June 13, 2019 | International, Other Defence
As the U.S. military shifts its focus back to fighting more traditional, near-peer adversaries like Russian or Chinese troops, the services are building out plans to revamp their gear to deal with better-equipped forces backed by money and technology from world powers.
That extends all the way down to the clothing and equipment each of these adversaries could be wearing into battle, including sophisticated body armor.
That's why SOCOM is reportedly looking at replacing its decades-old armor piercing small arms round.
“Snipers in USSOCOM units have a capability gap in their ability to penetrate enemy body armor, small boat engines and concrete barriers,” Crane researchers said in a slide presentation at this year's National Defense Industries Association Armaments Symposium.
The current round uses a discarding sabot the shields a sharpened tungsten penetrator that'll beat most armor and hard targets.
But that round is expensive at more than $10 per cartridge, can damage modern small arms accessories like suppressors and muzzle brakes and doesn't hold zero when switching from a traditional jacketed round to the AP round. That makes it difficult for snipers to go from one round to another and hit their target in the heat of battle.
So researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, are looking at a new way to make the rounds cheaper, easier on snipers' guns and more ballistically consistent with common, jacketed bullets.
Dubbed “aeroshell” projectiles, the Crane engineers want to build and test bullets with a tungsten penetrator jacketed in a polymer shell. Federal Ammunition, a civilian ammo company, makes rounds with similar characteristics dubbed “Syntech."
These rounds are typically used by competitive shooters who shoot many rounds in practice and at matches and want to preserve barrel life and diminish spawl from hitting steel targets.
Crane researchers want to take the same thought process and apply it to a new AP round. The actual penetrator could have a slightly different shape than the current rounds, with more of a traditional bullet profile than today's needle-like AP round penetrator.
Researchers plan to create about 150 rounds of this new aeroshell AP round in .338 Norma Mag, 300 Norma Mag and 6.5 Creedmoor. They plan to test the rounds against representative body armor at 100, 400, 800 and 1,000 meters.
November 30, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Saab will carry out the work with its local support team in South Korea, in cooperation with a team in Gothenburg, Sweden for spare parts supply and back-office support. http://presscentre@saabgroup.com
June 21, 2019 | International, Land, Other Defence
By: Shawn Snow The Corps is gearing up to field its new lightweight body armor plates, designed to be worn in the Corps' low intensity or counterinsurgency style conflicts. On Friday the Defense Department announced the Navy awarded a nearly $216 million contract to Point Blank Enterprises for the purchase of up to 680,706 of the new lightweight plates. Maj. Ken Kunze, a spokesman for Marine Corps Systems Command, told Marine Corps Times that the Corps expects to kick off fielding the new plates during the second quarter of fiscal year 2020 and complete by 2023. The new body armor plates will protect “against the preponderance of likely threats while improving mobility” and will reduce the hard body armor weight burden on Marines by 38 percent, Kunze said. The Corps has been in the hunt for lighter body armor as the force tries to reduce the weight burden and combat load carried by Marines and grunts, which a government watchdog report said can be as high as 117 pounds to 119 pounds. One solution was to field a set a new set of armor plates that would provide commanders flexibility to match body armor with the threat in the region the Marines were operating in. That means Marines don't always need to slap on the nearly 15 poundenhanced small arms protective, or ESAPI plates, while operating in low intensity conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, where a lighter, more mobile armor plate would be sufficient. The heavy ESAPI plates will still be important, especially as the Corps faces down near-peer rivals equipped with better and more capable weapon systems. Nick Pierce, the armor team lead for infantry combat equipment at Marine Corps Systems Command, previously told Marine Corps Times that the Corps was seeking to shave the 15 pound ESAPI plate down to roughly 8.6 pounds for a medium-sized Marine. Marines can shed a total of 8 pounds to 10 pounds from their combat load when the lightweight plate is used in conjunction with the Corps' new Plate Carrier Gen III system, Pierce explained. The Corps is also looking at new polymer based ammunition and a lighter helmet for grunts to help shave the pounds carried by infantry Marines. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2019/06/19/nearly-40-percent-lighter-body-armor-coming-in-2020/
June 1, 2020 | International, Aerospace
June 01, 2020 Aviation Week Network forecasts that annual MRO demand for Western-designed attack helicopters will increase 11.1% during this decade, from $4.2 billion in 2020 to $4.6 billion in 2029. Aviation Week defines attack helicopters as rotary-wing aircraft that are unable to carry cargo internally, are armed with a forward-firing cannon of at least 20mm, and which can carry and self-designate targets for anti-tank guided missiles. Ninety percent of MRO demand in 2020 will be generated by just two helicopter families: the Boeing AH-64 Apache and Bell AH-1 Cobra. The AH-64 will see an 8% increase in its MRO demand over the next 10 years from $2.9 billion to $3.2 billion. Overall, the AH-64 will generate 68.6% of the global MRO demand total. The AH-1's MRO demand will drop 12.3% in the next ten years. Despite the decline, the AH-1 still will generate 18.2% of total attack helicopter MRO. The Airbus Tiger will see the largest decline in MRO demand of any attack helicopter. With no probable future export orders on the horizon and an early retirement by Australia, the Tiger's MRO demand will fall 23.5% from 2020 to 2029. The Leonardo AW129 family of attack helicopters could experience a 22.1% growth in its MRO demand over the forecast if TAI and its T129 derivative manages to hold on to its hard won, but now in danger, export orders by securing a non-US export-restricted engine. Open requirements and competitions will produce over a billion dollars of MRO demand in the next decade, a significant boost to any program. Source: Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) 2020 Military Fleet & MRO Forecast For more information about the 2020 Forecast and other Aviation Week data products, please see: http://pages.aviationweek.com/Forecasts https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/z/aviation-week-forecasts-western-attack-helicopter-mro-family-2020-2029