21 avril 2024 | International, Naval

Avs switchblade 300 selected for U.S Marine Corps Organic Precision Fires-Light Program

AV’s Switchblade 300 Block 20 loitering munition system (LMS) will provide the Marine Corps with organic, anti-armor/anti-personnel, precision fires capability at the tactical level.

https://www.epicos.com/article/796702/avs-switchblade-300-selected-us-marine-corps-organic-precision-fires-light-program

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  • Nuclear deterrent still the US Navy’s top priority, no matter the consequences, top officer says

    12 décembre 2019 | International, Naval

    Nuclear deterrent still the US Navy’s top priority, no matter the consequences, top officer says

    By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy's new top officer is doubling down on the service's commitment to field the new generation of nuke-launching submarines. Adm. Michael Gilday, who assumed office as the chief of naval operations in August, visited General Dynamics Electric Boat in Quonset Point, Rhode Island, on Tuesday. He reiterated in a release alongside the visit that the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine remains the Navy's top priority. “The Navy's first acquisition priority is recapitalizing our Strategic Nuclear Deterrent — Electric Boat is helping us do just that,” Gilday said. “Together, we will continue to drive affordability, technology development, and integration efforts to support Columbia's fleet introduction on time or earlier.” The service has been driving toward fielding the Columbia's lead ship by 2031, in time for its first scheduled deployment. Construction of the first boat will begin in October 2020, though the Navy has been working on components and design for years. Two generations of submariner CNOs have emphasized Columbia as the service's top priority. Gilday has made clear that having a surface warfare officer in charge has not changed the service's focus. In comments at a recent forum, Gilday said that everything the Navy is trying to do to reinvent its force structure around a more distributed concept of operations — fighting more spread out instead of aggregated around an aircraft carrier — would have to be worked around the Columbia class, which will take up a major part of the service's shipbuilding account in the years to come. “It's unavoidable,” Gilday said, referring to the cost of Columbia. “If you go back to the '80s when we were building Ohio, it was about 35 percent of the shipbuilding budget. Columbia will be about 38-40 percent of the shipbuilding budget. “The seaborne leg of the triad is absolutely critical. By the time we get the Columbia into the water, the Ohio class is going to be about 40 years old. And so we have to replace that strategic leg, and it has to come out of our budget right now. Those are the facts.” The latest assessment puts the cost of the 12 planned Columbia-class subs at $109 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. Having nearly 40 percent of the shipbuilding budget dominated by one program will impact the force, which will force the Navy to get creative, the CNO said. “I have to account for that at the same time as I'm trying to make precise investments in other platforms,” he explained. "Some of them will look like what we are buying today, like [destroyer] DDG Flight IIIs, but there is also an unmanned aspect to this. And I do remain fairly agnostic as to what that looks like, but I know we need to change the way we are thinking.” Renewed push for 355 While the 12-ship Columbia-class project is set to eat at 40 percent of the Navy's shipbuilding budget for the foreseeable future, acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly has renewed calls to field a 355-ship fleet. The 355-ship goal, the result of a 2016 force-structure assessment, was written into national policy and was a stated goal of President Donald Trump. “[Three hundred and fifty-five ships] is stated as national policy,” Modly told an audience at the USNI Defense Forum on Dec. 5. “It was also the president's goal during the election. We have a goal of 355, we don't have a plan for 355. We need to have a plan, and if it's not 355, what's it going to be and what's it going to look like?” “We ought to be lobbying for that and making a case for it and arguing in the halls of the Pentagon for a bigger share of the budget if that's what is required,” Modly added. “But we have to come to a very clear determination as to what [355 ships] means, and all the equipment we need to support that.” In a memo, he said he wants the force to produce a force-structure assessment to get the service there within a decade. Modly went on to say that the Navy's new Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment, while will incorporate Marine Corps requirements, should be presented to him no later than Jan. 15, 2020. The Navy plans to look at less expensive platforms to reach its force-structure goals, which will likely include unmanned systems. But Congress has shown some reluctance to buy into the concept because of the sheer number of unknowns attached to fielding large and medium-sized unmanned surface vessels. The newly released National Defense Authorization Act halved the number of large unmanned surface vessels requested by the service, and skepticism from lawmakers toward the Navy's concepts appears unlikely to abate by the next budget cycle. That means the 10 large unmanned surface vessels, or LUSV, the Navy programmed over the next five years seem unlikely to materialize at that rate. The Navy envisions the LUSV as an autonomous external missile magazine to augment the larger manned surface combatants. But the drive to field less expensive systems to execute a more distributed concept of operations in large areas such as the Asia-Pacific region is being pushed at the highest levels of the government. In his comments at the Reagan National Defense Forum over the weekend, Trump's national security adviser said the military must rethink how it buys its equipment. “Spending $13 billion on one vessel, then accepting delivery with elevators that don't work and are unusable is not acceptable,” O'Brien told the audience, referring to the troubled aircraft carrier Ford. “The National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy are clear: We must be ready for an era of prolonged peacetime competition with peer and near-peer rivals like Russia and China. ... The highest-end and most expensive platform is not always the best solution.” https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/12/10/nuclear-deterrent-still-the-us-navys-top-priority-no-matter-the-consequences-top-officer-says/

  • Boeing’s cost overruns on KC-46 now exceed initial contract with US Air Force

    28 janvier 2021 | International, Aérospatial

    Boeing’s cost overruns on KC-46 now exceed initial contract with US Air Force

    By: Valerie Insinna Edited on 1/27/21 at 1:44 p.m. to provide more details on the cost overrun. WASHINGTON — With the Jan. 27 announcement of a new $275 million charge on the KC-46, Boeing has now paid as much in cost overruns for the troubled program as the U.S. Air Force invested in the tanker's development. The new charge, which the company reported as part of fourth-quarter 2020 earnings, means Boeing has now paid more than $5.0 billion out of pocket to pay for the myriad technical problems and production issues that have cropped up since the company won the program in 2011. Under the firm, fixed-price contract signed then, Boeing is responsible for paying for any costs in excess of the contract's $4.9 billion ceiling. The latest KC-46 overrun occurred “primarily due to production inefficiencies including impacts of COVID-19 disruption,” the company said. Steve Trimble of Aviation Week put together a list of KC-46 charges by year, finding that the program documented its largest overrun in 2020 despite seeing charges decrease to only $148 million in 2019. The company previously attributed $494 million in charges to the ongoing pandemic during the first, second and third quarters of 2020. The KC-46 is a commercial-derivative plane based on the Boeing 767 airliner. Because it is manufactured on the 767 production line in Everett, Washington, before undergoing military-specific upgrades, any slowdown in commercial plane volume also makes it more expensive to produce the KC-46. Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said in October he believed the KC-46 had moved past the technical problems that plagued the program over the past few years, and the tanker would prove to be an asset for the company after the pandemic had run its course. “The tanker has been a drag on us for three or four years in every way you can think of with respect to investors,” he said at the time. “But we are continuing to clear the hurdle with our customers with respect to its performance in their fleet and their need for that tanker. “That whole relationship, I believe, will begin to transition next year, and opposed to being a drag on our franchise — which it's been — I believe it will become a strength in our franchise.” In an message to Boeing employees on Wednesday, Calhoun pointed to some key wins in the defense and space sector, including the first flight of the MQ-25 tanker drone with an aerial refueling store, and the demonstration of the F/A-18 Super Hornet's ski jump launch capability for the Indian Navy. Over the past month, Boeing has inked contracts with the U.S. Air Force for the sixth and seventh lots of KC-46 production, raking in $3.8 billion for an additional 27 tankers. However, during the earnings call, Calhoun noted that analysts should not count on Boeing's defense business to generate a massive amount of near-term growth in the wake of the pandemic. “We continue to believe that we're going to have stable growth, admittedly at the lower end of the single digits. That's the best guidance that we can talk about because we do believe there is pressure that will ultimately come down as a result of all of the COVID spending here in the United States,” he said. “But a large part of our business now is international market, and the order activity in those international markets is pushed to the right somewhat — and almost entirely because of COVID-related stuff,” he said. “We still like our position because we have a lot of ongoing programs that the military and of course our defense [spending] bills have been kind to.” The Air Force plans to buy 179 KC-46 aircraft over the program of record. The first KC-46 was delivered to the service in 2019. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2021/01/27/boeings-cost-overruns-on-kc-46-now-exceed-its-initial-contract-with-the-air-force

  • Promesse tenue pour le budget de la défense

    29 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

    Promesse tenue pour le budget de la défense

    Promesse tenue pour le budget de la défense Mise à jour : 30/09/2019 - Auteur : Aude Borel - Direction : DICoD Présenté vendredi en Conseil des ministres par Florence Parly, ministre des Armées, le projet de loi de finances 2020 des Armées prévoit une hausse des ressources de 1,7 milliard d'euros, pour s'élever à 37,5 milliards d'euros. Modernisation des équipements majeurs, créations de postes, innovation : tour d'horizon des grandes lignes du budget des Armées pour l'an prochain. 37,5 milliards d'euros. C'est le montant du budget du ministère des Armées pour l'année 2020. Les crédits consentis pour la modernisation des capacités de nos armées en font le deuxième poste budgétaire de l'Etat, derrière l'Education nationale. L'effort de défense en 2020 représentera ainsi 1,86% du PIB. Un budget en hausse de 4,5%. Le budget de la Défense bénéficiera de 1,7 milliard d'euros de ressources nouvelles en 2020, conformément à la trajectoire de la loi de programmation militaire 2019-2025. Au cours des trois dernières années, le budget du ministère des Armées aura ainsi bénéficié de 10 milliards d'euros de dépenses supplémentaires en cumul. En 2019, le budget avait déjà augmenté de 1,7 milliard d'euros. Avec un budget en croissance pour la troisième année consécutive, les engagements sont donc tenus. Les ressources de la Défense devraient augmenter au même rythme d'ici à 2022. Un soldat mieux équipé, mieux protégé. L'effort de défense sur l'équipement devrait atteindre 20,9 milliards d'euros. Dès l'an prochain, la totalité des combattants déployée sur les thé'tres d'opération seront équipés de treillis et casques F3 ainsi que d'un gilet pare-balles nouvelle génération. Une tenue adaptée aux menaces et besoins actuels. 12 000 fusils d'assaut HK 416F supplémentaires viendront remplacer les Famas. Le renouvellement des capacités opérationnelles. L'effort supplémentaire se traduira par des investissements à hauteur de 6,8 milliards d'euros dans la modernisation des principaux programmes d'équipements. Le premier sous-marin d'attaque de nouvelle génération Barracuda, deux ATL2 rénovés et deux A400M seront livrés aux armées françaises courant 2020. 128 nouveaux Griffon, 4 premiers Jaguar et 2 Mirage 2000D rénovés viendront compléter les livraisons attendues. Un financement plus sincère des opérations. En 2020, le montant de la provision pour les opérations extérieures et les missions intérieures atteindra son niveau normalisé de 1,1 milliard d'euros (à comparer à 450 millions d'euros en 2017). Il s'agissait de se rapprocher, sans forcément l'atteindre, du niveau des surcoûts constatés sur la période récente, soit 1,2 à 1,4 milliard d'euros. Avec ces ressources pré-identifiées, cela facilitera le financement des engagements de la France. Le quotidien du militaire et de ses proches amélioré. Le volet social voit lui aussi ses crédits s'accroître. Sur l'année 2020, le plan Famille continue de rester une priorité du ministère des Armées puisqu'environ 80 millions d'euros lui seront consacrés. 120 millions seront débloqués pour améliorer les conditions d'hébergement des militaires et 540 millions seront dédiés à l'entretien des infrastructures. L'accompagnement des anciens combattants maintenu. 2,1 milliards d'euros sur le budget 2020 seront accordés à la mission Anciens Combattants. Pensions militaires d'invalidité, retraite du combattant, budget de l'Office national des anciens combattants et des blessés de guerre (subvention de 26 millions), autant de droits préservés par le projet de loi de finances 2020. Blessés. 293 250 euros seront débloqués pour soutenir l'activité handisport. Actuellement, 274 militaires blessés sont suivis dans la convention entre l'ONACVG et les armées. La rénovation des infrastructures. En 2020, des aménagements liés à l'accueil des frégates multi-missions seront effectués à Brest. L'armée de Terre entreprendra des travaux pour préparer l'arrivée des nouveaux blindés Scorpion. L'an prochain, 300 engins de ce type entreront en service. La base aérienne 125 d'Istres se préparera quant à elle à réaliser les infrastructures pour le MRTT Phénix. Les priorités du budget. Nouvel environnement de conflictualité, l'espace bénéficiera de 448 millions d'euros, notamment pour renouveler les capacités satellitaires. 336 millions seront investis dans le domaine du renseignement. Autre axe majeur : le cyber (1,6 milliard). 93 nouveaux cyber-combattants gagneront les rangs de l'institution l'année prochaine. En 2020, le budget de la dissuasion nucléaire est porté à 4,7 milliards d'euros pour renouveler les composantes océanique et aéroportée. Construire une Europe de la Défense. L'initiative européenne d'intervention (IEI) qui regroupe à l'heure actuelle 13 pays constitue une force potentielle de 26 000 militaires engagés en opérations extérieures. Dans le cadre de la Coopération structurée permanente, 8 projets sur 34 sont coordonnés par la France, comme la rénovation de l'hélicoptère Tigre déployé au Sahel. Un chiffre qui témoigne de l'importance de la France dans le dispositif européen. Développer l'innovation. 5,5 milliards seront consacrés à la Recherche et au Développement. Les études amont dédiées aux travaux de jeunes chercheurs et à l'innovation à cycle court connaîtront en 2020 une croissance de 8,3% par rapport à 2019, avec une enveloppe dédiée de 821 millions d'euros. Parmi les grandes nouveautés, la création d'une cellule de coordination de l'intelligence artificielle de Défense (CCIAD). Sur le plan énergétique, 2020 verra la concrétisation du Plan « Place au Soleil » et les conclusions du comité de travail dédié à l'énergie. Patrimoine. 5 millions d'euros seront consacrés à l'entretien et à la valorisation des neuf hauts lieux de la mémoire nationale, 274 nécropoles, sépultures et carrés militaires sur le territoire national. Les trois musées nationaux des armées bénéficieront de subventions totalisant un montant de 44,7 millions d'euros. En 2020, les commémorations célébreront la guerre de 1870, le 80e anniversaire de l'appel du 18 Juin du général De Gaulle, le 75e anniversaire de la libération des camps et le 70e anniversaire de la création du bataillon de Corée. Jeunesse. La loi de finances 2020 se fixe comme objectif d'atteindre 750 000 jeunes entre 16 et 25 ans via la Journée défense et citoyenneté. Pour le Service militaire volontaire, l'ambition est de fidéliser plus de 300 volontaires et de maintenir le taux d'insertion à 70%. Des personnels pour la protection des Français. Une force de 10 000 soldats assure la protection des citoyens sur le territoire national. 7 000 d'entre eux sont mobilisables en permanence et 3 000 sont rattachés à la réserve stratégique. S'y ajoute un vivier de 40 000 réservistes opérationnels. La LPM prévoit 1 500 nouveaux emplois sur la période 2019-2022. 450 ont été créés en 2019, 300 le seront en 2020. A noter que chaque année, 27 000 personnes sont recrutées au sein du ministère des Armées. https://www.defense.gouv.fr/actualites/articles/projet-de-loi-de-finances-2020-promesse-tenue-pour-le-budget-de-la-defense

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