Australian companies increasingly look to US following AUKUS pact

Sur le même sujet

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  27 juin 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR

  Will $95B for R&D make its way to the final defense appropriations bill?

  By: Joe Gould   WASHINGTON — Senate defense appropriators have advanced a proposed $675 billion Pentagon spending measure for 2019, touting its heavy investment in innovation and research to maintain America's military edge. Hewing to the bipartisan, two-year budget deal, the spending bill includes $607.1 billion in base budget funding and $67.9 billion in the war budget. It is $20.4 billion higher than the fiscal 2018-enacted level. The bill contains $95 billion for research and development, the largest R&D budget in the Pentagon's history, adjusted for inflation, according to Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill. The bill also includes $2.8 billion in added basic research funding the president's budget did not request. The bill also seems to surpass the Senate-passed policy bill's emphasis on future warfare, with $929 million for hypersonics, $564 million to develop advanced offensive and defensive space capabilities, $317 million to develop a directed-energy weapon, and $308 million for artificial intelligence, according to a summary released Tuesday. “This bill sustains U.S. force structure and improves military readiness. It also recommends investments in future technologies needed to defend our nation in an increasingly complex and competitive national security environment,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who also leads the sub-panel. “Our military must maintain its technological superiority. I am pleased that our subcommittee has identified the resources needed to make that happen ― investing in basic research, hypersonics, directed energy, missile defense, cybersecurity, and our test and evaluation infrastructure,” he said. Aviation programs would get $42 billion, to include $1.2 billion for eight F-35 carrier variants and four short takeoff and vertical landing Joint Strike Fighters, and it includes $375 million for the Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System — as well as sustainment of the legacy fleet of JSTARS aircraft. The bill allocates $24 billion toward shipbuilding, which includes two Virginia-class summaries, three DDG-51 destroyers and two littoral combat ships. There's $250 in advance procurement funding for one more DDG-51 in 2020 and $250 million for submarine industrial-base expansion. Munitions would get $18.5 billion, with $125 million to expand procurement for the anti-ship cruise missile LRASM for the Navy, and the JASSM long-range, conventional, air-to-ground, precision-standoff missile for the Air Force and Navy, as well as $57 million for Army industrial facilities. For personnel, the bill supports a military pay raise of 2.6 percent and includes $974 million for defense medical research. The bill's end-strength boost of 6,961 falls below the president's request for 25,900 more troops. The spending bill is several steps from becoming law. The House is due to take up its version of the legislation this week, and the Senate must pass its version of the bill before the two versions are reconciled. The full Senate Appropriations Committee is set to hold its markup on Thursday. The Senate this week passed a “minibus,” which merged funding for energy and water programs, the legislative branch, military construction, and Veterans Affairs. The strategy is meant to ensure passage for domestic spending priorities that Democrats have demanded in recent years. Democrats seem to favor merging the proposed defense spending bill with the coming spending bill for labor, health and human services, education, and related agencies. Durbin said as much Tuesday: “We have a confident path to conclusion for both.” “I believe in this bill, I think its a good bill and I could easily support it, defend it,” Durbin said of the defense spending bill, calling a merger helpful to “the best ending for the appropriations process.” https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2018/06/26/pentagon-money-bill-with-heavy-rampd-accent-passes-senate-subpanel/

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  9 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Top Defense Execs Ask For Help in Next COVID Stimulus Package

  The biggest defense manufacturers in the world warned the Pentagon and OMB of "significant job losses in pivotal states" if Congress doesn't come up with stimulus money to cover unforeseen expenses. By PAUL MCLEARYon July 08, 2020 at 4:16 PM WASHINGTON: A group of CEOs leading the world's top defense firms sent letters to Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord and and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought on Wednesday, citing “significant job losses in pivotal states” if the federal government doesn't step in to assist with COVID-related costs. Electoral maps have traditionally acted as a tried and tested tool defense contractors use when making pitches to both the Pentagon and Congress, as a way of showing where the jobs sit in different congressional districts. The letter to Lord was signed by the leaders of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon, and BAE Systems, which represent five of the top seven defense companies in the world. Huntington Ingalls, Textron Inc., and L3Harris Technologies also signed onto the letter, which was obtained by Breaking Defense, requesting the Pentagon's help in pressing for stimulus money in the Senate's next rescue package. The Senate is slated to debate in the coming days. Lord has previously estimated the Pentagon would have to pay more than “lower double digit billions” to offset costs borne by defense manufacturers in lost work hours, buying PPE equipment and propping up smaller suppliers. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon last month, Lord said she's seeing a “three-month slowdown to all programs due to COVID-19,” after the virus shut down defense manufacturing facilities and production lines across the globe. The vast majority of defense firms have operated at reduced capacity over the past several months, and Lord said the Pentagon continues to see the biggest impacts in the aviation and shipbuilding supply chains. The CEOs write that US-based supply chains “are simply not able to absorb these significant costs. Without additional funding in the next stimulus package, the resolution of [reimbursement] claims will need to be funded from existing DoD budget topline resources for FY20-22.” That would cause “significant reductions” in research and procurement budgets, they said, before pivoting to warning about Defense Secretary Mark Esper's top priority: modernizing weapons systems to keep abreast of China and Russia. Placing the burden on the companies to use their own case to meet unplanned emergency costs risks “thwarting the Department's ability to meet the challenges and threats associated with great power competition” they add. In order to keep the smaller suppliers afloat, companies have pushed contracts forward to give the smaller supplier more work, and in turn, DoD has sped up planned payments to the defense industry, hitting the $2 billion mark in recent weeks. Speaking at a Brookings Institution event this morning, Lord didn't mention the letter, but talked about moving more production of defense equipment to the United States from overseas. Part of that effort stems from President Trump's “American First” push to build up the domestic manufacturing sector, but Chinese influence in electronic supply chains is also a big concern. During a visit to the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin late last month, Trump said “we'll always live by two simple rules: Buy American and hire American.” Lord phrased the idea differently, saying she prefers to have two sources for equipment, and “we would like one of those, if possible, to be domestic.” That issue has been highlighted in the global pandemic shutdown which wreaked havoc on global supply chains. “We just found that particularly with microelectronics, we have gotten ourselves into a potentially compromised position,” Lord said. “Where we have US intellectual property going offshore for fabrication and packaging leaves us with some vulnerability there. That is unacceptable moving forward.” During his Wisconsin visit, Trump suggested that one of the considerations for awarding a $795 million contract to the US home of the Italian shipbuilder was its location in a competitive state in the 2020 presidential election. “You notice that's not a supply chain going through China and going through other countries,” he said, adding, “I hear the maneuverability is one of the big factors that you were chosen for the contract. The other is your location in Wisconsin, if you want to know the truth.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/top-defense-execs-ask-for-help-in-next-covid-stimulus-package

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  10 septembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial

  GE Aerospace to develop digital backbone for Bell’s V-280 Valor

  The U.S. Army's Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft competition pitted Bell’s V-280 Valor, a tiltrotor aircraft, against Sikorsky and Boeing’s Defiant X.