June 7, 2023 | International, Naval
Germany’s TKMS signs submarine construction pact with Indian shipyard
TKMS' domestic shipyards are already busy making submarines for the sea services of Germany, Norway, Israel and Singapore.
January 14, 2019 | International, Land
Why the British army tested robots in muddy fields
By: Grant Turnbull
Senior British army officers have signaled their intent to accelerate the fielding of several unmanned — and increasingly autonomous systems — following successful army trials at the end of 2018, but much like other forces around the world the United Kingdom faces challenges from how to modify archaic acquisition processes, to overcoming technical issues.
In December, the British army concluded its landmark experimentation exercise known as Autonomous Warrior, in which the service evaluated more than 50 unmanned systems from industry over a month-long period in the south of England.
The exercise, which put the robotic systems through grueling trials in muddy fields and a purpose-built facility for urban fighting, was the first attempt by the British army, as well as industry, to determine how the technology will work in a combat environment. Much like other forces around the world, the service hopes to use robots to carry out the dangerous, and often tedious, elements of combat.
Over 200 troops — made up of infantry, marines, engineers, airmen as well as U.S. Army personnel — were equipped with a variety of robotic and autonomous systems with the aim of improving areas such as combat mass, soldier lethality and overall information gathering.
For example, in one scenario, soldiers used robotic engineering vehicles to clear an obstacle, while a small quadcopter flew overhead to provide infrared imagery before armored infantry rolled in to take an enemy position. Robotic systems with varying levels of autonomy were a key part of the exercise, ranging from radar-equipped drones for detecting buried IEDs, to small two-wheeled robots that are thrown into buildings to search for enemy fighters.
The head of the British army, Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith, has directed the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to speed up the fielding of technology used during the exercise. “His direction to me is very clear,” said Maj. Gen. Chris Tickell, director of capability for the British army. “He wants to see some of this kit in the hands of the field army in 12 to 18 months.
“Success or failure will absolutely hinge on what happens after the experiment,” he added. “And that is about the exploitation and proving to industry that we are as good as our word and we are going to take some of these ideas and put them into the hands of the user.”
For Tickell, an equipment budget of £22 billion ($28 billion) over the next decade will allow the MoD to purchase new unmanned technologies, but the “trick is to turn the ideas that you see here into tangible capability.”
This may require the MoD “to adjust and even devise new acquisition processes to enable rapid acquisition”, said Trevor Taylor, an expert in defense acquisition at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. “How will requirements, business cases, competitive tendering or ‘partnering,' testing and safety cases be addressed?”
A related challenge continues to be the British army's lack of experience using unmanned and autonomous systems, with commanders using the Autonomous Warrior exercise to better understand capability enhancements as well as the inevitable shortfalls.
The officer responsible for coordinating the exercise, Lt Col Nick Serle, told C4ISRNET that while the British army has worked with industry on new technologies it had not previously focused on robots and autonomous systems. “That's why this year we decided to spend a month on Salisbury Plain just focusing on robotics and autonomous systems,” Serle said. He also commands the British army's experimentation unit, known as the Infantry Trials and Development Unit.
“This is a real opportunity to bring stuff into the field and really see if it does what industry thinks it's going to do, but also to see if military users will use it the way [industry] thinks they will use it,” Serle said. “There's no one single piece of kit that will solve all our problems, it's a combination of something in the air such as a surveillance asset, something on the ground, perhaps with a weapon on it or just doing logistics, but then it all links through an information system where you can pass that data and make better decisions to generate tempo.”
An issue highlighted by Serle was an increasingly crowded radiofrequency spectrum, especially as several unmanned systems jostle for space to beam back high-resolution data from onboard sensors. “The problem is when they start cutting each other out, we are dealing with physics here, if we want to have great high definition video passing across the battlefield we need to trade somewhere else.”
Taylor noted that not only will there be a need to ensure that the control systems do not interfere with each other, but also that army leaders “will have to be convinced that new systems are not simply too vulnerable to jamming and other disruptive techniques by an adversary.”
A promising development from the exercise is the ability to optionally man a standard vehicle using applique kits that can be fitted within a few hours. Several examples were on display when we visited the exercise in December, including a remote-controlled Warrior infantry fighting vehicle and a lightweight MRZR tactical vehicle.
As part of the experimentation, troops used the vehicles in unintended ways. One U.S. Army soldier noting that the MRZR had been a helpful surveillance tool because of its onboard camera. Squads were also keen to use the UGVs to help in entering buildings and also as modern-day pack horses to carry supplies or people.
“What we have found is that when troops are using these [UGVs], naturally they just want to jump on the vehicle because it goes faster than they can, and you can move groups very quickly on them,” Serle said. He added that for safety reasons the soldiers were not allowed to hop on board during the exercise. “Optionally manned is good, but whether it needs to be optionally manned with a steering wheel and a seat I don't know, I think you could do it more like a Segway. But there's no doubt people want to get on them.”
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July 7, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Europe must take on its own defense responsibilities
By: Ian Bond As they look at the state of their coronavirus-hit economies and U.S. President Donald Trump's poor standing in opinion polls, many European leaders may be tempted to put on hold any plans to meet NATO's target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense. But Europeans need to wake up. Trump is not a reliable ally, and the damage he has done to the trans-Atlantic partnership is likely to linger. Trump's hostility to NATO has been obvious since he called into question its Article 5 mutual defense guarantee during his last presidential campaign. We now know, according to former national security adviser John Bolton's tell-all memoir, that Trump was ready to pull the U.S. out of NATO at its 2018 summit. In recent weeks Trump announced without warning that the U.S. will withdraw 9,500 — more than one quarter — of the 34,500 troops it has stationed in Germany because the German government is not spending enough on defense. Then at a Washington press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Trump said a large number of NATO countries were “delinquent” and declared that Europe was taking “tremendous advantage of the United States on trade.” Trump may not understand how NATO works or the value to the U.S. of having troops in Germany, but it is true that the U.S. carries a disproportionately large share of the financial burden of defending Europe. During his presidency, Barack Obama also accused Europe of being “complacent” about its own defense — though he was rather more diplomatic. Only a handful of European NATO members have met the alliance's target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense over the past 20 years, while the U.S. has consistently exceeded it, spending 3.1-4.9 percent. But Europe's problem is not just the amount it spends on defense, but the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of its spending: Europeans get far too many systems and far too little military capability for their money. The European Commission's 2017 fact sheet on European defense reported that European Union member states operated 178 different major weapons systems; the U.S. had only 30. EU member states have 17 different types of main battle tank; the U.S. has one. This proliferation of weapons systems leads to high unit costs for short production runs, and a lack of interoperability. And European spending is not directed to ensuring that troops can fight when needed. The European members of NATO have almost 1.9 million active-duty troops, while the U.S. has 1.3 million and Russia about 900,000. But very few of the European forces can be deployed in a crisis. Politically and economically, this is a bad time to try to get European politicians to think seriously about increasing and rationalizing defense spending. The EU's economic forecast for spring 2020 foresees a contraction in real GDP of 7.4 percent this year, albeit followed by an increase of 6.1 percent in 2021. Some of Europe's biggest investors in defense are in NATO but not in the EU. The U.K. accounted for 16 percent of defense spending in Europe in 2019, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. But despite some early promise, Britain seems to have lost interest in any institutionalized cooperation with the EU on foreign and security policy. Relations between the EU and NATO member Turkey, which accounted for another 7 percent of European defense spending last year, have rarely been worse. Despite such difficulties, the fact that NATO and the EU are currently both reassessing the security environment presents an opportunity for a more joint approach. NATO is engaged in the #NATO2030 process, which Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hopes will strengthen political consultation in the alliance. Meanwhile, by the end of 2020 the EU aims to complete a process to assess the threats it faces, which the bloc calls its “strategic compass.” These two efforts need to complement each other to produce a shared view of the threats to Europe, and the creation of a forum for political dialogue on security where European countries, regardless of whether they belong to both the EU and NATO, can discuss appropriate responses. Europe's ability to counter threats will depend on making its money go further by spending it efficiently, both nationally and multilaterally. The commission should do more to ensure that more defense procurement involves competitive tendering, rather than member states awarding contracts to national champions. But it should not try to shut defense firms from non-EU NATO countries out of the European market. The commission stands more chance of influencing the research and procurement decisions of member states if it has a substantial budget to dangle in front of them. It should keep pushing back against cuts proposed earlier in the year to the defense elements of the EU's next seven-year budget. And the commission needs to be more open to the participation of “friendly” countries in EU-funded programs. Joe Biden, a former U.S. vice president and a contender in the current presidential race, would be an easier president for Europeans to work with than Trump has been. But Biden's victory in November is not guaranteed. Moreover, the forces in U.S. society that propelled Trump to power in 2016 will still exist, and may return in 2024. Even if they would rather pretend that nothing is changing, the EU and as many non-EU, Europe-based NATO members as are willing to do so need to pay attention to Trump's message. And they need to start thinking about how to defend Europe and deter potential adversaries with reduced U.S. help. Ian Bond is the director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform think tank. He was a member of the British diplomatic service for 28 years, most recently serving as political counselor and joint head of the foreign and security policy group in the British Embassy in the United States. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/07/03/europe-must-take-on-its-own-defense-responsibilities/
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November 16, 2021 | International, Aerospace
Al Tariq boosts Mk 83 bomb's range and precision
Al Tariq has integrated a long-range precision-guided munitions kit onto a 1,000-pound high-speed, low-drag Mk 83 bomb, giving it the lonest range of its kind worldwide at 120 kilometers, the Emirate company told Defense News.