Arms firms fret over delays in Franco-German fighter project

Sur le même sujet

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  13 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Rafale jets won’t save India’s air force

  The first five of India's new Rafale fighter aircraft touched down in country on July 29. According to the terms of a 2016 contract with the French manufacturer Dassault, 31 more will follow. They will go some way toward filling India's larger requirement of 126 such jets. The Indian Air Force has long needed refurbishing, but it has been perennially delayed both by New Delhi's infamous bureaucratic red tape and by budgetary issues. Now, the arrival of the new fighters—the first in over 20 years—in the middle of an unprecedented border face-off against China, will be a boost for Indian military capability as well as morale. But it won't do much to change the hard reality that, as an air power, India is falling far behind, foreign media report. The Indian Air Force has historically been one of the best-equipped air forces in the region, but it has seen its advantage, both qualitative and quantitative, against China and Pakistan narrow dramatically over the past two decades. Even worse, it now faces the challenge of mustering enough aircraft to tackle any possible collusion between the Pakistani and Chinese air forces. Related to tensions in Ladakh, China seems to be activating air platforms in its Tibetan airfields. And along the border with Pakistan, the Pakistan Air Force recently conducted an air exercise out of the Skardu base in Gilgit-Baltistan. Taken together, those are tough challenges for an underequipped air force to take on. The Rafale may help somewhat. After decades of fielding upgraded legacy fighters and struggling to develop contemporary jets, the Rafale finally provides the Indian Air Force with a comprehensive combat craft that requires very little further tinkering. Unlike any previous procurements, the Rafale fighters' capabilities are already up to par, and small enhancements will be relatively easy and cheap via the so-called India-specific enhancements. These India-specific changes are being carried out under a concurrent design, modification, testing, and certification program carried out by Dassault. The modifications involve a mix of hardware and software changes, including an improved infrared search-and-track capability, the addition of an Israeli helmet-mounted display and sight system, changes to the electronically scanned radar, a new device for jamming low-band radio frequencies, integration of an Israeli-created decoy system, an upgraded radar altimeter, expanded navigation aids, and a more robust cold start system for the engines to make them suitable for winter operations from the Air Force's Himalayan bases. Once all changes are tested and certified in 2021, the entire Indian Rafale fleet will be updated. This allows Dassault to keep producing fighters at an economical rate and the Air Force to induct jets and train personnel in an organized manner, while still ensuring that the final aircraft does not compromise on the original capability requirements. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/699521-rafale-jets-won-t-save-india-s-air-force

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  2 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Too many cooks in the DoD: New policy may suppress rapid acquisition

  By: Eric Lofgren In 2015, Congress passed middle tier acquisition, or MTA, authorities for rapid prototyping and rapid fielding. Lawmakers expected detailed guidance to follow shortly after. By June 2019, the Government Accountability Office found little clarity on documentation and authority. Congress reacted by threatening to withhold 75 percent of MTA funding in 2020 until the Pentagon released guidance. Dangle the purse strings and compliance follows. The undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, or USD(A&S), released Department of Defense Instruction 5000.80 on Dec. 30, 2019. The MTA guidance, however, is more likely to pump the brakes on rapid acquisition than propel it forward. Programs designated “middle tier” do not have to follow regulatory processes for requirements and milestone reviews. That can shave years off a program schedule. In return, the prototype must be completed — or system fully fielded — within five years. As of March 2019, there were 35 middle tier programs. The term “middle tier” is perhaps misleading considering nearly half of them exceed the cost thresholds for major weapon systems — roughly $200 million for prototyping or $1 billion for fielding. Many questions remained unanswered until the new policy. How big was a middle tier? What documentation does it require? What is the role of oversight and USD(A&S)? Authority For several years, acquisition authority had been delegated down to the services. While the services only managed 48 percent of major programs in 2014, the figure grew to 90 percent in 2019. DoDI 5000.80 reverses the trend. While the services can approve MTA for non-major programs, only USD(A&S) may approve major programs. Moreover, major programs have far more entrance documentation than non-majors, including approved requirements, an acquisition strategy and a cost estimate. The services may avoid some documentation by disaggregating major systems into multiple MTA programs. For example, two of the Navy's non-major programs are components to Standard Missile-6 Block 1B. The same is true of the Air Force's Airborne Warning and Control System. USD(A&S), however, can still disapprove any MTA program, whether major or non-major. With advisers from all around the Office of the Secretary of Defense, there will be will numerous potential veto points. Each official may extract concessions from MTA programs managed by the services. Even though 31 out of 35 MTA programs are rapid prototyping efforts, the undersecretary for research and engineering, or USD(R&E), has been relegated to a secondary position. All MTA authority rests with USD(A&S). Almost as an affront to USD(R&E), he was given control over a rapid prototyping fund that Congress stopped funding. The outcome reflects a broader weakening of USD(R&E). Congress has reacted negatively to the undersecretary's effort to move fast and reallocate funds to higher value uses. USD(R&E) may lose control of the Missile Defense Agency to USD(A&S). Documentation While MTA exempts programs from traditional requirements and milestone processes, documentation abounds. Each service must create its own requirements process with approval in six months. Joint service requirements are discouraged from using MTA pathways. MTA requirements, however, must still meet the needs determined by four-star generals in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and combatant commands. This may in effect bring the same approvals from the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System process back into MTA. Many of the DoDI 5000.02 processes also apply. Still required are system analyses, sustainment plans, test strategies, cybersecurity, risk assessments, cost estimates and more. Contractors performing on MTA programs must still report cost data. No exemption was made for earned value management systems. Sidestepping many contract regulations — for example, with other transactions authorities — remains a separate process. Most importantly, Congress requires detailed justification in the budget for every MTA program. That means the services must start justifying MTAs at least two years in advance of funding receipt. Many of today's MTA programs spun off existing, budgeted line items. New programs may find a hard time finding funds. The present situation is reminiscent of the time David Packard attempted rapid acquisition between 1969 and 1971. A couple years later, new layers of bureaucracy descended. Similarly, MTA has built within it the seeds of another slow-paced bureaucratic order. Adm. Hyman Rickover's skepticism to the reforms nearly 50 years ago rings true today. As Rickover wrote to Packard in a memo: “My experience has been that when a directive such as the one you propose is issued, most of the effort goes into the creation of additional management systems and reports and the preparation of large numbers of documents within the Service to ‘prove' that the requirements of the directive are being met in order to justify funds for the Service. “So long as the bureaucracy consists of a large number of people who consider that they are properly performing their function of approval and evaluation by requiring detailed information to be submitted through the bureaucracy, program managers will never be found who can in fact effectively manage their jobs.” https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/01/02/too-many-cooks-in-the-dod-new-policy-may-suppress-rapid-acquisition/

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  10 juillet 2020 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR

  Army to award new contracts to support mobile comms units

  Mark Pomerleau The Army is awarding delivery orders to three vendors to support equipment for three Expeditionary Signal Battalion-Enhanced (ESB-E) units. Specifically, the awards will support fielding of satellite baseband equipment, said Paul Mehney, director of public communications at Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical. Expeditionary signal battalions support units that don't have organic communications capabilities. These groups could include military intelligence battalions, chemical battalions, engineering battalions or air defense artillery branches. The ESB-E aims to be more mobile and require less equipment in order to drop in, support units and move more quickly on the battlefield. Overall, the vendors will be responsible for providing 48 baseband sets of equipment for each ESB-E formation. “Due to aggressive initial fielding timelines, after the first six ESB-E formations are fielded, the program office intends to open baseband capability competition for future ESB-E needs,” Mehney said. PacStar was recently awarded a contract to support the ESB-E program to provide its 400-Series modular platform to enhance tactical expeditionary communications, the company said in a July 7 release. The 400-Series is lightweight allowing these smaller and expeditionary units to maneuver more quickly. It includes 128 GB RAM, virtual routing and the PacStar 463 Radio Gateway. “Network modernization to meet warfighter needs and defense priorities is a core focus for the Army and across the DoD, and we are proud to support these efforts with PacStar 400-Series for ESB-E,” Peggy J. Miller, chief executive of PacStar, said in a statement. “With these solutions, ESB-E [Scalable Network Node] will get the smallest, lightest, modular tactical communications platform in the industry, which is part of our larger initiative to enable increased reliability and innovation for warfighters.” The other vendors include Klas and DTECH, with all three supporting one ESB-E. An additional delivery order for each vendor to a second ESB-E will be issued, meaning in the near future, each vendor will support two units a piece. After that, the Army will open up the contracts to competition. This approach follows how the Army has been experimenting to date by providing similar, yet comparable equipment to several ESB-E's. These companies have provided separate equipment to three units allowing the Army to gain useful feedback from units to see what they liked and disliked about the gear. This has allowed the Army to execute rapid prototyping and experimentation on a tighter timeline for making fielding decisions while providing equipment to soldiers in the interim. The first two ESB-Es fielded include the 57th ESB-E at Fort Hood and the 50th ESB-E at Fort Bragg. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2020/07/08/army-to-award-new-contracts-to-support-mobile-comms-units/