3 mai 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
6 août 2024 | International, Terrestre
Boeing's current PAC-3 Missile seeker production pace is slated to break its previous production records by roughly 20% by the end of the year.
25 janvier 2021 | International, Naval, C4ISR
1/20/2021 By Mandy Mayfield The Navy recently awarded BAE systems a $4 million contract for a “quick turnaround” demonstration of a new radio frequency countermeasures system for the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, the company announced in January. “Its primary mission is twofold. First, it's to prevent an enemy radar from locking” onto U.S. aircraft, said Don Davidson, director of the advanced compact electronic warfare solutions product line at BAE Systems. However, “if they do get a radar lock and fire a missile, its ultimate purpose is to seduce the missile away from the platform.” The system will be pod-mounted and include a small form factor jammer, a high-powered amplifier and BAE's AN/ALE-55 fiber-optic towed decoy. The decoy has been used on board other Navy aircraft such as the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. “Right now on the P-8A, they don't have any of the equipment required to support a self-protection system,” Davidson said in an interview. “We had to put all that equipment within a pod that can be mounted on the aircraft without requiring anything on the aircraft itself.” The company will design, build and integrate the systems at its Nashua, New Hampshire, facility. Following the integration, they will be tested for two months in early 2021 on the P-8A. “This need for speed is even more prevalent today than it has been in years past,” Davidson said. The Navy issued a white paper identifying concerns about emerging threats with regard to surface-to-air missiles and asked for a self-protection capability to be delivered quickly, he noted. “Since we do this for a living, we had a lot of products and capabilities that we had developed for other applications that we were able to leverage,” he said. “We could take these existing capabilities, integrate them together — they're small enough to fit in this pod — and we could bring this capability to bear in what has essentially been five months.” The completed pod was slated to be delivered at the end of January, he said. https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/1/20/navy-awards-contract-for-p-8a-poseidon-protection
2 juillet 2019 | International, Terrestre
By: Andrew Chuter and Sebastian Sprenger LONDON and COLOGNE, Germany – Germany's Rheinmetall and Britain's BAE Systems on Monday launched their U.K.-based military vehicles joint venture, after British authorities approved the deal in mid-June, the companies announced. The new outfit is named RBSL, short for Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land, and it's based in Telford, West Midlands. Peter Hardisty, formerly of Rheinmetall UK, is the company's managing director. The joint venture sets out to “play a major role” in manufacturing the Boxer multirole fighting vehicle for the British Mechanised Infantry Vehicle program, according to a Rheinmetall statement. Official also have an eye on “other strategic combat vehicle programs” in addition to maintenance contracts for the British Army's bridging- and armored-vehicle fleets, according to the company. “This announcement is a clear vote of confidence in the UK's defence industry as a world-leader in designing, supplying and supporting military vehicles,” Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt was quoted as saying in the statement. “This exciting venture clearly demonstrates how Defence sits at the heart of the prosperity agenda. Its benefits will be felt in the West Midlands and across the UK defence supply chain, creating jobs, boosting exports and guaranteeing our technical skills base into the future.” Some might think it was anything but. That's because the news also means Britain has lost its only big-name, armored-vehicle company in a joint venture where BAE is the junior partner. As a result, the country no longer has a domestically controlled mainstream vehicle supplier — although some would argue BAE forfeited that role a while ago. The British company retains significant armored-vehicle design and build activities in the United States and Sweden. General Dynamics UK, Lockheed Martin UK and Rheinmetall now have significant investments in Britain's armored-vehicle sector, with British involvement primarily led by specialist designers and builders like Supacat and Jankel and a still-vibrant sector supply chain. It's a far cry from 2004 when BAE acquired key domestic manufacturer Alvis, trumping an acquisition bid from General Dynamics with a last-minute offer of £355 million (U.S. $451 million) that was largely seen as a strategic move. At the time, most of the British Army's armored vehicle fleet was designed and supplied by Alvis. But that's dramatically changed. General Dynamics has recently started supplying its Ajax family of tracked reconnaissance vehicles to the Army in what is the biggest deal in the sector in three decades. Final assembly and testing takes place at company facilities in South Wales. Lockheed Martin is leading the program to update the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle as well as supply turrets for the Ajax program from a factory in southern England. Rheinmetall is a partner in the Artec consortium selected without competition to supply Britain with the eight-wheel drive Boxer vehicle. The vehicle was nominated as the preferred option last year but a final production deal between RBSL and the Ministry of Defence has yet to be announced. Rheinmetall and BAE have also been vying to supply a major upgrade of the Challenger 2 main battle tank for the British Army. Mordaunt recently labeled the Challenger as “obsolete” due to the ministry's failure to keep pace with technological advances in the sector. In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute think tank last month, she said Britain had fallen behind it's allies and rivals due to underinvestment in the armored vehicle sector. A decision on the Challenger update program is expected shortly. However, recent signals from the MoD suggest the Army may have got its wish to fall into line with other NATO members and go for the German company's solution of a new turret and 120mm smoothbore gun to replace the rifled weapon currently fitted to the Challenger 2. BAE's weapons and ammunition activities in the U.K. are excluded from the deal, as is the CTAI joint venture with Nexter to build a new 40mm cannon. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/07/01/rheinmetall-bae-consummate-armored-vehicles-joint-venture/