8 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial
L'Allemagne a finalement décidé de repousser l'acquisition d'hélicoptères de transport lourds.
Suite à l'impact économique de la crise du Coronavirus, Berlin a finalement fait le choix d'annuler son appel d'offres visant au remplacement de sa flotte de CH-53G, pour lequel concouraient d'une part Rheinmetall et Sikorsky avec le CH-53K et de l'autre Boeing avec son Chinook. « L'annulation a eu lieu peu de temps avant la date prévue pour l'attribution du contrat, indiquant que de nouveaux facteurs tels que la COVID-19 ont dû être pris en considération », met en avant Harry Boneham, analyste associé pour GlobalData. Cependant l'Allemagne n'a pas pour autant renoncé à l'idée de remplacer sa flotte de CH-53G, mais souhaite cependant revoir sa copie et ses priorités dans le cadre de ce projet. Un contrat pourrait ainsi malgré tout être attribué, mais comportant beaucoup moins d'options, afin de faire baisser le coût global.
Alors que l'on savait le secteur de l'aviation civile durement touché par la crise, cette décision montre que les budgets de défense pourraient également être touchés dans certains pays, venant dès lors impacter les entreprises duales à l'instar de Boeing. « Les entreprises telles que Boeing présentes sur les deux marchés s'appuient fortement sur la branche défense pour compenser l'impact sur l'activité commerciale. Ce contrat aurait fourni une précieuse source de revenus fiable sur le moyen et long terme » complète l'analyse.
Si pour le moment les conclusions sont difficiles à tirer, la tendance générale reste malgré tout à la hausse des budgets de défense. Que cela soit en France, en Finlande, en Colombie, en Estonie, au Pakistan, en Suède ou encore en Argentine, le secteur de la défense est vu comme une des clés de la relance. Il permet ainsi d'offrir des débouchés via de la commande publique aux entreprises du secteur. Ces contrats, s'ils ne sont attribués à l'industrie nationale, comportent bien souvent une part non négligeable de compensations industrielles permettant la création d'emplois ou l'installation de chaîne de production.
https://www.air-cosmos.com/article/lallemagne-renonce-son-projet-dhlicoptre-lourd-23696
16 décembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial
China's air force and navy now field roughly 2,250 dedicated combat aircraft, and it's "rapidly catching up to Western air forces," the Pentagon says.
20 avril 2020 | International, Naval
17 Apr 2020 Military.com | By Gina Harkins The Navy has awarded a new contract for the long-awaited replacement connector that will ferry Marines, weapons and other equipment ashore. Textron Systems was awarded $386 million to build 15 new ship-to-shore connectors, Naval Sea Systems Command announced on Thursday. The connectors will replace the aging fleet of Landing Craft, Air Cushion vehicles, known as LCACs, which have been in operation since the 1980s and are nearing the end of their service lives. The new 92-footlong connectors will have further range and lift capabilities than the legacy LCACs. They can carry 74 tons and will be compatible with amphibious ships that have well decks, along with expeditionary transfer dock and sea bases. "As the program continues to move forward with delivering these important capabilities to the fleet, the procurement of these additional craft is critical," Tom Rivers, program manager of the Amphibious Warfare Program Office for the Program Executive Office Ships, said in a statement. The contract award is an important milestone for a program that plays a big part in the Marine Corps' future missions. That service is focusing its sights on the Asia-Pacific region, where Commandant Gen. David Berger said Marines and sailors will likely be called on to respond to China's growing influence. China has militarized tiny man-made islands in the South China Sea. The islands have airstrips, hangars, barracks and lookout points. As the country's military invests in new weapons systems that can target ships further away from the shore, the Navy and Marine Corps will need next-generation landing craft to get people and equipment from amphibious ships onto nearby beaches. The new connectors can be loaded with an enclosed personnel transport module that can carry up to 145 Marines in full combat gear, according to Textron. The craft can also carry vehicles and other heavy equipment. Textron will do most of its work on the 15 new vessels in New Orleans. The Navy already accepted delivery of the first next-gen landing craft, called the Ship to Shore Connector Craft 100, in February. The sea services will continue testing it and training on that platform in Panama City, Florida. The Navy plans to buy 73 of the new ship-to-shore connectors, according to its program summary. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/04/17/navy-awards-big-contract-lcac-replacement-ship-shore-connectors.html
13 mai 2020 | International, Naval, C4ISR
Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — Research in the Arctic Ocean is no small feat. The area can prove inaccessible at times, and sensors can fail to communicate data from under the ice or get crushed by slabs of ice. But with the Arctic getting warmer and ice melting at an accelerated rate, the U.S. Navy is preparing to operate in newly available waterways. To do that effectively, the service knows it will take intense research to create durable, innovative solutions that can withstand harsh conditions, while also relaying data to researchers. “If the Navy's thinking about having to run operations up there with submarines, surface vessels and aircraft, you really need to understand that operational environment,” Scott Harper, the Office of Naval Research's program manager for Arctic and global prediction, told Defense News in a May 4 interview. “Where is that sea ice and how quickly is it retreating? And what is it doing to the upper water column in the ocean? "To really understand all that, you need to have a lot of observations.” Navy and academic researchers are working together to improve the service's forecasting models in the Arctic. The Navy currently has research buoys, sensors and other technology floating in the water to track a variety of metrics: waves, atmospheric and water circulation, sea ice thickness and cover, speed at which the ice moves, and several other factors. All those metrics factor into Arctic forecasting. In order to improve its forecasting capabilities, the Navy needs to improve its numerical models, or complex equations used in predictions. But to do that, the service needs more up-to-date data. “These numerical models are kind of like balancing your checkbook,” Harper said. “You need to start with what your current checking account balances [to[ if you're going to predict what it's going to be at the end of the month. And so even if you had a perfect numerical model that you could use to make a forecast, if you don't know what the conditions are right now, you're not going to be able to forecast what the future state is going to be.” To do this, the Navy wants to more quickly collect data through an effort called the Arctic Mobile Observing System, or AMOS. The program aims to create near-real-time data transmission of the sea condition under the ice, and communicate that information to the Navy via satellite. “You have satellites that can look down at the surface of the Arctic Ocean and the sea ice conditions,” Harper said. “But what we don't have [is] the ability to look under the ice and understand what the ocean conditions are, and that's what we're really trying to enable with Arctic Mobile Observing System prototype.” The AMOS program has deployed gliders underneath the sea that are collecting and storing data about the oceanic conditions under the ice, and tracking the location of frozen water using acoustics. In a few months, Harper said, researchers will send an icebreaker to the Arctic and gather the data collected by the gliders. The Office of Naval Resarch, however, would like to bypass the multi-month delay involved in collected the data. To do so, the office plans to enable two-way communication so underwater sensors can communicate data via floating buoys in the ice that, in turn, communicate the data via satellites back to the Naval Oceanographic Office. The project is currently two years into the five-year project. According to the project website, it's slated to end in fiscal 2023 with the recovery and evaluation of the initial prototype in the late summer of 2023. Harper said the project's biggest success has been the navigation system that's currently working underneath the ocean surface. “The fact that we can put sensors out that will know where they are without having to come to the surface to get a GPS fix — because they can't come to the surface because there's sea ice there for nine months out of the year," he said. "That's a big win.” Another critical component to the real-time data collection are the buoys that ultimately must be able to survive the cruel nature of Arctic ice. The AMOS team has deployed prototypes of “ice-hardened” buoys that survived “multiple months” in the Arctic environment, Harper said, paving the way for a fully equipped communications buoy that can talk with underwater sensors. “You can go out there and you can put your sensors in the ice, but a lot of times they'll fail,” Harper said. “And they'll fail because they'll get crushed in the ice or tipped over or toppled by changing ice conditions. And so the ability to deploy a buoy that is robust enough to survive the sea ice is one of the technological hurdles to doing this.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/smr/frozen-pathways/2020/05/11/failure-to-communicate-us-navy-seeks-faster-data-transfers-amid-arctic-ice/