable aircraft in the U.S. military, the newspaper reported. Germany has kept a subset of its approximately 80-strong Tornado fleet equipped to carry out the NATO nuclear-sharing doctrine. That means in the case of a hypothetical atomic war, German pilots would load their aircraft with U.S. nuclear bombs and drop them on their intended targets at the behest of the alliance. While Germany's nuclear mission periodically comes up as a source of controversy here, previous governments have left it untouched, portraying the largely symbolic assignment as a vital element of trans-Atlantic relations. A spokeswoman for the Defence Ministry in Berlin declined to comment on the SZ report, saying only that American and German defense officials have been in “continuous conversations” on the issue. The government is expected to announce a winner between the F-18 and the Eurofighter Typhoon early next year. In January 2019, defense officials eliminated the F-35 as a candidate, largely because picking an American plane would weaken the case for having such weapons be made by European companies in the future. Such is the case with the Future Combat Air Systems program, led by Airbus and Dassault. Airbus says if Germany chooses the Eurofighter as a Tornado replacement, it would be easier for companies on the continent to transition to an eventual development of the German-Franco-Spanish platform. The German defense minister's visit to Washington last month put the spotlight back on the prospect of an American buy, however. “We want to treat this question jointly,” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters in the U.S. capital on Sept. 23. She added that Germany wants a “gap-less” continuation of the Tornado's capabilities, adding that she envisions a “tight schedule” for the replacement. Airbus, meanwhile, doesn't see the need to rush. With 10 years or so left before ditching the Tornado, the reported nuclear-certification time seems to still fit into the overall replacement schedule, spokesman Florian Taitsch told Defense News. Plus, he argued, it should be expected that, when given a choice, the Trump administration with its “America First” doctrine would be keen to push American-made weapons over European ones. “For us, the situation hasn't changed,” Taitsch said. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/10/04/boeings-f-18-may-have-a-leg-up-in-germany-over-eurofighter/