August 21, 2018 | International, Land
By: Jen Judson
WASHINGTON — While the U.S. Army has been working to qualify a Virginia-based company's active protection system for the Stryker combat vehicle, it is also in the process of evaluating several additional APS solutions for the platform beginning in November.
“The Army will be executing a fourth non-developmental APS system evaluation,” Army spokeswoman Ashley Givens told Defense News in a recent statement. The evaluation will be on the Stryker platform, she confirmed, adding that the service has received three responses to a request for information released earlier this year asking for more Stryker-focused APS solutions.
“At this time the Army is still reviewing the proposals of the vendors to confirm viability,” Givens said.
More than a year ago, the Army determined it needed to field an interim APS solution for the Abrams tank as well as the Stryker and Bradley. The service decided to rapidly assess off-the-shelf APS systems to fulfill an urgent operational need after failing — over a 20-year period — to field an APS capability.
The Army has since selected three different systems: Israeli company Rafael's Trophy system, which is deployed in the Israeli army, for Abrams; Iron Fist from IMI, another Israeli company, for the Bradley; and Herndon, Virginia-based Artis' Iron Curtain for Stryker.
While the Army has stayed on track with Abrams, due to a combination of earlier funding availability and qualifying an already fielded system, it has struggled to stay on schedule with the other two configurations.
In January, Col. Glenn Dean, the program manager for Stryker, who also manages the service's effort to install APS on combat vehicles, told Defense News that Iron Curtain's delay was partly due to a decision to replace the radar originally intended for the APS.
“We've had some other issues," he said. "We have learned that that system probably is not as mature as originally envisioned, so the contractor had some difficulty getting to the point they were ready to start characterization, and then we had some, I will call it, friction on the test range.”
At the time, Iron Curtain had roughly three weeks of testing left to wrap up government characterization. Dean said the program office would be ready to generate final reports and bring it to the Army for a decision in the March time frame.
In April, the Army released a sources-sought notice looking for other APS solutions for Stryker and also received, in fiscal 2018, $25 million to qualify a fourth system as part of the interim APS program being called the Expedited Active Protection Systems activity.
According to Givens, the program office has completed the installation and characterization phase of the ExAPS activity, but “we are currently awaiting an Army decision on the next phase of activity for Iron Curtain.”
In January, Col. Glenn Dean, the program manager for Stryker, who also manages the service's effort to install APS on combat vehicles, told Defense News that Iron Curtain's delay was partly due to a decision to replace the radar originally intended for the APS.
“We've had some other issues," he said. "We have learned that that system probably is not as mature as originally envisioned, so the contractor had some difficulty getting to the point they were ready to start characterization, and then we had some, I will call it, friction on the test range.”
At the time, Iron Curtain had roughly three weeks of testing left to wrap up government characterization. Dean said the program office would be ready to generate final reports and bring it to the Army for a decision in the March time frame.
In April, the Army released a sources-sought notice looking for other APS solutions for Stryker and also received, in fiscal 2018, $25 million to qualify a fourth system as part of the interim APS program being called the Expedited Active Protection Systems activity.
According to Givens, the program office has completed the installation and characterization phase of the ExAPS activity, but “we are currently awaiting an Army decision on the next phase of activity for Iron Curtain.”
The Army's evaluation process of additional systems is expected to come in the form of a live-fire “rodeo” — for lack of a better term — where the service has invited a small number of the RFI respondents with the most promising potential solutions to have their APS capability put to an initial limited test against a set of threats defined by the Army, according to a source familiar with the effort.
The respondents are required to fund the demonstration primarily at their own cost, but some Army funding will be used to conduct the tests.
At least two companies have been invited to participate in the rodeo, the source said.
One those companies is likely Germany's Rheinmetall. The company has advocated hard for the Army to also qualify its Active Defense System, and the Army admitted, prior to receiving FY18 dollars, that it would want to qualify ADS if it had the funds.
Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/08/20/army-pursuing-possible-alternatives-for-a-stryker-based-active-protection-system
May 6, 2024 | International, Land, C4ISR
Washington and other governments have committed billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine, including armored vehicles and secure communication devices.
August 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: Jen Judson   16 hours ago WASHINGTON — The Army's once-problem-plagued air-and-missile defense battle command system took out two cruise missile threat targets nearly simultaneously using Patriot missiles in a major live fire event Aug. 13, according to service officials in charge of the effort. The cruise missiles flew at a low-altitude, maneuvering through a mountain range. The Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) took real-time data from Patriot and Sentinel radars and tracked the threat. IBCS sent engagement options to air defenders on the ground and two Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles controlled by IBCS intercepted both threats. The success of the limited user test for IBCS, which began several weeks ago in the New Mexico desert, is like “night and day,” compared to a previous attempt in 2016, Brig. Gen. Brian Gibson, who is in charge of Army air-and-missile defense modernization, told Defense News during its Space and Missile Defense Symposium Debrief event Aug. 5. “We didn't even get through phase one,” which lasted “just days,” in the first limited user test, Gibson said. Space and Missile Defense Command Commander Lt. Gen. Dan Karbler had overseen the Army Test and Evaluation Command during the first IBCS limited user test and told reporters Aug. 5 that during the first attempt “the system performance was so unstable, we really couldn't even get it started. We couldn't collect any good data. There was multiple software challenges within the system just to try to get it into the network. So it was a very, very difficult endeavor and so, honestly, couldn't pass LUT and there was a lot of work to do.” Due to those problems and the Army's new plans to expand IBCS capability to tie to any sensor or any shooter on the battlefield delayed the entire program by roughly four years. The live fire marks the first time an entire operational battalion was involved in an IBCS test along with multiple sensors, shooters and mission command platforms, making it the most complex test the system has seen to date, Gibson told reporters Aug. 13 shortly after the test event. The cruise missile targets were defeated by PAC-3 missiles coming from entirely separate launchers at the same battery site, Col. Phil Rottenborn, IBCS project manager within the Army's Program Executive Office Missiles and Space, said. IBCS also made it possible to move Sentinel radars more forward on the battlefield, providing more time to track the target, which allowed the commander on the ground to engage a single interceptor per target, said Col. Tony Behrens, Army capability manager and director of the Army Air & Missile Defense Command. Typically, two interceptors, one following the other, are deployed against a single missile target in case the first misses. With IBCS, the Army will be able to use fewer interceptors in engagements, Behrens said. The system was also challenged by electronic attack during the live fire where one of the seven integrated fire control network relays was taken out of the mix by a jammer. The system was able to operate and defeat challenging target sets through debris even with a relay removed from the game. The Army will conduct another live fire test next week with senior officials attending, a presence that will up the ante. IBCS will go up against both a cruise missile and a ballistic missile during that event, according to Army Futures Command Commander Gen. Mike Murray. Once the limited user test wraps up in mid-September, the Army will need to go through “terabytes, lots and lots of data” over the following three months, Murray said. The service will then go before a production decision board, currently scheduled for Nov. 20. And if IBCS is approved to move forward, the service will conduct an Initial Operational Test and Evaluation of the system in a year. The Army plans to equip its first unit with IBCS — the same battalion executing the LUT — in fiscal 2022. IBCS will not only serve as the brains of the Army's future Integrated Air-and-Missile Defense System, but will also be the command-and-control system for its future Integrated Fire Protection Capability that will defend against rockets, artillery and mortars as well as cruise missile and unmanned aircraft threats. And IBCS is likely to play an integral part in the next generation program called Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), which is expected to provide an information architecture across all services and domains for warfare. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2020/08/13/army-missile-defense-battle-command-system-takes-out-cruise-missile-threats-in-major-test/
July 15, 2022 | International, Aerospace
Après l'achat de 24 Rafale, la Grèce s'apprête à signer un contrat avec les Etats-Unis pour l'achat de 20 F-35 avec 20 autres en option pour remplacer ses F-16.