December 13, 2019 | International, Naval
November 12, 2019 - The General Directorate for Armament and Material (DGAM) and the naval shipyard Navantia have selected Thales technologies for the Spanish Navy's five new multi-mission frigates. The vessels' anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability, based on two world-class sonars, the CAPTAS 4 Compact and the BlueMaster, and the BlueScan digital acoustic system, will be integrated through Navantia Combat Management System SCOMBA F110 and will enable the service to conduct maritime surveillance, search and protection missions in any theatre of operations.
To protect their maritime territory and security interests around the world, States need to counter all types of threats in any environment or theatre of operations. Naval forces need reliable, high-performance systems to assert national sovereignty and accomplish their ASW missions with optimum effect. The choice of Thales technologies, which have been extensively proven in service with navies around the world, provides the highest levels of protection available today.
BlueScan is a collaborative ASW solution that processes significantly higher volumes of sonar data from various different platforms to provide the operator with a complete overview of the acoustic situation in real time. The solution leverages Big Data analytics and artificial intelligence technologies to bring naval forces a tactical advantage.
Under this contract, key underwater acoustics technology will be transferred to Spanish industry, in particular for the supply of the TUUM-6 digital underwater communication system and acoustic arrays.
“After two years of talks with the Spanish Navy and Navantia about this contract to equip five F110 frigates, we welcome Spain's decision to join other NATO countries (the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Norway) and Australia in placing their trust in Thales for their anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities. To help their naval forces conduct their missions in today's heightened underwater threat environment, Thales has invested for many years in Australia, France and the United Kingdom to develop a unique set of digital sonar data processing and analytics technologies. Given the complexity of the underwater environment and the level of sophistication of the adversary, digitalisation and data fusion techniques are the only effective way to counter undersea threats in the 21st century. With our Spanish partners, and with Navantia in particular, we are very pleased to have the opportunity to strengthen our cooperation on this programme, in which local industry will play a significant role in producing, integrating and maintaining the systems alongside the Spanish Navy." Alexis Morel, Vice President, Underwater Systems, Thales
• Thales sonars and acoustic systems will provide the Spanish Navy's five F110 frigates with a latest-generation anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability.
• The key components of the integrated suite are the BlueMaster (UMS 4110) and CAPTAS 4 Compact sonars, the TUUM-6 underwater communication system, and the BlueScan digital acoustic system already in service with other European navies.
• Spanish industry partners will supply some of the high-tech equipment under a decisive transfer of technology programme put in place by Thales.
View source version on Thales: https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/group/press-release/thales-integrated-sonar-suite-selected-spanish-navys-new-multi-mission-frigates
October 26, 2022 | International, Aerospace
A Brétigny-sur-Orge, les entreprises Thales et CS Group se sont associées pour créer le système PARADE, et lutter contre la menace émergente des drones
September 18, 2019 | International, Aerospace
By: Aaron Mehta NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — It's been a rough stretch for the U.S. Air Force's fleet of 62 B-1B Lancer bombers, with a pair of fleet shutdowns over safety concerns and the confirmation of plans to start retiring the plane as the new B-21 comes online, even as the much older B-52 remains in service. But speaking at the Air Force Association's annual conference Monday, Gen. Timothy Ray, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command, seemed to throw his support behind keeping the B-1 around for quite some time. In fact, in Ray's mind, the B-1′s capabilities might expand. Several times throughout the speech, Ray emphasized that while the B-21 is slowly spinning up, he can't afford to lose any capability. Indeed, Ray seemed to posture toward keeping the B-1 over the long term, according to John Venable, a senior defense fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former F-16 command pilot. “One of the major takeaways [from the speech] is that the B-1 is not going to go away nearly as soon as people thought,” Venable said, “and that's a good thing.” Under the Air Force's stated goal of 386 squadrons, the service's force mix requirement is about 225 bombers. The service currently has 156, Ray said, and even with the B-21 coming online sometime in the 2020s, planned retirements to the B-1 and B-2 would keep the bomber force under 200. Ray's belief in the B-1 spans from two broad assessments. First, freed from the heavy workload of B-1s performing regular close-air support activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fleet will experience less wear and tear, and hence survive longer than projected. “We're just flying the airplane in a way we shouldn't have been flying it, and we did for far too long. The good news is we're resetting that entire team,” Ray said. “What we thought was a very sizable load of structural issues” ended up being a “fraction” of issues to deal with, he added. Those structural issues have become particularly visible in the last 16 months, with the entire B-1 fleet grounded twice for mechanical issues. In June 2018, the fleet was grounded for two weeks following the discovery of an issue with the Lancer's ejection seat; in March 2019, another ejection seat issue grounded the fleet for almost a month. Members of Congress have since expressed serious concerns about the B-1's readiness rates, a number that was just more than 50 percent in 2018. Ray expressed optimism about the mechanical issues, saying that any fallout from the ejection seat shutdowns will be completed by the end of October, which is “must faster” than the service predicted. The second reason Ray believes there's still life in the B-1? The idea that there are modifications to the Lancer that would add new capabilities relevant in an era of great power competition. In August, the Air Force held a demonstration of how the B-1 could be modified to incorporate four to eight new hypersonic weapons by shifting the bulkhead forward from a bomb bay on the aircraft, increasing the size inside the plane from 180 inches to 269 inches. That change allows the loading of a Conventional Rotary Launcher, the same system used inside the B-52, onto the B-1. According to an Air Force release, first reported by Military.com, the bulkhead change is temporary, giving the B-1 flexibility based on its mission. Overall, the internal bay could be expanded from 24 to 40 weapons, per the service. In addition, the testers proved new racks could be attached to hardpoints on the wings. “The conversation we're having now is how we take that bomb bay [and] put four potentially eight large hypersonic weapons on there,” Ray said. “Certainly, the ability to put more JASSM-ER [Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range] or LRASM [Long Range Anti-Ship Missile] externally on the hardpoints as we open those up. So there's a lot more we can do.” Said Venable: “I think it's a great idea. Increasing our bomber force end strength, we're not going to get there just by buying B-21[s] and retiring the B-1s.” “Adding a new rotary [launcher that] he was talking about, just behind the bulkhead of the cockpit of the B-1, freeing up the pylons to actually manifest more longer-range weapons and give it a greater penetrating strike capability — those are great takeaways from this particular event,” the analyst added. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/air-force-association/2019/09/17/global-strike-head-makes-case-of-b-1-survival/
September 6, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR
By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON — A Trump administration official wants to create a “safe space” for international defense-industrial base cooperation. As China's military modernization strategy bridges its civil-military divide and the U.S. National Defense Strategy emphasizes the American industrial base, the Pentagon must protect and encourage America's international partnerships, according to Eric Chewning, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial policy. “As China articulates a civil-military fusion doctrine where they are intentionally blurring the lines between their developments on the military side and the commercial side, we need to work with our allies to create a safe space where we can work collaboratively to do that,” Chewning said Wednesday at the Defense News Conference. Chewning's comments came as the Trump administration's defense-industrial base review has been delayed for months, but after the administration has streamlined conventional arms and drone export policies, in part to boost the American defense sector. The Pentagon's acquisitions and sustainment arm maintains bilateral conversations with 35 nations on industrial collaboration, providing a forum to work together in the context of the U.S. strategy's emphasis on great power competition with Russia and China. The Pentagon could scale up a handful of pilot programs tied to the 2017 expansion of the national technology and industrial base to include the U.K. and Australia, Chewning said. But the challenge is to create other avenues for countries outside that core group, like Israel. “We have different constructs that apply to different allies, and we're trying to figure out what the right tools is,” Chewning added. Sharing information and technology is easier said than done. As the U.S. pursues space and cyber capabilities, classification levels are trending higher, potentially hindering the effort, the Danish Embassy's minister-counselor for defense, Peter Michael Nielsen, told conference attendees. “We do need to see a need to continue sharing technology and information,” Nielsen said. “We also have problems in defense, to get the meetings, to get the information.” The Trump administration's “America First” emphasis is creating questions and concerns among allies, in that it also emphasizes “Buy America” provisions that penalize them, panelists said. “We have a strong concern. We are exempted, and if that changed it would be huge," Nielsen said. Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/smr/defense-news-conference/2018/09/05/trump-dod-official-wants-safe-space-for-defense-industrial-base-cooperation