1 septembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial
So you want to fly a drone over a nuclear weapons lab'¯'¦
U.S. authorities have issued a warning about the airspace over Los Alamos National Laboratory.
5 octobre 2018 | International, Terrestre
Army testing more effective ghillie suits
By David Vergun, Army News Service
FORT BELVOIR, Va. -- The Army is looking for an improved ghillie suit to replace the flame-resistant, camouflage suit now worn by snipers to keep them from being seen by the enemy.
The current ghillie suits are bulky, somewhat uncomfortable and hot in warm weather, said Debbie Williams, a systems acquisition expert with Program Executive Office Soldier, Product Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment.
The current suit is known as the Flame Resistant Ghillie System, or FRGS. The replacement the Army is looking for will be called the Improved Ghillie System, or IGS, Williams said. She added that although the term "flame resistant" is not in the new name, the IGS will still have flame-resistant properties. Soldiers will receive most of their protection from the base layer worn under the IGS, such as the Flame Resistant Combat Uniform, or FR ACU.
The IGS will be a modular system, worn over the field uniform, she said. It will be modular in that it can be taken apart, with pieces added or subtracted as needed, such as sleeves, leggings, veil, cape and so on.
Another change is that the IGS will not come with the accessory kit, like the one supplied with the FRGS, Williams said. It was found that Soldiers were not using a majority of the items in their accessory kit or preferred a different material.
Williams said the cost of the IGS will be lower than the current $1,300 FRGS.
Mary Armacost, a textile technologist with Product Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment, said the IGS will be made of lighter, more breathable material than the FRGS. Also, the material for the skeins that accompany the IGS will be stiffer than that of the FRGS, thereby making the IGS more effective at camouflaging the Soldier.
A request for proposal for the IGS went out Aug. 28 and closed Sept. 24, she said. Vendors must each provide three samples.
About 3,500 suits are expected to be produced under the contract for approximately 3,300 snipers in all three Army components, as well as Soldiers in U.S. Special Operations Command, Williams said.
After the samples are obtained, lab and field testing will begin at various locations in November, she said. For example, the Army's Night Vision Laboratory will do full-spectrum testing. It will also use night vision goggles to see how well the suits remain hidden in darkened conditions.
Daytime testing for visual camouflage effectiveness will take place as well, with sniper-qualified Soldiers at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, Williams said. Additionally, acoustic testing will be done by the Army Research Laboratory to determine how much noise the IGS produces in field conditions.
ARL will also test the effectiveness of the fabric regarding tear resistance and fire retardant effectiveness, she added.
Following all of this, a limited user evaluation should commence next spring using instructors from the Sniper School at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Sur le même sujet
-
-
11 octobre 2019 | International, Terrestre
General Dynamics Mission Systems Continues to Provide U.S. Army with Shelters for Austere Environments
October 9, 2019 - Fairfax, VA. – The U.S. Army has selected General Dynamics Mission Systems to provide current generation Army Standard Family (ASF) Shelters, one-side and two-side expandable, and Modified Extendable Rigid Wall Shelters (MERWS) via a firm-fixed price contract valued at $66 million. The estimated completion date of the contract is June 24, 2024. The shelters will be used worldwide by the Army to support applications such as command posts, kitchens, maintenance shops and medical facilities. Their lightweight design and rugged durability enable them to operate in the most extreme environments. The addition of the MERWS requirements will provide greater shelter capacity for deployable conference and communication centers. In anticipation of the Army's growing requirements, General Dynamics is designing the modernized Army Standard Tactical Shelter (ASTS) to be quickly deployed on the ground or on the Army's Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, enabling rapid deployment and increased mobility. Currently under development, these next generation of ASF shelters will cost significantly less than the current ASF shelters and increase many operating features such as nine-high stacking versus six-high which enables greater transportability. They will have a larger interior operating space and will be lighter than the currently used M1087 Expansible Van, reducing fuel and maintenance costs for the vehicles transporting them. “For over forty years we have provided cost-efficient, durable shelters to meet the changing needs of the Army,” said Jared Strait, a Director of General Dynamics Mission Systems. “The new Army Standard Tactical Shelter – Expandable will provide the Army with the essential flexibility and mobility they need to quickly transport, deploy, and move shelters to support their missions.” General Dynamics Mission Systems is a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD). For more information about General Dynamics Mission Systems, please visit gdmissionsystems.com and follow us on Twitter @GDMS. View source version on General Dynamics Mission Systems: https://gdmissionsystems.com/en/articles/2019/10/09/general-dynamics-provides-army-shelters-for-austere-environments
-
26 février 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Duckworth: Army's New Helicopters Should Not Be Designed for Anyone Else
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