27 octobre 2022 | International, Autre défense
Germany is struggling to ramp up defence procurement or even just replace arms and munitions it has supplied to Kyiv, several sources told Reuters eight months after Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged 100 billion euros to bring the military up to speed.
2 août 2023 | International, Naval
The trials tested the capability of the new maritime Electronic Warfare (EW) system to effectively respond to complex missile attack scenarios, including launching decoy rounds from several launchers against multiple...
18 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre
SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. How do you keep a laser focused on a target moving at hundreds of miles per hour? The answer is crucial to Lockheed lasers being fitted on Army trucks and Air Force fighters over the next few years. WASHINGTON: “Lockheed Martin is working to fly a laser on tactical fighters within the next five years,” Lockheed laser expert Mark Stephen told reporters yesterday afternoon. “We're spending a lot of time to get the beam director right.” That beam director, which keeps the laser beam on target, is a crucial but easily overlooked component of future laser weapons. The Air Force Research Lab's SHiELD program aims to put defensive laser pod on fighters to defend them against incoming anti-aircraft missiles. An offensive laser to shoot down enemy aircraft would have to hit harder and at longer distances, so it's a more distant goal: Such weapons are envisioned for a future “sixth generation” fighter — like the NGAD prototype now in flight test — to follow the 5th-gen F-35, while the SHiELD pod will go on non-stealthy 4th gen aircraft like the F-16, as in this Lockheed video. But the company's new beam-director design is actually getting its first workout on an Army system, the truck-mounted IFPC Energy Laser, which will defend against artillery rockets, drones, and, potentially, subsonic cruise missiles. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/09/lockheed-aims-for-laser-on-fighter-by-2025/
12 février 2020 | International, Terrestre
The service is already slowing production of Oshkosh's Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and now wants to find an alternative manufacturer —which could create logistical or legal headaches. Other Oshkosh programs are also ramping down. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. PENTAGON: As the Army moves billions into new high-tech weapons, truck-maker Oshkosh is feeling the pinch. The 2021 budget request not only decreases spending on three Oshkosh vehicles, the 10-wheel FHTV, the 6-wheel FMTV, and 4×4 JLTV: It also calls for a new competition the following fiscal year for JLTV, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle originally meant to replace the Humvee. That's especially worrying for the Wisconsin company, because JLTV is the youngest program of the three and the most important for the company's long-term future. But then-Army Secretary Mark Esper — now Secretary of Defense — has publicly criticized JLTV as overly specialized for the kind of counterinsurgency conflicts the Pentagon is no longer focused on. While the Army insists it will still buy the planned total of 49,099 trucks, eventually, it keeps slowing down the annual rate and extended the deadline to complete production, which now won't end until 2042. (That leaves the Humvee in service, at least with some units, indefinitely). Why recompete? “We do that to drive the price down,” said Deputy Assistant Army Secretary John Daniels this morning, when my colleague Jen Judson asked about the proposal. But any new competition would be two fiscal years from now and Daniels declined to give any details. The only other information about the plan is buried on page 102 of the fifth volume of the Army's newly released procurement request for 2021, which also includes projections for 2022 and beyond. Under JLTV, the “justification book” says that: “Current contract options may be exercised through 30 November 2023 assuming contractual quantity headspace is still available. Current funding indicates headspace quantity of 16,901 may be achieved in FY 2021, with competitive follow on contract award anticipated in FY 2022. A split procurement will occur between the existing Oshkosh contract and the new competitively awarded contract based on the approved acquisition strategy. The Program Office continues to gather insight from industry partners to better understand their position to ensure strong competition for the follow on contract.” In plain English, this means Oshkosh's current contract to build Joint Light Tactical Vehicles runs though fall 2023. Since production will continue for decades, the Army will have to award a new contract to buy more JLTVs for itself, the other services and allies. But when it comes time to award that follow-on contract, the service doesn't want Oshkosh to be its only option: It wants at least one competitor to drive down costs. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/02/army-seeks-new-jltv-competition-in-2022