22 décembre 2024 | International, Naval
22 septembre 2020 | International, C4ISR
Army mints new cyber research and development agreement with Estonia
WASHINGTON — The Army has signed a cooperative research and development deal with Estonia focused on cyber defense and other technologies.
The Sept. 14th agreement, signed by the Army Futures Command's Combat Capabilities Development Command's Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center and the ministry of defense, will establish a working group to identify new technologies mutually beneficial to each nation, mostly in the multidomain operations sphere.
“This is part of Army Futures Command's' mission: to discover and deliver technology. We're reaching out to pretty much any source that we can find something innovative, whether it's innovative thoughts and ways of doing business or if it's potentially altering a product or modifying it for use by government and by the military,” Brian Lyttle, division chief for cybersecurity at the C5ISR Center, told C4ISRNET in an interview.
Under the agreement, the two nations will identify technological areas of mutual interest and share researchers to develop them, Robert Kimball, senior research scientist for cybersecurity at the C5ISR Center, told C4ISRNET. He noted the agreement is in preliminary stages and researchers haven't identified specific projects yet.
Andri Rebane, director of the Cyber Defense Department at the Estonian Ministry of Defense, also told C4SIRNET in an emailed response that the joint working group will hold regular meetings to identify those technologies and explore experimentation on those they both agree to.
“The ambition is to develop long term research and development projects in cyber defense to encounter the threats from disruptive technologies,” he said.
Estonia is considered one of the most digitally connected nations in the world and has continued to up its game in the digital realm following a 2007 cyberattack, largely attributed to Russia.
The Army's research and development community wants to chase new technology that can better serve soldiers.
“Our mission in the R&D area is to identify those technologies that will benefit the Army as a whole. Our ability to identify those technologies extends far beyond what's available in our own government labs, in research institutions in the United States,” Kimball said. “We're interested in new cyber technologies from wherever they exist. The Estonians have deep capabilities because of their past that they've spent a lot of time working on.”
Rebane explained this agreement is part of a larger partnership between the two NATO nations.
“In a more practical view the two parties can leverage their vast experience to invest into new research and development to mitigate cyber threats across the spectrum of conflict. In the long term this agreement will benefit also our other allies countering the threats emerging from the shared cyberspace,” he said.
Lyttle noted that the Army – and Department of Defense – will never fight alone and thus agreements like this help to foster greater interoperability with coalition partners.
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17 novembre 2020 | International, Terrestre
Hanwha, Kongsberg team up to bolster Australia’s K9 howitzers
Brian Kim SEOUL — Hanwha Defense Australia has announced a partnership with Kongsberg Defence Australia to integrate command, control, communication and computing technology into the K9 self-propelled howitzer and the K10 ammunition resupply vehicle. The announcement came two months after the Australian branch of Hanwha Defense, a defense company in South Korea, was selected as the preferred supplier for Australia's self-propelled howitzer acquisition project, code-named Land 8116 Phase 1 Under the project, the Australian Army is to acquire 30 155mm, 52-caliber K9 “Huntsman” howitzers and 15 K10 armored ammunition resupply vehicles, both of which are built by Hanwha. “The selection of KONGSBERG as a central part of our Land 8116 Phase 1 industry team will make a very important contribution to Hanwha's capacity to deliver effective capability for the [Australian Defence Force] while fulfilling our extensive Australian Industry Capability commitments,” Richard Cho, managing director of Hanwha's branch Down Under, said in a statement. The partnership has already proven to be successful, he added, citing their recent involvement in Norway's Vidar program for K9 and K10 procurement, and pointing to their delivery of K9s to Finland and Estonia. Under the partnership, Kongsberg is responsible for the integration of tactical communication systems and battle management systems. “Together with Hanwha Defence Australia, KONGSBERG is committed to the establishment of a sovereign industry capability to support the Australian Protected Mobile Fires capability throughout its service life,” said Joh Fry, general manager of Kongsberg Defence Australia. “We'll continue to source as much C4 hardware as possible through Australian and New Zealand-based suppliers.” Developed by South Korea's Agency for Defense Development and Samsung Techwin in 1998, the K9 Thunder is touted as one of the world's most advanced self-propelled howitzers. It's designed to provide effective and deep fire support across theaters. The howitzer is now manufactured by Hanwha Defense, a defense contractor of Hanwha Group that acquired Samsung Techwin in 2017. The main weapon is the 155mm, 52-caliber gun with a burst rate of fire of three rounds per 15 seconds, and a maximum rate of fire of six rounds a minute for three minutes. It has a firing range of 40 kilometers and is capable of “multiple rounds simultaneous impact” firing. On Nov. 13, South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced that the completion of deliveries of K9s to the South Korean military. The announcement came about two decades after the first K9 fleet was deployed on the western border islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong An upgraded variant, the K9A1, is in production with improvements in fire control and power systems. DAPA and Hanwha Defense plan to continue to improve the K9′s capabilities to add automatic loading and unmanned maneuvering functions. The K9 has been exported to several countries, including Turkey, Poland, India, Norway and Estonia. About 1,700 units are in service around the world, according to Hanwha. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2020/11/13/hanwha-kongsberg-team-up-to-bolster-australias-k9-howitzers
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22 janvier 2020 | International, Naval
Industry protest ensnares Germany’s multibillion-dollar combat ship
By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — The losing bidder for Germany's MKS 180 large-frigate program has filed a protest against the government's pick of Dutch shipyard Damen for the $6.7 billion job. German Naval Yards, based in Kiel, Germany, on Monday said it had “serious doubts about the legality of the decision” and would “exhaust all legal possibilities at our disposal” to have the decision overturned. The Defence Ministry announced Jan. 13 it selected Damen to build an initial four copies of the new multipurpose combat ships. The pick capped a source-selection process that had become controversial because the government decided to compete the project throughout the European Union. The strategy followed the bloc's principle of a unified market, but it left the domestic shipbuilding lobby miffed. The protest by German Naval Yards and its bid partner ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems kicks off a dispute process that begins with the Defence Ministry reviewing the complaint and then, if it remains unresolved, could wind its way through the German court system. There is no telling how long the process will take — some protests get resolved within weeks, but the process can take a year or longer. The Defence Ministry is expected to offer an indication later this month on whether its attorneys believe the Damen pick can withstand legal scrutiny. Damen has said it wants to build the ships at the shipyards of its German bid partner Lürssen, vowing to invest 80 percent of the contract's value in Germany. The protest comes at a time when Berlin is adopting a new policy that grants an exception to the EU competition mandate when national security is at stake. Specifically, the construction of surface warships would be designated as a “key technology area” so worthy of protection that future programs would be automatically awarded to German manufacturers. For that to be the case, however, two political initiatives have yet to play out: The German parliament must approve a revision of national source-selection rules from October 2019, which formally enable EU acquisition exceptions on national security grounds. In addition, the Cabinet has to greenlight a draft strategy document on nurturing domestic security- and defense-related industries, currently in interagency review, that confers the rank of “key technology area” to naval surface combatants. The strategy document, overseen by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, is expected to be ready for Cabinet consideration within weeks, as Defense News reported last week. Legal experts said the “key technology” debate has no immediate bearing on the German Naval Yards protest. At the same time, it is possible that the complaint's resolution, whichever way it goes, will come at a time when a domestic award preference for similar contracts is already in effect. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/01/21/industry-protest-ensnares-germanys-multibillion-dollar-combat-ship/