Boeing CEO regrets Air Force One deal amid big quarterly losses

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  4 décembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  U.S. Arms Sales Remain Robust Despite Pandemic

  12/4/2020 By Jon Harper Business is still booming on the foreign military sales front even though the world is reeling from the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis. Boosting exports of U.S.-made defense equipment has been a top policy goal of the Trump administration. The government finished fiscal year 2020 with a total of $84 billion in potential FMS sales that had been approved. Roman Schweizer, an analyst with the Cowen Washington Research Group, called it a “massive” case load. “This isn't technically the ‘real' number but it's still impressive,” he said in a newsletter, noting that not all of the deals had been consummated. In 2019, $68 billion in potential FMS cases were announced, with $55 billion in actual sales reported, according to the research group. The 2020 numbers were better than many observers anticipated. “Some of the concerns that have been initially identified in April have not come to fruition,” R. Clarke Cooper, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, told reporters in October. In July, the U.S. government processed the second highest amount of FMS case work in the history of the State Department, he noted. “On large items that would take a long train or trail in contracting and production, have we seen a change there? No,” he said. “If anything, the work toward getting significant procurement for, let's say, F-16s or a Patriot missile battery, those things have not abated.” What explains this dynamic? Some nations have had better than expected economic recoveries, Cooper said. “There has been a recommitment by states who at one point understandably could have put on park or pause their modernization plans,” he said. “Overall, if we're looking at long-term modernization plans across the board ... we're currently remaining on a trajectory of where we were in FY '19 going into '21.” That doesn't mean nothing will change, he noted. There will probably be fluctuations on payments and payment schedules, he said. Some buyers could seek foreign military financing or grant assistance, or sequence their procurements differently. While trends seem positive, government officials don't have a crystal ball when it comes to FMS in 2021 and beyond, he noted. The new fiscal year began strong, with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announcing in October that it had cleared more than $4 billion worth of missiles to Taiwan, as well as $27.2 billion worth of aircraft to Finland including F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers and F-35 joint strike fighters. https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/12/4/us-arms-sales-remain-robust-despite-pandemic

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  26 juillet 2018 | International, Naval

  BAE Systems progresses digital shipyard plan for Australia

  Jon Grevatt, Bangkok BAE Systems is moving ahead with its programme to transform naval shipbuilding facilities in South Australia into a digital shipyard that will support the construction of the Royal Australian Navy's (RAN's) new Hunter-class frigates. The company was selected for the nine-ship frigate programme earlier in July – under the AUD35 billion (USD26 billion) Sea 5000 project – and will build the ships in collaboration with state-owned naval shipbuilder ASC from late 2020. The Hunter-class is a variant of BAE Systems' Type 26 frigate design, which the company is also building for the UK Royal Navy (RN). While contract negotiations are ongoing between BAE Systems and the Australian government to finalise the details of the Sea 5000 project, work to prepare Adelaide-based ASC's shipbuilding facilities is under way, with BAE Systems already committed to investing at least AUD100 million (USD74 million) to develop the proposed digital shipyard at which the ships will be built. Nigel Stewart, BAE Systems managing director for the Sea 5000 project, said the digital shipyard will be supported by an “unprecedented” transfer of intellectual property and technical data that will facilitate the development of local capability to both build and maintain the Hunter-class frigates over its 30-year life span. “The digital design of one of the world's most sophisticated ships will support the development of a continuous naval shipbuilding capability in Australia, ensuring that local industry can build the fleet of nine future frigates,” said Stewart. “The digital design will also ensure they can be upgraded and supported during their decades of service.” He added, “This is an unprecedented transfer of intellectual property that will also include all ship parts, materials, and systems used to build the Type 26 frigate. With this knowledge, Australian industry will gain the know-how needed to both build and optimise the ship over its life, potentially improving its flexibility and performance with bespoke local innovation and technology.” http://www.janes.com/article/81959/bae-systems-progresses-digital-shipyard-plan-for-australia

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  7 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre, C4ISR

  ‘A Little Bit Disruptive’: Murray & McCarthy On Army Futures Command

  By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. "It's establishing buy-in over the next three, four, five years from the institution (of the Army)," Gen. Murray said. "It's about establishing buy-in on Capitol Hill, because if I don't have buy-in there, this won't survive.” DEFENSE NEWS CONFERENCE: The Army's new Futures Command won't tear down the most failure–prone procurement system in the entire US military. Instead, both its commander and the Army's No. 2 civilian emphasize they want to be just “a little bit disruptive” and “work with the institution.” That will disappoint critics of the service's chronically troubled acquisition programs who saw the Army's much-touted “biggest reorganization in 40 years” as an opportunity to tear the whole thing down and start again. The necessary change to Army culture “is going to take time,” brand-new four-star Gen. John “Mike” Murray said here yesterday, “and I think you do that by being a little bit disruptive, but not being so disruptive you upset the apple cart.” “It's hard, Sydney, because you know, you have to work with the institution,” Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy told me after he and Murray addressed the conference. “You don't want to go in there and just break things.” Work Through The Pain Reform's still plenty painful, acknowledged McCarthy, who's played a leading role in round after round of budget reviews, cutting some programs to free up funding for the Army's Big Six priorities. The choices were especially hard for 2024 and beyond, when top priorities like robotic armored vehicles and high-speed aircraft move from the laboratory to full-up prototypes. “You've got a lot of people out investing, and they're all doing good things, but they weren't the priorities of the leadership,” McCarthy told me yesterday. “You have to explain to folks why you're doing what you're doing. You need them focused on the priorities of the institution” – that is, of the Army as a whole, as set by leadership, rather than of bureaucratic fiefdoms with a long history of going their own way. But what about the pushback from constituencies who see their priorities being cut, particularly upgrades to keep current platforms combat-ready until their replacements finally arrive? “If you don't accept the risk that you talked about, (if you don't) slow down or stop the upgrade of legacy systems, you never get to next generation equipment,” brand-new four-star Gen. John “Mike” Murray said here yesterday, “and I think you do that by being a little bit disruptive, but not being so disruptive you upset the apple cart.” In other words, funding for incremental upgrades will crowd out funding for potential breakthroughs. That's largely because the incremental approach looks lower-risk – right up to the point where the enemy fields something revolutionary that your evolutionary approach can't counter. Full article: https://breakingdefense.com/2018/09/a-little-bit-disruptive-murray-mccarthy-on-army-futures-command