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Camille Grand, secrétaire général adjoint de l'Otan, se veut rassurant sur les relations entre les Etats-Unis et l'Europe sur les questions de défense. JACQUES HUBERT-RODIER L'Organisation militaire qui unit les puissances occidentales n'est pas en danger, selon le secrétaire général adjoint de l'Otan. Les critiques répétées du président américain Donald Trump sur l'implication financière insuffisante des pays européens sont plutôt justifiées, selon lui, et ne devraient pas dégénérer en une confrontation ouverte. Le renforcement de l'Europe de la défense, complémentaire de l'Otan, serait également bien accepté outre-Atlantique, à condition qu'elle reste complémentaire dans ses développements. L'Otan peut-elle surmonter la tension entre les Etats-Unis, l'Europe et le Canada ? Ce n'est pas la première fois que l'Alliance atlantique connaît des tensions entre ses Etats membres. C'est arrivé avec le départ de la France des structures militaires intégrées dans les années 1960, puis au moment des décisions de déploiement des euromissiles dans les années 1980, et plus récemment lors de la guerre en Irak, en 2003. Mais les Alliés ont toujours su surmonter ces débats et il ne faut pas dramatiser ces tensions, d'autant plus que, sur les dossiers de fond, l'Otan avance et s'adapte. Certes, il y a aujourd'hui de vrais désaccords transatlantiques, mais sur des sujets extérieurs à l'Otan, comme sur le changement climatique,les questions de commerce international ou l'Iran. Ce ne sont pas des sujets sur l'agenda, quotidien ou régulier, de l'Otan. Le président Trump ne cesse de critiquer l'Otan... Malgré les critiques adressées aux Alliés par le président Trump, il y a aux Etats-Unis un consensus assez large sur le soutien à l'Otan et à la relation transatlantique. La forte critique sur le partage du fardeau financier de l'Alliance est un thème récurrent depuis des années de la part des Américains qui estiment, non sans raison, que les dépenses militaires sont trop déséquilibrées entre les Etats-Unis et les autres alliés. Les choses évoluent aujourd'hui. Européens et Canadiens font-ils assez pour leur défense ? Les Américains demandent aux Alliés de respecter l'objectif qu'ils se sont assignés eux-mêmes lors du sommet de 2014 à Newport, au pays de Galles , c'est-à-dire de parvenir à 2 % de leur PIB consacré à la défense en 2024 - dont 20 % pour l'investissement dans de nouveaux matériels et à la recherche et développement. Aujourd'hui, le tableau est contrasté : d'un côté, tous les Alliés ont augmenté leur effort de défense. Canadiens et Européens ont au total dépensé 87 milliards d'euros de plus. En 2018, huit alliés (1) consacreront au moins 2 % de leur PIB à la défense, contre trois il y a quatre ans. Dix-huit ont annoncé qu'ils atteindront cet objectif en 2024 ou peu après. La France s'y est, pour sa part, engagée pour 2025. De l'autre côté, il est vrai qu'un certain nombre de pays sont encore un peu en retrait et n'ont pas pris d'engagement clair pour parvenir aux 2 % en 2024, même s'ils augmentent leur effort. C'est un peu un débat sur le verre à moitié plein ou à moitié vide. Donald Trump accuse surtout l'Allemagne ? L'Allemagne s'est engagée fermement à parvenir à 1,5 % de son PIB en 2024. Ce qui constitue une augmentation déjà significative de ses dépenses pour une grosse économie. Parviendra-t-elle à 2 % dans un avenir rapproché ? Politiquement, c'est encore en discussion au sein de la coalition et du Bundestag. Techniquement, l'Allemagne, je pense, peut et doit y arriver car l'argument de dire « nous sommes un pays trop riche » n'est pas recevable alors que des pays plus pauvres font cet effort. Cela sera sans doute étalé dans le temps. Pourquoi 2 % ? Cet objectif existe depuis longtemps mais il est devenu politiquement très engageant depuis 2014 avec la promesse faite au sommet du pays de Galles. C'est un chiffre raisonnable si l'on compare à la période de la guerre froide où la plupart des pays de l'Otan étaient plutôt entre 3 % et 4 % du PIB, ou aux dépenses d'autres puissances majeures. Ce n'est pas une course frénétique aux armements mais une norme cohérente avec un environnement stratégique incertain et dégradé. L'Europe de la défense est-elle concurrente de l'Otan ? Ce débat est aujourd'hui largement dépassé. L'Europe de la défense et l'Alliance atlantique doivent être complémentaires. Si l'Otan plaide bien sûr pour éviter les duplications inutiles et assurer la meilleure coordination possible, les décisions récentes de l'Union européenne pour renforcer l'Europe de la défense sont bienvenues et utiles avec la mise en oeuvre de la coopération structurée permanente, et surtout avec des investissements dans le prochain cadre budgétaire européen 2021-2027 dans deux domaines importants vu de l'Otan : 6,5 milliards d'euros pour des infrastructures liées à la « mobilité militaire » et la création du Fonds européen de défense doté de 13 milliards d'euros. Certes, tout cela représente 1 % des dépenses de défense en Europe, mais cela aide à faire de l'Union européenne un acteur de la scène stratégique avec lequel l'Otan travaille dans un nombre croissant de domaines. Les relations entre les deux organisations sont denses et n'ont d'ailleurs sans doute jamais été aussi bonnes Comment voyez-vous les relations avec la Russie ? Depuis deux ans, l'Otan mène une double approche : d'une part, de dissuasion et de défense avec la consolidation du flanc oriental de l'Alliance gr'ce à une présence avancée, légère, de quatre bataillons dans les trois pays Baltes et en Pologne, et un renforcement de ses structures de commandement ; et, d'autre part, de dialogue. Depuis 2016, le conseil Otan-Russie (COR) s'est réuni sept fois. La rencontre du 16 juillet, à Helsinki, entre les présidents Poutine et Trump s'inscrit ainsi dans les échanges normaux et réguliers entre les leaders de l'Alliance et la Russie. La menace terroriste est-elle un autre sujet de préoccupation ? L'Otan est engagée dans la défense collective. C'est notre « coeur de métier ». Ce qui est nécessaire face à l'attitude russe des dernières années, comme en Ukraine avec l'annexion illégale de la Crimée. Mais elle l'est aussi dans la lutte contre le terrorisme. Plus de 16.000 soldats sous le drapeau Otan sont déployés en Afghanistan pour aider et soutenir l'armée afghane. L'organisation prépare, en outre, une mission d'entraînement en Irak. Ce qui est une contribution à la lutte contre Daech. La Turquie pose-t-elle un problème pour l'Alliance ? La Turquie est un allié majeur et toujours actif, depuis 1952, dans nos débats. Elle est confrontée à des défis de sécurité exceptionnels du fait de sa situation stratégique et de la menace terroriste. La situation dans le nord de la Syrie a pu donner lieu à quelques tensions. Actuellement, il y a cependant une feuille de route américano-turque sur la Syrie, et les tensions et les incompréhensions sont moins perceptibles. https://www.lesechos.fr/monde/enjeux-internationaux/0301937638238-camille-grand-tous-les-allies-de-lotan-augmentent-leurs-depenses-de-defense-2191399.php

By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Navy is rapidly moving toward procuring the first hull in its new class of frigate in 2020, but a new report is raising questions about whether the Navy has done detailed analysis about what it needs out of the ship before barging ahead. The Navy may not have done an adequate job of analyzing gaps and capabilities shortfalls before it set itself on a fast-track to buying the so-called FFG(X) as an adaptation from a parent design, said influential Navy analyst Ron O'Rourke in a new Congressional Research Service report. In essence, the CRS report questions whether the Navy looked at what capabilities the service already has in the fleet, what capabilities it's missing and whether the FFG(X) is the optimal solution to address any identified shortfalls. O'Rourke suggests Congress push the Navy on “whether procuring a new class of FFGs is the best or most promising general approach for addressing the identified capability gaps and mission needs, and whether the Navy has performed a formal, rigorous analysis of this issue, as opposed to relying solely on subjective judgments of Navy or [Defense Department] leaders.” ““Subjective judgments, though helpful, can overlook counter-intuitive results regarding the best or most promising general approach,” the report reads. “Potential alternative general approaches for addressing identified capability gaps and mission needs in this instance include (to cite a few possibilities) modified LCSs, FFs, destroyers, aircraft, unmanned vehicles, or some combination of these platforms.” The Navy is looking to adapt its FFG(X) from an existing design such as Fincantieri's FREMM, one of the two existing littoral combat ships or the Coast Guard's national security cutter as a means of getting updated capabilities into a small surface combatant and into the fleet quickly. A better approach, O'Rourke suggests, would be to make a formal, rigorous analysis of alternatives to its current course. Failure to do so has led to a series of setbacks with the Navy's current small surface combatant program, the LCS. “The Navy did not perform a formal, rigorous analysis of this kind prior to announcing the start of the LCS program in November 2001, and this can be viewed as a root cause of much of the debate and controversy that attended the LCS program, and of the program's ultimate restructurings in February 2014 and December 2015,” O'Rourke writes. O'Rourke further suggests the Navy is relying too much on subjective opinions of Navy and Defense Department leaders, instead of a legitimate analysis. And indeed, the Navy has made rapid acquisition of the new ship the hallmark of the program. “Subjective judgments can be helpful, particularly in terms of capturing knowledge and experience that is not easily reduced to numbers, in taking advantage of the ‘wisdom of the crowd,‘ and in coming to conclusions and making decisions quickly,” O'Rourke argues. “On the other hand, a process that relies heavily on subjective judgments can be vulnerable to group-think, can overlook counter-intuitive results regarding capability gaps and mission needs, and, depending on the leaders involved, can emphasize those leaders' understanding of the Navy's needs.” Read the full report here. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/07/09/has-the-us-navy-thought-this-new-frigate-through-new-report-raises-questions/

By: Pierre Tran PARIS - France seeks to shake up, speed up and closely audit its arms acquisition with a “transformation” of its procurement office, the Direction Générale de l'Armement. In a July 5 speech, Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly pointed to the need for a deep restructuring of the DGA in response to changing threats, international relations, technology and innovation. AS part of that process, the DGA will spin up an innovation office for key programs, with a budget of €1 billion (US $1.2 billion). Closer ties with industry will be part of the new approach, with prime contractors sitting down with the DGA and chiefs of staff to draw up a requirement – but industry must also assume responsibility and better share risk, Parly said. “Transformation of the DGA” was the mission assigned to its director, Joël Barre, when he took up the post, Parly told the audience gathered at the defense ministry. Efficiency and responsiveness were key goals, requiring greater dialog between the DGA and the military services, rather than working in silos, she said. There are now three phases in arms programs, half the previous number, she said. Those key stages are preparation, production and use of the equipment. The ministry seeks to simplify procedure, increase flexibility and acquire innovation, while pursuing new legal structures and financing. While greater conversations with industry will be vital going forward, Parly pointed up that there would “balance” in the government's relations with industry. France was ready to talk to industry but the government was not ready to pay any price. There will detailed audits to ensure a right price was agreed to, Parly warned. “The DGA is not a quartermaster's store, nor little old grandma with an open check book,” she said. One of the major reforms for industry will be to pressure prime contractors deliver on time, with the government seeking to move to an approach used in civil aviation, where most of the payment is made on delivery. That encourages a delivery on time, rather than the present phased payment, where defense contractors have no incentive to speed up the work. The DGA will send teams to inspect the contractors to ensure the right price was paid. Additionally, Parly said there will be greater sharing and use of engineering information between the DGA and industry, with increased use of artificial intelligence and large databases. Innovation agency To help drive the new culture, DGA will set up an innovation agency, intended to be the one number to call for inquiries on innovation, and ready to take risk and speed up official backing. There is a search on for director of the agency, which will merge various existing offices including Astrid, Def'invest and Rapid. The agency will have a budget of €1 billion (US $1.2 billion) for investment. There will be a greater cooperation between the DGA, Joint chief of staff and Chief of staff of each of the services, with teams working together in the same office area from this autumn. There are two pilot projects being considered: the Future Combat Air Systems, which will also consider the potential for cooperation with Germany and other European countries, and a maritime surveillance system. There is a search for greater speed by merging the operational requirements set by the services with the technical needs drafted by the DGA. The forces and DGA will, with a prime contractor, draw up a single document setting out requirement. This combined approach will be tested on a new internal communications system for the ministry. The DGA will seek greater flexibility in its staff management as the office relies on technical staff, which are in strong demand in the job market. That includes sending its employees to work temporarily in companies to learn best practice and boost cooperation between the ministry and industry. The DGA manages an average annual budget of €11 billion for some 100 arms programs, employs 9,600 staff, of which 56 percent are engineers and executives. The office has a major role in managing export deals. Parly, in her opening remarks, quoted former U.S. President John F. Kennedy in his 1960 acceptance speech of the Democrats' nomination for the presidential campaign: “We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier--the frontier of the 1960′s--a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils-- a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.” The DGA was formed just a few months before the presidential candidate delivered his speech at the Democratic National Convention at the Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/07/06/french-procurement-office-to-undergo-transformation/

By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany ― The Belgian Navy has finished a weekslong series of test flights with Schiebel's CAMCOPTER S-100 drone as part of the sea service's search for new maritime-surveillance and search-and-rescue equipment, the company announced Tuesday. The test plan, which ran June 21 to July 1, constituted an initial step for Belgian officials to identify “the possibilities of such systems and sensors,” Lt. Cmdr. D. Biermans is quoted as saying in the statement. In particular, officials had an eye on the unmanned copter's operation in the country's confined airspace — on land and over water ― and “opportunities for the domain of coastal security and prospects for further developments,” Biermans said. Belgium sports a relatively straight coastline measuring close to 70 kilometers, roughly equivalent in length to that between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in Florida. The European nation is joining a growing trend among navies worldwide to employ UAVs to act as the eyes and ears of military and coast guard vessels. Equipped with a variety of sensors, the aircraft can help spot potential threats and help rescue people lost at sea. “Given the complexity of introducing a [maritime tactical unmanned aircraft system] within the Navy and its impact on the concepts of operation and tactics, this was a first informative step and will be part of a series of tests and experiments with a variety of vehicles and sensors,” Biermans said. Schiebel's CAMCOPTER S-100 has performed “thousands” of takeoffs and landings from aboard more than 30 ships by a host of international customers, company spokeswoman Sanna Raza told Defense News. She declined to say what countries' programs the company is eyeing next, citing confidentiality agreements. Based in Vienna, Austria, Schiebel plans to focus on integrating next-generation sensors to further expand its portfolio in the areas of intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, according to Raza. https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2018/07/03/belgian-navy-tests-austrian-copter-drone-for-at-sea-surveillance/

By: Andrew C. Jarocki WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps continue to invest in vertical takeoff aircraft, announcing a $4.2 billion contract with the Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office for dozens of new V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. The agreement provides for the manufacture and delivery of 39 CMV-22B aircraft for the Navy and 14 MV-22B aircraft for the Marines. The delivery is expected to be completed by November 2024. The Navy will use the new tilt rotors for transporting personnel and cargo from shore to aircraft carriers. The Osprey is also used in infiltration/exfiltration operations. The V-22 and its variations have seen use by the U.S. Air Force for resupply operations, and by the Marines in Syria. The Army is also interested in developing vertical lift capabilities for deploying strike teams. The contract included a sale of four MV-22B aircraft for the government of Japan, where five American Ospreys arrived this spring to begin a deployment based in Tokyo. The purchase “enables the U.S. Navy to begin advancing its carrier onboard delivery fleet with modern tiltrotor aircraft” Kristin Houston, vice president for Boeing tilt-rotor programs and director of the Bell-Boeing V-22 program, said in a news release. The Air Force will also receive one new CV-22B from the contract. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/07/03/us-navy-marine-corps-order-dozens-of-osprey-aircraft-in-42b-deal/

(B2 – En mer de Norvège) Alors qu'il naviguait entre l'Islande et la Norvège, nous avons pu embarquer quelques heures à bord du Nato Research Vessel (NRV) Alliance. Ce navire original, qui embarque des spécialistes de différents pays de l'Otan, teste des drones sous-marins dans les eaux glacés de l'Arctique. « Nous amenons la science à la mer », résume le docteur Catherine Warner, l'Américaine qui dirige le Centre de recherche et d'expérimentation maritime (CMRE) dont dépend le bateau. Bardé d'antennes, de sonars et de machines expérimentales, ce b'timent fait la fierté de l'Otan. Les officiels en visite à bord y voient une preuve de la capacité des Alliés à développer de nouvelles solutions pour répondre aux besoins des militaires. Les drones sous-marins ou gliders Si le NRV Alliance est susceptible de travailler sur tous les domaines identifiés comme prioritaires par les marines de l'Otan (lutte anti-sous-marines, lutte-anti-mines, renseignement...), ses travaux sont actuellement concentrés sur les drones sous-marins, appelés gliders en anglais. Des engins qui pourraient révolutionner de nombreuses missions. NB : Le NRV Alliance et ses drones participent régulièrement à des manoeuvres de l'Otan, comme l'exercice de renseignement interalliés Unified Vision 2018. Lire ici. Plus endurants que les hommes ? Ces drones séduisent au sein de l'Otan. C'est un haut gradé, riche d'une expérience dans le renseignement militaire maritime, qui en résume tout l'attrait : « Un équipage humain a besoin de retourner au port pour dormir, manger et voir sa famille. Ces robots peuvent rester des mois en mer. » Peu coûteux, discrets, polyvalents, endurants et autonomes, ces engins sont au cœur des expérimentations menées par les 25 scientifiques à bord. Ceux qu'ils utilisent actuellement, des Slocum G3 de l'Américain Teledyne, cartographient les fonds marins et font des relevés de températures et de courants. Des informations cruciales pour repérer et surveiller les mouvements de sous-marins, par exemple. Multiusages Le potentiel des gliders intéresse dans des domaines divers. Ces engins ont été testés dans la lutte anti-mines, avec des robots capables de patrouiller, de reconnaître des menaces et de les signaler à l'homme qui pourra ensuite intervenir. Un moyen intéressant de palier à une flotte européenne de navires de lutte anti-mines de plus en plus vieillissante et coûteuse à remplacer. Dans un autre registre, des drones pourraient mailler les fonds de certains points stratégiques pour surveiller les mouvements de sous-marins adverses. D'ici quelques années, si des puissances étaient capables de bloquer ainsi certains axes clefs, la dissuasion nucléaire pourrait se voir impactée et devrait se réinventer dans sa composante navale. C'est l'un des intérêts du grand Nord, où transitent régulièrement des sous-marins nucléaires. De l'aveu d'un haut gradé de l'Otan, spécialiste en matière de renseignement, ces drones sous-marins sont à l'heure actuelle presque indétectables. Les sous-marins remis en cause L'arrivée de ces submersibles risque de remettre en question tout le fonctionnement sous-marin. D'autant plus qu'ils sont très majoritairement automatisés : vu la difficulté pour assurer les communications sous l'eau, il n'est pas possible de les piloter en permanence. L'homme se contente donc en réalité de suivre les mouvements sur des écrans, ne donnant que quelques ajustements pour les remontées régulières en surface. Une évolution stratégique qui rappelle au docteur Catherine Warner un autre grand changement au sein de l'US Air Force, où elle s'occupait de plusieurs programmes de drones : « Les sous-mariniers sont pour l'instant sceptiques. Comme pour les pilotes de l'US Air Force lorsque les Predator sont arrivés à l'époque. Mais aujourd'hui, ils ont pleinement intégré l'intérêt de ces drones et ils ont accepté de travailler dessus. » Un navire presque unique Conçu sur mesure Le NVR Alliance est un navire conçu sur mesure pour les besoins de l'Otan, dans les ateliers de l'Italien Fincantieri. Livré en 1988, il embarque une multitude d'équipements de recherche qui en font un laboratoire en pointe dans le domaine des études maritimes. Il dispose des dernières technologies dans les domaines océanographique, acoustique, météorologique ainsi que de son propre atelier pour réparer ou modifier le matériel. « La force de ce navire, explique un scientifique à bord, c'est qu'il permet d'aller tester des idées dehors, en conditions réelles. » Le b'timent peut de fait aller naviguer dans les eaux polaires. Le tout avec des conditions de vie à bord qui restent très confortables : la quasi-totalité des chercheurs dispose de cabines individuelles ! L'Alliance au sein de l'Otan Le NRV Alliance est, avec le CRB Leonardo, l'un des deux navires détenus en propre par l'Otan. Rattaché au Centre de recherche et d'expérimentation maritime (CMRE) de La Spezia (Italie), il est chargé de tester des technologies au profit des Alliés. Le b'timent a longtemps été opéré par des marins allemands, jusqu'en 2015. Pour simplifier la logistique dans son port d'attache, il a été transféré aux mains de la marine italienne qui a rapidement séduit les scientifiques à bord avec sa botte secrète : la pizza en guise de casse-croûte nocturne ! Des pionniers pas toujours suivis Les équipes du NVR Alliance travaillent en collaboration avec des industriels et des universités. Ils développent souvent leurs propres solutions aux problématiques identifiées. Ils ont par exemple acheté un drone Bluefin au Français Thales, dans lequel ils ont intégré leurs propres équipements. Le fabricant a pu bénéficier des retours et progresse ainsi dans son développement, gr'ce aux essais de l'Otan. Côté autorité publique, l'enthousiasme n'est pas toujours aussi présent. De l'aveu du docteur Catherine Warner, les découvertes à bord ne sont pas toujours suivies par les États commanditaires qui hésitent à poursuivre les investissements. https://www.bruxelles2.eu/2018/07/03/lalliance-navire-de-recherche-de-lotan-teste-des-drones-sous-marins-dans-le-grand-nord/

By: Megan Eckstein A $50,000 investment in laser scanning equipment saved the Navy nearly $2 million during the planning effort for USS George Washington‘s (CVN-73) refueling and complex overhaul. A small team of engineers with a LIDAR system did the work of the usual 20-person team, inspecting the nooks and crannies of the carrier to inform the overhaul plans. Now the Navy is looking to leverage that win and expand its use of laser scanners to not only cut down costs for aircraft carrier maintenance planning and execution but also tie into virtual reality trainers and other cutting-edge technologies. In the case of the George Washington RCOH, a team of two or three engineers from Newport News Shipbuilding flew out to the forward-deployed carrier in Japan with a LIDAR scanner atop a tripod. As the tool slowly spins around it gathers millions of data points depicting how far away objects are from the scanner. The resulting 3D point cloud shows the precise location of items in the room – not where a server rack was supposed to be according to the blueprints, for example, but where it actually is. Capt. John Markowicz, the in-service carrier program manager, told USNI News in an interview that the $1.8-million savings from that one ship check effort was about 15 percent of the total cost of that portion of the RCOH planning, and that his office was already employing the laser scanning technology ahead of the next RCOH for USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74). He said it was too early to guess a percent savings the laser scanning will yield this time around, but that it would likely be on par or better than with George Washingtonbecause Newport News Shipbuilding has continued to invest in the laser scanners and learning how to best leverage them. Markowicz said the tripod-mounted scanners cost about $3,600 each, and smaller handheld ones for scanning small spaces cost about $600. The actual scanning service can cost between $50 and $250 an hour, and post-production work can cost $100 to $300 and hour. USNI News visited Newport News Shipbuilding last October, and during a lunchtime meeting a company engineer scanned the whole conference room and produced a point cloud model of the room within about 30 minutes, as an example of how quickly the scanners can work. Once those point cloud models are created, the Navy and Newport News have already found several uses during the RCOH and other carrier maintenance planning and execution phases. First, for the actual planning, the point cloud models can offer some spatial perspective that flat blueprints can't, as well as an updated “as-is” assessment of the space instead of the “as-designed” view the blueprints contain. Mark Bilinski, a scientist at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific and its Battlespace Exploitation of Mixed Reality (BEMR) Lab, and his team are working on laser scanning technology and ways to leverage the 3D point cloud product. He showed off some of the technologies to USNI News during the U.S. Naval Institute and AFCEA's WEST 2018 conference in San Diego in February. During a panel presentation at WEST, he said that sometimes the 3D scans just show discrepancies between where an item was supposed to be installed versus where it actually was installed. However, he ran into a case where the blueprints depicted an escape hatch of a certain size, but it was larger in reality; in that case, a planner might have thought there was room to install something nearby, when in reality putting the equipment there would actually partially block the hatch and cause a safety issue. In another case, the blueprints showed a hatch as being much larger than it actually is, and so the planner might have thought the space was unusable. “That's an opportunity cost because that might be some space that you could use for an install that you don't think is available to you,” Bilinski said. Once the planning is done and execution is set to begin, Markowicz said the 3D models, unlike 2D blueprints, can help identify interferences and obstructions, help find the best route down narrow passageways for bringing in bulky equipment to install, aid in laying in pipes and wires and more. “That is valuable, it cuts down time in the shipyard,” which ultimately cuts down cost and allows the next carrier to come in for maintenance quicker. Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility are beginning to embrace this technology, which could spread to the other two public shipyards to support submarine maintenance activities too, and Newport News Shipbuilding is “all in” on the private sector side, he said. Markowicz noted that taking the scans and making mockups in a 3D digital environment can not only save time on major efforts like finding the best routing for piping, but can also help with little things – for instance, there was a case of trying to install a laptop in a phone booth area, but it turned out that the laptop couldn't open all the way without hitting the phone. “We stumble upon these things sometimes a little late in the design process, or actually the install process. It's not as efficient as it can be,” he said. Every time a maintenance or modernization activity takes place, the scan would become slightly outdated, but Markowicz said the idea would be to rescan periodically and maintain records of all the scans as “selected records” that accompany the 2D drawings for the Nimitz class today. “Once we have this digitally, I think that's pretty useful. We can share it with multiple activities and have the documentation for future use and future availability planning,” he said. Bilinski also noted the ways laser scans could help during a major maintenance period, when multiple program offices are trying to get their own equipment in and don't always have a great way to coordinate. In many availabilities, Bilinski said, someone goes to install a piece of equipment in a space, only to find that that space is taken. Instead, he will just take the next closest space that meets his need. Then the next person comes in to use that space and finds that it was just taken, causing a cascading effect. If everyone involved in the maintenance period were working off a shared digital plan that could be updated in real time as systems were installed, conflicts could be identified sooner and plans could be rearranged as needed without any on-ship confusion. “If you have that collaborative environment where everyone is planning off of the scan data, the installer can see not only that this space is physically available, but hey, it's also available in the planning environment; no one is planning to put anything there. Or, maybe someone is planning to put something there but you've got to put your equipment somewhere, so you put it there, but you at least know who to notify so that we can start fixing this problem earlier than discovering it when the next program office shows up to install their equipment,” he said. Virtual reality application Virtual and augmented reality tools are already changing how ships are built, with Newport News Shipbuilding telling USNI News during the October visit that the use of VR goggles while laying pipes and cables for the future John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) has cut the required man-hours in half. Newport News is also sending its shipbuilders out with tablets that can use VR to show what's on the other side of a wall or where to cut a hole into a wall, and can also include how-to videos to show step-by-step how to do the day's tasks. Markowicz said there would likely be less applicability for that technology on the ship repair and maintenance side compared to the ship construction side, but he hopes to explore how the public shipyards can use VR and tablets to drive efficiency up and cost down. Where VR and laser scanning could converge, though, is on training. Because each ship has a different set of navigation and steering systems, surface search radars and other systems, allowing a sailor to train on his or her own ship is more useful than training on a generic ship. Markowicz said his office is working with Bilinski's BEMR Lab to create ship-specific VR training tools for while ships are in maintenance. They scanned destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) after its collision last year, and while the ship undergoes a lengthy repair process, sailors could use VR goggles to practice maintenance and repair work on McCain's specific configuration without having to actually be on the destroyer. The BEMR lab already has Virtual Eqiupment Environment (V2E) tools that let the user walk into a room, spot a server rack, for example, and begin to take apart and put back together the server rack. Similarly, when a carrier is in RCOH for four years, sailors are often times flown around the world to get training time on other carriers. Though the ship is safe for them to be in while in RCOH, the systems are all ripped out. If the Navy had scans of the last carrier that came out of RCOH and could insert a finished product view into VR goggles, sailors could train on their own ship at Newport News while the RCOH goes on around them. “We've got to find creative ways to do training. Normally they leave ... and they go out to the fleet and ride another ship and get their training that way. But a lieutenant had the idea of, okay, you can go up to pri-fly (primary flight control), any everything's ripped apart but you can put on these goggles and see what your space is going to look like 48 months from now ... and visualize it all and stand there in your space without having to go to another ship,” Markowicz said. “I definitely see a partnership with the BEMR Lab and laying that out for training for ship's force, closing that gap in readiness. Because I was part of the Carl Vinson (CVN-70) overhaul, and our skills atrophied as we stayed in overhaul for that length of time. So we have to find opportunities to sharpen our skills.” Bilinski said there could be other uses for combining a current ship scan and VR goggles or tablets. For example, if scans of ship spaces were taken correctly, they could be woven together to create essentially a Google Maps of sorts. New sailors could use it to learn their way around the ship. Or, more importantly, “let's say a fire breaks out on a ship and you need to go into a compartment and fight that fire – it's going to be smoke-filled, it can be dark, you may not have ever been in that space, there could be plenty of places where you can fall, you could twist your ankle, you could bump into equipment in the space. If you were to understand where you were, you could look through that wall and see what the last as-is condition of the ship was and sort of get an idea of what you're getting into before you go into that space,” then firefighting or other emergency response efforts could be done potentially more safely and quickly. Policy and technical barriers Much like other emerging technologies, Markowicz said those trying to implement laser scanning are facing the usual set of challenges: how does the Navy balance the need to ensure technical rigor while also not being too proscriptive and excluding potential scanners or data formats that could be useful? What legal and ethical concerns need to be addressed through policy changes? “That's the rub right now,” Markowicz said. “You see us working with Newport News. I'm sure there's other pockets within NAVSEA that are working on it. But alignment across the whole NAVSEA equities hasn't happened yet. So where we are successful at NAVSEA (Naval Sea Systems Command) is where we have a singular tech warrant holder who owns turbines or fire protection or what have you. So we're really successful in employing that model across NAVSEA. I see a vision someday where you have a tech warrant holder for a laser scanner that's able to establish standards, policy, requirements to go forward and articulate that to industry.” His team is hosting a laser scanning summit later this month to identify barriers and develop courses of action to begin to address them – everything from how many dots per inch are needed for the scan to be useful, to, are there any engineering decisions that cannot or should not be made based on laser scanning and 3D point cloud modeling work. Markowicz suggested that anything related to the nuclear propulsion system is going to require much more technical rigor than other parts of the ship, but he said he still sees great potential for savings with laser scanners beyond what the Navy and Newport News Shipbuilding are doing today. “I think across the board we will save money, and in that way the leadership is behind it if it helps us be more efficient,” he said. Back when the Navy and Newport News first did the George Washington ship check, then-Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley's message to Markowicz was, “I absolutely needed to make it my mission to leverage new technologies and be more efficient in the repair business,” the captain said, and he believes this is a prime example of how to do that. To be successful enterprise-wide, he said, “I think the real key is setting the standards, which will provide a framework where contractors and Navy can plug into. To get there, we need to provide technical leadership, host conferences ... flush out all the issues. At least create a standard so that we can contract and have deliverables. One software package or one laser scanner, I don't think we need to be that proscriptive. I think we set a standard for industry, like an ISO standard, and people will come around to it.” He likened the point cloud image to a PDF that could be opened on a Mac or a PC and is readily sharable among users, and said it would be important that, regardless of what scanner is used, the output has these qualities too. He suggested that some scans would need to be precise while others could forsake precision for speed if the user just needed a general idea of how a room is laid out, and all those types of issues would eventually become written out and standardized. https://news.usni.org/2018/07/02/navy-use-of-laser-scanning-already-showing-big-savings-summit-this-month-to-refine-plans

By: Maddy Longwell A research and development collaboration management company has been awarded a contract to helm a technology prototype consortium as part of a new acquisition process employed by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic, in Charleston, South Carolina. SPAWAR awarded an other transaction authority to Advanced Technology International, of Summerville, South Carolina, for consortium management for SPAWAR's Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP). Under the contract, Advanced Technology International will manage a group of defense contractors who will complete projects for the government that address SPAWAR technology needs, and the consortium will facilitate competition for projects. Topics will be open to competition beginning in August 2018, the SPAWAR Systems Center Atlantic said. The contract is worth $100 million over three years. IWRP OTA is an acquisition tool that allows nontraditional industry partners to work with organizations across SPAWAR to prototype technology that supports naval information warfare capabilities. IWRP focuses on information technology areas such as cyberwarfare, cloud computing and data science. SPAWAR announced OTAs as an acquisition tool through the IWRP at an industry day in February 2018, where prospective offerors learned about OTA strategy and the technical scope of IWRP OTA projects. “The IWRP will allow us to take advantage of commercially developed capabilities that are keeping pace with emerging technologies; technologies and innovation that we cannot take advantage of in a [Federal Acquisition Regulation]-based contract environment,” said Chris Miller, executive director of SPAWAR Systems Center Atlantic. OTAs, which are not covered by the FAR, are a more flexible acquisition tool used by the Department of Defense. OTAs provide for the production of prototype systems. OTA contracts are mostly awarded to nontraditional defense contractors. OTA contracts enable departments under the Department of Defense to access commercial technologies that support the overall goal of IWRP, said SSC Atlantic Deputy Executive Director Bill Deligne, in a news release. “This mechanism is faster and more attuned to getting something quickly that we want today, as opposed to traditional federal acquisition,” Deligne said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/home/2018/07/02/the-navys-new-acquisition-tool-speeds-up-tech-prototyping/

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis WASHINGTON — President Trump has written sharply worded letters to the leaders of several NATO allies — including Germany, Belgium, Norway and Canada — taking them to task for spending too little on their own defense and warning that the United States is losing patience with what he said was their failure to meet security obligations shared by the alliance. The letters, sent in June, are the latest sign of acrimony between Mr. Trump and American allies as he heads to a NATO summit meeting next week in Brussels that will be a closely watched test of the president's commitment to the alliance. Mr. Trump has repeatedly questioned its value and has claimed that its members are taking advantage of the United States. Mr. Trump's criticism raised the prospect of another confrontation involving the president and American allies after a blowup by Mr. Trump at the Group of 7 gathering last month in Quebec, and increased concerns that far from projecting solidarity in the face of threats from Russia, the meeting will highlight divisions within the alliance. Such a result could play into the hands of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who is to meet with Mr. Trump in Helsinki, Finland, after the NATO meeting, and whose primary goal is sowing divisions within the alliance. In his letters, the president hinted that after more than a year of public and private complaints that allies have not done enough to share the burden of collective defense, he may be considering a response, including adjusting the United States' military presence around the world. “As we discussed during your visit in April, there is growing frustration in the United States that some allies have not stepped up as promised,” Mr. Trump wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in a particularly pointed letter, according to someone who saw it and shared excerpts with The New York Times. “The United States continues to devote more resources to the defense of Europe when the Continent's economy, including Germany's, are doing well and security challenges abound. This is no longer sustainable for us.” “Growing frustration,” Mr. Trump wrote, “is not confined to our executive branch. The United States Congress is concerned, as well.” The president's complaint is that many NATO allies are not living up to the commitment they made at their Wales summit meeting in 2014 to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on national defense. American presidents have long complained about the lack of burden-sharing by NATO member countries, but Mr. Trump has taken that criticism much further, claiming that some of the United States' closest allies are essentially deadbeats who have failed to pay debts to the organization, a fundamental misunderstanding of how it functions. The Trump administration has already reportedly been analyzing a large-scale withdrawal of American forces from Germany, after Mr. Trump expressed surprise that 35,000 active-duty troops are stationed there and complained that NATO countries were not contributing enough to the alliance. In the letter, Mr. Trump told Ms. Merkel that Germany also deserves blame for the failure of other NATO countries to spend enough: “Continued German underspending on defense undermines the security of the alliance and provides validation for other allies that also do not plan to meet their military spending commitments, because others see you as a role model.” In language that is echoed in his letters to the leaders of other countries — including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway and Prime Minister Charles Michel of Belgium — Mr. Trump said he understands the “domestic political pressure” brought to bear by opponents of boosting military expenditures, noting that he has expended “considerable political capital to increase our own military spending.” “It will, however, become increasingly difficult to justify to American citizens why some countries do not share NATO's collective security burden while American soldiers continue to sacrifice their lives overseas or come home gravely wounded,” Mr. Trump wrote to Ms. Merkel. Mr. Michel reacted tartly last week to the letter, telling reporters at a European Union summit meeting in Brussels that he was “not very impressed” by it, according to a report by Deutsche Welle. Mr. Trump has long complained about the alliance and routinely grouses that the United States is treated shabbily by multilateral organizations of which it is a member, be it the World Trade Organization or the North Atlantic alliance. But in Europe, the letters to NATO allies have been greeted with some degree of alarm because of their suggestion that Mr. Trump is prepared to impose consequences on the allies — as he has done in an escalating tariff fight with European trading partners — if they do not do what he is asking. “Trump still seems to think that NATO is like a club that you owe dues to, or some sort of protection racket where the U.S. is doing all the work protecting all these deadbeat Europeans while they're sitting around on vacation, and now he is suggesting there are consequences,” said Derek Chollet, a former Defense Department official who is the executive vice president for security and defense policy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “Europeans have been watching Donald Trump begin to implement his rhetoric on trade in ways that are very combative,” he said, “and they're starting to contemplate whether he would do this regarding security issues, as well.” Mr. Trump's letter to Mr. Trudeau was reported last month by iPolitics in Canada, and the existence of others was reported last week by Foreign Policy. It was not clear precisely how many Mr. Trump wrote, and the White House would not comment on presidential correspondence. But two diplomatic sources said they believed at least a dozen were sent, including to Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the matter, said that Mr. Trump is committed to the NATO alliance and expects allies to shoulder “their fair share of our common defense burden, and to do more in areas that most affect them.” John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump's national security adviser, said Sunday that it was NATO members who refused to spend more on defense — not the president — who were responsible for undercutting the alliance. “The president wants a strong NATO,” Mr. Bolton said in an interview on CBS's “Face the Nation.” “If you think Russia's a threat, ask yourself this question: Why is Germany spending less than 1.2 percent of its G.N.P.? When people talk about undermining the NATO alliance, you should look at those who are carrying out steps that make NATO less effective militarily.” But for diplomats hoping fervently to avoid another high-profile summit meeting collapse with Mr. Trump as the instigator, the letters were concerning. “Europeans, like many folks in our Defense Department, think that there are many good things that could come out of this summit if only they can keep it from going off the rails,” Mr. Chollet said. “They are hoping to survive without irreparable damage, and so the fact that you have all these storm clouds surrounding NATO and Trump is really worrisome.” Mr. Trump's disparagement of Europe and the alliance has become almost routine, leaving some veteran diplomats aghast. Last week, Jim Melville, the United States ambassador to Estonia, told friends and colleagues that he would resign at the end of this month after more than 30 years in the Foreign Service, in part because of the president's language. “For the President to say the E.U. was ‘set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank,' or that ‘NATO is as bad as NAFTA' is not only factually wrong, but proves to me that it's time to go,” Mr. Melville wrote in a Facebook post. He was referring to remarks about Europe that the president made during a rally last week in Fargo, N.D., and comments about NATO that he is reported to have made privately during the Group of 7 gathering. Still, the president is not alone in demanding more robust military spending by NATO allies. Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense, wrote to Gavin Williamson, the British defense minister, last month saying he was “concerned” that the United Kingdom's military strength was “at risk of erosion” if it did not increase spending, and warned that France could eclipse Britain as the United States' “partner of choice” if it did not invest more. A United States official confirmed the contents of Mr. Mattis's letter, first reported by The Sun. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/world/europe/trump-nato.html