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October 22, 2020 | International, Naval

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

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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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  • Soldiers to get a say in light tank competition

    October 15, 2019 | International, Land

    Soldiers to get a say in light tank competition

    By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — Two companies are competing to build the Army's new light tank for Infantry Brigade Combat Teams and, in order to win, their prototypes will be judged by the users themselves. Those tests will be part of an extensive evaluation beginning roughly a year from now, Maj. Gen. Brian Cummings, Army program executive officer for ground combat systems, told Defense News. BAE Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems were chosen in December 2018 to build 12 prototypes each of the Army's future Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle identified in the Army's ground combat vehicle strategy, released in 2015, as much needed capability the service lacked. GDLS will build a vehicle that takes the United Kingdom's AJAX chassis and combines it with an Abrams turret. BAE Systems will bring an M8 Buford Armored Gun System with new capabilities and components. The MPF is going to be critical for the infantry, according to Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, who is in charge of combat vehicle modernization. “Looking in every war movie ever watched, the infantry has been pinned down and they have a machine gun nest or another enemy vehicle that's preventing them to get their objective,” Coffman said. “It takes an Audie Murphy-like character to go up and sneak around and take it out from the rear.” MPF is going to take care of those impediments to forward progression, he said, and is a “vital piece of equipment for our Army. Right now we are doing that with Humvees and Javelin.” The soldier vehicle assessment will take place at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Fort Stewart, Georgia, and will include live-fire tests and operating in IBCT formations, Cummings said. The assessment will not just cover how the vehicles perform operationally, but how they hold up when assessed against warfighting doctrine, organization, training, maintenance in the field, logistics and sustainment. “This will be different, even though we've done it in history,” Cummings said. A team will look at doctrine in terms of having a light tank in the formation as well as having mechanics, fuel and the ability to recover vehicles as part of the operational assessment. “It's important we learn that early on,” in the prototyping process rather than after choosing a winning vehicle, Cummings noted. The Army is now reviewing design maturity of the vehicles and is making sure that everything stays on track to meet the soldier vehicle assessment requirements. These prototypes have to be ready for prime time when they get into an operational environment toward the end of next year, according to Cummings. Cummings also has two groups working with each vendor that are firewalled from one another. Those groups will be working with vendors through the SVA and to eventual down-select to one vehicle around the second or third quarter of fiscal year 2022 to go into production. The prototypes are expected in the third quarter of fiscal 2021. The first units will get MPF by FY25. The Army plans build 26 vehicles initially with an option to build 28 more and retrofit eight prototypes. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2019/10/15/soldiers-to-get-a-say-in-light-tank-competition

  • What A California Drone Manufacturer is Crafting in Greater OKC

    October 9, 2019 | International, Aerospace

    What A California Drone Manufacturer is Crafting in Greater OKC

    The unassuming, sparsely-furnished manufacturing warehouse adjacent to Oklahoma City's Will Rogers International Airport may not exactly communicate “bustling unmanned systems manufacturer,” but looks can be deceiving. “Are we the coolest business in Oklahoma City? I think we're the coolest business in the world,” says a confident Steven Fendley, Unmanned Systems Division President of San Diego-based Kratos Defense & Security Solutions. A closer look at what the company is building in the Sooner State—which will soon have that 101,000 square foot warehouse bursting at its seams—might just have you convinced. In April, as the defense company unveiled its first six unmanned aerial MQM-178 Firejets produced at the same facility, it also announced the coming of the 30-foot Valkyrie, an unmanned aircraft resembling a fighter jet that is capable of long-range flight at high sub-sonic speeds. “Our target aircraft, jet aircraft, unmanned are used for our military to test their defensive systems and their offensive systems against what otherwise would be an enemy aircraft,” Fendley explains. “Title Ten of the U.S. Code states that there's a requirement to operate any of our development systems against a true threat representative system, not just simply a simulation. These aircrafts are representative threats, from a fighter aircraft perspective, from a bomber aircraft perspective, from a cruise missile perspective. They can replicate any of those threats very effectively and provide a realistic training scenario.” Currently at just 20 employees, the Oklahoma City venture will scale to 350-550 during the next three-to-five years, from engineering and design functions to manufacturing. The startup operation is focused on integration, assembly, testing, and client delivery for now, but will produce 350 Firejets per year, including all its parts, as early as the end of the year. For the Valkyrie, its maiden flight was successfully launched in March, signaling the next evolution for Kratos' unmanned aerial tactical systems. "It's basically a manned-aircraft size," Fendley told The Oklahoman. "It has a bomb bay. It can carry ordnance. It can carry sensor systems that allow you to locate the enemy. It's intended to be a wing man." While Kratos develops its own advanced technology, the aircraft must integrate with several other systems for effective deployment and testing, so the company works closely with the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, all of which have operations in Greater Oklahoma City (OKC) as well. “Oklahoma has a very, very high and supportive focus on the aerospace and defense industry,” Fendley says. “There are a lot of elements of the defense industry and the aerospace industry that exist here. What this really does, I think for us, and we're really proud of this at Kratos, I think we're the first to actually bring the integration and production of a complete aircraft system that will roll out and be produced in Oklahoma. We're very proud of that. We're very excited about that. And what it allows us to do is take advantage of all the technologies that exist here.” An added advantage for Kratos is the proximity to Tinker Air Force Base, the largest single-site employer in Oklahoma with 26,000 military and civilian employees, and home to the nation's largest aircraft and jet engine repair center. The composite work, integration of systems and overall aircraft technology is a shared function between military and private industry, allowing Tinker to cover any overflow capacity for Kratos should the firm need it. Altogether, along with a lower cost structure and more take-home pay for its workers, the combination made the decision to grow in Greater OKC a no-brainer. But can the same be said for Fendley's boast about his company? Can a manufacturer—one with significant work for the U.S. government—really be considered cool, let alone the “coolest in the world?” “You know the old saying, an extrovert engineer looks at your shoes, an introvert looks at his own shoes. So it's always hard for engineers to talk about what they do,” Fendley explains. “It's not hard in this case. Look at it, these are jet, unmanned aircraft that look cool, that sound cool, that are fun to build, that are fun to design, and are really, really important to the community, and to the country at large.” It's hard to argue with that. https://aviationweek.com/what-defense-aviation-manufacturer-is-crafting-in-greater-okc

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    February 20, 2024 | International, Land

    Elbit Systems Awarded a $300 Million Contract to Supply Armored Vehicle Systems to a European Customer

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