German firm sees U.S. getting lion's share of 100 billion euro military fund

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  25 mai 2020 | International, Naval

  US Warship Fries Drone With Powerful New Laser

  In a first, the USS Portland took down a target drone with a new solid state laser this week, the first step in the Navy's quest to get the powerful weapon on more ships in the future. By PAUL MCLEARY WASHINGTON: In a first, the USS Portland took down a target drone with a new solid state laser this week, the first step in the Navy's quest to get the powerful weapon on more ships in the future. The shot from the San Antonio-class landing platform ship tested out what's known as the Technology Maturation Laser Weapon System Demonstrator, or LWSD, which has been aboard the ship for several months. The May 16 test, announced by the Pacific Fleet today, is the first public acknowledgement of the system being put to use. The Northrop Grumman-made LWSD is a high-energy laser weapon initially developed by the Office of Naval Research, and its operational employment marks “the first system-level implementation of a high-energy class solid-state laser,” according to a Pacific Fleet release. The test comes as the US, in bits and pieces, ramps up operations in the Pacific as a counterweight to China — moves which include new, ambitious B-1 bomber flights close to Russian and Chinese territory. Just this week, the USS Ronald Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt carriers went back to sea from bases in Japan and Guam, respectively, while the USS Nimitz is getting its air wing up to speed off the coast of Washington state. And earlier this month, two Navy ships sailed into the middle of an ongoing dispute between China and a neighbor in the South China Sea — steaming near a shadowing Chinese warship in Washington's latest effort to show presence in an increasingly contested waterway. The Littoral Combat Ship USS Montgomery and supply ship USNS Cesar Chavez sailed close to a Malaysian drillship, the West Capella, warning off Chinese warships who spent weeks harassing the commercial vessel in international waters illegally claimed by Beijing. Since the passthrough, both the Chinese and Malasyian ships have moved away from one another. Late last month, the destroyer USS Barry cruised near the Paracel Islands, claimed by China, followed a day later by the cruiser USS Bunker Hill sailing near the Spratlys conducting freedom-of-navigation operations. On April 30, a day after Bunker Hill's transit, two B-1 bombers flew over the South China Sea. These transits came just days after the USS America amphibious ship packed with Marine Corps F-35s passed through the South China Sea while conducting flight operations. The laser test was much quieter, but no less significant in the long run. “By conducting advanced at sea tests against UAVs and small crafts, we will gain valuable information on the capabilities of the Solid State Laser Weapons System Demonstrator against potential threats,” said Capt. Karrey Sanders, commanding officer of Portland. The LWSD is thought to pack about 150kw worth of power, a step up from the smaller, 50kw laser that was tested on the USS Ponce starting in 2014. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/us-warship-fries-drone-with-powerful-new-laser/

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  29 juillet 2020 | International, Naval

  Singapore, Israeli firms team to develop new ship-killing missile

  By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia — Singapore's ST Engineering believes that a new joint venture with Israel Aerospace Industries, to market and sell advanced naval missile systems, will leverage both companies' strengths and track records to address a growing demand for guided munitions. The joint venture, announced in mid-July, is called Proteus Advanced Systems, with ST Engineering's land systems arm and IAI each having a 50 percent share. According to the news release announcing the joint venture, the new entity will “market and sell advanced naval missile systems, including a next generation anti-ship missile system.” ST Engineering confirmed to Defense News that its next generation anti-ship missile is called the Blue Spear, a system that it says it has been working with IAI over the past few years, although it declined to divulge the exact timeline. A spokesperson from the company added that Blue Spear, which was also known as the 5G SSM, is “is an anti-ship missile system that introduces an advanced and novel approach which addresses the challenges of the modern naval arena for years to come,” and confirmed reports elsewhere that ST Engineering's role in the Blue Spear's development includes the design, development and production of major subsystems like the booster motor and warhead. The spokesperson added that the land systems arm of the company, ST Engineering Land Systems, was chosen to participate in the development of the missile as it “has been in the business of conventional munitions for many years.” The division has manufactured NATO-standard ammunition for small arms and artillery systems, and has been involved in license-production of both the Rafael Spike anti-tank and the Russian 9K38 Igla surface-to-air missiles used by Singapore's military. No other technical details of the Blue Spear were made available. IAI has previously developed the Gabriel family of anti-ship missiles, with the latest being the Gabriel 5, which the Israeli company says is designed to penetrate modern hard- and soft-kill anti-missile defenses. ST Engineering says that the development of the Blue Spear and the formation of the joint venture was a commercial venture by both companies and is “not driven by any ongoing customer requirement.” However it has not escaped notice that the Republic of Singapore Navy's current anti-ship missile is the Boeing RGM-84C Harpoon, a weapon that was introduced in the early 1980s. The Harpoon is used by Singapore's six Formidable-class multi-role frigates and a similar number of Victory-class missile corvettes, while the air-launched AGM-84C can be carried by Singapore's Fokker 50 maritime patrol aircraft and its Lockheed-Martin F-16C/D multi-role fighter jets. The service plans to buy six multi-role combat vessels, starting the middle of this decade, to replace its missile corvettes, and will almost certainly equip these with a new anti-ship missile given several of Singapore's neighbours are introducing much more modern capabilities. The Singaporean frigates, which entered service between 2007 and 2009, will likely receive new missiles in the future as part of a continuing program to refresh its capabilities. Singapore's defense ministry has yet to respond to questions from Defense News about potentially acquiring a new anti-ship weapon. Singapore and Israel have enjoyed a close defense relationship spanning several decades, with the latter providing extensive assistance in setting up Singapore's military when it became independence in 1965. The relationship extends to both countries defense industries, and Singapore is a major user of Israeli defense equipment although the relationship is usually kept low-profile. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/07/28/singapore-israeli-firms-team-to-develop-new-ship-killing-missile/

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  28 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval

  How One Component Improved U.S. Navy F/A-18 Fleet Readiness

  The U.S. Navy's F/A-18 and EA-18G fleets have experienced a dramatic turnaround. In 2017, less than half of the Navy's Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets were able to fly. Now, 80% of its carrier-based fighters are ready for missions. The solution involved fixing a single component within the General Electric F414 engine. The Navy faulted constrained spending following the 2008 financial crisis and increased demand from the wars in the Middle East as reasons for the fleet's lack of readiness. More specifically, those conditions exacerbated an issue embedded in the military's vast supply chain. For 20 years, the Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers have continually had electronic systems and new sensors added that placed greater and greater demand for power from its General Electric engine. That demand taxed a key component of the F414's electrical power generation system—its generator control unit (GCU), which keeps the generator output within a specified range. Initial attempts to address the GCU's issues through “component-level reliability improvements were not sustainable,” Navy spokeswoman Gulianna Dunn tells Aviation Week. Eventually, the GCU, already in short supply, failed to keep pace, causing a cascading effect on the availability of the carrier-based fighters. In the words of a Navy program official, the GCU was the “top platform degrader for all naval aviation.” When sequestration-era spending limits were imposed on the Pentagon in 2013, the entire military faced across-the-board funding cuts, including the operations and maintenance accounts. The Navy had to make tough choices about what bills it would pay and what to defer. At the same time, flight hours for the Super Hornet and Growler in the Middle East increased to meet the high operational tempos of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Inherent Resolve. As the Navy reduced aviation sustainment budgets, the program office did not have sufficient funding to purchase spare parts. From fiscal years 2013-16, the program office requested between $193.6-311.5 million and received between $85.2-136.3 million, according to a 2019 Defense Department Inspector General report. To compensate, Navy officials cannibalized aircraft to obtain the required spare parts. Maintainers removed working parts from an aircraft and installed them on a second jet to make that aircraft operational. A backlog of spare parts exacerbated fleet readiness and availability rates—an issue that affected the GCU acutely. New mission payloads created new types of electrical load, straining the aircraft's electronics, and wearing out the GCU at a faster rate. The second-generation (G2) and G3 GCU models that equipped the fleet could handle only about 150 flight hours. To increase reliability General Electric Aviation Systems, in consultation with the Navy, began working to redesign the GCU. A G3-to-G4 conversion kit could reach up to 532 flight hours. A G4 GCU was even better—sustaining 1,220 flight hours. Naval Air Systems Command (Navair) flight-tested the G4 in August 2015, and GE started production in mid-2016, Joe Krisciunas, general manager and president of GE Aviation Electrical Power Systems, tells Aviation Week. But the part was still only being manufactured at a minimal rate. The matter came to a head in October 2018, when then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis set an 80% mission-capable readiness goal. At the time, only 260 F/A-18 and EA-18G aircraft were capable of flying missions—approximately 60%, far short of the mandate. In response, the Navy convened a Reliability Control Board (RCB) in 2019 to improve the F/A-18 and EA-18G mission-capable rate. The board pinpointed the main problem—insufficient production of the F414's GCU. The Navy had 200 of the units on back order. Navair worked with GE to ramp up GCU production, according to Lt. Cmdr. Jason Shaw, power and propulsion lead at the F/A-18 and EA-18G program office. The RCB determined GE was producing roughly six GCUs per month that would funnel into the program office, Boeing or Naval Supply Systems Command (Navsup). The program and Boeing had predictable delivery schedules, but Navsup would only receive GCUs that were produced beyond what the other two contracts required. “It created a hole on the supply shelf,” Shaw says. “When a jet would lose a GCU, there was no other one to replace it from supply.” The team brainstormed and decided GE would increase production to about 21 GCUs each month, while Navair would defer a contract for 320 GCU conversion kits to 2021. Pushing the contract would leave room for Navsup to acquire a more predictable delivery schedule. The company doubled its GCU production rate from 2018 to 2019, and almost doubled it again in 2020 to reach the 21 units per month rate, Krisciunas says. These courses of action resulted in zero GCU back orders by mid-June 2020. Additionally, the team is working with GE to resolve production issues related to GCU testing capacity. The plan is to purchase new, larger test stands and upgrade software on existing test equipment. This would allow the company to conduct more tests and further increase production. The test stand is a large electric motor that simulates the engine spinning the gearbox, and it has a pad that duplicates the GCU interface. A test stand costs approximately $1.5-2 million and typically takes 15-18 months to get up and running, Krisciunas says. Still, more improvements are being made: The program office is now assessing wiring issues that may have also contributed to low GCU reliability. The service awarded a $17 million contract to purchase additional software and cables for Automated Wiring Test Sets, which will allow aircraft mechanics to identify system faults. “The U.S. Navy is the only [Pentagon] military branch to have met and sustained the 80% readiness call that Mattis put out, and that is largely associated with resolving the issues with GCUs,” Shaw says. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/how-one-component-improved-us-navy-fa-18-fleet-readiness