US Special Operations Command chooses L3Harris' Sky Warden for Armed Overwatch effort

On the same subject

• 

  March 18, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Air Force to buy handful of light-attack planes, but will a bigger program follow?

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force will procure a handful of A-29 Super Tucano planes from Sierra Nevada Corp. and AT-6 Wolverines from Textron to continue light-attack demonstrations, the service's top general said Wednesday. That purchase provides a modest, but much-needed show of confidence for the two companies, which have invested internal funding over the past two years on the Air Force's light-attack experiment and are still hoping the service moves forward with a bigger buy of light-attack aircraft. The Air Force plans to place small detachments of AT-6 and A-29 turboprop planes at Nellis Air Force Base — the Nevada-based installation that hosts Red Flag and other training exercises — and Hurlburt Field, Florida, where Air Force Special Operations Command is based, Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told Defense News that the service would likely buy two or three of each aircraft, but Goldfein told lawmakers at the hearing that the exact numbers would be dependent on the price tag of the planes. “The United States Marine Corps has already said they're joining us,” Goldfein said. “We're going to invite allies and partners, and with the authorities you've given us now that we own those prototypes, we will continue to experiment to build the interoperable network that we've already advanced.” Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/smr/federal-budget/2019/03/13/air-force-to-buy-handful-of-light-attack-planes-but-will-a-bigger-program-follow

• 

  September 22, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Army mints new cyber research and development agreement with Estonia

  Mark Pomerleau WASHINGTON — The Army has signed a cooperative research and development deal with Estonia focused on cyber defense and other technologies. The Sept. 14th agreement, signed by the Army Futures Command's Combat Capabilities Development Command's Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center and the ministry of defense, will establish a working group to identify new technologies mutually beneficial to each nation, mostly in the multidomain operations sphere. “This is part of Army Futures Command's' mission: to discover and deliver technology. We're reaching out to pretty much any source that we can find something innovative, whether it's innovative thoughts and ways of doing business or if it's potentially altering a product or modifying it for use by government and by the military,” Brian Lyttle, division chief for cybersecurity at the C5ISR Center, told C4ISRNET in an interview. Under the agreement, the two nations will identify technological areas of mutual interest and share researchers to develop them, Robert Kimball, senior research scientist for cybersecurity at the C5ISR Center, told C4ISRNET. He noted the agreement is in preliminary stages and researchers haven't identified specific projects yet. Andri Rebane, director of the Cyber Defense Department at the Estonian Ministry of Defense, also told C4SIRNET in an emailed response that the joint working group will hold regular meetings to identify those technologies and explore experimentation on those they both agree to. “The ambition is to develop long term research and development projects in cyber defense to encounter the threats from disruptive technologies,” he said. Estonia is considered one of the most digitally connected nations in the world and has continued to up its game in the digital realm following a 2007 cyberattack, largely attributed to Russia. The Army's research and development community wants to chase new technology that can better serve soldiers. “Our mission in the R&D area is to identify those technologies that will benefit the Army as a whole. Our ability to identify those technologies extends far beyond what's available in our own government labs, in research institutions in the United States,” Kimball said. “We're interested in new cyber technologies from wherever they exist. The Estonians have deep capabilities because of their past that they've spent a lot of time working on.” Rebane explained this agreement is part of a larger partnership between the two NATO nations. “In a more practical view the two parties can leverage their vast experience to invest into new research and development to mitigate cyber threats across the spectrum of conflict. In the long term this agreement will benefit also our other allies countering the threats emerging from the shared cyberspace,” he said. Lyttle noted that the Army – and Department of Defense – will never fight alone and thus agreements like this help to foster greater interoperability with coalition partners. https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2020/09/21/army-mints-new-cyber-research-and-development-agreement-with-estonia/

• 

  March 3, 2021 | International, Naval

  Fincantieri to build two new German-design submarines for the Italian navy

  The new subs are expected to mix German technology with more Italian content than a previous batch of four U212 boats.