L’EuroFighter assemblé en Suisse ? La proposition d’Airbus pour décrocher le contrat à 5,5 milliards d’euros

Sur le même sujet

• 

  21 mai 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Army Braces For Post-COVID Cuts: Gen. Murray

  “I've heard some people talk about [going] back to a BCA [Budget Control Act] level of funding,” Gen. Murray says, referring to the steep cuts also known as sequestration. “And I've heard some people say that it's even going to be worse than BCA.” By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on May 20, 2020 at 1:11 PM WASHINGTON: Over the last two years, the Army has cut or cancelled more than 240 programs to free billions for its 34 top priorities, from hypersonic missiles to new rifles. Some of those 34 may have to die as the economy and budget reel from the COVID-19 pandemic, . “I start off with what Secretary Esper and Secretary McCarthy have said consistently, across DoD: three to five real growth is what we need,” said Gen. Mike Murray, chief of Army Futures Command. “Given what's going on in this country over the last two or three months.... my personal expectation is we're not going to see three to five percent growth. We'll be lucky to see a flat line.” LRPF: Long-Range Precision Fires. NGCV: Next-Generation Combat Vehicle. FVL: Future Vertical Lift. AMD: Air & Missile Defense. SL: Soldier Lethality. SOURCE: US Army. (Click to expand) While the Army is still working on its long-term spending plan for 2022-2026, the future topline is very much in doubt. “I've heard some people talk about [going] back to a BCA [Budget Control Act] level of funding,” Murray told an online AOC conference yesterday, referring to the steep cuts also known as sequestration. “And I've heard some people say that it's even going to be worse than BCA.” “I do think budgets are going to get tighter,” Murray said. “I do think that decisions are going to get harder.” Across its actual and projected budgets for 2020 through 2025, despite a slight drop in its topline, the Army has moved $40 billion from lower-priority programs to the 34 “signature programs.” Murray's Futures Command runs 31 of the 34, grouped in six portfolios: long-range rocket and cannon artillery is No. 1, followed by new armored vehicles, Future Vertical Lift aircraft, an upgraded battlefield network, air & missile defense, and soldier gear. Meanwhile, three most technologically demanding programs – including hypersonics and high-energy lasers – are handled by the independent Rapid Capabilities & Critical Technology Office. “We're prioritizing what I call the 31 plus 3,” Murray said. “We have fully funded those priorities in the program at the expense of a lot of other things.” The XM1299 Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) howitzer in an earlier test shot last year. But Army leaders have already warned that the Big Six will need more funding as they move from concept to prototype to mass production. Even a flat budget topline will be tight — and COVID makes flat the best-scare scenario. When and if the budget shrinks, Murray warned, “I do think we're going to have to make some tough decisions.” Hypothetically, he said, the choice may come down to something like, “Is it 31 plus three, or is it 24 plus two?” Considering the agonies the Army went through in its multiple rounds of “night court” cuts to find money for the 34 priority programs in the first place, cancelling any of them will be painful – but not impossible. Yes, the Army needs capabilities from each of its six modernization portfolios to work together in what's called Multi-Domain Operations against a future foe like Russia or China. Long-range precision firepower blasts holes in enemy defenses for aircraft, armor and infantry to advance; then they hunt out enemies too well-entrenched or mobile for artillery to destroy. Meanwhile air and missile defense protects the entire force, and the network passes intelligence and targeting data. But each of the Big Six includes multiple programs, and the Army has never expected all 34 to succeed. That's a crucial difference from the service's last major modernization drive, the Future Combat Systems cancelled in 2009, which depended on each of its 20 component technologies working as planned. Army slide showing the elements of the (later canceled) Future Combat System “Is there room for failures? Yes,” Murray told reporters at an Association of the US Army conference last year. “This concept does not count on any specific piece of capability.” That doesn't make cuts painless or easy, however. “Our priorities are our priorities for a reason,” Murray said yesterday. The Army's current weapons, from missiles to tanks to helicopters, largely entered service in the Reagan era. They've been much upgraded since, but there's only so much add-on armor, souped-up horsepower, and advanced electronics a 40-year chassis can take. The Army says it needs new weapons to take it into the next 40 years. “The kids running around on armored vehicles today are riding... fundamentally the same vehicles I rode around in as a company commander, way back when,” Murray said. “My now five-year-old granddaughter [lives] up the road at Fort Hood, Texas... I've got eight grandchildren, and out of all of them, I have absolutely no doubt that she is my infantry company commander wearing an Airborne Ranger tab at some point in the future. So that makes it personal for me.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/army-braces-for-post-covid-cuts-gen-murray

• 

  26 avril 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre

  Marines 3-D print replacement parts for F-35, unmanned ground vehicle

  By: Daniel Cebul WASHINGTON ― A U.S. Marine Corps pilot has successfully flown an F-35B Lightning II with a 3-D printed part. The Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 used 3-D printing to replace a worn bumper on the landing gear of the fighter jet. Marine Corps Sgt Adrian Willis, deployed with Combat Logistic Battalion 31, 31st Marine Expedition Unit, used the 3-D printer as part of a process otherwise known as additive manufacturing. Without a 3-D printing capability, the entire door assembly would have needed to be replaced, a more expensive and more time-consuming repair. Rather than waiting weeks for a replacement the bumper was printed, approved and installed within a few days. The repair demonstrates the value that additive manufacturing technology brings to forward-deployed units. “I think 3-D printing is definitely the future ― it's absolutely the direction the Marine Corps needs to be going,” Willis said. “As a commander, my most important commodity is time,” according to Marine Corps Lt. Col. Richard Rusnok, the squadron's commanding officer. “Although our supply personnel and logisticians do an outstanding job getting us parts, being able to rapidly make our own parts is a huge advantage.” Building off the achievement with the F-35 part, the MEU's explosive ordnance disposal team requested a modification part to function as a lens cap for a camera on an iRobot 310 small unmanned ground vehicle. Such a part did not exist at the time, but Willis and the 3-D printing team designed and produced the part, which is currently operational and protecting the robot's lens. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2018/04/25/marines-3-d-print-replacement-parts-for-f-35-unmanned-ground-vehicle/

• 

  15 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Army-developed multimission launcher ‘off the table’

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The Army spent years internally developing its own multimission launcher for the Indirect Fires Protection Capability program — designed to counter threats like rockets, artillery and mortars as well as cruise missiles and unmanned aircraft systems. But that grand plan is now officially off the table. The service has purchased two Rafael-made Iron Dome systems as an interim solution to get after the cruise missile defense capability gap, but it's taken a step back to rethink its enduring IFPC program strategy. While much is up in the air, it's certain that the launcher that will ultimately be part of the IFPC program won't be the MML. “It'll be something different that we will develop,” Brig. Gen. Brian Gibson, who is in charge of the Army's air-and-missile defense modernization, told Defense News at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference. As of 2016, the Army had spent $119 million to build MML prototypes, which included owning the technical data rights. The cost of developing the system outside of the Army would have been about three times as much according to the service at the time. Over the course of its development, the launcher was able to defeat a cruise missile target and an unmanned aircraft system using an AIM-9X missile at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, and fired the Miniature Hit-to-Kill (MHTK) and Tamir missiles as well. The U.S. Army had awarded three $2.6 million contracts in the summer of 2018 for the first phase of a program to find a second interceptor — the Expanded Mission Area Missile (EMAM) — for the MML. Also already selected was the first interceptor for the launcher, the Sidewinder. Lockheed Martin's MHTK missile and two missiles from Raytheon were chosen to be qualified for the launcher: Sky Hunter, the U.S. version of the Iron Dome missile Tamir; and the Accelerated Improved Interceptor Initiative missile. The effort to qualify the MHTK has been paused, Scott Arnold, Lockheed Martin's vice president and deputy of integrated air-and-missile defense with the company's Missiles and Fire Control business, said at AUSA. The company did not have an intercept test, but was able to move the MHTK missile through some testing prior to the Army's decision to pause the program. The Army may take technologies developed as part of the MML effort and spiral them into a future launcher, “but there were a lot of things, with all the right reasons, that launcher turned out the way it did,” Gibson said. An assessment of the launcher determined it was not sufficient for an enduring capability, he added. “All the variables of when you define a new piece of hardware matter and, for air defense, it really comes down to angles you launch things at, whether it's vertical or whether it's horizontal, and the applicability of how many different interceptors potentially you can put in,” Gibson said. “Those are all lessons learned from MML and it matters on the threat set.” The one-star added that he is confident the Army is capable of developing something appropriate on the right timeline when it comes to a launcher for the enduring IFPC plan. And while the service doesn't want to buy beyond the two batteries of Iron Dome already purchased, the Army is considering the feasibility of taking its launcher and missiles for the future IFPC program. The Army has until the end of 2023 to field an initial enduring capability or, by law, will have to buy more interim Iron Dome systems. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2019/10/15/army-developed-multimission-launcher-off-the-table