December 31, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Land

Russia says its new weapon is 27 times faster than the speed of sound

By: Vladimir Isachenkov, The Associated Press

MOSCOW — Russia's new strategic weapon has rendered any missile defenses useless at a small fraction of their cost, officials said Thursday.

The Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle flies 27 times faster than the speed of sound, making it impossible to intercept, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told Russian state television.

The new weapon “essentially makes missile defenses useless,” he said.

Borisov spoke a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw what he described as the conclusive successful test of the Avangard and hailed it as a reliable guarantee of Russia's security for decades to come.

In Wednesday's test, the weapon was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Ural Mountains. The Kremlin said it successfully hit a practice target on the Kura shooting range on Kamchatka, 3,700 miles away.

The Defense Ministry released footage from the test launch, in which a ballistic missile could be seen blasting from a silo in a cloud of smoke, but it hasn't released any images of the vehicle itself.

Putin said the Avangard will enter service with the Russian Strategic Missile Forces next year.

The test comes amid bitter tensions in Russia-U.S. relations, which have been strained over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the allegations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Sergei Ivanov, a former Russian defense minister, said in televised comments that the Avangard constantly changes its course and altitude as it flies through the atmosphere.

He emphasized that unlike previous nuclear warheads fitted to intercontinental ballistic missiles that follow a predictable trajectory allowing it to calculate the spot where they can be intercepted, the Avangard chaotically zigzags on its path to its target, making it impossible to predict the weapon's location.

A smiling Ivanov likened the weapon's flight through the atmosphere to a pebble skipping off the surface of water.

Ivanov, who now serves as Putin's adviser, said the Avangard could be fitted to the Soviet-made UR-100UTTKh intercontinental ballistic missile, which is code-named SS-19 Stiletto by NATO.

He noted that Russia has a stockpile of several dozen such missiles, which are in a factory-mint condition and not filled with fuel, allowing them to serve for a long time to come. Ivanov added that they could be put in existing silos, sharply reducing the costs of Avangard's deployment.

"The Avangard has cost hundreds of times less than what the U.S. has spent on its missile defense," Ivanov said.

He noted that Russia began to develop the Avangard after the U.S. started to develop defenses against ballistic missiles.

Moscow feared that the U.S. missile shield could erode its nuclear deterrent, and Putin announced in 2004 that Russia was working on a new hypersonic weapon.

Ivanov recalled that when Russian officials warned their U.S. counterparts about the new weapon program at the time, American officials were openly skeptical about Russia's ability to carry out its plan.

“We aren't involved in saber-rattling, we simply ensured our security for decades to come,” he said.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/27/russia-says-its-new-weapon-is-27-times-faster-than-the-speed-of-sound

On the same subject

June 25, 2020 | International, Aerospace

Congress has questions about the Air Force’s and Navy’s next-generation fighter programs
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The House Armed Services Committee wants to limit the amount of money the Air Force and Navy get for their respective sixth-generation fighter programs until it gets some answers. The Navy and Air Force are leading separate efforts to develop a follow-on fighter jet to the F-35, with both services calling their programs “Next Generation Air Dominance.” Both projects are in the early stages of development, with the services hoping to ramp up activities this year. But HASC intends to fence off 85 percent of the fiscal 2021 funding requested for the NGAD until the committee receives an independent review performed by the Pentagon's director of cost assessment and program evaluation, according to the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee's markup of the FY21 defense policy bill. A committee aide told reporters on Monday that the stipulations are “nothing out of the ordinary” and are meant to allow lawmakers to gain further insight into the programs, not to permanently strip funding from the efforts. “When they field their capabilities, we just want to make sure that they've thought them through, that the department has determined that they are affordable and that anything else that is already in the budget into the future that's high priority as well is not going to get pushed out unintentionally if they have unexpected cost growth or run into problematic issues when they field the capabilities,” the aide said. How's the Air Force effort going? Earlier this month, Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper said the service is on track to finalize a business case for its NGAD program this summer. The Air Force envisions NGAD as a family of systems that could include aircraft, drones and other advanced technologies. But when it comes to developing new advanced aircraft, Roper wants to pursue a new strategy he calls the “Digital Century Series” that would have multiple companies continuously developing new jets and competing against each other for small-batch contracts. The business case, which is being put together by the program executive office for advanced aircraft, will explore whether the Digital Century Series idea is technically feasible, how the development and procurement process should be structured, and whether it would be cheaper than traditional contracting methods. “That is going to really help us, I hope, because we'll show that data and argue that it is not just better from a ‘competing with China and lethality' standpoint. It's just better from a business standpoint,” Roper said. “If it breaks even or is less [than traditional methods], I will be exceptionally happy. If it's more expensive — and I hope not exceptionally more — then we're going to have to argue” on behalf of the program. The Air Force has asked for $1 billion for its NGAD program for FY21. It received $905 million for the program in FY20. How's the Navy's effort faring? The Navy's NGAD program, also known as F/A-XX, is more mysterious. In its FY21 budget rollout this year, the service announced it would curtail its Super Hornet buy, purchasing a final 24 F/A-18E/Fs and then using the savings from a planned 36 jet buy from FY22 to FY24 to invest in its own future fighter. Little is known about the Navy's requirements. The service completed an analysis of alternatives in June 2019, as well as broad requirements and guidance for a concept of operations. The effort is now in the concept development phase, during which defense companies explore ideas “that balance advanced air dominance capabilities and long-term affordability/sustainment,” Navy spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez told Defense News earlier this month. Congress has signaled that it may not be willing to allow the Navy to stop buying Super Hornets in future years. HASC inserted language into the FY21 defense policy bill urging the Navy to continue buying new Super Hornets, warning the service that next-generation fighter procurement does not always proceed according to plans. “The committee recalls the Navy curtailed F/A-18 procurement approximately 10 years ago with aspirational goals to maintain strike-fighter inventory levels with planned procurement of F-35C,” the committee said. “That plan was not realized due to F-35 program execution and subsequently required the Navy to procure additional F/A-18E/F aircraft to reduce operational risk. The committee expects a similar outcome may occur with the Navy's current plan for FA-XX due to affordability and technological challenges.” The bill also directs the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Department's inspector general to provide more information on the operational risk incurred by not buying additional Super Hornets, as well as F/A-18 squadron adherence to maintenance practices. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/06/23/congress-has-questions-about-the-air-force-and-navys-next-generation-fighter-programs/
February 4, 2021 | International, C4ISR, Security

Qatari research center chooses Leonardo for cyber range
Agnes Helou BEIRUT — A Qatari cyber research center has selected Leonardo to provide a cyber range and training system to support security operations, the Italian firm announced Feb. 3. The Qatar Computing Research Institute, or QCRI, was established by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. The training platform ordered by the QCRI is capable of simulating cyberattacks so users can assess the resilience of digital infrastructure. “The training is completely to be performed in Qatar, and it is expected, through an approach oriented to ‘train the trainers,' to provide courses to a significant number of operators involved in the cybersecurity framework,” Tommaso Profeta, managing director of Leonardo's Cyber Security Division, told Defense News. He noted that training and exercise scenarios can be customized using a drag-and-drop graphical interface. The platform can also analyze and classify the results of simulated attacks based on data collected during real-world offensive campaigns. Scenarios can be used for individual training or classroom experiences, and they provide practice for security operations centers and incident response activities. This training tool “will allow the QCRI to deliver a complete cyber training process, from the design of the learning path to specific training sessions. Users will be able to practice their skills in simulated attack and defense scenarios, employing both information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT). The training will produce qualified teams of operators equipped with up-to-date knowledge and techniques, ready to face ever-evolving cyber threats,” according to a company statement. “The best cyber training/testing environments are in theory real production systems. But in practice for such environments, institutions, enterprises and organizations cannot easily experience critical situations without paying high, sometime unaffordable prices,” Profeta said. “Training and testing are therefore the two essential, human-driven processes that can effectively support the overall cyber ‘protection' loop, but only if they can cope with real threats and highly realistic systems in highly realistic situations.” Cyber ranges provide a controlled environment where cybersecurity experts can practice their technical and soft skills in emulated complex networks and infrastructures to learn how to respond to real-world cyberattacks. In these environments, cyber tools can be stressed to reveal their limits and vulnerabilities before deployment into cyberspace. Leonardo's platform challenges such assets and provides digital twin environments for predeployment testing. Asked whether other Gulf countries have expressed interest in this training system, Profeta said it “has already been presented to other high-level Middle East stakeholders, and a significant level of interest has been registered for the platform.” What scenarios are available? Those using the cyber range will try to defend against simulated but realistic cyberattacks. According to Profeta, these include: Man-in-the-middle attacks. Botnets. Exploitation of client and server vulnerabilities with lateral movements in search of sensitive data. Distributed denial-of-service attacks (HTTP flooding or domain name system reflection) designed to disrupt connections to a targeted server. Ransomware via multiple vectors, such as spear-phishing via email or drive-by downloads, relying on DNS-based covert channels. Data exfiltration of personally identifiable information and intellectual property. Though it's difficult to measure the potential effectiveness of this platform for Qatar, the company official predicted the system will reduce the cost of and improve the user experience in cyber training. Leonardo also supplies the NATO Computer Incident Response Capability, a cyber defense product. https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2021/02/03/qatari-research-center-chooses-leonardo-for-cyber-range
July 2, 2019 | International, Naval

Three companies awarded $1.8B to support Navy shipbuilding programs
By Allen Cone June 27 (UPI) -- Three companies -- BAE System Technology Solutions and Services Inc., Serco and Scientific Research Corp. -- have been awarded combined contracts by the U.S. Navy worth up to $1.8 billion to support the branch's shipbuilding programs, including communications and computers systems aboard vessels. The initially obligated amount on orders will not exceed $747 million throughout the duration of the awarded contracts, the Defense Department said in an announcement Wednesday. The work will be performed aboard new construction aircraft carriers and large deck amphibious ships, including refueling and complex overhaul ships. The programs require integrated work on integrated command, control, communications, computers and intelligence systems, or C4I. This includes logistics, integration, engineering, procurement, fabrication, assembly, test, inspection, zone integration and installation. The integrated capability comprises distributed systems that provide network capabilities, communications, command and control, intelligence, and non-tactical data. The breakdown is $601.5 million for BAE, $608.2 million for Serco and $599.5 million for Scientific, the Pentagon said. Seventy-three percent of the work will be performed in Newport News, Va., 17 percent in Charleston, S.C. and 10 percent in Pascagoula, Miss. Work is expected to be completed by June 2029. No contract funds have been obligated at the time of award. Each company will receive $50,000 on the first task order under each contract, which won't expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval fiscal 2017 shipbuilding and conversion, fiscal 2019 shipbuilding and conversion, and fiscal 2019 research and development funds will be obligated. https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/06/27/Three-companies-awarded-18B-to-support-Navy-shipbuilding-programs/5311561636928/

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