Ukraine plans to spend $540 million on drones this year

On the same subject

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  March 26, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Land

  Deux candidats encore en lice pour l'achat de la défense sol-air

  Berne (awp/ats) - Deux systèmes de défense sol-air de longue portée sont encore dans la course pour le renouvellement de la défense de l'armée suisse. Le consortium français Eurosam et la société américaine Raytheon ont transmis leurs offres. Israël a renoncé. La soumission de cette première offre marque le début de la phase d'analyse et d'essais, a indiqué armasuisse lundi. Un deuxième appel d'offres aura lieu dans le courant de l'hiver prochain. Des spécialistes du Département fédéral de la défense vont analyser les offres des fabricants en évaluant l'efficacité des différents systèmes et en testant la performance du radar. Aucun essai de tir ne sera effectué. Ces analyses donneront lieu à des rapports individuels. Les candidats ne seront comparés qu'ensuite. Suivra un deuxième appel d'offres. Le Conseil fédéral tranchera. La surface à couvrir par la défense sol-air doit être de 15'000 km2 au moins. Le système doit atteindre une altitude d'engagement de plus de 12'000 m et une portée supérieure à 50 km. Il n'est pas nécessaire de disposer d'une capacité de défense contre des missiles balistiques. Le renouvellement des moyens de défense sol-air de longue portée fait partie du programme d'achat de la nouvelle flotte d'avions de combat de l'armée suisse. La facture totale se monte à 8 milliards de francs suisses. Cinq appareils sont évalués pour remplacer les Tiger et les F/A-18 de l'armée: le Gripen E suédois (Saab), le Rafale français (Dassault), l'européen Eurofighter (Airbus), ainsi que les américains Super Hornet de Boeing et le F-35A de Lockheed-Martin. https://www.zonebourse.com/SAAB-6491624/actualite/Deux-candidats-encore-en-lice-pour-l-achat-de-la-defense-sol-air-28231928/

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  October 22, 2020 | International, Naval

  US and UK navies prepare to sign agreement to merge future tech work

  David B. Larter and Andrew Chuter WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy and British Royal Navy are preparing to more closely align their futures in a whole host of warfare areas, the U.S. chief of naval operations announced Tuesday. The U.S. Navy's chief of naval operations and First Sea Lord Adm. Tony Radakin intend to “sign a future integrated warfighting statement of intent that sets a cooperative vision for interchangeablty,” CNO Adm. Mike Gilday announced at the virtual Atlantic Future Forum, being held on board the RN's new aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth. “We will synchronize pioneering capabilities, strengthen operating concepts and focus our collective efforts to deliver combined sea power together. By organizing our cooperation on carrier strike, underwater superiority, navy and marine integration and doubling down on future war fighting like unmanned and artificial intelligence, we will remain on the leading edge of great power competition.” It is unclear what the specifics of the statement of intent will be, but the U.S. and Royal navies have been focusing heavily in recent years on aligning its capabilities to be useful to each other in combined maritime operations. The message from both navies is that this will continue into the future. Throughout the Royal Navy's effort to get the Queen Elizabeth ready for deployment, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have been working closely with the service, training British pilots on the F-35B and getting the ship certified to operate them. The Marine Corps' Fighter Attack Squadron 211 embarked on Queen Elizabeth earlier this month during the ship's group exercise ahead of a deployment next year. The Marines will also mix in with Royal Air Force F-35Bs during the QE's 2021 deployment. In remarks at the forum, Radkin echoed Gilday's remarks, saying the two forces needed to continue to work to align efforts. “Throughout our careers we have had a drive for interoperability with allies,” Radkin said. "But increasingly it feels to us that bar has to be raised. ... The obvious example is the U.S. Marine jets on board the QE carrier. That is an obvious example of interchangeability. “So, we are trying to drive a new standard. Partly to drive all of us to strengthen our interoperability but to go even higher and recognize that interchangeability is going to be an even stronger feature in the future.” Radkin said the services would focus on four areas to grow this “interchangeability”: undersea warfare; carrier operations; aligning the efforts of the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy to become a cohesive fighting unit; and on advanced warfighting programs such as artificial intelligence and cyber. The United Kingdom is in the middle of an integrated defense review, initiated after Boris Johnson was elected prime minster. It was interrupted during the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak but appears to be running again. The review could have sweeping impacts on the British defense budget, but it is unclear where the budget ax will fall. When the review was announced, however, the government promised a “radical reassessment” of Britain's place in the world. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/10/20/the-us-and-uk-navies-prepare-to-sign-agreement-to-merge-their-tech-futures/

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  November 17, 2022 | International, C4ISR

  Accrete wins contract from Pentagon for AI threat detection software

  Argus uses artificial intelligence to read, understand and learn from unstructured data to spot bad actors.