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  29 mai 2020 | International, Naval

  British-Spanish naval team gunning for another go at revamped UK carrier-support program

  By: Andrew Chuter LONDON — Spanish shipbuilder Navantia has formed a joint venture with Northern Ireland's Harland & Wolff to pitch for an upcoming program to build up to three logistics ships to support the Royal Navy's new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. The Anglo-Spanish partnership, known as Team Resolute, has been announced as expectations grow that the British Ministry of Defence is preparing to reopen a competition to build two, or maybe three, ships capable of delivering ammunition, dry stores and spares in a requirement known as the Fleet Solid Support program. The MoD pulled the plug on the competition late last year claiming the bids did not represent value for money. With the competition poised to be restarted around September, Team Resolute is the first to show its hand. Navantia, one of Europe's leading shipbuilders, and Harland & Wolff have been working together for a while under a memorandum of understanding but the two have now firmed that up into a joint venture agreement as the MoD prepares to restart with a new procurement strategy. The third player in the Team Resolute line-up is British naval design company BMT. Although not a joint venture member, BMT will participate as a subcontractor providing the design. The company worked with Navantia in the original competition. The design house has built a reputation in recent years of providing designs to navies around the world, including oilers for Britain and multi-role logistics ships for Norway, both based on its AEGIR design. For Harland & Wolff, the Belfast yard famous for building the Titanic, it's the latest move in an effort to revive fortunes after the company almost went out of business last year before current owners InfraStrata acquired the operation. InfraStrata, a small British company looking to develop a huge underground gas storage facility just up the coast from Belfast, plans to use Harland & Wolff to undertake much of the fabrication work required on the energy program as well as seek to build a credible shipbuilding and support business. John Wood, CEO of InfraStrata, said the partnership with Navantia could open up the possibility of challenging a status quo which has seen BAE Systems and Babcock dominate the maritime sector here. “This partnership has the capability to disrupt the UK defence shipbuilding and through-life support duopoly that currently exists, as well as providing much needed competition in the defense sector to ensure optimum value for taxpayer money and guaranteed delivery," said Wood. “The Fleet Solid Support program gives us the opportunity to take the expertise in depth that Navantia and BMT have in order to put together a really strong offering based on a best-value-for-money strategy," he said in a telephone interview with Defense News. The yard only employs 130 people at present but Wood said there was plenty of expertise available not least among the 1,200 skilled staff who were laid off at Harland & Wolff prior to the InfraStrata acquisition. Navantia and a British group calling itself TeamUK – led by Babcock and including BAE Systems, Cammell Laird and Rolls-Royce – were the two contenders competing the final stages of the Fleet Solid Support program when the MoD called a halt to the competition amid a growing controversy over the fact that the competition had been opened to foreign bidders and not reserved for local companies. The British government claimed its was acting under European Union regulations as the support vessels were not warships. Britain has now left the European Union but remains subject to its rules and regulations while the two sides try to negotiate a trade deal. Now the MoD is preparing to recompete the requirement, which could be worth approaching $1.9 billion if all three ships are purchased for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, the support arm of the Royal Navy. A spokesperson for TeamUK said the group was formed to deliver prosperity benefits for the local economy. “We look forward to understanding the updated requirements when the Ministry of Defence announces their future plans for this procurement process,” said the spokesperson. Babcock and BAE dominate the shipbuilding business in the UK and have significant contracts building the Type 31 and Type 26 frigate programs, respectively. Few outside the government know whether the new invitation to negotiate will leave the door open to foreign bidders and what the requirement will actually look like. Some analysts think the damage the Covid-19 crisis has done to the economy should rule out foreign bidders, giving priority to high local content to boost jobs and skills. The conundrum is, though, that as a result of the virus, the MoD is likely to have less money rather than more in future budget deliberations, putting even greater pressure on finding the best value for money solution. Wood says he is open-minded about which way the MoD jumps on the issue of foreign bidders. “Who knows where this will go. They are looking for value for money. What we are saying is they can have the best of both worlds with some outside influence from Navantia, a leading shipyard that has massive pedigree, and local company BMT supporting H&W, which has the best facilities for this kind of project in the UK. If we gear up for an international competition we are confident we can come through and put a credible bid on the table. If it's UK bidders only, we think we can do the same,” said Wood. Infrastrata's CEO said a manufacturing role for Navanti has not been ruled out. “There could be workshare going to Spain. There could be components or blocks coming from Spain, but the agreement we have is to do the majority of the work in the UK. It's really about coming up with a project that fits the delivery schedule. Until we get the timelines nothing is ruled in and nothing ruled out. The key fundamental is it's a British cooperation, with the ability to reach back into Navantia,” he said. The executive said the plan was to spread the work beyond Harland & Wolff into other parts of the UK. “We are looking at opportunities in the UK on fabrication. We may also look at another acquisition in the UK to spread the work wider,” he said. Save the Royal Navy, a well regarded online group campaigning to reverse the decline of the Britain's naval forces, speculated recently that rather than buying two or three large Fleet Solid Support ships the MoD may look at altering the requirement and buying several smaller, cheaper, multi-role logistics ships as part of a wider update to British maritime support requirements. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/05/28/british-spanish-naval-team-gunning-for-another-go-at-revamped-uk-carrier-support-program/

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  29 avril 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Australia Makes Moves to Grow its Defense Industry

  By Stew Magnuson GEELONG, Australia — Very little excites the aerospace industry and the media that covers it more than the announcement of a new jet fighter program. So when the curtain went up in a Boeing tent at Avalon — The Australian Air Show revealing a full-size model of a new robotic jet fighter, the camera flashes popped off as if it were a star on a Hollywood red carpet. “It is a red letter day,” Australian Minister of Defence Christopher Pyne said while standing in front of the Airpower Teaming System, Boeing's name for the loyal wingman jet fighter, an unmanned aircraft intended to fly in formation with the nation's F-35A joint strike fighters and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets. It was also an auspicious day because the unmanned system would be the first indigenously developed aircraft Australia produced since the CAC Boomerang fighter during World War II. The program makes a statement to the world that Australia is no longer content to be merely a buyer of military equipment, but has ambitions to be a developer and exporter as well, said Pyne. “This is all testament to the fact that we are undergoing our largest buildup of our military capability in our peacetime history — $200 billion over the next 10 years.” While Australia is still buying pricey F-35s from the United States, attack-class submarines from France and armored fighting vehicles from a European consortium, it wants a significant portion of that $200 billion to stay in the country and help it create aerospace and defense sector jobs, officials said. The nation last year released the 2018 Defense Industrial Capability Plan spelling out how it would build a “broader and deeper defense industrial base” over the next decade. “The government's goal by 2028 is to achieve an Australian defense industry that has the capability, posture and resilience to help meet Australia's defense needs,” the plan stated. One of its main goals is to turn the nation into an exporter of military goods rather than just an importer. The day before the airshow, U.S. and other foreign contractors gathered in nearby Melbourne to hear from State of Victoria and Defence Ministry officials about the new ways of doing business in Australia. Damien Chifley, executive director of the defense industry branch in the Australian Department of Defence, said the approach now is to partner. The country's defense contractors are predominantly medium to small companies who can't go it alone. They need help bringing their innovative ideas to prime contractors. If a U.S. or other foreign company wants to vie for an Australian contract it must now submit an “industry capability plan,” which spells out exactly how they will work with local firms to bring the project to fruition, Chifley said. “The idea is they go out the main gate with Australian industry,” he said. These plans are not offsets, which is the mechanism used by some nations to make contractors invest a certain amount of dollars in the local economy as a condition of winning a contract. However, these industry capability plans will be weighed by the contracting authority when selecting a winning proposal, he noted. Claire S. Willette, CEO of the Australian Defence Alliance, said in an interview that the nation's effort to bolster its aerospace and defense sector should be seen in light of its losses in manufacturing jobs — particularly the automotive industry — rather than security concerns. Australia wants a “sovereign capability to support itself” in the defense industrial sector, she said. “From a long-term sustainable economic perspective, you need to build something. You need to have a growth area,” said Willette, an American who served in the Pentagon for 20 years before moving to Australia. “Because we did have this burgeoning defense industry and because we have some really niche, high-tech areas of excellence, I think that [the government] saw that this was a natural fit and something they could grow off of,” she said. Australian government officials and locally based U.S. contractors at the airshow were eager to promote the nation as a spot where they can find the talent to develop programs. Boeing, by far, has the largest and longest presence with more than 90 years experience doing business in the country and some 5,000 employees in its defense and commercial sectors. It features two large research facilities — Boeing Research and Technology-Australia and Boeing Phantom Works International in Brisbane — where work on the robotic jet fighter will take place. The company invested $62 million in research and development in Australia in 2018, company officials said. “We're going to prove that we can do big, audacious programs like this here in Australia,” said Darren Edwards, vice president and managing director of Boeing Defence Australia. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin and local officials touted the country's success in winning F-35 sustainment contracts. As a partner nation in the program, Australian contractors can compete globally with other F-35 customers for component maintenance contracts. They received 343 out of a possible 388 such contracts in the latest round, building on the 64 they had received in the first round. Australian contractors have received a total of $1.3 billion in F-35-related contracts so far, said Royal Australian Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Leigh Gordon, head of the joint strike fighter division. “That is a really great example of the strength of Australian industry and its competitiveness in the global sphere,” Gordon said. Going hand in hand with Australia's ambitions in the defense realm is its renewed focus on space. In July 2018, it established the Australian Space Agency, which brought together about 11 different agencies spread out within the government at various ministries, said Kim Gina Ellis, senior lecturer on space industry engagement, governance and law at Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria. The government wants a central point to coordinate and bring all the civilian activities together, she said. Again, the long-term goal is job creation, she told National Defense. The government wants to add about 20,000 to the approximately 10,000 space sector jobs already in Australia, she said. Meanwhile, as is the case in the United States, the nation has a growing private sector launch industry with a handful of companies building small rockets and launch facilities for small satellites, she said. Along with telescopes and communications systems that have been positioned on the continent since the beginning of the space age, Australia features a favorable geographic location for inserting spacecraft into polar orbits, Ellis noted. The new agency will “help build the industry and show the rest of the world that we have these amazing capabilities and that we support most of the major space exploration programs,” Ellis said. Jeff Shockey, vice president of global sales and marketing for Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said in an interview that Australia is growing very close to investing 2 percent of its GDP in defense. “They are doing the right things. There is a lot going on down here in this region and they are at the forefront.” Boeing has ambitions to export the Airpower Teaming System to the other “five-eye” partners: the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Shockey said Boeing is an international company and Australia is an enduring ally and partner. Building a new jet fighter outside the United States should not be seen as “off-shoring” work, he said. “We're a global company and we're doing work throughout the enterprise on this project and others, both domestically and abroad,” he said. “There is a great high-tech talent base here,” he added. And the wide-open spaces will be a perfect proving ground for unmanned aircraft, Shockey and other company executives said. Willette said: “We're never going to have the assembly lines for an F-18, an F-16 or a JSF, but we do have the componentry, the systems and the systems integration and the skilled engineering. Designing and fabrication and machining — and the professional services that back all that up — those are huge strengths for this country.” The government has several new programs to spark innovation that would be recognizable to the U.S. defense industry. It is setting up grand challenges, cooperative research centers, university research networks and small business research grants. It has what would be called in the U.S. “broad agency announcements” with pots of money dedicated over the next 10 years for organizations with ideas in fields such as intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, electronic warfare, cybersecurity, amphibious warfare, maritime and anti-submarine warfare, and air and sealift. The 2018 Defense Industrial Capability Plan was just one building block in a larger plan, said Willette. The Australian government is continuing to produce more policies surrounding manufacturing skills and science, technology engineering and math education. “Having a level of sovereignty, and integrity and resiliency in your supply chain is incredibly important from a national security perspective,” Willette added. The ideas for the new programs are based on long-established U.S. or U.K. acquisition programs, said a government official who was not authorized to speak on the record. The Australian government is keen to partner with U.S. universities and has established the Australia-U.S. Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Program to help Australian schools establish themselves with the Pentagon's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative. It will provide Australian colleges with grants of up to 1 million Australian dollars per year if they can team with U.S. counterparts in the MURI program. Willette said: “The message very clearly coming from Australia is: ‘partner with us.'” http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/4/29/australia-makes-moves-to-grow-its-defense-industry

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  11 septembre 2019 | International, Terrestre

  DSEI: Unleash the hornets: Combat vehicles and robots get new kit to increase standoff

  By: Jen Judson LONDON — A FLIR System that deploys tiny unmanned aerial vehicles from a ruggedized container affixed to the front of a vehicle is helping to shape how advanced teaming can be used on the tactical edge against near peer threats. At DSEI — a major defense exposition in London — the system that deploys Black Hornet UAVs, which is the system chosen by the U.S. Army for the Soldier Borne Sensor program, made its appearance in several variations around the showroom floor. Rheinmetall had it built onto the front of its Mission Master Unmanned Ground System representing a surveillance variant. At Kongsberg, the system is integrated with a remote weapon station. The idea is that the package of tiny UAVs can be forward deployed from a combat vehicle while soldiers stay inside and maintain standoff from enemy forces. The UAVs can perform reconnaissance and possible targeting assistance so the vehicle knows where it can shoot. The data from the UAVs tiny camera can feed right back into the vehicle's weapon station providing intel to the gunner, for instance. The concept was first unveiled in a prototype at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference in Washington in 2018, but it is now a full-up system ready for the market, according to Ole Aguirre, FLIR senior director of UIS Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships in the company's unmanned systems and integrated solutions division. The system accommodates four Black Hornets in four individual compartments, which close up to protect the little drones. Two UAVs can be deployed at once while the other two charge using power from the vehicle, Aguirre said. The entire box that can be attached to the front of the vehicle is ruggedized to the level it can withstand the environment of a tank, he added. The system can be controlled from inside the vehicle using the remote weapon station or a tablet or the traditional controls that go with the U.S. Army's Soldier Borne Sensor. It has been built using NATO standards so it can be integrated into command and control systems. Placing the box of UAVs outside of the vehicle is important so that a soldier wouldn't have to open up the hatch on a vehicle to throw one out and space is highly limited inside most tanks and combat vehicles. The Black Hornet's range is roughly a 2,000 meter radius, but FLIR is looking at how to extend the range of the UAV to meet a requirement defined by a pacing threat of 3,000 meters, Aguirre said. Because the system is versatile, it can be used on small UGVs all the way up to tanks and so FLIR sees opportunity across the U.S. Army's many vehicle modernization programs and also with current systems. The company is investing heavily in evaluating utility for the U.S. Army, Aguirre added, but there is also strong international interest in Europe and the Middle East particularly. The system is a step forward in conceiving feasible integration concepts for advanced teaming between UAVs and manned and unmanned ground vehicles. Two years ago at DSEI, there was a striking lack of integration of unmanned aircraft systems into vehicle concepts. For example, Finnish defense company Patria was the only one to display a concept integrating a drone with a vehicle — mounting the hand-launched Black Hornet atop a little stick on the roof of the back end of its armored modular vehicle. Eurosatory in 2018, held in Paris, showed a little more evolution in advanced teaming between aerial systems and vehicles. The U.S. Army's plans to evaluate a wide variety of advanced teaming concepts as part of a major modernization effort through its brand new Army Futures Command could be driving much of the proliferation of ideas now popping up at defense trade shows. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/dsei/2019/09/11/unleash-the-hornets-combat-vehicles-and-robots-get-new-kit-to-increase-standoff