Army to field new rifle, machine gun and optic in 2024

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  23 juillet 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Private equity firm buys Humvee-maker AM General

  By: Joe Gould and Jen Judson WASHINGTON — Humvee-maker AM General has been acquired by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity firm known for buying financially distressed manufacturers, the companies announced Wednesday. KPS acquired AM General of South Bend, Indiana, from MacAndrews & Forbes in a deal in which terms were not disclosed. AM General has largely been stagnant since losing the competition for the U.S. Army's Joint Light Tactical Vehicle in 2015 to Oshkosh. Following its loss in the JLTV competition, the company turned to the international market to continue growing its Humvee business, such as through offering to foreign customers a multipurpose truck with a military-grade rolling chassis from its Humvee design with a la carte add-ons. KPS Partner Jay Bernstein said in a joint statement that the firm would continue to work with AM General's chief executive, Andy Hove, as well as its management and employees “to build on this great platform, organically and through acquisition.” “We intend to leverage the Company's commitment to research, technology, innovation and new product development, as well as its heritage and iconic brand name,” Bernstein's statement read. Hove said the firm would work with KPS “to continue to execute our strategy and invest in our very ambitious growth plan.” “KPS' demonstrated commitment to manufacturing excellence, continuous improvement and commitment to invest in technology and innovation will only enhance the Company's ability to compete in today's military and commercial marketplace,” Hove said. “Plenty of industrial companies and investment firms had considered buying AM General,” James Hasik, senior fellow at the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University, told Defense News July 22. “And plenty of companies have considered teaming with AM General for a bid on a forthcoming production program.” AM General has continued to try to adapt to the needs of the U.S. military, bringing a robotic combat vehicle to an Army demonstration last year as the service mulls the future of robots on the battlefield. The company also competed for the Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport vehicle program but was not selected. Yet, AM General has remained a single-product firm with the Humvee, Hasik noted, and the future of the Humvee is “hard to call.” Many militaries around the world use Humvees, and the U.S. Army plans to keep some in its fleet, but the U.S. Marine Corps is divesting its stock. According to Hasik, it's possible that since the Humvee is less expensive than the JLTV and would likely be relegated to noncombat roles, the Army might choose to purchase pickup trucks instead. “The Humvee was developed in part because the Army's pickup trucks of the 1970s were unimpressive, but that was 50 years ago, and automotive technology has advanced,” he said. “Today's pickup trucks are much cheaper to buy and operate, and that's what the Canadian Army has done.” While AM General has come up with some novel ideas, “nothing has stuck,” Hasik said. For several years, the company has shown up at trade shows touting a howitzer on a Humvee, like it did at London's DSEI exposition in late 2019. Still, the U.S. Army is struggling to figure out how it would fit into formations. The good news for KPS is that the company has a running factory with “efficient, medium-speed production of 4x4 military trucks and a production team who know how to do that,” Hasik said. “That's an important skill set, as it works better for military programs than enlisting a pickup truck factory, which must make them in the hundreds of thousands to make money.” AM General has advertised on its website that it could build bigger trucks, and the Army has just issued a request for information for a program to replace all of its heavy trucks, Hasik pointed out. “It could also build small trucks, similar to the Humvee, for future autonomous applications. There's no guarantee, but we might see lots of those in a few years.” “All in all, I suspect that KPS didn't buy AM General just to wring some more efficiencies out of the Humvee program. The folks there probably see some of these upside possibilities as well,” he added. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/07/22/private-equity-firm-buys-humvee-maker-am-general/

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  15 juillet 2019 | International, Autre défense

  Army researchers building ‘smart’ landmines for future combat

  By: Todd South FREDERICKSBURG, Va. – Army leaders see a future battlefield with networked minefields a commander can see from across the globe through satellite communications and that can be scattered in minutes but also retrieved and reused when needed. The push is an effort to keep landmines of various types in the weapons portfolio while still meeting the agreements made to get out of the old school “dumb” landmine use. Smart mines being developed now are a way to replace some of the aging stocks in the “Family of Scatterable Mines” run by the Army's Program Manager Close Combat Systems. The program actually runs nearly half of all munitions from non-lethals to hand grenades to shoulder-fired rockets and counter explosives equipment. The portfolio, its challenges and what's happening now were laid out for attendees at the annual National Defense Industrial Association's Armament Systems Forum in June. Top of the priority lists are some simple munitions needs — more hand-grenade fuzes and better shoulder-fired weapons. But the big ticket items that need problem solving are how to use “terrain shaping obstacles,” or landmines, that can be delivered to close, middle and deep distances and then controlled to avoid the problems of scattering mines across war zones and then leaving them for an innocent passerby to trigger years or decades later. Small options such as the remote activation system used for current mine emplacements relies on radio frequency transmissions. But, as Pelino noted, in a near peer fight it's likely that adversaries will do RF jamming. The Army has a host of terrain-shaping obstacles, everything from the trusty standby Claymore mine which came online in the late 1950s and saw extensive use in the Vietnam War to the Gator system, which can be air dropped to take out everything from an individual soldier to a tank. They're also the anti-personnel area denial artillery munition, or ADAM, mine that can be launched using a 155mm round from artillery. Its cousin, the remote anti-armor munition, or RAAM, packs a bit more of a punch but also can be delivered from anything that fires a 155mm shell. Both are fired to the area of the threat and then roll out multiple mines that detonate when the appropriate level of vibration triggers them. Pelino described the Modular Pack Mine System, or MOPMS, like a minefield in a suitcase. Though coming in at 165 pounds, that's a very heavy suitcase. A single radio-control unit can run up to 15 MOPMS on the battlefield. They can also be hardwired to a controller. An upside to the MOPMS is it can be recovered and reused. On the lighter side is the M86 pursuit deterrent munition. It was designed for special operations forces to use when being pursued by an enemy. Think classic films where the character scatters nails or an oil slick to slow down their chaser, except with a lot more boom. Only instead of firing from a cannon, the soldier has to arm the device and deploy tripwires for bad guys to stumble upon. The Volcano mine system takes more of an industrial approach. Allowing a UH-60 Black Hawk to create a 1,000-foot minefield in less than a minute, Pelino said. The problem with all of those systems is they don't currently meet treaty obligations and many that had about a 20-year shelf life are pushing past 30 years now. Most will still be in stock at 2035, as the Army uses updates to keep them serviceable, Pelino said. The newer Spider System is one that allows soldiers to put in a porcupine-looking system that gives 360-degree coverage to deny enemy access to an area while also networking with other systems and a common controller. Future systems will look a lot more like Spider and a lot less like pressure plate mines of the World War II era or the venerable Claymore. The future minefield systems must have a 2 to 300km communications capability, an ability to be switched on and off, remotely modified self-destruct or deactivate mechanisms, self-report status so that users will know if they've been tampered with or if a mine went off. The Army also wants the mines to be able to not just blow up when something rumbles by but also detect, track and engage threat vehicles for everything from tanks to engineer equipment. Oh, and it must work in all terrain and weather conditions, be easily trained and employed, recoverable, reusable and affordable. The standard kit will include between half and a full brigade's worth of mines to block off areas for maneuver and prevent enemy flanking. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/07/12/army-researchers-building-smart-landmines-for-future-combat/

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  27 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  AIRBUS GROUP : LA BUNDESWEHR COMMANDE 31 HÉLICOPTÈRES NH90

  (Boursier.com) — La Bundeswehr allemande a commandé 31 hélicoptères NH90 (Sea Tiger), pour les opérations navales de la marine allemande. Nathalie Tarnaud-Laude (Présidente de NHI) et Giorgio Gomma (Directeur général de l'Agence OTAN de gestion des hélicoptères ; NAHEMA) ont signé ce contrat le 26 novembre, au nom de l'Office fédéral de l'équipement, des technologies de l'information et du soutien en service des forces armées allemandes (BAAINBw). Ces hélicoptères remplaceront la flotte Sea Lynx Mk88A de la marine allemande, entrée en service en 1981. La Bundeswehr a déjà commandé 18 hélicoptères de transport naval NH90 Sea Lion, dont 7 ont déjà été livrés. Rappelons que 100 hélicoptères NH90 ont déjà été livrés à 6 pays différents, et ont effectué plus de 70.000 heures de vol dans le cadre d'opérations de recherche et de sauvetage, humanitaires et militaires. Actuellement, 430 hélicoptères NH90 sont en service dans le monde et totalisent plus de 270.000 heures de vol. https://www.boursier.com/actions/actualites/news/airbus-group-la-bundeswehr-commande-31-helicopteres-nh90-836835.html