16 avril 2024 | International, Aérospatial
Argentina inks deal to buy 24 F-16 jets from Denmark
The contract, which is worth $320 million, also includes reconnaissance pods and training armaments, such as AIM-9X and AIM-120 missiles.
9 juillet 2020 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR
Army to award new contracts to support mobile comms units
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.
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3 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval
Top Marine ‘signaling’ to industry that F-35 cuts are on the table
By: Aaron Mehta How will US Marines adjust for the future fight? | Reagan Defense Forum 2019 WASHINGTON — The top officer in the U.S. Marine Corps is sticking to the planned procurement of the F-35 joint strike fighter — but indicated a willingness to cut planes in the future if analysis says it makes sense. Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger told reporters Wednesday that he is a firm believer in the capabilities the F-35 is bringing, in particular the jump-jet B model favored by the service. However, Berger made it clear he's not wedded to long-term procurement plans, at a time the corps is shedding legacy missions as it pivots to focus to a primarily naval-focused service. “Right now, the program of record plows ahead as it is,” he said. “But I'm signaling to the industry, we have to be prepared to adjust as the operating environment adjusts. Right now, the program of record stays the same, but we will — we must — adapt to the adversary and we must adapt to the operating environment that we're challenged with being in.” Berger noted that an upcoming independent review of his force posture plans, expected to be completed in the next few months, could be a forcing function for more changes. Already, his planning guidance to the corps changed how many planes are featured in each F-35 squad, from 16 to 10. Longstanding plans call for the Marines to procure 353 of the F-35B and 67 of the F-35C carrier variants. “There's nothing like it,” Berger said of the jet. “The F-35B, the ability to operate from austere airfields and ships both, [is] incredible. In wargames, it's one of the handful of capabilities that really caused an adversary problems, because it is so flexible, it's deployable ashore or from ship. Gamechanger is sort of an overused phrase, but I'm a huge advocate of the F-35 and its capabilities.” Broadly speaking, Berger said, what will drive how many F-35s are in a squadron going forward, or how many the Corps eventually buys, comes down to maintenance — a longstanding issue for the stealthy jet. “If the maintenance readiness of the F-35 proves to be very, very strong, then of course, like any other system you need less of them because more of them are up all the time. On the other hand, if it turns out not to be so, then you're going to need more of them, to account for the ones that are in repair, that are down right now,” he said. Complicating that issue is what he called the “unique” supply chain for the jet, which in theory lets parts flow in from all over the world, as opposed to the traditional U.S. based supply. “In all aspects, we absolutely know we will learn along the way, and if its appropriate we will make adjustments” to either the squad level or the overall buy, Berger said. “But it's not a lack of confidence in the airframe at all.” https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/04/01/top-marine-signaling-to-industry-that-f-35-cuts-are-on-the-table/
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17 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
US Army seeks new airborne tech to detect, defeat radar systems
Mark Pomerleau WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is seeking industry input on new technology allowing aircraft to survive and defeat systems in sophisticated adversarial environments made up of sensitive radars and integrated air defense systems. A notice posted online Aug. 12 from the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center is asking industry for ideas ahead of an industry day in September that will provide additional information regarding the technical specifications. The service will also answer questions in depth at the event. “The future multi-domain operational environment will present a highly lethal and complex set of traditional and non-traditional targets. These targets will include networked and mobile air defense systems with extended ranges, and long and mid-range fires systems that will deny freedom of maneuver,” the notices stated. To maintain an advantage, the notice stated, the Army aviation community must modernize its reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition and lethality with an advanced team of manned and unmanned aircraft as part of its Future Vertical Lift modernization effort, which calls for a future attack reconnaissance aircraft. The desired end state of this interconnected ecosystem will enable the penetration, disintegration and exploitation of an adversary's anti-access/area denial environment comprised of an integrated air defense system as well as surveillance and targeting systems, command-and-control capabilities, and communications technology. It will do this through a series of air-launched effects, which are a family of large and small unmanned or launched systems capable of detecting, identifying, locating and reporting threats while also delivering nonlethal effects. Some of the sensors described include those that can passively detect and locate threats within the radio frequency/electro-optical/infrared spectrums, active detection, electronic or GPS-based decoys, and sensors able to disrupt the detection of friendly systems through cyberspace or the electromagnetic spectrum. The notice lists five technology areas of interest: Hardware for the mission payloads. Hardware, software or techniques for distributed collaborative teaming capabilities to include processing technologies, cyber protection and data links to enable command and control of air-launched effects. Software or algorithms that can fuse, process, decide and act on sensor data allowing air-launched effects to autonomously react and adapt to countermeasures. Multimode/multifunction technologies consisting of payloads for synthetic aperture/moving target indicator radar or combined electronic warfare, radar and communication functions that share common apertures. Modular open-systems architecture. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2020/08/14/us-army-seeks-new-airborne-tech-to-detect-defeat-radar-systems/