10 décembre 2019 | International, Naval
By: David B. Larter
WASHINGTON — Acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly in public comments and in a directive to the force has mandated that the service find a path to quickly get to 355 ships.
Despite some soft-pedaling from Navy leadership on the 355-ship goal, Modly has made it clear that such an inventory is national policy and that he wants leadership to get behind it.
“[Three hundred and fifty-five ships] is stated as national policy,” Modly told an audience at the USNI Defense Forum on Dec. 5. “It was also the president's goal during the election. We have a goal of 355, we don't have a plan for 355. We need to have a plan, and if it's not 355, what's it going to be and what's it going to look like?”
In a memo released Thursday to the force, Modly said he wanted an actionable plan by the end of the 2020s.
In the memo, Modly called for the services to develop “an integrated plan to achieve ... 355 ships (or more) unmanned underwater vehicles, and unmanned surface vehicles for greater naval power within 10 years.”
The push toward the 355-ship fleet, which kicked off after a 2016 force-structure assessment, has been on shaky ground of late, with former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer calling it “aspirational.” Last year, the service's former top requirements officer told an audience at the Navy's largest annual conference that people should focus more on capabilities and less on the number.
The issue is that the Navy is required by law to pursue a 355-ship Navy, something that was the focus of House and Senate lawmakers early on in the Trump administration. The fleet currently stands at 292 ships.
During his comments at the USNI Defense Forum, Modly said that if the Navy must fight the other services for money to achieve that goal, then that's what it should do.
“We ought to be lobbying for that and making a case for it and arguing in the halls of the Pentagon for a bigger share of the budget if that's what is required,” Modly said. “But we have to come to a very clear determination as to what [355 ships] means, and all the equipment we need to support that.
“How many more hypersonics are we going to need? Where are we going to put them? These are long-term investments that we will have to make, but we have to get our story straight first. So I'm going to focus a lot on that this year.”
Modly's comments and his Dec. 6 directive got a boost from President Donald Trump's national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, the following day at the Reagan National Defense Forum. O'Brien told the audience there that Trump meant business when he called for a larger Navy during the 2016 campaign.
“When President Trump says a 350-ship Navy, he means a 350-ship Navy, and not decades from now,” O'Brien said.
19 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial
DIGAR uses advanced antenna electronics, high-performance signal processing, and digital beamforming for significantly improved GPS signal reception and superior jamming immunity
9 décembre 2020 | International, Terrestre
by Yaakov Lappin Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has offered South Korea its Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Suite (NGCV-S) as the Republic of Korea Army (RoKA) prepares to upgrade its K1A2 main battle tanks (MBTs) and procure some 600 Hyundai-made armoured personnel carriers (APCs) as part of its Tiger 4.0 modernisation programme. Rafael has submitted requests for information from South Korea on both the MBT and APC programmes Udi N, head of marketing at Rafael's land manoeuvre systems directorate, told Janes that the NGCV-S offers several capabilities for armoured vehicles to boost their lethality, survivability, and ability to engage multiple targets simultaneously. He said the suite includes the company's Armor Shield P passive add-on armour and the Trophy active protection system (APS), the latter of which is used on US Army MBTs as well as on the Israeli military's Namer heavy APCs. Other offers as part of the suite include reactive armour kits and the Samson medium-calibre remote weapon station (RWS). The station is designed to mount a 30 mm or 40 mm gun and co-axial 7.62 mm machine gun that be integrated with Rafael's Spike missile launcher as well as the fifth-generation Spike anti-tank guided electro-optical missile for mid- and long-range attacks. “Combining the Spike missile system with the Samson Integrated 30 mm RWS and its combat management systems transforms the remote-controlled weapon station and the vehicle into a versatile fighting machine – able to simultaneously neutralise targets at multiple ranges, with the pinpoint accuracy required in the urban arena as well as in GPS-denied zones,” said Rafael in a statement. https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/rafael-offers-its-next-gen-combat-vehicle-suite-to-south-korea
9 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
The unassuming, sparsely-furnished manufacturing warehouse adjacent to Oklahoma City's Will Rogers International Airport may not exactly communicate “bustling unmanned systems manufacturer,” but looks can be deceiving. “Are we the coolest business in Oklahoma City? I think we're the coolest business in the world,” says a confident Steven Fendley, Unmanned Systems Division President of San Diego-based Kratos Defense & Security Solutions. A closer look at what the company is building in the Sooner State—which will soon have that 101,000 square foot warehouse bursting at its seams—might just have you convinced. In April, as the defense company unveiled its first six unmanned aerial MQM-178 Firejets produced at the same facility, it also announced the coming of the 30-foot Valkyrie, an unmanned aircraft resembling a fighter jet that is capable of long-range flight at high sub-sonic speeds. “Our target aircraft, jet aircraft, unmanned are used for our military to test their defensive systems and their offensive systems against what otherwise would be an enemy aircraft,” Fendley explains. “Title Ten of the U.S. Code states that there's a requirement to operate any of our development systems against a true threat representative system, not just simply a simulation. These aircrafts are representative threats, from a fighter aircraft perspective, from a bomber aircraft perspective, from a cruise missile perspective. They can replicate any of those threats very effectively and provide a realistic training scenario.” Currently at just 20 employees, the Oklahoma City venture will scale to 350-550 during the next three-to-five years, from engineering and design functions to manufacturing. The startup operation is focused on integration, assembly, testing, and client delivery for now, but will produce 350 Firejets per year, including all its parts, as early as the end of the year. For the Valkyrie, its maiden flight was successfully launched in March, signaling the next evolution for Kratos' unmanned aerial tactical systems. "It's basically a manned-aircraft size," Fendley told The Oklahoman. "It has a bomb bay. It can carry ordnance. It can carry sensor systems that allow you to locate the enemy. It's intended to be a wing man." While Kratos develops its own advanced technology, the aircraft must integrate with several other systems for effective deployment and testing, so the company works closely with the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, all of which have operations in Greater Oklahoma City (OKC) as well. “Oklahoma has a very, very high and supportive focus on the aerospace and defense industry,” Fendley says. “There are a lot of elements of the defense industry and the aerospace industry that exist here. What this really does, I think for us, and we're really proud of this at Kratos, I think we're the first to actually bring the integration and production of a complete aircraft system that will roll out and be produced in Oklahoma. We're very proud of that. We're very excited about that. And what it allows us to do is take advantage of all the technologies that exist here.” An added advantage for Kratos is the proximity to Tinker Air Force Base, the largest single-site employer in Oklahoma with 26,000 military and civilian employees, and home to the nation's largest aircraft and jet engine repair center. The composite work, integration of systems and overall aircraft technology is a shared function between military and private industry, allowing Tinker to cover any overflow capacity for Kratos should the firm need it. Altogether, along with a lower cost structure and more take-home pay for its workers, the combination made the decision to grow in Greater OKC a no-brainer. But can the same be said for Fendley's boast about his company? Can a manufacturer—one with significant work for the U.S. government—really be considered cool, let alone the “coolest in the world?” “You know the old saying, an extrovert engineer looks at your shoes, an introvert looks at his own shoes. So it's always hard for engineers to talk about what they do,” Fendley explains. “It's not hard in this case. Look at it, these are jet, unmanned aircraft that look cool, that sound cool, that are fun to build, that are fun to design, and are really, really important to the community, and to the country at large.” It's hard to argue with that. https://aviationweek.com/what-defense-aviation-manufacturer-is-crafting-in-greater-okc