Germany to buy 60 Chinooks for up to 8 bln euros -lawmakers

Sur le même sujet

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  16 février 2022 | International, Naval

  Poland shortlists Babcock, Thyssenkrupp for $2 billion frigate program

  The latest announcement indicates that Warsaw has discarded the bid submitted by Spanish Navantia which offered its F-100 frigate.

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  24 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Post-Brexit Defense Review Challenged By Costs And Coronavirus

  Tony Osborne Post-Brexit Britain is taking its first steps toward understanding its place in the world and the military capabilities it may need to ensure it can hold onto that status. A review, described by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the most extensive of its kind since the end of the Cold War, is examining the UK's foreign, defense, security and development policies. And it is proceeding despite the challenges and costs surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it will examine the work of several government departments—notably the Foreign Office, the Defense Ministry and the Department for International Development—considerable focus is likely to be on defense. It has the largest budget of those under the microscope and an oft-criticized procurement process that some in government are eager to overhaul. The process will run in parallel with the government's comprehensive spending review. That assessment decides UK government spending for the next three years and will deliver its findings potentially as early as this summer. Some critics argue that is simply too soon for a thorough analysis of Britain's future defense needs. “If you are to have a strategy that is worth the name, you must address ends, ways and means together. . . . If you do not do the whole package, including the money, together, then you do not have a strategic review,” Jock Stirrup, a former chief of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and UK Defense Staff, told parliamentary defense committee hearings on March 17. The 2020 review represents a break from the traditional defense-led Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) usually held every five years. Some analysts contend the 2020 edition could shape defense capabilities for decades to come. Jack Watling, Land Warfare research fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) says the review would have to make “hard choices” but that these would “determine the trajectory of the UK's defense capabilities for a generation.” He notes that for a post-Brexit Britain looking to expand its trading and security partners, future conflicts may be difficult to avoid. “Security and trade partnerships are closely intertwined. . . . If ‘Global Britain' means diversifying our economic partnerships, it will be necessary to build meaningful security ties as well,” Watling says. The UK must look at its role in the Euro-Atlantic alliance and in the Great Power competition, in addition to other global issues and homeland security, Defense Minister Ben Wallace told Parliament. The review will also “place prosperity and manufacturing at its heart,” he added. The assessment comes at a challenging time for Britain's defense and its equipment-procurement plans. The National Audit Office recently warned that for a third consecutive year there will be shortfalls in the budget. The ministry's plans call for the spending of £183.6 billion ($214 billion) over the next 10 years, equivalent to 42% of the ministry budget during that period. Auditors say the Defense Ministry has a shortfall of at least £2.9 billion over that period, but this could be as high as £13 billion. Although the UK is expanding its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities with the upcoming arrival of the General Atomics Protector unmanned aircraft system and deliveries of the Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime patroller—two of which have already arrived—capability gaps in the ISR mission are imminent. The planned retirement of the RAF's long-suffering Boeing E-3D Sentry fleet has been pushed to December 2022. But the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail, the 737-based platform planned as its replacement, is not due to enter service until the end of 2023, potentially leaving a yearlong capability gap. The RAF also plans to retire its Raytheon Sentinel radar-reconnaissance platform in March 2021. It got several reprieves after its Afghanistan duties ended, but its departure would leave the UK without a standoff ground-moving-target-indicator and synthetic aperture radar platform. Several commitments made in the 2015 SDSR, such as the UK's decision to commit all 138 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters across the lifetime of the program, have also not been budgeted, auditors note. Current plans forecast only the costs of the first 48 aircraft. The government says that “decisions on future numbers and aircraft variants will be taken at the relevant time,” but it is unclear whether this will be considered in the review. The British government is aiming to maintain the target of 2% of GDP set by NATO for all allies. Defense ministers have said they will fight to meet that share, and more if needed, although the UK has a history of not fully funding post-review defense portfolios. “It is not a ​review designed to cut costs,” says Jeremy Quin, minister for defense procurement. “It is a review designed to ensure we know what we are doing in the world and that [this is achieved] through really effective equipment.” Along with defining capabilities required for land, sea and air, the review is also likely to conclude that the UK should make additional investment in both the cyber and space domains. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/post-brexit-defense-review-challenged-costs-coronavirus

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  20 novembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  B-21 Program Hits Schedule Pressure Even On ‘Conventional Trajectory’

  Steve Trimble As the first B-21 enters final assembly in Palmdale, California, the Northrop Grumman-led program is on track to hit a first-flight target in two years, although the first signs of schedule pressure have appeared. Most of the details of the U.S. Air Force's newest stealth bomber remain a tightly guarded secret, but those facts released show the program is following a conventional trajectory despite being managed by an organization with the word “rapid” in its title. The Air Force announced completion of the critical design review in December 2018 in the standard three years after Northrop Grumman won the engineering and manufacturing development contract. The target for the first flight milestone stayed secret until July , when Gen. Stephen Wilson, the Air Force's vice chief of staff, stated publicly—and with remarkable specificity—that the milestone was 863 days away. Wilson offered that timetable on July 25, suggesting the targeted date is around Dec. 3, 2021. SCO leader says earliest flight would be in December 2021 Public rollout event expected in Palmdale, California The final piece of the publicly acknowledged schedule is that the first B-21 entered the early stages of final assembly around September in Palmdale, presumably within Northrop's Site 4 manufacturing complex and perhaps inside Building 401 in the same assembly bay that once housed the B-2. To hit Wilson's first-flight target, Northrop's staff must complete assembly of the first aircraft, stage a public rollout event and perform necessary ground testing within about two years. But Wilson's first-flight target may already be under pressure. His description made the December 2021 date seem like a fixed schedule milestone typical of most major defense acquisition programs. Randall Walden, who leads the Rapid Capabilities Office assigned to lead the B-21 program, describes Wilson's timing as closer to a schedule goal than a deadline. Walden recast the target as the “earliest possible” date for first flight, which he has little confidence the program will achieve. “I would not bet on that date,” Walden told an audience at a Capitol Hill Club breakfast on Oct. 24 organized by the Air Force Association. The comment is a rare cautionary note among otherwise glowing descriptions of the B-21 program by officials cleared to know the status of the development program. In March 2018, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) reported concerns about the design of the engine inlet, citing an internal dispute between Northrop and engine supplier Pratt & Whitney's engineers. Twelve months later, Wittman confirmed that the inlet design problem had been resolved. The program has since received only glowing assessments by Air Force leaders, including a statement in October by Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein that the B-21 ranks at the top of his list of successful acquisition projects. Despite those assurances, transitioning a new aircraft from a paper design into manufactured hardware is a challenging phase for any program. Large pieces of the first aircraft are now in assembly. “We're working a production line, literally, today,” Walden says. An official artist's rendering shows the B-21 shares the all-wing profile of the B-2, minus the latter's distinctive sawtooth trailing edge. The Air Force's acquisition strategy also focused on minimizing risk by relying as much as possible on available technology. But a modern bomber with the B-21's mission to penetrate into highly contested airspace is still anything but a simple project. “It is a complex airplane. I'll leave it at that,” Walden says. Walden expects the Air Force to stage a public rollout event in Palmdale when the aircraft is ready. For the B-2, the rollout was staged seven months before the first flight. If the B-21 stays to the same schedule, the unveiling could come as early as May 2020. But Walden adds that includes several big “ifs.” “Like anything, building a complex system could add those schedule pressures,” Walden says. “We've got to bring parts together, got to assemble it and get it stuffed with the right avionics, get the landing gear on it, all the things that go along with an airplane.” Any schedule pressure facing the B-21 would not surprise Frank Kendall, the former undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. Kendall led the shaping of the acquisition strategy for the B-21. In a recent interview, he recalled pushing back against attempts by the Air Force to award a firm, fixed-price contract instead of a more flexible cost-plus arrangement, which is generally applied to acquisition projects with a higher risk. “When I looked at . . . the actual content of the program, I [was] so glad I told [the Air Force to use cost-plus],” Kendall says. “It's not risk-free. I'll be amazed if they get this thing in on schedule and on cost. But it was designed to have a reasonable chance of success.” An independent estimate by the Defense Department assessed the cost of the engineering and manufacturing development phase at $21.4 billion, with follow-on production of at least 80-100 bombers worth up to $60 billion more. The Air Force has budgeted $5.9 billion over the next five years to pay for the first operational aircraft, with low-rate initial production possibly beginning in fiscal 2023. “There are a lot of things that have to happen between now and a couple of years,” Walden says. https://aviationweek.com/defense/b-21-program-hits-schedule-pressure-even-conventional-trajectory