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The Air Force's new investment strategy is designed to "catalyze the commercial market by bringing our military market to bear," says Roper. By THERESA HITCHENS PENTAGON: The Air Force will roll out the final stage in its commercial startup investment strategy during the March 13-20 South By Southwest music festival, granting one or more contracts worth at least $10 million to startups with game-changing technologies, service acquisition chief Will Roper says. The first-of-its kind event in Austin, called the Air Force Pitch Bowl, will match Air Force investment with private venture capital funds on a one to two ratio, according to a presentation by Capt. Chris Benson of AFWERX at the Strategic Institute's Dec. 4-5 “AcquisitionX” meeting. So, if the Air Force investment fund, called Air Force Ventures, puts in $20 million, the private capital match would be $40 million. AFWERX, the Air Force's innovation unit, has one of its hubs in Austin. “This has been a year in the making now, trying to make our investment arm, the Air Force Ventures, act like an investor, even if it's a government entity,” Roper explained. “We don't invest like a private investor — we don't own equity — we're just putting companies on contract. But for early stage companies, that contract acts a lot like an investor.” The goal is to help steer private resources toward new technologies that will benefit both US consumers and national security to stay ahead of China's rapid tech growth, Roper told reporters here Friday. The Air Force wants to “catalyze the commercial market by bringing our military market to bear,” he said. “We're going to be part of the global tech ecosystem.” Figuring out how to harness the commercial marketplace is critical, Roper explained, because DoD dollars make up a dwindling percentage of the capital investment in US research and development. This is despite DoD's 2021 budget request for research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) of $106.6 billion being “the largest in its history,” according to Pentagon budget rollout materials. The Air Force's share is set at $37.3 billion, $10.3 billion of which is slated for Space Force programs. “We are 20 percent of the R&D is this country — that's where the military is today,” Roper said. “So if we don't start thinking of ourselves as part of a global ecosystem, looking to influence trends, investing in technologies that could be dual-use — well, 20 percent is not going to compete with China long-term, with a nationalized industrial base that can pick national winners.” The process for interested startups to compete for funds has three steps, Roper explained, beginning with the Air Force “placing a thousand, $50K bets per year that are open.” That is, any company can put forward its ideas to the service in general instead of there being a certain program office in mind. “We'll get you in the door,” Roper said, “we'll provide the accelerator functions that connect you with a customer. “Pitch days” are the second step, he said. Companies chosen to be groomed in the first round make a rapid-fire sales pitch to potential Air Force entities — such as Space and Missile Systems Center and Air Force Research Laboratory — that can provide funding, as well as to venture capitalists partnering with the Air Force. As Breaking D broke in October, part of the new acquisition strategy is luring in private capital firms and individual investors to match Air Force funding in commercial startups as a way to to bridge the ‘valley of death' and rapidly scale up capability. The service has been experimenting with ‘pitch days' across the country over the last year, such as the Space Pitch Days held in San Francisco in November when the service handed out $22.5 million to 30 companies over two days. Roper said he intends to make “maybe 300 of those awards per year,” with the research contracts ranging from $1 million to $3 million a piece and “where program dollars get matched by our investment dollars.” The final piece of the strategy, Roper explained, is picking out the start-ups that can successfully field game-changing technologies. “The thing that we're working on now is the big bets, the 30 to 40 big ideas, disruptive ideas that can change our mission and hopefully change the world,” Roper said. “We're looking for those types of companies.” The Air Force on Oct. 16 issued its first call for firms to compete for these larger SBIR contracts under a new type of solicitation, called a “commercial solutions opening.” The call went to companies already holding Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards. The winners will be announced in Austin. If the strategy is successful, Roper said, the chosen firms will thrive and become profitable dual-use firms focused primarily on the commercial market. “The, we're starting to build a different kind of industry base,” Roper enthused. “So, we've gotta get the big bets right. Then most importantly, if you succeed in one of the big bets, then we need to put you on contract on the other side, or else the whole thing is bunk.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/02/air-force-to-pump-new-tech-startups-with-10m-awards

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. WASHINGTON: After four decades of failed attempts to replace its Vietnam-vintage OH-58 Kiowa scout, next month the Army will choose two of five competing teams to build prototypes for a new Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. Those prototypes, in turn, will compete for a mass-production contract in a 2023 “fly off,” with deliveries no later than 2028. A new scout is urgently overdue as the US faces ever-more-sophisticated Russian and Chinese air defenses that can keep traditional aircraft at bay. But with limited budgets, the Army will have to pick and choose high-priority units to get FARA first, and the rest of the force will have to wait. “We've got to look at, where are the most critical spots to bring capability,” said Brig. Gen. Michael McCurry, director of aviation for the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for operations and plans. The priority is the cutting-edge combat units that must break open sophisticated anti-aircraft defensives for the rest of the force to follow, he told me: “That penetrate force, that's where FARA is going to go.” Learning From the Past Now, the Army has made its job easier in a couple of important ways. Perhaps most important, instead of the traditional dozens or hundreds of detailed technical specifications that hem in designers' ingenuity, Future Vertical Lift director Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen told me, “we have very few critical attributes within our FARA spec.” One huge thing that the Army is not asking for: stealth. Unlike the costly Boeing Comanche cancelled in 2006, the FARA won't have to be shaped and coated to be impervious to radar – which is largely irrelevant to low-flying helicopters hiding behind hills, trees, or buildings, which are most often detected by the sound of their rotors, not by radar. Like the Comanche, advertised as a “digital quarterback,” FARA will act as an electronic hub for battlefield intelligence, collecting target data from drones and passing it to Army artillery, hypersonic missiles, and Air Force strike fighters – but network tech has come a long way since 2006, the year before the iPhone went on sale. Finally, unlike the Comanche, FARA won't be a conventional helicopter with a single main rotor and a small tail rotor for stability. The speed and range required to survive the future battlefield are greater than that classic set-up can achieve. That's driven all four firms who've discussed their designs in public – Boeing has not revealed anything – to adopt innovative configurations the Army's never fielded before. Only one of the designs, Sikorsky's, is based on an existing aircraft that's done actual flight tests. But the Army is confident the competitors can deliver. In detailed modeling, Rugen said, “all those offerings are beating those [minimum] mission critical attributes that we're trying towards.” Congress actually cut the FARA budget for 2020 by $34 million. That won't slow the program down, the Army has said, but it will reduce the amount of Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) the service can provide the contractors to build their prototypes around: weapons systems including a 20-millimeter autocannon and a missile launcher, Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) electronics, and the GE Improved Turbine Engine. To simplify and speed up development, all the competitors are required to include these standard-issue systems in their design — but the aircraft they build around them are radically different. Design shop AVX has proposed an aircraft with two helicopter-style main rotors for vertical takeoff, wings for extra lift, and a pair of their characteristic ducted fans for speed. AVX, founded by Bell alumni, has never built an actual aircraft. But it's backed by the manufacturing might of the much larger L3Harris, a firm created by the merger of the 18th and 26th-largest defense contractors in the world (as per their 2019 rankings on the Defense News Top 100). By contrast, Bell – part of Textron, No. 34 on the Top 100 – is a major builder of both military and commercial helicopters, as well as the revolutionary V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, from which the company's contender for the Army's future transport aircraft, the V-280, derives. Ironically, the Bell 360 Invictus is the most conservative-looking of the four known FARA designs: It's a streamlined single-main-rotor helicopter (looking kind of like Comanche) with the addition of two short wings for extra lift. Inside the aircraft, though, Bell is using new fly-by-wire flight controls and other technologies developed for its civilian Bell 525. Aerospace giant Boeing – No. 2 of the top 100, counting its defense contracts alone – builds the Army's current mainstay armored gunship, the AH-64 Apache; its heavy lifter, the CH-47 Chinook; and, with Bell, the V-22 tiltrotor. But Boeing, which built the stealthy Comanche, is so far in public-relations stealth mode on FARA, declining to discuss its design. Karem Aerospace is another design shop with an excellent pedigree – its founder is the father of the Predator drone – but no track record of actually building an aircraft. However, it's partnered with Northrop Grumman (No. 3 of the top 100) and Raytheon (No. 4) for this program, giving it serious manufacturing heft. The Karem AR-40 design has a unique combination of a single main rotor on top, a propeller at the tail that can swivel to act either as a tail rotor for stability or a pusher propeller for thrust, and wings that can tilt for the optimum aerodynamic angle in different modes of flight. Last in the alphabet, comes Sikorsky, the helicopter division of the world's biggest defense contract, Lockheed Martin. While Sikorsky's Raider-X design hasn't flown yet, it's essentially a 20 percent larger version of the two S-97 Raiders the company built and flight-tested at its own expense. (One of them was totaled in the process, thankfully with no loss of life). And Sikorsky already knows how to upscale its compound helicopter technology, because there's already an even bigger member of the family, the Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant, now in flight tests for the Army's Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA). All these aircraft derive from the Collier Trophy-winning X2 and share its configuration: two main rotors on top, using ultra-rigid blades to provide maximum lift with minimum vibration at high speeds, and a single pusher propeller at the tail. Between the X2, the S-97, and the SB>1, Sikorsky's configuration has been through far more flight testing than any of its competitors on FARA. So which team has the best combination of innovative design, proven technology, and the manufacturing muscle to build it at a price the nation can afford? That's a call the Army will make, and soon. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/02/fara-five-way-fight-for-armys-future-scout

By Matthew Cox WEST PALM BEACH, Florida -- Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot, said recently that the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force would have to wait their turn if they want their own version of the Army's futuristic helicopters being developed under the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) effort. The Illinois Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee recently attended a high-profile flight demonstration of Sikorsky-Boeing's new SB-1 Defiant helicopter that was designed with the goal of replacing the UH-60 Black Hawk. The Army awarded a team from Sikorsky, part of Lockheed Martin Corp., and Boeing Co. a 2014 contract to build Defiant as part of the Joint Multi Role Technology Demonstrator (JMRT-D) program. A Textron Inc.-Bell team also received a contract under the effort and built the V-280 Valor, a tiltrotor-design helicopter that completed its first test flight in December 2017. Both the Valor and the Defiant prototypes are promising designs, Army officials maintain, that are capable of flying at speeds of more than 200 knots and will result in a replacement for the venerable Black Hawk as the service's new Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA). Duckworth, a former Army National Guard officer who lost both legs after enemy forces shot down the Black Hawk she was flying over Iraq in 2004, said she intends to keep the FVL program from morphing into an unwieldy, joint effort. That's a pitfall that has thrust many joint-service programs into program delays and cost-overruns because of overly broad requirements. "This is an Army aircraft; we need to keep an Army mission," Duckworth told reporters at the Feb. 20 flight demo. "If the other services want to fall in behind it and develop something afterward and tweak it for what they need, that is fine, but we cannot build a Frankenaircraft ... that's going to meet the Marines' needs and the Navy's need and the Air Force's needs. "We need to not let the requirements start to meander and creep around because otherwise we will never get to where we need to and get these things fielded as quickly as possible," she added. In the past, the Pentagon has often tried to develop multiple versions of a major combat system, such as the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which has been designed to satisfy the requirements of the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. The acquisition program for the advanced, stealth fighter began in the mid-1990s and still suffers from testing setbacks that have delayed a full-rate production decision. That Army-Marine Corps Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program, however, is considered a successful acquisition effort that began in 2006 after Humvees in Iraq could not withstand the destruction force of enemy homemade bombs attacks. JLTV took almost a decade to become a reality but, in August 2015, Oshkosh Corp. was selected over Lockheed Martin Corp. and AM General LLC to build the vehicle for the Army and Marine Corps. Meanwhile, for the second year in a row, the Army has reduced the number of JLTVs it will buy in fiscal 2021 to free up money to fund future modernization. FVL is one of the Army's top modernization priorities under a new strategy the service launched in 2017, with the goal of replacing most of its major combat platforms beginning in 2028. Leaders stood up Army Future Command, an organization designed to help the service's acquisition and requirements machines work more closely together in an effort to streamline what has traditionally been a slow-moving process to develop and field combat system. So far, the strategy appears to be working, since the FLRAA and the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) efforts are ahead of schedule, Duckworth said. Army officials are scheduled to down-select to two vendors to build final prototypes of the FARA next month. The service is also scheduled to begin a competitive demonstration and risk reduction phase for FLRAA, which is expected to last until 2022, the year the service plans to down-select to one vendor to build the Black Hawk replacement. "This is rare for defense procurement to actually be ahead of timeline instead of pushing everything to the right," Duckworth said. "I am very pleased with how well the Army is handling this development." The senator stressed, however, that she intends to continue strict oversight of the FVL to ensure it doesn't result in a waste of taxpayer dollars. "We can't be spending upward of $60 million per airframe," Duckworth said. "If we do that, then we can't field the number of airframes that we need to be out there in the force." Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who also attended the flight demo, stressed that the service's leadership is committed to making necessary cuts to outdated programs to free up money for FVL and other modernization efforts. "We don't have a choice. We are running out of letters to upgrade the existing platforms -- they are 40-year-old systems; the technology will not endure," he said. -- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/02/25/duckworth-armys-new-helicopters-should-not-be-designed-anyone-else.html

Tewksbury, Mass., February 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company [NYSE: RTN] is enhancing the combat-proven Patriot(TM) Air and Missile Defense System under a $314 million task order for engineering services from the U.S. Army, awarded on January 30. The task order is funded by the 17 nations that rely on Patriot for integrated air and missile defense. This is the third of five annual, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity task order awards with a total contract ceiling of more than $2.3 billion. "These modernization efforts ensure Patriot continues to outpace the advancing and proliferating threat, and will be ready when needed," said Tom Laliberty, vice president of Integrated Air and Missile Defense at Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business. "The 17-nation Patriot partnership shares the cost and reaps the benefit of continued investment in the system." Under the task order, Raytheon is providing comprehensive engineering services including systems, software and hardware development, integration and test services, configuration management and logistics support. Additionally, many of the project results will be incorporated into Patriot Post Deployment Build 8.1, a series of software and hardware capabilities, including: 1. New cutting edge methods to search, detect, track, discriminate, engage, and defeat a wide range of evolving threats including tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and military aircraft. 2. Integrating Warfighter Machine Interface into Patriot. WMI provides a total view of that battlespace, with 3-D visuals, easy-to-read status pages and search functions. As part of the contract, Raytheon is also: -- Enhancing the resilience of Patriot against evolving cyber threats -- Developing solutions that enhance readiness and reduce life cycle costs by making the system more reliable. -- Replacing obsolete parts of Patriot's communications system, enabling Patriot to reliably operate until the U.S. Army's new Integrated Air and Missile Defense command and control system comes on-line. Raytheon's Global Patriot Solutions is the most advanced, tactical air and missile defense system in the world, providing protection against a full range of advanced threats, including aircraft, tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. About Raytheon Raytheon Company, with 2019 sales of $29 billion and 70,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 98 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I(®) products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Follow us on Twitter. Note to Editors The 17 Patriot Nations are: -- United States of America -- The Netherlands -- Germany -- Japan -- Israel -- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia -- Kuwait -- Taiwan -- Greece -- Spain -- Republic of Korea -- United Arab Emirates -- Qatar -- Romania -- Sweden -- Poland -- The Kingdom of Bahrain Media Contact Mike Nachshen +1.520.269.5697 idspr@raytheon.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-partners-invest-314-million-in-patriot-integrated-air-and-missile-defense-system-301010687.html SOURCE Raytheon Company

By: Chiara Vercellone WASHINGTON — In its quest to modernize the U.S. Air Force's stockpile of intercontinental ballistic missiles, Northrop Grumman has partnered with Bechtel and Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, the company announced Tuesday. The two companies are the latest addition to Northrop Grumman's nationwide team devoted to replace the Minuteman III with next-generation missiles, as the company announced in September its collaboration with hundreds of companies across the defense, construction and engineering industries. “Together, this expanded team has the capacity, capability and credentials needed to deliver – on time – a safe, secure, reliable and effective nuclear deterrent capability for the U.S. and its allies for the next 50 years,” said Greg Manuel, vice president of Northrop Grumman's Ground Based Strategic Deterrent team. Bechtel, an engineering, construction and project management company, will provide construction and integration, and launch system design, according to the announcement. Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, which specializes in unmanned systems and missile defense, will provide vehicle transporters. Northrop Grumman is the de facto winner of the $85 billion contract, expected to be awarded in the fourth quarter of 2020, after Boeing declined to bid on the program by the Dec. 13 deadline. Boeing claimed Northrop Grumman had an advantage to offer the lowest-cost system, thanks in part to its acquisition of one of only two U.S. solid-fuel rocket motor manufacturers. Boeing proposed, unsuccessfully, that the Air Force demand a joint team be formed between the two companies. The Air Force said it will proceed with “an aggressive and effective sole-source negotiation,” according to a statement released in December. Members of Congress have expressed concern over a sole-source contract. House Armed Services Committee Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., suggested the Air Force has shown bias toward Northrop Grumman and questioned the need for the program. “It is very troubling that it's going to be a sole source contract,” Smith said at an event sponsored by Ploughshares Fund in October. “The thing to do would be to address the concerns that Boeing raised about the procurement process. Because, if Boeing is to be believed, they didn't say ‘We just can't do this anymore.' They said the process wasn't fair.” In August, Northrop Grumman broke ground near Hill Air Force Base on a new facility that will serve as the headquarters for the company's workforce, which will add thousands of jobs in the state of Utah, according to the release. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/02/25/northrop-grumman-expands-team-for-program-to-replace-air-force-ballistic-missiles

Graham Warwick The U.S. Air Force has detailed its plans to accelerate the emerging advanced air mobility market, and potentially become an early adopter of electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) vehicles, but is making clear it does not intend to set requirements or fund development. Instead, the service wants to help developers along the way to commercial certification and volume production by providing testing resources and possibly enabling a near-term government public-use market for their vehicles in advance of FAA certification. The Air Force's Agility Prime program office published its “innovative capabilities opening” (ICO) on Feb. 25, establishing a contracting framework for prototyping projects designed to show whether, as their developers claim, eVTOL vehicles can revolutionize mobility, particularly logistics. Under the ICO framework, which will remain open until Feb. 28, 2025, the service plans to release a series of solicitations for different “areas of interest” (AOI). The first of these—AOI #1, or the “Air Race to Certification”—was also released on Feb. 25. Other AOIs could range from autonomy to manufacturing. Under AOI #1, the Air Force office plans to issue contracts to produce test reports that will substantiate company claims for their eVTOL vehicles. Based on a test report, the service could proceed to the next step, potentially an early procurement, says Col. Nathan Diller, Agility Prime integrated product team lead. “They can leverage that test report to get military certification that would allow near-term government use cases that would accelerate commercial certification, potentially providing revenue and data that accelerates the broader adoption of the technology,” he says. The Air Force has not established explicit requirements for an eVTOL. Instead, it has launched studies into potential missions in which commercial vehicles—both passenger-carrying and larger unmanned aircraft—could be used. These could include distributed logistics, medevac, firefighting, search-and-rescue, disaster relief and facility security. The Air Force is aiming for an initial operating capability (IOC) in fiscal 2023 with a “handful-plus” of vehicles in a squadron. “We have begun a series of studies to look at the business case associated with these different missions, and we have started looking at some basic constructs for what these units [operating the aircraft] might look like,” Diller says. “They may be very different units to what we are doing now.” To qualify under the first AOI, companies must have flown their vehicles by Dec. 17, 2020. Diller says some eVTOL developers are ready to submit test reports and move on to the next step, while others will take longer. “That gives us a year to see which companies are ready, but we feel we are in a position to award contracts quickly.” Agility Prime was provided with $10 million in funding in fiscal 2019 and $25 million in 2020. This is not money requested in the Air Force's fiscal 2021 budget, but Diller says there is a “strong desire and intent to fund” the program in fiscal 2022 and future years to get to an IOC in fiscal 2023. The AOI calls for vehicles that can carry three to eight people, with a range greater than 200 mi., speed faster than 100 mph and endurance of more than 60 min. As well as passenger-carrying eVTOLs, Diller says Agility Prime is looking at unmanned cargo aircraft heavier than 1,320 lb. because the other services are focusing below that weight. The Agility Prime ICO is structured to encourage participation by smaller companies and nontraditional defense contractors, but not exclude traditional Pentagon suppliers that are innovating, he says. Bidders are required to cover at least a third of the cost of the prototype project themselves. The objective of Agility Prime is to “catalyze the commercial market by bringing our military market to bear,” Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper said at a roundtable on Feb. 21. “It's equally important to make sure that commercial market catalyzes first in the U.S.,” he added. “That's equally as important as providing the capability to the warfighter. What we don't want to happen is what happened with the small drone migration to China,” he said. “It was a commercial technology, the Pentagon didn't take a proactive stance on it, and now most of that supply chain has moved to China.” U.S. government agencies have banned the use of Chinese-made drones, citing security concerns. “If we had realized that commercial trend and shown that the Pentagon is willing to pay a higher price for a trusted supply-chain drone, we probably could have kept part of the market here and not had to go through the security issues we have now,” he said. “Agility Prime is saying we are not going to let that happen again,” Roper said. Diller says the Air Force is not imposing military requirements on eVTOL developers because it wants to benefit from the low acquisition and operating costs and potentially high production volumes that could come out of the commercial market. “Since we are not putting research and development money in this, we are going to fall into accordance with what the industry partners want to do,” he says. “Our intent is that any testing they do with us will be something that takes them along the path to commercial certification and is not diverting them.” If the Air Force were to set requirements and fund development, “we would feel we are putting at risk a very large market that would allow us to eventually capitalize on that affordable quantity based on potential mass production at an automobile rate,” he says. https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/air-warfare-symposium/usaf-launches-effort-speed-commercial-evtol-market

Projets européens avortés, achats de matériels américains, retards multiples : les armées peinent à s'équiper de systèmes aériens téléopérés. Par Guerric Poncet Dès 1964, les armées françaises ont expérimenté de premiers modèles de drones. Mais plus d'un demi-siècle après, force est de constater que la France est à la traîne, et pas qu'un peu. Si on la compare avec des États de même rang militaire, comme le Royaume-Uni par exemple, le constat est sans appel : Paris aligne cinq drones Reaper (armés depuis fin 2019) et quelques dizaines de drones tactiques et légers, là où Londres dispose de dix drones Reaper (armés depuis 2007), d'une cinquantaine de drones tactiques et de plusieurs centaines de drones légers. Dans son rapport public 2020, la Cour des comptes pointe cette défaillance majeure, expliquant que « la France a tardé à tirer les conséquences de l'intérêt des drones dans les opérations militaires modernes ». Pour les sages, « l'effet conjugué des mésententes entre industriels, du manque de vision prospective des armées et des changements de pied des pouvoirs publics ont eu pour conséquences, dommageables et coûteuses, de prolonger la durée de vie de matériels vieillissants ». Ils ont aussi « conduit à l'acquisition de matériels américains aux conditions d'utilisation contraignantes et restrictives ». Ainsi, les premiers drones Reaper acquis en 2013 par la France pour répondre à l'urgence opérationnelle dans la bande sahélo-saharienne ont été prélevés sur des lignes d'assemblage destinées aux forces américaines. Ils ont donc fait l'objet de restrictions d'utilisation drastiques qui ont beaucoup compliqué leur début de vie opérationnelle. Par exemple, leur déploiement hors d'Afrique subsaharienne étant verrouillé, « pour rapatrier un vecteur aérien de Niamey à Cognac (où se situe l'escadron de drones 1/33 Belfort, qui opère les Reaper), un accord américain préalable, attendu de longs mois, a été nécessaire », racontent les sages. 2 % du budget des programmes d'armement « Les investissements liés aux programmes d'acquisition se sont accélérés ces dernières années, surtout depuis 2015, mais restent encore limités (...) en termes d'efficacité et de coûts », soulignent les sages, en référence notamment aux longues négociations entre les industriels européens et le ministère des Armées, qui juge les programmes excessivement coûteux et répète qu'il ne signera pas tant que les tarifs n'auront pas été revus nettement à la baisse. Mais l'appétit des industriels n'est pas le seul problème : « rapportés aux investissements annuels du ministère des Armées dans les programmes d'armement sur la période récente, les montants totaux dédiés aux drones n'ont jamais représenté plus de 2 % de l'effort global », explique aussi le rapport. Pour ne pas être éjecté des grandes puissances aériennes mondiales, il va donc falloir changer de braquet sur les drones. « L'important investissement, de l'ordre de 800 millions d'euros, réalisé pour acheter des drones américains, n'est que la première étape d'efforts financiers conséquents à venir », prévient le texte, qui pointe en particulier le retard pris par la Marine nationale dans le domaine des drones aériens, en raison des arbitrages effectués par le ministère notamment. « Les besoins (de la marine, NDLR) sont portés par la surveillance maritime de la deuxième plus vaste zone économique exclusive (ZEE) au monde, après celle des États-Unis », rappelle la Cour, qui espère l'aboutissement rapide d'un « système de drones tactiques à décollage et atterrissage vertical ». Les marins devraient être équipés d'un drone par navire d'ici 2030, mais en l'absence d'un programme suffisamment avancé à dix ans de cette échéance, la promesse semble difficile à tenir... sauf à acheter, de nouveau, hors d'Europe. « Des résistances d'ordre culturel » chez les aviateurs Le rapport relève aussi les nombreux échecs de projets européens de drones MALE (moyenne altitude, longue endurance) comme EuroMALE, Advanced UAV/Talarion ou Telemos, et les « difficultés qui s'amoncellent » pour le nouveau programme MALE en cours de développement. Pour les quatre pays partenaires (Allemagne, Espagne, France et Italie), ce dernier projet « présente des enjeux stratégiques qui vont largement au-delà de l'acquisition des matériels », car son succès ouvrira ou fermera les vannes de la coopération — et donc de la souveraineté – européenne dans le domaine. Pour le ministère des Armées français, les négociations doivent être bouclées début 2020, pour une notification du contrat mi-2020, car la situation est critique. « Il serait difficilement compréhensible qu'en 2028, les armées françaises ne soient pas dotées d'équipements aussi performants que ceux d'ores et déjà disponibles sur le marché », martèle le ministère dans sa réponse, publiée en annexe du rapport de la Cour des comptes. Enfin, les sages pointent des problèmes qui ne sont pas directement liés aux programmes d'armement, dont « des résistances d'ordre culturel, en particulier au sein de l'armée de l'air, dans la mesure où les drones bousculent les équilibres actuels qui placent le pilote au cœur du dispositif aérien ». Avec les restrictions budgétaires, les heures de vol d'entraînement se font rares, et les missions opérationnelles sont méticuleusement réparties entre les pilotes au sein de l'armée de l'air comme de l'aéronavale : ils craignent logiquement que l'arrivée massive de drones n'empiète sur leurs platebandes. https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/drones-militaires-la-cour-des-comptes-pointe-les-echecs-francais-25-02-2020-2364337_23.php

By: Andrew Chuter LONDON — The British government has confirmed it is developing a new nuclear warhead for its missile submarines, days after the U.S. revealed the program was going ahead before Parliament had been informed. In a written statement to Parliament, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace confirmed Feb. 25 that Britain is working on a new warhead to equip it's Trident missile-armed nuclear submarine fleet. “To ensure the Government maintains an effective deterrent throughout the commission of the Dreadnought Class ballistic missile submarine we are replacing our existing nuclear warhead to respond to future threats and the security environment,” Wallace said. The announcement was not expected to be made prior to publication of the defense, security and foreign policy review scheduled for late this year. But the Conservative government's hand was forced when U.S. officials revealed last week the program was up and running. That caused a stir in the U.K., as high-profile programs like the nuclear deterrent are usually announced in Parliament first. It's only a courtesy, but if Parliament is not informed first, ministers can be forced to attend the House of Commons to make a statement. “The decision is basically a forgone conclusion, but the announcement has come sooner than expected. We were looking at probably next year but certainly not before the defense and security review due for release towards the end of the year,” said David Cullen , the director at the U.K.-based Nuclear Information Service, an independent organization promoting awareness of nuclear weapons issues. Adm. Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, and Alan Shaffer, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, separately made statements that Britain is pursuing development of its own version of the W93 warhead, which is in the assessment phase for the U.S. military ahead of replacing U.S. Navy W76 warhead. “It's wonderful that the U.K. is working on a new warhead at the same time, and I think we will have discussions and be able to share technologies,” Shaffer told an audience at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit, hosted in Washington by ExchangeMonitor. Shaffer said the W93 and the British weapon “will be two independent development systems.” Richard, in testimony prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Feb. 20 that the W93 will “support a parallel replacement warhead program in the United Kingdom.” Wallace told Parliament that the Defence Ministry's “Defence Nuclear Organisation is working with the Atomic Weapons Establishment: to build the highly skilled teams and put in place the facilities and capabilities needed to deliver the replacement warhead; whilst also sustaining the current warhead until it is withdrawn from service. We will continue to work closely with the US to ensure our warhead remains compatible with the Trident.” The new British warhead will replace the existing weapon, known as the Trident Holbrook, which equips the four Vanguard-class submarines charged with providing Britain's nuclear deterrence capability. Cullen noted that the existing British weapon is unlikely to be very different from America's W76. “They are both fitted to the same Trident missile used by Britain and the U.S. Our assumption is the two warheads are very close, if not virtually identical," he said. The Atomic Weapons Establishment in the U.K. is undertaking a life-extension program on its stock of warheads, including replacing some electronics and systems to improve accuracy and provide performance benefits. The Trident Holbrook entered service along with the Vanguard-class submarines in the mid-1990s. Britain plans to replace the subs in the early 2030s with four new Dreadnought-class subs. Work on the £31 billion (U.S. $40 billion) boat program is already underway. Britain is also spending billions of pounds building infrastructure to support the Atomic Weapons Establishment's development, building and testing of a new warhead at sites in southern England and Valduc, France, where Britain is cooperating in hydrodynamic experiments with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission as part of a wider nuclear agreement. Cullen said there is little in the public domain on the delivery timetable for the current warhead updates. “They started delivery of the life-extended warheads around 2016/2017. The warheads will last up to another 30 years if you assume they are doing similar changes to updates being undertaken by the U.S.,” he said. “I expect Mk4A, [as the updated weapon is referred to], to come out of service in the mid-2040s with the replacement warhead being available from the late 2030s at the earliest.” Britain and the U.S. have cooperated on nuclear weapons development for decades. In 1958, they signed what is known as the Mutual Defence Agreement to formalize that arrangement. That pact remains in place and is renewed about every decade. It was last signed in 2014. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/02/25/britain-confirms-new-nuclear-warhead-project-after-us-officials-spill-the-beans/

By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is requesting $364 million to conduct a division-sized exercise in the Indo-Pacific region in fiscal 2021, the service confirmed to Defense News. Yet, the cost breakout details are classified, according to an Army spokeswoman. The exercise is fueled by a rising China, characterized in the National Defense Strategy as a long-term, strategic competitor of the United States. The NDS lays out a world where great power competition rather than counterterrorism will drive the Defense Department's decision-making and force structure. While the U.S. Army has 85,000 permanently stationed troops in the Indo-Pacific region and is already conducting exercises such as Pacific Pathways with allies and partners, the service is aiming to practice rapid deployment from the continental United States to the Pacific. In FY20, the Army will conduct a smaller version of Defender Pacific while Defender Europe will get more investment and focus. But then attention and dollars will swing over to the Pacific in FY21. Defender Europe will be scaled back in FY21. The Army is requesting just $150 million to conduct the exercise in Europe, according to the Army. This year it has been reported that Defender Europe, already underway with troops and equipment arriving at ports on the continent this month, will cost about $340 million, which is roughly in line with what the service is requesting in FY21 for the Pacific version. The only specific funding lines broken out for the FY21 Defender Pacific exercise is home station training; it's unclear if those numbers are included in the total cost. The Army is requesting $150,000 for home stationing training devoted specifically for Defender Pacific and is also asking for another $214,252 for an “expanded level deployment exercise that demonstrates employment of [Continental United States]-based forces into the Pacific Theater,” according to budget documents. The funds include additional transportation, maintenance and operations for the exercise. Defender Pacific will build upon the U.S. Army's expanding role in the region. The service is already growing its Pacific Pathways exercise series and plans to focus on reinforcing the Oceania region this year. The series began in 2014 and has supported training efforts that satisfy bilateral needs between the U.S. Army and its allies and partners in the region in roughly three rotations each year for about 10 months total. Last year, Pacific Pathways shifted from shorter rotations that involved more countries to longer visits that involve fewer countries as a way to improve bilateral relations. And participation has grown from a battalion-sized task force to roughly the size of a brigade. The Defender series is intended to be a regular exercise each year in the Pacific and Europe with the regions trading off being the larger exercise every other year. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/02/25/army-wants-364-million-to-put-on-defender-pacific-in-fy21/