Netherlands sends five F-16s to Romania to train Ukrainian pilots

Sur le même sujet

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  11 janvier 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  French Defence Staff chief: France is making moves to guarantee its survival in the face of existential threats

  By: Gen. Francois Lecointre The singularity of the military lies in its raison d'être: to wage war in order to guarantee France survives an existential threat. To this end, the armed forces are alone in having limitless power to use deliberate force and to kill, if that is what the mission requires. This is what distinguishes them from law enforcement agencies who use force strictly in proportion to the risks incurred and who are constrained by the notion of self-defense. This military singularity is based on several fundamental principles. Discipline: The armed forces are the strength of the nation, and it is out of the question that one should be able — for even a second — to suspect them of wishing to become emancipated from legitimate political power. They are therefore strictly and totally subordinated to this political power, the delegatee of national sovereignty. As a counterpart to this subordination, the armed forces must be involved in making the decisions that they will implement under strong ethical requirements and with the knowledge that they may pay with their blood. Moreover, this very strict subordination to political power means they must also be perfectly neutral, both philosophically and politically. Responsiveness and availability: Together these must ensure that any form of surprise — the very essence of war — is averted. Nuclear deterrence is therefore the most successful expression of military singularity, notably because it is based on an operational organization and culture that guarantees its absolute responsiveness. The capacity for independent action: On the battlefield, an army must have every skill at its disposal so that it can conduct its mission, including in a totally disorganized environment. It cannot count on the services of the state and must therefore have on hand the whole range of professions it needs to carry out its mission, including those that might seem quite far removed from the implementation of force. If we relate this autonomy to reactivity, then the question arises of conferring the former in peacetime in order to guarantee the latter when the army needs to engage. Ethics: At the moment they commit the most extreme act possible — taking life — soldiers must be able to find support in high ethical standards and a corpus of values. More broadly, this is what constitutes a military culture, shared by all civilian and military personnel in the armed forces. Based on these principles, military singularity is expressed in many ways. Beyond the rules of status or pay, which first come to mind, it is notably the modes of operation, structuring and organization that singularize our armed forces. This notably involves subsidiarity; the creation of intermediary echelons whose task is to synthesize and summarize data for subordinates; and the capacity of commanders, who hold all the levers for action, to respond as fast as possible to a crisis. Military singularity today has been weakened by a certain number of changes: an organization and operational mode that gives preference to management over command; outsourcing; the adoption of civilian flow logic, including for vital functions; and the lack of reserves in military human resources. These phenomena are obstacles to our full effectiveness. We must consolidate military singularity by modernizing our defense tool into one that is capable of fighting in all fields, with sufficient mass, organization and depth of capabilities to allow it to assume all of its functions both in war and in crisis. This is the aim of the actions we are currently undertaking with the minister of the armed forces. To meet the objective set by the president of the republic — that France should have “a comprehensive, modern, powerful, balanced defense tool, implemented by reactive armed forces looking to the future” — the Military Program Law 2019-2025 must allow us to repair our defense tool before the next military program law modernizes it. We are working to restore the foundations of an organization and a culture compatible with the purpose of armed forces: to guarantee the survival of the nation in the face of an existential threat, in a world marked by uncertainty and a return of tragedy. Gen. Francois Lecointre is the chief of the French Defence Staff. https://www.defensenews.com/outlook/2021/01/11/french-defence-staff-chief-france-is-making-moves-to-guarantee-its-survival-in-the-face-of-existential-threats/

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  17 novembre 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Hanwha, Kongsberg team up to bolster Australia’s K9 howitzers

  Brian Kim SEOUL — Hanwha Defense Australia has announced a partnership with Kongsberg Defence Australia to integrate command, control, communication and computing technology into the K9 self-propelled howitzer and the K10 ammunition resupply vehicle. The announcement came two months after the Australian branch of Hanwha Defense, a defense company in South Korea, was selected as the preferred supplier for Australia's self-propelled howitzer acquisition project, code-named Land 8116 Phase 1 Under the project, the Australian Army is to acquire 30 155mm, 52-caliber K9 “Huntsman” howitzers and 15 K10 armored ammunition resupply vehicles, both of which are built by Hanwha. “The selection of KONGSBERG as a central part of our Land 8116 Phase 1 industry team will make a very important contribution to Hanwha's capacity to deliver effective capability for the [Australian Defence Force] while fulfilling our extensive Australian Industry Capability commitments,” Richard Cho, managing director of Hanwha's branch Down Under, said in a statement. The partnership has already proven to be successful, he added, citing their recent involvement in Norway's Vidar program for K9 and K10 procurement, and pointing to their delivery of K9s to Finland and Estonia. Under the partnership, Kongsberg is responsible for the integration of tactical communication systems and battle management systems. “Together with Hanwha Defence Australia, KONGSBERG is committed to the establishment of a sovereign industry capability to support the Australian Protected Mobile Fires capability throughout its service life,” said Joh Fry, general manager of Kongsberg Defence Australia. “We'll continue to source as much C4 hardware as possible through Australian and New Zealand-based suppliers.” Developed by South Korea's Agency for Defense Development and Samsung Techwin in 1998, the K9 Thunder is touted as one of the world's most advanced self-propelled howitzers. It's designed to provide effective and deep fire support across theaters. The howitzer is now manufactured by Hanwha Defense, a defense contractor of Hanwha Group that acquired Samsung Techwin in 2017. The main weapon is the 155mm, 52-caliber gun with a burst rate of fire of three rounds per 15 seconds, and a maximum rate of fire of six rounds a minute for three minutes. It has a firing range of 40 kilometers and is capable of “multiple rounds simultaneous impact” firing. On Nov. 13, South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced that the completion of deliveries of K9s to the South Korean military. The announcement came about two decades after the first K9 fleet was deployed on the western border islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong An upgraded variant, the K9A1, is in production with improvements in fire control and power systems. DAPA and Hanwha Defense plan to continue to improve the K9′s capabilities to add automatic loading and unmanned maneuvering functions. The K9 has been exported to several countries, including Turkey, Poland, India, Norway and Estonia. About 1,700 units are in service around the world, according to Hanwha. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2020/11/13/hanwha-kongsberg-team-up-to-bolster-australias-k9-howitzers

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  2 mars 2020 | International, Naval

  The US Navy’s FFG(X) could be awarded sooner than expected

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON – The U..S Navy's next-generation frigate could be awarded within the next few months, earlier than expected, the service's top civilian said Friday. Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly told conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he had tasked Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts to look at accelerating the award of the first ship, which was slated for this fall. “The plan was to try and do it in the latter part of this year,” Modly told Hewitt. “I've asked [Geurts] to try and accelerate that earlier, and he's looking into the possibilities for doing that. “But obviously, you know, we have acquisition rules, and we want to make sure that we do this in the proper way.” The competition has narrowed to bids from Huntington Ingalls Industries; a team of Navantia and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works; Fincantieri; and Austal USA. Navantia is offering a version of its F-100 design, which is in use by the Spanish Navy; Austal is submitting a version of its trimaran littoral combat ship; Fincantieri is offering its FREMM design; and Huntington Ingalls is believed to be offering an up-gunned version of its national security cutter. Lockheed Martin's version of the FFG(X), an up-gunned, twin-screw variant of its Freedom-class LCS, was pulled from the competition in May. The FFG(X) is supposed to be a small, multimission ship with a modified version of Raytheon's SPY-6 radar destined for the Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, Lockheed Martin's Aegis Combat System, as well as some point defense systems and 32 vertical launch cells for about half the cost of a destroyer. The first ship ordered in 2020 is expected to cost $1.28 billion, according to budget documents, with the next ship in 2021 dropping to $1.05 billion. The Navy expects it to take six years to complete design and construction of the first ship, which should be finished in 2026. Once construction begins, planners anticipate it will take 48 months to build. The second frigate is expected to be ordered in April 2021, and from there it should be delivered about five and a half years after the award date. That means that the first ship should be delivered to the fleet in July of 2026, and the second about three months later. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/02/28/the-us-navys-ffgx-could-be-awarded-sooner-than-expected