UK teams with McLaren Formula 1 racers with eye on electrifying fleet

On the same subject

• 

  January 27, 2021 | International, Land

  NATO customer awards Rheinmetall multimillion-euro contract for artillery ammunition and propelling charges

  January 25, 2021 - A NATO customer has awarded Rheinmetall an order for modern artillery ammunition. The Group's South African subsidiary, Rheinmetall Denel Munition (Pty) Ltd., will supply several thousand conventional and extended-range artillery shells of the Assegai family (Base Bleed and V-LAP) as well as M92 Assegai tactical modular charges. Delivery commenced in December 2020 and is to be complete by May 2021. The order is worth around €25 million. Manufactured by Rheinmetall Denel Munition, the tactical modular charges of the Assegai Series are intended to propel artillery shells from 155mm gun systems. The charge system is fine-tuned to the customer's specific weapon systems and artillery shells for maximum effectiveness. Their modular design simplifies logistics and makes handling in self-propelled artillery systems easier. They also offer other advantages: Assegai charges reduce barrel wear (RDM's Barrel Wear Reducer/BWR) and produce lower muzzle flash (RDM's Muzzle Flash Reducer/MFR); the former results in longer barrel life, the latter makes the artillery system harder for the enemy to detect. “Thanks to our current product portfolio and new products in the development pipeline, we want to offer customers the full range of possibilities for indirect fire support and maintain our lead in artillery ammunition technology. This applies especially to our new developments in artillery projectiles, which we aim to meet our goal of attaining ranges of over 155 kilometres with. In addition, Rheinmetall Denel Munition is eager to support the troops with our new uni-modular charges, which achieve better performance and simplify the logistics, especially in gun systems with automatic loading,” says Jan-Patrick Helmsen, Rheinmetall Denel Munition's CEO. Rheinmetall and its South African unit Rheinmetall Denel Munition possess proven expertise in advanced indirect fire systems. At a test fire event held at the Alkantpan test range in South Africa in 2019, Rheinmetall and Rheinmetall Denel Munition achieved several new range records for indirect artillery fire with various guns, attaining maximum ranges of up to 76 kilometres. This display of technological achievement and capability sparked the interest of artillery users across the globe. Rheinmetall Denel Munition has embarked on a phased development approach, including the continuous improvement in range capability of artillery ammunition. The range demonstration showed the potential of the first phase and reinforces Rheinmetall Denel Munition's goal of meeting a user-specified range requirement of more than 155 km. About Rheinmetall Denel Munition The South African company Rheinmetall Denel Munition (Pty) Ltd is a cutting-edge maker of ammunition and explosive products, supplying military and civil users in numerous countries around the globe. Rheinmetall Denel Munition is a joint venture co-owned by Rheinmetall (51%) and Denel SOC Ltd of South Africa (49%). RHEINMETALL AG Corporate Sector Defence Press and Information Oliver Hoffmann Rheinmetall Platz 1 40476 Düsseldorf Germany Phone: +49 211 473-4748 Fax: +49 211 473-4157 View source version on Rheinmetall Denel Munition (Pty) Ltd: https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/rheinmetall_ag/press/news/latest_news/index_22656.php

• 

  July 16, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Japan highlights F-35 acquisition, military ops amid pandemic in new whitepaper

  By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia — In its latest whitepaper, Japan has discussed its impending acquisition of F-35B fighter jets and highlighted efforts by regional militaries to expand their influence and activities despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The full document, released July 14 in Japanese, contains a section on the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing variant of the Lockheed Martin aircraft, noting that with regional countries making “remarkable progress” in air power modernization, the country needed to respond in kind.. The whitepaper highlighted the operational flexibility of the F-35B, noting the jet's ability to operate without the need for long runways, which would enable the Japan Air Self-Defense Force to significantly expand the number of locations from whence the service can conduct air superiority operations. The whitepaper noted there are currently 20 airports and air bases throughout Japan that have runways sufficiently long enough to support JASDF air superiority operations. Operating the F-35B would theoretically allow the JASDF to expand that number to 45, which would include some of the runways on Japan's far-flung southern islands. Japan has plans to eventually acquire 42 F-35Bs to operate alongside its planned fleet of 105 conventional-takeoff-and-landing F-35As, making it the top customer of the F-35 outside the United States. The 42 F-35Bs include 18 to be contracted over the next five years, with Japan setting aside approximately $795 million in its current defense budget to acquire six. It is also converting the helicopter destroyer Izumo, which has a 245-meter flight deck and was originally designed to carry helicopters primarily for anti-submarine warfare, to operate the F-35B. The air defense challenge facing the JASDF was also highlighted in April this year, when the Ministry of Defense said the service scrambled its fighters a total of 947 times over the past year to intercept and monitor foreign military aircraft operating in the country's air defense identification zone. Chinese aircraft accounted for 675 intercepts, and Russian aircraft Russian made up 268. (The remaining four were not identified.) The whitepaper also noted a continuing pattern of operations conducted by military vessels and aircraft primarily from China and, to a lesser degree, Russia in the waters and airspace surrounding Japan. The government pledged to continue to closely monitor such activities. It also noted that such activities have continued despite the COVID-19 pandemic, warning that a prolonged global pandemic “may exert various impacts on countries' military capability.” The government added that another potential effect of the pandemic was the likelihood that it may “expose and intensify strategic competition among countries intending to create international and regional orders more preferable to themselves and to expand their influence.” The whitepaper also accused China of spreading disinformation “amid growing social uncertainties and confusion due to the spread of infection.” https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/07/15/japan-highlights-f-35-acquisition-military-ops-amid-pandemic-in-new-whitepaper/

• 

  November 11, 2022 | International, C4ISR

  The human touch: ‘Artificial General Intelligence’ is next phase of AI

  AGI is the ability of an intelligent agent to understand or learn any intellectual task in the same way that humans do.